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strangeness & charm.
act one, are you satisfied?
chapter one, desk with a view (of nothing)

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NORA CLEARY
the ministry of magic
june 1994

"WATCH IT!"

Nora Cleary ducked away from the sudden oncomer and raised her hands quickly above her head to avoid collision between the man and the hot liquids in her grasp. A sharp gasp left her mouth in relief at the narrow avoidance.

"Sorry!" She called, but the man had already turned the corner.

Releasing a scoff, she turned her gaze to the doorway ahead of her, where a gaggle of Ministry officials stood in conversation, efficiently blocking her path. The relief flooded quickly from her system.

It was like clockwork. Every morning, at precisely eight o'clock, officials from a variety of Ministry departments gathered near the doorway of the Department of Magical Sports and Games, despite the fact that the coffee and tea lounge, the place meant for the gathering of people, was just across the hall. Every morning, at precisely eight o'clock, Nora was forced to push her way through the group, after which they would disperse and go about their day as though Nora was nothing but an odd detail to their morning.

      "Excuse me, sorry!" She called carefully, maneuvering her way through the crowd with the help of the cardboard drink carriers in her hands. "Sorry–yep, just gonna–hi, excuse me, sorry!"

      The group of officials reluctantly separated to allow her to pass through. She knew without looking that the sharp burn through her skull ailed from the crowd's dirty stares.

"I just need to squeeze in there and I'll be out of your–"

      "Be careful, will you?" A graying man snapped when Nora had nearly reached the doorway, placing a hand to his chest as he backed away from her, as though Nora had been about to assault his freshly laundered suit.

"—way." The words fell from her mouth defeatedly as she watched the group fully disperse.

      With a quick roll of her eyes, Nora turned to face the door. Inhaling deeply, she placed a hand on the doorknob in an effort to prepare her nervous system for what laid beyond the door, then reluctantly turned the knob.

      The door cracked but an inch, and a loud, chaotic symphony erupted from the room. Paper memos, folded into airplanes, whizzed past her head as she traversed carefully into the turmoil. Edgar Rigsby, the assistant director of the Department of Magical Sports and Games, stood in front of a chalkboard on the far side of the room, shouting something in a foreign language that Nora couldn't quite decipher into a bright red telephone. Quidditch posters were tacked to the walls so thickly the wall itself was no longer visible and boasted infamous players who whooped loudly as they animatedly zoomed in and out of frame.

      As Nora passed desks upon desks piled with paperwork with bustling employees sat behind them, the tip of her heeled shoe caught a carelessly discarded pair of omnoculars and nearly sent her flying forward. With an air similar to that of a flapping duck, Nora caught herself and blew a strand of raven hair from her eyesight. Her eyes flew in panic to the drinks in her hands – she found it much easier to breathe when she saw they remained unspilled.

      With a hurry in her step, Nora approached the nearest desk to her left, where a middle-aged blonde woman sat typing rather aggressively behind a typewriter.

      "You have got to be kidding me!"

      Leanne Midcroft, Nora's overseeing manager and director of the Quidditch World Cup affairs, had begun poking at the keys with an invigorated fury. After placing her hands on either side of the machine, she repeatedly thumped it against the desk.

      "I've run departments with less effort than it takes to get this bloody thing to type one letter!"

      With a careful hand, Nora placed the drink carriers on Leanne's desk and picked a beverage from the array.

      "Okay, we have... a large breve with stevia," Nora said, reading from the label on the side of the cup.

      Leanne looked up from the machine in front of her, and the fire melted from her gaze. Her hands surged forward, taking the warm drink gratefully from Nora's grasp.

      "Oh, god, you're a saint," Leanne cooed, settling into her chair with a warm grin.

      Nora spared her a quick smile before moving toward the chalkboard across the room, where Rigsby was still busy threatening a foreign body.

     "Quad americano black for–"

      The words died on her tongue as the cup was snatched from her palm. Rigsby spared her no glance and took a hard, angry sip of his drink.

      "—Rigsby."

      "Large vanilla cappuccino, extra sweet for Mr. Bagman."

      "Ah, thank you, Flora," Said the stout man seated behind the large, oak desk in front of her.

Ludo Bagman was, in short, director of the department in name only. His legendary exploits as a chaser playing for the Wimbourne Wasps were about the only thing preventing the Ministry from handing his title to his assistant director. (There was no other department in the Ministry of Magic led by two directors — Rigsby had been called in for what Cornelius Fudge called "administrative support". It seemed everyone except for Ludo knew it was a guise to cover his need for a babysitter).

It didn't help, either, that on the rare occasions he spent time in the office, he sat hunched at his desk writing secret correspondences with a wandering eye. (Again, everyone but Ludo was fully aware that he was scrambling to avoid penalty for Quidditch matches he had gambled on with counterfeit coins).

      The director of the Department of Magical Sports and Games took his drink quickly, oblivious to Nora's expression. His cheeks grew rosy as he made room for the beverage on his desk. With a tight smile, Nora nodded shortly and continued to the next desk.

      "Large breakfast tea with milk and honey for Mr. Gudgeon."

"You're late," The older man said roughly, staring at her as though criticizing every move she had made since stepping foot in the room, before he finally took the drink from her outstretched hand.

"Traffic on the tube was–"

      Her words died from her mind as Gudgeon turned away from her without a word.

      "Medium chai for Ms. Jorkins," Nora said lightly, trying very hard to sound cheerful.

      Bertha Jorkins looked up at Nora through her oval glasses and pursed her lips. Her hand recoiled the moment it touched the outside of the cup.

      "This doesn't feel like two-hundred degrees celsius," Bertha said with a sour expression, "I did tell you I have a sensitive tongue, yes? I'm sure I did. I was admitted to St. Mungo's last spring because my latte was three-hundred degrees celsius–three-hundred–and burned my mouth! Can you believe it? Anyways, I can't afford a visit to St. Mungo's again, I'm going on holiday to Albania later this week–"

      "I watched the barista and the thermometer, Ms. Jorkins. I promise you this latte is two-hundred degrees celsius and not one degree more," Nora interrupted, fighting back an exasperated sigh.

      Bertha looked her up and down, then reluctantly took the drink.

      Once Nora had delivered three more lattes to Mr. Wickett, Mr. Thomas, and Mr. Hurdon, who all took their beverages hastily as they were attacked by flying memos, she rounded a stack of papers and approached her desk.

"Cake pop for William," Nora said, reaching into her coat pocket, and plopped the brown, paper bag haphazardly into William Lominick's hand.

      Will, an intern fresh from Hogwarts, was sat on a wooden stool beside Nora's own seat behind her desk. An eager grin erupted across his face as he unwrapped his treat.

      Will had been assigned to shadow Nora for a reason Nora still couldn't quite understand. He had been working at the Ministry for nearly three weeks now, and in those mere three weeks, she had begun to lose her grasp on sanity.

      Nora levelled him a disbelieving stare before turning towards the desk that sat across from her own.

      Bonnie Taylor was nestled casually in her cushioned desk chair with her elbow propped against her desk and a shit-eating grin on her lips.

      "And... large green tea with honey."

      Nora abandoned her sense of decorum and shoved the last cup into her friend's hand with increased force.

       "I adore you, I do," Bonnie declared fervently and took a long, appreciative sip of her tea.

       Nora snickered as she plopped into her own seat at last. "Yeah, yeah."

A raven-haired girl wearing a smart, grey blazer set appeared in front of Nora's desk, her arms chock full of parchment stacks. Nora's eyes went wide.

"Your latte!" Nora nearly cried, her voice full of mourning as she slumped against her desk.

Vixen Heron, an intern who, like Will, was fresh out of Hogwarts, was likely the only competent eighteen-year-old to ever walk through the Department's doors. Nora admittedly liked her — so much so that she had offered to grab the girl a latte without her request. A latte that had been subsequently lost to the forages of Nora's scrambled mind half an hour prior.

The Heron girl merely shrugged with a smile. "I probably didn't need the caffeine anyways."

Nora shook her head. "No, I am so sorry. I really was going to get it for you—I swear I'm not twisted and evil—"

"Nora, it's fine, really," Vix repeated with a small laugh. "I've got a heart condition anyways so it's for the best."

Nora's mouth gaped open, then she straightened her shoulders. "Oh, so if I'd remembered, you would have dropped dead. That makes me feel much better, actually."

With pursed lips, Vix placed the stack of parchment on Nora's desk with a heavy thud. "Mailed in this morning. Rigsby says it goes to you."

Nora grimaced and watched the girl's retreating figure. Her purse made a loud thump sound as it fell to the floor beside her chair. With a deep sigh, she opened her top drawer and began searching for her prized box of Oolong tea. Though her coworkers preferred their cafe beverages, Nora preferred a simple, homemade cup of her favorite tea to start her day.

      "You keep eating your cake pop like that, I'll vomit," Bonnie barked at Will, who still sat pleasantly enjoying his dessert.

      Will laughed through his full mouth. "It's delicious. Want a piece?"

      A beat of silence, and then, "I'm vomiting as we speak."

      With an exasperated sigh at her fruitless endeavor, Nora closed the drawer of her desk with slightly excessive force.

      "Has anyone seen my box of–" She began, but was interrupted by a barking voice she recognized to belong to Rigsby.

      "Cleary!"

      Again, Nora fought back an exasperated sigh, before turning in her chair to face the approaching figure of the assistant director.

"We've got a problem."

      This time, she allowed the sigh to escape her lips. "Of course we do."

      "Portree is threatening to pull out of the League over an illegal broom modification. Something about Puddlemere's chasers flying too fast," Rigsby said loudly, turning to sign a piece of parchment held out by a department intern.

      Nora's eyebrows flew upward incredulously.

      "Too fast? It's a broom, that's kind of the point."

      "Well, they're claiming it's an unfair advantage," the man grumbled before shooing the intern away, "fix it."

      A groan was bitten back by Nora's clamped jaw. She forced an adequate smile onto her face.

      "I'll draft a response–"

      A paper airplane memo crashed into the center of her forehead, cutting her sentence short. Rigsby was gone in the flash of flying paper. Squaring her shoulders, Nora unfolded the memo that had fallen to her desk and read:

      Subject: Portkey Requests for the 1994 Quidditch World Cup
We are receiving an overwhelming number of Portkey requests for the upcoming Quidditch World Cup. At present, there are only 300 officially registered Portkeys for an expected crowd of 100,000. This is, in a word, insufficient. Please send us a finalized list of additional Portkey locations by EOD, or we'll start redirecting applications to your office instead.
— Wilfred Cramp, Department of Magical Transportation

      A sharp breath left Nora's lungs. "Great Merlin."

      After several minutes of searching, her fingers found a notepad and quill. Once she had unscrewed the lid of the ink, she dipped the quill into the jar and found that the tip came out clean. Exasperation riddled her bones. With a quick glance at her watch, she was wracked with devastation to find only six minutes had passed since she'd arrived.

      "Who approved this?!"

      Nora hardly heard Rigsby's shout through her own inner turmoil.

      "Approved what?" Leanne Midcroft called, twisting in her chair to face the assistant director.

      "This!" Rigsby yelled in disbelief, waving a memo around wildly, "THIS! The Wimbourne Wasps are requesting an official ruling on whether or not their Keeper can continue playing on an inflatable broom! An inflatable broom! Who let this happen?"

      Nora's gaze flew upwards to meet Bonnie's waiting eye before she wrenched it back to the memo on her desk to keep the laughter that bubbled in her chest at bay.

      "Okay, Will. Gametime," Nora called, waving him towards her.

      Scrambling, Will unceremoniously stuffed the rest of his cake pop into his mouth and stashed the paper bag into a trash bin before jumping from his chair to approach her. Scanning the boy in front of her, Nora made no effort to hide her distaste.

      "Care to swallow the rest of that cake pop first?" She asked with a raised brow.

      Will nodded and quickly chewed what was left of the cake pop with increased speed before swallowing so thickly Nora was sure he would choke.

      "Right," Nora began, " I need you to find more ink and the address for the Portree team so that I can write to them as soon as possible. Their threat to withdraw takes top priority. I'll begin drafting my response after you do that and then we'll divide the rest of the responses between the two of us. Sound good?"

      "Will do, boss," Will responded with a sincere salute before turning on his heel.

      "Not the boss," Nora muttered.

      "He's cute," Came Bonnie's scottish drawl from the desk in front of her, and Nora looked to her friend with pleading eyes.

      "Bonnie, please, not him."

      "You think so lowly of me," Bonnie said with a hand pressed to her chest, "he's like twelve." The tone in her voice was one of pure amusement.

"He's cute?" Nora echoed.

      Bonnie shrugged and dropped her hand to her lap."He's got the whole 'holy shit I work at the Ministry' puppy dog eyes thing they always have going on. It's sweet."

      "Ah, that," Nora responded with a nod as she attempted to smooth the folds in the paper memo on her desk.

      "It's cruel really, isn't it?"

      "Insensibly evil."

      "Yeah, he's got no clue–"

      "Taylor!"

      Rigsby's voice assaulted Nora's eardrums like a sledgehammer.
   
      "Sir!" Bonnie barked with equal aggression.

      Nora avoided eye contact at all costs as she wrestled with her amused smile.

      "I needed you on that Chameleon Cloak Keeper Kit memo from the Ludicrous Patent office yesterday!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

      A snort erupted from Nora's nostrils as she watched her friend turn to face her desk resolutely.

     "He'll fire you one day," She chimed with a smirk.

     "Yeah," Bonnie agreed with a wicked grin, " just not today."

...

      The hours trickled slowly through the ticking clock hung on the wall.

      Nora had successfully avoided involvement in the inflatable broom fiasco, as Rigsby had sent Gudgeon on a wild goose chase in an effort to contact the Wimbourne Wasps about their request. In three hours, she'd managed to write back to the Portree team and the Department of Magical Transportation concerning the portkey situation, answered five other memos, and she had finally located the box of tea that had gone missing in action in her hour of need.

      Thus, she found herself steeping two bags of Oolong in a mug of steaming water, rolling her neck in an attempt at wrestling the stress from her muscles as she did so. The noise in the office had died down exponentially from the morning rush, as most of her coworkers had escaped the room for their lunch break and afternoon tea. Only Bonnie remained, working quietly for once as she attempted to catch up to her heavy work load for the day.

      "Nora!"

      The idea of respite floating in her mind disappeared with a dissatisfying pop.

      "Of course," She said in less than a whisper, then looked up to greet the oncomer.

      Leanne Midhurst sent her a hesitant smile that caused dread to seep into Nora's stomach.

      "The League Committee wants someone to sit in on the Appleby Arrows' disciplinary hearing this afternoon. Any volunteers?"

      Nora knew from the tone in her boss' voice that the question wasn't being asked out of pure curiosity.

      "No," She said and took a sip of her tea.

      Upon seeing Leanne's pointed expression, Nora caved with a sigh. "Fine. What did they do this time?"

      "Illegally enchanted their quaffles with a magnetism charm. The quaffles started dodging the opposing chasers' hands," Leanne responded tightly, rubbing a tired hand to her temple.

      Nora fought back a snort. "They could really work on subtlety."

      Leanne shrugged. "Not their style, I suppose."

      With a sharp inhale, Nora placed her mug on the desk with a thud.

      "Fine, put me down for it," She said begrudgingly, cringeing at Leanne's wide grin.

      "You're incredible," Leanne insisted happily, then turned on her heel.

      "What do I do if I get in there and the chairs are charmed to dodge my–"

      "Stand!"

      A sly smirk crossed Nora's lips as her eyes followed the leaving figure of Leanne, which then consequently fell the moment the woman had exited the room.

      She was accustomed to being used for the mundane things – she could do the tasks nobody felt up to completing. She could retrieve the lattes and teas from the local cafe when asked, though she knew full well the task was beneath her pay grade and only required the attention of an office intern. She could take the brunt of criticism from Rigsby, Grudgeon, and the other men in the office for being one of three women in a male-dominated department. She could deal with the never-ending, never-changing chaos of the department. Everything – all of it – was worth the strife once, because she'd had an end goal. An aspiration.

      Now, as she stared at the bubbles floating atop her cooling mug of Oolong, she wracked her brain for a substantial reasoning behind why she was still here. But, she knew, as she always had and always would.

     Nora's Aunt Gertrude had been a hot topic amongst Nora's friends her entire life, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why. Gertrude Liu, a highly revered Ministry official in the Department of International Magical Cooperation (ranked ninth beneath Fudge himself, she often liked to remind Nora) was, in Bonnie Taylor's words, a raging, controlling bitch. Nora had never gone as far as to call her Aunt that, but she'd made no effort to stop anyone else from doing it for her.

When Nora, born to a Muggle and a Squib, had caused an oak forest to sprout in her kitchen at the ripe age of three, Gertrude had taken her niece's magical afflictions and responsibilities upon herself, telling Nora's mother, her sister, the Squib, "It'll be so much easier for you, Siobhan. The Magical World holds too much pain for you, and that's Nora's world now. She'll be in good hands."

      Evidently, taking charge of Nora's magical life meant controlling her social habits and career path as well — Nora would have been dead if she'd so much as looked at a broomstick with any amount of interest while at Hogwarts, and before she'd reached her seventh year, she'd been told to apply for the fantastic Ministry internship. The moment she'd graduated, her Aunt had plopped her right behind a desk at her place of work.

      Her Aunt's instruction, however, had left an inch of wiggle space for Nora. Within a week of the start of her internship three years prior, Nora had quietly transferred to the one department that she knew would send her Aunt into a tailspin. It had given Nora some amount of satisfaction when Gertrude had discovered her plotting and found she could do nothing about the change.

    Yet another paper airplane memo assaulted Nora, this time in the shoulder, snapping her from her thoughts.

    With a deep breath, Nora brushed her tea to the side and unfolded the parchment.

Subject: Unauthorized Dragon Use in Quidditch Match
To Whom It May Concern,
The Norwegian National Quidditch Team is under investigation after allegedly attempting to use a baby Norwegian Ridgeback in place of a Quaffle during a recent friendly match. Please confirm whether this breach of regulations has been reported and what actions are being taken. We cannot allow such reckless disregard for magical creatures (or player safety, for that matter).
— Hans Jorgensen, International Confederation of Wizards, Games Division

    A loud scoff escaped her throat, drawing the attention of Bonnie from where she sat across from Nora.

      "Think about it," Nora began disbelievingly, "A healer is out there somewhere, saving lives. An auror is catching dark wizards. Meanwhile, I've got to make sure a Quidditch team didn't actually try and use a baby dragon as a quaffle."

      Bonnie's jaw dropped open and was followed by a loud cackle.

      "That's fucked up," Bonnie remarked through her chuckles, and Nora couldn't help but snicker with a shake of her head.

      Bonnie placed her quill on her desktop with a sigh before leaning back in her chair and fixed her gaze on the ceiling,

      "Everyone has their purpose, I suppose," The Taylor girl spoke after a beat of silence, "Just so happens that ours is to prevent Quidditch from falling into complete and utter anarchy."

      "We deserve hazard pay," Nora said grimly, pressing her lips together tightly.

      "Hear, hear."

      The clock struck seven by the time Nora left the office that night. The enchanted ceiling overhead had shifted to a dusky blue, stars winking faintly through the illusion of twilight. Most of her coworkers had already gone home, their desks abandoned in varying states of disarray. Nora had stayed behind to finish the rest of her memo responses in order to make for an easier start to her morning the next day.

      As she closed the door to the department with a definitive thud, she rubbed at the ink smudged on her wrist, frowning when it only smeared further.

       Another day gone. Another stack of parchment reviewed, another round of memos dodged, another nine hours of her life gone to a job that, if she were to disappear tomorrow, would go on just the same without her.

      The empty lift rattled as she stepped inside, and her reflection flickered in the brass doors as they shut with a clang.

      This was what she'd always wanted, wasn't it? Stability. A respectable position that wouldn't upset her Aunt. A career where she wouldn't stand out too much, where no one would look too closely at where she came from.

      Though all of this was true, why did she feel like she was suffocating?

      The lift lurched downward, and she let out a slow breath, shaking the heavy feeling from her body. Her invisible thoughts seemed to clang loudly on her ears as they landed on the steel floor of the lift beneath her. It didn't matter. She had work again in the morning.

      It was always the same.

      And that, she supposed, was the problem.

author's note.
well hi & welcome to the first chapter
of strangeness & charm! to say I'm
excited for this book would be the
hugest understatement (after 3 years in
the making) & i can't wait to delve into nora
and her story. a huge shoutout to katie
once again for her genius & support
while coming up with this whole shabam!

& another huge shoutout to kat
and kristy !! the amount of blood,
sweat and tears put into the
making of the lovefool universe is
unrivaled & I can't wait to reveal
what's in store!

thank you for reading!