Through the Eyes of Horror the Truth is Revealed.

[Jacob Corrion]

(Raynor only. Crash and I chew you out immensely plus no pay or pension for the duration of your life. Seriously, majorly closed.)

14 January, 2008
9:15 am, Thanatos's former office

Violence was one of the staple points of modern society in both the wizarding and muggle world, it was the one part of the past that was foretold to come again and eventually at some generation juncture or another the prediction proved truthful. One didn't need to be a seer to predict, nor some muggle sham, it was simply an application of common sense to the past transgressions of mortal man. Robert Shaw, was sadly a mortal man.

He breathed, ate, and bled mortal but has mind was equivalent to a god. He was always one step ahead, always prepared, and his way with words rivaled many of the best in the Department of Magical Cooperation, but he was not invinceable. Word had traveled quickly from Scotland that Hogwarts had been captured. Apparantly the sound of a shattering door on a quiet night was to be Shaw's first true mistake. The aurors, though rookies as they were had quickly formed a lose but effective perimeter and support was being drawn from all across the Brittish Isles including clerks and paper pushers. The wizarding world's worst fear had been realized, and the Prophet was probably already printing.

It was here in a commandeered and oddly smelling but never the less spacious office that Jacob Corrion had attempted to form in under twenty four meager hours the quickest solution to the man who was fast becoming the biggest headache of his career. Making the arrest of Tamis Raynor had been argumentively the biggest mistake in the department's career. Yes, it did top letting Robert Shaw slip through the cracks and allowing Apollo Schmidt retention of his 'beloved' house elf but it had been by the Minister's orders and Sergei being the obedient lapdog he was had carried it out. But Thanatos was gone, and for an indefinite amount of time Corrion was claiming the department and installing a free reign policy of his own creation which sumarized to: "If it didn't sound smart, don't do it." but ramblings of such malimportance can wait.

As soon as word had reached his ears of Hogwarts' dilema he'd begun pulling numerous strings, overdue favors and even inventing favors that didn't exist. Never theless he'd managed Tamis Raynor released and as of four hours prior she was en route to the other side of 'his' shiny new desk which meant that any moment now, as he poured over the latest of three-hour-old reports there should be a courtesy knock at his open door. But he was certain that courtesy knock would sound alot like a woman's screeching...

And he would hear it from the elevator...

[Tamis Raynor]

"For the last time, I'm not wearing it."

The tired, slightly hoarse croak still managed to sound reproachful... and amazingly with a great deal of magnitude. It was hideous, it was ruffled, and it was pink. The torn, tattered, thin and rather soiled excuse of a robe Raynor was currently garbed in was much more dignified than the hideous monstrosity that one of the many women escorting her was trying to shove into her arms. The woman, and her twelve companions, let out identical fearful squawks. The one attacking the mass of unkempt knots that was Raynor's hair gave a spiteful jerk with the brush.

By this point, Tamis had gathered that she was expected in the Head of Law Enforcement's department in five minutes and she was expected to be presentable. Tamis Raynor and the herd of paper pushers had a much different opinion on "presentable." It was all the hapless Deputy could do to escape the fourth cleaning charm as she darted from her circle of misery and into the Head's office. She promptly slammed the door closed behind her and sagged against it.

"Damn vultures," she muttered, raising a shaky hand through the freshly brushed if grimy hair.

In truth, Tamis did not understand why she was here. A month of Azkaban. An entire month. Longer they told her, but they had thrown her into a high security cell... the passing of time had been undeterminable. And now, four days (so they said) from her trial date and she was being released. And with a great deal of urgency. Her head still felt like it was going to explode from the rather rude side-along apparation they had subjected her to. She had always abhorred apparation. Not to mention she still felt like she had a Dementor breathing down her neck. Add this to a month of less-than-gourmet-food at less-than-generous proportions and it was safe to assume that the now closed door was the only thing still keeping the Deputy on her feet.

Very content to allow the wooden frame to keep supporting her weight, Raynor allowed her eyes to take in the man behind the mahogany desk. She blinked. Blinked again. Rubbed her eyes for good measure and stared again. Each time it was still Jacob Corrion stationed behind it, looking as if he expected to attend his own funeral with every passing moment.

"Is this some sick joke?" She asked carefully, eying the man wearily.

[Jacob Corrion]

And indeed he was right but it wasn't just one screeching voice he heard but what instead seemed more like a symphony of mandrakes. One among them sounded dominantly and rightfully pissed and more like an angry giant while the rest acted like the school girls some of them nearly were. The sight the met his eyes as the entourage drew nearer and nearer was what appeared to be a freight train of hands, bodies, paper and what could rightfully be described as a potion's experiment gone wrong. Corrion quickly found himself looking back toward the frightening report entwined within his fingers and an audible SLAM! echoed and a mutter vaguely reached his ears.

He was a pale man, but the only true way to describe the appearance of the well seasoned auror was what many aurors called 'dark mark look'. that thousand-yard stare of blank expression as though the end of humanity was on the doorstep and he was expected to open said door. In his mind he already had, in his mind many apocalyptic endings and scenarios had already occurred, most involving slaughter and death by the dozens...it was all he could picture knowing a reasonably unreasonable man was in control of seven wizarding generations of children.

"Is this some sick joke?"

The words jarred him of his reverie, his speech completely lacking as he got first hand look at she who had formerly been the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts. Such a small term in Azkaban had done so much, and none of it apparently for the better which meant everything he was about to disclose would certainly put him much more than six feet under the ground. He made know acknowledgement to her barely present sense of humor, this was quite possibly the worst one of his trainees, or anyone in the entire department for that matter, had ever seen him. No sleep, no tea, no biscuits, nothing but verbal and written accounts of an unfathomable crisis and it all had been dumped most unceremoniously upon his reluctant shoulders. "How much do you know?" His tone was one he'd hoped to never have to use again, one that only a veteran could understand, and even then that veteran would fear not what they knew...

but what they were about to be told.

[Tamis Raynor]

With a considerable bit of reluctance, Tamis pushed away from the wooden support, allowing herself to stand upright and alone. The woman looked a right pitiful state but there was nothing catastrophically wrong with her. It was nothing hot water, a comfortable bed, decent nourishment, and a bucketful of chocolate could not cure. Raynor had, in fact, been subject to much worse than a mini vacation in Azkaban. However bullheaded, the former educator was still regrettably human. As such, malnutrition, calling a cramped dark cell home, and having soul-suckers as uninvited house guests took its toll. But Corrion? The man looked like he could have been rooming with her. His expression was funeral. The last time she had seen it even come close to its current composure was when a trainee had tried to foolishly apparate to United States and splinched himself over the Atlantic.

"How much do you know?"

The weariness in her eyes glazed defensively at his tone. Besides the fact that she was suddenly a free woman again and that Corrion was sitting behind a large fancy desk? Not much. But she knew that tone; somberly solemn and delivered with a directness that suggested there was no easy way to say what was about to be said. During the Second War, it had often meant news of the death of a comrade.

Ignoring both fatigue and the quickened pace of her heart, Tamis remained outwardly calm. Why, exactly, had she been released so abruptly after the Minister saw to it personally that she was settled securely away? Why keep her waiting for so long for a trial date and then pull her from custody faster than she could say "guilty'? Raynor highly doubted the charges against her had been dropped, but nor was this the usually treatment of a convict.

"How much should I know?" She resigned, any attempt at humor now obsolete.

((Horrible. Horrible. Sorry. ))

[Jacob Corrion]

Each year was effectively a new beginning a new generation and here Shaw held seven of them captive while he, he was behind a desk in London doing not a damn bit of good to anyone and certainly not himself. He was not the department head, he was no where close to such a level. What he was was the only man on the force with a both a decent knowledge of Shaw, and an equally decent amount of experience. Robert Shaw's freedom had cost the wizarding world a great deal since his escape, but now it threatened to take nearly everything. Hogwarts had been penetrated twice before by the forces of villainy but never captured, and with the Prophet camping out on anything that even smelled remotely like a front-page lead there was little prevention that could keep this monstrosity of a dilemma from reaching the public eye.

"How much should I know?"

His eyes barely lifted, his lips for a very long moment found themselves incapable of speech. This wasn't telling a a woman that her most prized necklace had been destroyed, or a family that their auror whom they'd born and raised had perished while in the line of duty. This was actually far worse than any detail he could ever assign. There wasn't even a scene to walk and he could see the risk of blood behind the words. The man swallowed hard, wishing greatly for a large case of very strong firewhiskey that would not come his way for several days and finally spoke speech.

"You aren't here because the Minister had a sudden change of heart Tamis." Corrion began, voice and tone shedding little light on the words to come. "You're here because I pulled many favors and many strings..." He trailed off to nothing once more as he tried to find a polite way of telling Tamis Raynor he'd failed. He'd failed in his duties, failed in his training, and failed a bond of camaraderie that was no doubt about to be shattered against the mahogany wood of the desk upon which his hands so unmovingly resided. There simply was no easy way for it to be said, and for the present moment no way for him to form the words.

Failure of this magnitude was as unforgivable as Robert Shaw himself.

[Tamis Raynor]

Panicked and horrible contemplations revolving around Leah and Banks jumbled Raynor's mind, sending a visible tremor through her legs that had nothing to do with physical condition. Corrion was beating around the bush with her. Usually a blunt man, he never skirted questions like this. The Minister didn't approve... did he even know? If not, then there had to be a extraordinarily good excuse for Jacob Corrion to defy a superior. Dear Merlin, just not let it have been out of sympathy for a friend. Nauseated, the ex-Deputy closed her eyes, swallowed, and opened them again, preparing for the worst. Shaw had his limits, but he was not the man that Tamis had thought him to be. It was for that precaution that she had broken the ties to the ones she loved... but the man would not meet her eyes.

She strove to get her heart back out of her throat, "I am a big girl, Corrion. Enough with the riddles and tell me what you've dragged me out of my hole to say."

It was frustrating to watch a grown man, comrade, and once instructor sitting like a whipped dog with its tail between its legs. The entire of Level Two was a chaotic mess. What she could see over the hair pins and the pink atrocity had been a flurry of paper pushers and caffeine-driven aurors running around as if You-Know-Who had come back from the dead.

Raynor was hungry and exhausted; both physically and mentally, and by what she could gather, still technically "in custody". Her tolerance level for word games had never been remarkable and it was in no condition for sudden, structured improvement.

[Jacob Corrion]

Diid the Minister know? Actually that was a right good question to Corrion himself, a right pity it wasn't said aloud. He remembered saying he would raise his concerns and plans but he couldn't rightfully recall if he actually raised them...oh well Thronbrush could take his badge after the crisis passed, unless he wanted to merely resign early. There was of course no way he'd live through the next election term. But back to the rapidly decaying scenario at hand...

"I am a big girl, Corrion. Enough with the riddles and tell me what you've dragged me out of my hole to say."

"A big girl you may be, and it's for that reason I fear how you may fall," Corrion paused allowing his eyes to lock with hers. There was no way he'd be able to say the words himself, to say them implied defeat and he would not let Robert Shaw defeat him inside an office kilometers away from his location. If Shaw wanted Corrion to bow, he'd have to force him, in person witht he Unforgiveables. "I can't say without condemning myself further than I have already done." Corrion finsihed before pushing the report across the table. It hadn't been as long as anyone wuld have imagined, in fact it was just one sentence, followed by broken figures and the only information any of his aurors seemed to have...

Robert Shaw has taken Hogwarts...unknown hostages...size of opposing force unknown...request all available support...possible aurors down within castle confines...

His eyes held but a moment more before faltering again. He'd failed before many times, as ever auror had. It came with the job that some got away and some victims went unavenged, but for one to get away, and then return three steps higher than when he'd escaped -- it was unforgiveable regardless of the outcome. To his right sat Shaw's file, to his left the stack of rookie statements that all said nearly the same thing. This was why he needed experience, this was why he'd wanted Brady, and this was why he wanted that god bloody firewhiskey. Public intoxication under these circumstances would be heavily and easily forgiveable...

"I'm sorry Tamis..."

[Tamis Raynor]

There was a scant four feet from the doorway to the front of the desk. A distance, even for a physically famished individual, that could be covered in a couple of strides. It took her six. It was just a piece of parchment, sitting atop a mass of like rolls and Daily Prophet clippings, but it felt like she was walking forward to put her signature on her own death warrant. Her gaze held Corrion’s for a moment longer before dropping with deliberate care to the brief, hasty paragraph. With cool composure, Raynor read it four times. Four times without as much as moving a muscle. Four times without breathing.

No. It was not possible. It could not be possible. This. Was. Not. Happening. Hogwarts was safe; it was suppose to be safe. Merlin’s pants, she had sat for hours with Fiona pouring over known secrets to the school to make sure of that. The aurors were there to protect the students. She – she was supposed to have been there to protect the students. Her pulse threatened to splint her neck open. Robert Shaw inside Hogwarts… Robert Shaw with four hundred students at his mercy. If her stomach had not already been empty, it would have been now. The words on the paper blurred before her eyes, and instead, she saw Robert’s handwriting and a letter long ago fed to her fireplace; I may only hope that our paths not cross, for I know that should they, one of us will most likely not live to see another morning… but rest assured, if I need you, or anyone else from your precious abode, it will not be difficult to arrange.

SLAM. The Ex-Deputy’s hand met the table with shuddering force. Head bowed, eyelids contracted, Tamis concentrated on breathing, thankful for the veil of hair that obscured her face in that moment. She should have known; she should have seen. Defense Against the Dark Arts, all of it, it had just been an elaborate scheme. Every chain of command, every Department, is rusted and broken somewhere in it's links. The warnings had been there from the beginning. The. Very. Beginning.

"I'm sorry Tamis..."

The arm on the table shook vigorously. It very well might have been the only thing keeping the woman from crumpling forward. But there was no tremor in her voice. “I told you. Curse you, I told all of you. You left them more defenseless!” And she had helped them do it; helped them by reacting in anger instead of rationalizing through it. She had played right into Shaw’s hands. Where was Fiona? How could she let allow this to happen. “What is this, Corrion? You lock me up when I warn you about this, and then you haul me back out after its happened? Call your lap dogs, I’ll give you reason this time.”

The threat was idle and they both knew it. Corrion was, after all, physically stronger and the only one in the room with a wand.

[Jacob Corrion]

Oh if only Robert Shaw was only able to see the battered and ragged woman before him. The equivalent analogy to the reaction he knew was coming was as though Goliath had risen again after David slung him down. The only awkward moment in this mental picture was that it now appeared David was going to choose Goliath's side to fight. Sling and stone his arse.

“I told you. Curse you, I told all of you. You left them more defenseless! “What is this, Corrion? You lock me up when I warn you about this, and then you haul me back out after its happened? Call your lap dogs, I’ll give you reason this time.”

The man was, for lack of better words stunned, not only by the complexity of Shaw's actions and Tamis Raynor's reaction, but by his own guilty and nearly shattered pride. Never in his fourteen years of service to the Ministry, not since his own trainee days had he flinched, broken, never had he backed down. And now, now in one foul swoop he felt as though he was sixty, burned out and deemed antiquated by the force he'd so loyally served. The words cut him to his very core and slashed straight through what feeble defenses he'd managed to prepare. Was Robert Shaw really worth all of this? Was his head worth the amount of wizarding blood he held high in his hand, over his head?

"You told me, and I told them and they damn well ignored me. I had no choice. My orders are my orders, my job my job. The Ministry hasn't changed Tamis, it's just as manipulatable as it was nine years ago. You want to take your anger out on me, and accuse me go ahead. By all rights I deserve it for what I've allowed to accumulate before us but you are not here as a sick joke. The Minister doesn't even know you've been released."

His words were angered, his tone was angered, and his hands quivered with both apprehension and rage alike. If she wanted to strangle his neck until he lay dead, in his mind she gave him every right. The answer was yes. Yes, Robert Shaw was worth the blood he held, but Robert Shaw was not worthy enough to even be near the blood he claimed. He needed to be there, and if that meant dragging a riled and royally pissed Tamis Raynor with him then that was what he would do...

although he was more inclined to believe that it was [i[she[/i] who would be dragging him.