Ticking of the Clock

"I need to talk to you. " Loup tried to catch Magda's attention. "Do you have your story all figured out? Can we go over it now?"

"I am very busy this morning. There are many things that must be done. I have an order that must be packaged and sent off today. To do that, I must go to the village. After that, we will meet." Magda spoke over her shoulder as she rinsed out coffee mugs and a plate from the morning's almost ritualistic coffee and tea drinking in the staff room. "Do not worry. It will be so very simple. I am certain of it." With a quick spell to dry everything, she left the room and a disgruntled Loup.

There were other things to do: a few folders of homework to look through, a book to finish so she could return it to Wronski, laundry, some basic housekeeping. None of it seemed very important compared to the task that would consume the afternoon, a task she still felt unsure about.

Feeling miffed, Loup returned to her quarters. Two folders bulging with papers sat on the left hand side of the desk as she faced it, the ungraded stack. Flipping back the stiff manila cover, she tried to read the first question upside down. The answer began with an elaborate scenario, dancing around the actual question. Damn seventh-years. Couldn't they just answer the question?

The tension made her skin itch. Scratching at one of a million suddenly itchy spots, she sat down at the desk and tried to review the answers. The topic of receptive trances was raised in the fifth question. She stopped scratching and carefully read the answer. It wasn't addressing the same spell she used, but the student blundered around the topic of what the mind processed and how it could be confused by details. She checked to see whom had answered the question and her confidence began to waver. Sigurd Hjalm was one of the best students in the class. Perhaps the answer wasn't wrong; maybe her perception of the state was wrong.

Worried now, she leafed through the papers, looking for Gregorov's notes. They had agreed, after she had left comments that conflicted with his lecture one time too many, that he would include the lecture notes with the homework so she could be certain not to contradict him. The notes weren't there. A low whine escaped as she flipped through again. They had to be there. He had promised they would always be there. He wouldn't lie, would he? Too anxious, too quick, the pages stuck together and some assignments slid to the floor. With shaking hands, she picked up the fallen sheets and sorted through them. There, at last, were the notes. She took a deep breath and began to read. Gregorov's idea of lecture notes was an abomination. The main topics were written in large letters in regular intervals. Major points for each topic were listed and then it became a hodgepodge of cryptic one-liners, acronyms, names and odd number combinations. The occasional word written in jagged Cyrillic capitals dotted the page. Normally, it didn't matter. She would scan the page in search of the topics and the points only. Now, the details mattered and there were none.

Looking for clues to the missing details, she read through all of the answers to the fifth question the students had provided. When searched through in that fashion, she realized how many of them were copying off each other. A sneer tore at her lip as she began to reshuffle papers into an order indicative of who was copying from whom. Arranged that way, there seemed to be three groups. Picking the top-scoring student from each, she scrutinized the answers. Either Gregorov was being vague, a very good possibility, or the students didn't understand what he was talking about, another very good possibility, or the lecture had only been concerned with what could go wrong. She chewed over the last choice. Possible. There were times it seemed to her that he beat the topic of what could go wrong into the ground. Most of the students were there to learn how to advance themselves in their various odd-to-her struggles for dominance in their inbred society. She didn't even pretend to understand the complexities involved. Still, there were too many things listed.

Before she closed the folder, she color-coded the different groups and gave scores based on whom she thought had done the most research or listened the closest and then made certain to record the names in long columns so that Gregorov would know who was copying from whom. He might not care, but it annoyed her. Her master would have exacted a very painful punishment in similar circumstances.

The other folder was one of the fifth-year classes. Easy grading that took no time, especially when she didn't expand on any of the questions.

The doubt fermented during lunch, bubbling away in her mind. The familiar buzz of Kessler and Gregorov's continual debate was ignored in favor of reviewing the information she knew. As she paused to refill her coffee, she caught a little of their conversation. They seemed caught in an old debate on technique. She'd heard it before, but it had seemed unimportant and incredibly boring. Kessler rarely had anything to say she found worth listening to. It always seemed to be anecdotes of how great he had been at this or that or how he had risen to great heights. Funny how he never continued the stories to why he was at the Durmstrang Institute and not in some cabinet position in his native Germany. The change of regimes must not have worked out well for him, but the details never came out.

Today, the topic centered on a version of the trance state so useful for many things. Wishing she'd heard the beginning of the conversation, Loup tried to appear as though she was still ignoring them while she sipped at her coffee. The men dissected a fine point of consciousness, whether things given at that low state would be retained or not. Kessler was out of his depth and the usually taciturn Gregorov was voluble in his discussion. The depth of the state mattered, he insisted. In the lighter states, a person could only be coerced should the subject actually want to be led. If not, there could be a perception that the goal had been reached, but the person could reassert their original beliefs. Loup digested that, pondering what the levels looked like and how could she tell the difference. Too deep, Gregorov intoned gravely, and the mind swallowed the implanted memory or guidance and it would be as if nothing had ever been done. There were many levels in between and which level was to be used depended a great deal on the sort of direction desired.

By the time the bells tolled the end of the lunch hour, Loup felt the cold hand of doubt slapping her. Too many variables, not enough practice - the combination did not bode well. But, she had accomplished it just the other night. Greta had responded exactly as Kessler's document had said she would. Reflexively, she called the document back into her mind and, eyes blank, reviewed what she had read. Her coffee was like ice when she blinked back to see an empty Great Hall. Even her table had been cleared. Wincing, she felt vulnerable. Recalling that much information at a time should be done in a secure place, not in a public one.

Stiffly, she stood and took the coffeepot and her mug into the kitchens. The washing up was almost done. With a glance to see if Bette was around, Loup approached Greta who looked much better than she had the day previous. While not cracking jokes as she normally did, she wasn't crying and the cloud of gloom no longer held that corner.

Clearing her throat, Loup asked, "How are you?" It sounded horribly false as she never spoke to Greta normally.

Greta jerked at the question. "Fine. Good. It has been a busy day. The students all eat so much! They are growing and need more meat. I told Bette just the other day that we should order more beef for stews. The children need to eat to grow."

Caught off guard by information she wasn't interested in, Loup sulked into the corner. She had no idea how to find out if the work still held. While she debated how to ask if Greta was still a mess due to the miscarriage, Bette appeared with a box of vegetables that she thudded down between Greta and the next woman.

"We are going to make soup for dinner. Last night was cabbage soup; tonight it will be a thick pottage. Shell the peas and chop the onions." Bette grinned at Loup and pulled out a bag of potatoes. "These also could be peeled. If done now, you might not need to return later."

Loup took the bag of potatoes and hooked a hand through Bette's arm, drawing her aside. "How's Greta?"

Bette's smile faded as she looked over at the backs of Greta and her coworker as they sorted through the vegetables. "Better. She does not weep continually. She is...different. Not sad, but not Greta. No one mentions the miscarriage. We all worry that she will return to crying again." With a hard-set mouth, Bette folded her arms and seemed lost in thought.

"You don't think I did anything wrong?" Loup hated asking the question and her reluctance put an edge to it.

"No. She no longer weeps. That is a change for the better. I just wish she," Bette looked down at the floor, thinking. "She does not hum as she usually does. The same annoying tune each day. Some song from her youth, a dance tune, I think. It is as much a part of her as the scar on the back of her hand or the way she always greets us in her native Swedish." Bette started to turn to leave and then stopped. "She did not greet us in Swedish today. She spoke only German. That, too, is different. Not Greta, but still she seems content."

Content. Loup rolled the word around, testing it against "wrong". The Greta she saw seemed too content. No highs, no lows, but how could she truly tell? It must have succeeded and the lack of humming and the wrong greeting could hardly be attributed to her little attempt at memory manipulation. No. The woman still knew about the accident and must still be mourning the loss. Loup pulled a chair up to the small worktable next to the door and dumped the potatoes onto the tabletop. She summoned two bowls to her and sorted through the pile, tossing a few tubers aside until everything had been looked at. Bette slapped the paring knife down onto the table without breaking stride as she paced her domain. Still distracted by her worries, Loup started the peeling charm. After watching the first two potatoes slowly spin away their skins, she turned her attention to her test subject. Acutely aware now of what could have gone wrong, Loup noted how slowly Greta moved and how quiet she was. Maybe she needed to tone down the power put into the spell just a little more? Still considering that variable, Loup left the potatoes spinning slowly under the knife and left.

It took the cold October air to rouse her from her internal debate. The day seemed filtered through thin, golden light. Crisp, hard-edged, the cold picked at her, trying to force her into alertness. The beauty of the winter day was always brief in the far north. It should be savored, preferably as a wolf racing over the mountain. If all went well, maybe Gregorov could be convinced to spend Saturday prowling the peak. It was possible.

As she crunched her way across the frozen grass poking jaggedly from patches of snow, she reviewed her duties for the afternoon. It had the feel of a contract if she pretended hard enough and she wanted it to be a contract, for Magda to be a client and the whole sordid thing to bear the label of an actual job. She knew how to achieve the correct state, how to direct the subject and how to end it. There were still other things to consider. What if Wronski wasn't receptive to Magda's advances? Magda was certain, but Wronski always seemed to bring a lot of angst into anything involving personal issues. It took little of Loup's imagination to picture him stammering a refusal and running away. That, however, was easy to deal with.

It took two hard shoves to push the door open. The puddle of melting snow at the threshold helped swell the door even more so than usual. As soon as she entered the hallway, she changed to the wolf and cast about, looking to see which scents were the freshest. It was difficult to tell how long ago de Rais had passed through, but the rest were cold trails. Satisfied, she shifted back and went to work.

In the staff room, everyone had claimed a space as theirs. In Paul Wronski's case, it was one of the two chairs set at the back corner, near the sink. The other chair usually held the other American, Rose Jones. The clutter surrounding the chairs made it easy to tell who sat where. Next to Jones' chair was an ashtray filled with a pyramid of old cigarette butts. An assortment of junk food wrappers made a crumpled mess under the seat as well and, between the two chairs, two mystery novels and a romance of what Loup thought of as the bodice ripper variety were stacked, ready to be read whenever Jones had time. Wronski's chair was buttressed by stacks of journals, magazines and books, all nonfiction except for two novels he was reading concurrently.

In a few minutes, Loup had what she was looking for: pale blondish-brown hairs from the back of his chair. She carefully lifted all she found there and then began searching for anything else belonging to him. The prizes were small and intimate: a fingernail torn off after it had become ragged; an old smear of blood from a quickly-stopped cut that, after a quick sniff, Loup thought might be too old; and a used tissue still moist from the morning that was plucked up using only the tips of her fingers and quickly dropped onto a magazine. There was more than enough. The only disappointment was the lack of fresh blood or, she smirked, semen. That would come later if Magda really wanted to bind him.

As an afterthought, she combed over Jones' chair. The other professional was getting slack. Loup laughed out loud when she found two hairs and a coffee mug that Jones hadn't washed. The temptation to cast something ever-so-small and obvious was overwhelming, but that would lead to escalation. While the women might find it stimulating, no one else would and it would undoubtedly lead to nasty consequences. Still, Loup wound the hair into a small circle and stuffed it into a pocket. Before she left, she made certain nothing of herself was in the room and was horrified that her summoning brought hair, skin flakes and a spoon. There was more of her in the room than there had been of Jones.

"She is easily as paranoid as you. She also has a few hairs of yours and, I believe, a spot of very old blood, which she believes is yours. It is not. Professor Gregorov was the source. Unless I am very much mistaken, she would not be capable of working anything with it at this time. Her limit is two weeks and this is months old." De Rais placed his satchel silently upon the table. "It is today? I find this new obsession of yours intriguing. Have you truly mastered the technique yet?"

Gritting her teeth and berating herself for not noticing his arrival, Loup nodded. "I've done it successfully. I wanted to ensure his cooperation for..." She squirmed as she tried to find a way to say it that didn't bother her.

"I would think that Professor Wronski would be quite willing, but you are wise to ensure it. You," de Rais said, emphasizing the word, "have put effort and thought into this exercise. Others should also."

"What do you mean?" Loup asked suspiciously, but he turned and left.

Sitting at the table, Loup sorted out the items she had that had bits of Wronski in them. She twisted the hairs together and tied them into a knot. The fingernail was checked to see if it came from the same source as the hairs as was the soggy tissue. All three issued from the same person. Feeling much more in control, Loup got up and examined a spot a little bit away from the end of the couch. The couch was the least claimed of all the furniture. Most of the staff used it at times. In the evenings, while everyone was busy grading, Todor Rabe took the far end, Ludwig Lowenstein the other end and Magda would sit next to her husband. She found no long, golden blond hairs from the wandering husband. Magda's short almost-black hairs were also absent. The black hair discovered at the other end had a faint, perfumed scent - Rabe's shampoo. Annoyed, Loup ground her fists into her hips and wondered where she would get the other half of her spell. Another search of the couch, this time removing the cushions yielded a single dark hair. It wallowed in the grit and dust and could have been Magda's or one of Kessler's girls or any number of other people's. Too inaccurate.

She slowly scanned the room, looking for anything of Magda's. In her mind's eye, she recalled Magda's daily ritual of washing anything she and Ludwig used. So much for saliva. Loup walked over to the door, hoping that Magda would suddenly wander in to donate a few hairs.

The hall was still empty. As she looked up and down the long aisle, she spotted a pair of boots far too small to belong to anyone but Magda standing next to the Lowenstein door. The boots themselves were of no use, but the socks she found crammed into the toes were a possibility. She walked back to her other specimens all the while turning the bunched fabric inside out, looking for a little bit of the other woman. It was there in very minute pieces. Via a tedious succession of spells, Loup extracted enough scraps of skin that the spell could be worked. Probably, she sneered. The whole thing had an amateur feeling to it. It smacked of the sort of thing her master would have put her through during her apprenticeship. She'd hated the exercises; they made her feel dirty and low as she scraped samples from the most disgusting, common sources. Somewhere, her old master must be laughing as she, who was now used to pristine blood samples and the most intimate of fluids delivered in glass jars, was now working with exactly the sorts of materials he had made his pupils use.

The smell the spell created was disgusting. The Dark Arts always seemed to have an odor of some kind or another. The scent of the hair bursting into a green-tinged flame left a burnt aroma that mixed poorly with a prepared mixture of herbs and a drop of blood that Loup reluctantly parted with to boost the power of the spell. What the body rid itself of was never the best material for any of the spells that bound or coerced. If the drives weren't as primal as they were, she doubted the materials would have been sufficient. Tapping into something as basic as a reproductive drive or basic sexual urges was easier than manipulating a higher function. Like thought.

Mechanically, she worked through an assortment of dispersal techniques, all geared towards getting rid of the signature of her energies and masking the those of the spell itself. To clean the air, she simply wrenched open the little window in the staff room and forced open the door. The entire building soon smelled of the crisp outdoors.

By 1500, Loup began to panic. There had been no sign of Magda and Wronski returned earlier than usual. He called out a greeting before disappearing back to his rooms. On his heels, Jones showed up looking like a storm cloud. Loup was curious, but decided to not ask any questions. Jones' door slammed shut. Haken arrived next. He looked tired, but quickly snapped to attention when he spotted Loup.

"You're back early," she observed dryly. Haken had made it clear that he neither trusted nor liked her. Pretending to be harmless and friendly wouldn't have worked even if she had been able to convince herself to play that role.

"Game today."

"Game? I thought you worked with the first years. Isn't tonight the seventh-year girls' game?" Her worry wormed its way into her voice, a crack at the beginning and the last sounding shrill.

Haken walked into the room, carefully sizing up the unwanted Loup. "Yes. I am the coach for the first year boys' team. Tonight, I must act as the referee. The usual one is ill." He gave her a measuring stare, looking for anything that would explain her sudden interest. "I did not think you interested in Quidditch. Perhaps your turn upon the broom has expanded your horizons. You should come with me. You could borrow a real broom and watch from above the stands. There is where the true game is played." He enjoyed watching her shudder at the prospect. "To develop a sense of balance, you should have begun as a child. As an adult, your center has dropped to your hips and you must shift your weight differently than a man. Should you wish to develop that skill..."

"You'd show me?" Loup asked, surprised at the offer.

"No. I would not. I have already extended as much training to you as I felt necessary. Now, I must change and return to the pitch."

Loup flashed a feral grin as he automatically gave a half bow before turning. "Some things are hard to unlearn." She gave into the desire to laugh, a bit shriller than she liked, at his glare.

At a few minutes before the hour, Magda finally appeared. She'd dressed for the event in a way that Loup had never seen before. Shy, little Magda, a woman Loup had always thought of as the ideal, devoted wife, eyes lowered, always quiet had suddenly metamorphosed into an unknown, untame creature. Gone were the usual sweater and long skirt, replaced by a short, tight dress with a neckline that seemed held in place by magic. "Do you think he will find this alluring?" She spun around, throwing up her hands and laughing. "I have not worn this for far too long. I wonder if he dances? Ludwig used to dance with me. He is very good. He does it all."

Dreading any expansion on the last, Loup interrupted, "I thought we were supposed to meet here an hour ago? I need time to prepare. Are you ready? Do you have your story ready? What about the glamour? Do you have that ready, too?"

"Oh, you worry so! All will be well. The little tale is thus. My name is Angelika. I always liked that name, so pretty. I am visiting my uncle. I thought perhaps Professor Steuben would suffice. He is difficult to find and hard of hearing. He speaks in a dialect of German that is difficult to understand. If Paul wants to talk to him, he will not be able to do so without great effort. He met me today. Tonight, in fact. I came by to see my dear friend Magda Lowenstein. Clever, no? I can verify my own story. And, it will progress from there. That should be enough."

It seemed to be enough. True, there was hardly any real information there, but how closely would a man in lust examine it? The main thing was to get her part over with and let Magda play out her fantasy. "What about the glamour? Can you cast it? I'd like to see who you are so I know who you are when. Just in case you're seen in the hallway."

Magda waved a hand to dismiss her fears. "No. Do not fear. I will be Angelika only when in his rooms."

"You'll have to be her while you wait for him to answer the door. Doesn't that worry you? His rooms are warded. I know Jones put a little extra effort into them."

"Ah, but you forget that I am married to the great Ludwig Lowenstein, master of all things connected to protective warding. I believe I can bypass the protections there."

"How?" Loup asked skeptically. Jones' wards were strong. She'd picked at the ones that Jones had set for Wronski a few times, just to check, and had been impressed.

"It is simple. You must think as Professor Jones thinks." Magda tapped her forehead with a manicured nail polished to a deep red. "Professor Jones sets very strong wards, but she triggers them all the same way. If she were truly clever, she would require two points to access the spell. She uses only one, as it is more convenient. Oh, at first, it appeared difficult to decipher. Ludwig does not set his wards the same way. This obsession she has with blood." Magda shook her head solemnly and then began to pull her hair away from her face with a comb. As she stroked the hair back, preparing to secure it with the glittering comb, she continued, "I have watched her these last few months. She feels far too safe here. At first, she changed the phrase she used to trigger her wards every few days. Now, she has had the same one since the beginning of the school year. Very sloppy. She allowed Paul to choose his own and he is an innocent still. He understands only that the wards protect his rooms, not what they are capable of or even how they must be fed regularly. Yours are stronger, but then you have set them properly."

Loup's eyes narrowed. Gregorov hadn't wanted to ward the rooms. For some reason he felt the protective spell could hold as well as protect and created a false sense of security. When a flood of international Aurors and police had arrived over the summer, he had relented. Too many had disregarded any thought of privacy for the Dark Arts professors, the enemy, and had come to look and see what sorts of people taught that which they fought. Even Gregorov admitted it was too much. Loup had set their wards the strongest way she knew how. She'd found a fawn and used its life energies to activate the wards. Dinner and the energy for the spell. Normally, she would have used what Magda and Ludwig obviously felt were inferior methods to protect her home.

"Now, Paul has chosen a simple phrase to allow entrance. 'Everyone has Avagadro's number.' Does that mean anything to you? Who is Avagadro? And why a number? Still, since he does not even have a secondary key of his own blood or saliva, it will be easy to break. I will be waiting for him. Simple, no?"

"Simple." Loup had to agree that it sounded far too simple. "Well, he's already here. Shall we start?"

"He is!" Magda pulled out a mirror and carefully examined herself. "Yes. It will do. It has before and it shall again." She tugged everything into place and smiled slowly. "Come, let us begin."

Still trying to think up a plausible reason for being there, Loup hesitated at the door. Magda did not want to wait a moment longer. She rapped loudly on the door and then, as the door cracked open, stepped aside, leaving Loup unprepared.

"What's up?" Wronski lapsed into English as he opened the door. "Did you finish the book? You must be ready for another one by now?" He parted the wards and waited.

"Book. Yes. Book. I'm ready for a new one. I didn't bring the old one. Is that ok?" Hoping she didn't sound too stilted, she entered and carefully threaded her way through the maze that Wronski had created out of towers of books. The bookshelves that surrounded the desk were already crammed full. Chemistry texts, journals devoted to the same, a few bird identification volumes, books on history, science, mathematics, music, art, things Loup didn't understand at all, a small section of popular magic books and stacks upon stacks of novels, mostly of the thriller variety were piled into teetering towers or leaned upon other bookshelves or buttressed the desk. She'd peeked into his living area once or twice and the décor of a used bookstore continued there where it eventually dwindled in favor of his chemistry/potions set up.

"Yeah. I've already read it. I have the sequel here." He pulled out a pristine paperback from the first third of a stack nearest the door. "Pretty good. There are some inaccuracies in how the science works, but I've come to expect that. This one," he tugged out another book, "has a great plot. It's total fantasy. Wizards, elves, that sort of thing. Want to see if you recognize anyone?" He grinned up through a shock of hair, looking younger than his thirty-five years. "I used to love this sort of thing. Dragons and unicorns, ugly old witches who are really enchanted princesses. I didn't know it was a 'based on a true story' kind of thing." He looked at the covers, still grinning. "I don't know. I can't see you as the fantasy sort of reader, but you might get a kick out of it. It's got to be more entertaining than Gregorov's homework. How much of that stuff do you actually read?"

Loup took the proffered books, cringing slightly at the willowy, blonde witch on the cover of the fantasy volume. The woman wore a very form-fitted black gown sparkling with astrological signs. That was bad enough, but the unicorn leaning against the witch's hip with its rainbow-colored horn was over the line for kitsch. The popular view of magic appalled her. "I read all of it usually."

"Doesn't your brain explode after a while? How can you plow through that day after day? I know it makes me crazy and I've watered it down so I can get it graded in a night. Didn't you make him expand on a bunch of stuff? Must be awful."

"It's not awful. Some of it's interesting. I like to see how they interpret the Dark Arts. Some of the students come from very different backgrounds than I'm used to and their take on various aspects are intriguing." Loup felt offended. Magic was her life and the Dark Arts her chosen path.

"You sound like my mother. You can't possibly find this stuff that fascinating. Don't you ever want to see what the rest of the world is like? Don't you ever want to go back?"

"I've met your mother," Loup grumbled, not seeing any humor in the statement. Wronski's mother was a professor of biochemistry at a university in Connecticut. The woman's short visit had been enough to annoy all of the professors and require some memory work by Auror Werner to ensure that Dr. Wronski returned to Connecticut with the "correct" memories. "I do find 'this stuff' fascinating."

"What about going back? Don't you want to go back some time? See what it's like now?"

Old defenses snapped into place and Loup almost turned to leave before she remembered she was there for another purpose. "No. I don't want to go back. There is no 'back' for me to go to. If there's a 'back' for me, it's Paris, not San Francisco."

"Sheesh. You don't have to get snappy. Wronski stopped smiling and sat down at his desk. "If you're going to be grumpy, you can take the books and leave. I thought, since you came by, you might like to talk."

"Talk. OK. Let's talk." Loup fished around, looking for a topic and wondering how she could work this. Knowing that Magda, dressed for all the world like a high-priced hooker, was waiting in the hallway pressured her. "Do you want to go back?"

"Of course I do. There are times this place makes me nuts. Like today, for example. We just got the word that we need to write mid-year reports on everyone who's failing our courses and we have to explain why they're failing it and what the student needs to do and what we need to do. I thought Rose was going to go ballistic. I guess one of the parents complained after his kid failed. I dunno." He stretched, throwing his arms wide and yawned. "You know, most schools require a heck of a lot more out of their teachers. This really is an easy job, but..." Wronski leaned back as far as he could in his chair and thudded his feet onto the only cleared spot on his desk. "I need to go to Köln over the holiday break and talk to Professor Jorgen. I've been using his name since I came here as my advisor. Mother dear remembered and contacted him for me. I can just imagine that conversation. I don't know how it didn't explode. It's not like he's ever heard of me except for a few letters years ago. Mom has a lot of clout. Somehow, she managed to work out a deal with him so I can work on my degree." Wronski rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "I can hardly wait." The grin returned. "Und zo, Herr Wronski, vy haven't ve heard uf you before? Your mutter has informed this school that you are ein dunkopf und ve muss vork you very hard!" He sounded like a stereotype from a bad sitcom before he gave up and laughed.

I've never been there. I worked once in Regensburg and I've been to Berlin once. Berlin has an amazing magic area. I couldn't believe it was still there. You should go."

"I've been to Berlin. I only saw a little bit of the area. You're right. It is pretty amazing. Very decadent. Did you go to any of the clubs?" Wronski raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"Once."

That response provoked more of an interest than Loup had bargained for. "Really? So, what kind did you go to? The leather ones? The B&D ones? Live sex?" He tried to sound worldly but the wide eyes ruined the effect.

"They all don't cater to the sex trade," Loup sighed, suspecting that Magda was probably right and that this would be easier than she thought if only she could time it so she could get her wand free.

He looked disappointed. "Well, what kind did you go to?"

"I was working as protection. I went to a chess club meeting."

"No. That's a shame. Hey, we could go. Rose doesn't want to. She says she has other things to do."

Loup started to tell him no, but paused. "What other things? What's up with the Auror? Is she seeing him? She smells like him from time to time, but I don't catch the..."

"Other smell? No. I don't think it's gotten that far yet. It's driving her crazy." Wronski put his hands behind his head and swung the chair from side to side. "Too bad you and she don't get along; she could use some help. If it wasn't such a sore spot, it would be funny."

She tried leaning against the wall but it was further than she thought and she found herself falling backwards. Not far, but far enough to startle her. As she caught her balance, her hand grazed the sheath on her forearm where she stored her wand. Time to get moving. "Damn thing," she said, trying hard to make it look like her wand had fallen out.

"What do you use to hold it in?" Wronski asked and then began to yawn.

When his eyes closed, she acted, hissing the spell to induce the trance and trying to keep it as light as possible. Wronski's yawn ended suddenly as he went slack. Relieved, she parted the wards and let Magda in.

"Why did it take so long? It is freezing in the hallway. Is all in order?" Magda asked and then rushed over to look at him. "Is he all right? Is he ready? Can we begin?"

"Shhh. Paul," Loup called. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"You've met a woman. Someone you really like. Her name is Angelika Steuben. She's related to Professor Steuben and a friend of Magda's. You really like her. You want her. You've brought her back here to be with you." Loup looked over at Magda who was busy primping.

"Paul? Tell me about Angelika." Loup took a deep breath and waited.

"Angelika." Wronski repeated the name mechanically. "Angelika. I don't know anyone named Angelika."

Loup froze. It had been so easy with Greta. Maybe the level was wrong? Maybe she needed to do something other than trigger the state and make the suggestion? "Today, you met Angelika Steuben. You really like her and you brought her back here. You think you might be in love with her." It sounded stupid. There wasn't enough there to build anything from. Kessler's procedure had suggested building upon something seen recently or rereading a document from the beginning and substituting what needed to be changed as part of the whole. It had not addressed creating a new person.

"I don't know Angelika."

"The name does not matter," Magda whispered loudly in Loup's ear. "Time is running out. I am ready. Why is he not?"

Bowing her head, Loup mustered her wits and tried again. "When you wake, there will be a woman here. You'll want her. She wants you. You'll be with her."

"You're staying?" He sounded hopeful.

"No," Loup snapped before she caught herself. She buried her face in her hands and counted to ten. When she looked up, she tried again. "This woman, she's wearing a red dress; she's here for you. You'll want her. She's for you."

"Red dress."

A positive feedback. "Red dress," Loup repeated and then caught herself. She'd cast the spell to make them desirable to each other. That part was easy. That part would happen unless there was a real force for it not to occur. It was the memory part that wasn't working. She looked over her shoulder to see Magda hovering there. "You should cast your glamour."

Magda nodded and seemed to become quite busy with her wand for several seconds. When she put the wand away, Loup saw very little change. Her hair might be lighter in color, and maybe the nose was different. Maybe. "I don't think this is ready," Loup said, hoping to cast a quick Obliviate and leave.

"No! I am ready now. He is ready now, too. Look!" Magda pointed at the physical proof.

Loup didn't want to look. Not at Wronski nor at Magda. "OK. Fine. You're ready. He's ready. I want to leave." She pushed her hair back from her face and tried one last time. "Paul, tell me about your girlfriend."

"Girlfriend? Girlfriend? Angelika? Angelika is girlfriend? Just met her. Really like her." His voice drifted from word to word, rising and falling.

The response was good enough for Magda who waved at Loup to leave.

"Kiss him," Loup said sounding anything but romantic.

"Of course. Now go!" Magda began to lean forward, stopping only when Loup hadn't left. "You do not wish to watch, do you?"

"No. I want to release him from the trance, but I'd like you to distract him. Kiss him."

As Magda's face obscured Wronski's, Loup ended the spell and darted from the room, closing the door on a guttural moan.