The usual disclaimers apply.
This story contains occasional strong language. Cover your ears!
XXX
Chapter 4: Search Terms
Two points might make a line, but where this line was pointing, I couldn't venture to guess.
I also couldn't assume a necessarily assume a pattern from just two points, but it was certainly suggestive of one. And if it were a pattern, then there would be more than two cases, unless this was some sort of attack directed specifically at the relatives of Hogwarts' elves. I couldn't quite accept that idea. If someone was trying to pressure the Hogwarts' elves in some way, why hadn't any demand been made? Besides, how would any outsider even know which elves were related to which? I had never met anyone who had the first foothold into elf genealogy. I wanted to see if I could find any other cases to fit into a pattern.
It was about six in the evening when I reached Seattle, but the library should still be open. Usually, the wizarding library was in a concealed wing of the central muggle library, but the building was currently under construction. I had seen the plans for the new structure; it was to be a modern monstrosity. Thankfully a temporary branch had been set up in the undercity.
Most of the scrying bowls in the periodicals section were free. I scribbled by search terms on the small scraps of paper laid by the bowl: house elf, missing, family, moving, and after a moment of thought, north. I dropped the words one by one into the bowl where they were taken by the shifting mists.
Shortly a list of references swam up to the surface in mirror image. I laid a sheet of parchment flat over the surface then peeled it back, revealing my leads. I began my hunt through the stacks. The stories weren't very promising. A house elf was questioned by police about the location of the diary of a missing teen… an opinion piece about children in families with a missing parent being raised mostly by house elves…US census data missing data on house elf numbers and locations… The only conclusion I was beginning to draw was that the Americans' classification of house elves as Independent Magical Creatures meant that no one kept track of their movement or location.
The most pertinent article was, surprisingly, a column in the Magical Economist. It discussed house elf travel across the US/Canada border and the commercial loophole it presented. Protected by their classification in the United States, house elves are allowed unregulated travel across the border into Canada. However the Canadian Ministry of Magic, as a member of the Commonwealth under the British Ministry of Magic, regulates house elves as property and levies taxes on owners, especially inheritance taxes. In short, there was a loophole of untaxed and undocumented house elves traveling to Canada. The author concluded that the scope of the problem was unknown as the US does not keep accurate records of house elf movement.
I sat for a while, curling and uncurling the edges of the magazine. I still didn't have a clear pattern, but assuming that someone wasn't targeting the relatives of Hogwarts' elves, what would be the motive for quickly spiriting them away? It seemed like both had gone willingly enough. Of course it would be hard to make an elf go anywhere against its will, unless it were bound into service, and that wasn't done in the US. Of course they could have been bound into service quite willingly in Canada. If the Economist article were correct, there would be no official record of such a transaction. The worrying thing was that they hadn't been heard from since. Elves must normally have ways to communicate when they changed employment, otherwise why would Kob and his family be concerned with their silence?
I decided to approach the problem from another angle. Back to the reference section; a Canadian tax manual gave me the annual property tax ranges for house elf ownership, but the fees were minimal, roughly $50 per year, depending on age. As a capital gain the tax was more substantial, roughly $700, but I still couldn't see the taxes as steep enough to create a smuggling problem. Buying and selling elves was illegal in Canada, as it was in the UK. Of course there were ways around that. In the UK I knew that that the most common method was providing "references." A potential buyer would post a notice stating that he was willing to pay a certain amount for a reference for a good house elf. At a pre-arranged time, the seller would dismiss a house-elf from their house by presenting them with clothes, while the buyer would wait immediately outside and offer a new position to the elf as they exited.
I had no personal knowledge of Canadian practices. I had long since decided never to set foot in Canada. There are close ties between their ministry and Britain's, particularly in the judicial branch; Canada's highest magical court was still the Wizengamot, and I wanted nothing to do with that. I would have to rely on more research.
Back into the stacks; I picked up a week's worth of issues of the Vancouver Scryer. I spent the better part of an hour crawling through the classified ads. Out of a week, there were two ads offering to pay for references, one for $1,200, the other for $1,000. Well, there was a profit motive there, but the demand didn't seem to be very high, and I could still see no reason for the elves not to give word to their families.
As I returned the papers to the stacks, I turned the problem over in my mind. There had to be profit and demand for there to be a reason for the elves to be moved quickly without suspicions from their current employment. Moved quickly to where they could be voluntarily bound into service, perhaps…and then not heard from again.
I realized that I could think of a reason for all that. A very good, very profitable reason. I felt cold and tired. I wanted to be home. I left the library and apparated below the house, just beyond the greenhouse. The long hanging clouds had settled into a chilly drizzle. I spat on the ground and passed through the wards into the yard. Trudging through the dark wet grass, I ducked dripping tree branches until I reached my back door.
I heated some soup and made a pot of tea while I considered what I knew. I didn't have any actual lead or trail to speak of, just a possibility that could fit the circumstances. I would have to find an approach, some way to test it.
I knew I should call Dick. With his connections and specialized knowledge, he could probably give me some angle of approach, but I was just turning my spoon against the edge of my empty bowl fighting my reluctance.
I had to admit to myself that I didn't want to raise the question with him. His imagined voice hung at the back of my mind, sharp and disappointed with my depravity. I had to argue with myself; he had never spoken to me like that before, and he already knew the worst of me. Surely he wouldn't cut me off now? And if he did, why would it matter? I didn't work for him anymore. Somehow I couldn't quite convince myself that it didn't matter.
I shoved myself away from the table before my reluctance got the better of me and stepped across the salt ward to my office. When I had come to the US, I found that the whole wizarding population here had long since gone over to using telephones in preference to the floo network. In fact, there were only a few working floo networks left, scattered among the cities of the east coast, and used almost exclusively for transportation, rather than communication. The wizards here found the speed, the convenience, and not least the lack of mess, an irresistible attraction of the phone.
If I wanted to run a business here, even an entirely wizarding one, I had to have a phone along with a few other pieces of technology. When I got the house, I had converted the old pantry to a tiny office. A thick salt ward ensured that the phone and computer would work most of the time, unless the weather was exceptionally damp.
I pushed aside my pile of half-packaged orders and shipping labels to uncover the phone and called the lab. It was late, but I knew they were running variant trials this week and the lab would probably be staffed all night.
The phone buzzed and crackled in protest to the magic in the next room, but the connection seemed strong enough as the receptionist's voice came through. It took a moment for her rapid Portuguese to fall into place in my mind. My Portuguese was getting worse every day and it hadn't been any too good to start with.
"Stolz Research Labs, how may I direct your call?"
"Is Doutor Stolz available?" I was satisfied that I got the Portuguese out, if haltingly.
"Yes he is… oh, Doutor Ramson?" She switched over to English. "Yes, they are running the tests very late tonight, and Dick is waiting. How are you Doutor Ramson? You missed carnival, when will you come back to Manaus?"
She got it all out in a rush. Valeria always wanted to practice her English on me, to the detriment of my Portuguese.
"Not at present. May I speak to Dr. Stolz?"
"Oh, yes, I am connecting you!" I held for a long moment, listening to the crackling line. At last a click, and Dick's loud bluff voice boomed out.
"Cyril, how are you? Valeria says you are coming back to visit?"
I sighed. "Valeria has an active imagination. I'm in the middle of something just now."
"How's the research coming; anything for us to work on yet?" I had nothing for that but a groan. He gave a bark of laughter.
"Like that, eh? Well, if you ever think that running some variant trials would inspire you…"
"Oh, god no, let the lab rats slave over them!"
"They're slaving away as we speak – at least I assume they're working and not getting high off fumes without you keeping an eye on them. Now if I could ever mention to them that you might be dropping in I believe I could squeeze a little more productivity out of them," he mused.
"Mention whatever you like, Dick, they don't have to know my plans."
"Ah, but if I keep bluffing them they'll catch on eventually. I can't have my best threats lose their power or I won't get any work out of them at all! Well, I see that you're going to be stubborn with me, as usual. So, how can I help you?" he asked, adopting a mock-formal tone that irritated me.
"If I'm keeping you from your work…" I began.
"Oh, stop that, now spit it out!"
"I just need some information. It has to do with your connections."
"Do you need to put your hands on something quickly? I might have it in stock and I could send it to you under a research permit."
"No, it's nothing I need, or want even, but I need information on how you would go about getting a type of ingredient."
"Well, that's certainly obscure, even for you. I could probably be a bit more help if I knew what kind of ingredient we're talking about."
"Penates domestica" I said reluctantly.
There was a pause. I noticed I was scraping the paint off the pencil in my hand with my thumbnail. Dick's voice came back on, but it wasn't sharp, just wary
"I don't really have any business with that type of material, but I know that you don't either, or I would be a bit disturbed. Should I be worried about you?"
"I don't use it and I don't want to. I need to … look into a matter for someone I know. For that I need to know how someone would go about getting it."
"And this person you know – "
"Wants no part of it either," I said firmly.
"Well, I don't know very much about it myself. They're not native down here, and I haven't heard about much of that trade going on locally. I don't think that the dealers that I do business with handle it at all. They're a bit too small-time. But I have heard about the trade existing in Europe and North America. There can't be more than a few dealers in it since they really started enforcing the ban, after they found all those elves cut up in that hotel at the world's fair.
"Now if you need to know how someone would get their hands on them as ingredients… I don't think he deals himself, understand, but do you still have that name I gave you, the man with the pale face?"
"Ah, yes," I said.
"I imagine that if anyone would know someone, he would. For a request like that, you would need a calling card, a very good one."
"I probably have something I could use."
"Well, of course. Now, I feel like I have to remind you of our bargain. If you give me any cause to worry about you, I really will start to pester you with calls and letters and albatrosses and all sorts of annoyances. So don't make me worry about these questions you're asking."
"You have my assurance that there's no cause to worry."
"I'll gladly take your assurance, but I will also take your call next week, Cyril, or there will be albatrosses."
"Enough, enough," I protested.
"Very well," he said with a laugh, "now I'll say good night, but Valeria wants to speak to you again." There was a click and a crackle and Valeria's voice came back over the line. "Dr. Ramson?"
"Yes," I said wearily.
Suddenly a chorus of voices blared out, vaguely in unison "We don't need a fucking calming draught!" and dissolved into laughter. Damn, they were never going to let me live that down. It sounded like the entire staff of research assistants was there. Well, I would give them what they were asking for.
"Get back to work, you lazy morons! Do you think the variants are going to brew themselves while you clown around? When you imbeciles blow yourselves to smithereens, it will give the greatest pleasure to ship your remains home in a matchbox!"
A smattering of applause joined the laughter. One voice broke out above the rest: "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
"Shut it and piss off, Grossman, you're the worst of the lot!"
The laughter and whistles receded suddenly as Valeria took me off the speaker. "I say boa noite now, Dr. Ramson, we must help Grossman, he is crying."
"Yes, I'm sure he is. Boa noite, Valeria, boa sorte." I hung up.
I felt strangely elated as I prepared for bed. I had some difficult brewing ahead of me tomorrow, but I felt that I could see my way forward. Also, Dick hadn't cut me off; he hadn't even threatened it.
I lay down and closed my eyes. As I relaxed I could see for a minute the rows of brewing tables in the lab, research assistants going over variant charts into the night… I let the image float away again.
Very distinct and cold, above me somewhere near the foot of the bed, a high voice travelling swiftly towards me said, "Severus, stand before me."
My body clenched violently and I froze, curled on my side. My chest was shuddering and my legs and arms cramped. A thin stream of air pushed its way out through my throat in a dreadful whine. I willed one of my hands to unclench and laid it on my wet face. Auditory hallucination, it's common, it's nothing, it's always nothing, every time, I repeated in my head.
I staggered on my cramping legs as I got out of the room and slammed the door jerkily behind me. Leaning heavily on the rail down the stairs, I made my way into the bathroom. I cast the charms badly, with a shaking wand, but finally I had the shower on as hot as I could stand it.
Leaning my head against the tiles, I drenched myself in the spray until my muscles finally relaxed and the pounding water drove all other sounds from my head.
I dried off and shuffled across to my little office in my bathrobe. I closed and locked the door to the kitchen, then turned on the desk lamp and radio. The public radio station out of Seattle always picked up the BBC news service late at night. They were talking about culling livestock due to some disease outbreak. Perfect and boring. I curled up on the sagging sofa under the quilt I kept there, finally drifting off to sleep listening to the rain and the droning voices.
XXX
A/N: Coming next, the calling card.
Penates Domestica comes from the Roman household gods particularly associated with the larder. They were given small food offerings, which reminded me a little of the British folk tradition of leaving a little food out for the Hob. I thought that might make a good scientific name for house-elves.
You may have noticed that there is some unexplained backstory here with the Stoltz Research Labs. You don't really need to know much for the context of this story. Now if I ever get around to writing that prequel...