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Post by Angelique St. Clare on Apr 16, 2007 15:03:58 GMT -5
Angelique took the Floo Network to the Ministry of Magic in order to investigate if any unauthorized Portkeys had recently been set up. She finally found her way to the Portkey office and walked quickly up to the front desk. "Hello," she said briskly. "I'm Angelique St. Clare, I'm from the Auror office. Actually, I've only just started, but I'm wondering if you can help me. I need to find out if any unauthorized portkeys have been set up in the last week or so. We have reason to believe that one may have been used in a kidnapping."
The woman behind the desk, who Angelique thought rather resembled a mole, squinted up at her with a vague expression on her face. "I am sorry, but that information is off limits to you. Portkeys are our area, not yours. I'm afraid I can't help you."
"What?" Angelique gasped. "If the portkey was used in the commission of a crime, then yeah, it's my business. I think you'd better tell me what you know right now!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Missy," the mole woman said rudely. "Now move along."
Angelique proceeded to argue with the woman for another 10 minutes, before the woman finally pointed her wand at her and physically ejected her from the office.
"Of all the nerve!" Angelique said angrily. "There has to be a way to get this information!" She thought for a minute, then came up with an idea. There was only one person she knew at the Ministry, and he might just have enough authority to get the woman to give her the information she needed. She went straight to find Christian Matthews.
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Post by christian on Apr 16, 2007 16:23:55 GMT -5
Christian was strolling the corridors of the Magical Transportation Department to find someone to talk to about a certain portkey problem. An older worker of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office had insisted that Christian go and directly demand that the Portkey office stop issuing portkeys so close to downtown London. It had apparently been causing lots of muggles in the surrounding area. Figuring that it wasn't a good idea to disappoint anyone who might even consider voting for him in the election, Christian continued to walk down the hallways until he finally found the portkey office.
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Post by Angelique St. Clare on Apr 17, 2007 15:22:42 GMT -5
Angelique was rushing down the hallway and nearly ran into someone. "Oh, sorry," she said. Stepping back, she realized it was just the very person she was trying to find. "Christian!" she gasped. "I was just coming to look for you. This awful mole woman in the Portkey office is refusing to give me information. She says something about it's not my department. Can you help?"
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Post by christian on Apr 17, 2007 19:44:21 GMT -5
"Miss St. Clare?" Christian said, suddenly recognizing her. "Wow. I didn't think I'd be seeing you again so soon." He admitted, pleasantly surprised. "A mole woman in the portkey office? What kind of information is it that you need?" He asked her, slightly confused about the whole situation. "I was actually just heading there. So I'll see what I can do for you."
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Post by Angelique St. Clare on Apr 18, 2007 13:33:20 GMT -5
Angelique smoothed out her hair. "OK, see, I'm investigating a kidnapping case. This woman... Isabella... something or other... she says her baby's been kidnapped. She thinks it was done by someone on Voldemort's orders. He was taken right out of Hogwarts. And we figured out that the person who did it took a portkey, so I came to see if they could give us any information about any unauthorized portkeys that might have been set up recently. But this woman in the Portkey office--I swear, she's like revenge of the mole people or something--won't give me that information. She says it's not my department. I was wondering if you could help pull any strings..."
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Post by christian on Apr 18, 2007 16:14:38 GMT -5
"Oh, um...sure. I can do that." Christian replied. "I'm surprised she denied you access to something like that in the first place. Being an Auror, she could've at least asked if you had a good reason for it instead of just turning you down at the spot." He frowned. "C'mon. Follow me and I'll see what I can do to get her to give them to you."
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Post by Angelique St. Clare on Apr 19, 2007 20:23:22 GMT -5
"Oh, it's probably something to do with the fact that I'm new or something," Angelique said. "You know, like she didn't recognize me. Either that, or she's just a mean and spiteful woman. Whatever. I argued with her, but she wouldn't listen. Anything you can do to help would be great."
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Post by christian on Apr 20, 2007 18:30:46 GMT -5
Christian nodded and walked up to the desk that the woman Angelique had described was sitting at. "Hi. I'm Christian Matthews. You might've heard of me. I'm the Head of the Department of Law Enforcement here. I believe you just denied my friend over here access to information about unauthorized portkeys." He said casually, pointing to Angelique. "Do you mind telling me why you did that? Do you even know who she is?" He asked sternly.
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Post by Angelique St. Clare on Apr 20, 2007 22:30:45 GMT -5
The woman peered at him through thick bottle-shaped glasses. "I'm sorry, Mr. Matthews, but she didn't have the proper clearance. I've never met her before, she didn't fill out the paperwork, and she had no ID badge!"
"That's because I just started work yesterday!" Angelique cried, exasperated. "Which I told you before. About 5 times. Vincent Corrigan just hired me yesterday, and he didn't have time to fill out the paperwork. But I do work here. I am an auror!"
"Well, fine. Since Mr. Matthews is here, I guess I can give you the information. This time. But when you're done here, I suggest you head over to the Auror department and have Cassidy LaRose help you fill out the paperwork. Then you can take it to Mr. Corrigan to sign." She shook her head. "The man really needs to spend more time in the office if he wants to be considered head of the auror office. Poor Miss LaRose is usually the only one in the office." The woman walked over to a box and tapped it with her wand, and a sheet of parchment popped out of it. Taking the parchment, she walked over to Angelique and Christian. "Here it is. The unauthorized portkeys for the last 2 weeks. I hope that will be enough information." She handed it to Christian.
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Post by christian on Apr 20, 2007 23:25:27 GMT -5
"Thank you." Christian muttered, taking the parchment from the woman. He handed it to Angelique. "You should probably go and properly register soon, like she said. I'm sure you won't want any other kind of problems." He turned to the woman behind the desk, "As for you...I'm not going to report you or anything, but I suggest you get more information on any particular situation like this before denying someone clearance to any kind of information right off the bat. I don't tolerate ignorant people here at the Ministry. Fortunately, you were cooperative enough to not make me too unhappy. Just don't go doing anything stupid anytime soon or I'll see to it that you're fired." He said, frowning as he spoke. He may have been a little harsh on her, but he didn't need anything more to stress him out these days. As long as she got the message, he wasn't going to do anything drastic.
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Post by Angelique St. Clare on Apr 20, 2007 23:52:36 GMT -5
Angelique shook her head. "Yeah, I should have expect all this. In America, the red tape is ridiculous. We have so many rules and forms and processes, it's ridiculous." She smiled at him. "Anyway, thanks for doing that. It's pretty impressive how well you exercise your authority and how you make people back down. I bet most of them are afraid of you." She looked at the parchment. "Yikes! Would you look at all these? Who would have thought so many people would have made unauthorized portkeys?"
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Post by christian on Apr 21, 2007 0:04:11 GMT -5
"Eh...Its pretty much my job to make them afraid of me. That and sitting around, barking out orders. Really, its getting to this position that was the hard part. And then everything involved with running for Minister of Magic. But I'll get through it eventually. Be it with positive results or negative ones, its been a good experience." He shrugged. "Anyway, good luck with tracking down that portkey and helping out...well, whoever it is you said you were helping. One of my disgruntled colleagues will be very disappointed if I don't have the information he wants soon. And disappointment leads to bad results in the polls on election day, so I really should get going." He added with a small smile. "Let me know if you run into any other problems. I'll be glad to help you as long as I have the time."
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Post by Angelique St. Clare on Apr 21, 2007 0:12:16 GMT -5
"Well, you're good at it," Angelique said. "And thanks again, really. Hopefully I can find this portkey, so we can find the baby. Really, I can't believe Voldemort has taken to kidnapping babies. From everything I've heard about him, I wouldn't have thought he would want to bother with babies." She shrugged. "Anyway, I suppose I'll see you again sometime. For now, though, I guess I'd better head down to the auror office and start filling out some forms. Bye!" She turned and walked in the opposite direction.
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