"You... you've had contact with ..." Agatha asked, making it known that she wasn’t as in the known as she’d made it seem. Gen wiped her eyes with her jumper sleeve, looking up. Why the hell was Cuffe’s wife getting angry now? At a loss, and overwhelmed with her own guilt and emotion, Gen’s eyes danced between the pair, red and tired.

“What could I not have known?” They were going around in painful circles and neither wix seemed willing to expand in a coherent manner. “Why in Godric’s bollocks are you scared of her? Why would you burn your house down?” She waved her hand at Agatha, shaking her head. “You’re talking in damned riddles!”

Agatha got to her feet in a snap, an attempt to compose herself. She looked down on Genevieve.

"I think you should go."

She then looked over the Barnabas as to assign him the task of making sure the job was done. Soon she was at the twin handles of the double doors.

"Agatha!" Barnabas protested. She looked at her husband over her shoulder.

"I trusted you. You told me this was over." With that, she left. Even before the door closed, the remaining despondents could hear her melodic Wireless voice ringing and singing apologies and greetings to the guests, as if nothing had happened at all.

Barnabas was left standing deflated in front of a tear-streaked Genevieve.

"Well, &@$#."

Dumbfounded, Gen stared at the double doors even after Agatha Pendragon had departed with such drama. No wonder the witch was on the wireless as an actress. It wasn’t, clearly, the time to be commenting to Cuffe about his ridiculous wife. The old fart knew her feelings about his spouse, just as Agatha had made her feelings of Genevieve more than clear over the years. They were not friends and they never would be. But did that now make Cuffe someone that she could no longer rely upon?

The Daily Prophet editor cursed and the Witch Weekly editor closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath.

Being sat here was doing her no good. The circles and riddles and Cuffe’s refusal to be generous with the truth was only sending her further over the edge to a loss of sanity. Gen pushed herself up from the chair and frowned at her former boss and mentor, heaving a sigh.

“When you’re ready to tell me why I have just &%*@d up, you know where I am. She admitted that she arranged the evidence, Barney. I can’t leave him in there to rot.” Slowly, like a woman weight down by the world, Genevieve headed to the double doors that Agatha had just departed from.

"Wait."

It wasn't the first (or second) time the old man had implored the younger witch to stay. Who could blame her for trying to leave, though? Not a minute seemed to pass in this house that didn't bring with it messages that Genevieve was unwelcome. Cuffe felt terrible. He felt worried, shocked, off-his-foot, and terrible.

"You don't have to go. You..."

He wrung his hands.

"Kingstreet has ways. I don't understand it, but even locked up in Azkaban, she's dangerous. There's no way to know if what she says is true. If you ask me, I'd wager she doesn't even believe objective truth exists. But that's not the point. The point is ... "

The point that he'd missed over and over tonight.

"Leo. Whatever happens with your husband, the truth will come out and you, eh, won't be left out in the cold. In it to the end. Dear Merlin."

A bit shocked he'd said it, he found a glass and drank from it.

Once again Cuffe asked her to stop. Gen paused with her hand on the doorstop for possibly the third time that evening. She turned to him, looking decidedly dejected. Gen may have presented herself as an overly chaotic witch with a flair for the dramatic, but she had never been out to break up a marriage. She knew too well how that felt. Getting in the middle of Cuffe and his wife was well beyond her intentions in coming here.

Words spilling from Cuffe’s mouth did have Gen frozen as she stared across the room at him. The old bastard who loved to yell and throw things at his staff actually had a heart. Gen had no clue how she’d managed to find his soft spot, but to tell her that she wasn’t alone? Well, it meant more than she could explain.

“Thank you, Barney.” She muttered, looking past him towards the window. “I’ve got some investigating to do.” As if anticipating his response, Gen put a hand up. “I’ll be careful. Tell you wife not to get her knickers in a twist. I’ll leave you to it.” With that, pulled the door open and left the room. Partygooers milled around the ground floor and stared in surprise as Queen G, reentered the kitchen, her face red from streaked tears.

Despite the inner turmoil, Gen waved her hands about, gesturing angrily.
“Party’s too good for a Queen, he says! Shouldn’t have invited me should you, you old bastard?!” she stuck a middle finger up at Cuffe through the open door, turned and stalked confidently through the entrance hall. A flick of her wand and the front door burst off its hinges to allow for her exit. “See ya Daddy!”

Well, one must keep up appearances, even when in distress.

And things were back to normal. A strained, struggling attempt at the acerbic combative normal that existed between Genevieve Garcia-Gamp and Barnabas Cuffe. It was a jarring transition, but somehow comforting. Although Genevieve calling him 'Daddy' was becoming a disturbing new motif...

He laid his palm to his face and braced himself to return to his evening.

Fin