1500 hours, elevator

Yavin wore a bright orange sweater over his black corduroys today, looking very much like someone who had forgotten he worked at the Ministry of Magic. It was only the second day. Much too soon to be forgetting things. He stepped into the empty elevator on level two, where he had just shared a drink with Solomon Carstairs in the spirit of a belated welcome.

They drank like fish, at this Ministry! The doors closed.

He hummed to the elevator music which, for reasons unknown to him, put off a group of young witches from boarding on level three. They were missing out on some classical Beethoven, Morgenthau style. At least he thought it was Beethoven. The car came to a halt and a young woman entered.

Pepper, Theta. In his mind's eye, Yavin recollected the image that Virgil had projected in his dreamscape last month[1]. They had gone over everyone they could, from Minister to menial.

"Theta," he greeted her cheerfully as he adjusted his spectacles. "Fine weather we're having." Yavin hadn't seen a window all day.

1.	The Walls are Paper Thin - 22nd August

The golden lift gates rattled open. Someone was humming, which was not particularly unusual, and Theta stepped into the lift without fully paying attention to her surroundings. She clasped what looked like a jewellery box in her hands, and her mind was busy considering whether all diplomatic talks would benefit from time-turners, or whether the attrition of repeating time and duplication of parties in the room would just make it worse.

“Theta” a deep male voice greeted, and she glanced up properly at the tall man in the lift. He was the only one in there, and the lift door began to rattle shut behind her. He was rather striking, with sharp, large features, and long limbs, topped with a bright orange sweater. Brighter than I’d wear, but each to their own, she thought, and offered a polite smile.
“Hello…”
“Fine weather we’re having.”
“Er, yes,” Theta agreed, “though I hear there’s rain on the way. Summer’s got to end eventually.”

She tried to place the wizard in the orange sweater. Had they met before? She didn’t think so. Why wouldn’t someone know her name unless they were friends of her dad or her uncle? Unless … Merlin, he isn’t the new Head of Nine is he?
“Sorry,” Theta said “I’m not sure we’ve been formally introduced, yet you know my name.”

Summer did, eventually, have to end. And how fitting that Yavin should arrive on time to draw it to its close.

He didn't have to glean thoughts to see that the girl was trying to place him. Or was it the sweater? No, the sweater was perfection. Yavin's smile broadened as the elevator continued its downward progression. Her thoughts were quite loud, in the sense that all thoughts were when they showed on your face. Those were the ones people had to watch out for.

            “Sorry,” Theta began--
 "Are you?"
             -- and went on, “I’m not sure we’ve been formally introduced, yet you know my name.”

"Ah!" Yavin held his hands behind his back, nodding enthusiastically. "I know, hm, lots of... things. Like how this elevator works. It can go sideways. With, er, adjustments."

She asked a question, didn't she? The wizard held out his hand and his eyebrows rose over the frame of his rims. "Yavin Morgenthau, I am in fact your new Head of Nine," he whispered this, as if though there were others in the elevator. "Theta Pepper. Time-turners. Is that one?"

He nodded at the box in her hands. Yavin refrained from adding Virgil's summary, which had been: pretty, clever, likes Quidditch, hasn't done anything too shocking just yet.

“Yavin Morgenthau,” he extended his hand to her to shake, “I am in fact your new Head of Nine.”
Shit he is. The phrase crossed through Theta’s mind even if it wasn’t something she’d utter aloud at work, far too polite and ladylike for such phrases until a really bad day or a few glasses of wine. He hand had automatically reached to shake his. Please don’t be creepy like Gamp was.

“Theta Pepper. Time-turners. Is that one?”
Uh oh.
“Yes, yes that is… one.” Theta replied, accidentally emphasising the subject in her subconscious effort to mirror Morgenthau and his phrasing. She let get of his hand and smiled.

“I expected to meet you for the first time on some tour of the Department, if I’m honest.” Theta admitted, “Gamp would show up every now and then in the workshop to ask us questions and well, I’m not sure Devereaux got much of a chance to. You would be welcome though.” Theta tucked her hands behind her back and clasped them so she didn’t accidentally fiddle. Gosh he’s another tall one isn’t he? She thought, forever feeling small at 5ft 1.

“How are you finding things?” She asked, and then smiled lopsidedly, “Or, not, given the nature of our Department.”

A jerky, not-quite-there smile tugged at one corner of Yavin's mouth. No. He had no intention of being creepy to the extent of the former head of nine. There was plenty in the world to study and dissect without the violent abduction of children. Theta did not seem optimistic. Not many people were, in their heads.

            "How are you finding things? Or, not, given the nature of our Department."

"I use my eyes," he replied with a glance at the indicator above the doors that informed them they were nearing their desired floor. "I am very curious about your, ah, time conundrums. Loops and paradoxes. My speciality, you'll forgive me, is up here." Yavin turned his attention back to the small witch and tapped his head. "One lifetime isn't enough for it, even then."

Which wasn't to say he'd not worked in other fields of magic - but it was better to let his new 'family' understand that it was as much his intent to learn as it was to oversee. And what a place to learn, this Ministry.

"Your thoughts are, shall we say, loud? I couldn't help it," the elevator came to a halt with a musical ding! and the doors began to slide open. "Witches first." Yavin gestured for her to go on ahead, smiling more amiable. "If you're free now, I would like a look at this workshop you mentioned."

“Your thoughts are, shall we say, loud? I couldn’t help it,”

Theta blinked, wide-eyed as it dawned on her as to what he meant. Her hands went to her head and she stopped herself, just placing one on her hair as if she’d bumped her head, and glanced oddly at her new boss. My thoughts are loud? she thought, never ever having considered that in her life. She wasn’t the loudest person in any room by a long shot. Am I an extrovert in my mind?

“If you’re free now, I would like a look at this workshop you mentioned.”
“Of course, sir.” Theta replied, smoothing her hand over her hair as if she had only been doing that and not at all surprised at the encounter. She had, after all, been through an interview process when she’d left school, which had involved someone looking in there, or so it felt by their penetrating gaze. “It’s down this way, today.” The whole floor did like to rearrange itself, but that was not too unusual after years at Hogwarts. One just had to keep track of the day and time.

Theta led them both through today’s maze of highly polished corridors and then seized a brass door handle at a doorway with a small plaque set into it with copperplate writing on Time Turner Workshop. What looked to be perhaps a small workshop, of course turned out to be a room far bigger than the door size suggested.

The room was not too brightly lit, and was dominated by a central workbench which had little pots, a great assortment of magnifying glasses all on funny little opposable arms, and on the wall hung lines of tools, organised in batches, of different metals and thicknesses, beneath carefully painted numbers that seemed to predate either of the two employees. On the far war was pasted a long timeline, a map and different charts about calendars and star alignment. It had a certain smell, of hot metal, burning dust.

At the far left of the workbench sat a wizard behind one of the enormous magnifying glasses, wearing a cream shirt and dark mustard waistcoat beneath a leather apron. His curly hair was unremarkable by wizarding fashion, and especially by Yavin’s fashion sense. The wizard glanced at them and then resolutely ignored them, lifting his wand to cast a little bubble of a ward around him, the air shimmering.

Theta gave her uncle an odd look, until she heard him clear his throat, and looked to her right. An identical Francis Pepper was also sat on the other end of the workbench, completing paperwork with a long white quill in his hand.
“You’ll have to ignore me,” he gestured to his past self at the other end. “I need to finish that and test it otherwise I’ll cause a minor paradox. I do hate the paperwork for those.”

Theta blinked and shook her head a little to dismiss the oddity of this moment. It wasn’t the first - she’d seen herself more than once in the year too, but it was a novel way to introduce your mentor to your new boss.
“Mr Morgenthau,” Theta addressed, “Mr Francis Pepper.” She gestured outwards with both arms to the Francis on her right, and then quickly to her left (who resolutely ignored them an appeared to not be able to hear them either).

Theta gave a nervous giggle at the circumstances and positioned herself so her past-uncle was behind her. “We bumped into each other in the lift,” Theta explained. Her uncle stood up and extended his hand to Yavin. Wonder if he’s got loud thoughts too…
“A pleasure, Sir,” Francis greeted with a genuine smile, “It was such good news to hear you were taking charge.”

The Time Turner workshop was an elusive room - perhaps because it involved a delicate medium, and was sought only by those who were already acquainted with such an element. Tricky thing. Notorious, in fact. Yavin's suspicions were confirmed as soon as they gained entry and were confronted by the same wizard twice overlapping the same space in time. Both versions appeared to be careful men invested in their enterprise. He glanced from one to the other, several times, with interest.

Aha. Her uncle. These Peppers walked the same roads, did they? Or same destinations by different roads?

            "A pleasure, Sir. It was such good news to hear you were taking charge."

"Why, ah, thank you." Yavin accepted the handshake, finally tearing his gaze away from the Other Francis (who was thinking Tall, they're always tall). "You keep this place in good shape. Is it just, hm, just the two of you? Very, very good work." He released the hand and smiled brightly, because This Francis was thinking Here we go again. "It's going to be an adventure, working with all of you, yes."

Casually, Yavin glanced around the workshop once more, taking in the meticulous organisation of its many tools and the light caught on gleaming metal surfaces. The kind of place that would keep on ticking regardless of what was happening in the other chambers.

"Any, ah, particular aims you would like to, that is, to raise?" Yavin turned back to the witch and her uncle. "Problems, projects, pests?"

“Is it just, hm, just the two of you?” Their new Department Head asked. Francis shook firmly, but not tightly, and took a step back.
“It is sir, at the moment. In years past there were a few more, but time turners are not suitable for production en masse.” The risk of the number of people turning back and forth through time, and the potential reduction in quality was not something Francis ever wanted to see happen in his lifetime. “After the war we lost so many they we trained new volunteers, but it has been a Pepper family business, of sorts, for generations.” He gave a shrug. There had always been at least a Pepper in the workshop for over a hundred years. Normally a wizard, too.

“Any, ah, particular aims you would like to, that is, to raise? Problems, projects, pests?” Francis and Theta exchanged a glance before their new boss.

“Well, with regards to aims, there are certain experimental features we are working on, sir.”
“Larger increments of retrogradation,” Theta chipped in enthusiastically, smiling brightly. The experimental side was of particular interest to her, in particular the maths.
“And a recall to ensure the wearer does not need to endure to origin moment.” Francis nodded to his niece. “Which we have had more luck in.” The more he examined Morgenthau’s mannerisms the more he suspected that the new boss would have his own eccentricities like every other head before him. No bad thing, he thought gently.

“We are also assisting colleagues studying time anomalies surrounding tears in realities, to examine possible phenomenon such as time erosion due to the turners.” He gestured to a map on the wall to Morgenthau’s right, detailing pinpoint locations, strung together with delicate silver thread. Some of the points ended up in the sea and others into Europe. “And as for pests, the Time Travel Investigation and Regulation Bureau work closely with us once they seize unregistered artefacts, for safe destruction. It is all a balance we manage to maintain down here. So to say, sir, we shouldn’t cause you headaches.” Leave us be and remember us fondly in your budget, maybe.

“May we ask what your particular aims are for the Department, sir?” Francis asked politely, not expecting any direct answer, and a riddle if there was any answer at all. “We’re all very much aware of the dementor mandate, but as a workshop, we regret we’ve not found much to contribute.”

If Yavin's attention had been wandering and sporadic upon entering the Time Room, it slowed down to absolute focus as Francis began to explain various recent interests to do with his workshop. The older wizard stood with his hands behind his back and his gaze politely shifting between these two Peppers in their golden kaleidoscope of a chamber.

The map was quite ingenious. "Very, ah, very comprehensive." He nodded in approval and made a note to spend some time examining it when there was leisure to do so. Francis' thoughts proved to be more than amusing - but refreshingly modest in many ways, intent only on pushing along the second hand of a clock that could not afford to stop.

            "May we ask what your particular aims are for the Department, sir?"

"Aims?" Yavin repeated, returning to his neurotic manner and bringing his hands forward again to clasp them together. "I, aha, I am trying to bring down the Walls of Jericho, I suppose." He did not specify which side of the wall the Department of Mysteries represented.

There was much about level nine, with its ancient and varying depths, that would never see the light of day. But Yavin wished very much not to keep every inch of it cooped up and left to its own endeavours. There must be progress. There must be new ideas and thoughts and challenges.

"The dementor mandate will, hm, will handle itself. So many interested parties as it is." He raised his gaze to the ceiling, indicating the floors above them that took the crises with utmost seriousness - down here it was simply one of many rooms in a Labyrinth that appeared to have no end. "What I, hah, what I want for us is to have our fingers in some, mm, some other pies. Stretch this important - " Yavin laughed at tapped his forehead pointedly, " - this important muscle. I'm sure I can count on both your cooperation."

He smiled at them, perfectly lucid in spite of his gibberish. "I anticipate exciting times ahead of us."

“I’m sure I can count on both your cooperation.” Theta nodded enthusiastically, always up for an intellectual challenge. Francis blinked calmly and gave a more restrained single nod. He’d been here through several Department Heads and more, so he would judge Morgenthau later down the line. He did appreciate the fact the man engaged in conversation, and he was getting an altogether positive feel from him. He wondered what Gabrielle would make of him, when they eventually met as fellow Department leads.

“Life is rarely dull on Nine,” Francis agreed, “we have become adjusted to change. I only hope we will not be continuing down the path of being perceived as the enemy,” he suggested. Unspeakables couldn’t talk about what they did, but that didn’t mean Gamp’s actions could prevail a negative impression of their good work due to the secrecy. “Though, it doesn’t stop us from making progress, even if the average witch or wizard has no idea how we have kept them safe in their beds the previous night.”

Theta shuffled her feet and gave her uncle a worried glance.
“You mean our colleagues, of course… not us…”

He gave her a mildly reassuring smile, and saw his past self stand up and push aside the magnifying glass. With a frown and a twist he blipped out of the room and the shimmer of bubble that had surrounded him faded away with a series of soft pops.
“We look forward to hearing about the pies, Sir.” Francis respectfully smiled at their new boss.

End