It was approaching the lunch hour and Harper had just come out of a negotiation for one of her less heavy cases; anything that didn't involve having to go to trial was considered a light one. All the same, she was dressed formally for the occasion and was startled to catch her own reflection in the glass of a door she had pushed open to enter the Werewolf Wing.

She suspected she looked a lot like her mother, with red hair pinned back in a neat bun and face made up to appear professional. The last time she had been on four[1] it was to check on Greer, and Harper had been dressed up in a very different way.

At least she wasn't surrounded by a cloud of perfume again. Her pace today wasn't quite as hurried as on transformation night - she stopped to show credentials and allow herself to be directed, and eventually found her way to the office for the head of the Capture Unit. Harper knocked on the door firmly before pushing it open.

"Hey," the witch peered in, leaning against the door frame as she crossed her arms. "Not interrupting am I? Thought I'd drop in to ask about your penmanship."

She was smiling a little as she said this - not that news of the Spectre boy receiving another package had been welcome. It worried her tremendously but Harper rarely brooded over worries.

1.	9th Jan - Never Trust a Monday

After the relative calm of February's full moon, it was as if the Werewolf Capture Unit had finally had a chance to catch their collective breaths.  Gervais Bellingham had been in Kurby's office for most of the morning, but there was only so much business that they had to discuss.  For the past hour, the conversation had dissolved into something closer to the old days, with the sort of easy banter and camaraderie that they never seemed to have time for these days.

It was very nearly lunch, which would have been their cue to break anyway, when there was a knock at the door and the distinctively red-headed defense attorney stuck her head in.  Kurby blinked, nearly giving a double-take as he glanced over at her.  Even on a day like this, when his team were all in the magical equivalent of street clothes instead of the silver mail and leather that marked a full moon patrol, Harper Graves' elegant attire made him feel distinctly out of place.  How the hell did she always look so professional?  It didn't help that he'd barely remembered to shave in the past week, a fact that he now felt uncharacteristically aware of.

"Well, if it's about penmanship..." he started, returning the defense attorney's smile.  "Naw, come in.  We were about to break for lunch."

Bellingham looked straight at him -- his old teammate would have hardly forgotten the fashionably-dressed witch who had interrupted them during the werewolf check-in process back in January -- but he rose to his feet nonetheless. 

"I'll try and catch Bruce after lunch," the older wizard said dryly, gathering up the parchments that he'd brought with him.  With a nod to Kurby, Bellingham headed for the door into the main WCU office, glancing briefly at Harper as he brushed by.

His teammate's departure, however gracefully timed, meant that he was left all alone in the tiny broom-closet-like office with the defense attorney, who was dressed as if she were ready for lunch with the Minister rather than making small talk on Level Four. Kurby started to stand to greet her, decided halfway through that that was a bad idea, and lowered himself to sit uncomfortably again.  He settled for gesturing awkwardly at the chair that Bellingham had just vacated.

"I have to say, I reckon it's been a few years since I've had a rousin' critique of my penmanship," he quipped as he recovered, flashing the defense attorney a swift grin. "Is this a new service that you lot are offerin' on Level Two?"

Harper, who had been raised in the kind of Manhattanite world where men still got up when ladies entered a room, did not think twice when Kurby's company rose to leave. She spared the other wizard the pretence of a glance before approaching the desk with a cursory look. It was nice... it felt worked in. A shocking number of Ministry people had pompous offices that hid their true goings-on. Glass, for example.

Even thinking about the treasonous Minister of Magic set Harper on edge so she tried to push the thought away. She was here about something else, anyway, and it was better to focus on one thing at a time.

            "...service that you lot are offerin' on Level Two?"

"You'd be surprised how many legal quandaries arise from bad penmanship," the witch remarked in a light voice as she took the offered seat and crossed her legs comfortably. "Although I don't think you're at risk of that anytime soon."

Harper allowed for a beat, the briefest of pauses to consider Kurby. She did this with the same expression you might use to examine a glass of wine poured by a sommelier who had just told you to let the vintage breathe for a moment. Jumping right into a subject wasn't always the best approach to take.

"Thank you for your note," she leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms, the points of her elbows cradled. "I appreciated the warning. There's been no bad news on my end so far. Not with me or regarding Greer."

Another pause, this time her eyes were searching Kurby's face more openly. "Am I breaking policy by asking if there's been any progress or clues at your end, since? I haven't heard anything on two."

The red-haired defense attorney crossed the small office, seemingly not noticing his awkwardness as she took the recently-vacated chair across from him.  She regarded him watchfully for a moment, which made Kurby shift position slightly, his brows knitting.  It was sometimes hard to shake the feeling lately that everyone had come to deliver bad news.

But Harper, at least, had the opposite to share.  Kurby straightened slightly in his chair, his shoulders relaxing, and crossed his arms, his posture mimicking hers.  He'd trusted that Fauna Blake would have returned his favor and let him know if there was any related news to Feliks Spectre's mysterious gift, but it was still relieving to hear that nothing else had happened.  At least their macabre gift-giver appeared to have retreated from inflicting outright terror for the moment.

The defense attorney paused again, still regarding him.  "Am I breaking policy by asking if there's been any progress or clues at your end, since?" she asked.  "I haven't heard anything on two."

Raising his eyebrows, Kurby considered this for a moment, and then gave a pragmatic shrug.  After the events of the past six weeks, he was tired of dealing with the tediousness of Level Two's policies.  Harper had been the recipient of another gift that seemed likely to be connected.  She deserved to know the details, whether or not anyone in red robes thought it was appropriate to tell her.

"Just the bit on Sunday," he replied matter-of-factly.  "Balfour Spectre dropped in and caught me just before I was headin' home for the night." 

Briefly, he relayed the series of events as he knew them: the mysterious package that had been delivered to Balfour's son Feliks; Feliks' quick report to the Headmaster's office; the signed testimony that had been witnessed by Greyfriar and the boy's father.

Reaching the end of the recounting, he paused, regarding Harper much as she had done to him a few moments before.  She'd said she hadn't heard anything from Two, although he knew that she had a knack for finding out more than she was probably meant to.  If she didn't already know, he wasn't quite certain how to describe the gift without diving straight to its morbid contents.

"It was a pair of gloves," he said after a beat, feeling his way along each word cautiously.  "Made, uh, from werewolf paws, and treated so they'd stay transformed."  He hesitated for a half a second, dark eyes meeting hers, and then shrugged again. "I haven't heard from the Aurors for sure, but it looked to me like they matched Richard Dunnigan's pelt."

Kurby caught her up on the details of the latest package - she listened attentively, her gaze somewhere between politeness and rumination. In her mind she was trying to put everything together, trying to lay it all on the same plate to see what the incidents had in common. It wasn't easy. She was sure that it must be blindingly obvious from someone's perspective but certainly not from theirs.

The witch roused from these thoughts, sensing the pause in their conversation. Kurby was watching her but she met his eyes levelly. What was he like when he was out with the capture unit?

From her meetings with him, he came across as contemplative and critical. Emotionally invested, gruff, not without humour. But not fast. And you had to be fast to win your life against a werewolf, didn't you? In thought and body. So he must be different in the field - like that afternoon she had bumped into him whilst visiting Greer.

            "It was a pair of gloves..."

A look of disgust crossed Harper's face and she did nothing to hide it. "I saw them," she confessed in a halting voice before giving herself a moment to close her eyes.

The first thing she had thought of when she saw those gloves was Greer's small hands. Harper knew that werewolf gloves existed - she knew in general about werewolf taxidermy but it took seeing those gloves to understand that they might as well be human. They signified the remains of a human, after all.

"Sorry," she pinched the bridge of her nose and opened her eyes. "I can't understand this person, targeting kids." Harper moved on without explaining her earlier pause. "They're so far removed from what happens outside of Hogwarts - and where is the connection? I don't think Greer even talks to Spectre's boy. If there's a red herring, how are we supposed to know which one it is?"

She sighed, and then suddenly shot Kurby and apologetic smile. "I don't mean to ask you these questions. They're more like... paper boats sent out to sea." Harper reached behind her head to undo her knot of hair, as if it was bothering her. "Maybe one of them will come back with an answer."

He'd realized already that Harper had a knack for getting herself invited into the sharing of whatever information she felt like she needed to know. It didn't bother Kurby; as far as he could tell, that was part of what made her such an effective defense attorney.

Still, he couldn't help but cock an eyebrow at her when she revealed that she'd already seen the gloves. For all that Level Two refused to share information with other floors due to claims of confidentiality, they sure as hell didn't seem to have a problem with letting anyone with any sort of MLE clearance poke around their files or their evidence room. Maybe he should have been asking Harper to get him the Almasy case files instead of Balfour Spectre.

He wasn't about to press that now, though, when he could see the strain that the events had placed on the empathetic defense attorney. Even now, she interrupted her introspection, giving him a smile by way of apology as she began to fuss absently with her hair.

The werewolf hunter paused, head tilted slightly to the side. Harper hadn't come here to listen to him spin conspiracy theories. The defense attorney, with her stylish elegance and easy access to the seats of Ministry power, seemed eminently out of the league of a low-level team that obsessed over werewolves and tromped around in silver and leather. She was just politely checking in after he'd sent her the warning on Sunday.

Even so...

"I dunno," he said after a beat. "I'm startin' to think the connection might be with the Spectre kid after all." He gave a shrug, raising and dropping one shoulder. "If nothin' else, there's one with his mother."

She brushed through her hair with her fingers, sweeping red locks behind her shoulders. Kurby surprised her with his statement - maybe she was too used to level two, where nobody liked to commit to a thought around lawyers. As if she would cross examine them about it later.

            "...he connection might be with the Spectre kid... there's one with his mother."

"That makes him ripe as a red herring though, doesn't it?" she leaned back in the seat, crossing her legs casually as she fiddled with her elastic hair tie. "Because of the Witch Weekly[1] article. Or that could be just what they want us to think, so I guess your point stands..."

Harper pulled a face. Any logical deduction that led her to Spectre was always undercut by the publicity of that whole thing; maybe she should be talking to Lil Snigger about her sources. The truth, however, was that Kurby's gut instinct served as good a hint as any deduction. They just didn't have enough information.

What if he was right, and poor Greer was getting caught up in all this? That made her angry.

"Let's suppose the kid is the connection," she spoke slowly, eyes on the werewolf hunter. "Someone is trying to get at him by... by killing werewolves. Harassing them. But what's the purpose? What's the endgame here?"

The witch realised she was just throwing out more questions, and relaxed the furrow in her brow by smiling sheepishly at Kurby. "I deal so much with criminal motivations, it's what I default to when I get a chance to look at ongoing investigations. There has to be a motivation, right?" Harper gestured frustratedly.

"Or else it's literal madness," she dropped her hand and looped the hair tie around her wrist.

1.	24th Sept 2011 - Secret Lovechild of a Murderess

As friendly as she was so much of the time, there were also moments where it became obvious that Harper was an attorney. Her steady, unrelenting progression of questions made him appreciate that the one time he'd had to sit opposite her in front of the Wizengamot, at least he hadn't been a hostile witness. Where he might be quick to follow his instincts, she liked to dig at inconsistencies. It was enough to make the werewolf hunter feel like his head was spinning a little, especially when it happened at the time that he'd planned to take lunch.

He paused, taking a moment to mentally parse through what she'd said.

"Maybe I spend too much time thinkin' about werewolves," Kurby said, with a hint of a quick, self-deprecating smile, "but I guess the motivation bit seemed obvious to me."

He gave another half shrug, his expression fading back to a more sober consideration.  "It seems personal, doesn't it?" he asked, brows knitting slightly. "With Tawse, the direwolves are all about power. It's a bit like Voldemort and Greyback's pack back during the wars, when he just used 'em as weapons. But all of this mess..."

The silver handcuffs. The gloves. The warning, which had been delivered once to Figaro, again in the Daily Prophet flyers, and a third time in the lift. Kurby grimaced. Everything that had happened to the Dunnigan brothers, too. That might have been intended to inflict terror, but it had also been too personal.

That was why the scene at the Dumfriesshire safehouse had rattled him so badly, even before he and Bruce had found Alec Carter dead. He knew what it took to kill a werewolf in close quarters, especially for a hunter who knew what he or she was doing. Whoever had murdered the two brothers had taken their time. If they hadn't taken joy in the inflicted cruelty, then they'd faced down the monsters as a form of self-flagellation.

"The book's the bit that really gets me," Kurby admitted, dark eyes flicking back to meet the American witch's gaze. "If it's for real and not just somethin' that somebody picked up in a secondhand shop, then someone must've taken it from Hogwarts back when they were a kid in the '80s and kept it all this time. You don't do that unless it's personal." He shook his head emphatically, clear on this point. "Nobody stays focused on werewolves for that much of their life unless they've lost somebody to one early on, or had one in the family."