Record Year

Beckett Archibald Graves | Outfit

Ireland thought that of all of the departments in the Ministry they were the one that was probably the least affected by the change in leadership. She didn't think that the new Minister had even sent for Beckett yet, and she figured that that had something to do with the fact that they were in the middle of the European Cup, and less to do with the fact that a meeting was highly unnecessary. But still, Ireland hadn't received a letter from Lady Parkinson saying that Beckett was supposed to meet with Lady Lestrange at any point. Ireland knew that it was funny, that she was so comfortable around some of them, and then there were some Death Eater families that still bothered her. The Lestranges were one such family. She didn't think that it was the Minister herself, but her husband, and her brother-in-law, they were both people that Ireland would have liked to simply stay away from. That was easy enough to do really. She had no reason to need to interact with the Minister's husband, ever, really, and the Lord Lestrange that worked in this building was easy enough to avoid. Ireland thought that so long as they minded their p's and q's down here they would be just fine. They weren't going to bother anyone, and no one was going to bother them. They were sports, they were quidditch, and unless anyone decided to try and host another Triwizard Tournament or something, she thought that they would continue to run the same way that they had been. 

They had to get through the European Cup, and then they were going to be gearing up for an even busier summer. They were going to have to handle both the League Cup, and having two of their national teams in the World Cup. She was a little impressed that Scotland had made it in, but she did remember that Viktor Krum was coaching them now. Something that she didn't think that she completely understood, when he had been from Bulgaria originally, but somehow they had made that work, perhaps dual citizenship had been granted or something. She was sure that there was a loophole in that rule somewhere, or he wouldn't have been able to coach them at all. Something that she was sure that Beckett would have caught by now if it had been a problem, but they had made it this far, and no one had said a word, so she was just going to go on assuming that it was going to be fine. Ireland knew that there were plenty of more pressing issues that they needed to worry about now than whether or not they were going to have to worry about the Scottish coach having a problem actually coaching in the finals of this cup. She wasn't entirely convinced that it wouldn't be a problem, especially if they won, but right now she knew that they were more concerned with Wednesday. 

Knocking sharply on Beckett's door as she opened it she smiled at the man on the other side of the desk. She was sure that they were going to need to get through some of the things that were stacking up on her desk after the Cup, but before the League, but she knew better than to bring any of that up now. This was not her first go 'round with Beckett Graves and the European Cup. Everything that Ireland could handle on her own she did, and then she brought them in here. Things that only needed to be signed, or that she couldn't do any more of without his approval. There were certain things like that, and she knew that they had started giving out deadlines for the beginning of the season, but it wasn't even time for coaches to report yet for regular season, so they were okay there. "Good afternoon Sir." She nodded to the files in her arms, "I have a few things I need you to look at before you run away to the match on Wednesday." Chuckling a little bit she let the professionalism slip a little bit, "Did you hear about LJ's letter?" Apparently her boyfriend's brother had sent his godmother a letter begging her to get him out of the castle to come to the match on Wednesday, and Ireland didn't know if it was working or not at this point. 

RECORD YEAR

OUTFIT

Right now, his attention was only on the European Cup. That was exactly where his attention needed to be. If they hadn't had teams that had made it to the semi-finals, then obviously their work would already be done. They would have a bit of a break, because they didn't have the League Cup or the World Cup to contend with until summer. But they did still have a team in the European Cup, and not only that, but it was his team. Liv's team. The Tornados hadn't won the League Cup, and they had a lot of broken china because of it. His wife hadn't been happy in the slightest by that loss, especially since it had been to the Falcons. He knew that was a bit of a sore subject, because Nick played for the Falcons. Beckett knew that Liv had been trying to get Nick to join the Tornados instead for ages now, and she hadn't succeeded yet. That was who they had lost to. Beckett thought that if Nick had been there, he would have been the one getting china chucked at him instead. But since Beckett had been the only one home, he was the target of his wife's temper.

He knew that a win in the European Cup would help matters. After all, the Falcons had been knocked out in their first match, by Amsterdam United. That hadn't been much of a surprise to him. He kept up with foreign teams enough to know that Amsterdam United had been undefeated for two seasons running. There wasn't a team in the Netherlands that could beat them, and it wasn't because there were no other good teams. There were plenty. AU was just that good, and he had known that it was going to be a tough match. He thought that their coach might have better prepared them for it. Maybe they had gone in a little too cocky. Beckett didn't know. He knew that it was something that they wouldn't have tolerated from Flint. Going in arrogant didn't do them any good at all. The fact that the Falcons had gotten out, and the Tornados were still in though, was certainly helping Liv's mood. If they happened to win the whole thing, for the second year in a row… that would make up for the loss.

But he knew that they had to get past another good team to make that happen. Amsterdam United had dominated against the Dortmund Dodgers, to no one's surprise. Their chaser's injury hadn't done them much good--but in all honesty, Beckett thought that AU would have won regardless. The Dodgers were good… very good, obviously, but Amsterdam United was damn near unbeatable this year, and there was no reason to think that the German team would be able to change that. That meant that Amsterdam United was going to the championship, a fact that would shock… no one that kept up with foreign teams. Not everybody did, but he did. And he thought that everyone working for him in this office had known it too. At least the ones smart enough to know that it was always best to know as much as possible about other teams. If they wanted to make a good impression on him, anyhow.

Assuming that they made it past Wednesday's match, beating Amsterdam was going to be difficult. But this next match was going to be hard too. The Norse Vikings were going to be tough to beat. He was sure that Flint was preparing them for the match the best that he could, and time would only tell if that was going to be enough. If it wasn't, he thought he was going to get more china thrown at his head, but at least he was good at dodging that at this point. The worst part was then needing china and not having any. Luckily that wasn't really his problem, it was Liv's. He nodded in greeting when Ireland came into the room, his gaze moving to the files in her arms--at least until she spoke again. Then he grinned and shook his head. "Yes, I heard about that. Who isn't he owling to try to get to that match?" He knew from Liv that Aurora used to sneak him out of school for Nick's matches, but it just wasn't that easy anymore. It wasn't something that they could just do. Beckett thought that the boy would live, however; he had been to more matches than most men Beck's age had, and he should be grateful for that.

The European Cup was in full swing, and that meant that that was where the department's attention was. There were other things that they needed to handle too, of course, but there was nothing like the things that were going on with Quidditch. It was the main sport after all, and the one that connected, most of the wizarding world. There were teams from six of the seven continents, and she knew that if they would have had enough people that lived on Antarctica, they would have had a team too. It was just simply that no one lived there, and there weren't any designated countries that stopped them from having a team too. Nothing like Quidditch quite compared across the world, but that didn't mean that they didn't have to deal with things like patents, and the letters from that one group up in Scotland that wanted to make a magical version of the old time Highland Games, a national sport. They were still pushing for a meeting with Beckett about that, and she knew that eventually she was going to have to give in and schedule them one, but she was holding off as long as possible. There were other things that they needed to get through first.

The main one, being the Cup. It wasn't only that it was going on, but that they still had a team in it. The further that they went in it, the more that they were going to have to do to keep up, and she thought that they were doing just fine, but it was the one thing that they were focused on more than anything else. That was something that she knew that everyone that knew them expected. They were busy, and then they had a bit of a break, at least until things for the League Cup, and the World Cup, started rolling in. She was sure that both would be here before she knew it, but right now, the focus was on what was directly in front of them. On what it was that they were doing when it came to the Tornados, and Amsterdam, and the Vikings, and Germany. Four of the best teams in the world, and Ireland was not surprised, when looking at their rosters, that at least one, and in some cases more, player from each team was a member of the national team as well. That was not something to scoff at.

They were good, they were the best of the best, and there was a reason that they had made it as far as they had. She thought that it had quite a bit to do with the fact that they were just simply them. They were the ones that were smart enough to play the game, because for as physical as the game was, it was more than that too. It was, strength and endurance, and the gross skills that kept them in shape, and in the air. But it was more than that. It was the determination, and the perseverance. It was mind set more than anything else. Ireland remembered what her mother had told her when she was little, and she thought that it applied to Quidditch quite well. Clear mind. Clear Heart. Can't Lose. It was as simple as that. You couldn't be distracted, and you had to have the heart. But if you did, it made you sort of unbeatable. That was something that she thought that they could all take away from this. That they were good enough. That they were strong enough to win this, it was only a matter of their own strength.

The files in her arms had to do with some of the things for international players. They weren't to the point that they really needed to think about things like that yet, but she knew that they had league players that were going to be going back to their home countries when it came to World Cup season, and there was always a balance. Trying to make sure that they were doing things by the letter, and that they were cooperating fully with the native countries of their players was something that they had to look at. It was the cases where there was dual citizenship involved that things got a little more complicated. But luckily there didn't actually seem to be all that many of those. At least that they had found yet. And no one was protesting which country some of them were playing for. Finland hadn't made it, and so they hadn't had to worry about the young keeper that played for the Falcons, but here were others that she knew that they did have to worry about. It was the England and Scotland line that they had more issues with than any really. "You'd think that he'd never been to a match before… I guess it's different now, without their mum." Ireland hadn't been entirely convinced that the witch had liked her, at all. But she knew that that didn't make it any easier that she was gone. She set the files down in front of him that she had had in her arms, "These are the international player files we have so far, they can wait until after the Cup if you want."

The government had changed in the past month, and luckily that didn’t need to impact him all that much. He knew that people had meetings with the new Minister during her first week, but he had not gotten a request for a meeting. For a moment, he had wondered what that was all about. There had been several options that had floated through his mind. Maybe she was firing him so she didn’t see a point in meeting to see how everything was going. He was friends with Ares, after all. It wasn’t that he was about to strike out in rebellion that she had taken over, but they were friends. He didn’t necessarily support her taking over, it just wasn’t something that he was going to fight over. Maybe if Ares had wanted to, he would have helped, but it didn’t seem like his friend was trying to get the position back from her so there was no reason to get up in arms about it. Still, if the woman knew that they were friends, there was a chance that she was just going to up and sack him. Of course, Ares also had handpicked Thor for his position and had picked Julius for the new department, and they still had their jobs.

So he thought that he had been able to eliminate that option. Another was just that she didn’t think his department was all that important. He supposed he was biased, but if he tried to think about it from her perspective, he could see why she didn’t think it was necessarily important to talk to the head of the department of magical games and sports. Neither games or sports kept the countries running, after all. Well… he’d argue that it did, in some ways, but that was a debate for another time. He knew that they were not all that important of a department, all things considered. He took it seriously and he knew that there were parts of this that were more complicated than anyone else would even realize--with the World Cup especially. The security measures alone… the foreign policy that had to take place between countries in order to come together for this--it could be delicate. The fact that their government had changed hands once again didn’t help matters with countries that were worried about their instability.

There were even a couple of countries that did not want the United Kingdom to have home matches during the Cup, just because they didn’t want their team there if it was that unstable. Of course, that could be solved simply enough. It was just a matter of proving that their government was stable, and usually a simple talk about security measures could help ease their minds. It was just still a lot more work at times than people might believe it to be. But Beckett could still understand if Minister Lestrange just couldn’t be bothered with a department that she didn’t deem to be all that important. There were just departments that he personally thought were more useless, and she had talked to them. Still, he wasn’t going to take it personally if that was the case. He had plenty of more important things to deal with than appeasing some new Minister anyhow. He was still a little irritated that she had ousted Ares to begin with, even though he hoped it ended up being for the best for him. He knew that it had made his life more complicated in more ways than one.

There was another reason that the Minister could have not spoken to him yet and it was arguably the nicest reason--and so it was the one that he was least likely to consider. Maybe she just knew that they were busy during the European Cup and hadn’t wanted to interrupt him while they were dealing with that. His schedule was incredibly busy during January and the first part of February until it was over. It cleared up a little bit in March and April, before getting busy again in May in preparation for both the league season and the World Cup matches starting up. So maybe she was just being considerate or something. It was possible. He just wasn’t going to think that, when she had ousted his friend. A little ridiculous of him maybe, but he didn’t care. It was still true that he didn’t necessarily like her after what had happened. For now anyway. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He didn’t know if it had much to do with his mum at all. He didn’t think that everything did, but maybe that was him not being as empathetic as his wife or his assistant apparently. LJ was like family to him but there was no denying that the boy went to Liv far more than him, obviously. “Thank you. I’ll probably wait to deal with them. I’m sure everything is in order.” It was something that people liked to make a fuss with, but he didn’t think was that big of a deal. If they had dual citizenship, then they had dual citizenship, simple as that.

Working with the Games and Sports Department had been an easy transition out of Hogwarts for her. She had started off as a regular department employee, and then when the Death Eaters had taken over, and when everything had made a switch, Beckett had been left without an assistant, and Ireland thought that that was an opportunity that she didn't want to miss. She loved this department, and Quidditch, and everything that went with it. There was more to it than just Quidditch, which most people tended to forget. But Ireland knew that even she was more obsessed with the Quidditch side of things than the Gobstones, or the patents, or anything else that they dealt with on a day to day basis. There were things that came here, there were things that she didn't think that they could have ever seen in a department that wasn't this one. Things that didn't even make all that much sense when they tried to make sense of them. People had a habit of filing for patents that they were never going to get passed through, or if they did get passed through, then they were never going to get actually made.

With everything that was going on in the department right now it was easy to just write off everything else that was changing in the Ministry, even if it… Wasn't? That didn't really make sense, but Ireland thought that a year ago, she would have just let everything roll off of her, she wouldn't have given much thought to the changing of the guard around here again, but now she did. It was something that she was taking a little more personally, if only because her boyfriend's family was involved. That wasn't something that she had ever even considered being a sentence that she was going to think in her life before she had met Nick, but then it was. And everything had changed, because his dad had been the Minister, and that meant that he was involved, and she worried about him. She worried about all of them, she couldn't help it. This would either be good, or it would be bad, and so far, she thought that only time would really be able to tell. There were no great stand out points to it just yet. And, if she were being honest, she kind of hoped that there wouldn't be.

Right now, they needed to focus on what was right in front of them. They needed to focus on the Cup, and the European League, and everything that went with making sure that all of that was going to go smoothly. They had been, so far, things had been going smoothly, and she knew that the next match was going to be in Scandinavia. It wasn't going to be here, and they didn't have to worry about making sure that security, and everything else about the Tornados stadium was ready to go. It was, and she knew it. Ireland thought that if there was one pitch that they didn't really have to worry about being up to code, and meeting every international standard, it was the Tornados, because they were Beckett's. Olivia's, really, but Beckett owned them. Still, the Graves weren't going to fall short of anything other than perfection when it came to their team, and that made security standard briefings, and everything else that much easier when they were the ones that had made it this far in the Cup. She was glad for that, even if she would always hold a fondness in her heart for the Arrows, and she owned more than a few things in Falcons black and silver.

Ireland thought that they were going to be just fine, and that they were going to make it through the end of this Cup season, and then have a little breathing room before they were thrown into the League Cup, and the World Cup finals this summer. Having two teams in the finals was something that she thought that the United Kingdom should be proud of, no matter how much work it was going to be for them. There were things that would have to be sorted out with the other countries that they would be hosting from time to time, and she knew that it meant that their own teams were going to have to travel and try and balance with their league schedules as well. There weren't too many of them that didn't play on both a league team, and the national teams. Ireland knew that Nick had only played for England for a while, and that he had said that there wasn't enough to do. This summer, she thought that he was going to have plenty to do. She nodded in response to Beckett saying that he would do them later, and then she looked down at her notes that she had written on the other pad in her arms. "You have a meeting with the Egyptian delegate this afternoon about the World Cup, he insisted that it couldn't wait. And the people about the Scottish Highland games have sent three more owls requesting to meet with you to discuss it. I'm going to try and push them until after the Euro Cup is over if that's okay with you."

record year I'm havin' a record year

This had been a position in the Ministry that he had wanted for a long time. He knew that there were more prestigious departments, ones that would offer him more power and more control but that wasn’t something that he honestly thought that he needed. He had wanted power in the Ministry, true enough, but he wanted to do something that he would enjoy and not something that he would get tired of. Since he had always loved Quidditch, it had been an obvious choice to him. Climbing to the top of this department had not been easy but he supposed that he couldn’t consider it to have been all that difficult either. It had been a joke under Bagman’s leadership and that had needed to change. It was as simple as that. From the moment that Beckett had taken over, the department had run smoothly. Of course, it was still more laidback than most other departments in the Ministry, but there was a difference between them being more casual, and a department being completely chaotic and unorganized. They weren’t unorganized at all; it was easy to keep up with now, but it had required a lot of work to get the department up to par after Bagman. But now everything was in good shape. That was important to him. The department ran smoothly and everything that they had to plan and keep up with went well. They didn’t deal solely with Quidditch but obviously it was the most popular sport in the United Kingdom. They had to deal with the league season, the European Cup, the World Cup and even more minor league teams. They dealt with Quidditch far more than they dealt with anything else and that was fine with him. They kept all of the matches running smoothly. They kept up with the teams and the rosters, and made sure that security was up to par to keep everybody safe. That included making sure that the right concealment charms and the like were all up to date at all of the stadiums. Any that weren’t obviously couldn’t be used until they were sure that they were safe. Most stadiums were pretty good at keeping up with that, after all. They needed to be. No team could really take a hit from their stadium going out of commission, especially during the league season. It was why they had to be inspected beforehand, and after each match to make sure that there were no serious issues brought about from the sheer amount of people coming into the stadiums for the matches. Obviously, he made sure that the Tutshill stadium never had any problems. It was something that he personally kept an eye on since it was his own team. He knew that he had to set an example and make sure that they always did everything exactly the way that they were supposed to. It was important, not just to set that example but also to keep anyone from thinking that he was giving the Tornados any kind of special treatment. He couldn’t have people thinking that sort of thing. It was the one problem that he had considered when he had bought the team for Liv, but he had been incredibly careful from the moment that he’d signed the paperwork. He would make sure they were an example of everything that a team should be doing and he’d make sure that no one thought that they were given any kind of advantage. And they hadn’t been. He didn’t think that they even needed an advantage. Sure, he was biased, but the Tornados were a damn good team. They had been for a long time so there was really no reason to think that their owner being the head of the department of magical games and sports had anything to do with it. “All right, that’s fine.” He nodded, as he considered what the particular delegate could want to talk about. Egypt hadn’t made it past the qualifying rounds so they were out of the running for the World Cup, so he supposed it would have to be related to something else. That was fine. He would find out during the meeting, though he couldn’t imagine that it could possibly be all that important. “Three owls?” Beck rubbed his temple. He didn’t know if he wanted them to have to deal with anymore owls if they tried to push the meeting with them until after the Cup. “No, it’s okay. I could meet during my lunch tomorrow if that works with them. Might as well get it over with.” They’d proven to be a rather pushy lot and he thought they could probably expect three owls a day at this rate.

Record
Year

If someone would have told her that this was the mess that was going to become of her family, Ireland wouldn’t have believed it. She didn’t think that her father was going to have such strong opinions. That it was going to drive her mother away. She didn’t think that she and Logan would have to choose. That they would choose opposite sides. Her family shouldn’t have split over this in the first place. It wasn’t like they were going to run into anyone looking for anyone with the surname Corkery to have to worry about things like that. She didn’t think that anyone was going to think that they had anything to do with the Death Eaters at all. And they didn’t, really, her uncle had died in the last war, but other than that, she thought that it was more just the breaking point. That this was the thing that had finally driven the wedge between them just far enough that it actually split them apart. But they had made their choices. And she had chosen her mum. Natalia had gone back to Bulgaria, the country that she had come here from in the first place, but Ireland wasn’t leaving.

She wasn’t going anywhere, she just knew that there was more space between them than there had ever been in the past. Even Logan… He had chosen Dad, and for some reason he thought that that meant that he couldn’t talk to Ireland. That she had chosen the enemy. To continue to work for the enemy, or whatever that meant. She didn’t work for the enemy. She worked for Beckett Graves, and it wasn’t that he wasn’t a Death Eater, because he was. She knew that. It was just that he was the least Death Eater like Death Eater that she had ever met. Well… No, yeah, that was probably the truth. She didn’t think that that was something that you actually said to someone, but she thought it. Beckett Graves could be scary if he wanted to be, but she didn’t think that he was on a normal basis. Ireland actually liked worked for him, he was smart, and he knew what he was doing, and she thought that there was a good chance that he was the best Head that this department had had in a while. Granted, saying that when Bagman had been the last Head wasn’t a stretch, but still.

Beckett Graves knew this department like the back of his hand, and Ireland wanted to be that good at it. She wanted to know what to say to who. And which meetings to take when, and she wanted the respect that he had garnered in this industry. Because it was an industry. He ran a Ministry department, but this was more than that. This was quidditch and gobstones, and highland games. This was everything that was even remotely related to a team activity, and Ireland wanted to learn. She wanted to be good at this, and she had been a regular department employee for a while. Straight out of school she had joined the department and worked her way from there, but then the position to be his assistant had opened up, and she had decided that that was something that she wanted. That she wanted to be useful, and helpful, and that she wanted to be able to make those connections. To put names with faces, and she had more access to the actual people that made this industry run, if she was the one scheduling their meetings, learning things about them. How to make all of this work.

Ireland wanted to grow into the shoes that Beckett Graves filled now. She wanted to be that good at something. She wanted to know this business the way that he did. And she had wanted that before she had started dating his nephew. She had worked for him before that, and she didn’t think that anyone even put together that they were close enough to be considered family most of the time. Nick Wentzell and Olivia Graves weren’t really related. Not in a sense that there was blood involved, or even marriage. She had just been friends with his mum, and Ireland didn’t think that that was a bad way to get family. They said that friends were the family you chose after all. Scheduling a meeting with Egypt’s delegate had seemed silly to her, but she thought that the man went out of his way to be bothersome at times. He was just like that. And they had all had to get used to it. “Unfortunately. They seem to not realize that there are other things going on.” She knew that her own opinions weren’t really necessary for the commentary, but she had a habit of pushing her luck giving them on occasion. “I think they just want more substantial regulations and probably funding. Since we have so much of that lying around.”

@ beckett - 830 - ireland's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRPHY 2.0