"I will" Stephan responded to Apha. He walked over to the stone-still shoes and picked them up, giving them a look of interest and humor.
"Muggle Artifacts eh?" He said as he headed for the door. As he walked, he though of Nicoli's question.
Stephan wanted to be here because he wanted action, excitement.
He wanted to be on the good side of battle, and upholding order in the Wizarding world. This IS where he wanted to be.

A Stephan walked out of the office holding the shoes, Lily cried out, "I'll come with you, Stephan! That is, if you don't mind..." She wanted to explore the Ministry and seek out others who had a passion for the law like her. She ran out after him.

And their Dept. Head just pops out, with an interesting news. He made a face. A werewolf attack? Well, its not that peculiar. It happens often though.

Then Nicoli was asking Chris if he should go with him. That would be awesome, something exciting but there's nothing to do being adventurous like a child. They need to be serious and all, not to be negligent or careless. "Sure.. sure.." He answered enthusiastically rather being pleased with himself. Then he followed Syd and Nicoli.

Walking back in from the Muggle Artifacts catastrophe, Lily looked around for Apha. Finally spotting her, she said, "Hey Apha. We have a problem. I managed to immobolize the objects in the Muggle Artifacts room, and I locked them up in a cabinet, but they're going to find some way to get out again, so what should we do?" Feeling kind of stupid that she couldn't think for herself, she looked hopefully at Apha. "Hasn't Stephan come back yet?" She asked. "I wonder where he got to..."

Stephan opened the door to the MLES office and walked in. He overheard Lily talking to Apha, trying to find a solution to the muggle objects that were seemingly possessed. Stephan walked over and shrugged.
"Shouldnt we leave that to the witches and wizards of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office? We should find out if we have any assignments." With that, he walked, again, to the door.
"I'm going to check out the assignment board."

"Yeh, I guess that makes sense, but I'm just worried that the objects will find a way to escape again...I didn't see anyone from Muggle Artifacts walking around.." Lily replied to Stephan. "I guess we should check to see if we have any assignments. I'll come with you to the assignment board!" And with that, she followed Stephan out the door once again.

Apha - who, by now, had moved to sit at her desk and was quietly perusing a personal letter - looked up at the sound of somebody entering the office. Smiling when she realised it was Lily coming back (before Stephan - which was rather curious in itself), she carefully folded the parchment and slid it back into her pocket.

'That's a good question,' she admitted, suddenly at a loss as to what to do with the items. Her experience had never been with Muggle items; she stood up, frowning in thought. 'The logical solution would be for a member of Artifacts to deal with it, I assume.' The MLES weren't exactly the ones dealing with them very often. 'As for Stephan-'

Speak of the devil. She grinned at him as he walked in just as she was addressing Lily's question as to his whereabouts. 'You said you'd immobilised them, didn't you?' she asked, turning back to Lily. 'If you have, then yes, unless they wander into this office again, I assume we leave them for the Artifacts staff.' She frowned again, lowering herself back into her seat. 'If Nicoli were here, he'd know better because he's been here longer, but as he's detained ...' Yes; excellent idea leaving Apha in charge.

Why hadn't she been given Muggle Artifacts training? Ugh; that was annoying. But they couldn't do anything unless something wandered in once more.

'Anyway.' She watched as Stephan left the room to check for assignments from the corner of her eye, before turning to Lily - who she noticed quickly followed. Left on her own once more, Apha's grin returned again.

The shoes ran back into the room and hopped up onto a table. They started to walk along the tabletop, stepping on papers and folders without looking where they were going. If these people wanted to be rude then they'd be rude back!

Without Stephan and Lily in the office, it was quiet, so the sudden sound of running feet made Apha look up, hand around her wand just in case. Unable to spot any person, she frowned - but then she noticed the shoes on the desk. Again. Lord, they were persistent! She sighed, rubbing her temple slightly. 'I don't need to deal with shoes today,' she muttered, immobilising them once more. Pushing her chair back, she made her way over to them and picked them up.

'I bet your friends have escaped as well, haven't they?' she asked, remembering what Lily had said - before realising she was talking to a pair of shoes. Granted, they didn't exactly count for an inanimate set of objects, but still. Shoes. 'I'm not going to deal with you even after you've shaken off the immobilising,' she promised, holding them so the soles were against each other. Tapping her wand just underneath her hand, she watched with a sort of satisfaction at the ropes that spread tightly across the shoes, binding them together in a way that meant they'd find it very difficult to move.

Deciding to return them later - perhaps after Stephan or Lily got back - she returned the papers to their original places and sat back at her desk, the now-bound shoes beside her.

Lily walked into the MLES office after a walk around the MoM. Unfortunately, the assignment board had not been updated, so she had no idea what to do. She saw Apha sitting on her desk working quietly, but she also noticed a very familiar pair of sneakers.
"Those darn shoes, when will they learn?" she exclaimed.
"So what so you want me to do with them?" she asked Apha.

Stephan doddled back inside the office. No assignments...this place is dead. He headed over to where Apha and Lily were speaking, and he noticed the dreadful sneakers, bound together as they struggled for freedom. "Merlin's Beard! Incarcerous spell, why didn't i think of that?" he said as he slapped his forhead. "So is it our job to fix these things?I can find someone to help." He grabbed the shoes as he spoke. "Ruddy Muggle division doesn't seem to be keeping at it." As he spoke, he walked for the door, jailed sneakers under his arm. "Have a lovely time, ladies." He said as he walked out the door, waving.

Another set of footsteps - Please not another pair of enchanted shoes, Apha thought to herself as she looked up, only to sigh in relief at the sight of Lily, leaning back in her chair with a slightly pleased look on her face. 'Probably when they can't think, which I'm looking forward to,' she commented. 'What I would like to do is throw them in the deepest river in the world with a heavy weight attached to them and make sure they can never surface. Then I can stop talking to them.' She scowled at herself. 'The reality -'

'- is that's not likely to happen,' she finished, watching Stephan as he entered and then left in a few seconds, shoes in tow. 'Will he ever stay for more than a minute, d'you reckon?' she asked, slightly amused, but grateful - he'd taken the objects that were the starting point of her going insane.

She grinned. 'Anyway ... I suggest we just make sure no other objects manage to get in here, and if they do we bind them somehow and take them back.' Her hand itched towards her wand automatically. 'And, you can't work well with someone you don't know well,' she smiled at Lily. 'Tell me a bit about you and I may reciprocate in kind.' She winked.

To Apha's question about Stephan, Lily replied, "Probably not. I get the feeling that he doesn't really like working in this department." She sighed.

When Apha asked Lily to tell her about herself, Lily wa a little surprised, but happy all the same. When Lily first met Apha, she got the impression that Apha was the kind of person that liked to do things alone. So she was very surprised indeed to see this side of Apha.
"I would LOVE to tell you all about me!" she grinned. "Well, let's see, I was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and lived there for about 3 years, so I don't remember much. My dad got got bored of Scotland and decided to move to London (he worked as a school teacher in Scotland) and started teaching at Hogwarts. However, before I started school, my dad caught a bad case of dragon pox, and could no longer teach. So, my mother opened a robe shop in Diagon Alley, and that was our only source of income. My dad died when I was only 14 years old, and... and..." At this point, Lily could feel the tears in her eyes, but she fought to keep them at bay. She sniffed and then continued the story. "And I lived with my mother until I was done with school. I was in Gryffindor, and graduated at the top of my class. From then on, I traveled the world, visiting foreign wizards, and learning their craft. I went back to Scotland for a while because I wanted to remember my childhood, and I stayed there quite a while because I really liked it there. But now I'm here and as happy as can be!" Finally done with her long life story, Lily looked up at Apha, surprised to see her awake. She grinned and said, "So, tell me about yourself now!"

That was a very curious feeling to get. Apha didn't know whether Lily had gotten the right feeling yet (after all, Stephan hadn't exactly been in the room when the focus was not on the shoes), but it was a feeling Apha was well attuned to.

She grinned when Lily declared she would love to tell Apha about herself. She was a very interested woman when it came to other people's backgrounds - but she wouldn't call herself nosey. Not one bit.

But then, while telling her story, Lily began to act as if she were fighting back tears; unable to cope with them in anyone older than eight years old, she withdraw the pack of tissues from her back pocket and offered them out. 'What did your dad teach, anyway?' she asked, curious, before realising she'd butted in and biting her lip to resist the urge to ask more questions ... at least until the other woman had finished.

'Me?' she asked, tapping her chin in thought. 'Well, Papa died before I was born, so I lived with Mama in Paris until I was old enough to attend Beauxbatons. My best friend from home also attended until her family left three years into school. I stayed on until I finished my last year, and then moved to Germany.' She frowned slightly at an unpleasant memory. 'There, I had a job in the Ministry - for a couple of years I worked in the equivalent of International Cooperation, and then for my last year or so I moved to the equivalent of this department. Problem was, I was twenty one and everyone else was twenty six or older. I decided to leave and moved to England with the aforementioned best friend. Now, I live with her husband - long story - their twins and many other relatives of either of the couple - all underage witches.'

She adjusted herself so one leg was crossed under her. 'You said you travelled - where did you go?' she asked, curious ... and also reaching down into her bag to withdraw her ever-present coffee cup, kept safe and warm by a few spells. 'Want one?'

"My dad taught Potions in both Scotland and at Hogwarts. It was his favorite subject at school..."Lily replied to Apha's question.

Lily promptly accepted the cup of coffee, and said thanks to Apha. She was very impressed to hear that Apha had lived in Paris. She also found the fact that they both lost their fathers at an early age comforting. As different as they were, they still had some things in common. The part about her living with her best friend's husband and relatives was very strange, though; it was almost creepy. But she pushed it out of her mind and anwered Apha's question about her travels.

"Well, I went to Scotland, like I told you before. I also visited France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Romainia, Greece, and Australia,"Lily said as she ticked the countries off with her fingers. "I stayed in each country for about 2 months, give or take a few weeks. But I spent more time in Scotland and Greece. You already know why I spent more time in Scotland, but I stayed in Greece because I met someone really special there...a guy...but it didn't last long, so I moved on..." Lily trailed off.

The shoes sat, tied up, angrily. They wiggled and wobbled in a futile attempt to break free. These women were just... just chatting away! Nothing wrong with that really, but... there was no excitement. Where were the explosions.

They were then compelled to turn in place and point outside the door. The tips of the shoes were pointing into the hall and toward the heavy door marked Evidence.

Stephan walked into the office, just finishing his Lemondrop Ice Cream. He noticed Apha and Lily, and smiled. "Hey, you two! I think I finally got rid of-"
He stopped and suddenly noticed the dreaded shoes. "Merlin's Beard!" He shouted amusingly. He let out a large grin and walked over to the shoes. He examined them and noticed that they were struggling and almost pointing in a direction. Stephan aligned his nose with the toes of the shoes and looked straight out the hall at the evidence room. "Blimey! The Evidence room!" He immediately snatched for the shoes and ran for the evidence room. "See you guys! I want these shoes dealt with!" He said to Apha and Lily as he darted passed them.