For all the fun she’d had playing this game on the weekends, Eha didn’t think she’d ever get completely used to Muggle transportation. Trains were still the oddest thing. Peeter always spoke fondly of the bright red engine that took him to Hogwarts each year, but as the "London Waterloo to Southampton Central" line ambled out of Woking and through the villages north-west of Guildford, Eha couldn't imagine that anything similar could be particularly grand.

Eha double-checked her arithmancy calculations one last time to be certain they were going the right direction -- which they were -- before flipping the mini-notebook closed and leaning back on the bench to grin at her traveling companion. When she'd signed up for the St. Mungo's benefit auction she hadn't expected to get paired with a guy three times her age, let alone a Wizengamot Elder from the floor over the Auror office, but she had to give Ediwn Glass some credit. He'd been game for their little adventure even after her rambling explanation of Geohaching[1], and even though they'd mostly been riding trains and making small-talk for the last hour, she hoped he was having fun.

She was about to fish for another conversation topic when the voice over the loudspeakers announced that they were coming up on Farnborough. She hopped up with a small whoop. "Finally! This is our stop. C'mon, Mister Glass. Don't forget the glasses." She flipped her own pair of supposedly-plain black sunglasses open and slipped them on, itching to get the game underway for real.

The moment the train stopped and its doors opened she hopped out onto the platform, pulling Edwin along by one hand. "Keep your eyes pealed. That Lux could be anywhere around here. If we're not paying attention we'll walk right past it."

1.	Wiki Link!

It had been a few decades since Edwin had been on a Muggle train, and things had changed quite a bit. Still, he was rather enjoying his day with Eha.

Ordinarily the Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes would be considered a nemesis of an auror, even a trainee, for what he stood for. But today, in an occurrence brought forward only by a charity donation to St Mungo's in a strange new year's eve auction, Edwin Glass and Eha Farro were partners in a very strange game of hide and seek with a sprite.

When she had first explained it, he'd been a little confused as to how people considered it good sport, and wondered how he hadn't run into more problems with the game's followers causing magical accidents, but he'd played along, and in the time they'd been travelling, the two of them had struck up all sorts of conversation.

"Finally! This is our stop. C'mon, Mister Glass. Don't forget the glasses."

In her excitement of the announcement of Franborough, Edwin noticed she'd reverted back to work, and called him by his surname. It made him feel a bit old again, given the age gap but he brushed it aside. Edwin got to his feet promptly, sliding a pair of glasses from his long coat pocket. He hadn't had the heart to tell Eha that considering the January weather, the two of them would look like a pair of blind people dashing about the place - both for the glasses and their behaviour.

"Got them." He confirmed with enthusiasm, keen to see what this Lux would turn out to be, and how far they had yet to travel from the train station.

Despite her previous address, Eha seized his gloved hand and the two of them leapt from the train to to the platform. Dressed in comfortable boots, jeans, jumper and coat, Edwin was prepared to be out in the cold as forewarned. He didn't look much like his professional self, which suited the unusual arrangement for the day.

"Keep your eyes pealed. That Lux could be anywhere around here. If we're not paying attention we'll walk right past it."

"Yep, got you." Edwin agreed, his glasses on, giving them a few second glances from people about. He maintained the grip on Eha's hand for as long as felt polite. Keeping all options open, after all, she was a pretty girl, and they were having fun...

The train platform was exposed, with a canopy held up by a series of posts in the middle, and was painted in the train company's livery, but otherwise a brick building, and altogether fairly quiet. He was altogether glad of it, had the Lux decided to choose the middle of Liverpool Street Station, he wasn't sure what they'd have been able to do.

Through the station[1] they went, and out the other side into the car park, ignoring for the most part the dreary weather.

"Do you get any further indication on how far we're looking at now?" Edwin asked, not because he was desperate to finish, only that there might be other ways to get closer to their quarry than two feet - especially if it was still a distance.

"Hold about, there's a map." Edwin thumbed to a poster[2] on the outside of the station.

"If you know the rough direction and distance we can make a stab guess at where we need to look." He suggested, and then turned his attention to find the station and then the scale of the map.

"Hopefully its not in someone's front room. That hasn't happened before has it?"

1.	Farborough Rail Station
2.	Local Area Map on side of Farnborough Rail Station

"If you know the rough direction and distance we can make a stab guess at where we need to look."

"Right-o. That's easy enough. C'mere a sec." Eha grasped Edwin's shoulder without waiting for permission and moved him so their bodies provided a wall between them and the nearest muggle. She pulled her wand from her pocket and lay it flat on her palm, careful not to lift it higher than would be seen. "Point Me."

The wand shuddered and began to spin. Rather than stopping at magnetic north it kept going, completely one full rotation, then another, and another, each just fast enough to be counted. So long as the Lux she'd summoned was active, the spell would point them towards it, with each rotation counting off about a hundred kilometers of distance between them and it.

"Hopefully its not in someone's front room. That hasn't happened before has it?"

"Oh, it has. Not to me personally, but I've heard stories." Eha kept an eye on her wand as she rambled, silently counting the rotations. One kilometer, one-point-one, one-point-two... "General rule is not to trespass if you can help it, but if you can convince the folks to let you in, well. That's a story. There's even an achievement for it." She shifted her shoulder, rattling the miniature collection of tin pins that decorated her little bag. There were only six, but she knew the stories for each of them and had regaled Edwin with as many as he could stand on their ride up.

"The real trick is if it lands in a hidden manor or magic establishment you don't know how to get into. Can't Unplot a place from the ley lines, so it's fair game for the Lux. Not so much for us. But ah, sometimes it just doesn't work out. That's why the Lux disappears at midnight if it's not dispelled." Not that they did anything anyway. Lux-Sprites had about as much magical influence as a jellyfish. But it made the manor owners feel less threatened.

Twenty-five turns in the wand slowed to a stop, pointing roughly north-north-east.[1] Eha nodded thoughtfully, turning her eye to the map. "Looks like we've got two and a half kilometers, as the crow flies. That'd put our target right about..." She craned her head a moment to get some orientation of street signs, and counted out the kilometers on her fingers before finally settling on a point on the map. "Here, I think. Just off the M-3. Looks like we can get a bus about half-way there, or hoof the whole lot." She grinned at Edwin. "If you're up for that."

Not that she doubted Mister Glass's health, but he was in his sixties.

1.	As the crow flies.

"Hoof it, hah, yes, sounds good - I'm all for some fresh air despite the winter. We'd only be waiting for a bus for a while on the weekend, anyhow." He suggested, trying to remain his placid self over the manhandling of this trainee auror. They were doing this for fun, for a charity event, not anything to do with work. He hoped she didn't feel like she wanted to do that at work... well, unless she was doing it because she liked him. But she was a bit young, wasn't she... not that it stopped him...

"Should be fine - did you say by the M3?" When confirmed he gave a nod and a shrug, though the nagging thought remained. The M3 was a motorway to Southampton, where Muggles drove their cars at speed up and down them. Edwin knew this, he owned a car and had qualified to drive owing to his Muggle hospital birth - he existed in some form in the Muggle world, even if he put up a front to his Muggle neighbours that he was in the civil service.

His neighbours were semi convinced Edwin was some sort of intelligence expert or government security worker owing to how little he integrated with the community and his evasive answers. Nobody seemed to know very much about him at all, other than he'd lived there a long time, and he drove a well preserved car... the same one for several decades.

They headed off away from the train station on foot. Farnborough Road seemed to stretch for miles, and was lined with a pleasing number of trees which had shed their leaves for winter. Edwin imagined the stretch was rather lovely in the summer with all the green leaves.

"You know what the M3 is, don't you?" He asked cautiously as they walked briskly. "Great big road, lots of cars driving fast... not a place with footpaths..." The Department Head had gestured his arm nearest the road they were walking down. "Its actually illegal to walk down them, memory serves correctly, well unless an emergency. What are you... er we... going to do if its on there?"

Eha laughed, spinning to walk backwards in front of Edwin, matching his pace without looking back. "Mr. Glass, I backpacked around most of Eastern Europe. Yes, I know what a motorway is." She folded her hands behind her back and grinned as though walking without seeing where she stepped was just a barrel of laughs. "As for what we'll do, well. I guess it depends. On how heavy the traffic is, how far out in the road it is, how likely we'd be to cause an accident, that sort of thing."

She tossed her hair back out of her eyes, keeping half her attention on Edwin's breathing, the color of his face, the sureness of his step, etc. She knew him to be a capable wizard and didn't doubt that he was in decent enough shape if he'd volunteered for this date, but she also didn't want to push him so hard he regretted it in the morning. This was meant to be fun, after all.

"Of course, we don't want to put anyone in danger, including the muggles, so even though we can use magic once we catch the Lux we won't want to give anybody a heart attack on the road or anything like that. But if it comes down to that I'm sure we'll figure something out and -- aa, mida! What do you suppose that is?"

She'd caught a glimpse through the trees of an elaborate, sprawling manor house that sat atop a hill on the right side of the road. She turned from her backwards-walking and ran ahead a bit looking for an opening in the fence. When one didn't come up, she doubled-back to a nearby bus stop and checked the route map posted along the back wall.

"Aa, we missed the turn to get in back there." Eha traced the walking path with her finger, her leather glove leave a streak in the dust that sat on the map's plastic window. "'Farnborough Hill,'[1] huh? Sounds interesting. Ooh, there's a back entrance up ahead. Let's have a look."

She lead the way up the road excitedly, the old wanderlust sparking the excitement of an unexpected discovery. Turning onto the service road for Farmborough Hill, she was practically skipping. "Detours are the best parts of these trips, you get to find all sorts of things you wouldn't know were there otherwise. Even muggles manage to hide interesting things in the most unexpected places. It's so exciting, don't you agree?"

1.	Originally home to Empress Eugénie de Montijo of France, Farnborough Hill is now a private girls school.

"Sorry," He apologised for his line of questioning, as the young, easy on the eye auror turned to walk backwards as she spoke to him. "Even on my days off, I can't help it - wouldn't do for you to get run over. Raynor would take joy in blaming me for incapacitating her finest trainee auror." He winked and grinned. The same went for her walking into a lamppost - he found himself watching her path ahead (or was it behind) as she did.

"... aa, mida! What do you suppose that is?"

The answer was sound found as Eha doubled back to the bus stop to consult with the route map. Edwin found himself following her, looking for a gap to spot it through the hedge, mildly curious. There was a time in Muggle history where they enjoyed building things, and put a lot of effort into decorating even mundane buildings like telephone exchanges and electricity sub stations. Then they'd discovered concrete for a building material and built great monstrosities that were now smeared with dirt from the pollution.

"Detours are the best parts of these trips, you get to find all sorts of things you wouldn't know were there otherwise. Even muggles manage to hide interesting things in the most unexpected places. It's so exciting, don't you agree?"

Although a little of him wanted to catch the damned Lux, he was enjoying his day with Eha, so he agreed to the detour, doubling back to take the path towards the buildings they'd glimpsed. Though he had to say the sign at he entrance to the road bearing the name of a girls private school did rather give it away. It'd be term time too.

If anyone asked, they were new to the area and looking for local schools for a family member...

"I'm not sure this is a public footpath, you know...." Edwin trailed a few steps behind, though with one look at Eha he shrugged. She had a quick mouth, he had the knowledge, age and appearance to be trustworthy. "May have to feign interest in fee-paying education."

They tramped down the tarmac lane towards the buildings, which were agreeably, very interesting indeed.
"If you didn't have you know... would you see yourself studying somewhere like this?" Edwin asked, "What do you reckon you'd be doing for a living?" He'd caught her up and they were progressing side by side.

"I've got a foot in this world, I wasn't born in St Mungo's, I've got a driving license and pay council tax - the postman delivers letters as well as the owl. I'd have probably ended up in the police or the civil service I reckon. You - I'm sure something that involved travel, I doubt you'd have settled down easily into an office role." He smiled.

"If you didn't have you know... would you see yourself studying somewhere like this?"

"Hm...maybe. I'm sure Mother would've preferred it if I wound up here. She thinks Drumstrang made me 'militaristic.' Used to go on and on about how if Father had to send me out-of-country for my education it should have been to Beauxbatons, 'to learn to to be a proper lady.'" The last half-dozen words were distorted by an exaggerated London accent, all wide-open vowels and crisp consonants. She chuckled and dropped the act soon after, returning to her usual deep-in-the-throat, Eastern-European twinge. "Honestly, if I didn't have 'you know' I'd probably be back in Estonia. Maybe join the border patrol, or the defense forces..."

The grounds of Farnborough Hill were mostly empty as the climbed the paved walk to the main building -- seemed that the students, if they were in from the holidays, were all in class. Still, when they got close enough to hear faint voice of a lecturer through an open window, Eha pulled up short and caught Edwin's arm at the elbow.

"Probably best we stop here. Don't want to get into any trouble, right? But! Let's get a picture." She swung her backpack around and dug a camera -- wizard-made of course -- out of its front pocket. She swung them around so that the grand building filled the background of the shot, held the camera out as far as her arm could go, and leaned her head close to Edwin's to get them both in the shot. "Say 'izyum'!"[1]

---

With the snap of a flashbulb and a second shot just to be sure, they were off the school grounds and back on the Lux sprite's trail. Eha was happy to keep the easy conversation going between them as they walked, talking of imaginary muggle lives and the differences between this school or that for the rest of their two-and-half kilometers, careful to keep an eye on Edwin's progress to make sure she didn't tire the man out too easily. This was supposed to be fun, after all.

Finally, signs for the M3 popped up along the road, indicating that they were getting close. As the motorway rose up in front of them, Eha took the enchanted sunglasses from her pocket and slipped them over her eyes, motioning for Edwin to do the same. She turned her head up and began rotating as she walked, adjusting the glasses every few seconds to be sure she got the clearest view.

"Keep your eye out. With the glasses, the trail's an obvious one. It'll be bright-colored, sparkling, definitely out of place and...Ah, there it is!" She pointed at the glittering red trail, which cut through the sky thirty or so feet over their heads. She followed it with the glasses and her eyes, the initial excitement dying to a muted mutter as she realized exactly where the sprite had ended up. "Oooh, that could be a trick..."

The sprite -- which, coming from Eha's wand, was dark red and about the size of a quaffle -- sat right smack dab in the center of the M3. They were still too far to get an exact location, but from Eha's point of view it looked to be situation a few feet off the verge, within in the boundaries of a lane. It flickered and twinkled harmlessly, its central core rotating like a globe as cars passed through it without so much as a blink. Of course, none of the muggles could see it. No one could, save for those wearing the glasses.

Eha hummed to herself, taking the sunglasses off to get a better look at their surrounding area, particularly the motorway itself. It wasn't rush hour by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't slow going either. There weren't any pedestrians, and while the walking path didn't follow the M3 it wouldn't be hard to get to if they were willing to jump the barrier. She licked her lips.

"Hm now...how should we go about this one?"

1.	Raisins -- the Russian equivalent of "Say cheese!"

The sprightly gate, young smile, winter sunlight, adventure and new experiences were all captured with a flash of the camera bulb. Edwin's bones lost a couple of decades in an afternoon even if the photographic film tried to deny this later.

But as their adventure came to a conclusion, the two of them gazed upon their quarry, suspended in the middle of the busy motorway. Cars buzzed past, filled with families on the way to visit grandparents, couples on the way to and from romantic nights away, lorries on the way to make deliveries, and the RAC towing a car that had given up the ghost.

The roar of tyres on tarmac made the conversation on how to reach the elusive red spright gain in decibels.

"Hm now… how should we go about this one?"

Edwin looked past her to the oncoming traffic and then back at the finale of their adventure that had been well worth the donation.

"Can't summon it, not before Muggles, even if they can't see it, and they'll barely see us," the older wizard reasoned aloud, his brow creasing in thought, "can't just wander across… well, I'm not as sprightly as you might be!" He gestured to his more portly figure.

"Could wait for a gap in the traffic, or enchant a yellow jacket and pose as a policeman or road worker. Still a risk, those things are travelling as fast as brooms, and they're solid."

Edwin caught sight of Eha's expression,
"You're not thinking you'll be able to peg it out into the middle of a motorway and vanish without being properly seen, are you? You realise I'll have a ton of -" he was about to say paperwork but his mouth stopped and it was replaced with a grin, "what am I saying, of course I won't, head of the bloody department. But I'm not confunding the drivers if you're too slow, that'll be bloody lethal."

Eha's lips curled into a wicked grin. The good Mr. Glass caught on fast. Good to know even a stuff-shirt from Level Three could open up to a bit  of fun now and then. She dug her camera again and handed it to him before discarding the backpack and dropping into a quick stretch.

"If I am too slow, feel free to write me off. I'm certain half of my office won't take it as any sort of surprise." She rolled her shoulders and nodded to the camera. "Keep that on me, if you would. Always best to have a souvenir. You ready?"

Once she had his affirmation, she peered both directions down the motorway, counting the seconds it took for the cars to pass them after a certain point. When she saw her chance -- a brief break in the traffic -- Eha vaulted over the barrier and took a running leap across the pavement, wand drawn, dashing for the sprite.

She reached the orb of magic in five seconds ahead of a dented Ford Escort. When her wand touched the sprite, it burst with a harmless red flash and a barely-audible pop. The Escort blared its horn, breaks screeching. Eha switched step, turned on her heel, and flashed the driver the briefest of smiles before she vanished, the car passing harmlessly through the empty air where she had stood.

She reappeared a split second later, three feet to Edwin's left and a foot higher than she meant to, well above the ground. The air pop-ed closed as she tumbled into the grass. For a moment, she stayed down, panting to retrieve the air adrenaline knocked from her lungs. Then she rolled to her feet and bounded up with a laugh. "Whoo! That! That was awesome. You got that, right? Tell me you got that."

She rounded the older man, beaming down at the camera though she knew the shot would have to be developed, unlike those fancy muggle things. But ah well. It'd be all the sweeter once they got the film back, reliving the rush. Eha never felt more alive than when her body thrummed with adrenaline. That'd been half the fun of joining the Corps in the first place.

She clapped Edwin on the shoulder and scooped her pack onto her shoulder. "I would call that a successful run. Catching a sprite in the middle of traffic! That's got to be some kind of pin. Even if it's not, it makes for a good story." With the backpack secure, she tightened the straps and retrieved her camera, letting her gloved hand linger just enough on his to be friendly. There may be nothing particularly 'romantic' about this date, but Edwin had been quite a fun companion nonetheless. "What say we take the short way back to downtown and catch a drink at the Cauldron before we call it a night? Your first successful 'Hatch is something worth celebrating if you ask me."

The shutter closed on the camera in the nick of time, a puff of purple smoke carried away in moments by the rush of air over the traffic. As Eha vanished before his eyes along with the sprite, he threw himself down onto the bank leading up to the side of the motorway so as not to be seen by the Muggles.

It was of course, breaking almost every rule in the book, but, he had helped write some of the more recent revisions to that book…

All of a sudden a shadow threw over him and then there was a bump as Eha landed back onto the ground beside him.

"I got it, I got it," Edwin assured her, and he was equally thrilled and wished they could develop the picture right there.

"Amazing, quite amazing. I was worried for a moment there it'd have you!" The older wizard exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.

"A drink - yes - more than one, and most definitely, on me."


End