Mondays were never a fun day at the office. He had to look over all of last week's paper work before stamping it with an "okay" and giving it to his secretary to file away. The stack on his desk this morning had been larger than usual, and he'd gotten to it lacking any of his usual gusto or enthusiasm. Griffon kept thinking about how he could have a coffee break at ten and go pester his employees for a little while. But for right now, it was time for serious work. Being the head of the department was no walk in the park (he had half expected it would be).

Unfortunately for Griffon- and for Margo Amherst- his plans of taking his coffee break at ten were impeded by a file that he'd come across from the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. It was some paperwork about a dragon execution they had done over the weekend (unusual hours for them to be working), including the testimony of Miss Amherst that it was a just decision to put the creature to death.

Griffon strongly disagreed. The file indicated that the dragon had was pregnant. One of the employees on a dragon reserve had gotten himself attacked when attempting to administer some medical attention to the dragon, and when others had intervened it had ended in the death of three reserve employees.

He wasn't surprised. Pregnant dragons were particularly dangerous, especially if they were close to laying their eggs- as it seemed this dragon was, given the date they had discovered this particular dragon was going to be a mommy. The breed wasn't really known to be very violent- but he'd known some pregnant women, and pregnancy did that to a person. And, apparently, to dragons. The very idea that Margo Amherst would agree that the dragon was a threat to the reserve and needed to be exposed of... well, to put it simply, it infuriated him.

Griffon opened the door of his office, and bellowed out the door- loudly and menacingly, "MARGO AMHERST! MY OFFICE! NOW!" His secretary nearly fell out of her chair she was so startled, and he waited- impatiently- for the woman to get to his door. She had a lot of explaining to do, and it was not going to be pretty.

Monday always made Margo a little worse for wear.  She was... not the kind of employee that rested up during her weekends.  In fact, if anything, by Wednesday or Thursday, she was a much more capable worker.  Monday was all grumbles and huffing, and mostly hungover ramblings on pieces of paper that came by her desk.  It wasn't like anyone read any of it anyway.

Yawning, she stretched her lithe frame all the way out, her arms thrown above her head and her neck extended back over the edge of her chair.  A little groan of pleasure at the cracking of her back was just what the doctor ordered.  She licked her lips and sat back up, rubbing her temple.

It had been such a piss-poor choice to spend the weekend with Bagnold.  Not that they really had a choice, they lived two floors away from one another, and it got awfully convenient when one of them craved some... company. 

Needless to say, she was hungover and exhausted, and when she heard a voice - or was it a roar? - calling for her, Margo blinked slowly, a lightening strike actually carving straight through her skull.  She didn't know what she did now, and what she remembered of work policy was that hungover was not bad unless it interfered in what she was doing - and she didn't do anything yet - it was only 10 AM on a Monday.  Whoever got any work done by now was clearly insane - or boring.  Either way, she stood up, wobbly at first, and then saw the door of Griffon Manley very open.

And then two and two went together and she made a very disturbed face.  Why was he mad at her?!  What had she done?!  The yeti incident was months ago... and that was the only thing she could imagine she did - she always thought he was fond of her!  Ugh.  She felt like a child. 

Pulling at the edge of her shirt that had ridden up as she slid down in her chair, Margo tried to shake the limp out of her walk as she approached the open door.  She poked her head in, grinning nervously, "Yea, chief?" she asked, trying to sound... positive.  Hopefully this little matter (whatever it was) was just a mix-up.

Alert was not a word that Griffon would use to describe Margo at the moment. He frowned at her greeting, and motioned to one of the chairs. "Sit down and shut the door!" he barked, going back to his seat behind the desk. Normally he would offer Margo some of his finer scotch or whiskey. He liked the woman. She was nice, attractive, and didn't mind his occasional flirting. She was a good employee for the most part. But had Griffon known she was capable of... this... he wouldn't have been quite so nice to her since coming back to the Ministry.

He waited on her to shut the door and sit down before he slid the file across the desk. "Would you like to tell me, Amherst, why you thought that an innocent dragon needed beheading?" he asked. "I don't know how much you know about dragons, but given your occupation I'd been led to believe it was a lot. I've been living with yetis for more than ten years and even I know a load of shite when I see it- and what you said here," he said, tapping the parchment with his finger, "that's shite."

"You want to tell me in what universe a pregnant dragon is a threat when she's trying to protect herself?" Griffon asked, voice still much louder than it needed to be in a confined space. People outside of the office could probably hear his disgruntled words clear as day. "Dragons aren't common enough to go about lopping off their heads left and right! Sure, she killed some people- but they probably deserved it! Disturbing a pregnant dragon is asking for your head to be ripped right off! Medical attention needed or not. You want to tell me in what way you'd think otherwise?"

He paused then- the silence hanging over the two of them like the calm before a storm. Griffon didn't get this angry very often. His face was red and he was puffed up like a rooster ready to fight. He wasn't going to let Amherst off easy on this one- and if her answer wasn't satisfactory, he'd put her out on her ass. Griffon wasn't above firing someone who would be so careless and indifferent to the life of such a majestic creature. It went against everything the entire department stood for.

The crack of his voice was like a whip in her brain.  She winced, probably more visibly than she would have liked, and groaned at his order.  She shut the door and sulked toward the chair.  Just from the sound of it she was in trouble so deep she couldn't imagine.  It wasn't really her fault if she left Friday evening without filing all the paperwork the right way - she was going to fix it!  She just.. hadn't gotten to it yet.

Trying to think of every conceivable excuse for what she was going to say about that, it was like being smacked upside the head with what he said next.  What?  Beheading a dragon?  Margo blinked.  That... did not sound like her.

Hell, if anyone even bothered to read her file, even while she spent a year in St. George's in Romania she clamored against the push to put the dragon out.  Of course, it didn't happen, everyone was aware of the risks, so she had pull.  What on Earth was he going on about? 

She didn't have to listen to him screaming at her - particularly for some shite she did not do - and certainly did not authorize.  "Oi!" she finally practically squawked, her face as red as his - she  was not going to deal with taking flack for this - it was not her.

"I didn't authorize shit about killing a dragon," she spoke candidly, and certainly didn't mind swearing when her reputation was being questioned in this way.  She was nothing but an ally to dragons - and she wouldn't dare authorize something like this  - not with what he told her. 

She shook her head, crossing her arms across he chest and sitting back.  "Whoever filled out the paperwork clearly wasn't paying attention - I wasn't even near work this weekend.  Trust me."  She leveled him a look - she thought Griffon knew her better than that - she'd have to literally be dragged into the office by her teeth to get her into work on a weekend.

"Let's get one thing straight- and we're going to get it straight now, Amherst. I am your superior. I decide whether you stay here or whether you get fried- so if I were you, I would watch your language and your tone. This is no laughing matter, and I wouldn't drag you into my office and accuse you of something without any proof." Once again, Griffon motioned to the papers.

He watched as she leaned back, and crossed her arms. "It's dated for Friday," he told her. "They executed the animal yesterday. Just because you're ready to go out and have a bit fun is no excuse for you to get lax and to let stuff like this happen!" Griffon still believed that the testimony with Margo's name attached was real- she had very little to convince him otherwise.

"If you say it isn't you, there better be something better you can offer me than word of mouth. Because I highly doubt that half of a committee would sign off on something you said if you didn't say it, and think that they would get away with it. As it stands right now I've got a handful of men who said you met with their committee about the dragon killing those people, and that you said it warranted death."

"So either you said it, you said something that could be easily misconstrued as you saying it, or they're lying. If you said something that got that dragon killed- I'm going to toss you out on your ass and make sure you never come near another magical creature as long as you live."

"Sorry," she murmured, not really knowing how to deal with the fact she made a fool of herself - she was used to it, of course, but generally with a different crowd - one she did not have to impress in any way, shape or form.  This was her boss, she reminded herself, her boss. 

Margo did not do well dealing with people that were her superiors.  She tended to pull everyone down to her level, and she blinked rapidly as Griffon's demeanor did not change. He was right pissed, as she figured he should be, but she had absolutely no bloody clue what on this Earth he was talking about.

She also didn't like the charge that she was responsible, she didn't take responsibility for anything, let alone the execution of a magical creature.  Her knee was aching and she sighed, sometimes stress made it bother her and she reached down to adjust the prosthetic for maximum comfort - and give her a second to think about Friday. 

She just... she didn't do anything on Fridays.  She didn't do anything for most of the week to be perfectly honest... but saying that was probably no better than cursing at him again...

"I never signed anything," Margo reaffirmed, trying to think of what could prove it.  "I never even met with a committee," she wrinkled her nose, "I was doing location assignments for the summer season all day." A half-truth, she looked at the assignments, sat on her arse, played some solitaire with herself, took a nap, visited (bothered) Bagnold...

"I saw Bagnold for part of the day," she offered, "and then Grimke came by my cubicle and told me I  could leave early," she added, "so I did.  Could I see this paper I supposedly signed off on?" she asked, finally, thinking maybe she could prove it that way... but scrambled to grab a shred of paper and a quill, signing her name with a flourish - "My signature," she explained the impromptu scratch on the paper, "to compare!"

Griffon watched Margo carefully, looking for any obvious signs that she was telling him a lie. She snatched up a shred of paper from his desk and a quill, then signed her name. He'd seen her signature plenty of times before, and arched an eyebrow at her when she handed it to him. He would oblige her, but Griffon had already decided that Margo was guilty and that she would (metaphorically) hang for it.

He took the paper none too gently from her hand, and set it down next to the report he'd been looking at. They were... entirely different. So different that it was hard to believe that she might have done both of them. They also slanted the opposite direction. Whoever had signed off on this report used a different writing hand than Margo did. Griffon frowned, his brows knitted together, and he looked at Margo again.

"Looks like we have a serious problem. I need you to keep this hush hush," he grunted. "There's something foul going on here and I don't like the smell of it. I'll get to the bottom of this," he waved at the folder. "Someone on the committee tried to pull the wool over both of our eyes- and I'm not going to let it happen."

Griffon looked at her again, and sighed. "I'm sorry for yelling at you, Amherst. I just got worked up. There was no reason that dragon had to die. No reason at all. And I'm not going to let these guys get away with it." He snapped the file shut, and dropped it in a drawer.

"Problem is, it's going to take some time to prove something is up. And I don't need them getting antsy in the mean time. I know I'm not law enforcement, and there's not much I can do, but I gotta have enough evidence before I try to get him in trouble for doing what they've done. They could have ruined your entire career, you know," Griffon told her. "I was ready to fire you before you even walked through the door." He rubbed his templed, thinking.

"I'm going to suspend you," he finally stated. "To make them think you're in trouble. But don't worry- you'll still get your paychecks. Think of it as a free two week vacation. That should give me enough time to dig up some dirt and talk to these guys and see what they have to say about this whole situation. Then I'll talk to the DMLE and maybe to the Wizengamot and see what I can do to get them punished."

Margo leaned over the desk, half expecting that she would have to produce written statements from people that she had been utterly useless on Friday and hadn't signed a damn thing, or produce more of her signatures to prove that they weren't the same, in case someone was a very good forger, but when she leaned over the desk, she let out a deep sigh of relief.  The one on the page was obviously done by someone who didn't know her.

Not only did the letters slant the wrong way - point one for being left-handed - it was neat, and loopy, and Margo's on the little piece of paper could have very easily been written by a toddler.  She had no skills in penmanship, no matter how hard her family tried to drill it in her, and Margo looked hopeful as she dropped back down into her seat - her brain shaking in her head as she did so.  Not a good idea, she reminded herself. 

Blinking, Margo didn't really understand what was going on - clearly it was a big deal, big enough that they lied about using her, probably because she was expendable, at best, in the department and her trustworthiness was slim to nothing, at least as far as work was concerned -but she wasn't going to slaughter a dragon for nothing. She had been practically killed and lobbied for that one's life.  She wouldn't kill a pregnant dragon because some idiots bothered it.

She'd probably put them on the spit before the dragon, to be perfectly honest.  Dragons were usually better company than people.  But that was neither here nor there at the moment, and she puffed out her cheeks. 

"I won't say a word, sir," she pretended to lock her lips and throw the key over her shoulder, half expecting something to crash down anyway - though thankfully nothing did,and she shifted in her seat, the mulch on the ground crunching under her boot.  "And, you know, help if you need it," she added. 

"You'd think," she half grinned, "if someone really had it in for me, they'd let me ruin my career m'self," it was a half-hearted laugh, mostly because it wasn't really about her at all, which was at least somewhat rewarding.  Although, in general, the world did revolve around her, far too recently negative world things had revolved around her, and she was decidedly sick of that. 

She got serious again though, and nodded solemnly, "I get it," she waved her hand, "Maybe if you make whoever it is that did it think I'm gone, they might do something else.  Who knows?" she shrugged before eying him.  "Does that mean I leave now...?"

Griffon nodded, distracted by his own thoughts. What was going on? Why would they lie to kill a dragon? From what he could tell the injured wasn't related to anyone on the comittee, and it wasn't normal to seek the death penalty for dragons. They were endangered enough, and those who chose to work with them were fully aware of the consequences. He eyes Margo's leg for a moment as he tried to muddle through his thoughts. The "why" seemed to be the missing piece to this puzzle.

"Hopefully you being gone will help weasle them out. If nothing else it buys me time. If they think I'm ignorant, they won't be rushing to cover anything up." Griffon had a serious suspicion there was something going on that reached beyond the death of this dragon. It was too drastic of a measure.

He looked up when she asked if that meant she should leave now. Griffon nodded. "Yeah, suppose you should. Make sure you look good and devastated when you go, though. Hopefully you're a good enough actor for that." He shuffled the papers- along with Margo's offered signature- back into the folder and put it in the bottom drawer of his desk.

Griffon flicked his wand toward the door, swinging it open. "Now get the hell out of my office, Amherst!" he yelled loudly. He might as well put on a good show, too. And Griffon was a big man, his voice carried well- especially when he took care to project properly.