Absit Omen RPG

A lone light still flickered in the window of Aileen's bedroom, where she sat at her desk, penning the last few pages of a report that she intended to owl to one of her colleagues in the morning. Animated photographs, maps, and field survey results were ordered in rows on her desk, and the papers rustled as she lifted each with her wand. Consulting remotely wasn't the same as being there, but it was easy to let the hours slip by, and to convince herself that moving the papers from her study to her bedroom would encourage her to get some sleep at a decent hour.

She would, actually. Her colleagues expected a thorough response, not an immediate one. Though they'd all moved on elsewhere from the haunted tombs in Ireland, the remaining team consisted of those who were too stubborn to run away from a challenge and those who were too young to know when to. Aileen hated to think of how long ago the latter had applied to her, but anyone who kept up with the news about the Hunts could understand why she'd want to stay close to home for a while.

At home, everything was back in order. On one bedside table, she'd stacked several books that had also migrated from the study. On the other, she'd arranged a set of glass perfume bottles, vintage, from Egypt. Her cat, Crabapple, was nested in the center of her bed, and was narrowing her eyes and slow-blinking at Aileen in hello. The music she'd left on in the study drifted faintly up to the room, a soft backdrop to the quiet of her own thoughts.

She was taking a sip of her tea when a patronus crawled in through the window and stood on eight spindly legs.

She stilled, the tea cup to her mouth.

As the gigantic white spider spoke in a familiar wizard's voice, Aileen set the tea cup down. Bagnold? Bagnold was here? She glanced at the clock. Something must have happened. Grimshaw's ghost, Hunt, or another wounded McBoid must have shown up at his door.

Aileen stood, glancing at the window for a moment. He wouldn't bring a problem to her unless he had to, and just as his message suggested, he would have found a roundabout way to visit. She did believe that.

Aileen slipped a letter into her pocket that started with: 'about those bone runes you alluded to...'. She then stepped down the hall, past Abby's old room and to the stairs, where she flicked her wand to turn off the wireless. In the living room, she turned on the light, and started dispelling a row of runes built into the frame of the front door.

Wand at her side, she opened the door. It was dark and quiet out. Bagnold was slumped on the porch step.

She stared at him in concern, stepping forward quickly, and sparing a glance into the darkness of the street.

"Bagnold? Are you alright? Come on in," She gestured him inside and hovered a hand at his elbow, should he need it.

She'd been meaning to reach out to Bagnold, but Nemo with the found flute still worried her, and the information she'd shared about Abby couldn't be unsaid. Her hesitations seemed trivial, now.

As soon as he was inside the house, she set about waving runes over the doorframe again, and gestured at the chair in the living room in case there was any question.

Though the living room was pristine and clean as always, she'd updated a few things since she'd come home, allowing the slightest touch of warmth in mementos from family - her sister, mainly, and a recent photo from Christmas of her two nieces.

January 22, 2012

Very wise.

Here, I found an article you might like about Quidditch training for chasers. If you'd like, write to me again in February and March. It's a long way till April.


Aunt Aileen

January 20, 2012

Sulwen,

It's not the Auror's fault. I had asked Auror Trevelyan not to tell the family yet.

Is April when all the students go home? I'll plan a day to see you.

January 20, 2012

Sulwen,

No, you're right - he doesn't know and neither does his family, and I've put you in a terrible position without realizing the effect it would have on you. I'm sorry. Truly. I didn't tell you during your winter break because I was still wrestling with it myself.

I think it's best to be discreet about it for now, especially at your school. You don't need to be the one to tell him. I will find a way. I just need a bit more time.

Aunt Aileen

January 19, 2012

Dear Sulwen,

Thank you. You're very thoughtful and kind to reach out. I do understand what you're trying to say, and it's something I came to terms with in the days following the train station incident. I only knew when I saw your friend. It's a sad, complicated situation, and I wish that it had happened differently. He deserved the chance to meet his mother before she went.

Are you alright? Do you need to talk to someone at school?


Aunt Aileen

Aileen blinked, taken aback by the sincerity in his tone. She'd expected questions, suspicion, judgment. They'd been incredibly cautious about sharing information with each other at the library, and somewhat cautious today in the graveyard, but there was something about facing a crypt creature instead of immediately bolting with her sister that made decent people act kindly in return. Who knew.

When he glanced up, she glanced away, inclining her head gratefully. She had several questions for him (and Duncan), but those could wait for a time when they were all less exhausted.

If she were surprised before, she was astonished at his next words, not for their logic or practicality but for their generosity. She raised her eyebrows, understanding just how much they'd be imposing on him, how much they already had been, which made his offer all the more generous. Aileen pretended to consider, her gaze drifting to the doorway where the faint smell of - was that herbal magic? - wafted in, but really, she just needed a moment to mask an uncomfortable sense of appreciation. She'd misjudged him, and would likely continue to do so, but at least she could think back on this whenever they butted heads in the future. Of course they would.

"Your friend was lucky to find you. We'd better go and leave space for the next battle-worn comrade who knocks on your door."

She smiled a little, hoping Bagnold would get some peace tonight, and that Duncan would recover well from his injuries, and that Lorelei Hunt had her own to tend to.

"I can apparate with Abby to her flat from the roof," Aileen suggested, having a feeling that her sister would feel most comfortable in her own room, in the flat that had become home to her. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind if Nemo were to go with her, if she needs a place to stay."

She looked at Bagnold questioningly, just as blind to Nemo's situation as she was morning, only knowing the little Abby knew and had chosen to tell her. But she'd seen the sort of person that Nemo was - a friend who had stuck by Abby. The matter of the flute, the rune, and the song could wait.

"Yes, they did," Aileen nodded, letting him know he was correct about the exorcism in the death chamber on Level Nine. She was not foolish enough to bring her possessed sister on a field trip to a graveyard. No, she was foolish enough to do so mere days after Abby had lost her pentral, and mere weeks after her own pentral had left.

Bagnold went on, connecting the dots oh so correctly. For all of his brashness at times, he understood people quite quickly; everything they said and didn't say, piecing together the puzzle with little to go on. Duncan could explain that Iona had been Leander's fiance, if he chose to later. It wasn't her business or her main concern.

She had about a dozen questions for Bagnold, and opened her mouth at the mention of the ledger, then shut it when he trailed off. He'd wanted to find out what he could from Level Two, not the other way around. Duncan had limped here first, had said St. Mungo's wasn't an option, so they must be avoiding the authorities for a reason. Aileen looked at Bagnold, worried for a moment that she'd said too much to the wrong person, that someday, he was going to use the information against her. It was what she was used to, and what she had once done.

But then he asked the question that she dreaded, the one that would lead to condemnation the more he connected the dots. Aileen didn't owe him an answer. She'd explained how Abby and the McBoids were connected, and she could easily leave it at that.

If Lorelei Hunt weren't a danger to everyone, if she weren't so tired, she might have.

She gave him a wary look, but continued.

"Hunt was disguised as some kind of heiress - another one of her pentrals. She invited Abby to meet her adopted squib son. The Hunt siblings seemed normal at the time. Lorelei and Leander," Aileen supplied. They were both dangerous, just in different ways.

"It was all arranged between our two families. My parents were trying to marry Abby off as soon as she came of age," she sighed, her tone revealing years of resentment and disgust.

"When I had to leave suddenly, the Hunts invited Abby to stay with them."

She met Bagnold's eyes. Her turn for a lengthy pause. Everything she didn't say. Everything she wasn't willing to delve into, not at this moment, and perhaps not ever.

She drew in a breath, glancing down at the small kitchen table.

"They'd intended to kill Abby and their son, Calix, for their next disguise."

Something flickered over her face. A delayed pain at what those words meant. That was it, alright? Fine? She was done.

Bagnold managed a smile, but he looked exhausted again, and the lengthy pause made Aileen wonder if he'd just pulled her aside to brood, expecting her to fill the silence. Aileen straightened, crossing her arms loosely. Duncan's trust was enough of a surprise. Though she certainly felt badly for them all, it was getting late, and Lorelei Hunt's name was pounding in her head, and she'd reached her very limit in team building.

He finally spoke, but so carefully. She thinned her mouth, repressing a smile. Did she look like he did, hating to ask questions, much rather having the answers?

Oh thank Merlin. He was just confused.

It took Aileen a moment. He knew what Iona had suffered and how the McBoids had been affected, perhaps, but not about how Iona was connected to Abby. He'd thrown quite a few befuddled glances at Abby tonight, now that she thought about it.

But he didn't mention Iona. Just the Hunts. Just the one. The sister.

"Duncan's told you about Iona, the Hunt siblings, what they did?" Aileen searched his face, her voice lowering further at Iona's name. The name had once had the power to summon a change in Abby, and still could.

Aileen glanced in her little sister's direction beyond the kitchen, hesitating to speak for her, though she'd often had to over the years. Abby had told several of her friends about the pentral situation. Level Two knew. Aileen had told no one, beyond one meeting with Yavin Morgenthau, and the follow-ups with Jonas Trevelyan.

Over the years, she'd found the most safety and surety in total silence. Dealing with problems on her own. Protecting her sister on her own, partially from problems she'd caused.

But Lorelei Hunt was out there, and had already attacked Duncan. Bagnold would find out about Abby from his friend, if not from her. She and Bagnold had sealed a tomb together and formed an alliance over a centuries-old murder mystery, and she had to hope that he could be trusted with Abby's life. Because that was what this meant.

She looked at him again, her gaze clearing. When she spoke, her voice was just as cautious, her expression just as guarded as his.

"Abby is the one who escaped the lakehouse with Iona last year. Abby, with Iona as the pentral."

Aileen looked at Duncan McBoid for a long moment, a calm stillness settling over her face as she returned his nod. She'd never met him before, only glimpsed him at the Ministry, but his continued kindness to Abby and his presence here, at Bagnold's flat, made her inclined to trust his judgment. He'd been under no obligation to tell her that Lorelei Hunt had attacked him. She appreciated that he chose to, and that Bagnold had so capably handled his injuries.

Aileen followed Bagnold into the kitchen, glancing tiredly at the stein in his hand. She assumed he knew, like many at the Ministry, that Abby had escaped a horrible situation in August, and his lack of surprise at Lorelei Hunt's name suggested that he knew more than most people did about Hunt's crimes. He was the one who'd seen the Grimshaw's ledger. He was the first person that Duncan had gone to for help.

So she didn't quite know why, exactly, he looked like he wanted to strangle a sphinx for answers. At least she could speak freely, given Duncan's nod.

She met Bagnold's eyes and let out a breath, looking like she had when they'd finally sealed the door of the tomb. Weary, and well aware they weren't out of the woods.

"This is the first I've heard of one of the Hunt siblings being sighted since August."

She shook her head, keeping her voice low. Her gaze flicked to the doorway of the kitchen, and then around the kitchen - how warded was this place? She could add a few more before she took Abby home.

"If she's taken to haunting graveyards, it seems that we picked the right one today."

Aileen said dryly, wishing she could say the same for Duncan.

Lorelei Hunt was alive and haunting graveyards. If Duncan's words weren't enough, the revelation was written in his skin.

Aileen took a small, involuntary step away from the table, her hands growing cold as she stared at the spidery black lines spreading over Duncan's chest and shoulder.

A rune? Bagnold wanted a rune. Runes could not fix everything, as much as Aileen would like them to. They were strongest on buildings and objects and stone, not on people, and even the most intricate and magical runic jewelry could only provide so much protection.

She looked at Bagnold digging through the healing kit, and imagined his thoughts racing as hers did, back to the time when she should have asked him more about the names he'd found in the Grimshaw ledger. Still, he remained focused.

Nemo and Abby returned. Abby stopped short at the sight of Duncan.

"Y-yes," Aileen managed. "I should have something."

Aileen went to her cloak on the hook and searched her pockets. She didn't wear her profession everywhere, what could she say? Behind her, Nemo dropped the ice into a sock with a clink-clink-clink. If Aileen had to, she'd make a rune out of parchment and socks, but it wouldn't last long.

Abby's soft voice finally sounded, full of horror:

"Who hit you with an Effodio curse?"[1]

Aileen looked at her, the silence that followed a dangerous thing. Please, no one answer her. Aileen held back the first horrifying question that came to mind.

"Abby, what exactly does it do? Can you tell us?"

Abby met her gaze, focusing on her instead of Duncan.

"The poison will spread and paralyze him if not stopped," Abby said, her voice shaky but true. "Dittany will help stop it, if you mix it with some murtlap essence into a paste," she gestured at the medical kit. "And if you need a rune-" she pointed at her lilac cloak hanging next to Aileen's.[2]

Aileen abandoned her cloak in favor of her sister's. In one of the cloak's pockets, beside a compact mirror and a pen, Aileen found a rune charm. Her thumb recognized the groove as Algiz, a rune of protection that Aileen had gifted Abby with several years ago.

It hadn't protected Abby, but perhaps it could protect Duncan.

Aileen returned to the table, giving her sister a look of utter gratitude mixed with worry. She reached out ever so briefly to touch Abby's arm where the girl stood stock still. Aileen set to work, re-activating the rune with several careful wand movements.

Once done, if Duncan agreed to wear it, it would help stop the curse from spreading.

1.	I'm guessing that Lorelei returned the favor at some point during the duel, which would explain how gruesome it looks!
2.	From this post: Abby continued to find her things. A little compact mirror, an auto-flying memo, a rune charm, a clicky gel pen...

"Of course," Aileen nodded at Bagnold. She quickly turned, going to the door she'd been so eager to exit out of a few minutes ago, reminded that the world was bigger than her, though still small enough to bring Duncan McBoid to the same flat as her little sister.

Concentrating on the lock, Aileen caught snippets of Duncan's mild chatter, but not enough to understand what had happened to him. Still, she assumed that he'd been up to no good, just as the Reids and Nemo and Bagnold were today.

With several careful waves of her wand, Aileen spotted the pinpricks of light that had scattered when Duncan had opened the door, and she waved the points of the ward back into place with a subtle click-click-click, almost as quiet as the sound of a lock being picked.

She stifled a sneeze at the magic settling, her nose itching from the crypt dust that lingered in her hair and had left a light film on the very edge of the cloak she'd hung on the wall hook.

Aileen glanced over her shoulder when Abby left with Nemo to search for supplies, letting out a light breath of relief. Duncan's friendly tone hadn't changed even as he dripped blood onto the floor.

He was like that, she'd heard from Abby a few months ago. He was the type of person who avoided involving other people in his problems unless absolutely necessary.

Frowning, Aileen added another ward above the door to let them know of any other unexpected visitors.

"Wards are in place," Aileen returned to Bagnold at the table, letting him sort out for himself why she'd added an extra.

She glanced at Duncan uncertainly, then at the row of mystery potions tucked inside the medical kit. At least Bagnold knew field healing, because she certainly didn't.

Duncan was struggling out of his jacket. After a moment's hesitation, Aileen helped with the sleeves as best she could, raising her eyebrows at him in cool apology for the awkwardness.

"Anything I can do?" She offered as she placed the jacket onto the wall hook nearest them, glancing at the room that Nemo and Abby were still searching. Abby had been through a lot today and Nemo had found and lost a song.

"Abby," Aileen still called out, in a 'hurry up' tone.

Aileen had more questions than answers. When this had started with Bagnold in the library, she'd told herself that she would figure out what to do with the information once she had more information. Though they had found the bone glyphs, they'd found Clementine's grave, they'd found the medieval sarcophagi in the chamber beneath the church, and Nemo had found or had never lost the bone flute, they'd also opened a portal that should have remained closed.

One of song and light. A death denied.

It brought Aileen back to Egypt, back to the Cult of the Phoenix, back to the days when she never would have involved her little sister in a mystery so dangerous, and certainly not so soon after she'd survived a traumatic loss.

What had she been thinking? Her gaze strayed from the bookcase to Abby curled up on the couch, the girl looking very young with her sagging ponytail of blond curls, her face slack with sleepiness.

What was she doing? If she didn't look out for Abby, no one else would. Would they? Aileen paused, listening to the gentle clatter of dishes in the kitchen. She should take Abby home right now. Rescind her offer to help. Forget the strange resolve she'd shown when she and Bagnold had sealed the chamber. That wasn't her. She ran, she avoided, she denied responsibility, she protected only those closest to her, and she didn't have enough room for the surly-joking werewolf hunter, the brave lost waif, or the girls murdered every 28 years.

She paused again, listening to the clatter of dishes, glancing at her sister on the verge of sleep. She paused, as if waiting for a voice to chime in, to encourage her to stay.

Nothing but silence. Nothing but the pause itself, which wasn't enough.

Was it?

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Hell. What now?

Aileen met Bagnold's glance with a sharp raise of her eyebrows, guessing at his meaning. No, not her. She wasn't going to run to the Ministry anytime soon, and Abby, for her part, didn't look like it had occurred to her. Despite her job on Level Two, Abby followed Aileen and Bagnold like she thought they knew what they were doing.

Merlin's sake, Aileen wished.

The door opened. A giant stood in the doorway, leaning on Bagnold. The pair of wizards lurched inside, and as Aileen caught a glimpse of his injuries, her first confused, tired thought was that he'd crawled out of the chamber they'd sealed.

No.

Duncan?

Aileen moved past Nemo, barely hearing her. She knew him from somewhere. She'd seen him once, standing tall beside an older man with the same stubborn chin who had, at another time, looked at her like she'd stolen the dearest thing from him.

Oh.

Duncan McBoid.

Abby's voice cut through the keening wail and terrible light. Aileen was so used to guarding her sister from the dark, hiding her pentral from the dark, hiding the dark itself within her, that she didn't know how to stop the bright light from below. It surged into the chamber, colder than the veil of death.

Yes, apparate. Yes.

"Yes!" she told her sister but jerked her head at Nemo, hoping she had recovered enough to disapparate. "Go now! We'll be right there."

Though Aileen had always reached for Abby before, this time, she moved around the sarcophagus toward Bagnold. What was he doing? They didn't have time, did they?

Aileen raised her wand anyway, unsealing the edges of the second sarcophagus in a controlled and scholarly gesture, meant for careful excavation and not defense. It took precious seconds. The light grew and grew beside her, blinding through her hood and around the curve of her raised arm.

Stone would not stop the thing below. Stone would not even rest smoothly atop the open sarcophagus with its marble hands and arms and screaming face split down the middle and poised like teeth.

But stone might, it just might, block the entrance to this tomb. Aileen turned her head to squint behind her, but could barely see with the growing light.

"Bagnold! Help me levitate this to the doorway. We'll seal the chamber from the other side."

It would take cooperation. Coordination. A stone and a rune might be enough, if they had time.

Bagnold had found the ladder that her light hadn't found. He told her this, reaching into the tunnel. Watch it, don't touch the stones - but he must have earlier, outside perhaps, and they already knew him.

"Nox," she responded, her face pale, her eyebrows drawn together. It was all she could say, repeated without rhyme or rhythm.

"Finite!"

There! A different word, but not the words she'd been looking for earlier. The thrumming of her wand began to quiet and fade, leaving only the silence below.

Maybe it would be fine. Maybe her wandlight would return on its own. Maybe silence made everything safe again. Bagnold really did not look well. Even the torchlight was unable to chase away the paleness and the tension in his jaw. Aileen should ask after him, she thought distantly in the back of her mind.

She spared a glance behind her. Her sister was with Nemo. Nemo was waking. Aileen frowned. She hadn't realized that the girl had fallen.

Just as she wondered if she should go get her light back, find the light that would chase the pallor from her own face, that had been there since the December of many days ago and the December a year ago -

The firelight on the walls flickered.

Then one by one, the lights of the torches dove into the tunnel, making the tunnel fill with a bright and terrible light.

It wasn't the first note, but the next and the next and the next strung together that cracked the lid of the sarcophagus in half.

One - the flowers at the figure's feet curled back

Two - the knees snapped to the side

Three - the waist curved in an impossible crescent

Four - the hands unlocked at the throat, springing up

Five - the mouth opened wide

Six - the mouth opened wider, becoming the eyes, the nose, the hair

And then, with a deep groan, the sarcophagus split in the middle, the knees and the curve where the waist should be and the mouth that was the face staring at Aileen, a hand arched in the air.

One two three four five six.

The rhythm ticked in her head, pulling memories of song and light and then darkness from the places where she remembered what another soul remembered. She'd never heard a song like that with her own ears. Her mind filled in the blanks with other words that weren't quite right.

The hills that hide the bones? - No
The cloaks tearing the sky? - No

She let out a breath, moving forward to look into the sarcophagus. Someone had to look. Though every instinct told her to go, to go now, the need to know was stronger. At least Abby was stirring behind her and Nemo was safe and Bagnold was standing. He probably still looked like she felt after a long family reunion.

Her wand ready, Aileen kept her head tilted up and slanted her gaze downwards, into the sarcophagus with the jagged marble edges.

The torchlight on the walls flickered against the marble interior. Empty. Empty as she'd known it would be.

Aileen lit her wand, angling the light over the length of the open sarcophagus.

This was why a pentral had flown up in her face and possessed her. This was why dementors had attacked her in the rolling, green hills. This was why she'd gotten trapped in a tomb in Egypt.

But there was nothing. Still nothing.

Actually nothing. No marble base, no floor.

"It's a tunnel," Aileen said to anyone who wasn't looking, too.

She relaxed her stance slightly, continuing to look, as if looking would reveal a clue or a step. They couldn't go down there now, a voice of reason piped up in the back of her mind. Aileen couldn't ask that of herself, let alone anyone else - not her traumatized sister, nor obsessive Nemo, nor haggard Bagnold.

It was too dark, too deep, too quiet beneath these stones. It needed light and song.

Fwoosh.
 
Light slipped out of her wand, hovering above the sarcophagus in a bright thread.

The light soared down into the dark tunnel, angling farther and farther away until it disappeared. Her wand still thrummed in her hand.

The light was hiding below, but Aileen hadn't sent it down.

She took a step back, staring at her wand.

"Nox," she commanded. "Nox."