Ministry - The Department of Pointless, Bureaucratic Nonsense (or The Department of Licences)

Hermione dutifully took the photograph of the proud, young wizard who had earned his Apparition Licence. The wizard grinned, and promptly blinked against the bright light. She waited the required five minutes for the photo to develop then handed the licence over to the wizard and directed him to return to the small group of his friends who were already showing off their licences.

Finally, there came the annoying ping that announced she had completed that paperwork, and was ready for the next new licensee. She called out the name upon a little card.

"Rory Wazlib!"

All that she had done for the other wizard: checking his Apparition written test, filing it, and taking the photo, she repeated for Rory Wazlib.

Moments later the young wizard practically tossed a thank you her way, snatched his coveted Apparition Licence, and ran back to his friends. With seven, very loud pops, all the friends apparated away to the Foyer of the Ministry of Magic.

Hermione sighed. She had told all seven kids that they were not to Apparate from inside the office, but as usual they did not listen. At least the Ministry wards would deal with the nitwits, and toss them, magically, right into a holding cell. Hermione waved her wand and the new, seven files, joined thousands, and thousands of other licences in the filing cabinet.

With that task out of the way, Hermione activated a spell to discover licences that would expire soon. In minutes she had a rather large stack of nearly 300 folders. Using another spell she was able to prepare letters to be owled to the owners of the almost expired licences to remind them to come in and get their licences renewed.

While the magic took care of that task, Hermione set herself to the more mundane task of tackling the stack of expired licences that required "personal" notification.

Hermione sort of liked this task as she had to research where the licensee had gone if they were no longer at their old address. This led her into the File of Records on Witches and Wizards and reading those files led to her finding out interesting information on those "possibly missing" wizards and witches.

Usually such an expired licence meant that the witch or wizard had died; something not always reported. Hermione made a lot of Mirror Calls to family members that informed her, sometimes rather nastily, that so-and-so was dead.

She was halfway through the S's and was mumbling the names to herself that she had to find out more on. "Smutters, Addie, Snaller, Peter, Snape, Severus, Snanan, Gupt… what?" Hermione dropped the files and returned to the one before Gupta Snanan. "Snape, Severus?" She began to read aloud softly, "20th May, 1998: No reminder sent. 20th June, 1998 No Mirror reminder call. 20th July, 1998: No second reminder sent. 20th August, 1998: No second Mirror reminder call." The litany of dates, and magically inscribed notes continued until… "20th May, 2000: Ministry Department of Manually Recorded Deaths enters note of licencees death during Final Battle of Voldemort War."

Hermione stared. The notation was written by hand in red ink. Someone in the Manually Recorded Deaths department had made this notation, and signed it with the initials of LB. Hermione thought immediately of Lavender Brown. And, then she shook her head. Lavender Brown had a successful business designing clothing for the "modern witch". This LB was someone else.

Moving to the rolodex upon her desk, she pointed her wand at it, and intoned, Department of the Ministry, Manually Recorded Deaths, who is LB?"

The rolodex spun lazily until a card popped up. A wizard's voice answered her question, "LB is Laurena Batrice, secondary to the Head of the Manual Recorded Deaths of Witches and Wizards, Confirmed. Ms. Batrice's job description is to monitor all active files having to do with patents, and licences, and if there is the possibility that the witch or wizard in consideration might be deceased, it is Ms. Batrice's job to confirm the death, and to deactivate the file."

With just a turn Hermione was kneeling in front of her Floo. She tossed in a handful of Floo powder, and called for Laurena Batrice.

"Batrice, here," said the pretty green face in the Floo flames. "What can I do for you?"

"Hi. Hermione Granger here in Apparition Licences. I have a question for you in regards to a file where you confirmed that the wizard was deceased."

"Mm-hmm," nodded Laurena Batrice.

"Well, the file is still active," blurted Hermione.

"Not possible," insisted Batrice.

"I know it shouldn't be, but the file is here, and despite your initials, it is in the active file."

"Then you just have to file it in the deactivated filing cabinet, Ms. Granger," sighed Batrice. Hermione grimaced at the woman's condescending tone of voice.

"I have tried, but the magic keeps returning the file to 'active'. "

"Well, who is it?" demanded Batrice.

Hermione hesitated. She did not want to let Batrice know who the wizard was, but if she did not do so, she would never get the information she needed. Finally, "It's Severus Snape."

Laurena Batrice's green face gave her rolling eyes, and a glare that implied that Hermione was not as intelligent as she thought she was. "Snape died before the Final Battle, Ms. Granger. If I recall, you even testified before the Wizengamot that you, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley witnessed his death!"

Hermione blushed crimson, and her embarrassment was even hotter. "I know that," Hermione bit out stiffly. "I wanted to bring to your attention that there is a discrepancy in the magic, and…"

"That's not my job, Ms. Granger," Batrice huffed with clear annoyance. After a few seconds, she purred nastily, "Do you need me to come down there and deactivate the spell on that folder for you?"

"No…!" Hermione cut the Floo connection suddenly and angrily, turned to her desk, promptly smacked her head on the corner in her indignant anger, hit the desk her fist, and then climbed into her uncomfortable chair. She cursed heartily.

Hermione dropped the folder, and sighed heavily. Did it matter? Snape was dead, and this just confirmed it. Right?

The witch stared at the folder in puzzlement. If it did not matter, and Snape was confirmed dead, why was his file still amongst the "active" files? Magic, she had learned was only fallible if the witch or wizard did not know what they were doing. She had been the one to fix a great deal of faulty spells in the Apparition Licencing Department, so she knew her Active Spell was not at fault.

"So," she asked aloud of the room as she glared at Severus Snape's folder, "why are you still active?"