12th June, 1894 — Ministry of Magic Atrium

Jude was hanging about in the Atrium; he had been for some time. He had an appointment with a Ministry official, with whom he had been exchanging letters for some time (less productively than he would have liked), but the welcome witch on duty hadn’t let him through yet. Jude suspected they were stalling. In another ten minutes, she’d probably tell him Mr. — had taken ill and gone home. Hm. People and questions they didn’t want to answer.

In the meantime, he had read his way through a collection of Ministry notices and public service announcements – presently working his way through a review of the Wizengamot’s current cases and proposed-legislation-in-process – when one of his old friends from Public Information Services ambled past, apparently on her way out. Jude waved her over. “Miss Sinistra,” he said, with a wry smile. “How are you?”

He tapped the Wizengamot update. “This one of yours?”

---

Viola Sinistra/Henry Berkwood

  

---

It had been one of those days, and Viola had very nearly made it out of the Ministry at last before she heard someone call her name. Really, she should have known better.

Turning, she returned the smile, even if hers was a bit tired. "Mr. Wright. I'm well, thank you. Just on my way out." She looked to the announcement he was indicating. "Yes, I believe that's one of mine."

---

  

“Oh well, don’t let me hold you up here,” he said sympathetically, because she had confirmed she was leaving and she looked as though she didn’t want to be here a moment more then necessary. He could just let her be on her way without badgering her, but – he glanced across the atrium again, weighing up his chances of actually getting to achieve what he’d come for (slim to none) and changing tack.

“...Do you mind if I walk with you, though?” Jude added, casually hopeful. He knew she would see through him at once, probably; and he didn’t want to slow Viola down if she was headed home, but he could keep up a pace; or he could perhaps get a drink or some food with her, if she wasn’t in a hurry. (And either way: he was more likely to nudge a hint or two out of her about any whispers of the suffrage bill’s progress – or even just the real complaints about her day – if they weren’t loitering in the building.)

---

  

---

"If you like," Viola said, turning to continue her journey out of the Ministry. "I presume you're at the Ministry for something specific today?" she asked conversationally. Well, obviously. Anyone who didn't work there was usually at the Ministry for a specific reason.

---

  

He fell into step with her in answer. “Do you know Mr. D—, of the Werewolf Capture Unit?” Jude queried, with a shrug. “He was supposed to see me, but –” he shot her a knowing look, to say no luck. She must deal with representatives of most every department, from one day or another; she probably knew how things worked here well enough without him going on about it.

“So not as productive a day as I’d have liked,” he admitted, pulling a face. “How was yours? Besides long?” (She had looked very glad to leave.)

---

  

---

"I believe I've spoken to him a time or two," Viola said. She ended up talking to most people, it seemed, one way or the other. Or at the very least she spoke to their secretaries and interns--whoever was low enough on the ladder to be tasked with delivering messages to her department.

"Any day we aren't dealing with some larger disaster is a good enough day," she said honestly, because it was true on a number of levels. No one wanted terrible things to happen in general, but the paperwork when something did happen only prolonged the suffering.

---

  

Jude snorted. “Then you’ve gotten further than I have,” he remarked. (Next time he’d try and catch him in the morning, on his way in.)

“And fair enough,” he added, if there had been no disasters in the magical world today. It had been years since he had worked in the Ministry, but he could well imagine how her office got when there was bad news to share. But if there wasn’t – “The voting committee’s been quiet lately too, it seems,” Jude said, clearly fishing. “Do you know if the Wizengamot’s expecting anything from them soon?”

---

  

---

Viola sighed. "No," she said, honestly. And frankly she wasn't sure what to make of the whole thing. Vi thought that, even if the Wizengamot decided to grant universal suffrage, they'd figure out how to make something else worse. That was usually the way of things, in Viola's estimation. "I wish they'd say something soon, if only for something new to talk about."

---

  

He had to laugh at that. Jude had wondered whether the silence on that front was because they were busy readying some kind of statement or vote or wording of a bill – but if whispers of it hadn’t even reached the other end of the Ministry yet, then things evidently weren’t as solid as that. He was hoping for a positive outcome from it, when it was put forward, but he could only imagine how long the committee – and the Wizengamot, when it reached them – would talk themselves in circles.

“So no one’s been discussing much of anything else?” Jude asked, shaking his head in disappointment. (The reform on suffrage was important – but he’d hoped the Wizengamot would be grumbling about more prospective bills than that, hoped that Dempsey would have thrown caution to the winds a little more.) “Don’t you hear all sorts, though? Who else’s messes have you been cleaning up today?” He was only half-joking – he suspected a lot of what Miss Sinistra and her department did was put a cleaner spin on information that would have leaked about the Ministry’s inglorious doings anyway.

---

  

---

Viola smiled wryly. "Oh, there's always some kind of mess to clean up, isn't there? The only difference is usually how big." She, of course, was too good at her job to actually tell Mr. Wright the exact details, but he wasn't a fool. Anyone with a brain knew that not everything that went on in the Ministry made it out to the public unfiltered. The government couldn't function otherwise, though that was probably the kindest possible way to think about it. "Though if I'd wanted a quiet job, I should have picked a different career path," she joked.

---

  

He remembered the days of his youth at the Ministry – even a little time on the inside, training in law, had been enough of a glimpse to know that she wasn’t exaggerating in the least. And her joke distracted him from needling her further, for a moment, intrigued – “What would you have chosen to do instead, if you’d wanted the quiet life?” Jude teased, thoughtfully.

They were not of an age to have gone to school – although he thought she had been a Slytherin too – so he didn’t know what else she might have dreamed of doing, but he was sure she had had some aims or ambitions. Or, rather, in this case, places she did not want to be.

---

  

---

Viola thought the easiest job she could have had was if she managed to find some well-to-do bloke to marry her, but she didn't say that. It was more mercenary than she thought she was really capable of--and she'd make a very poor housewife, anyway. "Perhaps I would have tried my hand at a trade," she said after a moment's thought. "Or worked in a shop, since I don't think I'd be happy with anything too isolating." Alas, working at the Ministry paid better than being a shop assistant, and that would always be more important.

---

  

There was a certain honour in a trade that probably didn’t exist as much as it should in public information, even if most of the work in trades was underpaid for longer hours, damaging to one’s health and generally exploitative; so Jude didn’t blame her for the desk job instead. “I can see that,” he said with a laugh – at least in a shop there was a certain element of socialising, as she must have at the Ministry too. A window to more of the world from her desk.

“I bet you’d have made a pretty good reporter, too,” Jude considered, with a wry grin as he joked: “Only then I suppose you’d have the disasters, and none of the cleaning up to do.”

---

  

---

Viola laughed. "You might be right," she said. "If only I'd thought of that at the time." She didn't entirely mind the cleaning up of messes, if she was honest, though. Oh, it wasn't her favorite, but she probably wouldn't have made it very long if she didn't enjoy it a bit.

---

  

“‘Course, you’ve got the secrecy of an Unspeakable down, too,” Jude joked, definitely only teasing now. He didn’t know what precisely the department of mysteries involved (and nor must she, or any of the Ministry beyond it), but he was sure it required all kinds of higher qualifications as well.

He had been walking with her, out of the Ministry’s Hogsmeade exit and down the high street; but now he glanced at the Three Broomsticks, considering dinner or a drink. He nodded towards the door. “A drink, for your troubles?” Jude offered easily. “And I promise I won’t ask you anything else about the Wizengamot.” (Whether she chose to be enlightening or not on anything of importance, she was fortunately good company regardless.)

---

  

---

"Sure," Viola said. "I'm not expected home for a bit, so a drink would be nice." Mr. Wright probably made for better company than many of the people who Vi had to talk to all day, and she would be silly to say no to a free drink, after all. "Lead the way."

---