Kurby had spent the past week avidly avoiding Level Two.  As he had expected, word of The Incident seemed like it had spread like wildfire throughout the Ministry.  It had taken a couple of days for his coworkers on the Werewolf Capture Unit to work their knowledge of his personal life out of their system, and thankfully, most of the comments elsewhere on Level Four had largely died down by the end of the week.  He had grimly ignored them all, convinced that if he kept his mouth shut and didn’t react, the humiliating attention would eventually die down on its own.

In a perfect world, he would have avoided setting foot on the second floor of the Ministry for another six months, at which point the Aurors would have hopefully forgotten about his personal life and moved on to another target.  But unfortunately, this wasn’t an appointment that he could put off until summer.  The Grants’ trial was coming up before the Wizengamot in only a couple of short weeks, and their case had finally been assigned to a defense attorney.  If there was any hope of resolving the mess without one or both ending up in Azkaban, he had to offer whatever help he could now.

Once he’d gotten off the lift, Kurby had taken a circuitous route through Level Two that kept him as far from the busy Auror office as possible.  He had never spent much time in the Defense Attorneys’ wing of the Ministry.  For most of his career, he had made it a habit to generally put off responding to any requests about active werewolf cases unless he absolutely had to.  But when he’d gotten a short note from Harper Graves on the Friday before requesting a meeting, he’d sent back a quick acceptance and set a time to meet.

He knew this particular attorney only from a distance: she had red hair, an American accent, and had taken on Lawrence Musgrave’s case earlier in the year.   What that said for the Grant family’s chances, he wasn’t sure, but there wasn’t any point in wasting time worrying about it until he knew the Quidditch score.

The hall in this part of Level Two was quieter than elsewhere, all long doors and stoic decor.  It took him a few moments to find the office with the properly-labeled nameplate.  Kurby gave a quick knock on the open office door, and then stepped in, not bothering to wait for an invitation.

“Miss Graves?”  He kept his expression carefully guarded as he paused just inside the door, cocking an eyebrow at the witch inside.  “I’m Kurby Bagnold. Now still a good time to talk?”

She had brought her Field Spaniel, George, into work today.

Nowadays, Harper came in to work early and she left late. Lawrence's situation was experiencing a kind of reprieve with him being at St.Mungo's and she was accepting other cases that required court presence - though she still dropped by the hospital whenever she could to ensure Mysteries wasn't turning him into a horned toad or whatever. Today was not one of those days.

            "I’m Kurby Bagnold. Now still a good time to talk?"

The witch looked up from her newspaper, red hair knotted into a messy bun and reading spectacles balanced on the tip of her nose. George was sitting in her lap. Her office was an organised mess: she sat behind a large desk with two or three stacks of folders. Bookshelves surrounded them and an enchanted window to her left presented a sweeping view of the Surrey countryside.

So, this was the head of the WCU.

"Mr. Bagnold. It is," she smiled as she adjusted her spectacles and nodded at the empty seat across. "I'll just get out my file and we can go over the Grant situation." That's what she called her cases sometimes. Situations. Harper dislodged her dog and reached for one of the folders at the top of a stack.

It had been some time since she'd taken on a case from level four. They were a weird bunch, some even cockier than aurors; she was interested in seeing if Bagnold conformed to the mould. "I've read it a couple times but I guess I should ask if there's anything you want to add to what we already know?"

There was a sense of confined chaos inside the witch's office: stacks of folders, books upon books.  Kurby glanced around briefly as he stepped inside.  His gaze settled for a moment on the dog sitting on her lap, but he decided to keep his mouth firmly shut.

Graves left no time wasted on pleasantries.  Kurby pulled the chair back and took a seat as she found the case file -- near the top of the stack, so she was ready for the meeting.  The defense attorney clearly had plenty on her plate, judging by the piles of similar folders, but at least she struck him as efficient.

"I've read it a couple times but I guess I should ask if there's anything you want to add to what we already know?"

Kurby paused for half a beat, raising his eyebrows as he considered how best to answer that question.

"Can I take a look?" he asked, holding his hand out.

Graves studied him for a moment, and then flipped through the file.  She pulled a few pages out and passed the rest of the folder across the desk to him.

He briefly paged through it.  There was a series of public Ministry records -- the original recounts from the Werewolf Capture Unit, describing the werewolf attacks that had happened near the Trossachs back in February, May, and July; Smith's messy handwriting summarizing the WCU's investigation back in May after the elderly Muggle man had died; and then a pair of documents from July, Blake's neat printing on a form emblazoned with Magical Law Enforcement's logo, and his own succinct completion of the Werewolf Capture Unit report.  Then, behind them all, a few other documents: a letter from werewolf expert Maya Irene-Strangely, talking about the challenges posed to youthful werewolves and the importance of normal structure and support in their lives; and a letter from Greyfriar verifying Greer's enrollment at Hogwarts and expressing his firm belief that Hogwarts was capable of supporting werewolf students, as it had several times in recent years.

He'd seen all of this before, so he didn't need to spend time reading over all of the documents again.  Kurby flipped the file shut again, pressing his tongue against his teeth as he thought for a moment. 

"You've talked to them, aye?" he asked, passing the folder back to Graves.  "Greer and her parents?  I think there's a little more to it that isn't captured in the documentation, but I don't know what you've heard already."

            "You've talked to them, aye?"

"Aye," she repeated in a similar tone, failing to keep the amusement out of her voice as she held up the sheets she had taken out of the file, "Client confidentially, I have my interview transcripts from meeting with them." The parents had meant well but not a lot of people she'd spoken to felt any goodwill towards them. The word irresponsible was tossed around.

Slipping her papers back into the folder, Harper considered the wizard in her office for a moment. He had been sent the memo because she wanted to know the worst of the worst: what was the WCU stance? What could they expect from the prosecution, when relevant level four staff were interviewed on the stand?

This was one of the guys she had to worry about.

"I haven't heard much." Harper leaned back in her office chair, crossing one leg over the other as she settled her hands on the armrests; she looked comfortable in her dark green court robes. "I know Carstairs is mad and wants this off his plate, quick as can be. I know about the werewolf agenda rumours, with Greyfriar, but that's secondary because I don't work publicity."

Through luck and stubborn effort, Harper Graves was not a name featured in Witch Weekly or the Prophet. At least not outside being noted as the attorney of an infamous client; she did not excite the public imagination. "Pretend it's a clean slate, Bagnold. Lay it on me: what do you mean by a little more to it?"

Kurby listened silently to the defense attorney, tapping his fingers absently against his knee.  At the mention of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Carstairs needs to pull his wand out of his arse and not prosecute things based on how much they annoy him,” he grumbled.

He sighed, glancing away for a moment as he considered how to respond to Graves’ question.  Werewolf agenda was an interesting way of putting it.  He had no doubt that Greyfriar would have gotten involved eventually in a case like this; the Hogwarts Headmaster was eager to throw his weight around whenever questions arose involving werewolf issues, and Kurby could only imagine that that quality was magnified when the werewolves in question were connected to the school. 

But this wasn’t entirely a werewolf issue.  It wasn’t even really a question about justice or fairness, because nothing was going to make things right again or bring back the Muggle man who had died.  Splitting up a family wouldn’t help.  Sometimes justice didn’t coincide with what felt right.

“Both of the parents are Muggleborn,” he said after a beat, looking back at her.  She was American, so she might not understand the ramifications of that; the things that people like Solomon Carstairs should instinctively know.  “Iain Graves worked for Level Three, but he lost his job and his Muggle parents got killed durin’ the war.  The girl got bit over the winter holidays a few years ago, when there was a lot of noise at Hogwarts about the Foley girl gettin’ kicked out.  They were bleedin’ idiots to think they could handle things the way they did, but they had reasons why they didn’t trust the Ministry and register her.”

            "Carstairs needs to pull his wand out of his arse and not prosecute things based on how much they annoy him."

"Mm yeah," she murmured in a sardonic voice as George wandered around the desk to sniff at her visitor's ankles. "I'll be sure to tell him that the next time we're having tea and crumpets." Or, as was more likely, tea and angrily exchanged words - she worked against Solomon's bad judgement just as much as she relied on his good instincts.

Bagnold was going easy on the family. He sounded like he was on their side, though she had seen her fair share of aurors and handlers who became turncoats once they were on the stand. But Kurby didn't look skittish enough to be unnerved by the media - definitely not if he was sleeping with Queen G.

In fact, he seemed pretty earnest about what he was saying.

"That's the angle," Harper conceded, drumming her fingers on her armrests and tilting her head to the side. "Muggleborn family, made some reckless decisions but ultimately thought they were acting in Greer's best interest. You miss out on a lot being muggleborn. My mom was, she still thinks Ministries have too strong a hold on wizarding society."

Moreso in Britain than back home. In America, you really could disappear. Someone like Greer or Lawrence, they could dissolve into the vastness of that country.

Harper turned her thoughts away from that, from memories of horse-riding in Odessa and braving the Metro in New York. She focused on Bagnold instead, figuring that she could speak to him in realistic terms. "I don't think their chances are good. The prosecution is going to push Azkaban time, tooth and nail, at least a year of it. Getting their kids taken away is one of our more optimistic results, if I'm being honest."

"I dunno, interruptin' Carstairs' tea time sounds like it might be crossin' the line to incivility," Kurby retorted, shooting the defense attorney a half-smirk.  Even after just a couple of minutes, he could imagine that Harper Graves, with her direct questions and no-nonsense approach to conversation, did not easily suffer Solomon Carstairs’ love of decorum and crumpets.

Something snuffled against his boot.  Kurby glanced down, cocking an eyebrow at the fuzzy mop that appeared to be examining him.  He hesitated for half a beat, eyeing the dog, and then cautiously reached a hand down for the spaniel to sniff.

Graves had obviously reached the same conclusion about the case that he had.  He’d dealt with plenty of unregistered werewolf cases before, but somehow the extenuating circumstances — the angle, as she’d put it in her American accent — felt different with this one. 

But Graves also seemed firmly certain that those extenuating circumstances might not matter in the end.  The dog, not satisfied with sniffing, had helpfully shoved its face against his hand.  Kurby absently transitioned to scratching the back of its head, his attention focused on the defense attorney’s words.  This was the part of things where the witch clearly had more expertise than he did; most of his involvement in werewolf cases ended when the sun rose and the damned beasts were safely locked up.  But even though she painted a grim picture, ‘not good’ hardly meant ‘impossible.’

“So how do those odds get improved, then?” he asked with a frown.  “I know you've probably got a thought on how best to handle this already, but I don’t know how the hell this sort of thing usually works.  Is there any way to try and sway the Wizengamot ahead of time?  Or create enough of a headache for Carstairs that he agrees to change the charges?”

She snorted softly, relieved that the many people of the Ministry could always be relied upon to dislike Solomon. The man was incivility itself - and dressed up as a perfect gentleman too. The Brits were great at that, unscrupulous but looking like they shit in the Queen's english. Not that Bagnold looked it.

In fact, for someone who seemed a lot like a Werewolf hunter, he wasn't acting the archetype at all today.

"You're pretty invested in this, huh?" Harper frowned slightly, still smiling. It gave her a puzzled air. "If you want to sway the Wizengamot, you have to sway the presses. Up the stakes. WCU gets asked for a comment? Lead them. That's what will get Carstairs too, he knows the public value of a sob story."

Loved calling it that as well, sob story. Anyone who dealt with the press were salesmen who knew what everyone wanted to hear. Harper raised her eyebrows, noticing George on the other side of the desk. She clicked her tongue at him, and the Field Spaniel looked between the two of them in confusion.

"Don't disturb the nice man too much, George," she reprimanded him gently; but George was a very friendly dog, and she glanced back up at Kurby with an apologetic laugh. "Anyway," the witch continued, "I promise you Greer has my full attention. No kid wants to be separated from their parents and... I agree, personally, that it isn't the right move."

It didn't make sense to punish the girl for her mother and father's ignorance.

Sway the presses.  That was a different way to think about it.  Kurby wasn't above leaking to the press, usually in retaliation when he thought some person or process was being idiotic.[1] But intentionally trying to sway public opinion through the Daily Prophet to get a result that he wanted...that was a slightly more nuanced twist.

It also meant that he was playing with fire.  There was a very fine line to walk between trying to change perceptions about this werewolf case, and worsening the mood around all werewolf prosecutions.  Too often, enforcing the rules about registration and wolfsbane felt like he was on a broom trying to fly against the headwind.  Anything he said or did now could very well be pulled out of context and used in future cases, too.

Kurby grimaced, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.

"Thanks," he said after a beat, inclining his head to Graves.  It couldn't be an easy job, defending those held by the Ministry when they couldn't afford to defend themselves.  At least with the Capture Unit, every month without a major incident could be counted as a success.  Thee work of a defense attorney seemed like it must have fewer victories and a fiercer river to swim against.

He gave the dog one last pat, and then nudged it with his boot in the direction of the defense attorney. 

"Is there a final date set for the hearing yet?" he asked her.  "It's sometime this month, isn't it?"

1.	When Auror Ackerly Fox had insulted purebloods, a well-timed leak had gotten him pulled off of all werewolf-related cases.

She smiled as George returned to her, darling eyes still darting between them in curiosity. Harper reached down to give her dog an affectionate scratch on the head but her attention was still very much on the wizard. It shouldn't have bothered her that he was being reasonable about this - she was too used to unreasonable men. Or just one unreasonable Carstairs, maybe.

            "Is there a final date set for the hearing yet? It's sometime this month, isn't it?"

"Sixteenth." Harper glanced at a calendar on the wall, a plain affair on its final month of the Gregorian year. "Almost a week after the full moon. I hope that's enough time for Greer to recover."

As far as she could tell, transformations could be very hard for younger werewolves. Bad enough they had to undergo all the regular growing pains. Harper looked back at Kurby and raised her eyebrows enquiringly. "You're giving testimony? You and -" she lifted the front of her folder to peer at a name sheet inside, "Miss Blake? Auror Blake?"

The infamous auror-in-training, Harper recalled, who had wished a prisoner good night and suffered a good teasing for it.

"I can send you a list of questions that the prosecution may ask," she offered, having worked on level two long enough to get a sense of the lawyers on the other side, "and the ones I'll be asking too, obviously."

The sixteenth.  Kurby followed the defense attorney's gaze to the calendar on her wall.  Almost a week after the upcoming full moon.  That was hopefully plenty of time to deal with any direwolf-fueled mess that might possibly occur, recover, and be functional for the trial. 

But Graves' last comment made him blink.  Kurby swallowed, his gaze flicking back to her face in surprise.  The idea that Greer needed time to recover... He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his expression guarded.  He'd heard plenty of werewolves complain about the full moon leaving them feeling sick or out of sorts, but then, werewolves complained a lot.  It hadn't occurred to him that the act of avoiding dates near the full moon was as much for the kid werewolf's sake as for any inconvenience on the part of those testifying.

Graves had moved on, inquiring about the testimony.  Refocusing on her words, he gave a short nod in response.

"She's a third year trainee," he said, and then hesitated, glancing at Graves to see if the clarification was even necessary.  The American witch seemed to have her arms well wrapped around this case; there wasn't a chance she didn't already know who Fauna Blake was.  But his impressions might still be helpful -- pretend it's a clean slate, Graves had said.  "She'll play it by the book, if you haven't talked to her already -- she's still starry-eyed about followin' every possible protocol Pratt dreams up to give to her.  But she wasn't happy about draggin' the Grant family in, either."

It was strange, being on this side of the conversation.  He'd testified in plenty of trials over the past fifteen years, from rogue werewolves to Snatchers who had been prosecuted after the war, but never while allied with the defense.  Graves' offer to provide him with possible questions was coolly efficient, a chance to plan his tactics in advance.

"Sounds grand."  He flashed her a quick, sharp smile.  "I'll practice weavin' in the sob story."

She couldn't really place the change in Kurby's expression when she mentioned Greer's recovery but Harper tried not to let that bother her - whatever it was he had plenty of time until the trial to mull it over. George pawed at her hands insistently and she let the field spaniel climb on to her lap, helping him up.

"I'm glad for Blake's starry-eyed ways," Harper's mouth tugged into a half-smile, "it can go over nicely even when it's a disaster." Trainees like Fauna could stumble and bumble but they were so darned earnest that it could pull just the right amount of amused sympathy from the Wizengamot.

It was the astute and wily ones she had to worry about, on level two. The ones who genuinely thought they knew better than their legal counsel.

             "I'll practice weavin' in the sob story."

The witch laughed lightly, trying to picture what he would look like delivering a sob story. "Don't weave it in too well," she remarked and then addressed her dog, scratching under his chin. "Mr Bagnold has a reputation, doesn't he George? And we're going to use that, aren't we?" Harper glanced back up at the visitor, something pointed in her eyes.

"I want you aloof enough that they'll still think you're... I wouldn't say objective. Just that you'd usually be predisposed towards the other side of the argument," she raised her eyebrows. "So be prepared but also just be yourself."

The werewolf hunter laughed and grinned back at her, swift and sure.  This American attorney had something of a fire to her, hidden behind her friendly pet and her matter-of-fact approach.  She'd had a read on him already before he'd come to meet her, and he had a feeling that nothing he'd told her today was new information.

Graves had said up front that she didn't think there was much hope for the Grant family.  This wasn't exactly an important or high-profile case, and he'd expected that whichever defense attorney was assigned to it wouldn't spend much time or energy putting a strategy together: that was why he'd gone to Greyfriar, and why he'd swallowed his pride and written Irene-Strangely.  But Graves clearly had her facts together, and she'd neatly maneuvered him exactly where she probably needed him to be for the defense.  Even if they still faced long odds, he'd gladly take such cool-headed competence in the Grant family's Ministry-provided lawyer.

"But not so much myself that anyone wants to throttle me in the middle of the trial, aye?"  he asked Graves cheerfully.  He flashed a bright smile in the direction of the spaniel, who seemed to be happily enjoying the scratches.  "I have to say, it's a shame that George has heard about my reputation.  And here, I thought we might be startin' to get on with each other."

Sobering slightly, he inclined his head to the lawyer.  "I'll do that," he agreed matter-of-factly.  "If anything else specific comes up that you want me to lay out, just send a note.  I'll be a bit hard to reach around the full moon, but we're usually caught up within a few days after."

            "But not so much myself that anyone wants to throttle me in the middle of the trial, aye?

She laughed, the kind of unguarded laugh that hinted at the gawky teenager she used to be and could never shake, and gave the wizard an affirming nod. Odds were that someone in the Wizengamot was going to want to throttle at least one of the witnesses. Werewolf territory was touchy and Harper knew, going in, that she was going to be treading on people's toes. But she was going to choose whose toes.

"Don't worry about George," she glanced down at the dog, who was looking up at her and panting with silly cheerfulness, "he's used to hardened criminals and dark wizards by now. Adores Lawr-- adores Musgrave."

The former Auror had made a splash in headlines and was, quite rightly, one of the most hated criminal figures this past year. It was easy for papers to do him dirty, while at the same time sensationalising the mystique behind people like Ira Almasy or even the Lilly siblings. Everyone hates a traitor. Well... almost everyone.

"I'll send an intern down if there's anything urgent but I think prepping for the trial should go smoothly," Harper smiled at Kurby, pleased that they got along and that he was clearly interested in her client's cause. "Thanks for stopping in. I'm sure Greer would appreciate knowing how much everyone cares. It won't matter a lot right now, or even when the trial's over but..."

The witch shrugged, her smile turning somewhat lopsided. "In a few years, it will. When she looks back."

Because she would. They all did.

George didn't look the sort to be on a first name basis with perhaps the most infamous former Azkaban inmate, who was sure to be making his return to the prison soon.  Kurby quirked a brow at the dog owner's slip, but kept his mouth firmly shut.  Policing canine or legal familiarity with the dastardly Lawrence Musgrave wasn't any of his business.

The defense attorney had shifted instead to talk of Greer -- how the girl would appreciate all of this one day, maybe years later.  Kurby raised and dropped his shoulders, giving a half-shrug.  If he only carried through with his duties based on the potential that he might receive gratitude in some mystical, far off day in the future, he'd never get out of bed.

"Whatever she might or might not think one day, it's still the right thing to do."  Flashing the woman a crooked smile, he rose to his feet.  "Thanks for your time, Miss Graves -- I'll see you on the sixteenth."

"Nice to meet you as well, George," he added, shooting one last smile over his shoulder at the spaniel as he started out the door.