It wasn't yet dark as Jax made his way down the London street toward the visitors' entrance to the Ministry of Magic. The red phone booth stood silent and empty, but standing next to it was a wizard in baggy jeans, a tie-dyed t-shirt, and a baseball cap on backwards. Jax assumed that this was his escort.

Pulling his pass out of his pocket, Jax headed for the wizard. "I'm here for the expo."

The wizard held out a hand for his pass, and Jax handed it to him. "This seems to be in order," said the wizard. "Right this way." He led Jax into the phone booth. After the wizard inserted his muggle money, the phone booth began to descend into the ministry.

When they arrived in the main atrium, another wizard stood waiting for them. This wizard was tall, with dark-hair and bucked teeth, but at least he wasn't wearing any atrocious muggle-styles. Instead, he was dressed in fancy green robes. The wizard from the phone booth handed over Jax's pass. "Flint will take you from here."

"Flint?" Jax grinned. "Oh, yeah, I remember Flint from Hogwarts. So where are we going, Flint?"

Flint struggled to keep the disdain off of his face. "Down to the Department of Ministries. Liam is waiting for you."

Jax raised an eyebrow. So, apparently, he was important enough to warrant the head sleaze ball himself. He wondered if Thea and George would get the same treatment. He imagined that once Liam found out about George's brother that they would.

Jax followed Flint to the lifts and downstairs. He had always hated how they clanged and shifted unpredictably. Finally, though, they made it downstairs where he was led down a glowing green hallway to a closed door.

"Right this way," said Flint through gritted teeth, and Jax followed him into a large room. Jax had expected the department to be dark and gloomy-especially after the dark hallway just outside. But they had lit torches along the walls adding a soft, warm glow to the room, and over the ceiling, a huge ball of light, as if someone had cast Lumos maxima on the room.

A long buffet table ran against the sidewall, topped with all sorts of foods-not just traditional British fare, but Jax had thought he spotted Egyptian basbousa, one of his favourites during his stays in Africa. In addition, there were couches and soft chairs around the rest of the room, with another, as of yet, empty table on the far side of the room that Jax assumed was for the demonstration. Although, whatever Liam was planning to demonstrate, Jax assumed would be not to his liking.

Flint led him over to the demonstration table to where Liam Rowle stood dressed in simple green dress robes, his short blonde hair styled in spikes. Jax had to try not to laugh. While Liam hadn't worn any of the absurd muggle fashions that Thea had described in her owls, the spiky hair still looked ridiculous.

"Liam, this is Jaxon Carter," said Flint.

"Ah, yes," said Liam, offering Jax a charming but fake smile.

"Liam, it's nice to meet you," said Jax, offering his hand to shake, even though the last thing he wanted was to touch that slimy, greaseball's hand. He wanted to strangle him for what he had done to Thea, but instead, he pasted a charming smile on his face and shook the man's hand. "This is quite the set up here."

"Yes. We've tried to cater to all our guests' unique tastes," said Liam. "I've heard it said that you especially like the Egyptian basbousa so I made sure that we had some here."

"Yes, I saw that," said Jax. "I was eyeing it when you called me over." He had no intention of touching anything that was served here. "So, what is the plan? It can't just all be a party with good food served."

Liam laughed heartily. "Oh, of course not. We're just waiting for everyone to arrive-that's when the real show starts."

"Show?"

"Well, I shouldn't really say 'show'," said Liam, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially. "It's more a demonstration. We're exploring the nature of a house-elf's powers-we think they may be the key to reversing death."

Jax raised an eyebrow and pretended to be interested, which didn't take much because that was why he was there-to find out what Liam and the other Unspeakables were up to. "Reversing death? I read that on the invite, but I wasn't entirely clear on how that was to happen."

"Come with me." Liam gestured for Jax to follow him. He led Jax across the room to one of the doorways. "Mors revelare." A door opened, and Liam led him inside.

This room was more what Jax had expected. The room was almost entirely made of stone. Stone benches were around the outside of the room, each bench connected to a steep, stone staircase.

Liam led Jax down one of the staircases to where a dais stood on a stone platform. The black veil on the platform swayed eerily in a non-existent breeze.

"What is this?" Jax asked.

"It's a dais," said Liam, "but this dais is special-it's a gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. We just haven't figured out how to reverse the doorway yet. Right now, the doorway only works one way I'm afraid. We can go through the door, but we can't come back. We're hoping to figure out a way to use a house-elf's magic to make the return trip."

"I see," said Jax. And he unfortunately, did see. "Have you had any success yet?"

"With the dais? No," Liam admitted. "Though we did have a house-elf survive drowning yesterday. He managed to hold his breath for ten minutes underwater because he was commanded to-previously, he was unable to do so, so we do have hope that we'll be able to make it work."

Jax nodded. "I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with."

"With a generous donation of course?"

And there it was. Jax wouldn't be giving a penny toward this cause if he could get out of it. The idea made him sick, but he said, "Of course," and that seemed to satisfy Liam.