look we all know what the best magical creature is
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She laughs. "I don't think they'd make the laws extend to before they were passed, anyways. But a government should think war crimes are bad and be generally good at enforcing not doing them."

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Nod.

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"Of course, she might not be willing to run... But it's something worth prodding people about, at least."

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"We'll want to write a few more letters, then."

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She nods. "I'll help."

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"Thanks."

They can spend a couple days getting drafts for Fay to look over.

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She has some suggestions to make, especially tailoring the letters to specific people, but - it should sound like it comes from the girls, and they have good instincts.

She also after about a week requests Ellie write a few short letters to a small list of people she suspects would be influenced by her - either by the memory of her parents, or by her fame, or by her role against Voldemort.

Still... She wants the girls to keep in mind their psychological health amid all this. She keeps encouraging them to take breaks, to play, to enjoy magic - to meditate and keep up their Occlumency, too.

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Yeah, um, speaking of that. Ellie's been noticing some weird emotions kind of poking around her edges? She doesn't think they're, uh, hers, strictly speaking.

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...Fay is trying to maintain an even expression and helpful demeanor but that is potentially alarming. She does caution that it might be psychological or hormonal, but it might also be a result of magic.

She checks if Ellie wants to talk in private, then asks a series of questions about the emotions: how long has she been noticing them, did anything precipitate them, when and how frequently do they happen, do they have any consistent triggers, what emotions occur most frequently, how strong or insistent are they, does she have physical symptoms associated with them (fatigue, headache, vision or hearing changes, chest pain, altered heart rate, sweating, chills or hot flashes, other pain, muscle twitches, shaking, or weakness...), and does she have other psychological symptoms (obsessive, racing, intrusive, or unpleasant thoughts, strange dreams, hallucinations, restlessness, inability to focus, feeling like she's not in control of her thoughts or actions, feeling like she's detached from or numb to her body or self, memory loss...).

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She's only been noticing them since a bit after they came home for the summer. Which. Gives a guess for a precipitating event, but she hasn't noticed any common immediate triggers. She mostly gets a kind of- anger or irritation? Like a frustrating problem. It happens most often when she hasn't done the Occlumency meditation for a bit and clears up afterwards, which is why she mentions it. The only physical symptom is a bit of a headache.

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Frown.

That sounds - plausibly hormonal, but Fay's concerned enough to want to check for magical influence, if Ellie's willing.

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Better safe than sorry, right?

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Nod.

Detection methods - Legilimency would be fairly direct, but has privacy concerns. There's non-invasive ways of detecting foreign magic on someone, but most of them require specialists, especially if the magic is subtle. Ellie might also be able to detect the issue herself, though the most likely way to do that would be if she's actively meditating when an emotional burst begins.

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It would be... fine, if Fay wanted to do Legilimency on her.

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"Alright."

"I'll be careful not to intrude on anything irrelevant to this," she says, "As much as I can be."

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"I trust you."

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Soft smile. "I'll try to be worthy of that."

And, once Ellie's ready, she makes eye contact and softly casts the Legilimens spell.

Her touch through Ellie's mind is gentle, and carefully obvious about where she is and what she's looking at.

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Ellie's mind is... decently well organized, for a girl her age. In particular, there's a firm distinction between what's her and what's not, her core thoughts and motivations and things she doesn't endorse or want.

Which makes this one sort of snakey tendril coiling around somewhat odd, the way it's almost completely ignored by the broader structure.

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Very odd.

She doesn't touch it - does set highlights around it - and carefully begins following it, noting what parts of her mind it's passing through.

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It seems mostly contained, but is poking feelers towards getting access to the senses.

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Gently, delicately - she shows Ellie what she's seeing, cautions her not to touch it yet - warns Ellie and then places small baffles, the same way she'd place a false memory, to slow the feelers down without alerting them.

And then that's its end... Back along it, tracing it to its source, through the historic growth through Ellie's mind... It seems to have been almost cautious in avoiding detection, with no significant ripples - it hasn't touched on her memories, but it's plausibly sensing her emotions - Fay can't easily and quickly fool that, but she notes how it's accessing them so they can figure out a way.

Back more - and it's rooted in memories, growing from them, patchy things - Ellie's memories of her parents' deaths as dredged up by Dementors most centrally, anchored as well on the ritual at the graveyard, the burning circlet on her head and Anathema's gold eyes -

Fay can't enter or see past those memories without risking disturbing the tendril enough to be obvious, but, well.

There's not a lot this can be.

Carefully, gently, she withdraws.

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That was surprisingly stressful.

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Hug?

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Hug is good.

"So what does that mean?"

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"The unpleasant but unfortunately probably not worst case scenario is Voldemort has established some kind of link to your mind, which he's trying to use to spy on you, which is mostly hiding and therefore not producing effects except some emotional overflow on accident."

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