July 11th, 1892 — Urquart Home

Ruby had been going about her usual business that morning, visiting the village's shops to get items for her craft: ink and paper for her birth charts, tea leaves for her readings, and paints. She'd forgotten her weightless basket at home when she'd left in a bit of a hurry and was going to the next shop on her list with a basket that stopped her blood circulation in one arm when a Ministry looking individual approached her informing her there is a lockdown and to get indoors immediately, be that at home or at temporary lodgings. It was then that Ruby realized that the hassle around her wasn't the usual associated with a busy market street, but rather that of confused individuals.

When she first asked what was the matter, the Ministry person wouldn't answer her, telling her instead to go home. As it usually happens in such scenarios in the media, it was some random passerby that informed Ruby what was the matter - someone had been murdered and Irvingly was under lockdown to find the killer.

As it always happened with such matters, Ruby's head immediately raced to her twin and her unfortunate condition that could turn her into a blood-thirsty killer once a month. Topaz wouldn't hurt a fly, unless it was for science (and she'd do that in a very gentle and respectful manner), but Ruby still had this irrational fear in the back room of her mind, that one day the wolf in her might take over at random and force her to hurt somebody.

In any case, there seemed to be a killer on the loose and both their father and more competent sister in combat were at work. Even though Ruby had been a Gryffindor, she had no proper fighting skills if an experienced killer jumped her at random.

Ruby rushed back home, happy to be rid of her heavy basket as soon as she'd crossed the doorstep. She abandoned it next to the umbrella rack and rushed to the room she shared with her twin.

"Topaz!" she shouted when she was just about to enter, to get her attention from whatever she was doing. "Topaz, someone's been killed!"

@'Topaz Urquart'

  

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set by MJ

Topaz was asleep when Ruby came home, since she hadn't done much sleeping the night before, but the downstairs door shut forcefully enough that it roused her a little. By the time her twin threw open the door to their shared room, Topaz was rubbing the sleep from one eye and just starting to sit up. She ached a little, as she always did the day after a full moon, but this wasn't one of the worse nights. She'd put the bruise balm on before she'd gone to sleep that morning, just after dawn. She could probably do with one more application and then go back to sleep, if Ruby didn't need anything too important.

Except apparently Ruby did have something important to say — or else she was confused. Topaz hoped for the latter. "Who?" she asked as she propped herself up on her hands in the bed. "You mean someone from the newspaper?"

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia

"No idea," Ruby answered as she plopped herself on the side of her twin's bed. Growing up, she had been the late riser of the two - how things had changed now!

"I was down shopping when a Ministry man told me we're under lockdown! Apparently, some girl has been killed in the forest, and now they're hunting whoever - or whatever - killed her!"

It was chilling to think that a murderer might be on the loose as they spoke. Walking down the cobbled street right in front of their house... Ruby's eyes lingered a bit too long at the opened window of their room. Could it bring inside more than the pleasant late morning breeze?

  

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set by MJ

This was a lot to take in, and Topaz struggled to grasp the implications of everything Ruby said. A girl killed in the forest — who or what. Last night had been a full moon, so there was one obvious implication. If there was a werewolf on the loose in Irvingly (again), how would a lockdown solve the problem? They would probably be quite harmless until the moon came up again, at which point having them stuck somewhere in the town wouldn't do anyone any good. Unless they had some way to track them down in the meantime, or some very good leads to go on, Topaz didn't imagine that this would make anyone safer.

It took a second for what she'd just thought to catch up with her. A werewolf stuck in a quarantined town when the moon came up tonight...

"What do they mean, lockdown?" she asked, a little panicky.

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia

"No one can leave Irvingly and we're advised to stay home," Ruby replied. The Ministry man had been insistent on her getting indoors while keeping her in the dark on what was the matter. Ruby knew this behavior well - he didn't believe that a woman could handle any shocking news or danger, so it was best she locked herself at home, hopefully under the wing of a man. And speaking of men...

"I'm not sure if anyone can enter Irvingly, though. Do you think Papa and Delight will be stranded in London now?"

Ruby didn't want to be treated like a damsel in distress, but she would feel safer with her father at home.

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set by MJ

No one could leave Irvingly, and Ruby wasn't sure if Papa would be able to come home. This couldn't be happening. Someone must have thought through the implications — someone must have thought about her. Ruby must have been misinformed, or at least not aware of the entire picture.

"They'll be back tonight," Topaz insisted. "It won't last more than a few hours, right? What time is it now?" she asked, glancing towards the wall clock for her answer. "It will be over before nightfall, surely." It had to be.

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia

Ruby sensed that her twin was beginning to panic and it wasn't without reason. It had been a full moon the night before, a young woman was killed in the forest and this could easily make some people believe that Topaz was at fault. What if an angry mob appeared at their doorstep, without their father there to take care of it?

There was also, very possibly, a dark wizard on the loose. A dark wizard, whose motivations were unknown, who could very well decide to break into random Swallobury homes and murder people. Neither Ruby, nor Topaz had the necessary skills to take out a dark wizard. Ruby had failed her DADA OWLs. At best, she could do a shield charm, which would do nothing against a dangerous curse.

"Even if it isn't, Papa is a Ministry higher-up, surely the rules won't apply to him,"Ruby reasoned. "He could be investigating what happened for all we know." It had been implied that the young woman wasn't necessarily killed by someone. An ancient curse could be at fault for all they knew.

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set by MJ

The rules had applied to Papa when it had come to putting her name on the werewolf registry. They had applied to him every month since she'd been bitten. Still, Topaz held out hope that there was some truth to what Ruby was saying. At least with Papa at the Ministry, she knew that someone would be thinking of her and advocating for her, whatever happened. She wouldn't be forgotten in all of this. What she didn't know what whether or not that would make a difference.

At least she had a good alibi for the previous night; no one could reasonably accuse her of having had anything to do with the death in the forest. Of course, that didn't mean that no one would.

"Where's Bash?" she asked, climbing out of bed and moving to dress herself. The three of them ought to stick together, if there actually was something dangerous on the loose.

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia

Ruby hardly kept track of her only brother's schedule, with him being her least favourite sibling. "No idea," she replied as she got out of the way so her sister could get one of her skirts. What was Bash up to on a daily basis anyway? With him being legally an adult, he could be anywhere in the country, for all they knew.

"I'll go check out his room," she informed her twin and left her to finish getting dressed. She walked up to their brother's room, which was only after Delight's room, which was in the middle between theirs and Sebastian's. She knocked once — no answer. She made to open the door, it was locked. Groaning, Ruby cast a simple unlocking charm to open it. Typical Bash behavior, charming his door locked with a charm that was easily broken, just to make a statement.

Finding the room empty, she shouted across the corridor: "He's not here!"

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set by MJ

Topaz hurried through dressing herself, more concerned with being decent enough to wander the hallways of the house than looking presentable for anyone else. When Ruby called back that their brother was not in his room, she frowned at the nearby mirror. She took a breath and steeled herself.

"Then it's just the pair of us," she said with grim determination. It would fall to her to keep Ruby from spinning off the rails, of course; she had always been the more rational of the pair of them, even if she was exhausted from having so little sleep the night before and had a full moon to face again tonight. Hopefully their father would be back by then, or would get some sort of special permission for Topaz to break the curfew to travel, but she had to prepare herself for the worst.

"Ruby," she said very seriously, "If nothing has changed by tonight, I'll need you to help me. I can charm one of the trunks in the house to be big enough, but you'll have to lock me in."

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia

"Why?" Ruby instantaneously asked. Oh. A big stone of dread dropped to the pit of Ruby's stomach.

It had always been Topaz and Papa who dealt with the full moons. Topaz was taken to the Ministry cells, from which she returned bruised and exhausted. It was too painful for Ruby to think about what her twin went through, so she tried to think as little as possible. So, when the full moon came along, Ruby busied herself with astrology, so as to not have to think of her twin's incarceration.

Feeling dumb by her question, Ruby added: "Does it have to be a trunk? Surely the spare bedroom will be more comfortable?"

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set by MJ

It was sort of sweet, if ridiculously ill-informed, that Ruby thought comfortable ought to be a consideration in where Topaz spent the full moon. Topaz merely shook her head. "The windows," she pointed out. "Any opening is another place you'd need to secure. Another place where it could fail."

Even the walls might not hold a wolf who had all night to find a way through them. She would have to reinforce the sides of the trunk as well as making it bigger, just to be safe. But what if even that didn't work? At the Ministry, if she were to break free of the trunk she would still be in a cell. Here...

"I could come up with some ward traps, I think," she said thoughtfully, with a frown. "To put on the floor around the trunk."

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia

Just how intense were the cells where werewolves were kept on full moons? Angry magical wolf or not, surely a werewolf couldn't break through a well-cast shield charm? Ruby was actually good at Charms, she could probably charm a lock from being violated by her twin's beastly antics.

"Would drinking a sleeping draught help?" Ruby naively asked. Surely it wouldn't keep Topaz actually asleep, but sleepy enough so that she wouldn't have the energy to try and escape.

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set by MJ

Topaz frowned at Ruby for a second, unsure exactly what she was asking. A sleeping draught wouldn't prevent the change from taking place; that would have been far too easy. Topaz wasn't sure if it was possible for it to impact the wolf on the other side of the transformation, but she assumed someone must have tried it already and if it worked, they would have known.

"It couldn't hurt," she allowed. "But we shouldn't count on it helping. We should prepare for the worst. Just in case."

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia

Ruby didn't want to consider 'the worst'. She didn't want her twin to be locked up in a charmed trunk. Even the prisoners at Azkabans got proper cells which she imagined were large enough for them to at least walk in.

"What's it like when you're taken to the Ministry?" Ruby asked gloomly. She could imagine what kind of security measures they had: a cell with no windows, chains... She didn't want to mention those herself, it was easier for Topaz to tell her about it and for them to half-heartedly recreate the experience.

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set by MJ

There were a hundred ways to answer that question, and Topaz took a moment to consider which would be the most helpful for her sister to hear at a moment like this.

"It's always the same. There's a woman at the Ministry who helps with the beginning and the end," Topaz explained. She would be telling the story of the night through the eyes of that woman, because that was what she would be asking of Ruby when it came down to it. "She checks me in at the desk. I leave my wand and get undressed and then I go into the trunk. She locks it behind me and adds the spell. Then the next morning she takes the spells down and unlocks it and waits at the desk until I come out." This was leaving out how the woman often came looking for her, to see whether she'd been badly injured during the night, but Topaz omitted it intentionally. She wouldn't ask Ruby to do that for her. If she broke her leg in the trunk, she'd manage to crawl back to her wand and set it herself rather than force Ruby to deal with it.

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pinned my hopes to the summit of someday

Magnolia