A tall but slouched figure entered the Auror Headquarters. Rosier - a sort of a recluse (or sometimes unjustly called "the grumpy old man" - Ha! He wasn't even that old!) noticed he lately avoided this place like the plague. His office was his sanctuary, he enjoyed burying himself in work and obsessive research. But he was finally getting somewhere; soon, things will be much clearer. But first things first - it has come to his attention that on several occasions someone entered his office without his supervision or consent. The mere thought of it made Rosier’s blood boil. Who was snooping through his notoriously unorganized office and why?

It was yesterday afternoon when he finally found a solid piece of evidence. Finally he was certain he wasn’t just imagining someone was in the office or maybe slightly moved things around. But while clearing out some mess, finally giving in and trying to look more presentable and organized, Rosier found something that one hundred percent didn’t belong to him. It was a large hairpin of a tacky design - gilded with tiny, sparkly crystals which shaped butterflies and flowers. The Head of Level Two was certain the hairpin had no business doing anything in his office - he didn’t have a young daughter with a questionable taste in hair decorations and he was sure his female companions had much better taste as well…also, he never really brought any of them to the office. It had to belong to someone from Level Two and he was sure if he’d seen it before, he’d remember it, so how did it find its way to his office?

With a random folder under his arm and the hairpin in his hand, Rosier walked through the Auror office, scanning all the people. There were many unfamiliar, new faces. Some he should probably remember from that ghastly Ministry “mixer” or whatever they decided to call that farce, but he was positively drunk by the end of it so it was all sort of blurry. He generally disliked Aurors until they proved themselves worthy, but he had even less love for the trainees and the other newcomers. He hated all the enthusiasm - it  made him wonder if he was ever so annoyingly keen in his old days. Probably not.

“Morning,” he announced to no one in particular when he felt some eyes were on him. He knew how to approach this matter. “I have an interesting task for one of the trainees,” he couldn’t help but smirk. “Any volunteers?”

Brett had been trying, desperately, to keep her head low and stay out of trouble. Cleaning all of the equipment in the training room by hand had been a long term and disgusting task. She'd smelled like polish for days and her hands had been stained for a full week after she had finally finished cleaning everything. It seemed the late night paperwork hadn't left her on very good terms with Auror Pratt, either. And ... well... the tattoo she'd gotten which had crashed, boomed, and clanged every time someone said "potter" for the duration of her first week and a half of training hadn't left a good impression either.

All in all, Brett was off to a very bad start as an auror trainee. The last few days she'd been doing her work diligently, without argument, and trying to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. At least when she was trying she got less exasperated looks and sighs. It wasn't her fault that she was having to learn how to keep her trap shut. It was a skill she'd just never acquired growing up. Brett had three older brothers, she was a Gryffindor, she wasn't lady like and demure- and it seemed to be a curse.

She was sitting at one of the cubicles when the head of the entire law enforcement department had made his entrance. He called out good morning, and she looked up at him, and when he said he had an interesting task for a trainee and asked for volunteers, Brett ducked her head again, focusing on the paperwork at hand. She had learned already that interesting tasks were hardly interesting. Most often they simply indicated fetching coffee, lunch, or doing some mundane task that the aurors thought was funny to pawn off on their trainees. Brett had enough of those mundane tasks as punishment without having to volunteer herself for more.

Hopefully he wouldn't notice her hiding out. The way she had popped up her head, and ducked it back down again quickly might be enough to draw attention- but Brett certainly hoped that it wasn't. She had to finish this paperwork. Then she had to get in some practice time in the training room. Her spellwork seemed to be less impressive since she'd not been using her wand as much lately, and Brett didn't want to fall out of practice. Maybe Fauna or one of the Fayettes or Grace or one of the older trainees would take the bullet so she wouldn't have to.

“I have an interesting task for one of the trainees. Any volunteers?”

Eha raised an eyebrow, sticking her head out of the cubicle she shared with one of the other trainees. She vaguely recognized the voice of the HMLE - her father grumbled nastily about Rosier every time a clip of his came over the wireless news - but it'd been so long that anyone around Level 2 had seen the man that it took her a moment to connect the words to his face.

"What kind of interesting?" she asked wearily, not trusting that smirk. It was the sort of smirk teachers wore when they said that polishing all the armor in the main hall with no magic was 'character-building,' like that was somehow a good thing. The last few weeks had been a long blur of paperwork, and Eha wasn't sure she could take any more sorting of parchment and ink.

But on the other hand, she was bored. Very, very, very bored.

"What the hell," she muttered, and slid her chair back into the hall. "I'm game. What do you need?"

With a start, Rémy sat bolt upright at the desk, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and looking around blearily for the source of Cameron Rosier's voice. As  he did, a collection of pamphlets and file folders slid off the top of his head, where he had piled them in a fruitless effort to block out all the usual office noises and maybe, possibly take a quick, ten minute nap. Apparently those ten minutes had been cursed with a duplicating spell, because as he checked his watch, he realized he'd been comatose for about forty-five minutes now.

Sluggishly peering over the top of the cubicle and doing a piss-poor job of looking like he hadn't been slouched over his desk asleep mere moments ago, he scanned the room. Rosier was about, he was sure of it. Unless it had been a dream, or maybe more aptly a nightmare. He barely caught sight of the top of Brett Abraham's head ducking out of sight, and couldn't help sniggering a bit at the idea of Brett keeping her head down and her mouth shut. What he knew of Brett told him that this didn't come naturally to her.

Moments later, Eha Farro, another fellow trainee he vaguely knew, wheeled her chair bravely into the corridor and dared to ask what it was Rosier needed. He would have saluted her for guts if Rosier wasn't right there watching.

He rubbed his temples lightly, trying to rid himself of sleep before speaking. "Yeah, Rosier, what's going on?" he ventured finally.

Eha spoke up before Dion did, much to the blonde's annoyance. Of course, the manner of her address irked him more. There were rules one followed when doing these things, he felt. Decorum wasn't something you simply dispensed with unless it was necessary or requested by the superior party. Especially not when you were addressing the Head of the entire Department of Law Enforcement!

Dion was, of course, dressed to perfection; his uniform ironed and tailored to his muscular frame, his waistcoat just the right color of brown, the red just the right bright Auror red and his whole appearance radiating confident professionalism. Or, if Dax was to be believed, overconfident tosser. Dion was quite confident it was the first, mostly because Dion could radiate overconfident tosser in just about anything, if his brother was to be believed.

Thankfully Dax was keeping his head down, along with Brett. Good. Somehow the tone of Rosiers' voice made it clear this task wasn't going to be pleasant. The last thing he needed was Dax getting fired.

Dion had stood up regardless, in a manner that wasn't so much drawing attention to himself as respectful and polite. He'd read all the books, after all, and one of the rules was that you were to stand in the presence of a superior officer.

The fact the others had forgotten this only made him worry about the entire crop of trainees. It was in the book! They should all have remembered this! It was just a sign that the wrong Aurors were rubbing off on the trainees, in his mind.

Rosier made a face. In front of him sat the future leaders of this Department, but the only thing the boss was able to see were teenagers bored out of their minds, tired from all the nothing they did all day long. Something needed to be done about this, they needed to be stricter towards the trainees…Unimpressed, he looked at the young woman who addressed him so boldly. “What I need is a holiday or even better - a one way ticket to Puerto Rico,” he told her, dead-serious and still wearing a slightly unpleasant facial expression.

But what annoyed him even more was something that usually rarely bothered him. It was when the boy who looked even more tired than Rosier himself addressed him as if they were old comrades of sorts. Well, maybe Remy Sharp wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. But Rosier decided not to be totally nasty about this matter. He simply said “That would be ‘Mr. Rosier’ or simply ‘Sir’ to you,” with a small hint of a smile. Rosier didn’t like being the oldest person in the room, but he certainly wasn’t their equal and without learning proper respect they will get nowhere in this Ministry.

“Anyway,” he continued after a carefully placed awkward silence. “As I said - I have something that will put your…erm skills to the test.” Rosier said this to all of them, predictably ignoring the girl who volunteered first. Lifting his arm slightly, he showed them the tacky hairpin. “Firstly, I would like to know if this belongs to any of you?” He forced a smile. He didn’t want to make this look like the owner of the pin was in some sort of trouble, so he raised the stakes a bit. “It’s an absolutely lovely piece of jewellery and I would like to purchase one for my niece. So if the owner would be so kind and tell me where I can buy one.”

He was still holding the hairpin up so they could take a good look at it and formed a more genuine smile. The kind of smile which said ‘If you help me, I’ll make it worthwhile’.

The other trainees seemed to be jumping out of their seats in excitement, eager to aid the head of the department in whatever menial task he had in mind. She poked her head up from her cubicle again when he mentioned a piece of jewelry and wondered if anyone recognized it. Brett hoped that it wasn't one of hers. She and Dax had been much better about not snogging in broom closets- and keeping it off level two all together.

She sighed- relieved to see the gaudy piece did not belong to her. No harm no foul on this one, then. Brett cast a sidelong look at Dion, and wondered if he had suspected that it might belong to her. She didn't wear much jewelry, but hair accessories- well, she liked them an awful lot.

Brett definitely didn't recognize it, either, though. Besides the fact it didn't belong to her, she couldn't remember ever seeing it before. "I don't believe that's regulation for the uniform, sir," she commented from the cubicle, standing up before addressing him. "Not something I would expect anyone on Level Two to wear. It's not practical hairware, at least."

Rem had to stifle a little chuckle when Dion Fayette practically bounced to his feet, all formal and well-trimmed, perfect posture, perfect decorum, like one of those potted plants they manufactured to look like they grew perfectly out in the wilderness on their own. Eager to please now, maybe, but a couple years in MLE would rub the shiny edges right off that well-polished badge. In fact, Rosier's rebuke barely stung; he was so used to being corrected and nitpicked about little things he hardly noticed anymore.

Still, the unfortunate caught his eye, if only for the fact it was probably the most dreadful thing anyone had ever picked up in Level Two. "Lovely piece of jewellery, my foot," he mumbled under his breath, eyeballing the tiny sparkles and butterflies dubiously. Rosier had a toad's sense of humor, and he couldn't possibly be seriously considering buying something like that. Raising his hand and his voice, he proclaimed jokingly, "Oh, why yes, that would be mine, I was dreadfully worried about where it had got off to! How lucky I am you found it, Mr. Rosier!"

Waiting a couple of moments, he added, "In all seriousness, you could probably find something like that in just about any seedy corner grocer's."

"In all seriousness, you could probably find something like that in just about any seedy corner grocer's."

"Jah, sul on see õigus," said Eha, slipping into Estonian as her mindset soured. She didn't like being ignored, even if the hotshot was head of the Department. It was almost understandable with Rémy Sharp - he'd been around a while, was closer than the rest of them to graduating, and was the same as her - but she'd be damned if an over-dressed suck-up like Dion Fayette got the chance to show her up.

With that in mind, she hopped up, kicked her chair back into her cubicle, and leaned in to get a better look at the offending hair dec. "Not a grown lady's style, that's for sure. Maybe somebody brought their kid to work . It's not unheard of. Kids get everywhere."

She straightened and rubbed the part of her neck that was still sore from bending over paperwork. "Anyway, if it is that important that the kid be found, I'm sure we can find something. We could try a basic Trace if there's some hair to work with."