Chapter 54: Mr Liquorice

An ice cream van that looked something between a peddler's cart and a roma wagon, full of wood and with an actual rounded roof, big old-school wheels but no horse to tow it, waited patiently for clients on a small belvedere towards the northern edge of Felixstowe. A woman with black, wavy hair held in a messy bun and pink cheeks held the counter, smiling softly at the daily life going on in the neighborhood – though, lately, people tended to stay home more often than not, as if a blanket of unease had fallen over the entire country.

Some people would say that the van had a "je ne sais quoi", a special style just its own, and that it was the only reason for its unusualness.

Which wasn't entirely untrue, but the magical persuasion of its owner played a big part in the choices she'd made while her father had built the entire van's exterior.

Hestia's mother was a muggle ice cream maker, and her daughter liked talking with people, so she'd decided early on to drive her vanishing van across the country and sell her mother's creations. Her father, who didn't have a set job but worked all kinds of odd magical stints and took care of the garden, had helped her mother with the more unusual – for muggles – flavors on top of cobbling up Hestia's van – which was technically not a muggle artifact and thus not illegal to bewitch.

Hestia absolutely loved her job, and if her clients sometimes ended up telling her things, well.

That was her participation to the Order of the Phoenix, more so than anything else. Of course, she did occasionally take part in other endeavors, such as when she'd come to pick up Harry Potter at his relatives' house – she still didn't understand how they could be so... towards the boy – but mostly, she just knew all the mundane gossip – whereas Sirius, him, knew all the high society gossip, somehow, and more than that he knew everything about what those families didn't even want to remember about their own past.

Hestia, thematically, was also very good with cold-related spells, including glacius, the shivering hands hex, putting something – or someone – in a worseningly cold wind, the ice jinx, or conjuring frozen spikes and sending them at a target, even while on a broom. She'd almost gotten Rodolphus Lestrange by breaking a cloud into hail right over his head last week – unfortunately, his younger brother had snatched Lestrange out of the area of effect with a powerful accio.

Speaking of Death Eaters, they were the entire reason why Hestia had brought her ice cream van to Felixstowe seven days in a row, when she usually only came once a month – she liked going everywhere and meeting a lot of different people, trying various town squares and beaches, getting everyone's curiosity with her quaint little rolling shop.

Just down the belvedere, the ground slopped slightly, giving her a view over the Travers Cottage and its outer cabins, a countryside property that used to stand away from the city itself once upon a time, when Felixstowe had been smaller. A couple of Death Eaters might be hiding down there, with the mostly involuntary agreement of the Travers sisters, Rebecca and Lynda, according to Moody, who'd heard it from Sirius, who'd been made aware of the problem by a cryptic but pointed statement about rats from the oldest sister herself.

Hestia checked on her lidded containers – linked through magic to her mom's storage of various ice creams – then leaned back for a look at the older man sitting on a cheap folding chair behind her van, a purple bucket hat strongly screwed on his head and hiding his eyes.

"Al, still alive?"

Moody grunted from under the hat, unbothered with his magical eye.

Hestia smiled to herself:

"Apparently, yes. That's good."

She wouldn't usually call the ex-auror by such a nickname, but he'd squinted at her and said they were trying to be discreet, and anyone who knew anything – and that they definitely didn't want to get spotted by – would recognize his usual nickname or his family name, and might still get suspicious with his full first name. "Al", you see, could be Alexander, Alfred, Alan, Albert or Alwin: he could be any muggle grandad she'd have taken out for the day – his words, not hers.

As there were potentially two or more Death Eaters about and the belvedere was the center of the local wizarding community – Felixstowe had about a dozen of families and a handful of lone wolves scattered in the nearby streets – Hestia had complied and taken to calling the ex-auror "Al".

It still sounded weird.

An older man – the pharmacist two doors over, he was married to the owner of Magical Remedies, the only wizarding shop in Felixstowe – crossed the belvedere to reach the ice cream van. Hestia waved at Mr Douglas, already reaching for his usual flavors.

"Pumpkin and chocolate for your wife and apple cider for you, is that right, Wilbert?"

The pharmacist put on his revealing glasses – Hestia's mom had the same, as those were still the best way to allow muggles to see through muggleblind perception charms – and frowned at the van's chalkboard.

"Good day to you, Miss Jones. Aurel and his family are eating with us tonight, so if you could recommend something? I'm a bit... what's 'Root Tears' flavor? A... mandrake, uh. Do you think the girls would like it?"

Hestia glanced at her chalkboard, skipping the white chalk for muggle classics and muggle-friendly tastes and focusing on the muggleblind yellow chalk instead.

"I wouldn't recommend it. It's... Kids don't really like it, too sour. Your son and his wife, perhaps. How old is the youngest, already?"

"Cordelia's three, she can have a bit for dessert, but not too much sugar."

"Hmm, then... you could go for strawberry or vanilla, classics always work for a reason. If you want a special flavor, though, I'd say Poppings Delights, it's berries with a touch of fairy dust, the ice cream shifts into small pearls of each taste. Or there's Toad's Favorite, it does sound weird but the green and jelly-like quality is actually very refreshing."

Mr Douglas sighed and wiped his glasses, still frowning.

"I think I'm getting on my years, can't see quite right... Did you know, Miss Jones, we usually spend our saturday evenings comparing scientific and magical remedies and arguing about the methods, but lately I have to put whatever Hortensia brings out at arm's length or I just can't read it at all..."

Hestia gave a sigh of commiseration and told herself that it would be nice if everyone could be like the Douglas family: not only tolerating or not caring about the others being muggles or from a magical family, but actively building off the others' knowledge. That would mean doing away with the Statute of Secrecy, though, and that...

Hestia wasn't that naive: it could maybe, be done, but it'd have to be done progressively, by showing it could work – through couples and family and friends – and more than that, it'd have to be done everywhere at once. Revealing the truth about magic to muggles in only one country or two would just put all the others in danger, forcing their hands even if they weren't prepared for it.

It was, perhaps, a utopia, but still: it was one she liked to believe in.

A cold gust of wind rose over the belvedere and Mr Douglas shivered, tightening his coat over his frail form. A shacky laugh on his lips, he glanced around but saw nothing.

"A bit cold for late September, I think, isn't it?"

Behind the van, "Al"'s hand twitched.

Cold, these days, tended to mean dementors – or at least, it was true often enough that everyone could be a bit paranoid, and Mr Douglas was married to a witch. He might not be able to see dementors without his revealing glasses, but he knew nonetheless – which meant that he knew to be afraid of a colder day.

As far as the Ministry's watchers could tell, most roaming dementors remained around London – where they could find the most potential victims, the most memories to steal and souls to eat – and those who strayed away did so for several weeks, leaving a visible trail from the capital.

None had been seen North of London in the last week. Hestia, however, wouldn't put it past a Death Eater to try and figure out how to summon one for their own needs.

"Sure you want ice cream, Mr Douglas?"

The pharmacist gave her a look and took out a money pouch – Hestia took muggle and wizarding money alike, but Mr and Mrs Douglas always paid in sickles, using Mrs Douglas' money, saying it didn't make sense for Hestia to have to go through the exchange rate.

"Miss Jones, we have heating in our house, I assure you. Besides, ice cream does raise our spirits even in a gloomy atmosphere. It'll be my and Hortensia's usuals, plus one scoop of strawberry, one bowl of Root Tears and grapes, one of vanilla and Popping Delight, two of Popping Delight and Toad's Favorite."

"For tonight, right? Don't forget to put the bowls in the cold box right away, Mr Douglas."

"We've got a fridge, but sure. And, Miss Jones?"

Hestia finished closing the lids of her thin wooden bowls – wintermaple wood, straight from Russia and perfect to keep the cold – and put them in a fabric bag – she only used those for people in the know, as they disappeared back to the van the moment they were emptied.

"Yes, Mr Douglas?"

The old man glanced away, down the belvedere:

"Don't worry too much about us, will you? Mrs Travers has been going around the houses of everyone who knows with a specialist in, what do you call it already? Wards, I think? Making a city-wide barrier against several things, if I remember right. Well, for now it's more the neighborhood, but that's what she aspires to, at the end of it."

Hestia blinked, taken by surprise.

"...Did she, really?"

A lot of people called her naive, because she expected the best of people more often than not, but that – she hadn't seen that one coming.

Mr Douglas shrugged, a small smile on his lips.

"Mrs Travers doesn't like dead people on her doorstep, I think. No one does, really, but that young woman is so ambitious, her doorstep is miles-wide and she doesn't believe anything is too big to be achieved. Better for us all, I suppose. How much, for the ice creams?"

"Oh, hmm... Twenty-two, thirty... two galleons and nine sickles, please. And do take care of yourself, you and the Mrs."

As the pharmacist disappeared back into his house, Hestia looked at Moody:

"Did you hear that, Al?"

"Hmpf. Yes, I did. Not really surprised, though, the wider the wards' influence, the further away from the cottage and its outer cabins the threats. Wouldn't stop everything, of course, especially not a Death Eater that's already inside, but at least they might not have to worry about Dementors."

Considering how complex and expensive such wards would be, Hestia felt Moody was just being his usual paranoid self by saying none of this was surprising – he, however, wasn't wrong about inner threats. Maybe Lady Travers felt guilty about the two Death Eaters she and her sister were harboring, pushing her to try and fortify everything else about Felixstowe.

"Hey, M... Al. You knew the half-brother, didn't you? Back when he worked for the Auror Office."

For a moment, Hestia thought the ex-auror wasn't going to answer – she could only guess, what with the bucket hat, but it seemed like Moody was glaring stronger than before at the Travers property down the belvedere. Maybe he'd seen something.

Before she could ask, the wizard grunted and turned vaguely towards the street.

"Julius Travers. He did a good job as an auror, and perhaps you could feel how property ruled everything he did rather than a sense of right and wrong, but mostly there wasn't a reason to suspect him of anything. Back when Black exposed him as a Death Eater, it became a right scandal. It sure explained why he'd kept working even after having inherited the Travers lordship, though."

"Didn't he kill the previous lord?"

"Travers was the son of his father's first love, a muggleborn girl, I don't remember her name. Lord Travers of that time, the great-grandfather I think, didn't like that at all and forced Aurius Travers to marry Hestia Parkinson instead. The mother argued and managed to have Julius be mostly raised by his paternal family, convinced he'd have an easier life that way. The moment the great-grandfather passed away, Julius was made second Heir, right after his father. From the little we managed to figure out, he got resentful of his mother's blood and his father's choices, got tangled with the Death Eaters, murdered his father and started sabotaging and feeding intel on the Auror Office to Voldemort. He also used his family's influence to get favors from around the world."

"...So most of his family accepted him as a halfblood, even gave him the lordship, and he just decided it wasn't good enough and..."

A kid raced down the street and stopped right at the ice cream van, a handful of sickles in hand.

"Cherry and chocolate, please! With hopping sprinkles!"

Hestia leaned down and smiled at the blond curls and wide smile.

"Hello, Leonard! How is daycare going?"

"I'm the best at reading! I mean, I'm the oldest, too, so there isn't a lot of competition, but still! Say, Miss Jones, how long will you stay in Felixstowe?"

Hestia shrugged and gave him his ice cream cone.

"I'm not sure, really. Felt like sticking around, for a change. I heard Miss Purplewood is getting married next week, and maybe I wanted to see how this is going to turn out!"

The boy grimaced and shook his head.

"Anna's fiance is an idiot!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah! He doesn't even know magic is real!"

Hestia burst out laughing and accepted the silver coins.

"Anna doesn't know that either, Leonard, they're both muggles!"

"...You're sure? But Anna's so pretty, you can't do that without magic, right?"

Someone had a crush, it seemed, and obviously the kid wasn't yet quite on point with the Statute of Secrecy, but that wasn't too bad: people would chalk it up to too much imagination. Hestia would tell his parents next time she saw them, and perhaps she'd try to convince them to put Leonard in muggle primary school, so that he could get a better feel of what it was like for those who didn't have magic. It shouldn't be too difficult, the dad was muggleborn and the mom halfblooded...

"Hurry up home, now, and try to be kind to the neighbor's fiance, even if he's stealing Anna away!"

The boy nodded reluctantly and turned on his heels, trying his ice cream on the way home and barely avoiding walking into another client, presumably – a youngish man, dressed like a muggle.

"Hello, sir. Anything I can do for you today?"

The man glanced over the van as he answered:

"A cone, liquorice and, hmm, I'll try the Root Tears, I'm curious. And, I must say you've done a good job catching the eye, what with that van..."

A wizard, then: he could see the muggleblind chalk – maybe he'd had to go somewhere with a lot of muggles, but even so, these were some very muggle-passing clothes, not just the average perception charm woven in. Even Hestia's robes, halfway to a white apron, still had some witch-typical fashion about them – muggles thought it was part of a package, to go with the custom van; for the rest, her choker necklace did its job as a perception charm and kept them from noticing more.

The great thing with Death Eaters and their aversion to everything muggle was that most of them wouldn't even try passing themselves off as an unremarkable muggle person, so you could be reasonably certain that anyone muggle-looking wasn't going to try and murder you any time soon.

Even Moody admitted that – though he would note that not all criminals were Death Eaters.

"No problem! Are you from around here, perhaps?"

The man chuckled, the corner of his mouth tilting up.

"...Not really, no. I'm... visiting someone. Saw your van up here and decided to drop by."

His face dimmed slightly.

"I heard what happened to Florean Fortescue in Diagon Alley, so I'm trying out other ice cream vendors, muggles included. You're an elusive one, never in the same place."

Hestia winced, acknowledging her only real rival – Honeydukes made ice cream too, and some restaurants had it on the menu for dessert, but no one else specialized in making and selling ice creams and sherbets only – on the wizarding market's terrible abduction during the summer.

Florean had always been a kind rival, a few years older than her, and they didn't have the same area of operations, so they'd been friends rather than enemies. The attack on his parlour had been sudden, unexplained, and no one had been able to do anything before both Florean and his attacker had disappeared from sight: no one knew anything.

Hestia forced her smile back on and handed his cone to her new client:

"Here, six sickles and twenty-three knuts. I can give you a proximity chime to hang at home, if you want to know when Scoops on Wheels stops by your town?"

That seemed to amuse the man to a point, he bit his lips as he paid for his ice cream cone.

"Sorry, it's just... You don't stop by my house, of that I'm absolutely certain. Not enough customers."

"I can adjust it for the nearest town, then? Lots of people don't live right in a village, I adapted a long time ago. Had to, with the way I do business."

"Ah, that's..."

"Look, what do you think 'Toad's Favorite' tastes like, Rosie?"

"What are you even talking about? It's all the usual flavors, like vanilla or lemon. I mean, yeah, pumpkin sounds a bit weird, but I don't see anything about a toad anywhere..."

The wizard and Hestia both turned to look around – he took a step back, too, as the witch noticed two pre-teen girls with their mother. The older one couldn't see muggleblind chalk, but the younger girl – around ten, maybe, and she walked with a slight limp – was still pointing up, obviously unaware of the yellow chalk's magical nature.

They both looked like their mother. Sisters, then, and one of them was muggleborn but it wasn't true of her older sister.

"No, see, it's written there, in yellow!"

"Everything's written in white, Leah."

It wasn't the first time Hestia had to deal with such a situation: working in the muggle world, even if covertly so, meant finding muggleborn kids who didn't know about magic yet, on occasion. If you could, you should always try and help them – and their family, if possible – acclimate to the idea of magic, even if you didn't explain everything. It would make the news about Hogwarts easier for the parents, down the line, and it could prevent some miscommunication and other issues.

Learning about powers your family didn't share and couldn't help you with, before you even reached eleven years old, in an incident that needed the intervention of obliviators or any other ministry workers... It was never an easy path, for those it happened to.

Best to have someone explain before it came to that, if possible.

"Mom, tell her!

The muggle woman glanced up – at the chalkboard, then at Hestia and finally at the ice cream van in its entirety – but couldn't, of course, see the yellow chalk either.

"I'm sorry, Leah, but there's nothing written in yellow."

"But..."

Hestia took a deep breath and interrupted:

"I did use yellow chalk under the white flavors. You two just can't see it, but Leah, is that right? Leah can. It's... Not everyone can see it. Only some of my customers..."

Leah and Rosie's mother didn't know what to say to that, and Hestia braced herself for the continuation of this particular explanation – but Leah's eyes shone with a new light and the girl jumped on her feet excitedly.

"That's what the witch who came yesterday was talking about, right, Mom!? You know, the letter, and the school I'm going to next year! Hogva... Howar... Uh, no, it's..."

The man – who'd been politely eating his ice cream on the side – coughed and laughed.

"Hogwarts. It's Hogwarts, in Scotland. I take it your daughter just got her eleventh birthday?"

The mother sighed in relief and nodded.

"...Yes. Are you...?"

"A wizard? Sure. And Hestia here is a witch, but she also sells to muggles, or else she might not have enough clients. She just hides the more unusual flavors with muggleblind yellow chalk."

The muggle woman still looked unsure of herself – but if she'd only learned about magic the day before, it wasn't so surprising. If anything, she was taking it pretty well.

"When you say muggles, you mean... people like me and Rosie, right? Without magic?"

"Hmm."

"Alright, I just... I wasn't sure what to believe, even after that woman... that witch, Professor McGonagall, came with Leah's acceptance letter. But if there are other people like Leah around, I suppose it was the truth, not a dream either?"

Hestia hesitated only a moment before she decided it wasn't a secret to begin with:

"Do you live around, Mrs?"

The oldest girl pointed down the street, where an alley branched out and towards the town center.

"About ten minutes down, yeah."

"Then, if you or your daughter ever needs help, of the magical kind, I mean, the pharmacist's wife is a witch too. Not Mr Douglas, he's a muggle like you or Rosie, but they'll be able to tell you what to do, or at least who to talk to."

Best not to mention the Travers down the belvedere, if there were really Death Eaters hiding in one of the cabins. A muggleborn's family going down there asking for help, specifically because they didn't know how to handle their child's magic? Not a good idea.

Leah smiled widely at Hestia.

"Thanks! And, Mom, can we have ice cream, then? I want to try Toad's Favorite!"

The mother blinked back at the chalkboard – still no "Toad's Favorite" for her to see there, of course – and bit her lower lip.

"...It's not made with toad slime, is it?"

The wizard snorted into what was left of his liquorice and mandrake juice cone. Hestia ignored him.

"No, but it does look a bit jelly-like and it's green, so. If you like cucumber and honey, it's pretty similar, just, there's one more ingredient you can't find in muggle shops, a plant that grows around magic-rich springs."

The description sure did intrigue Leah, her sister and her mother: each of them took a cone with a scoop of Toad's Favorite, though they chose different flavors for their second scoop – strawberry, pear and lemon.

Leah bit into her strawberry scoop – bold – and paused – an expected consequence to the boldness.

"Say, Miss Hestia? Can you show me magic? The Professor turned my stuffed animal into a kitten yesterday, I asked if we could keep it but she said it wouldn't last past a week or so..."

...Terrible idea, with the Trace on the girl. The charm was firstly a safety measure – it allowed the Ministry to react if anything magical happened to an underage witch or wizard, wards aside – and was applied and registered the moment a magical child was recognized as such – most muggleborns didn't have it until the Hogwarts Deputy Headmistress came around.

Which Mcgonagall had already done, evidently. Besides, they were out in muggle sight.

"Sorry, kid, not out in the open like that. If someone who doesn't know saw us..."

The girl looked terribly disappointed, and her sister rolled her eyes.

"Come on, Leah, you get to see chalk Mom and I can't, that's magic, no?"

"It's not the same thing at all!"

The younger sister wanted sparks and a show, something obvious to label as magic into her new life as a witch, and all Hestia had to offer were a few enchanted, passive objects that...

Wait.

"You know, I won't do a spell right here, but I can tell you... I have lots of flavors for an ice cream van, and it's all scoops, too! The van's small, though. Do you know where I store it all up?"

Both Leah and Rosie frowned at the ice cream van, looking left and right – starting when they noticed Moody "napping" behind the back door – and not coming up with an explanation.

"Come here, look: the containers are bigger on the inside, or, not quite, but they're magically linked with bigger storage back home, see?"

And Hestia buried her entire arm in the salted caramel container – there wasn't any left back home, they'd been taken by surprise and her mother was still in the process of making more.

"Wow... Could you, like, go entirely inside?"

"I mean, I can't fit through the container and it's only a big cold vat on the other side, so..."

Hestia took her arm out, while Leah, perched in her mother's arms, peered into the empty container.

"I don't know, I thought you just... waved your wand and the ice cream appeared?"

"We can't conjure up food, kid, and even duplicating it with magic can be dicey. There's always a risk of losing something in the process: the taste, the energy it gives, the texture... You have to be able to imagine exactly what you want duplicated, not just its appearance, or you end up with cardboard that looks like food."

"Magic sounds hard, no?"

Leah's mom put her back down and ruffled her hair:

"Everything's hard if you don't learn how to do it properly, Sweetie. That's why you're going to school next year, just like Rosie does track and field and music."

Hestia smiled knowingly and nodded:

"You'll like Hogwarts, don't worry. It might be a bit difficult at first, but that's more because it's a boarding school than anything else. You'll get used to it, and you'll be really happy whenever you get to go home and see your family. You'll learn plenty, too, things you'd never have even heard about if you weren't a witch."

Leah fist-pumped – a few blue sparks shot out of her hand, startling her sister.

"Right, I'll be able to do magic!"

Rosie grumbled by her side:

"It's unfair that you're the only one..."

Her little sister's good mood dimmed slightly: Leah bit her lip and looked down as she answered.

"I can't run, but you can. The Professor also said magic might help with my leg, at least a bit."

Rosie seemed to consider that for a moment, then nodded:

"Right, if it means you'll hurt less, then I don't mind. I'll still be faster than you, though."

The mother shook her head warmly and put a hand behind each girl, pushing them gently on the way home. The three of them waved goodbye, leaving Hestia with the wizard – who had finished his ice cream cone, now, but still stood there, a curious smile on his face.

The thought that Leah and her family were the exact kind of targets a Death Eater would favor struck Hestia unexpectedly: she lost her grip on her scoop spoon, fumbled over the sink, and only looked back up a moment later...

To see Moody with his wand out, barely hidden against his side, and definitely pointed at her other client – let's call him Mr Liquorice, right, not many people asked for that flavor.

"M... Morgana's crown, Al, what are you doing?!"

The ex-auror didn't move – bucket hat still screwed down – his magical eyes presumably stuck on Mr Liquorice, who'd raised his hands in surrender, not even trying for his own wand.

The man didn't look overly worried, either – more amused than scared, maybe a tad cautious.

"Did I do something wrong, perhaps? I know we're all a bit... tense, what with the maniac who came back from the dead and his callous clique of criminals, but..."

The wizard trailed off, and Hestia had to mouth the words "callous clique of criminals" to herself, feeling like this was a very particular way to describe Death Eaters and she knew someone who...

Moody growled under his bucket hat:

"He knew your name, Hestia, but you never told him, he's a stranger and you haven't written it anywhere on your van, though all your clients call you Miss Jones, that's sloppy and dangerous if you want my opinion, you shouldn't let them know anything about yourself."

Hestia didn't comment that people talked to her because she was friendly and interested in what they had to say, not because she became suspicious of anyone who'd dare ask if she liked the scenery – what would be the point? Alastor Moody wasn't and had never been suited for customer service, or anything that involved being pleasant to strangers.

The ex-auror rose his wand slightly – just enough for the threat to be obvious:

"I'll ask only once, lad: how do you know her name, what do you want, and who are you?"

Mr Liquorice carefully – slowly, unthreateningly – passed a hand in his hair, an embarrassed look on his face, as if he hadn't expected things to go this way and wasn't sure how to deal with it now.

"Circe, I didn't... I thought your eye would see through it and Hestia was the only one who'd been caught unaware, but I was wrong, uh?"

Moody's grip on his wand got even more intense – the stranger knew who he was, too, or else he wouldn't be talking about the ex-auror's magical eye and its capacity to see through all perception charms that hid something under another appearance – and Mr Liquorice picked up on that, too.

Like someone who knew the old wizard well enough to realize when things could get serious.

"Wait, wait, M... Al, is it?"

The question was mostly rhetoric, a confirmation of what to call the ex-auror rather than a genuine interrogation, and the younger man continued on:

"I thought dropping by and having every potential passerby asking 'what's he doing here with the ice cream lady and her granddad' was a bad idea, so I rummaged around and found my old talisman not to be noticed, better than just a fisherman cap with a single discretion marble. You didn't have that eye back then, but I assumed... I mean, what do I look like?"

Hestia blinked at the non-sequitur, but Moody only tilted his head – or maybe he did more, difficult to say from behind and with that bucket hat screwed on.

"Hestia, what does he look like?"

"I... What?"

"You heard me. I want to know what you see, just in case it's not what I see."

Hestia opened her mouth to describe Mr Liquorice – only to realize she had no more than a vague idea of what he looked like. Average, perhaps. Youngish, somewhere between twenty and thirty. Dressed like a muggle.

She glanced back at the younger wizard – and blinked.

"I mean... He's a guy? No beard or mustache, no glasses. Young adult, muggle clothes."

"What about his hair color? Eyes? Skin tone? Height, build, weight? Does he look more like Shacklebolt or like Bill Weasley?"

"He's... whitish, so Bill by default? And, hmm, dark hair, clear eyes?"

"Can't you be more precise?"

"...Not really?"

Hestia shrugged apologetically at Mr Liquorice, suddenly aware that she had nothing to say about him and couldn't even figure out if there was something worth mentioning about his appearance.

He gave her a terse little smile, but somehow that felt more self-deprecating than insulted.

As if he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Moody walked around the younger man as slowly as possible.

"Very black hair, almost ruler-straight, all the way to the shoulders, with a cap on. As pale as it gets. Grey eyes. Slender, looks vaguely tired. Tall but not overly so. Pretty boy and knows it. You're right on the age and the muggle clothes, but it's like you didn't even register the rest of it."

The ex-auror finished his turn-around and slid his bucket hat up an inch, showing his eyes for the first time since Hestia had picked him up at Grimmauld Place. The magical one was, for once, focused on one thing only – or rather, a person. His normal eye did the same, its eyelids squinted.

"Lad, that talisman you're talking about?"

"A circle with three pupils in it, I'm sure you know the one?"

"...Don't take it off, then. It'd make the initial hiding useless. Give us a hint, though, because we won't find out until we'll actually know, if that's really a nobodyssee talisman. Then I'll trust you."

Mr Liquorice sighed, and Hestia put a hand over her mouth in realization: the Order used those talismans, she had one even if she didn't use it often, and it explained so much...

Nobodyssee talismans made you be forgettable to anyone who wasn't aware of your presence and your identity: you were someone, yes, but you could be anyone, even to a family member or a close friend, as long as they didn't know that it was you, that you were present. As Odysseus once tricked Polyphemus, who thought he'd been talking to "Nobody", the wearer of a nobodyssee talisman seemed to be, not someone else, but no one in particular.

It was extremely useful when you were keeping an eye on a busy place but didn't want to be noticed as being "always there".

Fortunately, these talismans took a very long time to make, even if they weren't particularly complex, so they weren't very well-known or used – and thus, an appropriate way to hide.

"Do you know a lot of people who can turn into dogs, 'Al'?"

In between two blinks of an eye, Hestia found herself staring at Sirius Black – who'd been there all along, she just hadn't been able to see him for who he was until he'd made it evident enough.

Even Moody's description hadn't rang a bell, though the ex-auror's magical eye seemed to be less affected by the talisman – leaving him unable to connect the dots, nonetheless.

"Si... Sir? I didn't..."

If Hestia kept calling Moody "Al", she should also keep the pretense for Sirius – half his name and he remained a customer like any other.

Sirius nodded obligingly:

"That's me. And I'm sorry, I really thought you'd see through the talisman, Al."

Moody grunted and his wand disappeared back into his sleeve.

"Great for you. The perception charm is two-fold here, part of it is the appearance and its details, I could see that even when Hestia couldn't, but the rest of it is akin to muggle-repelling charms: you get distracted, can't figure it out, pass right by the truth no matter how obvious it should be. My eye can't do jack against that part."

"Oh. Well. Sorry for the scare, I just wanted to see how it's going down there."

And Sirius pointed down the belvedere, towards the Travers Cottage and its dependencies.

Hestia shrugged.

"Not sure about Death Eaters, but they definitely got, or at least had, it should be dealt with now, rat problems. Actual rats, I mean. The guys from Mystic Pests and Monsters in Diagon Alley stopped on the way out last week. The third and fourth outer cabins, those two on the side here, had several nests, it seems. One of the pestminders told me half the rats were actually conjured and disappeared when the piper got them out of the property... Weird prank, not very kind if you want my opinion."

Witches and wizards didn't share the aversion muggles had for rats, as they kept them as pets or occasionally to do some specialized labor, but no one liked a wild rat and its family trashing their house – untamed rats often bore diseases that even magic couldn't treat completely or quickly.

Sirius furrowed his brow and went to lean on the belvedere's railing.

"...Maybe Rebecca needed an excuse to tell me about the vermin in her home, so she created one."

Moody threw a suspicious glance towards the cottage.

"What if she did it to lure you there? You are volunteering to walk into another family's ancestral abode, one with wards and other protections you know nothing about, where you should find two or more Death Eaters. It could be a trap."

Hestia didn't know Rebecca Travers – Lady of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Travers – personally, so she couldn't give her own point of view here – but Sirius didn't look very convinced, and Moody did tend to be overly paranoid.

Still, better careful than dead – or worse, taken – and the younger wizard didn't disagree:

"Yeah, yeah, it could be. Unlikely, but it's not like I've stayed in contact with Rebecca all these years. Azkaban isn't big on pen pals, to begin with. Anyway, I was thinking I could not tell the Travers sisters when we're planning to do whatever we'll do, less of a chance of them slipping up or chickening out in front of their resident vermins...?"

"As long as you're aware of the danger, lad... You might want Mundungus to get a look at the wards, if you're thinking of slipping in without inside help."

Hestia made a face at the thief's mention – for all that she considered herself an understanding and well-meaning person, she did resent having to check her pockets each time she parted way with Dung, and his pipe's smell seeped into noses and clothes alike – but Sirius only looked pondering.

"Right, Mundungus... Just hope he didn't take it to heart, last time we... spoke."

The wizard didn't elaborate more than that, only turned back towards Moody for more details:

"So, did you and your electric baby blue see anything of note? Someone other than the sisters or their servant, I think they prefer a human butler than a house-elf?"

The ex-auror – who, once upon a time, had also been in charge of Sirius Black during phase two of the Auror Training Program and thus knew exactly how difficult it was to dissuade him of anything with no more than a promise of danger – rolled his eyes – one more than the other, you never knew who could try and stab you in the back – and obliged:

"The dowager doesn't seem to be home, neither is the head's family aside from her sister. The uncle, Terentius, doesn't leave his personal cabin most days. The second branch dropped by three days ago but didn't stay long. As for the butler..."


Shout-out to chapter 24, "Pureblooded renegades", that a reviewer on simply called "filler" (and absolutely nothing else, just a one-word review) and that someone else, more benevolent but ultimately in the wrong, thought to be "too late" to introduce new characters (one turned out to be Regulus, which had been hinted at beforehand, and the others his wife and son, which had also been mentioned in an earlier chapter).

That was thirty-one chapters ago.

Writing this chapter reminded me of that.