Monday mornings on Level 1 were usually extremely busy; one certainly didn’t have time to sit down with a copy of Witch Weekly. Eva Kuester had never felt the urge to dive into the shiny pages of the trashy magazine. Reading the prophet was bad enough but that was a necessary evil in her job.

It was, therefore, a surprise when Eva had arrived at her pokey office that morning to find that week’s copy of Witch Weekly laid open on her desk. Biting her finger and grinning playfully up from the page was a dark-haired witch that she knew simply as Queen G. Everyone had at least heard of Queen G.

Leaving her door open as usual, Eva had sat herself down and began to read the page that had been left open for her. Trainee healer, lady of the night, her own name, Elixa’s name. The more Eva read of the first two paragraphs, the paler her already pale skin became. She’d been mentioned in a national magazine as hiring Elixa who apparently worked as a hooker!

Why the hell hadn’t Elixa warned her? Eva knew she read Witch Weekly. Nearly everyone did. Everyone. Everyone would read this. Copies of Witch Weekly sat in Ministry waiting areas, in St Mungo’s, in Diagon Alley coffee shops.

The rest of the morning dragged by and Eva certainly didn’t miss the looks she received from various staff members. She purposefully avoided needed to make any contact with Holmes or the Minister himself. As soon as it was lunch time, the witch snatched her hat and bag and left the office, making straight for the lifts, the atrium and freedom.

At 1pm, Eva was stood at the welcome desk for potions and plant poisoning wondering what the hell she was doing.

"Lady of the !@#&ing night?!" The lawyer hissed when Elixa approached in her healer robes.

“Keep your voice down!” Lix hissed back, and thumbed smartly towards one of the consulting rooms nearby. She was clutching a prescription notepad to her chest over her healer in training uniform. Since female patients had begun to titter and query her name since Saturday, Healer Mordent had kept her head down. Her usual patter of smalltalk and reassurance with her charges was absent the moment patients or their families began to ask questions.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, once the door shut behind them - the sign on the outside sliding across to occupied. “This is my work, I don’t mix work and …” she looked at Eva and swallowed down the word pleasure. Her shoulders sank and she averted her gaze to the floor. She supposed it was only a matter of time before Witch Weekly decided to take a swipe, but she had expected some titter about the likes of Alec Carter, or Mihai, but not Eva. She’d not been out on the arm of Eva apart from in the guise of friends. She’d danced and hung off the arm of Carter, kissed him in public, and Witch Weekly hadn’t bothered writing that up. Then again, she suspected Alec had as many flings as she did.

“pleasure?!” Eva asked, feeling herself freaking out. She was a damned lawyer, not someone to ever gossip about. She was a boring lawyer who worked for the Minister for Magic and had to be squeaky clean and untouchable. Apparently, sleeping with Elixa Mordent stopped her from being untouchable. It was confusing enough at the age of 42 to find out that she even liked women, but for it to suddenly become public knowledge?

“How many people have you had pleasure with, Lix? Have you seen it?!” The foreign lilt to her accent had grown stronger with the emotion and frustration that had been building since that morning when she’d found the magazine on her desk as a welcome present from Merlin knew who.

The magazine was produced from her robe pocket and she threw it at the younger healer. “I work for the freaking Minister for Magic, I can’t have this!” It wasn’t clear if Eva was more stressed by the thought that people would think she sleeping with a hooker or the fact that they would know that she liked women. Eva kept secrets and she kept her feelings close to the chest. Elixa hadn’t even known who she worked for, after all.

Eva gaped at the word Lix hadn’t wanted to say.

“How many people have you had pleasure with, Lix? Have you seen it?!” Kuester wasn’t keeping an even head about this at all, as Lix had suspected. She wanted to ignore it, personally, keep her private life well away from her working life. Eva wanted to be hysterical about it, and threw the magazine at her. The healer caught it halfheartedly but didn’t look at it, her body language all closed. She didn’t want to be here.

“I work for the freaking Minister for Magic, I can’t have this!”

“What - you? You work at the Ministry, right, but you don’t work for Edwin do you?”

The Swede looked absolutely horrified for a moment, and read her answer merely by Eva’s expression in return to being questioned about that detail.

“Why does it matter how many, Eva? The point is Witch Weekly’s decided to publish your private life as a little gossip. You can either be mad at them, or mad at me - and I’ve not done anything.”

“…but you don’t work for Edwin do you?” 

…More I do tonight, the more chance I have of making dinner with Elixa tomorrow.”[1]

Eva had tried to ignore it; she’d tried to pretend that there would be other people by the name of Elixa that Glass could be related to. Other trainee healers at St Mungo’s. She couldn’t after all, be sleeping with a relative of her boss. That would be really thick for a witch who was almost obsessed with keeping her personal relationships private.

With it unnecessary to verbally respond, Eva rose her eyebrows. There was only one Minister and he was only likely to be called by his first name by people close. Relatives.

“Sohn einer Hündin!” the Lawyer cursed. “And what happens when they find out that you’re related to Glass?” Regardless of the fact that Eva knew Elixa hadn’t done anything, she was still angry, frustrated. “People think you’re a hooker, Lix.”

1.	Chocolate Souls

“Everyone’s related to everyone, Eva,” Lix protested, throwing down her prescription notepad and lifting her hands up in reason. “We’re all ruddy related. He’s my first cousin removed or something because my great grandfather’s a Glass - it’s hardly close blood ties,” though admittedly closer blood ties than her and Johann, who was more a friend than a distant cousin, though felt like closer family.

“Edwin was just kind enough to let me lodge with him before I found a flat with a colleague. Way before he was Minister.” He was obviously a useful person to know, not that they had even seen each other lately. Elixa didn’t expect to see Edwin now he was the Minister, at least, not outside of newspaper print.

“People can think what they want. It’s not us skulking outside each other’s houses,” the healer huffed, “and I’d be more upset if they suggested your friend Harper was.” Given that terrible misunderstanding.[1]

“You’re here to say you don’t want to see me again, I imagine.”

1.	3rd September, 2011 The Unexpected but Delightful Guest

“No.” Eva responded perhaps too quickly. Immediately after, she frowned, pressing her lips into a line and shrugging. “Unless that’s what you want.” She liked Elixa. It was casual but it was fun. Their last meet had been horrifying, no one wanted to be walked in on in such a situation. Yet, being with Elixa was exhilarating and unpredictable. Eva liked that more than she was willing to let on.

“I’m just… I keep my personal life personal. And now everyone thinks that I’m a lesbian that pays for a hooker.” Maybe in a few months, she would laugh and find it amusing. Today she wanted to curl up and hide under a rock. “What in Merlin’s name did you do to catch the eye of that Death Eater loving tramp?”

Of course she didn’t want to stop. Nobody wanted to stop seeing Lix until the shine wore off the initial thrill of being reduced to a quivering wreck of satisfied bones and flesh. Perhaps she was in the wrong profession after all.

“What did I do?” Lix retorted, unamused at being blamed for this sudden outing in the press. She put her hands on her hips. She’d done nothing other than take part in a private relationship of sorts with another witch. It was hardly front page news, or even worthy of the Editor’s letter. She’d never met the woman let alone given her reason to write about her.

Lix scowled at Evangeline, thinking that of the two of them she was clearly the more interesting for a magazine to spread crap about. “And you think that everyone thinking you’re a lesbian and you pay for a hooker is as bad as being accused of moonlighting as one in the magazine your patients read?”

“Well, when you wear those boots!” Eva blurted out quickly, seriously. Her expression, however, started to break and she couldn’t help but smile begrudgingly. The smile broke into a nervous laugh and she shook her head. “You’d make a pretty sexy hooker.” She stepped forward, grabbing Lix’s hand. “I’d pay a king’s ransom for that.” A pause and another smile brightened her previously stressed expression.

“It’s bad, I know. I’m sorry.” She used her spare hand to stroke down Elixa’s arm. “It’s just… I…I have a professional reputation. Any you’ve met Glass…clearly.” She was overthinking it, she knew. But there was a paranoia and a self-consciousness that she couldn’t move past and she cared too much what people thought.

“When you put it like that,” Lix softened, “I clearly looked better than she would so maybe she’s jealous.” Her lips made an attempt to smile. “Maybe I’m competition. Maybe it’s not me at all but she’s got some axe to grind with you.” Lix wasn’t the high flying legal mind here, revenge and scores to even didn’t cross her mind. Fixing things did.

“I’m sorry too,” Lix dipped her head self-consciously. When she looked back to Evangeline, her expression was less sharp and accusatory than it had been moments before in the heat of the discussion, but more relaxed. “I never really asked about your job. I just assumed you couldn’t talk about it - and well, you don’t exactly want to talk about it lately.” One of her dark eyebrows lifted. “Not that I am protesting.” She squeezed Eva’s hand back.

“Look, this witch has done it now. We can either hide and deny it or own it. I’m sure Edwin’s got many more things on his mind than who you take to bed in your free time. It’s not like I am his political enemy for Merlin’s sake.” She laughed with self-pity and then leaned forward to kiss Evangeline gently. Softly, but with enough to convey reassurance that this wouldn’t end what they had. “If anything,” Elixa muttered in a low tone, “he should be jealous of me.”

In one sentence Elixa managed to put Eva, Edwin and bed. Despite the fact that she wasn’t suggesting Eva and her plump bald boss in the same bed, the witch still pulled a face at the thought of her choice of bed mate even making it into her boss’ mind. But jealous… Now Eva did laugh out loud and shake her head. That was something she never wanted to think about.

“New rule. No Glass talk.” A smile did then creep onto Eva’s lips and she shrugged her shoulders. “But let’s own it then. Dinner tonight. See where the night takes us.” The lawyer leaned in, pressing a lingering kiss against Elixa’s lips before she pulled back and grinned, glancing down. “Wear the boots Madame Mordent.” A quick tap on Elixa’s bum, and Eva left the cubicle, not feeling it necessary to wait for a response. She would deal with the fallout. she always did.