Loch Monar, West Highlands. Scotland.



Yavin Morgenthau stood at the open doorway of a stone bothy perched on a steep hill overlooking the lake. The sky was dark, or it was meant to be dark at this hour, but the faintest traces of light emanated from the clear night sky. For once, he was not distinct in eccentrically patterned sweaters - simply bundled in a heavy black cloak. Its hood covered his head entirely and a grey scarf swaddled most of his face. All that stood out were a pair of gleaming glasses as he turned his gaze to the heavens.

Behind him, the stone bothy held a handful of the Space Chamber's investigative team, including the team's leader: Carr Rosier. Other Unspeakables were scattered elsewhere surrounding the Loch, in pairs or groups, all keeping a healthy distance from the water and prepared to act.

A spark of blinding light reflected itself in Yavin's spectacles. Several heads turned away but he continued to stare, watching the intense spot of fire plummeting and brightening the sky like a sudden, premature dawn.

           "Shields!" Rosier ordered loudly, though every ready wand was already raised to cast barrier spells against the heat and force of incoming impact.

Yavin himself waited until the very final instant, eyes wide open to the sight - the breeze picking up speed across the valley and the sparse grass caught in it, tearing away in bits, and the tremor in the anticipating ground. Pervasively, an overwhelming scent of the air burning up. He threw up his shield.



A heavy fog blanketed the water over Loch Monar, steam rising from the surface to form faint clouds in the hills above. Like little toy soldiers, the Unspeakables descended towards the water in scattered groups: all instructed to wear their black cloaks over their attire, woven of a protective material. Yavin was waiting at the pebbled shore and watching the simmering lake. It was still uncomfortably hot and he was sweating under the cloak.

"What do you think?" he asked as the others trickled on to the shore to join him, though he didn't turn away from Monar and addressed the first of the Unspeakables blindly. "Anyone, aha, anyone fancy a bath?" The wizard finally looked over his shoulder with a characteristically amused smile.

It had arrived, whatever it was. Their move.

Only a skeleton crew was left from The Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes; nearly every available trained-wand had been working in shifts for the last weeks to secure the Loch and surrounding area. Secure it for Level Nine. Secure it from muggles. The area was remote, that and the winter had meant very few encounters, which were all handled deftly and required no Obliviation. A reflective vest could be better than any spell.

Quill Som, head of Level Three was on broom when the object descended. Despite being miles away from the impact site, the loch a glimmering mirror in the distance, the visitor felt dramatically near. She watched it hit from her spot in the cold inky empty sky, then cast her Patronus, a long-faced hound with feathered fur and swift foot. She sent the Patronus one way, then turned her broom and flew in the other direction.

It was time for Phase II. Keeping the secret.

"What do you think?  Anyone, aha, anyone fancy a bath?"

"Or, perhaps, a cup of tea."  Sasha wasn't entirely sure whether that comment had remained within the safe confines of his head or if he had actually spoken it, aloud.  Either way, it probably didn't make a difference. 

Moving with the crew surrounding Rosier, Sasha stepped up a few paces behind Morgenthau and continued to stare at the massive chunk of ... space in front of them all.  It was mesmerizing in its beauty - mysterious and magnificent, a random chapter of some other story that had been written in some other corner of the galaxy.  It was impossible to avoid getting lost in the what ifs and wheres and whys. 

Disregarding the heat, Sasha took several more steps until he was standing just at the edge of pebble shore, the toes of his boots just an inch away from the water.  "It's beautiful," he breathed, shaking his head, slowly. 

The night had been freezing cold when they'd taken up their watch at the start of the night, but now at the edge of the roiling Loch Monar, the night was sweltering again.  Even so, Kaia barely noticed, a wide grin on her face and her eyes shining as she stepped up with the others next to the lake.

Their visitor had arrived.  The extrasolar object had placed itself neatly in the lake as if that had been its goal all along, as if back when its journey had begun in some distant time and place, its creator had known that this would be the only acceptable place to set as its destination. 

Department Head Morgenthau, swaddled in his black coat with a gray scarf and gleaming glasses, looked a bit like a Who or a Which or a Whatsit from one of the Muggle children's novels that she'd devoured when she was young.  He'd led the way to the lake, pausing at its edge to look out through the still hissing steam.  The rest of the team had followed closely behind.

And now, through the rising steam, they could just begin to make out a shape in the simmering lake.

Schlagenweit stopped alongside her, his feet just at the edge of the pebbled shore.  "It's beautiful," he murmured, his eyes locked on it.

Kaia grinned and looked over to their team leader, who had stopped alongside Morgenthau.

"Shall I go have a look, then?" she asked cheerfully, directing the question at both Rosier and Morgenthau.  Safety had been one of Level Nine's utmost concerns to this point -- hence the cloaks, hence the isolation and the barrier spells.  But now that the extrasolar object was here, she was eager to stretch her feathered wings and see it for herself. 

Virgil wanted to be back in bed. It had been favourable when it was cold and bracing and everyone was excited in the dark but now he was hot and sweaty and everyone was even more excited, and still in the dark. Which was exhausting. He could taste their excitement in the air; or maybe that was the fragrance of the loch - like someone had boiled over a pot of moss and sulphur. At any rate, he kept his distance from the source of the heat, several paces behind Yavin.

            "Shall I go have a look, then?"

Arahanga was incorrigible. The veil of mist was slowly lifting from the glossy surface of the lake and Virgil found himself unwillingly drawn towards it, stepping forward to join Sasha at the very edge. Rosier was crouching, dipping the tip of his wand into the water.

He murmured something under his breath and an electric blue light pulsed from the wand, two to three times, emitting across the lake surface. A mapping charm. He looked up, first at the department head and then more significantly Kaia.

            "Take lead. Teams of two to three, no trainees alone," he paused as the pulses suddenly ricocheted back towards the shore. The team leader lifted his wand so that pinpricks of light appeared before him, forming a cursory image of the loch floor - reading the image was a skill in itself. "Long end of the meteorite is embedded in the soil. Loch floor, about twenty six feet deep."

One of the shallower parts of the lake, then. Virgil was already undoing his cloak and letting it drop to the ground. Underneath, like several other volunteers, he was wearing a Mysteries wet suit. Solid black with a small 9 embroidered on the chest.

A low breeze was cutting through the valley now, taking the mist with it. There was an unnatural silence - and then the silhouette in the water, not ten yards away, came entirely into focus. Unspeakables in the back drew their wands, a scattering of lumos lit up the night along the shore.

It was massive and black as volcanic rock, crumbling into the water. At least two thirds of the rounded end was submerged, the rest peeking out like a perfect curve. Sasha was right: it was beautiful. They had already surmised[1] that there would be something inside but even without that knowledge, the strange ridged pattern of its crusty exterior hinted at a purposeful nature. Virgil shuddered.

"I'll come with you," he looked straight at Kaia, speaking quietly, unsure of why he felt nervous.

           "Surround it, " Rosier spoke in a louder voice and gesticulating at the others, "Keep teen feet away. At the first sign of danger, apparate onshore," he glanced aside at Sasha for a second. "Stay close to someone who can, Schlagenweit. Let's get moving."

1.	22nd Nov - When the Blazing Sun is Gone

At the southernmost perimeter

Quill's high patrol took her to the southern edge of their outer perimeter, the first line against muggle happenstance or curiosity. That's where she saw it. The twin lights of a muggle automobile driving down a narrow lane. It was three in the morning, the odds of anyone being awake at this time of night had been slim, but here they were. Perhaps they'd seen the object streaking through the sky. A car that size couldn't hold more than four people, should be something just one of two of her people could handle.

She descended to where she knew one of her Obliviators was posted. Quill touched down nearby, her footfalls crunching the grass and twigs. Nicholas Bevans was posted up on an old stone wall. He was one of their newest but had already begun to prove himself reliable. He'd managed to survive the incident at St. Mungo's and was taking the long shifts without any complaint she'd heard, which was more than she could say of some of his seniors who were used to having top choice of the nicer shifts.

"It's Som," she declared herself. "I've got a muggle car coming up the road."

The implication and procedure were clear. The pair of them would intercept and redirect. Obliviate only if necessary. The key was keep everyone calm and make the interaction as dull as possible. Something forgettable. Nondescript. Nothing to write home about.

"I want to see what they know before we send them off."

There had been a moment of excitement when the meteor had sliced through the sky, but now Nicholas was sitting on an old stone wall watching a bright orange barrier that that stretched across the road in front of him.  He tugged at his jacket trying to make it lay right on him.  The reflective strips made it bunch up in weird ways. But he had to look the part, bored traffic bloke keeping people from going around the barrier and answering questions when they asked.  It wasn't hard, he was bored.

Of course, if they got a close look at the stick that he was twirling around in his hand they'd question why he'd brought a polished stick out to the middle of nowhere to watch a road with.   Assuming of course that they weren't still distracted by the fireball that had just fell to earth.  Nicholas wasn't about to tell his boss or level 9 that they were on a fools errand trying to keep this secret, but that didn't stop him from thinking it.  Or doing what he was told.

He heard footsteps approaching and quickly turned and deftly slid his wand into a jacket pocket.  He pulled a muggle torch out of another pocket and turned it on, only for the newcomer to identify herself as his boss's boss before he shined the light on her.  He hopped off the wall and moved toward the barrier when Som said there was a car approaching.

"I want to see what they know before we send them off."

"Yes, Ma'am.  Do you need a safety jacket?" Nicholas asked, he had spares in his bag, for exactly this situation.  Reflective anything wasn't exactly called for when flying around on broomsticks trying not to be noticed.  And half the department was flying around on broomsticks.  He much preferred watching the road.  "My bag is behind the wall, they are all enchanted to be one size fits all."  That last bit had been his own handiwork; it would only last for a couple days but there was only so long he could stare at the road without doing something.

Quill nodded yes to a vest. Bevans looked perfect with his young face and battery-powered flashlight, and Quill may have very well left him to handle the muggles on his own. However, this operation was delicate and a muggle car this late was unusual - working in pairs was safer and ensured a cleaner result.

"You take point," she said buckling her vest and clicked on her own flashlight. Bevans was capable but he was still green. Nothing like field training to get some proper experience. The car came into view. Quill began waving her light in the air in big slow sweeps to signal the road block, and came up to the left side of the barrier to meet the passenger side of the car, leaving the driver's side to Bevans.

And then an odd thing happened. Quill put a very casual hand on her hip and started smiling. She strolled a little way forward continuing to wave the flashlight.

Nicholas followed Som's lead waving his own light so that the car would see them and the barrier but took the driver's side instead since the head of his department was leaving him in charge of this encounter.  That wasn't nerve-racking at all.  He suddenly felt this was a test.  Granted for once in his life it was one he was actually prepared for, but that didn't make it much better.  He actually cared about this too.

He went over the story in his head, glancing at Som as the car approached.  Her change from austere boss-lady to genial road worker was hard to miss, and in his opinion muggles in their positions would not be smiling.  He kept his own expression neutral.  He wasn't happy to be working in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, but he also wasn't pissed off about it either.

Nicholas was pretty sure he was pulling off bored when the car approached and stopped between him and Som.  It was a man and woman in the car, probably in their early thirties if he had to guess. "Morning.  Roa–"

"Did you see the meteor?" The passenger asked across the driver, interrupting Nicholas before he could use the cover story.  Not that he was surprised. A stampede of giants through London with level four behind them would have been less flashy.

"Yep, most exciting thing that's happened in the last two days," Nicholas said, bending over to lean on the car door.

"It looked like it was going to land near here," the driver said.

"Wait, your looking for it?"  Nicholas asked incredulously.  "You know they like never land right.  They usually just go boom in the air," he mimed an explosion with his hands.  "We didn't even hear that," he looked up at Som to confirm that she hadn't heard anything either before looking back at the driver, "Oh did you get video of it, my phone died hours ago. My boyfriend will never believe me."

Reflexively, and entirely devoid of any foundation, Sasha felt a pang of jealousy as Arahanga asked about going to take a closer look.  Something deep inside of him wanted nothing more than to wade out into that water and towards the massive chunk of stone.  To touch it and feel the after-warmth from its transit through the atmosphere. 

Movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention and he diverted his attention just long enough to watch Virgil come to a stop next to him but the bolt of blue brought his attention back to the water. 

Rosier's assessment of the stone confirmed that, much like a massive anti-iceberg, the majority of it lay submerged in water and lake bed.   At the man's instruction, Sasha quickly shed his outer layer of clothing and folded them neatly before setting them on top of his shoes.  He spared little more than a fleeting thought for the kernel of fear that settled somewhere behind his midriff; worry and unease had long been normal elements of his day to day endeavors and he'd learned to negotiate life despite them years ago.   

"We're really going to move that thing back to the Ministry?" he said to no one in particular as Rosier gave them instructions to surround the rock.  "I'll ... I'll join you."  He glanced towards Virgil and Kaia.  They were known entities. 

Sasha retrieved his wand from his clothes, cast a quick protection charm over his exposed skin against the warmth of the water and slid the wand into the pouch sewn into the side of the wet suit.  Once stepping into the water's edge confirmed the protection charm was working, he glanced at Kaia and Virgil with a broad grin.  "Let's go see what this thing is about!"  He took a few more steps into the water before leaping forward into a shallow dive. 

At the perimeter

Bevans, who'd always given Som the impression of a young kid trying to keep it together (and doing well), easily elided into a genuinely personable persona of some low-rung municipal parks worker stuck on a night shift. Get this kid in front of muggles more often, Som resolved.

He looked up at her for confirmation they were underwhelmed by the whole thing; she shrugged and shook her head. But those blasted phones. She was always hearing the incredible things they could do, like immediately make a copy of any picture or movie and share it on a world-wide muggle network. Her people in the Muggle Worthy Excuse committee, despite their best efforts, were always behind the latest advances. They had ways of fritzing a phone, but the Office of Misinformation would need to spend hours debunking and muddying the rumors on the network. Honestly, she and Bevans out here seemed primitive, but nothing beat good footwork.

"We're not even allowed past," Quill complained, chagrined. "Endangered species migration. You know how it is."

"Are you serious? Birds or something?"

Quill shrugged. "Puffins or ospreys or something. Motor noises, headlamps... guess they'll just careen into the side of a hill. Break their necks. Birds, right? You know their brains are size of peanuts, right?"

"Honestly?"

The mist was lifting quickly now, carried away by the breeze as if an invisible hand had been summoned to scoop it away.  The large black rock loomed suddenly into view in the center of the lake, massive and foreboding as a solemn obelisk.  Although it looked to be formed out of some sort of extrusive igneous rock, it seemed far too perfectly curved to be natural, with none of the imperfections or inevitable wounds that she might have expected from a long interstellar journey.

Rosier, at least, had relented on the ban on approaching after casting his mapping spell.  Eager to venture closer, Kaia had fallen in with the two trainees, Carstairs and Schlagenweit to approach the edge of the still-steaming lake. 

Schlagenweit had been nothing but wariness and suspicion when she'd spoken to him at the university a few days ago.  Now, though, he was quick to throw caution to the wind, casting a grin at them before he ran forward and dove in.  Kaia blinked, casting a look at Virgil.  There were technically protocols to be followed before diving in, but now she was stuck between following through with them or letting their greenest trainee get out of sight in proximity to a potentially dangerous foreign object.

At least she had a way of catching up.

"Seems like we're going in first then, eh?" she asked Virgil, more than a bit dryly.  She shrugged off her coat, letting it fall to the ground behind her; protective or not, transforming with that on would make her feel far too heavy to fly.

"Cast a heat repellent charm on me, won't you?" she asked the trainee, as she stepped forward towards the water's edge.  "I'll stay just overhead from you two."

She bent her knees, and then leapt into the air above the lake, her body transforming with a shiver into a green-winged parrot with a sharply hooked beak as she took to flight.

He stared with a quiet protest on his lips as Sasha dove straight into the murky lake water. Hey! What was the hurry? Virgil exchanged a look with Kaia and read her expression. Perhaps he'd better keep an eye on the other trainee while they did this... just in case. There was something in the air making him uneasy and it wasn't just the smell of lichen and sulphur.

             "Cast a heat repellent charm on me, won't you?"

"Happy flight," he drew his wand and gave his wrist a quick little flick as Kaia rose into the air. A red shimmer fell over the parrot. Virgil paused to enviously watch her beautiful wings, cutting through the mist. Cousin Alex's form was also a bird - graceful creatures.

Not wanting to let Sasha get too far, he cast a bubble-head charm over himself and waded deeper into the lake until his feet could no longer touch the pebbled ground. "Wait a moment!" he called after the other wizard, while other pairs entered the water. Everyone seemed fascinated by the meteor, and keen to examine it closer.

Rosier yelled out to remind them to keep ten feet away when they surrounded it. Not that it looked dangerous: it was just sitting there, emanating steam.

Virgil felt another stab of concern and shook his head, frowning. He couldn't tell if the feeling was in his head or chest; only that it made him wonder if they had scanned the lake for other life. Surely they did, if the Merpeople were moved out by level four? Two other Unspeakables swam alongside him and moved off to take positions on the far end of the meteorite.

Something slimy brushed against his ankle and he startled, kicking back. "What was that?" he dipped his head under the surface but the water was too cloudy - only a dark shadow disappearing deeper into emerald water. Virgil resurfaced, looking around him, anxious.

"Did anyone else fee--"

Somebody screamed on the other side of the meteorite, followed by a loud POP! He glanced over his shoulder at the shoreline in time to see another trainee apparating next to Rosier, soaking wet. Virgil was about to turn to Sasha when he felt a hand  grab him by the ankle and pull him under.

Moisture enveloped his skin as water closed over his head and slid along his body, blocking out the later half of Virgil bidding him to wait.  The urging came too little too late and Sasha glided under the water.  Only a slow, dull warmth managed to penetrate the protective charm but it still felt abnormally warm.  Far warmer than the bright, cold, alpine waters of Königsee that he was used to swimming in when he was down in Germany. 

Sasha surfaced half-way between the rock and the shore and glanced around to take check the others.  Virgil was a short distance behind him, with a look of worry on his features that mirrored Sasha's own sense of uncertainty.  That was more unusual and noteworthy than his own growing unease. 

"Are you alright?" Sasha called over towards Virgil.  His gaze shifted upwards towards the fluttering parrot overhead and then around to the closest group of Unspeakables, checking for some cause or explanation for Virgil's expression. 

His gaze tracked back towards Virgil, who had seemed to have swum a short distances away.  Taking that as a sign Virgil's worry had passed, Sasha turned his attention back towards the rock.  Despite Sasha's swim underwater, the rock still seemed as far away as it had from the shore.  Sasha swam several strokes towards the rock but stopped and looked back when he heard Virgil's voice call out, more distantly, across the water. 

When the other trainee's head popped back out of the water, it looked as though he'd swam at least another twenty yards away.  In fact, everyone seemed to be swimming away from him.  When Sasha turned to look over his shoulder, the other group of Unspeakables were now at least 30 yards away.  The rock, however, remained as close as it had been since the beginning.

"Did anyone else fee--"

Sasha turned his attention back to Virgil.  Or, where Virgil had been.  A solid expanse of water stretched out in front of him, the shoreline that couldn't have been more than a stone's throw away was now a distant dark line along the horizon.  "Virgil!" Sasha called out before ducking his head under the water to try and spot the other trainee.  Nothing but an expanse of blue-green and a single stab of light where the half-moon's reflection penetrated the surface. 

Except for the rock.  The ever present rock.

"Kaia!" Sasha called as he resurfaced and looked towards the sky, where Unspeakable had been previously circling.  But, he saw nothing except a vast expanse of clear, empty, star-strewn sky.  And, empty dark ocean water around him. 

He was alone in open water.  Apart from the rock.

Truth be told, Kaia was far more interested in the smooth black monolith in the center of the lake than she was in keeping an eye on her erstwhile charges.  In her parrot form, she looped easily towards it, skating between the updrafts created as the steam still rose from the roiling lake.

She’d known how big the meteor was, but seeing its size up close for the first time still left her feeling a sense of awe.  So large as it loomed over the lake, but so small in the grand galactic scheme of things.  It was incredible to think that it had traveled so far, traversing endless solar systems and crossing paths with countless stars, only to end up here at this time, in this place.

Even with Carstairs’ ably-cast charm, she could still feel the emanating heat through her feathers as she headed towards the looming meteor.  Smooth and glassy, their interstellar visitor seemed even darker than the night all around them, as if it had taken all the heat and light produced by its journey and sucked it within so that it could cloak itself in an eclipse.  Straining towards it, Kaia quickly lost sight of the two trainees and her other colleagues straining in the water below her, barely took notice of Rosier’s shouted reminder to stay ten feet away.  Alone in the sky, soaring between plumes of steam as hints of stars peeking through overhead, she could almost imagine that she was back in the Space Room at the Ministry, just her and the meteor.

But then the screaming started.

The first unexpected cry cut through her thoughts.  The parrot banked hard, losing altitude for a second until she flapped to regain her position.  Down in the water below, she thought she’d spotted a hint of Virgil’s blond locks, but then whatever she’d seen was gone, dragged underneath the surface.

”Kaia!” someone shouted down below. 

Something was deathly wrong.  But there was nowhere to land out here, nowhere to set herself down and regain her wand unless she turned back for shore or headed straight for the rock.

Kaia made her decision in an instant, turning sharply to fly towards the rock.  But before she could take more than a few flaps towards it, an enormous mass rose up out of the water ahead of her.  A long, slimy tentacle, looking like something out of someone’s worst nightmare, uncurled towards her, water dripping from its glistening surface as it reached out to try and knock her from the sky.