10am, Tapendra's House, Cambridge, within a Muggle neighbourhood

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"Merlin." Ignan Storm rubbed his temples as he appeared as subtly as he could in the Muggle Street. It had taken a bit working out where exactly Tapendra lived amongst the Muggle streets, as post codes didn't really mean much to a wizard hailing from Germany. Luckily he could read maps, and Hogwarts happened to have a set of maps in its Muggle Studies section, which Ignan had looked furtive entering the previous evening before going out to celebrate Foley's birthday.

Unfortunately he was a little worse for wear that Sunday morning, but worried about Tapendra who had made the decision to retreat to his abode amongst Muggles, alone, for the weekend. His explanation to colleagues had been a family issue, but without being able to keep an eye on him even passively, Ignan was worried about his younger friend's state of mind. He didn't hold up as well as his mother or Ignan at all.

The weather was dry, but not particularly warm, and Ignan had chosen not to wear his robes, should he encounter a Muggle, but was dressed in trousers, shirt without tie and deep burgundy v-neck sweater with a long black coat which was the nearest he'd procured to his habitual robes. He looked to any passing Muggle like a well dressed grandfather visiting someone, but rather disorientated.

After a little confusion about where exactly he'd managed to apparate to, Ignan found the address he had sought, behind a thick barrier of trees on the quiet avenue of brick houses. The garden of Tapendra's address had grown up to form some privacy from the road in comparison to his neighbours who had kept neat gardens with hedges and flower beds behind varnished fences and metal railings, and kept what Ignan identified to be 'cars' on 'driveways'.

It had been some years since Ignan had encountered Muggle life like this, other than his excursions to see Sasha, which didn't count. Last was in the 1980s with Georg, and these 'cars' looked considerably more clever with curves. He remembered them to be quite awkward looking.

To his surprise, there was one of these monstrosities outside number 25, which looked like a rather large sleeping badger on four rubber wheels. When Tappy had mentioned being into Muggles, he hadn't quite anticipated he'd go as far as embracing their forms of transport too.

Approaching the front door, Ignan raised his fist to knock, wondering if Tapendra was home, or whether he'd already left for Hogwarts.

It had been a rushed decision - brought on by alcohol, yes, but mostly the fact that he'd realized alcohol wasn't the answer, and that staying at Hogwarts wasn't going to provide the answer. He'd left Ignan's classroom on Friday shaken up, angry, and sad. After sitting in the Astronomy tower for hours, meditating, he'd calmed down considerably. But he needed to focus, get his head away from the Wizards for awhile, and his home was a good place to do that.

It was a nice house; he'd saved up to get it after Judy's death, and he was very fond of it. He'd spent the day before with his friends at the University, gone to the observatories, and then ordered pizza and..relaxed, more or less. The house was quiet without the girls, though Kepler had come with him.

He'd spent the morning lounging on the couch, watching television for awhile - some nature documentary on whales. He hadn't been really watching it. It was just distracting; then he'd fired up the PS2 and started playing God of War 2. Cathartic, that was.

The knock at the door was unexpected, however, and instantly worrying; he had a doorbell. It was clearly on the side of the doorway...likely a wizard, then. He paused the game and put the controller down.

His hand dropped to the couch's side and he casually slipped his fingers underneath, retrieving his shotgun. Best to be cautious, right now. Gun in hand, with the safety still on, he slipped to where he could see the front door and paused in surprise. Ignan? Here? He hadn't given him the address -

It might not be him, his mind warned. Best to be sure...and stay calm, for Merlin's sake.

He headed for the front door, gun still in hand, and opened it - ready to raise the gun at a moment's notice. His stance was as casual as his clothing, but the gun was held in a firm grip.

"Ignan," he greeted, looking Ignan up and down curiously. "What brings you here?"

Ignan continued to eye what he gathered was Tapendra's car, as if it would sit up and open a mouth and eat him at any moment. Of course, it wouldn't it was a Muggle object -- magical ones were far more likely to do so, but it still unnerved him.

The front door opened, and Ignan's attention turned purely to the figure stood within it. Tapenda was grasping a long metal pipe, which looked familiar to something he'd seen when hunting with Georg, but couldn't recall the name. Something like buns...

"I was passing..." Ignan began sarcastically. "I came to see if you were still in one piece. Do Muggles usually greet each other at the door holding those things?" He asked, preoccupied with the fact Tappy was holding it, and Ignan's memories were beginning to remind him that they exploded and were used to kill animals. Perhaps it was to control the car....

Ignan stole a sidelong glance at it just to check it hadn't moved.

"Hope you don't mind, Tapendra. You left a letter with your address on between pages in one of the books I borrowed." He reached into the pocket of the coat, which also contained a small packet of floo powder to get him home should he need it, and withdrew a gas bill with T TRISHNA printed at the top with the address.
"Do you have to pipe air into Muggle houses?" He asked, bemused, "Seems expensive." He handed the gas bill over.

He looked down at the gun for a moment. "No, they don't. Just being cautious," he said carefully, deciding it was likely Ignan; his mannerisms and stiffness too familiar to be a fake. That, or it was a very good actor. Either way, he evidently wasn't going to get killed on his doorstep.

Tapendra took the bill silently, smiling slightly. "Gas? Haha," his laugh was fairly genuine - his mood clearly improved, especially compared to when he'd last seen Ignan on Friday. "No, gas is what powers Muggle homes - think of it like like having to pump the magic in, more or less," he said, opening the door all the way. "And yes, it's damned expensive."

"Come on in - the kettle's on. And I'll get in trouble if a neighbor sees me with this," he raised the gun slightly. "They're illegal in the muggle world. Well, here they are, anyway."

Stepping out of the way, he let Ignan walk past him. "I'm still in one piece - nothing odd's happened. I've just been relaxing - talking to friends, working. Thinking. I couldn't get my head together at Hogwarts, so I thought coming here would help. It's done the trick, for the most part." He tucked the gun into a nook in the wall - hidden from sight.

"Don't use your wand if you can avoid it, please. If you fry any of my things, I'll make you pay for it," he warned, tone good-natured, walking past Ignan and gesturing for him to follow.

"Is something wrong with my car, by the way? You kept looking at it," he added after a moment, pausing in the hall. "Did someone do something to it, you think?" He added, betraying the worry that was still plaguing him; even so, his tone was much lighter.

Tapendra laughed at his lack of knowledge over gas and Ignan raised an eyebrow. He thought his guess had been pretty astute. Trishna did invite him in however, which meant he was away from the potentially vicious car.

As he stepped inside the house, Tapendra continued to explain his movements the past few days, and he stepped inside to the foot of the stairs, surveying the interior cautiously. His wand was still hidden and he was dismayed to hear that inside he was not to use it either.

Tapendra closed the front door and walked past him into the next room. Ignan removed his coat and followed, eyes taking in the vast numbers of objects in the Trishna front room which he did not recognise.
"Your car?" Ignan echoed, preoccupied, and then took the question seriously. "I wouldn't know Tapendra, without assessing it with magic. Complex Muggle objects are beyond my understanding. I think you understand this element of your life is completely different to anything I have experienced." He gestured to the strange objects in the room.

There seemed to be things swimming in a tank in the fireplace. Ignan stared a little harder. Was that a whale, how on earth could it fit in there? Why was the tank talking? Was it bewitched? The whole room was particularly disorientating for the sixty-something Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor whose interaction with Muggles was limited and most recently in the 1980s.

"Did you say the kettle was on?" He mused politely as he could, glancing worriedly from one object to another. Tea would be something normal here. Of course, Ignan's perception of kettle was a metal teapot over a flame, not the electric and plastic kettle in Tappy's kitchen across the hallway, yet another room filled with strange boxes that did things magic would a wizard.

"Ah, yes," he said, watching Ignan's suspicious glances with thinly veiled amusement. "I'm sorry, I forget sometimes..."

He headed into the kitchen, where the kettle had been gently simmering. He found the kettle gently simmering and checked it, the electronic beep and glow of the blue 'on' light making the whole contraption odder. Then he started sorting through the cabinets, looking for the tea cups and boxes of tea.

"Preferences on tea type?" He asked, realizing he'd never actually had tea with the older man before. Usually they just drank whiskey. The kitchen's counters were mostly clean, aside from the cluster of cheap Chinese takeout boxes at the far end of the counter by the door, the dishes they'd used piled up next to them.

As he waited on the kettle, he began to self-consciously clean up a bit - having intended to do so before his return to Hogwarts, but not been expecting visitors this morning.

"I don't suppose you'd have come all the way out here just to check on me," he said, as he stuck dishes into the dishwasher and then shut it with one of his feet as he crossed the kitchen, a gesture clearly made from years of habit. "Did something happen?"

The kitchen was even more confusing to Ignan, who watched Tapendra make his way from a jug like object which boiled water (presumably the Muggle equivalent of a self boiling kettle) to asking him about tea types, and producing tea in strange little paper material sachets, and putting his dishes in a big box which was shiny inside and presumably made of metal.

"No, nothing's happened." Ignan replied a little too quickly, staring around himself, and even curiously opening a cupboard and peering inside at the strangely coloured packets of food. Wizards had these, but not to such an extent Muggles did, or in this case, Tapendra. Realising his inquisitive intrusion was rude, he closed the cupboard again and tried to smile in a carefree way to Tapendra, which just made his young friend more suspicious.

"Alright, nothing sinister has happened. I just happened to be celebrating a friend's birthday in London - friend from years back," he batted the point away with a hand, and folded his arms. "and came across your auror." He let Tappy react for a split second. "Don't worry, Georg was with me, so I didn't do anything, it just seemed to be coincidence, even if it was a little too close for comfort." Ignan shrugged.

"Also, you had me worried you might not turn up again given you'd gone to ground from the castle."

He dropped a box of tea with a curse, looking at Ignan. "What should I be more surprised at - that you went to a party, or that Trevelyan was there?" He asked, in a transparent effort to hide his panic. He hurriedly recovered the tea packets, seemingly ignoring Ignan poking around.

He took a deep breath, pressing his palms down on the counter with his eyes closed, as if to calm himself. When he opened his eyes again, he was calm - outwardly, anyhow. "What did you make of him? Do you think he'll be a problem?" He asked, stroking his beard.

"I thought about it, not going back," he admitted. "Staying with my friends here....I've missed it. But I like the kids too much, and, well..." he shrugged, trailing off and going back to working on the tea and clean up. "I quit right after an interview with an Auror? That'd be odd. And I've got more of a backbone than that, outward appearance or no. Wouldn't have survived with out it."

"A problem, no not unless we let him." Ignan replied quietly, and gave Tapendra a reassuring hint of a smile.

"Good, because you need to find it again." His friend told him, honestly. "Because however much I respect you, Tapendra, all I've seen since Trevelyan's visit is a quivering wreck, which drops things whenever Trevelyan's mentioned. I've entertained a whole evening in his presence, hence my scepticism."

Perhaps because he was older, perhaps because he'd experienced and fought worse than aurors who asked questions and posed puzzling conundrums about dead relatives, but Ignan Storm didn't share Tapendra's clear fears. Therefore, it couldn't just be Jonas that was causing such deep seated fears, it had to be the other elements which he had offered to help Tapendra with by allowing him to claim control of his thoughts.

"Are you going to finish making the tea, attempt to explain the whale in the other room and avoid explaining anything of consequence?" He asked Tappy, like a disapproving parent. "Or are you going to stop running away from whatever it is you're hiding from in here?"

"You're right," Tapendra nodded glumly, returning to tea preparation - the kettle was finally boiling, so he poured the water for them and handed Ignan his mug, packet of tea already inside. "Stir it, gently, then remove the packet when it's done filtering," he explained as he poured his own. He'd handed Ignan a black mug with simple text printed on it, but the one he had for himself had a picture printed on it, and as he poured in the water, the blue telephone booth in the image faded away.

"The whale?" He asked in confusion, blinking; then remembering. "Oh, the television. Ah...one moment." He picked up his tea and motioned for Ignan to follow him. "I was planning to sit down and explain things to you," he said as they headed into the living room, where an Orca was rather enthusiastically ripping a seal in half on the LCd screen. "If you...if you want to help me, you deserve to know. And make your decision based on knowing the story, not on...well."

He waved a hand towards one of the large arm chairs, returning to the couch, where he sat in the lotus position, looking for the remote.

"Is that what its called?" Ignan replied "The tank with the whale in that talks?" He peered into the mug and made a decision with the teabag and the milk provided not in glass but in a flexible material that was also rigid. He peered at Tappy's mug curiously, what a crude use of magic to make something disappear within the design of a Muggle mug.

Tea in hand, he followed Tapendra back down the hall and into the living room once more, curiously pausing to observe the light switch which he hadn't noticed earlier. As he stepped in, he stole a glance through the window at the car on the driveway. Yep, still there, hadn't moved, perhaps they only moved when one of the Muggles commanded them, but if Tapendra was worried someone had done something to his car, perhaps they weren't picky about which Muggle talked to them.

Whereas Tapendra took up the sofa with his legs folded, Ignan seated himself in one of the surprisingly comfortable armchairs and found himself imagining growing up here like Georgiana and Cyhirae. No wonder the younger one was so unusually adjusted.

"If I want to help you?" Ignan queried. "Its got a bit past that, Tapendra, don't you think?" He shot the younger man a sceptical look and tried not to draw too much attention to his confusion when Tappy produced a black stick and used his index finger to poke at a part of it and control the tank thing, the television.

"But an explanation would certainly aid my assistance to the situation. Rather than fighting in the dark." He rested the mug between his fingers, keeping the car just in view in the corner of the front window. Still hadn't moved.

Tapendra smiled, having muted the TV. "Perhaps," he said. "You've still got time to change your mind, however. And it's best to make decisions from an informed standpoint."

He drank from his mug, watching Ignan guardedly over the top of it - until his glasses fogged up. He grumbled and removed them, wiping them off and setting them aside.

The television had gone to some landscape shots, showing the Bahamas. He watched it for a moment before he spoke, having been pondering where to start. "Some of this'll be repeat, maybe," he said. "I don't know how much Mum told you, though I suspect she wouldn't have said much about living in England. She didn't enjoy it much, I gather..."

He picked up the little bag of apple crisps that he'd been munching on before Ignan arrived - picking it up with his toes, expertly handing it to himself without apparently thinking about it. He put it on the coffee table between them.

"She had me pretty young," he said. "She was married before I was born - some Egyptian diplomat. They thought I was his child until I was born and...well." He gestured to indicate his face. "Don't look a thing like him. Her liaison with my father got outed pretty quickly, and she got disowned. She might have told you about that last bit," he added, upon reflection. "They left her behind here in England, with me. We survived off the charity of purebloods, and," His smile was bitter. "You know how charitable they can be to disowned women and muggle's sons. It wasn't exactly fun, and Mum liked to get...intimate with the wrong people. She got us kicked out a lot, usually by the wives."

He snuggled back into the cushions of the couch. "That pretty much sums up my life until Hogwarts, to be honest. I was even less welcome than she was, usually." An odd smile tugged at his lips. "Sorry - starting at the beginning is the easiest way to explain everything. Even if it's a bit odd."

"Starting at the beginning is fine." Ignan replied after sipping his tea. "Your mother and I didn't talk so much about the past. Out of the two of us, I probably did the talking." He sighed and raised his eyes to think about it. "Besides, its been just over a decade since I last saw her, if she's alive of course."

Ignan's brow furrowed. He'd been doubting his memories of late, which is why he didn't mind Tapendra starting at the beginning one bit, it was one way he could tick through inconsistencies. His young friend's comment the other day about either Ignan or Jonas lying had been preying on his thoughts. What if he was unwittingly lying about Azorma's death? What if Jonas did have her? Why would she not have contacted him? She would almost certainly have found him soon enough and come to kill him since he'd given so much evidence to bargain his freedom.

"You attended Hogwarts, you said, when you explained about Graham. Then, at some point Georgiana comes into being." Ignan gestured with his left hand a point in time when Tapendra began Hogwarts and then gestured in the air a fluid time after where Prideaux entered Tapendra's life, and Azorma's.

"Yes. Ravenclaw house and all that - what happened at Hogwarts doesn't have much to do with Prideaux," he said, glad for that, at least.

He wasn't surprised to hear Ignan had done the talking; his mother had long perfected the art of talking without saying anything - a trait he'd inherited, though he did it without meaning to.

"I don't know too much about my father - she kept me away from him. But he would come looking for us, every now and then. She's turn him away, they'd fight, but he'd turn up sometime later. He showed up while I was at school for my 4th year and she...well, she'd had enough, I gather. She Obliviated him."

He put his tea aside. "She was always rubbish at that - if you'd ever seen her try it, I'm sure you learned not to comment." He smirked. "She blasted his mind away, for the most part. She got arrested for hexing a muggle, he got treated at St. Mungos and obliviated properly. She wound up on trial for it." He rubbed the side of his face; he'd found all this out via the papers, and Graham had not held back. "And Prideaux saved her. He'd been a business friend and partner of my grandfather's, apparently. He intervened on her behalf and got the Wizengamot to drop the charges."

Tapendra extended his legs so they lay across the coffee table, pulling it towards him with his ankles. "I suspected trouble from the start, with him. She moved in with him right away, and didn't tell me. I came home from Hogwarts to find she'd moved on to his home. She had to come get me off the front step of our old place."

A chuckle - again, an odd one. "He's got a nice house. It was...it wasn't bad, at first, though I wanted it to be. I didn't trust him at all; habit, you see. It was easier to steer clear of the purebloods we lived with. But he...seemed to want to pay attention to me. He cared what I thought, cared for me in general. It was strange, but...not unpleasant. And he managed to win me over." His tone grew bitter.

Ignan was initially a little surprised at the obliviation recount, but Azorma never had been too patient in that way. Perhaps it was a good thing he hadn't met any of her former lovers of consequence. He might well have got away lightly, all things considered.

"Your grandfather on your mother's side, yes?" He confirmed, "The ones in Egypt?" He added, and Tapendra nodded and continued to explain about Prideaux's house.

"You resent the fact he cared? Or, alluded to care?" Ignan asked with a frown. "Was your mother happy with Prideaux? How did she behave?" The second set of questions was more Ignan's curiosity over how easily Azorma loved another man.