The conference room felt clammy and humid. It smelt of leather, coffee and tobacco, with the stale smoke of the various pipe and cigarette fumes still clinging to the air. Hestia looked at her watch. It had almost been an hour now and they still had several further items on the agenda of the meeting.

The blustering relic Tiberius MacLaggen was still boring on about the Floo Network and the steps that he was taking as Head of the Department of Magical Transportation to try and catch the missing Death Eaters. Portkey restrictions. Rationing the amount of Floo Powder any one household could purchase. It was all very dull.

She looked around the large red marble table that was filled with the various heads of departments.

Kingsley, as Minister for Magic, sat at the head of the table and even with his past experience in amateur theatre, seemed to be desperately struggling to feign interest in a single word MacLaggen was waffling on about. To his left sat his Undersecretary, Arthur Weasley, who was occasionally stopping Tiberius to ask him for some clarification on an obscure piece of terminology or process before writing a note.

Next to Arthur on the far end of Hestia's side of the table sat Amos Diggory, who had returned from early retirement to cover as Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Hestia had heard from Charlie Weasley that Amos had been working part-time on a consultancy basis for Australia Magizoo, before Arthur had managed to talk him into taking a role in Kingsley's new government.

Ramesh Patil, the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, who wore a quite fetching dark blue and pink trim suit, was sandwiched between Diggory and MacLaggen, with poor Sturgis Podmore drawing the short straw in being sat directly next to Tiberius, with Hestia stuck on the far end of their side of the table. Podmore had at least had the good fortune to be appointed Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, at least for the time being on an interim basis, before someone with more experience could be recruited.

Hestia wondered how Percy Weasley's mission to recruit further staff was going now. From what she had heard from his brother and in whispered rumours around the Ministry, it did not sound like it was going particularly well. It seemed nobody, Kingsley and Arthur included, had banked on it being such a tough sell. It wasn't a surprise really, after all, there were still six Death Eaters on the loose for Christ's sake.

Ramesh Patil had been extremely evasive when he'd been questioned on the progress of that particular endeavour, preferring instead to discuss the MACUSA's continued interest in The Ministry's affairs. Patil seemed quite keen to cooperate with his American counterparts, although this was pushed back heavily by Kingsley and Arthur.

The Unspeakable, Saul Croaker, sat directly opposite Hestia, wearing his trademark light sensitive lensed glasses. Despite being inside and out of any natural light he appeared to have transfixed them to be so dark that nobody could see his eyes at all. Whilst Hestia recognized he was most likely doing it to avoid anybody being able to read his emotions, she also thought it was just as likely that he was using it as an excuse to rest his eyes and not pay any attention at all.

Who could blame him?

Saskia Marlowe, who sat next to Saul, was certainly someone who did wear their emotions on their face. Hestia had heard a rumour that Kingsley had appointed the former Holyhead Harpies chaser, captain and more recently, record-breaking manager, to be the new Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, but she had not believed it. Then, when she had walked into the meeting, there she was, sitting next to Femi Wakanda, the newly appointed Head of the Wizengamot, as the two drank some pumpkin juice together.

Rhea Savage, the half-blood Head Auror, took a drag from her cigarette and tapped it onto the ash-tray sitting in front of her. Wakanda did not look altogether impressed by Savage's relentless chain-smoking and coffee guzzling next to her, but she could hardly say anything, as her boss, Gawain Robards was somehow smoking at an even more alarming rate to his Head Auror's right. He perhaps had the advantage of not taking any breaks from smoking to wolf down any hot beverages.

Savage wore a dark black mesh dress, with its translucent long sleeves giving a glimpse of her tattooed pale skin underneath. Hestia thought at one point Savage had caught her looking at her tattoos. She had shot Hestia a dirty-look with her bright, blazing blue accusatory eyes. She did not quite know why, but the Head Auror had always intimidated Hestia.

She remembered Savage from school quite well. Rhea had been in the year above her in Gryffindor. A member of the Quidditch team, with a French father who played at international level, she had also been a very active and successful member of the Duelling club. Savage had been one of the coolest girls in the entire school at one point – and as such, a lowly Hufflepuff who spent most of her free-time in the library, Hestia had barely even spoken a single solitary word to her.

Tonks had said she wasn't so bad when she had started working with her as an Auror, but it wasn't like they had become particularly close friends either. Savage had an air of iciness around her and whilst Hestia had heard tales of her exploits in the field, there was still a doubt in her mind as to how valuable a mentor she would prove to be to Harry Potter, if he even needed a mentor at this point.

Hestia did have to acknowledge that Rhea's new directive for Auror missions in highly muggle-populated areas was quite smart though. Savage had the idea for her team to dress as police officers, in an attempt to reduce or altogether avoid any conflict or problems with muggles.

This was hardly a revolutionary idea within the wizarding world and was common practice already in places like Japan, Australia and America, however, given the traditionally ultra-conservative practices of the British Ministry it was actually fairly ground-breaking. So much so that Hestia had not even dared to pitch the idea to the room for her own department, even with Kingsley as Minister it had seemed too bold of a suggestion.

Savage had inadvertently done all of the hard work in pitching and arguing the case for it though, so almost as soon as it had been universally approved, Hestia had added that she would consider a trial of the same practice for her own department. Rhea had not seemed to react too positively to this, which had again given Hestia cause to believe the young Auror did not much like her. It was no skin off the Head Obliviator's back though, there were worse enemies to have, and Savage wasn't exactly Dolores Umbridge.

"I think that's quite enough now, Tiberius, thank you very much," Kingsley's booming voice announced, with many a sigh of relief on show at the table. MacLaggen did not seem particularly pleased at having been interrupted, but he did not argue with Shacklebolt and refrained from speaking any further.

"Amos," Arthur motioned. "Anything further from you?" he asked.

Diggory had already gone into intensive detail about their attempts to renew relations with the Goblin community, as well as the problems relating to the foreign giants and mountain trolls recruited by You Know Who. He had also touched heavily on the Dementor problem, with nobody, Amos included, seeming to have any concrete idea of what exactly they should do with them.

"Nothing much, Arthur," Amos said, as his eyes met with Hestia's and he appeared to remember something. "With the help of Hestia and her wonderful team I can confirm we have completed our operation to wipe the memories of all of the newly created muggle werewolves."

There were a few murmurs of approval scattered throughout the room.

"That's good to hear," Kingsley added. "Any ideas on what our plan moving forward with them should be?"

Amos looked a little flustered as all of the eyes in the room, Hestia's included, began to converge upon him.

"Much like the problem with the Dementors, this is a complicated and sensitive matter, one which we cannot afford to rush into making any rash decisions on," Diggory said, which received a fairly muted response. "The sheer volume in numbers is like nothing we have seen before in this country in modern times. The amount of Wolfsbane potion we would need to keep them under control during full moon cycles for the next 12 months alone is almost incomprehensible. We would need at least three extra highly-skilled potions specialists working full-time with us to help sedate them all for each and every full-moon cycle. We have 94 registered werewolves with us at the moment, but there could be even more-

"More?!" Tiberius MacLaggen blurted out, as Patil, Robards and Arthur all shot Amos very concerned looks.

"Our newest recruit within the Centaur Liaison Office has reported sightings of strangely behaving humans and wolves in the Forbidden Forest. It is not impossible that some may have found solitude in the Forest during or after the battle."

"Have the school's governors and Headmistress been made aware of this?!" Patil demanded indignantly.

"Of course," Amos snapped back in a fairly passive aggressive tone. "The safety of the school and its pupils and faculty are of utmost concern to us all, none more so than I."

Ramesh Patil looked a little uncomfortable at Diggory's fight-back at his remark, which seemed a little heated, but given the context of his late son's death having taken place at the school, it was perhaps somewhat understandable that he would take offence to the notion that he had not considered the children's welfare.

"Hagrid will continue to work alongside the herd and we believe that the Centaurs themselves are more than capable of policing the limited amount of stray werewolves in the forest should it come to it in the immediate future," Diggory announced, as if this was the end of the matter.

The idea that centaurs should be trusted with this role caused a few indignant looks to be shot in Amos Diggory's direction, but following his previous rebuff to Patil nobody actually pulled him up on it.

"Very good, Amos. Very good," Arthur wrapped up. "Sturgis, Hestia, anything from either of you to add?"

Sturgis shook his head to Hestia's absolute dismay. They had discussed briefly that their plan for the meeting would be to further reinforce the idea that they were both very short on staff, which was true.

Podmore had been all for it in private, but perhaps out of trying to impress his superiors and not wanting to ruffle any feathers he was remaining silent now. Maybe he thought if they got desperate enough they'd let him keep the job full-time if he didn't give them too many problems. Hestia had to wonder whether he was right to think that way, as with the recruitment process going as poorly as it was it did seem somewhat likely that it could well happen.

Hestia huffed audibly, given Sturgis one last chance to speak, before she gave up, realising she would have to fight the battle single-handedly this time.

"My only concern is our lack of staff," Hestia began, which caused several raised eye-brows, most notably from Gawain Robards and Ramesh Patil.

"We are desperately short on Obliviators… which means we are only very slowly working our way through the mess that You Know Who left behind in relation to muggle-sightings of magic. I appreciate the efforts being made abroad by our colleagues in the Department of International Magical Cooperation to further recruit, but I would suggest if this endeavour is not fruitful that we put forward a motion to either reduce the qualifications required to hire new staff in the role, or alternatively have some kind of high-intensity intern-type training scheme for prospective new starters instead."

Kingsley looked deep in thought as he stroked the light-stubble that sat on the bottom of his chin. Savage eyed Hestia up curiously, perhaps not approving of her suggestions.

"I don't like the idea of dropping the qualifications required for the sake of it, but I do think your internship idea has some merit," Kingsley finally stated. "I will certainly look into it should our international recruitment drive not, as you so elegantly put it, prove fruitful."

"Anything further from you at all, Miss Jones?" Arthur asked, to which Hestia politely confirmed that there wasn't.

"Very well, we shall move on then. Ms Marlowe? Got anything to share?" he asked the Head of Magical Games and Sports.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Saskia replied sassily.

"Give me some good news first, Marlowe," Kingsley requested in an eager sounding tone.

"Mister Croaker, a drum-roll if you would, please?" the former chaser asked of Croaker. The Unspeakable turned to her blankly, surprised at having been addressed by her, before turning back to look the other way.

"Jeez," she sighed, bemused by the Unspeakable's lack of a sense of humour, before flicking her wand to create a suspenseful drum-roll sound herself.

"Quidditch is coming back!" she happily announced after a few seconds of anticipation.

There were loud cheers of approval upon hearing this news, with Kingsley the most enthusiastic of them all.

"I knew there was a reason I gave you the job," Shacklebolt said proudly. "Now what bad news could possibly dampen my spirits following that?" he asked somewhat nervously.

"A slight niggle with the Wright family," Marlowe responded hesitantly.

"The Wright family? The snitch manufacturers?" Podmore asked, in a confused manner.

"The very same," Saskia replied.

"What happened to them?" Kingsley asked, as Hestia wondered whether they had been tortured or killed by You Know Who's followers during the war.

"Well it would appear they are somewhat caught up within this big match-fixing investigation. I've had a tip-off from an old team-mate who is involved within the prosecution-

"When you say they are somewhat caught up within it?" Kingsley said, seeking further clarification.

"Oh they are proper fucked!" Marlowe replied, before quickly apologising for her enthusiastic language, which raised a chuckle from Savage, but did not appear to go over too well with Patil, Wakanda and MacLaggen.

"From what I hear they've been manufacturing snitches specifically for the purpose of rigging matches for years, if not decades. For the right price they'll enchant them to make sure they can only be caught by a certain seeker."

Audible gasps were heard through the room.

"Are you shitting me?!" Savage mumbled to Marlowe, more rhetorically than literally. Saskia only nodded in embarrassment at the development.

"The higher ups within the Quidditch world are worried this could be the end of the sport," Marlowe said. "I don't share their fears, but it could be the end of the sport as we know it. There's talks of trialling a new set of rules, ones that don't involve a seeker or a snitch at all."

"Quidditch without the seekers?" Savage gasped. "That's like Rita Skeeter without the bullshit made-up stories! It could never work."

There were a few laughs at Savage's joke at the disgraced Daily Prophet journalist's expense, with nobody at the Ministry sharing any particular love for the wretched woman.

"On the subject of bullshit made-up stories… I take it that Josh Morris was not injured by muggle explosives as The Prophet has suggested in recent editions?" MacLaggen enquired.

"Absolutely not," Robards barked. "Complete centaur-shite as you would expect from her sort. It was dark magic that was responsible for that blast. And those responsible for it will have hell to pay when we catch up with them!"

"And when exactly is it you are expecting to catch up with them?" MacLaggen pressed firmly, with a seeming undertone of sarcasm that suggested he did not think Robards, Savage and co had made enough progress in their pursuit of the missing Death Eaters.

"Gawain and his team have made some considerable progress in the last twenty-four hours," Shacklebolt interjected, as he attempted to mitigate proceedings.

"Even so, Minister, I fear the lack of transparency in this matter is-

"If transparency was what The Minister wanted from me he would have appointed me as Head of the Department of Magical Invisibility Cloaks, not the department of Magical fucking Law Enforcement!" Robards snapped at MacLaggen, who looked quite annoyed at the outburst, but did seem to clock on to the fact that he should probably accept defeat and pack it in for one day.

That sort of set the tone for the rest of the meeting, as it wasn't just MacLaggen who seemed to feel like packing it in for the day after that. Nobody really had much more to add and it eventually petered out, with Arthur quietly calling a close to events and Kingsley, who had appeared to age at least five years in the last few weeks, eagerly dismissing everyone to much fanfare.

The Minister for Magic was the first one out of the door, rushing off to whatever other business he had to attend to, with his Undersecretary quickly following him. Podmore excused himself and hurried out under the assumption he had to go to the toilet, although Hestia suspected he was just getting as far away from her as possible before she could call him out for not supporting her in the request for extra staff.

"Hestia… a word?" Savage urged from the other side of the table, as Hestia began to pick up the book filled with notes that she had made in the meeting.

What on earth did Savage want from her?

Hestia felt slightly worried that Rhea was going to pick some kind of fight with her. She had definitely given her a few dirty looks throughout the meeting.

"Yes, Rhea?" she stammered, desperately trying not to sound as nervous as she felt.

She hadn't ever really noticed before but Rhea was actually an inch or so shorter than her, even with the extra height that her heeled boots gave her, whilst Hestia just wore flats. The Head Auror had to look up at Hestia slightly, making frighteningly intense eye-contact with her in the process.

"Did you enjoy that meeting?" Savage enquired, as she glimpsed at Hestia's notebook, perhaps testing her. It had not gone unnoticed to Hestia that Rhea had not made a single note throughout the entire duration of the meeting, she'd hardly had the time in-between drinking all that coffee and smoking all those cigarettes.

"Yes," Hestia lied. "Did you?" she shot back defensively.

"Fuck no!" Savage huffed indignantly, as if such a meeting was completely beneath her.

Hestia wondered why she hadn't told the truth and admitted that she thought it was an awful waste of time too, now Savage probably thought she was even more of a loser than she had before, especially since she'd taken all of those notes. It was a force of habit more than anything else.

"Yeah, well I guess it wasn't great," Hestia commented awkwardly, attempting to back-track slightly.

"That's a fucking understatement," Savaged added, before waiting for Saul Croaker, the last remaining straggler, to leave the room and be out of earshot. "Tiberius MacLaggen… could he beeee anymore of a cretin?"

Hestia howled with laughter at the random Chander Bing reference.

"You like Friends, then?" Rhea asked with seeming interest. "I thought I vaguely remembered you being a muggle-born."

"Yeah… Friends is great," Hestia replied. "I think I watched every episode at least four times when I was in hiding. I didn't think you would watch TV… you know, being a half-blood and all?"

"Half-blood?" Rhea asked in a surprised tone. "I'm a muggle-born, mate," she added.

"Oh," Hestia sighed. "I thought… I thought that your Dad played Quidditch for France and that you-

"Oh, not that old fib," Savage said guiltily. "That was just something I said to try and fit in and look cool back at school. My Dad was a muggle, at least I think so… I've never even met the bastard!" she added with a lot of scorn in her voice.

Hestia couldn't believe it. She thought instantly about telling Savage that she too had never met her Dad either, but the words never came. She hated talking about it and even though she knew Rhea probably wouldn't judge her for having had the same thing happen to her, she still chose to hide it rather than open up about it.

"Sorry," Savage said to break the awkward silence. "TMI. My bad. Anyway I won't keep you too long… I'm sure you're very busy, but it's just about what you said about being quite short staffed at the moment."

"What about it?" Hestia asked curiously.

"Well as Head Auror and Head Obliviator I think we should set up more of a communication channel between our departments," she began. "In France the Aurors and Obliviators worked within the same team… it was quite a good set-up they had over there. I think it would be beneficial to us both, especially whilst the six missing Death Eaters still pose a threat to your safety."

"I'm not that worried about the Death Eaters," Hestia shot back, slightly offended at what Rhea appeared to be implying about her ability to defend herself. After all she had spent the last year in hiding under the threat of Death Eater attack at any moment, whilst Savage had scored a cushy Ministry job in Paris.

Rhea seemed to sense the tension and eyed Hestia up strangely.

"Look, Hestia… I don't doubt your…"

Savage paused slightly, eyeing up Hestia again with her tense gaze. The Head Auror was close enough that Hestia had a heavy whiff of her breath, which stank of stale-smoke and coffee.

"…talents… but these Death Eaters still pose a very real threat to us all and especially field agents, like you and your team. Quite frankly, if you're not worried about them, you're either a liar or a fucking idiot."

Hestia was taken aback by this latest attack, which had a lot of scorn and repressed anger within it, in total contrast to how the conversation had gone previously. It felt like now the real Savage was coming out.

"I'm not either-

"I'll see you around," Rhea interjected moodily, as she began to walk off in somewhat of a huff. "I meant what I said though. If you or your team pick up something that sounds like it could be dangerous… let us know before you head out. Morris was lucky to lose his arm instead of his life… don't let your pride put you or your staff in a hospital bed or an early grave."


The eccentric door-bell chime rang out into the brisk spring London night.

No response.

It was now the third time that Hestia had pressed the button and it appeared that this would be the third time that her Mum would not answer the door.

All of the lights within her Mum's upmarket Twickenham flat appeared to be turned off, which seemed a bit strange. They had, several days ago, arranged for Hestia to come over at 8pm, several hours after they would both finish work. It was going to be the first time that they would meet up since Hestia had been in hiding and her Mum had sounded so excited to finally see her daughter again on the phone.

Hestia did not particularly want to let herself in out of fear of invading her Mother's privacy, but it was really rather chilly and she was beginning to regret not putting a light jacket or coat on above her mauve turtle neck sweater.

"Fuck it," she thought to herself, as she pulled the spare-key to the flat from out of her pocket, pressed it into the hole and opened the door, escaping the bitterly cold wind in the process.

She had never actually been inside the fancy apartment situated in Whitton, just a stone's throw away from Twickenham Stadium, most famous for being the enormous venue considered the home of English rugby.

As places to live in London went, even by the capital's own ridiculously expensive standard, this part of town was particularly pricey. It was certainly fair to say it was a far-cry from her mother's humble beginnings as a working-class daughter of a nurse and bus-driver.

Hestia kicked off her white Ellesse trainers, switched on the light and immediately upon doing so saw the elaborate centrepiece of the hallway. It was a framed photo of her Mother standing proudly in a black and bright blue graduation gown, contrasted kindly by her dark skin, flanked either side by her own Mother and Father as she celebrated being the first university graduate from her family all those years ago.

They had perhaps not imagined that little less than twelve months following the taking of that particular photograph that she would birth a daughter. Hestia was born out of wedlock and to this day had never met or so much as seen a picture of her Dad. It was a sore subject that was never discussed in any serious manner between Mother and Daughter – and that was how Hestia preferred it to stay.

Her thoughts briefly drifted to Rhea. She felt a bit more connected to the Head Auror after her revelation earlier. If she wasn't such an arsehole Savage would probably realise they had a lot more in common than she would think, maybe they could even become friends, or at least allies within the Ministry.

It had raised a fair few questions when Hestia had been chosen to attend Hogwarts, as the question of whether her Father had perhaps been a wizard was raised on the odd occasion, but Hestia did not dwell on it and was quite pleased when her Mother was obliviated of all memory of magic on her 17th birthday as per British magical law.

Hestia becoming a witch had actually worked out rather nicely for her Mother's fledging career, which had been put on hold slightly following her somewhat untimely birth. Whilst they had both struggled quite badly in her first year with the separation, with Hestia off at boarding school full-time her Mum no longer had to juggle her work around term-time hours or expensive childcare, which would have been a necessity given the ill-timed early deaths of both her Grandma and Grandad.

Ever since Hestia was a little girl, long before her discovery of magic, they had always lived together in Romford on the outskirts of Essex. However, prior to going into hiding on her Order mission the Head Obliviator had grown concerned that the Death Eaters might come after her at her family home.

Her Mother had been talking about the prospect of moving to a more gentrified area for many years, but even despite the massive fortune she had acquired with her Economics degree she had always remained quite humble and was quite hesitant to move. Hestia merely gave her a magical prod in the right direction to speed up the process.

As she made her way into the nicely furbished living room Hestia heard an unmistakable excitable jingle and meowing, which could only belong to Mr. Bond, who had so far put in just over a decade's worth of service as the family cat. The little tabby tom-cat quickly scampered over to Hestia's legs, overjoyed to see her for the first time in over a year and she stroked him affectionately as he purred enthusiastically in return.

A pre-pubescent teenage Hestia had thought calling a cat Mr. Bond was the funniest thing in the world – and she had always enjoyed making numerous James Bond related puns whenever calling him for meal-times. Her Mother strictly kept to calling him James, but Hestia would throw in 007 and pretend to be all manner of Bond villains when addressing the sweet moggie.

Mr. Bond finally settled down and sauntered off back to the kitchen, most likely to reacquaint himself with whatever food was in his dish, as Hestia studied the décor in the living room. The room was covered in so many bookshelves it might as well have been a library. They were all here: Lewis and Tolkien; Austen and Christie; Orwell and Shelley, even recent favourites like King and Follett.

Perhaps the only thing more impressive than her Mother's extensive literary collection was her assembly of classic vinyl-records. Hestia flicked through the neatly stacked pile closest to her. The Smiths, Killing Joke, Joy Division, Pixies - and then she finally stumbled upon what she was looking for, The Cure.

Hestia eventually found her favourite album, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, then carefully pulled out the phonograph disc for Side C and put it on her Mother's turntable record player.

The dreamy synth-pop classic, Just Like Heaven, instantly transported Hestia back in time with nostalgia and she bopped her head to the sugary sweet guitar licks, before Robert Smith's trademark dreary vocals entered the fray.


Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick,

The one that makes me scream she said,

The one that makes me laugh she said,

Threw her arms around my neck,

Show me how you do it and I'll promise you,

I'll promise that I'll run away with you, I'll run away with you

Spinning on that dizzy edge,

Kissed her face and kissed her head,

Dreamed of all the different ways, I had to make her glow,

Why are you so far away she said,

Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you?

That I'm in love with you?


Hestia took a seat in a comfortable looking leather arm chair and pondered what muggle fiction book she may delve into as she killed some time awaiting her Mother's arrival, but then she remembered that just that day she had managed to pick up the latest of Hideo Kobayashi's academic journals.

Kobayashi, a lecturer and high-ranking reformist politician in the Japanese Ministry of Magic, was something of a maverick within inter-muggle relations and studies. The vast majority of his work was extremely ground-breaking and considered quite controversial in Britain, even before You Know Who's lot had taken over and outlawed such liberally thinking material, but in his native Japan, as well as other progressive hubs like Australia, India and America, when Kobayashi spoke, people listened.

The latest in his long-running series, "Maguru Musings", as was its English title, centred on the growing urbanisation of muggles, or maguru, as the Japanese call them. Hestia pulled open the textbook and began to read as she waited for her Mother's arrival.


Maguru Musings, Edition 47: The growing urbanisation of the Maguru: Why this could be the wizarding world's chance to reclaim rural areas for our own.

H. J. T. Kobayashi, translated to English by Sakura Kobayashi.

In the last century we have seen an interesting trend within maguru society across the globe. Urbanisation. In the last few decades this has been especially prevalent in my native Japan. This was once a country of rural rice farmers and coast dwelling fishermen, but with the rise of capitalism and industry came also the rise of inequality in income between city dwellers and villagers.

This trend of the maguru flocking to cities has caused some concern within the magical community across the world.

Almost every major magical nation of note currently sees its government based in a city. From New York to Delhi, Paris to Sydney, Cairo to London – it is very rare that you will find a magical headquarters based in the countryside or a rural area, which thus often leads to the magical economy of that nation also lending large portions of itself to the city too.

Many of these places are among the most densely populated regions on the entire planet, which begs the question of why we as a magical community ever chose to centre ourselves and our governments in such close proximity to such large numbers of maguru in the first place.

The one area that we as a global community seem to have unilaterally agreed upon is that our children, the next generation of witches and wizards, should be educated as far away from maguru as possible, kept safe in the middle of nowhere, in often undisclosed or unplottable locations, but why then do we choose to house our governments and often too, ourselves and our families, in the cities?

The answer perhaps lies in the history books written by our ancestors.

The persecution of those possessing abnormal, supernatural or magical abilities is a problem that plagued wizard-kind across the globe for centuries in the medieval and middle-ages. As a consequence of this a concerted effort to build magical communities, where our kind could be safe in numbers, was something that appeared to be at the forefront of the minds of our ancestors.

It is not clear why exactly it was often seen as sensible to form a base in the centre hub of the maguru regions of a country, but one possible explanation could be that rural village dwellers are often more suspicious of outsiders or those they perceive to be different. This could be an explanation for why our-


The noise of the key being thrust into the door took Hestia out of her reading quite suddenly.

Mr. Bond quickly appeared on the scene and rushed to the front-door to inspect proceedings for himself. The aging black cat was delighted to discover that it was indeed the Mother of the house who had just entered it.

"James?"

Her Mother's voice sounded somewhat fearful of all of the lights in the house having been turned on and the music playing, but as she hang up her beige trench coat her eyes turned to the living room and she saw Hestia sitting there with a smile on her face.

"Hi Mum. How you been?" she asked buoyantly.

"HESTIA!" her Mother gasped excitedly, before quickly rushing over. Hestia stood up and was slightly overwhelmed by the warm embrace that soon followed.

"It's so good to see you, baby girl," she said on the verge of tears whilst hugging her. "You gave me an awful scare though. I thought someone had broken in. I can see you've made yourself at home already!"

"Sorry Mum," Hestia replied somewhat guiltily. "It was quite cold outside though and you did say 8!" she added in a slightly accusatory tone.

"Oh," her Mother sighed with a confused, then disappointed and frustrated expression in her eyes.

"Oh I did, didn't I? I'm sorry baby. I completely forgot. My book club slightly over-run and it completely slipped my mind that we were meeting tonight. I've got a memory like a sieve these days! I think sometimes I'd forget to take my head with me in the morning if it wasn't sewn on. You're not mad, are you?"

"That depends," Hestia taunted. "Do you plan on feeding your delightful daughter this evening?"

Naomi Jones sighed and lovingly raised her eyebrows in a sarcastic manner.

"I'll think about it," she replied. "But first let me put the kettle on and you can tell me all about your little assignment abroad. Are you allowed to tell me where you went yet?"

She watched her Mother elegantly make her way to the kitchen, fill up her kettle with some tap water and then put it on to boil. As she waited she began tapping her fingers on the work surface to 'All I Want', which had begun playing following the end of 'Just Like Heaven'.

Hestia for obvious reasons hadn't been particularly honest with her Mother about what she had been up to in the last year. The official story she had told her was that she was working as a foreign diplomat in the British muggle government's civil service. She had kind of hinted that where she was going and what she was doing was somewhat dangerous, which had given her a reasonable amount of leeway in being excused from telling her the full story.

"If I told you…I'd have to kill you," Hestia replied nonchalantly.

"I thought you might say that, dear," her Mother sighed, as the kettle began enthusiastically boiling in the background.

"What are you reading at your book club?" Hestia asked as she attempted to change the subject, whilst her Mother pulled out two ceramic mugs and began making them both some tea.

"Memoirs of a Geisha," she replied, before reaching into a different cupboard for some sugar. "It's quite good, Hest. I think it would be right up your street. Two sugars, yeah?"

"Just one please, Mum, thanks."

Her Mother handed her a mug of tea after putting in the sugar and ushered her towards the living room sofa.

"Now," her Mother began as they both sat down. "You might not be able to tell me about where it is you went or what it is you've been up to, but did you at least find a half decent man out there?"

Hestia had never quite got round to telling her Mother that there never would be a man. She wasn't prejudiced and would not judge her for preferring women, but it was still a conversation she was quite happy to avoid for the time being. It was pointless revealing anything until she at least had a woman to bring home to her, well… that was her thinking at least.

"Chance would be a fine thing," Hestia joked.

"I don't mean to pressure you, love, it makes me incredibly proud to see how committed to your career you are. You are your Mother's daughter… and you're still young… you've got plenty of time to find the one… but you don't want to end up a lonely old cat lady like your Mother, ehh?"

"You're not old, Mum!" Hestia replied, almost choking on her tea as she laughed at her Mother's remark. "You're only fifty!"

"HESTIA IRIS JONES!" her Mother suddenly shouted in a faux-aggressive manner. "WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT USING THE F-WORD WHILST YOU'RE UNDER MY ROOF?!"

Hestia took another large gulp of her tea and giggled to herself.

"All I'm saying is dear," her Mother began. "You're a very smart and intelligent young woman and any good man would be lucky to have you… you don't have to think about weddings or babies just yet… speaking of which, how is Dora getting on? I still remember when you were angsty little teenagers going to your first musical festival together! Has she had her baby yet?"

"Mum," Hestia mumbled breathlessly, as she felt some tears beginning to escape from her eyes.

"Dora's…

She desperately tried to fight back the tears but it was a hopeless battle.

"Dora's…. dead."

Her mother gasped violently, almost spilling her tea, before rushing over and hugging Hestia as she began to weep.

"How….how?" she asked breathlessly, as Mr. Bond watched on in confusion at the sudden commotion. "Was there… was there complications with the birth?"

"Yeah," Hestia managed to muster out in between her bursts of tears. It was a good thing her Mother had made that guess, as she was not sure that she had the strength or composure to come up with a more convincing lie.

"Oh my baby girl, I'm so sorry. To lose a friend like that… this world… what a wicked world… did the… did her baby… did her baby-

"The baby was fine, Mum. He's completely healthy," she added, which seemed to set her Mother off more than anything else had previously.

"Oh thank God," her Mum sighed, before a sudden realisation seemed to hit her and she began to sob with renewed intensity. "Oh but her Mother, Hestia. Oh… oh I cannot imagine the pain… to be blessed with a grandson but to lose your only child at the same time. Oh, Lord… oh, Lord… have mercy on that poor woman."