Instead of intruding on Landis's evening the night before, Tapendra had chosen to wait - and given himself time to mull out the idea that was now storming about his mind ahead of time. The letters Sasha had provided him were full of clues, he knew, and he's sat up late into the night, using the logic to help him calm down from the emotional storm that his conversation with Sasha had been. But...he'd made progress there, he knew.

It was therefore mid-morning when he descended towards the Library, the letters safely stowed inside a notebook that he had under his arm as he walked. He wasn't quite dressed; mid-morning was usually when he either napped or worked by himself. Students were busy in classes. It had been largely for the sake of appearing in public areas of the school that he'd pulled on a shirtsleeve and vest; even so, he'd been preoccupied enough he'd forgotten shoes until he was padding across the cold stone of the main hallways. And by that point..he'd decided he didn't care much.

Te Library was quiet, with just a few of the older students studying at the tables or in the chairs. That suited him fine. He crossed to the Library's desk, where Morgan was at work, and leaned at the top of it, one hand on the bare area where students were meant to place books as they checked them out.

"Good morning, Mister Morgan," he said, cheerfully but politely. "Do you have a moment to speak with me? In your office, preferably. One of the Slytherins is being problematic." The lie was easy and simple, and generally not necessary - though the glances from across the Library made him inclined to add it.

Landis looked at him neutrally, consideringly, not the type to invest in social inanities like pretending he hadn't seen Trishna coming. "Of course." He cast a quick glance out over the library, though this time of morning with classes in session there weren't many students in. Satisfied that only an idiot would try something while he wasn't about, he gestured for Tappy to follow him back down the short hallway which led to his office as well as the backroom in which he kept extra supplies, new orders, and books to be repaired.

He locked the door behind Tappy manually, not bothered to cast any muffling charms. He had invested considerable time and effort at the beginning of the year into inscribing his office door all around with spells for secrecy and silence. Once it closed, there wasn't anything to be heard from the other side; not even a squad of Aurors could have broken it down without destroying the wall around it.

Now he looked to Tappy expectantly. Since Trishna had first confronted him two months ago on the nature of his employment, he had suffered through a simultaneously uneasy and relieving partnership of sorts with the other man. On one hand, Landis was a hard-boiled paranoid, twitching at every noise and checking every shadow, expecting at any moment this house of cards to fall. On the other, it felt somewhat like a release of confinement to talk freely with someone of like-minded intentions. It was ego only that let him savor the wariness in Trishna's eyes when he suggested a darker solution or course of action than a Hogwarts adult ought to know. But it was not a relief so great as to be addicting, and he did not for a moment desire a greater mixing of his compartmentalized mental and professional spheres. There was an edge he walked by letting Trishna keep the knowledge he had, and by trusting him with more. By working with him. Landis rarely forgot this. Whether it was really a problematic student Trishna wished to speak to him of or other matters, the result of that first discussion inevitably flavored all of their interactions.

He followed Landis to the man's office, frowning a bit as he did so. It felt odd to do this; the Library was filled with the sort of quiet serenity he'd treasured as a student, the sort that would have been nice to curl up with a book to. Not to discuss...well, not to discuss a rather horrific scene of murder.

Still, this needed to be done - and he'd be lying if the logical challenge of putting the pieces together wasn't strangely thrilling. It helped that the pieces seemed to be in his favor, which...well, he needed a second opinion from someone who could look at it critically. Landis certainly qualified.

The man didn't muffle the door; Tapendra paused and looked at it, unsure if he should do so. Choosing to leave it for now, he turned back to meet the Librarian's expectant look.

"It's not actually about a student," he said, a little wearily. "If you couldn't guess from that bloody transparent lie." It actually wasn't that bad, just terribly uncreative. But uncreative worked.

He looked at the door again before he spoke.  "I need your opinion, Mister Morgan. And these might help you, as well -" He pulled the notebook out from under his arm, putting it on Landis's desk and opening it, revealing the copies of the letters. He looked at the door again, and sighed.

"You have that muffled, I assume?" He asked, looking up at Landis. When the man indicated yes, he continued, pulling the copies from the notebook.

"Schlagenweit gave me copies of his letters with Malvivicus," he finished. "And they're - well, upsetting." He shook his head with a very slight sigh. "Schlagenweit edited them - there's no identity locations here, not exactly, though there are some  clues. And -" he was looking for a particular letter, and he finally found it, pulling it separate from the slim stack. He set it on the desk, before standing with both hands on the desk and looking up at Landis.

"I need your logical mind, Morgan. I'm too involved - these letters get me worked up, angry. But I think...based on the circumstances and what's here...I'm beginning to think Ashford's attack was no coincidence. It's too well timed."

While he was not surprised that Trishna's vague excuse had been nothing but that, Landis had not expected such an information windfall. He only barely kept himself from looking at the letters like a man dying of thirst looked at a photograph of water, hiding instead the sudden spike of interest with his very unfeigned surprise.

"May I keep these for a while to study them?" he asked, tone neutral as he nodded towards the letters. He reached out, picked up one, slow and calm. "I may be able to find other clues as well." Not to mention a great deal that could prove beneficial to him. It would make the difference between being able to go over them scrupulously thorough if he could keep them or try his hardest to memorize them now. Though it didn't show in his face or body language Landis felt the slow delicious thrill of satisfaction, an excitement despite himself that quickened his pulse and lit hot his brain.

Trishna didn't even know the value of what he'd just handed him, or maybe he did. If so, Landis was very grateful. Everything else he knew about Malvivicus he'd had to fight for, painstakingly sniffing out tidbits of information, meticulously following leads, agonizingly patient as he coaxed words from his informants' mouths. Not this. His eyes drank up the letters greedily. Maybe it was good to have a partner in this mess. He could not have ordered Schlagenweit to give him these, nor used his emotions to ply him into it.

The mention of Mannie sobered him, and Landis took the note Tappy specified. Since this promised to be a lengthy meeting, he slunk into the chair behind his desk without taking his eyes off the parchment before him. An idle wave of his wand pulled up the chair from the corner for Trishna. He paused before he waved it again, briefly looking up. "Tea?" There was no urgency to his manner, and it was best if Trishna matched. He did not need Tappy to tell him the letters distressed him to see it in the other man's body language, or the fact that he'd come to get Landis' opinion at all.

Tapendra hesitated, looking down at the letters. Sasha hadn't - he'd clearly handed them over with the expectation that only Tapendra would see them. Yet here he was, breaking that unspoken promise, and Landis wanted him to break it even more but handing him them for some time.

He frowned, setting his jaw. Some things were important - he'd have to just trust this wouldn't backfire. "I'll make you copies," he said, a little deflated. The offer of tea was met with a grateful nod. As much as the urge to pace all over the Librarian's office was almost overpowering, Tapendra restrained himself, sitting down. "With extra sugar, if you don't mind."

"Unfortunately, Schlagenweit edited out any overt mention of Malvivicus's location," he said, as he pulled the remaining letters towards him and began to tap them with his wand, spawning a duplicate of each. "But there are defiantly clues remaining. I was hoping you might be able to put them together with what you've got, and perhaps..." He sat back in the chair, sighing.

"I was able to ask Schlagenweit about some of the vaguer passages, and one of them -" He waved a hand towards Landis and the letter the man had, "Schlagenweit confirmed - Malvivicus was at his home, and had a...well, and all out row with his father. The night that they were all killed. Not even half a day passed. On top of that - the first letters were sent not even two weeks after the incident and he's referring to him as son. Schlagenweit said he's been calling him that since they first met - even when his parents were alive."

Landis was very pleased. He summoned a kettle from a shelf in the corner and set it to boiling as Tappy relented, his wand steady with its heat, vindication curling in him like a snake.

He took each copy as Tappy finished with it, already understanding Trishna's meaning before the man was done speaking. They were sparingly edited, and there was nothing Landis could do to reveal the whole without the original letter. A copy of a copy had nothing to hide. "Yes," he said absently, already thinking to triangulate location or identity or habit, anything. Schlagenweit had edited much of that out, of course, any mention that he might have seen as valuable... but there might be something that the boy hadn't noticed that Landis would. Though Tappy had pointed out to him specifically one letter, he could not help but glance over the others as he sorted them into a pile.

His eyes were caught by a certain jumble of words, and for a moment he plucked one letter out of the mess and studied it harder. His eyes narrowed as he realized what he held. Was this the start of things, Schlagenweit's difficulty accessing the Restricted Section? Was this the seed that had led to Malvivicus' interest? Landis' expression darkened, lip curling, thoughts souring with teeth-gritting hate. Stupid boy. But he forced himself to lay the letter down, straightening its edges to align with the rest of the pile's. There was no time for this now, and nothing in his expression that he wanted Trishna to see.

He looked up at Tappy with a long, considering stare, one that continued unblinking even as he dropped the lumps into the other man's tea - one, two, three little plunks of sugar into the cup. It would have to suffice as 'extra.' "Manfred Ashford was under the Imperious that night," he said at last, setting down Tappy's cup on the corner of his desk closest to the Astronomy professor, and then turning back to his own. He added a thin dribble of milk before dismissing the whole mess with a wave of his wand, kettle whisking away onto a nearby shelf, bowls and spoons stacking neatly, steam sharply cut off. "I have long suspected Malvivicus was the one who orchestrated the murder, as well as the one who taught Schlagenweit the spell used to kill Ashford."

Tapendra picked up his tea cup, giving it a gentle flick in midair to stir it a bit. But, despite the stare, he relaxed a bit. So the pattern wasn't his imagination, then. That didn't mean it wasn't something both of them were making up in the hope it was true, but then - what had Morgan to gain from the Ashford incident being Kronos's plan? If he too had suspected that, then perhaps...

"That's what I'm wondering about," he said, sipping the tea. It was hot and sweet - good, and a calming sort of thing. His heart still beat faster than normal, though - this could be something. Something they could do something about, something..something that might convince Sasha they had to bring the man down.

"It that is the case, it might be a boon to us," he admitted, with a twinge of guilt. The idea that Malvivicus might treat Sasha's family (and one of their employees) as expendable was enraging, but - it was also in character. It was in character enough that the resignation sort of took the edge off the anger.

"The issue would be proving it, of course," he added, shaking his head. "Ashford's dead. If there are people who can confess what happened to him, they're either in hiding, working for Malvivicus, or know well enough to keep their traps shut."

Landis did not feel the need to prove anything, not when the outcome of that night had benefited Malvivicus so well. The pieces all fell into place too neatly, especially now that Trishna revealed the quarrel between Malvivicus and Schlagenweit's father. He'd known them, and been to their home. He had a meglomaniacal bent that let him see Schlagenweit as his to begin with, "fated" by their special status as kings of the wizarding race. It would have been as easy as thought for him to give the order. In fact, Landis was sure he'd seen it as a special delight.

In a strange way, this conclusion over the past months had stolen much of his hate for Sasha, dulling what was left into dispassionate distaste at his ignorance, his innocence, his muggle-loving blind gullible ways. He was a useless boy in matters of deception, and when what Landis needed right now was deception that made him worthy of some small contempt. But he was intelligent, moreso than many of the students here, and he worked hard. Pushing himself past sleep and food in pursuit of his studies was not dissimilar to how few creature comforts Landis indulged in during the course of his work. It was much easier to loathe Malvivicus and to blame Mannie's death on the man. Even if on the slim chance he hadn't arranged for the murder, he still bore the cut-glass precision of Landis' hate. What did another tally matter, on the whole? He was prepared to blame Malvivicus for all sorts of things that were and weren't his fault.

"Ashford's dead," he agreed. "His ghost haunts the Black Chimaera, and what little he remembers from that night is vague and unhelpful. There is unlikely ever to be proof. I do not intend to wait for any. Doubt will degrade Schlagenweit's trust in Malvivicus almost as well." He looked thoughtful. "Or have you already broached the subject with him?"

Tapendra had been about to pick up his teacup again when Landis's words stopped him. He paused, bringing his arm back to the armrest. Morgan had - he assumed - met with Ashford? Found his ghost, discerned there was little to get from the man, and...

It seemed odd and off. Morgan not mentioning it before was...annoying, but conceivable enough, certainly. He wasn't belong open about the other parts of the network that he'd found, so why would he divulge that? But it still was a bit odd.

He didn't agree with the comment on not needing proof. Certainly Tapendra himself didn't need it - the doubt was enough. He was silent for a few moments before he spoke, carefully, picking up the teacup and holding it cupped in his hands as he spoke.

"Schlagenweit's talents with academics are matched only by his talent for selective denial," he said, simply. "If there's a way to rationalize it away then he may very well do so - especially which such a volatile and upsetting topic. I would prefer that there was some way to find proof, or at least make it the most reasonable option."

He sipped the tea again, looking at Landis over it, deciding to ask his own questions before answering Landis's. "You met with Ashford, then. His ghost - I hadn't heard he'd stuck around. How did you find him?" Another sip. "Can you be sure he told you the truth?"

"So you haven't broached it," he guessed, looking closely at Tappy's face to confirm. "Fine. Then led him to the conclusion on his own. It doesn't matter how violently he denies it to himself: it matters that it's there, in the back of his mind, unsettling him. If you find proof - " he smiled to show how unlikely he thought the idea - "Then the idea will already be primed." He waited a moment, then added in gentler, less pragmatic tones, "There were too many people who blamed Schlagenweit at the time from the newspaper articles and Grosvenor's death to make an Imperiused murderer a surprise to him. Malvivicus is too careful to have left anything around that Schlagenweit could discover. Better to have this information do us some good than none at all."

Landis took advantage of Tappy's hesitation to sip his tea. As he had half-expected the information about Mannie's ghost gave the other man pause, but Landis wouldn't have told him if he didn't have a reasonable excuse for knowing it. "Ashford was an old fixture at the Black Chimaera," he said, "It's common knowledge in Knockturn that he stuck around." The information wasn't something he could've only learned under select suspicious circumstances. Of course, he had learned it under select suspicious circumstances, mainly through his trips to the BC for WBA purposes and his own acquaintance with Mannie pre-death, but that didn't mean it had to have been that way. He shrugged. "What reason would he have for lying? He's beyond most mortal concerns now. You're welcome to talk to him, though; perhaps you'll get a different story."

He doubted Mannie would talk to a Knockturn outsider. But who knew? Landis had been wrong before.

Tapendra shook his head. Broaching it the night before would have been terrible timing, he knew. Sasha very well might have regressed and made the entire talk, as teeth-pulling as it had been, effectively invalid.

Still – Landis was right, and so Tapendra nodded, once, in reply to what he’d said. He’d just have to find a way to present it that Sasha would understand.

Tapendra looked up at Landis again as the man explained, and the explanation was perfectly reasonable. He picked his cup up again, a sarcastic smile spreading across his face. “I doubt I’d be lucky to get anything better than ‘Sod off’, so I’ll take your word for it,” he said, simply, and sipped his tea again. “You fit in better in Knockturn than I do, Morgan. No offense meant.” He didn't add the end hastily; as sort of insulting as the comment was, it was also true. The Morgans were an old pureblood line, their history rather colorful…especially if Darian was to be believed. Landis’s name would command respect in the right areas of Knockturn. Tapendra…would probably get disappeared.

And Landis had the aura for a Knockturnite. Tapendra might as well have pulled on a shirt that read ‘pickpocket me’.

He sighed, shrugging. “I did speak to Schlagenweit last night. I think I’ve made some progress. He seems to agree that things need to change, but isn't quite willing to unedit the letters.” He looked at the paper on Landis’s desk again, feeling the sink in his stomach from handing them over. But he knew he had to – Morgan was his link, the one who could look at them and add in the information Tapendra couldn't. He just had to grit his teeth and trust the man.

Landis inclined his head. "None taken." He still preferred enveloping cloaks and polyjuice potion to traveling through Knockturn in his natural form, but that was more to avoid the Knockturn reputation rubbing off on his public persona than out of concern for being hassled. How times changed.

"I will attempt to lead him into questioning Malvivicus as much as I can without being too overt." A small smile grew on his lips, thin and entirely without humor. " You will understand if I am reluctant to have anything perceived as discontent reported back to my employer." He had different reasons than Trishna did to disillusion Schlagenweit, reasons that did not involve any concern over Sasha's feelings or wellbeing. But his and Tappy's goals suited each other, so he was willing to seem helpful as long as it continued to further his own plans as well.

Tapendra nodded, not in the least bit of rush to have Landis get himself killed. No – it was best for Tapendra to do the actual, open convincing. But Landis could do it in much more subtle ways, he was sure. Tapendra could only agree with Sasha’s doubts. Landis held the ability to actually back those doubts up with evidence of them being true.

“Thank you,” he said, picking up the tea cup again and sipping. “I understand, of course. I’d prefer Malvivicus didn’t see reason to come sniffing about Hogwarts – but I suspect you feel that even more urgency than I do.” Tapendra’s neck wouldn’t be the first on the block if that came about.

He sighed, the gust of air blowing away the steam from the top of his cup as he considered. He looked down at the letters before he looked up again, taking a moment to find the words.

“What would your recommendation be on how to use this information?” He asked, gesturing to the letters. “Since it is unlikely to be empirically proven…what would you do with it?

Landis looked down at the letters. There was a long pause as he considered. It was not an uncomfortable or tense silence, merely a restful one filled with the mild rustle of parchment and tea. It gave the impression that he was examining the problem from all angles in his own quiet, watchful way.

"This is a waiting game," he said with a brief shallow shrug of his shoulders. "I will read these letters, and look to fit any new information into what I already know. Perhaps in the future something will come to pass which these letters will slot into, aha, this is what Schlagenweit edited out... Certainly it will be useful to know how best to dissect Malvivicus' logic in your meetings with Schlagenweit, which particular points to undermine. But for now? There is nothing immediate we can do.

Not quite the answer he’d wanted, which he was sure Landis knew. Tapendra smiled slightly nonetheless, though the slight slump of his shoulders and furrowed brow betrayed his uncertainty.

But – the Librarian was correct, he was sure. This was a waiting game, as it had always been. There would be no battle here, no war – the only battles, really, would be fought inside of Sasha’s head, as they (or rather, he) struggled to wrest away the last shreds of Malvivicus’s hold over the boy.

As well as Sasha’s own doubts, he hoped.

No, they’d move quietly, slowly, and above all as silently as possible…and when they did strike, it would have to be sudden, unexpected, and extremely devastating. Malvivicus needed to fall with one massive blow; if he didn’t, they were in extreme danger.

He nodded, finally, and finished his tea before he spoke.

“Thank you,” he said, simply, looking up at Landis as his set the tea down. “You’re right – or I agree with you, at least.” He smiled; it wasn’t a nice smile, but rather one full of a kind of dark, humorless mirth. “If you’re not right, I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.” Landis sooner than he, he suspected. No wonder the man’s eyes had seemed more tired these last few months.

That, or he’d just been taking more notice of the man – either way, the man looked off in general. Tapendra looked to Landis, raising his eyebrows.

“If there’s nothing you need of me, I’ll leave you to it – I’m sure you’re eager to read those over.”