Marc and Janet walked back along the corridor, "do you think they'll make up?" Marc asked.
"Maybe," Janet said after a moment to pause, "Dad and Aunt Alicia might, but I don't think my Dad liked yours much even before he left, but stranger things have happened."
They walked in silence along the corridor, across the atrium and up the left hand staircase, which opened up onto a corridor identical to the one that led to the sitting room, except the doors faced each other and there were five on each side. The walls were painted a light blue on this floor, "one of our ancestors confiscated this house from a crazy master Vampire. He were given it as a reward after the Vampire's plan to take over the world was defeated," Marc said proudly as they entered his room. "The Vampire was paranoid, there are dozens of hidden rooms, I like to think there might still be secrets we don't know about, even now. But, I doubt there are, the house was searched very thoroughly and all the wallpaper, floors and carpets have been replaced since."
Marc's room was painted with the same blue paint and cherry panelling, but had a much more lived in and cluttered feeling than the sitting room. Marc's room was not as large as the massive sitting room, but was still a pretty sizeable room, in the middle was a four foot square table covered in a sheet of wood which had a battlefield built on it. There were trenches and ruined buildings, barbed wire and even painted river, it looked like something Professor Chase would play with. Under the table were several more sheets of wood like it but with different environments, like a sea battle, a grassy meadow and a small forest. Behind the table was a seat built into the wall with a large French window behind it, next to that was a large cupboard, on the right hand side of the room were two doors.
"I have a few more in other rooms, Dad had a dozen of them made for me by a muggle specialist, these are my favourites," Marc said as he noticed his cousin looking at the models. "I've got the tin soldiers to go with them as well, somewhere," he said as he went to the back of the room and opened a large cupboard. Inside were shelves of toys in boxes marked with names like, Dinosaurs - Cretaceous, Soldier - Napoleonic, Cowboys and Indians, Wizards, Heroes of Greece and so on. Marc frowned at the cupboard, "I must have left them in another room, no there they are," he reached for a box marked Soldiers - WW1, which was just out his reach, "dammit, where's that step ladder?"
Janet clicked her fingers, the box lifted off the shelf and floated down to a wide eyed Marc, "there you are."
"How did you do that? I mean, I've seen you do stuff like that before, but you did it without saying anything, and without a wand, only really powerful wizards like Dumbledore can do that."
Janet smiled affectionately at her cousin, "maybe I'm just powerful enough to do that."
"That's awesome," Marc said as he started taking his soldiers out the box and lining them up in the trenches.
"You have a lot of soldiers," Janet said as she looked at all the boxes in the cupboard and struggled to read passed her dyslexia.
"Yeah," Marc said sadly, "our Granddad gave most of them to me just before he died, they were his when he was our age. Then Dad bought me some more, but I didn't like them as much, they are plastic and some even have joints, but they don't fit into my trenches. Also, I prefer the older toys, I like old things, I've thought of becoming an archaeologist when I'm older, you know, go around digging up ancient houses and cities and stuff. Dad doesn't like it, he thinks it's below the dignity of our family for me to be in a non-magical job, but I don't really care what he thinks."
"You should do what you want to do, it's your life, don't let your dad dictate it to you, but still be polite to him about it. By the way, what does he want you to be?"
"An Auror, like him," Marc said with a frown, "I'm not exactly the right kind of person to try and be an Auror."
"I want to be an Auror," Janet said, "what do you view as the right kind of person to be an Auror."
"Well, I always look at Dad and Uncle Frederick, tall, strong people who are really good at magic, I'm none of those things, there," he said as he put down the last soldier, "Uncle Frederick usually plays with me, but he's busy right now. Do you want to play?"
"Sure, what are the rules?" Janet and Marc played for a couple of hours until they were called down for dinner by a House Elf, dressed in the traditional pillowcase of a servant House Elf.
The dining room was a huge room that was totally panelled in various woods that formed patterns with their colours. Hanging on the walls were life sized portraits of members of the family long dead and buried, in the middle of the room was a long table that could sit thirty, but only eight places were set. "Why are there eight places?" Janet asked Marc when they walked in.
"Dad insists on setting one extra place in case someone arrives unannounced, it's a tradition that our Grandparents carried on from their parents," Marc said nervously. Sarah and Alexander sat at the head of table, with Frederick and Alicia on one side then two empty place and Thom on the other with one empty place. The atmosphere was very tense, Janet and Marc sat in two of the empty seats, with Marc next to his Frederick and Janet next to her dad.
The first dish was a thick pea soup, no-one spoke as they ate, Alicia and Thom shot angry glares at a sad Alexander, next came a chicken casserole and finally tiramisu. Janet and Marc excused themselves as soon as they finished eating.
"Well, that was awkward," Janet said as they walked back upstairs.
"Yeah, I've never seen Aunt Alicia that angry before, even when I ripped her favourite painting last winter," Marc said sadly, "Dad looked so sad about something."
"I think he intercepted all the letters between Aunt Alicia and my Dad," Janet said.
"That's horrible of him!" Marc exclaimed as he opened his door, when inside he went straight for the window seat and sat down in it staring out the window, "this is my favourite spot in the house, I can sit here and watch all the muggles pass by as they go about their lives. Bankers, lawyers, street cleaners, rich people, poor people, British people, French people, people from every corner of the globe, holidaymakers and everyone else. I just sit here and read and the… world… just, what is that?" He asked suddenly, Janet rushed to the window, on the building opposite stood a silhouette, it was not human. It was bipedal, with arms that were too long for its body, to the point where even standing they dragged on the floor and its arms appeared to end in claws, its legs were shaped more like those of a cricket than those of a person and its head was too big for its body and appeared to be perfectly smooth without hair or ears. It suddenly looked at them, before turning around rapidly and jumping off into the setting sun.
"I have no idea," Janet said, "I have never seen anything like it"
"It's really creepy, whatever it is," Marc said hugging himself, "it looked like a giant bug."
"It saw us," Janet said, "through the barriers, that should be impossible, even monsters should not be able to see us, unless it's a demon, in which case it would not have run away, it would probably have attacked us."
"So, it was a demon?" Marc asked, "maybe it had been weakened somehow?"
"Well except, to look like that it would be an unhosted demon, which can never go out into the sun," Janet said tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "It could have been a greater demon, but they rarely come to the mortal plane, and everyone would know if one had broken through.
"So, there is nothing that can go out into the sun that looks like that and can see through the wards, so we have seen something unknown to magicians?" Marc asked excitedly.
"Well, no, there are other options, like it was looking at something on another rooftop that was in our direction, or you might be right, it could be a previously unknown type of demon."
"If that thing did not freak me out so much I would be excited, but it looked so unnatural, so, weird that I don't want to think about it."
"I've seen worse," Janet muttered.