Absit Omen RPG

Dear ...

Hope this finds you well, friend. Given our terrible social lives of late, what with teenagers and a growing baby to boot, Gabrielle and I would like to invite you to Sunday lunch on the 9th September. It's no special occasion, other than to catch up with dear friends. We hope you can join us.

Lunch will be at three o'clock, but we are happy to receive you from two. Please do remind us if you've turned vegetarian, or carnivore since we last hosted.

With best wishes,

Francis & Gabrielle

“Er.. thank you.. Sandy.” Francis was taken by surprise. The formality in front of the Trainee Healer from his friend had made Francis adopt it too until this parting remark. “That would be good - I’ll speak with Gabrielle.”

He gave a little bow and returned to Ambrose and his regrowing buttocks. What a day…

End

Francis was sure that Sandy was being so formal because of the presence of his trainee. They’d known each other decades, but Sandy always was the posher one. He’d grown up in money whereas the Peppers had always been comfortable but not rolling in it like the Misslethorpes had been.

Sandy didn’t spare any time in informing Ambrose of his predicament from splinching. The seventeen year old looked mortified, beetroot red. Francis bit his lip in second-hand embarrassment for the encounter. But in reality, he was incredibly glad Ambrose had only splinched something which could be fixed, and not hurt more seriously. It had been worth every galleon to pay for the private lessons with one of the Department of Magical Transport’s instructors, to give Ambrose extra time to work on the skill. Not that it was all that common to pass first time, after all. Many people never even began the training to take the test.

“Ambrose!” Francis Pepper exclaimed, hurriedly setting down a china teacup and saucer. The Daily Prophet spilled from his lap, the broadsheets crumpling as they slid to the tiled floor. “Don’t move too quick, son. Imagine it’ll smart still…” He was on his feet, hands to the back of his eldest son’s shoulders.

“You’re in St Mungo’s, you’ve been out for an hour. They said it was best to let you come round in your own time after the shock.” His hands squeezed, an attempt to convey parental reassurance.

“It’ll be alright, they said you could retake it in a fortnight,” he patted, “happens to the best of us on first try…”

“Someone planted it in here to be a nuisance? Or could it steal more than time?” Brinley asked, examining the tamper trapped in the glass.

“A nuisance, certainly.” Francis agreed, approaching, hands outstretched to take it. “Malicious, to disrupt. But…” he cast his eye around the Minister’s office, he lowered his voice to match, “.. might be an idea to have a thorough going over in case there’s anything else lurking.”

The tamper was lifeless, trapped in the glass which Abbott had transfigured into a complete sphere. Francis couldn’t stop himself feeling ever so slightly excited at seeing one, despite how serious it was.

“I’ll take it for examination,” he suggested, aware Two might want to swoop it up for evidence of some sort before he could otherwise. “And once you’re ready, have magical maintenance bring the clock down to the workshop, or off to a horologist as you prefer for repair.”

“Mr Abbott? Mr Pepper?” The voice called through the door again, and the door handle shook.

To strip the clock back and restore it part by part would be a project Francis would be fascinated to take part in, but he had to remember that this clock had been brought down for inspection for a criminal investigation. A good man had been murdered. It was not the usual fayre in the workshop, but in the Department of Mysteries who could truly say anything was ‘usual’?

“Not to such an extent, or on something so large.” Francis answered honestly. “Small devices can be upset by strong magic, but often the impacts cause other more physical damage than just to the charms.” As he spoke his own pocketwatch came to his hand from his waistcoat pocket, and he gestured as if it were to take a direct strike from a curse.

“The majority of times it is the weakening of charms over time, then a link to the owner’s timeline, or physical damage which brings them to the average clockmaker. This one, well, I might be speaking out of turn, but it lacks individualised features. That, and it would be restarted - rather than jammed.”

He looked back to the still face of the clock and pressed his lips into a thin line of contemplation.

“Strong magic,” he resolved, “either to it directly, or very close by. Temporal disturbance, perhaps, but those alone ordinarily cause repetition, or an excessive wind on the springs. Not a curse with physical impact - everything is in place and nothing has broken, snapped or bent within it. The case is undamaged as well as the mechanism. All the parts are present and unchanged to the best of my knowledge.” He gestured towards it as he spoke, and shook his curls. He turned back to Bagnold, with a slightly sorry expression this time. “I must caution you that long-clocks aren’t my personal specialism, so I cannot entirely rule out my human error on the minor measure.”  He tilted his head to consider his visitor, sensing this information might not be the full puzzle piece the younger wizard might be seeking.

“I have a colleague in experimental charms,” he offered, “who I posed the theoretical problem to. It has us both intrigued on a mutual interest. We have a proposition to carry out practical experiments on some smaller devices, see if we can crack it. You sure you don’t have any lead with it? Were there any other enchanted artefacts at the scene, unaffected?” The problem gnawed at him when he was up in the middle of the night attending to his baby daughter, but he had his own duties to keep on top of, and the merits of solving this problem were limited in the sphere of research.

Bagnold paused to consider his immediate questions. This was no bother, Francis was quite attune to visitors taking a moment to consider answers to questions they might not have anticipated.

Have you considered the consequences of your spouse seeing two of you? Do you have a safe location to lay low while your past-self occupies your bed or your employment? Though here he wasn’t issuing a time-turner to someone for the first time, they were discussing a clock which had stopped before a man’s brutal death, as far as Pepper understood from the newspaper and the paperworks.

“.. I’m mostly curious about why it stopped..” They both looked to the clock’s face thoughtfully, and then Francis looked back to Bagnold as he posed his altogether trickier question.

“Clocks of magical creation follow the same principles and mechanics of muggle clocks, but some elements cannot be achieved without a little magic.” He reached up and unlatched the face, exposing the inner workings which looked to anyone else like any clock they might have imagined. “We make use of the fact we needn’t wind them, and we might decorate with enchantments.” He gestured to the paintwork which did rotate, but would have probably also animated like many magical paintings could.

“Without the enchantments, the clock will be forced to rely on its original muggle workings, and without winding, well, this one came to an immediate halt.” Francis was glancing back and forth to Bagnold and then realised he might have missed a significant piece of information there.

“But this was the curious part,” he smiled a little at the puzzle, “I assumed at first that the enchantments had been lifted, or had faded,” he brought his wand to his hand, “but they are still there - just locked against each other. Something has disrupted them.”

He cast a wordless spell with tiny, precise gestures, and the clockwork shuddered, trembled, as if fighting against itself.

“It simply cannot restart, as some of the enchantments are - well, reverse or corrupted for want of a better description. It requires stripping back and re-enchanting to bring it back to working order.” He shook his head, knowing that would take some significant work. He waved his wand neatly once more and the clockwork fell still and silent again.

“As for the enchantments working before then, well, I cannot say for certain. They are working in opposition, but they are still very present. After so long it is more difficult to establish. However, here, you can see it was renewed at Cogg and Bell[1] on Diagon last year[2].” He pointed to a brass plate etched inside the casing, and stepped back to let Bagnold take a closer look.

1.	Cogg and Bell
2.	Threads - Alec was living with his parents in threads April 2011, but must have moved out at some point, so figure the clock could have been bought then

“Don’t think so,” Francis replied, though he was now peering into the shadowy mechanisms of the clock, wand tip lit. Nothing else appeared to be wanting to crawl out or throw something at him, so he was almost certain on his assessment.

“You poor thing, it’s made a mess of you…” He murmured to the clock as if it were a neglected animal or child. Then he remembered Brin was containing the tamper.

The door handle of the office suddenly rattled from outside. A voice called
“Hoi, are you alright in there Mr Abbott? It’s been a while?” Francis immediately put his hand into his pocket and consulted his pocket watch.

“Hah! That confirms it,” Francis exclaimed, with more joy than any ordinary bystander might. This was an extraordinary day and he was pleased to pick up Brin’s memo.

“We’ve jumped forward twenty-seven minutes. All down to that,” he pointed at the glass Brinley was clasping. “A temporal tamper. Causes havoc with magical mechanics, and particularly likes to hide in clocks.” He extended his hands to receive it for closer inspection.

“Not a creature, but a tricky, malicious piece of enchantment. They will damage clocks and sometimes they can even produce temporal disturbances around them. It must have happened as you hexed it, otherwise we would have noticed repeating, or skipped hours in here before now.” Francis held it up to the light, fascinated.

“Yes,” Francis Pepper replied, wand in hand. “It won’t be very big - like a fly, but I want it in one piece.”

He took up position about six foot from the clock, and off to one side. With a fluid sweep of his wand the upper and lower doors swept open on their hinges, and an angry clattering began. Another weight plummeted with a crunch onto the pedestal from the trunk of the clock.

Undeterred, Francis began to manipulate the clockwork beyond, which let out a series of erratic chimes and bells, until something rattled and gave an unhealthy twang. The sound which followed was reminiscent of a wizard emptying a coin purse into a pint glass. It meant Francis would almost certainly be piecing the clock back together after this, but that the uninvited guest was making a bid for freedom.

“There!” Francis exclaimed, as a spindly spider leapt to the wall and began to race for cover behind a picture frame.

The workshop was a blissful, working hubbub of clockwork and somewhere a bubbling of water. The curls of Francis Pepper were jostling gently as he worked tiny, delicate tools. He was peering through an enormous magnifying glass, the lens being one of what looked like twenty set on spindly brass arms attached to a central workbench. The light of flames licked around the curved glass with a regular flutter.

The sound of the door opening went almost unheeded through the concentration until the out of place voice heralded the arrival.
“Hullo? I’m from Four, here to check in about the clock.” Francis blinked, looked up, regarding Kurby Bagnold through another lens which inverted his body with the distance.

“Ah!” Francis replied, more through stalling than in greeting. This gave him time to set his tools down into the tray with a trim clatter. He drew the stool out across the tiles and dusted his hands on his leather apron as he made his way towards the visitor. “Yes, of course. Expecting you.” Time had slipped away despite the many sources measuring its passage surrounding them, but time had a habit of doing that even to those who made their career out of studying it.

The wizard who had arrived had a southern English accent, and was slight, dark and direct in impression. Younger than Francis, but this was frequently the case, but refreshingly the younger man did not tower over him. Four were all outdoorsy, physical sorts save for perhaps Spirit Division. Francis was a neat, but practical sort. That Tuesday he wore brown corduroy trousers, pale cream shirt with flaxen cravat and fern waistcoat. His leather apron bore countless scratches and pits from long professional use.

“Francis Pepper, well met.” He extended his calloused hand politely to shake through introductions, but didn’t linger, gesturing to his visitor to follow him across the room. They passed racks of neatly ordered tools in descending size or shape, a tank of bubbling liquid which one tasted the briney smell of if inhaled too deeply and a cabinet of what appeared to be a cabinet holding several hundred tiny drawers all neatly labelled in copperplate hand.

At one side, with a backdrop of star-charts and a ‘millennia calendar’ which curled at the corners, stood a conspicuously quiet grandfather clock. Within its work, time stood still, and had done since early January to Pepper’s understanding, stopped at a night hour. The gold lattice across the face gleamed with the strange light of the workshop which was both not too bright but just enough. The scene of London weather, cityscape and the full moon remained dull as it had been on first examination in situ.

“Well,” Francis began, considering what might be of most use to state. “It is indeed a clock of magical creation, rather than originally muggle and charmed after. It was made by the Bell family - Bartholomew Bell I believe by the number.” He unlatched the glass over the face it and indicated the plate. “In good nick, worth a lot.” 

“So the enchantments would be several hundred years old, if not renewed through repair, but I couldn’t see any clear indication from the mechanisms that any physical repairs have been carried out. It all appears to be of similar age. Without the magic, one can see it begins to show its age.” He gestured with a careful finger to the dial where the colour had faded.

“While I’ve compiled a study for your investigation,” Francis explained kindly, studying Bagnold’s brow, “What are your pressing queries?”

Abbott did exactly as asked, not hesitating at all. Francis was glad of this demonstration of trust. They had known each other for a long time, but even good friends would stop to query he was entirely sane at times. In relation to a finger-severing clock, it would be reasonable.

“What is your theory? Now you have us locked in with it.”

“I think there’s something in here that shouldn’t be,” Francis explained, “and I don’t want it to try and get away.” He lit his wand and leaned cautiously towards the face of the clock, and listened carefully. The clock continued to tick with a slightly uneven moment. He would have to open the face to get a better lock inside. This was presumably what Magical Maintenance had attempted to do, judging by the splatter and smear of blood on the pale paintwork.

Francis retreated away from the clock to confer with Brinley.
“I could be wrong, but if I was a betting man, I’d say we had a tamper.” Perhaps he should have brought Theta up with him - it was unusual to meet one. It was unlikely Brin had even heard of one. “And if that’s the case, when I take it apart, it might burst out. So I need your sharp wand at the ready to stun it. Then we’ll be able to trap it.” Francis seized an empty water glass on the Minister’s desk behind them, and upended it, handing it to the undersecretary.

Francis paused to listen to Abbott’s explanation. He was rather fond of his fingers, and they were crucial to his job. He did not want to lose them.

“And you say you’ve checked for a boggart,” he gestured with the memo once more. “And nobody’s touched the clock before now, no maintenance, so winding, that you know of, anyway?” He asked, giving a little hum at the answers.

Francis looked about himself, and summoned the Minister’s tea table from between the armchairs which sat before the fireplace. He positioned it to the left of the temperamental timepiece. From within his velveteen tailcoat he reached a bundle of what appeared to be cloth, which he unrolled neatly on the table, revealing a set of unusual silver tools.

He consulted his pocket watch and compared the time, giving another hum. He raised his wand to the clock’s face, muttered under his breath and twisted his wrist twice anti-clockwise and thrice clockwise.

At once the clock ground to a halt and the hands moved back, then forth. There was a heavy clunk within the case, and one of the weights crashed to the base.

“I see…” Francis remarked, looking to Brin. “I have a theory. Secure the door and ward the windows.”

“You memo’d.” Francis Pepper waved the unfolded paper aeroplane which had alighted on his workbench six minutes and twenty-two seconds previous. He stood in the doorway of the Minister’s outer office. The domain of Holmes, Pickler and presently Abbott and a harassed looking member of the Magical Maintenance team.

“We can handle a griffin,” the aforementioned team member announced, thumbing over their shoulder through the open door of the Minister’s office, “but that clock’s something out of Nine. Good luck Pepper.”

“Thank you, I think.” Francis replied, stepping aside to let them depart. “I heard you have a clock that bites fingers?” He asked Brinley. “Hope Dervish is reunited with his successfully. Sounds like quite the eventful morning.” He walked politely across the office, understanding time was of the essence, not just because he was here to diagnose a clock.

His sister-in-law stalked his brother round the car, and Monty employed a placid nephew to try and avoid the ire. For one in their number who did not possess a wand, Catherine Pepper more than held her own!

Francis drew his attention back from the scene on the gravel driveway to his dear wife and their youngest. Dear Gabrielle’s lips had turned quickly into a smile, and Francis mirrored, feeling the lift of his heart that always came with seeing his wife after a little time apart. Mia burbled out a greeting as he wrapped his arms around them and looked down into her bundle, leaning in to kiss daughter on the forehead.

“I can’t decide who’s longed for you the most, beautiful man…”
“Oh surely me for you two, love.” Francis returned softly, squeezing her waist tight as he kissed her, his eyes closing. “I’m so very glad to be on solid ground again.” He shook his curly head and glanced back at the assembled family.

“I think time to ask Imp to put the tea on retire inside to the sitting room together, hm?” He looked to Gabrielle for confirmation this was proper. Despite the place being his home too these days, he still didn’t feel lordly or proper enough to act like it. If they’d still been in their Muggle house in Biggleswade it would have been the last of the leftover turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce. Then there’d have been mince pies, pots of tea and an attempt to tear the boys from whatever Christmas gifts they were glued to, to play a board game.

“Merry Christmas, Camille!” He greeted, spotting his wife’s relative - significantly taller than the average Pepper - in their number.

“I knew it!” A young voice cried from further within the house. It was a little muffled from the amusement of the rest of the family, but Francis thought he recognised Eta, using her new voice projection abilities following the performances of a Christmas Carol[1]. The whole family had turned out to watch of course. They’d all been rather good.

“Come on, let’s go inside and not catch cold.” Francis suggested more loudly, well aware of how chaotic their family gatherings could get.

1.

Ref

Francis Pepper waited for the ground to feel solid before he considered standing up from the passenger seat and onto their front drive. He braced his arms against the tops of his legs while his brother enthusiastically continued to explain the workings to a fascinated Tim who had ridden in the back seat for the journey. The two of them seemed to bounce around him both in voice and in life.

He slipped his pocketwatch from his waistcoat pocket and gave it a closer look.
“Er, Octavius…” he addressed his brother with his Christian name, rather than the middle name he’d clung to with his time in America masquerading as someone else to avoid a time turner paradox. “How fast did you say this went, because it’s mathematically impossible it was limited at that speed if we’re here already.”

Don’t get the unspeakable wrong, it wasn’t that he was upset the journey was over. Quite the opposite, glad it was and he was safely back on the ground. He wanted to see his darling wife, young daughter and both his sons again, and riding in his brother’s flying cars always put that nagging doubt into his mind.

But here they were, in front of Gabrielle’s family home, in one piece, and as he got to his feet and checked the skies around them, they had not been pursued by aurors, nor Muggle helicopters. The car’s cloaking seemed to be reliable at long last. Such efficiency would only encourage his brother. Especially as he was still buoyed up by Minister Glass’ mild interest.

He took tentative steps across the gravel, and reached to open the front door, revealing a small audience in the front hallway, led by a sharp looking Catherine Pepper.

“Oh,” Francis exclaimed at his sister in law, “we’re… we’re home.”