“So?”  Charisma questioned, giving the lad on her lap a tight squeeze before ushering him off. They’d just had tea. Charisma’s cooking. Charcoaled pheasant, burnt roast potatoes and vegetables that a toothless baby could happily consume. That had been followed by homemade trifle and Victoria sponge cake. Surprisingly, most of the people around the table had declined desert. Perhaps it was either the solid noise the cake made landing on the plate in the centre of the table or the black top that had been quickly scraped off in a rush with a knife.

It hadn’t been the witch’s intention to punish her visitors with bad cooking it had simply been coincidental. Ryan was in Romania with Trystan and his family, helping with some dragon birthing scheme or something and Charisma had sent their house elf Herby to make sure her husband didn’t get too physically active around the dragons. She knew how prone to injury the older man was. This had all meant that the least capable chef had been left in the house to entertain her guests. Taryn, the Alrdrige’s only daughter was even worse than her mother at cooking. The blue and green trifle that needed to be poured into glasses had been her beautifully catastrophic creation.

And now, sat in the living room, Charisma wanted to know why her guest had been so insistent to see her considering how they’d left things last time they’d spoken. One could ignore Torquil’s party. Charisma had practically ignored the presence of her family friend throughout that specific occasion. And now he was here with his children.

Charisma opened her mouth to ask the young auror why he decided to finally visit when a thirty-eight year old woman followed by a young girl ran across the cluttered living room, the younger growling with her arms out wide to catch Charisma’s daughter. The curse breaker blinked before shaking her head. “Taking your game outside, Taryn, would be lush.”

Taryn proceeded to roll her eyes before grabbing Gwenna around her waist and swooping her out of the room under an arm. Charisma’s blue eyes finally focused their attention on Jonas Trevelyan.

“You haven’t stopped fancying her, have you, dear?”

The coughing fit that struck the Auror was as violent as it was sudden.  Jonas had to fight to swallow the beer; even though it was the Cursebreaker's own fault that she'd caught him mid-sip, considering that he was already on tenuous ground with her, he wasn't going to win himself any points by spitting liquid all over her furniture.

"S-sorry?" he managed, when he finally managed to stop hacking. 

It occurred to him, as soon as the word had left his mouth, that it was probably the wrong thing to say: he didn't want clarification on her question, he just wanted to pretend that he hadn't heard it so that he could change the subject entirely.  Whether or not he had, at one time, fancied Taryn Aldridge was completely irrelevant to conversation at hand, save for the fact that his secret teenaged infatuation had apparently been much more transparent than he'd imagined at the time.  It was unfortunate that the matriarch of the Aldridge family seemed unwilling to accept that the chances of a whirlwind romance between him and her daughter were just as unlikely now as they had been when he was fifteen. 

"Artie's alright playing on his own, do you think?" he asked quickly, fixing his gaze on the spot where his son was lining up a set of tin soldiers on the floor.  He very distinctly did not look in the direction of the door as it closed behind his daughter and her departing playmate, not even as it clicked shut.  Since apparently even making friendly conversation was reason for suspicion, he wasn't about to consciously add fuel to the fire.

"Look, I, uh --"  Jonas's eyes flickered to Charisma again.  The best way to ward off any more unwanted questions was to change the subject to something even less pleasant.  This wasn't a matter that he particularly wanted to broach, but he didn't have a choice; with everything that had happened recently, between the Runespoor ring, the growing tensions with Tawse's group, and Macduff's rampage, time was running out.  If he didn't figure something out soon, he didn't want to think about the consequences.

"Thanks for letting us stop in," he said, raising his glass to take another sip.  Swallowing gave him an excuse to pause; Jonas lowered the glass, glancing over to meet the woman's gaze uncertainly.  "I'm always rubbish at writing.  And I reckoned this might be the best way to talk, well away from things."

The young wizard began to choke on his beer and Charisma continued to smile softly at him. Then he made a quick attempt to change the subject and the witch allowed him to, deciding that right now, after their last conversation, pressing something he wasn’t comfortable with wasn’t the best idea. She’d already made a pretty big impression last time she’d seen him properly. This was why Charisma nodded and glanced at the young boy knelt on the floor nearby.

“He’s fine.” She responded flatly, before taking a sip of her firewhiskey, awaiting Jonas’s excuse for turning up. He obviously hadn’t come to apologise face to face and he probably hadn’t come to talk about Tait or the runespoor case or the murder. She had reluctantly given them some room on it. She didn’t know what else to do right then. There was always investigating herself, dragging Torquil into it but as much as she hated the ministry and Jonas had kept this from her, she trusted him. Not the ministry, not Tamis. She trusted Jonas.

The best way to talk...the witch’s lips pursed and she folded her arms, sitting back on the old and comfortable chair. Charisma didn’t feel comfortable. She felt on edge, nervous and eager about what Jonas was going to want to talk about. Had he come with information? Questions? Apologises? Charisma doubted it. She longed for answers and information but they were as likely to come as Tamis Raynor appearing at her door with a hug and an apology.

“About what, Jonas?” The witch asked before she pushed herself up from the chair and walked to the sideboard, empty glass in hand. “About how I’m still being kept in the dark and going crazy waiting here to hear anything? Waiting for you to turn up any minute now with just a bit of information on my son’s murder? About how disgusted I still am for being lied to by a young woman that could have been my own daughter-in-law? Or about the weather?”

The muscles in the Auror's jaw tightened, and he glanced sharply after the woman, not bothering to keep the momentary hurt from showing in his expression.  Not being able to brief the Aldridges on the current state of the investigation was frustrating beyond belief, but it had been made very clear what the rules of being an Auror were.  He couldn't tell them where things stood; he couldn't tell them that he'd seen Tait's murderer, that he knew beyond a doubt that the man was operating in London once more.  The rules and regulations of the Ministry felt stifling after having worked independently for so long, but he couldn't afford to ignore them again.

"No, not the weather," he said after a beat, his shoulders tensing.  The only other person in the room was Artie, and his son was completely engaged in aligning the tin soldiers, probably a holdover from Tait or Tristan's childhood, in a perfectly straight queue.  Even so, the mere thought of saying the words out loud made him feel exposed, helpless.  If it weren't for the current state of things in the Auror office, he would have been perfectly happy ignoring the problem for the rest of his days.

But he couldn't.  Not if he were expecting to stay on the case with Adon.  Not if he wanted to be any sort of help if anything like the Macduff situation happened again, if anyone ever really came after his family.  It didn't matter how difficult it was to get out the words; not saying them, not doing anything and everything he could to fix the situation, would be worse. 

Jonas swallowed hard, and then met the Cursebreaker's gaze. 

"Look, it's not about the case.  Or any case," he said quietly, shaking his head.  The next sentiment almost caught in the knot in his throat, but he forced it out.  "I think I need some help, Charisma.  There was a-- ...a few months ago, when I was still working privately, I hunted down a dagger that had been stolen, found it for a client."  He took another deep breath, but he couldn't sit still; he started to drum his fingers against his good knee.  "Reckon I'm pretty sure now that there was a curse on it.  I haven't been able to do magic since."

Not the weather... Charisma’s lips pursed tightly as she poured more firewhiskey into her crystal tumbler. She didn’t particularly fancy talking about anything but the weather with this particular wizard unless he had something helpful to say. He certainly wasn’t her favourite person at the moment. Nethertheless, the curebreaker placed the stopper in the decanter and pushed it back onto the shelf of the sideboard before turning on her heel.

Jonas was looking up at her, attempting to meet the witch’s gaze. She watched the adam’s apple in the wizard’s neck swell slightly, pressing against his throat as he swallowed before her bright blue eyes shot up to his and she lifted the tumbler to her lips for a sip. It looked like she was going to need it.

"I think I need some help, Charisma."

The welsh witch’s lips parted slightly as she lowered the glass, studying her visitor carefully. Why exactly would he require her help with something other than the case? Was it about his wife, his kids? Eyes quickly shot to the small lad playing on the floor and back to the red head again. He carried on talking slowly and the witch carefully made her way back to the chair where she sat down.

“Tell me, Jonas, what did the dagger look like?” She leant forwards and placed the tumbled on the coffee table between them as eager eyes scanned the auror’s face. “Was it encrusted with anything? Any sort of engraving upon the handle or the blade itself?” Despite the unpleasantness of the situation for Jonas and the awkward tension that had been between the couple earlier, Charisma was quite interested. And she looked it.

“Do you have it now?”

The red-haired man grimaced, making a face as he dug into his pocket with his free hand.  "Yeah, you'd think I would, wouldn't you?" he asked, clearly sounding unhappy as he pulled out a piece of folded paper.  "No.  Didn't think to take a photo of it, either -- didn't reckon there was a reason to."

He set his drink down on the floor and then unfolded the paper, smoothing the creases over his knee.  Its crisp, white color was clearly of Muggle make -- nothing like the worn, leathery texture of parchment -- though all of the notes on it were handwritten in a steady, consistent ink.  The sketch of the dagger was the most prominent; it looked to have been taken from some sort of research log, with measurement notations along the sides.  Below it, in Jonas's own handwriting, was a written description of the object, succinct and bullet pointed.

"The witch who hired me had found it in Egypt," he informed Charisma quietly, as he passed the sketch over to her.  "A tomb related to something called the Cult of the Phoenix.  As far as I know, she still has the dagger.  She's supposedly been trying to find a way to break the curse, but it's gotten nowhere.  The whole bloody mess has been going on since November, and I haven't been able to cast a spell since then."

He looked away long enough to retrieve his beer.  Taking a long drink served a dual purpose; it gave the witch a chance to study the drawing as much as it forced him to swallow and relax.  Lowering the mug once more, Jonas fixed his gaze on the Cursebreaker once more, fighting to keep his expression unreadable. 

"You must've seen something like this before, yeah?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could, wrapping both hands loosely around the mug.  "You reckon you could do something about the curse?"

Before Jonas pulled the sketch from his pocket, Charisma shook her head slowly, messy hair bouncing against her shoulders. “Always keep a log of what you find, Jonas. Photographs, descriptions...” The older witch paused and her lips twitched slightly as she fought back a smirk. “the item itself.” But one wouldn’t exactly want to retain a cursed treasure. Obviously, those experienced knew not to handle anything before it had been completely checked. But Charisma had been in the curse breaking profession for over 40 years, she knew when and when not to get involved with items. Jonas was a nipper compared.

Jonas began to unfold the paper he had retrieved and Charisma took the large glasses from atop her head to cover her eyes. She received the offered paper and eyebrows rose slightly at the feel of the very odd texture. However, regardless of the bizarre nature of the parchment the sketch was drawn on, the curse breaker focused her attention on the drawing as the old family friend continued to speak.

“A'ch Mai erioed all[1].” The mutter came quietly, under the witch’s breath as she glanced over the top of her glasses at the red headed auror. “You do know if it’s that,” A thin finger prodded the sketch on the strange parchment, “it could last for years?”

Charisma let out a small laugh at Jonas’s final question before she lowered the sketch. “Well I can hardly say either way without the item here, Jonas. As nice as your drawing here is, it isn’t exactly helpful, love.”

“But...” The witch placed the sketch on the coffee table between them before pushing herself up out of the armchair, a new burst of energy seeming to take over. “I’ve heard of curses that can take an individual’s power. A kind of...displacement. The energy is stored in the object and can be reclaimed by...” The welsh witch paused and glanced back at Jonas from her new position beside an overcrowded bookshelf behind the armchair she’d been previously sat in. “well by anyone, really.”

1.	Welsh for 'And you may never be able to'

Whatever answer he'd been looking for, whatever solution he'd been hoping that the Cursebreaker would be able to pull out of her considerably Welsh hat, Jonas hadn't gotten it. Months, he had bluffed his way through already.  Days or weeks more, he could probably survive.  But the thought of continuing on for years like this, of constantly having to lie and bluff, of having to rely on luck and circumstance rather than his own skill to survive as an Auror -- it was too much.

It could last for years.  It might as well last for eons, for all the good that a solution so far down the line would do him.  The red-haired man let out a long sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he dropped his head.  He felt suddenly, irrepressibly tired.

There was no point in letting Charisma's declaration be the end result of it, though.  It couldn't be the end -- he knew that because he wasn't willing to let it drop, and he'd managed to force his way through his share of troubles by sheer force of will before.  Even if it took years -- hell, even if it took going all the way to bloody Egypt and using the entire goddamned Sahara as a Time-Turner so that he could go back and have a word with the pharaohs himself -- he'd find an answer to this.  He wouldn't go down without a fight.

Jonas steadied himself, steadied his thoughts, and then focused on the conversation again, raising his gaze to glance at the witch again.  Charisma was still talking, so clearly 'years' wasn't the final pronouncement after all -- even if she still was obviously unhappy with his data collection methods.  It wasn't like he couldn't collected payment and not returned the bloody dagger.

He raised his glass to take a drink -- alcohol, though not the smartest way to ignore something that was bothering him, certainly helped -- and then swallowed, ruminating over her final words with a distant look.  This was, in some ways, going from bad to worse.  His magic hadn't just been theoretically taken; it was very possibly up for grabs, depending on who got to it first.  But at least that begged an obvious answer.

"By anyone?" he asked with a frown.  His eyes met hers as he lowered his glass.  Nothing in life was ever this easy, not outside of a made-for-television crime drama special.  "Simple solution then, innit?  Can't I just reclaim the magic meself?"

Charisma blinked. Jonas didn’t seem to be able to grasp the concept she was discussing.

“Well you say you haven’t got any magic now, dear.” The witch spoke plainly as if it were perfectly obvious that it wasn’t that simple. Magic and its illogical tendencies never allowed for such extreme, naive simplicity. The young man before her didn’t seem to comprehend the complexity of ancient curses and the reclamation of magical abilities. Did auror training teach the young witches and wizards nothing but how to hex a criminal? “So how exactly do you expect to reclaim your magic without any magic to do so?”

If the cursed object was used as Charisma considered it to be with the rough, unhelpful facts Jonas had donated, he wasn’t going to simply be able to grasp hold of the problem dagger and be able to harass dark wizards again. She’d seen how curses like this worked. They would take a wizard’s very aura. The magic within was intended to progressively empower wizards. Those with already strong magical capabilities could harness the power held within the cursed object to slowly make themselves unbeatable and indestructible.

For a few moments, Charisma had been scanning the bookshelf as she spoke quickly, voicing her internal monologue of thoughts upon the subject. “But I did meet a man who thought something like that had happened to him, Jonas. That his magic had been taken through such a device.” A tiny smirk graced her lips as eyes fell upon the book she’d been seeking. Quickly Charisma freed it from the shelf and laid it on the back of the sofa, dropping it open. “It turned out he’d lost it dear. He was terribly absent minded; he had a shocking habit of misplacing everything!”

A long finger moved down the aging page of the large book until it paused and Charisma let out a loud “Aha!” Before she pushed her glasses up her nose and continued to speak. “Tell me, Jonas, since the incident have you...had increased aggression, projectile vomited purple and black bubbling slime, been pregnant, fainted, lost the circulation in any limbs or had a dark glow coming from your skin?”

"Have I...what?  No!"  Jonas sputtered, looking flustered as he tried to process all of this information at once.  Increased aggression...well, sometimes he wanted to punch Adon, but so would any sane human being, lost magic or not.  He certainly hadn't been pregnant, he'd never fainted, and as for projectile vomiting purple slime...he shuddered. 

"No!  No lost circulation, no fainting, no glowing, no slime, none of that," he said through gritted teeth.  "And I haven't been more aggressive," he added, for some reason feeling the need to defend himself.  "I haven't changed at all, except for the bit where I can't do magic."

This was not turning out to be the reassuring discussion that he'd hoped for.  He trusted Charisma Aldridge -- trusted her as much as he did anyone, even if she sometimes got excited about odd topics -- and curses were something that she knew.  He'd grown up hearing the stories, relayed as much by Tait as by his parents, of the forbidden temples, lost treasures, and ancient curses.  The idea of talking to her about the dagger had made him feel like he'd finally hit upon a solution.  Being told that there wasn't one -- that there was no hope of reclaiming it -- made him feel as if the rug had been yanked violently from underneath him.

"Look, I--"  He swallowed.  His throat felt dry, but not even drinking the beer would help that now.  Bending over, he set the half-empty glass down on the floor next to him.

He straightened again, steadying himself mentally, and then met her gaze.  "So what would you recommend I do, then?"  His voice came out sounding tight, the words more tense than he'd meant them to be.  "Leave it be unless I come down with morning sickness?  I can't go on like this indefinitely," he said, very quiet.  "There's got to be some hope of an answer, isn't there?"