Edith sat observing the chaos in front of her. She ran her hands through her knotty short hair- making it stand even more on end, as she lit up a cigarette, silently thanking whoever made them as she looked at the box ;Vize's cigarettes- all evil removed! (No chemicals or nicotine or nasties or smell- but still proper cigars!) She blew the smoke out slowly as she looked about at the madness that was the Eviternity chronicle two hours before publication and distribution, the large office seemed to hold an air of silent panic as the majority of the room was rushing- trying to get their papers together, whilst others were lounging about seemingly oblivious to the minutes going down on the board.
"Oi Henry, use my lighter if you are going to take so long, you have five fucking minutes," shouted Edith as she lobbed her lighter across the room to the youngest- Henry who had only been with them a year- straight out of Hogwarts who still had quite a lot to learn. He looked up slightly nervously at Edith, who had her feet up on the piles of paper on her desk glaring at everyone in her raised office which had the doors completely open as usual, so she was part of the room, he quickly went back to checking his work.
Amy walked back into the room from downstairs and sat down on the desk which had a sign saying co-editor on, which was neat and tidy, the complete opposite to the other editor -Edith's desk, which was thriving in organised chaos.
"We are ready to make the practice run, are still using the corruption in quidditch front page?"
Edith let out a laugh when she replied "Yeah, see who sues us this time. Do you have the list for the order so I can collect for you?" Amy handed over the list as Edith stood up ungracefully.
"Right everyone, I am going to collect the final copies- those are the ones with the layout and the pictures, so Jane...Phillip..." It continued like that until Edith had collected them all and handed the copies to Amy, who smiled and said well done to the room as she left.
Edith followed and called "You can bugger off for fifteen minutes, well done everyone." The noise of the room increased greatly as everyone started talking.
Edith smiled at May- Amy's wife who worked in printing who was putting paper into the press. Amy handed her the copies and they immediately started with the spell work, the printing press sprang into life. You had to marvel at how efficient the process was. The final copies were copied using magic to put the metal letters into the right place onto the sheets, a metal version of the pictures was also created and it was all charmed to print the right colours, this was still happening when the first sheets were being printed, and the process would continue after they had been checked by Edith, Amy and Jill (the proof reader).
" I like this," Edith declared to May, who then asked Amy and Jill if there were any mistakes.
"None."
"No mistakes- there never are, we always get to them early on," Amy said as her and May set up the press to continue printing.
"It will take about 50 minutes to print" May said as they left the room.
"It is being printed, so we have some time before we distribute," Edith said to the room, who all were listening except Jane who was fussing over a potted plant on her desk, "Good God Jane, I don't know whether to call that plant beautiful or hideous- write something about it for next week."
"Will do" said Jane as she scribbled a post-it note.
"We will start planning next week in a moment, but more important issues are calling. Jen made us cake and everyone else who ditched us this evening left us a box of chocolates." Ann conjured plates when Edith rummaged in a desk draw, and continued. "Advertisements are a good thing," she said as she put an unopened packet of whisky and Vize's cigarettes, "the companies always send a thank you every week," she exclaimed happily to the smiling faces, who were all assembled near the board at the front of the room leaning and sitting on the desks – some even spinning on the chairs.
"I think I should pour as usual, and cut the cake as I don't make a hash of it," Amy said glaring at Edith, most people rolled their eyes as Edith began to reply.
"It was only once."
"Yeah, I only let you do it once!"
Edith started passing the cigarettes around, "I would like to thank everyone for your usual hard work and good quality writing, and also a big thanks to Amy and everyone else who deals with complaints!" She raised a glass and everyone followed. "Before we distribute and you try and escape for the weekend we need to start thinking about what we are going to do next week, for those keener of us who want to start over the weekend."
Amy rolled her eyes, "You know we can never escape," someone said I'll drink to that and more whisky was poured. "As you know my lot has sorted most of the letters for you to either reply to or write about, into this set of your pigeon holes," Amy continued as she tapped the cabinet then pointed at a tray next to a plant, "and as usual this pile is for Edith to sort and you to fight over, there will be more stuff coming so as usual prioritise the stuff on the left."
"Why do Jane, Phillip and I always have the most?" Betsy groaned.
" That's because you are the agony aunt, Jane is gardening and Phillip does feedback!" retorted Henry.
"Don't worry Betsy- you might spend half of your time responding to middle aged people worried and confused about their child's expression or confusion of their gender or sexuality, but Henry spends his trying to wrangle the truth out of the bastards at the ministry, right we need to plan," Edith added as she pushed herself of her desk and went to the walls with boards on with a pen. On one of the smaller boards she, wrote:
Run up to quidditch season – 2 months to go
Interviews with the quidditch players who accepted
-Sat, Wimbourne Wasps – Edith
Edith continued writing the list out.
"Isn't Kath helping tomorrow?" Jane asked.
"Her children had prior arrangements," Edith said bitterly.
"Try not to piss them off to much," Betsy said seriously.
"What me? You know how much everyone likes me and how much I love quidditch players."
"Who is doing the chart and score sheet?" someone asked.
"You are doing the charts and player profiles, well mainly Edith and my lot will take care of score sheet," said Ann as people started picking up their bags and going downstairs to help distribute the papers.
"Have a good weekend," Edith said as everyone began to trickle out of the building, she looked at the clock- it was half ten, she mused that that was probably a key factor into why she had no social or romantic life as a twenty-four year old, as most of her peers, even if they were in a relationship would already be off their head in a club somewhere.
After Amy and May had wished her good luck with the quidditch interviews as they left, she went back upstairs to turn the lights off. Walking through the silent building she could here the press grinding to a halt and could feel the heat resonating from the room, she looked at the empty reception- which was neat compared to the rest of the building, the same could be said with most of the rooms downstairs, whereas upstairs was chaotic, busy and full of life- even when empty. The paper was doing well, she thought, nearly six years after her and her best friend Amy had set it up with the backing of their parents company, it had expanded and grown, developed a reputation- whether that good or bad, and was very well known. She hoped that was because of their original insight into matters and how they always gave truthful yet still opinionated journalism – not because of the amount of times they had been brought to court or the never ending complaints they received from non-readers. The lights shuddered off over the office leaving the large room in darkness.
Her flat was dark when she got back, and she sat in the dark, the only light source being the moonlight shining in through the window, with the rest of the bottle of whisky, alone, chain-smoking as she wondered how soon the reaction to this week's addition would be. She was quite pleased with her article, she felt like it painted a clear picture of what the quidditch industry was like. She fell asleep on the chair, with the empty glass in one hand as she worried about what tomorrow would bring.
James Potter took a deep breath to prepare himself for dinner with his parents – why they invited just him on a Friday night as they knew that Lily and Albus were going out was beyond him. His relationship with his parents had always been strained but now even more so, they had completely different views to him, not that his were extreme but they were always in their own little bubble which never seemed to burst so that they saw everything through a rose tinted lens. He also felt like everything he did never lived up to what they expected of him, nothing was ever acknowledged in a proud parental manner, just a slightly patronising so-and-so said to say way. He was also constantly being compared to the achievements of his parents, by the public and themselves, and the worst thing was people said his achievements were not because of his hard work but because of his parents.
"How have you been?" James asked trying to break the awkward silence as he passed the potatoes.
"Oh, I have been very busy with work especially with all of the continuous investigations and new ones we have been carrying out- we really are being stretched," Harry replied, his age was beginning to show; his hair had thinned greatly and was more grey than jet black, his green eyes helped to show the lines on his face brought on with age, surrounded by grey stubble on his chin – he had not aged as graciously as other people in their fifties. Ginny had aged slightly better, soft grey streaks in her now faded ginger hair, her skin was soft -less wrinkly than Harry's, yet she looked thin and fragile. James is so different to both of them both personality wise and physically in many different ways; he was broad and muscled unlike their wiry and thin frames. His hair was not ginger, thin and straight nor was it black and unruly- it was a slightly textured chestnut which was not tidy but it would certainly never be compared to Harry's.
"Wouldn't it be better to focus the resources on new threats, not old criminals who haven't done anything for the past thirty years and are not likely to do anything in the future?" questioned James.
"There are no new threats, and they are going to do something- I am sure of it," shouted Harry, hitting his knife on the table in rage which was quickly contained as he took a sip of water.
"I have also been busy in the run up to the league, the sport department are trying to make everything as easy as possible so we will not be in a mad rush- unlike some newspapers," Ginny cut in trying to hide her husband's recent outburst . Harry was currently surveying James as he was eating the overcooked vegetables.
"What newspaper do you read Son, if you read one at all, that is?"
James swallowed " Of course I read Mum's bit, but I have a subscription and read the Eviternity Chronicle."
Harry scoffed, "And why would you read that?"
"Because I like their honest approach to journalism, the intellect and passion which they have for the things they are writing about. It also isn't tied up and controlled by the ministry."
"That's rubbish," cried Harry.
"The prophet isn't controlled by the ministry," said Ginny at the same time.
James slowly continued to cut up the oily potato, "It is just my opinion, but it does seem a lot like that to an outsider." The rest of the meal continued like this in awkward silence.
When James was back in his flat he thought to himself, how many times did they talk about themselves and how important their fucking jobs were. Every single thing his siblings had done and how he should be more bloody like them. How many times did they ask him something about how he was and what he had been doing? Not once without them criticizing him. Why did this matter to him so much? He was twenty-five not a bloody child. But he knew he wanted to prove himself to them. He wanted them to see and recognise himself- as he truly was not some cardboard cut out saying Harry and Ginny Potter's clone no.1, he wanted them to see what he enjoyed, he wanted them to treat his opinion as an equal to theirs.
Great he thought as he looked at the clock, early morning quidditch practice then an interview tomorrow.
It kept tugging at the corners of his mind- that nothing was going to change.
AN- thank you for reading, the interviews will be in the next chapter where we will learn more about the characters...
Your thoughts would be appreciated so please review!
M
