"A proposal from the Ministry faction. Francis wants to talk to you about it sometime in the next few weeks," Booker said, holding a large stack of parchment. He took off the top set of parchment and handed it to her.
Rachel accepted it and glanced through the first few pages. Taxes. Again. "Alright. I'll read it and we can go over the pertinent details and put together a response." She set it in her stack of things she needed to do, consigning herself to reading more about the tax code and trying to understand how the proposal would impact their already messy system. If she had her way, she'd gut the tax code entirely and start off fresh with a system that everyone could understand, but she knew that was simply not going to happen, no matter how pliable the current Wizengamot was. "Let's set up a meeting with Francis after I've read the proposal, so have his clerk hold off for a few weeks."
"Understood. Here is the updated draft for the House Elf Legislation proposal with my edits, waiting for your revisions," he said, handing her the next pile of parchment.
Rachel accepted that as well, managing not to groan at the idea of doing yet another revision. She didn't mind writing the proposals and doing the research, but the minute revisions and changes felt like they took forever and for very little gain. But she knew they were necessary. She wasn't going to have her proposals thrown out over a technicality. "I'll take a look at the edits and give you a new version…in the next few days." She didn't want to pin herself further down than that. "Oh, I need a meeting with Mason Fallon in the next week or two. I want it here in my office."
"That can be arranged. Do you want me there? Or Sirius?" Booker asked.
"No, I'm not trying to intimidate him. I just need to know if he can work with him and he was giving Thomas the run around. What are the clerks saying about him?"
"They say he's brusk, but that he means business. Either he'll deal with you or he won't. I'm not entirely surprised he sent away Thomas. He knows you're the power behind the faction. They also say he thinks he has more influence than he does."
"Any chance he's aligning with Turner's faction?" she checked.
"No one has said that, and the fact that he didn't immediately go to them says something. I think he likes being courted as an independent. I don't think you can get him to join your faction," Booker said, shifting the remaining pile of parchment.
"I don't care if he doesn't want to join my faction, I just want to know if he'll actually deal with us or not. If he won't, that's fine, I just need to know so I know where to spend my time." She had no patience for playing games with Wizengamot members. They either were willing to do the work, or they weren't.
"I'll get the meeting set up. These are requests for this week," he said, handing her yet another stack of parchment.
This time Rachel sighed, but she put them in the stack to review. Ninety nine percent of them she'd turn away as things she either couldn't do or wouldn't do, but occasionally people had things that really did need to be addressed by the Wizengamot. Booker still handled the bulk of her mail and he screened out all of the junk and things that needed to be addressed by other people or departments. "I'll try to get to them this week." She would make notes on them and then give them back to Booker so he could send the appropriate responses or put something aside for further research.
"And I expect you've been waiting for this. I couldn't open it, it's sealed to you personally." Booker handed her an envelope.
It simply had her full name on the front of it, and when she turned it over, the wax seal was blank. She held her right hand over it and gently probed at the magic. Like Booker had said, it was sealed that only someone of her bloodline could open it. She had received a letter like this seven years ago, shortly after finishing her mastery, but had turned down the offer because she'd been in the middle of an extended nervous breakdown.
Rachel stared at the envelope for a long moment before digging in her desk for her letter opener. She laid the envelope flat on her desk, jabbed her finger with the point of the letter opener, and let a drop of blood well up. She smeared her finger on the wax seal and it dissolved. With her handkerchief around her finger so she didn't get blood on anything else, Rachel opened the envelope.
'Wizengamot Member Rachel Leah Snow
Ministry of Magic - Wizengamot Chambers
This letter is to inform you that you have been selected to interview for a position in the Department of Mysteries. Please send your reply to indicate your availability for the interview.
Destroy this letter after viewing.
Department Head Patrick Sumner
Department of Mysteries
Ministry of Magic'
Short and to the point, just like the last letter she'd received.
"What are you going to do?" Booker asked.
"I don't know," Rachel said. This wasn't unexpected. In fact, she'd almost been counting on it. But now she had to make a decision.
"Rachel, dear," Monty called.
Rachel rose and went out into her main office, Booker following her. "Yes?" she asked.
"Is that what I think it is?" the portrait of her grandfather asked, adjusting his glasses as he looked at the letter she was holding.
"Invitation to interview with the Unspeakables," she said, glancing back down at it. This was a big deal. Invitations weren't given lightly and if she turned them down this time, she didn't know that she would get another chance.
"There's no shame if you don't want to do this. You have a lot on your plate with the Wizengamot and your research," Monty said.
"He's correct. Even now that you're no longer in the League, you're still doing a great deal of work. The Unspeakables will be a larger time commitment than the League," Booker told her.
"I know." She did know, but that didn't stop her from both wanting it and fearing it. She wanted the sort of research and dedication that came with being an Unspeakable. She'd heard rumors about the type of materials they had access to, and it would be a way to continue the sort of research that she couldn't do at the Potions Guild. She'd learned over the years that the Potions Guild liked to play things safe. And while she understood that, she wanted to explore and push the bounds of what could be done. There were so many possibilities and going by the journals, the field was just stagnating in English speaking countries.
There was the problem of publication, of course. Depending on what she discovered, she might not be allowed to publish her results. According to rumor - because rumor was all anyone really knew about the Unspeakables - sometimes things languished in the Department of Mysteries for half a century before they were published, if they ever were. But the work called to her. She wanted this. She had wanted this for a long time and while she knew she hadn't been ready before, maybe she was now.
Both Monty and Booker were looking at her expectantly. "I don't know," she finally said. "I need to give this some thought before I make a decision. They wouldn't send me the letter if they weren't going to accept me, right?"
"No. The interview is a formality. The Unspeakables want you and they have for at least a decade, if not longer. Perhaps you should give some thought as to whether or not you want them to have you," Booker said.
There was that too. She was not going to allow herself to be studied by the Unspeakables and she would make that clear up front. Many strange things had happened in her life, some of them in her very own mind, but she didn't know how much the Department of Mysteries actually knew about that. Probably more than she wanted them to know.
"I'll think about it," she said again. "Anything else for now?"
"I hear that you won another League Cup. Congratulations," Monty said.
"Yes, congratulations. Viola told me it was a great game," Booker said.
"Thank you. It was a pretty good game. Tough team to beat." It would be interesting to see how the League shook out next year now that the Harpies wouldn't be dominating the scene.
"I assume that the rumors that you're joining the English National Team are just rumors?" Booker checked.
"Just rumors. I'm done playing competitively," she assured him.
"I'm certain there will be many people who will be glad to hear that. Having you in the League and young Mister Malfoy in the aurors must be giving the leadership fits," Monty said.
"I'm sure if the Minister thought he could convince Draco to leave the aurors, he would. Having so many young people on the Wizengamot is unprecedented," Booker said with a knowing nod.
"They'll never convince him to go. Draco likes the aurors. And Neville, Malcolm, and Anyssa aren't doing anything dangerous."
"Doesn't Miss Selwyn broom race? If I'm not mistaken, you go broom racing with her," Monty asked.
"She does, but broom racing isn't that dangerous. Malcolm does theoretical Arithmancy," she pointed out. Malcolm was on his second mastery and Rachel no longer understood anything in the papers he published. Her Arithmancy knowledge only went as far as spell creation.
"Much to everyone's relief," Booker said, Monty chuckling.
Rachel smiled but shook her head. Quidditch and broom racing were not as dangerous as people made out, and Draco could handle himself in the aurors. Just because half of the Wizengamot didn't have another job didn't mean that they couldn't. "I'm going to try to get some things done."
"I'll leave you to it. You know where to find me," Booker said.
"Go easy on yourself," Monty said.
"I do," she said, getting sounds of disbelief from both of them.
Rachel returned to her inner office and looked at her desk. She had a tax proposal to read, revisions and edits to go through, and a pile of requests. She groaned and reached for the tax proposal. Might as well get the worst one out of the way first.
She flooed home in the late afternoon, her proposal tucked in her robe pocket so she wouldn't get soot on it. She was planning to do more revisions this evening, but had felt done with being in her office for the day.
The sitting room was quiet, the autumn afternoon sun leaving thick lines on the floor. Dingbat was sprawled out in one of sunny spots, sleeping with her side rising and falling as she breathed.
Rachel walked out into the hallway and went down to the kitchen. Artemis and Archimedes were both on their perch. Artemis was asleep, her head resting down against her body. Archimedes shuffled on the perch and Rachel held up her fingers for him. He rubbed his beak against her fingers and then turned his head so that she could scratch beneath his ear.
"Dobby?" she asked.
Dobby appeared a moment later. "Yes, Miss?"
"Just checking in," she said. "Everything alright here?"
"Everything is as Miss left it this morning," Dobby said. "There have been no visitors or letters. Did Miss have a preference about dinner?"
"No, whatever you feel like cooking is fine." The House Elves knew what she and Theo liked to eat. "Feverfew is around here somewhere? What about everyone else?"
"Feverfew be sleeping on Miss' bed. Ring-a-Ding be sleeping in the sitting room. Kreacher was working in the library but now be resting. Tomsi cleaned the upstairs. Dobby be cooking tonight. Miss' owls be right there. Master Theo has not been home since he left this morning," Dobby said, knowing what Rachel was looking for. Rachel often checked with him when she came home.
"Thank you. I'm just going to get some more work done," she said. Feeling odd, though she couldn't say why, Rachel went upstairs and changed into more casual clothes and robes. She stopped by her bedside table and checked on her pocket watch. Everyone's hands either pointed to work or to home, exactly where they should be.
She sat down on the edge of her bed for a moment and tried to work out why she felt the need to check. Was she really that worried about the Department of Mysteries? She ran her thumb over the cover on the pocket watch, feeling the lines of the engraving.
After thinking about it for a while she decided it was because she had to make a decision without having enough information, so she was seeking all of the information she did have. Even after all these years she still had issues with wanting to control things and then feeling anxiety about what she couldn't control.
Resisting the urge to check the watch one more time, Rachel put it back on her bedside table and went downstairs and then down into the cellar. She had a brewing space down here and it was where she'd done the majority of her inventing these last four years. Currently she had two long term cauldrons bubbling, which were experiments that she didn't really expect to get results on, but she'd reached a wall in her sleeping potion research and had been taking stabs at other things just for things to do.
In the past ten years she'd invented six sleeping potions and had accepted modifications for eight other sleeping potion recipes. Her best, the one she'd received the Potion's Guild Innovation Award for three years ago, was a sleeping potion that could be taken three nights in succession, one night off, three more nights, and so on, with no ill effects or risk of addiction. And Rachel couldn't take the potion. Potions that actively put someone to sleep still caused her to have heightened anxiety and distress and the trade off of being able to sleep simply wasn't worth it for her.
The Mind Healer she'd seen for three years to work on trauma and her mental health issues had told her that there were many things that Rachel could work on to try to ease some of her problems. Rachel could successfully take the lifts in the Ministry, even if she didn't like doing it. She could stand in a small room with the door shut without panicking, even though she didn't like doing that either. She could even enter a crowded shop, though she avoided that when possible.
Overall, her anxiety and her PTSD were much more manageable than they had been when she was younger. She no longer sat around contemplating her own death. It had been years since she'd last had a full blown anxiety attack. And yet some things, such as being able to take a regular sleeping potion, weren't possible for her and she'd come to accept that.
For twelve years now she'd played with modifications of Dreamless Sleep, but a non-addictive potion that had the same effects had eluded her. It wasn't possible to do it with the Sopophorous bean juice, since there were dependency issues with it, and she'd hit wall after wall trying to find something to replace it that actually prevented someone from remembering their dreams or from dreaming at all. She felt certain that it was possible - because what was impossible when she had magic? - but she was missing something that she needed to figure out.
She lowered the barriers surrounding her cauldrons and took a peek inside. The bronze cauldron on the left had a slowly steeping mixture that she'd hoped would boil down into a mixed essence of calendula and hyssop for use in healing potions. The second was a molten antimony base in a steel cauldron that she was keeping to observe the long term effects of keeping antimony in such a way.
She made a few notes about the texture on the parchments she kept for each cauldron, noting that the calendula had finished breaking down, and then put the barriers back up. She had alarms on them so that she'd know if anything boiled over, but she wasn't concerned. She was taking all precautions that were needed for leaving cauldrons unattended.
Back upstairs, Rachel went into the library and set down her proposal. She would work more on that today, but she had an article coming due for Witch Weekly that she wanted to write while she had the time. She sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. Getting the internet had been a major blessing for all of her muggle related research, even if it had been a challenge to get the internet at a house that, according to muggles, shouldn't exist at all.
She'd been writing these articles once a month for the past ten years and had slowly been given more and more leeway about the topics she was allowed to write about. She'd written about a lot of things now, from shopping and fashion, to medicine and government, to technology and fiction. In exchange, she had two interviews and one photo shoot with Witch Weekly a year. Although the intensity of the press about her had slowly died down over the years, she was still quoted in the Daily Prophet frequently. She still refused to interview with them, but she had compromised and used Booker to give them quotes about ongoing proposals in the Wizengamot. Personally, Rachel did not see her appeal to Witch Weekly, but both of them were getting something they wanted, so it worked for now.
This month's article was about traveling abroad in muggle areas. Since there were potentially a lot of places that people could go, Rachel wasn't giving specific advice for countries so much as about what to expect with muggle currency, clothing standards, and how to access information in the muggle world so they could learn more. A lot of what Rachel was trying to do with these articles was to give people basic information and then give them resources where they could find more themselves.
Rachel quickly lost herself to writing and research, her mind narrowing down on what she was working on and her other problems drifting away, if only for a moment.
"Hey," Rachel said upon finding Theo in the kitchen.
He turned, smiling slightly as he saw her. "Hey. How did the meeting with the faction go?"
"Oh, same old bullshit. I'm not really convinced that anyone else in my faction actually supports my House Elf proposal," she admitted. "I'm not convinced anyone actually supports my House Elf proposal. Even Booker acts like he's humoring me."
"Does he?" Theo asked, sounding surprised.
"Maybe not. I don't know." Rachel sat down at the dining table, which was already set with dishes and utensils. "How was your day?"
"Not bad. Actually managed to get four hours of uninterrupted research time today before I had to deal with department matters," he said, sitting down across from her. "I swear, you'd think that adults would be able to manage themselves better. We handled projects better than this at school."
"You'd think," she agreed. She had the exact same trouble with the Wizengamot and was grateful that she wasn't actually in charge of anyone the way Theo was in his department at the Spell Crafting Guild. "Markham still giving you problems?"
Theo put his hand to his temple, a sure sign that he had a residual headache. "I'm seriously considering booting him from my department. I can do it. The trick is who do I give him to that won't cause them to hate me."
The food appeared and Rachel served herself some of the fish and some of the rice. "Give Markham to someone you don't like," she suggested.
He chuckled. "Maybe. I can't send him to Peters; Markham doesn't have a background in runes. I might be able to push him off on Baker, but his department is full. I might just let Markham put his paper in for review the way it is and let people laugh at him."
"Always an option." Her papers were always well received, but she had seen more than one person be mocked openly within the Potions Guild for a bad paper. She always kept that in mind when writing papers. If anything she edited her research papers more thoroughly than she edited her Wizengamot proposals.
"What was the rest of your day?" Theo asked as he started on his meal.
"Tax code." Rachel made a face. "I feel like I am not the person to rewrite the tax code, but if anything, everything we're adding to it just makes it worse and worse. I don't see how any sane person can make sense of it."
"I think you have enough on your plate without messing with the tax code. Whose proposal is it?"
"Francis'. We'll probably be having a meal soon, though you don't have to be there if you don't want to be. It should be fairly dry." She wasn't voting for anything unless she knew it would have the effect that the person writing the proposal said it would have. She trusted Francis more than she trusted a lot of people in the Wizengamot, but she would always do her due diligence.
"If you need me, I'll be there. Otherwise I'm sure you can handle it." Theo still attended a great many Ministry events with her and helped her when she brought work dinners home with her when she was wooing some Wizengamot member for something.
"Thank you." Rachel paused and decided she needed to tell him. This wasn't just a decision she was making for herself. "I received a letter today. From the Department of Mysteries."
"Trying to recruit you now that you're not doing Quidditch?" he checked.
Rachel nodded.
"That's not entirely unexpected, is it? We've known they've been interested in you for years."
"No, I actually did expect it. Honestly, I would have been a little disappointed if I hadn't received the invitation. But now that I have the invitation, I don't know what to do with it."
Theo sat for a moment. "Is there anything in particular that you're worried about or is it just the overall situation?"
"Well, there are a lot of unknowns. I think the only way to know what it's like to work for the Unspeakables is to do it. Everyone talks about research, but no one really knows what goes on in there," she pointed out.
"That's true. There's no telling what you would actually wind up doing there. But there's also nothing saying that you have to stay if you don't like it," he said, nodding and then touching his head again.
"Do you want a Headache Easing Draught?"
"Already had one. I think I just need an early night." Theo had been suffering from headaches more and more often these past few years, though he had said they weren't debilitating. It was something they were both keeping an eye on. "Are there any drawbacks to just trying things with the Unspeakables and seeing how it goes?"
"I mean, it is tempting. I just worry about balance. I can't spend all day in the Department of Mysteries. I've got the Wizengamot and my faction to think about. Sirius does a lot of the heavy lifting for the faction, but there are still things that I have to do personally."
"I would think that if they're inviting you to join the Unspeakables, they already know that. But tell them before you agree to do anything. You can't be there all day every day and you have other responsibilities. It will be interesting though," he said, returning to his meal.
"What will?" she asked.
"Having a Wizengamot member in the Unspeakables. I can't think of another Wizengamot member who has done it, but there has to have been someone."
She hadn't looked at it that way before. She also suspected that her working with the Unspeakables would be heavily publicized, which was also unusual. Being an Unspeakable wasn't exactly a secret - not for most of them, there were rumors of secret Unspeakables, but of course no one really knew - but most people didn't go out of their way to say that they worked for the Department of Mysteries either.
"You think they'll be willing to accept me on a part time basis?" she asked, feeling uncertain about that.
"Given that they sent you an invitation, I'm pretty sure they'll accept you on any terms you give. You may also want to know if they're planning on actually studying you in some capacity," he suggested, raising his eyebrows.
"I'm definitely not letting them study me. If that's what they want, I'm turning them down," she said with conviction. She was not a lab rat nor a trained dog to do tricks on command. "How much do you think they know?"
"Given that it's the Unspeakables, probably more than we'd like them to."
"That's what I figured." The truth behind her connection to the Dark Lord and how everything had played out was still a carefully guarded secret. After a while people seemed to accept the story that had been given and it was rare that someone brought up her killing the Dark Lord directly to her face anymore.
"Ask them what they want from you and then decide how truthful you think they're being. They can't force you to do anything. You're also a prominent figure in our government. It's in their best interests not to do anything to harm you," he said.
"I suppose that's true," she said, though she hadn't exactly imagined the Unspeakables harming her directly. "I just don't know what to expect."
"I'm not sure there's a way to find that out. No one but an Unspeakable can tell you what it's really like in there, and they won't. There's also nothing saying that you have to do this. If it's too much of a problem, you can just tell them no."
Rachel found that she wasn't really considering telling them no, at least not unless they did plan to study her. She wanted to do the research and the work. If this was an opportunity to have access to a wide variety of research that wasn't accessible to the public, then maybe she could find what she was looking for in there. The Unspeakables were said to research every topic. The idea of being able to discover whatever she wanted was very alluring.
"I can at least do the interview. I think that's the only way to know more," she said, though part of her was still wavering.
"Makes sense to at least find out what they want," he agreed. "Do we have anything for tonight?"
"No. I'm just going to work on edits for a few hours." She had finished the first draft of her Witch Weekly article but needed to let it sit for a day or two before she tried to edit it.
Theo nodded. "I'll sit with you. We can have a quiet night."
Most of their nights were quiet nights, but that worked for Rachel.
It was a little past eight when Draco's ball python Patronus slithered into the sitting room. "Rachel, Scorpius was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling him a bedtime story. No problem if you're busy."
Rachel set aside her proposal with a sigh of relief. She was glad for the excuse to do something else. "I'll be back in a little bit," she told Theo.
"I'll be here," he said, looking up from the book he was reading.
She flooed to Malfoy Manor, wincing as her shoulder bumped against the inside of the fireplace. She brushed herself off in the entryway to Malfoy Manor, finishing just as Astoria arrived.
"Sorry, he's been fixated on you lately. I just got Cygnus put down. He's at least sleeping through part of the night now," Astoria said, a baby blanket in one hand and looking slightly tousled.
"It's no problem. I don't mind," Rachel said. "How are you?"
"Oh, tired, but not too bad. Sometimes it feels like the day never ends," Astoria said.
"Rachel!"
A moment later Rachel was impacted by the body of her four year old godson as he wrapped his arms around her upper thighs.
"You were supposed to be waiting for Rachel in bed," Astoria scolded lightly.
"I heard her voice," Scorpius insisted.
"There is absolutely no way you heard Rachel's voice from your bedroom."
Rachel smiled. "You heard your mother, back to bed. Come on."
Scorpius latched onto Rachel's hand and she walked him back up the staircase and down to his bedroom. There was a large canopied bed at the end of the room, a window that overlooked the Quidditch pitch in the back garden, and a glowing projection of the night sky on his ceiling that changed as the sky outside changed.
He quickly clambered into bed, looking tiny in his sea of pillows.
Rachel sat down on the edge of the bed. "Do you want me to read something?"
"I want the story of the Girl-Who-Lived."
"Again?" she asked, since this was one he often asked for. She'd much rather read to him from a storybook.
"You're the only one who tells it right. Daddy does it wrong," he said firmly.
"Alright. Once upon a time there was a very bad man," she began.
"The baddest. We can't even say his name because he was so bad," Scorpius added.
"That's right. The Dark Lord was trying to take over magical Britain with his Death Eaters. One night he went to a family's home because they had defied him."
"They fought against him."
"Yes, exactly. They and a group of people fought against him. The Dark Lord tried to kill the family, but when he cast the Killing Curse at the Girl-Who-Lived, she reflected the curse back at him and took him out of his body," Rachel said, wondering what was going to happen when Scorpius was old enough to hear the real version of this story. It would have to be before he went to Hogwarts, but she wanted to put it off for as long as possible.
"He was a ghost?"
"Almost. He was like a spirit, but he wasn't a ghost because he wasn't dead." Every time they did this story he had more and more questions. "Years later, the Girl-Who-Lived had grown up and the Dark Lord found a body once more. He began gathering his Death Eaters again and people came together to fight against him. One day the Dark Lord came to Hogwarts, wanting to hurt the people there, and the Girl-Who-Lived went to face him. They had undone the Dark Lord's bad magic, and the Girl-Who-Lived killed him with the Killing Curse. And then the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters were no more."
Scorpius' grey eyes were fixed on her. "That's you, right? You're the Girl-Who-Lived."
"That's me," she agreed.
"Daddy says the scar on your forehead is where you got hit by the Killing Curse." Scorpius climbed back up and moved to sit on Rachel's lap.
Rachel moved so that she could hold him and felt him trace her scar. "Yes, from the Killing Curse," she said, though she'd never found a good explanation as to why the Killing Curse had marked her when it never left visible wounds. Maybe that was something she could discover in the Department of Mysteries.
"Were you scared?"
"Yes, I was," she said, though scared didn't really cover those last few years at Hogwarts. Her goal was to make it so that Draco's and Neville's children never had to live through something like that.
"And you're the best Quidditch player ever?" he asked, wiggling closer.
"Not the best ever, but I'm pretty good."
"Daddy says you are."
Draco had clearly been telling tales. "There are a lot of good Quidditch players. Your father is a good Quidditch player himself. We played together at school."
"But he joined the aurors and you joined the League. I'm going to do both. I'm going to be an auror Quidditch player."
Merlin help them all. She felt like she had a flash of what Severus must have gone through upon her joining the aurors and the League. "Maybe. You've got a lot of time to decide. You've got the youth league coming up next year, and then the teams at Hogwarts, and then if you still want to play, the League." She was absolutely not going to encourage him to join the National Team.
"Come fly with me and daddy soon," he said, his head moving against her chest as he looked up at her.
"I will. Maybe next weekend or the weekend after. Are you sleepy?" she asked, knowing that he was from the droop of his eyes.
"No."
"Do you want another story?"
"Yes."
"Back under the blankets and I'll read from one of your books," she said, shifting him off of her lap.
"The Quidditch one," he said, crawling back to his pillows.
Rachel retrieved a well loved book from his bookshelf, this one the story about a Seeker who flew around the world searching for the Snitch. Scorpius was asleep before they reached Australia. She watched him for a moment before tugging the blankets up so they were covering his shoulders and then put the book away.
She found Draco in the main sitting room downstairs.
"Thanks. He kept asking for you. He's asleep?" he asked.
"He's asleep. I don't mind. I'm just a floo away," she said as she sat down. "He's asking questions about the Girl-Who-Lived story. At some point we're going to have to figure something out."
"I'd like to wait until he's older before we really tell him," Draco said with a frown.
"I know. I do too, but we can't have you telling him one thing and me telling him another. That will just confuse him."
"I'm trying to remember what I knew about the war at his age." Draco tipped his head back. "I knew about the Dark Lord, of course. And that Bellatrix and Sirius were Death Eaters who'd been sent to Azkaban, because they'd done bad things, though I can't remember my parents ever telling me what it was they'd done. My mother didn't like to talk about Bellatrix."
Rachel nodded. "Does Scorpius know your parents were killed in the war?"
"He knows they're dead, but not that they were Death Eaters or that they were killed in the war. Thankfully Astoria's parents take care of the whole grandparent situation for us. They spoil them."
"You spoil them," she pointed out.
"I'm supposed to spoil them," he said unrepentantly. "Besides, you are at least as bad. Who bought him a training broom for his fourth birthday?"
"He needed a broom of his own before he decided to try out yours. It was a safety thing."
"Keep telling yourself that," he said, and though he looked tired, he was now smiling. "What questions is he asking you?"
"He asked if the Dark Lord was a ghost and if I was scared," she said. "I told him that the Dark Lord was a spirit, which isn't exactly accurate, but isn't inaccurate either."
Draco sighed. "Maybe it's just a phase and he'll stop. Remember when he didn't want Theo to put him down?"
"I do," she said, smiling at the memory. For a little while when Scorpius had been two and Cygnus had just been born, Scorpius simply wanted to be held by Theo all the time. "I think he's going to keep having questions. If it was just a story, maybe not. But he knows I'm the Girl-Who-Lived. He checks with me about that every time."
"He's been doing real and not real a lot. We've explained to him that his books are just stories, they're not things that have happened, they're just for fun. So maybe it's confusing him that this one is real," he suggested.
"Maybe. I could see why that would be confusing."
"For now, I think just keep being as truthful as possible while being age appropriate. If he asks something specific, let me and Astoria know, and we'll follow up on it," Draco said.
"Alright. We sort of have a deadline. We can't let him go to Hogwarts without knowing certain things," she reminded him.
"Hogwarts is still seven years away. I'm sure we can figure it out in seven years," he said. "I'm more worried about what someone might say to him at the youth league. It's not a secret that you're his godmother."
"Do five year olds talk about that sort of thing conversationally?"
"Hell if I know. The strangest stuff comes out of his mouth and I don't know where he hears it," Draco said, shaking his head.
Rachel smiled. She'd heard plenty of odd things from both Scorpius and Sarah. Toddlers were strange creatures. "Well, I suppose we'll take it as it comes."
"I think that's the only thing we can do," he said.
"How was your week?" Severus asked when they were both seated at the kitchen table.
"Not too bad. Lots of editing. I'm trying to get a final draft of this proposal by the end of the month. How about you?" she asked, digging into her shepherd's pie.
"Passable. I'm finalizing a draft of a paper as well. Aiming for publication in November, but we'll see what happens," he said, seeming at ease with this.
"I can't imagine Modern Potions would turn you down." As far as she knew, Severus never had difficulty being published, and neither did she, despite her somewhat distant relationship with the Guild.
"No, I don't expect they will. This is simply something I've been working on for a long time and I'd like it to be well received."
"Your effect delaying modifications?" she checked, knowing that was a long term project of his.
He nodded. "I have modifications for each type of base combat potion. I don't expect it to be particularly popular for common purposes, but I think there is still potential for advancement, possibly into ingested potions."
"There could be a lot of applications for that in healing potions," she agreed. "I'm sure it will be well received. People respect you."
"They do, but venturing into an unknown application is never a sure thing. It might simply be dismissed as being not very useful."
"I can see a lot of uses for it," she insisted. "Does anyone know about your project?"
"Just my contact at Modern Potions. I've been keeping this mostly to myself. Too much research poaching goes on at the Guild for me to want to share it broadly," he said, looking irritated for a brief moment.
Rachel knew that was true. She wasn't worried about her own research being poached - she wanted more people working on the sleeping potion problem, but it simply wasn't something that most potioneers were interested in. People either generally focused on advancing a broad field of potions, on modifying the more difficult and prized potions, or on odd areas of invention. For Rachel to focus on a singular type of potion for ten years was somewhat unusual and she had become known for her work in sleeping potions, even though she'd invented a handful of other small things.
"Can I ask for your opinion about something?" she asked, setting down her fork.
"Of course. Potions related?"
"Not exactly. I mean, it's a consideration, but not exactly."
"Did something happen?" he asked, now looking at her intently.
"I received a letter inviting me to interview for the Department of Mysteries. I'm kind of on the fence."
"It's certainly something to give due consideration before you make a decision. You'll want to make sure that they aren't going to have a problem publishing your personal research. The Unspeakables generally have strict rules about publishing."
Rachel nodded. "That's definitely something I need to ask about. And they have to be willing to let me put my Wizengamot work first. I can't abandon my faction or my proposals."
"It would be adding a lot to your schedule. Do you think this would overwhelm you?" he asked, his eyebrows raising slightly.
After her breakdown a few years ago she'd been more careful not to overschedule herself. One of the reasons she'd crashed so hard was because she'd spent years cramming things into every waking hour - on top of not sleeping much. "I don't know. I'm not sure how to know without trying it. There really isn't anyone I can ask what being an Unspeakable is like or what they expect of them."
"That's true enough. I suspect you may be able to get at least some information from the interview itself. They should be able to tell you what they want of you. You should also be prepared that it's you that they want to study."
"If they want to study me, I'm turning them down," she said firmly.
"Good. I think that's a wise decision. And you do not even have to do the interview. You can simply turn them down if you don't want to do this." He resumed eating, though he kept looking at Rachel every so often.
"I am interested," she said after a moment. "The amount of research they're said to have access to sounds exciting. And the opportunity to do more research of course. People say they have access to things even the Guilds don't have. And just seeing what there is. Of course, it all could go very wrong as well. And I don't think if I turn them down again that I'm going to get another opportunity."
"I understand the intrigue. The lure for more information is always powerful. The drawbacks of not being able to share that information may be difficult though," he pointed out. "And we do not know how research projects are assigned. You may wind up researching things that you don't want to research."
The only things Rachel could think of that she wouldn't feel comfortable researching were things that were intended to cause harm to other people. Given that there was a general ban on large scale weapons, and a less official ban on the things like developing poisons, she didn't know what the Unspeakables could have her researching that she would object to. "I suppose it's possible. I guess it depends on how they direct their research."
"I'm not certain how that's arranged either. If you are interested, I think it makes sense to do the interview and see what information you can get. There may be things they aren't willing to tell you before you're an Unspeakable, but you should at least be able to find out what they want from you."
Rachel nodded and resumed eating. She thought that she would do the interview. If things seemed too far off, she'd decline the position. With her decision made, her mind settled a little bit. "Oh, you should drop by and see my cauldron of essence of calendula and hyssop. It's doing strange things."
"What sort of strange things?" he asked.
"The calendula has finished breaking down and now the liquid is foaming purple." She'd found this just yesterday when she'd checked on her cauldrons in the evening.
Severus' brow furrowed. "Calendula is foaming purple?"
"I know, right?"
"I'll have to come by to see it. Make sure you get a picture. Perhaps separate a ladleful and see what you can do with it at this stage," he suggested.
Rachel nodded. She'd been documenting the process carefully. "I'd like to try it in a Healing Salve mixture, see what happens. Theoretically it should be stronger."
"Theoretically. We'll have to see what happens in practice."
She smiled. She was always glad to find odd new things in potions that defied explanations. It was fun.