"Minister, the Daily Prophet just owled, they're requesting a comment on your appointment of Shacklebot as your advisor-"
"Miss Chang, I've told the Prophet several times that Kingsley is here of his own accord, and I find his input very valuable. I have nothing further to say, and I expect Kingsley doesn't either. Now, please close the door after you, I have important work to attend to."
Percy Weasley shut the door behind his Senior Undersecretary, turning to face his now Advisor, Kingsley Shacklebot.
"Sorry, Kingsley, she has a habit of bursting in without knocking."
"That's quite alright, Percy." Kingsley replied, a smile across his face.
"As I was saying, you'd best visit the Muggle Prime Minister now, before things get too hectic here. Your opposition won't take long to surface, I'd say."
Percy quickly agreed with the ex-Minister, and turned to a portrait of a froglike man wearing a silver wig on the wall.
"Please inform the Muggle Prime Minister that I will be visiting him momentarily." Percy said, and the man turned and walked out of his frame.
"Kingsley, it's been a pleasure." Percy said, shaking the hand of his old friend.
"Good luck, Percy." Kingsley said, before stepping out of the office.
Percy, after tidying his desk and cleaning his glasses, stepped into the fireplace and was whisked out of sight in a blur of green flames.
I stood in the back of the large meeting room, clutching a clip board, my hair falling out of its (previously) neat bun, feeling distinctly harassed.
You see, it's a Monday today, and Mondays are stressful for one very simple reason. Every Monday the British arm of the International Confederation of Wizards sits down for its weekly meeting.
It's not the meeting itself that's stressful. I'm only in the meeting for the first few minutes anyway, in case anyone needs a coffee. What is nerve-wracking is to suddenly be the only person around the Confederation offices, besides the reception staff, with everyone being at the meeting. Having to deal with any inquires that pop up, the memos, any Floos...as well as doling out coffee whenever someone in the meeting hollers for me.
I've been here for three weeks now, though, so I'm getting used to it. When it gets to next week, though, well...the whole Confederation meets.
Which is a new matter entirely. Not to mention that's a meeting I actually get to witness(except for the bits I miss when I'm fetching coffee, of course).
You see, the Confederation as a whole meet once a month to discuss international matters, whilst the national groups meet much more frequently.
"Meeting commenced!" Barry Mighton, the Supreme Mugwump, announced, capturing my attention and that of the room at large.
The other twenty wizards and witches who occupy the British seats of the Confederation sat down, all looking towards Mr. Mighton.
A piece of parchment floated in the air to Mr. Mighton's left, a quill poised above it, ready to take notes.
It was in that moment of silence, that someone knocked on the door beside me.
I jumped, hastening to open the door. I could feel my face go red, as everyone in the room was staring at me. I pulled the heavy wooden door open a crack, stuffing my face in the gap.
"Urgent Floo message for Mr. Mighton." The woman on the other side said, handing me a scrap of parchment.
I couldn't resist glancing down at the message.
Blame it on human curiosity, or whatever, but I, to this day, wish I hadn't done that.
I froze, my eyes taking in what I read, but my mind barely believing it.
I read it again.
"What is it?" Mr. Mighton called, his voice echoing around the room.
I jumped again at the sound of his voice, looking up. I was certain my face was pale, I'd never been too good at hiding my emotions. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw Mr. Mighton's normally serious expression waver, and I swear the atmosphere in the room tensed upon seeing my grave expression.
"Miss Weasley? Read the message." He said, his voice strong with authority.
"It-it's an urgent floo from Peru, sir. Apparently...apparently a dragon attacked on the outskirts of Lima-"
"That's hardly important." Another Mugwump interjected, seemingly impatient to get on with the meeting.
"It also says..." I trailed off, trying to delay delivering the bad news.
"What?" Mr. Mighton asked, growing impatient also.
"A British Muggle student, Abigail Jones, captured the entire attack on her f-fone apparently it was put on the inter-net. It says here that they performed Memory charms on all those present...but Miss Jones' video has already been view by thousands of people worldwide."
"Impossible." A stern looking Mugwump put in.
"All this Alter Net nonsense, it makes no sense. Peru must be over-reacting." He said, turning back around to face Mr. Mighton.
"Miss Weasley, did you take Muggle Studies?" Mr. Mighton said, his face displaying no emotion.
"Y-yes I did, sir." I said nervously. I couldn't think why that was relevant at all.
"Then I'm sure you know what this 'in-a-net' is."
I hesitated. I did know, though, to be truthful, Muggle Studies hadn't been my forte, and I was completely confident in my knowledge.
"I...I think I do, sir, from what I gather...it's accessed from a computer, and anyone in the world can put anything on it, and anyone in the world can view anything put on it." I said, desperately wishing my cheeks would stop flaming.
"Yes, that's what I thought." Mr. Mighton replied.
"Miss Weasley, please contact the Muggle Studies Professor at Hogwarts, have them Floo here immediately. Tell him it's urgent." Mr. Mighton said, and I scurried from the room.
"They're a bunch of old men; they have no idea what they're dealing with." Roxanne said, as we grabbed a coffee.
I, having been dismissed when the Muggle Studies Professor arrived, had sought out Roxanne for a chat. Now, we were headed back up to my floor, as I wanted to see if the meeting was re-adjourned yet, and what the Confederation had decided to do.
Roxanne, a Hitwizard, was having a slow day, and had found nothing better to do that chat with me over coffee. Plus, she was too exhausted from last night's 'family get-together', after which she'd gone to the Leaky to meet some friends, to tackle her paperwork.
"A video on the internet can't be squashed with some silly rumour, or by deleting it. I bet it had thousands of hits before it was deleted, it was probably posted to some other site as well...a lot of people will have seen that video, and chances are some of them will believe it." Roxie took a depth breath, looking me in the eyes seriously.
"Luce, all we need is for someone else to come out with a photo of a gnome or something, or a relative of a witch or wizard to break the Statute of Secrecy and speak out...and we're toast." Roxanne said grimly.
"Rox, I doubt that'll happen. The Muggles have always believed what we tell them." I said automatically.
"Yeah, but what if they don't this time?" Roxie whispered, as we approached the meeting room.
I looked at her, thinking the situation over.
"We've survived in secrecy for 400 years. I think the Ministry will be able to deal with this." I said, reassuring myself just as much as I was reassuring her.
"I hope you're right." Roxie said, before heading back off down the corridor.
"Aunt Hermione?"
Hermione Granger-Weasley looked up from the pile of papers in front at her, and smiled at her niece.
"Roxanne! Come, sit down." She waved her wand, a purple armchair appearing in front of her desk.
"How are you?" Hermione asked, looking at her young niece, who looked as if something was bothering her.
Rather odd for Roxanne, who tended to be the carefree sort.
"Well..." Roxanne stalled, trying to think of a way to tell Lucy's tale. "I ran into Lucy before, she was telling me about an issue the Confederation's dealing with..." Roxanne trailed off again, having difficulty in putting her worries into words.
"And you disagree with something the Confederation's said, is that right?" Hermione asked, making Roxanne gape.
"How'd you know?"
"Roxanne, you're headstrong, intelligent and independent. If anyone had the guts to disagree with the Supreme Mugwump, it'd be you. Not to mention the look on your face," Hermione said with a smile.
Roxanne shrugged, her Aunt was right.
"Well, they had an incident in Peru, a dragon attack, and a Muggle filmed the entire thing and uploaded it to Internet," Roxanne said bluntly.
"What?" Hermione asked her eyes wide. Never had anyone heard of a Muggle filming an encounter with the magical world. Let alone putting it on the Internet...they were entering dangerous territory.
"The Confederation thinks they can just make the situation disappear, like they usually can, I'm assuming," Roxanne said whilst Hermione's mind whirled.
"Well, I'd say that the Peruvian Ministry has taken care of the situation itself, put out an excuse and all that by now. However, they can't stop the Internet." Hermione said.
"Yeah, that's what I thought when Lucy told me." Roxanne said.
"And you came to me because I'm high up in the Ministry and a Muggle-born so I understand how these things work." Hermione finished for her.
"Yep." Roxanne said, smiling slightly at her favourite Aunt.
"I need a computer," Hermione said, before standing up abruptly. "Sorry, Roxanne, but I better go and deal with this. It's possible that everyone believes the video is a fake, after all," she said, ushering her niece out of her office ahead of her.
Hermione, grabbing her handbag, quickly Apparated away, and Roxanne headed back to her department.
There wasn't much she could do now, anyway.
Percy Weasley stepped into the green flames once more.
"Good day, Minister. It was a pleasure to meet you," Percy said, smiling at the other Minister.
"You too," he replied, looking relieved to see Percy go.
Percy shouted "Ministry of Magic!" into the flames, and was whisked back into his world.
The Muggle Minister watched him go, before shaking his head, trying to forget about the recent encounter.
It was a lot for one man to handle, the secrecy of the whole British magical community.
"Sir?"
He turned, his eyes landing on his secretary at his door.
"Your 11:30 is here," she said, and the Minister nodded.
Just like that, he continued with his normal life, pushing all knowledge of the magical world away from him. The knowledge of wizards and witches and whatever else was out there was simply a bad side effect of his occupation.
For him at least, the two sides of his job didn't mix. They were entirely separate parts of his life.
I sighed with relief.
I knew the Confederation would handle it. The whole situation had given the Confederation a bit of a scare, but it was all resolved now, thank Merlin. Apparently, the Peruvian Ministry had the whole situation under control, the video was deleted and an excuse had been made up.
See, that was the beauty of excuses. They worked for videos posted on the Internet, no matter how many people had seen them. If one person said they were fake, everyone started doubting it.
Honestly, it'd been absurd of me to even worry about it at all.
I sat down at my small, rickety desk in the deserted office.
The meeting had resumed, and I, as per normal, had been kicked out to go keep things under control on the floor.
So far, absolutely nothing had happened. Whoop-de-do.
"Miss Weasley?"
I nearly jumped out of my chair at the sound of a voice.
"Yeah?" I asked, spinning around to see who was asking for me.
"Your Dad sent me to ask you if you'd like to have lunch?" the man asked me, his eyebrows raised as he waited for an answer.
Logan Brodson, Junior Assistant to the Minister.
"Um..." I said, staring at him like an idiot. "Sure," I said, an automatic response.
I watched as he hurried back out of the room, not sparing me a glance.
Well, great.
Logan had been two years ahead of me at school, in my sister Molly's year. He'd been a Gryffindor, and therefore friends with my cousins Albus and Rose.
And all through school, he'd never known my name. You'd think, seeing as he was friends with my cousins and all, and saw me around a fair bit, but no.
Oh, and there was one other thing.
All through school, I'd had a teeny, insignificant, completely unrequited, stupid, irrelevant crush on him.
Which I now know was stupid of me.
I mean, how could the Gryffindor Keeper, Head Boy, probably the most popular guy in school ever think of dating me, the Hufflepuff who read the Prophet a lot and actually studied for History of Magic.
Now, every time I see him around work, which I expect will happen a lot more now that he's my father's assistant, I tend to stutter and my mind goes blank.
It's embarrassing, I know. Which is why I tend to avoid him.
Groaning to myself, I turned back to staring out the window at today's snowstorm.
Why Magical Maintenance decided we should have a snowstorm in the middle of summer was beyond me.
Whilst the rest of her class was busy researching the periodic elements, one girl was not. Instead, she was busy reading the email her cousin, studying in South America, had just sent her.
She clicked on the link, not realising until she'd watched the video exactly what she had stumbled across. It didn't take her long to find a site, well-equipped with evidence that supported what the video had shown. Hundreds of pictures, several videos, statements from many well-known members of society over the years, statements from people many thought were crazy.
She stared at the screen, open-mouthed. She was close to calling all that she saw crazy - but there was too much evidence. No one would bother creating hundreds of false photos, surely? And the statements? They were all explained by one simple theory. The statements released by governments worldwide, the website had an explanation for them too. They were all fake, covering up the conspiracy.
She quickly copied the link, sending it around to her classmates, providing a solid distraction from Chemistry.
There was no doubt in her mind anymore. Magic was real. There was no possible way that video of a dragon was fake. Animation wasn't that good.
And those people? The poor, poor people who'd died in that video...that didn't look fake.
She shuddered slightly, hardly able to believe it.
Her whole world was changing, because she now believed. And soon the world would, too.