Absit Omen RPG

Oh, Merlin - !

The man they'd sent from Artefacts had Apparated in and drew out his wand in front of a dozen bare-faced muggles and their mobile phones! The car was floating out of the muck towards a dry embankment to the predictable and sticky awe and amazement of the onlookers. They weren't the only ones startled into action. The Ministry personell on the scene seemed just as surprised.

"Finch!" Quill hissed hurrying over. She stood in front of him, her face shocked. "What are you doing! There are muggles everywhere!" She whispered the word under her sharp shout. She put her hand on his wand arm. "Put that away! Follow procedure!"

And Quill thought the Aurors were bad at keeping a low profile. Even the Department of Mysteries made half an attempt not to blow the cover on their entire way of life.

29 May 2012
8pm, Tuesday
Oulton Broad, Suffolk More info

The sun was setting over the Broads, old flooded peatworks near a the mostly muggle suburb of Oulton Broad. Quill Som, the Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes approached the scene, dressed in her most muggle attire including a yellow reflective vest and clipboard. Of course, concealed in her sleeve was her long teak wand with a dragon heartstring core.

There were others milling about, some her people, others from Misuse of Muggle Artefacts, and naturally many muggles. A car had gone into the marsh, a 2010 Ford Fiesta in plum purple. The trouble was, it had not entered the marsh from a roadway. Reports had it entering from the sky, careening down from above and crashing nose first into the wet. It had been there now for twenty minutes. Locals had rushed in to rescue whoever might be inside, but found no one. Report of the strange incident had made it's way to the Ministry of Magic who'd mobilized.

"Likely a flying car," Quill said in a private voice to Finch-Fletchly as they had to step high through the tall grasses. Most people found Quill to be a little cold but she had a good reputation at the Ministry of Magic, built over many decades. She knew of this wizard with her only so far as to know his name before marriage. Nott.

Quill's mixed magic/muggle family had endured hardships at the hand of the Death Eaters and their ghosts (figuratively). She believed in justice, but she also believed in getting on with it and continuing to protect the Statute of Secrecy.

"I imagine you'l want to get your hands on it before the muggles start in."

Quill floo'd the message to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. She then stood and answered Anton bluntly.

"No."

No, there were not one or more owl-animagi biding their time on rooftop exhaust pipes. No, Quill did not have any theories about who was responsible for the crime scene. The former were surprisingly rare. The latter was not the head of Level Three's purview. Neither of these reasons were appropriate to share with whatever kind of person was Anton Schäfer, no matter how helpful he might be.

With Bevans knowing which end of his wand to hold and having secured the building from further secrecy leaks, Quill was feeling ready to keep the process moving. She briefed Fauna Blake.

"The next team will be here within the half-hour to start working through the muggles, and also on their way is someone to handle those owls. Now. Where is Sasha Snow?"

"I'm not actually with the school newspaper - but I can join, if that would be helpful."

He wasn't a wizard, and he wasn't a reporter. Quill clicked her tongue and muttered a, "why not." Muggle or squib or not, he was clearly inside and had as good as information as anyone right now, better even.

"Thank you, Bevans," Quill said to Nicholas when he returned. "That's good work."

Thank Merlin, for his effectiveness. Green Obliviators stepped in it as much as the newbies in the Auror Corps, but at least Three were trained to clean up after themselves. Self-cleaning blunders, someone had once coined a phrase.

Quill had been about to move on with their work. She'd have reassured Blake that this was all manageable, even with the social media issues. But the owls... Quill straightened up and peeled off the plastic gloves of her costume and took out her wand.

"No, those aren't ours," she said firmly. "They shouldn't be here."

That was basic Statute of Secrecy Keeping - one owl is interesting to muggles, two is remarkable, but three is a spectacle.

At the fireplace, she used a magic spell to stoke the fire again. She kept one eye on Anton while she did, but was sure now it would not surprise him. Then she used a handful of Floo Powder to ignite the portal.

"I'm calling for an owl-catcher," she explained as she wrote out the order on her clipboard, preparing to send it through the floo. "I don't like being watched."

There was very little that could surprise Quill anymore, so a shining youth chumming his way in with coffees and gossip did not, to Quill, mean disruption or delay. It was just something that was occurring. Just another mote of chaos to take into account. She waited a moment while the three young wix made their greetings and the boy told his story with no self-consciousness or worry at all. Blake and Bevans clearly knew him and Quill noted how his presence put them both off their footing.

Oh. She turned her head a little to get a better angle - no wand in hand and no familiar place to keep it. The bold and curious youth was, perhaps, not a wizard at all.

Bevans had at some point gotten to the point and Quill nodded. "That's fine. No gaps, make it look good," she advised.

Then, misunderstanding the point of Blake's recent question, Quill explained. "It means there's a heavy increase in activity on their mobiles. Show us, please."

It was simply a sign of the times that to be effective Quill's department had to develop a working knowledge of muggle internet networks. They'd been far too late on the uptake for email and online bulletin boards, but some clever administrator along the way had managed to get the right muggleborn brains in a room together and now Level Three had memos. One of the more recent ones was about the growing relevance of Snapchat and its unique ethereal qualities.

If they were 'blowing up' online, that information stream would need to be diffused as well.

Quill Som turned around in place as Blake gave a half-decent report on things. They were about as early in the response as Quill could ever hope for. And while so much had already occurred and though things were crowded and choatic, that was all to their advantage. Quill would be able to shape the story. With both a green Obliviator and very young Auror on the scene, there was a moment to be instructive.

"Our role is to catalog and contain," she summarized quickly. "Aurors will decide if they'll leave the investigation to the muggles or if Level Two will take over. This scene is now secure - let's keep it that way. Our next moves must be simultaneous. First expand the containment area to the entire building. Second, identify all muggles who may have been exposed to magical phenomenon. Understand?"

She looked between them for some semblance of --

Bzz. Bzz.

Quill looked to Fauna Blake. "Your mobile. Answer it. Our third task is to fetch Mr. Snow."

"Mmm," Quill muttered in acknowledgement of Brin's second-hand piper recommendation. She'd probably take him up on it to at least make an attempt at repair. New things, even deserved and considered, sometimes seemed too ostentatious but she knew there was no need to be so precious about it. Just buy a new pipe. Who's to care for a galleon and eight sickles? She set the offending piece down finally, and allowed Brin to move the subject along to wrap up their indulgent pause in business.

"If you fancy a defeat," she countered amiably. Any game worth playing was worth playing well, even if it was only lobbing a ball at a stand of wooden pins.

She shuffled a bit of paper on her desk. "Are you going back to One? Take this up for me?"

Quill put a smile on her face and it looked like it had been there all along. The young Auror Trainee, plain to see, had allowed a perimeter leak, but that was not out of the ordinary; Level Two wasn't well-trained in the finesse of deflection and the consequences for them fumbling around with unnecessary Obliviation were terribly inconvenient for all parties.

Quill, and Bevans behind her, were dressed like muggle forensics technicians, those scientific sorts who combed through crime scenes for clues. They even had on little paper booties from Level Three's detailed costumery inventory.  They'd made it past the sentry at the stairwell and the other at the door. Making as if the bags you were carrying were very heavy and important activated the politeness instinct in most people to step quickly aside.

The head of the Department of Accidents and Catastrophes didn't even have to lie about who they were - their clothing and confidence said it all. The fewer memories and details the better, if it came to erasing them.

"That'll be fine, thanks," she said briskly, still with that smile, to the muggle police. "We'll take it from here, if you'll step out."

Quill gave no clue that she recognized Fauna Blake or even noticed Moira McBoid. All her shoo-shooing was for the muggles.

"You've got your job we've got ours, eh? Toddle on."

"...but..." One of them pointed at the fireplace which was now mundane embers again. There were footprints in the soot now, but that was not his concern. Quill played for the former.

"Well spotted. On you go."

Shortly they were alone.

"Lock it," Quill directed Nicholas Bevans in her normal tone, the facade dropped. She pulled down the plastic hood and set the unneeded bag down in a clear space. Then she took a notebook from her pocket.

The scene was gruesome, but this was not her concern. Her department's concern, as usual, was containment.

"Quill Som," she introduced herself. "Nicholas Bevans. Level Three. What do we have? Who's been in and out? How many? Since when?"

Quill widened her eyes when Brinley joked about her mother's hypothetical efforts to match Quill because it was not so hypothetical. Quill had spent several years enduring a stream of reccomendations of prosperous wizards from good families. That time was behind them, but Quill knew her mother only wanted Quill to be ... settled and cared for. It wasn't the worse thing in the world.

"You're right about that," Quill agreed, taking Brinley's affection the way it was intended.

With a sudden pop, her pipe sputtered and went out. "Blast this thing," she muttered and tapped it in an ornate ashtray (a gift) to clear out the bowl. The pipe was old and well-used and probably not designed to last as long as she'd used it, but she never thought to replace it.

"It's Tuesday," she observed. "How's your luck today?"

Brinley knew, of course, Quill's closeness with her mum-and-roommate. It was just the two of them for a long time; her father had passed in 1990 and her sister Elliot had been taken by Death Eaters in the 1970s. But of the two of them, it was retired Haliza who kept the odd hours out with friends.

"She wants me to move out," Quill said with a surly smile. "Or for us to find someplace larger. I'm not sure if its because she wants to have men over or if she wants me to have men over. Either way, I'm not going to jettison her. Imagine!"

It wouldn't do for an only daughter to abandon her elderly widowed mother, even if it was her mother's choice.

"It's been months now, though, and I think she's serious. She's been circling property listings in the Prophet, so I should probably find something before she makes a move without me."

It was difficult for Quill to admit it, but there was something about being with Brin. She knew what it was, but it had been so long since she'd let herself feel this way that she didn't name it. It would be easier to push it away like she pushed away the many decades of her mother's attempts at match-making.

"We should be so lucky," Quill said, sitting back. In the few minutes they'd been talking about it, it had begun to feel possible. Even desirable. Leave London, leave England, and travel across the Atlantic to someplace unknown. And yes, soar over the countryside in a flying car. She smiled to herself and wondered what kind of traveling companion Brinley might be.

"Imagine us, a middle-age gap year. Something to think about," she said puffing on her pipe - utterly chickening out.

"So how is your family?"

Quill suddenly coughed on the pipe smoke, apparently caught off guard by Brinley's question. She recovered quickly with a smile and waved her hand to clear the air around her face.

"January. Lunar New Year.[1] I took two days," she said, a little defensively knowing full well that's not the kind of break Brinley meant.

"And you're no better," she knew. Christmas maybe?

Then for a moment she became quiet once more, trying to understand her own reluctance. It felt like it would be improper to leave her department to work while she relaxed. But then, that was rather self-absorbed, wasn't it? To pretend she was so indispensable that Level Three would crumble without her daily presence.

"We could always come back, if something were to come up," she said, beginning to convince herself.

1.	23 Jan 2012

Quill laughed lightly and shook her head a little.

"You know,  I haven't actually thought about it," she said, taking a puff from her pipe. "I've ridden in mundane cars before, of course."

Brinley would know, of course, that both of her parents were muggleborn. Her grandparents had all been non-magical as well as her several aunts and cousins. And Brinley also knew what that had meant during the Death Eater's occupation of the Ministry. Cars were significantly smoother than a carriage, but much bumpier than a carpet or broom. Imagining a car flying through the air felt like tempting magic's defiance of gravity. But for all the incidents that Level Three handled regarding magical cars, few of them involved the levitation giving out.

But now Brinley had got her thinking. Hidden beneath all of Quill's layers was an adventurous streak, the same streak that had driven her to be a healer on call for Level Three, responding in real time to active secrecy breaches.

"Are they not legal in America?" She flirted with the fleeting notion of a holiday abroad.

Quill lifted her eyebrows. Octavius Pepper, he was quite infamous, wasn't he. Quill listened along; that must have been an interesting meeting.

"The cars maybe," she said with a little shrug of the shoulder. "As long as they've got working concealment charms, I've no complaints. Pepper himself is more likely to cause a stir. You remember his painting of Millicent Bagnold?"[1]

"So you've not ridden in one?" she asked, inferring as much. "They seem rather daring."

1.	Pepper unveiled a nude portrait of the then-Minister on her 1988 grand tour.

Bored. It felt like a dark thing to admit, but Brinley knew her well enough that Quill didn't have to confirm it out loud. They were both like that. That happened, Quill had heard, to people who'd lived through what they'd lived through. That even these long years later, peace and security felt untrustable. Better to see the threats coming from the front rather than wait for them in the shadows.

She smiled at mention of the griffin, her pipe bit between her teeth.

"We've been accused of adding to our own workload before; not you, too," Quill said with a touch of faux offense. "A griffin in a suitcase... that's quite a trick. Really no clue on who it belonged to?"