Outskirts of Cambridge, the river Cam. Morning of.


Solomon Carstairs sat up in bed at four o'clock in the morning and wondered if he had put out the fire in the fireplace downstairs. His countryside cottage, sleeping soundly by thesoftly coursing river, was at peace. It was a scenic and spacious home. Quaint beneath the clear night sky, although clouds loomed in the distance. The wizard did not switch on the lights as he pushed the blankets aside to get up, bones creaking in complaint.

The bedroom window overlooked their back garden. Nothing but shadow and moonlight and barely contained English wilderness.

"Mm..mm. Solomon?" his wife murmured sleepily. He fumbled or his spectacles and slipped it on before squinting through the dark to look at her. Irene's locks were splayed against silk pillow - a worried, sleepy look across her pretty face. The young witch he married was still in that face. "Is it work?" she asked more lucidly.

He took her hand, planting a light kiss on her cheek. "No. I feel I've forgotten something downstairs. Go back to sleep." And she did, with a fond smile. Solomon left her just as she drifted back into dreams.


The living room light was on. He came down the stairs with wand in one hand, the other securing his velvet dressing robe. Footsteps. Had he heard them in his sleep? Is that why he had woke so suddenly? His slippered feet made nary a sound while he crossed the foyer towards the arch leading into the space. Someone was muttering irritably to themselves.

"...they said! It'll be fun they said... oody lunatics..."

Solomon lowered his wand. "Earnest," he addressed his son upon entering the room and noting the man kneeling at the hearth of the fireplace with a kindling flame. The younger wizard looked over his shoulder, handsome countenance of anger smoothing out into a familiar smile. He looked more like his mother now that he was approaching his twenties.

"What are you doing here?" Solomon allowed himself to collapse into his usual armchair, tousling his own hair frustratedly.

His son turned around, sitting below the mantle as the fire came to life behind him. The room, with its old furniture of floral patterns and glass cabinets of fine china, took on a warm and luxuriant quality. Earnest was dressed rather well. three piece tweed suit, shirt loosened. A recent and splotchy wine stain blemished a trouser leg.

"Jacinta kicked me out of our flat," he admitted sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry. Did I wake you and mum?"

Solomon took off his spectacles to wipe them, smile indulgent. He could never complain about seeing the children home. Especially around the holidays, it was good to remember the way it was before they finished at Hogwarts. All of them together. Off to find their own adventures, now.

"No. Just me. Odd. I dreamt the faintest notion that we had forg--" he stopped abruptly on noticing a white object on the centre coffee table. "Did you bring that?"

Both wizards stared at the stuffed animal propped up on the rosewood surface. It was a blindingly white dog. White wolf. The sight of it was innocuous in their living room, a child's toy left behind from some visit or another. Earnest looked from the wolf to his father and then back. "No. It was here when I got in a moment ago..." he reached forward but Solomon was up on his feet in a flash.

"Don't." The older man gestured abruptly and joined him to sit on the floor in front of the fire, so that they were at eye level with the toy. The creature stared back lifelessly. Nothing. Only a stuffed animal. But somehow it had gotten into his home. And that was the limit, wasn't it? Whoever had taken Zel Trumble wanted very much to cross the line.

Earnest was staring in worry now. "What is it?" he asked, aware as any about the dangers inflicted on the families of Aurors. Solomon sighed heavily, heat pressing against his back and a sense of unease filling his chest.

"An early Christmas gift, I imagine."