A toast to the invincible bunch [Emma]

Joanna was rather fond of her cousin. Her female cousin, Emma. She very rarely saw Ryan except on family occasions. With the six year age gap between her and Emma they were never very close growing up. Joanna could remember meeting Emma and viewing her as this cool new magical doll that she got bored with pretty quickly. She kept that vague familial affection and duty when Emma was a little first year and she was about to leave school, but they could not have been described as friends. That had all changed however when Emma graduated Hogwarts and joined the workforce in the Ministry, beginning her adult life. Joanna wished that she could say she was more supportive of Emma when she first joined the Ministry, but unfortunately she had been rather tied up with post-war duties and unbearable grief. So it wasn’t until later on that Joanna had managed to make the effort to ensure Emma was settled. And because Emma was a Hennings, and thus strong and resilient, she had been fine.

Nevertheless, when Joanna began to spend time with Emma outwith of family obligation then she discovered she actually enjoyed spending time with her little cousin, who was not so little anymore. Nowadays, whenever they could both spare the same lunch break, which wasn’t often due to both their various schedules and commitments, Joanna would meet up with Emma for lunch and enjoy the company and opportunity to both check in on her cousin and unload some of the things that were bothering her. At the moment it was whether or not she should move out of Audlem and back to London. Joanna knew that Emma had recently gotten a new flatmate so probably had plenty of advice and tips to offer. Unlike Emma, if Joanna ever did get her own place, it would be her own place. The thought of moving in with a stranger - who might be a complete slob - was unbearable. How would she ever be able to relax sharing with someone who may have a weird schedule or enjoy dancing at 3am on a Tuesday or leave pans in the sink? Maybe it was better that Joanna was living with her father. He would never bring back people who would rob them when he went to the bathroom.

Clearing her spiralling thoughts from her head, Joanna glanced at the time. Not long before lunch. She had spent all morning dealing with paperwork pertaining to the unfortunate issue of the pixies. The pixies that they hadn’t just been allowed to kill the second they started raining carnage down across the Ministry. For Merlin sakes, they had caused a Department Head to disappear!! The entire August weekend had been spent trying to stun the little sh-, no, she would not swear, menaces with many of the people ‘helping’ being more of a hindrance. They had eventually succeeded to round them all up (well, Joanna hoped they had all been caught - apparently the numbers on the booking report may have been inaccurate) and now Joanna was having to complete a full incident report as to how they managed to escape in the first place and how they had gotten from the Department holding facility into the main Ministry. Personally, Joanna thought the answer was rather simple. Some idiot must have left a door open. Unfortunately however, that answer did not cut it so she was left interviewing, hypothesising and risk assessing. And having to explain why ‘escaping pixies’ had not been included in the initial risk assessment.

Joanna sighed, placing her quill down carefully as she sat up straighter at her desk. The blinking pixies should really just have been put down. She didn’t like them and certainly would not be sorry to see them go, but they were also trapped in a cage. And even rescued were still trapped in a cage. Surely that wasn’t any life for them? Biting her bottom lip in-between her teeth, Joanna looked at her last sentence, wondering what she could add into ‘what additional training and resources would prevent the incident from reoccurring?’ She knew that she would have to suggest that some of the hit squad did an additional course on spell accuracy. It was one thing to aim a spell at a grown man. It was another to hit a pixie. And it had showed. Even she had cast a lot more stunners than pixies she had hit. They were very fast little blighters and the chaos had meant there was often a huge risk of hitting important Ministry guests. Distractedly grabbing a boiled sweet from the packet sitting on her desk, she popped it in her mouth, letting the flavour release slowly.

They also probably were all overdue a refresher on how to effectively store magical creatures. She would liaise with the Department of Magical Creatures to have someone come do it. There definitely could not be another incident in the near future. And she imagined that others, like herself, were not fully versed on the relevant charms and protections that each creature required. Joanna flicked her wand at a spare piece of paper noting down the need to organise the training, then pushed her chair back and stood. It was definitely time to go meet Emma. She smoothed down her robes, wrinkled from sitting for so long, and picked up her bag, exiting the office. A quick “colloportus” locked the door behind her, although, if someone was determined enough they could easily get in.

She walked swiftly along the corridor, nodding at the few she past. Clearly many had decided to take their lunch break at this time as the department was emptier than usual. Spotting a lift having just arrived up ahead, Joanna held her hand up to get the attendant to hold it for her and rushed towards it. “Department of Magical Games & Sports please, Department Head’s office” she spoke clearly to the attendant, glancing around at the others. Had she looked ridiculous rushing for the lift? Maybe she should have just waited for the next one and not done that awkward half run along the corridor. Grabbing one of the dangling ropes, Joanna held tight as the lift began to ascend, not straight up like a Muggle lift, but in a very scattered fashion, shooting backwards and forwards to drop people in the specific places they wanted. She was lucky that the lift was not too crowded and the fourth stop was hers.

Thanking the attendant as she got out, Joanna turned left in the direction of Emma’s desk. The walls of this Department were covered in slightly tattered quidditch posters and Joanna personally thought the whole department had seen better days. Where was the professionalism in the decoration? But, as she did not spend a lot of time there, she supposed it was not really up to her how it looked. She encountered more people than she had in her own department, but Joanna supposed it was because the department was a lot more social. After all, wasn’t she one of the ones visiting the department rather than forcing Emma to come down to level two.

The door to Emma’s office was open and Joanna tapped her knuckles gently on the doorframe to get her cousin’s attention. “Knock, knock,” she singsonged pointlessly. After all, she had actually knocked, there was no need to say it out loud as well. “Are you ready for lunch? I’ve brought red pepper and tomato soup in that I can heat up or we can get food?” As the older cousin (Joanna still had trouble referring to herself as the eldest, the title should still belong to her brother), she felt a need to take care of Emma, even if it was just providing food. Given Joanna’s sweet-tooth however, Emma probably ate better than she did. She tilted her head to the side patiently, awaiting Emma’s decision. Joanna, for once, had no preference, just glad that she was getting a break from dealing with pixies.

@Emma Hennings

The morning was dragging on worse than she’d anticipated.

In stark contrast to the better part of the past couple of months, there wasn’t much that needed done emergently; and so in the relative calm Emma had dragged her feet a bit, taking longer to get into gear than usual. Now that annual Gala (and all of its associated planning chaos) was behind them, the remainder of September would be significantly less stressful. The Department (read: she) had plenty of time to plan for the annual Christmas Tournament in December, and revise the schedule before the season started up again in January. Emma couldn’t bear to think that far in advance, though; she still hadn’t quite recovered from the time difference between Singapore and London, and that was nearly a week ago. Speaking of the Gala…

Emma eyed the pile of letters stacked neatly at the corner of her desk with great disdain. She had done a quick screening read-through of each as they came in, and the vast majority pertained to the Gala: compliments, criticisms, and so on. The rest contained requests for autographs, the occasional demand for resignation of such-and-such owner because such-and-such team hadn’t performed up to snuff… the usual ‘fan mail’ received by the Department. The intern was out for the morning, though, and so Emma regretfully hadn’t been able to pawn them off on her just yet. Instead she got to watch the pile grow steadily taller, wonder increasingly if she should throw the girl a bone and start tackling some of the replies (she’d loathed the task when she herself had been an intern), decide that she’d already thrown her one too many bones over the past month or two (which was altogether not untrue) – and have the cycle repeat. She had her own tasks to attend to that were a bit more pressing than answering the ‘mail-in comment box’, anyways.

Just then there was a soft knock on the doorframe (she was still getting used to having an actual office instead of a cubicle, thanks to her promotion in July). The Slytherin alumna glanced up hopefully, expecting to see the intern; but beamed instead at the sight of her cousin in the doorway.

“Am I ever!” she sighed, grateful for the excuse to get up from her desk. Her expression further brightened at the mention of homemade soup. “Ooh, thanks, that sounds great! You made it?” Emma herself was a less-than-adept cook; she could follow instructions to a tee, but lacked that sixth sense that made an inherently good cook.

The twenty-two-year-old reached her arms over her head, leaning back slightly in her chair to stretch with a soft pop! of her back and one of her shoulders. She really needed to remember to take a lap more often…

Emma got to her feet and moved toward the door, snaking an arm around her cousin’s waist for a quick hug as she got within range.
“D’you wanna sit in the Atrium? We can pick up dessert down there.” She grinned; if nothing else, the women shared a near-insatiable sweet tooth.

Despite knowing her cousin, and knowing that Emma liked to greet people affectionately, Joanna still gave a small start when Emma hugged her, failing to respond before she was released from the embrace. It wasn’t that Joanna didn’t like a hug, it was just that positive physical contact was not something she experienced often. People getting into her personal space usually meant trouble after all. The enemy should never be allowed in that close. If they got that close then she had done something seriously wrong. And it was hard to turn that instinct off, even around trusted family.

“The Atrium sounds great!” She replied with a smile, infinitely more comfortable now that there was a bit of distance between the cousins. “I think I saw cinnamon swirls on my way in this morning.” Joanna would never turn down a chance for a pastry. Or two. She could definitely buy some to keep her going over the course of the afternoon. Honestly, she was going to have to start using pixies as a curse word the depth of frustration she currently held for the little beasts. As the cousins made their way back along the corridor that Joanna had just walked down, she remembered Emma’s earlier question. “Yes, I made the soup last night. I couldn’t sleep and apparently boiling veg was the answer!” A 2am soup making session was definitely not the most unusual thing that Joanna had done when she couldn’t sleep. There were the random village walks, the deep cleaning and the decision to try and de-weed the duck pond that all topped it.

“Has it been a long day?” She asked conversationally, trying to wrack her mind about what the sports department would currently be dealing with. She was woefully behind in sports news if it didn’t pertain to the only important team in the league, the Appleby Arrows. Nothing else was even remotely important. “Are you still dealing with the Gala or is that finally over?” The Quidditch Gala had been a big thing, apparently. It hadn’t been in Britain though so Joanna had only absorbed the information on it in order to breathe a sight of relief that she was not expected to organise security. But, she was pretty sure Emma had travelled to deal with it. “Was it fun?” She added, “did you get to see a lot of sights or were you working the whole time?”

While a Quidditch Gala with rich people was not Joanna’s cup of tea, exploring another country and experiencing their culture and traditions was. She was much more interested in what Emma had done outwith the Gala. The two witches arrived to an awaiting lift, no awkward runs this time, and Joanna asked the operator to take them to the Atrium. Grabbing a hand hold, she steadied herself before continuing their conversation as if there had been no interruptions. “I imagine the food would have been very exotic!” She mused, wondering what foreign fruits and dishes Emma had tried. “Anything you recommend?” Since Joanna couldn’t go to fancy places to have new cuisines she would have to experience it through someone else. And, they were lucky enough to be in London. Muggle London had restaurants of basically all kinds of cooking so that she could almost trick herself that she was travelling.

Everyone exited the lift at the Atrium, and Joanna followed the crowd off making sure to stick next to Emma in the lunch rush. “Do you know how nice it is to see this place not swarming with pixies?” She commented offhandedly before looking around. There were groups of workers everywhere, taking up lots of the seats and space. “Shall we sit over by the statue?” Joanna gestured. She personally found the memorial statue obscene and unnecessarily extravagant but it had been donated by a prominent family after the horrific one erected during the war had been destroyed. She personally was of the opinion that the donation had been more of an attempt at a bribe to stop the Ministry from looking into the family’s business dealings throughout the war. She suspected that the family had greatly benefited in other’s misfortunes.