"Do I, then?" she asked with a light laugh. A thin lock had worked it's way loose from the messy bun she'd pulled her hair up into and she flicked it back into place with a finger before taking the offered hand. She wasn't sure what 'official' looked like. But, she'd always been a generally organized and detail-oriented person. So, getting her Is dotted and Ts crossed before diving into research mode quite happily was tantamount.
And Theo was one of those Ts.
Even she groaned inwardly at that pun.
"Well, I am glad to have contributed in some small way to that mood." Setting what she'd been working on aside, she turned in her chair so that she could give him her full attention. "Honestly, I was very serious about stealing you from Mr. Black. When it comes to this work, you're the only other one besides me who has been given the kind of access and training the research will require. Peter will be very good, I think. He and his friends did some amazing things as students. But, even Hogwarts didn't have the sort of resources we had in the Department."
And she really wanted to know what had happened to her veil. If the Ministry was gone, where had it gone? Legend was that the Ministry had been built in that location specifically because of that veil. Padma didn't know if it was true. But, she'd had hopes of being able to study it some day.
"That being said, I don't suppose you've had a chance to do any research into the castle and how it brought us here before I arrived and it decided to play Hide the Memories with all of our brains?"