She was lost. Again. And she was doing her best not to be annoyed or impatient, because she expected that really wouldn't help matters. If the Department wanted her to see something, she figured the fastest way to get to where she was going was to let the Department show her what she wanted her to see. So Rachel didn't check her watch and continued to wander from room to room, occasionally verbally reminding the Department that she wanted to go to the Morsius Pensieve.

Maybe that was the problem. She didn't actually want to go to the Morsius Pensieve. She wasn't finding the young life of the Dark Lord to be particularly illuminating or full of earth shattering revelations. To her, he mostly seemed like an angry, emotionally neglected young boy. Occasionally she saw hints of what was to come. There was no doubt that he was intelligent. He watched the people around him closely. He manipulated other children into situations that got them into trouble. He didn't have any friends, and even more concerning, he didn't seem to want friends.

When Professor Dumbledore was telling her about the Dark Lord, back when they were preparing to fight him, he had said that Tom Riddle had trusted no one and had no one he confided in. Rachel could see that was true, but she didn't fully understand why. There were a number of children Tom's age at the orphanage. Tom had rebuffed them thoroughly. He didn't sit with them if he had a choice. He didn't join their games.

Rachel hadn't really had friends when she was a child, but it wasn't for lack of wanting them. Her peers had seen her as weird or strange. Rachel supposed she probably had been strange, for a number of reasons. She'd had a difficult time relating to the children in her class at school when their lives were so different from hers. At the time, she had decided it was because they were with their parents, and their parents loved them, just like Dudley's parents had loved him. As an adult, Rachel could recognize that she had been rather badly abused and it was no surprise that other children had been somewhat of a mystery to her.

But Tom pretty much had the exact same upbringing as the other children at the orphanage. As far as she could see, none of them were bullying him or tormenting him. She had even seen some make friendly overtures to him. But for whatever reason, he didn't want to be friends with them. Rachel didn't need to know much about child psychology to know that was strange for a six year old.

For the most part, though, Rachel just didn't see the point in watching these memories. She didn't see how what little she was learning could be used to tell when someone was going to become a dark lord or lady. She wasn't seeing any signs that she could tell that suggested he would become the Dark Lord. It wasn't a crime to be reserved or to not have friends.

Rachel came to a stop in front of a door. "We've been going through rooms for a while." She waited and felt the presence of the Department shift in her mind. The Department was apparently keenly interested in her today. "If there's something specific you'd like to show me, now would be a good time. Otherwise, I'd like to get to work so I can go back to my research. It's very important to me."

There was stillness for a long moment and then another shift. Rachel opened the door and found yet another room. This one seemed to be filled with artifacts of all sorts.

"Who's there?" someone called.

"Rachel. I'm lost," she called back, looking around the room, but not seeing anyone.

"Come over here, dear, let's take a look," another voice said.

Rachel stayed in the doorway for a moment, taking another good look at the room. Liesel had said there were some rooms in the Department to avoid, but the Department didn't usually take people there, especially not new people. She'd also said there were rooms to be careful in, such as the void or the veil, because a misstep could mean that she would disappear from this reality and since nothing had ever come back, no one knew where they wound up. Mostly she'd been instructed to be careful about the things she touched, a lesson Rachel had thoroughly learned with the horcruxes - though she felt that wasn't entirely her fault, she'd obviously been subconsciously drawn to them.

"Who are you?" Rachel asked, still not seeing anyone.

"I'm Mabel. Come over here and let me see you properly," the second voice that had spoken said.

Deciding that no one named 'Mabel' and who sounded like a grandmother could be that terrible, Rachel went inside the room, turning back to make sure the door hadn't disappeared on her. "I don't know where you are."

"Over here, on the wall."

"On the wall…" Rachel took another few steps in the room and found a large oval mirror with inset jewels around the edges. "You're a charmed mirror?"

"We don't like being called charmed," a deep voice said, and Rachel jumped.

Feeling her heart hammering, Rachel took another look around. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. What should I call you?"

"By our names, generally. That's usually the polite way to address someone, unless they have a title. Now, who are you?" another voice asked.

"Right." Rachel paused for a moment and decided that this was just another thing about the magical world she was going to accept. After all, how different was this than talking to her grandfather - he was a painting. "My name is Rachel Snow. My titles are Wizengamot Member, Unspeakable, and Potions Mistress."

"Wizengamot member? They're letting Wizengamot members run around in the Department of Mysteries now?" the deep voice asked.

"Just me. I mean. I am an Unspeakable. I was invited," Rachel said, feeling slightly defensive.

"What is your area of research? Are you published? You said Potions Mistress?" the deep voice asked.

"My area of speciality is non-traditional healing potions. I have been published numerous times and have over a dozen potions registered to the Guild in my name. I was awarded the Guild Innovation Award three years ago for my work in sleeping potions. I finished my mastery seven years ago." She could hear that she sounded defensive, but she couldn't help it. No one else had questioned that she was allowed to be an Unspeakable.

"If you don't mind, dear, you look very young to be a Wizengamot member," Mabel said.

"An inherited seat. My family is dead," she said, wondering how much these objects had heard about the war.

"Would you like vengeance on those who killed them?" a new voice asked.

Rachel turned, trying to see who - or what - had spoken.

"Up here, girl. In the display case."

She walked over to the display case and found an enormous silver sword. She doubted she could even lift it. "I already killed the man who killed my parents."

"That's the spirit. Anyone else you need vengeance on?" the sword asked.

"No, thank you. I'm alright for the moment, but I'll let you know if something comes to mind," she said, figuring it was a moot point. She was trained in magic, not swordplay. If she was ever in a position where she had to kill someone again, it would be with wandless magic. That possibility she had trained for, just in case.

"Please do," the sword said. "It's been too long since someone has held me."

"Were you all made here in the Department of Mysteries?" Rachel asked, wondering about the ethics of creating semi-sentient objects and then locking them up like this.

"Oh, not at all, dear," Mabel said.

"We're castoffs. Our creators died and their families got rid of us," a voice said, seeming to come from a golden amulet.

"You were abandoned," Rachel said, feeling a little heart sick as she looked around. There were twenty three objects here, and they'd all been abandoned.

"You sound sad. Were you abandoned, dear?" Mabel asked.

"No, I wasn't," Rachel said. "But I have friends who were forced to leave their families, and it was a very hard time for them."

"The old days weren't like that," a masculine sounding voice said.

"Not again, Bruno," another voice said.

"No. When I was first created, your family was everything. I was handed down from generation to generation for four hundred years. People had some respect. They had honor. And dignity," Bruno insisted.

Rachel didn't know what to tell them. She knew many people who cared deeply for their families, but she'd also known a fair number of people whose families had treated them poorly. She rather expected it had always been that way, but perhaps Bruno hadn't been in a position to see when he was out in the world. "Do you want out of this room?" she asked, a little impulsively.

"Not allowed, dear. We're dangerous," Mabel said.

"Dangerous?" Rachel asked, not seeing anything particularly dangerous, except perhaps the sword.

"Mabel won't tell you, but she can take years off your life, just by having you gaze into her," someone said.

"Oh," Rachel said, taking a full step back so that she wasn't in range of Mabel.

"I wish you wouldn't tell people that. I don't do that to people who aren't undeserving of what they have. Rachel here seems like an upstanding young woman," Mabel said.

"Thank you," she said, slowly edging towards the door. She felt like she didn't really want to know how the rest of the objects in this room could potentially kill her.

"Come drop by again and say hello. We mostly don't bite," the deep voice said.

"I will if I can find you. I'm pretty much lost," Rachel said.

"The Department is just showing you around. This is an ending room, so you'll need to go all the way back out again if you're trying to get somewhere specific, dear," Mabel said.

"Thank you. I, uh, hope you have a good day." Rachel left the room quickly in a way that she told herself wasn't fleeing.

She was back in the room with the tanks of the weird carnivorous aquatic monsters. Somehow that felt safer. She checked her watch. It was ten thirty, and she felt that was as much of the Department of Mysteries as she could handle today. She'd come back tomorrow to watch a memory. "I'd like to go out, please," Rachel said, hoping that the Department had shown her all it wanted to for right now.

Three rooms later, and after signing herself out and going down the hall, Rachel sunk into her desk chair and told herself she was being silly. Just because a mirror could drain the life out of her didn't mean it was going to. Mabel had seemed friendly enough.

"One of those days?" Mirabel asked as she paused by Rachel's desk, her hands full of parchment.

"Yeah," Rachel said.

"That happens. Anything try to eat you?" Mirabel checked.

"Nope. All in one piece."

"Good. It's not really a bad day until something decides to eat you or until a room lures you in and doesn't let you back out again. Don't worry about it too much. You can fend off most of the things that will try to eat you, stunning or banishing usually does the trick. And if you get stuck somewhere, someone will come looking by five o'clock." Mirabel sounded unbothered.

Rachel figured if she got stuck somewhere she was sending Liesel or Patrick a Patronus to come get her back out again. She had things to do. "Thanks. I'm alright."

"Okay, just let someone know if you're not," Mirabel said, heading back to her desk.

Rachel looked through the research she'd left out on her desk and decided to get started. Filling her mind with ingredient interactions usually cleared it of everything else.


Rachel and Theo found Malcolm in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. He had several books open, multiple pages of notes, and inky fingertips.

Malcolm turned and looked at them before they'd made it two steps into the kitchen. "Is it time for dinner already?"

"Just about. New paper?" Rachel asked, coming over to look at what he was doing. No, she didn't recognize any of this. Malcolm was deep in theoretical Arithmancy and Rachel only recalled enough about Arithmancy from her NEWT years to occasionally play around with spell crafting.

"Theories, right now. I'm not sure they'll wind up doing what I want them to do, but we'll see," Malcolm said, beginning to gather up his work.

"How's the Mastery going?" Theo asked.

"Good. Master Harris is excellent, I enjoy working with him. We're co-authoring a paper and I'm working on this right now in my spare time. If this works, this will be my mastery completion project. If not, well, we'll see."

"Sounds like fun," she said. Even if she didn't understand what exactly it was Malcolm was researching, she fully understood trying out a project just to see what happened.

"It is. I know almost no one else understands that it's fun, but it is," Malcolm said, shrinking his research now that it was gathered and pocketing it.

"I think we understand," Theo said with a glance at Rachel.

"We do. We're often working on projects when we're not at work. Speaking of which, have you given any thought to joining the Unspeakbles after you finish your Mastery? All of them understand why this is fun, and there is a small Arithmancy group."

"Theoretical Arithmancers, not practical ones?" Malcolm checked.

"As far as I know, yes. Spell crafting is a different group. I think you'd enjoy the Unspeakables." Maybe not the Department itself, but he would enjoy the resources and the chance to work with other theoretical arithmancers.

"Maybe," Malcolm said. "I'm not sure they'd be willing to give me an invitation."

"Why not? They've already got one Wizengamot member running around down there, so they can't be too concerned about safety," Theo asked.

For once, Rachel was glad that she wasn't allowed to tell Theo about the Department. He didn't need to know about the void or the veil or the room of potential lethal sentient objects or even the aquatic monsters. That would just cause him to worry unnecessarily.

"My father is a Death Eater. They might be worried about that," Malcolm said, looking uncertain for a moment before he cleared his expression.

"Draco's parents were Death Eaters, and they let him in the aurors. You, Draco, and Anyssa all have at least one parent who was a Death Eater and you're all on the Wizengamot. I think if they were worried about it, they should be worried about those, not the Department of Mysteries," Rachel said.

"Besides, you left your father at a young age and I think you've shown what you believe in through your work in the Wizengamot. I don't think your family is going to hold you back here," Theo said, patting Malcolm's shoulder.

"And you'll have two masteries. The Unspeakables are usually interested in people like that," she added. And she could put in a good word for Malcolm if necessary.

"Maybe," Malcolm said again. "I don't really want to make any firm decisions about anything until I finish this mastery. What's it like in the Unspeakables?"

"Well, the research is amazing-"

"She brags about the Department Archives all the time," Theo said, smiling slyly at her.

"That's because they're great. And everyone I met there has been really nice and very focused on their projects. For the most part, I'm enjoying it," she said. Malcolm hadn't ever killed anyone, so no one would be able to force him to use the Morsius Pensieve.

"For the most part?" Theo asked, turning to look fully at her.

Rachel was saved by Sirius and Remus coming in, laden with bags of take away.

"There we are," Sirius said, waving a bag of take away at them.

"Apparently many people decided that Indian take away was the right thing to do tonight, sorry we're late," Remus said.

"Not a problem," Rachel said. "How are you both?"

"Oh, you know, staying busy," Sirius said as he began to unpack the cartons of food.

"My work is going well, thankfully," Remus said.

"How is the werewolf sanctuary these days?" Theo asked.

"Slowly, but steady. We've had two new members join us in the past three months. Foreigners. Evidently the werewolf situation is still very difficult in some countries," Remus said. "Eventually we're going to need more land."

"I think we should be able to provision that without a problem," Rachel said with a glance at Sirius. The Werewolf Independence Act had been one of the first proposals Rachel had pushed with her fledgling faction, eight years ago, just as soon as she finished making sure all of the prison legislation would pass. While it wasn't the true equality that Rachel had wanted, the compromise was that werewolves could have their own land and community, where they could work and live without fear of persecution. It wasn't perfect, but it was a step better than the way the situation had been before.

"Not a problem," Sirius agreed. "We'll make sure it's taken care of. Let's eat."

They quickly opened up the containers, Remus grabbing a stack of plates and silverware, and everyone dug in.

"How goes the House Elf proposal?" Sirius asked as they ate.

"Working on it. Trying to iron out the last few details before I share it with everyone. I'm hoping to have a faction meeting the week after next and we'll go over the proposal and make sure everyone's on board," she said.

"You don't have to worry about that. I'll make sure everyone is on board," Sirius said.

"Sirius, I don't want anyone voting for things they don't want to vote for." They'd had this discussion many times, and they were mostly on the same wavelength, but not quite.

"They won't. They'll see reason. Don't worry about it," he said.

"I think everyone's on board. Some of them will be reluctant, but they know it's the right thing to do. They wouldn't be following you if they didn't," Malcolm said.

"If I'm reading the situation correctly, I think their main concern will be whether or not it will pass, rather than the contents of the proposal," Remus said.

"I have concerns about that too," Rachel admitted. "But I'll tell them this as well; I'm not bringing the proposal into the Wizengamot chambers unless I'm sure it will pass. I won't ask people to vote for something that I know won't pass."

"We all know that you take good care of us," Sirius said. "People trust you to do the right thing."

Rachel sincerely hoped she was deserving of that trust.


It was early Sunday afternoon and after Rachel had seen Theo settle into his home office to tinker with a transfiguration project he was working on, Rachel had retreated to her own office to get some work done. She'd finished another pass at the proposal this weekend and had set it aside for Booker to look at tomorrow. Next up was her next article for Witch Weekly.

She had a letter from Daphne on her desk, asking to schedule their next interview and photo shoot. Rachel still didn't understand it. Why did people want to look at pictures of her? It made absolutely no sense - she was a Wizengamot member, not a fashion model. Not to mention, she really didn't enjoy the days of the photo shoots. It was a lot of sitting around and having people poke at her and fuss over her hair and make-up.

If people wanted to see the real Girl-Who-Lived, it was Rachel bent over a book and a set of notes, or her in stained robes and sweaty from a cauldron. Somehow, that was not the Girl-Who-Lived that people seemed to want.

She'd had a lot of time to come to terms with the idea that she was a symbol of hope to the British magical community. Most days she tried not to think about it. It helped that all of the Wizengamot were used to dealing with Rachel as a person and a coworker, instead of just staring at her from afar. Well, some people still stared, but those stares were generally less than friendly and came from Turner's faction. She'd been at odds with them the entire time she'd been on the Wizengamot and somehow that divide had only become deeper with time.

When they went out in public, most of the time Rachel and Theo used disguise cloaks. They dropped by Fred and George's shop in Diagon Alley twice a year and had the spells adjusted for new faces so that no one could link them to a specific face. There were rumors abound that Rachel wandered in disguises, but she'd never been identified while in disguise and that was good enough for her.

She had tried without disguises, and it just hadn't worked well. People were not willing to leave her in peace, and Rachel did not like people coming up to her and thanking her for killing the Dark Lord, or worse, asking questions. She didn't mind it so much about Quidditch stuff. She was willing to talk Seeking strategies and team statistics with fans, and even sign autographs. She had three animated figurines of her; one in her Harpies uniform with her broomstick, one in her Wizengamot robes, and one in her Hogwarts uniform, supposedly representing her when she'd killed the Dark Lord. All the other League players had figures too, so that didn't bother her, but she knew for a fact she was the only Wizengamot member with a figure, and that was just embarrassing. She tried not to think too hard about the people who collected the figures of her, or the people who read the Witch Weekly interviews with her. The fact that the issues with her interviews were always high sellers was not lost on her, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

At the very least, the interviews were a way for her to talk publicly about things that were important to her. She often talked about her proposals in the interviews and why she felt what she was doing was important. She'd taken Daphne and a photographer on a tour of the new prison when it had first been built and described to magical Britain all the ways this was an improvement from Azkaban. She'd taken them on a tour of the new werewolf sanctuary and made sure they included quotes from werewolves about what their lives were like and what their desires and goals were. If she could get people to care about these issues simply by virtue of telling them about them, then she figured that was the best use for her fame that she could hope for.

She was playing with the idea of having them interview a House Elf for her upcoming proposal, but she could think of a lot of ways that could go wrong. Here she is trying to get people to pay their House Elves, and then having a House Elf come out and say they don't want to be paid would be a problem. She could always have them interview Dobby, but she didn't want to subject Dobby to that kind of scrutiny. Booker dealt with all of the hate mail that Rachel received. She didn't want Dobby getting hate mail.

It had crossed her mind that maybe she was doing the wrong thing by insisting that House Elves be paid when they didn't want to be paid. Maybe she should have found something else that they wanted, but when she asked House Elves, what they told her was that what they wanted was to have a family to care for and to work. And she wasn't trying to take those things away from them. She just wanted to make sure that they were safe and that people were treating them well, and that they had options if they needed them. And money, for all its ills and evils, was a good way of having options. Having money to feed and house themselves if they needed it was essential.

The reality was that no one who owned a House Elf couldn't afford to pay them. Even if for now it was just setting aside the money and letting the House Elves have the option to use it, it was better than nothing.

There were so many problems. There were so many problems in the world. There were so many problems right in front of her, and they were a tiny segment of the population in a tiny country. It frustrated Rachel that she couldn't make a bigger impact, and sometimes she thought she had been wrong to turn down the ICW seat. At least she knew she was earnestly trying to make things better, and she couldn't say that for everyone else. She was also adult enough to know that earnestly trying wasn't enough to fix a lot of things.

When she'd been seeing a Mind Healer for trauma work, Monica had told Rachel that she had to accept that she couldn't fix everything and that the change that any one person could make in the world was limited. If Rachel wanted to make a difference, she had to focus her energy on the things she actually had a possibility of changing, rather than spending time tearing her mind apart about problems she had no chance of fixing.

Rachel knew this was true, but it was still easy to become overwhelmed by thinking of all the things that needed fixing and racking her brain for solutions. It was hard not to second guess herself. But then, she also thought that anyone in power needed to be second guessing themselves. They needed to stop and think about what the consequences of their actions were and how they would affect people, and Rachel wasn't at all sure that people really did that.

House Elves had a right to speak for themselves. If one of them wanted to be interviewed about her proposal, she should let them, even if that could be used against her. She didn't like that answer, but she thought it was the right one. Now she had to figure out how to find a House Elf who would actually agree to be interviewed. She'd write Daphne with the idea; Witch Weekly often knew how to find interview subjects.

In the meantime, she needed to put thoughts about her proposal aside and go back to writing about microwave ovens. She'd discovered that some technologies that seemed like magic were even more confusing to magical people than just obvious technology. Rachel could understand that. She'd just read three articles about how microwaves work and she was still a little uncertain on the idea. She'd just have to condense it into something more manageable for the average magical reader.


"Hello?" Rachel called as she apparated into Severus' sitting room on Sunday evening.

"In here," Severus called from the kitchen.

She went into the kitchen and found Severus poking at the roast in the oven. "Smells good."

"Good," he said. "It should be ready in another thirty minutes. No Theo today?"

"He's taking the evening off. He had a rough week at the Guild."

Severus turned to look at her. "Did something happen?"

"One of his team members blew something up in the lab, they're still investigating. Theo hopes this means he can transfer Markham off his team altogether," Rachel said, knowing that Theo had spent the past few days embroiled in the investigation instead of being allowed to work on the things he needed to work on.

"Hopefully, particularly if he was doing something careless and that caused the accident."

"Given what Theo has said about Markham, it wouldn't surprise me. How do people like that even get positions?" she asked, perching against the edge of the kitchen table.

"Could be anything, from nepotism, to a good word from the person he apprenticed with, to having an invention that shows credibility. Just because someone can invent something does not make them a practical researcher," Severus said with a slight shake of his head.

"I suppose so. Can I ask you a weird question?" she asked, a little impulsively.

"I never know what to expect when you ask me that, but yes, ask," he said, turning his full attention to her.

"Do you think I'm too powerful? That I should be doing something to limit my power?" she asked. The question had been on her mind this week as she thought of the Dark Lord and Professor Dumbledore, and the ICW position that she'd turned down, and whether or not she was doing the right things in the Wizengamot.

Severus watched her for a long moment, his lips pursed. "I suppose that might depend on what you mean by powerful. Is this something someone has suggested to you?"

"No, no one has said anything like that. If anything, Rufus wants me to take more power. I just…like with my faction, I have enough power to stop things from going through the Wizengamot, and I stand a reasonable chance of getting most things to pass as well. That's a lot of power. And then there's my magic. I'm just not sure anyone should be as powerful as I am. It seems like a bad idea."

"First of all, your magic is simply a part of you. There is nothing wrong with what you can do magically. However you came by that magic, it is part of you now," he said, forestalling her objection that the strength of her magic could have come from her connection to the Dark Lord. It was a conversation they'd had before. "Do you feel like you're doing anything with your magic that you shouldn't?"

"No. I generally don't do spells that aren't anything that just about anyone can do with a wand. I'm not using my magic to do anything other people can't do," she said, though her elemental magic was something most other people couldn't do. She'd never used it outside of her training though, and honestly hoped she never had to. It was overkill for anything other than an overwhelming threat.

"Then why would that be a problem?" Severus asked. "You're not swaying people unnaturally. You're not performing great feats of magic to awe or frighten people. Your magic is what it is. It is what you chose to do with it that matters."

"What about the Wizengamot? I'm influencing people there."

"Unnaturally? By sifting through their memories? By using compulsion charms to change their minds?"

"No. Of course not. I just talk to people," she said, knowing that Severus knew she didn't do any of those things. She had never even learned legilimency, nor did she want to.

"Then why is it a problem?" he asked. "I assure you, other Wizengamot members go around to people and drum up support for their proposals. Other Wizengamot members are in factions or even lead factions. What makes it different when you do it?"

"I guess I just don't want people to feel like they have to vote for me just because of who I am. I want people to vote where their conscience lies. I don't want people to be afraid of me."

"Do you think people are afraid of you?" he asked, looking genuinely surprised.

"Maybe." She didn't know the answer to that question, but she thought in their shoes, she would at least be wary of someone who had the power and abilities that she had.

"If you'll excuse me for saying so, but despite your training and your abilities, you do not look very threatening."

"Maybe that's worse, because it's like I'm a hidden threat." She knew some people in the Wizengamot looked at her and simply saw a young woman. Various people offered friendly advice to her in a variety of situations. Some people watched her a little more warily, and she thought those were the ones who recognized her for the threat that she was.

"Why are you so worried about this?"

Rachel sighed. "I just don't want to be like the Dark Lord. Or even like Professor Dumbledore. Do you remember me telling you about Louisa Perez? The person who taught me elemental magic?"

"Yes, I recall," he said.

"She has abilities like mine, and she teaches and runs an advanced research group. Maybe that's the right thing for people with abilities like mine to do."

"You already do advanced research. In fact, you just took a job doing research, did you not?"

"I did. But I'm still on the Wizengamot. And I believe I'm doing the right things, but how do I know? Doesn't everyone believe they're doing the right things?"

"How does anyone know they are doing the right things? At the end of the day, we can only make that judgment for ourselves. We can only do the best we can do and try to learn from our mistakes as we make them. I believe you are doing the right things. I see your commitment to helping people. And while there is no one else who can do what you're doing on the Wizengamot, if you do not want to be on the Wizengamot, you do not have to stay," he pointed out.

"That's just the thing. No one else will do what I'm doing on the Wizengamot. If I hadn't joined the Wizengamot, Azkaban would have just stayed as it was. There would be no werewolf sanctuary. I don't think the Employment Equality proposal would have ever been brought before the Wizengamot."

"All of which are good things that you achieved," he reminded her.

"Then why does no one else want these things?" she asked, feeling frustrated.

"If we ruled by consensus it would be chaos. People like the status quo, but that does not mean it is right or that it is even a good thing. You have to keep in mind that you offer a unique perspective to the Wizengamot. You are the only Wizengamot member who wasn't raised in our magical society. It is not surprising that you bring different ways of doing things."

Was it just because she'd been raised by muggles? Had ten years in the muggle world not knowing about magic really made such a difference? She'd been in the magical world for nearly two thirds of her life now. She would have thought the differences would have gone away by then, that she would have fully adapted into the magical world.

"Let me put it this way: do you believe the Dark Lord or Albus ever asked themselves if they should limit their power? Severus asked.

"The Dark Lord definitely didn't," Rachel said immediately. She had no doubts about that whatsoever.

"No, he didn't."

She was less certain about Professor Dumbledore. Would he have taken all of the positions he had if he was trying to limit his power? Arguably he had held more power than the Minister when he had been Headmaster of Hogwarts, Britain's ICW chair, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. "I think Professor Dumbledore thought he was the only one he could trust to do the jobs that he was doing. I'm trying not to fall into that trap," she finally said.

"That's a good thing to recognize," Severus said. "Being able to trust other people is important."

"I do. I trust you. I trust Theo. I trust my friends. I trust Sirius and Remus. For the most part, I trust my faction. Not with the same things, but I trust them to do their jobs."

"Good. Do you trust that the Minister and the Chief Warlock and the ICW chair are doing their jobs?"

"For the most part. I trust them with some things, and not with others," she said.

"I think that is a reasonable approach in politics. You can't blindly trust, but you do have to rely on some people for some things. I know you feel a great sense of duty to magical Britain. But you have done more than your share. If you want to stop, you can."

"I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I stopped," she admitted. "Every time I saw a proposal passing that I thought shouldn't, I'd be thinking to myself that I could have done something about it. I can't live with that."

"Balance," Severus said, turning back to check on the roast. "You can not give everything of yourself to the Wizengamot. You must do things that are right for you as well."

"I know. And I think I can balance the Wizengamot and the Unspeakables. And for the most part I really like the Unspeakables. There are a lot of things for me to explore and discover, and I'm enjoying that. It's not perfect, but nothing is perfect."

"Nothing is perfect," Severus agreed. "But I'm glad you're enjoying it. Let's let this cool for a few minutes. Can you set the table?"

"Sure," Rachel said. She supposed if Severus thought she was doing the right things, she was probably alright. It was good that she had people in her life she could check with.


Rachel had been home for an hour and had curled up in the sitting room with a book when Millie's zebra Patronus galloped into the room. "Can you and Theo come over for a little bit?" came Millie's voice.

"Wonder what that is about. Do you think everything's alright?" Theo said, setting aside his own book.

"I don't know," Rachel said, holding out her hand to summon her own Patronus. Her doe appeared, the doe's ears flickering as she stood tall in the sitting room. "To Millicent Bulstrode. We'll be right there."

"I think we need shoes," he said, moving for the hallway.

Rachel followed him, intent on her own shoes, and hoping that if it had actually been an emergency Millie would have said that it was an emergency. She was tempted to go check her pocket watch, but the fastest way to check on Millie was to floo directly over. They finished putting on their shoes and hurried back to the fireplace.

"I'll go first," Rachel said. With her wandless magic, she was much faster at defensive casting than someone who had to pull a wand after stepping out of the floo. "Twenty-eight Mueller Lane," she said after tossing in the floo powder.

She stepped out into chaos, her hands raised, but she quickly found it wasn't bad chaos. Most of her friends were here. She moved out of the way so Theo could follow her through the floo. "What is happening?" she asked Luna.

"We don't know. Millie and Natalie called us here," Luna said.

"Everything alright?" Theo asked as he joined them.

"Yes, I think so. I think this is supposed to be a good thing," Luna said. "It's good to see you both."

"It's good to see you too," Rachel said, pausing to hug her. "Hi Rolf."

"Hi Rachel. I have to ask if it's true that they're keeping unknown creatures in the Department of Mysteries, though I understand if you can't tell me," Rolf said, peering at her.

Rachel thought about the carnivorous fish monsters that she'd never gotten a close look at. Did those count as unknown creatures? "Well, I haven't seen all of the Department of Mysteries, I'm not sure anyone has, so I can't tell you for certain," she settled for.

"Oh, is it very big?" Luna asked. "My father says a lot of strange things are kept in there."

"Well, your father is right about that much. I have seen some very strange things," Rachel said, getting a laugh from Theo and Rolf.

"I'll bet you have," Theo said.

They collectively moved further away from the fireplace as the flames flashed again and this time Hermione stepped out. "What on earth is going on?" she asked, taking in the scene in the sitting room.

"We don't know yet," Luna said.

Rachel realized that she thought she did know, but she could keep that to herself.

"Is everyone here?" Millie asked, peering in from the kitchen.

"We're here," Neville told her after he looked around.

"Wait just one more moment," Millie said, disappearing again.

Rachel smiled. She could hear the nervous excitement in Millie's voice

Millie and Natalie entered a moment later, hand in hand and carrying two bottles of champagne. "We're getting married!" Millie said, her grin bright.

The room erupted in congratulations and squeals, everyone rushing them to exclaim over their rings and to hug them. Rachel waited her turn and then threw her arms first around Millie and then around Natalie. "Congratulations! How did you propose?"

"Yes, tell us," Ginny said.

"Let's get everyone champagne and we will tell you," Natalie said, her smile as bright as Millie's.

Ten minutes later everyone was settled, most of them squeezed together in conjured chairs - Millie and Natalie's sitting room was not really big enough for the whole group.

"So who proposed?" Astoria asked.

"You won't believe it, but we both did," Millie said, laughing.

"We had a nice dinner planned, and then Millie suggested we go on a walk in the sunset, and that she knew a place to go. And I had been waiting for the right moment, and so I got the ring while I got my cloak," Natalie said.

"And I already had the ring in my pocket, because I was the one who had planned the dinner and the walk," Millie added, nudging Natalie.

"And Millie, all casually, was all 'I know a good place for a walk, let me apparate us'," Natalie said.

"Not casually enough, apparently," Millie said, grinning.

"So she took us to this beach, and we took a walk on the beach in the sunset, and all this time I'm trying to figure out what is the right moment to take out the ring-"

"And I'm wondering the same thing, because no one tells you this kind of shit," Millie said.

"We come to a stop, looking out at the ocean, and apparently we both decided it was the right moment, and we look at each other and we can't stop laughing," Natalie said, breaking into laughter again.

"Eventually we managed to get the words out," Millie said, leaning in against Natalie.

"That's lovely," Hermione said.

"Best way to do it, that way you both know you want to," Hannah agreed.

"When's the wedding?" Draco asked.

"Spring. We don't have a date yet, but we want a spring wedding," Natalie said.

"I know some of you will be traveling, but we're going to try and make it so that all of you can be there. We can cover portkey costs for anyone out of the country," Millie said.

"We wouldn't miss it," Luna said, her fingers intertwined with Rolf's.

"I'll be there. I can promise you that much," Hermione said.

"Excellent," Millie said. "And now we have like a million things to plan and figure out, but it will all be alright."

"It will be. We've done weddings, we'll help," Hannah said.

"Not a problem at all," Astoria agreed.

Rachel smiled and settled against Theo. As stressful as weddings were, she was always glad when her friends and family could come together in a celebration of love.