A small gust of air chilled the nape of Marietta's neck.  Her body shivered in response, as her mind prepared the entrapment spell.  She whirled on the spot in her family's attic, freezing the creature behind her and forcing it into a prepared trunk.  Perfect, she smiled to herself, before apparating with the trunk into the outskirts of Hogsmeade. 

*CRACK*

The shrieking shack was perfectly dreadful on its own.  If it wasn't such a student attraction, and closer to the Ministry, Marietta would have been perfectly content to live there.  For tonight though, it would be her haunting place.  The Department of Mysteries had seized upon the Shrieking Shack as their contribution to the Woodcroft Festival, and Marietta was to make it the scariest like no shack ever was.  She had obtained permits for wizarding space, allowing their interns and herself to have a free hand in decorating.  The shack had been expanded to have six rooms, each with a different theme of the Underworld.  She had been able to procure two boggarts for the house, the first already in place and the second within her trunk.

"Nolan," she called out, looking about for her intern, "Take the trunk, please."  She still had to finish decorating the entry room and complete the Drop to the Underworld.  Marietta had already exhausted her ration of cobwebs per room, and after after spelling it without countless protections against scratches, nicks, fingernails and sweat glands, she had brought her own personal coffin.  It's ebony wood shone from a fresh coat of lacquer, and Marietta was quite proud of the effect in the dingy shack.

A variation on the space spell with the help of several illusions and charms had allow students to enter the one story shack, but instantly and without notice enter into the new second floor of the shack.  Then her plan would spring into action.  "How are the rooms coming along?" she asked her intern, walking throughout the shack.

Still getting used to the freedom and ability of Apparition, an ability which she had only really been able to properly experiment with since the start of the summer, despite having earned her license well before the end of term, Waker stood still for a moment and almost comically adjusted her brown gaze to the new setting. The instantaneous way of travel was much better than Flooing, which she had never quite loved. Something about dust, and fires, and cramped spaces… not to mention the whirling sensation. But Apparition was still a marvel to the muggleborn, even if she liked to pretend otherwise.

Coming to her senses and straightening up at the sound of her name, Waker trained her gaze on the foyer of the Shrieking Shack. While her advisor had gone to fetch a boggart (and who knew what else), Waker had disappeared for a few moments to stock up on various mayhem-causing contraptions from the Weasley place in Diagon Alley. Little things to compliment the attraction, where most of the work had undoubtedly been done by hand: good-old fashioned magic to terrify children and to ensure a sleepless night for the parents of the spooked. Waker had never spent so much time blatantly planning ways to disturb the peace. Of course, she’d gone in with a list. There was always a list.

Marietta Grimlish, the Unspeakable for whom she had been working since embarking on the adventure that was the Ministry of Magic, was about as eccentric as they came. Adding to it, the Department of Mysteries was its own little Ministry within a Ministry. Waker had been able to quickly confirm in her first few days on the job what had led her to apply in the first place: there was a cool if sometimes invisible barrier separating it from other departments. But she had not expected what had come next.

Still, even if the Unspeakable standing some few meters up in front of the foyer was as unconventional a witch as Waker had ever met, the Ravenclaw was hasty to make a good impression. Besides, she rather admired the ‘unconventional’. But usually in very Waker terms. This one had been a trip and a half, and she couldn’t count the hours she’d spent comparing notes with Jasper, worrying whether she was in over her head, or talking off George’s ear.

Without a word, she nodded—though whether Madam Grimlish had seen it was questionable, given the spot where Waker had appeared out of thin air—and trekked forward to place her palms on the trunk. Stepping back almost immediately, as if slightly tipsy, she remembered what was supposedly encased in the thing. A boggart.

Waker raised her wand, silently but gingerly levitating the trunk a few feet off the dusty floor. It hovered easily, but the Ravenclaw was still suspicious… and wary. If it happened to throw itself open and envelop her in its contents, she might never see Marietta Grimlish and her odd bat familiars again. Surely she had to graduate before she met her death via boggart. More importantly, she didn't want anyone to see the shape it took when terrorizing her.

Oh, what was she fretting about?! “You know how to get rid of a boggart,” she murmured, scolding herself. “You wouldn’t have landed the internship if you—”
 
“Wonderfully!” She said, raising her voice in an attempt to be confident, and following the Unspeakable with her eyes again. Was she over-estimating herself? Had wonderfully been the wrong adjective? Should she mention how she’d almost lost a war against a sluggish ghoul who seemed to think her empty threats to hex him out of the way were, well, empty? “I just got back from Diagon Alley, but I managed to finish the tunnel of flames before I left. And I think the last of the plants have arrived…” There’d been quite a few installments of dangerous flora.

Keeping her wand pointed at the trunk (just in case), Waker moved awkwardly toward the bottom landing of the staircase, where her trusted clipboard was sitting atop the end of the banister. “Are we doing something with the upstairs toilet? I swear I heard it… speaking.” She cringed. She sounded even crazier when she spoke the words that had been running through her head for the past hour. She’d planned to bring it up a little more eloquently.

"Perfect," Marietta beamed, delighted with the entire project.  Tilting her head slightly towards the ceiling, Marietta's pale nostrils flared as she sniffed the air.  "Terribly dreadful," she muttered, commenting on the scent.  Bringing her senses back down to the matter at hand, Marietta took a small inventory of what was still needed for her room.  "I think a touch more sulfur should do it," she spoke offhandedly to her intern, "See if Tavin can add a pound more to the furnace."  She edged around the large hole in the floor, vaguely covered by an old Persian rug that would later have students falling through and into their underworld. 

It was a roundabout Haunted House, one obviously constructed by a Grimlish.  Students would enter to meet a ghoulish Marietta rising from the coffin.  Cue flaming walls, and she would herd them onto the rug, watching them fall onto a padded riverboat on the Styx.  Nolan, as the demonic Charon, would ferry them through a river filled with ghosts, water-borne creatures and a boggart or two.  After passing through the tunnel of flames, the students would only be able to escape by climbing the rickety staircase of doom and eternal longing.  Upstairs they would have to fight their way through the vegetation of purgatory.  Once through, the students only had to walk through the large grey veil to exit the building.  It would be an unforgettable experience.

A question broke through her reverie, and Marietta paused before the door leading to the purgatory room.  "Oh yes," she replied, hesitating to remember just what she was keeping in the toilet, "Just one of the poltergeists, Steve, if I remember correctly.  If you need to use it, just levitate his bubble out of the way.  I always double up on entrapment spells, so don't worry about him getting loose."  The door squeaked open, greeting Marietta with a wall of humidity and the odor of old socks.  "I believe we're out of toilet paper; should I pick some up for tomorrow? I imagine we may create some loose bowels, or at least that is the fervent hope." 

Marietta's slender body had no problem weaving through the dense maze of shrubbery.  Most of the plants were shipped straight from the Department and were quite familiar with Marietta's scent, rarely waking to attack outside of the odd snip at her ankle.  "Show me what you've done with the river, Charon.  Have you transferred all the creatures in, or are we still waiting on the DRCMC?"  The fruit flies were thick in the room, and Marietta was glad to be out of the midst as she carefully descended the staircase.

The juxtaposition of joy and words like 'dreadful' being used as positive descriptors was admittedly a bit hard to get used to, but then they were working on a Haunted House. Waker had had to reminds herself more than once not to frown and ask how she could remedy something she'd thought they'd done rather well, only to discover that it was good when, say, a room smelled bad. The sulfur now tingling her own senses as it was mentioned, Waker nodded and underlined Tavin Poole's name at the top of her to-do list, which was floating beside her on a clipboard, along with the trunk.

It was also odd that poltergeists looming in toilets could be mentioned with such nonchalance, even if this was technically all pretend. Marietta seemed a very experienced Unspeakable. Waker might not have been able to keep her cool while coaxing ghouls into the plumbing. But this was why she was interning! She had, with one-hundred-ten percent certainty, learned something new each day so far."I... I'll remember that." And the pub down the road, where the lavatories were free of entrapped souls. At the mention of preparing for accidents, Waker frowned and strained her neck unpleasantly, but then tried to turn it into a smile. "I can do it!" She said, dishing out as much enthusiasm as she could possibly spare. "I'll add it to my list of things to buy tonight. There's toilet paper everywhere between here and Colchester..." Thankfully. "Do you think maybe we should have some sort of emergency exit?" She added cautiously, trying not to offend her mentor, who had obviously put a lot of love into the project. And it really was brilliant. Waker was proud to be a part of it, possible side effects of the spooked and all.

Following after Marietta, and dodging bits of branch and leaf along the way, which were less inclined to treat Waker like a favorite human weaving through a personal collection of puppies, she nodded at the woman's back and gave a flick of her wand to freeze the trunk-turned-boggart-prison and clipboard in her wake. Hurriedly brushing a strand of hair from her eyes to hide any momentary stress or nervousness, Waker then redirected her wand to the river. She'd already become used to being called Charon. A glowy orb spilled over the water, illuminating it for their viewing. Underneath, shadows of various creatures, from grindylows to (relatively) harmless but seemingly imposing water serpents, floated, mingled, and dodged the light. In the damp cavern overhead, vampire bats slept in hoards. They, too, stirred at the glow. "Almost everything is in place. Were we going to try to bring in a thestral?"

After waiting for feedback, Waker added a few more things to her list, so that she wouldn't forget on the trip home later that evening. The weekend was going to be a busy one, but hopefully a rewarding one. "I'll go ask Mr. Poole about the sulfur now." She carefully charmed the boggart's trunk onto the ground at the river's edge and then took a few measured steps back, avoiding more plants, and swatting a snake-like root that tickled creepily at one of her legs. "Diffindo!" She murmured, shooting a quick severing charm at it, hoping Madam Grimlish wouldn't mind too terribly. Turning, she attempted a more graceful stroll toward basement, where the furnace was located.

"Mr. Poole?" She asked, taking the stairs one at a time, her eyes roaming each step suspiciously. They'd transformed the shack so completely that even Waker's obsessive side couldn't keep up with everything.

Tavin had been irritable for a while now, and he was frustrated that even work couldn’t pull a good mood out of him. It had been a whole two months! He was obviously in need of motivation; why else would he be thinking of her so often that he felt like a teenager, that constant bumpy broom ride of emotions assaulting him even when he was doing things he loved. Like multiplying his stink plants and foliage for the upcoming Woodcroft Festival.

He’d heard the door, the voices, and the muffled voice of Marietta. The octaves she could reach left a very profound reminder on his memory. There were upsides to being in the herbology section of the Department of Mysteries. He liked his quiet and his space; he was a bit of a proud man, and when others messed with his things, he was very sensitive and easily offended. Not that that had anything to do with Unspeakable Grimlish… it was just an observation that coincided with the simple fact that he preferred quiet… and his space.

For the festival, however, he was willing to work with others. He could work in a team… He was sure there was an ‘i’ hidden somewhere in it… a silent one they took out eons ago so that people could come up with that silly saying.

Tavin had taken the liberty of starting from the ground floor and working his way both up and down. Or rather, down for now; he’d finish the top, that foam on top of a warm butter beer, the sugar on top of his pancakes. At least he had a lot of work to throw himself into for the festival. If he had known that right then, Marietta’s intern had injured a plant before the festival… he might have thrown a mild temper tantrum.

As it was, he was luckily in the dark, no pun intended. He was under the stairs in the basement, so when he heard his name called out in question, he merely raised an eyebrow and felt his way along the worn wood to where he was attaching the vines. They would no doubt take over the railing by the time the shack was open for victims. He would just need to lay down a repelling charm to the stairs; no need to trip someone.

Grunting out, he lifted a hand and beat on the stair above his hunched over head. Moving it back down, he took the wand out of his mouth and lit a low light, slowly backing out from the cramped area. Standing up and stretching, groaning softly, he finally eyed the shadowed young woman. He gave her a partial smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes, his arms crossing over his chest. The robes were light for the work, and the repellent charm was no doubt in need of repair before he set off for his next self inflicted assignment. “Miss Nolan?”

Waker heard the thump from somewhere beneath and jumped a little, even with both feet still planted on a step. She teetered forward, both palms catching the rickety rail, one hand pinning her wand to it. She was lucky to have long arms. With the pounding of heart resonating through her, the Nolan girl closed her almond-shaped eyes for a brief moment, opening them again in realization and splaying her free hand over her collarbone. It was the boggart all over again: it was silly to worry. If she was ever going to get anywhere in the Ministry, she was going to have to anticipate this! And everything!

Maybe she should have taken Divination, after all…

A glow matching that of her own wand suddenly appeared from under the stairwell, and Waker breathed more normally still. Taking a few more steps, she lowered the light and took in the silhouette of Tavin Poole, whom she hadn’t really worked with until now, given that he worked for a different faction of the department than the one for which she slaved interned. But she’d seen him, on more than one occasion, in those magical elevators, or in the subterranean corridors of the Department of Mysteries. He was rather ridiculously good-looking, but also somehow intimidating. Not that she’d been looking, or anything.

Noting the man’s crossed arms as her eyes adjusted to the dark, Waker straightened up and tried to appear casual, collected. “Madam Grimlish wanted me to ask whether--” Diction, Waker, diction! “Well, to tell you that we need more sulfur…” In her attempt to smile, she grimaced a little, thinking not only of the unpleasant effects of the sulfur, but also of how the request had left her mouth. She was speaking to someone above her! In the logical sense, of course. Currently, however, she was paranoid that she sounded rather bossy. And there, on the steps above him, it was almost comical in its awkwardness. “A pound more, in the furnace. When you have time,” she added quickly, finally flashing a more proper smile. “Please.”

Straining her neck a little and trying not to concentrate too hard on the amount of dirt that lurked in the dark below the handsome-but-moody older wizard, she asked, “Is there anything I can help you with?”