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It was barely Nonie’s third week at the British ministry of magic, and she was already late again. She had always been prone to oversleeping, but now she did not have anyone to wake her up anymore, her roommate was already long gone by the time she should be getting up, so he was of little help…
And her alarm clock just wasn’t annoying enough to wake her, apparently.
So she ran up the stairs to the Auror break room, where she and the other trainees were supposed to meet with their supervisor, to get their tasks for the day.
Maybe she could still make it- Mad-Eye had already been pretty annoyed the last time she was late, she couldn’t do that again!
Her supervisors and some of the other trainees already looked down on her, since for months she had trained at an “inferior” facility.
The German ministry of magic was much smaller, and there were less Death Eaters in Germany in general.
When it came to the training Nonie had received in Germany… she thought that maybe the others were right. She did feel like she was far behind the other trainees.
They all seemed so much surer in what they were doing, in their split-second decision making… while Nonie felt like everything she tried to do was wrong.
She oftentimes wondered if becoming an Auror was the right decision. Maybe she should’ve become a teacher like Rowan, or even have gone into curse-breaking like Merula had wanted to…
Even though she had probably done enough curse breaking for her entire life while at Hogwarts. She had never quite understood why Merula had wanted to continue doing it for the rest of her life.
Maybe she shouldn’t have come back to Britain at all, maybe she should just have stayed in Germany after graduation… she didn’t feel particularly good about any of her choices lately.
When Nonie finally arrived at the right room, she opened the door and quickly went inside.
She was hoping to sneak in unnoticed, so none of her supervisors would get angry…
So she oh so quietly closed the door behind her.
But when she turned around, she froze.
This wasn’t the Auror break room… this was… an office.
A woman sat at the desk that was in the middle of the room, looking at Nonie, curious.
She looked… oddly familiar, but Nonie couldn’t place where she had seen her before.
“Can I help you?”
Nonie looked at her, eyes wide. “I… uh… wrong room. I thought that- sorry.”
Could this day have started any worse, she thought.
She quickly studied the name plaque on the woman’s desk.
Ovidia Lee.
And then it hit her.
The Gryffindor prefect. The one that had once deducted house points from her for getting caught in a rather intense duel with Merula. (As intense as a duel between second years could get)
This was even more humiliating than she had previously thought. Nonie just hoped that she didn’t remember her.
“The… Auror break room. Ich glaube- I mean I think I’m on the wrong floor.”
As always in awkward situations, Nonie struggled with her English.
Sometimes it was like her brain wanted to revert to factory settings when she was stressed or nervous. So, back to German it was.
“Are you the new Auror trainee, the one from Germany?” Ovidia asked.
Nonie laughed, still nervous. “I guess there’s no hiding that. Yes, I’m Eleonore Scheinert, the trainee from Germany. I’m sorry for storming in here, I thought I was in the right room.”
The former Gryffindor prefect laughed. “The Auror break room is one floor below my office.”
Still embarrassed, Nonie thanked her and then quickly got out of there, walking to the break room in a hurry.
Of course, she had to stumble into the department for international magical trading of all things…
Oh, she was so fired.
“Late again, Scheinert?” Mad-Eye asked, as Nonie attempted to sneak into the room without anyone noticing her.
She gulped. Secretly, she had hoped that Tonks’ mother would be supervising today… she was less strict when it came to the trainees… except for when it was her own daughter.
“Nonie, you really need to stop being late.” Talbott said, while the trainees got ready to head to their assigned positions.
She sighed. “I realise that! My alarm clock didn’t wake me up. I’m still too used to living at home, I guess… I’ll get used to it… eventually.”
Tonks studied her friend intently. “Did you even sleep last night?”
Nonie yawned. “Not really… I was up late, writing.”
That was a lie. She had actually been up worrying all night.
But she wouldn’t tell her friends that.
Talbott wasn’t nosy, but oh boy Tonks was. And Nonie wasn’t quite ready to talk about… well, her worry.
Tonks didn’t look like she bought her lie, sadly, so Nonie expected to be bombarded with questions sometime today, probably during break time.
At least today she wasn’t stuck doing a mission with Tonks, like she usually was.
Until she got used to things around here, she was always buddied up with one of the other trainees.
But today she was banished to the archives, as a punishment for being late for the third time.
So, Nonie made her way down to the archives.
It was a big dusty room, filled with scrolls upon scrolls of parchment, important documents. Information about death eaters, past mission… this would take years to organise, but luckily Nonie was only here for a day.
She understood why people got sent down here as a punishment though…
“The archive is divided into categories, in which the documents are sorted by the alphabet.” The keeper of the archives, an older gentleman who had introduced himself as Henry, said. “Those still need to be sorted.”
He was motioning to a big stack of boxes, which could only be filled with a months’ worth of documents in the corner of the room.
“Every department drops their documents off here at the end of the week. I’m a bit behind with sorting it, so I’m glad to have the extra help.” Henry said.
Nonie smiled, telling him that she was happy to help.
So, she grabbed one of the boxes and got to work.
The first one was from the department of magical accidents and catastrophes.
Nonie was actually quite enjoying reading the titles of the documents.
Her favourite one was a detailed report of Elephants in the London Zoo having been enchanted to spew apple juice from their trunks.
By the time lunch break came around, Nonie was onto the third box.
This one was from her own department, the department of magical law enforcement. It wasn't nearly as funny as the magical accidents.
"I'm going to go have lunch." Henry soon said. “Will you hold down the fort until I'm back?” Nonie laughed. “Sure. I’ll take my break a bit later then.”
Henry smiled. “Thank you, Scheinert.”
And with that he left, to take his break. Nonie was quite alright not having to have lunch with Tonks and Talbott today.
So she just kept sorting the documents.
She was almost done, when she discovered a document that she just couldn’t take her eyes of off.
It was simply titled: “Snyde family”, but that was enough to alert her.
Merulas parents had been in Azkaban for years… what new information could there be on them?
Or was this about..?
No. No. It couldn’t be.
Nonie couldn’t have been right- she couldn’t have been!
This all had to be some sort of cruel joke, she thought.
There was no way that Merula was-
Knowing that she was not supposed to read the files she was sorting, Nonie hid under Henry’s desk, opening the file, her hands shaking.
And with that, her worst fears were confirmed.
A couple of weeks ago, shortly before Nonie had decided to move back to Britain, she had been going about her day as usual. She had actually been in the middle of making lunch for herself, when the doorbell had rang.
Having been home alone that day, Nonie went to open it, only to be pleasantly surprised to find her girlfriend standing in front of it.
“Mer!” Nonie said, and then immediately wrapped her into a tight warm hug. “I didn’t expect you today! What- are you doing here?” she then asked.
Merula shrugged. “I… need to talk to you. It’s important.”
Nonie looked her up and down. She looked… off. Merula was usually grumpy, but today she looked… anxious.
Usually she would never show weakness like that. The “most powerful witch at Hogwarts” wasn’t afraid of anything after all.
Nonie had of course invited Merula in, even inviting her to have lunch with her.
“There should be enough for two- I didn’t expect you today. You’re so lucky to be able to do cross-country apparitions. I can’t even apparate within one country without splitting myself in half, half of the time.”
Merula huffed. “’Course you can’t. You’re too uncoordinated to do that, Star.”
At this point, Nonie didn’t even react to Merula insulting her.
It had been such a staple thing in their relationship, that she didn’t even mind it anymore.
“Jaja, Merula. Jaja.”
Merula rolled her eyes. “No German, Star. We talked about this.”
Nonie laughed. “C’mon, you have to at least understand “Ja”. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Merula went quiet again, as Nonie put a plate with spaghetti in front of her.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked, as she sat down across from her girlfriend.
Merula looked around, asking if her parents were home. Nonie said no, saying that her parents were visiting some of her mothers’ relatives in Austria.
Again, She was quiet. Nonie did wonder why she was here, what she wanted to say... it had to be important, otherwise she wouldn’t have come here, knowing that her family may be home.
Nonie’s parents didn’t really like her. It was mutual.
They had a dislike of her ever since Nonie had met her in her first year, since for a long time Merula had been their daughters biggest bully, and back then Nonie did not have a thick skin, so her now girlfriends insults did used to get to her.
Because of this, her parents just couldn’t get used to them dating.
Merula looked at her. “Star- I just…”
Nonie put a hand on her arm. “Hey. You know that you can tell me anything, right? Whatever it is, I’m here.”
Her girlfriend quickly pulled her arm back. “We need to break up.” She had then said.
That reveal had caught Nonie of guard.
“W-What?” she stuttered. “Why- I thought things were going great… I know that long distance has it’s challenges, but I thought we were handling it well…”
Merula got up. “It’s just too difficult, Star. I need someone to be close with, not someone that’s so far away. So sorry, but this isn’t working for me anymore.”
She was about to head out and leave, while Nonie was still in shock, but suddenly she winced and held onto her arm.
Her left forearm…
Nonie got up as well. “Merula… what did you do..?” she asked, suddenly having a VERY bad feeling about this. “Did you- Mer, talk to me. What happened?”
But Merula had just told her that it was none of her business.
Then she had walked away without another word and had apparated back to some place that was probably British.
And now, as Nonie was reading the file about Merulas family, what she had feared was proven as true. The “Snyde daughter” had been spotted around known Death Eaters.
Had Merula actually become a death eater...?
Nonie had actually believed that she wouldn’t… she had wanted to become a curse breaker, how had this happened?
Over the last few years Merula had confided in Nonie that she never wanted to end up like her parents…
How had this happened? How hadn’t Nonie heard of this?
Well, seeing as she had been in a relationship with Merula for a year, and they were keeping tabs on her, they probably didn’t want Nonie finding out, it being a conflict of interest.
And oh boy, what a conflict it was.
Now, Nonie was also faced with a tough decision: She was in the best possible position to just simply… make this file disappear.
But… did she want to?
Merula wasn’t her girlfriend anymore, but… she still loved her. More than anyone else.
That was probably unhealthy, but she couldn’t help it.
On the other hand, if this was revealed she could possibly lose her job… not that after this morning, her running into an office in the department of international magical trading, she had much hope of preserving it anyway… But would this even help Merula in any way?
Nonie was still contemplating what to do when she suddenly heard someone walk in.
“Hello?” A feminine voice called out, into the seemingly empty archive.
Since Nonie was still sitting under the table, that file in hand, she was quite unsure what to do.
It would be incredibly weird to just emerge from under the desk, so she simply decided to… stay put.
She could hear the person rummaging through some files, and suddenly regretted her decision to stay put. If something important was stolen or was to go missing, Henry would be in so much trouble.
So, instead of staying hidden, Nonie abandoned the file and shot out from under the desk.
“What are you doing?!”
The woman screamed, dropping the file she had in her hand.
And then Nonie recognised her.
Ovidia Lee- what were the odds to manage to embarrass herself twice in one day, in front of a former prefect.
“You can’t take files from the archive without permission.” Nonie said, trying to sound at least somewhat professional. “You have to check them out with the keeper of the archives, or well- I guess with me, today.”
“Why were you under the desk?!” Ovidia asked. “I thought the archive was empty!!”
Nonie shrugged, taking a page out of Merula’s book. “That is none of your business.”
Then she picked up the files the former Gryffindor prefect had dropped.
“Jae Kim?” Nonie asked. “The black market? That isn’t exactly your department, what do you need this for?”
She knew about this man.
Nonie had actually helped with that investigation, gathering information in nocturn alley…
She didn’t particularly like that place, the people there gave her the creeps.
Jae Kim seemed to be a rather experienced guy in the… business? Was the black market technically a business?
“I need it for… reasons I need not disclose to you.” Ovidia replied.
At this point Nonie was pretty sure that she was not here on official business…
But rather for personal reasons. Nonie sensed another conflict of interest here- luckily this time it was not her that was in the middle of it.
They didn’t have too much info on Jae Kim, he was pretty good at covering his tracks, but this file had a lot of new stuff in it, stuff that could very well become a problem for him in the long run.
And Nonie wasn’t quite certain that she was right about this, but she vaguely remembered seeing the Gryffindor prefect hang out with a guy that she believed to be Jae Kim during detention…
“You’re his friend, aren’t you?” Nonie asked, having put it together. “That’s why you were looking for this file, when you thought nobody was in here. You want to help him out.”
By the shocked and maybe slightly embarrassed look on her face, Nonie could tell that her assumption had been right.
“Well, I don’t think I can give that to you. You’re in a…”
Nonie gazed at the file she had left under the desk. “Conflict of interest. So you probably shouldn’t even look at it. It’s a bad idea.”
It had been a bad idea in her situation at least…
So, Nonie put the file about Jae Kim back where it belonged.
Nonie felt silly, saying all this. After all, she was after doing the exact same thing.
“I won’t tell anyone about this if you don’t tell anyone that I accidentally stormed into your office this morning.” Nonie said. “I don’t really want to get fired today.”
Ovidia shook her head. “I wouldn’t have anyway. Why would you think that?”
Nonie hesitated. She didn’t really want to tell her that she had always viewed her as this scary prefect. She never knew her as anything else than that, since her only interaction with her had been having house-points taken for things like duelling in the courtyard.
Not that her own prefect, Jane, had been any less scary…
“Just uh- bad experiences with the higher ups.” Nonie eventually said. “Sorry.”
Ovidia didn’t look like she quite bought it. Nonie was a really bad liar after all.
“I’m not going to say anything either.” She then said. “But you should probably leave now, I don’t know when the actual keeper of the archives comes back.”
“Right.” Ovidia said. “What are you doing down here anyway, weren’t you an Auror trainee?”
Nonie nodded. “Yeah… but I am being punished. For being late. I don’t hate it actually, it’s so quiet down here.”
Suddenly, Ovidia peered under the desk, telling Nonie that she had dropped one of the files.
But as she picked it up, the expression on her face changed. “Snyde… wasn’t she in your year? Felix talked about her sometimes.”
Now Nonie had a guilty expression on her face. “Yes… she was…”
“So that is why you were hiding under the table…” Ovidia said, inspecting the file. “She’s a Death Eater.”
Nonie gulped. Hearing those words hurt.
She really thought Merula had changed…
“Are you covering for her? How does that… work? You’re an Auror.”
Nonie snatched the file out of her hand. “She’s my Ex. We broke up a few weeks ago. I suspected that this was why… but I didn’t think she would actually… I’m still processing everything…”
The pain Merula had felt while walking out really had been her dark mark stinging, like Nonie had suspected… she had hoped to be wrong, that Merula really had just cracked under their long-distance relationship, but now…
She sat down at the desk. “I just… can’t believe she did that. Why didn’t she just stick with her plan..?”
Ovidia shrugged, saying that sometimes people just did stupid things.
She looked back to the shelf that had the black market guys file in it.
“I messed up, I really hurt his feelings- I’m trying to make amends, somehow.”
Nonie was about to ask what she had done to warrant making amends by risking her job, but then she realised that it was really none of her business.
She wouldn’t like being asked about her entire history with Merula either…
From what she had gathered Ovidia and Jae Kim were dating.
With a sigh, Nonie got up.
“If you’re looking to discreetly get rid of some information, I wouldn’t remove all of it, just the most incriminating pieces, since the document is already listed. When it comes to my predicament…”
She looked at Merula’s file. “It’s not listed yet, and I know that a lot of files just… disappear, a lot of the time. I just don’t know If I want to cover for her…”
She sighed. This was difficult.
“It’s up to you. I won’t stop you.” Ovidia said, as she went to retrieve the file she had wanted to discard.
Nonie sighed again, looking at the file.
Was this what adulting felt like?
Eventually, against her better judgement, she cast Indeciendo and incinerated the file.
After quickly cleaning up the ashes, it was done.
Nonie wasn’t sure how to feel about having done that…
Meanwhile she watched Ovidia read Jae Kim’s file.
Apparently, she wasn’t aware of a few things he got up to, since sometimes her facial expression shifted to a pretty surprised one.
When they suddenly heard steps in the hallway, Ovidia quickly grabbed a few of the pages, stuffed them in her cloak pocket and put the file back where it belonged.
Meanwhile, Nonie leapt to the back of the archive that had all the files on international trading.
She randomly grabbed one out of it, ending up with a file about the regular trades between Britain and India, just as Henry came back.
“Here, this is the one you wanted, right?” she asked, handing the file over to Ovidia.
She quickly nodded. “Yes. That is it. Thank you.”
“I see you did a good job doing my work for me.” Henry joked.
Nonie laughed, feeling quite guilty. “Yeah… I’m gonna take my break now…”
And with that, both Nonie and Ovidia quickly left the archive.
“I didn’t think a former prefect would get up to things this illegal…” Nonie murmured. “Don’t you get that title for being well-behaved...? There’s a reason I was never one.”
She laughed. “There’s where being a Gryffindor comes in.”
Nonie also had to laugh. “I see. As a Hufflepuff, I usually just got dragged into danger by my friends. Or my girlfriend. And even as my Ex she still manages to drag me into things. Unbelievable.”
As they walked up to the main floor, Nonie shook her head again.
She still couldn’t believe what she had just done.
It was unlikely that either her or Ovidia’s actions would be discovered, but this had been so…
Why couldn’t she just let Merula go..? She had done this to herself, Nonie owed her nothing… yet she had still destroyed that information for her.
As if Ovidia had read her mind, she told her not to obsess over this.
“People do stupid things and letting go is very difficult sometimes.” She said, and it seemed like she was thinking of someone herself.
Nonie sighed. “I guess… but Merula and I have so much history… it’s not that easy.”
Ovidia nodded. “I know what you feel like, Eleonore.”
Nonie smiled. “Just call me Nonie. Most people in Britain do. Eleonore is more of a German thing. For the sanity of those around me I go by Nonie, since it's easier to pronounce.”
“Well then, Nonie, I know what you feel like. It’s hard to let go of people sometimes… but if you don’t, if you get hung up on the people from your past, you may miss out on new opportunities. New relationships… and before you know, you’ve made a big mistake.”
Suddenly, Nonie got the sneaking suspicion that this may be the reason why she had gotten rid of those files… a mistake, being hung up on someone else…
Buuuut she wasn’t about to question the former Gryffindor prefects love life.
There had been enough of that going around Hogwarts, that she had something with the head boy, Bill Weasley…
Nonie did wonder if that was still… a thing. Maybe that was the other guy?
Never mind, she did not want to know.
She was probably already way out of line here. Ovidia may seem nice enough, but she was still her superior, and to be honest pretty intimidating... being a former prefect and all. Nonie herself had never gotten to be One. She was not popular enough, and got into way too much trouble to ever be considered for that sort of position.
“Well, I should go see my friends. They're probably thinking that I got horribly lost... again.” She groaned. “I think the ministry should start providing their staff with maps of the building. It's impossible to find your way around if you missed orientation...”
Ovidia laughed, telling her that she would get used to it. "It may seem overwhelming now, but You’ll get used to it. After a few weeks you will find your way around just fine.“ Nonie laughed. "Well, I hope so. But I still got lost at Hogwarts in my last year, even after going to school there that long, so I have little hope.”
Ovidia smiled at her. “Well, should you need anything, just visit me in my office, you evidently know where it is.”
Nonie snorted. “That I do. And thank you, I appreciate that. See you.”
And with that she waved goodbye, and hurried back to the Auror break room.
“Did you get lost again?” Talbott asked, looking up from the book he was reading.
Nonie breathed in relief, that she was in the right room this time. “No, I was watching over the archives while the actual keeper went to get some lunch.”
Tonks, that was sitting on the small uncomfortable couch in the break room, her feet kicked up on the table, asked: “How are the archives?”
Nonie shrugged. “Boring... nothing of noteworthiness.”
Nonie had decided that she should not tell her friends about what went down in the archives that day... that was something that should probably stay between her and Ovidia Lee...