The Perils of Paperwork
LOCATION: Ministry of Magic DATE: Jan 28, 1982 @arcmacmillan
The Dark Lord had been breathing down Lucius’s neck lately (not literally, thank Merlin!) about the lack of new recruits -- willing, coerced, or Imperiused, He didn’t care -- and fear of his master’s temper was the only thing that could have compelled Lucius to leave the comfort of his home on this bleak wintry day. He would have much rather been sprawled in front of the fire playing with Draco than be trudging through the crowded, cavernous halls of the Ministry of Magic -- but that wouldn’t have done much to keep the Dark Lord happy...
A familiar face (not that there were many faces in the Ministry that weren’t familiar to Lucius these days, at least in passing, but there was a difference between familiar and familiar, so to speak) caused his spirits to brighten, and the smile with which he greeted the other wizard was, for once, utterly genuine: “Archie Macmillan, you gorgeous miscreant, what are you doing here on such a wretched afternoon? No, don’t tell me -- it’s the bloody goblins, isn’t it? Keeping you hopping?” Lucius’s lip curled -- not at Archie, old housemate and chum that he was, but at the idea of any wizard, especially one he actually liked, being kept at the beck-and-call of such lowly creatures. Still, gold talked no matter in whose hands it lay...
“Somebody ought to show those blighters how to have some fun sometime. You haven’t educated them in the arts of leisure and relaxation yet, then?”