It was hard to believe that it had been nearly two months since her first visit to this shop.  Morgana's Novelties, quietly tucked away on Diagon Alley, was not the sort of store that stood out at first glance; most passerby would barely pay attention to it, unless they had heard whispers about the owner's reputation and her knack for acquiring the unacquirable. 

Her last time here, Raizel had come with a definite purpose and an edge to match.  But coming to ask a favor on behalf of oneself was very different from acting as a representative for someone else.  Before, her attitude had been apparent from the moment that she'd entered the shop: she'd been brusque, businesslike, and to the point, as any good negotiator had to be.  Morgana Hollingbury, the owner, had not been particularly thrilled with her approach, but she'd been responsive enough once they'd agreed to their terms, and Raizel had seen firsthand that the woman was both competent and worked quickly.

That prior experience was what had brought her back to the shop a second time.  But this time around, the Cursebreaker wasn't looking to locate anything.  She peered into the shop, her usual leather messenger bag slung over her shoulder.  It had been an exceptionally busy week, between her usual work and the sudden rush of contracting on the side, so it had taken her until Friday to get to this one last errand, but Raizel had been hoping that if she waited until evening to stop in after work, the store would be empty once more.

It was a bit of a relief to see that her instinct was correct.  Raizel started into the shop more fully, flashing a hesitant smile in the direction of the woman that she recognized at the counter.

"Good evening," she greeted the proprietress.  By the end of their last business arrangement, she and Hollingbury had departed on decent enough terms; Raizel had found herself even starting to like the older businesswoman.  "I hope that I am not interrupting you?  If you are expecting more clients, I can stop in next week instead."

Morgana was just rearranging her stock when Raizel came in, the bell at the door tinkling to mark her arrival. She looked around and raised her eyebrows upon recognising the woman. There was no doubt as to who she was, just that it had been a while and she had been waiting for news of the possible task Raizel had planned to give her.

But today, when Raizel greeted her, she deduced that it wasn't the case today. If so, she wasn't bothered. Plenty of business negotiations she had had with others had not gone through. This time around, she wasn't much bothered by it - she had a steady flow of income from a stable, legal source, unlike the past.

"Good evening," she said, nodding in acknowledgement. "No, you're not interrupting me. Opening this late has its benefits." Namely, the lack of customers.

"What can I do for you today? And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall you giving your name the last time we met." Morgana ended this with an amiable smile. Her tone was genuine; she didn't want to keep finding ways of addressing the woman without some sort of personable touch. It just didn't feel right to her, and Morgana liked to at least address someone with a name rather than a descriptive.

Names did not matter nearly as much with British magic as they did back home, where written spells were far more utilized, both for good and for evil, but Raizel still hesitated as she regarded the older woman.  Giving her name -- she wasn't certain how personal she wanted to make this.  In so many circumstances, she never thought twice about introducing herself, but here, it seemed as if the mere act of giving her name would move this from the professional into the personal.

"It's Cohen," she said, a bit shortly.  "Raizel Cohen."  And then, because she knew it was odd to let it off-put her so, and because the woman certainly seemed friendly this time around, she gave her a faint, fleeting smile.  She did not need to be so guarded; not here, not yet.  And besides, she already knew the name of Morgana Hollingbury.

Hollingbury seemed to like her business trickling through in ones or twos.  In all her time here, even when she'd only walked past the novelty shop, Raizel had barely seen more than one other person inside.  It seemed an odd way of running a business, and if she didn't know better herself, she might wonder how it was that Morgana Hollingbury managed to stay open.  But then, she suspected that very little of the witch's income relied on actual sales.

"I didn't want you to find something this time," she said, coming to the counter.  She set her leather messenger bag down on the surface, but she gripped it tightly with both hands, all eight fingers spread, as if she weren't certain that she wanted to open it just yet.  "But I was hoping that you might be able to help me with something else.  How much would it cost for you to take a look at an antique?"

Raizel Cohen. Morgana flipped through a mental address book while she kept her welcoming expression, an easy feat for her. It was familiar, but not so much that she had it marked down as a file somewhere for retrieval in her head. Never mind that, the past was the past.

She watched as Raizel - so much better than calling her that young woman with the blonde hair - put the bag on the counter. Her hands were still tight on it, though. Morgana resisted raising an eyebrow, but she would not deny that she felt intrigued.

"But I was hoping that you might be able to help me with something else.  How much would it cost for you to take a look at an antique?"

"An antique?" Morgana asked, letting the curiosity enter her tone. "For evaluation? Ten sickles for a flat overview - I give you an estimate you the age, period, origin and value. If you want more specific details I'll add a little more to the fee, but that's because I would need to consult my own sources and that'll take a little more time. It won't be much, though." Compared to searching for something, since the Omniscope was so temperamental.

"Is it valuable?" she asked shrewdly. "Or something to be kept a secret? I can't help but notice the way you're holding the bag. If it is, I can shut the shop early so that you don't have to worry about people walking in on us."

The Cursebreaker hesitated, though her grip on her satchel didn't slacken.

"No, it's not valuable," she said.  "I don't even know that it is very rare.  But it has --" 

She broke off again.  Somehow, in the tellings and retellings of the old man's death in the Leaky Cauldron, there had been no mention of the small music box that had fallen to the wayside.  As far as she knew, Bethan Ellis had completely forgotten it, and Raizel herself had taken care not to give any hint of its existence to the Aurors.  There was no reason to think that anyone besides herself, the cloaked figure who had delivered it, and possibly the dybbuk had any idea that it existed.

As far as she was concerned, she wanted to keep things that way.  The Ministry didn't need to know that the small box had once contained a strange magical creature.  She'd examined it for hours, plugging away at the enchantments, looking for any hint of where and when it had been made other than 27-1-44, carved into the bottom of its base.  But as much as Raizel hated to admit her lack of knowledge on anything, strange wooden objects from the mid-1900s were hardly her area of expertise.  She was at a loss to determine where it might have come from.

Which was what had brought her here.

"It has sentimental value," she said, her expression very tight.  "But yeh -- if you don't mind, it would be good if you could close the shop.  If only for a little bit."

Morgana raised a slim eyebrow, but despite her suspicions she didn't question further. She was not here to interrogate people on their finds and belongings. With a smooth hand she slipped her wand from her burgundy belt and pointed it at the door. Anyone outside paying attention to her shop would notice the OPEN sign change its letters to CLOSED, before the lights in the window display darkened and curtains drew across the back of the window display to completely block out all light from further inside the shop.

"I might as well close it early for the night," she remarked, shrugging, as the door lock clicked into place. A brief rattle came from the door - Morgana's own security spells. She had her own nasty means of discouraging would-be thieves, who would very quickly learn that there was no way they could steal from a former master thief, even if they didn't know she was one.

"You might just as well bring it behind the counter, although there isn't much space. The room you entered the last time is for special occasions." She motioned to Raizel as she stepped around the counter, slipping her wand back into her belt. "Does your antique need to be specially handled? No touching, no contact with water, anything? I get all manner of requests on that level."

Even though it did not seem really necessary to close the shop, Raizel still stood a little easier as Morgana magicked her store closed.  The Cursebreaker would not really have been able to explain why this whole thing felt so personal, so inherently intimate.  Unless Bethan Ellis started suddenly remembering details beyond what she'd already recollected, there was no way that anyone at the Ministry would even suspect that the music box existed.  But even so, taking these precautions still made her feel a little safer.

She unfastened the straps on her messenger bag, and then carefully removed the object that she'd stashed inside it.  The music box had been wrapped in a scarf; she unwound the material carefully, freeing the small, intricately carved wooden object from its temporary confines.

The music box was small -- nearly small enough to be cradled in one hand.  It had been made out of a dark wood, and the lid looked as if it fit snugly into the rectangular base.  An intricate sunburst pattern decorated the lid, made out of inlaid pieces of yellowed ivory.  Raizel set it down on the counter with obvious care, letting it settle onto its four arched legs.[1]

"I don't think so," she said cautiously, her eyes flicking to meet the witch's gaze.  "As far as I know, it is just old.  But I don't think that submerging it in water would be a good idea."  Hollingbury did not strike her as the impulsive sort, apt to test her antique against the elements, but with magic users, one never knew.  "I'm just curious to find out more about it."

1.	Another description of the outside of the music box.

Morgana ran her fingers over the wood wonderingly, only pausing to take in the carved inlay on the lid. She retrieved her wand; as a little ball of light appeared at the tip, she held the box up to the light and examined it.

"Pardon me." Morgana touched her middle fingertip to her tongue and then gently rubbed it on the surface of the ivory, looking at it closely for...well, whatever it was, she wasn't saying now. She then silently retrieved a magnifying glass from a drawer and took a closer look, all the while tapping on it.

After a few moments she carefully turned the box over. She glanced at the carved symbol before focusing on the numbers below. Then she looked up at Raizel. "Something's not quite right about this box," she said, weighing it carefully in one hand. "It feels as if it's been tainted. Dark magic and the like. Has it been opened?"

She put the box down with a frown. "It's a work of craftsmanship, but identifying its age would be too vague. The wood seems to be palisander[1] but I'm no expert woodworker so take that with a grain of salt." Morgana tilted her head to one side. "The ivory is genuine and very old, at least, and the wood is much darker than what I've usually seen of palisander, if my guess is right. But I doubt the numbers on the bottom allude to the date it's created, it may be a much more significant date, perhaps of remembrance. Or a safe or locker combination."

Morgana looked up at Raizel without raising her head. "Insofar as I can tell now, it's old enough to be able to fetch a fair price on the antiques market. But something tells me that's not what you're here for, am I right? Something more to do with the numbers, the carved symbol and the fact that it seems to have a palpable tinge of dark around it. Maybe you could regale a few more details about where you've got it from, since that's a little more important than how much value this little knick-knack is worth."

1.	Rosewood is the more common name for it, but since you said it in the cbox I just went with the more exotic-sounding option eheh.

Morgana Hollingbury had impressed her with her professionalism before, but Raizel still hadn't known totally what to expect going into this examination.  Perhaps more information about the box's origins -- something along the line of what Adam Turner had suggested -- but she hadn't been holding out much hope for anything useful.

She had definitely not been expecting the witch's first question.  Raizel blinked, her brow furrowing as she eyed the shopkeeper.  Tainted magic...she wasn't sure if she would call a dybbuk tainted, but it was certainly dark.  Even so, it left her uncertain as to whether or not she was pleased that the woman had noticed.

"Yeh," she said succinctly, not really willing to give much more away.  "It's been already been opened."

She stayed quiet as Morgana undertook the rest of her examination.  The shopkeeper certainly seemed to know her business -- all of her immediate observations matched the deductions that Raizel had made.  Even her conclusion was nearly right on -- Raizel hadn't come to her to get confirmation on the type of wood or the item's age.  Those, she could figure out for herself.  She was looking for something more.

Raizel hesitated, attempting to eye the woman surreptitiously, and then bit her lip.  Sharing this much made her uncomfortable, especially with a witch that she barely knew, but what harm really could it do?  Morgana's line of work meant that she wouldn't run to the Ministry.  And besides, so far, she'd been dead on with her observations.  Perhaps if Raizel was willing to give her a little more information, she'd be able to notice something else.

"Yeh," she said, letting out her breath.  "There was a dark creature trapped inside it.  A dybbuk -- you know what one of those is?"  She glanced sidelong at the shopkeeper, her eyes searching for any flash of recognition; Middle Eastern creatures were generally not well known outside of the region, but one never knew.

"The inside was modified to keep the dybbuk trapped," she said, giving a shrug.  "Someone coated it with lead, and there were other items inside -- things that a mage might use for binding as part of a spell."  She hesitated again, pressing her tongue to her teeth as she examined Morgana's expression seriously.  She had been keeping her thoughts and worries about the music box inside for so long, it was a relief to finally share them out loud.  "That is why I want to know more.  I want to find out why someone sent the dybbuk."

Morgana listened to her, her face not changing when Raizel mentioned a dybbuk. But warning bells had gone off in her head. She'd dealt with so many cursed and enchanted artefacts before that it was not possible for her to have never heard of what a dybbuk was - and artefacts like these had been part of her stock once before. They were difficult to sell becase of various reasons, one being wizards were a superstitious lot and disliked unwanted attraction.

She looked at the box again. There were other things she hadn't mentioned that she had noticed. A lingering scent of...something, above the dark tinge. Spices? Of course, the box had, by now, acquired a sheen to it because of how much it was being handled, but surely she could find some way of looking into its past...

She glanced at it again. There seemed to be an almost irresistable force on the box. She could feel an urge, wanting to take it into her hand and curl her fingers protectively around it. If anything, it seemed to be calling to her to take it away and keep it safe - and oh, the number of places she could put it to keep it safe. The temptation...

...was a double-edged sword.

Morgana silently picked her wand up and pointed at it. Yellow mist poured out of the tip and surrounded the box. This spell was entirely of her own invention and she had used it multiple times on obects just as irresistable as this one was. Whatever it was, it was weak compared to what she'd experienced, but not weak enough that whoever was destined to have it would give it up without a fight. The yellow mist was there to neutralise and contain such a spell. It wrapped itself around like fire and caressed the box continually.

"So," she said slowly, "whoever had this, the spirit was clearly meant for them and whoever bound it there was thorough. I was at first going to say that this was Greek - the sunburst, a symbol that originates from the days before the Macedonian empire - but Greece has more stonecarvers than woodworkers." She raised her eyes without lifting her head to look at Raizel. "Tell me what you know of it, Miss Cohen. I have a feeling that you have information that can help me."

She saw the look in her eyes, and she knew that look. "If you're unsure about telling me," she added, "rest assured that even I don't think someone's going to come and get me to just pay for information on this. There's nothing valuable about the box that anyone in the wizarding world would want, especially considering it's clearly done the job it was meant to do."

There was something about the way that the shopkeeper spoke -- the slow cadence of her speech, the way she raised her eyes so deliberately to meet Raizel's own -- that made her feel like this had suddenly turned from a consultation to a directive.  The Cursebreaker nearly balked; nearly bit her own tongue, so sharp was the feeling that she should retreat.  She'd come here to seek Morgana Hollingbury's opinion, not to give her own.  It was not the witch's place to order her about.

"If someone comes and tries to pay you for information, I should hope that you would be discreet," she said tartly, the words sharp on her tongue.  "That is what I am paying you for."  Hollingbury's services did not come cheap, after all.  "And you ought to remember that I am paying you to help me."

Despite the hard tone of her voice, she gave a shrug, her gaze drifting back to the music box.  Her reliance on secrecy was more instinctive than necessary, at least in this instance.  Hollingbury was right, at least in that: there was no reason that anyone besides her and those that she trusted with her secret would be interested in the box.  It was completely unremarkable.  Even if it held a clue to Hector Harrison's death, that likely had little to do with its original crafting.

"I think it was made in Europe," she said after a beat.  "Sometime around the 1930s, and then a few years after that, someone prepared it to trap the dybbuk.  I'm not sure of more than that.  I've been looking for the symbol and for those numbers on the bottom, but I haven't found anything yet."

Morgana was no stranger to clients being a little more wary in the situation of asking for more information. She blinked slowly in response to Raizel's sharp words. Information on other bidders was a currency in the criminal world, but it was not part of her services. She didn't see any need to tell Raizel this; it was hardly relevant to the discussion at hand.

Her lips moved wordlessly as she repeated Raizel's words to herself. Europe. 1930s. She had suspected that the information would be too general, even if coming from the person who discovered it, and her suspicions had been proven right.

"The symbol and numbers are both things that are far too broad to pinpoint, unless you hire a specialist in cryptography, magical or not," she said, eventually. "Too many guesses, not enough evidence to deduce any sort of actual conclusion close to the truth. And I am sure you're aware of it by now, but that irresistible feeling around it...all I can think of at the moment is that it was meant as an assassination tool. Clever."

Morgana pointed her wand at it again, and then slowly lowered it, raising an eyebrow at Raizel. "Would you want me to remove the mist?" she asked. "It blocks out the attraction to it, but if you don't actually mind being quite attached to it..."

The Cursebreaker's brows knit as she listened to the shopkeeper's prediction.  An assassination tool -- was that all that the music box had been?  Intended for the old man at the Three Broomsticks and nothing more?  Or perhaps its origin was far older:  it could have been crafted and enchanted a lifetime ago, and yet never been used for its original purpose?

Raizel had never been the most gifted at hiding her emotions; her unhappiness likely showed through onto her face.  It wasn't as if she had come here expecting Morgana Hollingbury to confirm her wildest theories, but the suggestion that the small wooden box was only that -- only a tool, merely an enchantment -- left her stomach twisting in a way that she did not like.  Part of her had been as entranced by the mystery as she had been by the box; the thought that it really meant nothing after all was a far more disappointing ending than she had wanted.

She gave a careless shrug at the witch's question; it certainly wasn't a good idea to remain under the spell of some mysterious object, but part of her still wanted to cling to the barest hope.

"Will the mist harm the box?" she asked, her dark eyes searching the shopkeeper's expression for any hint of meaning.  "Or damage the enchantments on it?"