"How are things?" Rachel asked when she sat down across from Amelia in Amelia's Wizengamot office.

"Nothing new just yet. I have two people going over the wards on the prison just to make sure we didn't miss anything and some of your colleagues in the Unspeakables are looking for anything we can possibly use to keep these Death Eaters out," Amelia said.

Rachel nodded, though she knew the idea of inventing a new ward on demand was not very feasible. Inventing just about anything took a lot of time and effort. "They were alarmed wards too, weren't they? Did the alarms go off?"

"No. No one was alerted that anything was wrong until they felt the explosion. They summoned the MLE immediately, as they should have done. We had aurors on scene in less than three minutes. Gawain was there within five."

"It was a good response time. The MLE did everything that they could. Do we know anything about the explosion?" she checked.

"Spell based, not potion. We're still looking into it," Amelia said. "It was certainly more powerful than anything I'm aware of."

Rachel looked down at her hands. "When I was training in elemental magic, I made some pretty big holes in things. Given everything we're seeing, I don't think we should discount the possibility that they've been trained in elemental magic as well."

"Then they're not from Britain. You, Albus, and You-Know-Who have been the only elemental magic users here in the past sixty years."

"How would we know, though? I never experimented with wandless magic while I was at Hogwarts. I think it would be very easy to keep something like that a secret. I even trained abroad. If I hadn't told anyone, there would be no way to know what I can do," she pointed out.

"People with those abilities typically don't live quiet lives, one way or another. If there was a Death Eater with those abilities, You-Know-Who would have either made use of them, or eliminated them early to prevent competition with him. We're very fortunate that you did not start exploring with your magic until after You-Know-Who died; that would have only spurred him further to incapacitate you."

She didn't know about that. The Dark Lord had been pretty set on killing her, one way or another. "Do you know what this supposed Death Eater or Death Eaters wants?" Rachel asked, since that was the question it all boiled down to. Their abilities didn't matter so much beyond identifying them. What they wanted was what would guide their actions.

"Until the attack on the prison, I wasn't even questioning whether or not they were a Death Eater, but I see you've come to some of the same conclusions I have. I think we can say for certain at this point that it's either one person or a very small and exclusive group working together. As for what their objectives are beyond killing people, I do not know. Hopefully what they chose to do next will shed more light on the situation," Amelia said, nodding once. "Are you just here for an update, or was there something else?"

"I wanted to talk to you about the trial for Teresa Faye and about preventing such a thing from happening again," Rachel said, willing to put aside the issue of the attacks for now if there was no more new information.

"I had heard you were talking to people about this. In principle, I agree with you. In practice, the situation is much more difficult to address."

"But it does need to be addressed, no matter how difficult it is. Things can't go on this way, and once we have a solution we need to review the cases of people who are already in the prison and see if there is anyone else who wasn't competent to stand trial," she said, knowing that was a long shot but she did have to push for it.

"Let's solve the problem of what to do about it before we look at that," Amelia said immediately. "And that might have to wait until after these attacks are solved regardless. I do not have people to spare from the MLE to reinterview people and go through old cases right now. I am hoping you are coming to me with suggestions."

"I am," Rachel said. "I think our first hurdle is determining whether or not someone is competent to stand trial. I know the MLE already checks everyone to see if they're under spells or curses or the influence of potions, but that doesn't account for mental health problems that can be just as debilitating. I'm hoping that there is some sort of questioning that a Mind Healer can do that will tell us if a person is legitimately experiencing such a problem."

"I see you already understand part of the problem. Mind Healing is far from the most exacting magical field. A lot of it is interpretation. How one Mind Healer might view things is not necessarily how another Mind Healer would. Add to that people trying to appear as though they were ill to get out of sentencing for a crime they committed, and of course people influencing the Mind Healers through bribes in order to have them say that they're ill, and we have quite a problem," Amelia said.

"Are there really no Mind Healers that we can trust not to take bribes?" she asked, wondering how common such a thing really was.

"Everyone has their price, Rachel, and it's not always money. There isn't a single person on this planet who doesn't have a lever of some kind, whether that is greed or caring about another person or their own self image. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do this, I'm just saying we need to be aware that if we implement such a thing, it will be used against us in this way."

"Could we have the people be assessed by multiple Mind Healers? And maybe they're people we contract with, rather than hiring them directly. Maybe we don't use the same Mind Healers every time, so that makes it harder for them to know who to bribe?" Rachel suggested.

"That's a possibility, though we will also have to find Mind Healers who are willing to work with us. There are not that many Mind Healers in magical Britain; it's not a common field for people to go into," Amelia said, though she scratched down a note. "Say that the Mind Healers determine that the person is not fit to stand trial, then what do you propose that we do?"

"Well, I think there does still need to be a trial to determine that the person is involved in the crime at all. We still need some of the Wizengamot to hear the evidence against the person. If it is determined that the person did commit the crime, but they cannot be held responsible because of their altered mental state, then their sentence is to be held at a treatment facility until they are no longer a danger to themselves or others. Depending on what is happening for them, in some cases, it might be for the rest of their lives. Others might become well enough to rejoin society," Rachel explained.

"I'm not sure how I feel about keeping criminals in St. Mungo's," she said.

"Even in a secured ward?"

"Even then. Secured is not always secured. There would have to be Healers coming and going, not to mention the patients potentially harming each other. Last thing we need is them murdering or assaulting each other or the staff," Amelia said.

"Maybe there are spaces for people who need to be secured individually, if they're that much of a threat. And once people are more stable, they could have more access to the ward?" Rachel suggested. She didn't like the idea of locking anyone in a cell all day long. That should only be reserved for the most extreme cases.

"Perhaps. I think our next step on this is we need to talk to some Mind Healers about the feasibility of any of this. We need to know if they can reliably say someone is incompetent when they committed a crime and before they stand trial. We need to know what treatment would entail. We need more information before we can make any decisions about what might be the right way to go about this."

"Does the Ministry have a directory of Mind Healers?" Rachel asked.

"No, but St. Mungo's will," Amelia said.

"Then I know what my next stop is. I will let you know what I find out," Rachel said. "Was there anything you needed from me?"

"Not at this time. I think we should have a mostly quiet month in the Wizengamot unless something else goes wrong," she said.

"Thank you," Rachel said, knowing better than to hope for a quiet month with the Wizengamot. She excused herself, said hello to Stella on her way out, and then went back to her office as she tried to figure out what exactly she was going to ask these Mind Healers.

There were nine of them on the moor, all young men in dark cloaks with hoods, though none of them were wearing the masks that the Death Eaters were famous for. Tom looked excited, but also in control as he looked over the people gathered around him. Rachel recognized his dormmates and a few others that had been with Tom's group at Hogwarts. They looked excited, but she could see nerves as well. Tom displayed none of those nerves.

"Knights," Tom said, drawing all of their attention. "We begin our crusade this Halloween at midnight. What we do now is a necessary beginning. It is the first step in remaking our world in the image of our ancestors. Malfoy and Mulciber are with me. Nott leads one team. Lestrange leads the other. We return here with our targets. No one sees you. No one escapes. Go. Be back here by midnight."

The world went dark for a moment as they apparated away and Rachel found herself outside a cottage in what looked like a muggle neighborhood. Tom Riddle, Abraxus Malfoy, and Caius Mulciber moved forward but stopped at the edge of the property as Tom worked the wards. Muggleborns then. She supposed this was the first Death Eater attack.

She reluctantly followed them into the house. There was not much of a fight and the two occupants were stunned within about twenty seconds.

"Pathetic," Caius said, looking down at them.

"What do you expect? They're barely magical at all," Abraxus said, though his mouth was tight as he looked around the sitting room.

Rachel watched as Tom moved around the room. He paused, looking at family photos on the mantel. "They're not like us. Fundamentally, they're not like us. They're masquerading as magical people. It's wrong and it needs to be stopped."

She looked at him, searching for conviction in his words, but not finding it. He was testing them, trying out his lines.

"Too right," Caius said.

"Tie them up. No sense in letting them get loose," Tom ordered, moving through the room again like he was searching for something.

Rachel followed, wanting to know what he was looking for.

Finally Tom went to the unconscious bodies and looked them over, easing their wedding rings off their fingers. Trophies - Tom had wanted trophies of his first attack. "It's getting on. Let's take them back before the others get there."

They apparated again, back out to the moor. It was a full moon, or near enough so, that even in the dark they could see well enough. Abraxus and Caius placed the bodies together and rejoined Tom. Not long after that, Trajan and Faustus returned with their groups. Each had a pair of what were probably muggleborns.

"Revive them," Tom said.

"All of them?" one of the men asked.

"Can you not handle a tied up mudblood?" Tom demanded.

Rachel took a deep breath. She'd known this was coming, but she did not want to see these people tortured and murdered. Hadn't she borne witness to this enough in her life?

Tom was the first to cast the Cruciatus Curse. Some of the others joined in without having to be instructed.

She watched him rather than the people being tortured. There was a thrill in his eyes, even as he lowered his wand and simply looked on as the newly formed Knights of Walpurgis worked. Rachel stared at him and felt a bone deep satisfaction that she'd been the one to kill him and that if she could she would go back and do it again. If she could get the Time department to let her, she'd go back and kill Tom in his cradle and be damned about the consequences.

This man, the man she was watching right now enjoying watching people scream for their lives, had ruined her life. He'd ruined her life and the lives of these people and the lives of so many more people, including a number of whom she knew personally. It wasn't often that Rachel felt hatred, but she was feeling it now.

The night culminated in murder, though the Morsius Pensieve did not make her stick around to find out what was done with the bodies. Rachel went to her desk and wrote the date of the memory. This was the thirty first of October of 1946. The war with Grindelwald had finished the year before. Unfortunately she hadn't seen anything at the cottage to tell her the names of the muggleborns, but maybe there was a record of disappearances from back then that might tell them who the Death Eaters' first victims were.

Rachel did a quick calculation. That meant she had thirty five years of watching Tom Riddle torture and murder people before he was disembodied, which would probably wind up being another eight months of memory watching. Could she do that? Did she have a choice?

She sat and wrote out a bare bones description of what had happened, making note of Tom taking the wedding rings as trophies. She wondered what Tom had done with all of the things he collected. He wouldn't have trusted Gringotts. Maybe some Death Eater had the things he considered to be important, or he had a hiding place that he'd trusted to no one. She found she didn't care all that much. It hardly mattered now. She'd spent enough of her life seeking the Dark Lord's hiding places.

"Rachel. Theo. How are you?" Andre asked once they'd stepped into the front room.

"We're doing pretty well, I think," she said, accepting Andre's hand. "How are you?"

"Not bad, all things considered. Business is as good as ever. Still making trouble in the Wizengamot?" he asked.

"Aren't I always?" Rachel asked, well aware of the reputation she had. She would characterize herself as getting things done rather than causing trouble, but she knew what people said about her.

"One of these days you will give my husband a heart attack," Andre said, still smiling as he led them further in the house. They were at the Minister's private residence today, rather than the Minister's Mansion.

"I will endeavor not to. I hardly do anything at all that he could object to."

Theo huffed quietly and Andre's smile grew into a grin.

"Running around in that bedamned Department isn't enough adventure for you?" Rufus asked, clearly having caught the tail end of their conversation as they came into the sitting room.

"It's really not that dangerous. I don't know what people are telling you, but I haven't encountered any difficulties in the Department of Mysteries," she said, taking a seat on a sofa with Theo while Andre settled into an armchair next to his husband.

"We lose people down there from time to time," Rufus said.

"Do you?" Theo asked, his brow furrowing.

Rufus nodded. "I've told Patrick to keep an eye on you and I've also told him to find the problem and fix it."

Rachel could think of a few things she'd encountered in the Department that might kill or disappear a person, but it seemed to her that a person would have to be careless to actually die because of any of them. "I've heard Patrick has curtailed some of the studies on death."

Andre shook his head. "I don't see why they need to study death at all. What is there to know?"

"Researchers," Rufus said with a slightly sardonic nod toward them. "They'll study anything. Speaking of which, how is your research going, Theo?"

"Good. I'm getting close to submitting a paper for publishing. My department at the Guild is mostly quiet for the moment and I'll take that for as long as I can get it," Theo said.

Rachel smiled and took his hand. She knew Theo was biding his time before they hired someone new once the latest crop of students finished their masteries this summer.

"Quiet time is to be valued; there's never enough of it," Andre said with a knowing smile.

"I've found that much to be very true." Rachel fully valued her quiet evenings with Theo. Even when they were both working on projects, it was nice to sit somewhere comfortable and with someone she knew she was safe with.

"Can you tell me about the current status of your faction?" Rufus asked, looking at her.

"We're in good order. I'm not anticipating any problems. People are already preparing for elections," she began.

"As are we," Andre said, glancing at Rufus.

"It goes without saying that you have my support. Are you expecting a strong contender running against you?" Rachel asked.

"So far it's just the usual people making a political statement by running. Depending on how this situation unfolds, we may see other people saying they can deal with the problem better," Rufus said. "Would you like refreshments before dinner?"

"No, thank you," Rachel said, though she sincerely hoped that they were not still dealing with this problem three years from now.

"I'm fine, thank you. Has there been any developments?" Theo asked, his hand briefly tightening around Rachel's.

"No, nothing since the attack on the prison. At this point all we can do is wait to see what they're going to do next," Rufus said with a shake of his head.

Rachel nodded, having expected as much. She knew they were trying to develop new wards, but she also knew how unlikely that was to have results in time for them to do anything with it.

"How goes your proposal, Rachel? Can we expect it to be voted on soon?" Rufus asked.

"I'm just collecting a few stray votes from the independents, then I'll bring it to the chambers. Did you have thoughts on the proposal?" she asked, figuring that this was as good of a time as any to confirm his support.

"It's not ideal by any means," he said, looking thoughtful. "It's not going to be popular with the public and it's especially not going to be popular with the people who have money to throw behind people who want Wizengamot seats. This could disrupt the balance of the Wizengamot come election time."

She considered her response carefully. The argument that it was the morally correct thing to do didn't hold weight here. "Are there specific seats you're worried about losing to the pureblood supremacists?" she checked.

"It's less about specific seats than it is about what the people who are backing them are willing to do. We will lose people if they think we're attacking the rights of purebloods."

"Owning people isn't a right that anyone should have had in the first place. It's not about taking rights from purebloods or the wealthy. It is about correcting a wrong," Rachel said firmly, her grip tightening around Theo's hand.

"And you're never going to convince them with that argument. You have to say why this is better for them," Rufus said.

"I'm afraid he's right. You can't sell this as being better for the House Elves, though it undoubtedly is. You have to convince them that they have reason to want this for themselves," Andre said, though he looked sympathetic.

"Part of the way we can sell it is the importance of how magical Britain looks on an international stage. Europe and the Americas have slowly been moving for freedoms for House Elves over the past half century and it doesn't do for us to be behind the times," Rufus added.

Rachel nodded, because that was one of the arguments she'd used in her proposal. "Do you really think this will cause such a big disruption? When so few people own House Elves in the first place?"

"Only a small percentage do, but almost all of them are politically powerful. I don't know a Wizengamot member who doesn't have at least one House Elf. The people who own House Elves also have funds and estates. We can't afford to have them as our enemies. Our country is fractured enough as it is. Find a way to make this enticing to them and you will get the rest of your votes," Rufus said.

"Alright," she said, trying not to frown as she thought. Now she had a new problem to deal with.

"How are you? You've been a little quiet tonight," Theo asked once they were back at home and settled in the sitting room.

Rachel tucked her stocking feet up beneath her and accepted Feverfew onto the sofa next to her. "Just thinking about what Rufus said. It seems impossible."

"Which part?"

"Getting the wealthy purebloods to think that this proposal is advantageous to them. It's not. It's just not and we don't need proposals that are advantageous to wealthy purebloods because they already have most of the power," she said, forcing herself to exhale and willing her heart to slow down.

"That's true enough," Theo agreed. "What do you want to do about it?"

"Well, I can't retract the proposal now. That would look bad for me and for my faction. I need it to pass."

"How many votes are you short?" he checked.

"Four now." It didn't seem like a lot, but it was enough. She absently drummed her fingers until Feverfew meowed and Rachel realized that she'd left her hand on the cat. "Sorry," she said, gently stroking Feverfew. "I'm just tired."

"Then right now might not be the right time to try to solve this problem, it is getting late," Theo said, placing his hand on her knee.

She placed her free hand over his. "I more mean I'm tired of politics. It feels like I'm fighting this same fight over and over every time I bring a new proposal. It may be for different topics, but it's really just the same thing. And I can't stop. There is no one else who can do this."

Theo was quiet for a long moment before he turned his hand so that he was holding hers. "It's not quite the same as when we were kids though. You're not destined to do this by some unknown power."

"I didn't fight You-Know-Who because of the prophecy, I fought him because it was the right thing to do," she said firmly. "If I hadn't been subject to the prophecy, I would have been joining the Order to fight."

"I know. I'm not trying to say that. I'm saying you literally didn't have a choice when we were younger. You do have a choice about this."

"Do I? Some days it doesn't feel like it." She leaned her head back against the sofa cushions. "I'm just tired; don't listen to me."

Theo shook his head. "No, I think what you're saying is important, and maybe more truthful than when you're fully here. You've been fighting with the Wizengamot for a decade. It's no wonder you need a break."

She wasn't sure where she'd fit a hypothetical break into her schedule. There were always things that needed taking care of. There were always problems that needed fixing. She needed to get this House Elf proposal through and then she needed to focus on the problem of competence for trials. And surely there would be something after that would need her attention as well, though by the time she had these two proposals taken care of, people really would be preparing for elections in earnest. That wasn't even touching on the Death Eater problem, since she didn't begin to know how to solve that.

"I guess I feel like the only moral option is helping people who need me. And this is the best way that I know how to do that," she finally said.

"Is it helping people for you to run yourself into the ground? We talked about this a few months ago, and I was worried about it then and I'm still a little worried about it now. You've been stressed lately. I see it in the way that you sit and I hear it in the way that you talk."

Rachel ran her hand over her mouth, putting it back on the cat when Feverfew poked her head up to see why she'd stopped getting pet. "I have been a little stressed. I can't deny that. I just don't see a way to fix it either. The things that I'm doing need to be done. I can't foist more of the faction off onto Sirius; he's taking a good portion of that work as it is. My research time in the Department is good for me. It's good to take a break to really study something." She couldn't say the same for her time in the Morsius Pensieve. She'd drop that in a heartbeat if she could.

"At some point something has to give. I think it's better to try and figure some small things out that might help, rather than continue to push yourself toward a breakdown," Theo said, squeezing her hand.

That much was true. She couldn't afford to have another extended breakdown. "Let me get the House Elf proposal through the Wizengamot. Things will be less stressful after that. It's always less stressful when I'm not trying to gather votes."

"Alright. Anything I can do to help with that?" he checked.

"I need to have Adam Harkness over for dinner and we need to convince him that supporting this proposal is good for him. Somehow."

"We'll brainstorm on it and come up with a plan. We can work with Adam, can't we? He's voted for you in the past?"

"We can. He's not a bad man. He just needs to be convinced that this is in his favor," she said. "I'm going to go to bed. Maybe something will come to me in the night."

Theo leaned in and they hugged each other for a long moment. "Try to sleep."

"You too," she said. She'd stopped taking her modified Dreamless Sleep entirely ever since the Death Eater attacks began. She needed to be able to wake up at a moment's notice if it was necessary, though that meant she was not getting a great deal of uninterrupted sleep. She would make this work for as long as she had to.

Rachel went home early on Friday afternoon. She'd done what she could with the Wizengamot for the day. She had meetings arranged for a few of the people she needed to meet with, answered mail, sent messages, and did the general upkeep that came with running a faction.

She had stalled out on her other proposal draft. Her next step was finding a Mind Healer who would meet with her to discuss the problem. If their answer to her was that they couldn't actually tell when someone was too mentally ill to be held accountable for their actions, she wasn't sure what she was going to do. That was trouble she was trying not to borrow. She wouldn't know what the answer was until she spoke with them, and it might take speaking with several of them, and worrying now about what they might say didn't help anything.

Stepping out of the floo, Rachel listened for a moment. She was always grateful to come home and have peace and quiet. She could remember when she was still at Hogwarts, and how going home had been a refuge from the general chaos of the castle. Severus' home still felt that way to her, but her home with Theo did as well. It was good to have a safe place.

She went into the kitchen and checked on the owls, seeing that their pellets and water bowls were filled. They were both resting, so she let them sleep. The dining area was also quiet and still. "Dobby?"

"Yes, Miss?" Dobby said, appearing next to her.

"Is everything alright here?" she checked.

"Everything has been the same since Miss and Master left this morning. The cats are sleeping in your bedroom. The owls are sleeping on their perch. Kreacher is resting. Tomsi is in the garden. There has not been any mail or messages," Dobby said. "Miss is well?"

"Well enough," Rachel said, though she was tired. She held out her right hand and felt through the wards. Everything was in place, just as it should be. "Did you need anything, Dobby? Is everything alright for you?"

"Dobby is fine, Miss. Miss needs more rest," Dobby said.

That was probably true. She'd been awake for a fair portion of the night, turning over her problem with the House Elf proposal in her mind.

"Would Miss like some tea?"

"No, thank you. I'll wait for dinner," she said, coming back to herself. She still had things to do today. "That's all I needed."

Dobby looked up at her, somehow seeming concerned, but disappeared again without saying anything else.

Rachel finished a walk through on the ground level of the house, went upstairs and checked all of the rooms there, and then went into her bedroom to change. She didn't know exactly what it was she was looking for when she did this. She just knew that it helped her peace of mind to know that the house was secure. It was silly, because Dobby would certainly know if someone was in the house, and the wards wouldn't let anyone through anyway.

She stopped by her bedside table and checked her pocket watch. Everyone was either at work or at home, which was exactly right for three o'clock on a Friday.

From there she went back downstairs and then down into the cellar to check over her cauldrons. They were waiting for more of Neville's plant to grow so they could have more tests run on the potions she'd made from it. For now her antimony and her fresh cauldron of calendula and hyssop were happily bubbling.

Satisfied that the house was as it should be, Rachel went into her office and settled down at her desk. She had an article for Witch Weekly due in a week and she wanted to do a draft while she had the mental space for it.

Witch Weekly occasionally supplied her with topics they wanted her to write about. Fashion was always a popular pick, and since it seemed that was ever changing in the muggle world, she usually had something new to write about. This time they'd asked her to talk about what muggles did since they didn't have cleaning charms.

She always tried to do a very rough draft before she dug into researching specific muggle topics, and the real challenge was writing it in a way that made sense to magical people. She thought a washing machine would be simple enough to explain - dirty clothes, water, and soap went in, and clean clothes came out. It was rather magical in a way if you didn't stop to question why. Same thing with a dishwasher - dirty dishes in, clean dishes out.

A vacuum cleaner was a little more difficult to describe, because she had to explain where the dirt went. For that matter, she didn't know how people cleaned their carpets in the magical world. They'd just beat the rugs outside at Severus' house, and here she had the House Elves to take care of that sort of thing. She didn't know a spell to clean carpets.

Taking out the garbage was another difficult topic to explain to magical people. Magical people simply vanished their waste. To explain that muggles put their garbage in bags and bins and then waited for people to take it away to a large place where it was either burned or simply left to pile up sounded ludicrous.

Rachel's goal in writing these articles was never to either push past the point of disbelief or to make muggles look simple minded. While not everything muggles did was a wonderful idea, there was enough backlash in the magical world against them. She was aiming for an attitude of open exploration of another culture that had its advantages and disadvantages like any other.

With her laptop open in front of her, she tapped her finger against her lips as she tried to figure out the best way to explain a vacuum cleaner to someone who had never seen one before.