Click!

The sound of the door latch engaging was soft yet clear in the hushed atmosphere of the hotel room. Kingsley gently nudged Louise’s elbow before leaving and thoughtfully closed the door behind him for the two people in the room.

Silence fell upon the space between them and the atmosphere was slightly awkward and perhaps filled with unspoken possibilities. The soft, amber light from the lamp fell across Louise’s facial features showing her faintly pink cheeks. She gently bit her lip down in a nervous gesture, already regretting her impulsive, perhaps reckless decision to come find someone to talk to at such an inappropriate time.

“Is there anything I can help you with tonight, Louise?” Bryan inquired, his voice maintaining its gentle tone. He seemed to be genuinely oblivious to the potentially suggestive circumstances— two single adults alone in a hotel room during the deepest hours of the night could undeniably be considered a rather intimate situation by any conventional social standard.

Perhaps it was Bryan’s soft and gentle tone, without any presumption or expectation, that acted as a balm to Louise’s nervous nerves, helping her racing heart gradually find its natural rhythm once again.

She inhaled deeply several times, the scent of old books and polished wood that filled the room filling her lungs and calming her further. She pressed her lips together briefly, collecting her scattered thoughts, and finally spoke in a slightly hoarse voice that showed her emotional exhaustion:

“I’m terribly sorry for disturbing you at this hour, Bryan. I just—um, I couldn’t sleep, and then—I happened to notice the light still glowing from beneath your door and thought perhaps… I …. I wanted to find someone to talk to—”

Insomnia under such traumatic circumstances was perfectly normal and completely to be expected, in fact, if Louise had been able to fall peacefully asleep just in a day or two after learning about her brother’s death, Bryan would have been genuinely surprised and concerned about her emotional state.

“Oh, if you don’t mind the suggestion, perhaps we could share a nightcap—” Bryan rose smoothly from the sofa with a reassuring smile and said. “A small amount of alcohol often helps relax the overstimulated nervous system when one is troubled—it might make conversation easier and perhaps help you find sleep later.”

Two young people— one man and another woman drinking alone in a hotel room in the middle of the night felt even more ambiguous.

Louise’s heart rate accelerated again. But upon observing Bryan’s composed expression, she also relaxed slightly. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded slowly in acceptance of the offered hospitality.

Bryan walked toward the wine rack in the corner of the room, his gaze was scanning the three shelves of varied bottles before quickly selecting a dusty bottle of medium-dry Amontillado sherry whose orange-amber liquid gleamed like liquid gold when he held it up to the lamplight for brief inspection.

Rolling up the sleeves of his shirt with elegant gestures, Bryan skillfully opened the sherry with a silver corkscrew he took from the drawer of the sideboard. The cork was released with a satisfying soft pop that broke their silence.

Turning around with the bottle in his hand, he observed Louise standing about ten feet behind him, examining the sofa he had just been sitting on. Her gaze was filled with obvious hesitation about where she should place herself.

Instinctively, functioning on years of magical reflexes, Bryan nearly drew his wand from its concealed holster to conjure a chair for Louise with a simple transfiguration spell, but he restrained his impulse just in time, as his fingers were twitching slightly toward his pocket before stopping.

Although since making the decision to bring Louise to Italy, Bryan had been well aware that this intelligent Muggle girl would eventually, inevitably witness real magic in action, and he wasn’t particularly concerned about this unavoidable revelation as he would, after all, have to modify her memories eventually but the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was so deeply ingrained in the soul of every wizard after centuries of enforcement that Bryan found himself also instinctively delaying the moment of exposure to magic.

“Please, sit there—”

The wine swirled as it poured from the bottle into two crystal-clear glasses. When Bryan handed the glass to Louise, he politely pointed to the sofa he had just left. Meanwhile, he himself retreated to sit on the edge of the neatly made bed.

As the sherry with its subtle hazelnut, dried fruit, and very faint tobacco aroma traveled smoothly down her throat, warming her from within, Louise exhaled heavily, her shoulders visibly dropping as she released a breath, she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

It was as if she were attempting to physically expel all the accumulated sadness, fear, and overwhelming worries from her burdened mind through that single, liberating exhalation. She didn’t immediately break the friendly silence that had developed between them, but instead thoughtfully sipped her wine one after another, savoring the complex flavors.

Her gaze eventually drifted up and settled on the brass wall clock whose pendulum swung with hypnotic regularity. Her eyes showed deep bewilderment and existential questioning as she pondered over the continuous forward march of time that continued regardless of personal tragedy.

Bryan understood Louise’s current emotional state very well. Her brother had lost his life at the hands of ruthless terrorists, and her parents were still unaware of their son’s fate.

Although for a considerable period before his death, Fraser’s relationship with his family members and with Louise had grown increasingly strained and distant, in their family’s optimistic view, Fraser was probably just temporarily misguided, experiencing a rebellious phase common to young adults finding their way. They most likely believed that Fraser would eventually come to his senses and return to the normal family life. But now—

Everything had irreversibly turned to nothing. Fraser would never have the chance to change his mind again. No, Bryan corrected his thinking, Fraser had indeed most probably changed his mind toward the end, but to protect his family from the dangerous world he had become entangled with, he had been unwilling to contact them.

And even after having made that choice, he was still killed by that group of fanatics.

“Tell me—” After a long, thoughtful silence during which the only sounds were the gentle ticking of the clock, the bewilderment in Louise’s eyes still hadn’t diminished.

She stared hypnotically at the gleaming brass second hand ticking forward one mark at a time with mechanical indifference to human suffering, her voice was sounding distant and disconnected as if coming from across a vast abyss. “Does magic truly exist in this world?”

Bryan, who had been swirling his own glass in slow circles to properly disperse the sediment in the aged wine paused briefly at her question.

The moment of hesitation was very short, and barely noticeable, and he soon resumed his casual motion without giving any definitive answer. He knew that what Louise desperately needed in this moment was not factual information as answers but rather a compassionate listener for her confused thoughts.

“Fraser was academically brilliant from a young age. He was very intelligent, and very few people could successfully deceive him about anything of importance—” Louise’s expression grew distant as she lost herself in cherished memories of her brother.

“If magic doesn’t genuinely exist in this world beyond tricks and illusions, then the people who manipulated and killed him must surely be the most skilled con artists in the entire world. Only the most exquisite deception could possibly have made someone like Fraser become so completely obsessed with studying what he believed was genuine magic.”

“What if magic does indeed exist in this world?” Bryan asked the ‘hypothetical’ question softly, his tone neither confirming nor denying the possibility.

Bryan’s thoughtful gaze was lowered contemplatively, watching with apparent fascination at the wavering, mesmerizing patterns of light formed on the carpet as the warm amber lamplight passed through the clear golden wine in his glass.

Louise looked at Bryan with slight surprise flickering across her face. She had presumed Bryan wouldn’t easily engage with what she considered her grief-induced, possibly wine-enhanced ramblings.

After all, Bryan was clearly a highly trained government agent of some description, and with her reporter’s discerning eye for character assessment, she could immediately tell he was a man very skilled at concealing his true thoughts.

“If magic truly exists—” Louise smiled palely, “Then this world is truly very unfair.”

“Fairness has always been a relative concept rather than an absolute one. Magic, if it exists, isn’t necessarily a gift bestowed by heaven upon the fortunate few. Ordinary humans, through imagination and technological innovation, can also achieve many equally incredible things that might appear magical to previous generations. At the very least—”

Bryan shrugged his shoulders, “Magic can’t help anyone travel to the moon, but human technology has already accomplished that remarkable feat multiple times.”

Louise pressed her lips together thoughtfully, giving Bryan a slightly perplexed look that showed her growing confusion. This man seemed to be responding to her fanciful, hypothetical questions with far too much seriousness and considered thought, as if magic might actually exist as a genuine possibility rather than just speculation?

Shaking her head slightly, Louise drove this absurd thought from her mind. As a journalist for a major newspaper, she knew well how thoroughly developed had modern media and communication technologies had become; if magic genuinely existed in this world, how could it possibly remain unexposed?

Perhaps Bryan was just a man who liked engaging in philosophical debates and theoretical discussions with excessive seriousness?

Louise considered this more rational explanation, lowering her head to take another sip of the sherry that was gradually loosening the tight knot of anxiety in her chest, when her peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of a piece of parchment resting on the side table.

“What’s this?” She inquired curiously.

“We considered that the terrorists who committed these crimes might have fled Britain, and possibly not through normal, well-monitored transportation channels. So, I arranged for Kingsley and his team of subordinates to obtain a list of people who left Britain through various unofficial smuggling routes during the critical time period after the package was sent out—”

“You’re certainly quick to respond and gather intelligence!” Louise exclaimed with genuine amazement, privately thinking that these people were truly worthy of their positions as elite government agents and were indeed impressively efficient in their methods—ordinary police forces wouldn’t work with such remarkable speed and access to underground information networks.

Instinctively, driven by her journalist’s perpetual curiosity, her hand reached toward the list, but upon making contact with the unusual texture of the material, she withdrew her fingers as if they had been unexpectedly burned, as she suddenly became mindful of potentially overstepping professional boundaries.

“I’m sorry for my presumption, I—”

“I can’t honestly think of anyone with more legitimate right to examine this list than you, Louise—” Bryan smiled encouragingly, gesturing invitingly with his wine glass in a welcoming motion.

‘Parchment—’

Louise’s fingertips rubbed the surface of the unusual material gently, again surprised by its antique nature. Few people still used such particularly antique writing material in this age of laser printers.

The list was long, with dozens of names and corresponding destination countries written in flowing black ink that made Louise’s vision dizzy slightly as she attempted to focus. She looked without any particular aim or method, neither Bryan nor Louise herself realistically expecting her to discover any meaningful clues from this fugitive list.

As her gaze moved downward, a name appearing in her vision made Louise furrow her brow slightly. She felt it was familiar but couldn’t remember where she’d heard it before. In her slightly tipsy state, she quickly skipped past this name and continued looking downward.

“Well, have you perhaps found anything potentially significant?” Bryan casually inquired when he observed Louise silently refolding the list along its original creases and carefully placing it back on the side table.

“Hmm—” Louise shrugged again, “The rather common name ‘Tom Riddle’ appears three separate times on the list, but I seriously doubt it’s the same person as the classmate with that identical name from my elementary school, high school, and university years—”

“Ah—” Bryan chuckled, “Indeed, that’s unlikely—”

The small joke helped release the heavy atmosphere in the room. The gloom in Louise’s heart dissipated somewhat. Without waiting for Bryan to refill her empty glass, she walked over with slightly unsteady steps and poured herself more wine.

‘Drowning one’s sorrows in alcohol is indeed a very effective if temporary method of self-deception and emotional numbness,’ Louise thought philosophically as she observed Bryan from across the room.

Louise raised her chin with newfound boldness fueled by wine courage, and asked,

“Would you be willing to tell me something about yourself, young and remarkably accomplished Mr. Bryan Watson?”

The deceptively mild-tasting but surprisingly potent wine had gradually numbed her brain without her fully realizing its effect. Louise’s lips curled into a more relaxed smile than she had managed in days, and her soft, melodious laughter uncontrollably revealed a subtle hint of seduction.

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