10 December 2011
Full Moon
7:30pm on a Saturday evening
The Blackwood Cafe

They really shouldn't be out. It was the night of a full moon and the Daily Prophet was full of warnings of direwolves and increased danger and vigilance, but this was important. Well, it felt important. Yeah, they really shouldn't be out.

Figaro's owl to Moira McBoid to meet him at the Blackwood cafe near his building had been vague but sensational. He'd written it so quickly the only punctuation marks he could remember existed were exclamation points so he'd used several. And now, he sat on a stoop at a table next to the window, Figaro's pen was tap-tap-tapping in an anxious (or caffeinated) staccato.

He'd owled her straight from work, then for the past half hour or forty-five minutes had been digging through the stacks of old Daily Prophets that accumulated in his apartment. There was something. Something that the Daily Prophet was overlooking. Something big. If he was wrong, well, he could abort the mission and no one would have to know, right? But if he was right? Well, he'd either be fired or promoted. Or dead by the poisonous bite of a horrible serpent. He ought to drop it. Yeah, he really ought to drop it.

Every time the door opened, Figaro looked up and took furtive sips of his large coffee. Cold wind rushed in from the darkening street. He hadn't waited for a reply from Moira, so he was starting to worry she wouldn't show. Which would be wise, honestly.

Moira left work shortly after seven p.m., an impatient owl with a letter waiting for her at home. Frowning the wix took the letter addressed to her from Figaro, gave the owl a thank you treat before letting it go on its way, and then read the contents. All she could really make out from the letter was that Fig wanted to meet her at a cafe over something incredibly urgent immediately.

With a small sigh she went to take a fast shower and change into clean robes. Once Moira was done with that she ate the sandwich that had been meant for lunch, she never got around to eating that day, while checking the contents of her bag to make sure her potion for wakefulness/alertness was where it should be. The last time she had gone out with her new friend she ended up not coming home until the next day.

Normally it wouldn't be such a big deal. Sundays were her days off. Being out late on a Saturday meant she could sleep in late if necessary the next morning. Except Moira had picked up a shift on Sunday for someone who requested time off. Tomorrow she couldn't sleep in.

By the time seven thirty rolled around Moira had finished her preparations and apparated to a safe spot by the Blackwood Cafe. Walking inside she quickly spotted Figaro and walked over, sitting across from him. "Alright, what's this about?"

Figaro jumped up as Moira sat down.

"Hey, hey, alright? Need anything?" he asked patting her on the back. Before she answered he waved at the barista and pointed at Moira. "Coffee, cream, sugar. You like sugar, Mo? Hold the sugar."

That done he sat back down and scratched the back of his neck.

"Did you see this?"

He smoothed out an old clipping from the Daily Prophet and slid it over.

Runespoors Wash Up on Thames
by Niobe Thursby

04 November 2011

In the early morning of the 2nd of November, the remains of seven dead Runespoor serpents were found on the shores of the Thames in East London.

According to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, the serpents had been dead at most a fortnight, although the conditions in the river make it difficult to determine exactly how long ago.

"Regardless of how the public might feel about Runespoors," commented Balfour Spectre, head of Beasts Division, "we must bear in mind that the mistreatment of creatures is strictly illegal and inhumane."

The appearance of these Runespoor carcasses is a reminder that the illegal trade in Runespoors and Runespoor parts is still active in the black market. An interdepartmental effort ending in 2008 nearly put an end to most trade and resulted in multiple convictions. But by 2010, Runespoors began to again make an appearance in underground circles.

At time of publication, the origins of the Thames Runespoors are unknown.

He sipped his own giant coffee and explained in a rapid, not-quiet whisper.

"So I'm sorting through the mail at the Prophet, as ya do, and if there's no name on it, I open it and get it to the right person. There's always loads of tips coming in about stories or whatevs - honestly shit that should go to Level Two but people send it to us. Anyway, a great lot of them are absolutely bogus but so this one comes in and it seems legitimate to me, right? So I'm showing it to Thursby but she brushes it off. No idea why, she takes one look at it and just bins it. So I'm stood there wondering."

He took a deep breath and stabbed his finger on the article.

"But I'm bloody certain it's related to this. Runespoors, right? Bloody runespoors. We have to do something about this. You know about animals, right?"

Finally, he stopped talking and stared at her.

Moira lifted a brow slightly at Fig. He was more hyped up than usual and if his ordering her a coffee already meant anything it was a bad sign for her evening.

She nodded when he said to hold the sugar. A touch of creamer was the most she would accept.

As for reading the Prophet, it wasn't one of her pastimes but her family made sure she knew about everything going on. It's good to stay informed on the world. This particular article was no different.

Moira barely had time to nod before Fig was off again, explaining what the point of this meeting was. Except he didn't really explain. He just told her how it started.

About what did they have to do something? Dead Runespoors that had long since been disposed of? And why did they have to do anything?

"Figaro... what are you going on about? What tip?" Whatever it was he seemed to be incredibly excited about it.

Glancing up as the barrista delivered her coffee Moira nodded a thanks before looking back to her tablemate.

Figaro stared at Moira.

"I just told you. Keep up, McBoid."

He waved at her to get to work on the coffee. Then, as if he'd just remembered, he unrolled a many-times-folded piece of paper. The text was that of a deranged typewriter, the letters treating the baseline like it was lava; but it was still legible. It said:

to who^M it may disturb:
^Only _the ^Ri_ght^Eou^S e^Nj_oy ^Anat_hema's ^Kn_av^ES. ^Forever pa^INe^D, e^Ternally ^Hat^Ed.
^Wh^Atsover ve^XEs _the vexe^D: t_urn _back, o_h ^MAN.

He waited, his leg bouncing, itching to get moving. "It's a code. It's a code."

Moira was beginning to question her decision on arriving to meet with Sellaphix. At the most she figured she'd hear him out and then be on her way back home. Maybe some late night story on a new disaster in his life would be involved. This had not crossed her mind.

As he pushed the abused piece of paper towards her she read through it. Glancing over it again her housemate went on excitedly about the note being a code. "Even if it is legitimate it sounds dodgy." She finally took a drink of her coffee. A little too sweet.

"And yes, I've read about them but I'm not an expert or anyth-." Moira cut herself off to stare at him for a moment.

"You're going anyway, aren't you?"

Figaro had long since learned to never be discouraged by Moira's steady affect. She wasn't going to animate over exciting things or laugh at his jokes, probably. Moira also wasn't going to panic under pressure. (That was Figaro's job.) She was Moira and she was a good witch in a storm and easy to be around and Figaro produced all the energy a friendship required all on his own.

He waited as Moira began to mull it over. He had to bite his lip to keep from interrupting her.

Then his face lit up. He gestured grandly. "Yes!"

And just like that he got up and started putting on his nearly weather-appropriate jacket (which still had Talisha Crowe's business card in it, fun fact). He grabbed up the letter and the article and pulled on his hat.

"Thank you, Mo. You're the best. We have to go down to the river first."

She wasn't moving.

"Let's go?"

Moira watched as Figaro took her question as an agreement to go. He gathered his things to leave, telling her where they needed to start. The wizard only paused upon realizing she wasn't moving to follow.

A choice had to be made. She could stay, finish her coffee, and then go home leaving Sellaphix to whatever fate the night might lead and possibly damage their beginnings of a friendship. Sure, established boundaries were vital in any relationship be it family, friends, or something else.

Then again, dodgy as all this sounded maybe he'd end up in real trouble. She'd hear about the tragic death of a young teenager just out of Hogwarts and a pending investigation. Then she'd have another death to feel guilty about. "Shit."

Tilting her head back she downed her entire coffee then stood up from the table. "This is a really bad idea, you know."

Moving to follow him she glanced at him when they got outside. "Do you even know what waxed man the 'code' was referring to?"

"This is a really bad idea, you know."

Figaro smiled at her sweetly and placed his hand over his heart. "I do know."

Outside the cafe Figaro moved at almost a trot and stopped short. Moira had seen the message too! MORE SNAKES FIND THE WAXED MAN was spelled out in the floated letters. He could have kissed her.

"You sly dog! Bloody clever. Took me hours," he wasn't ashamed to admit. "But yeah, no idea. But! I did find out where on the river those runespoors washed up."

It wasn't in the article, but Fig had bothered the right people at work.

"There's all those muggle factories and construction down there - I don't know how to describe it but I know where it is? Let me Apparate us?"

When Moira agreed, Figaro took her hand, walked them around the corner behind a dumpster, and with a Crack! Apparated them both to the water's edge.

---

Out in the open, the wind hit them. The full moon lit up everything in that eerie pale blue. The city twinkled at them across the river, the river itself inky black flecked with reflected light. All the structures were set well away from the river here, leaving a wide overgrown strip of land falling steeply down to the water. It was easy to see how something like eight-foot orange serpents could be missed.[1] As soon as they appeared, Figaro was on the move, picking his way through the tall wet grass and rocks.

"Verdimilious ,"[2] he incanted and the area around him was lit up with a thousand tiny green lights. They fell slowly to the ground where they faded.

"Help me look," he called to Moira.

1.	About here.
2.	Verdimilious Charm

Moira glanced oddly at him as he exclaimed at her cleverness. "The letters stuck out." In her mind, there wasn't anything spectacular to it, just a matter of observation.

Figaro not knowing what the code was regarding made her feel both relieved irritated. They were hunting blindly for something that might not exist yet but they also were not walking into a viper's nest of sorts. Exploring an area where dead creatures had been found was not nearly so bad.

Once they had apparated away Moira unconsciously relaxed a few tense muscles. Being back out away from the city, the wind playing with her hair, and smelling the river was calming. The lights reflected off the black river reminded Moira briefly of lost souls luring travelers into the dark.

The green sparks pulled her gaze away back to Figaro, who had begun searching the area. Shaking her head Moira shifted her bag to rest more securely on the hip opposite of the shoulder the strap rested on.

Doubtful that anything would be found here, there had been no evidence to suggest the Runespoors had expired in this area, Moira began picking and making her way around searching for anything unusual that might have appeared thanks to Fig's charm. There certainly was no hidden dock that she could see.

The grass areas were a bit more tricky to navigate.

Figaro worked his way down to the edge of the river, where lines of twigs and debris showed the river's path in weeks past. Everything that ended up here had once been up river.  His spell was turning up nothing amid the food wrappers, lost shoes, and tangles of branches. He wasn't even sure what he was looking for, but if he did -

"Oi! Found something!"

It had been twenty minutes but finally, something started to glow in the muck. The green sparks had revealed something touched by the Dark Arts.

The object was half-buried in the drift-trash and grime but he could clearly make out a glass jar or bottle. Once he completely extricated it and stood back up to show Moira, it turned out to be missing its top, the label was washed away, and it had a great chip out of it.

"Someone's kept something nasty in this," he said, and gave it a sniff. It just smelled like river muck.

The riverbank was disgusting. So much trash and junk had washed up on the banks the image did not invoke pristine thoughts. And among all the trash nothing was glowing or showing any signs of being more than garbage.

At least, not until Figaro's voice cut through the silence again. Looking back Moira watched as he held up an old, broken bottle which had been in the river for who knew how long. So helpful.

Being the best lead the wix had so far, the only lead, she made her way back through and over to where he was. The label was gone and there seemed to be no apparent way to judge what the bottle had stored or where it came from.

Glancing at Fig she pulled out her wand and pointed it at the bottle. "Specialis Revelio." The spell surrounded the bottle and seeped inside, where a faint purple color appeared. Most traces had been washed away but it appeared as though an extra ingredient for Runespoor food had once been stored inside it.

"Okay, now what?"

Figaro watched Moira cast a spell on his bottle, watched the spell change colors, and then watch Moira hand it boredly back to him.

"What do you mean, 'now what'? What was that? What's it mean?"

The sounds of the muggle city were dulled by distance and the subtle rumble of the steady river. Figaro didn't hear the voice until the flashlight washed over them. Fig squinted into the light. Someone was up at the fence.

        "I said, this is private property, you lot!" came the official sounding voice.

Figaro immediately shouted back. "No it's not! Public beach! Free country!"

        "Y-.. yes it is! Private! There are signs! You have to go!" The voice was sputtering a little but seemed firm in her convictions.

Figaro turned his back to the light and shook his head. To Moira he said, "they're not going to do anything."

Suppressing a sigh Moira answered his question. "The bottle stored something used in the Runespoor's food, but it's impossible to tell what or even when." Maybe it was something to make the snakes more docile, or an ingredient to increase the potency of the venom. There wasn't much use in speculating over the matter without more to go on.

The uncertain voice didn't bother the witch any, ignoring people was a specialty. When the beam of light flashed over them though Moira half glared up at the offending object, willing it to go dark again. When the light sputtered and died, the muggle said something about having just changed the battery, she was only partially surprised.

Figaro's reassurance that the muggle above them wouldn't do anything just made her shake her head. "Maybe not, but we've been here for a while and all we've found is that broken bottle." Their chances of finding something else more ominous or helpful were decreasing by the minute. Staying any longer seemed a waste of time.

Figaro smiled as Moira straight-up dead-eyed the light out with her mind. Witches were amazing, truely they could burn the world into ashes if they all decided to. In the moon-lit dark, Figaro raised a bird to the distant nosy muggle. He was having a proper adventure now that they'd found something, but Moira seemed as business-like as before.

"Fine. We'll go. But I'm seriously beginning to question your commitment to ... whatever this is," he said feigning seriousness. He began tromp westward up river, looking at the bottle in the moonlight.

"Can't Apparate here. Them's the rules." All they really had to do was get a 'reasonable' distance from the 'reasonable' expectation of non-magical observers. And to Figaro, that meant, oh, fifteen feet and a glance over his shoulder.

He turned around to speak to Moira as he walked.

"Hey, I think my parents have a book on Runespoors. Best not ask why, bit of a sore subject, but regardless - have you been to the Apothecary? Number three Knockturn Alley. It'll be closed and we can just pop in."

Figaro shrugged. No big deal. Maybe a little bit of reading would make more sense of the bottle.