Bab 349: Weeding Out
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"Did you hear?"
"No, what?"
"Spreck from the Invisibility Task Force announced his retirement yesterday."
"So?"
"That itself wouldn't have been surprising, but he appointed a half-blood as his replacement."
"What?! That Spreck appointed a half-blood?"
"I reacted the same way when I heard it first, but it's the truth."
Quinn smiled as he listened to the conversation between two Ministry employees sitting beside him in the Ministry cafeteria during lunchtime.
Yesterday, Quinn had visited Stephen Spreck after a three-day period as he had promised, and Spreck had all but begged Quinn not to ruin his reputation and that he'd immediately retire. Quinn had generously kept his part of the deal and had called off the disgrace campaign along with giving Spreck a candidate of his(his grandfather's) choice to be his successor.
Quinn cleaned up his fruit bowl and finished up his glass of water. He burnt the tiny receipt into ashes and let it fall and flow down to the ground.
"We have a dustbin here, and more importantly, the Ministry's not the place to burn things carelessly— it can be a massive fire hazard, Mr. West."
Quinn paused. He could see that the crowd in the cafeteria had stopped talking to each other and were now whispering among each other as they looked at him. . . or they were looking behind him. He turned back, and his eyebrows raised by a half to find himself standing face-to-face with Amelia Bones with an entourage of Aurors behind her.
"Madam Minister, what an unexpected surprise."
"Is it a surprise, Mr. West?" asked Amelia. "You have been visiting my Ministry every day for the past few days; it wouldn't be strange to run into me, the Minister."
'I should've just come through the VIP section,' thought Quinn as he said, "What can I do for you, Minister Bones?"
"Should we talk over some food, Mr. West," asked Amelia, but before Quinn could tell her that he had already eaten, she started to walk with the Aurors following behind her.
Quinn shrugged and followed after them. They led him to a door beside the cafeteria, which opened up to a much larger area. The decor was dignified, higher quality, more polished, and much quieter. Unlike the main area, which was a communal setting, this one, which he could tell was a VIP section, was designed to have a private sitting arrangement with every party sitting a respectable distance from each other. They reached another door, and the couple of Aurors that had come inside stopped there with Amelia and Quinn walking inside an even emptier and private room where Amelia sat down on an empty leather chair while Quinn took the chair opposite her, brought in by a waiter.
"This is a fancy space," said Quinn. "Do you always have your meals here?"
"Only when I do not have it in my office," Amelia said, receiving a cup of tea from the waiter.
Quinn refused all and any food from the waiter before saying, "You didn't answer my question. Why this invitation?"
"I wonder why your sudden interest in the Ministry, Mr. West. As far as I know, you have been in Whitehall a handful of times before this week, but now, you've been here every day. It makes me wonder."
Quinn shrugged, "I wasn't expecting that some so busy as you were keeping tabs on the little me, Minister."
"Keeping tabs on various things is what keeps me busy, Mr. West."
"Sounds awfully drab."
"Things are rarely glorious in reality."
"I think that's deep."
Amelia placed her cup down and spoke, "You've visited various departments in the past few days— the Invisibilty Task Force, Beast Division, International Magical Office of Law, Ministry of Magic Public Information Services. . . may I ask why you have been visiting all of these departments."
"Their work interests me. They have such fascinating duties and domains, making me wonder how exactly the inner workings mesh with each other— I simply wish to sate my curiosity."
". . . Mr. West, you do realize that all departments in the Ministry handle official work—."
"You don't have to worry about me disturbing their work. I wouldn't hold it against them if I was turned away because I was disturbing their busy work and would respectfully oblige to their request. Fortunately, all of my visits have bore fruit, and I have gotten to learn a lot about all the departments."
". . . Are you looking to join one of these departments?'
"No. As I said, just sating my curiosity."
Quinn kept smiling in the face of Amelia's questioning.
"How's your grandfather. I haven't met him since our meeting about our. . . incident."
"It's okay. You can say it as it is. The abduction attempt by the Death Eaters."
"Yes."
"My grandfather's not in the country at the moment. He has been busy cleaning up the mess the Dark Lord made in Germany, so he hasn't had the time to visit the Ministry. But please don't worry; he has assured me that he has been keeping tabs on the situation."
". . . That's good to hear," but she didn't sound like it.
"It's good that the Death Eaters reached Azkaban. Things would've become complicated if another batch of Death Eater prisoners were freed before they reached Azkaban."
"It would've indeed made things complicated," she sighed, "but the situation is already complicated even without it. . . . You must've heard about it. . ."
"The Invisible Vigilante, correct?"
Amelia nodded. "The Invisible Vigilante and the Death Eaters who came to free the prisoners."
"It is good that there were no casualties on the Auror side."
"But there were deaths on the Death Eaters. A total of three Death Eaters dead," Amelia sighed.
Quinn held his expression. Three Death Eaters had died during the Azkaban transport because of his wind tornado sucking the people in and throwing them out— it turned out that they had not been able to keep hold of their wands. The news had spread like wildfire through the country, splitting the people into two parts— those who defended the Invisible Vigilante and those who condemned him. The result had been DMLE changing its stance against the Invisible Vigilante, turning the internal passive stance to an aggressive curse on sight.
Quinn didn't know how this would affect him. Since then, he hadn't been out as the Invisible Vigilante on the English soil.
As for how he felt having the lives of another three people on his hands? He felt disconnected from the entire situation.
"Better Death Eaters than Aurors," he said.
"Are you in support of the Invisible Vigilante's action?" asked Amelia, touching up her monocle.
"I firmly believe that the law that protects the people shouldn't be broken. Breaking laws that help maintain peace and harmony is a punishable offense," said Quinn with an earnest expression.
"I'm glad to hear that," said Amelia.
Quinn changed the topic, "Minister, you look tired. Is there something weighing on your mind?"
"The situation around Numengard has brought in an entire bag of problems," she sighed.
"But the prison isn't on our soil, and Grindelwald wasn't a citizen of our country. He was under the charge of ICW for the past five decades— why is this any of our problems," said Quinn with furrowed brows. He was genuinely curious about it.
"It's because of Dumbledore. He was the one who caught Grindelwald, so the ICW decided to rope us into it because DMLE was actively involved during those times."
"Dumbledore agreed? That's surprising," said Quinn.
"Surprising; why?"
"It's been half a century since the war, that's a long time, and Dumbledore's pretty involved with the current Dark Lord, so it surprises me that he would go along with ICW. Have you met with him?"
Amelia shook her head, "Not yet. And then, I had to authorize some of our Aurors to the ICW taskforce, which is going to find the two parties responsible for the Numengard's destruction."
"Two parties?"
"Two parties. The prison was scoured by experts, and they were able to conclude that there were two different parties there. The way the magic was used was too distinct— the two groups that were involved were trained to use magic differently from each other, and that was clear from the evidence left."
'Two groups?' thought Quinn, but then realized that the level of damage to a sturdy magically-enforced place Numengard was too much for people to think that it was only two people and not two groups.
"Hmm, curious," said Quinn. He filed it in his mind to check what sort of experts Amelia was talking about and if he needed to prepare himself for things that might point back to him, but he wasn't much worried about it— he had done enough due diligence to keep himself from connections.
"You're very curious, Mr. West."
"It's the only way to learn. You have to have the curiosity if you want to experience all sorts of new things."
"I also have something I'm curious about."
"Oh, what is it."
"Stephen Sperk resigned today."
"I heard that, yes," said Quinn, keeping himself relaxed.
"Didn't you meet him yesterday and three days before."
"I did. Mr. Spreck was the first one I visited. He was so sweet."
"Did he say something about his sudden retirement? I am surprised why he would make a decision so suddenly. I had worked with him a lot during my days in DMLE."
"When I visited him first, he didn't look like he wanted to retire to me."
"Is that so, a pity. I guess I'll need to have a talk with Stephen."
"It'd be best to ask the person himself," said Quinn before patting his knees. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Minister. I'll take my leave. I still have some work to do."
"Please, don't let me hold you back," said Amelia and saw Quinn get up, button the front button of his coat, and exit the VVIP room to enter the room. From where she was sitting, she saw Quinn walk up to another man, who looked surprised to see Quinn. While she couldn't hear what they talked about, she saw the man hurriedly get up and walk away with Quinn.
She glanced at the Auror standing at the door and silently beckoned her.
"Did you find something?" asked Amelia.
"Yes, as you asked, I looked into the people Quinn West met in the past few days, and it was as you expected. They have been on the list of people we suspect connected to the Death Eaters."
"Do we suspect them to be marked?"
"No, ma'am. None of the people he met are suspected Death Eater, just associates of Death Eater."
". . . Stephen resigned today."
"Ma'am."
"In the coming month, a lot of department heads are going to resign, and others will replace them. Then there will be those who stick on and raise a commotion," Amelia sighed and massaged her shoulder. "Another bloody mess that we will need to keep an eye on."
"Your orders, ma'am."
". . . Get me everything we have on the people Quinn West has met and will be meeting. Do the same with those who are replacing the Departement Heads; I need to know everything we have on them."
Amelia sighed, "Wests have begun digging their fingers in the Ministry.'
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Quinn West - MC - Meeting people about to retire, left and right.
Amelia Bones - Minister - The busiest she had been since taking her chair.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - What should I write tomorrow?
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