7 September 1895 - Salem Square, nighttime

He always hated assignments like this – long stretches of nothing, punctuated by bursts of chaos. He’d spent enough years as an Auror to know that danger didn’t always rear its ugly head when it came,but rather sometimes it slunk in quietly. Like this mist had done. But knowing that didn’t make the waiting any less unbearable.

The mist hadn’t shifted in hours, only rolling in slow, deliberate coils in Salem’s Square. Anyone who had been there was dead, unless of course the mist sent them somewhere. Harry didn't need any official reports to tell him that much. He stood with his arms folded, back against a wooden post as he just stared at it. His jaw ached from being clenched too long.

Movement then, caught his eye. Someone was striding straight toward the barrier. “Don’t touch it.” He called out, although if they did, it would make his night a hell of a lot more interesting.

With a short huff, Harry stooped, dug up a fist-sized stone from the dirt, and lobbed it into the grey. It vanished without a sound. No clatter, no ding, no sign it had ever been there. His jaw worked, unimpressed. Then he brushed the dirt from his hands.

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This whole thing was a little more tense than Mateo would have liked. The lack of information on the mist itself seemed to keep everyone on edge. Would it expand, what had actually happened to those that had vanished within it? The magic behind all of it was utterly fascinating, if a bit terrifying. Mateo was not always great with things like this; he had always dealt with people. People were predictable, he could pay close enough attention and normally figure them out. This felt like a giant wait-and-see moment and he didn't like it.

Still, they were charged with patrolling the edges, keeping people away and therefore an eye on the mist itself and Mateo would take that seriously. He was still curious though, just what was happening to the people and things that went into the veil. He reached out, just a fingertip, a momentary lack of impulse control when a voice rang out in the dim light.

"Wasn't planning on it." He totally had been, but that was beside the point.

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“Yeah, but your face says otherwise,” Harry said, although he couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at the corner of his lips. Even though he hated this assignment, at least the company could be worse. Mateo wasn’t completely useless when it came to his job. “I’m not dragging your half-dissolved body out of there if you touch that thing, just so we’re clear.”

He took another step forward toward the mist, although he didn’t dare move closer. Gaze flickered between Mateo’s hand and the rolling edge of the mist, which looked almost hypnotic as it moved. Harry wasn’t about to admit it held any power over him. “We don’t know anything about it. What if whenever it consumes something it becomes more powerful?”

He frowned then, as if realizing how ridiculous that sounded, and muttered, “Hell, for all we know it eats magic.” That would be terrible, but at least it started in Irvingly where there were muggles and magical folks, so it wasn’t like magic was everywhere. Harry glanced at him. “So maybe don’t feed it your fingers?”

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Mateo held his hands up in surrender at Bythesea's gentle admonishment. His face was pretty easy to read, Teo had never been very good at keeping his thoughts hidden unless he was on assignment and it really mattered. It took a lot of concentration though; he was not naturally duplicitous in personality, so he needed to really work at it.

"I hadn't planned on jumping in, but it's so fascinating." Mateo rather thought it pulsed with magic somehow, at the edges, a crackle of something unruly and vaguely sinister. It had a certain draw to it because of that and he couldn't help but want to get closer. "I had thought of that, oddly enough." Why had the mist stopped growing in the first place? Was it now that it had consumed everything within the radius, it had no more to grow on? It really was a puzzle and Mateo knew he was not smart enough to truly understand it. He was the grunt work, here to make sure nobody did anything stupid, even though he was a liability himself. "Strange the way it just hovers," he mused, looking at it, but taking another step toward it. Impulse control aside, he wasn't a complete idiot.

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Harry couldn’t help it – he snorted. It might seem like Sutherland was a giant child at times, but he was also an excellent Combative Magic Instructor and turned out some excellent Aurors. He trusted the man with his life, which, as far as Harry was concerned, meant Mateo was one of the few people in Irvingly he didn’t have to worry about walking straight into the mist just for the hell of it. If it came alive for whatever reason, they’d survive it.

He nodded. “It’s strange how it stopped growing. Has anyone checked to see if magical objects were consumed inside the houses?” Of course he doubted that Mateo knew the answer, but it wasn’t the worst theory in the world, even if it was concerning. Harry knew he wasn’t smart enough to figure out the answers to any of the questions he had, so he was happy to be a lackey to those who were. If he wasn’t worried about it eating magic, which Sutherland seemed to agree with him on, he would have blasted a spell at it.

“If it’s got a magical appetite, though… that’d explain the halt. Maybe it ran out of food.” He mused aloud. When he’d thrown the rock earlier, it had done nothing. “Or maybe it’s just digesting.” Harry went on, which was kind of… frightening if he were to stop to think about it.

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Mateo didn't know any better than anyone else. He was not an academic, only knew what he did for survival, there were people much smarter and making more money to solve the problem. He was just here to do his rounds and keep people from being stupid(er than him). "It would make sense. Would also explain why magical means to remove it might not work." Teo wasn't even sure that many attempts had been made. So far he'd only really seen people studying it, attempting to understand its source or fuel.

Eying the mist again, Mateo stuck out a hand again, fingertips hovering just a few inches beyond the edge of the mist. "Benign items don't seem to have an impact." He mused, still staring at the mist intently. He wondered just what it would feel like. He flexed his fingers, cracking his knuckles on reflex before dropping his hand again. "I wish we knew what was going on inside." That would make a big difference.

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Harry nodded. Although he was here to help, he did not envy those who were trying to fix whatever the hell was happening. He’d rather catch bad wizards and the like than work on reversing magical things he didn't understand – hell, with his luck, Harry would probably make the situation worse somehow. (It was a good thing he hadn’t by tossing that pebble in earlier. Maybe he should think through his actions a little more, because he didn’t want to make things worse.)

“Where are the reporters?” Harry asked with a small laugh. They wouldn’t be allowed on the premise, that much was certain, but damn would one come in handy right now. “Toss in a camera and see what’s happening.” Surely they could rig it with muggle items to take pictures without someone having to be there to press a button.. Harry didn’t know too much about cameras, either.

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