The wizard was right; money was money. Al knew that he would make a lot of it here if he played his cards right; but that didn’t matter to the wizard; what mattered was a place of safety for people like him; people who hunted the undesirables; the evil creatures. Evil Vampires, Evil Werewolves, he knew that they were more a threat than the unseen Death Eaters right now. They were the ones who would rise up when the Eaters turned their eyes from them.

He knew that there were good ones. He had meet Dean Singer, the Werewolf from America, he had been staying here since the place had officially opened. He knew the bloke was a good guy; hell, he had even told a story of a werewolf he had to kill because he was going to try to make a move on the Minister, bring unwarranted wrath on the rest of his people; Alistair respected him for that.

A clock chimed across the room and Al checked the wristwatch he wore; it was time to meet Giselle for dinner. Alistair poured the man another drink; more of a doubleshot really, and smiled ”One for the road, on the house.” he told him as he began to wipe off the rest of the wooden bar top. The young wizard smiled as he flicked his wand at some dishes that were clean and they began to store themselves in the glass racks.

“It was good to officially meet you Beckett; I hope you come back once more when were are more, established, better stuff next time, promise.” the wizard said as he locked up the register behind the bar opposite the elder wizard. He wasn’t trying to rush him out; but he did need to make this dinner date.

He didn’t know what he would find, coming here. He wasn’t sure what to expect. He just knew that he had to at least check it out when he got word that a former auror had opened a place like this one. Beck knew that not everyone was as pleased with the takeover of their Ministry, even though it had been a relatively peaceful one all things considered. Yes, they’d killed Muggleborns that hadn’t made it out of the Ministry fast enough that day, but that was par for the course. Other than that, they had kept nearly everything the same. Yet there were still those that had decided to leave the Ministry, and when they did something notable, he wanted to make sure they realized that there would be those keeping track of that. They wouldn’t just be able to go around opening places known as a refuge for travelers without someone checking in to make sure those travelers might not end up being Mudbloods. For now, he supposed they could be. It wasn’t as if they were hunting them down, but knowing if this place looked like a good one for them to hide was important. He didn’t know what he’d find out today, he thought there was a chance he wouldn’t find out anything, but he’d keep his eye on it.

This time around, it was just about having a drink and some small talk. The man knew who he was. That didn’t surprise him. He was sure the man was also well aware what he was now too, since he had helped with the takeover and had let it be known that he was a Death Eater as well. He’d lost his assistant in the process, but he’d found a better one anyhow so it all worked out. There were those that had left, but more had stayed. More just rode through the waves, more did nothing—just like last time. Everyone thought they were heroes, everyone thought that they were better than what they were, that they fought back in the face of their enemies, but more people did nothing. More people just sat back and kept their lives the same, because they weren’t affected, and that was where the Death Eaters would succeed. People were against them, sure, but they would never band together in a way that could defeat them this time around. They were so far from that now, that he couldn’t imagine that anyone could pull it off.

Taking a swig of his drink to finish it off, he’d decided that he’d done all that he could today. He wasn’t going to snoop around, he wasn’t going to get in the man’s head; he just wanted to see what this place was all about. He would more than likely be back, if he had to, but for now he had seen what he had wanted to see. Somerset poured him another drink, and he nodded in thanks and watched as he seemingly began to close up. Early night for a pub, but he had somewhere to be as well so he downed the double shot and pulled out a few galleons to set on the bar. It was more than was needed to cover it, but he didn’t carry around much of the smaller coins. Not with the amount of money the Graves family had, and not when it was just so much easier when he didn’t have coins jangling around. “You too.” He sat in response, not really meaning it but not particularly caring if that was obvious or not. With another nod, he headed toward the door.

END OF THREAD