Stardust Theatre, Convent Garden. Evening.


"What's this?" Edgar wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as the deep blue curtains drew close at intermission and one of the younger stagehands came running across stage with an envelope. Applause rumbled beyond the barrier like audial ichor through an amniotic sac.

The wizard pushed back his cape - cumbersome indigo, shimmering, velvet - to reach for it but recognised the Hogwarts seal before the girl could say anything. It had been opened already and his daughter's initials marked just below to indicate she'd been the first one home to receive the news.

He pulled out the note and quickly perused Adeline's scribble on the back: Cecil[1] wrote, let myself into the house to fetch this for you - tell mum, I'm on level two trying to get in touch with Uncle Sol.

Solomon Carstairs was hardly uncle to his children. Rather one of Angela's more disliked cousins, he couldn't imagine why anyone would voluntarily seek such static company.

Crew members and actors flocked about Edgar trying to prep the stage for the next act as he read the letter with an imperious hand on his hip. Crimson face paint lent unusual menace to his otherwise stoic countenance. He folded the parchment calmly, heading backstage.

"Is Angie in the audience?" his gaze tugged itself to the drawn curtains, conscious of the fifteen minutes they had for intermission and how the show was simply going to have to go on. "Quill." The stagehand found one quick as lightning and let him use her back as a writing surface, Edgar increasingly sombre as he added an addendum to Adelaine's note.

The notification from Hogwarts, while effective, was not how he wanted his wife to first hear the news. Edgar licked the quill tip, swallowing a knot of tension in his throat.

Join Adeline at the Ministry... he wrote smoothly, will be along shortly. He's gone missing. E.

"Deliver that," his lips twisted into an uncomfortable grimace.
            "'course Edgar. What's the matter?"
"Never mind what's the matter."

Edgar detached his cape, folding it over his arm nonchalantly while his thoughts fell in a different direction. "I have to make a costume change," he gestured in the direction of the curtains. "By the by - no encore tonight."

1.	Cecil Carstairs, 1st year Slytherin. Virgil's younger brother.