It had taken some doing to breach the two-mile swath of Muggle-repellent charms that surrounded Hasard Hall.  By now, Jonas had grown used to steadily ignoring the suddenly-remembered doctor's appointments, dentist visits, and unshakable feelings that he'd left the oven on which popped up whenever he approached a magical location.  It was a pain in the bloody arse, but one that he could manage now that he knew to be ready for it.  Steadfast determination won out over magic every time.

The interior of Prideaux's house was every bit as opulent as he had expected from the facade.  The servant who met him at the door checked his badge and identification -- if this was going to become a common practice, Jonas couldn't help thinking with a smile, he was going to have to find something funnier to display when asked -- took his coat, and then admitted him, leading him up the spiral staircase to the lounge on the first floor.

Jonas has realized years ago that a residence said a good deal about the individuals who inhabited it.  How it was organized, what was collected or accumulated, whether its arrangement was planned or by circumstance -- every detail said something about the lives that took place inside it.  In a home like Vedir Prideaux's, it quickly became obvious that every dangling chandelier, every perfectly manicured carpet and carefully neatened bookshelf had been precisely and deliberately chosen.  Prideaux was not only a man who cared about appearances, but paid attention to the details and had the money to do so without care or consequence.

The lounge, located on the first floor, looked like a posh gentleman's club pulled straight from a stuffy adventure novel.  He would have looked out of place no matter how he'd come dressed, but the three-hour drive that he'd committed himself to after too much off-the-cuff sarcasm had ruled out anything but Muggle attire; Jonas hadn't wanted to spend so long on the road stuck in red Auror robes.  If anything, the fact that he was dressed in his normal street clothes made him feel even more cheerful as he strode into the room, quickly giving it a glance over before focusing on the well-dressed figure inside.

"Governor," he said cheerfully, extending a hand to the other wizard.  "Thanks for overruling the Healer's orders and taking the time to chat tonight.  Nice place, this," he added appreciatively, making a show of glancing around the room.  "Hey, you don't happen to have one of those globes that opens up with liquor stowed inside it, do you?  That's got to be a laugh."

Vedir's injuries were obvious - though not by any means serious. He'd been reading when Jonas was shown in, and he stood with an obvious stiffness, his walk somewhat tempered.

Still, his smile and handshake were genuine. "Ah, Trevelyan!" He said. "No trouble at all. Your errand is far more urgent and important than some silly scratches, no mater what my Healer might claim. Rather depressing, really - I'd have shrugged these off a decade ago. Don't get old, Trevelyan; it's not worth it."

He leaned on the pool table rather than sitting back down, looking about the room as Jonas did. "Thank you - we do try and maintain it," he chuckled. "A globe? No, I'm afraid we keep it in rather dull cabinets - so sorry to disappoint, though I could always install one," he added, with good humor. "Would you care for a drink? I do happen to have some rather good brandy I was planning to make a start on, if you'd like to join me..."

He used his wand to open the cabinet on the far end of the room and summon said bottle to him; two glasses tagged along even before Jonas had answered him.

He expression turned rather more serious. "Now then, Trevelyan, I'm sure you'd rather get what you came here for rather than wasting it on idle chit-chat. I suspect you'd like to know more about our lovely Miss Kanika?"

"Reckon I'm well on me way to getting old," Jonas said amicably, shifting his weight self-consciously off his bad leg as he bemusedly watched the bottle as it floated into Prideaux's hand.  Apparently his host was determined to plot the course for this conversation; he wouldn't have been able to decline the alcohol if he'd tried.

"Sure, just don't tell the boss," he agreed cheerfully, nodding to the offer of a drink.  "And yeah, I'd appreciate getting down to it.  I've got a coworker to pick up on the way back to the city."

He'd brought his usual notebook along, tucked into his satchel, but this wasn't the time to start digging it out.  There was no need to affect this conversation by making it feel too official, at least not yet.  If the Hogwarts Governor was willing to chat about his connections to the mysterious assassin over a glass of brandy, Jonas would rather cede control and let him talk.  He usually had a good enough memory for detail, and what the older wizard chose to reveal or keep to himself could be just as telling as what he actually said.

"To be honest, Governor, I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on all of that," he admitted, keeping his tone friendly and his expression carefully curious.  "What do you know about her?"

Vedir laughed, and offered Jonas a glass. "A gift from the spirited Miss O Morain," he explained. "Expressly given for my conduct in Madame Malkin's..."

He sipped at his own brandy a moment before he spoke. "I'm afraid I can't tell you too much regarding her recent activities," he said, with a sigh. Crossing away from the pool table, he carefully sat in one of the lounge chairs.

"Not the most mentally stable young lady," he said. "Disgraced her family by having a child out of wedlock, with a muggle..." He looked at Jonas. "It was a big scandal in the late 70s, though I don't think you'd know too much of it - the boy's about your age, I believe. But her mental state afterwards was in decay and she hexed a muggle in 1990 - I owed her father for some business connections, and so I got her sentence mediated to a fine to save her family further disgrace." He swirled the brandy in his glass. "I gave her a home here temporarily, but she...well, to tell you the truth, she got worse, to the point I began to fear for my own life and the lives of my staff. Had a temper."

He smiled sadly at Jonas. "She had a second child with a lover - one of many - but when he rejected her, she snapped and vanished - we believe she killed a few of our house staff in the process. I believed her dead, to be honest. That was the last time I saw her, in 1993."

The origin story of the brandy earned a laugh.  Jonas chuckled, flashing Prideaux an appreciative grin as he raised his own glass in a mock toast.  "To Miss O Morain then, eh?" he asked cheerfully, looking incredibly amused as he raised it to take a sip.  "Cheers."

He took the other man's lead in claiming a lounge chair, taking care with his leg as he eased himself carefully to sit.  Prideaux looked and acted the part; everything he said vaguely matched what Jonas already knew.  It was obvious why the older wizard might find it in his best interest to be seen as cooperating; besides the obvious grudge that Kanika held against him, the payments he'd made on her behalf could be seen as incriminating enough.  Money given on behalf of a known assassin had a habit of leading law enforcement to unfortunate conclusions.

The speech struck all the right notes: regretful, honest, perfectly cooperative.  He mentally filed the details and dates away.  Hexed a Muggle in 1990; that was the first time she'd been arrested by MLE.  Bailed out by Prideaux, and then spent three years living under his care until vanishing in 1993.  Not a lifetime, but long enough that it was worth prying into.

He kept any hint of that thought from his expression as he gave Prideaux a tight, sympathetic smile.  "Sounds downright unfortunate," he observed.  "Why did you think she was dead?"

He crossed one leg over the other, leaning his elbows on the chair's arms. "We couldn't find her," he explained. "She came forward to claim her inheritance after her family's deaths, and then..." He snapped his fingers. "Gone. Wasn't anywhere. She was registered as missing by the Egyptian authorities. Poor crazy woman had enough reasons to commit suicide and none of us...well.." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Pardoning the rudeness, but I never thought of her as particularly bright, Trevelyan. I'm simply shocked she managed to avoid arrest for as long as she did - she was always so ruled by emotion."

He looked down at his glass. "Frankly, I'm glad she didn't decide to kill me; she likely killed her family." He smiled vaguely again. "No proof, of course, but now with her being Hyskos...it just makes sense. Poor bastards - no one else had the motivation, you see."

Running a hand through his hair, he sighed.

'Ruled with emotion' didn't quite match with what he'd seen of Kanika so far.  The woman who had obviously managed to keep a close watch on them, who had so successfully pegged Adon's weakness and had made a good show of going at him, struck him as savvy, observant, and calculating.  Either she had been considerably less stable when Prideaux had known her, she had managed to fool her savior entirely, or Prideaux had chosen to use a particular brush in painting this picture for him.

"Seemed like she made a proper go at killing you on Sunday," he remarked frankly.  That, he could see as being ruled by emotion.  She could have easily murdered Adon, cursed him or just bashed his head in, and yet when the Governor had stepped out of the phone booth, she had lost control completely.  There was more history here.  Whether or not the story behind all this was actually relevant to their case had yet to be determined.

"Nobody else had the motivation to kill her family, you mean?" Jonas asked, frowning as he studied the other man carefully.  The Kanika family might be worth following up on, but the multi-lingual Adon would be far more adept at that line of investigation.  There were hints that the Runespoor trade had hooks throughout the Middle East; if Kanika hadn't been hired for this job by chance, there might be a connection there that they could trace.

"You said you were in business with her father, yeah?" he asked, his forehead creasing.  "What exactly is it that her father did?"

Another chuckle. "Yes, she did. Thankfully, you were present..."

He sipped at his brandy again, making a 'hmm' sound. "The Kanikas? The same thing I do, really - re-distribute our wealth. Her father was interested in being a sole provider to England in..." He cleared his throat. "Basalisk scales, for the Department of Mysteries. The two of us worked together to help him get started at that, and after that we traded  favors - funding this, gifting that. It happened to be my turn when his daughter started her second scandal..."

If this had been a Muggle political conversation, Jonas would have rolled his eyes.  Living in a ridiculously posh house, talking about re-distributing wealth like it was a hobby that one undertook on the side, made him want to start whistling songs from the coal mines or haul on a line just to get blisters on his hands. 

He could stomach the careless wealth of the Eleors and Tamis Raynor; despite the way that they carelessly tossed their fortunes around or purchased enormous gifts on a whim, they were his friends, and stomaching them came with the territory.  But Prideaux's wealth went beyond opulence, much like Malvivicus's had.  He could never live like that, with enough money that he could buy and sell human beings on a whim.  A sack full of gold galleons was decidedly less tempting these days, now that he had a regular paycheck.  The worth of a fortune, like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder.

The off-handed description of business was irritating enough that he almost missed the comment about what the business had actually been.  Basilisk scales.  The Department of Mysteries.  Importations from North Africa, apparently sold to the British Ministry.

Jonas paused.  There was a coincidence. 

"Raised basilisks, did he?" he asked, his brows knitting.  He kept his tone carefully even, perfectly nonchalant, even as he watched Prideaux carefully for the response.  "He ever market any other type of reptile?"

Vedir eyed Jonas, and smiled in a decidedly cheeky way. "Runespoors?" He sipped his brandy yet again. "No. He was a very adamant man; hated illegal dealings. So sorry - though I have no doubt he could have assisted your investigation into that smuggling ring, if only via connections..."

He stood, walking back to the pool tale to refill his glass; having done so, he piked up the pool balls and started to arrange them. He was clearly thinking, his eyes staying on Jonas the whole time. It might benefit him considerably to throw Jonas a bone...

"How is Eleor handling his injuries?" He asked as he placed the balls into their triangle.

There were some things that were even better than Christmas.  Jonas's thoughts were already racing ahead, even as he mentally noted and catalogued Prideaux's response to his question.  After the investigation had stalled for so long, this gave them an approximate date and a name, something to follow up on beyond just the connections that their assassin might unwillingly reveal. 

1990 -- if Mr Kanika had been trading business favors with Vedir Prideaux in 1990, that put them right at the start of the second wave of Runespoor imports.  The family's murder in 1993 matched up neatly with Tait's case.  Basilisk scales were perfectly legal; there would be records, signatures, names and dates that they could trace.  Adon's contacts back in Israel might be able to determine what had happened to the Kanika basilisk business after the family had been murdered.  It might not lead anywhere, but if they could find a link...if they could even get a name of someone at the Ministry who might have been involved --

Prideaux's question caught him entirely off guard.

"Eleor?" he repeated with a frown.  Eleor.  Adon, obviously.  Dreogan was certainly acting like he was one of the injured parties, but the mage's pain was all in his overdramatic soul.  Jonas resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the thought.  "Yeah, he'll be alright.  He's still in St. Mungo's, but it sounds like they're getting the Runespoor venom out of his system.  I haven't had a chance to drop in and see him yet." 

That admission came with more than a flash of guilt.  Dreogan had made it very clear after his brother's injury just whom he blamed for Adon's hospitalization.  The accusation hurt, but Jonas had let it go.  He wouldn't fight his friend's brother on this, not now.

"Good to hear it - the poor man really did take quite a risk." Vedir was eying Jonas still. "Quite brave of him, of course, and I'm quite grateful to his efforts. When you visit him, please do pass on my regards."

He drew a cue, and looked fully to Jonas. "Care to join me? I find it helps me think, and relax." He took his first shot without waiting on Jonas's reply, the balls clacking and rolling across the table. He got a few in on the first shot, and the slid his cue to the floor with practiced ease.

Slipping a cigarette from his pocket, he looked back to Jonas. "So tell me, Trevelyan; I've been wondering all week." He smiled in a warm and charming way. "What happened to your ability to use magic?"

The red-haired man frowned, glancing over at the rack of cues, and then set his glass of brandy down.  He levered himself carefully to his feet, limping slightly as he rejoined Vedir at the pool table.

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll appreciate the good thoughts," he replied, studying the row of cues for a moment.  Any type of billiards was beyond him, save for the fact that various iterations of the game occasionally made an appearance in movies right before people started shooting each other.  He chose a cue at random, hefting it in his hand in a way that he thought made it seem like he actually knew what he was doing, and then turned to join Prideaux at the table.

The next question came with  a jolt.  Jonas looked up sharply at the other man, blinking in surprise; it took him a full three seconds before he managed to regain control of his expression.  Frowning, he looked down at the table, forehead creasing. 

"Eight ball, yeah?" he asked, studying the colored balls that had already been scattered around the table.  At least puzzling out the game gave him a moment to think.  Prideaux couldn't know about his lack of magic for certain; unless Aileen Reid had opened her mouth in some show of pureblood solidarity, he had to be guessing.  Maybe he'd done some digging on his own, but Jonas didn't see how he could have happened upon the root cause of it.  There was something else in play here.

"Think I mentioned it back when we met in that dress shop," he said easily, keeping his tone light.  There was no point in denying it; he couldn't exactly do anything to refute the assumption, so he might as well just admit it and mitigate the damage.  "I spent a good while living amongst the Muggles after the war, so I've ended up a bit out of practice.  You want stripes or solid?" he asked, glancing at the other man.  "Your shot again, innit?"

Jonas joined him, and Vedir found himself quite pleased as the man's expression shifted; he could practically hear the gears in Trevelyan's head turning desperately. He just gave him a friendly smile.

"Solid," he said, bringing his cue back up again and eying the field for his shot. "The dress shop? No, I don't think you mentioned it there. I'm sure Miss O Morain would have crowed with delight, if you had - gone on a nonsense tirade about blood purity or some such."

He eased the cue into position, lining it up carefully.

"Understandably, then, one would be out of practice," he said amicably. "I apologize if I cause offense; given my general judge of your character, it was the only reason I could think of that you did not use magic to aid your partner..."

He took the shot.

Jonas rocked back on his heels, resting the butt of the cue stick on the ground.  He glanced around for the chalk; that was the only other thing he actually remembered about billiards from the movies, and at least it would give him something to do that made him look like he knew what he was doing.

"Naw, it's hard to take offense at it, innit?" he asked easily, finally locating the small box.  He picked it up, using it to begin chalking the tip of his cue.  "It's true enough.  I'd have to have awfully thin skin to get upset over a bloke just stating a fact, wouldn't I?"

It occurred to him, as he watched Prideaux line up his first shot on the table, that a bloke's favorite game might say even more about him than his residence did.  Pool and billiards involved carefully lining up moves, literally setting balls into motion as they bounced off in carefully predicted directions in order to score a desired result.  Unpredictable to those who didn't know the game, but there was an overall pattern to it.  The Governor lined up his hits from afar.

Jonas shrugged, pocketing the chalk as he watched the balls bounce across the table.  "The good news is that even with Adon, everything turned out alright," he pointed out breezily, leaning the cue back on the ground again.  There had to be more to the strike, he was certain.  He hadn't ended up neatly tucked away in a pocket yet.  "Would've been hard to do anything with magic from the other side of the road.  I've managed alright so far."