Detective Work Required PV Geoffrey Donovan closed

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little bit anxious about the whole thing. Excited, of course, but also anxious.

Rhys had read and re-read the lines a few times the day the new Headliner issue was released, the first time more surprised than anything else. Surprised became perplexed, though that quickly gave way to curiosity. And so that very same night he wrote two owls: one to his mum and dad, whom he wanted to ask what exactly this was supposed to mean, if anything at all; and the second for Dee. While the first had many scribbles and crossed out words that showed exactly how embarrassed he was about even writing it at all, the second was very neat, very short and very to the point.

He asked her if she knew who asked about him for her article.

The brief exchange resulted in him waiting a little bit for her to bring to him the scrap of paper that was stuffed into her "Ask a Stupid Question Day" box. All the while, whenever he thought about it, his excitement only grew. Yes, there was the potential that Dee would hand-deliver it, though he imagined she'd have an easier time just sending it via owl, but his excitement was more because of the investigating, the digging, the discovery. A good mystery was always fun, after all.

The day basically came and went with him preoccupied with his studies, though he did occasionally wonder if Dee had found the scrap of paper yet while he was taking a break. He was still thinking on it as he settled in the Great Hall for dinner, but as he put his plate together he shifted his focus to eating instead. He decided he could continue to wonder about it later, and had his spoon halfway to his mouth when suddenly, a slightly older girl from Ravenclaw happily sat herself down in the seat directly across from him. He paused for a fraction of a second, totally taken aback by the randomness of her appearance, but he quickly managed a bobble of his head and said, "Yeah, that's me."

Despite the surprise the boy pulled a warm, friendly smile on as he set his spoon back down. He was used to getting asked this particular question. "Geoffrey" and "Rhys" were almost worlds apart as far as names went, so it'd been a chore to try and everyone to call him by his nickname of choice. He'd feel less like people were trying to scold him if people could just pick it up already, but it was a slow process that he had to accept. If he could get it to stick by second year, that was good enough for him.

"Are you...Dee?" he asked, sounding halfway between hopeful and uncertain.

@Dealla Prince

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Upon validation that the boy she was currently pointing at was the one she'd been looking for, Dee brightened up a little more and dropped her hand. "Yes, the one and only," she confirmed her identity cheerfully, inspecting the boy across from her curiously. "Nice to meet you!" She didn't think they had met before, which wasn't too surprising considering he'd only been at the school for a month and a half, so unless he had managed to slip into the Gryffindor duelling team in that short time span, they wouldn't have had many reasons to cross paths. Despite their age difference he seemed to be about her height, perhaps even a little taller, and had nice green eyes and a friendly smile. Their exchange of letters had been very direct and to the point, and Dee studied him a moment longer, trying to match his face to the impression she'd had of him.

Then, she slipped her hand into her pocket, pulling out a folded scrap of paper. It was the whole reason she was here, after all, and Rhys was probably a lot more interested in seeing it than in talking to her. "Here," she said, reaching across the table to offer it to him. "The writing's a little odd. Makes me wonder if whoever wrote it purposefully tried to change their handwriting? I don't really know why, though, it's unlikely I would have recognised it." She'd spent some time studying it after she had located it in her desk, but hadn't really noticed anything further that would have helped.

Mission fulfilled, Dee turned to inspecting the dishes near her, giving Rhys a moment to look at the paper and draw his own conclusions. They didn't seem too different from what was usually offered over at the Ravenclaw table, and she could feel her stomach grumbling quietly at the delicious scents filling the air. Lunch seemed suddenly too long ago. Without further ado, she began helping herself to a generous portion of tomato soup while shooting Rhys another glance. There seemed no point in eating at her own House table, she'd rather stay around for the mystery. "So?" she asked, her curiosity clearly getting the better of her as she dipped her spoon into the soup. "Are you seeing anything I didn't?"

She hadn't thought much of the question when she had first read it, more occupied with finding out who it was about than who had asked it. Apparently Rhys had drawn someone's attention within his first month at the school.

@Geoffrey Donovan

The mysterious scrap of paper:

Reducio

The boy's smile only brightened when she confirmed who she was, and his eyes glimmered with excitement as he realized that this was finally it! The official beginning of his search. While he didn't expect it to happen over dinner, seeing as they were in different years and he had so far chosen to abstain from joining any of the sports teams or clubs, it wasn't as though they had plenty of other opportunities to run into each other. There was quite literally only two: the Great Hall at mealtimes, or the common room. So, dinner it was.

Rhys was glad to finally be able to put a face to the name, committing it to memory before she reached over with a scrap of paper. He took it, smile ever wide, and said a quick, "Thanks!" before she continued with what she was going to say.

Unlike his imaginings, there was absolutely, positively nothing special about this piece of paper. The writing wasn't the greatest, and he found he was wondering the same as she with regard to possibly trying to make it so the writing was unidentifiable. "They did a right job of that," he said, sighing as he sank back into his seat.

He held the paper at arms length and tilted it upward, making the parchment go slightly translucent but revealing nothing other than the fact that the paper seemed perfectly normal. He tried all kinds of simple things while Dee put her plate together. He flipped it over to check the back, put it closer to his face, stretched it out again in front of him, rubbed the parchment together, even dared to dip one corner into his water to see if that did anything, but ultimately when she finally asked her question his answer was a very deflated, "Nope. Not a thing."

Rhys squinted at the piece of paper, food now forgotten, as if doing so would suddenly reveal any secrets it might be holding, and he thought. He thought hard for a long moment, but nothing immediately came to him so he was about ready to set it aside. Perhaps he'd have better luck after eating, and in the library where maybe he could look up some information about maybe trick paper, or special ink, or... He froze.

"What about," he started as he set the paper back on the table and went back to staring at it. "What about invisible ink?"

@Dealla Prince

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Rhys was a lot more thorough with his inspection of the paper than Dee had been, and it gave her plenty of time to stock up on food and then refocus her attention on him. A little confused, she noticed that the paper had a wet corner now but... Well, he'd probably had a reason for that, right?

Whatever it had been, it apparently hadn't revealed anything ground-breaking, for Rhys seemed a little discouraged, although not ready to give up just yet. Good, Dee would have been very disappointed if it had ended just like that. His next idea seemed a little far-fetched, however, and Dee frowned, her gaze dropping to the paper as well. "Invisible ink? Why would they go to the trouble, for an anonymously submitted question? They likely thought I'd throw it away after the article was done." But then, why had they gone so far as to make their handwriting unrecognisable? What were they missing here?

"Let me just..." Dee muttered, pulling out her wand. "I don't think this spell reveals invisible ink, but if there's anything else concealed on this paper, perhaps it will help." She pointed her wand at the writing. "Revelio." The soft blue light indicated that the cast had been successful, but no sudden message appeared written on the paper, nor were there other obvious changes. A little disappointed but not very surprised, Dee set down her wand next to her plate. "How do you reveal invisible ink?" she asked, reaching out to trail her fingertips over the scrap of paper. "I only know the silly muggle ones, like lemon juice or that weird sticky liquid that you can get from the stems of dandelions." Not truly invisible ink, either of them, and usually revealed with heat, or simply time. Perhaps she should blast the paper with the Hot-Air Charm?

But then... Dee paused, distracted. What was that? There was a faint irregularity beneath her fingertips, the paper not entirely smooth, although there was no ink in that place. Had that been there before? Suddenly giving it her full attention, Dee moved her index finger over the same place again. Yes, there was something... like a small curved line she could follow... and then another one. Suddenly excited, Dee pulled her hand back. "Can you feel that?" she asked, the enthusiasm rushing back into her voice. She was already reaching for her bag, starting to rummage through it for a specific Muggle item. She should still have one here... A pencil she'd brought from Whitehaven because sometimes, being able to erase writing was more convenient than all this quill and ink business.

@Geoffrey Donovan

Reducio

OOC: Had a chat with Nicky, and now a rough idea of how they could figure out who she is. Am very open to going a different way though if Rhys has a breakthrough