InsaneJournal

If this party had been simply a party then it might have been cancelled. However, when it came to the Chambers family nothing was simple because where was the fun in that? Not to mention as a basic practice there wasn't anything especially exciting or worth celebrating with birthdays. They always happened, marking a simple passage of time. However, if social norms dictated they be celebrated, then why not make actual use of them?

Of course then it had to be more complicated at the last minute, didn't it? Zacharias Smith had found it fit to gift them with a house elf yesterday who he didn't trust even as Taffy went on about the Griffiths family. And then there was the nanny who he didn't quite like the sight of, but he would deal with that if he needed to. Then there was the minor detail that Cecelia had been murdered adding another variable to the evening. At the first two had actually proven useful in helping to set up for the dinner, the nanny keeping Jason entertained and Taffy cleaning and preparing the meal.

Not that any of that mattered. No, this whole evening was engineered with the sole intent of finding the appropriate test subject. Surely, there were ethics against that sort of thing, but Eli was generally under the impression that ethics were created to protect men who were too afraid to take the leap and do what had to be done.

Tonight what had to be done involved abusing a friendship he had since Hogwarts, but it was not without cause. Eli needed to know how this worked, he needed as much data as possible on the magic being used around Pandora's memories if ever hoped to not only create a working theory, but actually find application. Glancing at the clock in his study, he saw it was quickly approaching five o'clock and he needed to be finished before then in case anyone had the audacity to arrive early.

So, he put away his work, carefully transferring his recreated Pandora memory into a vial and onto his person for later use before reestablishing the wards on this room to ensure it remained out of bounds. It wouldn't do to have people messing with his things - although then there would be another reason to have to kill them and he was going to have to talk to Samara about that idea - although perhaps later. Right now, he needed to switch into something more like a personable mode so he could get through the niceties and actually have the space needed for the real work.