((Tried to write this as a comment, but apparently it was too long, so here it is. Be gentle, I'm rusty :P))

Tuesdays were an especially hateful day, in Amy MacKenzie's eyes. Not one positive thing had ever happened to her on a Tuesday, she was sure of it. It was much too early in the week to start thinking about your weekend, but it lacked the feeling of distinct relief that so often arrived at 4:55 on a Monday afternoon. And by then everyone was over the weekend, as well, and you were actually expected to put forth a modicum of effort. At some intrinsic level she suspected that this was an entirely irrational complaint. Amy wasn't a social recluse by any means, but neither did she regard weekends as a 48-hour chance for massive substance abuse, no sleep and that feeling of dread that comes with waking up one morning and realising that you have no memory of the previous night. A perfectly valid view, in her opinion, but apparently a minority one among her other colleagues in their early twenties. There was something about office work, she supposed. The tedium and sheer crushing banality of it all built up until only two days of near-insanity could save you from cracking. Lucky, then, that she had a job which took her into the outside world fairly regularly.

At least that was the theory. Travelling around Britain, investigating criminals, it had all seemed so glamorous and exciting. Until Amy actually started doing it. It didn't help that any trip into the outside world generally had to be preceded by approximately seven square miles of paperwork - all of which had to be filled in and filed correctly before her superiors would even begin to consider letting her escape for a few hours. And as for the criminals themselves... well deadly duels in back-alleys and death-defying broomstick chases through the streets of London were rarely on the agenda. No, typically the sort of felonious mastermind they were dealing with would be a shifty-looking wizard in patched robes, selling home made 'Genuine difensive charms' from the back of a muggle car. And they were always surprised that you'd caught them. Perhaps the more senior investigators got their pick of the better cases.

Amy sighed irritably and glared at a passer-by for no other reason than that he'd been unfortunate enough to be present. She was currently striding briskly down Diagon Alley, brooding, and the weather was frankly a disgrace. Turning her bright blue eyes back to the scrap of parchment clutched in one hand, the girl frowned for perhaps the sixth of seventh time that day. Yes, it was true that her usual target wasn't terribly challenging stuff. Hell, some of them were cropping up often enough that she was on first-name terms with a couple. This new one though.. this one is different. Amy had a naturally suspicious nature, and a somewhat cynical view of the typical efficiency of an office full of bureaucrats, and thus she was beginning to wonder whether this information was correct at all. The address was a shop - a legitimate retail shop - and one that sold fairly expensive goods at that. Unusual to say the least.

In fact, despite it all seeming rather unlikely, Amy's ingenerate curiosity was getting the better of her. She had always possessed something of an overactive imagination, and now it was conjuring up images of a huge criminal organization and their wildly successful security scam. The shopkeeper would be a front, of course, selling defective home security systems to vulnerable elderly witches and then handing their details over to a ruthless band of veteran burglars for a cut of the profits. The notion only lasted a few glorious moments, before suffering its usual fate of being deflated by logic and common sense. Whoever this J. Christie was (the office had failed to provide either a picture or a first name in a characteristic fit of inefficiency) he ran a business selling rather valuable, expensive items for a lot of money. Not the sort likely to throw his lot in with the underworld. And besides, even if he was, Amy's superiors would almost certainly have sent the man one of those oh-so-helpful letters warning him of the impending investigation. The ineptitude would almost be comical, were it not so bloody irritating.

Amy realised with a start that her rapid pace had already delivered her to the store in question - a typical Diagon Alley building wedged into an entire row of typical Diagon Alley buildings. And the lights were out. For a second the wild visions returned - J. Christie reading his letter and racing away in a panic overnight, fleeing the country in the wake of her fearsome investigation. Then her eyes caught a neatly-written notice by the door, which informed all who passed by that the shop was closed on Tuesdays. Shit. Just my luck and he's out. Still, it would be a waste not to at least try. The girl quickly checked her appearance in the darkened shop window and came away vaguely dissatisfied as she always did. Amy didn't consider herself especially attractive, but apparently this opinion wasn't shared by a reasonable number of persistent and irritating young men, so when working she made a determined effort not to dress in a manner that would enhance... anything too much. People had an appalling habit of not taking pretty young women seriously. She finally conceded that things were about as good as they were going to get, and knocked sharply on the door. Ten minutes early, but what difference could that make?