Dealing with Saul after being tipped off by Lichfield was going to be uncomfortable to say the least. The two men hated each other, or at least they did thirty-odd years ago and neither had seemed the type to let bygones be bygones; blaming a man for the death of your wife wasn't something anyone could just get over. To his knowledge neither had spoken to the other since, which was considerable since they were the last of the Lost left, so far as he could recall.
Lester would have expected him to keep this memory close to his chest, maybe do some digging on his own and follow the normal mode of investigation; he wouldn't have expected him to go to Saul. That would mean no one else would likely foresee it either, even if they knew of everyone's past, which would keep the connection properly buried as long as they didn't contact each other again. It was a different place to start from than Albus's Order had last time around, to be sure, and he had the luxury of not having active Death Eaters to contend with, so if he had personal drama to handle instead he would just have to suck it up and move on.
Closing and locking his trunk, Alastor scanned the outside of his office before he shrunk down the invisible box until it was small enough to fit in his hand and stuck it to the underside of his chair. From his desk he withdrew a purple sheet of paper and scratched out a short vague message before tapping it with his wand to fold it into an aeroplane. Peering through his eye again to recheck that he wasn't about to be disturbed, Alastor disappeared under his invisibility cloak and tossed the memo into the air.
Achieving stable flight, the folded purple memo circled the room before heading towards the door. With a tap of the aeroplane's nose the office door opened; Alastor paused only a moment to Silence the thunk of his artificial leg before stepping lively to keep up before the door closed on him. Keeping his magical eye fixed on the memo he looked about with his real one to make sure he wasn't observed.
"C'mon, Tonksie," the towheaded Jameson kid said with what the boy must've thought was his most winning smile. "What do I have to do to get you to go out with me?" he asked for what must be the hundredth time as Alastor made his way past her cubical.
"First off, stop calling me 'Tonksie,'" Nymphadora said with an agitated edge to her voice that'd soon have the poor boy in the infirmary if he didn't stop. "That's almost as bad as 'Pinky' Mad-Eye's friend called me today. Secondly, you're like a minute older than me-"
"-More like a year," the boy noted.
"-That's still too close," she continued, "It just feels weird. So please just give up and move on."
The girl then tried to bury herself in all the paperwork she let pile up as Jameson coped with the loss as best he could.
"Pinky? Oh, that's perfect. I've got to start calling you that now."
Pinky let out a frustrated roar as he finally hit the hallway; Alastor couldn't have hoped for a better distraction.
His magical eye scanning around to insure that no one would bump into him, he hit the button to summon the elevator. Thanking his lucky stars the car was empty except for other memos, he followed his folded purple guide inside and hit the button for Level 9. His luck continued as no one joined him along the way, though he did have to cause all the papers to fly out of one witch's arms to make sure it didn't happen.
"The Department of Mysteries," the announcer chimed as he reached Level 9 and the memo soared off again.
As Alastor followed the aeroplane towards the door at the end of the hall he couldn't help but glimpse things through his magical eye again. The elevator behind him glowed like a strange spectral chariot, the stairway leading down to the twisting hallways, courtrooms, holding cells below were as open and barren as a catacomb, leaving the memo ahead like a twinkling guiding star in the darkness; a tiny twinkling on the edge of a black oblivion.
He had always disliked the Unspeakables who worked in Department of Mysteries for their secrets, dubious loyalties, and uncertain chain of command, but he liked the whole place even less once he had lost his eye. After that it had gone from a place he was wary of to one that was downright unnatural. Whether it was an intentional defect of his replacement or some enchantment on the Department itself he didn't know, but it was the one place he couldn't look into. It was like staring at an all-encompassing void which blot out the sun, and he was going into it just as blind as any other human; any that could stare out the back of their own skull anyway.
With a tap of the memo's pointed nose the door opened and the aeroplane raced through; Moody followed behind, uncertain what would be next. The tiny purple plane started flying in small circles at the center of a circular room of doors lit by eerie blue flames. Alastor stopped beneath it and looked around with both eyes, though neither worked any better than the other. The doors, flames, walls, ceiling, and floor were solid black and didn't register as the least bit magical, the only things which did were the memo, the silver shroud keeping him hidden, and the translucent mist muffling his steps.
Through his magical eye he saw the door he entered through close causing the room to rumble and spin around faster than he'd ever thought possible, the torches leaving blue tracers across his vision. His replacement eye spun around with it trying to keep up, which made everything so much worse. Moody tried to fix it on the memo above him but it didn't work either since that had gone nuts too.
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