The Department of Magical Retrieval

Episode 1: Stolen

Fern was quite happy with how the day had played out for her. It was a friday, thank the gods, and she had just settled in from another dreary and mundane day at work. She'd immediately shed her work clothes and dauned the comfiest robe she owned, intent of finishing the last of her work, in the comfort of her own home. She sat poised on her couch, her cat Pixie snuggled to her side, as she went through the endless stacks of paperwork haphazardly tossed across her lap.

She'd never imagined during her Hogwarts days, that working in the Magical Artifacts department at The Ministry of Magic, would require so much blasted paperwork. Fern worked for a small sub-department within The Department of Mysteries called the Magical Artifacts Retrieval Department. This, she found, was a right joke. The department was made of solely herself and, in the four years she'd been working there, not a single artifact had ever been stolen. In fact, since its founding in 1998, nothing had even been misplaced.

However, as much as she complained about the humdrum of the job, it didn't require much from her. She simply sat in her office, filed away new artifacts, and set them in their proper locations within the ministries vault. Most of the said artifacts were confiscated items from wizards and witches, sometimes dark, sometimes not. Then, once every six months, she was required to take a detailed inventory of every item she'd ever stored in the vault. As tedious as this was, it was the only real hurdle she faced during the year, so she really couldn't grumble too much about it.

This fateful day had approached this Friday, and with a grim look of determination, she'd steadfast to the task of checking boxes off a very, very long scroll. Right now, her hand ached from the torture it had gone through today, and she wondered idly if she'd be able to even hold a quill next week. After spending most of the day in the dark and mazed vault, she actually managed to complete the task in a short eighteen hour time frame. Now, after she finished this small mound of paperwork, she'd be free to have a decently carefree weekend.

Well, that was, until an unannounced interdepartmental memo burst through her fireplace, looking quite frazzled too.

The shock of it flying in caused her to spill the inventory papers onto the floor and her cat to give her a very quick and painful hiss and bite. She cursed, holding her finger to her body in alarm, her eyes meeting the memo in silent annoyance. It didn't wait for her to compose herself, and simply opened, talking at her in a frenzy of words. As if it couldn't wait to get the information out and done with.

"Dear members of the Ministry of Magic,

We regret to inform you, at this dreadful hour, that we've had a breach in security. At exactly 10:03pm tonight, the Magical Artifact's vault was infiltrated, and a magical relic was stolen. However, there is no need for alarm. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has managed to secure the scene and no one was seriously hurt in the breach. We expect any departments affected directly by this breach to come to The Ministry of Magic tomorrow at 9am ,promptly, to be subjected to questioning.

Thank you for your time and cooperation,

M.o.M "

As Fern watched the note shred itself she felt her mouth go dry and her hands begin to shake.

"So much for a quiet weekend..."

--

The next day, Fern was required like everyone else in her department, to come in for questioning. It had taken every ounce of her the night before to get any sleep, as she could hear the voice of the memo being replayed in her head, over and over.

Magical Artifacts vault. Her vault.

She shuddered as she approached the steps, just thinking of it. She had some cause for worry. Fern hadn't exactly walked the straight and narrow during her lifetime in the wizarding community. Well, at least, her family hadn't. Fern Fawley had been sorted into Slytherin in 1991, along with Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, and Theodore Nott. All of these people were confirmed to have had extremely close ties to both the Death Eaters and even to Voldemort himself. Of course, Fern had never been particularly close with any of them. Well, any of them besides Theodore Nott.