30 March 2012
9:00 am
The Offices of the Minister of Magic
Millicent Bagnold Inquiry Room

Tamzin Ollivander was set up at the head of a long cherrywood table, which was adorned with an intricate inlay of ebony. Heavy scrolls were laid out on the table, others hovered at the ready to read themselves allowed to the blind witch. Tamzin herself wore robes of purple and silver, her long sleeves bound up out of the way showing off jangling bangles up her arms.

Perhaps anyone else would be nervous to be making a presentation to the Minister of Magic on a matter of such terrific import, but Tamzin didn't find nerves useful. She was an Ollivander, after all. She was the daughter of a long line of prestigious witches and wizards. She was the chair of the inquiry and had almost unbridled authority and access so she could be utterly confident in what information she'd acquired.

"Shall we begin?" she asked those gathered, the Minister, his ever-present entourage, Ministry spokeswitch, and a reporter from the Daily Prophet, Niobe Thursby. "I have a lot to cover."

Madam Ollivander had been quick to act once appointed. While the Minister could not strongly influence her lines of investigation once in progress, he had asked Abbott and Holmes to keep silent track of her progress. Despite her lack of physical sight, Tamzin seemed to be managing admirably with the investigation, to Edwin's curiosity. A small panel of balanced experts had been appointed to help her.

While everyone assembled, Edwin held quiet conversation with his undersecretary, Brinely Abbott, their heads close together. It was hard to read exactly what they might be conferring about, short of the Minister consulting his pocketwatch mid sentence.

"Shall we begin?" The chair announced, "I have a lot to cover." The wizards parted and Edwin composed his face from one a sneer like a bad smell had just alighted on his top lip to what might suggest he was feigning interest. He sat centrally in his chair, one hand folded over the other on the tabletop, and fixed his gaze on Ollivander.

"Yes, thank you, Madam Chair." He addressed the room, under the guise of ensuring those lingering conversations ended, though also addressing the unspoken upset of power dynamic. Edwin had rather got accustomed to chairing most meetings he attended in his own Ministry!

This inquiry was yet another thing the Minister had asked Brinley Abbott to handle. Madam Ollivander knew her mind. Brin had assigned Somerville to collect requests. To run them past him for approval before he did them. The Minister wanted to know what Ollivander was up to. To keep one step ahead of the press.

Brin span a kitchen full of plates for Edwin. No complaint. It was his job. But today he needed to be in two places. A political storm was rising in Europe. The magical measles was causing havoc. Foreign reporters had turned up. Thursby was here though. One benefit.

Brinley wrote and folded a red memo. Triplicated it. Let them flutter from his palm. Their paper wings battered angrily on the door until Somerville stood up and let them out. The urgent memos flew so fast Brin saw the hairs on the top of the junior assistant's head part.

"By your leave, Minister," Tamzin said.

"We must begin with the current state of things, sirs. Who are affected by werewolf safe house policies, how many of them there, and where they find themselves. We have consulted several sources to gather this information including the Werewolf Registry, incident reports from both the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes and the Werewolf Capture unit, as well, St. Mungo's Hospital, Azkaban prison, and back issues of the Daily Prophet - their previous accounting of the numbers. Several dozen interviews have also been collected. We have cross-referenced this information with werewolf safehouse ledgers. Allow me to present this data."

She located the first scroll and at her command unfurled itself for the benefit of the sighted, she knew the figures by heart.

"Minister, by our count, there are approximately four thousand known werewolves in Britain and Ireland. This includes those known to the Ministry either by their presence in the Werewolf Registry and those known to be unregistered. We estimate this figure to be eighty percent reliable as information from St. Mungo's is largely anonymous, and accounting for record-keeping errors."

The scratching of quills gave her pause. After a moment or two, she pushed her violet glasses back up her nose and continued.

"Not among this figure are the estimated three hundred unregistered werewolves. We arrived at this number in a variety of ways, sirs. Our primary method was the rate at which the Werewolf Registry added individuals who had been werewolves for quite some time before coming forward. Another method was the rate of capture by the Werewolf Capture of unregistered individuals. Cross referencing with anonymous records from St. Mungo's and muggle reports of werewolf attacks that did not have a corresponding Ministry incident provided additional context."

Tamzin again paused, then prompted a response from the room. "Questions so far?"

Ollivander began, sketching out the lay of the land and her sources for. Edwin gave her undivided attention, his brown eyes seemingly calm despite the business behind them. His brows and jowls threw shadow on his features to bestow suitably formal expression.

“Minister,” the respected lady addressed him, “by our count, there are approximately four thousand known werewolves in Britain and Ireland.” He kept his expression as neutral as one could, though his eyes momentarily sent their gaze upwards to check the figure against the one held in his memory. “This includes … those known to be unregistered… estimated three hundred…” His lips pressed into a line at the suggestion of unregistered werewolves numbering larger than the estimations he had received on taking office.

“Questions so far?”

“The estimate of unregistered werewolves,” Edwin posed, “eighty-percent reliable, too?” He doubted it was anywhere near as reliable, given the need to extrapolate the data. The inquiry would need to be able to suggest worse case and best case scenarios to get a true picture - as was the purpose of it. However, in terms of saving face the Ministry didn’t want the unregistered figure to be reported as too high, as it looked terrible. Not unless they could report it had been rapidly reduced soon after!

Tamzin smiled ruefully. "No, quite not. It was..."

Tamzin Ollivander hesitated a moment, showing a rare moment of being unsure. She began again. "It is a very flexible number. There are things we just couldn't quantify from the data. For example, it's hard to tell why werewolves do not register, or why they wait several years to do so. We can't rely too heavily on unattributed werewolf attacks, either of course. They are extremely rare, thank Merlin."

It had been a very strange few weeks. Tamzin Ollivander had not been an expert on werewolves before, and had little experience with official research. But as with anything she did, she'd taken learning the task very seriously, accepting as much help as she could in order to get fluently up to speed. She and the ministry archivist were now good chums, and while her old friend Athena Marrowbone at St. Mungo's had been careful to say very little, she'd been immensely informative about process and rhetoricals.

It was all very sudden and grim. Tamzin had struggled nights with having a door in her mind thrown open and her house, her heart, suddenly assaulted with a cold wind she didn't even know was there - the complexities and challenges of life as a werewolf.

"We've struggled to make inroads at Azkaban where I think we could gain more insight into that hidden demographic. Either their record-keeping is worm-eaten or there is some hidden fear on their part of sharing all they know. We've also yet to address another source of insight: the underground community. As I'm sure you're aware, someone has to be making all that extra Wolfsbane. And a safe house is not an easy thing to make properly."

She folded her hands in front of her purply robes. "And of course, we'll need to talk to as many werewolves, both known and unknown, as possible."

"It sounds as if you have your work cut out for you Madam Ollivander." Said Brinley. Respectful. "I can have a word in the ear of the Azkaban Head Warden. They are an old friend." Azkaban should not be impeding an inquiry. But criminals were obstructive. "The wolfsbane investigation is ongoing." Brinley tugged his shirt cuffs. "But not a priority." Loose werewolves at full moon were. And vampires. And wixes breaking statute. If someone made wolfsbane and it worked then there was not so much problem. "Unless direwolves resurface."

“… Unless direwolves resurface.”

What a thought… Edwin felt he had just the right amount of chaos in the world to deal with right now, without that adding to it.

Edwin looked from his reliable, sensible Senior Undersecretary, back to Ollivander and the others. He glanced to Niobe Thursby’s quill, wishing Abbott hadn’t brought up that word, as it would quite possibly make the papers…

“Might I caution the panel that this is an inquiry into past failings, rather than a live investigation?” He asked softly, as if distilling wise guidance, though it was more that he didn’t want Ollivander sticking her nose in anywhere more than necessary. The longer this inquiry went on, the more money it cost and the bigger the perceived failings of the Ministry would be.

“You will have all the administrative support Abbott can lend, of course,” he placated, gesturing towards Ollivander with a hand, not that she would see the motion, but it was only natural. “Though let us not lose sight of the focus on the integrity of the werewolf safe house system.” He addressed his final comment to the room with a heavier tone, asserting his status as Minister.

Niobe made a disarming gesture taking the Minister of Magic's reminder of the nature of the inquiry to be aimed at her.

Tamzin as well acknowledged the reminder. "Of course, Minister."

She moved her wand and her materials did a bit of choreography to set themselves in a new order.

"Once we established a working estimate of the werewolf population, we pursued an accounting of all safehouses. Safe house records are spread out over two offices and there are four classifications, if you'll allow me."

The white-haired witch in violet explained that some safe houses are run by the Ministry and some were personal safehouse mere permitted and overseen by the Ministry, and that the Werewolf Wing inherited this work from the Beast Division once it separated. The Werewolf Capture Unit is currently, Tamzin explained, responsible for routine inspections of the personal safehouses, but Magical Accidents and Catastrophes assists with initial permitting. Azkaban has its own facilities which are run separately.

Tamzin also went over the capacity of the Ministry's safe houses, their locations, and their traffic. She couldn't avoid a hitch in her rhythm when she arrived at the one in Dumpriesshire and its two staff and fourteen rooms. She also had numbers for the personal safe-houses. Most of those were single-occupant, but there was one in Ottery St. Catchpole that was a sort of coop between a few nearby families.

"At this point I can say that capacity is not an issue," she said in summation. "There is enough room for everyone on a full moon night."

"With respect Madam Ollivander." Brinley raised a hand to interrupt. "Only if the Ministry houses are fully staffed." There was a bit of a difficulty recruiting suitable chaperones for some of the safe houses since the incident. They were not in the business of increasing capacity. There should be fewer werewolves as time went on. Safe houses would reduce the chance of anyone biting or being bitten.

The Minister tapped the table between him and Abbott and gave a faint smile to his Senior Undersecretary, which didn’t reach his eyes. He did not wish to prolong this hearing this morning, nor pull fault just yet. The deeper she looked the worse the Ministry could come out looking, after all.

“A problem we can fix in time, I am confident.” Edwin spoke quietly, keeping Niobe Thursby in his peripheral vision. “Thank you Madam Ollivander, enlightening. Much to consider already as your inquiry progresses. Your attention to detail and dedication is appreciated by the Ministry.”

There would be much more of it to come.

End