Summons

Susan rolled out of bed for another day at the Ministry. She was doing this for her kids though they didn’t really understand how she was helping them but they will someday. She extremely busy between working, trying to figure out how to get out of her parents’ house and getting through the whole divorce thing. She had never stopped loving Ernie it was that they just drifted apart. She wasn’t sure she’d truly move on from Ernie, he was her first real love. She had other relationships but they meant nothing to her. It stung a bit for her and she knew it was hurting Drew, thank Merlin Amelia was still in Australia.

“Mum, this sucks. I love grandma but I can’t take anymore of reading Shakespeare to her. She can remember Shakespeare but not my name,” said Drew eating his cereal.

“I’m working on finding a place for us to live,” said Susan sighing a bit. She was debating asking her dad for help. She already had to jinx him to keep him from leaving the house to find Ernie, knowing she’d have a dead ex-husband instead of an ex-husband.

Drew was able to get out of at least one day of Shakespeare reading since a friend invited him over for a sleepover. Susan was glad to let him go hoping it would take his mind off things he didn’t need to worry about. He was so much like her it scared her. Edgar was more like Ernie then he wanted to admit. That’s why they fight. Edgar is louder and ill-tempered like his rather while Drew was quiet and calm.

Her day was going smoothly at work until she got a summons to Khaat’s office. She hoped it wasn’t anything bad, she couldn’t take any more bad news right now. She was praying nothing had happened to Amelia in Australia. She wouldn’t know what she would do if something happened to Amelia right now.

Susan still had no idea what Khaat had asked her to come to her office as she entered. She knew that word was spreading about the divorce she was going through, it wasn’t everyday a wizarding family gets a divorce, but didn’t see why that would call for attention. She wondered if they needed her to do espionage for something. Now with possibility of having Amelia and Drew both depending on just her made her a bit more nervous doing espionage. She was already nervous about not being able to have ends meet.

They say great power comes with great responsibility which was probably why they gave Elijah Krum the Deputy Minister for Magic job. He couldn’t do much harm there, after all.

The Ministry of Magic was thrumming with activity, dulled only marginally by the lack of caffeine in circulation and the early hour at which they’d all started. There was a certain buzz about the place though and as more and more people entered the building, it grew loud with the sound of laughter and hard work. Elijah Krum watched from one of the overhanging balconies as people manoeuvred through the atrium, a small smile on his face. He turned at the sound of a greeting directed towards him and he smiled at the man that had spoken, murmuring his own ‘Good Morning’ before turning away from the atrium to make his way back to the elevators where he pressed the button and watched as it rumbled down from the floor above. Elijah would have been a liar if he’d claimed that the ancient elevator didn’t worry him a little bit but he accepted it all the same, slipping into the elevator with at least a dozen other people that had a similar destination to him.

He and around five other people emerged on the floor which held the Wizengamot Courtrooms and Elijah took a moment to brush some lint off of his robes before striding down the marble hallways in search of the room to which he had been summoned. His place at the Ministry had been decided a week or so before but he had not really settled in until today when he had come in early to take a look around his office and the little area of desks that he seemed to be in charge of. He’d met his workforce that was tasked with sorting much of what he had to do for the duration of his time in the position and he’d also run into Melissa Finnigan, the girl who had gotten the position of Secretary to both himself and Robert Lupin. She was tired, drawn and looked incredibly hung over to him when he’d first set eyes on her and they’d had brief chat, she confiding in him that she’d had enough of her late nights up with her father, just as her brother, Elliot, had, not that he drank with them – he just complained about it. Elijah left her with a small vial of sobering-up potion after giving her a hug, promising to check in on her later. He figured he might as well treat those around him right. It wasn’t a dictatorship and he wanted everyone to work well and be happy. Elijah had a feeling he’d be giving people a lot more time off than they’d need in the weeks to come.

Easily enough, Elijah found the room. He wrenched open the door which was large but far lighter than it appeared. Then realised he was in the anti-chamber to Khaat’s office. Elijah smiled a little, feeling reassured, and crossed the room where he opened gently the far lighter door and stepped inside, finding a woman there that he had not met before. Elijah smiled brightly and held out his hand for her to shake.

“Hello,” He said by way of greeting before introducing himself. “I’m Elijah Krum.”

(I didn't really know what to write and in the end I settled with this. I apologise if it is awful, Haha.)

Susan turned around hearing someone enter the office. She fought the urge to draw her wand doubting it was anyone who would attack her. She silently laughed at herself realizing she had a hand being held out at her instead of a wand. She didn’t recognize the face.

“Nice to meet you. Susan Macmillan—Bones, use Bones please,” she said still trying to get use to using her maiden name again. It sounded odd off her tongue after so many years of using the Macmillan name.

She didn’t same anything but she remembered Khaat mentioning the name Elijah Krum but didn’t want to say the wrong thing. She knew from experienced from jumping the gun when she was younger that it gets you into a world of trouble. As she aged she had learned to be more and more tactful when meeting someone for the first time.

Khaat really wasn't late. Not technically. She was aligning her ideas. She had set them in place with Eli and now needed to put it into action. She left her father's office and went to her own office.

"Good morning, Chief Warlock,' Rachel, her secretary said to her. "The deputy minister and Ms. Bones has arrived. Mr. Tremaine is on his way. He shouted something through the floo to me about black socks....I'm sorry...He made no sense."

"I get it," Khaat said. "Thank you." She poured herself a cup of french roast from the pot on the sideboard. "Send Michael in when he gets done feeding the footstools, please?"

"Footstools, Ma'am?"

"Yes," Khaat said, opening the door of her ofice and going in and motioning them to sit. "Good morning, Susan. Hello, Eli. Thank you for coming. Michael is coming, but evidently he's out of black socks today and the footstools are hungry. He'll be here. Susan, Eli is the new Deputy Minister of Magic. We have a new project in mind for you and for a man we frequently use for special operations. He'll be joining us shortly." She looked at Eli. "You have full funding and full support of the Minister. He signed the order just now." That didn't mean much. Official as it was, this did not exist. Not to the wizarding public. Not yet anyway.

The woman was, just like everyone in the Ministry, quite a bit older than he was, but her youth had not been snuffed out by encroaching age and wrinkles just yet. No, she still had the defiantly lingering glow of youth which seemed to only make the wearer of it infinitely more beautiful than they already were. Perhaps it was the fact that by his very nature he was an artist and a man who appreciated the beauty of people regardless of the way they viewed themselves or other people view him. He didn’t quite have the desire to draw the woman before him like he would have done had it been a year or so earlier but he appreciated her for a moment just as he did every other person he encountered. Everyone had that spark; the little thread of beauty that made them not only unique in that but also a delight to the eyes.

Elijah shook her hand warmly and continued smile at her. He was just about to inquire as to which department she worked in when the door opened again and Khaat walked in, not late exactly but still not particularly early either. Elijah smirked a little before grinning impishly at her, as if to communicate his amazement at the fact that he was in the position he was in. He was feeling quite childishly giddy at the fact but he knew he had to at least try and maintain semi-business like, at least outwardly. Elijah wiped the smile from his face momentarily as Khaat began to speak but he shot another in the direction of Susan when Khaat introduced his station.

“The footstools often like pink socks,” Elijah chipped in helpfully. “Well, mine does at least.” Elijah raised an eyebrow at 'funding' part, smirking a little. "We shall spend it all then!" He declared with a laugh. "I'm sure Michael will need it to keep him in socks."

Susan was glad it was only a mission. She knew there was always amount of danger and risk in every little thing she was doing to helping to find dark wizards and witches but she felt like it was worth it when she knows that she’s making the world safer for her kids. That’s why she agreed to even do missions, for her kids. That’s why she did everything she did.

She hadn’t heard of footstools that ate socks. But then again this was the Ministry and the strange and bizarre were right around every corner. She wished she had joined the Ministry in her younger years instead of now; she would have adjusted so much easier back then. She didn’t regret choosing having kids over starting a career though. She still wished she had tried for that fifth child. She was sort of glad she hadn’t after what’s been going on in the wizarding world, she would be worrying about another child.

“You know calling people to your office without any warning does raise blood pressure a bit,” she said in a joking manner. She hated being in a room with high tension. It created a less then pleasant mood. “I keep worrying one of these days one of my kids are going to get into trouble,” she added.

Michael was late. He had had to stop and buy socks. He had had to take Otto and Faline with him because they were eating the rug, and the rug didnt' like it. So, once he'd stopped in Diagon Alley, gotten socks and fed the 'damned dogs', he took them through the floo into the ministry. They had not liked the floo one bit. Even here, amongst Englands' best, he got odd looks at the rectangular brown leather ottoman with dark wood legs, on a brown leash, running beside Michael on the left, with a french provincial white oval ottoman with pink chintz fabric running beside Michael on the right on her white leash. Both footstools were barking happily and wagging their tails and happy to be going someplace. Michael went upstairs where Khaat's secretary rose to evict Michael because of the barking furniture. He quickly scowled at her.

"Haven't you ever seen a dog before?" he sighed. He pushed past her.

Khaat heard the dogs and recognized their barks. She looked at Eli and laughed out loud.

"Oh God, he's brought the dogs," she laughed. She looked at Susan. "You're about to meet your mission partner. He'll be the human."

Elijah Krum was no stranger to the Ministry of Magic, or the Lupin family that were at the heart of it. Still, he had never quite got used to the oddity that was Michael Tremaine. He was one of the best men Elijah had ever come across, loyal and funny to boot, but he was so terribly odd. At the sound of barking, Elijah realised immediately that it was the brothers of his own ottoman that was rather talkative and, on occasion, downright infuriating but had found a lovely home next to the fireplace in his new office – it preferred being nowhere else.

Elijah was just contented by the fact that it wasn’t in his house as it, much like the others, was going through a chewing stage though it was going for his paintbrushes rather than rugs like Michael’s preferred.

At the sight of the man, Elijah laughed at loud, his laughter mingling with Khaat’s in the air above their heads. He shook his head, bemusement lighting up his face, and his eyebrows rose in poorly concealed humour at the scene of a grown man battling with ottomans on leashes. Truly, it could only happen in the magical world.

“Are you alright there, Michael?” Elijah asked jovially. “You seem to have your hands full.”

Susan started to wonder what she had gotten herself into. The word ‘dog’ grabbed her attention. She found it odd that the Ministry would let a dog here. She didn’t question it not knowing the reason why her mission partner was allowed to bring a dog, she knew better than to question anything without all the facts.

“Looking forward to it,” she said. She actually was rather curious about who she’d be working with. She also wanted to know what she was doing. She felt like a child waiting for Honeyduke’s to open. “I’m guessing then I’ll find out what I’m doing,” she said with a slight smile.