Adrestia Gamp and Hannah Bombay had met 6 times for their bi-monthly mentor meeting. Each time, Hannah had been somewhat more willing to speak. But nothing had ever been personal. She’d responded to the regular questions, said she was fine and left it at that. A lot of the time spent in these meetings had been in awkward silence. Unfortunately, along with the job at Azkaban, were conditions of her freedom. It was put up with half an hour with a witch pretending to car about the complete stranger or be locked up in a cell next time she came off the boat from Charon’s Point.

Their last meeting at the ministry, however, Hannah had chosen to take her ‘mentor’ up on the suggestion that they didn’t need to meet at the Ministry and instead given the slightly older witch the address to the now less singed flat in muggle London.

Hannah had just finished her tea when there was a knock at the door and she left the dishes to clean themselves in the sink, bare feet carrying her across the hard wood of the tight hallway.

“Miss Gamp.” The healer greeted when the door was opened. Still, after several meetings, Hannah insisted on formality. She’d decided when first thrust upon the Werewolf Mentor that she’d keep her distance. “You’ve not had enough fluid since your transformation.” Her statement was matter of fact, not a question. “I’ll get you some water. The living room is there.” Hannah waved a hand through to the bare living room and proceeded herself back into the kitchen.

That was, she guessed, one way to greet a first time guest. Adrestia stepped over the threshold into the flat with a quick glance around as Hannah disappeared to fetch some water. She'd come straight from the museum, stopping only to pick up an order from the florist beneath cousin Ceph's flat, and hadn't found the time to squeeze in the extra glass or two that she normally reminded herself to consume after transformations.

"Thanks!" Tia called out, heading into the living room. The flat had definitely seen better days but she wasn't surprised about that, having read her mentee's MLE folder. "I brought you a house-warming gift by the way," she put a paper bag down on the coffee table as Hannah entered.

As per usual, Tia had picked up a new hobby in recent weeks: collecting house plants! Her own place in Hiraeth was full of them. They were great for brightening up a room. She began to take out a series of potted succulents and cacti from the bag. The best thing about these were that they didn't really require much care, so even if Hannah didn't like them they wouldn't be trouble to keep.

"I saw them and they reminded me of you! Not the phallic part," Adrestia laughed to herself and took off her coat.  "The whole prickly part, I mean. You should name them!" she sat down, accepting the water. "My trio are called Larry, Bob and Joe." They were the only blokes that ever made it to her bedroom.

"I brought you a house-warming gift by the way," Gamp called out as Hannah came back into the living room with 2 glasses of water.

“It’s not a house.” The healer informed her fellow werewolf with a frown, “And it’s warm.” She knew what Gamp meant, Hannah wasn’t that out of touch with social etiquette, but she did give a shrug before offering the spare glass. “Well, I’ve been here for years, really.” Off and on.

Unable to school her expression at the word phallic being associated with her, Hannah’s brows rose, eyes widening. What on earth has she been brought? Her glass was placed on the coffee table and she reached over to the back, opening it with caution.

Prickly… yes, a good adjective for the young werewolf. She liked it. Prickles meant do not touch.

“Why would I name a plant?”

Adrestia rolled her eyes in good humour, accustomed to her mentee's nitpicky ways over semantics. It didn't matter how long she had lived here - she was moving back after Azkaban, that was the important part! Sometimes you needed more than just the essentials to make a place feel like home. Cacti and succulents were definitely in that category.

            "Why would I name a plant?"

"For when you talk to it!" Tia replied with a grin, taking her glass of water and sipping. "It's healthy. I talk to my plants all the time. You might like it better than I do - plants don't talk back," she laughed. Sometimes it felt like Hannah preferred that sort of company.

Unfortunately, it was Tia's duty to talk and give her mentees the chance to express themselves. Communication was good for the soul, although it varied from person-to-person depending on how introverted they were. "So how was your last transformation?"

It had been clear from the first meeting that Adrestia Gamp talked utter, unabridged, nonsensical drivel. It so happened, unpon this new revelation, that she even shared the mystery of her diatribe with the inanimate foliage in her own home. The worst part about it all? She wanted Hannah, too, to maintain foliage for the mere purposes of discussion. Hannah stared as realisation dawned that she’d most escaped a maniac that most probably talked to the beheaded werewolves stuck to the walls to the slightly less psychotic plant friend and fellow werewolf.

Where in Merlin’s name had Solomon Carstairs found this zealot?

“plants don't talk back,” And Hannah used her better judgement to resist explaining why.

“Routine.” The younger witch stated in a matter of fact manner. Slowly, her pale brown eyes swept the coffee table and the books she’d been reading about wizarding law and werewolf rights. Some lay open but most were closed and neatly piled at the edge of the table.

Gamp would expect more of a response. She always wanted to chat mindlessly. But if Hannah acquiesced, she’d go. Hannah was a quick learner.

“I arrived at the ministry.” (She still had to go there, unfortunately), “I took my wolfsbane potion, ministry issue. Then I transformed, howled at the moon for a few hours, woke up and came home.” With a wave of her hand, the healer indicated her sofa where Herbert was curled up on one cushion, herself dropping into the worn out green armchair. Despite the comfortable nature of the furniture, Hannah remained bolt upright and stiff.
“I was a good wolf. No dramas, no criminal activity, no arrests made.”

If the literature in her flat was anything to go by, it looked like Hannah was at least getting on with acquiring more healthy coping mechanisms for her Lycantrophy. Reading up on their rights was a more practical step up from seething and simply being angry at the world for its injustices.

"Good wolf check, no drama check," Adrestia counted these off on her hand as she went through her mentee's routine transformation. "No crimes check, no arrests check! Sounds like a good one to me," she smiled before taking a generous drink of water.

Mm much better. The witch crossed her legs, leaning against the sofa back while she observed Hannah. "So you've been keeping busy, outside of Azkaban?" Tia glanced at the books. "And how is your social life? Have you reconnected with any old friends recently?"

Clearly, Hannah had been keeping busy. One only had to look at the pile of books she’d been working her way through. It wasn’t as if she needed much else. Books held everything required for ultimate knowledge. Friends simply served to provide crushing disappointment and concern. Family only caused embarrassment and pain. Books? Books didn’t let you down.

“Yes.” Hannah lied. Lying, she’d learned, was easier. “Do you need their names?” A hand brushed back some hair before her lips twisted into a knowing smirk. “I can provide addresses, too.” Gamp was a nosy enough sort to want such things.

So Hannah wasn't as isolated as her flat made her seem, if she was in fact reconnecting. That was good. It was something, wasn't it? Not everyone had the guts to meet with friends, especially after the kind of trauma she had suffered at the hands of criminals as well as her own instincts.

"No names, unless you want to mention them." Tia smiled calmly and paused for a second, deliberating. "What's it like with them? Do they talk about why you went to prison or do you guys just ignore all of that?"

She put down her glass, sitting forward to meet Hannah's gaze. "You can tell me if reactions haven't been... ideal. Some people need time, or they aren't ready to hear how bad it was for you."

“How bad it was for me…” A cool tone repeated the words as she looked down at her hands in her lap. “Do you even know?” Her gaze snapped onto Gamp’s once more and her expression changed. She was mildly amused. This witch had been given a folder about her, probably written by Carstairs and the aurors. She seemed to feel that that made her qualified to help. It was laughable.

“You’ve read a dossier telling you what I’ve done. Carstairs probably told you that I didn’t show any remorse and that’s true.” That was what this was about, Hannah felt, an attempt to get her to connect with what she did, to feel bad about it. But her actions got some semblance of her life back.

“How do you think reactions have been to me, Miss Gamp?”

It wasn't hard for Hannah to get her back up over something - like other mentees, her Lycanism was a definite weak point in terms of conversation. A lot of werewolves could discuss its politics but they did not appreciate the personal nature of having to emotionally confront what it was like to have a body that betrayed itself on a monthly basis.

"I don't have to know." Tia answered in a simple manner, taking another drink of water and putting the glass down. "I can know, if you'd like to inform me. I'm not here as a walking lexicon."

Of all the resources available to werewolves on level four, the mentorship was definitely the one with the most mixed reactions. She liked that part of it.

            “How do you think reactions have been to me, Miss Gamp?”

"Different from the reactions I experienced and continue to experience as a werewolf." Adrestia smiled slightly. "But we're very different people. I don't think guessing will help. Would you like to tell me about them? Or would you prefer to talk about Carstairs and your remorselessness, since you've brought it up?"

Hannah didn’t want to talk about any of it. Every emotion she’d felt over the past months had been bottled up and turned into anger. Anger was about the only thing that had kept her going. It was the only thing that still drove her now. It was the reason she’d been reading up on werewolf laws in order to fight back. It was the emotion that everyone else thought to be the most dangerous. Hannah found it empowering.

“What is there to talk about, Miss Gamp? I told Carstairs everything that had happened in the preceding months and he showed no compassion or consideration. He focused on the reality that I felt no guilt over what my uncle and I did. But I didn’t hex Ignan Storm. My uncle did.” So, would should she feel remorse, Hannah had wondered at the time. As far as she was concerned, she could be guilt free.

“Not that my uncle will feel remorse because Storm nearly killed him.” Hannah shrugged and sat back in her chair. “You do realise you’re wasting your time here?”

Tia didn't have a lot of experience talking to Carstairs. The man seemed like a distant figure, someone recognised not by his face but by his signature and the formal tone of his reports. He had described Hannah as a liability in her folder: the one every mentor got. A liability with no guilty conscience and vulnerable to recruitment by extremist organisations.

She didn't see in Hannah whatever it was Carstairs did, not until this moment. Hannah was bitter in a very real way.

"I'm sorry to hear Carstairs didn't show any compassion," Adrestia sighed and eyed the other witch carefully. "You're right though. You didn't personally hex Ignan Storm so why should you feel bad?" she made a thoughtful sound. "But then again, Carstairs wasn't the one who ruined your life, or the one who branded you. Why should he show any compassion?"

The branding had been the worst part about Hannah's folder. It made Tia want to cry, that someone would do that to another human being. To another creature at all!

She continued speaking without a pause. "I don't know what it is you think my goal is, Hannah, to say I'm wasting my time." Tia shook her head, smiling sadly. "What do you think I'm here to do?"

“… or the one who branded you.”

Those words caused the other words to fade from Hannah’s conscious. She’d never mentioned the branding in their meetings, desperate to ignore that it had ever happened. Of course, that wasn’t at all possible when the reminder came every time she undressed. It should have been a reminder of her strength for breaking away, but all it did was give a harsh aide-mémoire of her place in society.

Clearly uncomfortable that Adrestia had that information and who knew what else about her, Hannah was looking down at her glass, her expression steely and cool. Begrudgingly, Hannah did accept that the mentor did have a point. By Hannah’s own logic, Carstairs shouldn’t show compassion because it wasn’t him to have done those things. Even with this thought, the resentment didn’t diminish. He didn’t need to have branded her or tortured her, he still had her put in an Azkaban cell after knowing all that had happened. He still chose to punish her again. It was the ministry crushing her again with its big cumbersome boot.

“You’re here because you care about werewolves. You think you can help. The ministry have only sent you for more control. Carstairs said that if I’d have had a mentor, it’s possible that I wouldn’t have crossed paths with Almasy.[1]” Bright eyes shot up from her glass, piercing Tia’s gaze. “Would you have stopped me being kidnapped for a werewolf fight? How are you with influencing hospital boards and patients?”

1.	The Illusion of Freedom

It was slowly becoming clear to Tia that her mentee wasn't the kind of werewolf who needed someone to hold their hand or say reassuring things - Hannah just needed someone to tell her the truth, even if the truth was brutal or unfair. Even if it didn't help mellow the underlying anger she could sense from the other werewolf.

            "Would you have stopped me being kidnapped for a werewolf fight? How are you with influencing hospital boards and patients?"

Adresita uncrossed her legs and sighed, leaning a little forward in her seat on the couch. "No. Obviously. You're not stupid, you know that. At the best I would have told you that there were other options besides working for Ira Almasy," she raised her eyebrows as she met Hannah's gaze with amusement. "But maybe you wouldn't have listened to me even then. Who knows?"

Solomon Carstairs only thought he knew, because he was married to a werewolf. He forgot that his wife had the privilege of being married to an Auror, of not having to worry about making ends meet or working in a field where people cared about lycanism.

"The point is," Tia continued emphatically, "I'm here now. This whole chat -" she gestured between the pair of them, "- this is my job and it's healthy for you to talk about your anger."

In spite of Hannah's reluctance to discuss her feelings, it was exactly what they were doing. "So why have you been reading about the law and werewolf rights?" a quick glance at the books again. "Are you thinking about campaigning?"

An urge surged to ask exactly how discussing her anger was helpful, but Hannah didn’t give in. It would only serve to engage the other witch in further conversation, opening her to more questions and merlin knew what. So she didn’t say a word until their attentions were drawn down to the books scattered across her coffee table. Beside Tia, Herbert stirred, stretching out before standing and moving to rub his head again her arm.
Traitor Hannah silently thought to herself as the ginger cat plonked himself on her mentor’s lap and began to spread out across her thighs.

“Would you tell me not to?” Hannah found herself asking quickly, eyebrows raised. She imagined those would be the words to spill from Tia’s mouth, advising caution. Standing up against the ministry was bad news for anyone that it protected.

“The laws are prejudiced.” She said after a moment to consider herself. “As soon as you report yourself to the Ministry as a werewolf, you sign yourself up to discrimination and bigotry. They have a 35 page document to fill in, a daunting invasion of privacy. And have you had the pleasure of meeting the head of the Werewolf Capture Unit? He’s bejewelled in silver. That isn’t because he loves shiny things, is it?” Perhaps Tia shouldn’t have asked Hannah the question, she’d got her started now.

“Current laws are set up to scare us and to protect regular witches and wizards with no thought for our welfare. You,” she waved a hand at Tia “see things different because you haven’t yet fallen into a trap. As soon as you make a mistake, or a mistake is made that affects you, you stop being a mentor helping other werewolves. Instead you become a monster that needs beating down like a dog. A criminal.”