He wasn’t sure whether his touch of Kieran’s wrist had slowed or briefly sped up the werewolf’s heart rate, but at last Kieran did look a little less green about sitting here with him. “Mmhm,” Ishmael said knowingly about the Pictish issue - he’d done a little research of his own, knew a couple of the people dealing them - but the smirk on his face had more to do with Kieran looking at him than anything they were discussing.

“And has there been much muttering there -” (or elsewhere in the Ministry, it didn’t matter) “- since Galina got freed?” Whatever her thoughts on humans (and she did like to keep them at more of a distance than Ishmael did, he knew), Galina had been innocent all along, so it was about damn time. Might have rubbed off just as badly on her lawyer as it had her, but Ishmael was intrigued to know if this meant there was to be a resurgence of ill-will towards their kind, everyone knowing a not-in-this-instance-murderer was free again. Or, you know, a sudden bout of warmth towards vampires. Either or. (Also, he felt slightly personally guilty on the matter, if only because half of the murders in Hogsmeade in the last few years had been down to Azazel, who was also his fault.)

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