Spectre Estate, Edinburgh. Scotland. 0230 hours.


Balfour Spectre apparated on to his family estate just as a strong, bracing breeze was cutting across the green. Hands in pockets, he drew his brown coat closer over the shorts and shirt underneath - bed clothes. The late night sky was clear. A nearly pregnant moon hung expectantly in the company of glimmering stars, watching the old home as it had for Odin knew how many centuries.

The wizard looked away from the manor and towards the grounds; the way the earth slopped away from the terrace steps and down into the darkness of a surrounding forest. Nothing but stark and wiry silhouettes who had long lost their abundance of leaves to the encroaching winter.

It had been some time since he had seen it like this, alone. He turned to enter the house, guided by the knowledge that their door would always grant access to an old face.


"Jesus Christ," Carmichael Rosier fumbled to keep from dropping his wand as Balfour crossed the main hall towards the dining rooms. Portraits dozed, shadows slept. His brother-in-law was in a maroon dressing robe but it was obvious from the dark circles beneath his eyes - and the state of his locks - that he had just come in from a night on level nine. He shone the wand light a little brighter. "Does everyone walk about in the dark or is it just you and Knox?"

Balfour smiled tiredly. "Is she wandering then?" he pulled the other man into a hug, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly. "Couldn't sleep. Thought I might see if the cravings had begun."

"Started last week, she's in the kitchen. I was just about to turn in." Carr released him and dimmed the light so that they weren't squinting at one another. "Try to spare the saucers this time." He was off then, with a good humoured half-smile, supercilious on all Rosiers but this one.

His lanky figure disappeared up the stairwell. Balfour waited until it was gone altogether before he continued into the kitchen. A fire was lit there, though it did little but throw flickers of orange or red on the surfaces of floured counters. Curtained windows let in murky starlight.

Swaddled in her plainest flannel nightdress, Nathaira was stirring a copper pot on the stove. Balfour stood at the threshold to note how his sister's back was pulled back, straight as a dancer's, auburn hair piled up on the bowed head. She was always graceful. Even when nobody was watching.

"Hot cocoa?" she glanced over with a nonchalant smile.
            "You hate cocoa."
"Aye, but the little one doesn't."

Knox indicated her belly wryly and that was invitation enough to approach, pulling himself up on to the kitchen table while she added more powder to the pot. There was still a hint of restraint in the air; emotional residue of smashed cups and saucers. Balfour caught the scent of chocolate, felt a pang of nostalgia.

He stared at his loafers. "This takes me back." To the summers between terms at school, when none of them could sleep for being young and restless. "You used to brew every night."

"Oh, only when you came home wailing with a broken heart." Knox snorted. "Couldn't bloody get you to talk without a hot drink in your hand. Better than whiskey I s'pose..." she flicked her wand, pot rising as a pair of coffee cups tumbled down from the cupboards.

Laughing lightly, Balfour accepted his and slid an arm over his sister's shoulders as she leaned against the table. "Ah, so it was enchanted cocoa." he replied in a fond voice. "Helga Hufflepuff's secret recipe no doubt."

She pinched his ribs, wrinkling her nose fussily.

"Be serious, now. Tell me. Did you come clean? Or ought I still be sending Howlers to your office?"

"Be serious, now. Tell me." Nathaira ordered in her best impression of their mother. "Did you come clean? Or ought I still be sending Howlers to your office?"

It never ceased to amuse her, the way Balfour's frame shook whenever he chuckled. He felt emotions with the entirety of his being. Sometimes this worried her but it wasn't something you could change about him. "You should have stopped sending those weeks ago! he retorted and then paused, that familiar silence. "I told Johann. It wasn't Ragnarok."

"Good," she approved in a whisper of relief.

Her brother dropped his head, resting it on her shoulder as he made a noise of affirmation. Knox leaned her forehead against his so that they were supporting one another and staring vacantly across the kitchen. The manor was so quiet, she could hear the wind whistling outside and the cats on their rooftops.

"What's he like, this one?" Knox cradled her cup and looked down at the muddy surface. "Would I like him?"
              Another tremor, less spirited. "Well, nothing like Carr."
"Nobody is like Carr."

Balfour's warm smile ran through his voice like a deep, satisfying purr. "He's clever. And beautiful. I'll bring him around for Samhain."

She tried not to laugh, remembering their cousin's description. Cheekbones of a greek God. Aye. They must be two Spectres were prepared to wax lyrical. Halloween was always lovely for that sort of thing, giving the clan a good chance to ogle.

There was a subtle movement as Balfour sipped the cocoa--

--and suddenly lurched forward towards the counter, spitting into the sink. "Fuck, sorry. I think your chocolate must have gone rancid." He spat again before turning around to look at her.

They had only bought that chocolate last week! Nathaira frowned, tasting from her cup gingerly. She grimaced. Oh, fuck indeed.

"Foul," she agreed as she handed him the drink to dispose. "That's the second one now. It was apples last week, spoiled harvest from Vanora's orchard. I wonder what is next." Something in the water? A poison? In her experience omens came in threes but that wasn't always true with foods.

These weren't precise predictions. None of them were - Nathaira mostly went by instinct, clan tradition, and what little she derived from her NEWT in Divination. Rotten foods foretold an unrecognised threat. Balfour didn't take much stock in that sort of thing but she knew that he made exceptions every so often. The tension in his brow said as much.

"It's nothing to do with you." Knox ran the tap and the manor walls began to groan as chocolate washed down the drain hole. Bloody pipes. "Go to sleep, Balfy. You've come all this way for bad omens and natter."

The wizard stared, expression made obscure and unreadable by the fireplace behind them. "Came to see you too, didn't I? Big sister." His voice was thick with affection. She drew the tap shut but did not look up, staring at the way her knuckles whitened when clasped over the handle. He often teased her about being eldest. Like it was a joke that a bookish little witch should have to take care of the three, burly Scotsmen.

They could hardly know how it felt.

"Well. I'm magnificent, of course you did." Nathaira glanced at her youngest brother, pleased beyond measure that he hadn't come home because of a broken heart or on an impulse to flee the country. He kissed her forehead and she hugged him, squeezing his ribs so tightly it was almost a threat. "Mmph. Cigarettes. You really ought to stop smoking."

A non-commital shrug.