(Untitled)

[about_abbott]

Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2001
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Madame Hannah's Reading Room
Characters Involved: Hannah Abbott, Lord of Misrule, Various Ministry officials
Rating: PG-13

With about thirty minutes left before closing, Hannah walked around with a dust rag checking out various items. She picked up a pewter figurine that happened to be one

Comments

[our_discontent]

[Ministry NPC]

He was masked and hooded, of course. He was armed and dangerous. He was subdued and enraged at the same time under the drug-like haze of bewitching. He was his own enemy.

Well after dark, the Ministry employee advanced upon the innocent shop, sitting on an innocent street, owned by an innocent girl. But he knew now, deep within his center, cemented in his psyche, how perfectly vile she was. The opposite of innocent, this girl and her entire operation. She was the proprietor of corruption, the navigator of pollution into the wizarding world. One of many, and she would be taught a lesson. She would be made an example.

Fraternising with Muggles. Sharing her magic with them. It was ludicrous. It was an abomination. It was what he had been manipulated to believe with utter conviction, as if he had always believed it.

He began with breaking the locking charms and destroying them so that they could never be repeated. If the girl wanted to protect her shop again, she would need to find new spells. Once inside, he cracked and shattered the windows, the glass shelves, every figurine and curio and decoration… smashed her crystal ball to the floor. It lay in thousands of pieces, like a scattering of jagged sugar. He aimed his wand at the nearby deck of cards. Absurd. Abomination. The cards ripped themselves into pieces and flew to all four corners of the shop, sticking to walls, to the ceiling.

Turning, the man saw the bag next to the cash register. With a sneer, he didn’t even think of stealing it (what good would dirty money earned from conning Muggles be?), but aimed his wand at that too. A flick, a muttered incantation, and the coins spilled from the bag and melted, liquid of change and the burning of bills fusing with each other into an unusable mess, never to be recovered.

Lastly, while still inside, he used his wand to paint horrible obscenities all over the spaces of her walls and ceiling that remained clear of debris. ABOMINATION. ABHORRENCE. MUDBLOOD. CORRUPTOR. IGNORANT. BEWARE. WATCHING YOU. THIS IS NOT THE LAST.

He finally exited the shop, slamming the door so hard on its hinges that it broke, sagging and hanging sadly, desolately open. Wounded. An open sore. The shattered windows cried out in tandem with it, in pain. The man conjured a huge banner, slung across the whole front side of the shop, and on it lay the words, “STICK WITH YOUR OWN KIND. NEXT TIME YOU WILL NOT BE SO LUCKY.”

Another spell, Inflamare, and he set fire to the banner, lighting the edges ablaze but not to burn it completely-a beacon in the night, ominous and true, so that she would see it. See it… and learn.

The man took one last sweeping glance over his work, smugly satisfied, and turned.
His exit cue. The first assignment was finished.

[about_abbott]

Soon enough, the shows were over and it was time to begin thinking about the adult responsibilies that had to be taken care of in the morning. She took her bowl to the kitchen as her father headed up to bed. Using a little magic, the cleanup was done in no time. It was nights like this that made the thought of moving out unbearable. They had grown so close since Jillian's death that Hannah didn't want to lose that aspect of her life. And, his recent re-acceptance of her magic made dull repetative tasks quick and bearable. While watching the dishes finish themselves she thought about how lucky she was to live in an era where one could actually live with a Muggle and not feel as if the Ministry was going to bear down on them at any moment for performing magic in a predominately Muggle area.

Heading up to her room, Hannah ran through tomorrow's schedule in her mind. First, she would apparate into Gringotts to make a deposit before heading to the Muggle bank and then to work. In order to do so, she would need to go ahead and part the money this evening. When she entered her room she went to where she usually laid the money bag and realized she'd left it sit on the counter at the store. No problem, she'd simply apparate in and right back home.

Seconds later Hannah was in her shop. Her eyes quickly landed on sights so horrible it took her a moment to comprehend. A sound shook her out of her disbelief as she heard the remnants of her greeting bells tinkle as someone ran out of the shop. Without giving it a second thought, Hannah had her wand pulled, "Impedimenta," she yelled pointing her wand at the perpetrator. As the spell fired, the sign that had been set ablaze lowered itself into the path, the flames freezing instantaneously.

Not sure where to turn next, Hannah dropped her wand to her side. She heard the sirens as the approached but the devestation around her blocked her sense of timing. The sound of footsteps put her instantaneously on guard. "Locomotor Mortis," she hollard sweeping her wand across the entrance way catching both officers in the leg-locker curse. Yes, the use of magic on Muggles would bring Ministry officials post haste. At the moment, Hannah really didn't care.

[golden_armor]

Aurin was leaving his office, looking forward to a quiet cup of tea and an all-too-rare early bedtime, when the copper disk in the pocket of his robe started whistling shrilly. He pulled it out, his touch quieting it, and spoke into the device. "This is Helm. What is it?"

"This is Carson. We've had a report of magic being used on Muggles in London. Location's near a store called Madame Hannah's Reading Room. Go check it out."

Aurin sighed, exasperated. "Yes sir," he replied, dropping the disk into his pocket and breaking the contact. He stepped back into the office to get his official cloak from where it hung by the door, re-fastening the collar around his neck before heading to the lobby and apparating out into London.

The sight that greeted him when he arrived at the location was so different from what Aurin was expecting that he gasped. Confronted with such destruction, Aurin's first reaction was to draw his wand. Nearing the storefront, he saw a woman standing over two panicking, leg-locked Muggle police officers. Jumping to the obvious conclusion, Aurin leveled his wand at her, calling out, "Drop your wand! You're in violation of Ministry regulations!"

[about_abbott]

Hannah had cursed the men out of survival instinct. As she watched them fall backwards she kept her wand at the ready but began to apologize profusely. Of course, her voice was soft and meek at the moment and neither of the officers could tell what she was saying.

She was still mumbling when the auror arrived on the scene. When he yelled at her to drop her wand fear gripped her again. She wasn't familiar enough with those who worked at the Ministry to know for certain that the person in front of her was indeed one of the good guys. "How do I know you havn't returned to finish the job?" she replied refusing to drop her wand as the corner of her eye pulled the words NEXT TIME YOU WILL NOT BE SO LUCKY to the front of her mind.

[golden_armor]

"...finish the job?"

The phrase definitely didn't fit with Aurin's initial assumption that the woman was responsible for the vandalism. His "fight-or-flight" response fading, the Auror took in more details about her body language, noticing the fear it conveyed. Time to revise his approach to the situation.

Aurin inched closer to the woman, pulling his official identification out of his pocket and holding it out for her to see while speaking in a soothing tone. "Miss, I don't know who you are or who you think I am, but I'm not here to hurt you. My name is Aurin Helm, I'm an Auror. Now, something's obviously happened here, so I'm going to need you to lower your wand and help me understand the situation, so that I can help get things straightened out."

Aurin stopped with a comfortable distance remaining between him and the woman, close enough that she could see him clearly but far enough away not to scare her, his wand lowered but still in his hand in case she tried anything.

[about_abbott]

When the man reached into his robes, Hannah raised her wand a bit higher, her grip tightening immensely. Her breathing suspended as she waited to see what move he would make next. When he held out his official badge definitely identifying himself as a Ministry auror she felt the air rush back into her body.

Aleady confused, Hannah didn't know what to say or do. Then he had the nerve to ask her what had happened. "Do you think if I knew what was going on I'd be on edge?" she asked defiantly. She wish she knew who'd actually committed the act as it would make it easier to know where she should go from here.

[golden_armor]

The girl was obviously scared and on the edge of hysteria, and the face-off that had started was getting them nowhere. Somebody had to stand down, and it probably wasn't going to be her. Aurin lowered his wand and put both it and his identification away, keeping his movements as slow and unalarming as possible. He raised his hands to show her that they were empty.

"Miss, please, I need you to try to calm down. Most likely, whoever did this isn't planning on coming back, and if they do return then I'll be here to take care of it. Now please, lower your wand. I have to take care of those policemen and put up an illusion before any more Muggles see anything."

Though he spoke calmly, Aurin was getting nervous about the amount of time that must have passed since the vandalism was committed. It was lucky that the winter weather had kept nearly everyone inside, but it was only a matter of time before a Muggle noticed something suspicious and called the police.

[about_abbott]

Hannah cautiously watched as the man in front of her tucked his identification back into his robes and carefuly lowered his wand. When he spoke about the Muggle authorities, her eyes wandered to the two men on the ground between them. Surely the the two had radioed the incident in before checking out the scene.

"I'm certain there is already a record of the incident in the Muggle files from radio transmissions," she stated slowly. In all honesty, the best thing for them to do, seeing as she had Muggle customers as well, would be for him to pretend to be a friend who was lending her support while they made an official Muggle report.

[golden_armor]

"Ah, right, radios. So if they already know, there'll be reinforcements coming..." Aurin shook his head. That wasn't good. If there was one thing they didn't want, it was to have to call in the Obliviators.

"All right, Miss..." Aurin realized he hadn't asked her name yet. His eyes flicked to the name of the store, and he made the connection. "Would you happen to be the Madame Hannah who owns this shop?"

[about_abbott]

Hannah stared down at the two men still bound and squirming on the floor. "Maybe we should start with these two and let them take a report," she offered. Besides maybe someone in Muggle London had seen something out of the ordinary that might be of assistance to the Wizarding investigation. Though depending on who was placed in charge, Muggle intel would be seen as dirty gossip not worthy of spitting on.

When he asked her name, it dawned on her how much danger the auror had potentially put himself in by lowerin his wand to her even though she'd never identified herself. "Yes, I'm Madame Hannah"