[mp] [paris] no stars tonight. [chantal]

It had been far too long since the French man had been back to Paris and as soon as he had arrived in the city he realize exactly how much he had been missing it. Despite loving is job and life back in London he was a French wizard through and through. He'd lived and worked primarily in England for years now but his accent was still just as thick as the day he left. Being back in Paris gave him a comfort that he had been lacking these past few months and he was going to soak in it for the night. Though the air was a bit chilly Gregoire found he didn't mind. The crisp air carried the smells of fresh cut flowers and delicious baked goods and it reminded him of home. Dressed in simple, paint covered clothes, and a wizarding overcloak that had tatters and fraying edges that gave away exactly how many seasons old it was he nearly looked like an average wizard. The long faded black cloak hid almost all of the tattoos that covered his body with the exception of the ones on his hands and those that crept up his neck and to the back of his skull.

The sun had only just begun to set into the night and magical lamps had begun to burn brightly over the street he walked down. With a soft smile on his face the middle aged wizard made his way toward the theater at the end of of the district. He had been planning to catch a show for weeks now and the theater's in London just weren't the same. He liked the strange moving picture shows they played on Thursday nights, the "Muggle Features" or so they were called. They were like plays but some how they had painted them onto the screen and Gregoire was enthralled by them. They reminded him of paintings that moved and spoke and had music and as an artist he couldn't help but be in love with them.

Waiting in line for his tickets he found himself staring at others in the crowd, people watching really, and wondering what their lives were like. The wizard was such a hopeless romantic that he was secretly wishing or tonight's show to be something sappy with a happy ending. He reached into the large pocket of his cloak absentmindedly to double check he had brought his sickles as the sounds of voices across the stone street began to grow louder. It wasn't until he saw the large signs a group that seemed to have gathered instantaneously were holding that he realized what they were doing. Stories of the protests were widespread and this wasn't the first time he'd seen them. Members of the crowd began to split into a few different groups, some agreeing with those who had been protesting Magical Zoos for months since the death of Snuggles, some wanting them to go away, and others (like Gregoire) just watching. They shouted louder and louder until the owner from the theater came out of the doors and began shouting back, shooing them away, and saying that they couldn't protest in front of his business.

And naturally that only added fuel to their flames.

@Chantal Garnier

While Chantal could understand the entire issue regarding the Snuggles situation, she definitely wasn’t pleased by the atmosphere which had captivated not only Paris and France, but all of the wizarding communities around the world. It was a world-wide disaster, and politicians and diplomats did nothing to ease the situation and just let Aurors handle the masses. From her point of view, there were no actually evil people per se, but only people who think differently. Currently, Chantal doubted politicians actually thought, because those protests were flat out solid proof that they did not. It was a natural flow of society’s evolution for protests to always happen, however, protests dividing society and revealing the violent side of witches and wizards were definitely not something that should happen, particularly if it turned them against each other.

The Aurors were taking shifts to monitor the situation, so it would not evolve like it did in London. Protests in Paris had been peaceful enough and Chantal thought that was mostly due to the fact that not as many people were openly provoking the protesters. Anyway, her shift was almost over, her colleague was due to arrive any moment now to replace her, and nothing particularly bad happened that day. The protesters naturally yelled and complained through using verbal violence, but at least nobody provoked them and it didn’t turn into a fight.

The former Ombrelune had previously told her colleague to meet her around the theatre, so she could directly go in and watch that week’s movie after the shift change. Later on, she planned to go home right away and watch Sex and the City, because last week’s episode left her hanging and Chantal definitely wasn’t the type who liked waiting more than needed to watch a new episode. Looking at her watch, she had arrived in front of the theatre, but there was no sign of her colleague yet. The protesters had stopped around the area as well, which displeased her a little bit, as she didn’t want a fight to start just as she was about to end her shift. Overtime was not in the girl’s plans for that evening, and she definitely did not want to arrest people. In the end, the protest was for a good cause, and it’d be a pity if people suffered over political matters which could easily be solved through diplomatic means.

No, please don’t. Chantal widened her eyes in shock upon seeing the theatre’s doors opening, and the owner coming out to shout at the protesters. Of course he would, since his business would have to suffer due to the protesters being in the area, but the owner definitely didn’t think things through – provoking the protesters could have repercussions. Even before she could think about it, some of the protesters threw their signs around and on the ground and made their way towards the owner, towards the entrance of the theatre. Well, there went her plans for the evening.

She could see on the other side, trying to calm down the protesters who hadn’t come across to the theatre, her colleague. Chantal took that as the sign that her fellow Auror would handle the situation – it was actually better, because she surely didn’t want to be the one to break off the fight. Goodness knows how she could’ve touched someone and injured them and just imagine what an even bigger mess that would cause. It seemed however, that the protesters didn’t actually aim for the owner himself, but for going inside the theatre, being quickly followed by the theatre’s security employees. “For the love of everything, don’t destroy my favourite theatre.” She complained in a loud whisper, desperately running a hand through her hair. Well, honestly, the owner kind of asked for it himself.

Straightening her back and arranging her robe, Chantal turned around on her heel, and approached one of groups of people who had been waiting in line. The protesters have previously thrown around their signs, so Chantal had to at least make sure that people were alright. She scanned the group for a figure which seemed rather neutral, and calm, just to be sure that nobody would throw a fit at her simply because she was an Auror and didn’t stop the owner from making the entire protest worse. How could have she stopped him though? It wasn’t as if she had some sort of power to know people’s actions beforehand.

“Excuse me.” She stopped next to a tall, quite imposing young wizard. He seemed one of those types of men which one couldn’t really tell from the first try if they had some sort of special charm or they attracted individuals simply because of their imposing posture. Yet, even if only the latter, Chantal thought he seemed calm enough to be objective which was in its own a charming quality, especially when considering the situation there. “Are you alright? I saw that some signs were thrown around this area, I hope you’re not injured.” Her small Auror badge, which was pinned in her robe’s collar, shined in the theatre’s bright lights, as Chantal’s gaze focused upon the man.

Even louder screams could be heard from behind her, which made Chantal turn around, a bit taken aback. It seemed that the protesters were really displeased by the owner and his security people, who were now also yelling back at the crowd. It was a true mess, and this Auror was definitely glad it was officially past her shift. Even if she was there, at least she wouldn’t be put on record as the one in charge for the area.

"Injured?" Gregoire said, holding back a smile because her concern was endearing, before continuing. "No miss, I am not injured." He checked his arms and legs theatrically just for good measure before finally smiling at her. "I appreciate your concern though." She had to be ministry, no one else would bother to ask if he, or really anyone else, was okay during a time like this. Protests brought out two things in people: their need to fight the system or their annoyance with people who couldn't just tow the line. Unfortunately officials didn't get to make the choice for themselves but Gregoire could have. He easily could of joined the line of witches and wizards going nuts on the other side of the road and in his younger years he would have in a second. He would barely of even asked what the cause was before getting behind it. Anything to rebel, shake up the status quo, it was the artist thing to do wasn't it? But now as he began to age he began to realize that rebelling for the sake of rebelling did no one any good. Anarchy was a terrible idea, in truth, despite the beautiful idea of it.

In recent years he had begun to do more social outreach, real things that could help giving back, instead of just tagging politically spurring phrases on government buildings. He had young interns working at the art shop, he volunteered at places like the community garden in Neroli and a soup kitchen outside of Diagon aptly named the Cauldron because of the massive pots of soup they boiled each day. These were things that, in the French mans opinion, actually helped the community. Despite knowing what they were declaring war against Gregoire still couldn't get behind the way that they were doing it. He couldn't see himself standing on the picket line, throwing things and shouting curse words at strangers who probably consciously had no idea they were a part of the problem. Who did that serve? No one. And it wasted the time of beautiful independent witches like the one in front of him and that was just a shame. There were far better things to spend time doing, like napping and snacking and catching a good film with no subtitles.

"Are you alright?" He returned with another soft smile before pulling a cigarette from the case in his pocket and lighting it up. "Oh, your an auror..." He said as the spark from his wand lighting his smoke reflected off the super shiny pin on her robes. It wasn't meant to sound suspicious but it still had. Gregoire hadn't done anything wrong, that he remembered, so he had no reason to be paranoid but as a man who'd lived on the fringe most of his life it was hard not to seem so. He eyed her badge before returning to look at her face. "I mean, that's cool." He was the opposite of smooth, but the cigarette was helping to calm his nerves. He let his large exhale take up some space between them as he searched for something less suspicious sounding to say...

It seemed that she had managed to approach one of those joke-loving individuals, someone who enjoyed being a smooth talker even when in a tense situation. Chantal did her best to stop herself from rolling her eyes as the wizard theatrically checked his arms and legs, as she was still representing the Ministry. With everything going on, she couldn’t just openly reveal her dissatisfactions. Plus, she was aware that any other of her colleagues would have found his gestures slightly amusing, if not after an entire work day which had involved dealing with protestors. Instead, the auror took a better look at him – he wasn’t just tall, but indeed had some good looks about him. His eyes were particularly nice, being a pale shade of blue. Deep down, Chantal congratulated herself for singling out a physically attractive person from the crowd. He was a much better choice than all the elder witches that had complained to her about the protests as she did her rounds throughout the day.

“Very good then.” She replied, a bit taken aback by his next remark. He appreciated her concern? Now that was a first. Ever since Chantal had started working as an auror, she had never heard that line. With her older colleagues had specifically told her that there were indeed some people around that were actually openly grateful to aurors for their work, this witch hadn’t had the opportunity yet of encountering such individuals. Chantal had only experienced the other side of being an auror, the non-glamorous aspect which wasn’t known by many; long reports, never-ending night shifts, boring meetings, ungrateful bosses, picking up lost pygmy puffs from the sewers, and dark wizards who would openly hate on her just for having chosen to be an auror. In the current context, with the protests, even more individuals were critical of aurors, because they either didn’t keep people in line, or because they were too restrictive towards the people’s ‘freedom’ of speech. These days, it had seemed that no matter what she was doing, Chantal was always bound to be criticised and not appreciated.

And yet, there he was, a handsome, young wizard telling her that he appreciated her concern. She was suddenly overwhelmed, and physically felt her cheeks flushing. “I… er… you’re welcome?” There should have been some introduction course about receiving compliments as a Ministry official, for Chantal hadn’t been prepared for this at all. Somehow, it had felt wrong to say that it was her job to be concerned, and her reply had felt off as well.

Not only that, but he returned her question. However, before she could even think about what to answer, as Chantal was also half distracted by his cigarette, the wizard had commented on her being an auror. It didn’t hit her until then that he hadn’t noticed she was an auror; her badge was quite noticeable, in addition to her attire. Her eyes slightly narrowed; the man’s reaction was somewhat suspicious. Was he part of the activists? Surely not; in the end he was on the opposite side, smoking a cigarette. A snuggles activist wouldn’t openly smoke like that, thinking that it’s extra pollution which would cause even more suffering for the creatures they were aiming to protect. She had no accurate reason to suspect him, yet something about his reaction to her being an auror and not an ordinary Ministry official (she assumed he had guessed that much before seeing her pin) had been off, in quite the obvious manner.

“Well, yes. Most of us around here are aurors, considering the situation.” Well, of course there’d also be some officials from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures who would try to mediate the situation, but aurors were (unfortunately) the majority. She sighed, deciding that it was best to put her discomfort at ease. Chantal took out her official badge from her robe’s pocked and briefly presented it to the wizard. “Chantal Garnier, auror at the International Magical Office of Law. Would you mind answering some questions for me?” She placed her identification back in her pocked before addressing herself to the man again. “Nothing too demanding, just some basic inquiries.” Chantal flipped her hair over her shoulder, as she took out a small quill and a piece of parchment. While she had no true reason to believe he was one of the activists, if he indeed had no reason for her to be suspicious of, the man’s answers would simply pose as a witness testimony to her report, to emphasis on the fact that the protestors were the aggressive ones and not the Ministry officials. But if the wizard would not agree to answering her questions, well, then it was an entire different discussion, which would most likely require her taking him to headquarters.

She decided not to give him any time to ponder, as sudden questions were the ones answered the best. “Overall, just your description of what is going on here is an interest to me. Your personal data will be required beforehand though; only the name, age and profession, no need for address.” The young auror specified, deciding that it was for the best not to dig in too deep. In the end, she didn’t want to poke the bear if he was indeed one of the activists, and in addition to that, the Ministry surely had his address in their records, so Chantal didn’t actually have to bother with actually putting it down now.