---

The stone bowl sat on the table, forming a low barrier between them.  Jonas absently rolled the small glass vial between finger and thumb, back and forth like clockwork. 

They had gathered everything that they needed, anything that would possibly be relevant.  The private investigator's usual notebook lay untouched in front of him, matched in position by a parallel ballpoint pen.  He'd already determined that, Auror Office or not, he'd be using Muggle writing implements until the day he died and quills be damned.  Tait's badge - his friend's former badge - sat next to it, gleaming as it reflected back the light of the lanterns in the room, glimmering in the eerie luminescence already thrown off by the roiling pensieve. 

Across from him, Adon was just finishing his arrangement of the Runespoor casefile, no doubt placing the relevant documents methodically at the top.  They'd both already reviewed the facts and read over the report still on file from this night.  That had been preparation enough.  There was nothing else to assemble.  No need to further plan.  Nothing for them to do but to gather more evidence.

Jonas closed his hand around the vial and set it on the table with a click.

"Dated the twenty-first of December, 1994."  The recitation rolled easily off his tongue; he didn't need his notebook to recall these facts properly.  Recounting them was procedure; listing them made it impersonal.  "Time of day, approximately 11 at night.  Location assumed to be London, England.  Memory extracted with permission from one Tamis Raynor, at the time a Healer-in-Training at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies, assigned to the third floor, Potion and Plant Poisonings."

He glanced across the table, meeting Adon Eleor's dark eyes.  His new partner had been on this investigation for far longer than he had.  With recent developments and the resurfacing of Tait Aldridge's badge, it seemed more and more likely that this fifteen-year-old memory was somehow relevant to the present-day case.  That was what this was about, in the end; reopening a cold case that had been closed for over a decade was just coincidental.

"You ready, mate?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.  He didn't like the weight in the room, even if it was only noticeable on his own shoulders.  Thank Merlin for the Witch Weekly's Valentine's Day Special, which had been published only the week before.  Jonas flashed the younger man a crooked smile.  "You're sure that the pensieve's not going to up and drown in the depths of the waters of your soul, yeah?" he asked cheerfully.  "I can go it alone if this'll be too much for your masculine energy."

1.	From the poem by Dylan Thomas.

Adon had tried to approach this in as unassuming a way as possible. No ceremony. It was just any other viewing on yet another investigation. Then Adon remembered that he didn't buy into that concept of compartmentalisation that everyone in Great Britain seemed to. Business could be personal. There was nothing wrong with that, and no good in denying it. Adon had learned this first and foremost in the military. The men you served with were your brothers. You fought for your life with them. You shared the same lives. And together, with any success, you took the lives of others. It was a bloody business that was not personal--it was not who you were--but it was personal--you came out different from it.

Adon had been, in the days preceding this viewing, contemplating on the nature of his friendship with Jonas Trevelyan. Part and parcel to this, Adon'd also been considering Jonas's relationship with Tait Aldridge. And Adon's relationship with commrades lost. Eldad Regev, for one. Like Jonas, Adon hadn't been there for Regev's death. He didn't like to think about it, but that didn't mean he didn't feel its presence, its reality, informing his day-to-day dealings. For a week and a half, Jonas'd been preparing himself to see his friend's death. Adon'd been doing what he could to not only prepare himself for the viewing, but to prepare himself to support Jonas.

"You ready, mate?"

Adon gave a grim nod, matching Jonas' formerly business-like tone.

"You're sure that the pensieve's not going to up and drown in the depths of the waters of your soul, yeah?" he asked cheerfully.  "I can go it alone if this'll be too much for your masculine energy."

Brow knitting, Adon attempted a smile, giving a wavering, non-committal sort of shrug and grin. "Bring it, brother," he managed, finding it difficult, awash with concern and conjectures about what Jonas was not saying, to respond to what he actually had.

There were times that called for pomp and ceremony, and then there were jobs that simply needed to be done.  In the long run, this was nothing more than an elaborate whodunnit, a mystery to puzzle through and solve from a distance like he might unravel a crime drama on the television.  He knew the cast of characters already: he knew Tamis; he knew Tait.  He knew the scene.  The ending was long since etched into marble, had already been set and engraved into stone.  Even with magic, there was no changing the past.

Thoughtfully, Jonas tugged the cork free from the vial.  Tamis Raynor had lived with this memory for nearly half her life.  It had obviously never left her; he'd seen the shadow of it over her on the anniversary of Tait's death.  In a way, it felt sacrilegious to dive so intimately into his old school rival's past, especially in so raw and emotional a manner, but this wasn't personal.  Tait had died - they now presumed he had died - because of what he had been on the verge of discovering about these people.  No price like that should be paid in vain.

The pensieve was glimmering and shining between them; the ghost-like mist of the memory danced within the vial.  Jonas stuck his pen behind his ear with his free hand, and then tucked the notebook under his arm.  The badge could stay where it was on the table; they didn't need it.  Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

"Unto the breach?" he asked, and carefully poured the memory in.

Silver wisps of mist swirled in the timeless space within the pensieve, whirling and twirling and drifting until they began to take shape and form a scene. The details slowly formed, taking on color and solidify until a replica of Muggle London came into full realization, exactly as it had been fifteen years ago...

21 December 1994
10:51 PM



A brisk breeze rushed down the alley, drifting snow about Tamis Raynor’s feet as the back door to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies shut securely on her heels. Healer robes traded in for a sweater and jeans, she utilized the haphazard glow of the street lamp to snug knit gloves about her fingers. It had been a long day and she shook her head in exasperation. She was never going into pediatrics. Ever. Children were idiots.

Oblivious to her surroundings, she began wiggling her way into the second glove, head bent in concentration as a silhouette detached from the dark beyond the safety of the lamplight. It loomed up behind her, shifting along the wall, creeping closer and closer to the unsuspecting woman. Then it stopped. And waited.

Tamis shifted more toward the light, turning her back on the stoop.

Seizing the moment, the shadow lunged forward from behind her and ensnared her waist, pulling her up against its firm torso – laughing in deep throaty chuckles.

 Pulse racing in horror, Tamis stumbled sideways into the light and revealed the scruffy faced, untamed haired, and bright frolicsome eyed captor.

“Merlin, Tait!” She gasped, trying to force her heart back into a proper rhythm. Propelled by the adrenalin rush, a genuine laugh escaped her. She scowled to try and make up for it. “Do not sneak up on me like that.”

That earned another chuckle, and unperturbed, Tait Aldridge leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek. “You’re cute when you’re mad,” and before she could protest her temperament, continued, “besides; I didn’t ‘sneak.’ You just weren’t paying attention.”

He grew serious, “If you’re going to insist on walking home, you need to be more careful.”   

The beginning was jarring. Adon was unprepared for the merriment and mirth of this couple. To find himself smiling at the young auror's antics. To find a couple in love.

As he watched the events unfold, Adon never let himself forget that the man he watched now -- to whom he felt this connection -- would be the man he'd watch die in a few moments.

It would have been easier to have started later, to have seen the act; nothing else. Adon knew from personal experience that seeing a man with the woman he loved was seeing a man as his best self. Tait Aldridge was a good man. Charming, attractive, caring, charismatic. Jonas said he'd been a bit like Adon, but less of an arse.

Adon believed it.

Though useless, and, doubtless, ineffectual, Adon clasped his wand in his hand, his fingernail finding its home in one of the well-worn grooves along the wood.  He glanced sidelong at Jonas. Tait Aldridge would die and there'd be nothing he could do about it, but that didn't mean he would stand passively by and, with the impassive attentiveness of a surveyer, take in the details with a mechanical precision.

The scene changed and Adon closed his eyes as the lamppost beside him swirled into a nebulous matter and rematerialised. He recognised the place. It was along his daily walk from Jacoba's work to his flat. The realisation was jarring. Not here he wished. He felt his stomach grow to an icy coal as he identified each little detail, relatively unchanged in the 14 years since this memory.

Jonas knew in an instant that there was no way he was going to be able to simply observe from a distance as he might a programme on the television.  The smell of wet asphalt damp from the melting snow brought the memory alive, his bare skin tingling with the sharp sting of a breeze that had long since become a ghost.  This was his city, more so than Exeter or Truro had ever been.  He knew the feel of the pavements, the distant sounds of the busy steets.  London was vividly alive in Tamis Raynor's memory, even on this night of nights.

Watching the couple greet each other was a scene straight out of his past.  Jonas couldn't help smiling crookedly as he watched his old best mate emerge from the shadows and pounce on Tamis from behind, triggering her own heart-racing reaction.  For as long as he'd known him, Tait Aldridge had been spirited, animated, full of life and heart and verve - that was how he should be.  It should never have ended the way it had, the way it was about to.

There was no way to stay objective now that he was in the middle of it, but now, being here and seeing it, anything that he might have worried about didn't matter.  One last respite from the storm; one last day of warmth before the coming winter.  Jonas let out a quick breath and glanced to Adon beside him, meeting the younger man's gaze as the scene went hazy and shifted around them.

They were still in London, somewhere on the walk between the hospital and Tamis's old flat.  Jonas recognized the street; it was close enough to his own office that he'd walked it before.  He tucked his hands into his pockets, notebook still under his arm, and began to follow behind Tamis and Tait, carefully keeping watch over their surroundings. The sight of the couple just ahead made him smile again, despite the coming blow of mortality that he knew loomed just out of sight.

"I think it's all in the report, but he walked her home most nights," he informed Adon matter-of-factly.  There was no reason to keep his voice down, not now; the path that this would take had already been set.  "We used to jibe him about it, but Tait didn't care.  Could've thrown a rock at his head and he wouldn't've bloody noticed once he had his mind set on something.  And he did sneak," he added with a crooked smile, looking positively amused by the misrepresentation.  "Got highest marks in Concealment when we were in training.  Best in our year at dueling, too.  He was a much better Auror than I was.  Put the rest of us to shame."

21 December
11:01 pm



Side by side, their feet carry them through the familiar labyrinth of streets. The street lamps were intertwined with festive garland and trees glistened merrily with fairy lights. As they gradually left the vicinity of St. Mungo’s these merriments too faded away, giving birth to dank street corners.

For a long time, the strike of their feet against the sidewalk was the only sound between them. There was an awkward tension to the air as if there was a large white elephant lurking nearby that neither one of them wanted to address.

“I do not need an escort every night,” she finally breached, would-be-conversationally. Nothing quite as subtle as bonking that elephant directly on the head.

“Yes, you do.”  This was clearly not the first time they had this debate. He glanced down at her, jaw firm. “Especially now. Those… were Death Eaters at the World Cup, Tam.” The words lingered on his lips and his adam’s apple throbbed and his mouth worked, as if second guessing something else he had been about to say. Another reason why walking her home might be necessary. Instead, he added, “If you would let me teach you –“

“You sound like you expect an extremist to jump out and attack me. In the middle of muggle London,” she commented dryly. “Who am I? Harry Potter?”

Silence answered her when there should have been laughter. She regarded him skeptically, “Come off it, will you? I thought the Auror Paranoia took at least a full year to set in?”

She managed to provoked a marginal smile that did not quite reach his eyes. Finally he forced a grin, “Constant Vigilance, yeah?” 

That earned him a good hard shove and he laughed for real, holding his hands up in surrender.

“I am a healer, Tait.” She reminded him, flipping long hair over her shoulder as she slanted him a disapproving look. “I deal with the aftermath of violence; I do not need to partake in it as well.” The rebuttal to that was so imminent, and would have had a number of fair points, that she quickly added, “Besides, that is what I have you for.” She flashed him the most brilliant and disarming smile. “The Auror that gave the Runespoor Industry a taste of justice.”

The beginning of a pleased grin tugged at his lips at her praise. But he was still the epiphany of sincerity. “Just doing my job,” he said. The pride in his brown eyes dimmed, “It was too easy. Everything I needed practically fell into my lap. You'd think something that big would put up more of a fight.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and brooded over some intimate detail of a case that she was not allowed to know anything about.

 He would do that, especially of late; retract into his thoughts. Even though he stood right next to her he felt kilometers away. Usually he snapped of it readily enough. He did not this time.

Hiding her concern, Tamis rolled her eyes and wrapped herself around one of his arms, smirking up at him. “It is Christmas. Try not to be so pessimistic?”

He just stared at her blankly, catching her sham. That was a rather festive concern for an atheist. She held her ground though, jaw set and both eyebrows stubbornly raised until he finally relented, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I was being serious.”

“So am I. There are better uses for your time than being serious,” she returned, slipping free of his arm but taking hold of his hand as she leaned away from him, an eyebrow rising suggestively.

“Is that so?” He laughed. “Sounds suspiciously like a threat against your honor, Miss Raynor.” He wink, raising her hand grasped in his to kiss the engagement ring nestled there.

His lips never completed their journey. Out of her peripheral vision, Tamis caught movement at the end of the alleyway. Four cloaked figures detached from the shadows, each one wielding a slender rod of wood.  They spanned across the mouth of the alley, blocking further progression.

As the scene shifted, Jonas let his commentary trail off, for once falling into silence as he followed behind the couple.  It was impressive how easy it was to slip into the patterns of the past, watching Tait and Tamis banter, even now having to bite back the urge to slip in a smart remark.

Watching them now, though, he could see the edge to them.  The pair were so clearly in love, but the slight tension between them was much more obvious looking back than it had ever been when he was twenty years old.  It felt a bit odd to be dissecting his old mate's relationship like this, as if he were trying to determine what its fate might have been had one of the two lovers not met an untimely end, but doing so was necessary to their purpose.  Tait seemed distant, distracted.  Tamis fought her way through to him.  As his fond smile faded into a more thoughtful frown, Jonas glanced at Adon, making eye contact with the younger Auror.

"Something else is bothering him," he informed him quietly.  After the murder had first happened, he'd wondered a thousand times, looking back - was there something that he should have seen?  Retrospective was everything, but at least seeing it before him like this meant he could be certain.  "The World Cup was the summer before.  I was on that investigation; he wasn't."

The body language.  The lack of banter.  Something was troubling his friend.  Tait's words rang too true:  Everything I needed practically fell into my lap. You'd think something that big would put up more of a fight.  Had the young Auror known what was coming?  It might not be likely, but it seemed possible.

The movement at the end of the alley caught Jonas's eye just as it did the young woman's.  He sucked in a breath, his jaw tightening and shoulders tensing.  It took all of his self control not to draw his wand, to turn the fight-or-flight response into simply rocking back on his heels.  With a sudden twist of his stomach, he knew intensely how much he had never wanted to see what came next.

"Well, here we are, then," Jonas said quietly as the spells began to fly.  He forced himself to look at Adon, to tear his eyes away from the figures and from Tait, but there was no hint of a smile on his face now.  Even to his own ears, his voice sounded hoarse.  "You alright calling the shots from here on out, partner?  Reckon you'll know which bits we need to see."

Adon'd been looking at their surroundings, the alleyways -- he'd been listening for Apparation reports and a glimpse of shadowy figures. He turned away from all this a moment to listen to Jonas.

"Something else is bothering him. The World Cup was the summer before.  I was on that investigation; he wasn't."

Adon nodded mutely, not wanting to miss a thing. He'd have to agree with that, though. For a man who'd just close a case, he wasn't exactly acting like it was closed.

"Everything I needed practically fell into my lap. You'd think something that big would put up more of a fight." Adon exhaled through his nose. Well, it was putting up a fight now. An ominous sign, though -- and the one that had likely proven fatal to Tait Aldridge. And yet the man wasn't exactly letting his guard down.

Except when he did. They all did; Adon the least so, but this was not his show. This was not his death, his fiancee, or his best friend he was watching. He'd heard the Apparition pops and had heard their footsteps before he'd seen them. He glanced over quickly to Jonas, seeing the pale, grim horror he'd expected to see there, too.

No surprises here. And yet harrowing, all the same. "Yeh," he agreed quietly. "I've got it, brother." There was no way to reassure, and Adon wished now, for the first time, that he was seeing this alone. Without Jonas. There was no need for all of this -- for both of them.

Too late. He needed to pay attention.

Breaking from Jonas' side, allowing him to hang back, Adon moved towards the cloaked men. They were his objective and his concern now. And he was going to give them hell for all of this. Each one of them. Jaw clentched and wand in hand -- it was worthless in this, but it was comfortable -- he strode up to one, looking him boldly in the face. The man did not register or recognise Adon's determined glare. His eyes glanced down at the wand hand. Lefty.

He glanced back a moment at Jonas, shuddering slightly as he felt the man's spectral arm somehow slice through him as he threw a spell towards the young couple. He'd give them hell for that, too. But most of all, he'd give them hell for that look on Jonas' face.

Note: Memory is written from Tamis Raynor's point of view and only highlights how she recalls certain events. The "Irish Man", while he is not played on the boards with a dialogued accent, it has been emphasized in the excerpt below as the thick Irish Accent is what Tamis remembers most about the man. Do not mock me for my poor grasp of the dialect. 

---

Tait’s hand shifted down to her wrist and found purchase there. His grip tightened uncomfortably as he pulled her forcefully behind him. His other hand was already producing his wand. Behind them, four loud “cracks” echoed down the alley. Tait turned on his heel so abruptly that Tamis slammed into his back, knocking the breath from her lungs. Four more identical figures now blocked the only other means of escape.

Tait raised his wand and pulled her close, intent on getting the hell out of there --

A venomous flash of green light rushed at the pair.

“Damn.”

Tait tackled Tamis to ground, sheltering her. The spell flashed with morbid intent against the nearby dumpsters and she cringed beneath him as it rained a shower of lethal sparks. The moment they cleared she was hauled to her feet and shoved unceremoniously into the crack between the two metal monstrosities. Tait created a fourth wall in front of her. He peered into the open alleyway and reeled back as a tirade of curses battered mercilessly against their makeshift shield. He produced curses of a verbal breed.

“Tait --”

The look her gave her said everything; the lack of surprise in it startled her. Whoever these men were, they had known they were going to be here. Apparating back to the flat was out of the question, it might just be into another trap. Anywhere else nearby would not be worth the disorientation it would cause Tamis. The Ministry was close but she had enough trouble traveling when teleporting through leagues of solid earth was not a factor. She almost told him to leave then, with or without her. But he pinned her with a warning glare -- It was not happening.

“Just stay here, Tam. Don’t move.” 

He laid his head back against the side of the dumpster. Then, with a growl of determination, he sprung from the crevice.

It was a deft display of wandmanship. Hex was returned with hex. Curse was returned with curse. Her range of vision was significantly tunneled, but she heard two definite thuds of bodies hitting the pavement. Her heart thumped uncomfortably in her chest.  Six now, there were still six of them. Tait was skilled, the top of his class at the Auror Academy. But he could not hold his own against six. Even two was deadly to a trained wizard.

He was going to die. The realization hit her with the grip of icy reality.

A shaking hand produced her wand. Biting down on her trembling lip, Tamis stared down at the slender, polished wood, tangled hair half obscuring her deathly pale face. Her entire body quivered with fear. She was not trained for this. She had never been in a situation like this. But she could not just sit here. She could not just watch. The fingers of her right hand tightened haphazardly around her wand. It felt foreign, as if rebelling against what she was about to do.

There was a cry of victory from the opposition as she produced herself. Laughing in malicious glee, one of the figures lifted his wand.

“Imperio!”

“NO!"

Tait’s voice was the last echo across her consciousness before everything was erased by an empty gray fog.

…come ‘ere, lassie …

Her feet moved without her permission, stumbling along until a pair of hands reached out to steady her. One of them wrapped around her waist and pulled her flush up against an unfamiliar frame. Too tall to be Tait. The second hand pulled her long hair from her neck and then rested there, capturing her panicked pulse. Revulsion shot through and she struggled to pull away, unheeding of the voice whispering commands. It became more firm, compelling her, forcing her, bringing on a physical tension. She stopped.

“Tamis!”

“Wand. Give it up. It’s a pretty lass to be wastin’.”

Silence answered him.

The Man’s dissatisfaction pricked at her subconscious. The second hand joined the first around her neck on the opposite side.

“Ye really gonna  make me do this?”

… give me a kiss for yisser fella…

A wand clattered to the ground.

“Good lad.”

The fog lifted. She found herself on scuffed hands and knees, both throbbing as she stared at the the pavement before her face. Through a veil of tangled hair she saw Tait subdued between two large brutes. The Man was toying with Tait’s wand between his fingers.

“We ‘av a problem. Sum important people wanted shipments av three headed snakes. Thanks to yer, NO snakes. Yer. Don’t. Scram. Important. People.”

 Tait growled. “Let the girl go. She doesn’t know anything.”

It was such a cliché response that the Man and Tamis both turned dumbfounded expressions on the restrained Auror. Even the two brutes holding him sidled glances down at their quarry. It was as if everyone forgot what they were doing and action was temporarily suspended.  If Tait realized this he feigned oblivion, chest puffed and rising and falling rapidly and jaw clenched tight.

There was a long moment of awkward silence.

“How ‘bout… NO?”

Action resume.

The Man turned the wand on Tamis. Tait let out a battle cry of defiance, physically trying to escape his captors.

The heels of Tam’s boots scuffed against pavement and gravel dug into her palms as she tried to scramble backwards away from the advancing Man without turning her back on him. Her wand lay forgotten on the alley floor and it rolled back behind the dumpsters as He kicked it aside. One of the men holding Tait laughed as the leaner man continued to struggle.

The last thing she saw was her own terrified expression gleaming back at her from those dark, grinning eyes –

“Crucio.”

Jonas took a deep breath as Adon stepped away, releasing it slowly as he tried to let the tension drain from his stance. The effort worked better in theory than it did in practice, but at least it helped him to focus, gave him something else to concentrate his attention on as more cracks sounded down the alley.  Adon would, if nothing else, pay attention to the details, which meant that Jonas didn't have to worry that his personal connection to the tragedy that was unfolding would make them miss something important.

The attackers hit hard from the very beginning.  Avada Kedavra - Adon was already in the face of the bloke who had cast it, the spell streaking through him with a deadly arc that made Jonas flinch.  If they had been anywhere else, in any other memory, the sight of the Israeli Auror aggressively posturing before a half-remembered man that couldn't see him and would never care would have triggered a smile on Jonas's part, but for now he let it go and focused on the scene.

The ambush had obviously been carefully executed, but the Auror that the assassins were attempting to kill sprung out to fight back. One man went down in the pandemonium of flying magic, followed shortly by another.  Tait was good, as good as he'd ever seen, but Jonas already knew how this was supposed to end.  Even Tait Aldridge couldn't last forever. 

The sudden movement to his right caught his eye in the same instant that it attracted the attention of the other combatants.  Jonas turned in time to watch as a terrified Tamis Raynor emerge from behind the dumpster where she had been stashed, wand held in a shaking hand. 

It was disconcerting to see her like this, so many years younger and so much less certain than the quietly confident woman that he now knew.  They had never been friends when they were young, but observing her now - her terrified attempt to join in the fight, the Imperius curse that was cast in response - struck him like physical blows, one after the other.  Jonas stood still, the muscles in his jaw tightening, as he watched the imperiused Tamis stumble to the Irishman who seemed to be the leader, watched the bastard wrap an arm around her and pull her close.  The helpless feeling of inevitability that had been twisting his stomach gave way to a sensation that he knew far better, the same cold fury that had come when Anna had first rung to say that a wizard had been to the house.

And yet the memory marched mercilessly on, grounded in the relentless certainty of history.  Across the alleyway, a wand fell with a clatter.  Tamis was dropped to the ground, cast aside, and the remaining men finally fell on his friend.  Tait, bless his heart, mouthed off in true Gryffindor fashion even after he had been incapacitated - if it hadn't seemed too much like whistling at a funeral and if he didn't already feel so cold, Jonas would have smiled at that one - but then the battle started again.  The red-haired man watched, his expression icy, as the Irish bastard switched tactics, calling up the last of the Unforgivable Curses.

Jonas had been hit with it once.  Only once.  But he remembered.  A sympathetic phantom pain exploded in his knee as the red-haired man closed his eyes, and then physically turned away from the sight.  He couldn't watch Tamis Raynor - especially not a version of Tamis Raynor who was so helpless and so young - writhe and suffer under the Cruciatus Curse.  Swallowing hard, he opened his eyes and focused on Tait, tried to focus on the anger that still formed a cold knot in his stomach. 

This wasn't just a murder.  It was quickly becoming clear that they wouldn't be satisfied with Tait's simple death.  This was more than that.  It was vengeful.  It was personal.  Whatever Tait had done to them or had been about to do, someone had wanted to break him before he died.

"That's him, Trev," Adon said, voice urgent as soon as he heard the first words. "The Irishman. It's him, it's him!" he repeated, eyes lighting up with an angry fire. He observed the man closely, evaluating the featuers. If he hadn't known better, he'd have said the man was Israeli. Even sabra. He looked the part.

Despite appearances, Adon knew he'd never met the man. Until now.

Though this was Tamis Raynor's memory this was not, and never would be, about her. This was about the Runespoor trade. This was about an Auror's murder. Who, Adon reminded himself, only happened to be Tait's ex-fiancee and Jonas's best friend.

But this wasn't about that. So while he grimaced at Tamis' rough treatment and offered a troubled frown in Jonas' direction, he pressed on. Listening, seeing, watching, evaluating. But trying his best, his very best, not to move into feeling.

This was about the case. And it was, more importantly, about ending it. These moments were finite, and a few minutes more and it would be over, and then the work would begin. Adon looked towards the two men holding Tait, but their features were shrouded. He gave a frustrated growl as he looked over to a fourth member of the party. Also shrouded, but the characteristic long, scaggly blonde hair with knobbly fingers was distinguishing at least.

For all the Irishman was exacting vengeance, he himself didn't seem to be displaying overt anger or emotion. Which meant that either this was not his affair-- only his orders -- or he was a compartmentaliser. A businessman in murder.

Adon didn't think this was his fight. Which was promising. It meant that the Irishman may be involved in other things -- in the sort of things that paid well. He could be, for all Adon knew, ubiquitous in certain circles.

They'd go after him and hit him hard. And blast that grin off his face. "Yeh," Adon whispered to himself resolutely, as though taking notes. "Right."

The following post is Rated M for torture and death.

---

Tamis knew pain. Until this point, she knew the definition of the word. But now, she knew pain. It was razor sharp and searing and she withered trying to escape it. But it came from within, profound and unyielding. Someone was screaming. Someone was screaming and there was endless pain. Her world narrowed around it. It was just the pain and the quickened beat of her heart. The strained way her chest cried for air. Eventually even the screaming faded away, leaving just the insufferable pain in its wake.

At times, it would subside into a dull awareness as that now familiar gray fog resettled over her.  She surrendered to it. For in those brief, luxurious moments the pain was gone. If she obeyed the voice, maybe it would not come back. But it always did. That searing agony. She began to recognize the fog, began to have more awareness within it. But fighting it brought more pain. Anything for that small respite.

It went on heedlessly. Went on until she was not sure what her name was anymore. Went on until she did not want to hang on anymore. Went on until she started to feel the core of Self start to slip away…

… and then it stopped.

At first she did not believe. The ebb of the agony still lingered, too slowly draining from her limbs. She concentrated on the sound of her breathing, heavy and ragged and desperate. She remained perfectly still and breathed, relishing in the way the cold winter air cradled her body and the oxygenated expansion and deflation of her lungs without pain.

“Please…”

The word floated along her conscious. The tone was dejected and crestfallen and… familiar. Her brows furrowed and a low moan exhaled from her lips, wreaking havoc on her sore throat.

Tait?

Eyelids fluttering, she struggled toward lucid thought. It came with horrifyingly leisure. The left side of her face was pressed against the cobblestone, numb and raw from prolonged contact with the frozen bricks. A bead of cold sweat was freezing on her nose. She struggled more, opening her eyes.

“Please,” the voice repeated.

Her vision cleared but did not fall on the man she was expecting to find. It was Tait Aldridge by all physical reasoning. The face was snow white, but it was his. The body was shaking, but the frame was right. It was his gaze that was wrong. The man she had known almost all her life was no longer in that gaze. He had been torn from it. The life in his warm hazel irises was just… gone… leaving them dark and bleak. But there was an understanding in the depths of it. A dark and terrible understanding, both resign and apologetic.   

That gaze never left her. Not even when he addressed the Man again, “No more.”

At first she did not comprehend. The two thugs holding Tait looked up at the Man beyond her line of vision. Tamis kept her eyes locked on Tait’s as his bore back into hers; trying to tell her something, trying to make her understand.

“Ye heard ‘im, lads.”

There was a grim satisfaction in the Man’s words that filled Tamis with a fear the surpassed everything else. She managed to raise herself up onto wobbly arms. The thugs released their grip on Tait. Their hands lingered on his arms for a moment, almost in pity, and then they stepped away. The Auror did not try and resume fighting. He did not even flinch. He remained there, on his knees, never once looking away from her.

Eerie muggle sirens were blaring somewhere close. Getting closer.

She did not fully appreciate what was happening until the killing curse plunged straight into the center of Tait’s chest.  The spell shot with poisonous wrath, illuminating the alley. He did not even try to dodge it. The intensity of the green flash outlined her frozen expression. Those hazel eyes dulled to black and impossibly slow – everything became impossibly slow – Tait was sent sprawling backwards…

Muscles tensing, Tamis simply stared at the façade before her eyes. Disbelief racked her with denial. So simply. So suddenly. It was not possible. Tait was not lying there spread eagle on the ground.  Not. He could not be --

The wand turned in her direction, the motion caught in her peripheral. The hood shrouding the man’s face fell away, but she was overwhelmed and did not care to concentrate on it. Only the wand. It lifted, bounced indecisively in the air, and pointed again. Then with an exasperated sigh it lifted a final time, and the Man shrugged comically.

 “As I said. Yer a pretty lass.”

The alleyway became alive with flashing colors as the muggles arrived.  Car doors flew open at either opening of the passageway. An amplified voice was shouting incoherently. The muggle police fingered their batons with uncertainty.

Tait’s killer shifted, considering the muggles with amusement. Turning back, he lifted an eyebrow at Tamis with a broad, white grin and shrugged again. The Man kissed his fingers in a farewell gesture and bowed, disappearing with a CRACK. His cronies did not hesitate, swiftly following with five definitive ‘cracks’ of their own.

Astounded shouts rang out. Voices dispatched over radios. Men with sticks vanishing into thin air. Right before their eyes. They did not know how they did it! It was like Magic…

Men in bright scarlet robes materialized, as if brought forth by the mere mention of the word.

 Late. All too late.

More ministry officials arrived to handle the breech in the Statue of Security; began to cover it up.  Tamis did not react. Everything seemed detached and empty as she stared at the lifeless shell on the ground. Coats fluttered in and about her, angry and alarmed as the dead man was identified. She just sat there. There was not a point.

“Tamis…”

A hand rested on her shoulder, trying to draw her away. She blinked impassively up at the familiar face.

The scene faded.

Everything faded.

Everything faded.

The stone bowl sat between them once more, its roiling contents subsiding as the last ghostly images died.  The interrogation room felt colder than even the dream of London had been; the icy sensation of the chair beneath him, the hard edges of the table before him jolted Jonas back into reality. 

He swallowed hard.  His throat was dry.  Taking a deep breath, Jonas leaned back in the chair, looking up towards the ceiling as he covered his face with both hands. 

After a long moment, he straightened in his seat again, rubbing at his eyes as he looked back at the items on the table.  The cold stone bowl; he avoided it.  The glass vial lay abandoned before him, empty where it had once contained the memory.  Next to it sat Tait's badge.  Frowning, Jonas studied it for a moment and then carefully picked it up.

The badge had been the connection between the cases.  Taken in 1994; returned to Tamis Raynor in 2009.  The goblin-made gold felt somehow warm in his hand.  Jonas turned it over, his gaze playing carefully over the back, the edges.  Missing for fifteen years.  Clearly an Auror's badge.  The number would have marked it as Tait's, even if the circumstances hadn't.  All through the second half of the memory, he hadn't been able to watch Tamis.  He had focused solely on Tait.

He could focus on this now.  The badge, the details, were solid and clear as he held them in his mind.  Tamis Raynor had lived with the horrible events of the memory for fifteen years; he could avoid thinking about them for a few hours until the business of it had been concluded.

Jonas closed his hand around the badge and raised his eyes to meet Adon's.  There would be time for friendship and camaraderie later; for now, he set his jaw. 

His voice was steady and resolute when he spoke.  "What'd you get?"

If he had felt a chill when he had come into contact with the spectral personages, their absence left Adon remarkably more so.

Adon looked at the bowl a moment, then to Jonas, who was running his hands over his face, and finally rested on the sheets of parchment and ballpoint pen - thanks to Jacoba, who he'd stolen it from earlier. He'd placed it there for this purpose and, reaching over, he began to note down distinguishing marks, impressions, exact diction, and location.

Adon didn't like that this had happened along the very route that he was so accustomed to taking daily with Jacoba when he walked her home. That would have to change.

"What'd you get?" Jonas asked him with a hard edge in his voice. Adon breathed through his nose, but didn't put the pen down as he looked up.

He watched Jonas carefully a moment. Jonas was clutching the badge with a resolute grip as though it were a final stronghold. A security totem. That would need to change, too. Jonas needed this mooring point right now, which explained the almost white-knuckled grip, but this was why he needed to sever the bond quickly, while emotions were high.

If he allowed them to settle, it would be cemented, and Jonas would be resolved. There was no arguing with him, then.

Calmly, with a calculating blandness that Adon had learned to adopt whenever he gave reports on skirmishes to his commanding officers in the military -- whenever he hid emotions, or sincere thought -- he said, "They knew he would be there. And he knew they would be, too," Adon said. He reconsidered a moment before adding, "Or, at the very least, he was not surprised."

The tone shifted. Still firm and smooth like marble, but with no veiled emotion, he insisted, "I don't like you having that badge. No one should have it after they have."