In the moMent,you own it

Beckett Archibald Graves

Opening day.

It has finally happened, all of his hard work as culminated in this single day. Every dime he had earned while at the ministry was poured into this building. He had been living here a few weeks while working on finishing the bar and stocking it full of top shelf liquor. Which took longer than most people thought. He would have to bartend today, mainly because he had not had any applications for a bartender; a thought passed through his mind to put an ad out in the Prophet, he would play with that idea a bit.

The Roadhouse was warm compared to the weather outside. A fire was roaring in the two fireplaces on two opposite walls of the dining slash bar area. He was able to hire some cooks to take care of the food; he was a drinker, not a cooker. It was ironic that he was a recovering alcoholic who still drank a small bit and he was running a bar. But he knew that it was a safe haven for people like him, hunters. The world was full of them, people who took the law into their own hands. Muggles called them vigilantes and had comic books about them stalking the streets at night looking for evil. Hunting wasn’t much different.

America is prime grounds for hunters; werewolves stalked innocent prey, vampires went unchecked. Alistair can still recall the nest that they eliminated his first week; that’s when he got the scar on his chest. Alistair enjoyed the past couple of weeks he spent in America, but he was happier that he was finally home with Giselle.

Wiping down the cherry finished bartop, Alistair grabbed a glass and poured himself a whiskey and sat on the stool on the other side of the bar. He wanted to blend in with the Roadhouse; he didn’t want to just be looked at as the owner; also as the guy who can solve problems if he needed too. He was itching for a good hunt again.

Lose Yourself
Outfit

His attention was nearly always on his department at the Ministry, or his family. That was what had been important to him for many years, because he hadn’t been sure that anyone would take the helm of the Death Eaters, if anyone would try to finish what the Dark Lord had started. He wanted their success, same as he had both times he’d been involved, but he also didn’t have just himself to think of anymore. That was another reason why he was doing this—for Liv, for the kids. They might not be purebloods, but that didn’t mean that they could ever support Mudbloods in their world… their kind were the reason that their world continued to go downhill. Muggles were the reason that they had to hide their world, be careful out in public. If someone was going to try to change all of that, if someone was going to bring back old traditions, to exterminate those that didn’t deserve to be there, then Beckett would always be involved with that. It was the kind of world that their children deserved to be in. Callahan and Lyla shouldn’t have to be off at school dealing with Mudbloods. And now, they wouldn’t have to… soon enough, at least. Now he had something to focus on that wasn’t his work, and wasn’t his family.

It was what had brought him here, odd enough as it sounded. This place had just been opened. Someone with even the slightest amount of access in the Ministry could have found out that the place had been made by a former auror. They were paying attention… of course they were. At least he was. Plenty of people had left the Ministry willingly after the change in leadership. Some had been sacked, some had quit. He found himself more interested in the ones that had left on their own, depending on their position within the government and what they decided to do afterwards. Opening up a place like this one was just more than a little curious to him. There would be a time in the near future where a place like this one could be quite the haven for undesirable people, and he wanted to get a feel for the bar… inn… resource bloody outpost, whatever the hell it was. A place like this could work for the people now in charge of the country, or it could work against them, and if he could figure that out now, it could avoid a problem later on. It was as simple as that—he had heard whispers, and he was curious. Since he had a spare bit of time after work, he figured there was no time like the present to stop in.

He’d had an early end to his day at the office… not by too much, but by enough that he’d beat Liv home easily, so it was just a convenient evening for him to see just what this place was all about. Stepping into the pub, he took a glance around. It was different than how he would expect a place with a name like this one to be, fireplaces and all, but he still wasn’t necessarily impressed. He was a Graves—with the amount of money that his family had, it was hard to ever truly impress him, but he had been in worse places, there was no doubt about that. Beckett took a seat at the bar, a few seats down from the man that was already seated there nursing a whiskey. He didn’t see a bartender, so instead he waited to see if one would show up. He wasn’t swimming in all that much time, not enough to wait for a bartender that didn’t want to do their job, but he supposed they could be in the back. The place wasn’t exactly packed by any means, and they might not have heard him come in. He decided that he would give it another couple of minutes, because he couldn’t claim to be the most patient of men when it came to anything and anyone but his children.

In the past few days since the establishment had been open, a few low level ministry employees had come in for a drink. The location of the Roadhouse made it convenient for those leaving the ministry to stop by for an after work drink or a quick lunch. Much to his annoyance; even Death Eaters had come in a few times to get food, but no one ever high enough to recognize who he was ever waltzed into the pub, until today. Alistair took another drink of the whiskey he had before him, sat it down and walked behind the bar and stood in front of the man that he knew.

It wouldn’t surprise him if Beckett did not know who he was; Alistair was just an aruror and a trainer. Beckett was a department head and Alistair made sure he knew the names and faces of every head while he was in the ministry. His goal was to be the head of law enforcement, but due to obvious reasons, that didn’t work out. Alistair had been one of the best and one of the youngest aurors that the department had in recent history, so perhaps Beckett knew who he was on that alone. He knew what Beckett was and his skin crawled a bit, but the point of the Roadhouse was a safe haven for all, and that included Death Eaters as well, to an extent.

Grabbing a bowl of bar nuts, which was strangely popular in muggle pubs, he placed it before Beckett along with a glass of water. Alistair made eye contact with the man and gave him a slight smile, he attempted to make everyone welcome, and he knew that he was here for other reasons then to have a drink, or maybe he was just paranoid. His business licenses cleared in the ministry along with his liquor licenses, so he knew that this was not an inspection; but he also knew that he was a Death Eater and that Alistair was a former auror who had brought in Malfoy during the attack on Diagon Alley, and he was able to stun a few when they surprise attacked the ministry; but his fight didn’t last long once a co-worker had been killed. Alistair was lucky he survived the attacks, both of them.

His mind flashed back to that day in the Ministry, the smell of Durant’s flesh and hair still vivid in his nostrils; a smell that one never really was rid of. He remembered the smug faces of the Death Eaters that attacked the ministry, Lestrange, Creed, especially Wentzell. There was nothing he could have done; except leave, make a haven for all of those running, and even a place for those in charge to have a few moments of personal space; it was an easy living, especially once the hunters came in and needed a job, that was when it was fun.

Waiting on the man to order; Alistair wiped off a burbon bottle that had been put on the wrong shelf by one of his part timers; he definitely needed to get someone in here to run the place properly, he was no bartender.

Many people in the Ministry saw fit to abandon their positions when Wentzell took over. Not all of them had to—some could have kept their jobs if they kept their head down and didn’t bother anyone, but he didn’t care if people left. They could fill the positions with better people that way, and it hadn’t been surprising to him the sort of people that had ended up leaving. A lot had been aurors. It made sense; their job was to catch dark wizards, along with dealing with other crimes, and if said dark wizards were in charge of the Ministry, then obviously they could expect their job descriptions to change in a way that they didn’t want… that or they would find themselves in a spot of trouble for being in the kind of position that arrested Death Eaters to begin with. Beck didn’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. His department was mostly concerned with the World Cup qualifying matches, and that meant ensuring foreign coaches and teams that stadiums were secure, and fine, and all that nonsense, for when they had matches in any stadium in the United Kingdom. The same sort of problems had sprung up for the European Cup too, which had turned his job mostly into meetings, and making sure that everything went on as planned.

He no longer had to hide the fact that he was a Death Eater. For years, that had been a well kept secret, thanks to his fiancée, but now it wasn’t something that he had to worry about at all. That meant that these meetings tended to go a bit differently as of late, because they had all found out just who they were dealing with. However, Death Eaters being in charge of the Ministry… it had been a quiet kind of takeover. Not at first, with the way that Durant had been killed, and same with the Mudbloods that had tried to escape as well, but since then, not much had changed. It was an interesting strategy, the one that Wentzell was employing, because it was mostly just business as usual. Some old customs had been brought back, there had been some changes at the school, but past that everything had been just about the same. It meant that it wasn’t hard to tell coaches and team owners that they didn’t need to worry about attacks during Quidditch matches. Nobody was going around attacking places. No one needed to. Beck could be strict when he wanted to be, but was charismatic most of the time, and usually those meetings ended up putting people at ease, and games went on as scheduled.

Sometimes, he followed interests that had little to do with his department. At the end of the day, he was still a Death Eater, and he wanted to be aware of any problems that they might end up having. An auror leaving the Ministry, and starting up some suspicious little… haven, that was interesting to him. There was nothing wrong with it. He had all the proper permits and licenses, and honestly he tired of the Leaky Cauldron—there was nothing wrong with a new place to go and have a drink, as long as everything was on the up and up. It just seemed like convenient timing to him. The sort of thing that warranted watching, and that meant checking in. He had no idea if the owner would be there, or if he would recognize him. He was notably a Death Eater, now that he wasn’t hiding it, it seemed like word had spread fast, and so he knew there was a chance that Somerset would immediately realize that someone was checking in. That was for the best—he needed to know that people would be watching, if this was the sort of place that would turn into a problem. If it didn’t… well then, he had another place to drink. Simple as that.

There had been no sign of the owner or any bartender when he walked in—though he didn’t know what this former auror looked like, but it hadn’t been more than a few moments after he had sit down than the man that was seated at the bar had gotten up. He moved behind the bar, and Beck determined that the bartender must be sitting down on the job… or the owner. He supposed he did have the look of an auror—the type that saw everything, knew what was going on in every corner of a room. They were the perceptive lot… you could always see that in their eyes. “I’ll have a bourbon—Blanton's, if you have it.” In his opinion, if a place didn’t have good bourbon, then it wasn’t worth going to at all. He could drink just about anything when it came down to it, but he really hated cheap bourbon. Of course, in a place as new as this one, he supposed he wouldn’t be surprised if Somerset couldn’t get his hands on anything more top shelf just yet—who knew how much money the bloke was actually working with, after all.

This was a new experience for the wizard. Owning and running an inn was one thing, but making sure he kept a stocked bar was different. His distribution company that supplied his liquor was based out of Scotland, there was an issue at the factory which caused thousands of clients to not get their orders, especially the newer ones. They sent his muggle money back, which he then used to buy enough top shelf liquor from a local booze store. It was lucky, but his first disaster as an owner.

Alistair nodded at the man as he grabbed the bottle of Blantons and a glass tumbler, he pulled his wand and flicked it at the fireplace to ignite the fire to warm the room along with the electric heat. The worst thing about the building was that it was old and that it became cold, quickly. As he sat the empty tumbler down he made and kept eye contact with Beckett as he poured the bourbon neat. Alistair knew that the fastest way to ruin a good whiskey or bourbon was to put ice in it, but if the man wanted it, he would do so.

Walking to the side of the bar he was sitting at previously, Alistair grabbed the whiskey glass that he was drinking from and brought it down to where the man was and sat it on the small table he had on the other side of the bar so that it was out of Becketts way.

America had been good to him, allowed him to gain the funds that he needed to make this happen. He made connections and friends on the other side of the pond and he knew that they would eventually make their way over and would need a place to stay, everyone at some point needed a place to stay, or a place to drink and the Cauldron was old fashioned at best.

As he wiped down the bar on either side of Beckett, Alistair cleared his throat and broke the silence. "How are things looking for the Cup this season?" he asked, small talk was always the best way to start off conversation, most people were comfortable with talking about work and talking about Quidditch, it just so happens that this man did both.

If Liv had an early day, he didn’t think that he would have bothered coming here at all. He would much rather spend time with his fiancée, and their son, instead of coming to this pub and seeing if anything even slightly suspicious was going on. But she was nearly constantly busy these days—Wentzell had a way of always needing a lawyer for something or another, not that Beck ever knew much about the details unless he had to. So he had known that he’d had a bit of time, and while he normally would have stopped by the Wyvern, where he was far more likely to know someone, today he had decided that coming here served multiple purposes. That alone was worth the trip. It wasn’t in his job description to do something like this, but he figured that they had enough to prepare for in the aurors’ office without having to see just what former aurors were up to. He thought that they posed a fair bit of a threat. The ones that were trained well, at least, and who knew what the training had been like prior to this. He thought that they were going to be much more competent now than before. But there was still no doubt that former aurors could pose a threat—Mad-Eye Moody was still a hell of a nuisance when he’d retired.

Not that he thought that Alistair Somerset was anything near Alastor Moody. He thought that the comparison could end at the similar name, and that was about it. He admittedly did not know all that much about it—didn’t even know that it had been him sitting at the bar until he’d gotten up and went around to get his drink, but he thought that further proved his point. Everyone in the wizarding world knew of Moody… He had caused plenty of Death Eaters trouble. There wasn’t an auror like that alive today. There wasn’t a single name in that office in the new administration or old that could bring about the same sort of reaction as Alastor Moody could. That was a good thing. They didn’t need anybody causing trouble, least of all someone that could actually be successful. He simply wasn’t all that threatened by… anyone really. But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t important to check out something like this place when he had the chance. Who knew what kind of shit this bloke could get up to in here if he thought that no one was paying attention? Beckett thought it was important that he knew that they were. Same with anyone that tried to leave the Ministry and do something like this.

He knew that there was a chance that this was just a pub. There was always that chance. Maybe the man had just had a quarter-life crisis or whatever the hell they were calling it these days, and had decided that the life of an auror just wasn’t for him. Maybe he’d always had a dream of running another dime a dozen tavern. Maybe the motives were that insignificant and he would come out of this with a drink and no reason to come to this place again. It was too soon to tell. But there was no reason for him not to enjoy his drink and see if a Death Eater’s presence in this place rattled him, even a little bit. Plenty of people were uncomfortable around Death Eaters these days, and Salazar knew that aurors had more enemies than most, but there was a certain amount of discomfort that he would deem normal, and an amount that he would deem the suspicious, and that was what he was keeping an eye on. He shrugged at the man’s question. “Hard to tell before the preason, but the Catapults and the Tornados did pretty well yesterday.” The European Cup was a decent indicator of how a team was doing thus far, which was why January and February ended up being quite important for league teams. But since the Tornados had won the league season last year, and he was a little bit biased since he owned them, he would have to say that he’d put the odds on them doing well in the league season.

It was always risky going against the ministry. Technically Alistair has doing everything legally, building permits, magical expansion permits, liquor licenses, everything above board. What the people didn’t know was that he was offering jobs, small things, nothing impactful in a large scale matter. Just simple exterminations, rouge packs of werewolves, vampires, dark wizards that the ministry has turned a blind eye too, it’s all been running through the Roadhouse, but there was a process, Alistair just wasn’t going to give a random job to anyone; they had to know how to ask, it was a code that only specific hunters knew, and how there was a ministry man in the pub, a death eater at that.

Alistair kept his composure though, he was still an auror at heart, just knowing that this man is so close and that Al had the chance to rid the world of him ate at his insides. He knew that he couldn’t do it, for his sake, his employees sake and most importantly, Giselle’s sake. He shoved the irritation deep down and listened to Beckett talk about the Tornadoes.

Quidditch was something he had been interested in; he had played back in school a little bit; but he eventually stopped to focus on his auror training. He kept tabs on the teams and he appreciated the sport; but he was casual with it. Alistair nodded as he smiled when Beckett said that the Tornadoes were looking good, it was known that Graves was the man who owned them.

Owning a Quidditch team would be pretty cool, he thought. He knew that the money wasn’t an option right now; but he knew that the future was always moving, he knew that he was supposed to make a difference, but owning a team would not be the way to do it; the Roadhouse was. Alistair gestured around the building and looked at the man before him; he was one of the first people to walk into the inn; ”If you don’t mind my asking, what do you think of the place?” He had worked hard to make it nice, he spent a lot of money fixing the building; he was proud of the place and definitely wanted to show it off.

Beck knew that he was lucky that Liv had been able to cover up all of the proof, all of the evidence that he had been a Death Eater. She had buried what had needed to be buried, and he had never asked how because it hadn’t been necessary. That was just what she did—it was her job. If a problem came along, she handled it. Sometimes he saw fit to ask why, but most of the time, he didn’t pry. There was no reason to. Whatever she had done had worked. The war had ended, he had not been implicated, and he had been able to continue his work in the department of magical games and sports. Now he was the head of the department. Unlike some Death Eaters, he had not been given the position during the takeover. He had earned this job, back before people had known who he really was, and that made it all the better in his opinion. He deserved this job, and it just so happened that now people knew exactly who they were dealing with. For the most part, that didn’t change much for him. He had lost his assistant over it, because she hadn’t been comfortable working for a Death Eater apparently, but his new assistant was better anyhow.

Past that, most everything was the same. They were focused on the European Cup, and after that would be the preseason. Then months of preparation to make sure that everything was ready for the league season when it started up again, and all throughout that, they would be dealing with World Cup matches for England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. There would be plenty of work to do, and the fact that he was a Death Eater did not change how he did his job. He could still charm people into getting what he wanted, and occasionally he could be a bit of a hardass if he was in a mood, but for the most part, he used the charming technique. Beckett might have been a Death Eater, but he also had three kids, and sometimes he was not all that scary. That could change at the drop of a hat, of course, but for the most part, the people in his department had just needed to realize that he was mostly the same person. Just a bit more dangerous than he had let on before, and getting on his bad side was now a worse idea than it had been before. He didn’t see a reason for anyone to make it much more complicated than that.

It wasn’t in his job description to come down here, and see if this former auror was up to anything. It could just be a pub—but he also knew that retired aurors could be just as much of a pain in the arse as they were when they were in the Ministry, and he thought it was a little hard to believe that he would leave the Ministry when he did, only to start a completely innocent pub, and inn. He could be wrong—he thought he would like to be wrong in this case, but he was the type of person that would always choose to verify when it came to something like this. He wasn’t going to leave anything to chance, when it came to anyone that could be against the Ministry. Taking a swig of the liquor, he considered the man’s question, and took a glance around the room. “Nice enough. Could be in a better area, but not bad.” It was located near the outskirts of the city, which he thought made it a bit more questionable, but hell, maybe this was all the man could afford. Real estate wasn’t exactly cheap, after all, and it was clear he had put a lot of money into making the inside look good.

Passions were what made people successful. For as long as he could remember; his passion was catching the bad guys. He was supposed to make the world a better, safer, place for children like he was when his father passed. When his father was murdered. He did his job, and he did it well, one of the best aurors in the ministry for as young as he was. He had helped put Draco Malfoy behind bars; until the ministry was over run.

Now he had a second passion; surviving. He knew that his blood status was questionable; but he knew that records of his father and his fathers passing were kept in the ministry; he had sent his mother away at the right time; everything had gone to hell; and all that he could do was sit and watch it burn and deal with the demons in his bar. Like the one before him.

He nodded at Becketts observation; he nodded as a thank you and went back to washing a few glass pilsners. He knew that a bartender who loomed was not a welcome bartender; they young man thought of Giselle; whom he had asked to move in with him; whom he had told he loved. He knew that she would want him to be happy, and nothing would make him more happy then just reaching over the bar top and laying into the wizard before him; regardless of the consequences from the Minister or his lap dogs; but he knew that he couldn’t; he knew that he couldn’t risk everything that he had built; just to keep a steady life.

“My father always told me to do what made me happy; when my time at the Ministry ended; I knew what I wanted to do with my free time; my father and I always talked about opening an Inn together, but he was never able to see that fulfilled; so I made this in his honor.” he smiled as he poured himself a glass of water and took a sip; he chuckled lightly and added; ”He always had a taste for old and out dated; but he never realized that you had to advance into modern times with more modern..views. We get some muggles in here at times, we serve them; but that’s about it; we don’t want to offend the new minister here.”

A half-truth; Alistair didn’t want to offend Minister Wentzell; he was there; he saw what he did to Durant. He knew that he didn’t want that to be his fate; but Alistair did allow muggles to stay during their travels; he would keep them safe; but they didn’t have to know that at the ministry.

With the change of regime, plenty of people had ended up leaving the Ministry. Some of them hadn’t had a choice in the matter—the Mudbloods that hadn’t moved fast enough had been killed that day, and the ones that had managed to get out had not been welcomed back. But they weren’t the only ones that had left. Some blood traitors had, simply because they knew that they would probably be better off getting jobs elsewhere. And some, like Alistair, had just left. When halfbloods just left the Ministry, after a change in administration, he thought he knew what that meant. It meant that they didn’t agree with said administration, or at least that was a safe enough assumption. Beckett knew that he could be wrong. Perhaps there was a convenient and entirely unrelated reason why he had left the Ministry when he did. He was well aware that was possible. He just didn’t think that it was particularly likely that a former dark wizard hunter, as that was the main task of aurors, decided to just quit the Ministry because he felt like it. Some aurors had stayed… they had more tasks involving general crime to deal with as well, of course.

Some had stayed, but some, like Alistair, had left. It wasn’t his job to be curious about that sort of thing, but he was anyway. So he was here. Best case, he had a couple of drinks and went home feeling like he’d been paranoid for nothing. Worst case, he found something here that they could deal with before it became a problem. Simple as that, really. He was just going to play it by ear and see what happened, and so far, nothing looked to be amiss. That didn’t mean that was true, and it was far too soon to tell, but he hadn’t expected to necessarily get a solid answer after a few moments anyway. A former auror owning a pub like this one was always going to be suspicious. He didn’t think this place would go without watching. That was his opinion of the situation at least, though he knew that it wasn’t his department’s job to spot out those against the administration. Luckily for him. Beckett rather liked focusing on Quidditch and the other sort of things that came through his office. And in his spare time, he could do this.

Really, he thought he’d rather be at home with Liv and Anderson than here. The grub they couldn’t up in this place probably wasn’t bad, but nothing quite beat his fiancée’s cooking. But he’d get home with plenty of time for dinner. For now, he had a drink to finish, and he had to make sure that this former auror wasn’t up to no good. He took another sip of his drink, and watched as Somerset cleaned up some glasses. He didn’t hover, which was a good trait for a bartender, but if he wasn’t careful, too much avoidance would make Beck think he was uncomfortable with him being there. So far, it hadn’t been like that though. It had been a good mixture of both. He nodded at the man’s words when he spoke again, considering them for a moment and looking the man with a mild curiosity. “Money’s money.” He answered, dismissively. Half the Graves fortune had been made in the Muggle world. It was easy to manipulate, easy to make more money, that was all true. But he also thought it was important to appear a bit more blasé about him allowing Muggles into the pub.