It wasn't the first time he'd seen a corpse, and he assumed that it wouldn't be the last.  Jonas sighed as he covered the girl's body up again, his expression grim.  Keeping her out of sight didn't make her any less dead, nor did it alter the gravity of what had happened one bit.  Ava Grosvenor wasn't coming back.  Even magic couldn't revive the dead, at least not in a form that would comfort grieving loved ones.

Just from looking at the corpse, it was clear what had killed the girl.  Deep gouges, all over her body.  The professors who had found her had said that she had been covered in blood.  There had been some blood all over the clearing, too.  It was incredible how far the six liters of blood inside the average person could spread.  He couldn't help but note that a teenager the size of Ava probably had only four or five.

It was awful.  It was horrific.  It was each and every reason why he'd once walked away from the magical world and still sometimes doubted his decision to come back.  Muggles might murder, and they could come up with ways to do it just as quickly or in even greater numbers, but rarely like this.  Rarely so personal.  Magic was dependent on desire, on will, and Jonas could never understand someone who could hate so much to learn a spell that would cause death.  He had never tried to cast Avada Kedavra when he was younger, but he doubted that he could have.  He knew he couldn't now.

The magic that had caused the death of Ava Grosvenor was far from the Killing Curse, though.  That left no mark, was presumably painless; this took all of the four or five liters of blood that had been contained within her mortal frame and burst it out of her body.  In the six years that Jonas had worked as an Auror, he had witnessed the results of any number of horrific curses, but he had never seen one quite like this.

Never seen one.

But he had heard of one.

Jonas straightened and turned away from the body, leaving the dead girl behind as he limped into the main room, closing the door behind him.  It had already been a long day.  He and Archer hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, and he could feel the exhaustion wearing on him.  This wasn't the sort of thing that anyone should deal with when they weren't on their game, and he was years out of practice besides.  Looking into insurance claims and running surveillance on possible infidelities wasn't anything near investigating a murder.  But then, if the connection here was what he suspected that it might be, he owed it to Adon to put the pieces together.

Rubbing at his nose, he avoided the gazes of the others who were loitering about - particularly avoided Dreogan's gaze - and made his way along the wall to the corner bedroom.  The boy was being kept isolated and away from the fuss, which was probably for the best.  Even if the murdered girl hadn't been a pureblood, Tamis was going to be under pressure to come up with answers quickly.  Hogwarts had always been the last safe place, despite its series of unfortunate events.  No one liked to see strongholds fall.

The private investigator paused outside the closed door, giving it a quick knock before easing it open.  It was simple enough to slip back into the easy authority of an Auror - he'd been using it on and off for years when it served his purposes as a private investigator - but there were times when friendly nonchalance worked just as well.  With emotion already running high, it was better to be unassuming.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said amicably, directing the comment to the older woman as he stepped inside.  The boy was there, but he didn't look directly at him - relaxed, careless, and untroubled were the watchwords of the morning.  "Too much down and feathers out there for me liking.  Thought it might help to get away for a moment before I start sneezing up a storm."

Tulojow tucked the blanket back tighter over the boy's shoulders before pushing herself to her feet at the sound of the knock.  Though the young man's temperature had returned to normal within a few hours of his arrival at the hospital hut, she was still keeping him well bundled in blankets and quilts.  As soon as the aurors and school officials had satisfied themselves with their initial round of questions, Tulojow had given the boy a potion that had helped him sleep for several hours. 

She'd spent much of the morning shuffling between the bedroom and the main area as well as between the role of former auror and Healer, though the later had always taken unquestionable priority.  There were plenty of auror types around, after all.  At times, she'd find herself out in the main room, assisting in the investigation in whatever way seemed to most appropriate.  A delegation consisting of both a school and a Ministry official had been sent on the unenviable task of notifying the poor girl's parents.  She did not know whether they had decided the family should be notified that it was the family patriarch's newly discovered illegitimate son that was found at the scene of the murder.  Even with the lack of evidence pointing to any culpability on the boy's part, the whole mess was just far too complicated.  And far too heartbreaking.

Though it was clear the boy could benefit from several more hours of sleep, there was still too much going on in the hut (and very likely his own head) to allow sleep to come without the assistance of a potion.  He sat, propped up at the head of the bed by a collection of pillows, a book draped open but unread over his knees. 

"Nothing to worry about.  Come on in; shut the door behind you.  No sense in letting the warmth out."  Despite the young man having recovered from the initial symptoms of hypothermia, the Healer had continued to keep the room plenty warm.  "Can I get you something to drink?  Either of you?  Coffee?  Tea?  Cocoa?"  The young man gave a slight, indeterminate shrug of his shoulders - a reply that was non-committal in every way. 

Though the story of needing to get away from down and feathers might have been a viable one (only marginally so since it wasn't exactly molting season and Kalie wasn't blowing many feathers), it was highly transparent.  There were plenty of places to escape the feathers that didn't include the young man.  However, Jonas had come alone.  There was only so 'official' this escaping the eagle down could be.  As she crossed the room towards the fellow, she arched her eyebrows questioningly before nodding subtly in the lad's direction, a wordless inquiry as to whether she or the boy was Jonas' primary interest. 

"How are things going out there?  Anything newsworthy crop up in the last bit?  Would you prefer it was just the two of you?" 

Though he had never worked closely with her, Jonas had known of Tulojow Nagde back in his days at the Ministry.  The American-born witch had never spent a lot of time within the hallowed halls of Level Two, but she'd inspired both admiration and irritation from afar.  She'd been the sort of Auror that one either looked up to or utterly despised, depending on whether or not her disregard for regulations and procedure created a personal inconvenience or not.  Jonas had settled for affable bemusement; as long as he didn't have to deal with it, he was content to amusedly watch from afar.

"Yeah, tea'd be great.  Cheers," he said amiably, closing the door behind him. 

A quick glance over the room set the scene.  The kid was pretending to read - or, perhaps more accurately, sitting with a book on his lap, as if the mere act of holding it in a convenient position could distract him from his thoughts.  Tamis had already been over the details of the night with him, probably several times over.  Repeating the same questions over again weren't going to get them any closer to an answer, but he wasn't sure that this particular line of inquiry would have already been pursued.

Nagde, bless her regulation-subverting heart, didn't even question whether or not he was technically supposed to be in here.  Jonas wasn't about to press his luck; he gave a brief shake of his head at the direct inquiry, avoiding her gaze as he stepped to the side of the closed door.  The last thing he needed was everyone in the main room realizing that the healer had been suddenly banned from her patient's bedside.  Tamis might be a little too short to really drag anyone around by the ear, but he didn't doubt that she'd put a spirited effort into it if he gave her any obvious reason to try.

"Reckon it's going alright.  The politics of this sort of thing were never really me bit," he said easily, stretching out his leg as he settled to lean back against the wall.  Bending his knee partway took some of the weight off of it, but after a morning spent tromping around in the snow, it still ached.  "And naw, like I said, just wanted to get away from all the pets.  The downside of wizards, that," he remarked cheerfully, giving a good natured shrug.  "Can't go anywhere without familiars mucking about."

Though he was careful not to look directly at him, he still kept his attention on the boy.  Watching him out of the periphery of his gaze, alert and listening for any sort of reaction, potentially useful or otherwise.  Pushing the kid too hard now wasn't going to help Adon, and in actuality, pressing someone for a link to a murder that hadn't happened yet felt a bit too much like buying into Precrime for the private investigator's liking.  But then, he wasn't here solely on the word of some half-mutated precog, Jonas reminded himself.  There was a plausible link.  The kid had spent a month with Malvivicus, and by extension, Katsaros.  Even if his hunch was half-drawn from Dreogan Eleor's minority report, there was plenty of logic backing it up.

"Although I did meet an old bloke who kept a whole army of hairless cats a few months ago," he added, managing a look of faint amusement at the recollection.  "Trained 'em to do exactly what he said and everything.  Feline, thy name is Legion, and all that.  But that sort without the hair didn't bother me any.  Too bad they can't all be hypoallergenic like that, innit?"

Though normal social etiquette expectations were strong influences in how the Ravenclaw usually conducted himself, especially around strangers, it wasn't politeness that kept Sasha from asking the visitor to leave.  It was past experiences illustrating the futility of the effort.  He didn't even remember anyone acknowledging his request the first time the Aurors and school officials and everyone in between had found their way into the room.  He doubted things would be any different this time.

He wished Fergie were still here; the Slytherin had been a much more effective and comforting screen than the as-of-yet unidentified book on Sasha's knees.  But, the Aurors had sent Ferguson back up to the castle just before the questioning had started in earnest.  Sasha had found the book amongst a small collection on a shelf under the bedside table and had taken it more for its value as a social buffer rather than actual reading material.  He held out little hope that the book would keep his own thoughts at a distance.  But, then, so far it had done little to actually keep other people at a distance as well.  His eyes had yet to focus enough on the book for him to know the title. 

Trevelyan had arrived with the Aurors sometime during the hours right before dawn but, in the interactions that followed, Sasha had gathered the redhead knew the Eleors on some other level.  He didn't know, yet, what value that bit of information held. 

His eyes darted up from the book and over at the Healer as Trevelyan accepted the offer of tea but, to his relief, the Healer didn't leave the room to fetch the drink.  The woman had always been unsettlingly strange but she'd thrown her impressive and strange weight around for his benefit on more than a few occasions that evening and he wasn't exactly eager to be just left with anyone he didn't really know.  She poured the man a cup of tea from one of the pots on the woodstove and poured a second cup from another pot which she handed, pointedly, to him. 

"It's a shame politics even have to be involved," he heard the Healer say to Trevelyan.  "It's inevitable, I know.  Just doesn't seem the right time or place for it."  Sasha shut his eyes, shaking his head, slightly, missing the pets and familiars comment as he tried to refocus his thoughts on something less ...

A distraction was offered but in a less than expected manner.  Sasha quickly glanced over at Trevelyan; the man was still watching the Healer.  Of course, it could be a coincidence.  Lots of witches and wizards had cats and, surely, there had to be a few of them who had those weird looking hairless ones.  It was questionable whether others had ones that were as responsive and ... as Trevelyan put it ... trained but he supposed it was possible.

"They aren't really hypoallergenic."  His voice sounded coarse and strange in his own head - out of place, even.  But, talk of animals was an easy distraction from what had actually drawn his attention.  "It's usually the dander and skin people are allergic to.  Not the fur.  The ones I saw produced just as much dander.  They just-"  They just what?  Were impeccably groomed?  Were strange?  Did this conversation topic even have a point?  Beyond being a distraction from whatever point had drawn Trevelyan into the room? 

"I've already told you everything I know.  I'm not ... I'm not hiding anything.  Can't you just-"  He shook his head and dropped his gaze to the book.

Jonas flashed the Healer a thankful smile as he accepted the first cup of tea.  "Bit hard to keep politics out of it once Raynor's involved, innit?" he asked mildly, his forehead creasing as he turned his attention to surveying the room.  To be fair, with a dead pureblooded student and a Muggle-born literally left holding the wand, the situation would have gotten political no matter who had been called in, but that didn't mean he couldn't needle the point a bit.  "Reckon she's alright at holding her own, though.  They'll sort it all through soon enough."

Watching the boy out of the corner of his eye told him what he needed to know.  Sasha Schlagenweit might not be in the best attentive state, but he was still listening; the reference to Malvivicus's cats was enough to catch his ear and garner a response. 

Jonas raised his eyebrows, allowing a thoughtful glance at the boy as he sipped the tea.   He'd never asked Adon how much had come out of the investigation into Schlagenweit's kidnapping.  Between demonic possessions, other kidnappings, attempted murders, Muggle hospitals, and an unexpected fake marriage that he would very much have liked to get annulled if it hadn't proved so cheerfully irritating to the other party, life had taken an unexpectedly busy turn the past few weeks.  There had been details that he'd never followed up on, and catching up on the Malvivicus casefile was one of them.  At least the cats seemed consistent; they certainly still stuck out in Jonas's mind, and they provided a momentary way to catch Sasha's attention.

An instant later, though, the moment was gone, and he'd clearly lost the boy again.  The private investigator took a deep breath, raising the tea cup to take another sip (though it was a near miss, as it occurred to him mid-sip that the current tea cup was unfortunately not filled with the same sort of beverage that Tamis Raynor preferred in hers, the memory of which nearly set him sputtering).

This wasn't how you were supposed to go questioning anyone, be they suspect or witness.  Jonas knew that definitively.  He'd wandered in here without any sort of plan; he hadn't taken the time to reason through questions beforehand or get his facts together.  There was no way to take notes.  If he got down to it, he couldn't even distinctively define what it was that he was trying to get answered.  All he had was a gut feeling that there was something important drifting just out of sight, and if they didn't get a finger on it soon, it would be lost to the wind. 

The most critical part of any investigation was the time immediately following the incident.  Once a crime scene was contaminated, there was no way to get evidence back again.  That wasn't a problem for the scene here; any contamination had happened long before Aurors and sidekick had arrived.  With a student dead, this whole scene would easily turn into a political nightmare if Tamis and Archer didn't come up with answers quickly.  They'd need every lead they could get.

"Look, Sasha," he said, in as kindly a tone as he could manage.  This wasn't an interrogation and he couldn't treat it like one; if the boy didn't want to answer his questions, there was nothing that Jonas could do to force him.   "I don't think you're hiding anything, and I'm sure you answered all of Auror Raynor's questions as best you could.  You've been through a lot today.  But it's not the sort of thing where we can all just come back at a more convenient time," he added reasonably, slipping into a comfortably logical train of thought.  "You ever hear how memory can fade, the further you get from an event?  Your mind just starts making up details and filling in the gaps?"

Trevelyan seemed to be slowly dropping the pretense that he hadn't come here on Sasha's account, though the man's acknowledgment of the Ravenclaw seemed to come in stages.  Finally, the man looked towards Sasha though the boy couldn't shake the suspicion that that hadn't been the first time the man had looked at him; it was just the first time he'd done so openly. 

Sasha was exhausted as he stared at social shield that took the form of a book - mentally, physically and emotionally.  The last thing the Ravenclaw wanted was take another detailed trip down the memory lane of the last twenty-four hours.  He'd been down it three times too many.  None of the subsequent trips brought about any new information that would increase the likelihood of Ava's murderers being identified and brought to justice.  All it did was help Sasha find more things he could have done differently - more ways he could have intervened and created a different outcome.  Each time he explained, it seemed their amount of suspicion decreased but his own sense of responsibility grew in its place.  The what ifs were proving relentless. 

"Then, why are you here?"  Sasha abandoned the illusion of reading the book and let the cover fall silently shut.  If Trevalyan believed he'd answered the questions as best he could and didn't believe he was hiding anything than what was he hoping to gain?  Why was he here?  Did he just want to hear the same thing over again?  And, was the comment about the cats purely coincidence? 

Unless...

In hindsight, it almost seemed too obvious.  Trevelyan was friends with the Eleors and Dreogan had warned Sasha against Kronos time and time again.  Was that what this man was thinking?  Was that what he was trying to do?  Use Sasha to peg this on Kronos?  If they didn't have any suspects that could certainly make it easy for them.  They probably wouldn't even have to worry about whether or not it was true.  They could use Kronos as a scapegoat to close the case and they were trying to use Sasha to forge that connection!

Sasha shifted on the bed, turning to face Trevelyan more fully.  "He had nothing to do with this," Sasha said with more determination than his own complete lack of evidence either way might have warranted.  "Kro-"  He cast a wary glance at the Healer but her features showed little to no reaction.  "Malvivicus didn't do this.  He wouldn't have."  Despite the lack of evidence, Sasha had full faith that Kronos would never have done this to him.  Kronos had said it himself; Sasha's place was at school.  He would never have hurt Sasha by killing his sister and he certainly wouldn't have jeopardized Sasha's education by setting him up. 

He knew Dreogan disapproved of Sasha's faith in Kronos and Sasha had learned quickly after returning from his stay at Kronos' home that it was best to keep quiet about such things.  But, he wouldn't keep quiet as they tried to frame Kronos for this.  "I know he's a-... I know he's hurt people but he wouldn't do this to me.  He just wouldn't." 

In retrospect, Jonas couldn't help thinking with a sinking feeling somewhere between resignation and bemusement, this was a fair demonstration of why one never went into a questioning session without a plan.  He hadn't done any background, had barged in on the kid with only a vague idea of what he wanted to get at and flashed his trump card too soon.  Now he had a semi-hysterical, probably hostile witness to deal with, as well as a consequently furious Head Auror who would likely demand the private investigator's head once she realized he had been waltzing around and risking her case as if he were in the middle of a giant game of Cluedo.

Step one, he had to stop this.  Calm Schlagenweit down and try to mitigate any damage.  It was probably too late to convince the kid that they were on the same side; lucky, then, that Malvivicus wasn't the direct target of his inquiry.

"Did I say that he would?"  Jonas spread his hands as if negotiating a surrender, his words tumbling out in a quick, clipped flow.  "That's not what I was getting at.  Raynor would be in here herself if anyone thought that.  And it doesn't really match what we both know about him, does it?" he concluded in a reasonable tone.

In reality, he had no idea if the reality matched what they both knew about Malvivicus or not; for all he knew, Kronos Malvivicus murdered teenaged girls in snow-covered forests once a week as a dedicated passion.  The words were far more for Sasha's sake than as a result of any reasonable conclusion.  Still, in his gut, the assessment felt accurate.  Malvivicus couldn't sneeze without grandstanding; he probably turned brushing his teeth every morning into a full-on West End musical.  If he killed a girl himself, it wouldn't be alone and in the woods.  That was a chore to be delegated.

Which only added to the private investigator's curiosity.

Schlagenweit was hurting, defensive.  He had obviously been through a lot in the past few hours, and the kid couldn't be more than sixteen.  Jonas recognized the language - 'He wouldn't do this to me.'  It made things personal in a way that the crime hadn't been, though he couldn't blame the boy for feeling targeted.  But allowing him to go on feeling like the sole victim of this was only going to exacerbate his sense of being attacked.  The focus needed to shift.  Schlagenweit was hurting, but he wasn't the one who had been most grievously hurt.

Step two.

"And as far as I know," Jonas added, lowering his voice as he kept each word respectful, deliberate, and precise, "no one did anything to you, mate.  They did it to Ava Grosvenor." 

He paused, just for a beat, as he considered the best way to formulate his next question.  If he gave Schlagenweit any specific names, the kid was likely to latch on to them just to exonerate Malvivicus.  The Wizarding court system operated according to looser rules than the Muggle one, but even so, contaminated testimony would just make Tamis's job harder in the long run. 

On the other hand, Jonas thought dryly, if he prompted Schlagenweit towards any specific names, the kid was likely to latch onto them just to exonerate Malvivicus.  At the very least, it would give Level Two a legitimate reason other than the Eleor Future Crime Unit to pursue Katsaros.  It wasn't as if he were morally obligated not to stack the deck.

That made worrying about the phrasing considerably less urgent.

"Who else did you meet whilst you were staying with Malvivicus?" he asked, frowning as he looked over Sasha.  "He must have had some other blokes about the place, yeah?"

Color flushed across Sasha's cheeks as the man raised in surrender and he shrank back, obviously caught off guard by the gesture.  Everything was so confusing - nothing seemed to make sense anymore.  He was used to structure, he thrived on punctuality and reliability - he'd never felt so out of control of his own world.  And, he was accustomed to surrendering to the bullies around school - he was not accustomed to people offering the same gesture towards him. 

"I'm- I'm sorry," he offered tugging at the corners of the blanket draped over his shoulders tighter around him.  "I just ... I assumed - you'd mentioned the cats and - you know him?" he asked, his voice an uneasy mixture of suspicion, confusion and curiosity.  Sasha's gaze quickly flickered between the man, the Healer and the door through which they'd come and, presumably, the cluster of Aurors and Eleors that lay beyond it.  It seemed highly unlikely this man was one of Kronos' men - given the company he'd come with - but the connection between Jonas and Kronos was eluding him. 

"And as far as I know, no one did anything to you, mate.  They did it to Ava Grosvenor."

Again, Sasha's face flushed and he quickly closed his eyes and shook his head.  "I'm sorry.  I know that.  I wasn't saying-," he said, looking again at the man.  "They've ... they've been doing it to her for months and - and I didn't- that's not what I meant.  He wouldn't have ... that it was Ava wouldn't have mattered to him."  He knew Ava had been the victim.  There was no question in his mind about that and he felt enough guilt already.  But, whether or not Ava was the victim had absolutely no baring on whether or not Kronos had done this.  He didn't want to say it in so many words, but he knew Kronos might have done this to Ava.  It was Sasha's belief that Kronos would never have set him up for it that made Sasha confident Kronos wasn't the culprit. 

He blinked and shifted into a more comfortable position under the blanket.  He shrugged his shoulders vaguely at first and, then, nodded his head.  "I ... ja.  There were lots of other guys around.  They seemed to be everywhere.  Like ... well ... footmen.  Or a serf.  Only guys, though."  He wasn't sure why Jonas was asking about this - especially if he'd already agreed Kronos had nothing to do with this.  "A lot of them, you know, I didn't know their names.  Kronos never really called them anything and I," he shrugged and looked around awkwardly.  Was he supposed to feel guilty about this?  "I never really asked their names.  There were a few that were on, you know, name basis with him."

Again, he shifted under the blanket and tugged at the corners.  Despite, supposedly, being the one with the heavy criminal record, Kronos was the easier one to talk about.  Sasha remembered how keenly aware he was that it was the eccentric old man that had kept Sasha safe during that month.  The others - they were the terrifying ones.  "There was this one fellow - Kronos called him Lothario.  He ... I guess he was ... he commissioned a- a portrait of us," his cheeks burned, again, and Sasha dropped his gaze to his lap.  "This other fellow was there - he was always around.  He was the one who ... who grabbed me from Hogsmeade.  He was ... the scary one."

The offered armistice had the effect he'd been trying for.  The fight flooded out of the kid.  He stammered, apologized, shrank back, his obvious uncertainty diminishing him.  Jonas frowned as he studied the boy, taking a moment before he responded.  He'd tried just plowing through this conversation once and come very close to losing control of the exchange.  If he was going to get what he wanted out of this, he was going to need to choose his words carefully.

"Yeah, I know Malvivicus," he said simply.  This was one of those times when it would have been useful if he'd thought to get an official henchman badge when he'd contracted out to the Evil League of Evil; in lieu of calling up Katsaros to vouch for him or making up a secret handshake, his word would have to do.  "Met him once when he hired me on for a surveillance job.  Lasted for a couple of months, but I'm not working for him anymore."

His comment about the unfortunate Grosvenor girl achieved the desired effect as well.  Schlagenweit promptly apologized again, plowing on unevenly into an explanation.  A sudden chill crept over the private investigator; he glanced sharply over at Nagde, who was still lurking near the edges of the room.  'Doing it for months' did not sound like a random happenstance that had turned to tragedy in the forest.  He didn't know what information Tamis had gotten out of the boy already when she had questioned him, but this did not sound like the sort of statement that he should let roll by unofficially.

"Got some parchment and a pen I could borrow, do you?" he asked Nagde lightly, his attention still settled on the boy.  "What's been happening to her for months, Sasha?"

The information that the boy offered about Malvivicus was, though chilling, something he expected on a television crime drama.  An abundance of servants and footmen, the old geezer ruling over serfs like the king of a male-filled wonderland - that about fit with Jonas's impression of the older wizard.  The name Lothario caught his interest; one Lothario d'Aubigne was the wealthy cousin of Liadan O Morain.  When Jonas had spoken to her during the search for Aileen Reid's missing dagger, the young Irish woman had implied that her relative was involved in a less than legal antiques trade.  If it was the same Lothario, that was quite a convenient coincidence.

The end of the boy's statement, however, moved the subject from potentially useful to likely emotionally traumatizing.  "A portrait of you and who?" he asked mildly, watching Sasha carefully.  That was not a subject that he particularly wanted to dive into if it continued much further, especially not if he was here pro bono.  Leave the questionable meaning for someone who was getting paid.  The kid's second comment, though, was a subject that he felt much more comfortable pursuing.  "You get a name on this scary bloke, by chance?"

Again, Sasha's eyes made a circuit of the room, flickering over the Healer, lingering on the door and, finally, returning to the red-headed man.  Wasn't this some strange conflict of interest?  This man knowing and being employed by Kronos and arriving with this collection of Aurors?  Like always, the Healer was near impossible to read - it was unnerving at best. 

He returned his attention to Trevelyan and tried to ignore the strange witch as he nodded his head.  He accepted the man's answer at face value and knew well enough that this 'surveillance job' was none of his business.  "He's weird," Sasha commented though he wasn't sure himself what the purpose behind voicing the comment was.  Perhaps, it was just an attempt to connect with someone who knew of Kronos and who wasn't going to jump to straight criticism at the first mention.  But, it was still a meager and reticent attempt to connect. 

He noticed the man's quick glance towards the Healer and shifted under the blanket.  He didn't like this at all.  He hated the vulnerability of exposed emotions and feeling exposed in front of groups of people just made it worse.  He shook his head and looked out the window as the Healer passed Trevelyan writing materials. 

The Healer seemed to pick up on the unease - or, perhaps, the need was legitimate.  Either way, it was with relief that Sasha heard the woman tell Trevalyan: "I'm going to go get the next dose of potions ready.  I'll be outside if you need me."  A moment later, the door clicked closed behind her and the room fell quiet. 

Sasha looked back towards Trevelyan and took a deep, unsteady breath.  The guilt he'd been trying his best to ignore came welling back.  "I didn't- I don't know, exactly, sir.  But, she had mood swings - like, sometimes she was nice and open and ... there.  Other times she was cruel and vicious even.   Like this once - she and two other Slytherins cornered me on the Quidditch pitch and-"  He blushed and shook his head dismissively.  "It was the usual.  But ... she kept saying she'd lose time - the next week she acted like nothing had happened and she couldn't remember any of it.  Any of those two weeks.  I tried to convince her to talk to someone but she wouldn't listen and ... and it'd just make her angry.  And - then I got distracted with everything-" 

His voice faltered and he rubbed his face with one hand as he reached for the glass of water on the table next to the bed with the other.  And, you know - last night ... it was the same.  Except ... she had this look.  I hadn't noticed it before but last night, you know,- it was like that ... the guy that -"  He shook his head, taking another big gulp of water, letting the ice cold and the act of swallowing force his tears at bay.  "I tried to stop her but she crucioed me.  Twice.  By the time I got up, she was gone. I'm- I'm so sorry, sir." 

He hastily emptied the rest of the glass of water in several large gulps, draining the glass before lowering his hand and cradling the empty glass in his lap.  He turned it over in his hands absentmindedly and a few stray dribbles of water rolled off the rim.  "Kronos and I," he answered, shrugging dismissively with his attention fixed firmly on the glass.  "And, that other guy.  The scary one.  Kronos called him Terry.  He- It always felt like he was, you know, watching me.  I never ... never felt safe around him.  When I had to duel him, it just felt ... I don't know."  Like he was a pet mouse.  It was only the one with the tuna and the can opener that was keeping the cat from indulging in a quick bite. 

There was a fine line between jotting things down and writing too much.  For a witness, being interviewed could be intimidating enough as it was; when a bloke started feeling like every word that he said was being recording, he tended to stammer, clam up, or think too much about what he was saying.

Schlagenweit was already clearly nervous as it was, and Jonas didn't want to scare him back into non-cooperation.  He flashed Nagde a quick smile in thanks for the parchment, and then tried to keep his eyes on the boy as much as he could as he scribbled down the important bits.  Names, dates - odd turns of phrases that he might want to follow up on later.  Ideally, this was where a second interviewer who could just focus on writing things down might come into play - or, even more, a tape recorder, which was obviously too much to hope for in a wizarding location.  As it was, he'd just have to make do with what he had.

Getting the kid talking was like opening up the floodgates.  Jonas watched him carefully, listened carefully, tried to put the facts together between the awkward pauses.  Interrupting with questions wouldn't help.  He didn't want to ask anything leading.  Right now, it was better to see what was said.

For the most part, he assumed that Tamis Raynor had already covered much of this ground.  The private investigator hadn't been there for the initial interview, but a chill passed over him at the retelling.  Mood swings.  Memory gaps.  There were a few unfortunate conclusions that one might draw.

He frowned, watching the boy as he trailed off slightly while describing the look on Grosvenor's face.  Schlagenweit left pauses in a conversation the way that good fairies left flowers blooming in their wake, but he didn't usually jump topics so suddenly.  That was one to note down.

News of the Crucio was chilling.  No school child should know how to cast an Unforgivable, but Raynor must have uncovered that one already.  Jonas ignored the apology entirely; reassuring the kid that this wasn't his fault wouldn't keep him talking.  If inducing an unfair sense of responsibility would encourage him to continue giving information, then so be it.

"What was that look she had?" he asked with a frown.  "You said it was like another bloke?"

The information about Malvivicus was not particularly reassuring, but he let the news of the portrait's subject slide.  It took all of the control that Jonas could muster not to give away his intent as Schlagenweit said the name.  Terry Katsaros.  That was it.  They could have him.

But the next bit was even more potentially useful.

"You had to duel him?" he asked mildly, keeping the quill low at his side.  Thank Merlin it was self-inking; he still missed using a proper pen.  "How did that come about, then?"

Sasha shrugged and shook his head.  It wasn't that he didn't know what that look was like.  He could picture it, vividly, in both cases - the images of both were burned in the back of his head like giant wall posters in his skull.  Every crease, every line and every vacant hollow was as clear as a photo.  He didn't have the slightest idea, though, how to put that all into words. 

"Yeah," Sasha offered with a curt nod and another quick glance out the window.  It had started snowing, again.  The random small flake drifted lazily past the window.  He watched their slow, almost hypnotic drift.  The second question wasn't easier to answer, necessarily, but it's answer was more straight forward and readily apparent. 

He nodded, again.  "That fellow - they said his name was Ashford.  I don't know - I mean, maybe I'm just -  I didn't have a lot time, you know, to see.  But, they both seemed like they weren't there?  They were looking at me but ... it seemed like they weren't at the same time.  I - I don't really know how else to describe it, you know?  I never saw that fellow before but, with ... with Ava, it was like - I mean, you look a certain way -"  He shook his head in frustration and muttered another apology.  "I don't know." 

He was doubtful that answer was of any use.  He'd, obviously, never been that eloquent with words - at least not spoken words.  If he was given time to write it, he might have more success.  But, the conversation moved on to Kronos and Katsaros and a question Sasha had not been expecting.  He turned quickly away from the window and stared at Trevelyan, and gave a quick curt shake of the head.  Swallowing hard, he shook his head, again. 

"I ... you want to know ..." he started, his face turning a vivid shade of red.  Obviously, the man did - otherwise he wouldn't have asked.  But, that didn't mean it was any easier of a question to answer.  "I - is that important?" he asked, clearly hoping the answer was 'no - I was just curious.'  "I just - do you have to -" he eyes flickered to the notepad and back up and his voice faltered.  "I just - if he finds out, I won't ... I won't have anywhere else to go.  Please." 

If Schlagenweit's description of the symptoms that he had witnessed hadn't already attracted his notice, the name would have caught it.  He knew an Ashford - Manfred Ashford, the exceedingly good-natured, Veela Vixen-reading bartender at the Black Chimaera.  Even though the older man was irritable, gruff, and probably wouldn't think kindly of him if he found out that he was both Muggleborn and working for the Ministry, Jonas had liked him quite a bit.

Though that didn't mean that this was the same Ashford - if Mannie worked for Cinaed Tawse, chances were good that he was a pureblood or a halfblood, which meant his surname was likely widespread in the wizarding world.  But it was an interesting connection.  Jonas carefully spelled out the name, underlined it, and added two question marks for good measure.  At the very least, this was something to pass on to Raynor if she hadn't happened upon it already.  How some poor schoolkid had happened upon two possible instances of the Imperius Curse was the Aurors' problem to work out.

The information that he was concerned about, though, related to Malvivicus.  The question about dueling had obviously hit on another subject that Schlagenweit didn't want to talk about.  The boy went red, began stammering, his attention shifting between his questioner and the notes that he was taking.

Jonas could read the meaning well enough.  Without wasting a moment, the private investigator rolled up the parchment, slipped the quill inside it and tucked the entire roll under his arm.

"I won't breathe a word, mate," he said sincerely, wondering whom it was that the boy didn't want him to tell.  Malvivicus?  Katsaros?  Clearly not the Aurors - Tamis's gender precluded her from being the intended target of the statement, although it wouldn't exactly make a difference anyhow.  Promise or not, he was handing over a copy of whatever he got straight to the Head Auror.  "Not to a soul.  And it could be important - it's hard to know what is and what isn't relevant until we start putting all the bits together."

The important question, at least in Jonas's mind, was how the bloody hell some fifteen-year-old kid had survived a duel with a wizard who, for all accounts and purposes, was obviously an gifted-enough practitioner of dark magic that he could give Dreogan Eleor a run for his money.  The circumstances were eerily familiar; it was hard not to draw the obvious comparison to a decade earlier.  All the private investigator knew was that if this turned into another bloody debacle with the Hogwarts staff feeding him lines again about love and sacrifice and powers that the Ministry could know not, he was throwing up his hands, snapping his wand, and committing himself to a hermitage, wizardry be damned.  How the hell did everything having to do with this school turn into some sort of godawful morality tale?

"So you dueled this Terry fellow?  The one working for Malvivicus?"  He kept his tone relaxed, his questions deliberately mild.  "You mean dueled with a wand, yeah?"

At first, all Trevelyan got was another stubborn shake of the head.  Sasha didn't see how this was relevant - it was impossible that the events which led up to Kronos deciding Sasha needed defense lessons were related to the body lying in the room a few doors down.  And, he didn't want to talk about it.  Not here, not now, not in the mix of all this other stuff. 

To be entirely fair, Sasha really hadn't actually given Dreogan's possible reaction to his relationship with Ferguson much thought.  He'd simply assumed Dreogan would react as his own family would have; that a different reaction could even exist hadn't even occurred to Sasha.  After all, Dreogan didn't have nearly the level of obligation his own parents had had to keep him if Sasha proved to be a disappointment.  If dating another boy might actually be enough for his own parents to kick him out, it just seemed a given the same would be true here.  It simply wasn't in the realm of Sasha's understanding that it would be found acceptable. 

He'd already come to the conclusion that the stakes were too high to risk even considering letting that come to light.  But, as Sasha looked up, once more, out the window, the drifting snow helped his mind settle out of the frantic panic.  Trevelyan was right - it was hard to know what was relevant.  And ... was it worth the risk if this ended up being the piece of the puzzle that helped bring Ava's murderers to justice? 

"Alright."  Finally, he nodded and looked away from the window though he avoided looking directly at Trevelyan.  His gaze landed on the flames flickering behind the glass of the door wood stove's door.  "I'd been there a couple days.  Kronos summoned me to this ... this weird room.  Almost everything was black - the floor and walls were this black stone.  The room was almost completely empty except for a couple of couches.  He'd- Kronos had intercepted this, you know, letter ... there's this Slytherin who's always hexing and harassing me and he'd ... he'd heard ... you see, a-"  He hesitated and took a deep breath, dropping his gaze to his hands in his lap before continuing with a dismissive shrug. 

"One of the other fifth year boys had kissed me.  Peeves found out and was, you know, being Peeves.  This Slytherin found out and wrote a fairly ... abrasive and crude letter.  Kronos, I guess, got to it first.   He asked me about it and ... when he found out I got bullied all the time, he said I needed to be able to defend myself.  So, he had me practice with this Terry fellow." 

His shoulders hitched up slightly and he nodded as he glanced up towards Jonas.  "I mean, I don't know if I'd, you know, call it dueling.  I was ... Quatsch.  I never got close to anything.  I'm horrible.  I mean, they kept teaching me these spells but I ... I never saw what they did.  Like - the one they used on ... on ..."  His eyes flickered towards the wall beyond which Ava's body lay.  "I'd ... I used it on that Ashford guy because Kronos said to use it if I was every really in trouble.  I mean - I assume they're the same.  The flash of light was the same color and it did the same thing.  I didn't know what it would do, though.  Terry taught it to me but I never actually hit anything with it." 

Jonas stared at the boy, his face carefully expressionless.  Whatever they had stumbled on here so early in the morning, it was clear that it wasn't as cut and dry as a girl mistakenly dying in the forest.  These things were never simple, but the more complicated the explanation became, the harder it was to piece together what had happened.  Sasha Schlagenweit was in the middle of a regular puzzle for Mensa.

He ignored the part that was probably worrying the boy, mentally setting aside the details about kissing at Hogwarts in favor of remembering the other bits. At least would be good for a chuckle with Archer or Anna about the definition of 'wizard' if it ever came up in conversation.  But the rest of it - some black chamber used to practice dueling.  Spells being taught to school boys that made people bleed out. 

At least he wasn't the only one who apparently had had no idea about Kronos Malvivicus's status as one of the Ministry's Most Wanted.  He ought to tell Tamis that she needed to do a better job of circulating the wanted posters.

"What's Quatsch mean?" he inquired curiously, mimicking the sound as best he could.  "Alright, let me repeat this back just to make certain that I've got it all straight."  Jonas took a deep breath, keeping each word slow and deliberate as he tried to put the pieces together.  "Katsaros taught you a spell that Malvivicus told you to use if you got into trouble.  You cast it on Ashford, and you think it looked the same as the spell that you just saw used on Ava Grosvenor, yeah?"

It sounded a bit incredible even as he said it, but despite the convoluted connections, the pathway was still clear.  It did bring to mind at least one more burning question, even though he could probably and unfortunately guess the answer.

"So what'd this spell do to Ashford when you used it on 'im?" Jonas asked easily, attention still fixed on the boy  "You remember the incantation for it, by chance?"