Chapter Text
The occasional creaking of a chair or scratching of a quill were the only sounds which disturbed the otherwise eerie silence on a sweaty summers evening in the Department for Unusual Magical Occurrences at the Ministry of Magic. Head Witch Martha Muggins removed her orange glasses and gently rubbed her watering eyes with the palms of her hands. She glanced across the piles of paper covering her desk at the grandfather clock, stood at the other end of the rather large open room she and her team called their office. Ten to seven. Ten minutes until the day was done.
Stretching her arms out in front of her, she looked around at the heads strewn around the mostly vacant paper-stacked desks; what little remained at the late hour of her already reduced summer staff. She’d been promised reinforcements as people returned from their holidays, yet even to her that seemed like a waste. Though her department had a lot of reports to get through, they had yet to discover even a single ‘unusual magical occurrence’.
Her department had only recently been set up by the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, following advice from Headmaster Albus Dumbledore after the dramatic events at Hogwarts school near the end of last term. Martha had read in the Daily Prophet about how little Harry Potter, in his very first year of school, had managed to singlehandedly unearth and defeat a plot to return He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power.
At the time she had doubted most of what she’d read in the article, given it was written by the infamous Rita Skeeter, but considering that Minister Fudge had set up an entirely new department because of it, there had to be at least a grain of truth in the story. And Martha was glad for the promotion, so they would hear no complaint from her.
A sharp creak from yet another chair made her head shoot up out of her hands and her eyes once again landed on the clock. Five to. Merlin, she needed to concentrate! What wasn’t done today would simply be added to tomorrow’s workload, and she knew she wouldn’t thank herself for that.
Replacing her glasses on her nose with a yawn and shake of the head, her eyes barely had time to land on the page she was reading before a completely new sound met her ears: rapid footsteps. The dark and blurry shape before her came into focus as it approached, and she recognised young Mr. Gregory.
“Yes Gregory, what do you want?” she shot, letting perhaps a little too much of her annoyance slip into her voice. Maybe more than just a little, she reprimanded herself as the young man flinched, but he recovered quickly and spoke in a self-assured voice:
“I believe I’ve found something significant, ma’am.”
He held out a paper which she grabbed and quickly glanced over before doing a double take. She looked from the paper to Gregory, to the paper, to Gregory, and back to the paper. Then she stood up, the scraping of her chair turning the last few heads still half-heartedly engaged in their work.
“I believe you’re correct. Come with me, Mr. Gregory.” And with firm footsteps, she quickly zig-zagged between the desks and walked out of the room, Gregory hurrying along behind her.
“Where are we going, Mrs. Muggins?”
***
Fudge was very satisfied. He had finally dismissed his last visitor for the day and was now free to leave. But just as he had shrugged on his coat and retrieved his lime-green bowler hat from the desk, there was another knock at his office door.
Momentarily freezing, he sighed deeply before heading to open it himself: sitting down would invite for a much longer conversation than he felt capable of at the moment.
“Yes?” he prompted as the door swung open. In the hallway outside stood a proud-looking middle aged woman wearing orange glasses and, cowering slightly behind her, a young man. Fudge had time to think he vaguely recognised the woman before she spoke.
“I’m Martha Muggins, head of the Department for Unusual Magical Occurrences, and this is Tom Gregory, one of my staff.” Gregory inclined his head politely. “We’re here because we believe we’ve discovered something which needs your urgent attention.”
“What is this discovery?” Fudge inquired wearily. Now he remembered who she was, and he wasn’t pleased. He’d set up the department in question primarily to appease Dumbledore, never in a million years had he expected to get anything useful out of it.
Without a word the woman, Mrs. Muggins, held out a paper. Snatching it irritably from her hand, Fudge looked it over. There was a moment of silence. Then, with a deep, resigned sigh, the Minister opened the door fully and held out his arm for them to enter his office.
It would appear he’d been wrong. His day wasn’t quite over yet.