“Sorry, Mrs Gamp, not happening” The Azkaban prison guard shook her head and handed back Gen’s, wand and press pass.

Gen glared at him, snatching back her things and returning them to the pocket of her red leather jacket.
“I can’t change the law. I’d help you if I could, G.” He spoke to her as if he knew her, clearly he felt like he did. A lot of people did.

“That’s fine. I can’t stop my reporters from inking an article about your harassment of me as the wife of one of your prisoners. Bye bye shitty job.” Gen waved her hand as if bidding adieu to him and his career as a road to nowhere Azkaban prison officer. She turned on the heel of her sparkly black stilettos and started for the door.

“W-wait! I can’t lose my job.” Gen turned to see he’d run out from behind the desk. “Come with me.”

He checked in her wand and they went through a quadruple locked door and down a long darkening corridor. She’d been down here only a couple of times previously when visiting Leo.

click click click

The pair walked in silence for a minute or two, ascending stairs and making their way down another uncomfortably dark and cold corridor. The prison guard wore a dark uniform with dark robes and a dark expression. Gen was quite the contrast with her bright red leather jacket and black skinny jeans. Her glittery shoes sparkled and picked up even the dimmest of light and, as ever, she was perfectly made up, ready to face the world from behind her mask.

“You’re a bit mean.” The guard muttered as he showed her into a visiting room.

“Just desperate for a story.” Gen fake smiled and winked at him and he shut the door.

It felt like hours before the door was opened again. In reality, it must have been only ten minutes or so. On the table in the centre of the room was a quick quotes quill and a roll of parchment ready for their ‘interview’. Gen was stood against a wall, arms crossed as she nervously considered what she was going to say and wondered why the hell she’d come in the first place.

“Miss Kingstreet,” She felt sick to her stomach at seeing the woman who’d prosecuted Leo all those years ago. But masking it well, the Witch Weekly editor smiled brightly for the purposes of maintaining pretence for the guard. “Genevieve García, Editor for Witch Weekly. I’m so glad you could spare a few minutes for me.”

”She gives me the creeps. What is she doing?” one guard[1] said peering through the tiny round window of Theodora Kingstreet’s cell. A small blonde witch with a sharp nose and dark circles under her eyes sat stark still in a chair in the center of the room. Her hands were folded in her lap. And she stared straight ahead.

”She’s always like that. Never moves,” responded the other.

”Merlin. Uh, anyway, she’s got a visitor.”

”You’re kidding.”

”Yeah, her, uh, lawyer.”

---

Sometime later, in full shackles - wrist, waist, ankles - Theodora Kingstreet was brought to Genevieve Garcia-Gamp. Off the record. No Vidris Curtain. Just a chair, chains, and a locked door.

”Wait. No. Ma’am,” the guard suddenly pointed his wand at Kingstreet and his finger at the quill and notebook. ”You can’t have that in here. No paper, no quills, nothing.”[2]

Theodora’s chains clinked very slightly and she slowly licked her top lip, her eyes locked on the stationary. Oh, what she could do with that…

1.	Gilgamesh Shahidi
2.	Theodora Kingstreet's Criminal Record

It normally took a lot to shock Queen G, but she was finding the shock raining in recently like a much unwanted storm. Genevieve didn’t know what to be more shocked by. A guard panicking over her quill and parchment was one thing, but did her husband’s prosecuting lawyer just lick her lips at the sight? Gen felt a strange sensation, like spiders crawling up her back. This was going to be worse than a visit with Leo, so much worse.

“No quills or parchment?” She sounded incredulous, covering the nerves. “What am I supposed to write notes with? Blood? Eyeliner?” Nope, that had been checked in with her handbag at the registration desk where she’d blackmailed the guard. Gen pressed her lips together and glanced between the chained up psychopath who couldn’t take her eyes off the stationary, and the guard who seemed far to concerned about it.

Regardless of being told no quills or parchment, Gen dropped into one of the two chairs and pulled her writer’s tools closer.

“She’s chained up. Stick her in a chair in the corner and glue her ass to it, for all I care. I need my quill and parchment.” She needed to get one of those hats like Koko, but Gen was so rarely out in the field that it seemed pointless. She zeroed her stare in on the guard, threatening him to further challenge him. Only here, she wasn’t in her own territory and they all knew her as the Death Eater’s wife.

“I’m a Section 88, Mrs. Garcia-Gamp.”

Theodora lifted her pale blue eyes up up up from the quill to a witch she’d met many years ago. Her alto was quiet and clear and perfectly enunciated.

“Special Conditions. Non-compliance of a Section 88 when applied to a Level Four Watch carries a sentence of three years. Minimum. Unfortunately, temporarily, I don’t make the rules. I might overlook a violation, but with a witness I won’t risk the revocation of the privileges I’ve worked so earnestly to earn.”

A once-monthly reading allowed of the Daily Prophet through her door. Plain white toast on her breakfast tray. Solitary confinement. All the comforts of home.

As if to prove the necessity of the regulations, she looked down again at the quill, flared her nostrils. Her eye twitched and scritch. The quill moved, leaving a half-centimeter of ink on the page.

”That’s enough!” The guard’s wand arm shook.  ”Either the quill g-g-goes or you do, ma’am. I can’t - !”

Theodora was looking steadily at Genevieve again, but her smile did not return. She looked ridiculous, head to toe. She hadn’t aged a day, jawline as smooth as it had been in 1998, her hair still untouched by grey. And those shoes. Glitter. The herpes of fashion. They were offensive. Oh, what she would do…

She tried not to look freaked by the quill jumping momentarily to life. It was difficult, to not react. This was the witch who’d destroyed her life with a quill, research and her nasty precise tongue. Now, seeing her this crazy, like a caged animal that clearly couldn’t be trusted even with a quill, Gen started to wonder if she really had manipulated the trial, if Leo really was innocent.

The worst thing about this current thought? Gen didn’t know if her husband’s innocence was a good thing.

Now the guard was freaking out, stuttering and waving his arms about. But Kingstreet was staring at her, passive yet clearly judging. The witch had aged. Azkaban hadn’t been good to her, but what would one expect? Leo looked like a different wizard now.

“Fine.” With a roll of her eyes, the reporter picked up the quill and parchment, holding them out for the guard to take. She’d pushed her luck enough to even get in a room with Kingstreet, she wasn’t going to forsake that to make some notes. Internally, she’d already started her list of why Kingstreet was a huge @&#*ing problem.

“Please,” A hand was waved to the chair for the prisoner to take and Gen dropped back into hers. The trademark grin of Queen G was long gone, replaced by the strained expression of a witch colliding head on with her past.

The guard snatched up the quill and pad from the illicit visitor and made his retreat. The door locked, locked, locked.

With the shuffling of the heavy magic-dampening chains, Theodora stepped to the chair and took her seat, assuming the same posture she had in her cell. Feet together, back straight, hands folded, eyes forward.

“I’m so glad you’ve come, Mrs. Garcia-Gamp. Ever since being contacted by Enid Jingleberry you’ve been on my mind, although now I’ll never be able to un-remember your ensemble. Nevertheless…”

With a quick movement and the sudden scraping of chains, she leaned forward and placed her laced fingers on the table. The tether from her wrists to belt only allowed her so much extension.

“... now I can finally ask you what I’ve been meaning to all these years. Namely: why did you print those lies about me? By my arithmetic, you’ve sullied my reputation by fifteen percent. Ungrateful.”

Even the way she sat was like a psychopath waiting to eat and digest her prey. Perhaps she might inject a poison with her nose and then suck up their blood and insides with a straw. Like a black widow spider. Gen could feel her skin crawling, especially when her ‘ensemble’ was mentioned and critiqued. The last she’d seen Kingstreet, she’d been determined to hide in a dark corner and not be noticed. She’d worn smart dark clothing, trying to appear almost invisible. Attention had been bad when she’d not known how to handle it. Now she could thrive off attention. It was far easier to hide when the whole world thought they knew you.

“Fifteen percent?” Gen asked, crossing her arms. It was defensive body language, she knew. But she was suddenly feeling on the defence, Kingstreet had once held a lot of power over her life, over Leo’s. Even in chains, she was the thing of nightmares past and present. Now, with the reliving of such a horror, she would also be the topic of nightmares of the future. “Am I right to presume that your 2 stays in Azkaban have aided the… sullying” (was that even a word? Did Gen care?) “of your reputation?”

But something far more perturbing was what Kingstreet had said after. To this, Gen frowned and leaned forward, elbows on the desk, thick waves of her hair hanging forward over her shoulders.

“Should I be grateful, Ms Kingstreet?” That seemed ridiculous. Now, seeing her, she wanted to claw her eyes out. And then run. Run away really fast and never look back. “You used me to put my husband in here for life.”

"I caution you against the vanity that you are the only name on my list slated for a correction," Kingstreet responded to Genevieve's accounting of the affect of Azkaban on her public and professional credibility. "You are among the lowest priority, a footnote in the addendum of an addendum. I would also caution you the list is under constant revision."

Garcia-Gamp leaned in and Theodora sat back and withdrew her hands from the desk. More scraping of shackles that looked too large for her wrists. She opened her palms as far as the restraints would allow, as if Genevieve had answered her own question.

"Obviously. I can't imagine why that would surprise you. Your constant state of alarm and despair in those days was absolute fodder for the Wizengamot. I particularly appreciated the bit where you pretended you didn't know about any of Mr. Gamp's criminal activity. You inspired such a rage in him that, oh dear, I barely had to do anything to convict."

Theodora laid her hands in her lap again. She was being modest, trying to put Genevieve's restlessness to peace. Poor chicken, did she feel guilty? Even with all the Gamps did to aide in their own prosecution, Theodora had run herself and her staff ragged to secure an airtight case. The clean-up alone...

No wonder Enid Jingleberry was so damned confident that she could get Leo out; the witch sat in front of her was several knuts short of a galleon. She was countless sandwiches short of a picnic basket, a few cards short of a deck, bat shit crazy.

 “Noted.” Gen politely responded to the insistence that her slating of Kingstreet wasn’t important to the lunatic. If that really were true, why would she have been meaning to ask Gen about it for so many years. Surely, she’d have simply ignored the transgression and moved on.

Pretended!?!?

She couldn’t let the witch’s words get to her, she couldn’t show how this whole return to her terrible past was unseating her so quickly.

“Well, I put on quite the act.” She chose to go with instead of denying the false accusation. Maybe this would be the only way to get what she wanted today.

Sitting back in the chair, Gen moved her hand to her wedding ring. She’d put it on for the purposes of this visit. it was the first time in many years that she’d even clapped eyes on the small engagement ring and wedding band. Twisting them about her finger absentmindedly, her eyes searched the nutter’s face.

“You said Jingleberry contacted you? You are aware that her angle is your being mentally ustable?”

If Theodora Kingstreet had detected any trace of appropriate deference, she could no longer. Any hint of self-consciousness that would be due a public figure of the capabilities of Kingstreet was gone. In its place? Genevieve Garcia-Gamp was very nearly reclining like a be-drunken Auror who'd just mis-dated a J-340 form deliberately. The offenses worthy each of the forcible removal of organs.

Theodora's eyes flashed and a frown warped her face. Mentally unstable?! Had she been mentally unstable when she'd single-handedly cleaned the country of Death Eaters, Snatchers, and nail-biters? Had she been mentally unstable when she'd arranged for the Wizengamot to fall upon their own sword and grant her early release from a twenty-year sentence. Could mentally unstable person arrange for the public double elimination of a Wizengamot Elder and Auror in plain sight of hundreds of people?

She. Thought. Not.

This thinking had been and continued to be the propaganda of the Ministry of Magic, bent on delaying her inevitable return.

"I was, indeed, not aware." She thought quietly for a moment, her eyes tracing back and forth as if reading an unseen document of fine print. Kingstreet was scouring her memory.

She spoke again.

"To my credit, it won't matter. The facts will speak for themselves. And you can be certain the facts are sound; I arranged them myself."

Kingstreet narrowed her eyes. Jingleberry had just been re-cagetorized to a more urgent tier of unmentionables to be punished.

Watching Theodora Kingstreet go through her lunatic thinking process was like watching a muggle computer breaking. Her eyes were flashing left and right, while she looked pained.

Gen had maintained a calm, not too fussed expression until Kingstreet’s final comment. Now, her eyebrows rose and she was really paying attention. Had she just found gold?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Ms Kingstreet, you arranged them yourself?” Did arranged mean she’d categorized them in her psycho anally retentive manner, or she’d made them up? How the hell was she going to get the witch to fess up and why the hell had she forsaken her quill and parchment. They were alone in this room, it was her word against Kingstreet’s.

“You can’t have. Look at you. You’re insane.” Get her in the ego, surely there was where this crack pot would hurt the most. “The world knows you’re insane. It’s a miracle you managed to hide your absurdity for so long.”

Scraaaaape!

Theodora lunged forward again, leaning as far across the table as her restraints would allow. The cuffs pressed deep creases in her wrists. In her former life, there had been nothing that could draw a rise from the emotionless, cold-hearted attorney. In the past, she could without fail orchestrate every turn of her chin, as if every heartbeat was scheduled, every breath approved. But hard years in Azkaban under new security protocols had begun to chip away at her control.

Everyone else in this fortress tip-toed around her, left her alone as she liked it. Other than the smooth-talking Jingleberry, she hadn't had a visitor, not one. Thus, the garish demeanor and bald-faced defiance of Genevieve Garcia-Gamp was a catalyst for Kingstreet's new temper, it seemed.

"You know nothing," she hissed. "You are nothing. Your flailing ineptitude is no different than the random maneuverings of a cockroach running from the light. I could find you. I could crush you. Fact. There are no miracles only my benevolent will. My patience is infinite and your death certificate is written."

Even a surprise to her, Gen didn’t jump to her feet to get away from Kingstreet when the witch dove towards her over the table. Why had she been left alone with this maniac? Had she angered that guard so much that he hoped she’d walk out of there shaking in fear? Or worse? She had jumped, of course. Who wouldn’t? But she remained in her seat and stared at the imprisoned lawyer. A nerve had been hit. Good.

All those years ago, Gen remembered the uptight vicious witch that had ripped Leo apart on the stand. She’d dragged up things that Gen couldn’t never have imagined her husband doing. She’d not only destroyed Leo, but she’d devastated Gen’s reputation as well. It had taken years to piece together the effects of the destruction and still some people questioned her innocence. It was clear just by the looks she received. Now the howlers and owls confirmed it.

“It’s not me, Miss Kingstreet.” Gen’s hands were up, placating. “It’s all people have to say about you. I’m sorry, that must be hard. To hear those things.” Gen was now perched on the edge of her seat, her hands had dropped to her lap where they were once more playing with the alien wedding band. She spared a quick nervous glance at the locked door before leaning in, as if sharing a secret with the witch who now clearly wanted to kill her.

“To arrange facts, that’s not something a lunatic can do, is it?” came the whisper, as if conspiring.

Theodora's face relaxed and she sat back up. A little twisting was required, but she was able to reach up and move a lock of hair from the corner of her mouth. This idiot needed an orientation. Kingstreet could provide. She cracked her neck and adjusted her jaw.

In a sudden, snapping motion, Theodora threw herself from her chair and began screaming and crying.

"Help! Help! Oh Merlin, help me! Stop! Stop! No stop!"

A second ago, she'd been dead calm, and now her face was contorted, red, and wet. She clawed her neck, leaving scratches and hurled herself against the back wall.

"Guards! Guards! Help! Help! Help!"

There was a loud fumbling at the door as the blackmailed guard fought to let himself in.

By the time the door opened, the chair was knocked over, and Kingstreet was nearly burrowing into a corner.

"I was only doing my job!" she wailed. "I was only doing my job!"

How simple it was to arrange facts.

On her feet, Genevieve watched on in horror as Kingstreet threw herself to the floor and began to yell, scream for the guards to come in. Gen’s eyes were wide, surprised and terrified as the realisation that she’d been played started to dawn on her. To think that she’d believed she could manipulate this bitch…

The door opened and the guard barged in as the prisoner started to cry that she’d been doing her job.

“What the-?” Gen stared between the wizard and the witch on the floor. “No!” It was all she could come out with; her brain was playing catch up and the guard was putting 2 and 2 together to make 63! His wand was suddenly pointed at her and not Kingstreet and Gen took a step back as she put her hands in the air.

“She’s insane!” Why were the tears forming in her eyes? Why now?

What didn’t help her case were the tears and the fact that the mad bitch was cowering in the corner. Genevieve had motive. She had so much damned motive. Her heart was pounding hard and painfully against her chest.

Her job, she meant locking Leo in a cell for the rest of his life. Had she manipulated that too? The possible reality that she really had gone for Leo and faked it all suddenly hit Gen like a huge fat slap in the face and she turned her gaze back on the witch.
“You set him up!” There was a look in Gen’s eyes that had never been there before. She wanted blood. “You lying manipulative bitch!”

She went to move forward, went to attack, wanted to claw her eyes out but the guard reacted and she was thrown bodily against the wall by a quick-fire spell.