May 22nd, 1894 — starts at Department of Mysteries
Emilia had suspicions. She had catalogued them in her mind, analyzed, taken notes at home. She considered her colleagues and landed on talking to Applegate — as long as it was a day when he appeared well-groomed. He did not seem disheveled today, so Emilia waited until late morning before she found him in one of the web of rooms that encompassed the Department of Mysteries.
"Applegate," she said, with a small smile. "Would you go on a walk for tea with me? Outside."
If Mrs. Moony had asked if wanted to go on a walk to get tea with her, his answer might have been different, but she hadn't asked if he wanted to go, only if he would. Ezra knew he wore on his colleague's nerves often enough during his bad phases; he didn't need to needlessly antagonize them when he was having a good day.
"Which break room are we headed towards, then?" he asked as he put down the pitcher of swirling liquid he'd been examining. "The fifth floor usually has better biscuits. Or did you mean outside outside?" he asked, with a curious glance.
"I was fancying outside," Emilia said. She was not much of an outside tea person; the tea in the Ministry was free, and it was just as fine as the tea in London. But she did not want to get overheard by people in the Ministry. She was not even sold on talking to Applegate about this, but it was not as if she had other options — if her husband suspected that she was right, he would fly off the handle.
Ezra raised an eyebrow. Outside meant something she didn't want overheard — but not of the 'classified' variety, or else there was no reason to leave the sanctity of the Department of Mysteries. His interest was certainly piqued. Mrs. Moony and he weren't on poor terms by any stretch of the imagination, but they were also not exactly confidantes. What could she have to discuss that merited outside?
"A corner cafe opened up a few blocks east," he volunteered. "I haven't been yet, if you wanted to give that a try."
''Excellent,'' Emilia said. She was silent in their journey to the lift, up to the atrium, and towards the cafe — she did not speak again until she could see its door. ''You spoke to the Minister a few months ago?" Emilia asked, to begin. She knew he had, of course — but it was the done thing to ask an introductory question, and she thought this may tip off Applegate.
Oh, was this the subject they'd had to get away from the Ministry to discuss? Ezra's interest immediately flagged. He'd thought maybe there was something scandalous or conspiratorial going on. He didn't really care much who the new head of the department was going to be; it could just go on being Urquart's nonexistent ghost for all he was concerned. (Actually, he slightly preferred that — less oversight meant more time to spend on his own discretionary projects, which were obviously more interesting to him than the ones he was tasked with).
"Everyone did," he agreed. When there was a beat that passed without further conversation, he offered, "I thought he'd make an appointment by now. He must not like Foxglove." Appointing the assistant head to the recently vacated department head spot seemed obvious, to him; certainly it would be the choice he would make if he had no particular knowledge about the department and very little inclination to bother learning it, which he presumed was the Minister's stance. So Foxglove must have really screwed up her chat with him, Ezra supposed, for the Minister to have gone so far out of his way keeping the seat from her.
Emilia shrugged. She had a very professional relationship with Foxglove; but as she'd expressed to the Minister, she was not sure how well Foxglove would do at actually directing the department, or how willing she was to do it. She hummed. "And what do you know about my husband?" she asked; if Applegate knew much at all about Kit, it meant her little theory was right.
.
Ezra looked up in surprise at the question and his foot caught on a cobblestone. He half-tripped before he caught himself and regained his balance. What he knew (or more accurately what he had heard) about her husband wasn't the sort of stuff people discussed in polite company. It certainly wasn't the sort of thing you said to the people who had been affected by it. He ought to know; he'd been living with a mad father for most of his life, and no one ever pointed it out to him.
"Ah — he's an auror," Ezra said, placatingly evasive. "Is this related to the — Foxglove question?" He didn't see how it possibly could be, but she'd started with talking about the new Minister. If it was possible to direct the conversation back towards safer waters he was keen to do so, even if they were — boring waters.
Applegate wasn't the first person she'd seen wear that expression when talking about Kit; Emilia nodded, expression thoughtful, as if his cagey answer had been exactly what she expected. "More or less," Emilia said, simple.
She exhaled. "I've been in the Department for longer than she has."
Oh — he was starting to see what she was getting at. She'd been in the department longer than Foxglove, but Foxglove had the assistant head position. It was, she suspected, more or less related to her husband. Mrs. Moony thought she was being snubbed because of her connection to him. Ezra couldn't claim that she was wrong. People were overlooked for promotion for all sorts of reasons, some that made sense and many that didn't. He didn't think he was ever going to be in the running for it, with his reputation for being moody. Watson probably wouldn't be either, after he'd been so obviously hungover for a year or so. There were times when someone might have been disqualified for being a woman, or for not being a pureblood. Why not add her husband to the list of unsavory things to avoid in seeking out new leadership?
"Do you want the job?" he asked, puzzled. He didn't.
Emilia took a beat to consider the question. They were almost to the cafe — if the new one that Applegate had suggested was the one that she was thinking of. "I didn't think I did," Emilia said, with a self-aware smile on her face. She had not wanted to wrangle all of these people, all of their problems, until she had decided that it was a possibility. In the era where the department was run entirely by purebloods, it had not felt possible.
She didn't think she did. That probably meant that really she didn't, Ezra determined. It probably meant that the only thing that had made her care about it now was some sort of internal value system — a sense that things ought to be fair, and that in fairness it ought to be her. She didn't want the job, she just didn't want to be shut out of the job if she were the most qualified candidate. (Ezra didn't know if she was the most qualified candidate; he had never given this any thought beyond determining that he wasn't inclined to vie for it).
"Hm," he mumbled. "So what is it you want from me?" He didn't feel he was in a particularly auspicious position to help her, if she had determined to be ambitious. Maybe she disagreed.
Emilia laughed, although she had not meant to — she could not help but chuckle at the supposition that she would rely on Applegate for something. She felt mean for having done it, and hid her smile behind a hand before she could compose herself. "Oh, I don't need anything," Emilia said. "Truth be told, I asked you because I thought that if you believed I'd gone mad, you would up and tell me."
Ezra frowned at her laughter and couldn't decide whether he ought to take offense or not. Probably easier not to; he didn't really want to be engaged in a squabble with any of his coworkers, and if she was planning some sort of intra-office power-grab he actually preferred to be left well clear of it.
"I suppose I would," he agreed. He probably wouldn't have used those words — he didn't take the concept of people going mad very lightly, given the situation with his family — but he also wouldn't have entertained her if she had seemed entirely off-base or deluded about something. "Well, what are you going to do about it?" Hopefully nothing that would make the department unmanageable to work in during the interim or aftermath. He could imagine that if she intended to overstep Foxglove for the position of head, Foxglove might not be best pleased by it, and having a head and assistant head at war sounded like bad business for everybody.
Emilia shrugged her shoulders at him. "Nothing immediate," she said. Actually, she thought that she might do nothing — she did good work in the department, but she had a difficult husband and a family to support, and could not do something that would get her sacked.
"But the Ministry asks a lot of us, sometimes," she said. The next time she was asked to do something above and beyond, well — maybe she wouldn't.