Chapter Text
Clarinda Barillon usually keeps one eye on her aurors. They’re wonderful people - clever, highly skilled, well trained… and nosy, loud busybodies who should be quite busy with work.
She leaves her office quietly, walking on the edge of the bullpen towards the remaining functioning coffee machine. A few voices tone down at her appearance, but the Senior Aurors don’t typically bother anymore. That’s quite fine. She knows they’ll quiet at her glare when she eventually gives it. Besides, she now has an opportunity to hear what they’re chattering about today.
Hm, it sounds like Goldstein and Hinkly are actually working at the moment, discussing their respective cases every now and then. The Junior Aurors do tend to be better at staying focused on their tasks, even if it comes mostly out of an eagerness to please.
The Senior Aurors, however, have entirely lost that eagerness. They know very well that they nearly have to be the cause of a Major Investigation to be cast out of the department altogether. It’s a pity, in a sense, because her Seniors have each reached the point where personal reprimands are more effective than threats. Making threats is so much easier. A personal reprimand always gets Clary a little too personally involved. Which is kind of the point, but still…
There’s a mention of a name that drags her rather abruptly back to the moment. She sighs. Picks a grey mug and fills it with the wave of a hand, and then she turns.
She takes care to wear a fairly neutral expression, though she only gets a few steps into the grid of desks before people start whispering urgently and shushing each other. But the main chatterboxes haven’t quite noticed yet. Goodwin is perched on top of Mallow’s desk, Weiss leaning against her shoulder, their backs to Clary. Neither of them pick up on the way the room is swiftly quieting, and neither do Mallow or-
“Oh shit,” Holcomb says rather loudly.
Goodwin’s words trail off as she turns quickly. “Hey Boss,” she says. The greeting is cheerful, if a touch wary.
Clary smiles, meeting each of the four Senior Aurors’ gazes for a good long moment. “Tell me, what has Percival Graves done recently to be the hottest topic of discussion?”
Percival Graves.
A brilliant man, as clever as her best aurors and just as skilled, she suspects. He comes from old money, from an old name, and Merlin, but Clary would do just about anything to have him amongst the ranks of her aurors.
She isn’t certain if said aurors feel the same - they’ve always acted distrustful and vigilantly suspicious when Graves is around them, though that is, likely, in part because of the way he regularly wanders into their investigations and almost casually shows them up. And then they come back here and sit around discussing him until Clary puts them back to work, their ideas about him building on each other and getting more and more far-fetched.
Goodwin and Holcomb have been convinced, for coming up on three weeks now, that the man practices the Dark Arts. They keep attempting to persuade the other aurors, citing strange instances and swearing they’ve seen him doing atrocious things, but Weiss at least is smart enough to question such accounts until they’re broken down to the much simpler reality.
Clary doesn’t necessarily trust the man herself, but she doubts that he goes off consorting with basilisks and casting Unforgivable Curses every other day.
“He’s comin in for interrogation with Mallow,” Goodwin announces.
“Interrogation? What for?” Not that Clary knows every minute activity that goes on, but she should have heard if anyone had scheduled one of the interrogation rooms so late in the afternoon.
“Oh-” Holcomb says quickly, perhaps seeing the changing expression on Clary’s face and deciding to speak up. “Oh Boss, no, not interrogation, nah, just witness account statement, that’s all.” There’s an added “This time,” in a barely audible tone that she chooses to ignore.
“I see… And when is Senior Auror Mallow expecting the man?”
Mallow takes the hint and straightens in his chair. “He’s due in, uh, nine minutes.”
Clary smiles, just a little too widely. “Excellent. You have three minutes to brief me, then.”
Instantly, Goodwin and Weiss are speaking. Loudly, and at the same time, and with strong emotion, and Clary has no hope of understanding either of the women. And- yes, there, Holcomb has joined in as well, making the group reaction quite a cacophony that somehow fills the entire room. Mallow covers his face with his palm, clearly taking slow breaths, like he’s wondering why he chooses to associate with the other three.
Clary clears her throat. The cries of opposition die quickly. She stares at each of them. “Are any of you capable of playing nice and being civil and unbiased with him? Hm? I’ll be taking him. Two minutes.”
Goodwin wilts, and Weiss pats her shoulder consolingly. Holcomb takes a few steps away, then turns back to pull Goodwin and Weiss off Mallow’s desk and drag them along to the next one over.
The remaining auror opens the folder on top of the pile in front of him and runs a finger down the page as he skims it, then flips the page… and then he just looks up, meeting Clary’s gaze with a sigh. “This morning we stormed that warehouse, as discussed. Caught four of our perpetrators, but one’a the Juniors reported that two others fled, right past where Graves was standing when the kid looked up. He shoulda got a good look at both of them. That’s… That’s really all.”
“Where did you arrange to take his statement?”
“Ah,” he says, staring blankly at her. “Holcomb,” he barks out, disrupting the whispered discussion the three others had retreated to have, “where’d you arrange-”
“I-3,” comes back, and Mallow sighs again.
“I will not take a witness statement in an interrogation room,” Clary says loudly, and sharp enough that she hopes the others will get the point. It doesn’t matter that Graves has always been a little too present, a little too knowledgeable, a little too authoritative, a little too cooperative - this time he is a witness, and Clary will see that he is awarded the cordiality and comfort that MACUSA gives to all their witnesses. “Mallow, keep them-” She’s about to say in line, but rethinks it as the whispers tentatively rise in volume again. “Keep them out of my way for an hour.”
“Sure Boss,” he says, sounding a little relieved at the simple task.
She nods in thanks and stalks towards the lift. Coffee in her hand and a firm expression on her face ensure that everyone leaves her be as she makes for the atrium. She’ll have to head Graves off, as the last he’d have known he was expected in one of the interrogation rooms, but it’s never difficult to pick out his powerful figure even in the disorder of the atrium with people going every which way.
Clary tends to be easy to see as well, she’s been assured. Something about the way she holds herself despite being shorter than more than half of her aurors, with an air of confidence and authority.
She chooses a place to stand and wait that is not quite out of the way, but neither in a path of heavy traffic, yet still visible from shortly inside the doors. Graves shouldn’t be long now, there’s only a few minutes remaining before the arranged time. She takes a sip of her coffee, tapping a warming charm on the mug with a finger. It wouldn’t do to let her last caffeine fix of the day go cold.
There’s a slight commotion near the doors. Like what tends to happen when someone who may or may not practice the Dark Arts and who is generally considered a Low Priority Suspicious Person enters the building.
Sure enough, moments later there is a man wearing a sweeping black coat striding in. His scarf looks several shades bluer in the atrium light than it sometimes does, but his gaze is as dark and focused as ever as he hones in on Clary and seems to ignore everyone else on his way to greet her.
She takes another sip as she waits, swirling her mug to ensure the sugar crystals stay mixed. She could do it with a simple spell, but she likes to watch the liquid swish and eddy.
“Good afternoon Director Barillon,” Graves says. He sounds quite unruffled, but the raising of a brow indicates a question.
“Mr Graves,” Clary replies without addressing his unspoken query, and turns neatly towards the lift. Graves follows, staying quiet as she greets Red and asks for the Aurors’ floor.
They stand in that continuing silence, Graves apparently content to leave his voice for the encounter he’s expecting with Mallow and Holcomb, and Clary quite comfortable to let him keep thinking that as the lift zooms along. It isn’t often that the man is successfully surprised after all, though her aurors do keep trying their best.
And speaking of her aurors, Mallow seems to have been doing a remarkable job of prodding them into temporary submission while Clary’d gone down to the atrium. As she steps out of the lift she sees that every single one of them currently in the room is sitting in a chair, pens and quills scratching softly, someone leaning across a desk to murmur to their neighbour now and then.
Perhaps she should leave him in charge of the bullpen more often, if the result is the lot of them being so well-behaved.
Ah- Maybe she should have said something to Graves. He’s moving as if to walk behind her and into the middle of the crooked grid of desks, his focus likely set where her senior aurors are appearing to be hard at work.
“Mr Graves?” Clary gestures towards her office, taking a step to remain standing carefully between Graves and her aurors. Holcomb and the others don’t need an opportunity to catch his attention properly and drag him into their midst.
Graves hesitates for a moment, glancing towards the aurors he’d been meant to meet with before settling his gaze on Clary and changing the direction of his movement. “I thought I was meeting with Aurors Mallow and Holcomb?” he says quietly. Clary hums and continues escorting him to her office. “Is something wrong?”
“I thought I would make it easier for them to keep themselves in check,” she explains. He looks vaguely amused as he turns to close the door behind him without a word from her. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, water?”
He raises his eyebrows. Clary takes a slow sip of her coffee, not deigning to react further until his mouth twists into a brief smile.
Then she sinks into her chair, setting her mug down. She only waits long enough for him to take a seat as well, then speaks. “Shall we get started then?”
Once again, he proves his cooperativeness with ease, launching into a cursory explanation of his presence near the warehouse and then describing exactly what he’d seen. Clary listens quietly, as the man doesn’t need much prompting by now, having been through the process more regularly than anyone else in New York. She’s pleased to hear the neutral, even positive way he speaks of her aurors, proving that they haven’t yet managed to alienate him from MACUSA, and he even offers praise for the Junior who’d attempted to give chase to the runners.
She glances over the pen and paper that are charmed to automatically transcribe her meetings; she can think of no additional questions, so she murmurs thanks.
The only item remaining is to deliver Graves to the sketch artists then, though she suspects they are just as wary as her aurors, and far too susceptible to believing some of the conspiracies Goodwin has cooked up.
“Do you mind if I do the sketches?” Clary is asking to be polite, really, and there’s a warning tone to her voice that she doesn’t particularly intend but neither does she regret.
Graves certainly wouldn’t know it, but she’d spent months doing sketches back when there was a turnover of multiple department heads during the time her Auror application had been under review. It’s been a few years - or fifteen - but she’s kept drawing as a hobby. Whatever she turns out will be just as skilled as the official sketch artists.
She reaches into a drawer, pulling out a book of bound white paper and a charcoal pencil. Graves is watching curiously, but when Clary looks at him expectantly, he begins an oral illustration of one of the escaped suspects. An extensive oral illustration, as if he has a clear image of the two of them in front of him and at the same time as if he knows precisely what words to use to give Clary that same clear image.
Twenty minutes later, she’s heard him talk more than she ever has at once and she’s got two and half sketches on her desk. She drags the half sketch back - a rough, very preliminary drawing that is based more on Graves’ official statement than on his description of the middle-aged witch and wizard. The other two she spins about and slides nearer to him.
“Very good,” he says, though he’s raised his gaze from the sketches to Clary’s face, and she has the impression that he’s complimenting her skill at the same time that he’s approving the accuracy of her sketches. He leans back and folds his arms, not looking away yet.
She flashes him a small smile and hides her sketchbook and pencil back away in their drawer. “Now,” she says watching him as he watches her, “I believe that’s all, Mr Graves?”
His fingers tap against his arm, and he’s quiet for a long moment, and then he nods slowly, thoughtfully. “That is all, Director Barillon.”
“Excellent. I’ll escort you back to the atrium, then.” They rise, nearly at the same time, and Clary gathers Graves’ statement and the two sketches, careful not to smudge them. She’ll pass them off to Holcomb, or perhaps the Junior he’d tapped and who had spotted Graves.
Graves opens the door, stepping out without bothering to invite her to go first. Clary follows, pulling the door shut as the wards reset, and she considers the sounds of the bullpen. She’d like to keep the papers in her hands within that team, and it might do Junior Auror McCutcheon good to take care of a witness statement and go by the sketch artists… but at the same time, she can hear Holcomb chatting away about something that is certainly not work related.
“Holcomb,” she calls, and the room silences for a moment before rising to a level of noise a little lower than it was just previously.
Clary starts walking towards the lift, Graves automatically falling in beside her. Holcomb pads over to her side, casting an expression she can’t quite see to the other man. Yes, a practice in civility should be quite reasonable.
“Mr Graves’ statement,” she says, holding the three papers out to her auror, “and sketches of the two that escaped your team.”
“Thank you Boss.” He sounds rather reserved. A glance sideways allows her to see an anxious twitch of his fingers. He stays quiet though, even as the three of them get into the lift and he shuffles a little further away than necessary, as if he thinks being too near to Graves will transfer something questionable or illegal to his person.
Oh well, Clary has high expectations that he’ll survive the trip to the atrium - the lift is already in motion after all, and she won’t force interaction in an enclosed space.
Besides, Graves has completed his witness duty. She could have let him make his way out of the building on his own, but escorting him personally is a minor task that never ceases to reassure and calm her aurors. Their wellbeing is, in a fashion, one of her priorities.
And as such… “Mr Graves,” she says as the lift settles to a stop at the atrium level. The man turns to face her. She offers him a pleasant expression. “Try to stay away from our investigations for a couple of weeks, hm? I’d rather close a few cases up before needing to deal with you and their gossiping again.”
He smiles, quick and not particularly sincere. “I’ll make efforts to avoid your generous hospitality, Director.”
There’s a strangled sort of sound from Holcomb in the corner, but neither Clary nor Graves turn to check on him. She can guess what her auror took from Graves’ statement; what she took away is that he expressed agreement while careful not to make any promises.