4 December 2011
10am, Monday
Azkaban Prison
Dark and stormy

"Sure you don't want me to come along?"

Zora chuckled and shook her head. "No worries, I've got it. We're old friends, right?"

---

Persephone Demos met Auror Roh at the massive doors having to shout over the blasting storm. They pushed it open just enough for Zora to slip in. The door slammed shut behind them with a boom and the relative quiet was quick.

Demos stood by while Zora marked her name in the visitor ledger. This page was nearly full up; she took her time signing to have a peek at previous entries. There on the 27th of November, a familiar name. Genevieve Garcia-Gamp to see Leo Gamp. Family visit.

"Auror Roh. If you'll come with me, he's waiting for you," Demos said with all business then led the way through the tight passages and many secure doors of the fortress.

Zora guts were tied in knots. She hadn't seen Leo Gamp since his trial; all the Aurors had been there to see him convicted and sentenced. She'd never reconciled her feelings. When Gamp's name came up in the paper again after many years, Iona had tried to eke something out of her, but she deflected and deflected. What was she supposed to feel? A wizard she'd sparred with, trained with, respected was put away for terrible things? Better not to feel anything. Her past and his had nothing to do with the hundreds of books found in Leo Gamp's wife's apartment.[1] If he was connected to the Shahidi murder, she'd find out.

"Here you are. A guard will be posted here outside if you need anything."

Zora peered through the small window at the back of Gamp's head. He was sitting in a chair and Zora could see the chains around his feet. She took a deep breath, thanked Demos and went in.

She took her time coming around the table, watching his face as calmly as she could with the gentle detachment of a Healer. He looked so old now. Azkaban had gotten into his bones.

"Hello, Leo," she said finally directly across from him.

1.	[Nov 29] How Many Aurors Does it Take to Return A Shoe?

Seven days.  It had been seven days -- one week, one hundred and sixty-three hours -- since Genny had last come to see him.  When the guard had come to tell him that he had an appointment with another visitor, he had refused to go.  Let his beloved, treacherous wife see what it felt like to be all alone, to want answers, to have the only person who was supposed to be by her side through brimstone and fire refuse to help her.  She had awakened the secret dragon that slept within Azkaban, and as far as he was concerned, she could face the beast alone.

But it wasn't Genny who had come to see him this time, and the guard offered him no right of refusal. 

And so he sat there, shackled hand and foot, as the Auror ambled her way around the table to sit across from him.  He blinked slowly, squinting at her robes.  There were so few colors in Azkaban that the bright crimson of the Auror uniform was almost blinding.

"Hello, Leo."

The sound of his name cut through the fog and made him focus on her face.  It took a moment to find her in his memory, searching back thirteen years.  She'd been a trainee once -- older than most, but lively and determined.  A Slytherin.  He'd taken a liking to her.

He remembered.

"Hello, Zora."  He tried to smile, but only managed a sad, twisted doppelgänger that didn't reach his eyes.  "Still in crimson, I see."

Zora nodded. "Yup. It'll be twenty years next year."

How easy it was already. She found her lip curling, feeling guilty she wasn't ashamed of that. She was supposed to hate him. Maybe even pity him. But she didn't. She was numb and that made this easy.

"How are you doing?"

Incredible.  But maybe not ill-advised. As surprised as she was at her own relative tranquility, she didn't know what to expect from Leo. Zora had been a part of the investigation into his crimes. There had been the Four Days. The Four Days when Zora had to act like everything was normal, working alongside Leo even though an inquiry had secretly begun. And Zora, she'd come at Genevieve hardest.

Her notepad and quill were still stowed. She'd wait to draw them until she had a better gauge on how this might go.

Sometimes it felt as if everything about his trial had been a blur; other times, he could remember every detail.  Zora Roh had been both a colleague and a comrade before it felt like the whole world had turned upside-down, when some sort of dam had broken and all of his colleagues had turned on him.

During the thirteen years he’d been here, none of them had come to see him.  As far as the Aurors had been concerned, once their colleagues had been accused and arrested, they’d thrown away the key.  He knew that Lawrence Musgrave had been released from their purgatory: accused of far lesser crimes than he.  On the rare occasions when he would wonder about the outside, he couldn’t help but contemplate what sort of welcome he must have received.

Something had brought Roh here, and it was no concern for how he was.

“Keeping busy,” he replied.  The not-smile was lingering; he tried harder to improve it.  “You know.  Lunch date at 11, tea at 2, a round of friendly Quidditch before dinner.  My schedule’s so full that I hardly know what to do with myself these days.”

Zora nodded without smiling. She could patter back and forth with him, and in some situations she might, but it wouldn't put either of them at ease. She leaned forward on her elbows, tapping the quill on the top of the notebook.

"Have you had contact with Genevieve in the last month?"

Zora knew she had. The vicious, enchanted books in her flat. Her name in the Azkaban visitor's log. It would be no good to open with declaring this was part of a murder investigation. Best take this step by step. Zora didn't think Leo could have killed Shahidi, but he might have some answers.

And here they were: right to the quick of it.  Zora Roh wasn’t here on a friendly visit.  She’d come with another purpose in mind, to investigate or intimidate.

It was strange, trying to tear himself out of the haze that an endless sentence in Azkaban imposed on one’s thoughts.  He could almost feel the bits and pieces around him, facts dancing and circling each other.  He’d spent too long in this gray place, where time barely passed and there was never any respite.  Once upon a time, it had felt like he could outthink anyone, putting the pieces together and running circles around idiotic suspects.  But now, it felt like he was drifting aimlessly down a river with no oar or propeller; even when he tried to chart a course, he had to paddle viciously at the water with his fingers if he wanted to only slightly, barely alter the direction that he was going.

There were two things that he knew.

One:  He could think of two possible options why Roh had come here: either Genny had gone to Level Two to complain and Roh had come to put him in his place, or the situation with Her had exploded out of Genny’s control and his old colleagues had come crashing in.

Two:  The first thing they hammered into every young Auror’s skull was to never ask a question unless they already knew the answer.

The smile he had been attempting faded away, as if it had never been.  He raised his eyebrows, meeting the Auror’s gaze.  In the last month, she’d asked.  One month.  Thirty or thirty-one days.

“Contact with my wife isn’t a crime,” he remarked calmly.

Zora took a deep breath and straightened her mouth into a not-smile. Fifteen years ago, Zora and Leo might have been on the same side of the table hearing that flippant line from some tough-guy. 'Since when's walkin' a crime?' or whatever. It was a game. And old one.

"Yea, we know."

By now, Zora had had plenty of time to go over things with Garcia-Gamp, who had become more invested in cooperating with the investigation. Zora was sure now that cooperation was because she was scared. Scared of Leo who'd been harassing her? Scared for him? Scared of Theodora Kingstreet?

Genevieve didn't believe Leo here was responsible for Shahidi's death, at least that's what she said. And maybe that was so. Locked up like this, hard to say what Leo would even be capable of. Stranger things had happened.

"What did you talk about, Leo?" the Auror asked with a light lift of her eyebrows. "Write about?"

There were the letters. The books. The visit.

She already knew the answer that she wanted him to give.  Darling Genny, with all her tears and protests and insistence that she had only done what was best for them, Genny had gone to the Aurors.  And now here was one of his old colleagues to betray him a second time. 

He'd wondered how they would react, with him inching ever closer to vindication.  Now, he had his answer.  Level Two would do everything it could to keep him here, to ensure that justice wasn't served, to keep him from the sweet redress and relief that he was owed after thirteen long years.

Roh was trying to press him.  To pressure him.  If she already knew the answers to her questions, why had she come?  He stared back at her, his expression flat.

"Editing mistakes," he said at last, and then he smiled.  "I'm not sure if you've noticed yet, Zora, but Genny has a small problem with telling the truth."

"She told me you had nothing to do with the death of Gilgamesh Shahidi," Zora responded quickly and sat back.

Zora's hopes that Leo was going to go along were fading. They were hopes unfounded but for a moment when she'd first walked in, she thought maybe... but nah. Her association with Genevieve was more than enough to solidify that she was an Auror, a party to putting him away thirteen years ago. Maybe it was time to get to the point.

"Do you know who I'm talking about? Your wife's shoe was found by his body. We believe it was stolen from her flat and placed there."

She'd laid a trap, and he'd walked into it.  His smile faded, giving way to a sullen, churlish look.

Gilgamesh Shahidi.  Genny had mentioned an Azkaban guard whom she had murdered, but she hadn't said the name.  She'd mentioned the shoe, too.  Merlin only knew what purpose the thing was supposed to serve:  to frighten off Genny, to frighten him, to throw a wrench into his case for release. 

"I'm sure that this has occurred to you, Auror Roh," he began, his lower lip curling, "but I can't exactly drop in to my wife's flat to acquire her foot apparel."  He spread his arms, until the chains attached to the manacles on his wrist clanked and rattled, stretched to their limit, and met Roh's gaze with deadened eyes.  "Maybe you should talk to Genny and find out whom she's been inviting over."

Zora sighed. She was used to subjects being uncooperative during questioning, used to them being evasive - combative even. In the thirteen years since she'd last encountered the Garcia-Gamps, she'd gotten much more deft at navigating these interviews. She knew when to cajole, when to coerce, and when to walk away. But all that didn't make it any less irritating.

"I have spoken with your wife extensively and she's been keen to help us find out what happened. At least after she realized the stakes, once she found out our concern is justice for Mr. Shahidi and not whatever is going on between you two."

She still didn't know how to regard the wizard in front of her. What would do her better? To treat him like he'd commited the crimes they all believed he'd done? As a man fully capable of the murder, a man bent on revenge against Geneveive Garcia-Gamp? Or should she act like an old colleague, who'd garnered at least some good will.

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think you had anything to do with it either."

He could trust that or not.

"But I think you might know something. Help us find the killer, Leo."

How quickly a conversation could turn when one was speaking with an Auror.  Pleasantries to pointed inquiries, barbed attacks to reassurances.  And now:  an insistence that they were All on the Same Side, after all.  Help us find the killer.  Roh was attempting to appeal to his better nature, but if she had really come here to play it straight, she wouldn't have started with all the games.

Aurors were dangerous.  He knew because he'd been one of them once.  He couldn't let himself forget.

That said, he trusted his loving wife even less than he trusted Zora Roh.  Genny didn't care anything about the stakes for anyone but herself.  If she'd truly been cooperative with the Aurors, it was to save her own skin, and not because she gave a damn about anything that had happened to some Azkaban guard.  Genny took people like Gilgamesh Shahidi and ground them into dust under her perfect high heel.

He let out a wheezing laugh, his head dropping to rest against his chest for an instant.  "Which is it, Auror Roh?" he asked, his voice raspy.  "You want to know all about any recent contact with my wife?  Or you're not concerned about what's happened between us because all you care about is justice?"

Roh bit her lip and nodded. Had interrogating Lawrence Musgrave also been this tangled? Of course a former Auror would wheedle out any contradictions, twists or turns.

"I asked you about Genevieve to try and find any discrepancies between your accounts. Anything she's hiding that you aren't, or the other way around. What's the truth, you know? Between you there has to be at least a bit."

Conversational. Forth-coming. Non-confrontational. Maybe that would make him feel he'd achieved a little victory.

She shook her head then, a curl of her lip like something smelled bad. "But you and her? Those books? Your case? That's got nothing to do with me. I wouldn't touch that with a forty metre spell, Leo."

He's spat the word 'justice'. Of course he would.

"What can you tell me? Are you afraid of someone?"

He'd been locked away inside these gray walls so long that he'd forgotten what it was like to laugh without it hurting.  Even without Dementors to stand guard over their misery, the damp and the cold were embedded deep within the stone walls.  His rasping laugh made him double over once more, but this time, he didn't bother to pick his head back up again.

"Am I--"

He let out a wheezing, rattling approximation of a laugh.

" -- afraid?"

He had been, once.  Not at first.  When they'd first brought him, he'd been angry.  Then bewildered.  There had been lies woven into the very fabric of the accusations against him, and no one but him seemed to see them, no matter how he railed against them.  But it hadn't been until he'd been seated on the stand, hands and feet bound with magical manacles, when she had stared at him with dull blue eyes outlined by black-framed circles, that he had finally felt fear.  That had been the first moment when it had sunken in that this nightmare wasn't going away, that all of their railing for justice was nothing more than a stage play, with the verdict already decided.

But none of them had cared.  Not then.  Not Genny, who should have been at his side until the end.  Not his comrades-at-arms, though they had stood side-by-side together. 

And now Zora Roh had come to visit him, to ask him her questions and see if he was afraid.  All because his poor, silly wife had gotten it into her pretty head that she had to start helping.

His sides ached now from laughing, but he couldn't move his arms close enough to hug them.  He kept his head bowed, chin resting against his chest.  He knew what Enid would say if she were here.  Cooperate.  That was what innocent men did.  But be careful about it.   Because innocent men also knew better than to trust Level Two.

"I've been here in Azkaban for thirteen years."  The words came out sounding hard and harsh, like gravel dragged across stone. 

He gave a little chuckle, and paid the price when he was left wheezing again.  It took a moment to gather himself again, to lift his head so that he could stare hard at Roh.

"You know what I was accused of.  How I was accused."  His mouth twisted in a bitter smile.  "What could possibly frighten me after all that?"

Zora couldn't stop a deep from from creasing her face and furrowing her brow. She wouldn't be able to place it until later where the wave of disgust came from. But it was that Zora didn't think Leo Gamp should have anything to laugh about. What he'd done, what he'd put everyone through, what his life was like, what trouble he was making now? What could possibly have earned him this respite of a deep belly laugh that even the kindest souls didn't happen upon often. Maybe that. And maybe she felt mocked.

She'd offered him a way out and he was spitting in it.

The Auror waited trying to slow her heart, decide her next move. He hadn't answered a question it what seemed like an age.

"I dunno," Zora said with a shrug, pretending hard that she wasn't at all concerned.

"Theodora Kingstreet, perhaps."