“It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society; it is belief.” -George Bernard Shaw

Day After TK Trial

It seemed the day after the release trial for Theodora Kingstreet was hectic for all of the Ministry, but the letters apparently kept on coming to the International Cooperation Department. Many were of discontentment that the woman would be allowed to leave, while some cheered that she was leaving. Then, there were of course, the letters from family members with those in Azkaban still pleading that if she was able to leave, when would their own relative get out?

Gabrielle, along with other members of the department, were madly scribbling the replies back as fast as they could, only to find that more arrived before they could put down their enchanted quills. Lunch time had not succeeded in happening and work was to be over in a matter of an hour. She knew that this would likely continue for a few weeks due to the fact of Theodora being released. Gabrielle still felt somewhat uneasy that she hadn't gone but due to conflict of interest on her part she didn't feel that it would be right.

Sure, Theodora had been a fellow co-worker and whatnot (possibly even an acquaintance of sorts), but guilty or not, Gabrielle couldn't bring herself to terms still that her department had been rather naughty, in a manner of speaking, during Voldemort's reigns of terror. A sigh escaped her lips as she thought on this, eventually looking to her co-workers. "Go ahead and clock out. We'll sort this out tomorrow - let everyone else know that too. Anyone working over, they need to turn in the overtime but no one is allowed to work past ten. Goodnite you two .... and thanks again," she complimented curtly to them as they left.

Her wand that had been sitting on her desk was raised to flick quick enough to shut the door and lock it. Her eyes simply slid to close, forgetting quite obviously of Jason's meeting, er well, talks about the trials and whatnot. After all, what could a thirty minute nap do in harm?

Much changed from his earlier life, Jason MacDonell was rarely a man to brood.  He had not had any truly dark moments since the Azkaban Uprising, when he had been left in his hospital bed at St. Mungo's to ponder angrily the deaths of ten Aurors and the near loss of many more.  Since retirement -- really even earlier, since marrying Aurora -- that wicked ghoul, Bitterness, had ceased to feast upon his mind as it had been wont to do in the past.

Recent events seemed to have reawakened its dormant appetite.

As a member of the Wizengamot, Jason was entitled to spend as much time as he liked on Level Two, and so he sat at one of a long row of polished oak desks, all set aside for other wizarding jurists.  He had kept the lights off in the Writing Room, but the very air around him seemed to crackle with magical energy, and occasionally the lamps would flare back to life in tandem with a burst of the former Auror's temper.  He had left Bannochdaen early in the morning, not wanting to unleash his foul mood on his wife or children, and not entirely convinced he was in any state to outduel Aurora if her patience with his brooding broke.

Kingstreet.  KINGSTREET!  They had released the vile woman after all, and only Jason himself had stood to oppose it.  Yet without so much as a word from any of her supporters -- who seemed to rightly fear MacDonell and Belisario, if they existed at all -- the traitor was set free to prey upon Britain again.  The emerald in Jason's eyes seemed, as it did when he was in these moods, to glow with the same light as the curse he was infamous for using.

"Meeting with Madam Annwyl."

Jason's watched spoke to him, and though he might have imagined it, the timepiece seemed to sound more hesitant than usual, as if afraid to disturb him.  But, growling to himself, he got to his feet, took his eagle-head cane in hand, and went for the door.  Blinking momentarily against the much brighter light of the floor proper, ignoring the two Hitwizards who jumped at his unexpected emergence, he stalked toward the lift, keeping his wand safely in his pocket lest he set a cubicle on fire by accident.

"Level Fire, Department of International Magical Cooperation, incorporating the International Mag--"

"I know what's in it!" MacDonell snarled, drawing his wand now and forcing the doors open with a shriek of metal on metal, which drowned out the rest of the lift's announcement.  Two IMC workers waiting for the lift took one look at the former Auror's murderous expression and scattered quickly out of his way.

Without a backward glance, Jason strode to Gabrielle Murray-Harker's door, trying it with his gloved hand and finding, to far more irritation than was really demanded by the circumstances, that it was locked.  He did not trust himself not to put his magical left hand through the door if he tried to knock, so instead he undid the charm with a wave of his wand and brushed the door open with another.  "Madam Murray-Harker, I..."

He trailed off, stepping inside to find her asleep at her desk.  Rolling his eyes, he flicked his wand, which let off a bang like a gunshot.  "Gabrielle!"

How the gunshot sound woke her up immediately from the nap. Her hand kept low but not to forget that some people actually knew how to get her door open. The wand sprung from a slumber state and soon snapped at his face. Panting heavily, Gabrielle licked her lips, lowering it for a moment. "Jesus, Jason...." she panted, looking at him reproachfully as though she was a student and he was the teacher during a scheduled class.

Her heart was racing but she found within herself to recompose herself and swallowed the lump in her throat. "You caught me off guard, so it seems, and I apparently forgot for a few minutes our meeting that you, er...we arranged. Please. Take a seat," she remarked, standing up long enough to pick up a goblet and fill it with water before looking at him, then to the massive letters scattered about. The wand aimed and soon, the scraps of parchment settled into a basket near her desk.

"They're bloody bloodhounds, I swear. I hope you're having better luck because of this trial. They've been sending us all sorts of items - Howlers included. Threats too. I suppose we had it coming and we're getting it at full force," she commented, talking to him partially, talking to herself as well. She was nothing more than a crackpot at this moment.

Sitting back down, she looked back down to her paperwork, the quill flickering as though to wait on her reply. Picking it up, she placed it onto the parchment. "Later. Now, you come on in and sit. You look like as though you've been to Hell and back. Literally."

Her reflexes were good, for a Department Head; it had been Jason's experience that most of them, with the possible exceptions of Analiza Snark and Barty Crouch, had gotten slower with success.  But Jason's were a match for hers and, shifting his weight onto his right leg with barely a grimace, he arched his arm over his head, wand pointed at her, waiting for the attack.

"Jesus, Jason...."

MacDonell raised an eyebrow, but did not lower his own wand until Gabrielle had lowered hers.  "Ye should be more careful, Gabrielle.  Surely ye have a better security charm than Colloportus?"

"You caught me off guard, so it seems, and I apparently forgot for a few minutes our meeting that you, er...we arranged. Please. Take a seat."

On a normal day, MacDonell might have offered a witticism back upon learning that he had been forgotten, but given his current mood, he simply sat without a word.  Sliding his wand back into the pocket of his black robe (which, along with the similarly sable shirt, pants, and boots he wore, gave him the look of an unpleasant funeral mourner), he shifted his gloved grip on his cane lower and fixed Gabrielle with a mutely disinterested look.

"They're bloody bloodhounds, I swear. I hope you're having better luck because of this trial. They've been sending us all sorts of items - Howlers included. Threats too. I suppose we had it coming and we're getting it at full force."

"'Better luck'," Jason laughed mirthlessly, his expression chilling.  He glanced at the huge stack of parchment, overflowing the basket into which she had forced it all.  "Luck seems to have deserted me, and all of Level Two with me."

"Later. Now, you come on in and sit. You look like as though you've been to Hell and back. Literally."

"Nay so sure about the 'back', but yes, that's it in essentials," Jason growled.  He shook his head.  "It's a terrible mistake, Gabrielle, letting Kingstreet go.  That woman is more dangerous than half the Death Eaters, and much harder to eradicate.  Mark my words, we've nay seen the last of her."

"Well, Colloportus during the day, curses and jinxes at night, if you really must know," she commented, a raised expression on her face, watching Jason retracting his own wand away as she had hers. The door slammed behind him soon enough, locking and clicking with a hiss shortly after. "See? It's in effect now since there's also someone around for business," she added soon enough with a soft smirk displayed across her face.

Apparently Jason's demeanor and tone of voice really allowed Gabrielle to survey herself as she realized that she was not the only one left in this world. Everyone was dealing with struggles and that made her own problems seem insignificant rather quickly. His words about Kingstreet spoke increased her own nervousness about it all. She still felt as though she had let down the Wizengamot by not participating but she was too involved since she had been in the very department she ruled over now.

"You're not kidding and I know it. The all too familiar feeling of impending doom rose when I read and heard of her release. It's only a matter of time until something will go wrong. You can sometimes sense it, then again, call me superstitious about it. It's just who I am, I suppose," Gabrielle rambled before looking at Jason, the smirk replaced a look of frought and worry.

"It's bad enough when you've got your own department asking questions, wanting to know if there's going to be another hunt for traitors and such. I hope I wouldn't have to deal with that again, but no doubt, there's going to be someone who'll slip up and expose their true colors again."

"Well, Colloportus during the day, curses and jinxes at night, if you really must know."

Jason shrugged.  In the six years between Hogwarts and Azkaban when he had reigned as Head of Aurors, his own office had had enough defensive jinxes on it to repel anyone less talented than Bellatrix Lestrange -- and most of these he himself had picked up from Barty Crouch and Alastor Moody.  Nevertheless, he reminded himself that not everyone in the Ministry needed to protect themselves with quite as much aggressive paranoia as the Aurors.

"The all too familiar feeling of impending doom rose when I read and heard of her release. It's only a matter of time until something will go wrong. You can sometimes sense it, then again, call me superstitious about it. It's just who I am, I suppose."

"Just who we are," Jason corrected her darkly, staring unseeingly at the polished wood of her desk.  "Ye're nay the only one who thinks the worst is still coming.  Between Remembering Day here and whatever your Department has been up to that I've missed, who knows what she's planning?"

"It's bad enough when you've got your own department asking questions, wanting to know if there's going to be another hunt for traitors and such. I hope I wouldn't have to deal with that again, but no doubt, there's going to be someone who'll slip up and expose their true colors again."

On a better day, Jason might have calmed Gabrielle's fears; now, his emerald gaze finally focused on her, looking reflective and chilly, most unlike his normal self.  "'Again'?  Do ye suspect anyone?"  He considered, and in his brooding the light of the room seemed to recoil ever so slightly from his form, shadowing him as if it could not quite connect with his body.  "Kingstreet must have people on the inside, she arranged that hearing so well.  What do ye think?"

"I don't know what to think anymore, honestly. Really, Jason." Her eyes looked at him almost pleadingly like as she went to start thinking about situations around her. "Well, my former boss, Simmons, he went in before Theodora herself was caught. I wouldn't be surprised if his own trial goes by smoothly, then again, Theodora was always slicker than him anyway."

A lump in her throat seemed only rise and expand as she kept her mind focused on previous thoughts while her eyes only seemed to remain steady with Jason's emerald ones. A hand soon came to her face, covering her eyes for a moment to avoid crying in front of him. Stress was something she could handle well, but this time, it was different. The past issues in this office were already starting to recirculate itself and that was not helping her one bit.

"I have no names, but it's just me, well, all of us, being suspicious of one another again. I trust you probably most of all because you've never once given me a reason not to. Alex and Marcus are shortly behind that - as for my own employees, I watch them as though they'll attack me at any moment. Sounds relatively foolish, doesn't it?"

The hand soon removed and she was looking at him in the eyes once more, her display of worry filling the room, mixing it with the coldness from Jason's own brooding nature. Oh, would it ever end? Not likely.