National Museum for Wizarding History General description in keeping with previous threads and mentions

"They probably won't need you, but just keep it smooth, alright, Joh?" Gabrielle had said to him as he'd stood in the doorway of her office, keeping his face as straight as he could given the impending evening overtime at short notice, and in a language he had a passable knowledge of.

It was a little past six thirty when Johann had checked his pocket watch, that straight face now reading boredom as he tried not to think about how he was almost babysitting the son of a foreign equivalent of the Minister for Magic. The man was arrogant, and had a particular interest in the British National Museum for Wizarding History's exhibits, with view to borrowing a few for their own national museum for a loan.

Nestled amongst non-magical London and its museums, quite at home, and unnoticed by the Muggles, the museum was one of wizarding Britain's national treasures. It was a Victorian house, listed as a very comfortable looking hotel with 'no vacancies' hanging from the sign. Beyond the front door was a reception desk and to all extents it looked like a hotel apart from the wardrobe unusually placed in the foyer. Within the wardrobe the entrance was revealed - a vast hall below him, at the bottom of a staircase.

The private audience with the Russian-speaking foreigner and his two lackeys, who didn't speak, and were a bit muscly to be office workers, Johann had thought on seeing them that evening. He didn't question the company of foreign visitors, they often came mob handed or poorly prepared, which was half his duty in looking after them.

Translating the curators for the guest and then back again, stumbling over his translation, conscious that might not be right, it appeared there would be a brief moment where some other exhibits would be brought out for consideration. Johann's heart sank, he was rather hoping to escape the place and his company by seven, but it looked like it would be a while yet.

Off went the curators, and Johann busied himself with staring at some of the Grindelwald exhibits around them, deciding smooth in this case would be respectful ignorance.

Well… until they started doing something very odd indeed.

No sooner had the curators left the room leaving one of the juniors to pack up the artefacts that had just been viewed but rejected from the collection not on display, there was a sudden burst of muttering from the three foreigners, and Johann turned his head ever so slightly to make out what was being said, struggling.

"Excuse me!" The young curator yelped, and Johann whirled round, eyes widening. One of the rather muscly associates had his wand extended towards the curator, and the other two were engaged with some bag and an open cabinet…

Realising that this was a theft in progress, the scene plunged into confusion. The young curator was plucky enough to try and stop the wand being shoved into his face, a curse went off and hit another cabinet with a crack and all of a sudden angry voices filled the air, the other colleagues reappearing.

"Stop, they will use force!" Johann insisted futilely to the visitors. Wand of the wands turned in his direction so he cowardly took cover behind a piece of bewitched furniture on display and used his wand to summon help from the aurors, hoping they'd come quickly.

He was glad that the anti-apparition on the exhibit room would prevent them escaping before the cavalry arrived. He didn't fancy his chances of spellwork to take down any of them!

Thankfully it was a minute or two of throwing curses from his safe place before sharp cracks could be heard from the entrance foyer a hundred yards or so from where he hid.

The cavalry had arrived.

It had been a relatively quiet evening in the Auror office for Chalmers Holt. He’d only been back for a couple weeks now, but was settling back in to the routine pretty well. He had gotten to deal with a couple of minor cases, and settling with a new partner.  Not entirely new though.  Adelebert Hughes was fairly well known by Chalmers. He was an interesting man, always trying to set Chalmers up with some cousin of his.  He was fairly certain Bertie wasn’t entirely serious about it, but it was in good fun.

Chalmers was in the middle of a cup of coffee when the alert came through. There was a patronus alert. Something was happening at the old Wizarding History museum. And something bad, apparently.

“BERTIE.” Chalmers called, not quite sure where the other auror was. “We’ve got business. National Museum of Wizard History.”

The younger auror made sure his badge, wand, and robes were ready.  He looked over at Bertie, who’d gotten himself ready as well, and then apparated to the front foyer of the museum.

As soon as he stepped in, Chalmers could feel the magical tension in the air. He could hear the sound of spells being fired, and ran in that general direction.  He felt the rush of adrenaline as he neared the room, somehow finding himself smiling with how much he missed it. Putting on his serious face, Chalmers ran into the exhibit room, dodging a curse as he did so.

“In the name of the Ministry of Magic, put your wands down.” Usually that, plus the general appearance of being an Auoror would freeze most people’s actions. But apparently not these guys. Two were rather large, one not as much so, and the smaller was the one trying to put items in a bag.

Chalmers assumed that Bertie was behind him and entered the room. Then, one of the muscular guys fired another curse in Chalmers’ direction. He quickly dodged it and fired back a disarming curse, followed quickly by a stunning spell. The man deflected the disarming, but with a Wilhelm Scream, got hit by the stun, stumbling back onto the ground.  The man putting things in the bag looked up and yelled something in another language at the remaining big guy. Chalmers took this moment to move over and duck down where the tall, dark haired gentleman was hiding.

“You know what language that was?” Chalmers asked, as a curse flew over the top of where they were hiding.

Not quite waiting for a reply, Chalmers popped back up, watching as the remaining big man moved towards Bertie, throwing curses towards both of them. Chalmers shot a couple back, giving Bertie the chance to knock out the big man. Then they could turn their attention to the man with the bag, who seemed to have realized his situation was not that great.

With that realization, the man finished putting one last thing in the bag, dropped it, then put his hands up. Chalmers carefully approached, and subdued the man, getting his hands behind his back and removing his wand.  He looked and saw that Bertie had already gotten the two lackeys subdued as well.

“So, I think that’s multiple counts of attempted theft, plus assault on Aurors.” Chalmers said, looking at the men. “Anything else we should know?”

The air was split by spells. The Aurors didn't waste time in throwing them at the Russians while Johann cowered, feeling incapable. This was in some ways worse than his experimental casting secret with Landis Morgan, because these spells were not being thrown beyond a shield thrown up by a former unspeakable, but were the other side of a piece of furniture to him. He didn't trust that half as much.

"You know what language that was?" An auror landed beside him, lightfooted, nimble and rather dashing to boot.

Johann covered his head and cowered as a spell cracked over their heads.
"Russian." He yelped, still ducked down. "I'm from Co-operation, translation assistance, not apprehending clients!" But the auror had burst up above their hiding place, throwing spells.

Then, all of a sudden it fell quiet, though the air crackled with magic still.

“So, I think that’s multiple counts of attempted theft, plus assault on Aurors. Anything else we should know?”

Johann shuffled from his hiding place, crouched down, fingertips on the museum floor and peeked round his shelter to see the scene, and looked round, getting to his feet shakily.

"Merlin, this isn't going to go well." Johann remarked, taking a wobbly step forward and peering around for the museum staff who had been valiantly putting up a fight.

"You're effectively trying to arrest the equivalent of Zephyr's son, there. Is everyone alright?" His voice was shaking, as were his shoulders.

Bertie doubted that anyone was as excited to have Chalmers back as he was, and he was lucky enough to be on a brand spanking new case with him! Action, fun, adventure, mysteries! They were all part of the allure of being an auror. Bertie always forgot how much it made his heart race once he was in the middle of the action. Like Chalmers, he also felt the tension—and reacted quickly.

He followed his partner as quickly as he could, while still keeping an eye out for curses coming his way. Adelebert’s wand felt a bit heavy in his hand, but the longer he held it at the ready and shot defensive spells, the more confident he became. He followed Holt’s lead easily—it was like they had an unspoken language. He knew where Chalmers needed him, and Chalmers knew where Bertie needed him. They were a good team.

“Let’s not wonder about that right now, eh?” Bertie replied, shooting a few spells at the larger opponent, until finally a stunning spell barely hit him.

But it wasn’t over yet—the thief as well as the lackies needed to be dealt with.

Chalmers went for the man with the bag, while Bertie dealt with the others.

“Theft and assault. Yes. I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Then, of course, a man with a face that reminded him of a glorious, refined, handsome human version of an otter made himself known. Adelebert recognized him as a linguist who had been consulted with several times. His language skills far surpassed Bertie’s own.

“It looks like we’re fine. Are you alright?” He glanced around. Then what Johann said clicked.

The equivalent of Zephyr’s son? The Minster of Magic’s son?

Well.  Then he should have thought twice before stealing from a museum and having his people attack innocent museum workers and aurors, shouldn’t he?

“Breathe. You look fine to me. Did you hear what he said?” Bertie motioned towards Zepyhr’s son with a jerky head movement. Johann was a witness after all—and he would not be the only one questioned about this situation.

“It looks like we’re fine. Are you alright?” The other auror asked as if all of that had been normal for a trip to the museum.

"I'm in one piece, if that's what you mean?" Johann retorted, but he was physically shaking. He didn't translate to be involved in a duel.

“Breathe. You look fine to me. Did you hear what he said?”

"Yes - he was swearing at the two of you and told the others to carry on." Johann replied, straightening himself out and pulling at his collar. He didn't wear a tie, but all of a sudden his shirt collar felt awfully tight.

"They weren't talking much other than that as they shoved things into bags, if that's what you wanted to know." He patted his hair and looked a little sore about it all for a moment, only down to the fact he was a coward and had been scared for his life, whereas the two aurors had taken it all in their stride.

The three foreign visitors were all displaying rather different facial expressions. One was livid, the other looked nervous and the guest was rather more calm about it all, looking perhaps a little disappointed with them all, and was listening to Johann responses with a relentless glare.

"I don't know why they were doing this, I'm not their minder." Fear was turning into irritation instead as he spoke to the two aurors.

"Now what?" 

“Well then, that’s just fantastic.” Chalmers said, upon finding out who the man was.

Like Zephyr’s son? Who knew why he needed to steal things. Couldn’t he just borrow them? Chalmers was fairly certain he could have that authority as a diplomat to use them in their own museum.  This meant that there was something else at work.  Grindelwald artifacts were usually imbibed with some sort of dark magic, which is why it was best to keep them in safely warded displays.

 “Any chance you can ask them why they decided to try to steal some rather rare and potentially dangerous artifacts?” Chalmers asked the other gentleman.  He was fairly certain the linguist’s name was Johann.  Chalmers must have met him sometime in the ministry.

Chalmers walked around to take a look at the bag.  He crouched down to look at it, feeling something not right about it.  Though the bag was somewhat open, he couldn’t see into it.  Also, it seemed as though a fair amount of objects had been put into it, yet nothing was visible.  This was no ordinary bag.  Looking around, Chalmers found a piece of wood that had been blown off of a crate.  Using that, he tried to open the bag up a little.  He could glimpse some an artifact in there.  But then when he tried to remove the piece of wood, it wouldn’t budge.  He pulled a little more, only to have the wood practically sucked into the bag.  Almost as if the bag was incredibly hungry.

“Well that’s not good.” Chalmers said, standing up. “Bertie, we’ve got a hungry bag."

It was looking like the bag was also some type of cursed object.  Containing objects likely cursed by Grindelwald. Which definitely didn’t look good.  They were going to need some kind of curse breaker, and a rather good one at that.  Chalmers wasn’t an expert on cursed objects, but it probably didn’t bode well to have multiple cursed objects inside a cursed object. It was practically a cursed-object-ception.

“We’re going to need a curse-breaker most likely.”

Adelebert nodded politely as Johann spoke, “Yes, yes. Thank you. You’re quite smart you know. Good with languages. I can barely handle English.” It was true, he was awful when it came to writing reports. They were often full of spelling errors and egregious grammar mistakes. He could hardly write a letter to his own mother, let alone learn a second language. “We will contact you again if we need you, is that good? Are you okay with that? I’m sure we could find another lin-lingu—person who speaks languages.” It would be preferable if Johann wanted to continue on this case if needed, as he was already involved.

“A hungry bag?” He looked at it curiously. “I better take it to one of my family reunions. It won’t be very hungry after that, would it?” He poked the bag with his wand carefully, “Won’t you, little baggie? You’ll be all stuffed!” He spoke to it in a voice one would use to speak to an infant or somebody’s adorable pet. Then he looked up at Chalmers. “I don’t think the bag likes to be talked down to. What a shame.”  He sighed and looked at Johann, and then back at Holt. A cursebreaker was what they needed—they could contact Gringotts and ask for a consult with one of their cursebreakers.

“I guess we need to look for a consult then, hn? Do ya know of any good cursebreakers around here, or do I need to send an intern on a quest to find the best one?” Or maybe a cursebreaking team, if the bag proves to be challenging enough. He was sure Fauna would be up to doing something that didn’t involve being an office servant.

"We're going to need a curse-breaker most likely." The first auror remarked, prodding at the bag.

“We will contact you again if we need you, is that good? Are you okay with that? I’m sure we could find another lin-lingu—person who speaks languages.” The second was addressing him.

Keep it smooth - simple. This was not doing that. Curse breakers, hungry bags, hexes, damage, his nerves were getting shot, but it didn't mean he was going to desert his post.

Johann lost his ability to reply for a few minutes as he looked between the subdued visitors and the aurors, a hand running through his long black hair as he looked between all parties involved.

Was that auror talking to the bag like it was a cat? He couldn't help but stare and gape.

“I guess we need to look for a consult then, hn? Do ya know of any good cursebreakers around here, or do I need to send an intern on a quest to find the best one?”

"I could recommend one." Johann found his voice from behind them both. Both hands dusted himself off and he drew himself up, pretending he wasn't as big a coward as he had been a moment ago.

"As long as she's still in the city," He added, hoping she was - this would be perfect to continue their discussion of whether there were any tombs to open in London. Turned out there were bags instead.

"Cohen. Raizel Cohen. And if you can't reach her - don't get Aldridge, she won't come. But there's a couple of others I've heard of, St. Just, Turner. They're all at Gringotts." He looked past them to the bag.

"Johann Storm by the way, Department of International Magical Co-Operation. Glad you could come so quickly."

“I can only comprehend so much in other languages. Never been very good with the grammar of them. But your help would be much appreciated if you wouldn’t mind staying. But as Bertie said, if you’d rather not, we understand.” Chalmers would have preferred if he stayed, only because he already knew what was going on.  Wouldn’t have to go over it with another person.  Then there was the issue of calling in a curse-breaker.

“Cohen. I think I’ve heard of her. I’ll send a message and see if she can come.”  He sent the message via Patronus. Auror Holt requesting your assistance at the National Museum for Wizarding History in London. Apologies for the late request. Help would be much appreciated.

“Hopefully she’ll be able to come and not be too upset by the time.” Chalmers knew it was best to act fast. “Chalmers Holt. Pleasure to meet you, though I’m sure it would have been nicer under better circumstances.”

“And I’m sure your family could do without some members. Though they probably wouldn’t appreciate being eaten by a bag. And I’m not sure how many it would take to make the bag full. It could be endless in there.” Chalmers laughed.  He knew a bit about Bertie’s family.  And the cousin he was always trying to get Chalmers to go out with.  But that wasn’t going to happen most likely.

It was not the first time that she'd seen a speaking Patronus, but even so, she still found the iteration of the spell impressive.  The shining, silvery dog burst into the sitting room, opened its mouth, and a human voice rattled off the message:  Auror Holt requesting your assistance...

The mysterious Auror Holt had specified what sort of assistance he needed, but Raizel could venture a guess.  Within a few moments, she'd grabbed her bag, stuffed a couple of other items that might come in handy inside it, and been ready to apparate to the museum. 

Consulting for a Ministry, rather than being shouted at by one, was still a relatively new experience for her.  But even so, Raizel was quickly finding that she enjoyed it: Level Two paid well, and besides that, she liked the sense of importance that collaborating with the government automatically brought.  Maybe if she proved she could be cooperative enough, one of the Aurors might even be willing to teach her the trick with the talking Patronus.

She arrived at the Museum in a whirlwind, her leather satchel slung over her shoulder.  Auror Holt hadn't specified where to meet him, but Raizel had figured that she'd start her search in the main hall and make further inquiries from there.  It didn't take log to spot her quarry: two wizards in crimson Auror robes, alongside three tossled-up bodies and a tall, lean man with curly brown hair.

"Auror Holt?" she began, her crisp accent turning each word businesslike.  She stepped towards the two Aurors, extending her hand.  "I am --"

A quick glance at the third upright wizard, and recognition suddenly struck.  Raizel blinked at Johann Storm, her forehead creasing, but she recovered quickly, clearing her throat as she returned her attention to the Aurors.

"Raizel Cohen," she finished smoothly, giving a slight smile.  "You said you needed assistance?"  The edge of her mouth crept upwards as her eyes flicked to the three men who seemed to be subdued.  "It looks as though whatever happened here has been taken care of, I think."

Cohen looked cool as a cucumber as she arrived. Damn, response this evening was swift, Johann marvelled. He was used to slow bureaucracy, and certainly Gringotts were always awkward to wheedle a proper answer out of. Just as she had been at the pub, Raizel was a breath of fresh air.

"Evening. Yes, these two were very efficient indeed." Johann agreed, his cowardly expression fast retreating to be replaced with the easy grin he had worn last time the two had met.
"Holt, and Hughes, by the way." He introduced the two aurors.

"Wasn't sure if you'd still be in town - anyhow - my guests turned out to be light-fingered, and their bag seems to be something else. We need a cursebreaker." He tilted his head over towards where Bertie had been cooing to the bag.

"Did I mention that drinking and dancing with the Ministry didn't get you tombs but hungry swag bags?" Johann asked with a grin, easily forgetting the duel that had taken place less than twenty minutes before. There were singes and cracks in the cases all around them.

Bertie let out a gasp and stared at Chalmers before snatching the bag out of his hand, “But we must hope that it doesn’t eat my dear cousin Audrey, then you two would never get married—that would be awful!” He frowned, “But then again, my sister is single.” He wiggled his eyebrows comically. It only took a second for him to put on his oh-so-very serious face when turning to face Johann and Raizel. Although Johann had introduced them, he felt the need to introduce himself and everyone else again. Mostly because he wanted to hear himself speak, and partially because he thought Raizel was a cutie and any excuse to talk to her was welcome.

“Pleasure to meet you, Raizel Cohen. I’m Adelebert Hughes, this is Chalmers Holt, and this strapping young lad is Johann Storm. His attitude seems to be as stormy as his name~” Really, Bertie was just making things up. He didn’t know Johann in the slightest. “You can call me Bertie. And what we have here is—“ He shook the bag at her, “A bag that likes to eat things. A hungry bag. Hungry enough to devour a batch of ickle newborn babes and wand cozies. We can’t be having that, can we?” He made a tsking noise, “We can’t.”

He motioned in the direction of the men. “They were trying to steal something. And there was a fella with an interesting accent. Sounded quite foreign.” Bertie poked the bag with his wand again, the baubles of the wand cozy wobbling back and forth. “This bag, this bag is the key. We need to figure out what’s in it. The contents are probably quite important. Yes. Very important. Will you help? I hear you’re the best curse breaker in all the land!” Adelebert stood up straight and turned his head to wink at some sort of invisible camera.

“Was that good? It’s for all the news cameras that’ll be all over this case once word gets out. If word gets out.”

“They were trying to steal something. And there was a fella with an interesting accent. Sounded quite foreign. This bag, this bag is the key. We need to figure out what’s in it. The contents are probably quite important. Yes. Very important. Will you help? I hear you’re the best curse breaker in all the land! Was that good? It’s for all the news cameras that’ll be all over this case once word gets out. If word gets out.”

Despite himself (genetics could not be entirely outrun) Johann found the palm of his hand and his long fingers applied to his own face at Hughes. The man stood there in scarlet robes explaining it all like a Hogwarts student. Hopefully it was down to the excitement at the spell-slinging just before.

"Fabulous." He informed Bertie, dropping his hand just before and adopting his usual lighter expression instead, trying to be kind.

"Now, if you could just take charge of this bag, then these two might get those three back to the Ministry and body bind them in a cell to be safe." He added, voice and body language a little on edge as he looked over to the three figures that he had been escorting and helping. Gabrielle was going to lynch him.

"Who said museums were boring?"

End