Donnan had not visited Iona's gravestone since December, when he and the family had first arranged a memorial service for her. He felt a little better knowing it was there, but he hadn't thought to go stand over the marker in a cemetery that Iona hadn't known, atop the earth in which she hadn't been buried, to reflect on her life and to wonder where her soul was now.

He thought about his daughter the most on his walks through the neighborhood and Diagon Alley, where she'd grown up. He thought about her when he glanced through her favorite books, or glimpsed a young lass with red hair, or whenever he passed by the Ministry entrance, or cringed at the sight of white flowers in the window of the flower shop.

She was there all around him, like when she'd gone missing. She was still there in his hopes and sorrows.

He just knew that this time, she wouldn't be back.

He no longer kept all the lights shining in his house every night, or swept the porch quite as thoroughly. That day when Duncan had brought him the letter from the Ministry, and he'd learned that Iona was living within Abby Reid's mind, he had felt so devastated and angry and hopeful all at once. Those written words had dictated her future.

So he'd written his own, to remember her past.

Posting the obituary in the paper had helped ease his mind. Spending time with his nephews the day after Christmas had helped, too. They'd all welcomed him into the fold so warmly. Moira had even offered to accompany him today. Maybe she was being nice out of pity, or because of the Iona that she'd known through Abby, but Donnan would take it.

He glanced around the old cemetery, calm and quiet on a Sunday afternoon. They'd apparated nearby from a wizarding pub he knew, which was easier on him than making one long trip.

"Alright, Moira?" He cleared his throat, adjusting the collar of his cloak against the wind.

"It's this way, near a large oak tree."

While Moira was used to passing by the grave on the farm every day, she was uncertain how she felt about actually visiting grave sites, other than maybe it being a little uncomfortable.

At home, passing her mom's grave was routine, a part of the landscape that had been there since she was five. There was nothing special or spiritual about it. She doubted Iona's empty grave would be any different.

Moira's first reason for agreeing to accompany Donnan on his visit was because she took Duncan's warnings to not go alone seriously. Her second reason, the bigger one, was curiosity. Perhaps by visiting the grave she could glean something about why it was potentially so dangerous. Thirdly, it was her day off. After running the farm by herself for a week at the beginning of the month, her new workload at home seemed extremely lacking. This visit to the grave gave her something else to do. Finally, Moira had a feeling that even if she hadn't agreed Donnan would go alone regardless.

There was also the fact that Iona had been a part of Moira and Abby's friendship since they first met, albeit in the background. As such, she knew Iona's loss was harder on Abby and her family than herself. Moira hadn't gone through several months of her life with Iona in her head and she never knew her cousin while she was alive. A couple of times her friend had let Iona's spirit come forward to let them talk. Well, more to allow Iona to ask her questions regarding the family in a typical Ravenclaw fashion.

The trip to the graveyard was uneventful aside from making it in two stops instead of just one. Donnan's request. At the older man's question she gave a nod of her head and began moving in the given direction beside him.

A large oak tree, he said, like the one at home over her mom's grave. Had someone seen the tree and decided on that spot, like her dad, or had the tree been planted after the spot was selected? Moira supposed it didn't really matter.

Moira was quiet. It didn't seem to be an unhappy quiet, but a state of being. If he knew her better it might be a comfortable quiet, but as it was, Donnan threw her a few glances every now and then and kept a slow, steady pace as they walked.

She had the day off of work, he remembered that. He didn't know much else about her other than her dedication in working with animals, something that she shared with her father and uncle. She had a hearty appetite - he knew from the holidays. She knew how to cook - he knew from a comment Duncan had made.

Family was important to her. She'd been there during the emotional reunion between him and his daughter in December, she'd been there for the memorial, and she was here now.

He hadn't been there for her when she'd lost her mother at a young age. His nephew had made that choice, which he was starting to understand. Angus had tried to keep the pain to himself, to bury it and shoulder it alone.

Donnan may have tried that this time, but the very nature of Iona's situation had required other people, other families to be involved. So here Iona was, surrounded by people in death. Her remains were still... out there. In the world. Likely with the Hunts, which he hated to think about. In spirit though, she was here, treated the same as everyone else, which was the least he'd ever wanted for her.

Here, on this cold but sunny day, where light and warmth slipped through the clouds, and the few trees rustled in the wind, and the greenery was tended to despite the faded names engraved on the aging stones.

There, just ahead, where a blackened, withered tree scarred the landscape.

Donnan came to a slow halt. Was this the right area? He'd walked it once in December. He would have remembered a tree like that. It couldn't be the oak tree near Iona's grave.

"This is it?" He squinted at the strange sight still a short walk away.

Donnan shoved his hands in his pockets and turned in a small circle. Right. This was it. None of the other trees looked like that.

He frowned, unease skipping quickly to irritation. What the hell had happened to her tree?

"Lass? Did Duncan mention anything to you about this?"

Moira kept to Donnan’s easy pace, an arm’s length away to his side. The young witch could see his glances from the corner of her eye though she was unsure how to ease his uncertainty. They had only seen each other a few times now, first when the family spoke to Iona and then on Boxing Day. The two of them were family and yet they were still strangers to each other.

Even if she were better at making conversation with people, Moira would not know what to say to him. What did people normally talk about in a situation like this, walking to visit a chiseled piece of stone? There wasn’t even a body buried under all the dirt in front of it.

Still, Donnan was important to her uncle and dad. She should at least make an attempt at speaking. If only she could find something to mention that didn’t include the weather or how quiet everything was.

Moira’s pondering was brought to a halt as they slowed at the sight of a blackened tree. It seemed so out of place, among all the greenery.

“No,” Moira answered his second question, frowning at the tree. The black marks stretching over the tree didn’t seem like they had happened the other day from what she could see from this distance, but there was still something new about them. Did this have anything to do with her uncle’s vaguely cryptic warning?

Not waiting for Donnan this time, Moira walked forward again. She hadn’t expected to find any clues to what Duncan said but there was a giant one right in front of them.

Once she was close enough, Moira’s eyes slid to the grave and she halted again though much more suddenly than before. At the base of the stone rested a skull surrounded in a heart of white flowers. Her hair stood on end and her shoulders tensed.

“Donnan.”

No. Moira's one-word answer didn't surprise him, though he wondered if Duncan had also told her to avoid visiting the grave alone. Donnan had waved him off and grumbled, but in the end he'd listened because family needed to stick together in these times.

Donnan glanced around the cemetery, his stomach twisting in a knot as he followed Moira. Other trees stood tall and bare and whole, shading the gravestones from the sun. Had a lightning storm hit recently, during a cold winter rain? Why Iona's tree? Why the tree nearest her grave?

The tree loomed stark and skeletal. Moira had just stepped underneath its broken branches.

"Lass," he said sharply, hurrying to catch up.

She has a name, the memory of his daughter's voice reminded him.

Iona's voice in his head and Moira's voice in the air urged him nearer the tree. Scorched from the top down, it held a whiff of autumn, of fire and decay, of wilted flowers and churned earth.

He'd brought no flowers with him. He never would.

He looked down at the gravestone with Moira, expecting to find it chipped or charred. A hairline crack ran through the stone and a dark smudge blotted Iona's name.

But none of that mattered. At the base of the stone, a skull grinned. Flowers curled like yellow, grasping claws around the yellow-white skull, leaving only its gaping eyes untouched.

Seconds passed. Donnan froze beside Moira, his breathing steady and silent to his ears, his heartbeat so steady he could scarcely feel it, his mind skipping back to his earlier concern.

Had lightning struck the tree behind them?

Trees could blacken and burn in an instant, destroyed by one crooked finger from the sky.

Trees could burn from the inside too, hollowed by fire, each ring of time cut from sapling to giant, years scorched beneath graying bark. Until one day the tree would split down the middle, smoke billowing from cracks in the branches, flames feasting openly for all to see.

Donnan had his arm out, he realized by the ache in his shoulder. He'd stretched his arm out to shield Moira, though she'd already seen what he couldn't look away from.

"Don't look. Stand back," he whispered hoarsely, making no other move.

How far did the roots go? They'd disturbed the dirt that cradled the skull.

The human skull grinned up at Moira while Donnan caught up to her, almost an eerie taunt in its smile.

Moira stepped back when Donnan’s arm raised up in front of her though not because of his instructions. The sudden proximity had surprised her, causing her to move away without thinking about it first.

The tree was closer than she had thought as Moira found her back against the trunk. An electric shock danced over her skin and the witch rubbed at the back of her arm where it had been the strongest. Leftover electricity in the blackened wood? Strange.

Moira stepped forward again, resting a hand lightly on Donnan’s arm so he would lower it.  She opened her mouth to speak but had to pause and clear her throat of an itch first. Trying again, she said, “It’s just a skull.” Having seen much worse in her past, working with animals was not always a pretty sight, the skull’s presence was not her biggest concern.

Who had put it, and the flowers, there? Who had put a smudge over Iona’s name? Not many people came to mind and only one name stood out the most.

Stepping closer to the disturbing scene she crouched down. “Should we call for an auror?”

In all truth, she wasn’t sure what aurors could do at this kind of scene besides take notes and cast a few spells that would lead nowhere. The decision was Donnan’s, though. Iona had been his daughter. Moira hadn’t known her when she was alive and in her own body.

The hand on his arm helped his thoughts settle. The word, the naming of a thing, brought him to earth with jarring impact. Donnan's eyes darted to the girl's.

He let his arm fall and his shoulders hunch.

Just a skull. A skull. They were looking down at - her? - skull. It looked dry and pitted and yellow-white as the flowers.

If he knelt, if he touched it, he didn't know what he would do.

The girl knelt. Her hair was dark enough to mistake for auburn in the patchy sunlight, and she wore simple clothes and set her jaw so stubbornly.

"I-" He cleared his throat, subconsciously mimicking the sound she had made earlier.

"Moira," he found her name. "Careful."

He glanced around the cemetery at the stones and the trees without really seeing them. His hands began to shake at his sides.

Should the Aurors come here? For what? They'd hardly searched for Iona. They'd been so quick to send her to a final death. They hadn't yet captured her killer.

He frowned at the terrible bouquet left before her gravestone. The faint smell of wilted flowers made his stomach churn. A thought circled around his head, another he couldn't quite name.

"I don't know. They won't fix the tree."

Moira stared at the skull in the time between Donnan's cautioning words and his response. She didn't know if the skull had belonged to Iona or someone else. Studying the age of bones had never been something she considered. She still didn't, it wasn't something important to the care and comfort of living things.

At Donnan's answer she glanced up, puzzled. The tree again. Looking back at it Moira didn't think it could be fixed. There was no point dwelling on that right now.

With a small sigh the witch stood up and stared down at the skull again, arms crossed. Calling for aurors was not something she wanted to do. Her name had already come up too many times in the recent months.

Thanks to her patronus, her involvement in December's full moon was known to a small extent and the rumors were speculative from what she had heard. Fortunately, despite her blunders, Fig's name was not involved in any of those.

Then there was the incident where she turned the Runespoor token in to the auror Jonas Trevelyan. Moira had kept her answers simple and somewhat vague, but she had no idea what all he had pieced together or even who he had told.

She really wanted to just clean all of this up. Sweep it under the rug. She did not want to give Lorelei more power in thinking the McBoids were cowed and frightened.

However.

"The tree's beyond help. They can probably figure out who the skull belonged to, though," Moira said, thinking again that she really did not want to call them.

The skull. The skull again. Donnan glanced back at the ruined tree, the lines on his face falling into familiar sorrow. Bits of charred bark were piling against the roots and drifting onto the grass and smudging the grave. The tree had been dying for a long time, he thought, back when the days were colder than this one. But the skull?

The skull belonged to...

"We should call them," he tested the words out in a slow, measured tone.

"If it's real?"

He gestured at the arrangement. The faint smell of the flowers tickled the back of his throat, like the flowers found in the woods near the lakehouse.

He looked at Moira, his heart rate catching up to the horrors swirling in his head. Did she not see it too? She did. She was staring down at the skull with her arms crossed. She'd sighed a moment ago. Her face had looked puzzled... he didn't know when.

Someone had disturbed the ground beneath his feet, but Moira stood apart.

Donnan took a shaky step back from the grave and reached for the tree, his palm inches away from the blackened trunk.

Moira nodded some at his question. This whole thing was too absurd to not be real, and she certainly didn’t dream about skulls, flowers, and graves.

Donnan appeared to be too shaken to alert any aurors about the situation, which left it up to Moira. She would be contacting level two regarding something sinister. Again. She hated this.

At first she considered just shooting up red sparks but those were for emergency situations. This was not, in her mind, an emergency. She didn’t feel like she was in mortal danger or that someone was watching them from the shadows. There certainly wasn’t a werewolf chasing her.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Moira stepped away and pulled out her wand. She was only vaguely aware of Donnan leaning against the tree. The witch stood, ready to cast her patronus and paused. How was she supposed to word this?

After a few moments of thought, there was no way around the bizarre situation, she cast her patronus, said her message, and sent it off to the department of Level Two.

Her message began with their location and then, “There is an unidentified skull placed in an arrangement of flowers over Iona McBoid’s gravesite. Please send someone to investigate.”

Now all they could do was wait.

Fifteen minutes later...

He'd been promised a quiet day on Level Two, which was why Jonas had agreed to trade Bailey for the Sunday shift.  But that had changed when the large, lumbering silver bear had made a return appearance at the Ministry.  This time, it had manifested in the middle of the Auror office's break room, startling a poor trainee into dropping the coffee pot when Moira McBoid's matter-of-fact Scottish voice had cut in out of nowhere to warn them that an unidentified skull had been found.

After the chaos that had resulted from the last appearance[1] of the bear patronus, Jonas wasn't taking any chances on another ambush.  Luckily, Omari Warrington was also on the shift that day, and his fellow Auror had gamely agreed to scout out the mystery that had triggered Moira McBoid's call for help this time.

With a crack, the first of the two crimson-robed Aurors popped into existence not far from the gravesite.  Jonas glanced briefly about, wand in his hand, and then spared a look at his taller colleague.  Even if this was another planned deception by Tawse, at least he felt reasonably confident that the big Scottish wizard wouldn't murder him on site.

But there were no wolf-like creatures in site; no disgruntled ex-Azzies; no sign of a magical net overhead or any hint that anything was out of kilter.  The red-headed Auror lowered his wand, still keeping it in hand as he started to make his way towards the grave.

Moira McBoid was waiting for them in person this time, standing under the withered black husk of a burned tree.  The girl looked much the same as the last time he'd seen her, when she'd made an appointment to meet him in his private office.[2]  Jonas glanced at the older man with her as they approached; he had dark bushy brows and wiry gray hair, but the stubborn set to his chin gave a hint of family resemblance to the reserved teenager.

"Miss McBoid," he said politely, arching an eyebrow at the girl.  There was nothing malicious in his tone, but he couldn't help the dryness that leaked into his next observation.  "I didn't realize your patronus had made a habit out of paying visits to the Ministry."

1.	December 11, 2011 - Cold Moon
2.	December 27, 2011 - Hidden Currents

Omari didn’t mind working Sundays, it gave him an excuse to not visit the pub the night before, something that he had promised his mother that he would do less of in the new year. Yes, a day at the office shuffling parchments wasn’t really his idea of a great weekend, but seeing as his fellow Auror Jonas Trevelyan was on the same shift made Omari warm to the fact.

But then a large patronus in the shape of a bear had appeared in the office, seeking help, and Omari had jumped on the idea of joining Jonas before Jonas had even finished asking. As he had grabbed his crimson robe and slung it on, Omari saw a younger trainee by the coffee machine. With a couple of quick steps he had gone over, grabbed the grey-haired witch by the arm, and given her a wink. "We might need some o'that, lass."

Together they had promptly left the office, their crimson robes on, and apparated out of there.

They had apparated into a chilly graveyard, the gloomy grey skeys making the scene even more fitting. Omari was holding his wand ready, having been warned by Jonas that this might indeed be a trap, and was scouting the area with his trained eyes, looking for any sign of bad play. But there wasn’t any he could see. And seemingly, neither did Jonas, as the shorter Auror started off towards a witch and a wizard, standing by a grave with a looming black-burnt tree next to it.

“Miss McBoid,” Jonas said, and Omari recognised the name. After all, Scottish wixen usually knew of each other, and a family like McBoid, famous for their winged horse breeding, was not some that flew under Omari’s radar.   

As Jonas was addressing the witch, Omari’s eyes landed on the grave. A yellowing human skull lay at the base of the grave, surrounded by white flowers. It gave Omari a vague sense of unease, and he looked back up at the couple.

“A bit o’ a grisly decoration ye’ve got there,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

Gris wasn't happy she was in today, she had hoped for a quiet weekend after her night out with Tess, but then she decided to go in and get a start on her work, one thing led to another and now she was apparated into a field with two fully trained Aurors. Although she felt that her weekend plans were the least of an issue when she followed them and apparated with them to the location.

One of them had gripped her shoulder, making her flinch in surprise at the sudden grab and the wink had more then a little unnerved her, seeing a fully trained auror going off into the field and winking at you was not something you ever expected, nor was it something she wanted to see again. But they had said they'd need coffee so she followed along after making a couple of thermos's, best of luck to whoever wanted coffee next as she hadn't had time to refill it or anything.

Now the three of them stood there in their red robes, out by a dead tree and with two rather somber people nearby. Of course the first thing one of the her seniors did was crack a joke about the situation, this didn't feel the time for such a thing, was it? Also followed by the other senior auror making another joke of the situation, if this was how professionals acted then she may be working too hard.

Wand clutched in her hand and her bag of thermos's in the other, she did her best to stay a little back from the two seniors, she didn't want to get in their way, she wasn't even sure if they meant for her to follow, perhaps the coffee was a joke at her expense and she had took it as a call to arms. She thinks she recognizes one of the two people there, a former Hufflepuff housemate but she kept low, to herself, even upon seeing the skull.

"Should I set up some protective spells?" She asked the two Aurors quietly, prepared to set up spells to hide the area from outside view, even if others weren't around, it was a good idea to hide the three red robed people and the skull from onlookers, it wasn't a good look, especially with the burnt tree and desecrated grave.

A static shock traveled up Donnan's arm as he rested his hand against the tree. Donnan lifted his palm, and set it against another part of the tree. Lightning, he thought again. Lightning had struck the branches and burnt the bark and made it flake against his skin.

The patronus ambled away and Donnan gave Moira a grateful nod, his eyes barely meeting hers, barely seeing her. She'd called the Aurors in their own language. Arrangement of flowers. Unidentified skull. It was his responsibility to look and to know, but if he kept looking, he wouldn't be any use to anyone.

Donnan kept his gaze on a point somewhere over Moira's shoulder. The time that passed could have been minutes or hours, but he kept his gaze on that point in the distance, letting the horrors in his mind settle, to tuck themselves around memories and words and thoughts that might be obvious to him later, like tree or grave or - don't think it, don't look - but could be just as innocuous, like the rustle of dry branches above, the raven that wouldn't shut up a few trees over, the ground uneven beneath his feet, the smoky and wintry smell in the air, or the way the sunlight dappled against the patchy grass. He wouldn't know until later.

Cracks split the air - one, two, then three - and jolted him enough to make him almost look, but he stepped away from the tree, closer to Moira.

He stared at the three of them. They must have heard the name of his daughter and understood the urgency, or else it was a slow Sunday. His gaze flicked to the girl with the gray hair and the very young face, which was not what he expected, and back to the red-robed Aurors who had spoken.

One of them was familiar - the one that his daughter had told her story to through the voice of Abby Reid.[1] The other sounded as familiar as the moors around here, but no more than that.

He took a few steps forward to face the Aurors, the skull's grin following him. He tried to think of Moira. His fingers curled in at his sides, protesting the cold and the tension in his arms.

"This is my daughter's grave," his voice sounded like the soft edge of aged parchment, the kind so thin that the pages stuck together.

He cleared this throat.

"My daughter," he said too gruffly, too loudly.

"Iona."

Her name felt more important than his. Though if they were familiar with Iona's name, they might know his - that he'd visited the Ministry in November, reconciling with his daughter before Level Nine had sent away her soul.[2] They might know that Lorelei Hunt had murdered Iona back in 1989, and that her body had not been recovered with the others buried in the woods.

"We found it like this a few minutes ago."

Ruined like this. Minutes ago, he supposed.

"The tree, too."

He rubbed his fingers against his thumb. A dark flake drifted from his hand to the ground.

1.	November 21: Never will I sleep like that again
2.	November 26: Two Voices in One

Moira could almost feel it when her patronus vanished. Message received. They didn't have to wait for long before the aurors, more than the one necessary, arrived with wands drawn. Likely they were half expecting a fight. Considering who it was that answered her request it wasn't so surprising.

She stood still, statue-like, as the two aurors approached with a trainee trailing behind them. While Moira was not familiar with the taller wizard she thought she recognized the trainee, though she wasn't sure where she might have seen her. Maybe at Hogwarts. That wasn't important right now.

Looking to Trevelyan when he stopped in front of her Moira barely suppressed the urge to defensively cross her arms. The wizard might not have any ill will towards her but she didn't need the reminder about her first patronus alerting Kurby and the aurors about the werewolf. Her mistake. Had Jonas been witness to that, too? Not important.

"She likes to make sure Level Two has enough to do," Moira replied, instead. Perhaps that would have been better as a silent thought but it was too late now.

Further awkwardness, at least on her part, was avoided when the other auror spoke up about the 'decor'. Glancing over she shrugged a shoulder, "That's why I called."

Maybe this meant they'd start investigating the scene, take any evidence, and leave. Why was it everyone wanted to talk so much and waste time? Well, maybe it wasn't such a waste where Donnan was concerned. He seemed to be really shaken up by everything, moving at a slower speed than everyone else.

Then the older wizard stepped forward and spoke. Moira grew quiet when he did, letting his voice be the only sound in the gloom. Iona's name floated away through the air from his lips then fell like a dead weight.

The two of them had come here so Donnan could visit Iona's grave. The gravestone was where it should be but at its base rested an insult made worse by all the surrounding destruction. How much more did the old man have to suffer before all of this was done? Surely just learning about his daughter's death was more than enough.