Stacking the Deck

Chapter 14

"Here. You take this batch." Wronski pushed a bulging folder towards a resigned Rose Jones. They had commandeered the staff room table, always a dangerous proposition since both Gregorov and Kessler liked to use it over for their own work. Without looking up from a much thinner folder, he said, "You promised you would help. Now, pay up. I don't want to hear any whining. You told me you would grade these if I provided an answer key." He tugged a sheet of paper free and peered at it. "Not this one. Hang on." Holding two papers out at arm's length, he squinted and then handed her the left one. "Shouldn't take you that long if you don't whine and just mark the papers. All fill-in-blank and nothing too exotic yet."

"Sure." Sounding every bit as enthusiastic as she looked, Jones opened the folder and took out the first page. "Your students have just as lousy of handwriting as mine do." She lined the answer key up with the sheet and uncapped a red marker. "You ought to ask Haken how his grading spells work. I always thought that was slick the way he enchanted the quills to grade the work."

"That's because he never changes any of it. All of those classes get exactly the same homework and tests. Only difference is whether it's the first or second year tests." Wronski finally gave up and pulled out his reading glasses. "Did you know you can buy old assignments and tests for his classes?"

"Really?" Jones' voice had a distracted sound as she skimmed over the second assignment sheet. "That's why I give essay questions."

"Defeats the purpose of having a key, doesn't it?" He sniffed at an answer and subtracted points with a flourish. "Did I mark how many points each was worth? If they spell their name wrong or forget to write it in, deduct ten points. If they use a sigil instead of their name, I deduct ten points. If they deliberately smear their answer, I double the amount of points for the answer and deduct that."

Laughing, she subtracted two points from an answer. "You're a right bastard, Paul. I never realized how tough you are."

"This is serious work!" He slapped an assignment. "Really! If they don't understand the sorts of reactions the ingredients cause, they can produce some fatal results."

Jones closed the cover on the folder she was grading to read the label. "Second years? You let second years work with things that can kill them?" She waited patiently, watching Wronski's ears turn red.

"Well, no. Of course not. They don't really work with anything toxic until fourth year." He looked up to see her grinning at him. "Ok. I don't really let them do anything that does more than smell bad until fifth year and even then I watch them the entire time. The sixth and seventh year students do work with volatile materials, though!" He wagged his pen at her for added emphasis.

"Ok. Sure. Whatever."

The grading wasn't that bad, really. Since the main curriculum included a Potions series, Wronski's courses had between ten and twenty students. The only noises were the occasional chuckle and steady scratch of pen and marker.

When she finished the last one, she shoved the untidy stack back over to him. "Wanna help me with mine?" she offered. "I'm behind. Too many trips into town."

"Nuh uh. You give essays, remember? I don't even understand half of what your courses are about." He tapped the papers into order and stuffed each class' assignments into its folder. "And I don't think I want to know, actually."

"You could learn." Idly curling a lock of hair around a finger, she watched Wronski's nose wrinkle. "Oh, come on! It's for your own good!" He didn't look convinced as he stuffed the folders into his briefcase. "I thought you wanted to grow up and be a big strong wizard."

"I'm doing fine."

Jones was dubious. She kept thinking about Rangnhilde and the rest of her students' snide comments about Mudbloods. "Paul, I think you ought to learn how to at least fight back. Just in case."

Moving slowly, he took off his glasses and put them into their case. "Why? Is there something I should know about? Why are you suddenly so pushy about this?"

"I think you should learn how to defend yourself." The thought of Paul Wronski, Muggle-born and uneducated in magic, left to defend himself against a group or even one of her racist students, haunted her. She tried again. "I want you to learn how to cast a Crucio. It's fast and doesn't require a huge expenditure of personal power. It incapacitates without killing. You won't have to feel bad or anything."

"Why? You're giving me the creeps, Rose." Wronski considered her warning. A tic fluttered under his eye. "This Crucio thing, it's one of those 'unforgivables', right? Why should I have to use something like that? Can't I just hit them or something?"

"How did you get hired here?" She'd wanted to ask for a very long time, but it seemed insulting to insinuate that her friend wasn't fit for the job he held.

"I told you. I ran into the old Headmaster in a bar almost seven years ago. He was drunk. I needed a job. He didn't ask too many questions and I didn't talk too much." Picking at the tabletop with his index finger, he fixed her with a worried stare. "What's up? If it concerns me, I'd like to know."

Jones gave up first and looked away. Her nose itched and it took most of her concentration to rub at it while she tried to figure out a way to phrase her warning. "My Special Projects class. I got to listen to their opinions about people like you. It was an eye-opener. I didn't like it and I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Oh." Slouching down into his chair, he chewed over the warning. "I don't know how well known my background is. I never talked to anyone about it except you and Jan."

"He's the reason I heard about it. He can take care of himself. He's an Auror; they train them for that sort of thing. But, Paul, you barely use the magic you've got. I don't even know how strong you could be." She hoped he'd grasp at the statement, but the very normal "Potions and Poisons professor who really wanted to pretend he was a chemist" didn't bite. "Don't you ever wonder?"

"No," he admitted. "Not really." Slouching even lower, he reached the point of barely remaining in his seat. "I never considered that I might be in danger here. I guess I always thought being a teacher would protect me." In a pale imitation of Dieter, he placed his elbows on the arms of the chair and folded his hands loosely in front of his face. "How, you know, 'Dark' is this Crucio thing? What does it do?"

"Personally, I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's part of our Binding Spell. The pain part, you know."

"Yeah. The bad part. I don't mind the part where they can summon us. That's useful. The bit where they say, 'Bad dog!' and I'm on the floor, flopping around, that part isn't any fun." He unfolded his hands and rubbed at his eyes, looking exhausted. "I don't know. What would I use for practice? I don't think you'd volunteer."

"We can probably get something from the Defense area's collections. They have a ton of things in there, some of which are immune to the effects of the spell. Did you know that some of those critters don't seem to have any reaction to most spells?" She'd always found the ability of some creatures to resist magic fascinating. Wronski, however, seemed less enthralled by the thought.

"Great. I can torture a Puffskien or a pixie."

"How about a cat? There are tons of them around here."

"I like cats."

"A rat? We could work on summoning living creatures. If you can master that, and it is tricky, that'll prove a depth of power I think you just might have. Things that can puzzle anything out can sometimes get away. You have to call them just so and pitch the power level to the level of intelligence." Brightening at the chance to lecture, she settled back in her chair and began planning how to teach Wronski. "I think a rat would work great. The stupid cats never chase them and they're everywhere. Once you master calling a rat, you can work on something else. Summoning is an important art. If you can't summon something, how can you practice? I spent the better part of a summer learning how to do it. Davy used to wait and then throw rocks at the rats. He got pretty good."

"Rose!" Wronski interrupted her. "No. I don't even want to think about playing Pied Piper." Wincing, he struggled to an upright position. "I don't want to torture things just to practice. That's cruel."

"No. Cruel is when you can't defend yourself. Cruel is when our little budding Merlins and Nimues decide to have fun and you can't do anything to stop them."

"I don't even want to start this conversation." Holding both his hands up, he pushed back from the table. "Thanks, but no thanks. If a student does anything to me, I'll figure out what to do then."

"If you survive."

"If I don't, then I expect you to take care of them for me. OK?"

Unhappy at the turn of events, Jones glowered at Wronski who rose and grabbed up his briefcase. "I just don't like the idea of you not being able to take care of yourself. I worry."

He walked around the table and patted her on the shoulder. Jones jerked at the touch. "Don't worry about me. You have enough to worry about just for yourself. You still have your buddy Adler to deal with this year. Plus," he punched her lightly on the arm, ignoring it when she flinched, "you need to figure out what you're doing with the black wall of death or have you given up on men altogether?"

She rubbed her shoulder and looked sulkily at him. "I'm working on Adler. I don't think I can win, but I'm going to give him a run for it. I don't think anything is going to happen with Mueller, so lay off."

Wronski smirked and left. As he rounded the doorway, he whistled a few bars of "Wild Horses" and then began singing.

Still sitting at the table, Jones gave in and smiled. It was hard to be grim when he did something that silly. With a grunt, she hauled her own satchel onto the table and laid it on its side. The amount of work in there hadn't disappeared. There were still several assignments and one test that needed grading. The test had priority. Sighing, she pulled out that folder and started work on it. Time dragged. Grading by herself wasn't nearly as entertaining as doing it with someone else.

Boring. There was no other word for it. Grading tests was boring. Plus, it was her own fault. She liked to make her students prove that they understood the concepts and not just parrot her lecture notes. All of the questions required essay answers and took forever to read and grade. The afternoon light faded and the illumination charms began to increase. Using her marker to scratch her nose, she realized that dinner would be soon and yet another weekend would be over. Having to deliver a lecture to the afternoon Ritual Magic class and seeing Adler's face almost was enough to make her want to call in sick.

Anything to distract her was worth noticing. She heard footsteps crunch on the travel path and was quite happy to push aside her stacks of work to see who it was. At that point, even Rabe would have been more entertaining than a discussion of which plants would work for a cleansing ritual. The fading light had drawn Haken into the staff room. It seemed completely unfair that he wasn't also buried under homework. "Don't you have any grading to do?"

Haken continued past her on his way to the sink. After filling a tall glass with water, he turned around and leaned against the counter. "Yes, but the work is different this term and will continue to be so until they have selected new professors." He downed most of his drink in long swallows. "How do you find working in the other area?"

"I got to use the library." Leaning onto her hand, she noticed that Haken's usual smile was missing. Something else that was different. "You ever been in there?"

"Yes. It has an excellent collection of grimoires." He swirled his water and took another sip. "Did you see those in the display?"

The book's whisper flooded her memory. Her face lost all color.

"Enticing, no? Did it speak to you as well?" When she twitched, Haken's face grew feral and a not-smile appeared. "I see that it did. It is with good reason that it is so carefully imprisoned."

"'Imprisoned'. That's an interesting word for it." Jones nodded to herself, deciding that described how the book looked rather than displayed. She recalled the book and the library, letting the foul and the fair of the afternoon play out again. "I'm interested in magic that seems to be safeguarded in certain families."

Arching an eyebrow, Haken set his glass down. Jones noted that his hand wasn't empty. Nestled in his palm was his wand and, in the quiet before he responded to her, she was certain he muttered the spell that would clean all traces of himself from it. Very Auror-ish, she thought.

"Many of the older families have spells, charms, potions and the like that are unique to them. What avenue of research are you pursuing? Or, should I take it upon myself to guess?"

"Guess away. I'm interested in what you think I'm talking about."

Haken dropped his gaze to the floor and folded his arms across his chest. The room was silent except for the endless drip of the sink. Finally, he looked up. "Almost all of the old, established and yes, pure-blood families have a repertoire of magics that is unique. Many are of the sort that identify family lines, connections, allow entrance and egress of various places..." He waved a hand, indicating the simple nature of those. "Others are quite elaborate and can be utilized for a number of purposes. For example, the warding spells that you encountered on the first lower level." He gave a thin smile and an almost silent sniff of amusement at her startled expression. "I have discussed them with both Auror Massys and Auror Mueller. They were interested in my impressions."

"What are you?" Jones asked. The Rolf Haken she knew taught entry-level Dark Arts to children, coached the first year boys' Quidditch team, smiled entirely too much and asked far too many questions. The man who stood there barely resembled him except physically. She remembered Loup's comments over the years, things she'd discarded due to their origin. Only months earlier, she'd seen Werner defer to him and lose in a contest of wills. How wrong had she been?

With a very small shrug as an answer, Haken resumed talking. "The warding spells that are still intact are quite old, perhaps centuries. It is hard to be more precise. There are too many layers present and the energies have been destroyed and muddled during Auror Massys' attempt to break them. A master set the wards. I take it you would agree?" Tilting his head to one side, he waited until Jones managed to nod. "The structure indicates at least two of the layers were set with blood, specific blood." A flicker of disgust passed, gone in the blink of an eye. "For the effect to be what I believe is there now, the price paid for those two layers was a death within a specific family. As Loup says far too frequently, 'The Dark is generous, but never kind.' It is quite true. There is always a price."

"Wait a second!" Completely enthralled, she almost sprawled across the table. "So, to create that secret alcove thing, they killed someone in their family to create the wards?" A whistle of amazement slipped out. "That's Dark." That part of her mind awoke. Old rites, invocations, bits of articles she'd read, a brief discussion with Lowenstein about the structure he used for wards, all of it trickled out and pooled. "Impressive, though. If you were serious about securing something, it would be an incredible long-term solution. That's assuming it was set up to recognize everyone in the same line." The last part of the puzzle clicked into place and Jones' stomach crawled. "That would take a sacrifice of opposites or something to increase the effect. Maybe double or triple unless they were willing to give up an infant and someone at the height of their power."

"You are better informed upon the matter than I had thought." Haken cleared his throat. Again, the flicker of disgust, this time gone so quickly it was hard to register anything had passed. "This was done long ago, though. The current use of that room has very little, if anything, to do with its original purpose. However, the linkage created has proven useful for other private uses."

"Yeah." Jones' stomach lurched again at the thought of the price that had been paid. "You said there were two layers like that? I couldn't tell exactly, just that there was more than one." Two such rituals. A lot of blood and power had been expended and for what? Certainly not for a place for kids to drink and do whatever else it was that rich kids did. "There's another layer, too. I don't think it was that well done. Probably more recent." She riveted her gaze to the table. That was safe. Looking at Haken only confused her more. In her peripheral vision, she could see him nod. "What part does the recognition glyph play? I've never used my sigil for anything other than identification purposes. It seems more than that."

"Why do you assume that it has a purpose other than identification?" The question had a practiced casual air about it that alerted Jones to its importance.

"It's on the inside. Not where it can be seen. Sigils are things that proclaim ownership. This isn't the same." Chancing it, she shifted position enough to get a peek at his face. She wasn't certain, but she thought she detected a slight smile, a predator's grin. "Also, Massys mentioned it had shown up in reports he'd seen. I have to admit that that fascinated me." She had to see him to gauge his response. The few inches it took to raise her head was like turning on a spotlight onto the new, possibly improved Rolf Haken. "You must have access to those reports."

"I could have access to them."

"I'd really like to see them."

"As would I."

* * *

It felt strange going anywhere with Haken. For one thing, he changed personalities depending on whom they met. Most of the time, he was the smiling, non-threatening teacher of small children, but the guards snapped to attention and called him 'sir', a sign of respect she'd never seen them give anyone, including the Aurors. The bartenders at the tavern called him 'Rolf' and chatted about soccer. Living and working at Durmstrang frequently felt like being exiled to a place completely apart from the rest of the world. News always arrived late or out-of-sync with the real world. Jones had given up keeping track of the Seattle teams because of the time lag. Haken, apparently, had found a way around that problem because he not only knew when games were being played, but also who had won and which players were on each team. His personality changed again at the Aurors' office.

"Good afternoon, Auror Burkhart."

The junior Auror, one that Jones only knew by sight, snapped to attention. "Sir," she stammered, "may I help you?"

"Is Auror Massys on duty? If so, tell him I wish to speak to him." There was no sign of the usual smile. In its place was face that held no expression at all. Even his eyes looked dull, almost dead in the dim lighting.

"Yes, sir!" Burkhart fumbled a salute before catching herself and then strode towards a back office.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" Jones asked. Feeling confused and awed, she leaned on the counter separating the public area from the rows of ugly metal desks that made up a sort of bullpen in the Aurors' offices.

"There is little to tell."

But Jones noted the possibly malicious spark that lit Haken's eyes when he replied. While they waited, she considered a much-needed cigarette. The Aurors' offices always looked deserted to her. It wasn't like there was much to see. Behind the rather drab Formica counter were rows of gray metal desks, all of which looked the worse for wear. The large wall clock with its two hours earlier time loomed over the entire room. The back wall was filled with file cabinets and a series of small offices, the first of which was Werner's and was surprisingly dark. "Looks like Werner's out."

"It is his week to visit the other offices."

"Oh. Yeah." That would explain a few things such as Baldung being in charge and not Werner, something she had written off to delegation. Werner never delegated, though. "When'd they get the telephone?"

"It has been there for years. You may not have noticed it before."

"Kind of weird, don't you think? Having a phone. I thought the wizarding world ran on owls and that weird fire thing."

A barn owl swooped in and landed on a perch against the back wall. It didn't wait for someone to take its message. Instead, it savaged the binding off its leg, leaving its burden to thunk onto other messages and took off.

"See, I expect more that sort of thing." She looked over at the telephone, wondering how things were at home.

"The telephone is essential for communicating with the local police as well as any of the outside agencies with which this office deals." Haken permitted himself the luxury of tapping his fingers against the dinged, gray Formica. Voices filtered from the darkened corridor. "The luxury of living in a fully isolated world is no longer an option. For many, it never was."

Jones perked up at the last. "I never understood how they could manage this separate existence. It wasn't like that at home. I lived in a regular neighborhood and went to school with everyone else. My magic studies were done on my own time. How do they manage all of this..." She struggled to find a good description. Haken's lack of expression irritated her. He could at least make conversation while they waited. "Well, look. How can these kids go to a school like the Durmstrang Institute without the government wondering about them? I mean, if I had wanted to go off and disappear for seven years for magic training, someone would have come and fetched me back or pestered my parents. The regular laws don't apply. Does anyone know about these kids?"

"I find it interesting, too. The rules I was born to were similar to the ones you mention. However, many of our students are not encumbered by such bureaucracy. They and their families live wholly detached lives from the world of the present. They are born at home, they are raised within those same boundaries, sent to the Institute or another school for those gifted with magic and then return to the same family homes. Their lives may never touch the world we both know."

"What about the ones that don't have it?" She had so many questions about the world she taught in. She'd tried to get some of them answered before, but the other Dark Arts professors had either changed the subject or looked at her as though she was stupid.

"It?" Haken asked.

"Magic. It doesn't run true all the time. What happens to the ones that don't have it?"

"Ah." The word had a ring of a taboo subject being broached. "Let me first ask you a question: in your own family, how are those who do not have 'it' treated?"

"Oh, come on! That doesn't apply and you know it." Jones sulked, worried that this small trickle of information was about to dry up. "I lived in a regular neighborhood. I was the only one in my family who could do it. There's always a witch in the Jones family." Not quite. "Well, it did skip my father's generation. My grandmother was worried it might have died out, but that's not the point. I was the abnormal one, not the rest of my family. My brothers went to college and got jobs."

"In your view, those that have the power are different, no? In the world that we teach, the ability is the norm. Those who are without it are considered different, but in their case, it is thought of as a deformity. It is seldom spoken of."

Before she could ask any other questions, Massys arrived. There was something weird about the situation. Auror Burkhart was nervous and clearly didn't want to leave. When Massys exhaled, it was clear why.

"A little early," Jones said, waving her hand to clear the air of the beer smell.

"It has been a difficult day," Massys muttered. "You may leave, Auror Burkhart."

"I should remain. Auror Baldung said...." Burkhart stood at attention, ready to buttress her place with orders.

"I will take responsibility." Haken's smiling facade appeared long enough to assure the junior Auror. Reluctantly, she turned and left, but not without several pauses to turn and look at the slightly swaying Massys. Once she passed into the corridor, Haken asked, "They are loud today?"

"Yes." Massys looked exhausted as he began rubbing his head. "It has been slow. Very little activity. Nothing to concentrate on."

Feeling excluded, Jones readied what she felt was a subtle enough query only to be cut off as she inhaled to speak.

"You mentioned that the Adler glyph has appeared in reports. We would like to view those." Haken jerked his chin towards the wall of file cabinets.

"Of course," Massys muttered. He shot a glance at Jones as if accusing her of violating a secret.

"There is more than the Adler glyph covered in these reports, no?" Instead of waiting for Massys to reply, Haken crossed to the little, swinging door that allowed access to the Aurors' area and walked though it. On the other side, he caught it and arched an eyebrow at Jones, telling her to follow. "Perhaps two or three others as well?"

"You appear to be aware of the reports' contents, Professor Haken." Still rubbing his forehead, Massys ambled at a snail's pace to the line of files at the back of the room. The file cabinets, a mismatched line of dented metal sentinels, sagged at the ready. As if in a daze, Massys started at one end, muttering under his breath as he read the hand-lettered cards on each drawer. Most of the cards were cryptically inscribed in abbreviations that Jones, who had taken a seat on the desk with the anachronistic telephone, couldn't unravel. "Had you notified this office in advance, the reports could have been made available." There was only the smallest hint of resentment in the statement.

"Of course, my apologies." The pleasantry had more the tone of a sneer than an apology. Haken walked to the other end of the files and opened the third drawer down. "The examples that I recall would be at least twelve years out-of-date. I will begin searching the archived documents here." Unlike the suffering Massys, he appeared to have no problems deciphering the code on the index cards.

Kicking her feet in anticipation, she felt like a little girl waiting for a surprise present. Occasionally, her foot swung too far back and rung the sheet metal back of the desk like a gong. Massys looked even more pained each time. While the Auror dawdled through his survey of the drawer fronts, Haken moved on to the next drawer down and had extracted two files. When he plucked out a third, he held it aloft to catch her attention.

Jones slid off the desk and tried hard not to leap the distance. The first one dampened her enthusiasm. Written in dense German, it proved as much of a cipher as the glyph. She'd been working on her German, she really had, but this was technical jargon, an entirely different thing. She slogged back to the desk and pulled out the chair. Very little of the report made sense to her. She could read the little words, but none of the ones that seemed to hold the key. Leafing through the pages, she saw a few drawings, a map, and, at the end, some grainy black and white photographs. Nothing in the photos moved, all very mundane. Behind the photos was a drawing of a symbol. It wasn't the eagle and wands of the Adler heraldry nor was it the wing-like glyph. She tried rotating it to see if the picture made more sense that way. Next, she tried unfocusing her eyes and then squinting at it. The latter seemed to help shape the thing into a sort of claw. Maybe. It could just as easily be a strange star or a doodle.

"Do you need assistance translating it?" Massys flopped onto the corner of the desk and collapsed forward. "The terminology may not be obvious to you."

"Thanks." Jones felt a heat rush over her face. She hated having to ask for help. She'd been working hard to not have to use the translation spell for the last year. Playing pool with the Aurors had given her an impetus to learn, a far better reason than just teaching at the Institute. How could she eavesdrop without learning? "Can you summarize it for me?"

"Of course." Massys ran a hand through his hair, hesitating for an instant over his forehead. "It will help." He flipped through the first two pages, explaining it held nothing of real importance. He ignored the pointed cough from Haken who had retrieved yet another report. "This section discusses how the mark was found."

Grabbing the edge of the papers, she pulled it down so she could see, too. It didn't help. She still couldn't grasp the details. "What does it say?"

The action tugged a smile from Massys. "There was an old building that had been condemned. The mark was discovered when the team worked late one evening. When they demolished the," he paused and consulted the map, "north wall, in the dusk the mark shone. It was in front of a door. That area had been bricked up to help reinforce that end of the building." He flipped forward a page and then back two. "The building had not been in use for a decade and that section for perhaps twenty years before that. Ah, it was used for storage until the roof began to leak and then abandoned."

"So, they knocked the wall down and the thing was there? So?" Disappointed, Jones fished out her cigarettes, prepared to mollify the annoyance with a nicotine charge.

"That is not all. The glyph, here." Massys fished out the drawing. "It was displayed quite prominently. The men were uncomfortable. The report makes mention that a few of the older men recognized it. Unfortunately, no one thought to make a thorough investigation or so it says. When they tried to complete the job, their machinery could not bring the section behind the glyph down. That was when the Aurors. No." Massys stopped and reread the section. His lip curled into a sneer. "Ah, how interesting."

"What!" Jones grabbed at the page again, forgetting that she couldn't understand it.

"The police of that area were called in. They brought specialists in to break the enchantments. The report states that the work was broken. No timeframe is recorded, but the next entry is three months later. The magic was strong. There was good reason for the level of security present."

"Yes?" Jones hated being strung out like this. It didn't seem that Massys was deliberately stalling. He kept rereading sections and flipping back to earlier pages.

"What the magics protected was a cache of stolen artworks. The damp damaged many of the pieces. A great loss, apparently. There is some question as to the original ownership, but the state confiscated them. The report ends there."

"So, in this case, the glyph marked a place to stash stolen goods. Ok, I buy that." Lighting her cigarette, she tried to imagine how she would tackle such a project. She'd never really thought about it before, but having a secured place to leave things more or less in plain sight wouldn't be a bad idea. "I wonder what happened to the people who left the stuff there? Obviously, they didn't come back for it. Any idea whose sigil that was?"

"Glyph," Massys corrected under his breath. "There was a page." He folded the report flat and pointed at a ragged edge. "Here. The discussion of possible owners has been removed. This drawing was probably placed there after the destruction. Note the poor quality. Perhaps done from memory?"

"Maybe." She stared at the only pictorial evidence of the thing and felt hugely disappointed. "Did they list what sorts of things they encountered when they broke it?"

"No. The report is terse. Typical of that era."

Haken snorted a laugh and passed over the other three reports. "These are little better, but I believe you will find the similarities between all the descriptions interesting. There is a drawing, a recent one, in the last folder. "

Jones picked up the first one, expecting to see yet another report in German, but instead found letters that looked similar yet different. "What is this?" She passed it over to Massys who smiled.

"Russian. Interesting. It has been a while since I have done much reading in this language." His pained expression smoothed with the promise of something to do. Massys began to read the text aloud. Jones winced.

"You sound like Gregorov when he's drunk."

"This report reads as if a drunk wrote it." Massys continued mumbling until he reached a word that he didn't recognize. Stumbling over it, he tried again to sound it out.

"It is a technical term, little used these days. It would mean 'blood warded'." Without missing a beat, Haken handed over another file, thinner than the others. "The same terminology is used in this report."

"You seem awfully familiar with these things." Jones narrowed her eyes at him, wondering what he wasn't saying. "Why don't you give us a hint what we're looking for?"

"I have a passing familiarity with a few of these. Not the newer ones, surely, but the older ones, yes."

"And?" she prompted.

"What you will find linking all of these together, Auror Massys." Haken waited until Massys stopped muttering his way through the Russian report. "Is that these glyphs were all used to mark places to cache stolen goods. Or people."

The latter part caught her attention. "People?"

"For short periods of time or to shield a Portkey." Haken's jaw tensed and relaxed instantly. "There are many possible uses for such a construct. Do you not agree?"

"Yeah. I do." She pulled all of the folders away from Massys and leafed through them, looking for anything that depicted the symbols. Two of the reports had nothing, not even a torn page. The other two had professional -quality illustrations of what the teams had seen. One had nothing she could compare it to. It was abstract in the extreme, but the artist had made certain to draw all the lines strongly to assure the viewer the validity of the design. The second looked more familiar. It had the wing-like flares that she'd seen in the dungeon. It might be the same, but maybe not. "This looks like what we saw in the dungeon. Where was it found?"

Massys retrieved the folder and read through it. "This was discovered ten years ago on the Austrian border. It, too, was uncovered during demolition. The network we have forged with the local police was more firmly in place and the Auror office in that area was notified. I do not know any of those involved in the exercise, but their notes are quite clear. Destroying the wards and the other magics involved took a team of five working for over a month. They viewed it as an exercise after the first week and took detailed notes."

"What'd they hit?" She lit another cigarette and crowded closer to Massys, half hoping that all of his knowledge would rub off.

"They record a sequence of spells that distort light and sound. Those confused them at first as much of their work was twisted away from the area. Once that was recognized, then they peeled the layers much as an onion. Under the distortion spells was the first layer of wards. They surmised that those were triggered by either blood or some personal substance, presumably found in more than one person."

"A family trait." Nodding to herself, she flicked a column of ash onto the floor. "Makes sense. Then what?"

"After that level of wards, there was a level of entrapments. The usual sorts of things designed to paralyze and blind. They found two skeletons in the area after they completed the task. They were unsure if those belonged to potential thieves or to persons being held there."

"Yeah, yeah... Then what?" Eyes glittering, she leaned an elbow to her knee and tried to imagine what she would have done.

"After that, there was a second layer of wards, much like the first. And, at the end, there were two, perhaps three, silencing spells and, interestingly enough, a sort of protective charm usually associated with small children to keep them healthy. In the center, the main work for the glyph was found. With the walls destroyed around it, it could be seen, but it would not have been so with the walls in place. Clearly, it was only meant to be viewed from within."

"Portkey." To her it was clear. "They were smuggling people in and out. I wonder where the other side was?" Not that it mattered. What she was mostly interested in was how the thing was structured and it was very similar to what she'd seen at the school. "Did they ever figure out how to find them?"

"No. They appear to be rare or well hidden." Massys lingered over one of the reports in Russian. "I should practice more often. Perhaps your Professor Gregorov would allow me to speak with him."

Her hoarse chuckle racked Jones into a coughing fit. "Not my Professor Gregorov! He's not much of a talker anyway." She pinched the last of the butt out and picked up the last report. "Did they try any detection work on the glyph? What does the report say?"

With a condescending smile, Massys relieved her of the paperwork and flipped through it, scanning the sections for information. "The standard detection routines were used. They discovered only a faint reflection, nothing substantial."

"What are the 'standard detection routines'?" It was a long shot, but she had to try. The spells she'd seen used by the Aurors fascinated her. She had managed to memorize some of the symbols it used, but had yet to figure out what they used to create it.

Both men cracked smiles. Massys looked apologetic as he explained, "It is a part of Auror training. You must understand that we do not share such things."

"Yeah." Jones scratched her head, trying to think if there were other questions to ask. "Did the reports mention anything that was out of place? Energy shifts? Sounds? Smells? Light distortion?"

"They did record the distortion effect that some of the layers had." Haken looked up from another file he had acquired. "Energy shifts? Such as the signature recognition work your American Department of Magical Affairs uses?" The idea seemed to intrigue him. His dark eyes sparked to life and the emotionless mask slipped. "The technology was not available at the time. Had it been...." In a blink, his face returned to neutral and then resumed the falsely cheerful expression he showed at the Institute.

Fascinated, Jones watched the play of emotions. She'd seen him slip twice and each time it startled her. There was a lot more there than she had thought, almost enough to consider asking Loup about the theories the Dark Mage held. Almost. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter. It's not like we have the nasty black box." The awful thing had gone back with Agents Smith and Peterson, hopefully to reside in a storage room while their engineers went mad trying to figure out why the machine had failed. "It only recorded and saved the patterns of energy of individuals. Something like that would have too many variables. It would probably show something like a light show or a light sink." A light sink. Much like the strange darkness that her attempts at detection had shown. The idea had some merits. As she chewed over that thought, she began doing the same to her nail, worrying at the already battered side.

"A light show or sink? Which intrigues you more?" Haken stood in front of her. The last she'd seen, he'd been yards away. The smile was gone and his eyes bore into hers. "I would think a sink, something to draw away, perhaps to persuade a lack rather than a presence. Yes. That would make sense."

"Yeah," she drew the word out, still thinking about what she'd seen. "I think that would be part of it, but not the whole thing. I'm not sure you'd actually get a hit on just that. There's too much we don't know. Without finding one of these things, we can only guess and finding them seems to be almost impossible." The amount of work that had gone into protecting the room impressed her and she began to grin. "I sure would have liked to watch them set one up. Can you imagine what went into it?"

"The work was very Dark, Professor Jones. Think of the lives taken for the wards." Massys shut the file and stood. "It is the sort of thing that the Aurors' office works to prevent."

While she agreed in theory, she couldn't help admiring the results. "Big Dark magic. A lot of blood and probably a few lives went into the wards, but you have to admit that the end product is pretty darn amazing."

The reply from Massys was a noncommittal sound that was immediately followed by him standing and then collecting the files. Help from the Northern District's Auror office had ended. Jones took the hint.

"Thanks for letting us see those." A little pang of guilt hit as Massys walked past her to the cabinets to replace the old reports. "Hope your head feels better." She tried to sound as cheery as possible, noting that the usually easygoing Massys had acquired a ramrod straight posture and the most professional air she'd ever seen. "Tell the rest 'hello' for me, ok?"

Haken had already headed for the doorway, not waiting for her this time. Jones took a moment to tug her jacket into place. As usual, whatever attempts she'd made to create some sort of sartorial order had disappeared while she had slouched at the desk and squirmed. Hours of sitting had untucked her blouse at the back and rucked it up into a wad under her jacket. She considered stopping to rearrange everything, but the room had a decidedly unfriendly feel to it. Instead, she forced a perky smile on her face and waved at Massys as she turned to go.

"You should tell him yourself," was the last thing she heard just before the door closed behind her.