Heavy Snow

by welfycat

Book 8. Following the war, Rachel and Severus must navigate the world outside of Hogwarts. Adulthood comes with a series of unique challenges for Rachel, including the Wizengamot, the aurors, and living away from home.

13. October

As September passed Rachel found that she was busy but not nearly as busy as she had been at Hogwarts. She settled into a pattern. On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings she was at the MLE receiving instruction on auror procedures or engaging in mock battles. She typically went home with Draco to have lunch and then returned to her Wizengamot office to engage in research about Azkaban with Booker.

The Ministry Archives were enormous and they seemed to have records on everything conceivable. Rachel had learned that with her level of access, she could read just about everything but the Department of Mysteries Archives - which were housed elsewhere - and the Minister's confidential archives, which had their own room. Otherwise the history of the Ministry was open to her and Hermione had been insanely jealous when Rachel had described entering the vaulted room with bookshelves and record cases that had been stacked as high and as far as she could see.

Currently she was looking through the history of Azkaban and had learned that while the fortress had been established in the fifteenth century, it hadn't been used to house prisoners until 1718. Rachel thought that was a point in her favor. In the history of the magical world, just under three hundred years was not that long of a tradition, especially when a few of her Wizengamot colleagues had been born in the 1870s.

She was also learning that a fair number of people died before their sentence was up. She planned to make that a major point of contention, though she was still trying to find a good way to show with numbers how many did before their sentence ended and how quickly they died. People who were sentenced for five or ten years should not have that sentence turned into a death sentence just because of the conditions of the prison. She thought everyone would agree with that.

Rachel had decided to start at the beginning of the records and work her way forward. At this rate, she expected to reach the current records for Azkaban some time in the spring. She was okay with that. She'd known starting this that it was a large project with many moving parts and that she'd be working on it for a long time to come. She was waiting until after all the trials were finished before she bothered Madam Bones again, and hopefully by then she'd have some statistics to show that this was really important.

On Tuesday and Fridays she had trials. She still was uncomfortable with them and she kept telling herself that she was working on the problem from the other end and in the meantime they couldn't let Death Eaters loose because that would just end up with more people dead. Rachel hadn't talked to Pansy yet, but Draco said she was struggling and that she was upset that he had voted against her mother. Rachel felt that was understandable, but also felt that Draco couldn't have done anything other than what he'd done.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons were devoted to Quidditch practice with the Harpies. It was Rachel's favorite part of the week. The Harpies had finished fifth in the league this season and Seren was on a warpath to get them into the top three next year. Rachel wasn't too worried about it, they had a good team. The article in Quidditch Monthly had come out with a full two pages of writing about Rachel and a full spread of photos. Rachel had been embarrassed and the team had teased her good-naturedly and added one of the photos to the wall of other photos of the team that had been published in Quidditch magazines.

Gwenog had privately told Rachel that this had happened to her a few times and that as uncomfortable as it was, it was a good thing. It was good publicity for the team and it gave people a chance to get to know another side of Rachel and not just think of her as the Girl-Who-Lived or the Wizengamot member. Rachel thought that was a good perspective. She'd much rather people know her as a Quidditch player or as a potioneer than as the person who killed the Dark Lord. Maybe one day she'd even be known as the person who fixed magical Britain's prison system.

She had been relieved that the Daily Prophet never commented on her article about her modified Dreamless Sleep potion. Either Rita Skeeter didn't think it was interesting or she didn't know, and Rachel was okay with either of those options. There had been a note in the article about Ambrosia's trial, saying that Rachel, Draco, and Neville had been classmates with Pansy and speculating about them voting against Ambrosia. Rachel hoped that Pansy had not seen that article. Rachel felt like she should write a letter apologizing to Pansy, but she wasn't sure what to say.

On Thursday afternoons she had therapy with Torey. Rachel wanted to ask if they could change to once every other week, but she was waiting until after Selwyn's trial. With both Torey and the victim's advocate she was rehearsing what she was going to say at the trial. It still curdled Rachel's stomach to think of standing up in front of the Wizengamot and saying all this, but she felt the importance of it outweighed how little she wanted to do it. Draco had finally said that he was speaking at the trial and Rachel had thanked him and offered to let him rehearse with her. He had declined, so Rachel left it alone and figured he was doing what he needed to do.

She was usually home every evening by six thirty and then had dinner with her friends. Everyone talked over what they'd done that day and then they had the evening off. They spent the time reading, watching television programs, sitting with the cats, writing to Ginny and Luna in their books, practicing wandless magic, and working on projects. Rachel and Hermione now had rough outlines of the two books they wanted to start with. They'd tagged many sections as needing more research but had begun to draft the sections they felt ready for.

Wandless magic was surprisingly not as difficult as Rachel had expected to be, at least for her. She could lock and unlock a door with the simple locking and unlocking charms, and she could turn off and on the lights. Next she'd decided to work on the summoning charm, since that was the one she really wanted to know. Strangely, she was the only one of her friends who was finding wandless magic to be relatively easy. Everyone else was still working on the locking charm.

Rachel usually went to bed with Feverfew around eleven and then typically woke again at two or three o'clock in the morning. Sometimes when she woke she found she had all three cats on her bed. Feverfew and Midnight had claimed territory, and Rachel rather suspected that Feverfew had become the boss of the cats. Usually when she woke she found Feverfew against her stomach and chest and Midnight down behind her knees.

Some nights Rachel was able to go back to sleep. Some nights Rachel got up and worked on a project. It mostly depended on what had happened in her nightmares. She'd noticed that the day of and the day after trials her nightmares were much worse, so she'd begun taking her modified Dreamless Sleep potion on Tuesday and Friday nights. She was still slowly working on her review of sleeping potion literature, but given the amount of information on it and various different types of sleeping potions, Rachel expected that this work would carry over into her mastery.

Occasionally on Saturdays she dropped by Grimmauld Place to see Sirius and Remus, often bringing some of her friends with her. While she saw Sirius regularly at the Wizengamot, it was nice to spend time with him and Remus in a more relaxed environment. Almost all of the muggles were out of the attic now and Sirius had said that while the Order was still monitoring the wards of the people they were protecting and helping bring people back to Britain, for the most part the Order was now defunct.

On Sundays she went home for dinner and it was always nice to see Severus. She felt he had no room to complain about her being busy as he had two brewing contracts, was inventing, and was becoming more active in the Potions Guild. She was glad he was staying busy though. She worried a little about him living all alone.

All in all, apart from the nightmares, the trials, and the occasional floods of anxiety, Rachel liked where her life was going. Every now and then she sat down to write down something to her parents, just so they'd know she was thinking about them and so they'd know how she was. She hoped they were proud of her and that she was doing the things they'd want her to do.

---

"Enough," Kingsley called. "We'll reconvene in the classroom."

Rachel lowered her wand and tucked away a strand of hair that had escaped when she'd fallen into the bushes and had to pull herself back out again. When she got a minute she was going to find a mirror and make sure she didn't have little leaves and sticks still in her hair.

"Alright? Did you get scratched up?" Tonks asked.

"I'm fine, no scratches," Rachel said. For the most part her robes had protected her skin and the bushes hadn't had thorns in them, and the bushes had mostly broken her fall so she didn't think she'd have bruises. "Next time I'll look before I back up."

"Good plan. I can't tell you how many times I've tripped over my own feet in combat. Nearly got me washed out of the training program," Tonks said, shaking her head.

"I saw you go down," Draco said as he and Ron joined them.

"Not to spellfire. Just didn't see the bricks around the garden edge," Rachel said, mildly annoyed at herself. Tonks had covered her while she'd untangled herself and crawled back out of the bushes.

"Better than spellfire, that hurts," Ron said.

Rachel nodded. She'd gone down a couple of times over the course of their weeks of training, though Tonks had always prevented her from being captured. They'd also practiced being stunned and revived, which had been uncomfortable and then Rachel experienced nightmares about being abducted for days afterward.

Rachel took her usual seat in the classroom and thought about what came next. She would go home and eat lunch, then she had three hours for research before she was expected at Quidditch practice. After that she would have dinner, then sit with her friends and work on something else until it was time to go to bed.

"Alright, listen up," Kingsley said, the chatter in the room ceasing. "This wraps up our initial training. Your teams are now on call and you'll receive your on call assignments today. Expect to be on call three to four nights a week. We will continue our morning training as we've been scheduled, with an emphasis on what you'd be taught in your first year in the Auror Training Program. For those of you without a corporeal Patronus, keep working on it. Those of you with corporeal Patronuses will be assigned people to contact while you're on call. We'll be keeping both teams on call during the days around Halloween as that is traditionally a day of Death Eater revelry."

Rachel listened as assignments were given. Kingsley would contact Tonks and Johansen with instructions and an address. Tonks was to contact Rachel and Jonas. Rachel would contact Miles and Draco, Miles would contact Emelia, Draco would contact Ron. Jonas would contact Ralph. Johansen contacted Jasmine. And that was their entire team. The beta team had a similar Patronus tree. Rachel thought about this for a moment and wondered if there wasn't an easier way. After all, with her jewelry, she could reach everyone connected to it at the same time. She still wore all of her protective jewelry, even though she didn't think she was going to need to use it.

After they were dismissed, Rachel made her way to the front of the classroom to speak with Kingsley. "May I ask you something?"

Kingsley nodded. "Do you want privacy?"

"No," Rachel said, wondering what he thought she was going to ask him. "I was wondering if it might make sense for the auror teams to be using communication jewelry the same way that the Order does. It might be tough to fit an entire address on a piece of jewelry, but depending on how it was done, it might be possible."

Kingsley looked thoughtful. "We might be able to work something up. Let me run it by Robards and Bones and see what they think, we could see if Black and Lupin will take a commission to make them. Everything else alright?"

"Just fine," she said. "Thank you."

Kingsley nodded to her and Rachel walked away to find Draco, Ron, Miles, and Emelia waiting for her.

"What do you think? Are we ready to fight Death Eaters?" Emelia asked, sounding a little nervous.

Draco shrugged. "After the battle of Hogwarts, I'm not too worried about it. Nothing we come across out here will be as bad as that."

"They're still dangerous. There will be less of them, but they're still dangerous. Don't let down your guard," Miles said, frowning at Draco.

"I won't. I think I'm very aware of how dangerous Death Eaters are," Draco said.

"I think our training is pretty good though, don't you think?" Ron asked.

Rachel nodded. The teams ended in stalemates rather than victories more often than not. "I think we'll be alright, but there's no way to know until we do it."

"Should be soon enough," Emelia said.

The Death Eaters seemed to be averaging around an attack a week, though in more than half of them the MLE had no notice while they were happening. Rachel knew a number of people were working on the wards problem. She wished she could help but other than casting a few simple wards, it was well out of her area of expertise.

"Well, lunch?" Draco asked.

"Sure," Rachel said. She was ready to move onto the next part of her day.

---

Rachel had Azkaban records spread out over her desk. She'd been taking ten years at a time, starting with the death lists, and then going back to the original records to determine how many years the person had been in Azkaban, what their sentence was, and how old they'd been when they'd been sent to Azkaban. She figured it wasn't fair to count the death of someone who was seriously ill or elderly as a death being caused by Azkaban if they likely would have died anyway. She also didn't want to do this research again, so she was trying to think up as many objections that people might have from the start.

Many Azkaban sentences were for things that prison sentences should be for: murder, rape, torture, violent attacks, and the use of Unforgivable Curses. Rachel could easily agree that people who were likely to hurt other people needed to be stopped and she wasn't sure what the answer was other than prison. Obviously mind control was out. As far as she knew, even muggles just put people in prison when they were likely to hurt someone else.

Some of the prison sentences were more concerning. She saw records of several women who were imprisoned for unfaithfulness to their husbands. A number of people had been imprisoned for something they called 'flagrant vagrancy' which as far as she could tell was just being homeless. There was also 'unnatural perversions', which she wasn't sure meant. And finally 'high treason', which also wasn't elaborated on.

She was only in the late seventeen hundreds, but the results were pretty clear so far. No one lasted more than thirty years in Azkaban, regardless of how old they were when they were sentenced. There were a fair number of people who died in the first five years and a subset who died within the first year of those imprisonment. Those people were typically either very young or very old or there was a note that they were ill at the time of their imprisonment. The youngest person she'd found so far to be sent to Azkaban was a thirteen year old. He had lasted eight months.

Those who made it past the first five years generally made it another fifteen or twenty before the deaths started rising again, with exceptions for old age. More than half of Azkaban sentences were for life - usually for multiple murders or for using an Unforgivable Curse. Strangely, the most common Unforgivable Curse to receive an Azkaban sentence was the Killing Curse. Rachel wondered if that was because there was incontrovertible evidence that the curse had been used. Of the remaining sentences, the most common was for twenty years for something they considered 'familial murder'. Rachel wasn't sure why killing someone's own family was considered less of a crime than murdering someone else.

The rest of the sentences were typically for five years for rape, assault, attacking muggles, and a variety of rather euphemistic crimes that she wasn't fully certain of the meaning of. A third of the people sentenced for five years died in Azkaban. Over half of those sentenced to twenty years never made it out. Rachel thought that was pretty compelling evidence that the Wizengamot would want to know. They may have thought they were sentencing someone to five years, but for a third of those people it was a death sentence.

Rachel also intended to make the point that it wasn't the relatively painless death of an execution. These people spent years in agony before they succumbed. Rachel also fully intended to suggest that anyone who didn't believe being in Azkaban was torture could volunteer to spend a few nights there and report back to the Wizengamot on the experience. There was part of her that wanted to lead by example, but there was even a larger part of her that worried that she would lose consciousness upon being close to a Dementor and not wake up until she was far away. She also knew that Severus would strenuously object to her even thinking of doing so.

There was a knock on her office door and then Booker came in carrying a piece of parchment.

"Hello," she said, setting aside her quill and trying to remember if she'd set a meeting with Booker today.

"How are you, Rachel?" Booker asked.

"Pretty good. How about you?" she asked.

"I am well. Minister Scrimgeour sent this with a request that you meet with him. He is currently available, but his clerk indicated to me that if you are not we can schedule another time this week," Booker said, passing her the parchment.

Rachel looked over the short letter, which was essentially just a politely worded request that Rachel come speak with him. "Any idea what he wants?" She had met Scrimgeour a few times while he had been Head Auror, but it had always been in the capacity of him dealing with whatever disaster was going on at Hogwarts. She had no idea what he was like on a personal level.

"His clerk mentioned that this was more of a social call than a matter of Wizengamot business."

"Anything I should know first?" she checked, wondering if she should postpone until she could talk to Severus.

"Simply be polite. It's not uncommon for the Minister to wish to speak with members of the Wizengamot. As far as I'm aware, beyond a general desire for your support, the Minister does not have an agenda concerning you," Booker said.

Rachel decided she needed more information than just that the Minister wanted her for a social call in order to get help from Severus. She needed to go in there and see what he wanted and she could politely refrain from making any commitments. "Alright. Are my robes okay? Should I wear my Wizengamot robes?"

"What you are wearing is fine, he will not expect you to be in your Wizengamot robes," Booker said. "Would you prefer to take the stairs or the lift?"

"The stairs, if we could," Rachel said. She had discovered that her claustrophobia was not fond of the Ministry lifts. Eventually she needed to work on that, but as always she had more important things to spend her time in therapy on at the moment. "How did you know that I don't really use the lifts?" She hadn't ever been in a situation where she'd needed to take a lift with Booker.

"The fact that you do not use the lifts to attend trials has been commented on," he said. "People are curious about you."

"What are they saying?" Rachel asked, wondering if she would ever be able to get away from rumors about herself.

"For now, they simply don't understand why you prefer the stairs. I have not heard comments speculating on the reasons why."

Rachel did not particularly want to announce to the world that she was claustrophobic, especially since everyone had enough information to understand the cause of her claustrophobia. She also felt that telling people that the lifts felt unsafe to her and she was worried about being stuck in them was not the way to go. "I just prefer the stairs," she finally said.

"The Minister's office is on level one if you're prepared to go now," Booker said, letting the subject drop.

Rachel darted into the small bathroom and smoothed her hair and took a quick look at herself. She thought she looked alright. She looked young, but there was no helping that. "Alright," she said, smoothing her robes too, just in case. "Ready."

She followed Booker out of the Wizengamot chambers and into the rest of the Ministry. They went up a flight of stairs and Rachel's stomach dropped as she recognized the hall she was in. She came to a stop and stared down the hallway at the ornate doors that led to the Minister's office.

"Rachel?" Booker said, turning back when he realized she wasn't with him.

The last time she'd seen this hallway had been in a vision. The Dark Lord and the Death Eaters had killed the aurors guarding the Minister's door and then killed Percy Weasley and several other people inside. She could feel her heart pounding as she reminded herself that she hadn't actually been here. Her hand was tight around her wand, but she didn't remember drawing it.

Booker's brow was furrowed as he looked around, his wand in his hand as he checked for threats.

"People were killed here," Rachel managed to say, trying to get her body to stop telling her that she was in danger.

Booker looked at her consideringly. "I'm afraid that is true in most parts of the Ministry. Is there a particular reason that it concerns you here? There are no ghosts in the Ministry. All of them were relocated to somewhere more appropriate for them."

Rachel had seen people dying in the stairwells as well, but she hadn't made the connection until she'd seen this hallway. She managed to make herself shake her head. "It's fine. I just wasn't expecting it." She put her wand away and tried to convince her shoulders to not hunch up.

He looked puzzled as he watched Rachel, still turning slightly as though he was anticipating an attack. "Do you still wish to meet with the Minister today? I can have his clerk tell him you need more time."

"Now is fine," Rachel said. She didn't want to come up into this hallway again if she could help it.

They resumed walking and came to a stop in front of two members of the MLE who were guarding the door. They were in MLE robes, but they weren't aurors Rachel recognized, so she was guessing they were relying on the MLE Patrol for guard duty these days.

"Wizengamot Member Rachel Snow is here to see Minister Scrimgeour at his request," Booker said.

"Wizengamot Member Snow may enter," one of them said, moving to open the door for her.

"I will meet you back in your office and you can let me know if the Minister has instructions for us," Booker said.

Rachel nodded and entered the Minister's office. She couldn't help but look at where Percy had died. There were no marks on the carpet. There was nothing at all in the room to signify that people had died here a year and a half ago. Somehow that felt like an eternity ago, but a year and a half was not all that much time.

"Wizengamot Member Snow," Minister Scrimgeour said.

She pulled her gaze away from the floor and looked at the Minister. He was wearing dress robes in dark blue. His brown hair hung around his face, nearly to his shoulders. "It's a pleasure to meet you again, Minister Scrimgeour," she said, aiming for polite but aware that her voice was shaking along with the rest of her.

Scrimgeour nodded at her and then looked at the spot she'd been looking at. "Dumbledore says you saw that, when my predecessor was killed."

"Yes, I did."

"He also said that you said Fudge was working for You-Know-Who."

"From what was said, it seemed like the Dark Lord had given Minister Fudge tasks, and that Minister Fudge hadn't fulfilled them to his satisfaction. He offered the Dark Lord the Ministry and the minister's position," Rachel said.

Scrimgeour snorted and shook his head. "I think that information needs to stay between the four of us. Amelia knows, she was debriefed on it so that we could try to figure out who among the Minister's staff had turned traitor. Anyone else?"

"My father knows, he was there while I had the vision," Rachel said. "He knows not to tell anyone else."

"If anyone could keep a secret, it would be Severus Snape," Scrimgeour agreed. "These visions, they've stopped entirely?"

"Yes, I haven't had one since the Dark Lord died." Her nightmares of visions and conversations with the Dark Lord didn't count. "I checked my mental architecture that evening. The connection is completely gone."

"Well that's a relief. Come, sit down," Scrimgeour said, motioning Rachel over to a set of armchairs. "Tea?"

"No, thank you." She wasn't comfortable enough with Scrimgeour to accept tea from him.

"Do you mind if I…?"

"No, go ahead," Rachel said, taking a seat.

Scrimgeour rang a bell and a House Elf appeared. "Tea, just for me, if you would."

"Right away Minister sir," the House Elf said before disappearing.

A few moments later a tea tray appeared on the small table between the chairs and Rachel watched as Scrimgeour prepared his tea - with milk, but without sugar.

"How are you, Miss Snow?" he asked once he had settled into his chair.

"I'm well. And you?" She tried not to fidget as she wondered how long she would be trapped here making small talk. She had a Quidditch practice in just over an hour.

"Well enough to be getting on with," he said. "Amelia tells me you intend to speak at Selwyn's trial."

"Yes, sir. I am." She hoped he didn't want a preview of what she was going to say, she wasn't quite prepared to do that.

"Let's drop the 'sir' and the titles. Can I be Rufus if you can be Rachel?" he asked, watching her closely.

"That's fine," Rachel said, preferring to be called by her given name, but also wondering if there wasn't some sort of manipulation afoot.

"Rachel, then. Do you know of any other Death Eaters on my Wizengamot? From your visions maybe, or from people you've seen?"

"Not on the current Wizengamot. Rowle was a Death Eater, but as far as I know he's on the run. Gifford is dead. Baddock is already in Azkaban. Turner, Yaxley, and Macnair all have relatives who are Death Eaters, but as far as I know they were never active Death Eaters themselves. Their whole faction in the Wizengamot espouses the same ideals though."

Scrimgeour nodded once. "That they do. I'd like to question all of them, but we need more evidence than their voting habits to do that. So far no one has named them during interrogations, which suggests to me that they were kept apart the same way that Selwyn was. A number of people who voted with them were voted out during the elections, which solved some of our problems."

"Was the Ministry able to find who was helping the Death Eaters inside the Ministry?" Rachel asked.

"Some of them. We'll never get all of them. And most of them are content with the way things are right now. Their commitment to staying alive and staying out of Azkaban outweighs their commitment to the Death Eaters. How are you handling being on the auror team? I had Amelia and Gawain in here bickering about whether or not it was a good idea."

Rachel felt her eyebrows raise. Madam Bones and Head Auror Robards had bickered about her? Interesting. "I think it's going well. We just were placed on call this week. From our training, I'd say my skill level is about the same as everyone else. I suppose we'll see how it goes when we actually face Death Eaters."

"Is it wise, you joining the aurors? Why did you make that decision?" he asked.

"I don't think it's any less wise than for any of us to join the auror teams. And it's my duty to end the war. I won't stop until it's done."

He considered her for a long moment, his hazel eyes focused on her. "Who gave you that duty?"

"It's a duty to myself, and to Britain."

Scrimgeour nodded again. "The Unspeakables will want you. They understand duty like that."

"Well, I'm not ruling the Unspeakables out, but I want to do my Mastery first. And play Quidditch," she said. If the Unspeakables did want her, they could wait.

He smiled. "I hear you are unstoppable on the Quidditch pitch, though I'm not sure how you'll manage the national team and the Wizengamot schedule."

"I'm not planning on joining the national team. Too violent. The league is fine for me."

"You'll join the aurors, but the national team is too violent?" he asked, amusement wrinkling around his eyes.

"Different kinds of violence," she said, but also managing a small smile.

"I suppose so. I'd like to invite you to a meal at the Minister's Mansion on Halloween. You can bring someone with you, of course. It's just a small gathering. Amelia will be there, a few others. Not the entire Wizengamot."

"I'm afraid I don't do events on Halloween. That's the anniversary of my parents' deaths," she said, making a quick decision that it just wouldn't feel right, any more than the feasts at Hogwarts had felt right.

"You must be a dedicated daughter indeed to memorialize them in such a way. If I move the event to the thirtieth, will you come?" he asked.

Rachel felt uneasy that he was willing to rearrange his dinner party just like that. It must be very important to him that she was there, but she didn't understand why. "What will happen at the meal?" she asked, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do.

"Just a sit down dinner. It's not political. I trust everyone who will be there. If you need a good reference for me, ask Amelia. I've known her for going on thirty years now."

She wondered if the Minister could have a dinner party that wasn't political. And if Madam Bones was there, she thought that it couldn't be too bad. "Alright. I'll be there. But I don't know how to get there."

"I'll send you an invitation that has the address," he said, nodding to her. She couldn't tell whether or not he was pleased. "Anything that you're concerned about in the Wizengamot? Or with the aurors?"

"No. I'm working on some things for the Wizengamot, but I'm not at a proposal stage just yet."

"I'd be happy to take a look when you're ready. Amelia and I both know a fair bit about getting proposals through the Wizengamot," he offered.

"Thank you," Rachel said, though she found it interesting that Madam Bones hadn't shared what Rachel planned to do with him. She suspected he would be less eager to offer help once he heard.

"Well, thank you for making the time to meet with me today. I'm sure we'll talk again soon," Scrimgeour said.

Rachel recognized the dismissal and stood. "Thank you for inviting me. It was good to talk with you as well." She left his office and went back down the stairs and back to the Wizengamot chambers.

She found Booker waiting in her office.

"What did that rascal want?" Monty asked before Booker could speak.

"To invite me to a dinner party," Rachel said. "And to know if there were any more Death Eaters on the Wizengamot."

Monty scoffed. "Bloody ministers. You can trust him about as far as you can throw him, my dear."

"Do you know Minister Scrimgeour?" she asked, guessing that Scrimgeour would have been an auror while Monty had been alive.

"No, but I know the type. Take someone with you, preferably someone who is politically savvy," Monty instructed.

"I presume you accepted the invitation?" Booker asked.

"I did, and he said I could bring someone with me," she said. "He said the dinner wasn't political."

"No such thing as a non-political dinner with the Minister," Monty said.

"That's kind of what I thought too," she admitted.

"Your grandfather's suggestion to take someone with you who is aware of the political climate is not a bad idea, but be aware of the message you are sending by taking someone with you," Booker said.

"What sort of message am I sending?" Rachel asked.

"This will be your first social event as a member of the Wizengamot. People will be expecting you to bring a potential suitor," he explained.

"Not the Malfoy boy," Monty said.

She looked up at Monty. "What's wrong with Draco?"

"Nothing is wrong with the boy, but he's not in love with you. It would be a political marriage and since you both have Wizengamot seats there's no need to do that," Monty said.

Rachel shook her head. "No. I'm not marrying anyone. I'm not even dating anyone. No one is in love with me."

"This may not be my place, but I feel I should warn you if your father hasn't already," Booker began.

Rachel hoped dearly that Booker was not about to warn her about sex. She knew everything she needed to know about sex already.

"You are essentially a celebrity and you hold a great deal of political power. People may wish to pursue you for political reasons or other unsavory reasons. You need to exercise a great deal of caution in who you date," Booker said.

"I'm not planning on dating anyone," Rachel said firmly. "I'll ask one of my friends to accompany me to the dinner."

"Then that person should be made aware that people will believe they are pursuing you romantically before you invite them," Booker said.

"It's a harsh world, my dear. I wish it could be easier for you," Monty said.

Rachel sighed. "Let's just not worry about it right now. I have Quidditch practice, but I'll be back in the office on Friday."

"Alright. Did the Minister have any other requests for you?" Booker asked.

"No. It was fairly low-key. I think he wants to know about my proposal before I present it to the Wizengamot, but I don't think he's going to be happy about it."

"No, he likely will not be, but we're still a ways from that point anyway. Let's keep your proposal to ourselves for the time being," Booker said.

Rachel nodded. "Okay. I'll see you both Friday."

"Kick some ass, my dear," Monty told her.

"Will do," Rachel said. She was eager to fly and to not worry about things for a little while.

"Where is everyone?" Rachel asked upon finding only Millie and Neville at the kitchen table just after six thirty. She was used to being the last one to dinner.

---

"Hermione is at a study session with Susan. Theo is having dinner with Master Jorgensen and someone from the Spell Crafting Guild. Draco is with Pansy and trying to sort things out," Millie said, her mouth twisting to show what she thought of the last one.

"Did he say anything?" Rachel asked as she sat down. He hadn't said anything to her about plans with Pansy tonight.

Neville shook his head. "Just that she said she wanted to see him."

While Rachel wanted them to sort things out, she wasn't too certain about the likelihood of that happening after Draco had voted against Pansy's mother. She also somewhat thought that Pansy wasn't really in the right mental space for making decisions about dating at the moment. "Well, I guess we'll see how it goes," she said as she served herself from the dish of cottage pie.

"I guess," Millie said. "How was your day?"

"Fine. Aurors. Wizengamot stuff. Quidditch. Nothing exciting. How about both of you?" Rachel asked, settling in to eat.

Millie shrugged. "Pretty good. I'm spending a lot of time researching the development of common charms. Mistress Annette is taking me through the Arithmancy stuff and it's not nearly as bad as it was at Hogwarts."

"How is it different? I would have thought it would be harder in a Mastery," Neville asked.

"I think it's because she teaches it differently. She never stands in front of a chalkboard and lectures or assigns me a page of problems to do. Instead we just sit down and have a conversation about it. She has me ask questions and then she asks me questions and we just sort of figure it out together," Millie explained.

"That sounds nice," Rachel said. She knew a lot of people had trouble keeping up in Arithmancy at Hogwarts.

"It's a relief, isn't it? To be away from Hogwarts. I spend half my day tending plants and the other half learning, and it's so much easier," Neville said.

"It is a relief. I feel like I didn't realize how much stress I was under until I had a few months away from it," Millie said.

"Me too," Neville said. "I feel like I'm not carrying as much anymore."

"It has been a lot less stressful," Rachel said after a moment. "We have evenings and weekends off."

Millie laughed. "We haven't had weekends and evenings off in seven years, except for the summer."

"How is your schedule, Rachel? You're doing a lot of things." Neville asked.

"Pretty good. Honestly, I probably could have started my Mastery as well, but I'm glad that I didn't. Having some downtime is nice." She continued to eat, feeling her shoulders relax a little. She was still fairly busy, but it was nothing like the last three years had been. The death of the Dark Lord also played a big role in her being able to relax. The Death Eaters were still out there, but she was no longer spending her time stuck in a perpetual state of knowing that she had to end the war and preparing herself to die. "I wonder if Severus feels more relaxed as well."

"I'm sure he does," Millie said. "From the war ending and from not being responsible for seventy students, if nothing else."

"Probably," Rachel agreed. "Are we doing anything this weekend? I have an early match against Ballycastle's reserve team on Saturday, and dinner with Severus on Sunday, but otherwise I'm open." She was looking forward to that. She hadn't played in a real game against an opposing team since she played Hufflepuff in May.

"I'm going to have an early lunch with Hannah on Saturday," Neville said.

"And I have dinner with my parents on Sunday," Millie said. "How is Hannah?"

"A little better now that she's had some time. I don't think I ever told you, but her parents kicked her out and disowned her after she finished at Hogwarts," Neville said.

Rachel shook her head. "I hadn't heard that. Because of the marriage contract?"

Neville nodded. "They apparently felt that it was proper to wait until she'd finished school. Hannah stayed with Susan for a few months. She's working and living at The Leaky Cauldron now."

"Is that what she wants to be doing? I know she said she didn't want to do a Mastery," Millie asked.

"She says she likes it. She says people are kind to her there and that she likes working with people. Hannah found school very stressful, so I think she's feeling the same relief we are," Neville said.

"Well, as long as that's what she wants to be doing," Rachel said. She thought she would absolutely hate working somewhere like The Leaky Cauldron where there were people around all the time and noise and just a general bustle. It was good that people liked different things, or nobody would want to work some jobs.

"You know, whenever I'm feeling like my parents are driving me crazy, something happens in our larger friend group to remind me that they're not that bad," Millie said. "My mom isn't happy about my choice of Mastery, but she'd never disown me and she and my dad provided the account that pays for my Mastery."

"It's still frustrating having people who you care about be disappointed in you though," Neville said.

Millie sighed. "In one breath she's saying how well I did on my NEWTs, with the next she's saying how I'm wasting myself."

"Would me talking with them help?" Rachel offered. "Or Severus maybe?"

"What would you say?" Millie asked.

"I don't know. I killed the Dark Lord, that has to count for something, right?"

Millie winced. "That would not be a good thing to bring up with them."

Neville exchanged glances with Rachel and looked as puzzled as Rachel felt. "Well, they didn't support You-Know-Who, did they? I mean, your dad's a muggleborn," Neville asked.

"They definitely didn't support You-Know-Who. They're thankful he's dead and that the war is over, even though they're angry with me for staying and fighting. They just…I didn't tell them anything, I swear. You know I wouldn't, right?" Millie asked.

"Okay," Rachel said. "I don't understand what the problem is."

Millie set down her fork and ran her hand over her mouth. "They…They think Professor Dumbledore manipulated you. They think he purposefully sent you to your relatives and had Professor Snape adopt you so that you could be molded into a tool to kill You-Know-Who and that Professor Dumbledore knew what was happening to you and wanted it to happen so that you'd be beholden to him for rescuing you. They think it was destiny that you were to kill You-Know-Who."

Rachel stared at her, feeling her brow furrowing. "Why do they believe that?"

"I don't know. They kept asking me questions about you. Whether Professor Snape was taking good care of you. If you ever came back from meeting with Professor Dumbledore acting strangely. How often you met with Professor Dumbledore and what sort of spells he taught you. They think he did some type of dark magic on you that allowed you to come back from the dead. I'm sorry. I didn't want to tell you. It's just so crazy." Millie had closed her eyes and hung her head.

She thought over that for a few minutes. "The only spell Professor Dumbledore ever taught me was an advanced locking spell for my journal. And while there were a lot of objections to Professor Dumbledore sending me to live with my relatives, almost all of them were based on anti-muggle prejudice. My godmother - Neville's mother - was the only one who had any idea what my aunt was like, and she asked Professor Dumbledore if she could take me, but Professor Dumbledore said no because of the blood wards."

"I wish he'd let my parents raise you," Neville said. "We could have been raised together. I know my Gran was far from perfect, but…"

"I think it would have been better for both of us," Rachel said. At least they would have had each other. She turned back to Millie. "Your parents have barely even met me. Do they have some sort of grudge against Professor Dumbledore?"

"Not that I know of. This all started with those articles after the Triwizard Tournament. And even after they knew You-Know-Who was back, they were worried about you. I don't know. I'm just not sure it's a good idea for you to meet with my parents. I'm worried about what they'd say to you," Millie said, looking at Rachel.

Rachel nodded. "Well, as long as they aren't trying to convince other people that, I suppose it's alright."

"I think if anyone was saying anything like that we would have seen it in the Daily Prophet by now. Rita Skeeter would be all over it," Neville said.

"I don't think they're going to say what they believe publicly. I'm hoping they'll forget about it now that it's all over," Millie said, returning to her meal.

Rachel wasn't sure that was the kind of thing people just forgot about. "They let Isobelle go to school this year, even believing that about Professor Dumbledore?"

"They sat down and talked with her about what she's seen of Professor Dumbledore and what to do if he tries to get her alone and to tell them if she sees anything strange. She wanted to go back to Hogwarts and she's old enough now that they're willing to let her. I think if she'd been younger they might have kept her home. That reminds me, I'm going to ask Luna to check in on Isobelle and make sure everything is okay. We should write with them tonight," Millie said.

"We can do that," Rachel said. She missed Ginny and Luna. And she wanted to hear about how the Quidditch teams and the DA were doing. She could chat with them while doing some work on her books and that would make for a nice quiet evening.

---

Rachel spent the first part of the evening writing with Ginny and Luna. Evidently the DA was going well, with one exception - Dennis had never returned to Hogwarts. Rachel didn't know what to do about that. She hadn't the slightest idea of how to find the Creeveys and she strongly suspected she wouldn't be welcome regardless. If Dennis' parents had made the decision not to send him back to Hogwarts, there wasn't really anything anyone could do about it. But Rachel remembered him showing off his bear Patronus, and how proud he and Colin had been. Dennis deserved to have a future in the magical world, if he wanted it. For all Rachel knew, it had been Dennis' decision not to come back.

They made promises to meet Ginny and Luna at The Three Broomsticks two Saturdays from then for Hogsmeade weekend. Rachel was not particularly looking forward to visiting Hogsmeade again, nor was she looking forward to meeting with everyone. She was planning on telling her friends what they needed to know about that night at Malfoy Manor so that none of them would be caught off guard by anything the newspaper said about her. She'd been waiting so she could tell them all and only have to do this once.

By eight o'clock everyone was home. Draco looked grim and had excused himself before heading upstairs rather than staying to talk. They did a short practice with wandless magic. Rachel was still working on the Summoning charm, but she was putting some consideration into what else she could learn. The wand lighting charm wouldn't work without a wand, but she figured she could ask Severus if there was another light spell that might work. She also wanted to talk to him about what would happen if she tried to cast combat spells without a wand before trying it herself. She suspected aiming might become a problem.

Theo had gotten unlocking and was now working on locking. Draco was at the same point. Hermione, Millie, and Neville were trying a number of things but had not had success just yet. Rachel found it a little odd that wandless magic came more easily to her and wondered if it had to do with her connection to the Dark Lord or her abilities with mind magic, or something else entirely. It wasn't a question she was intending to ask her friends, but she figured Severus might at least be able to guess at an answer.

After wandless magic practice everyone turned to their own tasks. Millie had Midnight in her lap and was reading a book. Hermione had a decoy book laid out for Crookshanks to lay on and was reviewing a book on healing spells. Neville also had a book, but seemed to be thinking rather than reading. Theo had been reading but after a while he had excused himself and gone upstairs as well.

Feverfew had curled up at Rachel's feet while Rachel worked on a chapter for her book for muggleborns. She'd filled out as much of the myth or magic section as she could, which when she'd shown her friends to ask their thoughts had wound up in a discussion about what sort of things muggles believed and didn't believe. Rachel had made some notes from that conversation to include for the book about muggles. Most of her friends were struggling with the concept of what science was and how for most muggles to believe in something it had to be explainable with science.

Rachel was a little iffy on science herself. She knew there was a great deal of science beyond what she'd learned in primary school, but she also knew there were lots of things she'd never even heard of. She was starting to wonder if there was a book in the muggle world that just explained every day science in terms that anyone could read. One day she wanted to go into a muggle bookshop and just really see what was available. It was odd to think she could just do that now. She could look up an address in a muggle phone book, find out from the Ministry Department of Transportation where a safe apparition area was nearby and just go.

It felt silly to her that she was daunted by going out on her own. She was an auror. She'd killed the Dark Lord. She was a member of the Wizengamot. But somehow the prospect of just going off to a shop somewhere by herself was a little unnerving. She had plenty of reasons to be nervous in the magical world, but there was nothing in the muggle world that could hurt her. No one there would recognize her. There wouldn't be Death Eaters lurking. If she ran into trouble she could hide and apparate to safety. She suspected she was going to wind up talking to Torey about this, but it could wait until after Selwyn's trial. Rachel also wanted Torey's opinion on this dinner at the Minister's Mansion. And Severus' opinion. Hopefully one of them would have an idea what to expect.

Deciding she wasn't making progress, and that she was going to be worried about this until she did something about it, Rachel gathered up her book, parchment, and quill and stood. "I'm heading up. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," her friends said in a rough chorus.

She went up the stairs, Feverfew at her ankles, and placed everything on her desk before she left her room again and went up the next flight of stairs to the boys' floor. Draco's door was closed, but the thin line of light beneath the door meant that he was still awake. Theo's door was open and the light was on. She went over to his door and knocked on the door frame.

Theo looked up from what he was working on at his desk. "Hey."

"Hey," she said. "Busy?"

"No, just writing a few things down that I heard at dinner so I won't forget them. I think it's a good sign that Master Jorgensen is introducing me around the Guild. He says that I'm very prepared, more so than the students he usually receives."

"That is good. Are you liking your Mastery so far?" she checked.

"I really am. I'm learning a lot and it's nice to not have my attention divided between seven different classes and teachers. Come on in," he said, setting aside his quill and moving to the end of his bed. "I feel like I need armchairs in here to meet with people."

Feverfew dashed inside and began examining Theo.

"Do you mind?" she asked.

"No. I don't want her sleeping with me, but I don't mind if she's in here. She goes everywhere with you," he said, watching Feverfew back as she sniffed at his trousers.

Rachel closed the door behind herself and took a seat on the end of the bed, leaving some space between her and Theo. "She does seem to want to be where I am. When I take a shower, she sits on the bathmat and meows like she's asking why I'm getting myself wet. I think she thinks the whole process is undignified."

"I've seen cats bathe themselves. Showers are much more dignified," Theo said, seeming mildly amused. "That sort of talk?" he asked, nodding at the shut door.

"Just private," she said. She didn't want to do this in front of people. She wanted Theo to feel like he had the option of saying no if he wanted to. "There's something I'd like to ask you, but you can say no and that's totally okay, I would probably say no if I was you."

"Well that's an opening I don't hear everyday. What is it?" he asked.

Rachel sighed. "The Minister has invited me to a dinner at his mansion the day before Halloween and it seemed like I was supposed to accept, so I did, but I'm not sure what he wants. He said it wasn't political, but it pretty much has to be, doesn't it?"

"Given that it's the Minister and he's inviting you, yes I'd say that's political," Theo agreed. "He'd be foolish not to court you into supporting his policies."

"I don't even know what his policies are," Rachel admitted.

"I'm not sure anyone does. People voted him in because they believed he'd protect them from Death Eaters. His main policy objective has seemed to be to stand against the Dark Lord. Which is fine, it's what we needed from a wartime Minister. Now that the Death Eater threat is mostly gone, I'm not sure what we'll see of him. I guess you're asking me to accompany you to this dinner?"

"Well. Yes, I would like it if you accompanied me, but there are other people I can ask, so don't feel that you need to say yes. But, first, you should know that Booker warned me that whoever I invite with me, people will think we're dating."

Theo nodded. "That's probably true. I think the only person you could bring with you who they wouldn't have that assumption for would be Professor Snape. But it would be better for you to bring someone around your own age. We don't want people to think you need a chaperone to attend a dinner party, that's not the sort of image you should cultivate. I'm willing to go with you."

"You don't mind?" she asked, watching as Feverfew jumped up on the bed and sat between them.

"I don't mind. I've been to dinner parties before. I'd suggest Draco as another possibility, but given the situation with Pansy right now, that's probably not a good idea. Neville could do it as well, he'll be well acquainted with all the formalities that this sort of situation requires," Theo said.

"You don't mind people think we're dating?" she clarified.

"People will say what they're going to say. I think you're going to have to accept that you can't control what the Daily Prophet is going to print about you and I'd rather it be me than anyone else."

"I wonder what sort of support I could get from the Wizengamot if I wanted to enact a law that said the Daily Prophet couldn't write about me," she said, mostly joking.

Theo smiled. "Probably a fair bit of support, but that's not the sort of image you want either."

"What sort of image do I want?" She didn't want an image. She wanted people to leave her alone.

"I'd aim for something like Madam Bones, if I were you. Realistic, but with strong moral convictions. Willing to work with people, but not willing to be pushed around. You want people to be coming to you to give you support for your proposals, rather than you having to seek them out, but that will come with time."

Rachel nodded. As far as role models went, she could do far worse than Madam Bones. People seemed to really respect her and she'd never heard of anyone bothering Madam Bones. "What do you think the Minister wants with me? He really wanted me at this dinner. He changed the date so that I would attend."

"I think he's feeling you out. You joined the aurors, which says that you're stronger than you look. In Hogwarts, most people knew you as being fairly reserved, but we're not in Hogwarts anymore. A lot of people only know you based on what they've read in the newspaper. The Minister isn't exactly an enemy, not yet anyway, but he doesn't know if you're friend or foe yet. So he's seeing what you're like," Theo said, raising his eyebrows and nodding. "If anyone in the Wizengamot has the strength to be a problem for him, it's you or Professor Dumbledore and I would assume by now he knows Professor Dumbledore pretty well."

"And here just today I was thinking that all of this was less stressful than Hogwarts," Rachel said with a sigh. "I don't want to have enemies. I just want to be a person."

Theo shrugged. "Not enemies like the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters. Political enemies are different. And, if I was you, I would try to avoid making the Minister into your enemy, just because life will be a lot easier if he's on your side. Life is easier for him that way too."

"You would think that both of us just not wanting to be enemies would be enough then."

"It all comes down to the votes. You don't want to be a pawn either. You have a real chance to make a powerful faction in the Wizengamot. You can be an ally with the Minister without letting him direct every step that you take. Same thing with Professor Dumbledore. You can work with them, but they can't take you for granted."

Rachel had no idea how she was supposed to politely convey that during a dinner conversation. "I think right now they just see me as a kid."

"They'd be foolish to see you that way, and I suspect anyone in the Wizengamot who is really paying attention won't treat you like a child. You could do serious damage to his Ministry and I think he's smart enough to see that. Let yourself be courted, but make it clear that you're your own person."

Rachel sighed again. If she didn't have things she needed to do with the Wizengamot, she'd resign her seat. "Well. It's just a dinner. How badly can a dinner go, right?"

"We'll see. Do you have a gown? You can't go in the robes you've been wearing. You're going to need a different one for the Wizengamot Christmas ball too."

She moaned. "Why can't I just be a cat? Feverfew never has to worry about what she's wearing."

"You can be a cat," he pointed out with a smile. "But still, you can't go underdressed. You need to show that you know what is expected of you and that you're willing to work with them. This is the last place where you want to look like you have a muggle upbringing."

Rachel endeavored to make people realize that having a muggle upbringing was not a bad thing, but the Minister's Mansion was probably not the place to do that. "Alright. I'll make an appointment to be fitted. I assume you already have what you need?"

"I do. You won't find many pureblood men our age who don't have several sets of dress robes for this sort of occasion," he said.

"Severus doesn't like wearing dress robes."

"No one likes wearing dress robes. But it comes with the territory. You'll get used to it."

She suspected she would have to get used to it. Better to get used to wearing gowns and going to weird dinners than getting used to people dying in an endless war. "Alright. Thank you."

"Of course. You said the night before Halloween?" he checked.

Rachel nodded.

"Isn't that the same day of Selwyn's trial?"

She winced. "It is. The thirtieth. That's going to be a very long day."

"It is. But we'll get through it. And everyone should be respectful enough not to drag that out at dinner," he said.

Rachel hoped that was true. "Are you doing alright? Overall?"

"Yeah, pretty good. It's been a lot less stressful since we've got our own place. My Mastery is a lot of work, but I'm really enjoying it. What about you?" he asked, tilting his head as he watched her.

"I'm alright. I'll be glad when the trials are done. Not too long now. Selwyn's should be one of the last, though they've captured a handful of people since then," she said.

"I'm sure having the trials finished will be a huge relief to a lot of people. I know it's been hard on you and Draco and Neville."

She nodded. She didn't think the trials had done a lot of good for Sirius either. "I think I'm done for the night."

"I'm getting to that point myself," Theo said.

Rachel stood and Feverfew hopped down the floor. "Thanks," she said, feeling that she needed to say something.

"Any time," he said, still watching her.

She retreated with a goodnight and wound up back in her bedroom with Feverfew sitting next to her. Her mind was too busy to sleep, but she wasn't ready to work on anything just at the moment. She looked at her desk and the window and held her hand out. "Accio quill."

Her quill obediently shot across the room and into her hand. "Huh." She was definitely asking Severus about that.

---

"Everyone know what to do?" Gwendolyn asked.

Rachel nodded eagerly. She was excited to play a game, even if it didn't really count as far as the League was concerned. It was sort of the reverse of their regular games. Only a few people were invited to watch the reserve teams play, but the real reason those people were here was to socialize in the boxes with the main teams. Rachel much preferred playing to socializing and she thought that everyone on team felt that way.

It was also a good way to have her first game with the League be a little more private. Rachel wasn't sure how she'd fare against another League Seeker and she'd rather fail with as few people watching as possible.

"Watch their Beaters, Larson is pretty rough," Gwendolyn instructed Donna and Meredith.

"We've got Larson, don't worry about us," Meredith said, patting Donna's shoulder.

"Keep our formations tight," Gwendolyn continued, eyeing Annika and Alwene. "Actually tight, please."

"We will," Alwene said, though it was clear she was humoring Gwendolyn.

"Don't look at me," Cadie said when Gwendolwyn turned to her. "I know how to Keep."

"Fine," Gwendowlyn said before turning to Rachel. "Derek Hansen is a good Seeker, but you're better. Fly through to let us know if you're having problems with the Bludgers, otherwise I'm sure you can take care of yourself."

"Don't worry about me," Rachel said with more confidence than she felt.

"Alright, let's go. Tight formations. Tight," Gwendolyn said as she led the way out of the locker rooms.

They went out on the pitch and Rachel took a quick look around. There were only a few small groups in the stands, but she could see that the boxes on either side were busy. The reserve team was in their reserve uniforms today as was the Ballycastle Bats, with black with scarlet accents instead of scarlet with black trimming. She took a quick look over them and identified their Seeker. While people said that Rachel had a traditional Seekers build, Rachel had seen that not many Seekers were actually physically like her. The Seekers position was fairly evenly divided between men and women in the League, but Derek Hansen was like most of the men in the League - tall and broad. That gave Rachel a bit of an advantage on speed, but meant that her turns were naturally shallower as her weight wasn't being affected by gravity the same way.

Gwendolwyn shook hands with Peter Murphy and everyone got into formation. Rachel still found it a bit odd not to be a captain. She'd gotten used to directing her team over the past four years and hadn't quite made the adjustment yet. She was still getting to know the Harpies, and while she liked them, she did miss the Slytherin team.

The whistle sounded and they were off. Rachel flew up high and got another good look around the pitch. The Harpy Chasers were already moving to Ballycastle's goals and the Bludgers were in play. She spotted Hansen making the same observations and got to work searching for the Snitch. It was a nice late autumn morning and it just felt good to fly and to be back in a game. She didn't know how people could fly for six years at Hogwarts and then just give it up.

She tuned out the commentator, who was at least much less biased than many of the commentators at Hogwarts, and went through her search patterns while focusing on letting her eyes relax as she looked over the pitch for the Snitch. It was fortunate that Golden Snidgets - the little birds that Seekers used to chase before they were nearly extinct - were golden. If they'd been white or blue or another softer color, they'd be a lot harder to find. Also, if they were still using actual birds, Rachel knew that she wouldn't be playing at all. Poor birds.

The game continued for nearly two hours - the scores in the low hundreds - before Rachel finally spotted the Snitch and took off after it. She was aware she had Hansen on her tail and focused on staying in front of him while watching the Snitch. It was definitely harder when everyone was on Firebolts. She was just about to reach out to grab the Snitch when she felt a huge weight hit her and she went spinning horizontally as she clung to her broom and tried to right herself. She finally managed it, feeling dizzy and sick as she recognized that he'd caught the Snitch. He had to weigh at least twice as much as she did and her arm where he'd hit her hurt quite a lot.

She could feel herself shaking as she carefully flew back down to the pitch, Gwendolwyn and Cadie immediately coming over to her.

"How badly are you hurt?" Gwendolyn asked.

"Arm," Rachel said, cradling her left arm with her right.

"I've got her, you deal with the rest of the team," Cadie said. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," Rachel said, reminding herself that she'd walked in much worse circumstances than this.

"We've got our healer on site. They'll fix it. Broken?" Cadie asked, her hand on Rachel's back.

"Not sure," Rachel said. It throbbed along her bone, radiating pain up to her shoulder and down to her hand. She moved to take off her bracer but Cadie stopped her.

"Let the healer do that, there might be swelling," she said. "Come on. There are definitely people with omnioculars up there and it's better to deal with this in private."

Rachel winced. "How likely do you think this is to make the newspaper?" she asked as they walked back toward the locker rooms.

"For anyone else, a short blurb in the sports section. For you, who knows. Someone you're worried about reading it or just the whole lack of privacy thing in general?" Cadie asked.

"My father," she said. "He's never been happy with the way that I fly. And he doesn't like me getting hurt."

"Of course he doesn't. It would be weird if your father was happy about you being hurt," Cadie said, raising her eyebrows as she looked at Rachel. "Quidditch can be a rough sport and Seekers are often fouled. While you are faster than most Seekers in the League because of your size, that also means they have a lot of opportunities to rough you up without hurting themselves. Hansen will be a little bruised and will consider it worth it to win. You're a bit more delicate than that."

Rachel didn't like the word delicate being applied to herself, but she would be stupid not to acknowledge that the size and weight difference between her and most men meant that she was at a severe disadvantage when it came to physical altercations.

"Healer Bryne?" Cadie called.

"I'm here. I saw that, come on over Rachel, let's take a look," Healer Bryne replied, appearing in her office door.

"You alright here?" Cadie asked.

"Just fine," Rachel said.

Cadie nodded. "I'll leave you to it then. Check in with Seren before you leave, she'll be worried."

"I will," Rachel said, allowing herself to be guided into the Healer's office.

"Take a seat and I'll have a look," Healer Bryne said, motioning Rachel to the bed. "Where do you hurt?"

"Arm, mostly. A little sore down my left side," Rachel said. She sat through various diagnostic charms, trying to ignore the way that they felt.

"Pain Relieving Potion, then I'm going to fix the two hairline fractures on your arm, then we'll take off your glove and bracer. You're going to be a bit swollen for the next twenty four hours," Healer Bryne said, handing Rachel a potion vial.

Rachel examined it for a moment and decided it looked like Pain Relieving Potion to her before she took it. A moment later she felt the pain dull throughout her body.

Healer Bryne used her wand on Rachel's arm, and Rachel felt a sharp twinge shooting up her arm, but otherwise it was alright. Healer Bryne carefully peeled off Rachel's glove and then loosened the straps on the bracer and eased it off. "That should help a little. Wear loose clothes over this and I want to see your arm before you put a glove and a bracer back on it on Monday." She pushed up Rachel's sleeve and gently turned Rachel's swelling forearm as she examined it. "Do the scars still cause you pain?"

Rachel looked down at her arm and saw that the swelling had stretched the skin between her white scars and it felt a little strange. "They don't hurt."

"Good. Do you want to apply Bruise Paste yourself or do you want me to do it?" Healer Bryne asked.

"I can do it," Rachel said, knowing from the ache down her side that she would need it along her hip, her ribs, her shoulder, and her arm.

"That's fine. Come see me on Monday afternoon before you change. See Seren before you leave today," Healer Bryne said, passing Rachel a small jar of Bruise Paste. "Two applications. One now and one tomorrow morning. Touch up with any bruise spotting tomorrow evening."

"Thank you," Rachel said. She went to her changing area and took the time to apply the Bruise Paste there. She was swelling a little on her hip, but other than the swelling down her arm her injuries weren't noticeable. She felt a little bit bad about losing the game, but mostly she felt shaken about being so easily injured. She'd never anticipated that the other Seeker might purposefully slam into her like that. At Hogwarts that student would have gotten into trouble for doing that, but she supposed she wasn't at Hogwarts anymore.

She changed, disliking the way her clothes stuck to the Bruise Paste and then left to find Seren. She didn't have to go far, since Gwendolyn, Seren, Gwenog, and Glynnis had all gathered together in the sitting area where the team met to discuss strategy.

"How bad?" Glynnis asked.

"Hairline fracture, swelling, future bruising. Healer Bryne already fixed me up," Rachel said.

"Did she say when you'll be back on a broom?" Gwenog asked.

"She wanted to check on my arm on Monday before I fly again."

Seren nodded. "People generally don't approve of that sort of play. I have to admit, I didn't expect it from Hansen."

"I didn't either, or I would have warned you," Gwendolyn said, her frown cutting two lines at the side of her mouth.

"We'll work on evasion on Monday," Glynnis said. "Now that it's happened once, I don't want the other teams to see that as an easy way to take her out of action. I think we can expect that to be publicized pretty quickly."

"I think so too," Seren said. "Take a break. We'll come at it again on Monday. Make sure you see Bryne before you pick up a broom again."

"I will," Rachel said, feeling ready to go home with her tail tucked between her legs.

"Alright, in general, good work out there," Gwendolyn said. "See you Monday."

"See you," Rachel said, leaving the room and then walking out of the stadium. She apparated directly into her bedroom and laid down. She ached and she didn't want to go explain herself to her friends just yet.

A soft pop let her know someone else was in her room and Rachel opened her eyes to find Kreacher standing near her bed.

"Miss is hurt," he said, looking at her with obvious apprehension.

"A little bit. I'm alright. How did you know?" she asked.

"Miss smells of potions."

Rachel frowned. "You can smell that from outside of my room?"

"Kreacher checked on Miss when she returned. He could smell it from the doorway. Miss needs help?"

"No, I don't need help. I need to not look like an easy target on the Quidditch pitch," she said, though she wasn't sure how to fix that. Ginny, Cho, and Shoma hadn't been that much bigger than her while they were flying at Hogwarts, so that had never been a viable strategy for them. Cedric could have pulled it off, but he was far too nice. Felix had hit her, but she was mostly sure that it had been an accident. She supposed she was going to have to get used to flying against people she didn't know well and who wouldn't have the same sort of compunctions to stop them from doing such a thing.

"Miss needs food or tea? Or a blanket?" Kreacher checked. "Miss wants her cat?"

"No, thank you. I'm just going to lay down for a bit. Thank you for checking on me," she said. "Are you alright?"

"Kreacher is Kreacher. Kreacher cares for Miss and Miss' friends." He disappeared with another soft pop.

Rachel sighed. She was going to wait until she stopped aching and then go check on everyone else.

---

It had taken everything Severus had not to send a Patronus message to Rachel upon reading the newspaper on Sunday morning and learning that Rachel had been hurt in a Quidditch match. The article had reported that Rachel had been slammed into by the other Seeker while chasing the Snitch and that she had nearly been flung from her broom while her arm had been broken.

And here he'd been worried about Rachel joining the aurors.

He was still worried about Rachel being with the aurors. Her team was on call now, and while he had been relieved to learn that she was partnered with Tonks, he still didn't like the entire situation.

However, he had been working on giving Rachel some space and room to grow as an adult, so he did not seek her out and waited semi-patiently for her to come to him. He spent the day fulfilling an apothecary order, his mind working absently in the background. His latest potions work had been on the Draught of Destruction. He was tinkering with it to see if he could get a delayed reaction. Thankfully he had a fair amount of private space behind the back garden to explode things.

It wasn't really a practical project, but Severus was curious about transferring his work with delayed reactions to other potions as well. If he could come up with a methodical way to do so, it could be a breakthrough in a number of fields. The real trick would be to delay something until it was activated by a magical presence, or even a specific magical presence.

By five o'clock he'd found himself in the sitting room sketching notes while he thought about wards that recognized specific magical presences. There was some crossover between potions work and spellcrafting, mostly in healing, but not a lot in potions that weren't ingested. He looked up as Rachel apparated into the sitting room. At first glance, she did not appear to be injured, but he could smell the arnica root used Bruise Paste.

"Do you want me to use the front door?" she asked, turning to look at him.

"No, I do not. This is still your home and you can come and go as you choose," he said. "How badly are you injured?"

"Not badly. Slightly bruised. The swelling in my arm has already gone down," she said, moving over to the sofa to sit down. "I know that's not what you wanted to read in the newspaper first thing in the morning."

"It's certainly not. What's stopping this from happening again?" he asked, deciding to get straight to the point.

"The team is worried about that too. Glynnis is going to work with me on some evasion practices. We're going to make sure this doesn't become a regular thing."

Severus wondered how much she could control that. He suspected that if other Seekers saw the opportunity to win a game by fouling her, they would take it.

"Can I show you something weird?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.

He always felt a lurch of worry when she said something like that, because that usually meant some new disaster had struck. "Of course."

Rachel held out her right hand. "Accio quill."

His quill shot across the space between them and into her hand. He stared at her. "How long have you been practicing wandless magic?"

"A little over a month," she said, bringing his quill back to him and then returning to the sofa. "I get the feeling that I shouldn't be able to do that."

"You started with the Summoning charm?" he checked.

"No, I can do simple locking and unlocking and turning on and off the lights in the house. Speaking of which, I don't think the Wand Lighting charm will work wandlessly, do you know a light spell that would work wandlessly?"

"The Light Orb Charm. You've seen Albus cast it," he said, thinking over what he'd just learned. "You learned five wandless spells in the space of a month."

"About six weeks. Like I said, based on how my friends are doing with it, I don't think this is supposed to happen. Do you think it's because of the Dark Lord?" she asked, her brow now furrowing.

"No, I don't. I think it's because you are quite powerful, even more powerful than I anticipated, and I already believed you were fairly powerful," he said, musing over the problem. If she could do wandless magic so quickly, then the next step was elemental magic, and the only person he knew who could teach that was Albus and he did not want Albus teaching her. "I think this is likely something you should keep to yourself."

Rachel nodded. "Probably for the best. What happens if I cast combat spells wandlessly? I'm not sure whether to aim with my fingertips or my palms."

"I do not know. The only person I know who can cast combat spells wandlessly is Albus," he admitted. Severus was a fairly powerful wizard and the wandless Summoning charm was just at the limits of his abilities. He could do about fifteen spells wandlessly, which was at the upper limits of what most wizards could do. "I am quite serious. Ask your friends to keep this to themselves as well. Don't cast wandlessly in front of other people unless it's necessary. We do not want people thinking you are this powerful."

"You're sure this isn't a Dark Lord thing, like with my Parseltongue or the mind magic?" she asked.

"Can you still speak Parseltongue now that the connection is gone?" he asked.

"Not sure, haven't seen a snake to test it on. My mind magic is still there though. The only thing that's changed is the hole for the connection is gone."

He nodded. "That's because you developed your mind magic, it wasn't given to you by him. A predisposition to occlumency may have come from him, or it may just have been something you naturally had, it's difficult to tell. As for your powers, I suspect that is simply you. Power in a witch or a wizard isn't measured by numbers, it is measured by certain classifications of abilities. There are certain indicators that say how powerful a witch or a wizard is, and the more of those indicators you have, the more powerful you are thought to be."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Skill in multiple fields is the first. Being skilled in spell crafting, defensive and offensive magic, and advanced conjurations are typically what is looked for. You meet the criteria of all three. This is the most common indication of powerful magic that people are likely to meet and it encompasses about thirty percent of our population," he began.

Rachel nodded. "Most of my friends meet that criteria as well."

"Yes, they do, though it's clear that some of them have stronger magic than others. Another common indicator that we look for is learning powerful magic at a young age, which you and your friends meet as well. All of you were casting the Patronus charm and the Shield charm well before you were expected to do so. The reason this is an indicator is because it typically suggests an ease of magic. Powerful spells can be learned by people with less powerful magic through persistence and practice, but most of them do not do so early on."

"We were able to pass those skills on through the DA though," she pointed out.

"And I expect they came more easily to some students than others. A few of them probably picked up the Shield charm in a few weeks, while others were probably still working on it at the end of the term. Would you say that's true?"

She pressed her lips together and nodded. "Usually the older students had the Shield charm more quickly, while it took a year or two of being the DA for most of the younger students to have a steady shield. And even for some of the older students it took a year or so."

"The Shield charm is usually taught in fifth year, which is generally the age we expect people to be able to cast a weak shield after a fair amount of practice. If I recall correctly, it took you about three weeks to have a steady shield. You also learned conjuration and the Patronus charm in a fairly short amount of time, though under duress. The next indication of power that we look for is uncommon skills. Mind magic and the animagus transformation both fall under this, along with a few other skills. For mind magic we're looking for fully developed occlumency, which you have, and you took it a big step further by learning Looking through space. Again, you learned all of this at a young age. Most people do not learn mind magic or the animagus transformation until they are well out of school. Typically less than five percent of our population fulfill the criteria thus far. The final indications of a powerful witch or wizard are skill and ease with wandless magic and the ability to control elemental magic. Given that you've learned the Summoning charm wandlessly in the space of six weeks, I have no doubt that you can learn to control elemental magic as well. I only know two elemental wizards in all of Britain - Albus and the Dark Lord. Grindelwald was also an elemental wizard."

Rachel's brow furrowed. "Do I have to learn elemental magic? I mean, what would I use it for?"

"You do not have to learn it if you do not wish to. I suspect you will not need it at all. Generally elemental magic is only used for controlling a battlefield or to duel with another elemental wizard. I do not anticipate you doing either of those things. If you were to learn it, it would be wise to seek a teacher from another country," he suggested. "Just because you have the ability does not mean you need to utilize it. Messing with powerful magic can be dangerous."

"I don't think there's any harm in me learning wandless magic, is there?"

Severus shook his head slightly. "In general, no. If you are going to attempt to learn combat spells wandlessly, please do so in a heavily warded location with no one in the room with you, but while having someone nearby that you are communicating regularly with so that they can assist you if you are injured. If you truly wish to explore that, I will help you."

Rachel examined her hands and flexed them a few times. "Were my parents powerful like this? Is this something that is passed down through families?"

"Both James and Lily were skilled wizards for their age. I'd say they met the first two criteria for indications of power, but as far as I know neither of them knew mind magic. James did learn the animagus transformation at a young age and without a teacher, so that certainly does speak to his power and skill, and Lily was inventing charms during her sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts. I don't believe either of them had the opportunity to learn wandless magic. But, generally speaking, powerful witches and wizards tend to produce powerful children, with some variances. Every now and then there is a very powerful muggleborn, and sometimes children of powerful parents are less powerful than might be expected. How are your friends handling wandless magic?" he asked, curious if any of them were displaying powers like Rachel.

"Theo and Draco can both do a simple unlocking charm, but that's it so far. Everyone else is still on their first spell. It's weird to be able to do something that they can't."

"You've been doing things that they can't for years now, on a variety of levels," he pointed out.

"I've also had a lot of specialized training that isn't available to the average Hogwarts student."

"That's true, though I believe most of it was necessary because of your circumstances. But simply put, you couldn't have learned some of those things if you did not have the power to do them, no matter how much training you had. Of your friends, I'd suggest that Millie, Neville, and Luna are closer to average power, and they have been able to do some of the things that you can do by putting in a great deal of effort. Your study group worked unreasonably hard while you were at school, allowing them to do things they would not have reached under other circumstances. Now that you are animaguses, that also gives all of you a stronger connection to your magic. Magical power isn't everything. Hard work, practice, intelligence, and tactics all play a big role in what you can do with what you have," he explained. "Even so, while you are already seen as fairly powerful, we do not want people to believe that you can easily do wandless magic because their demands on you will only increase. Albus has been playing to the demands of our government for half a century now."

Rachel nodded. "I definitely don't want that. Speaking of our government, what do you know about the Minister?"

There was a loaded question if he'd ever heard one. "Not a lot. Why?"

"He invited me to dinner." She paused and then shook her head. "He rearranged his dinner so that I would come. That has to mean he wants something, doesn't it?"

"Most likely, yes." Severus frowned. "I'm not sure what policies the Minister is planning to pursue now that the war is over, but I don't think it makes sense for you to decline his overtures for the time being. Go in knowing that he intends to use you. Your task is to figure out how he wants to use you and whether or not it makes sense for you to be used that way. My guess is this will take a while. Right now he will just want to find out who you are and what your convictions are. He's not stupid enough to believe you are simply a gullible child who can be manipulated. He knows that you stood against the Dark Lord's schemes for over a year."

Rachel sighed. "I hate politics."

"Regardless of how you feel about politics, you need to be able to work within the system so that you are not taken advantage of. For the time being, observe. You can learn as much about the Minister as he learns about you. Did he indicate if this was a private dinner?" He suspected that the Minister was too aware of perceptions to dine with an unattached young woman alone.

"A small dinner, he said. Madam Bones will be there."

"Good. Madam Bones is a sensible woman. She works with Scrimgeour but she's not in his pocket either. Pay attention to who he invites and what positions they are in. You stand to be able to learn a great deal about the future direction of the Ministry and the Wizengamot, and that is information you can use. Assuming you wish to stay on the Wizengamot. It is not a requirement." She had spent her adolescence dealing with various manipulations. If she did not want to do this, he wanted to offer her a way out.

"There are things I want to do. Important things. And the best place for me to do them is on the Wizengamot." She met his eyes. "That makes me sound ridiculous, doesn't it?"

"No, it sounds like you have convictions. I am proud of you, Rachel." And he was, even if she insisted on playing Quidditch and being on the aurors.

"Thanks. Can we have dinner?"

"Yes, we can. It's in the oven," he said, standing up and feeling pleased that Rachel was actually requesting to eat. It was always nice to see progress.