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[attr="class","ctopline"]Still there’s a reason to believe

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that things aren’t always as they seem

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]The strongest hearts are the one that feel[break]
The deepest hurts but still keep pressing on

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]This dinner had been important to what was going to happen on Friday. She was relieved that Kingsley was on board and that she would at least have him with her when she went to the Ministry again. She hadn’t yet heard from George but she knew that there was still time. She would have to start thinking about who else might want to come with her if he didn’t want to come or didn’t get back to her in time. She didn’t want to be at a disadvantage. With two people from the Ministry joining them on Andromeda’s side of things, she didn’t want to come in with one less. She was sure that she and Kingsley would be just fine, but it would still make her feel better for them to have the same amount of people.
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But there were other people that she could ask. She wasn’t worried about that. And even if they didn’t find someone willing to take the risk, from what Kingsley had said about Isolde, he wasn’t sure that she was really on the Ministry’s side. Honestly, if anyone was nonbiased or in the middle, Hermione would wager that it would be her.
[break][break]
After all, she might work for the Ministry but she also worked for Kingsley at Lufkin. She couldn’t be a complete purist and agree to work for an Order member. So with that in mind, they might end up being all right if Hermione couldn’t find a second person to go with them on Friday.
[break][break]
Tonight had made her feel better about this, though. They had no idea what was going to happen on Friday or what they were even going to talk about, but they needed to be prepared for anything. They needed Andromeda to see that they needed Muggleborns on board moving forward. If they didn’t have them, then there was no reason for Muggleborns to help them. There was no way that the woman actually believed that they weren’t as talented as purebloods--if she did, after knowing her for as long as she had, then she was an idiot. Hermione didn’t claim to be a genius or anything, but there were plenty of purebloods that she knew she could beat in a duel and had. There were purebloods that she knew that she was smarter then. It was just a fact.
[break][break]
If one of those smart Muggleborns had a breakthrough, why would they share it with her Ministry? The people that tortured them and took their lives away from them? They wouldn’t. They would have no reason to want those people to ever have their magic back.
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And if they could get her to see that, then they could move forward with what they needed to see from the Ministry to agree to come to the table and work together. They had talked a lot about that at dinner and she thought that they had determined a good list of what they would need--the registration to end, obviously. Muggleborn students back at Hogwarts, including eleven-year olds that hadn’t even been told what they were, a new headmaster at Hogwarts. She didn’t think that anyone wanted a Death Eater in charge of the school anymore. That was obvious. No one was going to agree to send their children back to school if there was any Death Eater involvement.
[break][break]
She thought that there obviously needed to be changes in the Ministry as well. There were too many Death Eaters in high positions and that needed to be remied. She was well aware of the fact that some Death Eaters were likely actually good at their position--and she didn’t want rioting or more chaos if they just all got sacked. But she thought there had to be some kind of compromise there. Plenty of people would likely support a fair election of a new Minister, but she thought that would probably be a hard sell. And then there were other places of power to consider. The Prophet being headed up by a Death Eater was not a first priority concern but she thought that it was worth a discussion.
[break][break]
There was plenty to think about, but they had finished talking for the night. Kingsley and Harry were in the living room now and Hermione had excused her and Lee as soon as possible so that they could talk in the kitchen. “I know you wanted to go out for coffee, but I figured coffee in my kitchen was the next best thing…” She said, before heading over to the pot to get it brewing.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]766 ● @oralee ● outfit

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

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beautifully human

don't make me prove

why I should be

Figuring out what it was that they were going to do was important. And Oralee didn’t know how Harry felt right now, but she knew that she was nervous. She had been nervous from the moment that she had found out what Hermione had done. Because that meant that they were actually going to do something. That things were not going to be the same as they had always been. And she was worried that there were things that were going to come back to haunt them. There were people that were going to want to kill them. A strategy was better than nothing, but she was still worried. She was always going to worry about them walking in there. Hermione was one of her best friends, and she thought that everyone knew how she felt about Kingsley. It was written all over her face.

Still, she didn’t think that they were walking into a trap, and if they were, they were walking in with magic. Hermione and Kingsley both still having their magic was a good thing, and that made her feel a little better. But the nauseating feeling in the pit of her stomach about all of this was enough that she was going to have to try and just push it down. She was going to have to try not to worry. But she had a feeling that her classes on Friday were going to be cancelled. She couldn’t teach and not know what was going on. It would drive her mad, and she wasn’t going to want to leave London either. Perhaps the cottage. She could handle being on the outskirts of London, but more than likely she would bug Harry into being here.

Grimmauld was so much closer, and she didn’t think that Audrey would mind being here for the day. She could bring something to entertain her, and a day with mummy would help Oralee with her nerves just as much as it would be good for Audrey. If she could focus on her daughter, then she was less likely to worry about Kingsley and Hermione, and what they were doing. Going in there like that… They had all the power, and they had none of it. Magically, they had the power. Everyone knew that the Minister had gotten sick in whatever this mess was. But she didn’t think that politically they held all that many cards. The Illness, that’s what they were riding on right now.

Deciding on what needed changed was good, but it wasn’t what Oralee could focus on. She was more focused on what was going to happen if this went badly. There was no one that they really trusted. She knew Isolde, she worked with Kingsley, and Oralee was not uninformed about the woman. She had… Looked into her background. When there had been talk of what Kingsley should or should not do to make sure that she was on their side, and not the Ministry’s, Oralee had looked into the other witch. But she trusted him, even divorced, she trusted him. They were a mess but getting divorced hadn’t been because the feelings weren’t there. It had been because he was an annoyingly noble git.

The argument could be made that he had made things worse, when he had left. That leaving her unprotected wasn’t the answer either. But she hadn’t been unprotected then. Not the way that she was now. Not when she had no magic, not when she was worried about what was going to happen if the magic that they had put on her arm to stop the curse’s progression decided not to hold anymore… Not when there were a million factors to consider that had less to do with what was going on in the world, and more to do with what was killing it. She was terrified of that. And she knew that that was no good excuse, but she was. She was terrified. And that was not a very Gryffindor trait.

“Coffee here is great.” She smiled at her friend, glad, for the first time, that they were all home. She wanted to know that they were okay. She wanted to fuss over them, and make sure that they had everything that they needed. But she knew that there wasn’t time for that right now. There were bigger things happening in the world. Things like illnesses, and someone waltzing into the Ministry like she owned the place. “I’m just really glad you’re not dead. I would have had to listen to Kingsley and Harry talk about avenging you for an hour.”

@ hermione • 769 • oralee's outfit - still no glasses, and she's ditched the jacket

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

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[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]STILL THERE’S A REASON TO BELIEVE

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that things aren’t always as they seem

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]THE STRONGEST HEARTS ARE THE ONE THAT FEEL[break]
THE DEEPEST HURTS BUT STILL KEEP PRESSING ON

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[attr="class","cbody"]She wasn’t ashamed to admit that she had been afraid going into the Ministry the way that she had. She could put on a good face—and mostly she did, but when it came down to it, there was a chance that they could have thrown her in Azkaban without a second thought. They still could have killed her and strung her up in the Atrium, like Harry had thought they would when the registration had first started. There were a dozen things that could have gone wrong, and it had been terrifying not knowing if she would be able to walk out of the Ministry again.
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But tonight hadn’t been about focusing on that fact. She had told Harry about it when she had gotten home. He knew that she wasn’t nearly as self-assured as she presented herself to be when it came to situations like this one. Tonight was just about figuring out their game plan for Friday. That was what they needed to focus on.
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And it had gone relatively well. It truly put her at ease knowing that Kingsley was on board and had so many ideas to contribute or ways to ensure that everything went well. She felt like he had her back—not just in general and in the actual discussions, but also if something went wrong. He had been one of the best aurors of his time, after all. He was a good person to have on her side, and she was relieved that he was going to be with her on Friday. She was sure that Harry was too.
[break][break]
Hermione was less certain that George was going to have her back. Not because she thought that he was going to betray her or anything like that—of course he wasn’t going to do that. But just because they hadn’t been as close as of late, just because she knew that he and Harry weren’t on the best terms. There was just no real reason to worry about that yet either, because he hadn’t owled her back yet. She had no idea if he would come and if he didn’t she knew that she would have to figure out something quickly. There wasn’t a lot of time for her to find someone else that she trusted to come with them.
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The last thing that she wanted was a numbers disadvantage. Both she and Kingsley having their magic still did give them an advantage. As far as she could tell, no one coming with Andromeda had magic. But that didn’t mean that she wanted to come into the Ministry with one less person in the meeting than Andromeda would have. She would have to figure something out, and quickly, if George decided not to come.
[break][break]
She was still going to give it a little while longer before she seriously started worrying about that. Of course, she had some names in mind, and she knew people that she couldn’t ask. Harry couldn’t come. If it went horribly wrong, their children could not be orphans. That wasn’t an option. But there were plenty of people in the Order that she could have asked, some that she trusted more than others. Ron wasn’t particularly political but she knew that he would have her back without question. So would Ginny, and even Percy was more politically inclined than George. If she needed to come up with someone else, she had options. There were still people that she trusted.
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But for now, her focus was on her friend and the fact that sometime in the last year, she had seemingly reconiled with her ex-husband and had not thought to include that in any of her letters. That was what she wanted to hear about now. While she waited for the coffee to brew, she leaned back against the counter and focused her gaze on Lee. “Longer than an hour, hopefully,” she teased, an amused smile forming on her lips. “I’m glad I’m not dead too. Honestly, I was prepared to curse my way out of there if necessary.” And with so many people without magic, she might have been able to pull it off too. Maybe.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]697 ● @ lee ● outfit

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

[googlefont=Dancing Script]
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BEAUTIFULLY HUMAN

DON'T MAKE ME PROVE

WHY I SHOULD BE

Watching the people that she loved get ready to go to war again was hard. Because this was a different type of fight. No one was throwing curses around this time. No one was fighting in a way that meant that others could jump in, and help. She couldn’t shield him the way that she had before. Oralee felt a little helpless. She was the only person in the room tonight that didn’t have magic, and she was feeling a little inadequate. There was a part of her that knew that that was why Kingsley had come home, that that was what had driven him there, and she knew that it wasn’t just that. She knew that there was more to it than that. But still…

It was sticking in her mind that that was something that had happened. That he had chosen to come home, because she couldn’t do it on her own anymore. Because she couldn’t protect them. And she knew that that was selfish. That she was being selfish for thinking that it was all about the fact that she wasn’t good enough, but sitting there, listening to them talk about what they were going to do, Oralee felt small. And for the first time in a long time, she thought that she had forgotten what it meant to be her. Did she want him to protect her? Of course, of course she did. She had always wanted him to protect her. But this felt different.

Before she could have protected him too. Before they were evenly matched, and there had been nothing that felt like she wasn’t good enough. That she wasn’t capable. She hated that. She hated that feeling… But this wasn’t about her. They weren’t here to talk about her pity party that she was throwing for herself. They were here to talk about what Hermione had done, and how incredibly insane it had been. Oralee knew that it was good, that in the long run, doing something was the only way to set anything in motion, but now they were going back. And Kingsley was going with her, which was good, she would rather her not go alone, but she didn’t really want her to go at all.

Oralee understood it. She did. She had never been the sit idle type either, but with George running the Order now… Kingsley needed that position back. She didn’t know why he had given it up in the first place. Because she hadn’t been there to tell him not to. Oralee knew that there had been a lot of times over the years where she had seen things cross his mind, and then he had looked at her, or he had looked at their kids, and it had all changed. Whatever he had been thinking had changed, and that wasn’t the case now. He hadn’t had them there to do that. She had had the kids with her, and he had been alone. Self-imposed isolation from his family…

The blonde was watching the other witch as she got the coffee ready, and she thought that she was just glad that they had come back from wherever they had been, mainly in one piece. She was grateful that Viktor had been sending them things for her. She sent them to Krum, he sent them on. It was easier that way. That was what she had told her when Oralee had asked, but she thought that it might just have been for safety’s sake too. That they were all just trying to take care of one another. And she knew that that was what Hermione had done when she had gone into the Ministry. She had set the world in motion, she was trying to protect them.

“Well, probably. But they do tend to get easily distracted.” She thought that she and Hermione could have talked on the same subjects for hours without really getting off topic, but the guys? She didn’t have the same faith in their ability to focus on just one thing, even if that one thing was avenging Hermione. “I’m glad it didn’t come to that. It would have been harder to talk him down, both of them, really, if you had had to fight your way out of there."

@ hermione • 716 • oralee's outfit - no glasses or jacket

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]STILL THERE’S A REASON TO BELIEVE

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that things aren’t always as they seem

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]THE STRONGEST HEARTS ARE THE ONE THAT FEEL[break]
THE DEEPEST HURTS BUT STILL KEEP PRESSING ON

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]Hermione hadn’t known how her little chat with Andromeda was going to go but, all things considered, she’d say that it had gone all right. The woman had agreed to a second meeting, at least, and that was something. Both of the would be coming with more people this time around, and they would be discussing… terms, sort of. They needed to move forward, somehow. With the epidemic crippling the United Kingdom, keeping a third of the workforce subjugated was honestly idiotic.
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There was a chance that the cure to the epidemic was in the mind of a Muggleborn healer that had been demoted down to cleaning chimneys. Was that something that they really wanted to risk? Hermione had wanted to think that they wouldn’t. But there was really no way of knowing that for sure. Not until their second meeting. The first one with Andromeda hadn’t gone into those kinds of specifics. The fact that she’d agreed to meet with them again was a good sign, but she’d known that they couldn’t go into this unprepared. They had to make sure that they were ready, which was why she had been so glad that Kingsley had gotten back to her so quickly.
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Making a dinner out of it had been a good plan. Hermione would take any excuse to see Lee, especially after what the letters from Kingsley had hinted. The last she had checked, the pair of them had still been divorced. That entire situation had been a surprise—and she knew how much it had hurt Lee, but she hadn’t thought that the situation had changed all that much in the time that they’d been gone. But from Kingsley’s letter, she had realized that she had certainly missed something.
[break][break]
And that meant that the time for planning and talk of politics could be done for the night. She wanted to hear what was going on with her friend. She wanted to ask her what was happening with her and Kingsley, and if they were back together. It was a good thing, she thought. If they were back together, if things were good, then she definitely thought that it was a good thing. But she was still curious how it had happened. Hermione couldn’t pretend to know all the details of the divorce—particularly not from Kingsley’s perspective. She’d had no idea what had been going through his mind at all, actually.
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But clearly, something had changed. That was what she wanted to know about. Lee hadn’t wanted to talk about it in an owl, which was fine. But they were done planning the meeting for the night—she was sure she’d be up all night continuing to plan, but for now, she could focus on her friend. “That they do. Especially when there’s bourbon involved.” There had been bourbon tonight, after all. Kingsley’s treat. She couldn’t pretend to be the biggest bourbon drinker in the world, but it had still been good. “I would have been fine.” It was better to think like that, now that she was fine. She didn like to think that she could fight her way out of the Ministry on her best day, but there really was no way of knowing what would have happened.
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Once the coffee was brewed, she poured it into two mugs, before finally heading to the table to sit down. It was only when she was settled, and had summoned over sugar and cream, that she looked at her friend again. “So… you and Kingsley. When did that happen?” She raised her eyebrows, before brewing the mug of coffee to her lips to take a small sip.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]610 ● @ lee ● outfit

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

[googlefont=Dancing Script]
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BEAUTIFULLY HUMAN

DON'T MAKE ME PROVE

WHY I SHOULD BE

Oralee just had to hope that it wasn’t going to come to fighting again. That was the last thing that she wanted. She had wanted a safer future. One that wasn’t going to be so hard on all of them. And she knew that that was a pipe dream. But she was still quite sure that it was something that they were going to have to work towards. She knew that that was what she wanted, anyway. And she thought that Kingsley might just want that too. Fighting was never going to be the only option. Not when there was so much else at stake. They had a world to set to rights. Yes, but there was more on the line now than there had ever been before. There was more to consider.

And she knew that it was complicated. There would never be a time when it wasn’t complicated. But that was just who they were. That was the life that they had long ago had to accept. And she had walked into it with her eyes open. She had chosen to be a Shacklebolt. She had chosen a life that included the Order, and all of the politics, and the heartbreak, and the tragedy, that went with that. She knew that it was a long and dangerous path, but it was one that they were just going to have to figure out. It was one that they were going ot have to work their way down. Together.

And it was all of them. It was something that they were all going to have to get on board with. She kenw that Hermione had made the first move, but it didn’t have to end there. Andromeda had agreed to another meeting, and while it made her nervous, Oralee knew that she would never stop them from going. They were going to have to work together. And more than one of them going in there was better than just them. It was better than doing nothing at all. They had been waiting, it seemed. Kingsley had given up the Order to George, for a time, and she honestly had no idea why, but the Potters were back, and she thought that that would help.

Taking them away had been wise, but with Andromeda in charge, and the muggleborns being ignored more than they were being prosecuted, she had to hope that it was going to get better. That this was going to work. Getting a meeting was a start. And she knew that they were going to go in there with something more than just their own blind hatred. Who they were going to be faced with, she didn’t know, but she hoped that it was someone that they could trust. Not Andromeda. They weren’t going to trust Andromeda. But they weren’t all monsters. They couldn’t be.

She knew that Isolde was Kingsley’s… Friend? Were they friends? She didn’t really know. But she thought that they got along alright, and Andromeda did listen to the other woman’s counsel. She did listen to her, and she had agreed to take the meeting. Maybe there was some hope yet.

That wasn’t what Hermione seemed to want to talk about though, and Oralee had known that the questions would come, but she took a drink of her coffee before she answered. A hum of acknowledgement came at the fact that Hermione thought that she was going to be alright, but it was the question about Kingsley that had her hiding behind her coffee cup. It was a complicated answer. It was something that she didn’t know where to even start with. “1998.” She answered with a bit of a smirk, and then she shook her head. “I’m not sure. There were… Moments. And then I quit my job out of love for Penny. He tried to get me to stay. Instead I ended up resigning, and he’s been… Home, lately...”

@ hermione • 657 • oralee's outfit - no glasses or jacket

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]STILL THERE’S A REASON TO BELIEVE

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that things aren’t always as they seem

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]THE STRONGEST HEARTS ARE THE ONE THAT FEEL[break]
THE DEEPEST HURTS BUT STILL KEEP PRESSING ON

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]A lot had happened since they had come home, there was no doubt about that. She knew that there would be no shortage of change in the future as well, as long as they had a say in it anyway. They had no idea how this meeting was going to go, but she knew that it was worth a shot. They had made the decision to come home, but it wasn’t safe. Not really, anyway. They had just decided that it was worth the risk. And now that they were here, Hermione knew that they had to try to actually get some changes to take place. Somebody had to do it, and if she had to waltz into the Ministry to get that started, then fine. It got them in the door. It made this meeting possible. Whatever happened after that… they would just have to find out. There was no way of knowing how it was going to go.
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Hermione was just glad that she had Kingsley on her side. Going into the Ministry with him having her back made her feel a lot better about her chances than if she went in alone again. Yes, having magic helped. She had known that she would be able to defend herself against almost anyone in the Ministry—either because they didn’t have magic or because she was a better duelist than they were but having someone else there would ensure their safety even more. And if George did indeed come with them, all three of them had their magic. That was a lot better odds than the other side had.
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She thought there was a good chance that they could actually make some changes in the Ministry. She wanted to believe that they could. Hermione didn’t trust Andromeda Lestrange as far as she could throw her, but she believed that the woman’s loyalties were a bit more complicated than a traditional Death Eater’s wife. She knew that she cared about Adaline, that she cared about the kids. She might think that she was a mudblood, might think that she was less than her because her blood wasn’t pure, but she did care about their kids. Hermione didn’t think that she could have faked all of that. She really didn’t want to think so, anyway. She could accept the rest of it. That was fine. It had been hard, at first, wondering how much of her friendship with Andromeda had been based on a lie. If she had been her friend while secretly harboring negative thoughts of her blood status. She liked to think that she would have known that—that she wouldn’t have been so oblivious to what the woman truly thought of her, but there was no way to know. There just… wasn’t.
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But she had to hope that they could get through to her somehow. She didn’t want to think about the alternative. Violence was not the answer. How many times had they learned that? Plenty. If they ousted her from office, they were no better than the Death Eaters and purists that had stood by and watched as Durant was burned alive in the Atrium. They would do this the right way. It was the only way to make sure that they were better. That was what mattered. Making the world better, one choice at a time. And they were going to do just that, starting with the meeting on Friday. That would be the start, and then they would just have to see where it went from there.
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For now, her focus was more on the reconciliation that she had most certainly not heard about from her friend. Instead, it had been Kingsley that had told her that he and Lee were back together. Now she wanted to hear it from her best friend. It was something that definitely was better explained in person than in a letter, but since letters had been their only option until recently, she really thought her friend should have made an exception. “So, it took Kingsley being a… excuse my language, an ass and you resigning to get him to come home?” Their divorce had honestly made no sense to her from the beginning. It was honestly about time they’d done something about it.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]714 ● @ lee ● outfit

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

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BEAUTIFULLY HUMAN

DON'T MAKE ME PROVE

WHY I SHOULD BE

Coming to see the Potters had been about seeing her best friend for the first time in years, just as much as it had been about talking about what needed to happen now. What they were going to do. She didn’t really know. There was no solid way forward that was going to make everyone happy. It just simply wasn’t going to work like that, and Oralee knew it. She knew that they were going to have to try harder. That if they were going to make a difference, it wasn’t going to be sitting around this kitchen table talking about it. But she also knew that it wasn’t quite that easy.

She knew that it was harder than they really expected it to be. Nothing was the way that they had expected it to be. But she didn’t think that they had much of a choice in that either. Things were just how they were now. And it had been years of things being out of her control. Oralee hadn’t thought that she had had control of anything after she had gotten hurt. Kingsley had left, and she had been a shell of herself for a while. Never quite knowing how to handle what was going on around her.

And then they had left, and she knew that it had been nearly a year later. But there had been a time in there where things had gotten even harder. And now it was nearly two and a half years later. And she still couldn’t feel anything with her hand. It was still moving. Still getting worse. Not by a lot. Maybe a centimeter or two further up her arm than it had been originally. But it worried her. The curse that had taken root in her nerves. The curse that had changed everything…

Her hand flexed on instinct, and she didn’t think that she could help it. She didn’t think that there was anything that would ever stop her trying to get some feeling back. That, more than a lot of other things, was what she wanted. And she knew that it was selfish. But Oralee was frustrated that she would never know who had cursed her. Who had blown up that bookshop? Who had killed those little kids, and who had actually been responsible? The Death Eaters. She knew that. But she wanted more specific answers.

Hermione had that. She knew that it was Dolohov that had cursed her. She had someone to hate. Oralee couldn’t hate an entire population of people. Not with the fury that that one person deserved. It would take too much out of her to hate them all with that much intensity. And so, she had to settled for hating them all in general. But even that wasn’t as simple as it should have been. Because she knew them. Some of them. She knew them personally. Or at least the people that they used to be.

It was hard to imagine things getting better, but they were going to try. They should have been trying this whole time, and they hadn’t been. They hadn’t been doing anything about it at all, and now? What made now so different? The Epidemic. The fact that they were all the same now. That they didn’t have magic, or that when they did, everyone in this house except her did… It was hard to wrap her head around the fact that she was now handicapped in more than one way. It was hard.

But there were good parts too. She didn’t think that they were going to have those things that they had now without them. They were together again, and they were trying to figure it out, and that was more than she could say for where they had been back in September. Back when she had stood on that elevator, and told him that she loved him, and received no answer at all. She had thought that she was going to fall apart at that. And here she was. Here they were. Still standing.

She hadn’t known how to tell her everything that was going on, and by the time that they were together enough for her to tell Hermione at all, they had been coming home. Sending it in a letter seemed pointless when they were going to see them soon enough anyway. “I’m not sure what led to what honestly. I just know that I was angry. And I told him that he could come home, or I could come back to work. But that he didn’t get both.” The blonde witch shrugged a little bit, “Maybe I should have offered ultimatums two years ago.” She was doubtful that it would have worked though. It was the Epidemic that had done it, that had brought him home.

@ hermione • 804 • oralee's outfit - no glasses or jacket

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","ctopline"]STILL THERE’S A REASON TO BELIEVE

[attr="class","cscriptorder"]that things aren’t always as they seem

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[attr="class","clyrics"]THE STRONGEST HEARTS ARE THE ONE THAT FEEL[break]
THE DEEPEST HURTS BUT STILL KEEP PRESSING ON

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[attr="class","cbody"]Being away from home had not been an easy thing. It hadn’t been what she had wanted to do. But it had been the only answer that they had. It was the only option that they had honestly had. The only one that they could both agree on, anyway. There had been several times when she had been tempted to go to the Ministry while Harry was sleeping, just so that he couldn’t stop it. It wasn’t as if she wanted to register or find out what happened when Hermione Potter came to the Ministry to turn in her wand. But she also didn’t want her family dragged into this, she didn’t want them to get hurt, and she had thought it was only a matter of time until those were the tactics that the Death Eaters tried to use. If she didn’t register, it put Harry at risk, it put the kids at risk, it put everyone that she cared about in the line of fire. She couldn’t have lived with that.
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But Harry would not hear of her registering. He had unpacked her bag every time she packed it, they had yelled about it on more than one occasion and, at the end of the day, the solace of the Unplottable island that Viktor had offered them was the only chance that they had. Hermione knew that there were some people that would say that they had hid. That they had run away with their tails between their legs, unwilling to fight. She was sure that there had been and still were people that thought that. But they had needed to do what was right for them, what was right for their children. It was what Harry’s parents had done when they were in danger, and she was not ashamed of that. She was not ashamed of that choice.
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They were back now, though, and she felt like it was their obligation to do something. Nothing had changed in the years that they had been gone, not really. There had been variations to the registration, slight alterations that Andromeda had made since she had been in power, but no one had really done anything to make real changes. They needed a new Minister. They needed an elected Minister, and they needed the registration to come to an end. And, of course, they needed a cure. They could not expect any of this to happen overnight, but it did need to happen. They just needed to do what they could to take steps in that direction. Even if they were small steps, it was better than nothing.
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Hermione was relieved to have Kingsley willing to help her with this, to come to the Ministry with her. He was a proven politician. This was something that he was good at. She felt much better knowing that he would be there—and that he was here now, willing to talk about and plan how they wanted this to go.
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Selfishly, though, she was also incredibly glad to finally see her best friend again. Writing to Lee had not been the same as spending time with her and being back home and being able to do something like have her and Kingsley over for dinner was special to her. She was glad that she was here. Hermione just also needed all of the information involving how it was even possible to invite the couple over to dinner because, last she’d checked, they had still been divorced. There were clearly things that they had missed while they were gone, and that was something that needed to be remedied.
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“Maybe you should have,” she agreed, shaking her head, “But it’s good to see you two together again.” It had been unbelievable to her that they had even gotten divorced to begin with. They had always brought out the best in each other, in her opinion, and it was nice to see them together again. “So, what else is going on?” Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow. There was always some manner of gossip and news within the Order, that she was sure that she hadn’t heard about yet.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]693 ● @ lee ● outfit

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

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