Absit Omen RPG

"He is! He does," Athena said through a big cheshire cat grin, said of Vincent Fournier. She'd dipped at the knees to emphasize her delight at her current pairing.

"He bakes, love, I can't very well put him out," she added almost apologetically. Truth be told, Athena wasn't much sorry at all. She was cavalier about him, but the beast handler was a good and true wizard. A real genuine sort, not just fun and games.

 She found a stool to perch on, and returned the quick clink of a glass so they could proceed. Speaking of entanglements on the Creatures Floor...

"Is Wilhemena still trailing a werewolf safe house clerk?" she asked the Head of the Werewolf Wing. "She fancies herself subtle. Imagine."[1] The spokewitch of the Werewolf Wing has been having a little affair with some young wizard since April. There was nothing subtle about Wilhemena who behaved as if she was the star of her own WWN period drama.

1.	19 May 2012 - I'm Allowed A Little Fun

The forthright friendliness, oh, Athena knew he'd get on well here at St. Mungo's if people could believe he wasn't after something extra. She agreed swiftly to sneak in a quick bite and gab up upstairs, and the pair of giants that they were, made their way to the stairs.

But they didn't get far. A corporeal patronus (a bird maybe) whipped past Athena and Robin followed closely by a madly fluttering letter. The man at the desk stood up to try and catch them both at once.

"Dementor attack in Devon. Two wix, two children. Apparating in. Get Sawbones," came a woman's voice from the patronus. The letter that followed must have had more of the same.

Athena chilled. Of all the horrible things they dealt with in Creature Injuries, she dreaded Dementor attacks the most. There was so little that could be done. There were no bones to mend nor bleeding to staunch. There were only trance-like, vacant stupors and violent casting about. It was despair made flesh, all goodness stolen away. They made Athena doubt the existence of a creator, why such a being could possibly exist, what kind of balance they could possibly serve.

"Athena?" the witch at the desk prompted, getting to her feet.

"Who was that?" Athena asked at the evaporating patronus.

"Riza. Izzard. She's in Ottery St. Catchpole this week."

"Right. Call in Hedge as well. Fuck. How much have you done with Dementors?" Athena ended up back at Robin again. She was already re-rolling her sleeves.

"Aye," Athena had confirmed at the conclusion of the ritual which marked Cassius's fate as green and good. The nurses would know what to do now and when the patient came around. There were educational pamphlets among other amenities, detailing resources for bite victims. Whatever had happened to Cassius wasn't over, and he'd be smart to report the attack, but he was going to walk away, live long enough to get his trousers back.

Their job wrapped, Athena began to move away from the bed as she answered Robin.

"All that time without sun, I'd go transparent," Athena said with a big smile. "Gleaming in the moonlight, dead giveaway. Seen coming. I'd starve."

The implication that she'd fall to hunting poor souls rather than keeping to the sterile bloodbanks. The conversation, of course, held no stake at all. What she said here was not binding. The fates would not hold her to any daring hypotheticals.

"There's cake on the second floor," said a mediwitch helpfully nearby, having caught only part of the conversation.

Their twilight-sleepy patient made no reaction to Athena's little poke in his finger. The dagger drew up all the blood it needed. She handed it over to Rob.

"Aye, we've got a handful active covens in London."  Athena's department received occasional updates from the Ministry about vampire activity, but it was fairly bare-bones.

"General idea is that they police their own these days. Was worse in the 80s.[1] I reckon they decided it's easier for them to be pals with the Ministry. 'Pals,' well..." Athena hemmed on the characterization indicating that it was probably more neutral than that.  "Problems seem to come from non-members. Had a Muggle found drained dry over Christmas.[2] I was the coroner for that - evidence of hesitation at the bite as well. Could have been a new vampire."[3]

Naturally, Athena had no way of knowing the doer on Christmas was Cass Motley who'd, after the fact, joined in with London's most prominent coven, the Camden Town Hookers.[4]

1.	29 Dec 1984 - Knockturn Body Identified; Vampires Suspected
2.	25 Dec 2011 - Thirsty Vampires Kill Again
3.	25 Dec 2011 - A Close as Skin
4.	13 Feb 2012 - Hook Me Up

"No, is it?" Athena's surprise was unveiled, pulling back, furrowing her brows and looking suddenly puzzled. It was a funny thing to have missed, being top of Creature Injuries. "I must be watching too many muggle films. Och."

Athena wasn't the kind to be embarrassed, and was only amused at herself.

She joined Rob bedside with the patient to assist. She was there to help out as much as for the gab and gossip. Rackharrow's Ritual was hundreds of years old - as tested as could be. His theory was modern - a human and a vampire having a consensual lay - for their profession, but with the evidence they had, not improbable.

"Imagine that," she replied, "that's a story for Witch Weekly, poor lad. Cross as he seemed about it, still. Now I wonder if his bedmate's out on the pavement pacing. How'd he come in?"

"Stumbled in himself," replied a mediwix. "Though in that state, I can't see him having Apparated himself."

"Got his wand with him or no?"

The mediwix checked with someone else. "Naught but his skivvies."

Athena raised her eyes to Rob. Quite the mystery.

Rob Louvelle had been a no-brainer hire with the kind of experience that Athena was biased towards. He did his work quickly leaving Athena to get Cassius a little bit of peace.

"Aye, thanks," she agreed and took a flexible grip on her oak wand. She wouldn't charm him out cold; all he needed was a bit of dreamy twilight. "Somniquillitas," she incanted and a pinky haze settled into the patients chest. The young fellow took a deep breath then seemed to almost melt into the bed, his eyes rolled back sleepily, and a tentatively happy grin spread over his face. His arm lolled off the bed. Athena returned it to him, laying it across his chest.

With a little Occlumency, Athena checked in on his noggin - all was dopey, all was calm now. Good.

"There we go, nice job," she said giving his hand a pat. "That's better. Have a rest and then we'll owl someone for you."

A nurse followed behind with a warm blanket for the pants'd patient. Athena moved away from the bed to intercept Louvelle on his way back.

It wasn't their job at St. Mungo's to investigate attacks, not farther than what they needed to treat the wounded. The reporting that the Ministry required did not extend to vampire bites, though St. Mungo's voluntarily provided general monthly numbers. It didn't stop Athena from being curious.

"How do you reckon he got caught in that state of dress?" she asked Louvelle. "Looks like he got surprised in his bed, if I didn't know that vampires can't enter without an invitation."

The undress certainly didn't track with having a visit to a coven. It looked like a botched attack, reminders of the deaths over the winter.

Tall Athena Marrowbone could cover a distance quickly, and she did so, striding long, her open healer's robes flapping behind her. She was the hands-on head of the Creature Injuries and available this Monday night - night shifts got the best cases she'd always noted darkly.

"Now then, who's the menu?" she called out as she approached the melee.

"Cassius Rooksby, wizard, twenty-two. Vampire bite."

The latter was plain enough. Athena came around to the otherside of the bed to assist in keeping Mr. Rooksby from hurting himself. The new healer Louvelle was already on damage control and diagnosing an allergy. If so, Mr. Rooksby was in dire straights. Athena handed over what he'd asked for, blood potions.

Athena raised her voice to be heard by the hysterical young man.

"Ey, Mr. Rooksby I need you to settle down, sir! You're in good hands now, but if you don't let us help, you'll be dead as a doornail."

No one loved having to hold down someone who didn't want to, but he was going to lose his head with that mauling flailing everywhere.

"Bit by a dog, Mr. Rooksby?" she tried. Sometimes saying something so daftly wrong was enough for someone to take a breath and correct her. Worked this time. Cassius turned to her with wild eyes, barely focusing on her. To his blurry vision, her gold hair backlit, she might've looked like an angel.

"Sodding vampire!" he spat out, befuddled.

His calm didn't last long though. He was wracked again by a violent, back-arching spasm.

Once it passed, Athena pressed down on his good shoulder. "Vampire, ah, that explains it, Mr. Rooksby. Lie down, sir. Louvelle's going to stop you dying and then we'll charm thee nice and sleepy, understand?"

To Louvelle, she smiled. "Evening, Rob. We've got a rotten one, tonight. What a mess."

Athena rose with Sandy, both of them having somewhere else to be shortly.

"I'll run it down," she said, regarding getting the patient record. "Maybe there are more."

She said it in a classic Agatha Pendragon WWN melodrama tone. "We love a mystery, don't we."

Fin

Athena snickered a little and nodded at this, Sandy's paradox of casting a Patronus in the mindset of dreading you could not. It was so common a spell and not something that was mastered in the afternoon. It was the rare witch or wizard who could cast it in times to stress, rare to use it often enough for it not to take great effort. Again, so many questions for the patient who'd left without answers - had she cast the spell often, when was the last time, has another memory worked? And all that.

"Well, if you can't make heads or tails of it," Athena said of her colleague and his specialty, "and the patient isn't crying, then we're all shit out of luck."

Athena rose, her time drawing near. It was irritating to a Healer not to have the answer. "I'll keep to my bites and blood, I think, and keep the mysteries out of it. Did you hear about Amelia's thing? There's cake in Plants and Poisonings."

Athena shrugged. She hadn't herself met the patient and Prewett hadn't mentioned anything that might have indicated the witch was a Dark Arts dabbler. Honestly the way she'd described her was that quiz night at the Daily Prophet with her retired parents was the peak of excitement. It was a good theory on Sandy's part, though.

"Real shame she didn't stick round," Athena said. This happened from time to time, that a patient was satisfied more quickly then their morbid curious Healers who'd poke and prod and prophecy to find the right answer. But even magic didn't always reveal every truth.

"And just the one memory -," Athena added, stuck on that. "But then, how would you know? How do ye know something's missing, until you go reaching for it? What's more likely, that she's lost just that one particular memory or several? Hmm."

She stared off into space for a long moment, experiencing a brief cosmic glimpse of the nature of being that made one shudder at the spine. She took a deep breath and smiled again.

"If I lost my Patronus memory, I'd sit for a Legelimens, anyway."

"Merlin, I hope not," Athena sniffed at the thought of going domestic with Vincent.  "Me poor da, though, I expect he's near to asking the local hedgewitch for a spell."

Helio Marrowbone had been a single father, and wonderful at it. He wanted that for his five children. And Vincent was a really lovely wizard and a massive improvement to her past lovers - boyfriend, to be more fair. He did dishes. There was something about marrying though that put off Athena. Maybe she'd didn't trust herself to choose, maybe she thought she'd have to give up too much.

"But good for Balfour. I'd say he's marrying into a strange family," - the Storms -, "but good lord, I think they're a match."

"Oh, speaking of strange. Oddest thing. Was gabbing with Morgan Prewett." Sandy would know her; she worked in Spell Damage with him. "She told me someone came in complaining that they couldn't cast a Patronus Charm. She'd been able to easily before, no problems casting other spells. Patient said - bizarre - that she'd lost the happy memory she'd been using. Like it flew out the window. No evidence of Obliviation spells, but you know how that is."

It was very difficult to actually detect Obliviation magically; it was usually deduced from circumstance.

"Prewett offered her a Legilimens, but she declined."

Athena shrugged. It was a mystery.

19 May 2012
3pm, Saturday
Twilfit & Tattings, Diagon Alley

Athena Marrowbone and her girlfriend (of the platonic variety) Wilhemina Gunn were out for an afternoon of shopping to be followed by a jaunt for tea. They'd become acquainted naturally, two professional witches in the wide realm of beasts. Wilhemena was the spokeswitch for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and Athena headed up St. Mungo's treatment of creature-related injuries. Athena had patched up plenty of Wilhemena's colleagues, not excluding Athena's current boyfriend Vincent Fournier, who was running the Beasts division these days.

"Bal's so dapper," Wilhemena was saying as she held a shift to her chest to test the color against her skin. "Camera loves him."

Athena flanked the shorter woman, ready with her opinion on the dress.

"I like you in navy," she said. Wilhemna smiled privately, thinking of the navy ensemble her paramour had showed up wearing last month.[1]

"So do I," Wil said, coy with a far away gaze in the mirror. Athena caught it - Wil wasn't subtle.

Athena bit her lip. "Oh, aye? Tell us, who is it this time?"

Wilhemena was a wreck in her dating life, but Athena was no better. They said drama found them, but they chased it.

"No one. Tsk, too plain." Wil set the navy dress aside. She was weak for shine and sparkle.

Athena feigned scandal. "Someone! Someone I know if ye're not telling me. Not Balfour."

"Lord, no!" Wilhemena moved off to look for something else. "I'm not his type, and I'd never - practically married."

Athena sniffed. "Oh, you've done married."

"Have not."

Oh, she had.

"Sol Carstairs."

"You don't know him."

"Fine, don't tell me. Obvious you've gone back to Bill," Athena said heading towards her own racks, baiting her friend who'd never be able to stand being accused of returning to her stuffy, used ex. Wil glared at Athena over her shoulder. After a long pause.

"You don't know him."

The witches continued their shopping, Athena allowing the interrogation to end in favor of worktalk. A young girl werewolf had gone missing last month and found to have run away. The inquiry into werewolf safe house security was well underway and everyone was feeling the scrutiny. At St. Mungo's, vampire bites were up, but deaths due to same had not increased. Athena was dealing with tiny interns.

It wasn't until they were having a coffee down the road at Alohomocha that the topic of Wilhemena's secret lay came up again.

---

5pm, Alohomocha

"Where did you meet him," Athena had asked without preamble, bluntly rolling back in.

Wilhemena turned to look out the window nursing the moment. She sipped her tea and said, "work".

"Then I do know him."

"You don't. He's rarely in. Just on full moons."

Athena was paused a moment. There was nothing strictly wrong about someone in Wil's position dating a werewolf but ...

Wil clocked Athena's expression, inferring its meaning. "Didn't take you to be so judgey. But no, not a werewolf."

Athena thought a moment, trying to assemble the clues her friend couldn't help but provide. Athena knew Wilhemena was just bursting to tell, unable to resist the intrigue, likely fishing for an aghast response. Ever theatrical, this Wilhemena. Athena could rule out the werewolf mentors as they were werewolves themselves, and the Werewolf Capture Unit were always in the building. Their previous conversation then reminded her.

"Safe house," Athena guessed. Wilhemena took a telling sip. The safe house attendants all checked in the Ministry the afternoon of. "Which one?"  Athena had cause to know one or two, but the job was actually very safe.

Wilhemena bit her lip and Athena could see her cheeks had pinked up. 

"How old is he?" Athena prodded when Wilhemena continued to play keep-away with the name.

"Old enough."

"How old is he!" Athena insisted with a scandalized gasp.

"Nineteen."

"Wil! Oh!" Athena's lip curled. "Why?"

"He's cute."

"He's an infant."

"He's not. Don't be crude. Men get to do it, why can't I?" Wilhemena said sitting back, chip lifted. She was getting the exact response she'd been looking for. She liked to imagine Athena was jealous; Athena was too tall for comfort for many men. A nasty thought, but true.

"And we hate them for it. What do you even get out of it?"

"He's adorable. And grateful. He only wants to please me. I get to boss him around. He'll do whatever I ask. I deserve something nice, for once."

"He's a kid. He doesn't know better."

"Really? Really. He doesn't know better? Really?"

"I didn't mean it like that. I'm saying it can't last. You can't expect him to follow you around like a puppy forever."

"I don't. It's just ... fun. I'm allowed a little fun."

Athena knew she'd never convince Wilhemena she was being deeply stupid, but she didn't hide her disapproval. Wilhemena was at times deeply insecure and self-sabotaging. It showed in her choice of relationships, none of them ever on equal footing, never truly good for her. A nasty thought, but true.

"Does he know that?"

Wilhemena shrugged. "Of course he does."

1.	7 Apr 2012 - Sated and Satisfied. Virgil Carstairs had lent Figaro the clothes.

9 April 2012
Monday at 2pm
St. Mungo's Hospital
Misslethorpe's office

Athena and Sandy were taking a bit of time for tea in Sandy's office, tall Sawbones (as some called her) sat long-legged in one of Sandy's comfortable chairs, a hot cuppa in her hands. They were shooting the breeze, colleagues who'd become fair friends.

"How's the sprog? Hogwarts home for the holiday?"

Athena wasn't well acquainted with Sandy's Meredith, but from what Sandy said knew her to be bright enough. Athena had already updated him on her gossip - she was seeing Vincent Fournier (still) and happy about it, and taking occasional work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement doing a bit of field healing (nothing exciting so far).

In addition, last Friday night had been the full moon, and people on Athena's floor (Creatures Injuries) had been doubling up on shifts to cover the predictable boom in emergency cases, werewolf related. There were always a few mundane dog bites, innocent folk confusing wolfhounds with be-deviled neighbors. They were all just a touch weary, but nothing unusual.

"You're a pair, the two of you," Athena said. She was a head and more taller than anyone else who normally stalked Bruce and Zora's place, excepting maybe their all-grown daughter who was shooting up. The tall blonde witch - called 'Bones' or 'Sawbones' by some friends and foes, hung her long white trench coat on a hook but kept her purse with her. It was Saturday night, coming up on eight.

"If it weren't for me and that bottle, tha'd be at the Ministry just the same as her. I'd say I'm no better, but I am so much better. I've even told Vincent to be scarce. That's how much I've missed our Bruce. And Zora. And Waverly - where's she at tonight?"

Clearly she wasn't at home, but Athena took a little walk around the kitchen. Officially, Athena hadn't seen Bruce's daughter for a few years. Unofficially, it had been six weeks ago when Waverly had been delivered to her flat by a mind-reader for secret treatment of a vampire bite.[1] Athena had been busting to blab it all to Bruce and Zora, but had kept her oath. She hadn't seen Waverly since, nor the little Seer Virgil Carstairs.

1.	12 Feb 2012 - The Dark Receives You

"They are glowing." A little. How much was normal? "Not as good as muggle glow sticks. But cool for a rave," Josie said in response to the dim glow.

Athena didn't want to alarm her, but it wasn't great. She gave her a firm look. "Ye're still as much witch as you were before," she said, taking the crystals back.

"I can refer you to Spell Damage for the Obliviation," she added when the conversation came back around again. She pulled off the dragonhide gloves. "And might do anyway for the the rest. You're not bit by anyone, so I'm afraid you've got no need of me."

It was hard for Athena to tell what Josie Flint was feeling - she was erupting in a sort of harried mania that could be self-actualizing or a panicky despair. Athena looked between her and 'Peps'.

"I can say that a bit more rest and a mite of chocolate won't hurt anyone."