Who: Roderick Dearborn and Emmeline Vance
What: Super top-secret!
When: Today!
Where: A women's washroom at the MOM ... you think I'm joking :|

She didn't even know why she was here. Frank had dragged her to the ministry muttering something about safety precautions, whether or not that meant he was getting her more, or he was literally not going to let her out of his sight. Which---which didn't bother her, at the moment. Nothing seemed to, and Emmeline didn't know how long she'd been sitting in the chair outside one of the many offices in the ministry. Shoulders where sunk low, neck and head drooped forward; it felt like her whole body had decided it wasn't worth making an effort.

It had been two days since the battle, since Dorcas had died, since---the radio had said they'd found a body near his house, and Emmeline knew. When the rest of the Order hadn't been able to find Caradoc at the scene, she had been sure that the death eaters were going to---to have their fun.

Blinking slowly as the thoughts brought on a nauseous feeling in her gut, Emmeline forced herself to her feet to find the bathroom. It wouldn't be the first time she'd gotten sick during the past two days, and Frank better bloody well understand that she didn't want to have another meltdown in the middle of what was a somewhat busy ministry corridor. Emmeline pushed the women's bathroom door open and rushed to the sink, needing to find something to balance her shaking legs. Maybe she wouldn't get sick, but--she needed to get away from people.

Saying that no one knew anything else was actually not at all correct. Roderick Dearborn, conveniently patrolling the hallways with his trusty rolling trash can, knew everything. That was, naturally, because he was Caradoc's uncle, because he'd helped save Caradoc ... any number of reasons. The thing was -- he hadn't told anyone.

No one. Not even his lover, despite the fact that had been hard to avoid. He sighed and brushed his hand through his hair, catching sight of a familiar brunette out of the corner of his eye. She was going into the bathroom - Merlin, this was ideal. He slid inside and muttered an out-of-order charm as he slipped through the door and hoped that she wasn't going to notice him right away. He was quiet, though, so she probably hadn't heard him right away.

"I know who you are," he said relatively nonchalantly as he washed his hands up at the sink next to Emmeline's.

In her dizzy state, she hadn't heard the door open, but she felt the person come up beside her. It wasn't odd at first, Emmeline was used to just being attacked by now so a running sink didn't make her bother to look up, but then---

She jumped back, letting out a strangled sound as her wand whipped out quickly. Shakily, but quickly, and Emmeline needed to hold it with both hands to have any sort of aim or focus. No, no this couldn't---wait, he was a janitor and---no, why would he be in here? Why would he know her, she was never in the ministry, she didn't know him, why would he know her? Why--why---Emmeline hated that her mind did not seem to be working, and she took a deep breath as she kept her arms up and hands tightly gripping her wand.

"What do you want--"

"I need to tell you about him." Most people saw the family resemblance between them, but then again -- she was acting like she was rather nauseous, so he could only assume that she was -- that would impede her memory. He dried his hands off on the nearby paper towels and pitched one into his rolling bin, still more or less going about his business as if Emmeline didn't have a wand pointed at him. There wasn't going to be a point to convincing her to put it down until she was sure he wasn't going to harm her, after all.

Hopefully she was smart enough to understand that if he wanted to kill her he would have at least tried it by now. "Your friend will be expecting you out soon, but he didn't see me come in."

Emmeline blinked quickly, eyes darting around the room in search of anyone else, any way to get around the man because he could easily corner her (already had technically---) with the small space of the loo. She gritted her teeth, jabbing her wand a bit and sending angry red sparks at his chest.

"Who," she snapped, taking a step forward. You know what? Fuck it---she'd just gotten her boyfriend killed, what did anything matter? It didn't, nothing did and she was ready to fight this bastard and---all of them were alike, they were just trying to fuck with her, mentally, physically, nothing made any sense anymore and---fucking Order, fucking Voldemort---just----"Who!"

Oh, she was very feisty. No wonder his nephew liked her, she seemed very ... forward and able to take care of herself. At least that meant that she was less of a risk -- but she'd clearly shown herself to be more of a risk. Roderick glanced down at the angry red sparks and brushed his hand over the fabric so it wouldn't catch fire, apparently still very calm.

"He isn't dead," Because he really didn't want to have to have to deal with having to say it out loud and have her break down into tears or something like that, "he's safe. I'm sure he'd have wanted you to know." Well, for a fixed meaning of 'safe', considering his injuries. He'd recover, at least, that was for sure.

Her heart felt like it had shot up her throat and decided to pound right between her ears. He isn't dead? He isn't dead. How could this person actually---he was a death eater, her mind nearly knocked her over for not putting any of that together, even though she'd taken precautionary measures and---this was a death eater, talking to her about her not dead boyfriend, who he knew to be---safe. Caradoc was safe. Caradoc was---

She felt a million different things hit her at once. That body wasn't his, Caradoc wasn't mutilated beyond recognition. She felt relief for him, anxiety from all her questions, immense pain that he was gone and not with her, but he was safe----it all felt like a metal cloak had been sitting on her shoulders and it had finally slipped off to the ground. Emmeline felt like slipping to the ground, but she remained standing, wand up and ready.

He could be lying.

"How do you know that?" she whispered, her breaths deep and heavy. If Caradoc really was safe then--good, she was glad, she'd told him months ago when the McKinnons were murdered that she would want him to leave and---even though it pained her that he actually did, things were making sense now and----and this man could still be lying. Trying to catch her say otherwise, or appear to know some more information, no, Emmeline kept her face as neutral as possible, probably failing but---"Who are you?"

"You've probably been to my dwelling -- or at least seen pictures. I'm very protective of Caradoc," he explained quietly, brow arched. At least she hadn't started crying, as that would have been awkward and he was never really fully sure how to deal with something like that. Roderick pursed his lips in a tight line, "You understand that it's very important for him to stay missing, and more importantly - that nobody knows where he is."

But he'd deemed it necessary to tell the girl above all others, because Caradoc seemed to like her and the fact was that Voldemort had sent him on the mission to interrogate Vance about what she knew as covertly as possible. That was what he was good at -- and he knew that other, more influential Death Eaters were going to continue to ask, so...

"And you shouldn't know where either, I'm afraid. Others are going to come after me to find you and try to make you tell them where he is. So if you don't know ... you aren't a threat. Do you understand?" He was emptying the bin from the bathroom into his traveling bin -- just so he could feign being there to clean up only if one of his managers caught wind of this.

Emmeline listened dumbly to what the man was saying. Trying to put his words together to make some sort of sense, but Caradoc didn't like any of his family outside of Juliet (and even that was questionable depending on the time of the day). Was there family that he did like? Oh--now that she thought about it, "Roderick?"

She remembered some random comments here or there, and then Agatha mentioned him and Caradoc---did, but he had never liked discussing family and...Emmeline now felt her brain getting to speed with things. This man, like he said, was protective of Caradoc, enough that he'd risk getting caught by the other death eaters because of his knowledge of his whereabouts (his whereabouts), and he even dared to tell her and---it made her chest swell with a familiar pain of longing, but it wasn't terribly striking as it had been during this tumultuous time.

It made sense that she shouldn't know, it made absolute sense but she sure as hell wanted to argue against it. The thought of 'how could she not know' after he told her passed by fleetingly, and she realized that while Caradoc's uncle was being kind that he was still a death eater and would probably---well a memory modifying charm would be a simple solution to all of this. Emmeline looked down at the tiles of the bathroom, nodding that she did understand, but right now she just wanted to embed this information deep into her mind so that she wouldn't forget.

"Thank you," she mumbled, looking back up.

Ah, she looked like she understood exactly what this meant. A meeting that was much longer than this one had been would be suspicious, so Roderick waited until she was looking down at the tile and muttered a quick memory-modifying charm. Short-term, fast-acting ... and he only had a few seconds to explain to her what had just happened.

"You never saw me. A Death Eater came in here and assaulted you -- maybe he pushed you up against the stall -- about where Caradoc is hiding. You didn't tell him anything, and he disappeared shortly after." Roderick tied up the garbage bag in his trash can and then headed out the door of the washroom, lips pursed tightly.

Well, that was that. Nobody else needed to know where Caradoc was -- ever. Ever.