InsaneJournal

Merc maintained that if there was one perk about being head of a department that you should take advantage of, it was occasionally making other people work around your schedule. Which was why he’d cleared his lunch, told Jones to take messages if anyone called, and grabbed his coat to head off to St. Mungo’s to find his sister.

Of course he could’ve had someone call her down, but there was no fun in that if you asked him. So Merc decided to go to catch her in the staff lounge himself. Surprisingly easy really, just a charming smile at the info desk once they recognized who he was, then only waiting at the lounge doors for a moment before he could do the same routine on one of the staff coming in. A famous face and a nice smile, that’s all you needed to get anywhere really.

Merc stepped inside the staff lounge, standing out in his civilian robes, and waved his hat at his sister to grab her attention from across the room. He didn’t really need to do that, people were already pausing in their conversations to stare. Naturally, being Merc, he stopped to give them a smile to confirm that yes, he was who they thought he was.

Florrie was sitting in the staff lounge, her feet up, reading a recent copy of Witch Weekly (not the one with the Most Eligible Bachelor list headed by the Minister), when Merc charmed his way into the staff lounge. She dropped the magazine when she saw him and scrambled to her feet. Smoothing her robes, she came to give him a sisterly hug. "Merc! What are you doing here? Don't you have some important Ministry something-or-other to do?" she teased, as if she didn't have any idea what he did all day. She continued, "How are you? I wasn't expecting to see you until next weekend."

Merc smiled and hugged her back, laughing a little at her teasing. "Nonsense, my important ministry stuff can be put on hold to surprise my favourite sister. Besides, you're sitting around now anyway, thought you needed a break from that," he teased back with a wink. "Well yes, but next weekend is long enough away and I thought I'd treat you to lunch. Besides, the American Quodpot commissioner has a nasty habit of calling whenever I'm about to finally take a lunch break. I told Jones to tell him I've got an important prior commitment, that's what we're calling you, so no calls about those exhibition games today."

Florrie looked round to see who was in the lounge and checked the board to see who was top of the queue. "I might get a sudden call and have to leave, but if you can stand me abandoning you to go check on the next fellow to accidentally reverse his knees, I can come out for a bit. Merlin knows it beats the sandwiches at the tea shop."

That sentiment elicited groans from her colleagues. Tea shop lunch was apparently not a favourite.

"Let me sign out and we'll be on our way." Suiting deed to action, Florrie went over to the board and marked herself as gone for lunch, but back in an hour.

"I suppose my heart might survive you abandoning me," Merc said with a wry smile as he waited for her to sign out for lunch. With that it was only a friendly wave goodbye to the lounge before they were out and off to a small pub MG liked to visit when he could.

"They got a great lunchtime deal on steak sandwiches and the owner is a fan," Merc explained quietly once they'd been seated at a more private corner booth. "You actually could smoke here until just recently actually. Shame. But it was this or that tea shop around the corner." He wasn't serious on that last bit of course, subjecting Florrie to more subpar sandwiches would just be cruel.

Florrie settled into her own seat, looking at the menu. Nothing alcoholic while on duty, of course, not even butterbeer, so she settled for tea and the aforementioned steak sandwich, declining the chips in favour of a salad.

Once the server had taken their order, she turned back to Merc. "So there are going to be exhibition games with the American Quodpot teams? Who's playing them? Here or there, or both sides of the Atlantic?" The obvious next question, of whether there would be tickets, was more properly posed after Merc told her whether they would even be playing in Britain.

Merc did order butterbeer for himself, and chips to go with the steak sandwich. He never claimed to be a paragon of good health. "In this case it'll be our side of the pond. The Americans would like quodpot to be bigger in other countries, it's quite niche throughout the rest of the world but the commissioner just won't hear it. He keeps grossly overestimating stadium sizes, it's getting a tad annoying. Don't get me wrong, it's a good opportunity for us too, but he's too...pushy and bombastic for lack of better words. Not the best man to try organizing realistically with." Merc shrugged in a 'what can you do' way as their drinks came. "It'll be good to watch though, nice bit of spectacle that will be a change from the norm around here. What about you Florrie? Any gruesome medical tales to tell me before we eat?"

"Nothing significant of late, so you can eat your chips in peace." Florrie stuck out her tongue at Merc as if she were still an ickle firstie instead of a grown woman. The truth was that she was relieved not to have had any serious cases recently. While there were always spell accidents, plant poisonings, and fools with dangerous creatures, the worst cases of the last few months had all involved Dark magic, and some of the poor victims had already been dead by the time the mediwizards had arrived. Those weren't the sort of things she liked to talk to Merc about. His idea of trouble was, Florrie thought, bad quidditch landings. And Florrie was glad to keep it that way.

"What's the problem with stadium size? Are you worried you won't sell enough tickets?"

"Don't think I've forgotten that time you put me off those top class fish and chips," Merc jokingly wagged his finger at her. He didn't mind the gruesome stories that much, it was nice to hear about her work and what she did. He was quite proud of his sister's accomplishments really. "Something like that. He's treating this like it's an American audience, who are both very into Quodpot and have a larger population in general. One of the numbers he gave me at the beginning I had to shoot down and explain that that was nearing the size for early world cup quidditch matches and really we aren't going to be filling that. You need to know your audience, and really right now there are a lot of other things on people's minds at the moment. "

"Like the elections. I can't wait until they're off the front page." Florrie rolled her eyes. "Hardly any of the candidates look worth voting for. And they're in the Prophet or on the wireless all the time. I know it's important, Merc, but if there were two knuts' worth of difference among the lot of them, it would be a lot easier for me to pay attention to it. I read the interviews and it's all the same three points, except for Gilderoy Lockhart. And his interview didn't make me want to vote for him as much as read his books."

"You and me both, trust me. I'm sick of them too, and whoever wins not only gets to be Minister, but is my boss. Imagine Lockhart as my boss," Merc chuckled. "Big problem is that they all need to be nice and reassuring not to alienate any of the electorate. Which pretty much means they all say the same things with only slightly different emphasis on certain issues. Merlin, everyone and their mother seems to be discussing it. Even at work, you'd think they'd be smarter about it there but...no sadly not. I got asked at least three times who I'd be voting for before I had to address the issue of asking those things at one of the meetings." He shook his head with a sigh and slight roll of his eyes.

Florrie had started to dig into her salad, and she began to gesture with her fork, careless of the dressing on the of the piece of lettuce she'd speared. "I won't ask which one you're voting for, then. I've been hiding behind Witch Weekly in the hopes of people not asking me who I'm voting for. Even a dozen articles on which is the dreamiest wizard in the Weird Sisters and Spell That! seem better than another round of that.

"Why would people talk about it in your office? I mean, I know the new Minister would be your boss, but you'd think everyone would want the new Minister to think they'd voted for him. Or her." Though Florrie thought the witches seemed unlikely to win.

"Oh I don't mind if you ask, it's just with other people and work I'd rather not. You'd think they'd be smart enough to keep it to themselves since they work for the ministry but...some are the talkative types with few filters." He hadn't ordered a salad, because really he could never pick salad over chips, but she was always entertaining to watch when she started gesticulating with her fork. "Yes. Or her. Though there are sadly few female candidates, and more accurately, an unfortunate few who are appropriately qualified." Add in that they were all on the young side...well the witches didn't seem to have much chance of winning this one.

"Should I ask which of the Spell That! wizards are the best? I think it's an even more divisive topic than the future minister, if I've learned anything from listening to the girls talk about them."

"They're all fine as far as the singing goes, but I'm not going out with any of them, so why would I care how dreamy any of them are?" Florrie huffed out a sigh that blew a bit of her fringe up for a moment. "I wish we could vote for 'none of the above' and start over with a new lot of candidates. Except then we'd be suffering the whole thing for another couple of months."

She popped a crouton into her mouth and added, "So who are you going to vote for?"

"Young girls apparently care a lot about the dreamy scale," Merc said with mock seriousness. "And I wouldn't cross any of them." He leaned over to steal one of her croutons. "Could be worse. You could have a brother foolish enough to run, then think of all the election questions you'd be asked."

Merc leaned back and looked around to see if their food was coming soon. "Well go on Florrie, guess. Or reason it out for me." He smirked just slightly, teasing her a bit like he did back when she was in school and she'd ask him a homework question. 'Well why don't you tell me?' would be his usual response.

Florrie paused in her salad consumption and dressing-flinging, putting down her fork altogether for a moment as she considered the options. "Well, not Lockhart. And probably not the fellow selling books, either. I bet you don't want to vote for anyone younger than you based on life experience, or lack thereof, which rules out both of the witches and Rowle. Who seems to be getting the dreamy vote from the paper, at any rate.

"So who does that leave: Diggory and McMurdo? McMurdo sounded kind of mean, honestly in his interview. I mean, obviously the Ministry needs to do something about Lady Noir, but the Kiss? What if you were wrong about who it was? I would guess that it's not him. So that leaves Diggory or the Minister, who is technically younger than you, but he already has the job, so we know he could do it. But Diggory has the embezzlement scandal in his past, and I would think you feel strongly about that, since it reflects on his management skills. And I don't think you like the Minister well enough to vote for him again. So ... I'm not sure."

"Aren't you the clever one? And I remain Merc the mysterious. You see why I'm not particularly pleased with the candidates for this election. Half of them make me feel old on top of that, when did they get so young? I know the age is eighteen but really...even one of the students tried! Bless the girl's heart and all, but we need a better age limit."

He sighed and picked up a more serious note. "McMurdo I had heard was more...hardline, but his Prophet interview, the last question or two specifically, makes me wary of him. Strong start in that interview, good sense of confident leadership that you'd expect but...I don't like his safety policies, well, how he plans on implementing them. And yes, the young candidates that have interviewed so far say the everything nicely and moderately, but you're right, I wouldn't vote for someone much younger than me. I wouldn't consider myself a good minister candidate and I've got as much or more Ministry experience than them."

"But we have to vote for one of them, I suppose. Or we ought to, if only to prevent the worse ones from getting in." Florrie took up her fork again. "So which ones are the really bad ones? is the question. Is having Diggory, who was a weak manager, worse than having someone like Rowle or Nott that we don't know anything about in?"

Florrie frowned. "And wasn't Nott's father one of the Death Eaters who went to Azkaban? I guess it's not fair to hold that against her, but it's not like she swore off her father's politics."

"Diggory really mostly needs to get someone good with numbers with a hardass reputation on his team that he can point to whenever the embezzlement scandal comes up. To show he acknowledges that issue and has already taken measures to address it. As for Rowle and Nott...from what I've heard about him, he's well liked and a pleasant fellow but those aren't credentials for Minister. Nott...well, it's unfair but it is a consideration. I don't know much about her, but she's got a good enough head on her to know that mentioning her father isn't a good idea right now, she had a very....proper interview. Still young though. Both of them would be a more 'wait and see' situation."

Luckily the food came because Merc was starting to get quite hungry. "Well we've discussed my opinions, and we know you've been reading far too much Witch Weekly to avoid the question, but have you made up your mind on candidate of choice even a little bit? I won't ask who in case you start ranking wizards on a scale of dreamy to avoid answering."

Despite the conversation, Florrie's salad had vanished from her plate. Now she picked up her sandwich, or at least a half of it, to dig in, but Merc's question stopped her for a moment. "Well, I thought we sort of had been, as well, because what I said about what you think lines up with my observation as well. The Minister talks a good game, and he gave a hopeful speech at the War Remembrance at New Year's, but he doesn't really do anything. So I guess I like Diggory better, with that caveat. He's not great, but he's better than any of the other options."

"He's not great, but nobody is great in the field." Merc took a large bite of his sandwich and couldn't help but smile. "Look at us, being all reasonable and logical. Wouldn't we make our aunt proud? Now if we moved onto dreamy rankings with the same strategy, I would still expect you to list me at the top of the former quidditch players list. Actually, I expect the family vote in my favour even if we include current players."

"You're my brother! I may be obliged to vote for you, and I will! but I can't think of you as dreamy, sorry." Florrie took a hearty bite of her own sandwich and a long moment to ponder a question, which she asked when she'd swallowed it and had a sip of tea. "It seems like we all knew the end of the Minister's term was coming. I wonder why we didn't have a better field of candidates?"

"I'll forgive you since I get your vote anyway and I've embarrassed you enough over the years by having my name on all sorts of lists like that." At her next question, Merc chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Hmm...I would say it's the current political climate that does it. There are a lot of big divisive issues on the table, lots of people to appease, things to juggle. It's not an easy time to be Minister, and in times of turbulence of sorts the people who step up tend to be either idealistic or intensely hardline. The youth of the field this time points to an idealistic swing. Especially when you compare it to some past races full of old wizards twice my age now."

There was a long silence while Florrie considered her next question. She'd been in school when it had happened, and really too young to remember. But Merc wasn't. "Why do you think the Wizengamot picked Regulus Black in the first place?"

The question had him freeze mid bite, and Merc took the time to chew to think on it. "...If we're being honest, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it was meant to be symbolic post-war, of a new era, a younger and more radical or progressive face, who knows. If that was their reasoning I suppose I can see it, who better to pick post-war than a war hero?"

"And I guess you don't know what you're getting in a Minister until you actually see the Minister in action." Which was another consideration in who to vote for, or against, Florrie realised. "I'm glad I'm at Mungo's and not worrying about trying to be Minister down the road." She leveled a severe look at Merc over the top of her rapidly-vanishing sandwich. "You don't want to be Minister, do you? You already get all the tickets to matches you could possibly want."

The idea of people writing nasty things in the paper about her the way they had about Rowle's sister hadn't occurred to her until now, but it wasn't out of the question, even if none of her boyfriends had died on her.

That got Merc to laugh. "Please Florrie, who would vote for me as Minister seriously?" He didn't want to be Minister of course, he supposed if down the line there was a big reason to then maybe. It wouldn't hurt to have an Order person at the helm and he did already have a high ranking ministry job. But he didn't think he was seriously cut out for it, and frankly he prefered just sticking to the sports part of the equation. But if it was a situation where things were desperate enough and that was how he could make a difference...he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't step up for that.

"I would." That was said seriously, and not just with a sister's partisanship. "And if the next vote is seven or eight years down the road, you might have enough experience then. Just promise me you'll tell me if you decide to stand for office, so I can be sure none of my boyfriends will say nasty things to the Prophet," Florrie added more lightly, and bit into her sandwich again.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence," Merc smiled sincerely. "Enough experience without being 'too' old huh? I promise I will never put my name in for something like that without first talking to you. Though sadly as a candidate I wouldn't be free to intimidate your boyfriends. Actually...hmm, 8 years down the line the girls might want to start dating. Do you think Minister of Magic would be intimidating enough to scare all the boys away from them? It might be worth it to run for that alone..." Naturally he was joking, department head could be intimidating enough to scare off teen boys he was sure.

Florrie shook her head. "They'll both be at Hogwarts. You'll have to let Aunt Minerva do all the intimidating. And, no offence, Merc, but she has that down pat where all the students are concerned." She raised her teacup to the intimidation factor of the Headmistress, who had, deliberately or otherwise, certainly been an inhibiting factor in her own school-aged love life.

"Yes but as a ministry official and the nephew of the headmistress, I'll have plenty of reason and excuse to show up at Hogwarts to help with that," he winked and raised his glass in silent salute to their favourite stern Headmistress.