A/N: Another Friday, another chapter.

Chapter 12

"You're up early," said Harry as he shuffled into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, already garbed in his hastily cleaned and pressed auror robes. If he didn't know better he'd have said that the night's sleep had actually made him worse off. He sincerely hoped an injection of highly concentrated coffee would improve matters.

Diana had clearly been up for a while. She was wearing some fairly loosely fitting clothes that Harry had transfigured for her when he'd realised that she'd brought literally nothing with her but the clothes on her back, and that those 'clothes on her back' were really just an armoured corset, a skirt, some bracers and boots. None of them were especially comfortable to sleep in, Harry imagined, and so he had attempted to transfigure some pyjamas.

Skilled though me may be in transfiguration, there was a reason witches and wizards tended to buy their clothes from shops rather than simply design them themselves. Sure, many had difficulty with the actual transfiguration itself, but for Harry at least, it was a rather more mundane limitation: Style. Harry's imagination when it came to fashion was… 'limited' was probably the kindest term he'd ever heard used to describe it. The end result was that all his sleepy mind had been able to think up was a loose fitting pair of white pyjamas that would probably have made just about anyone else look like a low-budget ghost.

Diana, of course, looked fantastic in it.

She turned to look at him, taking her eyes off the extremely rarely-used frying pan, and offered him a bright smile. "Good morning! I hope you don't mind, but I have been told that it is customary in this situation for the guest to make breakfast?"

"You really didn't need to," said Harry as he deposited himself into a kitchen chair. It did smell good though. He'd long ago become used to the idea of simply grabbing something on-the-go once he was in at the office.

Now that he came to think about it, the last time he'd actually eaten a real breakfast at home had probably been a few months before Ginny had given him her ultimatum. Looking back, that might have been part of the problem.

"Well, I am no chef, but I have at least learned how to make an omelette," she said as she scraped one from the pan and onto a plate which she handed across to him.

In truth, Harry had always had something of an irrational dislike of omelettes, mostly stemming from the fact that his uncle Vernon had enjoyed them so much. There was no way he was going to say that, though. Instead, he thanked her before tucking right in.

It wasn't bad at all. It didn't occur to him until he'd taken the third bite, perhaps something to do with the amazing curative powers Vernon had always claimed a good omelette had, that he realised he didn't have any fresh eggs in the house at all.

As if she was able to read his mind, Diana said, "You didn't have anything in the house, so I used the 'Floo'? I went to the Ministry and asked someone there to help me."

Harry wasn't at all surprised that they had indeed helped her, especially if she had still been dressed in those pyjamas.

"Well, thank you," said Harry. "This is actually pretty good. Who taught you the art of the omelette?" Unless he missed his mark, even Vernon would have rated them well, if only grudgingly.

For the briefest of moments, a momentary flicker of sadness crossed her features, but it was soon gone. It was replaced by a more wistful look, and she said, "She was called Etta Candy."

It didn't take a detective to note the use of the past tense there, so Harry decided to side-step the issue. "Well, she clearly taught you well."

"Thank you," said Diana as she set another omelette on the table, this time at an empty chair which she wasted no time in occupying.

"I don't suppose you heard anything while you were in at the office?" Harry tried. He glanced at the clock and saw that there was still nearly a half-hour before he could get back into the office without getting Shacklebolt on his case again. Didn't mean he couldn't send a patsy, though.

"I did ask," said Diana after she had swallowed a mouthful of her own omelette. "The man I asked, McDonald? He said that the night-shift had been quiet."

"Well, that's probably good news," said Harry. It likely meant that Daphne hadn't been up to anything. In all likelihood, possession or not, she'd have to sleep too. It was also possible that her injury was worse than they'd initially thought.

"So, if you don't mind me asking, how was it that you and Batman came to meet?" Diana asked between bites.

There wasn't much harm in at least giving her the basics, Harry decided. "A friend of mine ran into some trouble in Gotham last year," he said with a shrug as if it wasn't a big deal. "Batman and Zatanna both helped me find him and bring him back home. I figured I owed him a favour for that, so I left him the card. I guess I still do owe him that favour. I'm not sure this counts."

"I have found Bruce rarely keeps track of these things," said Diana with a fond smile, "and I suspect you are the same. If he needed your help, you'd go, would you not? Favour or no?"

"I guess you've got me there." He couldn't deny the truth of it. "I've never been all that good at sitting on the sidelines."

"That much I certainly understand," said Diana. "I have tried it, do not misunderstand me, but it bites at you."

Harry knew what she meant, even if the expression wasn't exactly right. "Sitting back and watching bad things happen, knowing you could have done something to stop them?"

"It is why I finally decided to return to Man's World," said Diana with a brief nod. "My mother told me that I would merely be wasting myself, that there was no way I could cure all the world's ills. She said the world did not deserve me."

"Well, I know I'm glad you didn't listen to her," said Harry honestly. If she had, he would probably have ended up a smear on the ground in Scotland.

"As am I," said Diana. She gestured around her which Harry interpreted as towards the world in general. "If I had not, if I had stayed on Themyscira, I would never have seen any of the wonders of Man's World."

"What was Themyscira like?" Harry asked. He'd heard the stories and legends, of course, but they were just that. Some had even made the argument that it was entirely mythical.

"It is beautiful," said Diana as she smiled and her eyes were distant, focused on something only she could see. "When you stand atop the cliffs and look out to sea, beyond the barrier islands, it is like it is the only place in the whole world. Like it is the lone island upon a planet made only of water. It is never cold there, and I awoke every morning to the sound of a hundred different songbirds. Every day a new melody. I will not say that I do not miss it, but I can carry those memories with me while I seek out more of them in Man's World."

If it weren't for the fact that Themyscira was, so far as Harry was aware, a literal no-man's land he might have suggested he try and visit sometime. "Sounds amazing," he said instead.

"It is," said Diana a little wistfully, then she came back to the here and now, "but so is Man's World. Beautiful as Themyscira is, it is but one small island. It cannot compare to a whole world."

Something that had been bothering Harry ever since his conversation with Neville prompted him to ask: "So why do you do it?" Surely it couldn't just be guilt at the thought of doing nothing?

"Why did I leave Themyscira?" Diana asked, misunderstanding his question.

"Why did you decide to join the Justice League? Why did you decide to be a hero?"

Perhaps he hadn't expressed his question all that well, but Diana thought about the answer nonetheless. "A man I once knew told me that when you see bad things in the world you can either do nothing, or do something, and he'd already tried nothing. So had I. So had my people. For so long we had looked at the world, and all the suffering it held, and told ourselves that we were powerless to change it. We told ourselves stories of the world of men, like those of Herpo and his terrible wars, and convinced ourselves that they, you, did not deserve us. We did nothing, and so did everyone else.

"When Steve told me that, I realised the mistake we'd made. We had been looking at the world, and all of the pain and suffering that blighted it, and we had decided that we could never hope to fix it, that it was too big for us." She shook her head ruefully. "We were right, of course, but we were also wrong. Being unable to fix everything should not mean that you do not try to fix what you can. I admit, I have not always stayed true to the decision I made then."

She paused, and stared into space, her lips and brows turned down by some sad memory. "It can be hard to stay the course when you feel as if you're alone, and fighting for a world that has no interest in being better. It was only recently that I discovered I was not alone."

"Superman," said Harry, realising what she meant. The way she looked when she spoke prompted him to ask: "Are you two together?"

She smiled and shook her head. "No. Kal is merely a good friend, but I do not just mean Kal. Bruce, J'onn, all of the rest of the Justice League. Each of us on our own might never have been able to make that much of a difference, but together? I truly believe that we can inspire the world to be more than it has so long been resigned to be."

For some reason, Harry felt unreasonably pleased to hear that Diana and Superman weren't an item. It was, in his opinion, an entirely unhelpful reaction. She might be beautiful, driven and good in a way that Harry had been starting to think existed purely in his imagination, but that didn't mean he had to start getting mushy over her. They had a job to do.

On the kitchen table, he noticed the muggle police report had been moved from where he'd left it the previous night. Clearly Diana had been taking a bit of a look through it.

He spun it around and flipped it open. "Find anything interesting?"

"They seem to have been very thorough," she said between bites. "Identities for all the attackers, exact movements, weapons and even a complete list of the potentially compromised items in the collection."

As Harry looked over it he still couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something in the report, but for the life of him he couldn't work out what it was.

"I have been trying to work out what Luthor's involvement in all this is," said Diana, prompting Harry to look up.

"Luthor?"

"Alexander Luthor," she said as if that explained everything. "Sir Thomas said that he had some involvement in bringing the collection to London."

Harry still didn't understand. "Why would that be important?"

"Luthor has been" —she paused— "unappreciative of the League's efforts over the last year," she said and Harry could tell that she was deliberately understating it. "He has been attempting to undermine our public perception for a few months. He has a particular dislike of Kal, however."

"You think he orchestrated the whole thing?" Harry asked, turning the idea over in his mind, seeing how well it fit with everything else he knew. "It seems unlikely that he could have known about Herpo's horcrux. That kind of knowledge is extremely tightly controlled even in our world."

"I do not know," Diana admitted, looking troubled, "but it seems like a large coincidence to me that Superman has fallen under the control of this Herpo as a result of coming into contact with a museum collection which Luthor had a hand in getting into the public eye."

"If it is part of some dastardly plan, then it's heavily reliant on luck," said Harry. "I very much doubt he could have planned for Daphne to do what she did."

"Then perhaps he did not plan for the possession at all," said Diana eventually. "Perhaps he had some other plan?"

"Is it unusual for Luthor to show interest in historical collections like that?" Harry asked. Trying to get a sense for the man might give him a better starting point.

Diana grimaced. "Not especially. He has donated to a number of different museums all over the world."

That kicked up the potential of it being a simple coincidence somewhat, but Harry had learned to trust his gut. Something that came with that, was learning to trust other peoples' guts too. "Well, we should keep an eye out. It could be a coincidence, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

The grateful smile Diana graced him with just served to confirm that he'd said the right thing. He glanced over at the clock and realised that it was just about time to head back into work. With a wave of his hand, the two empty plates and the used frying pan flew into the sink where they busily started to clean themselves up with the help of a couple of sponges.

"We'd best get ready to head in," he said as he pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. "We need to see what we can find at this Gwaelod place. Hopefully Daphne and Superman are still stuck trying to punch their way through a wall of quintapeds."

Diana grimaced at the thought of it. "Should we not try to stop them? Either they or the quintapeds could be injured or killed."

"If I try to stop them, it just means that anyone I send might also end up hurt or killed without doing much to actually help the situation," said Harry. He knew it probably sounded pretty callous, but there was very little they could do in a stand-up fight against Superman, and the quintapeds were quite possibly even worse. "We've seen that the quintapeds can look after themselves, and don't even want our presence. At the same time, there's no way they could kill Superman without him doing something intensely stupid. I just hope he keeps Daphne safe."

If she disagreed with him, she gave no indication of it. Instead, she zipped out of the room with a rush of speed, and moments later reappeared, this time once more wearing her Wonder Woman armour.

"Very well then, shall we get this play on the road?" she said.

Harry glanced at her for a moment as he tried to work out if she was making some kind of joke, but found only earnest determination. He shrugged it off and led her through to the fireplace. A few seconds, and a couple of pinches of Floo powder later, they were gone.

o-o

He wasn't sure what exactly he'd been expecting from the legendary lost island kingdom of Wales, but his first thought upon being deposited by the portkey was that it certainly did not match the reality.

Perhaps he should have thought about the fact that it had been hidden beneath the waves for hundreds of years at least, but for some reason that hadn't occurred to him.

Despite the fact that it had risen back above the waves more than a month previously, the ground still squelched underfoot, and he could feel the dirty water creeping in through his shoes, at least until he charmed them to be impervious. Something else he hadn't considered was the smell. Rotting fish was an entirely too pithy description of it and simply failed to evoke the way that the smell seemed to fill up the whole world. Perhaps decomposing whales would be more apt.

"Ah, you've arrived!" said a voice that sounded like it issued from a nose-only being that was suffering from a nasty case of the sniffles.

Harry turned and found a middle-aged woman with fraying grey hair, somewhat blood-shot blue eyes and a large wooden clothes peg fastened firmly over her nose. She was, sensibly in Harry's opinion, wearing a set of waders that extended all the way to just below her shoulders and a chunky tweed jacket.

With a snap of his fingers, Harry conjured a bubble-head charm around his head. It sadly didn't take long to realise the flaw in his plan. The bubble-head charm might have stopped the smell from getting in, but it didn't do anything at all about the stench that was already inside the bubble when it came into being.

The woman held out a hand with two more of the clothes pegs. "Yes, we tried that too," she said with a rueful smile. "Here, I suggest you take one of these instead."

Neither Harry nor Diana needed to be told twice. Harry quickly fixed one of the pegs over his nose while Diana did the same. The effect was instantaneous, and he found that he was able to breathe easily, with only the slightest lingering hint of weeks-old fish.

"Thank you," he said in relief. "I'm Harry Potter, and this is Diana Prince," he said as he extended his hand for the woman to shake.

"It is a pleasure," said Diana as she was introduced.

Harry continued: "I assume you're Iolanthe?"

"Iolanthe Idle," she said as she nodded her head rapidly, sending her flyaway hair in all directions. "I'm in charge of the dig here. Professor Geomann at the British Magical Museum told me you wanted to know about anything we might have found here that could have something to do with the old legends of the Pair Dadeni?"

"That's right," said Harry, and if she had found anything, he was sincerely hopeful that she'd be quick about bringing them up to speed.

"Well, there may be something, but it's really all very strange. Most curious, don't you know?" she said with an enthusiasm that had Harry's heart sinking with every word. "It seems to be in some version of the Old Tongue that neither I nor Gavin recognise. We're almost certain it concerns the Pair Dadeni, however. Or some kind of cauldron at least. Maybe a cup too, or merely a deep bowl. But it's really all very interesting."

Before she'd finished speaking, she started squelching off in the direction of a piece of somewhat higher ground upon which were perched the ruins of what had probably once been a castle. "Come, come!" she called over her shoulder.

Harry and Diana exchanged a look, before she directed his gaze down to her feet. She was in her armour, which included a pair of long metal-plated boots that were probably dealing with the wet far better than Harry's own shoes ever would have. Nonetheless, it was clear that she'd seen him cast the impervious charm on his own feet and wanted the same treatment. With a flick of his wand he cast the spell again, and she offered him a warm smile before they started trudging through the muck behind their new guide.

Despite the impervious charm, the mud managed to get everywhere. Harry soon realised that his robes were covered in it despite the impervious charms woven into them, and it had also gradually started working its way up the inside of his trouser legs.

By the time he'd realised his oversight, it was already too late, so he merely continued on. He could just clean himself up when they actually got out of the mud. He looked across to where Diana was walking beside him, and found that she too was suffering from the same problem.

"Glamourous, eh?" he said as he flicked a particularly adventuresome blob of mud off his robes.

She smiled and shook her head, but was otherwise seemingly unworried by the mess. For some reason that surprised Harry, though he knew it really shouldn't. If there was one thing he'd learned about her in their brief time working together it was that she didn't seem to worry at all about what she looked like. With good reason, he supposed.

Soon, they reached their destination. It was only marginally less filthy than everything else, but it was obvious that some effort had been made to at least make the ruins more bearable to live in. A magical tent had been pitched up in the middle of the ruins, and more than a dozen charmed brooms and shovels were busily at work trying to beat back the seemingly endless mud.

A young sandy haired man, probably not long out of Hogwarts, was directing them with his wand when they entered in through what remained of what had probably once been the castle's gatehouse.

Iolanthe completely ignored the man, whom Harry assumed was the aforementioned Gavin, and led them towards a slightly taller mound of rocks amid all the others. Somewhat hidden at the base of the mound, a set of stairs descended downwards into the earth. Much as Harry had expected, the air was almost soupy in its thickness, and had it not been for the peg on his nose he was sure the smell would have been overwhelming.

"It's just along here," said Iolanthe as she lit up the end of her wand.

The light from her wand was very directional, and not of much use to Harry and Diana who were walking behind Iolanthe in almost complete darkness, and so Harry conjured his own floating lamp for them both. It was a good job he did, as they soon found that the floor was extremely uneven.

The tunnel was not all that long. It was hardly surprising as the castle itself was fairly small. At the end of the tunnel, there was a broken section in the wall, and after they squeezed through, adding a new layer of grime to the already accumulated mud, they were met with a wall that was covered in both writing and what seemed to be pictograms.

"Fascinating, isn't it? We never imagined we might find something like this," said Iolanthe as she swept her wand up and down the full length of the fresco. "As you can see, it seems to tell the story of some kind of cauldron or other vessel, though it does not match the legends around the Pair Dadeni, and there are a number of other Cauldrons of note from that same period."

"No," said Diana as she moved closer to the wall. She muttered under her breath as her eyes traced the strange symbols before she pointed to one of the depictions of a cauldron, this one flanked by two men. "This is the Cauldron of Rebirth."

"You can read this lost language?" said Iolanthe in surprise.

"It is closely related to Pictish," said Diana a little distantly as she scanned the inscriptions. "It has been rendered into Elder Futhark which makes it a little more difficult to interpret."

"But Pictish is a lost—"

"Here, look," said Diana, completely unaware that she was cutting Iolanthe off. "This is where it describes how King Gwyddno Longshanks and his allies waged a war upon another Kingdom in the far North. The Kingdom is unnamed, but surely it must be Orkney."

"Brilliant," said Harry, once again thanking his lucky stars for Diana. He wasn't sure they'd have gotten anywhere without her incredible affinity for languages. "Does it say where they took it? Is it somewhere down here still?"

"It does, but it is not here," said Diana as she continued reading. Iolanthe had taken up station next to her and was clearly trying to understand Diana's interpretation but if the expression on her face was anything to go by she was not being met by much in the way of success. Diana was unbothered. "It says that it was taken far from here, and hidden within the lair of the boar, Trwyth, where it shall be forever guarded by his children, and watched over by the King of the Giants as his eternal atonement."

Harry turned to Iolanthe. "Where's that?"

She didn't stop glaring at the words that Diana had translated. "Well, I'm sure I don't know. Until today I would have said no-one knows, but I would have said the same of the Pictish language, too."

"What about the rest of it?"

With a little noise of disgust, Iolanthe gave up on trying to follow Diana's translation and stood up straight. "Well, the King of the Giants in the Brythonic legend is Ysbadadden. The Boar is surely from the Arthurian legend of Culhwch and Olwen but of its lair, no one knows. It was said that only Drudwyn the Hound could hunt Twrch Trwyth."

"And there's really nothing else we can go on?" Harry asked. Was that really where the trail went cold?

"Well, I certainly don't know anything more," Iolanthe said with more bite than was strictly necessary. "Perhaps Pavel would know something more, but if we knew how to locate the lair, I do think we would already have gone looking."

It was a good point, well made, but on the other hand no-one had thought it was possible to talk to quintapeds until Diana had showed up. Maybe there was something else everyone had missed.

"Well, thank you in any case," he said to Iolanthe, only to be largely ignored as she returned to frowning at the inscriptions. She just offered a half-grunt and a dismissive wave of her hand.

Harry glanced over at Diana who met his gaze with a shrug and a smile. "Well," he said when it was obvious they would be getting nothing more out of Iolanthe, "I guess this means we have to see if Geomann has anything more to say on the matter." Again. Honestly, he should have just deputised the man or something.

He summoned a small stone, which detached itself from the muddy floor with a damp slurping sound. With a tap of his wand he turned it into a portkey to the British Museum, before he held it out for Diana to touch. As soon as she did so, he poked it again with his wand, and they both disappeared from the dungeon in a rush of air and racing lights.

The change in the air was palpable the moment they arrived in the museum. Gone was that feeling of clinging damp and heavy, saturated air. Harry quickly removed the charmed peg that had been protecting his nose, and while the museum's air was surely dusty and dead, it tasted good. Beside him, he heard Diana do much the same.

"What is goi— Oh." Geomann materialised from around a display case, an annoyed expression on his face. "You do realise that we do not permit people to arrive by portkey?"

"Sorry about that," said Harry, completely unapologetic. A few quick charms removed the cloying mud and grime, and Harry felt human once more. Diana looked similarly relieved to be free of it. "We've just been to see Iolanthe, and we were hoping you might be able to answer some of the questions it raised?"

Just as Geomann was about to answer, Diana's hand went to her ear and she held up her palm for quiet. After a moment of listening to something, she said, "I am sorry. It seems Hal has just returned, and discovered what happened at the Hall of Justice. Will you excuse me?"

"By all means," said Harry. He didn't want Hal, whom he assumed was Hal Jordan, the hero known as Green Lantern who had been off-world when Daphne had frozen the rest of the league, to get the wrong idea. "Let me know if you need anything."

"I will," she responded with a grateful nod. She then started talking to empty air, and Harry assumed she had her communicator open. "Wonder Woman to Green Lantern, there's a lot to explain. Green Lantern? Are you there?"

She walked off around a corner, just far enough to be out of earshot. Harry turned back to Geomann. "Anyway, as I was saying, we found an inscription that claimed the cauldron had been hidden in the lair of a boar, Twrch Trwyth?" He was sure he'd mangled the name, but it was evidently close enough that Geomann understood what he was talking about.

"Well that will certainly pose a problem," said Geomann, looking thoughtful. "There is really no historical record of where the lair might be found, though the natural assumption is that it can be found somewhere in Wales. However, I think some have argued for Cornwall too."

"What about the boar, then?" Harry asked. 'Probably in Wales' didn't really count as narrowing it down in his book. "Can you tell me more about it?"

"Well certainly," said Geomann. "Perhaps we can take this to my office? I have early manuscripts for much of the Mabinogion there."

"Of course."

It didn't take long for them to both walk the short distance to the nook that Geomann called his office. Once there, they both took their seats, and Geomann started ferreting through stacks of loose parchment and ancient-looking books.

"Ah ha!" he said in triumph, pulling out one particular roll of parchment out of the pile. It was covered in stains, and was frayed at the edges, but it was otherwise largely undamaged despite its obviously immense age. One of the wonders of magic. "The tale of Culhwch and Olwen." He righted his glasses again and started to read.

"Yes, yes. Of course, now I remember," he said as his eyes scanned the text. "Twrch Trwyth was the cursed son of Prince Tared, though whom that might be I don't believe anyone has any idea. I do remember seeing some muggles theorise that Chrétien's Arthurian writings which featured Tor, son of Ares, were in fact referencing the same story, however."

Harry dutifully noted all those names down, but would be the first to admit that none of them made any sense to him. Well, none except Ares. "Ares?"

"You are no doubt thinking of the Greek god," said Geomann in a voice that he probably thought didn't sound anywhere near as patronizing as it was. "I can assure you that that is highly unlikely. It is well known that the Greek gods died long ago, or at the very least they stopped concerning themselves with the mortal world. That would have been at least a thousand years before the events of Culhwch and Olwen. Probably much more. No, while there is no record of just where this Prince Ares was from, it is much more likely that he was just an ordinary man named after the god. That would not be so very unusual."

Despite Geomann's assurances, Harry made a mental note to ask Diana about it once she'd finished filling Green Lantern in on events. He'd take her word on the goings on of the Greek gods over Geomann's any day of the week.

"Okay then. It also mentioned that it was guarded by the Children of Twrch Trwyth and the King of the Giants," said Harry. He wasn't going to try and pronounce Ysbaddaden.

"Ysbaddaden?" said Geomann, making it sound easy. "He at least is meant to be dead, or so the legends say, at least. When Culhwch completed the tasks Ysbadadden set him, the giant was shaved and beheaded, with his head mounted upon a spike before his castle."

That certainly sounded pretty final. "Well, the inscription was pretty clear," said Harry, uncertain which of the two sources might be right. "It said the King of the Giants would watch over the Cauldron as an eternal atonement. Then again, maybe it's not a case of one or the other. We are dealing with a Cauldron capable of returning the dead to life."

Geomann didn't look altogether pleased with that explanation, but in the end clearly decided to set his misgivings aside. "Besides that, the Children of Twrch Trwyth would surely be a litter of boars. It is said that they have the same envenomed bristles that their sire possessed, so if you do have to fight them, you had best be wary of them."

Unless the boars were also resistant to magic, a few poisoned bristles were unlikely to be all that dangerous. Though, even as he thought it, Harry was reminded of the MacBoons, and the strange ability they possessed to deaden or consume magic in their vicinity. If the boars had been created by a similar kind of magic, then perhaps he would do well to heed Geomann's warning.

"Where does that leave us then?" Harry asked, though he was not sure if he was asking Geomann, or talking to himself.

"I am not sure," said Geomann somewhat regretfully. "I am not sure there is anything I have missed, but I shall take another look at the writings just in case."

Then Harry heard something. It was a quiet sound, but despite that, it was exactly the kind of sound that tended to grab the attention.

The distant tinkling of shattering glass

For a moment, he wasn't sure what he'd heard. Then the wailing began.

"It's the information boards!" said Geomann, looking panicked when the wailing ended less than a second or two after it had started. "Someone's broken into one of the cabinets."

Instantly, Harry's wand was in his hand. Before he turned to leave he shot a serious look at Geomann. "Call the aurors."

Perhaps it was nothing, but Harry had long ago learned to trust his gut, and his gut said that something was very badly wrong.

He sincerely hoped Diana hadn't gone far.

A/N: I hope I haven't disappointed anyone too much with the reality of the Cantref Gwaelod. I admit, there was a certain amount of inspiration drawn from Pratchett's description of Leshp.