LUNAR (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

Eight. Market Research.

About a week after Sean first ran into Jenny, she sent him a memo and asked if he wanted to meet her for lunch so she didn't have to keep eating alone in her office. He met her in the cafeteria at half past twelve, grabbed a bowl of soup and a couple packages of crackers from one of the counters, and sat down to eat.

"So, how's your first week been?" he asked. It was weird seeing her out of her black Hogwarts robes.

She shrugged, squeezing a packet of dressing onto her salad. "Pretty dull," she said. "I mostly run copies and write a lot of memos, take care of scheduling... stuff like that. I'm still in training technically so I'm really just starting to do stuff on my own."

"At least you had training," said Sean.

"What, you didn't?"

He shook his head.

"How's that supposed to work?" she asked, frowning.

Sean shook his head. He hadn't talked to anyone about what a rocky start he'd had here. He couldn't tell his parents because they'd made the connection to get him this job in the first place and he didn't want them to think he was ungrateful. He hadn't wanted to complain about work to Evelyn when she had been so stressed about finding a job at all. Caiti would have told his parents, for sure, and Marlowe... well he just had bigger problems altogether.

"I don't know," he said. "I figure it out, I guess. I just have to stay late every night because everything takes me so long." He told her about the first few assignments he'd been given and how he hadn't known half the language his boss had used, how it had taken him hours of browsing through his predecessors files just to figure out what he was meant to do and then days after trying to figure out how to do it.

There was very little magic involved in marketing, Sean had found out.

"That sucks. Why didn't you just ask your boss for help?" asked Jenny when Sean had finished describing his first few weeks.

"I would have," he said. "But my boss is... I don't know. He calls me Champ all the time."

"Because of the tournament," Jenny clarified.

"Yeah," said Sean. And then, because it appeared this was not enough, he added, "He just makes jokes about it all the time, how I've proven myself to be quick-thinking and able to jump in without preparation. How I clearly don't need any help. He thinks it's funny."

"But it's not," said Jenny quietly.

"No," Sean agreed. "It isn't."

—-

"Ah, Champ's back," said Rhett loudly when Sean pushed back through the doors into the marketing department after lunch. His office — a real office, not a cubicle — was just to the left of the door. "Took your leisurely time today, didn't you?"

Sean stopped inside his office door but didn't respond to this. "Did you need me for something?" he asked, trying to keep his tone as polite as possible.

"Always need the Champ!" he said, flashing Sean a toothy grin and a wink. "Left a pile of data from our most recent focus group on your desk for you to disseminate before our strategic meeting tomorrow. Standard factor analysis."

"Got it," said Sean, who knew he would be here all night.

"Get to it, then," said Rhett and Sean retreated down the line of cubicles to his own. He sat down in front of the tall stack of papers that had been left for him to sift through — on top of another two or three projects he had not yet completed — and stared blankly at everything.

Maybe he would ask Evelyn to check the library for books on market research since she was there nearly every day now. But probably not, because then she would ask all sorts of questions about work and what his job entailed and Sean just didn't want to get into it with her. It was one thing to complain to Jenny who would commiserate with him. It was completely another to tell Evelyn who would care.