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Madeleine walks through the Ministry of Magic, taking in her surroundings. It had been a while since she'd last been here. Over three years in fact. She's spent ages in Europe, studying dragons and doing her job as an Auror. And her final year was spent in Paris, assisting the French ministry, especially over the recent escape of Grindlewald. He was the reason Madeleine had agreed to return after someone had sent an owl requesting her return to the ministry. As she made her way to her office, Madeleine took a detour through a corridor she was certain that she'd bump into an old friend. Newt Scamander was a magizooligist that Madeleine had known during her time at Hogwarts. She hadn't seen him in a very long time and had heard that he currently had a hearing, requesting to be allowed to travel internationally (because of what had happened in New York). But she did hope not to bump into Newt's brother, Theseus, who she had a rather interesting history with and also happened to be her boss. Theseus was head of the Auror office and currently engaged to Leta Lestrange, who had many rumours surrounding her and her supposedly dead, brother. Madeleine didn't know if these rumours where true but didn't want to question anything about it to her in case she was wrong. While stuck in her thoughts, Madeleine was completely unaware of someone hurting towards her until she walked head first into them and almost fell over. "Oh, I'm so sorry." they say as Madeleine grips their arm, "Maddy?!" Madeleine looks up and locks eyes with none other that Newt Scamander, "Newt! Hey! Sorry, didn't see you there. How are you?" He smiles at her as she lets go of his arm and steps away. "It's fine. I'm good. How have you been?" he asks, diverting his eyes to the ground. Madeleine smiles back at him, "I'm fine. How was your, erm, hearing?" She asks. Newt shrugs. "Didn't go very well." He looks up at the blond and spots the small 'pet' dragon that always stayed with Madeleine, "Who's your friend?" He asks, lifting a hand to the dragon and reaching out to stroke him. "Oh, erm, this is Stan. I picked him up in Romania as he was ill and he just never wanted to leave me after that. More of a pet really," she says, shifting slightly, "is that a bowtruckle in your pocket?" she asks, glimpsing a green, twig-like face by Newt's chest. Newt picks up the bowtruckle and lifts him up to Madeleine, "This is Pickett. He has attachment issues." he says. Madeleine laughs slightly. There's a pause before she lets out a sigh, "Well I better be off. Got work to do, and try and avoid your brother as much as possible." Newt smiles, looking up at his friend, "It was nice seeing you again, Maddy." "You too, Newt." They wave to each other as they walk away. Madeleine lifts a hand up to Stan on her shoulder and strokes his head gently, "Let's just hope Theseus doesn't come and find us, huh?."
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It wasn't until in the evening the next day, did Theseus decide to come calling at Madeleine's office with a slightly cheery smile. Madeleine was flicking through reports about Grindelwald when he walked in. "Maddy! Hey, your back!" Theseus says, approaching her desk. "Hello Theseus. It's been a while." the blond says, not lifting her head up from the reports in her hand. "How have you been? How was Europe, I didn't think you'd ever want to come back?" he asks, conjuring a chair out of the air and sitting on it on the other side of her desk. "Yeah well, Europe didn't quite satisfy me enough to keep me from hell, it seems. And I've been fine, thanks, how about you?" she replies, still flicking through the reports. "Not bad. Leta's joined us at the ministry. We're engaged." "I'm aware. Congratulations." There's a silence, only filled by the shuffle of papers as Madeleine continues to work, despite her boss watching her. "You've certainly changed since the last time I saw you." Theseus says, interrupting the silence. "It's been three years, Theseus." Madeleine reminds him. There's a bang in the corner of the office and Madeleine looks over to Stan, who was flying around and just hit into an open drawer. With a sigh, Madeleine rises from her seat and goes over to pick up the dragon, "Stop messing around." She mutters to him, going back to her desk and placing him down, next to a pen pot. "Who's this?" Theseus asks, watching as the dragon proceeded to knock over the pen pot and fall into the ink well next to it. "This is Stan. I picked him up from Romania." Madeleine replies, wiping the ink from Stan with a tissue and moving the ink well away, "He can be quite annoying sometimes." there's a pause which Theseus swore he heard Madeleine mutter, "Like you." under her breath. With a raise of his eyebrows, Theseus gets up from the chair, magicking it away, and goes over to the door. Just before he leaves, Madeleine calls after him, "It's good to see you again, Theseus." Theseus smiles, moving his head slightly towards his old 'friend' before walking out of her office. Madeleine rolls her eyes with a smile as she watches him leave. Her friendship with Theseus had always been rather complicated. They'd had a thing for each other, back at Hogwarts and had dated in his seventh year but broke up, towards the end of term. Their friendship and never fully repaired itself since, causing it to be awkward between them. They'd never talked about and probably never would but there was still a friendship there at least.
A couple days later, Leta walks in to Madeleine's office. Madeleine looks up as she enters, "Leta, how can I help?" "Travers wants you to come with us to Hogwarts, to talk to Dumbledore." Leta says, looking at the blond. Madeleine frowns, "Do you know why we're going to Dumbledore?" she asks. Leta nods, "Travers wants Dumbledore to fight Grindelwald." Madeleine smiles slightly, raising her eyebrows as she gets up from her desk, stroking the wrinkles out of blue dress she wore, "Good luck with that," she mutters, waving her wand to tidy her desk before processing to speak out loud, "Yeah, I'll come." She says and follows Leta out of her office, grabbing Stan from where he was hanging from the blinds.
Relatively short chapter to start. Kind of hard to have to improvise most this stuff lol, but I've finally published this book so yeah.
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