30 August, 1893 — Minister Ross' Office, Ministry

Juliana's desk was in a state of upheaval. This had been the case more often than not since the news had broken about Minister Ross' resignation; a half-dozen letters and reports and policies came in every day from various departments, trying to squeeze through as much red tape as they could now before the election. Some were afraid the next Minister might disapprove of their requests, but many more were innocuous. People who had been working in the Ministry a long time, another secretary had confided in Juliana, knew that nothing productive ever happened during a new Minister's first few months in office, so they were all trying to ensure their programs didn't get stuck in limbo during the adjustment period. The timing of it was terrible, really. She had been working on another paper just before he'd announced and now she'd all but forgotten what it was even about. On most occasions she drew a firm line against staying late — your lack of planning is not my emergency, as she might tell the messengers from various departments — but even so she was mentally exhausted by the end of the day, which didn't leave much of her left for research. Not that she blamed Minister Ross, of course. It wasn't as though he knew what she did after work. And — she did not exactly know the specifics, but she did not get the sense that the timing of the resignation had been entirely his idea. He was a good man, but even good men had to make concessions sometimes.

She scanned through the parchment on the top of the latest stack, looking for any clerical errors, even so much as a t not properly crossed... and to her relief she finally found one, which allowed her to push the entire report and all its associated tasking over towards the revise and resubmit corner of her desk. It was her favorite corner of her desk — it was the only one which was reliably cleaned off at the end of each day. This seemed like a good moment to pause and celebrate, so she dropped her quill and bustled off to make tea. She poked her head into Mr. Crouch's office to see if he wanted any (he did not), skipped past Mr. Macmillan's closed door, and set about preparing a tray. She wasn't really supposed to take tea breaks just for herself, though she often did. Any time Minister Ross was physically present, he could be counted on to at least accept a cup, even if he didn't drink it, and this saved her from any withering expressions on behalf of Macmillan when she eventually made it back to her desk with her own cup and plate of biscuits.

She doubled up on the biscuits this time; it had been a long day already, and the gingersnaps had been freshly delivered that morning.

When the water was done she poured the tea and carried the tray down to the Minister's door, which she pushed open with her foot (a motion made graceful through extensive practice). "Tea, sir," she announced.

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Justin Ross / Cassius Lestrange

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Ross had thought that retiring would make his schedule easier. Instead, he was constantly offering feedback on meetings and projects, and signing infinite pieces of paper, and having meetings, and trying to figure out how to prep the next Minister. Between all of that, he was trying to figure out who he wanted to be the next Minister.

He didn't have an answer.

Tea was an excellent distraction.

"Thank you, Mrs. Ainsworth," Ross said. He waved one hand towards his now-open door. "Would you have a few minutes to chat?" He could not trust the opinions of many people on the election — but Mrs. Ainsworth was as close to an external-party as the Ministry of Magic had.

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Juliana ought to have been used to being called Mrs. Ainsworth by now, but it still always struck her as odd. In fairness to her, perhaps, she had only been Mrs. Ainsworth for less than a year, and she had been Juliana Binns for her entire life prior to that — and unlike some brides-to-be, she had not spent months prior to the wedding dreamily scrawling out her married name in a variety of handwritings in her journal.

"Of course. What kind of a secretary would I be if I refused?" she joked, as she moved to set the tray down and then circled back to shut the door. She wasn't sure why she had assumed this was a closed-door kind of chat. Maybe something in his tone, or maybe it was more the moment that they were in; although Macmillan had not yet announced a campaign of course everyone expected that he would, and Crouch's brother had announced he would run. Anything that was sensitive normally was triply so now.

"What's on your mind, sir?" she said, as she began fixing his cup. "I hope the meeting with the ambassador this morning didn't give you any trouble." That was one of the meetings she would have canceled if it had been in her power, but things got a bit sensitive when diplomats were involved; they couldn't be told to just hold their horses until the Minister had time to hear our their trifling concerns. At least, they couldn't be often told that.

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Ross smiled thinly. "The ambassador was easy," he said. Other than the kraken, the international and muggle-facing aspects of his position had not been particularly difficult in the time that he was Minister, and at least he knew that the ambassador was not planning on announcing a campaign. The German ambassador did always seem to believe that his problems were the most important problems, but they had been a nice reprieve today.

"It's expected that I will, eventually, endorse a candidate," Ross said. "And I must confess that I do not have any clear choices."

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Juliana pursed her lips and hmmmed her agreement. He didn't need to express to her that there was no suitable replacement for him in the race, just as she didn't need to tell him that. It was a problem she'd devoted a significant amount of brainpower to already, though she had been keeping her thoughts to herself so far. Well, aside from the hourlong rant her husband had been privy to on the subject of Picardy.

"You need a shortlist of your most important policies we can check them against," she said. "There's no perfect match, but we can find the best fit to carry on the more important issues. The bill you just passed is fairly iron-clad," (by design; it was as iron-clad as their office could make it). "So I think we can safely take the nepotism issue off the list, for now."

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Mrs. Ainsworth was right — the nepotism issue was largely solved, for the moment. Ross would have liked to fire some incompetents, but that would have required an act of God. So he had to leave it as it was.

"These are all basic pieces, but — I'd like answers on their Wizengamot appointment plans," Ross said. "They must be open to voting reform, and opposed to bringing back the ban on half-breeds at Hogwarts."

  

Juliana nodded and hmmed again. "Wizengamot appointment plans are more difficult than policy stances," she remarked. Not that candidates didn't already have firm ideas before they were elected, or in some cases even make promises during their campaign to their potential appointees, but those were typically the product of closed-door meetings, not the sort of thing that might be reported in the newspaper or even necessarily gossiped about. "I can write the League and see if they'll surface it during the debate," she offered. "They're planning to host one in mid-September — they've asked you to moderate, actually, so there's a handful of dates they sent for your perusal. I already checked them against your calendar and marked the ones with no conflicts. It should be in your inbox," she continued.

"As far as the other two issues, I'm afraid that doesn't narrow it down much," she admitted. "At least based on what they've publicly declared. No one has made any direct comments pertaining to the halfbreed ban one way or another, at least that I've heard, and no one has been cited in the Prophet as being against voting reform — though there are a few candidates who have been noted as pro. But — well. Given his history —" this was perhaps the most loaded word Juliana had ever spoken to Minister Ross. "— it would not be much of a leap to assume Picardy would be in favor of the education ban. And —" She paused, wrinkled her nose, and glanced towards the door. "— has Mr. Macmillan said anything to you about running?"

Everyone assumed he would run, of course, but nothing had been announced yet.

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   Justin Ross

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

He nodded thoughtfully. The League would submit a question, and then Ross would hopefully be able to hear the answers — and if anyone named a specific person, that meant something, and if they mentioned process, that was also helpful. As to the conservatives —

"If Picardy wins I'm burning the place down on my way out," Ross muttered darkly. He shifted in his chair. "Maxime is — also a concern." Ross didn't know the man well, but he agreed with the Prophet — Maxime had a history of conservatism that he was not sure he could abide.

"We've always known that Macmillan would like to run," Ross said, "But as to whether or not he will? He's made no indication." If Macmillan didn't run now, it was an indication of ambitional impotence that Ross had never expected to see — but people were surprising.

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   Juliana Ainsworth

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.

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   Justin Ross

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"He's French," Ross agreed. Even the purist old guard that may enjoy Maxime's conservative bent was likely to balk at the fact of his Frenchness. He nodded at her consideration of Lupin. "Lupin has always been — competent, and a good leader," he said, "It's hard to say what he would want to do as Minister." Lupin was a bit of an enigma to Ross, in that way — would he govern as a conservative or as a centrist?

"You and I know Macmillan well," Ross agreed. They did not need to discuss him overmuch. "I'm most curious about Crouch, and Dempsey." An odd position to be in, but he did not think he understood Dempsey well, and he knew Crouch but was not sure how the man would be as a minister.

  

Juliana considered. "Aldous Crouch isn't much for campaigning," she surmised. She knew of maybe one or two campaign events he'd had, and they were not impassioned rallies on the streets of London; they were small, from what she'd heard, and the atmosphere demure. Something that befit his personality, but was a far cry from some of the other campaigner's tactics. These sorts of events had an appeal to a certain crowd — the wealthy, powerful men who were invited to them — but they were rather limited in scope and consequently so was their reach. "And his department isn't especially high profile. It's not one to make headlines — in part due to how well he runs it," she observed. The Minister's Office worked closely with the Department of International Magical Cooperation, of course, and she had never found Aldous Crouch anything less than impeccably competent. But impeccably competent was not, perhaps, a compelling reason for anyone to campaign on his behalf or even vote for him.

"I think his chances would be much improved by your recommendation," she said. "They may even depend on it. I don't know that he'll build the momentum otherwise. And whichever candidate you endorse will certainly have momentum."

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"There's certain things I could have done more of," Ross said, with a wave of his hand meant to encompass it. "If Crouch won't take us backwards — and if he's movable on some items — then I think he'd do a fine job." Aldous Crouch was no Balthazar Urquart — but he also wasn't from one of the wealthy families whose grip on power Ross had tried to shake.

"What're your thoughts on the others? Whitledge, Wright?"

  

"Whitledge would be a waste of your recommendation," she pronounced immediately. "She wouldn't win even with it." Privately, Juliana was annoyed that she had chosen to run at all; her lack of experience diminishing women who could have held office by association of her gender. And of course there was no way she could win. "Dempsey is more progressive than I had assumed when he announced — perhaps that's my poor assumption, given his family," she admitted, thinking of how few of his sisters were married. "But for a wealthy man of a certain age it's often a safe assumption. And Wright —" she paused, considering how to frame what she wanted to say.

"He may be another in the waste of your recommendation category," she admitted. "He's a radical progressive and makes no secret of it. But he does have something of a following, among those circles. It's a tricky thing. I don't think he will win, but he might divide the progressive vote enough to make someone else lose. I hope," (she was doing everything in her power to assure) "that his campaign focuses on the divide between him and the conservatives, and doesn't try to disparage the others on his side of the field."

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Ross nodded at her assessment of Whitledge. Dempsey was likely the most aligned with Ross, at least in terms of policy — but Ross still was not sure what to make of the man.

Wright was another question. "I have sympathy with that circle, obviously," he said, "But I — do not think that Britain is ready. And I would rather he sink Maxime than Crouch."

  

"Agreed. And hopefully he can see the sense of that," Juliana said. (If he did not, she would certainly expend every effort to convince him of it). "There's no sense in letting a desire for unachievable changes stymie the incremental changes that are within reach."

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"And I'm not endorsing someone liked by Spavin," Ross added absently. Prewett could claim to be a centrist all he wanted; Ross did not trust any remnants of Spavin's legacy, and considered Fitzroy Prewett to be the best example of nepotism the Ministry currently had.

"So it'll be Crouch, Dempsey, or — perhaps Lupin," Ross said, finally. "But I have some time to decide." He did not feel particularly good about any of his options — but he did have them.