Cold Case Set On Fire

"I just always presumed we didn't know much about Moira because James was always so much bigger than life. He's always being such a git. Moira has always been a bit more in the shadows. The only time I've even caught a glimpse of her was at the attack of the werewolves on Hogwarts a couple of years ago, and that was from a distance. However, all the werewolves are supposed to be registered with the Ministry--supposedly, so we could at least start with the registry and see if we can find anything that even remotely rings a bell. Hopefully her nickname comes from some form of her real name--or something."

He watched her face pale when it looked like they were going to need to meet with the Minister. He understood that he was tossing a lot at her today, and it was surely overwhelming.

"He really isn't that scary," Brian laughed. "And, trust me, we all look a lot more human when we're hungry. By the time we get his lunch to him, he's going to be starving. I happen to know he missed breakfast this morning, so that means he's been living on Earl Grey all morning. By the time we get there, he'll let us in if we show up with food, and then we'll have his undivided attention for an hour or so."

The server brought back a large paper shopping bag with all of their order all well packed.

"Lizzie just wants a report. She's included some flight forms for you all," the waitress said.

"And you didn't think this was going to be all inclusive," Brian teased Anabelle. "You're going to learn how to be a gourmet food critic too today over lunch," he laughed. "We'll mail them back in paper birds when we're done."

"Oh, do send an owl instead?" the server asked. "The last paper birds you sent got eaten by Khaat's ruddy big bird."

"Oh," Brian said. "Sorry about that."

"Why can't she use an owl like everyone else?"

"Because she got Archangel first," Brian laughed. The server shook her head and left. Brian looked at Anabelle. "My wife uses a bald eagle instead of an owl. She's had that bird for years. As long as he's alive, she's not going to use an owl, but I forgot--he doesn't like those paper birds. He attacks them and shreds them." He laughed. "I don't know why, but they seem to annoy the crap out of him." He laid a handful of galleons on the table as a generous tip. "Are we ready to go do a not-so-exciting records check?"

"Let's hope," she nodded, knowing full well that her nickname could have nothing at all to do with her real name. It was like the situation with her nickname, it had nothing to do with her real name. Anabelle had nothing in common with Hitame, so it always made it a good alias for someone she didn't like giving her real name to, though there weren't too many people like that anymore. Everyone preferred to call her Hit though, and she wondered if maybe she should have told Brian that, in case anyone ever asked for her under that name.

Nah, if anyone ever asked for her at work, they would know to use Anabelle.

Hit laughed softly when he spoke about his wife's bald eagle. "Well, she certainly has good taste in birds then." she said with a smile. She's never been a huge fan of owls, hence her pet for school being a cat whom she always told people was still a kitten but she got her during her first year so she was anything but a kitten at this point. This year would make six years, and that would be Katniss' sixth birthday, Hit realized. She'd have to do something for her loyal companion, though she was a pain a lot of the time.

"It kind of makes sense," Hit said. "This is his territory so seeing something else that looks like a bird would probably annoy him because it's there. Although if he doesn't react with owls, I'm not sure what the problem would be." she added, her face showing that she was probably thinking too deep about it. But she could hardly help it as she loved animals and anything having to do with them. Minus cleaning up after them, that is.

She laughed again, this time softer, and nodded. "Oh yeah." she grinned, feeling slightly more comfortable though she knew she would probably tense up again when they reached the Minister's office because that was just the way she worked, unfortunately.

People skills were definitely something she needed to work on.

"Come on. Let's go," Brian said, picking up the large bag of take out lunch foods. "The floo is probably the quickest way from here. It'll take us to the atrium."

He went to the fireplace, took a healthy pinch of floo powder and said "Ministry of Magic!" The green smoke enveloped him, and a moment later, he stepped out into the black marble atrium.

He took the lift and went up to the Ministry records department. The older secretary there, the woman with the large round, thick glasses always reminded him of Sybil Trelawney. Her name was Dorothy. Dorothy was a fixture in the records department and had been there forever, it seemed, and she ran a tight ship. She didn't do favors for anyone--well, nearly everyone.

The way the records were organized never quite made sense to Brian. They clearly were not alphabetical. They were numerical, but Brian didn't get the numerical system. To get it figured out, Brian always had to resort to asking Dorothy, who looked up what he needed in some gigantic, old tome that always made him think the book was bigger than she was.

Dorothy would get the number and then she'd lead him to one of the massive file cabinets and pull the file for him. She made it look like child's play. Brian had figured out the key to get Dorothy to help him look things up and to avoid sending in a records request. All it took was a smile, maybe a kiss on the old woman's cheek, and, always, some little sweet sugary nibble. And today, he had a bagful of them.

"Come meet Dorothy. Forget all the 'Wicked Witch of the West' muggle nonsense you hear about her," he told Anabelle. "She's a sweet old dear, but she just doesn't fool around. She wants things done right. So, treat her right, and she'll treat you right."

He went into the records' room, and saw the gray haired witch hunkered over an oversized, antique Davenport desk.

"There's my girl," Brian said, sweet talking her.

"And there you are again, that same boy, with the same line of codswallop," she said, trying to look annoyed with him.

"How are you, Dorothy?" he laughed, kissing her cheek. "Oh, hey, I want you to meet someone. This is Anabelle Mulciber. She's an apprentice here. I told her if she ever needed anything, you were the woman to see."

"He lies," Dorothy looked at the girl, teasing Anabelle. "Nice to meet you anyway. Don't believe all the hogwash he sells you. He spins some very colorful yarns, this one does."

"Only for you, Dorothy," he said.

"What do you want?"

"What do you mean, 'what do I want'? Can't I just drop in to say hello?"

"You could, but you don't. When you start by calling me your girl, I know you want something. What is it this time?"

"Augustine, Elizabeth--deceased. Most likely a homicide last year, unsolved." Brian picked up a quill and a scrap of parchment from a box of scrap paper.

"Let's have a look see," Dorothy said, opening the large ledger, flipping several of the parchment pages. "Ah, here it is. Elizabeth you said? Yes. Number F1-hack-105-hack-BC2028U. You got that?"

"Yep," Brian said, showing the slip of paper to Anabelle. The number on his slip of paper was F1-105-BC2028U. "A hack is a slang word here for a dash that appears in a number. It divides the case into different departments and divisions."

"The F," Dorothy told Anabelle, "means that the case is suspected to be a felonious offense, the 1 behind the F means that its suspected to be a first degree felony. The 105 is the alphabetical code for her name Augustine--is letter A, which is the first letter of the alphabet. The zero means that we don't have the middle name for some reason. The five means the first name starts with E. The last set of numbers means the case happened in 2028BC. We have records going back farther than any muggle records, so we must be specific about that. And the U means the case is still logged as being unsolved. Brian, you pulled this chart already."

"We're looking for any other records--birth records, death certificates, marriage certificates--anything."

"Oh, well, why didn't you say so. Don't lose that number." She closed one ledger book and opened another. "F1-105..."

"BC2028U," Brian finished.

"Ah yes. There. There it is. According to this, we have two birth certificates. Hers and her child's, her death certificate, and no marriage record."

"What? Her what?" Brian frowned.

"You want to see these?"

Brian looked at Anabelle, frowning. He nodded. No marriage, but a child? There was no mention of a child.

"Yeah," Brian said. "We definitely need to see it."

"And I suppose you'll get lost again if I don't find it for you," she sighed.

"Please and thank you?" Brian asked.

"The things I do for you," she rolled her eyes, getting down from her counter stool and going back into the records room. Brian took one of the tissues from her tissue box and put one of the elegant tasting pastries from the box in his bag and put it on the tissue for her. Dorothy returned a moment later and saw the little picture perfect pastry.

"Bribery," she narrowed her eyes at him.

"...gets me everywhere," he teased.

"The Minister brought you up to be a fine lad, he did," she said. "Don't you tell him I said that."

"I won't breathe a word," he smiled.

"Don't you tell either," she looked at Anabelle, trying to look fierce.

"She doesn't know what you're talking about," Brian said.

"Make him tell you the truth about that, if you're going to work with him," Dorothy said. "If you're with him, you'll be heading to the Minister for something or another. Don't be intimidated. Stay on the Minister's good side, and you've got a right good ally for life. He's a good man. You'll get on just fine with him." She handed the records to Anabelle. "You take these but bring them back when you're done. Brian, you..."

"I know, I know," Brian said, filling out the sign out form so that they could take the records.

"And see that these get back this time," she shook her finger at Brian.

"We'll remember," he said. "Thank you, Dorothy."

"You tell anyone I do this for you, and I'll box your ears," she said sternly.

"Understood," Brian said. He motioned to Anabelle. It was time for them to go read what the records actually said. He was going to head back to the office where he and Anabelle had started out that morning.

People skills, Hit. Remember your people skills.

The skills she was on so lacking in? It was hard for the girl to even make eye contact with the woman as she spoke, so she was glad when most of the conversation was directed toward Brian. She freely looked between the two of them as they spoke, taking in what the numbers and letters all meant.

She stiffened slightly as the woman named Dorothy looked at her and mentioned the Minister but only nodded in response to her words.

At this point, she had lost interest in her conversation with him as they now knew that there was a child involved. Only one body had been found at the scene, but there hadn't been a child anywhere else. Something was off and Hit was getting a bad feeling about it. There was no way a child could just disappear for no reason, and from the birth certificate, she wasn't old enough to really be wandering around by herself.

She must have been taken by her mother's killers.

But what reasoning could they have had for taking her? A, what? Ten year old couldn't be useful to them in any way, if they were right about who the killers had been. The thought of the little girl being alone, in captivity, thinking no one would save her and that she'd been abandoned really didn't sit well with her. It was something she didn't want anyone to experience, not after the hell Naomi had gone through and what she had gone through because of her little sister's experiences.

"Does that mean that they have her?" She questioned Brian with a serious look on her face, her eyes narrowed. "She wasn't with her mother when she was killed and there was no information on her anywhere else.. so does that mean.." she trailed off, not wanting to finish her sentence.

"Let's go look at what we've got," he said to her gently, walking calmly back to the training room. He took a seat back at the table and put the birth certificates and the death certificate there. He wanted time to study them.

He had not forgotten Anabelle's question. "Eleanor, huh? Born in 2019. Makes her ten. Well, that certainly wouldn't be out of the range that attracts James--a little young perhaps.

"James and Moira have been known to take children with them before. He believes that werewolves are superior to any other creatures--including humans. He thinks the only useful human is either a dead one, or a willing convert--one he had make into a werewolf. If he had his way, he would eliminate humans altogether, in favor of a werewolf dominated world.

"To some extent, he learned that from his mentor, Fenrir Greyback, but Greyback was never quite that ambitious. Even in his 80's now, Fenrir is still quite a dangerous man.
I've heard some rumors that Greyback is about the only person who has any ability to bring James under control. I presume, though, that Moira has some influence there too since she is his dominant female.

"At any rate, if he and Moira killed Elizabeth, then, they might have taken the child. Two possible reasons come into my head. First, if the girl saw them, then James would have taken her to shut her up. Or, second, if he saw an orphaned child, and we don't know for certain she's orphaned,..."

He took another look at the birth certificate. "Well, well. No, I correct myself. She's not orphaned. She has a birth father listed. Lorcan D'Eath. That's not entirely surprising. Lorcan make procreating a regular sport. But, back to my second thought--if James thought that Eleanor was orphaned, he might have seen her as a perfect little castoff that he could collect and wait until she was old enough and then use her for breeding purposes. The other way to grow a pack is not just by turning humans. Its by making sure your females are producing lots and lots of new pack members. Either way, there's an excellent chance she's still alive.

"There is one snag, though, to that. Elizabeth is listed as a half vampire. And we already know that D'Eath is half vampire. That makes Eleanor a half vampire. If James realizes that, he'll be pushed to eliminate her, most likely. Vampires and werewolves are eternal enemies. And besides that, it isn't medically possible for the two species to procreate together. That makes her useless to him--and a significant risk to him by virtue of what she knows."

He looked back at Anabelle. "And now I think we have what we need to go see Robert. We definitely need those autopsy results now. We need to be absolutely sure that Elizabeth was killed by a werewolf before we even consider what we should do next. Meddling with a werewolf pack is deadly business. I'm not disregarding Eleanor, but if we are going to consider rescuing her, we're going to have to do this right."

He went to a file cabinet, opened a drawer and got out a form. "Here. This is your case. Fill this form out. This is a request to get the Ministry to order the release of the autopsy record from St. Mungos to the Ministry. Ordinarily, this would sit for awhile probably on Bishop's desk, and then she'd question us about it, and perhaps take it up the channels--or not. However, since this still classifies as a training exercise, we can eliminate all that and go directly to Robert.

"Robert can sign the form, not only as Minister but also as Chief of Staff for St Mungos. It kills two birds with one stone. As soon as you get this filled out, I'll sign it as your trainer, and then we'll go upstairs.

"Oh, and just so you know, I might not have the final word on whether you can be part of going to try to get Eleanor. That might well be Robert's call, and he's going to want to make sure you can handle yourself under pressure and that you're steady with your wand. Do your best to measure up, and there's a chance he might let you go along. Maybe."

"Another sister to add onto Damitrius' family." Hit muttered softly as he mentioned that the little girl's father was Lorcan D'Eath. It was ironic, in a way. "We were talking earlier about how the D'Eaths might be involved in this somehow and now we find out that they actually are connected though not really in the way we would've expected." She looked at Brian, thinking about what a coincidence this was.

She wasn't sure her friend would react well to yet another sibling, solely because she was still having issues coping with Xander's birth. But she was rarely around anymore so it might not affect her too badly, the Gryffindor thought.

"If she is with them, it means she's in danger, we have to hurry." She said, her voice cracking at the end accidentally. A thought suddenly crossed her mind as she stared down at the birth certificate. Why would her surname be Augustine if her father was known? Was it a decision her mother made? Does that mean Lorcan wasn't aware of Eleanor being his daughter?

"Brian, do you think Lorcan knows about Eleanor?" She questioned softly, running her finger over his name on the birth certificate.

It was strange to think about for her, as she was sure no one in her family had gone through that(but she could be wrong), but it was entirely possible that the girl's mother kept her daughter a secret from her own father. She wondered what the possible cause of keeping her a secret from him would have been, though.

"Well," Brian said, "I only know the man by reputation and by what I've read in his dossier. However, he has a huge reputation for being, how do I say this, good with the ladies? If that's the case, and if he were finding some casual hook ups, then perhaps the arrangement or expectation was that if anything more came out of it, then Lorcan was not going to be part of it. Though that doesn't seem to have worked well for him. He has been known to have several children, and he hasn't been as good with marriage as he has been with creating lots of little D'Eaths. Going by that alone, I think there is a better than average chance that he knows nothing about it.

"The other thing that strikes me about this is that there is a rivalry between vampires and werewolves that goes back farther than any of our recorded history. If he were to know that any child of his were in the hands of a werewolf, I don't think he'd let that alone. I think he would probably go fairly nuclear about it. That alone bothers me, and that alone is enough to talk to Robert. The last thing that he is going to want is for a creature war. He's not going to want every vampire in England to go on a rampage to try to eliminate every werewolf because that puts a lot of innocent humans in the crossfire. This needs to be done rather delicately if we can. I think we need to get Robert's input before we do anything more. So, should we go upstairs now? You ready? The fact that we come bearing lunch will get us an appointment," he grinned.

She hadn't commented on his comment about her maybe not being involved with rescuing the little girl if they found that she really was with Blood and his pack. It wasn't because she had missed it, no, it had been because she didn't want to make any unnecessary actions that would make it official that she couldn't go. She still had the chance to go at the moment, and she knew she would have to prove that she was strong enough, prepared enough to go on the rescue when and if it happened.

It all came down to what the Minister thought, and the thought of that scared her immensely. But she couldn't let that show, not right now. Besides, she knew that she could be of some help when it came to vampires and werewolves or multiple reasons. Ryo and Sayuri were both vampires and she knew how to deal with them, she'd had encounters with other vampires too. When it came to werewolves, though, she couldn't say her experiences were any good. Well, most of them weren't but there were still some that could be considered good. Those would have to be when she was with Olivia and her friends.. And then there was that other boy who ended up dropping out, the one real encounter she'd had with him hadn't gone well and for some reason as she thought about him and that experience, Hit couldn't help but think that he was with that pack now too. Not to mention she had been involved in the attack on Hogwarts by the rogue werewolves.

He was really interested in following Moira, after all.

"Yeah." She responded softly as she nodded. The faster they could speak to the Minister, the better. At this point, Hit was just worrying about the little girl and what could've been happening to her while they were still figuring things out.

"Okay, then," Brian stood up and handed her the paperwork. "You're in charge of that. I'll take the food. Let's go weasel our way in, shall we? We'll take the lift."

He led the way to the lift and took it upstairs. He doubted she'd ever been to this section of the building. "Breathe," he told her, having a feeling her anxiety would escalate going up here. "Just be yourself. It'll be fine. it's just lunch, remember?"

He breezed into the office where the secretary was busy at her desk.

"Take a seat," she waved at them, without even looking up.

"No," Brian said firmly. She bristled and looked up at them. Then she saw it was Brian. "I don't need to take a seat. Is he in?"

"Yes," she said. "But he's busy."

"So am I," Brian said. "Besides, its lunch time. I can tell him myself that I'm here with his lunch, if you're too busy."

"No," she said stiffly. She got up and went into the Minister's office.

"This isn't his regular secretary," Brian said quietly to Anabelle. "This woman and I don't get along. She's a strange bird. She still thinks Gideon Pierce was all that and a bag of chips. Someone obviously gave her clearance to work this desk when she shouldn't have been allowed to work up at this level again. I might have to do something about this. I won't have Robert's personal security at risk."

The woman came back out and left Robert's door open. Brian motioned to Anabelle and he started in before the secretary could even respond that it was fine to go in. She glared at him angrily, and he merely smiled at her.

Robert was standing behind his desk, and he hadn't missed the exchange between Brian and the secretary. He shook his head, as Brian shut the door behind him and Anabelle.

"Why must you bait her like that?" Robert laughed after Brian shut the door.

"Because she's an idiot," Brian said. "She's still crushing on one of the worst wizards we've seen in a long time."

"She's not an idiot, but she does have poor taste, I must agree," Robert laughed. He saw the student with him. "Introduce me to your apprentice."

"This is Anabelle Mulciber," Brian said. "Anabelle, this is Robert. Robert, Anabelle."

"Nice to meet you," Robert extended his hand towards her for a handshake. "Hopefully he's showing you useful things? Yes?"

"Yeah, just lunch with the Minister." She retorted with an accidental sarcastic tone. Anabelle had the tendencies to speak sarcastically, or at least with that tone, when in situations like the one she was now in. It wasn't a bad situation but she was definitely nervous and with her already sarcastic nature, she couldn't help her tone.

She was glad, though, that Brian was going to be there as well because she didn't think she'd be able to do this on her own, not now at least. She was still young, as well as a student, and she hadn't ever been the outgoing type so things like this scared her because she was always afraid of failure. Even though she's experienced it enough already.

He seemed to have history, good or bad, with everyone they had met so far so it was clear that he'd been doing this for a while, the girl observed quietly as she watched the encounter between the secretary and Brian.

She stiffened slightly when she Brian started to walk into the office and it took her a second to begin moving as she tried to calm herself down. It's just lunch.. Just like Brian said. she told herself. Surprisingly enough, it helped. Sure it was lunch with the Minister, but it was lunch none-the-less and she could handle that.

She extended her hand out to reach for his for the handshake and smiled shyly. "You as well, sir." she said in a soft voice, lowering her hand down next to her and nodding when he asked her about Brian's teachings. "Oh, um, yes. Of course." she said rather quickly, starting to think back on everything they'd gone through that day.