April 13, 1998

Putting preservation charms on my brother's... on my brother... was a final act before I fell into a deep sleep on the floor of the office. My sleep was restless and consumed with faint nightmares that I could not fully grasp. They were relentless and grasping, skeletal and quiet.

Even in my dreams, I could remember who was under the floor.

I rose from sleep at an unusually early hour and knew I needed to press onward. Something wanted me to hurry. There were claws at my shoulder and whispers in my ear that I could not understand. Ancient words or just the garbled speech I could not understand that seemed to roar and whisper at the edges of my mind in turns.

No. I left on my own time.

I still had that power in my hands.

I had packed Alex's journal, I wanted that with me. I also found a paper that reeked of magic – words of affection appearing without prompting from Thalia, I recognized her handwriting from our own letter exchanges. When I was ready, Thalia would be quickly reachable. I... I just couldn't handle it right now.

I also packed the remaining food from the fridge and cabinets into my bag. There was a lot of stuff in cans and some bread with a flavored butter that looked filling for the road ahead. I did not know when I would stop again. There were tomatoes, some half-eaten cheese and ham. A nice snack for the road ahead as I wandered uncharted paths.

Alex's wand went into the bag as well. I would keep it safe until arrangements were made. By the law, those funeral and burial arrangements fell to me due to the nature of Thalia and the nonmagical nature of Alex's marriage. Thalia would have no legal say in this – Alex was too important as the perceived political pawn of our father – even if nonmagical marriages were recognized by MACUSA, Thalia's werewolf status would render it null in the eyes of the law, even if it was something that happened on foreign soil.

These thoughts of wands moved me to go pick up the shattered pieces of Harrow's which were under the table in the kitchen. To break another wix's wand was an unstated taboo of sorts, some unspoken code of honor and respect, but I could not feel bad about what I had done. It felt like a small piece of the retaliation for what he had tried to do to me. I refused to linger on that. Without a wand, Harrow was not going to get very far and if I did not find him, MACUSA would. Elihu was a relentless sort if given a bone to gnaw – the death of a president's child abroad would stir sympathy and alter the political landscapes of the administration.

No. Move away from that.

I had the pieces of Harrow's wand; these would be so intrinsically tied to Harrow I should be able to use them to find him. They felt like dead wood in my hands but there were small sparks that refused to go out that burned the tips of my fingers and a glimmer of mummified flesh that peered through the wood. Dragon Heartstring was one of the three common wand cores in this country, my mother's wand core was a unicorn tail hair and had died when she had. I remembered that very well – the way it had dulled from something akin to shining silver to a dull gray.

I summoned a map from the office and placed it on the table, along with a shoestring I had found in a drawer. I took the string and tied it to the magic producing end Harrow's broken wand and dangled it loosely over the map watching it spin for a moment as the kinks and twists were worked out of the string as the broken end gave a pathetic spark.

"Show me where your master is."

The wand jerked downward and refused to commit. I gave a hard noise of irritation from my throat. I recalled a brief lesson on basic wandlore form my Defensive Magics class at Ilvermorny – wands were loyal to their perceived owners, but that loyalty could be given instead to one who had disarmed or killed the wand's original owner. Sometimes wands would just die entirely instead. Some wands could show favor to family members if they were personally aligned in personality – hence why some families had valuable family wands for wandmakers to check first for young wizards. I had disarmed Harrow, but by breaking the wand, I had clearly lost all favor with it. There had to be some way to -

Something that felt like hands fell over my own, I could not see them, but I could feel them there, cold and hovering. The piece of wand on the string jerked and twisted, writhing in a kind of forced agony that I did not feel or understand. I was observing the phenomenon, but I was not part of it or active in its use.

Words left me I barely recognized. Words that were old and burned in my throat that disappeared from my mind as the wand struggled and jerked downwards in a final attempt to prevent submission- before pointing to a forest in the north and marking a location with an unspoken dot.

The hands fell away and I felt myself return to my body as the wand sparked helplessly at the end of the string.

Yes.

I put the wand into a small bag I had found in the house that housed the remaining piece. I found Alex's wand holster in the office, embossed with the vulture that formed Alex's patronus and matched the one on the end of his wand. I would keep these for now in case I needed them. Give them to Thalia when I saw her next and tell my family that they had never been found.

The thoughts of Thalia faded and left me with a profound sense of grief and an urgency to leave. Some force trying to push me out the door before the sun even rose. There was something beyond myself telling me to go outside. It was time to leave the tomb and pursue this mission.

I cast one last check of the house, ensuring that I had taken everything I would need or had some degree of personal value to either myself or Thalia. I passed through the door, hearing the click of the door behind me as it closed. I moved through the tiny garden that had so enticed me only hours before to look at the park across the street. I had planned how my departure would work in some detail.

As I moved through the garden, I moved my wand and projected a series of wards on the little house to erase it from existence – hide it from the eyes of the nonmagical and from the gaze of wizards. I could still see the house until I crossed the threshold to the sidewalk – but no one walking past with their dog paid it any mind to the sudden appearance of a flower garden in the middle of the housing district. No dogs wandered over, feeling something unnatural that their masters could not and humans just heaved sighs at the sudden lack of time they had to explore this long-standing park and observe the array of well-maintained lilies.

Lilies symbolized death – I guess it was not a common thing to acknowledge.

I turned away from the crypt and the false park as the sun began to rise. Finding my way to an apparition point and letting the tight sensation grab full hold of me as I focused on the place the wand had pointed me to on the map.

When I popped out of the apparition tube, I found myself outside of a wizarding hamlet. It was cold here, raining, and wet. I was soaked through in a couple of minutes before I could reapply the rain repellent charm for the weather. There were shopkeepers in stalls, looking weary of the world around them as they arranged their goods and whispered quick deals with regular patrons, passing over prearranged orders of food and household essentials.

I wandered over to a food stall that was operating out of the window of a local shop under a large sign that said 'Conduct business here' with an arrow pointing down at the window. A shoddy safety precaution, but it was better than an exposed stall or an enclosed shop space. It looked like he sold potions. I better check his supply for things I don't brew.

The man peered at me evenly from the window, I could see the potion clutter of the shop behind him, all colored vials and matching thin colored smoke. He was a middle-aged gentleman with a scruffy, scratchy looking beard from the clear lack of attention he had been able to give himself due to the apparent constant brewing. He was probably making money hand over fist in times like these – not everyone could be as efficient as Percy with a potion cauldron. I was starting to feel forgiving of his money scrimping ways – even if his potions were a bit less efficient than one with direct access to ingredients.

I needed to stop letting Percy invade my mind this way. The chill of potentially never seeing him again left a horrible chill in my bones.

"What'cha wan'?"

"Do you have any invisibility potions?"

The shopkeeper shook his head, his scraggly brown hair shaking around his chin. "None. Sol' out months ago."

"I thought that might be the case, what else do you have available?"

The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow before giving me a quick rundown of his available products, cold potions, fire breathers, plant fertilizers, maxima potions – all at borderline exorbitant prices.

"Seven galleons per bottle."

I could have sworn I heard Percy's irritated huffing nearby, something he did when the prices began to jump for the newspaper and the average price listings for local businesses due to the war. I was less tightfisted than Percy, but even I knew that was well out of range.

"Seven galleons for two bottles of my own choosing."

The shopkeeper rolled his eyes. "Six galleons per bottle."

"Two per bottle."

"Five."

"Three per bottle – and I cast fresh wards on your shop."

The shopkeeper tilted his head slightly. "Shop's 'ready warded."

I shrugged, trying to look casual and confident in my own magical prowess in a way I had seen truly great wizards behave. Not flippant, not overt, but comfortable with the power they wielded so well. The image of Dumbledore and Sarah Maka – powerful, casual and controlled.

"Your wards are shaky, standard. I can offer you foreign wards that are harder to break by your enemies." The implication of what I was offering came over the man, it softened his face slightly and caused him to lean back in his seat thoughtfully.

"Three per bottle it is, if you cast the wards as well." He glanced down the street. "I'll vouch for ya with the plant shop if ya do the same for her."

I followed his eyes to see an old woman with a similar shop set up to the potion seller, she also sold from her window and business there seemed much slower than the potions shop itself.

"She's got a lotta plants, nasty things ya can use to protect yerself."

"Deal." I pulled out my wand as old American incantations for protections danced on my tongue. A combination of archaic French, Spanish and Latin that I was sure the shopkeeper may have recognized before the pebbles in the cobblestones at my feet began to hop and dance as my ward spells moved towards the spells that were distinctly American. Conducted through the earth and turning power towards protection in a set space. Spells like this tended to drain the user, but in small doses with other less complex spells, a lot of that exhaustion never arrived.

A series of small markings appeared on the building, just above the cobblestones. I could not read them, but I understood the spell was done.

The shopkeeper shivered. "Ya did somethin', I can tell that much." He glanced around, tapped the counter with his wand a couple of times on the counter, watching it spark in response to the spells I had cast. He nodded in approval. "How many bottles?"

"Six Maxima potions, please."

I would have to get by on invisibility spells.

The shopkeeper looked at me nervously, but wisely said nothing as he handed me the requested items. As he leaned down, felt something behind me.

I turned slowly and saw the monster from my dreams looming behind me. The hollow, empty eye sockets of the skull peering down at me and the moss-covered antlers reached for the sky as the smell of earth and rot consumed my senses. The peaks of human flesh beneath were pale and black feathers fell to the ground around it, blowing down the street and disappearing in puffs of smoke.

I gave a muffled shriek, barely covering my mouth in time to stop the reflexive gagging as I stepped back, bumping into the counter and reaching for my wand.

"The devil are ya doin'?"

I did not turn away from the creature. It was doing nothing. It was just standing over me in the middle of the street.

"You don't see it?"

I glanced back at the shopkeeper, who was wrapping the potions for me to prevent the glass from breaking. His eyes were narrowed and following my gaze, he was both clearly confused and agitated.

"See what?"

Did he not see it? How could he not? Unless... It was all in my head. It must be! I was insane. That had to be the only answer – but insanity is not shared between two people. Harrow had seen this monster too in his memories.

"Great. She's batty." The shopkeeper muttered to himself as I collected myself and reached for the bag at my hip for the promised coins.

I ignored the slight. I was crazy, but perhaps not the sort of madness that would leave me beyond reach of conversation. This creature was very real and now walking free.

In the span of the next thirty minutes, the potion shopkeeper took me to his friend, the elderly herbologist and I arranged a similar deal for offering my ward spells and two galleons in exchange for some of her plants – a teenaged mandrake whose cries would not kill yet, but the long-term sleeping potion in the soil would keep it dormant until it was forcibly removed from the pot and therefore safe to travel with. Also, a whole bushel of Chinese Chopping Cabbages that I could hear snapping in the box they were contained in.

I thanked the shopkeepers, who both looked at me the plastered-on smiles people wear when they are trying placate an unstable person as I walked away.

Making my way from the village and into the woods with a sensation of being pulled along or guided by something I could not see. A kind of force that overrode everything in my body that could and would tell me to return home. Instead, there was a blank sense of purpose.

I was a Graves. This was our duty.

The trodden dirt path faded under my feet and I found myself on a barely used footpath that led to a small stream, which I leapt over and continued on my way.

My find found a cold, gray place to curl up into as I gave in to the physically that was demanded of me. It was easier to crawl away and bury myself in that quiet place inside of me as I walked. Ignoring everything around me as much as I could without tripping over my own feet. This was my whole world now. An endless expanse of

Something peered through the trees in the woods ahead of me. Gesturing with a skeletal hand as the moss cloak cast a shadow that blended with the trees and encroaching darkness of the setting sun. The antlers blending in with the low hanging tree branches above. The bird skull beneath revealing mere slivers of white bone that peered through the overcast shadows.

There was no need to be told, I understood I was to follow the monster.

I surrendered myself to the whims of this creature from my dreams that now danced at the edge of my vison, moving through the trees in the mortal world. I understood how real he was now – that I might not just be overly tired and hallucinating. The creature climbed into the trees, appearing on different branches above me, leaving a trail of black feathers behind that would disappear into shadow long before they would have arrived at the ground below. Then it would come down, only to suddenly disappear into the woods for a few moments, to return with bloodied hands after I would hear the terrible screams of a rabbit.

Was this monster eating? Or pleasure killing like a cat?

"I think you're leading me somewhere..." I said into the darkness as the creature stepped out from behind a tree. "No, I know you are."

It would never speak back to me, a part of me understood this without any outside clarification. It was an instinctive thing, like knowing how to breathe.

The twigs crunched under my feet and the squishy, slopping noise of mud seemed to create a natural orchestra of nature as the drizzling rain began again, bringing a cool misty rain that made my teeth chatter until I recast a warming charm on my cloak, wincing as a branch grabbed my cloak to try and hold me in place.

"What are you?"

There was no answer, but the sound of my own voice erased some of the loneliness of my current situation.

"Where are you taking me?" I picked my way through the bushes, the walk exhausting, but the inexplicable pull was leaving me energized somehow. I could not think about the pain, the only thing I could think of was following what was before me.

After an hour of walking, we stopped at the top of a hill, the edge of the tree line before us left me on a long cliff peering down to a valley below that was covered in a low hanging fog that was thick and reeked of magic. The wind sent a cold, malignant chill through my body as the creature disappeared from view as the fog moved upwards and consumed the both of us.

"If you lead me off a cliff, you won't get what you want!"

I was met with silence.

I stayed where I was, knowing about the drop before me and the trees behind me. Until the creature wanted me to move and I could see where I was going, this was where I would stay. Below me was a magical community, if this monster was leading me somewhere, I would find more help towards my goal down there.

I could tell the creature was displeased, even when it was out of my sight. I did not have to see it to know. I could hear it screaming in the trees, a shout of rage unbridled and a temper most foul that I hoped would never be turned in my direction.

Suddenly, the fog cleared. It cleared so quickly it was like it had never been there at all.

I could see down into the valley below a collection of beautiful, old manor houses with tall towers, designating a sort of wizarding pride that was often displayed in wizarding village communities by upper ring purebloods. My walk through the woods had taken me to another village at the edge of the forest. I glanced upward to find my unnatural companion in one of the trees above me, half fused with the tree with only the white bones of the vulture skull truly visible to me.

It dropped the head of a hare it had caught, the head rolling down into the valley below.

Why here?

Pausing to think became easier.

Yes. There were answers down below. Clues and leads towards getting revenge for my brother.

Because I knew the sort of people who truly stood to gain from the promise Voldemort offered. They were above the fray, many may never be truly involved as believers but they had to know things, secrets and blood ties were more valuable than gold. It would be an easy thing to find some source of information here. I understood these circles and their fears far too well.

Oo0Oo0

Author's Note: Ilvermorny takes pride in its well-rounded educational system – Audrey sat a lot of elective lectures mostly related to politics and some more interesting introduction topics.

I kind of want to introduce Sarah Maka in a later story – maybe one of Annette's shorts. Not sure yet – but as the most powerful witch in North America, Sarah gets real privilege and sway.

Woodnesse is a Middle English word that comes from 'Wod', which is an adjective for 'mad' or 'insane'. It evolved from the High German word 'Wuot', that has an association with rage.