12th November, 1895 — Ministry of Magic, Level ??
He always seemed to forget he had worked at the Ministry once until he set foot back in it again and the memories came flooding back. It hadn’t been traumatic – he hadn’t worked there long enough for it to be traumatic – and the more Florian actually witnessed of the working Ministry, the less it felt like the Ludicrous Patents office was anything like the rest of it. Ludicrous Patents had always been somewhat... unserious.
And even then, it hadn’t felt quite like him, coming and going from the Ministry of Magic every day of his life, whatever weirdness had been waiting on his desk. True, there was something more mercenary and heartless about his current gig, but at least it was similarly interesting. Usually interesting, anyway – he had been sent to the Ministry today to lurk in the smooth tiled hallways near the Wizengamot courtrooms, to try and catch the defendant in one of the more contentious (read: juicier) trials of the day on their way in or out. Not that he had particularly high hopes for the pictures he’d caught – he could hardly change his glass plates fast enough, for how rapidly the accused been ushered out – and by the corridor mutterings he’d heard, there weren’t any other particularly high-profile offences on the docket today, so this might all have been a grand waste of time.
But he didn’t want to go back to the offices as close to empty-handed as this, so when Florian got in the lift, still wearing his Visitor badge and carrying his work camera, supposedly on his way back out to the Atrium and thence to London, he took a casual detour, and stepped out on an entirely different floor. Games and Sports was the only floor he fancied he knew well enough to know precisely where he was going, but he knew the general layout of these things, and suspected he might manage to wander towards the big shot offices on this floor, and see if he could dig up anything potentially newsworthy. Or, er, if anything potentially newsworthy would just happen to wander across his path. Half of the trick of these things was just looking like you knew where you were going, looking as if you belonged there – head high, every right to be there. Florian wasn’t much good at looking like he was in a hurry anywhere, but fortunately most other people he passed seemed too harried and preoccupied to even notice him.
He wandered through another door – the office or meeting room had seemed perfectly empty – and his eye caught on a thick-looking file on the desk. Hm. Something in it had flagged his attention as particularly intriguing – Florian had casually flipped it open when someone fell to a stop outside the door. He swiftly retracted his hand from it as they peered in.
And even then, it hadn’t felt quite like him, coming and going from the Ministry of Magic every day of his life, whatever weirdness had been waiting on his desk. True, there was something more mercenary and heartless about his current gig, but at least it was similarly interesting. Usually interesting, anyway – he had been sent to the Ministry today to lurk in the smooth tiled hallways near the Wizengamot courtrooms, to try and catch the defendant in one of the more contentious (read: juicier) trials of the day on their way in or out. Not that he had particularly high hopes for the pictures he’d caught – he could hardly change his glass plates fast enough, for how rapidly the accused been ushered out – and by the corridor mutterings he’d heard, there weren’t any other particularly high-profile offences on the docket today, so this might all have been a grand waste of time.
But he didn’t want to go back to the offices as close to empty-handed as this, so when Florian got in the lift, still wearing his Visitor badge and carrying his work camera, supposedly on his way back out to the Atrium and thence to London, he took a casual detour, and stepped out on an entirely different floor. Games and Sports was the only floor he fancied he knew well enough to know precisely where he was going, but he knew the general layout of these things, and suspected he might manage to wander towards the big shot offices on this floor, and see if he could dig up anything potentially newsworthy. Or, er, if anything potentially newsworthy would just happen to wander across his path. Half of the trick of these things was just looking like you knew where you were going, looking as if you belonged there – head high, every right to be there. Florian wasn’t much good at looking like he was in a hurry anywhere, but fortunately most other people he passed seemed too harried and preoccupied to even notice him.
He wandered through another door – the office or meeting room had seemed perfectly empty – and his eye caught on a thick-looking file on the desk. Hm. Something in it had flagged his attention as particularly intriguing – Florian had casually flipped it open when someone fell to a stop outside the door. He swiftly retracted his hand from it as they peered in.