If There Ever was a Time(HANNAH)

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Work was becoming more of a nightmare than actually being any fun or rewarding in many aspects. Anna loved her work but why was it becoming a nightmare for her? Well since she was Head of the Department of Mysteries she had to interact with the Minister for Magic on a weekly basis. She normally didn’t mind this but lately with the war going on, even though the Minister did not want to admit it. She received a notice several days ago that stated that there were new rules and regulations that she and her department had to follow. One of those was not to help any of the other departments in any way. Which was odd, and Anna had not told the rest of the unspeakables about it. They were simply not going to follow any of these new rules and regulations. For when they made discoveries that would help out the other departments, St. Mungos and the wizarding world at large, it was something that they had to secretly share with those listed, granted the wizarding world never really knew anything about it. Just those that she deemed fit.

Also with the minister acting this way made Anna worry even more about her daughter, who was still going to Hogwarts, and was currently home for the holidays. Which was something for her to be happy about, and the happiness was something that was hard to come by in these dark times.

After leaving the ministry for the day, at about mid-afternoon, Anna was greeted with snow falling from the sky. Pulling the hood of her cloak over her head she decided to take a walk to the Leaky Cauldron, she felt that she needed a nice warm butterbeer, but more importantly she also wanted to have a chat with Hannah. Someone that she had become good friends with over the years. It had been way to long since she had talked to her friend, sure they had greeted each other in passing or just brief little chats before and after the Order meetings. Finally getting to the Leaky Cauldron Anna stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She lowered her hood and then proceeded to brush the snow off of her cloak. Having made her way over to the bar Anna smiled a little bit as she caught a glimpse of her friend in the back room doing something. And so she waited patiently for Hannah to come back to the bar.

@hannah

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It was a normal busy day at the Leaky Cauldron, and Hannah was constantly on her feet. The Christmas Holiday was a pretty busy time for the Leaky Cauldron, which meant Hannah had a lot of work to do. The turnover in rooms was at it's highest rate what with people coming to visit family and needing a place to crash until they could meet up with their families.

At this particular moment she was in the back behind the bar taking inventory. She was just about done, which was great because she glanced out at the bar in time to see Anna Marie Blackham walk in the door and take a seat at the bar. She smiled, relieved and happy to see the brunette. She finished up her work before returning to the front of the bar, waving to Anna as she did so. She stood on the other side of the bar across from Anna, leaning on the counter in front of her. "Anna, darling, what can I get for you?" she asked with a relaxed smile.

It was always good to see someone from the old DA crew, especially someone who wasn't part of the well known crew, like Hannah was. Sure she spent a lot of time with the Potters and Weasleys now, but back in their fourth year of Hogwarts she wasn't as involved with that group unless it was at the DA meetings. The year of the war however, she was a lot more involved with the DA and had grown even closer to it's members, Anna included.

@anna

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As Hannah came out of the back room Anna’s smile brightened as she looked at her friend, it had been far too long since they had a talk and that is what she intended to do, just talk and enjoy one another’s company. “A butterbeer would be nice. Thanks Hannah.” Anna responded to the question that Hannah had just asked her. “Still busy as always I see. So besides keeping busy here at the Leaky Cauldron how is everything going? And more importantly how are you and your family doing?” She asked with a smile, it had been just the other day when she had seen Neville in in Hogsmeade when she had gone to visit Selene. During her visit she saw Hannah and Neville’s children in passing. But just passing them did not give any indication as to how they were doing and handling everything that was going on in their world.

Their chats always seemed to center around their families but not just that but also the stuff that friends talked about a lot as well. Anna had heard from a fellow member of the Order of the Phoenix that Ginny had been attacked and injured as well and she wanted to know more about how her best friend was doing and what had happened but maybe she just had to talk directly with Harry about, because Anna was not sure just how many people knew about what had happened. And Anna still did not know, because she had not been in touch with anyone for a few months since she had been kept very busy working down in the Department of Mysteries. She wanted to know really badly what had happened to Ginny because if there was something wrong that had not been fixed maybe she could be the one to help figure what was wrong and sure her. The reason why she had these thoughts was because the Order member that she had talked to had mentioned that Ginny still was not well. But Anna did not want to start off their conversation with bad news or topics. But she had a feeling that it would be brought up sooner or later.

@hannah

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Annas smile was one that caused Hannahs stress to alleviate a little, for she saw many years of friendship in that face. She flipped around to fill a cup with the frothy Butterbeer behind the counter as Anna asked how the she and her family were doing. She turned back to face her friend and placed the Butterbeer in front of her, leaning on the counter with both elbows and an exhausted smile. "We have been pretty busy, as usual. I think that we're gotten more popular since I adjusted the butterbeer recipe a little," she chuckled. She was great with ingredients and flavors of all time, so adjusting the butterbeer recipe slightly had really made quite the difference in people ordering it instead of alcohol right off the bat. Not that Hannah minded serving alcoholic drinks, but she'd prefer not to have people start so early in the day! That was bad for them.

"I've been well. Everything is seemingly falling into place, at least for me personally," truthfully her life looked like peaches and cream from an outside perspective, at least until people found out that she had recently taken in two new daughters with a family name that had been negatively tied with the Longbottom name for so long that people would really start to question if Hannah and Neville were entirely sane. Hannah didn't care though, let people think what they wanted.

She was sure that Anna would understand the delicacy of the situation, however. "We've actually recently taken in some girls under our roof, just giving them a better environment. It's been... an interesting experience to say the least," she sighed a little at the thought of how Alice, her daughter, was handling the new editions. The Lestrange girls weren't the only thing rocking Hannahs boat at the moment. No, the Order had recently sent Ginny and another member out on a reconnaissance mission and Ginny had come back to Saint Mungos. Hannah still don't know they entire story. Not too mention the fact that the world just seemed to go on spinning while insane things were happening everywhere at once.

"How are you? And Selene?" Hannah maintained a listening smile as she asked Anna about her daughter.


@anna