February 1, 2009
Signature, Hogsmeade
9am

Niobe hoped that her relationship with social mogul and nightclub owner Finn Grosvenor was secure enough that he'd forgive her for on a Sunday morning.  It was a wretchedly early thing to disturb a wizard in Finn's position on a Sunday morning.  So she hoped he'd be amenable to a visit, but on the other hand - you didn't get as far as she did at the Daily Prophet by worrying about social graces.  Niobe didn't sleep much herself - plus she had coffee with a shot of Liquid Cheer each.

The side door was open and the clinking of morning prep trickled out from the kitchens.   The Signature never slept - and she hoped Finn didn't either.  It wasn't yet fully bright out yet on this very cold dank morning.  As she walked in, she rubbed her cold hands together and patted down her dreads which had collected the moisture of fog.  She caught a few eyes who seemed to wonder what she was doing, but no one stopped her progress until she reached the dining room.

It was a familiar server, Armand.  "Finn in his office?" 

Armand's face looked lined and worried and as he nodded, his eyebrows seemed to say, enter at your own risk.  Niobe shrugged and went to the stairs.  She'd anticipated some sort of resistance, or for or Armand to make her wait while he went to see if Finn was awake.  But Armand did no such thing, just nodded her through. 

A good omen.

She grinned and accepted the little things that made days like this go smoothly.  She climbed the spiral staircase up to his lofted office.  The curtains were drawn, but the door was open a crack.  She pushed it open slowly and came round the door with a big smile.

"Rise and shine, Clockstopper!"  She presented the samovars of coffee out front of her, a peace offering.  "Need a word, love."

The night had been a long one. At some point - after midnight - a large barn-owl had made its way into Finn's private apartment, after rapping it's beak forebodingly on the window. Finn would have recognised the owl anywhere, even if the letter it held didn't bear the large wax seal of the Grosvenor house. The morose manner in which the bird held out its leg had Finn suspicious - even moreso when the bird looked sadly down at the letter, and didn't even wait for its usual treat before hooting, nudging Finn's hand with its beak and flying back out of the open window.

Finn tore open the letter, feeling a sense of worry wash over him at the unusually scrawled handwriting. The letter was short, abrupt and without any real emotion ejected into the ink. "Ava is dead" was the general jist of it. Finn sank into his chair and stared blankly at the letter. Dead? His little sister was dead? His eyes scanned the letter once more, but his father had spared the details and Finn was left with no more information. She was dead.

The clock ticked by, and every so often someone from downstairs would come, knock at the door and ask if Finn wanted anything. At the most they received a grunt or shake of the head. At the least, ignorance was all Finn had to offer. A young girl brought up a tray containing a pot of tea, some scones and the morning paper. She left it on the table next to the chair and tip-toed out of the room as quietly as possible.

The tea was tepid and the scone was going dry by the time a chirpy voice joined him in the room. He lifted his red eyes up towards the door and blinked. Niobe Thursby. Her cheerful manner was enough to suggest she didn't know, or at least not everything. Niobe held out some coffee and and stated that she needed to talk. The words washed over Finn, but the coffee did not go unnoticed. He licked his dry lips, and realised that in all the time he'd been sitting in the chair - a good eight or nine hours - he had not once thought about food or drink. He hadn't even noticed the tray sitting on the table beside him.

He blinked a couple more times, before slowly lifting himself from the chair. His legs had gone to sleep, his hair was a mess and his clothes were wrinkled. But coffee beckoned. He took the cup from Niobe and forced a short smile. "Thanks," he croaked, taking a sip of the hot liquid.

He looked at Niobe once more, trying to gauge the situation. "How can I help?"

"Bollocks, Finn! Looks like I missed quite a night at Signature.  Was Trenford playing? God, I love her.  Hard getting up here from London, but it's a real shame.  Clearly I missed a party."

Niobe sat herself down and sipped her coffee along with him.  He looked terrible, as hung-over as she'd ever seen him.  Young Finn had probably learned long ago to pace himself, that he couldn't ride the tide of his patrons every night of every weekend and live to see thirty.  But it looks like he still knew how to have a good time once in awhile.

"You do look like a proper Inferi though.  Drink up."

She set her cup down in his Daily Prophet, right next to her latest article on the O' Morain incident with info courtesy of Torquil Foley.  Then she sat forward in her seat to shrug off her heavy cloak.  She was also in her clothes from yesterday.  She'd probably have a nap later, but she had to see Finn right away about a little tip she'd got last night.  Just a little thing, probably nothing, but she had to get out in front just in case.  Schlagenweit was a name not to ignore these days.

"You've heard of all this business with Sasha Schlagenweit, right?"  She started off conversationally.  That poor kid was a wreck.  Suspended, his life told-all by Skeeter, now she'd heard his muggle sister was living in Diagon Alley, however that was supposed to work, and then all that business with his whole family getting murdered.  Suffice it to say, if one hadn't heard about Boy Wonder, they were living among some Giant tribe in the north.

"His name came up last night again, or so says my buddy at the MLE," she breezed on.  "Couldn't tell me much, but dropped his name.   Also dropped another name.  Ava Grosvenor.  Any relation, Finn?"

Finn tried to listen to Niobe as the searing coffee scorched his throat. It was pain, but pain of the best kind - the kind of pain that he could control. If he didn't want it anymore, he just had to stop drinking. If he wanted to blot out the memories of that night, he just had to press the cup to his lips, tilt it up and let the psychological pain wash away with the liquid.

He caught little spatterings of the reporter's conversation - Arianna Trenford, inferi, then something that made his attention come to. His eyes shot up to hers as she mentioned Sasha Schlagenweit, and his fist gripped the cup tighter. He could feel his pulse quickening, the throbbing at his temples.

Then she mentioned Ava, and his expression softened. A lump came to his throat, and he tried in vain to swallow it but it seemed only to grow bigger. His eyes floated mournfully towards a photo on his dressing table; his little sister, the light of his life, smiling back at him wearing a woollen hat, scarf and gloves and playing with piles of reddened leaves. The picture had been taken over a year previously on an average autumn day. The pair had gone for a walk to the park and Ava had thought it would be funny to throw leaves at her brother. The October air had nipped at her cheeks and gave them a youthful glow. After the park they had ventured to the three broomsticks for foaming butterbeers, spending the whole day laughing and talking - the way they always had.

Tears stung his eyes as he remembered everything they had done together. He tried to blink them away. "She's my sister," he said as confidently as he could - he refused to use the past tense. She would always be his sister.

Wait.  Finn wasn't just hung over.  Even hung over he was more charming than this.  No boasting about drinks drunken, bragging about who pulled who, about how much the take was after all was said and done.  This wasn't a hang over at all.

Niobe watched at his body seemed to betray him.  He was limp and the energy he emitted was despondent.  His voice and words confirmed it.  Ava was his little sister.  And she was in trouble.  Her contact at the MLE was not very keen on getting on Raynor's bad side.  Not since the murder of Gawain Robards was Level Two letting much out.  So all she got, despite begging for details was those two student names.  There was an incident. These two names came up.  Get your head out of my fireplace.

She leaned way forward to put her elbows on the desk, trying to find eye contact with Finn.  "Finnley.  If Ava's in trouble, tell me.  Maybe I can help.  I know people," she offered with a firm voice of concern.

What could have Finn so wrecked? So quiet? Was he crying?

The way Niobe leant forward and looked into his eyes made him feel guilty - here she was, thinking maybe Ava had been expelled for something along the lines of setting the hospital wing on fire, or maybe she was being threatened with Azkaban for illegal possession of runespoor eggs. No, it was something far worse than that - something that couldn't be reversed.

"Nobody can help," he finally sighed with a resignation that was unlike him. He shook his head and ran his hand through his unkempt hair. "Much as though I wish you could."

His brow furrowed gently and he bit his lower lip, trying to think of the right words to say. There was no way he could make this horrific situation seem better than it actually was. He sighed again and let his bleary eyes find Niobe's amidst the haze of sorry that fogged his head. "She's dead."

When Finn said that no one could help Ava, she knew he believed it.  But there was always something.  She sat perched, ready to start a crusade.  They weren't close, Finn and Niobe.  He himself was just a kid, in Niobe's mind, but he was also a wizard of the world with a family.  She'd stand up with him for family.  Nothing sparked Niobe more than some fight for justice.  She'd..

"She's dead."

Her body washed over in a cold chill, goosebumps rising on her arms.  Her throat tightened and her composed look of purpose and determination was shredded.  Her mouth tensed in a deep frown, her furrowed brows shifted into concerned concave curves.  Her professionalism cracked. 

"What...?" she asked in a cracked whisper.  "Your sister... Sasha, too? Finn..."

She didn't know what to say.  Had no words.  This was the last thing she'd expected.

Finn felt the shudder that emanated from Niobe as though it had been his own body. She was quite close, almost to the point that he could feel the sting of the goosebumps rising on her skin. He knew there would be questions that followed.

How? He didn't know. When? Sometime in the middle of the night - maybe early hours of the morning. Who? He had no idea, but he did know he was going to make sure the bastard paid for what he had done.

Why?

That was the question that he was trying to understand himself. Why would anyone want to kill his little sister? Sure, she wasn't the most angelic of kids, she'd had her issues in the past - mostly with their parents, but she was a sweet girl for the most part, and she was the most important part of Finnley's life. She was his life.

He shook his head. "No, Sasha's fine as far as I know. They haven't really told me anything. Just that Sasha was found with her bod-" he checked himself, not able to say that yet. Swallowing, he continued, "With her in the forbidden forest. They've contacted our dad, but nobody can find mum to tell her. Not that she'll be all that heart-broken..."

He stood up all of a sudden, and, picking up an almost-empty glass decanter that last night held a good few drams of whisky, aimed a good solid shot at the wall. The glass hit the wall and shattered into tiny pieces on the floor as Finn broke down into pitiful sobs, clenching fistfuls of hair and pulling at them hard as he fell to his knees. "Why her?"

Niobe was trying to take it all in, and in the typical brashness of her occupation, trying to find out what could be done.  Every day things happened - horrible things, big things - and it had always been her self-given responsiblity to do something about it.  But this was wrong.  All of this was wrong.  She shouldn't be having these thoughts right now, not when -

CRASH

Niobe startled badly when Finnley was suddenly on his feet and threw the pitcher against the wall.  And like the broken shards of glass, Finn was on the floor sobbing.

"Stopstopstop!" She went around the desk to him, kneeling down.  She was hesistant to touch him - they'd never been so close as that, never been friends that confided in each other.  She was ten years his senior, but had never been his mother.  He was hurting himself and she laid her hands on his fists.

"We can't know," she said, tears coming down her own cheeks.  "But it was wrong - she'd never deserve that.  Everyone loved her, Finn. Shhh, Finn, let go."  She gently tried to release his grip.

"Do you want to go? We can go to the Ministry - maybe someone can speak with you there."

With those words, Niobe's mind forcefully pushed away a selfish thought. The thought of what she could find out.  For the paper.  Merlin, witch - don't be such a vampire.

No sooner was Finn on the floor but Niobe was down by his side, trying to prise his hands away from his hair which was threatening to be pulled from its roots. He didn't have the energy to fight her. That one surge of adrenaline had come from nowhere and from everywhere. His whole body tingled as though it had been awoken from a deep alcohol-induced sleep, though if he was asked to perform that same spectacular smashing throw again, he wouldn't have been able to.

Slowly his fists unclenched and his hair was able to breath a sigh of a relief. He hadn't even noticed that Niobe's face was streaked with the tracklines that only tears can make.

"Do you want to go? We can go to the Ministry - maybe someone can speak with you there."

"No!" His response was quick, a look of horror on his face and his head shaking violently. "No, please! I don't...I don't want to- see anyone!" His hand, now free from both the top of his head and the grasp of Niobe's, felt his face in search of the snot, tears and saliva. He wiped furiously with the sleeve of his jumper. "Whatever you write," he knew, afterall, the reason Niobe had come to him in the first place was information as a writer. It just so happened that while she had been there, she had been thrust into the role of good samaritan as well. "Whatever you write about her, make sure everyone knows that she didn't deserve this."

He sniffed and looked over at the glistening shards of glass that decorated the cream carpet. "And...I'm sorry you had to see me - like this." No matter how hard he tried, this was a situation that did not allow for a professional face.

"S'alright, mate..." she said embarrassed to be here, embarrassed at her private thoughts of self-advancement.  She sat back against the desk, her knees at her chest.  He was a mess, but she couldn't have ever expected otherwise.  What she hadn't expected was to show up here, to hassle him a little about a possible criminal in the family, and then to find that his kid sister was murdered at school, in the supposedly safest place in all Britain.

She was having a hard time not crying herself.  You just can't watch someone go through what Finn was going through without feeling something, some part of that wrenching, world-ending pain.  She was still trying to sort out her next move - both with the story, and with her young friend.

"S'alright," Niobe repeated with more confidence.  "I...  I'll do right by her.  Make sure the right story's told," she said.  The answer of what to do next resolving itself as she spoke.  She'd publish, and she'd do so without cowing to authorities who might want to mitigate the truth.  She bit her lip. 

And her thumb found the gap between her middle finger and pinky finger, and rubbed over the scar.  What was she getting herself into this time?

"D'you have any idea what could have happened, Finn?  Is your family in any trouble?" 

Finn nodded at Niobe’s reassurance that she would do the decent thing – the right thing – and tell the truth about what happened, whatever that truth may be. He didn’t really know about anything. The letter from his father had been short, crisp and devoid of emotion. To an outsider, it may look as though he was suffering from severe grief at losing his only daughter, and therefore was unable to put any feeling into his written words. To Finn, however, it was exactly as it had always been; his father had never played a role in Ava’s life before now.

Ava had been an insurance child – the kind of child parents have just in case something happens to the first. If Ava had been a boy, Finn had no doubt that she would have been a prized possession of the Grosvenor kin – perhaps not as precious as Finn had been, but precious all the same. As it was, a girl was not worth the money his parents had to spend on clothing and feeding her. Unless she made a good marriage, she was useless. Those prehistoric ideals of family life had not escaped his family, it seemed, and for all Finn knew that was the reason Ava was no longer with him.

As though suggesting it might be of some importance later, Finn took the folded piece of parchment from his pocket. It was slightly crumpled, but he smoothed it out on the desk with the palms of his hands as though expertly kneading dough. “I don’t know what happened.” He shrugged. “And I don’t know how this may implicate my family – even me. But this-” he pushed the well-read letter across to Niobe with the tips of his fingers, “might come in handy when you write about her.” He offered a small smile. He wasn’t sure how important the short note might be, but he was willing to do anything right now to help the situation.

Niobe rubbed the heel of her hand against her cheek to smear off a tear that had escaped her professional resolve.  She watched Finn right himself somewhat, and even though his words were calmer, that what she'd said had apparently given him some sliver of peace.  Could she deliver?

She look the folded piece of parchment, wrinkled and damp.  With her thumb, she slid it open to see tight, straight handwriting.  She looked back at Finn.  "You're giving me this?"

Her other thumb was busy again on the scar of her missing finger. 

"I don't know how long it will take the MLE to come round and see you, Finn, but..." she proceeded carefully.  "But maybe you don't mention you talked to me? Would be a great help if I don't have to go through certain hoops - unnecessary ones."

She looked at the letter again, not quite reading it, but seeing the words 'dead' and 'Ava'.  She furrowed her brows.  A letter from father to son.  It felt cursed.  "I'll get this back to you when I'm through.  I should go."

Finn nodded as she picked up the letter. He wasn't entirely sure what - if anything - she'd get from it, but he knew he wanted her to have it, if only so that he didn't have it anymore. "Yes," he replied sullenly. "It's bound to help you more than it'll help me." He'd read that letter over and over so many times in the last few hours, trying to make sense of what was a nonsensical situation. A pained look crossed his face as he thought about opening the letter and reading its contents for the first time.

He tried to swallow the pain away as Niobe asked him not to mention their chat to anyone. He shook his head, brows furrowed. "Of course not," his voice rife with both agony and determination, "I want this to be done right. I don't want the powers-that-be sticking their noses in and messing this all up."

A look of concentration fell across the reporter's features as she scanned the letter briefly. It was as though she could feel his pain through reading just those few simple words.

"I'll get this back to you when I'm through.  I should go."

Finn stood up immediately. "Yes - you have work to do." He forced a smile as he led the way to the door of his apartment and pulled on the nob, letting the door open a crack. His hand hovered for a moment, unsure of whether to open it any more or not. After a moment, he closed the door again and looked at Niobe. "Sasha didn't do this." He sounded so sure of himself. "I've met Sasha - bad things have happened to him, and he's been unlucky, but--" he shook his head as though even trying to comprehend Sasha as a murderer was impossible, "--this wasn't him. Make sure everybody knows that." He opened the door again and placed his right hand gently on Niobe's upper arm. "Thanks for coming to see me. You've been a great help."

Niobe really had no expectations on Finn's behavior.  She didn't know him intimately, and you never know how someone's going to act given a situation like this.  But she did know that the Grosvenor family was... complicated.  They were marginally well-known as traditional purebloods, but Finn was hardly traditional himself.  So when he so much as jumped to his feet, she didn't have the forethought to be startled.  Her interest in writing about his sister seemed to give him some sense of resolve, of purpose, even if it was secondary.

He hadn't said much about it, but his willingness to keep information from Aurors was curious.  So often even the most suspicious of the Ministry gave them some credit when it came to protection.  The Aurors were formidable, if not sometimes held back by red tape and the sometimes doddering Wizengamot.  Clouds were forming around this already dark scenario.

"Sasha...?"  Oh.  Sasha.  The other name mentioned by her informant.  She'd almost forgotten about him, the name flushed from her mind at the revelation that Ava'd been mentioned because she was dead.  It was strange...

She narrowed her eyes as Finn, wondering where he was coming from.  He seemed to think that Sasha wasn't also dead, but Niobe hadn't assumed as much.  Finn seemed to think that Sasha would be looked at as a suspect - and considering Sasha's infamous luck... - but again, Niobe didn't have that.

"Love you, mate.  Watch the Prophet."

She kissed him on the cheek, barely touching him.  Then opened the door the rest of the way, and walked out.