Tuesday, December 13th
Ministry of Magic
Level Four: RCMC Conference Room
7:58 A.M.


It came as no surprise when the letter from Kurby Bagnold had arrived, though it was more official than she had expected. If Moira didn't go the hunter would just find her later and likely charge her for being uncooperative or something. Good thing she'd decided to comply before he ever sent the summons.

As soon as Moira had sent the message that night regarding the werewolf she had been expecting a response of this sort. For the most part, she dreaded the encounter. Still, there was a small part of her that looked forward to it. Everything that happened that night could finally be laid to rest (aside from the Runespoor token she still carried). The hardest part would be not giving Figaro away.

Moira had not been happy in letting her boss know she would be late the next day, unsure when she'd be able to come in due to a Ministry related matter. When her boss, confused but understanding, told her it was fine and suggested she go ahead and take the whole day off (she had seemed somewhat out of sorts and likely could use the time) she was even less pleased.

Since the night of the full moon Moira hadn't been getting much sleep. The first night she had managed to get four hours due to her exhaustion before the nightmares began, chasing her back to consciousness. She had tried to go back to sleep but every time the witch started to drift towards unconsciousness that bloody werewolf was waiting for her, chasing her endlessly or actually managing to catch her. Sometimes she saw the beast biting and tearing into a friend or someone else and she was helpless to do anything.

During those hours when she should have been sleeping Moira spent the time with her latest sketchpad, drawing the werewolf a number of times and always in a different pose. In every drawing the madness in the wolf's gaze was unmistakable. Moira had hoped that by getting the images out of her head and onto paper the nightmares would stop. They hadn't.

The night before their appointment granted the Moira a fitful two hours of sleep. The time not spent drawing she caught herself pacing, much to Casper's sleepy sounds of disapproval, thinking on the story she would be going with. At a more reasonable hour she fed the animals, took a shower, and made breakfast. There was time to spare, so Moira also cleaned the house.

Finally the time to leave drew near, but first she opened her bag and took a drink of her wide-eye potion. Moira didn't want to go through this with a foggy head but already the bottle was down to two thirds in a matter of just a few days. Not good.

Arriving at the Ministry shortly before the appointed time she checked in with the witch at the front desk. The only other times she had been here was that internship her dad signed her up for during a holiday break and when she came to register as an animagus.

Making her way up to a conference room on level four she mentally hook herself. This was a follow up, she hadn't done anything wrong besides being out when she shouldn't. No one had died. Right?

Sitting at the table a minute ticked by. The room was extremely plain and uninteresting. There wasn't even a painting on the dull walls. Pulling the sketchbook out of her bag Moira worked on her latest unfinished drawing while she waited for Bagnold's imminent entrance.

Ministry of Magic
Level Four: RCMC Conference Room
8:21 A.M.

It had been pitch black and pounding rain outside his flat that morning when Kurby had apparated to the Ministry.  In the stark halls of Level Four, there were no hints of what the weather was like up on the streets above, but knowing that it was a blustery, stormy day up in London matched his current mood. 

He'd been trying -- hard -- not to take anything out on the rest of the Capture Unit, who were all already exhausted after a trying three-day watch.  The debriefing the day before had gotten a little heated.  That was part of why he'd gotten in so early today: to get as much done as he could before anyone else came in, and to get his sour mood out of his system before he had to deal with any of his late-arriving coworkers.

He'd known that he needed to have this conversation for a few days now, but he'd delayed until he'd had the chance to catch a couple of nights of actual sleep.  Moira McBoid had lied to him once already about werewolves.  He hadn't pursued that fib too doggedly, partially because he'd liked the kid and partially because he'd figured that it was probably irrelevant.  People lied about supplying wolfsbane potion, or knowing unregistered werewolves, and most of the time in the end, he didn't care.  As long as the risk didn't outweigh the effort that he'd have to put in to get to the bottom of something, he could let these sorts of things go.

But now McBoid's terse report of a werewolf in London had led him and his team directly into a trap.  He didn't think that the girl was in cahoots with Tawse -- particularly because he knew her uncle would probably hex her senseless if she ever had anything to do with purists -- but no one went out on the night of a full moon unless they had their own agenda or they were a goddamned idiot.  And Kurby knew that Moira McBoid wasn't the latter.

Whatever had brought her to London in the middle of the night during a full moon, he didn't trust the kid to tell him the truth.  Especially since they both knew that he knew that she'd already lied once.

He'd told McBoid to be at the Ministry at eight.  Knowing the girl, she'd appear right on time, which meant that he had the luxury of making her wait.  Twenty minutes after he'd ordered her to arrive, the werewolf hunter set his work down, grabbed the vial that he'd procured for this visit, and headed for the conference room.

The kid was already there, sketching in a notebook.  Kurby breezed inside without greeting her, letting the door slam shut behind him.  As he headed for the table, he flicked his wand over his shoulder to lock it.  Without a word, he pulled out the chair across from McBoid and dropped down to sit.

Raising his eyebrows, he regarded the wolf girl silently for a moment, his expression stony.

"I want the whole story of what happened on Saturday night."  The words came out sound short and curt.  He kept his eyes locked on hers, his jaw already set.  "Startin' at the beginning."

Minutes continued to tick by and Moira continued to draw. Ten minutes past eight she knew the wizard was intentionally making her wait. What she didn't know, yet, was why.

When Bagnold finally entered the room Moira snapped the book shut to keep him from seeing the contents and stowed it back in her bag. She wondered what happened with the werewolf that called for such a cold lack of greeting. While she hadn't been expecting sunshine and rainbows after such a summons a gruff hello, which would go with that scruffy beard, wouldn't have killed him.

The two wix regarded each other for a moment in silence, and Moira noted Bagnold looked ready for a fight with his hard stare and tense jawline. Very good signs that this meeting did not bode well for her.

                             "I want the whole story of what happened on Saturday night. Startin' at the beginning."

This was not going to be pleasant but she would try to tell as much as she could.

"Received a letter to meet a friend at a cafe. I went, listened to their crazy scheme." Moira eyed him, making one point clear before she continued, "One not related to werewolves. I was worried they'd be found dead the next day so I went with them. We went to the river for a while, then to get snacks after which we sat on a roof for two hours. Took a walk that ended up at the park where we met our hairy friend," the word friend was said with a slightly venomous note, "right before we apparated away and went home."

Even while she had been talking, Moira knew Bagnold wouldn't be satisfied with that response. He would want to get every last bloody detail which she was loathe to give. Perhaps he even believed her to be a liar. Chances were they would be here for a while.

He listened silently to the girl's story, arms crossed against his chest.  McBoid was, as always, curt and to the point.  This was the response that she'd practiced; there was no sign that she was trying to recall parts of the night, no glancing up as she tried to remember.  The details that she did include were all carefully sanitized:  A friend.  A cafe.  She'd taken care not even to give her companion's gender away.

There was a hard, cold knot starting to form in his stomach.   He didn't have the patience for these games: not this week, not today.  The wolf girl had apparently decided that the details of her misadventure were none of his business, but after what had happened on Saturday night, that wasn't her decision to make.

Even if I wanted a boyfriend, I don't have time for one, she'd told him.  But there was at least one schoolmate that Kurby already knew that she stayed out too late with. 

"Which friend was this that you were out with?" he asked, dark eyes fixed on hers.

Moira never took her gaze from Bagnold's even as she turned his question (and others) over in her head, searching for a way to answer without fully giving everything away. She half felt that if she looked away, the hunter would bite much like a predator waiting for an opportune moment. The other problem being he might take her gaze as a rebellious challenge.

Any annoyance felt with this interrogation she kept pushed down. While his tactics going about the whole thing - like making her wait - were rude, Bagnold was doing his job. Moira had no idea what happened when they went after the werewolf. She got a very strong sense of 'nothing good'.

There was no other way to answer his question without the hunter growing more impatient and aggressive. Figaro forgive her.

"Sellaphix."

Moira felt sick even as the name left her mouth. That night they argued about her sending Bagnold the message. She had assured Figaro his name wouldn't even come up.

While she hadn't specified if it was an all time assurance, half expecting his name to be forced perhaps, she wasn't in the habit of lying if she could help it. In not outright refusing to answer Moira felt very strongly she had lied to her friend.

The girl was silent for a long moment, though she held his gaze.  Kurby waited impatiently, tapping a finger restlessly against his arm.  If she wanted to go down this path, refusing to give him answers until he dragged them out of her, then they were going to sit here in this room for a very long time.

But before too long had passed, McBoid’s expression grew slightly pained, and she gave him the name.

“Sellaphix.”

The werewolf hunter raised his eyebrows, keeping his eyes locked on hers for a moment longer.  Hardly a surprise, but hearing that Fig was involved in an incident involving werewolves during a full moon was still disappointing.

Slightly mollified, he let out a quiet snort and leaned slightly back in his chair, letting a little of the tension leak out of his posture.  If the girl cooperated and relayed the whole story of Saturday night, then he might not need to go as hard at her as he had assumed.  But that assumed that the cooperation continued.

“You said he sent you a letter.”  He looked to McBoid, waiting for affirmation.  “When was this?”

The letter portion of questions would be easy at least. Moira gave a nod and a half-shrug. "I don't know. The owl was waiting for me when I got home shortly after seven." Knowing Sellaphix he had sent it as soon as he had a chance. She was amazed he had been able to sit still at the table while waiting for her to arrive.

When the hunter next asked if she showed the letter to anyone else Moira couldn't help the odd look she gave him, "Of course not." Actually, she had fallen into her uncle's habit of burning most of her letters when she was done with them.

                                What was in it?

"An explosion of handwriting by an excited Figaro." Her response was smart, slightly annoyed. She had answered that question during her summary of the night's events. Giving a small, tired sigh she added, "He found something at work he wanted to talk to me about, told me to meet at the Blackwood Cafe." Bagnold was going to ask which cafe anyway. Pettifogging[1] jerk.

1.	adjective: placing undue emphasis on petty details. (I was going to use nitpicky but I liked this better!)

Now, at least, they were making slight but incremental progress.  So Figaro had sent McBoid a letter about something related to his work at the Prophet.  The wolf girl had been very clear earlier that it had not been related to werewolves, but he’d circle back to that later if it seemed relevant.  If Fig had sent her the letter at home, then it seemed less likely that anyone else had seen it and had known to shadow the kids for that reason.

“Where’s the Blackwood Cafe?” he asked with a frown.  “Did you tell anyone you were meetin’ him there?”

“Muggle side of east London, not far from Figaro’s flat.” McBoid’s response was as terse as ever, never volunteering more than he asked.  “No.”

A Muggle cafe in East London didn’t seem like the sort of place that the duo could accidentally attract attention from anyone from Tawse’s side of the alley.  Still, knowing the size of Figaro’s mouth, there were probably more direct ways for others to find out about the night-time excursion.

“So you lot met there around…?”  He trailed off, letting her fill in the blank.

“7:30,” replied McBoid.

That seemed early, considering that he hadn’t gotten the Patronus message from her until close to two in the morning.  Apparently the pair really did like to stay out all night.

“How long were you there for?” he asked.

“Ten minutes, maybe. He couldn’t wait to be off.”

That begged the question.  “Off where?” he asked, a pointed eyebrow raised.

Merlin’s beard, what was Bagnold trying to figure out? Moira had given him all the pertinent details, everything else would just lead him to a major disappointment and not near as many answers as he thought he’d get. Following two teenagers on an excursion that almost ended in their deaths. What a lovely story.

“We went to the river. I still don’t know what he was looking for but we didn’t find anything,” she told that small lie easy enough.

The broken bottle had been useless and the token would be better off going to someone on level two, not level four. Unless the token led them to a live Runespoor or more, then that still wouldn’t have been part of Bagnold’s problem.

The werewolf hunter’s gaze was still fixed on her, his expression cool.  ”And how long were you there for?” he asked.

Fortunately for this time question from the hunter, there had been a clock on the Apothecary wall.

“Half an hour, give or take. We went to the Sellaphix Apothecary next. He was looking for some sort of book in their storage. I stood by because I didn’t want to mess up their… mess.” That room had been a wreck, though most of that time Moira had been downstairs washing off the token.

“He didn’t find it.”

There was clearly an element to this story that he was still missing, some major thread that McBoid had decided she didn’t want to share with him.  The girl had already mentioned that she’d been concerned that her ‘friend’ would be dead if she didn’t go along with whatever crazy scheme he had suggested in his letter.  But at least she was talking.  Better to revisit that later, once he’d pieced together the other relevant details.

“So you arrived at Sellaphix Apothecary a little after eight.”  To find a book.  Zelda and Rafe didn’t have a full-fledged library that covered unlimited subjects; whatever Figaro had been looking for must have been somehow related to potions or herbology.  “How long did he look for it?”

“Hour and a half, roughly,” came McBoid’s response.

That seemed like a hell of a long time to spend looking for a book on a Saturday night. 

“Which book was it?” he asked mildly.

“I don’t remember the title.”

“But he must have mentioned what it was about to you.”  Kurby gave her a pointed look.  “He spent ninety minutes lookin’ for some book, and you just waited around after he dragged you out to his family’s shop, and you don’t have any idea what it was that he was tryin’ to find?  I know Figaro,” he added matter-of-factly. “The kid can’t keep a bleedin’ thought to himself if his life depends on it.”

“Dealt with a story at the Prophet. He wants to be a journalist, you know.”

This was starting to test his tolerance again.  “What story?” he asked impatiently.

“Some dead-end article. He thought he could revive it and show how important it was, I think.”

“And you were worried it was dangerous.”  The words came out sounding sharper than they had been.  Kurby’s gaze was locked on her again now, his jaw set.  “What the hell was Fig lookin’ for?”

“I was worried because it was a full moon and he wanted to be out strolling in the dark,” came her response, instinctively becoming more defensive as his aggression began to climb.

Moira really wished Bagnold would move on from the book and which story and all things regarding Runespoors.

While her mind was racing trying to come up with non-committed answers that might satisfy him (they wouldn't) she was also trying to figure out what had happened for him to question her like this.

She reported a werewolf sighting. The hunters would go, catch the werewolf, and drag it into custody. Clearly things hadn't gone as simply as that.

Bagnold had questioned her not long ago about a daylight attack, made sure she wasn't the murderer. Potential direwolf but nothing that had been confirmed. Had it been....? No, she mentally answered herself almost immediately. The werewolf she and Fig had seen had definitely been running on pure instinct, no intelligent thought driving it.

The werewolf hunter was watching her, the line of his jaw tense.  ”You didn’t answer my question,” he said flatly.

Were direwolves starting to become a problem again? If they were and one had shown up, why? Moira also wished they were on opposite sides of the table.

“Nothing pertinent.”

”And you’ve become an expert on werewolves, then?” Bagnold snapped.  Everything about the wizard was tense now, and he regarded her with narrowed eyes.  “Encountered a lot of them, have you?  Since you know what’s pertinent.”

“Not an expert, no. I know what--”

”Then answer the question,” he fired back, cutting her off.

Had she been a wolf, Moira would have growled. However, growling wasn’t much of an option and this didn’t need to turn into that kind of fight.

Everything she had already said felt like a betrayal. Nothing had happened and all Fig was really guilty of was stealing property, a ‘tip’ that had been tossed as rubbish, from the Prophet.

Moira knew that by not answering the question she made everything look so much worse than it had been. Still.

“No.”

The werewolf hunter slammed his fist down on the edge of the table, making it jolt. McBoid tensed up further, expression cooling in response.  He leaned forward in his chair, dark eyes locked on the girl’s face.

“You don’t get to decide what bleedin’ questions you do and don’t answer,” he growled at her.  Everything -- the pressure and frustration from the past few days, the mess in the stupid tailor shop, the heated confrontation with Tawse -- everything felt like it was rising all around him, and now this stubborn, idiotic kid was trying to dictate the terms of the conversation.  “You don’t have any goddamned idea what’s goin’ on.”

“How can I when you stroll in here and start treating me like a suspect?” McBoid’s voice was as cool as her expression. “Am I a suspect, Bagnold? Do you want me to transform again, check for werewolf bites, or just lock me up until the next full moon?”

The girl was bleeding infuriating.  He felt like shouting at her, telling her that yes, he would goddamned well lock her up until the next full moon if she didn’t cooperate.  It wasn’t any skin off his back if she wanted to cool her heels in a holding cell until she decided to talk.  He could deal with whatever consequences came, whether it was heat from his own boss or the destruction of his newly-rekindled friendship with Duncan McBoid.

Kurby glared back at her, all of his muscles tense, practically sitting on the edge of his chair.

“You asked me how the hell I became friends with the Sellaphixes,” he shot at her.  Each word was as glacial as the rain that had beaten down on the streets of London that morning.  “Did you piece it together, McBoid?

A memory briefly came to mind. During her third year at school, a Gryffindor girl had cornered her, trying to bully her into submission. The contents of that exchange had been lost but Moira could still see the girl’s sneering face, felt her own turn impassive. After several minutes without any kind of reaction or acknowledgement the girl had tried to get a response by pushing her. In response, she broke the girl’s nose and walked off. Her uncle had taught her how. Things had changed after that.

Moira’s gaze stayed on Bagnold’s, “And if I did?” When they had been drinking at the pub and asking each other questions, the lack of information in his answers had been just as telling as the little bit Bagnold had shared.

The werewolf hunter rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair.  Silently, he glowered at her, arms crossed defensively against his chest.

Moira let out a small sigh, rubbing at her eyes with one hand. So he had his own sense of honor in regards to the family. Good for him. He had a long and complicated history with werewolves. Great.

She should have grabbed some of the coffee on her way in.

“What if I told you it’s more a matter for level two?”

Bagnold met her gaze levelly, his expression unreadable.  The silence stretched between them for a long moment.

“I was three when my dad got turned,” he said at last, very quietly.  “That’s what Voldemort’s lot did back then -- they sent werewolves after families, used ‘em as weapons to try and shut people up.”

Moira had lifted her gaze back to Bagnold before he started talking. Getting any kind of history from him, so far, was an occasion by itself. Just like when he had told her about the aftermath of the Ministry’s fall she gave him her quiet, patient attention.

“That’s what they’re doin’ now.”  He kept his eyes locked on hers, each word cool and precise.  “Gettin’ ready to use werewolves as weapons again.  So it’s not just Level Two’s business,” he said matter-of-factly.  “I need to understand what happened so that we can figure out how the hell they set us up on Saturday night, and try to stop it from happenin’ the next time again.”

He took a deep breath, and then leveled another look at Moira.  “So yeah,” he concluded, eyebrows raising, “if you aren’t goin’ to answer my questions, then I’ll goddamned well lock you up until the next full moon.”

Her eyebrows furrowed slightly. Weaponized werewolves. Set us up. A direwolf had shown up then, with someone controlling it. She had unwittingly sent Bagnold and his team into a trap. Moira felt sick again.

Moira ignored his last retort to her earlier statement.

“Runespoors. Figaro found an encoded tip about finding more snakes delivered to the Prophet that had been tossed in the trash.”

He’d been running on adrenaline since sometime late on Friday.  Even after catching a few hours of sleep the past two nights, he still felt like he was on the verge of flaring out, of hitting a wall and simply being unable to keep going.  Having to deal with uncooperative teenagers wasn’t helping, and he knew that even after this conversation was through, the task was only going to be half-over: he was still going to have to talk to Figaro.

McBoid’s response made his brows quirk for a moment.  Runespoors.  That was it?

Anticlimactic or not, at least now he could piece together more of the night’s story.  Figaro had found some sort of tip about Runespoors at the Daily Prophet.  He’d written to McBoid about his discovery, and the wolf girl had decided to tag along to keep the eager cub reporter out of trouble.  They’d gone down to the river for a quick search for...something, and then gone back to the apothecary to try to find more information.  He didn’t doubt that the Sellaphixes might have some sort of book or resource on Runespoors, but after Rafe’s still-recent release from Azkaban after his conviction for trafficking in the three-headed serpents’ venom, Kurby also didn’t want to press too hard on that subject.

He had part of a timeline strung together now, too.  According to McBoid, they’d met at the cafe at half past seven, then spent about half an hour down at the river, and then another hour and a half searching the Sellaphix Apothecary for a book on Runespoors.  That put the adventure at just past ten o’clock at night, with still a few hours to go until they spotted the werewolf.

Kurby inclined his head very slightly to the girl.  “Don’t tell Level Two about that with Fig’s name attached,” he said quietly, before resuming a more normal volume.  “So an hour and a half at the apothecary.  Where’d you go next?”

“We stopped by his parents’ place. I stayed out of sight in the backyard while he went in for snacks. At about ten thirty we were sitting on a roof watching a place called Madame Tussaud’s.”

The werewolf hunter snorted.  This retelling had turned into just about the most teenaged excursion he could possibly imagined.  He wouldn’t have been surprised if Figaro had raided his parents’ liquor cabinet and taken along a score of gillyweed to keep them occupied while they waited.

“Sittin’ on a roof with snacks,” he echoed, arching an eyebrow at her.  “Why’d you pick that particular place to stake out?”

“The note said to look for the waxed man. Apparently that place is some sort of wax museum, so Fig thought whatever happened would be there.” Why people wanted to go look at wax sculptures was beyond her. Surely they had better things to do with their time.

The tension from before had settled back down to a low simmer after their exchange. As the energy dropped Moira was beginning to feel like she hadn't even taken a drink of that wideye potion.

”You went to...a wax museum.”  Bagnold’s voice sounded a bit strangled, as if he couldn’t decide whether he was about to start laughing or was just extremely bewildered.  ”With snacks.”

“Wasn't my idea.”

The hunter cleared his throat, in what was probably a failed attempt to maintain his composure.  “And, uh, what happened then?  Did you, uh, find this...waxed man?”

Moira didn't appreciate the hidden laughter in his eyes, she would much rather have been home. In bed. Asleep. She couldn't care enough to glare at him though.

“We sat on that stupid roof for about two hours before someone shady came long. They were carrying a large bag, something was inside but I don't know what.” She paused. “Naturally, Figaro wanted to follow them. We lost them at the park.”

Bagnold’s brows were knitted in seeming thought.  “So this bloke was shady because he was carryin’ a huge bag, then?” he asked, his voice mild.  ”Did he do somethin’ in particular to make Figaro think, uh, he had somethin’ to do with his Runespoor quarry?”

“Shit. Sorry, they were hooded acting nervous, large hooded robes, moving fast and constantly looking around. Traced against the museum wall which revealed a hole and they slid the bag in before they left.”

”You get any idea of his height?  He was wearin’ wizarding robes?”  He was watching her a bit more intently now.  ”It was just one man, aye?”

“I think they were. It was impossible to tell anything specific otherwise. There was only one person but I don't even know if it was a man. The robes were very baggy.”