Lavender had been bouncing around the flat all morning waiting for it to be late enough for her to go into her brand new office. Leo was grumbling at her good-naturedly and she couldn't help but grin at him whenever they made eye contact. She was so excited. She was getting everything they had asked for with their demonstration the other night, and what was more, the Minister of Magic himself wanted to support her!

The moment the clock chimed seven in the morning she bolted out the door, dragging Leo along with her. She practically ran to the Ministry and flashed her badge and wand proudly at the door. She turned her walk into something more approaching a strut totally on accident as she made her way to her office, high heels going click-clack on the marble floor. She tossed her hair back when people looked her way – she worked here, she could do whatever she wanted.

Her office, when she found it, was not very large. There was a waiting room and two small rooms off of it, and Lavender's first task was to have Leo help her remove the doors to the small rooms. Instead of the door she hung up a sheer grey curtain across the entrance to the room she had claimed as her personal office. Werewolves could hear through doors like that one had been anyway, so there wasn't really a point to keeping an actual door there. Plus, she wanted nothing that would feel like a cage. There had been more than enough cages.

The charmed windows were a nice touch, though Lavender would have preferred a real window. She changed the window setting to bright sunshine, just like the April morning outside was. It fit her mood and she was almost dancing as she went around the office, arranging her desk and chairs to her liking.

Once that was done she called Leo in. He had been dusting the other room but she had him stop that, and sat him down in the chair across from her desk. "So Leo, how can Inhuman Resources help you today?" She asked with a bright smile.

Leo snorted with laughter. "Is that actually what you're calling this?"

Lavender shook her head. "No, I don't think it would go over well with everyone if I did that. The Minister said it would be called the Werewolf Center until I picked out a name that I liked... and that wasn't Inhuman Resources." They shared a laugh over that and then Lavender leaned forward, fixing Leo with a look. "But seriously, Leo. How can we help you?"

He looked confused. "How do you mean?"

"What do you want to do with your life?" Lavender asked. "We can start there. If you could do anything in the world for a living, what would it be?"

"I'm a werewolf. I'm always going to be a werewolf. I can't just become an Auror."

"You want to be an Auror?"

Leo ducked his head and flushed, clearly a little embarrassed about saying that. "Doesn't matter what I want. I'm a werewolf."

"Leo, that's the whole point of Inhuman Resources. If you want to be an Auror, let's find out how to make you an Auror. Just because you're out of commission for a few days a month doesn't mean that you can't be an Auror. First though, I think we need to start with an education for you. Did you want to go to Hogwarts when you were a kid?" A vague plan was forming in Lavender's mind. There would be much hinging on the goodwill of the professors at Hogwarts, but Lavender thought she might have enough sway over the professors because they had watched her get her teeth kicked in all during seventh year. They had hated that, she knew, and if she could wrangle an education for Leo out of them, to prove that it could be done and would be safe, that would be more than enough repayment for her.

"Course I wanted to go," Leo said, then continued with a grumble. "But I can't. I'm a werewolf, and I'm too old to start there anyway."

"And you never will start there with that attitude. Give me a little bit to work on this, but I'm almost totally sure I can have you enrolled in Hogwarts starting this September."

His eyes got wide with something like shock and hope and still a little bit of mistrust and that more than anything made Lavender swear to herself that she would make this work. "Really?"

"Really," she confirmed. "It will be hard, and you will probably have to start with the first years, so you'll be older than all of them. And you can't snap or snarl at anyone because I can already tell you that there will be people looking to throw you out for any small transgression. But if you can do that, we can get you an education at Hogwarts."

"Would I get a wand?" His voice was a whisper when he asked the question, and she could hear so much longing in his words that it broke her heart.

"Well, you can't do magic at Hogwarts without one, so yes. Now, why don't you finish cleaning up here and I'm going to go to the Headmistress and ask her about the terms of admission for you." She gave him a smile and he returned it with a look of hero worship that made her glow. "I'll be back in a few hours. If anyone comes in, ask them to wait or they can leave a message and I will see them later."

She strode out of her office and to the apparation point, radiant smile still on her face. The look that Leo had given her when she said he could go to Hogwarts gave her more than enough reason to see it through to the end, no matter what strings she had to pull to get him there.

A few moments later she stood outside the gates of Hogwarts with a roaring in her ears and a lump in her throat and her eyes burning. She hadn't been back here since the morning of the battle and to see the new stone was a shock. What was more of a shock was that as she looked over the lawn, she remembered clearly where friends fell and died, and whenever she blinked she saw the green grass turned dark red with blood.

Her hands started shaking and her breathing grew rapid and shallow. She leaned against the cool iron of the gates and tried not to remember how they had been blasted apart, torn to shreds by giants, tried not to remember how floods of Death Eaters had poured through the gates that were supposed to protect the students – Merlin help them, they had all just been children. And he had been a part of the mass, him with his claws and his teeth and his hot, stinking breath. He had pinned her down and ripped her apart just like the gates, had bit into her flesh and torn her to pieces.

A sob wrenched its way from her throat and she sank down to her knees, sliding down the iron bars to collapse on the ground. Oh Merlin and Morgana both, who thought she was well enough to lead anything? She couldn't even face her own demons when they came to call – how was she supposed to help others with their problems? She was just a kid pretending to be an adult, like they had done in seventh year, and then so many of them had died.

And the ones that had lived... they couldn't let go of the war. Seamus and Neville and Terry Boot and so many of the other survivors had thrown themselves into the Auror work. They might boast about how accelerated their program was but that just meant that they had trained themselves to be killers before getting any formal training about it, and that was wrong. Did they feel like this when they came back here, or did they still view it as a battlefield? Did they all just see everything as a battlefield?

Lavender felt the wetness on her cheeks before she had even really realized she had gotten to the crying part of her breakdown. She hadn't had a meltdown like this in months, maybe because she had been keeping herself busy. She drew a shaking breath in, trying to remember the coping tactics she had been taught after the final battle. Deep breaths, calming, centering.

It wasn't working. She could hold it together long enough for the space of a few breaths and then she looked out over the grounds again and collapsed. Whimpers like those of a kicked dog were escaping from her now and she realized that the ever-present wolf in the back of her mind was keening along with her. The werewolf side of her just made her emotions more present, more vibrant, and therefore even harder to control. At least the moon was on the wane, or she might actually be howling.

"I hate this," she whispered to the quiet road in front of her. Lavender wrapped her arms around her knees and drew them to her chest, staring with focused intensity in the exact opposite direction of all her memories. "I want to be okay."

She sat there staring as the tears dried. She didn't try to turn around again. Still though, she had promised Leo that she would speak with the Headmistress, and so that thought gave her the courage to raise her wand in her shaking hand and send a patronus. The wolf bounded out of her wand and then turned and leapt over her head through the gate, and as much as she loved to watch the patronuses run whenever she could, this time she kept her gaze firmly fixed on the road.

Lavender did manage to stand up before the Headmistress opened the gates behind her. "Miss Brown, what on earth is going on?" Headmistress McGonagall asked.

Lavender sidled out of the way of the gates so McGonagall could let herself out. "I am sorry, Headmistress, for calling on you like this. I have something to talk to you about, but I can't – I can't look at the grounds without remembering things." The Headmistress came to stand in front of her and she ducked her head, trying to banish the shame. "I don't want to remember things."

She heard a light sigh from her old teacher that was full of regret and took a little comfort in that. "I do understand, Miss Brown," the Headmistress said. "What did you come here to speak with me about?"

And so Lavender told her, told her about the demonstration and what she had asked the Ministry for, and how Minister Kingsley had thrown his support behind her idea, told McGonagall about Leo, about his dream to be an Auror and how he needed an education. She told her about Leo's drive and how it broke her heart when she asked what he wanted to do with his life and how he clearly thought that all he ever could be was a werewolf. She told her old professor about how Leo had turned to the black market for Wolfsbane and she didn't know what he had traded in exchange but it couldn't be good, how she was worried and how she was determined to make a difference.

"And all of that starts with an education," Lavender said, staring at the Headmistress so the woman could see how ernest she was about this. "He needs an education, needs to learn how to use magic. He should come here to do that because there is nowhere better. I understand that there are risks but he will take Wolfsbane every week before the full moon, and I have his promise of good behavior. He knows what is at stake, how much pressure there will be on him, how everyone will be waiting for him to fail. I think he knows that better than I do. But he wants this, Professor, you should have seen how his face lit up when I suggested it to him. I want him to attend Hogwarts, and more than that, he wants to come here."

There was a long silence after Lavender finished talking. She listened to the quiet whisper of the wind and tried to calm her pounding heart. She knew she must look a mess from earlier but she hoped her old professor would see past that and know what she meant.

"I will have to speak with the Board of Directors," Headmistress McGonagall said eventually. Lavender's heart leapt into her throat. "I can make no promises, but I do understand what you mean. I would also like to meet this Leo and speak with him myself. May I come by your office tomorrow around four?"

"Absolutely," Lavender agreed instantly. "We'll both be there. Thank you, Professor, thank you so much. I can't tell you what this means to both him and me."

"On the contrary," McGonagall said with a small scrap of a smile. "He will not be the first werewolf to come through these halls. I remember very clearly the look of hope on another's face years ago. Leo would, however, be the first known werewolf to attend Hogwarts, and that may pose some difficulties. I will come to you tomorrow with more details." She started to walk back through the gates and then paused. "And Miss Brown, if you ever need to talk to anyone, know that my doors are always open to you."

"Thank you, Professor – I mean, Headmistress," Lavender said, belatedly realizing that she had been calling the Headmistress 'Professor' instead of her appropriate title.

When she got back to the office there was a strange smell. Someone was here besides just Leo. She entered to find Max, Adeline's son, the full werewolf with the strange green eyes. She felt her step falter slightly as he stared at her before she raised her head and met his gaze. She would not be cowed in her own office. "Thank you, Leo," she said, dismissing her young helper who was clearly uncomfortable around Max. "Why don't you go get something to eat from the dining hall? I think Max wants a private word."

Leo bolted and Lavender took a seat in one of the chairs, gesturing for Max to do the same. He did, eyes never leaving her face. "What can I help you with today?"

"How long do you think this little project will be allowed to go on?"

Lavender stilled. "I don't think I know what you mean."

He laughed shortly, no humor in the sound. "I give it three weeks, until the next full moon and you get short with the wrong person, and then they'll see you're dangerous. That stupid demonstration you thought up didn't prove anything, because they can't force us to take Wolfsbane. What if we just refuse?"

"If you refuse to take Wolfsbane I can't help you," Lavender said. "I want to help people who want help. That is one of the main points of this organization. If there are werewolves who don't want help, I don't know what I can do for them."

"You shouldn't have to do anything for us. We can govern ourselves." All the time he was speaking, his eyes hadn't left hers. She hadn't been challenged this long in what felt like months and it was making her twitchy.

"I agree that we can govern ourselves," she started, before Max cut her off with a very audible snarl.

"I said us, not you. You're not even a real werewolf. What gives you the right to try and control us?"

"This isn't about control," she returned, careful to keep her voice low and gentle. It helped that she felt ragged from her breakdown earlier – she was already too tired to deal with this. Nevertheless, she couldn't just back down. "This is about integrating werewolves into a society that has neglected them for too long."

"You didn't even think about us before you got your pretty face all torn up," Max snarled, a weird light coming into his eyes.

Lavender's heart started to race, and a nasty suspicion was coming into her mind. "No, I didn't," she agreed. "I was wrong in that. But if I can help others, other witches and wizards who have no idea what werewolves go through – "

He cut her off with another snarl, anger blazing on his face. "Don't even pretend like you understand. You've lived with what you are for barely a year, and I was born like this. Maybe if you had actually transformed, you would have an idea."

"What do you mean by that?" Lavender was now sitting very still, eyes locked onto his in the conviction that if she looked away, he would kill her. "I am not a werewolf, as you have made very clear. I can't transform."

A nasty smile spread across his face and his teeth were bared. Fear ripped through her and she knew he could tell. His nose twitched as he scented the air, proving her right. "Watch your back, princess. You might have pissed off the wrong person." Then he was gone.

Lavender remained seated until she was sure he was gone. Her heart was pounding in her ears and adrenaline was coursing through her, making her hands shake like they had been earlier. This time her terror was from a completely different source though, one she could possibly do something about. With that thought in mind, she stood up slowly and then fell against the wall because her legs were too shaky to hold her up properly.

Once she had a tiny bit more control over herself she walked slowly to the Auror office. It was a few hallways and floors down and she used the walk there to compose herself as much as she was able. Between her breakdown earlier and the encounter with Max she was feeling remarkably done with today and more than once she had to pause and lean against the wall.

She ran into Leo on the way there and grabbed him with perhaps more force than was necessary, ignoring his questions and instead using him as a glorified cane to walk with. She let herself into the Auror office and then grabbed the first Auror she saw, a tall man with silver hair. "I need to speak with Seamus Finnegan," she said, staring at him and trying to put some force behind her words.

He looked down at her with more than a little disgust, then called out, "Finnegan! Another one of your girlfriends is here!" Lavender was still in too much shock to register those words appropriately but Leo's growl at her side told her that it might not have been the nicest thing to say, and something she should probably be angry about later.

Seamus poked his head out from an office, scowl evident on his face. That look faded into one that she couldn't read properly, some blend of confusion and surprise, as he saw her. He walked up slowly, ignoring the looks he was getting from the other Aurors who were around, and also ignoring their quips to him about yet another girlfriend.

"Lavender?" He questioned softly.

She took a bracing breath. "Are you still working on the rogue werewolf case?"

He nodded.

"I have a name for you."