After the lunch hour


He had arrived at the Minister's office in one of his more conservative sweaters over a pair of black wool trousers. Sometimes you didn't need a loud knit to get attention, not when you had the ear of one of the most powerful wizards in Britain today. Yavin had come in today to update Edwin Glass on the goings-on of their meteorite issue.

The matter had made glancing appearances in the papers[1] but most Ministry staff knew that something had landed in a Scottish loch, and that it was being investigated by nine. Levels three and four had been a great help - their cooperation had meant having to operate with a slightly more open book than usual. Three to clear and maintain the area against muggles, four to evacuate the Merpeople village who had nearly been smack dab in the middle of the landing.

With things stable and under control, it was the best time to present matters to Glass. And hopefully to convince him the meteorite was worth investigating further.

"Good, ah, good afternoon, Minister." Yavin greeted the other wizard as he was let into the office, treading its plush purple carpet with a cheerful stride. "Or at least I hope it's been a, hah, a good one."

1.	Beyond the Front Page

“Mustn’t grumble,” Edwin agreed, stood gazing out of the enchanted window on a rare moment of reflection. His hands were clasped behind his back. Unlike his visitor, Edwin always dressed formally, and today was no different. Though his jacket hung over the back of his comfortable desk chair, he wore a long-sleeved shirt, waistcoat, smart trousers and tie. Today was a cream shirt and deep emerald green tie sort of day. His arms were folded behind him across the small of his back, and his silver-grey waistcoat was drawn in further than it had originally been cut for. At the angle Yavin approached, the unfortunate bald patch in Edwin’s thinning hair was all the more noticeable.

He caught a glimpse of Yavin’s choice of outfit in the window pane reflection. Possibly one of the most conservative he had worn into the office in recent memory. Had it been someone’s funeral today? He blinked away the thought and turned to greet Yavin, rather formally extending a hand to shake, given it had been a little while since their last private meeting.

“Thank you for coming, do sit down.” He gestured to the chair the other side of his grand desk. Today the blotter was empty, but one of the wire trays on Edwin’s desk was stacked with neat dossiers which appeared to lack labels to the casual onlooker. A low fire of mostly embers crackled in the grate to Yavin’s right, and behind him a grandfather clock ticked unobtrusively, indicating the constant progression of time.

“So, this business in Scotland,” he began, taking his own seat. He laced his fingers over his stomach. “In the loch. What’s the latest?”

He placed the folder he had brought on Edwin's desk before stepping back to take a seat, legs crossed and expression amiable. It had been some time since he was last here - was it that business with Miranda? - but not a great deal had changed, and the Minister of Magic was as ever himself. A man who kept his own counsel well. Obliviators.

            “So, this business in Scotland. In the loch. What’s the latest?”

"Stable enough to study," Yavin began, in a dry voice. "We, ah, we have constructed a temporary laboratory on the shore of the loch," he gestured loosely with one hand and the folder came open to reveal a stack of photographs, for Glass' viewing pleasure, "and have determined a twenty feet radius of effect."

That had been through trial and error, the braver and more daring of nine volunteering to test at what point the meteorite began its strange magics. Yavin had left it in the hands of Rosier and the Space Chamber's dedicated Unspeakables, such as Miss Arahanga, though he checked in often.

The topmost photograph was a landscape, taken from higher ground from the lab and featuring the meteorite still half-submerged in the water on a grey Scottish dat.  "Anyone who comes within, hm, within that twenty feet will experience sudden anxiety and fear. Then," he pressed his lips together, a wrinkle appearing between his dark eyes, "then the real, hah, real wonders begin."

He nodded at the folder, meaning for Edwin to look at the other photographs.

"Materialisation or, um, that is, manifestation of fears. Real, concrete manifestation, Minister. Out of thin air or, hm, or water it would seem." Yavin took off his spectacles, shaking his head with a half-smile. "Remarkable. We have the, ah, the area under control for now but we're working on a way to transport the meteorite."

The next photograph was not taken at the loch, but in one of Level Nine's dissection chambers. A kind of large mortuary with emerald green tiles. It exhibited in stark lighting the naked body of Mortimer Gamp's deformed[1] manifestation - a neat incision had been made in his soft chest, pulled apart to reveal its interior. Even without looking at the half-developed organs, one could already tell the creature possessed an almost fetus-like quality. A fesh translucence.

"One of the trainee's fears at the first reconnaissance" he added lightly. "We have um, manifested him multiple times to compare. They're all the, hah, the same."

1.	11th December - Terror Can Fill Any Space

The Minister sat calmly at his desk. His gaze moved from one photo to the next, listening to Morgenthau’s explanations keenly. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the corpse. He reached out, grasped that photo between thumb and forefinger and then slid the others towards him by the edges of the developed frames. He arranged them over his blotter. The Minister’s expression was one of mild disgust mixed with disbelief.

“When you say all the same, Yavin,” Edwin eventually spoke, chin lifting from inspecting the morbid gallery on his desk, “How long did these things ‘live’?” They looked half-formed, as if given time they might develop into something more corporeal and entirely human. Merlin, Mortimer Gamp would have rejoiced at such an incidence in his time in post. Perhaps these photos could be copied and used as a ‘treat’ for the unstable former Head of Department, if he ever fully explained the details of his macabre research this time last year. “If these are manifestations of fear - are they as comparable to a boggart? What other … things.. have manifested?”

The Minister had questions and, luckily, Yavin happened to have some answers.

"Outside of the twenty-foot radius? Lived about a good, ah, good hour," he eyed the photos as he leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed. "Inside the radius, about four or five. The ones that didn't drown anyway."

There had been some stir amongst the Unspeakables about whether it was humane to keep testing the meteorite by allowing human-like creatures to manifest and then watching them die; but they all had stomachs strong enough to keep going. Curiousity could harden a heart as much as anything else.

"Based on preliminary observations with our volunteers," Yavin half-smiled to himself, a little proud of the trainees who had stepped forward for the experiment, "the fears vary. Not a singular fear such as a boggart might become but, hm, but whatever comes to mind in a heightened state of anxiety and fear."

There was more wiggling room there - and in fact the only reason they kept using Mortimer Gamp was because Virgil, whose fear it was, happened to have a very short list of other things to manifest. "Our list of manifestations include a giant sea monster, a siren, several water snakes of a non-existent species, and, ahah, and two werewolves. We don't believe these creatures are, that is, we don't think they are sentient."

They barely seemed to live at all. Yavin made a gesture at the photos. "All there, all dissected. All of them transient."

A possibility to place this meteor somewhere strategic evaporated from Edwin’s passing thoughts. He was continually looking for something suitable to replace the long-absent dementors at Azkaban, especially since public opinion polls suggested that there was still no support for reinstating them - despite the last few years of disturbance. The thought was replaced with a morbid curiosity as to what might manifest if he visited the anomaly. But such visits were not to be entertained. Clearly someone up there had a deep worthy distrust of Mortimer.

“Are you proposing to leave it in situ for much longer?” Edwin asked, gesturing to the photographs. Running yet another outpost of the Department of Mysteries did tend to soak up more funds than conducting experiments on Level Nine he noticed. It was the same with any fieldwork, regardless of department. “Do you have suitable containment for it in London, or has the risk analysis suggested that would be unwise?” The Minister pondered aloud, his words hurried along with quick, inhalation, until the last. He fixed Yavin with a beady eye. “In other words, Yavin, what are your next steps?”

            “In other words, Yavin, what are your next steps?”

Edwin's curiousity about the object itself dwindled to more logistical concerns, and the older wizard smiled dryly at this question. "That, ah, that's a tricky question to answer without elaborating on another unusual facet of this meteorite."

Yavin was reluctant to bring it up - in this respect, he resembled former heads of Nine - because the implications were relevant to a recent short-lived illness spreading through Britain's wizarding population.

"It negates magic," he gestured, fingers wiggling expressively, "remarkably well. We've had to, hm, to use pick-axes and shovels to disturb its crust, and there are signs of a metallic surface underneath. To transport it would require, uh, require an evacuation of the areas around its path to nine. If we can get it here, we can contain it in our Labyrinth."

He lowered his hand to his knee, where it drummed a silent beat. Yavin cleared his throat. "We, um, we also suspect the meteorite is the source of Praecantatio_Deliquus."

“It negates magic… remarkably well…”

It appeared Yavin Morgenthau had brought something that might replace the dementors at Azkaban after all. Edwin held eye contact with the Department Head and tilted his head in a quizzical manner. He was intently interested once more, though suggestions of transport and any required evacuation was achievable, though disruptive, to the workings of the government. If conducted late on a Sunday night, it would have minimal impact.

“We … also suspect the meteorite is the source of Praecantatio Deliquus.”

“You do now?” Edwin replied, a rhetorical question. Morgenthau wouldn’t have brought it up if it wasn’t deemed pertinent and a distinct possibility. If he was in the habit of time-wasting, he’d be seeking a private appointment with Edwin more often than once every couple of months. “Interesting. Very interesting. And yet you feel that moving it wouldn’t cause another outbreak?” He asked, as if he hadn’t suggested moving the thing to London himself only a few sentences earlier.

“Explain how it negates magic.” Edwin shuffled the photographs to find one that depicted the object most closely. “Is that effect constrained to the same locus as these manifestations?” He gestured to the shuffled photographs.

           “Explain how it negates magic....constrained to the same locus as these manifestations?”

He sat forward slightly, glancing at the photo Edwin was looking at. A close-up of the smooth, exposed copper-like metal underneath the crust of the meteorite. "Not exactly. The negation of magic and the, ah, the manifestations are two separate phenomenons as fas as we can tell."

Yavin leaned back in the chair and paused - he had to gather his thoughts in the order it was best to convey them. The one issue with practically living on Nine was that he sometimes needed to remind himself that he wasn't speaking to an Unspeakable. Glass didn't need every single detail: just enough for him to do his job.

"The negation of, hm, of magic in the form of Praecantatio_Deliquus might occur if anyone has been within the radius, but will catch from person-to-person as we have seen." Yav gestured with one hand as he spoke, not quite looking at the Minister. "Now, the metal itself..." he pulled a face. "Any spells or charms cast on the metal simply... don't work. Tests have shown that the meteorite, um, the meteorite absorbs the magical energy. To what purpose we don't yet know."

In fact, Yavin had limited the number of magical tests on the strange object; there was a chance it was storing the energy. And Merlin knew what would happen when it reached capacity. "Touching the metal, when we can get, hm, get close enough, proves perfectly harmless."

Edwin paused a moment to let the information sink in. He shuffled the photos to better study one of the copper-like metallic surface that had been revealed by chipping back the crust. One could touch it with no immediately apparent ill-effect than temporarily negating one’s magic with Praecantatio Deliquus, and then risking transmission to the rest of the magical public.

“Have the group researching it been kept quarantined since this link was made?” They did not need a second outbreak. At least this incident was just an inconvenience and only fatal if circumstances around you meant being without magic left you defenceless. It wasn’t the contamination crisis which had proved rather deadly.

“You’ve not been able to penetrate the metal manually?” He asked somewhat rhetorically, he anticipated. “And what of its arrival? Are we any closer to speculating on its origins, given its purpose appears to be to absorb magic in some sense.” Dear Merlin, this really would have been right up Gamp’s street with his life’s research of magical potential. What a waste of talent.

“The other issue that puts me ill at ease now, is that it is absorbing energy. We do not want to be housing a magical bomb. What if it feeds off the wards and energies woven into the very fabric of this building?” The questions were delivered thoughtfully, rather than anxiously. Edwin was one for weighing up the pros and cons, for looking at both the short and long term picture, and then choosing to ignore what he saw if it fit his agenda.

            “Have the group researching it been kept quarantined since this link was made?”

A practical, good question.

"In a manner of, uh, of speaking. Only Unspeakables who have suffered, or are willing to suffer, the effects are allowed to work on the meteorite..." Yavin shrugged and gestured loosely with one hand. Those who caught it were immune afterwards so that was one less thing to worry about. "And we have, um, perfected an effective decontamination protocol post-interaction."

It had been by trial and error; the trial being the exposure of other Unspeakables to those returning from the loch, and quarantining them for long enough to detect symptoms after every attempt. Tedious - but there had been method to their madness. As was the norm on Mysteries.

Yavin decided not to tell the Minister that their 'protocol' involved being submerged in an odd mixture of liquids that included freshly squeezed orange juice and mammalian spinal fluid. He sat forward slightly as he answered the other questions, adjusting his spectacles.

"We have no concrete, ah, concrete information for point of origin. Its reverse-trajectory is beyond the scope of known habitable zones and our ability to, hm, to communicate over such distance is..." the old wizard smiled dryly at the Minister of magic. "Shall we say a moot point, at present?" Even with their experiments in time and space, they were merely dabbling in matters of unfathomable scale.

His gaze dropped to the photos on the desk and he tilted his head to the side, nodding at Edwin's concern about how the meteorite might effect the integrity of magic around them. "It doesn't actively absorb. It only absorbs that which is, I mean, which is cast upon it. Reactive absorption." Yavin ran a hand through his peppered hair, sighing.

"We believe it will be safe to house on nine but if you think it's better to maintain research at the loch..."

“Not if it continues to bleed our budgets as it is, Mr Morgenthau,” Edwin was quick to counter, extending a finger to emphasise his point.

“Very well, of no confirmed origin, absorbing only which is applied, and a safe containment within Level Nine. If you can guarantee these, Yavin, subject to submitting transportation plans for Level One scrutiny you shall move it to London before end of month.”

Edwin sat back and gestured to the photographs with both hands. The materials began to shuffle themselves back in order, lifting an inch from the blotter.

Those plans were best submitted with great urgency. Level One was not known for expediting the scrutiny process, especially not for difficult things. If Morgenthau tried to suggest he didn’t need approval, Edwin would not hesitate to remind him that Level One owned the doorstep of the building which that orb would have to pass over.


End