Absit Omen RPG

When another young Auror appeared from the shadows, Maggie narrowed her eyes, just as thrilled about it as Niobe, but for once, less vocal. Mags thought she recognized the woman as being a year or two younger than her from their school days at Hogwarts. Lovely! Trevelyan had brought rookies.

She let out an aggravated groan at Skeeter, disturbed by the way she popped up out of her cubicle like a ravenous niffler. How long had she been lurking there?

"No," she told her firmly, right as Trevelyan made a quip about handcuffs.

The change in Trevelyan's expression and his sharp tone at least validated her earlier panic over the situation. She glanced at Niobe, then answered, "There's a morning and evening edition. He wants the morning one, which means that we have until around midnight, 1 am, before it goes to print. But for breaking news, things can get delayed."

Maggie paused. "Most owls fly out around seven in the morning. If we delay the owls too, we'll have more time. And headlines and stories can change throughout the day." Handy Protean charms!

She was impatient to ask what his ideas were for a different version, but held off, giving the other Aurors time to check out the letter.


(OOC Note: I'm estimating the printing time around midnight, based on what I looked up for a few newspapers in my area. Since the owls always arrived around breakfast time at Hogwarts, I thought 7 am might make sense for that. Anyway, let me know if I should change anything!)

"I don't think so," Mags returned the shrug with one of her own, putting her notes and quill away, and standing up from the couch. "I'll work on writing the article, and send you a copy before anything goes to print, okay? And I'll drop by or owl if I have other questions."

She paused, slinging her bag on her shoulder. "Thanks for the interview. If they let me, I'll be there at the Ministry on... what is it, the ninth? Yeah. So, I'm sure everything will go fine," she added with an awkward nod. What did she know?

Another pause, then she leaned forward and gave him a quick hug. "I've gotta run around like a hippogriff with its head cut off today, but I'll see you around, yeah?"

It was half true. She did have plans for the day, but Maggie could have easily set things aside to hang out with him at his flat. She just couldn't deny that the interview and the things she'd learned had freaked her out more than a little, and she felt like she needed some time to adjust. It was either make an exit, or make awkward small talk for the next few hours, and Maggie was terrible at small talk!

Maggie shut up, exuding sulkiness from every pore, as she clutched her wand and waited in the dark and quiet for Niobe's Auror friend to arrive. When footsteps sounded, she tensed in her seat and peeked over the cubicles at the soft greeting, recognizing a head of red hair bobbing towards them. Accompanied by a shorter blond.

Maggie glanced at Niobe and let out a snort, her scowl vanishing for a moment. Just as quickly though, her face settled back into an edgy, worried expression.

"This lovely little gem of a letter, Trevelyan," she waved the original copy in the air, then handed it to him. "It arrived about ten minutes ago. After much flailing about and arguing, we decided to give you a heads up and work something out together," she paused, wondering if it was too obvious to admit that they didn't know what the hell they were doing.

With that, she glanced at the quiet, stoic Auror standing primly next to Trevelyan.

"Who're you?" Maggie asked bluntly. Good. He'd brought someone. She just hoped the woman would be as discreet and open to collaboration as she assumed Trevelyan would be.

Maggie nodded when he confirmed that he'd be checking into the Ministry every full moon cycle from now on. She'd be surprised (and secretly troubled) if they'd required anything less.

The pain that flickered across his face was apparent even to her, and for a second she regretted the question. Frank had to be feeling discouraged after everything that had happened to him, but he offered his opinion anyway, letting her know the Ministry could only speculate.

When Frank compared being a direwolf to a new STD, she let out a snort of a laugh and shook her head. Awkward comparison, but apt.

"That sucks," she said bluntly, her expression sympathetic but slightly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry."

Maggie looked at him a moment longer, then let out a breath and glanced over her notes. "Anything I'm missing? Anything you want to talk about?"

She felt like she had a lot of information to work with, but wanted to double check before she wrapped things up.

"I wouldn't be surprised," she replied in a half-hearted grumble. "I didn't see anyone lurking out the window but that doesn't mean he's not there. Or inside the building."

Maggie sounded too casual. She slowly rose from Niobe's chair and cast a glance around the empty cubicles, heart thudding. She too, had her wand in her hand now.

"Shite. Is your Auror bringing a buddy? They usually run in twos," Maggie frowned.

"Send another note to make sure," she shoved parchment and a quill back at her and snapped her fingers for another owl. Who was the bossy one now?

If they got lucky (or unlucky) and stumbled on MacDuff trailing bacon bits back to his lair, they'd better have more than one Auror after him.

"Ok, Miss Bossy," Maggie scowled, secretly relieved they'd finally decided on a course of action. And that the course of action involved people who should know what they're doing.

"You want to tell me who you're sending an owl to, or should I try my best not to hex whoever pops in?"

She took Niobe's chair, turned it around, and flopped in it ungracefully, still glowering into space.

Hearing Frank laugh and joke around brought a smile to her face. She relaxed on the couch, relieved that he didn't have any horror stories about the cells, though that certainly would have made for an interesting angle.

"Are you required to check in at the Ministry every full moon - well, the entirety of the moon cycle, until they sort out why direwolves are popping up?"

Maggie assumed so. She paused. "And have you heard anything about how close they are to knowing what caused it?"

She wondered for a brief moment if she should ask him how he felt about killing someone, becoming a werewolf, and being cursed, rather than sticking to facts and speculation. But she'd seen the pain written on his face earlier. Mags didn't want to go that route yet.

"Ugh, Niobe!" Maggie groaned and put her head in her hands. Mags was starting to regret dumping the letter on the woman's shoulders, because they could argue all night about what to do while MacDuff celebrated his jackassery in Knockturn.

"How do we know the arsehole is even going to keep his word?" She burst out, throwing down her hands and giving her an exasperated look.

"I bet he kills people like he makes his weekly grocery list!" Maggie flapped the letter back at Niobe to make her point. "Just pops off to Diagon, picks up some ketchup at the store, and then grabs his main meal off the street. Now he's making it official so we feel guilty about it!"

And it was working. Pacing the cubicle again, she glanced out the window, looking like she was going to shatter the glass with the force of her frown.

"If we don't contact the Aurors and wizards still die, that's going to be on us. He's making it like that," she grumbled. "But if we publish, if we actually do it, everyone's going to panic. People do really stupid things when they're scared. So either way, we're screwed!"

After a sigh, and more angry gesturing, and boring holes through the walls, Maggie stopped and looked at her. They weren't going to stop him with an anonymous tip or by bumbling through Knockturn. But Niobe had a point about the MLE swooping in and calling all the shots if they went that route.

Maggie accepted the paper clippings and photos with an uncertain air, looking at them like she didn't know what to do with them. She frowned at the smiling girl in the photo for a few moments, absently smoothing out a crease in the corner, and then abruptly stacking the clippings and setting them down on the cushion beside her. She glanced at him, half-smiled in response to the nudge on her knee. He was trusting her to write his story, he was the reassuring her things would be alright. All she'd done so far was spook him about mobs and stare at him like he was a stranger. Something was wrong with this picture.

"I know," she said with more confidence. "Can't have you tearing up your own flat. It's messy enough already," Maggie attempted joking around with him like they'd used to. Something he'd said was still niggling at her, about keeping his location private. Maybe she'd talk to the RCMC about how they could help ensure his safety and privacy now that he was out on his own.

"They treat you ok in the cells?" Maggie studied his face, asking as both a friend and a journalist.

Maggie was slightly mollified when Niobe said she was right not once, but multiple times. Mollified, but the anxiety was really setting in now. She wanted Niobe, or someone, to pipe up and tell them the proper solution, to say that this sort of thing had happened before and they knew what to do.

She leaned against Niobe's desk and gave her a frustrated look, "Yeah, sure, I'll just whip up some Divination on his handwriting. It'll only take me five hours to brush up on the crap I never learned at Hogwarts."

Maggie rolled her eyes. Who actually took Divination seriously? Not her!

But before she could fall completely into unhelpful grumpy-grump mode, Maggie hopped up again and picked up the letter, then dug her wand out of her bag and waved it, "Geminio."

Two copies sprang into her hands. "Here," she shoved one at Niobe with an embarrassed, defensive tone. Sometimes solutions were simple. Maggie folded her own copy up and tucked it in her bag, leaving the original letter on Niobe's desk.

"I know a bloke," she offered after a pause. "Level Two."

She left that hanging in the air, ready to jump to action if Niobe told her to go for it. Though she'd never admit it, she understood her friend's excitement, her rush to investigate and find some sneaky way to outsmart the bastard. But Maggie had already been that disastrous route, and now they had muggle lives to consider on top of it.

Frank's enthusiasm got a small smile out of her. She had to be there, Maggie decided. He needed someone there, and she'd probably never get a second chance to observe a transformation at the Ministry. Now was the time to bring back her foolhardy fearlessness!

But Frank's grin faded, and with it her gumption, as he described being led out of the sewers by someone's scent in March. It was the way he talked about it - there was no good way to talk about it, but he apologetically compared it to craving candy. Everyone had a smell, and to Frank in direwolf form, the familiar scent had been intoxicating and irresistible.

Maggie suddenly wondered what the hell she smelled like. Though she didn't wear perfume, she wore deodorant, washed her clothes, and showered daily. Did they sell garlic-based shampoo? Aw feck, that was for vampires. Maggie was jolted out of her paranoid thoughts when Frank put his head in his hands and said he'd killed Georgianne Sleeper.

Maggie sat still, quill loose in her hand, hearing his anguished voice with some strange degree of detachment. He went on, explaining that Kabir Ahmed had attacked him, and then the WCU had thrown him into a cell.

Silence hung for a few moments, heavy and horrible. Part of her wanted to reach out to him. But she didn't. She could barely meet his eyes.

"Frank," she paused, then reached for her glass and took a sip of water. "I have to ask," Maggie looked at him, making no move to write anything he'd just said down.

"Are you sure you want your name attached to this story? That you want it printed at all? 'Cause I'll write it, I'll do it, that's fine," she tried to reassure him, face troubled. "But there are people out there who are angry and scared. They haven't caught Dugan MacCrazy yet, so that leaves you. People might not see the difference between you and him no matter how I word things. It's a risk. You've already been through a lot. You don't need a mob with pitchforks burning down your flat."

Maggie didn't know how much he'd thought about the possibility of consequences, even worse than what he was facing now.

"So," she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Just so you know, you don't have to prove anything. I can always write about the differences between a direwolf and werewolf and leave you out of it. Or I can write up your story and submit it later, when things have calmed down."

Maggie knew that look in Niobe's eye, but didn't want to believe it. Some people laughed or smiled when they were alarmed; Maggie had seen it before! Niobe must have some semblance of sage wisdom buried in those dreadlocks of hers!

When her friend vaulted away from the desk and piped up with her idea, Maggie fumed at her. No, no, no! She did not want to play the role of practical curmudgeon while Niobe insisted on sacrificing another finger!

"Are you batshit!?" Maggie paced around the tiny cubicle. "I'm not doing that, Niobe!" She jabbed her finger at the letter, having completely missed the address earlier in her panic. "And neither are you!"

The unsettling interview with Frank and the stories she'd heard from Margo about MacDuff breaking into her home sprang to the forefront of her thoughts. Maggie was fond of skirting the line, but she had no desire to leap over it and land in deep shite.

"You know what would happen if we sped off to Knockturn with just our brains and our quills? We'd make his fucking night! He'd catch one whiff of the ink underneath our nails and laugh his ass off about two little piglets showing up on his doorstep! And then! Then," Maggie shook her head, "Just for funzies, Cinaed Tawse would pop out of the shadows and say hello! Cujo and the yeti, Niobe! We don't stand a chance."

Silence fell in the office area and Maggie clamped her mouth shut, trying to calm down.

"We have to tell someone."

Didn't they?

All of the symptoms Frank described seemed typical of werewolves, except the bit about transforming during the entire full moon cycle. Maggie underlined those words in her notes. It was the kind of thing people would want to hear in definite terms, and she wondered, not for the first time, what affect this article would have on the general public, on people who already hated and feared werewolves. On people who supported them, too.

Maggie's eyebrows shot up when he offered her the chance to be there at the Ministry during the full moon. Oh, shite. She took a deep breath, managing to look incredulous, apprehensive, and concerned all at once. Maggie almost felt like she'd be intruding, and that someone like family should go with him. The thought of witnessing a transformation, even from a safe distance, freaked her out a little. But he was asking her to be there, asking for support, and hell, it ought to add something to the article. She'd see not only how wolfsbane affected a direwolf but also the process that werewolves went through each month.

"If you really want me there, Frank," she said slowly. "Yeah, I can do that. I'll come armed with my notepad, quill, and lame jokes about kibbles and bits," she offered with a shrug and a half smile.

"But hey, at least you'll know someone's there on the other side." On the other side of bars, a thick slab of concrete, and twenty trained RCMC employees, right?

Maggie paused. "So now that we've got those initial questions out of the way, do you want to talk about what happened in March?"

"You're shitting me," Maggie looked like he'd just told her goblins were giving away gold. She studied his face for a moment longer. "I'd better pack a bag, then."

She grinned, very pleased with herself and the new tidbit of information he'd dropped.  Not only had he taken her up on her advice, but he seemed much less cranky than he had a few minutes ago.  She ought to try this 'being nice' thing more often.

"Alright, Trevelyan, good deal," she nodded, in a fantastic mood. "I'll let you know when I've thrown questions at Reid. And you keep me updated on any travel opportunities," she raised her eyebrows, tossed him another smile, and turned to head back to the castle.

Maggie looked vaguely concerned and unsettled as he described his day to day business. She could picture it clearly: Frank bumbling about Diagon, then Knockturn, giving people the same smile he offered her now. Maggie doubted he'd notice a threat until it was right on top of him, and even then, he'd probably turn around and cheerfully apologize for being in their way. She couldn't fault him - she was trying not to. But Maggie certainly couldn't expect the bloke to remember anyone dangerous or strange.

Damn it.

The mention of memory wipes made Maggie think of Niobe, who had been obliviated by some nut during the March eleventh werewolf attacks. Maggie had wanted to blame Tawse just because he was seen there, but according to Harcroft there wasn't enough evidence for that. Scowling, she shook her head in sympathy. This situation seriously sucked.

"Sometimes bits and pieces come back," Maggie offered. Still, it was probably best to move on to other questions.

She reached for her water and took a sip, then leaned forward, quill tapping on parchment. "Alright. Symptoms," Mags glanced at Frank. "Some part of you was aware during the transformation. How are you affected on, say, a normal day like today? Or the days leading up to a full moon? Do you seem to experience the same things as regular werewolves? Like a craving for rare steak, or mood changes?"

She said the last part with a bit of a smirk. If anyone could resist negative mood changes or outbursts, Frank could. Maggie, on the other hand, would be snarling and snapping at the slightest provocation.