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[attr="class","cbgtop"]

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[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]Take time and erase you,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]love don't hear no more

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]No, I don't fear no more, Better yet,[break]
respect ain't quite sincere no more

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]This was a risk.
[break][break]
Of course, it was. She knew that. She had known that the moment that she had told Harry that she wanted to go back to London. And from the second she had gotten back, she had only thought of this moment.
[break][break]
Someone needed to do something. That was all there was to it. The epidemic had wiped magic out, had taken it away from more than half of the population. The Ministry was likely barely holding it together, no matter how much they wanted to pretend that they were doing just fine. And what had they done? Nothing. They still had registered Muggleborns being sent down to mines, or tortured, or sweeping the streets for Merlin’s sake.
[break][break]
Yes, the epidemic had not spared Muggleborns either, but there were still Muggleborns that did have magic. They would be far more beneficial in their former fields, but the Ministry had done nothing. That needed to change and she was going to do her best to make them see that.
[break][break]
Or she was going to end up arrested in the Atrium of the Ministry. She supposed it could go either way.
[break][break]
But she had decided that it was a risk that she needed to take. There was no reason to think that she was going to be the one to get through to Minister Lestrange. No reason to believe that she would care at all, given her past policies. But the fact of the matter was, they needed everyone focused on keeping the countries running and they needed everyone who could, focused on finding a cure. Keeping Muggleborns registered was just foolish.
[break][break]
When she had left the house this morning, she had known there was a chance that this could go horribly wrong. She had said goodbye to the kids, who didn’t know where she was going, and she had said goodbye to Harry. He did know where she was going, obviously. But he had to know that it was worth the risk.
[break][break]
She had to do something.
[break][break]
Hermione was a well-known face--she knew that. She didn’t think that she would actually manage to make it to her office without anybody noticing her. Even with most of the country without magic, as far as she could tell, most people were still back at work. Maybe if they had come back earlier, and she had come while most people were still out sick, she could have made it to the office without anyone even realizing what was happening.
[break][break]
Of course, that wasn’t what happened today. She had barely made it into the Atrium before someone had recognized her. She wasn’t going to fight them, she wasn’t going to try to make it worse for her because she was sure that they would take any opportunity to hurt her if possible. So, she let them take her to the aurors’ office, and it was then that the head of the aurors’ office called up to the Minister’s office.
[break][break]
That was a relief. If she got all the way to the Ministry and they arrested her and wouldn’t let her anywhere near Andromeda, then she came there for no reason at all. Then this would turn bad, very quickly. She had to actually talk to Andromeda. She had to try to do something about this. If she didn’t make it home today, it wouldn’t be without saying her piece. She couldn’t let that happen.
[break][break]
Eventually, she did make it to Andromeda’s office. She didn’t know how she was going to feel about seeing her after so long. The last time she had talked to her, there hadn’t been a registration. Andromeda being with Rodolphus Lestrange had only been talked about in whispers. Now she was married to him with a son, and Hermione was talking to her as a fugitive from this registration.
[break][break]
When they were finally face to face, Hermione had to hope that she could still say everything that she needed to say. But before that happened, there was no reason to forgo formalities. “Minister Lestrange.”
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]677 ● @andi ● outfit

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

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bad blood

Band-Aids don't fix bullet holes

You live like that, you live with ghosts

If they had something to go on, she thought that it would help. Their world was not stable. Their world was about as far from stable as you could get right now, and she didn’t have the answers. Andromeda wasn’t pretending to have the answers. They could say that they were working on it. And they were. They weren’t lying to them. They were working on it. There were just a whole lot more dead ends than there were breakthroughs, and she hated that. Andromeda hated that it was turning up dead end after dead end.

She hated all of it. But there was nothing that she could do from here. There was nothing that this office that she could do about anything that was actually going to be helpful when it came to fixing this. She could approve policies. She could sign off on funding. But they were going to run out of funding. One of these days the Ministry was going to run out of funding, because they were already pulling it from things. They were pulling funding from nonessentials. And she knew that there were other areas that she could pull it from. Areas that it would make sense to pull it from. But she had to convince some others of that.

Touching the school was a non-start. She wouldn’t pull money from Hogwarts. But she had to get it from somewhere, and there was a logical answer. There was an answer that was right in front of them. But getting them not to hang her from a noose for it would be impossible. She had to figure something else out. She had to do something that wasn’t going to have her killed in the hallways. But she needed to do it, and she needed to do it fast. And her accountant was on maternity leave. Funding was something that Pansy excelled at. And she was at home with Andromeda’s new goddaughter.

Where she should have been. Of course. But she needed her here too.

She needed all of them here, and she didn’t know what to do about some of the things that they were working on. There were some things that just needed to be scrapped completely. Some things that she didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. But those were the things that were her responsibility. Everything was her responsibility. And the answers would condemn her.

A sharp knock on her door had her looking up, “What?” It came out snappier than it should have, but she was frustrated, and backed into a corner with no solid way out of it again. She couldn’t spin herself a web out of this one. There was only one way forward. They needed money. They needed research grants. They needed… They needed answers, and they didn’t have them.

“Ma’am, they have Hermione Potter downstairs.” Andromeda’s eyes had dropped back to the file in front of her, but that was certainly one sentence that she hadn’t been expecting.

“Who does?” That was the real question. Who had her? Because there were some people that she trusted a little more than others. And no matter how much she loved her brother-in-law, Andromeda sincerely hoped that it was Griffith that had gotten his hands on Hermione, and not Rabastan.

“Lord Yaxley, ma’am. The younger.”

A deep breath.

A nod.

“Have them escort her up here.” That was what she wanted, right? If she was in the Ministry, Andromeda had a feeling that it was to see her. It had to be to see her. Otherwise, why would she have come?

“Yes, ma’am.”

She watched as the girl disappeared, and then after a moment she sat back in her chair. So much for a corner… Having Hermione Potter in her hands was a test all on it’s own. She had walked into the Ministry of Magic. She had been apprehended by the aurors stationed in the building, and what was she going to do? Talk to her? Throw her in jail?

Let her walk out again?

The second knock she had been expecting, and she rose to her feet behind her desk. “Come in…” Level. Strong. The voice of the Lady Lestrange. The voice that she had perfected first as the Director, and then as the Minister. The mask fell firmly into place, and she nodded in dismissal of the aurors that had escorted her upstairs. “Mrs. Potter.” Andromeda gestured to the chair in front of her desk, “Have a seat.”

@ brave lioness • 751 • andromeda's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

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[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]TAKE TIME AND ERASE YOU,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]love don't hear no more

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]NO, I DON'T FEAR NO MORE, BETTER YET,[break]
RESPECT AIN'T QUITE SINCERE NO MORE

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[attr="class","cbody"]She hadn’t decided that they should come back to London to do this. Not really.
[break][break]
When she had first started talking to Harry about them going home, it had honestly just been because it had seemed like time. They had been on Mermaid Isle since the registration had begun—well, near the end of that month, at least. The kids had been there since the lockdown on the school had ended. And nothing had changed. Hiding out on an island was not a permanent solution. It had worked for the time being. She had been able to homeschool them, so that they were more than just caught up with their studies at Hogwarts. They had surpassed them.
[break][break]
She had every confidence that both Liam and Adaline could take their NEWTs tomorrow and pass them with flying colors. Teaching them had helped the days go by easier, and it had been nice. She had never really considered teaching. She had gone straight to the Ministry after the war—for how much good that had done her. Teaching hadn’t been anything that she had thought about, but she had truly enjoyed homeschooling the kids while they were on the island.
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But there was only so much that she could teach them. Only so much that she could do, and as their schooling came to an end, she realized that they were quickly going to tire of being on the island, more so than before. Deacon still had more work to do and she had still been finding things to teach Liam and Adaline, but they were done. She was fully confident that they could pursue any of their passions, whatever they might be.
[break][break]
But that too meant getting off of the island. It meant letting them have lives outside of that place, and that meant accepting the possible risks. There was always going to be danger, there was always going to be a chance that something bad was going to happen, but she was tired of hiding on an island and hoping that eventually it was going to go away.
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That eventually, someone was going to do something about it.
[break][break]
Nobody had. So, they had made it back to London and somehow she had decided that she was going to come here. There was no way of knowing how it was going to end up, she had just known that she had to try something. Someone had to do something. She hadn’t been planning on it being her, but here they were. She was calling the Ministry’s bluff, in a way. She was a fugitive. It would be relatively telling where they stood, depending on whether or not she got to walk right out of here after this meeting came to an end.
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Of course, if they tried to detain her… she more than likely wasn’t going to let that stand. Was she really going to try to fight her way out of the Ministry if it came down to it? She wasn’t sure. She just knew that she had magic, and most of the people here did not. It would all depend on the situation and who was around, really. She didn’t even need her wand, so there was definitely a chance that she could find her way out of this situation altogether, if it came down to it.
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But it was too early for her to be thinking about an exit strategy. She didn’t need one yet. So far, everything had gone mostly according to plan. Yes, she’d been detained by the aurors, but they had called up to Andromeda’s office and now were escorting her there. That was better than them refusing to even tell her that she was there, after all. It was strange to be standing in front of her, after so much had happened, but with a nod, the woman sent the aurors off and the door was closed behind them.
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She took her time heading to the chair after the woman spoke. For a moment, she was tempted not to sit at all, just because while Andromeda was standing, that gave her some kind of high ground. But standing or not, Hermione had her magic, and she had heard whispers about Andromeda decidedly not having it. She could take her out from a seated position if a threat arose. “Thank you,” she said, with a nod, before taking a seat. “I expect you might have some idea just what I’m doing here.” Andromeda wasn’t stupid. She knew better than to think she’d just come here to catch up.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]763 ● @ minister lestrange ● outfit

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

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BAD BLOOD

BAND-AIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

YOU LIVE LIKE THAT, YOU LIVE WITH GHOSTS

Andromeda Lestrange thought that she would have rather had her elder sister rise from the grave than see a day that she didn’t have to admit that she needed to talk to Lucius Malfoy, but she knew that she did. She knew that they weren’t going to be able to go on the way that they were going forever, and she knew that he was the Head of his department for a reason. She needed to see both of the Graves at some point too. For entirely different reasons, but she thought that there was something that she was going to need from each of them.

Olivia could give her the insights to just what was and was not going on around here, in the legal sense, Andromeda was not a lawyer, and she had never claimed to be. That was what Isolde was for. But her advisor had enough on her plate. Not that Olivia didn’t, she had even more, but Andromeda was the Minister, and sometimes that meant that she was the one that got to occupy people’s time. And she needed to see Beckett because she wanted to know if there had been any talk in his department about what they were going to do come next year’s season.

Quidditch was not the biggest thing on her priority list, but shutting down an entire industry was, necessary she knew, but also not good for the economy, and if there was any progress towards what they were going to do, she wanted to know about it. She wanted to know that people were getting somewhere, anywhere, with the things that they were doing. She wanted to know if anyone was making any progress. Because from what she could tell, Santiago and his healers at St. Mungo’s were not. Bangor didn’t seem to be fairing any better, and she hadn’t heard from the representatives at Gráinneog lately, but she doubted that they had either.

No one was making any headway, and Andromeda needed to be making progress somewhere. They had to keep the government functioning. They had to keep a steady hadn on what they did have, because this was not steady. There was nothing that they were going to do that was going to miraculously solve this, unless someone happened to find a cure out of nowhere. But it didn’t work like that. Medicine didn’t work like that, and Andromeda was unimpressed by the fact that there was nothing. That there were no trials, nothing. She wanted there to be answers.

She wanted there to be something that she could do. Something that anyone could do.

All of that was momentarily pushed to the side though, because there was a much bigger problem at hand, and Hermione Potter walking into the Ministry of Magic was a problem. It was a problem because she was the Number One on their Most Wanted list. It was a problem because while Andromeda could turn the other cheek to the fact that no one was actively pursuing them when they weren’t around, she couldn’t just ignore the fact that she had walked in here, of her own accord, and now there was a choice to make.

She could detain her, she probably should detain her, but she also knew her. And she knew that she wasn’t that stupid. She knew that there had to be a reason that she had risked getting herself killed if it had been her brother-in-law that she had run into in the lobby, and not her son-in-law. Griff was respecting the rule that Rodolphus had created. They were turning the other cheek, because the Potters were people that Andromeda cared about. She was godmother to this woman’s daughter. They were connected in a way that made her care. And now she had ruined that.

“Right this second, I think that I’m more concerned with why it is that you decided to just walk in here, where my brother could, and would, have killed you if he had been the one that found you?!” She had been safe, wherever she had been. No one had been looking for them, and now she had thrown herself directly into the fire. “You were safe. You know that? You were fine, even here in London, as opposed to wherever you've been. And you came here anyway…” It was foolish. There were plenty of other ways to make a point. There were plenty of ways that she could have established contact, if that was what she wanted, instead of attempting to make herself a bloody martyr.

@ lioness • 764 • andromeda's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]TAKE TIME AND ERASE YOU,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]love don't hear no more

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]NO, I DON'T FEAR NO MORE, BETTER YET,[break]
RESPECT AIN'T QUITE SINCERE NO MORE

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]Hermione might have been the most logical one in the group, but she was still a Gryffindor. She still was prone to some moments of reckless, however well-intended they might be. And that was what this was. She knew that. She hadn’t put nearly enough thought into this plan—not as much as she would have normally. She was, after all, the planner. She was the one that thought things through, that thought about the outcomes and the one that made sure that there wasn’t anything that they were overlooking. She was the one that kept them out of trouble—sometimes, anyway.
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But this time around, she was the one coming into the Ministry without too much of a plan. There were so many outcomes that could come out of this and she didn’t know how it was going to go. There just hadn’t been a way for her to know how this was going to go, but she had decided that it was worth the risk.
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The epidemic was horrible, of course. There were thousands of people without magic that did not deserve to be in that situation. But it also meant that most of the Death Eaters in the Ministry that might have killed her just for walking into the Atrium didn’t have the ability to do that anymore. It was a calculated risk, because she knew that she was in the minority. Having magic meant that she had an advantage, and she had thought it was worth that risk. She didn’t necessarily know who had magic and who didn’t, but there were whispers. She had kept her eyes open, of course. Had looked for anyone with a wand, anyone that looked like they were about to pull one out, but nothing had happened.
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Hermione had still been escorted to the aurors’ office, had still been brought down here, but she hadn’t been worried. She hadn’t at any point thought that she couldn’t get out of this situation if she needed to. She didn’t even need her wand—even just having magic gave her an advantage, but they could have disarmed her and she still would be fine. She was being brought to Andromeda, and that had been a step in the right direction. What would happen when she had gotten there had been a mystery.
[break][break]
Their last conversation had been in Grimmauld Place. It had been back when her relationship with Rodolphus Lestrange had been whispered about, but not verified. It hadn’t gone well. It had been her trying to explain why she’d left the Project, and that was the last time that she’d spoken to her. And a lot had changed in that time. She was married to Rodolphus, she’d had his son, and she had been the Minister for more than half a year. Muggleborns were still registered, which proved even further that Andromeda Lestrange was not the same as Andromeda Tonks. As if that had been up for debate.
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Hermione knew that the woman couldn’t just end the registration without an uproar from her people. She had heard there had been improvements, but there was no way of knowing if that had been just to placate the Order or if Andromeda was secretly trying to take steps in the right direction. But Hermione was a realist. She was not going to assume the latter when the woman had given her no reason to.
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She raised her eyebrows as Andromeda spoke, knowing that playing at nonchalance was likely not the right move, but it was the response she went with any. “Oh, could he have?” She asked, her tone just barely amused. Sure, she didn’t know who had magic and who didn’t technically. But if there was a god in this word, Rabastan Lestrange would be stripped of his magic. Both of the Lestranges, actually. “Yes, I did. Somebody had to.” It didn’t seem like anybody else was going to do anything, and so, she had decided that meant that it was left to her.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]670 ● @ minister lestrange ● outfit

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

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BAD BLOOD

BAND-AIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

YOU LIVE LIKE THAT, YOU LIVE WITH GHOSTS

When she had come into work this morning, this was the last thing that she had expected. Hermione Potter was the last thing that she expected. But Andromeda thought that by now she really should have just expected the unexpected. That was the way that her life had seemed to go. Everything was shifting, everything was changing, and she didn’t have an answer for it. She didn’t have an answer for the things that she was doing now. She didn’t have an answer for why, or how, she didn’t know what the next step was. And figuring it out was essential.

She was the Minister. This was her job. She was the one that was going to have to try and get them through this. Because this was a mess. There was more going on than the problems that they had been facing for years. Yes, there were things that needed to be done, she wasn’t denying that. But there were things that she couldn’t do on her own, and there were things that now took precedence. And that was horrible, she knew that it was horrible. But they had already started to help the muggleborns. It wasn’t perfect, and more would have to be done, but they couldn’t just prioritize that over a National Emergency.

And a nationwide outbreak of an unknown disease was pulling her attention away from things. It was pulling her focus towards the things that she thought mattered most. The things that were going to keep the country running long enough to do something about the rest of it. She knew that things were important. She knew that they were going to have to do something about it, she had been trying to do something about it. But there was only so much that she could do, and not have the entirety of her society come calling for her head. And it was harder now that they didn’t have magic.

There were plenty of those that still did, that would have rather liked to see the muggleborns all murdered. And she had let them go. She had taken them out of the squalor of that alley, and she had taken the kids out of, well, all of it. For the moment she had shipped them back to their parents. It wasn’t a permanent solution. None of it was. But Andromeda thought that there was a good chance that they could make something into a solution. In time. If they were going to fix the world, they had to do it slowly. They had to do it in a way that was going to make it a better world, for their children.

They had already grown up in a world that was so full of hate, and darkness, and war. And she didn’t want that. She didn’t want her sons growing up in that. And she knew that they would always be Lestranges. That there would be no escaping their father’s name. But it was her name too now. And she could do something with it. She could change it. And she had changed it. Her taking the name alone had pulled it into a grey category that no one had been expecting. Because Andromeda Lestrange was not black and white. She was still the witch that had married a muggleborn. She was still the witch that had raised a halfblood, Order leaning daughter.

None of that had changed, simply because her name was now Lestrange. It would have been different, if she would have been a Lestrange all along. She wouldn’t have been the witch that she was today. She wouldn’t have had the family that she had. She wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful. But she was strong, and she knew that she could do this. She could make the changes. It was just a slow process. And for being here less than a year, there had been improvements. There had been changes made. It was just a matter of people like the woman seated before her now, that wanted change to happen faster.

And she could understand it. She got why. But she couldn’t do that. It just wasn’t possible to change things that quickly. Not without rebellion. “Yes, I’m sure he could.” There were plenty of ways to kill a person without magic, and Andromeda herself had instructed Rabastan to start learning them earlier this week. Hit-Wizards without magic would still be expected to do their jobs. The same as aurors. “And you just decided that that was your job?” She raised one eyebrow at the younger witch and the corner of her mouth twitched up for just a second. Hermione Potter never changed…

@ lioness • 782 • andromeda's outfit

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[attr="class","cbgtop"]

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[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]TAKE TIME AND ERASE YOU,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]love don't hear no more

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]NO, I DON'T FEAR NO MORE, BETTER YET,[break]
RESPECT AIN'T QUITE SINCERE NO MORE

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]The decision to come here had been made, and she had known that she couldn’t just walk out of the house without telling Harry about it. Even if it wasn’t exactly up for discussion, in her mind. Even if it was something that she was likely going to do even if he disagreed, Hermione had still known that she had to tell him about it. She couldn’t just leave the house and walk into a situation like this one, where she had no idea how it was going to end, without telling her husband what she was planning on doing. It had been discussed. Had he been thrilled with the idea? Not particularly. But he hadn’t tried all that hard to talk him out of it either, and that was enough for her.
[break][break]
Somebody had to do something, after all. They had been gone for years, and what had anyone done to try to get things back to normal? It didn’t seem like much of anything had been done at all. She understood that it was complicated—she understood that pushing back meant war, and a full-blown war came with casualties on both sides. There were people that wouldn’t think that was worth the risk. There always would be. But they couldn’t sit around forever.
[break][break]
The epidemic made this all even more important. As much as she thought it was ridiculous that they needed an epidemic to get any purist at the table, Hermione also knew it was important to take advantage of an opportunity. They couldn’t change the fact that the epidemic had happened—if she could, obviously she would. She wouldn’t wish losing magic on anyone… well, almost anyone. It did feel a fair bit like karma that some of the worst Death Eaters were without magic. But generally speaking, they would obviously never want something like the epidemic to happen. It just didn’t change the fact that it had. And now that it was here, and there was no sign of a cure in sight, they needed to take this chance. This was a perfect opportunity, a perfect time, to prove that they needed to work together. That fighting the epidemic and finding a cure should be more important than fighting over power and what blood status meant.
[break][break]
If she could get that through to Andromeda, then she thought they would be off to a good start. Hermione didn’t expect all that much more than that. She’d really like to also be able to walk right out of the Ministry again and go home, but other than that, she didn’t expect much. She just had to hope that she still knew enough of Andromeda to get her to understand. That was the problem. She wasn’t sure how much of that same woman remained, not after everything that had happened. Not after everything she had done and allowed to be done to Muggleborns since she was made Minister—or since she made herself Minister.
[break][break]
Hermione wasn’t going to be naïve; when it came to Andromeda Lestrange, Hermione was no expert. She could use what she knew about Andromeda Tonks, even what she knew about Andromeda Black, but there was no telling if it would work at all. “I like to think I’m not all that easy to kill.” Hermione didn’t know if Andromeda assumed that she had lost her magic, just like most everyone else had. If she had, she could admit that her odds against Rabastan Lestrange, even if he was without magic too, were lower. But with her magic intact, she didn’t think he posed much of a threat. She wasn’t foolish enough to antagonize him and find out, though. “Didn’t have anything else to do today.” She retorted, her eyebrow raising just a little bit in return.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]632 ● @ minister lestrange ● outfit

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

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BAD BLOOD

BAND-AIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

YOU LIVE LIKE THAT, YOU LIVE WITH GHOSTS

Hermione Potter was not supposed to have been in the Ministry. She was safe, so long as she didn’t come here. Andromeda knew that. She knew that she had been safe this entire time. If there was one thing that her husband had ever done for her, one time that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had put her before himself, it was when he had called off the search for the Potters. They had not gone after them. They had not pursued them to wherever it was that they had been hidden. They were safe. That had been her gift. He hadn’t gone after them, and Griffith had taken that to heart when he had taken over. The Potters were safe.

And then she had done something like this. And she had come waltzing in here like she was the only person in the world that could make something happen. Andromeda didn’t know where she had been. But she didn’t need her little snakes to tell her that, to guess that it was somewhere that hadn’t been affected by what was going on. It was somewhere that meant that she still had her magic. And while she might have thought that that put her at an advantage, all it did was make her a target. She was even more of a target if she was going to try and fight her way out of here with magic.

She should not have come here. They had other things to worry about. The muggleborns had not been Andromeda’s main concern for months. She had far more to worry about than the fact that they were still not in the best conditions. She had started to make the changes that were necessary. Yes, they had been slow, but there was only so much protection the name Lestrange could give her, and she hadn’t wanted to offend the Lords so much that they were calling for her blood. And so, the process had been slow. But it had been one that had been halted by something far more pressing. Something that was robbing them of their magic, no matter their blood status. It was robbing people of their livelihoods left and right. Robbing them of skills that they had had for generations.

It was robbing them of so much more. And yes, they were all still in their homes, they hadn’t been uprooted like the muggleborns had been. But they had been returned to their homes, if they could afford it. They had started to make the strides necessary, and then this had happened, and she had had to turn her attention to something far bigger than the muggleborns. Because freeing the muggleborns did them no good if they had nothing to be freed into. They had to have a country standing. They had to find some sort of footing in the crumbling rock that they were trying to stand on.

Andromeda didn’t know what Hermione thought, that she was smarter than she was? That she couldn’t see what the bigger issues were here? She was well aware. But she also thought that Hermione Potter was a child. And that while she had been through a lot in her life, she didn’t understand how the purebloods truly worked. She thought that she did. And she thought that it was all of them, against everyone else. But it wasn’t that easy. The purebloods could turn on one another in an instant, and while she may not have cared for Andromeda being behind the Minister’s desk. It was a lot safer of an option to have her there, as Andromeda Lestrange. Than let the government fall into the hands of someone else. Bulstrode. Rowle. Dolohov. The ones that they would never trust.

“You’ve proven that time and time again, my dear. But I’m not going to kill you. I never wanted to kill you.” She hadn’t. She hadn’t wanted to kill anyone, well, at least not any of the muggleborns. The people that Andromeda had killed had deserved it. And that was an entirely different story. One that she thought that, in a different light, Hermione would have appreciated. But that was neither here nor there at the moment. “No, of course not. You’ve only just gotten back from your… Hiatus. Welcome back to London, we’ve had quite the turn of events since you disappeared.” Whatever the girl had come here to say, she was sure that she had likely already thought it on some level. She hadn’t been here, she didn’t know the extent of what Andromeda knew, and she wasn’t going to sit here, and let Hermione Potter think that she knew better, after being back in the country for five minutes.

@ lioness • 793 • andromeda's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]TAKE TIME AND ERASE YOU,

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]love don't hear no more

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]NO, I DON'T FEAR NO MORE, BETTER YET,[break]
RESPECT AIN'T QUITE SINCERE NO MORE

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]Hermione had always been someone that had worked on logic. She was the one that had the answers. The one Gryffindor amongst her friends that was not the first to jump into a situation without thinking about it. In fact, among former Gryffindors, a voice of reason was probably one of the first main things that they required. Someone had to talk them out of their ridiculous plans, someone had to put reason to their bullheadedness, to be level-headed amongst short tempers and those ready to burst to action without thinking about the consequences. She had been that person for as long as she could remember. From the very first time that Harry and Ron had gotten into trouble and she’d been dragged into it with them. From the very first time that she’d had to remind them that sometimes a situation called for sitting back and actually thinking about what they were going to do next.
[break][break]
But there were these rare occasions where she was the Gryffindor. Where she was the one that could have done with someone sitting her down and telling her to think through what she was about to do. Sometimes she was the one with the short temper, the one that was ready to run into a dangerous situation without thinking about it. There was a reason that she had been sorted into the same house as her husband, after all.
[break][break]
As much as she was the voice of reason a good majority of the time, sometimes she was the one that thought it was a good idea to walk into the Ministry like she wasn’t a wanted fugitive. Sometimes she was the one that was in the safety of a shop during the attack on Diagon Alley who ran out into the fray to try to stop people from getting hurt. Sometimes she was the one that was packing her bag, ready to register if that had the very best chance of keeping her family safe. There were times when she was acting on reckless impulse instead of using that logic and clear-headedness that most people knew her for.
[break][break]
Today was one of those days. But, in her mind, it was for a very good reason. They had gone into hiding when it had been the best thing to do for their family. When it was between fighting back and probably starting a war or keeping their children safe, they had been ready to do what Harry’s parents had done back when Voldemort had been searching for them. Neither Potters had been the type to sit around and do nothing. She didn’t have to have known them to know that. She knew their son. And she knew that they were a part of the Order, and how much they would have wanted to fight back and not hide behind the Fidelius Curse.
[break][break]
But sometimes making the safer choice was important, and that had been what they’d needed to do in order to protect the kids. In the time that they had been gone, a lot had happened. She hadn’t seen the wizarding world with Andromeda as Minister. She had seen it under Wentzell. She had left when the government was technically functioning, and now more than half the population was without magic and the Ministry was likely floundering.
[break][break]
And that was why she was here. In the wake in such a crisis, Hermione was well aware of how much they all had on their plate. But she did not think that was an excuse to keep Muggleborns in chains. In fact, that was an incredibly poor excuse. They could use help now more than ever. They could complain about their bigger problems all they wanted—and the epidemic was a huge problem, that was impossible to dispute. But it was very easy to justify lack of action by blaming their bigger problems. And it was a very easy thing to say from the comfort of their nice chairs, in their nice offices. Muggleborns were dealing with a lack of magic in poverty, in slavery, while still at risk of a purist cutting them down just because they felt like it. It was unacceptable. Human rights did not stop mattering just because there were other problems going on around it all.
[break][break]
“You’ll have to forgive me if my feelings on who you may or may not want to kill are a little unclear, Minister Lestrange.” Words given by the witch meant very little to her at this point. She thought that was something most of the Order could agree upon. She had proven that her loyalties were fluid, that her words were air with little weight behind them. It would take more than her claiming she never wanted her dead for her to change her mind on that. “Yes… disappeared. That’s a lovely way to word it.” It was men like her husband, families with her beliefs, that had made what she had done necessary. They were the ones that had pushed Muggleborns to the side, beat them down and tried to get them to believe that they were nothing. And now that an epidemic had evened the playing field, they were the ones still holding all the cards, still screaming that the rules weren’t fair. From the comfort of their homes, in the jobs they were still allowed to have. Yes, they were the ones with the true problems. “You’ve had your work cut out for you the past couple of months, and with quite a depleted workforce, I’d imagine.”
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]926 ● @ minister lestrange ● outfit

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

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BAD BLOOD

BAND-AIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

YOU LIVE LIKE THAT, YOU LIVE WITH GHOSTS

Andromeda was more than aware that people saw her in a light that left room for very little other than distrust. But she had not taken this job with the intention of being well-liked. She had made that choice when she had first removed the muggleborn students from the workforce and put them in a school of their own. Was it a good school? No. But it was better than torturing them. It was better than working them to death. It was a start. And it had been the very first thing that she had done when she had taken office. She had changed something.

Her morals were grey, and she knew that. They always had been. She had hidden that from no one. She was always Andromeda Black. She had been Andromeda Black from the day that she was born. But she wasn’t the only one that was like that. It was a decent way to survive in her position. She thought that there were plenty of them, it was just that she had always lived her life in a very public way. She had been the Director of the Hospital here in London for over a decade.

She had been the Director of that hospital as a Tonks, as a Black, and even as a Lestrange. She had not hidden the fact that she was a pureblood. That those were the things that she had grown up with. And perhaps there were those that believed that she did not hold to those traditions, and in a lot of ways she didn’t. She had had a halfblood daughter. One that had grown up knowing exactly who her mother was. Knowing the world that she had left behind. But that was just the thing. None of them knew her. The person that knew the most about her, other than her sister, was Rodolphus Lestrange. And that had been the truth even before she had gone back to his bed.

Before she had borne him a child. Before she had married him. She hadn’t hidden who she was from him either. And he had had every opportunity to stop her. She knew that he knew that too. He could have stopped her. One word, and she would have listened. There were very few people that she listened to like that. But she followed his orders. She always had. He could have said no, and she would still be at Mungo’s. She would not be the Minister. And she would have been dealing with the Epidemic, and the impending other crises that it could cause, in a much different manner.

The economy would not be her problem. The muggleborns would not be her problem. Hermione Potter would not be standing in her office, this wouldn’t even be her office. She would be in here harassing Ares Wentzell, and she likely would have been dead by now. But Andromeda had no intention of killing her. “Are they? Why do you think no one has even bothered to look for you since you disappeared?” She raised her eyebrows in question, “Rodolphus did not search for you, because of me. Griffith did not search for you, because of me. You were safe, because I wish you no ill will.”

There were very few people that knew that was indeed why no one had gone after them, and even Rodolphus had never said that directly to her. But there was only one reason why he and Griffith both would have put no aurors to the task of finding the woman that the rest of them considered the Most Wanted Muggleborn Fugitive. They had done it for her. So, Hermione Potter could question her all she wanted, but she had never wanted her dead. If she hadn’t cared, they would have made every effort to track her down. But for the monster that her husband could be, he had done that one thing for her. And she didn’t even know that he knew she knew.

“In some areas. We’re adjusting.” There were not enough muggleborns that had kept their magic to make a difference, if that was the angle that she had come in here trying to push. Andromeda did not think that there was any sense to lying and saying that things were fine. She could admit that there were problems with the Epidemic happening, but she also didn’t think that Hermione Potter had any idea what had been happening for the last several months. She had been gone, hiding, wherever they had been. And now she had decided to show up and tell her what she did and did not have?

@ do you have a point? • 776 • andromeda's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0