The seemingly dead body that was sprawled in front of the MLE booth did not look nearly as gruesome as any of the recent coverage of corpses in the Daily Prophet might have one believe.  It was beginning to smell, true; but that odor lent an air of authenticity to its death that the dead man's happily smiling features just didn't seem to convey.  Looking it over, there were no major wounds visible, but someone had gotten creative in determining a cause of death:  there was an inverted right knee, some bright blue tiger-like stripes running down one arm, a large bruise on the bald forehead, bright green tentacles in place of a mustache, and a tongue that was artistically hanging out of the mouth.  Whoever had done in this particular dead body had apparently not been feeling very macabre -- or had possibly been trying to appease a very skeptical superior, who may or may not have insisted that if this was going to be approved as a recruitment strategy, the Aurors proposing it had better not traumatize any emotionally sensitive first years in the process.

"Here, stuff it in the box there."  Jonas helpfully pointed to the large, wooden ballot box sitting on top of the table.  Like the corpse, it looked mundane rather than impressive, but they'd managed to modify the original enchantment so that it spit out flames and belched loudly every time a student submitted a guess.  Along with the corpse's very slight resemblance to the features of a young Ignan Storm if one squinted, that had proven to be the most entertaining part of his day so far.

The meek looking fourth year gave a hesitant nod, and then glanced nervously at her group of friends.  Standing on her toes, she reached out with a shaking hand to slip the carefully folded sheet of paper into the box's slit, and then immediately dove out of the way.  An enormous ball of orange and green fire erupted from the box, engulfing the spot where she'd been standing mere seconds before  as the last remains of the paper were incinerated away.

Jonas paused, his head tilted to one side.  Nearby, the fourth years held similarly still; one of them let out a nervous giggle.  Three seconds...four...five...and then --

The box gave a deep rumble, and then let out an enormous B-U-U-U-R=P.

"YOU HAVE CHOSEN...," a voice boomed, and then there was a paused.  "POORLY."

"Aw, well.  Cheers for trying, anyhow."  Jonas waved the students on.  "Alright, who's next?  Above him, the colorful banner that stretched over their booth set up another small flurry of indoor fireworks.  Put Your Auror Skills to the Test, it proclaimed. Guess the Cause of Death and Win an Internship with Level Two!  He couldn't take credit for the whole of this idea, but at least the morning was proving to be mildly enjoyable.

Archer could not claim the idea for the MLE booth at the career fair as his own (entirely).  It had been an assignment that pretty much no one in the office wanted, and since Jonas and Archer had been to the first to take it… and run with it. 

He hadn’t quite anticipated how it would go, but students seemed to enjoy it, especially that damn box that reminded him somewhat of the cabinet he still hadn’t fixed in his damn apartment.  Usually, he remembered which one it was, but on the off chance he didn’t it was always the most unpleasant surprise he could have imagined… short of hearing another overwhelming belch from the box at this point.

An internship for Level Two really was a difficult task to achieve, but at this point it was seemingly downright Herculean.  The kid seemed mortified as the box announced her wrong answer and she (and her friends) were soon on their way.  Apparently not up for a second go.  “We’re not hawkers at a fair,” Archer informed Jonas, pushing himself out of a chair  behind the stand and shoved his hands in his pockets. 

It was a lighthearted job, admittedly, compared to what had been going on.  Granted, if they’d used some inspiration from their recent jobs, maybe the corpse would have been a little more interesting – and would have matched the smell. 

“Think anyone’ll get it right?” he looked over and noticed a reluctant looking hufflepuff who was probably one hundred pounds soaking wet, about two feet tall (in comparison to Archer), and pushing his glasses up his nose.  He had an affinity toward his old house, but… Well, he guessed everyone had to start somewhere, right?  Archer nodded the kid over, wondering if he’d get it. 

(OOC: I wasn't sure that you were motioning to anyone in particular, and not sure if someone else was to post? If so, I can alter, but wanted to post in here.)

It was career fair time. Mysti remembered being younger and walking around, intrigued by all the booths and jobs that she could do in the future.  And now the future was coming up rather fast. Sixth year was almost over, which meant one year left. One year left of classes, and training, and making sure that she knew what she wanted to do with her life. There was always quidditch (if she felt like continuing down that path), and getting onto at least a reserve team could possibly happen. But otherwise, for real jobs, she had been thinking of two options. Healer or Auror. Healer was the safe choice out of the two (or three if you counted quidditch), as her mother already worked at St. Mungo’s and a lot of staff already knew her. But there was something about being an Auror that really interested her. Her grades were decent enough to qualify for training as either.

The Hufflepuff girl had passed by the Auror booth a few times already.  It was a little bit intimidating, what with the dead body and the ball of flames that would shoot out as you submitted your deduction.  Plus the rather loud announcement of whether or not you got the cause of death correct. Either way, Mysti decided that she would go ahead and submit something. Hopefully it was close, now that she’d had some time to look at the body.

“Afternoon. Enjoying yourselves?” She asked the two aurors as she approached the table, crossing in front of the younger Hufflepuff boy.

Mysti hesitated a moment before putting the quill to the paper. Cause of death: Mixture of curses and jinxes. Knee-Reversal Hex, Body Bind, ill-performed transfigurations, and possible organ-stopper curse. Head wound caused after falling forward from body bind. Dead for at least a week.

She looked over the paper, not exactly sure what kind of transfigurations or curses would really cause the arm’s blue tiger-striping, or the tentacle mustache. But if any jinxes or hexes combined, there was always the chance for odd sproutings to occur. The fact that the man was smiling, Mysti could only attribute to perhaps he was happy when he was petrified, and then killed.

If she was right, she was, if not, she would want to stick around and find out. Or get some hints from the aurors. So far it seemed like most people would submit a guess and then move on. So Mysti decided to submit hers.  She folded the slip of paper and put it into the slot of the box, then dodged the impending fireball. And then waited for the deliberation.

It wasn't aas though Xavier needed the career fair. His initial plan had been to get into politics and gain his power and status from there. However since last year he had discovered he was the sole heir to one of the largest British Wizarding fortunes. True he had to wait for Arathorn to kick the bucket - which seemed as likely as Storm teaching his next class in a pink tutu - but he would gain the status of Billionaire Heir as soon as he graduated Hogwarts. From there he was free to do what he wanted. Which meant the Career Fair was nothing more than a distraction and possible entertainment. The Auror booth was proving to be just that.

Xavier stood a few paces behind Mysti. He had been watching as guess after guess was rejected in a spectacular manner. He had no guess of his own. His was a little worried he might actually be right and he wasn't sure he wanted to see the Auror's reaction to that. He didn't have the best track record with the Aurors. He was however happy to see who was manning the booth this year or rather who wasn't. Raynor had accused him of murdering a fellow student the year before, Potter had interrogated him about his Uncle's where abouts and even his own cousin Berkeley had put him on some kind of watch list after he had killed that werewolf over the summer. He could just imagine the look on their faces if he told them he wanted to join the ranks of the Red Robed Prats.

Xavier looked to Mysti, "good luck 'n tha' 'ne."

When the Hogwarts Career Fair had been announced, Adrianna had leapt at the chance to accompany Jonas and Archer, even if she wasn't technically that needed. It had been ages since she had been to her old school, let alone encourage people to be a part of the MLE. Well, okay, the job had its risks, but she wasn't about to start talking about them. She was sure anyone could see it on her face, easily enough.

The other Aurors would probably poke fun at her for being a wide-eyed idealist, but right now they were busy being amused by the really bad fake corpse and the attention it was getting. She would stand up front, except that she still considered herself inferior - especially compared to the two men who'd been in this country for longer than she had - and because she had decided it was a good idea to bring Gan Shaozu along. Since he'd insisted that he was on a vacation and not an official visit, she had got him into this in the first place and now she felt solely responsible for his presence.

She wasn't quite sure if he was amused or disapproving at what was going on. If he did feel that way, he was hiding it very well, just looking around the Great Hall in interest. She also couldn't tell if it was genuine vested interest or not. He hadn't said anything to her - or anyone - since they started.

Adrianna watched as yet another student stepped up to submit her guess into the box. Whoever had planned this assignment had been...inventive. Well, it would be a good challenge to make the students think out of the box--

A gentle touch on her shoulder startled her. She turned back to look at Shaozu, whose mouth - and the scars around it - were twisted into an amused smirk.

"They'd be more willing to try if the reward was a bit more enticing," he said, in Cantonese. No matter how much she tried to coax him into practising his English, he'd always reverted to his mother tongue. Typical. She'd had to spend several days translating his speech for him. He could swagger like a gangster, but asking him to speak English was like trying to get a lethifold to drink a love potion.

"It's not about the reward, it's about testing who's actually interested. And for goodness' sake speak in English, it's a bit rude," she hissed back. Shaozu merely shrugged.

"That boy over there," he said, pointing at the student who had come up behind the girl trying her luck, "he seems like he'd be up to something."

"Shaozu, I like your skill in profiling but this isn't the time for it." She turned back to watch as the box belched. Whoever enchanted that had a strange sense of humour.

Iris Nollet had been the one officially assigned at the Daily Prophet booth - a near miss for Niobe Thursby who seemed to still be paying for her arrest on Halloween.  Her editor kept sending her on the most boring assignments, although she continued to worm her way into the good stuff whenever possible.  She had a reputation to salvage. 

As it was, she couldn't leave Iris totally at the mercy of the children, so she decided to stop by.  But the be-dreaded reporter didn't make it over to the Prophet's booth.  She got side-tracked when she saw an old chum, Jonas Trevelyan. And in front of he and his colleagues, a corpse.

This had to be good. 

She sauntered up casually, taller than many of the students gathered round the - oh! stinking! - body.  "An attention-grabber, Aurors.  Very clever."

The Aurors would all know Niobe Thursby who often reported on crime and punishment and not always in the ways that they liked.  But each party believed they were doing right and so their adversarial relationship was not often overtly hostile. 

"What's the prize?"

Winifred knew that she could never, ever be an auror some day. Her grades (though improving) were still more or less abysmal. Her wand work was shoddy. And really, nobody would want Winifred Leigh Oliver to protect the wizarding world from magical threats. She just didn't have it going for her... But her Uncle Archer was at the DMLE booth and she just had to visit him!

There were already a few people gathered around the booth- a booth that had a dead body as part of its display. Winifred inched away from the corpse and flashed her most excited, winning smile at her uncle.

"Hullo Uncle Archer!" she greeted loudly, still keeping her distance from the corpse. "You didn't tell me you were coming to the career fair! How exciting!" Winnie hugged him tightly. Then waved at Mysti. A fellow Hufflepuff! "You know my Uncle Archer was a Hufflepuff, too!" she said to her housemate. "Hufflepuffs makes the best everything."

Much like the yeti roar of his cabinet, the belching box was getting old.  Archer rubbed his temple and looked to Jonas before the other aurors who had volunteered for the job.  Adrianna and Gan were fine enough, Archer found them a tad odd, but he supposed not everyone could be completely sane if they wanted their line of work. 

It often came about that in Hogwarts those that wanted to be aurors were… of a more interesting set of people.  Competitive, loyal, judgemental – the entire gambit was probably represented.  Archer liked to believe he fell more on the rational side of the applicant pool.  He supposed that was up for debate as well though.

“Decent attempt,” Archer commented to the Hufflepuff girl who approached and made the box make that Merlin awful sound again.  He was going to ask what interest she had in an internship with the department (he was slightly biased toward hufflepuffs), but then Niobe Thursby made an appearance and it took just about everything in him to suppress his desire to groan. 

“Nice to see you too, Thursby,” he remarked dryly.  The reporter was not always the biggest… asset to the department.  Pressing his tongue against the top of his mouth, he took a breath.  “An internship,” he informed the reporter.

It appeared, however, that everytime he was about to continue speaking something else came up and before he knew it he had a growth on his waist that threatened to cut off his air supply.  Archer was a solidly built individual and the young hufflepuff had almost knocked the wind out of him.  Patting her on the back after he regained some semblance of dignity (if one could have that working one of these things), Archer coughed to clear his throat. 

“You could quote her on that, Thursby,” he added, at least agreeing that hufflepuffs were clearly superior as a group of students – and people, of course.  “No one’s earned the spot yet though,” he looked to the girl who had tried again, and shrugged.  “Set it up to be tough.”

At the description of Hufflepuff superiority, something twitched in the red-haired Auror's expression; for a moment, the lanky wizard looked nearly in danger of dissolving into an extended coughing fit.  But Jonas settled for merely clearing his throat, arching an eyebrow cunningly at Niobe as the Hufflepuff girl slipped her guess into the box.

"Yeah, they have to run after our lot all summer," he agreed, just as the box let out another rumbling belch and released a rush of flames that nearly singed any students who had gotten too close.

"YOU HAVE CHOSEN..." it announced, and then paused again for a long moment.  "POORLY."

"Too bad, then," Jonas said cheerily, waving Mystique back over.  "Here, have another go?  Or you can give a try at it," he said encouragingly to Winifred.  "No age limit, at least as far as Raynor said.  Be a lark if you got to spend the summer having tea parties with your uncle in his office, wouldn't it?  Reckon it might bring a bit of culture back to the place."

Niobe was acquainted with Radley, although not the blonde Hufflepuff who clung to him.  Spirited and bright and goofy, she seemed.  "A fantastic addition to the department, I'm sure," she said wishing the very best to the Aurors' peace of mind. 

Niobe had never herself aspired to be an Auror, and all their rules and authority.  She didn't even like having authority, to be honest.  It smelled too much like responsibility and she had enough to handle without having to handle it for others. 

"Harsh!" she laughed when another young witch's internship dreams were dashed.  "Will you get anyone?" she asked the Aurors.

Winifred was slightly disappointed when Uncle Archer did not give her a gigantic hug in return, and instead patted her on the head and continued talking to the other adults. "Thursby?" Winifred repeated. "You write for the newspaper! Oh that's so exciting! Yes, you can quote me all you want. I know lots of great stuff about my Uncle Archer and his being an auror and I'd always be happy to talk to you if it meant being in the newspaper." It was like being a miniature celebrity! "I wanted to do a gossip column in our Hogwarts paper, but you know," Winnie made a dismissive gesture. Mostly she had little capability to stick with anything. Responsibility and deadlines were not her forte.

She felt very flattered when Mr. Travelingman suggested that she could give her try as to what killed the person laying on the table. "Oh, could I?? Tea parties at the Auror Office would be amazing! But my Aunt Leola says I'm not supposed to hang out with Tamis Raynor. But Archer says I'm not allowed to tell people what Aunt Leola says about Tamis Raynor because it's not very nice."

She did, however, take a slip of paper. She looked at the body, scrunched up her nose, and grimaced. Then she scribbled on her paper. Cause of Death: Some kind of animal attack? He's got a bruise and broken bones and maybe those stripe things are poison of some sort? And the tentacle mustache could be from biting into a giant octopus or something. Animals and poisoning. It probably wasn't right, but she wasn't a sleuth by any stretch of the imagination. Even her budding talent in seeing was only right part of the time and tended to come and go... or she would predict very, very trivial things.

Winnie slipped her bit of paper into the box and waited for the response. "Is that a real dead person, Mr. Travelingman?" she asked. "Or is it just a prop? Because I don't think my mum and my dad would like me hanging out around someone who is dead."

Sam was looking amused at what was going on at the MLE booth. Really, there hadn't been too much happening yet- except for the 4th year Hufflepuff- who turned out to be Archer's neice. He was looking at Thursby somewhat warily- he didn't like the press as a rule- when archer's niece called Trevalyn Travellingman. He quickly covered the snort of laughter as a cough, hoping nobody had noticed.

Atticus smirked knowingly as he leaned against the wall observing the Auror booth from afar. It was incredibly evident, at least to him, that the booth was a poor attempt to generate interest among the students. He doubted every case or even a margin of cases led to experimentation that crude, and if they did then they did so only through blatant incompetence from the Auror in question. It was a very arrogant, seventeen year old worldview but he couldn't help but hold contempt for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as they were his natural enemy. Atticus is a cobra doing his best to hide in the woodwork from the mongooses. Appearances were important and outwardly Atticus was nothing more than a sharp-tounged diligent student who minds his own business. Nonetheless, he held a natural and possibly dangerous curiosity with the DoMLE, given that it requires such high marks and abilities required of its recruits. He knew the combination of his high marks, dueling skills and general tactical mind he would make an excellent candidate and at one time considered going the path of Auror as a perfect cover should be continue criminal enterprise after graduation. Nobody suspects the inside man, and even if they did he could find creative ways around it. There is no such thing as a perfect system, there are always flaws. It was his beautiful and exciting job to exploit them!

A few minutes passed and the booth became more populated with students and adults alike. He saw a few familiar faces, and some new ones. His face scrunched up in a moment of irritation when he realized he couldn't smoke a cigarette where he was because of the job fair. In that moment he concluded that smoking was an incredibly inconvenient habit, albeit one that opened a whole new world of possibilities at Hogwarts. There was always money and opportunity when things are disallowed by some institution of power.

He continued to observe the scene, the smell of the corpse finally reaching and irritating his nostrils. He relocated a few steps to his left as he observed the Aurors with the same mildly contemptuous smile on his face as he debated going over there to observe the scene first hand.

Grace Eddy was another one of the Aurors-in-Training who had stepped up and volunteered when the Career Fair was announced at work. To her, it was really a no brainer, not just because she was an overachiever who was eager to do anything and everything that would help her succeed, but also because she knew that the students attending the fair would likely want the perspective of a recently graduated student to bolster their interest in joining.

Even now as she weaved through the throngs of Hogwartians to spy the busy Auror Booth among all the others, she waved to familiar faces among the students. Some she had not seen since well before the last days of school, as due to her mother's unfortunate passing a little more than a year ago, she had missed the passing out of yearbooks and the mingling that often came with it. It was still rather bittersweet to think about what she had lost in a year because in many ways, the losses had strengthened her. They had made her better able and equipped to face life's challenges, confident that she could weather nearly any storm if need be. And it also allowed her to pursue a great many obstacles on her own.

Thus, it made for an added spring in her step as she flashed a friendly smile to a few nearby familiar sixth and seventh years before slipping up to the booth to stand beside her Uncle Jonas. She heard his exchange with Winifred Oliver about spending time with her uncle and grinned. "Yeah, it's always fun to spend time with family fighting crime. And working with dead people?" She raised her brows at Jonas and the others. "Why are you trying to scare the recruits already?"

Boredom was starting to settle in as Xavier hovered around the Auror booth though he doubted any of the others at the Career Fair would be any more interesting. He spied the hanging corpse once more and decided to step forward and put a guess in, mainly to see the reaction of others. His marks were certainly good enough to get into the academy and he had an affinity for certain (more dangerous) spells that his fellows students didn't seem to have. He tried to picture the look on his Mothers face if he showed up one day wearing a Crimson Robe. Then again he'd have to know where she was for that to happen, a fact that he still blamed the Auror's for. If they hadn't blown up his family home his Mum wouldn't have had to go on the run just like his Uncle.

Xavier slipped his guess into the belching box with a smirk. He turned his cold grey blue eyes to the nearby Aurors and gave a slight nod to Eddy when she arrived. He hadn't known her personally while she was at Hogwarts but she had been a good Quidditch player. He flicked his eyes over to Oliver feeling a chill creep into his stomach, thankfully it didn't seem like she was accompanied by her pint sized side kick. In fact it had been some time since he had seen Ayla around, it made him wonder if the miniature Canadian even still attended the school.