London, 1979, all sides of the city have delved into chaos. A dark fog and oleaginous smoke wafts over the horizon from dawn to dusk. The radio waves chatter that it is an astral phenomena, that this too shall pass, and the sun will rise again.
The...
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The boathouse had once been a decrepit shack used as a sanctuary for birds nests and excess chains. In a lot of ways it still resembled the original. Worn wood fell into decay from years of river water seeping into the foundation. If one were ever lost, they could easily find the Ouroboros headquarters by scent alone; that of rotting fish and stagnant puddles. The door was almost always jammed by rust, and if it wasn't, it was being held closed by a mechanism that mirrored a muggle bolt lock but could only be opened through recognition.
Tommy jostled the bronze knocker of a snake swallowing its own tail. When it wouldn't give, she leaned in to peer through a hole in the frame. A bloodshot amber iris glanced back at her, blinked, and the lock flicked open.
Inside, the walls were thrice the size in height and twice that in width. Enoch Ames hadn't skimped on the interior decoration. Tomes and sculptures lined the walls. Tommy passed a bust of a fractured Grindewald on the mantle place, dusting his nose with the tip of her finger. A Cornish pixie had made a nest in the highest bookshelf through the theft of Sinai's leather hair bands and a discarded box of biscuits. There was more rolled parchment than any mortal could read in a lifetime, and half as many travel manifests spread out over the dark wooded furniture. It was a dim space, crawling with the memories of long dead men, and girls who had often wished that they were dead; and spirits of those who got their wish. The Ouroboros were not a wealthy order, unlike the Deatheaters who won their financing through the pillaging of vaults. Tommy's makeshift family was a poor one, but hell, at least they were also extremely unhappy.
"You're alive," Sinai said, her feet on the long dining room table with bandages down the ankles. It sounded almost defeated; on the verge of accepting the alternative. But the longer Sinai's eyes drew over Tommy, the more it dawned on her that she had actually been worried. "I was going to send Atlan to look for you."
"Deatheaters on the underground," Tommy replied, the velveteen of her voice mingling with the wind blown drapes.
In her minds eye she watched the boys, even now, pummeling over London in fits of smoke. They paused momentarily to gain composure in Leicester Square, cloaks billowed on the foot of the art history museum. Regulus, Caius, and the outlier. She had been watching the unnamed one quite closely since leaving the train. The impossibility of his features; even his buzzed hair seemed thickly waved in what was left of it, honey colored eyes and a birthmark over his temple. She didn't know him, but she had a distinct feeling that she knew someone quite close to that description.
Sinai blinked slowly, thrummed a knuckle on the wood, and returned to bandaging her wounds. "What the hell do they want?"
"It was the youngest Black offspring mostly. He wanted to strike a deal. It was painfully obvious that he had nothing solid to give us in exchange, but at least I know his name now. I can follow them until they pass a veil ," Tommy huffed, "what did you do to your feet?"
"Dogs," Sinai said, "lost my footing in the wrong garden."
Tommy nodded and leaned her head into the doorframe, "Gawain Parkinson is dead."
