Bait and Bleed - An AU War RPG

*It's eight-thirty when Sirius shows up, and he's looking about as thunderous as he ever does, like a bottle rocket about to go off. He hammers the doorknocker rather harder than he has to, and shouts through it.*

Open up.

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*Gideon has already heard plenty, and when he opens the door the first thing he does is keep his mouth shut. The second thing he does is thrust a Firewhisky into Sirius' hand. The third is step aside to let him into the flat with a little after-you gesture.*

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*Sirius steps in, trying not to stomp and failing at least a little. He knocks back half the glass before he even speaks.*

--Fabian told you, then?

That fucking woman.

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*Alice couldn't wait after she'd received the owl. After spending the day in London, she'd come home to find Augusta holding the letter with a very raised eyebrow. The last thing she needed was more questioning.

She knocks on the twins' door, desperate to start the thorough round of abuse they were all about to carry out on Umbridge.*

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Bloody right I told him!

*Fabian, sprawled on the sofa, doesn't bother getting up. He's got a tumbler in hand (beer will not do, tonight) and an uncharacteristically murderous look on his face. It doesn't suit him.*

If it's Alice, come in, if it's not, fuck off!

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*Sirius re-opens the door and lets Alice through.*

--Alice.

So how are we going to hide the body, then?

*It's meant as a lighthearted jest but it comes off sounding rather grim and literal.*

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Ought to feed her to a vat of rabid cats. Why the hell does Crouch even have her working on this, everyone knows she's got it in for the lot of them! Justice, my left bollock - sorry, Alice - but this is the biggest load of shite I've heard in years.

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Cats don't come in vats, and I'd settle for the Kiss myself, if only to make sure the very last of whatever the fuck she is gets eaten by something worse than her.

*He downs the rest of the firewhiskey and contemplates the empty glass, still fuming. And thank god for that, because it keeps whatever vulnerability that might enter his voice tough and angry instead of scared as he feels.*

She threatened me with Remus. Not surprising, but--

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See, that's exactly the kind of coercive tactic that's making the whole Ministry look so bad! You can't just haul out threats against people's flatmates just because they're werewolves to twist their bloody arms!

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*Sirius' jaw works.*

She worked him over last month for the Registry. Took him for special inspection.

I don't know what the fuck she's playing at but whatever it is, we're part of it now.

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The only thing we can do is use these extra resources she's talking about to actually try to hunt down the real cause.

*Alice moves from the wall to the couch.*

What else can we do? The woman's insane.

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And what do you think the real cause is, then?

*He doesn't mean to snap, but he does, because the idea of working for this woman is so alarming that he's on edge.*

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*Alice isn't in the mood to chide, she's too disconnected.*

I have no idea. To be honest, I've gone through conspiracy theories where the Ministry is doing it in order to keep people afraid and make them look like the safest option, to the idea that maybe some rogue werewolves are really doing it. But these attacks don't have the signature of say, Greyback.

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No, Greyback likes to rip people's heads off, not orchestrate third-party attacks. The MO is completely different, which I've been saying for months, not that the higher-ups will bloody listen. They're just scapegoating whoever they can.

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So we need to go back to the first attack. Forgive me, I'm a bit behind, but rules out that it's just Death Eaters?

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First attack was Rothbury. The official word was it was just Death Eaters, fingers didn't start pointing at werewolves until the Diagon Alley attack. Someone picked up a werewolf leaving the area and jumped to conclusions. Bloody idiot, whoever it was.

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*Alice skips over the human rights argument in the last sentence and goes back to Umbridge.*

It's politically advantageous for these attacks to come from werewolves for Umbridge. I...well, having met her, I wouldn't put it past her to orchestrate these kinds of attacks as means for her ends. But I don't know if she has the magical prowess to take down the wards.

Whoever it was, they must have been very skilful at Arithmancy. The Muggle wards were left in place, as I recall? So...

*Alice stops. She's stuck on Fabian's use of "M.O.".*

Rothbury is a completely different attack. The past three required the wards to be lowered, but Rothbury didn't.

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...Right, so something changed somewhere between Rothbury and the others. And - there was evidence of spell damage at Rothbury, but what about the others?

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The more I think about it, the less chance there is that it can be Death Eaters. Voldemort is very specific in not wanting to damage Purebloods, and there's no way of Dementors distinguishing that. So whoever it is, they don't care about who they are attacking, just as long as the victims are of some kind of magical blood.

Do you think that matters to the person with the wand or to the Dementors themselves?

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It'd have to be the person behind it. A soul's a soul to a Dementor, what do they care? But that begs the question of why only magically-populated areas. Why not Muggle, too? What's the motive here?

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Well, it could be a disenfranchised person under the "Being Division". Or even a witch or wizard, trying to send a message. Was there anything picked up in the signature from Wither's not reported in the Prophet?

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*Fabian shakes his head, raising both the tumbler and his free hand.*

If there was, it didn't come across my desk.

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