Who: Gaius and Florence Where: The Rehab Centre When: Monday June 8 What: Florence has been horribly bad and needs rehabilitation Rating: PG-13? Status: In Progress
Suffice to say, Florence had not been released after seventy two hours. What was more, instead of sitting in a cell in the DMLE, she was now in a room in the Rehabilitation Centre, and her imagination had been going rather wild. She had no idea what they'd done to that Auror friend of Kate's, but she had some idea that it was quite likely to have been horrible to make her sound so strange and unhuman - and now she was in exactly the same position, except without the likelihood of rescue. Even if there had been someone who'd be willing to try, the security was bound to be insane, especially after Auror Savage had escaped.
Bored of pacing, she sat back down on the bed, crawling into the corner and wrapping her arms around her knees. The boredom was almost as bad as the fear, really, as she had nothing to do but wait for whatever it was they intended to do to her. The only consolation was that the hit wizards had never questioned her father's blood when they'd been interrogating her - the fact that he was foreign, oh yes, but it seemed she'd only been reported for terrorism, not fraud. ('Only' was a hilariously ironic word to use in that context, she realised, and choked back a sob of laughter.)
Somewhat encouraged by the previous week's earlier success with Pettigrew, Gaius left the secretary to the rest of his paperwork and set out to debrief the Centre's newest arrival. Not having much knowledge of the patients before they came to him always put him at a disadvantage, but this time, he had been able to read what her file with the DMLE had said. An arrest through legitimate means would hopefully make starting the process easier and hopefully she wouldn't have to be Healed for anything before they could get started.
Quill and parchment in one hand while the other coiled around the wand in his pocket -- just in case, since one could never be too sure -- he knocked on the new patients' door and waited through the obligatory pause before he entered. Though he was in an unusually cheerful mood, he kept his expression even when he looked across the room at her.
"Hello, Miss Hall," he said. "My name is Gaius Travers and I'll be working with you over the next few weeks. I know that you are likely nervous, but I assure you that there is no need to be alarmed. The facility is safe and I promise that we will take good care of you."
Nervous was something of an understatement. At the man's entrance she had been about to-- move, somehow, to some more defensible position maybe, before realising how utterly useless the idea was. They could do whatever they wished to her, and if she fought back it would probably only make it worse. She thought she recognised his name and had a funny feeling it might have been one of those that the underground broadcasts listed as a Death Eater. The thought was not particularly reassuring.
Calmcalmcalm, she thought, and swallowed, trying to keep her voice steady so as not to reveal the extent of her fear. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked, wondering if he would actually have the balls to tell her to her face if she was to be tortured.
"We're just going to talk, if that is all right with you," he said, humoring her, though he knew very well that even if she didn't talk, she was going to listen. Pulling the chair out from the desk in the room, Gaius sat down and wrote something on the parchment he was holding -- in truth, it was just his own signature, but he imagined it would make him look more business-minded if he were already taking 'notes' of the situation.
"So," he said, glancing up from the parchment. "I presume that you know why you are here. We take accusations of terrorism very seriously."
"I'm not a terrorist," she protested immediately, for all the good she thought it would do. Even if it did seem that he wasn't planning on doing anything more than talking - sitting down, writing, wand not out, didn't seem particularly conducive to torture, though admittedly all she had to go on there was her imagination and a couple of Muggle films. Probably best not to mention those, of course. Maybe she could explain, somehow. She wasn't even sure what it would accomplish, really, but she wasn't going to say she did something she didn't.
(The thought that they would never let her leave unless she 'admitted' it occurred to her, that they'd say she wasn't rehabilitated because she was still denying it, but she pushed it away. It was useless, thinking like that. For now, he didn't have his wand out and she might as well test the waters. If it looked like he was going to hurt her she could re-evaluate, be more careful...)
Quill met parchment again and Gaius furrowed his brows as thoughtfully as he could before looking back up at her. He didn't believe that she wasn't actually a terrorist -- of course she was going to deny it. He would play anyway. She'd admit it when she was ready. "It is my understanding that you were involved in the fire at the Daily Prophet," he said. "You were a reporter there, correct? So why would you want to burn the office down and leave yourself out of a job?"
Florence resisted the urge to sigh in frustration, knowing it wouldn't do her any good - and that reasoning, she suspected, was going to get old very soon. It was already wearing thin. "I didn't," she protested anyway, because it seemed that each of them was determined to play their part with gusto. "It's just, I know-- Kate Proudfoot, she was my friend in school, but I haven't seen her since last year--" Technically true, though she decided not to mention the continued correspondence and stolen designer clothing birthday present. "And, because my dad's from Jamaica and there's all the stories about foreign terrorists, but he went back when I was eleven, and I'm Welsh. British. I don't want to hurt anyone!"
"What do Kate Proudfoot or Jamaica have to do with your burning down buildings?" Gaius asked, brows furrowed as he watched her. He had yet to encounter anyone who tried to outright deny that they'd had any involvement with whatever terrorist or vigilante organisations were out there. "You do realise that your actions have left several people homeless, do you not? There were children inside the Minister's house. What do you hope to accomplish by killing innocent children? Are these not the same types of things you and your people have accused and ridiculed the purists over?"
Florence stared at the Healer hopelessly. She wasn't sure what his qualifications were and doubted she'd get a proper answer if she asked, but he was hardly being... professional, here. As a journalist she had more of a handle on language than some people and his was getting to the point where it was a very bad sign for her - the emphasis on 'children', the descriptor words - 'innocent', 'ridiculed' - not only was he not prepared to accept the possibility that she might be innocent herself, but his focus was spreading from the Daily Prophet fire. He was biased, he was possibly a Death Eater, and he had her in his complete control. She felt herself sag as hopelessness started to sink in and she wondered what on earth she could say to appease him. "I've never attacked anyone's home," she whispered wretchedly, which was completely true, but gave uncomfortable implications that she had attacked non-homes. "What are you going to do to me?"
"I'm not going to do anything," he said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn't unreasonable for her to assume the worst, but Gaius wasn't about to use extreme measures -- at least not yet, though his frustration was growing with her continued denial. He set down the quill he'd been holding and leaned forward in the chair, his expression stern as he delivered the threat he hoped would get her talking. He didn't have the patience for this. "You may as well admit what you have done. We will get it out of you one way or another."
It was easy to pick up the change in his deportment, the segue towards a slightly more threatening manner, and for a moment Florence had to remind herself how to breathe. She would not 'admit' to arson, not without direct threat of significant harm to her person. But nor did she believe that he would continue to do nothing if she kept protesting her innocence. Grimly, she thought that someone ought to publish a pamphlet on what one ought to do when brought in for questioning under this new regime. She suspected it would be quite a short pamphlet - "You do not have the rights you thought you did. Co-operate or suffer the unnamed, undescribed, and somehow infinitely more terrifying for it consequences." Closing her eyes, she thought about her brightly coloured home, and nights out on the town, and how much stronger Kate was than her. Kate wouldn't give until (and maybe not even then) they actually started hurting her. She sent out a silent apology for what she was about to say, even though she knew logically that if the government could actually catch her friends and their allies, this tiny claim would hardly affect what they'd do. "I-- I told the Army of Albion how to get past security, to get into the Daily Prophet, and I've told them before when we got told if we weren't allowed to print something. Kate and Kingsley - Shacklebolt - were my friends in school. I wanted to help them. I didn't think about... what would happen afterwards, to everyone's jobs and things, I guess I thought we'd just rebuild it and they'd just-- be making a point. Temporarily." God, let this not have been a huge mistake.
"People died in that fire," Gaius said, his voice rising as though he needed to point out exactly how serious the repercussions of her actions were. Though he'd thought Yaxley had far too high an opinion of himself and disliked Carrow if only because she was a woman (and a crass one, at that), they'd still been fighting on the same side and a loss to their ranks was a loss to the entire cause. And if he hadn't cared about the cause, well, he certainly wouldn't have been here. He wasn't sure that she was telling him the entire truth, but he would work with whatever admittance he could get. "No matter how inadvertent, your sharing information with known terrorists has resulted in the deaths of two people who were doing nothing more than patrolling to prevent something like that from happening. You may as well be a terrorist yourself if you aren't already."
Something jolted in the pit of her stomach; she hadn't known anyone had actually been killed. She wondered if Kate knew - had they just set it and left as quickly as they could, or stayed to make sure it caught? Wizards didn't die in fires nearly so much as Muggles, though, she knew that. They could Apparate if they were in trouble. Unless something - or someone - was stopping them. Thinking about that, she felt vaguely sick, and knew it probably showed on her face. "I didn't know," she said softly, voice thick. "I thought that was why they went in at night... so they wouldn't have to hurt anyone."
"Now that you do," he said, watching her expression change. "You can see why we can't let you leave. Your friends are murderers. We can't have you giving them information when they care so little for human life. Maybe they don't even care about yours aside from what information you can give them. But now that the Daily Prophet is a thing of the past, you're probably dispensable." He smirked a bit at the thought -- at how easy it was to turn an entire situation around. Maybe he should have been concerned with how natural manipulation was beginning to come to him, but it was working to his advantage, so he could not complain.
That, Florence refused to believe. Even if, in some twist in reality, she had given Kate information, she didn't think she could ever be convinced that her friends would leave her to die. Maybe that was how Healer Travers' life worked, but not theirs. The first part of what he'd said, though... From his perspective, it sort of made sense, as much as she hated to admit it. She wished she knew what had happened that night. No one had been killed in most of the other fires, except Mr C. Burke of Borgin & Burke's, nor in the robberies down Diagon Alley and in Hogsmeade. She could believe that Mr Burke had been an accident. She had no information on the Daily Prophet, though. It had never occurred to her before how much she relied on knowing what was going on in the world. "They do care about me," she protested, but the point was incidental, really. She believed it, he didn't. "I don't want people to keep dying though. I know I don't have a choice about being here, but... I understand." She closed her eyes again for a moment, a little too long to be a blink, feeling like she'd just signed her own life sentence. How long would they keep her there? At the very least, she supposed, it was better than Azkaban.
Gaius continued to watch the changes washing over her expression, trying to decide whether or not he believed her. If it were easy for him to lie, he had no doubt that the vigilantes could do it as well and he refused to underestimate his enemies. "Have you every been under the influence of Veritaserum, Miss Hall?" he asked, pursing his lips to show that in spite of his suspicion that she wasn't telling the truth, he was. "If there's anything you are not telling me, I will find out."
"I don't... think so?" she hazarded, trying to quell the absurd belief that he'd be able to hear the increase in her heartrate. Oh god please not veritaserum, she prayed. She had too many secrets still for that, and she didn't want to know what they'd do if they found out she'd been lying about her blood status. She ran over her story again in her head, resolving to do so as many times as it took until she believed it. "Um, I haven't even seen her, since last year. We only talked under journal wards and owls. I don't even know where they are, except I think it's probably somewhere in the north." That would hardly endanger them. As small as Britain was compared to some other countries, there was still an awful lot of "north".