Kate squeezed her eyes closed as she pinched the bridge of her nose with her left hand, the elbow of which was resting on her desk. Her right hand held her quill, poised and ready to sign yet more documents and write more letters. As Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, she played a big part in the preparation for the upcoming Triwizard Tournament, and there was a lot to do. She had to work closely with the Department of International Magical Cooperation and the Auror, Isabelle Brooke, as well as the staff of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. That's not to say she was unable to handle the extensive workload, but Kate was a perfectionist and an extremely hard worker. The trouble was, that she had immersed herself too deeply in the work, and found herself unable to think about anything else.
Her parents were worried. They rarely saw her now; she had visited them at least twice a week in the past, but those visits had reduced dramatically since she had begun working towards the tournament. Now they only saw her once every three weeks, if that, and when they did see her, she was always too tired to talk much. They knew how much she wanted things to go well; she had only this year been promoted to Head of the Department, and this was important to her. But whilst they supported her entirely, their concerns were first and foremost for her well-being. Her brother, Samuel, had noticed too, which was saying quite a lot considering how unobservant he was when it came to how people were feeling, spending most of his time wrapped up in Quidditch training. They had all tried to talk to Kate, tried to get her to take it easy; she was hardly behind on her work afterall! But she wouldn't listen.
Now, as she sat in her office as the clock neared midnight, she felt for the first time that she almost understood what they were saying. She had not left the Ministry before eleven at night for as long as she could remember, and she was more often than not still there in the early hours of the morning before she finally packed up and went home. She would be back in her office no later than half past six in the morning and at seven, when her secretary arrived, she would ask for some coffee to help her wake up properly.
Still, once the tournament was underway she would be able to sleep a bit longer. There was not long left now. She could cope. She would cope. Her family said she had lost sight of the important things in life, well they were wrong. She knew exactly what was important, and that was the tournament. She needed to focus herself completely on the preparations, just as she had been doing. What she didn't need, was any distractions.
