Wow. Interesting. Mhmm. Green... dark grey... Rusty looked between the two who had answered so far. Interesting discrepancy there, no?

"Anyone else?"

It was all dull work in waiting, but she wouldn't complain about it. Even as Rusty started, she quickly scrawled a couple of notes at the end of the document, only looking up in time to see him place his wand on the desk, and that look on his face. Feet were off the table, and she understood. Well done, Rustin Killick. Well done.

Emily moved a couple of pages of her notes to the back and left a fresh document open for her perusal.

Did Stonewall just say green? ...

And Bennett said grey.

Fascinating stuff this was, it was getting interesting already.

"Black," she interjected with her own account of those laces tying his boots. She was incredibly fond of the colour black. Was anyone else going to speak up? Participation was appreciated, especially when she too could play along.

Grey, green, blue yellow, orange, burgundy, black.

It was like people were pulling colours from their butts. Legend frowned and leaned forward in the chair.

He was sure he had seen ones that were pink.

Maybe its would be weird to have a small disagreement with the colours but not one where everyone had a different memory of something that was suppose to be so obvious. After a few seconds he relaxed just a bit. "I don't think it matters, since I don't believe that's the real question." Uhuh. "Then again, me thinking never did anyone any good, so i'm going to say pink."

Different colored laces depending on the person, apparently? Interesting.

Penelope listened to each of the others as they answered and thought Legend probably had a point about it not being the 'real' question. Surely had much more to it than just the laces and something with memory, though shoelaces couldn't alter people's memory by instantly looking at it, right? Was there a spell for that? Or...

Eh, whatever, she wasn't gonna overthink this right now. Probably would be explained in a bit anyway. "They looked navy blue to me."

"You're right, it isn't, and I hope you're all wondering how its possible that you all saw something different. Here's the thing, you didn't. You lot only think you did. Which is basically what my job is, except on a larger scale, with Muggles. But criminals have been known to use memory alteration spells to blur their crimes too, and knowing how to pick up on that when you're talking to witnesses or to the suspects themselves, is an important skill and not necessarily as in-your-face as a whole bunch of you seeing blatantly different colours. The first thing you have to work out is if its the memory of the event that is different, or if the individual legitimately saw something different to what was actually there. We call that recall or regard. If its the latter, then you're dealing with what are likely concealment or obscurification charms, if its the former, then its memory charms. And from experience I can tell you, that once you get into someone's head once, even for something so simple as changing the short term memory of... say the colour of someone's shoelaces, its much easier to get back in there again later." Rusty stood up and went over to the board... his plain black shoelaces were now completely obvious.

"It isn't just witnesses and suspects who might have their memories tampered with, its important to be able to figure out if you or your partner have had tampering too. So, how to tell if someone has had their memory altered: first thing is to be aware of discrepancies, and sometimes these things can be really small and incidental. One thing might be curious, but if it starts adding up to a lot of things, don't shrug it off. Aside from discrepancies, anyone have any bright ideas about what signs might be a tip off that someone has had their memory tampered with?" Surely some of them had a few thoughts.

What a variety of colours some very, very far apart from each other on the colour wheel. Jory ad been positive the laces had been green but that turned out to be false. He now focused his attention on what Rustin launched into an explanation about Memory charms and his job which all sounded fascinating to the young man.

As Rustin stood up to make his way to the board, the YATI member's eyes fell on the laces once more. Look at that. The boss lady had been on the nose with her response to the colour.

"What about brain damage caused from repeated use on a person or if an extremely strong memory charm was put on them?" He had heard and read about that happening.

Well yeah but hey, there was more to it than that. The specifics was what he was trying to get them to think about. "Sure, but what about it? What are you looking for? What do you think you'll be seeing or noticing if someone has had their memory tampered with... if you yourself have had your memory tampered with? And for the record a 'strong' memory charm can be a misleading way to look at it, if its a good charm then it might be strong and yet subtle, virtually undetectable to the untrained, if its not so good then it could be strong but applied with too much oomph and completely damage the brain and wipe big patches of memory, sometimes permanently. When that happens, its pretty obvious."

Discuss. Brainstorm. Think about it. "It'd be useful probably if you lot discuss this together. See what you can come up with as a team." Rustin observed.

.... quiet lot they were.

Emily glanced around the room, staring from one individual to the next.

....

Merlin help them all. She wasn't going to fully participate in this workshop of sorts, she was facilitating it, there was a difference. Giving Rustin a gesture with her eyebrows to suggest she sympathised with him and the... well... rough crowd, and since she was here, she could throw a few things out there for them to consider.

"Fixations on particular details... others being vague... inability to comprehend passing of time - some parts of days passed feel as if they were longer than others, or shorter."

...

Jump in people.

Any time now.

Simon wouldn't deny all that was being said made valid points. That would of course be why Emily believed it to be a useful subject to learn about. And part of why the auror himself had opted to make his appearance at the training. He listened intently while he continued to keep his gaze focused. Black laces? Well he supposed the two colors, the truth and what he had believed, had the chance to be mistaken for one another. But was the level 3 worker saying he had manipulated them?

Memory modification reminded him too much of the loss of times he had experienced while possessed. A black mark on his past and memory, especially when filled in on the details of all that had really happened. If only he or others had caught onto things sooner. He quietly sighed and tried to shake it off. Now was not the time to dwell on past mistakes. Especially when Emily was looking pointedly at them all to participate.

"Blank spots in recall and memory is likely possible when not everything is recreated in the modification." Or when possessed by a bunch of pirate ghosts. "And in reference to Mr. Stonewall's question, maybe not so much brain damage but migraine headaches and other physical symptoms might develop I suppose, especially when mistakes are made in casting." Not everyone casting a memory charm will do it right all the time.

Returning to the office after all his time away was intimidating enough. Add on top of that returning to the office to attend a training session, and running late for said training session, and Sabel was downright ready to call in sick for the day. Or just hide at his desk. That had been an option too.

Except that he had said he would attend, and late or not, he always did his best to keep his word. So, he had stood outside the conference room door, listening and waiting for a good break in the conversation to slip in while causing the least amount of disturbance.

His opportunity came when it sounded like their guest was encouraging a group discussion. Carefully turning the handle on the door, Sabel opened it enough to slip through, quickly closing it behind him as quietly as possible. He caught Emily's eye and gave her a quick nod before looking for an available seat.

Spotting an empty chair not too far away, Sabel made a discrete-as-possible b-line around the edge of the room for it, minding the input to the conversation that Emily and Simon offered. Memory tampering. Hardly a cheery topic by any means. Important, but rather unpleasant.

Easing himself down into his chosen chair, Sabel debated the wisety of adding any input at this point in time. If he wanted to blend into the wall, staying silent would be his best option, but at the same time the room was full of Auror's, YATIs and an expert on memory tampering. There was no way he could have avoided attention completely. And as such, he may as well try to be useful and contribute something.

"Vivid dreams, or nightmares." He offered quietly. "The repressed memories might develop into such symptoms in the subject, while they are under the influence of the alteration or even after in recovery, and the subject may have difficulty differentiating them from reality."

Of course such a thing could happen under severe cases of trauma where no memory tampering had taken place, so it was hardly a definitive symptom.

He thought briefly about making a joke about tardiness being a prime example of memory tampering, but quickly discarded the impulse and settled for a simple "Sorry I'm late."

It.

Was.

Too.

EARLY.

Forget the excitement of the job, forget the training, forget all that because none of those were happening now. Just a meeting. Lottie talked about having to go to those sometimes and it was all fine and dandy for the people that had to go...until she turned into the people that had to go. What did this have to do with being a YATI? The acceptance said she was part-time. Shouldn't that like...automatically excuse her from this type of thing???

The young woman's eyes were burning and rimmed with dark circles as she entered the meeting room. Make no mistake, she was a good bit earlier than 9 am but at what cost? Note to self, going to bed at 4 am is a BAD idea, one that would take a while for her to forsake so for now she was probably going to have to die through the meeting.

Plus side, she didn't have to wear heels and a dress anymore. Comfortable clothes and hair hardly fussed with made everything better. Nothing hard about that.

Lex took a seat and waited for everyone else, eyeing the coffee to the side. Would she really risk it?

New dawn, new day, how did the rest of the song go? Anyway, she wouldn't think it was so much of a new day, if not for the fact that they had a new boss in the MLE. From what she knew of Mr. Lainey, he was very different from Browne. And that was the only reason that she'd decided to come back to the British Ministry instead of transferring to France or the US. Though, she still wasn't happy that the general public had decided that the old man would be better than any of the women running. He hadn't even seemed that interested! Which only fueled her suspicion that he was someone's puppet.

Anyway, it seemed like she was the first one here. Or not, as she spotted Alexa. Still, there was no sign of the annoying Head Auror. Which meant she could do this, PLOP! "Ahhhhh." Much better. And not a drop spilled of her cup of coffee from the outside. Even better.

Jory was pleased to be back. That was no surprise to no one who knew him since he loved his job so much. Or he had loved training so much, rather. Training was done and he was now an Auror. All that hard work paid off and he had made it.

He strolled into the conference room, his first day at work officially as an Auror. "Hi, Lex. Hello, Sky.'' Jory took a seat next to Lex. "Welcome to MLE. Looking forward to all that training?" Trust him, all that hard work at the endless training, especially with someone like Simon, paid off.

Coffee was definitely her friend when the Ministry started up again after a few weeks of getting used to sleeping in. Or at least, sleeping in longer than she could on work days, because Penelope wasn't generally the sort to sleep in until after noon or something.

And while meetings weren't really her favorite part of the job, this one seemed sorta interesting. New Department Head and what not. Interesting that they suddenly got a new one at the same time as a new Minister. Wasn't anything necessarily suspicious or wrong about that, but y'know. Constant vigilance.

"Morning," she greeted Lex, Sky, and Jory with a nod before taking an empty seat of her own.

So...it was the first meeting at the DMLE...

And it was at 9 in the morning...

Two words: this sucks!

The average nightingale, Annabelle, walked elegantly into the Conference Room. Coffee in her hand of course. Charmed notebook and quill levitating in from behind her. Thankfully, the Personal Assistant get lost trying to find this place. It was actually surprisingly simple to get here. Looking around at her fellow co-workers "Bonjour. I am Annabelle, the new Personal Assistant and Department Liaison." her accent making the words flow together nicely and serenely. Almost harmonic in a way. Very soothing, especially at 9 in the morning.

Taking a seat, Annabelle took a sip of her mocha. Mmmmm. So good. She thought. The only thing that would make this better was a nice eclair. Chocolate. Back in Paris, there was this lovely bakery right by her house, owned by a family who moved apparently. The family was the Bastions. Pleasant bunch. She knew them very well. When she moved back to Paris for that short time to go to university, the father had told her they were moving. Coincidentally, they were moving here, to England. The youngest was probably in Hogwarts right now. Gregoire Bastion. He was a pleasant boy. The two got along quite well even though they had a bit of an age gap between them.

Snapping out of her short train of thought, her stare went to the scar on her left hand. Setting the latte down on the table she quickly hid that hideous reminder.

Stupid imps.

As much as he had been lingering in the office with Sabel, there was no avoiding the conference room. It would do no good to ignore the notice, especially with the new department head on the loose. Groan. Another reason not to be in the best mood this morning. Granted the fresh memo had announced his commendation score on the last training they had had and the new members of the department that were positive notes but the surprise of Emily's departure had caught him off guard.

Something that didn't often happen.

For now he supposed he should try and go with the flow. So SImon was acting normal when he entered the conference room before the scheduled 9am meeting. Seeing those who gathered already inside, the YATI were getting a start off on the right foot. Alexa...Sky... Penelope...and of course Jory, his self-proclaimed favorite among the trainees. As well a s a new woman from one of the other divisions. They were all there with only the other male trainee missing from the group.

Tyler hadn't run away....right?

"Good Morning..." he said simply as he moved further inside, especting Sabel to be somewhere behind him. The security man headed towards an empty chair around the table before casually taking a seat.

Sabel was indeed behind Simon, almost right behind him. He was still eyeing the back of his friend's head and the funny mood he was in. Sure, Simon was often solemn, but this...this was a strange tune to see.

Carrying the two trays of coffee, Sabel paused in the entryway when he saw that beverages were already provided. Well then, more for everyone and by the looks of a few of them, they could all use it.

"Mornin'." To you and you and you and Alexa. There was one person he knew. The others were familiar faces from the Orientation, or complete strangers to him. He held up the drink trays before putting them down one at time on the desk. "Regular coffee with cream and sugar here. Fancy coffee here. Help yourselves."

That done, he moved around the table and took up residence in an unoccupied chair beside Simon and across from Alexa. He gave the young girl a look of 'see, not a complete fake', before his gaze drifted back to his friend. Still no smiles Bennett? That simply wouldn't do.

Shifting about, Sabel retrieved the pay slip from his pocket and set to folding it this way and that. The end product was a paper plane, no bigger than his index finger. While it was tempting to simply let loose and be free of the responsibility as acting as the mature, older, role-models for the new recruits, Sabel forced himself into restraint. Instead of starting the plane's flight, he simply placed the tiny paper structure on the desk in front of them as if it was the most casual and natural thing to do in the world. There was a look that went to Simon though, a look that said 'this is happening. Here. Somewhere else. Soon. But this is happening.

Merlin. First day, already in danger of getting lost in this maze of a level. Well... okay, maybe it wasn't a maze, but Dale had never set foot in this place before and now he was meant to find this conference room? Thank Merlin for layout maps and coworkers, that's all he was going to say.

Dale was thankful that the meeting was for all staff; that meant he just had to follow someone else and hope that they were destined for the meeting. This cut unintentional exploring down to a minimum, and soon Dale was stepping into the conference room shortly behind a wizard who looked to be about his brother's age. He looked around at everyone as he went to claim a seat.

"Morning..." Dale said softly to the room at large. He tried to take in a bunch of faces and there were a couple he thought he recognised from Hogwarts, though only by sight. Although... was that...?

The newly appointed stenographer managed to refrain from staring too long at anyone, instead sitting down and just taking a second glance at each person before checking his watch. Still early, okay.

Meetings, were not going to happen often, and he was only bothering with one now because it was urgent that he set his team on the right track. No more funny business. And as for business, before leaving his office he swept up his leather binder planner and some other notes he had laying around. Nothing of any importance whatsoever, unless you found the local sushi bar's price list to be of some significance. Lunch. He would be needing lunch. Early.

Making his way through to the conference room he was both delighted and annoyed to see so many seated already. Lackeys, they were his lackeys. Timely as they were, he only hoped hey were yes men when it came to real action too.

"Morning all," the Irishman announced his presence, moving to the head of the table where he belonged. His seat, at last. "We'll wait another minute for people to settle," and show up. Showing up was half the job, if people couldn't get that bit right they'd find themselves out on their backsides faster than they could say Protego. But aha! His PA was present! Excellent! "Ms. Blanc," he started, smiling warmly, "after this meeting is over, fetch me some lunch would you? Anything but tuna, I hate tuna," he added, sliding the sushi-bar menu in her direction.

In this time he started shuffling through his 'notes' as if he were doing real busy work. Being a Department Head was hard work, it was a tough life, and if only he had time to spend all his galleons worth. Woe is him. On the topic of woes, he paused as he inspected a familiar folded parchment from his stack. Useless. Waste of time. The brief statement Browne wanted him to read his employees, was a waste of time. As such, he balled it up and threw it over his shoulder. Moving on!

Given she was the only one currently in the room, there was nothing wrong with resting her head on the table. It wouldn't be much a good sleep but a little more shut eye couldn't hurt. Only problem with the plan was the sudden 'ahhhh' that immediately had her sitting straight again.

What? Huh? Did she miss something?

Oh, it was just another YATI, Sky right? Lex rubbed at her face in an attempt to wake herself up a bit more before grinning at her temporary partner (all Trainees were kinda partners, right?) "G'morning!" Awake, yes she was awake and ready for the meeting...for the most part. Good thing she'd shot up when she did because then others started pouring in and it would hardly be a good sign to see her sleeping on the job. Her grin got a little wider at Jory's question. "Sure am! Been looking forward to it since my Fifth Year maybe." Lex had heard things about the training; how hard it was, what it could do to you, how many people dropped out and it just made her all the more eager to have a go at it.

Penelope's morning was returned with a smile, a wave and a "D'you know how soon Training begins?" If they had to go to meetings, training right after was the least Rainey could do. Just saying. Lex looked from her YATI Training buddy when someone else walked in. Annabelle, Personal Assistant. She would see no action. Shame that but the woman got a 'G'morning' anyway.

Oh and look Simon and Sabel. Funny that they'd walk in together and one with the offer of sugar...and coffee and cream and stuff sure, but sugar! "I'll have one. Extra extra sugar and cream--that's sweet right?" Might as well, he was offering and she wouldn't have to haul herself up to get it necessarily.

Then someone plopped into the seat on the other side of her (Dale). "Hi. Coffee? Sabel's offering." Her question almost trailed off at Rainey's entrance. He was the man to impress and dark circles and a half sleepy look just weren't going to cut it. Sugar...and yes caffeine, would need to be a must. "Morning Sir! Ready for the job." Nice and eeeearly. Just give her a moment to wake up, yeah?

He was here...e made it...on time since no one was taking notes or talking about anything relevant.

He grunted a good morning without really looking at anyone and sat.

Well then...they could start now.

Peering around at her fellow co-workers, Annabelle was excited to start working. A stare was directed at Sabel the "convict" from the party. Looks like he wasn't one after all. Which was an extremely good thing. Annabelle did not want to work with an ex-convict. Even though she would be surrounded by other people who could easily take the man down, but still. It was better to be safe than sorry.

Sitting up in her chair, she watched as the Department Head walked into the room. The quill went up too, waiting for Annabelle's "orders". With a smile, the brunette nodded as the man began to speak. She briefly glimpsed over the sushi menu. "Alright, anything except tuna." The French woman replied back to the man. With a wave of her hand at the quill it began to copy down what he said.

Quote:

Anything except for tuna

The tuna was underlined several times to make sure that the point would get across. After it was all done writing, Annabelle slid the menu underneath the notebook. She wasn't a big fan of sushi herself, so she'd have to find something else to get for her. Though, that would be worried about after the meeting was over.

Coffee sounded like... a fantastic idea, actually. Dale smiled at the girl (Lex) and nodded. She looked familiar, young enough to be someone he'd gone to school with, so likely that. "Don't need to ask me twice," he said, reaching over to the nearest tray to get himself a cup, though not a moment later became distracted by another arrival. Didn't take a genius to work out that this was Mr. Boss Man. The one to make happy, the one to impress. Dale glanced over at him as he stirred a little sugar into his coffee, and then at the man's assistant as he took a sip.

Ah. Okay. That was hot. Dale managed to maintain a straight face as he set the cup back down, and prepared his parchment and quill ready to take notes and such from the meeting. Good practice for his role as Stenographer, after all.

Alternate "Hello,"s and "Morning,"s were said as everyone filed in and took their seats (and former Gryffindors woke up). Though the personal assistant thing got an eyebrow raise from her. Wasn't that usually reserved for those just out of Hogwarts that didn't qualify for the Auror program? But this woman seemed much older......?

Anyway, it seemed that the meeting was about to start, so that line of questioning would have to wait.

Sabel was just about to rest back in his chair, when Alexa took him up on his offer for coffee. Was she not going to...it was right....sighs.

Sitting forward, Sabel reached over and turned the cups in the trays until he found the one he was looking for. "One cream, two sugars. You'll have to add more if you want more." Kids and sugar these days. He took the cup out of the sleeve and slid it carefully to Alexa.

Once that was all said an done, Sabel leaned back in his chair again, his attention slipping around the room of gathered. The emotions and expressions were as mixed as eager beavers to death itself. And one woman, was staring at him. Why was she doing that? Actually, there were a lot of stares going about.

He was about to ask if they had met before, when the man of the hour himself showed up. Sabel sat up a bit straighter in his chair and offered a nod as well as a "Mornin'."

It was all he could really get out, and all he really wanted to get out. Admittedly, he had expected Emily to be walking through that door. That she wasn't, and this guy was here, put him in the mindset to speak as few words as possible. Plus, there was no need to make another blunder so early on in the working relationship with this man. His boss. His new boss. How he hated the sound of that.

The new resolve was already put to the test when Mr. Rainey ordered tuna from one of women around the table. The one that had been staring at him. What was her job again? Or was it lunch orders instead of coffee these days? Sure. He would go with that.

Picking up a pen, Sabel turned it absently between his fingers as he watched the new department head shuffle through, and discard papers. There was a...ah...garbage bi-- nevermind. Just, silence Dakest. Silence.