Celine is stuck. With no new press conferences or (visible) magical activity, she's rather blocked on what exactly to write for her next article. The last one had gone over well - the inside look at the Initiative had been welcomed by both her bosses and the general public, and the Telegraph has quickly become known as the go-to paper on the Integration Initiative.

Unfortunately that puts a lot of pressure onto Celine as the head (and only) reporter on the topic. Her supervisor Mrs. Young had offered to put more people on the story, but Celine had refused - despite the mounting pressure she still feels like it's her story - she doesn't want to give it up to anyone who might not be able to tell it properly. After all, having a foot in both worlds means that Celine can understand things said (especially by Miles) that others might misunderstand or misrepresent, not unlike other papers have been doing.

But now she doesn't really have any new information, and she refuses to stoop to the level of speculation and wild theorizing that some other reporters are turning to for lack of anything else. Celine's readers expect only the best quality and, more importantly for her, she only gives the best quality. Even if right now the "best quality" is apparently no quality at all.

She sighs and leans back in her desk chair staring at the still-blank page on her laptop screen. Her eyes flick to the corner to find that it's nearly lunch and she's accomplished absolutely nothing.

Her desk mate glances over at her with no small amount of sympathy. "Writer's block?" Stanley guesses.

"More like there's nothing to write." She replies with a small groan. "What there is is speculation and guesswork, and we don't work in that."

"I mean, the gossip column does." Stanley jokes, "But I get what you mean. For all their talk of integration, the magical world really isn't easy to see if it doesn't want to be noticed."

"They have been hiding for years - I'd be more worried if they were immediately obvious." Celine points out with a grin. "If that was the case, then we all were just incredibly oblivious for literal centuries."

Stanely laughs. "Fair enough! Still, I hope they quit it soon, I want to see more magic!"

Celine gives him a half-smile, realizing that Stanley really has no idea why magical folk are so cautious about using their skills, even now.

And that gives her an idea. But first she'll need to have lunch - one should never investigate on an empty stomach after all.

She sends out a few texts in preparation, and then, once Mrs. Young gives her the okay to spend the rest of the work day out in the field, Celine texts her friends that she's getting lunch at the The Phoenix - a cute pub not far from the Telegraph offices - and is open to company. Nancy is the first to shoot back an affirmative, which isn't surprising since she works for the Telegraph as well and will also be getting off for lunch about now. The other three girls in the group chat will take longer to reply, though Anabel has already seen the note and is likely asking her supervisor at Woman's Magazine for an early lunch.

Celine opts to wait for Nancy - it's safer to walk to The Phoenix in groups anyway, considering the shortest route is mostly through sketchy strip malls. Beautiful and historic sketchy strip malls, sure, but still sketchy. Her friend doesn't take long either, bursting out of the stairwell (why she takes the stairs when her offices are on the eigth floor is beyond Celine) and promptly draping herself over Celine's shoulders.

"Heya Cel, let's do food." Nancy declares in lieu of a proper greeting. Celine carefully shrugs her friend off and leads the way out of the offices. "Work was dragging today. Dia - that's Dia Chakravarty, you remember her you did an article together last year - barged in and got into a major showdown with Mr. Cortes again. Honestly I don't know why he doesn't just let her do what she likes, she's the only reputable writer we have right now. Other than you." She adds as an afterthought. "Dia's covering Brexit the way you're covering the Integration - it's the only area we're actually doing as well as other papers. Even better sometimes. Cortes not listening to her is the reason we won't have jobs in a year, mark my words."

Celine lets her friend chatter - Nancy is the sort of person who feels very strongly about a lot of things, and if she doesn't let them out they build up and eventually explode in quite an impressive display of temper, which can be pretty terrifying considering Nancy is super model tall.

"And did you hear the higher-ups are in talks with Facebook? After the nightmare of 2017 and all the accusations of being paid off by advertisers, you really think they'd be more cautious about that sort of stuff, especially considering how bad Facebook's rep is right now." Nancy continues as they walk. "It's sad, really. They should fire the current administration, though I suppose the guys who should be fired are the ones who do the firing, so that's not ideal. The system is broken Cel. Hey, who else is coming?"

Celine checks her phone briefly to see that Anabel has replied in the negative, but to her surprise Elsie has said to save her a seat. Harriet hasn't even read the message, which means she's probably on-air right now and thus won't be coming.

"Ana couldn't get an early lunch, and Harriet hasn't read the message yet." She reports. "Elsie will be there though - a bit late, obviously. She has to catch a cab from Downing Street."

"Working on-site still?" Nancy attempts to blow her bangs out of her face as they turn onto Buckingham Palace Road and are nearly soaked by a cab whizzing through a yellow light. "I wonder if she saw anyone from the Initiative? They have some people who go in and out of there, right?"

"Yup, Rose and Landon - mostly Landon from what I understand though. They weren't clear on why exactly that was - something about Rose's forms being more complicated?"

Nancy shrugs. "Either she's lazy or there's political misogony at play. Or a bit of both, which is where my money would be." She declares. "Anyhow, I'm amazed Elsie actually has time - Johnson's PR is a disaster right now, her team must be working seventy hours weeks at least right now."

"Eighty two." Celine confirms. "We Facetimed a couple weeks ago and that was her number then."

"I'm eighty percent sure that's not legal." Nancy declares. "But that's politics."

Celine laughs, and they chat idly about work and life in general as they finish their walk to the pub and put in for a table of three. They're told there will be a short wait, so they decide to stand outside to wait for Elsie - and also not make their paper look bad in front of the general populace as they discuss some of the less-ideal aspects of it.

"Really though, you might want to start putting together a resume or something." Nancy says with a sigh. "The Telegraph is going to fall in the next couple years and we'll all need new jobs."

Celine leans against the side of the building and crosses her arms lightly against the mid-October chill attempting to worm through her jacket. "You're being pretty negative about this whole thing - was it really that bad with Dia and Cortes today?"

Nancy huffs. "Maybe not, I've just been so frustrated lately. I keep trying to write articles about how the implementation of Brexit would decimate the British pound within a matter of months, but my editor says that the public 'doesn't want to hear that.' Like, I don't care what the public wants to hear, I care about giving them the facts! That's what reporters do!"

Celine shrugs. "It is what it is. The whole medium is a bit of mess right now as is." She adds glumly. "Based on yours and Ana's stories I'm pretty dang lucky to have Mrs. Young as a supervisor."

"The whole world is a mess." Nancy grumbles as a black cab pulls up and a short blonde girl with tight curls, three inch stilettos, and a blue pantsuit jumps out, tossing a "keep the change" over her shoulder as she does. She strides over to the two woman waiting and submits to Nancy's hug in greeting.

"Hey guys, there's a wait on the table?"

Celine grins. "You're looking sharp Elsie. Love what you did with your hair."

Elsie groans and tugs at one of the curls. "Had it done in the salon yesterday and it hurt. Hair is not meant to be pulled this tight, but we had a conference today and the whole team needed to be present and smiling in the background. It was torture and my feet are going to require a long soak in hot water tonight."

"But you still look super hot, so that's a plus!" Nancy offers, still with one arm slung over Elsie's shoulders, for once able to do so without bending over sideways. "Let's see if the table's ready then?"

The lunch goes swimmingly, with a lot less complaining than Celine was honestly expecting, considering she was with her two most emotionally-charged friends, and just as the check arrives her phone buzzes with another message.

"Is that Harriet?" Nancy guesses. "Tell her I say hi! I haven't seen her in forever."

"None of us have since she was moved to BBC 4." Elsie comments. "Like, I'm thrilled for her, but she's going to burn out. Even I binge Netflix when I get home before going to bed."

"At like, two in the morning." Nancy teases, and Celine grins as she listens to her friends, though her focus is on her phone.

"Not Harriet girls, sorry. I just got confirmation from Mrs. Morgan that I can come visit the Initiative offices and chat with the members, so long as I don't interrupt any work." She beams. "They said I could visit whenever my schedule permitted, but I thought it would be polite to ask first anyway."

"That's awesome!" Nancy exclaims, and Celine braces as she's dragged into another shoulder-dislocating hug. "You'll finally get past that writer's block!"

"That's the idea." Celine confirms.

"Nancy get off her, let the woman breath." Elsie instructs idly as they exit the pub and she starts scanning the street for a cab. "Ugh, I might have to call one, there's never any in this area - they're all after the tourist lunch crowd in downtown London." She grumbles, reaching into her purse and rummaging around. "Oh, and congrats on that Celine. I look forward to the next article. You know, the one being published in three days that you apparently haven't started writing yet."

Celine grins sweetly. "If it ain't broke." She jokes. "Mind if we split the cab? I need to get downtown as well."

Elsie shrugs. "Of course."

Nancy lingers with them until the cab arrives, at which point they both get another hug before their friend heads back to the Telegraph, and Elsie and Celine climb into the taxi.

"Open invite to the Initiative offices, huh? Pretty impressive." Elsie observes as they pull out into bridge traffic. "You really are the authority on that story."

Celine shrugs. "I'm sure the other reporters probably got a similar offer." She points out. "I wasn't the only one to get that initial walkthrough you know."

"Well I don't see anyone else taking them up on it anyway. What?" She adds at Celine's surprised look. "Just because I'm working a lot doesn't mean I have zero free time. Besides, keeping a finger on the pulse of the integration is a pretty important part of my job right now. I read every new article that comes out, and half of them are total bull these days."

"I'll never get over the fact you swear now." Celine observes, shaking her head slightly. For four years Elsie's language had been pristine, and then within months of her joining the Prime Minister's PR team light swearing had become part of her regular vocabulary.

"I don't use any vulgar language." Elsie says. "You really should hear how bad Bradford gets at crunch time, he's a wreck."

"And mentioned a lot." Celine notes idly, and grins when she gets an elbow in the side. "Sorry, sorry. We just never hear you talking about guys! This Bradford fellow presents a novelty, you have to admit."

"He's twenty five and already overweight - trust me I'm not interested in him." Elsie makes a face. "Daniel is the attractive one, and he's married with kids. And also fourty-five."

"As Harriet isn't currently present I have to say that you're the attractive one in her stead." Celine says solemnly. "And as Ana isn't here I have to make fun of you being shallow in her stead."

Elsie snorts. "Shallow, smallow, I refuse to marry someone who's going to die of a preventable heart attack at fifty. Assuming it's that late. My future spouse is living to at least eighty - the Stevens are a long-lived bunch and we expect all new Stevens to keep up. Anyway if we're talking about dating you really can't talk - you've never even had a serious relationship."

Celine just grins. "I was speaking on behalf of Ana mostly, but fair enough. It's hard to date with work though - a lot of guys don't like how random my schedule gets when I'm on assignment, and since I'm on perpetual assignment for the next year at least I don't see my love life really getting much attention for the foreseeable future."

"Hey, maybe someone at the Initiative will spark your interest." Elsie teases as they pull up in front of the Prime Minister's office. "Well, this is me. See you later Cel, love you."

"Love you too Els." Celine replies lightly as the door swings shut behind them and Elsie heads up the stairs in front of them, while Celine turns to walk down the road to the Ministry of Magic. She gets a few wary glances as she steps into the phone booth that's now known to house the entrance to the Ministry, but she resolutely ignores them. The suspicion will die down as the two worlds come to realize they really aren't that different. Or at least, that they're all people who act pretty much the same as each other, which will be the point of her newest article.

"Good afternoon Ms. Yang!" The greeter says brightly, and Celine feels bad that she can't remember the young man's name when he obviously has met her before.

"Good afternoon." She greets politely, hurrying past towards the lift. She really doesn't want to get pulled into conversation with a stranger, and the greeter looks bored and extroverted - a deadly combination as she knows all too well from Stanley.

She steps out onto the seventh floor and immediately looks around for Veena, who she's definitely most comfortable with and would prefer to talk with if at all possible.

Unfortunately the dark-skinned woman is nowhere in sight. Neither is Miles, in fact - only Petra is hunched over the PR team's laptop, and she looks focused - probably best not to disturb her.

"Hey, you're Celine Yang, right? From the Telegraph?" A voice interrupts her mounting internal panic, and she turns to finds Kylee Danson smiling at her from a nearby cluster of desks. "Here to observe?"

Celine nods mutely, returning the smile on instinct. "Yes, Mrs. Morgan said it would be alright."

"If you like you can sit with me and Fergus. We're just going through some proposals submitted to the Initiative to see what we should forward to the Wizengamot, what might need some work, and what to just toss."

"Proposals?" Celine asks curiously. It's the first she's hearing of them. "Where from?"

Kylee waves her hand vaguely. "All over, really. We have an open suggestions box in the lobby that Mrs. Weasley empties and brings up every morning. It's pretty new - implemented late last week, right?"

Fergus looks up at the question, pauses for a moment to think, and then nods. "Friday afternoon I believe." He confirms. "Hello Celine, good to see you again."

"You as well." Celine replies, again, mostly being polite. However, as the afternoon carries on she finds herself relaxing substantially - Kylee and Fergus are both rather fun people to spend time with, and they're both quite open both with information about the Initiative as well as towards ideas that Celine pitches, the foremost of which is opening suggestions to Muggles as well.

"I have a friend who works PR for the Prime Minister, she can definitely find a way to get you Muggle suggestions as well."

Fergus nods. "We'll definitely bring that up with Mrs. Morgan, it's a good idea." He promises.

Celine smiles, but mentally she can't help noting that the outreach to Muggles seems to be a bit stunted. Maybe the magical community just doesn't know where to start, which is fair.

"Thanks for letting me hang out with you guys this afternoon. I think I've got plenty for my article now." She says when the other office workers begin to pack up for the day.

"If you want a less magical-based perspective you can talk to Edward and see how he feels about all this. I'm not sure where the heck Des ended up or I'd suggest speaking with him as well." Fergus offers, and Celine grins. She gets now why everyone jokes the Fergus is the Team Dad of the Initiative.

"That sounds awesome. And just for the record, I think what you guys are doing here is awesome, and I really am thrilled to be the one who gets to report on it."

"Well we're glad to have you!" Kylee returns brightly, and Celine's grins stretches into a smile. With this group at the helm, she thinks integration is going to go as well as it possibly could.

It's been almost two weeks since Edward learned about the past overlap between the normal and magical worlds, and he's been busy ever since trying to work out the best way to use the information to get himself into the Archives - and he knows it's definitely the best bit of information he's got in terms of furthering that particular goal.

Now he finally has a game plan, and he nearly gets to work early to get started on implementing it, only stopping himself because Lopatkina-Paluch would be suspicious if Edward's usual routine was disrupted.

So he steps into the office at exactly nine o'clock and greets Robbins as he takes the seat across from her.

"More files today?" He asks, and she laughs.

"Unfortunately yes. You still up for going through them with me, or have I officially scared you off yet?"

"You could never, but I actually had a thought last night that I wanted to run by you before talking to the boss." He replies, smoothly transitioning into step one of the plan.

Robbins smirks. "Alright then, hit me." She opens her arms in demonstration, and Edward gives her a smile in turn.

"So I heard recently, and this could be entirely inaccurate information considering overheard gossip is hardly concrete evidence, that our worlds used to not be so divided as they are now?"

Robbins tilts her head, relaxing back into her chair. She's obviously not sure where he's going with these questions, but as Edward has been carefully cultivating a positive relationship with her for a few weeks now she's open to hearing him out. "That's accurate. Prior to the witch hunts of the Middle Ages there was at least semi-regular interaction, with the full divide coming in the fifteen hundreds, though the separation had started way back in twelve fifty with that nonsense with the Pope. Alexander number whatever, I can't actually remember. You know, declaring magic heretical against the church and all."

Edward frowns. "I'm afraid we don't learn about that in Sunday school." He offers, and Robbins laughs in response.

"Fair enough. Long answer short, yes, the worlds did used to be integrated. What was your idea?"

"Well," He says, dragging slightly to suggest that he was looking for the right words, but not so much as to cause suspicion. "I was thinking that if we could find records from that time period, we might be able to use some of them? I don't know whether for law reform or maybe improving Muggle perception of magic since I don't know what would even be present from that time period, but I thought it might be worth looking into something like that."

Robbins hums. "Well if there are any they'd be in the Archives." She declares, and Edward does his best to look politely interested, and not like that was exactly what he was hoping she'd suggest. "I definitely think that's a good project, and you definitely bring it up with Finn when he and Fiona get in, I think he'd be more than happy to give you Archive permissions. Oh, and don't worry about finding stuff down there, the Archive workers are freakishly good at locating exactly what you need." She grins. "Or at least so I hear. Rumor says they can tell when anything has been moved even a centimeter out of place."

Edward rolls his eyes. "I'm sure that's gossip to deter people from walking out with documents." He observes, though mentally he wonders if there isn't a spell that can do that. He'll have to test a few things before he starts removing documents entirely, though he was always planning on doing so anyway to ensure he could sneak them past Lopatkina-Paluch.

"Oh, you can check stuff out." Robbins clarifies. "So I don't see why anyone would need to steal anyway. Oh hey, here come the bosses - let's go ask."

Sure enough, Lopatkina-Paluch and McKay are just stepping out of the lift, deep in conversation. They pause when Robbins strides up to them, Edward following with some honest uncertainty. He knows that the work environment here is less formal than he's used to, but interrupting two superiors in conversation feels like it really should be the line.

It is, apparently, not the line.

"Hey bosses, are we interrupting?" Robbins asks brightly, and McKay glances at Lopatkina-Paluch, who shrugs.

"Nothing we can't return to later. What's going on Ms. Robbins?" He asks, and Edward pushes down a grimace when Robbins turns and gestures to him. He really can't wait until all this is over, the magical world is quarantined off from society, and he can return to his real job full-time - all this casual, unorganized nonsense is starting to get to him.

"Well, I had a thought last night is all." He starts, then gives a slightly different version of the same pitch he'd just given Robbins (he can't make it word-for-word what he'd told her of course - she may be impossibly naive for thirty-five, but even she isn't that oblivious).

"We were thinking we could check in the Archives and see if there's anything there." Robbins finishes for him, and Lopatkina-Paluch looks amused. 

"There won't be a we here Demelza, you still need to work through those reports we gave you yesterday. However it is a good idea. Edward, would you be willing to handle this? Since it is your idea."

Edward straightens. "Of course, if it will help." He agrees immediately, smoothing over his internal victory dance with a calm, professional exterior.

Lopatkina-Paluch nods. "Excellent. I'll have Pup go down with you, to help with sorting through all the documents."

Edward's mind freezes mid-celebration. This was not part of the plan. "That would be good - I hear the Archives are rather large." He agrees outwardly, and keeps a carefully neutral face on as Lopatkina-Paluch goes off to fetch the young consultant.

McKay nudges him lightly. "Oh don't be so disappointed, I'm sure Pup will be good help. He came very highly recommended you know."

And that teasing startles Edward more than it really should have, but he was sure his displeasure had been well hidden. Maybe he's been underestimating McKay after all.

"I'm sure he will, we just haven't interacted very much up to this point." He says in a quick explanation that McKay accepts without question. At least her overly trusting nature wasn't a misread on his part.

But he'll have to be even more careful about this than he'd expected. With McKay apparently watching him more closely than he'd realized and now Thompson being assigned to work with him, this operation just got a lot harder than he'd been expecting.

Thompson hurries over to them then, and McKay and Robbins bid him farewell and head back to their respective desks.

"Ready to go then?" Edward asks, assuming Lopatkina-Paluch had already filled the boy in.

He shakes his head. "We've got one more person coming with. You know Petra from the Initiative?"

Edward shakes his head - he's never actually interacted with her, so saying he knows her would raise suspicion. However, her presence might actually be just what he needs to get rid of his unwanted hanger-on. Everyone has seen Thompson and Clark making eyes at each other from across the offices after all.

"Well she works PR for them, and she thinks she could find some good stuff as well. I hope you don't mind." He adds, suddenly looking shame-faced (and good - maybe he won't be so terrible to work with if he actually respects the hierarchy). "We were talking when Finn came to give me the assignment, and she was interested. He said it would be fine but-"

"It is, don't worry. The more eyes we have the better, right?" Edward interrupts, and Thompson smiles in relief. 

"Yeah, that makes sense." He agrees, just as Clark hurries up to them.

"Sorry, I had to grab a few things for comparison. Thanks for letting me come along." Petra says breathlessly, desperately trying to focus her words and eyes onto Edward, but continuously glancing back at Noah. It had been pure dumb luck that they had been talking when Finn came over talking about Edward and the Archives, though Petra really does think she can find some useful reports. She just wasn't actually motivated to ask by said reports.

Noah smiles at her as Edward replies with a clipped 'of course.' Petra hasn't really worked with the Muggle consultant yet, but the general consensus is that he's a bit awkward and super professional. So far that assesment seems to be pretty accurate.

They take the lift down to the sub-basement level, mostly silent save the recorded voice listing off the floors as they pass them.

"I don't understand why they call it the sub-basement." Noah offers after about of minute of awkwardly standing there. "I mean, the entire Ministry building is underground, so any floor below the twelfth would technicalliy be a sub-basement."

Petra giggles and Noah smiles at her, which makes her face heat up slightly. The lift arrives shortly after and Edward strides out, leaving the two of them to hurry after him.

A young man and an older woman are talking at the front desk of what Petra can see is an absolutely massive room, spreading back into total darkness. The entire place is rather gloomy, with no artificial windows to lighten it up at all, only mournful ceiling lights that are somehow too bright and too dim at the same time.

It reminds her of what she'd imagine a castle dungeon to be like, if she's honest, and she's suddenly second guessing her desire to be down here at all.

"You can read what you like, and take notes, but since you'll be working with older records we'd prefer to keep them here - a number of them are extremely delicate." The woman is saying when Petra tunes back in from her momentary panic. "If you need any help Jason is on duty, though I'll be back intermittently throughout the day."

"Much appreciated Ms. Taylor." Edward says, "We will endeavor to leave everything just as we found it."

Mrs. Taylor nods sharply and then heads past the group towards the lift they had just exited. The man - Jason, presumably - is sitting nervously behind the desk.

"So, um, if you're looking for records that old you'll need to head to the furthest sections on the left." He offers awkwardly. "I can walk you over to the section, but that area is organized using the old system and it's only my first day so I don't-"

"That's alright, just taking us there is plenty." Edward interrupts, though  he doesn't sound angry. "We can work out the system on our own if needed, or ask Mrs. Taylor later if it's too complex. You can only know so much in your first week."

Jason smiles weakly, and Petra adds 'surprisingly thoughtful' to her mental list of Edward's traits. "Alright, well, um, this way then." Jason gestures behind himself as he stands, and they head into the bowels of the Archives.

Petra stays at the back of the small group next to Noah.

"So how are things in the Initiative so far?" He asks her. They've grabbed lunch a few more times since that first day in the cafeteria, but Petra hasn't really had a chance to talk with him one-on-one like this before, at least not without both their bosses breathing down their necks. It's rather nice.

"Alright, generally. Social media is never a pleasant place to be though, so that's not so fun." She answers honestly. "But I'm hanging in there. How about you guys, any closer to finding Yurina?"

Noah shrugs. "Not really. At this point we're going back through old cases to see if maybe she was connected to any of them - this," He gestures to the Archives in general, "Isn't even connected to the Hunt, I think Finn just wanted to make sure we still had something to do."

Petra glances over at Edward then, though if he heard Noah's comment (and he must have, their voices are the only sounds in the room) he doesn't react to it.

It takes almost three minutes to walk to the section they need, and Jason stutters out that he'll be at the desk before hightailing it away. Petra does wonder why he's so twitchy, but decides to put it down to personality and first-day jitters.

"So... how do we want to tackle this?" Noah asks, gazing around at the massive oak bookshelves that now surround them, a stark contrast to the sleek metal organizational cabinets they'd walked past to get here.

Edward hums thoughtfully, and then gestures to the right. "I suppose splitting up might be the best option to start out, since we don't really know where anything is located. In a place this large, more eyes in more places makes us more statistically likely to actually find something of use today."

Once Petra and Noah have nodded their agreement, Edward heads off into the shadows between shelves, leaving the two of them alone.

"So... I guess we should split up?" Noah says awkwardly, and something inside of Petra rebels. She only volunteered to come down here so she could spend some time with Noah, and she'll be darned if she doesn't get that. And Edward just gave them the perfect opportunity, too.

"Actually, um, I'd rather not be alone down here." She says, and it's an impulsive excuse and makes her sound absolutely pathetic, but by the way Noah lights up she doesn't think he minds her poor excuse skills.

"That makes sense, I mean, it's pretty dark and twisty down here, could be easy to get lost alone." He agrees, possibly too quickly but Petra doesn't mind that at all.

"Cool! Cool, um, should we start over there then?" She points in the opposite direction of where Edward had vanished, and Noah immediately nods his agreement.

"We need to cover more ground after all."  He grins, and she laughs, and this is definitely better than sitting at her laptop trying to not strangle Miles and reading horrid, personal attacks from strangers online.

They chat as they walk - as it turns out he's Muggleborn so they discuss their favorite TV shows and musical artists, something Petra can't really do with Veena and Miles. Despite being a bestselling Muggle author, and Muggleborn as well, Veena is very entrenched in the magical world these days, so she's a bit out of touch with what's currently popular, and Miles is a sheltered Pureblood who didn't understand what a car was until it was explained to him three times and he had actually ridden in a taxi.

They do start looking through files eventually, though it definitely takes longer than it should, and even then they're still talking to each other more than actually reading the files - at least until Petra finds something that's actually interesting.

"Did you know that 'Zeus' was actually twelve different people?" She exclaims, balancing carefully on top of a ladder as she read through a rather long scroll. "They all used the same moniker so they could be worshipped and also get away with a lot of questionable things. People can be pretty awful with their magic, can't they?"

"Muggles built nuclear weapons and threatened to destroy the entire world with them over a nation-level -measuring contest, so I think it's just a people thing." Noah observes idly from below her. He's flicking through several different scrolls, though he's put most of them back after only a minute of skimming. "I'm not sure this Greek stuff is going to help much, all these people are kind of awful."

"Well, there probably wasn't much in the way of regulation back then." Petra offers, leaning back slightly so she can address Noah directly. Unfortunately the small shift completely throws off her balance, and she finds herself tipping backwards off the ladder entirely.

Her mind blanks out, entirely forgetting the wand she has in her front robe pocket, as she loses her balance and falls.

She winces, waiting for the pain of the ground abruptly stopping her as she wraps her arms protectively around the delicate old scroll still clutched in her hands. The impact never comes - instead she slows down and is gently lowered into a standing position on the ground. A hand lands on one shoulder to help steady her, and she opens her eyes again to find Noah beside her with his wand out. She blushes when she realizes she managed to entirely forget she had magic.

"Um, thanks." She stutters out, as aware of the growing blush across her face as she is the continued presence of Noah's hand on her shoulder.

He smiles, and seems to realize where his hand is as it jerks away a moment later. "Um, yeah, of course. It was kind of sudden so..." He trails off and looks around. "We made a bit of a mess though."

Sure enough, Petra's tumble had also dislodged the ladder, which had taken several scrolls down with it in the fall.

"Oh ." Petra mutters, then blushes harder and covers . "Um, I mean..."

Noah laughs, so at least one of them is having fun, and gestures to the mess. "I guess we better start replacing these. Hopefully the fall didn't damage any of them - the older ones feel like they'd be torn by a feather."

Petra smiles, still feeling rather embarrassed, and they get to work trying to figure out where each scroll came from. It's a difficult task, not the least because of how careful they need to be as they unroll each scroll to check its date and topic so they can file it as correctly as they can manage.

"I admit this isn't what I expected to be doing today, but I can't complain." Noah says with a grin, and Petra flushes again, nearly dropping the scroll on black magic usage in the early Roman Empire she'd been putting back.

"I suppose I can't either." She admits. "Though I hope we're not messing up the order - I'm sort of guessing on where some of these go."

Noah snorts. "Tell me about it. I found one in here from ninteen fourty-four - I'm thinking we're not the first to mess up this section on accident."

Petra laughs, and she definitely agrees with Noah's earlier sentiment - she certainly can't complain.

Miles loves working for the Initiative, he really does. He's learned about the Internet, and cellphones, and cars, all in just under two months! But he still finds himself getting incredibly restless - for all he's learning about Muggle life, he hasn't actually gotten to do anything in the Muggle world itself. As fun as watching Petra work is, he'd like to maybe get to use the laptop at some point in the future. When he applied for the Initiative, he'd really been hoping to be thrown into Muggle culture and get to learn all about the world that he never got to interact with growing up.

After getting to run the last press conference he'd hoped that interaction might become more possible, but if anything he's gotten to do even less interacting with Muggles since then. They only had three major interviews this month, with one more coming up on Halloween which will definitely be fun, with the rest of the month spent in the office planning for their November press conference.

It's enough to drive Miles slightly stir crazy. Enough to make him practically tackle Desmond at the end of the work day before the other man can get to the lift to leave.

"Des. Des Des Des you've got to help me." He knows he's whining, but he's not sure he can do much more at this point - he's horridly bored and desperate to actually learn something. "I want to do Muggle stuff Des, can you teach me? Please? I've been stuck inside these offices almost all month, and how am I supposed to do my job if I don't know how Muggles spend their time, right?"

Desmond looks a bit overwhelmed, but overwhelmed isn't necessarily opposed, and Miles blinks at him hopefully.

Finally Desmond sighs. "You know what? I could use an evening off, and Friday is the day to do it. Come on Miles, I'll show you how Muggles have fun."

Miles whoops, possibly too loudly as he draws odd looks from the remaining Hunters and Initiative members in the office, but he doesn't mind. He gets to do some hands-on Muggle stuff!

"What are we going to do?" He asks excitedly, following Desmond into the lift. It's only the two of them in it - Desmond had taken long enough to answer Miles' plea that everyone else on their floor who leaves on time has already headed down.

Desmond shrugs. "I guess bar hopping? That's what people are supposed to do for fun at our age."

Miles' enthusasm dims slightly at the comment. "Wait, have you ever done this before?"

Desmond shrugs again, a lazy grin sliding across his face which does quite a bit to assuage Miles' momentary concerns. "I mean yeah, I was just usually following along - I'll have to see if I remember where all the good spots are! It'll be a new experience for us both."

"Extra fun then!" Miles declares, and promptly stops worrying in favor of being excited again.

In retrospect, that might have been the moment things began to go wrong. But in the moment they headed out the visitor's entrance into Muggle London and head out in a hunt for booze.

As it turns out, Desmond remembers where a lot of the so-called 'good' bars are, though Miles admits very loudly that beer tastes terrible when he first tries it, making Desmond laugh. He keeps at his mug though, after being assured that it's normal to need time to get used to the taste. For his part Desmond orders a rum and coke, and observes to Miles after the latter has gone through two mugs of Heineken in an attempt to get used to the taste that he should probably not go quite so hard so early on.

So Miles downs five glasses of water and some greasy, salty finger-foods that Desmond refers to as 'chips' and they're off again to find a second bar to hit.

The night blurs together after around the fifth bar, with things turning into a whirlwind of laughing, slowly less-terrible tasting drinks, and bright lights. He also learns about something called 'chicken wings' which are not quite as amazing as chips, but are still pretty dang good.

He thinks it's bar seven, around nine o'clock at night, when he's first recognized. Really it's impressive it took everyone that long, but then again they have only done three (soon to be four) interviews this month, so maybe people are forgetting him already.

"Hey! Hey you're the guy with the magic!"

Miles giggles and spins, moved by a hand slapping his shoulder. He can't really focus on the face in front of him, but he doesn't think it's familiar. So he grins broadly and says, "Yup!" in response, maybe too loudly, he's not really sure. There's movement next to him, and he hears Desmond saying something (at least he still recognizes Desmond, that's good, once he had so much firewhiskey he couldn't recognize his friends Daniel and Francesca and apparently convinced people they were trying to kidnap him when they'd all gone out in celebration on his last day in the States) but he has no idea what exactly his companion is trying to communicate.

A hand on his arm, tugging him urgently, helps clarify the message, and Miles lazily lets himself be led out of the bar.

"Aw, but they knew me! We could've been friends." He giggles, and Desmond sighs.

"No offense Miles, as much fun as I am honestly having, those guys didn't sound thrilled about the magic thing, and I don't do bar fights."

"I could do a bar fight." Miles declares - or at least, it's what he intends to say. His tongue is kind of heavy right now and it might have slurred a bit.

Desmond laughs. "You're ridiculous, you're as much of a noodle as I am dork, you could not have taken them."

"So could. Next booze!" Miles declares, and they're off again in a swirl of grease and lights, and somewhere along the way Desmond gets tipsy too, and they end up at a karaoke bar dueting a terrible rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" when Miles is recognized again.

It's happened a few more times since bar seven, but every person they've met has mostly been interested in seeing a few magic tricks and eagerly asking for stories about Hogwarts, which Miles can't actually give since he went to Ilvermorny, so he tells rambling stories about that instead. He's not sure he actually finished any of the stories, but he recalls people laughing and that's more important anyway.

This time the recognizer sneers as he asks if Miles is, indeed, Miles Taylor, and his sneer becomes a glare when Miles loudly and cheerfully confirms the suspicion.

"You freaks should have just stayed in your gutters." The man hisses angrily, and Miles frowns in confusion. Why is he so mad? The duet wasn't that bad.

He feels something pulling his sleeve but doens't pay it any mind. "Actually I'm from New York! Which has a lot fewer gutters than I think people assume." He declares, again unsure if he actually managed to form the words properly or if they were only enunciated in his mind. "New York." He repeats, just in case.

The man keeps glowering, and suddenly something slams into the side of Miles' face, and he stumbles back in surprise, blinking rapidly.

The sleeve tugging turns into a full-arm yank, and Miles stumbles again, following what he hopes is Desmond out of the bar and into the chilly October air.

"Okay, we've got to go, we need to - can you magic us away? Those guys are going to be pissed." Desmond is rambling, his voice pitching up in panic. "Oh man I cannot fight and I doubt a microphone will keep them from-"

"HEY FREAKS." A voice bellows, and Desmond stops talking and gets back to yanking. Miles attempts to follow, but his feet are refusing to cooperate and he ends up dragging Desmond down with him when he trips over a crack in the sidewalk. "NOT SO TOUGH NOW ARE YOU?"

Miles blearily pushes up from the ground and grabs for his wand, stowed away in his left front pocket. Luckily it's in one piece, though there's a new, thin crack along the base of it. Hopefully that's alright.

"What, going to hide behind your magic? Coward!" The man is closer now and isn't yelling anymore, which Miles and his pounding head appreciate quite a bit. The sudden darkening of the street lights is also nice. "I'll show you exactly what we think of you miserable, muderous-"

"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" The new voice that rings out is female and oddly familiar, though Miles' head is rapidly starting to spin and he doesn't have the focus left to actually figure out who the mystery voice is.

The shadow that had been blocking most of Miles' vision suddenly vanishes, and he realizes that it must have been a person rather than a wall making things dark. He rather wishes the person would move back over - the light is making his headache worse.

", are you guys okay? What the hell is going on?" He definitely knows the woman attached to the voice, but his head is still swimming from the fall (and the alcohol, admittedly) so her name remains elusive. He tries to round up his scattered thoughts, but any hope of that is shattered by a loud wailing and flashing red-and-blue lights flooding his senses.

"Well ." The woman says, and despite not really knowing what's going on, Miles thinks she might be right.

Author's Note: Oh man it feels good to be back on a regular updating schedule ^^ Anywho, that seems to have all gone super well, definitely nothing cliff-hanger-y to-be-continued next week to see here! :D Also, @Quinn I know this wasn't the exact scene you wanted for Petra and Noah, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! I sort of figure that since he's such a noodle he'd probably use his magic to catch her instead of trying to support her full weight on his own!