He watched her leaf through the notes, drinking his tea as he waited somewhat patiently for her thoughts. Josephine often had a way of rephrasing and gently repackaging the various rules and laws the Ministry announced, so that they weren't perceived as harshly as they might be. The Minister and his office tended to word their memos and plans with aggressiveness, the justice intended in them came across sometimes severe. People like Josephine, with her gentle nature and motherly attitude, had a much better way of putting these ideas across, a way that wasn't intimidating or terrifying. It reminded Robbie of the Muggle phrase 'A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down'. Josephine provided the softer edge to an otherwise sharp knife.
It was entirely necessary, Robbie believed, and not at all underhand. This Ministry, lead by Diggory, had done more for justice and tidying up the country from the last wars, putting protection in place for the general public from the horrors that would undoubtedly take place again without it. Truthfully, Robbie was beginning to waver in his unfailing loyalty to the Ministry, faced with some incontrovertible proof that the government may have been unnecessarily rough or hasty in their judgement. He believed in the principles, the ideals of what they were doing, but his blind faith had been tested lately, and now he wasn't sure.
As the weeks went on, Robbie was coming to the firm conclusion that it would be cowardly and entirely unhelpful to renounce the Ministry, quit his job, or flee to the Muggle world as his father had suggested. Instead, he would attempt to be like Josephine; he would soften the edge of the Ministry's knife, make amends to those who may have been mistakenly labelled STs or were caught up in something they hadn't meant.
Robbie nodded with encouragement at her idea of a re-education centre. "That's a great idea," he said enthusiastically, glad that they had the same viewpoint on this. He nodded more as she continued, though his eyes dropped as she mentioned reintegration into society after time in Azkaban. Unfortunately, he'd done exactly that, ploughed back into real life and attempted to 'pick up where things left off'. There had been no rehabilitation programme for the wrongly-imprisoned people from the last war, he thought with a little frown. But that was what this Ministry was doing that the previous one wasn't; changing things for the better.
"Is there anything that you can see that we've missed or what we might need to do? Housing might take some time to set up, as would the centre, but we can roll the programme out before then, can't we?"