Benny was still puzzled over having blown himself up in the middle of Diagon Alley over the weekend. And the only thing he could think to do, to re-discover whatever charm he had forgotten, was to find the old books in the library that he had been studying around that time. He knew the librarian- in passing, at least- from writing his last book. The ministry library had a lot of useful volumes in it, and having once been a ministry employee he did not underestimate their usefulness in his writing.

But when he was still working for the Department of Mysteries- back in the mid nineties, before the second war, before he fled back to the safety of the muggle world, there had been a collection of experimental charms in the library, written around the time of the plague, intended to help ward off sickness. They had been amazingly effective with very little tweaking, but the project was abandoned as the war became more serious and the ministry was infiltrated. Benny just hoped those files were still around.

He approached the circulation desk, but did not see the librarian. She was probably busy. Re-shelving books or something similar. There was a bell on the desk, and he rang it once- Benny did not want to be that guy and ring it incessantly for help. If need be, he could find the books on his own- but he would rather have some help. A few moments later, he heard foot steps, put on his brightest smile.

"Good morning, Miss Katz!" he greeted cheerfully, leaning against the side of the circulation desk. "I was hoping you could help me find a few books I need for some research? I'm working on notes for another book, and can't seem to exactly remember a few spells I was hoping to use and expound upon."

When work was slow in the MAO (as it had been without the clear leadership of any one individual), it was no surprise that Akiva found herself back in the library doing whatever it was she could to be helpful.  She cherished the times she was working – not that raising her son wasn’t the most fulfilling thing she’d ever embarked on, but it was nice to have an identity separate from mother.  It gave her a sense of greater purpose, and something to keep busy.  Besides, Gabriel was getting his share of grandparent time recently and her parents couldn’t be happier about that. 

So, she was reshelving and stocking from the circulation desk – the other librarians happy to let her do something with the time she needed to be in the library anyhow and as the last book from her cart levitated back to the shelf, Akiva turned the cart back to gather more volumes. 

Restraining the urge to hum (that was still frowned upon), she walked with quick steps and was surprised when she heard the bell on the desk ring.  Looking around, she thought someone else might attend to an actual patron – it technically wasn’t her job anymore, but as the individual turned around, he seemed to recognize her (though notably by her former surname, and only as a Miss).  That waas awkward. 

Akiva wouldn’t make mention of it – or the fact that she did not have a clue who this gentleman was.  She put on her best smile though, since she was the one present and didn’t inform him of her change in name (since it hardly mattered) or the fact that she didn’t exactly work in that capacity anymore (it mattered less). 

“Of course I can help!” she chirped happily, leaving the cart next to the circulation desk and clasped her hands in front of her, looking up expectantly.  “Let’s start with the subject, perhaps?” she offered, “and then we can work from there…?”

"Well, you see, before the second war I was working in the Department of Mysteries with spell research and experimentation. We were working on a collection of charms from the time of the plague- charms to ward off sickness. It was an amazing project and I was trying to remember some of the spells and I can't seem to remember any of them." He frowned a little, but was soon smiling again.

"I'm not sure if the books were ever returned to the library. When the ministry was infiltrated the experiments were more or less abandoned... And, well, I didn't last long at the ministry after that."

He didn't want to dwell on something so depressing, though. "But I've been working on another book about health and healing charms, and was hoping I could find the texts we were studying then so I could incorporate some of them. They're old spells but were remarkably effective... I'm not sure how hard they will be to find. I can't remember the names or anything. Just a time period and a subject... Though I suppose that's better than not knowing anything at all!"

Akiva nodded along patiently as he explained what he was talking about.  Some healing spells… second wizarding war… Akiva certainly hadn’t been in the employ of the ministry during that period – she’d altogether abandoned school and set out for another path that had led her here, but if anything, records were a well organized portion of this library.  Old experiments would probably be amongst the records still kept. 

So, she crossed her arms for a moment, pursing her lips.  She was used to people coming in and not knowing details about what they actually wanted.  Having a time period to look at was going to be immeasurably helpful.  “Why don’t you follow me?” she instructed him with a beaming smile – Akiva never really got rid of her customer service sort of attitude, garnered from several years of work at Flourish and Blott’s and started toward the massive filing cabinets. 

They lined a wall, each one labeled with a series of dates, usually one or two years in length.  Though they looked as though they might have been small, wizarding space allowed massive amounts of files to be kept.  More than one librarian had been struck by the speedy and long outshoots after summoning one open.  Looking at the man (whose name she still did not recall), she pursed her lips for a moment.  “You’ll need to stand back,” she informed him – waiting for him to step out of the way for the first year of the wizarding war shelf to pop open.  It zoomed with uncanny speed, swishing her skirt as it went by.  Akiva wasn’t bothered at all by this and looked at the length row of documents in varying folders of different thicknesses.  “Department of Mysteries related documents are usually tabbed with black – but sometimes purple, depending on the contents, at the end of the rack,” she informed him. 

Though they had all of the documents… no one said it was the… cleanest system in the world.  “We’d better get started yes?” she moved toward the wall where the black and purple tabs started.  “Healing experiments, you said?” she raised her eyebrows as she began to thumb through. 

Benny fell into step behind Akiva, walking through the various rows of books. She asked him to stand back and he stepped out of the way. He watched as the shelf popped open, always impressed by wizard solutions to storage. Black and purple tabs. Easy enough, he supposed. He just hoped the work wouldn't be classified. Or, if it was, the fact he worked on it might help him get around that. He doubted it would be, though. Spell experimentation on something like health charms was nothing to hide- especially not if it was helpful and harmless.

"Yes, healing experiments. Almost like a sickness ward," he explained. "Various others, of course. But mostly we were trying to figure out a way for people to ward themselves against specific illness as well as a broader type of shield. It was going quite well before things... became complicated." That was the nice way of putting it.

Benny stayed close by, helping her look at the file folders. "We were also trying to reverse it as a way to prevent contagion. Warding sick people from spreading their germs. It was all very interesting, really. I always loved working on spells that might actually be of some help to people some day. Healing and medical related charms are always trickiest. Disease is a funny, fickle, and ever-evolving thing." His scientific understanding of sickness would help, he hoped. When he spent a few years in the muggle world again he started to work a little on a formal education on the off chance he would never be able to rejoin the wizarding world.

"I was making notes for my next book in Diagon Alley a few days ago and managed to mis-speak a spell and accidentally cast it while I was twirling my wand around- nearly blew myself up. So I figured finding the files would be a lot safer than trying to dredge it out of my memory. Was quite a scene, really," he chuckled. "Black smoke everywhere, and it threw me from my chair to the cobblestone. Landed hard. I was dreadfully embarrassed."

It wasn't often Akiva dealt with these sorts of files. Generally, Gertie Poole was a hawk over such things, but anything not considered classified would be in the general archives. She couldn't imagine anything about healing would be sensitive information, so she thumbed through the various files.  Besides, if they were classified they certainly wouldn't open for either of them. Clever with Gertie was, what with her charms and hexes.

Akiva imagined that at one point perhaps she had been a little more than just a librarian for unspeakables. No one would ever get that out of her, however. As she pondered these thoughts, Akiva realized just how much this man talked.

It wasn't unpleasant - far from it - most people treated the library like a tomb: somber silence in all things, but she had to blink and refocus to catch up to what he was saying.  Nodding her head, she finally latched onto what he was saying at the end and she couldn't help but smile! She was able to restrain the giggles for the most part, but it was rather funny.  "I'm sorry," she added quickly trying to suppress her grin. "It's just not something I hear often," she informed him. "I do hope everything was alright. I mean, you look well, but one never knows: an injured ego is likely just as sore as any injury," she smiled warmly, attempting a lightness that wasn't entirely there. Some wounds, her bracelet rattling on her branded wrist, was a testament. 

But still, it was a funny story and Akiva continued to smile as she pulled out a black tabbed file. Not useful, she judged and put it back in search of another. "so you're writing a book? That's a terribly large amount of work. You said next: have you written others?" She asked a question now, intrigued, and glanced upward - he'd expand upon it, she was sure.

Benny laughed. It was a deep, good natured sound. "Bruised ego was definitely the most painful part of that day," he agreed. "Benny Pattershaw- a supposed master of Charms and spellworks- accidentally blows himself up on the street." He was just glad not to have some kind of fan following the way Lockhart used to have- or he would have gotten a million owls about it. As it was, it didn't seem to be something of public knowledge. Not that he would mind if it was- not terribly. You learned from mistakes, after all.

He smiled. "A few others, yes," he told her. "The first few that I published were in relation to spellcraft and charms theory. Creating spells, why charms work the way they do, magical theory on how to increase your prowess- boring stuff, many probably think, but I always found it fascinating. And while I was still at the ministry I published two books of useful, every day charms." Those had been more fun to do. It was amazing to realize how many charms came in handy on a daily basis.

"The last book that I published was defensive charms and protection spells. Shields, wards, things of that nature. And a focus on using charms in creative ways to protect yourself. There are always different ways to implement a spell that don't coincide with its intended use."

He flipped through a few more files, trying not to grow disheartened at having not located the research just yet. "And now I'm working on a book about healing charms and health related spells in general. It's a way to pass the time when I'm not busy." Which was increasingly often since he as no longer doing ministry work and hadn't been promoting anything lately and had no magical family to distract him and few friends. "I enjoy it. Though it does make me a tad nostalgic for the life I used to lead here at the ministry- before the second war, when things were simpler and more peaceful in our world."

Well, now the name sounded familiar!  Akiva was glad that he outed himself on his name without her having to ask.  That would have been embarrassing since he seemed to remember hers and she hadn't even done anything as impressive as writing books.  She was always surprised when people seemed to recall who she was, unless of course it was in conjunction with someone or something else, like her deceased husband or her kidnapping.  "At least you have a wealth of a career to fall back on from one mishap," she smiled pleasantly pulling up another file to look at it.

It didn't look like anything important.  When she opened it, it proved it wasn't and she pursed her lips as she listened to him describe the books he'd written.  That was impressive.  There were so many and each was about some other facet of charms.  She could only gather from his explanation two things: he really knew his subject and hogwarts was lucky to have someone who knew what he was talking about. 

"When you have free time?" She laughed just a little at that fact.  "It sounds like you're keeping quite busy," she smiled pleasantly.  That was true enough.  It seemed much busier than she kept herself, and probably on par with productivity.  Breathing through her nose, Akiva pulled another folder.

She had to nod in agreement when he talked about the world pre-the second war, momentarily forgetting about the folder. "I know what you mean.  But thankfully now we can at least be at ease over his defeat."  No matter what other terrible things happened, it really didn't stack up to everything Voldemort, and as an extension, many facets of the wizarding world imparted to it's citizens.  She glanced down again, realizing she still held the curious folder.

The label was sealed, but it had a BP on it! Plus it was purple and black.  Hopefully it was something that would work.  Lifting it out of the cabinet Akiva held it up and smiled.  "Does this one look familiar?" She held it out to him and bit her lip, hoping it was at least a little useful. 

He smiled. "I suppose I do. I've had a successful career, I am very lucky for that." Not everyone who wrote a book managed to actually sell it, and Benny knew that his capabilities as a wizard being trusted by the general public was not easy to accomplish. He had worked hard, certainly, but he was fully aware that luck played into this more than anything else. Right place, right time. stars aligning- all of that.

"Oh, writing books isn't particularly time consuming," he told her. "And I haven't written one in a few years. Mostly I live off of royalty checks," Benny said. Why he was telling her such personal information, he had no idea. "Well managed money, doing a few lectures, nothing particularly exciting. And it doesn't take up as much as time as working a standard ministry job." Which he missed. Having a lot of free time meant that he spent a lot of his down time thinking about his late wife and all of the mistakes he had made in his life that had led him to where he was today.

He wasn't sure how much ease they could feel. "Just because one villain has been slain, does not mean others will never rise to take his place." Morbid, but an honest feeling. "With the WBA and the direwolf situations- there is always something on the horizon. It is the same way all over the world. Peace is always short lived..." After the hardships he had faced in his life, Benny wasn't the most optimistic of individuals.

Miss Katz found a file and pulled it out, handing it to him. Benny took the file from her and flipped it open, smiling. "We're getting closer! This is around the same time we were working on the healing spells," he told her. "I had nearly forgotten this particular project, I might take this file to look through too- if that's alright, of course. We worked on so many things sometimes I forget some of the small-scale projects."

"This is all so very nostalgic," he told her, still looking at the pages in the folder. "It makes me miss ministry work." But he would never work for the ministry again. Not after realizing exactly how week the entire institution really was.

Akiva was a good listener, that much was certain.  She liked hearing people’s stories and Benjamin’s was certainly one that she’d catalogue for a later day. She imagined writing books would take a lot of energy and time.  “You make it sound easy,” she commented with a smile.  It’d take a lot for Akiva to be able to do that, though she supposed doing anything while sitting and potentially being near her son would take a lot of effort.  He was getting so big, but that meant he was getting more curious and more independent.  He could even lift his own head, his arms were getting strong too – crawling wouldn’t be too far down the road.   

It was weird, knowing that.  But, she refocused and smiled.  “You’ll be doing lectures full time soon,” she smiled.  “So I hope you like giving them.”  She imagined teaching would be a lot of that – practical things too, but she did remember a lot of lectures from her time. 

She didn’t care to remember things so keenly… important to her, like direwovles and the WBA.  It was as if on cue there was a sharp pain in her wrist and Akiva flexed her fingers, stretching the muscles and rotated her wrist, the bangle she wore jingling against her skin.  “You are right,” she agreed, “but we can only hope the right people are working on putting the right people away.” 

There was a lot of about the Ministry that needed work, and sometimes they were not the most effective, and they certainly hadn’t been during the wars, but things (hopefully) changed and someone – even eventually – would see justice without the wrong people being prosecuted and hurt.  She could only think of Frank and hoped nothing would impact him in quite the same way. 

“Of course you can take the folder,” Akiva assured him, “I’ll just check it out with the rest when we’ve found them,” she informed him, gently peering through the folders that were in the same area.  They might have been in the same area.  It was just going to take a quick eye and no folder going unturned.  “You won’t miss it much when you’re at the castle, I imagine,” Akiva mused. 

“Working with children must be far more rewarding than doing any of this,” she motioned to the stacks and by extension, the rest of the work contained in it.  “I know most days I’d much rather be home with my son than collecting research orders,” she smiled at him.  “I do hope you have a similar experience teaching.”   

He smiled. "Not easy, exactly. Just one of those things where you do something long enough, and it just becomes routine. It's just words on parchment. And I use one of those dictation quills. I babble, it writes, and then I go back in and edit it later. Or have a publisher help me edit it."

Full time lectures. Teaching. Hard to imagine, really, that really was in his future. "I suppose I'll learn. I like doing appearances, always enjoyed teaching the new members of the department when I was there. But explaining something to an eleven year old with no concept of wand work versus explaining something to a Hogwarts graduate is going to be two very, very different things." Benny scratched at his chin, still smiling. But it would be fun, worth it, a much needed career change.

Benny set the folder to the side, glad she he would be able to take it. "I won't have time to miss it, I'd wager," he said. "Between teaching, grading papers, and keeping kids out of trouble. But it will be a nice distraction. I like to stay busy, and I have a feeling that teaching at Hogwarts will most certainly keep me busy. Even if it doesn't do anything else." Of course, he had high hopes for his teaching position- but he couldn't be positive it would go as smoothly or as well as he anticipated.

"I've never worked with children before," he said. "I hope I have the patience for them that I think I do." She mentioned a son, and he smiled. "I was unaware you had a son! Congratulations- though I'm sure they are much overdo. I'm afraid I don't keep up with the goings on in the wizarding world like I should. I'm something of a recluse most of the time. That will certainly change once I start teaching."

Benny pulled another file, and smiled. "Ah! We are very close. This particular work was done at the same time as what I am looking for. We might be successful yet, Miss Katz. I hope so, anyway. I'll never figure out what I was working on without it... And I'm sure I'd never have found this other file without your aid."

It was so interesting to see what people thought was easy or not, what was second nature to different people.  She couldn’t do it – well, she could probably talk at a quill, that was true, but it probably wouldn’t amount to much of anything.  Akiva had other things that showed off her skills. 

She imagined she’d be able to teach the young ones something; she had a way with small children.  The older ones would surely lapse any and all education she had.   Not graduating certainly had played a rather large part in the long, winding road to getting here.  “I’m sure it will be a good challenge though,” she tried to be positive, since he was right: it’d be very different.  “At the very least though, you’ll be able to treat your upper years a little bit more like adults, right?”  They were practically adults. 

“The younger years, I think, is where you can reserve your patience,” she said thoughtfully.  She had memories of being in school as a first year, eleven years old is a rough time, beginning puberty and going to a brand new school.  Muggleborns had the misfortune of not knowing anything about it until a couple of weeks before as well.  Then adding magic to the mix?  First year had been… interesting.  Almost as interesting as having her own child, who would one day be one of those eleven year olds.

There was no rush for that though, and Akiva smiled at the congratulations.  “Thank you,” she laughed a little, “he’s almost seven months old now,” she explained.  “And I’m sure being a teacher where you live with students is much like being a parent – there is never a dull moment!”  Or much sleep, for that matter.  Privacy was a thing of the past, a child – or children – really put a damper on that, especially as they got older.  When they still couldn’t walk it was a little easier.  Of course, shrieking sort of negated the need for walking.

Either way, she was glad to have helped with the file.  There was a little pulse of pride when he said he might not have found it without her.  “My pleasure!” she grinned, “I mean, it is – or at least was, my job,” she laughed and pawed through a couple more files.  “Is there anything else you might need?” she looked back up at him, “more files? Or books?”