Dazmond had told no one what she had found out from Lexus Dale a whole two and a half weeks past.  Talking about it, acting on it, that would make it all that much more... real.  So Jonas Trevelyan had an entire file on her.  So what.  Who cared if he'd been recording every last bowel movement, private conversation and dumb joke she'd made for two months straight?  It'd stopped.  The case was put on hold December 31st.  She didn't need to know what it was about, because it was over.  Normal life:  Go!

But there was more to it than that.  She knew it had to have been related to the Summer which was more or less wiped from her living memory.  Even without the details of what had happened to her, Dazmond knew it wasn't anything pleasant.  She knew that she'd been manipulated, duped, scared out of her mind by whatever had been -- mercifully -- removed from her brain.  She had very little interest in digging it back up to the surface.  Part of it was pride, but then, it was mostly fear.  Even Nathan got the spookies just listening to the parts she knew about.  And Dazmond thought that if she ignored it, it'd go away. 

But the thought kept coming back to her. 

Case on hold as of December 31st.  On hold.  As in, case not closed.

It took a lot of time before Dazmond was ready to confront Jonas, and for all her resolve this afternoon as she crossed Charing, she had a feeling this confrontation was going to be a little half-hearted.  She didn't even know if he was going to be in the office.  She'd even decided to come at lunch hour, on the off-chance that she'd miss him and could say to herself that she'd tried.  But the knot in her belly wasn't enough to stop her from entering Lexus's passcode at the front door.  Then she gave it a tug, and she was forced to step hesitantly into the first floor bookshop, which looked a little dusty and deserted.  And dark.

Dazmond stopped just inside, gazing up the staircase toward Trevelyan Investigations as the door swung behind her.  For a moment it was difficult to convince herself to go any further in.  I should just turn around right now and get the hell out of here, she thought.  But then her feet started moving, and before she knew it she was climbing the stairs and possibly being watched again -- this time on monitor as she came into the security camera's line of view and approached the final obstacle.  Dazmond knocked firmly thrice.

No words could express how wonderful it felt to be back at his office.  Jonas had crashed out on the sofa almost immediately after he'd finally made it in the night before, and he hadn't woken up until the office phone line had begun incessantly ringing late that morning, ostensibly to remind him that it was already the 2nd and he'd long ago used up his share of the world's good graces when it came to not paying bills on time.

He'd rung Anna to check in, and then surveyed the state of the office.  There was no sign of Lexus's presence - literally no sign, which meant that the Canadian werewolf must have come to clean out all of her belongings while he was gone.  Sighing, Jonas rubbed his hands over his face.  He'd have to deal with that situation sooner or later, even though he'd just prefer to use his usual tactic and ignore the problem.  If the young woman had gone back on the run, there was no telling how difficult it could be to find her.

But for now, there was mail to open, bills to pay, and phone calls to return.  Jonas decided to tackle the accumulating pile of envelopes in his front office first.  It meant having to address the current state of his finances (likely non-existent), but at least it was less mentally stressful than dealing with the answering machine and less physically exhausting than starting on the mound of owl-delivered post that had built up under the open window in the loo.  (Why the hell someone named Margaret Groust had sent him so many letters when he hadn't the first bloody clue who she was, he decided he could wait to find out.)

He was seated at his desk, only a quarter of the way through the pile when he was interrupted by three firm knocks.  The private investigator glanced up, his forehead creasing as he regarded the door.  As far as he knew, he shouldn't be expecting any visitors, save for possibly Lexus, who usually didn't knock.  To make matters more complicated, he was fairly certain that he'd locked and alarmed the lower door when he'd come in the night before.  He might have been tired, but he didn't think that he'd been that tired.

Jonas regarded the entryway thoughtfully for a moment, and then pulled out his cellular phone.  He tapped out a quick message to Adon, and then balanced the device carefully on his knee, keeping it out of sight behind the desk as he leaned back carefully in the chair.

"Yeah, it's open," he called, letting his finger hover above the 'send' button.  "C'mon in."

The seconds between knocking and hearing an answer were long and eerie.  Dazmond stood, stuck to the spot and still torn between going forward with this and running away as discreetly as possible.  She imagined herself turning right around, tiptoeing back down the staircase comically with her hands held high and teeth gritted.  Not that it would matter now, not with that camera trained on her.  She had her pride.

Dazmond held her pause a beat longer than the greeting came, then slowly pried the door open and very gradually appeared behind its ominous creaking.  Once she was just inside, Dazmond stopped and didn't say anything; she just stood there, closing the door gently behind her, movements slow and drawn out, eyes trained on Jonas.  Her countenance was probably enough to let him know the cause for her visit.  She knew she was in trouble, and it'd taken all of her strength just to bloody get here.  She still looked like she might, at any minute, bolt out of the office.

Was she mad?  Sure.  But Daz was looking a little too neutral at the moment.  She had quite liked Jonas, actually.  He was an alright guy.  Doing his job, all that.  And maybe that was part of it, but Daz couldn't quite work herself up to being angry right now.  To tell the truth, she was too scared.  She'd lost control, and she didn't even know when that'd happened.  Dazmond finally took a few more steps in and stopped in front of his desk, looking curiously down at his two piles of envelopes, all those other cases.  She was used to being monitored by the Ministry, working out inconspicuous deals with them, all that.  But all of this was so much more personal, and so much more... one-sided.  Unfair.  Victimizing.

She had cocked her head, slowly leaned onto the desk with both hands, and very much looked like she might say something, but the moments ticked by for what seemed like ages before she got anything out.

"I have a very good lawyer," said Dazmond at last, a little bit awkwardly.  Her eyes finally met full-on with Jonas Trevelyan's face.  "I want to know who hired you.  I want to know --" she hesitated.  "Everything."

Whoever he had expected at the door, Dazmond Wiedman wasn't it.  The young woman looked terrified, smaller than herself, as if it had taken all of her wits and will just to mount the stairs and knock on his door.  Jonas regarded her for an instant, taking in her posture, her expression, and then carefully returned both hands to the desk where she could see them.  No wand, no threat.

Wiedman obviously intended to tell him about whatever had brought her here.  Jonas stayed silent, his forehead creasing as he watched the woman approach.  There was probably a limited number of reasons that would motivate the potion mistress to seek him out.  Lexus was one.  But as he regarded the witch, took in the pinched note in her posture and the fear in her expression, he knew with a sinking feeling that that wasn't it.  Something was wrong.  Something had been compromised.

Her words, once she finally spoke, confirmed it. The private investigator paused, studying her as he considered how best to reply.  The first bit was probably intended as a threat, but a very good lawyer didn't mean very much without the weight of the law to back it up.  As much as he was certain that Tamis Raynor would have his head if she found out that he'd had information about yet another one of her cases and hadn't revealed it, Wiedman would likely come out the worse for wear in the long run if he turned his files over to MLE.  (On the bright side, he could probably count getting thrown in Azkaban on obstruction of justice charges as one up on Tamis.  That was, at least, a happy thought.)

Threatening him with a lawyer wouldn't get what she wanted, and it would be simple enough to call her on it.  But then, Wiedman looked as if she might bolt if he so much as flinched in her direction, which certainly wasn't what he wanted.  Between the recent developments with Tawse, the request from Spencer, and with what he suspected about the incident at Hogwarts, he had suddenly and unexpectedly been plunged in a bit too deep in a few too many developing troubles.  Maybe there was still a chance that he could make a polite excuse and quietly back away from the various messes, but Jonas couldn't help doubting it.  Wizards didn't usually go for polite excuses.  They preferred the big and dramatic, which meant that sooner or later, he was going to need a way out.

Well, he couldn't help thinking bemusedly, he had wanted things to be interesting.

"Look," he said after a beat, taking on an apologetic tone.  No sudden movements.  Nothing to give her reason to run.  Or to hex him, come to think of it.  He was at the disadvantage here without magic, and he had to remember that.  "I just got in late last night, so I'm a little off me game this morning.  You want to sit?"

He levered himself to his feet, not waiting for her response as he turned to the file cabinets behind his desk.  Jonas had never been much of a pack rat; the ability to leave things behind forever had been a necessary survival trait for far too long.  In the long run, most of what he saved was information - pages and pages of detailed notes, records of what he'd encountered and observed - but over the years, he'd made one or two exceptions.  His wand.  Photographs of his family.  Each was a risk, and he'd kept them anyhow.

He probably shouldn't have kept this either, but it was another piece of an intriguing puzzle.  It went with a flourished signature, an enigmatic breed of hairless cat.  A magical flat somewhere in London, close enough to hear the chimes of Big Ben. 

And a certain consistency in payment methods.

Jonas closed the file drawer and returned to his chair, tossing the empty sack across the desk to the woman.  The gold coins that had once been inside it were long since vanished, exchanged at Gringott's and transformed into Muggle bank notes, but he'd held on to the bag.  Not for any aesthetic reason - it was indistinctive, unremarkable.  But he knew that he hadn't been the only individual who had been given one.

"So I reckon the real question is," he began in an even, nonchalant tone, with only the way that his gaze locked on Dazmond belying the fact they weren't discussing something mundane like the time of day or the weather, "why do I want to tell you?  I'm all for doing favors, but if I sell him out to you, then I'm on the short end of it once he finds out."  He gave her a slight smile and an apologetic shrug.  "I don't have an Alley to weather the storm in."

Leaning over his desk like it was the only thing keeping her vertical, Daz stayed still as he brushed off her less than threatening ultimatum.  Granted, she'd neglected to mention that her "lawyer" was a Ministry fugitive who was capable of executing assassinations with a pen stroke; but why anyone would want to get involved in all of this, she really wouldn't know.  Her resolve gave, and her gaze flickered to the left.

"Yeah," she murmured, her voice tinged with annoyance, and her brow betraying the confusion she felt.  Reluctantly, as she eyed him, Dazmond lowered herself into the chair opposite Jonas.  He was making them into equals somehow, using some sort of co-regulation magic to trick her.  Him with his friendly just-a-poor-bloke-who-did-a-job, charmingly extemporaneous ways.  Why did he have to be such an easy-going guy?  He'd spied on her for longer than a month, and still she didn't know whether to poison him or invite him out for a beer to commiserate.

So Dazmond sat on the edge of her chair inquiring, while Jonas pulled something out of a drawer behind his desk.  Automatically reaching out for the brown thing that he tossed in her direction, Dazmond felt her fingers wrap around burlap.  Her first recognition of the old money bag made her think that it was the same one she'd arrived to London with four months ago, that he'd somehow stolen it from her flat during the "peeping Tom" phase of their -- relationship.  But sitting there staring into the crossing fibers Dazmond remembered that she'd used hers to harvest roots from the forest, and that it was still sitting full by the hearth in the Shodding Arms this morning, covered in little clumps of dirt.  This was a different, but identical bag.  Whoever had hired Jonas to watch Dazmond, it was the same person who's money she came back home with, in exchange for her memory of the Summer.  There was, suddenly, no room at all for pestilence in her body.

With this realization dawning, Dazmond looked to Jonas, whose hard gaze filled in the gaps of what he was saying with his words... that there was a He, and that one wouldn't be wise to mess with Him.  It was a business?  Who paid in unmarked burlap sacks of galleons, bigger than the size of her head?  With the way that Jonas was looking at her, maybe she didn't want to know.  She remembered dreams of being followed and watched by a man in a sleek purple suit, and Dazmond had a chill pass through her.

"Bloody hell," she said.  "I don't even remember what I did."  She paused, aborting what sounded like the start of a rant, or more probably a plea, before collecting herself into a matter-of-fact stance, demanding information about the most inconsequential part of any of this:  "It's been called off, hasn't it?  It's over, he's done?" she asked expectantly.  Presumably she was ready to forget this meeting ever happened as well, and just get on with her life rather than try to tease out of Jonas who this mysterious "He" was, and what he may have wanted with her.

"You mixed potions for him, actually."  The response, though helpful, was automatic; Jonas could have cursed Adon Eleor.  He shrugged, leaning back in his chair, his gaze still locked thoughtfully on her expression. 

It was interesting how one situation mirrored another.  Akiva Katz and Aberdeen Spencer had both been left without their memories, experiences stricken from their minds.  And here was Wiedman - much younger than the other two women, but if her statement was factual rather than exaggerated, very possibly left in the same position.  Jonas couldn't imagine what it must be like to be left that way, without any idea of whether or not one could trust one's own remembrances.  Yet another reason to take careful notes and duplicate them.  If he ever went down that path, he'd want to be able to put the pieces back together.

He let out a low breath, running both hands over his face at her question.  This was, as far as he was concerned, still a negotiation.  Jonas was well aware that the fact that he was now alone in his office after having spent two weeks entirely in the company of two individuals that he had once considered close friends (well, Archer had been a friend - he was never quite sure what to make of Raynor) was leaving him feeling slightly more vulnerable than normal.  But that was the reality of his situation as a private investigator.  He had contacts and clients - he didn't have comrades.  If push ever really came to shove, he had no way of knowing if the Ministry would have his back.

If Wiedman wanted anything else out of him, she was going to have to give a little in return.  Answering her question, admitting that he didn't have any further information and had technically been cut out, meant losing any leverage that he might have.  Jonas pressed his mouth tightly shut, considering his answer.

"It's not done," he said at last.  "He put it on hold as of the end of December."  And thank Merlin for that - if he'd still been reporting directly to Malvivicus when the whole bloody situation with the bloke that they suspected was Katsaros had gone done, he would have been in an entire world of a worse situation.

"I don't know what he's intending to do with the information," he stated frankly, crossing his arms as he gave her a solemn regard.  "But it's not over.  I wouldn't just assume that he's going to disappear back into the murky clouds from whence he came, Ms Wiedman.  He wanted you far too badly for that."

Dazmond sat still and upright on the edge of her seat, hands folded in her lap.  Her face was expressionless, but alert, and she held her gaze intently on Jonas.  He had suddenly become very talkative, and he wasn't saying what she wanted to hear.  Again she was torn between wanting to leave and not being able to do so.  She had no idea what to say or do for once, and for a time she just sat staring at Jonas who, she felt, was seeing straight through to her soul. 

She was held open to the Wolves, had lost her hold on the reigns of life and was being led around by forces she couldn't discern.  Dazmond had to get her footing back, but had no idea how to do so.  It was strange to her that this man, this common friendly bloke who she'd rubbed elbows with in the Black Chimaera, had turned up to have been involved in what was haunting her.  She felt that she was living out some strange conspiracy, where characters were not who they appeared to be, and mysterious forces were plunging her life slowly into darkness.  Her mind was much too imaginative to take any of this lightly.

"I see," she said finally, dropping her gaze.  She didn't have to ask if the man was dangerous.  Although she couldn't remember specifically, she knew that well enough, that the entity in question was not anyone you wanted to intrigue; it was probably a form of emotional memory that she was left with.  By saying that it wasn't over, Jonas was keying her in that her life was under some sort of threat.  She was highly aware of this unspoken piece of the conversation.  Dazmond Wiedman was not a push-over.  But Dazmond Wiedman didn't know how to fight a ghost.

"Jonas," she continued carefully, regarding him again.  "I can't stand for being seen as weak.  I have a business to run and a reputation to uphold.  The threat persists and meanwhile, life, it carries on."  Her hands had begun to shake, but her voice had taken on more of a bearing, exhibiting a strength she didn't necessarily feel or otherwise embody.  She stood up slowly as though she was unsure she'd be able to hold her own weight.

"I'll not make a fuss of it, you did your job," she continued, straightening her clothes.  "But if something does happen to me, and I survive, I wouldn't so far count yourself on the good side of my cauldron.  I'm going to be a good neighbor now and leave, because I have a life to get back to, but I'll leave you with the thought that us underdogs ought to stick together.  I thought you understood what we were about in Knockturn." 

Her words portrayed a strange undercurrent of injury, as though she was disappointed in him as a friend.  Indeed, all this went toward making Dazmond feel that Jonas was the closest person to her at the moment.  The exposure she had experienced knowing that she'd been watched by him was mixing with the news that he alone had information on her mysterious Summer employment.  There was an odd sense of comfort in the disturbing closeness she had suddenly found herself to be in with Jonas, though she had basically decided that whatever else he knew, she didn't want to know.  She was willing to put a lid on it for the moment, if nothing else because she had to get back to the living.  More immediately, she had to get back to the Shodding Arms and brew a batch of sedative.  She shouldn't be seen like this, she thought.