a new change....maybe(Khaat)(break room)

OOC: (wait. are you a ghost? or what exactly are you?)

Khaat had had a long, tiring stretch at St. Mungos. Many of the people she loved were either wounded or working endless hours to repair the wounded. Khaat and her father had sent many of the healers home for some well deserved sleep. Most all of them had been involved in the fateful battle for Grimmauld Place and not only were battle weary but disheartened, and then had put in long shifts mending the casualties at St. Mungos.

Her father was catching a few winks of sleep in Khaat's office, after Khaat had told him she could not sleep. So, she had walked every floor, every corridor, checked on nearly every patient, simply to keep her mind busy and her feet moving. Her addiction to French Roast was calling her upstairs for a badly needed and much deserved cup of coffee. She went into the lounge, found the French Roast burned after hours on the warming plate and made a fresh pot. She waited for it to brew, looking down over London bathed in the darkness of night. Every muscle she had ached, every nerve she had felt wired. She finally went over and poured herself a cup of fresh coffee, sighing deeply, overwhelmed, tired, and saddened.

She looked and saw Ne'Os beside her. "Hello," she managed a soft smile. "I won't ask if you're alright. It seems like a ridiculous question at the moment. But I am sorry that last battle didn't work out well for you. You have to know I never wanted that for you. I had hoped, after I heard, that you'd found some blissful place to be. Some place that truly made you happy. So what brings you here looking for me?" she frowned. She took a sip of her coffee and sighed, deeply relieved at the taste of the first sip of the refreshing black brew. "I would truly miss French Roast in the afterlife," she smiled at him. "If heaven doesn't have some really great coffee, then I do not want to go."

'I believe there is always potential for magic," Khaat said. "Especially where there is love. Personally, its really the only sort of magic I'm interested in. I guess I learned that early from Remus. He always believed there were some things worth dying for--the greatest of which was love. I suppose I agree with that. Maybe I always have. I guess I've always felt that power without love is just empty. " She sipped on her coffee, glad for its warmth and for the temporary energy it would give her. There would be no sleep for her tonight. She had patients to keep watch over. For now, they were resting or being tended by others.

Khaat understood what he meant when he said he was stronger when protecting Samantha. Those wizards who were truly wise knew that love was the oldest and strongest magic of all. She listened as he explained how he had become divided and his essence had become contaminated. She had seen it happen. She had wanted to prevent it, and had been helpless to stop it. She had seen him become addicted to power itself for, apparently, the feeling of exhilaration it gave him. She had expected he would have a request, but she had not expected this one.

She frowned a bit and paused, thinking carefully. "Ne'Os," she said, "I am not saying no, but I'm not entirely sure I want to say yes quite yet either. Can you answer me a couple of questions first? What about those awful robes that led to a great deal of this contamination in the first place? If you go back to those, you will be just as you were before, and very quickly. And I am not entirely sure about you killing again. I am glad to hear you would do your best to give up killing or doing harm, but it seems you need to start out killing just to return. Help this make some sense to me. "

"First, I need to know you won't even consider going back to try to penetrate those Egyptian shields to retrieve the robes. And, I do have a good working knowledge of metaphysics, so I do comprehend the whole Soul-that-is-part-of-a-Spirit-who-lives-in-a-Body business. But I needed to know you had more than one option in your mind besides trying to occupy a space that, for lack of a more precise term, is already being rented. My second condition is that you find someone who has been out of their body long enough that they won't be trying to come back for it--without you killing them to do it, or that you find someone who is willing to share space with you. I have to know that if that person is still alive it is their mutual consent.

"My third condition is that you keep your word about doing no more harm. And to make sure you keep your word, I want any and all remaining horcruxes you have. If you break your word to me in any form, I shall destroy your horcruxes and then return you to this state. And, believe me, I don't want to have to do that. " She looked at him seriously, "You did not think it would be an easy thing to sell me on this, did you? Friend or not. As Remus would have told you, some things are bigger than friendship. If you have a better counteroffer to make me, now would be the time to share it."