It was, for most people, the end of the work day. Solomon Carstairs, on the other hand, did not anticipate leaving the Ministry any sooner than dinnertime this evening and had therefore just alit on the second floor after a late meeting with Morgenthau. He nodded at a few familiar faces as they passed him in the foyer, going in the other direction. It was, give or take the anticipation of another full moon, another typical day in Magical Law Enforcement.

            “You’re...o have....let her go...you?” A barely audible, hissed exchange confronted him as he turned into a passage by the conference rooms.  “She... vampire...fangs into her, Zo.”

It was Ballentyne, of all people. And with her wife. That seemed highly uncharacteristic of Auror Roh, whose personal life was so neatly separate from her profession that Solomon only recently discovered the two witches were wife and wife. Solomon glanced from one to the other as he came to a halt before them, one hand in pocket and the other arm fastened over several folders.

The air was charged, and he looked past the couple to spot Clairvoy further down the corridor - the patrol officer appeared to be waiting for them.

"Is something the matter," Solomon decided to address this to Zora, wary of what he had heard Iona hissing about, "Auror Roh?"

Carstairs strolled up. Zora had a hope that there wouldn't be very many people wandering around the office at this hour. No such luck tonight. Maybe they could count the interception at the lift as serendipitous, but none of it felt this like good fortune. Zora set her jaw and regarded the head of Magical Law Enforcement bruskly.

Zora wasn't going to lie to him - the thought barely occurred to her. It would take the situation from legally slightly fuzzy to conspiracy faster than a snitch.

"My daughter got herself in over her head," Zora said, aware of Clairvoy waiting in the wing. It didn't escape Zora that Carstairs might not even know she and Iona had a kid. Well, there you go.

Zora added, "we'll handle it."

Because Iona was absolutely right: Zora was not going to let this go any further. She wasn't going to allow Waverly to get into the system. What she'd done was horrifying, but to gamble on the criminal justice system being this eye-opening moment was too big a risk.

             "...we'll handle it."

"We?" Solomon echoed with a dry little smile, before he could help himself. "I didn't realise that Ms Ballentyne was a part of the law enforcement process. You would think her far too busy running after her own division, to come help us poor creatures on two."

Daughter! And old enough to be out of Hogwarts as well. Maybe even recently out of Hogwarts, judging from Zora and Iona's ages. Apparently criminals and werewolves were easier factors to control than a teenage daughter. Sol tried not to judge when the offspring of aurors found themselves on the other side of the law. His own children were far from perfect.... but then again, neither Earnest nor Cynthia had ever been dragged to the Ministry for anything worse than a bar duel.

"What did the little miss Roh-Ballentyne get herself into?" Solomon raised an eyebrow, gaze flicking over Bruce's shoulder to clock the patrol officer waiting for them. "Or does Clairvoy have a better account of matters?"

She heard the footsteps before she heard the man. As if the entire situation wasn’t bad enough to handle privately, not they’d just earned themselves the audience of the Head of Law Enforcement. It seemed that he needed to know that not only was she unfit for her job, but she was also an unfit mother with a daughter being dragged in for petty crime. Iona didn’t look at him when he questioned Zora on the problem, and she let out a slow breath when Zora owned up.

"We?" The snarky git asked, before pointing out quite sarcastically how Bruce wasn’t a member of law enforcement. Thank Merlin, if it would have meant he’d be directing her from his pin striped throne. And Ballentyne? Their first meeting, he’d called her by the first name barely anyone used. Had she been demoted to surname when he found out she was married to one of his underlings? Or had it been when he’d summoned her unnecessarily into his office to piss all over his territory? Perhaps it had been the memos she’d sent?

Despite how angry she currently was, Iona knew how mad Zora would be if she was an arse to Carstairs now.

“Gillyweed.” Bruce said quietly, clearly trying to school her ire. It was difficult, a couple of days before the full moon, to really contain any building emotion. “Little Miss Roh-Ballentyne somehow has a little too much gillyweed on her person.” Then, Bruce raised her spare hand, palm out towards the wizard. “Ballentyne is not stepping on toes, here. Just a concerned parent.” Not stepping on toes, unlike Solomon trying to put his size 16 clown shoes into her business last month.

Her wife and Carstairs had been sparring since the full moon, and it wasn't beyond Iona's temper to give Carstairs a piece of her mind. Carstairs certainly wasn't above rolling into this situation immediately taking a jab at Iona. Zora wouldn't blame Iona for cracking him around the head with her wolf-cane, but for the assault of a Ministry official would produce an undesired outcome. 'Easy,' Zora thought for herself as much as her wife.

Zora would rather him to shuffle on and mind his own business, of course, but it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to categorize this all as Level Two business and therefore not outside of Carstairs' interest.

Iona revealed the gist of the circumstances - it was hardly a Ministry case if it hadn't been their own daughter.

Zora took a measured breath, finding her calm-under-pressure again. "It's under control, sir. Your concern is noted. And unnecessary."

Gillyweed? Ah, but not simply gillyweed. An excess of gillyweed, a different kind of problem from smoking the odd bit here and there. As department head it was not Solomon's policy to go hard on gillyweed users. Would be a waste of resources to stop every witch or wizard giving it a try in quiet corners. Dealers, on the other hand...

      "It's under control, sir." Roh was quick to intercede. "Your concern is noted. And unnecessary."

"Nonsense," he gestured dismissively and smiled mildly at the pair. "I'm happy to be of assistance. Can't have a senior auror's daughter running around in the wrong circles, can we? That's bad press, if nothing else. Might not be so lucky to avoid a nosy little reporter, next time. If there is a next time." And as Zora knew, there often was a next time.

Both of the witches were moderate earners, however. Why did they have a daughter trying to earn sickles and galleons by trading gillyweed? She can't have been looking for money so much as she was looking for a thrill.

"Would you like me to speak to her?" Sol offered, enjoying himself just the slightest.

Zora, clearly feeling much like Iona, tried to wave her boss off. It made Iona feel even angrier with Waverly. Not only had the girl compromised herself while risking criminal charges, but she’d put Zora in an unforgivable position. Iona had no plans on letting their dearest offspring forget that when they finally came free of this situation. Zora had only last month been promoted to Senior Auror, and already she was facing this personal circumstance. It wasn’t going to be tolerated.

"Nonsense," Mr Pompous Pinstripes retorted with a smile. He was enjoying this. Arsehole. He even went on to talk about the perception of a senior auror’s daughter in trouble. Was he forgetting the damned Division Head stood beside him? She wasn’t difficult to miss! Bruce felt like she may as well have been invisible, because this conversation would have continued similarly without her.

"Would you like me to speak to her?" Carstairs then offered. Bruce glanced to her wife who was rubbing her temple, clearly at a loss. Zora waved her hand in acquiescence.

Iona shrugged.
“Have at it.” she muttered, wondering if there’d even been any point in her speaking. This was Law Enforcement. Whether or not she was Waverly’s mother, Bruce was not on home turf. In truth, though, perhaps a bit of intimidation from the Head of Law Enforcement would get something into Waverly’s brain. She only hoped that he didn’t see the werewolf bite, too. That was something the witches would handle alone.

With that, the two witches followed Carstairs into the room. Last in, Bruce pushed the door closed, lingering there as she glared across at Waverly. If the girl didn’t find trouble here in the ministry, she certainly would when they got her home.

Waverly had sat picking her nails in the empty room. Her purse contents, 'evidence' apparently, were still scattered on the table. She was coming down from the anxiety and humiliation of getting picked up and scolded by her parents. Waverly had a pretty good idea about how this was going to go.

There was no way that Zora would let her get into any real trouble. She talked a big game about law and order and consequences, but Waverly couldn't imagine she'd let them give her a rap sheet. She was a big softie. Iona, well, she was going to want to drag her home and ship her off to a convent. This was all going to get papered over. Waverly would lay low, make sure Tam Handrow didn't get wind of this.

When the door opened, Waverly started to stand and get her coat, but froze. There was a wizard with them, file under his arm, nice suit. Her mothers followed behind him looking exactly as pissed as when they'd stepped out.

"Sit," Zora directed striding around and crossing her arms.

Waverly obeyed. She wondered if the wizard was a lawyer.

"This is Mr. Carstairs, head of the MLE," Zora explained with gravity. Every word of the introduction screamed, 'do not make this worse.' Waverly sat up straighter. He was Zora's boss; Waverly'd heard her talk about him. Less intimidating but more interesting was that Solomon Carstairs was Virgil's uncle, father to Earnest Carstairs for whom Waverly had a crush she couldn't shake. Was this a 'scared straight' tactic? Did they bring him in here? She couldn't be in actual trouble, right? The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was not a play she'd expected.

Waverly pressed her palms together and squeezed them between her knees.

"Nice to meet you," she said, donning a note of penitence, now that the risk of getting her mother in trouble at work was a presence in the room.

He hadn't expected substantial resistance and, in fact, received none to the suggestion that he speak to their daughter. Solomon entered with his usual stride, casual but brisk, and smiled thoughtfully at the young witch sat in the room. She was surprised - fair. She was expecting her mothers to return with a resolution to their troubles, instead they return with a bespectacled suit. The wizard took a seat across the conference table while Zora made introductions.

            "Nice to meet you," came a voice that was almost certainly not in its natural tenor.

"And you," he replied courteously. "I don't typically have the pleasure of meeting the families of our aurors." If anything it was probably inadvisable to bring one's children to Ministry holiday parties; too much drinking, too little recourse for young souls.

The eyes behind his gleaming frames made quick work of the items scattered between them, the purse. He wondered what he would have done in Roh's place, if Cynthia was caught under such circumstances. As department head, he would have felt an obligation to see the law enforced. As a father, disappointment would prevail.

"I know a few dealer bosses." Solomon began, crossing his legs and sitting back - he glanced at a bit of fluff on his suit trousers and brushed it off fussily. "Everyone on this floor does, rather. We know their names and addresses and everything down to their OWLs. Many of them didn't make it past OWLs," he added the last bit with a soft and derisive snort, offhand.

Sol didn't personally care for gillyweed but most people who sold it also sold harder things, riskier substances. He folded his hands over his crossed knee and considered Zora's daughter for a moment. "The only reason they're still out there is because we aren't able to pin anything on them. They're too clever for this," a throwaway gesture at what the witch had been dealing.

In the end, after all, the OWLs and NEWTs didn't always matter. Successful criminals were smart in different ways.

"They get imbeciles to do the dirty work, to serve the time." Solomon shrugged and exchanged a look with the senior auror before looking back to Waverly. "Do you consider yourself an imbecile?"

Waverly blinked. Imbecile! What the hell was this? She chanced a look at Iona and then Zora, checking for some kind of intervention, but both of them stood stoic. Mr Carstairs spoke so politely and casually as if he had absolutely no investment in this situation, which was unexpectedly disturbing. He knew everything and he didn't care. And if he didn't care, he wouldn't be bothered what happened to Waverly either way. And her parents just standing there. What the hell!

Waverly's initial shock soured to resentment. She took a gamble. She wouldn't change her story just because some posh politician showed up. She leaned forward at little.

"I wasn't dealing. I wouldn't even know how to do that. Everybody smokes. I was sharing."

Off to the side, Zora looked disappointed. Her daughter was lying to her and lying to Carstairs. She was going to dig herself a hole she wouldn't be able to escape.

             "I wasn't dealing. I wouldn't...I was sharing."

Solomon's sigh was gentle and barely-there as he took off his spectacles. "To insult officer Clairvoy's intelligence is, I suppose, a matter of fact," he used the corner of his suit jacket to wipe the lens clean, "but it's best you think twice before doing the same to your mothers. Or myself." The wizard inspected the frames one last time before wearing them once more.

It had been interesting to have a peek at Roh and Ballentyne's private lives but the novelty was quickly wearing off. He pushed back his chair, rising to his feet.

"It isn't an original lie," Sol half-smiled at Waverly, picking his folders off the table, "and this isn't an original situation. You're reading off a script that hundreds of imbeciles have read from before. The only thing keeping you from real trouble is..." he nodded his head at Zora. "And that won't work if you find yourself on level two again. I can make certain of that."

His countenance was perfectly droll as he turned around to leave. "Auror Roh," Solomon raised his eyebrows slightly. "If you want to stick her in the cells for a bit, I imagine Pratt wouldn't mind it."

Merlin knew their Head Auror was happy enough to abuse their amenities for his own amusement.

"Do you consider yourself an imbecile?" Carstairs had sat himself opposite Waverly. His tone was intimidating, more bored. A petty criminal barely on his radar. Bruce had to bite her tongue, resisting a comment stating that yes, her daughter was a massive imbecile.

And there Waverly went again, lying to the Head of Law Enforcement. Iona closed her eyes, trying to breath calmly. She wanted to scream, to throw something. How could the girl she and Zora had brought up be so disrespectful, so self-destructive and reckless? She’d always pushed boundaries, but this? It was a living nightmare.

When Carstairs stood up from the desk, Bruce pushed off from the wall she’d been leaning against. The offer to stick her in the cells, she knew Zora wouldn’t go for. It would be too public and Zora would clearly want this brushed under the carpet. A big ‘okay’ to what Wav had done. Little slap on the wrist and ‘don’t do it again’.

“You want that, sitting in a cell until you’re ready to stop feeding us dragon shit and actually tell us the damned truth? Believe me, baby girl, I’m game for that, right now.”

It was now easy to see why Carstairs's name had only ever come up at home with a scoff and a deep glass of wine. He was dripping gross paternalistic arrogance, acting like he knew her, acting like this was any of his business at all. Making snarky little threats. He could go hex himself.  Waverly pushed her fear down deep and papered over it with anger. She scoffed and sat back with a glare first at Carstairs but then at her Mam who was going along with it.

"I'm not admitting to anything," she said in a low voice. "Because I didn't do anything. But go ahead, put me in a cell and see what happens."

With that, Waverly turned and looked at Zora. Everyone assumed that stoic, hardass Zora would be the 'mean' mother, but she'd always been the protective one.

Zora seemed almost startled at the challenge from her daughter, that she'd dare go this far. Indeed, even than Iona's apparently willingness to go along with the threat. If it had been anyone else, Zora wouldn't blink.  It was just one night, they did it all the time. A lawyer usually showed up after a few hours anyway. It wasn't as if it was torture, was it. But the thought of booking in her only daughter, locked in a little room, left there alone, and named in a file.

Waverly saw Zora wavering; her parents were split. 

"Can I go?" she asked.

Zora was quiet a moment then addressed Carstairs. "No. Not this time."

Then to Waverly, "get your things. We're going home."

Waverly knew better than to smile. She stood and stuffed her things back in her purse pointedly leaving her gillyweed on the table. Then her coat making sure to pull her sleeves all the way down. Her parents wanted her home; Waverly wasn't about to fight them on that. She'd take a tongue-lashing and quarantine anyday to avoid getting hung up here with the MLE.

Before  anyone could change their mind, Waverly slunk past the adults to wait in the hall.

It wasn’t often that Iona became lost for words. She was an incredibly chatty sort, much the opposite of her wife. She didn’t hold back her opinions unless she sensed a full-blown argument occurring, and then would just walk away. But this was different. This wasn’t some argument about Waverly’s grades, or Iona’s overwhelming frustration at being trapped with her new leg and the curse. Nope, this was Waverly throwing her life away, and Iona knew that her own accident had something to answer for with their daughter’s spiral into delinquency.

Of course, Zora wouldn’t agree to the cell, even if her wife would just to get the message across. Zora was protective and always had been. If you even needed someone on your side to make sure things turned out okay, she was your woman. Iona couldn’t begrudge her that now, despite how frustrated she was. They’d need a new plan, something to stop this train to destruction that their daughter was apparently driving.

"get your things. We're going home." Zo instructed the young delinquent who wasted absolutely no time in grabbing her bag, donning her coat, and exiting the room. Iona noted how no eye contact was made during this retreat.

With Waverly outside, Iona glanced across at her wife, sharing a quick look as if to say ‘on your head be it’. Iona would never mess with the process of the law, and she’d never mess with Zora’s job. They’d just never had such a catastrophic collision with work and personal lives before. There was no point saying anything now, especially in front of pinstriped bureaucratic paternalistic Carstairs.

With a quiet sigh, Iona turned on her heel and left the room. So much for a fun evening working out the extra energy the full moon ahead would give her. Tonight was going to be unpleasant.