A Birth day

Ruby heard Angus and realized he was right about the girls wanting to go with the boys then she realized her mistake and chuckled "Oh sorry it was Owens I trained with not lee , my bad don't know why I thought Lee." she said with a slight confused look as she packed several bags for the boys and girls with tolitries "its okay Angus Im good here " she said then looked at the sky as she walked outside " yeah , might storm" she said feeling the air shift around her.

Seeing Finn now green she chuckled " okay, so who gets dog wash duty?" she asked looking to Marcus and Angus. she heard Angus and shook her ehad " I'll do it the tolitries are done and the washing is on the go, let me wash the dog" she said whistling for Finn to follow " you rest as instructed by Robert" she lead Finn inside and up to their shower gathering doggy shamoo and fur confitioner along the way.

"Thanks," Angus said. "I appreciate it." He sat and closed his eyes just for a moment, and as soon as he did, he slipped into a sound sleep. Marcus noticed, and he intended to keep a watch in case Suzanne started hammering away at Angus in his sleep again. He was glad Robert intended to send more dreamless sleep potion over to him. He knew Angus rarely talked about anything negative that he was either thinking or experiencing, and he knew he needed to keep an eye because that might well be the only way that he or anyone else would know if Suzanne was back to her old tricks. And Marcus, for one, was not in favor of Suzanne having that much control of Angus' wellbeing.

"I think he was more tired than he realized," Marcus laughed. "He closed his eyes and was immediately gone. A short nap will do him good, I think. I honestly think he is a wee bit anxious, and I think it's understandable. None of us understand this sort of new magic, and he was far better off with Kate's protection spell keeping Suzanne out of his sleep and out of our lives for the most part. I think he hopes she isn't coming back to do the same old crap she was doing. The problem is that we know she's coming back. We just don't know how she's going to do it this time. I know when he's dreaming, though, so if I see it happening, I'll wake him as early on as I can. "

Ruby heard Marcus and smiled "Thank you and he was , he could at last get a good nights sleep, now Im worried he won't" she said as she returned with a clean Finn in his colors and not green. "but I agree she needs to be stopped from doing that, its not right " she said as Finn moved to sit with Caprice letting her play with his tail while she giggled. She looked over at Angus now sleeing and smiled " he sems peacful at the moment maybe Tigs charm or enchatment is working" she said hoping that it would let him sleep at least.

"I think Robert is perhaps half a step ahead of us there," Marcus said. "I think he saw that might be coming because he's already in the process of brewing more dreamless sleep potion for Angus so he can get it to him before bedtime tonight. He was going to take Tiggy over to the big potions lab at the farm so she could work on some of her potions while he made more dreamless sleep potion, and i would also wager that he's also making some larger versions of the patch kits, so he can send a well stocked wizarding first aid kit with each away team. There's no telling how long the teams will need to be gone or what they'll get into or if they're going to be able to have much, if any, contact with one another. So he is going to make sure each team is equipped enough that they can be self sufficient in case they really have to be.'

"There is something that has occurred to me about all this, though, and I need to discuss it with Robert, I think," Marcus said. "Suzanne seems to have been able to get all sorts of access to this estate and to Angus pretty much at will. That takes some damned sophisticated magic, and it seems to me that Suzanne has never proven herself to be that proficient at even basic magic, much less something on that level. I'm wondering if, at some time or another, she has collected some personal items from you, Jessie, the boys, and, yes, even Angus, and she's using the personal magical signatures on those items to be able to get all this access she has. I mean, I presume that it would have been simple for her to have collected little personal possession of each of her children's. That would have been obviously simple even for her. There are some advanced spells that would take some of those personal items and allow the caster to get access to either the people those objects belonged to or to trace where those people were. Perhaps one of those witches that worked for her did exactly that and maybe made some sort of potion or enchanted device that someone even as simple minded as Suzanne could operate.

"Getting something of Angus's, though, that would have been far more difficult, but not entirely impossible. I can think of a couple times when perhaps she had Angus at a disadvantage. The first one that comes to mind is when she kidnapped him and took him to the tunnels under the old house, when we found Ginger and Anise. Angus's never really gone into any great detail about what happened in between when Suzanne took him and when we got him out, but that seems to me to be the perfect opportunity for her to have taken something from him--anything. It could have happened at some other time that isn't occurring to me, but I'm wondering if its those personal items that's giving her access. And if that's the case, if we could infiltrate the Gelding house and get back whatever those things are, we might indeed cause her significant difficulty in getting to Angus like she has been.

"I realize I make it sound easy, but that is also an extremely dangerous idea, and the only one of us with the skills to do it is Michael. To further complicate it, we don't know if she has something, and if she does, we don't know what to look for or where she'd keep it. So other than that, no problem whatsoever," he sighed.

Ruby sat ad listened to Marcus and agreed with everything he said "Well ever it is she need to be stoped and if Micahel can find out what and how shes doing this hes got my trust" she said and thought back to her own time with Suzzane " I can't think of anything she would have of mine, unless she took something while here but I don't realy keep anything here, she could use" she said looking around then back to Marcus " but I agree she might have taken something from Angus when she had him in those tunnels , I mean she ahd time and the resorces" she added rewarming his coffee and refilling it for him.

"I will be truthful and say I am worried she might come here and harm Caprice just to spite us all and to show she can get to her just as easy as we got to Dimond." she added" I know with all the prtection spells around theres a slim chance of that and with all of you guys looking after us , we're as good as protected as we can but I agree it need to be investgated as to how she keeps getting in is some one letting her in or has she hid something thats letting her connect." Ruby stood up and paced taking deep breaths to calm hersefl again before she sat down.

"You do realize, don't you, it could be anything that any of you once owned---old toys, old clothes, a lock of hair, jewelry. Some parents keep baby teeth that belonged to their kids. Getting something that belonged to you or Jessie or the boys would have been ridiculously simple. She very likely took things from the house as mementos after Reginald died, not realizing she might actually use them later. As far as Angus goes, I don't know of any other time when she actually got physically close enough to Angus to take anything from him except when he was in the tunnels. I'll talk to him when he wakes up, but he honestly may not remember anything specific. I will ask, though."

Angus didn't sleep long, just a little over an hour, and then he woke. He had been in a deep sleep, and he was heavy and groggy. It took him a moment to get his wits about him again. He got up and got a mug of coffee, yawning.

"Angus," Marcus said, "when you get your wits about you, could I ask you a few questions?"

"Of course," Angus replied.

"Were you dreaming about that creole woman?"

"It was weird," he said. "It wasn't exactly frightening. It was just odd. We were standing in a clearing someplace at night. And she was there. She was just walking around me in circles. She didn't say anything. I think she expected me to be frightened, but I wasn't. It was rather cat and mouse-like. She was not happy that I was just waiting for her to do something but it never came."

"You think she was sizing you up?"

"Probably," he shrugged. "She didn't impress me much. I might not know the spells in her spellbook, but I don't know that i feel like I need to be afraid of her either."

"Angus, is there even the slightest chance that she took anything of yours when she took you to the tunnels under the Tyler house?"

"Um," Angus frowned, thinking, trying to remember. "I don't think...well, I don't know. Maybe. I was unconscious for what could only have been a few minutes because I remember waking up down there. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that if she got anything of yours, it might have given her something she could use in her spell work against you," Marcus said.

"Maybe. It's possible, I suppose. I don't specifically know of anything that I lost down there, but I suppose it's possible. If that's the case, then she could well have gotten things of Anise and Gingers, as well as Ruby and Jessie and the boys."

"I think that's probably a safe bet that she has all that," Marcus said.

"We might never be able to know what she has, if she has anything, or recover it," Angus said, 'but, I bet there is some way to seal her away from the house.

"Well, I'm sure there is, but that's perhaps not where we should focus. I think we should perhaps focus on sealing her away from each of you. The people, not the house."

"Well, now you're into a whole different sort of magic that I don't know enough about," Marcus said.

"I don't either, but I think we should talk to Robert or Kate. Maybe they'll have some ideas, and if they know how how, then maybe they know who would."

"Too bad Dumbledore isn't around when you need him," Angus said, and Marcus laughed. "He would have known, and I'll wager that Flamel knew how to do it too, but he's not around anymore either."

Ruby sat and listened to Marcus talk more and sighed nodding her head "Yeah could be any of those things we did grow up with her and she did like to keep anything she deemed as hers, and yeah that did include lost teeth or any that were pulled" she said then glanced at Angus sleeping as she then stood and made a fresh pot of coffee and tea.

Once she saw Angus wake she heard Marcus talking to him too and walked over with his coffee " here you go" she said handing him it along side a plate with a cinimon bun on it " enjoy its the first of the first batch."

"Thanks," Angus told her, glad for both the coffee and the cinnamon roll.

"If she has personal items, the only way to eliminate that might well be to burn the damned house down," Marcus said.

"That could be arranged," Angus said dryly.

"Yes, well, as amusing as that sounds, it isn't practical," Marcus said.

"If it protects my family, do you think for one minute, that I won't do it? Of course I would.'

"And you'd serve time in Azkaban for it," Marcus replied.

"If it keeps them safe, I'd do it. I'd go gladly, knowing they were safe," Angus said.

"We will find a better way," Marcus said. "You surrender yourself to Azkaban, and your ability to protect them stops right there. We have to be smarter than that."

"I know," Angus sighed.

"Well, if you two are going to be alright for a bit, I'll go over to the farm and pick Robert's brain for a bit."

"We'll be fine," Angus said. "We've got kids to feed and get off to Colorado. We'll be busy."

"Alright. I'll be back. If she gives you trouble, you page me," Marcus said.

"We will," Angus replied. Marcus apparated out. He looked at the clock, knowing that it would be important to get supper on the table on time tonight. He went to the pantry to check what was on hand and checked the fridge. He got out a couple packages of pork chops and started work to trim them up leaner. He did not like a lot of fat left on any cut of meat, so he made quick work of trimming them up. He planned on roasting them in a flavorful sauce of white wine, smoked paprika, mushrooms, etc. Once he had them in the oven he decided to create a simple side dish of baked apples and pears in muscovado sugar, cinnamon and butter. He added some baked potatoes to the oven, and added a spinach salad with a hot bacon dressing.

"Dundee cake or Knickerbocker Glory for dessert?" he asked Ruby. "What do you think?"

Ruby sat and listened to Marcus and Angus talkingabout Suzzane and what they would do to her she could not help chuckle at Angus and burning down the house. it was when he spoke of Askaban she looked up at him " Im not visiting you in Askaban thats a hard nope" she said and smirked showing she was teasing " besides I rember you saying you wanted Caprice to have brothers or sisters. and we can't so that with you in askaban." she smirked as she placed th cinimon rolls in a container to be placed in the fridge for later.

Now hearing Angus ask which desert she thought about it " Dundee cake , if thers any left we could pack it for the kids to take to Arazona." she sugested.

Angus laughed at her teasing about Azkaban. Then he listened to her suggestion of Dundee cake.

"Yeah, sort of hard to pack Knickerbocker Glory isn't it?" he said. He made the Dundee cake and put it in the oven as well and prepared the orange glaze for when it came out of the oven. Then, as an after thought, he made an ice cream that was two flavors swirled together. He made a lovely French vanilla ice cream, and an orange sherbet and swirled them together in a twist so that when people got a scoop of it, they would get both flavors in the same scoop. He put it in the freezer to chill. "Well, that's supper all taken care of. It should be done on time, I should think. I want the kids to have a chance to eat well and get off to Colorado on time. They're seven hours behind us, so the kids are going to probably get there just at lunch time there, but they'll have a bit of a struggle adjusting to that big of a time change. Hopefully Kieran and Fiona are able to help them deal with that because our bunch are going to be ready for bed by three or four in the afternoon Colorado time."

He considered setting the table but then he decided to just cast a spell to do it.

"I'm making a mixed drink. Do you want one?" Angus asked her. He simply mixed firewhiskey and lemon lime soda. "Muggles call it a Seven Seven. The whiskey they use has the word seven in the name, and there is a lemon lime soda with seven in the name--made by totally different companies. Anyway, they mix the whiskey and the soda and put it over ice. It's actually quite nice. I'll mix you one too if you want one." He prepared one for himself.