Chapter 4
Disclaimer: I am not the owner of Criminal Minds or Harry Potter. I just like playing in other people's sandboxes!
Undersecretary for the Minister for Magic, Charlie Hatton wrung his hands nervously for the fifth time in less than a minute. At only twenty-six years of age and 3 years out of the Academy for Advanced Magical Arts, Charlie was lucky to have reached such a coveted position within the Ministry for Magic in such a very short time. As it was, Charlie had his cousin Molly Weasley's husband Arthur to thank for his advancement – being personal friends of the Minister for Magic helped! He thanked his lucky stars that former Undersecretary for the Minister for Magic, one Dolores Jane Umbridge, had been found guilty of committing war crimes and for the abuse of children during her brief tenure as Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers at Hogwarts and Ministry appointed Hogwarts High Inquisitor.
Charlie bit his lip as his eye fell on the ominous yellow file perched innocently on his desk. 'Why', he wondered, 'did the damn files have to be yellow? And why do I always have to be the ones that delivers bad news.'
Whenever one of these files passed his desk it was sure to make Charlie curl his lip in distaste and if it contained absolutely terrible news, give him heart palpitations and begin to sweat. Of course, upon reading said file that currently lay on his desk, Charlie has completely bypassed the lip-curling stage and gone straight to heart palpitations and sweating. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small vial of Calming Draught and swallowed it in one gulp. Usually innocuous and given to those prone to hysteria, the Calming Draught was an adequate prescription for Charlie's symptoms. Unfortunately it had a side effect of being addictive and what with these blasted yellow files passing his desk on a near weekly basis, poor Charlie was starting to get hooked. He sighed and looked at the vial in his hand before resolving once again to throw away his stash…which he knew deep down he would probably never get around to doing.
He contemplated the file on his desk again and thought that he should deliver the news contained within to the Minister. He turned a rather sickly shade of green at the prospect and promptly opened his drawer, his hand searching for another vial. He realised what he was about to do when he had the second vial halfway to his lips. He lowered the vial and re-stoppered it. He just had to pull his courage up and speak to the Minister.
Problem was, it wasn't as easy as that. Although a generally mild mannered lady, the Minister was not a person one wished to be near when in a temper. She was rather prone to picking up various objects and throwing them at the person who was unfortunate enough to be the bearer of bad news.
The information contained in today's yellow file was rather bad and Charlie was already dreading interrupting the Minister's meeting with the Head of the Auror Office, Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Already he could hear the Minister's shouts echoing from behind the closed door. Charlie eyed the file one last time before rising from his desk. He picked up the much hated yellow file, and, with the expression of one going to face the gallows, made his way to the door.
Before he could even raise his hand to knock, the door was rather rudely thrust open expelling a very angry Kingsley Shacklebolt with a look of thunder on his face, followed by a flying porceline figurine that narrowly missed his head and headed straight for Charlie's face. Charlie ducked quickly and turned his head just in time to see it smash with a loud crash into a painting of Ethelbert the Great, Twelfth Minister for Magic.
"And if you don't sort it out Shacklebolt, I'll see to it that funding to the Auror Corps is cut 50 per cent!" bellowed Amelia Jane Bones, Forty-Third Minister for Magic.
"If you do that, Amelia, I can guarantee this thing isn't going to get solved! We've got all our men on this but we can't realistically do our job properly if funding is cut and the Muggles keep sniffing around!" Kinsgley bellowed back.
"Well whose bloody fault is that? I told you keep a lid on this thing and what do I hear next? Bloody Muggles! Waltzing all over my investigation! Trampling important magical evidence! Violating the crime scene, removing any possible spell signatures that remained, not to mention flying in bloody experts! EXPERTS I TELL YOU!" Amelia stood hands on hips, her blonde hair loose on her shoulders, her face screwed up in anger.
"What the hell do you expect me to do, Amelia? We've not encountered anything like this before." Kingsley retorted. "Not since before Grindelwald at least. I have no idea what I'm dealing with – how was I supposed to know that the Muggles would get a hold of this? I know for a fact that the first two weren't even on their radar until that little mishap in Bethnal Green." Kingsley recalled the moment when two Aurors were taken into custody by the Muggle police upon reports of two men discussing the murders loudly in a Muggle pub. McCrawthers and Hobbs were under Veritaserum at the time having been slipped the potion by a jealous ex-lover of Hobbs, so couldn't be held entirely responsible for breach of information.
Amelia sighed and looked at the floor. She understood where Kingsley was coming from. But now that she was Minister, she couldn't let anything jeopardise the safety of the Wizarding World. They were only just starting to recover from a horrific war and the population didn't need to fear the darkness once again in the wake of these terrible crimes. She looked back at Kingsley.
"Just find them, Kingsley." She pleaded with him softly, tears just brimming in her blue eyes. "Please. Make it stop."
Kingsley stared at her in silence. After a minute or two he nodded. "Yes, Ma'am." He replied. He nodded again and spun on his heel leaving the office in a swirl of red Auror robes. Amelia Bones stood in the middle of the room watching him leave. She was just about to turn back into the office when a gentle "Ahem" sounded behind her. She whirled around to find Charlie stood behind her clutching a yellow file. She sighed audibly.
"What the hell now?" she said upon catching sight of the file. "Um." Charlie squeaked. "The Daily Prophet has gotten a hold of the story." He said in a rush. Amelia's eyes widened and she reached for the file that Charlie handed to her, snatching it out of his grasp.
"Oh bloody hell!" she said flipping through the pages. She looked up at Charlie and in a deadly tone said, "Get me that scumbag editor of the Daily Prophet NOW!"
A/N: Read and review people. Cheers me lovelies!