It was late afternoon but the sun still shone. Summer pretended to return for a final weekend. Solly the house elf had made lemonade. The old traditional sort. With freezing charms on the glass. Andromeda had worked long hours all week. It included the raid on Lapin. There had been a stack of paperwork from that alone.

Andie had slept the morning with the thick curtains shut. Now she sat in the back garden of the old family home in the shade of the leafy green trees. She was barefoot and bare legged. She had just a short summer dress on in the heat and sunglasses. Her wand was not far from her hand even so. She glanced to and from her newspaper to the apparition spot for Ariadne.

Ariadne was enjoying the summer months. It was preseason for the Quidditch league, which would start in early October and run until April. It kept her incredibly busy at the Prophet under the editorial guidance of Ginny Weasley. In the summer months she had learned the ins and outs of training schedules, transfers and the international leagues. She’d even found herself reporting on a gobstones tournament and a broom race. The latter had been much more exciting, and she’d even been tempted to enter herself for the next one just for fun.

But on that September afternoon in late summer, she had a rare moment away from churning out pieces for the Prophet, and had taken up the invitation to visit her aunt Andromeda. Ariadne had just about become accustomed to the fact her aunt was lady of the house at the family’s historical home in Godric’s Hollow, though she did still expect to see her grandparents materialise at the back door of the house every now and then when she apparated in.

Today she was greeted by her aunt, in summer dress and sunglasses, sipping lemonade in the shade of the trees. Nestled in the rolling landscape of green (or well, somewhat sun bleached hills) the house was a tranquil oasis in comparison to bustle and heat of London. She might have moved here only it mean she couldn’t stumble in on a night out and she would miss the company of Virgil and Nick.

“Hey!” She called in greeting, lifting a hand to wave. “Is that today’s edition?” She asked, referring to the paper, “I’ve got like twelve words on page seventeen,” she approached, her flip-flops beating out a rhythm against the soles of her feet. “Not that you’d know - my name got cut out with the other three quarters of what I submitted, as usual…”

"Hey!" Aunt greeted niece. She flipped the newspaper pages rapidly. Page seventeen. Her eyes scanned up and down. "Found it." Andromeda read Ariadne's report on the broom race win. It was an annual event on the River Yare. Norwich to Burgh Castle. Running for long as living memory. Andie had seen it. There had been bother when she was a trainee. Otherwise The Nog in Norwich was not the scene of trouble on the regular. It was a nice spot for a Sunday lunch.

"Nice. Keep it up and they will start leaving your name in." Andromeda knew trainees had to put in graft for ages until they got credit. It was how they cut their teeth. Broke in their wand as an auror. "You ever write anything other than sport?" Asked Andie. Putting the paper down. Pouring lemonade.

“They’ll just deduct it from my word count, then.” Ariadne pulled a face, settling down on one of the chairs.

“You ever write anything other than sport?”

“For the office?” Ariadne asked, somewhat rhetorically. “I’m not really allowed…” She shrugged, and reached for the newly poured lemonade. “Told to stay in my own lane by some of the die hard hacks. But I want to.” Ariadne sipped, expression above the glass thoughtful. “Actually, I wanted to pick your brains on something I’ve been hearing about. Do you mind?”

She placed the lemonade down. It was equal parts bitter and sweet. Solly had excelled herself once again. As uneasy as Ariadne’s standing was these days on the employment - or enslavement - of house elves, she couldn’t dismiss the excellent work Solly did. She wasn’t sure what the elf would do if released by aunt Andromeda. Probably stay put and continue to work, Ariadne suspected. She wondered if Andromeda had contemplated… but she had gone off the point.

“Do you have much to do with stuff like gillyweed? I mean like… other stuff?” Ariadne knew very well that her aunt and uncle both partook in smoking a little gillyweed once in a while, and her father had too. But he’d never insisted on her trying it, and when she had last Christmas she’d thrown up in a flowerpot in the garden. She took too much after her mother. Much stronger than butterbeer gave her a headache, not that she’d like to admit in company.

“I’ve been hearing about this thing that makes you see things, maybe memories?” Ariadne asked, “I don’t want to try it, obviously, but it keeps cropping up.”

Andromeda peered over her round red sunglasses. Staring at Ariadne. Why would Ariadne be asking about that?

"Muse." Explained Andie. "That is what it is called. I have heard about it too." She put the newspaper down. Took her cool lemonade. Still staring at Ariadne. "The patrol have flagged it as against the Psychoactive Potions Act." Any potion that made you do silly things that was not dispensed by St Mungo's or a regulated apothecary was against it. "You take a trip on a fake memory. Sounds harmless but you do not know what you are going to get." It might be sunshine and butterflies one day and a horror story the next. She did not actually know.

"What have you heard about it?" Asked Andromeda.

“Friends brought it up,” Ariadne explained herself quickly. The lemonade might be cool down the throat but her aunt’s auror scrutiny stare was enough to make sweat prickle at her hairline without the weather.

She slipped her scrapbook open. It was full of cuttings and notes already on muse. “Someone had tried it,” she elaborated, “said they got a summer’s day swimming with friends and felt happy. But they were curious how it was made. Like, gillyweed you obviously grow, but this was something new. Not a potion - well not one you drink.” She hoped she was coming across more like a researcher than scoping out the possibility of developing the stuff or trying it herself.

“You know, people offer you stuff and if you decline they’re all up in your face about why you can’t take a risk…” Not that Nick or Virgil had really been like that. They were fine with what she opted in and out of, and knew her reasons. The main one being her mother was an auror, and of course her aunt. But aunt Andie had some flexible morals on this area, whereas Nadine Pinn was as rigid as a Hogwarts exam chair.

"You never have to do what you are not comfortable with." Andromeda delivered her aunt advice. Slid her sunglasses back up her nose. Sipped her lemonade. "You can absorb potion through your skin. It is called dermal absorption." Andromeda had a strong NEWT in potions. It was a requirement of an auror to have good NEWTs. It had been fourteen years since she had closed those books. But she could recall it all if she read them again. When she had got stuck in St Mungo's to heal her burns she read healing books. Fascinated by the healers creating treatments. As an auror it was a hazard she would end up there often. Last time for being impaled on an umbrella in a fight with her own parents. She blinked away the bad memories. "If it was regulated then it would be fine." Andie told Ari. "But if it is not regulated than it could be anything you are slapping on your neck."

“Noted.” Ariadne gave a little salute. They had got accustomed to this routine of dispensing the adult advice but with the unspoken caveat of ‘but you do you’.

“We couldn’t decide whether they were real memories though?” Ariadne asked, thinking aloud. “Like obliviators can replace memories, change them or even erase them, right? But can they completely create memories of something that never happened? If so, can they like put them in a potion?” She had been going round in circles with it. “It’s not like something I can owl my old potions professors and ask about, and last time I tried researching in Flourish and Blotts they said they weren’t a library and kicked me out for not buying…” She handed over her scrapbook.

"You are really caught up in this?" Asked Andromeda. "Why do you care so much?" She got that Ariadne was a budding journalist sniffing out a story but was there really one here? One that had not already been covered in a few inches. Ariadne had the articles in her scrapbook here. Andromeda skimmed the columns. Turning pages. More recent mentions. Strange behavior. Ariadne's scribbles reading between the lines. "Are one of these people your friend? Has something happened?" A card fell out from between the pages. She flicked her fingers to pick it up with wandless magic.

“Has something happened?”

“No!” Ariadne replied quickly, perhaps too quickly. “No, I mean nothing’s happened to me. It’s ok, honestly, I’m fine. I just got curious and wanted to see if there was a story in this, you know? Not just writing about quidditch maybe? Silly really.”

She blushed despite herself, embarrassed and simultaneously thrown by the fact her aunt had casually used wandless magic to pick up something. Oh crap - the card - Healer Misslethorpe. Work had been such a grind she’d forgotten all about approaching him. Well, maybe hadn’t forgotten but felt too damned awkward. Like, out of the blue and she was nobody. At least that’s what many of the old hacks at the Prophet wanted to remind her. Especially the Editor who continued to judiciously trim her articles from paragraphs to sentences to mere words.

Andromed Gamp read the card. Sandy Misslethorpe, Deputy Head Healer, St Mungo's Hospital... A familiar name.

"Ari. I am not your mum." She could do a mean metamorphmagus impression of her though. But nobody would ever tell Nads that. Their relationship was strained the past few years. From sisters in law to keeping it professional as colleagues. "He's a good one." She waved the card at her niece. "We talked a lot after your gran and grandpa..." Attempted a prison break. Turned one into an umbrella permanently and the other...? Fuck knows. Andromeda wanted to obliviate it. Too much hurt. "I think he has pretty much forgiven us." For the impersonation. Knocking him out and putting him in a wardrobe. Stealing his clothes for disguise. What a day. "Go ask him. I bet he would know." She handed back the scrapbook. "Safer than asking Knockturn."

END