Chapter Three
Confronting the Faceless 💀 CompleteSeptember 15, 1997
"You sort of start thinking anything is possible if you've got enough nerve"
The thing is, Claire had liked working in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as a secretary. She knows a lot of people find it odd - a Gryffindor enjoying paperwork? - but Claire really, honestly had. Scouring through the reports submitted by the Aurors, looking for clues or connecting information that had been overlooked - it was exhilarating every time she was able to hand back a pile of notes with her annotations, or to put away a case file after stamping SOLVED over the front of it.
People find it odd that a Gryffindor would enjoy paperwork. She finds it odd that no one seems to realize that the paperwork is how they make the justice stick. And keeping bad guys behind bars is perfectly Gryffindor in her opinion.
Of course, no one asked her opinion when she had been transferred back in August from the offices of the Wizengamot Administrative Services to the newly created Muggleborn Registration Commission. Her paperwork was some of the best in the department, she'd been told. It was a promotion, complete with a pay raise, she'd been told.
It was a move from creating justice to destroying it, she found out.
And so it was that one morning, just under a month after her transfer, Claire woke up with a pit in her stomach and a plan in her head. Today she wasn't just going to pass people their questionnaires and hand over the files for their absolute bullcrud trials. Today she's going to try and get at least a few of them out, in the best way she knows how.
Today, Claire Rosier is going to defy her family's ties to the Dark Lord and forge papers for the Muggleborns. Because Claire has always known the power of paperwork.
It's taken nearly a month to come to this decision - she's been wrestling with herself on multiple points, not the least of which is how, logistically, she could even get to the files. They're sealed up when they arrive from Records (usually brought by Taylor, Blishwick, or on that rare occasion the weasel Junior Undersecretary himself comes when the Muggleborn summoned is of particular note) and Claire only has them until they're picked up by the defendant, which can range from an hour to all day. Getting into the files, changing them, resealing them convincingly, and sending them off are each challenges on their own, nonetheless altogether.
But if she's honest the biggest thing holding her back to this point was her family. Her father and older brother Max both sport the mark on their left arms, and they participate by doing whatever they're ordered by the Dark Lord and his highest lieutenants. But despite how much she hates what they do, Claire still loves her family - and if she's caught, they'll be punished as well.
Then the student files started coming in and that, ultimately, is what has pushed her over the edge. She'd sent a sobbing twelve year old to a courtroom the day before with no idea of what was happening, still dirty from the Ministry holding cells where all the remaining untried Muggleborn students are being kept.
Claire can't mentally justify being a part of a system that sinks that far from justice.
Her determination doesn't stop the pit of guilt resting in her stomach at breakfast that morning though. Her father and mother are discussing the day's news distractedly while Max demolishes multiple plates of bacon.
"You alright Claire? Things going well at work?" Her father prompts after about twenty minutes of his daughter remaining oddly silent.
"Yeah, you've normally called me a pig by now." Max points out, frowning slightly in clear concern. "Anything we can do to help?"
Stop being an amazing family. Claire thinks instantly. It would make betraying you all a whole lot easier.
She forces a smile. "Ah, no, sorry. Just a bit tired, I was up rather late last night finishing a few files for Madame Umbridge." She lies through her teeth.
Her father hums in understanding and turns back to her mother, but Max takes a moment longer and the guilt and nerves start to rise up before he gives her a grin.
"Lookit my little sister, acting like an ambitious Slytherin." He teases. She laughs, half-honestly even, and he turns back to his food as well.
She gets out of the house as soon as she's finished eating (and of course thanked her mother for the meal) and Apparates to the new employee entrance. She gets into the women's line and waits semi-impatiently for her turn to enter.
Really, the new system does little more than make the morning rush even slower than normal, and with how tense everyone is these days they don't even make any small talk as they wait.
She eventually gets to the front of the line and, grimacing, steps into the toilet and flushes herself down.
Clever spellwork and higher security be damned, this is the most disgusting way to get to work they could have possibly created.
Claire steps into the Ministry atrium with a sigh and the usual urge to shake out her hair despite knowing it's dry. The mere idea of toilet water on any part of her person still makes her feel slightly nauseous.
She lets herself be distracted by her own disgust a bit longer than average today, since that means being distracted from what she's decided to do for just a bit longer. Most of the known Deatheaters - the new Department Head Yaxley, that awful foreign mad woman Nakayashi, and Umbridge even if she's not "officially" on team evil - linger around the atrium and look at everyone coming through critically. They say it's for security purposes. Claire knows it's a new measure after the break in back on the second, to ensure no one is acting suspiciously.
And today of all days Claire really can't act at all suspect or off-kilter.
She manages to get through the atrium and onto the lift without incident, and when she registers that no one on the lift with her is a known sympathizer she allows herself to start mentally formulating a plan.
She isn't in charge of sending out summons, so she has no idea of the who or when in regards to the day's trials, but she is in charge of filing questionnaires with Umbridge's secretary Blishwick, who then runs them off to wherever they need to go. So maybe she doesn't target the files - at least, not today when she's admittedly underprepared to do so. Maybe today some questionnaires just get lost in the system, stalling any Azkaban transfers and maybe giving people more time to escape?
It's definitely not much - not even enough - but it's what Claire can come up with on the thirteen minute ride up to the tenth floor where the Commission's offices are located, so it will have to do for the moment.
She walks down the hall as casually as she can, nodding to her coworkers when she passes them. None of them are particularly close - Claire honestly doesn't have any friends at work, or really at all outside her brother and her cousin Petra. It doesn't bother her that much, especially today. Since no one really knows her, no one will notice if she acts a bit off.
She pulls out her chair and tosses her bag beneath the desk.
"Morning Rosier." Her neighbor greets distractedly, more out of habit than any real friendliness.
"Morning Phipps." Claire replies, equally habitually. "Has Taylor been by yet?"
Valerie Phipps just shakes her head. "Fell behind yesterday though, and the leftover files were refiled completely incorrectly so we'll be dealing with that nonsense again today." She says, clearly irked. "Honestly, when I find out whoever was in here last I'm requesting they be moved somewhere else, this is the fifth time this has happened."
"Could be different people, a lot of us were dumped here pretty unexpectedly." Claire points out, only because she and Valerie always chat for a few minutes at the start of work and cutting her off here would be suspicious. Mentally she's barely paying attention to the conversation, instead focused solely on the door, waiting for Taylor to show up with their assignments for the day.
"We were all secretaries though, it's no excuse. Sure some departments have different filing systems but it's our job to be able to learn new ones quickly. It's been almost a month." Valerie sighs.
Claire just shrugs in response and lets the conversation die. They both turn back to their desks and Claire skims through the files in her drawer - a few questionnaires for people who had never showed up, some completed files that haven't been picked up yet, but nothing to distract herself with or that could help with her self-assigned extra curricular while they wait for the records to arrive.
It feels like forever before Taylor finally shows up, and she's quick to hand over the records for the day to their supervisor Albert Runcorn and depart again, not acknowledging anyone else in the room.
"Alright, we've got twenty two summons today, eighteen of which will need questionnaires filled out, and someone messed up the filing system again." He glares around the room before locking eyes with Claire. "You! Rosier. Go fix the files. Everyone else, come get a file and get to work."
Claire's heart nearly stops. Could she really be that lucky? She's being sent down to records to fix the mix ups? The one place she can probably do the most damage, being handed to her on a silver platter.
"Yes sir." She replies briskly, hoping beyond hope her voice isn't shaking. Things are falling perfectly into place!
Runcorn waves her off and she moves quickly to the lifts, trying to keep her pace steady but itching to break into a run.
She takes the lift all the way down into the basement and is greeted with a raised eyebrow from Eloise Taylor, who's sitting at the front desk flipping through what appear to be lineage charts.
"Um, there was a screw up with the filing for our department last night?" Claire clears when her voice pitches at the end of her sentence. "Runcorn sent me to correct it."
Taylor hums and waves her past. "Don't touch anything else, obviously." She mutters, barely glancing up before going back to reviewing the file in front of her.
Claire tiptoes past her and then darts straight for the Muggleborn Registration filing cabinets, unable to restrain herself anymore. They're massive - six rows of twenty foot steel lockers housing thousands of files each. Taking a quick breath she pulls out her wand and begins scanning each drawer, correcting the missfiles where she finds them, but also keeping an eye out for any forms that could be 'lost' without rousing too much suspicion.
A family man here, a young girl there, Claire works her way down the rows, starting with the drawers she can reach easily and then borrowing a broom to begin on the higher sections.
The system is actually an even bigger mess than she'd expected, considering it had supposedly be put to rights every time there had been a screw up in the past. She admittedly leaves a few things misplaced wherever she thinks she can get away with it, but mostly sticks to correcting the system and vanishing files as she finds them.
She's so focused on her task that she doesn't notice when another person enters the area, until he clears his throat. It's a short, vaguely irritated sound and her stomach drops when she recognizes it.
She had just been vanishing a file on a Muggleborn witch up in Scotland - he hadn't seen her, had he? She's a good seven feet in the air, but everyone knows that Percy Weasley rarely misses any details. And that he's very tall.
"Junior Undersecretary! I d-didn't hear you come in!" She curses mentally at the stutter and quickly lands the broom, smiling like nothing is wrong. "How are you this morning?"
He raises an eyebrow as she looks up at him. "I apologize for interrupting your work Ms. Rosier." He says briskly, ignoring her greeting altogether, "There is a record that was not submitted properly and I need it within the hour or the entire system will be backed up again." There's the usual trace of irritation in his voice, the one that Claire is all too familiar with after hearing it semi-regularly both on the tenth floor and in the courtrooms. It's good for her though - it means someone somewhere else has already screwed up so Weasley is more focused on fixing that mess than noticing any others. Claire might just have gotten away with it.
Percy simply summons the file he needs, which takes a moment to arrive as it's higher up in the lockers (and really why such a fuss if it's that easy to retrieve?), and then turns back to her.
"Excellent job on the reorganization Ms. Rosier. Ms. Taylor informs me you've been here working diligently all day today - I'll be sure to put in a good work with Mr. Runcorn and Madame Umbridge for you."
Claire gives him a slightly more genuine smile at that. If the -up weasel says she's doing well, she may well become the top pick to come down into Records whenever it's needed, which is an ideal situation if she wants to keep messing with the system.
"Thank you Mr. Weasley." She says, a bit belatedly as he's already sweeping back out of the office to the lifts, posture perfect and nose in the air, apparently none the wiser to her activities. She lets out a soft breath of relief and grabs the broom again. She still has most of the system to put back to rights after all.
She's not interrupted again for a while, and the next intruder is a bit more welcome. Eloise Taylor makes her presence known by clearing as soon as she enters the area, and Claire is able to quickly replace the file she'd decided to try tampering with (she has all day after all, and with how much a mess the system is turning out to be no one will suspect anything if she doesn't finish today).
"Hey Rosier, it's lunch break. Feel free to keep working if you want, but you'll be the only one down here for about an hour. Everyone else already headed out."
Claire hesitates. On the one hand, being alone gives her unlimited access to cause chaos. On the other, if anything is found out she'll be the first one looked at due precisely to her being alone.
She sighs. "I am getting peckish I suppose. Wait for me a moment?"
Taylor leans against the door, and Claire is uncomfortably aware of her gaze boring into her back, so she hurries to finish the drawer she was working on and flies back down to the ground.
Taylor doesn't ask after her progress, which isn't all that surprising - what little Claire knows about the other woman indicates that she tends to be stand-offish and generally a loner. But by walking with her to the lifts and then up to the cafeteria Claire will have a solid alibi and proof she was never alone in the Records room.
Lunch is tense, though that's only partially because of her own nerves. The other half relates more to one Yurina Nakayashi, who's idling around the employee lunch room, terrifying everyone in the vicinity since the woman is well known for tormenting random Ministry employees for her own amusement and no one wants to be targeted.
In the end it's an older gentleman who's focused on, and while he's reduced to terrified tears the rest of the room collectively relaxes, relieved that they escaped the woman's wrath for another day. Claire isn't sure who started it, but it's common in the Ministry to refer to Nakayashi as the Wicked Witch of the East whenever she isn't in hearing range, and Claire thinks the nickname might be too kind, if anything.
Claire eventually chokes down enough food and has waited long enough that she decides it's safe to return to Records and get back to her sabotage. Honestly she's quite impressed with herself for how well she's getting away with things, and on her first day of it too!
She keeps her pace steady on her way back down, and even forces herself to stop when she sees her boss in the hallway so she can give a status report. Runcorn obviously doesn't care about file organization, but Claire knows it's how she appears and not the information itself that's actually important in the interaction. She's told to keep at it and then Runcorn is off, muttering to himself about something Claire probably doesn't want to hear about so she tunes out and hurries on her way.
The rest of the day is primarily spent focused on reorganization after she's walked in on again by another member of Records. She doesn't know the guy, but he's mostly just awkward and too busy trying to not look up her robes (gross) to really notice what she's up to.
Still, she thinks she's probably done plenty for the moment, and she's confident she'll be back the next day. And it's better safe than arrested - if she's caught now everything she's done will likely be discovered before it can actually help anyone.
She leaves at five - no sane person stays at the Ministry later than they absolutely have to these days - and decides she wants to walk home, unsure if she'll be able to act as comfortably normal around her family as she's somehow managed to do around her coworkers. Hopefully some fresh air and exercise will give her guts time enough to twist back into a facsimile of something normal. She nods to Taylor as she walks past the front desk and gets a distracted half-salute in return.
The Rosier estate - or at least their branch of it - is a good hour and a half's walk from the Ministry building, two hours if she uses the Muggle entrance (which of course she does - she's not going backwards out the toilets ever if she can help it), and she takes her time to smell the roses and watch the sun on it's steady descent towards the horizon. It will still be light when she gets home, but she knows within a month or so she'll have to Apparate if she doesn't want to be caught alone in the dark. And in the current climate, no one wants that.
She's maybe half way home when she becomes aware that she's being followed, and her chest constricts in fear. Someone had seen. Why else would a person be casually strolling along behind her, matching her speed but remaining just far enough that if she hadn't been watching for this exact situation Claire might not have noticed?
Claire does her best to stay in well-populated areas - they're in Muggle territory and the Statute is still in place for the time being - but as they get closer to the estate fellow foot traffic thins out noticably. Claire nervously fingers her wand, hidden up her sleeve, and hopes she won't have to get into a duel. She'd never been great in Charms class, though her theoretical work had kept those grades high enough to look impressive on paper.
Finally the roads become entirely deserted, and Claire spins to face her tail, ready to throw a stunning spell, only to realize she can't move.
"Sorry, I can't have you trying to run off!" A cheerful female voice informs her, though Claire can't turn her head to see who's speaking. "You're real jumpy, you know that? I mean, it's fair if what rat said is true, but really that's not how to avoid suspicion."
Claire thinks that sentence might not make sense. She can't really tell because most of her hearing is being blocked by the pounding of her own heart.
"I'm gonna Apparate us somewhere more private so we can talk openly. Please don't attack me when I release the hold, okay? We're on the same side, I promise."
A moment later Claire can move again, but before she can do anything someone has grabbed her bicep and she's Side-Along Apparated into what appears to be a typical London flat.
When she's regained her bearings Claire yanks out her wand and spins to face whoever it was that had grabbed her (she's not using the word attacked, since technically nothing aggressive has happened. Yet.). She's greeted with hands raised in the universal gesture for surrender and a bright smile.
The hands and smile are attached to a young woman with a broad build, sharply angled features, and wavy auburn hair that's pale enough to look almost red in the bright lights of the apartment. Notably she's not holding a wand, so Claire slowly lowers her own.
"Who are you and what do you want?" She asks cautiously, wand still half-up in case it's needed.
The woman beams, hands clasping together in a cheerful clap. "Oh good you're not going to try and kill me! Great start. Okay, so I'm Saundra Caldwell and I have a proposition for you!"
Claire stares at the other woman critically before sighing and putting her wand away entirely. "Your name sounds familiar but I don't think we've met." She offers, still suspicious but honestly doubtful this woman could actually cause harm even if she meant to. She takes a moment to properly take in her surroundings now that she's feeling less like she's in immediate danger.
The room is honestly rather bland - dark blue walls, a wooden desk pushed up against one wall and a few shelves filled with what at a brief glance appear to be potions ingredients.
Saundra is busy pulling out the desk chair and offering it to Claire. "We haven't, but if you've been in Records before you probably know my roommate, Eloise Taylor? She might've mentioned me."
Claire hums - that would explain it then. "I know Taylor, she brings up the sealed files we hand out for the trials. What is all this about Caldwell? I'm expected at home."
"Don't worry, they won't miss you. This could take awhile so I had a friend provide you an alibi for the next couple hours. You worked late for the Commission on a high-profile case tonight if they ask, and it's top priority so you can't share any details."
Claire raises an eyebrow. "Powerful friend."
Saundra grins. "We have our connections. Anyway, would you like some tea? I think there might be some cake leftover from a couple nights ago too, not sure about that one though-"
"Can you please get to the point?" Claire finally hits the end of her patience, and Saundra laughs tensely.
"Fair enough. Okay, where to start? I guess I should tell you that you were caught messing with those files today." Saundra declares, hopping up onto the desk and gesturing for Claire to take the chair. "Don't worry, not by anyone who wants to get you in trouble. In fact, we think what you're doing is awesome!"
"Who is 'we'?" Claire asks, officially sick of how long it's taking this woman to get to the dang point, as she lowers herself into the offered chair. If she's going to die today, she might as well be comfortable.
Not like there's much else to do at this point. My family is going to be furious if this is me getting caught.
Saundra clears . "Okay, right. Sorry, you're actually the first person I'm recruiting myself, at least who I don't personally know, though I actually founded the organization! I'm part of a group called the Underground. We're an operation dedicated to protecting Muggleborns, and we want you to join us!" She blinks hopefully at Claire, who just stares back for a very long moment.
A movement to protect Muggleborns? It's certainly appealing, but it all feels way too convenient. The day she decides to start helping she's immediately approached by a group claiming to do just that? This is just as likely to be a trap to get her to confess to sabotage - meaning they don't have any solid evidence yet.
Saundra clears awkwardly. "Look, I'm down to take Veritaserum if you don't believe me. Or an Unbreakable Vow? I'm not sure what the Vow would be but if you can come up with one-"
"Okay, okay, I believe you." Claire says, deciding that if she does go out tonight, she's going to do it without lying about her morals. "So the Underground. How exactly does it work?"
Saundra's grin suddenly relaxes from it's almost unnerving intensity. "Oh thank goodness, I was honestly still ready for you to fight." She admits, leaning back on the desk and pushing a few papers out of her way. "This is the part that's going to take a little time - are you sure you don't want any tea?"
Claire shakes her head and Saundra shrugs, conjuring up a kettle and pouring herself a cup. "Suit yourself. Alright, so where to start? I guess I should explain what we've been doing so far. We're about three weeks old, give or take a couple days, and so far we've been changing Muggleborn files so that they can claim wizard heritage. I'm a spell creator so I was in charge of making an easy way of accomplishing that - I'll show you in a bit. What else? Oh, there are two other people aside from me!" She grins and takes a sip of her tea. "We're kind of small at the moment, but we're hoping to expand! Well, I'm hoping to expand, my... um, one of the other members is less keen." She pauses and looks over at Claire. "Um, any questions so far? Stop me at any point if you do."
Claire shakes her head, motioning for Saundra to continue. It all really does sound too good to be true, but Saundra's pure passion as she continues explaining the basics of the Underground is starting to convince Claire that she might have actually struck gold. The group may be new, and quite small, but the three members they have all have specialties that have allowed them to cause quite a bit of chaos so far (apparently it's the Underground that keeps messing up the Commission's filing system, and that gets Claire to laugh. Anything that infuriates Umbridge is good in her books).
Saundra is the mastermind of the group, the one who came up with the idea and who creates the spells that they use to accomplish their goals. The other two, who she refers to only as "Python" and "Rat", are the strategist and the "ministry insider" respectively.
"So what would my role be?" Claire asks, officially onboard and honestly pretty excited.
Saundra grins and offers her a cup of tea, which Claire accepts. "Our insider is in a pretty precarious position - one slip up and our entire operation could be revealed. So we want you to take over Rat's role, in some ways." She pauses to refill her own cup. "You'd be in charge of changing the files. Not all of them, unfortunately, we don't want you caught either, but enough to make an impact." She blinks over at Claire. "So, you in? If not I'm going to have to Obliviate you."
Claire grins right back. "I'd expect nothing less, but I'm definitely in. Do I get a cool code name too?"
Saundra straight-up squeaks in her excitement, hopping off the desk and nearly spilling tea everywhere. "Oh yay! Okay, yes, you do get a code name, but they're actually based on the messenger spell we use to keep in contact! Here, come here I'll teach you it, and the file editing spell as well."
Saundra explains - using a lot of terminology that Claire honestly doesn't understand but assumes make sense - that their "messengers" are essentially a modified Patronus spell that's no good against dementors but on the upside they get to choose the animal form that it takes.
"And I used the Ministry Memo system to program these guys so that messengers all go directly to each other, so just state the codename of whoever you want to talk to and your message will get to them." Saundra says happily. "Make sense?"
Claire shrugs. "Enough sense I suppose. So I choose the animal I want and then just, what, flick my wand?"
It takes a few tries, and a bit more explaining with more detailed instructions on the actual casting, but within ten minutes a silvery-blue lion is standing proudly in front of Claire, patiently awaiting her message.
"So Lion huh? Very loyal Gryffindor of you." Saundra teases. "Though I can't really judge considering my code is Badger." She adds. "Alright, feel free to send a message to me if you want to test it, or introduce yourself to Python or Rat. Probably Python though, Rat works late most days."
Claire considers it for a bit before sending the message to Saundra - she admittedly would feel weird approaching someone she doesn't know, even if only through a messenger.
"Alrighty then, with that out of the way let's teach you how to edit files without breaking the seal!"
Claire goes home in a bit of a daze. She'd started the day wanting to help, and ended the day joining an organization that's doing exactly that. All the things she'd been trying to figure out for a month had just... dropped into her lap. It's surreal.
Max is at the counter eating dinner when she walks in, and he waves at her.
"Good day at work? Getting pulled in on fancy cases is a pretty good sign for a promotion!" He grins, and Claire smiles back at him.
"It was pretty awesome, yeah." She agrees, mind flashing over her day in Records, her conversations with Phipps and Taylor, and finally her run-in with Saundra. "I think I'm really going to be making a difference with this administration."
Author's Note: HEY LOOK A CHAPTER THAT ISN'T DOOM AND GLOOM YOU'RE WELCOME. And yes I did shoehorn in my son Percy, don't @ me xD So anyway, meet the actual founding idea for CtF from all those years ago. The idea of an organization that worked from within the Ministry to sabotage the Deatheaters was something I could see happening and really wanted to create a story about! Of course, this is only a portion of CtF, but hopefully it'll be one that's worth all my non-canonical nonsense OTL
Next Week: It's Back to School Time!
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