Day following the full moon

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The shadows were clear beneath Johann's eyes as he waited patiently, not far from Charlie Robard's desk. He and the clerk had worked together on a foreign werewolf case in the previous week, and subsequently he felt a little more at ease in spending time in the Department without a formal agenda.

The day was coming to a close, and although he often let Colin emerge from his holding cell and make his way home unaided, in peace, Johann today lurked, waiting for the weres to appear. However, instead of waiting for Colin, Johann was waiting for Hannah Bombay.

It had initially smarted that Hannah hadn't disclosed her situation to Johann before he heard about it through other means and saw it reported in the paper. They'd seen so little of each other lately, it had got difficult. Johann's family had got the impression Hannah had been his girlfriend, and Johann had not been eager to correct them, wishing an easier life.

Unfortunately when her predicament became public, his father, Wolfgang, had publicly launched a verbal assault on her in Gringotts, only ended by Johann almost physically dragging him out of the place and away from the most murderous look he had ever seen the woman express.

The full moon had been the previous evening and Johann had found himself witness to a werewolf tearing apart a Muggle woman in an adapted house. It hadn't been his first choice of how to spend his night by any stretch, but insomnia and a new set of acquaintances amongst Vedir Prideaux's staff had led him to it.

His father's attendance had placed huge doubt in his mind as he'd suggested the wolf could even have been Hannah. Johann doubted this, but that seed of doubt had grown in the hours and he had to see, even if he didn't speak to her, that she was 'safe', and had been locked up here instead.

Hearing voices and footsteps approaching, Johann shoved his hands further into his coat pockets and leaned against a nearby filing cabinet. His cowardice leading him to sway towards just having glimpsed her, not sure what to say, but as he set his eyes upon the wolves now back in human form, it wasn't easy to melt into a filing cabinet.

"Hello." He managed, "Good night?"

Merlin. Wrong thing to ask. He swallowed and licked his lips nervously.

The full moon had had the same horrible affects upon Hannah Bombay from the time she’d been bitten by the werewolf at the hospital in March. The exposure of the full moon always brought upon her the most excrutiating of pain as her bones, muscles, skin and organs transformed, forced by the terrible curse that riddled her body. Before she knew it, Hannah was awakening to find her body aching, tired and sore and the cell that contained her dark and threatening.

Yet unlike with most other werewolves, Hannah wasn’t able to leave after having woken and dressed. Along with Knox Greyfriar, Bombay was retained until the sun had once more set in the sky and the cell door was unlocked. She didn’t get to go home for the day to recover in a warm, homely flat. She had a cell to become accustomed to and would finally leave the ministry ready to collapse.

"Hello." a voice came from beside her as Hannah was shuffling past the welcome desk of the department, trying to make a quiet exit by keeping her eyes locked upon the floor. The voice snapped her from her quiet daze and two tired brown eyes shot up to greet the accented voice and the figure it had come from.  That was a voice she hadn’t heard recently.

"Good night?" Johann questioned and Hannah’s brows creased in an exhausted confusion. She didn’t have the energy to inforn him of the inappropriateness of his comment at that moment.

The healer’s gaze flitted around the area quickly before it fell back upon her ‘friend’.
“Your friend isn’t here, Johann. He’ll have left this morning.”

"Yes." Johann replied, automatically, "I should be going home to feed his dog, he'll probably be asleep."

This felt so awkward, having not seen her for so long, and how it had been left with his father tearing pieces from her.
"Don't worry, I hadn't come to gawp." He explained, and removed his shoulder-blades from the filing cabinet. "I came to see if you were here." Johann explained in a quiet voice, stepping forward a pace and closing the distance between them.

"I... something made me worry you weren't here." He admitted, his gaze somewhere near their shoes, and then forced himself to look up at her. She looked like hell, and he felt a pang of sympathy, knowing that expression in Colin when he returned home on those occasions Johann had been about.

He removed his right hand from his long coat pocket, and offered his arm to Hannah.
"Let me take care of a friend I have neglected." He spoke softly. "Or let me try. I owe it her, several times over."

"I came to see if you were here." Johann explained uncomfortably.

Hannah blinked. What was that supposed to mean? She was suddenly feeling rather more awake than a moment before.

Instead of taking the offered arm, Hannah stared blankly down at it before she focused on his face, the view before her mildly blurry thanks to a lack of eyewear or potion. Johann’s final words fell on deaf ears after the comment that was now repeating in Bombay’s mind. He had come to see if she was there because something…or someone had made him think otherwise.

Johann was struggling to meet her eyes. Hannah stared at him and he stared awkwardly down at their feet because he couldn’t look at the witch before him. She’d never told him about her curse but had presumed he wouldn’t avoid her completely if he found out. Colin was a werewolf for Merlin’s sake!

But the elder Mr. Storm didn’t know about Colin. He knew about Hannah, his son’s pretend girlfriend.

“He’s gotten to you hasn’t he?” The healer finally responded, her voice a simple whisper. “The only reason I wouldn’t be here is if I were really dangerous and reckless. If I were a mindless monster like he says.” There was no question who the young witch was speaking of. The meeting may have happened a while ago but the events were still raw in her mind. The words still taunted her in the night and kept her awake along with the scathing words written and spoken by the public.

“He’s gotten to you hasn’t he? The only reason I wouldn’t be here is if I were really dangerous and reckless. If I were a mindless monster like he says.”

Johann's expression turned from being uncomfortable at approaching his friend after so much time, to shock and hurt. His offered arm was withdrawn in response.
"Mindless monster?" He replied, his tone was shocked, and voice louder than Hannah's.
"Is that what you think I believe?" Johann's eyes widened, and he took a step back away from Hannah.

"He might be my father, but I don't have to agree with him." He explained, folding his arms and frowning. "Actually I find him intolerable, ignorant and rude, but you can't choose your family."

The linguist sighed and closed his eyes momentarily to think.
"I was worried you were in danger, not a danger to others."

Hannah Bombay also knew about not being able to pick one’s family. She had, however, learnt that you could completely avoid them and that ended up perfectly adequate when years had passed without seeing them. The only family member Hannah still remained in contact with was her awkward half-brother and he she rarely saw. Family were not something she felt she required. Johann, if he surely wished for it, could also avoid his relatives.

For some reason Johann looked hurt, like she’d insulted him and surprised him but Bombay wasn’t in the fit state to process what was biting him so much. He was the one that had appeared at this time, waiting for her apparently, he was the one that had insulted her by ‘seeing’ she was there. Johann had no right to look wounded. He hadn’t just been let out of a cold, dark cell after a night of hell.

Not wishing to stand here in the department any longer, Hannah began to walk once more. Her legs ached with each step as her leather boots clicked on the hard floor. The witch pulled her baggy cardigan tighter around the thin, aching body and glanced back at Johann.

“Why would I be in danger? What silly things have those potions put in your mind today?”

Hannah had begun on her way again, and Johann slid his hand back into his coat pocket and exhaled at her question. He'd only taken one of the apothecary ones last night on getting home, trying to tempt himself to sleep a few hours, and it hadn't worked at all.

"Not the potions." He replied crossly, keeping his voice down into a hiss. His long legs enabled him to catch up with his petite female friend quickly. "I've had to work with the werewolf team this past week on something, and I..."

Johann contemplated how to phrase things. He couldn't tell Hannah where he'd been the night before when she'd been locked in a cell, transforming and howling. She would almost certainly not speak to him again.

"... I heard that not everyone has been getting to the cells safely. There's been trouble. I don't mean people refusing to go - I mean, people who do comply being interrupted en route." A lie in some form, but potentially true in others. He assumed the wolf last night had either volunteered or been snatched, and his money would have been on the latter.

"Its not being shouted about, I think the Ministry's keener to say people have not been reporting." His tone evened out, more his usual self as he had a chance to explain, even if it wasn't entirely true.

“Well the ministry’s very effective at that.” Muttered the young healer quietly as she continued to slowly walk. To Hannah Bombay, the ministry of magic was no longer a good force but a moronic one. One she now avoided as much as possible.

After a moment’s thought, Hannah stopped and twisted on the heel of her boot to face Johann. Well, to look up at Johann from her considerably smaller height.
“So you anticipate saying, Johann, that werewolves are being…prevented from showing up on the full moon and the ministry are purely blaming them without getting to the bottom of it?” The healer’s voice was low as she eyed her friend. She wasn’t sure whether to worry about this or feel good about it since she could finally bite back at the ministry with an issue of their making.

Despite her interest in the minstry’s reaction, Hannah’s conscience won over and a look of concern creased her tired features. “How do you mean ‘interrupted en route’?”

“Well the ministry’s very effective at that.”

Johann nodded without consciously considering it. Governments always did, for the benefit and protection of its population, or to stop things from being discovered that would undermine their authority. Imprisoning werewolves on a night and also making an example of them in courts were popular amongst the population.

“So you anticipate saying, Johann, that werewolves are being…prevented from showing up on the full moon and the ministry are purely blaming them without getting to the bottom of it?”

"Keep your voice down." Johann asked, his own tones hushed.

“How do you mean ‘interrupted en route’?”

Had he used the potion in the blue bottle the previous night to knock himself out, he'd have never gone to the werewolf fight, or be making stupid decisions in uttering news here. Johann faced her and flattened his lips into a straight line together, his eyes sliding upwards as he considered his response.

"I can't say." He replied, "I've only heard, alright? The only way I can verify it is to slip veritaserum in someone's coffee," he paused, suddenly lost in a thought about how Charlie had happily drunk the provided coffee sat on Johann's desk at arrival the other day. As if Hannah had clapped her hands to get his attention he again he continued in the same, low volume patter, stooping ever so slightly due to the height difference and his wish not to speak too loudly. "Or distract Robards long enough to check his attendance records." He concluded.

He cautiously went to lay a finger on her elbow to try and encourage her to continue walking,
"You don't want to talk about it here, or now. I should have left you be." He shook his black curls, "I'm just glad you are in one piece, Hannah, after everything." His dark blue eyes met hers sincerely, the closest he would ever usually get to showing that he properly cared about anyone, lacking the capability to express it in any way but awkward scientific evaluations otherwise.

Johann seemed under the tainted disillusion that he could inform Hannah of missing werewolves and then quite easily brush it off. The sense of fraternity one might experience when one’s own kind were in trouble had still not been instilled in the witch. To her she was a werewolf for simply one night a month and that was it. For the rest of the time she wished and tried in vain to be a regular witch, a professional healer and well put together young woman. It certainly didn’t work and as much as Hannah didn’t like being called a werewolf, she was worried about this bit of information Johann had provided her.

Therefore, when Johann placed his hand on his friend’s elbow in an attempt to move her along, Hannah remained rooted to her spot. She was tired, yes. She didn’t want to speak or deal with human beings this morning, no. But this topic was important. This topic affected her and although she showed a dislike for him, it also affected Knox Greyfriar who she regrettably cared about. They’d been through too much together to leave him out of the equation when it came to werewolf safety.

“You haven’t come to confirm I’m in one piece before Johann.  This is important. I want to know everything you know. I want to speak about it now.” The considerably smaller and rugged looking witch grabbed Storm’s arm instead and she steered him down the corridor until there reached an empty room when she pulled him inside and shut the door.

Arms were folded over her stomach as she stared at him, waiting.

“Well?”

Hannah Bombay was stronger than she appeared as she hauled Johann by the arm into an empty office. The last time anything like this had occurred, they'd been in the pub, and Hannah hadn't been sleep-deprived, grumpy or disheveled, but equally as determined.

“Well?”

Johann's backside landed on the edge of a desk with a bump and his elbow collided with a hourglass which he fumbled with both hands, attempting not to knock it onto the floor. His wand was inside his coat. Still clutching the hourglass as if it was a small shield against Bombay's wrath, Johann looked at her eye to eye, given his behind remained perched, his left leg bent and his right stuck out in the direction of the door.

"Its nothing more than idle gossip. You know the sort, normally blown out of proportion." He began, hoping to construct a suitable, plausible excuse other than I saw a werewolf tear apart a Muggle last night and it scared the crap out of me, so I'm not actually too keen on going home to Colin, but I wanted to check it wasn't you.

"I needed a change of scenery, overheard something in the atrium about 'non reporting' but figured it might be related to a recent visitor I've been helping Robards track down. Werewolf come into the country without being tracked, not something the Ministry want to shout about, unless they can blame the other Ministry." He tried to level out his gaze, remembering he had already run off at the mouth about knowing people were being intervened.

"Anyhow, I couldn't tail the full conversation, they shut up, but got enough to glean that the one not turning up might have otherwise always reported in, but it wasn't clear. You British have this sarcasm that can be a little hard to decipher when you're not seeing the facial expressions." He gestured, twisting his left hand up to his head to signal confusion. In the process he almost dropped the hourglass again.