"Thanks for coming so quickly," Charlene said, extending her hand to the Auror in crimson robes and dark sunglasses who'd popped into existence on the pavement just outside the large cottage's wards. "Sorry to have to drag you all the way up to Slandermouth on a Sunday."

It was a foggier day near the coast than it had been back in London. Charlene led the way up the stone path to the seaside cottage, past a pair of jarveys who had poked their head out of a carrot patch to swear furiously at them as they walked by. With the foggy weather, it was hard to appreciate the view from the cottage's prime position on top of a small hill, but the crashing waves were loud enough to drown out all but the most fervent insults from the foul-mouthed mammals.

Charlene wasn't disappointed that Zora Roh had been the one to respond this morning. It wasn't all that long ago that she herself had been found in crimson, and there was a enduring sisterhood amongst female Aurors. Roh had often been a little too punchy for her tastes, and her political opinions had been a bit too wishy-washy for Charlene's liking up until a few years ago, but she was smart and effective. In an event like this, she was more than happy to accept Roh's help instead of having to deal with the prickly ego of someone like her former partner, Ed Pratt.

She opened the front door and gestured her companion inside. The interior of the cottage was considerably bigger than it had appeared from the outside; the front door opened into a large hallway, decorated tastefully in blue and turquoise with colorful paintings of the sea at different times of year lining the walls. Charlene wasted no time in leading Roh down it, heading for the first door.

"Amaravathy spotted it right away," Charlene continued, giving her companion a tight smile as she reached for the handle. "I think Level Two's educational campaigns are finally paying off. I sent my patronus to you as soon as I got her owl."

The door let them into a magnificent-looking kitchen. The far wall was lined entirely with glass, which today looked down onto a foggy Slandermouth beach. The countertops were white marble, with accents in turquoise and light blue, and all of the matching accessories that dotted the counters seemed to have been picked out with care. The kitchen table too was white, adorned with a white lacy tablecloth and a glass vase full of blue and green sea glass.

Aside from its charm, the kitchen would have been entirely unremarkable -- save for the postmarked envelope that was floating inside a shimmering blue bubble in the center of the room.

When Zora Roh got the call to the home of Amaravathy Kulkarni, her stomach dropped. Dealing with Wizengamot elders was frequently a trudge but Kulkarni was one of the better ones. Steady, fair, and attentive to detail. The thought that she'd faced the horrible fate of the previous five victims was dreadful. But gratefully, today they'd all been spared a murder.

"Finally a break. We've been owl-catching[1] for weeks, and come up bollocks," Zora said. This case had changed hands after the first letter and so some vital connections had been dropped. In particular the asset that was Charlene Malone. She'd been the first to arrive on the first scene and had been a crucial liaison between the investigation and the Wizengamot Elders.

Zora paused in the kitchen doorway before beginning a slow pace around the edges of the room, giving the magically caged white envelope a wide berth. It was remarkable.

"How is Elder Kulkarni?" Zora hadn't seen the intended victim on the way in. "She's not hurt?"

"She's in the parlor. A healer is on the way to check her out, but she's uninjured," came a response from a Magical Law Patrol agent who appeared in the hallway. Zora nodded. She glanced to Charlene but kept her attention on the the letter.

"Has anyone interviewed her? What clued her in this could be another letter?"

1.	Monitoring post-owl traffic between post offices and destinations, sometimes actually involving literally 'catching owls'.

"The letter's addressed from the Ludicrous Patents Office," Charlene said dryly.

She stood back, hands planted on her waist, letting the Auror size up the scene. In the middle of such a well-kept kitchen, the floating letter looked out of place, even if the blue bubble around it was similar in value to the seaglass theme decorating the Wizengamot Elder's home.

"Elder Kulkarni still does some limited work with them, but she just spoke to O'Sullivan yesterday, so an urgent letter took her by surprise. The penmanship is also too neat; you know how everyone on Seven is."

It was a lucky break. Even with all of Level Two's warnings and the Auror Office's careful eye on the owl post, five other deadly letters had somehow slipped through their watchful system. Whoever was sending the mail clearly had a strong understanding of the workings of the Wizengamot. They had managed to match just the right originating office to each Elder, making their murderous missives appear mundane enough to open.

"I spoke with her a bit when I arrived, and Boubaker's been checking in on her," Charlene continued, with a respectful nod to the Magical Law Patrol officer, who was still standing by the hallway entrance. "No one else was here when the letter arrived. Her partner's away visiting their daughter, and he isn't expected back until tomorrow."

Zora muttered an acknowledgement and turned her wand in her palm, and carefully approached the caged letter. She knew this particular spell to be powerful and was confident the letter posed no danger as long as it was inside. Even so, if this was indeed another of the deadly letters, it was hard to stay all nerves. Up close, Zora could see what Charlene meant. The handwriting looked like it had been done by auto-quill, and the postage was perfectly aligned. The envelope was perfectly crisp except the faintest creases from the owl's claw marks.

"Can you - what's your name?" Zora looked back at their MLP.

"Boubaker, ma'am."

"Right. We'll need to speak with local owl post and call in O'Sullivan for an appointment on Two, but don't let on what it's about. After the Healer arrives," Zora instructed.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered and stepped out.

Each of the letters had apparently come from some tucked away Ministry Office and each time the investigation tried to trace them back to the source they'd  come up empty - there was no record any of them been sent from inside the Ministry. It was even harder to find corroboration of Zora's hunch, that Theodora Kingstreet was somehow behind this.

"This is the first one we've got intact," Zora said to Charlene without needing to, more marveling at their luck. She shook her head. "Finally... I don't want to risk taking it back. We'll have to examine it here as much as is possible."

Over the past few years, Zora had been doing more work in practical magical forensics. It wasn't miles off from Cursebreaking, but was far more focused on decoding traces of cast spells and identifying enchantments, rather than sealing or cracking them.

"You still in for that sort of thing?" she asked the former Auror with a coy look.

The barest hint of a smile tugged at Charlene's mouth.  There were things that she certainly didn't miss about the Auror Corps; having to constantly decipher her former partner's handwriting was near the top of the list. But there wasn't a former Auror, whether resigned, moved on, or retired, who didn't somewhat yearn for the thrill of it once they'd left it behind.

In response to Roh's question, she inclined her head slightly as her fingers found her wand. "Let me know how I can help," she said simply.

Of everyone on Level Two, Roh was known as a bit of an expert with the owl post. She'd been the one to finally capture Theodora Kingstreet last time around, and she was excellent at owl-catching. If there were anyone qualified to handle a cursed letter, it was certainly her. Charlene hadn't been a bad wand at magical forensics back in her time in the Corps, either. It might not be as flashy as the duels with ex-Death Eaters or staged raids on necromancer hide-outs that many other Aurors seemed to live for, but it was a necessary part of their work.

She circled around to the opposite side of the bright blue bubble, eyes focused with clear intent on the letter inside it.

"What are you thinking?" she asked Roh. "I wouldn't be surprised if whoever hexed it included some sort of self-destructing curse, just in case we managed to get our hands on it."

"No, I agree," Zora said. With Malone on board as second wand, the senior Auror had no qualms getting right to work. Boubaker could direct traffic. Zora shrugged off her heavy red Auror's robe to reveal a full-sleeved white blouse tucked into navy high-waisted trousers.

"She won't have left anything to chance. We'll have to work quickly." Zora cleared away the chairs and drew the curtains so that the kitchen was cast into a false twilight, with the blue glow of the containment spell providing most of the illumination now.

"The envelopes always came back completely mundane, no enchantments, no curses, not even a stamp-licking charm. It's always the letter itself, but once letter tears itself apart all we can manage is one, maybe two, shots at Specialis Revelio, then they're dead ends. I want to open it and freeze the letter before the hex can go off."

The logic was sound, but the curse on the letter was as yet unidentified. They'd need to be clever if they were going to save their skin, halt the curse in place, all without destroying any evidence.

Dropping the containment spell, freezing the letter: the timing would have to be impeccable. There was also a serious danger that they'd already triggered a hex simply by trapping the letter to begin with. If the slicing death curse was able to seize the moment and kick in, or even if the letter merely exploded as soon as they removed the nullifying bubble, then both of the witches present would be at risk.

There was something thrilling about that uncertainty, though. It had been three years now since Charlene had transferred out of the Auror Corps, and she'd nearly forgotten the rush of it, preparing to face possible danger with a capable partner. Roh was quick and capable with her wand, and she'd need to be so too if they were going to deal with this efficiently and safely.

With a wave of her wand, the quaint decorations on the nearby counters lifted themselves into the air and neatly floated over to settle on the table, arranged in polite rows. Charlene turned back to the floating turquoise bubble, ready to begin.

There was one thing that the Auror had said that prickled her attention, though.

"She?" Charlene raised her eyebrows at Roh. "Are you sure this is her work?"

There was no need to say the name out loud. The accusation made obvious sense: Theodora Kingstreet had testified in front of the Wizengamot not long before the first murder. But something about it felt a bit like chasing a boogeyman. Kingstreet had been in Azkaban for years now; it seemed like quite a lot to expect her to be able to orchestrate a killing spree that had been so efficient and effective, especially from an isolated prison cell in the North Sea.

It hadn't been an unintentional slip. There were some that knew of Zora's suspicion about Theodora Kingstreet, but she'd been hesitant to fully commit to it. It was preposterous that the most secure prisoner in recent Azkaban history could possibly be able to do this. It implicated Azkaban itself. But she trusted Charlene not to dismiss it out of hand for this reason alone. They had to follow the evidence.

Zora answered Charline with a tight smile and shrug of the shoulder. "It's my best idea at the moment. How about this - I'll begin the Time Slowing Spell and at the last moment, you can release the containment. And then, I guess we wait and see what happens. See what we can identify. Are you ready?"

Zora moved into position and shook out her hands. She let out a long breath to steel herself then raised her wand. As soon as Charlene was ready, Zora began. From a safe distance, she spoke the incantation and with great focus, she began forming a shimmering bubble that would, once complete, slow the advancement of time to a near stop.

Now, Zora was fully closing the spell. Just a tiny hole remained. "Now!"

"Now!" Roh cried, and Charlene dropped the containment spell.

The turquoise bubble vanished, just the second shimmering bubble fully engulfed it.

Tick.  Inside the effects of the Time Slowing Spell, the postmarked envelope still hung in the air. But there seemed to be a strain on it: the slightest hint of visible tension, as if the some outer force were just beginning to pull on its corners and stretch it taught.

"Specialis Reficio," Charlene spoke clearly, her brown eyes locked on the floating envelope.

The enclosed paper began to glow a faint, bright blue, which grew sharper and sharper as she watched it.

"That looks like some delayed form of Expulso," she said, an urgency to her works as she stepped around the bubble so that she could see the other side of the floating object. Roh had likely gotten the Time Spell in place just in time; any more of a delay, and the envelope would have likely exploded. "Someone's placed it on the envelope. If it blows, it'll destroy the letter inside."

Confident with Charlene at the other wand, Zora could focus on the magic. She couldn't disagree with Charlene's evaluation, either, although Zora would not have expected that - creating an enchantment from a curse normally cast as a spell was very difficult. One had to infuse the object with an intention, and without the aide of runes, it was even more complex.

"That's well posh, isn't it," was all Zora took time to say, her false admiration colored with sarcasm. The diligence of murderers, honestly.

"Here we go..." she warned and let the time advance a bit. She winced at the effort of easing up just enough.  The room rattled when, in slow motion, the enveloped did exactly what Charlene predicted. It stretched, strained, and exploded at a snail's pace. Zora felt a tremor in her arm, but the containment spell held.

Then, as they watched, the pieces of the envelope moved away revealing a slowly shattering folded piece of paper. Instead of tearing or burning, the paper appeared to be sliced into hundreds of razor sharp shards. They moved as one like a cyclone, the edges of the pieces glowing white-hot.

Zora had never seen anything like it before.

"The hell..." she muttered. Then, "I'm losing it. Let's get clear. It's going to blow. "

Indeed it was. The pieces of letter were moving slowly but they were moving. In a matter of moments they would reach the edge of the secure bubble and return to normal velocity, to whatever will. Zora bought them some time to get out of the kitchen by growing the bubble, but ultimately, what was started must finish.

Zora, wand still trained on the letter, began to back towards the door, waving Charlene through first.