Post by MrsCarterRivera on Jan 24, 2022 8:02:33 GMT -5
Contest: A Day in the Life of a Ministry Employee (500-2500 words)
Mouse would assume that, as an Unspeakable, there’d be an easier and perhaps more glamorous way of getting to work. A way that didn’t involve flushing herself down the bloody toilet every day! She worked with the most powerful and mystifying forces in the universe, yet here she was, in a queue with several other half-asleep Ministry employees, listening to toilets flush all around her. It was pretty much her idea of hell. Being surrounded by other human beings was really ew, but having to disappear down a U-bend? Double ew. However, it had taken her many long years to finally earn her badge as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, so for now, she kept her mouth shut and followed suite.
Reaching the cubicle door, Mouse slipped inside and shut it behind her. The less-than-pristine bog awaited her, a few tiles missing at the back, a swath of swear words graffitied on the wall to her left. “We’re in the middle of London,” the receptionist, Sylvia Bagshaw, had told her when she’d asked why the toilets couldn’t at least be clean. Pushing her thickly-rimmed glasses back up her nose, the old witch had continued. “If they’re too clean, all the Muggles will want to use them!”
Sighing, Mouse stepped into the toilet, ankle-deep despite the fact her feet didn’t even get wet. Thank Merlin for magic. Yanking the chain, Mouse watched the cubicle disappear as she was sucked down into the toilet... and then she was stepping out into the lobby of the Ministry of Magic. A check of her watch told her she was still a little early, so she took a detour to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to see her old friend, Belladonna Savage. The two had been close friends at Hogwarts, both sorted into Slytherin, though their beginnings definitely didn’t reflect the lives they were living now. Mouse hadn’t always been known as Mouse. Mare Goyle had been an extremely quiet first year with large front teeth, and the nickname had sort of been inevitable. A nickname that had stuck, even now. Being raised a Goyle hadn’t been easy, and Mouse had arrived at Hogwarts with a wide knowledge of the Dark Arts and not much else.
Bella’s story was similar. Her older brother, Liam, had been deep into Dark magic, dreaming of becoming the next Lord Voldemort. He’d done some devious and wicked things, things they’d inadvertently been a part of. They didn’t speak much about those days passed, but Mouse knew her brother was a huge reason why Bella worked as an Auror today. And she was proud at how far they’d come, and the difference they were now making to the wizarding world.
“Mouse. I’m so glad you’re here.” Bella looked up when Mouse walked into the office; her blue hair was tied up, though a few stray curls drifted around her face. “I’ve been awake all night. I’m about to lose my ever-loving mind.” Mouse gave her a curious look, moving closer to look at the brown file laid open on her desk. Bella was on the hunt for one of the Dark wizards who had worked alongside her brother, a man called Demetri Gustavich. An Albanian with a nasty streak, he was responsible for numerous muggle and muggle-born deaths. Bella had been on his tail for years, but whenever she seemed to have him cornered, he’d disappear, like smoke. Mouse looked at the image of him; unruly dark hair and black eyes, scowling as he shifted in the photograph. Time had aged him, face lined and scarred, but she could still remember the charmingly handsome young man in the Manor all those years ago. The man with a knowledge of the Dark Arts that surpassed what anybody else knew. She shivered.
“I had a report from Glasgow,” Bella continued, her tone marred with frustration. “Three dead muggle families on the same street. It was obviously him, all his trademark signs were there. He may as well have daubed his name on the wall.” Bella shook her head bitterly. “But, why Glasgow? It doesn’t make sense. It’s nowhere near the last murders... It’s like he’s playing games with me.”
Mouse sighed, reaching to take her hand, squeezing it lightly. “You should sleep,” Mouse said softly. “It’ll become clearer after a good rest. You still need to look after yourself, Bella.”
“I need to find him...” the blue-haired woman trailed off when Mouse gave her a sharp look. “I can’t let him get away with this, Mouse. He deserves to pay for what he’s done. What he did.”
“I know,” Mouse said; she was probably the only person in this building to really know. “And I don’t doubt you will. I have faith in you. But you need to sleep.”
Bella gave a weary sigh, but nodded. Shutting the file, she pushed away from her desk. “Well, I hope your day is more successful than mine. I’ll meet you after your shift.” After a quick hug, Mouse left the office and made her way to the nearest elevator. Pressing the button for the ninth floor, she watched a few Memos fluttering in the air above her head. It chugged upwards, stopping on every floor to release and admit various other Ministry workers, most of whom looked harassed and red-faced. Mouse hummed quietly to herself, until finally, the elevator opened up onto her floor; the Department of Mysteries.
Just as her watch hit seven, Mouse was stepping through the solid black door into the Room of Doors, blue flames burning from the walls. She watched as they spun when the door clicked shut behind her. Shutting her eyes, Mouse exhaled. She sensed the magic behind each door; the undiluted glow of Love, the cold vastness of Space, the pressure of Time. Then, she caught the scent of coffee and followed it to a door on her right. Putting her hand on the handle, she felt it grow warm beneath her palm, a soft click permitting her entry. Mouse pushed her way in.
The staff room was a very quiet and sombre place, reminding her strongly of the Hogwarts Library. Bookshelves covered every wall, crammed with a whole array in books on an impossible number of subjects. There was a small log burner in one corner, surrounded by a few stuffed chairs, and a small break station in the adjacent corner, mainly for copious amounts of coffee. The rest of the room was filled with desks, and all these desks were covering in research notes, open books, quills, inkwells and a colourful array of post-it notes. Quite frankly, breaks were two minutes to inhale a sandwich or make another coffee; if you weren’t in the rooms researching, you were in here, researching. Work never stopped and Mouse absolutely thrived because of it. Most of the time, everybody was too immersed in their research to make too much conversation, which suited Mouse just fine. The less talking, the better.
Jenkins Booth, an older wizard with half-moon glasses and white hair, and Aurelia Burke, a woman only a few years younger than Mouse, were already there. Jenkins was doing research into Time - specifically, Time Travel. It was a project that had been scrapped after a huge mishap in 1899, but the mysterious powers-that-be had deemed it worthy of another look. Jenkins had been working solidly on the project for eighteen months now, and had already been successful in a number of ventures. The only problem was, every leap adjusted his age and he was starting to look like a pensioner. He was only forty-eight.
Aurelia was a beautiful young woman with a burning passion for what they did. She’d also had a tougher upbringing than most; her grandfather had been a follower of Lord Voldemort, their roots murky, but Aurelia had been determined to break free of those chains. Aptly, as her nature was as sweet and pure as you could imagine, she was researching the power of Love. The strongest force in the Universe and the glue which literally held everything together. Because Life just could not survive without it. Aurelia’s dark hair was plaited over one shoulder, brown eyes soft, and she flashed Mouse a warm smile as she passed.
Mouse’s station was close to the coffee machine, a few books laying open on a hap-hazardous pile of parchment. Just this summer, Mouse had been tasked with researching the origin of Thought. She’d spent many long hours in the Brain Room, but the task was proving more difficult than she, well, thought. It was a complex matter that she was still trying to understand, and she’d started a journal, trying her best to note what ran through her mind during the day. But, she still had a long way to go and she was eager to get back to work.
Making herself a strong coffee, Mouse read through the notes she’d written the night before. She’d spent time studying the Thoughts of anger and resentment, realising that repetition in a singular Thought could create an outward manifestation - hence, the Brains. It was the break-through she’d been looking for and she had a few tests planned for today. By the time she’d finished writing up her preliminary notes, her coffee was lukewarm and she downed it before pushing away from the table.
The Brain Room was a low, rectangular chamber, dimly lit with lamps. The large tank dominated the centre of the room, filled with pearly white brains. They drifted through the murky green water, looking quite eerie and grotesque. Not to Mouse though. She loved it in here. A couple of desks were strewn about, and she set her quill and parchment down on the one closest to her. There were a few doors leading off from the main chamber, each for designated Thoughts and experiments. Quietly, Mouse moved closer, gazing into the side of the tank. She could see the tendrils on each brain, made up of minuscule images, similar to a film reel. It was truly fascinating. Today, she’d planned to further study anger, but Bella’s plight had given her a curious idea that Mouse wanted to test out.
There was no way of physically removing the brains from the tank. The potion they swam in subdued them, and research was still underway when it came to why they attacked to touch, but Mouse believed she had a good theory into why after her time spent with them. Thoughts were delicate things. Fleeting, subconscious, most of the time barely acknowledged. A stream of dialogue, ideas and opinions, something that’s a part of you but not physically. Mouse had learnt that the brains responded well to intentional thought. Legilimency played a huge part in her research, and as one particularly fat brain bobbed past her, she focused on it and projected her thoughts. Mouse imagined the brain rising from the tank and settling on her shoulder, over and over until the brain began to swim upwards.
Making a bit of a splash as it left the water, the brain landed with a slight thud on her shoulder, and Mouse hummed happily as she made her way towards the nearest door, picking up her quill and parchment as she passed. The room she entered was a lot smaller than the chamber. Cosier, a light hanging overhead, casting soft orange light over the stone walls. There was a thick rug and a square coffee table in the middle, where Mouse sat cross-legged. A small square tank filled with the same murky green liquid sat on one side, her parchment now occupying the other. Holding her arm out towards the tank, Mouse watched as the brain moved down, its tendrils thickening like tentacles to give it more support. It dropped into the tank with a plop and Mouse grinned. “There. Are you ready?”
Keeping her eyes on the brain, Mouse began to repeat a scene in her head; of Bella capturing Demetri. Again and again, she focused on what she wanted, and she wasn’t sure how long she was sat there when the tendrils’ images started to change. A smudge of blue began to appear, Bella’s signature hair colour, wand raised as she disarmed the Dark wizard and forced him to his knees. Mouse conjured feelings of victory and happiness, of success and justice, wanting to imprint as much into the Thought as possible. Finally, Mouse shut her eyes and broke the connection. She heard a splosh as the brain sank back into the depths of the tank, savouring that image of Bella capturing Demetri. She wasn’t exactly sure what outcome she was expecting, but she was looking to see if the brains outwardly Manifested themselves. Could you imprint a scene and have it play out in the physical plane?
If her theory proved correct, it would change the way wizards viewed the world forever.
(2,140)
Mouse would assume that, as an Unspeakable, there’d be an easier and perhaps more glamorous way of getting to work. A way that didn’t involve flushing herself down the bloody toilet every day! She worked with the most powerful and mystifying forces in the universe, yet here she was, in a queue with several other half-asleep Ministry employees, listening to toilets flush all around her. It was pretty much her idea of hell. Being surrounded by other human beings was really ew, but having to disappear down a U-bend? Double ew. However, it had taken her many long years to finally earn her badge as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, so for now, she kept her mouth shut and followed suite.
Reaching the cubicle door, Mouse slipped inside and shut it behind her. The less-than-pristine bog awaited her, a few tiles missing at the back, a swath of swear words graffitied on the wall to her left. “We’re in the middle of London,” the receptionist, Sylvia Bagshaw, had told her when she’d asked why the toilets couldn’t at least be clean. Pushing her thickly-rimmed glasses back up her nose, the old witch had continued. “If they’re too clean, all the Muggles will want to use them!”
Sighing, Mouse stepped into the toilet, ankle-deep despite the fact her feet didn’t even get wet. Thank Merlin for magic. Yanking the chain, Mouse watched the cubicle disappear as she was sucked down into the toilet... and then she was stepping out into the lobby of the Ministry of Magic. A check of her watch told her she was still a little early, so she took a detour to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to see her old friend, Belladonna Savage. The two had been close friends at Hogwarts, both sorted into Slytherin, though their beginnings definitely didn’t reflect the lives they were living now. Mouse hadn’t always been known as Mouse. Mare Goyle had been an extremely quiet first year with large front teeth, and the nickname had sort of been inevitable. A nickname that had stuck, even now. Being raised a Goyle hadn’t been easy, and Mouse had arrived at Hogwarts with a wide knowledge of the Dark Arts and not much else.
Bella’s story was similar. Her older brother, Liam, had been deep into Dark magic, dreaming of becoming the next Lord Voldemort. He’d done some devious and wicked things, things they’d inadvertently been a part of. They didn’t speak much about those days passed, but Mouse knew her brother was a huge reason why Bella worked as an Auror today. And she was proud at how far they’d come, and the difference they were now making to the wizarding world.
“Mouse. I’m so glad you’re here.” Bella looked up when Mouse walked into the office; her blue hair was tied up, though a few stray curls drifted around her face. “I’ve been awake all night. I’m about to lose my ever-loving mind.” Mouse gave her a curious look, moving closer to look at the brown file laid open on her desk. Bella was on the hunt for one of the Dark wizards who had worked alongside her brother, a man called Demetri Gustavich. An Albanian with a nasty streak, he was responsible for numerous muggle and muggle-born deaths. Bella had been on his tail for years, but whenever she seemed to have him cornered, he’d disappear, like smoke. Mouse looked at the image of him; unruly dark hair and black eyes, scowling as he shifted in the photograph. Time had aged him, face lined and scarred, but she could still remember the charmingly handsome young man in the Manor all those years ago. The man with a knowledge of the Dark Arts that surpassed what anybody else knew. She shivered.
“I had a report from Glasgow,” Bella continued, her tone marred with frustration. “Three dead muggle families on the same street. It was obviously him, all his trademark signs were there. He may as well have daubed his name on the wall.” Bella shook her head bitterly. “But, why Glasgow? It doesn’t make sense. It’s nowhere near the last murders... It’s like he’s playing games with me.”
Mouse sighed, reaching to take her hand, squeezing it lightly. “You should sleep,” Mouse said softly. “It’ll become clearer after a good rest. You still need to look after yourself, Bella.”
“I need to find him...” the blue-haired woman trailed off when Mouse gave her a sharp look. “I can’t let him get away with this, Mouse. He deserves to pay for what he’s done. What he did.”
“I know,” Mouse said; she was probably the only person in this building to really know. “And I don’t doubt you will. I have faith in you. But you need to sleep.”
Bella gave a weary sigh, but nodded. Shutting the file, she pushed away from her desk. “Well, I hope your day is more successful than mine. I’ll meet you after your shift.” After a quick hug, Mouse left the office and made her way to the nearest elevator. Pressing the button for the ninth floor, she watched a few Memos fluttering in the air above her head. It chugged upwards, stopping on every floor to release and admit various other Ministry workers, most of whom looked harassed and red-faced. Mouse hummed quietly to herself, until finally, the elevator opened up onto her floor; the Department of Mysteries.
Just as her watch hit seven, Mouse was stepping through the solid black door into the Room of Doors, blue flames burning from the walls. She watched as they spun when the door clicked shut behind her. Shutting her eyes, Mouse exhaled. She sensed the magic behind each door; the undiluted glow of Love, the cold vastness of Space, the pressure of Time. Then, she caught the scent of coffee and followed it to a door on her right. Putting her hand on the handle, she felt it grow warm beneath her palm, a soft click permitting her entry. Mouse pushed her way in.
The staff room was a very quiet and sombre place, reminding her strongly of the Hogwarts Library. Bookshelves covered every wall, crammed with a whole array in books on an impossible number of subjects. There was a small log burner in one corner, surrounded by a few stuffed chairs, and a small break station in the adjacent corner, mainly for copious amounts of coffee. The rest of the room was filled with desks, and all these desks were covering in research notes, open books, quills, inkwells and a colourful array of post-it notes. Quite frankly, breaks were two minutes to inhale a sandwich or make another coffee; if you weren’t in the rooms researching, you were in here, researching. Work never stopped and Mouse absolutely thrived because of it. Most of the time, everybody was too immersed in their research to make too much conversation, which suited Mouse just fine. The less talking, the better.
Jenkins Booth, an older wizard with half-moon glasses and white hair, and Aurelia Burke, a woman only a few years younger than Mouse, were already there. Jenkins was doing research into Time - specifically, Time Travel. It was a project that had been scrapped after a huge mishap in 1899, but the mysterious powers-that-be had deemed it worthy of another look. Jenkins had been working solidly on the project for eighteen months now, and had already been successful in a number of ventures. The only problem was, every leap adjusted his age and he was starting to look like a pensioner. He was only forty-eight.
Aurelia was a beautiful young woman with a burning passion for what they did. She’d also had a tougher upbringing than most; her grandfather had been a follower of Lord Voldemort, their roots murky, but Aurelia had been determined to break free of those chains. Aptly, as her nature was as sweet and pure as you could imagine, she was researching the power of Love. The strongest force in the Universe and the glue which literally held everything together. Because Life just could not survive without it. Aurelia’s dark hair was plaited over one shoulder, brown eyes soft, and she flashed Mouse a warm smile as she passed.
Mouse’s station was close to the coffee machine, a few books laying open on a hap-hazardous pile of parchment. Just this summer, Mouse had been tasked with researching the origin of Thought. She’d spent many long hours in the Brain Room, but the task was proving more difficult than she, well, thought. It was a complex matter that she was still trying to understand, and she’d started a journal, trying her best to note what ran through her mind during the day. But, she still had a long way to go and she was eager to get back to work.
Making herself a strong coffee, Mouse read through the notes she’d written the night before. She’d spent time studying the Thoughts of anger and resentment, realising that repetition in a singular Thought could create an outward manifestation - hence, the Brains. It was the break-through she’d been looking for and she had a few tests planned for today. By the time she’d finished writing up her preliminary notes, her coffee was lukewarm and she downed it before pushing away from the table.
The Brain Room was a low, rectangular chamber, dimly lit with lamps. The large tank dominated the centre of the room, filled with pearly white brains. They drifted through the murky green water, looking quite eerie and grotesque. Not to Mouse though. She loved it in here. A couple of desks were strewn about, and she set her quill and parchment down on the one closest to her. There were a few doors leading off from the main chamber, each for designated Thoughts and experiments. Quietly, Mouse moved closer, gazing into the side of the tank. She could see the tendrils on each brain, made up of minuscule images, similar to a film reel. It was truly fascinating. Today, she’d planned to further study anger, but Bella’s plight had given her a curious idea that Mouse wanted to test out.
There was no way of physically removing the brains from the tank. The potion they swam in subdued them, and research was still underway when it came to why they attacked to touch, but Mouse believed she had a good theory into why after her time spent with them. Thoughts were delicate things. Fleeting, subconscious, most of the time barely acknowledged. A stream of dialogue, ideas and opinions, something that’s a part of you but not physically. Mouse had learnt that the brains responded well to intentional thought. Legilimency played a huge part in her research, and as one particularly fat brain bobbed past her, she focused on it and projected her thoughts. Mouse imagined the brain rising from the tank and settling on her shoulder, over and over until the brain began to swim upwards.
Making a bit of a splash as it left the water, the brain landed with a slight thud on her shoulder, and Mouse hummed happily as she made her way towards the nearest door, picking up her quill and parchment as she passed. The room she entered was a lot smaller than the chamber. Cosier, a light hanging overhead, casting soft orange light over the stone walls. There was a thick rug and a square coffee table in the middle, where Mouse sat cross-legged. A small square tank filled with the same murky green liquid sat on one side, her parchment now occupying the other. Holding her arm out towards the tank, Mouse watched as the brain moved down, its tendrils thickening like tentacles to give it more support. It dropped into the tank with a plop and Mouse grinned. “There. Are you ready?”
Keeping her eyes on the brain, Mouse began to repeat a scene in her head; of Bella capturing Demetri. Again and again, she focused on what she wanted, and she wasn’t sure how long she was sat there when the tendrils’ images started to change. A smudge of blue began to appear, Bella’s signature hair colour, wand raised as she disarmed the Dark wizard and forced him to his knees. Mouse conjured feelings of victory and happiness, of success and justice, wanting to imprint as much into the Thought as possible. Finally, Mouse shut her eyes and broke the connection. She heard a splosh as the brain sank back into the depths of the tank, savouring that image of Bella capturing Demetri. She wasn’t exactly sure what outcome she was expecting, but she was looking to see if the brains outwardly Manifested themselves. Could you imprint a scene and have it play out in the physical plane?
If her theory proved correct, it would change the way wizards viewed the world forever.
(2,140)
