Bundled up against the cold, Maggie walked briskly through Muggle London, stopping when she saw the 'Reed and Wright' sign hanging above a door. She frowned at the boarded up windows on the first floor and glanced at the intercom system, nodding when she saw a 'J. Trevelyan' on one of the buttons. This was it. Maggie pressed it, hoping he was in his office during the middle of the day.

She'd tried to contact him several times by telephone and owl last week, hoping to get the inside scoop on what happened during the mummy incident at the British Museum. Maggie had been thrilled to be the first to write a short blurb about it, but now she needed more information. She wanted to know how, exactly, something like that had happened and why there'd been so many wizards at the museum on that particular day. Coincidence? Couldn't be.

Aileen Reid had ignored her completely, so that left Jonas Trevelyan, private investigator. Perhaps his presence at the museum had something to do with a case, she thought, grinning despite the cold.

The responding hum finally sounded and Maggie walked through the door and up the stairs, noticing a camera nestled up there. That was smart. Maggie was tempted to install one in Niobe's doorway and charm it to shout obscenities at Dominik Wiedman whenever he came lurking.

Smirking at the lens for a second, she rapped on the door a few times and then let herself into the office, hoping to find Mr. Trevelyan himself sitting at his desk.

No such luck. Maggie found a messy desk and scattered boxes lying around, and a woman with blond hair, packing things up.

"Oh, hey," she said by way of greeting, disappointment in her tone.

"Is Jonas Trevelyan around? It's important." Of course it was. It was important for her career!

After their massive fight Lexus had done a lot of what she supposed could have been called 'soul searching'. She figured Jonas had been right. She should have told him about her condition right from the start and let him decide whether he wanted to keep her around or not. Afterall he already knew she had no qualms - and still didn't - about confunding a few muggles for her survival, what was putting the fact that she was a werewolf on top of that? At least she could have been a lot more open about why she spent so much time in Knockturn, not to mention the lame excuses she'd had come up with to be alone on the full moon. If she had a time turner, she supposed she would have gone back to the first day they met, or the first day she officially started working with him and told him the truth but the fact was she didn't and now she had to deal with it.

She hadn't come back to the office after their fight figuring he needed the space and she needed the time to think. She had to think about how well she actually knew him and whether it would be best if she just left him alone. The thought made her ache and in the end she decided that Jonas was the first real connection she had with the world in over a year and fight or no fight she wasn't going to give that up.

Unfortunately when she tried to contact him over the past week he hadn't answered. She had no idea where he had gone. The full moon had been rougher than normal, with all the drama going on between her and Jonas she hadn't been able to make it out to get a dose of Wolfsbane from Dazmond. She had to use the chains in her safe room, it had been a horrible night but at least she hadn't put anyone in danger.

Making it back to the office after a rough recovery she had found it completely abandoned. She had no idea where Jonas had made it off to but there was definitely no effort made to keep her in the loop which quickly translated to Lexus to mean that Jonas didn't want her around anymore. Whether that was the truth or not she figured it was best to leave. After a mini cry fest she started to pack things up.

When the intercom went off she buzzed whoever it was in. She had no idea who it was but until she left that office she was still Jonas' assistant and was going to do her job as best to her ability for the next hour she still had it. She had been about to open the door when the woman let herself in. She paused in putting a picture of Jonas in her box of things and looked up to the woman, "Umm no actually Jonas isn't here."

Lexus straightened herself up and offered her hand, "Lexus Dale, Jonas' assistant. Is there anything I might be able to help you with?"

"Maggie Groust," she introduced herself and shook the woman's hand, noticing that Lexus' eyes were a little red, and her expression weary, but she'd straightened up and put on a professional face. Lexus Dale. She'd heard of her: the mysterious newcomer who had come to Wizarding England seemingly out of nowhere. All Maggie knew about her was her work connection to Jonas.

She glanced at the picture of Jonas that Lexus had placed in a box and curiously wondered if the assistant had just been fired or quit, or if something bigger was going on here.

Leaning against the desk because the chairs had papers piled on top of them, Maggie shrugged off her coat but didn't hang it up yet. "I'm here to follow up on the mummy incident at the British museum. I wrote a short piece about it in the Prophet after it happened," she explained. "So I've been trying to get a hold of Mr. Trevelyan for a while now, but he hasn't been answering any of his owls or telephone calls," she smiled wryly at Lexus in an attempt to soften her impatient tone.

"I thought it might just be me," she joked with a shrug. Journalists and reporters were not exactly popular. "Looks like you two are moving, though?"

She remembered the boarded up windows below them. Perhaps there was something wrong with the building, or perhaps they'd had a security issue, judging by the monitor on the desk (Maggie stole a glance at it, but it was blank), and the cameras outside.

With as much of her attention as possible on the other woman Lexus continued to put her belongings in the box. She'd have to find another job. She didn't want to leave London, not now, not after finally settling down after being on the run for over a year but she wasn't exactly qualified for much. Perhaps she could do secreterial work again. She put the latest Dolly St. James book in the box before addressing Maggie, "Unfortunately I wasn't there with Jonas when he visited the museum."

She moved around the other side of the desk facing Maggie and started to open the drawers to find any small nick knacks or what have yous that belonged to her. For having only been in the office for three months Lexus was finding it surprising how wide spread her belongings had become, "I don't know much about what happened.I do know Jonas was working for a woman named Aileen Reid who had him searching from an Ancient Egyptian Dagger a while back. Only thing is, turned out the dagger was cursed, took away Jonas' magic and pumped mine up to over drive. Haven't been able to do even the simplest of spells in over a month without it going horribly wrong. I think they went to the museum to find something that could remove or break the curse, however it works."

She knew she probably shouldn't be telling Maggie all of this, especially considering she was a reporter for the Daily Prophet but she was still mad at Jonas and rather frustrated with her own inability to perform magic properly. She grabbed a few empty potion vials from inside one of the drawers and carefully placed them in the box, "Well I can't say for Jonas, since to be honest I haven't seen him in like a week, but I'm leaving." She glanced up at the other woman, they looked about the same age and she figured she could relate, "Had a really big fight with Jonas and well I guess you could say it cost me my job."

It wasn't the entire truth but she wasn't an idiot. She wasn't going to tell a reporter that she was leaving because she didn't want to put Jonas in danger anymore, from herself or from the Ministry for harbouring a fugitive and unregistered werewolf.

Maggie blinked at Lexus, and shucked her coat to the floor. Who cared if it got dusty! She mentally filed things away in her head as she reached for the pad of paper and quill that she always kept stashed in her purse. Aileen Reid. Cursed Dagger. Loss of magic and amped up magic. Museum, find solution.

Holy. Shite.

She stared at her in shock, and then closed her mouth and nodded. It fit. It fit! She'd been keeping an eye on news about the Egyptian curses since Aileen Reid had returned from her expedition, and she had wondered if there had been a connection between the museum trip, the mummy revolt, and Reid's workers dropping like flies. Now she knew that it was so much more than that. The cursed dagger was likely related to the same article she'd written about the loss of magic running rampant throughout the wizarding world. St. Mungo's was still scrambling to find a solution. Could she have stumbled upon the cause?

One thing that Maggie had learned about finding information was that if someone wanted to talk, she'd let them talk. So far, she'd simply nodded and taken notes on what Lexus told her. So when the woman shifted the subject and mentioned that she and Jonas had argued and that it had cost her the job, Maggie was far, far too excited to feel sympathetic.

Thank Merlin for disgruntled, laid off employees! This made her day. Hell, this made her career! She hadn't even needed to dig, yet!

"I'm sorry to hear that," Maggie murmured, mind already racing beyond that statement. "So you're saying that this dagger caused Trevelyan's magic to disappear. Completely? And it caused yours to become stronger and unpredictable?"

Maggie paused to give her a chance to respond, glancing up at her. "When did you notice your magic acting up? How did you know that the dagger caused it?"

She'd have to find another source to back up this news to make it sound credible. That meant either tracking down Jonas, breaking down Aileen Reid's door, or getting someone else to talk. For the moment, however, she was more than happy to find out just how much Lexus Dale knew!

For now Lexus stopped her search and settled into Jonas' chair behind the desk. The last place she had to look for her stuff was a small cubby that Jonas was trying to pass off as a bathroom but she didn't feel comfortable leaving Maggie alone in the office while she scrounged up the rest of her things in another room. The woman seemed nice enough but she was still a reporter, a career that movies and television had taught Lexus not to trust.

Now that she was still, a few things had become obvious about her current appearance. Though her hair was now a nice golden blonde from her out of control magic, there was a streak of silver in the front - that she had purposely separated from her ponytail - that had shown up after her last transformation. Her wrists were red with the evidence of bruises that hadn't settled in yet due to having chained herself up during the last full moon. She had worn bracelets to try and disguise them. Then there were minor scrapes over her hands and a few on her face. She was definitely looking worse for wear and she didn't even want to think about what kind of conclusions Maggie was drawing from her appearance.

"Absolutely no magic. He says he's okay since he spent like the last ten years amoungst muggles and didn't use his magic very much but I knew it was killing him. There's a difference between having your magic and not wanting to use it, and not having it even if you did want to use it. Jonas would never admit it but this is really getting to him."

She shrugged realizing that with her notepad and quill out she was now being interviewed, "As for me well it only seems to be getting worse. The smallest of spells just blow up, I haven't felt this incompetent since my first year at Pinebrook." It was already obvious just by her voice that Lexus wasn't from around here, "Few weeks back I tried a few simple beauty spells, just a little refreshing of my make up and hair, my skin turned bubblegum pink and my hair wouldn't stop curling and uncurling itself. I had to wait two days for the spell to wear off. Not to mention," She grabbed the tail end of her ponytail, "I'm not a natural blonde. I was trying to turn my hair back to it's natural colour after it went canary yellow and ended up with this. I haven't done any magic in almost a month now. The last thing I need is to burn down my flat."

Lexus smirked as the woman across from her nodded and continued to take notes before posing her next question, "It started about mid November, right around my birthday. I wasn't going to tell Jonas about it. I've been taking an experimental potion my friend's been making me and figured it was just a weird side effect and I really didn't want to hear the lecture he would no doubt give me about it. It wasn't until he caught me with pink skin and dancing hair that I finally caved. That's when he told me about his condition and we started to try and figure out something that would have gotten to the both of us. At first we thought it might be some kind of attack since we're both muggleborn but that dead ended. It was Jonas who figured out it was the dagger and he's been trying to figure out how to reverse it for over a month now."

Maggie moved some papers out of the way and sat down in a chair opposite Lexus. She was here for the long haul. Crossing her legs, she listened carefully, slowly taking in details of Lexus' appearance now that her mind had settled down from shock mode. It wasn't every day that someone offered up the story of the year just like that. Maggie wondered for a second if Lexus realized how valuable this information was.

She also wondered about the gray in the woman's hair and the scratches on her face. Her gaze flickered down to her hands resting on the desk- scratches there, too. Frowning, Maggie tuned out for a few seconds, slightly worried and a little uncomfortable.

Maggie shook her head at herself and refocused on the conversation, making a note to find out why Jonas Trevelyan had spent the last ten years among muggles. She also wrote down the school's name, 'Pinebrook', and underlined it. Maggie was almost as interested in finding out more about Jonas and Lexus as she was in the real story. Almost! They both seemed so mysterious in their own ways.

But when Lexus began rattling on about beauty spells malfunctioning, Maggie nodded politely, and started tapping her quill against her notepad. She looked down after a moment, stopped the impatient gesture, and was relieved when Lexus went on to say that the trouble started in November. That seemed to correspond to the loss of magic many experienced at that time. She made a note about the experimental potion but didn't comment on it.

"And Aileen Reid is working with you two to reverse the curse?" Maggie assumed, judging by Reid's presence at the British museum. It was strange how Jonas and Lexus hadn't yet sought out help from St. Mungo's or revealed the source of the problem to the authorities, since it was affecting so many people. Perhaps they wanted privacy. Or perhaps they were protecting Reid, their former client. Though Maggie had to wonder why Lexus was telling her all of this if that was the reason.

"Wouldn't cursebreakers or even St. Mungo's healers have some idea of how to help if they know where the problem is coming from?" She asked curiously. "Because it's affecting more people than just you."

Maggie paused, realizing that she'd sounded judgmental, and that wouldn't encourage Lexus to confide in her.

"Unless you're making progress with it," she offered with an apologetic shrug. That didn't sound much better!

Lexus leaned back in the chair and crossed her own legs, feeling slightly uncomfortable in the straight leg pants she was wearing. She had always felt more comfortable in skirts and the occasional pair of jeans but the denim wasn't professional and the weather made wearing skirts simply impractical. She studied the woman in front of her, apparently she had made her rather happy with what she had to say but she couldn't figure out why it was all so interesting for her. After all didn't things like this happen in the Wizarding World all the time? Was Jonas' lack of magic and her own loss of control really all that news worthy?

"Well Jonas was working with Ms. Reid. I've actually never met her. She rarely came round the office and there's a bunch of cases Jonas kept me away from. I usually just did the grunt work but he promised me him and Aileen were getting really close to fixing it."

She gave a little shrug and fiddled with a loose thread on her sleeve, "I suppose. Jonas said he had it under control so I just never bothered." Not to mention the fact that she wasn't exactly legally living in the country and she was terrified of the Healers at St.Mungo's. Moira Randall had been perfectly pleasant but she was convinced that if she had ever gone there as a patient the healers would instantly discover she was a werewolf and hand her over to the Ministry.

Lexus' soft blue eyes widened and she sat upright in her chair, "What?" It wasn't that Lexus was a selfish, self centered person she had just always been rather ignorant when it came to the outside world. She didn't read the newspaper and she didn't watch the news, anything that happened outside her own little life was a complete mystery to her, as if it never happened, "It's affecting other people? But how? We thought only contact with the dagger spread the curse and only Jonas, Aileen and that Boskonovitch chick have actually touched the dagger aside from me. How could it be affecting so many other people . . ." Lexus trailed off as a horrible thought came to her. What if the curse spread through contact with a cursed person and not just the dagger? How many people had she cursed in the past two months just from coming into contact with them? Dazmond, James, Cinaed, Kurby, Ms. Randall even Maggie here. The only person she actually felt happy about possibly cursing was that pesky rookie Auror who tried to turn her in.

Lexus chewed on her bottom lip as she rubbed her hands together, "how many people have been cursed?"

Though Maggie was relieved to hear that Trevelyan and Reid were close to finding the cure, it soon became clear that she and Lexus were not on the same page. Perhaps not even on the same planet. When the woman straightened in her seat and seemed absolutely shocked that others had been inflicted with the curse, it was all Maggie could do to bite her tongue and refrain from criticizing her openly.

How did an investigator's assistant do her job without ever picking up a newspaper? In that line of work, it was especially important to be aware of the world and at the very least, to be aware of what the media deemed newsworthy.

Mags got a funny look on her face and stared at her, then glanced at her note pad to write down Boskonovitch, whoever that was. Either the dagger had passed through many, many hands and solely cursed people that way, or the curse was also being spread by those who were already cursed. Maggie was willing to bet that the investigator knew enough not to play hot potato with a ancient artefact that had mysterious properties. Of course, judging by the shock on his assistant's face, she couldn't rule out that Trevelyan was just as clueless as Lexus.

Maggie took a deep breath and answered her question with as much patience as she could muster. "Last time I checked, the amount of reported cases numbered over twenty-five. And that's just reported cases. I'm sure there are plenty who would rather try to hide the curse than admit to having any kind of magical difficulty."

With good reason. Witches and wizards had lost their jobs because of this mess. Maggie wondered for a second what would happen to Lexus, Jonas, and Reid, if she printed this new information. On the one hand, the public had the right to know and get their lives back as quickly as possible. On the other hand, if she announced that this assistant's chances magic was unstable, her chances of finding a new job were slim to none. Though ignorant, Lexus didn't deserve that.

Pushing that thought away, Maggie studied her carefully and went on, "It's been in the papers since mid-November. St. Mungo's is doing some kind of test group, trying to find the cause."

And they both knew what the cause was now.

Lexus' expression had become stony and her eyes had brightened. She hadn't missed the look on the other woman's face and could only imagine how stupid Maggie thought her to be. Despite her regular trips to Knockturn Alley and nights spent at the Black Chimaera Lexus had purposely been avoiding the magic world. The last thing she wanted was to pick up the Daily Prophet and find her own face plastered all over the front page - Wanted Werewolf spotted in London. Besides most if not all of the cases that she worked on her own were muggle cases and there would be no mention of lost magic in The Times.

She ran her fingers over her face. That was a lot of people to have been affected by this thing. How was it even possible that it had become so widespread? If she was a carrier how many people had she personally infected? Did that make all of them carriers? That was the only explanation for how many people had been affected by this and what about all of the muggles she had come into contact with? If the curse took away wizard's magic what did it do to non magical people?

She looked back up at Maggie, "I was at St Mungo's in December and the healers never mentioned anything about the outbreak." She couldn't understand why Ms. Randall hadn't said anything to them, if the curse spread by contact wouldn't everyone in St Mungo's become infected? Wouldn't they have quarantined the entire hospital by now? She shook her head again, "I just don't get how so many people could have been infected. If the curse spread through contact wouldn't all of St Mungo's be without magic by now, or have their magic going haywire?" She was having a really hard time wrapping her head around this one and it didn't help that wolf was getting irritated by all of it as well.

A sudden realization came to her, "You can't run this story." There was a slight hint of hostility in her voice and her eyes flashed for a moment, "I can do my best to contact Jonas and have him talk to the healers at St Mungo's but if you print this there will be mass hysteria, not to mention a whole bloody lynch mob after Jonas."

"I don't know exactly how it works," Maggie admitted with a shrug. "Maybe some people carry it but don't display the symptoms. Or maybe some people are just completely unaffected." She refrained from telling her that if St. Mungo's had known the cause earlier, they could have come closer to discovering these things. Lexus looked defensive enough already.

And then came the kicker: "You can't run this story."

Maggie supposed that meant she wouldn't be getting direct quotes from Lexus. Damn. The assistant went on, revealing that she still had a bit of loyalty to her former boss.

And Mags did feel sorry for them. Despite her sometimes brusque demeanor, she'd been drawn to journalism because of the people. People's lives. Making things better. She was also aware that referencing only one source for a story like this would decrease the story's believability. She needed more of the key figures (Jonas, Aileen) to open up to her about it.

"Lexus," she leaned forward and met her eyes, unsurprised to find anger in them. "I've got all the pieces. They all fit. I know where the artefact came from, I know that it caused this, and I know about the people involved. I've got the story of the year," she said frankly.

"If I don't print this, someone else will put it together eventually," Maggie paused. She didn't want to bully Lexus, but at the same time this would be huge for her career.

"But... I don't have to print it right away," she let out a little sigh. "You say they're close to finding a cure. I can wait a little while until they do, and then spin it so you look... noble and helpful." Rather than irresponsible. Right. "But you have to keep me updated. Help me find Jonas. Get him to talk to me. When it goes public, I can make it a positive thing. It's all in how things are worded."

Maggie studied her closely, hoping she'd agree. She didn't say that if Lexus refused to work with her, she could make the disaster sound just like it was: a disaster. Mags doubted she'd go that far anyway, even for her job.

Lexus narrowed her eyes again, this time they darkened with an unspoken threat. She knew that the reporter was simply speaking the truth but she couldn't ignore what was between the lines in that statement, 'I can do this whether you want me to or not'. Lexus had never been a terribly violent person, even now as a werewolf (except when she transformed and lost her mind to the wolf) but every fibre of her being wanted to knock the woman's lights out. Who the hell did she think she was? Coming in here out of nowhere, interrogating her, threatening her, she may not work here anymore but she still had half a mind to kick Maggie out.

She clenched her jaw and subconsciously rubbed the bruises on her wrists. Her features softened only slightly when the woman added her but. Perhaps she wasn't threatening her afterall but now it felt like blackmail. Ms Groust you are not making a good first impression. So if Lexus agreed to cooperate, to help her find Jonas and get him to admit to everything Lexus had just said she'd hold off on the story, wait for there to be a cure and then make it up as if Jonas and Lexus were some great heroes saving the wizarding world from the plague of no magic. She scoffed at the woman just barely able to resist rolling her eyes.

"Even if I could help you find Jonas I doubt he'd talk to you about anything. He's got . . . trust issues." She rubbed her wrists again wincing slightly at the tingle of pain that came from the contact. She'd have to make sure she wore long sleeves and gloves until she was able to whip up another batch of healing potions to make the bruises fade quicker, "He didn't tell me where he went and if Jonas wants to disappear I doubt anyone would be able to find him." She sighed the threatening darkness in her eyes softening, "If you really want to find him I'd talk to that Auror chickie he's friends with, Raynor something or other. They seem pretty close she'd know better than I would where he is now."

She leaned back in the chair a small grimace on her face as another worry tickled the back of her mind becoming harder and harder to ignore, "If you do print this, do yourself a favour and leave my name out of it." She left it at that for the time being, if the reporter really did want to press into that bit of information it was on her head. Printing Lexus' name in the prophet would be like signing her own ticket to Azkaban - knowing where a known fugitive and wanted unregistered werewolf was staying without alerting the aurors, she'd likely lose her job. The thought made Lexus smile.

Lexus was starting to look like she'd leap over the desk and throttle her. Maggie herself got a similar look on her face whenever she so much as stubbed her toe, so it didn't scare her or deter her, though perhaps it should have. She also didn't consider what she was doing as any kind of blackmail; just doing her job, and trying to be fair about it. That was perhaps her second mistake.

The assistant explained that she didn't know where Jonas was and he likely wouldn't talk anyway, and Maggie nodded, distracted by the way she kept rubbing at her bruised wrists. It wasn't any of her business, Maggie told herself. None whatsoever. Despite the fact that part of her job was pushing her nose into other people's business.

"Tamis Raynor?" She said dryly, unable to resist smirking at the phrase 'Auror chickie'. This was why wizarding folks needed to pick up a paper once in a while. If Lexus had, she'd know who the Head of the Auror Office was, for Merlin's sake.

"If you do print this, do yourself a favour and leave my name out of it."

Do yourself a favor? Maggie gave her a skeptical look, a bit disturbed by the smile that had formed on Lexus' face.

"Fine," she said warily. The public wouldn't see Lexus as an important source anyway. Maggie had been calling her 'the assistant' in her head; it wouldn't be too hard to transfer that nickname to paper.

"Jonas doesn't have a cell phone by any chance, does he?" This was a way for Maggie to test how muggle-savvy Lexus was. She expected her to be somewhat knowledgeable working in muggle London, but going by the rest of their conversation, if she got a blank look it wouldn't surprise her.

Lexus had been helpful, however, and given her a lot of valuable information, even if she wasn't particularly happy about it. If Mags were in her shoes, she wouldn't be pleased either. She would have ranted and raved and kicked the reporter out.

So it was probably best for her to go before she pushed too many buttons. "Well," Maggie started, standing up and pulling a business card out of her purse. "Here's where you can reach me by phone or by owl if anything comes up. I'll be keeping in touch."

She picked her coat off from the ground and put it on. "Thanks for everything you've told me," she paused, buttoning up her coat. She'd bet ten galleons that Lexus regretted ever letting her in the door, and that thought made her feel a bit guilty.

Maggie gave her a look that wasn't exactly sympathetic, but more thoughtful. "How has the job hunt been going?" She wondered bluntly, lingering near the door.

She understood what it was like to be young and want to be independent, and not have the means to do so.

"Raynor, that's it." She made a face as if the name had been completely alluding her. She honestly didn't care about the woman, she had been the whole reason she had gotten into a fight with Jonas. Sure the outburst about being honest with each other would have happened eventually but she wasn't about to forgive the woman that had become the catalyst. Besides Lexus didn't agree with that whole 'get to know your enemy' thing. As far as she was concerned anything in a red robe was a threat, the last thing she wanted to do was get to know them all better.

She stood up from the desk, pushing back the chair so that she could open the drawers. She started to rifle through them again, "He actually just got a new one. I have no idea what he did with the number though." She continued to rifle through the drawers as if looking for some scrap of paper that had the digits on it. Truth be told Jonas hadn't bothered to leave her his new number. It was rather obvious, at least as she saw it, that he no longer wanted anything to do with her. She was doing her best to ignore just how much that actually hurt.

She ceased her search when the woman handed over her business card, purse and jacket already in hand. Lexus took it with a small smile and placed it on top of her things in the box on the desk. She wasn't sure if she'd ever actually contact the woman but maybe something important enough would come up that would warrant it. After all the woman hadn't been wholly unnice to her. Lexus had to keep reminding herself that she was just doing her job even if the whole experience had left a bad taste in her mouth.

She sighed at the woman's final inquiry and pushed the silver streak back and tucked it behind her ear. She wondered how honest she should be, "Not so good actually. I don't have a working visa so I can't officially get a job here in London, at least not a muggle one. It was only supposed to be a vacation, six months spent backpacking across Europe," She let a wistful smile cross her lips. She had always dreamed of doing that when she was younger, never imagined she would use it as a way to hide from her entire life, "Months turned to years and now here I am with nothing to go on. I'd get a job in Diagon but all I really know how to do well is potion brewing and no one seems to need it." That sounded believable right? All ugliness aside that wasn't all that far from the truth.

At the very least, Maggie reflected, Lexus smiled a bit and no longer looked like she wanted to kill her. Though that could be because Maggie was on her way out the door.

She nodded at her story, understanding how a backpacking trip could lead her to stay in a different country for good. She'd been tempted to do just that a few times when she'd traveled around Europe after graduation. It seemed they both had the traveling bug in common.

Maggie frowned, again noticing the gray in the woman's hair and the weariness in her eyes. No matter what she spouted off around Niobe and her Daily Prophet friends about not getting involved personally on the job, Maggie had a hard time separating her life from her work. She'd tried to pull a few favors for Adon earlier, and she would do the same now. She'd gotten involved in the Runespoor mess because she had been angry about what Cinaed had done to Niobe. And now, she was holding back on publishing a killer story because... because hell, she didn't want to ruin this person's life. That was mostly the reason, anyway. The other reason was that she needed more sources.

"Someone has to need a person who's good with potions," Maggie reassured her. "There might not be much in Diagon at the moment, but I'm sure there are private practitioners who could use the help, or Herbologists who aren't all that great with brewing."

She shrugged. "I can ask around, talk to friends. Let you know if I hear an opening somewhere."

"And you do have general assistant experience," Maggie gestured around the office. Of course, Maggie didn't know if she was any good at it, or why Lexus was fired, but she kept that to herself. "There's always somebody looking to boss someone else around," she smirked. The interns at the Daily Prophet were good for getting coffee. Surely Lexus could handle coffee?