We are the change

WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD

A little step every day, moving the right way

Adaline Potter was working at the Ministry of Magic...and not just at the ministry, but for the Minister herself. Her parents knew. Her father seemed more accepting of the idea than her mother, which struck her as rather ironic, considering her mother had been the one to quite literally charge into the Ministry all on her own ready to change the world.

Liam didn't know yet, though...nor did Deacon. She just was not too sure how to explain why she felt like she needed to do this. When she had told Hermione of her plans to start working for Andromeda, her mother had been so flabbergasted the woman had not managed to form a coherent response for more than half a minute. If Adaline was perfectly honest about the experience, it had been kind of bloody amazing--like what an achievement that was! To leave Hermione Granger Potter speechless for thirty seconds!

But it made sense to Adaline. If her mother could come into the Ministry seeking to make a change with meetings and conferences, then Adaline would take an opportunity to affect positive change in this role as Junior Assistant to the Minister of Magic. She would face the purists and Death Eaters just like her parents had done when they were even younger than she was now. She was a Gryffindor. She was brave--and like a lion she could be noble and actually take risks in pursuit of justice and the betterment of the world around her.

She really had not known for sure what she would actually be doing at the Ministry when she accepted the position. She knew that Andromeda was overseeing a new research group--and that was where she wanted to be involved. Beyond her work at the Ministry, the witch had began the healer training program at St. Mungo's with the intention of studying Magical Medicine at Bangor as soon as she was able to do so. This epidemic was a danger to all of the wixen world. With no understanding of how it spread or what triggered the outbreak, they were all at risk. This time the sickness had taken magic from so many---what if the next time the illness reared its head, it took lives? They needed to understand what was happening. She wanted to be a part of finding that solution.

That meant she spent the vast majority of her time since joining the Ministry just pouring over research reports and hospital records from patients that had contracted epidemic X. There were so many--and they were all so different. Other than the things she already knew--like that young people were not getting sick--the only thing she had learned was that Hesper Gamp had a theory that werewolves were immune to the sickness.

The Head of the Department of Health and Human Services had prepared a report for the Minister that outlined the absence of werewolves in the patients that had been in Pyxis and St. Mungo's. Representatives from her department had gone further to investigate this possibility by contacting individuals who had been registered as werewolves in the past. Few did report having been sick, but had been observed performing magic. The Gamp had put forward the idea that the wolves had lied in the questionnaire fearing what the Ministry and the public would do if it was shown that those with lycanthropy were immune to the sickness.

She had already thought that might be possible, after some conversations with Zero and Teddy. They were both well--and apparently so was their entire pack. She did not really want to steer research towards any type of werewolf experimentation. There were records on that, too--horrible things that the Durant Ministry had done. It honestly made her sick. Durant ran her father and Kingsley out of the Ministry and used his power to do unspeakable things. She did not want to have any hand in making something like that happen again.

Werewolves had not contracted the disease, but they were already different. Just like veelas were different--and those were also not seen in the early admissions into the hospital...and overall partial veelas were seen at very low numbers not equating to the group's actual population percentage in the country. But Adaline did not think that they were the answer. They were already different. It was the people that were the same but didn't get sick that she thought could hold the answer.

They needed volunteers. The most ideal scenario would be sets of twins where one got sick and the other didn't--but even siblings or a parent and child. To figure out what kept one healthy and had the other fall sick, it just made sense to her to look for samples to study that would be as close to each other as possible. Maybe she could pitch that possibility to Aunt Andi the Minister.

She was beginning to sketch out a brief outline of the proposal when she heard footsteps approaching. Adaline was always alert when she was at the Ministry. There were many who did not approve of her presence there. She had known she would meet some resistance when she had joined the Minister's staff, so really Adaline took it all in stride. She could deal with cutting remarks and haughty glances. As long as no one raised a wand at her, she could care less. Dueling for hours with her mother and father on Mermaid Isle had made her formidable at defending herself, though. If some Death Eater purist prick thought she would be an easy target, they were in for quite the surprise. She was the daughter of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. She was ready to live up to her heritage--and their prejudice against her could bugger right off.

Stacks of patient files covered the desk, Adaline sat behind. Her petite stature made it so just her eyes and forehead could easily be seen from the doorway. She arched up a brow at her visitor. "Yes?" the witch asked, managing to sound both busy and still reasonably polite. She could not easily imagine what anyone would need with her. The Minister had a secretary--and advisers. If a message needed to be conveyed, an opinion gathered, or an appointment made, Adaline was not really the person to handle such things.

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Change will not come

if we wait for some other person

or some other time.

Lyla knew that the world was changing. She wasn’t oblivious. She could see it. There were people interacting now that she didn’t think would have had anything to do with one another in the past. But she was trying not to think about it. She was trying not to read too much into situations, or she was going to start questioning her own friendships, and what they meant, and she hated that. Roxy was her friend, because she was her friend. Not because they were crossing lines, or because they were breaking down walls, or any of that. They were friends, just because she thought that it was nice to be friends.

Quidditch had been what had done it, but there was something about being around Roxy that made her think that she didn’t have to be so serious all of the time, and Lyla needed friends like that in her life. She was going to Oxford next fall. She needed to have fun while she still had some semblance of a life. It was Oxford and the Ministry. That was the plan. She wanted to start here and work her way up. Surpass both Mum and Dad. She wanted the International Quidditch Association. That was the goal. One day, she would get here.

Until then she just had to work for it. And not get distracted. But she knew that her personal goals didn’t matter. Not when she looked at Delilah’s and realized that there were so many other things to worry about. Some part of her thought that she should have been going into research. That she should have been worried about saving the world or something. But Lyla couldn’t keep a plant alive, let alone try and do medical research with them. And she was lucky that Cal looked out for Sugar, or her bunny would have been dead by now too.

No, she knew that she could feel like she needed to help all she wanted, but Lyla wasn’t cut out for that. Maybe she could shift her focus. Human rights. She could become a Human Rights lawyer. The way that things were looking around here, they needed those too. They needed the representation. She knew that she had time to figure that out. She knew that she had to try and focus on what was right here in front of her, but Lyla thought that that was nearly impossible too. There was too much going on.

Her family was still sick. And Mum and Anderson and Cordelia were fine, but Dad and Cal weren’t. And she didn’t know which side she was going to be like. She hadn’t gotten whatever this was yet. But she thought that she had to be close. No one under eighteen had gotten sick, that much she had noticed, but her birthday was coming up. May… And she wasn’t going to be safe forever. Not unless she was like Mum… And maybe she was. Maybe she would keep her magic. But how was that any fair?

How was it fair that she might keep hers, and go to law school, in the muggle world? Where she wasn’t going to need it at all. And Delilah lost hers? When she had been a potioneer. When it was so much a part of her… Or Ella… Her cousins had gotten sick, and they had lost so much. And if she didn’t… Would she feel guilty? Where was the line? Were people even still getting sick? Some, she supposed. But they had been isolated in the school, and she didn’t think that it had spread to anyone except the teachers there.

Today she was out of the school though, she still didn’t think that she liked it there. She never really had. And now that Cal and LJ and everyone else were out here, the only friends that she had in there were the ones from Quidditch. Roxy, really. Everyone else had graduated already. They were all so much older. Even if it was just by a year, it had felt like a lifetime going back to the castle alone.

Lyla had run home before she had come in here today though, and she had a stack of things that she had collected from Mum to bring back. Amy deciding to focus on her career was good, and going to school was important, but Lyla couldn’t officially work for her mother’s department until school got out, and that meant that her internship had practically meant that she had switched departments, and that she was working for Mum instead of the International Department. No one had seemed to mind though. It was easier for Lyla to do it than it was for anyone else to get to Graves Hall.

The majority of the things could have been left in the Justice Department, but the top three on the stack needed to go to the Minister. And so, Lyla headed upstairs with them in her arm. She didn’t come up here very often, but she thought that she would make the exception for Mum. The whole office seemed to be busy, but Lyla didn’t just want to set them anywhere, that seemed rude. Instead she waited for the girl behind the desk to look up, and when she did, Lyla was a little surprised. “Adaline?” She had played quidditch with her brother, and against her, for years before they had disappeared. Lyla shook her head, “Sorry. Hi. Welcome back.” Sort of. This wasn’t Hogwarts, but still.

@ you're a surprise • 921 • lyla's outfit

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We are the change

WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD

A little step every day, moving the right way

There was so much to be done. Literally, Adaline could have never left the Ministry--dosed on pepper-up potions for a month straight--and it would not have made a dent in what needed attention. Work was piling up everywhere at the Ministry. With so many without magic, everything was slower. Bureaucracy had never moved very quickly, but most departments were crippled. Level nine seemed to be hit the least, which was nice, but the Unspeakables were either not making any more headway on figuring out the epidemic than the rest of the world or they were guarding the secret closely. Either option felt equally probably to Adaline.

She did not spare a thought for what might or might not have been going on in the Department of Mysteries. There was far too much that demanded attention to entertain musings. She needed to follow up with Advisor Gamp on several of the action items that had arisen from the seer's meeting with the Minister before lunch. She had meeting notes to revise and distribute from the weekly Heads briefing from that morning. She probably needed to go nag Andromeda again about not eating.

That had become a habit. She might not have been in her role long, but she already recognized that there were basic things that her godmother liked to neglect in regards to self-care. Very annoying. So, Adaline nagged...and baked... Then when Andromeda did not eat, it was a personal slight and offense against her goddaughter. Adaline could pout and be sour over it. She found that manipulation effective and shamelessly made use of it.

The unique nature of her relationship with the Minister of Magic had been what brought her into this position. She could exploit that. No shame! There needed to be benefits beyond just working towards changing the world, because facing the glares, cutting comments, and prejudice could grow quite laborious. Adaline was not going to quit, of course. Quitters weren't winners, because winners never quit, blah-blah-blah. The cliche saying was stupid, but she bought into the idea anyway. 

She had expected to be greeted with some sort of animosity or arrogance. But the witch in the doorway spoke her name, her actual given name, not some snarky rendition of Miss Potter, and it made Adaline actually put down what she was doing and really look at who had interrupted her. It had been a few years, but the features were still familiar enough for her to put together who was standing in front of her. Liam had been Lyla's teammate. Roxy was her friend. So, Adaline smiled. Maybe there were some friendly faces around here after all. 

"Hey, Lyla--Thank you. Very good to be back." Adaline was not huge on small talk, but she was a comfortable conversationalist despite having been on a island with only her family for two years. She had not lost all social graces in that time. "Are those for the Minister?" Adaline inquired, rising from her chair and walking around her desk towards the door. She wasn't sure what department that the files would be coming from--or what they were pertaining to, but once she got a bit more information from the other witch, she would be able to know where to put them. Even though there were files everywhere, covering multiple desks, there was organization to it.  

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CHANGE WILL NOT COME

IF WE WAIT FOR SOME OTHER PERSON

OR SOME OTHER TIME.

She wasn’t going to lie, when Mum had first said that she was having a new baby Lyla had been less than thrilled. The idea of another little girl was something that she didn’t like the thought of at first. She was rather happy to be the only girl, and yet, when Cordelia had gotten here, safe, and healthy, and right on time, Lyla had to be grateful. For everything else that was happening in the world, after what had happened to Ella and Elliot. She had to just stop and be grateful that her sister was perfectly fine. That her mother was perfectly fine. Driving the entire department crazy, perhaps, but fine.

Her mother working from home meant that Lyla was spending a great deal of her free time shuttling paperwork back and forth from the Hall to the office. She didn’t mind. She liked helping and working as her mother’s assistant in lieu of Amy leaving was something that she thought that she could use on her resume. She could make that look really good, and Oxford would look good right after it. And it was something that she was proud of. She was going to learn. She was going to do her best. And she was starting now. Surpassing her parents would always be the goal.

Lyla wanted to be as good, and better, then both of them. She wanted to have the same reputation Mum did in the U.K. for handling things, but she wanted to pair it with her father’s quidditch administrative skills. She wanted to be both. And Lyla had never been told that she couldn’t. That was something about being a Graves. You didn’t get told that you couldn’t do something, you were just told that you had to work for it. That you had to try your hardest for the things that you wanted. Because there was nothing that they were just going to give to you. The world didn’t work like that.

And the world was changing. She knew that. She knew that the world that she had grown up in was not the same one that she was going to go to university in. That she was going to change her mind. That she was going to learn to be someone else. She was a Graves. And she was a Drake. And she had Le Fay blood. She could change the world. She could help change the world, and she wanted to. She wanted to be a part of that change. She wanted to do something.

What she hadn’t been expecting was that she was going to be confronted with Adaline Potter in the Minister’s office. Everything that her mum had for the Minister she was sure that the woman would want set aside somewhere to read when she had time. Mum had already gone over them all, it wasn’t like they both had to read everything twice. Her mother hadn’t been the Head of the Department under three different Ministers now for no reason. She didn’t care who was in charge, she did her job, and that was something that Lyla wanted to learn to emulate.

Nodding with a smile at the other witch’s question she stepped forward to meet her. “They are. They’re from my mum – Madam Graves – the Department of Justice.” She realized halfway through telling Adaline that they were from her mum that she had been gone long enough there was no telling if she remembered, or even had ever known, who Lyla’s parents were. And Mum’s surname had changed since they had left anyway. “Briefings from the meetings with the small councils this week. She asked that we leave this note with them.” Lyla pulled the note from her bag and slipped it onto the top of the stack before she handed them over.

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We are the change

WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD

A little step every day, moving the right way

It did not matter that Adaline had only been in her role for a few days. She had hit the ground running. There had been no one to teach her what to do. Andromeda gave direction and made requests, but the woman was too busy herself to micromanage the Potter. Adaline did not need that anyway. She had always been a go-getter. She wasn't here to sit. She was here to change the world. Change did not come if you were just lazing around not doing anything, at least not the change you wanted.

So, Adaline was here--she was going after the change she wanted to see... and high on her list of goals for the near future was getting her father back here, too. Rising Phoenix was good. It was maybe even necessary, but Harry did not belong there. Not really. He was an auror. And the Ministry needed good aurors. The people needed law-abiding respectable aurors that would serve and protect them all, not only select interests.

She wished Liam was here with her, too. It was so weird to be separated from him now. He had gone back to Hogwarts, which was probably for the best where Deacon was concerned. She was glad that her little brother had their elder sibling there to watch over him as the Potter transitioned back to into traditional schooling. Adaline could not really even imagine how either of them were doing it. They had learned so much beyond what was taught at Hogwarts--Deacon had to be bored out of his mind...but she knew the socialization would be good for him. Maybe it could have been good for her, too--but she just could not go back there. She'd find friends elsewhere. 

There were interns and trainees that were close in age to her. She could find people do hang out with... Maybe? She could think about that later. Work came first for now. When she really had her bearings, then she could work to cultivate some sort of friendliness with the other young people at the Ministry. She saw them some. Interns frequently brought deliveries of reports and the like up to the Minister's Office--things too sensitive or too heavy to be sent by the post. There would be opportunities to talk. 

If she could think of something to talk about... Even as Lyla was standing in front of her, all that Adaline had in her mind were thoughts of work. She accepted the missives from the other witch. Her eyes flicked over the note as she turned to sit the stack of files on the table behind her desk. "I'll make sure the Minister receives them," she said professionally as she turned back to the Graves. "It's nice to see you again. Do you have an internship in the DOJ?" Adaline could not really judge Lyla, if she did. Nepotism had gotten her this role, too. 

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