"How come you know, but nobody else?" Gwen's voice sounded suspicious. "I mean, Jonathan has been trying to find that out for …well, for about a month, and if even Agatha Hill won't tell him…" Jonathan had been really bitter about it.
"Perhaps because it is something Agatha Hill really couldn't tell him," suggested Honoria.
"Now what is it – and why do you know?"
"Well, I happened to overhear Mayfield one night in the Three Broomsticks, he was talking to another guy there."
"You happened to overhear…" Gwen replied, even more suspicious now.
"Don't look at me like that. It wasn't exactly overhearing. It was after a particularly intensive trance session with some very advanced witches. I felt so permeable…well, never mind. We went to the pub for some butterbeers, and I didn't really participate in the others' conversation. I just kept them company, and let my mind float. Mayfield was sitting in a corner, talking very softly to that other guy, and first I didn't even notice that I could hear him. It was suddenly as if I could read his mind."
"Oh-là-là, we should examine your brain, ma chère,"exclaimed Isabelle.
"Shhh!" said Gwen.
"I was in a kind of stupor. And then I suddenly noticed the word 'horcrux'. I was startled and listened … or concentrated on their conversation, whatever. He was telling the other one that he and his colleague had been ordered to study horcruxes, and that it was horrible since it was impossible to do any – let's say – practical research. So they tried, at least, to develop a theoretical knowledge."
"Horcruxes! Parbleu! In the Ministry?"
"I wonder who ordered them to study such a topic."
"I don't know. Anyway … they suddenly got up and left the pub."
"And who was the other man?"
"I don't know either. I couldn't even see him really well. He was wearing a kind of hood. Biggish man. Black robes. Broad-shouldered." Honoria shrugged.
"And why didn't you tell Mrs Beresford all this?"
"She didn't ask me! You know how we ... She just kept on asking me about why I returned to the Brain Room on the morning in question." She pouted.
Gwen looked again at the card. "The goblet!" she exclaimed.
"What goblet?" Now they turned to look at her. Honoria had spilt some water from her cup.
Gwen looked guiltily from one to the other. "This card shows a goblet. There is a goblet in Archie's office. In fact, I saw Mayfield with it the other day." She pointed to the centre card.
"Do you think that Mayfield…?"
"No," she shook her head, thinking hard. "Not necessarily, but isn't it possible that someone was interested in their work? In their findings? Or that someone simply didn't want them to find out … whatever? I mean, horcruxes,… that's real dark magic."
Then and there Gwen decided to tell Jonathan about it. Maybe Mayfield was in danger, too?
Isabelle got up and took a sip from her tea. "Alors, isn't it wonderful what the cards can tell you? Fascinant, n'est-ce pas? Let's read the last card, too."
As they nodded, Honoria turned up the third card.
It showed a great star with eight rays, surrounded by seven smaller stars, also of eight rays. Beneath them, a naked woman was kneeling on her left knee, her right foot standing in a pond. She poured water from two ewers, irrigating sea and land. Behind her mountains could be seen in the distance, and on the right side a small tree, wherefrom a bird soared.
"L'Étoile," Isabelle murmured. "It's so beautiful. One of the major Arcana."
"I see a beautiful woman, serenity, summer, abundance…" Gwen mused.
"Yeah, The Star. I really love that card. Now it makes me think of calmness, and inspiration," Honoria added.
"This looks hopeful, doesn't it?" Gwen wondered, getting up again, stretching her limbs and giving a big loud yawn.
~ooOOooOOooOOooOOoo~
Monday, 23 May 1994
Dozens of water jets were flowing from the golden figures of a witch, a wizard, a goblin, a centaur, and a house-elf, but nobody took notice of the monument representing peace and harmony of the wizarding world. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry. Some witches and wizards were greeting one another, some were standing in groups talking softly. A constant buzzing was in the air.
Gwen had just arrived using the Main entrance (she hated Apparating, but as she still had no Floo powder, and didn't want to ask Hugh or anyone else again, she had had no other choice than Apparating to London). With a grumpy expression she rushed through the Atrium to reach the lifts.
The one she entered was already transporting two wizards, one had blond hair, and a rosy complexion, the other was small and dark-haired. She pushed the button for Level Six. The blond, muscular and slightly overweight wizard grinned at her, his round blue eyes twinkling. He looked quite familiar, and when he left on Level Seven, Gwen realised that it had been Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports.
The cool female voice announced their arrival on Level Six and Gwen entered the corridor of the Department of Magical Transportation.
She had to pass through a long corridor, and said hello to Wilkie Twycross, who was just leaving one of the doors of the Apparition Test Centre. The Apparition instructor, known to everyone who had attended Hogwarts, nodded to her, his hair wispier than ever. Gwen had to stifle a giggle, remembering how students had given the Ministry instructor some rather unflattering nicknames in her school days. His teaching had seemed insufficient, only focussing on the rather abstract concept of the "three Ds". Even today she wasn't good at Apparating.
She hurried along the corridor, deep in thought, and not even looking at the doors leading to Broom Regulatory Control, thus missing her neighbour Hugh, who entered one of the offices to obtain a permission for the design of a special windproof broomstick a witch from Scotland had asked him to manufacture.
Panting slightly she opened the door with a plaque bearing the name "Mrs Edgcombe, Floo Network Authority".
Several witches and wizards were sitting in the cramped waiting-room, reading the Daily Prophet, violet-coloured memos, or pieces of parchment. Some were just snoozing in their seats. The air was stale.
Gwen cursed under her breath. She wanted to talk to Jon urgently, and tell him what Honoria had revealed to them, but now she had to wait like everyone else in here.
After nearly an hour, it was finally Gwen's turn, when the voice of the curly red-haired Madam Edgecombe trilled "Who's next, please?" She got up stumbling, and followed her into her office.
After wishing each other a good morning – Gwen rather sulkily, Madam Edgcombe as brightly as the sunshine outside – the latter bade her to sit down.
"Just wanted to get my allowance of Floo powder," mumbled Gwen, nudging her glasses straight on her nose.
"Name, personnel number, Department, Division?" the FNA employee asked briskly.
Gwen rummaged in her leather-bag and produced a small card made from particularly thick parchment, which seemed to be just blank and black. Madam Edgcombe held it over a special magical appliance that looked like a square piece of glass in a metal frame on four tiny silvery legs. Then she pointed her wand on the glass, and mumbled a spell. The glass started emanating a thin greenish fog, and a picture of Gwen as well as her data gleamed in small golden letters.
"Ah, it's you," Madam Edgecombe smiled at her (Gwen was quite sure that she didn't know her at all), and stood up to open a drawer in the huge white wall-cabinet behind her.
Suddenly the door opened and a plump witch entered, slightly out of breath. Madam Edgcombe whirled around, a big pot with floo powder in her hand.
Gwen recognised the witch at once, as Evelyn had gossiped about her in the smoking room the other day.
"You have to wait outside until you…" Madam Edgcombe tried to reason with Bertha Jorkins.
"Sorry, Madam Edgcombe, but it's really urgent. I need the documents regarding the portkeys for the Quidditch World Cup final…"
"Then you are completely wrong here," Madam Edgcombe interrupted her resolutely, drawing herself up. "The Portkey Office is farther along the corridor, right-hand side, Mr Clavis' office."
When Bertha Jorkins had turned and left the FNA office, Madam Edgcombe used a pair of scales and a silver spoon to fill a measure of floo powder into a metal box, which she handed over to Gwen.
Gwen took it, thanked her rapidly and hurried out of her office as fast as she could.
~ooOOooOOooOOooOOoo~
Gwen entered the Death Chamber, where Ivo Gilmour was working beside the Arch. He seemed to be speaking softly in a foreign language, which Gwen didn't recognise. She listened curiously, but didn't dare to linger.
She rushed to Dusk's (former) and Mayfield's office and opened the door. She was disappointed when she noticed that no one was there.
Where was Jonathan?
Crow was probably working in his own office, as Gwen's current work didn't seem to interest him. She was still trying elaborate the differences between a well-preserved brain and a brain in a similar condition as the victim's had been, which Vivi had provided the other day.
The wormwood hummed very softly.
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?
"I've been to London to look at the queen."
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you there?
"I frightened a little mouse under the chair."
Looking around Gwen's gaze suddenly fell on the small table at the wall, and the items standing upon it. Without knowing why, she turned around to make sure that no one was watching her. She approached the table on tiptoes and scrutinised the things without touching them. The goblet was made of a shining metal, probably bronze or brass, and engraved with snakes. She frowned. It looked fairly harmless.
Perhaps Miss Carthew knows how to identify a horcrux, she thought.
She hadn't been able to find her neighbour on Sunday, since Miss Carthew had gone to visit a grandniece of hers. Gwen looked at the other things – the vase, the mugs, gemstones, quills, parchment, candles, and the Mars sculpture.
Are all these things dark magical objects? she wondered.
She paced in front of the small table, knitting her hands, not knowing what to do. Should she try to find Jonathan in the Aurors' Headquarters? She winced. She wasn't really keen on going there. She thought of this morning's tarot card, the Knight of Swords. It showed a handsome, yet angry-looking young man, riding a white horse fiercely across a desert, and holding a sword high in his right hand.
Perhaps Jon has left the Ministry altogether, she told herself. I could ask Crow, who's probably next door. She pulled a face. She definitely wasn't keen to go there either.
As she left the office, Ivo Gilmour was just walking up the steep stairs that lead down to the Arch.
"Excuse me, Mr Gilmour, do you know where Jonathan Hope is?" she approached him boldly.
Ivo Gilmour smiled, his dark eyes behind his spectacles looking at her kindly.
"I haven't seen him all morning," he replied in his sonorous voice. "But please call me Ivo, Mr Gilmour sounds much too formal, don't you think?"
She smiled and held out her hand. "And I'm Gwendolyn, or Gwen, if you like."
He took her hand, then she sighed: "So I'll go and ask Mr Crow."
"Oh, don't bother, he's not here either." Noticing the relief in her face, he suddenly gave a broad, nearly boyish grin, but then looked earnest again. "He'll be back tomorrow."
Gwen looked taken aback and thought: What would Crow say if I simply stayed away without telling him?
When she saw Ivo stowing away his wand inside his robes, she asked: "What language was it that you were speaking just now?"
He cocked his head, pondered for a moment, and replied: "That was an African language, Yoruba. A Yoruba dialect called Ẹfọn, to be exact."
"And whom were you talking to ?" Gwen blurted out, adjusting her glasses nervously.
"I … I was talking to an ancestor's soul," he stated with a finality in his voice that forbade further questions. Gwen sensed that she had reached an invisible barrier. But since he was still eyeing her kindly, she tried one feeble step further.
"So there is an afterlife, is there?" she whispered.
He couldn't help laughing. "Of course, there is," he said, "and maybe there isn't – for some people, at least. But how is it like or could be like – that's a question that interests me. Sorry, Gwendolyn, I must leave now." With these cryptic words he waved at her, winking, and went to one of the offices nearby.
Gwen decided to use the opportunity and pop into the Brain Room, perhaps she could get up to date with her team members' work. Apart from that, she wanted to ask Ademarus some questions regarding her own investigation.
~ooOOooOOooOOooOOoo~