A Woman Of Ice

LXXV- Corporate Spy

The time for Diana to attend her first Ministry party as an employee had finally come, and Diana had actually been wary of this day. Diana had always loathed parties and gatherings sometimes. She found that parties were very often full of witless people trying to fit into a crowd by means of mediocrity, faking social predisposition for conversation or excitement. Not that she had been to very many parties in her lifetime. But, of course, this did not bother Diana Black. A party was full of "popular people", people who did anything and everything just in order to fit in or to seem better in some way that she did not understand. Diana had always known that people had considered her to be very popular and loved, but this was because she was genuinely funny, intelligent, and rebellious. She was different from the crowd, which was more of a hit or miss personality trait in any society, whether wizard or Muggle or demigod or mortal. Diana couldn't help but notice just how empty everyone at the party had looked. They were all dressed up in their nicest clothes, in glittering finery, and the women all made up. To everyone else, this seemed nice and elegant, but to her, it seemed senseless. Behind the women's mascara, she saw cold and empty eyes that could not see what wasn't skin deep. Beneath everyone's neatly styled hair, she sensed pitifully shallow brains. Beneath all of their nice clothes, Diana saw invisible scars of existence. And beneath everyone's fragrant perfumes and cologne, Diana smelled blood; the blood of the people that each and every one of these people here today had to tear right through like meat on a bone just to be where they were today. It wasn't an ideal train of thought, in fact, it was really quite disturbing. Diana had experienced many things that she and many other people would consider to be disturbing, at least. She figured that somewhere along the way, those disturbing things had penetrated her insides and made her into the haunted person that she currently was. It was a true and ironically frightening thought. Diana saw no point to dwelling on that which she already knew and that which she had already processed and could not control. Diana only now realized that she had inadvertently become this wretched party's center of attention. All eyes were on her as she stood there, practically shining, standing beside none other than the famous Calvin Greyhill, on the marble staircase leading toward the ballroom, where what seemed like hundreds of thousands of Ministry and otherwise respectable men and women mingled, but only in discussions controlled by politics, meaningless politeness, and cutthroat intentions. She remembered what Greyhill had said to her a while before the party.
"I know you must kind of hate parties, Diana, but I know that you love playing essential roles. What I need you to do is to take over the security speech, which always fell upon the Head of the Auror Office, until now. I need people to see your importantance and closeness to both my job and myself. You said that you would be alright with corporate espionage, right? Well, this is your chance to become a corporate spy. Good luck."
"You are an intelligent and confident young woman, Diana Black. And we all know how much that can accomplish in the modern world. Now remember; all eyes are on you," he said quietly as the presentations were about to begin.

Everyone who had stared no doubt recognized her face, and headed to the conference room a few rooms down, where many seats were set up in front of a very professional and nice podium. The presentations began with a cheesy opening by the Minister for Magic himself, and then began with topics such as international relations and education. What seemed to Diana like an hour later, it was her turn. She did exactly as carefully coached and instructed. Greyhill was called up to the podium, and Diana remained put, as everyone applauded and the magical camera was on her and the others around Greyhill's seat. Diana was glad that they sat in the front seats designated for Ministry officials, away from everyone else.
Greyhill quickly and charismatically ascended to the podium, waving. "Hello, everyone. My name is Calvin Greyhill, and I have the honor of being the Head of the Auror Office. As you well know, I could definitely not do my job half as well without the others in my office; the actual Aurors," he smiled.