BEAUTIFUL (or DOES MY BUM LOOK BIG IN THIS?)
Chapter One: The News
*~*~*HERMIONE*~*~*
I love my job. Really, I do. Ron can say whatever he wants to about being the head of the Department of Linguistic Researches, but personally I think it's a truly fulfilling and rewarding job. I mean, if it weren't for us, how are the magical communities around the globe going to interact with each other? By drawing little diagrams featuring little stick figures?
Very unlikely.
So I am, in some people's opinion, stuck in a dead end job with no real hope to ever achieve anything. But what does it matter to them? I mean why should I be patronised whenever I run into old friends from school? Why do they always have to speak to me in a tone that suggests I didn't know my boyfriend was gay? (Not that I have a boyfriend or will ever need one. Krum had been enough) And don't let me get started on our last Hogwarts reunion. Honestly, people, I'm HAPPY with my job! If anyone suggests a career as a manicurist or a shoe sales woman one more time I'm going to set fire to their designer underwear.
But something happened recently that might shut them up for good. Believe or not, I am now officially one of the candidates in the next Minister of Magic election.
Take THAT, Ronald Weasly the Bludger nose.
It was a bit of a shock, to be honest, because I thought only people from the more populated departments would be in the running. Like the Department of Treasury, the Department of Muggle Relations, and the Department of Foreign Affairs.
(But then again, where would the Department of Foreign Affairs be without us?)
All the attention from the public can get a bit daunting, though. It seems that wherever I go, someone from the magical community is going to recognise me and complain about the traffic, the tax, the weather, the stock market, the neighbour's cat or, in the case of that time in the loos at the library, the quality of lavatory paper in public toilets.
What can I say? Fame comes with a price. And if those good people place their trust—and hopefully, their votes—in me, then it would be my duty to make their lives a more enjoyable one.
Although I had never been into politics (that S.P.E.W. thing was just a personal, intimate act of a teenager who was a bit confused—and it was purely humanitarian), I was feeling that this election thing could really make a difference in improving the society; it would transform lives. Especially my own.
(And I thought stupidly at the time that it would change things for the better; that is, up until I learned that Draco Malfoy was to become my very own image consultant.)