Exploring (Open)

Aoife was quite enjoying this job so far. Perhaps more than she'd expected when she'd applied, hoping to work her way up to top-story-reporter-level, or maybe her own column about sheep. After all, she had given the interviewers a lot of pictures of sheep as examples of her work when she'd done the interview. Hopefully they'd taken the hint, and were currently working on getting her own column, "Sheep Stories with Aoife O'Donnell". Or "Ask Aoife" for advice about sheep and your farm. If not one of those, at least a job generally reporting stuff. She'd be great at writing about loads of cool exciting stuff, and becoming a hugely famous, household name investigative reporter! But for the moment just taking pictures of whatever needed taking pictures of was proving to be quite enjoyable - she was actually alright at wizard photography, with all the developing solution and spells and cool cameras and stuff. At least, nobody had fired her just yet, so she couldn't be doing too badly. And when she looked at the photos she'd taken, once they'd been developed, she liked how they looked a lot.

Although she had yet to take any pictures for a front page type story, a big important thing, she'd been at a few fairly relevant events, getting in on the action with her fantastic photography skills. There was that potioneers convention she went to, and the Wizengamot court place to get a photo of that one guy who committed serious property fraud, and the other woman that tried to kill her husband. And she'd been to a Wales/Germany quidditch match for the sports column. Exciting stuff, really. Not only did she earn loads of money (she was planning on getting her new apartment really soon) it wasn't a boring office job like she always imagined adulthood would provide.

Right now she was back in the dark room they used for developing the photos, hanging up a bunch of them to dry. She'd taken a lot, but only because she wasn't entirely confident in her own ability yet, and she was likely to make various mistakes, so taking more meant she was almost certain to get at least one that didn't look blurry or at the wrong angle or ruined in her developing solution. They were of a few authors at the top of the Sunday Prophet bestseller list, so it was vaguely important. She certainly didn't want to hand a shitty blurry photo of that Scottish author she couldn't remember the name of in to the editor. But they were all looking pretty good, Aoife thought, and the developing solution seemed to be working well enough. If things kept working out like this, she might crawl her way up to the top of the Prophet ladder sooner than she'd imagined. But who knew? It was an unpredictable business, photography.

Once they were all hung up, Aoife wandered out of the room, at a bit of a loose end now since she had nothing to do until the photos were finished and she could pick the best. So she decided to go and explore the Daily Prophet offices, because sometimes some pretty exciting shit went on, and there were other areas that were super mysterious that she, a very junior employee, knew nothing about and probably wasn't supposed to. But it was worth it, and she ended up strolling aimlessly around the Public Work Department, getting a bit lost if she was honest with herself. But Aoife was calling it exploring. The Ministry was pretty big, and pretty exciting, and pretty scary. Maybe she could find new friends to make. Or find all the boring people from school that had come to work at the Ministry, like Morgana and Hunter and Aylee. Hey, maybe she could interview random Ministry employees like Morgana and Hunter and Aylee! How cool would that be?

Work was a relief. Work meant no Morgan. Work meant no need to stay up with her mom waiting on her drunken brother. Last night had been a blur, not in the sense that meant she had stayed up partying, but in the sense that meant she had stayed up waiting for Ansel to show up to their mother didn't panic. Though Agnes loved her brother, sometimes it seemed he really hadn't changed. Improved, yes. Changed...not exactly. With tired eyes, Agnes sat on the couches across the Daily Prophet offices. Her agenda was mostly filled up, with a Hollyhead Harpies game on Saturday, Morgan's playdate with the neighbor's kid on Thursday, and receiving the keys to her new apartment on Sunday at the top of her list. Being rich had its perks, Agnes had never denied that. She didn't exactly have to work for money, because her family provided what she needed. Agnes worked because it was her unwinding. It was her way of leaving motherhood for a while to enter a life where all she was required to do was take photographs and write articles. That, to Agnes, was the best thing about working

Tapping her pencil against her planning book, Agnes looked up to see that she was not alone. Many people walked past, too in a hurry to even notice that she was there. Not that Agnes wanted to be noticed, but it was nice to know someone around knew her enough to greet her. Sadly, none of them did. "Whatever." she whispered to herself. Signing, she pulled out her phone, probably the most Muggle thing she owned, the picture of Morgan fading in. She missed him, but Agnes still had a love-hate relationship with motherhood. Clicking the phone off, Agnes focused on what she had to do. Photographs. Articles. Interviews. Merlin, Agnes hated interviewing people. The last time she had interview the Malfoys she realized that maybe she wasn't born for that area of journalism. She was planning to stick to photography and writing, as they were both among her passions. Photography more so than writing.

Her eyes glanced down to her planning book again, but for a brief moment they spotted a head of bright fiery hair. Though she wasn't a friend, Agnes knew exactly who that hair belonged to. Aoife O'Donnell had been Hunter's second - second? Really? - girlfriend. Hunter had practically forced her into a relationship, which wasn't surprising given that Hunter was...well, the equivalent to a neanderthal at the time. Agnes had always figured they liked each other, Aoife and Hunter, but at the end of the day it turned out that Hunter was only sexually frustrated because Aoife was the only one that wouldn't consciously sleep with him. Agnes doubted the red haired knew that, as it wasn't something to be told. It would be awkward, strange and more than anything it would make Hunter look like a sex-addict, which Agnes hoped he wasn't. Wait, was he? No, why was she even thinking he was? Oh, right, because of all the people on his list. Shaking that thought, Agnes fully glanced up to look at Aoife.

Standing up, more of an impulse rather than actual curiosity, Agnes walked over to the red-head, her planning book still in hand. Standing in front of her, Agnes grinned. "Hey, Aoife." She was not entirely sure Aoife remembered her as Agnes, maybe just as the pregnant girl, which made Agnes feel slightly uncomfortable. It was her fault, yes, but she didn't actually like to be known as a teenage pregnancy case. "I'm Agnes, not sure if you remember me. We were in Gryffindor." For a second, she almost said "I'm friend with your ex." but thank Merlin Agnes had a filter. Brushing away a strand of hair that always seemed to be out place, Agnes hoped Aoife would be better company than the couch. "What are you doing here? In the offices, I mean?" Could Aoife actually work for the Daily Prophet? But no, Agnes would have known. She knew pretty much everyone around work. Even people from the other parts of the Ministry.

The further she wandered away from the familiar office, the more lost Aoife got and the less she recognised her surroundings. She was pretty sure she was still in the public work department, only she wasn't sure how to get back to the developing room or her office cubicle or the exit. So she did the sensible thing and carried on walking in a random direction, taking in everything that was going on around her and watching people doing boring jobs like it was the most interesting thing in a world, rather than trying to get back to her office or the ministry café to get a snack while she waited for the photos to be done. She guessed if it got to the point where she was lost in the middle of nowhere, there would be someone to ask for directions. And this was just exploring, because she totally needed to know her workplace in case she ever did need to leave the Daily Prophet offices for whatever reason.

It was a good while before she heard her name and saw a familiar face. Looking away from a particularly interesting pinboard on the wall, her eyes fell on a girl she vaguely remembered from Hogwarts. Not her name, though. Just that she was one of the transfer students, a French one? And that she was pregnant for a while. "Hey!" she grinned, hoping the woman would introduce herself so Aoife wouldn't have to awkwardly ask her name. And she did, luckily. "Yeah! Gryffindor... right. Weren't you Hunter's friend?" The one he'd spent months ignoring Aoife because of. But she wasn't bitter. She didn't even like Hunter, what a git. The French girl could totally have him. Aoife hadn't properly talked to Agnes before, she imagined because in the time they were both at Hogwarts she would have subtly disliked the girl almost as much as Seren just because she got stupidly jealous about everything when it came to Hunter. She didn't miss liking Hunter, really. There was just a lot of drama, and then a lot more drama just in her head.

"Oh, I work here now," she replied with a nod. "For a few weeks now. But then I haven't left my office much yet, so I wouldn't have expected you to have seen me." Since her office wasn't too near this one, and she spent more time in one of the developing rooms anyway. She smiled. It was good here, she liked it a lot so far. Even if it wasn't exactly what she wanted to do just yet. "You work here, yeah?" Aoife had seen her articles before, like the when the Reapers attacked the ministry. Considering Agnes wasn't much older than Aoife, she'd reported on some really big stories. The kind of stories Aoife was aspiring to, once she made her important colleagues like her. And she was pretty sure she'd seen Agnes around somewhere in the past few weeks, but from a distance - she certainly hadn't talked to her before now. She wasn't even sure they'd talked at Hogwarts, despite being in the same house.

The bits and pieces of Agnes' stuff that Aoife had seen were really good. As much as Aoife bigged herself up as an amazing writer and photographer, she wasn't sure she'd be able to write about the big stories as well as the French girl did, even if she thought her photos were just as good. But no, that was the wrong attitude to have. She was Aoife O'Donnell and one day she was going to have her own newspaper column, or opportunities to write big stories like Agnes. Then she was going to be the editor, either of this newspaper or her own magazine dealing with more interesting subjects like sheep and dance. Realising she'd zoned out a little, Aoife returned her focus to Agnes.