Kirk smiled at Alexandra and said "you too"

He waited till she left the office before he turned his attention to Elijah.

"What can i say? Its not like i planned it? And im still to investigate WHY it happened. Maybe with the ministers wedding approaching, the love in the ministry was overwhelming and it just reacted strangely. Its difficult to say where i was. It was like a dream some of the time. The other time i could see the happenings of the whole ministry. By the way Syd from the Department of Magical Transportation..stealing office supplies."

What plan did you and the minister make up for my absence? Did the incident of my disappearance reach the magical community or any of the other departments?

Elijah, who'd been shuffling his papers as the woman left, looked up at this latest bit of news. Seeing what was going on within the Ministry? How odd. Was it, almost, a path between the departments only accessible through the Locked Room?

He laughed a little, as Kirk mentioned Syd. He shouldn't be surprised. "Ahh, well, the Minister thought it best to ... hide ... any trace of your disappearance. I do believe your family thinks you've been away to another country for work though, you'll do you best to inform them you've returned, letting them know your trip went well?"

Any chance of keeping this covered up - especially until they knew what was actually happening - was vital. If the wizarding community knew ...

Isaac knocked on Elijah Wright's office door a couple of times before poking his head through. "Er Sir... I hope I'm not disturbing anyone, but I have an important memo for you." At that, Isaac waved one of the many Ministry-stamped identical sheets he held in his hands. "From Miss Taylor." he explained, refering of course, to the Senior Undersecretary for the Minister.

"Ahhh," Elijah said, nodding. An International Wizarding Conference? They hadn't hosted one in years - only attended the others. "Thank you, Isaac...this is sure to be interesting. I wonder... er ...how the Department of Mysteries is set to be ... seen by others?"

He tried to word it carefully, winking at Kirk.

"I know little more than you do about this conference, Sir, but I intend to be back as soon as I do." Isaac explained, shrugging. Not knowing what else to add, he turned to the other person in the room. "Would you like one," he asked, "I'm supposed to hand them to anyone who'll take it".

He was skeptical, but decided not to say anything at the moment. Waiting patiently for Kirk to take - or not take - one, Elijah leaned back in his chair and began flipping through his book. This had been the longest week of his life.

Hannah knocked on the door to the office, hoping he was in. She needed to speak to Mr. Wright right away.

Realizing the man in Wright's office wasn't about to take one of the memos, Isaac lined all of his papers into a perfect pile with the help of the desk and turned back to Elijah. "Thank you for your time, Sir." he said with a polite smile, and the turned around as someone, presumably an employee, knocked on the door. Perfect timing, he thought to himself, and left the room through the door.

zoey joined hannah at mr wright's door.

Elijah sighed and welcomed the two employees into the room, just as the other woman left. He was, most likely, never going to get a chance to finish his conversation with Kirk. He should have known his office wasn't the best place for a private meeting.

"Yes?" he asked the two standing in the door frame, beckoning them inside.

Danielle accidently tripped on her feet and stumbled into an office. Luckily eneough from playinng Quidditch with Blugaria, she kept her balance. But just her luck, it was the department head's office. Since she was already in here, she might as well introduce herself.

Alice noticed two people entering the office, and followed them. "Maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing..." she thought to herself.

She stood in the doorway, not wanting to be rude, she gently knocked on the doorframe. The man at the desk looked busy enough already, without her barging in, demanding that he anwser every single one of her questions.

Hannah walked into the room and sat down. "Hello. My name is Hannah and I work at the Magical Law Enforcement department. Me and my colleague did some idenifying spells on laptops that were sucking out muggles' souls, but the colour that emitted from the spell was one that we had never seen before. We were told to come here to sort out the mess," she said confidently. "I really hope you can help us."

"It was found in this mouse pad." Zoey said pointing to the mouse pad.

"Wait, wait, what?" he asked, confused. "What do you mean, it was found in the mousepad?"

He turned to the other woman, nodding kindly. "What can I help you with?"

"We mean the curse, Mr. Wright. Obviously, this isn't just a simple case of a dark spell, it's more serious than that. I believe that the laptops have been cursed. But for this specific curse to work, you need physical contact with the object. Hence the mousepad, the place where any Muggle would have to touch in order to work the laptop," Hannah said confidently. In reality though, she had only come up with this theory now, and was quite proud of it. She only hoped the others agreed. "The only problem is that we're unable to identify the curse. I have never even read about a curse like this, let alone seen one," she said thoughtfully.
"So, what do you think?"

Alice smiled, this boss seemed nicer than her last one. "I'm Alice Proctor," she said, "The lady at the employment office said to talk to you about my placement in this department? Where to go, what do do.. That sort of thing. If you're too busy, I can come back another time though." She didn't want to intrude, obviously something wa going on.

"Hmm," he pondered once more. This was, most certainly, infected by a curse - almost severe enough to make it a Dark Object. "I can only theorize without studying it, possibly testing it. Have you tried the Ministry of Magic Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office?"

He secretly hoped they hadn't. Something this intense, so severe to need to be brought to his attention - he was intrigued, and wanted to find out what was causing it.

"Ah, hello Alice. Let me see here," he pulled open a drawer on the right side of his desk and scanned it for her name. "It says here you've just been employed in the Planet Room. Go down the corridor, through the spinning hallway...you'll know it when you see it. Your Division Head should be able to instruct you from there."

Hannah smiled, "We are from that department, Mr. Wright. Our head suggested coming here, so we did. Can you help us?" Hannah asked with a small smile and a tilt of her head.

Zoey looked at the man standing behind the desk. "He thought you might be able to tell us what spell it was. Would you like to look at it more?"

Kirk leaned forward, intrigued at the situation with the cursed mousepad. He stood up from his chair, flipped on his glasses and peered at the laptop.
"ive studied these types of muggle hardware before. there actually called 'touchpads'. But ive never seen any curses like this before."

he looked over at Elijah, raised his eyebrows in a confused looked. Then said "Do you mind if we finish our conversation another time? im eager to get back into my department. And now gotta spruce the place up a bit with the conference coming up"

"Well, that makes much more sense then, does it not?" At the mention of being able to look at it more, he bit his lips slowly, thinking. "Definitely. I know the perfect place to test it out... it might take a little while though, just give me the chance to run a few tests and ... er ... dip into my resources. Would you mind if I keep it here and owl your Department Head the results?"

"Yes, yes, Kirk, I'm sorry for keeping you for so long. I'm sure your Division is missing you by now. We'll finish this soon." He nodded, still half-distracted by the wonders of this so-called touchpad.

"Thank you sir" replied kirk as he quietly slipped out of the office, back towards the spinning room.

Crystal was on a mission, a mission of zero tolerance and she most certainly needed to get this matter cleared up. She walked up to her department head's office, chapped twice and allowed herself entrance without even waiting for a response... this was much too important to be waiting about for.

"Elijah sweetie," she greeted, completely ignoring the other people in the room. "I have a formal complaint. Do you know what I have been up to since I started, hm? Let me enlighten you. I have been filing papers! That's right, filing papers without magic," she sounded disgusted by the very thought of doing such a chore.

"I believe the organisation of our divisions papers should have been kept up to date far earlier than this present moment in time and is due to the laziness of our division head! She isn't even helping out! Disgraceful I say! Off with her head," she reached into her handbag and pulled out her familiar lavender perfume and sprayed it a couple of times, "The BO in here is overwhelming!"

"So, yes. What are you going to do about it! Do I look like a woman who wants to suffer from paper cuts!? I assure you that I most certainly do not."

Elijah scoffed - not only was this woman high maintenance, she thought he didn't know what happened within his Department everyday. Of course, the lack of work within some of the Divisions was growing to be a problem, but what was he to do? All he has are new employees; hardly trained enough to lead (or handle the secrets of) one of the Divisions. He shook his head, torn between the current and the possible future of Level Nine.

Biting his tongue, he glared at her. "Fine, think you can handle it? Welcome to a promotion - you're the new Death Chamber Division Head. On one condition, though. You lose the attitude and keep the work effort going. This conference coming up is going to kill us and I need every Division Head working top notch."

Before waiting for her acceptance (though he didn't care if she gave one or not - if Elijah said she was the Division Head, she was going to be the Division Head), he owled Aidon Elric, asking him to come to his office immediately. There were going to be some changes.