Hogsmeade in the evening light was quieter than he'd ever seen it. Most of the village's foot traffic came from Hogwarts students on Hogsmeade weekends, and with the school emptying for summer, the shops were closing early. Honeydukes had already shuttered its windows. Zonko's was dark.
The Three Broomsticks glowed with warm light, its sign creaking in the wind. Rowan pushed through the heavy wooden door and stepped into a room that smelled of butterbeer, roasted meat, and woodsmoke.
The pub was half full. Working witches and wizards from the village, mostly, occupying tables in small groups. A fire burned in the enormous hearth despite the mild evening. The bar itself was a long curve of polished oak, and behind it stood a woman who could only be Sirona Ryan.
She was tall, with strong features and dark hair pulled back from her face. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, and she was pouring a measure of firewhiskey with the easy precision of someone who'd done it ten thousand times. When she looked up and saw Rowan standing in the doorway with his trunk, her expression shifted from professional welcome to recognition.
"You'll be Ashcroft," she said. "Matilda told me to expect you."
"Rowan. Thank you for having me."
Sirona's eyes took his measure with the frankness of someone who'd been running a pub long enough to size people up in seconds. Whatever she found seemed to satisfy her. "Room's upstairs, second on the left. Bathroom's at the end of the hall. Meals are breakfast at seven, dinner at six. Miss either one and you're fending for yourself."
"Understood."
"Good." She set the firewhiskey in front of a waiting patron without looking. "Settle in, come back down for dinner. You look like you haven't had a proper meal in a week."
The room was small but clean. A single bed, a washstand, a wardrobe, and a window that looked out over the High Street. Rowan stowed his trunk, set Athena's cage on the windowsill, and opened the window to let her stretch her wings. She hooted once, softly, and flew out into the evening air.
He stood at the window for a moment, watching the last light fade over the rooftops. Hogsmeade. His base of operations for however long it took to find a shop, register the company, and begin production.
The work started tomorrow. Tonight, he would eat a meal he hadn't earned yet, sleep in a bed someone else's generosity had provided, and try not to think too hard about the numbers he'd been running in his head for three weeks.
Dinner was shepherd's pie and butterbeer, served at a corner table Sirona had pointed him toward with the words "that's yours while you're here." The food was excellent. Rowan was halfway through his second helping when the door banged open.
Four wizards walked in. The lead was a tall man with a heavy jaw and cold eyes, wearing dark robes that looked expensive in a way meant to intimidate. Behind him, three others fanned out with the practised spacing of people accustomed to controlling a room.
The pub quieted. Conversations dropped to murmurs, every patron suddenly attentive while pretending not to be.
"Sirona." The lead wizard's voice carried the oiled confidence of someone used to getting what he wanted. He walked to the bar and placed both hands flat on the polished wood, leaning forward. "Been a while."
"Harlow." Sirona didn't stop wiping the glass in her hand. "Not long enough."
Theophilus Harlow smiled with all his teeth and none of his eyes. "Still charming. I'm here because my associates and I have been thinking about the security situation in Hogsmeade. Lot of dark creatures in the forest nearby. Dangerous times. We thought you might appreciate some protection."
"Protection." Sirona set the glass down with a deliberate click. "From whom?"
"From whatever might happen to a business in a village this isolated. Fires. Break-ins. Nasty hexes on the stock." Harlow spread his hands as though the threats were simply facts of life rather than promises. "We're offering a service. Reasonable rates. Ten Galleons a month and you'll never have a problem."
"The only problem I've ever had in this pub," Sirona said, her voice carrying to every corner of the room, "is people who come in and mistake my hospitality for weakness."
Harlow's smile thinned. "That's not a wise attitude, Sirona. The Ashwinders look after their friends. We're less generous with people who aren't."
"Then I suppose it's fortunate I've never needed your generosity." Sirona reached beneath the bar. Rowan couldn't see what she gripped, but from the way her shoulders set, it was her wand. "This is my pub, Harlow. My grandfather built it. My mother ran it before me. I've served every witch and wizard who walked through that door with respect, and I've never once needed hired thugs to keep the peace."
One of Harlow's companions shifted, his hand drifting toward his robes. The room's attention tightened.
Rowan set down his fork. He'd been watching the exchange from his corner table, reading the dynamics as he would read a duel. Four against one, bad odds, but Sirona wasn't alone, and Harlow hadn't accounted for the room.
"The lady said no."
Harlow turned. His gaze found Rowan and dismissed him in the same motion. A boy. A child, sitting alone at a corner table. Irrelevant.
"Mind your business, lad."
"This is my business. I'm a guest of this inn, and you're threatening its owner in front of her patrons. That makes it everyone's business."
A chair scraped. An older wizard at a nearby table, broad-shouldered with a weathered face, stood up slowly. He didn't speak, but his wand was in his hand and his meaning was clear.
Another chair. A witch with grey hair and sharp eyes, rising from a booth near the fire. Then two more. A young couple near the window, both on their feet, both with wands drawn.
Harlow surveyed the room. The calculation was obvious in his face, the cold arithmetic of a man accustomed to operating through intimidation rather than actual violence. Four Ashwinders against a pub full of armed patrons who'd decided they had a stake in the outcome.
"Touching," Harlow said. "A real community effort." He looked at Sirona, and the mask of pleasantry dropped entirely. The face beneath was flat and dangerous. "This isn't over."
"It's over when you walk out my door," Sirona said. "Which you'll be doing now."
Harlow held her gaze for three full seconds. Then he straightened, adjusted his robes, and jerked his head at his companions. They filed out without another word, the door swinging shut behind them with a heavy thud.
The silence held for a beat. Then the broad-shouldered wizard sat back down, the grey-haired witch returned to her booth, and the room exhaled. Conversations resumed, quieter than before but steady.
Sirona looked at Rowan across the room. Her expression had shifted since he'd checked in. Acknowledgment. The recognition of someone who'd chosen to stand rather than sit.
"Dessert's on the house tonight," she said.
"I appreciate it."
"Don't get used to it." She picked up another glass and went back to polishing. "That lot will be back. Harlow's been leaning on shopkeepers up and down Hogsmeade for months. He's patient when he wants to be."
"Who are the Ashwinders?"
"Dark wizards. Not the organised kind, not yet, but they're getting there. Harlow fancies himself a leader. Recruits disaffected purebloods, promises them influence, sends them out to squeeze Galleons from people who can't fight back." She glanced at him. "You handled that well for a boy your age."
"I've dealt with worse."
"I expect you have." She said it without irony or disbelief, which Rowan appreciated.
He finished his meal, thanked Sirona, and climbed the stairs to his room.