Jared Malhearst [Bureau Chief - Domestic/Politics]

[Eve Hallows]

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Jared Nemo Malhearst
Gender: Male
Age: 42 as per August 8, 1974

Education: 
Capella Cavanagh, Private tutoring September ‘38- July ‘43
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Slytherin ‘43

Residence:
Chestnut Lodge
Dog Ln, Horsford, Norwich
NR10 3DH, UK

Applying to be: (select one, see here)
Bureau Chief**

*OOC access to graphics editing programs (e.g. GIMP, Photoshop, Microsoft Paint) and some graphics editing knowledge highly recommended.
**If Bureau Chief, fill out the section at the very bottom at the application. Please also note that these applications will take longer to process.

Department of choice: (select one)
Domestic/Politics

Why did you request that particular department?
A man of more ambition than greed, Jared would never care for Style/Gossip. On the contrary, he believes it, not surprisingly, a superficial pastime that ought to be largely exposed for the sorry sap it is. Foreign could have suited him, considering that he’s been out travelling the world (Europe, mostly) for the past sixteen years, but he didn’t return to do what he’s been doing the last one and a half decade; he returned to make a difference, in particular for SM and the Order, wishing to see the policies that he so burningly believes in come to pass as reality – and like a wise woman once said, what better way to do this than controlling the media and public opinion?

Requested Magic Levels: (see here on how to do this)

• Charms: 9
• Transfiguration: 13
• Divination: 6
• Summoning: 7

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Eve Hallows, Adam Just, Asta Adelaide et al.

Biography: (300 words minimum.)
It was a noisy shadow that entered The Royal that evening, but unlike so many others, it didn’t dim the lights and snake up against the walls, a fugitive from the light. The doors swung up as though they’d been touched by a force of nature, and clad in nothing more distinctive than a fedora and a long coat, it moved with long strides towards the counter.

“Where is he?”

Jared Malhearst needed no introduction, for he was known, if not by his real name or appearance, then by the countless others he’d given. A fedora was a supercilious piece of clothing, and the boisterous businessman was an act he’d long since perfected. Polyjuice Potion was not cheap, nor easily crafted, and transfiguration had become a shabby, but useful alternative for so long that Jared no longer minded the imperfections. They gave his character style.

A twitch bloomed underneath the right eye of the scrawny receptionist, brown eyes struggling to keep eye contact. In the end, it broke, and the boy, no more than in his early twenties, typical Viennese, sought refuge in the papers in front of him, pretending to search for an answer he didn’t feel comfortable giving, which elicited a small smile from the man currently occupied with looking through the mandatory stack of tourist brochures as though he cared.

Thumbing through the pages of a national park no more than 25 miles away (but what was time and space when you had control of every force in the world), Jared Malhearst played his part to perfection. It was not his first businessman, and it wouldn’t be the last, nor was the incessant scratching behind his right ear, the snapping, or the stressing of every second syllable the only factors of impatience he marveled in feigning. In an occupation where you needed to blend in, you had to stand out as well, and the former Englishman knew his roles well before they knew him.

This particular businessman happened to be a delightful irritation, thus much more the pleasure to steal from, and though Mr. Rochester was no longer an issue to Jared, he was still playing his part in society through the man who stole his identity.

Some had called the 42-year-old a vampire, sucking the life out of a person to steal it for himself, and the pureblood accepted that metaphor readily, gleeful almost, still the child that never quite stopped viewing himself through the eyes of others.

Another reason for why he was so good at what he did.

“He’s waiting in your room, Sir,” came the squeak, finally, defeat evident in every little signal, and Jared’s gaze snapped up to rest, judging, on the boy.

He would never grow into a man.

“You took your sweet time for such simple information. I need the paper brought up by 6 tomorrow,” (he didn’t) “the coffee was stale,” (he wouldn’t know, he had fed the sludge to the plants) “and someone discreet to help carry a body.”

Before him, the receptionist visibly blanched, then turned ash grey, and the apparent businessman in the fedora took his sweet time to revel in it before surrendering a queasy smile (for Mr. Rochester had been an awkward man when he wasn’t powerful), saying, “I’m kidding, of course.”

The kid never completely relaxed, even as the looming figure before him bent down to pick up a suitcase with no articles in it and disappeared out the hall towards the escalators.

***

It was done, and the grey-haired man that stared back at Jared in the mirror looked bored. He was comfortable without his own features, for he was no longer a novice in a mask, having worked for Supra Mortalitas for sixteen years now, on missions that required expertise he had had all the time in the world to acquire. He’d been an outcast, his disappearance suspicious, his presence a burden, and they’d provided safe passage out and safe initiation into the wondrous world he’d always strived for.

The countries, people, artifacts, they were mostly a blur. Venice had spoken the language of Rome and Turin, Istanbul had crossed religions with everyone else, Minsk had tried and failed the politics that held them down, and West Berlin communicated with East Berlin daily. People were the same, and the few outstanding ones he’d encountered had taught him what they knew, only to be left like dried vegetables.

господин Truskulevna had taught him the longest, Ms. Fairchild the shortest, but only the first and the most recent of events held any importance. Of course, the first had been monstrous, a desperate escape, crying for asylum in the hope that he would turn into enough of a monster to forget her, to forgive himself, to forget himself.

Hurt, judgemental eyes stared back at him now, the deep hazel of his father, or the murky swamp green of his mother. Hard feelings grew to stone and dissolved, for he’d been left by them, and they could only expect him to return the favour. Of course, after the death of Kiera Malhearst, no one knew what had happened to her brother, and though the sentiment was laden with reproach and doubt, Jared hoped that they felt his disappearance even stronger.

Someone had once told him that Cornelius and Sentina had lost two children that day. Jared knew that they had only lost one, for he’d been gone for years.

But her. Kiera. Perfect little diamond, strong, self-secure, his only reason to stay. She’d been beautiful, just like the picture of her daughter in his hand, and he squashed the moving image of a stone-faced first year in frustration, absorbing it in a carpet of flames before it hit the ground. Then he pulled on the cloak, straightened it determinedly, and forced a smile.

It was time to return home.

Roleplay:
Reply as your character to the following:
Jim hated Mondays.

He had always hated Mondays, really; that cursed beginning of the week, that day where it still should have been the weekend and yet there was work to be done - deadlines to be made - stupid lunch meetings to attend.  Even when ‘lunch meetings’ had been just plain lunch; ‘work’, homework, he had despised the start of classes and - all at once - the next five un-fun days before the weekend started up again.

Now, cloudy October morning, Jim hated Mondays more than ever.

His desk filled with the wide-open arms of the Sunday Prophet, he scribbled furiously over sections with a bright red ink.

All the new graduates with their impeccable NEWTs and superb teacher recommendations had come in last month, only too eager to start preaching the truth - their truth - to the whole of Wizarding Britain.

Jim’s train of thought was bitter, but he smiled wanly, for he had once been one of those recruits themselves.

Most of their dreams should have been been smashed in the first week, from the first time people like Jim had told them to fetch the group some coffee. Day after day, hour after hour, that was what they now said to their youngest colleagues, as their older counterparts had told him years before: At some point everyone has to fetch us our drinks.

Almost every year, the new recruits sat down and took it - and fetched the group some coffee - and maybe it was just the age or the nostalgia, but Jim was fairly certain that they deserved it all.

They did not deserve to publish half-coherent drafts with way too many adverbs and completely unmodulated opinions.

Jim threw down the quill in disgust, ink splattering onto his button-down shirt as though it were blood.

Smartly, he piled up bits of paper, and then, still angry, face marred by an unhappy Monday, deposited the pile in front of his door before reaching out to grab at the first person he saw.

“What happened to this paper?”

Roleplay Response:
A morning as grey as London had ever delivered stared Jared Malhearst back in the face from his position by the window. Of course, he could choose any position he wanted to, for it was his office, and as many another character he had played, he owned up to everything that was his; from the tacky choice of shrubbery to the comfortable, yet impractical chair he’d elected to stay out of for as long as possible.

No, the grey sky was his companion as a reminder of what was home, for it had been lost long ago, no longer inherent in the borders that lined his birth country or the people he knew, for none of them knew him. He’d been gone for too long, and he knew he did not adapt well to himself. People here expected him to be Jared Malhearst, intimidating but human beneath it all, cranky about the weather like everyone else. They complained about the clouds, but he’d quickly established that it was not the dreary horizon that ruined his mood; it was them.

So far, so good, he’d lived up to at least one of their expectations.

On the desk lay a stack of papers, every single one belonging to an eager journalist, begging for praise. Like school children, they all loved to hate the teacher, yet they pined over the lost attention from their parents and would do anything for their fifteen minutes of fame, for those were the criteria of success, and then, perhaps, her father would acknowledge her wit and his mother would give him the care that he deserved.

A snort. He needed tea.

Tired, he rubbed his eyes and went to pick up their last issue. Oswald was complaining about something or other, the way he always seemed to enjoy complaining about things infinitely more important than the weather, and Jared wanted to at least look as though he’d tried hard to get his current position. Lost in thought instead of the articles he so desperately tried to chew through, he went to the kitchen and conjured the required materials, his eyes never once leaving the pages.

One of ‘his’ reporters had chosen to do a secondary piece on current developments in society, completely missing the point that was made from the Ministry and concluding that “…change must always be good for as long as change is needed.” For the second time within two minutes, Jared snorted, and for the first time since his return, he was beginning to feel the character he was supposed to play.

Interested didn’t cover it. He was used to being in the field, and desk work was not worthy, but for some reason, Francis was no longer there to put things in perspective, and Jared felt lost like a child in a supermarket. Oswald was a steady anchor, his niece a petty distraction, and from there would his everyday life take form.

Finally done waiting on the tea, he exited the premises, only to be knocked back, the hot liquid spilling in drops of scalding hot blueberry flavour, successfully smearing the exact sentence he’d been trying to read.

“What happened to this paper?”

“Why,” Jared began drawling, eyes set on the oaf while his right hand purposefully scattered some of the drops on the shirt in front of him by shaking the paper, “I do believe you just spilled tea all over it.”

It was a menacing smile that lurked in the corners of his mouth then, hoping that it would be enough to scare the halfwit on his way back to his base, knocking himself out with red ink, or, better yet, something so heavy that he could be installed in St. Mungo’s. Another pawn in a game of poker, misplaced and useless, even when he was there at the right time.

Jared had better things to do than this.

OTHER
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BUREAU CHIEF QUESTIONS
Answer these questions only if you are applying to be a bureau chief

Please describe what sort of articles you would expect your columnists to complete in an IC year's worth of issues. List division of your topic among columnists, and suggest at least 3 sample article topics per division:
For example, if my bureau was Science, I'd divide up my columnists so that one would cover Advances in Spells (sample article: new stuff for Aurors and how this will change arrests!), Advances in Potions (Skele-Gro with less pain? Discuss), Muggle Sciences (What is a Micro-Wave?) and Lifestyle (Fountain of Youth water revealed to be a joke for skin de-aging).

1) Debonair Development: How change has bettered this country. Eg Juridical Injustice and how the Ministry corrected it, Once Upon A Time – a comment on the earlier government’s mistakes, and How Michael Gray turned the Aurors upside down.
2) Lucrative Liaisons: Business is booming, and you better stay on top of things. Eg Quidditch – the new stock exchange wonder, Has The Warbling Rogue sold out? and From flop to top – Alles Saugt.
3) International Interrelations: Britain as an international player. Eg Has the president of France gone insane? Quidditch World Cup – the new arena for fighting out diplomatic issues, and Why Hogwarts is said to be one of the best educational institutions in the Wizarding World.

*These are all ideas sprouted from an IC point of view. OOCly, I believe there should be space for people who are against the Ministry changes, of course, and there are no restrictions within these areas from my side. The reason why I chose Lucrative Liaisons is that Domestics hold more than politics in my opinion, and this might actually create incentive for shopkeepers and Elsewhere in general to become a bit more active. That way we help each other develop plot.

Please outline a sample bureau-wide plot your department might experience. How would the people in your bureau be able to participate? How would you encourage their participation? (200 words minimum):
ICly, there lies great potential in the Open Letters, currently being deposited in the Domestics/Politics section. I can’t pretend that a witch hunt is my idea, but I think it’s a great one, and it would probably be the first thing to discuss on the next bureau meeting. Considering that every single writer would be able to point fingers at each other, air suspicions to Jared or each other, watch the repercussions, I believe this is truly a valuable opportunity to create in-bureau plot.

To avoid plagiarising anyone else’s brilliant ideas, I’d love to have (if possible) an underground current of pro/against the Ministry changes. This depends widely on the writers, of course, but when the bureau grows bigger, it would be interesting to watch power struggles and people trying to rat out each other. Jared will be quite obviously biased, easy to hate, easy to fear, and if the environment could be somewhat unstable, I believe this will attract the writers to communicate more, both with each other and their Bureau Chief.

Article-wise, there is a constant flow of information in the Ministry section of Elsewhere, and it’s easy to pick out the different developments and comment on them. However they’re portrayed, Jared will probably always have an opinion on it, and ICly, people who don’t agree with his views will experience public trial during the staff meetings. The Time Warp, though neither Domestic nor Political (necessarily) will also create an opportunity for a bureau-wide plot, even if it isn’t shielded to our bureau. In general, I think there are lots of opportunities to create bureau-wide plots, but I think the most important ones are those that involve the character’s personal views, both on each other and society.

How would you ensure that your columnists and photographer get their articles in on time? How would you help to expand your bureau and make it as active as possible? (200 words minimum):
I’d like to round up activity first. It’s a bit evident in the previous section, but I think the easiest way to engage people is to feed them character development opportunities. Domestics/Politics is attractive to people because they are allowed to ICly comment on the changes happening in society and with the Order, and if we could both play on the easy access to the board-wide plot and the promise of working with interesting characters and creating plots of their own based on their work, I think we hit jackpot.

Also, I want to create those opportunities with Jared; not only is his character easy to plot with, but by staying active. Ensuring that writers and photographers get their articles and photos in on time depends on how active the Bureau Chief is, and small updates, ideas, conferences spread throughout term will help people remember when and where. Obviously, there will be a list of deadlines for people to check if they’re in doubt, but I think the most important thing is to keep in touch. Offer help if needed, reminding them when it’s almost time.

In short, there are three main areas to consider:
1)   Jared himself. I’m prone to plotting, and the more active he is as a character, the easier it will be for staff members to relate to him.
2)   The content of the articles. By constantly updating people on what is going on with the Ministry and focusing help with ideas through the staff meetings, we can encourage people to write more and stay active.
3)   In-bureau plots. The better the environment for plotting is, the more fun it is.

As for expanding the bureau, I believe that has to do with the signals sent by the people already engaged. The more plot happening at the Ministry, the more personal plot people have, the happier they are, the more will also begin considering to join. We already have a couple of truly gifted plotters and writers, and I’m sure this will send positive signals to the rest.

[G.W. Oswald]

Dear Mr. Malhearst,

Congratulations, your application at the Daily Prophet has been accepted.

We  are offering you the position of Domestic/Politics Bureau Chief. Please report to Miss Shore on the first floor for more information, as well as to deal with your salary and benefits, orientation scheduling, and to field any questions or concerns you might have.

Feel free to bring your own coffee.

Yours,