Oz huffed softly against her cheek. "Lazy parry," he said, as matter-of-fact as though they were fencing partners in the midst of a set, offering casual feedback on form and technique. Oz took verbal sparring as seriously as sportsman took their games with epees. This was lazy because it swung too far of the mark of something true; good insults always struck a chord, even if it was a faint one. And Oz was unlikely to go giving appointments to rakes for multiple reasons. He was as disinclined towards nepotism as anyone (or at least, as anyone who stood to inherit a sizeable estate and handsome fortune based solely on the circumstances of his birth could be — he was self-aware enough to at least recognize this as a mild hypocrisy, though he was obviously disinclined to do anything to change the facts on either side of the equation), so he wouldn't have been handing out positions to his friends on any account. Particularly not when he was Minister — the head of government position was already blamed for everything that went wrong, whether they'd had anything to do with it or not; he was hardly looking to add opportunities for anyone to criticize him — he had too much ego for that. And finally (but perhaps most importantly), none of the rakes would come ask for a job in the first place. The types of people she was talking about — womanizing gentlemen of leisure — already had all the privilege they wanted, and typically spent a good deal of energy avoiding the few responsibilities they did have. The Dempsey family owned land, which needed to be managed; decisions made about tenants and appropriate uses of buildings. There were investments to be made and overseen and moved around depending on how the markets responded, and although Oz had spent the mental energy needed to understand these things he never expected to actually do them. He would have been rather surprised if his father did, either. They hired people for that sort of thing. Maybe she'd gotten the wrong idea, because Locke worked — but even that had only come about under duress, and he still got out of good portions of his job as often as he could. The idea that all of Oz's old rakish compatriots would be lining up requesting day jobs was ludicrous. None of them wanted to wake up earlier than noon, if they could avoid it. Oz didn't want to, either — and yet here he was, Minister of Magic.
"I'm perfectly capable of getting ejected on my own merits," he grumbled. "I don't need my friends to do it for me."
Fortunately, he didn't actually believe that. He might have been on the verge of dropping out of the race, before, but he had never actually considered himself blatantly unqualified for the position. (The fact that so many people had accused him of being unqualified had probably helped, here — Oz was nothing if not stubborn in the face of antagonism). Whatever happened over the next five years, he knew he wouldn't perform so poorly as to see himself ousted from the position. Hopefully he also wouldn't make anyone angry enough to try and assassinate him, but that one was hardly to be certain of — it took a majority of the Wizengamot agreeing on the matter to fire a sitting Minister of Magic, but it only took one disgruntled assassin to kill someone. The imposter syndrome he had been feeling for several weeks now had more to do with how his internal barometer had recalculated. He had been referenced several times as having performed well during the dragon attack, from a variety of sources, but looking back on that night he could only think of the moments in which he wasn't sure he'd done enough. He'd started the campaign with his goal only to show up the other candidates, but somewhere along the line he'd started taking the election seriously — and obviously now he could do no less for the position itself. He wasn't afraid of being fired, but he was almost certain he would disappoint himself along the way. And Thomasina, he supposed — she knew him better than he knew himself, sometimes, and she expected more of him than most people did.
"I'm perfectly capable of getting ejected on my own merits," he grumbled. "I don't need my friends to do it for me."
Fortunately, he didn't actually believe that. He might have been on the verge of dropping out of the race, before, but he had never actually considered himself blatantly unqualified for the position. (The fact that so many people had accused him of being unqualified had probably helped, here — Oz was nothing if not stubborn in the face of antagonism). Whatever happened over the next five years, he knew he wouldn't perform so poorly as to see himself ousted from the position. Hopefully he also wouldn't make anyone angry enough to try and assassinate him, but that one was hardly to be certain of — it took a majority of the Wizengamot agreeing on the matter to fire a sitting Minister of Magic, but it only took one disgruntled assassin to kill someone. The imposter syndrome he had been feeling for several weeks now had more to do with how his internal barometer had recalculated. He had been referenced several times as having performed well during the dragon attack, from a variety of sources, but looking back on that night he could only think of the moments in which he wasn't sure he'd done enough. He'd started the campaign with his goal only to show up the other candidates, but somewhere along the line he'd started taking the election seriously — and obviously now he could do no less for the position itself. He wasn't afraid of being fired, but he was almost certain he would disappoint himself along the way. And Thomasina, he supposed — she knew him better than he knew himself, sometimes, and she expected more of him than most people did.
MJ is the light of my life <3