Juliana had to bite the inside of her lip hard to hold back her smile at the remark about Picardy. There were many reasons Juliana had to be fond of Minister Ross, and he gave her a new one at least once a week, it seemed.
"I don't know how seriously to treat Maxime's candidacy," she admitted. "He has the credentials, certainly, but there's no escaping his — well, he's French," she said with a baffled shrug, as if she had tried to come up with other ways to say this and finally landed on the most obvious. "I just can't imagine England would elect a French Minister of Magic, no matter how long he's lived here or worked here. It's just one of those things. Perhaps if he was the only conservative in the race, but with Picardy and Lupin as alternatives, I just can't see it. Lupin is a bit of a dark horse, by the way," she continued with a half-frown. "He doesn't have much of a political profile to speak of — no loud opinions on specific issues, that I've been able to find — so it's hard to anticipate what he'll do in any given situation. It's — easier with someone like Picardy, or Maxime," she said with a shrug. "Not that anything they've said so far is particularly agreeable, but it does certainly make it easier to parse their position."
She sipped her tea. "As for Mister Macmillan... well —" She offered the Minister a look and hoped what she wanted to convey went without saying.
"I don't know how seriously to treat Maxime's candidacy," she admitted. "He has the credentials, certainly, but there's no escaping his — well, he's French," she said with a baffled shrug, as if she had tried to come up with other ways to say this and finally landed on the most obvious. "I just can't imagine England would elect a French Minister of Magic, no matter how long he's lived here or worked here. It's just one of those things. Perhaps if he was the only conservative in the race, but with Picardy and Lupin as alternatives, I just can't see it. Lupin is a bit of a dark horse, by the way," she continued with a half-frown. "He doesn't have much of a political profile to speak of — no loud opinions on specific issues, that I've been able to find — so it's hard to anticipate what he'll do in any given situation. It's — easier with someone like Picardy, or Maxime," she said with a shrug. "Not that anything they've said so far is particularly agreeable, but it does certainly make it easier to parse their position."
She sipped her tea. "As for Mister Macmillan... well —" She offered the Minister a look and hoped what she wanted to convey went without saying.
Prof. Marlowe Forfang
Jules