“Only …. seven more items in the in-tray to do before four.” Johann announced, as a pink memo zipped away from his desk and he rifled his long pale fingers in the aforementioned tinsel-decorated tray. The usual state of his desk on Level Five was organised chaos. Piles of paper, magazines, books, boxes of this and that. But since first thing that morning, layers of paper had vanished, books had gone back to the Ministry’s library and dare anyone mention it - it was possible to see the desktop beneath on a corner that hadn’t seen daylight for nearly eighteen months. A passing ‘yulephile' had quickly stuck a bunch of decorative holly there, seeing the rare opportunity.

“You’re on fire.” Amélie remarked from the adjacent desk. Hers was always on the neater side: organised, a love of stationery (something definitely shared by the translations team), with neatly labelled folders and a magically expanding file drawer under her desk. The twenty-four year old was going on forty in terms of paperwork, but would make Ravenclaw proud with her work ethic.

“I am?” Her superior queried, patting his hair and his arm in what was at first, deadly serious concern. Spontaneous combustion was not altogether unusual at a magical Ministry, even without seasonal candles. “Ah, yes. Thank you. Figuratively on fire. I keep forgetting Hamilton’s off sick so there’s less chance of the literal.”

“Pretty sure the glare Iravani gave you earlier could have had the same result,” his colleague chuckled, referring to their Deputy Department Head, who had a love-hate relationship with Johann. Mostly hate, it felt again of late. Truth was it was too much fun stoking the metaphorical fire when he considered himself upon the higher ground. Gabrielle would either find it funny or infuriating, too, when she was ever in.

Johann turned back from delivering one of his boyish smiles to the adjacent desk, and noticed the tall, slight form of Sebastian Orr at Roberta Pinn’s desk.
“Alright Seb?” Johann greeted with friendly tone. He had time for the admin assistant. Orr was perfectly harmless, with a heart of gold. He had been fostering an increasingly large crush on Pinn throughout the year, which had culminated in a little proactive social engineering on Johann’s part to get them to drinks. They hovered somewhere between ‘going out’ and ‘close friends’ since, though judging by Orr’s blushes and Pinn’s fluster there had been kisses - no mistletoe involved either.

“Yeah, not bad…” Orr replied in a distracted manner. He was examining Pinn’s unoccupied desk, and gathering things together. “Bobbie’s not great though. I’m just getting her stuff together to take her home…” His pale brow was lined and his eyebrows were drawn together as he spoke, stooping to pick up Pinn’s bag from beneath the desk.

“She wasn’t looking great this morning,” Amélie agreed, “It’s probably for the best. Looks like she has flu or something. We told her to head home the moment she turned up, didn’t we? But well, you know Bobbie.” She glanced between Sebastian and Johann, knowing she could leave their friend and colleague’s determined, tenacious and often stubborn personality to their imaginations. “You are a darling for looking after her. Here, I’ll give you a hand to get her things...”

Johann nodded in agreement but reached for his open diary. On that day was very clearly inked annual leave begins, days set aside to maximise the amount of time spent with his fiancé, new good-as-adopted son and the extended family in Scotland. They’d all agreed their hours over Christmas, and Pinn, always looking for a bit of extra cash, had elected to take the lion’s share. It wasn’t that Johann was irritated at her being taken ill, more concerned that his and Amélie’s plans would potentially have to change for the following day to compensate. Even without Hamilton in the office, and surviving Iravani’s glare, fate still had a way to get in the way of best made plans.

“You will tell her to take all the time she needs, won’t you?” Johann asked Sebastian, as he looked up from the diary. “Not to worry.” It was what they had done for him, after all.