Though fainted by time, there was no mistaking the musky, floral and slightly tropical aroma that rushed Sasha's senses even before his equilibrium had recovered from the violent tug of the portkey.  As his vision steadied and he took in the doily covered, ornamental side tables and gold-embroidered furniture, a cold chill coursed down Sasha's spine.  He could almost hear a jovial and quirky voice echoing through the empty rooms, but he knew that was only his mind playing tricks on him. 

The house remained dead silent and, apart from the time capsuled furniture and artwork, entirely empty.

Almost three years had passed since Malvivicus had brought Sasha here to treat the festering scratches the werewolf Olivia Foley had left him with[1], but everything about the house appeared exactly the same.  The elaborate Queen Anne Victorian mansion seemed entirely out-of-place, nestled along the coastline just outside of Cork, Ireland, but it had been Sasha's favorite of the crime lord's property.  It was probably no coincidence, then, that Kronos Malvivicus had included it in the parcels of land he'd gifted Sasha with the last time they'd met[2].  The gift had come with a price; at that same meeting, the man had urged Sasha to select a proper 'task.'  A mission.  A matter of business to see to on his road to ... to whatever Malvivicus had defined as success for Sasha. 

Sasha had tried to play dumb at the time, but he'd known what the man had meant.  Even without admitting it to himself, Sasha had accepted he had to play along in order to keep the others in his life safe and he'd accepted what that missive had meant for his future.  Or, lack of one.  He'd initially tried to hide from that reality; pretend that it hadn't happened or, even if he ignored it, it would go away. 

The months had ticked on and there had been no word from The Man.  To alleviate Professor Trishna's and Ignan's concerns, Sasha had insisted Malvivicus was dead - that Sasha had seen The Man killed by one of his own or something of the sort.  When a year had passed without any word, Sasha had started to believe his own story and, now, more than 18 months had passed since Sasha had last heard from him.  Until the portkey had deposited Sasha in that kitschy living room, Kronos Malvivicus had faded to a faint, distant memory. 

Perhaps Sasha was tempting fate by digging out the old portkey he should have gotten rid of - or turned over to the Ministry - years ago.  Perhaps this was doing nothing but confirming Iona's concerns and he would live to regret this moment.  For all he knew, this was exactly what Malvivicus was waiting for - for Sasha to return of his own accord, driven by some self-defined mission and the man would emerge from the woodwork to congratulate him. 

No.  That was just baseless paranoia, intensified from the general mist of December.  At the end of the day, all it was was an empty house, right?  Nothing more than a safe location with no physical connection to where he or Abby lived.  He needed to meet with this Cohen to try and get more information about non-ministry approved ways to handle the pentrals.  Even if Cohen turned out to be completely untrustworthy and this was a horrible idea, at least Sasha had learned enough to set as much in his own favor as possible. 

He also had to admit that being in the house - and being reminded of the lessons learned when he'd been Malvivicus' Son - made him feel more confident.  More powerful. 

Empowered by the surreal sense of ownership, Sasha strode through the house, lighting candles in their sconces and fires in their hearths with a flick of his wand.  After swapping his sweater for one of the wizard's robes from the closet in his room - one of his robes - he stepped through the front door and to the foot of the steps, bracing himself against the bitter winter sea gale.  This Aviad Cohen was due to arrive at any moment.

1.	Safe As House
2.	Would I Be Selfish To Alter the Order

As soon as he'd arrived, he'd known that this was a place of ghosts.

They were subtle -- the barest hints of spirits lingering around the edges of this haunted place, too burned into the fabric here to dissipate but too terrified to surface and show themselves.  There was the girl who'd died just inside the gate, making a desperate dash to claim her freedom; she'd been ripped apart by a monster while the moon had burned brightly overhead.  Further ahead, there was the man who'd tumbled and tumbled, pushed on a whim out of an open window.  And all around him, deep underground, he could hear the whispers of all those who had lingered there, forgotten or too strongly remembered depending on the whims of their master.

They were memories now, faded echoes, shadows that had not quite crystalized into spirits.  Even now, years after the manor's original owner had walked these grounds, the ghosts who haunted it were still cowed into silence. Aviad could feel them as soon as he stepped onto the ground; if he stretched, he could know them, and could mark how each of them had died. 

No one was coming to bring them peace.  No one would be their savior.  These spirits were simply here, forever, trapped in the misery of this monstrous place.

He'd been expecting for Sasha Schlagenweit to invite him to his estate in Hertfordshire.  Tzippori had scouted it when it had delivered the letter, and Aviad knew that the kid's home was vast.  If he'd startled the boy too much by delivering his response to his doorstep, then the mage imagined that Schalgenweit would choose a more neutral space: a cafe, a coffee shop, somewhere they could talk and be lost in the bustle of Muggles all around them.

He hadn't expected this.

Rumor had had it, years ago, that Kronos Malvivicus had chosen a Son.  Aviad hadn't given the whispers more than half a listen; he'd decided very quickly that the old British madman was not the type of wizard who could lend him aid and help him solve his problem, and he'd moved on with all haste.  But now, as he stared up at the elaborate facade of the Victorian mansion and the tall, blonde boy who waited to greet him in traditional robes, Aviad found himself wishing that he'd paid the rumors a little more attention.

As he strode up the walk, he could feel the arafel spirit thrumming in the amulet that he wore against his chest, watchful and wary.  It had become more bold in the short days since it had saved him and thwarted the vampire, as if its success had made it flush with the tiniest sense of pride and self. Aviad had left Tzippori at home for this; as much as he could sense his familiar's frustration at being left inside so frequently in recent days, he didn't want to risk the skeletal toucan in the face of dangers that he didn't know. 

Aviad stopped just shy on the walkway, looking up at Schlagenweit.  He paused for an instant, not quite sure of what to say.

"I can see why Katsaros threw up his hands at you, brother."  He looked up at the house, his throat dry as he swallowed.  There were more spirits screaming silently inside.  "Quite the show for a simple conversation, yeh?"

From where he stood on the top of the steps, with the open windows and door behind him casting a cone of soft light onto the ground below, Sasha could see the outward manifestations of the man's discomfort but he was oblivious to the underlying cause.  Any lingering spirits or impressions of trapped souls were well beyond Sasha's reach and he remained as blissfully unaware of them as he had the first time he'd stayed in the house. 

As he watched Aviad come to a stop at the bottom of the steps, Sasha interpreted the hesitation as an indication that the set up had achieved its purpose: he'd managed to catch the mage off guard.  Sasha's hope had been that he'd defy any previously held expectations the man might have established after their first meeting in Hogsmeade and vastly decrease the chances the mage would dismiss him as just some kid. 

Sasha had remembered the man's half-interested and dismissive air about Sasha's questions in the Hogshead.  As soon as he'd decided to ask the man about the pentals, he'd realized he would need a healthy dose of magical street cred in a very short amount of time.  This was the most efficient way he could think of to establish that.  That had been his primary goal; Sasha had no intentions of losing himself down this road, again. 

This was simply an anomalous backdrop to a transient scene in the tragic comedy that was his life story.  Nothing more.   

Again, it was nothing more than an empty, abandoned house. 

So, when the man spoke, Sasha couldn't help but grin slightly and chuckle, shaking his head.  "You give the nature of my relationship with Katsaros far too much credit.  Throwing up hands implies there was hand holding at some point in the past and there never was much of that to speak of."  Marginally successful coexistence for the sake of survival was probably the most generous description one could offer.

"It's not exactly a simple conversation," Sasha corrected.  He glanced behind him at the open door before turning back to Cohen.  "This isn't some kind of trap, if that's what you're worried about.  There's no one else here; the house has been empty for at least a year.  You're welcome to check for other people or, I'm happy to talk out here, if that would be more agreeable." 

Inside or out, didn't make much of a difference on Sasha's part.  There was little risk they'd be overheard either way.  "Admittedly, I've been a bad judge of character in the past and felt some place both neutral and discrete was the best option."  Just in case this was an absolute mistake. 

Another slight grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and Sasha offered a slight shrug.  "Talking about resurrecting spirits isn't really a conversation I want to have with my Catholic grandmother in the next room." 

The mage regarded the boy gravely, taking in his words.  After a beat, he tilted his head to the side and let his gaze go distant, as if he were listening to a barely audible conversation in the next room. 

The house was hardly empty, but indeed, there were no other living beings here.  What was interesting was that none of the spirits seemed to be paying Sasha Schlagenweit any mind.  Even when they lost themselves in their own stories, the dead never seemed to forget who it was amongst the living that had dispatched them from the mortal coil.  If Schlagenweit had played any role in their deaths, the spirits here would have been angry towards him, or fearful of his presence.  Instead, each went about its endless charade, trapped in the shock and agony of its traumatic demise.

Aviad seemed to come back to himself, refocusing on the teenager in front of him.  A few seconds later, he reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a cigarette.  He snapped his fingers to light it, and then, after letting it catch, took a long drag from it, his gaze lingering on Sasha once more.

"Lead the way, achi," he said after a beat, giving a casual shrug.  If he had a choice between standing outside in the bitter cold of a British winter or walking into a possibly-deadly-but-presumably-heated haunted mansion alongside an eerie teenaged crime lord, he'd pick the warm interior every time.

After waiting patiently for Cohen to declare his next move, Sasha nodded and turned to lead the way back through the door to the much warmer interior of the house.  The door silently swung shut behind the two of them, sealing out the bitter sea wind without any attempt locking or securing the door - either by magical or mechanical means. 

He resisted the habitual urge to offer the mage the usual assortment of offers that standard hosting decorum required.  An offer of tea seemed oddly out of place, given the circumstances, and would have most likely been a hollow gesture; Sasha did not want to know if the kitchen cabinets had mysteriously remain stocked over the last year.  Even if the ingredients for hosting tea and coffee were to be found, in the absence of a Wizarding Keurig, Cohen would likely to have grounds to accuse Sasha of attempting to poison him without that ever being Sasha's intent.   

The mage would have to settle for the warmth of a fire and the cigarette he'd brought himself. 

As Sasha gestured towards one of the high-backed, gold-paisley patterned chairs in front of the fireplace, he also wondered about the generic social protocol of attempting casual chit chat before leaping into business.  Gerhard Schlagenweit would have admonished the question, insisting Sasha should know positive personal relationships were the foundation of a productive business relationship but things were well beyond what his step-father would have deemed appropriate. 

Nothing of Cohen's body language suggested he wanted to discuss the current quidditch standings before delving into the purpose of the meeting, either. 

"I requested meeting with you because I'm wanting to learn more about options for providing a detached soul with a new, permanent vessel," he offered.  He'd already decided, going into this, that he'd try to provide as much information as necessary while keeping the specifics of Abby or Iona out of the picture. 

"Our Hogwarts education was a little lacking when it came to such topics and-"  Sasha hesitated a moment, carefully picking his next words.  "My own exploration into the subject focused more on retrieving departed souls than providing accommodations for lingering ones.  My initial impression from meeting you left me hopeful that you might be more familiar with the subject than I am."

They moved into the house, stepped into this place that had never quite been claimed by spirits, but clearly was of them.  Aviad followed behind the boy, watching as the faintest whisper of what had once been a woman drifted past, its bloody head cradled in its hands.   

The fireplace was home to shadowy, phantasmal shivers, too: the barest hint of the souls that had ended their life here, now little more than flickers amongst the dancing flames.  The gaudy, gold-threaded armchairs seemed out of place in front of it, as if whoever had decorated this place had wanted to emphasize the pomp and garishness over the echoes of pain all around it.

The spirits that had died here were none of his business.  In life, they had been stupid or careless or unlucky, or all three, and they had fallen victim to whatever master had ruled over this dark place.  He would never have cared for them when they were alive; would never have stuck a finger up in their defense, no matter how awful the death, just as he'd let Tawse condemn his former schoolmate to an awful fate.  But somehow, it felt wrong to leave these spirits trapped here as they were, where no one could hear their screams and cries and whispers but him.

His host was oblivious to the spirits drifting all around him.  The teenager wasted no time into launching into his questions as Aviad slowly sat, too wary of the spirits all around him. 

At the boy's words, the mage turned his head to stare at him.  A few moments earlier, Schlagenweit had awkwardly grinned as he'd mentioned that didn't want to talk about death and resurrection in front of his Catholic grandmother.  Clearly, he had no problem discussing such business when he was surrounded by the dead.

"You want to provide a soul with a vessel," he echoed flatly.  Not raising the dead, but keeping them.  That made him think uneasily of Lorelei Hunt, of the devil's bargain that he'd entered into.  'Providing accomodations' was a tame way to describe the torture that she inflicted on the arafel spirits.

Aviad arched a lone eyebrow at the boy.  "Why?"

"You want to provide a soul with a vessel."

Sasha was quick to shake his head.  "Not in that sense, no.  I'm not looking to put them in an inanimate object."  That, Sasha had gathered from his conversation with Iona, wouldn't have been considered acceptable and Sasha could understand that.  He had a feeling the pentral wouldn't even be comfortable with the use of an object as a temporary placement, if they needed to protect Abby while biding more time. 

"No.  That wouldn't work," he repeated for both Cohen's benefit as well as his own. 

Leaning back in the paisley, high-backed chair, Sasha regarded Cohen for a moment.  It wouldn't reveal too much to speak of the pentrals directly; they'd already been discussed in the Daily Prophet on several occasions. 

"I've been curious about exploring alternative solutions to addressing the pentrals.  An alternative that might ... help them.  Offer a second chance of sorts.  With more opportunities and autonomy to the souls.  New accommodations as in new bodies.  Or, even, a new birth.  Like seeding a new person with the pentrals' souls." 

He had very bare-bones hypotheses of how that might work but he wanted to gauge the man's initial reaction to the overall concept before delving into specifics. 

This hadn't been what he'd been expected when he'd gotten the...annoyed communication from Katsaros, or even when he'd arrived and realized where it was that he was walking into.  Aviad blinked at the teenager, a strange look crossing over his expression. 

He wanted to save a pentral.  Take one of the spirits that Lorelei Hunt had ripped away from the land of the living, and find a way to return it to life.  Not just existence, like the foggy spirit that he'd rescued, which now lived in the nazar pendant around his neck.  But real life...the sort that involved all of the pains of mortality, like being born, growing old, and all of the pains in between.

Part of him wanted to laugh at the boy.  Or to humor him, and then once they were done here, go racing off to his mistress to let her know that some timid teenager was seeking to undo her work.  She wouldn't take Schlagenweit's interest well; he had no doubt of that.

But...

Wasn't this what he wanted?  To find a way to take a soul that had been split from its body, and return it fully to life.  Not any body; he wasn't as nearly accommodating on that point as Schlagenweit appeared to be.  But to find a way to subvert death, to give the dying and the dead a second chance...

Aviad took a long drag on his cigarette, and then let out a slow puff of smoke, his eyes locked thoughtfully on the teenager.

"New births come with a spirit of their own, brother."  He flicked his cigarette, sending a burst of ash off the end.  Spirit.  Soul.  Pentral.  In his mind, they were all close enough to be one and the same.

"You want to force the other spirit out?" he asked thoughtfully, his gaze still focused on Schlagenweit.  "Let your foggy-spirit take over instead?"

Sasha could feel the dull, persistent strain of his eyes wanting nothing more than to avert his gaze from Cohen and look down.  Or, towards the fireplace.  Or, just anywhere else.  He sat up taller in his seat and leaned forward, slightly, his arms resting on the chair and his hands folded neatly in front of him at chest level - further committing himself to being fully engaged with the conversation, despite the familiar impulse to retreat. 

The university student that had sat across the table from Cohen back in the Hogshead would have taken full advantage of whatever diversion he could find.  But, this whole charade had been as much for Sasha's own benefit as it had been for the man across from him; sitting in front of Kronos' fireplace, he felt completely displaced in more ways than one from that student. 

So, ignoring both the social and physical discomfort, he forced himself to continue watching Cohen closely, taking in both the verbal and nonverbal elements of his response. 

Not surprisingly, Cohen's initial response was the most obvious and easily anticipated.  "At birth, yes," Sasha confirmed, with a short nod.  Quickly, the gesture turned to an equally short shake of his head.  "No.  Displacing one soul with another would just perpetuate the problem.  Seems to me to be the spiritual equivalent of tossing your rubbish in your neighbor's backyard." 

It would provide a place for Iona but at the expense of another soul.  Sasha's goal was to find a solution both Iona and Abby were comfortable with; that was not an improvement over the Ministry's plan. 

"I'm not wanting to use a body that has a pre-existing soul.  I'm more curious about those specific circumstances when a body has been ... recently vacated.  A frozen body.  Drowning victim."  Those seemed like potentially feasibly scenarios but it wasn't an ideal situation. 

An even more optimal approach seemed like it should work in theory, but was definitely beyond his current abilities.  "Or, better yet, offer the soul an opportunity to take up residence before the other has a chance to form.  If, say, the pentral were in a woman at the time of conception.  Let the pentral take residence and ... somehow prevent the original soul from ever developing.  A rebirth.  Resurrection."

Aviad regarded the teenager in front of him silently, his expression unremarkable save for a slight quirk of his eyebrows.  Schlagenweit obviously wanted to have a...convenient view of how the world worked.  Faced with a difficult decision laced through with gray, he was obviously intent on finding a way around the moral difficulties.  When it came to choosing between one soul and another, he wanted to blaze a new trail that allowed him to avoid weighing one life against the other.

That wasn't how the world worked generally, though, and it certainly wasn't true of necromancy.  When one began delving into raising the dead and summoning spirits, black and white became intertwined until there wasn't really a way to discern the difference between them.  Hoping for a consequence-free way to deal with the dead was about as likely as wanting to cook a roast for supper without harming any cows in the process.

He took a long drag from his cigarette, thinking.  Schlagenweit had given him an answer when he'd asked why he was interested in these topics, but it hadn't been a real answer.

"This isn't the sort of thing that just comes up when you're daydreaming in the shower," he remarked, cocking a brow at the teenager.  "You have a particular foggy- spirit that you want to put back in a body?"

"You haven't seen the experiments I have cooking from shower-inspired daydreams," Sasha offered, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a slight grin.  It was true that something specific had prompted this curiosity, but it wasn't entirely out of character to follow a random, mental tangent. 

However, he had a suspicion that such a vague answer was unlikely to placate the man he'd beckoned to an old house along the Irish coast.  He needed to be careful; he needed to provide the mage with enough information to keep his interest but no more than was absolutely necessary.  Aviad Cohen had the potential to be useful but he wasn't trustworthy. 

After a beat, Sasha nodded his head.  "There's a particular pentral I'm hoping to vacate from its current residence.  It's clear that the more optimistic the solution is to that problem, the better.  My primary interests are in helping the one who's playing host.  But, it would be easier for everyone in the long run if doing so didn't involve the permanent demise of the pentral."  Understandable emotions had gotten involved. 

"I don't intend on telling you who it is, though.  I can't imagine it makes that big of a difference; either an alternative exists for pentrals or it doesn't." 

A question Cohen hadn't, yet, answered.  "Do alternatives exist?" Sasha prompted. 

The mage lifted his cigarette and took another long drag on it.  He let the breath out slowly, his nearly-black gaze still fixed on Schlagenweit as the smoke curled upwards towards the ceiling.

He flicked the cigarette again, letting the ashes fall upon the rich carpet, and then silently put a hand to the glass nazar amulet around his neck.

Will you? he thought quizzically at the spirit.

There was a flicker of hesitation.  The arafel spirit didn't like this place any more than he did; didn't like the parade of unseen, unseeing ghosts all around them, cursed to spend an eternity in these unhallowed halls.  But then it sent a pulse of warmth through his fingers, and a trickle of white smoke began to leak out from the blue glass.

His spirit friend took a moment to gather itself, a tumbling, hesitant ball of white fog without any constant form or shape.  It hovered in the air between them, staying just at eye-level for the teen, and then sent a questioning thought back in his direction.  Aviad quirked a brow at it, and then gave a permissive flick of his hand; with all of the spirits strewn throughout this haunted place, he doubted there was anything unknown here that might harm it.

The spirit raced off to the warmth and light of the fireplace, and Aviad settled back in his chair.  Glancing smugly in the teenager's direction, he raised his cigarette back to his lips.

"Yeh, brother," he said simply.  "I think you could say that alternatives exist."