Late evening, soon after this thread.


They found Baldur huddled in Sasha's closet behind a neat stack of clothing, the stale smell of vomit in the air. The dog barely lifted his tail as Fauna and Moira approached. He looked up at them with sad, pained eyes when Fauna rested her hand on the dog's chest. His breathing was fast and shallow. Moira checked his heart rate with a shake of her head.

Swallowing, Fauna glanced at Moira. No matter what, they had to get Baldur to a safe place where Moira could heal him. The muggle cops must have forgotten about him when he'd hidden in here, and they couldn't simply wait for them to sort it out.

Levels Two and Three would be here any moment, Fauna told herself while she helped Moira carry the dog to the fireplace. Moira would get Baldur to Tulo at the Ministry in time. Meanwhile, Fauna had to hope that what she did now wouldn't create more of a mess. The patronus she'd sent to the Ministry before sneaking inside the building had warned of a potentially magical crime scene, and it wasn't until she'd reached Sasha's flat that she understood they were dealing with something major.

The red flowers carpeting the door. The sickly sweet smell in the stuffy hall. A cop throwing up in the stairwell, a white piece of paper in his hand.

Fauna took a deep breath. No, she couldn't think about it now. Moira, holding Baldur up, was waiting by the fireplace for Fauna to distract the two cops investigating the living room. They hadn't noticed them come in, thanks to a mild concealment charm. But they'd definitely notice a sudden burst of green flames.

She drew out her badge and cleared her throat. The two cops turned, startled.

"The constable wants us out in the hallway. Now. We'll finish up here later."

Fauna gave a slight smile, as if this were perfectly normal. She had every right to be here. She was just another cop who they hadn't seen before, giving them orders, and making every effort not to glance at Moira scooping up a handful of floo powder.

It took some urging, but the two cops followed Fauna into the hall.

The whole group - the constable, the cops, the guy snapping photos of the flowering door - turned to stare at her. Ok. This was fine. This was great. She could handle it.

"Right. I'm Blake, with Homicide..."

Fauna flashed her badge. She stood a little straighter in her black trainee jacket.

Just then, crackling and popping sounded from inside the apartment, and a faint voice called for the Ministry of Magic. Fauna remained where she was, blocking the open door. The cops carefully nudged past her, mindful of the flowers still on the door.

"Really, there's nothing to see in there," Fauna tried.

Nothing to see. New ashes covered the hearth. From those ashes, the green flames flickered and sputtered out.

Fauna dropped her head into her hand for a moment. The cops gawped at the fireplace.

"Was that...?"

"No...."

Well. At least Moira had made it.

One by one, the group turned to frown at Fauna, eyeing her black jacket and the badge in her hand. Fauna looked over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps, her heart beating fast.

Please let it be the Ministry!

Quill put a smile on her face and it looked like it had been there all along. The young Auror Trainee, plain to see, had allowed a perimeter leak, but that was not out of the ordinary; Level Two wasn't well-trained in the finesse of deflection and the consequences for them fumbling around with unnecessary Obliviation were terribly inconvenient for all parties.

Quill, and Bevans behind her, were dressed like muggle forensics technicians, those scientific sorts who combed through crime scenes for clues. They even had on little paper booties from Level Three's detailed costumery inventory.  They'd made it past the sentry at the stairwell and the other at the door. Making as if the bags you were carrying were very heavy and important activated the politeness instinct in most people to step quickly aside.

The head of the Department of Accidents and Catastrophes didn't even have to lie about who they were - their clothing and confidence said it all. The fewer memories and details the better, if it came to erasing them.

"That'll be fine, thanks," she said briskly, still with that smile, to the muggle police. "We'll take it from here, if you'll step out."

Quill gave no clue that she recognized Fauna Blake or even noticed Moira McBoid. All her shoo-shooing was for the muggles.

"You've got your job we've got ours, eh? Toddle on."

"...but..." One of them pointed at the fireplace which was now mundane embers again. There were footprints in the soot now, but that was not his concern. Quill played for the former.

"Well spotted. On you go."

Shortly they were alone.

"Lock it," Quill directed Nicholas Bevans in her normal tone, the facade dropped. She pulled down the plastic hood and set the unneeded bag down in a clear space. Then she took a notebook from her pocket.

The scene was gruesome, but this was not her concern. Her department's concern, as usual, was containment.

"Quill Som," she introduced herself. "Nicholas Bevans. Level Three. What do we have? Who's been in and out? How many? Since when?"

It took Fauna a moment, but the familiar sound of the forensic technician's calm and assured voice made Fauna breathe a little easier. Only Level Three would arrive with such discretion. Fauna looked closely at the young man beside the woman giving orders. He stood like Nicholas Bevans. He glanced around like Nicholas Bevans. This was the most covered up he'd perhaps ever been, but it must be none other than Nicholas Bevans!

Level Three had taken her patronus seriously. Bless them! Once the police left, a relieved, weary smile flickered over her face.

Not only had Level Three come to the rescue, but the Head of Catastrophes - Quill Som. Fauna had sat in on a few interdepartmental meetings, and she often appreciated Som's attention to resolving problems. Rather than waste time lecturing Fauna on her big flub up, she asked for information first.

"Ms. Som," Fauna let out a breath she'd been holding and uncrossed her arms. "Fauna Blake. Level Two. The other Aurors should be on their way."

She gestured around the inside of the apartment where they stood, the smell of floo powder and dog vomit lingering in the air.

"This is Sasha Schla- er, Snow's flat," she glanced at Nicholas, aware that they were all in the same friend group. "He works on Level Nine. He rang me about twenty minutes ago, from jail. He'd gotten here maybe an hour ago, and the cops were already here and took him without letting him into his flat."

Fauna paused. Sorry, Sasha, but she had to give Level Three the full picture. At least she didn't have to explain what 'rang' meant.

"There's a coroner's truck outside," her brow furrowed, getting to the heart of the matter. "Sasha mentioned that he saw at least one body bag in the hall."

Her mouth thinned as she glanced at the front door.  "I haven't had a chance to check that uh, flower display on the door or to see if someone had broken in. One other witch came in with me. We found Sasha's dog, sick. She floo'd with the dog to a Healer at the Ministry."

Her face flushed a little.

"I'm sorry about the..." Fauna gestured at the fireplace where the green flames had shot up a few minutes ago.

Nicholas hadn't really anticipated how much of his job would require putting on costumes and impersonating muggles.  And this was his first time impersonating muggle law enforcement to get into a crime scene. Thankfully at least it wasn't the first time working he was working with his department head in the field.  He'd hate to be nervous because the big boss was there... who was he fooling, other than the muggles hopefully, of course he was nervous as he followed Som through the police who were trying to make sense of things that would never make sense to them.

As he locked the door behind the police that Som had easily pushed out of the flat, Nicholas hoped there was a log of who had been inside.  It was going to be difficult to track everyone down as it was, and it didn't help that some of those people were paid to be observant and take notes.

He shot Fauna a small smile as he was unnecessarily introduced to her. "Wait, this is Sasha's place?"  He hadn't gotten that information when he'd been told to suit up and come along.  "Sorry," he added for interrupting.  He hadn't been expecting murder at a friend's flat.  Though of course the place was Sasha's and of course it was a murder scene.

He waited for Fauna to finish before directed a question at the witches, "Do we need to lock anything else down? We let the police keep working, right? Until we have a story for them?" This was covered in the manual but that didn't mean Nicholas was sure what to do. Leave it to Sasha to make sure Nicholas got his first muggle murder scene before he'd had a year on the job.

With what little information Anton had gathered about the magical world, and the context clues he'd derived from the ongoing social media drama, Sasha's university flat had become the scene of full on muggle-mage interactions.  Equal parts curiosity, genuine desire to help and worry for his friend percolated in his mind, working together to motivate him to meddle in something that he had a sinking suspicion he shouldn't be meddling in. 

Besides, he also wanted to believe he could actually be of help.  Fauna and Moira were, presumably, still in the building and Official Wizard people were starting to join the scene.  Anton knew the building, knew the apartment and knew many of the folks that lived there.  He was trying to manage the Facebook drama - and had been keeping tabs on the university gossip pages.  If he could get in, he could do more. 

Anton eased his way through the gathering assortment of street-side Lookie-Loos and just to the street side of the police barricade.  Having tugged one of his notebooks out of his bag, he flagged over the closest officer and leaned over the rail. 

"Hi.  Reporter for Varsity, the university newspaper.  The media grapevine is already buzzing with speculation and conspiracy theories.  Panic's starting to build that someones selling meth cut with something really nasty.  Willing to give a name and a comment for the paper?"  Anton gradually made the circuit around the perimeter,  similarly greeting the nearby officers and taking names and info as it was dealt out.  Once he'd reached a certain degree of familiarity with the officers on the periphery, he slipped around the corner to side of the building and, with a set of spare keys and cut in through the underground garage.  After a quick dumpster dive, Anton climbed that back staircase with a cup carrier tray and three empty coffee cups. 

His whole plan hinged on none of the officers he passed pushing the matter and demanding one of the cups.  "Boss demanded a fill up.  Late hour cases, am I right?" Anton offered the officers he passed as he moved towards the closed door to his mate's flat and knocked on the door.  With his free hand, he slipped out his phone and sent Fauna a quick text.

Brought you and Moira coffee.  Rumor on FB is you both are checking things out.
Uh...don't be disappointed about the coffee.

Quill Som turned around in place as Blake gave a half-decent report on things. They were about as early in the response as Quill could ever hope for. And while so much had already occurred and though things were crowded and choatic, that was all to their advantage. Quill would be able to shape the story. With both a green Obliviator and very young Auror on the scene, there was a moment to be instructive.

"Our role is to catalog and contain," she summarized quickly. "Aurors will decide if they'll leave the investigation to the muggles or if Level Two will take over. This scene is now secure - let's keep it that way. Our next moves must be simultaneous. First expand the containment area to the entire building. Second, identify all muggles who may have been exposed to magical phenomenon. Understand?"

She looked between them for some semblance of --

Bzz. Bzz.

Quill looked to Fauna Blake. "Your mobile. Answer it. Our third task is to fetch Mr. Snow."

Fauna did understand the priorities, but she blinked, bemused, when Quill Som directed her to answer her own mobile. She pulled out her phone anyway, to see if Abby had replied to her yet in the past ten minutes. And to see what all the buzzing was about.

Her phone read:
3 missed calls - Mum
1 missed voicemail - Mum
2 missed calls - Stefan
1 missed text - Artur
1 NEW text - Anton

Wait, Anton?

Fauna quickly read the newest text, even more confused than she was a moment ago. Anton, here?

She hurried to the front door and opened it with her sleeve.

"For Merlin's sake, Anton!" Fauna reached forward and lightly grasped his arm to pull him into the flat. Her gaze strayed to the two cups of coffee rather longingly, but his text did little to get her hopes up.

"Stay away from the flowers," she nodded at the display covering the front door. "There could be something wrong with them."

If the muggles, and Baldur, and the cop she'd seen earlier had gotten sick from the flowers, she had to know. Shit - there were so many things she had to do right now. How had Anton even gotten inside the building? The thud of the retreating cops' footsteps sounded distantly in the hall. No, nevermind. She didn't need to know.

"Are you alright?" Fauna glanced him over, not bothering to introduce Anton to Nicholas. They already knew each other from parties and such.

"Why are you here?"

She sounded a little more confused than concerned, her brow furrowed. Sasha would have absolutely mentioned it if Anton had arrived at his flat with him, but maybe Sasha had expected his friend later this evening, or maybe Anton had seen him in class earlier.

Fauna didn't dare glance at Ms. Som yet. Muggles who may have been exposed to magical phenomenon? At least one.

"Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Nicholas replied as Fauna's phone started buzzing. He was surprised however when Som told her to answer it. And even more surprised when Fauna went to open the door for Anton, the somehow token muggle in their friend group that shouldn't include any muggles.  Normally, he had no issue with Anton joining them.  This was not a day at the beach.  This was still both a muggle and magical crime scene and Anton shouldn't be at either of those.  Especially when the head of level three was at said scene as well.

"Seriously Anton, you can't be here.  Why are you here?" Nicholas said, echoing Fauna's last question.  He really hoped he wasn't going to have to be the one to explain Anton to his boss, the rules allowed him to know but Anton seemed to want to participate.

He quietly sighed and turned his thoughts back to the job. Containment, he thought looking at Anton before looking at the door. Even the muggles couldn't do that much and there were plenty of them swarming all over the building. "I can cast muggle-repelling charms to keep any one else from getting too curious.  Light ones on the building, won't affect police and residents, stronger ones in the hall to keep everyone," he made a point of not looking at Anton," else away from the door."  Nicholas wasn't sure if Som expected him to just do things or if she wanted to approve what he was going to do first.  Was this a test?  And what kind of test was it?

The door swung open from the inside and, not surprisingly, Fauna was standing on the other side.  Moira, however, didn't appear to be with his future cousin-in-law.  Step-cousin.  Whatever.  As Fauna pulled him through the doorway, Anton was also able to see that Sasha was also not home.  More surprisingly, Nicholas was there, along with a woman who very much looked like The Adult in the room.

Anton blinked in surprise but turned back to Fauna.   

"Stay away from the flowers.  There could be something wrong with them."

"Yeah, so I've heard," he offered, flipping his notebook open with his free hand.  "One of the first officers on the scene apparently got taken away by an ambulance when he got too close.  Someone mentioned botulism, but I couldn't tell if it was Officer Stanton or a bystander - and 'that's not information that can be confirmed or denied for a school newspaper,'."  Anton threw his voice, slightly, mimicking the voice of the closed-lip officer downstairs. 

But, almost as quickly, both Fauna and Nicholas' concern shifted to Anton's presence.  Both were deferring heavily to The Adult and Anton couldn't help but mimic their glances in the woman's direction. 

"You're blowing up all over Facebook and Twitter," Anton, explained, though he wondered if they weren't asking as much as subtly suggesting he should leave.  "Well, you and Moira," he clarified, looking to Fauna and nodding towards her phone.  He would have pulled out his to show her if his hands weren't full.  "I was worried, so I interviewed a few officers downstairs until they got bored and ignored me, then sneaked in the back door."

Fauna took a deep breath, her brow still furrowed. Anton was worried. So worried that he'd pretended to be a school reporter and sneaked past the cops. Was that all?

No, of course he was worried, anyone would be after seeing the police and ambulance outside of his best friend's apartment building.

Her expression softened as she studied his face. He seemed okay - not stressed or scared. He was spouting all sorts of muggle technical terms that most criminals had no concept of, which meant he hadn't been Imperiused and sent in here as some kind of muggle decoy. It was the little things.

Anton was okay.

"Um, thank you for worrying," Fauna chimed in as gently as she could. "Sasha's ok. Unhurt," she added, looking Anton in the eye. "But Nicholas is right. You can't stay here where there's a crime scene."

She ran a hand through her hair, wishing she could be in a dozen places at once. She couldn't let Anton leave alone - too dangerous - and she wanted to ask him a few questions. Oh! And to clarify what he meant by the social media comment.

Maybe he could stay a little longer. Ms. Som might need to hear this.

Fauna hoped she wouldn't need to hear this.

"Sorry - what do you mean by blowing up on social media?" The dread was palpable in Fauna's voice. Of all the things!

There was very little that could surprise Quill anymore, so a shining youth chumming his way in with coffees and gossip did not, to Quill, mean disruption or delay. It was just something that was occurring. Just another mote of chaos to take into account. She waited a moment while the three young wix made their greetings and the boy told his story with no self-consciousness or worry at all. Blake and Bevans clearly knew him and Quill noted how his presence put them both off their footing.

Oh. She turned her head a little to get a better angle - no wand in hand and no familiar place to keep it. The bold and curious youth was, perhaps, not a wizard at all.

Bevans had at some point gotten to the point and Quill nodded. "That's fine. No gaps, make it look good," she advised.

Then, misunderstanding the point of Blake's recent question, Quill explained. "It means there's a heavy increase in activity on their mobiles. Show us, please."

It was simply a sign of the times that to be effective Quill's department had to develop a working knowledge of muggle internet networks. They'd been far too late on the uptake for email and online bulletin boards, but some clever administrator along the way had managed to get the right muggleborn brains in a room together and now Level Three had memos. One of the more recent ones was about the growing relevance of Snapchat and its unique ethereal qualities.

If they were 'blowing up' online, that information stream would need to be diffused as well.

"No problem," Anton offered, unconvincingly, arching an eyebrow at Fauna.

If hearing Sasha was 'unhurt' despite his flat being described as a crime scene was supposed to be reassuring, it failed.  Confirmation that the combined flurry of law enforcement activity and Ministry of Magic infiltration was centered around his best mate's apartment only proved to intensify his worry. 

But, he'd have to take Fauna's insistence that Sasha wasn't in harm's way - and the relative calm with which she delivered that news - at face value.  He was about to ask where Sasha and Moira were when Fauna's interest shifted to social media. 

Anton cast a surprised glance towards The Adult when she beat him to providing Fauna with an explanation. 

"Well,  yeah," he confirmed The Adult's explanation, nodding.  "You two have gone totally viral," Anton offered, quickly tugging his phone from his pocket.  But, when The Adult also expressed an interest in the content, he decided against that format and slid the phone back in his pocket. 

"Izzy, from down on 302, makes herself out to be the building's gossip.  The one who always seems to know when a neighbor's 'non-boyfriend' pays a late night call, if you catch my drift.  It seems like she posted the first images.  From there..."

As Anton elaborated, he crossed the living room to the computer desk and logged onto Sasha's desktop.  In quick succession, he pulled up his Facebook account[1] and started scrolling through all the posts popping on friends' feeds, the local news feeds and various school discussion groups." 

"I'm not actually with the school newspaper - but I can join, if that would be helpful."  He glanced up The Adult.

1.	A sample of the gossip

Nicholas made his way to the door when Quill signed off on his plan but he was listening as Anton explained what he knew to Fauna and his boss.  Shit.  Blowing up on Twitter and Facebook was not good.  At least he wasn't in charge of fixing that.  He just had to keep anything else from ending up on the internet. Not a tall order or anything since he had to cast spells while apparently a bunch of muggles were all trying to figure out what was going on with their cameras pointed at them.

He opened the door, careful to avoid getting close to the flowers while he checked the hallway. Nicholas let out a disappointed sigh when he immediately saw several officers look his way.  He pulled a swab from his pocket and pretended to take a sample from around the door jamb before carefully shutting the door and locking it again.  It was really much easier to cast when he could see where he intended to anchor the charm.

Nicholas glanced over his shoulder, this was his chance to impress his boss which he wouldn't do if his charms sent Anton running from the room.  He took a deep breath and focused on his spell work and started casting.  First to encourage anyone inside to stay in their flat.  Then a strong one to keep everyone away from the damn door.  Then the hard one, make the building uninteresting.  But not so uninteresting that the police just pulled up and left because that would cause more questions.  The last spell hit the wall and a ripple of grey light spread out along the wall before quickly fading.

He unlocked the door and stuck his head out again, this time with a smile because the muggle officers had backed further down the hall and no one looked his way.

Nicholas locked them in again and turned back to the room, he tuned them out while he worked but Anton was showing them something on the computer.  "Done.  The charm on the building should last a couple hours, I've never cast it on a building this size."  And he'd rather cast it again than mess it up.

Hunched over Sasha's incredibly expensive computer, the harsh glow from the screen lit Fauna's face and illuminated the blush spreading across her cheeks.

"Oh Helga help me," Fauna whispered, her gaze riveted on the incriminating posts.

Her whole soon-to-be step-family had seen this! Anton, bless, had invented stories for her, but Fauna was most worried about everyone else in the world seeing her and Moira go viral on social media. What was on the internet stayed there forever, in some form. She really didn't want to cause problems for Level Three, or worse, have to explain her mistake to the tech-illiterate Pratt.

That's what she got for checking her phone while sneaking into the building, confident that the muggle onlookers would assume she lived there or had a good reason to walk past security. She'd been thinking more about the cops than the crowd, and hadn't wanted to add too much magic to an uncertain situation.

Fauna glanced up at Ms. Som.

"Back when Moira and I had arrived, we'd stopped in an alley and I'd casted a mild illusion spell around us to let us slip in without the cops noticing. But I didn't expand it to the whole crowd."

A trace of apology laced her voice. She searched Som's face, wondering at her opinion.

Fauna had several questions, like whether the posts needed to be deleted if the muggles hadn't actually witnessed any magic, but she also knew Ms. Som would know exactly what to do, and didn't want to slow her down. Perhaps the presence of Anton, too, deterred her from speaking freely. She blinked, amused, at his offer to join the school newspaper, though she understood well what it felt like to desperately want to help.

"Where did the owls come from?" Fauna frowned distractedly at the screen. "Are all of them Ministry?"[1]

1.	Side note: one of the owls is most definitely Leander's, sent to spy!

"I'm not actually with the school newspaper - but I can join, if that would be helpful."

He wasn't a wizard, and he wasn't a reporter. Quill clicked her tongue and muttered a, "why not." Muggle or squib or not, he was clearly inside and had as good as information as anyone right now, better even.

"Thank you, Bevans," Quill said to Nicholas when he returned. "That's good work."

Thank Merlin, for his effectiveness. Green Obliviators stepped in it as much as the newbies in the Auror Corps, but at least Three were trained to clean up after themselves. Self-cleaning blunders, someone had once coined a phrase.

Quill had been about to move on with their work. She'd have reassured Blake that this was all manageable, even with the social media issues. But the owls... Quill straightened up and peeled off the plastic gloves of her costume and took out her wand.

"No, those aren't ours," she said firmly. "They shouldn't be here."

That was basic Statute of Secrecy Keeping - one owl is interesting to muggles, two is remarkable, but three is a spectacle.

At the fireplace, she used a magic spell to stoke the fire again. She kept one eye on Anton while she did, but was sure now it would not surprise him. Then she used a handful of Floo Powder to ignite the portal.

"I'm calling for an owl-catcher," she explained as she wrote out the order on her clipboard, preparing to send it through the floo. "I don't like being watched."