The first time Circe walked through the gates of the Nirvana Research Center, it was raining. She stood beneath the portico, shaking the droplets from her cloak, while the shadow cast by her hood completely covered the left side of her face.
The young witch at reception looked up at her, and when her gaze landed on the face divided by shadow, she visibly froze for a moment. Circe was used to that reaction. There was no malice in it; it was simply the natural reaction of a wizard seeing something unnatural, impossible to conceal.
She chose to ignore it, just as she ignored the cold sensation that came on rainy days from the patch of dragon scales covering her left cheek.
She had first been recruited from Malfoy Manor and had already spent two years at the Nirvana Research Center. Officially, she had been hired as a consultant for identifying potion ingredients. In reality, she and Warlock formed the core of a magical research team that answered directly to Uchiha Madara.
At her request, her private laboratory had been set up in a modern sterile room half underground. The upper edge of its windows sat level with the ground, allowing her to use a Magic-Viewing Lens to observe the clothes and expressions of passing wizards.
Other wizards and Muggle scientists had broadly similar assessments of her: "quiet," "good memory," and "an unusually deep understanding of botany." The last evaluation had come from her research assistant, a middle-aged wizard who had worked at the French Ministry of Magic for twenty years. He had said it while studying the proposal she had put forth the previous month on improving the compatibility between Moonlight Flower sap and Fire Dragon blood.
"My lady, this line of thinking," he had said, "doesn't seem like