This takes place during the summer after Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.

Arcana - Chapter One: Sleep is for Sissies

In a well-lit corner of an otherwise dark room sat a young woman. She didn't seem to mind how dark or small the space around her was, her entire attention focused on a stone tablet propped up in front of her. With one hand she traced the symbols that were etched into the ancient stone, and with the other she wrote down her findings with her quill – how large each symbol was, how deeply the etchings were made, what tool was possibly used, whether the symbols were reminiscent of others she'd seen in previous works, and so on and so forth. Occasionally she would stop to push a dark brown curl from her eyes, but more often than not a rebellious curl or two would sneak out of her ponytail and hang there for hours on end before she decided they were an annoyance and put them back in their place.

"Miss Clearwater?" a deep baritone voice asked from the doorway to her workspace, but she paid it no mind.

"Penelope," It came again, with a clearing of a throat and a long sigh following. "Penelope!"

The woman blinked and finally looked up, scowling in confusion. "Mr. Bartleby? What are you doing here?"

The older man raised a graying eyebrow in her direction. "I could ask you the same thing, Miss Clearwater. How long have you been here?"

"I…" That was actually a very good question – one she might be able to better answer if her office had a clock in it. "What time is it?"

Bartleby gave another sigh. "Eight in the morning," he replied, and then shook his head at her look of disbelief. "Did you even go home last night?"

Penelope winced slightly and gave him her best innocent smile. "Well, no, not really…"

The man crossed his arms and continued to shake his head. "We've had this discussion before, Penelope. You cannot stay here all night! Everybody needs—,"

"—sleep. Yes, I know. Really though, I spend more time here than my flat, so you could almost say that this I is /I my home."

"This department is not your home," Bartleby insisted gently. "I can't have my staff losing sleep over non-emergency projects. Up you go," he said, waving his arms towards the door. "Go home. Sleep. Do something fun that doesn't involve runes and glyphs."

Penelope shook her head, a frantic look sweeping over her face as she pointed back to the stone tablet. "This tablet…I think it might have been commissioned out of Nineveh. If you look at the--,"

"Home," Bartleby said again, giving her a pointed look, despite his amusement and curiosity about where she was getting her findings from. The tablet had been in their possession for years now, though, and it could wait a few days more.

"But—,"

"Home."

"Tupsar Enuma Anu Enlil," Penelope interjected in an ancient form of Persian, hoping to get his attention – and she did.

Bartleby's eyes narrowed, looking from her to the tablet quickly and then back. "Writers of the Book of Heaven? How did you come to--," He shook his head. "No, home first. Sleep. You can tell me what you've found tomorrow."

Penelope looked rather like someone had run over her kitten. If telling him that didn't persuade him, surely nothing would. "I could sleep here?" she offered hesitantly, continuing on with her plea as he tried to object. "I could put my head right here," she said, patting her desk.

"No."

"Close my eyes…sleep for a couple of hours…and then--,"

"No!" Bartleby said again, frustration beginning to enter his voice.

"But I'm so close! I can feel it – I know you've been there, you've felt that high when you know the answer is right around a corner and you can nearly reach out and grab it."

Bartleby nodded. "I have, I still do, and you're going home. Good day, Miss Clearwater. Eat breakfast…when wasyour last meal?"

"Err…" Penelope squinted, trying to remember. Didn't she eat today…yesterday…whatever it was now? She seemed to remember chips and mayonnaise.

"I'm ordering you to eat a good breakfast and sleep a full eight hours, at least," Bartleby said with a nod. "We can discuss your findings tomorrow, and if they measure up we'll bring them into the staff meeting on Thursday."

Penelope's eyes lit up. The Department of Mysteries weekly staff meetings were used to discuss only the most important findings, or the most troublesome of problems. It was where the staff as a whole could put their heads together and mull everything over, and everybody knew it was an honor to present your findings there.

"Alright, then," she finally relented, gathering up her cloak and a few books, but Bartleby stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. Looking over the books, he removed two from her arms and put them back on the desk, giving her a look of gentle scolding.

"No work today, Penelope. I mean it. I won't have you burning out on me. It's not a pretty sight, and it happens with our staff far too often - but not on my watch. We can't afford it with everything that's happening."

"Fine, but when I come back tomorrow having forgotten where I was, we'll know who to blame."

Bartleby's lips lifted into a grin. "We will that. Off with you now, before I call security to drag you home."

Penelope rolled her eyes and buckled the clasp of her cloak. Then, with a shake of her head, she squeezed around Bartleby and headed out the door of her office.

"And eat that breakfast!" she could hear Bartleby call out as she crossed the outer room and waited at the elevator to go home, where she would most certainly eat something, even if it was just a jacket potato with some processed cheese tossed on the top. But then, what Bartleby didn't know wouldn't harm him.