LONDON CALLING

Ruby finished her shower and loked at her potion she wouldn't take it as she took it that morning by mistake and wanted to get it back on the right track, Walking out she smiled seeing Angus awake and reading " what you reading?" she asked as she dressed in her PJ's and climbed in beside him. She didn't sk if Andrew had given him his pain potion as she knew he would. " I up to the sphinx in the beasts bok" she said opening it to show him." Crispin Cronk once kept several in his backyard. Apparently, the private ownership of sphinxes is or was illegal, as the Ministry of magic sent him to Askaban for it, I did not know that." she said softly as she closed the book and placed it beside the bed on the night stand.

"We have a busy day tomorrow, So if its okay with you I will get some sleep." she said with a yawn " Night my love" she said her arm snaking around his waist as she snuggled against him with a smile.

"Murder mystery," he told her, showing her the cover of the book. "They want me to think it's the bartender at the pub, but it's not. It's the piano player. You'll soon be done with beast books. Good for you. Goodnight, Ru." He let her curl into him, and he kissed the top of her head as she dozed off. For awhile, he kept reading--or half reading. He wanted to make sure he was thorough. If there were more things to take care of, he didn't want to leave any stone unturned. And right now, it was ringing loudly in his head that he needed to not forget that Ruby's mother was also deeply involved with Gelding. She and Angus were clearly on opposite sides of the law, and he knew he couldn't trust her either.

If that were the case, and if Suzanne were as dark as her husband had become, then she would need to be stopped too. And that wasn't going to be easy for Ruby. He did believe that Ruby would make the right choice, even if that were hard for her. However, that would leave her two minor aged brothers without a guardian. Jessie was not stable enough to assume that responsibility, and nor did Angus believe that Jessie's thinknig was emotionally healthy for two young teen boys to model after.

That would certainly leave him and Ruby to care for her brothers until they reached legal age. Her parents' assets would need to be managed. He needed to find out whatever there was to find about Suzanne, and he needed to know about their assets and if there was a financial portfolio of any size, and he would need to know about her younger brothers. He could put Ruby onto some of that information gathering. But he would do the digging into her mother himself. He would need Robert's or Brian's help for that since his magic didn't work anymore. He put the book down and made himself a written list, and he made a list of things that he needed from Ruby--either things she already knew or things she needed to find out. He began to get very sleepy again, feeling tired. He certainly couldn't stay awake forever. He set the list and the book aside and dozed off.

Ruby woke the next morning and saw the warm sun streaming in threw the sky light. " Morning dear" she said and kissed his cheek " you need anything?" she asked him as she slipped from the bed to stand beside it gathering clothing room the floor and placing it in the hamper to be washed. Some how she'd managed to get a full nights sleep and now she was energized for the day, she didn't know what she had to do but she did know she should head to the main house to make breakfast.


"I'll send Andrew up once breakfast is made with your tray, unless you want to come down and eat in the dinning room?" she asked while she dressed and brushed her hair. She thought for amoment then spoke " Angus would it be alright if I incited my younger brothers, just them, we could fetch them right from Howarts, but only if you agree." she asked

"I can't think of a thing I need right now. Ru, I've been meaning to ask you about your brothers anyway. If your mom is up to her eyeballs with Gelding, we may need to stop her too. How old are your brothers? What houses are they in? With school starting in a week or so, why would you want to bring them here? I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but wouldn't they perhaps be safer there, if we can get some sort of legal guardianship or something? If we could do that, then that would stop any ability your parents would have to remove them from the school. If we were to get guardianship, a meeting with the headmaster would put a kibosh on all that, I would certainly think, and it would alert the school that your parents aren't to be trusted."

Ruby noddd and thought about it " so how do we go about doing it?" she asked " we can't leave them with my..perants" she said turning to face him "well Sam & Victor are sixteen, Victor is in Griffindorr and Sam hes a Raven, yeah I know twins in dferent houses , I guess it shows there different personalitys," she smiled remembering when she was in Hogwarts. She thought about his words of legal gardianship and nodded " what about the lawer that Edward and Robert are using to find dirt on my perents, couldn't he do something?" she asked " then we'd just have to wait, and if ..no, when we catch them my brothers would be safe from them."

She looked at Angus " I also ment when the ceramony happens" she said " but only if you want them there, I do agree pulling them out of school would hurt there schooling and we don't need that."

"We'd have to stop your parents first," Angus said. "As it stands, I doubt if they could even come here for a visit without your parents' permission, and I don't see that as happening any time soon. Edward, I believe, is using an attorney, but he was using the attorney to take action against Redfern, and Redfern is dead now, so I thought he was continuing with the attorney to make a claim on Redfern's estate. I didn't think he was pursuing your parents with the attorney. So far as I know, I'm the one that's been pursuing your father, but I can't rule out that the organization might have to go after your mother if she really is tied up with Gelding too, and Ingrid usually isn't wrong on her information. Now, if I can prove some sort of reasonable high crimes activity on both their parts, we might be able to file for guardianship, but I have to have some sort of evidence in order to even file for it. I don't have a problem doing it, but I have to have some evidence first.

"As I see it, if I can prove somehow that your father killed Redfern--or anyone else, for that matter, your father will be out of everyone's lives." He knew that certain crimes were punishable by being sent across the veil, but he wasn't going to bring that up for her. She didn't need to let her thoughts go that far. "And, as of yet, I don't know if your mother has broken any laws at all. I haven't honestly pursued that yet, but I will. I'll have to talk to Robert and Edward and see what they can help me put into motion."

"It's too bad your brothers aren't off school grounds right now because if they were, we could have a much better shot at bringing them here. Then, if they were to just so happen to refuse to dash back off to school at the start of term, then they're just awol, and we aren't guilty of kidnapping them. The school wouldn't think of looking for them here, not straight away anyway, and they'd not have any right to come onto the grounds looking for them. That would protect them temporarily. But, if they're on school grounds, we'll just have to bide our time until we can stop your parents in order to find a legal way to protect your brothers from them."

Ruby sighed and nodded " I agree" she said " as for the boys Im sure being in Hogwarts is the best place , and they know not to go with our perents , rember I sent them a letter telling them when we found out about by father, as for him hes just a sperm doner." she wrinckled her nose at the thought " even that thought makes my stomach turn." she said and then looked at Angus " do what you must " she sad simply " and why don't we get our own lawyer to deal with it, have one on retainer sort of thing, obviously we'd have to vet him to make sure hes not workign with my father or anything but we both could aford one."

Now dressed she smiled and walked over to the bed leaning down she kissed Angus " anyway I'll leave that to you" she told him with a smile " while I fix us breakfast." she stood up and walked to the bedroom door. " just know what evr you do, I am with you one hundred percent." she smiled and headed down to the kitchen to cook breakfast . " Morning Andrew, I think hes ready for his breakfast, which Im late making"she chuckled looking at him.

"Don't worry about it. He won't starve in the next thirty minutes. I'll have him busy. I'll get him some coffee and help him get cleaned up and dressed, and by the time we do all that and get him downstairs. I'm sure you'll have breakfast pretty much fixed," Andrew smiled.

Simone had been in the kitchen in the main house for a couple of hours. She had told them she was going to help with breakfast. She had made three different kinds of sweet scones--strawberry, peach, and chocolate chip. Then she had made some wonderful savory ones--she had made an asiago cheese scone, an Irish cheddar with caramelized onions, and a maple bacon scone. She had made some scrambled eggs, some sausage patties, some grilled ham slices, and had made some breakfast sandwiches with the savory ingredients on the savory scones. She had brought over some of her own homemade jams, and was just starting the tea and the coffee to brew. She was just starting to plate up the breakfast sandwiches on different platters so that people would know which breakfast sandwich kind was which.

She was going to make a large fruit salad, set out some clotted cream and some butter in case anyone wanted that for the sweet scones, and maybe pour a pitcher of orange juice but she hadn't gotten to that yet, and she was worried she wasn't going to have everything fixed on time.

Ruby aperated to the mian house and smiled seeing it prety much done " morning Simone did you sleep wel?" she asked then saw the scones " oh how wonderful, thank you for fixing breakfast, those look delishious, I can get some juice ready if you want." she said as she took down a large pitcher from off a shelf and placing it on the counter. Walking to the fridge she walked to the back and took out a jug of fresh squeezed orange juice. " I made some and keep it covered in the back." she said and pored out a jug and two glasses for the tray to send over to Angus and Andrew then replaced the larger jug back in the fridge.

Making up a plate with several diferent scones on she spoke to Simone again " I'll be right back" she said and aperated back to the duplex. " simone made scones so I brought a selection and some fresh orange juice for you to have with it." she placed the plate down on the table along with some cream and butter and teh two glasses of juice. " I will eat at the main house, I have to use the guym...carefully" she added smiling at Angus knowing he would want her to be careful.

"I thought I would," Simone laughed, "but I got incredibly nervous about fixing breakfast after I told everyone I would. So I was up til in our library over at the house until about 2:30. Then I showered and came over and started baking scones. Haven't actually been to bed yet, and I'm still running behind. Maybe I should have started breakfast at midnight. I wanted to make a big fruit salad yet, and I haven't even started it."

She was glad, though, to see Ruby fix a plate for Angus and Andrew and take it over to them. That gave her a little time to get out some of the fresh fruit and start to cut it for the fruit salad.

As Ruby was leaving the house, a paper bird fluttered in the kitchen window and flew upstairs. She noticed it but kept cutting fruit. About three minutes later, the same little paper bird flew back downstairs and flew back out the kitchen window.

"Thanks, Ruby," Andrew said, bringing Angus downstairs on the enchanted stairs and pushed the wheelchair over to the table. "I thought you guys didn't have biscuits over here."

"Not American biscuits," Angus smiled. "Those aren't American biscuits. Those are very British scones. Two entirely different things."

"They look almost the same."

"But they'll taste different to you. Your American biscuits, if they're prepared well, are soft and flaky and buttery. Scones are texturally very different. They have a dryer texture, and scones are generally sweet in some way, although I am seeing more savory ones around now. Do not tell a British woman that her scones are the same as an American biscuit. She might take it as an insult," he smiled. When Ruby said she was going to work out in the gym first, he nodded. "Thank you for not going outside." Andrew intercepted the little paper bird as it appeared at their kitchen window now, and he handed it to Angus.

"Your bird is back" Andrew said.

"Thanks for sending it for me," Angus said, opening it. He looked at Ruby. "I sent a bird to Robert asking to see him briefly this morning to discuss your brothers and your mother. He said he'll be over in a bit. Go ahead with your day, and I'll catch you up on it all later."