He will be the first to admit he had no real game plan walking into this conversation. Given how many unknowns there still were swirling around Henshawe’s death, as well as the exact reason why Hattori saw to call them in so urgently, his plan had been to let Hattori dictate where the questions did and did not go at first. That is until he hears Moses speak out from behind him, vocalizing the very question that no doubt was on all three of their minds.
Hattori’s reaction is almost immediate, his gaze dropping down to the coffee cup he’d been holding in his hand. “Yes, I thought he might,” he nods, before looking back up at Moses, “I can’t say for certain what he was going to say about me, but I’m fairly certain it’s about what I’ve called all three of you here for today.”
Leaning back in the patio chair, the former chief lets out a quiet sigh before he continues. In the five years Daniel had spent in his squad he’d never quite seen him like this before. What happened to Henshawe had visibly shaken him, but there was something more lying under the surface, something he couldn’t quite pin down, even now as the man’s gaze moves down to meet his.
“There is a group of people within MACUSA… they don’t go by any name in particular, if they did that’d only confirm their very existence. I had heard rumors about them when I first became chief, of wixes working in the shadows, manipulating certain events and elections to their favor, usually by way of imperio- like I dare say what happened to that poor young wix at the Gala- Simon. Henshawe was a victim of their manipulations- just as you nearly were Sergeant Lobo.”
Hattori pauses then, and nods his head in the direction of Daniel’s chest, the area where the tendrils of his jinx scar fanned out towards his heart that was now beating rapidly against his ribcage. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered the violence that’d been inflicted upon him and his fellow aurors could have stemmed from the very institution they were trying to protect. The idea found its way into his head whenever his thoughts would grow dark enough, before he could chase them away with the bottom of a bottle. He tries to ask him why, why had this group, whoever the hell they were decided he and his partners on that case needed to be taken out, but he can’t find the words. Hattori answers him anyway, at least somewhat.
“I don’t know much of your case, but I am certain it’s them, which is why I offered to take you into my squad when I did. I’m afraid that’s as much as I can help you on that endeavor though, this particular snake has many heads, all of them leading into different directions and departments. I can help you cut down the one that took out Henshawe, but beyond that I am just as in the dark as you are.”
“And what of this head?” Daniel asks, his voice much shakier than its usual gruff tone.
“This particular person has a heavy grasp on the election, I still don’t know who it is yet, but whoever they are they have been manipulating things in a way to favor McDonough. You two,” Hattori pauses to look between Beth and Moses,”have unknowingly already come across some of their handy work, in the case of our poor Miss Potter.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t understand,” Daniel cuts in, “but if this group is wanting a Rappaport candidate to win, why throw your own name into the race? Why Henshawe’s too? I don’t remember either of you having any anti-halfblood political leanings.”
“Now, you’re thinking like an auror again.” Hattori smiles faintly as he looks over at him. “But you’re right, I didn’t, and still don’t. My purpose for running isn’t to reestablish Rappaport’s Law- but to abolish it. Crane, and some of us other high ranking aurors had come up with a plan, to have one of us run against McDonough in the hopes it’d split up the party. I was closest to retirement so I was given the job to do it. But unfortunately, the very monster we’re fighting found out our plan, and Henshawe payed the ultimate price.”
It made more sense than it should have – she’d been as surprised as anyone to hear that Hattori or Henshawe was a part of the Rappaport party, remembered making some comment to that effect while talking with Lobo at the gala, just before the chaos had broken out, though the memory of everything that had happened that night prior to the attack seemed fuzzy, now, and far away, like it had happened another lifetime ago. It was almost a relief, to hear that the two former aurors she’d spent so much of the last few weeks despising were, in fact, on her side after all, that the very people her colleagues looked up to weren’t bigots, but trying to do the right thing.
And it made sense, too, when Hattori brought up the Abigail Potter case: something hadn’t felt right, a confession out of the blue, the case left entirely unresolved at a crucial moment. Of course there had been interference, but she hadn’t imagined that the depths to which that went were quite what Hattori was telling them.
Still, it didn’t sit right. It felt too clean, too easy an explanation: the good guys are the good guys, after all, and there is a mysterious and unknowable force at play, controlling people to manipulate the government. Still, she didn’t have a choice but to believe it – especially with a case to solve, a kid dead because someone used an Unforgivable Curse to force him to kill himself.
“And what are we supposed to do? If you couldn’t do anything to stop them, how can we?”
Moses feels her stomach drop sickly at the mention of Simon. He had been under Imperio. She wondered as much, especially after learning the wix’s history and the last of criminality in it. He was just a child really and they had used him for some shadow plan to take over the government... And yes, Moses was a supporter of the Rappaport law, thought both NoMajs and wixen were better off without any interaction. But this is something else entirely. And if wixen were going to do this sort of thing to each other...
She doesn’t want Rappoport abolished. And she doesn’t quite agree with Hattori’s underhanded plot, but a secret sect of the government working to control things isn’t something she’s in favor of either. Especially not when-- Flashes of green. Henshawe’s slack mouth. Simon must have a family, a mother and father... And she and Beth had them in their sights, or close to, when it came to Abigail Potter and that case.
She feels herself go a little weak and takes a tighter hold on Danny’s chair to keep herself steady. She wants Cal and his steady chest. She wants her Uncle Percy and his deft mind. She wants her mother. But no, she’s an auror. This is her job, what she trained for. She might be more explosions and wand duels than espionage and underground movements, but dammit if she’s going to let this slip by.
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