Into the Dark and Wonderful Unknown [Rose]

‘Why have I got to do it? I’m already up to my neck with these cases!’

He sounded petulant, even for him, but he couldn’t help himself this time. Not even in front of his superiors. All three of them, in fact. They were all sitting in Morgana Potente’s Office, huddled by her desk, stacks of parchment divvied amongst them. They were discussing the particulars of a major Ministry summit, and now that the efforts were seriously underway, the department was swamped, and these meetings were becoming much more frenetic. Jonathan rarely protested being overworked, so to hear such an outburst silenced his companions for a moment.

Morgana, the current Department Head of International Magical Cooperation, clicked her tongue. Normally not one to tolerate such behaviour, for the man before him she made her rare exceptions. She’d known for quite some time now that dealing with Jonathan Emerson was far from normal. He was very young for his age, and even younger for his position. But for whatever lack in usual maturity he had, Jonathan made up for it in his diplomatic skills. Even beyond his family’s name, already a powerful tool in and of itself, the young man had carved a well respected name for himself through his own efforts.

‘You whiny git, do you see my stacks of scrolls?’
Perhaps another boon to working with Jonathan was that Morgana felt free to be as frank as she wished. ‘If someone were to pass off their workload, you’d think the Department Head would be the first to have that privilege!’

Jonathan made a face as Hillary Stein and William MacAllister, his other superiors, laughed heartily, all of them desperately needing this momentary lightness. Indeed, they were all overworked, with far too many important events needing their attention all at once. Jonathan tried to recall his early days in this Department, and the relative ease of his roles. Did he miss it? In a sense. Would he wish for it again? Deep down, no.

Once seen as one of the lower branches of the Ministry, full of officials who seemingly got paid to greet foreigners, recent events had pulled the Department of International Magical Cooperation into much more central roles. Each of the Departments held long seated rivalries, and it was no small pride for Jonathan that they were clawing to reach the same level of influence as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. So what if Plantagenet had the famous Potter boy? Morgana and her officials were doing plenty of good for the wizarding world, and they didn’t need to do so without all the theatrics that tended to follow Potter’s life. Like seriously. Every damn year that boy had to get into some ridiculous drama, and being a full-fledged adult for the past three years still hadn’t been enough to put those flairs behind him.

Morgana had been an Auror herself in her prime, and hoped the training and experience would temper the famous boy and allow the rest of the Ministry to do their job to their best capacity. Her transfer to her current department was her message that politics and diplomacy, in all its fine and intricate arts, was the way to peace. Their ever closer ties with the French Ministry and Beauxbatons was proof of her beliefs and efforts, and the subordinates before her were her key drivers for her vision. And so here they were, huddling over maddening piles of parchment, continuing conversations of projects that had been months in the making.

It wasn’t well into the afternoon hours that they finally broke, with each official lugging or levitating their files back to their individual offices. Shortly after, Morgana left to meet with her fellow Department Heads. Hillary also was seen going down the lift to speak to the Department of Mysteries, while William scurried off to provide their latest updates to the International Confederation of Wizards. That left Jonathan as the ranking member in the department, shifting over sheets and notes.

A knock on his office door diverted his attention. It was one of his subordinates, handing a file with a meeting time. What fresh hell was this?

Quickly poring over the meeting details, Jonathan groaned and ran past the official, banging on an empty office, startling some of the cubicle Officials. ‘MacAllister! I’m not taking your damn meetings for you!’ When he was greeted with only silence, Jonathan stormed back into his office, quite cross. He turned back to his subordinate and barked:

‘Porter, tell the lady when she gets here that she is to see me in my office* instead.’ Sighing deeply, Jonathan slumped back into the sofa, trying to gather his composure before meeting with his surprise appointment.


@Rosaline Bane [*OOC: Office description mentioned in Jon's profile]

With the downfall of many other prominent and influential pureblood families who were tied to Voldemort and his cause, Sampson Bane and his brother Cadell had been doing their best to maintain a positive public image for themselves and the rest of the Bane clan. Several family members had been placed strategically in Ministry positions. Rosaline's cousin, Tegan, was a secretary within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement where she could effectively ensure that no evidence could be linked to her family and their true nature. There were at least two Aurors, as well, who were paid handsomely to ensure that the Bane family wouldn't be doing any time in Azkaban. Rosaline's job was to protect their image publicly. First, Sampson had pushed her into a campaign working with muggleborn Michael Evans to encourage healing after the war. At first, she had been completely opposed to the idea of working alongside a muggleborn, much less Michael Evans. However, their relationship had quickly changed. Before she'd left for the dome, she and Michael had become intimate. Nobody knew, and nobody could ever know. She did not like to think about what her grandfather or her brother might do if they knew.

It was ironic, she thought, that her grandfather had gone to such great lengths to make her pretend to like muggleborns that she eventually actually came to empathize with them. At least they were magical! Muggles, however, were a people who she was not quite sure that she could ever come to see as equals. How could she possibly when they were so frail and easily bested with magic, despite their supposed technological superiority? Voldemort was not the great wizard that her grandfather still saw him as. She had realized this, unfortunately, only after she had already been marked by Sampson himself after Voldemort's death.

With her success in their pureblood/muggleborn public relations campaign, Sampson had begun to push his granddaughter more toward the political scene. She had recently begun working more closely with her Great Uncle Cadell, who maintained a seat on the International Confederation of Wizards. Recently, he had become aware of a bill that was to be proposed at this summer's summit. The International Statute of Blood Status Equality would sanction businesses who appeared to discriminate against muggleborns. Of course, he was privately outraged. She became aware of a plan that he and other pureblood supremacists had to eliminate some of the opposition during the summit, and was more bothered by it than she had expected to be. A bill like this could help to protect Michael. Something had to be done.

That was precisely why Rosaline had come to meet with William MacAllister in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. She sought to help in any way that she could with the summit. She had to be there to try to stop Cadell and the others. Tugging at the sleeve of her blazer, the young Bane sauntered into the department. Immediately, she was greeted by a man who introduced himself as Something Porter and she was informed that she was to, instead, meet with Jonathan Emerson in his office. Though she kept a cool and collected demeanor about the manner, her feathers were a bit ruffled. Rosaline Bane was not someone who was used to having to reschedule anything unless she asked to specifically.

Regardless, she made her way to Emerson's office and quietly let herself in. She took a moment to admire the decor before closing the door behind her and greeting Mr. Emerson himself. "Hello. My name is Rosaline Bane. I was meant to have had a meeting with Mr. MacAllister, but I was directed here instead."

The sound of the door alerted Jonathan, who prompted stood upright to greet his visitor. Just because he was peeved didn’t mean he needed to direct those feelings toward someone who had nothing to do with his predicament. He made a mental note to get back at MacAllister, but comported himself to properly meet his guest.

‘Ah, Ms Bane. Quite the surprise, but not quite unwelcome,’ Jonathan replied. His lips quirked to a playful smile. The Banes and the Emersons did not hold the warmest of relations, but they brushed shoulders now and again during social functions. He had seen her during the Ministry Ball a while back, and the young woman had been in Katherine’s year, who held quite an opinion on the former Slytherin. But Jonathan was more open to forming his own opinion.

‘Do take a seat,’ he proffered to the sofa opposite of him, while he sat back down to where he’d been.

He glanced back at the docket containing MacAllister’s notes, then shifted his bright grey eyes toward the young woman. ‘So. You are a recent addition to the  Ministry’s Public Information Services. I hope they’ve been treating you well, and you’ve a steady supply of salve for paper cuts.’

That Office was considered a bottom rung division, merely the mouthpiece of the Ministry. Not that it wasn’t an essential part of the government’s system. Indeed, the Office had been used to great effect in the years leading to and shortly after the Second Wizarding War. But it was an unglamorous part of the Ministry body, like one’s appendix or mucus glands, hardly the place for a member of Britain’s premier families.

Jonathan studied her for a moment, but kept whatever information he gleaned to himself. He merely drew one parchment from MacAllister’s docket and slid it across.

‘Another team in my Department handles generally Communications objectives with your Office, so please bear with me as I catch up on the details. You’ve been authorised to hold onto that document and share it with your Office.

‘The International Confederation of Wizards will be hosting its decennial summit, which calls not only the Mugwump representatives to the ICW, but nearly every major figurehead from each Ministry’s Departments. Each corresponding Department meets their international counterpart to share progress on agendas set the decade prior, as well as coordinating how to achieve the new summit’s objective. It is always a serious undertaking, internally, as it leaves a potential vacuum of power should things end terribly.

‘Your Office is to help ensure things run as smoothly as they can, at least in the public’s purview. We’ll need you to garner support for International Statute of Blood Status Equality.’ Jonathan slid another parchment her way, which detailed the general aim and effects of the new law. It was all in legalese, and needed to be tweaked to be easier for the public to understand.

Jonathan looked further at his notes and frowned. He glanced back at Rosaline, a bit more serious now.

‘Before I get to the next bit, do you feel up to that first task? How do you personally view the proposed statute?’

[ooc: ughhh, so very late, I'm sorry T____T ]