| Details for Profiling Snively |
| Summary: | Elijah wants to gauge for himself whether Snively could be a traitor. |
| Date: | 30 June, 1939 |
| Location: | Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Personnel Office |
| Plot: | For the Greater Good |
| Related: | MLF? Spies? |
| Characters |
  |
The Personnel Office is usually the last place anyone in the M.L.E. wants to go. Not because there is much to fear from the office itself, so much as the man that runs in. Personnel Officer Randolph Snively is hardly the favourite person of the department. In fact, it's generally agreed that he's downright unpleasant. But the man is efficient, and Commissioner Ogden likes efficiency.
Speaking of efficiency, here comes the very picture of it; Elijah Lovegood. The good inspector makes his way into the personel office, those cold, almost robotic eyes dancing around his surroundings in search of someone. He's dressed down a bit; his long coat left on his desk, leaving him with a simple vest and rolled up sleeves. He comes to a stop in front of Snively's desk, his fingertips dancing a bit hastily along the surface of it.
Officer Snively, as usual, is sitting straight-backed before a pile of papers — requisition forms, transfer requests, apprenticeship applications, and so forth. One after another, he rapidly reads the contents, stamps the appropriate box for either approval or denial, signs it, and moves on to the next. Like a machine, he is. When his routine is interrupted by the arrival of Elijah, one can nearly hear his teeth grinding. He turns his eyes upward at the Hit Wizard, pursing his lips. "Inspector. I assume there is a reason you're here? Having an episode, perhaps? I'm sure I can arrange an appointment with the Healers at St. Mungo's for you." He adopts a snarky smile, setting down his quill after signing the latest denied request for paid leave.
"I was wondering, Snively…" he puts a little bit of an annoyed twist on the fellows name, "just what is the punishment for treason?" He looks the man up and down, doing little calculations in that brilliant head of his. "I'm sure you can recite wizarding law back and forth, upside down, with bamboo under your fingernails. You're a smart one, Snively."
Snively rolls his eyes. "You're wasting my time with questions you could easily answer with a law book? Go ask the barristers in W.A.S. I haven't got time for this, Inspector." Dismissing Elijah without a word, he bows his mostly bald head down to look over a transfer request.
"You know, in the Muggle world I think they still hang people for it. That's a lovely, cheap way to go about it, isn't it? I mean…it only really takes one rope. I'm sure you could just re-use it." Elijah's hands go about shuffling some of the paperwork on Snively's desk, his eyes ready to judge a reaction, "I'm sure we've got something far more complicated like…firing them into the sun or such nonsense."
Snively tenses the moment Elijah touches the perfectly organised stacks of papers. "Don't…touch that. Just…don't touch anything." He waves his hands at Elijahs, trying to shoo them away from his work. "Fine. I'll answer you if it will get you away from my desk sooner. Treason is punishable by up to fifty years in Azkaban. Are you satisfied? Now, please go."
"That's…incredibly dull. Hardly fits the crime. I mean…treason. If I were of a more liberally fiscal mindset, I'd fully support shooting people into the sun for it. Treason…the act of willingly sabotaging one's own government; and I don't mean refraining from paying tax, but actively hurting the foundation of the people put in place as your protectors. If that's not worthy of a roasting by a celestial body, I don't know what is." Elijah takes a deep breath and further examines the man, "What is your favorite meal, Snively?"
"You don't think that fifty years in a living nightmare, leaving you an insane husk of a man, even risking the loss of your soul, is a suitable punishment?" Snively scoffs, shaking his head as he stamps another denial. "Being launched into the sun would be a mercy by comparison. Now…why do you care what I like to eat? Please go away."
"What's your favorite meal, Snively?" asks Elijah, once more, a noticable weight in his voice. He bats a sheet of paper from Snively's desk onto the floor, looking the man in the eyes.
Snively's eyes go wide (and maybe red) and his nostrils flare. He stands immediately to fetch the paper. "It's cabbage stew! Now…get away from my desk, you insufferable lunatic!" He stamps his foot and jabs his finger to direct Elijah toward the door.
Elijah grins at Snively's outburst and murmurs to himself, "It's not you, then." He slips something out of his pocket and flips it to Snively. Upon inspection, it's a small button with the Chudley Cannons logo on it, "Good boy. Keep up the good work. Queen and Country, et cetera." He then turns to begin making his exit.
Snively fumbles with the button, managing to drop it on his desk…mussing another pile of papers. He looks back up at Elijah in astonishment, about to fire another snide remark at him…but shuts his mouth, thinking it better to just let the Inspector finally leave.