Forty-Nine

Crescent

Leu walked into the library with a copy of the Oracle in hand, waving absently to Boulderdash and Laura at the front librarian desk on his way into the Owl Room.

"That's odd. I wonder why he looks worried?" Laura wondered out loud, glancing over at the periodicals table thoughtfully as if tempted to pick up a copy. Boulderdash glanced at the clock.

"Why don't you take a lunch break so you can see what they're up to? I'll watch the desk until Miss York's shift starts," Boulderdash suggested.

"Alright," Laura replied. She slipped into the Owl Room where Leu and several of the other students who had recently come in gathered around Maurice, several with copies of the Oracle out in front of them while others had already started on their lunches.

"So far, the only thing they've been able to determine yet is that he hasn't gone home," Maurice was saying as she came in. "He has several wizard friends coming in and looking over his flock, including a neighbor down the hill, and Harry says that Halbert Hagrid has been checking periodically to see if he comes home. Apparently, Halbert had visited there with Disparte once and was able to make friends with him too, despite the fact that he was with his father at the time."

"That's a bit weird, isn't it? I mean, if I hated my father and he brought someone with him for a parlay like that, I wouldn't want to make friends with him," Summer said.

"True, but Halbert is personable and very friendly. He's not hard to warm up to," Natalie said.

"Also, I'm not sure he actually hates his father, he just doesn't want him researching anything having to do with lycanthropy potions," Maurice said.

"Wait... what are you guys talking about? And who?" Laura asked suddenly, the Owl members looking up at her as if just noticing that she had come in.

"Matteo Disparte, Professor Disparte's son. Leu, why don't you show her your paper?" Maurice said, and Leu handed it over. "Second page," he added.

Laura took the paper and stepped back as Viorica and Harvey came in, heading for the lunch table. She found the article and read about the scuffle in the Cauldron, more than a little surprised that her father had been there.

"This article doesn't say much. It doesn't even say who the person at the table was that Professor Craw and my father were talking to," Laura noted.

"No, I had to ask my father about the specifics," Maurice explained. "My sister was there to fill Matteo in on their research and try to reassure any worries he had about their changing the potions. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect, especially when Matteo got so agitated that it triggered the protections on my father's table. My father has several teams from the LE and the Magical Creatures departments out looking for him to make sure he's okay and not a threat to anyone."

"Why was Matteo so agitated?" Laura asked.

"Apparently Professor Disparte ran a bunch of experiments on him as a child to try to find a cure, and my sister believes he was traumatized by it," Maurice explained.

"Experiments," Viorica repeated uncomfortably, folding her arms against herself.

"He was just trying to make his son well, Viorica, I really don't think Professor Disparte ever meant to harm him," Maurice explained.

"I think I'm going to go see if Professor Craw is having lunch in her office," Laura suddenly decided.

"She should be, she has a conference period after lunch today," Maurice informed her, folding up his paper so he could get his own plate. Natalie watched her leave before turning to her brother.

"She's got that look in her eye. Did you notice?" Natalie asked.

"Yeah. It's the same look Grandmother gets in her eye any time she's going to get involved in something," Chuck agreed. "Should we be worried?"

"No, not yet," Maurice decided. "Although I admit I'm curious to just how much she and my sister might be able to accomplish if the two of them team up on something."

Laura was a little nervous that Jennifer might be having lunch with her father, but when she peeked in the open door, she saw Jennifer was by herself and was going through a large filing cabinet in the corner near the window. The cabinet was partially hidden behind the desk and the potion lab table, so Laura hadn't noticed it before. There was a sound of two notes on the violin and Jennifer looked up at the door.

"Oh, hello, Laura! Come on in!" Jennifer said, pulling out a bunch of folders.

"Sorry, am I bothering you?" Laura wondered, glancing up at Professor Rogue who greeted her with a quick sign.

"No, not at all, I'm just attempting to get my files ready for the interviews. Have you had lunch? I was going to make do with porridge, honestly..."

"Actually, I wouldn't mind that," Laura said with interest. Putting one of the folders in her mouth, Jennifer twisted one of the statues above the mantle and pulled down another, then attempted to put the folders in a pile as the fireplace rumbled. A door slid open, and the fire slid back further into the fireplace as Dagda's Cauldron slid in front of it.

"There's a ladle just there hanging with the fireplace tools, and bowls are there on the shelf," Jennifer said. "Sorry, but I've gotten behind on my House paperwork with all the research I've been doing, and I've only got a couple of days to get this all sorted before the interviews."

"Any way I can help?" Laura asked.

"Yes, actually... if you can get the folder with all my career notes out of the bottom drawer, I'm going to start pairing OWLS requirements with the students that I am dead certain are going into specific fields so that I have a quick answer during the interviews," Jennifer explained. "How long do you have for lunch?"

"Just a half an hour more," Laura admitted.

"Severus, could you please tell Boulderdash that Laura has volunteered against her will to help me and she'll be back after my conference is over in an hour and a half?" Jennifer asked, glancing over briefly to see the portrait shake his head and step out of the painting with violin in hand. "There, now we have plenty of time."

"Do you volunteer people against their will a lot?" Laura laughed, handing her a bowl.

"Oh, that's a reference to what Boulderdash tells people when I recruit him into security detail when he's not expecting it," Jennifer grinned. "But don't worry, he won't argue. Spoon?"

"Thanks," Laura said, taking the spoon. Jennifer got one of her own, setting her spectacles on the desk and getting comfortable.

"So, why did you come to visit? I'm not sure you ever said," Jennifer asked curiously after eating a spoonful.

"Actually, I was wondering about something I overheard the Owls talking about... that bit in the Oracle today about what happened at the Leaky Cauldron," Laura explained. Jennifer's expression immediately changing.

"Oh, that. What a terrible disaster that was," Jennifer said with a long sigh, putting her bowl back down. "Ivano tried to warn me that his estrangement with his son ran deep, but I didn't know how deep until I saw how upset his son was. Although to be fair, I think some of that anguish is tied to losing his mother so young as well as his objections to his father's research. He was infected at eight... the same age I was when my life was turned upside down, and I think that's made me especially sensitive to his situation."

"Maurice said something about his being experimented on," Laura prompted.

"I'm sure that wasn't Ivano's intent when he started," Jennifer said quietly. "He was simply trying to cure his son of a terrible disease... desperate to come up with a solution after the heartbreak of losing his wife, and because he feared losing his son. Their viewpoints of their past are starkly different..." she murmured distantly. "Ivano remembers it as doing everything he could to take care of his son and make him well again. Matteo remembers it as his father using him like a lab animal. It's a very tragic situation," she said, pouring coffee for both of them before continuing.

"I've made some terrible mistakes as a parent... I suppose all parents make a fair few. We all have to blunder our way through the experience untested and without a real understanding of what the long-term effects are going to be on our children once they've become adults. And it's easy for us to find ourselves judging situations on hindsight when those effects are fully understood. I don't know that I would have done anything different in Ivano's position than what he did. But I think what Matteo truly wanted was to be accepted whether he was sick or not, and I think that perhaps he never felt like he got that acceptance while his father was striving for a cure. When you start breaking the situation down, things are a bit more complicated than what it seems on the surface," Jennifer explained. "If Ivano suddenly decided to give up alchemy and go into something else, I doubt it would change much between them like Matteo thinks it will. This problem stems from a lack of communication and understanding."

"Is he any threat to the school in his current mental state?" Laura asked.

"I don't know," Jennifer admitted. "Severus isn't sure either. I think he may be some threat to his father, but I'm less worried about now and more worried about what might happen if he's still in the area a week and a half from now. Still, that gives us time to get some sort of resolution on the matter."

Laura took a spoonful of porridge thoughtfully.

"There is something else I want to ask about that's unrelated," Laura began. "It's about Viorica Eddy. When Maurice was talking about Ivano's experiments with his son, she suddenly looked uncomfortable and overconscious." Jennifer let out another long sigh, watching the Cauldron bubble.

"I'm not sure I would call it unrelated," Jennifer said quietly. "You see, her parents are Muggle biologists, and when their daughter first came out as magic, they ran a number of experiments and blood, saliva, and skin cells and the like to see if any of them were different. They weren't, of course, but it had a very detrimental effect to her first year here, actually."

"Wait. That's a completely different set of circumstances," Laura said, growing more concerned. "That sounds a lot more exploitative. It's not like they were trying to 'cure' her of being magic, are they? Then again, if they are, that would be even worse."

"They could have simply been curious and had the tools to explore it," Jennifer sighed. "I really don't know. She has passing thoughts about it any time she uses her microscope, but typically it's in a self-conscious way, always wondering what makes her different... she never thinks directly about her parents' part in it. Rather, her thoughts are about what she might have done to cause it. I see students do that a lot in the earlier years, feeling they alone are to blame for all of their troubles. Typically, they start questioning the intentions of others later on. Danyelle did the same thing when she first arrived too," Jennifer murmured.

"So did Lucky," Laura said with a frown, Jennifer nodded at that.

"Of course, Lucky had some decent walls up against people prying to begin with, not that it didn't come out in her reactions to things," Jennifer said. "But don't worry, the school has been monitoring it since Viorica first arrived, actually, especially Danny, Boulderdash, and myself. Aurelius has been watching her carefully too since she first joined the Aurors Club. Actually, I rather think Aurelius has become a bit attached to the girl."

"Aurelius? With a favorite? I never thought that would happen," Laura admitted, but she also felt a bit more at ease knowing that he was watching as well. As a licensed Truth Seeker, he would be able to actually do something about it if something was going on. Jennifer smiled and nodded, both at her spoken and unspoken words.

"We had best be getting back to work. The headmaster likes to drop by during my conference and it'd be nice if he saw we were actually being productive for a change," Jennifer said mischievously.

Grinning at her, Laura got up and picked up the careers folder again. By the time the headmaster wandered in five minutes later, the two were absorbed in their work.

"I know I need at least one in excavation, possibly two... pull out that one you saw on Magicology so I can put it in Leu's file in case he decides to go the cultural route," Jennifer was saying as he stepped in.

"Right," Laura agreed, sifting through the file and pulling copies out for her. Severus squinted at the two mostly full bowls of pink porridge and the two cups of cold coffee.

"Did either of you eat anything at all at lunch?" Severus asked with exasperation.

"I had two bites," Jennifer said, taking the copies.

"I had one bite," Laura said. "Here's Magical Industry for Jimmy Minster," she said, handing it over.

"Lovely," Jennifer said, sorting through the stack to try to find his folder.

Severus rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Now I have two of them in the castle," Severus moaned as he stepped back out again. Laura stared blankly towards the open door.

"What was that supposed to mean?" Laura asked flatly.

"I think it means, he's glad you're here," Jennifer said with an enigmatic smile, pulling out the next student folder.

Thursday was Corey's main stocking day as he and his employees got ready for the weekend. It was slow as far as customers were concerned, but there were freshly dried spring herbs to restock and old ones to replace and tally, which gave his clerks plenty to do. So it was that Corey himself was minding the counter when a younger man with wild brown hair and a drawn look stepped up to the counter with a prescription in hand.

"Good morning. I will need this filled starting next week," the man said. He spoke English well, but had a thick Italian accent.

"Certainly. I'll have it ready for you after four-thirty every day," Corey assured him. He squinted.

"You barely looked at it. And aren't you going to ask my name?" he asked.

"Your name is Matteo Disparte, and I already know the formula," Corey admitted.

"Coming here so close to the castle was a mistake, I see," Matteo said. Corey shrugged.

"You really wouldn't have had much choice if you planned to stay in the area long term. Even if you planned on making your own, you'd have had to come here for the components, since some of them can't be found in a catalog. I'm the only alchemist with a apothecary in the country, at least until next summer when my apprentice takes his exam," Corey explained. "Maybe it would be easier if you went home next week?"

"I have things to do here, and it is none of your business," Matteo snapped.

"True enough, sorry to have overstepped," Corey said cordially, watching as Matteo walked to the door. Suddenly, Matteo paused and walked back to the counter.

"Do you know much about the potion research at the castle?" Matteo asked.

"I do," Corey said with a nod. "Professor Craw and her team are attempting to modify this formula so that you only have to take it once a month," he said, holding up the prescription pointedly before filing it in his prescription box. "In fact, they're looking for volunteers to help test it if you're interested."

"No, not at all," Matteo said curtly. He turned and left the shop, Disapparating right outside the door.

Corey took out a piece of parchment, quickly penning a note and rolling it up.

"Cheshire!" he called out, grabbing her harness and some treats.

Jennifer walked into the Headmaster's Study holding onto Quintin's hand that evening, the boy running in ahead of her.

"Mummy is late again!" Quintin complained.

"Now what have we told you about constantly pointing that out?" Severus scolded him. "Although it is true that she's late..."

"Look, it's Corey's kitty!" he interrupted, petting the orange cat that had been napping on the high-backed chair until Quintin had interrupted her.

"Quintin, why don't you go wash for dinner? We'll be eating in here tonight," Severus suggested. "Give me ten minutes."

"Yes, Father," Quintin said and ran off.

"What did Corey want?" Jennifer asked curiously, petting the cat before coaxing her out of the chair.

"Apparently Matteo came in to drop off a prescription," Severus explained. Jennifer looked over in surprise. "Corey said Matteo seemed calm except for when he inquired about how long he was staying. He did ask if he knew what you were working on and that he wasn't interested in helping."

"Oh, well, I'm not surprised about that, but I wonder where he's staying especially if he's planning on being here long enough to need the potions," Jennifer said. "Do you suppose he's staying in Hogsmeade?"

"No, I spoke with both Rosmerta and Brogan... I even spoke to Beth and Tom. And although it's possible he's staying with one of the many holiday rentals run by wizards, I think it's possible that he may have decided to take a room in a Muggle hotel under a false name," Severus said.

"That would be taking a very big risk, Severus," Jennifer replied.

"Yes, but with the Ministry looking for him, it's the only possible solution that makes sense. If he was simply trying to go back and forth through Port Stations, he wouldn't have needed to drop off a prescription, he would have been getting them from home. And as you know, Port Stations do need you to sign in, so they have a record of people using the system," Severus said. "I sent an Owl to Charlie Weasley to see how we wants to handle it, since technically speaking this isn't really our affair unless he ends up on the property. When is Ivano due back?"

"Tomorrow morning, usually he arrives while I'm in class," Jennifer said.

"Make sure you get him up to date on everything that's happened... spectacles down, I want to know how he's feeling about all of this," Severus said.

"Of course, Severus," Jennifer agreed, then helped Quintin get ready for dinner.