Jonas had spent most of his time over the past week trying not to be in the office.  For the most part, it hadn't been hard.  Once they'd gotten past the initial round of paperwork, anyone who could cast a Patronus was expected to be in the field.  He hadn't exchanged more than a few words with Tamis in over a week; he and Archer had crossed paths only briefly.  Chances were good that he couldn't continue the streak forever, but at least for now, he could put some distance between himself and his late-night visitor from ten days before.

There were plenty of people about the office -- aside from the hustle of the Level Two employees, Tuesday meant that the Azkaban parolees were checking in.  Once Jonas had finished his shift, he had headed smartly to the lift.  These weren't quite the halls of the Ministry that he remembered, but on days like this, with so much activity about, it was too easy to forget.  Dementors brought back that helpless feeling that something was rising that they couldn't do a thing to stop.  Sometimes, it was almost as though he'd seen a face he'd mostly forgotten out of the corner of his eye --

Except this time, he had half seen a face.  Jonas nearly broke stride.  The red-headed Auror paused for half a second, and then turned back around, making his way back to the desk where the overworked Welcome Witch was trying to process the paperwork for a line of parolees.

When he'd first heard that Lawrence Musgrave had ended up in Azkaban, he hadn't quite known how to react.  Musgrave had been a Pureblood; but he'd also been a Gryffindor, and at one point, Jonas had worked with him closely during his training.  As hot-headed and sharp-tongued as he might have been back then, he'd learned quite a bit from the tall, weedy Auror, who had been so adept at realizing patterns and putting pieces together.  When Jonas hadn't run into him at the Ministry, he'd purposely avoided looking into his fate.  It wasn't until Pratt had mentioned it in passing that he'd known.

And now here he was, in line with all of the other parolees.

Jonas stopped and cleared his throat.  "Well, then."  He flashed the other man a quick smile, his eyes briefly scanning over him.  Much thinner than when he'd known him -- Lawrence Musgrave had a grayish, sickly look, as if he'd been far too long removed from the sun, and there was no missing his missing hand.  But a decrease in limbs aside -- a dozen years and a new life for them both aside -- he wasn't about to let it phase him.  "Been a bit, hasn't it?"

It still smelled the same up here, Lawrence thought to himself as he watched the comings and goings of the second floor. It had change a little, a bit of rearrangement, all of what Voldemort's kind had put in were gone, it was brighter and a lot less depressive.

In the times he'd been here since his release, he'd already memorised the forms they had to fill out, and procedure, the location of the calendar behind the desk, how many doors, the type of pot plant, and how the witch liked to loop her g into her r in his surname. It was fast becoming boring, because he was confined to this small patch until he made a reason for them to want to talk to him more seriously. More than what is your living status? or and what efforts have you made to find employment?

The auror's uniforms were much the same, he'd seen them in Diagon Alley, stolen glances at faces he didn't recognise, too young most of them.

Speaking of faces… His periphery vision picked up on one of the crimson robes going past which sparked his memory.

Was that Jonas Trevelyan?

"Well then, been a bit, hasn't it?"

"More than a bit," Musgrave replied, his face genuinely lighting up. People didn't stop to talk to him these days, and he suspected most of the aurors, if not all of the aurors who recognised him, wanted to put him back in Azkaban or in a ditch. Well, it wasn't far off where he wanted to put a few of them either.

Despite these ill thoughts, he extended his remaining hand to shake.

"Solomon! I bet you're one of the senior ones these days, eh?" He asked of Jonas, "To think I showed you some of the ropes all those years back." He shook his head, his greying curls wiggling either side of his ears.

"How the devil are you?" He asked Jonas earnestly.

It was only for an instant that something flickered across his expression, but just as quickly, Jonas had schooled himself again, flashing the other man a lopsided smile.

"Been alright," he replied cheerfully, shifting to stand a step back. It was a hard thing, to capture a dozen years in an instant; a blink of an eye and yet somehow a lifetime. "Back in crimson for a year now.  Mostly because Raynor deserves a headache, and none of these other blokes are like to give it to her."

The last time he had stood in these halls with Lawrence Musgrave, it had been Rufus Scrimgeour in the Head Auror Office.  Old Mad Eye had been in and out of retirement two or three times, and he'd s till been grumbling about how the younger generation of Aurors were never vigilant enough.  They'd learned their lessons quickly: too many good witches and wizards had been lost in too short a time once the war had began.  Moody and Scrimgeour had been later losses; Scrimgeour had "retired" from his appointment as Minister just before the Ministry had taken a turn for the darker and Jonas had gone on the run.  Sometimes it was hard not to remember those days.

But a lifetime had passed since then, and there wasn't much use in sulking.  Even if he'd been forced into another world for a decade, he couldn't quite say he regretted it -- even at times like these, when a reminder surfaced that he wasn't of rank, that some of the Senior Aurors had joined the force well after him.  He was lucky enough to be amongst their number again after he'd run; and he once again had Tamis to thank for that.

"Alright yourself?" he asked amiably, giving Musgrave a discreet glance over.  He knew only a little of the other Auror's crimes; it was hard to imagine that Lawrence Musgrave had sided with the purists, but so many had seemed to go over back then.  It had felt as if the entire Ministry was suddenly against them.  "Nice to see you about, even if you're only passing through.  There's too many new faces about the Ministry these days."

"Only a year?" Musgrave queried, surprised it had taken so long for Trevelyan to crawl come back to the role after the war.

"Aha, I'm sure Raynor wouldn't be happy without someone doing that. Feels rather odd to hear such names after all these years." His gaze had shifted to one side, thinking about how things had been.

"Alright yourself?"

Lawrence's attention snapped back and he managed a smile, even if it was a little fake.
"Oh, wonderful. You know, there's second-to-none accommodation up North. All sea view, very remote, you know? To get away from it all, it's ideal." He shrugged and shook his head. "Glad to be out of there, honestly, I was an idiot back in the day, and that's putting it politely. So, I pay the price." He gestured to the line with what would have been both hands.

He pinched his nose and changed the subject.
"What were you up to all those years then, if you weren't up here?"

Half-handed or not, Musgrave's gesture drew his attention; the red-haired Auror's eyes flicked briefly to the line, his mouth pressed carefully shut.  Azkaban parolees weren't an uncommon sight within the Ministry.  Now that a dozen years had passed since You-Know-Who's rise and fall, many had served out their sentences and were returning to magical society -- or making as much of a return as they could, considering that most were forbidden possession of a wand.  The Ministry kept a careful watch on all of them; visits with Auror parole officers were mandatory, and the halfway houses kept them under strict supervision.

There was something about the whole thing that sat poorly with him.  Maybe that was why Tamis had kept him away from any parole assignments; that or she figured he'd be too easy a target.

"Oh, you know," he said, flashing an easy smile as he returned his gaze to Musgrave.  "Tied the knot.  Settled down a bit.  Spent some time on the Muggle side of things."  It wasn't a test; not really, and his tone stayed affable, but he watched the other wizard anyhow as he spoke.  "We lot spend so much time in these bloody hallways that it's easy to forget there's a whole world outside of it.  Reckon it does us some good to have cause to remember."

Lawrence slid his hand back into his jacket pockets as Jonas explained what he'd been up to while he was away from being an auror.

"You got married?" Lawrence asked, a genuine mix of surprise and even a hint of happiness for his former colleague in his voice, his eyebrows heading towards his straggly, greying hair.

"Er, congratulations."

There was a pause and then Lawrence remembered himself, and nodded, as forlornly as possible.
"Yes, oh yes indeed. So very easy to get caught up in the matters within these walls. To become thirsty for the success and the need to uphold the law. Not always in the way it is meant to be interpreted, admittedly." He shook his head and raked the fingers of his hand through his hair, doing his best to look sorry that he'd gone that way.

Looking up again, he fixed Jonas with a rather intense look,
"Best you did get out, keep yourself grounded. Though I'm sure there's more than a few here who get into a bit of a power trip."

The hand slid back into his pocket and he tilted his head, curious about how the ladies had become the leaders in the department, but he never quite got to ask, as his name was called by one of the officials overseeing the parole checks.

"Duty calls." He joked dryly, giving a nod to Jonas, untidy black curls lolling forwards, "good to see you."


End