Margo disliked being bored.  In fact, it was probably the only part of her new job that she disliked.  Being productive usually finished the work, but after the work was done, she just sat there – waiting and waiting for the minutes to tick down and the day to end before she could go home and do whatever she pleased.  In the office, she was slightly more restricted in that capacity, but she did know how she could pass the time. 

Glancing at her calendar, she first made sure that the full moon had not been the night before, check, and then made sure that it wasn’t Monday, thankfully check (she didn’t really follow days a lot of the time, and by 2:30 in the afternoon completely forgot what day it was) – both conditions made her next course of action dangerous.  With the requirements met, however, she was only embarking on a minimally risky endeavor. 

Pushing herself up from her desk chair, the Amazon-esque woman, very different from her cousin who controlled the entire department.  It wasn’t immediately apparent they were related – different last names, different appearances, definitely different sizes, but once people got to see them together, they had similar mannerisms, and certainly a bizarre love for some not so cuddly creatures.  Readjusting her sleeve, she was going to encounter one of the least cuddly creatures of all. 

Shifting her eyes from side to side, Margo sneaked out of her cubicle, trying to walk as softly as she could in her dragon-leather boots and moved along the walls, pretending to be some sort of secret spy or something.  It was all in the stealth, and though she had very little, she was having more fun pretending that she did and wasting time moving about the hallways and eliciting odd looks from some of her more… conservative co-workers, to which she would more than usually mouth “You didn’t see me,” and then continue on her merry way as though the encounter had not happened. 

She moved toward the most notorious unit – and talked about recently – in the department and, with little concern for what she was actually doing, Margo crossed the threshold.  It was like breaking into Gringotts.  She had completed the first step – getting into the bank, but now she needed to get to the vault.  Clutching her wand at her side, Margo continued down the rows, hoping that her target was not facing outward in his cubicle, and she put her index finger of her right hand (left-hand with wand) to her lips, signaling to anyone else to not greet her. 

That dolt Gibbons almost gave her away, but the stare of death quelled his chipper greeting.  He shrunk and continued on his merry way – git.  No, Margo held her wand outstretched and as she neared the entrance of the cubicle, she really hoped she remembered what she was doing.  The tip just barely past the point of entry, Margo concentrated as best she could – practicing wordless magic for the past week (she had nothing better to do and it was hilarious to watch Lizard freak out sometimes), she closed her eyes, wrinkled her nose, and prayed that the streamers and confetti she was hoping for spewed forth from her red oak wand. 

None of it made any sense.  No matter how many times he read and re-read the reports, went back over the details, checked dates and times and accounted for sunset and moonrise and possible astronomical phenomena, nothing helped make the picture any clearer.  They'd looked for tracks, talked to locals.  No one had reported any stray dogs in the area.  Nothing had even tried to eat a bleeding sheep.  Everything about it fit the hallmarks of a werewolf attack, except for the Merlin-blasted time of death, and Kurby was about to pull his hair out and just accept that Bombay had left off a digit in the hours column.

He sighed and leaned forward over his desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  This was the part of the job that he hated, the part that he'd always been happy to dump on Iona Ballentyne's desk.  She did the research and put the pieces together; he went wherever she told him to and threatening things with silver.  It worked well.  He almost enjoyed it.  And, he thought with more than a trace of bitterness, he could almost have brought himself to enjoy the same arrangement under Mainwaring now, except for the fact that with all the recent lycathropic activity, they'd lost the luxury of picking and choosing their strategists.  It was every man for himself, so he'd gotten saddled with some of the research.  The attack-that-couldn't-be-a-werewolf attack, because it had happened during the day.

He hated paperwork.  He hated going through files.  And now he didn't have a choice, because he was scheduled to meet with Fox on Monday and there was no way in the seven hells of Tartarus that he was coming in over the bleeding weekend to get any more of this done.

All around him, the WCU office was filled with a contented buzz that grew louder and louder as the approaching weekend crept near.  Most of the kids were adjusting to the intensity of the past few months.  For the most part, Kurby had gotten good at tuning them out; the endless chatter had been fun when he'd been eighteen and had first joined the Unit, but ten years later, he had no interest in keeping up with any of the constantly evolving interactions.  Sighing, he hunched over the desk, pressing his fingers against his temples as he tried to read through the Muggle report of recent animal-related incidents in the area.

His attacker was silent enough that there wasn't a sound behind him that gave him pause.  Not even the snap and pop of her wand tip made him turn around; it was Friday, and there was little work to be done, and spells had been getting slung around the office all afternoon.  Every single person in the WCU knew that if they ever tried to hex him, fur would fly (and not of the werewolf kind), so everyone left him alone.  Pranks happened outside of the Capture Unit office.

It wasn't until he smelled something burning, and turned around to see the bright purple flames that were quickly racing up his arm, that Kurby realized that he had just been set on fire for the second time in a week.  He jerked back, fumbling for the wand that he'd left sitting on the desk, and then frantically cast an extinction spell, trying to twist to reach the flickering flames (which were now halfway between pink and yellow) that were spreading down his back before the chair ignited as well.

"What the bleedin' hell?" he shouted, whirling on whoever was behind him.  It was late, he was tired, and whoever thought that Friday was an opportune time to prank him was about to get socked.  "How the hell is that even funny?!  Go set Grimm's office on fire or something!"

Margo opened her eyes slowly after casting the spell. She felt her wand surge and that generally meant something magical had happened – though she doubted magical was the term she would use.  It did not FEEL like the confetti and streamers she hoped for.  So, when she opened her eyes and managed to peek around, she covered her mouth and ducked back.  Oh my Godric, she thought to herself in a panic, he’s on fire! And not normal fire – girly fire!

This was a terrifying realization.  Margo knew that she liked fire, but not everyone did and she certainly didn’t enjoy being ON fire! That happened several times – the scars to prove it were not particularly pleasant – she had to do something!  Standing up straight – her head invariably poked over the top of the cubicle – part of her neck too, actually, and she pointed her wand over the top. 

“Aguamenti!” she cast with some amount of force in her voice, which reflected in the hard stream of water that surged from the tip of her wand, hopefully extinguishing the flames that were going down his back – though she was not sure she had gotten the chair, that wasn’t the important part, right?  Even if he was dripping wet at least he wasn’t burnt to death, and lowering her wand, the stream died off into a drizzle before it stopped, much like the turning of a faucet and Margo’s chest heaved. 

Apparently the anxiety of the moment had really gotten to her.  “Good thing I was here, right?” she grinned, though it was anything but convincing.  Margo was so not going to be in good graces for this.  Thankfully she still kept in touch with Rosheen and Kurby couldn’t kill her.  Several people, especially Fergie now, would know she went missing and even if he could successfully mimic a werewolf attack, he’d have to wait until the next full moon to do it – she could get him investigated by then… maybe…

Tucking her wand back in her belt loop, the typical and casual location for her handy dandy wand that she was pretty much shit at using, Margo lifted her hand to the back of her neck and grinned ruffling the back of her thick, brown hair, glancing at the chair that was still on fire… though not burning… well… good thing the flames weren’t dangerous, “I – uh… I missed a spot.”

Turning towards his assailant had clearly not improved the situation.  The water-summoning charm, which, had it been pointed at his back, might have been arguably useful, was decidedly less so now that he was getting hit by a burst of hydration straight in the face.  Kurby stood there, dripping, and closed his eyes, grinding his teeth together so tightly that they hurt.

There were probably a half-dozen reasons as to why he shouldn't murder anyone while standing in the middle of the WCU office.  The first and most obvious was that he would probably be fired, although in the current situation, he might be able to plead due provocation.  The second was that he would have to clean it up, delaying his weekend departure indefinitely, the thought of which was the only thing keeping him from strangling anyone at the moment.  Reasons Three through Six were much more difficult to recall, but Kurby was sure that they were there, and he held this fact firmly in mind as he took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

Margo Amherst.  His eyes narrowed.  "Yeah, good thing you were here," he echoed, giving the woman a sour look as he wiped the water off his face.  If he heard anyone in the office snickering - hell, if he heard anyone in the office breathing right now, he was going to murder them, Reasons One and Two or not. 

Gritting his teeth, he turned back to face the desk so that he could survey the damage.  Most of the water that hadn't hit him had ended up spraying across its surface; all of the papers were soaked.

“I – uh… I missed a spot.”

Kurby closed his eyes, counted to three, and then decided that going higher wouldn't make any difference because he was still going to be furious.  "Grand, Amherst," he snapped over his shoulder, running a hand through his hair as he studied the soaked papers.  Most of them were Muggle-made, and he hadn't thought to cast waterproofing charms on the others - although considering his co-workers, he thought bitterly, he probably should have.  It was either finding a spell to dry them or duplicating them onto dry parchment, one by one.

Taking a deep breath, he opened one of the drawers on his desk, and then slammed it shut again.  It was full of quills with broken nubs, a present from Alberic Grimm after one of the many visits to the necromancer's office.  Kurby swallowed back the explosion of profanity and looked back over his shoulder, favoring the woman with a dark look.

"You don't have a quill on you, do you?" he muttered, not meeting her eyes.  He was not going to explode.  It was Friday.  Just a few more hours and he would be out of this accursed place for the entire weekend.  Blowing up at Amherst would not help that happen.  "Did you want something then, Amherst?" he snapped, the words coming out with far more of a bite than he'd meant them to.  "Or were you just practicin' for the next time that one of your bleedin' dragons sets something on fire?"

Well, Margo had certainly done it.  If he didn’t kill her it was quite likely that a blood vessel in the back of his brain would pop and he would actually kill himself.  So, really, it stood to reason someone was going to die as a result of this meeting, Margo hoped that it wasn’t her.  It would be an untimely end, that was for one, and secondly, it would be far less cool to be killed by a guy named Kurby than it would have been to get mauled by a dragon and roasted like a kebab.  Yeh, unless Kurby turned into a dragon right now, it was pretty much a done deal that she did not want to be dead by his hands. 

Whenever something was awkward, Margo responded in very few ways.  Today, she picked the smile despite herself and repeatedly assure herself that it wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed.  Lies.  “That’s what I’m here for,” she added in a chipper, but also that flighty tone that suggested there was a complete lack of confidence in anything she was saying at the moment.  Bizarre moment for Margo, who almost never lacked self-confidence, it was like a disease, really.  But here she was, laughing in the airy way that a bimbo idiot did and shifting her eyes from side to side trying to avoid any sustained eye contact. 

Didn’t seem to matter though, he was keeping his eyes closed for a long time… she really hoped that her theory about someone being so angry they could actually sear you with magic from their eyes was not true… She had almost fully abandoned it after her fourteenth birthday when she “accidentally” spilled chocolate cake all over Lia.  She probably would have combusted with the amount of hatred in that room, were in the case.  Kurby was reawakening the theory though. 

She took a careful step back, just for good measure, and shut her mouth almost immediately as he looked in a drawer and then slammed it shut.  He was probably looking for a anti-rage potion.  She heard that they kept them up here from a semi-reliable source.  Some of the members of the WCU were notorious for their tempers… Kurby was amongst the illustrious few who had earned a reputation.  Margo always did enjoy playing with fire…

Feeling around her pockets for a quill, Margo was certainly not sure whether or not she had anything, and frowned deeply as she realized she did not carry a quill with her.  Then, she realized that there was nothing about that that should upset her – only nerds carried around quills, probably dangling out their cloak pockets like some status symbol of bureaucratic puppy-dom.  “Sorry,” she murmured, fidgeting in the awkward hall space.  Everyone else had disappeared into their cubicles, probably cowering – so she felt very alone, and exposed.

Most knew her prowess with a wand was questionable at best, it would be one hell of a run getting out of here, considering the twisting halls and Margo’s propensity towards clumsiness.  No, she was going to stand her ground and make sure that Kurby was acting in accordance with how he should, or Margo would tell on him.  She was not above telling, even at twenty-six years old.  “Just stopping by,” she answered casually enough, erasing the anxiety from her countenance and leaned against the wall of the cubicle, her chin resting on her forearm that comfortably rested atop the somewhat low wall. 

“Seeing if you had gone the way of the Centaur Relations Office* yet,” she smirked a bit, “Busy?”

*Figured this could be something like “Going Postal,” haha

The werewolf hunter froze mid-action, staring down at the pile of now-soaked papers, and then deliberately and slowly turned towards Margo, not bothering to hide the irritation in his expression.  The only individuals who had enough time to wander into someone else's office to ask if they were 'busy' were the same sort of people who never were.  Even after nearly fifteen years of sharing a floor with them, Kurby had little to no idea what his co-workers in the Beast Wing actually did with all their time, nor did he especially want to find out.  If it weren't for the fact that he was certain that he'd be once again ignored, he would have raised hell and high fury for Amherst to be assigned something more to do, since it was obvious from her question that she could do with a little less free time.

"Well," he said slowly, shifting his gaze back pointedly to the wet papers on his desk, and then giving Margo a suitably searing dirty look in return.  "I'm not now."  Left unspoken was that he had, indeed, been.  But Amherst had very neatly demolished the accessibility of that workload.

Somewhere, probably originating from a desk whose owner had decided that he or she no longer desired to be counted amongst the living, a snicker emerged.  Kurby's head shot up instantly, and he scowled at the rest of the office.  The conversations seemed to have halted; the younger members of the WCU had either fled from the scene or were buried in their work with an intensity rarely seen outside of O.W.L. exams.  He gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw tightening, and then cracked his knuckles for effect, giving his co-workers one last menacing look before he returned to trying to salvage his paperwork.

If it had been anyone but Amherst, they probably would have been dead.  But the younger Gryffindor, though she'd been several years behind him at Hogwarts, had remained good friends with the youngest of Kurby's sisters.  Rosheen still kept a flat in London, and she was the only one of his family that he saw on a semi-regular basis, even though two of their older siblings also worked at the Ministry.  Being the baby of the family came with special privileges, including the unfortunate ability to decree certain friends off-limits for imminent death, no matter what they did to irritate Kurby.

Kurby sighed, looking down at the mess of papers.  In all likelihood, they'd dry overnight, and the amount of time it would take to recopy each individual sheet one-by-one with a spell would be ridiculous.  It was time to simply accept that he'd be spending his Saturday in the office.

"Apparently, I'm not now, though," he grumbled at Margo, making a show of looking irritated as he shuffled the papers to spread them out on the desk so that they'd dry quicker.  He might not be willing to murder her, but he still wasn't letting her off the hook so easily.  "So you've stopped by.  Was there something else, then, or was that the end of it?"

Well, Margo was thankful that she got a get out of jail free card when it came to making Kurby’s life miserable.  The world of purebloods was small, and even though his sister had been a year or two older than her, it didn’t matter, they were like-minded in that they were both exceptionally friendly and Gryffindors, so they got along and that meant that Kurby couldn’t kill her, which was lucky, because she thought that he might have, considering the circumstances. 

So she had wet a few papers, if he had been smarter, particularly with people like her wandering around, he would have put protective charms on them – if they were important enough.  He hadn’t though, which meant he was deprived of the right to be overly upset.  His voice was the same gravely, gruff mess it had been before and Margo rolled her eyes.  He played the tough act for so long without doing anything to her it stood to reason that it wasn’t going to change much, and she smiled despite herself as she leaned against the top wall of the cubicle.

“No, that was not the end of it, Grumpy !” Margo exclaimed, pushing herself up from leaning on the wall and then moving into the door frame.  She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned her shoulder into the entryway, fully blocking his exit with her body.  Her hip popped out and she tossed her hair over her shoulder before she continued.  “Since your mood is completely atrocious,” a pause, “per usual,” as a necessary additive, “I have come to propose that you drag your sorry arse out tonight.” 

Truth be told, she didn’t plan on this when she showed up.  But, she had destroyed his papers and he was going to blow a gasket, so she took the one thing she figured he couldn’t resist and offered up.  It’d be the peace offering of the century if it worked.  Maybe she’d have to apply to work with the diplomats.  That one on her resume would certainly propel her to the top of any hiring list. 

“And by you drag your sorry arse out, I mean I drag your arse out,” she grinned, tapping her wand against her protruding hip.  “A few pints at the broomsticks post horrific labor?  I know you’re not one to turn down a drink…” she looked away before looking back at him.  “My treat?”

The nickname made the werewolf hunter bristle again.  He shot Margo a dirty look, setting the papers down one by one with unnecessary force as he clenched his teeth together to stop himself from snapping at her. 

"There is nothing that's the hell wrong with my mood," he growled back at the woman, pressing the next paper down so hard onto the desk that the wet ink would probably leave a permanent imprint.  There was no doubt that the younger members of the WCU, who were now all conveniently huddled over their desks pretending to be working, were listening intently.  If he ever heard 'Grumpy' mentioned in his earshot again, heads were going to roll so hard that not even Alberic Grimm would be able to put them on again.

Amherst was pushing her luck.  Kurby rolled his eyes at the offer, giving his desk one last frustrated look.  Godric only knew that he needed a drink, and since he was currently still not speaking to certain individuals, his options were limited as to whom he could share one with.  Margo was, if not a friend, at least usually tolerable when she wasn't setting his desk on fire or attempting to drown him in his own office.  And if she were offering to pay, that solved the usual problem of the pittance that was his DCMC-issued paycheck.

"Fine, then," he muttered at last, forcing the word out as if accepting the invitation were physically painful.  "As long as you're buyin'.  And as long as you keep that wand somewhere where you won't be tempted to use it," he added, eyeing the instrument with distaste.  Margo Amherst might be a witch, but her magical talents were sometimes noticeably limited.  "I don't need to have an eye get accidentally hexed off because you decided to try and refill my glass."

Margo’s lips formed a perfectly pert little ‘o’ as Kurby so graciously growled that there was nothing wrong with his mood. “Of course not, King of the Cheerful Gnomes,” she corrected herself, “So inconsiderate of me to be mistaken!” she threw her hands up like a person being arrested and looked around, “Perhaps we should put a sign outside your entry way, King Bagnold, Representative of the Cheerful Gnomes.  Shouldn’t you be in Beasts then?” she quirked her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders, riding on the idea that thanks to Rosheen her life was not in immediate danger.

Rosheen and the offer of booze, anyway.  It was no secret to anyone, particularly anyone who met Kurby on a Monday morning, that he had a relationship with the bottle that could have rivaled that of Anthony and Cleopatra, so he seemed to be only slightly less grouchy when he muttered his ‘fine then.’  Clearly, he wanted to go, he wouldn’t have agreed otherwise, and then used the excuse that she was paying.

Thankfully, Margo was never wanting for money.  Her parents gave her whatever she liked if she wasn’t making enough, and that hadn’t been an issue since she got an advance from her injury.  Something about not wanting to face actions or something.  Margo could have cared less, really, but it did boost her vault just a tad. 

Licking her lips, Margo’s mind immediately ran somewhere else when he told her to keep her wand somewhere she wouldn’t use it.  Letting out a happy laugh, Margo batted her thick, dark eyelashes and her lips curled into a devious smile. “Oh Kurby, I’ll keep my wand where I can’t use it,” she looked him over once before meeting his eyes, big ol’ browns to big ol’ browns (she had to look down just ever so slightly – what was with all the short men in England?!) .

“Besides, you probably have a better handle on a wand than I do.  I'll leave mine home, but you best bring yours.”  She leaned forward a bit, biting her bottom lip and giggled slightly, “Meet at seven in The Three Broomsticks?” Margo wondered if it was even possible for Kurby Bagnold to blush.  Maybe he would turn red with fury, but most likely not from embarrassment, unfortunately. 

If the first nickname had made him twitch, the more refined version looked to be on the verge of sending him into spastic fits.  Kurby glared at Margo, attempting to communicate through sheer force of gaze how close she was going to come to death if she continued to use it anywhere in his hearing.  If a sign announcing anything similar ever appeared outside the WCU's door, not even being in the middle of the Ministry was going to keep him from Unforgivables.

The only thing protecting her now was the promise of alcohol, which he theoretically needed her alive in order to redeem.  Sighing, Kurby ran both hands through his still-damp hair.  If Amherst had earned herself a death sentence for this, he was going to have to wait until later that night to carry it out.  At least he was much less likely to be suspected of her murder if her body turned up in an alleyway in Hogsmeade somewhere instead of behind his desk in the office.

Margo's reaction to his dire caution, though, made him stop short.  He knew the younger woman through his sister, which meant technically that she was supposed to be hands-off.  Rosheen tended to have very firm ideas on what was and was not acceptable behavior, and having to explain himself at the next family get together usually wasn't worth any short-term benefits.  But technically, he hadn't enchanted that portkey himself this time. 

Kurby raised his eyebrows, regarding her quizzically, and then shot the woman a smirk.  Maybe there was reason to go drinking with Amherst besides the beverages that such a plan implied.  At least the opportunity offered a more enjoyable start to the weekend than having to deal with his drenched paperwork.

"Grand.  Seven at the Three Broomsticks, then," he repeated, amusement lightening his words.  "And I wouldn't dream of goin' anywhere without a wand.  You never know when you might need to practice disarming."