It had been a long day, and Alistair was tired. But like always, tiredness just made his mind focus; he narrowed his thoughts until the tiredness was a distant feeling, easily ignored. Of course, it helped he had something to focus on; the sheer excitement of his waiting experiment aside, he always enjoyed scanning crowds, watching people, looking for that small flicker of uncertainty. Anything that'd help him single out a good target.

He hadn't had to wait long to find his target, this time. Sometimes things just handed themselves to you.

Alistair was under the effects of polyjuice, and had been for some time. He needed to make his move soon, or he risked it wearing off, which would be something of a let down after the hours he'd spent on the streets. His current appearance was quite different from his usually reedy feminine build; the man he was disguised as was large, bulky and covered in tattoos. He looked like the sort to be fairly dim witted, which certainly helped.

The people - or rather, person - he'd been following were a pair, a mother and daughter, from the look of it. And via the snatches of conversation he'd heard and the uncertainty on the woman's face, it was very clear: the mother was a muggle.

Well, Alistair was fine with that, at least so far as her being a target went. He might even be doing the wizarding world a favor - and it gave him the perfect way to cover his tracks, now didn't it? He just had to get rid of the kid, somehow.

He got his break when the two headed into Madame Malkin's, and Alistair carefully followed. He glared at the coats, watching the two out of the corner of his eye (and wondering why the kid's hair looked like that), waiting until what he'd been expecting happened - the kid left for a dressing room.

His wand - a stolen one - slipped from his sleeve and into his hand. The coats made a handy disguise as he raised his arm, wand pointing at the woman through the fabric -

It was wordless, and he had to hope it'd work; Confundo had never been one of his better spells...

"And how was it with your friend, after I had to leave?" Patricia asked her daughter.

Obderedria shrugged in a non committal way. "It was...fine. Philo and I just talked about things. He'd never heard of Wallace and Gromit before and he thought they sounded fascinating."

"Oh, well that's good. Sorry I had to go, but with my blackberry phone going off with those belches and whistles...I think some junk mail got deleted and it took two days it get it fully charged again. That paper airplane got to you, right?"

"Yes."

"How come wizards don't use those more often than owls?"

"I don't know. Philo said his dad works at the ministry, they only use them between departments." Mum had been there for the explanation but she hadn't comprehended it the first time. "It only worked since you were a few blocks away. I don't think a paper plane could make it all the way to school."

"Oh. So what's left on the list?"

Between mother and daughter there were bags of new books, ingredients and other school equipment. Obderedria consulted a list scratched on the back of a lunch receipt. "Just to get my school robes altered."

"We've got them?"

"Yep." The oldest bag of the bunch had her school uniform. Obderedria had been harboring misgivings about going to the tailors, after her time hanging out with Dahlia last week. The speckled haired Hufflepuff didn't have an older sister to borrow bras from if it was needed. And hopefully not wind up with mum's chest until she was older. But to get her uniform let out there would need to be measurements, wouldn't there? And then would everything come out?

It was just as she had expected. A student having their uniform redone was nothing new. An attendant said she could alter the uniform in a jiffy but there would be measurements. Obderedria gulped. The only slight consolation was that the tape measure moved in midair by itself, instead of someone having to touch her.

"Hmm, you're a growing girl aren't you?" the attendant said. Obdereria's cheeks turned pink. "You'll want it cut loose, most children start through growth spurts at your age."

The changes did only take minutes thanks to magic. The attendant handed the uniform back and suggested Obderedria try it on.

"Are there dressing rooms...oh, this way." She went back to the rooms...

---

...while her mother, Patricia, browsed the clothing racks by the back corner so she wouldn't be far from her daughter. All the fashions were, well slightly unusual and the expensive ones spoke of extra 'features' like self-pressing-self-folding or forever-fresh-scents. It was just difficult to determine price with this pound to galleon and sickle conversion, and the fact wizard money used base counts of 17 and 29.

She didn't notice the wizard behind her with the wand raised. Patricia took one outfit off the rack, scrutinized it, and as she placed it back on the rack of of the corner of her eye there was a flash...

Her perspective of the world blurred, and then faded to black...

The woman stumbled forward and Alistair had just enough time to hurriedly recast the spell before her sudden listlessness would appear odd. He managed, with an awkward sort of shuffle from rack to rack, to both guide and follow her out of the store and into the tiny alley just to the side of the shop.

Diagon had a series of small drainage alleys that ran behind some shops like a web; they were hard to move in - barely wider than most people - but they were dark, private, and made it easy to disguise what he was up to. He hoped. Also, most people didn't bother to look down them as they passed by...

The busy rumble of the city was muted almost the instant he stepped between the walls, the sun of the summer day cut odd by the overlapping rooves above his head. The alley was very dark, his target only visible was a somewhat lumpy shape in the gloom. Alistair was suddenly, keenly aware of his own hammering heartbeat.

He gave in, after stumbling on a few cobble stones, and lit the end of his wand. It illuminated the woman standing there, looking confused and dazed. She was also closer than he'd expected, and he jumped when the light hit her face.

Merlin. If hexing muggles was this easy, he'd have to do it more often.

Still, he hesitated, considering. Hi hesitation wasn't out of any concern for the muggle; rather, he took a few moments to consider the best way to get what he wanted. A vibrant memory was likely best, he reasoned. Something with a lot of colors and sound, and ideally a pleasant memory...

He wasn't sure how to extract that exact sort of memory, though. Well, damn - it was worth a shot...

"Extraxi Memoria," he said, pointing the tip of his wand at the woman's forehead as he fumbled for an empty phial.

...more odd sensations, tingles and feelings played across Patricia Pienas as magic worked over her. She felt faint, submerged into a black pool but resurfaced. Her retention of the events outside her control was poor. She was being moved, but not by her own power...she was in the dark, was that from her eyes being half closed or the dim nook of the alleyway? There was a man. Was it him? Had he come back? Why was she here, she was meant to be outside the dressing rooms, to inspect her daughter's school robes. She was meant to be there...

---

...when Obderedria emerged from the dressing room, tucking in her white shirt and straightening the vest and skirt. Obderedria didn't like clothes shopping all the much, the way her mother hemmed and hawed over affordable tasteful outfits, so the girl had adapted to make changing clothes one of her fastest activities. For appearances, she'd only buttoned the collar and hem of the shirt, leaving the buttons under her vest unbuttoned. Her house tie was also a loose knot. The outer black school cloak was about her shoulders, one arm bent to enter a sleeve.

"Nothing's tugging or bunching in the wrong spot," she said, awaiting whatever her mother's fussy judgement would be before shrugging into the warmer winter uniform.

But there wasn't a response. Obderedria looked about but couldn't see her mother anywhere. Some of the clothing racks were just taller than her, so she dashed between openings, looking for her. "Mum? Mum!"

There was that haunting trickle down her back, like a cracked egg or melting ice cram flowing down her skin. A feeling of being suddenly and utterly alone. "MUM?!" What was she to do? What would Beverly do at a time like this?

Obderedria went to the front counter, finding the attendant that had altered her robes minutes before. "Where did my mother go??" she asked, winded, panting not from exertion but from growing panic.

"She wasn't looking too good so your father helped walk her out."

That was a phrase she hadn't expected all. Time snapped like a stretched piece of elastic and all of eternity was packed into a single moment where she stood petrified, suspended.

"She went out with who??"

"That chap that followed you two in here. Isn't that your dad?"

"I DON'T HAVE A DAD!!" Obderedria shrieked. Pandemonium fully splayed across her brain. Without waiting for a response she rushed out onto the magical street. Diagon, once a strange but comforting little walkway with its shops of whimsy had been replaced with a far stretching street with unrecognizable, incomprehensible faces and shop windows. Obderedria was the alienated stranger, she was a just a little girl that went to a magical school for reasons she didn't fully understand left in a world where everyone knew more magic than she did and didn't have mothers that had been whisked away by an unknown force.

She gaped at the crowd, deaf and mute to any communication that would transmit her plight. Who could help her? How could she be helped? The short street was a continent of places where her mother could be far removed from from her. Where would she possibly be able to start searching?

As her eyes ran rapid along the street, there was something kept level to her gaze, the sense of a familiar figure in the crowd. She chased it until she came across a narrow crevice between the crowd, there was a gleam of harsh light. A Lumos spell. She peered into the nook, where the light didn't help discern what was in there. Shadows and obliterating light played across two figures. As she moved closer she could only recognize one, the slumped vulnerable form of her mother.

"Extraxi Memoria." This was an incantation from the other figure.

Obderedria screamed. "MUM?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY MUM??"

That spell couldn't be good. She had to do something. This must be what all those scary lessons in Defense with Professor Storm had been about. The reality was worse than whatever horrors she had imagined in the classroom. She fumbled for her wand but no spells leapt to mind that could remedy the situation.

This was why no one should have kids, ever. Annoying little twerps, the lot of them!

Alistair had gotten the memory out, the strand glimmering and shimmering and thick; that was good. It meant wahatever it was of was a good one - that is, vibrant and long. He couldn't help but smile at it, momentarily distracted by the possibilities it represented. What powerful potions this one would make...

He'd been in the process of carefully moving it to the phial when the damned brat had shown up and started yelling like a small fat banshee, the little twat. Alistair quickly rammed the memory into the phial, none too gently, his wand raising towards the girl - as well as he could manage, anyway, in the tightness of the thin alleyway.

"Shut up," he said, and then realized how close the girl was to the street. He hesitated again, trying to figure out what to do - and noticed his hands were slowly but noticeably growing more delicate.

The potion! Merlin! Today was not his day, was it?

"Obliviate!" He yelled, the flash directed at Drea as he shoved her mother aside, trying to get the dazed and confused muggle between him and the open street.

"Shut up!" It was enough to shut Obderedria's mouth. She tried to notice the features of her mother's attacker. A big man, balding...that was growing long hair, and the man was turning into a woman...what was going on?

"Obliviate!" The spell came right for her. She had no magic to defend herself with, no applicable incantations. Her wand was held feebly, trembling. Obderedria muttered. The structureless magic caused strange, rippling shapes to emanate from her wand. They did nothing to stop the spell. Obderedria didn't even dodge. She could feel the spell coming, she was engulfed in a warm, fuzzy embrace...

--before her mind went fuzzy--

--"Oh, this is Gromit. There are these animated shorts on television," -- "So, this one is for London, and-- where's the other one going? UK as well?"-- "where, it's this man called Wallace and his dog Gromit, and they invent these wild mechanical contraptions out of their flat." -- "Well, it should be somewhere in the UK. I don't know where, exactly because she travels so much but the owl should find her, right? I'm not worried if it takes a while." -- "They've been to the moon and turned the second floor into a windmill for their bakery and mutated a rabbit," -- "P-Peter, Winnie...please don't argue. I'm sure we're all nervous about the exams...I'm going to stink in Transfiguration," -- "well, all the characters are made out of this clay stuff called plasticine, and each object in the picture is moved very slightly before they take a picture, and practically a million of these pictures become the frames of the film." -- "I'll guess I'll be around home while mum's at work. There's always Diagon to visit." -- "The process takes a really long time so that's why there's only one movie and four featurettes, plus other clips and commercials." -- And here’s the strangous part. Not all of the green paint washed off! There were these blotchy circles left on my hair. Mum tried everything she could think of to clean it off but they wouldn’t go away. Mum said we’d have to wait for it to grow out, so she cut my hair as much as she could but there were still green spots. -- "How come wizards don't use those more often than owls?" -- "I don't think a paper plane could make it all the way to school." -- "I DON'T HAVE A DAD!!" --

Obderedria teetered, slumped against the wall, in sync with her own mother collapsing in the alleyway, her eyes dead to noticing anything in the world outside her mind. The purpose of the day was gone. She didn't remember why she was in Diagon today, what she had for breakfast, the trouble mum had with her blackberry phone, maybe earlier in the week...and in the race back in time to find memories that were being lost, a barrier was broken far far in the past--

-- she felt sick, the worst illness she ever had that ate away at her insides and clouded her vision with the darkest splotch -- but it wasn't a splotch, it had a form, big and tall and it loomed over her but it was faced the other way -- and someone screaming and it wasn't her -- Mum? --

-- but in the present, Obderedria was just an unfortunate school girl slumped in a nook off an alleyway, helpless to an unforeseen attack. Unresponsive. Slack. Discarded.

Jaydev had been right.  Of course he'd been right.  He's a Balimmora.  Balimmoras were always right.  Countless generations of success had proven that much.  Still, after his eighteen years there was always a rush of euphoria after being proven right in something.  His friends expected this from him: even found it amusing after the annoyance wore off.  But, back to the present.  Jay had been living in his flat for two days.  Today he had accomplished applying for the title of being an Auror Trainee.  He was to start the next morning.  Everything was falling into place.  After turmulous years of discipline, power studying and little sleep, his plan was working out just the way he wanted.  Ergo, he was right.  And he felt great.

Now he was in Diagon Alley, on his way to Gringotts bank to set up an account.  Recently a chunk his hard-earned money was put into a down deposit for the flat.  This was his first time in Diagon Alley.  And though he could clearly see the massive bank ahead of him, he kept running into dead ends and tiny alleys.  As he rounded a corner, something caught his attention: someone shouting a spell, though it was too muffled to make out what it was.  Whatever it was, it didn't sound too friendly.  So, making a b-line for the source, his fingers twitched over his pocket where his wand was held.

Stopping in front of a tiny and dark alley, he could make out a few bodies.  In an instant he whipped out his wand, illuminating the dark alley with a classic Lumos Maxima.  "What in blazes is going on here?" he questioned firmly in his New Zealand accent.  What he saw confirmed his hunch: an indisposed girl and what might have been her mother at the mercy of the culprit standing there unharmed.

For the love of Merlin's shriveled up old -

A flash of light and the blasted girl crumpled, her eyes unfocused. Even as Alistair let himself smirk in satisfaction and started to try and form a plan, a man appeared, bursting into the alley with a cry of surprise. He'd been spotted - he knew that little twit had been too close to the damn street -

With his polyjuice potion wearing off, Alistair yanked his collar up as his hair started to lengthen and return to its bright blonde color, trying to disguise his face. The blasted muggle was still in the way, and as Alistair started to move away down the alley, he tripped over her. He lost time as he stumbled, kicking the woman in the ribs as he shoved her forward.

Alistair tried not to let himself panic, his heart hammering in his chest. He wasn't going to get caught - he had work to do - he wasn't going to get caught -

"Incendio!" he yelled, the fire bursting from the end of his wand and consuming the alley behind him as he made a break for the opening at the far end, running away from the chaotic scene.

This did not look good.  What was this man planning on doing with them?  Jay was prepared for any retaliation from the ugly man.  Except the moment Jay tried to prevent the slack woman from falling to the hard ground.  How rude of him to treat a lady like that!  He jumped to her aid, attempting to set her down gently against the wall like the little girl.  As a result, he was caught off guard as the mini inferno blazed around him.

Shielding the woman from the heat, he flicked his wand as a counter-spell dissipated the flames.  Readying for a jelly-legs jinx, the criminal had already made his way out of the alley.  He jerked forward, about to run after the man, but then realized it was a lost cause.  He had escaped.  All he could do now was tend to the victims.  Something lodged in his throat that can only be described as shame.  He had failed.  His first day as an Auror Trainee and this is what happens.  He was a disgrace to the magical law enforcement.  Still, he had to focus.

His first priority was the child.  Kneeling beside her he checked her state of consciousness.  He moved his hand up and down in front of her, but got nothing.  She looked dazed; as if she were dreaming.  He must have Obliviated her, he reasoned, recognizing the signs.  Enervate, he thought, wanting to bring the child out of her reverie.  "Hello?  Can you hear me?  Do you know where you are?  Do you know what day it is?"

This was not a good dream at all, Obderedria felt so sick and hollow. She wanted to curl up cozily but she didn't have the strength for it. How could the nightmare end? Something inched along her arm, it must be some creepy crawly --

"Hello?  Can you hear me?"

-- the back of her head hurt, she wasn't on her soft pillow, mattress or bedsheets --

"Do you know where you are?"

-- the world was coming into focus --

"Do you know what day it is?"

Obderedria blinked. There was a strange man crouched over her. She wasn't in her bedroom. She wasn't in her jammies, rather her school uniform and it was all disheveled. She tried to get a clue from her surroundings. The man had a wand but she didn't recognize him. Hers was a foot away from her.

"Aren't we in Diagon?? What's going on??"

There was something missing. Something big missing. Several things missing. Obderedria felt so strange.

"I'm hungry," she added in a soft, frightened voice.

Oh, good.  He saw that the girl's consciousness was coming back, though however hazy.  That was to be expected.  He was relieved she knew where she was, at least.  "Hello, don't worry, I'm here to help.  I'm Jaydev and an Auror Trainee.  You and your mother were attacked.  For what, I don't know.  Are you injured in any way?  Anything that needs immediate attention?"

He used his wand to scan the child for any internal injury, sighing in relief to not finding anything.  "I'm going to check on your mother, okay?  Just relax." he said firmly before picking up the discarded wand and setting it in the girl's hand. Scooting over to the woman to check her, he figured he might as well take them to St. Mungo's.  They could be experiencing some mental and emotional trauma that he wasn't equipped with aiding.  This was certainly not something he expected to come upon during his visit to the bank.

"I'll take you to the hospital, but I need to know if you were in Diagon Alley with anyone else.  Also, anything else you can recall would be appreciated.  If not, that's fine.  We can sort this out after your health has been prioritized."

Auror? That was the term for a wizard cop, Obderedria had come to know. Disbelief was painted all across her face as Jaydev explained what was happening.

"We were attacked?? How?? Is my mum all right?? I don't feel any--" This was a lie. Her head was sore as if it had struck a wall at the base of her skull. She was also nauseous, a feeling like her stomach had too much acid and not enough sustanence, like being queasy from skipping breakfast and lunch.

Jaydev told Obderedria to relax but she couldn't, if something had happened to her mother too. She tried to stand but she was too weak, flopping onto her side in a half-crawl as if her bones were hollow drinking straws. Patricia Pienas did not look well. Her eyes had the same glazed expression her daughter's had just moments ago. There was a boot print on her blouse, lower in the torso.

Obderedria's face became very wet when she started crying. Jaydev's next instructions were barely heard, muffled as her ears clogged up. Her nose got dribbly too.

"I--I--I--" she sobbed, "I don't know why we were in Diagon!! We were here last -- that was when we met Philo and the other Falkins but we left and--"

"I've lost something!!" she cried even louder.

He idly listened as the girl rambled on in hysteria.  This was to be expected.  "I'm taking you to the hospital right away," he said reassuringly, turning to the weeping girl calmly.  "Whatever it is you've lost, I'll take care of it."  He carefully stood up with the girl's mother in one arm.  Jaydev then reached down with his free hand and offered it to the girl.  "Grab on tight, close your eyes and hold your breath.  I'm going to apparate us," he said, waiting for the moment to focus all his energy into the destination.

Once ready, he disapparated on the spot with the woman and child clinging on to him--