0700 hours, Hogwarts School Grounds.

Rules on the Quidditch Pitch:

Never fly alone. Never release a Bludger on your own. Always wear flying goggles.


Raine wiped the condensation of morning mist off of her goggles and supposed that at least she was obeying one of her three safety precautions as Captain of the team. The thought was a quiet, trivial notion at the back of her mind; more significant was the speeding bludger headed straight fo---

WHAM!

The temperamental ball went flying through the air and the redhead went reeling backwards on her broom, shaken up by the force of her own strike. She had not the disposition of a Beater but at least she had the strength. Raine watched the bludger disappear into the mist before it began another assault.

Stupid. Bloody. Bludger. WHAM! her bat struck at it again and this time she kept her position. Bloody bloody bloody bloody bludger.  The ball went whizzing downwards and Raine glided lower to the green, her fiery brows creased together with what was either concentration or wrath.

They had him in Azkaban for barely a year[1]. A bloody year. WHAM! she turned in time to catch the bludger and struck it down the pitch with such vehemence that she felt the hit in her bones.

And then, unexpectedly, nothing. Raine squinted into the distance, unable to make out whether it was returning. Her gloved fingers flexed testily on the bat handle as she sailed towards the direction it had gone, by the lockers.

1.	Prophet Article

It was foggy and cold this morning, the cloud clinging to the school grounds like a shroud. It was the sort of morning where standing on the Astronomy tower's battlements was an experience; the tower was tall enough that the clouds mostly shrouded the school below, making the tower seem to float. One lost their sense of connection with the outside world, standing there.

However, on this morning Tapendra wasn't in the tower. His regular schedule had him returning from his swim in the lake at this time, just in time to slip back into the Castle without being seen. His wet-suit safely hidden under his clothes and everything but his hair dry, he'd been striding back to the castle when he heard the sound.

Whack. It echoed down the hill from the nearby Pitch, the smack of bat on leather an odd sound to hear in the otherwise silent and muffled morning. He frowned. Who the bloody hell was practicing Quidditch at this hour?

He'd headed towards the Pitch, mostly to see if Hooch was supervising (which he doubted) and found himself by the entrances to the locker rooms when the sound came again. At first he thought little of it, and then the hissing and muttering of the Bludger got close enough he could hear it -

The Bludger hit him in the stomach and Tapendra folded up onto the wooden floor of the tunnel way with a quiet and rather pathetic wheeze. He'd be feeling that for a good long while - but that was the least of his concerns, as the Bludger rose into the air and slammed onto the wood next to his shoulder, splintering it.

He dodged and grabbed it, wrestling with the struggling leather ball. It pulled and tagged and slammed into his chest, but with considerable effort he got it to hold still, laying on it. "You little bugger," he told it, when it chose to stop struggling. He took just a moment to get his breath - and proved why he'd never make it as a beater. The Bludger took that moment to shoot out of his  grip and slam into his back as he lay on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him again.

This was not the first time a Bludger had found its way towards the Quidditch locker rooms-- nor was it likely to be the last. Raine had heard the blasted thing make contact before she found herself low and close enough to the entrance to see what must have been its second assault against the unmistakable figure on the pitch.

The Gryffindor winced involuntarily at the sound of fracturing wood, relieved that it hadn't been the sound of a fracturing skull. Madame Nagde would not have appreciated that and the Head of Ravenclaw would probably have his own misgivings. Raine's broom fell limp to the ground as she nimbly leapt down, bat still at hand. For a fleeting moment it looked like the Bludger was on the verge of being compromised but that changed rather quickly.

Raine repressed the urge to wince this time as the ball struck Trishna in the back before shooting up into the air again.

"No you don't," she muttered in an angry voice and, pushing her weight into the next few steps, swung her bat at it. A loud CRACK erupted and the Bludger went flying several feet off into the distance. In the few seconds it took to turn a curve, returning to them, Raine had managed to draw her wand.

"Confundus!" the prefect cried. With an abrupt jerk, the ball halted mid-air. It hovered in a quick, darting manner. Raine stared at it for a few seconds to ensure it wasn't going to break out of the charm, and then turned around quickly. Her expression went from wary to worried.

This was just her bloody week. Murderer released, maimed a faculty member.

"Are you alright Professor Trishna?" Raine called out to the wizard, who'd fallen on his front. In a smaller voice, she added: "Are you even conscious?"

Someone was yelling spells, and the Bludger stopped hitting him. That was a nice change, especially after the blow to the kidneys he'd just gotten. He was going to feel this for awhile, wasn't he?

His back twitched and pain shot through him. That was probably spine for 'yes'.

He lay still for awhile, waiting for the mere act of breathing to be comfortable again. He felt nauseous, but the fact the pain was fading to dull and nothing felt numb meant he was probably fine. It was going to be fun time in the Tower for a few days, but ultimately, fine. He hoped.

Raine's voice reached his ears and, instead of answering right away, he formed one of his outstretched hands into a fist and then gave Raine a vague thumbs up.

After a moment he drew his elbows under him and got to his hands and knees, one hand going to his back as it protested. It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't gotten his stomach, too; his muscles there weren't happy with him, either. Why did people want to play Quidditch with these things loose, again?

"Ugh," he said, articulately, and looked at Raine. His glasses were still on his face, but had slid down, and so he adjusted them as he spoke. "Thank you, Almasy. What in the world are you doing out here at this hour?"

Raine took the professor's vague gesturing to mean that he was., as far as she could tell, unharmed. No broken bones and a presumably functioning brain- Quidditch Captains' guide to serious injury.

The Gryffindor strode over to her fallen broom as she waited for the Astronomy teacher to collect himself, and carried it cavalierly with the bat in one hand before turning back. There was hardly a point in mounting the Nimbus again; the day would soon be fast approaching and Trishna would not much appreciate her releasing the Bludger once more.

She regarded her elder with a skeptical expression. He was doing a rather spectacular imitation of her grandfather, a hand behind his back. "Thank you, Almasy. What in the world are you doing out here at this hour?" he asked. It would have been too easy to lie and somehow she doubted anyone would believe her excuse of practicing a displaced player position. Raine readjusted her hold on the broom handle irritably, fingers tensing.

"Flying," she replied nonchalantly. "I had some... supplementary energy to burn off. Bludgers are good for that." At least when they weren't trying to blast a hole through her head- or his for that matter.

Nobody had bothered her about yesterday's article in the Prophet; most likely, nobody had taken great notice of it. For those who did it was apparent that Raine had been in a mood about the news.

"It sort of helps that I imagine Arthur Lemon's face whenever it comes barreling at me," a grim smile pulled at her lips and she looked at Trishna in a faintly apologetic manner. "I'm very sorry you got in the way, professor."

Her reply was nonchalant, but he quirked an eyebrow anyway as he wiggled his shoulders, trying to get his back to agree to straighten up. It, so far, wasn't really cooperating. He didn't say anything, but his gaze shot from her wand to the Bludger, and then back. Somehow, smacking a Bludger wasn't what he'd considering 'flying', especially from the girl that played Keeper. Maybe it was a workout.

When she mentioned Arthur Lemon, he paused a moment, mid-straightening attempts, to locate the name. It wasn't difficult; he'd read the Prophet the day before, and it wasn't Lemon's name that had popped out, but rather Sanya's.

That made the Bludger make a lot more sense now, didn't it?

"That's alright," he said. "I'm sure I deserved it. Karmatically speaking, anyway." He sniffed, grunting as his back went pop. Leaning on the wall helped.

"You don't agree with his sentence, then," he said. It wasn't a question - did it really need to be? He himself wasn't sure how he felt about that, either - the old-fashioned people who'd raised him would have sent him to Azkaban, and the more modern man felt a touch of sympathy if the article's claims were true.

Raine winced slightly at the disagreeable sound of a lower-spine righting itself and was going to comment on Trishna's notion of karmatic logic when he brought up the case. Somehow, she had been hoping they could glaze over the news with awkward courtesy. But courtesy was more deserving to those who didn't indirectly injure their elders.

"I don't," the prefect said quietly as she propped her broom up against the wall and, reluctantly, the Beater's bat as well. "He's murdered more than once, remorselessly. Muggles perhaps, but they are still people and they..." her sentence trailed off into a tentative pause. It was a rather rehearsed response; the newspaper response, actually, that she knew to repeat if ever stopped for a comment.

Professor Trishna wasn't a reporter. No, Hogwarts was safe in that way. Raine's fingers curled into a taught fist and she looked away towards the field- the Bludger was swaying slightly but securely in the clutch of her charm.

"One year. He killed her and they let him out into a hospital after one year," Raine heard the anger in her voice and decided that she was alright with it. It was alright to be angry. "Murderers belong in Azkaban, don't they?"

"Not even that," she added before glancing back at the wizard. "They don't belong at all. He doesn't. I should have done more than bind him that day, I should have... should have..." Her gaze flickered to the Beater's bat with a cold glimmer. A sense of propriety restrained the thought. "You know what I mean."

Which he did, Raine thought, better than most.

He watched her silently for several long moments as the girl seemed to collect her thoughts. He could understand her frustration - though he couldn't fully emphasize. His demons had never really been arrested; his mother hadn't had the chance to plead insanity, even if she'd wanted to try and use it to get out. In his life, justice had either been properly served...or not served at all.

Still - he was up in the air about the Lemon case. On one hand, people so insane so as to be driven to murder at random were to be pitied. But at the same time...sane or not, they were still murderers, weren't they? Insane or not, innocent people were dead. It seemed like such a silly thing, really, to claim insanity for a man who'd killed during the wars...when he'd be presumably sane.

"Yes," he said, finally. "They do." He frowned,  thick lips pressed together into a thin line as she spoke.

"Don't regret what you did that day," he said, thinking for a moment of his own that day. Almasy was probably saner than he'd been, but she hadn't had time to plan her reactions, had she? "He might have been willing to fall to that level, but..." The fact the girl had simply bound the man was impressive. He'd have killed him, he was sure - or done something terrible at the very least. "Be glad you aren't the sort of person who does, Almasy."

He let his breath out, and nodded slightly. "Who knows," he said. "Perhaps they'll find out he's not insane. It's certainly a very..." He struggled for the right word. "Modern conclusion. A bit too modern. I can't help but wonder exactly who pulled the strings on it." The wizarding courts rarely had any sympathy for the dangerously delusional.

Raine sighed, folding her arms across her chest as she considered her own actions the day Sanya had been murdered. Professor Trishna was commending her on... what? Her sense of self-restraint? That she hadn't decided right there and then to...to...

It hadn't been self-restraint but shock. If the loss of her sister hadn't been such a shock to her state, Merlin knew if she would have acted so sensibly. She didn't want to be sensible now.

"I didn't do anything then," Raine's nose wrinkled with distaste. "It wasn't due to any notion of mercy or discipline. I couldn't retaliate. That doesn't mean I wouldn't now." If she had a running shot, she would have taken more than a bat to Arthur Lemon's wretched head.

Hardly the sort of imaginings she wanted to share and certainly not one Trishna would appreciate, not with any sense of approbation. Raine glanced at the professor sharply at his mention of the courts' conclusion.

"Modern for the wizarding world..." she nodded slowly. "Perhaps they've been taking lessons from the muggles. I can't think of why anyone would want him free. The Lemons are purebloods but they aren't rich, they can't buy counsel." Images of Roger's meagre farmland played in her mind and she frowned. "The politics is beyond my understanding. I just... it just burns me that he isn't in Azkaban."

Tapendra frowned slightly - finding himself slightly disappointed. He thought highly of Raine - she tended to walk circles around him socially speaking and he rather liked that about her, as awkward as it made him feel to be in a position of authority in those circumstances. He really would have preferred to think of her as the sort with the constraint to hold herself back.

"You did better than I'd have done, Almasy. Let me admire you for that, at least," he said, ruefully, smiling without even a slight bit of his usual blindly optimistic look. "Shock or not." He'd probably have held back in shock, he knew, but once his mind had processed it - if someone had done that to Georgiana or Cyhirae...

He'd have ripped them apart. With his bare hands, if need be. He'd come so close to that before - had stood on that edge and stepped away from it. He didn't want to think about that too much.

"Normally I'd say one can hope, but..." He shrugged slightly. On certain subjects, his traditionalist pureblood upbringing came through, and this was one of those areas. "Insanity doesn't seem.." He pressed his lips together, frowning. "You've actually...well, met the man. Do you think he was insane?"

Admirability of her actions. Raine wondered if she could ever pass off her inability to act as restraint, if she ever had to pass an interview process for Auror-training. If Professor Trishna could think well of her, then perhaps he wasn't only adult with that manner of thinking.

Personally, she found it insipid- although she wasn't thinking straight. It was far too easy at this moment for her to draw on reserves of cynicism and anger. "You've actually...well, met the man." Trishna frowned and the prefect mirrored the expression, immediately recollecting the memory. "Do you think he was insane?"

Strange, how his mental condition hadn't mattered to her at all, up until last Monday evening. And yet today it was the tiny pinpoint on which the world spun.

"We thought he was disturbed," she shrugged and some of the tension from the Bludger session ebbed away. "I thought he was a... a very bitter man." Quiet, muttering wizard. He had filled Roger's head with talk of purebloods and money and Merlin knew what else. An aspect of her mind supposed that only a mad man could bring himself to murder someone like Sanya.

But that wasn't how the world worked.

"If he is crazy, then he isn't crazy enough..." Raine's lips tightened into a determined look. "If you understand what I mean. He's what you might call messed up. Damaged, not deranged." And in turn, he'd damaged her too. She ran a hand through her curls; sighing. "I don't know what I'll do if they release him completely."

Tapendra nodded, glumly. He wasn't 100% sure he knew what she meant, or was implying, but he was nonetheless fairly certain what they were thinking the same thing. Crazy enough to be dangerous, oh yes, but...

"Disturbed, or messed up enough to be dangerous, but sane enough to be conscious and in control of his own actions," he said, rubbing his chin, "If that's what you mean, then yes, I know what you mean. Probably." He couldn't help but think briefly of Kesali, but that was a different subject for a different day - he hoped. He wanted to believe Kesali was above  snapping at, or doling out harm to students, but reports were not showing much promise.

He rubbed his back again, the throbbing continuing somewhat. Definitely going to bruise - blast it all.

After a moment's silence, Tapendra let his breath out, the sound half sigh and half exhale. This was a mess - an enragingly unfair sort of mess. Of course, he had little recourse to do much about it, but...

"What are you going to do?" He asked. "You and your family, I mean. Can you do anything?"

Raine nodded her head once, imperceptibly, at the relatively accurate understanding of Arthur Lemon's mental state. She was no Healer or... or psychologist or analyst. Her opinion wasn't professional but it was personal and that was adequate enough.

"My family, well..." her mouth twisted into a grim little smile. "Legal petition. I suppose Mama and Papa have their connections in the Ministry. Even so, I have to be realistic." The lack of alliance with her parents' views was stark, apparent.

Official mediums were functional but they weren't comprehensive. Raine knew her parents had little choice than to act through those channels and perhaps that blinded them to other aspects of the reality; more than herself, they had every reason to live in some form of marginal denial. Parents ought never bury their own children.

"If Arthur Lemon does get released," the prefect explained: "There isn't any guarantee they will be able to apprehend him again if a petition goes through. It's a big world." Her gaze shifted from Professor Trishna to the Bludger hovering in the air- now completely still, unwavering. "What would stop him from simply disappearing?"

He nodded glumly as she spoke. As expected; legal action was the only real recourse (of course) but somehow he wasn't too confident on the outcome. They could ask for a second opinion, of course, but if the man had all of his faculties and had been told that his sentence might be lighter if he was insane, he could act insane for the doctors and mediwizards, surely? Oh, they had truth serums, but...would they use them? He had no idea how wizards might make such a determination.

Tapendra shook his head slightly, looking back at Raine at her last comment. Part of him wondered - if Lemon did escape, could he do anything to help? Tapendra had more connections to the underworld than he liked to admit even to himself, but - no, none of them would be that helpful, would they?

"Hopefully, an actually competent guard of St. Mungo's wards," he said, and utterly failed to keep the sarcastic drawl from his tone. He frowned, closing his jaw with a click.

"I'm sorry. With their...recent track record -" The recent attack, the injuries sustained by his ex brother-in-law..."I'm not...not very confident, I suppose."

Sarcasm was surprising, coming from the Astronomy Professor. Raine had assumed without much thought that he might possess - as much of the wizarding world did - an implicit faith in official systems.

The hospital's reputation for security was far too obvious for anyone to easily glaze over, she supposed. Her fiery brows creased into a glare that seemed to stretch further than the pitch and into the space of the highlands. If one could stare daggers into Azkaban...

"I see what you mean," the prefect's fingers folded into a tight fist. "It's more than a possibility, perhaps, that he might... might run. That's unfortunate." But unfortunate for whom? She could feel the anger in her breast stir at the idea of Arthur Lemon escaping, disappearing into the criminal underworld.

No. They couldn't let it happen, she certainly couldn't. He had killed a good person (a wonderful person) and he would atone for it as any criminal would. Even worse, if Raine had any say in the matter.

"Lawful methods aren't the only way to find a man," she mused in an abruptly ruminative tone. It was a non-committal statement, obvious with implication. "Whe-- if the time comes, I won't be as compliant as my parents." Raine glanced at Professor Trishna with a faint and weary smile "I'm determined not to be, at any rate."