"One never knows, I guess."

She nods.

And they can finish up breakfast and head over to the Ministry (with Professor Reynolds explaining some of its function - and answering questions - on the way.)

How many departments are there? Are they elected? How does the wizarding world run elections?

The Minister of Magic is elected, but everyone else is appointed. All wizards registered as citizens of the British Ministry can vote in elections - you have to travel to the Ministry building to vote, and there's magic in place to prevent cheating, and to make sure people aren't being magically influenced to vote a certain way.

There's seven major departments - most of them answer in some way to the Department of Law Enforcement, though, and the departments all have sub-departments within them, and there's a few minor departments. Those major departments are Law Enforcement, Accidents and Catastrophes, Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, International Cooperation, Transportation, Games and Sports, and Mysteries. Child Protective Services is part of Law Enforcement. They also work with the Department of Education, which is its own thing - sharing a level of the building with Games and Sports.

Is the Department of Mysteries like, detectives?

It's a research facility, actually, into the deeper mysteries of magic - though their investigations are mostly classified.

Not very scientific of them.

Not at all. The advancement of magic research is unfortunately rather slow...

So either it's a really hard problem or the people currently working on it aren't doing a good job.

A bit of both, most likely.

Right.

Onward, to the Ministry.

The phone booth is in a very run down part of town - but dialing the pass code works. They each get silver badges with their name and purpose, and then the phone booth apparently doubles as an elevator, lowering them into the Ministry.

The atrium is large and a bit busy. There's little origami birds flitting through the air. There's a fountain in the middle, portraying two wizards (one male, one female) surrounded by magical creatures looking up to them. Professor Reynolds leads Ellie to another elevator, taking them down one level to the Department of Law Enforcement, where apparently Child Protective Services is tucked into a back office.

Ellie follows along. The place looks nice enough, at least.

Through the door - there's a girl in her late teens with bubblegum pink hair at the secretary desk, scribbling notes on parchment. She perks up when they come through the door.

"Professor Reynolds!" the girl says, glancing at Ellie. "Here for the ten thirty?"

"Yes," Professor Reynolds says, smiling. "Can you check us in?" The girl nods, tapping a little piece of paper with her wand - making it fold itself up and then fly into a doorway behind her - and the professor continues with, "I'm glad to see you got that internship, Miss Tonks."

The girl - Tonks - grins back. "Yeah. It's been pretty much just paperwork, though. No excitement."

Professor Reynolds hums. "That'll come soon enough." A pause, and: "Do you know how long we'll be waiting?"

Tonks shrugs. "Varies, kinda, but probably not more than five or ten minutes - you guys're a bit early, but we're not busy right now... Got the routine home visits finished a couple days ago, and we're mostly through the paperwork from that." She looks over to Ellie again. "Oh - hello. I'm Auror in training Tonks. Are you heading for your first year at Hogwarts?"

"Yes. I'm Ellie Potter. Nice to meet you."

" - Like James and Lily Potter?"

"Yeah."

Tonks looks like she's about to say something, but Professor Reynolds gives her a sharp glance. Tonks closes her mouth, then, more meekly: "They're kinda famous. So that's cool. ...Uh. Do you have a house you're hoping to get into?"

"Not yet. I only heard about the houses yesterday."

"I was Hufflepuff. Best house, if you ask me."

"Noted."

Professor Reynolds smiles at them.

And, soon enough, they're called back.

Here goes nothing.

The woman in the office beyond is perhaps in her late thirties, wearing simple dark blue robes. She stands when the two enter, holding out her hand to Ellie first to shake, and introducing herself as, "Auror Dinah Beck, at your service young lady."

She takes it.

"Ellie Potter. Pleased to meet you."