Snapshot by Mel and Sarah

“Not interested.”

It had taken Rafe all of several seconds to internally weigh up the proposed meeting with a Ministry representative or remaining in his cell with Benard Slugwinkle, a convicted Death Eater with a dark mark and a tally tattoo to record every life destroyed and taken. Fortunately, Bernard, it turned out, was rather adept at poetry and potions brewing so at least the pair occasionally had something to discuss. Unfortunately, his poetry had a regular theme of blood and he specialised in the sorts of poisons that cooked your insides.

“Scrap that,” The small time smuggler rose quickly from the bed, deciding a change of topic may actually be very welcome. “You can’t rhyme impalement with impalement, Bernard, it’s the same blasted word.” He pointed out as the guard enchanted a set of chains onto his wrists and ankles. Rafe had stopped pointing out how they were hardly necessary two and a half years ago.

Five minutes later, he found himself sat in the private little meeting room where his chains had been, surprisingly, removed and he’d been left alone for at least another ten minutes. By the time the door once more opened, Rafe was slumped in his chair with his arms cross and decidedly more grumpy than he’d been helping Bernard find a word that rhymes with ‘mudblood scum’.

Of the two witches who entered, only the first was known to Rafe, although she was a little difficult to recognize with that goofy, placating grin on her face. The witch who followed next looked as if this was the first time she’d ever set foot in Azkaban Prison.

“Rafe, hey! You look great!” Talisha Crowe absently adjusted her wandering false eye, that was also unused to its face smiling. “Before you say anything, before you say anything - this is Byrony Brackwell. She’s from Level Four.”

Crowe approached her client in a manner that suggested they’d never actually hugged, and this attempt was so awkward that the overworked lawyer aborted. Instead, she gestured to the new person in introduction.

“You know, not, two. But four.”

“The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, yes,” said Brackwell, holding her jacket closed.

Rafe didn’t rise from his seat, perhaps why the attempted hug was so incredibly awkward. Instead, he continued to keep his arms folded, staring up at the lawyer smiling as if she’d sat on something sharp.

“...congratulations?” The prisoner raised bushy eyebrows, wondering why the hell his lawyer and someone not from Level 2 was pulling him away from poetry hour with the maniac upstairs.

“Do either of you know what rhymes with impalement? It would really help me out.”

“Huh?”

Crowe fussed about the other side of the table to arrange chairs for herself and Brackwell. After a bit of back and forth, she set her own chair on Rafe’s side and left Brackwell’s on the other. This had to be done properly.

“Deferment.” Brackwell said, taking the seat. “Abatement.”

“There once was a man who impaled.
He liked impalement and he curtailed.
It was rather fast,
But not very crass…” Rafe recited what Bernard and he had considered before he was saved from the conversation.

“Not sure either of them will fit.” he shrugged, seemingly totally oblivious to Crowe’s fussing around him. It was little new, only normally she wasn’t smiling.
Why was she smiling?

Rafe finally sat up and turned his head to look at the lawyer that only had one eye on the case because that was all she had available. He’d always wanted to ask about the other eye; Zelda had practically encouraged it, but Rafe somewhat enjoyed the suspense. One day. It would be his gift to himself when he finally got to walk out of Azkaban a free man.

“You’re gurning. Peppermint tea is great for gas. Or Anise.”

Crowe’s smile faltered as her client carried on behaving like a mad man. Middling insanity was short of outright battiness, but where did morbid limericks fall? She patted his hand.

“Very thoughtful, thank you Rafe. But it’s not flatulence, it’s a deal. Level Four, Mrs Brackwell here, needs your help and in exchange--”

Brackwell interrupted, sounding a little tense. “In exchange the Wizengamot will render the remainder of your prison sentence deferred in lieu of two years’ parole. I think - I think that fits rather well. If y- you have what they say you have.”

She swallowed hard. “Do you - does he have it?”

Now the thought of ghastly poetry was long gone from Rafe’s mind. He was alert, awake, focused on the witch that looked like she would see the inside of a prison once in her life and that unpleasant day had come today.

“Wait, what?” Did she just say 2 years of parole? Getting out of Azkaban? He sat forward, resting elbows on the table between them. “Do I have what, Bryony?” His words were rushed, suddenly urgent.
“Names.” Brackwell said and clicked open her briefcase.

Crowe leaned forward to take up as much of Rafe’s eyeline as possible. They’d been here before. Aurors had been very lovely and tempting during his sentencing and it had been a mutual decision that they should eat their hats - mutual, but not easy at all. At the time, Level Two didn’t need Rafe and so the offers were paltry. And now from all that Crowe could suss out, Level Four was actually on the back foot.

She quickly laid out the details to him. “The Beasts Division needs to track down who is keeping live Runespoors in Britain. There have been discoveries of illegal breeding and mistreatment, you see. This is separate from the black market, this is strictly --”

“Strictly about regulation,” Brackwell interrupted again. “Strictly beast welfare. We know that Mr. Sellaphix --”

Crowe re-interrupted. “They know you had nothing to do with live Runespoors. This is unrelated to your case. But I told them, you might be able to help.”

Rafe wanted to jump on the offer. He wanted to grab a quill now and write down every contact he’d ever had just for them to open that door now and put him on that boat home. But nothing came without consequences and he wasn’t an idiot.

“No.” He shook his head, sat back once more and crossed his arms. He wasn’t going to blab only for a target to land on his family’s back.

Talisha Crowe made a small noise in her throat. “I need a moment with my client,” she said, and hustled the very confused Byrony Brackwell out of the room. Then, she slid back into the chair next to Rafe.

“Rafe. This is the real thing. Level Four doesn’t care who you are, you’re small fish. This isn’t bad for us at all. Why, no?”

“Because I have a wife and kids who will suffer if I become a bloody snitch.” These smugglers weren’t ‘small fish’ like him. “No.”

Crowe took a deep breath. “This isn’t like that. Everybody saw you get thrown under the train three years ago, everybody saw that no one above you was taken in. Everybody knows you are not .. a snitch. This isn’t an Auror case, it’s a Beast welfare case. And it’s two years off, Rafe. You could be out in a week. You could be home. With your wife and sons.”

He didn’t reply immediately. Instead he pushed the seat back and stood up, moving away from the table. His left hand lifted up to brush thick fingers through his scruffy greying hair.
“In a week?” he repeated, his hand now running through his coarse beard. “That’s it, Talisha? I give them names and that’s it? Free? Not thrown on the boat back to hell with Bernard the butcher when they’re done with my help?”

“Yeah,” she said from her seat. “I’ve been back and forth with them. Didn’t want to get your hopes up. Part of their investigation was to pull files from 2008. Saw where Level Two was looking at you for the network contact, but that since they didn’t need it to convict you, it never got put into the record. It’s all going to go down as good behavior. Public service.”

Talisha bit her lip. “I’m sure, Rafe. I wouldn’t have brought it to you if it wasn’t good.”

Satisfied with the confirmation from his lawyer, Rafe allowed himself a grin and felt an enormous weight suddenly lifting from his shoulders. He grabbed Talisha and pulled her into the hug she’d awkwardly considered attempting upon entry.

When pulling back from the hug, Rafe grabbed her arms and grinned down at his one eyed lawyer.

“I could kiss you, Talisha!”

“Better not!” Her laugh was strained through tension and relief and well, having not seen a smile from Rafe like that in a very long time. But it was time to get to work before Mrs. Brackwell piddled on the floor out there. She patted him gently on his chest.

“That’s a good man.” Pat pat.

“Zelda would never know.” He said with a grin and a wink. That was a lie. Zelda, he’d always sworn, knew everything. And this witch only had one eye, his wife had two. She was omniscient in her two eyed beauty.

Crowe brought Brackwell back in and the three of them spent some time on parchment.

Brackwell had a scroll from the Wizegnamot with the agreement in ink, and there was the parchment where he’d have to write in the names of anyone he knew or suspected of keeping live Runespoor.

Crowe explained. “Brackwell and I will take it before an elder, who’ll sign it. I think we all agree here that this information’s being given in good faith, yes? And the agreement doesn’t require that a conviction result from the information, just that it’s true to the best of your knowledge.”

“Yep. Names as I know them.” For all Rafe knew, they could have been fake names. “With time I could probably think of more.” He shrugged heavy shoulders and looked to his side at Talisha Crowe. She’d finally come up good. “Don’t tell Zelda. Hush hush. I want to surprise her.” He couldn’t wait to see her face.

But first…
“How did you lose your eye, Talisha? Zee thinks yer just forgetful, I think there’s a grand story to tell. We’ve got 5 galleons riding on it.” All a worthless bet when his money was hers and vice versa.
Talisha Crowe should be used to her client by now, but Rafe always found some way to set her off balance. This time it was talking about intimate physical differences while in the presence of another Ministry attorney with whom they were negotiating his early release from prison..

“It’s not lost,” she said with grit teeth. “It’s in safe keeping. Mrs. Brackwell, if there’s ---”

“No, there’s nothing else. Thank you, Mr. Sellaphix.” Byrony Brackwell stood up stiffly and offered a hand to shake, but clearly only because she felt obligated to.

To Rafe, the answer to the burning question was inordinately unsatisfying and he wasn’t going to settle with it. He was sorely tempted to make up his own gruesome story to tell his wife for the sole purpose of winning the bet. That would make the day even better.

But Bryony Brackwell held her hand out and the tall and decidedly unkempt wizard also rose from his seat. In his current mood, he may have hugged her too, but she looked like she might snap in two. As such, Rafe took her hand in his own and shook it sensibly, reservedly.
“Ah...yes, thank you Bryony.” He nodded and smiled.

Mrs Blackwell couldn’t seem to escape the room quick enough, leaving lawyer and client alone. So Rafe had to ask the one question that was truly burning.


The parchment signed, the scroll rolled, and Brackwell on her way back to London, Talisha Crowe was finally off the eggshells. It wouldn’t be done until it was done, but it felt like maybe, finally, she’d been able to do right by the Sellaphixes.

“How did you lose it, Talisha? The suspense has been killing me slowly for more than 3 years now.”

“Would you believe I lost it in a bet?” she asked, with a good-eye wink.

“Ha!” Rafe laughed, a deep belly laugh before he shook his head. “You’re killing me, lady.” A hand squeezed her arm as he looked down, his expression serious, of genuine gratitude.

“Thank you.”