"But how could that happen? Surely someone checked the wards on the pitch before the game began." Skander said, slightly incredulous at the news. It was unthinkable that something like this could have happened. He could just imagine the chaos it had caused.

Wait. What?

Quidditch was suspended? Well at least that would allow them to check all the pitches thoroughly without having to worry too much about a deadline. But really this was just awful.

"I'll get a list of all the pitches if you want. At least all the public ones, the list has the date of the last time the wards were checked next to each pitch..." something Skander himself had compiled when he'd first been made Division Head. He hadn't really thought he'd ever need it but it seemed it would come in useful now.

"Good thinking, Skander. Go get that list and don't worry about Hogwarts - I've already taken the liberty to send an inspection team to the school," Rex said and noticed that Dominic was there.

"Denton! See if you can find a list of all Gobstone arenas - the list that includes the inspection dates. Never thought you'd have to deal with an international crisis on your first day as division head, did you?"

Then he turned to Alina.

"Find the list of all approved and rejected patents dealing with Quidditch - we're not taking any chances."

How had they let that happen? Alina shook her head slowly as it sank in. She couldn't even imagine the effect it would have had outside the chaos and obliviators. She was Muggle born, and...well, flying was a pretty big thing to learn about.

What? Quidditch and Gobstones suspended? Nia was NOT going to be impressed. She'd only just got signed for a Pro team. Alina sighed, thinking of her daughter's most likely reaction, and then the rest of the players round the country. Their office was going to turn into a screaming howler fest from players, fans and officials alike. More reason to sort it quickly though, if they all wanted their eardrums intact.

"Good thinking on the earplugs," she said to Dominic, before turning back to Rex as he addressed her.

"Will do," she replied with a nod. She looked round the room, beckoning her employees over so they could start planning the best search method. "Did you want all Patents related to broomstick usage and maintenance too?"

Herod took notes. He knew the filing room better than anyone. He raised his hand and said, "What should we do with them once we have them. I estimate we'll have about 500 that relate to Quidditch, flying, brooms, and supplies in total. Is there any way we can narrow them down?"

"Will do," Skander replied before going back to his office. The list was somewhere in his desk drawers. He just couldn't remember which one, which meant he would have to upturn everything and make a royal mess of his office before replacing everything. That was ok though seeing as this was a priority.

It took about ten minutes but he'd finally found it. He was lucky and it had been in the first place he looked. Once he had it, and had looked it over to make sure it was the list he wanted. Ascertaining that it was he quickly stuffed all the other paperwork in and rushed out to the main offices.

"Got it," he said, waving the paper around a tiny bit to emphasize that it was the paper they needed. For Quidditch at least. "Now if only my employees were here things would be great," it seemed however that all of them had extremely bad timing when it came to being late, or not reporting to work.

Damon couldn't believe what he was just heard. The Muggles were in the scene where the European Cup was held. That was disaster. How could the wards failed? Merlin! This was nightmare!

Wait hold on a second! What did he just said? Quidditch and Gobstones are suspended? Oh this is bad, really bad and they gonna get a lot of howlers? Then someone mentioned about the ear plugs. "Good idea." he said nodding his head. They definitely need one of those if the howlers attack their office.

"Use the expense account to cover the cost of the ear plugs, Denton," Rex said and glanced around for a blank sheet of parchment and a quill. Someone handed him what he needed and he quickly jotted down the number. "Destroy it after placing the order and then locate those lists!"

"Yes, Alina!" Rex answered and ruffled his hair again, but this time his hand rested on the back of his neck.

It was at that moment when Herod spoke up.

"Figure out a system - remember, something or someone caused the wards to fail on the stadium. We're not taking any chances. Work with Alina on it, okay Herod? When you've got it organized, let me know."

"Thanks, Skander," Rex replied when he saw the Quidditch Division Head holding the list. "You can cross Hogwarts off the list - nothing and no one has tampered with the wards on their stadium because if they even tried, they'd have to get past my little brother."

His brain was racing.

"Get a large map of the UK and mark the location of every single pitch. Set it up in the Conference Room and let me see if I can get someone to assist you."

Rex watched as some employees quickly busied themselves with paperwork but then someone walked in.
Rex snapped his fingers once as he pointed at Damon. "You. Help Skander."

He walked towards his office and stopped in the doorway. Rex turned around and gave his final order. "I want everyone to drop whatever you're doing and assist your division heads in this crisis. You've got one hour to come up with a plan and we'll meet in the Conference Room. Now if everyone will excuse me, I need to make some rather important calls."

The room was silent for a brief second as he entered his office.

"You," Skander called to the guy Rex had pointed at, he didn't actually know the persons name. "I need you to find a map of the UK and meet me in the conference room. Also see if you can find some little pins that we can stick in the map to mark all the pitches." Skander finished as he flipped through the list to find Hogwarts. He'd cross it off like Rex had instructed.

Then he'd need to grab his cup of coffee off his desk. Something told him he was going to need it before the morning was done. He'd probably need it before they'd finished marking all the pitches on the map. There were just so many of them...

Alina nodded at the Department Head, nibbling her lip in thought as she did so. It would be a lot of files, but Rex was right - something had to have caused the failure, and when it came to oddities, Patents was usually a good place to start.

It really could be anything. Equipment, the stadium, souvenirs, gear... And on that note, they needed to get started if they only had an hour to get a plan. She turned to Herod, and looked round to see if any other Patents employees had joined him nearby.

"Right, we need to clear our work area of current files, so we have the maximum space for sorting through this." She looked round at their desks. It was going to get packed in here with paperwork. "Herod, I want you to make a list of the main categories that we think will be relevant, and note where in the filing system we'll find them and how many files there are in each one. We can than decide which are most important and work through them systematically. Understood?"

"Certainly" Herod said before waving his wand and clearing off his work area. Ok...what would they need. Its always best to cover your bases. Quidditch, flying, brooms, spells (relating to flying, brooms, etc), Quaffles, Snitches, and Stadium Security. He wrote his list on a board he conjured into the office. "I'll go get the patents. Once I find them, I'll send them out here...right into their designated pile. Is that ok?" he asked prior to leaving.

Aimee :)
 

Finally one of his employees was here! "Ah good Dessie, don't worry about being late, and it's just Skander," he replied warmly while messing around with things in his desk, trying to get as much information as he could from all the recent games that had been played, so that they could see if there had been any noticeable weakening of wards reported, that he had missed due to how hectic things had been.

"It's unfortunate but it seems the wards around a Quidditch Pitch failed during an important game and we were revealed to the muggles. Quidditch has therefore been cancelled for now as has Gobstones. My task, and therefore your task right now is to get organised for a meeting in an hours time. I've got a list of Quidditch Pitches and dates when the wards were last checked around them. I need to map them, someone from another division is meant to be helping with that..." where was that man?

"What I want you to do however is look through these papers for any mention, however insignificant it may seem, of a weakening of wards around the pitches," he talked as he walked out of his office and back into the normal work area. This was important and things needed to be done as quickly as possible. There was no real time to stay still and talk.

O_O

WHAT?

"Oh, wow, sir. I mean, Skander. Right. Sorry. Er..." in shock, Dessie followed her boss out back to the general work area, trying to sort out her head. REVEALED TO THE MUGGLES?!?!?!?!?! "Revealed to the muggles," she repeatedly whispered to herself, trying to get her head wrapped around this HUMONGOUS piece of news.

Ok, snap out of it. Damage control must be done now. DAMAGE CONTROL DESSIE. YOU'RE GOOD AT THAT.

Ok. Ok. "Right sir, I'll get cracking on that immediately. Meeting in an hour? Sure," she said, looking at the papers as if they had personally offended her. How could people be so reckless as to not fix a weakening ward IMMEDIATELY? This was the whole wizarding world that was depending on their shoulders! Pfft.

"May I take the papers or should I quickly make copies?" she suddenly asked. Other workers might need them too, after all.

"I want you to take the papers. Don't make any copies of them." Running his hand through his hair nervously Skander handed over the papers. "You can show them to people if they turn up, and we'll show them in the meeting but you never know who might get hold of them if there are copies. We don't need anyone to get into even more of a panic if there are any mentions of weakening of wards. I think there's enough panic as it is."

Skander shot the woman a smile, trying to convey that he didn't think she'd give any copies to people who shouldn't have them. It's just you never know how the paper gets hold of things, and if he could limit any access that they may gain that would be great. Especially when looking at how long ago some of the wards had actually been checked. One pitches wards hadn't been checked since 2012!! It was ridiculous, but the pitch wasn't really used much any more which is probably why checks had been lax.

Nodding, Dessie took the papers in her arms, careful to not drop any. Copies or no copies, dropping papers was never good and DEFINITELY not these papers. "All right sir, I'll get cracking. Anything else you want me to watch out for? If I'm going through them anyway, I might as well look for other things to save time in case no one else shows up to help," she said, frowning at the thought. At a time like this, people should be showing up (yes, even late is better than never). Granted they probably didn't know but...

Meh. Anyways. Smiling back at Skander, she dropped her eyes to show she understood. She wouldn't ever give these papers to anyone not qualified and probably not to the qualified either unless they gave her a good reason why they wanted them having been in her father's firm for years and known the importance of keeping this secret, but she wasn't offended per say. She'd been here long enough to know that people said things just because they were being extra careful and not because they actually meant anything by it.

Plus, Skander was a nice boss and she was rather fond of him. Dessie doubted he'd insult her deliberately.

"Well I suppose you should take note of who exactly checked the pitches and special note of what pitch they are talking about so then I can cross reference with my notes of when the pitches were last officially checked out, and who did so." That way if there was an issue he could try to work out where it came from, and not just where it was. If someone was lying about doing there job when the official checks were meant to take place they'd be dealing with a very irate Skander.

"If you need any help, or want to double check anything call me, I'll probably be in the conference room or something but I'll come right back if you call," normally he'd just leave her to it but he figured in a case as important as this he had to make sure he was available, especially since Dessie was the only one from his own Division here.

Dessie nodded again. That shouldn't be a problem and a good idea on Skander's part - whoever the idiot was that was lax about these wards should be punished heavily. The very least, fired from his job or heavily reprimanded. That person almost blew up the WHOLE wizarding world. "All right, sir, I will do that and report back when I have found something," she nodded and shot Skander a small smile before heading off to her desk.

Much work needed to be done. With a flourish, she waved her wand and her hair tied in a messy but pretty bun and she picked up her quill, dipped it in ink and began to write just as she began reading the first page. All right - let's see here...

After three weeks of sorting through files and sending them into the designated piles, Herod came back into the workroom. "Here are all the relevant files. Now the biggest pile is brooms" he observed, "but the most relevant would obviously be Stadium Security" He picked up the pile. "Ill look through this one.....if thats ok with you?" he asked Alina.

A flash of purple zoomed into the work area, flying over heads and cubicle walls and coming to a hault in the center of the room. What news had this official looking memo brought for the Ministery workers?

Quote:

Memo from the Minister or Magic Ladies and gentlemen of the Ministry of Magic, We are very pleased and excited to announce to you that we have recently filled the vacancy of Junior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic. Our utmost attention has been given to finding just the right person for the job, and we are confident that we have found this in one very busy and important person. Please join me in extending a very warm welcome to Lord Berty Borr, your new Junior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic. Mr. Borr has formerly dedicated his unmatched services to both the Ministry and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy. He has served as an adviser to our society's leaders for years, having had a great allegiance and working relationship with Minister Cooper. In addition, Lord Borr somehow found time in his busy schedule to take on the role as Ministry-approved professor at the school for several years. His past achievements, as well as his promising future and and worldliness, will no doubt prove to be a benefit to the governing of our wizarding world. With the addition of Lord Berty Borr to the Ministry team, we are confident that we're now just one step closer to keeping the Ministry of Magic moving in the right direction. Sincerely, Alexandra A. Carlton Minister of Magic