March 27th
11:59pm
Knockturn - Canterbury, Kent

Lexus rubbed at her darkened eyes. She had spent the better part of the last eight hours preparing a brew she had been instructed to make from one of Almasy's associates. She rarely spoke with the lion directly anymore, in fact there had only been the one time she had met the woman face to face now everything was channeled down through others as if Lexus wasn't worth the time, she doubted that she was. So long as she delivered on the product there was no reason for the Criminal Mastermind to stay in touch.

The smell from the concoction was causing her nose to burn and her eyes to water. She flipped the page on the large ancient looking book next to her. It had taken her a lot to track down the dusty tome to find the brew that had been requested. She had almost given up but she didn't think the 'Boss' would be too happy with that and she had reputation to keep up with. She was known for being able to brew any potion known to Wizarding kind and she wasn't about to make a liar of herself.

She bent over the scrawled instructions blowing a soft layer of dust off the crackled page. It was very specific about how each step needed to be performed. She found the next instruction, stir counter clockwise 5 times, clockwise 3 and counterclockwise 7. There was a bolded warning underneath but age had worn through it and it was nothing more than a blur now. Lexus took a deep breath and began to count as she stirred.

Counter clockwise 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 Clockwise 1 . . 2 . . 3 Counter clockwise 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . 4 . . 5 - BANG!

There was loud noise from out on the street. The sudden sound caused Lexus to jump and she let go of the ladle she had been stirring the potion with. She paused, looking at the ceiling of the cellar she did her brewing in. The noise could have been anything but in Knockturn alley, hearing a bang was never a good omen. She listened for a few moments before deciding it was nothing to concern herself with.

Lexus turned back to the large cauldron in front of her. The liquid, which moments before had a been a soft blue, was now violently green, looking like some sort of toxic matter. It began to bubble, hiss and rise. She looked to the ladle and realized when she let go of it, perpetual motion had kept it stirring long past what had been instructed. She took a step back as the liquid started to bubble over the edge of the cauldron. The stone floor hissed and sizzled where the potion fell on it. Lexus realized too late that the voliatile mixture was more than just unstable, it was about to explode.

She spun, looking to run past the charms she had placed within the large cellar. There were charms on the shelves of potions and ingredients to keep them from falling, a latent shield around them should anything be thrown at them, the floor was charms not to burn in case of an unruly cauldron fire, and above the doorway leading out of the cellar hung a Shamanic Ward that would keep all magical energy within the confines of the cellar should anything explode. However for all her precautions, Lexus didn't make it out in time.

The cauldron exploded throwing toxic green slop everywhere. The floor hissed, the shelves groaned but the protection held. Lexus was thrown to the floor from the blast and roared with pain, like an animal snared in a hunter's trap. The splattered potion burned at her skin and there was a sharp stabbing pain just below her shoulder blade. She gingerly reached back and discovered a shard of the Cauldron wedged there.

She managed to get to her feet and crawled up the stairs, past her shop and up to her personal apartment. The lights were low but the fireplace was blazing. She reached for the small pot next to it and tossed a handful of the shimmering ash into the fire. It burst into a brilliant emerald flame. She paused for a moment trying to think of where she could go. She couldn't go to Jonas', he wouldn't know what to do with her, if she showed up at Uncle Joe's house she might give Aunt Randy a heart attack and they likely wouldn't know what to do with her either. She could try and get to St Mungo's but she had no idea if it was connected to the Floo Network or if they would even treat her, she wasn't exactly mixing the most legal of brews.

She glanced around her apartment trying to figure something out. She spied a stack of letters on a nearby end table and grasped for them. She rifled through them, biting back the pain and forcing herself to stay conscious, using her left hand as her right shoulder was making it nearly impossible to use that hand. She finally found the letter she was looking for. An old associate of hers, a werewolf she had run into almost a year prior by the name of Horatio Higgins, had written to her about the time he had spent in a small house in the middle of the forest where he had been looked after by two Healers. If anyone was going to help her out, it would be them. She just hoped she could remember the address.

She flung herself through the archway of her hearth, "Tilberthwaite Wood!"

---

The burns aren't life threatening just magical and would require a little extra spell work, especially considering most of Lexus' back is covered in scar tissue from a werewolf attack. The Cauldron bit in her shoulder would be the worst of her injuries.

Greyfriar House
Tilberthwaite Wood
Canterbury
Kent

Deep in a prickly grove the large hearth and fireplace of a little stone cottage erupted in emerald flame.  The master of the house was asleep in bed, and he might not have noticed that his connection to the Floo Network had been activated if it hadn't been for the fact that the small fireplace in his bedroom was connected to the large one below.

The green light filled Knox Greyfriar's room with a flash and startled the old wizard awake.  He reached for his wand before thinking.  And then froze silent in the dark.  Waiting.  Waiting for some other noise or signal of who was in his house.  He might have thought a badger if he wasn't sure badgers didn't use the Floo. 

And there it was.  A tinkling and clankling of his hanging pots and pans.  For you see, Knox's fireplace also served as his kitchen hearth.  Directly above and around it was his cooking things hanging cleverly from hooks.  Whoever was in his cottage was tall enough to rattle his crockery and so was most certainly not a normal-sized badger from Kent local.

The floorboards creaked loudly as he stepped from bed - he had no illusions of being sneaky.  He was better at barging anyhow, and barge he did with a booming voice.

"I count myself a hospitable sort!" he shouted as he came down the stairs with no feeling of warmth at all, "but by my beard I'll end you...!"

When he reached main level, the light of his wand cast upon a witch.  Tall and normal looking except for all the blood.

"Good evening," he said, his wand leveled and his voice wary.  "Or rather, good morning."

The blaze of the Floo network was nearly blinding, and the swirl of fireplaces whizzing by was not all that settling either. Lexus would have squeezed her eyes shut if she knew where she was going but she needed to stay observant and most importantly awake in order to get to the cottage. Working more on instinct - and perhaps smell? - she leaped from the fire and into the hearth of her destination (she hoped!) After the bright light of her travel the darkness of the small house was equally blinding. She found herself stumbling in the dark, bumping into pots and ladles and all sorts of cookery. She had thought herself lost until a bear of a man barged into the room wand drawn, casting more blinding light. Lexus cursed her eyesight and wished she could find some equilibrium between all the forms of illumination that seemed determined to keep her unsteady.

She must have looked bad, or at least worse than normal, for the man seemed to drop his guard simply from one look at her. She had been brewing in her own house and therefore had forgone any sort of disguise, her gold and silver hair fell unruly over her torn and burnt shoulders and her glowing eyes reflected back his wand light. In that moment she likely looked more pathetic than she did intimidating but it was never wise to underestimate a wounded animal.

Lexus, now clear of the giant stone hearth attempted to take a step forward but faltered and grabbed hold of the nearest surface, was that a table? Either way it only prevented her from face planting and she landed hard on her knees instead. She let out an not all human sounding growl and turned her eyes to the man, "Higgins." She coughed out, hung her head to try and steady herself, "Higgins told me about you."

"Can you help?"

Knox's Hufflepuff heart melted immediately upon seeing the intruder collapse and utter what must have been a desperate request.  He extinguished the light from his wand and lit the lamps in cottage with one motion.  A fire started to kindle in the fireplace.  Warmth and light.

But his next thought spoken aloud was, "Higgins...?"  His mind scoured his colleagues, acquaintences, past students, courtroom encounters and then..."Horatio Higgins!" He'd treated the stranger more than a month ago, the first of what was beginning to be a trend, because after him he and Hannah had found themselves assisting four other werewolves.  An Auror[1], a gardener[2], and an unfortunate vagabond.[3]  All fearing the worst should their seeking treatment at St. Mungo's out them as unregistered or werewolves quietly going about their lives.  It didn't take long to deduce that this witch was referred by Horatio Higgins for the same reason.

He moved towards her at a pace both hasty and nonthreatening and gesturing slowly that he only meant to help her up and into his easy chair.  When she allowed it, he supported her at her elbows, allowing her to carry all the weight she cared to, and then set her gently in his large stuffed chair.  The lamp at the small table nearby showed him the grisly reality of her injuries.

"If you've spoken to Higgins and you found my home, you must know that I'm Knox Greyfriar.  But I don't know your name."

1.	Cooper Evans, 24 Feb
2.	NPC, not played out
3.	NPC, not played out

The fire and lamp light were calm and soft, enough not to set her senses on fire again and her eyes soon became adapted. She briefly looked at her surroundings but didn't take much of it in. She was still biting back the pain and the swimming in her head, making sure to stay conscious long enough to receive healing from the man.

For a brief moment she was afraid she actually had made it to the wrong place but he soon recognized her request and was at her side to help her up. Lexus almost instantly obliged, not eager to stay much longer on the floor. She settled into the large chair as best she could keeping herself close to the edge as not to aggravate any of her wounds.

She took a deep breath and attempted a smile, "Dale, Lexus Dale. I used to work for Jonas Trevelyan." Of all her Wizarding contacts, Jonas was always the safest one, not to mention her favourite. She didn't want to mention living in Knockturn in fear being turned away nor did she think it wise at the moment to mention her connection as an informant to the Aurors. She knew Cooper would flip his lid if he ever found out she had let it be known they were connected to each.

"I'm a potioneer *groan* I got distracted, it exploded." She rolled her shoulders and hissed at the fresh wave of pain it caused, "There was a cauldron shard in my shoulder, I think I got it all out."

Trevelyan...Knox turned the name over in his mind.  He was an Auror, wasn't he?  They were only briefly acquainted and so he couldn't fathom what it would mean that she used to work for him.  There were too many possibilities and it was frankly irrelevant.  She was badly injured he could see now in the light, and certainly by her ginger way of sitting in his chair.

He peered around to where she was gesturing.  "You missed some...!" he nearly laughed.  There was a blackened spike impaled in her bloody, potion-stained skin.  He very gently touched her clothing to slide it away just to see...

"I don't need to ask why you've come here," he said as he moved away to his large hearth where he kept his kitchen.  "so you don't need to say.  You and I probably have a great deal in common."  He chatted this way, conversationally and unalarmed, as he took down a mortar and pestle and dug through a coffer of little worn runestones. 

"I hope you'll forgive an old wizard for not being on par with Mungo's best, but I think the occasion of our rendezvous will mean we'll both have to make do."

His way of saying we're stuck with each other.

Knox returned to her at the chair and slid up his ottomon to sit on at her side.  "What kind of potion is this then?"  He dare not touch it until he knew - a view of her lovely burns were enough for him for now, without sharing in the experience.

Lexus gritted her teeth expecting him to pull out the shard she had missed, instead he moved about getting ready to do his healing thing. She figured he had a good reason for it, after all it probably hadn't been the smartest thing for her to have pulled out as much as she had, just to let herself bleed out. Although the burns from where the potion hit her was likely keeping her from bleeding too much.

She let a weight she didn't know she was carrying off her shoulders. He didn't care who she was or how she had gotten there. He just wanted to help. He may not have been Mungo's best but he was still likely a better healer than she was and she wasn't about to start mixing up salves in her condition.

He paused at her side ready to go but he was cautious and rightfully so. She wouldn't be surprised if her burns help the toxic green colour the potion had before it exploded. However she found herself hesitating. He may not need to know who she was but he was going to need to know what she had been brewing and what she had been brewing was some rather nasty stuff of the illegal variety
"It was an older version of the Disintegration Draughts, before the standards and regulations got put in place for professional potioneers. It uses mostly ingredients you're not going to find in Diagon Alley."

Knox tried very had to resist the Not Angry Just Disappointed glance that he'd employed so often with his students when he'd been at Hogwarts.  The look that said, 'how very clever - now look where you've found yourself.'  Try as he did, he was not successful.

"No one can be blamed for being as we are, cursed under a moon," he said.  "But meddling in that sort of thing will get you nothing but trouble."

But he wasn't law enforcement, and even as a Wizengamot Elder he didn't consider that he had any obligation to report crime.  In fact, he was becoming accustomed to breaking a few choice laws as they aligned with his ideals.  Strangely, he didn't seem to apply that same allowance to Lexus and the reason she chose to brew what she did.

He reached around and pulled a thick tome from a low bookshelf nearby.  A reference book from his time Healing, a list of nasty potions and their effects.

"Ah.  Disintegration Draught.  Yes, well, that does explain the disintegration I'm seeing...looks like we need to give it something else to eat tastier than your hide."  He smiled at her, happy that the solution seemed simple. 

Lexus grimaced at the look he had given her, even if he hadn't noticed doing so. It wasn't that of an authority figure looking down on a criminal (like she got from Cooper on a regular basis) but one of a concerned father that wanted to let their children be independent even if he didn't approve of their choices. His words hit home more than his look had. He didn't blame her for being a wolf (which was actually a refreshing revelation) but he wasn't happy about the lifestyle she had chosen. It riled up the wolf inside her and she had to steel herself against it. She didn't know this man, there was no reason for his opinion of her to mean anything but for some reason it did. She supposed it had to do with how much he reminded her of her own father. She looked away at the thought, it had been over five years now since she had killed her father and the pain still got to her.

She looked back to him expecting to see more disappointment and was instead surprised with a smile. Perhaps he really had meant it when he said her past didn't matter as much as fixing her up did, "Something more tastey?" She was a little worried about that statement. She was a well trained potioneer and had mastered potions most European Witches didn't even know existed but she had never worked with the Disintegration Draught before, especially not in it's ancient, rawest form. She didn't think there would be anything that would stop the burning but he seemed confident he had figured out how to heal her.

"Do what you need to do." She paused for a moment, "And thank you. You didn't have to help me, I really do appreciate this."

The words of gratitude halted Knox's thinking and his head snapped up from the book.  It made him suddenly sad and he had to swallow down the lump in his throat.

"Yes, I did," he said slowly. "Who else will?" 

He'd been in this position a half-dozen times now without reluctance.  But the situation shouldn't even exist.  It wasn't that he felt sorry for her or anyone else, but ashamed that he'd never seen this sorry state of affairs until it directly affected him.  He with all of his noble ideals hadn't been able to see past his own nose.  How many had suffered while he was able to go about his life thinking he was a man of principle?  Believing his efforts were sufficient?

Now he paid the price. 

With a sharp intake of breath through his nose, he rose himself up and went to the cabinet.

"Can you handle a mortar and pestle while I cook?"

He was pulling dried herbs down from their place hanging from his rafters. 

Lexus attempted to move her shoulder and hissed with pain. Of course it had to have been her right shoulder that got affected. Thankfully the burns were centralized to that area and her other arm was still working just fine. She held out her left hand to accept the small stone bowl. She placed it on the arm of the chair and took the pestle with her left hand, "It'll be slow but I can still use my other arm just fine."

She rested her right hand on the side of the bowl to steady it. Even that small amount of movement shot a burning pain across her shoulder but at least she didn't have to move it now that it was in place. She awkwardly moved her left hand around crushing whichever ingredients he had passed to her. She did her best to stay silent not wanting to break his concentration. Not to mention she had no idea what she would even say to him.

He had said that he did have to do this, for who else would have. That sad fact made Lexus more uncomfortable than she wanted to admit. It made her feel lonely and unwanted, a sensation that was not all that unfamiliar to her. The last two years spent in London had not really been all that smooth, especially after her run in with a botched Wolfsbane potion that left her physically changed as well. She felt that everything had gone down hill in the span of only a few years even if she discounted her initial transformation into a werewolf. She had once been a honour student with a bright future. It was incredible how quickly ones life could change, "Have you always been a healer?"

"Hm?"  Knox looked up from his work after the few minutes of silence between them.  He'd nearly finished preparing the herbs, cutting or crushing them in the proper amounts and a decoction was setting that he'd use to fashion a police of sorts.   

He'd never...he'd never ever been asked that before.  Why, he could barely think of anyone other than his oldest school mates who even knew...

"I'm not a Healer," he said a note of apology.  "But I trained as one, here in London in my twenties just after Hogwarts.  It was the 70s' you know."  He wondered if she'd know what that implied, the reign of Voldemort, having that American accent. [1]  "I gave it up before my apprenticeship was finished.  But I manage to poke along like a pedestrian.  Little secret: this cure's simple enough for a dullard like me."

He turned to check the boiling little pot - it was piping and ready to go.  In a wide flat wooden bowl he added just a touch of the thick liquid onto a bundle of spices and worked them into a paste with a large spoon.

"Feel free to run out the door any time," he joked in that self-effacing way he was prone to do.

1.	I know she's Canadian, but Knox would assume American.

"I did too," She said almost as an immediate reaction and suddenly wished she hadn't. There were very few people she had ever talked about her past with. Even Jonas had figured much of it out on his own without having outright asked her. The only people who seemed interested these days were her cousins but they had been through it with her, as much as they could have been given their ages at the time.

"I mean, I trained with healing potions, the potions themselves were my specialty. I was never really good with a wand but I can brew almost anything." The small amount of pride she had for herself faded with the weight of her current predicament. She was such a skilled potioneer, one with true natural talent, how had she ever gotten herself into this mess?

She had no idea what he was implying by the '70's. It was obviously before her time and she was also a Muggleborn on top of being Canadian. The most she knew about the '70's was bell bottoms, disco, some mess about Human Rights in Quebec and the end of the Vietnam war. She had no idea the kind of war that was happening overseas, even if she had learned briefly about it in History of Magic: Modern Age.

She gave him a toothy smile, "Where would I go, we're in the middle of nowhere?" She playfully chided him making it clear that she had no intention on leaving, especially not before he got a chance to use his 'dullard' potion making on her.

Knox smiled back when she returned his light-hearted humor.  At least they could have a laugh in their dreadful spot.  That and she was grateful that she didn't bolt from the room.  He walked across the room back to her and gingerly tasted the concoction!

"Hot!" he said, and exhaled to cool his tongue.  "I think there's enough cumin.  Maybe more salt.  Ah! Can't be picky."

The cure for this sort of thing was actually to offer something more sumptuous to the crawling, gnawing goop that stained her.  The book suggested a palatable, heavily seasoned paste that also had a touch of dittany to ease the pain. 

"Let's see if that blight of yours would prefer this...just going to get in on there quickly.  Brace yourself, love."  And he did - with his big fingers, he spread a layer of the thick stuff into the wounds.  It was still warm - he hoped around body temperature, and it smelled delicious.  As he laid it on, he heard some fizzling.

"Alright?"

Lexus winced slightly as he spread the paste over her shoulder. It was more from shock than pain. She could feel the toxic sludge moving over her skin which she supposed meant it was choosing to eat Knox's concoction instead of her. There wasn't much pain, at least not from the sludge itself. The dittany in the mixture was taking away any she would have felt from the burns and the wound in her shoulder from the cauldron shard was dissipating as well.

She nodded to his question, "All things considered."

As the smell of the concoction filled the room apparently growing in strength as the potion dissolved, Lexus' stomach growled loudly. She tried to remember the last time she ate. It likely would have been some time that morning. She always had been rather bad at feeding herself. Especially whenever she was busy. She was more likely to continue on with her work rather than stop to eat something.

"Sorry 'bout that. It just smells really good."