Carmen nodded at the poster-sized announcement in satisfaction. Certainly, she had only made one poster as warning of the meeting, and hung it up just then, at 8:55 a.m. on January the 16th, but she felt certain that everyone would still show up. They always did. She marched back up to her new office, where several lackeys were busy moving the old EIC's things out and moving her's in. The man had tragically gone missing the previous night, which meant that Carmen, being next in line, was Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Prophet. She also happened to own the paper.

Not that anyone but herself knew that. The paper had recently been acquired by the wealthy entrepreneurial Canadian-born-turned-UK-Citizen pureblood Aristaeus White. He was an eccentric man who also dabbled in muggle stocks and was a major investor in Jasper Christie's Jewels and other businesses in Diagon Alley and beyond. He was also completely fictional. Carmen had been using the mystery man as her estranged father for years, and used her real muggle father's inherited fortune to back up the persona.

She settled into her chair behind her desk and waited for five minutes to pass, as nervous wizards levitated in piles of books, a lawyer's cabinet, and an enchanted file cabinet which contained reams of parchment on people, places, and past editions of the Prophet. She knew exactly where she wanted everything; she had been eying up this office for quite some time.

A familiar lurch in her stomach broke Carmen's tranquil mood. She pulled a flask out of her robes and took a swig of Queaze Ease Draught. There. Nothing to worry about. Three months, poison a failure, can survive this. Garrow didn't kill me. This won't kill me.

A clock rang on the wall and she stood, smoothed her robes over her oddly full looking chest, and marched towards the conference room, where her seat at the head of The Daily Prophet was waiting for her.

"Good morning," she declared to the almost-completely-full room in a flat tone of voice which implied nothing good and had none of the morning's optimistic winter sunshine about it. "As you may have already heard--" a flick of the hand towards Lola "--Our Editor-in-Chief has gone missing and I have been appointed to take his place. That means that you are now actually working under my direction rather than pretending to work under his direction while working under mine. We have a lot to discuss and I don't want to waste any time. You, tell me what you're working on."

She sat down, folded her hands together, and stared at the victim.

Fletcher was usually at work by 8:30 A.M. and often did not come out of the archives until lunch, but this morning his granddaughter Bethany had stopped by for breakfast and had insisted on taking him in to work in her rattletrap old car, which must have broken down six times between their home and the Leaky Cauldron, and so he had only arrived a few minutes before nine. Nursing a cup of tea, fixed the way he liked it--sweet, with a hint of lemon and a spot of cream--he had headed for the archives and chanced to spot the announcement about the staff meeting. Assuming he was included in the mandatory attendance, he headed into the conference room, nodding at several of his fellow staffers and taking his position.

At precisely nine o'clock on the dot, the door swung open, and who should enter but the ambitious young Carmen Snidgeton. Fletcher raised an eyebrow. If I'd known she was the one who had posted the announcement, I would have gone into my archives, he thought to himself. Quite apart from the fact that Fletcher had grandchildren older than Carmen, Fletcher stood in opposition to many of the young woman's stated opinions, most notably her opinions on Muggles and on the Auror's department. As yet she had not specifically said anything derogatory about the latter in his presence; as yet he had never struck a woman or a child, but a small part of him suspected that Carmen Snidgeton may be the first.

She said "good morning" in a tone implying the exact opposite, explained that the Editor-in-Chief had gone missing--a statement which caused Fletcher's second eyebrow to join the first somewhere near his hairline--and that she had been appointed to take his place. Turning to him, she demanded to know what he was working on.

In a voice that belied his eighty-three years--for indeed, if one went by birthdays he had only had twenty, and would celebrate his twenty-first birthday the following year--Fletcher said strongly, "As you know, Ms. Snidgeton, my job as archivist is to catalogue, shelve, and rebind old issues of the Prophet. As there may be anywhere from two to five editions published every day, I spend quite a bit of time on the rebinding project. Since my last birthday--" here Fletcher suppressed a smile, as he doubted Carmen knew when his birthday was, or indeed when the last one had been "--I have been working on expanding the catalogue to include a catagorical index of articles. Once I have completed it--and, admittedly, it will take quite some time, as there are a hundred and fifty years' worth of issues to catalogue--one will be able to search the index for articles about Quidditch, or about Hogwarts, or about power coups in both the Muggle and the wizarding worlds." He hesitated briefly. "I have also considered reviving the 'This Day in History' feature, which I put on hiatus last year, but of course I will defer to your judgement in that."

With that, he took a brief sip of his tea and sat back, indicating that he had finished his report and either Carmen or another staffer could take a turn.

Lola was not now, nor had she ever been an early bird. There was nothing that she preferred more than sleeping in until the clock’s hands had inched their way past eleven. However, since the rest of London did not live on the same schedule, she was forced to drag herself out of bed by six a.m. An ungodly early hour at the best of times, when she had only made it through the door a scant three hours ago, it was made all the more painful. However, her late night had reaped many rewards that would undoubtedly pacify any irritation her editor had over her taking a nap at her desk around eleven. Following Apollo Sinistra on his midnight rounds always had a habit of turning up juicy bits of information. A perpetual partier he inevitably intercepted the most ‘respectable’ people in the most compromising of positions.

Last night she had snuck into a party in the back room of the Vault where she spotted Edward Robards high out of his mind on doxy powder. It was something she suspected his domineering mother, straight-laced (an understatement) brother, and his law-enforcing sister wouldn’t particularly approve of. But she was more interested in finding information about the newest Minister of Magic, Will Channing. And seeing as he had been friends with Apollo Sinistra since their days at school the exuberant fashonista was probably a veritable wealth of information of the subject.

A shower, purple skirt and pair of strappy gold heels later Lola was strutting through the front doors of the Daily Prophet. She flashed her press pass at the security guard and was about to walk past with the usual head nod of a greeting but he pulled her aside. A few whispered words later and Lola was practically bubbling over with excitement. Robards and doxie powder be damned—there was much more interesting gossip to be had. The EIC had mysteriously disappeared last night while she was chatting up the hot barkeep at the vault! She spent a further ten minutes extracting every last detail out of the security guard before continuing with her rounds. She hit up a couple copy editors, three reporters, and Carmen’s personal secretary gleaning every last juicy detail she could. Needless to say she also spread the word around as fast as her red lips could move.

She was about to move on and see what sports columnist had heard when she spotted the notice hanging outside the conference room declaring a staff meeting was starting at nine o’clock. She glanced at her watch: 8:58 a.m. Just enough time to swipe a cup of coffee from the young copy boy that was always too busy drooling over her breasts to notice and make it to the meeting. She settled into a chair midway down the table, and took a sip, mocha. Within the next two minutes the conference room was packed with every staff member of the prophet, and last at exactly nine on the dot, came Carmen Snidgeton. She settled into the chair at the head of the long table, and opened the meeting by announcing the events that ended with her becoming the new EIC. Of course Lola, had known all of this already (she wasn’t the gossip columnist for the DP for nothing). And predictably Carmen was anxious to get down to business. She directed her attentions on the first person she saw, which happened to be the ancient man who worked in the archives of the Prophet. Of course he had nothing particularly interesting to say, and Lola felt free in zoning out during his dry ramblings about bookbinding.

She was jolted out of her daydreams by Carmen’s cutting tones indicating for her to give a report.

“Right! I’ve been looking into the private life of the new Minister of Magic. So far haven’t found much beyond the boring boy-scout persona, but I can smell scandal brewing. A few more days and I should have it. Otherwise, I spotted Edward Robards doing doxie powder in the Vault last night. Not out of character if the rumors I’ve been hearing are true, I suspect his siblings have been covering for him for years. You know how the purebloods are, they protect their own.”

Her eyes took on a gleam that could probably be best described as delightfully malicious. She didn't get quite the same thrill out of destroying other people's lives as Carmen did, but she certainly loved uncovering their dirt.

It had taken him months to get a desk, months and months of giving moony eyed glances at the oddly vacant desk a mere two meters from Carmen's office. In the end it had been worth all the work however cause he could now feel her lusty gaze every time she walked back to her office. It was a brilliant spot but a terrible desk. Luckily for him after a quick gaze at the Daily Prophet handbook it said nothing about fixing ones workspace and it did suggest one personalize it in order to maximize productivity. Something he could manage well! Armed with a bedazzler, glue gun, pocket sewing machine, and fabric swatches Apollo had come into the office early with every intention of making his desk his own. No one had said a word as he frolicked past security, pausing only to adjust William’s, the security guard, cap and complement him on his latest pin.

Willam had actually gallantly offered to help Apollo at his current task, which was outfitting his chair with a cushion that better defined him than the bland grey one that had been cast aside. Where once a jar of ink and some essentials had sat in some pathetic looking desk caddie was Apollo’s latest invention – disco ball organizer! Half of a disco ball and a several walls of jewels later the disco ball organizer was in operation, to think his sister didn’t think he had an organized bone in his body! Wait till she saw his genius invention!

Seeing as most of the decorating had happened just moments after he had left the vault, Apollo’s desk was complete and the god of glitter was currently taking a nap under it (the desks underside having been completely redone in odd bits of crystal he had found in his pockets). He had no notion that a meeting had been called, and quite frankly had not inclination to attend. The lasers of lust Carmen would send and the demand for ideas was stifling to his creative genius. Thus the reason he hadn’t attended the last ten or so meetings.

Thus amidst dreams of killer tomatoes led by Will taking over the world Apollo was awoken by an earthquake and Mary Sue the receptionist’s smiling face. “Coming to join me? I’ve written a dedication to your handiwork in the top left hand drawer.”

She smiled, shook her golden locks and explained something along the lines of his presence was requested at the meeting. With a slightly horrified yelp (the line of his pants had to be off) and a dash to the men’s room later Apollo was ready. Regretfully yesterdays’ club attire had been chosen by Jasper so he was looking a little less colorful than he would have liked for his beloved Carmen but it was not matter. He was going to the meeting where she announced she had joined the deities and became all powerful – like he knew she always would be. People who couldn’t help but send him lasers of lust were destined for great things. It was all in their tastes.

With a flip of his raven tresses and a quick goodbye kiss to his assistant Mary Sue he was off and frolicking into the meeting room a full half hour late. But was this of any importance to the sunshine king? Of course not! Instead he waved hello to Lovely Lola.

He was going to have to ask that girl on a date one of these days. The legs and shoes… not to mention the cut of her skirt? Amazing seeing as he had only just parted ways with her a mere four hours ago.

“Right! I’ve been looking into the private life of the new Minister of Magic. So far haven’t found much beyond the boring boy-scout persona…”

Poor dear didn’t she know that Will was gay? Apollo made a resolve to break the news to her and be a comforting shoulder to rest on after they had some disappointed in Will’s being gay sex… possibly under his new desk? Did they allow that sort of thing here? He would have to ask Artemis to check the hand book.

Laser beams of lust bore into Apollo’s head, drawing him out of his Lola inspired daydreams. “Will’s wicked amazing Lola, he’s the squarest of all my friends.” He turned his attentions back to Carmen, making sure to give her a particularly meaningful smile. “I’ve been contemplating which look to bring back, since pinks and silvers were very last week. That and with the new minister in charge I was thinking why not bring back the royals? Purples and golds with lots of sparkle. I want the world to be celebrating the newest homosexual minister! I’m so proud of us!” Apollo beamed happily from his chair, completely oblivious to the looks he was getting.

He was proud of Will and was going to celebrate it in as many mediums he could get his hands on.