Aileen Reid was late, which worried Virgil.

He had offered to assist[1] the department head with this appointment, in hopes of dropping a word or two about meeting with Abby about her own pentral problem. But today was the day they had spiked the chocolates and this uncharacteristic tardiness was making Virgil anxious. Why the hell did he think this was a good idea? There were so many uncontrollable variables. What if she had eaten one of the bonbons and was off lusting over some unsavoury wix? Or what if someone else was lusting over her? This was not ideal.

Luckily, another trainee popped into Yavin's large office to inform them the lifts were acting up. He'd never been so grateful for those fickle machinations.

"I'll go wait for her." Virgil offered immediately, thoughts racing, not waiting to be told otherwise as he slipped away with the air of an especially distracted cat. If anything Yavin would assume he was tired of chatting about Legilimency puzzles.

He shut the double doors behind him. Level nine's foyer gleamed with anticipation, its blue flames casting ethereal reflections across the black tiles. Virgil reached into his pocket to draw out a tiny crystal bottle of potion antidote; he had nicked it from the Love Chamber when they were finishing yesterday's inventory. If there had been trouble for Abby's sister, between two and nine, he was going to resolve it in an attempt to keep the Ministry superiors oblivious for as long as possible. It wasn't even lunch time yet!

A groaning in the walls forced him to stand straight, gaze snapping to the lift doors. The carriage was moving. Virgil held his hands behind his back and waited. He hadn't seen the old Runes teacher in forever but he hoped his brief warning in August was enough to convince her that he was trustworthy.

1.	Tweasure Your Wuv

Aileen watched the dashboard of the lift, tracking the arrow as it inched toward Level Nine. She rested one hand on the wall of the lift and gripped her wand with the other, just in case Magical Maintenance had failed at life again. After they'd been rescued and Bagnold and Pratt had left, she'd started to feel more like herself. Her strange, giddy mood plummeted back to earth.

The second the lift doors opened, she pocketed her wand and made herself relax, straightening her shoulders. She stepped out into the quiet foyer, her heels clicking on the tiles.

"Mr. Carstairs," she paused, her eyebrows inching up fractionally.

There Virgil Carstairs stood, like a schoolboy with his hands clasped behind his back. He looked like he belonged here, dressed in no-nonsense black that matched the color of the floor, his shock of blond hair framing his pale face. Aileen hoped the red and orange of her dress was enough to offset the pallor in her own cheeks. As he made no move to enter the lift, she realized he'd been waiting for her.

Virgil Carstairs. Former student. Abby's friend. Abby had reminded her about the note he'd sent, helping her make sense of her actions in early August. She'd taken his vision seriously, but not seriously enough, and now she was here in the foyer she'd passed through everyday before she'd taught at Hogwarts, looking to his boss for answers.

What a mess her life had become.

"It's good to see you after so long," she inclined her head. "I'm late for an appointment with your boss, I'm afraid. Did he send you here to fetch me?"

She allowed the barest of smiles to flicker across her face. Embarrassing, but the least of her worries.

The lift groaned in departure, and she sent a wary look behind her, uneasy with her behavior while trapped in it. Had she really smiled and laughed with Pratt of all people, confided in Bagnold about the petty antics of ex-spouses, and eaten far too many chocolate bonbons simply because they were offered to her?

The pentral in her head affirmed that yes, she had. The pentral reminded her that it wasn't too late to go home. Aileen shook her head very slightly. She was here.

"The lifts were behaving strangely." As were the people. "There must be something in the air today."

"Professor -- I mean, Miss Reid."

He was careful not to delve into her mind too closely - Yavin might be able to tell if someone had recently been sifting through her thoughts. Virgil simply held himself at a polite distance and tried his best to appear the polite trainee nobody knew him to be. It was the least he could do for Abby's older sister and a former Hogwarts teacher.

            "....Did he send you here to fetch me?"

A quick little nod, almost a bow of the head, as he turned on his heels to gesture at the great double doors on the far right of the other regular looking ones. His hand was burning with awareness of the antidote bottle and Virgil affected a look of consternation upon being told there was something in the air today.

Yes, of course, if by air she meant the 80% cocoa content of the Ministry's dark chocolate bonbons.

"I've heard. It's been affecting some Unspeakables as well," the wizard glanced between her and the doors again, and drew in a deep breath. "Can I.... can I offer you a tonic before we go in?" he could hear the polite hesitation in his voice - it was the best option, too much confidence was suspicious in a former Slytherin.

And nobody knew that better than another alumnus of the house.

Virgil smoothly drew his hand out, holding out the crystal bottle and presenting it neatly in the middle of his white palm. "I was going to take it myself but," he shrugged his narrow shoulders, "Abby told me what your meeting was about. You need it more than I do."

If they'd had more time, Aileen might have asked Virgil how he liked training on Level Nine, partly out of mild curiosity as to how he was faring after Hogwarts, and to get an idea of how the department was recovering since Snark's reign and especially Gamp's. But she was distracted by what was to come, the doors were looming before them, and he presented her so politely with a tonic.

Aileen quirked an eyebrow. "A tonic for whatever's in the air?"

How odd. She smelled mischief, and it smelled like a Slytherin pretending innocence. Based on what she remembered of him, she couldn't imagine that he'd direct his mischief towards her - he was more the type to direct it at his fellow Unspeakables. Aileen glanced around the eerily quiet foyer.

If it were true, at least her behavior today could be blamed on an outside influence haunting the lifts rather than an internal influence haunting her mind.

"Abby told me what your meeting was about. You need it more than I do."

Aileen glanced at him quickly, pursing her mouth at his presumption. She eyed the tonic, wishing that the friends Abby chose to confide in didn't also happen to be her former students who would never again view her in the same cool and collected light.

The pentral nudged her to reach for the tonic, however, and she did.

"If you're certain." The crystal felt warm in her cold hand.

The liquid tasted like water, with perhaps a dash of mint. She waited a moment, then handed the crystal bottle back to Virgil. She couldn't say she felt any immediate difference, but luckily did not feel any worse. If something in the air had affected her, it appeared to have dissipated when she'd stepped onto Level Nine.

"Thank you, I suppose?" Aileen sent him another questioning, faintly suspicious glance in true former-Hogwarts-professor-fashion as they stepped through the double doors.

            "Thank you, I suppose?"

"You're welcome," he replied a little too earnestly and in the tone of someone who ought to be thanking her instead. Virgil was relieved when she didn't question him about either the 'tonic' or the Ministry's peculiar behaviour today; everything he said or did needed to be a double layered lie just in case Yavin gleaned this moment from the older Reid's mind.

Antidote or not, though, he could tell she knew he was up to something. Virgil smiled one of his more diffident smiles as they finally approached the double doors that would take them into the office.

The doors generally appeared for whomever wanted them, manifesting in the walls of other divisions if their department head wasn't otherwise preoccupied. It was always a little disorienting to step out of the glossy darkness of level nine and into Yavin's polished white asylum.

Everything was as he'd left it. The wizard himself was already rising and crossing the room to greet his visitor.

"Aileen Reid!" Yavin exclaimed, stopping before the witch and extending a hand to shake. "Very, ah, very kind of you to come all the way down here after that elevator business. You'll take a seat, hm?" he gestured at the three empty chairs in front of his large desk.

As far as the pentral-possessed were concerned, she looked collected and perfectly presentable for society. A markedly beautiful individual - simply lacking, even on first glance, the kind of warmth that he could not ascribe to a foreign soul occupying her body. This would be a fascinating endeavour.

Yavin lowered himself into one of the three rattan guest chairs and glanced at Virgil, who stood at his shoulder like a silent familiar. The kid was up to something. But the kid was always up to something.

"You don't mind if my, ah, that is, if Carstairs stays for a minute?" he smiled at Aileen and raised his eyebrows. "But, of course, hm, we'll be left in private for most of this meeting," the wizard gestured between the two of them with wiggling fingers. "I can assure you that anything spoken here is, as a rule, confidential."

Virgil Carstairs was certainly affecting something as he responded so earnestly, and Aileen hoped to Merlin it was not pity causing his timid smile as they entered Yavin Morgenthau's office.

Aileen blinked for a moment at the white marble floors and then back at the black double doors closing behind her. Level Nine might seem quiet from the outset, but it buzzed with life inside its chambers and that was no different here, in the center of it, where the Head of the Department greeted her in a blindingly bright yellow sweater with cat faces on them. Tigers? She blinked once more, then met his spectacle-framed gaze.

"Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Morgenthau," she said smoothly, shaking his hand with cool, slim fingers and offering a polite smile.

Aileen took a moment to glance around the pristine office, unsure if she was more put off by the actual brains in jars or the grinning skeletons sat on stools wearing hats. Quirky. Odd, she suspected, like its inhabitant. He could display death in all its morbid glory or distract from it with a colorful scarf, but he was still peeking behind the Veil every day, and no amount of dressing it up could make that better. She glanced again at his bright sweater. Aileen hoped that beneath his friendly smile, he knew what he was doing.

She sat in the middle chair, which happened to be the furthest from the desk. The enchanted windows behind the desk loomed like doors one, two, and three. When Snark had been Head of the Department here, had the windows displayed different views? Aileen pursed her mouth, trying to remember. The desert in one window looked incredibly familiar, but of course, she'd been to Egypt, and the night sky in the other window would remind her of a certain Astronomy professor no matter the alignment of the stars.

Morgenthau took a seat in one of the rattan chairs adjacent to hers, rather than behind his desk, like she'd expected. Virgil lurked behind him. Just as her eyebrows raised in question, Morgenthau asked if Virgil could stay a minute. He spoke in a hesitant way at odds with the warmth in his demeanor - nerves, she assumed, and felt a slight flare of annoyance. She had no time for people making her nervous with their own nervousness. She'd seen that enough in the other Healers, acting as though she might lunge at them any second.

She crossed her legs and angled her posture towards them, aware of the two pairs of eyes watching her, one pair pale and grave, the other shrouded by laugh lines.

"A minute or two would be fine," she said, after telling herself that it was typical for trainees to observe their bosses and that Virgil already knew why she was here. She would also assume, despite any assurances, that whatever she said in these first few minutes could potentially get back to her little sister.

"I appreciate your discretion. I do wish we were meeting under better circumstances, though who can say when that would be," she smiled wryly, casting the barest of glances at Virgil then back to Morgenthau. She wondered if Virgil ever had pleasant visions of the future.

"I'm sure I'm not the first person," she paused for a second, "affected, to ask for your help?"

She very well could be, though she was hardly alone. The pentral shared a chair with her, and in the third chair just behind her sat the image of her changed sister, an image which weighted her feet to the marble floor and helped still the anxiousness fluttering within.

            "I'm sure I'm not the first person....affected, to ask for your help?"

Yavin made a sound, neither here nor there, and crossed his legs as he leaned into the back of his chair. Of course Aileen Reid wasn't. Most of the possessed did of course find themselves in hospital under Miranda's purvey, but level nine was doing its part by examining the condition of these victims. He considered what could feasibly be said to his guest.

"You're the first I have seen without, aha, without my cavalry of Unspeakables," he smiled at her reassuringly and practically heard Virgil's eyes roll. "But you're also much, hm, shall we say, much more coherent than most of the possessed."

Much more coherent than most regular souls as well, come to think of it. He wondered what she was like under less stressful circumstances. The cases varied from person-to-person. Yavin had caught glimpses of far more extreme individuals on the fourth floor of St.Mungo's.

Did external complacency reflect internal cohesiveness? Were the guest souls merging better within the likes of Aileen Reid? There was still so much they didn't know.

"Let's, hah, let's start slowly. Would you like to maybe tell us what you yourself, um, know about the other entity?" Yavin glanced to his side and gestured for at his protege. "And then we can, if you'll allow it, move on to a more hands-on examination," he indicated the space between their heads.

Virgil went to one of the shelves by the workshop table, diligently setting out several small bottles and pouring various amounts into a copper goblet

Aileen's back stiffened at the idea of anyone rooting in her head for answers, though that was exactly why she was here. She didn't know what else to do. It was obvious she couldn't go on as she was, constantly pulled to and from a dead person's will. Something strange within her made her smile wanly as she nodded. Her gaze darted to the workshop table before Aileen could fix her gaze back on the Department Head.

She raised an eyebrow, "Of course, though feel free to stop me if I become anything less than coherent."

The quirk to her mouth softened as she considered where to begin. Morgenthau did not need his cavalry, as she'd already explained herself to her own family, dozens of Aurors, Healers, and one irritating Pratt in an elevator, all without inflicting bodily harm.

"She's a she. Younger than I am. Shorter. Nicer," Aileen started without skipping a beat. "Her family was important to her," she paused then. "When I'm with my own family, I catch glimpses of them. It'd be helpful if she could remember names, but no," she gestured, then let her hand fall in slight frustration. "She had parents. Brothers. She might have been married, but something happened to her husband. Years ago, I believe."

Aileen had written down everything she could remember that first night she'd stayed at St. Mungo's, and one of her notes had suggested loss, penned in a hesitant, childish scrawl.

She opened her mouth, about to mention the children. A spike of panic surged in her head, then dulled, muddling her thoughts. Aileen shook her head. She couldn't recall what she'd been about to say.

"Like the other pentrals, she was trapped inside a portrait," Aileen hesitated, collecting her thoughts. "It was a photograph, or a painting, of a cottage in the countryside. The place reminded her of home. That day we - I, went to the Lilly's and the dementors chased the pentrals out, she apparated us to a random farm in Wiltshire, trying to get home."

Aileen made a scoffing sound under her breath. They'd been lucky, in a sense, to run into Professor Kesali, who had brought her to St. Mungo's.

"Most disturbingly," Aileen shifted a bit in her seat, glancing towards the windows. "She remembers meeting Lori on the island near the lake house."

During the year Abby had lived there, she had watched Lori Lilly apparate to the island and back, and had learned Lori was meeting her contacts there. One day in the summer, Abby tried to escape by rowing to it, but Lori's friend had refused to help her. Aileen's expression darkened. She wrenched her gaze away from the window depicting the sea.

"Lori killed her there," Aileen said in a clear, grim voice, meeting Morgenthau's eyes. "On the island. She remembers some of that as well."

             "...Younger than I am. Shorter. Nicer," Abby's sister began.

Virgil stopped himself from laughing - it did not take very much to be nicer than the former Professor Reid - and continued to mix various potions in the goblet at the workshop table. This was standard procedure when Yavin wanted to look into somebody's mind and put them at ease, especially if they didn't know mind magic; everybody had natural mental barriers that needed relaxing.

He glanced at the back of her blonde head as he returned to the seating area. She was exhibiting brief lapses clarity in the same way Abby sometimes did. Aileen had her own kind of Flower Girl twirling around in there.

            "She remembers meeting Lori on the island near the lake house."

So the pentral had a personal connection to Abby's jailor. Virgil tried to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, gently setting down the copper goblet on Yavin's desk to be used when necessary. He had made a nice strong brew and used a bit more gillyweed extract than was necessary.

The department head listened in silence, affecting indifference so as not to make Aileen Reid any more nervous than she might already be. Nobody felt good about saying "Hey! Come look into my most personal headspace!" to a relative stranger. His gaze narrowed when Virgil presented them with the relaxation draught, both of them looking at the visitor with keen interest. Reid's occupant could be invaluable to level two's investigation.

            "Lori killed her there... She remembers some of that as well."

He allowed a pause just then, holding Aileen's gaze seriously. And then he smiled, softly.

"You know more about your, ahah, your unseen friend than some of us do about corporeal ones." Yavin remarked before lacing his fingers together and sitting forward. "She is very much her own entity, hm? We will have to be careful. That is, ah, even disembodied souls may have, um, have ulterior motives."

His smile broadened and he was very aware of the fact that he was speaking not to one but two persons. Another woman trying to make a home in a living one - life had not been fair to her, maybe, but this wasn't a solution. He gestured for Aileen to take the goblet Virgil had prepared.

"Please. It's a calming draught of my, hah, of my own creation. It will help prepare you." Yavin explained and flexed his fingers energetically, knuckles cracking. "Is there a way you can, I mean, you can inform her that I am imminent? Or do you think she already knows?"

Yavin Morgenthau's sweater was loud, but he listened well. Aileen looked at him curiously, both relieved and unsettled. Most people would raise an eyebrow at the dire revelations she'd just listed, but she had no idea what he was thinking behind his spectacles. Virgil too, was silent. Moving like a ghost, he set a goblet down on Morgenthau's desk.

Aileen quirked an eyebrow at the young assistant as if to say, oh, another one? She eyed the offering, knowing better than to hope it wasn't for her.

When the department head spoke, he took her as seriously as she would expect a good department head to, emphasizing caution, and sprinkling in an inoffensive dash of humor. She let out a breath. The dread in her chest eased.

"That is, ah, even disembodied souls may have, um, have ulterior motives."

"Of course she does," Aileen nodded, interpreting his speech as, again, hesitation. Or perhaps he was being polite. Obscuring the skulls of skeletons with tophats.

Aileen looked at the calming drought he gestured towards. She pushed back a flutter of fear. From her or her? Who knew. She probably needed it. It was probably a good idea. Anyone with consciousness had their own motives, but especially the nicer sorts. They just weren't as honest with themselves. The pentral must have been desperate, hadn't she, to go to Lore... Lori?

Yes, she had come to know the pentral better than she chose to know many of her actual friends, and the knowledge, like in real relationships, felt messy and burdensome.

Suffocating.

Aileen met his eyes. "She knows."

The pentral scattered, hiding her thoughts among the clouds. Aileen stood, her back stiff and straight. She lifted the goblet and glanced down into it. Calm swirled.

Here on her own, she might have refused it, claimed to be fine, then struggled through and argued about whose fault it was. But she wasn't here on her own. She wasn't even here for the pentral. With Virgil in the other chair, the image of her younger sister flitted from her head.

She was here to survive.

Raising the goblet to her lips, she imagined locking away her own thoughts, her own feelings, her own despairs, to reveal someone else's. Someone who had secrets and family to protect. A twinge of empathy stilled her hand.

Her or her?

She tilted back the goblet and drank it all.

Aileen waited a moment, then took her seat. Eventually her muscles became looser, the crick in her neck eased, and the strange ache in her bones faded a little. The pentral peeked out from behind the drifting clouds. Once dark and rolling, the clouds lightened to a soft gray.

Subconsciously, she crossed her legs at the ankles, and slouched a smidgen of an inch. The pentral peeked at Yavin Morgenthau through Aileen's blue eyes. Her face smoothed, making her look slightly younger.

The corners of her mouth lifted. Automatic, and just as defensive as Aileen's iciest glare.

"What, ah, now?"

Aileen spoke calmly, then pursed her mouth as the pentral mirrored his speech pattern. Of all things!

He had many years of being able to pick up on Yavin's few giveaways. The slight crinkle at the corners of the older man's eyes as Aileen told them her head occupant was conscious of proceedings... that was thoughtfulness. Like being given a piece of a jigsaw you were hoping not to get. Virgil found himself more curious about this meeting than he realised. He wanted to know more about this pentral business, wanted to see if it was similar to Abby's and how his old tutor would deal with this.

            "What, ah, now?"

It was easier to see how she could be a Reid sister, with that smile. Yavin's mouth twisted in amusement at the strange mimicry of speech. Virgil could tell he was enjoying this.

"Now, I should probably leave," he interrupted their exchange in a soft voice - reminding himself that he was supposed to respect Aileen's privacy. "Thank you for letting me help."

The young wizard affected a slightly bow, meeting Yavin in the eye for just a second. Her explanation sounds similar to Abby Reid's circumstances, he spoke into his mind, I think you should have a look at her as well. Yavin nodded and waved his farewell with wiggling fingers.

            I expect an explanation later, he replied while Virgil lowered his lucid gaze and made to leave the office.

Even though he had accomplished what he came to do, he felt more worried than before. Listening to Aileen go over events with the pentrals made him more aware of how serious this was. Dressing it up with labels like Unicorn Girl and Flower Girl didn't mitigate the very real effects of sharing a body between two souls.

The doors shut behind his pupil. Yavin would need to follow up on what Virgil was doing these days - the kid was showing classic signs of meddling - but something else required his attention right this moment. Someone else. He shifted his gaze back to the woman sat next to him, visibly more relaxed than when she first arrived. The draught was working.

That, and, he suspected, this wasn't entirely Aileen Reid addressing him.

"Just the three of us now," he raised his eyebrows. "So we can get straight, hm, straight to the heart of it."

This was exciting. A genuine, conscious exchange between himself and an occupied mind. It gave him hope to see the skilful manner in which the pentral and its host managed to form a polite entity; perhaps one of the other would make a good Occlumens. Yavin uncrossed his legs in contrast to their body language, and sat forward.

"I want you to imagine what, ah, what the inside of your head looks like," he rested his elbows on his knees and intertwined his fingers. "ou. Both of yDo you know what a, that is, a mind palace is? A visual construct mnemonically utilised to, ah, to remember things."

Yavin could rely on Aileen to grasp his meaning, if not the other soul. She was a clever witch. He could safely assume she had a bookish vocabulary if not an altogether comprehensive one.

"Most people use places that are, of course, familiar to them." Yavin shrugged, gesturing at nothing in particular. "Give it a try. And then I'll, with your, ahah, permission, I'll invite myself in."

At the sound of Virgil's voice, Aileen glanced back. For a second she saw only a boy with blond hair. A jolt of recognition ran through her. But no, Virgil was older, his face was impish in a subtler, quieter way. Not the right boy.

She gave a nod in farewell, her slight smile turning more genuine and a touch relieved. Though presumptuous, Virgil's presumption had led him to owl her regarding his vision of Abby, and she wouldn't forget that he'd befriended her sister at the lowest point in her life.

Morgenthau leaned forward, showing more interest, while Aileen remained still. The inside of her head? Her eyebrows spiked. He described it as a mind palace, a term that sounded vaguely familiar from her previous work on Level Nine, though she'd always avoided anything to do with legilimency and occlumency. She rarely cared what most people had to say. Why would she care what they thought?

She nodded. "A mind palace it is."

A dilapidated mansion would be more apt, complete with ghosts wailing in the attic and an infestation of gnomes in the garden. Better yet, mandrakes, which could pop up out of the earth and join in the wailing if the department head thought to open any locked doors.

Aileen let out a small laugh. She straightened, then glanced at the empty goblet, her eyes narrowing.

Was there... what had been in that drought?

Still, it was nice to hear basic respect coming out of Morgenthau's mouth, little things that reminded her of Trevelyan's manner. Permission was tricky with two souls in one mind.

Aileen settled in her seat and looked at the row of windows behind his desk. The frames, the enchanted glass drew her in.

Go on, Aileen prompted.

You go on, the pentral danced.

The red desert in the window reminded her of meeting Arvid in Egypt, of running away from her scandal and divorce, of falling in love in a place where her family name didn't matter. She'd known, even as she was living it, that those years were the happiest of her life. That wasn't her life now. Neither was the view of the stars, her time teaching at Hogwarts. The Runes classroom had felt like hers, she'd molded it into hers, but it wasn't.

Aileen reached for a place that was still hers - her own home in London. Pristine, coldly elegant, lacking clutter and color. Books lined shelves, mementos from her time abroad were tucked in curio cabinets, along with Abby's gifts to her.

There was no mess. No sign of the room she'd lived in for almost a year in Ireland, that she'd been ashamed to show to the cleaning service every morning.

Really? The pentral scoffed gently.

Really, Aileen thought. As if your house isn't a reflection of you?

And with that, part of the house changed.

The wall with the fireplace turned to rough stone. Worn red tiles intersected with the polished wooden floor. Tiny shoes appeared by the door, then disappeared. Heavy beams held up the ceiling, with hooks for drying herbs. Knick knacks cluttered the coffee table. The air smelled faintly of lavender, and the breeze drifting in smelled like a lake.

The lake? Aileen glanced out the drafty window above her white couch.

Outside, long grass swayed, and a lake lapped close, its waters deep and dark.

She shivered, and closed the curtains.

She imagined herself inside, framed by the window, and Aileen being Aileen, she looked like herself entirely. The pentral did not care enough to assert her appearance.

Aileen inclined her head toward Yavin Morgenthau, holding the idea of their house in her mind.

"Welcome to the mess."