Absit Omen RPG

Briar followed the orders Carstairs had set forth for her, watching the edges of their crime scene. She absorbed what was being said around her while she kept an eye out. Thankfully it was early and there was very little if any activity around. Being Christmas morning, where most were still in bed or beginning to enjoy a holiday brunch with family certainly helped.

She was undisturbed as the body was examined to the fullest extent the location allowed before being moved to it's next location. Gamp busied himself with formal interviews of the squibs that had found him and it wasn't much longer before everything began to wrap up. There wasn't much more they could gleam from the sight of the attack and they'd have to wait for the full report on the body. Hopefully it wouldn't take long for the man to be identified and they could move towards finding the Vampire that had done this.

Then again, even being just a trainee, Briar knew that nothing was ever that straightforward.

"Are you all we're getting from MLE this morning, Cavanaugh? Ever worked a vampire bite before?"

Briar shrugged, "It is Christmas Morning." She added simply. She had no idea if any other Aurors would be joining them. She wasn't sure she would be able to head this all up herself but she wasn't about to let any of those with her know that. She didn't need to let doubt, or any other emotion for that matter, be seen. Her sister was well known for being emotionally detached when she was on a case. Briar supposed she could, for now, follow in those footsteps. After all she'd rather have those in the Ministry thinking she was more like Berkeley than her disgraced father.

She took the wand from the much taller woman, "shame it's broken. We won't know if he tried to defend himself." She moved closer to the body and started to prod around, looking for the other half of the wand when Solomon Carstairs of all people showed up.

"Whose is that?"

She turned to Gamp and Carstairs, still bent over the body, "Hard to say. If he was a wizard, where's the other half of his wand?" She frowned slightly, "If he wasn't . . ." She thought back to Marrowbone's question about whether she had worked on a Vampire case before. Admittedly she hadn't, she hadn't even answered the question. Instead of looking unsure of herself Briar opted for thinking out loud as she got a closer look at the bites, "It's possible the wand came from our Vamp. He wouldn't have been able to use it but maybe a keepsake of a previous life."

She looked down to the man's hands, "no lacerations or contusions on the knuckles. He wasn't a brawler." She stood up and handed off the wand, "wand could still be his. I suppose an ID would be needed to know for sure." She stopped herself from asking if anyone present recognized their body.

A dead body on Christmas morning wasn't the sort of thing you were supposed to get excited about but for Briar it was a sure fire way to keep herself busy. Not to mention the perfect excuse not to be with her father. Berkeley had finally persuaded the Cavanaugh kids to spend the holidays with their Dad, despite the fact that none of them lived with him. Briar would be perfectly content if she never saw Kevin Cavanaugh again.

She stood back as the body was examined. She was mostly there to observe and handle any crowd control if needed. She was still in her first year of Auror training. She likely shouldn't have even been there but she'd argue it was great for experience. She'd never learn anything if she only got to see the safe and easy cases.

Her face seemed to be set in a permanent scowl. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened. There was a similar attack on muggles months prior. She hadn't been involved then but she had heard that they had been looking into a former Ministry Staff turned Vampire. Briar had tried to remember the former Hufflepuff. The only thing she had been able to recall about him was his public proposal to his girlfriend in the Great Hall. He didn't seem like a murderer at the time but then again he had been human then.

Vampires were dangerous and no amount of sensitivity training they were forced to take, would change that. They weren't like werewolves where it could be argued they were human ninety percent of the time (which Briar thought was Bollocks) they were Beasts a hundred percent of the time and this particular Beast seemed to take a liking to the taste of Muggles. This was bad no matter which way you spun it.

Briar was thankful to hear that Raine's view on Dark Wizards wasn't far off from her own. She was completely right. Anyone that ended up in a cell was there because of some choice they had made themselves. It wasn't like when her parents were fighting the war, the whole "Imperio" defense just wasn't as feasible these days. For a moment she imagined the pair of them playing Bad and Badder Cop. Their seniors would likely blow a gasket.

"Valliancourt. Huh." Briar stared into her case file, scratching away with her quill and biting her tongue. She likely would have acted just like Pratt in that respect. She kept it to herself though. She wasn't sure Raine shared this view with her. After all, her former roommate had lowered herself enough to date that disgusting albino fleabag. She likely felt the same about bloodsuckers. Probably even donated to the blood drive they had set up a few months back. She sneered for a moment thinking about it.

She glanced over and decided to test the waters a little, "Did you hear who they had brought in for that? Matty Amherst." She remembered Berkeley talking about it. Matty had been a few years ahead of them and in Hufflepuff but his very public proposal to Addie in the Great Hall had nearly the whole school taking notice.

She shook her head, "I thought he was dead . . ."

Briar hadn't moved from her position when Roh came in and offered further information for their case. The move almost seemed like posturing. The was Blake's first case as lead and it seemed like all of Level Two was eager to see if she could hack it or not. Briar continued to spin the mini paper crane on her finger as the others spoke.

She didn't move until Trevelyan came in. She suddenly straightened, taking her boots off the table and placing down the crane. Her demeanor completely shifting from the arrival of the previous Auror. She took the file Raine had offered her finally taking an interest in what Roh had given them.

"Certainly isn't looking good for Fig even if it is a wrong place wrong time thing." Her ice blue eyes flitting up to Jonas as he took a seat, "bringing him in," she added to Raine, "may give us something, even if just to wipe him off the board."

She looked at the info for Tiverton, "now this guy could be worth looking into given his priors."

Briar had stiffened when Peyton threw himself around her, his massive frame easily over taking her own. Part of her wanted to yell at him for being such an idiot - that was the whole reason she put up the shield, she didn't need protecting. On the other hand she was a little touched. He hadn't hesitated in doing it. If his wand work had been better he likely would have made a good Auror.

As the dust settled Briar looked after their retreating companion, "take your own advice, yeah?" Had she been even remotely sober she would have marked Nate for what he was right from the start. For now she tried to commit his features to memory for the next time he would undoubtably cross her path.

She looked up as her cousin scolded her and scoffed, "Hardly." She wrapped her arm around his again and gave a tug, "c'mon, we need more drinks."

"Truer words . . ." She trailed off at the thought of what the rest of Level Two did when they weren't hunting down dark wizards and criminals. She imagined a lot of them had some sort of family. Not everyone was like Berkeley who had no life to speak of outside the office. It wasn't like Briar was any different these days. She may have been living with her sister now that Xavier took the deed to Wentworth Manor out from under her but that didn't mean the sisters were any closer. Briar spent most of her free time out drinking or seeing friends as often as she could. The Auror life could eat you alive if you didn't have other things to enjoy.

She chuckled again, "I bet Pratt keeps tabs. Probably tries to go for a record with each batch of trainees." Her eyes still on her case file she let a smirk curl her lips. She was ready to dare the training officer to try. Briar couldn't remember the last time she cried. It simply wasn't in her nature.

Briar let out a bark of laughter, "Sensitivty training, what a joke." She shook her head, closed her folder and moved onto the next one, "we're Aurors for Godric's sake. We catch the bad guys, they're the bad guys. Why should we learn to be sensitive to them?"

If it had been any other day Briar would have hexed Figaro for his snark. He was laughing nervously and she understood what he was going through or at least she could empathize with him but that didn't mean she had to like it. She was sure she was going to be told off sooner or later for her 'bedside manner'.

She was side by side with Fig as they saw the flash of a spell and skidded to a stop around the corner. Someone had nearly bowled the young reporter over. Briar spun on her heels, "Hey! Get back here!"

Figaro's call drew her attention away from the retreating figure and she felt dread take her over at the sight of the broken window. She swore loudly, "they're inside!"

She drew her wand and sent her Patronus running off to warn the other Aurors, "we need to get inside."

Briar was bored. Not because they were working a boring case, as far as burglaries were concerned this was actually rather interesting, but because they had been going 'round and 'round for hours and hadn't really got anywhere. They had unreliable witnesses, a PI that couldn't remember jack and a suspect that had little to no motive.

Briar had been leaned back in her chair, her feet up on the conference table. There was a small origami crane that she had folded within the first hour and was spinning like a top on her finger tip.

She glared at Bailey as he once again made his lame joke then yelled at his retreating figure, "you could at least fill it for us!"

She huffed and listened to Fauna's break down, which in all honesty, didn't put them much further than when they first started, "If Sellaphix did do it, he wasn't alone. Those wards on the office weren't exactly done by an amateur, and Fig's not exactly . . . " she trailed off. It wasn't the first time she had voiced the opinion. Having gone to Hogwarts with their 'Person of Interest' she had little confidence in his wand skills.

Briar made a show of rolling her eyes at Peyton as he went off on her. Had she not been currently a trainee for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she'd be tempted to hex him. Her wand was already in her hand and it was twitching. She didn't appreciate him scolding her like this. She didn't like anyone scolding her, family or not and despite having known each other for all of their teenaged years, they had only recently discovered they were related.

Instead she turned to their unwilling companion. She was feeling herself sober up somewhat, though she was rather confident in her own skills even if she had been completely sloshed, "Apparating is off the table." She added sharply without explanation. She hadn't been thinking along the same lines as Nate - that the bricks were hexed - but the fact that she knew Peyton had failed his apparition test the first go around. She wasn't sure if he had succeeded in the make up course.

Without a further word Briar threw up a solid and rather strong shield spell around the three of them, "do what you're gonna do mate." She was still intent on keeping things casual and friendly with Nate.

Briar's pale brow had knitted when Figaro started to freak out. She knew the former Hufflepuff was pretty, was eccentric the right word? Excitable? Either way he wasn't exactly normal but even this seemed to be out of character for him. That was until he mentioned that his mother was inside. Briar felt her chest tighten. She understood that panic. Her own mother had been an Auror but she had died during the Second Wizarding War. She had little family left, or at least it felt like that when it came to a distant sister, a brother she hadn't grown up with and a dead beat father who had forgotten he had children.

She was ready to reassure him but hadn't found the words before another Auror came and gave her orders. Figaro was all too quick to react and Briar found herself suddenly running to catch up to him, unsure of whether or not Nick had joined them, "Fig hold on!" She called after him, her Lioness Patronus galloping with them, "it's dangerous!" She felt stupid for stating the obvious but he was just a reporter now, how would it look if he got injured (or worse) on her watch?

The wide smile on the miniature Auror's face made it clear that she was enjoying torturing her cousin. She gave him a sharp nudge in the ribs when he told their companion to ignore her. She was only having a bit of fun and it wasn't as if they were ever going to see this guy again after tonight.

She let out a bark of a laugh when Nate responded that he was dodgy. Her cousin really was just that naive. Perhaps too many bludgers to the head. The other man didn't exactly look intimidating but then again anyone with a wand could be potentially dangerous. She wasn't exactly the scariest person herself.

Briar whipped around at the voice behind her and had instinctively drawn her wand. The lit wand tip made it near impossible to see the other man's face. Her own fight or flight instincts were kicking in if slightly delayed by the alcohol in her system.

"Yeah mate, don't be an arsehole." She gave a wink despite not being able to see who she was talking to. She wasn't sure how long the other man had been standing there but took a shot in the dark that he hadn't caught their previous exchange.

She shifted from standing next to Peyton to standing next to Nate and put a hand on his shoulder, "our friend here was just asking for an Autograph, he's a huge Quidditch fan." She could see Peyton's eye widen at her gamble. She gave him a look as if to say 'I got this'. Claiming herself to be an Auror wasn't a guarantee that they'd be safe but playing the rich and famous card could be enough to cause the other man to back down. If he attacked them it was more likely to make the front page.

Briar's eyes were glued to the case file she was working on, her quill scribbling along but she gave a soft chuckle, "feel sorry for whoever pisses him off next." She chanced a quick glance at the other girl. She was painfully reminded of how much she had missed this sort of thing. She was thankful that Raine hadn't rejected her and that perhaps she could make up for all the lost time between them.

Briar shook her head, her ponytail bobbing behind her, "Pratt has kids? Now that, I never would have guessed." Having kids as an Auror always seemed like such risky business. She had no intention of breeding herself, she had seen too many families ripped apart when the Auror life went south - her own included.

Bri smirked at her crybabies remark. She had spent most of her later childhood with Arathorn, he wasn't as strict on her as he was some of her cousins, though he likely wouldn't have stood by that behaviour either. The man had been too proud and had instilled a lot of his more stoic (and perhaps unemotional) traits in Briar herself. It was hard not to be a little hardened when no one seemed interested in comforting you.

Briar let out a wry laugh, "I bet he's still managed to make at least one of the trainees cry" It wasn't that Pratt was an imposing guy but some people just couldn't handle being yelled at, "My money's on Blake."

Briar let a hint of a smile cross her lips. She was happy that her Patronus was helping and she was glad to see that the only people she really knew in this mess were okay so far but she was also on duty and didn't want to come across as 'socializing' instead of helping. Her sister and the other Aurors had that covered and she knew she'd have to get into the fray sooner or later but she wasn't quite ready to do that just yet.

She turned to Fig, the former Hufflepuff turned reporter seemed to be a lot more tense than she would have thought the situation called for. Without meaning to, she remembered a letter she had once got from her sister when she was little. Berkeley had mentioned that Dementors had been showing up at Hogwarts again and she described how they felt, happy that Briar and Kyson were with family in Australia. As a naive five year old Briar remembered thinking Dementors were cool Boogeymen creatures, she never imagined she'd be fighting them as part of her job.

"They're not inside, yet. They're trying their hardest to get in."

She looked to Nick. The Oblivator had been a fellow Gryffindor, he had been like family just like everyone else in her house and she found that she was a little more concerned of his well being (especially given his relationship with Peyton) than her colleagues, "I saw them throwing up walls, to try and keep them out. Watch out for flying debris, yeah?"

Briar dropped down a stack of folders that made a loud THWACK! as it hit the desk where Raine had cleared a space for her, "Paperwork," She said with a well accentuated eye roll, "Berkeley thinks it builds characters." She spoke in a voice obviously mocking her timid older sister. Entering the Auror Trainee program was so surreal for her, it had been what so many had expected of her, something she had never really wanted for herself but now felt drawn to. Though the extra time spent with her sister just enhanced the surreal sensation. Berkeley was Nine years older than her, it wasn't as if they grew up together. She had already been living at Hogwarts when their Mother died and once she graduated she had moved out and joined the Auror Corps leaving Briar all on her own. Taking orders from the eldest Cavanaugh was going to take some getting used to.

She smirked at Raine, "How long do you think Pratt's going to be punishing you?" She had heard of Raine's blowing off steam incident but hadn't been there to see Pratt's reaction.

Sitting side by side with the red head, writing out reports reminded her so much of the years they spent at Hogwarts it was almost painful. They had spent seven years living in the same dorm room, taking so many of the same classes. Raine and the other girls of Gryffindor were more like sisters to her than her own blood. It had been hard to ignore her and push her away in their final year but she just couldn't bring herself to be okay with Raine dating a werewolf. Then all the stuff happened with her Grandfather, a time when she could have really used such a friend and she still couldn't do it. It wasn't until the pair were in training together and Briar had learned about her breaking up with the beast that she finally let herself come around again.

"I heard he can be a total hard ass."