The habit of fretting over what could have been nothing was not one Akiva had always harbored.  She liked to leave things to their own devices, assume that everything was alright until she heard otherwise, but it was just so uncharacteristic of Dree not to answer her phone calls nor show up to work.  She had thought the previous evening was a fluke – him falling asleep, his battery died, something that could be easily explained without having to over-react.  When she did start to worry was the next morning.  He had left work early, after all; maybe he had just gone to bed because he didn’t feel well. 

With that in mind, she had made him lunch to bring to work, if he showed up, as a small gesture – and went to deliver it that morning.  Dreogan had not shown up to work.  He did not have an excuse, had not owled in, and certainly hadn’t told Akiva.  She inquired with his secretary – chit chatted about her new baby (adorable picture on the desk – which also helped Akiva warm up to the woman), and then asked about his datebook, but no trip had been scheduled.  She did not expect that, but she wanted to make sure – just in case he forgot to mention it, which was possible.  After all, their lives were busy enough as it was; perhaps it just slipped his mind?  It was unlikely though, especially if the office didn’t have a record of it. 

Naturally, this lead Akiva’s mind to wander.  She did not want to jump to conclusions (though it was almost impossible), and if she were not late for work, she would have immediately started looking for him.  She remembered, of course, that it hadn’t even been around twelve hours.  The morning moved by slowly – she wanted to go down repeatedly to see if he had showed up late (it was possible, after all), and when it came time for lunch, Akiva did not partake.  She only waited in the usual spot in the atrium for five minutes, when he did not show, she went back to his floor. 

He had not shown up at all that morning.  He had not even come in late.  She was just about at the point of real worry on the subject – founded worry – it just didn’t feel right.  She glanced at her watch, deciding she had enough time to at least go outside and call him.  Going into a real phone booth, not the entry way, Akiva took the phone off the hook, deposited a few coins, and dialed his number.  The ringing only echoed in her mind as she waited for the answer.  After a few minutes when there was no answer, she rubbed her neck anxiously, then her eyes.  The best she could do was return to the ministry – she could sort things out there. 

This wasn’t like him – and by the end of lunch break, when no one had heard from him, Akiva decided it was time to talk to Adon.  If anyone was going to be able to help, she figured, it would be his brother. 

At her desk, she wrote a quite note on a memo sheet and sent it down to the second floor, folding it into a square and writing Adon’s name on the front.  She wanted him to meet her upstairs (she still had not overcome her fear of entering the level, and figured she didn’t want to raise any alarm with anyone else).  It was a private issue and family was the best to go to in this case, perhaps he knew what was going on and it wasn’t a big deal anyway.  Despite the fact her stomach churned and she was nervous, she tried to be as positive as possible – there was an explanation, and it wouldn’t do anyone any favors to freak out.  This did not stop her from writing urgent underneath his hand and including a bit about it involving his brother on the inside.   Hopefully that would be enough to get him upstairs. 

Though, as she scribbled down her signature on one of her papers, she couldn’t help but sigh again, licking her lips as she glanced at the door.  It was harder to wait than she anticipated and she fidgeted anxiously with the quill. 

Since having made some progress in the potential smuggler's hierarchy, Adon felt himself on the right course. And when things like this happened, he became excited. On fire. Sleep didn't matter; neither did food. What did matter was when things or people got in his way. When he was forced to put down his quill or paper and look up. The only thing worse than things getting in the way was being stonewalled. Waiting on someone who did not recognise the exigency of the situation. And currently, Adon was waiting on Dreogan. He'd written two owls that morning and the man could not even talk to him on a professional level.

Now, Adon didn't care if they weren't functioning on a familiar level. On a friendly level. Even on a "this guy I once knew" level. They could deny, for now, their blood bond. Their fraternal obligations. But he could not neglect his professional duties.

This was big. And it was slipping away the longer Dreogan held out on him.

When an owl swooped down upon his desk -- a Ministry owl, good -- Adon snatched the parchment away quickly, breaking the seal with his thumb in an action so frantic the owl gave a whistle-like screech, flapping its wings in irritation, head swiveling like a bobblehead.

"Oh, go cough up a mouse somewhere else," he muttered to it, waving his hand in dismissal. The bird, on cue, shrugged and, taking off from atop Adon's cubicle wall, swooped through the hole above the door installed for such purposes.

Adon began reading, at first not catching the meaning of the words, thinking them to be from his brother. Talking about lunch. Sick days. The written words "your brother" made him halt. Who was this? Flipping over the letter, he read Adon Eleor: Urgent. Up top the right, Akiva Katz.

He sighed. Of course. In a more careful manner, he re-read the letter, frowning as he did so. The likelihood that Dreogan was also not talking to Akiva was much slimmer. He peered through the gap in his cubicle. He could break away for a moment, if this was really urgent.

And it had better be, Adon thought as he pushed through the wooden doors, cringing as he heard the screech-like hiss of the angry owl overhead and felt air swoosh past him as it dove for his head with the skill of a kamikaze pilot. He narrowed his eyes, hand going for his wand. Hesitated. Security wouldn't appreciate that.

But that bird had a death wish. "You get off this time, bird; I don't have the time to pluck you," he said contemptuously as he pushed through the increased security of level two and mounted the stairs to level seven. Because the only thing worse than wasting time climbing stairs instead of taking the lift was waiting as the lift got off on every. single. floor.

 He arrived, a bit out of breath -- more from the exertion after too little sleep than from the actual rigor of the exercise -- at the information desk in the library.

"I'm looking for Akiva Katz," he informed in his usual tone and volume, only to be received by two of the librarians there with identical, hissing noises that sounded like his owlish friend on level two.

Fumbling with her quill, it was getting harder to wait.  She looked at her watch again, it had only been three minutes, but it certainly felt like a lifetime.  She wished for the immediate satisfaction of knowing that things were going to be taken care of –that she didn’t have to worry and someone was going to help.  Adon was the best option, again, because of who he was by virtue of relationship and employment. 

It was only right to seek the proper authorities when someone was not answering calls, when they had not shown up for work, and certainly hadn’t informed anyone of this fact – it was Dree they were talking about, after all.  He didn’t do things like this, simply put.  She looked at her watch again – only a minute had ticked by.  She wondered how many times she would have to splatter the ink in the quill before Adon arrived. 

She licked her bottom lip when she put down the quill, wringing her hands together.  One of the librarians looked over at her with an expression of concern, to which Akiva whispered that it was just her wrist bothering her.  That sated the old woman’s curiosity for the moment and Akiva was ready to just walk out of the library herself to meet the younger Eleor, but the sound of the door swinging open and a man’s voice abruptly asking for her name was enough to make Akiva –and the other woman at the circulation desk turn their heads to the hushing. 

The book she was writing in was immediately dropped and Akiva rushed out from behind the desk, her heels clicking on the floor rapidly while she rushed forward and around the entry way.  She could feel the fly-aways of her hair tickling her ears and neck; she did not feel at all put together like she usually was.  It was almost the same feeling she had when she started to come back to work after the incident, out of practice with looking like a well-presented and self-assured woman. 

Waving to the women, she wanted to push away their angry stares and then quickly dismiss their curiosity.  It certainly seemed that her concerned co-worker was taking an active interest in what was going on, since she followed Akiva’s hurried clicking and peered around the corner – her reading glasses magnified her already wide and overly curious eyes.  “Adon,” she breathed, put slightly at ease by his presence, “thank you for being so fast,” she started – when she looked at her watch, only seven minutes – excellent expediency on his part. 

She steered him toward the door he had come in, the atrium would actually be a much more private place to talk.  The quiet of the library facilitated eavesdropping and the overtly curious nature of the older women who worked in such a place, wanting that fresh tidbit of gossip to mull over in the staff room was enough to drive Akiva out as soon as something important came up – and something did.  When the doors clicked shut behind them, Akiva licked her lips nervously. 

“I was trying not to overreact…” she started with, getting the distinct feeling it might be chalked up to something like that, “but Dree left work early yesterday… and then didn’t take any of my calls last evening… then, I made lunch today and brought it to his office this morning… but he never showed up.  I checked with his secretary and he’s not scheduled to travel or anything like that… and he didn’t call in.  I went down again over lunch, still not there… and then I called his flat again and no answer…” she felt like she was rambling, which she was, but looked up at Adon with confusion, “Did he tell you anything? Have you heard from him?  I wouldn’t normally worry… but… this is so unlike him…”

They were scarcely outside the door, beyond the hearing of that hawkish trio, when Akiva took off.

Bolted at 90 words per minute.

"Whoooah," he said, resting reassuring hands on her shoulders. "Okay. Not overreacting, but just . . . whoah," he said, running his hands up and down her arms as he would a mare to calm her, taking a moment to think once she had stopped. He wouldn't ask her to repeat anything. Wouldn't reiterate. It was a waste of time anyhow. "I haven't heard from Dree in a while, Kiva," he said frankly. "We haven't been talking outside of work. But let's get through this, yeh?" he said with a bit of a smile, tilting his head and immediately masking his worry.

It was very unlike Dreogan.

"If he's at home, his mobile might not work with all the magic; depending on what's going on," he stated. It didn't explain why he would not have owled, however. "So let's start there." He looked back at the doors of the library. "Can you break away from work for an hour or two?"

Akiva was glad to hear that he did not think she was overreacting.  She could have been crying and storming around and doing a shoddy job apparating and splinching herself all over London to try and get to him, but she had done the reasonable thing… at least as far as she was aware it was the reasonable thing to do, wait a while – see what happened, contact the most viable options first and not act like a crazy woman. 

She didn’t want to feel crazy, and Adon was helping her feel like this was not crazy.  Biting her lip, she nodded as he spoke to her and then frowned at him, especially when he said they hadn’t been speaking – and in a while, outside of work not at all.  She did not like the sound of it – and it only served to add to the anxiety she was feeling about this particular feeling.  If he hadn’t told Adon, and hadn’t called into work, and hadn’t talked to her either – there was no feasible and legitimate reason to not be worried at this point. 

He didn’t look particularly nervous – he was probably trying to make her feel better, she knew enough about that to be able to see it.  But she decided to take comfort in that and nod slowly at first, and then more rapidly as she convinced herself she was not totally and completely insane.  “Yes, we will – yes, yes.”  Clearly, the repetition was a sad attempt at reassuring herself. 

What he was saying made sense, it did.  She brought her left hand up to her mouth; she caught a flash of the scar on her palm.  It reminded her of what happened when people went missing for too long.  She placed her pinkie-finger nail in her mouth.  She chewed on it momentarily, mulling over the information.  “True,” she said with the finger still in her mouth, and she felt rather like she did in primary school when she had to spell adjudicate in the spelling bee.  She lost not on that word – but extraordinary.  Ironic. 

Nodding, she glanced back to the doors and sighed.  “One second,” she assured him and jumped back behind the doors to assure the others she had something very urgent to attend to – they were more than willing to make it up to them later – and they certainly didn’t mind, as long as she filled them in later – she grabbed her purse and had to come out.  She’d have to come up with a grand story for that.  She’d have the time, she thought as she ducked back out of the library, “All set.” She didn’t hesitate to tug at the straps of her purse anxiously, “I didn’t get a chance to send him an owl…” she made sure to add, “I don’t have one at home… and well… I didn’t think of it here…”

"Do you really think something is going on that would interrupt the mobile signal?" she looked at him anxiously, a hint of fear in her eyes.  His phone usually worked... something largely magical would have to be going on to do that... She licked her lips again, oh this was not good at all.

Akiva seemed rather shaken. Adon could not quite settle the feeling in his stomach either and looked up at the ceiling as she went into the library, trying to find something to distract him. She arrived again, tugging on her purse like an executioner on someone's noose. "Alright; c'mon," he said taking her hand as he stepped forward, and guiding her, glancing back once or twice to smile reassuringly.

"Yeh, well," Adon said, as he nodded to the security force at the entrance -- regular security and hitwizards, an added measure after October 1's fiasco -- and passed through, showing his badge that hung about his neck. He blinked a bit in the afternoon light; he'd been inside since before dawn. It was bizarre to see how time passed. "He's been working on this project that I'm afraid has been taking up a lot of his time and energy. I wouldn't be surprised if he let everything else stew a bit while he worked on it. Depending on what he's doing with it, it might very well interfere mobile. Or. . ." he said, looking at her levelly and pausing a moment in his steps as they waited for the crosswalk to change, "he might have turned it off. If you didn't owl. . . there's that possibility."

Adon was feeling better about this now and so, with a bit of a smile, added teasingly, "Good thing you didn't send the owl, though. That thing is a harpy; half tempted to deplume the thing for taking a dive at me." The crosswalk now changed; a signal that the coast was clear; no cars anywhere, and . . . no Muggles. Checking their handgrip, Adon said, "Okay," before, with a faint *pop*,  they Apparated into Dreogan's stairwell.  "So. . ." he said, pulling out his wand in one hand and releasing her hand in order to knock with the other. "Now we just . . ."

He rapped three times, then twice in quick succession. For nearly anyone, three knocks was the standard. Adon at least tried to be distinctive and consistent with a paranoid brother.

At first, she'd assumed he was drunk.  Between the university and Oktoberfest, she'd seen her share of people in slight tipsiness, dazed and confused and full out drunken stupors.  Had experienced a fair few herself, as well.  So, when her host had staggered in the previous afternoon and had started towards the bathroom, Jacoba hadn't given it much of a second thought.  At first it seemed like he had a bit of the slightly tipsy, super-slowed post three liters of beer effect. 

Even when he came back out of the bathroom, clearly enroute to the bedroom, (seeming more like he was in more of the asleep-on-your-feet post wine stupor), she hadn't given it much thought again.  She'd been crashing in his apartment for a little over a week and had been careful to try to limit her home invasion to as small a radius beyond the couch as possible.  As every etiquette rule she knew would reinforce, Dreogan's bedroom was off limits.  An acknowledgment of his own personal space as much as any other reason.  So, as the less than coherent host made his way closer to the bedroom, he was drawing closer to what was and should irrevocably be his domain. 

But, the sudden heavy dead thunk just outside his bedroom changed the rules.  If the host hadn't made it to his bed, it was now the guest's moral obligation to get him or her some place comfortable.  Personal domain limits no longer applied - but the couch was the easiest option.  No breach of domain required.

It occurred to her that she was impressed as she tried to lug the dead weight all the way into the bedroom.  Somehow, he'd managed to drink himself into such oblivion while avoiding getting sick.  It was an admirable feat - and she was grateful for it as she (with some difficulty) managed to get him up on the couch.  Her stuff was still strewn across the couch but once it was buried under a dead weight body, it wasn't going anywhere.

He was breathing - he seemed alright (aside from the unconscious bit).  She'd keep checking on him but, otherwise, would leave him to his own to sleep off whatever (potentially wizarding) drink he'd indulged in.  And who knew what effects they might have?  By pulling up one of the cushier armchairs to his foot-end of the couch, Jacoba managed to get in a comfortable enough position to sleep - which being uncomfortable enough to wake up every so often to make sure he wasn't choking on his own tongue.  it was known to happen.

It wasn't really until noon the next day that doubt started creeping in her head.  He still seemed the same - nothing about his condition was really alarming except for one fact.  He had yet to wake up.  For anything.  Even the mandatory bladder evacuation.  Surely - if he was so drunk as to be in that stupor, he had to be needing to pee like a bloody elephant. 

It was when repeated attempts to arouse him had proved entirely ineffective that alarm really started to grow.  Maybe wizarding drinks needed a ... antidote drink?  Maybe ... maybe alcohol poisoning looked different with wizards?  Maybe ... did the wizarding world have a GHB equivalent? 

Jacoba was rummaging through whatever piles of papers she could find in hopes of tracking down whatever these people used for phonebooks.  Or resource references.  A number for Poison Control would be really nice right now but ... what was she supposed to say?  At one point, Dreogan's phone rang but she ignored it, leafing through a promising pile of take out menus - hoping he was as disorderly as she was. 

An hour and a half had passed.  Nothing had changed.  There was no sign of any change in his condition.  When another vigorous attempt to wake Dreogan up, with the assistance of ice water, yielded no results, Jacoba came to the conclusion that muggle help was better than no help at all.  She continued to try to shake his now cold, wet shoulder as, simultaneously the 999 operator answered and there was a knock on the door. 

"I'm not really sure what he's drunk," Jacoba was trying to explain as.  Still dressed in plaid flannel pajama pants and a Rammstein concert t-shirt and without bothering to look through the funky peep hole, Jacoba tugged the door open.  "Or if he knows if something else ... Hi wait ... someone ... Hello?"  Trying to explain the situation to the operator at the same time as greeting the strange man in the doorway wasn't easy.  "Who are you?"  She asked.

haha - tshirt! - one day I'll start the whole polyvore thing

She had to admit, Adon’s rational attitude was helping at the moment.  She had to trust him, after all, he was the one with the law enforcement instincts and even if Dree hadn’t been talking to him recently, there were still twenty-eight years of history between them (since Adon was born in the same year she was… whatever), and Adon knew his brother.  She assumed he would have the horrible feeling something was desperately wrong if something actually WAS desperately wrong, and for that, she was glad to have contacted him. 

There was something that bothered her about that answer though – something that unsettled her, Adon mentioned he was working on something that would take up a lot of his time.  Dree had made no note of this to Akiva, had not changed to mention anything about another work project. 

As they passed through security, she flashed the ministry authorization card she was given (nothing quite near so impressive as a badge) and frowned.  “He hasn’t mentioned any project to me,” she said plainly, slightly disturbed that he was keeping some kind of secret from her – something that could potentially make him skip work and not take calls?  Something to do with magic, she was sure, but what would be so bad that he couldn’t tell her, if he told Adon that meant there couldn’t be secrecy issues – could it?  She frowned again, her brows furrowed and lips pursed just a tad.  That didn’t seem right. 

Unfortunately, it was how it was and she’d ask him about it later – maybe, there were more important things to worry about at the moment, and she took the change to cling to anything that seemed remotely reasonable rather than some larger, secret project akin to Frankenstein’s Monster that she was imagining.  “That’s true,” she conceded quite easily – quick to accept an explanation that had nothing to do more than with a mobile phone being turned off than super secret experimentation.  That was easy to accept, and certainly could be a likely occurrence. 

Gripping his hand back, Akiva lurched with the apparating – always hate the feeling, and swallowed hard as they landed in front of the door, in the stairwell.  Nothing looked amiss, she noted, and his mail wasn’t sticking out of the box like it hadn’t been collected in days, which was inevitably a good sign.  She stood close by Adon and resumed chewing on that poor fingernail as he knocked, hearing some sort of rustling around inside.

Ah! That had to be a good thing, sound.  It quite possibly meant that he was scrambling to get ready or something of the sort, which would allow her to gently hit him upside the head for worrying her and then kiss him stupid for being okay.  Of course, these plans were interrupted when not Dree, but a young woman holding a phone answered the door, looking somewhat flustered and torn between a conversation on the telephone and answering the door. 

The lack of surprise, at least this time, that Akiva had when she answered the door was remarkable compared to last when she must have nearly paled to transparency.  Dreogan explained the situation, of course, and now she was aware of Jacoba’s existence as a guest.  It did not even cross her mind to explain it to Adon, who she had, at this point, squeezed by to get into the flat.  “Is Dree h-“ she started, poking her head into the doorway, and was cut off by the figure on the couch, drenched hair and shirt, sleeping as though nothing happened, the curls still dripping with water. 

Now, she pushed completely past Jacoba and hurried to the couch, kneeling on the floor to feel if he was breathing – he was, thankfully, but not responding to anything, including the first attempts at gentle shaking.  Tabitha, sitting over head on the back of the couch, appeared to be exercising her protective rights and yowled at Akiva as she tried to gently, but firmly, tap his cheek.  She sat back on her knees and looked up at Adon in the doorway and the girl, “Did you see him take anything?  Did he mention anything before he fell asleep?”  She was worried perhaps something had gone wrong… that he was not handling everything quite as well as he made it out that he was.  She gulped nervously and to ease her worry, smoothed some of the now flat curls back from his forehead – not even a twitch in his eyelids as her fingertips ran over the smooth plain. 

There was the sound of a voice on the other side of the door -- one Adon didn't recognise and couldn't with all those muffling spells Dreogan had put up -- which heightened, rather than decreased his suspicions as the door knob turned. Adon raised his wand, jaw set.

It was a young woman.

"Or if he knows if something else ... Hi wait ... someone ... Hello? Who are you?"  she said, in her pajamas, as though she had a right to be there.

Adon's face turned to a scowl of indignation. "Who the Goddamned hell are you?" he responded hotly. "Get off that thing!" he said exasperatedly, nudging his wand in the air towards her tela-- her device.  He cast a quick, anxious glance back at Akiva. She shouldn't be seeing this; whatever his brother had gotten into clearly . . .

But Akiva shoved past him, jarring his shoulder slightly as she entered. "Kiva, don't!" he warned, not knowing who this woman was, who else might be in there, where Dreogan was -- Damnitdamnitdamnit. She just went in.*

He narrowed his eyes as he also shouldered past the girl to gain entry into the flat, watching Akiva's progress to the front room. His gaze locked onto the prone figure of his brother, unnaturally stretched out on the couch. Legs stick-straight. Arm dangling. Clutter beneath him. He'd not put himself there. Adon was breathless a moment, entertaining grim possibilities. Stupefy. Poisoning. . . Soul-snatching -- though pray to God it didn't come to that. He didn't see how it could.

And how did Akiva know he had drunk anything? How did she know that this girl had even been there at the time of his collapse? And how did she know he was just asleep? Who was that girl talking to? And what was the "something else" that "he knew"?

"Don't touch him--" he ordered sharply to Akiva, though it was too late now. It was probably a mistake to bring her here. Damn him for having wanted to include her in all this.

"You," he said, turning back to the girl, his face stern, word precise. "What is your name, why are you in my brother's house, and how long has he been like that?" Behind them, that cat was yowling like it'd lost its tail. "Kiva," he said, not turning to her, "please step away from there a moment."

If it weren't for the hard jaw and determined eyes, Jacoba might have found the sight of a strange (and rather tall) man brandishing a short stick like a weapon amusing.   She had yet to really see what those things could do but had gathered and accepted that they were real.  The man standing in the hallway didn't offer anything in the way of an introduction.  Instead, just as the voice on the other end of the line started asking "hello?  Is anyone there?" the stranger started yelling and jabbing his wand at the phone. 

"Hey!  Watch where you're poking that thing!"  Jacoba responded back, just as hotly.  "You might put someone's eye out!"  Or worse, she assumed.  The fellow looked behind him and, chancing to look away from the stick-waving lunatic, Jacoba followed his gaze.  Thankfully, she recognized the young woman that accompanied the fellow. 

"Actually ... I think he's waking up."  Of course he wasn't, but the woman on the other end of the line didn't know that.  Jacoba was sure emergency response operators hated people like her but she wasn't going to worry about it.  The woman was already going on about sending someone to make sure but Jacoba quickly turned off the phone as she stepped out of Akiva's way. 

Jacoba closed the apartment door behind the three and watched Akiva as she knelt next to the couch.  Finding her questions far more inviting to answer, she cast a quick scowl at the fellow - whoever he thought he was - before answering Akiva.  "Naw - didn't see him drink anything.  But, I wasn't really watching.  He seemed a little tipsy but I thought he was just going to go sleep it off."  Sure - she hadn't seen him drink much since she'd started staying there but everyone drank something at some point, right? 

"He didn't really fall asleep, exactly.  He kind of just collapsed.  It looked kind of like chasing a little too much dragon with your beer, you know?"  Quickly, she shook her head and added, "not that I think he's the type and he's been breathing fine.  I thought he'd just sleep until -"  Well, the water.  And the still comatose Dreogan.  And the 999 call. 

She'd been trying to ignore the fellow but even she couldn't dismiss the pointed You.  "Jacoba," she offered briskly.  Brother?  "And, I've been staying here.  What's it to you?  And, there's no reason to treat him like a fecking hot zone - I've been around him all night." 

In Akiva’s rush to get inside she completely neglected to tell Adon that Jacoba was the sister of one of Dree’s interns or something like that –a mentee interested in muggle-mage relations or something of the sort, he wasn’t particularly clear when he described it, but it was something for work – the girl had come to see her brother, but could clearly not get to Hogwarts or have access to him until some break occurred.  Akiva certainly understood that, even if she was not particularly pleased with the fact she was staying there, it had become a wonderful excuse to spend even more time at her flat, when he wasn’t working on other things. 

His angry response to seeing the young woman in her pajamas wasn’t even Akiva’s concern, clearly, as she rushed right past and attended to Dree, who did not look good.  He looked like himself, like he did when he was sleeping, but not in the peaceful way that was associated with a good rest.  It looked forced, like he was hexed or stunned into it – something happened. 

She wanted to do something – to be able to help, but she was ordered to keep away – quite harshly at that, and she immediately retracted her hands and herself from the direct vicinity of the couch.  She continued to kneel on the ground, though now a foot or two back, and blinked at Adon.  She didn’t really know what to do, so she stared like she was deaf, blind, and dumb, until Jacoba addressed her, that was. 

Nodding along with her answers, they weren’t particularly helpful.  Dreogan didn’t really drink, and she could never see him, even if he was stressed, drinking himself into a stupor like this.  And he didn’t smell like alcohol, he hadn’t when she brushed his face, unless he took a shower, but considering she indicated that he collapsed, that didn’t seem quite likely. 

At the moment, the two attitudes – Adon and Jacoba – were toxic, and Akiva gave a frustrated sort of grumble from her spot on the floor.  Their suspicion and snark passing back and forth was not going to help the situation, and it really wasn’t about what they were going to snap judge about one another at the moment – his brother, her host, and Akiva’s boyfriend was lying on the couch and completely non-responsive.  “Stop it!” she frowned at both of them, rising from her spot on the floor to pace just a tad.  It was the most comforting thing to do at the moment. 

She didn’t know where to go from that point, of course, except in the telling them to stop and anxiously wringing her hands together with anxious glances back and forth.  She looked back at Dree on the couch and then to the two of them, sighing as she addressed Adon, a pleading look on her face, “Can you check him, please?” 

"Hey!  Watch where you're poking that thing!"  Jacoba responded back, just as hotly.  "You might put someone's eye out!"

Adon sighed and shook his head, glancing back to the couch. It was the sort of thing his mother would have said.  But from her, patronising and unhelpful.

Also unhelpful was the fact that this girl seemed to want nothing to do with him, addressing her answers to Akiva instead. He didn't like that. But he liked even less what she had to report. Collapsed. Adon shifted his jaw – the tension was growing there painfully as he tried to keep from expressing anything: on his face or verbally. 

The girl finally acknowleged him. "Jacoba," she offered briskly.

“Adon,” he returned.

”What’s it to you?”

“Well, ah, I don’t know, Jacoba,” Adon said sardonically. “My brother just happens to collapse shortly after taking in a stranger . . .” She had to be a stranger. He’d never heard of her. And Dree didn’t – couldn’t – keep things from him. “I certainly hope it’s nothing to me – or you – but it’s a bit of a concern. I’d just like to know from you rather than deduce these things myself.”

"Stop it!" Akiva burst out, surprising Adon, at least. She began to pace; she was losing composure and he was getting caught up. He nodded. "Alright," he conceded with determination, moving to the couch and looking down at his brother, a sick knot in his stomach as he pointed his wand at him.

“Goleya!" he uttered in Aramaic, feeling the power of the spell ripple through him, watching for the green glow that would emanate from objects under the effect of a spell. The glow in Dree’s front room alone was overwhelming – though only visible to the caster – and Adon covered his eyes with his arm for a moment, squinting. The entry door blazed green. The round, black rug was green. The pillar candles on the coffee table were green. The couch was green (Adon could only suspect that the couch, like the rug, was under some sort of self-cleaning charm.) But Dreogan was not. He was completely still. Completely normal. Except that this was not normal.

Still, Adon felt his worries lessen significantly. “He’s not under a spell, or curse,” he added, his concern in allowing anyone to touch him. “So,” he said, kneeling beside the couch and, though Jacoba had assured him, checked his vitals.  Casting a glance back at Jacoba, “you’re right; he’s not a hot zone. You ought to have been more careful, though. If he’d touched something, had been carrying something on him that had caused this,” he shifted on his knees. “You might be in the same situation.”

He pointed his wand at Dreogan’s chest. “Ennervate!” Dreogan’s lids twitched. He took a deeper breath, lips parting, letting it out as a sigh. A slight shift in his neck. Nothing more.

Adon’s mind returned to Jacob’as hypothesis: “chasing the dragon.” He’d only heard the phrase used in context of heroin and opium. But even beer was out of the question.

“It wasn’t drugs or alcohol; he doesn’t do any of that,” he said adamantly, somewhat defensively. They made his loosen up, take his guard down; made his dreams more vivid; Dreogan feared either of those. He couldn’t see why he’d go for that now. In fact, if anything, he’d return to the potions he had taken regularly as a child to lessen those effects . . .

Adon straightened to a standing position. “Potion,” he said. “It’s got to be a potion.” But Dreogan hadn’t taken Dreamless Sleep in years. Was it possible that returning to it fresh would have increased the effect? Was it possible it was another potion? It did not look like Living Death. Moloch but if it was Draught of Peace . . . Draught of Peace was easier (though still intensely complicated) to brew than Dreamless sleep, but its effects might be irreversible if brewed poorly.

Adon’s composure cracked a moment; he grew exceedingly pale. “Jacoba,” he said in a tone that lacked its previous irritation; only urgency, “We’ve got to see if there is a vial or tube or bottle of anything anywhere. . . did Dreogan have anything to eat or drink before? Did he, do you think, go into another room to drink it? ”

Jacoba understood how one might be confused by the presence of a stranger in the apartment of one's sibling - she got that completely!  She also understood that there some something not right and alarming about Dreogan's current state - though, really, Adon had already started being confrontational before he'd been aware of his brother's state.  Perhaps, had she had a better understanding of the range of possible ailments that could be afflicting Dreogan, she might have better understood the their level of alarm. 

But, as far as Jacoba could tell, he'd brandished a weapon and yelled at her, accusingly, for trying to call for help.  It had not left a pleasant taste in her mouth.  The fact that the two men were brothers meant little to her - bonds based purely on blood relations had never held much strength. 

The man's sarcasm wasn't helping though Jacoba was trying hard not to take the bait, though his insinuations were making it hard.  "All it would have taken was asking, calmly," Jacoba replied, cooly. 

Her determination to avoid commenting on the clear accusation was starting to wear thin; she was grateful when Akiva spoke up and veered them, both, back on track.  "I'm sorry," she offered Akiva, lowering herself onto the edge of a seat near the trio, well aware that both of these individuals were, probably, better equipped to handle the situation. 

Adon's wand was pointed at Dreogan and Jacoba immediately forgot her previous annoyance with the fellow.  She shifted forward to get a better look, eager to see these wands things in action.  Adon muttered something, unintelligible but, then, seemed to stand there.  Nothing happened.  Was something supposed to? 

"You know he's not under some ... spell because nothing happened?"  Presumably, the logic worked.  If there was logic to be found here.  Her eyes widened, she watched Adon for any sign that he might not be entirely serious about her potential risk.  "You mean, spells are contagious?  Even though I'm not - even we can be effected by them?"  A highly unfair prospect.  To potentially be harmed by something you were taught to believe didn't exist. 

Jacoba didn't hesitate to get to her feet and start searching for an out of place container.  "I didn't see him drink anything, - actually, I don't remember him eating much for dinner.  He just got in, went to -"  She stopped, as her mind retraced what of her host's steps she could remember.  "He'd put his stuff away - in his room.  That proverbial private domain.  It had been shortly after that that Jacoba had assumed he was tipsy.  She'd just assumed she hadn't noticed it when he first came in.  "One sec." 

When she returned to the living room, she had one empty green flask, a small blue half-empty bottle and a jar with some thick, white paste.  Not knowing any way to differentiate between them, she held out all three to Adon.  "These were on his dresser."

"You know he's not under some ... spell because nothing happened?"

Adon made no response to her inquiry -- goading him into another fight, no doubt. British wizards; they ought to learn these spells. What he said about the curses, though, seemed to sober her up somewhat, and Adon nodded as she drew in breath.

"You mean, spells are contagious?  Even though I'm not - even we can be effected by them?"

"Contagious?" She was talking as though she had no idea how they even worked. Now Adon's eyes went wide, realising the implications of her question becoming clear. "You're. . ." he lowered his wand abruptly. "You're not --" he began, feeling a sick twist in his stomach. If she was a Muggle, and he had performed magic in front of her, he would have to report again to Muggleworthy excuses.

This was just the thing Dreogan would do. Take a stray Muggle in from off the streets. He wet his lips as she rose to rush into his bedroom. Adon was tempted to follow her -- to be the first to see what she might find but also to keep an eye on things; she was a stranger, after all -- but she hustled across the room so quickly, returning in as short a time, that Adon scarcely had time to cast a strained smile to Akiva before he was presented with three objects.

He took all three into his hands, precariously balancing them as he sniffed. "Hand cream," he professed to the first one. He looked at the bottle, sniffing. Acrid and foul. He gagged slightly. "Potion. . ." he looked at the flask. "And that's actually mine. I'd been looking for it; figured I'd left it here." He pocketed it into his crimson Auror's robes.

He handed the jar back to Jacoba before looking at the bottle again, sniffing at it. It wasn't Dreamless Sleep. Adon had grown up with that around the house and had drank it several times; his mother was a fantastic potioneer and while the potion was immensely complex, it was a staple for both boys in their youth. Dreogan was disturbed by sleep and Adon -- he simply refused to sleep sometimes when he might be doing other things.

The scent, spicy and bitter, made him almost inclined to think it hellebore. But that would make it the Draught of Peace. And this did not look like the Draught of Peace, its consistency far too thick. If it was the Draught of Peace, something had gone wrong. And if something had gone wrong . . . it might not ever go right.

"Akiva," he said, his voice small, "smell this -- what do you think?" He hoped she would not come to the same conclusion.

Adon had only this to cling to: Dreogan had been somewhat impacted by his spell. But they needed a Healer.

Lifting his wand -- glancing for a moment anxiously at Jacoba -- he cast a wordless signal of distress; a red flare shot up; he hoped the neighbours overhead would not mind the intrusion of a spell into their home, momentarily. He hoped the ambulatory mediwitches might arrive. In fact, Adon hoped that Moira lived directly above. If she was available . . .

And if it was a potion, likely they could Apparate . . . Anxious beyond anything he had felt for years, Adon ran a hand over his face, sighing.  He pulled the flask out, popping it open before pausing. Empty. That's right; he'd drunk it all. Cringing, he closed it once more, slipping it into his robes. Feeling the heavy emptiness there and sighing once more. His gaze returned to Kiva.

Akiva felt rather helpless in all of this.  She didn’t have Adon’s skill to detect if anything had happened, she hadn’t been there when it happened so she couldn’t even shed light on what was wrong with him, she was just standing by, waiting to be useful in any capacity and hoping that Dree would wake up and it would all be chalked up to over exhaustion or something as simple and unassuming as that (highly doubtful and impossible, considering he would have woken up with all the noise), but she hoped. 

She could not even be of use to comfort anyone.  She knew of Jacoba, met her once, but didn’t really know her, and Adon was going into hyper-auror mode, just doing what he did best – looking for magic.  At the realization that it was what he was doing, Akiva went to put up her hands to tell him to stop, but was too late.  He had cast a spell in front of the young, muggle woman.  This was going to need some serious explaining, though she hoped Muggle-Worthy Excuses would give them a sort of pass for the urgency of the situation. 

It wasn’t as though the woman was completely unaware anyway.  From what Akiva understood, she was looking for her brother who was currently at Hogwarts – a Ravenclaw, like Akiva had been.  She must have had some inkling about what was going on and what she was getting into.  Akiva didn’t really much care about the whole muggle thing at the moment – wasn’t important to her in any way, and she watched as Jacoba made a dash towards Dree’s room. 

She felt a pang of something in her chest, maybe that she had been in there before or something – but she pushed it aside.  Dree was not that kind of man, and certainly hadn’t spent much time at all in his own flat recently, so the likelihood of that happening, were slim.  She told herself that she didn’t care right now, and when Jacoba returned with three objects – a little jar, a flask, and a small blue, bottle. 

Akiva left her spot in the middle of the living room and made her way over to Adon and Jacoba, looking at the items and frowning.  She did recognize the hand crème – dry skin, and was glad to hear that the flask was not Dree’s.  She did not think he drank and to find out that he did it in secret, well, that would signify there were problems beyond passing out going on.  Then, there was the little bottle. 

It was unassuming, anyone would have overlooked the thing, but it appeared to be a container for a potion.  Adon took it first, smelled it and made a face.  That couldn’t be good.  He turned to her and in a voice that she did not expect to hear, a far more quiet and gentle one, he handed it to her and asked her to smell it – her opinion was needed and she was glad for the sense of necessity in her being there.  Taking it from him, she first peered inside the bottle – thick-ish liquid, she noted, and then lifted it to her nose. 

The smell was slightly overwhelming with the deep inhalation she took and her eyelids fluttered as the scent actually manifested itself on her tongue.  It was bitter, acidic, and actually made her stomach lurch.  An instant flashback – fifth year, sitting in the back at potions – determination to do well, but absolutely petrified of Professor Snape and his criticism (she was never really bad at a subject, just did not perform well under extreme scrutiny), and the ingredient, hellebore, she had smelled it and almost passed out, fell off her stool and everything – highly embarrassing and unable to be forgotten.  It was the same feeling – the light-headed, nausea that overcame her that afternoon in fifth year – it was most certainly the same thing.  It was a poisonous ingredient, and if not handled properly, one could…

Running her finger over the rim, she got a thin layer of the thick substance and put it to her lips.  She instantly recoiled and wiped it on her shirt  (it didn’t even matter that it left a mark) and she wrinkled her nose, ready to get rid of the thing, it was definitely what she remembered from school.  She handed him back the bottle while shaking her head, running her hand through her hair.  “Hellebore,” she said quietly, wringing her hands together, “it smells like Draught of Peace… tastes like it….” cautiously eyeing him to see if she was confirming his suspicions or going against them, “but it doesn’t look like it… it looks too thick.”