Fauna sat sipping at her coffee. Sip, sip, don't mind me in the middle seat at the table, sip sip, she hoped she wouldn't have to go to the loo. She'd nearly choked on her coffee earlier at the sight of Yavin's sweater, torn between laughing aloud and feeling offended for Bruce, but as long as she didn't look at his wolf print sweater (don't think about it! Don't stare at the rows of snarling, cross-eyed wolves!), she thought she might be able to make it through this meeting without letting out an ill-timed snort.

Sip sip, was Bruce nervous? Fauna glanced at her quickly, then looked away, trying not to make her more nervous. Oh no! She lowered her gaze to her coffee mug and adopted a neutral expression. Nothing to see here. Nothing to worry about.

Sip sip, Bagnold took the ball! Ok good, he was doing just fine, he hadn't said goddamn once, and he'd managed not to deck Pratt so far.

Now Sol was talking, thank Merlin for steady Sol, and he was looking at the Aurors encouragingly, and Fauna nodded and glanced at Jonas. Right! Someone had a lead, right? Not her, no sir.

But wait, Bagnold piped up with the 8th - good catch, Bagnold! - and oh no. Uh oh. Her eyes widened.

He passed her the ball.

"Er, right," Fauna set down her coffee, sat up straighter, and smiled tightly at her boss and her boss's boss and just way too many bosses in one room.

"Tawse's, uh, ally," Creepy candlemaker! "Used some kind of net spell over the area we were in. They'd set it up before we arrived."

Bagnold had tried apparating first thing and had gotten nothing but a near concussion for his efforts.

"We could still cast apparition and send up red sparks, but the ward would catch it before the magic could fully form," Fauna gestured up, then awkwardly lowered her hand to rest on the table.

"Uh, the ward was at least the size of the courtyard in the zoo, but it might have extended beyond that," she paused to look at Bagnold for confirmation. "We noticed the sky looked," she hesitated. "blurry when we were heading in. The spell itself wasn't visible."

She had only seen it because she'd casted that handy aura spell.

"It seemed to be tied to the candle that Tawse's ally had? When we snuffed the candle out and distracted him, the ward finally fell, and we were able to apparate and send sparks up."

Fauna looked at Bagnold again, hoping she wasn't missing anything. She'd been obsessing over it since it had happened, and hated to think it would happen again, but happen it would, judging by Tawse's speeches.

The implications of a magical-dampening field were troubling. They'd impair Level Three personnel as much as anyone else.

Quill straightened and leaned forward in her seat, her fingertips steepled. The work of Level Three in defense of the Statute of Secrecy was delicate. They could not be directly responsible for life-saving when the curiosities were this lethal. There was little to no way to set up containment as they had with the meteor in Scotland or the Dementors at St. Mungo's earlier in the winter. It was even worse knowing muggles would be directly targeted.

"Counter-narratives are still being propagated by the Muggle-Worthy Excuse committee for optimal believably. Seventeen full Obliviations with memory replacement have been completed and are being monitored. Highest of any incident yet this year. Two muggle zoo personnel were fired from their jobs in response to the Excuse and are being monitored. We continue to get stable reports from our people embedded in proximity to the deceased families that the excuses are being adopted. "

It was a horrible thing to have to lie in times of tragedy. The mournful would probably never have true closer, and would never know that justice was done. Quill continued.

"From your reports, we are working under the assumption that incidents on the next full moon will involve werewolves, we have already begun with appropriate deceptions and suggestions for safety protocols. We won't have the advantage of the zoo connection this time."

She knew her next advisory would not necessarily be popular. She posed it directly to Carstairs, Ballentyne, and Bagnold each getting a node from her in turn.

"We have little choice but to have Obliviators on hand to be deployed to the field as soon as possible, a team of three to establish as much of a perimeter as possible and to waylay any muggle emergency services. And two Healers, combat-trained."
 

Mercifully, Bagnold seemed to take the hint that Bruce was suddenly feeling the nerves, and jumped in. It wasn’t that she’d never led a meeting before. She’d briefed the Werewolf Wing and the WCU many times over her career. But more than three years had passed since then, and a great deal of confidence had been sucked out of her. That jumper on the Head of Level 9…she blamed the jumper.

But he did well, her former mentee.

Carstairs confirmed what they’d discussed in his office; the loan of personnel and support from Level 2. That was what this meeting was about, launching a ministry wide defence. Fortunately, the new introduced Quill Som was also already on board.

“I have arranged for healers on hand, Madame Som. Ones already with combat training and extensive experience in the field.” One in particular had saved her own life. It was easier, she found, to address one person rather than the room. “In regards to the obliviators, our first priority is public safety and your obliviators are not trained like aurors and WCU.”

She glanced down at her notes before looking back up at Carstairs. Speak to one person at a time, don’t look at the prejudice fool in the wolf jumper. “Red sparks won’t work if they have this net up,” spell or device, it didn’t matter “So I suggest we set a magical trace on all personnel working throughout the full moon,” a quick glance to Bagnold. “And the time on either side. That way, if we lose the trace, which I imagine we will should they come below this net, we have a location for the ambush.” Not ‘we’. They would have a location. Bruce was going to be in a cell, furry, and howling at the moon.

With Bagnold and Blake having imparted their observations, it was time for the other heads to chip in.

Solomon listened to Som's typically straightforward response to the situation - he couldn't blame her for wanting Obliviators on the ground after what happened last month. She had to work the muggle angle just as much as Ballentyne needed to focus on the threat.

            "... our first priority is public safety and your obliviators are not trained like aurors and WCU."

"Obliviators on brooms or out of reach, Quill." Sol glanced at her, acknowledging three's ability to better grasp the big picture: Bruce wasn't wrong but she didn't know the trouble Accidents & Catastrophe's would have to go through if they didn't control exposure from the get-go. "Send a few up to two, for basic training."

It wasn't much and he wouldn't throw them at a dark wizard even in a pinch but it would have to do.

He turned his attention to his notes, scribbling down orders for later. "We'll put a trace on personnel alright, doesn't look like Tawse has insiders to get at that information. Last thing we need is him knowing where we all are on a full moon," Solomon spoke without looking up at Ballentyne.

Werewolves, direwolves, people dying, hiding from muggles. Yavin followed the exchanges with a pleasant eye as he drank his coffee and leaned back in his chair. They were all being very cautious about this but he kind of liked it when criminal activity revolved around werewolves. It gave you a schedule, if nothing else. Full moon: be prepared or else.

Frankly lazy work on Tawse's part, having to wait a whole month to do any damage. But Yavin couldn't complain about the insipidity of criminals: what else could you expect from those inbred Purists anyway?

"You," he pointed at Fauna Blake once Solomon had finished confirming preparations. "Tell me more about this, um, about this candle. If the rest of you -" Yav glanced around the table with a mild smile, "- don't mind. We, ah, we may be able to help overcome this, that is, this supposedly new magic."

Or new anti-magic, as it was. His mind was drawn to the concept, largely because they suspected the latest magicless epidemic to have originated from the meteorite in Scotland. There had to be a way to weaponise that and maybe this candle (another inconvenient criminal decision! candles blow out!) would offer insight to such an endeavour.

Obliviators on Level Two for basic training? Fauna glanced at Pratt, expecting to glimpse an evil grin. More torturous training scenarios. Oh Merlin. She'd have to warn Nicholas.

A magical trace would be helpful though, if it worked the way they thought it would.

Unfortunately, Level Nine was way ahead of her, and Fauna paused mid-sip of her coffee. No! Ok, Bruce had calmed, there was no reason to feel nervous. Don't look at Morgenthau's outfit. Just answer the question.

"Blake," she supplied helpfully, then glanced down at the snarling wolves across Morgenthau's sweater. Her mouth twitched. Focus, Fauna!

"Right. So, the wizard with the candle," she hesitated, always feeling ridiculous when she tried to explain this part. She glanced at Bagnold, who'd been there and felt the effects even if he hadn't seen it. "It looked like there were two glowing sources near Tawse's ally. One that I understood later to be a candle flame he was guarding, and the other was something he held at his chest, also glowing," she made a fist gesture in front of of her jacket. "More brightly than him and more brightly than the candle," she added as an afterthought. "Uh, I saw it because I was using an aura spell."[1]

A spell that was proving to be helpful in investigations!

"The net was like a literal, glowing net above the trees, with one point - the center point? - tied to the candle."

She really didn't understand the next part. But maybe Level Nine would understand. They'd been looking into the measles according to Virgil, why not another weird no-magic thing?

"After Laz blew out the candle, he got thrown across the courtyard." A vampire! Thrown. Across the courtyard. Fauna had said this a few times before during debriefings and widened her eyes a bit in emphasis. "That was seconds after the net fell, I think. I couldn't tell if it was something the wizard had done, or..."[2]

Fauna looked around the room and quieted, remembering not to speculate too much.

1.	Description of Aviad's aura
2.	Pentral! A pentral flew out of Aviad's necklace (the second glowing source) and attacked Laz

The trace was a good idea and Som made a note of it. Anything to keep her people safer out in the night. She'd started out as a medic for Level Three back when and there'd been plenty of danger even if they weren't the ones in the direct line of fire. She remembered one of her first times out, a giant loose in Trafalgar Square and a certain later-to-be-corrupted Auror.[1]  Obliviators did their work on the edge and undercover but they didn't have the advantage of just being able to fling spells in self-defense. They needed to be covert in their cleverness.

Morgenthau inserted himself to offer Mysteries' support - she just hoped he'd be good enough to share the results of their research.

Quill had her own observation. "Magic with candles is distinct to Semitic magic," she said. She wasn't an expert by any means, but she seemed to recall it in a course she took on Ceromancy.[2]

But she'd missed something. She flipped through her notes.

"Who is Laz? Who blew out the candle?"

1.	12 Dec 1981 - Impressive
2.	Ran this by Sparky.

The idea of putting a Trace on everyone on patrol made Kurby shift uneasily in his seat.  There was one notable example that stood out in not-so-distant history when it came to the Ministry of Magic deciding to track certain things, and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about giving the magical government more of an ability to locate his entire team than they already had with the map on Level Two. 

Kurby caught the look that Jonas Trevelyan slanted him from the other side of Pratt; the Muggleborn Auror was probably thinking of the same historical incident that he was.  But this wasn't quite the same thing: it made sense as a precaution, since putting an active spell on their team was a surefire way to tell if any of them had walked into Tawse's trap without having to worry about getting word back.  The werewolf hunter gave a quick, almost imperceptible shake of his head at Trevelyan, slumping down in his seat as he crossed his arms against his chest and continued to listen. 

Morgenthau put Blake back on the spot again, but the Auror trainee held her own, giving an account of what she'd witnessed with the candle spell during the attack.  Som from Level Three interjected her analysis next, along with a question.

"Who is Laz? Who blew out the candle?"

"Laz is Lazarus Blackburn." Kurby directed the comment at Quill Som as he spoke up, although a quick glance around the rest of the group dared anyone to push back against the vampire's involvement.  "He's a vampire with a local coven in Camden Town, not too far from the zoo."  He shrugged, as if the undead showing up to help with werewolf patrols was a perfectly normal turn of events for an evening.

Quill turned - Bagnold supplied the answer. A vampire had been at the zoo incident running around snuffing candles, had he? Her usually stoic face lifted bemused.

"We're dealing with vampires now," she commented. Som didn't like that arithmetic, adding vampires so casually to the mix. They were unpredictable, they played by different rules, had complex special protections.

"I'll make a note."