Late Afternoon, Department of Mysteries foyer.


Virgil Carstairs checked his pocket watch, vivid blue light of the torches flickering against his sullen face. They should be down any moment now. The Hall of Prophecies had received word from two to expect a couple of visitors who needed to watch the vision[1] that had been logged this past weekend. The same vision he and Fauna had tried to push through[2] on Law Enforcement not long ago so that something might be done about the violence they'd observed so vividly from the point of view of its victim.

He was upset. Rather, he had been upset on hearing the news yesterday. The Keeper of the Hall was more inured to such things and she tended to champion the impossibility of changing a vision (an opinion not everyone shared).

What was the fucking point of having a vision if you couldn't change it? Virgil put away his pocket watch and started fiddling with his trainee badge instead, impatient and nervous. They told him to show the outsiders because it was his vision and because it was tradition, amongst Unspeakables, to be there when one of your true visions was being observed. And he was curious, underneath the anger of having the vision largely ignored by the upper floors.

Perhaps, even in retrospect, the vision could help the investigation. All that awfulness and pain he felt, perhaps it wasn't in vain. The lift went Ding! and the doors drew open. Virgil snapped out of his melancholy thoughts and stood straight, hands behind his back.

1.	6th Jan - A Little Blurry, Or Maybe it's my Eyes
2.	7th Jan - Too Close to the Moon

Zora emerged from the lift in red Auror robes, her expression even more guarded and stoic as usual. It was how she reacted to stress, which there was plenty of. Not since the Azkaban break-out, not since Remembering Day, not since her wife became a werewolf. The battle between her department and her wife's was coming to a head and all the while they had a body on their hands. And no one, not anyone, expected to find the Dunnigans alive .

All that and a bag of crisps, she was now in the Department of Mysteries whom she'd been public about criticizing.[1]

There was a vision, they'd said, that had predicted the attack. Typical Mysteries nonsense to keep it to themselves. As Senior Auror she'd been sent down to view it. Iona always joked that Zora would never need training in Occlumency because she was hostile enough. The barrier had only heightened now that everyone knew that she and Iona stood on either side of the interdepartmental schism. Zora didn't have time to be sentimental. There wasn't space in her job and there wasn't space now.

There was a boy waiting for them, standing at something close to attention. Zora vaguely remembered him as a classmate of her daughter's; Mysteries was putting interns on this? Merlin.

"I'm Roh," she introduced herself bruskly.

1.	19 Oct 2011 - The Curious Case of Dementors at St. Mungo's

It had been a long, silent lift ride down to Level Nine.

The werewolf hunter was still intensely angry that Solomon Carstairs had assigned a baby-sitter to accompany him to the Department of Mysteries.  Level Two hadn't been interested in this goddamned vision back when it had been simply a mystery; but suddenly, now that it had proven true, their Department Head was tripping over himself to make sure Kurby couldn't view it on his own terms. 

Truth be told, though, there were worse Aurors to have to deal with than Zora Roh.  (Ed Pratt, for instance, whom Kurby was probably going to punch if he had to spend more than three seconds in his company anytime soon.)  He hadn't bothered to ask Ballentyne about the state of her home life, but he assumed that at least his former mentor's sunglass-clad, red-robed, usually taciturn wife probably wasn't happy about the way Carstairs had treated Four.  Roh wasn't an ally, but at least she wasn't loudly obnoxious.

Kurby had spent most of the ride down looking up at the ceiling with his arms crossed, tapping impatiently at his elbow as he waited for the lift to reach its destination.  The extended three-day patrol and consequent events had worn heavily on the werewolf hunter; though he was back in street clothes with his regular silver, he looked tired and drained, standing a bit more flat-footed than usual.

Finally, they reached their destination.  Kurby followed Roh out of the lift, mouth pressed tightly shut as he surveyed the boy who was waiting for them.  He looked young and a bit delicate, with clean-cut blonde hair.  Maybe Nemo's age, maybe a year or two older. 

Their young greeter was also wearing a Muggle-style shirt with a stylized red wolf head on it.  Kurby eyed it coolly, his eyebrows raised, and then glanced impatiently down the dark-tiled corridor.  However this kid's bad fashion judgement might be intended, he was restless to get on with the business that had brought them here.

            "I'm Roh," the red-robed auror stated, looking just as terse as the head of the Werewolf Capture Unit.

These two could stop a good party by walking into it. He had not been told who was coming down but he was braced for anyone - as well as for any kind of behaviour. Fauna was kind enough[1] to warn him yesterday that two and four were touchy about the vision, as apparently nobody on the latter floor had even been aware of its existence. That was as infuriating to him as it was to anyone else: two obviously didn't think much of glimpses into the future.

"I know," Virgil smiled dryly at Zora, "You're Waverly's mum," he looked at the gruff man just then, quietly clocking the raised eyebrows at his t-shirt. "And you're Kurby Bagnold." Almost certainly and fortunately nobody's parent.

The blonde turned to gesture down the corridor, walking forward with the expectation that they would follow. "Welcome to the Department of Mysteries. I'm Virgil Carstairs and I will be conducting your trip to the vision pool this afternoon," he moved with a light step and purposeful air.

They reached an empty room, in which several great doors lined the gleaming dark walls characteristic of their floor. Virgil was refraining from reaching out to either Roh or Bagnold's mind: as a rule, he never tried it with fully-fledged aurors or who might retaliate with violence if they felt something dodgy was up.

"Do you have any questions before we enter the Hall of Prophecies?" he placed his hand on a door handle, giving the visitors a watchful look. His eyes were especially clear in the blue light of the torches that were mounted between each door.

1.	Permission from Elle!

Virgil, a friend of Waverly's. He had the advantage on Zora who'd be in a pinch to describe Waverly's social circle beyond Gabby Dagon. He was the right age, but moved like he was older.

"Right," she acknowledged him, and then followed. She could almost feel Bagnold's hackles. If they were for her, he could stuff it down where he put everything else. If they were for this, then he was allowed. Because this place was unsettling like it was pulled from the mind of a demon-haunted architect's dreams. Their task was far worse. They came to a terminal and Zora looked around, determined not to let the eeriness get to her. Visions, pools, prophesies, or garish sweaters.

"Do you have any questions before we enter the Hall of Prophecies?"

Zora glanced over at Kurby, then shrugged. She knew next to nothing about anything that went on down here, (by design, obviously) but the Hall of Prophecies was known to most from the Second War. What had happened with Harry Potter and the others, the Death Eaters, Malfoy, Lestrange, and the thousands of destroyed prophecies. How Sirius Black was killed, how Albus Dumbledore faced Voldemort, it had all begun there behind that door in a glorified filing cabinet.

She'd not deny she was curious, but she wasn't a tourist.

"Let's just get on with it," she said.

Their younger guide had already lost points with his unfortunate choice in clothing.  But then, as the boy introduced himself as he started to lead the way down the corridor, Kurby nearly missed a step. 

Carstairs.

The werewolf hunter's eyes narrowed, his expression immediately tensing as he started after them, a few beats behind Roh and the kid.  He wasn't nearly versed enough in typical pureblood family appearances to recognize a member of the Carstairs family on sight, but now that the boy had given his name, he could see something of Solomon Carstairs in him: lean and lanky, with a comfortable confidence in his gait.

What the hell was this supposed to be?  Sending a Senior Auror along to mind him evidently wasn't enough for Carstairs; instead, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had apparently decided that Kurby needed one of his smug-arsed young relatives to keep him in line.

Jaw set, he followed behind the other two, practically radiating with prickly resentment.

Virgil Carstairs led them into a black room, its walls alternating between great dark doors and torches burning with bright blue flames.  The boy approached one of the doors confidently, laying a hand on the knob as he glanced back to check in with them.  "Do you have any questions before we enter the Hall of Prophecies?"

He caught Roh's glance out of the corner of his eye.  Kurby had a million frustrated, angry questions that he wanted to demand answers to; a million and one, he thought sourly, if he added why the hell Solomon Carstairs was going out of his way to drum up baby-sitting business for his young relatives to the list.  But there wasn't any point in asking any of those questions now, not until he'd seen the portentous vision himself.

The werewolf hunter kept his mouth firmly shut, letting the Auror's answer hang in the air for both of them.  Just get the hell on with it.

Perhaps it was the atmosphere down here but neither of the visitors were up for smalltalk. Roh clearly wanted this over with, and Bagnold looked like he would rather strangle Virgil than open his mouth to say anything approximating politeness. Well if they didn't have any questions...

He pushed open the heavy door and it creaked inwards. The gentle glow of orbs greeted them as they stepped through, and darkness stretched both forward and upwards for what seemed an eternity. The Hall of Prophecy was immense; its empty shelves only enhanced this impression, emphasising the vast spaces that lay ahead of the entrance. Right next to them, a woman happened to be sitting at a very large desk. This was the Keeper of the Hall of Prophecy, and she was looking into a stormy crystal ball set before her.

The desk itself was otherwise littered by rolls of parchments, different kinds of quills and inks, and large leatherbound tomes. Rothschild glanced up at the three of them, smiling sardonically at Virgil.

           "I wondered who they would send," she remarked before gesturing at one of the tomes with her wand and addressing the other two. "Names and signatures, please."

Virgil watched the records book flip open with a thud, and picked up one of the quills to hand over. "While we're here," he spoke softly, as if afraid to disturb the sleeping prophecies around them, "you should decide if you want to simply see the vision or if you would like to experience it entirely."

They, at least, had the option to choose.

"You won't feel pain, with the latter," Virgil explained while he watched them write in the book, "but you'll experience scent, emotion, things like that."

The witch behind the desk was stunning, and exactly the sort expected to be found in a place called the Hall of Prophecy. Something about her made far more sense than young Virgil. But perhaps nothing was to be expected in the Department of Mysteries other than the unexpected. A surplus of questions, a miserly hoard of answers, and Delphine oracles.

Zora took the quill without protest and quickly penned in an entry, before handing it off to Kurby. He was tight with anger. He was closer to Carter, had more at stake with the security breaches, but she had to wonder in all the years she'd known him how he could survive letting himself feel so much. The only way she could do this job was to feel as little as possible; feelings had always undermined her in the Auror Corps.

"Wait, what exactly is this vision?"

Zora had never experienced a vision. She'd imagined some kind of mirror or glass reflecting back a scene. That they'd gaze into one of these crystal balls. But the way Virgil said it, it sounded like something far more intimate.

He exchanged an uncertain look with Rothschild, trying to gauge whether the senior Unspeakable would prefer to answer.

Virgil knew by now that the Office of Prophetic Records was constantly trying to figure out the best way to exhibit its records - or at least to exhibit the visions, as the prophecies themselves could only really be witnessed by their subjects. Visions were a different game because they were much more numerous and it wasn't always very clear why people got them. Some visions were little more than glimpses of the future. Others, like his, were full-blown sequences.

            "They're like smaller prophecies," Carmen spoke first, tapping her crystal ball and then pinching her fingers together to indicate what she meant. "Marbles, yes? You will need to visit the vision pool to see them but you must immerse yourself in the pool should you intend to experience them."

The witch nodded past the trio, down one of the many endless aisles between the shelves. Virgil smiled weakly but gratefully at her and then gave the visitors a once-over from head to toe. "You may need to lose the silver if you're immersing, it's a rather reactive metal," he told Bagnold, pushing his lip out thoughtfully.

Kurby kept his mouth pressed firmly shut as he took the quill from Roh and stepped forward to the book.  He’d visited Level Nine maybe a dozen times during his nearly two decades at the Ministry, but never before to the Hall of Prophecy.  There was something about the ominous blue glow of the orbs above, of the rows and rows of shadowy shelves stretching onwards and upwards to eternity, that matched the darkness of his mood.  This was a place where different futures brooded, where the first hints of imminent disasters got filed away until they were realized into full-fledged calamity, just like the tragedy that had struck Alec Carter.

The Carstairs kid was still speaking, laying a choice out before them: either they could see the vision, or experience it in its entirety.  Kurby listened intently, trying to swallow back his frustration as he added his name underneath the Auror’s in neat printing, and then signed in the indicated place. 

He didn’t need to hear the answer to Roh’s question to know what his choice would be.  He’d come to Level Nine for answers.  Even if it meant suffering the attack in its entirety, fear and mauling and missing limbs and all, if there was anything about the vision that might impart a clue about who had attacked Carter, then he wanted to experience it with all of his senses.  At least this was something that he could do, rather than standing around the office and pretending to keep busy while he waited on someone else to bring more news.

Even the thought of having to abandon his usual magical protections didn’t phase him.  Kurby flashed the sulky Carstairs boy a quick, fierce grin; silver wasn’t the only thing that was reactive. 

“Like Roh said, then,” he said succinctly.  “Let’s get on with it.”

The answers provided by both Mysteries agents were not sufficient. As they started down the hall, Zora made sure to keep step with Virgil. Her robes whipped at her ankles.

"Who's vision is this, then?" she asked with more urgency in her voice than before. They'd been told very little, just that a vision may have foretold Carter's death, that it even have been materially relevant. But neither the content nor the source had been illuminated.

"What are we going to see?"

There was value in a first-hand witness by investigators, but Zora didn't love an ambush.

As he turned on his heels, leading them towards the forest of shelves and glowing orbs, Virgil had one of those awful lucid moments. The kind of moments where you realise how ridiculous all of this was, everyone with their serious faces and determined strides, as if though they could do something for Alec Carter now. The man was dead as a doornail, the window of opportunity to save anyone was gone.

He slipped his hands into his pockets and tried to lose the feeling before it bubbled out of his chest into a hysterical laugh. These two didn't seem like the forgiving sort.

Virgil only really knew Bagnold by reputation and the fact that he was a runner-up alongside Cepheus for Most Smoochable[1] Bachelor, which made no sense to him right now. Roh, however, he knew as Waverly's level-headed mother. And she was just full of questions today.

            "Who's vision is this, then? What are we going to see?"

The further they walked - taking the odd turn here and there - the darker it became. They were putting a good deal of distance between themselves and what few prophecies were on the shelves, insomuch that Virgil was now leading them through almost complete darkness. "The vision is from Alec Carter's point of view," he explained, ignoring the first question altogether, "and it starts the moment a Direwolf comes through his doors until time of death."

A gentle light began to penetrate the dark, from above. His eyes flicked momentarily to the sight coming into view over their heads: floating against the high ceilings of the Hall, glowing jellyfish and squid and cuttlefish drifted aimlessly. Tens and twenties of them, and then more and more, effervescent beings that shifted colours for purposes unknown to most.

The empty shelves on either side of the group were starting to fill up now. Not with orbs of prophecy, but with large candy shop jars full of clears glass marbles. Some of the marbles contained warm lights in them but most did not. Virgil drew his wand and flicked it at one of the jars as they passed - it levitated into the air, following.

It wasn't long before they emerged from the aisles, into a corner space on the other side of the hall. Sea life aside, there was nothing here except a heavyset wooden door and what looked like an old fashioned candy machine right next to it. He gestured at the jar, and it locked itself upside-down on to the machine, with an echoing click!

Virgil approached the machine and twisted the dial. A few whirrs and whizzles and snaps latter, a single dull marble fell into the slot below. He took it out, rolling it between his fingers.

"I'm required by protocol," he addressed Roh and Kurby in a soft voice, "to inform you both that anything you see here, besides this vision, shouldn't be discussed outside the Department of Mysteries. I know you want to get this over with quickly," his eyebrows rose, just a tiny bit, "but if you have any allergies or emotional triggers, now would be a good time to let me know."

1.	24th September - Most Smoochable Bachelor Announced!

Solomon Carstairs's young relative led them onwards, away from the soft blue light of the glowing orbs and deeper into the depths of the Hall of Prophecy.  These were the edges of the magical world that Kurby was never quite comfortable in, the strangeness that lurked in and around Level Nine.  As they wandered deeper into landscape of the empty shelves, as the light behind them faded, he did his best to remember the path that they'd taken, but even that was hard to mark when there wasn't any pattern to the turns and everything around them looked the same.

He had already had an idea of the answer to Roh's second question.  The memo that Spectre had found on Carter's desk had given the basics: a direwolf attack from the perspective of the victim.  Taken in conjunction with what he'd witnessed the day before at the Department Head's house, Kurby had a grim suspicion of what they were about to attend to here.  Alec Carter's death had been gruesome and terrifying.  If they were going to experience the event firsthand, it would hardly be pleasant.

It was enough to make his stomach start to tighten with anger again.  If only Carter had stayed a little later and read the memo; if only Level Two had made a goddamned effort to warn them beyond firing off a piece of paper.  If someone had bothered to witness the vision before, maybe they could have done something to avert it. 

If, if, if.  That was where visions and prophecies got dangerous, Kurby knew; he'd learned that from watching his cousins.  At least now they were finally doing something with it, exploring the vision to see if there was anything else they could learn from it to prevent another attack.  That fact alone made it easier to shove his anger aside, to slow his breathing and focus on the task at hand as he followed behind the Carstairs kid, into the depths seeking whatever nightmarish tale to which he'd already witnessed the ending.

Light finally came in the form of strange-looking glowing creatures, which began to float and drift and swim along the ceiling above them in quickly increasing numbers.  Kurby glanced up, watching the school of small, tentacled creatures meander and drift overhead, flickering from color to color, as the Carstairs boy continued to lead the way forward. The bioluminescent little monsters looked like they'd be more at home deep under the surface of the sea, but they also seemed to pay no attention to the small party as they made their way underneath them.

Finally, they seemed to have reached the first stage of their destination: jars and jars full of little glass marbles, some with flicks of light like the prophecies had had.  The werewolf hunter raised his eyebrows, regarding one curiously as they walked by.  The Carstairs kid, at least, seemed to know what they had come for: he retrieved one of the jars with a flick of his wand, causing it to float along behind them as he led silently onwards once more, until they came to a corner with a large wooden door.

The sulky Carstairs kid finally halted there.  The jar of glass marbles deposited itself upside-down on what looked like a candy machine from Honeydukes.  The boy stepped forward and turned the dial, and a single solitary marble popped out.  Taking it in his hand, he turned to face them.

"I'm required by protocol to inform you both..." he started.

The warning not to talk about any of this was expected, but the final instruction, posed in a dark, ominous hallway with glowing sea creatures drifting aimlessly overhead, was almost funny.  Kurby barked out a humorless laugh, grinning back at the kid. 

"You want our life story to go along with that?" he retorted, spreading his hands as if to surrender.  "Our top three Boggarts?  Maybe our Gringotts vault number?"

The concern was a little hilarious.  The werewolf hunter grinned, and then gave a quick shake of his head.  He'd come face to face with more than one Dementor over the past two years, faced more than his share of monsters in the dark, human and otherwise.  If Level Nine wanted to test that, they could have at it.  He knew what they were likely to find.

 "I'm fine," he said matter-of-factly, arching an eyebrow at the kid.  "And I'm not in a rush."

This was ghoulish. She could see the value of such a vision; depending on how literal it was, maybe something could be gleaned about who'd killed Carter and why. But that was just it: it was a vision, not a Pensieve memory. Visions were symbolic and subjective at best, unintelligible dreaming at worst. It was someone else's vision and Virgil had declined to tell her whose. It mattered, and it mattered enough that Virgil didn't say.

But her follow up on that point was hushed when they arrived at a door. It was another space like she'd never seen before, haunting and somehow heavy, as if they were down too deep. More tour-guiding from Virgil complete with mysterious disclaimers and warnings.  He handled vessel of tiny orbs and fitted it into a stand. Kurby responded in typical Kurby fashion and she had half a mind to tell him to get over himself. Not that she could talk, considering her slightly public beef with Mysteries.

"Nothing to worry about," she assured Virgil, not keen to dwell on the foes in her glass, but instead pivoted back to her concern. She'd made the mistake of asking two questions at once which left space to slip out.

"Whose vision is it?" she asked again. "The context is relevant."

As Bagnold laughed, Virgil wondered at how the man made it on to Witch Weekly's bachelor list. He didn't emanate any positive vibes... perhaps some witches liked that. Liked them snarky and grumpy and weirdly intimidating. "You want our life story to go along with that... our Gringotts vault number?" The werewolf hunter quipped. Because he was a tough guy and Roh was a tough witch. Couple of tough people, talking tough words and walking tough walks.

"What makes you think we don't already know those things?" Virgil rolled his eyes, turning instead to face the auror to see if she had anything they should be taking into account. But she, too, didn't seem to have any concerns to express - just a repeat of her questions.

            "Whose vision is it? The context is relevant."

He knew they would have to find out, eventually. The idea of being questioned by either two or four did not appeal to the young wizard, however, so he had avoided telling them. Successfully, until this moment. By now most of the Unspeakables knew that he hated being put under a microscope and they didn't care enough to volunteer information to the other floors.

"It's mine." Virgil replied, with a voice that implied a patronising obviously, and kicked off his mules before turning to push open the door. "Shoes off, by the way."

In spite of its large size and hefty weight, the door made almost no sound at all. Virgil stepped in and wiggled his toes against the fine powder sand floor. The room was about the size of a very large classroom, though its ceiling stretched as high as the Hall of Prophecy; and like the hall, there were dozens of jellyfish and cephalopods drifting in the darkness above. Most notably was, of course, an immense barrel jellyfish that glowed the brightest.

It hovered just above a circular pond in the middle of the room, barely wide enough in diameter to fit a tall wix. The water shimmered like oil, catching snatches of green and purple and white on its dark surface.

Virgil continued speaking while he led them to the vision pool, unfazed by his surroundings. "I was scrying the full moon, for auror Blake, because I owed her a favour but I didn't receive the vision until I was trying to get to sleep on Friday," he stopped at edge of the pond and looked over his shoulder at the visitors. "Who wants to go first? You can only do it one by one if you want to experience the vision."