February 3rd, 1891 - Minister's Office

It was a busy week - his nomination of Edric Umbridge had been publicized this morning. Now things were in the hands of the Wizengamot - but Ross didn't think that Umbridge was likely to get rejected by the parliamentary body, by virtue of his experience and his background.

The Prophet of course, had picked up on Umbridge's background. Ross frowned at the last paragraph of the article. Was he contributing to the problem, of blood equality in the Wizengamot? He'd also nominated Mrs. Skeeter, who was a halfblood and a woman, but the paper didn't mention that. Maybe he should let it go.

"If you could change one thing about the Ministry, or about policy, what would it be?" Ross asked, when Crouch came in for their weekly one-on-one. He was sitting behind his desk; there were papers on a few projects on it, as well as the paper from that morning.

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Roman Crouch Roberto Devine

  

Things had been in a flurry as Roman handled things that his occupation called for him to take care of. He liked Ross and thought he made a decent enough Minister. On Romans part, there had been minimal bitter feelings about working for the man who had beat him in the election.

"Me, sir?" Roman said, before giving it some thought. "I would, perhaps, try and do a little more for the more underprivileged among us, sir. Perhaps make it so that it isn't so difficult, for example, for a known creature or part-creature to find himself occupation if he is able to keep his condition from negatively impacting others. Or those less wealthy."

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   Justin Ross

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set by Bee

Crouch's answer was more progressive than Ross may have expected, and he leaned back in his chair. "That's a good idea," he said, because it was, "I have been thinking a great deal about equity, recently. And about ensuring that our Ministry is more helpful to the people."

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"I think you have done well in that regard thus far. Removing that ridiculous half-breed ban meant a lot to people." While Roman was not so progressive that he relished the idea of his future children being in super close proximity to part veelas and part vampires (but mostly part veelas), he also felt they did have a right to magical education when wizarding blood also made up part of their heritage. Not to mention the ban had blocked even fully human wizards from education due to their poor background causing lack of documentation. "What sorts of ideas have you been mulling over?"

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set by Bee

The half-breed ban had made a major difference, and Ross nodded to acknowledge it — if Roman Crouch considered it a good thing, then it really had been a good thing, considering they had once run against one another. "I think a more meritocracy-based Ministry would benefit a lot of people," Ross said, thinking out loud, "And — this may actually be more difficult, given the Board of Governors. I would like to make education more accessible to Hogwarts' working class students, if possible."

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Roman could get on board with a meritocracy-based Ministry. He valued his own skills and abilities as well as those of others. Such talents should be rewarded, that much was true. "That would be splendid though it might rankle the older set of Ministry folks, the ones that firmly believe their grandson should have this or that position," he mused, thinking of a few in particular right off the top of his head. "I think it could be done if you convince them that being educated would lessen magical accidents gone wrong even more than the First Year Fund does."

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set by Bee

"Perhaps they could be convinced for budgetary reasons," Ross said, half-joking, "Our Magical Accidents & Catastrophes department would not to be nearly as robust if there weren't uneducated hedgewitches running around." That was the real trouble, of course — the issue of finding somewhere for the money to come from was probably going to be the argument the Board of Governors made.

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"That's true enough," Roman said with a chuckle. "Would you like me to see if there is room in the budgets for a bit of scaleback from a variety of things for the purpose of funneling it into this endeavor?" A sickle here, a galleon there - it could potentially add up into the amount needed.

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set by Bee

"That would be excellent," Ross said brightly. "Can you have a memo on the proposed cuts to me by this time next week?" He trusted Roman Crouch, at least mostly, but Ross still wanted to review these things.

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"Certainly. I'll get started on it right away," Roman assured. He greatly enjoyed working with balancing numbers. Had he been a muggle, perhaps he'd have chosen to be an accountant. At least he was pretty sure muggle accountants dealt with numbers like budgers and balance sheets.

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wrap?

  

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set by Bee