Generally, Artemis Sinistra was a very sweet tempered sort of girl. Sure she had spats with her brother, and occasionally others. Her temper would every now and then get the best of her, but in generally she was thought to be the typical sweet girl next door. There were very few situations that could make her well and truly angry, and these generally all had to do with her younger brother by approximately three minutes, Apollo Sinistra.

Irritation at her brother's insistance on testing out Weasley products aside ,she had generally come to terms with his rather wild lifestyle some time ago. He was born to be a partier and there was very little that she could say or do in order to tame him. He would stay out all night drinking with his friends, and he would wake up the next morning with a different trampy girl next to him in bed. As long as he wasn't too loud about it, and for heaven's sake he didn't accidentally use her bed again she kept her sarcastic disapproving comments to a minimum. And while she REALLY didn't approve of his drug use. She was also acknowledged that Apollo was no junkie. He consumed recreational drugs on a relatively infrequent basis. And although she would continue to berate him for it, it was yet another of her brother's vices that she had learned to tolerate most of the time.

However, she drew the line at his willingness to fall in line with any and every criminal scheme his friends got up to. And considering that his friends were the likes of Wendell Darrow and Jasper Christie the number of schemes were considerable. She could endure her brother absolute sloshed with a trollop hanging off him, but she could not and would not see him thrown in jail. For as much as he was a fashion trend setter, he was a terrible follower. And instead of following the good example of Will Channing, he preferred to follow the likes of Jasper Christie. She blamed it on the diamonds--Apollo never could resist sparkly things. And she had made her views perfectly, and irrefutably clear to both Apollo and his friends. If she caught wind of him being involved in any of their smuggling, stealing, money laundering, drug muleing or fraud schemes heads would roll in the most literally sense possible.

She had niavely believed that they had finally given up and listened to her. Certainly, the last outburst she had had on Wendell ought to have clued them in to her seriousness. He had run around with that rather unfortunate rash for weeks before it finally wore off and claimed his ears had buzzed for days after her angry tirade. Apollo had lost a hat, three scarves, two pairs of skinnys and his former favorite pair of boots to their fireplace before he threw himself in after them forcing her to quit the impromptu bonfire she had started and rush him to St. Mungo's....again. But the truth it seemed was sadly different. And the boys just couldn't learn from their mistakes.

She mightened have noticed at all, had Apollo any sense of subtlty. After all he was infamous for wearing ridiculous sparkly things, so why shouldn't she expect him to eventually move on to replicas of the Imperial State Crown? But he left the golden orb just sitting on the kitchen counter in his typical no-care manner. Thinking that it was a rather remarkable bit of transfiguration as it looked so much like the real one she remembered from a visit to the Tower of London in her youth she picked it up. And the more she looked at it, the more certain she became that those glimmering gems looked quite, well--real. Now she wasn't a professional jeweler, but it's fairly easy to check for magical residue on newly transfigured objects. And to her dismay, the golden orb did not appear to have any signs of magical tampering. She set it down, certain that she was going mad. She refused to touch it, refused to even look at it. And when Apollo came parading drunkenly through later with the crown perched jauntily atop his head, she shook her head disbelievingly and tried to shove the nagging feeling from her mind. Surely she had just become far to cynical and paranoid.

It wasn't until the next day that the ill feeling she had about the objects proved to be more than just paranoia. A young pair came in the shop and noticing Apollo's stately head gear started to chuckle. They were muggleborns appearently and thought it a delightful joke that Apollo Sinistra was sporting a replica of the dear old Queen's missing duds. A few delicately probing questions on her part brought out the story. Not two nights ago, someone had broken into the Tower and stolen the crown jewels, without leaving a trace. The beefeaters were bewildered and the muggle nation as a whole were utterly scandalized. An overwhelming sense of panic settled in her stomach as she sent the pair on their way. Determined not to overreact she broached the subject with Apollo the very next morning.

He denied it of course. But Arty had something of a bloodhound in her, and when she sniffed something out she couldn't be put off. And Apollo was utterly rubbish at keeping secrets from her anyway. Eventually the whole story came tumbling out:

Klaxons. Jasper. Shiny Scepter. Crown Jewel Heist.

Apollo cowered in the wake of her fury, which was elevated to heights never before seen. He would recieve his due. But there was one that needed dealing with first, the one who caused all these problems in the first place. The one whom she had disliked from their days in Ravenclaw together. The wolf in sheep's clothing. The one who hid his dirty deeds behind expensive Italian suits and shiny diamond displays. The corrupter. Jasper Christie.

The admittedly brief walk from Sinistra's Secondhand Shop to Christie's Jewels for Discerning Witches and Wizards took a mere tenth the time it should have. The morning crowds parted as she passed, as though the very curses she was contemplating in her head created a poisonous cloud around her. The jeweler's door was locked...of course it was still far to early for Jasper to be up. But frankly, Arty had always been better at charms than all the people in her grade and most the people in her school. Jasper might have her beat in transfiguration but she could out charm him any day. The door practically flew off its hinges at her enraged unlocking spell. She breezed through the sales room, through the work shop, up the stairs, down his labyrinth-like hallways until she stood just outside of the door that she knew to be his bedroom.

Without the slightest hesitation she threw the door open with an all mighty crash, and descended on the poor slumbering fool like a deranged harpy. The curtains swung open to fill the darkened room with the dazzling sunlight, and she unceremoniously ripped his comforter away from him as he bewilderedly tried to use it to block out both her and the sun in his still mostly asleep state.

"CHRISTIE!!!"

"CHRISTIE!!!"

There was entirely too much light in the room. Jasper's eyes snapped open blearily as the blankets were snatched away from him. He grabbed at their edges blindly and managed to haul them back partway across the bed before looking up to see who he was playing early morning tug of war with. His first guess was Atlas; the man had no sense of time. At least of Jasper time, which started no earlier than 11 am most days.

Artemis Sinistra?

This realization resulted in further blinking, of the confused variety rather than the blinded one. Why would she-- He looked over at the table beside the bed, where a crown made of red velvet and a large assortment of jewels was resting haphazardly next to his wand and wallet. Arty's eyes followed his and he averted quickly, but she continued to stare at the thing knowingly. Apollo had told her then. He winced, gave the covers a final tug in his direction, and flopped back onto the pillow, closing his eyes. His eyelids felt gritty with sleep. Rather with lack of sleep, considering he'd arrived home from a Crystal Stilts gig when the sun was already peering from behind London's skyline.

"What?"

Innocent until proven guilty and all that. One of Jasper's favorite pastimes was sailing down the river denial. He'd tried to teach Apollo, but his friend tended to run his boat aground at the sand flats of drunken confession. Okay, that metaphor had its limitations, but Jasper appreciated the sentiment.

He carefully opened one eye for a moment. Artemis was standing at the foot of the bed, hands on hips in that disapproving posture that seemed to be her default around Jasper. She was forever berating him for something. He shut the eye again, listing some of her previous complaints. Apollo came home last night with a Sanskrit tattoo that we can't entirely decipher, but it's definitely something inappropriate.--Fourth year. Why does Apollo have a pet ocelot now?--Summer after Hogwarts graduation. Apollo is missing his eyebrows.-- Last week. Jasper had actually not been at all responsible for that one, but Artemis had made unfair assumptions. And the ocelot had been a genius pet until it mauled a Muggle policeman. She hadn't needed to get so upset; Jasper had replaced his uniform with a very nice Dior.

There was a shift in the bed next to him. Oh, right, Cal was here. Great. Jasper suspected Artemis hadn't realized, the half closed curtains of the bed blocked him from view. He turned his head slightly.

"Arty deigned to grace us with her presence, aren't we lucky? You might want to go before the shouting starts again."

He turned his head slowly until he could feel the warm glow of the lasers coming from Arty's eyes.

"Make it quick, this is an ungodly hour."

Cal hadn't been completely sure what to think when Jasper had come home with the crown jewels. It was, perhaps, a mark of their evolving relationship that his first question hadn't been why or how, but 'Can I try that on?' He had. Intriguingly weird roleplay that ensued. While they hadn't gotten out the pope hat this time, the crown had been a lot of fun. Jasper was going to let him wear it, and that made him happier than he had any reasonable right to be.

He'd slipped into sleep a little later than Jasper, as usual, and really didn't want to get up. But... something... screaming? Feminine screaming? He struggled up through gauzy layers of exhaustion. God damn it. Feminine screaming. Typical. If it were a model he would do something terrible. It was probably a dream, though, since Jasper hadn't had time to go and get a model.

He burrowed beneath the pillow and tried to ignore it, but no, still there.

"Ngh." He opened one eye and peered blearily up, past Jasper, to...

Artemis Sinistra? Hands on hips, looking stern and. He was naked. Oh God. Did Artemis Sinistra make a habit of barging in on Jasper while he was dishabille? That was highly--no, not the time, she was--something about Apollo. Detestable little sparkly spider thing. Cal did not care. He tried to hide behind Jasper, who wasn't having it.

"Arty deigned to grace us with her presence, aren't we lucky? You might want to go before the shouting starts again."

"Right," Cal mumbled. He chanced a look down beneath the sheets. Naked. He could not recall the last time he'd been fully naked in front of anyone but Jasper. He tried to sidle out through the other side... he had his pants on the floor, if he could just--thump. It was too early to fall out of bed. Right. He glared up at Jasper, though his eyes were still half-squinted from sleep, and scrambled for pants behind the far edge of Jasper's bed curtain, dragging the sheets with him. I hate you, Jasper. Once dressed, shirt unbuttoned, sockless, but dressed, he made his way quickly out of the room, shoving past Arty and attempting to avoid her gaze. He pulled the door shut behind him, but...

stayed, just in case. In any case. In this case. He edged toward one side of the door and listened through the opening between the hinges.

Jasper turned to address someone next to him, with another huff of annoyance she realized she ought to have seen that coming. She was only momentarily taken aback when it was a man that tumbled out the other side of the bed shooting her angry glares for interrupting his sleep. But then Apollo had mentioned something about a naked man in Jasper's house, she hadn't been paying much attention. At any rate her wrath could not be deterred.

"Make it quick, this is an ungodly hour."

He glanced guiltily towards his night stand, she followed his gaze to see another of the crowned jewels sitting there.

"The crowned jewels? What kind of idiot are you? How the hell did you honestly think you would get away with stealing the bloody CROWNED JEWELS! I've told you time and time again to leave him out of your schemes! And now look what you've landed him in!"

She could tell that everything she was saying was going in one ear and out the other. The unrepressed eyeroll might just have clued her in. What he really needed was someone to knock some sense into him. Luckily there was a giant gold scepter lying on the floor in easy reach for just such an activity.

Jasper never knew what hit him--metaphorically speaking.

THWACK! "Stay." WALLOP! "Away." BAM! "From." WHAM! "My." KAPOW! "Brother!!"

"Stop taking him on your heists! Stop getting him high out of his mind and sending him home for me to clean up after! And stop molesting him when he's smashed!" She fumed. "Stop making my life miserable with your inability to act like an adult!"

She thrust the scepter at him threateningly.

Cal's voice was strained as he shuffled about at the side of the bed, clearly trying to stay out of Arty's sight. He would owe an apology later, it seemed. Jasper hadn't intended to sound cold; he just thought Cal might prefer to avoid seeing him suffer grevious bodily harm. And knew he would want to avoid the embarrassment of being undressed in front of essentially a complete stranger. Knowing Cal, he would think something was going on between him and Arty. This was possibly the only time that would be entirely untrue in reference to an attractive woman.

As Cal's footsteps retreated across the carpet, he opened one eye cautiously. Arty's face was frozen somewhere between mild curiosity at Cal's appearance and the default rage. The door clicked shut and it shifted firmly back into anger. Jasper kept his eyes open to look out for projectiles.

"The crowned jewels? What kind of idiot are you? How the hell did you honestly think you would get away with stealing the bloody CROWNED JEWELS! I've told you time and time again to leave him out of your schemes! And now look what you've landed him in!"

Jasper wanted to point out that everything had, in fact, worked out perfectly, and the only thing he'd gotten Apollo into was an ermine edged cloak. Unfortunately, she bobbed at the floor with alarming speed and resurfaced in conjunction with a blunt object slamming onto his shin. Luckily the blankets buffered it somewhat, but the pain was still immense. He scrambled backward, grabbing at a pillow to use as an impromptu shield. As she flailed at his feet, he managed to identify the object as the scepter.

THWACK! "Stay." WALLOP! "Away." BAM! "From." WHAM! "My." KAPOW! "Brother!!"

The violence paused long enough for Jasper to shuffle back against the headboard as far as he could go. Luckily her rage had made her aim a bit specious; she'd only managed to hit him squarely twice, the rest had been glancing. He glanced over at the nightstand at his wand, but restrained himself. Starting an actual duel with Arty would be an incredibly foolish decision.

"Stop taking him on your heists! Stop getting him high out of his mind and sending him home for me to clean up after! And stop molesting him when he's smashed!" Sorry, what?"Stop making my life miserable with your inability to act like an adult!"

Arty brandished the scepter and Jasper reached out quickly and wrenched it away from her. A dangerous decision, but it was really worth a lot of money, after all. He cradled it and looked at her under lowered brows, arms folded.

"First off, you'd better not have bloody dented this thing. Second, the crown jewels heist came off without a hitch--I don't see any police snooping about your house, do you? Third, last time I checked Apollo was twenty five years old and could make his own decisions about how he wants to spend his time."

She was preparing to say something, so he held up the scepter imperiously. So that's what kings used them for.

"And fourth, I've never 'molested' your brother. You're just making wild accusations now, and unless you've got anything less abusive to say, I'm going back to sleep."

He waved his recently recaptured scepter aloft to cut into the rant that she had been re-gearing up to continue with. He launched into a ridiculous speech which completely avoided her concerns altogether. Of course he wouldn’t see that it was morally wrong to steal a national treasure because it matched your trench coat (in Apollo’s case), or to work into your strange bedroom games (as she was becoming increasingly suspicious of in Jasper’s case). And just because the police weren’t snooping around her shop yet did not mean they wouldn’t be. He clearly had deluded notions of Apollo’s ability to keep secrets.

"And fourth, I've never 'molested' your brother. You're just making wild accusations now, and unless you've got anything less abusive to say, I'm going back to sleep."

She snorted disbelievingly; while they were at it she might as open up all the cans of worms. “Oh please, I’ve caught you two in a drunken stupor cuddling on your couch on more occasions than I care to remember! I’m not sure why you’re so adamant about denying it. Clearly you have varying tastes!” She nodded towards the door that Cal had recently rushed out of.

“But I didn’t come here to discuss your sex life. You’re taking them back. All of them. Unless those muggles find their crowned jewels magically returned you will lose your crown jewels.” She threatened leaning in towards him her hand twitching towards her wand menacingly. “And you know, I mean it!”

Jasper knew very well that he couldn’t beat Arty (or anyone else for that matter) in a duel. In fact she had proven so during dueling lessons in school.

Arty made a disapproving sound that Jasper would have described as anything but ladylike. "Peeved rhino" was actually the first phrase that came to mind, but he kept it to himself since she had the distinct advantages of being awake, armed, and clothed. When you were twig-thin, rubbish at dueling, and dressed in incredibly restrictive suits, you learned to pick your battles or pick your bodyguards. Unfortunately Sergei was available only with two hours notice (most of that time spent wrangling the beard from whatever nook it had chosen for its lair).

“Oh please, I’ve caught you two in a drunken stupor cuddling on your couch on more occasions than I care to remember! I’m not sure why you’re so adamant about denying it. Clearly you have varying tastes!”

Arty glared at the door that Cal had retreated through moments before. Jasper realized that there was a certain disparity between Cal and, say, the latest covergirl for Vanity Fair, but he thought the definition of 'varying tastes' would have to stretch substantially to include Apollo. Even if he did spend a fair amount of time dressed in a way that could be generously called androgynous, less generously called girly. He raised a besceptered hand in protest, but Arty plowed on.

“But I didn’t come here to discuss your sex life. You’re taking them back. All of them. Unless those muggles find their crowned jewels magically returned you will lose your crown jewels.” She threatened leaning in towards him her hand twitching towards her wand menacingly. “And you know, I mean it!”

The hand and scepter moved into shield position. Not that it would do much good if Arty really did try to hex him, but he doubted she would unless he provoked her. Jasper was a natural appeaser; that, lying, transfiguration, and four-in-hand knots were his chief talents. He'd managed to avoid a number of threatened hexings from Arty over the years. All it took was a combination of soothing tones and lies. He collected his thoughts, organized the blankets again, and formed a put-upon face, sighing dramatically. The one benefit to not getting on with Arty was that she could catch him out in lies less effectively than most of his friends.

"Fine, fine. You're right, Apollo will let out the truth eventually anyhow. I'll sort them all out and return them tomorrow. I'll even send you the Muggle paper so you can check the headlines about their miraculous recovery, how's that?"

Translated into Jasper lying language, a tongue in which only one person was fluent, this meant, 'I'll create an elaborate set of fakes and return those instead, then Apollo and I can continue to play with the real ones and laugh behind your back while you are blissfully unaware.'

Now, onto more important matters.

"Once I've done that, I hope you'll leave off your campaign of malicious lies about goings on between Apollo and I. Varying tastes--" he prefaced this with finger quotes-- "or not, nothing has ever happened between us. Cuddling--that's just mental, at least make up something realistic. You can't go about slagging me off like this, I've got a reputation of snobbish discrimination to uphold."

It seemed as though she were winning. Jasper agreed to return the jewels. And yet she couldn't dispell the nagging feeling that he was lying to her. Probably, because the man was practically a pathalogical liar, never showing a qualm about it before. However, he'd have to be a complete idiot to do anything to make her angrier at this point.

"I can get my own muggle paper, thanks."

She wasn't going to chance him making up a fake paper telling her that he'd returned them.

"Once I've done that, I hope you'll leave off your campaign of malicious lies about goings on between Apollo and I. Varying tastes--" he prefaced this with finger quotes-- "or not, nothing has ever happened between us. Cuddling--that's just mental, at least make up something realistic. You can't go about slagging me off like this, I've got a reputation of snobbish discrimination to uphold."

"Then perhaps you had better start behaving with more snobbish discrimination. Because from what I"ve seen you'll take models--unless there's none present, in which case it's anyone goes."

He looked scandalized by her words and immediately started to nedy her 'horrifying' accusation. No one could get away with scuh a scandalish accusation. Jaseper Christie had strict standards. His only wore Chelsea boots and he most certainly only slept with models (excepting of course this Cal guy).

"What possible reason would I have for making something like that up?" She demanded bemused. "There's no use in you denying it. One of Apollo's lackies got a picture of it at one of your parties last year. She sent me a copy."

Arty gave him a self-satisfied grin. Beat that Christie. I have pictoral evidence!

"Want me to make you a copy?"

Jasper thought Arty's comments were pretty rich, coming from a woman who spent her time dating felons and reanimated piles of bones. Speaking of, he would be setting her up on another date with Rudolph after this. He'd order the flowers this afternoon. Maybe book them a nice, visible table at the posh new restaurant at the end of the Alley and drop a tip to the Prophet's new gossip columnist. Better to befriend them before they started reporting on you.

"What possible reason would I have for making something like that up?"

"Oh, who knows, Arty. Given our heartwarming friendship over the past decade, I can only imagine."

Jasper could think of a few hundred moviations. As he recalled, Arty kept a list of reasons she despised him. During their years at Hogwarts it had been in a small leather bound journal. He'd attempted to destroy it once and the lock spit hexes at him, but he'd managed to read the last page before it dyed his fingernails purple. The final entry had referenced a minor heist from the fourth floor potions storage room, which had been nothing to be angry about. Apollo had only been missing his eyebrows for a few months.

"There's no use in you denying it. One of Apollo's lackies got a picture of it at one of your parties last year. She sent me a copy."

What? Jasper tried to think of what party that could possibly have been, but it was hopeless. He and Apollo were constant companions at Jasper's constant parties. Chances are it was something completely innocent misconstrued, possibly by one of the countless girls that either of them had shot down over the years. (The lackey, he assumed. He would have to sort out who that was, then make her life miserable. There was a nice spell for unibrow...) Arty was smirking at him maddeningly.

"Want me to make you a copy?"

She wasn't bluffing entirely, then. Jasper held out his hand expectantly.

"Fine, give your piece of blatant forgery. Who was this 'lackey' anyway?"

"Fine, give your piece of blatant forgery. Who was this 'lackey' anyway?"

She cocked her head to the side with the same smug grin still spread across her face. Then flicked her wand towards the door and summoned the picture. It took a couple minutes for it to wiggle it's way out of the shoe box she had it hidden in the back of her closet, out under the shops front door through the busy alley then up through Jasper's ever changing home and into her waiting hand.

Still looking maddeningly triumphant she held it out for him to take. It didn't particularly matter what he did with that particular copy she had several versions of it. She enjoyed having blackmail material to hold over his head. And under certain circumstances she might even loath him enough to send it off to Lola Davis despite her brother's less than respectable appearence in the picture. She figured that his reputation could handle a bit more scandle. Everyone expected new and outrageous things from him, but Jasper had a terribly conservative pureblood family that wouldn't be quite as accepting of the attention.

Everyone had a little malicious streak in them, even otherwise sweet, level-headed Artemis Sinistra. But she didn't feel particularly bad about it in this one instance. She was quite certain that Jasper took an unnatural delight in embaressing and otherwise trying to make her miserable.

"Apollo tells me that one really shouldn't reveal their sources." She replied with shrug. Even Apollo had sources...he didn't get the heads up on muggle designer's latest collections from his divination skills after all.

"Rather good likeness of you isn't it?"

Arty Accioed a square of shiny photo paper and handed it over, looking primly pleased with herself. Jasper held it between two fingers, sighing and waiting for her to step back from the bed before he turned it over. He noticed immediately that it wasn't moving. Muggle photo, then. That narrowed down the 'sources' slightly, but not enough. He and Apollo had an excess of Muggle friends from the fashion and music worlds.

It took him a few minutes to register what the picture actually contained, but when he finally did, he had to actively prevent his mouth from dropping open. His couch was there. So was he. And Apollo. Alarmingly, many of their clothes were not, although Jasper could see a green tie at the edge of the frame. May 24, Crystal Stilts album release afterparty. (Categorizing events by tie was a handy way to organize one's social calendar.) He tried to remember something else about the evening, but only managed to come up with the fact that Crystal Stilts were serious fans of powdery substances. So was Apollo. It had been a normal evening by all accounts. Bit of coke here, bit of doxy powder there, a few martinis...Apollo frequently spent the night collapsed on Jasper's couch, but this. He was going to have to look into this. Preferably before Cal heard even a breath of a hint of a rumor about it and smothered him in his sleep.

Okay, too much conspicuous silence. He took a breath and made himself think of what Jasper would say in a normal situation when he hadn't just been given evidence that he was probably doing less than appropriate things with one of his best mates.

"This is, frankly, Arty, unexpected from you. At least show some decorum if you're going to lie to me.

Frowning in order to avoid showing any other emotions, Jasper picked up his wand and lit the edge of the photo on fire, watching the shiny surface curl up into ash that he caught in his free palm. When it finished he blew the ash off across the carpet.

"Hopefully you were wise enough to make copies, if for no other reason than that it was actually a rather good picture of me."

It was real and he knew it. Incredibly disturbing. He looked toward the door and hoped Cal was somewhere far downstairs. It would be stupid to admit to Arty that she'd made such a discovery; she'd lord over him with it for years. Instead he leaned back against the pillows, one arm behind his head lazily.

"Now you've proved you can use magic to fake muggle pictures. Anything else to say for yourself? Make sure to check the Guardian tomorrow, you'll find that the jewels are back in place. I'd have given you a crown if you were nicer to me.

"Give Pinkie some licorice whips on the way out, will you? And if you see Cal I don't want a syllable about this mentioned to him or I'm buying Apollo that deluxe glitter gun he's had his eye on."