"Lift your elbow up to the side as far as you can without pain," Healer Peterson instructed.
Rachel did so, managing to get it nearly level with her shoulder.
"Good. Arm forward, straighten your elbow at this height."
Carefully she straightened her arm, wincing as she felt a twinge.
"Hold there. Describe what just happened," he said.
"Felt a tug from my shoulder to my elbow. I wouldn't call it painful, exactly," she said.
"How would you describe the sensation? You winced," Healer Peterson pointed out.
She took a slow breath. "It just felt like something pulled too far for a moment."
"May I take your arm?"
"Yes." She let him, though she wasn't thrilled about it.
"Let me know as soon as you feel something," he said as he guided her arm slowly around.
"There," she said when he brought her elbow back. "Same thing, like it was just pulling too far."
"Alright. It looks to me like everything is sitting as it should, you just need some time to exercise your shoulder so that you can extend it further," he said, releasing her and backing away.
"No more sling?" she checked. It was the middle of January and she'd been absolutely dying while waiting to be released from the damn sling.
"No more sling, but you need to do the exercises twice a day. Push your arm to the point where you feel that tug and then back off. As you do this, that will become further and further until you can move your arm normally." Healer Peterson paused to make notes on his clipboard. "I want to see you again in a month to make sure that range of motion has been extended."
"How soon can I get on a broom?"
"Not yet. You're not ready to put your weight on that shoulder yet. We'll look again in a month and see where you're at."
"But I will be able to fly again?" she pushed.
"I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to fly, but not right now. We want to slowly build up to the point where you can use your shoulder normally, but stressing it beyond what it is ready for will just inflame the tissue again. Your scapula looks fine and normal, but the muscles and tissues around it need more time to finish healing and growing stronger," he explained.
That made sense to her, even though she was eager to go back to normal. "I can wait." She would do the exercises and hopefully that would take care of the problem. She was also relieved that she could now lean against her shoulder without pain. Without much pain, at least. "Can I brew potions?"
"Yes, I don't see any problem with that," he said. "The main thing is that you don't want any sort of impact against your shoulder or to use it to hold up your weight in any significant way."
"I can work with that." She could brew, that was enough for her. "Anything else I should know?"
"I think that's everything. Let's schedule you for the fifteenth of February, if that works for you?" Healer Peterson asked.
"As long as it's in the afternoon, that is fine," Rachel said.
"That works for me as well," he said, making a note and then passing Rachel a piece of parchment with her exercise instructions and the time and date of her appointment.
Rachel paused and then decided she needed to say it. "Thank you for fixing my shoulder. I didn't really want to do it, but it is better this way."
Healer Peterson nodded. "I know it's daunting to have that sort of procedure done, but for pretty much everyone I work with, they come away in less pain than they were before. I'm glad to have been able to provide some relief to you."
"You have. I honestly should have done this after my injury, but I kept telling myself that it wasn't so bad," she admitted.
"That's fairly common. Most people take some time to work up to the idea."
At least she wasn't alone in her ridiculousness. "Thank you," she said again. "I'll see you next month."
"You as well, Rachel," he said, bowing to her.
Rachel left the office, made her way back out of the hospital to the floo in the main lobby and then flooed back to the Wizengamot chambers. She nodded to a few people as she passed them and let herself back into her office with a sigh. It was only three o'clock, which meant she had a few more hours to get some things done.
"How was it?" Monty asked.
"Freed from the sling at last," she said, moving so that Monty could see her and then moving her left hand in a broad arc. Then she used her left hand to summon a light orb, just because she could.
Monty chuckled. "Back to your usual self then."
"Just about. Can't fly yet, but I can brew." Maybe when she got home she'd go into the basement for a few hours and brew something just to brew. Surely the potions cabinet at home needed a few things by now.
"Glad to hear it. What are you doing next?"
"Rough draft of this proposal about mental incompetence. I need to have it ready to show Amelia soon. I can't do this one without her support," she said, redirecting her mind to where she'd left off an hour ago.
"Come read it to me when you're ready and I'll give you my thoughts," he said.
"I will. Thank you. Did Booker come by?" she checked.
"I haven't seen him since you left."
"Alright. I'll touch base with him before I go home today." Rachel smiled at her grandfather and then went into her inner office, where she'd left her work spread out on her desk.
She picked up her quill, reread the last few paragraphs that she'd written, and got to work.
It was with somewhat of a heavy heart that Rachel returned to the Morsius Pensieve on Monday morning. The Department let her through with a minimum of fuss and Rachel collected one of the bottles of memory substance on the wall. She needed to tell Liesel that she was nearly out, and maybe at the same time she would ask what it was and how it was made. If it was a potion of some sort, that could be interesting. The other possibility was that it was drawn from someone's mind, the way memories were before they were examined in a normal pensieve. That was a little more disturbing and she hoped that wasn't the case.
Sometimes the magical world seemed to cross lines about what was acceptable to do to a person in ways that Rachel still found surprising and unsettling and she wasn't certain why. She just found that she had very set ideas about what constituted a person's personal space and privacy that didn't always mesh with everyone else's. Watching Tom Riddle's memories like this did feel like she was violating his privacy. Maybe that was a silly thing to worry about, all things considered, but she knew she wouldn't like it if someone did it to her, even if she was dead.
"Let's get on with it then," she said, half to herself and half to the Morsius Pensieve.
She poured in one of the vials, pricked her finger and counted three blood drops, healed her finger, and then went into the memory. She found herself in a familiar location. It was the room past the Slytherin common room that the prefects used to meet privately. Tom Riddle was Head Boy now and he seemed to view Hogwarts as his domain.
Tom, at eighteen years old and about to leave Hogwarts, was a tall man with tidy black hair and features that could be said to be conventionally handsome. He had a strong jaw, dark eyes with dark lashes framing them, and high cheekbones that displayed his pale skin. He wore his robes as if he'd been wearing them all his life and fit in well with the Slytherin purebloods. A person would never know from looking at him that seven years before he had been an impoverished orphan who didn't know about his magical heritage at all.
He was a leader in Hogwarts, and gathered here tonight Rachel saw all four Houses represented, though the bulk of the attendees were Slytherin. Abraxus Malfoy and Trajan Nott sat in the coveted spots by Tom's right, while Caius Mulciber and Faustus Lestrange sat to his left. Rachel saw several other prefects in the audience, though of the group of twenty five who had gathered, only four were girls.
Rachel had seen that gender disparity in the Death Eaters as well; it was far less common for women to become Death Eaters, though she wasn't sure why. She had known of several women who were in the Dark Lord's inner circle, but most of them had husbands or other family members who were Death Eaters as well. As Rachel had watched Tom over the past few years, she'd seen other families she'd recognized. There were two Slytherin boys with the last name Black, who Rachel would guess were Sirius' grandfather or great uncles. There was a boy with the last name Bulstrode, which had surprised Rachel and she'd wondered how he was related to Millie. There were others she knew from the lists of Death Eaters, though the ones she had known during the war were mostly like their children or grandchildren. The Turners, the Rowles, and the Ackers in these memories all had grandchildren she'd gone to school with.
"What are you doing when you leave Hogwarts, Tom?" one of the Ravenclaw boys asked, gathering the attention of those around him.
"We shall see," Tom said. "There are a lot of opportunities, especially now that the war is ending."
"You really think it will be over soon?" a girl asked.
The room looked to Tom, all of them seeming to want to know his thoughts on the subject.
"Yes. Grindelwald overextended himself. The war will be over by the end of the year with the Alliance routed," Tom said, sounding entirely confident.
Rachel knew that was true; Grindelwald would be defeated by Professor Dumbledore not six months from when this conversation was being held. But she wondered how Tom knew.
"So you're not lending your support?" one of the younger Slytherins asked.
"No, it would be fruitless. Besides, Grindelwald has the wrong focus. He is far too concerned with muggles. The only muggles we need to concern ourselves with are the ones who are infiltrating our society."
There were many nods around the room.
"So what do you propose to do?" one of the older Ravenclaws asked.
"Wait out the end of the war. Britain needs to rebuild. We can have a hand in that rebuilding if we position ourselves right. There are a lot of places that need people after the casualties of the war. Diagon Alley needs to be rebuilt. There are plenty of departments in the Ministry that need a helping hand and offering our help now puts us in position to influence the future. We don't have to let the current Minister and Wizengamot continue to ruin us. Elections are soon enough. It will take time, and patience, but we will have our say," Tom said, sounding entirely reasonable.
The weird thing was that Rachel had more or less felt the same way at the end of her seventh year. The war was ending and she and her friends were determined to influence their nation to better places. Of course their idea for a better future for magical Britain was far different than the prevailing notion in this room.
"I'll be taking a clerk position with the Minister. I should be an undersecretary within ten years, Caius said.
"And I will take my father's seat on the Wizengamot when it's time," Abraxus said, not to be outdone. "There will be influence enough for all of us."
"And in the meantime?" one of the boys asked.
"In the meantime we see who we can rely on. We all know how to find each other after we leave Hogwarts. We'll have more freedom then. Speaking of our freedom, or lack thereof, it is nearly curfew. Best be making our way back to our common rooms," Tom said, dismissing the group neatly.
The group slowly disbanded, leaving in small clumps, though Tom remained seated. "Abraxus, stay for a moment," he said when there were only a few people in the room.
Abraxus made his way back to Tom's side, seeming entirely comfortable with the command to stay.
They waited as the rest of the people in the room filtered out. "Did you reconsider my offer to place you in the Ministry?" Abraxus asked once they were alone.
"No. I must make my own way, though I'm grateful for your friendship. You've always been my closest confidant," Tom said, managing to sound warm and genuine.
"You've been my closest friend these last seven years, but you've yet to tell me what you're going to do when we leave. The Leaving Feast is on Saturday. Won't you come back to Malfoy Manor with me?" Abraxus asked.
"As much as I appreciate the offer, no. I must rebuild my own family name. Before long, everyone will know my true name. There is something I wish to ask of you."
"Anything," Abraxus said, fully sounding like he meant it.
"There is an item that I possess that is very important to me. It must be put somewhere safe, but in a location that I don't know about. It's possible that this might be something you pass on to your children to guard for you. Is that something you can do for me?" Tom asked, his gaze focused intently on Abraxus.
"I know just the place," Abraxus said.
"Not Gringotts," Tom said, raising his eyebrows.
"Not Gringotts," he agreed quickly. "I promise I will take good care of whatever it is."
"No one can know that you have it," Tom pressed.
"Not a soul. Not even my father or mother."
The corner of Tom's mouth twitched at the word soul. "Thank you."
"What is it, Tom?" Abraxus asked.
Tom reached into the bag at his feet and handed Abraxus a small black diary, one that Rachel well recognized. "The key to my past and my future."
"Your spell book? With all the things you've invented?"
"Nothing so mundane. It is just as I have told you," Tom said, apparently unwilling to elaborate.
"If it is that important to you, I'll put it away safe where no one can find it. No one at all," he said, nodding solemnly
"Thank you. You've done me a great service and I will not forget it ever," Tom said.
Abraxus smiled at him. "What are friends for?"
Tom's mouth twitched slightly again and he watched as Abraxus tucked the diary away into his own bag. "What indeed?"
The memory ended as the two boys left the room and Rachel found herself back in the room with the Morsius Pensieve.
She sat down at the desk and considered her options. She did not want it known that Ginny had been possessed by that diary. She did not want Draco to know that his father had been the one to give the diary to Ginny, even though she wasn't entirely sure how he'd accomplished that. The diary was destroyed now. There was no sense in worrying that it could possess someone else. But she didn't know if the Unspeakables knew that horcruxes could possess someone. It seemed like the sort of thing that should be written down in case someone did it again.
Finally she decided that since Professor Dumbledore must have told them how the Chamber of Secrets was being opened, and that the Unspeakables could make the rest of the connections themselves, she would just leave a note that the diary had reappeared in Hogwarts in 1993 and had possessed a student and forced them into opening the Chamber of Secrets. The Unspeakables didn't need to know about Ginny at all.
Rachel began to write, reminding herself that she just had to finish this and then she could go play with potions for an hour or two.
"How are you doing?" Janice Hawthorne asked when Rachel arrived at her home on Thursday for a late lunch.
"I'm doing well, thank you. How are you?" she asked, following Janice out of the entryway and further down the hall.
"Well enough. You know how it is. If it isn't one thing with the Wizengamot, it's another," Janice said, bobbing her head.
Rachel did know that, and she was just responsible for her faction, not the entire Wizengamot. She'd had many good reasons for turning down the Chief Warlock position, not the least of which being that she did not want to do it. "People are a little calmer now that they've had a break," she offered, since at least some of the rumors that had been floating around about her and Francis seemed to have died down a little bit.
Janice huffed and shook her head. "I have yet to meet this mythical calm Wizengamot of which you speak."
"Well, a little calmer," Rachel said again, smiling when Janice looked at her.
"Perhaps. Come sit down," Janice said, motioning to a dining table that had already been set.
Rachel sat and waited for a moment while their lunch appeared. They had grilled fish in a bed of vegetables and rice. "It looks delicious, thank you."
"Thank the House Elves, not me. Though I imagine that is what you're here to speak with me about," she said, not picking up her utensils just yet.
"My proposal is something that I'd hoped to discuss with you," she admitted, waiting for Janice to begin eating before picking up her own knife and fork.
Janice nodded. "I've heard that you've been making the rounds. I assume Ethan told you that we've been putting our faction back in order?"
"He did." Rachel did not ask how that was going, as it would have been very impolite, even though she would like to know where they stood these days.
"I'm going to have some people voted out at the next election," Janice said. "I won't stand for that sort of corruption in my own faction. It reflects badly on me and on the Wizengamot as a whole."
She supposed that answered that question. "Some?" she asked, since it seemed Janice was willing to talk about the situation.
"Three, which is plenty, given the size of my faction. I suppose it's not exactly my faction anymore, it's Ethan's, but I'm sure you understand."
Rachel did understand. As Chief Warlock she could hardly be allowed to truly belong to one faction or another, yet another consideration in Rachel turning down the position, but those alliances tended to go beyond titles.
"As far as your proposal goes, I'm not sure I agree with the whole thing, but I do agree that something needs to be done about the situation. When we go to the ICW, this reflects badly on us. I don't know how much success you will have with implementing it, but we should at least try something. You'll have my vote, and Ethan's, and the remaining six members of our faction that we can rely on, as long as you can promise me that it will pass," Janice promised.
"Thank you," she said quickly, knowing that Janice was going out on a limb for her. "I really appreciate that, and I will not bring this into the chambers until I know it will pass."
"Good. How close are you?"
She did a quick tally now that she had eight votes from the Guilds. "Assuming Rufus will vote for it, I have thirty six. I still need to speak with Rufus." That meant she needed at least five independents.
"That sounds reasonable. Adam should be willing to vote with you. You might be able to get Auroris," Janice suggested.
Rachel nodded, they were already on her list of people she needed to speak with. "There was one other thing I'd like to talk to you about."
"I had heard that you had a bee in your bonnet about something," she said with a small smile.
How did these rumors even get started? "Sentencing and mental incompetency."
Janice shook her head. "We shouldn't be changing sentencing unless we're overhauling the whole system. Amelia will tell you the exact same thing and it will never pass."
Rachel knew that too. "Not sentencing exactly then. Provisions."
"What sort of provisions?"
"Provisions that prevent people from being sentenced to prison if they can't be held accountable for what they did," she explained.
"We have those provisions, both for the Imperius Curse and for other sorts of compulsion spells, and for situations where people are forced into certain acts by other means," Janice said, not looking particularly perturbed.
"We do, I'm not saying we don't, but there are other reasons that people cannot be held accountable for what they do. Do you remember the trial for Teresa Faye?"
"I do, it was less than two months ago."
"Did she seem fit to stand trial to you? Did she seem like she understood what she had done?" Rachel pressed.
Janice frowned and looked away for a moment. "She murdered her own children."
"She did. I'm not trying to say that she didn't. But the only thing she could say about it was that she had to. She couldn't say why. She didn't even seem aware that she was in a courtroom. How is that justice? She needs help, not a prison sentence."
"I'm not sure there is such a thing as helping someone like that," Janice said, looking pained for a moment. "Magic and Healing can do a lot of things, but they can't do everything."
"Shouldn't we at least be trying?" Rachel asked after considering that. "Don't we have a duty to see that she, and anyone else in the same situation, receives whatever help can be offered?"
"I don't know about a duty to do so, but in theory it would be nice. What exactly are you proposing to do?" she asked.
"I'm still figuring out the specifics, but the first problem would be to know when someone is not well enough to be held accountable for their actions. I'm hoping that Mind Healers will be able to make that determination, though obviously there are problems that we need to sort out before implementing such a thing. The second would be a place in the hospital for these people that is secure and would allow them to be treated without endangering anyone else."
Janice nodded. "I would need to see the proposal before I can really give you my thoughts on it. Honestly, as a mother, I feel Teresa Faye needs to be incarcerated for the rest of her life for what she's done. Perhaps with treatment she would be able to tell us why she did so. I admit that trial has been weighing on me some."
Rachel didn't really agree, but if Teresa Faye was able to explain why she'd killed her husband and children, then it would become clearer if she'd truly been too ill to know better or if there was another cause to what she'd done.
"Has Ethan told you about the proposal that Douglas has been working on?" Janice asked, picking up her fork again.
"No, why don't you tell me about it," Rachel said, willing to let the matter drop for now. She'd pursue it again when she had more information to give.
Rachel swallowed her Tremor Steadying Potion and began setting things out while she waited for it to start working. It would take about five minutes for her tremors to stop entirely and then her hands would be steady for four hours. It wasn't a perfect potion, and Rachel didn't usually bother with it unless she was brewing, but it worked well enough for her purposes.
She had let Hermione examine her when Hermione had first been starting out in curse healing and while it was clear that her tremors were because of curse damage, there didn't seem to be a way to fix the problem. Hermione had promised that she'd keep it in the back of her mind, and Rachel had thanked her and told her not to worry too much about it. She could live with the tremors and over time she had accepted the scars as part of her body.
With five cauldrons set out, two copper, two bronze, and one steel, Rachel got to work on ingredient preparation. She was of the opinion that cauldrons were like books - you could never have too many of them. She even had a small solid gold cauldron that she kept tucked away in her Gringotts vault, which was slightly ridiculous. She had been given it under circumstances that she preferred not to think about.
Today she was working on Neville's new plant. For the time being she was doing a straight substitute for comfrey in a few healing potions to see what happened. If she got viable results, she'd send them in for testing, though they'd need more of Neville's plant for the Guild to brew enough to test for efficacy. For now, she'd settle for something that wouldn't explode, smoke, boil over, burn, maim, or otherwise wound or kill someone.
She was starting with Healing Salve, as it was a very straight forward potion. She also intended to test her essence of hyssop and calendula with a Healing Salve, but she was brewing down a second cauldron of it to see how fresh essence compared to the essence that she'd now had bottled for two months waiting for her to have her arm back to brew.
The dried petals from the flowers powdered easily enough. Rachel licked her finger and stuck it into the mixture, testing for an adverse reaction on her skin. It was the sort of thing that wasn't really supposed to be done in potions inventing, but every potioneer she'd ever met did it. There was no sense in trying to brew a healing potion with something caustic. After five minutes she washed her hand and checked over her finger, but she didn't see any discoloring, swelling, or anything that seemed to be amiss.
Deciding how much to add of an untested ingredient was always a problem. The general guidelines said start small and proportional and work your way up from there. Rachel examined the petals again from one of the flowers that was still intact and decided that based on the density of the flower in comparison to comfrey she was going to add the same amount as she would have of powdered comfrey. In her next test, assuming nothing bad happened in this one, she would increase it by one half and rebalance the potion.
She finished prepping the rest of the ingredients, selected a copper cauldron, because copper and glass were traditionally used when brewing healing potions, though there had been some advances in using stainless steel cauldrons for a variety of things these past ten years. With everything set out, Rachel began to brew. Normally, when she wasn't inventing or modifying, she would be brewing several cauldrons at once, but part of inventing was taking very careful note of what was happening during the brewing process. She had already taken photos of the new flower parts, both intact and dried, and she would photograph the new potion if it turned out to be potentially viable.
When she reached the point where the comfrey was usually added, Rachel stood up, placed a barrier ward in front of the cauldron, and then carefully reached around to dump the powdered material into the cauldron. There was always a possibility that she could be burned this way if she couldn't pull her hand back in time, but it had never happened to her. The things she brewed weren't typically reactive in that way.
The material in her cauldron continued bubbling steadily, with no sign of smoking or overflowing, so Rachel removed the barrier ward and came closer. The potion was slowly turning pink, which was very interesting. At this stage the healing salve should have been a light beige turning white. Rachel stirred, pausing to check the end of her stirring rod for any reaction there - during her mastery she'd once had a potion eat her stirring rod - but everything seemed to be fine.
She continued the potion with caution, as anything she added now could react adversely to the new ingredient, but didn't encounter any difficulties. Forty minutes later she had a pasty pink substance in the bottom of her cauldron. Rachel used her hand to waft some of the steam over to her - they'd all heard the stories about people who collapsed or had their eyes burned out after sticking their faces directly over their cauldrons - and found that it smelled nicely herbal. She had no idea how effective this would be as a Healing Salve, but at the very least it hadn't been a disaster.
Rachel wrote out the recipe, simply putting currently unnamed plant in where the comfrey should be, and then set it aside and prepared another batch, this with another half of the material and rebalancing the potion to fit. When she reached the end of this one - still in a bronze cauldron - she had a slightly pinker and stiffer paste, but nothing seemed wrong with it.
Trusting that the first batch had cooled, she returned to the first cauldron and did something else that they weren't supposed to do, but every potioneer did anyway - she dipped her finger into her new potion. She rubbed the paste between her thumb and forefinger, not feeling any burning or pain, or really anything at all other than slightly sticky. She drew a line across the back of her wrist with the salve, intending to leave it there for a while to see if there were any longer term reactions. After that she washed her hands, bottled the potion and labeled the vials, set them aside, and then turned to making a Pain Relieving Potion with the same substitution.
"Are you coming up for dinner?"
"What?" Rachel asked, turning to find Theo at the edge of her brewing space. "Dinner? Did you want to eat early?"
"It's nearly seven," he said, tapping his watch.
Rachel looked at her own watch and found that it was nearly seven. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be down here all day. Let me finish this cauldron and I'll be right up."
"Sure. How is it going?"
She had turned back to her cauldron. "Well, nothing has blown up, so I'd say that as far as being a substitute for comfrey, the powdered petals of Neville's plant work in theory. We're going to need more of the plant to really test it though. I need to send a message to Neville tonight."
"I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that. I'm glad nothing has blown up," he said, sounding slightly amused. "What do you have on your arm?"
"Just testing the salves. No point in sending it to the Guild to be tested if it just burns someone or gives them rashes. No one has use for a rash causing potion."
"If you say so," Theo said.
Rachel nodded, already absorbed in her work again. She'd stop soon.
"Ah, there she is," Sirius said when Rachel entered his sitting room at half past four on Thursday.
"Here I am, sorry I'm late," she said, taking a seat opposite him. She'd been intended to be here at four but had wound up stopping and chatting with Auroris and couldn't escape her.
"The usual, I imagine," he said with a fond smile.
"Just Auroris gathering more gossip material. She wanted to know about my accord with Francis."
"You gave her the juicy details."
Rachel laughed. "I don't think she believed me when I told her that Francis and I were never fighting to begin with. Next thing you know there will be rumors that I'm trying to cover it up."
"I'm sure there will. Auroris always does have to put her own spin on things. How are you otherwise? How is your shoulder coming?" Sirius asked.
"Good. Still working on extending my range of motion, but I should be back on a broom in a month or two. At any rate, I'm back in fighting form, so Amelia will be relieved."
Sirius frowned. "What exactly is Amelia asking you to do? She doesn't expect you to go fight these Death Eaters, does she?"
"Oh, no. Not at all. I'm just the worst case scenario reserve. I'm sure the aurors can handle the Death Eaters, presuming we can actually find them anywhere." There had been another series of attacks on New Year's Eve, but still no actual sightings of any of the Death Eaters. The next time Rachel spoke to Amelia, she was going to raise concerns that the Death Eaters may have someone in the MLE feeding them information. It wasn't a prospect any of them liked to consider, but there had to be a reason no one had seen the Death Eaters in the past four months.
"Well, I know you can handle yourself if anyone can. I'd just hoped we'd seen the last of any of us facing Death Eaters," he said, shaking his head and looking a little distant.
"I know. I had too. I still don't see what they're aiming for. Why target Emmaline specifically?" she asked. They'd attended Emmaline's memorial service just two weeks ago. Most of the Order and the MLE had been there, everyone with drawn and worried expressions.
Sirius exhaled heavily and ran a hand across his brow. "I don't know. Emmaline was a good woman. I've known her going on thirty years now. Her wards were good. She knew better. I'm half considering going back under the Fidelius charm and networking with the others so that we're all under it."
"Theo and I have been considering it as well," she admitted.
"I would feel better if you were under the Fidelius, and I know Snape would too, and it would probably be a load of worry off of Rufus and Amelia's minds as well."
Rachel nodded. "We're still talking about it. We have a lot of guests and it would be a pain in the ass to deal with."
"I know, that's the same reason I've been wavering. We do a lot of Wizengamot business here. Speaking of which, how did it go with Janice?" he asked.
"Good. We have her and Ethan's vote, along with six members of their faction."
"Six?"
"She's booting three of them out come elections. I'm guessing they weren't too repentant about taking Fallon's bribes," she explained.
Sirius let out a harsh laugh. "Idiots."
Rachel couldn't find it within her to disagree. If they were willing to take bribes to vote for a proposal that obviously wasn't going to pass, that was their own undoing.
"That puts us at thirty six?" he checked.
"Assuming we have Rufus' vote, thirty six," she confirmed.
"You really think Rufus would vote against this?" Sirius raised his eyebrows at her.
"I think as long as I promise him it will pass, he'll vote for it, though I'm giving him a host of new problems with putting together a department to oversee House Elf affairs."
"I had rather assumed you would wind up doing most of the work in staffing the department and setting standards."
"Oh, I will probably wind up involved somewhere along the way. Honestly, Sirius, I don't know who we're going to get to staff the department. I know plenty of people who are fond of their House Elves, but none of them seem to think that a change is warranted. How can I trust people to do their jobs when they don't think it's the right thing to do?" she asked, since the problem had been on her mind off and on for a while.
"Muggleborns, probably. Which will come with its own set of challenges," Sirius said.
That was an interesting idea. At the very least muggleborns didn't come in with pre-set ideas about what was right for House Elves. "Possibly. For now, let's just get the damn thing to pass."
"We can do that. Where do we stand on your other proposal?"
"Still in progress. I need to talk with Amelia soon because this is going to go nowhere without her agreement and I need to know what the MLE Mind Healers can actually determine before I start writing provisions in a proposal. I'm not anticipating we'll have this set up to vote before summer," she said, knowing that he'd want a timeline.
"That's fine. Let me know if you want any help with it or if I can arrange something. Have you seen Stephen's proposal?" he checked.
"Not yet. What's going on with it?"
"I sent it back to him for revisions, but it should be coming across your desk in the next week or two."
"Good to know," Rachel said, slotting it into her mental calendar. "Where do we stand on the rest of the faction?"
"I'll give you the rundown," he said, leaning back in his chair.
Rachel settled in to see what new problems had cropped up that she needed to go chasing after. With the Wizengamot, there was always something.
Rachel found herself seated with Ginny, Isobelle, Tiffany, and Natalie's two sisters as Millie and Natalie tried on wedding dresses. Natalie's and Millie's mothers were also in attendance, which made the entire situation somewhat awkward.
Upon entering, Rachel had politely curtsied to Millie's mom, asked how she was, and then promptly removed herself to the other side of the room to hide behind Ginny. Ginny had just smiled knowingly and let Rachel hide.
After seven years of hearing about Millie's mom from Millie while they were at Hogwarts, Rachel was not predisposed to like the woman. Millie's relationship with her mom had never been easy and Millie had often mentioned feeling like she didn't meet up to her mom's expectations of her. Millie's mom had never approved of Millie's chosen career and it had taken a long time before she accepted Natalie as well.
Her relationship with Rachel was something else altogether. Rachel hadn't actually had a chance to really speak with Millie's mom until the party to celebrate Millie finishing her mastery. Millie had warned her in advance that her parents had bought into some of the strange conspiracies surrounding Rachel, and Rachel had gone in prepared for a possibly awkward conversation.
It had been more than awkward, it had almost been an interrogation. Rachel had flatly denied that Professor Dumbledore had done anything against the well being of any Hogwarts student, including herself, and had said that Professor Dumbledore had been giving her advanced lessons because there were things that only he could teach her. That was entirely true, Professor Dumbledore was the only one who could have taught her to find the horcruxes, but she was willing to let people believe he'd taught her wandless magic.
None of this had seemed to mollify Mrs. Bulstrode, and Rachel had spent the rest of the evening moving from place to place in an effort to avoid her and feeling utterly ridiculous while she did so. She was a Wizengamot member and a former auror and the most magically powerful person in Britain. She regularly had tea with the Minister. She had frequent conversations with the Chief Warlock and the Head of the MLE. She had killed the Dark Lord. And yet she felt completely wrong footed and awkward when it came to dealing with her friend's mother. So Rachel avoided Millie's mother as much as possible and fortunately Millie understood and empathized.
Natalie, on the other hand, Rachel absolutely adored. She'd been a Ravenclaw three years ahead of them at Hogwarts, though none of the group could recall meeting her while they were at school. Natalie was nearly as tall as Millie, had blond hair that she wore in loose curls, and was staunchly dedicated to her charms research. When the group had written their OWL and NEWT Guilds, Natalie had helped co-author the Charms books and had joined Luna in writing the Divination books.
Millie and Natalie made a good match, both of them with wry senses of humor and easy smiles. It had taken two years before Millie had introduced Natalie to the group, and even then Millie had said that she wanted to take things slow and be sure. Natalie had seemed okay with that, and Millie had told Rachel one evening that Natalie had told her that Millie could take all the time that she needed to be sure. This won Rachel's approval very quickly, as she didn't want anyone putting pressure on her friends.
Slowly, over a lot of repeat meetings and getting to know each other, Natalie had relaxed around them and she had become another member of the group. They had wound up adding her, Hannah, and Astoria to the Fidelius charm on their flat and it wasn't uncommon for one or more of them to be over in the evenings or on the weekends.
There was a small part of Rachel that still missed all of them living together, but she knew it wouldn't have worked once people started having children. And she liked her home with Theo and having a guaranteed private place and somewhere quiet and calm to go after work.
"What do you think?" Millie asked, turning in front of some mirrors. She was in a white dress with a heavily embroidered bodice and a sweeping skirt.
"It's a little low cut, dear," Mrs. Bulstrode said.
Millie shook her head and looked at Natalie.
"It's nice, but all of them are nice. Pick what you feel comfortable in," Natalie said, turning from where she was examining the dress she was wearing.
"Vote," Millie told the assembled bridesmaids.
Rachel gave a thumbs up, because Millie seemed to like it, and the other girls did as well.
"Turn around and let us see the full skirt," Isobelle commanded.
Millie did so, moving the dress carefully, so she wouldn't trip.
"Well, you might want it hemmed, but otherwise it works," Isobelle said.
"I think it's supposed to be this long," Millie said, looking back at the mirrors.
"Maybe try a few others so you can compare," Natalie's mother suggested.
Millie nodded. "I'll be back."
Rachel settled in, knowing that shopping for bridesmaid dresses was going to be just as complicated, but at least they had a few weeks before they did that.