Only Prettier

Everybody says you gotta know your enemies
Even if they only weigh a hundred pounds and stand five foot three
If you just smile and behave you could always get your way
It's a universal plan that'll get you where you can in all societies
@nella | Outfit

Getting through the end of these meetings meant that she could move on to other things, and Andromeda was sure that between Pansy, and her assistant, they had come up with a plethora of other things that she needed to get on top of. There were sure to be things that needed her attention right away, and after taking the weekend to go through the notes on the meetings that she had had last week, she thought that they were going to be off and running. People were going to have questions, they were going to know what was changing, and when, and Andromeda knew that they were going to have to get some of those changes lined up soon enough. Deciding what to do about certain factions of the population was sure to be at the top of the list after all. They were going to need to implement policies on certain things. Make sure that there were rules, and guidelines for protocols that they had simply stopped caring about. She could admit that the structure was there. That the bones were a part of all of this, but you couldn't run a government with only the bare bones. They needed to fleshed out. They needed something solid to accompany it. And that was what she was trying to get out of these meetings. She wanted them to be honest with her, and while she knew that there was a wall there preventing true honesty, Andromeda was certain that simply by talking to them, they could improve some of the things that Ares had simply let be. 

Because that was what appeared to have happened. You couldn't just let all of the Departments run as one mass, and not check in on them. Andromeda didn't plan on harassing them all every week, but she thought that knowing that there was someone that was there watching over their shoulders now was something that they were going to have to get used to. This was not a free for all anymore, and it was high time that they got used to that. There were rules that they had to play by now. Not strict rules, but rules nonetheless. She didn't think that they were even anything more than common sense. But she wanted to talk to all of them, she wanted to hear them out. Because an open door was better than a closed one. If they knew that they could bring things to her attention, and that she would discuss them calmly, and rationally with them, there was a better chance of all of them succeeding. Because this was all of them. You couldn't run four countries on your own, and Andromeda knew that. Something that it seemed like her predecessor had forgotten. You could take the load entirely on yourself, but all you were going to end up doing was getting buried beneath it. She wasn't going to bury herself underneath anything. She was going to trust the people under her to hold up their end of the bargains, and she was going to trust her family to stand behind her when she made decisions. 

So far, that seemed to be working. Battling it out on either front, let alone on both fronts, was something that she didn't think that she could have handled. Having her family behind her was important to her. And knowing that that family was made up of Lestranges, and Yaxleys, and Rosiers... Those were good names to have in her corner. They were the names that had helped to push all of this forward. Because there was something Sacred about all of this, and she knew it. The blood that ran in her veins, that ran in Arcturus's veins, was the best of the best. Their blood ran Black. She was almost through with these, and she knew it. Something that she was very much looking forward to. But before she could get there, she knew that she had a couple of them left. The next name on her calendar was Ornella Acciai, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department. Andromeda knew that she had saved specific meetings for this week, and this was one of them. Because it wasn't a very big department. Because the woman was foreign born. And because Andromeda thought that on the list of priorities for things that needed to be changed, Ms. Acciai would probably only have a small number of things that she needed to focus her own attentions on. Scribbling a note in the corner of her last meeting notes Andromeda set the parchment aside just as she heard the next knock on her door, "Come in..."

Outfit

Being a foreigner was damned near a badge of honor for Ornella. She had been around politics her whole life, combined with all of the family businesses, and her marriage to a politician and she had learned her fair share of things. She had sensed that the ball that the Minister had thrown that something was coming and she was more than pleased that she was right. It was not often that a woman was in charge of any magical society, so this as something not only for the history books but for all women to stand up and take notice of. Magic was usually a patriarichal society and women like Ornella could never hope to rise to that kind of power, though she did at times wish for something more. She was the head of a department, which meant she had more power than some people actually thought of and though she was head of one of the most loathsome departments in the whole place.

She had been called to the Minister's office, something she had heard about happening to other heads. Raymond had lost his job and she was a little worried that it might interfere with their arrangement, but that was who she was. She liked things neat and tidy and she was determined to have things her way.  She had shaped up the department a great deal already by setting tighter guidelines and requiring reports that go to her and not Corben Yaxley. She didn't mind that they did so from time to time, but she was the head of her office, and she review their reports and then sent them to her bosses office along with their memories. She didn't want nor need blood on her hands because some one lied.  She was refusing to allow her Italian pure blood to be spilled as well. She knew how to move in society well enough.

Arriving at the office she adjusted her dress and waited to be shown inside, she knew better than to just push her way into an office. So she knocked politely and made sure that her hair was in it's proper place before opening the door. "Buongiorno Minister, you wished to see me Signora?"

Going through with this was something that she hadn't really thought that they were going to get to in the beginning. When she had first brought it up, Andromeda thought that Rodolphus had thought that she was joking. Or maybe that she was crazy. Perhaps a little of both. But she had meant it. She had meant it when she had said that she wanted to take over the Ministry. She had needed out of the hospital. She had needed out of the hospital for reasons that she hadn't told anybody. No one had bothered to ask. No one had really even questioned why she wanted out of there so badly, and she didn't know if she should just accept that, or if it was going to continue to bother her. Because it did, bother her. That no one had even raised the question of why she had been so willing to walk away from a career, and a reputation that she had worked her entire life for. Yes, she was still a healer. Yes, that was something that she would always carry with her. But she couldn't be a healer anymore. She couldn't put herself through that day in and day out anymore. She had tried.

For months now she had tried, and she had failed. She didn't think that there was any way that she was going to just get over it. She had died, and that changed you. It changed you in a way that you couldn't shake. There was something in her core that was shaken. That was different. She knew that she would still do anything to make sure that her family was properly taken care of. She would treat those that she thought that she knew well. But there was no way that she could handle the rest of that again. She couldn't handle being in an operating room. She couldn't handle holding someone's life in her hands like that. She was responsible for enough as it was, she didn't need to be the reason that someone else died. Because that was all that she saw now. That she was the reason that someone that she had loved had died, and she didn't think that she could handle killing anyone else. She had left, and no one had said more than a surprised 'Oh' about it. It was enough to have her wondering if anyone really knew her at all... Or if anyone even cared?

Obviously, they cared about her, she knew that. That they cared. But it was different, caring, and questioning. No one had questioned why she had left. Her sister hadn't asked, but Cissa never asked questions. For the same reason that Andromeda didn't ask why she was still working at the hotel in Scotland, even after things got better. She didn't think that Narcissa would ask why she had taken up residence in the Minister's office. But there was more to it than that. There was more to all of this than that, and Andromeda thought that it was almost funny, how different life seemed now than it had even a year ago. A year ago, she had been on sabbatical from the hospital, working at Hogwarts. She had been trying to convince herself that she wasn't really pregnant… Even if she had known full well that she was, and here she was now. The Minister for Magic, married to the man that she had loved for forty-five years, and there wasn't anyone that was going to get in her way. Andromeda thought that she had the world right now, no matter how lonely that became.

But her own personal thoughts couldn't continue to get in the way here. They were the ones that were going to have to make a change. They had let Ares Wentzell do as he pleased for far too long, and she thought that they were going to do what they could to clean it up. To class it up. Because the Ministry of Magic needed to be better than a foreigner with the reins so loose in his hand that he hadn't realized that his horses had completely run away from him. He had had very little control over what was going on here, and Andromeda thought that the first real order of business after taking over, was making it quite clear who was in charge. Because she knew what they were going to think. She knew that there were plenty of them that were going to think that it was Rodolphus pulling the strings behind all of this, and they were wrong. Her husband liked power, that wasn't a guess on anyone's part. But this kind of power… This was different. And wielding it, Andromeda wanted everyone to be sure that she knew how to use words that were sharper than knives. The woman before her was not someone she sought to make an enemy of, but she was a foreign-born witch, in a Ministry that had just ousted a foreigner… "I do. Please, have a seat Ms. Acciai."