Jorkins was shaken by Ian's words. He looked down at the food left on his plate, his voice dry.
"You're right, sir. I… I've never really thought about any of this. I'm ashamed."
His regret was sincere. In the wizarding world, what a powerful wizard said tended to be treated as truth, and Ian was far stronger than he was. Jorkins felt he had to take those words seriously. Power, after all, was often taken as proof that a wizard was right.
Ian let the matter rest. Some beliefs took time to change. He hadn't set out to lecture Jorkins; the conversation had simply led there. Still, if a Ministry of Magic employee who dealt with Muggle affairs could shed even a little of his prejudice, it might do some good later.
"Eat," Ian said, picking up his knife and fork again. "It's getting cold."
Jorkins nodded and resumed his meal, though he could no longer see things quite the same way. As he ate, his gaze kept drifting past Ian to the Muggle world outside the window. The people hurrying by and the familiar streets seemed warmer to him now, more alive.
Lunch at the little Muggle café ended in a thoughtful silence. Jorkins barely noticed the taste of his shepherd's pie and fish and chips. Ian ate at his leisure and even ordered apple pie for dessert.
When it was time to pay, Ian took out banknotes. Jorkins tried to cover the bill, but a look from Ian stopped him. The woman behind the counter gave them a warm smile and told them to come again.
"What, did you think I was poor?" Ian said, showing off a little. "I've got plenty of money!"
Outside, the afternoon sun had grown brighter, though the air was still chilly. More people were on the streets now, hurrying through their lunch breaks.
Jorkins walked half a step behind Ian, his thoughts in a tangle. He still feared Ian's power. He was shaken by the fight earlier, troubled by the mysterious black-robed figure and the magical suggestion placed on him, and ashamed of the prejudice Ian had just forced him to examine.
He stole a look at the young man ahead of him. Ian walked with an easy, steady stride. He seemed entirely at home among the Muggles, yet there was something about him that set him apart.
'Who is he? Where did he come from? What does he want?' He had saved Jorkins, bought him lunch, and said things Jorkins couldn't stop thinking about. Had he really done all that on a whim?
Ian turned into a quiet alley between tall brick buildings. There was no one around, only a few pigeons cooing from the walls. Sunlight fell across the ground in alternating strips of light and shadow. Ian stopped beside a clean stretch of wall in the shade and turned to face him.
Jorkins's heart jumped. 'Here it comes.' Lunch was over. Now they would get to the real reason Ian had brought him along.
"Well, Mr. Jorkins," Ian said. The casual manner he'd shown over lunch had faded, though he no longer seemed quite as distant as before. "We've eaten and had our walk. Let's get to work."
He held Jorkins's gaze. "I need a clearer account of the Seer in your memories and everything that led up to this. You agreed to let me examine those memories earlier. That offer still stands, unless you've changed your mind."
"No! I haven't changed my mind." Jorkins answered quickly and firmly. He still feared Ian, but he no longer felt quite the same panic he'd felt before an unknown threat. Ian was unfathomably powerful, yet he seemed willing to reason with him. Jorkins also desperately wanted to know what had happened to him.
"Please, sir. I'll cooperate. I won't put up any defenses."
Defending himself would be pointless anyway. He tried to relax his mind and lower his magical barriers again. It felt like taking off his armor and standing exposed before Ian, but he made himself do it. If Ian wanted to force his way in, Jorkins couldn't stop him. Better to be honest.
Ian nodded, acknowledging his cooperation. This time he stepped closer instead of holding out a finger from a distance. They stood face-to-face in the quiet alley, with only faint traffic noise from the street and the flutter of pigeons' wings overhead.
"Relax. Look into my eyes."
Jorkins obeyed. In the shade, Ian's eyes looked like two dark pools that reflected no starlight. A slight dizziness came over Jorkins, but he kept himself alert and offered no resistance.
Ian raised his right hand. A tiny silver glow, almost too faint to see, gathered at the tip of his index finger. Flecks of memory seemed to move within it. He didn't touch Jorkins's forehead. Instead, he pressed his fingertip lightly into his own opposite palm, making a gesture of connection. The light in his eyes shifted, growing deeper.
This was Ian's 'Psychic Blast'.
He spoke no incantation and drew no wand. Jorkins saw no obvious gathering of magic. Yet he felt a gentle, unyielding mental force seep silently into the surface of his mind, deep as a star-filled sky. There was no violent tearing, no cold sensation of someone prying through his thoughts.
Ian's control had reached a level where the technique seemed effortless. It was unlike Dumbledore's patient way of guiding someone through a maze, or Voldemort's brutal habit of ripping through every defense.
Ian simply entered the flow of Jorkins's memories, observing the moments tied to the events he sought with detached precision, without trying to steer or change them.
He made no attempt to conceal his presence. Jorkins could feel him there.
Jorkins felt as though he had fallen into a hazy river of images and fragments.
He saw himself working late in his office, alarm rising as he noticed something wrong with a list. He saw his wary, confused encounter with the mysterious figure in black behind the Leaky Cauldron. The figure remained blurred even in his memory, shrouded in shifting shadow, while two strange sentences rang out with perfect clarity.
Then came the Death Eaters cutting him off, his panicked attempt to escape, and the moment despair caught up with him. A remembered instruction had struck his mind like thunder, followed by an almost instinctive urge to run toward the Royal Catherine Hotel.
The memories unfolded rapidly before Ian. He went straight to the events he needed to examine, leaving Jorkins's private life, feelings, and unrelated Ministry work untouched. The memories gave him more than Jorkins's account had: stray sensations and half-formed thoughts that Jorkins himself might never have noticed.
Ian soon found what he was looking for.
Around the memories of the figure in black and the instruction that had surfaced during the chase was something extra. It was so faint, and so closely woven into Jorkins's own mental patterns, that Ian might have missed it without his unusually sharp sense for mind magic.
It wasn't a false memory or an attempt at outright control. It was a subtle magical suggestion, planted as Jorkins heard those two sentences. The spell had marked the instruction so that, under the right conditions, it would leap to the front of his mind with a powerful urge to follow it.
'That's why he ran here.'
The suggestion hadn't taken away Jorkins's free will. At any ordinary time, he could have forgotten the words or ignored them. But when his life was in danger, it pushed him strongly toward the route someone had chosen in advance.
Whoever cast it knew mind magic remarkably well. They'd also anticipated how Jorkins would react under pressure. This was no spur-of-the-moment trick by an ordinary dark wizard.
'So someone set this up.'
Ian brushed the structure of the suggestion with his mental senses. It was stable and tightly bound to Jorkins's mind, but he found no malicious addition hidden inside it. Its apparent purpose was simply to guide him.
The magic itself was strange. It didn't match the methods Ian knew from Hogwarts, nor did it feel like familiar dark magic or ancient runic work. Beneath it lay something old and obscure, with an almost otherworldly quality. A faint trace of ordinary British magic from this era had been mixed in, helping it pass unnoticed.
It wasn't Voldemort's style, or the Death Eaters'. They favored force and the Imperius Curse. It didn't seem like Dumbledore or the Order of the Phoenix, either. Dumbledore tended to act more openly and was unlikely to place such a deep suggestion on someone otherwise uninvolved.
Instead, the technique reminded Ian of stories about ancient Seers, weavers of fate, and hidden figures whose magic lay outside the usual schools.
'Someone wanted him to reach this hotel.'
Ian withdrew from Jorkins's mind. Only a dozen or so seconds had passed. To Jorkins, it had felt like a brief, vivid dream. His memories were intact, though he felt a little tired, as if someone had leafed through them. He watched Ian anxiously.
Ian lowered his hand and looked past him toward the sign of the Royal Catherine Hotel, deep in thought.
"You weren't lying, Mr. Jorkins," he said at last. "Your memory of the figure in black, what they said, and your reaction during the chase is genuine."
Jorkins let out a long breath. Relief showed on his face.
"But you weren't entirely right, either." Ian looked back at him. "You didn't simply happen to remember those words. Someone planted a remarkably well-hidden magical suggestion in your mind beforehand. When you faced a deadly threat, it activated and pushed you to choose this place."
Jorkins's smile vanished. "A magical suggestion? Someone put a spell on me? When? Was it the figure in black? Why would they do that?"
He had suspected something of the sort, but hearing it confirmed was another matter.
"The figure in black is the likeliest suspect," Ian said. "As for why… perhaps they meant to save you by directing you somewhere you might find shelter, or where events might take an unexpected turn. Or perhaps they had a more complicated plan."
He paused. "Either way, they planted that suggestion without the knowledge of a Ministry wizard whose own magic is far from weak. Whoever they are, they're formidable. You may be caught up in something much more complicated than a leaked dark magical item and a Death Eater pursuit."
Jorkins stood motionless as a chill ran through him. He'd thought a mistake at work had led to the chase. Now there was a mysterious spellcaster, a hidden suggestion, and a purpose he couldn't begin to guess.
He felt like a piece being moved by an unseen hand, without even knowing the shape of the board.
(End Of This Chapter)
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