Absit Omen RPG

To say things had been a bit tense around the Ministry, as of late, would be a bit of an understatement.  Werewolf attacks, criminal sightings, staff exorcisms.  Not that being an Auror trainee had ever been boring but some fate, somewhere, seemed intent on giving Migs the most intense training possible as he waded through his third and final year in black robes. 

Tonight’s assignment seemed simple enough – helping out and providing a little back up for those who were putting in a night of service at a local werewolf Safe House. 

After double-checking the address of the location, Migs brushed the soles of his black cowboy boots clean on the doormat before stepping inside. 

“Hey, brother!” Migs offered, returning the other’s greeting.  “It has been ages, but you got it – Migs.  Which, man, you’re showing me up.  I’m afraid I’ve misplaced more names.  But there were a lot more of you all than there were of Salemites.”

The tournament had given him the opportunity to come see England and visit his Great Aunt.  By the time it – and all his years at Salem – were over, he’d had a hard time seeing himself just return to the reservation and working on the cattle ranch.  He was closer to family here in the UK than he would have back in New England, so he’d opted to stay.     

“So, are you the fella I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on?  I was just told to come here and hang out with the cool kids.”

Migs strode down the hall, boots rapping against the shiny floor, as he ferried the stack of memos and signed papers from their various offices of origin back to the epicenter of the Auror office.  It wasn't uncommon to hear the ever-so-musical din of commotion coming from various corners of Level 2, but said commotion usually involved the frustrated or angry shouts of suspects and the less-then-impressed counters from the Aurors corralling them. 

This brand of commotion had a decidedly different feel.  It held a curious similarity to the that accompanied a snow storm which had trapped his small herd of nieces, nephews and cousins inside for over three days. 

After depositing the bits of parchment, Migs retrieved his wide-brimmed cowboy hat from his cubicle and followed the noise to it's source.  Just in time to see Fauna shuffle several small kids ahead of her into one of the offices.  From a distance, she seemed to have a firm handle of the situation.

Or, not. 

Migs walked over to Room 301 and leaned against the door frame, grinning at the minor chaos inside. 

"Now, I'm not sure I've seen a scarier bunch of prisoners before," he said, adopting a perfectly serious (albeit clearly not-British) tone.  "What did you bring this lot in for, Blake?  Armed robbery?  Broom theft?  I bet they held up the Hogwarts Express, didn't they?" 

As a fledgling second year trainee, Mig's official role in the raid plan had been 'record keeper.'  His original assigned duty had been to watch, observe, learn and record everything that was said or done so they'd have official evidence for the post-raid trials.  That plan had held for the first ... five?  Ten minutes?  At least, until the first trap was triggered and all plans went out the exploding windows. 

Migs sat on the floor and leaned against the wall.  He'd been enough outside the initial fray that he'd missed the primary effects of the traps and had walked away with injuries that were healed with five minutes of healing charms.  As far as his mother needed to know, he'd made it out completely unscathed.  "I talked Bailey into going to St. Mungo's rather than coming back up here."

Migs wrinkled his nose and gave his head a vigorous shake, sending copious strands of long black hair flying.  “Rollers and powder?”  He’d never considered himself to be vain, precisely; he certainly wasn’t one to spend copious amounts of time priming himself and ensuring his clothing ensemble was perfectly arranged.  He had a style and most of his wardrobe tended to support that style but he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of binding and powdering his hair. 

“Not sure it would work, anyway,” he offered, smoothing his hair back into place with his fingers.  “It has always been resistant to styling.  Some of it is genetics, I think.  My sisters are always complaining that they can never get their hair to do anything but fall straight.  But, some of it might be magic.  One of my muggle teachers at the Res school kept trying to chop it off and it’d grow back within a week.  Drove him nuts.”

It had always delighted Migs, though.  The disbelieving disappointment on the old man’s face had always been the highlight of history class.

“Well, looky there!”  Migs lifted an eyebrow as he rotated the bracelet around Dosia’s wrist.  “I had no idea.  Here I was thinking I was just part of the regular crowd and now I’m getting sneaked in to the special Whos Who tent.  I should have known better.” 

Sparing only a brief, self-conscious thought for his roughened, ranch-calloused knuckles as Dosia took his hand, Migs followed her lead through the crowd.  “Ah.  Blind date, then.”  A curious tradition that Migs had never quite understood.  “So, I take it the blind date didn’t leave you with plans for a second?  No secret plans to elope to Venice?”  He smirked, half-expecting the curse that this apparently date-challenged fellow had dodged. 

“Hmm…”  Migs eyed the trays as they meandered slowly by, considering his options.  One particular tray floated by within easy reach, carefully balancing an assortment of drink-filled flute glasses and Migs managed to retrieve a mimosas for Dosia without toppling the rest of the drinks.  He knew what he was craving once he spotted the two elements but he’d been in England long enough to know his choice was likely to raise a few eyebrows.  “Don’t judge me,” he said, preemptively.  A tall glass of ice was plucked from one tray just in time for Migs to pick up a steaming pot of tea from another.  The ice creaked in protest as it transformed the very British pot of tea into a very American glass of iced tea. 

“So, who's playing at this thing?  Anyone I'd know?" 

“A barrister?”  Migs brows knitted together in confusion as he glanced down at the witch.  He knew he’d heard the word somewhere but couldn’t place it.  He didn’t think it was a wizarding term, but … wait…  Now, he remembered!  Law and Order UK.  “Oh right, lawyers with funny accents and wigs!  I’m not sure I could pull off the look.  My hair doesn’t take to being restrained very well.”
 
“Either way, I’m off the clock.”
 
As implausible as a bad date with Dosia seemed, it was quite apparent that it had happened.  And, just the night before.  Which explained more than a few things.  One eyebrow gradually hitched towards Migs’ hairline as the witch recounted her eventful evening.  Several important points seemed to stand out in the retelling.  One, they needed alcohol.  Two, that guy must have been very insecure.  Three, riding dragons made for some interesting edits to country songs.
 
“Save a dragon, ride a cowboy,” Migs sang, nodding his head to the beat of a song that few probably knew in the surrounding British witch and wizard crowd.  His witticisms seemed to always fall victim to cultural differences.  “I think I saw food and drink stands back that way.  Do your festivals usually serve mimosas?  Ours are considered fancy if they serve anything beyond Bud.”
 
“Two questions: how were you not arrested for cursing the fellow?  And, how did you end up going on a date with this guy in the first place?  It doesn’t sound like he’s good at hiding his jerkishness.  I hope, at least, he was a stand in for a Chippendale.”  Presumably, something must have prompted this rendezvous.  If it wasn't personality, it had to be appearance. 

“Now wait a minute…”  Migs arched an eyebrow in a poor attempt at faked annoyance as he looked down at Dosia.  He lifted on hand, palm up, as if weighing an invisible object.  “You want a personal Auror bodyguard.”  He lifted the other hand, mirroring the other’s scale-like gesture.  “But, you don’t want me fulfilling my important and noble Auror duties.  If you keep waffling back and forth, you’re going to give me an identity crisis.” 

With a broad, toothy grin, Migs dropped his hands and the charade.  His arms were much better served looped with Dosia’s than mimicking some lawyer or politician symbol, anyway.

“Does all of that sound acceptable, officer?”

“No playing sheriff, I swear.” Using his free hand, he extended the offer of a pinky swear.  "I promise to make no arrests.  Not even a brief interrogation.  I’m happy to put report writing, mistake explaining and life-choice-question answering aside, as well.  Though, babysitting does sound fun.”  Which, of course, was probably a simple matter of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence.  As, the youngest of five, he’d been spared the task of supervising his siblings but there was now a browning abundance of little nieces and nephews that he needed to get home to see. 

But, it was hard to overlook a particularly emphatic emphasis.  “Avoiding terrible dates,” he repeated.  “I assume that’s some weird, random, groundless phobia of yours?  You couldn’t possibly be speaking from experience.  One would have to actively try to have a terrible date with you.” 

It was hard to believe that an entire year had passed since Migs had left the familiarity of school and joined the Auror corps as a youthful grunt-in-training.  Caught in the day to day grind of running errands and trailing behind senior aurors like a cattle dog pup trying to keep up with its tried and true herding parents, those youthful school days felt like they belong to another era.  When they daily dust storm settled and Migs sat back to think, the preceding year seemed to have flickered by in the blink of an eye.

Not that their final year of school had been all that familiar to the senior Salemites that had voyaged across the sea to participate in the tetrawizard tournament.  Hogwarts, Scotland and London had been so different from the childhood Migs remembered.  But, regardless of cultural difference, it had still been school, free of all the mundane responsibilities and drudgery of Adulting.

So, Migs couldn’t resist the prospect of meeting up with a familiar face from his year at Hogwarts and taking a vacation from Adulting.  Especially when it involved some free time out in … well, in what the English seemed to think qualified as ‘in the country.’

Dressed in his usual ensemble of button up shirt, jeans (complete with rodeo medal belt buckle, of course), cowboy boots and hat, Migs weaved his way through the crowd, ignoring the usual curious glances cast his direction.  He had long since accepted that he could seem just as foreign to the local crowd as England often felt to him.  Luckily, the combination of height and boot heels helped the Ojibwe wizard peer over the crowd and located Dosia in short time.

Migs met the young woman with a broad grin and a tip of his hat, before wrapping her into a friendly hug.  “Of course, I made it,” he countered, his grin sliding into a smirk.  “Who else was going to come to your rescue?”  He straightened up and scanned the crowd, feigning being on the lookout for trouble.  He quickly abandoned the pretense and turned back to Dosia.

“It has been far too long!  How have you been?  Feeling like a proper mature adult, yet?  Any urges to tell everyone here off for their mischief?”

Filling the dutiful role of chief-minion, Migs followed several strides behind Nadine.  As a first year trainee, his current duties were quite basic and lacking in glory: cover the apprehended suspect in case he attempted to use their slippery constitutional to his advantage and minimize the degree to which their mess annoyed the other Ministry employees.
 
At regular intervals, Migs would cast scourgify, limiting the trail of ‘muddy’ foot steps to the half-dozen immediately following the fully-fledged auror and her captive.
 
He had his own healthy dose of muck and mire but, after a childhood spent on a cattle ranch and deep in the rodeo circuit, it was a rather comforting familiar feeling.  The smell even made him a tad bit nostalgic. 
 
“That face plant” Migs laughed, once they were well within the aurors’ domains and beyond earshot of the non-initiated Level 2ers.  That had been their arrestee that had face planted, right?  Not Nadine.  It had been a bit hard to tell towards the end, but he hoped he hadn't just accidentally laughed at the other auror.  He was ready to start siphoning the mud off Nadine but had decided to wait until the perp had been dealt with.  One didn’t engage in frantic de-mudding in front of their query.  “I should start bringing a lasso.”

Migs finished mincing the garlic the pulled the pile of mushrooms closer and glanced up at Elliot for further instructions.  Or, rather, watched her with the innocent and studious look of a pupil looking for further instructions.  While his hands passed the time by prying the stem free from one of the mushroom tops and standing an appropriately sized stalk of asparagus in it.  The asparagus wouldn't stay put and promptly fell onto its side on the cutting board. 

"Hnh, interesting," Migs remarked, holding his lips closed with his teeth to physically avoid grinning.  He promptly set the produce back in their respective corners as he considered the explanation about the older witch.  "If it's the same time every month, maybe she comes in when she gets her pension.  Does she always come in alone?" he asked.  Of course, it was difficult to know.  Perhaps the old woman was alone and the books were her companion.  Perhaps she was a collector.  He hoped the reality was more the later. 

Migs had come to look forward to these cooking lessons.  They did give him the ability to have an alternative to take out, which had become surprisingly welcome.  More importantly, they were much better than eating alone - something Migs had very limited experience with.  Eating alone at home was almost impossible; there were far too many family members.  The majority of meals at Salem were taken with classmates.  Over the last couple months, Migs had extended as many dinner invitations to Elliot as he could without outright admitting he did not like eating alone.  He wondered if she'd caught on.

"Used to?"  Migs repeated, shaking his head.  "Naw - more like resigned to.  I once thought ranchwork was hectic, especially in calving season.  Our days were longer but slower.  If that makes sense.  It seems like half the time your fetching tea or doing paperwork.  The other half your making mistakes, making up for mistakes or avoiding mistakes.  My aunt says the first year's like that - lots of trial by fire and figuring it out." 

He glanced at Elliot before taking a mushroom and starting to slice it.  "What about you?  You seem a bit more relaxed, too." 

The knife work had come easily, thanks to having done his fair share of butchering and prepping meat. Of course, that hadn't been exactly the same but it had given him some previous familiarity with cutting and slicing. The steepest learning curve came from putting all the stuff together in a cohesive, edible dish. Part of it was his lack of experience; a significant part of it had been his highly under-experienced palette. Asparagus was still a novel experience; though it had made a few appearances at Salem dinner tables, a younger Migs had passed over the green spears for more familiar potatoes and carrots. 

“Poor garlic,” Migs remarked with a smirk, pausing in his work to wiggle a stray spear of asparagus in the air before resuming his mincing.  A process that started with bashing cloves and freeing them from their papery coverings. 

“How are things at the book corral?” Migs asked as he carefully pressed the knife against the clove of garlic and started picking peel from the sticky clove.  “Any peculiar purchase made by oddball visitors?"

Remaining impassive was harder than Migs had anticipated.  With a fair bit of effort, the Auror trainee refrained from offering blind comfort and reassurance.  Again, with some effort, Migs also refrained from glancing at the older Auror when asked whether they'd be interviewing Zel when they found him.  He assumed that wasn't a given.  The Powers-that-be were probably going to worry about those details after they had found the young man.  However, he wasn't sure if they should admit such vacuities and he doubted demonstrating his inexperience by glancing at Eleor would help.   

He left that question to Eleor and focused on the other information.  If the disappearance was related to the werewolf games, as Emeline feared, that decreased the likelihood that the disappearance was random of unplanned.  Someone connected to the games would have likely identified him ahead of time and, presumably, there would have been some coordinating. 

"Did Zel happen to mention any abnormal interactions with anyone?  Anyone paying him a peculiar level of interest?"

"You only just turned twenty?  You make me feel old. Heh, and saying that just made me seem like it, I'm sure.”

Migs shrugged, casually.  “Only if you count this life,” he pointed out.  Sure.  It was obvious she had a few years on him.  But, Migs had rarely found the number of one’s age to be defining.  Though he and his classmates at Salem had been only a few years apart, there were times the age differences had felt more significant.  “How often do our spiritual and emotional ages match our physical age, anyway? 

He cradled his cup of coffee and inhaled the earthy aromas.  Again, vagueness veiled information about her past and, again, Migs found himself considering the implications.  They were, of course, little more than an hour displaced from being complete strangers, so hesitation on the basis of lack of familiarity was entirely understandable.  But, was there more to it?  Was her hesitation out of distrust or shyness?  Fear of judgement or rejection?  Or shame, perhaps?  Migs sincerely hoped it wasn’t the last, especially given the breadth of the span of time Elliot seemed to be avoiding. 

Again, Migs found himself wondering if he should leave the topic be or press for more information.  Maybe she really didn’t want to talk about it and was just answering what she had to to be polite.  Maybe she really wanted to talk but wasn’t sure if it would be welcome, so was looking for permission.  His aunt would, undoubtedly, know which avenue to take. 

As he was considering his options, an unsettling thought occurred to him.  She hadn’t seen them since she left.  “Since you left the US?” he asked, looking across the kitchen at her.  “You don’t mean since you left for school?”  He hoped it wasn’t the later, though he had heard of such things happening.  “I imagine it still takes forever for post to get to Virginia - that doesn’t make writing regularly any easier.  And, it certainly isn’t email!” 

Migs grinned at the younger boy as the lad offered a description and nodded in confirmation when Eleor glanced in his direction.  “Will definitely be helpful,” he confirmed as he followed the small group back into the bedroom that was, supposedly, used by Zel.

When Emeline granted them permission, Migs crossed the room to retrieve the letters from the table and handed them Auror Eleor. 

“Do you happen to have any contact information for Raine, besides what’s on these letters?” he asked.  “If we were to try to reach her, do you happen to recall if there were any alternate addresses?” 

Migs glanced from Emeline to Eleor when the young woman admitted her guilt.  It felt natural to want to respond or offer reassurance, but he wasn’t sure if such a gesture was appropriate.  Or, if doing so rant the risk of being counter productive.  There was also the matter of Emeline’s belief that her brother’s disappearance was directly related to his lycanthropy.  However, pressing for more details about that on the heels of the confession could understandably come across as unsympathetic.  For now, he tucked that question in the back of his mind for later and watched Eleor for his response to the young woman’s self-imposed guilt.

Migs flashed a broad grin at the offer of becoming a culinary student.  In a less fancy way than his interpretation suggested.  “I might take you up on that.  My grandma tried to teach me but her approach is more ‘watch me and maybe you’ll learn’.”  Migs lifted his hands and waggled his hands in a pantomimed version of his grandmother darting around the kitchen in her usually cooking blur.  “She made no attempts to slow down for the sake of demonstration.  It was just chop chop, whip, sizzle and there’s food.”  Good food, mind you.  But, not much evidence of how she got from point A to point Z. 

But, he couldn’t wait to try sushi.  And hummus.  And all the other worldly foods he’d seen on TV. 

“Straight black is fine,” Migs confirmed with a nod as she set to making the next cup.  “I can’t do dairy.  Most of us can’t - two of my nieces can do a little but their mother is half French Canadian.”  Which was probably more than Elliot needed or wanted to know.  “And, I turned 20 in September."

“Are all of your family still back in the States?” he asked.  "Do they ever come over to visit?"

“You don’t have-“ Migs started to insist, but Elliot was already dashing back to her flat for provisions.  She returned a few moments later with an assortment of coffee fixings.  Migs pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room, leaning against the wall of the kitchen nook. 

“So, no microwave.” Migs concluded, with an air of mild resignation.  “And, no television.”  Of course, he was no stranger to the unplugged wizarding life; Salem had been just as electricity-challenged as Hogwarts.  During his school days, though, he had spent every school break and holiday back in the comforts of home.  Now he’d joined the full-time working stiff force.  The irony of leaving the reservation and coming to England to settle into a less modern lifestyle was not lost on him.  “Suppose that means we have to go back to the old-fashioned socializing-with-people pastimes.” 

Or, find a decent local pub with food and television. 

"What's the extent of your cooking skills? Other than with a microwave.”

“I can grill,” Migs said with a broad grin.  “I can pour cereal into a bowl and maybe even slice bananas on top, if I’m feeling extra creative.  And, I’ve already cased out three or four take out places in the neighborhood, which I’m super stoked about.”  Cue small-town, country boy moment.  “With all the different foods around, I think I’ll be explore-eating for at least a year.  Our town had one local diner and it served your typical burger and meatloaf fare.  I can’t wait to have good Italian or Greek food.  Whatever good Greek food is.” 

Migs shrugged.  “My hometown has a population of about 358 people.  357, now that I’m here.  No - 358, again.  Angie had her baby."  A new boy!  "The closest town with more than a thousand people is Winnipeg, Manitoba and it’s about 200 miles away.  We don’t have much in the way of other ethnic foods.”  It was twenty minutes to the nearest pizza.  Without snow. 

Which was all a distraction from his inability to cook.  With another grin, he shrugged.  “I was the youngest.  And, a bit of a momma’s boy."