Absit Omen RPG

Getting visitors directly from Level Two wasn't normal, and this kind of question seemed highly unusual. The Aurors stuck mostly to their own floor, and if they had questions for the Capture Unit, they usually sent a memo or summoned Bagnold to their office. Blake was really the lone exception, but Tessa suspected that that was mostly because her girlfriend also worked in the Werewolf Wing.

Around the office, most of her teammates had gone back to their tasks of cleaning, untangling, and organizing -- Harris at least had the shame to look embarrassed, even if his dark brown skin made it hard to tell if he were blushing -- but the air was also still quiet, as if everyone were still waiting to see what this strange intruder wanted. Across the room, Tessa could see Li looking at them directly, as though she were trying to decide whether to step in. The Capture Unit didn't really have formal ranks the way that other departments did, but the longer-serving members tended to take on more authority. After Bagnold and Bellingham, Stacey Li had the third-longest tenure with the team.

Eddy's question wasn't exactly top secret information though. Tessa shrugged in response.

"Yeah, there was," she agreed, looking a little wary. "It wasn't really any more eventful than usual, though."

Maybe when she'd first started with the WCU, she would have considered any werewolf encounter to be terrifying, but after two years, it took things like a full moon ambush, an invaded safe house, or the murder of a high-ranking Ministry official to really feel dangerous.

It had taken Micha's earnest attempt to make friends to get Jack to finally sigh and lower his Quidditch book. Tessa snuck a dry look at Anton: his younger brother was far cooler than either of hers, but he had to understand the occasional exasperation of being the eldest in the family.

Micha was still signing as they walked toward the brick wall that guarded the entry into Diagon Alley. Tessa's gaze flicked between Anton and his younger brother as she drew her wand, doing her best to politely follow the translated conversation. Hogwarts houses often seemed to run in families, but not always -- she and her two brothers had all been in Hufflepuff, following in the footsteps of both of their parents, but she knew of other siblings that had ended up divided. But Micha, without any other magical relatives, didn't have that precedent to follow.

Part of her wondered which house Anton would have been in. Probably Gryffindor.

They'd reached the brick wall, and so Tessa took a second to count the bricks up from the rubbish bin: three up and two across. She reached out to tap the selected marker with her wand, even as Anton translated something unexpected.

The bricks started to shimmer in front of them, with a small hole rapidly expanded to form a large archway. Surprised, Tessa glanced back at the Schäfer brothers as she started through.

"If it means they let you go?" she asked, confused.

She hadn't realized that Micha's magical status was in doubt -- from what Anton had relayed, it seemed very obvious to her that the youngest Schäfer was destined for Hogwarts. Maybe he was just nervous because no one else in his family had attended.

She gave Micha a reassuring smile as they stepped through onto the rounded cobblestones of Diagon Alley. The street was busy today, filled with families and other bustling passerby taking advantage of the nice weather to do their shopping.

"They can't keep you out," she assured him. "If you're magical, you've got a right to be there, and the school doesn't let anyone slip through the cracks -- don't worry. I'm sure someone will come to deliver your letter any day now if they haven't already."

It had been a relatively subdued Monday in the Werewolf Capture Unit office. Bagnold had given them all the weekend off after the full moon. That had been a little unusual since it typically took at least a day to process paperwork and wind everything down after their patrol, but Tessa had assumed it was because he gotten sick of Harris's Goodnight Moon epic recitation, and had decided that delaying their reports by a couple of days was worth it if no one got a murder charge.

The office felt conspicuously empty this morning without Bellingham. They'd tried to fill it where they could: Li had stepped in to delegate tasks, Harris was talking up a storm about his movie marathon over the weekend, and Sasaki had taken on their elder teammate's role of worrying incessantly about whether or not they were completing the forms correctly. But something still felt wrong, as if someone had dug a giant hole around their coworker's desk and they had all decided to simply step around it until he got back.

Tessa had been in the middle of helping Smith to untangle and re-wind the Tenacious Twine when someone new stepped into the office.

“Uh, yeah. Hi..."

It wasn't usual for the Capture Unit office to get visitors -- most other Ministry employees avoided them like they had the dragon pox unless they were coming to talk to Bagnold. Surprised, Tessa looked up at their unexpected guest, along with everyone else in the office.

Charlie Harris, unsurprisingly and unhelpfully, was the first to speak up.

"Oh, the Werewolf Registry desk is down the hall," he piped, his glasses askew on his nose. He reached up to adjust them, surrounded by the tarnished silver chain mail that he'd been helping Sasaki polish. "They do all the check-ins, we're just here to lasso you during the full moon."

"Harris --!" Affronted, Tessa was already on her feet.

Really.  Grace Eddy had only been a year behind them in school, and although she might have a new haircut, it wasn't as if she'd disappeared off the face of the planet since then! The Auror trainees had even taken patrols with the WCU recently, even if no one wanted to trust Harris to be alone with anyone from Level Two by himself.

Sighing loudly, she turned toward the new Auror in the doorway, giving her a look that clearly said, Boys.

"Sorry, Eddy," she said, embarrassed. "Um, what do you need? We don't owe you a report, do we?"

"Fenneken," Tessa provided, flashing a friendly smile. "Or Tessa now."

it was funny, thinking they'd all moved on from Hogwarts' preferred use of surnames. Socially, at least: last names were still the typical mode of address at the Ministry, especially in the Werewolf Capture Unit. She'd never thought before that that was probably just a holdover from school, where most professors tended towards the less-personal use of surnames.

Cooper -- Alex -- gave a sudden groan and caved back against the shelf behind her. Brows knitting, Tessa frowned, eyeing the other woman's very pregnant state with concern.

"Do you need to sit down?" she asked worriedly, looking around the aisle to see if there was anything to offer as immediate aid. (There wasn't.) In the middle of a Muggle supermarket, it wasn't as if she could just conjure up a stool, but it felt as if she ought be doing something to help. She wasn't if they referred to the incoming baby or Alex's healers, but judging by the look of things, the point was probably valid either way.

Tessa chewed her lip; she never would have guessed that it was difficult to reach right then. But she kept her snarky thoughts to herself as she stepped forward, standing on her own tiptoes to reach towards the crisps at the top of the shelf.

It was pretty high up. That was one of the most annoying thing about Muggle shops, where she didn't dare pull out her wand to summon anything from a high shelf. Finally, Tessa settled for a careful jump, which allowed her to swipe at the corner of the bag just enough to get it to tumble from the shelf and into her waiting hands.

"Here you go," she said breathlessly, handing it off to the pregnant woman.

As she did so, she caught sight of the other woman's face and did a double take.

"Wait. You're --" Images flashed through her mind as she tried to place the context where she knew her. It wasn't from the Ministry, not from the past few years, but before that... It only took a moment for it to click. "Cooper, right? You were in my year, but in Gryffindor. At H--"

Suddenly realizing where she was and what she was saying in the middle of a Muggle supermarket, Tessa blushed a deep, sudden pink and dissolved into a coughing fit.

"I mean, at school," she managed at last, attempting to recover.

Tessa's eyes darted back and forth between Micha and Anton as the older brother translated, even though she couldn't really understand the signing. Back in the Werewolf Capture Unit's office, she'd been incredibly annoyed when the Muggle teenager had broken into the Ministry of Magic[1] simply to ask her to play tour guide, but she understood now why Anton was so protective of his younger brother. Layer on the fact that Micha didn't have a magical parent, and it made a little bit more sense why Anton was so intent on forcing his way into the magical world.

"I think that's through the wardrobe," she said with a laugh, flicking a quick glance to Anton before flashing a grin at Micha for his joke. "Maybe we'll pop out through the weirwood in Winterfell? Or open a Door into the Dark Tower?"

It wasn't often that she was appreciative of the pop culture obsession of her Capture Unit teammates, but Tessa willed a silent thanks to Harris and Sasaki as she led the others through the busy pub to the back courtyard. If nothing else, at least their constant yammering gave her enough knowledge that she could banter with the Schafers.

Clouds hung heavy in the sky overhead, but the air outside was warm and pleasant. The courtyard was clearly a busy thoroughfare today. Up ahead, Tessa could see the wall closing behind the last family that had passed through into Diagon Alley.

"This is Jack, by the way," she told the Schafers, casting a look back at her brother. There was no mistaking the two Fenneken siblings, either: both shared the same honey-blonde hair and the same pert nose, though Jack's was still patently stuck inside his book. "He's going to be a sixth year in Hufflepuff; that's one of the Hogwarts houses."

1.	March 9, 2012 - Tell Us How It's Done, Mate

Heroes didn't get any appreciation. Tessa had practically worn her shoes out on patrol over the past three nights. She had kept watch for deadly beasts until her eyes had hurt, and spent so long in her fox form that she probably had fleas. She had even been one of the first on the scene when someone had called in the werewolf near Betws-y-Coed, which meant that she practically could have died, which certainly qualified her for a day or two off from errands as far as she was concerned.

Unfortunately, her mother never saw it that way. Still looking sour, Tessa checked the shopping list in her hand, and then paused to pick out exactly the right box of bone-dry, tasteless breakfast cereal, which she knew she'd never hear the end of were she to somehow get it wrong. Her mum didn't care that she was out all night, she thought churlishly as she dropped the box into the trolley's basket. She barely seemed to care that her daughter practically could have died. No, what mattered was the fact that Tessa had slept in past noon, which meant her mum had nagged and nagged at her until she'd finally gotten up and then sent her off to do the shopping.

Tessa painstakingly crossed off the Weetabix from the list, sighing as she scanned over the rest of it. Sometimes, she couldn't help but wonder if her mum's endless fussing was all part of a plot to finally get her to move out of the family home.

 She'd already secured most of the basics: eggs, milk, supper ingredients for the next week. All that was left were some crisps and some other snacks for her brothers. Heaving another loud sigh, Tessa leaned into her trolley to jolt it into forward motion once more.

The blonde witch was still tired enough from her full moon watch that she wasn't really looking where she was going. As she rounded the corner into the snack aisle, it was only by sheer reflex that she managed to halt her trolley in time to keep it from smashing into another one that someone had left in the middle of the aisle.

"Oi!" she snapped, more than a little annoyed. "You can't just --"

Then her brain finally processed the information that her eyes were sending it. Young woman. Very, very pregnant. Stretching hard to reach something...

"--do that on your own," Tessa interrupted herself, her face flushing with embarrassment. Recovering quickly, she pushed her trolley to the side of the aisle, and then stepped forward next to the young woman. "Um, do you want a hand with that? I can help."

Right around noon on Saturday, August 11
The Leaky Cauldron
Just outside Diagon Alley

The Leaky Cauldron wasn’t one of Tessa Fenneken’s usual haunts. Particularly this time of year, the usual magical London crowd was augmented with excited families, nervously checking their shopping lists or catching a bite to eat before heading into Diagon Alley.

Across the table from her, her brother Jack had his nose buried in a book on Quidditch strategies. Her youngest brother was on the verge of entering his sixth year — he’d made the Hufflepuff team as a chaser the year before, and ever since, he’d been obsessed with nothing but the sport.  That was the only reason she’d begrudgingly agreed to let him tag along today when her mother had asked. As soon as they passed Quality Quidditch Supplies, Tessa knew he’d peel off to go stare longingly through the window with his friends.

It was only a few minutes past noon now, but Tessa couldn’t help herself from looking impatiently towards the door. It wasn’t as though she was concerned. Even though he was a Muggle, Anton had proven that he had had no issue finding the Leaky Cauldron, and she’d gone shopping with him and Micha once before back in March. But the German teen had a bad habit of letting his excitement lead him into trouble.

Suddenly, she spotted them — Anton first, his blonde hair bleached nearly white from the summer sun, and his younger brother alongside him.

She snapped twice in Jack’s direction, rising to her feet. “That’s them! Come on.”

Without waiting to make sure that her brother was following, she was up and weaving through the crowd, making her way to the Schafers. It hadn’t really been all that long since she’d last seen Micha, but she would have sworn that the soon-to-be Hogwarts student had grown several inches since their last visit together.

“Hi,” she said cheerfully, flashing a smile first at Anton and then favoring his younger brother. “You ready? Do you think you remember how to get us through into Diagon Alley, Micha?”

"No, vampires are more dangerous on new moons --" Tessa started, then cut herself off with a huffed sigh.

That seemed to happen quite a bit around Anton, who was off and running with such enthusiasm that it often didn't seem worth it to reign him back in. She ought to be more annoyed about it, but the German teenager was so exuberant that it was hard to stay irritated with him for very long.

His comment about Micah perhaps not being Muggleborn was curious enough to prick her interest, but they also had to be getting dangerously close to the ten minute limit that Bagnold had given her. On the heel of a long full moon, Tessa wasn't about to test her boss's patience by letting the conversation drag out.

"I suppose it depends, really," she said, glancing over at the office door. "We can talk about it more next Saturday."

Now, there just remained the problem of getting Anton out of the Ministry, back onto the lift and out past the Welcome Desk in the atrium, so that she could send him on his way without anyone being the wiser that there had been a Muggle in the Capture Unit office. At least the delay had given her a good excuse to miss the post-full moon gathering with her teammates at the Sword and Chant.

"Here, let me just grab my things from my desk and then I can walk you out," she said, flashing Anton a tired smile as she ushered him back towards the door to the main office. "Have you been to the Leaky Cauldron before? That's probably the best place to meet."

Anton agreed so enthusiastically that Tessa knew she was going to regret this. His immediate framing of the situation -- "given you're an important government official and all" -- made her eyes widen.

"But I'm not --" she started to protest, before realizing that all resistance was futile.

As unsure about this as she was, it was hard to stay leery when the blond German boy was so eager. Tessa sighed, and then gave him an uncertain smile.

"No, um, I think normally a professor from Hogwarts comes to explain the basics to Muggleborn families when they deliver their Hogwarts letter," she said, a little cautiously. A distant memory flickered: sitting on her father's knee when he recounted how a stern-looking woman in a pointed hat had come to sternly tell his parents that he'd been invited to attend a magical school up in Scotland.

She felt a ping of sympathy for what Anton and his family must be going through. Tessa didn't know her family very well on her father's side; it always felt awkward visiting them when she'd been younger, when their awareness of witches and wizards and magic was only very vague at best. Knowing that Micah was about to be invited into a new world that they could only tangentially be part of had to be hard, especially when the only helpful tips that anyone ever had to share was that Muggles should stay away.

"What about next Saturday?" she suggested, glancing at the teenager. "This weekend's bad, because Gris's birthday party is tomorrow and we've only just gotten off our March full moon patrol." She gave a shrug, feeling a little more acclimated to the idea of playing tour guide now. "But any weekend is fine, really, as long as it's not around the full moon."

It was hard to imagine that Gris Hericho could be any bolder than she was normally, but it was clear that the flowing alcohol had already removed her friend's filter. Tessa shot her best friend a deadly look for making reference to what she'd shared in passing confidence the last time they'd gone out.

No, Anton was not the one who had bought her drinks during that disastrous night[1] (and even worse morning after) back in January. Red-faced, Tessa risked a look around, but there was no way that Lochlainn O'Keefe would ever deign to be seen at a young adult party like this. He was probably off talking up witches in pubs, or buying rounds for half the bar, or whatever it was he did for fun when he wasn't being horribly awful and dismissive and then never owling people.

At least the company here tonight was a good distraction, even if Gris was intent on being a traitor. Tessa laughed, flashing Nicholas a bright smile to confirm that she did, indeed, work on Level Four.

"Who's to say the swimming has to wait for after?" she asked daringly, looking from Nicholas and Anton to Fauna and Gris. "We need to work up an appetite somehow, don't we?"

1.	January 10, 2012 - Save Tonight

The pieces were starting to fit together, but the pattern that they were forming was mundane enough that Tessa couldn't quite place it into the urgent context that had caused Anton to barge into the Ministry on the day after a full moon. She could sympathize with Anton's concerns about his little brother. She'd never had to worry about not fitting in at Hogwarts, but the prejudice that Muggleborn wizards faced had inflicted a still-smoldering wound on her family.

It was...reasonable to ask about. If she forgot about the way that Anton had gone about making his request, it was even smart: the German teenager's first adventure in Diagon Alley had ended up with him nearly getting murdered in a dark corner by a vampire, which would have surely come about if Tessa hadn't happened upon him on Christmas Eve.  Asking for advice on how to navigate a place like Diagon was far safer than Anton fumbling around on his own as a Muggle.

It was just all the rest of this that wasn't so smart: If the wrong person got wind of a Muggle bold enough to barge straight into the Ministry, Tessa wasn't sure if Anton's familial connection to his younger brother would be enough to justify leaving him be.

The blonde witch glanced away, absently tucking her hair back behind her ears as she thought.

"We-ell..." she started slowly, "I don't know if it will help with meeting his classmates, but Diagon Alley isn't normally that dangerous." She hesitated for a brief moment, as if deciding whether she really wanted to go through with this, and then looked over to meet Anton's gaze. "If you really just want to start by taking him shopping, then I guess I could meet you there the first time. You know, to show you around."

It seemed like a tragedy that this was the first time she was meeting Sir Otto von Flufferstein of the Kingdom Couch. Tessa oohed and aahed as she crouched down to shower the spaniel with scritches and affection. If she'd been at all unpleased to see Anton a few moments before, any negative feelings had immediately fled.

"Yeah, crashing's half the fun!" she put in, flashing a warm smile up at the Muggle teen.

Other guests were still arriving, and a pillow was flung in a nearby group. Tessa shot a look over at the girls who were calling to Fauna about inviting Ed Pratt. What was with them and insisting on talking about work? Most of the Werewolf Wing had picked up on the negative feelings towards the Head Auror that had been circulating since the January full moon, and having him here would definitely spoil everyone's mood.

She gave Sir Otto one last pat and then rose back to her feet.  "Did Micah tag along?" she asked Anton brightly, scanning around for a drink.

The newest arrival seemed to have come equipped with plenty of bottles of mead, along with his loud queries to Fauna about skinny dipping. The former, at least, deserved an official introduction.

"Hi! I'm Tessa," she said cheerfully, shoving a hand at Nicholas -- though she kept a wary eye out so that she could dodge out of the way of the inebriated birthday girl, who was likely to come barreling through for a hug. "You work on Level Three, don't you? I think I've seen you around the Ministry."

That was...it?

Tessa blinked at him, the exhaustion in her expression quickly giving way to warring annoyance and bewilderment. That was what Anton wanted?  That was why he'd barged into the Ministry the day after a full moon, talked his way into the Werewolf Capture Unit office, and risked getting her fired? Because he wanted to take his little brother shopping in Diagon Alley?

It was baffling. She was also completely perplexed as to why he had to ask her this. Anton was obviously good mates with Sasha Schlagenweit (sorry, Snow), and he seemed to be friendly with Fauna Blake and Figaro Sellaphix, too. Any of them seemed like perfectly good options to accompany Anton and Micah to Diagon. It wasn't as if he were asking to take his little brother on a tour of a werewolf cave or something.

"Can't you...just ask Schlagenweit?" she asked uncertainly, hesitation creeping into her voice. "I mean, Diagon's pretty safe, as long as you go there during the day. When Micah gets his Hogwarts letter, I think someone from Hogwarts will come to explain how to do it."

It was obvious that only the Werewolf Capture Unit had just spent the past three days out in the field protecting Britain from monsters. Tessa shot a look at the Beast Wing trainee that seemed to be intent on tempting fate as he manned the grill, displeased that he'd brought it up so directly. But she wasn't about to get in an argument with Fauna and Gris, and especially not on her friend's birthday. Hopefully, the others would drop the talk of werewolves and she could just ignore it.

Anton had apparently arrived too, but this time, he'd brought along an endearing-enough companion that she couldn't even be irritated at him.

"Oh, a dog!" she exclaimed, immediately dropping down to extend her hand to Sir Otto.

It was probably not the kindest thing to bring a dog to Gris's birthday party. Her friend had always been very clear that canines were not her favorite, especially when they had a habit of chasing her around in her cat Animagus form. But in the moment, Tessa didn't care -- and who could possibly expect the very good dog who was lumbering along after Anton to go chasing after a cat like Gris?

"He's such a good boy! What's his name?" she asked, beaming up at Anton.