Continued from this snapshot.


At approximately 5:05pm on a Wednesday afternoon, a girl shot out of a fireplace in the Ministry atrium. She stumbled forward, fell onto her hands and knees, and was faced with a mass of shifting feet in sensible footwear, the edges of tailored cloaks and robes, the smell of the polish used on the gleaming floor.

Abby glanced further up. The witches and wizards in the hallway had their backs to her, facing the long row of fireplaces that would take them home. Voices echoed and bounced down the hall. Dry laughter, well wishes for a good evening ahead, small talk. The sheer noise hurt her ears.

A few wixes turned to stare at her, grew quiet. At the sudden quiet, more and more turned to look.

Abby glanced wildly back at the floo, breath shuddering. The flames were just that - flames. She raised a trembling hand and grasped someone's arm.

Someone helped her stand. The hall grew even quieter, for a moment, as the Ministry workers looked upon a girl who smelled like smoke and sweat. Her hands were empty. No wand. She wore a long, pastel summer dress, singed at the back. She was missing a shoe. Her hair was a tangle of red. Her light brown eyes darted from one person to the next.

"Dementors," she rasped.

Alarmed mutterings swept through the atrium, coalesced as the fearful stepped back and others stepped forward. Abby swayed. The hands of strangers steadied her.

Her darting gaze locked onto someone familiar. There her gaze remained.

For once, Raine thought that she might get away from level two at the right hour! Solomon Carstairs didn't believe in overtime... he just considered it a regular part of the work day. It didn't surprise her that he wasn't universally liked, or that he was distantly related to Virgil. They both had a talent for irritating perfectly reasonable people! And the way he looked at her, as if though she were about to sprout a second head in the likeness of her late aunt!

The group of witches in front of her stopped all of a sudden, and she walked right into them. The perils of being short.

"What's the matter?" Raine spoke in a loud voice, forcing several gazes back and downwards. Queuing for the floo at rush hour was almost enough to make one want to leave after overtime.

            ".... poor thing!"
       "Did she say.... dementors...?"
"Isn't she...?"

Nobody seemed sure of what was going on, and Raine did her best impression of Head Auror Pratt to shove her way to the front of the queue. This mostly looked like a ponytail of red curls bobbing angrily through the crowd. And then she saw exactly what was the matter.

"Abby!" she exclaimed, their eyes meeting as the space between them cleared. Raine quickly drew her wand on instinct. Abby Reid! Merlin, when was the last time they'd seen one another? The state of her! "What's the matter, Abby? What's happened to you?"

Raine's gaze flicked to the people who were helping steady her friend, and she joined them at her side - a hand went straight to Abby's shoulder to give a reassuring squeeze. This wasn't the same, blond-haired grinning Abby who lit up parties with her wild smiles. Where in Merlin's name had she floo'd from?

Abby's eyes widened at the sight of the drawn wand. She remained still because it was Raine.

"Raine," Abby whispered her name like a prayer. She felt about to break. Her chin gave a little wobble. Her eyebrows lifted and drew together. A flicker of hope lit her eyes.

Those red curls, that confident stride. This was her friend. She thought she'd never see her again. She thought she was in Russia. Abby glanced at the buttons gleaming on her jacket, then at the sharply pressed slacks. An Auror trainee? She looked taller. Abby felt shorter.

"Dementors," she repeated, glancing around with a shudder. So many people gathered here. She moved closer to Raine. She had to get the words out before she fell apart.

"Dementors came to the lakehouse. Where I've been-"

Trapped. Staying. Trapped. What did it matter in this moment? Focus.

"The lakehouse. Near Keswick," she clarified. "They - they looked like a storm in the clouds. They were coming for-" her breath hitched. Words and thoughts tumbled in her head, fighting for escape. "Something. Something in the fog. It drew them. It was fog, but wasn't fog. It's... they were-"

She searched for the word.

Abby pressed a palm to her pounding head. Her forehead felt different. Her fingers slid down her cheek, feeling the sharper curve of her jaw. She looked back at the fireplace she'd shot out of, seeing the living room of the Lilly Lakehouse frozen in time, and imagining Lori, or Lee, coming after her through the flames, killing her as she stood in the Atrium hall.

She reached for Raine and clutched her hand in a shaky grip.

Word travelled quickly when it had to. And that word, this time, was Dementors. Quill Som, the head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes had been instrumental in the development of the ground response to the last year's scourge, an interdepartmental phalanx that could be deployed at a moment's notice.

"We have a Code Theta in progress, madam Som. Girl showed up in the Atrium talking about Dementors in Keswick."[1]

Quill was on the move at once.  Sorkin had to run after her as she swept out of her office and down the corridors. "Has I.D.R.E.A.D. been activated?"

"No, ma'am. Level Two hasn't deployed."

Quill stopped in her tracks, halfway finished putting on her field cloak. "Why?"

"Dunno. No location yet. They're bringing her to Level Two."

"Call ahead. I'm on my way." 

1.	Creature response code for dementors: http://absitomen.com/lexicon/Category:Case_Files

Dementors? Dementors in the lakehouse? What lakehouse?

Raine hadn't a clue what her friend was going on about but judging from her state, and the mention of Dementors, this was serious. The way Abby clasped her hand told her more than enough. She nodded decisively to herself and slipped an arm around the squib's waist before gesturing at the crowd around them to move out of the way. "It's fine, you're safe now. I'm going to take you down to level two, alright Abby? We're going to get you sorted."

Luckily, nobody did more overtime than the head of department. And the other aurors would know what to do. Perhaps there had been Dementor reports she hadn't heard of yet?

The walk to the elevator was a swift one, made slightly awkward by Abby's shaky pace and the influx of wixes trying to move in the opposite direction. Raine commandeered an elevator - claiming an emergency - and tried to ignore the offended looks of a couple who had to exit the lift, making room for them. 

"You have nothing to worry about," she assured Abby as they descended. "Promise. No Dementors here." Oh, but she hoped there was lots of chocolate in the bullpen.

Abby barely processed what Raine was telling her, but latched onto her caring tone. The arm wrapping around her made her feel safe. Someone recognized her. She barely knew herself. Someone was being kind. It felt strange. How long would it last? Calix had been the only...

The thought slammed in its tracks and shut down. Her shoe flopped as she followed Raine into the lift, glancing warily at the two offended employees.

The gentle whir of the descending lift made her every shaky breath feel deafening. The lift inched downwards. Abby stared at the doors. She wasn't afraid of Dementors at the Ministry. She looked at Raine. Her mouth opened, her stiff jaw worked ever so slightly, forming the first few syllables. The words were right there.

People. They hurt me. They're dangerous.

A voice echoed in her head. They hurt me, too.

Abby turned her head away from her friend and coughed. She'd imagined escaping countless times, and had imagined something like this very moment. An arm steadying her. A kind face. She would spill over with words, just like she had been before. Chatty Abby, unable to shut up.

The words wouldn't come.

The lift doors opened, and Abby stepped onto Level Two.

Quill Som emerged at about the same time from the adjacent car. Context clues were ample and she hustled up alongside a young Auror-in-training helping along a girl who looked like she'd been dragged behind a horse.

"Is this her? Miss, did you see Dementors?"  Again, Quill had cause to pause her step. Something didn't seem right.

"What's wrong with her?" she asked of the Auror-in-training. She didn't look kissed and, to her Healer-trained eyes, she didn't look to be in shock. Without thinking, Quill put a little more space between herself and the girl.

It had been nearly the end of the workday, and he had just been beginning to wrap things up so that he could escape from the office at a reasonable hour when the commotion had started.  An enchanted paper airplane had whizzed down the hallway of the Auror office, blaring an incessant message from Level Three about a Code Theta in the atrium before jetting off to its next destination. 

That had set off a chorus of faint groans among the few remaining Aurors.  Somehow, the DMAC had a way of tempering problems  so that they exploded right at the worst possible time for Level Two, such as at the end of a workday or right before the start of a bank holiday.  Grimacing, Jonas had stretched out his bad leg, and then heaved himself to his feet, limping slowly out of the Auror office and towards the lifts to find out what the hell was causing the commotion.

But the action had already come to find Level Two.  As he rounded the corner into the hallway, the doors to both lifts were already sliding open, one off the other.  The Head of Level Three, stepping off of one.  Raine Almasy coming out of the other, her arm protectively around another young woman with wavy auburn hair, looking rather the worse for wear. 

Jonas paused for an instant, squinting.  There was something about the third witch that seemed almost familiar.  But that wavy hair, that sharp jaw...he didn't know her, did he?

"Oi!" he called sharply.  He started toward them, his forehead creased.  "Almasy?  What's going on?"

What was Abby trying to tell her? Raine's hold on the other girl tightened as they descended, and she leaned in to discern words that couldn't find a voice. The singed dress indicated to Raine that somebody had certainly targeted Abby in some violent fashion; a thought that made her so furious that she was surprised by her own ability to keep calm in a crowded elevator of irritable Ministry staff.

Quill Som was upon them before the elevator doors drew close behind her. The redhead was taken aback by how quickly word had travelled! In a way, it was reassuring.

            "Is this her? Miss, did you see Dementors? What's wrong with her?"

And before she could snap at the older witch to give Abby a moment, Auror Trevelayn's voice cut across the foyer like a slap to the face. Raine remembered that she had to be a trainee right now and not just a friend.

"It's Abby Reid, sir! She floo'd into the Atrium like this!" she called back to her superior first, then glanced at Quill anxiously, "I don't know what's happened, except that she said there were Dementors. She said they were coming for something in Keswick." Raine held Abby closer, protective. "She's scared."

Abby remembered Quill Som from May of last year, when the witch had become Department Head of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. That felt like ages ago. Abby had left her internship in June (temporarily! her mother had said) to embark on a summer of matchmaking that was only supposed to last for a few months. She remembered Som as calm, efficient. That impression intensified now. The whole Ministry was responding quickly, which made Abby think that perhaps this wasn't the first time dementors had run amok. Perhaps Lori hadn't been lying just to mess with her head.

Abby glanced back at the lift doors, wary of every whir and chime. Then she scanned Level Two, finding more than a few Aurors at their desks.

In silent, subconsious response to Som's question, Abby touched her red hair and looked down at the wavy strands. She felt something sharp. A shard of glass fell to the floor.

When Trevelyan limped in, Abby's eyebrows lifted. Trevelyan! He didn't recognize her. She swallowed, leaning into Raine, hanging onto the comfort that her fierce presence offered.

"Dementors came to the Lilly Lakehouse. It's a huge manor, surrounded by forest and a lake."

She struggled to recall the map she'd tried to memorize. "It's several miles southeast of Keswick."

Abby hesitated, then spoke right to Trevelyan, studying his face, hoping for some flicker of recognition.

"The dementors were chasing after... something in the fog," she shook her head. Still the wrong word. "The fog started from inside the house. There was a fire. I don't know how," she shook her head harder, bit her lip.

"I only got out because... the floo..." she touched her head once again.

"It didn't know me anymore," she murmured, this time to Raine.

That was the information Quill needed to deploy I.D.R.E.A.D. First the advance team would arrive within minutes of deployment, then they'd provide more intel so an appropriate comprehensive response team could be assembled. The process was now clockwork, but it wasn't fool proof.

Quill disappeared for a moment to order the advance team - it took only a moment now that they had the location from Abby Reid. She rejoined the party.

"Miss Reid, did you make contact?" Quill asked. "Were you touched?"

"It's Abby Reid, sir!  She floo'd into.."

Jonas stopped cold.  Abby Reid? 

He looked sharply at the second red-haired young woman, with Almasy's arm wrapped protectively around her.  Yes...her hair was auburn now, and her face looked sharper and leaner, with a smattering of freckles that he didn't remember from his last encounter with the Reid sisters.  But now that Almasy had planted the seed, he could clearly see it.  She had the same brown eyes that he remembered, and he could see something of the bubbly teenager that he'd met before when he peered at her face. 

He almost missed the rest of what the Auror trainee had to say, but the word Dementor yanked him back to the conversation again.  His eyes flickered back to Almasy, and then to Abby again, as she began to pour out scattered details.  A fog, obscuring something from Dementors.  And then a fire. His forehead creased as he listened to her words.   That sounded an awful lot like some sort of spell gone wrong, and Jonas certainly had plenty of firsthand experience dealing in the sorts of spells that the Reid family tended to have misadventures with. 

Som was already handling the details of sending an I.D.R.E.A.D response.  The Level Three Department Head was the sort of person who made it seem as if she could be everywhere at once.  She barely missed a beat as she reappeared a moment later, peppering Abby Reid with more questions.

"Miss Reid, did you make contact? Were you touched?"

"And are you hurt, Abby?"  Brow furrowed with concern, he looked her over carefully again.  "Was there anyone else there at the manor with you that we need to get out?"

The comings and goings of level two's foyer were greatly hindered by the scene they were making. Raine knew that Dementors were serious business but she couldn't help feeling protective of Abby, who was being pelted by all these specific questions after what must have been a close escape! She hugged her friend closer and stopped herself from saying something unwise to Som or Trevelyan.

          "It didn't know me anymore," Abby said, addressing her.

Raine frowned at this. "What? The floo doesn't know you anymore?" she stared, before deciding that they weren't going to get any answers out of the squib in this state.

"Can we not do this right here?" she pleaded with the Auror-in-charge, meaning where they were - no doubt this ruckus would attract attention quite soon. "I don't think she's physically hurt but I'd like her to sit down at least."

Quill Som appeared and then reappeared with a question.

"By the dementors?" Had she made contact with the dementors? It was taking forever for Abby to make sense out of the simplest questions. "No."

The dementor had been drifting into the open window when she'd floo'd.

Though Abby let out a relieved breath at Trevelyan's sympathetic face and his recognition of her, she didn't know how to answer him, or clarify what she'd said to Raine. She felt fine physically, other than shaky, exhausted, and wrong in all her limbs. Mentally she felt wrong. But it was not exactly the same as hurt.

She stared down at her hands, finer-boned. A musician's fingers. The thought entered her head and something inside her nodded.

She looked at Raine. Yes, somewhere to sit would be nice. She'd follow their lead.

"Anyone else?" She repeated Trevelyan's question, belatedly. "There's... Lee Lilly, the owner of the house. He owns the land with his sister, Lori. Lori wasn't there, she was out."

Making preparations to kill the two squibs.

A strange buzzing sound grew in her head, the commotion and noise of the foyer faded, and Abby spoke as if she were still standing in fog, her every word muffled and distant.

"Calix is there," she said. "The son. A squib. My friend. Lee hurt him. Calix was..."

Her eyes went wide, pleading. She looked at Trevelyan and then at Raine. "You have to find him. Find Calix. Be careful!"

She held onto Raine, face paling, afraid to let her go.

The answer came in the negative: Abigail Reid had not been harmed by the Dementors. Quill stood up straight, crossed her arms and took a deep breath. For the moment, her Department's purview was satisfied. This was now, for now, a game for Magical Law Enforcement.  On another day, Quill Som might have swept away then. But today, she just took a single step back from the ragged procession.

Something about this was unordinary. Som would remain until she was sure there wasn't another magical accident or catastrophe ready to appear.