May 1, 2000, London Ministry of Magic.
It was a Monday morning, like any other, when it all started. Thea headed into the love chamber, where she was immediately hit with the scent of amortentia. To her, it smelled of lavender, rain, and a mix of something sweet and salty. It was bubbling merrily in the fountain at the centre of the room as if it was calling to her. The potion was made to smell like whatever attracted a person, though Thea's limited experience with relationships made that difficult to validate one way or another.
Shaking her head, Thea turned away from the fountain to head for her desk in the far corner of the room. She wanted to focus on the results of the brain scans she had done with the head of Cambridge's neuroscience department, Edward Calhoun. As Thea flipped through the pages, she noticed a pattern. Individuals that were either in love or had a child and were thinking about their loved one showed activity in the parts of the brain that usually lit up when exposed to other pleasure-seeking activities or topics. What was more, when she and Calhoun had introduced negative stimuli to deliberately agitate participants (as evident by a first scan), they were able to switch it back to the pleasure-seeking centre by directing conversation around their loved one.
"Hoo!"
Thea started, looking up to see her pygmy owl Oreo sitting there. "Oreo, when did you get here?"
The tiny bird stuck out her leg, and Thea carefully removed the letter, recognizing Jax's untidy scrawl as she did so.
Thea,
Hope you've been well. Africa is amazing as always, but I miss home and you. I'll be making my way back to London-and will probably arrive shortly after you receive my letter. I found a few things that you might be interested in, but I'm mainly writing due to an intriguing owl I received the other day. It was an invitation to an expo-at your department. I thought it a bit odd since you can't talk about what it is you do so what's with the expo? What are you and the other Unspeakables up to?
That was a good question. Knowing Liam, it couldn't be anything good. Thea set Oreo on her shoulder and headed out of the Love Chamber, relocking the door with a flick of her wand.
The main atrium of the department was deserted, not that she expected it to be otherwise. Thea held out her wand. "Mors revelare."
A door popped open, and Thea moved into a dimly lit, rectangular room and descended steep stone steps toward the other Unspeakables. Liam stood in the centre of the group with his baggy jeans and spiky hair that screamed trying too hard.
As expected, she found them congregated around the stone dais, its black veil swaying eerily in some nonexistent breeze. Thea shivered, before shaking it off and turning toward her boss. "Liam?"
Liam ignored her. "Let's see what she can do. House-elf!" Liam grinned. "Go into the dais, and then apparate back out."
Thea followed Liam's gaze in horror to see a house-elf standing in front of him. Did he really mean to send her through the veil? No one ever came back from that.
"But Zelda doesn't want to..."
"Elf! I ordered you into the dais!" Liam barked out the order for a second time.
"I is not wanting to." But the elf was slammed to the floor by some invisible force that seemed intent on dragging her into the dais, forcing her to obey Liam's command. Zelda grabbed at the floor, but there was nothing to hold onto. It was only her will keeping her from being dragged in completely.
"Liam!" Thea repeated, more urgently this time, but Liam continued to ignore her.
"House-elf, you are bound by your duty to obey your master, and I am your master," said Liam, "so you will go into the dais and then apparate out."
"No please no please no please," the elf pleaded, managing to grab hold of a throw rug to slow the pull to the dais and certain death.
"Liam!" Thea was getting more frantic now. She had to stop this! But how? Short of putting her hands on Liam-which would surely get her fired-she couldn't force him to stop.
Apparently tired of waiting for the house-elf to follow his order, Liam picked her up by her ankles and threw her into the dais. Her screams went silent. She didn't come back out.
Liam shrugged. "I guess house-elves can't come back from the dead." He made a note on his clipboard and turned as if to speak to one of the other Unspeakables, but then he spotted Thea. "Oh, Thea, did you want something?"
"Oh, um..." Thea had been standing there, frozen, staring at the dais. Had he really just...she shook her head. It wasn't as if she had actually thought he had changed. She was pretty sure he wasn't capable of changing. She forced her gaze back to Liam and the entire reason she had ventured out here. "I wanted to ask about the expo."
Liam shook his head. "That's nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about. Just run along back to the love room..."
"Liam, it is something for me to worry about," Thea interrupted him, careful to keep her voice calm and even, despite the frantic beating of her heart. "I am a member of this department, and if you are having an expo, I should not only know about it but be in attendance."
"Fine," said Liam dismissively. "We're raising money- we want to go deeper into our experiments into death, but that requires funding, equipment. If you can find an investor for us, you are more than welcome to join us, but otherwise, you should stick to what suits you." He gestured towards the door, the implication being that she should stick to the love room and leave Liam and the others alone.
Thea sighed. "I'm going to go take a walk." She needed to clear her head. She needed to get out of there.
She didn't wait for Liam's reaction, but headed for the exit, pulling out her wand as she went. Oreo shuffled a bit on her shoulder, and Thea stroked the tiny owl's breast. "Sorry, Oreo," she murmured. "Exitus revelare." One of the doors popped open, and Thea walked through it, turning back to point her wand at the now open door. "Exitus celare." The doors spun again, and Thea headed over to the lifts.
She took a few deep breaths as she waited but nearly jumped out of her skin when the lift clanged to a halt in front of her. Oreo fluffed her feathers but otherwise didn't react. Thea glanced up at the bird, and nearly missed the lift in her distraction.
"Get a grip, Thea," she muttered to herself, stepping inside. It was lighter on the upper levels, but that didn't ease the weight Thea felt over what had happened, nor the fact that she hadn't been able to stop it.
The lift clanged onto the main level, and standing just outside the lift was a slender witch with bushy brown hair, holding pamphlets with a house-elf on the front. Thea had seen the other witch around the ministry, but knew Hermione more by reputation, for her contributions during the war.
"Do you want a pamphlet?" Hermione asked.
Thea blinked at her, her gaze shifting from Hermione's face to the pamphlet and back again. "Sure," she said, accepting one and shoving it into her pocket with Jax's letter. Then she headed outside and disapparated with her owl.