The Flower and the Badger

Chapter 15

Anna walked inside the house, where Dimitri was still questioning the Hippogriff's owner. He turned to Anna. "Find anything?" Dimitri asked, and Anna nodded her head. "Yeah, I found definite signs of abuse. Broken wing, and it looks like the Hippogriff had been branded at some point or another too."

"That's not true!" Lawrence Montgomery insisted.

"Oh really?" Anna turned to face him. "Care to tell me how he broke his wing then? Or why he looks like he's been branded?"

"What did the mark look like?" Dimitri asked.

"It looked like a triangle with a capital 'A'."

Dimitri sighed quietly. "Alexander Paget, he runs an underground fighting ring. His specialty  is werewolves, but he's been known to use other magical creatures as well."

Anna paled at this, her mind going back to two years ago when she had been kidnapped and transported to Albania, where she had been thrown into an arena and forced to fight another werewolf. She had almost died, and she probably would have if Remus, Kingsley and Fred hadn't saved her.

"Anna?" Dimitri looked at her with concern. "You alright?" He asked her gently. "You've gone kind of pale." 

Lawrence had decided to try and use this distraction to escape, but Dimitri casted the Incarcerous spell , effectively binding him. 

"I'm fine." Anna said as she shook her head, as though by doing that, she could push the memories away. "Sorry, I kind of spaced out on you."

"It's fine. We'll leave Mr. Montgomery tied up here, I'll let Aurors know so that they can come and retrieve him. Our main focus is on the Hippogriff outside."

They went back to where the Hippogriff was, and the creature refused to let Dimitri near him, but he let Anna stroke his neck.

"It would seem that he doesn't trust men now," Dimitri mused. "You can't really blame him though, given what he's been through."

They brought the creature back to the Ministry, and put him in one of the pens in the room with the sliding glass doors.

"I'll get someone to put Silencing Charms on the Fwoopers in there." Dimitri said as they went back to where his desk was. "Are you certain that you're alright? It looked almost as though you were having a flashback or something."

"I'm alright now." Anna insisted. "Really. I appreciate the concern, but I'm fine now." Fortunately Remus came just then, saving Anna from the awkward conversation."So how did your first day go?" 

"Well, we saved a Hippogriff." Anna responded, and Remus chuckled.

"She did space out for a few minutes earlier." Dimitri told Remus. "Went kind of pale too." 

Remus nodded, frowning a bit. "Alright, thank you Dimitri." 

As soon as they returned home to Grimmauld Place, Anna went straight to her room, so it wasn't until she, Remus and Sirius were all seated for dinner that Remus was able to question her about it.

"Care to tell me why you spaced out earlier?" Remus asked as he popped a bit of steak into his mouth. Cody pawed at his leg, so Remus slipped the Crup a piece of meat. Anna sighed as she pushed her green beans around on her plate. "Not particularly." She mumbled. "I just...I had some flashbacks, that's all." 

"What brought them on?" Sirius queried as he spread some butter and sour cream onto his baked potato. Anna bit her lip as she set her fork down. "The Hippogriff that Dimitri and I found today, he had been branded, Dimitri said that it was the mark of Alexander Paget, a man who runs underground fighting rings, and he...he specializes in werewolves."