Harlan Bellamy had really done it this time.
As the blond wizard pushed his way through the front door of the Griffins headquarters with unintentional force, the weight on his shoulders made his fists ball up and turn his knuckles white under pressure. It had been an impossibly long morning pacing his apartment. In fact, he wasn't even sure when morning had broke from night. He had been up for hours trying to figure out a way to dig himself from the hole that he hadn't even dug for himself.
Not really, anyway. The night prior, Harlan had been spotted at a popular burlesque show, hours before his scheduled appearance to support the young children affected by the war It had been a classic case of the press making a story out of something that simply wasn't there, but as usual the public ate it right up.
'Harlan Bellamy, the degenerate captain with questionable decision making was at it again'. It wouldn't have mattered much to him otherwise, but Harlan was already on thin ice with management after smashing the camera of a reporter who had mistakenly asked him about the truth to a rather salacious story written about one of his sisters.
In reality, he had been forced to go out with a group of his oldest friends from school. The whole thing wasn't really his scene, but he knew by putting the reservation under his name alone, they would be treated like kings and that was exactly what he wanted for his Hogwarts mate who had been recently divorced. Despite his genuine intentions, everyone that could have gone wrong did. The press showed up halfway through the night, just in time to catch Harlan out back seemingly cozying up to a worker over a cigarette, although in reality he was only setting up Bart for the best night of his life.
"I need to see -- " Harlan spoke with purpose, hands planted on the front counter of the reception desk before being cut off by a door opening to the side of him. Even if on the off chance that Maggie, the sweet young witch who manned the front area and often slipped Harlan sweets, didn't let him past the threshold, he had no intention of listening. He was going to plead his case, no matter what. In his short tenure with the Griffins this was the first time that they had seriously considered benching him due to public backlash, and quite frankly, he was terrified.
Turning his attention to the group of people that had exited the meeting room, the Captain's eyes narrowed evenly at the familiar brunette at the front of the pack, distracted by the parchment in her hands.
@Tara Kingsley.
This was going to be interesting. "Tara," He spoke calmly in a way that betrayed his racing thoughts, still drunk from the night before.
