The Feminist
I've been doing a lot of research lately on gender studies, particularly pertaining to women in computer science. (Largely because I'm in computer science… and because, well, that's my senior thesis. With that, be warned if you want to talk to me about feminism and CS – I'm strongly opinionated.) And instead of writing what is supposed to be a draft of my thesis (it was due a week ago – a few more days won't hurt my grade too much, right?), I decided to explore this instead… which is yet another "girl works for boy" story, but hopefully with a little more realistic twist. (Who knows if I'm correct about that? You heard me say senior thesis, right? – I'm still just a girl in college fantasizing about the real world based on a couple of internships.)
Enjoy, and please review!
…
"Oh, bloody great. So, what is it this time? An experiment on manipulating men? A petition against slut shaming?"
…
Let me tell you a something before we get started: Rose Weasley was a Feminist – all syntax highlighting warranted.
She didn't used to be, back at Hogwarts. Back then, she was her own kind of headstrong, determined to get herself a position without the legacy of her parents. She had – quite cleverly, she thought – rearranged the letters of her name to spell Ross Lee Waye, submitting her resume and NEWT scores under the pseudonym. She received a dozen offers for interviews, only to find her interviewer purse his lips when he looked at her ponytail, her lightly mascara'ed eyes, and her fitted pantsuit.
The next five letters she received offering her for a chance to interview, she had gone in wearing a fitted skirt, post-pedicure nails, and her curly hair loosely styled. Of those five interviews, she had received a total of one job offer, and it came accompanied with the letter – Dear Ms Waye, We are happy to inform you that we think you would be a great fit at our company. However, we are uncertain of your qualifications for the position you have applied for, though we would like to extend to you a secretarial role –
If you asked Rose what came next, she'd say "Incendio."
After that, she had taken a long look at her pseudonym and frowned. Maybe, if she flipped one letter around, and flipped the ordering of a name…
Lea Ross Weye received only a small fraction of responses from companies compared to Ross Lee Waye.
One rant to a mother later ("Yes, Rosie, that's the world we live in today – now, what will you do about this?"), Rose Weasley emerged as the most stubborn feminist that you would ever meet.
The first thing she had done was ransack her closet, throwing her suits into a bag and stalking off to Madame Malkin's to demand that the witch spell all her dress pants to pencil skirts. The second thing she had done was to find Lily to practice the more complicated make-up spells that Rose always had difficulty with.
Rose Weasley was going to embody feminine. She was going to climb to the top of the corporate ladder in heels.
(It just would've been nicer if heels didn't hurt so damn much… or if she was better at those fashion spells that made shoes more comfortable.)
But what was pain, but a mental construct (born out of physical signals from nerve endings)? Rose was the definition of determination, and she would allow no obstacle to defeat her.
Not even charming blond ones with smug smiles.
…
Rose dropped her proffered hand. "Excuse me?"
"Oh," Malfoy said lightly, folding his hands over a copy of her résumé that was sitting on his desk. "Was that handshake for me?"
"Sorry, slut shaming?" Rose repeated, at a loss of words to say.
"I guess not that one, then," Malfoy ceded with a tilt of his head before gesturing to the chair opposite him. "Please, sit down. Those shoes of yours look like they weren't designed for comfort."
As a matter of fact, they certainly weren't – as Rose's feet could attest. But even as her feet told her to get in the damn chair, her pride was telling her not to budge because she was a mountain who would bend (or sit) for no misogynist, damn it.
She settled for folding her arms and shifting her weight onto her right foot (which hurt slightly less – ohhh, ow), narrowing her eyes at the man who was once her classmate a decade ago.
"You look offended," Malfoy observed with a little more merriment in his tone than Rose would've appreciated. "I'm surprised. I thought you were the type to trumpet about how all women are created equal and should be treated as such, whether or not some of your sex liked to fuck more than others. Please, do sit. Your standing over me isn't going to intimidate me at all, if that's what you were going for. Would you care for some tea?"
Rose bit her lip because damn it, his logic was flawless. She shouldn't be insulted that he thought she was petitioning against slut shaming – even though she most certainly wasn't a slut, thank you very much – and she really wasn't, because being a slut involved at least having some semblance of a sex life, which she didn't have because she was so busy with her career and she was going to die alone with Crookshanks' grandkittens – and, oh right. What was that her feet were saying? Get in the damn chair.
As she gingerly lowered herself into the seat across from Malfoy, Rose sniffed and retained her practiced look of artful disdain. She was embarrassed to have been called out on her own personal social discriminations, which meant that she needed to quickly come up with something else to be offended about. Which, given present company, wasn't hard.
"Yes, please, with one teaspoon of sugar," she accepted. "But I'm sorry – what did you mean, what is it this time?"
"Ah, that," Malfoy said as he waved his wand and a cup appeared before her. She tasted it and, despite her best efforts, could find nothing wrong with it. "A commentary on how you always look like you're promoting one thing or the other. So, what is it this time?"
Rose opened her mouth, but nothing came out, so she closed her lips, cleared her throat, and tried again. Yes, she supposed she always had great societal goals she wanted to achieve – curse her for her efforts in making the world a kinder place, right? "Feminism in corporate," she finally managed. "That women can achieve and manage high office just as capably as men." She hesitated. "Though I'd appreciate it if you didn't undermine my work in correcting social injustice by wording it as if it were a fad I was trying out for a time."
"Not at all," Malfoy said cheerily, lifting his own teacup in acknowledgment before drinking from it. "I applaud your idealism. It's more than what the rest of us do. Now, as hiring manager, I do believe I'm supposed to ask you – what have you been up to in the last ten years since we've graduated?"
…
Two weeks later, she received an owl – Dear Ms Weasley, We are delighted to inform you that you have impressed our team with your talent and we would like to extend an offer to you for the position of Potion Master. Please inform us of your availability in the upcoming week and the hiring manager [Scorpius Malfoy] will arrange to meet with you to discuss further details on the offer.
She immediately checked her calendar and scribbled out a reply.
…
"Morning, Weasley."
Malfoy was already there when Rose arrived (ten minutes early), seated with a half-empty cup of tea and biscuits already nibbled on. Rose offered a tight smile as he put away his paper.
"Tea?" Malfoy offered. "Teaspoon sugar, if I'm correct?"
"Make it honey this time," Rose corrected, "and a dash of milk."
Malfoy raised his eyebrows but said nothing as the china appeared before her. As she tasted it – and, of course, it was perfect again – he started, "So, before we begin, I have to ask. During the interview, you cited the reason why you wanted to leave your current employment was because there was no room for growth. Isn't your whole – feminism thing – " He paused, looking at the outfit she had donned today, which was a pencil skirt with a flattering cut and a white blouse that was almost sheer – or, maybe a little sheer, but that was why she had pulled on a fitted jacket over it. " – wasn't that to try and break that glass ceiling?"
Her current employment was working for a consulting company specializing in potions, where she had risen as far up the ranks already as they would apparently allowed. She had enjoyed having a position that allowed her to have a secretary (or, as she preferred to call it, administrative assistant) – and she had enjoyed even more telling female applicants who were overqualified for the secretarial role to search for better employment. But still…
"I tried for over a year," Rose said curtly. "And if they won't reward my talent with a promotion, then they're not going to keep it." She paused, thinking. "And," she added as an afterthought, "you can also destroy a glass ceiling by climbing around it and breaking it from the other side."
"Of course," he said. "Well, as you know, at St. Mungo's, you'll be working directly under me. Every six months – that's in May and November – I'll be writing you a performance review and your portfolio will go up to the committee. I have, by the way, gotten two people promoted already, so you could very well be the third."
Ten years they'd been out of Hogwarts, and he was already at a position to promote people. And having already promoted people. People like her. Rose bit her lip. She probably could've been there too, if she had been born a man.
"So – as I'm sure you also know – St. Mungo's doesn't entrust the more complicated potions that Healers or patients may require to other companies, so we brew all of those ourselves. My team largely brews the potions required for treating plant poisoning. Plant poisoning doesn't occur as often as other genres of illnesses, such as diseases and spell damage, so we're a pretty small department. This means we get to work closely to the department's research team – which, of course, is devoted to creating new potions to cure poisonings – especially since there's some down time when the quota is filled.
"Now, working at St. Mungo's also means that you're required to identify your wand to mark it as a pager. We don't get paged very often, but if there's an outbreak of something and our stores are running low, we need to start brewing at once. You'll be expected to be on call… I'd say, for about two to three weeks every three months. Most of the time, nothing will happen – but the group that's on call at any given time are expected to be able to cleanly perform any awakening, sobriety, or whatever spell needed and work immediately. In case of emergency, you may also be paged when you're not on call. But in plant poisoning, that's happened to me only once a few years back when some idiot, trending chef decided to cook with floral vipod."
"Floral vipod." Rose stifled a giggle. "Did the fact that its name means viper pod not send a message?"
Malfoy grinned. "Apparently, he thought that only the pods were poisonous, and the leaves would be safe. Or that's what I think he was mumbling about when he was in our hospital beds. So," he said, "do you have any questions about all this?"
…
That night, Rose sent a letter of resignation to her boss. She delighted in reading it over once, then twice again – and okay, maybe she read it a third time before she Floo'ed over to her parents' house and read it to her mum and dad.
"I'm proud of you, Rosie," her mum said, and Crookshanks mewled his approval (or, whatever) as well.
"Yeah, Rosie," her dad called from the kitchen pantry, "tell them where they can stick it!"
Her dad was a little less excited when she mentioned that she had accepted an offer to work under a Malfoy, so she quickly claimed cramps and let her mum deal with it as she Apparated back to her apartment.
As she lay in bed that night, she thought about her brunch with the blond.
"I've never had anyone accept an offer so quickly," he had said. "Are you sure you don't want to think about it more?"
"Malfoy," she had told him, "I have interviewed for seven different firms and not one of them, except for you, could brew a half decent cup of tea. How do you expect me to brew potions for someone like that?"