Rachel approached the Morsius Pensieve with a heavy heart. She'd taken about a week and a half away from this project while she brewed her new potions and prepared them to be evaluated. If the committee agreed that they could be tested, she'd put together the forms for testing and send them to the Guild. Out of the potions she'd brewed, she'd gotten eight potentially viable potions. She expected less than half of them to have the effects she wanted. That was just the way it worked. She would be happy if even one of them came close to doing what she wanted.
But now that project was stalled until she got results and it was back to this. She had other things she wanted to research, but she also didn't want to be accused of being derelict in her duties. She took her duties very seriously. Even the ones she didn't want to do. Maybe especially the ones she didn't want to do.
She gave the Morsius Pensieve a firm look. "Listen. I don't want to do this. I don't think you want to do this. So let's just get it over and done with. If you want to show me Tom Riddle taking a night off and darning his socks, that's fine with me."
The Morsius Pensieve gave no indication that it heard or cared what she thought, but she felt the Department shift in her mind.
Rachel looked up. "I don't suppose you have any influence over this?"
The Department shifted again, whatever that meant.
Seeing no recourse, Rachel collected a vial of the memory fluid and poured it in, pricked her finger and added three drops of blood, and then healed her finger. "Alright then. Let's get this over with."
She endured the familiar whirling sensation of entering a pensieve and found herself out in a field with Tom Riddle. It was night time and although the only illumination was from the moon and stars, it was surprisingly bright out. She couldn't see the lights of a nearby city at all, but the moon was full. She could feel a chill breeze and she thought it was likely in the fall or early winter.
They didn't have long to wait before people started appearing. They were in dark cloaks with their hoods up, but the Knights of Walpurgis hadn't adopted their signature Death Eater masks yet. She recognized most of them from Tom's days at Hogwarts. By the time everyone was assembled in a circle, there were thirteen, including Tom. The last one had brought a limp body and had dumped it in the center of the circle.
Rachel recognized what she was about to witness and moved so that she was watching Tom Riddle instead of the victim. The Morsius Pensieve would force her to watch, but as long as she was watching Tom, the pensieve was satisfied.
She bit her lower lip as she listened to the victim screaming as they used the Cruciatus Curse on her. Tom's attention was fixed on the victim, his expression greedy as he watched. He did not torture her himself. The evening's activities moved to rape, though Tom did not engage with that either. He just watched, seeming to derive pleasure from the victim's whimpers and screams.
"Abraxus, would you like the honor of the kill?" Tom asked when everyone was finished and had resumed their places in the circle.
"Yes, My Lord. Thank you, My Lord," Draco's grandfather said, looking thrilled at the idea.
Rachel shook her head, watching as he used the Killing Curse. Just a few months ago she'd seen him as an eager eleven year old, ready to make friends and take classes. How had it come to this? How did a person change so much?
"This is the first of many," Tom said. "By the time we're finished, all of the mudbloods will have fled the country rather than stay and risk encountering us."
With a heavy sigh, she looked around at the faces of the Knights of Walpurgis. They were all eager for more.
"Deal with her body. Put her somewhere that her family will find her," Tom instructed before he apparated away and the memory ended.
Rachel found herself standing back outside the Morsius Pensieve. She inhaled slowly and then exhaled. She was alright, even though she could feel her knees shaking a little. Carefully, she made her way over to the desk and chair and sat down.
She'd come a long way from the fifteen year old girl who had endured a Death Eater circle. Those memories were still clear in her mind, she suspected they always would be, but it wasn't something she thought about unless she was dealing with Death Eaters. She'd grown since then. Learned. Recovered. Healed. That didn't mean she liked the reminder.
Most people didn't survive a Death Eater circle. She was vaguely aware there were other survivors, but she'd never tried to seek them out and they'd never contacted her. She suspected they had no more desire to talk about this than she did.
This memory had taken place some time in the early 1950s. The Dark Lord wouldn't be removed from his body until 1981. Could she really watch thirty more years of torture? Did she have other options?
She didn't want to leave the Unspeakables. She liked it here. She liked the people. She liked the research and the archives. She even liked the Department and wanted to learn to communicate with her. But she didn't know if she could take another year of watching these memories.
It was a big decision and maybe one she didn't need to make right now. She began to write, putting the date as fall or winter of 1951-1953 or so. She included the best description of the victim as she could. It sounded like her body would have been found, but she suspected no one knew what had happened to her. Maybe the MLE could mark the case as solved and let her family know, even though none of these people were alive to be held responsible.
Rachel checked her watch. It was only ten in the morning and she now had some time on her hands before she needed to go to her Wizengamot office. Time for some self indulgent research. She was going to learn more about the Department and see what methods people had found for communicating with her.
The sounds of squealing from the sitting room told her that more people had arrived. Rachel had offered to host Millie's bridal shower at her place and had sent Theo off to Draco's to spend time with their godson while they held the party.
The cats were both locked away upstairs so they couldn't be nuisances and all three House Elves were busily helping her with arrangements. She had food spread on the dining table, drinks in the kitchen, and Isobelle and Ginny had come over to help her decorate. Satisfied that everything was taken care of in the dining room, Rachel returned to the sitting room to see who had arrived.
"Rachel, there you are," Pansy called.
She moved through the small crowd and embraced Pansy. "How are you? How is France?"
"France is good. A little warmer than it is here," she said. "How are you?"
"I'm doing well." It wasn't quite a lie. She was comparatively well for the most part.
"I hear that you're an Unspeakable now? Really?"
"Really," Rachel said, smiling at Pansy's raised eyebrows.
"Well, if it would suit anyone, it would be you. How does the Minister feel about that?" Pansy asked.
"Not thrilled, but happier than when I was with the MLE." After the past several months in the Department, Rachel felt pretty certain that she was relatively safe there. People overestimated the dangers of the Department. She took a brief glance around the room, but people seemed to be happily conversing with each other, so she didn't need to play host at the moment.
"I'm sure. I saw my mother yesterday," Pansy said.
"How is she?" Rachel asked, hoping that was an appropriate question to ask about someone who was in prison.
"She's doing well. I see her every six months or so, and while she would prefer if I visited more often, I think she understands why I don't want to be in England. She's being allowed to do work in the apothecary farm there. She says she thinks of me when she's in the greenhouses."
"That's good. I'm glad she's doing well," she said, entirely honestly. That's what she wanted to hear about prisoners, that they were doing well. She received quarterly updates on the prison, but that wasn't the same as hearing directly from the prisoners as to how they were doing.
"I heard…I heard there are Death Eaters in Britain again?" Pansy's expression was now fearful. "I thought we had all of them."
"There are a few we never caught. We think someone like Rookwood or Crouch Junior is behind these attacks, but we haven't had any luck confirming that yet. The MLE has the situation under control," Rachel said.
"Like they had the situation under control during the war?" she asked, her tone slightly acidic.
"We're nowhere near the situation of the war," Rachel promised. "Best we can tell is that it's a small group and they aren't recruiting. We will catch them."
Pansy finally nodded. "If anyone would know, it would be you."
They turned from their conversation as someone else flooed in. "Pansy!" Daphne called.
Rachel smiled as Pansy and Daphne moved to hug and left them to catch up. The last thing she wanted to do at this party was rehash the war.
"Rachel," Millie called.
She went to join Millie and found her with one of her friends from the Guild.
"Rachel, have you met Evelyn Franks?" Millie asked.
"Not yet," Rachel said. "It's nice to meet you."
"You as well. Millie has told me all about her friend group at Hogwarts," Evelyn said.
"Evelyn was five years ahead of us and a Hufflepuff. I'm working on a paper with her at the moment and she's also contributing to the Charms guide," Millie explained.
Rachel smiled. "That's great. It sounds like a great project."
"I hope so. We've been working on it for eight months now," Evelyn said, looking a little weary. "So what made you leave the Potions Guild?"
"I haven't left the Potions Guild," she said, wondering if that was a rumor making the rounds.
"But you joined the Unspeakables?" Evelyn asked, glancing at Millie for confirmation.
"I can do both," Rachel said steadily.
"Most Unspeakables don't publish much," she pointed out.
"Our research has to go through a review committee before it's published, but I still plan to invent and publish." Rachel thought her next big task was going to be an updated review on sleeping potions and a paper on her new potions if any of them panned out.
"I can't see that the Unspeakables would have a problem with you publishing sleeping potions. That's still your project, isn't it?" Millie asked.
"It is. There's still more to be done."
"Must be pretty intensive if you've worked on it for the past ten years," Evelyn said, raising her eyebrows.
"There's a lot of improvements still to be done. I don't intend to stop until I have a nightly potion without addiction or until I've exhausted every possibility," Rachel told her.
"Insomnia?" she asked, sounding sympathetic.
Rachel nodded.
"You do look like you haven't been sleeping again," Millie said. "How bad is it?"
"Not bad. I'm getting enough sleep," Rachel quickly reassured her.
They all glanced over as someone else flooed in. It was Susan and Hannah.
Susan and Hannah quickly made their way over, offering hugs and congratulations to Millie.
"Are we going to be doing this for you and Theo soon?" Susan asked, looking at Rachel.
"No, I don't think so," she said, feeling herself flush.
"No rush," Millie said. "It took me nine years."
Rachel wasn't sure that marriage was in the cards for her and Theo. She liked things the way they currently were. She did a quick head count and saw that they now had everyone who had been invited. "Let's get started," she said, bracing herself to play host for the afternoon.
On Thursday afternoon, Rachel found herself sitting in a Mind Healer's waiting room. It had been a few years since she'd seen a Mind Healer and she was assessing that a little now. She considered herself to be more or less stable, though she could admit that she'd been struggling a little bit lately.
After all this time, she didn't believe there was such a thing as completely healed. There were things that were always going to bother and hurt her. There were things - like her sleep - that needed improvement that she hadn't found a solution for. But for the most part she lived her life from day to day without the persistent feeling that she was going to die or that she was failing, and that was a marked improvement on how she'd spent the first twenty something years of her life.
So, not healed, but better than she had been. She'd done the work to deal with the trauma she'd been through and she'd been lucky enough to have numerous people to support her through that. She knew not everyone was that lucky.
She wasn't here today to see a Mind Healer for her own problems. This was a research expedition. Courtney Davis was one of the Mind Healers who worked part time with the prison and also had her own private practice. Rachel intended to interview each of the Mind Healers that worked with the prison since she anticipated she was going to get different perspectives from each of them. She also planned to take a peak at what the Department Archives had on Mind Healing. The Department studied everything; surely they'd studied mental illness as well.
Rachel glanced up as a woman exited her office. She stood, telling herself it was silly to be nervous.
"Wizengamot Member Snow?" Courtney asked.
"Just Rachel, please." She avoided her title wherever possible.
"Of course. You can call me Courtney, if that's what is comfortable to you. Please come into my office and we can talk."
Following her inside, Rachel took a quick look around the room. Torey's office had always been a little battered, with childrens' art work on the walls and a shelf full of games and books appropriate for kids. The therapist Rachel had seen in her early twenties had a neutral space, with beige furniture and potted plants in the windows. This office had a little more personal touch. There were paintings on the walls. A flowering hydrangea occupied one corner while two armchairs occupied the other. There was a desk and filing cabinet on the other wall.
Courtney herself was older, maybe in her fifties or sixties, with her greying hair pulled back and was neatly dressed in closed pale blue robes. "Would you like tea or water?" she offered.
"No, thank you," Rachel said.
"Let's sit down and we can talk," she said, motioning to the armchairs.
Rachel took the one with the back toward the wall, so she could see both the window, the door, and Courtney. She suspected this chair had been arranged specifically for people who had that awareness of their surroundings.
"From your letter, I understand you're here in the capacity of a Wizengamot member rather than as a client, correct?" Courtney asked.
"That's right. I am working on a proposal and I need some information from Mind Healers about what is possible," Rachel said. "I am aware you are contracted part time with the prison, so I was hoping you had a unique perspective on the subject matter."
"I do work with clients in the prison. I'm aware that was your doing," she said, looking steadily at Rachel.
"Yes. I wanted the prisoners to have access to appropriate mental and physical healthcare. From what you've seen, would you say that those needs are being met within the prison?" She received quarterly reports from the prison and visited once a year, but she wanted someone else's opinion.
Courtney nodded. "Yes. Once the initial treatments for those who were recovering from their time in Azkaban were complete, I have yet to see a prisoner who is not in good physical health. In terms of mental health, there is always a little bit of a balance in a forcibly confined setting. We can't meet a person's need for freedom and self-autonomy in that setting, so we work as best we can. Most of my session time is spent with clients with PTSD from long stays in Azkaban. It has been an adjustment for them."
"I understand." Rachel knew that some of those prisoners had been in Azkaban for twenty years or more and that such a trauma was profoundly life altering. "Is there anything that the prisoners need that isn't being provided?"
"No. Everyone's needs are being met. Over time they've developed quite the community within the prison. We only have about forty prisoners who are classified as being too dangerous and violent to be able to join the community outside of their cells, and all of them are receiving regular visits with a Mind Healer," she explained.
"I'm glad to hear that." She held her prison project to her as an example of the changes that she could make in magical Britain if she worked hard enough. She had changed about three hundred people's lives for the better. If she could do that, then she could do more. If no one else was going to do it, then it was on her to fix things.
"Were your concerns specifically about the prison or was there something else?" Courtney asked.
"There's something else. I'm currently working on a proposal about mental incompetence and sentencing. I'm concerned that people who cannot be reasonably held accountable for their actions are being sent to prison when they should be receiving health care instead," she explained.
"Is this about Teresa Faye?"
"Yes, it is. Is she a patient of yours?" Rachel asked.
"She's not. She's being attended to by one of the full time Mind Healers at the prison, but I'm familiar with the case," Courtney said.
"In your expert opinion, was she fit to stand trial?" she asked, since that was part of the crux of the matter.
"No, she's not. Teresa is severely ill and we're still doing what we can to assess and treat her. She's been staying in one of the healing ward cells, so that Healers have access to her around the clock."
Rachel nodded. That was about what she'd expected. "Would you say that she should be held legally accountable for her crimes?" she pressed.
"That's a difficult question. As far as we can tell, she did murder her family. There didn't seem to be any outside interference that prompted her to do so. Until she's well enough to give an accounting of the crime, I can't say whether or not she should be considered legally responsible. And she may never be well enough to do that. We're not sure exactly what is wrong with her," Courtney explained. "What I do know is that she can't be let free when we don't know what might prompt her to kill again. She also is not in any condition to provide appropriate care for herself. She needs the daily attention of caretakers."
"Would you say that a prison is an appropriate environment for someone who is as ill as Teresa?" Rachel tried.
"Not in any of the main units, no. We have the appropriate resources to care for her in the Healer's ward. What are you proposing as an alternative?"
"I was thinking that it might be better for people in Teresa's position to be in a long term care ward at a hospital rather than a prison. I know we don't have any wards that would be appropriate currently, but that doesn't mean we can't build and staff one. Are there other prisoners in situations like Teresa's?"
"We have some other severely mentally ill patients, but no one else who is unaware of their surroundings. We can't let Teresa wander or leave her unattended in a regular cell. The others are a little more self-sufficient," Courtney said.
"Would a hospital ward be a more appropriate environment for them?" Rachel pressed.
"It would have to be a heavily secured ward with places to contain them if necessary, but it might be possible and might be beneficial," she finally agreed.
That was good enough for right now. "How would you go about determining if someone is too mentally ill to be held accountable for a crime they committed?"
Courtney shook her head. "That's a very complicated topic and is going to vary for each patient and illness. You're going to have a hard time finding two Mind Healers with the same opinion."
Rachel had been afraid of that. "Do you think it is possible for someone to fake being mentally ill in order to get out of a prison sentence?"
"Possible, yes, but I don't think it's beneficial to them. The type of illness we're talking about takes years to recover, if recovery is even possible. Most people would pick the relative freedom and community in the prison over a long hospital stay. Now, if we were still using Azkaban, I would say differently, but conditions in the prison are good."
She felt her lips raise in a small smile. She was grateful that things had improved that much. "Am I completely barking up the wrong tree with this proposal?" she asked, wanting the opinion of someone outside of the Wizengamot. She already knew what they thought.
"I don't think so. I don't think it's wrong to want an appropriate environment for people who are mentally ill. If we had a safe and secure alternative to the prison, I would say that Teresa should be moved there, along with a few others who would benefit from a therapeutic environment. That's not particularly controversial. I believe the other Mind Healers at the prison would all agree to that. The place where you're going to run into trouble is getting any kind of consensus as to whether or not someone can be held accountable for what they do while they're severely mentally ill," Courtney explained.
Rachel nodded to herself. Maybe she needed to narrow the scope of her proposal so that it was just about the creation of a secured mental health ward and criteria for moving a prisoner to that ward rather than the prison. She needed to do a lot more research before tackling the sentencing problem. "Thank you. You've been very helpful."
"No, thank you. I'm not sure you understand what an effect you've had on my patients' lives," she said, looking at Rachel with gratitude.
"I was glad to." Given her experiences with Dementors and her experiences as a child essentially being held prisoner in her relatives' home, Rachel thought she had a pretty good idea about the impact she'd made on the prisoners' lives.
"What are we doing?" Rachel asked, looking up.
The Department didn't reply, not that she expected it to, but she did feel a shift in her mind.
She checked her watch. She'd been wandering for over an hour, chatting with the Department while she did so. The Department didn't have much to say, but she could tell that she was paying attention to her.
"Let's talk," Rachel said, settling on the edge of one of the tables. She was in the bone room. At this stage, she still didn't know what the purpose of the bone room was, but she'd been here a number of times.
The Department shifted in her mind again, pressing deeper.
Rachel had learned that not everyone felt the same thing with the Department's presence. Some people felt her as an accompanying presence. Some people merely felt watched. Rachel felt her as a sort of pressure in her mind.
"I'm going to make the assumption that you can understand English," she said, though she knew that wasn't necessarily a good assumption. For all she knew, the Department didn't understand language at all. But she wanted to talk and the Department was here.
"I also know that you know where I'm trying to get to," Rachel continued. "I go to the same place every time, and I know you're not unobservant."
The Department shifted again and Rachel felt that was an agreement.
"So that leaves us with a couple of options, doesn't it?" She looked up. She wasn't sure why everyone had decided that the Department was up, but that was the direction everyone glanced when speaking to the Department.
"The first is that you don't want me to go to the Morsius Pensieve," Rachel reasoned. "You've shown me around pretty well. I'll bet there are a few rooms I haven't been to, but not many now. So this isn't the grand tour. One reason could be that you like when I'm walking through the Department. I don't pay too much attention to you once I'm with the Morsius Pensieve. I could understand that. Everyone wants companionship."
There was a stronger pressure that time in response.
Rachel nodded. "I can come in here just to wander around sometimes, if you'd like. I'd like to get to know you better. Really, what I'd like to do is find a way to communicate with you. We'll work on it. I'll make it one of my projects."
The pressure shifted slightly, but it was just as intense as before.
"I suppose the other option is that you know I don't want to go to the Morius Pensieve and you're trying to help me," she said, glancing up again. "To be entirely honest, I don't know how I feel about you reading my mind. I'm used to that being a private place. I'd much prefer we communicate verbally."
The pressure quickly relented. Rachel wasn't sure if that was an apology or if it was the Department denying that she was reading her mind.
"I've had people in my mind before. When I was younger and still trying to figure out my Mind Magic. It was…necessary. And my mind is pretty locked down. For the most part no one saw anything I didn't want them to see," she explained. "I don't have bad feelings about that. Not really. It was just another way that my mind and body wasn't entirely my own growing up, so now I'm pretty picky about people being in my mind or touching me."
If Rachel had to describe the change, she'd say that the Department now felt tentative in her mind.
"I don't mind your presence. It doesn't feel like someone reading my mind," she told her. "I like you and I want to help you. Assuming you need help, that is. For all I know, you're perfectly content here. I wish you could meet Hogwarts. I bet you and the castle would have a lot to say to each other."
The Department's presence surged forward in her mind again, as though she'd been waiting for Rachel's permission.
"So, let's talk about the Morsius Pensieve. I don't want to go there. I kind of suspect you don't want me to go there, given our long jaunts some mornings. But here's the deal. I actually need to go there. At least some of the time. That's part of my job. I have an assigned task and I need to do it, no matter how much I don't want to."
She looked up as the Department's pressure grew greater, pressing down on her mind.
"I think I can feel you objecting to that," Rachel said. "Amusingly, I think my father would have pretty much the same reaction to that statement. I'm pretty well parented, you know. I think Booker sees himself as a substitute parent for me, and I get that impression from Amelia sometimes as well. And I have Monty, of course, who certainly isn't afraid to tell me when he thinks I'm being silly."
The pressure eased a little.
"So yes, I'm pretty well taken care of. And while I appreciate you keeping an eye out for me, I can handle myself for the most part. I have about thirty years left to watch of Tom Riddle's life. That's maybe six to nine months of my time, assuming I actually make it to the Morsius Pensieve when I'm trying to go," she said pointedly. "I think I can manage that much. Obviously I don't want to. No one in their right mind wants to spend their time watching people be tortured and killed. But I can manage it." She wasn't sure if she was assuring the Department or herself.
"If they ask me to do this for Bellatrix, I'm refusing," she added. She wondered if she could refuse. Was that something she could do to her employer?
The Department shifted a little and then moved back entirely.
Rachel jolted slightly as the door opened and Patrick came in looking slightly ruffled.
"There you are," he said, looking relieved to see her.
"Is there a problem?" she asked. She didn't often see Patrick in the Department.
"I had reports that you were wandering and speaking a little erratically and I wanted to make sure you hadn't gotten into some trouble. Sometimes artifacts can have an effect on the mind," Patrick said.
"No, I'm fine. Just conversing with the Department," she told him. "Do you come running after everyone?"
"If we see someone who might be in trouble, we go after them, though I don't usually come personally. Before I hired you, the Minister tasked me personally with your safety while you were in the Department. I have no intention of committing career suicide by losing you."
Rachel sighed. "I swear, Rufus thinks that I'm a child and not the most powerful person in the country."
"Power isn't everything. We've lost some powerful people down here before. The Department can be a dangerous place," Patrick told her.
"I really haven't seen anything very dangerous," she said.
"The Department is protecting you. There are certain places she only shows to people who need to go there," he said. "Are you alright?"
"Fine. Just having a little trouble reaching the Morsius Pensieve today."
"That will happen. The Department gets attached to us. She likes attention," Patrick said with a nod.
"What is the point of this room?" Rachel asked.
"Ah, this was someone's anatomy and magic project from about a hundred and fifty years ago. The Department doesn't like anyone taking anything from here, so we just leave it. Maybe someone will find a research project for it at some point, but it's not a high priority."
"These bones were gathered ethically?" she checked, feeling doubtful.
Patrick held out his hand palm up. "The definition of ethically has changed over the past two centuries and continues to evolve as we reach greater understandings. It was done in accordance with policies at the time and that's all I can tell you."
That's about what she'd figured. "Does the Department add new rooms for different projects?"
"The Department has been persuaded to add space when we need it, though it's been a while since we've had a new room. Was there something you had in mind?" he asked.
"No. Just curious. I've been making a map. I'd like to do more research into the Department and see if I can find a way to reliably communicate with her."
"You're more than welcome to do so. Most of us have taken a stab at it. I'd recommend reviewing the information in the Archives as you work. Different things work for different people," Patrick said. "I'm told you submitted a group of potions for review?"
"I did. I'm kind of stalled out there until I get results. I'll know what the next steps are once they've been tested," Rachel explained.
"That's just fine. Anything else I should know?" Patrick checked.
Rachel shook her head. "Just taking things day to day. Staying busy."
"Very good. You're enjoying your time in the Unspeakables?"
She paused for a long moment. "For the most part," she hedged.
"I understand. The Morsius Pensieve is a burden," he said.
"A bit."
"The information you are getting is invaluable. I went to the MLE with the information you found recently about the Death Eater circle. That was an unsolved case. We now know what happened to her."
Rachel pondered that. Could she do that again? Could she provide closure to families who had been victimized by the Death Eaters? She thought that was more worthwhile than trying to understand whatever was going through Tom Riddle's mind while he did this.
"Well, if you are settled here, I will leave you be," Patrick said after the silence had stretched on.
"Thank you. And thank you for checking on me." She hadn't needed help, but it was nice to know that someone would come if she did.
Rachel glanced behind her as she heard footsteps on the stairs. Theo appeared a few moments later, already dressed down for the evening in a set of open robes. "How long have you been here?"
"Long enough that the House Elves are getting antsy that it's dinner time," he said, pulling up a stool near her work station.
Rachel glanced down at the mess she'd been working on, but she didn't want to use her dirty hands to pull back her sleeve to look at her watch. "What time is it?"
"Going on eight."
"Eight?" she asked in disbelief, giving into the urge and checking her watch anyway. It was ten minutes until eight in the evening. "It's these damn roots of Neville's. I've been having problems with them."
"Problems with roots?" Theo asked gamely.
"Yes!" She gave up and started cleaning up her station. If it was almost eight, it was past time for her to be done. "They don't want to do anything. You can't crush them, grind them, or powder them. They fall into withered lumps if you dry them. They turned the base of a healing salve caustic, and they stained my copper cauldron!"
"Do you need to use the roots? I thought Neville was looking at the petals and the leaves?"
"We are." Rachel began dumping the mess into a bin to be vanished and moved her implements and cauldron over to the big sink. She'd rinse everything before trying cleaning charms. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with her stained cauldron. Right now she was still trying to understand how it had been stained. There had been nothing in the potion that should have done that, so it must be the roots.
Theo was quiet for a long moment. "I guess I don't see the problem. This is why you're the potions mistress, not me."
She glanced at him as she turned on the water. "The problem is they aren't behaving as they should, and if there's something wrong with the properties of the roots, then the stems, leaves, and buds are suspect too."
"They couldn't just have strangely fragile roots?" he asked.
Rachel lifted her cauldron so he could see inside. "Fragile roots wouldn't do that. This plant is intended for healing purposes. We can't have it doing things it shouldn't be doing. The salves I made with the petals looked alright, now I'm concerned about long term effects. It could be harmless. It's probably harmless. But we can't just assume it's harmless and not investigate."
"I understand that much at least. Best to be sure. What's the plan from here?"
"Ask Neville if I can give some to Severus and see if he replicates my results," she said, scrubbing her cauldron and peering at the copper. "I also need to try brewing that in a variety of cauldrons and see what it does. It could have just had an adverse effect with the copper. I'm not even sure I can reuse this cauldron now. I might have to take it and have someone who knows more about metals take a look and see if they know what happened. I have other copper cauldrons, that's not the problem."
"The problem is that it's unexpected and unusual. I'm not sure what would even stain copper," Theo said, nodding his understanding. "How about your skin after handling that stuff?"
"Feels alright, but I'm going to give my hands a good scrub and then use a sanitizing spell on them just to be sure and then sanitize all of my countertops and instruments. I can't risk traces of this contaminating anything else. Then I need to check to see if Neville gave this to any other potioneers and warn them that something weird is going on."
"Do you have time to stop for dinner?" he asked.
"Yes, once I've sanitized myself and the things I've touched. Can't risk further contamination and I should change my robes just to be sure," she said, getting started on that.
"I assume you contained this stuff?"
"Yes. Once I started getting weird results I dumped it into a secure container so it can't interact with anything else." She knew lab protocol - though she'd been breaking lab protocol by brewing with unknown ingredients when no one else was around. People were sometimes hurt or killed doing that, but most inventors did it anyway because they didn't want to wait for someone to babysit them while they worked on projects. She knew for a fact that Severus brewed almost entirely alone and that the projects he worked on weren't always harmless.
Theo was quiet as he watched her work. "Can we talk in a little bit?" he finally asked.
"What's the subject?" she asked, wondering if he had objections about her brewing alone.
"I've been a little concerned lately about how much work you've been doing versus how much sleep you've been getting."
Rachel frowned to herself as she worked. "My sleep will get better when the Death Eater threat is gone." She hoped it would, at least.
"It's maybe not surprising that all of this is bringing back memories of the war. I would assume that it is for a lot of people, but most people didn't have the same experience of the war that you did," he said after hesitating for a long moment.
Was that her problem? She didn't think it was. All she knew was that she couldn't sleep. It wasn't like she was sitting up thinking about the war.
"You've also been pushing to twelve hour days quite frequently," Theo said when she didn't speak.
"And that will get better after I pass this proposal. I will take a break after I pass this proposal," she said, glad she had an answer for that one.
"Is there something else you can cut back on until the proposal as passed?" he tried.
Rachel stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him. "Is this because you're worried about me, or something else?"
"I'm concerned. This seemed to start when you joined the Unspeakables and then only got worse with the Death Eater attacks. Part of the problem a few years ago when you were sick was because you were trying to do too many things and not sleeping enough. I don't want to see you get sick again and I wanted to tell you when I see you starting down that path."
She sighed. She didn't want to get sick again either. At the same time, she didn't see anything she could do about the problem right now. She had things that needed to be done. Which was the exact same thinking that had led to her getting sick in the first place. "I will see what I can do to rebalance things," she managed to say.
"Thank you. Can you think of anything that will help with your sleep? Would you sleep better if I was closer? Would that help you feel safer?" he asked.
Rachel shook her head. It was nice of Theo to offer, but that wasn't the problem. "It's not that. I feel safe in our home. I simply can't fall asleep, and when I do, I wake back up again." Usually from nightmares. "That's one of the reasons I've been pushing my sleeping potions' work. Maybe there is something there that will help."
"You'd think there would be someone who would specialize in this, the same way that Hermione specialized as a Curse Healer. Other people have to have this problem," Theo said.
"After ten years of researching sleep and sleeping potions, I'm about as close as we have to a sleep specialist in magical Britain."
"There's no reason we have to rely on Britain for this. If there's a healer in another part of the world that can help, we can go to them there or pay for them to come here. We certainly have enough money to do that," he pointed out. "There has to be someone who has dealt with this."
She shook her head again, resuming her work. "Let me see what the review committee and the testing of my potions says. If after the Death Eater threat is gone and if I still haven't made progress, I will consider other options."
"Alright. As long as we're aware of the possibilities," Theo said.
Rachel wasn't sure how she was supposed to find an international sleep healer, if there even was such a thing. She was even less sure that they could help her. This problem had been insurmountable for the better part of her life.
Finishing what she was doing, she turned to Theo. "I'm going to go change and we'll have dinner?"
"That's fine. Are you alright?"
It took a moment to find an answer. "I'm more or less alright. I will figure things out. Are you alright?"
"I'm alright. I'd like for us to spend a quiet weekend sometime soon. I think that would be good for both of us," he suggested.
She nodded. She wouldn't mind a quiet weekend. "Not this weekend. I have the Wizengamot on Saturday. Maybe next weekend. Do we have anything next weekend?"
"Not that I know of."
"Then I'll tell Booker to keep my calendar clear for that weekend and we'll have a quiet weekend in." Glad that the matter was settled, Rachel left the cellar feeling weary. She would eat and then maybe she would lay down, even though she wouldn't sleep. Sometimes laying down was enough. It had to be.