(MINISTRY LOCATION REDACTED - D.M.L.E.. File)
Whitehall, London, UK
Apprentice Auxiliary Auror Nienna Robins appeared in the Portkey Arrival Area, located in the Main Atrium down on Level Eight. The Portkey trip had been more chaotic than usual, but she managed to stay on her feet. She only had to spin around once before finally steadying herself. Belisarius and Ath?na had wisely taken immediately to the air, letting go of her epaulets just as she arrived. They settled back on her shoulders, looking pleased with themselves. Nienna waited a moment for the dizziness to pass before moving on..
Everyone who worked the Security Desk was familiar with her by now. All she had to do was swipe her wand through the air over the Security Log Book. The magically poised quill wrote down:
Date and Time of Entry, (or Exit); and,
Name and Office Affiliation.
She exited the Arrival Area and entered one of the Lifts, selecting Level Two as her destination. A woman in the robes of Magical Maintenance had noticed her Auror Robes, and her youth. The woman seemed about to ask a question, but Nienna raised her left hand to her neckline. She fiddled with a non-existent necklace, and the woman immediately lost interest, debarking at the next floor. Nienna wondered if that was the floor she had meant to get off at.
Nienna exited the lift and ducked into the adjacent Locker Room. Stashing her broom, her cloak, and all the accoutrements she carried on duty, she considered changing into street robes. Deciding against it, she reasoned that she would be less noticeable in Auror Black.
Taking the stairs to Level One was an obvious move, at least now that she knew about the secret staircase. The regular stairwell ended at Level Two, for security reasons. The sole Lift dedicated to Level One, (and only to Level One), opened into the level's anteroom, where a deceptively mild-mannered Security Officer sat behind a desk. Her, (or His), job was to direct arrivals to the proper office. One of a cadre of deceptively young and harmless 'interns' would be assigned to guide the visitor. The guide and visitor would also be followed by one of a cadre of people who were neither mild-mannered, young, or harmless, not even seemingly. Their invisibility adequately made up for the lack of those attributes.
There was, however, a secret, secure, single flight of stairs from the office of the Head Auror to the Office of the Minister For Magic. Very few of the Aurors knew about it, and even they could not access it, unless accompanied by Harry. Both Harry's office door and the camouflaged access to the stairwell would refuse entrance to anyone else.
Unless they were emblazoned with the Secure Message Shield. Nienna smiled smugly to herself. This was no made-up errand to get her out of the way, out of danger. The Head Auror trusted her, and she was going to live up to that trust.
The Auror Bullpen was empty when she entered it, save for the back quarter section. This was dedicated to the Routine Magical Law Enforcement staff, as evidenced by the signposting. Nienna stopped just to watch. This was one of her favorite morning spectacles at the Ministry. The sign read:
Combined Routine Magickal Law Enforcement Office
Arthur Octavius Weasley, Assistant Department Head
Department of Intoxicating Substances
Magical Law Enforcement Patrol
Ministry of Magic Witch Watchers
Misuse of Magic Office
Office for the Regulation and Control of Muggle Artefacts
Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects
This area was a genial Bedlam, as the various officers and staff clustered around the Assignment Boards. It was something like a Stock Exchange trading floor, as the staff quite literally traded assignments about. The desirability of assignments varied according to location, length, and difficulty, among many other factors. This led to actions such as bartering of assignment futures, which were kept track of on a Board of their own. Many of the staff preferred difficult assignments, as they were worth more in promotion points and/or vacation time.
In an island of calm amongst this chaos was a single, ordinary desk. Sitting at the desk against the back wall was a late-middle-aged man. He had thinning red hair and a contented smile on his face. He was writing in a ledger that was linked by Gemino to the largest Board of them all, on the wall behind him. Bright block lettering went horizontally along the vertical surface just above the Board. It read:
C.R.M.L.E. POLICY: DON'T CARE WHO DOES IT, AS LONG AS IT GETS DONE. A.O.W.
And, just below that:
5-TIME WINNER: BEST DEPARTMENT TO WORK IN!!
The furor abated remarkably quickly, with the officers dropping their signed copies of the selected assignment sheets into a box on Arthur Weasley's desk. A few stopped for clarifications, but that never took more than a moment.
Within ten minutes, the area was cleared, except for Arthur and an elderly wizard who was collecting the few unclaimed jobs from the Assignment Boards.
Arthur was quickly and efficiently entering the assignments into the ledger. They appeared on the Board behind him, Name, Assignment, and a Color Bar. The bars shaded from Green to Yellow to Orange to Red, and a small black line started moving from the Green end. Nienna knew that the speed the black line moved varied, depending sometimes on the difficulty of the assignment, and sometimes whether or not it was a rush job.
Arthur glanced up, spotted her, and broke into a wide, welcoming smile. "Nienna, how good to see you! Are my lads treating you well? They better be, or I'll take a strap to them!"
Nienna had never known a person less likely to take a strap to anyone. "Don't you worry about that, Mr. Weasley. It would take a lot to discourage me. I think they coddle me too much, in fact."
"That's my boys!" A proud smile was on his face. The elderly man came over and laid the left-over assignments on the corner of the desk. Arthur looked up. "Oh, I say, Perkins, do you know our Nienna? Nienna Robins, David Perkins. He runs the Office for the Regulation and Control of Muggle Artefacts. One of our best, never a problem from his office!"
Perkins shook his head, looking resigned. His fluffy white hair stirred slightly. "You know perfectly well why, Arthur. There are no problems because we never prosecute. Haven't this century, in fact."
"Nonsense!" said Arthur stoutly. "All due to you straightening things out before they get to a prosecutable level. Good man, well done." He looked back to Nienna.
"David and I usually knock out these leftovers. Mostly simple little jobs that don't challenge my boys and girls. Real go-getters, all of them!"
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David Perkins rolled his eyes. "And yet somehow all the Muggle artefact jobs end up in that stack."
"Really?" Arthur looked delighted. "Well, gravy for us then, what?" He picked up the stack and shuffled through it. "I say, this one's near the Leaky Cauldron. We can drop in for our elevenses, maybe a drop of tonic for your lumbago."
"If by tonic, you mean Ogden's Old Firewhisky, you're on."
Arthur held the back of his hand beside his mouth, as if confiding something to Nienna. He continued speaking at his normal volume. "Rosmerta's girls are thinking about taking over the pub, and I believe one of them is sweet on David here."
Perkins sighed, exasperated. "That's not one of Rosemerta's nieces, as you again well know. It's Rosemerta's Aunt, helping the girls out. And a fine-looking woman like that has no time for a shriveled-up prune like me."
Now Arthur rolled his eyes. "Best get cracking." He suddenly got a mischievous smile, no doubt the ancestor of the next generation's evil grins. "Must say goodbye properly." Rummaging in his desk drawer, he muttered, "Where is it?"
Perkins gave him a look of experienced weariness. He started to say something to Nienna, but she gave him a small shake of the head, and held up her right hand. He recognized what she had just donned, closed his mouth and smiled.
"Ah!" Arthur Weasley stood up from his desk, and awkwardly extended his right hand to shake. She took it in hers and smiled at his triumphant expression, which lasted only until he started convulsing.
He snatched his hand free. "Drat the thing! I was sure I had it right that time." He immediately started laughing at himself. "Serves me right, trying something like that on you!" Nienna laughed, the owls hooted their mirth, and even Perkins gave out with sort of a rusty chortle.
Nothing dampened Mr. Weasley's spirits for long. "Maybe it's the bat-ry? It's a trifle early for Changing Night, but needs must!"
***
As they left, Nienna waved with the hand wearing one of her brand-new Magic-Proof Dueling Gauntlets. That was what had made the Joy Buzzer backfire. They were a gift from her mother, to celebrate the first time she had gotten through Cerberus Langarm's defenses to land a good, solid hex. It was an achievement, too. The cocky little duellist was honestly as good as he thought he was. He was quite proud of her as well. He said she was coming along faster than anyone he had ever trained.
The Bullpen was now empty, and Nienna walked down the short hall to Harry's office. Belisarius and Ath?na took to the air as she waved an imperious hand at the sealed door.
She found out why when the momentum of her confident stride bounced her off the still closed door. The owls settled back as she examined her nose, which seemed to have taken the worst of it. She Cast Episkey on herself to stop the light bleeding. Ath?na craned forward to examine the result, and nuzzled Nienna's cheek comfortingly.
"Could have warned me." Both of them ignored the mutter, unfair on the face of it.
Experimentation showed the girl that she had to present the SMS with the back of her hand upright and facing the door. A small gem in the position of a peephole glowed green and the door opened itself.
Not an easy position to wave imperiously from, Nienna admitted to herself. The door shut behind her, and immediately two filing cabinets against the right wall flattened into two dimensions, revealing the staircase between them. The first three steps started to glow with an internal light. The glow moved with her, staying three steps ahead, and trailing two behind.
At the top was a rather large landing. It even had room for a desk and chair against one side wall, and Minister Shackleford's office lay open just past it. She was about to call out, when something struck her as... wrong. At almost the same moment, Belisarius gently patted her lips with the feathers on the tip of his offside wing. They exchanged glances, and Belisarius gave a slow side-to-side motion of his head.
Nienna realized almost immediately what was bothering her. She had been in Kingsley's office, not often, certainly, but still several times. She was pretty sure she would have noticed an alcove with a desk, sitting before an open flight of stairs.
"Fool me once..." she said grimly. She approached the office area cautiously, hands out in front of her. Sure enough, just as she was about to cross into the office proper, she came up against something very solid.
"An Illusion Charm," she breathed. "Set to emulate the office on the other side." She glanced over to the desk. A perfect place to observe meetings, and take notes, without a visitor noticing.
"Sneaky sods," she said admiringly. She looked at her hands. The illusion was quivering in ripples under her left hand, as if preparing to respond to the SMS on its back. And the illusion vanished completely in circles around the fingertips of her other hand. Glossy wood showed as she trailed those fingers back and forth. Ah. She had not yet removed the Magic-Proof Gauntlet. She backed a step, and observed the room more fully.
The office was large, certainly, but not palatial. It was decorated rather austerely, as suited Minister Shackleford's style of governance. It was a working office, not a Head of State's Receiving Chamber.
To her left was the double-door entry, looking much like any other door in the building, save being wider. Flanking the doors were a small conversational group around a low coffee table, and across from it an even smaller meeting table, with only six chairs around it. Nienna had heard her mother say that Kingsley considered any meeting requiring more than four people to be just bureaucratic ego-stroking. And, as such, it would almost certainly be an intentional waste of his time.
No one was currently present. Nienna had to choose between remaining where she was, or waiting in the office proper. Waiting on the landing might be more secure, but it seemed disrespectful to her. On the other hand, making herself comfortable on one of the couches would be right out. Possibly the meeting table? But she would have to make some excuse if the Minister wasn't alone. The very thought made her blush hotly.
Then her eyes lit on the corner of the room past the desk. It was penned off by folding screens, decorated in almost abstract depictions of savanna grass and baobab trees. When she had been accepted as an Apprentice Auror, she had come up here to take The Apprentice Oath. It wasn't The Full Oath, but the Minister had taken it just as seriously. He treated her like the adult she wanted to be, and yet was terrified to become. He shared a few bits of advice. The one that came to her now had been about taking time for herself.
"It's good to be enthusiastic," he had told her. "But burn-out is real. Even if you are rushed off your feet, even it is that important, take a few minutes for yourself. See that screen? Behind it is a comfortable chair, a good light, and a small bookcase with some of my old favorites, plus a few new books that look interesting. Just a few minutes, once or twice a day. It makes all the difference."
That was the ticket. She presented the back of her hand, in what she now knew to be the approved manner. The illusion didn't disappear, but a door-shaped area began shimmering invitingly. She walked through into the real office, coming out about three feet from the wall. She looked behind her to find a massive sideboard that had not been visible from the other side.
Brilliant, she thought. She was moving in the Premier League, now. She 'took station,' as she thought of it, and settled in to wait. A title on a book in the shelf caught her eye. "First Principles for Aspiring Aurors," by Hesphaestus Gore. She definitely knew that name. He had been one of the Founding Members of the Auror Division back in the Eighteenth Century.
She was engrossed in Chapter Four, 'Increasing the Distance and Efficacy of Thy Castings,' when she heard noises at the office door. Replacing the book, she stood, preparing to come out from behind the screen. Belisarius repeated the patting gesture. She looked to see his head turned toward the noise, ear tufts flared to channel sound.
She realised what was bothering him. It was taking entirely too long for the door to open. Most doors in the Ministry building opened automatically for the owner of the office, requiring keys only for staff or others with approved access. This sounded more like someone...
Picking a lock! The thought was alarming. It should be impossible, especially on one of the most secure rooms in the Ministry. Unless they had some unknown kind of magic...
A pulse of strange magic impinged on Nienna's senses. It felt wild and dangerous. Nienna froze in place. The designs on the screen were created by sewing needle-turn Appliqué onto a coarse mesh background, allowing the person behind it to see without being seen. Trust a former Auror to plan for that, Nienna thought. She killed the glowstone she had been reading by, so as not to be backlit. With her black Auror robes and dark hair, she should be practically invisible in the gloom of the reading nook.
One side of the double doors opened, and two figures sidled in, immediately closing it behind them.
One was a man in late middle age. He had wiry grey hair that appeared to be retreating along his forehead and temples. When he turned back to examine the door, Nienna saw he also had a bald spot, visually reduced by having the surrounding hair brushed into it, if not over it. His robes were in the style and cut dictated by Ministry standards, but the color did not match any Department she was she was familiar with.
The other... person was short. Slightly shorter than a goblin, she thought. But when he spoke, (it was almost certainly a male voice), it did not have the rough aggressive timbre that was almost universal among that race.
"I have brought you past the Guardians, and gotten you into the room you desired. I will return to my kinsmen now."
Nienna's eyes widened. That must be one of the 'tribesmen' that had been part of the foray on Malfoy Manor.
"Hold." The man spoke in a commanding tone, which caused the 'tribesman' to visibly stiffen, in what appeared to be indignation.
The man in the greyish-brown robes continued. "Did not your Oath-Holder tell you that one more service would be required before departing my side?"
"He did not." The reply was flat, even hostile. "Our Oath-Holder has been stalking perilously close to Sullying our Honor. What service do you aver has been required of this one?"
"Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus! Incarcerous!" The man's wand had been in his hand already. He put it away as he walked over to the frozen, bound figure, somehow still on its feet.
Crouching slightly, so as to peer under the hood, the man smiled. It was not a nice smile.
"He requires you to die."
Simple? (Hint: Simple is boring).