what's my name, what's my station. WHO: The new Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and his Deputy Head. WHEN: Backdated to morning of August 2 WHERE: The DRMC SUMMARY: Taking the measure of their new working relationship. WARNINGS: #awks & tension
For the first time in six years, Philip Avery wasn’t sitting in the bull-pen with the rest of his team.
He’d done his best to look the part: he came in early, his cuffs were buttoned, and he had a tie on, although it was already loose and askew. The chair felt too big (it squeaked when he moved), and the desk was decidedly so. He splayed his palms against its heavy wooden tabletop.
(Suddenly he was all of eight years old again and stealing into his father’s study, sitting behind Reginald’s desk and pretending to be him, feet dangling above the floor.)
The Critter Head had cleared out her office in a hurry, which meant he still found a few trinkets left behind: a half-empty bottle of aspirin rolling around in a drawer, a post-it note about the siren migration schedule, a lost photograph of the Head with her daughters. Pip sifted through the paperwork, head spinning at the bureaucracy. It was an honour, an absolute honour to be bestowed with this position that was far beyond his experience (he was a fucking fraud)—but maybe, if Sloper proved loyal, it wouldn’t have to be so bloody awkward.
It was time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Sloper would be the first one he’d talk to about it, clear the air. He owed Jacob that.
So a paper memo went fluttering down the hall to the Deputy Head’s office—“Can you pop in for a quick chat?”—and then Pip waited at the desk, trying not to stare at the door, trying not to drum his hands on the table.
Jacob's first instinct when the note floated down onto his desk was to tear it up and toss it in the bin. Denial had always been his go-to. The longer he looked at it, turning it over and over in his hands, the more tempting it was. He was being summoned. By a twenty-something.
He'd been well entrenched in the Critters office when Pip had come onboard, fresh out of Hogwarts and irritatingly tiny like all of the new hires were, and God help him, Jacob had actually taken a shine to the kid. He put in the work, he had common sense (a trait that was worryingly less and less common in each new hire), and he didn't whine when things got rough (frustratingly, even less common). The fact that he was Northern hadn't hurt either.
Pip had shown potential and promise from day one, and had quickly wormed his way into being the favourite of a man who swore up and down that he didn't even like people, much less play favourites.
Which made it even harder to rectify that with this new side of Pip. The one who'd chosen to skip the line. The one who'd let his connections to corrupted Purists and possible Death Eaters lift him up through the ranks instead of relying on his own hard work.
It left a sour taste in his mouth, that lingered even as he lurked in the doorway to Pip's new office, a hint of acid in his tone as he spoke up, "You summoned?"
“Yes. Hi. C’mon in, take a seat.” Pip gestured for the other man to take the other chair, then clenched his fingers in his lap, forcing himself to look Very Serious and Professional.
It was awkward, and he knew it was bound to be awkward; shame and self-consciousness twisted in Pip’s gut. He’d never felt quite this small in front of Jacob Sloper before. He’d leap-frogged over the most deserving and experienced employee in their department, and there was no hiding from that fact.
But at least this way, Jacob might be able to keep his own mind about him.
“Look…” There was a beat as they met eyes, as Pip scrounged for the right words. And in the end, settled on bare honesty: “You’re probably completely pissed about this, and you’re well within your rights to be. This should be you.” A wave of the hand, gesturing the corner office, the imposing desk. “But I’m determined to make the best of this, Jacob. They’ve put me here, so we’re gonna make the best of a non-ideal situation. I want this department to tick over as well as it did under Grubbly-Plank. I’ll need your help to do it.”
Easing himself into the chair, Jacob mustered up a shrug. "I'm not pissed," the 'Much' lurked so clumsily between the lines that he may as well have just said it.
"I barely want to be Deputy most days. Only got it because someone died, so…" He trailed off, not quite sure what to say. He'd rehearsed the lines a few times now, had to spout them out when people had offered him apologies and commiseration and they still didn't feel right. He'd worked for this. He'd given so much-- his whole life, in so many agonising ways. To have it all snuffed out--
"As far as I'm concerned, as long as this Department keeps protecting people, I'm happy." A beat passed, and then Jacob forced a smile, awkward and wooden.
Pip watched the reaction. Gauged it carefully. The Death Eaters would be very interested in hearing how the uncompromised Deputy took his new noose; the anchor around the Ministry’s ankle, their fetters.
The word Imperio was sitting heavy on Pip’s tongue, his wand sitting ready in his pocket.
But he didn’t say it. He looked at that sickly smile, and knew that it wasn’t necessary. Not yet.
“Honestly? That’s what I want, too. If people’d just be realistic and accept…” Pip pointed upstairs, indicating the powers that be. “There doesn’t have to be violence. We can all just keep on keeping on as we’ve always done. I’ll prove myself to you all, just you see. Like, if you don’t cause a ruckus, they’ve no reason to come after you, y’know?”
The young man’s eager expression was the same as always, the voice just as earnest and affable, but the words were poisonous.
"Right. How's it go? 'If you've got nothing to hide, blah blah…'?" Jacob nodded slowly. If his choice of words was mocking, he managed to hide it well; reigning his tone in and controlling it. Control, it seemed, was going to be paramount from this point forward.
In his decades with the Department, he'd faced down enough wild, dangerous creatures to know what he was sitting across from; A threat. Pip was a threat, now. The kind you needed to tread carefully around and never leave an opening unless it went for your throat.
"So, what's it going to be, then? 'Boss', 'Sir', 'Avery'?"
“Whatever you’re comfortable with. I know this is going to take some getting used to, but I’m serious when I say that you’re an asset and I’m going to need to rely on your wisdom.”
They had both been so very good at hiding their true natures.
“Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. Making sure you were the first I spoke to about this. Making sure we got started on the right foot.” The new Head stood up, an implicit indication that this conversation was at an end. He held out his hand.
Standing with Pip, Jacob took the younger man's hard and squeezed it. Hard. "I appreciate it, Avery."