So Aberdeen had noticed something peculiar when going through the old muggle newspaper archives. ('Why are you even looking at papers that old?' her husband had asked. 'Muggle Affairs is still new, Luke. I just think it'd really help me to get a handle on what kind of history we're looking at when it comes to muggle and magical events overlapping.' 'You really need something to distract you, don't you?' '...No comment.') There had been a number of unsolved deaths in Scotland. Around the area of Kippen to be precise. Not a great many reported, granted, but enough from the same kind of area to get Aberdeen's attention. And not all of the articles recognised the killings as 'unsolved'; since the scenes were primarily rural, some of the official causes were put down to unfortunate animal attacks.

Animal attacks her foot. These people had been attacked in remote places, forests, hills, even one or two in a nearby national park. The muggles had no way of looking out for patterns such as these, but this had rogue werewolf written all over it. There was even evidence of a magical person or persons living in Kippen. ('I checked the Hogwarts enrollment archives in the Ministry library,' she had explained to Luke. 'How'd you manage that without Akiva to help you?' 'With difficulty.') Victoria Andrews, student of Hogwarts from 1993 to 2000. I would have been at school with her, Aberdeen realised, though the name didn't ring a bell. What was the betting one of Andrews's parents had been bitten, way back when? Before the inventions of the Wolfsbane Potion, there were a great many wolves who took care to lock themselves away during the full moon, or to take themselves far from any kind of people. One or two attacks in the countryside were the symptoms of a mistake, of a werewolf still learning to deal with the curse. But this many? It indicated a different kind of werewolf. The kind that turned themselves loose on unsuspecting victims.

Aberdeen had done a little digging, and it transpired that Andrews had reappeared down south. Knockturn Alley, it seemed was one of her regular haunts. This worked out fine for Aberdeen; she was often in the area anyway, looking out for any sign of Tawse or Robin, or any lead as to their whereabouts. She didn't appear here as herself, though. She was a former auror, after all, and didn't want to risk being recognised. So she had applied her usual disguise via self-transfiguration; she shrunk herself down by a few inches, turned her hair brown and straggly, made her eyes blue, her face and body a tad rounder, and donned a pair of glasses. She was still nothing out of place; just another face in the street.

Victoria Andrews, however, wore no such disguise. Armed with a description she had acquired from another of Knockturn's lurkers, Aberdeen managed to pick out a woman she was almost certain was the one she was looking for. She looked as though she'd just come out of one of the buildings, so now was as good a time as any to jump in. She didn't want to waste time hanging back and observing; if she was spotted spying on the woman, she'd get no information at all.

'Hi there!' she called out, approaching the woman. All traces of Aberdeen's Scottish accent were gone; she sounded just like a Londoner. 'So sorry to just pounce on you, but-- it's Victoria, isn't it? Victoria Andrews?' She affected a pleasant kind of familiarity as though she knew Andrews from somewhere, while watching to see if she responded to the name.

Outright displays of emotion were most certainly not what Victoria did. Especially not out here in public amongst her clientele base and around those who supplied her with things.... best left unmentioned. She reveled in unspoken joy - quiet like and barely celebrated - as she noticed the fear in some of the eyes of those around her, a typical emotion for those who had strayed too far from their Diagon comfort zone.

Her grin was grim as she leaned up against the counter, her arms cold against the metal of the counter top. The store keep  came out with her purchase in a small black pouch, "S'that all of it?" She purred, plucking the pouch out of the taller man's hands. He nodded, preferring not to converse with her as he made note of her purchase.

She pocketed the sleek, black pouch into her cloak and stepped back from the counter; heading towards the door to get on with her day. The cold weather left her hair standing on end, but the rude interruption from some other witch was enough to almost startle Victoria. Instead of startling her though, it left her feeling annoyed.

"Depends on who's askin'," she stated roughly, continuing to walk along the side of the alley, hoping the woman wouldn't follow her. But she was still fast approaching, and Victoria was still walking. "If she owes ya' somethin', then you is better off gettin' lost."

Andrews was immediately on guard, and Aberdeen could tell she was keen to escape her company. First order of business, then, was to try and lower that guard. 'Hey, don't you think that you'd remember me if you owed me something?' she said with an easy smile. 'You don't, no worries. I make it a habit not to let anyone in my debt. It's so tiring.

'In fact,' she continued, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a coin purse, 'I owe you money, funnily enough. I think it was you, anyway. You loaned me a galleon during a trip to Hogsmeade. Never did get around to paying you back. Here.' She flipped the gold coin towards Andrews before giving her a slightly more scrutinising look. 'You really don't remember me, huh? Well, there's no reason why you should, really. It's a big school, after all, and I wasn't in your class. I'm Helen Singer, I was a few years ahead of you at Hogwarts. How in the world have you been, Victoria?'

She had to be careful here, not to overstep the line from friendly to nosy. The 'old schoolmate' was a staple of hers, but it only worked effectively if she didn't overdo it. She had to be unobtrusive, but still offer a reason for her target not to brush her off. Hence why she had 'unwittingly' revealed the contents of her rather full purse when she had given Andrews the galleon. She was still gauging the witch's character, but she was pretty sure presenting herself as (best case) someone who could buy a few rounds at the Leaky Cauldron or (worst case) an easy mark for pickpocketing couldn't hurt.

Victoria turned to give the woman her attention, what was a few minutes out of her day? She had nowhere to be, nothin' to do, might as well amuse herself and toy around, see what this woman was up to in Knockturn. Certainly didn't seem like she belonged here, now did it?

She caught the coin flipped at her in one hand, the quick motion betraying her cat-like, or should she say wolf-like, reflexes. A devious grin appeared on Victoria's face, as her mind started to calculate the position she'd been put in. She'd loaned someone money? Now didn't that seem a tad bit strange, because she couldn't recall it.

With that in mind, she put her hand down, flipping the coin between one hand and the other. "Sorry ta say I don't rem'mber ya, but I don't aim to make note of everyone I come by, that would be... tiring." She mimicked.

"How 'ave I been? Well off I suppose," she started, her eyes lingering on the large coin purse before slowly drawing back up to her 'old schoolmate's' face. "Gettin' by a bit, here and there. Left my Pa back in Scotland, decided it was time to leave the nest." She couldn't betray too much, but she wanted to know more about how the hell this person knew her, and recognized her. "How 'ave you been, Singer? Runnin' round and payin' off debts an everyday thing now?"

Well, Andrews had taken the galleon. So either she accepted the possibility that she might have loaned it out and forgotten about it, or she was, for reasons only known to her, happy enough just to play along. Figuring out which would be the trick. 'Ha, I guess you could say that,' she replied, tucking her purse away again. 'I was a bit of a brat back in school, I guess now that I've sort of made something of myself I like to, I don't know, be a bit nicer to the people I used to know, when I see them.' She smiled a blithe kind of smile that looked perfectly comfortable on her face, but felt entirely alien. 'So if you fancied grabbing a drink, it'd be on me.'

Not wanting to push the invitation too obviously, she also lighted on the subject of Andrews's father. Potentially the werewolf she was looking for. 'London's quite a ways to come to leave the nest, I hope you're dad's not getting too lonely up there. Still,' she added thoughtfully, 'I suppose it's easy enough for you to apparate or floo to see him. Or he could; he's a wizard, isn't he?'

Victoria didn't particularly remember a single brat that she'd met back in school, but there were plenty of people in her class that could have been regarded as a 'brat' or worse. It wasn't odd that she could have had one of 'em in debt - it was just odd that she hadn't come 'round to collect sooner.

In fact, she had forgotten all about it, apparently. And while this behavior wasn't strange for Victoria, who had so many other priorities, it struck a chord in her that was telling her that something about this was off.

"I guess I 'ave time for a drink," she said, almost curiously. Maybe that would buy her more time to figure this woman out.

She walked forwards, closer to the woman. "Keith, my father, doesn't get lonely. He unde'stood that I needed time to fig're this world out for my own." Victoria shrugged, "He's a wizard, but he doesn't like leaving the homeland much. Tells me he was born 'en Scotland, and 'e'll die there as well."

Her father wouldn't get lonely, he was probably reveling in the fact that he was free to hunt by his lonesome self. As much as Victoria loved running with her father on full moons, she had things that needed to be done in London. On occasion, she'd leave a few days before a full moon and track him down just to hunt for a night, but she hadn't done that in a while. "You see your parents much, Singer?"