who: Dorcas Meadowes & Bertie Higgs what: Respect and (just a touch of) honesty's a decent place to start (ii/ii) where: The DMLE lockup when: Mid-August.
The benefit (and burden) of having worked alongside the DMLE for so long during the time when he was firmly on the other side of the courtroom was that they often found it expedient (and hilarious) to recommend Bertie to hopeless cases. In this instance, however, it wasn’t a hopeless case message but a legal aid one which saw him sign-in at the front desk with a dry grin.
Unusual, though, that there was none of the standard banter during the walk to the holding cell; this one had disturbed them, he sensed, and they were doubly disturbed that he’d drawn the short straw this evening. Very interesting.
The bowels of the Ministry had little changed over the years, and Dorcas found herself almost nostalgic when she traversed these corridors once again (though never did she think she’d be doing so with hands cuffed behind her back, and she supposed she better act as if her wrists were burning and thought about reddening up the skin there for added effect). She thought she spotted a familiar face or two, but there were so many whom she knew not at all, though they all eyed her with trepidation, fear, and disdain. Fine lot of people you worked with, Ivy.
Her captors were especially humourless, guiding her into her cell none too gently, only releasing her from her bindings just before the doors were slammed shut. It was a grey, featureless room with flickering overhead lighting, meant, undoubtedly for its occupant to become restless, anxious, and imaginative of all sorts of horrible impending consequences.
Dorcas didn’t pace or shout or hit things. She sat cross-legged on the floor against the back wall, straight-backed and patient, imagining what was happening on the other side of that very thick door.
The procedure was standard (wand, jacket and briefcase in the locker, notebook permitted, the standard security talk), the wait of an hour and a half in the small anteroom before the holding cell corridor was not. But there was coffee there, strong enough to wake the dead, and a passing sergeant offered him a plate of gingernuts with the usual congeniality; not his hazing, then, but the client’s. Or a higher up playing something out.
The details, when they began to filter through, gave more sense to the evening: were, ex-DMLE, violent. Well then.
Eventually approval came, whatever its provenance. A folding table and stools were set unceremoniously on the floor of the cell by the guard who then moved to leave, after pausing for just a moment. “‘m just outside. Lever’ll get our attention for exit, as per, but you need anything you holler.”
Bertie’s nod was utterly courteous, just shy of grateful. “Thank you.”
He waited until the door swung closed before setting both table and stools carefully, settling himself upon one with a broad gesture towards the other. “Ivy, isn’t it? I’m Bertie Higgs, your legal aid lawyer. Do you want the spiel? I don’t intend to patronise you but it’s different on the other side, might be helpful to be reminded.”
She eyed him from the floor with vague amusement before levering herself up and sliding into the stool opposite and folding her hands on the table. Bertrand Higgs. When last she saw him he was Wizengamot she only periodically saw on the off-chance her testimony was needed in court, a youthful blush of a boy, and now a decade later, a bit worn about the edges and harried, deigning to deal with the riffraff as it were now? Was this a fall from grace? An act of protest? A corner of her mouth quirked up.
“Please,” she said with a gesture of her hand. “I would love to hear all the charges levied against me by this farcical government and what role you intend to play in it.” Fool? The dashing hero? She rested her chin in one hand.
“I meant the legal aid spiel.” A half-moment in which he might have commented regarding charges and the lack thereof before Bertie, with a certain sort of smile, began again.
“I am your legal aid lawyer; all independent barristers perform this duty on rota basis if registered with the Legal Aid Society. You cannot request an alternate aid lawyer, but you may engage another of your choosing at any point should you wish and should your finances allow. You may also elect to self-represent, as is your right, which I do not recommend. All clear so far?”
“Crystal. You comport yourself very well.” Higgs. Higgs. Now she remembered how he had been married to Rosmerta, which had seemed like a strange pairing at the time but opposites attract and then usually proceeded to drive each other to madness thereafter. There was no ring on his finger now. Divorced, for awhile now. She wondered how far back the records he kept went. If he prosecuted Death Eaters after the war or argued on their behalf since. She wondered, after she broke into the Wizengamot’s archives, if his offices would be the next marker on her map.
“Forty percent of the job. Now. Our conversation is protected by legal privilege --”
A small turn of a dial on his watch and Bertie’s voice continued, distantly but distinctly, to outline legal privilege and his role in the processes which would be taking place. The words were not coming from his mouth, however, and he allowed himself a very small smile at the fact that this particular tool was embedded in the watch that was his leaving gift from the Department before turning back to business in low but clear tones.
“These cells are supposed to be impervious to listening spells, but I’m a cynical man. Right: unless you want to hire a lawyer, you need to tell me what happened.”
There was a hint of incredulity when she eyed the watch. Outsourced fine print. She wondered if that went into his billing hours. Still, it made her smile all the same, just a touch of appreciation for the cleverness. “If I were to tell you anything, then, best case scenario, when could you get me out? I was looking to stay here for about four days, if you could swing it. I do have some things to check off.”
“That depends on what you tell me, and what they can charge you with.” The notebook and pen (fountain, a good one but well-used now) were set upon the table, as Bertie raised his brows for a moment. “Ivy Fortescue, who wants to stay here for four days to check some things off.”
“You won’t be out tomorrow. Two days minimum, up to seven, ten, more. You don’t need to trust me, but you are going to need to talk to me about what happened and what’s been happening. Or this is a waste of both of our time.” A bland enough smile in reply to her own, then: your choice.
“What if I were to tell you, Bertrand Higgs, that I am not Ivy Fortescue at all, and in truth, I could walk out of here at any time?” She returned with her own thin smile, but her eyes stayed rapt upon Bertie’s face in careful assessment.
The smile remained and its colour did not change; otherwise he was dispassionate. Not the strangest declaration in one of these cells since he had left one side of the law and taken up the other, but certainly in the running. This would be tricky: identity always was. “Then I’d say you have to decide whether you want to leave legitimately or another way. You want to use the front door, you’re going to need help. This is law as a public service; it’s my job to give you the best defense I can within this situation, to the extent of my ability and based on the information that you and they provide. That’s it: tonight I’m a countermeasure.”
“I presume they can prove assault and provocation of officers of the law -- correct me if that’s not so. It strikes me that if you’re not Ivy Fortescue, it’s much less likely that you can be accurately charged with uncontrolled lycanthrope.”
He thought of the woman that this person claimed not to be briefly and then set it aside; considerations for the small hours, perhaps, but his job here was specific and would be exacting (until the case was done or this person told him that he was not required, at any rate).
After a drawn out pause, "Fair." He was sharp, didn't miss a beat, even if he were disconcerted. His mind ran as steady and efficiently as an engine along its rails to its intended destination. She appreciated clarity. She liked his purposeful determination.
Ivy's features melted away like frost warmed by the encroaching sun, and immediately, all the poise and restraint dissipated with her. Her limbs felt overlong, bones worn too close to the surface of her skin. "I’m not Ivy Fortescue. My name is Dorcas Meadowes. Hullo.”
Bertie didn’t think of the shift like a dawn (that uncharacteristic simile would have been reserved for something else, had he ever been inclined to use it), but seemed to be a fresh breath of clarity between them nonetheless. His watch continued, seemingly interminably, to deliver its background drone.
“Hullo, Dorcas Meadowes. There’s a known name.” His momentary pause after the greeting was not uncertainty, but rather pieces of that evening’s puzzle locking into place. “We’re going to trade on it. Right. I need your version of the evening, Dorcas, with as much detail as you can give.”