Chapter 7

The smack against the glass in his door made him jump in his seat. As a result he swore under his breath. He had his feet propped on his desk and he was reading the file he had found most interesting on first glance that he had found on his desk on his arrival that morning.

The door opened and his third most superior boss came through the door and threw the file at him. It, somehow, landed on his lap and he frowned and turned it so the name label was the right way round.

Hi brow furrowed when there was no name on the front of the file and then he frowned even more when one of his four bosses left his office without saying a word, the bang of his slightly rickety door making him jump a again.

He opened the file that had no reference whatsoever and found two pieces of parchment inside.

The large photograph caught his eye. He was looking at a human body but it wasn't moving. He squinted at the image and made sure that he wasn't looking at a Muggle – non-moving – photograph. He saw shadows moving on the skin that was exposed so knew it was a Wizarding photograph. The male chest he was looking at wasn't moving up and down with either steady or irregular breaths, which led Ron to the obvious and correct conclusion.

The man in the photograph was dead.

Ron winced as he looked properly at what was on the skin. There was a slit stretching from the top of the man's ribcage down to the bottom of his sternum. Some of the wound had been closed and the skin had knitted together, other parts of it had either split open after being healed, or not been healed properly in the first place. A trickle of blood had escaped from the bottom of the cut and had veered off to the right.

At the top of the line, Ron noticed the skin looked like it had been burned and not healed correctly, but it was too patterned for it to be a burn, unless of course it was a brand.

Ron shuddered at the thought.

He picked up the other piece of parchment and wasn't surprised to see a 'pre-formal investigation' form. He briefly thought the same thing he thought every time he looked at one of these forms – why are they pink? – and then wondered why there was a distinct lack of information on the form.

The door to the adjoining office flicked open and banged against the wall. He heard footsteps and then in his peripheral vision he saw someone – someone he knew very well – perch themselves on the edge of his desk.

'Is this a case where they have no idea if it's anything, but they feel they should report something and, therefore, do, because then they've covered their arses should anything major happen in regards to it?'

'Why are these forms always pink? Why not normal parchment colour? Why not normal parchment?'

'I mean, it hardly says anything. There's a pretty horrible picture of a dead body with a weird scar and a close up of a partially removed tattoo… Is this one of those cases where they're not even sure it's a Wizarding issue as of yet, so it's up to us to determine what went on and whether to pass it on to the Muggle Police?'

'Seriously, though, pink?'

Harry finally looked at Ron at huffed.

'Will you shut up about the bloody parchment colour!'

Ron looked at Harry and smirked.

'Yes, I do think it's something for us to determine whether it's Magical, and if it is, pass it on to the people oh-so-much higher than us, and then do the same with the next case they throw at us. Literally. Where does it say the body was found?'

'Somewhere in Haltwhistle, Northumberland.'

'You know, when Wizards are involved, the place of the body could be totally random.'

'True, but if Wizards aren't involved then it's pretty relevant, or if it is a Magical death then clues could be left because of patterns and where subsequent bodies may or not be found.'

'Subsequent bodies? Mate, we've got one picture of one person and you've already got them pegged as the first victim of a serial killer! You've been watching too much of that programme Hermione watches, NCSTUVWX… or whatever it's called.'

Ron felt a folder hit the back of his head and he chuckled in response.

'For your information, Auror Weasley, I am not taking inspiration from a television programme!'

'Yeah, yeah!' He saw Harry was about to argue so carried on before he had the chance. 'So, do we start on this case or do we wait until one of our four bosses tells us to do something about it. I don't know about you, but I have another five case files on my desk which I was reading when I was rudely interrupted by flying pink parchment, all of which involving varying degrees of Dark Activity.'

'I think we should leave it for now until instructed to start work on it. If it had been that urgent I think we would have been briefed a little more thoroughly, don't you?'

'Yeah, good plan.'

Harry got off the desk and walked towards the door.

'Fancy a cuppa?' Ron asked, getting up off his chair.

Harry pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch.

'It's eighteen minutes past nine!'

'Your point?'

'That was it!' Harry exclaimed loudly.

'Perfect time for a cup of tea!'

'You say that every time you want a drink.'

'How am I wrong, then?'

Harry rolled his eyes and walked through to his own office.

'I take it you don't want one!' Ron called through after Harry.

'Two sugars, lots of milk,' Harry replied.

Ron laughed. 'Cheeky bugger.'

…

Jasper knocked on the door and for some reason he held his breath.

'Come in,' the voice inside the room said.

He decided it would be best to start breathing again. He reached for the handle of the door, noticed his hand was shaking slightly and opened the door.

'Hi!' he said, slightly breathless.

'Mm!' Hermione replied, her nose in her juice bottle, finishing her drink. She swallowed. 'Sorry about that. Hi! How are you?'

'Fine, thanks,' Jasper replied. 'Yourself?'

'Yeah, good. A bit wind swept, I didn't realise how windy it was outside, mind you that may have something to do with the magical windows!'

Jasper laughed out loud.

'Can't you switch them off, or something?' he asked, looking at the windows, trying to find the visual disturbances that showed there was magic around.

'Probably, but I don't want to annoy the people who's job it is, it being their job and all. I Really can't be bothered with the hassle.'

'Hard morning?'

Hermione pulled her face.

'Not hard as such, just a bit…exasperating I suppose. Having an assistant would help a lot! Which, neatly brings me on to why you're here.'

She smiled at him and he tried not to get his hopes up too much. He'd prefer her to just tell him he didn't have the job but thank you anyway, than be nice to him and then tell him he didn't have the job.

He nodded politely, unable to say anything.

'Right, well, lets get all the official stuff out of the way, shall we?'

It was a rhetorical question and he knew it.

'Obviously I've gone through your history with you so I don't have to do that again, so, now we have the results of the search for your family. I'm sure you already know…' she paused, searching for the file in the large pile on her desk.

Jasper failed to suppress a small sigh of disappointment, he knew that Hermione was going to list reason after criminal reason why he couldn't work for the Ministry of Magic. His heart sank and then his frustration at himself for getting his hopes up for a job he knew he had no hope of getting turned into anger. He scowled.

'…that there was nothing major to find, your twin brother seems to have been drunk a couple of times and needed to sleep the experience off in a cell over night, but apart from that, there's nothing of concern. Your family officially passed, I'm not going to hold your brother getting rat-arsed-' she stopped and looked at Jasper, and pulled her face at her use of language. 'Sorry, that's one of my fiancé's favourite phrase, unfortunately it seems to have seeped into my vocabulary!'

Jasper was having trouble understanding what she had said about the search results. How come none of his brother's major crimes had been found? Surely if they had found out about a couple of drunk and disorderly charges they'd have found out about the violence, the drugs and the illegal moneymaking? He was very confused.

He realised Hermione was waiting for some kind of reaction to what she had just said, he vaguely remembered her saying something about bad language and pulled his face into a smile.

'You know I don't have an issue with – what can be considered to be – bad language.'

'No, living with Ron means I had to start to ignore it, it doesn't bother me but every time I swear I see my Dad's disapproving glare at me!'

Jasper genuinely smiled this time.

'Anyway, sorry, I got distracted. Basically every search that had to be done came back clear, or near enough and for minor offences that came up, like your brother's, it's up to me whether I make them an issue. I'm not going to make them an issue unless I'm presented with any other evidence to show that they should be an issue, so, yet again, the final decision is down to me as to whether I hire you, or not.'

Jasper held his breath. His conscious was waging a private battle. Should he own up to his brother's illegal activity and, therefore, put any hope of getting this job to bed with it, or should he keep quiet? After a few agonising seconds of trying to make a decision, he decided to keep quiet. It wasn't his fault if the searches hadn't found anything.

Maybe he had always just presumed that his brother had been charged and found guilty of the crimes he had been questioned about – he really didn't ask him how things had gone very often, if he was honest with himself he had bigger things to worry about.

Himself, and trying to get a decent job, for example.

'You were the best at interview, when you relaxed a little, and you seem to really want the job, so I'd like to offer you a six week trial. If, at the end of the six weeks, I'm happy with how we work together, and you're happy with the job and what you're doing then I'll offer you a permanent contract, reviewable annually. If, however, you're not happy after the six weeks, then you can leave with no hard feelings and six weeks Ministry experience. Does that sound all right with you?''

Jasper grinned. 'Yeah! Of course it does! It's sounds excellent! I... thank you! Thanks!'

Hermione smiled. 'You're welcome. I hope you enjoy working here!'

'I'm sure I will! Is there anything else you need me to do or need to know?'

'There's one more form to fill in, I'm afraid, but it's nothing too serious - just one for me to keep on file in case of emergency, contact information, allergies you might have etc. Anything I might need to know in case you keel over one day, although if you could avoid doing that it would be much appreciated!'

Jasper laughed. 'I'll try.'

He took the form from Hermione.

'Do you want me to fill this in now?' He started rummaging for a pen in his robes. He grabbed at what he thought was a pen but brought out a blunt and battered pencil.

Hermione smiled and handed him her pen. Jasper grinned.

'Not a fan of quills then?' he asked as he started to fill out his name on the form.

Hermione smiled. 'It's not that I'm not a fan, they're really nice to write with when you have the time to write slowly and neatly, but if you're just scribbling notes down or cross referencing things and putting the thing down and getting ink everywhere, they're just not as practical as Muggle pens. Not to mention the amount of ink that gets all over your fingers. I swear, during my time of school, I'd say about 90% of the time the fingers on my right hand were blue or black!'

Jasper nodded in agreement. 'Yeah, I'm the same, always use a Muggle pen instead of a quill, or battered pencils apparently!'

He continued filling out the form. He didn't have any medical allergies - normal or magical to report, and considering he'd only recently moved out of his mum and dad's house, he still knew their address so the Next of Kin information was easy enough to fill in.

He handed Hermione back the form and she added it to a brand new and very empty folder.

'Right, well, I suppose the only thing left to sort out is your start date. Do you know when can you start? Do you have to give notice to anyone?'

'Let's see,' Jasper said with a smile, he thought for a moment, 'yep, I can definitely start on Thursday.'

'Thursday? This Thursday?' Hermione asked, obviously surprised. 'But what about your other job?'

'My other job consists of me working behind the bar of a pub which is run by the most oblivious man in the entire country. I swear, every time I go to him for my wage at the end of each week, he looks confused as hell and I have to remind him that I do actually work for him and that he owes me a week's wage. I think the only reason he actually gives me the money is because he doesn't think someone would go to he trouble of filling in a time sheet just to steal off him. I'm working tonight and tomorrow during the day, and if he's short staffed I'll tell him I can work the late shift on Friday, I'll have to go in to get my final wage anyway, but, really, I can start full time Thursday if you want, or we can make it a nice fresh start on Monday if that's easier for you.'

Hermione shook her head in a disbelieving way at Jasper's story, but smiled nonetheless.

'How about you do half days on Thursday and Friday and I can show you around the building, the offices, let you meet mine and your various bosses who go up through the ranks, and I can give you all your official documentation too. That way on Monday you're ready to start and we don't have to lose a day doing all that I just said. Also, if you do have to work Friday night then you're not exhausted after a full day here.'

Jasper nodded enthusiastically. 'Sounds great. If you need me for any more information then you have my mobile number, that's if I haven't got angry with it and caused it to die, yet again. My flat's on the floo and I have no aversions to owls, so, contact me any time.'

'Yep, I said the exact same thing when I started, now people know not to contact me on a weekend unless it's a dire emergency. I give you four weeks before your enthusiasm dies a long and slow death. Hang on, I need to stop talking or you're going to change your mind about taking this job!'

Jasper laughed. 'Nah, believe me, this is going to be a good thing for me, I just hope I don't mess anything up.'

'Well,' Hermione said, standing from her chair, 'as long as you get to know how I like my coffee pretty quickly then I think we'll be okay.'

'And you like your coffee...' Jasper asked as he stood from his chair

'Milk with two sugars...except when I'm at my parents' house. They're dentists and don't believe in sugar. Personally I blame Ron for my newly acquired sweet tooth, but I don't tell him that!'

'Okay! Coffee type noted and should your parents ever visit you at work I will never mention the sugar!'

Hermione extended her hand and Jasper shook it.

'I look forward to working with you, Jasper.'

'You too, Hermione... Are you sure it's okay me calling you that and not Miss Granger?'

Hermione opened her door. 'Believe me, Hermione is fine, unless of course you would like me to address you as Mister Mills?'

Jasper laughed. 'Nope, Mister Mills is my Dad, I'm not old enough to be Mister Mills yet!'

Hermione grinned. 'I'll see you on Thursday at nine then, Jasper.'

'Yeah, see you then, and thanks for this, you have no idea how much this job means to me.'

'You're welcome.'

Jasper headed out the door and down the corridor, he managed to round the corner before jumping and punching the air in happiness. A couple of people gave him a strange look as they passed him, but Jasper didn't care. He had a job working at the Ministry of Magic! This was the beginning of his better life, one he'd had planned for a while. Nothing was going to stop him doing what he wanted now.

Nothing at all.