Alastor Moody summons rookie Auror Nymphadora Tonks to his office. When she arrives, he cuts directly to the point. "I want you to go and observe Arthur Weasley's home and report back. You are not to be detected."

"What am I looking for?"

"Anything unusual."

"Why?"

"You don't need to know."

"Spying on the home of someone who works for the Ministry is unusual…"

"Nymphadora…"

"Do not call me that." Tonks snarls.

Moody softens a bit. "Very well Tonks, I was reprimanded for…demonstrating what I think of people using the Floo system. Tonks' jaw drops a bit. "I saw Dr. Jeanette Fallon pass by with a woman strapped to her…"

"Why would someone do that?"

"Because the woman wasn't one of us!"

Tonks is shocked. "I didn't think that was allowed."

"It isn't! At least not without clearance from the Ministry. This was approved by a group I can find nothing about. I could only find out that Dr. Fallon was working for the Ministry and she was the one who complained. They would not tell me which agency she's working for…but in checking the flight manifest, I did find that her destination was the Burrow."

"So, this is because you were reprimanded…?"

"Of course. Trust no one."

Neville Longbottom arrives in the courtyard with his broom and juggling several books on herbology. Professor Snape looks at him with distain. "Do not rely upon your books Mr. Longbottom. Rely upon what is in here." He pokes at Neville's head.

"Take those back inside Mr. Longbottom." Professor McGonagall says in kindlier voice. She has faith that Neville has already studied the books. She's more than a little worried about his flying as far as they need to go without having to do it with books tucked under one arm.

Indeed, Neville does have problems maintaining his place in the formation, or even a straight course. But eventually they do arrive in a Scottish heather moor not far from a forbidding forest of ancient trees. "That boys is Donan Wood."

"We, we have to go in…there?" Neville stammers.

"Remember what he said Mr. Longbottom."

Neville steels himself. "It will be all right Neville." Harry reassures his classmate.

Neville hands a squirming Trevor to a reluctant McGonagall. "Please take care of my frog."

The two boys fly low and slow into the forest. Once inside, Neville has a hard time flying while looking high into the trees and sets down to walk. Harry flies high watching Neville for guidance. In the moor, Minerva casts protective spells around a log where they can sit and wait for the boys return. Snape casts a spell to start a small fire for warmth. A cold drizzle begins to fall as the two professors huddle around the fire in their robes.

Neville finds himself following a narrow trail. A thought about it gives him a shiver. If he is on a trail, who or what else uses it. Coming around a bend he stops cold at the sight of a large owl opening its huge yellow eyes at him. Except for the eyes, it blends seamlessly into the grey – brown tree trunks. The owl flies away. The drizzle begins to collects in the tops of the trees until it begins to drip down on the boys. Neville draws his robe tightly around himself.

Neville comes upon a downhill slope into a glen. To his shock he realizes that large rocks have been set to form a stair. A wave of terror passes through him as he realizes that the whole forest has been subtlety shaped by human hands over a very long time. Reaching the bottom of the slope, he looks around to establishes his bearings and notices a worn symbol with three joined spirals carved into a rock. Out of the corner of his eye he thinks he glimpses a movement. He looks to Harry and points in the direction where he thought he saw it. Misunderstanding, Harry moves in that direction scanning the tops of the trees.

After a small level area, the path continues down. Neville is chilled to the bone with fear and cold rain. Reaching the bottom, he sees a narrow waterfall plunging into a pond. The next sight is seared indelibly into his memory. A head of a woman breaks the surface of the water. She moves slowly with a graceful nonchalance toward the edge. Neville finds himself rooted to the spot unable to form a thought except an anticipation. She rises slowly from the water as she strolls to the shore. She is not wearing a bathing suit. Neville realizes that he's not breathing.

From his viewpoint, Harry notices Neville is fixated on something but can't see what he's looking at. The woman wraps herself in a grey-green robe and disappears into the brush. Harry lands next to Neville who is still staring at where the woman was on the shore. Neville resumes breathing with a gasp.

"What is it Neville?" Harry asks.

"It was a woman."

"Was it Cassandra?" Harry asks following Neville's eyes. "What did she look like?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"She had…" Neville's voice drops to an urgent whisper "…no clothes on." As Neville points to the point where the woman exited the pond the cold rain begins to include some sleet.

"That was probably her." Harry observes. "We should find what we came for and go."

"Harry, look at how this trail has steps…and there is a carving…" Neville points these features out. "…and there was an owl. Harry, I'm scared."

"I wish Hermione was here, she would know what that symbol means. Would you rather fly?"

Neville shakes his head. Harry slowly rises up high into the trees looking upwards. But when he looks down to Neville for guidance, Neville is missing.

Harry, full of dread, returns to his take off point. He sees a disturbance in the fallen leaves. Someone has been dragged silently away. The knot in Harry's stomach tightens. He hopes that what Adam told them will prove to be true. Harry follows the disturbance a short distance through some undergrowth and breaks out onto a narrow trail where the track ends for lack of leaves.

In one direction the trail spirals back toward the pond. Harry concludes that whomever dragged Neville away went the other way. He cautiously follows the trail.

Watcher Debra Adkins has left her car and stealthily moved on to the military brow of a low ridge in a field to observe areas which she could not see from the road. Her subject had nearly lost her in Ottery St. Catchpole but she'd managed to keep herself within range of the tracker she'd attached underneath Ceirdwyn's Land Rover. Debra takes out her binoculars, props herself up on her elbows, and glasses an odd-looking ruin. She sees the Land Rover parked near it. She jots down the license plate numbers of a motorcycle and two other cars also parked nearby. She sketches the road, driveway, and the garage, recording all of the information dutifully in her journal.

Debra is startled by an unusual sound like a flap of a flag. Her head snaps around and is shocked to see a young woman with lavender hair about twenty yards (meters) away. The other woman orients herself and briefly observes the same ruin Debra is watching. Debra remains motionless and silent. The woman moves from her exposed position standing upon the ridge to the rear of it before crawling back to it where her view will not be blocked. Debra had selected her observation point for the same reason. Debra thinks the woman bears a resemblance to the rocker Joan Jett. Debra is shocked to notice that she had gotten her hair color wrong when she sees it is a yellow-green matching the field grass.

The woman takes a position near Debra, but she doesn't notice her in the tall field grass. When there is a breeze rustling the dry grass covering the sound, Debra notes new arrival in her journal. It is unusual to encounter another Watcher in the field, but it does happen when their respective subjects also meet. Debra wonders which other immortal may be present. She is aware that several female immortals originally from the region occasionally disappear about this time of year, most notably Alex Raven. Alex is known to ride a motorcycle. But the woman hidden close enough to whisper to is not Alex' Watcher, Kelly Quinn.

Motionless, Debra watches as the young woman gets out a glass sphere and hold it out toward the ruins. Something inside it begins to spin and she moves it away from Debra and it slows. Gradually the woman swings it toward Debra and it spins faster and faster only to slow after passing by. The young woman focusses in Debra's direction and raises up to look beyond her. As she lowers herself back down, she is shocked to glimpse Debra's eyes watching her through the tall grass only five yards away.

"Merlin's beard" the woman hisses before Debra hears the flapping noise again.