Opportunities for a sit down with the Head of Magical Law Enforcement came few and far between. Before Carstairs had been in the job, Gen had never had the opportunity. But the handsome bureaucrat was far more willing to. Gen knew full well that any sit down with him wasn’t a date, it was an arrangement. She knew information about him that would quite possibly tear his personal life and professional reputation apart and all she ever wanted was simply information. Sol? Well his own intentions were rarely clear.

Today, however, Gen had a pretty fair idea of what to expect. To receive an owl from his assistant the afternoon after Balfour Spectre’s barging into Headquarters[1] wasn’t a simple coincidence. Regardless, Genny accepted the invitation (or was it a summons?) to lunch because what self-respecting journalist would refuse a sit down and ‘chat’ with the Head of Wizarding Law Enforcement?

So, at 12:30, Genny entered the Sword and Chant after running through Diagon Alley in the rain. A moment was taken to dry herself off with her wand before she glanced around the pub he’d invited her to meet him at.

Upon spotting her companion in a corner booth, Genny made her way over.

“You sent me one hell of a present on Saturday, Solomon.” The witch grinned brightly as he rose to greet her. She touched his upper arms, kissing each cheek, her usual greeting. “My birthday isn’t until November. The fifth. I’ll be turning 30 again.” Gen winked.

1.	We Are Who We Are

Solomon was enjoying a finger of Firewhiskey when the editor of Witch Weekly finally arrived for their appointment.

The weekend controversy had somewhat mellowed in the days since he had consoled a furious Balfour Spectre in his office. It would always be immensely satisfying whenever someone struck back at that publication - and indeed, if no serious danger or injury was concerned, level two was less likely to take their grievances seriously. Even so, Sol wanted to hear what Queen G herself had to say, off the record.

"What can I say?" he replied dryly, taking his seat and gesturing across the booth. "I wanted to see what would happen."

Nothing explosive had happened, luckily. Sending Raine Almasy down to fetch Spectre had been a bit of an experiment and she had pulled through like a star pupil. He had a hunch that she didn't tolerate anything from reporters, if her handling of Sellaphix was something to go by.

"I take it your offices have recovered?" Solomon smiled with a touch of wryness. He was ultimately unimpressed by how they had chosen to reveal the truth about Ira Almasy's son, targeting the boy rather than his reckless father. Especially considering Genevieve herself was a mother.

Trust Solomon Carstairs to cut straight to the chase. He’d always stood out to Gen as a wizard to avoid small talk. He was a bureaucrat, a quill pushing wizard who valued efficiency and had, as she could see now face to face, aged with his new position. Poor Irene, not only was her husband a lecherous cheat, but he was a quickly aging one at that!

“We’ve had worse.” Gen shrugged as she removed her jacket to fold it over the spare seat at the end of the table. She lowered herself into the booth opposite Solomon. “Sandy’s still seething.” He’d been in headquarters that morning and she’d been sure to keep a distance, not being his favourite person at current. She never should have signed off on the article, she knew that and hardly needed everyone telling her as much.

Her keen gaze swept over the next person that was probably going to say the same as she’d already heard several times.
“Before you say it, Solomon, the article was a mistake.” Gen took the glass of chardonnay already on the table for her and lifted it to her lips. He remembered. “I’m not going to make some excuse about it. I signed off on it and if it were about my son, I’d have been a lot livider than Mr Spectre.”

Confession must be good for the soul, to hear Gen tell on her own mistakes. Whether she or anybody else at Witch Weekly were in possession of a soul, however, still seemed up for debate. Perhaps they all shared the one. Took turns using it. Solomon was a realist - he knew that wherever there was hunger for gossip, there would be gossip columns to feed it.

That didn't mean he liked them, diverting as they might be in bed.

             "... and if it were about my son, I’d have been a lot livider than Mr Spectre.”

"I'm sure your boy has his own sins to inherit," Sol remarked knowingly as he adjusted his spectacles and leaned against the back of the booth seat - couldn't be easy for any child to have a mother selling her face in society's favourite gossip rap. "But congratulations on having grown a conscience."

He reached for his whiskey and gave the glass a little shake, not drinking just yet. "Almasy tells me you nearly wet your knickers in excitement when you saw her?" Solomon paraphrased from the trainee's much more respectful description. "Should we bracing ourselves for another Russian exposé?"

One had been enough for level two - but when had it ever been enough for someone like Gen?

“You can’t afford to have a conscience in my job.” Gen pointed out before another sip of wine. The comment about Dante was ignored because, for 12 years, Gen had been all too aware how true that statement was. He’d been born the son of a purist murderer. No one avoided that family history with ease. Perhaps he and Felicks Spectre might bond over murderous parents? Gen rather hoped he kept well away, but who really knew what one’s child was up to at Hogwarts?

"Almasy tells me you nearly wet your knickers in excitement when you saw her?"

“Ha!” Gen laughed out loud and put her glass back on the table between them. “So crass!” There were so many comments that Genny could say in response to such a suggestion, but she’d not had enough wine for that Genevieve to come out. “She really was quite the present. Not that our good owner agreed.”
But he wanted to know if there’s be more.
“That would be telling, Sol.” She knew where he was going with it, that much was obvious. “Not about the kid.”

Leaning forward, Gen propped her head on her elbow and smiled at the wizard. “Job’s not doing those wrinkles much good.” Her gaze danced over his face, bright white teeth flashing with her grin. “Have you got grouchier? All work not play?” Well, he had brought up her knickers!

            "Not about the kid."

That was, in truth, all he needed to know for now. Spectre was filing for a gag order and when that came to fruition they wouldn't have to worry about that nonsense anymore - at least insofar as further information could be quelled. His largest concern was that Almasy's enemies or allies were now aware of her child.

             "Have you got grouchier? All work not play?"

He grimaced in response to her grin and drank his whiskey. "I won't lie, it's been busy." Sol hadn't even been department head for a year and he was already knee deep in another crisis. "Do I really have more wrinkles?" he touched his face absently, wondering if he should borrow one of Irene's face creams.

Wouldn't they be a pair then, sat at her dressing table rubbing pink lotion into their cheeks?

"It isn't the worst price to pay I suppose." Solomon sighed, lowering his hand and glancing across the Sword & Chant. "Not if I can make a difference at last."

Gen had, rather easily, avoided the expected telling off thanks to her own honesty. It was a surprise, however, for it to have been so easy. Why else would he have invited her to lunch? Ministry men seemed currently in the habit of inviting her to lunch for unknown reasons, and Gen couldn’t help but wonder if she was walking herself into a trap.

“Not more, deeper.” Men always seemed so conscious of their wrinkles, so anxious to lose their hair. Gen thought it further distinguished them, most men thought it something to avoid. In truth, however, she hated the thought of aging. Most people had the pleasure of aging with their life partner. Gen didn’t get that pleasure. Her process would happen alone.
“I still would…have.” She smiled playfully and lifted back off her elbow, taking her glass in hand to sip more.

“You really think you’re making a difference?” She asked thoughtfully, the playful tone now vanished. “Same shit, different criminals.” She wasn’t digging, just making conversation. Witch Weekly readers didn’t buy a copy to hear about the spirits currently taking up the news headlines. “You don’t feel like an overpaid caretaker?” Then her lips did curl into a smirk. “Or babysitter?”

He smiled - it was always a compliment to be told by a pretty witch that she might have, with him. Those days seemed increasingly behind him and yet the memories were still so close. Not least because there were days in which he would still disappear to check on how Aisling[1] was doing, with the boisterous laugh she'd inherited from him and the green thumb she most certainly did not.

            "You don’t feel like an overpaid caretaker? Or babysitter?"

"Who exactly am I babysitting? Ed Pratt?" he snorted as he sipped his whiskey. "Someone has to stand against what's happening in this world, or it would takeover altogether." And people like Gen's husband would have their way with the muggleborns or the good wixes aligned with them.

Where did Witch Weekly stand in all this? It made lives more difficult for its subjects and perhaps bearable for its readers. That didn't seem like a fair trade-off.

"I'm in a position to do things now, or to try." Solomon met her in the eye, something hard in his expression giving away the fact that this last year had made a lasting impression on him. "Whether I make a difference is the responsibility of my successors and historians, not gossip columnists," he couldn't help but add.

The papers didn't like success stories as much as they enjoyed sensationalism. Sol knew his job rested in the hands of people like Cuffe, but what about his soul...? That was a different judgement altogether.

1.	Aisling Cooper - Solomon's illegitimate daughter

Gen had meant exactly Ed Pratt. Boy, did that Head Auror have a reputation. A pretty wizard with far too many personal problems. How did he functions in such a position of responsibility? Carstairs had loose marital morals but at least he could keep it in his pants when it mattered. Pratt’s brood of little monsters made it clear that he struggled.

Carstairs sounded like an idealist and there was something about it that Gen found sweet. In the face of everything level 2 had to deal with, he still had motives for trudging on. Despite this year being a real beast for the wizard, he tried. And to top it off, he finished his idealism with another dig at her profession. Gen couldn’t help but smile softly. She’d spent 13 years being judged for the man she’d left Hogwarts early to marry; being judged for the magazine she had risen to become editor of was nothing.

“Can I quote that?” Gen asked, thoughtfully, cocking her head to the side. She was clearly working through the thoughts whizzing through the mind. A decent editor was always thinking of their next issue. She never really switched off from work.

“Some of us can’t afford to stand up against everything.” Gen folded her arms and rested elbows on the table, leaning forward once more. “You know more than anyone the job I’ve had just protecting myself.” He’d been there at Leo’s arrest. He’d taken her in to Level 2 as a suspect. “It should be commended.” There was none of the usual amusement in her tone. Gen was genuinely thinking on the meaning.

            “Can I quote that?”

He laughed, shaking his head as he drank. "No." Solomon didn't need her publishing deprecative comments about gossip columnists, her readers were hardly his fans to begin with. "Let's keep my delusions of grandeur out of the papers, if you'd please."

Genevieve had disastrous luck and taste in men. In some ways he couldn't blame her for the way she milked her personal tragedy to produce financial gain; it was crude but it was also brave of her to draw attention to it. Other women might have withdrawn from the public eye instead.

"And by whom should it be commended?" he smiled at her indulgently. "I'm not of the mind that the best defence is a good offence. Tearing down other people's lives to safeguard your own is..." Sol trailed off with a weary sigh. The article about Spectre's boy, in addition to those of other children before, still stung.

Of course, Gen didn't know about the child's backstory, so she couldn't know the extent of her harm.

He took off his spectacles and slipped them into his breast pocket. "It's an age old argument isn't it, Gen? The things we do to protect ourselves." Merlin knew the Ministry had a history of similar vein, as much as he tried to change it now.

"And by whom should it be commended?" Carstairs asked and Gen frowned. He thought she’d meant her. In truth, she’d not been specific and it sounded more like her. But Gen had no misconceptions that people should respect her or look up to her. She’d made enormous mistakes in her teenage years which had led to where she was now. She’d challenged people’s beliefs and thrown herself into the public. If she said the things about herself, no one else would; or at least it had been her theory.

“You misunderstand, Sol. I don’t expect to be commended. Holy crap, no. I’m not saying that what I do is right, but at least now I can afford to feed and clothe my son, so I’m not apologising for my career choice at a gossip rag.” There were hardly many other jobs that would take someone with no NEWTs. Menus were brought to the table and placed between them, but Gen paid neither them not the sever any mind for the moment.

“You are to be commended. Most people can’t look past their own problems. And you, despite all of the evils that keep coming your way, plough on. That is what should be commended because you’re not doing it for yourself. There’s a lot of selfish people out there. Those deeper wrinkles say that you’re not one of them.”

            "You are to be commended."

He raised his eyebrows at this, incredulous. Genevieve was being genuine perhaps but it was difficult for him to value commendation from somebody in her line of work: at what point in her articles did she shed personal ideals in favour of selling a story? And wasn't it only a matter of time before she shed too many because a story was just too good to resist? One could never truly trust anyone from Witch Weekly.

"I think we both know I'm not quite selfless." Solomon remarked and drank the last of his whisky. "But thank you. Now I should really be going," he reached into his robes to procure a pocket watch. "Only wanted to see your take on what happened with Spectre. My sympathies to Sandy."

Misslethorpe wasn't the bad sort, the man had been invaluable to level two on some occasions. On a professional level. In terms of personal relations, Sol applied the same laws of mistrust to him. Healer, businessman, journalist. Merlin knew which of those masks were king.

"Perhaps we'll sit down to a proper meal next time." Sol rose and gave his old friend a softer smile, the sort touched by older memories of the war. "It doesn't always have to be business."

That was a lie. As he was beginning to realise since taking on the role of department head, almost everything he did was business. But a man could dream.