[dmle] in a good way [gene&mary]

july 2003

Hermione preferred the term ‘buddy’ over ‘mentor’, if she was being honest. She wanted to create a sense of camaraderie, maintain the formality of the orientation program without the title. Last year she had been too absorbed in her work to take on a new employee; this year, she was still just as absorbed in her work -- if not more so, considering she was still wrapping up work from her last department, staying on top of her day job, and trying to make a name for herself within the ICU -- but she wanted to be able to point new employees in the right direction. (She’d worked with enough people who couldn’t handle the concept of teamwork or condensing conversations that could have been handled in a memo).

Her house elf work was, in theory, nearly over — though would she really ever be happy with it? probably not — but the ICU was making up for that in strides. She supposed she would be able to delegate some of her more.. menial tasks, if she could bear to part with her very, very specific way of doing things, to her ‘buddy’.

Filing was more of a Tier 2 Menial Task, but @Gene Horowitz seemed up to it; at the very least, he’d thought to bring something to take notes with when she’d told him what they’d be doing. She closed one drawer and pulled open another. “These drawers are geographic and alphabetical. Country, county, major city, town, village, et cetera. Alphabetical throughout.” She ran her fingers along the folder tabs before she closed the drawer and pulled open the next.

“Arranged by the lawyer, then case number.” She stepped to the side and pulled open another. “These are by case number only, and need to be like thes,” she said, her hand on the previous drawer of files. “Pretty self explanatory,” she said, having explained it all anyway. “Questions?”

@Mary Hunt too

Put simply, Gene was intimidated by Hermione Granger. Not afraid of her, or anything -- though, if he had been, he’d have been well within his rights to be -- but definitely intimidated. He’d laughed when the MLE training bloke had told him he would be working for her -- not the Hermione Granger, surely? -- but, it seemed, this was the Hermione Granger who needed an intern and who, most intimidatingly, was showing a vested interest in leadership.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise -- she’d been a Prefect when Gene was a first year and he distinctly remembered her being, frankly, the only one worth her salt -- but it had been anyway. Gene had rather expected internship to be a thankless and tedious job, supervised by people who didn’t give a shit -- he’d made it through that interview only with his miles of experience in lying to people about things he liked to do, which now included organisation, timekeeping, and (his worst lie yet) proofreading -- but it seemed that he’d be supervised by people who did want him to succeed.

That was almost worse. He was basically bound to disappoint now.

He hadn’t yet, though, for which he was grateful (though the day was young.) And Hermione -- Ms. Granger? He hadn’t asked and now he couldn’t possibly -- had nodded approvingly when he’d brought a pad and quill to take notes with. He hadn’t yet gotten the hang of shorthand (he had exceeded expectations in History of Magic by taking all his notes out of the book instead of in class, and when he did that he could use unabridged and unabbreviated words) but he was doing his best. (He’d realized roughly around “town" that this wasn’t a nesting system -- there didn’t exist villages within major cities -- and now his indents looked completely moronic.)

“No, don’t think so, thanks,” he said, then, “Wait, actually, if it’s from Leeds do I file all the Leeds things under ‘L’ or ‘Yorkshire’?”

Gene didn’t know anything about geography, he realised -- with his luck, Leeds would turn out to not even be in Yorkshire. Self-consciously he put his hand in his hair and gathered up his quill and his notes, stepped over to look into the open cabinet. (He was a fair bit taller than Hermione Granger, something he was pettily enjoying. He had to have something going for him.)

Hermione raised her eyebrows, more to show she was listening rather than that she was surprised he had a question--she’d explained things rather thoroughly--but this was what being a buddy was all about. “I’d put Leeds under ‘L’ for Leeds,” she said, waiting a beat before correcting the rest of his question. “Rather than ‘West Yorkshire’.” She didn’t elaborate too much-- it was a common mistake she’d encountered and everyone knew what someone meant when they said ‘Yorkshire’ but it was her filing system and she didn’t use historic county names.

“But,” she continued, “These just need to be filed according to who represented the case.” The geographic-alphabetic drawer was mainly for informational purposes. Maybe she’d overdone it when giving the tour of the filing cabinets; it wouldn’t have been the first time.

She waited until it looked like Gene was done surveying the cabinet’s contents before she closed it. “There’s a few more locked cabinets that’ll need attention, but I’ll need to be there when you do those so you can get to these first.” She looked at the cabinets, hoping it’d jog her memory if she was forgetting something to tell him, but she’d already covered it all, naturally. “I’m here if you have more questions, anyway.”

“Do you want a coffee?” She did. “I can show you the canteen.” Hermione tilted her head towards it before moving that way, pointing out a couple things along the way, adding in a hushed voice, “Patrice puts out those sweets but then she expects something in return, so I’d recommend avoiding that.” Hermione rolled her eyes as she straightened up and continued leading the way to the canteen.

Gene was going to die; “Right,” he said sheepishly. Fortunately, Hermione seemed as interested in making a big deal of his gaffe as he was, so he busied himself flicking through the files with two fingers and tried not to dwell on it. (It would haunt him forever, he was quite sure, but at the very least he could ignore it.) Even more fortunately, the files she was pointing him toward now only had one sorting criterion (representation, alphabetical by surname and chronological, that was a piece of cake.)

There were locked cabinets too -- he was dead curious to know what was in them, but she’d said it in a way that implied that someday he would find out, which was good enough for him in the moment. He straightened up again, dropped his hand back down to his side, and said, “Course. Yeah. Thank you.”

He had rather expected to be left to his devices, relegated immediately to the drudgery of alphabetising, so his mouth fell open with mild surprise for a moment before he regained his senses: he did not want a coffee -- he thought coffee was disgusting -- but he said, “Yeah -- okay, that sounds good.”

Hermione led the way.

“Like… favours?” he said, unsure he wanted to know what Patrice could possibly expect in return if not favours. He fell into line behind her as they approached the coffee stand. Fortunately, it served tea as well. The witch in front of them was placing an elaborate, very involved order -- he said, trying to make conversation, “So -- do you like -- like it here? Your job?”

“Favors, mainly just…” Hermione wrinkled her nose in thought. “Unpaid overtime. She’s good with guilt.” Help with duplicating memos, organizing fundraisers, the like. Things Patrice could do on her own if she put a little more effort into her work. “Feel free to ask me if something’s a good opportunity before you agree to it. If you want.” She was telling him a lot of things, but this one seemed the most important. It wouldn’t do to overwhelm Gene with work he didn’t need to be doing when she was already giving him work he probably didn’t want to be doing.

They queued and Hermione glanced back (and up) to Gene to formally offer to buy his coffee--she could show him the make-it-yourself spot later but those coffees were of a considerably lower quality--when he posed his question. She nodded; “I do.” She turned to face him properly. “I started in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures--” she used the full name without her division on purpose because she still had issue with the Beast and Being demarcation-- “But I applied for a transfer over here--” the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, despite her previous misgivings about it-- “Nearly a year ago, with all the Sweden issues.”

She didn’t get farther into the why of it all; the queue wasn’t long enough for that. “I think it’s a matter of finding what you really want to do.” She thought that sounded motivational enough.

The witch in front of them turned, coffee in hand, and Hermione was suddenly confronted with Mary. She snapped straight to introductions, hoping Gene hadn’t been so overwhelmed with them as to forget anyone new he was meeting. “Mary, this is Gene Horowitz. He’s just starting.” She thought she was quite good at introductions. “Gene, Mary Hunt. She’s on rotation from the Investigative Aurors,  in the Underage Magic Detection Division.” It was better than ‘former Auror’.

“Oh,” said Gene; he was not good with guilt, guilt having been his primary motivator for eighteen years. He doubted he’d have enough self-confidence to tell Patrice he was going to go ask his boss, Hermione Granger, for permission to do unpaid overtime, ever -- this was the most potent name-drop he’d ever get to use and therefore he was sure he’d never actually get to use it. But he said “Thanks,” anyway.

She liked her work -- that was promising, he decided. Hermione didn’t seem like someone who’d be happy if she felt like her work wasn’t meaningful. He nodded along -- he remembered reading about house-elf reform and about werewolf registry reform, so was unsurprised at where she’d started.

She said, breezily, that it was a matter of finding what one really wanted to do; now rather doubtful he ever would, Gene nodded along. This was possibly the coolest thing that had ever or would ever happen to him, getting coffee with Hermione Granger and hearing about her career path, but he was feeling faintly unworthy of it. Not least because he didn’t know how to respond. He said, to the Sweden issues, “The Sweden thing was what made me want to come work for the Ministry -- I think otherwise I was going to try and do more schooling first.” He still wanted to, maybe, someday -- but he’d decided, for the time being, that a paycheck appealed just a little more.

Hermione glanced at the witch in front of them in the queue and was quick to make introductions -- Gene put his hand out to shake Mary Hunt’s. On rotation from the Aurors didn’t seem like something he wanted to ask about, in case “rotation” was the nice way to say demotion, so he said, “Good to meet you” instead.

“Can I please have a large, quad-shot, iced hazelnut skinny macch-ee-ato with no whipped cream? Oh, and one of those little biscotti with the pistachios? Thank you.”

Mary pulled out her purse to pay, none-the-wiser of the look she was currently receiving from the Ministry Munchies witch taking her order. The former Auror paid and waited patiently as her coffee was made, nibbling on her biscuit. The barista didn’t even bother reciting the order as she set it on the counter. Mary picked it up, had a sip to make sure it had been prepared as requested, then turned to be met with Hermione--it said something that she was so used to the witch that she hadn’t picked up on her presence until now--and a face she didn’t recognise.

The tall witch gave Gene a look over (alas, so young and so not her type), not taking her eyes off the boy even when Hermione so politely said Mary was on rotation. He held out his hand and Mary passed her half-eaten biscotti to the hand holding her coffee to free up one and to shake with. “Likewise, I’m sure,” she said loftily.

There was an audible clearing of someone’s throat from further down the line, so Mary stepped to the side to allow Hermione and Gene to order. “I take it you drew the short straw?” Mary said--vaguely, it was unclear if she was speaking to Hermione or Gene--before having another sip of her coffee. She looked more obviously at Gene now; “Getting the tour? I expect you’ll be done some time next week,” she smirked, “Hermione is extremely thorough.”

The Sweden thing was what made him want to work for the Ministry, and Hermione afforded him a small smile at that. It was good to know these sorts of things; never mind that it was reassuring to hear that her new employee was probably of sound mind; she needed as much information as possible to help get him on the right career path. Maybe keep an eye out for any future ICU needs--not that she was senior enough to start recommending anyone, or that anyone on their first day on the job should be recommended for anything, but-- she was getting ahead of herself, which wasn’t too far off for work-related things.

More schooling was admirable, too, of course, but Hermione didn’t get the chance to say anything on that topic before Mary had turned around.

She smiled softly as introductions were made, still smiling as she ordered her cappuccino and offered to buy Gene’s. She turned back to Mary--physically, mentally--as they waited for their drinks, shaking her head as Mary said she--or Gene--had drawn the short straw. “Of course not,” she said quickly, not giving Mary the chance to say she had indeed been asking the question of Gene. Besides, Mary hadn’t been assigned to mentor anyone, but Hermione decided to wait to mention that until they were someplace more private.

“We’re nearly done,” she said to Gene, hoping to assuage any fears the tour would take a week. It was tempting then to offer to introduce him to the Minister--she had decided against it in her planning of the day, figuring that might be too much for the first day--but now with Mary going on and on about Hermione’s thoroughness… She offered a small smile to Mary, ignoring her desire to show up Mary. “I was going to show him the courtrooms,” she said. It was going to be a working coffee break, anyway. She added after a pause (and as a major afterthought): “If you’d like to join.”

I take it you drew the short straw?

Gene smiled crookedly, awkwardly, almost grimacing, and glanced sideways (and down) at Hermione. Thorough was sort of what he wanted, from a tour, generally -- he had a good memory but a tragic sense of direction, and needed all the landmarks he could get -- but this seemed like a conversation that didn’t include him.

He was new, anyway -- an administrative assistant, which his dad had said jokingly probably made him the wizard version of a calendar (to which his mum had said, wizards have calendars, Joel) -- so this was probably what his life was about to become: listening to other people talk, and looking sideways at somebody for a clue how he was supposed to be behaving in a situation. The other witch -- Mary  -- moved aside and Gene stepped forward, looked at the coffee menu, and promptly blanked. Shit. “Cup of tea,” he said uncertainly to the barista; he was given a cup of steaming water and a tea bag, which made him feel sort of stupid.

Hermione paid for him, too, which also made him feel stupid, but it was his first day. His dad had told him not to bring his own lunch on the first day in case somebody was going to take him out. His dad had also told him to get in with the finance department, but Gene wasn’t sure who that was, in the government. He sure wasn’t going to get in with the Wizengamot or whatever.

“Okay,” he said, unsure if he was glad they were nearly done or desperate for Hermione (Granger!) to keep on showing him around and telling him what to do and where to go before he was abandoned to the timeless boredom of filing stuff. “Courtrooms sounds cool.”

Hermione, though, invited Mary along to the courtrooms; Gene did a slight double take, looking between the two witches, but this -- again -- seemed like a conversation that didn’t include him. He didn’t know Mary, and did not want her coming along, but then again, just not-being-Hermione-Granger was really no reason to judge her a bad companion, so he raised his eyebrows over his tea and did his best to look politely eager to have another tagalong on this tour.

Of course not. Mary smirked softly. In truth, she was a little dismayed to not have been given a mentee of her own (despite not volunteering to take one), but she had rather enough on her plate as it was right now -- not in the Underage Magic Detection Division, but personally. It was much easier to simply impart her wisdom on her colleagues’ buddies instead. She hadn’t honestly thought Hermione would have the time either, but Hermione seemed to always be able to make time. It had been infuriating at first, but following everything that had happened with Eris Rosier, it was reassuring to know there were other people in the Department that could be trusted -- perhaps that was why Mary (begrudgingly) now considered her a friend.

Gene seemed pleasant enough, and his awkward smile at Mary’s jab suggested there was someone home.

The courtrooms sounded cool and Mary bit back the desire to inform him they hadn’t been so cool a couple of years ago, when they’d had on-site dementors. The courtroom level had always been colder than any of the others--something to do with their subterranean depth, perhaps, coupled with the fact they weren’t permanently inhabited like the other levels so perhaps the temperature charms weren’t so routinely checked--but during that period there had been a different kind of chill down there -- it seeped into your bones and it took more than a hot cup of tea to get rid of. Mary dreaded to think what going down there would have been like after the Battle, had the dementors remained.

She blinked at Hermione and took a moment to register the invitation, too lost in her own thoughts. She was supposed to be starting a report on a seven-year-old from Margate who’d taken his mother’s wand while she was sleeping, but that could wait. “Why not,” she said, almost jollily, and began half-leading the way to the elevators. She pressed the call button and turned back to Gene to give him another sharp once-over. “So what Office do you want to work in?” she asked curiously. Merlin help her if he was another wannabe-Potter, fresh out of Hogwarts expecting to waltz straight into the Aurors.

[ out ]

The courtrooms sounded cool, Gene said, and Hermione glanced at Mary, assuming her mind had jumped in the same direction that hers had. Her grip went a little tighter around her cappuccino; her small welcome-to-the-Ministry smile was still firmly planted on her face.

The invitation had already been extended to Mary, so there were no take backs now; why not, indeed. Hermione could think of at least four reasons why not--among them being ‘shouldn’t you be working?’--but she kept them to herself. Mary started to walk off and Hermione nodded once in Gene’s direction before she followed after. Mary’s longer stride kept her in the official lead, getting to the call button first-- it was Hermione’s tour, but she kept her sigh internal.

She smiled again when Mary made more conversation. Hermione had already asked Gene which office he wanted to work in--part of his five year plan--but again, she kept it to herself, taking another sip of her coffee as the lift arrived.

[[ out ]]

The two women looked at each other; hastily Gene tried to figure out what he’d done wrong (had he done anything wrong?) but couldn’t. Maybe he just sounded too eighteen; his mum had spent half the week trying to shut down any instances of slang, in the hopes that he would seem more like a professional and less like a gangly teenaged muppet. Why not? said Mary Hunt. Gene glanced at Hermione again, trying not to look betrayed by this intrusion. Hermione just nodded at him.

Oh, well. He could make the best of this. Mary’s legs were longer; Gene almost matched her pace before he remembered to hang back with Hermione (out of loyalty) and straightened his spine, realised he was making himself even taller than them both, and curved it a bit again. “I want to go into law eventually,” he said, “But I figured it’d be handy to have a good understanding ahead of time how things work here, and I’d like to be able to support myself a bit if I’m going to stay in school.” Better answer than he’d given Hermione, purely because it had felt very inadequate when he’d given it to her, on account of her being Hermione Granger.

The lift doors rattled open before them; Gene waited for the other two, and stepped smartly in after.


OUT