Rust [Elliot]

[grey xavier slater]

@elliot

10.XX.2024

The reception area of the Daily Prophet wasn’t nearly as welcoming as Grey had hoped it would be. The lady behind the desk had given him barely any information as to what he was supposed to be doing in the time between signing in and going into his interview. Was there more paperwork to fill out? Did she need a copy of his transcript and writing portfolio to forward onto the interviewer? Who was conducting the interview in the first place? These were all questions he figured were pertinent when it came to his success in the impending interview. When he had talked to the Auror recruiters at Hogwarts almost a year ago, they had supplied him with everything he needed to know about the training program, the Aurors that would be looking over grades and useful skills he had, and the sort of questions they would be asking in it. Maybe that was because they seemed to be in need of more Aurors – it did look like most had a short shelf-life and the extenuating circumstances as of late were surely leading to a decrease in prospective hires. Grey had knowingly become another one of those statistics now that he was looking elsewhere for work.

His biggest issue so far with the potential career change was how the Daily Prophet would perceive quitting the Auror training program. Initially Grey had planned on completing the training, seeing it all the way through and then deciding against becoming a full-fledged law enforcement officer. He had heard that was normal with every graduating class. It certainly looked better than dropping out halfway through. But he felt like he didn’t have the time for that. Once the training was done, two more years’ worth of interns could stop him from securing a job with the newspaper. At least by jumping in five months late he would still be around colleagues he had graduated with. They could vouch for his abilities as the editor-in-chief for the school paper as well, which he was banking on to get him the position.

The résumé that held all of this information was clutched tightly, both hands pinching the sides hard enough to put wrinkles on the paper. He had printed it out at the Ministry and even made sure to laminate it. That part was a little extra, but the resources were available to the Auror trainees so he figured he would go all out with it. Getting fired up wasn’t really his thing but he could feel it now more than he ever did with his current job. His parents would be pissed, but that was also their fault for thinking they could push him into the job in the manner that they did. They should have known better. He wasn’t Claire. Addi wasn’t Claire. Hell, even Claire didn’t seem like Claire anymore. The Prophet (or some other print media enterprise) was where he was meant to be. The amount of time and effort he had placed on the school newspaper wouldn’t go to waste now.

Hearing his name called, he stood up from the chair he had been hunched over in for the last twenty or so minutes. Legs stiff, mouth dry, and pulse beating a mile a minute, he headed towards the door that he assumed hid the interviewer. A nod of thanks to the receptionist, he immediately wished he had gotten up earlier and found a water fountain. Everything he needed to say and express flowed freely in his head, but he could tell connecting that to his mouth was going to be very difficult with a scratchy throat. It was too late now though, and the door to the room was opened for him. And it was empty. He should have realized that he would be waiting for the interviewer; nobody had walked in or out of the room the entire time he had been sitting in the reception area. Letting out a sigh as the door closed behind him, Grey expertly laid out his selected articles and pieces from the Hogwarts newspaper, placed his résumé next to them, and then took a seat, tapping his fingers impatiently on his knee.

[Deleted]

only dust settles.

IT WASN'T ENTIRELY COMMON FOR ELLIOT TO help conduct solo job interviews, but he'd done it before in a trio. He'd been on the receiving end before, though it felt like a lifetime ago. When everything hedged on his small time internship at the Prophet. Now he was working in a position that was higher than he'd ever anticipated reaching, and he was manning his first solo interview. And he wasn't even nervous.

Having only been informed he'd be hosting the applicant that very morning, Elliot was already holding a cup of coffee and a handful of unanswered owls when he'd gotten the news. Someone was out sick, or busy, or just couldn't be arsed. He didn't know. So, he left the owls behind and carried himself and his cup of coffee all the way across the building to where the applicant was due to arrive. They always held them near the front of the offices, it made for less snooping and on the off chance, avoided any scorned wannabe writers from trashing their way through the entire scheme.

The elevator dinged and Elliot stepped out. There was an older woman manning the reception desk, Elliot caught her scraping at the edge of her nose, mouth hanging open a little as she stared at an open magazine. "Y'alright, Dianne?" He said loudly and she jumped before nodding hastily. "They waiting?" He asked next, jerking his chin in the direction of the interview room, the only door closed. She nodded yes and Elliot made himself smile as he walked past her desk.

When he opened the door, it was to the young man's back. He was still juggling his coffee cup and it jostled slightly as he used his foot to close it behind him. "Hope I haven't kept you waiting long, mate." Was the first thing he said, the perfunctory greeting as he approached him, free hand held out to shake. "Elliot Nader." 

Rounding the table, Elliot set his coffee mug down, used his ankle to pull out his chair and settled in to it with a sigh. "Right then." He began, scooting forward and smiling thinly at the thin, rather nervous looking man before him. "Let's get started, shall we?" Elliot had never been the type to beat around the bush, he lifted his mug, took a sip and held out his hand for Grey's files, which were all neatly lined up and squared off. Elliot reckoned it said a lot about his personality. He wasn't there to mess around.

"It's Grey Slater, right?" Elliot recalled, realising that he'd simply been given a name and short summary on who it was he was dealing with. The barest essentials, like where he'd come from and where he thought he was headed. Security was always paramount. "So, what is it that brings you here?" He asked, like it wasn't obvious. It just so happened that it was good to hear it straight from the applicants mouth. "Bit late in the year, most of our interns join mid to late summer." With a shrug, Elliot leaned back in his chair, hands folded in his lap. 

grey xavier slater

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[grey xavier slater]

@elliot

10.XX.2024

It had to have been only a few minutes since he sat down, right? The weird tunnel-vision place that his brain went while he was waiting completely omitted the concept of time, and if it weren’t for being planted stiffly in the chair, space would have been thrown out the window as well. There wasn’t even the obnoxious tick-tock of a clock on the wall so that he could count the seconds down. This was a clinical sort of silence, like waiting for a doctor or for an exam to begin. Things were definitely going on around outside the door, but none of them were associated to his meeting and they were merely muffled reflections of life continuing on without him. It was unnerving, and even during the long evenings spent in the Gryffindor common room finishing up articles for the school paper there was still some sound to get lost in: the crackling of the fireplace or scratch of another student’s quill on paper, sequestered in one of the hidden corners suitable for conducting real work. Having all of his notes and papers sprawled across the table, similar to what he had done with his résumé and other important materials on the interviewer’s table, made him look like an organized madman.

The problem with being lost in his nervous thoughts was that he didn’t hear the footsteps that approached the door behind him. One would think that the lack of noise in the room would assist in that in some fashion, but Grey dismissed them as just another passerby walking a little too closely to the door as they went on with their day. The soft, mechanical click of the door handle had him inching towards the front of his chair, back straightening up as if he was about to be inspected by a military general. In a way, he sort of was. Interviews were there to make the best first impression - one that would leave a lasting impact long enough for the interviewer to stamp the approval papers before moving onto the next candidate. Grey wasn’t a big fan of being a suck-up or over selling himself when it came to that, but he could talk about his experience in the journalism field. The papers laid out on the table were visual aides to his talking points. In a few seconds they were going to become extremely important. Even if the interview went horribly because of his shortcomings he would still have the pieces he had written over the last few years and the title of the former editor-in-chief for the Hogwarts newspaper. They couldn’t take that away from him.

“Just sat down, actually,” Grey responded, his voice sounding crackly and foreign after sitting in silence for so long. Even worse was that his legs had stiffened up during that time, a tad wobbly as he popped out of the chair to shake Elliot Nader’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you.” He didn’t sit down again until his interviewer had, clearly signifying that it was time to get to business. Sitting and talking was strange after spending the last few months in the Auror program. They were always standing, each lesson containing some sort of physical aspect to keep them on their toes at all times. Even though he had never personally been to a sports clinic or practice before, he assumed that was what one was like. Always standing around listening, learning, waiting, and then performing brief drills. Now he was going to be sitting behind a desk and writing whenever the Prophet didn’t have him slogging around for puff-pieces. Assuming he got the job in the first place. “That’s me.” His voice sounded weird again. It was possible that the room was soundproofed. Or he actually did get nervous under pressure when it came to real life problems. He had seen plenty of students becoming stuttering, blithering messes in front of professors. He hadn’t reached that point yet with Elliot, but he was sure there was a waviness of uncertainty and anxiety riding each word.

The résumé and portfolio pieces were gathered up neatly and efficiently, and passed over the table and into Elliot’s hands. Grey was sure that he would want to look over them. Criticize them. Pick them apart and tell him how he could have done better with this leading sentence or the phrasing of that quote. It was what he did to all of the club members, though at an amateur level. This was real life now and Elliot was asking the questions that Grey figured would be asked: why was he here and why so late after school had ended? Everything was on the résumé, which would probably work as a double-edged sword throughout the interview. Backing out of the Auror program was sure to draw a few questions. Potentially scrutinizing ones about not being able to follow through with a job and that hiring him would be a risk, in the off chance he got bored with them in six months just like he had with the Aurors. There was a lot of overthinking being done and not a lot of answering the question, so Grey finally bubbled out some sort of response, “I’m hoping to be hired as an intern and eventually turn that into a full-time position here.” It couldn’t have been that easy, could it?

But that was only the first question. The second one was the meatier portion. It would take more words to get through it and less indecision. He wasn’t good at either of those while on the spot. “When I graduated, I went right into the Auror training program,” Grey explained, purposely avoiding the topic of what the other interns did. He wasn’t them and they weren’t him. “And over the last six months I realized I didn’t mesh with their goals all that well, even though I convinced myself that I did at the start of it.” He nodded his head as if it was an obvious decision for him to make, when in actuality it had taken three of those six months of wavering back and forth to get him to this exact moment. At least he had actually been doing work of some sort, instead of being lazy and lounging around all day. “I spent my last two years at Hogwarts as the editor-in-chief of the school paper, so during those months of training I realized that writing for a newspaper was where I needed to be.” It was like an itch that needed to be scratched, desperately, but kept coming back relentlessly no matter how hard he tried to get rid of it. The sort that would bother him every morning until he finally sat down to work on an article. That was what happened in school, and that was what was happening right now.

[Deleted]

feed your head.

DESPITE HIS MILD SUSPICIONS, ELLIOT DID NOT care an awful lot about Grey's sudden decision to switch professions. Perhaps a proper interviewer might have seen it as a weakness, but Elliot wasn't so sure. The Auror program was rumoured to be notoriously choosy. A good percentage of those who entered the internship were doomed to leave. Elliot was more curious to understand why. Tapping his quill against the tabletop, he hummed thoughtfully. It was a fairly generic answer, with an undercurrent of something else. Maybe resentment? Elliot wasn't so sure.

"So, what makes you so sure that this is the place for you?" Elliot asked frankly, shrugging his shoulders. It was the obvious response to his fleeting career at the Ministry. "The grades it take to be an auror alone often weeds out the unsure." He had, after all, attended Hogwarts himself. In his experience, it was either a glorified position, or a feared one. "You must have been sure back then," He looked down at Grey's resume, which was actually quite impressive. "How can we be so sure you won't change your mind again?" At this point, he was just having a little bit of fun.

Lifting his head, Elliot's attention was grabbed by the mention of the school newspaper. He'd seen it on his resume, but he'd wondered if Grey would be the first one to mention it. "I worked the paper, too, back in the day." He smiled thinly, reminded of a time when he'd been at his best as a student. Where his confidence had truly grown. "Knew the moment I got my first complaint that I was doing something right." It was a bit more complicated than that, but he wasn't going to get technical. "D'you leave it in good shape?"  

grey xavier slater

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[grey xavier slater]

@elliot

10.XX.2024

Grey knew the next question was going to be brought up at some point during the interview. It was one of the only ones he had been worried about the entire time he flip-flopped back and forth about leaving the Aurors. Simultaneously, it was the one he had prepared the most for because he knew it would be asked. As Elliot finished the question and subsequent explanation behind why he was asking it, Grey didn’t hesitate to jump right in, “I was sure that it was what my parents wanted, and not what I wanted.” He didn’t mean to bring his finger down on the table, but he did it unconsciously anyways, a soft thud in the brief silence. “This is what I want.” That was a resolute statement showing that he was serious about this job. If he had been with continuing as an Auror, he would have continued as an Auror. Having his parents trying to live vicariously through him (and to an extent Claire as well) was not what he wanted. With a job at the Prophet, they could deal and learn that this is what he wanted.

Elliot would probably understand what he meant by that. Maybe even put two and two together and remember that Claire was his older sister, the same one that the Prophet had a field day with following the killing of Desirae Rousseau. Her picture and name had been plastered on the front page for weeks. That was the sort of fame that his parents were trying to strike twice. It was the only logical reason for pushing him so hard to follow his sister. Grey didn’t add much more to his first statement though, finding the common ground with the school newspaper to be the better route to take. “I hope I did. It wasn’t in the best shape when it was handed to me,” he admitted. There wasn’t a club leader, per se, but there were a few stand-outs in the club that he was sure would start applying at the Prophet once they graduated as well. The more of them that got hired, the better it made the Hogwarts paper look. “I think I got lucky with the tournament last year,” Grey continued, “Students liked reading the interviews with the champions and the playbacks of the tasks. Really stretched us thin when we couldn’t write about Quidditch every week.” He let out a small laugh. Really though, not having to write about the sport had been a relief. It got rid of the monotony of the paper and let them expand on whatever they wanted to do. In his opinion, that made it a better paper than how he had found it.

[Deleted]

feed your head.

THOUGH HE KNEW IT WAS HARSH TO PINPOINT such a weakness, Elliot didn't regret it. Even less so when Grey had an immediate answer. As if he were anticipating such an inquiry. This impressed him right off the bat, a slight smile curling the corner of his mouth as he listened. Expectations were always a killer, Elliot knew the damage it could do from his own family. They went hand in hand with assumptions, and Elliot hated both. "Hard lines," He commented dismissively, and he didn't question him further on it. He was, for the first time that day, somewhat satisfied.

"Your sister's Claire Slater." Elliot stated, as if it had just occurred to him. He hadn't immediately put the name to the face, but the more he spoke the more it became very clear where he was coming from. It sounded like a kid living in his sister's shadow, but he didn't say that. "I penned some of those first articles." Elliot admitted, having ran with that story until it reached its very end. The first notable kill since the unrest began. "She's impressive." Which was his own way of saying that he knew what Grey meant, without dragging it out, or purposefully insulting him.

The paper was something Elliot could easily talk about, though he was a bit miffed to hear it hadn't been in good shape. "Really?" He piped up, thinking back to when he'd left it. "It was booming when I left." But that was before the rise of gossip mags and the unrest of cruel students. He'd monopolised on its beginnings - focusing a lot on bullying at the school, but nothing was ever really done. "I bet that prick I left it with ran it in the ground." Elliot muttered, wrinkling his nose as he rolled his eyes. He hadn't trusted the younger boy at all, but then again Elliot didn't really trust anybody.

"Right, the tournament," Elliot said, nodding his head. "I never got the chance to write about that firsthand." He said, a little impressed and maybe jealous under it all. It had been cancelled for quite some time after what happened before, and probably for good reason as it ended almost worse the second time around. Elliot had written some of the articles that had been published after the explosions. It had been one of the many reasons he'd ended up agreeing to Ouroboros's  terms. "What, was it a one man show?" He said, chuckling slightly. Elliot only ran the paper his sixth and seventh year, but even with a room full of other writers it was a lot of work. "Can't do all that solo," Elliot said confidently, leaning back in his seat. "Trust me, I would know."

grey xavier slater

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[grey xavier slater]

@elliot

10.XX.2024

Hard lines indeed. Except when they were crossed, which was almost inevitable in this interview, because Claire had to be brought up. There was no avoiding her in the last year, and there had been plenty of awe and interest from the Auror trainers whenever his name was called out. Couldn’t they have been more interested in say, Anna Weasley? The Triwizard Champion? It was like they had been expected to strike gold twice. In his opinion, they would have gotten a blemished silver at best. Elliot didn’t know better though, and Grey had done his due diligence by tossing his parents under the bus for his change in profession. As far as the editor knew, he was best buddies with his older sister. Grey feigned interest in the fact that Elliot had been the one to write the first articles on Claire, nodding his head to add effect. “She is,” he answered, keeping it short. That point had been made clear since he entered Hogwarts. Now it didn’t really matter anymore, other than doubling as a conversational topic.

It was strange, trying to picture what the school paper may have looked like a few years before he had taken control of it, let alone a decade or so. He didn’t know when it was that Elliot had been there, but there was no indication of him working on it, so that meant there were a few editors in between the two of them. “I’d say that’s a safe assumption. It was on the chopping block when I took it.” There wasn’t a professor to oversee the work, and having to pass all of the articles through the two headmasters he had took too long. The addition of the Gossip Witch meant the students wanted scandalous articles and stories, something he would never have been able to publish in the school paper without losing his own head. That was why the tournament ended up being a bigger hit. He could have the club put out papers almost instantly, and they were in the hands of the students before even the Prophet could get there. it was a home field advantage.

“At times,” Grey began. “Recruitment wasn’t my strong suit, and a lot of the fluff articles were from guest writers. You know, the students that wanted to write but not be tied to the club or a commitment.” He disliked those ones the most even though they tended to have the best pieces. The average club members could care less, and the only consistency he ever had were the ones that wrote on the Quidditch matches. On days where there were huge articles with time crunches, he had been the first one there and the last one to leave, sometimes only a few hours in between for sleep. The other members thought he was crazy, he liked to call himself committed. There had been nothing else in his life that was important until his last term, so killing himself slowly in the club room was perfectly fine with him.

[Deleted]

feed your head.

GREY APPEARED NO MORE EAGER TO TALK ABOUT Claire Slater than he had been about Auror training. He seemed to hold the same kind of disregard for both, which was interesting, but not entirely surprising. Elliot expected a little sour grapes if you had to live up to such an early legacy. He didn't say anything else about it, though, despite the fact that a part of him really wanted to poke the bear. But, he was a professional. Another time, perhaps.

"Suppose it's true what they say," Elliot began, a colour of disappointment in his tone. The paper had been the first thing he'd ever truly cared about. It was the reason he was even sitting before Grey in the first place. "If you want something done right..." This he said with a smugness that only came with success, but knowing that had failed in his absence rankled a version of him he thought was long gone. "I hope you left it in better hands than I did." If he had cared enough to stay in contact with those he'd written with as a teen, Elliot might have been tempted to send a few scathing owl's their way. But, he hadn't, because he'd thought himself better than them.

"Ah, the part timers." Elliot's brows lifted, his mouth turning down at the corners. "I always found them the most tedious writers." All they wanted to write about was gossip and assumptions. They didn't understand the delicate process of curating a good and honest story. It was sensationalism and impressions.

Closing the folder he had open in front of him, Elliot decided something without further thought. He didn't need to see any more facts about Grey as he'd already made up his mind. "I like you, Grey." He said simply, leaning forward and linking his fingers on the table top. "You seem honest and you're not a bad writer." He shrugged his shoulders, pursing his lips with a slight nod. "You'll be behind your peers, but if it's what you really want." Unfolding his hands, he gestured easily with open palms. "We'd be glad to have you on board."

grey xavier slater

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[grey xavier slater]

@elliot

10.XX.2024

They were seemingly on the same page about the school paper. Grey was still disappointed, three years later, that he had inherited it in such a poor state and only managed to make it readable again. If he was remembered as the editor-in-chief down the line, and that was a big if, it would probably be known as start of the hold over period until a future big name reporter waltzed into Hogwarts. He didn’t mind; he wasn’t there to make a show of himself. All Grey wanted to do was write articles for a newspaper, something that both the Daily Prophet and the school newspaper had in common. “I hope I did too,” he admitted, though he wasn’t nearly as worried about it as he had been during his sixth year. Finding a protégé to teach when he was basically the only member was more difficult than he had thought. The only person he trusted to keep the paper going was Jimmie Blishwick, and after her, he had no idea. “Guess we’ll find out how she faired in a couple years. Unless it burns her out.”

He nodded his head in agreement about the guest writers. Apparently they had always been a hassle, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise to Grey. When he had taken over, that was essentially the core membership of the club. All the sixth and seventh years could care less about meetings and how to fix their articles up – all that was left to his discretion. “They must be a hive-mind then, because it hasn’t changed.” Grey assumed it never would, as long as there weren’t dedicated writers in the club.

And then the interview was seemingly over, just like that. Grey blinked a few times as Elliot said that he was welcome to join the Prophet, if he wanted to. Being behind wasn’t really a problem for him, he knew it was going to happen the second he left the Aurors. “I umm…” he cleared his throat, even though it was still dry from earlier. “When do I start?”