FIFTEEN
(Saturday)

"What do you think?" Tonks chewed absently on a celery stick while she regarded the fabric swatches on the table before her. Everything else seemed more or less as prepared as it was going to get, but her gown was not. At this rate, she would be trouncing down the aisle in her knickers. "I'm leaning towards the taffeta in ivory, but Madam Malkin did make a fairly strong case for the ecru silk."

"I wouldn't recommend it with your coloring, poppet."

She made a dismissive gesture. "That can be changed easily enough."

"Snape's can't, though." Avery regarded the swatches critically. "Your intended's a bit too sallow to be standing beside a shimmering sea of ecru. Now this here... velvet's always a classic."

"For a summertime wedding? I'm not a masochist."

"With your choice of groom? Could've fooled me there."

Tonks let that pass, just as she had pointedly ignored the fact that the Death Eater had pilfered one of her celery sticks and was now blatantly munching upon it. "I still think the taffeta is the way to go."

"And I still think you'll look like a dirigible pudding in that Muggle gown."

"That seems to more or less be the intended effect."

"Do be warned: tulle itches like the devil."

She regarded him with a raised eyebrow. "What's your experience with tulle?"

"The things I do for the Dark Lord..." Avery let that thought trail off as he paused to flick some dust off of his sleeve. "Incidentally, how are your plans coming for attending that other little shindig we were talking about?" It took Tonks a moment to realize that brittle pseudo-cheerfulness had gone out of his eyes. They now looked completely dead.

She leaned forward. "We know the attack is happening tonight. We need your help for where. He's going to kill people if we don't stop it." This was the wrong tack to take - Tonks knew it as soon as she had said it. Avery did not care about lives lost. He would never care. The death count of faceless Muggles was just a way of keeping score.

Avery was regarded her silently, as if letting her work that out for herself. In the mean time, his charming, urbane mask slid back into place. "I do apologize for the inconvenient timing... I'm sure if the Dark Lord had been made aware of your impending nuptials, he would have -"

"Shifted it around a bit so it hit us instead?"

"Well, it is traditional to send a gift if one cannot attend such an event. Pureblood society is rather scrupulously observant of social niceties."

Tonks nodded along. "Right. While you all may be murdering bastards, at least you're polite about it. D'you tip your hat before you use the killing curse on people?"

"I very rarely use the killing curse on people." The veracity of that statement, Tonks concluded, probably hinged entirely on how one defined "people." The priori incantatem search they had executed on his wand suggested that Avery used the killing curse more than just rarely. "Is the best grub you could come up with? It would seem to be a little late to start a diet and, forgive me, but if you have been dieting, your efforts have not been rewarded."

"I happen to like celery." Tonks leaned on the table and rested her chin in one hand. "Seems to me you owe me a wedding present, Avery."

"I don't recall having been invited to the grand affair."

"We didn't want to put you in a difficult spot, what with that whole incarceration thing... besides, I really don't think old Moldybits would approve of the company you'd be keeping. But it just so happens that there are a couple items on our registry that are right up your alley. 'Juicy tidbits of information regarding likely near-future Death Eater attacks on Muggle London,' for instance – I don't think anyone's taken that one yet. I seem to remember that at one point you promised certain information regarding the nasty plans one Dark Lord has for certain non-magical folk."

"I don't seem to recall." Avery grinned. "I'd like to help you, my duckling, but you have to understand my position. My desire to breathe free air does not outweigh my - I think, justifiable - concerns about courting the displeasure of the Dark Lord."

Tonks took a moment to chew. She couldn't entirely fault him for his cowardice, no matter how much she really wanted to. Unlike the last time they had captured Avery, Voldemort wasn't ostensibly dead. While his master lived, Avery would never feel secure enough to confess what he knew. After all, when Lord Voldemort was feeling tetchy, people tended to develop nasty cases of incipient mortality.

"There is always a concern that he may decide I should stop breathing altogether," Avery said unnecessarily. "Then again, seems ol' Severus is the one with the noose about his neck. But I will tell you this much, and only because I've grown so fond of you: the Muggles won't see it coming."

Tonks rose, sensing that Avery had provided everything that he was going to. "Ta. Well, wish me luck."

"Give my best to Severus." As she took her leave, Avery had his hands wrapped around his neck, and - likely to heighten the dramatic effect - his tongue was lolling out and his eyes were bulging.

Tonks ruminated on the interview as she wandered in the general direction of Madam Bones' office. Avery did not use metaphors with fluidity. There was always something strained about them, and that something was probably supposed to be a hint for her. Just enough of a hint to make it her fault if she didn't figure it out in time. Well, at least acting like a complete incompetent had gotten her a little more to work with. It might be a mystery wrapped up in a chicken, stuffed inside a turkey, but it was something they didn't have before.

The floor was unnaturally quiet – even for an ungodly early hour of the morning on a midsummer Saturday – but Tonks was fairly certain that she would find Madam Bones in her office, and she very much wanted someone to go over the interview with.

The monocled witch looked up when Tonks rapped lightly on her office door. "Why are you here?"

"Because my mother isn't." Tonks shrugged. "I snuck in to interview Avery again."

Madam Bones set her paperwork aside. "I do believe it's your wedding day."

"Don't remind me."

"Don't you have other things to do?"

Tonks leaned against the door frame and examined her manicure. She was still a little dubious about the value of such things, but Fleur Delacour had ambushed her. "Turns out that there are worse calamities about to befall Britain than my impending nuptials... despite what you might read in the Prophet. Avery more-or-less confirmed that attack the Death Eaters have been planning is scheduled to happen tonight and he seems to be in the mood to drop hints as to what's actually planned."

Madam Bones' expression did not change. She barely blinked. "I hope you considered that he might be having some fun at your expense. Our prisoner is not exactly a model of candor."

"The thought had occurred to me as well." Tonks frowned. "But it would be just like that double-ended newt to tell us the truth when we least expect it..."

"I shall, of course, have someone conduct follow-up interviews until we get more out of him. And the Aurors will be at the ready - but Muggle London is a very large area to patrol. Even if we were to accept our prisoner at his admittedly dubious word, we are still at a significant loss."

"I know... I'm missing something... I'm almost sure of it."

"Tonks, do tell me something."

"Yes, guv?"

"Are you even an employee of this department anymore?"

"Er... dunno. What's the time?"

"Quarter to eight."

"Oh!"

"Not an employee?"

Tonks grinned. "Still an employee... just late for my gown fitting."

Madam Bones pointed a finger at the door. "Out."

Tonks had obeyed – well, more or less, anyway. She'd left Madam Bones' office and her line of sight. She just hadn't quite managed to leave the Ministry yet. Somehow she'd found her way to her own cubicle, which would soon be someone else's, she supposed. She reclined in the chair which soon wouldn't be hers any longer, rested her feet on her soon-to-be-former desk and let her eyes unfocus. And if you gaze at the cubicle walls, the cubicle walls gaze back at you… In this case, it was the gazes of Death Eaters staring back at her, most of them photographs culled from mug shots and attached somewhat haphazardly with Spellotape. Bellatrix Lestrange was making a face, so Tonks made one back.

Madam Malkin would have to wait.

There was something she was missing. And if she was missing something, that meant there was something to be missed, something that had been overlooked. By her; by the others too.

Something they just weren't seeing. Something... She snorted. Avery'd said they'd never see it coming. So, what if it was something that was there, but that they couldn't see? Something invisible?

She scratched her eyebrow, careful not to upset her rather precarious balance on the two back legs of her chair. An invisibility charm? Disillusionment? That seemed a mite too easy. What if it was something that was by its very nature invisible? She tried to recall her Care of Magical Creatures lessons. There were demiguises, of course, but a fat lot of good skittish herbivores would do. Tebos... now they could do some damage if you got them enraged and set them to running amok about London... particularly if you had someone cast an engorgement charm on them first. But giant rampaging invisible warthogs just didn't seem like Voldemort's style.

What am I not seeing? Tonks' second glance around her cubicle was through narrowed eyes. Well, what aren't I seeing?

"What are you doing?"

Snape's voice startled Tonks out of her thoughts and – inevitably – caused her to unbalance her chair. Well, I suppose I should've seen that coming.

"I'm looking for what I can't see," she replied as she scrambled to her feet and righted her chair.

"Tell me you didn't hit your head."

"Work with me here, you blighter. It's a riddle. Avery told me what it was they've got planned... or at least gave me a hint... What won't I see coming? Something invisible. I've already ruled out fauna and simple charms. The invisibility has got to be integral. Ghosts? No, Moldybits won't associate with the sentient dead if he can help it, will he?"

Snape was looking at her as if he was debating whether or not she needed to be carted off to the spell damage wing at St. Mungo's. As he drew a deep breath in preparation of some retort or another, Tonks felt realization finally hit her.

"Air! It's in the air... a gas of some sort. An..."

The retort died on Snape's lips. "An airborne potion."

"We cornered him at the apothecary. Snape, you're being hired on as a consultant. Pay's whatever I've got in my robe pocket. Come with me."

"Approximately two knuts, one mostly-empty package of Muggle bubble gum, and some inexplicably colorful lint," Snape listed off blandly, but he followed her to the evidence locker nevertheless.

"How much do you want to bet that Avery was sourcing ingredients for this potion?"

"Well, at the moment I'd be willing to put up two knuts, one mostly-empty package of Muggle bubble gum, and some inexplicably colorful lint."

"It'll have to do." She summoned the appropriate evidence bin. "This is what we found on Avery. Maybe we can suss out the potion from the ingredients."

Snape peered over her shoulder as she opened the first vellum envelope. "Venomous Tentacula seeds."

Tonks found herself a little miffed. She could've identified the faintly rattling seeds on her own. "That's a Class C Non-Tradeable Substance."

"Do be sure to add that to the list of charges, then." He slid the evidence bin away from her and began inspecting the various envelopes and apothecary bottles with a professional air. "Kappa bile, dried billywig stings... Ah - powdered root of devil's snare. Now it becomes interesting."

The next envelope contained what looked like a thick piece of dusty black cloth. "Incredibly depressing fabric swatch?" Tonks hazarded.

"Desiccated Lethifold skin."

She wasn't certain she liked the note of reverie in his voice. She peered at the final envelope. "Cat hair? Is there any chance that what we have here is a recipe for removing cat hair from cloaks?"

"Hair of a thrice-dead cat, I have no doubt. What we have here, my dearest Piskie, is a partial list of ingredients for Garrotting Gas."

Tonks frowned. "Not the recipe I learned."

His pale fingers stroked the Lethifold skin almost absently. "No, this is the lethal one."

It fit all too well with Avery's cryptic remarks about nooses and such. Tonks felt the hair on her head stand up as she scanned the ingredients again, this time noting the quantity before her. Why couldn't it ever be easy? Why, just once, couldn't the dastardly evil plan be to give everyone paper cuts or stubbed toes? Why... why couldn't everyone bloody well just get along?

"We have to assume that they have managed to obtain replacement supplies." Snape continued.

She sighed. "How do we stop this?"

Snape was looking at the ingredients as if he expected them to respond. "Airborne potions always require a delicate touch… Garrotting Gas in particular is quite reactive. It may well be possible to…" He looked around the evidence locker, as if reminding himself where he was. "I need my books. And time."

Ah, time – another invisible thing that they were in rather short supply of. "We need to talk to Madam Bones," Tonks reminded him.

"Yes," Snape said. His eyes met Tonks' and she was surprised to see a glimmer there. "While she probably can't provide the former, she may well be in a position to assist with the latter."