A relative to truth [Blaise]

[Deleted]

Jess loved her job. She loved the challenge, the nuance, using everything she knew about both magical and non-magical worlds, and that it mattered. The colleagues were pretty good too.



But there wasn't much going on today - always a good thing, really, except that she was a bit bored. Bored enough that paperwork was a better option than twiddling her thumbs. But paperwork was not infinite, and she was usually up-to-date, so she was now done. She capped her pen and stood, carrying her paperwork over to be filed, stopping as she did by Blaise. "Anything you want to go to filing?" she offered.



blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@jessica

What a mess this was. As of late, Blaise had been spending more time on longer cases, and now he was really backed up on paperwork. Like, beyond backed up. It happened from time to time and he expected it to get like this on occasion, but this week was something else. Something he had never seen before. Being out of the office constantly ended up landing him with piles of papers, most of which he didn’t even remember what the cases were about. Usually when this happened he employed someone else to aid him in the sorting, as he helped when others were in the same position. Nobody truly enjoyed paperwork, and those that did lied.

Today was the second day of sorting through papers, and for the most part it was going a lot smoother than the previous work day. It was now at the point where all he had to do was check to make sure all the fields were filled out and for the correct cases, and then his signature sealed the deal and off they went to the finished pile. His coworkers seemed to be having an easier time, but they also weren’t spending half their time looking into transferring over to the hitwizard department. That was his own secret still and not even his wife was aware of it. Sure there were a few capable ones in his department that could make the leap over there if they really tried, but most were only good at two things; wiping memories and filling out paperwork. It was dull work after years of doing it. Safe, but dull. Blaise wanted the thrill of actually hunting down criminals again. That’s what he was made for. To be the superior force in a crime stricken world. But here he was, signing off pieces of paper over wizards stupid enough to use magic around muggles.

He looked up as he heard a voice ask him if he had anything to go to filing. It was Jess, one his younger coworkers. She did a good job. And by the look of pile of papers she had, was getting through all of it much faster than he was. “A few. Not all, yet. I’ve been doing this for almost twenty years and I swear it never stops.”

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The thing about Blaise Zabini was that he was the kind of person Jess instinctively wanted to impress. He was good at his job, substantially older than half the office, used to be a hitwizard, and was a pureblood, even if he never talked about it. It wasn't intimidating, exactly, but it did mean that his casual tone did make Jess stand a little straighter before she replied. "As long as there are problems there will be paperwork," she agreed.

"Well, here, I'll take what you're done with and get it out your way." She paused and looked at the stack of papers. "Or you're welcome to join me for a brief break from it," she offered.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@jessica

He chuckled at the idea of problems ever slowing down. That was never going to happen in his lifetime. Maybe ten or so years ago he would have liked to think things would stay peaceful until he retired. That probably jinxed it for all of them. “I don’t mind the job, but the paperwork is mind numbing sometimes.” He stared at the paper he was currently finishing up, noting that it still needed another dozen signatures across various forms included in the stack. “Correction. It’s always mind numbing.” Scribbling his name down one sheet after another, he quickly made work of it. They were basically big loops and lines, but everyone knew what it meant. If they didn’t, they were incompetent fools. Calling them stupid would be too nice.

Blaise looked back and forth between the piles of finished papers that he had on the side of his desk and the ones already in Jess’s hands. He didn’t want one of his finest to suddenly look like his personal secretary. He wasn’t special enough for that. Maybe in a few years when he usurped the current department head and took over. That’s when he deserved a secretary. “I need more coffee, and that’s in the same direction.” Throwing the most recent stack of papers on the even larger one, Blaise stood up from his desk and picked them up. “You’ll have to get the doors. This requires two hands.”

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Always mind-numbing, indeed, but paperwork mattered. It was what seperated the Obliviators from any random wizard with a memory charm, because it was what kept them accountable. Most of the time Jess even managed to make herself believe that too, but watching Blaise sign loopy signature after loopy signature wasn't one of those times.

Blaise turned down her offer to take some of the paperwork away for him, choosing to join her instead. "Fair enough. Coffee's its own very important food group, after all. I was planning on stopping by the kitchen after too." And then he stacked up his pile of paperwork and Jess decided it was really just as well he was joining her, because she didn't think she'd have been able to carry it all. Not that she'd admit that.

He asked her to get the door, and she headed for it, opening it neatly with a combination of elbow and hip, her own hands holding the papers securely, although admittedly it was a somewhat smaller stack. "After you," she said with a smile, holding the door open.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@jessica

Coffee as its own food group. That was definitely an interesting way to put it. Blaise optioned to view it as an addiction more than anything. People couldn’t live without it. Dependency and withdrawal effects were very real when it came to caffeine. Blaise knew he was one of those that depended on it way too much to get through the day as well. Better that than potion addiction or muggle drugs. Apparently the new thing was sleeping draughts. Merlin knows how dangerous that stuff was in high enough doses. “That kitchen was the greatest addition the department ever made. You’d be surprised what some of the old timers used to do to stay awake in the afternoon.” Blaise could feel himself internally shudder at the mere thought of it. Talk about potion addictions, among many other issues brought forth with the lack of proper refrigeration in the office area. Anything that needed to be chilled was bad by lunch, and usually had strange smells that accompanied it, on top of whatever the other department workers dragged in with them.

Rather large and intimidating stack of papers in his hands, Blaise made his wat towards the door that Jess was now holding open for him. He had forgotten that simple things like this; levitating papers and opening doors, were just as easy with a flick of his wand. Sometimes he got tired of it though. He spent all day erasing and modifying memories. The last thing he wanted was to continue using his wand for trivial things that were simple enough to do with his own two hands. His school-age self would have scoffed at that thought process, but that same child also hadn’t discovered music yet, and what it meant to use one’s hands like that. In a way, he was glad that had changed. “Thanks,” Blaise stated as he stepped through his office door and out into the hall. It wasn’t far to the records room, but navigating the trip there with this stack of papers was still going to be a job in itself. “So how is the job fairing for you? Been here what, almost two years now?” He inquired as they headed off towards their destination.

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"There was a point when you didn't have a kitchen? That must have been awful." She could guess, really - lots of wakefulness potions. And wakefulness potions were rather more potent than even a strong cup of coffee, especially if they were brewed wrong. That must have been a disaster - and she rather liked coffee, so that would be a shame, too.

The hallway was clear of much traffic - she nodded at an intern, but that was it, really - so it was easy to walk and talk. "Two and a half, yeah. I like the job. The work's interesting, the people are good, and I'm good at it." And Jess... she was really good in just a few things, and only mediocre in pretty much everything else. Good at it counted for a lot, in her books. But it wasn't everything, because if you were good at something, but the something wasn't enough, then was it any good at all? That was the kind of spiral thinking that broke many a wizard-born's mind, and Muggles too. But it was something that bothered her, because - "I wonder if we're actually succeeding in the mission sometimes, though. We never touch technology, and I'm sure that means we're missing things sometimes."

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@jessica

“Well, not exactly. There was a kitchen. Of sorts.” Blaise admitted, though rather hesitantly. That was a length story that would only spark more questions he was sure. He bit the bullet though, since she was bound to hear it eventually one way or another. “It wasn’t recommended to use it. The Ministry used to be really bad at handling smaller magical creatures, and apparently there was an outbreak of pixies at some point.” He sighed as it all started coming back to him again. “Have you ever dealt with a pixie nest before? The little beasts hide them in the smallest enclosures possible, and the kitchen was full of them. The door had been locked and sealed for something like a decade by time I joined.” Blaise paused slightly as they turned a corner and had to maneuver around a group of aurors hauling some poor soul towards the memory extraction chambers. He found himself smirking at the poor bloke as they passed. “Even though I had been in the Ministry for a handful years as a hitwizard, they still treated me as a rookie when I took this job on. My first order of business was dealing with the old kitchen. Honestly, they should have hired a team of magizoologists to take care of it, because I ended up wiping out at least four dozen nests in the matter of a week. If pixies are suddenly extinct one day, you know who to look to. That’s what happens when you set a cocky, young hitwizard on a job.” As far as he was concerned though, the whole lot of them could disappear whenever they wanted to. They were annoying little pests and he simply didn’t have the time to deal with them.

That’s right. Almost three years already. Time did fly. He had always thought of the rookie Obliviators as different entities, since his formal Ministry training was with the hitwizards. That had apparently been enough of a qualification to take his pay cut, drop down to the Obliviator level, and not have to go through any extra training. Up and coming Obliviators went through quite a bit of training, though not nearly as much as a hitwizard or auror. Blaise liked to think that dipping into people’s memories was more of a delicate process that required a higher level of patience, something aurors and hitwizards weren’t always capable of. “Keep it up and you’ll move up the ranks quickly,” he pointed out, knowing full well that diligence and a good work ethic was recognized in the department. Jess had both of those, and then some, so it was only time until it happened. “We’ll be in trouble in a few years for sure. At some point, muggles will have an advantage over us with those computers of theirs. They already take pictures and videos of everything that happens, and that’s hard enough to deal with.”

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Blaise's story about the kitchen of yore was... kind of ridiculous, albeit also kind of awesome. She'd never been one for magical creatures, but she had definitely had an encounter or two with those pesky Cornish pixies. "I live down in Devon, so practically pixie home-turf. They're nasty little blighters. But I've only ever had a couple of strays, no nests, thankfully. How was that even a place that was allowed to exist inside the Ministry?" She shook her head in disbelief, although as she did so, she realised that it had probably been neglected during the Second Wizarding War, and then there were simply higher priority tasks for a few years - and especially in DMAC. Perhaps not quite so unbelievable, then, but she still would have expected a certain level of health and safety regard to the situation. "Ruthless was probably the only way to handle it if they were so entrenched."

Jess ducked her head and smiled to herself when Blaise said she'd move up the ranks. She wasn't afraid to acknowledge what she was good at it, but other people saying it was something she was less comfortable with. But still, she hoped he was right. Not least of all because she was full of hope that they could tackle those technology issues. "I think we've been in trouble for five years, but until we get in trouble with the ICW, we're not going to have the resources to handle it fully. Thankfully it mostly gets mistaken for special effects."

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@jessica

Oh good, she knew how to deal with them then. That probably would have come in handy about eighteen years ago. Would have been better than blindly walking into the kitchen and getting pelted by little blue bodies trying to bite every square centimeter of his exposed skin. They had teeth of razor blades, and the sliced like them too. “Your question is as good as mine. I’d guess that once they discovered a few nests, they figured it would be easier to lock the room up and let them be than to dispose of them,” Blaise shrugged as best he could while still holding tightly onto his papers. “They breed like rabbits, so I don’t think there was any real harm in eliminating that many of them. I definitely haven’t noticed a lack in them out and about lately, so no harm no foul.” And it had been almost twenty years ago too. A dramatic change such as the survivability of a clan of pixies that decided to make a Ministry kitchen their home base wasn’t going to affect those that lived in the wild. It was as if the kitchen was its own ecosystem for them, and once they were gone and the old kitchen removed, there was nothing to worry about anymore. Maybe initially locking the doors and preventing the spread of the nests was the smart choice after all.

Special effects? Now she was losing him. Blaise liked to think he was good with technology from his time growing up, which was definitely rare for someone as pureblooded as he, but this newer stuff was starting to get away from him. He was pretty sure that those special whatevers were used in muggle films. He had been to a few of those. Amazing imaginations they had. “If I had to place a bet, the regions that have problems first will either be the States or Japan. High media volume from what I understand, and extremely populated cities. Though whatever happens in those areas will affect us as well.” Hopefully positively too. Magic leaking out to muggles was the last thing he needed, since it directly correlated to his job now. He hated when idiots messed up, too.

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"Oh, I'm sure I could find a Magizoologist or two who could explain why they're vitally important, but I really don't mind." And an isolated population inside the Ministry was probably not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things. It was a hard loss to mourn, when they were such profound pests.

Jess listened to Blaise's take on the technology issues. He had a good point, but Jess thought he might be missing something. "Lots of media volume in the US and Japan, yes, but people change those videos for fun all the time. It's super easy. But the UK has terrifyingly large numbers of security cameras. They're less likely to be doctored, so something that looks wrong on them is more likely to be believed," she countered, as they reached the records office, and she opened the door with a push, holding tight to her paperwork. It wasn't that she wanted word of magic to leak - quite the opposite, obviously, given her job - but unless wizardkind smartened up fast about what Muggle technology was capable of these days, she didn't know how long this status quo could last.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@jessica

Blaise didn’t hold back the rather arrogant snort and eye roll that followed Jess’s statement about Magizoologists. As far as he was concerned, they got in the way more than they should have. He understood the saving and protection of certain species, but they went completely overboard sometimes. If any had caught wind of what he had done years ago, they probably would have forced him in front of a probationary hearing on the destruction of a vital creature to the magical ecosystem, or some other ludicrous reason. “Wouldn’t doubt it. They do fine work, but sometimes they need to sod off.” A little too harsh? He didn’t think so. Going on a witch-hunt against relatively innocent people over the black market dealers was a joke. A power grab if he had ever seen one. There were more important problems to deal with out there.

He thought about the security cameras point a little more as they stepped into the records room. Doctored images and videos had been their saviors quite a few times in the past, and the advanced technology that muggles had now only made it easier. “Don’t they have films from security cameras now? Or at least the style?” Blaise’s limited knowledge of films relied solely on his wife, and even then he only needed to know specifics when it came to public appearances with her. She was more focused on the drama based movies, not these fantastical science fiction ones where anything muggles could dream up became true. “I’m afraid I’m more knowledgeable on muggle music than their other entertainment outlets.”

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Blaise rolled his eyes and said magizoologists needed to just calm down somethimes (somewhat less politely), and Jess bit back a smile. She'd thought the same about quite a few bureaucratic positions, and she was sure someone somewhere thought the same of them.

Blaise said he wasn't particularly knowledgeable about films, but it wasn't obvious to Jess. Did they have films based on security footage? Maybe horror films - she didn't watch them enough to know. They didn't seem so scary when you had your wand in hand. "I'm not sure about like security cameras - they have home video style ones, though." And how did you even begin to describe home videos in a wizarding sense? "I can't say I'm particularly fond of them." It was too weird, too close to reality in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.

That Blaise was familiar with Muggle music was something that would have seemed incongruous when she'd started, but she still hadn't known. "What music do you listen to then?" she asked, curious. And with a muttered charm, she began to send her files into their correct chronological positions, sliding into the department's large collection. She still hadn't quite gotten the hang of doing it non-verbally, but she could at least handle multiple files and not get yelled at for putting them in the wrong place these days without needing to give it all of her focus. It had been the bane of her existance for the first year, but practice made perfect.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@jessica

Blaise listened as Jess explained the muggle films that looked like security cameras. Why on earth would anyone want to watch something that looked like their own home security? That seemed absurd. He knew they had some pretty great imaginations (their take on ghosts and poltergeists always brought a chuckle), but delving into the realism realm with films simply didn’t make sense to him. Maybe that was the kicker; comparing one’s own life to that of a scary movie. If he wanted to be scared to death about some creature breaking into his home, or a homicidal maniac hunting down his family, all he had to do was piss off the wrong dark wizard and he’d have just that. Their ignorance to magic and beasts was sometimes a blessing. Who knew what would happen if that was public knowledge. Certainly not anything pleasant. “Don’t believe I’ve ever seen one. They don’t sound interesting in the slightest.”

He was somewhat excited to share his knowledge of music with Jess. It was one of the few things that he rarely brought up unless it was a talking point already, or if muggle conversation was involved. Not to say he was embarrassed by it, because he wasn’t. Playing music, and listening to it for the most part, was integral to his work process. A few people knew that when he closed his office door and pulled the blinds, he was actually cranking up his record player that he kept hidden in a locked up cabinet in the back of the room. A simple Muffliato charm cast over the room meant he could listen to virtually anything he wanted to without disturbing the entire floor. Some of the dusty old Obliviators, most of who needed to be moved out of their positions, took issue with his choice of music. The joke was on them because music was one of the only things that crossed over perfectly between muggles and magic. Books being another example. “Classic rock. Though that means something different now than it did back when I started listening,” he wondered if she would understand that reasoning. Muggles had a funny way of categorizing their music into different genres after so many years. Classic rock nowadays could mean the early 2000s, which was blasphemous in his opinion. “The blues and jazz are a close second and third. Something about the roots of it all really gets to me,” he added, tossing a few folders into filing cabinet. Sorting the old-fashioned way was easier than charming it all like Jess was doing.

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Jess had to agree with Blaise's assessment of home video style movies. "They're not," she said with a scoff. "I suppose they're scary if you don't know what real ghosts are like or how magic works, but mostly I find them annoying."

It took a moment for Jess to reconcile the idea of Blaise Zabini as Senior Obliviator and Classic Rock Aficionado, but once she did, stealing a glance out the corner of her eye at the older wizard and his enthusiasm, it did seem to fit. She could picture him listening to David Bowie and The Who and The Rolling Stones, and she'd grown up on that music. "Classic rock's good stuff. My mum's partial to The Beatles, but my dad prefers Pink Floyd." Jess had had a phase for it herself when she was fifteen or so, but these days she mostly tended to listen to talk radio. It made for good white noise, she thought, as she sent the final file soaring into the drawer waiting open for it. It was a beautiful sight, but mostly because as long as she'd gotten everything in the right place, that was her paperwork done for the day. Maybe they'd have some fieldwork for her to do by the time they made it back to the office.

blaise leo zabini
[ooc: yeah, I had this post done several weeks ago and my computer ate it, so TRYING AGAIN]