Gerda had fussed. She hadn't been sure whether to grab the frying pan or fresh sheets on seeing Johann return through the living room fireplace ahead of her master. With some instruction, Ignan had left his young cousin in the elf's capable care. He didn't much fancy dealing with matters himself.

Mira would not be pleased to have to share the house with an extra wizard, but he didn't trust the idiot to stay in the country or not to go and do something foolish. Taking off exactly at the time he should have been updating the aurors about what had happened had made them all think the worst. He was still none the wiser about where his younger relative had hidden. Between disappearing from Elixa's flat until he'd turned himself in to Francis Pepper, Gabrielle's lover, a somewhat neutral party, he could only presume he had a bolt-hole somewhere.

Footsteps trailed upstairs, and he could hear faint interchange between the elf and his younger cousin through the floorboards. He stuck a hand into his pocket to check the bottle of sleeping solution was still there. Although not so helpful in helping him find the idiot earlier in the week, she was more useful at procuring strong sleeping potion and fudging hospital records.

He stayed out of the way downstairs in his own house, avoiding having to have a conversation, allowing Gerda to do her best attempt at kindling an appetite, tutting as she came downstairs later, lamenting quietly to her master that the houseguest did not appreciate her cooking and was particularly ill tempered. Ignan decided it was best to let Johann stew it out up there.

As the hour crept by, Ignan began to consider that Mira would not make it home on time. He'd been delaying evening meal to try and eat with her. Gerda ventured upstairs again, and Ignan seized the opportunity to tamper with the tea tray on the kitchen table.

He poured two cups of tea, and slid the bottle from his trouser pocket, consulting the label briefly before unscrewing. It was then he saw the figure in the doorway of the kitchen and stopped, slipping the still-sealed bottle back into his pocket, though he was pretty sure it was too late.

"You're home." He remarked as cordially as he could manage, and poured a third cup. "We've a house guest. Did you get my owl?"

"You're home." Ignan had been caught in the act of something. His tone was clipped, there was something in his eyes and she’d seen quick movement while stepping through the door. Miranda didn’t smile at him; she was tired and was certainly not biting at the bit to find out what the wizard was up to.

“I did.” The door was closed behind her and Miranda took her hat off, resting it on the table. “I didn’t read it. You don’t appear to read mine so I stopped bothering with yours.” Regularly Miranda had received a response to her owls which had absolutely nothing to do with what she’d written. He claimed it was her illegible scrawl, she was adamant it was his stubborn nature not wanting to try and read.

Keeping her expression plain and emotionless, Mira pulled her cardigan off due to the warmth of the house. She stepped up closer to Ignan and reached up to give him a kiss. As their lips touched, her hand snaked into the wizard’s pocket and fingers grasped what he must have hidden on her entrance. She pulled it out and stepped away in one swift motion, getting a distance between herself and Ignan so she could see what it was.

“Are you…” Eyebrows rose when she read the label. “Are you planning on putting the houseguest into a potion induced coma?” A disapproving gaze, which she would regularly give a staff member, fell upon Ignan.

"I did. I didn’t read it. You don't appear to read mine so I stopped bothering with yours." Ignan's eyebrow shot up, a little peeved she'd seen the owl but not bothered to read it. Unlike her, he had perfectly legible handwriting. His students never trembled to ask him what he'd written in feedback on their work, ever...

He stayed quite still as she shed her outer layers. He was momentarily distracted in watching her. He'd caught himself feeling fond or glad that she'd returned home as the days went on and they shared his house. He didn't want to show it though, that wouldn't do.

The kiss was enjoyable, even if it was a decoy to slip a hand into his pocket. She'd seen, it was no use resisting, but his hand hung in mid air all the same.

"Are you planning on putting the house guest into a potion induced coma?"

"It's one way to keep him put." Ignan remarked a little flippantly, "rather than waste good wine." He gave a shrug and then realised Mira really didn't have any idea who the house guest was.

"It's Johann." He gestured vaguely to the bedrooms above them, "Magical Law Enforcement finished interviewing him this afternoon after he turned up. Rather than let him do another vanishing act when they might want to ask him some more questions later, I brought him back here." He reached for the milk, trying to avoid Mira's gaze.

"He..." How to say this? "Isn't in the best of minds." Gerda appeared with a crack in the kitchen the other side of the table, immediately staring oddly at her master engaging with the tea tray.

"It was just to help him sleep."

Ignan’s explanation was doing nothing to sate the disapproving and stern gaze the witch was giving him from across the kitchen. This was a look most healers hated receiving from their boss. It meant they’d made a terrible mistake. Ignan had been, very possibly, about to make a terrible mistake and it didn’t matter what useless excuse he could give her for it.

The stare allowed her to consider her options, her words, without destroying any relationship they had or making him quite furious.

Gerda’s entrance caused Miranda’s gaze to drop and fall on the small elf. Eyebrows flew up as she realised the elf was also ‘in on it’.

“I don’t need to know where this came from.” The healer’s voice was cold, stern as eyes shot straight back to the perpetrator. The origin of the potion was not her biggest concern.

“Do you know how much Johann weighs? To the ounce? What has he eaten today? Quantities and ingredients. How much has he consumed in liquid? Has he vomited, has he excreted? Does he have unclean thoughts about antelope?” Her questions were asked slowly, counting on each finger as she mentioned those things Ignan had surely failed to consider. “I expect you haven’t cleaned and shaved his inner nose either.”

Between them, Gerda was looking uncomfortable, backing away. She looked like she was about to pop when Miranda grabbed the elf’s rag over her shoulder.
“You’re going nowhere.”

Mira's tone indicated he was in trouble along with the stare. She'd not used that one him much, but he knew exactly what it meant. Minerva did a similar one to him when he went a bit overboard on the detentions or attempted a bit of dark humour she thought was too much.

"Do you know how much Johann weighs? To the ounce?"
"Er,"
"What has he eaten today? Quantities and ingredients. How much has he consumed in liquid? Has he vomited, has he excreted?"
"I-"
"Does he have unclean thoughts about antelope?"
"Antelope?!"
"I expect you haven’t cleaned and shaved his inner nose either."

Ignan's expression indicated his perplexed state.
"Do what to his nose? And why would anyone have unclean thoughts about antelope?"

This was seriously raising questions as to what went on last November when the lanky linguist was confined to St Mungo's for treatment. Had they shown him picture of antelope then? They stood staring at each other in the kitchen, Mira's expression still very business-like as if she'd not finished work at all, and Ignan feeling like he was as bad as a first year.

"You’re going nowhere." Mira seized the elf, who turned her saucer-like eyes on the witch in alarm.

"Gerda, is he asleep?"
"No Master. Very much awake."

"No, no I don't know how much he's eaten, or the rest of it and especially not the antelopes, but I do know he's got a reliance on sleeping potion." Gerda was shrinking beneath Mira's grasp of the pillowcase clothing, looking like she wanted to iron her own ears.

"And after everything this week, all he wants to do is sleep, and he can't." Ignan tried to keep his tone even and reasonable. It wasn't as if he'd been avoiding talking to Johann or dealing with him since he'd got home because he had been trying not to let the state of his cousin influence whether he was going to permit him sleeping potion or not. He'd been sitting it out waiting to see if exhaustion would win out instead.

Miranda hadn't the time or inclination to tell Ignan that along with Antelopes, unclean thoughts about cattle could cause an equally horrific reaction but such thoughts were far rarer. His facial expression wasn't synonymous with him believing her and taking her words as credible but he'd never been around such a reaction when antelopes and sleeping potion mixed. It was very well known in the healing community.

Ignan's excuse of Johann wanting to sleep caused Miranda to look away from the elf in her grasp.
"If he knew about this you wouldn't have been slipping it into his tea."

"You," gaze fell back onto the elf. "Six tasks," the Head Healer recounted them to the elf and let go. Gerda cast a nervous glance at her master before vanishing with a crack and Miranda set Ignan in her stern gaze.

The potion was deposited in Miranda's pocket and she stepped up to the counter, grasping a teacup and lifting it to her nose to sniff. It was safe.

"You know he needs sleeping potion because he's addicted to it," the witch took a sip of tea and began to fumble in her pocket for her cigarettes. "From I don't know where you procure a magical coma inducing potion and are prepared to drop Merlin knows how much into a cup of tea for him to unknowingly drink, slip into a coma and possibly never wake up and you didn't speak to me first?"

With the cigarette lit she eyed the wizard, her stern glare replaced with a calmer, more cautious one.
"You may have killed him."

Gerda was off with a crack and Mira helped herself to tea.
"… and you didn't speak to me first?" She asked.
"Well, when you put it like that…" Ignan replied quietly, looking up to the kitchen ceiling and giving a little sigh, his shoulders sinking beside her.

"You may have killed him."
"Small mercies." Ignan replied, and then glanced down to Mira, dismissing the notion with a quick shake of his head. That wouldn't have been a good result at all, and not at all what he'd intended. Only a little in the tea, just to try and induce a little drowsiness. This was why she was the sensible one.

"Then I am glad you stopped me." He agreed, leaning against the counter beside her, folding his arms and crossing his ankles. He didn't enjoy her glaring at him like that, but at least his immediate acknowledgement that it might not be the best of ideas had helped to calm her.

"Though I don't know what we're going to do with him. Unless you want to ask about his feelings on antelopes and shave his nostrils?" He raised both eyebrows and narrowed his eyes, "I'm still not convinced either of those are real requirements for administering sleeping solution."

Upstairs there was a muffled annoyed exclamation through the floorboards from their irritable houseguest, though it wan't clear what he was grumbling about.
"Gerda's itching to wield the frying pan at his head." Ignan explained, watching Mira's smoke trail upwards.

Ignan was becoming amenable; he was at least pretending to understand her issue with him until he questioned her.
"I'm still not convinced either of those are real requirements for administering sleeping solution." From over the teacup, dark eyes shot up to his and her eyebrows vanished beneath her fringe. Within moments, once his words had processed, the stern glare had returned.

There was little time to respond caused by the exclamation from above. Ignan explained what it probably was and Mira put her teacup on the work surface.
“It would do more good at yours.” The healer continued to look at him disapprovingly, lips pursed.
“I’m not going to qualify your disbelief by explaining reasons but I don’t joke about a misuse of sleeping potion.” The continued staring at Ignan as if he was an insolent staff member was unrelenting. Her tone was sharper and body language evidenced irritation. Professional irritation.

It was only seconds later that Gerda appeared back in the kitchen, eyeing Miranda cautiously.
“Miss Miranda’s tasks have been done.” The little elf offered the healer a small sheet of parchment.
“And the nose? Every hair?”
Gerda shuddered. “Every hair. He was not happy about that, Miss Miranda.”
Mira decided she didn’t need to know how Gerda had done it. Instead she donned her glasses and began to scour the parchment. From her pocket she procured a self-inking quill and began to add her own illegible scribble, a confusing mix of letters, symbols and numbers.
“To think you can just administer this with no knowledge or understanding…” She spared a quick glance at Ignan. “It’s the same as me showing up at your class and teaching a defensive spell against Crucio.”

Lesson learned - Mira did not ever joke when it came to healer requirements. However ridiculous it sounded. She had a ferocious stare, and he felt the hairs of the back of his neck prickle at it. Impressive. (If anything, he'd venture he was a little more in love with her for being so assertive.)

"It would do more good at yours." Mira commented, meaning the frying pan. The corner of his mouth flinched in amusement.

Gerda reappeared (no frying pan in sight) and looked between them in fright. Mira's stare would certainly send the elf cowering, and it squeaked that the six tasks were complete, extending parchment towards his partner.
"And the nose? Every hair?" That had undoubtedly been the anguished yell then.

Mira set to work. He recognised that expression from the times he had observed her at work. It was the look that said interrupt me at your peril. She couldn't adequately body bind him, but in the process she might take his head off his shoulders by accident, so he kept quiet, only reaching around to drink his own tea, the third cup cooling, as yet undelivered.

"To think you can just administer this with no knowledge or understanding... It's the same as me showing up at your class and teaching a defensive spell against Crucio."

"Alright." Ignan replied, a little less patiently, lowering his teacup. He steadied his tone as he continued, keeping his patience.
"I get the message. Why don't you tell that to your patient?" He raised his eyes to the ceiling a moment, "Which, you've not even clapped eyes on, I note."

He peered over the top of her notes, not that he could make head nor tail of them, "You didn't just ask Gerda to enquire about antelopes did you?" He glanced to the bewildered elf, "then again, possibly not the strangest request to date." Gerda pulled at her ears, waiting obediently for more instructions while Ignan's mind wandered to the nights he'd spent exploding sheep and cattle out in the fields beyond the village in pursuit of the Corpus Inversus case.

There was the distinct sound of feet treading the floorboards upstairs. Ignan's wand came to his hand as he headed to the kitchen door.
"I may not be qualified to administer potion, but as we found out, I am rather good at keeping patients in place." He nodded towards the stairs as he stepped out of the kitchen and into the living room, meaning for Mira to follow him.

He'd never sworn at a house elf to this extent before, but even though the air was blue, Ignan's house elf did not relent in her pursuit of his nose hair. If it wasn't for the sharp pain, streaming eyes in response from his own face, he'd have genuinely believed he was hallucinating.

Gerda left him alone again, though didn't provide much context as to why she needed his nose hairs. Perhaps this was some strange revenge for disappearing, or the full moon events in general.

Since being brought back to Godric's Hollow, Johann had occupied Ignan's bath for quite some time, not able to get the feeling of being covered in his father's blood to leave him. Following that he'd been packed off to bed by the elf, in a freshly changed bed in the room he'd had while house sitting earlier in the year.

Despite being exhausted, he couldn't sleep. He lay and closed his eyes beneath the sheets, but sleep did not come. Instead, his usual voices in his head ran riot. He'd had his face pressed firmly into the pillow when Gerda had reappeared with six instructions. So much for leaving him to sleep.

Naturally Ignan's house was devoid of any potion that would make even a fly drowsy, and he'd handed over his wand on arrival. His remaining options were to lay there until the exhaustion finally got him as it had at St Mungo's, or to knock himself out with a blow to the head.

He swung his legs out of bed as Gerda vanished into thin air and paced the room, wiping at his eyes and nose with his hands, dressed only in pyjama bottoms, everything too warm otherwise to wear in the late July night.

There were footsteps on the stairs, two pairs, not an elf. Ignan's for sure, he'd got used to the speed and the weight of his feet. Perhaps Miranda was home? What was the time, even?

Turning away from the open window which overlooked the back of the house and the ragged garden, Johann examined the two figures in the doorway, and clocked Ignan's wand in his hand. He stumble backwards towards the bed, arms out before him in defence.
"Not trying to escape, Solomon's sake, just looking out the bloody window!" He did not want to be at the receiving end of one of Ignan's hexes. But looking to Mira, her glare wasn't much better than one.

Ignan’s patience was waning. It was quite possible he didn’t appreciate being spoken to like an incompetent subordinate. He bit back by pointing out the fact she’d not even been up to see Johann and his condition. But there was little point to rising to the bait. She ignored his irritation and continued to scrawl illegibly on the parchment, taking the odd drag from her cigarette as she went. It was calming. It was necessary.

"You didn't just ask Gerda to enquire about antelopes did you? Then again, possibly not the strangest request to date."

“No one admits to such thoughts.” Her tone evidenced her opinion of his silly suggestion. With her calculations completed, Miranda pocketed the parchment and quill and stubbed the cigarette out, throwing it in the bin.

"I may not be qualified to administer potion, but as we found out, I am rather good at keeping patients in place." Ignan was already leaving the kitchen and almost dutifully, his other half followed.
“So if you can’t drug him, you hex him?” She started on the stairs, watching the wizard withdraw his wand. “I’d not like to piss you off.”

Johann was a washed out mess. This was expected considering what had happened the last couple of days. His father was still currently taking up a bed in St Mungo’s after having been bitten by one of Miranda’s healers. His hands rose in defence of whatever accusation the couple may throw at him.

Stepping past Ignan, Mira let her hand brush over his, a request for him to resist using his wand. The healer’s expression softened as she found herself a seat on the bed beside the younger Storm.
“It’s not much of a view at the moment.” Her voice had lost the stern tone she’d held with Ignan. She’d stepped into healer mode. “Have you slept, Johann? Since Monday?”

"So if you can’t drug him, you hex him?"
"Pretty much." Ignan replied.
"I’d not like to piss you off."

He shot a smirk over his shoulder at Mira, leading the charge up the stairs. Peering into the room, wand in hand, he ended up stirring Johann away from the window in fright. Well, one way to keep him in line, and in bed.

Mira's hand brushed his, enough of a message without speaking to say that he should not raise his wand. They rarely interacted physically in the presence of others, so such a small gesture was as good as restraining his arm in private. He dropped his wand to his side and remained in the doorway as she entered, not entirely convinced.

Gerda crept up behind him, her little feet pattering on the hallway, and she peered around the doorway too on the opposite side to Ignan. However much he'd found it strange to have an elf as an adult, he'd become somewhat fond of this one, even if she did scowl at Mira and her cigarettes, and had cost him quite a bit to buy to look after his father.

Glancing from the elf and back to Mira, he recognised she had resumed work mode. He'd have to pour her an extra glass of wine later, once the idiot was off to sleep.

Miranda and Ignan loomed in the doorway, but the smallest of movements from Mira tamed the grumpy looking Deputy Headmaster. Johann relaxed ever so slightly, his shoulders falling a little as Ignan's wand went out of sight as he hung in the doorway.

"It's not much of a view at the moment." Mira remarked at the garden. Her tone was reasonable, and she approached. Johann watched her intently, sinking back down onto the edge of the bed as she did, his eyes not leaving hers.
"Have you slept, Johann? Since Monday?"

Her question conjured the memory of early Tuesday morning, when she'd cleaned his hands and tried to calm him shortly after he'd arrived at St Mungo's. Then he'd done a runner, left her and Omari. How was she so reasonable? He expected her to look like Ignan.

He counted the days a moment on his fingers, eyes dropping as he did, before looking back to her.
"No. I mean, I've closed my eyes and tried, but I keep seeing it." He gestured beside his head with a hand, blinking slowly. "If I have it's only been a moment."

Every time he closed his eyes, or let his mind wander, it returned to the thought of Hannah tossing his father like a rag doll. Of the way her jaws had snapped and she'd run towards him as he threw useless hexes. Of the blood, of the roar of the crowd enjoying it...

He swallowed audibly - having dropped out of the conversation a moment with that thought. He glanced to Ignan and Gerda in the doorway, and then to Mira, unfocused with the exhaustion.
"Did the elf actually just take my nosehairs, or am I dreaming?" He pinched the tip of his nose, where it still smarted a little.

"I don't want to go through last November again. Not here. Not now." He looked to Ignan who had an idea but not any detail of that time, and back to Mira.
"Please."

Miranda didn’t respond to what Johann said as he explained his lack of sleep. She sat calmly listening to him first. This didn’t mean that she wasn’t analysing him. Her keen gaze darted over his face, reading tired eyes, strain lines and slumped shoulders. Although she would never say it, Ignan was right and the wizard needed sleep. He wasn’t going to succumb to it naturally anytime soon. Regardless, the professor hadn’t been right to lace a cup of tea with an unknown quantity. There was a reason you needed to train for years before legally getting your hands on the stuff.

"Did the elf actually just take my nosehairs, or am I dreaming?"
“That would make a strange dream.”
"I don't want to go through last November again. Not here. Not now."
Johann’s gaze wandered to his cousin and back.  She had no idea what that meant but very little could be worse than what he’d just experienced. Glancing to Ignan for any clue as to what the younger wizard meant left her no more aware. His stern expression remained, seemingly waiting for permission or a reason to hex Johann unconscious and be done with the whole thing. The two evidently had very different ideas of patience.

“You won’t have to.” A cool hand touched his arm. It didn’t matter what he meant, she needed to reassure him and calm him down. “You’ve got two choices here, Johann. Ignan wants to knock you out and hex you to the bed. I want to help you push that image back in your mind and rest. Naturally.” A quick glance was cast at Igna before her entire attention was on Johann once more. Her gaze was sincere, the face and expression of a trusted healer.
“Will you let me help you?”

At the description of what Ignan wanted to do to him, Johann was sure Mira's might be less violent. If she were able to give him potion, he would sleep soundly a while, and forget what had happened for even a moment. Not to think of what had become of Hannah, or his father's recovery and his mother's undoubted upset at his bedside. He wanted nothing more than to silence the voices, to rest at last, guiltless.

"Will you let me help you?" Mira asked, her hand resting on his arm. He looked down at it, and up at Mira again, thought process taking longer. Ignan was looming in the doorway behind, wand in hand.

"Alright." Johann's voice took a moment to sound, his throat feeling dry. "How?"