It was that time of day again. 'That time of day' took up the majority of most days, it seemed, since time moved slower, patrons were scarcer, and nothing exciting ever seemed to happen. Customers who stopped in during 'that time of day' were often treated to superb service, if only because Bethan was so excited to see someone that she woke herself up and went all out. She had spent many an afternoon perfecting her garnishing skills on complimentary glasses of water, and trying to put on a posh accent while reading small children the wine list. Although sometimes boring, it was often the tamest part of the work day. The patrons who did come in tended to take their time, which made them less demanding and a good deal more pleasant, and many of them were regulars. She knew all of the old codgers from around Hogsmeade about as well as you could know anyone who spent most of their weekday afternoons staring out the window at your place of employment – by face, usual drink order, and preferred pleasantries only – but they didn't seem to mind her antics, so she didn't mind ignoring them while she practiced the fine art of wandpoint abstract ice sculpting on stray ice cubes.   

There was an older fellow sitting at the bar, where he always sat, and where he'd sat for the past decade, as far as she could tell. He wasn't the conventionally chatty sort, that bloke, and Beth didn't blame him. If she were approaching 500 years of age and spent all of her days at the The Broomsticks she couldn't imagine she'd have much to talk about, either. That was not a day she ever planned to see. Luckily, he wasn't the only person in the place, even at the ungodly hour of almost three o'clock in the afternoon, so she didn't feel terribly bothered to entertain him. There were others for her to ramble at in the interest of protecting her sanity.

There was that blonde cursebreaker, for one thing, who Beth suspected was secretly fascinating, but she hadn't quite gotten around to extracting the woman's life story by force just yet. She'd have to start with something simpler – like extracting her order. There were no waitresses on hand, and the bar wasn't exactly swamped, so she swiped a bowl of salted peanuts off of the counter and plopped the whole thing in front of her. “Happy free peanut day! It's a new thing we're trying out,” she announced, keeping up her serious facade for all of six seconds before she cracked a smile, clearly finding herself hilarious. “I'm only joking. Every day's free peanut day at the Broomsticks, like. It's just we don't normally deliver. So, can I get you something? Erm, something else?” she inquired, reaching into the bowl of nuts and helping herself to a mouthful. Free food tasted great, but other people's free food tasted better. 

When she'd first begun her sentence of eternal desk duty, Raizel had been certain that it had been part of the goblins' plan to break her will.  No longer would she go traipsing across three continents; instead, she'd been left to endlessly file and refile paperwork, to fetch and to carry, to run errands without hope of ever seeing adventure or end.  Now, nearly seven months later, it was horrifying to think that the duties that had once been so soul-sucking now seemed routine.  She didn't look forward to a week spent tending to Gringotts accounts, but the sharp dread had dulled to a point that was merely bitter to swallow.

It was an uncomfortable sort of realization to greet her mid-week.  Raizel had stopped in at the Three Broomsticks after a morning spent dealing with debtors in Hogsmeade.  Today -- as on many days at about this time -- the small tavern was mostly empty.  Aside from the serving girl and the old man at the bar, there was no one else in the establishment.  Raizel had taken a table for herself, and unhappily unrolled her parchments before her, a cacographic collection of runes and undecipherable script that had been jotted down in a hurry to give her more information about the clients that she was expected to pay a visit to that afternoon.

She wasn't left to her work for long.  The serving girl sought her out almost immediately, with an enormous bowl of peanuts in hand that Raizel did not remember as part of the Three Broomsticks' regular service.  She glanced up, slightly startled, as the girl launched into her patter.

Manners aside, the girl's earnestness was infectious.  Raizel gave a surprised laugh, flashing the girl a genuine smile.  Listening to the speech, she rested her chin on one hand, clearly amused.

"A drink to start," she said, with all graven seriousness.  That was an important part of her strategy for surviving the rest of the afternoon.  "And something to eat, I think.  What is good?  No," she interrupted herself suddenly, waving a hand at the girl.  "You decide.  Pick out what you think I would like."

A smile, small at first, slowly bloomed upon Bethan's face until it had conquered the whole thing, and she beamed. She didn't wait on people all that often, since she was technically just a barmaid, but she couldn't imagine that this sort of thing happened everyday. In fact, it seemed like the sort of spontaneous just-to-be-obnoxious thing Beth might have done herself, had she been the one being waited on. She was certainly amused – this felt a lot like playing restaurant with a slightly disinterested, otherwise occupied adult playmate. A younger Beth might have argued that Raizel wasn't playing the game right, but this bored teenager was excited for the opportunity to get creative while working a job that didn't often allow for much creativity. Not everyone was so willing to indulge her need to be entertained at all times.

“Alright, so, when you say a drink, are we talking about alcohol or something to wash down the food? Because it's not my place to judge and that, but it's the middle of the day and I don't want to offend you by guessing. I'm not saying you look like a lush – it's just that I'd like some guidance in that area, like,” she explained. The pub's limited menu didn't feature enough variation for picking something at random to be an issue, but if you got a glass of water when you were expecting firewhiskey, or a glass of wine when you were thinking butterbeer, well... that made a difference. Beth glanced down at the woman's parchment as she spoke, trying to be subtle about eying it but doing a poor job. It looked a bit like a treasure map. It didn't hold her attention for long, however. She kept getting distracted by the slightest sight of a dark figure blocking out the light – someone pacing up and down the street, it seemed like. The contrast of the person's long black cloak against the white of the snow outside made it even more obvious every time they passed by, and Beth turned her head in that direction and squinted. “Come on, mate – are you coming in or not?” she grumbled, shaking her head and going back to the patron and her treasure map... or whatever it was supposed to be. The man at the bar bristled, distracting Beth again, however. She turned in his direction, but he didn't seem to be looking for her. She really preferred a full pub.

“Anyway,” she said, finally focusing again, shaking her head slightly from side to side as if to clear it from distraction. “So... how hungry are you, exactly? You want courses? Because, as you can see, we're not so busy just now. I can probably squeeze in a few more trips to your table, isn't it?” she asked good humoredly. The figure was pacing by the window again, however, and Beth walked the few steps it took to bring her closer to the window, her hand reaching into her apron pocket for her wand. He was just an old wizard, as far as she could tell, but he was making her crazy. Turning from the window, she shrugged. Clearly slow dayshifts were driving her nuts.

The Cursebreaker flashed the girl a grin.  "A lush?" she repeated bemusedly, trying out the word on her tongue.  "Yeh, we are talking about alcohol.  But it will also wash down the food."  She gave another flutter of her hand, as if dismissing the thought entirely; one quality was clearly more important than the other.

The girl was edging closer to her table, her eyes flicking to Raizel's parchments.  Normally, she might have made more of an effort to hide them, but keeping Gringott's business secret didn't seem as much of a priority anymore.  Besides, the barmaid was doing a poor job of peering; her attention kept shifting to the street outside, where a figure was pacing in the snow.

“So... how hungry are you, exactly?"

Raizel paused, and then smiled.  She could venture a guess as to which answer the girl wanted her to give.  "As long as they are not expensive courses," she said warningly, and then added a bit more kindly, "and as long as it would be no trouble.  But I think that I would like that very much."

Someone passed by the window outside again, and the barmaid was immediately fully focused on it.  Just like she'd been with her attempts to read Raizel's parchments, though, she was not very subtle about reaching for her wand; someone, someday, would have to teach her to be better about that motion.  Despite herself, Raizel couldn't help tensing, her own gaze shifting to the interrupted light pouring in from outside.  The girl was making her jumpy now.

Movement inside the room caught her attention again.  The old man at the counter, whom she'd barely paid half a mind to, had gotten up from his barstool, and was lumbering unsteadily across the room.  His gait seemed stiff and uneven, almost apprehensive, and even in the haphazardly warm light of the pub, he looked gray.  Had he eaten something disagreeable?  Suddenly, the thought of letting this girl choose a menu option for her seemed far less than wise.

Raizel frowned, uncertainty momentarily showing through her expression as she glanced at the barmaid.  Obviously, as a staff member here, any poor health among the patrons were her realm of responsibility.  She waited to catch the girl's eye, and then flicked her gaze impatiently toward the old man, who was now pulling his coat tightly around his shoulders as he started out the door.

"Is he alright?" she asked with concern, not making much of an effort to lower her voice.

Bethan liked this girl. She was fun. It wasn't often you got treasure map toting, game playing, happy go lucky patrons in the middle of the slowest shift of the day. She could use some more friends like this, she thought – adventurous sorts who went out for a drink at three in the afternoon. She grinned at her between glances out the window. “Nothing here's all the expensive, food-wise. We're not any sort of a fancy gastro-whatsis, like they have in London and that. I don't think they'll even let you work in the kitchen unless you failed out of cooking school, like,” Beth teased. It probably wasn't the best thing to be saying to customers, but she really didn't think anybody came into the Three Broomsticks looking for gourmet fare. A pie? Sure. A basket of chips? Sure. Beyond that, however... well, the menu wasn't terribly extensive. The pub was so old that the first patrons were all dinosaurs. The fact that they served food at all was hard to believe. It spoke of progress that hadn't been seen since the day they got plumbing in the loos.

Both blonde heads turned in the direction of the aged wizard as he got up from his seat at the bar. Beth wasn't generally all that fascinated by the sight of people walking, but the place was about as empty as she'd ever seen it, so any motion was notable enough to draw her eye. How many times, after all, had she seen this very man walk through the door, lumber over to his regular bar stool, and sit down? Too many. That was, perhaps, why the difference in the way he was moving stood out in such an obvious way. Bethan's first thought was that he looked like he really needed to use the toilet, but the bloke was certainly in the pub enough to know where to go for that sort of emergency, and he was walking in the opposite direction. He was a different sort of old, she observed – a kind of old she hoped she'd never be. He was nothing like her friend Sam. He didn't seem like he'd seized life – it was more like life had seized him. He hobbled as he walked, and he didn't quite make it to the door on his palsied legs before the figure from outside finally stepped in. She was fairly certain that he knew the two women were watching, but that didn't seem to change a thing. The dark figure thrust a parcel into the old man's hands, and the hold man seemed reluctant to accept it. From where she stood, gaping dumbly with her mouth hanging slightly open, Bethan could only see their profiles. The briefest chirp of music sounded in the silent dining room, the way a music box might let slip a note or two while being handled. She was certain, at that moment, that the old patron had needed the loo, as a dark, wet stain was blossoming on his trouser leg.

Beth's throat had gone dry, probably because her mouth had been hanging open, and she shut it, swallowing hard in an attempt to dampen it. She wasn't entirely sure what she was witnessing but, seeing as the whole pub now smelled like hot piss, she was eager for it to be over. She was the employee here, so she was pretty sure it was on her to take action. She did the only thing that came to mind, which was to shout “No soliciting!” in her booming, authoritative barmaid's voice, the way she might have called for time at the end of the evening. That seemed to be enough to remind the dark figure that he was being watched, as he swept through the door and apparated on the spot with a crack that could be heard throughout the room. Before she could get to the old man to see if he needed any help drying off his trousers, he seemed to collapse, the parcel falling from his hands. It played a dissonant, clattering sort of chord as it hit the ground, landing next to the crumpled form of the man. The lid had popped open.

There was something strange going on here.  All of her time as a Cursebreaker, all of the years before spent navigating the dark criminal world of the Middle East -- she wouldn't have survived long in either profession if she hadn't gained a sort of sixth sense for when the world wasn't right.  Raizel's eyes narrowed, her jaw tensing as she watched the old man approach the door, the shadowy, cloaked figure step inside -- it was hard to make out anything beyond the bright light shining through the door. 

But then the barmaid cried out, and the dark figure looked right at them for a split second.  But with the hood of his cloak pulled over his head to shade his face, and with the blinding sunlight behind him, Raizel couldn't see more than the bright glint of light on something worn round his neck as he turned and swept back outside, vanishing with the sudden crack of apparition.

The barmaid was hurrying to the old man now, and Raizel was already on her feet -- to do something, to help, even if the suspicious figure had already apparated away -- but it was all happening too quickly now.  The old man collapsed to the ground, and something fell out of his hands, letting out a dissonant strike of a chord -- but one that seemed hauntingly familiar nonetheless, as if she might just recognize it if she could sit and listen as it played a few notes more -- as it clattered to the ground and lay there, a small wooden box with its lid now spread ajar.

She barely had time to register that -- to register that the whole scene had changed yet again -- when every lamp in the room let out a desperate, gasping flicker.  It was as if someone had poured buckets of ice water down her back.  Raizel froze, her heart catching in her chest, fighting against the sudden surge of panic as she stared aghast at the fallen box, which had begun to leak a tiny puff of seemingly harmless black smoke.

How had --?!  But this was Britain; there were no mezuzot here, nothing to protect a household from anything and everything that might desire to cross over its threshold.  For an instant, watching as that puff of smoke grew bigger, as it swelled and became an ashen cloud, surging quickly upward, she felt naked, unprotected and undeniably helpless.  No candles.  No charms.  No salt.  Nothing to protect her, no one here to help.  But that was the trick of it -- that was what it wanted her to think.  Gritting her teeth, Raizel fumbled for her wand, tried to ignore the fact that her hands were shaking as she yanked it free.

"Get back!" she snapped at the girl.  "Don't let it touch you!" 

The smoke -- the creature -- was pouring out of the box now, reassembling itself into a billowing black cloud as it collected its strength, hovering over the fallen old man.  There was something crackling across its surface, flashes of tortured faces and shivers of forgotten memories, but Raizel forced herself to set her jaw.  She grabbed the bowl of peanuts off the table and flung it at the smokey mass.  Her hands were unsteady enough to throw off her aim, but the salty nuts still tore through it, still did the work that was needed. 

The gathering thing let out a high-pitched scream as it was suddenly and forcibly diffused by the salt.  Its cry was painful enough to make her cringe, and Raizel nearly dropped her wand in her hurry to clap her hands to her ears.

Bethan's instinct was to burst through the door and pursue the cloaked figure. Every fiber of her being was urging her to run, to tackle, to maim – to solve this problem with her whole body. At her core, Beth had always been more of a fighter than a nurturer. Nurturing was supposed to come easily to women, but the former Gryffindor was the only person in her family, male or female, who didn't seem to have a natural knack. Her mother was the quintessential housewife, born to parent, while her sister was the grunt of the werewolf registry, where she did overtime loving the unlovable. Her father and her brother were both in construction together, where they spent their time creating, seeming to lack the drive to destroy. Bethan, on the contrary, just wanted to fight. Realizing that the cloaked, loitering figure was long gone, and that, by hook or by crook, there was just no pursuing him, the only thing left to do was to go to the aid of the crumpled old man with the damp trouser leg.

It must have been something primordial that drove her to his side – perhaps some bit of instinct she'd inherited from the softer Ellises in the brood – because she raced there without even thinking about it. Once she'd arrived and knelt by his body, however, she balked, looking up helplessly at the pub's only conscious patron, as though Raizel might provide a clue. Bethan had gone through years of schooling, and they'd never once covered what to do when an old guy collapses in a pub. Maybe they'd covered that the day she'd taken a ditch day by the lake? It would figure. “You alright, mate?” she asked the fellow, who was very clearly not alright. “Hey! Hey, can you wake up? No? Erm...” she floundered. The man just wasn't responding. She'd been so focused on the man and the immediacy of this baffling emergency that she hadn't taken notice of the smoke until the lights all went out at once.

Suddenly, once her head snapped up and she really looked around, the room seemed to be filled with smoke. Each of the candle holders that were bolted to the walls was emitting the billowy white evidence of having been snuffed, and even the floo had gone dark. The black cloud in the center of the room seemed out of place. It was the black of storm clouds – the sort of cloud that might blanket the sky at the onset of some destructive tempest, like an omen. Those sorts of clouds didn't accumulate in the center of pubs, swirling almost intelligently above the heads of the elderly. It seemed, to Bethan, like too much smoke – like it all just might spread out and strangle her, and there would be no escape. Her fear of fire was not well advertised, because she was usually able to rationalize that the danger of any open flame was slim. Now, though, her mind was firing like mad, suggesting to her that the whole place might go up, and that she'd be left to sizzle and burn, her skin cooking as she lay immobile. She was far too familiar with the sensation.

It made no sense. Even to Beth it made no sense. She was right by the door, for one thing – and for another, all of the fire in the place had just gone out. If anything, she was in less danger of being burned than usual. She couldn't shake that feeling that she was in harm's way, though. Her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, back and forth, back and forth. She seemed paranoid, but she kept thinking she'd caught the sight of a flicker of a flame out of the corner of her eye – a fire where there shouldn't be a fire, a spark where there shouldn't be a spark. The room was taunting her and, all the while, the dark smoke, which seemed almost sentient, built and built. She was frozen, unsure how to proceed, when the woman's voice snapped her out of her reverie and she jumped to her feet. She was close to the smoke, but the old man was closer – hovering over him while fretting that the building might burn to the ground hadn't done him much good, nor had shouting at him. Go figure. Taking the moment of clarity for granted, Beth slipped her wand back into her hand and put him in a body bind, which made him simple to levitate and move to a spot behind the bar. It wasn't ideal, but it seemed like an improvement. That left her standing there, frazzled, certain that her hair was going to spontaneously ignite at any moment. What was this?

Before she could move and do something brash or impulsive, however, the nuts were flying and the smoke was screaming.

...the nuts were flying and the smoke was screaming?

Maybe she should have been a little more astute about these things, given that she was an auror department hopeful, but it hadn't actually occurred to her that the smoke might be a creature... a creature with a peanut allergy. While Raizel covered her ears, Beth only grew more fascinated, gritting her teeth against the high keening sound. Was it the peanuts that had done it, or just the presence of an object where the smoke-creature wanted to be? There was only one way to find out. Dashing back over to a nearby table, she grabbed a handful of table settings and chucked them as hard as she could. She had seven  years of Defense Against the Dark Arts training, a wand that was finely attuned to her, and years of dueling club behind her... and she was throwing silverware. Professor Storm would be so proud. Well, he might have been prouder if throwing the silverware had actually done anything, which it hadn't. It was a nut allergy, then. Stranger things had certainly been true in the past, so she didn't question it.

After those few moments of confusion and panic, Bethan seemed to finally find her tongue. “What the hell is that?” she shouted, even as she stood back and used a spell to corral all of the bowls of nuts that lined the bar. One by one she sent them flying, as if propelled by a catapult, their contents slicing through the smoke like hot knives. Unless she managed to induce anaphylaxis then hers was a temporary solution to a growing problem, but she could use some think time. Her heart was pumping double-time, making her whole body throb with adrenaline. “Eat shit and die!” she bellowed fiercely as she fired off another bowl. The sound in the room was completely deafening, and she could hear the glass panes of the windows rattling as though desperate to escape.  The only other idea she had involved firing off defensive spells at random. It was smoke! How was she supposed to fight smoke?

Yahweh Salai veMetzudati veMepalti...[1] The words came unbidden, a defensive reflex that had become instinct after hours and hours spent drilling at school.  Here, with this darkness gathering before her, they seemed particularly apropos.   You will not fear the fright of night, the arrow that flies by day; pestilence that growls in the darkness, destruction that ravages at noon...

The girl was reacting well.  She'd gotten the old man out of the way quickly, and now, after a brief experiment with clattering silverware, she seemed to have caught on to the trick with the salty peanuts.  Her efforts were keeping the smoke creature on the defensive; bowls of nuts zoomed across the room, summoned to her nearly as quickly as she could throw them.

“What the hell is that?”

Raizel clenched her teeth, her eyes locked on the keening smoke-thing hovering in the center of the room.  The high-pitched keening sound had not stopped -- if anything, it had grown louder and more desperate.

"It is a dybbuk," she said in a cold, harsh voice.  There were as many stories about dybbukim as there were ideas about their origin -- if they were really spirits like kabbalistic tradition taught, if they were lost souls, if instead they were some sort of magical creature that had just been matched to a name from ancient tradition.  At Beit Gaddol, the study of them had been mostly confined to the more religious classes, where exorcisms were a subset of other spiritual magic.  Raizel had been intrigued by them only because they seemed esoteric, but aside from one brief encounter, all of her knowledge was theoretical.

Whatever it really was, the dybbuk certainly did not look happy to be here.  They'd interrupted it before it had fully gathered itself, and it was no longer gaining size, stretching out to cast its shadow over the room.  The girl's peanut-flinging efforts were keeping it off balance, and its movements were becoming quicker, more desperate as it drew itself into a tighter cloud, as if it were frantic to get away.  If only Raizel had had a candle -- a container -- something, surely it would not take much coaxing to drive it inside.

She took a deep, steadying breath.  They were here in a bar, not somewhere lost in the desert, and she was a mage.  Surely something to contain it could be found, and she didn't need a candle to make light.

"It wants to hide.  Which is what we want it to do," she instructed the girl firmly, raising her voice  to be heard over the dybbuk.  She held her right hand in front of her, palm facing upwards and her three good fingers extended. "We need to find something that we can seal it inside.  A container.  Glass or stone."  Her eyes flickered briefly to Bethan's.  "You understand?"

1.	Psalm 18:2: The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.

”It is a dybbuk.”

“Yeah, that's helpful. Thanks,” Bethan snarked loudly, shouting each sarcastic syllable above the high and piercing din. She hadn't meant to be sardonic, really, but to say she was a little stressed out by the situation was a gross understatement, and when in doubt the petite blonde tended toward the obnoxious. Dybbuk wasn't a word she'd heard before, so the other woman may as well have called out that it was a Jabberwocky or some other nonsense word that provided no information whatsoever. If she'd had more of her wits about her (and hadn't been using the few wits she had available to coordinate the flinging of peanuts) then she may have recognized that a name for this strange creature was still more information than she'd had a second earlier. She needed all of the information she could get, seeing as she was about to run out of peanuts and she didn't really have any better ideas – nor had she made the connection that it was the salt causing the damage.

And then, all at once, that was it. No more peanuts. Bethan froze, holding her wand out like she planned to use it – although she couldn't think of the first spell to use against shrieking clouds. This seemed more like a fever dream than reality. The details made sense, but only in the very loosest way and, like in dreams, the things she was normally good at couldn't help her. She had a mental lexicon of dozens of great dueling maneuvers and tactics for vanquishing beasts, but not a single useful spell was coming to mind. She supposed that whole 'know your enemy' thing made more sense than she'd ever realized. In this case, the only thing she knew about her enemy was that it was called a... a whatsis... what did she say it was? She looked to the cursebreaker who, at this point, was her only source of information. “What do I do? What's it doing?” she spat out desperately, sounding far more needy and helpless than she ever liked to sound, but she just needed a little bit of direction and she was sure she could take it out.

”It wants to hide.  Which is what we want it to do. We need to find something that we can seal it inside.  A container.  Glass or stone. You understand? ”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, as she released a breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding, “Yeah.” What were the options? Conjure something  - that would take too long. Transfigure something? It could possibly work, if she could get her damned head on straight. As much as she wanted to destroy this thing using magic like a real, qualified adept, she had to admit that the best course of action seemed to be to just find something that was already there and use that. She didn't want to have to stand around and concentrate – she wanted to do something, to move! With a good firm nod to herself to confirm her own plan in her mind, Beth dropped her wand back into her apron pocket and then sped around behind the bar, careful not to step on the, erm, “slumbering” old man. She ducked behind the bar itself and began surveying the shelves, crawling on hands and knees until she reached the rectangular bin where she kept the recycling. “How big?” she shouted from the ground, but even as she called out she had an empty glass butterbeer bottle in each hand and was hoisting herself to her feet. The thing seemed to have emerged from some dinky little jewelery box – the bottles she held weren't large bottles, but they were at least as large on the inside as a child's music box. Wasting no time, she set the bottles on the bar top, put her hands down, and hoisted herself up and over the bar until she was on the other side again.

“I got bottles,” she half-panted as she gathered one up and foisted one on Raizel with shaky wrists. “What do you want me to do?”   

She shifted her wand from her left hand to her right and called light to life at the end of the wand tip, planting herself between the creature and the girl like she was preparing for a last stand.  It was a meager sort of luminescence, just enough to brighten the room against the light still pouring in through the dusty windows and the open door, but it was enough to keep the creature temporarily at bay.  The dybbuk drew back again, the dark cloud shrinking still further, as if it wanted to press itself into the darkest corners of the tavern until it had a chance to strike.

This would not hold it for long, but the girl had once more moved quickly.  Soon, she was back at Raizel's side with glass bottles in hand.  The Cursebreaker gave her a short, curt nod, then nodded for the extra bottle to be put down on the counter.  For this bit of magic, she'd need her hand free.

"Hold the bottle.  Point it towards it."  She had not spent long in the army, but the short, clipped way that she gave instructions conveyed that she was used to issuing commands nonetheless.  Raizel tore her gaze from the dybbuk to meet the girl's eyes.  "I will make light, and it will rush towards you to hide.  Once it is inside, you will need to be quick and seal it with lead."

How the barmaid was to get the lead -- the girl was a witch as well, so Raizel would leave that up to her.  She did not want to mention that the glass bottle was not the only thing that the dybbuk might see fit to hide inside.  She had never seen it happen, but stories of possession by dybbukim were numerous.  Hopefully this one was too shaken and off-balance to try and make a play for the girl.

Whatever the risk -- she did not want to give it time to collect itself further.  Raizel let the light at the end of her wand link out, and then took a deep breath to center herself.  She held her left hand out in front of her, palm facing upwards.  Kabbalistic magic relied on a clear mind and clear vision as much as it did faith; that was one reason she preferred to use Aramaic spells, as opposed to Hebrew ones.  But for what she had in mind, unless she wanted to summon fire as well as light, there was one spell that would work best.

"Yehiy or!"[1]  Her voice rang out clear and strong through the darkened room.  A bright white light blossomed over her left palm.  It swirled and grew, almost blinding in its brilliance, bright enough that she nearly had to close her eyes or look away.

On the opposite side of the room, the dybbuk let out another ear-piercing shriek.  Without hesitating, Raizel tossed the blooming light in her hand -- it went raising around the edge of the room like a softball, leaving the three walls behind it ablaze as it passed.  Now the only corner of the room that wasn't flooded with blinding light was the bar, where she and the barmaid stood.  With any luck, the creature would flee to this corner to safety, and the girl would be able to trap it in the bottle. 

1.	"Let there be light" in Hebrew

Lead. Right. That seemed awfully specific, she thought, but Bethan wasn't really in a position to question what she was being told. “Oh, shit,” she muttered sharply under her breath as she thrust the bottle in front of her like a shield. It was still far too loud in the room for words spoken at such a volume to be overheard, which was probably a good thing, because the exclamation wouldn't have done much to make her appear confident. Again, she was faced with a question – did she conjure or did she transfigure? Both required so much thought! She'd lucked out with the glass bottles, but no amount of crawling around on the floor was going to yield something made of lead with which to seal the bottle.   “Shit, shit, this is utter shit,” she continued muttering, which didn't do any real good but made her feel better as her eyes darted around the room looking for a hint. She froze mid-swear as her eyes landed on something under a bar stool. She kept the arm that was holding the bottle outstretched and her eyes forward as she crouched down, walking the fingers of her free hand along the ground until she could feel the object in her hand. Apparently crawling on the floor would yield something to seal the bottle after all. It was a stray butterbeer cork – the sort that got discarded regularly and – usually – were swept up at the end of the evening. Someone (possibly herself in the past) had been lazy yesterday evening, and in their laziness they just may have saved the day.

Transfiguration it was! NEWT transfiguration hadn't been that long ago, which was probably a good thing, because the subject could be a bit dense. She was sure that, all in all, she'd forgotten more transfiguration lessons than she remembered. This was basic, though! Or, well... it should have been basic, anyway. It was just an elemental shift – no moving parts, nothing to keep alive, no change of function. It was the sort of basic magic you didn't think you'd ever use outside of class. She could see it in her mind! There was one day during second year when they'd been making lead balloons in transfiguration class. It had been the dumbest class ever! She'd said so a dozen times! Who needed a lead balloon? She still didn't have an answer to that question, honestly, but she sure as hell could have used a lead butterbeer cork.

“How about... give me a minute, yeah?” Beth pleaded, trying to figure out how to hold the bottle, her wand, and the cork all at once. She ended up crouching down again and placing the cork on the ground while, shakily, she performed that little bit of very fundamental magic. She was half convinced she'd screw it up, if only because it had been so long since she'd last done anything like it. It would be like going back to writing in perfect manuscript print without a reference. What did the letters even look like? It was just a little wave of the wand, a few muttered words and... YES! She snatched it up and it was heavy in her hand. She felt half brilliant, like a five year old who'd figured out the shoe tying thing.

“Okay, then,” she spoke, nodding once for emphasis. Only a few seconds had passed, but she felt like she'd been fumbling around with the dumb cork for eternity. “Do whatever it is you're doing. I got this, I think,” she announced, sounding much more confident than she had when she'd been cussing and looking around like she didn't know where she was. She held the bottle out again, and clutched the lead cork in her palm. It was growing warm there, making the palm slick. Any second now, though, it would be doing its job. Any second now.

The spell the other girl used was not anything Bethan had heard of, and she watched with interest as the sun was born in the palm of her hand. It was magnificent, and Beth had to wonder if it was made of flames. The smoke creature seemed to take interest in the light as well, but out of fear rather than awe. All at once the room seemed to come ablaze, and she could feel her heart pounding too fast in her chest, still fearing that vision of fire she'd experienced earlier. She was frozen on the spot with her arm outstretched, holding the bottle. It was either that or run, and she wouldn't run now. This was probably the single most exciting thing that had happened to her since she took up the position of barmaid at the old pub and she felt the need to see it through. This was the end. She could feel it. She just needed to stay still.

It was clear, after a moment, that the place wasn't really on fire, which was enough comfort for Bethan – but clearly not quite enough comfort for the dybbuk, which sent its body slinking through the neck of the bottle as the light encroached. It was the only place left for it to hide that wasn't as bright as the noonday. For a dark creature, it was very well behaved, following the plan to the letter. Beth had to squint as she dropped to her knees and jammed the lead cork into the top of the bottle. Her eyes began tearing up as she fumbled the cork in her nervous hands, fighting to get the thing sealed. With slick palms, shaking hands, and blurry vision, it was a harder task than she'd hoped – but she did it. The deed complete, she released a profound exhale and lifted both of her trembling hands, holding them palms out at either side of her head, as if in surrender. She looked up, finding the other woman with her stinging, tearing eyes, searching for some sort of affirmation that this was done – or that it had even happened at all. She dropped her gaze and looked down at the bottle. The glass had gone entirely black. Beth let her hands fall back down into her lap and, exhausted, she dropped down to sit properly on her bottom, every muscle in her body loosening at once.

She wanted to get up and run a marathon, but her heart was pounding so quickly in her chest that she thought that it might explode if she made any sudden moves. Unable to control herself, she laughed. There was no humor in the laugh, however. It had come from somewhere deep within her and refused to stay pent up, so she released it in giggly, humorless spurts as she attempted to catch her breath. 

“What the hell just happened?” she asked, suddenly finding her voice again. Her ears, she realized were ringing. Without the shrieking of the dybbuk, the room had gone eerily silent. She wiped at her dripping eyes with the back of her sleeve. “Was that... was that thing going to kill us? Because I still don't know what the hell it was, to be honest. Truth is, I'll be right furious if it wasn't, since I just spent that whole time thinking I was on my way out, like.” She shook her head and passed her sleeve over her eyes again, still trying to center herself, but stayed seated on the floor. If she stood, she wasn't sure her legs would carry her. She used her hands to push herself back so she could lean against the base of the nearest bar stool. “Merlin,” she sighed, “God.” She'd forgotten the body behind the bar for the moment, which was probably for the best. His heart had stopped long ago. Instead of going to the man, she glanced out at the parts of the dining room she could see. Apart from some peanuts and bowls on the ground, it didn't really look much different than usual. She released a giggly sort of sigh. “I'm gonna lose my job, huh?”

The light blazed, the dybbuk shrieked, Raizel held her breath -- and then let it out again, as the dark cloud gathered itself up and then went racing straight into the bottle that the girl had prepared.  Under other circumstances when she would have been less worried about tempting fate, she would have given a triumphant shout, but for now, she settled for merely baring her teeth.

A moment later, it was over.  As the barmaid jammed the transfigured cork into the bottle, every candle and lantern throughout the tavern flickered back to life.  Raizel let her hand drop, and the brilliant luminescence from her spell instantly vanished from the walls, giving way to the softer candlelight that was far more natural inside the Three Broomsticks.  If appearances were anything to go by, the dybbuk had been successfully contained once more.

Kabbalistic magic was never the easiest for her to maintain for long periods of time, and now that the rush of the moment was over, the Cursebreaker could feel the effects setting in.  She rubbed her hands over her face, doing her best to hide a shaky breath.  But the adrenaline only seemed to be beginning for the barmaid -- she let out a roar of laughter that filled the empty bar, and then began to fire off questions once again.

"Was that thing going to kill us?  Because I still don't know what the hell it was, to be honest."

Raizel sighed, and then set her shoulders.  She was not done dealing with this yet.

"Maybe," she said, holding a hand out for the bottle.  The first necessary action was to examine it and make certain that the dybbuk was truly trapped.  Then came the old man -- she cast a worried glance to where the girl had deposited him earlier.  He had not looked conscious when she had moved him.

"I don't know if you will lose your job.  Will you check on him?" she asked, suddenly tired. Yehiy was not the easiest spell to cast, and certainly not to such a extent.  "Maybe it would have killed us, but even if it didn't, it would not have been pleasant."  She huffed out a breath, eyes flicking to meet the girl's.  "If he is not all right, we should try and call for help."

Him? Oh, erm, right. There was some old bloke stashed behind the bar, wasn't there? It may have seemed ridiculous for Bethan to have actually forgotten about stashing a body behind a bar, especially considering it had only just happened, but she was more than slightly overwhelmed by all of the excitement and, as a result, she wasn't feeling very sharp. Her body was running on adrenaline exclusively, and her brain was focusing only on what was in front of her. Beth's face shifted suddenly with the recognition of the 'him' that the other blonde was referring to, her eyebrows leaping upward, her lips forming a distinct 'O'. “Right, that's a bit important, I think,” she remarked as she held onto the barstool and hoisted herself to her feet. Although her veins were coursing with adrenaline, she wasn't sure she had the stamina to go leaping over the bar itself again, or even to go running – she seemed to lumber over there, as though her legs weighed ten tons each. Her lack of speed wasn't only because she was growing weary as the adrenaline slowly ceased pumping. It was partially because... well... there was a potential dead man on the floor. She wasn't in a rush to go examine a dead body.

She made it there eventually, though, and paused when she reached the man's feet, looming over his prostrate form. Her heart, which was already pounding, sped up again when her eyes landed on him. She often spoke about death and killing with a kind of naive bravado, but being faced with a real corpse was not an entirely comfortable feeling. She didn't like being this close – it felt wrong that she should be able to poke at his prone form as though he were an object rather than a person. For a moment she was brought face to face with those little thoughts she occasionally entertained from time to time – thoughts like 'if I died today, I'd be wearing the same trousers I wore yesterday' or 'If I got killed, the coroner would see that I haven't shaved my legs in a week'. She never changed the trousers or ran to shave, though... but, so far, she'd also never died suddenly. Getting any closer to that man felt, to Beth, almost like a breech of something fundamental. She knelt down in front of him and looked at him for a few long seconds, entirely obscured behind the bar. All was silent.

 “So, how can you tell if he's...” Beth started, just to hear her own voice – she was feeling a little bit too alone crouched behind the bar. “Never mind,” she blurted out, realizing the stupidity of the question before she could even finish asking it. His chest did not rise. His eyes did not focus. She didn't need to touch him or look closer. Some things a person just knew, and Bethan was certain this man was gone.

“Who do you call for dead people?” Beth asked as she walked out from behind the bar, moving far quicker this time – she had no interest in lingering. This wasn't the first time she'd been faced with an emergency while working, but this was the first time the emergency involved obscure dark creatures and a corpse. The only person she could think to call was her mum... to ask who the right person to call was. It was times like these when she really felt like a nineteen year old. Why had she been left in charge of a pub? Why did anybody think she knew how to be an adult? This was dumb! When were the grownups coming? There was no way she was actually qualified to be cleaning up a mess like this.

On her way back toward where Raizel was sitting she kicked a few peanuts aside, which crunched underfoot. She paused just long enough to lift up her foot and pick a peanut off of the sole of her shoe, which was when she caught sight of the music box. She bent to pick it up, and it released a shrill little note, just as it had moments before the smoke had filled the room. Beth shivered. It occurred to her, about two seconds too late, that picking up the artifact that had released a dark creature into the pub was probably not her brightest idea to date... but she didn't feel cursed, which was probably a good sign. Generally, when you were cursed, you knew about it. She brought the box back over to where she'd been sitting and set it on the bar. Calling her mum was sounding like a better idea every second. Left to her own devices she'd probably still be sitting on the floor laughing.

The glass of the bottle had dulled to a matted, unremarkable black.  Raizel took it in her hands, taking care to examine every inch of its surface.  Save for the lead stopper jammed in at the top, there was no hint to even imply that anything had been trapped inside.  It seemed as though the girl had done her work well.

Raizel cupped her hands around the cool body of glass, closing her eyes briefly.   The makeshift lead cork had trapped the dybbuk inside the bottle, and both lead and glass seemed to be holding for the moment, but one could never be too careful.  She took a steadying breath, and then tried to reach for the same source of magic that she'd used a few minutes before.  "Shimen et ze kechotem al levech, kechotem al tzovar."[1]

"Who do you call for dead people?"

"The Aurors," she said firmly, as she opened her eyes once more.  Six months ago, there would have been a hesitation -- but a lot had changed, she realized, in six months time.  The British Ministry was no longer an enemy to be disliked and distrusted.  If a man had died here in the middle of their territory, then they should be told.

But he hadn't just died, she realized as she set the bottle down and angled her head to peer at the old man's body over the counter of the bar.  He had been killed.  There had been that strange hooded figure, who had apparated away as soon as he'd spoken to the man; as soon as he'd realized that anyone else had been watching.  And then the dybbuk had been released.  A chill ran down Raizel's spine, and she shot a glance back toward the door of the tavern.  But no one was there now; whoever had brought the dybbuk to the old wizard, it seemed that his flight had been genuine.

"Goleya," she murmured, and shifted to move around the counter so that she could examine the old man's corpse up close.  Hints of magic shimmered within her vision, but there was no telltale glow of a spell upon his body, no lingerings hints of an enchantment or a curse.  The Cursebreaker frowned, studying him for a moment longer, though she couldn't help wrinkling her nose at the distinctive smell emanating from his stained trousers.  He was certainly dead, but it did not seem to have been magic that killed him.

She ended the spell with a jerk of her wrist, and then turned back towards the girl.  "Do you know him?" she asked.  The girl had set the wooden box that the dybbuk had escaped from down on the counter.  Raizel eyed it warily for a moment, but she had not noticed any spell light coming from it, either.  She reached to pick it up, studying it carefully as she cradled it in her hands.

1.	An adaptation of Song of Songs 8:6 -  "Set this as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon the neck."

This lady wasn't very talkative, and it was driving Bethan half mad. Granted, the girl hadn't been garrulously spouting verbiage in the way in which she was accustomed, but a little bit of trauma could go a long way when it came to shutting someone up. She had a million different things she wanted to blurt out, from a mile long stream of colorful swears to a second-by-second recap of what had just happened, but it seemed like there was a temporary block between her brain and her lips. “Aurors,” she repeated when her question about who to call was answered, “Is that a fact? Makes sense, I suppose.” There was definitely something not quite right about the way in which this whole death had happened, and, in hindsight, it didn't seem like calling Mungo's would cut it. She ran a hand over her face and released a short sigh through her nose as she glanced toward the recently reignited fireplace. The floo powder was.... behind the bar. Right. She produced a vague, guttural grunting noise as she slipped back behind the bar again and retrieved the pot of powder.

“Reckon I should call the boss?” she asked, clearly dragging her feet as she messed around with the ceramic lid atop the pot of powder. “Better I say something now so they don't hear about it in the paper tomorrow, isn't it? But Aurors first, I think.” The dragging of her feet had nothing to do with floo shyness. Maybe it was a little petty, but... what if it was one of her old schoolmates in Auror training who responded and came to gawk at her while she accio'd peanuts from between the floorboards? What if it was Grace? The fact that it even bothered her made her want to go join the dead fellow on the floor. She was Bethan Ellis! Bethan Ellis did not care what people thought of her! Bethan Ellis did, however, tend to feel slightly awkward when it came to encountering the former friends who she was completely and thoroughly jealous of. Merlin's twisted knickers! She was acting like an idiot!

”Do you know him?”

“I know he likes a whiskey sour at two thirty in the afternoon on a Wednesday,” she shrugged. He hadn't been one of her friendlier patrons. You didn't come to a pub during the dead hours of the afternoon and sit alone at the bar because you were looking for company. She'd tried to chat him up, but he'd always been dismissive. “Does he have any identification or anything? I can check, if you like, and you can go ahead and call the Aurors.” It was a sneaky little bit of snakery, but it said a lot that Beth would rather have gone digging around in a dead guy's soiled trousers than risk finding her face in the floo in view of people she really wanted to impress.