Excuses for this had been running through his brain ever since the meeting more than a week before. Maybe testing a zombie's sense of smell was the best excuse, he'd thought; but a quick experiment in his lab had proved that zombies had a rather bad one. Maybe a zombie dog would work better...or just the nose, perhaps.

These interesting thoughts on his mind, he headed out from his Laboratory around mid-afternoon, gambling that Freher wasn't the sort to head out to lunch. She didn't seem it; for some reason she seemed the sort to delicately eat little sandwiches in a corner of her offices. Ones cut diagonally, most likely.

I think about stupid things, He told himself. The hallways were lightening and looking more familiar, but he still had to consult his map every now and then. The Herbology areas weren't places he usually went, and he found himself going in a small circle more than once.

They were certainly more cheerful that the Death rooms, though, and it was easy to see he was going the right way as the architecture lightened and windows appeared. He actually walked past her group's office and had to backtrack, knocking on the door. There was only silence, and he finally opened the door when he didn't get a response.

"Miss Freher?" He asked, stepping inside and stopping halfway through the doorway, staring at the masses of plants. If he was lucky, most of them were dangerous. But he doubted it. "Hello?"

Because she was still new and not used to walk around London, the Ministry, or even the Department of Mysteries alone and without a map; Una felt more comfortable lunching at her desk than going out. And because it would be odd if she brought the food she was used to eat at lunch, she was quietly eating a simple green apple while bending over a really old book.

With no other Unspeakable at sight, she was pretty comfortable with no glasses on and hair down - a little messy, yes, but with no one looking, her only concern was finding what she was looking for at that book. A careful bite at the apple to not let the juice drop; a careful page turn to avoid the book to disintegrate in her hand; and a known voice calling her name almost ruined all her delicate gesture.

Una quickly returned to the upright posture and stepped away from the book to avoid any damage, but hesitate in answer. There was a mirror anywhere in that place? Nah, let it be, no big deal, she thought, but it was in a slowly, wary pace that she walked through the plants; and spying between the leafs confirmed that was Downer who called her. She left the apple over a pot, knowing that it would probably be stolen by the tentacles of the plant aside, but she wasn’t really interested in the apple anymore. 

Una gently stepped out of the mass of plants and gave him a kind of silly happy smile. “Hey, Downer? Hi…” she got closer, in front of him, but once again she didn’t offer her hand or anything, just asked, with curious eyes, “How can I help you?”

Colin closed the door behind him, glad that the lunchtime choice had also afforded them a bit of privacy. He glanced at the towering plants, but they didn't seem about to attack him or pound him with a mallet, so he was probably safe. The smells in the room made his eyes water a bit - not because they were bad, persay, but they were definitely on the overwhelming side of things...

He smiled at Una, casually hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. "If you'd got a few minutes, I had a question - and request for you, if the question's answer is a positive..."

Leaning against one of the plant tables, he let his breath out. "Is it possible for you to bottle a person's smell - like create a potion that mimics it perfectly without smelling like anything else?" He asked, straight up. "No hints of chemicals or plants or anything."

Many things puzzled her on the last minute, and that was evident by the way her open smile turned into a wry one; and her eyes scanned him as if she was searching for something hid in his posture. “Are you serious? Well…”

She went to his side, with the stare absently fixed on a plant over the table. She gently pulled a leaf while considering… perfumery issue, and as it was with many potions, making a perfume was a work of patience and persistence. But apply the methods used on plants in a person… Una suddenly turned to him, looking in his eyes. “A dead or alive person?”

“The best way to extract something from a body is destroying it.” She explained and then paused, biting her lips and looking at the plant again. “It is possible to do with no harm, or the minimum as possible, but, Gott… It’s so onerous…” she quickly laughed, a tad skeptical. “Why would you want such thing?”

"A live one," he said, quickly. "And it'd need to be...well...obviously alive?" It was hard to describe, exactly, how you could tell something was alive versus dead just by the smell of it - not on a human level, exactly. But something living versus something inanimate was...different.

His eyes widened a bit at her comment on...destruction. "Err," he said, and thought back to his excuses. "The goal is to see if we can't differentiate between the living and the false, you see," he said. "So the young lady in question would rather not be, well, killed. Would, err, skin? Hair? Would that do the trick?"

And of course, she had to follow it with the direct question. Oi. "I'm testing the sense of smell on zombies and inferi," he said simply as he could. "There's a theory that you can get 'em off your trail with scent...and that you can get them to follow it. And since it's dangerous to test with a live subject..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I need to get them to follow someone's smell other than mine, too. So they don't kill me."

She raised her eyebrows to his explanation and laughed, more skeptical than before. “Downer, are you telling me that you need the most perfect replica of someone’s smell to test the sense of dead creatures? Are their noses and brains that good to be so demanding?” Una shook her head. She could be naive sometimes, but she wasn’t dumb. That made her feel a little nervous - he was making her feel a little nervous.

In a brief moment of silence she stepped away from him, arms crossed and head down, thoughtfully. “Let’s say I’ve agreed doing that without questioning you,” she mumbled, turning to look at him seriously. “What you’re asking is not a trick. As I said, extract the smell of a living person is onerous. Do you know something about perfumery? The word note is used to describe the scents, and it’s not in vain. A person has a full symphony of smells over its body, head to toe - and many things around it, many things within it… a sample of skin and hair are nothing to what you’re asking me to do.”

Una got closer of Colin again - too closer this time - looking in his eyes. “It’s true that your senses are wolf like even in human form, isn’t it? How do I smell? How many scents do you feel on me?” She whispered deep, lowering her stare. Why so dramatic? She shouldn’t be like that. She shouldn’t be so close. Flushing, she stepped back.

“I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is that I need the entire orchestra and score to conduct a perfect symphony, for whatever the reasons do you need that. That’s why it should be really really important.”

Balls. Balls balls balls. Other expletives. Why did he suck at hiding things from women so much? Was it written on his forehead or something?

Colin rubbed his nose. Killing Margo was, obviously, out of the question entirely. So was, say, chopping some bit of her off. Even if they could find a way to mimic her smell some other way, it'd take time, and they had a deadline on MacDuff - the next full moon.

He looked up at Una again. He'd have to trust her to keep quiet, he supposed. Trust her Unspeakable training, and all that - even though he was living proof of how well that worked on the wrong mindset...

"Look, Una," he said, carefully, tone utterly devoid of his earlier uncertainty. "I need you to promise you won't breathe a word of this to anyone, okay? If word gets out - we could lose."

Rubbing one of his arms, he fessed up. "There's a nasty werewolf out, that I'm sure you've heard of," he said. "MacDuff. Nice bloke when he's not killing people or kidnapping people and biting them. Oh, and stalking women. I suppose I have him to thank for the ...interesting turn my curse has taken, but either way...the Aurors want my help to bring him down, you see. And we need to lure him out - ambush him."

Colin sniffed, trying to figure out how to put this delicately. "There's this girl - the one in question - who he's got a...thing for. Like a 'break into her house and steal her panties' thing for." So much for delicate. "He's likely to do some very nasty things to her if he catches her but he's also likely to follow her scent. They don't want to risk her directly, but it's the only thing we could really think of. He's not stupid, exactly...so if it's suspicious at all, he won't follow it..."

He sighed. "Sorry. Basically it'd need to be able to fool my nose and his. There's no way to do it without killing her?"

“Thank you, Colin, that made much more sense,” her tone were from water - vinegar, actually - to wine. She smiled and patted his shoulder, “I won’t say a word, I promise.” Una said, softly and reliantly.

“There’s a way to extract the scent without damaging the body; it’s pretty antique and unpractical, though. It’s called Enfleurage. Consists in basically keep her sweating on a bed of fat as much as she can handle - and a little more after that. Of course I can speed it up using some potions, but... well, it should be a delicate work.” She sighed only for thinking, while sitting over the table at his side, gracefully.

“But I have to know some things… When and how much do you need it; if the lady is available to do that; how do you will display this scent... and I’m gonna ask you again, but this time I need the answer: how do you sense the smell of a person?” Una leaned to him, curiosity on her voice. “When you opened the door, you could distinguish my smell between the plants? Could you feel it better then or now? And most important: is this smell a whole thing or do you feel it by parts, like, by distance you can differ hair from skin; from clothes; from what I was eating, etc? Or everything were one thing?”

Colin gave  her a look that said 'really'? Somehow the thought of Margo laying on hot fat was so...outlandish, really, that it was kind of funny. He snorted in amusement before he could help himself; how did you ask a young lady to do that? Just take off your clothes and lay down, miss, no miss, that's not a large frying pan...

She sat next to him and he sighed, leaning back and tilting his head to look up to the ceiling. "We need it by at least three days before the next full moon," he said. "Or more people will die. As much as possible would be ideal; and, technically, they likely want it in a form that they can leave a trail. Liquid or semi-liquid, ideally. Perfume like, or something you can carry and leave a convincing trail with - like one of those fat perfume things. The ones Egyptians used? They melt and release the scent..."

He was gesturing a bit too much, having been trying to indicate a large thick candle without much success. "Err. Well," he said, sitting back up and sniffing thoughtfully - was there anyway to politely smell someone? - before he answered.

"Symphony about sums it up, but...err..." Metaphors. He was not good with them. "Think, like, Beethoven's 5th, the one that goes 'daa daa da DA'? It's got lots of little flutes and things, right? But the main thing of it is the trumpets or...whatever the da da part is. So you could change the quiet things and it'd still be Beethoven's 5th.."

He shook his head. "Sorry. What I'm trying to say is that there's a smell that's distinctly you and then all your other things - perfume, lunch, your dog, plants - they layer on top of that. But that basic smell never changes."

“Three days before the next Full Moon? We’re on the Last Quarter, so we have… a little more than two weeks.”  Her eyes widened at the perspective, and she bit her lips concluding with her voice slightly trembling, “I can’t make any mistake, then.”

Until that, the conversation sounded more like absently wanderings about making a person’s perfume, even with the gravity of the reason. The sense of a term made Una realize that she would do that for real. She was supposed to help Colin and the Aurors capturing one of the most wanted criminals. Gott, was she able of doing this?

“Ahn… it’s possible to do a perfume in the sense of the word, yes, using alcohol. It evaporates, doesn’t leave much traces and in any case, it would feels like she was drinking a little. If it’s not against her demeanor…” she shrugged. “By the little concentration I’m able to extract from the fat; I think that would be better.”

She laughed softly at his explanation using the Beethoven’s 5th. Because of simple, silly things like those she found him immensely cute. That made her relaxes considerably. “Hmmm… I see. In perfumery it's called base note, the smell that impregnates, stays on the skin longer. Then comes the heart and the head notes like layers.”

With the excitement of someone seeing an idea taking form, she turned to him and started to say with a kind of dreamy voice. “The smell of her body will be the base note; the smell of her clothes and soaps, shampoos will be the heart note and… and… any additional to make it real, like her perfume of choice, food or something she’s used to handle, will be the head note. It will work! Won’t it?”

He felt bad when the date seemed to hit her, and Colin patted her on the shoulder. "I know," he said. The date had been worrying him, too, of course. If only they had more time...

"The evaporating one would likely work the best," he said. "Especially if you can make more of it. And..." he smirked. "From what I gather she's not adverse to the odd beer. So if we're extra lucky he'll assume she's drunk and really drop his guard." The ideal situation was, of course, the best one to focus on. What was the worse case, though? Probably MacDuff knowing it was a trap and coming to them anyway. The last thing they needed was more direwolves...or more dead Aurors.

Colin looked up again as she described how perfume worked. In his experience it just smelled good, but she was the expert and not him. And, well, it was more or less accurate. "Yeah, pretty much," he said. "Layer on some..." he tried to think of how Margo had smelled. "Anxiety, beer, rose perfume and coffee, and that might do it..." He trailed off. "The perfume might have been someone else and the coffee might have been Jonas. I'd be able to tell you more accurately if she's separate - last time we were crowded into a small room." Which had made everyone smell like everyone else.

“Anxiety…” she repeated, emphatic. “Feelings have smell too, right? Verdammt![1] There are so much to think about.” Una hid her face with both her hands and stood with her head down for some seconds, before look at him between her fingers. “We can try to put her in state of anxiety and fear while extracting her smell, inducing nightmares or something likely.” She murmured, uncertain.

That was too much for the young lady to suffer, Una knew. Stay hours and hours completely covered with fat and having nightmares would be awful. But could be a nice try of faking, not only her smell, but a huge vulnerability too.

“If she accepts, of course. Anyway, I would recommend her to stay a few days without taking bath, and with the same pieces of clothes on - clothes that I can burn down. Sheets and pillows could be helpful too, and everything she uses on her personal care. Everything that is relevant to her smell.”

Una looked at the door, aware that if anyone came they would not be able to talk anymore. She took his hand suddenly, saying in a serious tone: “Talk to her and send me a memo. If you want an excuse, write about this as a little experience with ghost plants - she is the plant, her smell is the ghost. If anyone asks, I’ll going to say we’re working on something like this. No one needs to know the details. Now, Colin…” her voice turned from serious to lower and insecure. “This is not a Ministry’s plan, right? This is something… apart. Or you wouldn’t search for me in person with an excuse.”

“Will you take an active part on this; I mean… will you be in danger?” She finally asked, looking in his eyes, concerned.

1.

Damn!

"I don't think we'd need nightmares to do that," Colin said, sighing. "Just reminding her that MacDuff's out to get her would be enough, I'd think. Considering his..." He decided to mind Una's more modest nature. "His tastes in...things." He hoped the both suggestive and disgusted tone to his voice would get the idea across. He certainly didn't want to say it bluntly.

"I'll talk to her, yeah. Or have Bagnold talk to her; whichever would work best. And tell her not to shower or change clothes..." Her explanation of their excuse was a little...he'd have to look up what half those things were, really. But he nodded; if asked, he could just say he was helping but wasn't in on the details. That was certainly how things went with him.

He looked at her in momentary surprise as her tone changed, then slowly nodded before he stopped to think. "Not anymore danger than I am usually, no," he said. "They're - I'm just helping track him down. I won't be there when they try to take him out." Of course, if they failed, MacDuff might kill him; but she didn't need to worry about that. He smirked. "I'll be fine. I'm already a direwolf, yeah? Not much more he can do to me."

“You’ll help them track MacDuff down transformed?” Not that she was sure they were going to do that on the Full Moon; but her tone was a little more emotional than she intended - much more than he might accept in a comfortable way, she thought. Colin should be sure that she was crazy. Una stood and got a certain distance from him, crossing arms and trying to look serious and impersonal again.

“I mean… if you can track him, he can track you back, couldn’t he? He knows your smell, Colin…” she stated, failing momentarily but soon regaining the centered tone. “If he realizes he’s been followed, he can suspect about the trap - unless he’s that crazy about the girl to ignore everything around him.” Una shook her head. “Even so… you’re thinking about using any disguise?”

"No, not transformed, I err, I hope," he clarified quickly. "They'll - I don't think that's legal. Them having me 'loose'." He made airquotes with his fingers. "Even if I...I might be able to be helpful even when transformed. But they'd have to put me on leash or something, and I'm not too keen on that..." That was, of course, the biggest issue. Not what Una feared; though realistically she was right on the mark. Colin smiled slightly, in an attempt to reassure her.

"Yeah, he could," he said, shrugging. "But I got away from him - and it didn't go his way - and he's been ignoring me; and, well..." He rubbed his hands together, as if this was some deep secret; it wasn't, really, but it was odd to say to someone like Una.

"I'm not exactly rare in Knockturn, you see, so it won't be that odd for me to be walking around," he said, sheepishly. "I won't be there when he's caught, anyway. Unless we get unlucky. And most of the people there won't recognise the guy I'll be with." Which was good. Merlin knew he didn't want to hang around Bagold much.

Colin paused, then looked up, his lips pressed together. "Don't worry about me, anyway," he said, with a sudden and bemused smirk. "Just a werewolf, yeah? I recover from most things. And if I get killed takin' down a criminal maybe the Ministry'll actually overlook the werewolf thing for a few seconds."