"Lola, why don't you take a little break, go grab a cup of coffee or some tea." Erin smiled. "Chiara, tell me more about this Pyrex, How is it not like regular glass exactly?"

Erin smiled. "That sounds good, as soon as you can I would like a report on my desk showing the pros and cons of the usage of Pyrex for Cauldrons." Erin replied.

Lola walked back in, carrying a hot cup of coffee. She immediately noticed the young man. Lola walked over to her new coworker. She shook her short hair into place and held out her hand. "I'm Lola Adams," she said cheerily.

"Of course..." wait, she ad a good idea and now she had to write her a report? Weren't reports for people who needed to be punished for bad behavior? Work sucks...

The boy... and yes, he was a boy, seemed nice. "I'm Chiara Quorra. You can call me Chiara," she told him with a smile.


What? No Coffee for me? That wasn't nice... she MUST have alianated her new co-worker.

Orbit was taken aback by his reception. Coming in to the ministry, several of his peers had told him that he was to expect a tough and competitive work atmosphere - nothing friendly or warm was anticipated. However, his colleagues did seem very nice to him. He returned a warm smile - something that he didn't do quite often.

"Hi, pleasure to meet you", he replied, shaking hands with each of them in turn."You can call me Keith."

His eyes darted quickly around the office and he turned to Mr. O' Connor.

"I guess I'll be taking my assignments from you then", he said."Pleasure to meet you, ma'am. Where do I take my seat?"

Lola noticed Chiara eying her coffee. "It's not good," she commented. "The coffee. Too bitter. There's some in the break room, if you still want some." She adjusted her bright violet robes so they flowed nicely. She looked at Keith. "So, you look fresh out of school. You went to Hogwarts?" she queried.

She sat back down at her desk and began arranging her quills. She looked around the room. She hadn't had time to realize how small it was. Now with four people in the room, and a few empty desks, she felt crowded.

"We have no assigned seating, that is for you all to work out." Erin smiled, "I'm sorry to say hello and Run, but your co workers can fill you in on what to do. Meanwhile, I have to run and check on my other three teams."

After her superior exited the room, Lola got to her feet. She walked over to the cauldron they were testing. "So we're making a cleaning solution, right?" Lola asked aloud. She pulled her wand out of her robes and set it next to the cauldron. She glanced over to the ingredients cabinets. How do you make that, again? she thought to herself.

"You think a cleaning solution could destroy this cauldron?" she asked her coworkers. "It's too safe. I think we need to do something severe..." She tapped her fingers on the desk, a habit she picked up at Hogwarts. Finger tapping tended to lead to a good idea.

Keith nodded at Erin, giving his superior a very polite smile.

"You don't have to worry", he said with a very reassuring voice. Supposedly, he was being a bit too pompous and only hoped that they'd understand his eagerness in his new work place. "I'll take care."

Keith decided that Lola might be the friendliest among all his colleagues, although he did think that it was too early to decide just as yet. He smiled at her, and replied, "Yeah. I've only just graduated a couple of months ago."

His voice was full of an american accent, and he dearly hoped that it wouldn't be mistaken for a tone of defiance or restlessness. He walked, hesitantly, across the room and took his seat behind one of the empty desks close to Lola. Unless he was very much mistaken, he was sure that she was also a Hogwarts graduate - something about her face seemed mildly familiar to him.

"Er... Do I have an assignment to carry out?", he asked with a hint of uncertainty in his voice now. He was not yet sure as to whether freshers from school were given any priority at all, but in any case, he was prepared to work his hardest.

Lola pushed back her red-rimmed glasses. She couldn't help but wonder if Keith was qualified, being so fresh out of Hogwarts. Or maybe he was a genius... or had connections... Lola's mind wandered with these fanciful thoughts.

Then she snapped back to the Ministry. She thumbed through the potions book, looking for a very damaging potion...
Lola poked her nose out from the book. "Hmm? Oh, well we're all testing this cauldron, made from this muggle metal hybrid... Stained... or Stainless Steel, or something. I think we're supposed to try to break it. Well, officially, we're ensuring its safety for the general public. But unofficially, I want it to melt." Lola giggled, somewhat girlier than her normal laugh. Weird, she thought.

"Stainless Steel, you mean?", he asked with a certain boost of confidence - he had heard of the alloy from muggle friends of his. Here at last was testimony that he could give his pureblood father - testimony that befriending muggles was not as bad as he thought.

"I've heard of it. I have muggle friends who've told me about the alloy - something about it keeps it from rusting I believe", he said, smiling at what Lola said. He pretended not to notice anything when she laughed.

"Muggles use them a lot for their utensils and such. I guess it wouldn't be too bad to introduce some of these varieties, would it?"

Lola shrugged. "It just seems wrong to have such a shiny cauldron. Maybe I'm just too traditional," she mused. She got up and flicked the cauldron. It made a short, dull ring. "It's rather thick, isn't it? Then again, I recall having to carry my old Pewter cauldrons at Hogwarts, and that was kind of a pain, too!" She yawned and stretched her arms out.

"I'm going to grab some coffee from the breakroom, anybody want some?" she asked, figuring that was the polite thing to do.

"Yes, well, most people don't take it in that perspective - most want shiny new things nowadays", replied Keith. He looked at her while she got up and flicked the cauldron, and heard a short, dull ring.

"Yes, well, it's rather thick, but I guess it has it's own advantages. I'm not sure if it'll sustain heavier potions though - it might not be so leak-proof when we need to heat up potions for very long. We might need to check that out too. Pewter was pretty strong stuff, and if this is up to mark, then voila! We have yet another, brand new product", he said and gave a short sigh. It wasn't too long since he had been making potions in a cauldron at Hogwarts - he did miss his school days.

He looked up at Lola as she was leaving the office.

"I'll take up on that offer - Cauldrons can get pretty dull I guess", he said smiling, as he got up from a chair which he had barely occupied for twenty minutes or so. He had guessed as much; his first day at work was going to be pretty long...

Lola stood up and headed for the door. She let out a slight cough. Great, she thought. Now I'll probably get sick. About to walk out the door, she noted, "If you want to come, Chiara, we'll be in the break room, OK?" With that, she strolled out of the small office.

Lola carefully walked back in, carrying two cups of coffee. She walked over to Chiara and held out one hand, holding a steaming cup. "Hey, I figured maybe you'd like some coffee after all that hard work on..." Lola squinted her eyes to make out what Chiara had been writing down. "...work on. Py-REX," she grinned.

Then Lola walked over to Keith and put the other cup of coffee on his desk. "There you go," she said. "Miss anything while I was gone?" She headed back to her own desk, ready to get back to work. "Hey Chiara! Can you pass me the parchment your quill took notes on the first cauldron test?" she asked. "I just want to look it over again."

Keith looked up at Lola and smiled. It was nice of her to bring him some coffee - seeing as she didn't know him for anything more than an hour or so. Still smiling, he raised his cup of coffee in mock toast, grinning at Lola. He had a sip.

"Well, you haven't missed out anything too exciting yet", he said with a grin. His expression grew more serious. "Those batch of stainless steel cauldrons are resistant to corrosion - they've repelled most of my charms anyway. However, I think their thickness might need an increase - my guess was right. They're not too tolerant to high heat levels."

He had another sip of his coffee and said, "I thought you might want to add that bit to your report. It seems important enough if professionals need to use them for potions."

He had a sideward glance at the othe person to whom Lola was talking to - Chiara. He hadn't spoken to her at all and was wondering when to break the ice.

Lola took out her ink well and one of her quills and a piece of parchment and began to jot down some of Keith's suggestions. "I suppose they could be thicker," Lola noted. "And that's good that they repel your charms. Funny how charms work on Muggle-made things..." Lola's voice trailed off as she realized what her words implied. She didn't want anyone to think she had been illegally charming Muggle objects. Trying to correct the wrong implications, Lola continued, "I mean, Muggles have no idea Wizards are buying this steel and using it for magic. They'd go mad!" she mused.

Lola thought she heard someone walk through the door, and she jerked into a formal, polite sitting position. She realized they hadn't done what their Division Head instructed them to do. With the revelation that they could get into trouble, Lola thumbed through the spell book and found the spell for a very strong cleaning solution. The book described it as perfect for 'slime, bile, and blood', which sounded demanding to her. She walked over to the ingredients cabinet and pulled out several bottles and returned to her desk. "I think we should get started at the Cleaning Solution Ms. O'Connor suggested we test out." She read over the instructions again, and then prepared to begin.

"Yeah, I guess we should get started on that", he said, finishing the last dregs of his coffee, which had gone cold.

Keith got up from his desk and went over. He took the spell book and looked at it. He looked at the bottles that Lola had taken out. He wasn't too sure about how to go about it, so he decided he would let her go first - at least he'd learn that way.

Lola poured in the contents of a few jars and began to head the cauldron. "This book says we should wait until the potion turns pink, which it estimates should be in 20 minutes. My previous experience with this experimental cauldron is that it will be sooner than that." Lola idly stirred the mixture. Then she returned to her comfy chair and took a sip of the coffee. She contorted her face in disgust. Should have gotten the lemonade, she thought to herself. Lola pulled out her wand and waved it over the cup and the liquid contents vanished. She put the clean mug back on her desk.