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[attr="class","ctopline"]A set of eyes had pinned him

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[attr="class","clyrics"]She's everything the devil can't be[break]
When she's singing to me, "Glory"

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[attr="class","cbody"]The United Kingdom was definitely a lot different than anywhere else that she had lived and, over the years, she had been to plenty of paces. She supposed coming from Australia to a place like the United Kingdom both had its drawbacks and its advantages. It was autumn in Australia right now, so it wasn’t like the weather was too much of a shock. Though, obviously, there were still its differences. She did miss the weather and the sights in Sydney. It had certainly become home to her in the years that she had lived there. Luckily, though, being in Australia for as long as she had been meant that her English was certainly up to snuff. Not that it hadn’t been before. Going to school in the States had all but made sure of that. But coming straight from an English speaking country helped immensely.
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Then there was the matter of the Foundation. The Altmann Institute had been where she had worked for years, and she was used to the equipment and to the people that worked there. Apart from the fact that her ex-husband worked there too, it had been good to her. She had learned and taught and discovered more than she thought she would have been able to anywhere else. She was infinitely grateful for that.
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She knew that her work at the Altmann Institute was partially how the International Confederation of Wizards had found her, and that was something that she was of course grateful to as well. But it was strange to be away from the place she had been working for as long as she had. Samira was still getting used to the twists and turns in the. Lestrange Foundation. She was still getting used to the unfamiliar faces. Luckily for her, there were less of those by the day. That sort of came with the territory of being an extroverted person. She didn’t know strangers for long, and she had made a point in getting to know every person that she had come across at work thus far.
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It was different, but not necessarily in a bad way. She had to admit that it was nice not having to worry about whether or not she was going to pass Mason in the halls. The day that their divorce had been finalized, she certainly began to understand the downsides of being in a relationship with someone that you worked with, and it going wrong. Samira had known that she needed to solider through though, and that was exactly what she had done. At first, she had just ignored him if she passed him in the halls. When enough time had passed, she’d started to give him the same polite smile she’d given to anyone else in the hallway that she didn’t know all that well. She was never as friendly with him as she was with most of the rest of her colleagues, but she had gotten to the point where she could fake a smile, which had been good, professionally speaking.
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But she was still glad that she didn’t have to worry about crossing paths with him at all here. It was a definite benefit of being in a completely new place. It made her wonder if she would return to the Altmann Institute when this all ended, or if she would find somewhere new to work. She did like change—maybe it was time for her to consider relocating. Not necessarily because of Mason. She had never stayed too long in one place. The longest she had been anywhere had been in India, though a different part of the country for boarding school and university. Whether it was the States, Germany, or Australia, Samira ended up somewhere new every couple of years. After this was all over, finding somewhere new to do her work might just be the right decision to make.
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She didn’t know that for sure—and she certainly didn’t need to be thinking about it now. For now, her focus was here. She was here. Nothing else mattered. Not until a cure was found, and the people of the United Kingdom had their magic back. Wondering what she was going to do next was a completely unnecessary exercise when she had no idea how long she was going to be here.
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But after a long day of work, she was looking forward to her plans for the evening. The group that she had come with was an interesting one. There were people that she knew and got along with better than others. There were people that she knew in… other ways, and those that she would like a chance to get to know better. Then, of course, there were those that she did not understand and likely never would. That would not stop her from being professional and working with them when need be, but the point did stand. Tonight, she’d made plans to get dinner with Bets, though, a woman that she thought that she’d clicked with when they first met. In her opinion, anyway. She was curious to hear how everything was going in the Ministry. As much as she was not the political expert here, she wanted this mission to be a success—and frankly, she was just interested in how it was going on that end. She thought it was both easier and harder than what she was doing in different ways.
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She made it first to the hotel bar and ordered a glass of chardonnay before grabbing a seat at one of the free high-top tables around the bar. She thought it was lucky she managed to grab one, since she’d been to this bar enough times since she’d gotten here to know how quickly it could fill up on a Friday night.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]970 ● @elizabeth ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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his version of a kingdom

SHE'S EVERYTHING THE DEVIL CAN'T BE

WHEN SHE'S SINGING TO ME, "GLORY"

They had been here almost a month now, and Bets didn’t think that she was anywhere close to getting Malfoy to actually listen to a word that she was saying. He hated her, and she could understand that. On some level, she was here because he wasn’t doing his job well enough. She understood how that could be threatening. But she wasn’t here because he was doing a bad job. She was here because she thought, or the ICW thought, that she could help. She didn’t want to change it all on him, not if there were parts of it that were working. But she did want to help.

And she couldn’t help, if she was talking, and he wasn’t even listening to her. Really, after her initial experience with the man, she was lucky that he had opened the door at all. She was going to have to try and make a better impression the next time that she got sent on a mission like this one. But she didn’t think that he had really given her all that much of a choice. It had been sitting there and let him realize that she wasn’t going to be bullied around by him the whole time, or leave, and let him win. And Bets didn’t let other people win.

If she had, she wouldn’t have been the person that she was today. She didn’t let people bully her around. She didn’t let people try and dictate her life to her. Mark had tried that, and she had gotten divorced. If there was one thing that she had learned growing up at her Daddy’s right hand, it was that just because she was a girl didn’t mean that she couldn’t do whatever she wanted to do. They couldn’t put a fence around her and hold her back. She had wings, and she got to fly. This was no different. She wasn’t going to be caged, and quiet, just because someone didn’t like her.

So, she kept on talking. It was the one thing, besides math, that she was exceptionally good at. Bets could talk, and she could strike up a conversation with just about anyone. That was the best part of the job, talking to people. Learning about different people from all over the world. Their cultures, their histories. Their stories. She was a people person, and so when she had gotten the chance to get to know her colleagues, she had taken it. There were not as many of them as she would have liked, but other than the Supreme Mugwump’s assistant, she knew that she was the youngest one on this trip.

That had never stopped her before. Bets had always been one of the youngest to do things. She was brilliant, and that had a tendency to get in her way sometimes. She had always had that problem. It had bene why she had been taken out of school with her sisters. It had been why she had finished her GED at fifteen. It had been why she had done all of the things that she had done. Why she had two doctorates. Why she had a master’s degree from MIT in something that they only gave in special cases. She knew how special she was. But she also knew that she was still just the girl from Bardwell that could get a bit too big for her britches at times.

She wasn’t anyone special tonight. She was just her. It didn’t matter that she wanted to punch Lucius Malfoy in the nose. It didn’t matter that she thought just about any other assignment would have been better right now. She had volunteered for this. And while she thought that he might actually be the most insufferable man on the planet, she had a job to do. And she was not going to let some stubborn man prevent her from doing it. He did not get to do that to her. No one but Elizabeth Jones, beat Elizabeth Jones. And she knew that she was more than capable of defeating herself.

No, tonight she was going to dinner with Samira, and while she didn’t know the other witch all that well, she didn’t see why she couldn’t get to know the people that she was working with. It seemed logical to her. There was a sense that they all needed to have one another’s backs in some way. But Bets didn’t really get the impression that the other American was Samira’s cup of tea. She had set out tonight to prove to the other witch that not all American’s were the same.

Spotting her across the bar she slipped into the stool opposite of her with a bright smile. “I’m glad we said early. This place is already busy, and it’s not even proper wine drinking time yet.” Flagging down the server she ordered a Montoya Cabernet before she turned back to Samira. “Is drinking in hotels on Friday night actually a thing here? Do they not have… bars? Or clubs?” She would have understood if it was a hotel casino, or if there was something else here besides it just being a hotel. But to come to a hotel bar just to drink on a Friday night? That seemed strange. They didn’t do that in Boston, certainly not in Texas. And if they had done it in Geneva, she hadn’t noticed.

@ samira • 904 • elizabeth's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","ctopline"]A SET OF EYES HAD PINNED HIM

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[attr="class","clyrics"]SHE'S EVERYTHING THE DEVIL CAN'T BE[break]
WHEN SHE'S SINGING TO ME, "GLORY"

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[attr="class","cbody"]There had been no way of really knowing who was going to be a part of this group until they had met that first day in Geneva. Samira was not entirely sure how they had been selected for the assignment, but she was sure that it was something that had taken a lot of thought. They were walking into a dangerous situation. For obvious reasons, they would want people that were the most qualified to deal with it. Not just in their area of expertise, either. There were other factors to consider as well. Outside stressors, and how well the members of this team would be able to deal with them. This was a high-stress assignment, and she was sure that they would not choose anybody that would succumb to that kind of pressure. She was sure that they were qualified in that way as well. They would need to be.
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Samira knew that she personally felt strong and secure enough in herself to deal with anything that the trip might throw at her—whether it was problems with the people she worked with, coming face-to-face with citizens of the United Kingdom that were against their interference, or losing her magic herself. There was nothing that she thought she was unequipped to handle. If she had thought that, then she wouldn’t be here. She would have turned down the opportunity, if she thought that it was something that she couldn’t handle. She would have put the importance of this trip over her own ambition and her own desires to come here and figure out this epidemic, if she thought that she would be more of a hinderance than a help.
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She had to hope that the other members of the team felt the same way. That they felt uniquely qualified to deal with this, and that felt like their own strength of mind could adapt and could take any surprises thrown at them. She understood that this was a trip with high stakes, and that the pressure could get to the strongest of people. She just did not really think that they had time to deal with that. This team would need to be stronger than that, and if there were any weak links that couldn’t handle it, that could end up being detrimental to them. This was a trip where emotions needed to be cast aside for the most part and letting them overwhelm the situation would only end poorly.
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There were people that she thought had been a good pick for this team. People who she either knew to be strong, or at least had come to gain that impression of them throughout this trip. But there were also people that were strange choices, in her opinion. It wasn’t her place to judge those selections, but she had thought about them nonetheless. It was hard not to, when in a place like this. They needed a strong team, and the people that had chosen this team were not here. It was hard not to wonder just what they had been looking for when they had chosen who had been best for this trip.
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If there was someone that she had little doubt about, it was Bets. She had gotten to know her a little bit better than she had the rest of the team and had gotten on with her well. There was no doubt in Samira’s mind that she was incredibly intelligent and that she would be able to take on the Death Eater heading up the department that she had to work with. She was sure that the economy would soon be in better shape than it ever had been, with that witch’s mind to the task.
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But she didn’t really want to talk about work tonight. It was all that they had talked about since they had gotten there, it seemed. She was looking forward to just trying to relax for a little while. Hopefully, anyway. “That’s where you’re wrong—it’s always proper wine drinking time,” she joked, before taking a sip of her own wine. “They probably have both, but who knows? Can’t say I’ve spent too much time exploring.” There were quite a lot of people here just drinking, but she assumed at least a good portion of them were probably staying at the hotel for work, just like they were, and might also not have the time to look around and find somewhere else to drink.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]744 ● @ bets ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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