Remus Lupin

There was an interesting incident yesterday -- our 'friend' from the Ministry, Wayne Hill, came by yesterday and seized the opportunity not only to shake us down but to have a chat with Ellie. She was in the shop by herself, stocking shelves, when Mr Hill came in. I was coming back down and realised, and just stayed put to listen for a minute or two.

He said, 'you must be their new mudblood,' and she said, 'yes sir.' He said he'd heard a rumour I'd gone on some sort of trip and wanted to know what she knew about being gone. She said she would never be so impertinent as to ask Master and Mistress nosy questions. (During the Full Moon, Sirius, Bea, and I spent the night at 12 Grimmauld, so as to ensure Ellie didn't encounter either me in wolf form, or Sirius in dog form. We said I'd gone on a trip to order inventory, so Ellie could have told him that, but she played dumb.)

He wanted her opinion of us, and she said that we expect her to work hard and that's to be expected as that's all mudbloods are good for. He wanted to know about our inventory and she kept right on with the 'too stupid to answer questions usefully' act.

Finally I thought I really ought to step in, and he took his money and took himself off. Once he was gone, Ellie gave me a pretty full accounting of the ways in which he'd tried to nose into our business, garnished with quite a bit of 'I would never betray you, Master, you and the Mistress are better masters than I'd ever dreamed of.' I tried to show approval for her willingness to keep our secrets without showing how uncomfortable -- well.

At any rate, I told her she'd done well and invited her to choose a treat from the selection in the shop. We have sweets of various kinds, tea, dried fruit, spices that wouldn't be very tasty on their own but also some biscuits, that sort of thing. She chose a scone...and gave half of it to Padfoot.