1000 hours


Alastair Ramakrishnan was a man of middling height and enduring stubble. Raine supposed him to be younger than he looked but the grey in his hair reassured her nonetheless, with all its accompanying allusions of maturity and world-weariness.

She sat across from him in the unusually modern study at the offices of Ramakrishnan & Rowan in Canary Wharf. This was a highly muggle area : towering, reflective buildings that served as a lighthouse for looking out over old central London to the west or the fashionable low brownstones of east. Raine had declined to have the Almasy’s usual lawyer on retainer, and sought out a firm with no direct ties to her late aunt. R&R was a far cry from the archaic glamour of the wizarding world. They weren’t the only ones.

The entire building (Ironically called The Coal Mine) was owned by wizards and witches who called themselves Futurists - a social movement she had only recently become aware of.

On her way up to 21st floor earlier, she noted the plaques indicating other magical investments. A spa took up at least two levels, as did the offices of a fledgling cosmetics brand and a popular broomstick manufacturer.

Floors nine up to thirteen were blank plaques. Raine suspected they belonged to Mysteries.

            “Miss Almasy?”

The witch looked away from the skyline and back towards the lawyer sat at his glass table. Everything was glass. Floor to ceiling glass - a complex transparency that somehow obscured rather than revealed. Crystal sculptures, glass vases, crystalline knick knacks, modern hourglasses with emerald green sand. Ramakrishnan himself seemed apart from his surroundings.

The brown and beige wools of his three piece suit belonged in a dusty Oxford library. His handsome countenance, made innocuous by gold eyeglasses, allowed for a reassuring manner. It easy easy to see why he was one of two partners forming the firm.

He was the kind of man, she thought, who visited his old mother every Wednesday evening - and who kept a good, mousy wife at home. A plain but capable witch like the young landlady of a well-run inn or Moira McBoid . You felt that you could trust such a man.

“I apologise,” Raine responded mechanically, tired from a long week of training. “My mind was elsewhere. What did you say?”

            “We couldn’t find evidence of foul play.” Alistair slid forward a clean cut sheet. A4. “It’s likely there may have been instances of forgery but it will be impossible to ascertain. The man in question is dead.”

She blinked. They were examining her inheritance - the last few months had been nothing but going over everything Ira had left[1] to Raine, inch by inch, combing for criminal misdemeanours. Sometimes they found things they could report to level two; discrepancies, evidence of blackmail.

Nothing from recent years of Ira’s life though. Alistair had turned up little for them to discuss in their last five weekly meetings. The redhead didn’t expect today to be any different.

And yet, Alistair’s brow betrayed the slightest of concerned wrinkles.  “What?” Raine asked flatly, glancing down at the document but finding nothing of interest in the gibberish of numbers and legal terminology.

            “He died last week. In a house fire.” The lawyer slid over another document. “And this fellow died just last month, before we could verify whether his authorisation on the Budapest holdings were authentic. Drowned in his own tub, if you believe it. ”

Ah. She picked up the second sheet and sighed.

“You think someone is housekeeping.” Raine’s eyes flicked up to his face, where a cynical smile met hers. “You think someone is housekeeping on my behalf?” she rephrased more delicately.

1.	26th April 2011 - Disturb the Sound of Silence

         “The thought occurred to me,” Ramakrishnan confessed, shrugging, "but you would have chosen a different solicitor, if so."

Raine laughed and slid the papers into her handbag. She wished she could just ask her parents to deal with all this but the terms of Ira's will had fallen specifically to her - as an adult witch. And it was an interesting break from being an auror trainee on level two, where she was treated like a kid. Here, at least, she played the role of a young woman of the world.

“Anything else?" she asked, and rose to her feet.

              “No. Storm's work for your aunt appears to be perfectly in order," the wizard replied as he got up to walk her to the door. "Or at least as in order as freelancers can be," he added dryly. "I'll get in touch with law enforcement about the mysterious deaths. They're out of our jurisdiction but who knows?"

"Thank you." Raine paused at the door, where they shook hands as they did every week. "Be careful, won't you? If someone's housekeeping, I'd rather they didn't see you as part of their chore."

Alistair Ramakrishnan smiled grimly and nodded.