Outside of Hogsmeade

Gerard chuckles. "It was great at first... She was the most amazing woman I've ever met!" Then he frowns, "Then this silver-haired dude came in, saying a whole bunch of evil stuff about her..."

"Did he kind of look like a gargoyle that came to life?"

OOC Sorry dinner, gtg I'll be on later!

"Now that I think about it... Yes."

"Well then, you met with Crest Strayer, the hard-as-nails, hard ass brother of one of my best friends.."

"... What has she done that was so bad to his family?"

"Oh boy..." He sighed and sat down, "Take a seat, this will take a while..."

"Okay...."  He sits down, curious and nervous about this.

"Well once upon a time, there was a Raven who was very different from the one you met. Worked for this asshole as a slave. I tried to save her but it didn't work..."

"When she got free, she got corrupted by Crouch, a death eater and the mayor of the looney bin..." 

"So she fell under his influence and betrayed Arty, my friend I mentioned before."

"After that he and Raven became close accomplices, committing many crimes and became the personal nemesis of Crest."

"Went after his wife many times, as that's the only way to really get to him. He's obsessed with Raven, namely arresting her..."

"Damn... So the Raven I met really was true? It wasn't just a mask?"

"Well yeah, I guess. I mean, she wasn't talking about killing people or anything?"

"Not at all! In fact, this Crouch friend of hers said she just went through a bad break up...  No killing at all."

"Oh yeah, Sylvester... pompous prick..." Topher spat to the ground.

"Oh, so they weren't lying about that, then?"

"Not from what I heard. Word through the grapevine is he was jealous over her fanatical devotion to Crouch..."

"Wow... So she's REALLY obsessed with that Crouch guy, then?"

"Put it this way, he says jump and she asks how high..." Topher frowned, "Kinda makes friendship tough when she's got him gunning for your friends and such..."

Gerard thinks for a few minutes, then asks, "But what if Crouch was out of the picture?"

"Well that's the million dollar question ain't it?"

"Problem is, Crouch is practically a force of nature. I don't have a shot at stopping him anymore than I could walk on water."

"What about a few more people like you and I against him and him alone with no allies?"

He laughs a little, "Yeah, and we'll have a tea party with Gandhi while we're at it. The guy is almost never alone and he always has a backup plan..."

"So we just need to one-up him! Give him something he wouldn't expect!"

"I'm open to ideas... what have you got?"

"I don't know... I'd still have to think about it.  I don't know this Crouch well enough, though.  All I know about him so far is that he's an asshole, and I have pyrokinesis that I can't control..."

"He's an asshole..." Topher chuckles a little, "Here's an equally shocking fact. Hitler was a dork..."

"Have you met him before?"

"Yeah.  He actually set me and Raven up..."