Strictly Professional

Jack walked through the castle, grinning to herself as she did so, feeling the familiarity of a place that had grown unfamiliar. Honestly, though, walking through Hogwarts was like riding a bike. You never forget how to get anywhere, not if you had really known the castle. And especially if you had been in possession of the Marauder’s Map- which she brought along with her just in case. She had meant to lend it to Keith. Hopefully, she could get it to him somehow.

But this was not her purpose. No, she had risen in ranks in the Department for Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures, and that meant she could take pretty much any job she wanted to. So when she found that someone needed to deliver some creatures to the Care of Magical Creatures professor, she had thought it would be nice to have an excuse to visit.

So she had volunteered. She really had a few ulterior motives for visiting. First, if she could, she would like to get that map to Keith if she could. Second, no one in the Order or even their allied Death Eaters really knew too much about the state of Hogwarts, and she’d like to take a look for herself. Third, well… she did miss the old castle and would not mind to see it.

Jack had three different creatures with her. Each had stored within a reinforced, bottomless carpetbag, except for one. Within the carpetbag was an oversized jar stuffed full of pixies; there was also a cage with a half dozen bow truckles. In her hand was a niffler, sedated nicely for travel. She had offered to bring more but they only had one at the Ministry fit for transport.

Jack figured that her best bet was going to the staff lounge and trying to find out where she could drop off these critters. But after she poked her head inside, she realized her mission would not be so easy. She took out the Marauder’s Map and the first name she saw was a very familiar with: Amelia Lyons. She was in the Potions office. And that was where Jack now headed.

She carefully wiped the Map, and tucked it into an envelope before storing it within the large pockets of her jacket. She made her way down to the classroom where she had so often slept and failed classes. She walked up to the door and grinned. Professor Lyons. Hell, half the kids had called her than when she had been in fourth year. She knocked on the door and said, “Congratulations, Miss Amelia Lyons! You’ve won- a new broom!”

It wasn’t natural that a person should enjoy cleaning so much, but Amelia Lyons absolutely relished it. There was just something so calming about putting everything to rights, making sure each thing had a place, and that place was spotless. She could feel the anxiety she carried around with her emptying out as she ran her wand over every surface in the Potions Dungeon, scouring away months of dust, soot, and particulates that were a result of the collective disarray that comes with school-age children.

Amelia had recently received the new supplies she had ordered from the apothecary, and it had taken eight owls to carry the four boxes she had ordered. It was this delivery that had prompted the cleaning of the dungeon, as Amelia had been raised to never put away new things in a dirty environment. The boxes were currently sitting on Amelia’s desk, and after putting the finishing touches on the last bank of shelves, Amelia walked briskly over to her desk and ran her wand along the adhesive that had sealed the boxes, springing them open for her investigation.

Humming lightly to herself, Amelia pulled back the flaps of the first box to see an entire collection of dried herbs, each type contained to its own sealed bag. These would need to be moved into jars for permanent storage, and the young professor wasted no time in summoning said containers from the back of the classroom.

It was so pleasant to be here over winter holiday, the school nearly empty of its inhabitants. There were a few students that stayed around for the holidays, of course, but the chaos decreased exponentially. And the hiatus from classes also meant for Amelia that for the first time in weeks, she would not be under the constant scrutiny of the new administration, which had placed at least one “assessor” in her classroom every day since the second week of classes. The official clipboard and quill were intimidating enough, but the notes they took that she never got to see… those always managed to put Amelia on edge, even when she would otherwise have thought her lesson a success.

But now, she was alone in her element of sorting and organizing. A bundle of Dandelion Root was just being clipped open when Amelia heard a familiar voice from the doorway. Although she recognized the voice, she hadn’t at all been expecting to hear anyone, much less this particular person, while she worked today, and she instinctively jumped while reaching for her wand.

“Jack!” Amelia said with genuine surprise, her free hand fluttering up to her chest in shock. Her former classmate was standing there in the doorway, holding a carpet bag and a small brown creature Amelia could identify as a niffler, not because she had ever been close to one – Antoinette forbid – but because she had seen them in books. Surprise, surprise.

“I, um, wasn’t expecting you,” Amelia stuttered, stating the obvious, “But, well, here you are.”

Despite her less-than-warm greeting, Amelia found that she was actually sort of glad, on some level, to see Jack. The two redheads had butted heads a few times in classes, and they had never actually been friends – too fundamentally different – but Amelia had always respected Jack for her ability to speak up for what she believed in. She challenged authority in ways Amelia never could, and she was undeniably smart.

“But it is good to see you. Please, come in,” Amelia corrected herself, trying to make up for her original greeting. She flicked her wand to move the boxes off her desk and gestured toward a chair on one side of the desk while she moved toward her own on the other.

“I heard you took a job with the ministry, something to do with Magical Creatures? I suppose you’re here on business then?” Amelia added, nodding toward the creature in Jack’s arms and attempting to look like she wasn’t sort of fearful of the bundle of fur in Jack’s hands. She had never been that great with animals, never having had them while growing up, and gaining very little exposure to them during her education at Hogwarts.

Jack felt the all too familiar up-to-no-good smirk take over her face when Amelia answered the door, looking throughly surprised. It was strange how relaxed her facial muscles felt in that position, seeing as it had been so long since they had formed the expression. Something about Amelia reminded Jack of rules, which reminded her of all the trouble she had gone through to break them. And that was a good enough reason as any to smile.

Amelia said she was not expecting Jack, of course, since Jack had not bothered to give her a head's up. "People usually aren't," Jack commented, shrugging as though it were a mystery, and as if it was not a habit of Jack's to just show up places rather than wait to be invited. Jack had just never been one for such formalities, really.

Amelia ushered her in and Jack stepped into the office, hoisiting the niffler higher as she turned and looked around, whistling slightly. "Must be nice, being on the other side of the chalkboard, eh?" She grinned, glancing around. It seemed like Amelia had been in the process of resupplying her stores. "Bought yourself some new toys, huh?" She chuckled.

She turned to see Amelia gesture to a chair and Jack nodded, saying, "Thanks," and went to go sit at the chair, carefully setting down her carpet bag next to the chair and conjuring a short rope, which she fixed to the niffler and then to the chair's leg. "Don't worry about him. Drugged up, which is Ministry protocol. He won't be scampering about for a good few hours."

She nodded at Amelia's words and said, "Uh, yeah. The professor needed some critters for the monsters to look at, so I volunteered. But it's not all work. I wanted to check on the old alma mater, you know. New reign, I hear." She paused, glancing around as though Grindelwald might be listening from behind the shelves. "Must be different, right?"

Amelia was surprised to find herself smirking at Jack’s wit, and the truth of her words when she responded to the statement about being unexpected. Jack had been an anomaly as long as Amelia had known her; she was both a troublemaker, and knew the answers in class; she seemed so independent, but was constantly surrounded by a hoard of friends and admirers; for what she lacked in grace and appearance, she made up for in wit and charm. At certain points during their shared careers, it had made Amelia more than a little jealous, watching Jack sail through school under the attention and approval of everyone that mattered.

But then again, Amelia knew all too well how different appearances could be from actuality. She worked hard to make sure of it.

“No, no they aren’t,” Amelia added with a hint at laughter behind her words, which was unusual for the taller redhead. Amelia didn’t find herself laughing very often these days, not that she ever had that much in the past. There had been moments and… certain people, that had given her the freedom to laugh and interact more freely, but they had been fleeting and certainly not the norm. Nowadays, after hours of being tested in the classroom and observed by people she could never please, Amelia felt more like crying or throwing something heavy, rather than laughing.

This teaching thing didn’t turn out to be as easy as I wanted it to be… Amelia admitted to herself, though she only allowed her mind to wander to this moment of self-pity for the briefest second before she recomposed herself for Jack’s benefit.

“It’s certainly a change,” Amelia responded to Jack’s question, this time forcing her smile as she eyed the niffler in Jack’s arms warily. It wasn’t that Amelia disliked the job – she had been a tutor while she was a student, and the authority was certainly a plus. But being given authority and earning it were two very different things, and Amelia was still working on winning over her former peers, and even some students that hadn’t known her as a student, but recognized how close she was in age to them.

“But it does come with its perks,” Amelia added when Jack commented on the new supplies, currently in a state of disarray that Amelia would likely be unable to ignore, resulting in a late night tonight. But the work had been putting her in a good mood before Jack’s interruption, and she was sure she could turn back to the methodical pleasure of organization again later.

Jack took the seat Amelia had offered, and after waiting a few seconds out of deference for her guest, slid into the chair that she spent so little time in while she was teaching. Amelia found that sitting in front of so many students without the ability to move around made her anxious, so she was constantly moving about the room. She only really sat here during exams or, as the present situation indicated, when she had guests. Jack had dropped her bag on the floor next to her, but kept the furry brown creature in her arms. She must have noticed Amelia apprehension about the creature, because she took care to reassure Amelia that it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Naturally, naturally,” Amelia responded with a wave of her hand, as though she had known that all along. Yeah right…

Amelia crossed her legs beneath her chair and tugged at her shirt, which was bunching up at her waist. Meanwhile, Jack explained the reason for her presence at Hogwarts, allowing Amelia to get some kind of grasp on what exactly it was Jack did for the ministry. But the conversation quickly turned to putting Amelia back on the spot, especially considering the nature of her question. Feeling uncomfortable, both with the attention and the inquiry, Amelia cleared her throat and looked around to buy time, trying to figure out how best to frame her answer. No one that worked for the school ever asked questions like this – they had learned better. But then again, if anyone was going to ask the tough questions, it was going to be Jack. It always had been.

“Well you know, things are always bound to change with a shift in authority,” Amelia said vaguely, not feeling risky enough to test just how many wards and sensors Grindelwald had in place. She had learned all too well over the last semester what happened to those who fell out of line.

“Grindelwald has been implementing some new policies, and created new positions to enforce them,” the young professor added, feeling relatively safe saying this much. She hadn’t said anything that was untrue or that might be viewed as inflammatory, but she did cast a warning look at Jack not to say anything too far outside the accepted norms.

Whether Jack would follow her lead… that was another issue entirely.

Once she had tethered and deposited the niffler, Jack rubbed her hands together to rid them of any spare hairs that clung to them. She loosened her scarf but did not get rid of it. The winter was cold enough as it was, but there was always an eternal lingering chill that remained in the dungeons that really could not be escaped.

Jack grinned, glad to be having a casual and pleasant sort of conversation with someone. Most of the conversations she had were laced with hostility and ulterior motives, discussing overthrows and matters of he upmost importance. To have a conversation that was a little more laidback and easy going certainly was a blessing to Jack.

The lightness in the conversation began to get heavy, thanks to her, as Amelia began to answer her loaded question, full of hesitation. Jack had never been one for subtlety but she knew just how dangerous the subject was, especially for Amelia, who had to work with the subjects they were discussing and, ultimately, answer to them.

She nodded. "Change has been a constant with this new leadership. I just grow curious about such policies. Whether they are minor liberties taken, like Dumbledore, or are ones intended for more resonance, like the educational decrees back in 1995." She hoped Amelia would get the reference, and to make her answer more nuetral Jack added. "It's just the different style of leadership that makes me curious. Y'know."

Amelia eyed the niffler hair cagily as Jack brushed it from her hands, sending it scattering over the floor of the dungeon. Although the floor was usually plenty dirty in here from overflowing cauldrons, dropped ingredients, and just general haphazardry of the classroom, Amelia took care to keep things very neat. This thought made the young professor think back to the very first time she had met Jack, sitting covered in mud next to a lake on the outskirts of Amelia’s parent’s property. She had known from that very first meeting that she and Jaquellene were cut from very different cloths, but over the years, Amelia had seen hints of common threads.

Hearing Jack’s reference to historical policies of Hogwarts, Amelia nodded to indicate that she was following along. Although she had not personally witnessed either of those regimes – nor had Jack – both girls would be familiar with these events because they were included in the Hogwarts history courses. Amelia had always liked history, because it served as a log of everything that had happened, and it was unchanging. The answers and facts would always be the same.

Depending on who wrote it down, that is… Amelia’s subconscious reminded her, reflecting upon the fluid interpretation of “fact” and “truth” that had been floating around Hogwarts lately. Not that Amelia had done or said anything to indicate that she had noticed this. Amelia was far more concerned with keeping her head down and remaining as invisible as possible to the current administration. Some things never change.

“I would venture to say that these policies are intended to be more of the permanent ilk,” Amelia replied after taking a minute or so to compose her words into their least incriminating form, “The administration is doing what has been described as a ‘major overhaul’ of procedures within Hogwarts, and if their plan is carried out and enforced, it will not be easy to undo.”

There… that’s safe enough, right?

“And what of the ministry?” Amelia inquired, changing the subject away from Hogwarts as smoothly as possible, but she had never been much of a conversationalist, so the transition was less smooth than she would have wanted.

“I don’t speak with my father as often as I used to, and he didn’t really discuss work too often anyhow. Any news to report from within, now that you've got the insider's perspective?” Amelia asked in what she hoped was an amicable tone.

Jack nodded, taking liberities in making assumptions from Amelia's words- she knew bits from Jess, but she also knew he had a bias because of the Order. Amelia was very objective, and if she thought things were getting heavier, then it really meant they were. In that way, Amelia's opinion was proabby the most accurate, and probably proved just how bad it really was.

Amelia changed the subject and Jack did not mind. she had been given enough information to begin doubling her efforts, andit had been vague enough that there was no need to use Amelia's name, and if the memory was ever stolen from Jack (unlikely, but it had been unlikely for Grindelwald to suddenly ressurect) then there was nothing incriminating for either women.

Though the dealings of the Ministry were less direct, the subject had to be treated with the same type of caution. Jack liked her job, and she liked having an excuse to be around people they found as potential threats. Losing her job because she decided to complain to Amelia would have big consequences that she did not want- for both of them, actually.

"You know how bureacracy is," Jack said. "We are lowly peasants." She said it light enough, hoping to make a joke even though she was implying more of their Minister. "Makes me wonder whatever happened to the old times... you know, easier hours and less scrutiny. I suppose we're just supposed to be as efficient as possible, which means everything is run like a machine, and malfunctioning cogs are expendable."

Amelia was relieved when Jack responded to her assessment of the Hogwarts situation with no more than a nod. She could have pressed the issue, and Amelia knew Jack had a tendency of pushing the envelope, but whatever it was that restrained her this time, the young professor was thankful for it. Jack wasn’t always reckless, but she did sometimes have a hard time knowing how to pick her battles. It had happened with professors when she was a student, and that hadn’t been all that long ago. Then again, people change after they get out of school. Amelia had.

Maybe in some ways, but do we really fundamentally change who we are? Or do we just grow up and start taming some of those parts? It was a question Amelia’s rationality couldn’t figure, and her subconscious couldn’t come up with anything sarcastic to say, so the internal discussion ended there. Some questions don’t have good answers.

Amelia attempted a smile when Jack replied to her question about the ministry, but she could read between the lines and see that Jack was just as nervous about speaking out against her own authorities as Amelia was. That must have been how she knew not to press the issue with Hogwarts – she was fighting her own battles at work. Jack had always seemed to be fighting something, though, whether it was internal or external. She really had been a Gryffindor, through and through.

“Graduation happened,” Amelia replied simply, this time her smile genuine because she knew the truth of her words, “We didn’t know it at the time, but those were some of the easiest years of our lives. But maybe in our case… that isn’t all that reassuring,” the redhead added, with an ironic smile as she recalled everything that happened while she and Jack were at Hogwarts – attacks on the headmaster, disappearing teachers, a vampire that attacked his students, the castle being nearly destroyed in the battle between the Death Eaters and the Order, the murder of so many students….

Amelia stopped herself here. She wasn’t going to think about that. She couldn’t think about that. She wasn’t going to think about him.

Damn it.

“Anyway…” Amelia said, shaking her head to clear the memory that was threatening to surface from where she had buried it, “How is… um… Ariel? You two were close near the end of 7th year, right? You still going with him?” Amelia asked, clinging to the first topic she thought of. She hadn’t seen Ariel since graduation, but he was a mutual person to talk to Jack about, and right now, that was good enough.

Jack nodded as Amelia spoke, finding truth in her words. It was almost ridiculous to look at their Hogwarts years and call them easy, but add rent checks, a job, and the same annoying people but with power, and those years in Hogwarts were a cake walk. Jack had been a little more protected in Hogwarts. She was exposed in the real world to everything.

Jack vaguely wondered what it was Amelia had faced, before and after, of course. Naturally, she had faced a lot of Jack's hardships in school, but she needn't worry about detentions and too much trouble. And she had been facing trouble at work as Jack had. But those were Jack's root problems, and she had much worse on top of that. It was just a vague curiousity that made her ponder what Amelia's were.

"Definitely," was all she could muster, however long her internal monologue had been, in regards to Amelia's summation of the troubles of the real world. And then Amelia turned the conversation to a topic very far from the one Jack wanted to hear. Jack's first instinct was to excuse herself, walk off, and just leave the castle without answering.

But Jack also felt that she had never spoken anything of Ari, at all, to anyone. Not her parents, not Chase, not Vito- Keith had spoken of Ari, but Jack had not taken part in that. Maybe saying something would make her feel like she had not wasted a semester in a delusion or a dream. If that was what it was called. She honestly had no label for it.

"I don't know that we were ever 'going out'," Jack said. "I'm not really the right cut for relationships- refuse to let anyone do anything for me, you know." She laughed dryly, trying to force some humor into this entirely unfunny situation (at least, she didn't think it was funny.) "I really don't know what happened to him. I had a difficult conversation with him and he said nothing had changed... and I haven't seen him since. And we work in the same department in the Ministry." She shrugged.

Honestly, it had felt good to tell someone.

Jack hesitated when Amelia asked the question that she herself would have found to be glaringly personal. Amelia could see it written across the other girl’s features, the uncertainty before she spoke. Amelia wondered absentmindedly if she looked like that when she was stalling for time, searching for the right words, but Jack answered before she could give it any real thought.

Amelia nodded in response to Jack’s first admission that the relationship between herself and Ariel had never been completely official. It sounded a bit like what she and Elijah had had so many years ago. It used to be painful for Amelia to think about the relationships she had had with Elijah, the way it had ended when he went off with Chase, but either she had grown up enough to move on, or buried it deep enough to forget. She still found herself getting annoyed with Elijah more quickly than others, and she would probably never fully forgive him for convincing her to trust again, only to leave her in the lurch.

The redheads laughed together when Jack mentioned her inability to allow others to do things for her, because they both knew that was a shared trait. Amelia preferred being alone – or at least, most of the time she did – and she rarely believed anyone could do something as well as she could do it herself.

“You know, you and I aren’t always as different as people say we are,” Amelia offered after taking a few seconds to process the way Jack and Ariel had left it. It was a bit out of character for Amelia to say something like this, but both girls had to be realizing that, at least in this situation, it was true. Again, this was Elijah/Amelia deja-vu, but Amelia wasn’t about to start sharing that story with Jack, no matter how alike they seemed in this moment. It still wasn’t enough to turn Amelia into a pour-out-your-heart-and-soul kind of girl.

“I’ve never really been cut from the cloth that makes me good at relationships… of any kind, really,” Amelia said with a self-conscious smile and a shrug of her shoulders. “Drives my mother crazy,” she added with a mischievous smile, as though to indicate that she might be somehow purposely irking her mother, rather than accidentally doing so by remaining completely un-dateable from every male perspective.