Marriage is Murder

It was after dinner that night, after the kids were in bed, before Brian came back. Khaat was sitting, reading a book, just waiting. When Brian came back, he was determined. A man on a mission. He merely motioned to Robert. Robert got up and he went downstairs with Brian, both not speaking a word. They were gone a couple of hours. Khaat wasn't feeling a thing. She felt her father had put a block around the room to keep the seers in the house from discovering anything. She finally went downstairs and simply went in.

"Alright. Give," she ordered her father.

"Give?" he asked.

"You know what I mean."

"Brian, we might as well. Go get Jack. There wont' be any putting it off." Brian got up quietly and went upstairs.

"Jack," Brian said quietly. "Come with me, please. Robert would like to see you"

"Sit down, Jack," Robert said, motioning Brian to shut the door. "Brian and Michael have been very busy for me this afternoon. They've been researching the questions I knew you would have and some of my own. Your sisters have been working for your brother for years--since before they left Hogwarts. He had already turned them long before they graduated. My guess is that he introduced them to Fenrir and that turned them. But he wasnt' the first one in your family to be infected.

"The first one," Brian said gently, "according to Robert's testing, was your mother. The information that we had is that your brother might just be a half brother--with perhaps Fenrir as his father. And--we know why your father left. He was outraged at finding out that your mother cheated on him with someone as twisted as Fenrir Greyback. He joined a secret squad of aurors at that time that were working for the ministry. Part of the deal was that they would try to protect you--if he never had any contact with you or your mother again. And it would seem he kept that promise. However, we cannot find any record of his death. It may well be that he might be alive. Your mother apparently brews her own wolfsbane potion and appears to have gotten the formula from Severus Snape somehow. Whether she got it legitimately from him or stole it, we may never know. But...it does appear she's up to her pretty eyeballs in this mess. And, we suspect she may have fed information to your brother or to Fenrir, one or the other. I'm sorry, but you might want to find a different sitter from now on, at the very least."

"You're not the target, Jack. You never were. You have too much of your father. He was a Gryffindor. Your brother was a Slytherin. Your sisters were Hufflepuffs at first, but they were apparently destined to follow more of a Slytherin track. Your mother told you she was a Ravenclaw, and she might have been, but she was very impressionable because she certainly seems to have followed that Slytherin thinking too, by the looks of it.

"Your brother follows Fenrir. He's not interested in your family. He acts and thinks those things that Fenrir told him was important. Fenrir didn't realize his mistake about biting Remus until after the deed was done and he had the Lupins on his tail from then on. This fight is at least 50 years old. And it only intensified when Remus got famous and helped Harry Potter. He knows where our loyalties lie. And with my position and Khaat's in the ministry, it gauls him, I'm sure. Fenrir would want me dead on sheer purpose, and he would make a handy silent partner for Gelding. Compared to Fenrir, Gelding is rather stupid. This whole thing has always about finding any way to penetrate my shields around my family to get to me. Now he will count on you dashing off to try to do things on your own. If you do that, he'll wipe out you, Jess, and your kids one at a time to drive you back here to me. He knows you won't have a choice. So, it seems to me that your only reasonable move is to stay. Let him think we haven't figured him out. The less we show our hand, the easier we will be able to eventually find him and make some sort of strike."

"What Robert is saying is that we continue, business as usual, so that james doesn't suspect a bloody thing," Brian said. "We'll get him, but you need to realize that he wants to use you and your family as pawn to get to the Lupins. Now that we know, we can outfox him."

"Good," Robert said. "Jack, I will not let you or your family be hurt or used either one. But I suggest you tell Jess the truth. Brian and I will brief everyone else. Knowledge is the best weapon we have at this point. We'll be okay. I promise. I suggest we get a good night's sleep. He won't let us rest for long. If I were him, I'd be working on trying to eliminate that stone that defeated him today, and that means he has to amp up any attempt he wants to make to take out Khaat. He most likely doesn't know its impossible for her to take that necklace off. He's going to want to either catch us off guard or wear us down. We need to be at full power. I've alerted Lee and the Paris office both that we may need help at any given moment. The best you and Jess can do is to be rested up and in peak condition. Believe me, Brian and I are on this."

Brian went upstairs to check on Khaat, and Kate went downstairs to help Robert. Khaat's fatigue was besting her, and Brian found her asleep outside in a lounge chair beside the pool. He woke her very gently and helped her to bed. She seemed to fall into a dead sleep in seconds. He worried for her. He sat with her and checked on her before he left her, but all he found was fatigue. His mind wondered where the hell James was tonight and how long it would take him to figure it out.

He picked up the journal Remus left for Khaat and began to read it. It mentioned the stones and the large silver ring. He got them out of their hiding place and noticed the filigree in the ring. Something bugged him. He took the stones and poured them on the desk One of the stones fell into one of the filigreed slots in the ring and began to glow. He noticed there were hundreds and hundreds of little stones that were in different colors. He picked up a second stone and put it in the slot. It didnt' glow when he did. He frowned. He took it out of its place and moved the first stone to a different slot and the stone didn't glow in the new place. When he returned it to where it had fallen, it glowed again. Strange. There seemed to be only one proper place for each stone. That frustrated Brian. With hundreds upon hundreds of stones all ths same shape an size, the combinatiosn were in the billions but there was only one right way to get it all correct. At this rate, it might never come together. Brian was silently cursing Remus and Nicolas Flamel for leaving an impossible puzzle. And then there was one after that. Once it was assembled, if it was, what the hell did it do?