The new mother Parvati was still on maternity leave from the Furies and was leaving the day-to-day running of her dress-making firm to her assistants. She was sitting in the Nike's hot tub below decks, cradling Anushka. Lily was with her, Dora on her lap, as were James and Sirius. Albus, Rose and Hugo were in the sauna next door, whilst Padma was playing with Hope and Sachin.

Since the gay Albus and straight Rose are mutually dating the bisexual Scorpius Malfoy, the two cousins have become increasingly close. Cuddled together, they were chatting nineteen to the dozen. Hugo was amused to hear how much of the conversation was about how much they were missing Scorp, particularly his snogging skills.

On the Balaska II, Jean and Linda were babysitting Harriet and Robyn. Harriet is a bright and pretty mixed-race girl, much loved by her adoptive family. She loves nothing better than going riding with her aunties at the Rancho del Sol in Southern California. Linda, the best horsewoman amongst the Former Young Adventurers, is an excellent teacher.

Having arrived at the Castle, the rest of the party were having mulled wine and mince pies in the elegant dining room. "This could almost be a compendium of classic hauntings," Jon Warrender noted, polishing his spectacles before trying in vain to straighten his mop of untidy blond hair. "So far, there has been the classic phantom carriage, spectral monks, a Black Dog and a local variant of the Banshee. Throw in what seems to be a version of the Devil's Footprints in the snow from 1855, and this almost seems too obviously faked to be a hoax!"

"Jeepers! This has happened before then?"

"Yes, in Devon and West Dorset!" George Kirrin answering Daphne Blake's question. "That is in South-West England, not North-East Scotland. Presumably it wouldn't take Old Nick over 165 years to get from Exmoor to Caithness.

"Jon is right. This seems almost too obviously faked to actually be so."

Rex selected a number on his mobile's contact list. "Mr Meaker junior...? Yes, I'm fine, thanks. How are you...? Can you send the McWitch to the Castle of Mey, please? We could do with consulting her... Yes, we'll pay Rentaghost's usual rates... Thank you. Bye!"

"Calling in the genuine ghosts, Rex?" Liz Spencer teased. "When are we expecting the McWitch to show up?"

"I am here now, my dear wee lassie." A short elderly ghost dressed in traditional witches' clothes and with a cheerful expression was in the room. This was Hazel the McWitch, a spectral Scottish sorceress who worked for Rentaghost, a firm which rented ghosts out for a variety of purposes. If your manor house needs haunting, just call Rentaghost… The old advertising jingle came back instantly to the memories of the older British sleuths.

"Miss McWitch," Rex beamed, "it is good to see you again. How are Mr Claypole, Miss Popov and the rest?"

"We're all still long dead, dearie!"

"Fossilised Fishhooks! I asked for that one!

"Miss McWitch, there has been a spate of weird new unearthly activities in the grounds of this castle. We are suspecting these are faked, but would like you to consult with the local ghosts, fairies and what not. Can you help us please?"

"Of course, Mr Milligan! It will be my pleasure! See you soon. Fare ye well, dearies!" With that the ghost vanished.

"Well, gang, it is time to split up and look for clues. " Fred was warming up to his usual spiel. "Velma, take Scooby and Shaggy out into the garden. Daphne and I will take the drive."

"We'll come with you," George said. "Jon, Jig, it is time to unpack our equipment. Rex, you and Luna can liaise with the McWitch."

"That sounds fun! I wonder what Hogwarts was like in the Middle Ages."

"Probably not that much different than it was when I was there in the early-sixteenth century, Luna," Anne noted drily.

"Jigger," Velma asked her husband, "can you tell me more about these Devil's Footprints please? I am sure that I have heard of them before…"

"Darling, in February 1855 a massive blizzard hit the Exe Estuary in Devon. On the 9th of that month, locals woke to find what appeared to be the footprints of a bipedal cloven-hooved animal covering a distance of at least forty miles. Footprints were found on snow-covered roofs, walls and haystacks. They were found on both sides of rivers. Whatever made those tracks had apparently leapt straight over them, as well as being able to walk vertically up high walls.

"Most scholars today believe that it was probably tracks of rodents that melted into the distinctive shape. There are very few contemporary sources relating to the incident, so I suspect that the event was exaggerated over time."

"Jinkies! Has there been anything more recent or local…?"

"There were reports of similar footprints in Girvan, Ayrshire in 2013, although they are generally believed to have been an Aprils Fools' prank.

"Jon and George have finished assembling the last of our equipment. Shall we begin to investigate scientifically?"

"I suppose I should take Shaggy and Scooby clue-hunting to keep Fred happy, love." She kissed him quickly. "See you later, darling!"

Zelena is busy casting spells, checking to see if other United Realms' style magic was being used in the garden or grounds. Harry and Ginny are doing the same for their style of magic.

"Other than Apparition for some reason, no other magic of this realm was performed here recently, Gin, Zelena. Perhaps some Security Wizards were checking to see how easy a magical infiltration of the Castle would be? I'll check this with the Department."

"There was no magic of any other Realm known to me performed here at all, my pretties. Whatever is going on here, it doesn't look as if sorcery is directly involved."

George was looking at a device. "There are no traces of ectoplasm, sulphur or hellfire in the vicinity. Given the snow, the temperature is naturally cold, with no unexplained drops in temperature.

"If this castle really had several ghosts, we would have detected something. We need to start looking for more Earthly explanations."

"Absolutely, love," Jupiter agreed. "It seems as if this perplexing series of inexplicable occurrences have been initiated by potentially felonious individuals. We need to identify how they perpetuated this effective series of illusions and their motivations in doing so."

"Tales of phantom carriages are common in Britain," Rex noted. "There is even one that supposedly took Anne to Blickling Hall on the anniversary of her death every year…"

Anne sighed. "That is news to me, Rex. I'm pretty sure that I would remember going home to Norfolk each year."

"Considering the house that you knew was demolished and rebuilt a few hundred yards away eighty years or so after your death, I'm amazed that you went there in memory of happier times. Given that the coachman and four horses are supposedly headless too, I'm amazed they can find anything."

"Who is supposed to have beheaded them?"

"I don't know, Anne. Despite being headless, the coachman manages to breathe fire. Just how he accomplishes this without a head is never explained."

"Of course not! I suppose that I have my head tucked underneath my arm, as I do in that bloody song!"

"Actually, you ride in the back with it on your lap…"

"What utter nonsense! It must have been that bloody Gregory woman again!"

"Only if she was born a couple of centuries earlier than she actually was, Anne.

"To get back to that story, apparently the coachman is your father. Once he has dropped you off, he has to drive the carriage over a dozen bridges between Blickling and Wroxham before cockcrow for a thousand years as a penance."

"My father was never beheaded. He didn't speak in my or George's defence and was on the jury that convicted my alleged other lovers, if that is what he needs to do penance for allegedly. Neither of us blame him for that, as he had our mother and himself to think of.

"I have never such utter codswallop in either of my lives or my death in between! As you would say, Rex, honestly, I ask you…?!"

"Well, Anne," Luna offered, "it may not be true, but it is a charming…"

"Silencio! You were saying, Luna dear…"

"Well, dearie, I did find a bean nighe in the area. She swears blind that it was nae her that did the weeping. In fact, she is angry that some mortal disturbed her rest with her wailing.

"I can find nae ghosts in the castle, garden or grounds. Nae ghost in the vicinity has heard tell o' anything like what ye all described ere been seen hereabouts afore."

"Thank you, Ms McWitch. Petrified Paintpots! It must be a fake, but why?"

"A couple of the local ghosts have seen a black van on the roads nearby at night, dearie. Could that help?"

"It might," Dan agreed. "Mary darling, ask the representatives of the Trust if anyone has moved into the area recently please. Perhaps one of them owns a black van."

"I'm on it, love! We might get lucky…"

Bess removed her mobile from her handbag. Both items, as well as her smart watch and some of the official contents of the bag, had been commissioned from Q-Branch for the her. Mary and Kate had identical equipment issued to them. After tapping her face on the family photo that formed her screensaver with the second finger of her right hand, she selected the chemical analysis scanner. "Mamas, Kate, there seems to be traces of paint on the driveway."

Velma checked the snow nearby with a trowel. "This snow seems to glow somewhat. Bess, does this paint contain traces of phosphor? It might be glow-in-the-dark…"

"Yes, Velma, it does!"

"This is not where the phantom coach and horses were seen. That said, there seems to be marks in the snow nearby."

"There are traces of glass there, Jigger."

"Pepper's Ghost! They used glass and light to make a coach from behind the guide appear in front of her!"

"That makes sense, Velma. Why, though? I can't imagine that the Royal Family is going to sell up to a crooked property developer!"

"I wouldn't have when I was queen down south, and neither would Mary or Cousin Jane. My illustrious namesake and her heir are cut from the same cloth, I fancy."

"The spirit of Good Queen Bess is still strong within you."

"I haven't changed that much, Jigger! The heart and stomach of a king and all that.

"Presumably they used a similar technique for the monks and the hound. An amplified recording of a woman wailing would account for that banshee. I don't know about the footprints…"

"A lit branding iron pushed in by someone wearing soft snow shoes perhaps? Whatever the cause, we have enough evidence to prove a faked haunting, even if we still don't know why…"

Daphne and Tracey had returned to the Nike with Jupiter and George. The two witches were scanning Mey Bay for traces of magic use with their wands. Tracey started. "Daffy, there seems to be evidence of multiple Disillusionment and Silencing Charms being cast on and of Apparitions to and from the shore over there. We should go and take a look."

"I agree, Trace." Harry, Ron and Millie and their respective wives had been chosen by Lady Hecate herself to form the Coven of Hecate. This gave them amongst other things a telepathic link to each other. Harry, Gin, Weds, Millie, Pans, meet us on the shore please. We may have a lead…

We'll be there, mes amis! Be careful!

Mary looked up from checking her mobile's link to the police database. "A new antique trading company has opened up in East Mey. There is a black van registered to the owner, a Mr Robert Theodore Bruce."

"Robert T Bruce?! Crystallised Cheesecakes! If they had been trying to fake a Scottish name, why not start with King Robert the Bruce and drop the title and extend the "the?"

"Jig was right! If he is involved, our fakers can't resist overegging the pudding."

"Agreed, Rex! That still doesn't explain why!"

As Dan finished speaking, Bess entered the Scottish Baronial-style Great Hall. She still had her mobile out with the chemical analysis app switched on. "Those pictures on the wall were only painted in the last couple of weeks," she noted.

"What?!" Hermione shouted, having just entered with Ron. "Those pictures are of the Earls of Sutherland and were collected by the Queen Mother herself."

"Priori Incantatem!" Ron cast, whipping out his wand. "This room has been the site of several Apparitions over the last few weeks! That must be how the thieves got in and out!"

"Mary," Dan said, "please see if you can find any photos of this so-called Mr Bruce and use your mobile's police database app to crosscheck for a criminal record. If you can get a name, ask Hermione to pass it on to Headmistress Sinistra to crosscheck against Hogwarts' admission records."

Ron nodded. "Daphne and Tracey have discovered signs of magic on the shore at Mey Bay. Harry, Ginny, Wednesday, Millie and Pansy are meeting them there."

George and Jupiter had launched the Nike's aerial drone from its hiding place beneath a hatch concealed in the foredeck. Controlled from the scanning array control panel and with the adaptive camouflage and every scientific and magical anti-detection measure known to humanity, it allowed George to take video footage of the whole coastline. This revealed nothing visible to the naked eye.

Tracey and Daphne, having Apparated to the shore, were searching the area where the charms had been centred. Cancelling the Disillusionment Charms, they found a dinghy with an outboard motor.

"Presumably, they are using this to smuggle something into the country," Tracey guessed. "Drugs perhaps?"

"No, Trace darling," Ginny told her, having Apparated in. "We think it is being used to smuggle somethings out. There have been portraits stolen from the Castle of Mey."

"We know the how, the why and the where, and we might have found a who," Millie noted. "All we need to do is catch them…"

"I'll speak to Richard Morton," Jon Warrender said. Richard was a fellow Lone Piner, the group of once young sleuths that Jon and Penny belonged to. Having become a reporter in adulthood, Richard was the editor of The Clarion, a newspaper based in London. He and his wife and fellow Lone Piner Fenella lived in his late parents' old London home. The couple had a son Reuben who lived on Themyscira with his wife, the Amazon Princess Athena, granddaughter of Hippolyta, daughter of Drusilla and niece of Diana and Donna.

Luna nodded happily. "He can get press passes for Ginny, Pansy and me to approach that antiques business for an interview."

"Absolutely not, Luna dear!"

"Gin's right, Luna. Remember Captain Fishfinger!" Four months earlier, an adventure off Iceland had seen the three pretending to be reporters alongside Bess and Kate on a fish processing plant that was run by Fishfinger. It was actually part of the front for an illegal whaling operation owned by the Penguin. Having been captured and interrogated, Luna's quirkiness under pressure had irritated Fishfinger enough to order that Pansy and Ginny be stripped to their underwear and tied to a pipe in an industrial freezer turned up to maximum. Luna herself was chained naked to a whipping post and received ten of a threatened forty lashes from a cat o' nine tails before being rescued.

"Perhaps Lina and I should go," Anne suggested. "Other than my picture at Hogwarts, we would be less likely to be known by sight to any wizard art thieves. Ginny, Pansy and Luna would be instantly recognised by them."

"You have a point, Anne. We know that they have at least one mage in their number.

"Anne, Catalina, we shall arrange those passes for tomorrow."

"Do you have any apprehension about tomorrow, mi amor?" Catalina snuggled up to her wife in bed that night.

"A little, 'Lina darling," Anne admitted. "At least, however, it is us and not our daughters heading into possible danger this time. If we have to spend some time bound and gagged in a locked room, as long as we are together, we can cope.

"I have already been killed once, my love, and you have also died before. We know that death is only the beginning of a great adventure. Now, my darling, let us celebrate life." She removed her nighty and tossed it out of the bed, before giving Catalina a come hither look.

"Thankfully you remembered the silencing charms on the walls, mi amor," Catalina responded, throwing her own nighty aside.

"Boss, there have been some visitors to Castle Mey. Here is some footage from that video camera we placed in a fir tree in the garden."

"Hey, that's Harry Potter, Head of the Auror Department, and his Deputy Ron Weasley."

"That's the wizard police force, right, brother? What are they doing here?"

"Boss, we have a couple of reporters from The Clarion coming tomorrow. They are doing some puff piece on new businesses in Caithness. Two women named Anne and Catalina Pembroke are doing the interview, apparently."

"Interesting! It could be a coincidence, of course, but we should be alert for any tricks.

"We may need two nosey reporters to get lost at sea…"