A Birth day

"It certainly is," Marcus said. "Feels good to go run. I'm used to doing it daily, but that just hasn't been possible lately. I need to get Angus back out running in the mornings. It would do him good."

"I don't know," Angus said to Ruby. "It's certainly possible. Marcus might know. He's had more face to face with James than I have. I don't even know for sure if he's a werewolf, but the tat would certainly lead one to think he might be. When I was an auror, most of the werewolves that were registered were not affiliated with any pack. They were strictly loners. Very few were affiliated with any pack at that time. And there was a real issue with a high number of people that we knew were werewolves that refused to register because they feared a culling by the ministry. I'll ask Robert when I see him next. You have been really helpful, Victor. Thank you."

"I have been?" Victor frowned. "I didn't do anything."

"Yes, you did. You're helping us understand why Tom might have married Suzanne. I always thought it was more about Suzanne's knowledge of Tom's business dealings."

"Well, that's a possibility," Victor said, "but I always thought it was probably all that treasure rubbish."

"What treasure rubbish?" Angus asked.

"Didn't you know? They owned a holiday property in the hinterlands of Canada someplace--just a fishing cabin on some little lake in the middle of nowhere, and there was always some rumor that Reginald managed a huge haul of galleons, and rather than to let Suzanne have even so much as a sickle, that he had buried it on that property somewhere. Suzanne wouldn't be caught dead there if there was no concierge service. And I doubt there was much of any magical convenience there at all. So I have no doubt she doesn't even know the place exists."

"I didn't know anything about that."

"Well, what did you do with the rest of Reginald's assets?"

"Nothing, except selling off the property the house was on," Angus said.

"Then I'd do some digging, Mate," Victor said. "I bet you own that fishing cabin."

"How do you know about it?"

"Been there. Both Sam and me. We caught him doing some pretty disgusting things, and he accused us of spying on him. So he ported Sam and me there and left us with a loaf of bread and a jar of jam and buggared off, saying he'd be back eventually. I don't know if this next bit is true, but Sam has always said that he told Ruby that we'd been invited on a weekend camping trip with a couple muggle friends. We didn't have any stinking muggle friends. By the time he picked us up, neither of us had any guts to tell Ruby the truth."

"If he weren't already dead, I'd kill him," Angus said unhappily.

"Nah. He was never worth that sort of energy," Victor said. "Besides, we did alright. We made it work."

Aria chuckled and nodded " yeah its refreshing in the morning with the sun and fresh dew on the ground." she said picking up her pace once more as she continued to run the trac again this time at a slower steady pace beside him.

Ruby smiled to Victor and nodded " every small detail helps " she said and listened to him talk again " I remember that, I knew something was off but he kept me busy and yeah he said you were camping with friends" she said nodding when Angus said he would have killed him all over again if he had known. " now that makes me angry too that he lied to me , I would have gone up and brought you to my place earlier." she said but listened to Victor and smiled " that's a very mature way to think about it." she looked at Angus ," he's right though you should look into that cabin might have something in it we can use against them, I say maybe its been years.."

"I'll check into it. I thought I went through all of his papers, but its possible I missed something."

"I wonder...." Victor said quietly. "Hold on. I'll be right back." He ran upstairs, shouting to Sam something about "that old ship in a bottle."

"There was an old ship in a bottle. I thought it was pretty cool, and I packed it carefully in a box and put it in the bottom of their closet upstairs because neither of them seemed to want it. I thought maybe someday they'd change their minds," Angus said. "The thing had an enchantment on it, so that the closer you got to it, the waves would rise up in the bottle and there would be storm clouds that would form overhead with thunder and lightning and sheets of blinding rain. I figured there was a puzzle of some sort attached to it that would shut the storm off but I didn't give it much work to try to figure it out."

It was about ten minutes later that Victor came down with the same ship in a bottle that Angus had been thinking of.

"There might be something with this old thing. Dad once beat Sam completely senseless just because he took it off the shelf to look at it," Victor said. "When Ruby got home, Dad told her Sam had chased a ball out into the street and had been riding his bike and had been hit by a muggle car. Muggle car my ass. Dad put every mark there. The worst bruises were on his bum because Dad put 'em there with his belt. Sam was too humiliated to ever show them to Ruby or tell her about 'em. So Ruby ended up just believing it was an accident, but for him to do that, we wondered what his obsession was with it. Maybe there's something to it after all."

"Might I see it?" Angus asked, and Victor handed it to him.

"Break it or tear it apart if it'll help," Victor replied. Angus took a good look at it.

"I think that, really, this isn't any ordinary ship in a bottle. I think its a sort of puzzle box. Maybe we need to ask our resident puzzle box solver--Edward--if he can figure it out. What do you think?"

Once more Ruby listene4d and nodded at Victors words about the ship in a bottle he had " could be" she said " and I vaguely remember I think that as before I left." she added as she saw Victor return with the ship in a bottle " oh that thing yeah he would shout at me when I dusted it not to be so rough around it" she said as she saw Angus take it then mention Edward " I'll go fetch him" she said and headed to the adjoining door and knock " Edward we have a puzzle for you to solve" she said as she opened the door to see him sat with Simone.

Aria ran until she saw the blue eyes of Finn sat at the end of the trac " wow you were right" she said and chuckled as she drew level with Finn who she gave a ear scratch too and started her cool down exercises " so how'd I do" she asked smiling to him as she looked at the moon again.

"You did great," Marcus said. "Let's get Finn back home for his biscuit." He whistled for Finn and picked up a stick and threw it in the general direction of home. As they walked back, Finn would run ahead, grab the stick and bring it back. Marcus would throw the stick for him to go and fetch again. And that was the game Finn played all the way from the track back to the duplex. Finn brought his new, beloved stick inside and took it to Angus.

"What's this?" Angus asked, giving Finn a scratch. "Is this the Stick of the Week?" Finn seemed particularly pleased to be showing it to Angus.

"A puzzle, huh? Okay, I'll have a look," Edward said. He came over and Angus showed him the bottle. "Oh, look there. That's not your usual puzzle box. Let's have a look. See that lighting. That's a warning. Open it wrong, and it'll fry your arse good and proper." It took Edward just shy of nine minutes to open it. Once it was open, the water, the clouds, and all disappeared. Edward kept looking and working, and it took him about an hour to get it resolved without buggaring it up. It opened with a loud snap, and inside the ship was a bottle. A bottle with something pale blue inside. "Well, now, that is very interesting. It's a memory bottle. I'll go make a pensieve, and we'll see what it tells us.

Edward improvised a pensieve, and that sent him back to the bottle, with an enchantment. He used the enchantment he got from the pensieve, and that snapped open yet another magical compartment. And this time, Edward drew, from the bottle, a golden key.

"I do believe this is what you're looking for, but keep the bottle as it is all the same in case there's any other secrets hiding in it. Shall I lock it in my safe for you?"

"Please," Angus said.

"So what's it go to?"

"Dunno, but I think its somewhere in the wilderness of Canada," Angus said

"Canada?" Edward frowned. "Well, your stepmother is baking some strawberry streusel muffins for breakfast and some slow cooker oats. If you can put maybe something with it, we can discuss it over breakfast in the morning."


"Oh, now that sounds lovely," Angus said. He looked at everyone else. "You lot in for planning a treasure hunt over breakfast?"

"I'm in," Marcus grinned. "It's been a long time since I had an opportunity to be a pirate."

"I'm in, and I am positive Simone will want in on it," Edward said.

"Well, I know all four of us won't want to be left behind," Victor said.

Aria chuckled as he threw the stick for Finn until they returned to the Duplex " I enjoyed our run, we should do it again some time" she said and chuckled as she then saw the ship in a bottle " wow that's interesting" she said and walked over to where Edward was working on it, she watched but didn't touch knowing better , she jumped when the latch to the hidden compartment sprung open revelling a key inside. " what's that too?" shea sked.

Ruby saw Aria watching Edward and spoke to her " it was our dads Victor seem to think it holds a clue to our fathers treasure, and a cabin in Canada" she said to her making Aria chuckle as Marcus said it had been a long time since he had been a pirate "oh, I can see that, you stood on the deck of a ship , shirt flailing open in the wind shouting out orders to your crew, no peg leg or patch, never liked those." she added and Ruby chuckled.

"God," Marcus shook his head, laughing. "Please don't let that daydream go much farther. I rather like myself the way I am. Besides, Angus is the captain anyway."

"Well, I'll let you lot daydream about pirate movies, and I'll lock this up," Edward picked up the bottle. "We'll see you in the..."

Sam and Anise came back in, and Anise handed Angus two bottles of potion. One was clearly labeled for him to take a full dose at bedtime in a cup of seers' tea, and the other bottle was labeled for Anise and Edward to take a full dose in a cup of seer's tea.

"Robert says this should protect us from Priscilla tinkering with any of us seers at bedtime tonight," Anise told Angus and Edward. "He wants us to try it, and let him know in the morning what did or didn't happen. Oh, and no sugar in the tea because, for some odd reason, there's sugar in the potion."

"I consider myself fairly warned," Edward laughed. He went to the kitchen, poured himself a dose in a potions cup and put the bottle on the counter for Anise to use. Then he took the potion cup and the ship to his side.

"Anyone want a piece of chocolate sponge?" Angus asked, heading to the kitchen to cut the cake. "We didn't cut it at supper."
"Cake? Definitely," Sam nodded.

"You might as well cut a slice for everyone," Marcus said. "Nobody in this house is crazy enough to turn down chocolate sponge."

"Fair enough. What should we make to go with the strawberry muffins and the porridge in the morning?" Angus asked Ruby.

Both Aria and Ruby laughed as Marcus told them to keep their thought to day dreams. " oh that's right has the sexy swashbuckling captain and your the sexy stoic first mate" Aria said making Ruby laugh again." your right though, I can daydream" she said and smiled at him. "besides your more the sexy secret service agent " she said and chuckled again but composed herself when Anise returned with Sam and several bottles of potion, one for Angus and one for Edward as well as Anise.

" oh I forgot about the cake" Ruby said and chuckled a she headed to the kitchen to cut up the cake and hand it out to every one who wanted a piece. She took her own piece and sat down to eat it , she loved the flavour's she could taste coming from it. She also watched as Angus asked her about what to put with the muffins and porridge in the morning " hum , not sure , breakfast burritos , counter the sweet ness." she said as she ate her piece of cake.

Aria took her piece and sat with Marcus as she ate it " this is really good , not that Angus's aren't , this is I guess just different and it also means I'm gonna have to go on a run in the morning to burn off all these calories" she said with a chuckle at him.

"That gives me an idea," Angus said. "I can do some haystacks."

"Come again?" Marcus frowned. "I am not a horse."

"No, no. Its a Tex Mex thing. You'll like it," Angus laughed out loud. "Trust me. You can help me in the morning, though, if you want, Ru. We'll need some shredded potatoes--like the hash brown kind. And some crumbled crispy bacon, some shredded cheddar, and some diced onion. You can help me prep if you like. I'm going to make some fresh, homemade salsa."

"So, I'm not hearing any hay or alfalfa, so we might be alright, Aria," Marcus teased. "So, all you Tyler people, any idea where, in Canada, this cabin might be?"

"Some....oh, its a weird name. Can't spell it for crap," Sam said.

"Saskatchewan?" Marcus asked. "That is probably one of the most likely provinces for a cabin to be, after all."

"That's it."

"Can you do better than that? Saskatchewan is more than five times the size of England. Do you realize how long we'd have to search to find one little speck of a cabin?" Marcus asked.

"Um...nope. Got nothin'. Just Sasakatchewan," Sam replied.

Ruby listened to Angus and nodded " of course I can" she said and smiled at him a she finished her cake and began preparations for the salsa she knew how to make She combine the tomatoes, red onion, garlic, white wine vinegar, lime juice and coriander in a bowl. Then Stirred it before she placed it in the fridge for the next day before moving on to the diced onion

Aria chuckled at Marcus teasing " yeah, I'm with you on the not a horse thing, but it does sound good though" she said watching them prep the ingredient's for the morning. She saw how easily Angus moved in the kitchen and how he and Ruby worked well as a team gathering and prepping ingredients. " they work well in the kitchen" she said to Marcus slightly leaning against him as she spoke and looked up at him.