Loki walked to the summit of the hill where Mr. Ethan had taken both teams. The sides of the muddy pathway on the hill were flooded with a forest of birch trees.
As Loki walked up the hill he carefully examined using spirit vision the squishy soft toy ball in his hands.
'It just seems like a normal ball…'
'But that girl…she was sick…and depressed.'
'I wonder what happened to the girl that I saved at the World Cup. Did she make it out safely? Did they even find her above the tent where I left her?'
Reaching the top, Loki looked at the mansion, it looked like it was made of cleanly cut rocks and looked ancient with its occasionally wooden buttresses that supported the thinning tall outside walls. There were about four chimneys he could see and he didn't know if there were more hidden around.
As Loki examined the mansion and walked up to his team who were waiting for him it began to drizzle slightly.
Everyone noticed Aurors standing in the drizzle under one of the windows on the far side of the mansion but made no mention of it. Several other aurors were patrolling the area in search of something with their wands out but even they were not spoken to.
Most of them looked at Loki and his group with slight anger in their eyes but once their eyes landed on Ethan, they turned the other way and pretended they didn't exist.
Hermione was a little surprised by the mansion being the destination of their first case, while Daphne just calmly compared how different the mansion in front of them was from her own house.
Loki on the other hand was busy studying the mansion with his spirit vision.
'No random spirits anywhere?'
'Did the person in the house do something to keep them away?'
'Or did the Ministry do something to purify this place before we came in?'
'Probably not, if the Black Emperor pathway is in control they'd have just pocketed away the money without doing the job.'
"Learn anything new Mr. Loki?" Ethan asked politely as they walked to the door of the mansion.
"Not much else than the fact that the woman's husband is probably one of the few affected and is in a coma. The girl did say however that 'Roxy' would help her dad…whatever that meant."
"I see. Good work." Ethan politely encouraged before the conversation fell silent.
"How're you guys feeling so far?" Cedric asked in a soft voice as he looked at his juniors.
Loki smiled and nodded, "Not bad. A little excited about being part of something new."
"That is how it should be." Cedric said and then leaned in a little closer to Loki and whispered, "I hope you're not afraid of Mr. Ethan?"
"No~ I've heard people with the softest hearts put up walls to appear indifferent to the world outside."
Cedric calmly nodded saying, "That is wise." and grouped back with his friends who were talking amongst themselves as they moved towards the mansion's main door.
By the time they reached the actual doors of the mansion, they had gotten slightly wet in the pitter-patter of rain but no one minded.
*Knock* *Knock*
Using the metal ornament on his expensive cane, Ethan knocked on the heavy-looking doors of the mansion.
They started moving backwards almost immediately but opened slowly enough to reveal the large inside of the mansion behind it in parts.
"Mr. Ethan! What took you so long!?" a man wearing the standard auror uniform said with enthusiasm as the butler beside him bowed.
"I'm here now Joseph. Is everything ready?"
"Yes, it is. I've cleared the mansion of all other personnel. You will be free to do your magic. I'm sure you can give us all an appropriate answer."
Ethan only politely nodded and started to walk inside prompting Joseph to walk with him and direct the hoard of students behind them to the scene of the crime.
They climbed a flight of stairs and soon arrived on the upper floor of the mansion.
The end of the corridor had a thin white veil covering it that shocked most of the group. It was a wall of spirituality that was put up before performing a ritual to separate an area from the rest of the world to stop any external interference from taking place.
Almost instantly Ethan stopped causing everyone else to stop, "Have you been inside the white veil?"
"Huh? Oh, that? Yeah. Nothing scary there though. It's just Mr. Prick lying on his bed in a coma."
"I see." Ethan nodded but then tapped his cane on the floor twice and spoke softly, "You may vacate from the mansion now Joseph. And please tell the other aurors not to leave this area yet. Not until we give everyone the clear."
Joseph frowned but nodded, "As you wish." and left.
With Joseph leaving everyone heard a soft *bark* come from one of the rooms nearby, the door to the room opened and a Golden Retriever walked into the corridor.
Loki almost on instinct activated his spirit vision and nearly cursed out loud.
'The heck is a dog corrupted by 'Her'!?'
Almost as if noticing his gaze the dog looked at Loki and *barked* "*WUFF* *WRUFF*." causing Loki to suddenly freeze.
'Did it notice me looking at the corruption?'
The dog then ran upto Loki and began to lick his hand which had the toy in it.
'Alright. You haven't been noticed for now Loki. You can do it. You can kill the dog.'
Loki bent down to snap the dog's neck and be done with it but suddenly paused, 'What will I tell them all once I've killed the dog? It annoyed me so I killed it? That probably won't come across well…they might even think I'm losing control.'
But with his knees already bent, Loki couldn't do much so he continued and squatted in front of the dog before giving it belly rubs while *cooing* cutely, "Aww….whose a good boy!!!"
*WRUFF* *WRUFF*
"*AHEM*" Ethan coughed politely to snap Loki back to his senses causing him to immediately get up with a slightly embarrassed smile as he threw away the squeaky ball in his hands towards the other end of the corridor.
"Sorry, I got a little distracted.", Loki said while rubbing the back of his head.
"I understand but we aren't here to play." Ethan nodded and then looked at everyone else in Daphne's team, "Do you all recognise that veil?"
Daphne nodded with Loki while Hermione explained, "It's a wall of spirituality."
"Yes that it is. It is used to cordon off areas from the outside world while performing rituals so I want one of you guys to divine if it is safe for us to enter by breaching that wall of spirituality."
Daphne nodded and pulled out an expensive-looking crystal pendulum from her sleeves, in front of everyone, she entered cogitation and repeated the phrase, "Is it safe to cross the wall of spirituality set up around the room?", seven times.
Although Loki was known as a divination expert at Hogwarts, it was Daphne who was higher in sequence than him while still being deeply connected to a pathway related to fate, and so her divinations were taken to be more accurate in this case.
'But Mione's divinations are unobstructed…'
'Good idea that Mione doesn't have to divine anything regarding the case yet…'
'Might reveal a bit too much…'
And soon the results were out.
"It's spinning clockwise, so it should be safe.", Daphne stated and Ethan nodded but ordered something else, "I don't want anyone to enter the room with the wall of spirituality around it. Go to all the other rooms on this floor first and figure out if there are any pieces of evidence the Aurors might've missed."
"You mean for us to divine about things like secret compartments? Encoded letters and the sort?" Loki asked and Ethan nodded, "Precisely."
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