“Workin’ for you?” asked Sirius, somewhat surprised. Lucius Malfoy’s only son was working for an unknown man staying at a small, mostly muggle hotel in a small town in the English countryside? The boy should have had no trouble gaining a high ranking position at the Ministry, a place among the Death Eaters, or a cell in Azkaban by now. Sirius wondered whether this development said most about Draco, the Wizarding World, or Crowley. The man he’d been talking to could be far more influential in the Wizarding World these days than Sirius had suspected—he knew a lot had changed since his death, and Remus always changed the subject when Sirius had questions—or the Malfoys could have become a whole lot less influential in the last five years.

Still, Sirius suspected he might be a little drunk, as he couldn’t find it in him to be suspicious. Crowley seemed like an okay sort, a generalization that would currently encompass anyone who was buying drinks. “Well, you seem to have me at a disa...disad…” He paused and squinted. “I don’ know who you are,” he concluded. Then, he picked up his glass, frowned, realizing it was empty, and poured it full again.

"Haven' kept ‘n touch the past few years,” he added. “’Cause I was dead.” He chuckled and shook his head as though this was really funny, but the laughter turned hollow quickly, and he blinked his eyes a few times and gulped down some scotch.

“Horrible,” he whispered, and although he was looking at his glass, it was clear he didn’t mean the scotch.