January 8th, 1891 — Just outside the Ministry

The weather had conceded to a dull combination of drizzle and snow, obscuring the way ahead and turning the pavement into a perilous mess of slush and concrete. Two ladies dashed by Bragi, one holding a cloth bag over her head while scurrying for cover. As was a rare event in this job he so loved, Bragi felt miserable this evening. It was a Friday, he'd had to stay late at the Ministry, and now the heavens were treating him cruelly. His coat was not thick enough, and he shivered as he walked. His arms were wrapped around a clutch of parchments, and while he'd used waterproof ink, the parchment he'd have to dry when he got indoors, and just hope that Mr Crouch didn't mind wrinkled documents.

Bragi had been heading to the homey pub along from the Ministry with the plan of cheering himself up with a drink by the fire. But, alas, he was doomed in that endeavour too — the lad suddenly slipped on the snow and landed hard on his back and hands, helplessly aghast as his papers went flying. A motorcar honked its horn as it rolled on by, while the rain-snow continued to beat down on him mercilessly, this woebegone wide-eyed fellow, his pretty orange hair seeming almost to wilt in resignation that today was just not his day.

Fortitude Greengrass

  

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Ford should probably have been home by now, preparing for whatever social events the weekend would be filled with, but Isabelle's little break-out last week had put him a bit behind on things and he simply refused to let the undone tasks spill over into the following week yet again. Verity might berate him when he got home with less than an hour to change before they had to be off at someone's house for a dinner party, but she'd survive. Ford needed to keep in good standing at his job and keep a steady income in order to keep the family afloat, though of course neither Verity nor any of his sisters knew that. He crossed the t's and dotted the i's on the final piece of overdue paperwork and deposited them in the correct office, then headed for the door.

He usually flooed home, but when he reached the Atrium he discovered that the fireplaces were down for maintenance, according to the sign (so at least one of the maintenance types could read, presumably, although they kept disregarding the signs he placed around the Spirit Division when they came to clean there). This was terribly inconvenient, but as the maintenance man explained they had hardly expected the floos to be in high demand on, essentially, Friday evening. Ford couldn't much argue with that, but as he turned instead to the front door he was dreading the fuss Verity was going to make when he finally got home. The maintenance fellow had said the nearest floo was in a pub just down the street, so that was where he was headed — but he'd barely gotten outside when he saw a man he recognized vaguely from another Ministry department fall in quite a spectacular fashion. Turning up the collar of his coat the best he could against the icy rain, Ford started towards him.

"Goodness, are you alright?" he called as he approached and offered his hand. Ford could never be in too big a rush to help someone in need, even if their invitation tonight had been to dine with the Minister of Magic himself. "Oh, your papers — they're everywhere," he said sympathetically as he cast a glance around. This would take some minutes to collect, at least, and that was if the wind didn't pick up and make mischief with them in the meantime. Of course, it would have been much easier done with magic, but they could hardly whip out a wand on the streets of Muggle London.

  

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Set by Lady!

From his place fallen and sodden on the pavement, Bragi watched in helpless distress as his papers disappeared into the crowded Winter evening. What a dratted, awful day. Then, as if from parted clouds, a hand came down and offered him assistance, and he instinctively took it, his light form pulled easily to his feet. But as this happened he felt a sharp sting, and realised his hands were badly grazed from the fall.

What a clumsy goose he was! This hadn't even been the first time he'd grazed his hands falling recently!

Realising he'd left some blood on the poor fellow, Bragi gasped; "oh dear — I'm so sorry..." and wiped his hands on his trousers, which were wet with snow, only making his palms sting even more. He gazed up briefly into the fair face of the concerned young man, then watched as another one of his parchments got caught up in the spokes of another motorcar, torn to shreds in the blink of an eye. "Oh, I'm a dolt", he moaned, wishing today had never happened. "A dire, dire fool."

  

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Ford hadn't even noticed the blood until the other man did; they were hardly lacking for wetness in this climate, so it hadn't occurred to him as he'd helped the man up that there was anything amiss with his hand. "Oh, don't —" Ford said as the other gentleman wiped his hand on his trousers, cringing slightly. He wasn't sure why he had such an immediate reaction when the man's trousers were none of his concern at all. It wasn't as though he was particularly fashion-conscious (though, with three sisters, he was hardly unaware of the subject). Maybe it was just the secondhand anguish of feeling they might be stained beyond repair. Ford had carefully budgeted out every clothing expense through the end of the season, so a pair of trousers being prematurely retired would have been quite the setback.

"Here," he offered, producing a handkerchief from inside his coat and pressing it into the man's bloody hand before he could resist. "You tend to that, and I'll see about your papers."

Of course, the offer was easier made than accomplished; he didn't know how he was meant to get all of these things back in the middle of a winter storm, without the use of his wand, but he was certainly going to try.

  

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Set by Lady!

Even in his haze of misery, Bragi was faintly aware that the other man's air of calm seemed to be giving Bragi leave to panic more. But no, he mustn't panic. He was an official representative of the Ministry, and a well-regarded young sort in Hogsmeade — he must keep it together.

He did not recognise his calm saviour, which meant he was most likely a muggle — so Bragi set aside the thought of finding somewhere to fix his grazes with a spell, and instead accepted the handkerchief gratefully, albeit with a most apologetic glance. Dabbing at his bloody hands absentmindedly, Bragi watched as the fellow straightened up and looked for the papers; most of which were well and truly gone.

"No, please, it's quite okay — it's too —" Too late now? Or too dangerous? Certainly the latter was true as another motorcar trundled by unnecessarily close to the pavement. "Do be careful", he begged, hoping the stranger wasn't eyeing any of the parchments that had flown out into the road.

  

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Careful, yes, certainly — very good advice, he realized as another motorcar sped through the street. He had his wand in his pocket, and if it really came down to it he could have saved himself from peril, but that was bound to cause quite a scene — and unless these were the Minister of Magic's personal affairs scattered to the wind, it was unlikely that anyone would deem it a necessary commotion, just to save a stack of paperwork. It did make sense to try and recover as many of them as possible, since they likely held at least some shred of information Muggles ought not to see... but even if the top of each page openly declared the existence of a wizarding society, it might not be too terrible. They might simply think it was fiction. Certainly it would be easier to muck about with the memories of one or two Muggles who'd read the wrong thing than it would be to contain a whole street if he accidentally blew up a motorcar trying to defend himself.

Ford dropped to one knee and started to pick up the papers that had only made it to the few feet around where the man had fallen. As he collected them he felt the icy sludge saturating the knee of his trousers, and numbing his hands — he hadn't brought gloves, since he'd expected to floo straight home, but he'd certainly be packing them in his coat pockets for any future trips to work, just in case something like this happened again.

"I don't know that you'll be able to salvage these," he admitted, eyeing the runny ink of the papers in his hands. And, of course, the ones in the street were almost certainly lost forever — after having been run over by two motorcars, hardly any were still in one piece. He fished out one that was floating atop a slushy puddle and frowned at it. "I hope it's nothing terribly important."

  

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Set by Lady!

In truth, Bragi was more than a little relieved that the kind stranger had not reacted to Bragi's helpless self-admonishment. He was perhaps some mixture of diplomatic and justifiably distracted by the escaped papers. Bragi managed to grab another of said papers, but only because it got blown up against his shoe. His saviour was more successful, having gathered together a number of parchments, now soggy and smudged with ink.

"It'll be alright I think; I always make copies before I take anything home." Bragi was a fastidious worker. But it did mean he wouldn't be able to get any work done over the weekend. He gazed sadly down at the ruined parchment in his hand. This one had a hoofprint on it.

"I was going to get a drink at the Swan & Crown, I'd very much offer to buy you one as a thank you, but I imagine..." he drifted off. He imagined all this fellow wanted to do was get home and forget that he'd ever met the unlucky little wretch called Bragi Holm.

  

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The Swan and Crown was where he was headed, too, as the maintenance man had indicated they had a floo in a back room they'd let you use for a knut. He was supposed to be headed home, though. He'd already reflected that Verity was going to be cross with him if he didn't leave enough time to change for dinner, so he ought to regretfully decline and be on his way, but... there was a sort of feeling about being invited for a drink by someone he barely knew (didn't know, really; he recognized him from passing in the atrium on occasion but only because his hair was the sort of color that was noticeable, and he didn't know his name or even which department he worked for). There was a sort of thrill to it, because it was so unexpected and spontaneous and not the sort of thing that usually happened to him at all. Ford didn't think of himself as particularly invitation worthy — the card for dinner tonight had come from an acquaintance of his father's and was mostly from pity, he thought, as people tried to gradually ease them back into the social scene — but here was an invitation, the second in a week, and it had him feeling suddenly like perhaps he could be invitation worthy. Perhaps he could be the sort of interesting person who did things spontaneously in the evenings. Perhaps Noble could take Verity to dinner tonight, or perhaps he could swoop in with only five minutes to spare before they had to leave, and not change for dinner and not say where he'd been and not care if Verity was upset about it.

"Yeah, alright," he said brightly, cutting the other man off as he prepared to be turned down. "Let's get a drink. I'm Ford Greengrass, by the way."

  

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Set by Lady!

If ever there was a polite moment for an interruption, this was it — and Fortitude Greengrass seized it with alarming grace, reassuring Bragi that the invitation was not as foolish as he'd thought.

Bragi was wide-eyed with surprise for a moment and then said; "okay then!" in a higher voice than usual. "I'm — I'm Bragi Holm", he introduced himself, finding it difficult not to offer an automatic handshake. (His hands were grazed, and currently occupied with the handkerchief and what little parchment they'd managed to salvage.)

"Erm... do you work around here Mr Greengrass? he voiced hesitantly as they began along the pavement towards the pub. He'd been quite sure his saviour was most likely a muggle, but something was niggling at him that he might be a Ministry worker like Bragi.

  

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Bragi was a strange name, Ford thought, but it wasn't something he would ever say. He was a diplomat at heart — you had to be, dealing with mers, or goblins, or spirits, each of which had vastly different cultures and might take offense to something you had never considered before — and he also didn't have much room to poke fun, in that department. Fortitude. He didn't recognize the last name, either, which probably meant Mr. Holm didn't come from the sort of family who had become a British society staple.

He picked up on the hesitation in the other man's question, and thought he knew the cause. The idea that he might have been mistaken for a Muggle was a little funny, but they had run into each other on the streets of London, so why not? Most of the people here were Muggles, and it wasn't as though either of them had given any indication. Ford only knew the other man to be a wizard because he'd seen him before, but even then, he wasn't entirely certain.

"Same place as you, I think," he said amiably, being vague in case he was wrong. "I've seen you in the Atrium."

  

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Set by Lady!

Bragi was the type who went paler when embarrassed, rather than red, and he did go a little paler right now as Mr Greengrass mentioned he'd seen him in the Atrium. Bragi was not used to being noticed. But he was used to reading too much into things, so dragged his mind back to simple reality, and simply offered a courteous smile.

Had he been a great wit with boundless confidence, he would have devised some funny response to "Same place as you, I think", perhaps suggesting some outlandish business to pretend to be working in. But, again, he kept things simple, and took it as confirmation that they were both Ministry workers.

"I'm an intern in Magical Co-operation", he specified, careful not to speak too loudly with all these muggles around — though they were highly unlikely to hear him over the central city sounds of hoof-beats and cartwheels. "I bet you work for Accidents and Catastrophes, given how quickly you came to my aid!"

  

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Ford shook his head and smiled. Magical accidents and catastrophes required a better mind for spellwork than he'd ever possessed, and quicker reflexes, too. If all it entailed was picking up papers when people slipped, however, he probably could have managed it very well. His strengths had always lied more in empathy and connecting to people (and beings and spirits and beasts) than in big magical displays.

"Spirit division, actually," he answered, then continued with his standard clarification: "In the regulation and control of creatures department." It was not uncommon for people to forget about his office, in his experience, so he'd gotten in the habit of explaining it without needing to be asked. It wasn't really uncommon for people to forget about spirits at all, unless they had one with whom they regularly interacted. Most people outside of Hogwarts students didn't live with ghosts, however, so it was easy to put them out of mind.

"Co-operation must be fun," he continued. "Do you get to meet people from all over the world?" That was what he'd always imagined the work to be, anyway. Though Holm had said he was an intern, so maybe he didn't get the chance. He looked too old to be an intern, Ford thought, but maybe that was silly. There wasn't any age limit on it that he knew of, it was only that he'd been an intern while still in school, and Holm certainly didn't strike him as a recent graduate. But then, maybe his mental calculations were off on that. Grace was still only a year out of Hogwarts, but he thought of her as older, too, just owing to everything that had happened to them in the past year and a half. The other man could conceivably be Grace's age, so not far off what Ford considered normal.

  

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Set by Lady!

The hanging sign of the Swan & Crown came shortly into view, swinging slightly in the miserable English weather, but Bragi was largely distracted by his companion for now.

Spirit Division! Interesting. Bragi had had exactly no dealings with that particular sub-department, and he was keen to ask more — but Mr Greengrass beat him to the punch.

"I get to fetch tea for people from all over the world", he corrected the assumption, though warmly; and a slight smile showed he had no issues with his lowly position. One has to start somewhere.

"It must be fascinating to work in such an ethereal and mysterious field."

  

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Ford laughed at the joke about fetching tea, and his smile lingered through the question. It wasn't often that people found what he did fascinating, and he suspected that perhaps when Mr. Holm knew more about it he might change his opinion. For the moment, though, Ford's eyes were sparkling and he was perfectly inclined to tell stories.

"Let's see if we can find a quiet booth, and I'll tell you all about it," he offered with a grin. The quiet booth was important, of course, because stories about the division Ford worked in were not particularly friendly to Muggle ears, but maybe they could manage it.

  

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Set by Lady!