August 11, 2009
7:46 pm
Courtroom 6

Knox Greyfriar and Hannah Bombay were stood up now before a convention of the Wizengamot, their solicitor standing beside them.  Both looked tired and worn.  This Wizengamot was not a full one, a standard 33 to hear and rule on a case brought to the court by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.  A case against Greyfriar and Bombay who'd by accident or design failed to take the Wolfsbane Potion or transform in their assigned safe house.

The ancient voice of Argyle Canturbury droned down over them.  Greyfriar had spent 72 hours at St. Mungo's while they mended his leg and a cane (temporary measure) was at his side as evidence.  And after that, he'd joined Hannah Bombay in the Werewolf Capture Unit's detention for a short time.  Monday morning they were loosed, only to spend the entire day with their solicitors trying to understand and prepare for the swiftly waged charges against them.

"...And so the Wizengamot being in accord by a consensus of twenty-six against seven, this court shall now deliver punishment as read from the Code of Werewolf Law Section Zed."

Knox looked up then, his jaw set.  It had been no difficult thing, it appeared, for his colleagues to find rather unsympathetically against them.  Even now he was not sure at which degree of punishment would be chosen.  The ropes just seemed to get tighter and his life all the more difficult to live under these rules, under this curse.  It had been an accident! No one could have foreseen it.  Perhaps if Mr. Tilberthwaite had not died some months ago then he'd be standing culpable for this mishap...

"Knox Tremayne Greyfriar and Hannah Elizabeth Bombay, your punishments are thus:  You shall both render unto the Ministry of Magic a fine of 700 galleons.  You shall both be required to report to the Ministry of Magic's Werewolf Safe Rooms at dawn of the day preceding each full moon and remain within until the sun sets on the night after for the next seven full moons.  You shall both be considered under Regulatory Probation during that time and be assigned a counselor who will oversee your rehabilitation.  These requirements shall be obeyed strictly under penalty of arrest and detainment."

A gavel banged and Knox dropped his chin to his chest.  He didn't know what he hated more.  The fine or the humiliatingly short leash to which they'd both been tethered.  Knox's sad solicitor patted him on the shoulder, apparently more or less pleased that both Knox and Hannah would be walking out of the courtrooms today and would be able to get back to their normal lives...  Knox himself could say nothing.

Four sleepless nights in a ministry cell were evident in Hannah’s tired, dull brown eyes. Her features were pasty, contrasting the dark bags under her eyes. Her scraggly hair had been scraped back unkemptly, wild hairs, framing her face and falling from the bun. Loose shabby robes hung from her shoulders and yet she still didn’t look willing to give in. She’d had four nights, four days to go over every last detail of what she remembered from the night and the following morning.

Greyfriar and she were not at fault. They’d been doing a job and now they were being made examples of. If the ministry came down this harsh on one of their own wizengamot elders, any werewolf would think twice about disobeying the ministry.

The solicitor hadn’t said otherwise when Hannah had brought up the point the preceding day.

The young witch’s jaw was set tight throughout the majority of the hearing, her eyes down on the floor until the vote had taken place. She’d looked up then, watching in horror as twenty-six hands were raised into the air to seal their fate and commence their criminal records.
700 galleons was an incredible blow. Hannah didn’t have that sort of money in a Gringott’s account. She couldn’t pay them. Yet it got worse until the gavel was banged down and the wizard had finished his sentencing. This was the punishment of criminals, of thieves, smugglers and the like. An uncharacteristic fury began to take hold of the healer.

“Rehabilitation?” She questioned, taking a step forwards, eyes focused upon the chief, the wizard that had happily clipped a collar and lead around the necks of these werewolves. The wizard revelling in humiliating them.

“I’ve done nothing wrong!” Disbelief and anger pushed her on, suddenly gave her an energy she’d lost the past few days. “Greyfriar and I were there under your briefing! We were doing our jobs, we’re not criminal delinquents and we’re not dangerous! The only human within a five mile radius was Tilbethwaite and he was deceased which if you’d have been doing your jobs suitably instead of trialling innocent witches and wizards, you would have known a month ago!

“I’m not having this!” She shouted, shaking her head, more hair falling from the scraggly chignon. “I’m not paying a fine for the torment you people have put me through! I’ve been incarcerated in a cell for four nights, I’ve very possibly lost my job and you want me to fucking well reimburse you for the privilege?” The once very mousy little Ravenclaw suddenly had a voice. A furious one.

The Wizengamot erupted into shouting and 'Well, I Nevers" at Hannah Bombay's sudden and vehement outburst.  Knox, just as shocked quickly closed the distance between he and the Healer and took her by the elbow, hissing in her ear.

"Stop it! This isn't the time! You'll do us both harm carrying on like that!" He tried to lead her back and out of the courtroom.

They'd been dismissed, the hearing was over, but if she wasn't careful, she was going to get locked up for a breach of decorum and very possibly threatening the courts.

If the court had any good reason to think that Hannah had no intention of complying with their requirements, they'd be within their rights to detain her and seize her property to see to it that she did. 

Wizengamot Elders were already on their feet and Knox could hear that some of them were already shouting for some penalty for the infraction.  Bombay's solicitor had raced to the front and was pleading with the Undersecretary for leniency. 

"Come! Please! Hold your tongue!"

The uproar didn’t silence Hannah. Neither did the cries to further punish her for the insolence, the contempt of court she was so boldly taking part in. Greyfriar’s large hand clamped down around her elbow and he hissed in her ear, trying to pull her away but Hannah stood rooted to the spot, too furious to consider the consequences of her actions.

“Harm?!” Hannah turned her head to scowl at her former professor, her partner in ‘crime’. “I can’t afford to pay that, Knox. Neither am I going to be treated like a criminal because it’s easier than standing up to it!” She tried tugging her arm from his grip and turned back to the chief of the Wizemgamot who was amidst the outraged members on their feet, calling for this witch to be taken back to a cell to cool down.

“If Mr Tilbethwaite were alive right now, Sirs, it would be he standing before you all!” The small witch once more shouted over the voices of the people that had so happily labelled her and Greyfriar beasts that needed control; a firm hand and collaring. The hitwizards that had been stood by the doors began to draw their wands and step closer. “As it is you’ve just been given an impassable chance to make an example out of two innocent werewolves!” The grip on her arm failed to give and Hannah tried tugging away again.

“It’s a great chance isn’t it, Mr Canturbury? To make sure you keep us beaten down. To make sure every last wizard in the country hates werewolves.” Making a big deal out of two upstanding citizens in the wrong place at the wrong time and twisting it was perfect for the ministry’s control of people like she and Greyfriar.

"No!"  Knox raised a hand to attempt to stop the Hitwizards who were charged with keeping peace in the court.  Oh Merlin, this was a complete disaster.  It had been embarrassing and damaging enough to have had to sit through that hearing and be defamed such as he had, but Hannah was going to ruin them both without any chance at redemption or proper retaliation.

Now both solicitors were up in front of Chief Canturbury shouting for attention and pardon.

"She's upset! Sleep deprived! Don't worry, she'll comply!"

Knox Greyfriar couldn't wait for Hannah to calm herself down and so he felt that he had no other choice but to remove her before the Hitwizards did.  He bodily hauled her away by the arm, taking her off her feet - his mass and strength easily over-powered hers. 

"Be still!" he hissed at her, "You're being stupid! You'll bring all their wrath down on us and there'll be no way to come up from that!"

All off a sudden, it seemed like, the shouting was dulled;  Knox had pulled them out of the courtroom and into the hallway.  He released her, standing himself between her and the courtroom.

His face was pale and panicked and angry.

"What are you doing! How can you have thought to do that - to shout down the whole court! Are you mad! We are in an impossible situation and you've made it worse! If they don't think you'll comply they'll detain you and force you! We have so little leverage and you're going to ruin it!  You have to calm down!"

He sighed deeply, and removed his hat so he could run his hand over his head.  "Merlin's bones," he mumbled to himself, "saying that to Canterbury, wailing like a banshee... they'll never hear an appeal now...!"

As furious and suddenly energetic as Hannah found herself she couldn’t fight the grip of the much stronger wizard, neither could she counter his power as he hauled her off her feet and dragged her out of the courtroom, dragging every last shred of dignity Hannah had had with him. The short witch had struggled against him in vain, further furious by the hiss that she was being stupid.

When they were outside he let go and Hannah dropped back onto her feet, red faced and scowling at the wizard incredulously. She stared with disbelief that he’d dared to pick her up, drag her out of a room mid flow while she’d been sticking up for them, disbelief that he hadn’t done anything. That he’d just stood there, accepting it like a good mutt.

The words didn’t calm Hannah. Knox’s willingness to roll over and obey all his colleagues said was difficult to comprehend. His eagerness to believe in a chance to overturn what had happened if they were well behaved, went down the proper channels and quietly licked their wounds certainly had the opposite effect to calming.

“We were never going to have an appeal in the first place!” She retorted, back to her companion as she took a few steps away and turned on her heel to once more face him.

“How could you just stand there and let them say those things? Let them humiliate us like that?” Bombay couldn’t stand still, adrenaline suddenly pumping through her veins and the witch lifted a hand, brushing scraggly hair back from her face. “You might have no backbone but I certainly do. Let me back in that courtroom, Greyfriar or so help me...”

The small witch began to advance on the much larger wizard, determined to sort this mess out, as she was no longer seeing usual clear black and white logic, it was covered in the red of rage.

Knox stood his ground with a set jaw, holding his open palms just barely out to the sides.  He wasn't going to bodily remove her again, but he wasn't going to just let her walk back in there screaming before he had a change to try and get some sense in that skull of hers.

"I'm as mad as you, Bombay," he seethed.  "Those witches and wizards in there... I've been trying since being cursed to prove my worth, prove my right to be there.  I'd earned it! It's not fair.  No, it's not bloody fecking fair at all! But unjust or not, the only thing - the only thing - that will happen if you keep on is one or the both of us will be sitting in Azkaban.  Over a fine."

He took a step back to cut off her angle, a calm and deliberate step, now his hands higher in an almost retreating stance.

"Please.  You'll accomplish nothing.  You're just proving they're right with all your carrying on.  We'll get an appeal, we'll write to the Prophet, we'll... do something useful.  We have allies if you only shut up."

The only way Greyfriar was moving was to further bar her entrance back into the courtroom she’d just been unwillingly dragged out of like a small rag doll. The usual calm and logical young witch would have accepted what the wizard had to say and started to consider how to get this verdict overturned. This scared and angry young witch didn’t want to listen to this reason. She wanted to yell and to hex the people that so easily labelled Greyfriar and her as irresponsible monsters that needed tethering.

“What allies?” Bombay questioned, her voice lowering in volume as she turned away from Greyfriar and paced across the corridor. “They’ve done excruciatingly well at making us look too like dangerous beasts that no-one’s going to trust. As far as they and the rest of the country are concerned, we broke the law and put innocent people in danger. Who in Merlin’s name would be an ally to us, Greyfriar?”

She turned on her heel to face the wizard, the rage from her eyes faded to a scared desperation.
“We’re alone in this, Knox.” Alone had worked for Bombay for years, she’d disconnected from her family as soon as she could, never saw her parents and could count her friends on a couple of fingers. Now alone just seemed scary and isolated.

“We’re werewolves, that in there” A finger was pointed at the door he was guarding from her, “is proof of what people think about us. It’s testimony of the conclusions they are more than content to jump to. And you seem perfectly willing to allow them, to humiliate us to clip a collar around our necks and...” an exasperated breath was released as hands pressed against her temples.

"You don't have allies, but maybe I do!" Knox insisted in that restrained hiss of a whisper, not budging an inch to the left or right. Knox was many years older than Hannah, and had, in that time, become friends with many people.  He'd forged bonds, close friendships, and strong professional alliances.  Hannah? He had no idea what she's spent her time doing, but clearly it wasn't making friends.

"Are you surprised by what happened?  If it had been anyone else, the same thing would have happened.  The problem's not with them.  They're following the law.  And the law's how we're going to get out of this.  No amount of shouting at them's going to help, no matter how justified!"

"In there -" he pointed back to the courtroom door.  " - we play by their rules.  But I'm not going to let this lie.  They've had their move, now it's mine.  I'll help you, but you've got to help me.  Don't go back in there."

Knox didn't like Hannah Bombay.  And before last week, he'd have been content to leave her well enough alone as she seemed to want.  But now, having gone through this thing together, he felt that their fates were now tied somehow.  But he couldn't drag her.  She'd made that rather plain.

No matter how much Knox insisted he had allies and that he could help them out of this mess with the law, playing by the rules of the ignorant soles in the courtroom behind him and behaving like they were told to, Hannah couldn’t wrap her head around his logic. Who would be an ally to people like them? To people that most people feared and looked down their noses at? Hannah was very quickly realising how being a werewolf, a known werewolf, threw you onto the fringes of society.

"Don't go back in there." his final words ordered the young witch and she found herself staring up at him, considering his expression, his words. Very quickly her light brown eyes shot to the closed door behind him. Marching past Greyfriar and back into the courtroom to attempt to thrust reason upon the ignorant old wizards in there would lead her in one direction.

Back to a cell.

But surely that was better than lying down and taking the prejudice they’d just dealt with, accepting the punishment for something they couldn’t have helped. Hannah’s first thought was to tell Greyfriar that she neither required nor wanted his help and how dare he even consider dragging her from the courtroom like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

“I’m not that determined to be arrested again, Greyfriar.” Bombay’s voice was quieter than before and her arms were folded over her stomach, further exaggerating the drowning effect the oversized robes had upon her small figure. She felt overpowered by both the robes and the horrible situation.

To put it plainly, Hannah Bombay suddenly looked very defeated.

“How do you plan on assisting us then, Knox?”

Oh thank Merlin.  For a moment there, Knox was sure she was going to stride past him and start things up again.  But she didn't.  Better for her.  Better for them both.  He relaxed with a sigh and wiped his hand over his eyes, nose, and beard.  He was at the same time very tired, but filled with a nervous energy.  There was so much to be done, the first being to get home and speak with his teenage son Devlin.  And fix some food. And - ah hell.  The mental list was as exhausting as anything else.

He started to walk past her, slowly, hoping she'd follow.  He was heading towards the security desk where they'd be able to pick up their wands and other belongings now that everything was sorted.  (Sorted my arse...)

"Don't know yet," he said with a strange smile over his shoulder.  He didn't mean to bait her, but he was hungry.  Food first.  Plan second.

Obviously content she wasn’t about to burst back into the courtroom and cause further ‘unnecessary’ commotion, Knox Greyfriar began to retreat albeit slowly. His leg impeded his pace but Hannah suspected it was for other reasons he took his time. His glance back at her with the uncertain comment confirmed that and had the reaction he was no doubt hoping for.

Bombay was suddenly at his heels, the giant robes flapping behind her and her short legs moving at twice their regularly pace to reach him. She definitely didn’t like that smile.

“Hold on...Knox!” Hannah ordered, her voice hushed but trying to use some sort of authority. A shaking hand grabbed his arm to stop him mid pace. “You don’t know yet? Is that to say you’ve just dragged me out of that courtroom and you have no better ideas for how to handle this? Do you even have allies or was that just you trying to impede me from marching back in there and telling your colleagues what a horde of imbecilic morons they are?”

Knox's smile faded when his provocation brought a still furious Hannah Bombay right back at him.  He stopped at her command and leaned on his cane to hear her out.

But before she was done he was shaking his great head.

"It's complicated," he insisted, "and we both need a rest.  But yes, I do have friends in this place.  Not all the Wizengamot voted against us, did they.  I'll be finding out who and speaking with them - and I've got my suspicions.  Gabrielle Harker's an old friend," he said, naming a Wizengamot Elder and Head of International Cooperation, "and so is Griffon Manley and Persepolis Zephyr." (Head of the whole Regulation department, and imminent Minister of Magic, respectively.)

"We'll file a proper appeal.  Better prepared now that we have time to think instead of leaving it to solicitors.  Not much we could do to help ourselves sitting in detainment."

All this he stated quietly, quickly and clearly.  It ached his head to do it, so looking forward he was to being home and safe and finally relaxed.  But Bombay's questions were valid, although she seemed to lack any confidence at all that this could be resolved, apparently hoping to resort straight to violent shouting as her only resort.

"Might help if we could show how that old codger died.  That house didn't collapse on accident."  He raised an eyebrow at her.  "Are you not an expert in the stories the dead tell?"

A rest. Hannah longed for a respite that didn’t mean she had to lie on a cold stone bench with a grotty blanket and a creepy guard shoving his beaky nose through the bars every half an hour to make sure, with beady overly attentive eyes that the wandless 5 foot 2 healer hadn’t managed to escape. Hannah was certain that as soon as she climbed into her warm, comfortable bed and her head hit the pillow, she would have the best rest she had ever had. What she hadn’t given any consideration to yet was her lack of wand and probably inability to return home. Her mind was too focused on the anger and shock from the courtroom hearing.

The names Greyfriar recalled seemed to roll off his tongue with such ease. He was talking about heads of department, important influential people that would definitely be extremely helpful if on side. Would Greyfriar’s influence really benefit them? Would these contacts do whatsoever to aid a couple of rogue werewolves in overturning a verdict? He boasting about his position on the wizengamot hadn’t helped him with her all those months back. It definitely hadn’t helped him today.

Hannah’s brow creased as she regarded her former professor, a wizard that fate had somehow tied her to. Well it would have had she believed in fate.

“That makes no difference. They wouldn’t let me near his corpse, or what is left of it. Even if I got to examine it my professional opinion would count for naught when I’m the defendant in a case. You know the law better than me.” The words were spoken as Hannah released his much bigger arm and started to walk towards the desk which led to a freedom she’d craved for almost a week.

“We require our possessions.” She bluntly greeted the attendant. “Healer Bombay and Elder Greyfriar.”

The attendant’s eyes dropped to study a list on the desk before him. He frowned. “I ‘ent got nowt for a Bombay, love.”

Knox couldn't tell, but he hoped that his explanation, foggy as it was, had given Hannah some sense of confidence and comfort that there were places for them yet to go.  That perhaps the flawed system still had enough cracks in it to allow those with friends through.  But if there was one thing he learned about this malcontent witch, it was her lack of faith in people and in government. 

And his suggestion to investigate the death of the old man seemed to fall on shut-up ears.  He frowned as she marched away; he followed.  It was a mystery that would need to be settled by her inspection or someone else's, eventually so that a clearer picture of the incident could replace what was already on record.

At the desk, they were greeted with another puzzle.

He looked over at Hannah and then back to the clerk.  "Check again.  Her wand and bag would have been found at the scene along with my things."

The attendent looked down at the list, by way of 'checking again', and looked back up.  "Nothing.  Jus' this fer Grefyriar."

He turned to draw down a battered plastic bin down from a cubby and set it on the counter.  Inside was Knox's wand with a tag on it.  "Sign 'ere."

Knox made his mark on the parchment and took his wand.  He looked at Hannah with furrowed brow.  Would she kill him on the spot, or just threaten the same?

"Hannah," he began.