Work Text:
- In The Strictest Of Confidences -
It was an excellent painting. And it came from Sam, which made it all the better. They had gone to an art exhibit in Westchester, NY one weekend after Josh had done a television appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. An art exhibit wasn't what Josh had wanted to do when he had Sam alone for the afternoon, but Sam had insisted.
It hadn't been so bad. Josh had met two of Sam's friends named Martin and Scott and they had both been very nice to look at from across the table during lunch. The exhibit had been a fundraiser for a boarding school in Westchester and Sam had insisted they show their support by purchasing a painting.
Sam had taken his time, finally selecting a piece by an artist name Pete, who attended the boarding school. It was an oil painting of the New York City skyline as the Liberty Island Ferry comes in to port. At the bow of the ferry stand two lone figures, side by side. Sam said the two figures were Josh and himself. Josh was pretty sure one of the figures was a girl, but he didn't say so to Sam.
Sam wanted Josh to hang it on the wall in his hole of an office back in the west wing of The White House. It had been a good day and Josh was extremely saddened that he had to tell Sam that he couldn't hang the painting in his office. That instead he had to keep up on his wall the awful portrait of the chubby old man. It was a bad painting, an outrageous looking chubby old man in purple robes and Josh hated it.
He was slightly scared of it as well.
*****
The first time it happened, Bartlet had been in office six weeks. Josh was on his computer typing a reply to the Secretary of Education about the new Teachers for Public Schools Reform Initiative. He heard an impatient clearing of the throat and turned around, expecting to find Toby in his doorway.
He found no one and so turned back to his computer.
"I said ahem."
Josh turned around again only to see the man in the painting glaring at him with his hands on his hips.
Josh rubbed his forehead and rummaged through his desk for some Tylenol.
"The Ambassador for The Ministry of Magic needs to set up an appointment with you, sir," the painting said.
Josh stood up from his desk and closed his door. Then he laid down the floor of his office.
"What exactly are you doing?" the painting asked.
"Apparently, I am going insane," Josh responded to what he could only assume was his own delirious hallucination.
"Well, would you be so kind as to do that later? Right now I am setting up an appointment for the Ambassador to..."
"The Ministry of Magic. Yeah, I heard you the first time."
"How does 10:30 in your a.m. sound? Tomorrow?"
Josh rubbed his forehead again. "I got a thing then. With a guy."
"I see. A thing," the painting said somewhat sarcastically. "It sounds important."
Josh tilted his head so he could look at the painting. "Are you mocking? You're a talking man in a painting and you're mocking me?"
The man just rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded like muggles. Josh assumed it was a British swear word, like bugger and wanker.
"How does 11:30 in your a.m. work out for you? Or do you have a thing then as well?"
"11:30 sounds fine."
"Very good then," the man replied and to Josh's astonishment, disappeared from the painting all together.
Josh closed his eyes and continued to lie on his back on the floor.
Donna opened the door and popped her head in. "Josh?"
"Hmmm?" he answered, without opening his eyes.
"Were you just speaking to someone?"
"No."
"Were you on the phone?"
"No."
"I heard you."
"There was no one here."
"And yet I distinctly heard you talking to someone."
"Donna."
"Get out of your office?"
"Yes. And bring me some Tylenol."
"Fine."
Donna slammed the door shut and Josh continued to lie on the floor.
*****
By 11:30 in his a.m. the next day, Josh had forgotten all about his momentary lapse in sanity. The issue of Public School Vs. Charter School was in full swing, Republicans were demanding the President give the thumbs up on a Bill that would allow tapping into the country's oil supply in Alaska and someone had come into Josh's office and taken his desk chair, leaving him with a nothing but a metal stool to sit on.
The need for powerful anti-psychotics had slipped his mind.
When 11:30 rolled around, Josh was shut in his office on a conference call with the head of the Democratic National Committee. A giant puff of smoke appeared in the room and Josh jumped up from his stool, certain that The White House was on fire. The smoke quickly cleared and standing in its spot was a man.
Josh sat back down again.
"Am I early?" the man asked, gesturing at the phone in Josh's hand.
Josh just stared at the man, mouth open, phone hanging limply from his hand until he heard the head of the DNC say his name.
"Mr. Lyman?"
"Uh..." Josh stammered.
"Mr. Lyman, are you alright?"
"I have to...I have to call you back," Josh said and hung up the phone.
"I'm sorry. Am I early?" the man standing in Josh's office asked again.
"Uh...early?"
"For our 11:30? My man should have talked to you yesterday."
"Right, of course. It's fine. You're fine," Josh said. Though of course it wasn't fine and neither was Josh.
Still, after years of dealing with unusual situations for which he was mostly unprepared for, Josh pulled himself together quickly.
He gestured for the man to sit down and took this time to give him the once over.
He was obviously an adult but he still had some baby fat on his cheeks, something Josh figured would completely vanish with the boy's next growth spurt. Not that he needed a growth spurt, he was pushing 6"3' as it was. Josh was guessing he was in his early twenties, though the wrinkles on his forehead showed signs of ageing.
'Laugh lines,' Josh thought, the idea that this young man had wrinkles for any other reason was to hard to swallow.
He was dressed in a long black robe. He also had slightly over-sized ears, something Josh secretly liked in a man, and fiery red hair.
'Ginger,' Josh thought and secretly smiled to himself.
The boy cleared his throat.
"Sorry, Josh Lyman," he muttered and extended his hand in greeting.
"Ron Weasley," the boy said, reaching across the desk to shake Josh's outstretched hand.
"So you're from the Ministry of Magic?" Josh asked, flinching slightly at the ridiculous way that sounded.
Ron smiled and leaned back in his chair. "It's alright," he said, "Take your time. I can only imagine how completely mental you must be feeling right now."
"Yeah, a little bit," Josh agreed.
"Let me explain myself," Ron said. "I am from the Ministry of Magic. What's The Ministry of Magic, you ask? It is, very simply, the office that oversees all things magical. You know, Witches, Wizards, Goblins, Centaurs and of course, House Elves."
"Of course," Josh agreed, noticing an extremely girly pitch to his voice.
"The Wizarding Community..."
"Um, there's a whole community?"
Ron chuckled. "Yes. We've been around for hundreds of years and for the most part, Muggles know nothing about us. We like it that way and we'd like to keep it that way."
"Excuse me, but um, Muggles?"
"It's what we call non-magical people, like you."
"So, it's not a swearword."
"Excuse me?" Ron asked.
"Never mind, go on, you were saying."
"Yes, I was saying we generally stay out of your business and go undetected. We have our own government and our own laws. Though some of our people do live amongst you Muggles and therefore have to follow your laws as well."
"Well, that's good to know."
"But like any government, we like to stay in touch with the leaders of the world, in our wizarding community and amongst your nations. Which leads me to my job."
"Ambassador."
"Exactly."
"Who else in the...in the Muggly community knows about, you know, you guys?" Josh asked.
"Well, for the most part, just the leaders of each country and their right-hand man. Although, from time to time, we find that a Muggle in your society possesses the certain extra thing that it takes to be a Witch or Wizard and then we generally send them an invitation to attend one of our schools."
"You have schools?"
"Yes, Sir. We have children, therefore we have schools."
Josh ran his hand through his hair and began searching through his desk for some Tylenol.
'Mr. Lyman..."
"Josh."
"Josh. For the most part, you don't have to worry about this. I'll check in with you every few months but like I said, we have our own government. Mostly I just keep you informed on what's going on in our community as far as it pertains to your people. Although," Ron faltered, "We did have some serious trouble with an Evil Dark Wizard bent on world domination, but that's under control now."
"Oh, did you? Is it? Well, that's good." There was his squeaky girly voice again.
"And from time to time we have trouble with a dragon or two, although that's rarely in America."
Josh bit the inside of his cheek.
"And naturally we always have various renegade Wizards who insist on flying on their broomsticks in midday traffic or casting spells on Muggles. We can't really have that going on now, can we?"
"Certainly not."
"We have Memory Charms for that sort of thing but we really do hate to use them."
"Memory Charms?"
"We can modify your memory."
Josh flinched. "Have you...have you ever...modified my memory?"
"No, of course not."
"But how would I know if you're lying?"
"You wouldn't," Ron grinned.
"Reassuring."
"Isn't it?"
"At any rate," Ron stood up, "I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know what's-what. I am sure I don't have to tell you the seriousness of keeping this hush-hush. You really can't tell anyone, Josh."
"Ron, I wouldn't dream of it."
Josh shook the boy's hand one more time and then took an official White House ink pen out of his desk. "Ron, thank you for dropping by and I leave you with this pen."
Ron's eyes lit up as he reached for the pen, admiring it and turning it over and over in his hand. "Bloody brilliant. My da' is going to wet himself. He loves Muggle contraptions."
"It's not a contraption. It's an ink pen. You write with it."
"Thanks, mate," Ron said, grinning from ear to ear. "So I'll see you in three or four months. Unless any dragons get loose," Ron said, winking at Josh.
Then before Josh could answer, Ron disappeared in a puff of smoke.
*****
"So I'm having kind of a weird day," Josh said, leaning in the doorway to Sam's office.
Sam looked up at Josh with concern in his eyes. "You alright?"
Josh shrugged.
"You want to tell me all about it over lunch?"
"It's not really the kind of thing I can put into words."
Sam smiled. "I know what you mean. Six weeks in The White House and I still can't believe it."
Josh returned the smile. "Yeah. The things we didn't know."
*****
After that Josh saw Ron about every four months. Ron answered all of Josh's questions about the wizarding community with great patience. Josh looked at pictures of Ron's children with an ever-growing fondness and a never-ending fascination with the moving pictures.
Every visit, Josh would have a new contraption ready for Ron's father. A yo-yo, a deck of a cards, a Polaroid camera.
Ron returned the favor with Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and other assorted magical candies. Josh preferred the Chocolate Frogs.
Eight years in office and Josh was never quite sure he wasn't hallucinating.
But in the end, it didn't matter. Because Josh Lyman found that Ron Weasley, the man who arrived in his office by way of a puff of smoke, had turned out to be the best friend a man in power could ever ask for.
THE END