Broken Crown + ministry memorandums (internal affairs) || apondinabluebox

[suzy turquoise blue]

Hey, everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve been on HPFT; I’ve barely written for several months now, since life has been wildly stressful and my muse has gone into near-permanent hibernation. But we’re in the middle of a pandemic now, so what better time to try and rediscover my love of writing?

I thought long and hard about picking up my major WIP, The Skull Beneath the Skin, but it didn’t feel right. I recently wrote a couple of hundred words for Skins in a rat race, and while it was great picking up Posy again, I had to keep pausing to work out what my plans were and I feel like it’s maybe not the right novel to restart writing at the moment. So, I decided to focus on completing two WIPs on my plate at the moment instead — one posted and one unposted (but frequently asked for) — and will be working on those during April instead, to hopefully resolve some of my incomplete-WIP-guilt.

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Broken Crown

beautiful banner by the inimitable Branwen

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In the wake of the Second Wizarding War, people with connections to the Death Eaters are being summoned to the Ministry for an interview that will determine whether they can keep their wands. With her father among the Death Eater ranks, and her brother one of the werewolves in Greyback’s pack, on parchment Liv Montague is no different from her peers. Yet one thing sets her apart from the rest: the confession to murder that she’s waiting to make.

 

So here we have Olivia Montague (formerly Rivers), the younger sister of Toby Montague, who we see in the books. Liv is/was a Slytherin in Harry’s year, and an aspiring Auror before the Second Wizarding War took away her dreams. I wanted to write about someone who was burdened with Slytherin’s reputation, but wasn’t intrinsically bad, and honestly, I don’t think I could ever write a more morally grey character. Liv’s situation differs from the victors’ in that she’s on the side of “the baddies”, and her family associations have landed her in an interview room with Head Auror Gawain Robards, where she has to pass an interview that’ll determine whether she’ll keep her wand or have it snapped, and while on paper it looks like she’ll pass, Liv has a murder to confess to.

The murder of Vincent Crabbe.

”But wait,” you say, “didn’t Crabbe die in the Room of Requirement, burning in his own Fiendfyre?” He did. And that’s one of the reasons I’m so in love with this story, because it explores post-war consequences from a very different perspective. Through Liv’s interview with Robards, focusing specifically on the five most influential people in her life so far — Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Mandy Brocklehurst, and Crabbe himself — we see the difference between a young Liv, the undisputed Ice Queen of Slytherin (much to Pansy’s indignation) and Liv now, with broken dreams and a broken crown.

And of course, there’s the fact that Liv’s convinced that Robards has an ulterior motive, somehow, because this interview doesn’t feel right... does he? Doesn’t he? I know how the story goes from beginning to end, I just need to write it, and you know what they say about spoilers.

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ministry memorandums (internal affairs)
 

working summary

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Monday mornings should be outlawed.

[or] In which Audrey Robins (overworked, underpaid, and currently avoiding a thunderstorm in her office) goes head-to-head with Percy Weasley (if she can ever find him under all the parchmentwork) in a somewhat dubious campaign against archaic filing systems, sexism within the Ministry, and the absence of vitally important tea and biscuits.

If you read ministry memorandums (from the mysteries), then this fic, which I’m abbreviating to “min mems 2” (thanks @facingthenorthwind!) is very similar but also very different. It’s set in the spring of 1999, ten months after the Battle of Hogwarts, and explores a Ministry that still hasn’t fully recovered from the war. The Ministry’s bad parchmentwork processes pre-war, plus the Death Eater’s chaos when they were in control, means that they’re running behind with an enormous backlog. After all, you can’t shut down an entire government for several weeks to catch up on parchmentwork when life goes on, or at least that’s what Kingsley Shacklebolt says.

Audrey Robins (who made a short cameo in the original min mems) is the major character in this fic. For several years she’s been bouncing around the Ministry, working in various departments and offices as a secretary, increasing in seniority. She’s currently the secretary to Polly Spencer-Moon, the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, mainly because nobody else wants to be. (Polly’s a bit of a nightmare boss.) But, she’s not “only” a secretary; she’s good at her job. You know those people who are like mind-readers and just when you need a particular form, it’s there for you, already filled out, and you just need to sign it? Yup, that’s Audrey.

There’s no proper plan for min mems 2, which is slightly concerning because although I have 7k so far, I’m a little worried that it’s going into crack!fic territory instead of “serious but hilarious” territory, since it’s very easy to go overboard with this style of writing. I do know how the fic ends though: with the newly-established Department of Internal Affairs, kind of like a wizarding HR holding each department accountable for any mismanagement.

One way that min mems 2 differs from the original is that the original focused exclusively on Blye, and any memos not to/from her were copied into her. With min mems 2, we see more of the Ministry, including events unfolding around Audrey that she doesn’t know about.

So, here’s a few of the characters who appear in min mems 2:

Audrey Robins: brazen Cornish pixie with an encyclopaedic knowledge of small print (in chapter 1, she out-lawyers the Head of the British Magical Office of Law) and an unquenchable appetite for tea and biscuits. Currently cursing various departments for a) the thunderstorm in her office, and b) the fact her name in the memorandum directory is incorrect and Percy still hasn’t fixed it in ten months. Woefully underappreciated.

Art Manlethorpe: Audrey’s best friend. Secretary to the Head of Magical Games and Sports, mostly for an excuse to drool over hot athletes all day. Provider of stress-relieving chocolate and anything else Audrey needs, without asking why. Brother of Tarquin Manlethorpe, Head of the British Magical Office of Law, although they both like to pretend the other doesn’t exist.

Percy Weasley: Minister for Magic’s Secretary. Drowning in parchmentwork. He has an idealistic view of being able to sort out the backlog imminently but honestly, the Ministry’s in such chaos that it’s all he can do to stay on top of things.

Adeline Weatherby: Percy’s assistant. The first line of defence against all the minutiae people bother him with; very efficient and capable of handling situations herself. Off the clock, she’s Vice-President for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Owls (S.P.C.O.) and has an aviary in her backyard for rescue owls.

Polly Spencer-Moon: Audrey’s boss from hell. Likes to leave the office for things like hair appointments while “working”. Her husband Cranbrook is a senior archivist, but their attitudes to conflicts of interest are extremely lax. 

Hamish MacCavity: Head of the Magical Maintenance Department. You really don’t want him as your boss, and it’s nothing to do with the fact his name reminds you of having dentist appointments.

Reg Cattermole: MMD employee, extremely overworked, (literal) bringer of chaos.

And that’s it so far! The above list might change, since it depends on whether I’m keeping all of what I’ve written so far or cutting out some of the possibly OTT bits (any beta readers want to volunteer? ) but overall it’ll be chaotic and positive and uplifting. Which I think is what I really need to write while my country’s in lockdown.

I missed you all, HPFT.

[facingthenorthwind]

I THINK YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I'M ABOUT TO SAY AND IT'S: FUCK YEAH MORE MIN MEMS!!!!!!!! 

 

I LOVE YOU AND I'M SO EXCITED TO READ MORE OF IT! I'm also excited for the other fic but my heart has always been fondest of your comedy, tbh. 

[Lost_Robin]

I love Audrey so much.

[just.a.willow.tree]

“MIN MEMS 2” IS AN ADORABLE NICKNAME! I am so excited!!!

And you know how much I love Broken Crown.  Soo intrigued about the development of the storyyy!

[Aphoride]

ISOBEL I'm so so so excited!  You know how much I love Skins, but Broken Crown is such a good story - I remember reading it before and it's such a deliciously addictive mystery so I'm so excited to see you're working on it again  I have no idea how it's going to turn out - what's going to have happened or what's going to happen, in Liv's interview with Robards, and I love that so much  

Also that ministry memorandums is now a series is excellent, excellent, excellent news, honestly. I can't wait to read that one either. 

Basically, I will cheer you on for anything you write (as ush) but everything sounds amazing and so interesting and eeeeee  

[Darling_take_off_the_mask]

Had to fly immediately to read the original Min Mems -- I never need an excuse to read anything involving Percy, but I love epistolary fics and especially things involving work correspondence. And wow, Min Mems is a Major Mood for those of us who work in government. I'm eagerly awaiting Min Mems 2 and especially love the idea of anything addressing the godawful, ineffective, and inefficient bureaucracy that is the Ministry.

[suzy turquoise blue]

Thanks so much everyone for the support; I didn’t expect this much interest, wow. You guys are the greatest.

Here’s a snippet from min mems 2, for anyone who might be interested in just how badly Audrey’s Monday has started:

8.29am

Ministry memorandum

sent by interdepartmental memo from the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures’ Secretary’s Office to the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports’ Secretary’s Office; congealed parchment just about legible due to water damage

this morning the alarm didn’t go off and I overslept, got woken up by the milkman banging on the door (note to self: do not answer door in sheer translucent nightie) and demanding payment for last month’s milk, he would not accept that it was my flatmate’s turn to pay so I’m now five sickles poorer

flooed into work, fell out of fireplace and hit face on floor, head is currently throbbing (why doesn’t the ministry have a hospital wing? some pain relief would be appreciated right about now), made it to office with seconds to spare and was greeted by a thunderstorm

said thunderstorm has destroyed entire contents of office. currently counting the number of forms required to acquire replacements, now at 56 forms and 17 places to send them and counting

MMD allegedly short-staffed and will not make thunderstorm go away as it is “low priority”. keep trying to sit in the corridor while I wait for news of a temporary office but several higher ups keep tripping over my legs and yelling at me to find somewhere to sit and I’M TRYING. my legs are now bruised and my to-do list is piling up because I have nowhere to work. half the ministry claim to have no room to spare and the other half haven’t bothered to reply to my memo

conclusion: I am overworked and underpaid and no-one cares about the thunderstorm in my office

[TidalDragon]

I have not read any of it yet, but Broken Crown sounds like an exceptional concept for a post-war story. I think it explores a great irony that the war was fought over blood supremacy and who had the 'right' to practice magic and yet the victors are attempting to make a similar/same decision (cutting out the blood supremacist aspect) through an interview process. I love the reality of it. I will definitely have to check that one out!

[Guest Noelle Zingarella]

Isobel--all I can say about Broken Crown is:

What a fantastic premise for a fic!!