Hello, all! So, this was supposed to be the February update, but this chapter just sort of sat open on my screen refusing to be written for weeks. I´m still not pleased with it, but I suppose it works as a "bridge" to the events of the next one (which I´m hoping to post this month). Apologies in advance for the lack of action, maybe the intrigue will make up for it.

….

Harry had expected this to be just another briefing, which had been common as of late. Everyday they got news, usually bad ones, that had to be reviewed and put in perspective with Kingsley´s overall plan of action. Harry usually met him alone, sometimes with Ron. According to the minister, having him attend briefings along with other aurors would be more than a bit awkward. Harry´s position in the ministry was a rather peculiar one: on the one hand he was Harry Potter, the proverbial chosen one, and the one who had brought about the demise of the most formidable foe the Ministry had ever faced in their long history. However, he was still a teenager, a recent school drop out who hadn´t even gone through the proper training any other auror had to undergo. Finally. his 'high profile', so to speak, meant that any mission he found himself involved in was bound to encounter some level of distraction.

Kingsley had decided to have Harry focus on training, keeping both him and Ron away from actual field work for the time being. No matter what they had accomplished, the interim minister wouldn´t be making any exceptions. It was not a time for Harry to continue being the 'the chosen one', it was the time to grow up and start thinking about the rest of his life and how the fall out from the war would affect it.

The briefings were usually just that, a way for the minister to follow Harry´s training and give him information he would need to make sure he would be prepared when the time came for him to actually go on field. Which meant these meetings were usually boring and fairly uneventful. Harry walked into Kingsley´s office distractedly, expecting this morning to be just like any other.

Obviously, he was wrong.

Harry stopped dead on his tracks, believing for a moment he had been the victim of a morbid joke. His brain immediately recognised the face of the man standing in front of him. A face which Harry had, through the years, looked upon with suspicion, doubt, weariness, rage and, eventually, reluctant respect and sorrow. Something was off, though. It was him, but he didn´t quite look the same. It wasn´t simply the fact that he was alive, when Harry was sure to have last seen him as he bled to death on the floor of the Shrieking shack. There was something else.

The man standing before Harry was wearing muggle clothing, dark jeans, heavy winter boots, and a black waxed cotton jacket, over a grey woollen jumper. Maybe it was the bulk of the clothes, but it seemed like he had put on some weight. Not much, only enough that but he wasn´t nearly as gaunt as Harry remembered him. He had also lost some of his sickly, sallow pallor. His overgrown hair was carelessly pulled back in a sloppy attempt at a ponytail, obviously meant to get it off his face and out of any style-related concern. All that seemed to connect this man with the Severus Snape Harry remembered were the same cold, prying black eyes and the very noticeable scar that slithered up from his neck ending on his jaw, a gloomy reminder of the last time he had laid eyes on the former Portions Master. Aside from that, Harry could have met this man on any muggle street anywhere in England and never thought anything of it.

"Y-you´re alive" was all Harry could say.

"I´m glad to see your keen observation skills have remained well honed, Potter" Snape spat out, and for a second, all seemed fine, a bizarre sense or normalcy washing over Harry at the sound of Snape being...Snape.

"Come in, Harry." Kingsley said, unaffected "We´re having a different kind of briefing session today. Have a seat. You too, Severus."

….

The Ivy Cottage

Fisher street, Doolin

Evelyn looked around, taking it all in. She had been away for a mere three months, but it felt like so much longer. It was a too cold outside for the girls, so they got a table inside, instead of out on the stone the patio as Evelyn always did when she came to thee Ivy cottage. She didn´t mind it much, though. The cool sunlight poured in through the red windows that seemed to glow against the white walls and the lace curtains, it was warm and the food was fresh and fragrant. It was all she needed.

"Auntie Lyn, is it true that a man tried to kill you?" Alice asked seriously, deadpan. Caitlin´s oldest daughter had a way of asking and saying things that often caught others off guard. Just a few days shy of her seventh birthday, Alice was already intimidatingly perceptive and straightforward. Sophia often reminded Evelyn that she had been quite the same at that age, inquisitive and prone to asking questions that left adults at a loss. Caitlin always joked that Alice looked and acted much more like Evelyn´s child than hers, and it was to an extent true. Cat´s youngest, Lizzie, had her father´s strawberry blonde hair and green eyes with Cat´s gentle, sunny disposition, and delightful penchant for fun and games, but Alice... No, Alice was all Evelyn, with her thick brown hair and wide, alert golden brown eyes that betrayed the the inquisitive, intense mind behind them.

"This is not a very nice thing to ask, Alie." Cat chided "Have you been listening behind doors again?"

"I can hear gran from my room. She said it." Alice shrugged.

"It´s OK, Cat." Evelyn smiled. "And no, nobody tried to kill me, pet. A man tried to steal things from my house but nothing bad happened."

"Did he steal your things?" Lizzie asked distractedly, poking holes on her sausage with a fork.

"No, he didn´t."

"Her neighbour saved her" Caitlin informed them, smirking like she always did when she was trying to poke fun at Evelyn.

"And now he´s your boyfriend?" Alice continued

"Caitlin, don´t go telling the children this. I don´t want mam to know so soon."

"Why not?"

"Because...we´re not quite dating just yet."

"Oh, yeah. Because he´s...problematic."

"You and Fin should get together and discuss my personal life, I´m sure you´ll agree on many points."

"OK, I won´t say anything. What are you doing later?"

"I´ll go see gran when we´re done here. Want to come along, bring the girls?"

"Can we, mam?" Alice asked, prim and proper as usual.

"Of course, I took the day off. We can go to grandma Liz then walk along the pier, how about that?"

….

"I know is a lot to take in, Harry." Kingsley offered, kindly.

Harry sat quiet for a moment, dazed.

Snape was alive.

Snape was alive and the ministry had been hiding him for fear of reprisal from remaining Death Eaters. That much was easy to get. A small voice in Harry´s mind kept nagging him that maybe if he hadn´t been so adamant about making it clear that Snape had been on Dumbledore´s side all along, if he hadn´t gone out of his way to tell ministry officials that, and the information hadn´t leaked to the press, then maybe he wouldn´t be in danger.

It was pointless to think so, of course. At some point people would know how the war had been won. Nobody would ever know Snape´s true secret, what had made him act like he did, that would die with Harry if he had it his way. But it wasn´t fair to let people think he was a traitor, a monster who had helped Voldemort seize Hogwarts, who had murdered Dumbledore. That shouldn´t be his legacy. That in trying to clear his name Harry had inadvertently put a price tag on his head made him feel queasy. He should have known, they should have told him.

"I didn´t know..."

"Nobody was supposed to. At first we didn´t even think Severus would pull through. And once he did there was a long recovery process, and the political climate was...is... not the best. We all did what we believed was best with the hand we´d been dealt. Now, we have other matters at hand."

"The dagger, you mean." Minerva offered

Snape had been standing by the window the whole time while Kingsley spoke of him as if he wasn´t there. At some point he lit up a cigarette, something that was incredibly jarring to Harry and only enforced the sense of unreality of the whole scene. Professor McGonagall was the only one acting normally, asking questions from the minister, apparently attempting to keep the whole situation from derailing into awkward silence. Harry noticed her eyes darting from him to Snape, and back to him, as if expecting them to go at each other´s throats at any given moment.

"Yes, the dagger. This is where Severus comes in."

"I´ve told you I don´t know where it is. I´ve given you all the information I had." Snape finally spoke, not even bothering to look at Kingsley.

"I know. And I appreciate it. But you know as well as I do your involvement doesn´t end here. Harry..." there was a long pause there "We cannot afford to have the existence of the dagger be known by the public. And that includes our aurors. Too many people know about it as is. I´ve been keeping you out of the field work, but I think this could be a good opportunity for you to have your first mission."

"But..." Harry choked. The Lestranges were on the run, Fenrir had escaped, many Death Eaters were still unaccounted for. And the ministry wanted him to find a dagger? One that they didn´t even know was of any actual importance?

"The Lestranges have been after Salazar Slytherin´s dagger. We have reason to believe someone is funding them, and we don´t know why. As much as the existence of this object may seem inconsequential, somebody out there wants it and is willing to put in the effort to get to it. And more than the dagger itself, this mission may lead us to the Lestranges location and potentially others. I don´t predict you´ll be engaged in any direct confrontation, as there´s mostly investigation groundwork to be covered. Seems ideal for your first real assignment, and Severus will be there to assist you. "

"What?" Harry gasped

"What?" Snape echoed him, turning on his heels and walking up to Kingsley desk as if forgetting Harry and Minerva were even there. "I most certainly will not. Kingsley, this must be a joke. I´ve had my bloody share of babysitting this self-important brat."

"Severus, please. Let him speak before you fly into a rage." Minerva´s tone was calm but pointed.

"Minerva, stay out of this, please."

"I will not. The minister does have a point. Who else you expect would give Harry support in this..."

"Why is Potter even being considered for this?"

"Severus, I don´t have to explain my reasoning to you, but I´ll do it anyway. Out of respect for you and everything you´ve done" Kingsley stood up from his seat, walking around Snape as he spoke. "You happen to be the only one with any solid idea as to where the dagger could be. While I know it´s nothing but suspicion and educated guessing on your part, is all we have. But you will agree that you cannot expose your status. We can´t afford to have more information about the dagger reach more people. We´ve been having leaks. I can´t think of anybody worthier of trust than Harry Potter. And I´ve been keeping him away from direct action this far, so he will not be a distraction. We´ll keep all of this as discreet as possible, and this is the best way to do it. Is it clear enough?"

"If you´re unable to control leaks in your own administration, so I should suffer for it, then? I´m sure there´s somebody else..."

"I have too many people already involved in this for your sake, or should I remind you that Dawlish is engaged, two of his men are on medical leave and I just dispatched Shafiq to Ireland to deal with your … 'personal interests' in the matter?"

"You´ve got some nerve Kingsley."

Harry kept watching the scene unfold as if he was watching it on a muggle TV screen. He took in to every word being spoken, his eyes moving from Snape and Kingsley, trying to make sense of it all. There was something they weren´t saying openly, but Harry didn´t feel like he should ask. If he had learned one thing from Dumbledore it was that sometimes patience and planning paid better than jumping into action, and there were some mistakes he wouldn´t be making again if he could help it. So he let them talk, and he listened. If allowing them to make decisions for him was the price Harry had to pay to understand what was truly happening and his place in all of it, he could deal with it, for now.

...

"Can we talk for a minute?" Harry caught up with Severus in the corridor, after the former Potions Master had stormed off, defeated by Kingsley´s intention of firmly standing his ground. Minerva had stayed in the office as Harry stepped out, hoping to catch Snape before he vanished from sight.

"I don´t see what we could possibly talk about."

"This is uncomfortable for me too, for what´s worth."

"Potter, stop. We´re not doing the 'we have to get along for the greater good' scene. You know as well as I do that you´re the last person I want to be in amicable terms with, all things considered."

"But we have to at least be able to stand each other. You said you accepted working for the ministry, and if they say we have to work together, what can we do? I don´t like it any more than you do."

"Kingsley had no right." He seemed to be about to say something else, but didn´t.

"But it´s done. We can at least try to be, I don´t know, civil."

"Civil?" Snape scoffed, almost laughing.

"I´m not going to lie and say I don´t have a questions I want to ask, things I want to know. But I know I can´t ask more than you´ve already told me. And I´m fine with it. I think. Everything that happened in the shrieking shack...it´s all in the past if you want. But I need you to help me. I need guidance and you´re the only one who can do that."

"You never welcomed my guidance without putting up a fight. Why would it be any different now?"

"We both know why. We don´t have to be friends or anything. I´m not expecting you to tell me childhood stories about my mother over a cup of tea. I´m not that naïve. But we can at least be in the same room without it being too much of a burden."

"No we can´t. You will always be a burden to me to some extent. It´s not your fault, mind you, it´s just what it is." he sighed "I suppose you do have a point, though. If we have to endure each other´s presence, we might as well try to be civil. And the sooner we sort this out, the sooner I won´t have to stand your presence any longer."

"That´s a way of staying positive." Harry shrugged

"I didn´t appreciate your humour back then, and I certainly don´t appreciate it now, Potter." Severus walked up to him, his voice mellowing "Kingsley´s personal assistant has my address if you need it. The minister will contact us for whatever he feels like is the next step, but you should probably know where to find me in case you need."

….

Lizzie burst into the room as soon as Elizabeth opened the door, and jumped into her great-grandmother´s arms. Alice followed right after, offering a more polite, delicate hug. Elizabeth greeted the girls back, her laughter like wind chimes in the breeze. Paul, Evelyn and Caitlin used to greet her in the same manner when they were little and their parents brought them along to visit the grandparents. Back then Elizabeth had been a fairly young grandmother, with plenty of games up her sleeve, and a never-ending list of recipes and crafts they could all do together. Thirty years later, the soft brown of her hair was gone, replaced by grey curls, her delicate doll-like face had gained lines and wrinkles, and her eyes didn´t see as well as before, but not much else had changed. Grandma Liz´s house still smelled of fresh linens and cakes, her hugs still smelled of gardenia and her skilled hands still painted watercolours and made colourful paper crafts to entertain her babies. Everything was still right in the world when they crossed her threshold.

Looking at Elizabeth, one would be pressed to believe she had recently lost her only child, and not a full two years before that her husband of over 60 years. Evelyn couldn´t begin to imagine the kind of pain she had endured, and yet she had emerged from it with grace very few could muster in the face of tragedy. The same grace and sheer willpower she had used to keep her family apart when Paul had died, two decades before. Evelyn was convinced that without her around her parents and her grandfather would have gone insane from the grief. But not her, not Elizabeth. The world could fall apart around her, and she´d still be standing.

Elizabeth let go of the girls to give Caitlin a hug, leaving Evelyn for last.

"Gran..." Evelyn told her quietly into their embrace, so quietly nobody else in the room would hear. "I need to talk to you for a moment."

"They´re back. The nightmares." Evelyn whispered looking out the window, pulling away the curtains. The trees and bushes in the backyard were covered with frost and the sky was a dull shade of grey. On the kitchen table, Caitlin oversaw as the girls worked on creating collages with the coloured pieces of paper and fabric scraps Liz had laid out for them.

"About Paul?" Liz asked just as quietly.

"Yes and no. I mean..."

"Come, child...Let´s go into the sewing room for a moment."

Evelyn quickly glanced at Caitlin, who offered a supportive nod, and followed her grandmother.

That room had been her father´s boyhood bedroom before he got married and moved out. It had then been turned into a delightful little refuge filled with boxes, drawers, pastel colours and florals where Elizabeth could work on her sewing, knitting and crocheting. Once Sophia married into the family she´d spend long hours in it with her mother-on-law, learning specific and intricate lace designs and knitting patters. Elizabeth had tried to teach Evelyn and Caitlin, but Evelyn lacked the the interest and Caitlin the focus, and neither made it past the basics. Enough that none of them needed to pay to have clothes fixed or hemmed, but not enough to create dresses, sweaters or blouses like Elizabeth did. Evelyn wanted to pick up sewing again, now that she was a little more mature, but alas, she never found the time.

"What did you dream of?" Elizabeth asked, rummaging to find a knit she had abandoned half way done. Knitting while listening helped her clear her thoughts and concentrate.

"I was in a forest. It was dreadfully cold and there was snow all around me. I was lost. Then I heard him call my name."

"Paul..." Liz offered, looking at her over her glasses

"He was there. Leading me through the forest as a pack of wolves chased after us, grey wolves led by a white wolf. They chased us till Paul vanished, and there was a snake, a giant snake..."

"The snakes again...It´s been a long time you don´t dream with them...What happened to it? This snake?"

"I woke up when the white wolf attacked it...Straight in the jugular. It doesn´t mean anything, does it?"

"You tell me, dear...The person dreaming is often the best one to tell what the dream means."

"I´m afraid not...It made no sense. None of my dreams ever did..."

"That´s not true."

"Gran...would you read my cards?"

"I don´t do that any more, pet, and you know it."

"Please, I was leaving for college last time you did."

"And it didn´t help you then."

"Didn´t do me any harm either..."

"Fine...But not now. Not with the little ones in the house. Come back to dinner tonight."

...

Claire was nowhere to be seen. Selwyn walked the halls of the Rotts manor anxiously, not knowing what to do with himself. Dmitri hadn´t contacted him since his arrival and Ludwig had been away for days, which had left him alone with Claire and her escalating mania. She´d lurk around corners or lock herself in the study for hours, and whenever she bothered to speak to him was to ask the same questions about Evelyn Black over and over again. He didn´t know what to do to placate her, so he had been awfully relieved once Ludwig was back.

Herr Rott had managed to alert his closest acquaintances to the fact that the British ministry was closely monitoring activity in France, but had been careful to keep all information pertaining to Severus Snape and the infiltrated agent to himself. While at it, he had also proceeded to put some order into his finances, calling in debts and finishing some business he had left unattended. Ludwig wanted to be in a stable position for when the time to spring to action finally came. There was no way of knowing who they´d have to bribe, what documents they´d have to forge and how much manpower they´d have to hire to deal with Snape. Ludwig and Claire agreed on one thing: attacking Snape directly was a stupid idea, but targeting his lover, while dangerous, was a much more feasible alternative. A simple kidnapping, which wasn´t all that simple, if one took into account everything that could go wrong.

Selwyn´s peace lasted very little. Not a day after Ludwig had arrived, Claire herself was gone. Without any warning or explanation. But then again why would she tell him anything? She could barely hide her annoyance at Selwyn´s presence, his inability to provide any clue she could immediately act upon, and his constant attempts to curb her impulses seemed to be starting to chip at her, naturally not very generous, patience. Selwyn feared that the Rotts suspected his presence in their house had ulterior motives, and refrained from insisting or looking too interested. Ludwig went about his business as usual, dropping an oddly casual line about Claire spending New Years with some acquaintances of theirs in Austria, as if to answer to any questions Selwyn had not asked yet, but might.

Selwyn didn´t have a lot of time to think about whether Claire really was in Austria or if he was being lied to, as Ludwig proceeded to find him a place to stay. Draco Malfoy would be returning soon, and they couldn´t just cross each other´s paths in the hallways. The Rotts didn´t believe Draco would rattle on them, but the Malfoys had been trying to publicly dissociate themselves from any remaining Death Eaters, as part of Lucius´arrest conditions. Draco was then purposely left in the dark about everything.

So Selwyn meekly moved away, hoping to keep himself in the Rotts good graces would allow him to maintain access to them. Now, comfortably installed in a small apartment in a nearby town, a mere bus ride away, he had time to think. And the more he did, the less he liked the picture. Claire knew the name of Snape´s lover, her profession, her place of birth, and she knew where to find her and where to find Snape. And now Claire was out of his radar.

He had to contact Dmitri.

….

After dinner, Evelyn had started to do the dishes when her grandmother called her back into the dinning room. The tablecloth had been removed and the lights dimmed, a solitary candle burned on the table, as the two women sat across from each other and the cards were shuffled and dealt.

Elizabeth had been doing tarot readings for fun, for friends and family since her girlhood. Her mother had taught her, behind her father´s back. She didn´t know where her mother had learned it, but quite a few in the family suspected she had learned from one of the groups of travellers or Roma which were somewhat more common around the countryside in the XIXth century than now. A couple people even joked she may have been one of them. Such colourful family legends amused Evelyn, even if she found they didn´t have much in the way of evidence to stand on.

However, since the deaths of her husband and son, in such close proximity of each other, Evelyn´s grandmother had put away her deck of cards and never opened it again for anybody. It´s commonly said that fortune tellers can´t read their own destiny in the cards, and Elizabeth had never had any interest in doing so, but when life sneaked up on her that way, she lost the will to even do it for other people. Evelyn knew that if she had agreed to read her cards, it was only because Elizabeth could see she needed.

Elizabeth chose the quick three card reading method, which Evelyn suspected had something to do with her wanting to get it over with. Three cards. Past, present and future. Evelyn drew each one and waited.

"Six of cups." Liz announced, turning the card that was supposed to represent her past. Upon it Evelyn could see two children, a boy and a girl surrounded by golden cups from which white flowers blossomed.

Then she opened the second card, present.

"Death." Evelyn stared at the the Grim Reaper, whose skeletal frame was wearing a black armour as it rode a pale horse over the body of a cleric, scythe in hand and rabid laughter in its fleshless face.

Finally the third card, future, was turned

"Knight of pentacles" under a golden sky, a man in silver armour, calm and collected, rode a black horse across a field, holding an orb with a pentagram drawn upon it.

"OK, so what do they mean?

"Six of cups" Elizabeth started after a long pause "Nostalgia. Innocence. You need to look back upon your life as it was before so you can move forward. You´re tied to something in your past, and you need to break free. And you will, you like it or not. See, Death is next to the Six of cups. Death is change, it´s transformation. But not just any change, it´s drastic change. When Death appears in your cards it always indicates a time of significant transformation. I feel it will be sudden and out of your control. Something big is coming your way."

"Well, then.." Evelyn shifted on her seat "How about the last one."

"The knight." Liz smiled. "The best place in your reading for the Knight of Pentacles is in the future. The Knight of Pentacles is your knight in shining armour when he is in your future. If you want to go through the trials the other two cards posed for you, the Knight of pentacles can help you. This card is telling you you have to prepare prepare to call upon your own strength, or rely on someone´s help. "

"So, whatever is coming my way...it means I´ll overcome it?"

"It means you can overcome it but it will take hard work. The knight of Pentacles is a card that speaks of faith and patience. There will be someone by your side, but it depends on you, that you´re willing to take a leap in the dark and gather the strength to make the changes the other two cards say you must."

"I´ve taken enough leaps in the dark for a lifetime, gran..."

"And you´ll have to do it again. I don´t foresee peace for you anytime soon with this spread. I can see you´ll have the fortitude to face what´s coming, but not that it will be over any time soon. All I can tell you is that I have the feeling you won´t go through it alone."

"That´s comforting" Evelyn smirked

"I´´m sorry, pet." Liz sighed, collecting the cards "I wish I could tell you different, nicer things."

"Actually, it wasn´t as bad as I feared." Evelyn, smiled, getting up "I´ll finish the dishes and make us some tea"

"Linnie..."

"Yes?"

"There´s a man, isn´t there?"

Evelyn blinked, surprised, but didn´t answer.

"Don´t tell me if you don´t want to, dear. It was just a guess. The Knight of pentacles almost always represents a man, specially in a young woman´s cards."

"What kind of man?"

"My mother used to say the Knight of Pentacles is always a dark haired man of great intelligence. A merchant or professor." she laughed softly "I don´t know how serious she was about that or if she just wanted to give the girls who came to her something romantic to look forward to. But from my experience when knight of Pentacles is related to man always signs an honourable, reliable one."

"I hope so."

"We can open the cards again if you want, it should be clearer with a more specific question."

"I think I rather not know about this one just yet."

Working with Polyjuice was definitely not his favourite part of the job. The sense of physical dysphoria and depersonalization that often came with it could be quite overwhelming, specially if one made a habit of it. And for this particular mission Virgil Shafiq would have to make a habit of it. Doolin was a small town, he couldn´t risk running into Evelyn Black multiple times wearing the same face over and over again. He was supposed to keep an eye on her, not come off like a stalker. For this particular mission he had been provided with an array of ten different mixes, each carefully brewed to last no more than 10 hours. He checked into a hotel with his own face, and once outside he would change appearance at will, so he could always follow Evelyn Black with a new persona, and finally, at the end of the day, return to his room as himself again, so the hotel staff wouldn´t suspect a thing. The operation demanded control of time, but Doolin seemed to function on a typically predictable small town schedule.

She had been out an about with her sister and nieces for hours. An uneventful day, all considered. She went back at her grandmother´s house at night, without ever noticing the same 50-something white man with grey hair and thick rimmed glasses just casually lingering idly everywhere she went. Mercifully the effects of the potion had started to wear off while she was still inside the house and Virgil was comfortably sitting in his own car parked in an alley, so nobody was around to see a white older gentleman suddenly turn into a middle-eastern young man in his late 20s right in the middle of the street. Not that many people ventured outside at night as Winter became more and more inclement with each passing day. There would be snow soon, he reckoned.

Finally, she exited the house. Virgil looked on as she got into her car and drove away but...that was not the direction he expected her to go. She wasn´t going home, apparently, but instead was taking Fisher Street down to the...coast?

The air was frigid as she left her car and started to walk. The booths where one could buy tickets for the ferry or rent boats were closed, empty and dark, only a couple lamp posts shedding some glow on the tarmac upon which big yellow letters indicated the waiting area for visitors boarding for the Aran Islands. The crescent moon shed a pale golden-silver light over the water and the rumbling sound of waves and wind reached her ears, erasing her uneasy thoughts, worries and anxiety. Evelyn closed her trench coat, put her hands inside her pockets and walked past the waiting area and onto the rocks. Even with the heavy boots she was wearing, Evelyn could feel the water lick her feet.

The Atlantic could be vicious in the best of times, but Winter made it specially nasty and angry. Evelyn didn´t mind it. She was used to its temper, growing up with the ocean as her backyard the roll of thunderous waves lashing at the rocks had been her lullaby in many a sleepless night. She couldn´t tell how many times she had sneaked out of the house in the dead of night to come to these rocks and hear the song of the water and the wind, sung into liquid darkness. When the sky was clear, she´d stare up for what felt like hours, relishing on the feeling the she could dive into the sea of stars above just as easily as she could have done it into the water. On fair, warmer Summer nights, when the sea was calm and content, she would sometimes go in. She didn´t care what her parents would think about her coming home in the middle of the night, or even in the morning, wet and salty after diving into the night sea like a raving lunatic. It was worth it for the feeling of floating under a canopy of constellations and nebulae, feeling like she was the only person awake in the world and the sky gave her a personal display of lights.

Some people felt the 'appel du vide', the 'call of void', those odd, overwhelming intrusive thoughts about the abyss. 'What if I jumped' suddenly popped into their head as they stood close to the window of a tall building or atop of a cliff. Evelyn´s abyss was the darkness of the ocean. She always found herself drawn to its formidable depths. Her grandfather once told her she had mermaid blood, which was why the call of the sea was so seductive, so overpowering...why it felt like home. She wondered if there was a bit of true to that, as even now, standing on the rocks, facing the turbulent waves that roared at her, cold and unforgiving, Evelyn felt like going in.

"Hey! Get out of there it´s dangerous!"

….

Virgil hated to blow his cover like this, but better safe than sorry. He didn´t know Evelyn Black well enough to guess if she was the type who would jump into the choppy freezing sea in the middle of the night, but after watching her stand there for so long, still like a statue, staring at the waves, it really looked like she was about to do exactly that. She was shin deep in when he finally decided to call out to her.

Evelyn turned to him, forceful winds blowing her hair over her face, and started to calmly make her way back to the concrete stairs that led from the tarmac to the rocks, as if she had been awakened from a trace. Shafiq rushed towards her, not quite knowing what to say. "Hi, I was just wondering if you would be crazy enough to jump in the sea and freeze to death" was not a very good conversation starter.

"Is everything OK, ma´am?" he finally decided for a more neutral approach. Once she was within reach, Virgil offered a hand to help her climb back up the wet slippery steps, which she gently waved away.

"Everything is perfectly fine" she smiled, cryptically, as if amused by his concern.

"I´m sorry, I thought you were about to fall...And it´s not a nice night to go swimming."

"Don´t worry. I wasn´t about to fall. And I´ve swam in worse weather before. I´m terribly sorry if I scared you."

"Oh..." he stared at her, the placid expression on her face, barely lit by the moonlight, catching him off guard. She didn´t look like a person about to fall in the sea, by accident or otherwise, but more so like she had emerged from deep within the bowels of the ocean itself, and his all-too-human fretting for her safety was laughable. There was something oddly intimidating about it.

"My name is Evelyn."

"Virgil." he shook her hand, not quick enough on his feet to think of an alias.

"Do you need a lift?" she asked, as they walked back to the road where their cars were parked.

"No, my car is over there."

"So you just happened to be driving around the coast at this time?"

"Much like you just happened to be taking a stroll on the beach at this time."

Under the artificial light from the light poles, Virgil could finally make out her features clearly. He had been following her around for a day, but only now he felt like he was truly seeing her. Nobody had told him anything in that regard, and he wasn´t inconsiderate enough to have asked, but Virgil suspected she was romantically involved with his former Head of House, just from the way the minister had framed his assignment. It was a strange idea, but Shafiq wasn´t hired to have opinions about anybody´s personal lives. Yet, looking at her from up close, Virgil somehow understood it.

"What brings you to Doolin?" she finally asked

"I´ve been told the scenery is nice, unique."

"It is, but not many people come for the scenery this time of the year."

"I didn´t have the chance before. It´s still nice, though. If a bit scary."

"Sometimes there´s more raw beauty in rough stormy skies than in peaceful sunny hills. True beauty should make you at least a bit scared. It should humble you. Not everybody can appreciate that."

"I can see what you mean..."

"Well, I should get going. As much as I´d like to keep chatting, it´s getting late. Good night, Virgil. I guess ´ll see you around?"

Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris.

Claire would never cease to be disgusted at how intertwined with muggles the Parisian wizarding community could be. Of course, being such an old city, exclusively magical spaces and settlements were often ancient, preceding the establishment of segregating laws. So wizards and witches had to resort to charms, spells and strategies to hide in plain sight, while rubbing elbows with muggles at every turn. Most Parisian wizards found it to be mildly amusing, the bulk of them being eccentric and liberal urbanites who lacked the understanding of how serious and dangerous such proximity could be.

She couldn´t stand Paris. Only pressed by important matters would she ever bother to set foot on that muggle-ridden stretch of land. As she sat by the window of a café located in one of the very few truly exclusively wizarding areas of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, looking out at the men and women leisurely strolling outside, most of them wearing a grotesque mix of wizard clothes and the latest muggle fashions, Claire waited.

" My apologies for the delay." a man approached her table. She looked up at him for a brief moment, just enough to tell he was tall, probably in his late 50s or early 60s, wearing a well-tailored suit, and sporting a moustache. As he took a seat she didn´t offer, her eyes wandered back outside.

"Well, then?" she let out without greeting him

"I hope you can appreciate that we are going out of our way to help you here. Should the French Ministry find out..." he said, obviously miffed by her dismissive attitude.

"Spare me. You´ve been paid well enough for your help and at this point scruples about the ministry shouldn´t be a concern. So...is there an infiltrated agent or not?"

"If there is, they haven´t contacted anybody in France."

Claire sighed. Selwyn obviously wanted her to take his word for it that there was an infiltrated agent, and that he somehow was privy to that information. While the idea of a spy wasn´t a stretch, for Selwyn of all people would be their contact in France was ludicrous. He was not that important that a spy infiltrated in the British Ministry would risk their cover to save him and send him back to France, then promptly make no contact with anybody else. If this person existed, Claire had some reservation as to whether they really wanted to collaborate with any of the French groups currently aiding British fugitives, or simply throw dust in their eyes.

"We do have confirmation that there have been leaks from the British ministry. Our intelligence sector has been alerted about it." he continued "Which explains the recent stream of detainee escapes. Their rescuers have been tipped off about schedules and locations for the legal proceedings as well as the routes the ministry is using to move prisoners from one place to the other. None of that would have been accomplished without help from inside. Kingsley Shacklebolt is suspiciously quiet about it though."

"Probably trying to keep up appearances and avoid panic while he launches an internal investigation. How about the other favour I asked you?"

"Oh, that..." he smirked "Everything you have on this woman checks out. It was easy to confirm it all. Anybody with access to a library card and the public records of Trinity college´s former employees can tell you all you need about her."

Claire smiled. If everything Selwyn told her about Evelyn Black checked out, then...What was the name of her hometown again? Ah, yes...Doolin. She still had family there; family she would probably be visiting for the holidays, if she was anything like most muggles.

It was worth the shot.