The Music Box

The Music Box is related to the For the Greater Good plot. When a mysterious cloaked stranger approached Hector Harrison in the Three Broomsticks, he passed the former war hero a mysterious wooden music box. It is believed that the dybbuk that caused Harrison's death was concealed inside it. Raizel Cohen managed to remove the music box from the scene, and currently, the Ministry is not aware that it exists.

Description

The music box is made out of a dark, smooth wood, which Raizel speculates might be walnut or rosewood. It sits on four arched legs. It is small in size, nearly small enough to fit in one's hand. Small pieces of ivory are set into a sunburst design on its lid. There are now a few ivory pieces missing from the design, and they all look to have yellowed with age, but it will be clear to any trained eye that the object had been exquisitely crafted at one time.

The lid of the box fits snugly into its base. It takes some prying to open it.

The bottom of the music box is the same dark color. Someone carved a series of overlapping circles, which almost look to be a rose or flower shape; the flower design is bisected by two diagonal lines that meet in the center, as if they form the head of an arrow. There are also carved numbers centered just underneath: 27-1-44.

When the box is opened, a hauntingly familiar tune begins to play.

Raizel closed her eyes as she listened, sparing a moment from her examination. She couldn't say that she knew it, but it had the same nostalgic feel as an old folk tune, at once both eerie and persistent. Still, there were odd, discordant notes mixed in with the melody, as if the wheel slipped every so often and played something off-key that didn't quite fit with the somber tune. Perhaps it was getting too old. Or perhaps whoever had made it hadn't been quite as skilled at casting the motor as they had at making the box and casting the turning charm upon it.

—Raizel Cohen

The inside of the box is lined with lead. There is no motor, but instead a slender metal cylinder set in a base against a tarnished metal comb. The cylinder has been enchanted to turn whenever the box is opened. As it rotates, tiny bumps on it press against the comb, plucking out each note.

When Raizel opened the box for the first time, she found several other items inside:

• A small bundle of blonde hair, bound tightly together with a red cord
• A dried, crumbling rosebud
• Three shrunken olive pits
• A tiny, delicate metal mezuzah, marked with the letter Shin on the outside.

Magical Examination

No magical traces are visible on the outside of the box.

On the inside of the box, one will see traces of the spell that allows the metal cylinder to turn.

The Akheta spell reveals that the music box and the items inside it were likely crafted sometime in the 1930s.