Mr. Black

Generally speaking, Aurors did not report directly to the Minister for Magic. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was primarily responsible for—well—magical law enforcement and all the officers to which that pertained. Or, if the Minister needed to trouble herself with the affairs of the DMLE, it was usually Director Bones's company she sought. So, when Brynn was met at her desk by a harried-looking courier and a message with the Minister's own seal, alarm bells clanged in the back of her mind.

“You have the correct Smallwood?” she questioned the little man. There were, she knew, at least two other Smallwoods in departments more closely tied to the administration.

“Positive,” he said. “Insisted it be handed to you directly and discreetly. No charms, no middle-men. So...”

He held the letter out tentatively, and Brynn sighed, took it, and cracked the wax seal. “Thank—” she began, unfolding the crisp parchment, but the messenger had already gone.

She didn't have the time to examine his skittish behavior, strange though it was. Whatever the Minister had so urgently delivered would have to take precedence, so she settled in at her desk to read it through.

Auror Smallwood,

Please join me in the level nine briefing room immediately.

Millicent Bagnold, Minister for Magic

Brynn read the note again then turned it over, looking for more of the Minister's crisp, measured script. There was none, just those three lines.

“Camden,” she called as she slipped the note into a pocket.

The younger witch—Brynn's junior partner—appeared at once. They were as opposites as it were possible to be: Laurel Camden was tall, broad, and ginger to Brynn's slight, dark-complected, and slender. Camden wore her curly hair long, caught back in a spiraling horsetail whereas Brynn kept hers cropped short and sleek.

Camden had been a Hufflepuff, a graduate from Black's year, and would be marking her first anniversary as an Auror this spring. It was amazing, really, how far she'd come since they'd started working together after Harper's transfer.

“D'you need something?” Camden asked. “I was about to go over—”

Oh, right. They were supposed to start looking through the materials seized from Healer Abbott's home and office.

“No, actually, I need you to get started on that without me,” Brynn told her. She patted the pocket with the strange note but decided against mentioning it or its contents. Discreet, the messenger had said. “A last-minute meeting came up. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Camden wrinkled her brow, her mouth pulled down in a puzzled frown, but she nodded and quipped a cheery, “Sure, 'course.”

Camden settled in at their shared workspace as Brynn readied herself to head downstairs. On a whim, she stopped, collected her notes of the Abbott matter, and took them with her. They were probably, she reasoned, what the Minister wanted to discuss.

In the days following Brynn's arrest of Liam Abbott, there had been a curious amount of interest in him from higher up, murmurs that they expected all of the findings to be presented soon. The DMLE—and possibly the Ministry as a whole, Brynn assumed—was eager to redeem itself in the eyes of the public after the absolute disaster that the Black case had been.

That was what Minister Bagnold wanted to follow up on. Brynn was sure of it.

But that didn't stop the unease from churning in her gut as the lift dropped to level nine. It only built as the doors slid open on the long, bustling corridor. Persephone Gallant, the Minister's head of security, stood waiting for Brynn at the lift bank.

“This way, please,” she said, and she ushered Brynn through the press of people without another word.

The briefing room on level nine was designed for matters of utmost secrecy; there were so many Silencings and anti-spy charms built into the doors and walls that the only way a word of what was said within would escape the room was if the participants themselves divulged it. Only the Department of Mysteries had more safeguards in place, and the issues discussed within were usually among the most sensitive.

Therefore, Brynn expected to find several of the Ministry's senior-most intelligence officers and perhaps Interim Director Bones waiting with Minister Bagnold. Instead, when Brynn at last cleared the secure checkpoints and entered the steel-walled room, she found only the Minister, two straight-backed chairs, and a tea service.

“Ah, Smallwood.”

Minister Bagnold set her teacup aside, folded her hands primly in her lap. Everything about Minister Millicent Bagnold hinged on two factors: image and control. Both of which she'd been struggling to regain since Halloween 1981. She'd only barely begun to rehabilitate both when the Black fiasco had unfolded.

But looking at her now, it was as if the past few months hadn't touched her composure. Her blond hair was immaculately coiffed, her customary strands of pearls arranged at her throat just so.

Brynn stopped a few respectful paces away, inclined her head. “Minister, ma'am.”

“Don't be bashful, dear.”

The Minister gestured Brynn forward; she relaxed her grip on her notes and obliged, sinking into the chair opposite. She reached for the teapot, but the Minister waved her hand away and poured the steaming liquid herself.

They exchanged a short minute of pleasantries, though Brynn found herself of the mind that she was a hapless rabbit being watched by a hawk. All she could do was wait for the strike.

“But to business.” Minister Bagnold leaned forward attentively, green eyes keenly focused on Brynn. “I'm sure you're aware, I'm expected to appoint the new director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement soon; ideally, come summer.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Brynn said with a short nod. It had been a subject of some discussion among her fellows. Many wanted Amelia Bones to stay on; others had bandied Alastor Moody's name about, or Harper's or several other of—

“I want you.”

Brynn's thoughts stuttered to a standstill, a startled “Ma'am?” tripping from her lips.

“Oh, don't look so surprised, dear,” said the Minister, pulling out a thick file Brynn hadn't noticed before—her own. Minister Bagnold spread it over the table, Brynn's entire Ministry career laid bare. “You've been here six years now; you were invaluable during the war. You've shown time and again that you respect the rule of law. But, crucially, you also understand that occasionally it needs to be bent in the interest of preserving order. And, Ms. Smallwood, I think you can appreciate how... delicate order is just now.”

“I'm not sure I follow, ma'am.”

The sick, sinking feeling was back in Brynn's stomach, but the Minister only smiled: a thin, tight thing that didn't reach her eyes. Not a hawk, Brynn thought. A shark.

“For the foreseeable future, I find myself in need of someone with a certain amount of flexibility,” Minister Bagnold said. “The Ministry is facing something of a crisis. We need to recapture the confidence of our citizens. Which, I might add, needn't have been lost if Interim Director Bones had left well enough alone.”

She was hearing things. Had to be. The Minister hadn't suggested—

Brynn shook her head. No, of course she hadn't. Still, she had to venture, “Minister Bagnold, ma'am. Sirius Black was innocent.”

“An inconvenient detail.”

Minister Bagnold waved an impatient, manicured hand. The important thing right now, she stressed to Brynn, the only important thing was mitigating the damage that had been done to the administration's image.

“We caught, as you know, a pitiful few Death Eaters after the fall of You-Know-Who. The only thing that helped the populace feel safe again was that they thought we'd apprehended the worst of them. Black's arrest gave them a rallying point, a face they could attach their fears to. They no longer have that. But.”

She leaned forward, conspiratorially. “We can give them something new. A fresh face. A protector rather than a scapegoat.

“Don't say anything now,” the Minister cautioned, holding up a finger. “Think on it. Carefully. This could be the biggest decision of your career, Smallwood. Possibly your life.”

Then the Minister settled back in her seat, and Gallant came forward to escort Brynn out. The journey back to her desk passed in a haze of faces and the murmur of voices as her colleagues went about their day.

Flexibility, the Minister had called it. As if playing by the spirit of the law rather than the letter was at all the same as flagrantly ignoring both. Brynn had already grappled, in the wake of Black’s trial, with her own complicity. An innocent man, someone she’d once counted as a friend, had rotted in prison for almost a year, and she had denied the justice he was owed. She’d been wrong then, put her own feelings of betrayal ahead of due process. An understandable, human reflex, though still wrong. But this?

“Brynn?” Camden's voice broke into her thoughts. The girl was watching her carefully, a dozen pages of Healer Abbott's notes spread before them both. “Brynn, did you hear?”

Brynn shook off her musings. “Sorry,” she said. “Thinking.”

“S'okay, I was only saying. I wonder if we should even waste our time on this stuff.”

She slotted a page into her 'admissible' file and started cleaning up for the night. “He'll never see a day in Azkaban. I heard Trenton and Kentworth talking about it with some higher-ups, and apparently someone from downstairs—” Ministry-speak for Unspeakables, those who worked in the Department of Mysteries “—reached out to them. they want to give him a research position instead. Can you believe it?”

Yeah, Brynn thought, watching Camden file her work away and fetch her cloak. Yeah, she could believe it.

“You coming?” Camden asked, pausing at the door.

Brynn waved her on. “Something I've got to do first.”

Seemingly satisfied, Camden quipped a chipper “Night, then!” and disappeared.

Brynn settled back at her desk and took out a quill and parchment. For the next half hour, she began the note a dozen times, each less satisfactory than the last. She listed her objections; she penned her disgust. And each time, she started over.

Finally, she addressed an envelope to Minister Bagnold and, on a scrap of parchment, wrote only No.

This, she stood prominently on her desk, right between her Ministry credentials and her badge.