Updates
Welcome to Charming
Welcome to Charming, the year is now 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.

Where will you fall?

Featured Stamp

Add it to your collection...

Did You Know?
Did you know? Jewelry of jet was the haute jewelry of the Victorian era. — Fallin
What she got was the opposite of what she wanted, also known as the subtitle to her marriage.
all dolled up with you


{SWP 9} Summons
#17
The letter had arrived only seconds after Ben had arrived at his desk. He'd put down his things only to find the letter floating peacefully in through the door and settle onto his belongings. Under normal circumstances, he would have saved this for after he'd settled in for the day, but given the situation afoot, he picked it up immediately and broke the seal. Scanning the contents of the letter, Ben tensed before leaping into action.

Today?! It was supposed to be tomorrow, Merlin, couldn't anyone ever schedule things right in this place? The past few days had been stressful to say the least regarding him and Ari, so of course, this had completely escaped his mind. There wasn't much to it than to get it over with. He had a job to do and he couldn't let his personal matters cloud his judgment. As soon as the department secretary had arrived, he'd told the DMLE Secretary to rearrange his schedule and hastily signed the letters of apology to the more notable appointments before clearing his desk and summoning the folder he needed.

Of course, despite clearly stating this was the priority of the day, the letter failed to mention what time Darrow was coming in, so Ben rather felt like he was waiting for paint to dry. It also occurred to the Auror he hadn't the foggiest as to what the other departments were questioning Darrow about either. Minutes turned into hours and soon he was back sitting at his desk after having returned from lunch. The auror sighed, massaging his temples before quickly scanning his folder. It was only then that the elevator dinged and he heard the porter give instructions to the guest. Ben stood up as the man fitting the description of who he was to meet with walked in. "Mr. Darrow, I presume?" He asked, obliging to also introduce himself as he held out his hand.


The following 1 user Likes Benedict Sterling's post:
   J. Alfred Darrow

[Image: WEY2zhj.jpeg]
#18
After feeling so dismissed by the Department of Mysteries, Alfred had to remind himself more than once as he made his way out of the elevator and down the hall that this was not the time or the place for sarcasm. He was apparently meeting with an actual auror, too, which was potentially more ominous than just one of the various paper-pushers who worked for the department. Hell, Evander technically worked for this department, now that he thought of it, and there was hardly anything intimidating about him.

This bloke, he would wager to guess, could be plenty intimidating if he needed to be. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

"That's right," he agreed as they shook hands. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting. The letter I received didn't have a time, and I only just finished with the Department of Mysteries." Useless cads, he added internally. The bitterness over losing access to his ship for the foreseeable future had not dissipated, and likely would not do so for quite a while — perhaps right up until the Voyager was returned to him de-cursed. Which, hopefully, would happen sooner rather than later.



MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
#19
Of course he had just finished with the Department of Mysteries. Which meant that Benedict could have not rushed through his lunch and perhaps not filled out a few of his forms so haphazardly (though the lucky part of that was the fact that those forms weren't due for a bit and he'd be able to redo most of them). "Not at all, Mr. Darrow," Ben replied, knowing full well none of this was Darrow's fault, and given the circumstances, Ben realized he probably wasn't the happiest to be here either. After all, they had taken his ship.

After gesturing for him to sit down, Ben took his own seat before flipping through his folder. Truth be told, what he needed to know wasn't in the folder, but to know what the man in front of him knew instead. "Aahh, finally managed to penetrate the depths of the Ministry none of us are permitted to know about?" He joked.

This might have been a serious situation, but Ben couldn't help throwing in a quip or two.



[Image: WEY2zhj.jpeg]
#20
Despite everything he'd been through that morning, the humor was helping. Alfred smiled wearily at the quip and shook his head. "Penetrated, maybe, but it's not as though that sheds any light on what they do down there," he admitted. While he had physically been down in the Department, he hadn't seen or heard anything interesting, and he had no more idea what they did down there all day than he had previously. Except that apparently, when the occasion arose, they scheduled interviews and threatened to confiscate ships.

"Has anyone ever considered whether they do anything at all?" Alfred replied, his tone equally light. He would not have said anything to this effect at all if the auror hadn't started it, but given the man's earlier remark he felt he had a little license to poke fun at the Unspeakables, particularly if he made it clear he was talking only about them and not about the Ministry as a whole. "Perhaps the secrecy is really just a cover for laziness. There certainly didn't seem to be much productive coming out of my meeting there this morning."



MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
#21
At the wry tone from the man, Ben couldn't help but feel slightly sympathetic for Mr. Darrow. Ins and outs of any government system could be tiring at best, and Ben had been in the Ministry long enough to witness enough of it. He chuckled at Mr. Darrow's comment and leaned back in his chair, flipping through the last few pages of the folder. "Wishful thinking on my part," He said before setting down the file and steepling his fingers together.

His eyebrows shot up – Darrow had a point, perhaps it was an entire ploy to make everyone else think they did something of significance. If that were the case though, he didn't think a certain blonde Unspeakable would be as infamous as she was around the office for her...certain amount of gusto. "If it were, Mr. Darrow, I'd be very much put out seeing as these scars seem to impress a certain amount of people, courtesy of the Department of Mysteries." He volleyed back dryly though mildly amused as he pulled up his sleeve to reveal scars from the Brain Incident a few months back. Ari had done his best, but there were still faint traces of black and blue around his forearm. "However!" He continued, unphased – injuries were quite common for him and having fully recovered from amnesia 5 years previously, Ben found most incidents to measure up quite poorly to re-discovering he was a full-grown wizard, much less a Dark Wizard catcher.

"That does bring us to my next question, which is for you to relay to me – however tedious you might find this – what they reviewed with you down there." Ben smiled apologetically, hoping it would soften the frustration it might cause the man. "Seeing as you just came there, I'm sure the owl they're planning on sending me won't be following you up anytime soon."


The following 1 user Likes Benedict Sterling's post:
   J. Alfred Darrow

[Image: WEY2zhj.jpeg]
#22
Alfred sighed, but the auror had put him in a much more cooperative mood than the Unspeakable downstairs had done. He wasn't as grudging as he might have been, then, as he recounted the details of the incident. He imagined the Department of Law Enforcement might be particularly interested in who had acquired this stolen chest in the first place, and transported it on to the Voyager. He went into depth on what few details he had about how the chest had likely gotten onboard; the range of potential dates, the possible routes, the people who might have been in a position to have seen something. The frustrating thing was that he still didn't know who had gotten it onboard, and all of his suspicions were founded on gut instinct and nothing more. Nothing, anyway, that could be considered evidence.

Which was probably just as well, because if Alfred knew who had just caused him to lose two months of sailing time and had now seen his ship cursed... the auror office would not have been his first stop with the information.

After that, he had recounted, for the third time, the story of how he had found the chest during a routine inspection and had tried to open it to determine exactly what it contained, first with his hands and then with the aid of his knife (which was still in the custody of the Department of Mysteries, along with the chest). He tried to describe the magical thing that had happened when the chest had been opened, but found himself at something of a loss for words.

"It was enough to make it clear that the chest wasn't... normal," he said vaguely. "So we turned the ship around and headed straight back to London, which took the next two days. I had it moved to my cabin in the meantime so no one else would touch it, and it'd be... secure, you know," he continued. "There weren't any other... incidents while it was up there."



MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
#23
As soon as Darrow recounted the events that led him to the Ministry, Ben started scribbling vigorously mentally making another note to duplicate these and send these to the Department of Mysteries afterward in case they'd been told something differently (it happened in cases, no matter how sure people were that they'd gotten their facts straight. Timelines on cases like these mattered down to the second.

The detail about the knife – included with some of the preliminary notes in the file – was especially odd and let them know that the chest had some sort of affect on things that attempted to penetrate it. Did that mean that there was some sort of protective spell around it? Or was the chest merely imbibed with something? Ben relaxed his stance and kept scrawling until Darrow was done.

"Mmm," he mused. "Good that no one touched it after that happened." He paused to scribble a few more notes before he posed his next question. "And aside from your knife that touched it, did you attempt to prise it open using any other method?" Ben asked, flipping through the file again to see if there were any notes on that particular detail. It seemed there weren't, but he wanted to ask for more clarification.



[Image: WEY2zhj.jpeg]
#24
The attitude the auror had was positively refreshing after his interview with the Department of Mysteries. It seemed for his entire conversation downstairs that every answer he gave was wrong, and that the Unspeakable was judging him for not having done things differently — although in his situation, given the limited information he'd had, Alfred still didn't know what he could have done differently. This bloke, on the other hand, seemed like a rational person, who was thinking about the scenario from the same sort of vantage that Alfred had been experiencing it from. It was good that no one else had touched it, which was the consideration that had caused him to have it moved up to his cabin in the first place, and it was nice to have that particular action validated.

"Just my hands," he answered with a casual shrug. "Not that it did any good; it was pretty well stuck. That was before the knife, too," he added, just in case that was important. He wouldn't have put his hands anywhere near the chest once it started doing things; he had no desire to mess around with strange magic, both generally but certainly not while he was out to sea with no one to call for help if he found himself in over his head.



MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
#25
Just his hands; not the worst in the world, though Ben knew they might be seeing more of Mr. Darrow in the days to come. This would not be his last visit to the Ministry, unfortunately, though now that he'd managed to get him in a better mood, Ben wasn't about to tell him that. The fact that his hands had touched the chest before the knife and his hands were unscathed was a good sign, which Ben explained to him. "I'd suggest keeping in touch with us and alerting us at the slightest inkling that you have that something's gone wrong." He said, jotting down the last notes in his file before putting down his quill.

He turned to face Mr. Darrow once more, and laced his fingers together before clearing his throat. "I believe that's all the questioning I have for today." He offered a sympathetic grimace. "However prepare yourself for the possibility of there being more questioning, Mr. Darrow." Ben rose to his feet, shaking the other man's hand before escorting him to the front door of the Auror Offices.



[Image: WEY2zhj.jpeg]

View a Printable Version


Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)
Forum Jump:
·