Dotty was finding herself bored. She should be able to appreciate Dietrich dropping her off at St. Mungo's, the local clinic, after the dumb organ liquifying curse came back with a vengeance once her human organs reappeared. Supposedly the counter curse was easy for the healers but since she was suffering from it all night (even with the afflicted organs winked out of existence as a squirrel, her fur was getting rather moist by then) she was stuck here for observation and some nasty tasting replenishment potions. It had to be worse then Skele-Gro, which she'd taken a shot of once on a dare in her school days, then had to explain an extra foot to the school nurse.

There were tightly bound bandages wrapped round her torso. The curse had left her middle rather goopy right before the healers made it better.

She fingered along the potions at her beside table. Just two remaining drafts that would clear up her spleen and kidneys. She would blast something to rubble for a Blue Toad. Or that fantastic anesthetic potion stuff she'd been given that left her mind dead like a log, the sensations of the world a distant speck on the ceiling as her innards were reconfigured pain free.

"~Nurrrrse!" she called out. "Somebody! I need more of those painkillers, I think my ribs are coming back at odd angles!"

Rémy Sharp paused just outside the door to the Spell Damage ward, listening to Anadotti Squiggs set up an awful racket from within. He'd actually been here for about fifteen minutes already, but it had taken some negotiating with the nurse at the desk before she would agree to give him the victim's painkillers. A true Auror probably would have been able to get them no problem, but for a trainee, it was quite difficult to convince the staff that he planned to give the medicine to the patient, and just needed it to help get her talking.

Still, as he turned over the little glass vial in his hands, watching the translucent, green potion inside slosh around, he mused that with a little bit of smooth talking one could generally get his way with things.

There she was, hollering still. Tiring of all the yelling, Rem stepped into the doorway, holding up his hands in what he hoped was a calming motion. "Alright, alright! Settle down," he told the woman in the bed. He waved the vial between his fingers, giving her a meaningful look. "I know I don't look much like a nurse, but I've got your potion right here."

In fact, he was wearing his Auror's robes as per field protocol, the deep red hue contrasting sharply with the stark whites of the hospital walls. Carefully, so as not to seem too formal, he walked over to the bedside, pulled up a nearby stool, and sat down. Then he held up the potion, out of reach but close enough for her to see it clearly. "You can have it...but first you've got to tell me the exact details of what happened, where, and who."

She looked kind of awful, and he almost felt bad for withholding her medicine. Almost.

Tarelin had seen Rémy upon entered the reception on St. Mungos - the red Auror robes made one stand out in a place as gleaming white as the hospital atrium. Tarelin had spied his fellow trainee take a small capsule containing what Tarelin assumed was medicine from the woman and head off in the direction of the wards. Announcing himself to the same nurse behind the desk, it had taken all his skill to convince her that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had sent along two trainees and that he wasn't just some nutjob indulging a power fantasy. It was only after another ward nurse gave him a friendly wave that the lady cleared him through and he was able to catch up with Rémy.

As he arrived at the room he had been directed to, he paused for a second to adjust his robes. The door was open, and Tarelin could hear Rémy talking with the patient inside. The information he had been given back at the ministry was that the person the two were to be interviewing was one Anadotti Squiggs, but besides that he didn't have much to go on.

"You can have it...but first you've got to tell me the exact details of what happened, where, and who."

Taking a step inside, he saw that Rémy was sat facing the woman in the bed, his keen Auror skills telling him that this was Squiggs. Smiling at her, he gave the door a couple of knocks before entering. “I see you’ve gotten down to business already, Auror Sharp, but is this really ethical?” He gave the man a small grin, trying to make the mood as light as possible. If Rémy had already begun the bad cop routine, he might as well jump straight into good cop mode. Glancing from his colleague to the bedridden woman, he gave her a polite nod. “Hello, I’m Auror Faust.”

Tarelin hovered near the back of the room, not wanting to crowd the bed. Anadotti was ill after all, best not make things uncomfortable for her.

"Alright, alright! Settle down," said a (crap!) copper, they called them...Oh-roars, wasn't it? "I know I don't look much like a nurse, but I've got your potion right here."

"Give it!" Dotty said, grasping as far as she dared, like a kid eager to receive a triple decker ice cream. He held it out of reach. "You can have it...but first you've got to tell me the exact details of what happened, where, and who."

You could scare chickens with the shocked, pouty look on her face. Her pain wasn't that bad but she thought that with her whining, and the subsequent entry of someone with more anesthetic, she could check into La-La-Land for another few hours. She'd have better luck transfiguring her spleen restorative into a bottle of Blue Toad at this rate.

Another Oh-roar. “I see you’ve gotten down to business already, Auror Sharp, but is this really ethical? Hello, I’m Auror Faust.” He hung back from the bed.

"That's right!" Dotty said with an accusatory finger at the Oh-roar sitting next to her. "You big meanie! You said you aren't a nurse, you can't deny me medicine! I'm the patient here!" There were rights, social norms, some sort of entitlement in this situation, wasn't there? What were the terms for harassment?

She folded her arms, shot the man next to her a gaze that wished cobras would grow from his hair. And Bite His Neck! "What's there to say, anyways? I got jumped by this witch and she melted my organs! Didn't the healers tell you how I got here?"

Sam was tagging along to observe the trainees. That and if they were making a serious error, intervene. Currently, however, they seemed to be doing juts fine, so he was staying back, out of sight of the patient. Anadotti Squiggs was, unfortunately, all too typical a victim. Homeless, not necessarily all there. It would be interesting how this played out, but the Bad Auror, Good Auror routine was a good choice, although not quite how he'd have approached questioning a victim. He preferred the technique of sympathizing with the victim, thus calming them and getting them to talk. Not that it was always an act, since some of the victims they saw were easy to sympathize with. Squiggs, not so much, admittedly.

Sure enough, Tarelin Faust was right behind him, and decided to take a slightly more polite approach. Rémy didn't think he was being that rough, but he wasn't messing around either. Every passing moment would make it more difficult to find the attacker, and he felt obliged to do well with his field work, if only to prove he was capable.

"I'm not the bad cop, I'm just the slightly-less-puttering-about cop," he protested. Anadotti snatched at the potion, but he kept it well away from her reaching fingers. "And you know as well as I do if I give you this potion now, you'll imbibe it and be off in an irreperable coma before we get so much as a clue out of you. So just, just..." he motioned for her to settle down. "Wait a minute and answer a few questions, alright?"

He took a deep breath then, releasing it with a sigh in hopes of relieving a little bit of his nervous anxiety. Now that he was actually getting assignments out in the field, he felt compelled to do them well so he would continue to receive assignments. Never mind that Tarelin, too, needed to do well in order to keep up his record and finish his training soon. Assuming what he hoped was his best "nice cop" demeanor, he explained carefully to Dotty, "We know a little bit from the reports, but we don't really have a coherent picture of what happened yet. If you can describe to us exactly what happened, it might help us catch the person who attacked you. We need details about what you were doing at the time of the attack, what they looked like, what spells they used, their method of escape - leave nothing out, even if you think it's not important."

"I'm not the bad cop, I'm just the slightly-less-puttering-about cop,"

Giving his fellow trainee a polite nod of apology, Tarelin moved to lean against the door, and, as Rémy continued to 'negotiate' with Squiggs, Tarelin pushed himself backwards to lean onto the wall near to the door. To any passing nurses, this method of questioning might seem... Questionable, and so Tarelin decided it would be best if they shut the door.

Before doing so, however, Tarelin glanced outside to check that no hospital staff were listening in on them. turning his head a little so as to not set Squiggs on edge, what he saw from his peripheral vision was more surprising than any nurse or doctor. Stood just the other side of the doorway was Auror Harcroft, dressed in his Auror robes and clearly trying to stay out of sight. Raising an eyebrow, he wondered why the man had not come in yet. Maybe he had been sent along by the powers that be to check up on the two of them...

Heck, he could even be here on a completely different assignment, and this run-in was mere coincidence, but Tarelin thought it odd that the senior Auror would show at the same time and on the same ward as two trainees just by chance.

"We need details about what you were doing at the time of the attack, what they looked like, what spells they used, their method of escape - leave nothing out, even if you think it's not important."

The end of Sharp's talk with Squiggs brought Tarelin back to focus. Deciding that he should not draw attention to Harcroft but at the same time leave the door open, Tarelin pushed himself off the wall and moved back towards the bed, purposefully not making any indication to Rémy that Harcoft was there: Harcroft might not have even noticed that Tarelin had noticed him! Smiling at Squiggs again, he gave her a reassuring gesture before taking a notepad and quill from his pocket, getting ready to take notes on what the two said.

Sam had, in fact, noticed Faust noticing him, and mentally gave Faust two points for situational awareness: one for noticing him, and one for keeping quiet about him being there. He was concerned at Sharp's apparent failure to notice him, though. Not noticing someone at a scene could mean either missing a potentially crucial witness, or worse, someone concealing themselves could be the perp, making failure to notice them be potentially fatal. He had lost far too many trainees or even fellow Aurors to a perp they should have spotted. Shuddering internally, he watched things play out. It was a semi-valid tactic withholding pain relief, but dangerous as well. If this victim ended up crucial, they could easily lose the case based on evidence being obtained under duress.

Some of the fancy words I-Wish-Him-Dead Oh-roar was saying went right over Dotty's head but she wasn't liking the tone. P-tooties if she wanted to be mentally unreachable. However, the only way to get all of her potions back seemed to be by playing along.

"Well, I'm walking along not bothering anybody when I trip over my shoe, then this witch jumps me when I'm felled, about scalps me by ripping my hair out and tells me to give up the goods. I've got nothing she wants and can't fight back so she takes my needles but not before popping my arm out of its socket and doing this," she pointed to her middle, "before popping away. I'm left there to writhe in agony!"

"She's an ugly brute," Dotty said, describing her attacker with every ounce of bias. "Looks and smells like she crawled out of a vat of grease. Just bigger than me, but I got a few hits in before she pulled out her wand."

That better be enough for them to cough up her anesthetic.

It was all fine and good Tarelin had thought to bring a notebook along, and Rémy admitted it would be helpful to have written notes, but he had yet to get into the habit of carrying a notebook himself. Trying to take notes while listening to someone's account of a crime usually resulted in one of two things: either he lost focus on the speaker in his attempt to furiously scribble down their words, or he forgot to take down the notes while he focused on listening to the speaker. In this case, he decided to just take in whatever he could of the victim's story, and let Tarelin concern himself with the written notes.

Once Dotty was done with her story, Rem sat back in his chair, thought about it for a moment, and said, "Alright then, I guess that about does it." Obviously they weren't going to be getting much more information on what the attacker looked like, so they had only so much to go by as far as physical profile. It was a start, but he still felt like there wasn't enough information to really get them anywhere, and their witness wasn't exactly...the most reliable.

He glanced over his shoulder at Tarelin, a look of trepidation on his face, and as he did he thought he spotted....someone hanging back just outside the door. He quirked an eyebrow curiously, but said nothing, turning back to the victim.

Grimacing, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Okay. Erm....one more thing, then," he told her, deciding on the fly to try a different tactic. "Can you tell us exactly where you were attacked? An exact spot, a street name, a district, anything would help the investigation. If you can help us find her, we'll be more than happy to make your 'ugly, greasy' villain pay with prison time for every second of pain she's caused you." He tried an impish grin.

" 'Sides, you can have your medicine after this one."

If they couldn't get much information on what the attacker looked like, they could at least check the crime scene and hopefully find out more there. It was better than nothing.

As Anadotti Squiggs gave her rather vague account of the attack, Tarelin jotted down her words in his notepad, doing his best to keep up. The girl was talking slow enough that Tarelin had little trouble with copying down what she said, but he still had to use shorthand. Clearly the woman was keen to get the interview over with, and Tarelin guessed the potion that Rémy was holding was the reason.

"She's an ugly brute, looks and smells like she crawled out of a vat of grease. Just bigger than me, but I got a few hits in before she pulled out her wand."

Tarelin raised an eyebrow as Squiggs described her assailant, pausing from his writing as he looked at her It was hard to hold back a giggle as her obviously-one-sided slating of the attacker. He wondered if she was so scattershot when he wasn't so ill. It was only after he noticed his fellow Auror-in-Training glance over his shoulder at him that he returned to his notes, doing his best to remember what the witch had said.

It was at times like this that Tarelin wished the Auror office allowed the use of Quick Quotes Quills - it would make these tasks far easier. Unfortunately, they had gained a bad reputation after several incidents involving Daily Prophets reporters like Rita Skeeter, and so the department had decided that Aurors were to stick with old-fashioned but ultimately more trusted quill and notepad.

"Okay. Erm....one more thing, then. Can you tell us exactly where you were attacked? An exact spot, a street name, a district, anything would help the investigation. If you can help us find her, we'll be more than happy to make your 'ugly, greasy' villain pay with prison time for every second of pain she's caused you. 'Sides, you can have your medicine after this one."

Nodding to reassure Anadotti, Tarelin hastily scribbled down Rémy's question before ripping a clean page from his notepad and, waving his wand at it. Small lines began to form across the page, creating a pocket-sized map of one area of London. A few more ripped pages later and Tarelin had created a scale chart of the capital. It would be useful for their investigation, as well as if Squiggs needed her memory jogging.

Well, they had failed to get a useable description out of Squiggs. The mention of needles was interesting, though, if useless in identifying the perpetrator of the attack. Still, questioning on an exact scene was good, since then there were several spells they could use in order to learn more about the attack. Sam would have asked about witnesses, however, even if they were unlikely to be present. offering the potion for one more question was a pretty good tactic, but Sam would have asked a couple more questions first, or even waited until Squiggs had stopped co-operating, either due to stubbornness or pain. The information they had was unreliable at best, so this could be a frustrating case.

More questions! They were never just going to let her slide of whatever summary her brain scrambled to find, the carrot being further and further dangled away. She fell back to her hospital pillow, flummoxed.

"Blinkin' Frinkin' and Nod!" she said with gritted teeth, trying to remember what had happened last night. The hazy booze soaked memories before her sobering little altercation could not be pinpointed. "I was...happy hour, no...last call? The Leak?"

She was starting to slip other details, thoughts spoken aloud without realizing it. "I mean, I only got the damn needles that night, not even for fifteen...how she'd know I had them? But I left for the street, but...no wait, I stepped out the muggle side, cuz' she wanted my wand but I didn't...I couldn't have gone more than a block, she dragged me under a fire escape..."

Not knowing that her internal monologue had become a stage performance, she said "I don't know the exact spot! I walked out of the Leaky whatever you call it, and she shoved me into the nearest nook off the sidewalk!"

"The Leaky Cauldron," Rémy muttered, half to himself. He would've thought the Cauldron was a high traffic area, even at night, but if Anadotti had left out the muggle side, then of course not - the streets would have been mostly dead, save for the attacker and the victim. Now that they had a concrete piece of information to latch onto, his thoughts were tumbling over one another, scrambling for the little snippets and phrases of information she'd given in an effort to line them up and form a coherent picture. Others would say they didn't have enough information, but from his perspective, it was a lucky thing they'd gotten any kind of a lead out of her at all, stubborn and irritable as she was.

To be perfectly honest, he was a bit disoriented trying to organize all this information and sort out a lead, and the fact that he really didn't have much field experience to go on wasn't helping with the stress, no matter if he kept it to himself. Sure, maybe they needed more information, but she wasn't being particularly helpful and he didn't want to outright interrogate her, so he was grasping for whatever tidbits he could get.

"Alright then, that'll be all...." he paused, then added quickly, "for now. I'm guessing you might have more to say later, when you're feeling better." And with that, he tossed her the glass vial.

Then he glanced over his shoulder at Tarelin. They could at least start by asking at the Leaky Cauldron, see if the owner had seen anything last night, and then comb the area of Muggle London outside the pub. He had an idea of the circumstances of the robbery - the mention of needles was a catching point - but he wanted to know what his partner had gathered from all that.

"Well, what do you think, Mr. Notebook?" he asked Tarelin, quirking an eyebrow. A furtive movement by the door caught his eye as he looked, and after several moments of staring he grimaced. "Haaar-croooft. I don't suppose you'd care to contribute to this discussion?"

He glanced back at Anadotti for a moment, informing her matter-of-factly, "You were so vague, we'll probably have to pester you again before long. I hope you know that."