Outside Figaro Sellaphix's flat
East London
A little after 6 pm

It had been raining heavily ever since he'd left work.  Falling water beat a steady rhythm against the street, pooling in puddles and sending up the warm, dusty smell of wet asphalt. 

Figaro Sellaphix lived in a Muggle area of East London.  Kurby had never been to the kid's flat before, but he'd seen the address once on a bulletin board in Zelda's kitchen, back when the witch had been stuck in St. Mungo's and he'd been a regular visitor to her home.  He'd written it down just in case he'd needed to get ahold of his friends mildly-irresponsible son in a hurry.  Little had he suspected back then that the resulting emergency would have nothing to do with Zelda's health, and everything to do with Figaro's lack of responsibility.

Kurby had left the Ministry a little bit after five.  Even in the rain, the street here had enough activity that he'd had to find an out-of-the-way corner to keep watch.  He'd staked out a shadowy doorway across the road from the converted warehouse where Figaro lived, far enough away from the street so that he could stay dry as the occasional Muggle automobile drove by through a puddle and sent a wave of water crashing over the pavement.  It had been a long day in the middle of a very long week, so after a few minutes, the werewolf hunter had found a place to sit on the stoop under an overhang, where he could stay dry and observe as other residents returned home. 

The only other consistent company was a large black bird, which had found him soon after he'd arrived.  The avian seemed determined to glare at him until he left, despite his half-hearted efforts to scare it away.

CAW!

Something dropped onto the pavement next to him that was definitely not water.  Kurby jerked back, startled.  Realizing what had happened, he rolled his eyes and began searched the ground for a small rock.  Finding one, he chucked it at the black bird with feeling.

CAW!  CAW!

The stupid bird seemed to be lining up for another shot when suddenly it stopped, its head twisting to peer up at the dark sky.  Abruptly, it launched itself into the air, black wings flapping furiously as it took off towards the roof of the converted warehouse.

Kurby sent another rock flying after it -- all the better to ensure that the feathered monster didn't come back -- when he spotted another, much larger dark shape flying overhead toward the roof of the building.  Silently, he studied it for a moment, squinting through the rain as the shape seemed to come in for a landing.  Much too large to be another bird, and he doubted that there were all that many wixes who dealt with the headache of commuting by broomstick.

Slowly rising to his feet, moving carefully to avoid the soreness that he'd earned from the past weekend, he grabbed his wand and vanished from the doorway with a crack.

He reappeared an instant later with a second crack, just a few yards behind a stocky, taller figure with a broomstick, who looked to be about the right size and shape to be Figaro Sellaphix.

"Not the best weather for travelin' by broom," Kurby remarked evenly.  He tucked his wand away, slipping his hands into the pockets of his cloak.  "You should try apparition next time."

Figaro lit off his broom at a trot, be-goggled and wearing a black poncho. He didn't notice anyone standing in the roof in the dark until he was peeling off his goggles.

"Shit!" He about jumped. He looked annoyed with Kurby, but it was more that he'd been uncharacteristically jumpy for the past few days. He'd been trying not to think about it,[1] which wasn't easy. An incident that couldn't be a coincidence had hit the papers.

"Oh, hur," he said in a slightly goofy mocking tone. "You think? I had no idea we could do that." Figaro wouldn't ever say he got Apparition sickness but it wasn't the most comfortable of magic for him. But mostly he just liked flying. Cleared his head.

He passed Kurby to the small rooftop door that would lead directly down to the fifth floor where Figaro lived. He hadn't seen Kurby since his mum was sick; they'd both been scarce, busy with work presumably. Figaro had been hard at it at the Daily Prophet. He probably worked more hours than he was paid for. It was just fun to be around people and know what was going on in the world - leaving work made him feel like he could miss out on something. The only real downside to things outside of Hogwarts was that it was harder to track down friends for a laugh. Seeing Kurby reminded him he probably ought to spend more time with his family. It was only fifteen minutes by broom.

"You alright then," he greeted properly.

1.	Moira and Fig's encounter with a werewolf in Dec 10 - Something from Nothing

It was striking how different Figaro was from Moira McBoid.  The wolf girl had shown up to the meeting at the Ministry alert and attentive, with her practiced story prepared to relay.  Kurby could easily believe that she’d gone into the full moon thinking that Fig would end up dead if she wasn’t there to magic him out of trouble, ill-advised as the attempt might be.  Figaro sometimes seemed as if he wasn’t thinking even two seconds ahead in a conversation, as if his decisions and actions were as startling to him as they were to everyone else around him.

He certainly didn’t get it from his parents.  Both Zelda and Rafe were sharper than a knife’s edge, even if Rafe shared his eldest son’s gregarious nature.  Aside from trusting Nathan Briggs, he’d never known either of them to take a stupid risk.  They’d probably murder Figaro without question if they found out he was gallivanting about looking for Runespoors on a full moon.

Kurby raised his eyebrows at Figaro’s greeting, falling into step behind the kid to follow him inside out of the rain.  He wasn’t alright, and probably looked it.  The werewolf hunter hadn’t bothered to shave since a few days before the lunar apex, and his usual scruffy appearance was well on its way to a full-fledged beard.  Most full moons left him feeling drained for a few days afterwards, particularly since they’d had to shift from a twelve-hour watch to one that lasted for nearly three days, but between the misadventure at Grimshaw’s on Friday night and the ambush late on Saturday, this one had felt especiallly exhausting.

He shrugged off the hood of his cloak as he stepped inside, using his wand to vanish the last of the raindrops.  He assumed he didn’t need to give the kid any explanation — if Figaro couldn’t deduce that he’d come here to talk and reason through the fact that they’d need a private space to do so, then Merlin help him.

When Kurby didn't respond, Figaro glanced behind him. In the light of the stairs' corridor Fig could see that Kurby looked more run-down than usual and looked, frankly, pissed off. His stomach sank as they made it the rest of the way and he unlocked his door. He should suspect that this was about the werewolf in the park, but Kurby couldn't know that Figaro was involved. Moira had promised. He pushed down the anxiety. She'd promised. His futile, empty, fantastical, wishful thought was that this could just be about Christmas. Or something. Shit, Kurby had never spoken to him about work, so why should that change?

The flat was small and little chilly. Figaro shucked his cloak and goggles to a hook behind the door and leaned the broom in a corner. He channeled his nerves into chattiness as he made a ceremonial effort to tidy up. He cleared the clothes off of his only chair and nodded to Kurby that he could take it.

"You heard Rafe got out? I just walk in one day and he's just here. Cried like a baby,"[1] Figaro said. "You and him starting a new tradition, ambushing Figaro in his flat. Bollocks, I'm knackered."

He sighed and moved to the kitchen corner, "You want coffee?"

1.	Nov 21 You Might Have Noticed Some Things Have Changed

Figaro’s flat was small and nearly as cold as the street had been outside.  Kurby had waited, arms crossed and expression neutral, as the kid began to bustle about.  Figaro cleared off his lone chair and nodded for him to take it, but the werewolf hunter remained silently standing.

The mention of Rafe made Kurby’s jaw tighten.  He knew his friend had gotten out of Azkaban, but with all of the preparations for the full moon and everything with Gen, he hadn’t managed to find time to go and see him yet.  But that connection had nearly been the most infuriating part of Moira McBoid’s tale, second only to the inexplicable half an hour that the two teens had waited before sending word that they’d seen a werewolf loose in London.  Figaro’s dad had only just been released after spending three years in Azkaban for trading in Runespoor venom.  And yet somehow in his unaccountable wisdom, Figaro Sellaphix had decided that it was a good idea to go running off and get mixed up in that goddamned mess all over again.

“No.”  His voice was low, verging on the edge of dangerous.  He looked directly at Figaro, meeting the kid’s gaze.  “I want to know what the hell happened on Saturday night.”

Kurby locked eyes with Figaro, and the young wizard sobered. Just as he was leaning on the counter, the tension ruptured. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and put his hand over his mouth. But it didn't keep himself quiet for long.

"Fff..." he bit off a vulgarity. "She told you. She f -" He ended his sentence in a barely audible whisper. She'd promised.

Figaro put his hands behind him on the counter and shrugged. He was defiant.

"Well, I wasn't home knitting, was I?"

Kurby clearly already knew, or at least part of it. He'd never seen Kurby this mad and it was frankly bordering on scary. Back in the day Kurby had been protective but never a third parent. The worst he ever had for Fig and Frankie was a sharp word to knock-it-off or show more respect for their mother. But this was different. But more than the shit he was about to get into with Kurby, that feeling in the back of his skull was anger and disappointment and surprise and how-could-she-do-this.

This idiot kid.  Figaro’s initial reaction was focused on the fact that Moira had apparently ratted him out, which suddenly made Kurby half-wonder what the hell had happened in that half-hour between them arriving back at the McBoid farm and the girl’s patronus.   

Kurby half wanted to slug him, to knock some goddamned sense into him about what he’d half-wittingly managed to do.  People had died.  He or Blake or one of the others could have died, if they hadn’t been both downright paranoid and incredibly bleeding lucky.  But all that Figaro Sellaphix seemed to care about was the fact that his not-girlfriend hadn’t taken the goddamned blame all on her own.

“So you were hopin’ I’d bite off McBoid’s head and leave you be, then?” he fired back at Figaro, each word icy.  “Let her take the hit for it all?”

The wolf girl, for all that she was intensely stubborn and seemed to think she knew better than her teenaged years allowed, at least had faced her fate head on when he’d commanded her to come to the Ministry.  This punk kid hadn’t even stood by his friend.

“No, you were out like a goddamned idiot dancin’ around after Runespoors on the same night as a full moon,” Kurby snapped at him, his eyes narrowing.  “You don’t have any bleedin’ idea what happened because of you, do you?”

"What are you talking about!" Figaro blurted. Kurby was making it sound like Moira got in trouble, which made no sense. They'd done nothing illegal, they were fine, and they'd reported it.

But why the hell did Moira tell Kurby about the Runespoors? Did she tell him everything, bloody hell! Moira's werewolf report had absolutely nothing to do with his supposedly clandestine investigation, and no one made her go with him. And why was he hearing about this from Kurby. She snitched on him; the least she could do was drop him a sodding owl.

He crossed his arms and seethed.

"There wasn't any hit to take. We're fine, by the way. And honestly what I do is none of your bloody business. You just roll in here and crawl up my arse. Some kind of bullshit, Kurby."

He flipped his hand in the air, scowling. Fig was conscious of how rare he lost his temper and he wore it badly, like an ill-fit suit.

“It’s my bloody business now!” the werewolf hunter shot back, his voice rising.

If it hadn’t been for Zelda and Rafe, he would have grabbed Figaro by the ear and just dragged the damn kid all the way to the Ministry holding cells, and to hell with Cinaed Tawse.  Kurby gritted his teeth angrily.  This idiot kid was acting like he’d gone off and had a grand adventure on a lark, like the fact that he’d graduated from Hogwarts six months prior meant he suddenly answered to nothing and no one in society.

That wasn’t the way the world worked.  Every goddamned action had consequences, and most of them had consequences that were for other people.  But despite what his family had been through when Rafe was arrested, Figaro seemed to have no bleeding clue.

“Three. People. Died.” Kurby forced each word out, barbed and white-hot.  He set his jaw, dark eyes locked on Figaro. “So I need to know exactly how you ended up on that bleedin’ street at one in the morning and got led along to a werewolf.  Startin’ with whatever the hell tip you found and dug out of the Prophet’s rubbish.”

Figaro was stunned silent. He barely heard anything after 'three people died'. The implication was clear: the werewolf had killed three people.  The werewolf that had nearly killed him and Moira. He searched Kurby's face for some hint that he might be exaggerating, some clue that it wasn't true. But no. He was livid, and under it anguish. It was all over his face.

Figaro moved away from the counter trying to think. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that was all. The chances of getting attacked by a werewolf were almost zero. What was Kurby trying to say? That he had caused this somehow? It didn't make sense. The encounter had lasted seconds. Moira'd sent her Patronus. The Runespoor ting had nothing to do with it. It was a coincidence. His breathing was picking up and his ears were ringing.

Without a word, he grabbed his broom and exited to the hallway.

Figaro had shut up, looking dumbfounded.  He turned away, seeming dazed.  Kurby ground his teeth, giving him a moment to think — except then Figaro suddenly grabbed his broom and made a break for the door.

The hell?  This entire week had only solidified the fact that he was never having children.  Kurby let out a snarl, hurrying for the door after the kid.

“If you run the hell away from here now, you’re goin’ to have to answer the same goddamned questions back at the Ministry!” he snapped after Figaro.  He kept one hand on the door and a foot in the doorway; if the teenager was going to be stupid and bolt, at least he’d be bolting to leave him alone in his flat.  “Are you really going to bleedin’ make me drag you in there?”

It had been stupid to try and leave. He knew it even before Kurby reacted, but he'd already started. First Raine and now Kurby, coming into his place and demanding answers about events that had nothing to do with him. Everyone knew how the Raine thing had turned out, stretching on for days.

"You're threatening me. Are you serious?" Figaro turned. His face was all about betrayal. Betrayal by Moira and now Kurby - Kurby - was really going to take him in. He had half a mind to make him. He'd pulled the same thing back in school, pushing bullies to their limits and just taking the beating rather than let them make ultimatums. He wanted to dare Kurby to do it. Call the bluff. Figaro knew he'd be sorry, then.

But it wasn't worth it. He shrugged, looked up to the ceiling and blinked hard. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. He came back to the flat, bumping Kurby roughly in the shoulder on his way in. It was only then that Figaro noticed he'd grown taller than his old friend. He chucked the broom against the cold fireplace and sat on his bed.

"You can't put this on us," he said then, almost pleading.

Figaro stopped walking, but the look of pure, aggrieved pain on his face and the anguished retort were the second most teenaged thing that Kurby had witnessed today, save for McBoid's recounting of picking up snacks from Fig's parents' home for their stakeout.  Kurby gritted his teeth, mustering every ounce of self-control that he could not to snarl back at him.  Yes, he was goddamned serious.  He had a job to do, and he'd haul his own mother in to the Ministry without a second thought if it meant  even the slightest improvement in the odds that he could keep people safe. 

Except...he could already imagine the cold look on Zelda Sellaphix's face if he had to tell her he'd turned her eldest son over to the Aurors.  Of what Rafe might roar at him, the betrayal too fresh after he'd only just been released from Azkaban.

The teenager seemed to deflate a little, although he knocked him solidly with his shoulder as he returned to his flat.  Rolling his eyes, Kurby swung a fist at the door frame in frustration as he turned and followed him. 

He yanked the door shut hard behind him, letting it slam solidly into place so that it left the entire flat vibrating a little.  Personal relationships complicated everything.  The Sellaphix family were some of the very few wixes that he counted on as friends.  He wasn't sure if he was willing to sacrifice that, even for this; wasn't sure if he wanted to be willing to sacrifice it.

Figaro had tossed his broom away and dropped to sit on his bed.  Kurby glowered at him for a moment, his jaw set.  Silently, he grabbed the chair that Figaro had offered him earlier and swung it around, sitting on it backwards so that he could cross his arms and rest them on top of the backrest.

It took him a moment to swallow, to try and get his temper under control so that everything didn't automatically come out at a shout.

"Fig, I need to know what the hell happened."  That was it.  His voice was still tight, but he fought to keep the words even, tried not to growl at the kid again.  "McBoid said you found some sort of tip about Runespoors.  Do you still have it?"

"McBoid said..." Figaro mumbled. He didn't understand how Moira had gone from a report of a werewolf to spilling her guts about the Runespoor thing. It wasn't pertinent. Kurby was still glaring at him from the chair, sitting in it backwards like he was The Cool Teacher leveling with him. Yea, Figaro didn't like this side of Kurby at all. He wondered if he'd always secretly been a dick. If he'd talked to Moira, what had he threatened her with?

His coat was draped on the bedframe, it was easy for him to reach over and root through the pockets. He pulled out three items. A badly crumpled Daily Prophet clipping, a sharply folded note paper, and the dog-eared business card of Talisha Crowe, attorney. The first two he handed to Kurby. They were what he'd shown Moira. The business card he kept, absently running his finger along the fuzzing egde.

Runespoors Wash Up on Thames
by Niobe Thursby

04 November 2011

In the early morning of the 2nd of November, the remains of seven dead Runespoor serpents were found on the shores of the Thames in East London.

According to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, the serpents had been dead at most a fortnight, although the conditions in the river make it difficult to determine exactly how long ago.

"Regardless of how the public might feel about Runespoors," commented Balfour Spectre, head of Beasts Division, "we must bear in mind that the mistreatment of creatures is strictly illegal and inhumane."

The appearance of these Runespoor carcasses is a reminder that the illegal trade in Runespoors and Runespoor parts is still active in the black market. An interdepartmental effort ending in 2008 nearly put an end to most trade and resulted in multiple convictions. But by 2010, Runespoors began to again make an appearance in underground circles.

At time of publication, the origins of the Thames Runespoors are unknown.

to who^M it may disturb:
^Only _the ^Ri_ght^Eou^S e^Nj_oy ^Anat_hema's ^Kn_av^ES. ^Forever pa^INe^D, e^Ternally ^Hat^Ed.
^Wh^Atsover ve^XEs _the vexe^D: t_urn _back, o_h ^MAN.

"We get tips all the time. People see a story, send in crazy shit," he said. "I catch owls sometimes. But this doesn't have anything to do with the werewolf, and I can't - no one - no one else can find out I was digging into that. I didn't do anything illegal or anything but if my mom finds out or Cuffe or anyone in the MLE I'm proper screwed."

Fig trying to stay calm but the urgency was in his voice. He looked down at the card in his hand. He didn't know what Kurby's obligations were here, if the Werewolf Unit had to advise the MLE on stuff like this.

"Are you going to report me to MLE?"

Figaro dug through the pockets of his coat, and then passed him two slips of paper.  Kurby read through the Daily Prophet clipping silently.  Thursby, the reporter credited with the byline, had been a year ahead of him in Gryffindor.  Balfour Spectre was also quoted.   

Overall, it didn't seem very relevant, but at least it filled in one of the holes in Moira McBoid's story from earlier -- the mention of Runespoors found along the Thames explained why she and Figaro had gone there first on their adventure.

The second note was more puzzling.  Kurby's brows knitted as he read over it once, and then once again.  The uneven letters, the perplexing message -- it seemed like the sort of code someone would put together to purposely get a message across. 

W-A-XE-D MAN.  That might explain the visit to the Muggle wax museum near Regent's Park, too.

He'd only been half-listening to Figaro, but the kid's last question made him look up.  Kurby studied him silently for a moment, his expression unreadable.  Figaro had only obeyed after he'd threatened to drag him into the Ministry.  For all he knew, putting a Taboo curse on that option was only going to make the kid refuse to cooperate again.

"No," he said after a beat, shaking his head.  He glanced down at the note again.  "Was this addressed to you?" he asked, raising it to examine the paper more closely.  "D'you know when it came in?"