WHO: Katie Bell & Layla Fairbourne WHAT: Questioning WHEN:24th April WHERE: Where Layla’s being held by the Order WARNINGS: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Hey.”
It was the first time that she’d seen Layla since they’d ambushed her with the stunning spells and Katie, her usual nervous and energetic self, was already worried that she was being too informal. The natural, easy smile that she usually wore gave way to a frown as she entered the room and she had her wand raised at the ready. Luckily for her, the winternet had a fair amount of information on interrogation techniques — although Katie wasn’t entirely sure that she was going to end up using any of them.
She closed the door behind her, and sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of Layla.
To say that Layla was a shade of her former self sounded dramatic, but it was the truth nonetheless. Not because the Order or anyone had done anything to her, or abused her in any sort of fashion, but because she simply felt utterly defeated. The spartan accommodations matched how she felt: she had nothing anymore. No friends, no future, no wand even, all given up in pursuit of one ideal or the next. She was tired, and it showed, although that was still part and parcel of her system being shaken by that many stunners during her ambush.
She perked up from her spot, seated on the floor and leaning against the foot of her bed, when Katie entered, eyes scanning beyond the room to see if she’d come with anyone else. “Hey,” she answered, subdued. This wasn’t her first time speaking with anyone from the Order, and it wouldn’t be the last. “You can bind my hands if you want,” she said, nodding at the wand in Katie’s hands. “Or whatever you need to do.”
Katie rocked back slightly where she sat, using both hands to gingerly hold onto her wand. All the confidence that she’d thought she had seemed to be evaporating rapidly, hearing her friend’s voice and seeing her face while knowing that while Layla had surrendered she was still one of them. She was hesitant, but pointed her wand at Layla still.
“Do I need to?” Katie asked, as evenly as she could.
“No,” Layla answered with a little shake of her head and a little sigh. “But then you wouldn’t have to point your wand at me the whole time unless you want to.”
Katie tilted her head, considering it for a moment. But no, she shook her head too, holding her wand out still. “I’d rather just stay alert,” she decided, ignoring the truth that she was somehow unwilling to do that to Layla. “Not like you can do much without a wand now, is it?”
Frowning ever so slightly, Layla accepted the answer nonetheless and shrugged her shoulders minutely. “I mean,” she started, looking down at her lap, “yes, maybe, but I wouldn’t.” Not that this made anything better to help ease the tension. She pushed through that and tried to give Katie her best conciliatory smile. “Anyway — where do you want to start today?”
Katie cleared her throat softly, ready to launch into the questions she’d prepared. She’d come up with them herself, although heavily influenced by others. “I read a whole load of winternet articles about questioning and interrogation,” Katie confessed, immediately opting for what she’d learned was a sympathetic approach. Show sympathy, gain sympathy. “Some of that stuff is messed up, you know?” She grimaced, tapping her wand on the ground and ignoring the handful of sparks that emitted from the end. “So I think I’ll just go with questions, if that’s okay?”
Another tap of her wand, a few more sparks. She already knew that Layla probably couldn’t give names, so she’d thought out some bigger picture questions. “How did you do it? I mean, not you you. You-collective.” Katie made a little circle gesture with her wand arm, a few more sparks betraying her agitation. “When You Know Who came back?”
An earnest smile then at that comment — “I had a course in it, yeah.” But that wasn’t why they were here, to reminisce about all the failed things in Layla’s life that lead her down this route.
Layla ignored Katie’s nervousness and leaned back heavier against the foot of the bed frame behind her. “I don’t really know how long it was in the works or if I’m missing details, which I probably am, but:” she looked Katie in the eyes while speaking “Yaxley put Pius Thicknesse under Imperius in late July, after some difficulty doing it or trying to find a way to do it surrounded by all the Aurors. Thicknesse was head of the DMLE at the time so he’d be an easy nomination for interim-Minister for the Wizengamot if Scrimgeour died, which he did, because we killed him. Not me, but, Death Eaters. So with Thicknesse finally under Imperius we could proceed with that plan.” She stretched out her arms, palms up, helpless, and then let them fall into her lap. “So just like that. Thicknesse got nominated to the Minister’s post, he was able to appoint Yaxley as head of the DMLE even if he wasn’t the obvious choice, and there was nothing anyone could do about it even if they suspected foul play. It was fast. Really fast. I assume Thicknesse is still under Yaxley’s Imperius, but it’s been months and if that’s changed I don’t know whose it is anymore.”
“Should’ve brought a notebook, that’s quite a lot to remember,” Katie joked feebly, trying to still keep up the light-hearted edge that she’d adopted earlier. “But I guess it’s good you’re able to tell us all this.” She placed her wand on the floor for a split second before thinking better of it and quickly snatching it back up again and pushing it into her jacket pocket.
“So it’d probably be someone who can still see him all the time, right? Probably Yaxley?” Katie nibbled nervously at her thumbnail, puzzling the situation out loud with Layla right there.
There was no move or sudden lunge for Katie’s wand, if anyone had suspected such a thing would happen. “Probably,” Layla agreed. “Travers is his private investigator from what I understand, Lestrange is there too, but I’ve never really been involved with the Ministry stuff. Hell, I’m terrible at the Imperius Curse too so—” That admission, even though it was likely obvious she’d have learned something so dark, brought her up short. She swallowed, and then continued more softly. “I’m not exactly an expert on guessing how the arrangement must work. Yaxley’s a good suspect, though.”
“We’ve had a few more names added to the Death Eater list since you,” Katie informed her, remembering the point about sharing being more likely to foster goodwill. Not that Layla was anything like a hostile witness, but since Katie rarely read anything as much as she’d read up on how to prepare for this questioning she was determined to put it to good use. “Victoria Mulciber, for one. She’s Ministry, right? Could be on the list too?”
It felt as if Layla’s blood had run cold at the mention of Vic’s name coming from Katie’s mouth. Suddenly, her mouth felt incredibly dry. Despite her generally good poker face, Layla wondered how obvious it was that the mood seemed to change as Victoria Mulciber hung between them. Had they found out that Layla had been staying with her? Was this all a ploy?
“What makes you say her?” Layla found herself asking before she could stop herself. “I mean, she’s Ministry, yes. She talks about it it publicly and was called out in that article The Beacon ran.”
Katie’s hand slowly returned to her wand, confusion evident as she listened to Layla’s response. Why was she trying to defend one of them? Katie frowned, a little bewildered. Maybe it was time to change tactic, shift subtly into a more serious mood if Layla was still trying to deny things that Katie now knew were fact.
“Why are you trying to cover for a Mulciber?” Katie asked, raising her wand once again.
A glare was shot back at Katie once the wand came back out. “Because.” Because why, though? There was no answer beyond the truth that made any sense or would make any sense. If they knew about Vic there was little Layla could actually do about it. It was just whether or not she believed the Order had sent Katie in here with the intention of dragging confirmation from her.
But she’d made the choice to surrender.
Sorry, Vic, if this is a ploy. She took a breath, and looked back down at her lap, defiance evaporating away. “Because it’s not just ‘a’ Mulciber. She was always really, really good to me. Earnestly so. One of the very few who were.”
Katie met the glare with a frosty look of her own, not about to back away from her point. “I don’t think that makes it any better, you know?” Katie told her. “You don’t need to defend her now. You shouldn’t be.”
“Interestingly enough I’ve had similar conversations on both sides of the fence with different names.” Why are you defending Goldstein, Johnson, and Spinnet? Nonetheless, she sighed heavily again. “But whatever. Yes, she’s an option, but I don’t think she is because I’m pretty sure I’d have heard about it if she had to keep Thicknesse under control. My bet is still Yaxley.”
Katie’s nod was curt, irritated by the sigh and the whatever of Layla’s response. She tapped her wand on the floor once again, the action sharper than before. “Okay,” she mulled over the idea, trying to push aside her hurt that Layla could care about someone like Victoria Mulciber. “So Yaxley is with the high-ups, and he controls the Minister? But he gets his orders directly from You Know Who?”
Nothing Katie said would make Layla care less about Vic, or Thea, or any of the others just like nothing the Death Eaters said changed how she felt about the Gryffindors in her life, Katie included. She accepted the fact this was an impasse, and focused more on the parts that actually mattered here. “Right, Yaxley’s the senior person there as it happens so it makes sense Thicknesse would be under his control directly still. He’ll get anything major from You-Know-Who — I’m sure he can make day to day decisions and all, but anything big will come from above, or maybe consensus at some point if they don’t want to bother You-Know-Who because that’s also… dangerous.”
“I don’t suppose the higher-ups would all try stage an uprising or something?” Katie mused out loud, struggling to find any positives of the situation. “Decide they need a new leader?”
Layla actually laughed, although it wasn’t humourous in the slightest. “No. I mean, I guess they didn’t search for him when he died when we were kids? But if he’s in the picture, no, absolutely not. They’re zealots.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “We’ve seen.” She steepled her fingers against one another, slowly twirling her wand around her thumb. “So they just come when he calls? Is there some kind of meeting ground?” Katie pressed on, trying to not get too distracted by her distaste for Death Eaters. Technique had gone out of the window now, she just had questions to go through.
It was tough to bite back ‘me too’ at the fact that she knew they were zealots, but Layla managed, barely. “We all come when he calls. I’d hazard a guess the high ups get more face time with him, but when he’s not around they speak for him and yes — recently it’s been Malfoy Manor, but it’s not frequent.” She paused and let that sink in. “But before anyone jumps to a conclusion, it’s warded to high hell and trying to attack it while he’s there, let alone everyone else, is suicide.” She chewed on her lower lip. “But these summons when he calls, that’s part of the Mark. He’s dramatic enough to do it that way. When he wants something en masse he’ll normally just summon us and we get the location that way, like I said with the Ministry that one night. So I’ll know — and you’ll all know — when he has them if they involve everyone, and where.”
“Malfoy Manor?” Katie couldn’t hide her disgust this time, the name ‘Malfoy’ provoking a strong response. Her face clouded over. “Of course they all hang out there. I bet Draco was loving it every school holiday.”
“Yeah,” Layla affirmed, “Malfoy Manor.” She was more conciliatory now, knowing why Katie’s mood had soured completely. There was no point in saying she was pretty sure Draco wasn’t enjoying it since it would come off as a defense, and she didn’t care about Draco Malfoy. “I’m sorry. I never even got to curse him for you.”
Katie’s disgust softened. “You're only saying that to make me feel better,” she told Layla.
“Kind of,” Layla admitted, “but I’d have done it for you if I could have gotten away with it.” It was difficult for Layla to put into words or explain much of this, to reconcile her actions with her feelings. “I know I’ve done a lot of horrible things that say otherwise, but I really do care about you. It’s —” she searched for the right words “— almost impossible to explain.”
Katie jabbed at the floor with her wand, frustrated that Layla seemed to be expressing Katie’s own confused feelings just as much as hers. Underneath it all she still wanted to believe the best in Layla, and she couldn’t quite reconcile that with how else it made her feel. She nodded her head curtly, ponytail bobbing up and down, unwilling to give words to her agreement. “Well, anyway. Too late now, isn’t it?”
Katie’s comment hurt. Not that she was wrong that it was too late to curse Draco Malfoy on her behalf, but that it was… admittedly too late to really get sentimental about what Layla would or wouldn’t do going forward. She was on borrowed time one way or another.
Prison or death loomed.
“Yeah. Too late for that, anyway. I’ll trade that chance for trying to do something right for once.” Which was true or she wouldn’t be here, right?
It was that glimmer of hope that caught Katie’s attention, the idea that Layla wanted to make things better was the idea she’d been so attached to for so long. She held her wand a little tighter, unsure if she wanted to curse Layla or hug her. Instead she settled for a little frown and pushing the palms of her hands against the ground as though she were ready to stand up.
“I think that’s probably enough truth for today,” Katie murmured quietly as she stood up. She bent down to dust off her knees, unwilling to meet Layla’s eye for that moment.
Layla stayed seated. There was no sense getting up as if she had somewhere to be. She was at the Order’s mercy, and whatever questions they had that would help them win the war. “Alright,” she said, looking up to capture Katie’s eyes at least. “Go give them hell?”
Finally, Katie locked eyes with Layla and gave her the briefest of smiles that seemed more confident than she really felt.