The surface of the mirror had been cloudy with the astral fog all morning -- or so Aviad grumbled, as he tried to shift his position to something that wouldn't give him an automatic crick in his neck.

Through the floorboards, he could hear buzzing from the pub as the Black Chimaera began to yawn and come to life. Cinaed Tawse's elicit establishment had begun to quietly grow in popularity, a haven to those who looked for respite and company outside the Ministry's watchful eye. These days, it woke up early and stayed busy long into the late hours, filled with camaraderie and a sort of viscous freedom at being outside the magical government's long reach.

The silver mirror sitting on the floor before him had been uncooperative all morning. Aviad heaved a sigh as he settled to sit cross-legged, trying to ignore the incessant grinding sound that came from his skeletal familiar gnawing on the edge of the nearby wooden table. Closing his eyes, he drew a breath in, held it, and counted to ten, attempting to hold the image of the mirror in his mind.

Opening his eyes slowly, his gaze settled on the glass. 

This time, the faint, roiling fog seemed to clear.

He saw a stoop, its color dulled by the drab tones of a winter's day. In front of it, a path meandered through a neglected garden. Although the light dusting of snow certainly didn't help, it was clear that the inattention here ran much deeper: the abandoned plants either grew wild beyond their beds or had withered and turned brown long before.

Wisps of mist were already licking at the edge of the image, but now the scene was drifting slightly, as if whatever he were peering through was shifting too, turning aimlessly in a light breeze. On the edge of the glass, he could just see the hazy silhouette of a building -- a greenhouse, he knew, guarded by wards of its own. And then, at the other edge of the glass near the entrance to the garden, he saw two men approaching, clad in dark colors that stood out against the faded grays and browns of the little yard.

For a moment, he might have taken them for Muggles -- relatives of the farm's one-time occupants, returned to poke around again in business that was no longer theirs -- but then one of them freed a wand, raising it as he squinted in the direction of Aviad's vantage point. The wizard turned to say something to the man next to him, but he was too far away for the scrying to pick up his words.

Aviad smiled faintly, letting the fog come rushing in to fill the mirror once more. Visitors at the farm. Finally.  If Lorelei Hunt could tear herself away from her petty cruelties and daily troubles with her brother, then she might allow herself to be pleased.

Reaching into his pocket for a cigarette, he rose to find his mistress.

Near the Wold family's old farm
Wiltshire

Jonas wasn't sure whether to count himself extraordinarily lucky or extraordinarily hapless that Solomon Carstairs had chosen this, of all exercises, to stretch his legs and take to the field once more. Ever since Abby Reid had come tumbling into the Ministry's atrium back in August, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had taken a special interest in the investigation.[1] He'd made it clear soon afterwards that the Auror was to report any findings to him directly.[2] It had also become extremely evident that Carstairs had his own personal interest in the case.[3]

And so, when Jonas had relayed his suspicions after his meeting with Wesley Wold[4] back in January, Carstairs had made it glaringly clear that he intended to come along on any visit to the Wold family's old farmhouse.

At least it wasn't as much of an imposition as it might have been with other past heads of the department. Carstairs had given up the red robes of the Auror Corps not too long before, and though Jonas had never truly been friendly with the older man, there was a sort of camaraderie that came from the uniform. (Maybe an unhealthy one, part of his brain couldn't help but think.) Carstairs was a bit stodgy, but he was good with a wand and he wasn't about to charge headfirst into an unknown and potentially dangerous situation, which put him legions head of both Rosier and Raynor, as far as the red-headed Auror was concerned.

They'd apparated in a bit away from their destination, on the road that led from the Muggle village nearby.  Jonas had forsaken his crimson robes for the adventure today. Instead, he was considerably less conspicuous in a black Muggle peacoat and a matching Greek fisherman cap, prepared to assimilate in the event that any of the neighbors noticed them.

"You know, sir, if you're looking for regular patrols again, you could always say something to Pratt," he said cheerfully, having not relented on the good-natured chatter since they'd met up on Level Two earlier. If Carstairs was going to invite himself along on this endeavor, then at the very least, the Auror was determined to extract a friendly conversation as payment.

"I reckon an extra wand's always welcome these days, especially with all the madness around the full moon, innit? Not to mention," he added good-naturedly, as they approached the turn-off to the path that led to their destination, "if you catch him in the proper mood, he might even find you a route that doesn't involve taking a stroll around duck ponds."

1.	August 3, 2011 - In Grief and Ashes
2.	August 18, 2011 - Smoke on the Horizon
3.	November 21, 2011 - Never will I sleep like that again
4.	January 18, 2012 - Mother cannot guide you, now you're on your own

Solomon lit a cigarette with a lighter as his companion continued with jokes and pleasantries - charming in themselves, if somewhat unfamiliar to the older of the two. As an auror he hadn't worked much with Trevelyan. In the position of department head head, his interactions with Jonas were as frequent and professional as they were with most others.

Perhaps that was all for the better. Sol's interest in this investigation was personal: Iona, the siblings she named. The pentral had laid down a thread and he intended to see where it led... after all, a certain length had passed through his own experiences at Hogwarts.

The intimacy of his interest was better balanced by Trevelyan's unfamiliarity, then.

He tapped the end of his cigarette as they turned down the path leading to the farm, frost crunching underfoot. "You suppose Pratt is merciful enough?" Solomon snorted a cloud of smoke. "No, he gets too much pleasure out of it. I'd be doing circles in Regents Park until the autumn months."

It was a fine day, considering. Cold and cloudy but perfectly pleasant if you lived in these parts he imagined. He was dressed much in the way he would in Cambridge, which was close to his country home. To many it seemed as though he lived in office suits and robes, always prepared for a meeting. In reality, Solomon had grown up a country boy. He was very much at home here.

With his trousers tucked into his boots, woollen cap pulled down slightly over his eyes, Sol looked like the kind of stranger you would let in to your kitchen through the back door.

"We're being led on a merry chase, aren't we?" he glanced at Jonas, curious. "These pentrals, dredging up the past. As if there isn't enough future to worry about."

That sounded like something Morgenthau would say. It was true, though.

He could think of plenty of merrier ways to go about a chase than poking around a long-abandoned farmhouse during the cold of early March, but he was hardly about to correct his supervisor's supervisor. Jonas gave a good-natured shrug as his boots crunched along the light frost on the path. The idea that it took a pentral to dredge up the past had to come from someone who had had the privilege of mostly ignoring it. As a Muggleborn who had lived through You-Know-Who's rise, an average day at the Ministry held plenty of reminders.

"I reckon the rest of the Ministry's there to deal with the future, though, yeah?" he asked cheerfully, flashing a lopsided smile at Carstairs. "If we Aurors don't take it upon ourselves to worry about the past once in a bit, who else is there to do it?"

The path had taken a sharp turn away from the main road, running perpendicular to it as it led them toward the little farm, set against a hill.  It was easy to see the point where the land stopped and the garden began: up ahead, the dirt path was overgrown, thick with vegetation that had come spilling out of its beds, impatient at its neglect.  Against the rising low hill, he could make out the outline of a small cottage, the outline of a strangely-shaped barn just behind it. As the breeze shifted to blow towards them, it brought with it the tinkle of a lonely wind chime, hailing them with a sad, solemn welcome.

Carstairs did have a point though, Jonas had to admit. The whole mess with Lorelei and Leander Hunt had seemed like nothing else so much as an eternal chase ever since they had caught Level Two's attention at the end of summer. No one had truly confirmed a sighting of either sibling since August, when Abby had come stumbling out of the atrium's fireplace with strange red hair and a distressing tale.

There had been hints, certainly: Wesley's odd dream, the strange harassment of the McBoid family, even the rumors of something strange happening at the haunted dress shop where Leander Hunt had reportedly once gone to purchase unicorn blood. But the warlock and his sister had seemingly faded into the shadows as soon as their lake house citadel had fallen.

It was concerning.

"Anyhow, don't tell me you'd rather deal with the werewolves than this, sir," he remarked dryly, arching an eyebrow at Carstairs. The extended watch for the full moon, made necessary by the direwolves, was due to start the next morning, which meant that Level Two was unfortunately slated to try and deal with the undiplomatic hijinks of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for three days straight. "At least the Unspeakables have been mostly cooperative about the pentrals."

             "If we Aurors don't...worry about the past... who else is there to do it?"

He smiled dryly at Trevelyan as they drew closer to the farm, a cottage and greenhouses visible past the overgrown garden. It must be good land, he thought abstractly, to have such wilderness still growing in the winter. Perhaps they had a head start on the coming spring. Right now their tenacity for life reflected his companion's chipper attitude.

"The werewolf issue, at least, has more known variables." Solomon was taking his time with his cigarette but his eyes were bright and alert, examining the horizon. "Although you're not wrong, Trevelyan. I don't enjoy locking horns with four all the bloody time."

The new department head, Spectre, seemed more interested in the goings-on of their werewolf problems than his predecessor... but he was young, his son was involved with some nonsense involving werewolf hunting. A good recipe for trouble if you had a heated temperament.

Solomon slowly came to a halt once they were closer to the heart of the farm land. He put his cigarette out on the thin branch of a young tree whose roots had grown into the dirt path, overturning the soil.

"Morgenthau's been useful, I suppose. Wants better relations with the other floors. Whatever that means," Sol muttered and pocketed the cigarette butt, gaze shifting from the cottage ahead to its sibling structures. "The greenhouses seem rather well kept, don't you think?"

His eyes lingered on them, glass walls reflecting winter light from one angle - the sheer verdancy of plant life could be seen from the outside.

Solomon heard the wind chimes again; they made a beautiful noise that punctuated what had so far been a pleasant walk. Yet the noise also made him want to shudder. Why was that? Instinct?

He slipped his wand out from his sleeve, casually holding it.

At the bar, Lorelei turned from her brother and offered Aviad a wide smile that nearly reached her glittering eyes. The cigarette smoke that wafted around him didn't even touch her, such was her gladness at her student, her assistant, her devotee finding her like he should. Aviad watched the fog, Leander the wards, while she kept busy watching others.

Though she lacked the time to verify Aviad's information - the two visitors in muggle clothes, carrying wands - her brother would do it for her. Leander would follow Aviad to the scrying mirror and watch the watcher with those sad eyes of his. He was looking at her with those eyes now, his mouth opening.

Why was she doing this, she imagined Leander asking again. After so many decades of ruling her own shadow world, why would she risk the little she had left to build anew in the light?

"Keep watch," Lorelei cut Leander off sharply, glancing from him to Aviad. "The two of you alone."

It was not light, but fire, she'd remind him later.

Lore touched the small locket around her neck, the vials in her pockets, the other thing in her pocket, in as much a manner as she could ever adopt Aviad Cohen's ritualistic ways.

With a faint pop, Lorelei apparated into the cellar of the cottage on the old Wold farm.

In the cellar, a small figure cowered. Silent. No more questions.

The greenhouse indeed looked well kept. Now, as they approached, Jonas could see a second greenhouse just beyond the first; both looked neatly maintained, and the closer one seemed to have some amount of greenery growing inside. In contrast, the little farmhouse looked a little run down. Moss crept up the brick walls and onto the roof, and paint was peeling on the shutters. He could see a pair of gnarled garden gnomes marching near the front of it, but just as they reached the corner of the cottage closest to the greenhouse, they whirled around and began to walk in the opposite direction.

Thoughtfully, the Auror drew his wand. "Goleya," he murmured.

He took a moment to examine the house. Ever since he'd learned the Goleya charm from Raizel Cohen and Adon Eleor, the Aramaic spell had proven useful in helping him identify what was enchanted in a given area. Now, after a couple of years of practice with it, Jonas had learned to identify more details about the hints of magic that the spell revealed.  Warding spells tended to have a certain bluish or turquoise sheen, as did protective runes. Curses always tinged orange or red. He might not be able to identify all the revealed spells precisely, but he could at least pick out some of the more common ones.

"It looks like there are a few warding spells on the farmhouse, but nothing out of the ordinary," he informed his companion after a moment, his forehead creasing. "Security, maybe anti-apparition. There seems to be a different kind of protective ward on the greenhouse, but I don't recognize it. The wind chimes look as though they might be enchanted too, but the spell doesn't seem hostile."

Twisting his wand to cancel the spell, Jonas glanced at his superior. "Which shall we try first? Farmhouse or greenhouse?"

This investigation had been full of missteps. From Abigail's unusual escape to the personal nature of her pentral to the fact that he had instinctively hexed his squib assistant[1] when she tried to bolt from his office. The one time he had tried to help, he hindered instead. What if it happened again?

Was he trying to prove to himself that it wouldn't? Now was probably a bad time to realise that.

Solomon nodded, acknowledging Jonas' preliminary examination of the grounds. His own gaze swept the horizon and focused on the cottage with interest. Wind chimes were meant to ward off evil spirits, he remembered his mother telling him as a boy, though a witch he dated believed they attracted the spirits.

"My instinct says the cottage," he said as he pushed his cap up slightly, "but it's not been particularly helpful in this case. Greenhouse, then?" Sol started in the direction of the glass structures, free hand in one pocket. He was being superstitious and he knew it.

As they drew closer, he found himself more and more curious about the closer greenhouse with its thick foliage. Leaves pressing against the glass, in defiance of their wintry season. "Is it just the one entrance?" he gestured for them to circle around instead of heading for the one facing them.

1.	15th Nov '11 - We know not the fire in which we burn

So much of the little farm's land looked like it had been abandoned to return to its natural state that it was strange to see the first of the greenhouses looking so lush and green. Were the plants inside still flourishing from the days when Lucy Wold had still tended to it? It seemed much more probable that whoever had taken up residence here had been using it to cultivate their own greenery.

"Appears that way, doesn't it?" Jonas replied, forehead creasing, as he freed his wand again. "Homenum Revelio," he murmured, letting the familiar spell fly.

The magic of the Revealing charm swooped into the greenhouse. Jonas waited, counting silently to five, but nothing came in response: no ping that would mark the presence of another person.

"No one appears to be home," he remarked, with a half glance back at Carstairs.  "Reckon we should have thought to bring Longbottom along in case Audrey III is waiting inside to greet us, yeah?"

Wand still out, moving cautiously and alertly, he started in.

Whatever spell was on the outside of the glass building, it didn't seem to impede their entrance. The interior of the greenhouse was far warmer and muggier than cold, crisp day outside. Plants were everywhere: growing in raised beds, cluttering the counters in pots, hanging from planters along the walls. There were some species that he recognized, and many more that he didn't, but they all looked strong and well-tended. Jonas checked the soil in one of the larger pots as Carstairs came up behind him: it was still wet.

"Either someone's been tending to these regularly or they've got a green thumb for self-maintaining gardening magic," the red-headed Auror remarked, looking back at his partner for the day. "I know there's plenty of wixes that enjoy tending to plants in their spare time, but there was quite the outdoor garden at the Lilly Lakehouse too, before the grounds there burned."[1]

1.	From Show Them the Crack, and They'll Tear Down the Wall: "The fire that had devastated the house had destroyed much of the plant life surrounding the manor as well. Though he could tell there had been shrubs, hedges and elaborate gardens."

        "Reckon we should have thought to bring Longbottom along in case Audrey III is waiting inside to greet us, yeah?"

Solomon snorted in response, hanging back to allow Trevelyan to take lead. "I think we're equal to the task, if our new friends have stepped out for the time being."

There wasn't anybody in the greenhouse even though it was clearly being looked after - and by someone skilled, no less. He gestured with his wand at his boots, activating their silencing enchantment as he followed after the red-haired wizard.

Being inside made him think first of Hogwarts, of his youth and mandrake plants and wrestling with aggressive vines. Then he thought of another woman he had dated, who owned a magical nursery. Sol lingered at some of the plants, particularly anything he recognised as toxic or magically potent. Jonas spoke, voicing what Solomon felt.

"I wonder," he walked past the other man, further along the counter towards the far end, "what role it plays."

What was their motive, with the lake house gone? Had the Hunts been good at Herbology? Solomon only remembered that Lorelei had been very much into Divination. His memory was patchy, old impressions overwritten by new and confused ones.

There was a battered old table in the corner; he approached it, tapping the surface thoughtfully.

"It's extremely likely someone is living in that cottage back there..." Solomon's hand traced against the grain of the wood and he noted two pairs of letters carved on the side: W.W. & L.W.. Wolds, he assumed. No Wolds here.

Sol sighed so softly it was barely audible. "We should lay down an alerting charm or a trap," he glanced over his shoulder at Jonas. "To warn us if someone returns here while we're in the cottage."

Should this in fact be the Hunts' new base, with its new tenants temporarily away, Solomon didn't want to be caught off guard when they got back.

Carstairs had a fair suggestion, though it seemed likely that someone else had already laid down their own alerting charm. When the Aurors had finally gotten to the Lilly Lakehouse, it was clear that the Hunt siblings had burrowed in deep there.  The manor had been rift with the remains of containment spells and wards that had been destroyed by the fire, though none of them had seemed expertly cast.  Magic that seemed likely to have been intended to keep the pentrals in and the teenaged Squibs trapped as much as it also kept anyone else from stumbling upon the siblings' hideout.

Jonas paused  -- he remembered the illusion spells that shimmered like cobwebs in the owlry, concealing the entrance to the hidden tower above.[1]  He took a moment to cast Goleya again and check for any sign of a hidden chamber, but there was nothing else to find.

"Not sure how I feel about a trap, when we know the Hunts have taken prisoners to live with them before," he remarked, as he ended the spell and rejoined Carstairs. "But I can set something as an alarm behind us."

The older wizard was lingering near the table, hand against the wood. Jonas glanced down instinctively. W.W. and L.W.

A sad, melancholy sense of knowing struck him. Walter and Lucy Wold. Part of him regretted not taking the time to talk more with Aileen Reid's pentral while she had still been with them. Though his conversations with her had been fractured, broken by what she'd been through and her unnatural mixing with Aileen, Lucy as struck him as someone kind, who cared deeply about something that she couldn't quite remember. After meeting her children and her brother and his wife these past few weeks, there was no doubt in his mind that she'd deserved better than her tragic fate.

He glanced over at Carstairs. "Might as well check the other to be thorough, yeah?" he asked. "Then we can head up to the house."

---

The second greenhouse had the same, strange-looking ward on it as the first, and there was a similar lack of response as they stepped inside it. The interior lacked the lush greenery of the first, but there were still signs that someone had been about: it looked much less run-down and wild than the front yard, which had been left to fend for itself against the garden gnomes.

Jonas set another alarm charm around the second greenhouse as they left. As they approached the main house, a slight breeze had started to pick up. The clouds were moving along a bit more briskly overhead, and the lonely wind chimes that hung from the porch had begun to awaken, welcoming their arrival with a cheerful, ringing song. In one of the upper windows, some sort of lantern appeared to be flickering.

Pausing in front of the main steps up, the red-headed Auror drew his wand.  "Hominum Revelio," he tried again.

With a whoosh, the magical spell left on its journey once more. Jonas paused, waiting. He half-expected not to get anything back in response: even though it seemed as if the little farm had been recently attended, he and Carstairs hadn't exactly tried to conceal their approach. If the Hunts were living here, they had to know about the intrusion.

But then it came. One ping. One revealed presence.

The Auror paused, forehead creasing.

"Someone's still in there," he said, glancing sidelong at Carstairs.

1.	August 8, 2011 - Show them the crack, and they'll tear down the wall

He walked with more of a saunter than his companion -  as if going for a stroll rather than their actual purpose, examining the second greenhouse before leaving behind another alerting charm when they moved on to the cottage. Solomon appreciated Trevelyan's caution; they weren't calling in help despite numerous hints of habitation so he made no comment as the redhead cast his charms.

All foreboding notions left him upon their approach. The light in the window should have left him feeling tense and cold but the older wizard was simply alert.

       "Someone's still in there," Jonas informed him.

Still. Solomon pressed his lips together firmly - unsurprised but aware that if the occupant was a Hunt then they weren't turning tail. Confrontation was very much a possibility if not a probability. "I suppose we better not keep them waiting."

---

For all its outward appearance, the cottage certainly seemed alive once they passed the threshold. Solomon's step was quiet and the floors did not quite creek. Perhaps they should have, would have, if the place had not gone unoccupied. The air carried scents of smoke, a fire recently lit and gone to ash.

They were in the living area. If he anticipated an assault right away, he didn't get one. "Not their style," he murmured to himself before giving his wand an elegant little flick.

A favoured specialty of his, the Shadow charm caused his own faint shadow to twitch; and then there were suddenly four shadows, including his own, and the three spare separated from their owner to go scurrying about the ground floor of the home. It was a simple little spell that could make an expectant person, as the muggles say, jump the gun if they caught sight of a wizard's shadow ahead of them.

Sol noted a weathered cloak on the hook - perhaps also not their style - and glanced around the room again. A dried herb dangled from the ceiling, which gave him pause, though he could say why.

"A downgrade from the lakehouse," he remarked dryly instead.

On the upper floor of the cottage, Lorelei stood with her back to the window and watched the two wizards approach. Their outlines blurred in the enchanted mirror that hung on the wall, but they strolled up like they already owned the place. Two of them, just like Aviad had said.

Aviad was a useful charmer  - a rare combination in a wizard. She appreciated the pentrals he'd returned to her these past few months. He would learn something today.

When the wizards frowned up at the cottage, Lorelei's fingers curled tightly over her wand. Carstairs! He still walked like the Gryffindor who had once shunned her.

No manners. Neither wizards removed their caps as they barged inside. Jonas Trevelyan, who took such care to knock at the homes of muggles, left dusty bootprints on the porch step. Their low voices sounded, warning her as the jingle-jangle of the wind chimes should have warned them.

Aurors, but only two. Only two, but such prizes, both of them. There must be more waiting. Aurors should always believe children, Lorelei sneered, tearing her gaze from the mirror.

She removed the glass cover from the lantern flickering in the window. She held the flame to the curtains, letting the fire catch the sun-paled linen fabric. Once caught, Lorelei draped the flaming curtain over her bed and stepped back. She'd start with fire, like Abby Reid had.

What next?

Her gaze snapped to the window, her eyes brightening with the slowly growing flames. Despite the closeness of the light, the pentral in the locket around her neck drew in on itself.

Lore turned, aiming her wand at the mirror. She stepped towards it as the pieces crashed down, plucking a large, jagged shard off the floor with her gloved hand.

The pentral in her head stirred at the shatter that felt like freedom, but wasn't.

Lorelei slipped the mirror piece into her pocket. As the yellow curtains blossomed orange and red, tendrils of smoke pressing against the wooden beams of the ceiling, Lorelei apparated away with a pop.

This post is written from the point of view of Jeeny, the house elf.


In the dark, in the confines of a coffin six feet underground, a house elf cried as she broke the frame of the portrait in her hands.

Silent tears, a constant nuisance, streaked her cheeks and dripped off her jaw and chin most days, whenever Lori-Lore-Lorelei wasn't staring at her. Sometimes, she didn't notice until they dripped onto the cloak she was mending or the floor she'd just cleaned. Tears did her no good, and still, she cried.

She had reason to cry in the total dark and silence, the slats of the wood coffin hard against her back. Tears made her nose stuffy in the already stuffy space, and though she could use magic to make a light or bring in more air, she'd been ordered not to. She'd been ordered not to do many things, and ordered to do much worse.

She'd been the one to dig beneath the two greenhouses. She'd been the one to make the two coffins. The coffins were incredibly large and could fit several humans side by side. But only Jeeny sat here now.

House-elves grow attached to houses, her mistress had told her, and nothing got past her, not Jeeny's growing tolerance for this land, for the little treasures the children had left in the floorboards, for the peeling yellow shutters that needed painting, for the little nails she found and twisted up in the floor for her mistress to step on.

Their contract would break soon, one way or another.

Sorry, so sorry, the house elf told the pentral in the portrait. Sorry, so sorry, she'd thought in the cellar as Lorelei's locket had swung close and the house elf had kept her hands at her sides.

The painted canvas tore, and with a gust of air, the pentral streamed out of the broken portrait, hovering over the house elf.

The house elf squeezed her eyes shut, all her defenses raised. She wasn't sure why, exactly, the pentrals left her alone, but they had at the lakehouse and this one did beneath the ground[1], terrified of the dark but rearing back from her, and then finding the narrow airhole tube in the coffin, and streaming up through the flower bed and into the light-filled, fragrant greenhouse.

Tears streaked down the house elf's face, imagining the pentral's short-lived joy.

---

The elf snapped her fingers, apparating into the second coffin beneath the second greenhouse, where she would have to stay until this was over. She broke the second portrait, her hands shaking. Another pentral slipped free.

It too, hovered over the house elf, terrified of the total darkness.

It too, found the airhole and flitted into the second green garden.

The house elf curled her knees up to her chest. Her final orders. She might just be the safest one here, in the dark.

1.	I'm thinking because she's a house elf and not a human

Jonas flashed a lopsided smile back at the other wizard. "Cozy family retreat though, innit?" he asked cheerfully, watching as the other wizard's shadows broke off to explore.

Inside, the cottage had clearly been recently in use. There were no electronic devices in site: the family living here had clearly been more comfortable with a magical life than a Muggle one, and that appeared to be continued by the recent residents.

As Jonas glanced around the room, his gaze lingered over the gray cloak, hanging on the hook.

 A witch was there, wearing my mum's gray cloak...[1]

Dreams were strange things. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have been inclined to hinge the next stage of an investigation on them. If it weren't for the disastrous January full moon, he might have discounted Wesley Wold's retelling of his nightmare this time around, too. Suddenly, he was very glad that he hadn't.

Carstairs had stopped to examine the herbs hanging near the ceiling. The red-headed Auror took a step closer to the fireplace, taking care with his bad knee as he bent to take a closer look at it. Running his fingers through the dust on the mantle, he lifted them to examine it.

"It looks like Floo Powder," he observed over his shoulder. "I wonder where they're heading off to that they can't go by apparition. Might be worth reaching out to the lot at the Floo Authority and --"

 He broke off suddenly, forehead creasing, as he looked back over his shoulder towards the door.

"I think someone's in the greenhouse." Frowning, Jonas rose back to his feet, casting a glance over at Carstairs. Someone in the house; someone in the greenhouse. It had seemed silly at first, bringing in a full team to follow up on an eleven-year-old's dream, even if the townsfolk nearby had reported someone at the house, but now he was beginning to wish they'd dragged Worthington or Roh along with them. With only two of them present, it felt like a painfully stupid idea to split up.

Then another distant twinge tugged at the edges of his awareness, and the Auror blinked again.

"Both greenhouses." Uneasy, he looked back at the Department Head. The second greenhouse had been mostly empty. He could imagine Hunt or her brother apparating back to their main plant room, but sensing a new presence in each was making him feel a little unsettled. "Reckon we should finish clearing through here first, sir?"

1.	January 18, 2012 - Mother cannot guide you