Early morning. London. M tag for graphic imagery.


It was still dark, as mornings often were in the winter. The red phone booth that stood on the corner of a narrow street in central London looked especially striking in the dying light of street lamps. A magical thing. Any witch or wizard in the employ of the Ministry of Magic knows that this is one of many ways to descend into the depths of wizarding bureaucracy. None had yet to utilise this particular entrance today but its last visitor had only just apparated away after leaving behind a sincere and elaborate gift.

Huddled on the floor of the booth, a corpse laid peacefully against a russet werewolf pelt. In life, perhaps, Robert Dunnigan looked a handsome man. In death, he appeared simply beautiful - purple bruises blooming across a pale, hairy chest and muscled legs. Peace rested beneath waxen, closed eyes. He might as well have been curled up and asleep if not for the purple monkshood flowers spilling from his mouth in excess.

Hundreds of them carefully tucked into the oesophagus, delicate petals dripping down his chapped lips and into his naked lap. The flowers are better known in apothecaries as Aconite - or Wolfsbane.

Although the wizard seemed quite alone, he was in fact resting on his brother's hide. Jebediah Layton took a good deal of time to skin Richard Dunnigan and treat its rust coloured pelt, but he was pleased by the result of his efforts. Dunnigan brothers united in life and death. Waiting to be discovered.

A flier was pinned to the booth window: an old affair, the kind of memorabilia a discerning Lupophobe might find in Borgin and Burkes. It sported  an exaggerated illustration of rabid dog, and below it a slogan that read:


It was Friday the 13th.

Penny Pickler’s petrifying period of unpleasantness was practically past. It was finally Friday. Almost the weekend. Almost 2 days away from the chaos and terrible atmosphere of Level 4 was needed. She’d done well to avoid Bagnold and Ballentyne since Tuesday, hiding in her own office most of the time. She had, of course, ventured out to present people with pamphlets for programs in preparation for overpowering personal pain. She’d found several of these pamphlets on the floor and in dustbins in the offices. Very disheartening.

This morning, Penny had proclaimed to her housemates and Pez the pooch that she was going to be the Positive Proclaimer for the office. She would be spreading the positivity and pull her colleagues out of their holes of despair. As such, she’d dressed in her favourite pink and purple polka dot dress and pulled her hair into neat red pigtails. The polka dots on her nails even matched those on her dress. She was a vision in polka dot perfection. Even better, as she approached the red phone box to proceed towards her place of profession, Penelope Prudence Pickler was carrying a large tray of pink and purple polka dot cupcakes topped with purple and pink polka dot butterflies.

It was a careful balancing act to hold the tray of cupcakes and pull open the door to the red phone box, but Penny Prudence Pickler could prevail over any problem at present. So, without paying any real attention, she popped open the door, and smiling to herself, popped inside.

Preceding her, a perished person, perfectly presented on a bed of fur. Purple bruises over a pale peritoneum.

Petrified, Penelope punctuated the air with a powerful and ear-piercing scream.

The door behind her suddenly closed itself and Penny fell back against it, trying to push back as the lift proceeded to plummet.

Her purple and pink cupcakes had upturned, punctuating the perished person in purple and pink sugar paste.

The screaming proceeded all the way down into the depths of the ministry until the door finally opened and out tumbled Penelope, still shrieking powerfully.

Fauna woke with a start, her cheek pressed against a cold, flat surface, her arm asleep and tingling underneath her head. She jolted upright, blinking. Her chair started to roll out from beneath her. She righted herself, looking at the lamp flickering on the desk, the papers stacked around her, the empty coffee mugs. Her desk. Her calendar, on the wall. What day was it?

What the hell?

She hastily wiped at the drool on her chin. Fauna fumbled in the pocket of her trainee jacket and flipped open her watch.

Shit!

Early morning. Late morning, depending on how one looked at it. She'd stayed late on Level Two last night. She had not meant to stay quite so late, into the wee hours of the morning, into godawful hours of the morning, the hour when the Aurors would arrive to start their day.

Fauna stood, clearing her throat and coughing at the dryness in her mouth. Ugh, her neck! Her neck felt like a thousand spiders had latched onto her spine. She looked around at the darkened and empty rows of cubicles. Her lamp was the only lamp flickering at her desk.

Well shit!

---

Ten minutes later...


Fauna, in her wrinkled trainee jacket and trousers, slunk through the atrium, rubbing at the side of her neck and wincing. If she could just get home and take a shower, look human again, no one would have to know she'd fallen asleep at her desk last night. Her stomach grumbled. Past the grand golden statue, she avoided the Welcome Witch's curious stare and moved towards the rows of fireplaces. Shower! Maybe some breakfast. Maybe she could steal one of those cupcakes that Penny had mentioned making.

Mmm cupcakes.

In her peripheral vision, the slim red phone booth floated down, emitting a strange, high-pitched whine. It slowly came to rest at the end of the two rows of fireplaces.

Huh. Fauna looked back at the fireplace. The green flames. She took a step forward, yawning.

Ping!

The doors of the red phone booth opened down the hall. A scream ripped through the air.

Fauna, her hand flinching over her mouth, stared sleepily into the green flames. Her foot continued to move forward...

No! Shit! Slowly, she took a step back and turned away from the floo. The screaming intensified.

Polka dots. She saw the polka dots first. Pink and purple and bright on a young woman's dress. Red hair. Pigtails. A witch toppled over in the booth. Screaming.

Penny! Penny her friend! Penny her flatmate! Screaming.

"Penny!"

Fauna called hoarsely, eyes very wide. She ran a few steps toward her, past the rows of fireplaces. Wait, what was that?

A figure hunched across from Penny. Polka-dotted with bruises. Cloaked in fur and something that looked like foam. Not moving. Not screaming.

"Penny!"

She drew her wand, kept running. The stench of blood and gore smacked her in the face. Fauna reeled back, coughed. She moved forward, pointing her wand at the slumped figure she didn't recognize. Realizing very quickly the stench of death came from the figure. The man was very dead. He wore not a cloak, but...

"Penny," Fauna gasped, horrified, kneeling at the doors to the booth. "It's Fauna, I'm here."

Fauna extended her hand. Very slowly, she touched her shoulder.

In her petrified panic, Penelope Pickler had plummeted to the floor in a polka dot and panicked mess. Piercing scream was followed by panicked panting followed by piercing screaming followed by panicked panting etc etc. From behind her, Fauna suddenly appear, placing a hand on Penny’s shoulder and staring across at the corpse slumped over in the phonebox she’d just travelled down in.

Now, with the corpse at eye height and her panic fully highetened, Penny got a really good and detailed look at it. A poor wizard sprawled out on a furry pelt. Bruises were like polka dots over his skin, and flowers spilled from his mouth. He was naked and exposed except for the cupcakes hat had taken a tumble all over him.

“P-P-P-Fauna! I didn’t-!” She shook her head, eyes now streaming with terrified tears, face the colour of a ripened plum. “He was just t-t-t-present! In the phonebox!” Regardless of the crowd suddenly gathering around them, clearly drawn by her screams, Penny shuffled back on her bum, trying to desperately put some distance between herself and the corpse.

Kneeling next to the open phone booth, Fauna's gaze strayed to its interior. A tray of cupcakes had fallen onto the naked dead man. Purple flowers cascaded out of his mouth, lurid and violent, not at all like the little frosted flowers found atop cakes. They were real flowers, familiar, they were...

Penny scrambled back, and Fauna let her hand fall from her shoulder.

"I know," Fauna soothed in a shaky voice, meeting her terrified eyes. "I know you didn't."

Penny Pickler directed all of her energy into discouraging violence and cruelty. Fauna kept her gaze on her friend, as much to calm Penny as she was making mental notes. The young woman looked like Penny, sounded like Penny, panicked like Penny! Obviously Penny, all her instincts told her. Still, the madness of the past few days made her paranoid. Fauna would verify in a moment, but the important thing now was getting Penny safely away from the horror and securing the... horror.

When Yavin Morgenthau appeared behind Penny and picked her up from under her arms, Fauna's mouth dropped open.[1]

"What are you - hey!" She stood abruptly, pausing to blink away faint dizziness, and took a step forward, gripping her wand. Penny could be hurt! She was in shock! He couldn't just-

The booth doors closed behind Fauna with a shudder.

Fauna's hair brushed against her collar as the air shifted. She turned just as the phone booth began to ascend. It floated up, up, up, over their heads, over the tops of the fireplaces, ready to make an encore on the London street above.

No!

Her wand pointed up. She flung Immobulus up at the booth, her aim true even as her wand handle slipped in her palm. Fauna stood for another moment, breathing hard, wand still pointed at the booth as it groaned and came to a stop in mid-air.

The booth hung in bright red, the panes of its windows a cage.

The corpse was still visible within, mottled like a shriveled heart.

The din in the atrium grew louder. Her arm lowered. With some difficulty, she focused again on Penny held up by Morgenthau.

"Sir," she snapped breathlessly, demanding an explanation.

1.	Approved by Nuri!

He had slept in his office last night, and woke to more work on Mysteries in a fresh change of clothes at the crack of dawn. Yavin Morgenthau was actually on his way home for a brief reprieve when he walked into the atrium alongside Unspeakable Rosier, issuing orders for the meteor project to be given in his absence - the two wizards were nearly at the fireplaces when the screaming began. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought it was a banshee.

            “He was just t-t-t-present! In the phonebox!” The infamous Penny Pickler was scooting away from a phonebooth, in shock, by the time he pushed through the crowd around her. People were staring at something in the booth and a young witch was trying to soothe Pickler.

It was a corpse. Or two corpses? That pelt. Flower petals and cupcakes adorned the scenes, like the macabre set up of a Parisian pastry shop.

Yavin grimaced, peering into Penny's mind to ensure she wasn't so deep in distress that she would jolt at being touched, and he slowly knelt to slip his hands under her arms. "What are you - hey!" exclaimed the girl he now recognised as Virgil's acquaintance, Blake, but he ignored her for the time being to pull the screaming woman to her feet.

Several onlookers cried out just then - the booth was ascending! - but they needn't have worried. It stopped at the behest of a well cast freezing charm, and the instigator turned right around to snap at him. ""Sir." Yavin placed a calming hand on Penny's shoulder first, and she quietened[1] some.

A complete mess, of course, but nothing to write home about. Well. Nothing for them to write home about, Pickler might feel differently.

"It's quite, aha, quite alright Miss Blake," he smiled at her before gesturing at Rosier to fetch the Diversity Officer, "Will you take Miss Pickler up to the Healer on two?" The Unspeakable nodded amiably and was quick to take over, leading Penny away from the gawking crowd.

This was Law Enforcement's game and not his, but the old wizard recognised himself as a senior official on the scene. "Just a case of, hm, of shock." Yavin informed the auror, raising his eyebrows humourously. "I assure you, I was a Healer long before you were, um, were learning to cast immobulus."

His gaze slid past Fauna, rising to the phone booth in the air. Aconite petals were drifting down like snowfall. This was something to do with the werewolf incidents of this past week. "You have this well in, that is, well in hand?" he looked back down, spectacles gleaming.

1.	Approved by Mel!

His hand on Penny's shoulder, the calm he offered Penny, clued Fauna in more than anything that The Head of Mysteries could have said. In the back of her mind she understood who he was, who had taught Virgil legilimency. Penny looked calmer now. Fauna took a few breaths, giving Penny a nod when the other Unspeakable guided her down the hall, her worried eyes following the pair until they were out of sight.

"I assure you, I was a Healer long before you were, um, were learning to cast immobulus."

A faint flush colored her cheeks as she looked at him. Typical department head! Or maybe not. He remembered her name, he remembered Penny's, he knew everyone, she knew him. Fauna gave him a long, wary look, confusion flickering over her face at his pleasant smile. The spectacles obscured his eyes. His manner made sense during meetings, but here? It felt the opposite of reassuring.

Now he asked.

"I got it, Mr. Morgenthau, thanks," she said shortly, turning to the crowd. 

Did she got it? Shit.

"Level Two. Everyone take a step back," Fauna flashed her badge, her wand aimed at the floor, a point of red glowing at the tip, ready to mark the crime scene.

She followed her own order, her boot slipping on the dark wooden floor. She stared down at the smeared, thin red line next to the tiny pinpoint of red light that her wand was making. The booth had landed, opened its doors, and out spilled Penny and a line of...

Right, focus.

She looked up as she started to draw a red circle on the floor, a few feet larger than the diameter of the booth. Someone - the familiar welcome witch - announced that Level Two was coming.

"Thank you. Anyone here work on Six?" She eyed them, nodding at a wizard who raised his hand. "Uh, I need you to go to Six, tell them to lower the booth slowly, then put a freeze on its operations."

Petals drifted down while Fauna continued making the circle. One step - a purple petal on her hair - another step - a purple petal on her shoulder, darker than the red sparks that had fallen from the sky during December's cold moon.

Yavin's sweater with the snarling cat. The rusty red pelt on the dead man's shoulders.

Two dead wixes?

The purple flowers.

Wolfsbane.

"Who works on - You!" She pointed at a random employee who was sneaking forward to get a good look. "Go to Four. Yes, I need you to go to Four. Get Bruce or Spectre or someone from the Werewolf Wing..."

The booth groaned again and Fauna glanced up at it, wand hand flinching.

A slip of white parchment slid off the window and fluttered down, causing the crowd to inch back.




Down the hall, a group of red-robed Aurors hurried closer, their boots thudding. Fauna heard her name but did not look up. She stared at the illustration of the snarling dog. Her eyes narrowed. Her heart beat fast. Movement from the crowd made the flier flutter. Without thinking, she stomped on the edge of the flier with her boot.

Flicking her wand, she completed the red circle on the floor. Back to the start, to the prejudice and intolerance that had never gone away. Back to the red line contained within the red, glowing circle. Some things couldn't be stopped. Death hovered over them, raining petals, harmless as words until they weren't.