Ah, it felt good to be working outside again, to get some dirt on her hands, which was what she was doing now.  Well, that and getting dirt on her stomach… and her face.  At the moment she was lying prone on the grass, wand in hand, doing her best to level out the ground as she possibly could and measure how much room she had been allotted.  Also she could mark out a large perfect circle around herself which she could spell boundaries about later.

Finished with the dirtier work of the afternoon, she set out to bring the “Pasture Animals” out on her newly marked pasture.  Turning on her heel she opened up what looked like just a small (though tall) shed and unlatched the door, disappearing within the sunny glow that came out from it.

First out was the Porlock, who would help her keep everyone together in case someone found a gap in the border.  Next were the horses, then the Re’em, the Niffler, and lastly the Fire Crab.  Covi was afraid if she let him out first the poor guy would get run over.  Good thing she did as decided to take a nap right on the threshold.  With a huff she rounded him and gently pushed his bejeweled backside all the way out, fastening a dragonhide veil around said backside soon after.

There was a loud caw, quickly followed by a black bird flying out of the shed, settling on the witch’s shoulder.  “Oy!” she greeted Speedy, ruffling up the feathers on his chest, then asking, “Could you scout out a spot for your fellow avians?” to which the raven nodded its head, clicked its beak and was then off and away. 

Latching the door shut again, she lifted her hand to her eyes in an attempt to follow Speedy’s crooked flight, but he was long out of sight and was left just staring at the Forbidden Forest.  So many memories there…

Archer was doing patrol with Tamis for the Woodcroft festival.  After having witnessed one of the most brutal public displays of violence he thought they had ever seen (which was saying quite a lot), they were upping security at all public events. He didn’t think they would need to do much, considering it was unlikely the same thing would occur twice, but in case there was a stupid copycat-er out there, they couldn’t be sure.  Always better to be safe, he had been told, and he was going to go through with the patrol he had been assigned to.  Thankfully, patrols were almost always done in partners, in case anything went wrong.  It was better to have two wands handling a situation than one. 

 It didn’t seem that too much was going on, however and, Archer was moving around to just survey things. It was only what he could have expected at this point.  There was a lot of setting up being done, the music festival was going to be big.  It did heighten his awareness a little more once he realized just how big it was probably going to be.  There was talk that it could be one of the biggest events of the summer, but it was idle gossip and he didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it.  He had never been particularly interested, he’d prefer to be at the Quidditch World Cup if he had the choice, but some people liked this sort of thing. 

Putting his hands in his pockets, he continued along the perimeter, looking for things to even have to check on.  It all seemed on the up and up. Moseying closer to some activity, Archer was pleasantly surprised to see Ms. Gertrudis of head of department fame.  She had been the youngest ever, if he recalled the article right, and ruffled the feathers of some – amusing, considering her job, and he chuckled at his own thought.  He had nothing against her, thought she was probably a pretty decent girl and she looked like she was working fairly hard – and by herself.  He pursed his thin lips and stood on the outside of the magic boundaries she had set up for the creatures. 

“Miss Gertrudis!” he called out, grinning at the dirty, younger woman, approaching from the back.  He didn’t want to startle her, but if it happened – well, he would have had to shrug it off.  “Excellent set up you’ve got here,” he commented amicably, glad to have something more interesting to do than look at the merchandise stands going up.

A voice drew her attention away from the distant treeline.

“Ah!” she said happily, “Mr. Radley!” and walked over to him, dusting her hands off on her jeans, putting her wand in its holster.

Leaning to the left she propped up her arm on what seemed like thin air, but was actually leaning on the side of one of the posts from the invisible fence.  Hopefully Archer wouldn’t try and come through.  He’d get smacked in the forehead with the fourth highest rung.  It had to be fairly tall to keep in all those flying horses, after all.

“What brings you here?” no doubt it was work, but it was polite to make some conversation, and she was fairly acquainted with the man.  He was an Auror around when Eddie was.  A good lad... as far as she knew.  Loyal to the end.  Not that he was a "lad" of any sort to her.  On top of that she knew of his brother who worked with the Fireballs in the Far East, and his other brother who had crossed brooms with Billy.

An odd thing they were nothing more than mere acquaintances.

Then again, back in the day wearing her black and white she would have been hard-pressed to talk to anyone rooting for Puddlemere. 

He was pleased that she did not jump, startled at his greeting.  She was probably one of the only witches who could ever do that, really.  Probably all the work with the creatures, he figured.  Perhaps he should have gotten her to give Tamis some lessons with them so she could loosen up a bit.  She was tighter than a child’s robes on an elephant.  She refused to do anything about it on a normal basis, no matter how many times Archer offered it up, and was more often than not inclined to punch him in the shoulder than take his advice.  She had a hell-of-a punch for a little person. 

Grinning easily, he sauntered close, but not too close to avoid walking into the barriers.  He knew they had to be up – wild creatures running about without an enclosure was a violation of ministry law – something Miss Gertrudis was clearly very well acquainted with.  “Just a patrol,” he answered cheerfully, “after Remembering Day, you know, we have to step it up at these public events.”  He shifted a little uncomfortably.  It was not a pleasant subject and one of his colleagues, a good man, had died.  His poor wife and daughter – Archer actually still kept in touch with Mrs. Timmins, just to make sure they were doing alright.  Probably residual guilt that someone who actually had a family died in the fray. 

He believed Covadonga knew his brother, Joel, since he was in a relatively close field and not too much older than she was – and probably had heard Hunter’s voice clogging the airwaves when a game was on.  He didn’t believe, if his memory served well, that she was a Puddlemere fan.  Such a shame she had bad taste in quidditch.  Not everyone could be informed, however. 

When he looked into the pen, Archer blinked.  “Ms. Gertrudis…” he started, “I may not know much about creatures, but is that niffler supposed to be chewing on the firecrab?”

Her eyes widened, and quickly turned on her heel to see what the matter was.  Indeed, the Niffler had climbed up on the Fire Crab’s back and was licking and gnawing away at the tortoise’s shiny shell.

Doubling over she laughed hysterically, “It would be a sight if he could make any dent there!  Although I am sad I had to cover Blue’s,” yes, Blue was the name of the Fire Crab, “backside… took away his only defense mechanism.”

The poor guy was looking quite perturbed about the whole situation, and was slowly turning about in circles, its great leathery head arched up as high as he could get it.  Feeling bad for the poor guy she trotted over and plucked the Niffler off of the magical reptile and patted him on the head.  With a sigh he went back to eating grass.

That reminded her, she had to start getting out proper food for all of these guys.  But that would have to wait!  Tucking the annoyed Niffler under her arm—which looked like an odd cross between a mouse, an anteater, and a badger—and walked back to Archer, digging around in her pocket with a free hand.

Holding the medium-sized rodent out to Archer between the rungs she said, “Here, this is Monkey,” looking back at the Niffler she squeaked once, getting the female’s attention before calmly rumbling at her.  Looking back at Radley Monkey’s nose wriggled as she tried to sniff the man. “Ah!  And before she tries to go after her badge,” she fished out what she had been looking for in her pocket.  A galleon.  Covi held this out to him as well to give to Monkey once he was holding her.

He had never been bad at care of magical creatures, but he had never been particularly motivated.  He liked to work with his hands, probably more interested in the work to make a creature happy than the actual creature itself.  So, when Covadonga started laughing and was not taken aback, Archer relaxed a bit.  His chuckle was far more guarded than her’s was, however, as he knew little of just how strong one of those was, it wasn’t surprising it put him on guard.  His job was to protect, after all, human or animal.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, putting his hands in his pockets, watching her work.  She clearly loved her job.  There were no two ways about that, he noticed, and for her to have the time to do something like this with all of her responsibilities, he was fairly sure it was why he never really sought advancement in the office.  He could have been a leader on a large scale, but decided that it was better to avoid such things and do what he loved to do rather than sink under paperwork.  Tamis could handle both – he was not sure he could have. 

His eyebrows rose in curiosity when she came forward carrying the strange little thing that looked something like a badger.  He was presented with the rodent and for a moment wondered if she was kidding or not.  It wasn’t what he expected and was even more surprised when she actually really wanted him to hold it.  Well, it couldn’t hurt; he thought as he took the rodent from her through what he figured was an invisible fence.  “Monkey, eh?” he asked, making sure he heard correctly – balancing her in his arms, awkwardly.

It probably looked like he was some kind of inexperienced father trying to balance a wriggly newborn.  He supposed a niffler and a baby weren’t very different – particularly the whole attraction to shiny things.  He laughed softly as it squirmed and glanced up at the sound of Covi’s voice seeing a gold coin.  “Oh yeh,” he reached over and took the coin, holding it in front of the niffler so it wouldn’t grab his badge – or bite him.  “Last thing I would need to do – lose my badge to a rodent.”  The niffler sniffed at the coin with wide eyes, Archer gave it over willingly.  It seemed entertained. 

“Where’d you find this guy, Gertrudis?” he asked curiously, knowing they were typically a goblin thing.  “Pinched it from a Goblin?”

Covi crossed her arms and grinned, but her eyes went a bit sad, “Close, Mr. Radley, but not quite.”

Tapping her wand on the fence she stepped through and then turned about and tapped it again to close it.  Granted the Porlock could have guarded the hole well enough, but he was busy trying to get the Re’em off of Alabaster, one of the winged horses. 

Putting her wand back in its place she put a hand on a jutted hip and scratched Monkey behind her ears with the other.  “Goblin friend of mine, Ragnok, actually gave her up to me,” and now, for the sob story, “Monkey’s mum had a time at birthing, and sadly she didn’t make it through.”  Covi wriggled her nose, “She had a twin too, but…” the witch shook her head, “And her mother was Ragnok’s favorite.  It pained him too much to see Monkey being alone, especially that young.  He did not have the heart or know how to take proper care of the poor wee thing after all that had happened, so he approached me and I took her in.”

The story was a similar one surrounding all the creatures she had at home in her menagerie.  When she was younger her family just bought pets from her, but now as she grew older she realized how wild things needed to be wild and to take them out of their natural habitats just as a plain pet was cruel.  However, she could was more than willing to take in any animal that needed her help, no matter what size or shape.

People just started bringing the animals too her after a while, she didn’t need to keep a look-out for them anymore, and it had all started back when she was with Rolf in Africa.

But that walk on Memory Lane was soon interrupted by a faint “caw!”

Her head jerked up toward the sound, her thick blond braid snapping back like a whip, just barely able to see a black spot circling far above the horses, teasing them since he was above the aerial boundary.  Rolling her eyes she took out her silver pocket watch and held it up to the sun, using it to signal to Speedy her location, quite forgetting the Niffler in Archer’s arms.

If there was one thing Archer didn’t mean to do, it was make anyone upset.  Clearly, his joke was not quite as funny to Miss Gertrudis as it had been to him, and he felt a little awkward about the whole thing.  Rolling his shoulders, Archer balanced the niffler again, wincing as its claw dug a little through his robe.  He hoped the thing wouldn’t rip it up.  He was terrible with repair charms, particularly in reference to his clothing – he would have to take it to his mother, and he was not sure he really wanted go down there any time soon, unless there was a game…

He couldn’t let his mind wander too much as Covi talked, really trying to listen to her.  Looking at the little thing, he wondered if it even knew that it didn’t have a mother or a twin anymore.  He couldn’t imagine that he knew much outside of how shiny the galleon he as gnawing at was.  “I’ve never known a goblin to be so… caring,” he found the word he was looking for, but thought that perhaps he sounded just a bit condescending.  He didn’t know, but figured Covadonga would realize not everyone had such a splendid relationship with Goblins, particularly since they had such a problem with his vault, namely that there was usually almost nothing in it at all times. 

Whatever the case, the niffler was kind of cool.  If he wasn’t afraid it would hoard all of his official things, he would probably want to own one.  It would sure help with the whole lack of gold thing, he noticed, and scratched it’s head.  The creature emitted something akin to a pleased purr, though he could have been confusing it as a growl whilst it bit into the coin again.  It was almost destroyed.  Hopefully he had something in his pocket, just in case. 

The loud noise he heard, immediately sending him on high alert turned out to be a bird, high above.  He craned his head back, much like the far smaller blonde woman to his side and wondered what kind fo creature that was.  “And just what is that?” Archer asked, instantly more interested in the bird than the niffler.  How unfortunate, really, that he wasn’t paying attention.  If he had been, he would have been able to prepare himself. 

The galleon had been chewed out and then dropped.  The niffler turned her head this and that way, sniffing with that silly nose, and then a sharp pain in his chest.  “Merlin’s bloody bulgers!” Archer yelled as the robe and part of his skin were pulled at with little teeth.  The badge was far more interesting now, and the bird lost all interest for Archer who speedily attempted to find something in his pocket to distract the medium sized rodent with. 

“That would be my blessedly spast—” but her introduction for her raven was cut short by his hollering.  Turning about to see what on EARTH was the matter now, her blue eyes went as pale and as wide as the sky.

She lunged at the man, “No!  Bad Monkey!  BAD!” and with a great exacerbated sigh she exclaimed while she started hastily trying to unbutton the front of the man’s robes, as Monkey had decided to crawl underneath the fabric to try and undo the badge from behind so he could take it off (the sly fox!), reprimanding the Auror, “I gave you that galleon for a reas—!”  For the second time her voice was cut off, but now by a ball of black feathers.

“SPEEDY!” she cried after his hollowed-bone body collided with a THWUMP! to the side of her head. 

The poor guy was used to having his human’s arm out to go to as he couldn’t just land on her shoulder mid-flight because of his bum wing.  Alas, he had not been paying as close attention as he should have.  Once catching sight of the glimmer on the ground, he dove down toward it, but made sure to look back frequently to taunt and flap about and around in flourishing circles in front of the horses.  Especially the Abraxan, he was a feisty one, and the intelligent bird knew it.  Speedy loved getting a rise out of him!

Sadly, it was because of his complex display of unabashed mockery he had gotten himself into this situation, and now had the face of some unknown human up his tail feathers.

“I’m sorry!” Archer cried out while he abandoned the search for a coin and began trying to help Covadonga unbutton the robes.  The thing had crawled up toward his neck and then down and into the official robe he wore.  It’s little claws were prying at the pin in the back of the robe and he was just about as angry as the woman who had handed him the thing.  He never asked for it, he thought, and was almost disappointed that she had now entrusted him with it – clearly he was not a creature kind of person. 

Finally, when he got enough buttons undone to get the thing off of his chest, Archer thought he was home free – he had another pair of hands to help him and they could just give it back the coin and it would be happy.  Unfortunately, as soon as this occurred and a sense of relief was achieved, Archer was left to handle it on his own – the large, black bird swooping down and hitting Covadonga in the side of her head.  He gasped, letting go of the creature again, only to curse rather loudly as it’s nails dug into his chest.  Clearly, it did not want to be dropped. 

Sticking his hand in his pocket again, Archer gritted his teeth and finally grasped onto something hard and round.  Pulling it out, the coin glimmered in the sunlight.  All he had to do was find the thing’s neck.  His free hand searched, looking for the scruff that he knew most animals had.  This all seemed to work perfectly until his vision was completely inked out and he went to take a breath, but instead tasted feathers.  His hands flew up to try and protect his face, but it was quite useless, having been knocked almost silly by the big bird. 

His footing was wrong for that type of blow and he fell to the ground on his backside, the coin flying out of his hand and onto the grass, the metallic clink as it hit against a rock making the niffler raise his head and poke it out of the robes.  He darted quickly toward the coin and Archer had a moment to collect himself.  Reaching for his wand, he pointed it at the Niffler, now gnawing on the coin, and lifted it back toward him and into his free arm. 

An awkward moment of confused silence lingered, possibly due to blows to the head and a rather rough landing on the ground, “Are you okay?”

Speedy cawed with fright, his beady black eyes thrown as wide as he could manage, his legs and wings flailing about as all three… no, four of them tumbled to the ground.  Covadonga’s actions mimicked her bird’s as in the tangled mess of limbs she was caught up and fell right on top of poor Mr. Radley, squealing all the way, ending up face down into his stomach, her bird draped over her head like some Victorian lady’s hat from yesteryear.

Well, well, well… this was rather awkward.  “Oh, just dandy, my good, sir!” she said as cheerfully as possible in answer to his question, but the awkwardness was compounded all the more when she tried to lift herself off the man, only to be yanked back down by some unknown force.

Moaning she fumbled around her head with her fingers to find what was the matter.  And what a matter she did find.  Some strands of that wayward, frazzled blond hair of hers was stuck in the buttons of the man’s robes.

“Oh bother…” she said dejectedly, collapsing right back down on the man’s lower body.  “I may have to make an amendment to my previous statement, Mr. Radley, heh…”  As Speedy attempted to roll over off of Covadonga, he himself found his claws tangled up in his human’s hair.  When he pulled she shrieked, “STOP IT YOU CONFOUNDED BIRD!” and raised a hand up and over the back of her head to smack the raven, but only managed to hit herself.

“Oh why did I not wear a hat today…”

Archer was not amused.  In fact, it was probably the least amused he had ever been in his life.  He was on duty, official in the robes and everything.  Now, here he was on the ground with a girl on top of him. What a way to look like a slacker.  Granted, it was something he would normally be quite happy about, even brag to his mates about after the shift was over.  Unfortunately, he knew somewhere in the fray of the opening of the festival, his boss was lurking about and she would not be amused.  With how she had been acting for the past few days, she would probably take his head off.

He would have been much happier if this had resulted in only an awkward untangled jumble, but unfortunately, he was not that lucky.  It always seemed that in situations that would have required not even a speck of trouble to occur, Archer found a way to make it interesting, and more often than not it ended up in something like this.  He laughed awkwardly and looked down to see that her hair was attached to his buttons. 

Beautiful. 

He went to help, but the bird was pulling and everything was being pulled and jostled in the wrong directions.  “Having some protection might have come in handy," he said with wide eyes, watching the bird squawk and then looking at her and trying to figure out what to do first.  This was certainly not a situation he dreamed himself in today. "Hold still!” he called out, trying to grab the hair attached to the bird’s talons.  “We’re not going to get it out if you don’t stop pulling!” he growled angrily, trying to get the bird away or the hair off his button.  He felt like perhaps he should work on the button issue. 

“Lean closer to the buttons,” he instructed, grabbing onto the hair and trying to unwrap it from around the confounded decorative things.  He hated these robes for a reason, and now he knew precisely why.  “I need you to get close so I can get you off.”

“Yes. Getting her off would be advisable.”

Tamis Raynor was obviously not herself. The robes she wore were pristine and identical to the ones that now … half… clothed Radley. The only difference was that her badge shone gold, rather than silver. Raynor may not have been a forerunner on fashion but she was well versed on hygiene. Even so, one only had to glance at her to tell that something was wrong.

Dark circles marred under her eyes, which, in turn, had dulled to a muted steel gray in comparison to their usual alert vibrancy. For once, her expression was quite decipherable and very clearly broadcasting one particular emotion impressively well; annoyance that was bordering on anger.

Akiva Katz was still missing, a fact many frantic individuals were giving her constant, unnecessary reminders about. Tamis had drained her resources dry, had pulled in every favor that she had, and still did not have any leads. There were too many possibilities and not enough ways to rule them out. Did her disappearance have muggle or magical ties? She did not have any malevolent enemies that anyone in the wizarding world could think of and nor could her muggle parents supply anyone from their world that might have wished her ill. The critical period to find a missing person was long gone and Raynor had even called in a damn Seer. A ridiculous waste of personal funds.

And instead of aiding in the search for her good friend, she was here, at a Festival. Watching stands go up and vendors set up shop, mundane tasks they were overseeing due to her overcautious vigilance.  After helping round up an escaped gnome, she had decided to make sure her partner had not managed to get himself into trouble. And here he was… fraternizing … with the Head of the Magical Creatures Department. She tried not to count how many of his buttons were undone or dwell too long on what Covadonga could possibly be doing from that position.

“Madam Gertrudis.”

Not fully comprehending the situation, Covadonga was just about to dig this hole she had gotten herself in into a canyon.

Having heard the familiar voice of the one and only Head Auror Tamis Raynor, she breathed a big sigh of relief and said, unable to see her face or having heard what she had said before, “Oh, my brother’s Muggleborn wife will be happy when I affirm her conclusions that there is a God!  Miss Raynor, I am in need of your assistance!”

She attempted to wiggle about, trying to tilt her ear up so she could hear the shorter witch better, “You and I have a habit of getting into sticky situations,” there goes up the shovel, “and it seems I have found myself in such a position,” into the dirt it went, “and since you seem to be an expert on such situations,” a clump of earth was scooped up, “I find myself compelled to ask for your advice as to what I should do next.”

Aaand the shovelful had officially been thrown over the shoulder.

Bless her heart, she was completely oblivious, and it was just about to get worse.

“Should I be turning in a particular way?  Change position completely?” the raven squawked, “I suggest you be quiet Speedy lest I get something wrong and have to start all over again,” she grumbled.

Covadonga took a deep breath and huffed, “And I heard you giggling before, Mr. Radley, and while I seem to not be having as much fun as you I will try to keep a positive outlook about this whole mess and be as delicate as I can.”  Of course, she had been speaking of taking care not to ruin the man’s robes, but… well, wasn’t Tamis a Legilimens?  Or was it Occlumens?  Bah, she could never keep the two straight.

Archer could have died the moment he heard her voice.  The second that stony, disciplinarian tone hit his ears, he knew it was over.  If not for the fact he had offered plenty of years of unrelenting service to the corps, he was fairly sure he would have gotten his pink slip and a letter of recommendation only fit for some establishment on the outer edges of Knockturn would have greeted him on his desk that Monday.  She was in the perfect state to take such measures as well.  Anyone could see that she was on her last rope – having spent more than enough time trying to find a friend and now here at the festival, which did not appear to have any relevance whatsoever. 

He didn’t bother to respond, in fact, he was more determined than ever to get he and Ms. Gertrudis untangled from one another so he might have a hope of keeping his job.  She looked so angry – and he knew she was going to explode.  She had even called in a bloody seer, it was serious.  And though Covadonga probably had nothing but the best of intentions, she clearly was not listening to herself. 

It was such a ridiculous situation with such odd players that Archer could not help but chuckle just a little.  The way she spoke – the words she picked, though she probably didn’t mean to – well, they were just priceless.  And to address Tamis about advice about situations like this – he couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, “If only she was used to situations like this,” only after he said it did he think that perhaps it was not the most intelligent thing to say. 

He usually put his own foot in his mouth anyway and when addressed, grinned sheepishly, “Just be patient, work on it slowly, and it should be done in a second,” he commented as he tried to get his big hands into the fray – frustrated that they were too large to do any good, “You’re going to have try,” he sighed, “My hands just aren’t dexterous enough.”  He sighed agitatedly, though a moment later he was chuckling again, shaking his head.  Tamis was going to kill him, really.  He was sure of it.  He supposed he was at least going to leave the world in the most amusing way possible.