Monday, December 21st 2009, Ministry of Magic, London
The first meeting
Hermione Granger, researcher in the Department of Magical Law, had wanted to use the unusual pre-Christmas-lull in her office to finish some paperwork but had not meant to stay quite as late. Her shoes were making a hollow sound in the empty building as she made her way to the elevators. The car held only one occupant, Corban Yaxley. The former Head of the MLE had served two years of community service after the war for being marked, but as there were numerous witnesses that he had worked against Voldemort's and Umbridge's agenda from within the ministry, thus saving a lot of witches and wizards, his sentence had been comparatively mild.
And Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt told others numerous times that in the years between 1981 and 1994 Yaxley had formed the MLE department into a paragon of how public administration should be. Under the Scot's rule the old boys network of pureblood scions doing whatever they wanted, protected by their Auror badge, had been ruthlessly eradicated. After a talk about the whole scale of corruption and bias with Kingsley Hermione had seen the forced retirement of Alastair Moody in a different light. And Harry, who was rising fast in the Auror department, got that pinched look about him whenever the aera of the first war in the department was talked about. Sirius Black, James Potter, the Longbottoms and the Prewett twins had been bullies with a badge, there was no way of sugarcoating the facts. And Alastair Moody had trained them and taught them the ropes.
Under Yaxley the number of Muggleborns, of Half-bloods, of female aurors had risen dramatically. Racial prejudice had never been a problem in the wizarding world but religious discrimination was a fact. Since Yaxley's taking over no wizard or witch had ever missed a Bar Mizvah or Bayram or Holi due to their supervisor denying a day off.
After the fulfilment of his community service – served at the ministry archives – the former head had been offered a position in the MLE again. To everbody's surprise Yaxley had not returned to his former position and instead had chosen to work as an archivist on the floor above his former department. Hermione had a correct working relationship with the man, respected his encyclopaedic knowledge of legislation and relied on his ability to find even the most obscure scroll quickly. Their paths had crossed briefly during the war when in 1997 she and Harry and Ron had infiltrated the ministry with Polyjuice. Yaxley then had certainly made a lot of noise but Hermione had always wondered why Grimmault Place had never been raided by Death Eaters. Her conclusion had been that Yaxley had not betrayed the secret. During his trial this had never come up, being a minor detail, and for the witch it had not been important enough to ever ask him. The archivist had been unfailingly polite during her whole career at the ministry, helpfully anticipating her line of research from her requests of documents and often suggesting other avenues. As she entered the car Hermione pondered on the agelessness of wizards, Yaxley to her eyes still did not look a day over 35 when he had to be at least 15 years older than that.
"Ms Granger."
"Mr Yaxley."
They rode the elevator without further conversation when Hermione's stomach grumbled audibly. The silence afterwards seemed to weigh a ton. With an aborted, self-depriciating chuckle Yaxley turned to face her.
"Ms Granger, forgive me if I am too presumptive, but you are hungry and I am loath to return to yet another solitary meal at my home. Will you have dinner with me?"
Hermione blinked in surprise. In her flat the leftovers from yesterday's spaghetti awaited her. For lunch she had meant to get a sandwich as a snack and some salad for dinner but then a meeting had run longer. Whyever not should she accept the wizard's offer?
"Gladly, Mr Yaxley. Although I dread the hustle and bustle of people celebrating, drunk and dressed in strange knitwear."
The man nodded with a smile, "Of all the things the world has to offer wizardkind embraces ugly Christmans sweaters." He cocked his head for a moment, then his mien brightened.
"Will you trust me with Side-Along? I know just the place."
After leaving the ministry through a side-entrance Yaxley offered her his arm. Hermione had noticed him earlier saying `the world´ instead of `the Muggle world´ as practically everyone in the wizarding world would have done. It pleased her a lot, even more so as nearly none of her acquaintances or even her friends understood why the term made her feel cut out.
A short spin later they landed in an alley behind a kitchen. Leading her out to the High Street the wizard explained, "This is a mostly kosher deli. And as Chanukah was last weekend it should be rather quiet. Of course there's their matze dumplings and chicken soup as well. I hope you did not expect french cuisine."
"Chicken soup and peace and quiet sounds wonderful."
The deli was brightly lit, sporting red formica tables and booths at the wall under lots of black and white photographs.
"Mr Corban, welcome, Shalom!" The waitress hugged the man before turning towards Hermione, taking the young woman's hands and exclaiming, "Come, sit, you are so cold, this is the booth with the least draft! That new cook is always leaving the back door open! I shall go and scold him, again!"
With that the woman left, leaving a bewildered Hermione and an amused Yaxley behind. The wizard took Hermione's coat and led her to the booth the waitress had indicated. Before seating himself he fetched a paper menu from the deli counter. Raising her eyebrow she enquired, "Only one?"
"I am a creature of habit. Chicken soup with dumplings and the goat cheese and beetroot salad. Oreo cheese cake if I'm feeling particularly frisky. Another example of a missed opportunity. If you do not have access to homemade biscuits then you can't get any kind of decent ones in the wizarding world."
Hermione had to agree and quickly decided on her meal, soup, too and the Cesar salad.
"Might I interest you in a bottle of Pinot Grigio? The one they serve here is quite decent."
"Yes, I'd love to. My parents are very fond of Pinot Grigio."
The Scot's mien clouded for a moment, as if to decide whether to ask or rather not.
"And how are your parents?"
"They are fine, thank you. I guess you know what I did near the end of the war?" At his nod she continued, "Our relationship is not as close as it was, but that I can understand. I did betray their trust."
"If it helps, their execution was definitely planned. I was tasked with finding their new address when Severus had to report that it had vanished from your files at Hogwarts."
"I didn't know that. And yes, knowing helps. I am not sure whether it is my spell or simply that I live in a world they cannot really relate to."
"I'm not sure whether there is a difference between the two worlds at all. In my first years as an Auror I worked as security and relations at Downing Street 10. I saw office gossip, bigotry, incompetence, kindness, people of real integrity, theft of toilet paper etc.. At the ministry we do not have that toilet paper problem but anything else?"
"You are probably right. I should make more of an effort, and maybe my parents, too. We are workaholics, all three of us."
The wine arrived and Yaxley poured.
"There's nothing wrong with a strong work ethic. Here's to the holidays!"
They clinked their glasses and savoured the wine. Conversation stalled a bit and Hermione excused herself to the washroom. Taking her time she pondered the implications of her spontaneous decision to accept Yaxley's invitation. Although being colleagues for nearly eleven years she knew next to nothing about the man. Deciding to treat dinner as just that, dinner, she dried her hands and made her way back into the restaurant. Heading towards their booth she say Yaxley from behind. Their soups had arrived and he was holding his hands on the table to the sides, palms up. Nearing him Hermione felt his magic, warm, earthy and inviting. Was he doing a blessing? When he lowered his head and exhaled she closed the distance, looking at her companion with a question in her eyes.
"I am glad, Ms Granger, that you accepted my invitation. Yule, the winter solstice, has a special meaning and a lot of fond memories for me."
"I am glad as well. If it is not too intrusive – did you just do a blessing?"
Watching the steam rising from his soup the wizard considered his reply.
"Do you practise any kind of religion? I know it is a personal question but it might influence my answer."
"I am baptized and when my grandparents were alive we attended services, although my parents do not believe in any kind of organised religion, they are of a scientific mind. I found my Granny's faith reassuring and discovering to be a witch made me reconsider my parent's stance. If there is magic then why shouldn't there be a higher power? And where does magic stem from? Is it purely genetic or is it something else? I must confess I did not have time or inclination to think it through. But just now I felt something, a welcoming warmth."
"I did a blessing just now. At least once a week I try to take stock of my life and be thankful. I think that magic is a gift and that it has to be respected. Not necessarily worshipped because I do not think that any belief is based on quid pro quo, a view that is shared by many theologicans of all kind of religions, but seen, respected and honoured. The Christian Holy Spirit part of the Trinity is often likened to creation. If creation is destroyed something divine is destroyed. The quarter days are closely tied to the wheel of nature and to me it makes a lot of sense to adher to them. Yule, the winter solstice in our part of the world and the twelve nights following it symbolise a stagnation that is absolutely necessary for new life in the spring."
Hermione was fascinated. As a child anything resembling a philosophical or theological debate had been led by her parents, led with a foregone conclusion – equality of the sexes, equality of races, importance of education, importance of being oneself etc.. At Hogwarts there hadn't been any input nor the time for such thoughts. After the war she had learned to see where the other side had come from – tradition, fear, family pressure in case of her classmates, tradition, arrogance, pride and stupidity in some cases of their parents – but hardly anything of their views had made her impugn her own stances, which were heavily influenced by Dumbledore. And even if she questioned a lot of things that had happened to herself and her friends she now felt that she should have looked deeper a long time ago. Why would the old mage put so much emphasis on Christian holidays and on Muggle traditions stemming from England, even commercialised ones like Halloween?
Pondering her answer she finally replied.
"It makes a lot of sense to me. Is there anything else we could do to observe Yule?"
"Will you join hands with me for another blessing?"
Hermione reached across the table. The waitress appeared seemingly from nowhere.
"There, I brought you a candle for the miss to light."
The witch took the matches, put the candle between their bowls and took Yaxley's hands after she'd lit the candle. His hands felt warm and strong and a little calloused, as if he cut his firewood himself.
"Blessed be this food. Let us be thankful for its plenty and for nature that bestowed us with her bounties. Blessed be we all by the light of this candle, may it guide us to do our best for our neighbours and the world around us."
Hermione felt connected to the man across her, to her native land and its soil, to the magic surrounding them.
"Blessed be." The waitress dabbed her eyes.
"Beautiful, Mr Corban, Miss, now tuck in! I made cook put an extra dumpling in for you!"
"Thank you, Miriam, bon appetit, Ms Granger."
Savouring the first sips Hermione closed her eyes, suppressing a moan.
"This is wonderful. I am very glad not to be sitting at home with warmed-up noodles."
"Me as well. Usually I celebrate with my sister's family but this year all of them are visiting her brother in law in New Zealand. I could have trecked along but somehow Yule on a beach felt akward to me. Besides, I burn easily in the sun."
The witch looked at him. With reddish-blond hair, fair skin and his blue-green eyes Yaxley looked like the ultimate candidate for sunburn.
"You live in Scotland, don't you?"
"Yes, near Dirrington Great Law. It's called Yaxley Manor but that's just my mother's pretentions, it is a tad larger than an ordinary cottage."
"As a child I've been to Northumberland and further North with my parents, I always found the landscape fascinating. At first it's nothing special but the longer you look at it the more you'll see."
"Aye. Just this morning, there was hoarfrost on the dogroses and the wind was making an ever so slight sound in the frozen heather."
They continued to eat, Hermione thinking along the wizard's earlier words about magic. A question surfaced.
"I have learned at Hogwarts that places do not have magic of their own, just sometimes a predisposition for us to cast easier or to feel more connected to our magic. Do you think this is true then? Are there places blessed with magic?"
"Ever since I joined the ministry are there Unspeakables squabbling about just this. Ley-lines have definitely an influence, all the important sites, be it Hogwarts or Diagon Alley or Stonehenge are built on places where two strong lines do cross. The pretender had me researching possible reasons for the rise of Squib births. The ley-line running from North to South in Cumbria passing Sellafield is described as a major one in older texts but when I checked it was week and fractured. And the magical villages along it have less and less children born. I have a theory that modern materials like concrete or harmful substances like nuclear waste disrupt ley-lines but for example a mine with timber-enforced pits does not. The first underground tunnels made with bricks disturbed nothing, but concrete ones do. I guess it has something to do with how far processed a base product is. From tree to timber is allright, from ore to iron or from water and sand to concrete is not."
"This is fascinating! And it might explain wizarding fashion. My mother always asks me to shop for her at Madam Malkins as it is nearly impossible to find something solely made of natural fibres in the Muggle world, there's always a small percentage of elastene or the thread is polyester."
They were nearly finished with their salads by this time, as well as the first bottle of Pinot Grigio. After asking for Hermione's opinion Yaxley ordered a half bottle of the same wine, leaving room for coffee and the fabled Oreo-cheesecake.
"I don't think a small percentage matters. I always buy my socks at Debenhams, I detest sock suspenders, and noticed no difference in my ability to cast."
Hermione looked puzzled, with a small smile.
"I don't think I have ever seen a man in sock suspenders."
Yaxley laughed and it took years off his sombre countenance.
"Be glad. I guess many a great romances withered away when the man forgot to take off socks and suspenders before he dropped his trousers."
"Couldn't have been that great a romance then. I seem to remember some tales where either the hero or the heroine were covered in mud, dressed in rags, close to death due to consumption or all three of this."
"Ah, yes, those. Or wearing beige shapewear."
Hermione stilled.
"Wait! You've seen `Bridget Jones´?"
The wizard's mien darkened and his reply came in a gruff voice.
"I was of an opinion that you knew I do not cater to ridiculous prejudices about blood purity or the non-wizarding world."
She reached over for his hand.
"Of course I know, that is not why I was surprised. You are still a man, though, and I haven't had much success with my friends with that kind of films. Star Wars is fine, anything with Jean-Claude Van Damme or Arnold Schwarzenegger, too, but after `Titanic´ they were whining for months."
"Van Damme cannot act if his live depends on it and I have had enough fighting to last me a lifetime. Star Wars is neat, though. I guess your friends are your age. They may not have realised the advantages of understanding the workings of the female mind."
"I am not sure I like that statement."
"I may be nearly twice your age but I found that some things do not change. Boys and young man are really mostly driven by their hormones, not prone to reflexion or a desire to understand their counterparts. And quite a few of them view sexual liberation as an invitation to behave dishonourably towards women if they assert their own right to live their lives. It would be stupid to make sweeping statements but I found a fundamental difference between men and women that men are often unshakably convinced that what they are doing is right while women, even powerful, highly intelligent women can be made to feel insecure."
Hermione sobered. She had experienced the very same during some meetings earlier in her career at the ministry.
"Sorry, yes, what an apt description of my earliest meetings in the Beings division. At first I put that down to me being Muggleborn but soon saw it was more a question of age and gender. Had I stayed long enough I might have strangled some of those old geezers with their beards. I did not want to be in the same department as Harry and Ron initially but now am glad that I changed. The MLE feels much more like it is run with the aim to serve a community than appease the egos of entitled men. Kingsley tells me much of that is owned to changes you made as head."
Yaxley shrugged, "I take pride in an efficiently run department. If people get their work done, done by the rules, mind you, I do not care whether they are male or female, werewolf or Veela, or what their blood-status or family connections are."
"If you don't mind – why did you not return as head?"
The wizard's mien clouded and there was a faraway look in his eyes.
"I do respect you and I am quite sure that you would honour my wish for secrecy but that topic is not one I wish to discuss on a first non-workrelated meeting. Maybe at a later time."
The waitress was hoovering next to their table, obviously catching on the tension.
"I am sorry, Mr Corban, there's only one slice of Oreo-cheesecake left. I brought two forks, though. Or would Miss want something else?"
"No, thank you, I am quite full and would be content with a few bites if Mr Yaxley agrees."
The coffee was hot and bracing and the cake was indeed wonderful. Yaxley put his fork down and looked her square into the eyes.
"Would you like to come back another time? I would like to get to know you better."
Hermione did not need time to think the offer over.
"I would like that, yes. I have been meaning to pick you brain about a broader overview of what kind of reforms the law department needs. I always felt that you anticipated in which directions my research could or should go from my requests to the archives alone, if we put our minds together we might be unstoppable."
He chuckled at that, "World domination, Ms Granger?"
"Public administration based on equality and efficiency more like. But beside that I too would like to get to know you. We could leave work-related things at the ministry."
"At least try to. I have a feeling that your mind does not stop working when you leave the building."
"Right. But I have learned to relax, too, during the last few years."
After the war and the retrieval of her parents Hermione had thrown herself into her studies, into trying to rebuild the relationship with her mother and father and then into the start of her career at the ministry. Two and a half years later she had her NEWTs and an only slightly strained anymore understanding with her parents. But even after eighteen months in the Department of Magical Beings she had not made any inroads into her plans, plans to carve out a better life for house-elves, for werewolves, etc.. She was working 80 hours a week, had no social life and had even neglected her physical wellbeing. Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley together with Mrs Granger staged an intervention. A forced vacation and sessions with a therapist specialised in PTSD had helped. After three months she had started to work again, this time with the MLE. During therapy Hermione had learned to notice her own tell-tales of too much stress, too much work and had practised strategies to avoid another episode like after the war. She knew Corban Yaxley not well enough to talk about all this with him, but thinking about it had put a dampener on the evening for her.
"I am glad to hear it. Too much of the last war was put on the shoulders of children."
As the cook had started to put up the chairs in the back of the restaurant they left soon after. Parting in a nearby park before Apparating to their respective homes they agreed on another meeting on the early afternoon of the 27th, starting with coffee and cake at the deli, with vague plans to either hit the bookstores or an exhibition and dinner later.
Back in her flat Hermione was surprised by how much she had enjoyed the evening. She fell asleep easily, with a contented smile on her face.
Corban Yaxley had to appease his two elderly house-elves who had taken great pains to prepare a special dinner for Yule. Only when he told them that a young lady had hindered his timely return did they let off. And wrangled two promises from their master – one that this ladyfriend should be invited to the manor as soon as possible and two that he was to drag his Viking friend home tomorrow lest the Yule dinner was spoilt as more than thirty hours of stasis were not recommended for finer dining. Yaxley shot off a Patronus to Thorfinn, and to Antonin, too, for good measure. Both were recently paroled, still quite restriced in their use of magic and always up for a free dinner. He didn't question that the memory he used for the spell was that of Ms Granger beaming at him, her fork in the air, during their discussion.