La Vida Loca

By the time Ethelina arrived at Santa Maria de los Milagros, she was having a very bad day. The wizard she'd hired to watch over the potions currently under preparation was good, but not brilliant, and had been late arriving at the warehouse. Phineas Beanacre would be returning to London that evening, so he could check things over, but she disliked having to leave someone else to look after the potions for any time at all, even if they were mostly at the just-stirring stage.

When she stopped in the village to ask for directions - in perfect Spanish, thanks to a good translation Charm - a bad-tempered donkey chewed her brand-new, expensive Gladrags handbag, and the barman pretended he couldn't understand her. Ethelina had felt like feeding the wretched man to the donkey. The owner of the little shop, on the other hand, had been politeness itself as he gave her directions, which took the edge off her temper slightly, but only slightly. The walk up the hill made her angry again.

When she finally arrived at the cortijo, sounds and scents were spilling out. Someone had somehow patched an old radio into the local Spanish wizarding wireless service (Phineas, probably: Bert couldn't do it and Viola disliked the wireless). The aromas of good food could only come from Bert's cooking. She suspected Phineas would make an excellent cook, being so gifted at creating potions, but Viola was a disaster.

She rapped on the damaged door and entered the house. Viola was teaching a young Spanish witch a basic Levitation Charm, and Bert was happily stirring away at a pot on an improvised range. They turned to look at her.

"This," Ethelina exploded, "is not learning the spell I sent you here to find! I thought you'd called me out here to show it to me!"

"Wait, you don't..." Viola began. Her friend wasn't listening, however.

"I've been waiting for it for days! I need that spell," Ethelina ranted.

Her brother put down his cooking things. "Who will you kill to cast it?" Bert asked.

"What?" Ethelina was startled enough to calm down a little. Bert knew that when she stopped being angry, she'd start listening.

"The spell is hereditary. It's also tied to a bloodline. You'll need to kill someone of your own bloodline for it to work. Who will it be? Me?" Bert put a kettle on the range; Ethelina and Phineas both ran on strong tea.

Eth set down her things. "Blast. You know I'm no killer." She sat on a rickety bench. "Well, that's that - and ninety-seven Galleons wasted. You wouldn't believe how much the goblins charge for Reales."

"You wanted the spell for yourself, then?" Viola asked. Bert glanced sharply at her.

"Of course."

Viola continued her interrogation. Bert noticed she kept reaching for the pocket where she usually kept a spare Self-Inking Quill. She was clearly itching to take notes. "It's a pretty obscure thing. How did you hear about the spell?"

Ethelina shrugged. "From a friend. He said he'd heard there was some special defensive spell up here, and I remembered the lessons we had on European magical history."

"Yeah, I could've told you that - but you had a place and a name, you knew who to talk to. Who else knows about the spell, Eth?"

"Give it a rest, Vi. I've just slogged all the way up here and some moth-eaten burro's chewed the strap on my bag. You're not even a working journalist any more. You don't have to interrogate people."

"I do if there's a chance that the person who told you about the spell would actually cast it."

Ethelina looked shocked. "Well, I don't think he has any family left - he's definitely single."

"He?" Bert teased. "Definitely single?"

Viola shook her head. "It's that bloody greasy Severus Snape."

To Bert's amazement and Viola's horror, Ethelina turned a bright shade of scarlet. "It's not what you think," she mumbled. "You've been spying on me." In truth, Nymphadora Tonks had asked Ethelina to deal with Severus Snape, and to report back any odd happenings, but Ethelina had been sworn to secrecy about it.

"I was just chatting with the other factory workers," Viola protested, although the other two adults both knew that for Viola chatting could come close to setting an exam. "They say you'll drop everything to take him a delivery. How could you? He always was a slimy little horror - and that was before he was accused of being a Death Eater. Don't look at me like that, Eth. I've seen all the court reports, and he may have got off but he's as bad as they come."

"He's okay now," Ethelina insisted. "Well, still greasy, but he was let off by the court."

"You can't give him the spell," Viola insisted. "He's a crony of Lucius Malfoy."

Ethelina pulled a face. "Now him I can see casting it - if his son wasn't so precious to him. Severus seemed keen for me to come out here and try to get the codex for myself. He said I could use it, and it would be better than letting it fall into the wrong hands."

"Whose hands, Ethelina?" Viola asked.

"Oh, who knows? Take your pick! We've both known plenty of people with no scruples."

Viola started pacing, and pulled a small parchment notebook and her quill from her pocket. Dedalera carried on practising levitating an olive leaf. Viola was mumbling to herself. "Okay, so Burke and Crabbe try to steal the spell and fail. Both families have notorious Dark branches. Doesn't mean they're linked to You-Know-Who, but somehow Severus knows what they found and he definitely was part of that lot, let off by the Wizengamot or not. Severus talks Eth into coming to get it..." Viola stopped dead in her tracks, looking scared. "Eth, does Severus know how to get past the wards on your warehouse?"

"Don't be stupid," Ethelina scoffed. "I update them regularly. Most people can't enter at all, and the staff only have access to their own zones."

"So, Severus couldn't get the codex, and even if he could, if he didn't tell you about the sacrificial element, perhaps he's expecting you to have cast it yourself, which would then make the place nigh-impossible to access... Oh, this doesn't make sense!"

"What doesn't?" Bert asked.

"Severus appears to be trying to get the codex moved to a place that, once it had the Thousand Jaguars on top of all the other protections, would be only marginally less secure than Hogwarts and the vaults at Gringotts. It would take real skill to get the codex from Eth under those circumstances. If he is a Death Eater and his mask-wearing chums wanted it, it would be easier to come here and take it himself. Dedalera's no Harry Potter, she couldn't take on a Death Eater."

"There's the Imperius charm," Bert said. "Someone who can move through the warehouse wards could take the codex."

"Oh, Eth won't get taken by one of those," Viola scoffed. "Dad was caught by one, but he trusts people... or used to."

Ethelina's face fell. "One was used on me once. Luckily, they wanted me to do something I would have hated, and Bert was there to snap me out of it." Would Severus do that to me? Ethelina wondered. Of course he would. "I should discuss this with Tonks," Ethelina decided. "She's definitely on the side of the angels."

"Oh no, you're not bringing her here," Bert announced.

"Why not?" Viola demanded. "She doesn't mean anything to you now, does she?"

"It would be really awkward," Bert protested.

"Oh, because you don't want her to know you've been killing time with someone else, is that it?"

"I just don't want... VIOLA!" Bert charged after Viola as she ran out of the house.

Ethelina looked at the little girl. "What have I missed?"

"They are in love," Dedalera said simply. "The Healer spends most of his time at the house of Don Hernandez - I think it is to escape."

"Oh dear." Ethelina sighed. She'd known Bert was on the rebound from Nymphadora and Viola had an eye for the men when she sent them here. "Well, I thought it might happen." She sat down next to the little girl. "In his letter, Bert told me you want to go to Hogwarts."

"They have told me the villagers did not kill my family, and that they will look after me, but I still don't want to stay. I want to go to Hogwarts."

"Well then, you will," Ethelina decided. "I just need to cast some preliminary wards to start defending the village. You can watch if you like. It's tricky, because the spells have to be layered. You'll probably have a lot of visitors this summer, because I'll have to send some other people out to do the rest of the work. Once that's done, you can leave."

"Can we start now?"

Ethelina smiled at the child's determination, and wondered if she'd have someone to pass her venerable green-and-silver scarf on to after all.