Knox Greyfriar's scandal had been a recurring concern for Judy. He had survived, but not unscathed, and was now weathering one heck of a storm.

And that concerned her - she considered him a good and worthy man, but he was also a useful ally to her in her own work. And now, she was also pulled into the investigation, spending a Saturday morning in London going up to Level Two to shed what light she could on this investigation.

For the famously muggle-ish journalist, the ministry was a slightly unnatural setting, which she embraced with her sartorial choices - a big American flag brooch on the jacket lapel of her orange suit.

She was shown to a room where she sat down and unfolded the day's Daily Prophet.

28 Oct 2012
9am, Saturday
Interview room, Auror Headquarters

Senior Auror Zora Roh had never heard of Judith Eastman before this case. Zora strode down the corridor to the interview room as she reviewed the little dossier someone had typed up for her. Judith Eastman, 65. Half-American, half-English. A long career in journalism home and abroad, wrote an apparently popular book on muggles, drawn into Hogwarts just this year. And, by the looks of it, a close confidant of Greyfriar's.

The investigation into the often-controversial and provocative Headmaster and (now former) Wizengamot Elder had been slow-going only in that they were prioritizing the Death Eater angle. But that wasn't to say the issue of the wands themselves and where they'd been these last thirty years was unimportant.

"Good morning, Ms Eastman," Zora said as she entered. She was not prepared for the study in tangerine. The tidy-sized older witch stood out in the stoic subterranean little meeting room with its creaky wooden chairs and utter lack of sunshine. In contrast, of course, Zora was in her red Auror robes, her thick black hair tied up from her collar, all business.

"I'm Zora Roh, senior Auror. Thank you for coming in."

Formalities, pleasantries, all perfectly appropriate for Eastman's suspected part in all of this. Her very recent arrival at Hogwarts and apparent absence in England during the Death Eater's second go of it put her beyond suspicion of very much at all. Still.

Judy folded her newspaper and tucked it away.

"I should be thanking you, Ms. Roh. I'm the one making you work on a Saturday."

Her teaching schedule had mandated it - she wasn't one to leave her students out to dry.

She could tell, already, that this wasn't going to be a hostile interview, and she intended to keep it that way. Her bright smile and brighter suit, so out of place in the dark room, served to that end.

"So, where should we begin?"

She took off her reading glasses, gripping the frame around the left lens in the fingers of her right hand. Her nails, done up in navy blue, matched the frames.

Whatever Zora's personal feelings about Knox Greyfriar (a man she'd actually never met though he'd overseen much of her daughter's magical education, who shared her own wife's affliction, who in fact was until recently a part of their system of law and justice), they were relevant only that she be aware of them as to avoid biasing herself one way or the other. His public persona was flamboyant and a bit bombastic but enduringly kind. She would never have suspected him of the worst of what he was accused of, but then, as soon as he was, she realized that someone like him was just the kind of person capable of covering up something like that.

"Aye, well..." was Zora's noncommittal response to the pleasantries about working the weekend. She and her wife did it all the time. The Ministry was the third in an overworked lesbian throuple, or so Waverly had once teased them.

The senior Auror had a seat and set up a quill to record the interview. "We're trying to get the lay of things. How things transpired that Mr. Greyfriar should come forward now, what if anything you know of this talk of a blackmailer, and what you make of the supposed Death Eater connections."

All of this and more had been all over Barnabas Cuffe's the Daily Prophet. Zora found it all incredibly distracting to her trying to get straight answers out of people, the cauldron utterly curdled.

"But before we go on, I'll remind for the record that you are here voluntarily and are at this time under no suspicion of wrong-doing. You've declined to have a lawyer with you?"

"Yes, that's correct," Judy confirmed. She had thought about bringing a lawyer but decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

She pushed her reading glasses up into her hair as she decided where to begin - the beginning.

"My first real interaction with Knox was in July. He set to convincing me to take a teaching job at Hogwarts; a house visit near the end of the month really sold me. We got on well from that point - we have compatible personalities and similar enough politics."

He wasn't an old acquaintance, no, but they really did get on well.

"As far as the wands go, and his war history, the first I'd heard of that was on the Friday before he approached the governors. He approached me, confessed his sins, told me he was being blackmailed, and asked my advice. I can't tell you what he expected - we have a good relationship, but my views on the Death Eaters are well-documented."

She leaned back in her chair, pausing her speech to allow questions.

Zora let the quill do the note-taking, and sat herself back in a posture of interest. She sensed in Professor Eastman just what she'd noted, a compatibility of personalities with the notably many-worded Greyfriar. In this case, Zora would be pleased if her subject went on and on.

"Why do you think he came to you? Greyfriar does has other friends."

As they'd started poking into Greyfriar's correspondences, they'd found that his friends included well-placed Ministry folk, academic types, and some old Hogwarts colleagues, but he was really quite aloof. He rarely seemed to have company other than occasional former students, and oddly, Hannah Bombay, a werewolf and healer known to Level Two.

"Did he explain the Death Eater connection at all?"

The statement they now had from the old Headmaster which, if believed, would find him a sympathetic figure. Immature, ignorant, coerced, and remorseful.

Judy clasped her hands together.

"He told me the whole story. Ran with a bad crowd as a young man, practiced healing for Death Eaters, and ended up with the wands in the aftermath - I can certainly understand why a scared young man wouldn't go to the authorities right away."

She hadn't had reason yet to think Zora Roh to be anything but a straight shooter.

"I suppose he went to me because he knew he wasn't going to get flattery. I hold him in high regard, but I don't need any of this with how I've done for myself, he knew I'd level with him. Which I did."

It was an old journalist's sense of self, placing such value on her own integrity and honesty.

"I told him there was no concealing this from the blackmailer, that he'd have to come clean. I did feel he deserves a chance to keep his career alive, so I tried to help him to that end as well."

There was little sign to Zora's eye that Judith Eastman was at all nervous. Eastman was so composed, though, and with the choice of attire, well, she could be an expert at cover. Skepticism served Zora well at work, even if it didn't at home.

"Greyfriar claims he didn't know who was allegedly blackmailing him. He says that contact was made in person, but he's not yet said who that was. Did he tell you?"

It would be a laywer's fight to get Greyfrair to say more at this point. Zora guessed he was more likely to be protecting someone than trying to avoid retaliation. But if Eastman knew anything and was willing to say so, all the easier for Level Two to get the story straight.

The advantage of creating an attitude of candor was that, when the time came to make an omission, a decent actor would not be suspected - and Judy was more than a decent actor.

"He told me that a former student approached him on behalf of the blackmailer, as an intermediary of sorts. The student didn't tell him who the blackmailer was, and he didn't tell me who the student was."

Now, while the student had told her who he himself was, she decided Atticus deserved a chance to have his career, and that it'd be better for society if he was allowed to continue on his auror path. She was awfully comfortable playing god.

"I have a lot of conjecture about what the blackmailer's motives might be, but it would just be conjecture. He didn't tell me anything."