Still looking around the room for any sign of anyone else, Benjy was somewhat startled by the woman's reply. "I...um..." He stuttered before putting his wand away. This one had to be a department head or someone with more power than the redhead.

"Mr. Doherty, Benjamin Doherty, new hit wizard. But you can call me Benjy." He said replying with a slight nod of his head. "I was just checking to make sure nothing... nobody was being attacked in here because I heard a yell." That was the truth... and at the moment he was wishing that he had just kept going to his desk. "Is there anything I can help you with, ma'am? Help you clean up in here?" He asked before he started straightening out several beakers on a table.

He's sweet XD And Elinor is fiesty...
 

"Mister Doherty," she nodded, committing the name to memory. "I apologize for raising an alarm, but..." she gestured almost helplessly to the war zone she stood in the middle of. "I-I'm Elinor Danvers, I am the lab technician," she explained as she approached to shake his hand, "So, when I walked in to find it like this, well... I assure you, I did not leave it like this," she said, crossing over to the table beside the door. She threw the papers into the wastebasket there and scanned the last lines of the log.

Of course, the perpetraitors did not leave a name.

She smiled at him. "That's very kind of you, Mister Doherty, but I can't take you away from your duties to get help with mine. Although, if you have nothing to do, I would pass on a good word to your superiors," she added. One would think with all the money the ministry had to throw at a food court, they could hire an assistant...

...But, then again, when it came to things like this, Elinor did not play well with others.

"Please... Benjy is fine." Yeah...he didn't really like his last name all that much and even his boss had called him Benjy. "Tis not a problem. You certainly had reason to be upset. It almost looks as if someone came in and destroyed the place." He looked around the room, assessing just how much damage had been done. "Pleasure to meet you Ms. Danvers. It is unfortunate that we had to meet under these circumstances." Benjy stuck out a hand to shake giving her a smile.

A smirk crossed the redhead's face as Ms. Danvers told him that it wasn't necessary to stay and help clean up. "Oh I am sure that my duties can wait for now. It shouldn't take long to clean up in here. Unless you are against using magic to help." He couldn't be sure that she would be willing to just use magic to clean up the mess, let alone whether magic was even allowed to clean up the room. Either way, he had time to spare and would be willing to help out where needed.

"Benjy", she corrected herself.

Her eyes swept the room once more. "Well, I certainly appreciate it... Magic is fine in here, to an extent. You see, these vials and the stages on the equipment have to be physically sterilized before any spellwork can be done. But that I can do on my own..."

She approached the drawers that had been pulled out. "These drawers' labels are pretty self-explanitory. Dishes, slides and vials in this one... swabs, wipes, and sprays this one... so on," she gestured. "If you would be so kind as to just get it all back where it goes, that would be most helpful. Afterwards, would you remove the labels, please? I know this lab like the back of my hand... This way, anyone wanting anything will have to come to me to find it," she muttered bitterly. It was a shame she would have to do that, but if it's what she had to do to keep people from destroying her lab-- she would do it.

She drew her wand and levitated the rest of the beakers onto one table, beginning to inspect and sort them according to what kind of cleaning needed to be done. "So, you're the new hit wizard, hm? That's very interesting. Before I came to the ministry, I was a private investigator. What made you want to go into that line of work?"

Sometimes small talk was the best kind. Unlike some of the other new employees, Elinor was starting to like Benjy. She didn't mind the idle conversation.

Benjy smirked a bit when Elinor corrected herself, but as soon as she started explaining where everything went, he went back to focusing and just smiling. "Absolutely..." He said before getting to work and sending various items back to their drawers. It had to be easier when you had more than one person working.

Still waving his wand and sorting some of the glassware, the redhead glanced over at the beakers that Elinor was sorting. "Yep... the new bait." He mumbled, smirking somewhat. "Well... I used to work for a magical police force in Luxembourg right after college but I wanted to be closer to home so I decided to move back here to London and try to get a job here in the ministry." Probably not the exact answer she was expecting but that was his story. "What about you? Why a lab tech?" It was a pretty large change from a private investigator.

She listened to his story, turning to face him briefly as she pulled a pair of disposable gloves out of an adjacent drawer. It seemed it was her turn as she began to clean the beakers under steaming hot water from one of the sinks.

"Well... I suppose I'd had my fill of it for a while... It was a dangerous job... A lot of risk involved. I went to a Forensics college and thought I should put it to good use. I'm still helping catch the bad guys... Just in a different way," she explained.

"I like being the one in chage when it comes to evidence. It kind of makes me feel like I did back then... I guess it's hard to explain," she said as she crossed to one wall and grabbed a container full of some greenish liquid. All the beakers were stacked into the sink. She stopped the running water and poured half of the bottle into the sink. Even though there was a loud hisssss and a small cloud of vapor, the woman didn't flinch. She just leaned back a little and waved away the cloud as she sealed the bottle again.

"I was never great with math, but science was a natural. It takes that, plus intuition and patience to do what I do. I wanted this job because I knew I could do it right," she concluded, turning her back briefly on the sink to face him.

Yeah...He knew his story was kinda simple. But that was basically it for that journey.

Benjy slowed his sorting as he listened to Elinor's story. Every once in a while a flask or dish of some sort would float through the air headed towards a specific drawer. Risk was a good reason to leave a job like that. Benjy knew that eventually this job that he had would be too risky but for now it worked.

As the last vial flew into it's rightful place, the redhead spun around to face her. "Well... you certainly have the skills for it." He said smirking. "Just out of curiosity... what was it that you poured down that sink?" While he waited for an answer, he flicked his wand and held out his hand to catch all of the labels as he took them off of the drawers.

Walking over towards her, he reached out to hand her the labels. "I believe we are done cleaning for now." Benjy holstered his wand before turning and heading towards the door. As he reached the knob, he stopped and spun around to face her one last time. "Lunch...today, around noon?" He asked grinning.

She beamed a smile at him as he complimented her skills. No one ever told her that. "Thank you," she replied. She drew her wand once again, and with a flick, all the liquid in the sink vanished, leaving only the beakers. "A very harsh cleaning solution made mostly of bundimun secretion," she informed him. "Dangerous stuff, in the wrong hands. But it's necessary to get these beakers as clean as possible, or else whatever you're using them for could be seriously contaminated. But it's nice and quick and very effective. I can now start applying the spells to them," she explained happily. It was rare anyone asked her anything like that. She liked showing off her skills and her knowledge.

She took the labels from him and stuffed them into one of the pockets of her coat. "Thank you so much for your help."

She was taken aback by his sudden offer. It took her a second to think about it, but it was a harmless enough gesture. She nodded after a few second. "I think I can do that. You just find me at my desk, and I'll acompany you down there. Thank you."

Perhaps the new employees weren't so bad after all... Perhaps.

NEW timeline <33 all you lab rats who ish investigating :3
 

Esme paused for a moment as the man who had previously introduced himself to Elinor as a Mr. Hawthorne stopped and opened the door, stepping aside to let them by first. A gentleman. Imagine that. With a fleeting smile, she stepped past him and murmured a quick thank you before entering the lab. Her home.

It was always exciting to start a new assignment, and this one sounded like quite a doozy, to be honest. More of a challenge. Esme always liked that about her work.

"Orb or locket, first?" She asked aloud.

Mah PEEPS! D: Dis gonn' be gooood....
 

"Thank you very much," Elinor said to MISTER ASHBURY-HAWTHORNE DOUGHNUT EATER. Hmph. Setting the bags down on the closest table, she snatched her lab coat off the rack, the one that had her name and position nicely stitched to the side. She buttoned and belted it expertly, gesturing to the other white coats on the rack. "If you'd like, you're welcome to them," she said as she fastened her hair back with the hair tie she kept in one of the pockets.

She breifly bent over the side-table next to the door, where the log was. She jotted down her name, as well as her two assistants for the day, as well as the orb and locket. Then she dropped the pen and turned from it. The lady picked up the bags again and moved to one of the tables near the middle of the room.

The first thing she wanted to do was get them out of those bags. She looked to Esme. "The locket first, I think. That orb, I'm sure, will require much more attention and time." At her waist was a drawer, which she tugged open. From inside, she pulled out a pair of clear gloves. She also tossed a pair to Esme and MISTER TOUCH EVERYTHING. Er-- Aron. Speaking of whom...

"Would you like to take the pictures of the evidence?", she asked as she carefully laid out the locket, extending the chain. She crossed to a cabinet and pulled out the camera that they used for her insisted careful documentation and handed it to him. She laid out a right-angle ruler next to it and stepped to the side.

As she carefully picked out the broken pieces of the orb, she looked at them with interest. As she set them down, she looked to her coworkers. "So what exactly do we know about this orb?"
ooc: I'm waiting for a PM back from our department head-- That's why she hasn't jumped into the analysis...

That she could agree with. It seemed as though the orb would be the most telling. Her right hand shot up and she caught the gloves easily, hiding the smirk as Elinor addressed Aron. It seemed as though she might still be just a little..peeved at what he had done. She chuckled quietly, and then spoke. "Camera's over there." She indicated with a nod of her head, her curls falling forward over one shoulder.

As the question was posed, Esme shook her head once. "Hang on a sec." She worked her way through the lab until she reached her bag. Pulling it open, she removed the latest issue of the Daily Prophet. She had just so happened to pick it up at Flourish & Blotts this morning after purchasing a book that she had been itching to get her hands on.

"Says here De Talone, now former owner of Tomes and Scrolls Bookshop in Hogsmeade, was apparently using the orb as a medium to freeze students; using it as a way to steal time to keep her young." She studied the picture of the woman. "The locket is a younger version of herself; found in one of the Divination classes."

She looked up from the paper. "So...we've got an item that was used to freeze students; so....a basic freezing spell, though this one seems to have lasted longer than a regular freezing spell. And how was it activated? Simply by touch?"

Poking head in.
 

Melissa had quietly followed Aron and the lady who had identified herself as the Lab Technician, into what seemed like the lab. As they entered, she followed behind them and managed to squeeze in before the door closed on her.

She looked all around her. This was the first time that she was inside an MLE lab and was very impressed. Making her way to the Aron and the other two staff, she smiled and asked,"Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt but may I help too?." and hoped that she wouldn't get chewed out for following them.

Elinor held each shard on the very edges with two fingers, holding them up to the light. She was about to open her mouth to speak, but let Esme finish, setting out the rest of the shards in a pattern that would indicate how they would have fit together once assembled.

"Alright, now what is it, really?" She asked, gesturing to the paper as she turned for a drawer behind her. "Can I assume that we know something that's not in the paper?" Elinor pulled out a few thin sheets of what looked like clear tape, as well as some white tiles. She set them aside.

"Except for the fact that your basic freezing spell doesn't steal time... And, yes, it seems to be the case. Everyone who came in contact with it... So... Does that then mean that since this Time Bandit is without this orb and this locket... Can we assume that she is aging again?"

Elinor looked past Esme to the new-comer. She looked her up and down once before pulling out another pair of gloves from the drawer and handing them over. "Certainly. Can you add your name to the log?", she asked, pointing to the side table before turning again to the evidence.

"I think we can agree that searching the orb for fingerprints is pointless. We don't even know how many people handled it. That locket, however..."

She waited for Aron to finish with the camera before starting to examine it.

"I'm certain someone is doing the research now. But, if not, we'll need to find someone to do that straightaway," she answered in response to his question about the date.

She watched and nodded as he talked about the orb. He was asking precisely the right questions... But, of course, Elinor wasn't going to say that. "But, then again, Time Turners don't steal time. They just reverse it's direction for a moment, like rewinding a record. But hold that thought," she nodded. For now, the locket.

She leaned in, turning the metal over carefully with a pair of tweezers. "This rust makes fingerprints impossible to take... but," she said with a sly smile as she popped it open again. "Whomever placed... the picture inside..." she said as she carefully removed it. She held the photograph paper sideways, up to the light.

The woman smiled widely. "Left two wonderful pairs of fingerprints on either side." She lowered the picture onto one of the squares of transparent plastic, placing another one on top of it. Instead of contaminating the evidence with powder, she would have to use her wand. So, drawing it from her pocket, she ran the tip up and down the plastic until a black fingerprint was evident.

Stripping the plastic from the picture, she sealed it to one of the white squares, so it was very easy to see. Then she flipped the picture and did the same thing to the back. Two fingerprints ought to be one more than they needed. "Looks like a thumbprint and an index finger... But it's been a while," she said, sliding the tiles away for her colleagues to examine for themselves.

"If those are Talone's, our luck is excellent. If not... Well, it's something," she said optimistically, turning her attention back to the necklace.

Esme gave a pause as she mulled over Elinor and Aron's words. "Depends. How much 'time' did she steal away and how long before the effects wear off and she begins to age? And how quickly does she begin to age? Is it dependent on how many people she's stolen from? Eventually, her real age will begin to show, but it might be anywhere from hours to days. We'd have to find out the mechanism behind the entire process to understand what she may look like now. Age progression may help...."

She paused again. "Is the locket of any importance as far as stealing time? Or is it just sentimental to De Talone?" She questioned. To her, it seemed more sentimental than anything.

Watching in interest, Esme slipped on her gloves after tying her hair up in a loose bun. "That would fit the method of someone placing a photo in a locket. The thumb and index finger would be the most prevalent." She leaned closer and nodded once. Looked like it to her.

She then turned her gaze to the locket itself and carefully picked it up. There appeared to be a date on the left side when it was open. "1753." She murmured. "Long time ago."

Elinor nodded, her attention still on the evidence. "Perhaps a few employees from the Time Room on level nine would be a good group of experts to consult on such a thing." Anyone taking mental notes? Jot that down.

"Well," she sighed, taking a moment to straighten up. "It wouldn't surprise me if it did, however, you're probably correct... I think a student found this out of her posession, so it's unlikely."

The woman moved over towards the shattered pieces of the orb, indicating that the locket was now up for inspection by anyone else who desired to TOUCH IT, cough-cough...

Elinor stared as Aron brought up a valid point. It seemed unlikely that anyone would carry around a picture of themselves. "Especially when your goal is to look the same forever. Maybe we can hypothesize," she said, making a little face at him, "That the locket wasn't hers. That it belonged to a family member until they passed. And then she simply kept it."

As she carefully picked up a shard of the orb, she focused on the smeared and smudged remnants of oily fingerprints all over it. But here and there WAS a discernable fingerprint. She sighed quietly. One by one, she picked up each shard, searched it for intact fingerprints, then removed them, until she had several white tiles lined up, each with a black fingerprint on it.

"Some of these might be duplicates... You can have a look, but after I show them to Mister Ferguson, they'll go down to records to see if we can find matches for them. Might help us identify more witnesses."

She looked down at the orb, or what was left of it. It seemed to be just an ordinary glass ball. How, then, was it able to steal time?

She lowered her face down to the level of the table. "Mind boggling, isn't it? To consider that perhaps time is not percieved as a single line. She said she took minutes away from people's lives as she used this device. But time, itself, did not stop or shorten. Instead, that would mean that time is nothing but smaller lines all strung together... And all she did was take snippets away from each line..." Was she making any sense? It made sense to her.

As her face was level with the shards, she noticed how the miniscule specs of dust on the table had been pushed away from them my millimeters. "It's been charmed," she said, straightening. Elinor picked up her wand again and held it close to one of the pieces, murmuring an incantation. The tip of her wand glowed faintly. "It's been charmed," she said again.

"What charm on earth could--could allow the caster to steal time from anyone who has touched it?"

Melissa quickly took the pair of gloves that the Lab Tech had handed over to her. She was glad that she allowed to assist them. Quickly fitting her fingers into the gloves, she pushed her hands in to the gloves and once they were on, she walked over to the log and wrote her name down in it before the others who were examining the evidence. It was really stunning that someone had actually stolen time for the students in school. Thank goodness it hadn't been permanent.

Melissa listened intently allowing the others to discuss their findings. Things were getting really bizarre. But then the Lab Tech, Elinor, yes that was her name, said something that really surprized Melissa. The locket had been charmed to steal time. She couldn't help but frown. Something that could steal time was dangerous. Something that could steal time. Why did it seem familiar to her?

Well, there was an idea. She assumed that, despite the case surrounding Level 2, that surely help from another department wouldn't hurt. The Time Room....she had been there once, not the most pleasant place in the world. Then again, it wasn't the most pleasant situation either. "Good point. We can arrange a meeting with a resident expert or two."

Esme cocked her head to one side as she studied the locket, musing over the idea of it being of sentimental value. It was found out of her possession...."Any idea how long it had been out of her possession? Long enough that she realized that it was gone? If so, any strong attempts to get it back?"

Yes...yes, it was mind boggling. "That....would make sense, but if the 'lines' were long enough that the stealing of minutes did nothing to impact time itself. Kinda like a thread in a sweater. Take away a few threads, yet it doesn't make an impact in the appearance of the clothing. I guess the same applies to time, but just in a....more complicated way."

"Maybe a form of Accio?" She ventured a guess.

She nodded towards Aaron. "Perhaps she was waiting for someone, but the question would be who? And why so long? Was it someone who was young and she was waiting for them to grow up? If so, who could be that important to her?"

While she was speaking, Elinor was working at placing the pieces of orb back together. It took a while, but finally she held the finished product in the palm of her hand. She studied it briefly, wondering why an orb to hold such magic? "Any significance to the orb itself, I wonder....like....why charm an orb?" And then she thought of something else. "Silly question here, but....wasn't that orb destroyed for a reason? Like...so as not to be placed back in its original form? How do we know that the charm won't still be active?"

hehe because technically Elinor can't yell at her superior. ;)
 

Like any other woman on a mission, Emily strode into the forensics lab, eyes adjusting to the strange light inside, and the odd looking instruments...

It did look rather cool. Perhaps one day... she'd ask to play with them a bit, or just observe. Either way, COOL.

"Erm... hello?" she called out, eyes distracted by the shiny's. "Any results yet for the de Talone case?" ... Cause she needed them. Asap.

And now back to work. Her brief break and talk with Jax had certainly been nice, and refreshing to boot. Now she felt geared up to begin working again. First off...to check the lab to see if anyone had made headway with the results from the zombie infestation.

She strode down the hall and rounded the corner just as she noticed the door to the lab swing shut. Oh good, perhaps one of the techs were in there and could help her.

"Excuse me..." Esme began, and then stopped, recognizing the person immediately. "Emily! It's been a while! What brings you here?"