Sirius Black: The Purist's Scapegoat (whysoserious) wrote in fineic, @ 2019-01-09 10:29:00 |
|
|||
“The Tea Room at Saint Mungo’s has a long and important history,” Jemimah Rollins, the witch with silver streaks in her black hair who looked most disapproving when Sirius had called Jem instead of Madame Rollins, explained as she walked Sirius through the Most Noble and Ancient Haus of Tea. “We do not just provide herbal comfort and soothing tannins, but our very presence itself. We listen, console, congratulate and above all —” she held a finger aloft in the air “— we provide a refuge.” “Right,” Sirius said, slowly, glancing around the pastel green walls and tables and poofs, an elderly gentleman snoozing in a corner with an open Prophet on his lap. “Herbal refuge, consoling tannins, got it.” Madame Rollins gave him a look that Sirius pretended to ignore as he smiled cheerfully and clapped his hands together. “Bloody brilliant. Janice said I seemed like a natural people person and this would be a great fit for me.” He could practically see Madame Rollins making a mental note to give the witch in charge of placing new hire support staff a piece of her mind, but before she could say as much a younger girl with red rimmed eyes walked in sniffling into her tissues. Perfect! An opportunity to prove himself. And before an objection could be made, Sirius strode over to her and placed a hand on her arm. “Welcome to the illustrious Tea Room of Saint Mungo’s,” he created in a soft, concerned voice. “Come on in and let me get you a cuppa soothing comfort and herbal tannins.” He could almost hear how hard Madame Rollins was gritting her teeth but the girl looked up at Sirius with watery eyes and nodded gratefully without seeming to register his words. “That would be nice, thank you,” she said, seating herself down at a table while Sirius gave a seething Madame Rollins a smug grin as he sauntered behind the counter. In the end it was three wrong tea bags, a wrong sandwich and a scone that was dropped and promptly picked back up that did Sirius in rather than his irreverence to the healing powers of tea, and as an apologetic Janice led him out the door and away from an Apoplectic Madame Rollins he off handedly remarked “maybe something without food?” The file room seemed like a gold mine of an assignment, and Sirius readily agreed with Janice that it looked like a good fit as she dropped him off and introduced him to a squat wizard with tiny glasses named Roland. The Tea Room had seemed an obvious choice, sure, but here he had a chance to read and potentially manipulate files. So much better to what they needed, really. And the instructions were pretty straight forward to: pick up the files in the In Box and put them in the right place according to the handy dandy color coding, and pull the files on the Requested list and put in the Out box. Totally simple. And approximately fifteen minutes into his new assignment Sirius was climbing the walls. Literally. “Mr. Black, I’m terribly sorry, honestly but you can’t -- please get down Mr. Black you only have to use your wand to summon the correct folder -- really you don’t have to -- the whole shelf is going too --” The resounding crash as the shelf did, as Roland had been about to convey, come down spectacularly and send folders and parchment and files crashing to the ground. When Janice came to retrieve him he was trying desperately to help Roland clean up the mess and shoving files into folders that Roland was quickly trying to fix and resort as soon as Sirius set them aside, and the squat wizard gave the witch a desperate look as she surveyed the damage. “Well!” she exclaimed, her chipper smile seeming much more forced as she held open the door for Sirius, “now we know that you don’t do well with confined places!” After all was said and done, Sirius wasn’t sure why he’d even been considered for another placement in those other positions. After the day ended and he went to Janice’s office with his new supervisor to fill out the official paperwork and get an ID badge, the smile on the other witch’s face was finally natural once more as a spry witch named Miriam-but-you-can-call-me-Mimi gushed over what a fast learner he was and how good with the patients and how she just knew he’d be an asset to the team. Sirius even caught himself smiling more than smirking during the praise and when Janice stood up to shake his hand he gripped hers back with a renewed energy. “I think you’re going to be an excellent Porter, Mr Black. Welcome to St. Mungo’s.” |