Late morning, about half past eleven

---

The lift door rattled open on level two, and the hairs on the back of Johann's neck stood on end. He glanced down at the two coffees in his hands and swallowed.

One of the last occasions he'd carried two coffees through Level 2, he'd been trying to find Auror Tyren[1] to try and get her to look into the full moon disturbances. Other aurors had asked him if the drinks had been for them, and he'd joked along with them. Today he doubted anyone on Level 2 was his friend still.

He could smell bridges on fire.

Carefully, keeping his head down so as not to draw attention to himself, he beat a track round the edge of the auror cubicles, not meeting any eyes but feeling they were upon him. He'd been gone a week without telling anyone where he was, and turning up today at work had been more to hand in a resignation letter[2]. That hadn't gone to plan at all.

Eventually he arrived at Edward Pratt's office door, and took a deep breath, putting both coffees into one hand so he could rap his fist on the door, and await a bark to enter from inside.

Once inside, he set eyes on Pratt and raised a cup of coffee to Ed at his desk, kicking the office door shut behind him with his heel.

"Coffee." He spoke, approaching Ed's desk, extending his hand with the drink to the Head Auror.

"You can tell me to piss off, if you prefer." He added, his voice betraying his nerves.

1.	May 17th, I Fear the Full Moon Toon
2.	Oct 4th, Begin the End

Auror Pratt was quickly growing tired of his aurors footing the blame for every possible issue the ministry had. As a regular auror, he’d ignored it and carried on with his job. As a young auror, he’d been one of the worst for sticking his foot in it and battling through without the permission of his superiors. As Head Auror, the berating and moaning off other departments and the constant harassment of the Daily Prophet had grown tiresome and he was finding his patience on tenderhooks when addressing those that wanted to use his office as scapegoats.

Now, as his quill graced over a report handed him this morning (or had it been last week?), his door was knocked and someone stepped through the open doorway. He heard the movements but didn’t look up until his scruffy signature was put to the parchment.


"Coffee."

The sound of the door shutting and the familiar voice caused the auror’s head to lift up, bright green eyes settled on the face of a wizard who’d told him to piss off only a week ago. The only feature of Ed’s face that he allowed to register surprise was a quirk of his eyebrow as his eyes danced from the scruffy hair of the lanky wizard to the coffees he held out.

Ed sat back from the desk, relaxing in the chair before he reached a hand out, taking the coffee.
“You’re brave.” Most people who reacted in such a way to the Head Auror didn’t attempt to find him in his office past the many cubicles of his men (and women). Raynor would perhaps have been less pleasant about the situation, maintaining her cold exterior and perhaps putting Johann in his place. Ed had seen so much familiarity in the anger that he’d understood completely. It didn’t matter that his parents hadn’t been criminals who’d practically disowned their son. They’d been dead in front of him. Johann’s father had died in front of him.

“I’ll wait to see what you’ve got to say first.” His eyes scanned to the closed door. That meant people would be listening. Aurors were curious people. When that door shut it meant there was more to be curious about.

Johann gave a nod in semi agreement with Pratt's response. Fair enough.

He gestured to a spare chair in Pratt's busy office, but sat down in it without much wait for confirmation.

"I owe you an apology." Well, it was best to get it out of the way first, even if he was still very angry beneath the nervous exterior, "For how I reacted last Monday in the courtroom."

His blue eyes were reproachful towards the Head Auror, and he cradled his own coffee between his hands, leaning forward slightly in the chair. The way his shoulders were rounded just completed the clear impression of how uncomfortable he was. Being an auror, Ed could have read through that with far less indication.

Johann wet his lips, contemplating the rest of things.
"I don't even remember what you might have said to set me off," he shook his head at himself, "but either way, it doesn't excuse me and I was glad that Ellis took my wand." He glanced away, and added as an aside, "Not that you were in danger of any decent hex."

He felt a fraction better for having the time to get a half sincere apology out to Pratt, though he knew it may not count for very much. Still, he wasn't there to rub anything in the Head Aurors face. If anything, he needed to know a little more on where things were - from who or what had killed his father and where that meant the werewolf investigation now stood.

"I owe you an apology." The German had lowered himself into a chair on the opposite side of Pratt’s desk. Ed’s eyes didn’t follow him. Instead he lifted the lid off the coffee cup and looked inside. "For how I reacted last Monday in the courtroom."
Still not looking at Storm, he lifted the cup to his nose and took a sniff, inhaling the aroma. One sugar and a dribble of milk mixed in. It was acceptable as an apology coffee.

An apology coffee was more appreciated than a regular apology. Not that Ed Pratt knew a great deal about the art of apologising. Sorry was a word that existed at the very bottom of his vocabulary when everything else had failed.

Ed had been about to confirm Storm’s suggestion that he did owe the Head Auror an apology but the other wizard continued talking, confirming the fact Ed had been in no danger of a decent hex being cast. But that didn’t change how Johann had reacted in the situation. Perhaps Pratt’s response had been too calm, too friendly. He was a very informal Head Auror. He’d always been an informal auror. That didn’t sit well with certain types.

Finally Ed looked straight at Johann, his expression plain as he shrugged. He wanted to see how calm Johann was now. Why had Johann lost it? Ed could remind him.
“I commented on the cheek of your father dying in court before he’d had the chance to give a testimony.” Pratt’s shoulders shrugged and he placed the coffee on the desk between them, untouched. “Ye didn’t like that. Heck I’d have had the arse who said that to me on the floor under my fist.”

That was as close to an apology as Johann was ever going to get. Ed knew he had a tendancy of sticking his boot in it. This was his acknowledgement of that.

As Johann spoke, Pratt seemed far more interested in the coffee, though he recognised the technique as a way of deflecting focus.

"I commented on the cheek of your father dying in court before he'd had the chance to give a testimony." Pratt helpfully elaborated. Johann's teeth clenched as he went to sip his own coffee, and he paused with it a little way from his lips.

"Ye didn't like that. Heck I'd have had the arse who said that to me on the floor under my fist."

Johann raised an eyebrow, gave a nod and sipped his coffee, counting to ten in his head. He could feel his irritation rising again, and he couldn't lose patience again. Not only could Pratt have him pinned to the floor with a twitch of his wand, there was a whole office of willing volunteers beyond the door behind him.

"No, I didn't like that." He confirmed, looking back to Pratt. "Which is why the kind offer to take me aside was poorly received a little later." Johann shrugged, passing his coffee from one hand to the other as he considered calm queries to pose.

"And it was more the cheek of whoever ensured it happened." He leaned back and folded one leg over the other, fixing the Head Auror with a level stare.

"Any closer to working out how or why my father dropped dead last Monday?"

And there was the real important reason for Johann Storm’s visit to Pratt’s office. He had apologised of course, to smooth over the relationship before he dived into the important matter. Pratt couldn’t blame the man at all. He wanted answers for the death of his father. It didn’t matter that Wolfgang Storm had been a criminal, a wizard who’d kidnapped one of their own to fight muggles in her werewolf form. He had still been a father and Johann was still a son. Pratt had seen the despair on Mrs Storm’s face. No matter how much wrong doing her husband had been responsible for, she’d still loved him, still sobbed over his corpse.

“Yes.” For a moment this was the only response Pratt was prepared to give. Johann knew the rules about confidential cases; he knew that only certain details could be exposed to certain people. Ed had made it a priority to keep up to date with this specific case. Gamp and Eleor had been leading it, Adon working diligently to firstly clear Bombay’s name and secondly find the real culprit. Everyone knew Hannah Bombay wasn’t capable of such a cold calculating murder but they had to jump through the hoops. She’d had more motive than anyone sat in that courtroom. In fact, she’d quite possibly had more motive than anyone in the country.

The chair creaked under Eddie’s weight as he sat back, sipping the coffee thoughtfully as he considered what not to share with the grieving son. In Johann’s eyes, they were trying to cover the whole thing up, brushing Wolfgang’s murder under the carpet by explaining it away as a suicide. Ed understood the wizard’s frustration at the whole situation but certainly didn’t appreciate being made to look incompetent.

“I just need to consider what information I want leaked onto the Haunting Hour, first.” Dark blond eyebrows rose as bright green eyes fixed Johann with a stare.

Behind the desk, Ed Pratt sat back, mirroring Johann's body language before him. The response achieved a slight flinch from Johann as if he tried to blink and resisted.

"Is it really leaking, if it's true?" He asked Ed, the nerves in his voice lessening as he met the Head Auror's stare.

End of last week when he'd gone back to Balfour[1] he had been convinced he'd really mucked up, had done a terrible thing to speak on the radio[2] and to run away, but the weekend had restored that anger bubbling beneath the surface. He felt strangely assured by the fact the voice had been Balfour all along. He suddenly had less to fear.

He had tried to pre-empt any sacking by offering his resignation. Perhaps by the time he got back to his desk late that afternoon from this excursion away from it, he'd find Zephyr had dropped her scythe on his job anyhow on hearing he was in the building. It might well be a blessed relief. But he didn't particularly want to encourage it - for one, he needed the income in the short term.

"You let Hannah Bombay go," Johann continued, repositioning his cup of coffee on his folded knee, watching it, "Didn't take you long to figure out she didn't do it." He turned the cup between thumb and forefinger and looked up to Pratt again. "And you obviously don't suspect me otherwise you'd have tracked me down."

He inclined his head a little to his left, ignoring the fact his heart was thumping in his chest, still a coward beneath this anger that prevailed in him.
"So perhaps the fact you're not forthcoming is less about what you're worried to disclose, but that you haven't anything to tell me?"

1.	Oct 1, Come Home
2.	Sept 29, The Haunting Hour

Johann Storm, once believed to have been a wussy lanky quill pusher who likes to talk in a lot ofstupid languages, wasshowing that he did have a least a little bit of gall. Or was it anger driving him? Why he was so adamant on finding the killer of the wizard who’d kidnapped his best friend, Ed couldn’t completely understand. But grief was a bewildering thing and family had remarkable ties. Pratt stood by his through thick and thin, perhaps Lanky Storm was trying to do the same.

But that didn’t mean Pratt appreciated the way he was being spoken to or the words spilling from Storm’s lips.

“It’s a good job ye never decided to be an auror, mate.” Ed found himself muttered over the coffee cup. Johann could theorise reasons for Eddie not sharing information all he liked, he was terrible at reading people it seemed. Or had Ed had too much practice hiding emotions and feelings when he needed to? He was no Tamis Raynor but he was a damned good liar. This time he wasn’t lying. This time he didn’t fancy most stories being spread on the wizarding wireless by grieving blokes in their thirties.

“I don’t suspect you of patricide, no.” Green eyes still didn’t relent, he stared calmly at Storm and took a sip of the coffee as he did. “I don’t agree with sharing facts in a case with relatives until they are certainties and we have charges to make or need them to pursue a new avenue.”

Finally Eddie sat forward in his chair, resting elbows on the desk.
“FYI, as much as you’d like to blame the aurors for his death, we have nothin’ to do with courtroom security. That is what hitwizards and courtroom security are for.”

"It's a good job ye never decided to be an auror, mate." Johann returned a quiet 'heh' in response, a little amused at the thought anyone would think he entertained ambitions of being an auror. Hexing people was not in Johann's magical vocabulary.

"Oh I wasn't placing blame for his death directly on you Pratt," Johann replied in a careful tone, not realising how much he resembled his late father's mannerisms for a moment. "Magical Law Enforcement's the biggest Department. I'm only asking if you have discovered how and who decided to silence him in the middle of prosecuting. My father was murdered, and that is the work of your team, or do suspected criminals not count?"

He sat back and exhaled slowly, wondering if he was going to regret this conversation later.
"Fine. I only ask if there was any further news to share with my mother," he shrugged, "she's the one who actually gives a crap about him." His expression defied his lie.
"And if you need anything further from me, as I've been… unavailable."

The line that he wasn’t going to share information or unconfirmed discoveries with a relative was perhaps in need of being repeated as Johann continued to impress on Pratt that it was the job of his people to discover who murdered Wolfgang. Personally, Eddie Pratt didn’t care for seeking justice for the disgusting excuse of a man. Professionally, Auror Pratt needed to seek out the murderer and lock them up because it was still a crime.
But was it a priority?
Ed had no comment on that.
All he knew was that Hannah Bombay was certainly not responsible.

“As soon as we need anything from you… or have any information for you, you and your mother will be notified immediately.” Ed’s voice was strained as she tried to remain polite and professional. He already hated his new job and found himself wishing to slink back into the background rather than remain as the face of the aurors.

“We are working hard on this Storm.” Ed rose from his chair and straightened his tie. “I trust you know your way out?”

"We are working hard on this, Storm." Pratt's brushing off received a long, hard stare. Despite the professionalism, Johann was regretting the wish to punch the Head Auror in the courtroom the previous week. He very much doubted they were working on it at all, that anyone would ever want to work on it. Only perhaps if they needed to know who to sack for the lack of supervision of prisoners.

The darker thought that DMLE even willingly permitted such negligence crossed his mind as Pratt got up, and asked if he knew his way out. Johann did not respond for a beat or two, the noise in his head, dissecting, repeating, twisting Pratt's words was distracting him, and the grip around the coffee had tightened.

He wished he'd spat in Pratt's coffee.

"I hope you don't lie to my mother like that." He got to his feet swiftly, a small part of his angry, frustrated self remembering he was in the Head Auror's office in the middle of the Auror Office. He turned on his heel and threw open the door. His retreating form forcibly throwing what remained of his coffee in a waste paper bin as he was buffeted by aurors twice the weight of him. 



End