She walks through the crowded halls of the Ministry, making her way to her small office. The paper airplanes whizz past her head, and she dives to the side quickly to avoid taking one to the eye; she thinks that the Ministry really ought to re-design their message system, but she's heard it's a lot more efficient than the owls were – or cleaner, at least.
Her arms are overflowing with rolls of parchment, and the sudden movement causes most of them to slide out of her grip and spread across the floor of the wide corridor. With an impatient sigh, she bends down and begins to pick them up knowing that she is definitely going to be late to the meeting she has scheduled.
People continue on their way, paying her no heed, and scatter her parchments further in their haste. With a scowl aimed at a stout witch who tears a sheet in half with the six inch stilettos she's wearing – and why anyone would wear those to work is beyond her – she finally manages to gather up the last piece of paper. She'll fix them and re-organise everything when she gets to her office; she's already five minutes late as it is, and this meeting could prove to be the turning point in her career.
She's hoping for a promotion; she's been working here for nearly ten years, she helped with the re-construction efforts after the war whilst simultaneously re-taking her seventh year at school – she deserves that promotion.
She practically runs the rest of the way to her small office, and stands panting slightly in the doorway for a few seconds to compose herself before she enters.
There is a tall, imposing man sitting behind her desk – sitting in her chair, but she wouldn't dare say anything. He's wearing a muggle suit, which she finds slightly odd, and his dark eyes fix on her as soon as she enters. She flushes slightly under his penetrating stare, as she walks slowly to her desk and sets the loose rolls of parchment down in a wonky pile.
"Miss Granger," he begins, seemingly not bothered with introducing himself.
"It's Weasley, now," she can't help but correct, wincing slightly as his eyes narrow.
"Mrs Weasley," he accedes, "I gather that you were informed of this meeting." She grimaces faintly at his tone, hoping that he doesn't notice the brief expression flicker across her features.
"Yes, I was," she begins, hoping that her voice sounds stronger and more assured than she feels, "I apologise for my lateness..."
"We have a project which we would like for you to undertake," he interrupts, standing slowly from the chair and walking smoothly around the mahogany desk. "As I'm sure you're aware, the anniversary of the war against Voldemort is imminent. We would like for you to be one of the researchers involved with this." She frowns slightly, unsure what it is that he's talking about.
"Well, I..." She begins, only to be cut off for a second time.
"We are aware that you played an important role in the second war, but if you deem this project to be below you..."
"No, no, sir. Of course not," she stammers, not giving him a chance to finish the sentence. It may not have been the promotion that she was looking for, but it could still be beneficial to her – at least, from what little she's heard about it, it seems like it could be a good opportunity and she would like to hear more about it.
"So, that's settled, then." His calculating stare turning into a satisfied smirk, "I'll have the papers sent over and you can begin working on it straight away."
"What? But I..." She tries to object – he hasn't even told her what the job is yet – but he's already out the door and half way down the corridor before she can even fully form her objection.
With a sigh she perches on the edge of her desk, and watches his retreating form, wondering just how much extra work she's gotten herself this time.
After several minutes have passed, she decides that it would probably be a good idea to sort out the hap-hazard pile of parchments that she had left on the corner of her desk what couldn't have been much more than five minutes ago. Even if it did look as though she had been taken off that project, it couldn't hurt to organise her notes – someone else might find them helpful, at the very least.
By the time an hour passes she has managed to organise her entire desk, fill in some paperwork that she hadn't managed to get around to the day before and gone on no less than three coffee runs, and still has yet to receive any information on her newest assignment.
She's beginning to get a little fidgety – probably shouldn't have had that last cup of coffee – by the time there is a tentative knock on her door. She opens it to find startled blue eyes blinking at her from behind messy golden curls; the man couldn't have been working here long, he didn't look that far out of Hogwarts, but the look of awe on his face as he stared at her was what gave it away – most people had gotten used to working with one of the Golden Trio long ago.
He managed to stutter out a few words – none of which she could understand, but she didn't really have the heart to ask him to repeat himself – and shoved a neat pile of parchments into her arms before scuttling off down the corridor, completely oblivious to her bemused expression.
She closed the door slowly, leaning against it for a while after she heard the soft snick of it shutting fully. The parchment was a heavy weight in her hands, and she again wondered how much extra hours she would have to put in because of this project.
With a sigh, she pushed herself away from the door, walked slowly around her desk and eased herself into the worn chair behind it. She placed the pile of parchment in front of her, briefly considering another coffee run before quickly dismissing the idea, and skims over the first page.
...October 31st 1981...
...have access to all the Ministry's existing records...
...access all areas...
...other sources of information will be available...
...remaining family members' permission...
She stared at the parchment in confusion; she had thought that the project would have involved the Battle of Hogwarts, but it seemed as though he had actually been referring to the Fist Wizarding War. It was a project that she would find more interesting – having not seen it first hand, so most of the information would be relatively new to her – but she wasn't sure what made this project so important; from what she had read so far it seemed as if she was writing about just one person, and not the war as a whole.
She flicked through the next few sheets of parchment, only seeing a lot of dates and deadlines but nothing which explained the project further. By the time she was five pages in she was getting a little irritated at the organisation – there had to be at least fifty sheets, at the very least they could have put the most useful information at the front.
...died a hero...
...unknown by the masses...
...a member of Voldemort's inner circle...
...discovered important information...
...helped greatly with the war effort...
...Harry Potter himself...
...enabled the death of...
She felt about ready to scream; there was no logic to this, she was seven pages in and they still hadn't given her a name – surely that should have been on the first page. She went back over all of the pages she's read, thinking that she must have missed it the first time around, this time reading every single word – still nothing.
With a groan, she grabbed her mug and stormed down the corridor; she already felt drained by this project and she hadn't even technically started it yet. She dreaded to think what she would be like six months from now. This was turning out to be a nightmare.
After two mugs of black coffee, she finally felt prepared to renew her search for a name. Setting her mug down on her desk and ignoring the dark ring that it would inevitably leave behind, she focussed her attention back onto the loose sheets in front of her.
...Slytherin...
...1961...
...died valiantly...
...18 years of age...
Finally – finally – she found the name, right at the bottom of the tenth page, printed in bold letters and underlined several times.
REGULUS BLACK
"Well," she couldn't help but say aloud, "at the very least, this is going to be interesting."