It wasn't much as far as flats went, but Jonas had to admit that there were advantages to taking up residence in the back room of his old office.  For one, assuming that he remembered to buy groceries and he wasn't wanted on legwork, he didn't have to go out very much.  The location couldn't have gotten much more convenient, either, especially not for the rent he paid for it.  And the rent wasn't bad at all when he considered that he was acquiring both home and workspace. 

His office was situated on a decently sized road not far from Diagon Alley, which was conducive to both his sorts of clientele.  It sat on the second floor of an old brick building, directly above a second-hand bookstore and under a sign that read 'REED & WRIGHT - INKSELLERS.'  Jonas had never been certain if Mr Reed and Mr Wright had been the former tenants of the two upstairs rooms or if the bookseller below had just gotten cute with his puns one day before Jonas had moved in, but something about the sign appealed to his sense of humor.  He smiled every time he saw it.

Jonas had been living in the office for several months now, ever since his living situation had transitioned from the less permanent "you'd best find someplace else for a while" to the much more definite "I've changed the locks and can you get all your books out by Monday?"  He'd done so, and now all the volumes that he'd spent a lifetime collecting were crammed into the second and larger of his two rooms.  They were lined up neatly on the shelves of two enormous bookshelves, joining several head-high filing cabinets, a collection of generous piles of likely important papers that hadn't yet made it so far as to be filed, a television that never seemed to work anymore, and an old ratty sofa he'd gotten from a secondhand shop.  The sofa was currently doubling as his bed, which was one of the unfortunate parts of living in the office.  Jonas was sure that at some point in his life he must have slept somewhere more uncomfortable, but if he had, he couldn't recall it.

Business had been slow recently, although that was hardly a change from the usual.  Jonas had taken out an advert in the Daily Prophet but it hadn't generated much in the way of work, aside from an old witch who was missing most of her teeth and had introduced herself as the Widow Dorey.  So far, she had asked him to try and find six long-lost relatives, all at his per diem rate.  Three of the relatives had turned out to be long since deceased, one had been a well-known media figure who had absolutely no relation to Missus Dorey, and the last two had been living in the Widow's house, apparently with her full knowledge.  Jonas was never quite sure whether he should be disturbed that he had apparently acquired a perpetual client or just be extremely amused.  As long as her coin was good, he leaned towards the latter.

This particular morning, he had abandoned his quest to ferret out the latest misplaced Dorey relative, whose picture he was rather sure he recognized from a rag sheet somewhere.  Instead, he was sprawled on the sofa, his feet propped up on the opposite armrest, determined to get the ancient television to work.  It wasn't giving him anything but flickering, indistinct images as he flipped doggedly between the handful of channels.  The disappointing reception was accompanied by a persistent buzzing static that sounded something like an evil horde of possessed bees, which was why he didn't notice that his front buzzer was being sounded until it had been going off without cessation for at least thirty seconds.

Jonas swore as he finally realized that not only was someone was at the door, but likely had been for quite some time.  He levered himself to his feet, taking care to mind his stiff leg, and limped over to activate the intercom.

"One moment, mate.  I'll buzz the door; once you hear him sound, jiggle the handle and come on up."  He shook his head as he let go of the intercom button and depressed the one to unlock the front door.  Muggles would assume he was just being helpful; wizards might well need the instruction on how to properly operate the Muggle door technology in order to get inside.

He took one glance around the room and shook his head.  It was a mess.  Jonas had never been especially neat, but the months of living on his own had obviously taken their toll.  He gathered the waving and smiling pictures that were Missus Dorey's latest claim to a relative into a hasty pile and turned the bunch over on the table.  If his visitor were a Muggle and managed to find his or her way into the back room, it would have been tetchy to explain the moving photographs.   He shut off the television as well.  Excusing the sound of demonically possessed bees wouldn't be any easier, even if that explanation was perfectly mundane. 

By now, his guest was likely up the stairs.  Jonas scanned the room one last time, grabbed his wand as an afterthought, and then limped into the small front room, which functioned as his actual office. 

He closed the door behind him.  An effort had obviously been made to keep this professional space cleaner than the storage room that was now doubling as his flat.  The office's floor was impressively clear of clutter and the windows were wide enough that not much interior light was needed.  An old oak desk with sharp square corners sat opposite the door, framed by two chairs, one positioned to the front and one to the back.  Unfortunately, seating space was rather limited, as the chair obviously intended for a visitor and the desk itself had both been covered with a mess of poorly sorted papers.

"Sorry for the wait.  I was -"  'Watching the telly' was neither professional nor comprehensible to a non-Muggle, so Jonas changed his tactic mid-sentence.  "- filing some casework," he finished smoothly, consolidating the stacks of papers on the chair and dumping them on the desk to clear off the space.  "What can I do for you, Miss...?"

Aileen gave the intercom a sour look. She couldn’t be doing this wrong. It looked simple! ‘Jonas Trevelyan’ was printed on the button, so all she had to do was press it and it would send up a carrier owl of some sort, obviously. She peered in the window, frowning. There was absolutely no response- the muggle contraption must be broken. Or maybe she had to hold the button long enough for the owl to reach the recipient.

She leaned on the button for about half a minute, then jumped in surprise when a voice crackled out of the speaker. Aileen stared at it suspiciously. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was thankful for the instructions, and entered the building without a problem.

Aileen was not in the best of moods. She’d spent the night fuming and cleaning up after the thief that had broken into her home. Over breakfast that morning, luck had led her to find an ad in the Daily Prophet for a private investigator, and she’d decided right then and there that she’d at least check the place out. It was a much better option than asking the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for help. If there was one thing she’d learned over the years, the Ministry poking its nose into her business was a bad idea, and she’d prefer to avoid questions about how she’d been allowed to keep the dagger in the first place.

Still, as she climbed up the stairs, she couldn’t help but wonder about this Jonas Trevelyan. She remembered him very vaguely from Hogwarts. He was a few years older than her, and a muggleborn Gryffindor, so she hadn’t paid any attention to him. She wasn’t surprised to find out he’d been one of those do-gooders who had joined up with the Aurors after graduating, and for some reason, had left during Voldemort’s second reign. She hoped that he would be able to find the dagger quickly, though the fact that he set up shop in muggle London, of all places, worried her.

When she reached his office she knocked on the door lightly, waiting a moment before stepping in. She raised an eyebrow at the stack of papers on the chair, watching as Jonas set them down on his desk. The office didn’t look too shabby- she’d seen worse. Of course, she didn’t have any idea that the door opposite her led to a storage room that he’d been living in. If she had, she probably would have excused herself and left, assuming that he didn’t have the funds or skills to help.

He seemed harried cleaning up, like he wasn’t used to a lot of visitors, but at least he greeted her politely.
“Reid,” she finished his sentence and extended a hand for him to shake, letting a cool, polite smile curl the edges of her lips.

“And no, I’m not related to the ink-sellers on the sign.” Reed and Wright- how cute. Perhaps it was conceited, but she expected some recognition from her last name. Her family was generally well-known in the wizarding world, and her older brother Trevor had been in Jonas’ year at school.

She perched on the edge of the seat and crossed her legs, waiting for him to get settled before diving right into the problem.

“A thief broke into my home last night and stole something very valuable. I’d like to get it back, as quickly as possible. It’s a dagger I uncovered while excavating a tomb in Egypt this summer, and I’ve been working on unraveling the old curses cast on it. If it falls into the wrong hands…” she shook her head. She did not need people turning up ill, or worse, because of an unleashed Egyptian curse. Aileen had had enough of those issues during the excavation itself.

She paused a moment and studied him carefully. “I need someone who can locate this dagger for me. I don’t care as much about the thief or pressing charges against her… I just want the artifact back, before I have to explain why it’s missing to the Egyptian Ministry.”

Eventually, that’s what she’d have to do if the dagger wasn’t found. The officials she’d bribed to keep several of the artifacts with her would likely rat her out, bringing up a whole new mess of problems and legal complications. There was no question about it. She needed to find that dagger, fast.

Jonas took the woman's hand as he easily glanced her over.  She was tall, nearly matching him in height, and she seemed cool and collected.  Most of the people who came to see him professionally fit neatly into one of two categories - corporate lawyers, looking to hire him for mindless drudgery; or the panicked and desperate, who had gotten some sort of romantic notion of what a private investigator could accomplish into their heads and were calling on him as a last resort.  His latest visitor did not appear to be the latter, and he didn't think she was quite stiff enough to be the first.

He had been just about to make a crack about her coming to evict him for her ink-selling business when she unfortunately continued on and preempted his joke.  He stopped himself from sighing.

"Miss Reid," Jonas repeated politely, gesturing for her to take a seat.  "What's your trouble, then?"

He lowered himself carefully into the chair behind the desk, brows knitting as he listened to her speak.  The mention of a curse meant "wizard" - or "witch," as the case may be.  Jonas regarded Miss Reid thoughtfully, absently picking up a pad of paper and flipping past a pair of old shopping lists to a blank page.  He thought he remembered a handful of Reids from Hogwarts; there had been one in his year or thereabouts in Slytherin, although they had understandably never been on friendly terms.

So a thief had stolen a cursed dagger and his visitor wanted it back.  In Jonas's mind, that put her closer to the second category of visitor rather than the first, although she appeared nowhere near panicked.  Finding a stolen artifact was a lot more interesting than tailing an untrustworthy spouse or sorting through endless case files, and he ought to jump at the chance to take on employment from a witch, if only to get his name out there. 

Jonas tapped his pen thoughtfully against the desk.  "Well, Miss Reid," he began, weighing his words carefully.  He had to sound sincere enough in his advice without actually convincing her that she'd be better off seeking help officially.  "I'd be remiss if I didn't suggest that you ought to report the crime to MLE.  I know the blokes there can be a bit, ah, noisy," he said, offering a silent apology to whoever the current Aurors happened to be, "but if a crime's been committed, those are the proper channels to go through."

He rolled his shoulders in an easy shrug.  "But if you want some insurance after you report it, I reckon I should be able to take on the case," he continued, brisk and businesslike.  "Ought to tell you, though, that it's a per diem rate."  Jonas named his usual price and then, venturing a guess that she could probably afford it, decided to up the normal three day minimum.  "Five days up front since it'll take that long to get started on a case like this, plus any expenses accrued.  If it runs you longer than two weeks, the charges switch to hourly. 

"Alright then?" he asked, uncapping his pen.  It was always better to charge ahead and assume that they were going to make the decision that you wanted them to make.  Most people tended not to fight certainty.  "I'll need to know as much as you can tell me about the theft.  Were you at home when someone broke in?"

Luckily, Mr. Trevelyan didn’t dwell too much on the fact that she should report the crime to Magical Law Enforcement. She wanted to keep the problem private and away from the press, but Aileen nodded, as if considering his advice.

“Mmhmm, well, perhaps I will report it, then.”

Then he moved on quickly to business, which suited her just fine. The prices seemed sound, and though studying Ancient Runes didn’t pay well, there was one good thing about being a Reid- she always had money when she needed it.

“Sounds reasonable to me,” she nodded, making a note in the small journal she kept in her purse, to remind herself of the rates later.

When he asked her to tell her as much as she could about the break in, she hesitated for a moment, reluctant to detail the embarrassing little duel that had occurred between herself and the thief. However, if he was at all professional (which he seemed to be, so far), he would resist laughing at her. She hoped.

“Yes, I was home, asleep, when the thief broke in. I knew someone had broken in because I’d set up a silent alarm around the perimeter of the house, so when it went off, I decided to sneak downstairs and try to catch the thief by surprise.”

Her mouth twisted wryly. “I suppose I thought I could handle it. And as I had suspected, the thief was in the library, hovering over the locked cabinet.  She seemed to know where to go- no other rooms were disturbed, though the library itself looked like it had been hit by a tornado by the time I got there.” Aileen shook her head, irritation building at the memory. “The thief certainly didn’t seem to care about making a mess and announcing her presence.” Maybe she was just trying to get in and out as fast as she could, but still!

“I was able to spot her easily in the dark because of the mask she wore. It was this ridiculous, gaudy thing that reflected light.” Aileen smirked at Jonas, as if she were sharing a private joke. Leave it up to her to get some amusement out of another woman’s choice of attire.

“Anyway, I cast the petrify spell at her, but she dodged it and sent Confingo in my direction, blowing up a bookcase.” Her eyes narrowed. “I attempted to cast the jelly-fingers curse at her, and it must have hit something because she shrieked, but before I knew it she had cast Serpensortia and crashed out of the window.”

Re-telling it, the story sounded even crazier than it had in her head. She sounded like a loon, talking about smashed bookcases, mirror-masks, and poisonous snakes.

Better to focus on the concrete details for a moment. “She was short- well, not short, around average height. 5’5’’, maybe. While she was screaming spells at me I noticed she had a bit of an accent, though I can’t quite place where…” Aileen frowned. She’d traveled enough, but she couldn’t put her finger on where she’d heard that voice before.

The red-haired investigator rubbed his chin to hide a grin as the woman accepted his price, and then bent his head and began to dutifully take down notes.

The details all seemed straight forward.  Jonas had performed the task often enough that scribbling down notes had become automatic; he wrote down enough that he'd be able to recall the facts later, but focused more of his attention on what his new client was saying.  By its nature, memory tended to be a fickle beast.  Even when a witness saw an event first hand, it could be impossible to accurately report details later.  What an individual thought they remembered was often very different from what had actually occurred.

After so many years working as a private detective and as an Auror before that, Jonas had learned to trust his instincts when it came to relying on witnesses.  This woman showed all the signs of being reliable - she spoke calmly and clearly, and didn't stop to correct herself.  Her certitude convinced him; even if she didn't remember everything exactly, he was willing to stake that she had recalled most of it accurately.

He scribbled down notes on the spells, as well as the physical description of the purported culprit.  The magic could be important if he could get his hands on the thief's wand - not that he was trying to convict anyone this time, he reminded himself dryly.  All he needed was to find the dagger.  Her appearance would obviously be helpful as well, although with Polyjuice potion, nearly anyone could moonlight as a short foreign-sounding woman and he'd never know the difference.

"She sound British?  American?" he asked with a frown.  An accent could mean all sorts of things, from Yorkshire to Canada, although that was something else that was easy to fake.  A bloke could be born down the street in Hammersmith and sound like he was brought up in the middle of Germany if he practiced well enough.  "You notice anything else about her?  Wand length or color, say?" 

That was much more difficult to substitute - though each was unique, few magic users owned a spare wand.  Fewer still thought to disguise theirs when committing a crime.  Identifying a wand went a long way towards identifying a wizard.

"And I'll need a list of any spells you had set up at your residence," he said thoughtfully, tapping the pen on the edge of the desk.  "Or any other protections, Muggle ones too, that she might have got through." 

He nearly asked if the doors had been locked, but it occurred to him as he opened his mouth that that wouldn't be much of a concern to a wizard.  A simple Alomohora would replace any key.    But either way, knowing what sort of security this thief had worked her way through would give him a sense of what sort of professional he was dealing with. 

“British, mixed in with,” she paused. “Something else.” That wasn’t very helpful. Aileen wouldn’t apologize for her memory lapse in that area, but it did grate on her nerves. “The accent was so faint, perhaps I thought I was hearing something that wasn’t there,” she considered, the possibility that she was wrong leaving a sour taste in her mouth.

Jonas then asked about the thief’s wand, and for the millionth time that day, Aileen wished she had turned on the damn lights during the duel, or tried to unmask the thief. She’d been so focused on stopping her in her tracks last night that she hadn’t thought about how to catch her if she escaped.

Now, she was stuck picking up the pieces. Which she supposed was Mr. Trevelyan’s job. At least he asked a lot of questions and seemed to be taking careful notes.

“Her wand?” Aileen shook her head. “It was a dark color, I think, but it was dark in the library too, so that might not be accurate.” She racked her brain for anything else, but came up short. “She wore gloves, though I imagine that’s typical of any thief.”

When he went on to question her about the types of spells and safety precautions she had set up at her house, Aileen’s cool smile returned. Finally, she could give him a concrete answer, and perhaps he’d be able to provide some insight as to how the thief had gotten past all of them. She’d already put the spells back in place after the thief had escaped, and she'd added a few more before leaving her house this morning, but she intended on making sure no one could break in again.

“I use the standard spells on the front door and windows: Colloportus and anti-apparation spells. The front door also has a version of Expelliarmus set on it, which is supposed to disarm intruders. In the library, there are some bedazzling charms placed on the artifacts, but I must have forgotten to conceal the dagger before I went to bed,” Aileen frowned.

“What I can’t understand is how she got past the runes. Throughout the house I’ve put up shielding runes, like Algiz and Hagalaz, and the binding rune- Isa- which works like Impedimenta. But the only security measure that seemed to do its job last night was the silent alarm.”

She assumed, perhaps conceitedly, that he’d know that she was an Ancient Runes professor, because some of her expeditions had been written about in the Prophet. Aileen watched his reaction, hoping that that information she’d just given him would be helpful.

Jonas nodded absently, his calligraphy racing to keep up with his new client's words.  He was willing to take her statement that the thief had an accent at face value.  It was far too easy for observers to start second guessing themselves, and if Miss Reid's first take was that her unwelcome visitor didn't sound entirely British, he would put stock in her observations.  A faint accent was less likely to be affected than a strong one, as its owner might not even be consciously aware of it after a few years in England.

He noted down her memories of the wand, though those were likely to be useless; he couldn't have expected much better in the dark.  The gloves were too bad as well.  It wasn't as though he could ring up one of his mates at the local constabulary and lean on them to run prints when his party of interest was a wizard, but one never knew.  Maybe there would have been something on file.

Most of the spell names were ones he recognized; Jonas seemed to recall them all as being standard enough.  The information that there were other artifacts present - and possibly equally accessible - was interesting too.  Had the thief come just for the dagger?  She - or he - would have had to know that it was there then.

"I was never much one for ancient runes," he remarked, though he dutifully recorded the names to the best of his spelling ability.  "Might mean she did her research though, if she got past those.  I don't remember them being part of the standard contingent."

He frowned, tapping the end of his pen on the notepad, and then glanced up at Aileen.

"Did anyone know that you kept the dagger there?  Or did anyone express interest in it?  Or, you know -"  He waved a hand vaguely.  "You didn't see anything suspicious, any blokes lurking about lately, did you?  It sounds a bit," Jonas began, choosing his words carefully.  He didn't want to say anything now that would make her jump to conclusions.  "- like someone went to a lot of trouble to get that dagger, and there had to be some lead up to it.  Do you have any reason to think she tried to take anything else before you interrupted?"

Aileen smirked a little. Of course setting up runes around her home wasn’t standard security, and she expected only a small group of people to understand how those runes worked. However, he was right to assume that the thief had done her homework since she’d gotten past them. It wasn’t outrageous to think that an Ancient Runes professor would use runes for security, so any thief worth her salt would have probably looked into it before breaking in.

She should have been less obvious and used other, stronger security measures, Aileen thought, her smirk falling away again. At least she knew where she went wrong, now. However, that knowledge didn't solve her current problem.

Listening closely to his next questions, she started to look concerned when he suggested that the thief might have been after the dagger alone and had a specific reason to steal it. She shuddered to think if that was true. Aileen hadn’t yet been able to remove the ancient curses cast on it, and she worried that if handled improperly, the dagger could set something off. Something dangerous. And it wasn’t just her reputation on the line, but lives could be lost, too.

How... inconvenient.

She wondered if Jonas understood what he was getting himself into. Aileen shoved the worry away. If the dagger did let a curse loose, she hoped the thief got the worst of it, she really did.

Aileen shook her head. “No, I hadn’t told anyone where I kept the dagger or any of the other artifacts.” Few people were aware that she even had them, but then again, it made sense to assume that the Head of an excavation would hang on to a few things to study.  “I hadn’t noticed anything suspicious, either, though I spend very little time at home. I’m usually teaching, or in my office at Hogwarts.”

Her office! She’d have to make sure everything she’d hidden there was intact. The castle obviously had greater security than her home, but it was something she needed to look into right after this appointment was over.

She sighed and tried to push away her impatience. “I don’t think she tried to take anything else. My things were strewn about the room rather haphazardly, and she didn’t try to make a grab for anything when I confronted her.  I checked after she’d escaped, and nothing else had been taken.”

Aileen wished she knew why the thief had wanted that dagger to the extent that she had ignored everything else of value in the room. The thought that someone out there knew more about the dagger than she did was almost unbelievable and very, very vexing!

Jonas paused briefly in his note-taking as the woman mentioned that she spent most of her time teaching at Hogwarts.  If that were Miss Reid's usual routine, the thief might have expected that she wouldn't be present.  Robbing a Hogwarts professor's home had to take a bit of nerve.  He realized that he had no idea what she taught, although History of Magic seemed likely.  She didn't seem the sort for Defense Against the Dark Arts, even if she was dealing with cursed objects, and it would make sense for a magical history professor to be spending her time on Egyptian excavations.

It was almost enough to make him wish he'd paid more attention in History of Magic class back in school.  But as exciting as having a ghost for a professor had seemed on paper, the lack of entertaining teaching methods had entirely failed to grasp his interest.  Jonas wondered if he were missing anything important about the possible value of ancient Egyptian artifacts.  Even if he were, he assumed that he'd be able to figure it out.  There had to be a book on the subject somewhere.

"All right," he said finally.  "Have you cleaned up the mess at all?  It might help out if I can stop over later and poke around a bit to start.  See if the thief left any other hints behind."

Even professionals made mistakes.  If Miss Reid had truly interrupted this thief in the act, there was always a chance that something could have been forgotten, though the idea of checking for fingerprints seemed a bit prehistoric when he had his wand in his back pocket.  When he'd first started out on his own, not being able to use magic had driven him batty, especially when the solution would have often been so simple if he'd just been able to cast a spell.  But with so many years having passed, sticking to what he knew well held a lot more appeal. 

And one never knew, he thought.  The minds of wizards and Muggles often worked so differently that what seemed obvious to one could be completely missed by the other.  Perhaps this mysterious thief had been so worried about rot like Polyjuice potions and auric resonances that she had completely missed a footprint left outside the window in a conveniently measurable size six.

There was another avenue of questioning to pursue, too.  Jonas glanced down thoughtfully at his notebook, considering how best to approach the subject.  Being direct usually yielded the best information.

"And I've got to ask," he added, his tone apologetic as he looked up at the woman, watching her carefully for any hints to the answer.  "Is there anyone who comes to mind who might've wanted to orchestrate a difficult situation for you?"  He decided to wisely keep 'verging on an international incident' from the specifics.  Finding the artifact was now his business; dealing with the Egyptian Ministry if the task was not accomplished was thankfully not. 

Still, this was the part of the conversation that most clients - he quickly qualified the 'most' with 'excepting those here because of marital discord,' whom he suspected often looked forward to it - did not want to have.  It was one thing to be victimized by a stranger; it was quite another to be betrayed by someone you knew.

"An old lover?  An academic rival?"  Jonas took a look at her and decided that 'spurned child' could safely be off the list - she couldn't have been any older than he was, and the revenge capabilities of a ten year old were usually confined to throwing tantrums.  "Or has anything happened recently that could make you think that the theft was directed at causing problems for you rather than just stealing the dagger?"

He wanted to see the crime scene. Aileen nodded  reluctantly. Yet another thing she’d overlooked. She’d just been so angry last night, that she’d needed to do something, and cleaning the broken window shards off the floor seemed like a logical move at the time.

“I’d started to clean up,” she admitted. “But you’re welcome to come over later and see if the thief left any clues.” Aileen hoped she had. The thief had seemed so damn messy and unpredictable, that Aileen really wanted that to work against the woman.

In the next few moments, Mr. Trevelyan got this hesitant, apologetic expression on his face, like healers did when they were about to deliver some unpleasant news. Aileen braced herself and raised her eyebrows, wishing he’d just say it. When he started to explain and she realized what he was asking, her face adopted a guarded expression.

She’d made more than a few enemies over the years. At Hogwarts alone, she was surrounded by people like Grimlish, Bombay, Lumpkin, and Snark, who each made their dislike of her clear. But would any of them go out of their way and risk their own jobs to make trouble for her? She didn’t believe so. However, she’d be watching them more closely from now on.

There was a long pause as she ran through a list of people in her mind, finally stopping at one. Whether it was right or wrong to accuse him, he was the only person who would stoop so low just to piss her off. He knew she had at least one of the artifacts, because they’d run into each other at Borgin and Burkes. Aileen remembered the smug, yet bitter expression on his face and the way he’d tried to pry into her business.

Her expression darkened and she stiffened in her seat. She didn’t want to have to say this, but…

“My brother. Simon,” she glanced away from Jonas and briefly looked at her hands, which were clasped so tightly together her fingers were going numb. Aileen loosened her death grip and then went on.

“He has a… respectable job at the Ministry, now.” She said ‘respectable’ in skeptical tone. Aileen wasn’t about to talk about what his job entailed, because mentioning the phrase ‘werewolf registry’ left a sour taste in her mouth, quite frankly. Jonas could find out on his own if he wanted to.

“But for a while, a few years at least, I had no idea where he was or how he was making a living. I’m afraid he might have picked up a few bad habits.” It was a tactful way of saying he’d disappeared off the face of the earth until Aileen had seen him skulking around Knockturn.

“We’ve never... gotten along well. He’s at odds with our whole family, actually.” Aileen took a deep breath. “The reason I thought of him, though, was because we ran into each other about a month ago. I was meeting with a specialist in ancient curses…” that was certainly one way to describe Borgin. “And Simon seemed very interested in our conversation.”

Aileen paused. “I’d just brushed it off as us bickering, like we usually do. But, if he knew I had one artifact, he might have guessed I had others.”

The chair was suddenly uncomfortable and Aileen shifted, feeling drained. She was tired of the enemies, of worrying if her own brother was going to backstab her. It got old. She might have relished the challenge when she was in her early twenties and didn’t have an important job to lose, but now, she was 33- 34 soon, Merlin- and she was simply sick and tired of being so careful all the time. It was like she was trapped in a game of wizard’s chess, and sometimes she just wanted to knock the pieces off the board and start over.

“I’m probably wrong,” she said quietly, embarrassed by having to admit all this. “But I suppose it’s worth looking into.”

Jonas had long ago learned that everyone had something that they didn't want to talk about.  Asking for help was a difficult task - at least for the individuals who looked to hire him on; corporate representatives couldn't care one way or another as long as they deemed the fees reasonable - but it was made worse by having to admit to things, even in passing, that one would prefer never to address. 

Over the years, he had learned little tricks to make the drawing out of information easier.  He'd keep his tone light, set the pen down so that it was clear that he wasn't taking notes on this bit, and let them talk.  Watching their posture and their eyes helped.  It wasn't that they needed to tell him the absolute truth - Jonas had no desire to encounter every mysterious skeleton in the closet unless he was being paid to excavate them - but they needed to tell him enough so that he could do his job. 

Professor Reid stayed in very tense control of her own physical reaction as she spoke.  Jonas considered her words; someone as controlled as she was would leave plenty of the uncomfortable details to be filled in later.  Her brother sounded like the black sheep of a respectable wizarding family, and family sometimes drove people to do stupid things.

It was something to look into.  Even if the respectable Simon Reid hadn't guessed that his sister had other artifacts, he could have very well let the information that she had one such item slip out.  As could have the mysterious specialist in ancient curses, Jonas thought, absently rubbing at the bridge of his nose.  He was becoming quickly aware of the increasing possibility of a headache.  No one knowing where she kept this dagger was very different from no one knowing that she'd had it at all.  If she'd met with this curse specialist in a public place where her estranged brother could come across them, it was very possible that others had overheard as well.

Finding the stolen dagger would have been much easier if the information about it had been tightly controlled; in that case, Jonas could have simply traced the leak.  It was sounding more like he was going to be following the rushing river from a sprung dam.  He kept himself very carefully from sighing as he picked up his pen again.  There was not a doubt in his mind that he could locate the dagger, but the task seemed slightly more daunting than it had a moment ago.

"Well, if you have an address you can give me for the respectable Mr Reid, I'll start there.  If not, I'll see about tracking him down," he said, flipping to a new page in the notebook.  Official paperwork might well qualify as the arch nemesis of Jonas's existence, but keeping careful notes made his job easier, so he'd forced himself to become meticulous.  He numbered the new page with a 2 and printed 'Simon Reid' carefully at the top, leaving a line blank above it.  The artful title for the case would come later, probably when he was stuck on a train to somewhere; at least this one had plenty of possibilities.

"It might be a help if I can get a name and address for your ancient curse specialist, too," he continued.  If someone else had approached the man about similar curses or had shown interest in Egyptian items, that was a place to start.  At the very least, he could begin tracing the flow of information.

"Other than that, leave me directions to your flat and I'll stop by later to take a look.  Once I've been through, if you've got anything else that's valuable, you might want to think about relocating it for the near future," he added in a dry, professional tone.  Lightning generally didn't strike in the same place twice, but if the thief had had a look around - or if this was something personal and not just professional reappropriation - it was worth taking precautions.

Jonas flashed her a practiced reassuring smile.  "It may take some time, but I'm sure it'll be found.  Nothing disappears into a vaccuum -- err," he said, realizing that he was talking to a witch who very likely could make things vanish into a vaccuum, "or at least nothing valuable does, and I've got no doubt that I can poke around a bit and make it turn up."

He luckily remembered in advance that asking for a number to reach her at was unnecessary.  "If you think of anything else or if anything else happens that's odd, send me word.  And I'll keep in touch regularly to keep you apprised of any progress or developments."  That was a polite way of saying that he'd update her on where the accounts stood, but most people liked to stay informed of how an investigation was going anyhow, even if there wasn't always an exciting answer.  Professor Reid struck him as the sort who'd like to have that sort of control.  "Is it better to usually owl you at Hogwarts?"