31 August 2012
Friday after lunch
Day of the blue moon
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures

Cousins Zeta and Ambrose Pepper, for differing reasons, had decided that the best way forward was for Zeta to see for herself. After a summer of holidays, garden parties, trips to London, secret hip tattoos, and general procrastination, Ambrose had finally agreed to take her in.

"Calm down, Am, I am not going to get you sacked," Zeta said as she adjusted her intricately plaited red hair. She had it done up in a crown with white clips. Her earrings were large crescents, not unlike a waning moon. She wore a hip-length olive green jacket with epaulets on the shoulders. She'd chosen a crop top in navy so that a tiny tattoo high on her right hip occasionally peeked out over her trousers, a Greek lowercase zeta. (She was seventeen, her body her rules.)

"Just say it's Take Your Cousin to Work Day. Balfour won't care."

They were here to satisfy Zeta's curiosity and concern. Last year had been a wild ride for the student werewolf rights group that Zeta had taken over leading, and a really difficult time for the two young werewolf students the club was trying to advocate for. Even back before Lucinda had allegedly run away during the spring holiday, Zeta had started to feel gross over her own ignorance. She truly didn't understand what it was like to be a werewolf and staying holed up at school wasn't going to change that. She'd asked Ambrose to check things out for her[1] but his hesitating descriptions wouldn't be as informative as a first-hand experience.

Zeta was nervous that what she'd see would be upsetting or getting carried away and causing trouble for SAWS and for Ambrose. She hid these anxieties with bravado.

1.	17 March 2012 - Pepper Pride

“It’s not Balfour I’m worried about…” Ambrose uttered quietly.

He’d made the suggestion back at Zeta’s summer family bbq party. The garden had been full of chattering wix, enjoying the localised meteorological charm parting the wind and clouds to ensure a sunny spell for the gathering. Half a decade ago the cousins would have been tearing around, playing haphazard tag between the clusters of adults, or causing mischief. Now they were almost all grown up, and even Tim and Eta, the youngest bar baby Amelia, were old enough to hold their own in conversation.

Zeta and Ambrose had ended up perched on a low wall, deep in conversation about Zeta’s request back at Hogsmeade. Ambrose had not been entirely successful in finding out the deep detail Zeta desired of the werewolf holding cells, but in his defence he’d recently been away on a weekend intensive course on how to ride Kelpies and before that a week-long training camp led by a centaur to improve fitness test resolve and fortitude alongside trainee hitwizards, aurors and other practical magicians. In his exasperation at her insistent quizzing he’d thrown up his hands and suggested she came along and took a look for herself. Like a boggart, once released, it was difficult to get the idea back in the wardrobe, because you knew it was there.

“So, uh,” Ambrose began, more as a cover to anyone eyeing up Zeta as they traversed the office, “Beast Division over here, that’s me, and then over there is Spirit Division, ghosts and such, and then round here is Being Division…” he pointed out the pools of desks segmented by busy walkways. There were people sat at odd desks, but many were empty, owing to the fact their owners preferred to be outside. Two house elves passed them, discussing pillowcase patterns. “But if you follow the jangle of silver,” Ambrose added in a low voice, “you find yourself approaching the Werewolf Wing…”

Where Ambrose might be trying to keep a lower profile, Zeta kept her head up and took swinging strides. Her hands in the pockets of her coat, flapping at her sides. She looked boldly around.

"What do you mean silver?" she asked. "They don't really do that, do they? That's offensive. I thought the Werewolf Wing was meant to help werewolves not, you know, wear passive aggressive accessories."

A door to one of the nicer offices opened and Figaro Sellaphix wandered out backwards. The name on the door said 'W.W. Spokeswitch'. Zeta caught a glimpse of a blonde witch exit after him in the other direction.  Figaro was grinning and straightening his glasses. She smoothed her skirt as she swished away.

"Heya, Peppers," Figaro said as he breezed by.

“What do you mean silver?” Zeta demanded, “… that’s offensive…”

“I think,” Ambrose ventured tentatively, “it’s to protect them on full moon, like an amulet or charm or something. Or maybe it’s not real silver and just looks like it…” he suddenly doubted his own understanding of the goth-like WCU outfits.

“Heya, Peppers,” Figaro Sellaphix greeted as he passed by.
“Hey,” Ambrose replied automatically.

“I keep seeing him up here,” He remarked to Zeta, having not put two and two together. “But he works for the newspaper, right? I remember when he was doing the Howler at school. Hey, maybe you can join the paper too when you finish your NEWTs. Your cartoons would be epic.” Ambrose treasured all the ones Zeta doodled for him.

Zeta wasn't satisfied with Ambrose's good-hearted ideas about silver jewelry, but she didn't press the matter. Figaro Sellaphix didn't linger to chat, which was fine by Zeta.

"Maybe," she muttered in response to being asked about career prospects. The topic was coming up more and more and it was difficult to keep the questions (both internal and external) at wand's end.

Hands in her pockets, Zeta continued to take lackadaisy steps through the open space. She didn't wander too far from Ambrose, but she wasn't sticking tight to the tour.

"So werewolves come here every full moon? And do what?" she asked as they passed a bulletin board with a large moon phase chart adjacent. The bulletin board also had those little 'take one' tear-away fliers for werewolf safehouse job info and Level 4 snooker leagues. Also present was a really nice moving poster about werewolf mentors featuring the smiling face of Fauna Blake's girlfriend, Tia Gamp.

"Oh!" Zeta coo'd and booped the nose.

Dido was heading back to the Werewolf Wing, helped along by rollerskates and an attitude that silently warned people to get out of her way. She had just dropped off a bunch of files and forms for the Department Head to sign because later he would be filling in for Bruce on this holy night of the full moon.

Whatever that meant. Spectre pottered about and wrote reports and looked cool but Dido was the one zipping around, come evening. She was Ballentyne's assistant and in her boss's absence, she made herself as useful as she could. Kinda.

             "So werewolves come here every full moon? And do what?" a unfamiliar voice prodded as Dido glided back into the werewolf wing.

She spotted Pepper first, from Beasts, and then the long red hair of a young witch poking their bulletin board. "They sit down and take tea with the Queen!" Dido exclaimed, coming to a halt and tapping the back wheels of her roller skates twice, so that they flattened down into regular shoes. "What do you think? They check-in and walk into their five star hotel bedrooms. Wake up feeling refreshed to room service."

Dido smiled at Ambrose; she liked him about as much as she liked most of the Beast Handlers. They weren't Einsteins but they were nice. Einsteins probably cheated on his wife or something.

"What's up Peps," she raised her eyebrows, hand on hip. "Bring your girlfriend to work day?"

Tonight, it was to be a blue moon. For any ordinary werewolf, it would be business as usual. They would show up at their safe house, sign in, take their last dose of wolfsbane, enter their cell, strip off and wait. Some didn’t even strip off, they just brought spare clothes for the next day. Iona had never understood that logic.

For Iona Ballentyne, it was never business as usual. A blue moon was a werewolf capture unit’s stormy Monday. It was a superstition, really, but Iona was one of the many to believe that the entire evening was even more cursed than usual. Chaos ensued on a blue moon and it had throughout every year of her tenure on the front line of the WCU. One full moon in a month was unwelcome enough. A second could only mean trouble.

Beneath the surface, Bruce was stressed, anxiety almost brimming over. On the surface, she just looked her usual level of unwell and queasy that came with doses of wolfsbane that had never agreed with her stomach.

A nervous energy pulled Bruce from her desk as she was overcome with the need to move and get out of her small and messy office. She needed some open space and maybe someone to talk to rather than reports on safe houses to check.

Voices in the corridor drew her attention, and with the help of her wooden cane, she limped towards them. Dido’s was the first voice she could make out, delivering some snark to a co-worker.

“Not sure I remember the last time I woke up feeling refreshed.” Bruce commented as she closed in on the three. Now her eyes scanned over them. Dido. The young apprentice from beasts, name not important, and… she recognised the girl. Another youngster and something was definitely sticking in her mind. It only took a moment to realise.

“Hogwarts shipping you to us early, now?”

“So werewolves come here every full moon? And do what?”

“Er, they…” Ambrose began, turning at the sound of rollerskates on the office floor. It was a complete distraction to see Dido gliding down the office thoroughfare on wheels.

“They sit down and take tea with the Queen!” She replied humorously, towering over them with the extra wheel height. Ambrose was awed at the appearance. They looked cool.

“Hah!” He hooted, and then gathered himself, spying Zeta’s expression. She was on a serious mission.

“What do you think?” Dido continued, “They check-in and walk into their five star hotel bedrooms. Wake up feeling refreshed to room service. What’s up Peps,” She issued him with a grin he couldn’t help but return as enthusiastically, “bring your girlfriend to work day?”

“Hey! - er, what?” His jaw hung slack, brain working as quickly as it could to resolve this conflict. Zeta wasn’t his girlfriend? Why did Dido assume she was? Was she sounding him out on the girlfriend front? Why did it bother him? Was it because Dido was lovely? Ambrose’s brain took a mental stunner.

“Not sure I remember the last time I woke up feeling refreshed.” Another voice interrupted. Oh Merlin, now Dido’s boss was here. Ballentyne, the one who made Penny cry the day that vampire eyed Ambrose up. His stomach lurched. This was the sort of person he meant when he’d told Zeta it wasn’t Balfour he was worried about encountering them…

“Hogwarts shipping you to us early, now?”

“Er, hi, erm, sorry, this is Zeta, Zeta Pepper, my cousin.” Ambrose managed to explain, cheeks flushed, and gestured with both hands towards Zeta as he introduced his cousin to the witches. “She’s, er, here because…”

Zeta kept her cool while Ambrose flustered at the theatrical arrival of the leggy American witch on skates. His crush on her was horribly transparent, which made Zeta smile a little. The tall girl was one hundred percent crushable.

"I think it's a fair question," Zeta insisted at some point. She didn't mind the tall girl taking the mickey, but she wasn't going to not ask questions.

Then oh, it was Ballentyne walking up, curious about the behind-the-scenes tour going on. Zeta spoke up.

"You spoke to our club," Zeta reminded her. "Students Against Werewolf Segregation."[1] It had gone fine considering the club's history and membership seasoned with village dunces.

Ambrose was kind enough to set up her soapbox for her.

"I'm here to see things for myself. Like, to try and understand what my friends are going through."

'Friend' was doing a lot of work in this statement, but it was defensible. There wasn't a better word for who Lucinda was to her, and even though they were out of touch and had never been close, Ollie and Zel were Hufflepuffs.

"Was hoping to see the cells," she said boldly, no flinching.

1.	17 Feb 2012 - Raise Your Voice - Second SAWS Meeting

Dido thought it was cool that Ballentyne didn't just take the whole day off. Sometimes she felt like calling in sick when she was having a bad period day but here Bruce was powering through the hours before a full moon like a badass. She smiled, typically chipper, at the older witch joining them.

            “Er, hi, erm, sorry, this is Zeta, Zeta Pepper, my cousin.”

Oh, cousin. Oops. Dido stifled a laugh. Awk-ward. Maybe they did resemble each other kind of. It was hard to tell. Seemed like half of wizarding England was related to each other.

The redhead visitor explained the purpose of her visit and Dido's expression turned a little incredulous at her words. Obviously she knew about the whole SAWS thing but she found it sus that there weren't any werewolves heading it up. Hand still on her hip, she tilted her head to the side.

"That's kind of messed up," she commented before the big boss could. "Like, it's not a museum..." Dido felt instinctively protective of the werewolves she saw gathering to enter their cells every full moon.

It was weird to her that anyone who wasn't a Lycan would want to come and gawk at a room that bore witness to one of the worst things a werewolf experienced. That felt so private. Who hoped to see something like that? Was she going to go back and tell her werewolf friends about how she understood them better now that she'd seen the cell?

Dido decided that Zeta didn't share Ambrose's chill vibes. Little creep.

Hyper aware of Ballentyne's presence, though, she shrugged and glanced at the witch: "I can take 'em to see the cell that's being repaired if you want though, boss."

A cousin. The young Beast apprentice had simply brought his cousin onto level four for what? A day out?

Bruce had spoken at their club. “I did” she said plainly, still wondering exactly why the young Pepper cousin was wondering around in the Werewolf Wing main corridor.

"Was hoping to see the cells,"

Iona blinked.

With the words that were momentarily failing Bruce with the many things engaging her mind right now, Dido nicely rebuked the young girl. Taking a moment to consider the nerve of asking such a thing, Bruce leaned heavily on her cane. Dido offered to take them, and the head of the werewolf wing shook her head.

“You want to understand? It’s the worst night of your life every 29 or 30 days.” Bruce started, slowly, her welsh accent punctuating every syllable. “Imagine you’re arriving a couple of hours before nightfall. It’s your cell, the same every month for you. So, in you go. It’s cold and no natural light. You get to make one decision during your entire visit. Do you strip off and hand the attendant your clothes or do you waste another set of clothes but maintain your dignity just that little bit longer? Can you even afford to waste some clothes because, you know, it’s hard to keep a job when you’ve got the big fat werewolf sign on your head? You wait around, often totally naked, and not having eaten for a few hours, it affects the wolfsbane, you see. And then the pain comes, worse than any pain you can imagine as every inch of your body transforms against its will. You wake up hours later, naked and cold and exhausted with no memory of what the wolf did. Maybe you’re lucky and you don’t feel much different. Maybe you are overwhelmed with nausea and pain. At least you know that that cell kept you and the people around you safe. That cell was your private space for those few hours that you lost yourself to a curse you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”

“I think we can give my fellow werewolves their privacy and give their sanctuaries a miss.” It wasn’t said with a harsh tone, more pointed than anything else. Bruce saw herself as the gate keeper for those under the Werewolf Wing.

That went down like a lead feather. Ambrose felt like they were being told off, as bad as being given detention by Professor Storm. Mrs Ballentyne went on at length at why Zeta’s request was inappropriate.

“She’s not,” Ambrose was surprised to hear his own voice, “she’s not asking to see it happen, ma’am,” he reasoned politely. “Zeta’s researching for school, about the inquiry and all.” He glanced to his cousin. “See if we can get others to understand it better.” This all seemed to just deepen the scrutiny from the witches. Ambrose gestured in appeal with his hands, elaborating, “There are some misconceptions amongst the Hogwarts community as to the conditions, or the purpose of coming all the way down here, rather than a safehouse in the forest.” He swallowed uncomfortably. “No offence was meant, honest, Zeta’s just rather passionate to ensure SAWS is about for good, right, Zee?” He flexed his arm as if about to elbow her in prompt.

That's kind of messed up," [Dido] commented before the big boss could. "Like, it's not a museum..."

Zeta opened her mouth to explain herself but shut it again. She had expected to be rebuffed by the adults for her precociousness, but not from someone on roller skates.

Things did not improve.

The wild-looking looking witch, Madam Ballentyne who'd been so forth-coming and understanding for SAWS, completely flattened Zeta. It got worse the further Ballentyne got in her narrative. It wasn't that the tale was upsetting - Zeta had heard Lucinda speak dreadfully of her nights 'out' - it was that both Dido and Ballentyne had completely misjudged her.

Embarrassingly, Zeta felt as if she was going to cry from frustration. Her heart pounded in her chest and she knew her cheeks were red.

Ambrose came to her defense. Bless Ambrose. Bless him all day long. First off, he had been listening to her rants. Second off, he sounded very grown up.

"Yeah, that's right," Zeta said docily after a frowning pause. The phrase 'just trying to help' sounded very stupid in her head. And she resented Dido and Ballentyne for it.

She lifted her chin, putting on self-defensive snark. "Thanks, though."

Then Zeta took a few steps back to saunter off, giving Ambrose a nudge to follow. She didn't know where she was going as the Ministry was a complete maze, but away from this spot by the announcement board and their hosts would be best.

Dido's hands went behind her back as the boss levelled a real lesson down on their visitor's head, and she failed to repress a smile - sometimes working for Ballentyne was worth the weird notes she sent to Carstairs. Most of the time, actually.

Ambrose endeared himself further to her by explaining his cousin's motiviations. Come to think of it, they didn't look that much different in age, but the wizard was obviously way more mature. Funny. In Dido's experience, witches were usually the level headed ones. Zeta Pepper was looking as red as her hair, and excused herself without so much of a goodbye.

Her ma would have pulled her ear for acting like that. Dido was about to say as much, when she clocked Ballentyne's eyeroll.

"Set up an interview?" she repeated the werewolf's orders but quickly got in line. "Really? Whatever you say boss."

Clicking her heels, Dido's shoes bounced back into rollerskates; she saluted the Head of the Werewolf Wing before pushing off to go after Peppers #1 and #2. They hadn't got far. She caught up with them in the passageway just outside the bullpen, skating ahead and twisting about to roll backwards as she faced the pair.

"What were you, raised in a barn?" Dido clicked her tongue, more at Zeta than Ambrose. "Ballentyne says you can get a lil interview with her if you're desperate. Like, some other day, when she ain't about to turn."

Merlin knew why they chose today of all days. "But don't take it the wrong way," she raised her eyebrows, "I got my eye on you."

“Awkward…” Ambrose murmured under his breath as the cousins walked away, denied their attempt to see further. “Sorry…” he apologised, fingers knotting together before his stomach. He’d used up his Gryffindor bravery going up against the boss.

“You could come see Beast Division?” He suggested, brightening, “and I’m sure they’ll be happy to let you see round Being Division. Kayla’s always looking for a reason to get away from her desk if you ask me…” He liked her a lot, but if she’d been at Hogwarts he reckoned she would have been in detention.

Then they heard the rollerskates again. Dido was following them. Had she come to tell them off some more? Oh, no, she’d come with a compromise?

“An interview?” Ambrose repeated rhetorically. He looked to Zeta, hoping that would be enough for her, but inwardly feeling it wouldn’t.

“That’s something isn’t it?”