[OPEN] Boredom often finds a home in the minds of those with little to offer.

Safiya was what you might call... lovely. She could charm as she liked, generally could gen funny enough that her coworkers liked her, and - other than that pesky full-moon business, she was positively prim when it came to her behavior. Well, unless her love life was also taken into account. And, to be fair, she counted that as rather more of a hobby than a personality trait. Indeed, aiming for the Deputy Minister'a bed would do nothing for her career, but that was hardly the thing on her mind when it came to Krum. Or any other attractive man around the office. Krum was the goal, though. The ideal conquest. And she doubted she would have to wait very long.

In the morning, she had a perfectly reasonable routine. First and foremost, she assessed the issue of her hair. If she had let it air dry, it would - come morning - manage to brilliantly resemble a bouquet of pygmy puffs. And Safiya could attest to the fact that the creatures in her desk were not half as appealing once she realized that fact. To make herself feel better, she decided to instead equate it to what Hermione Granger's hair must look like when it rained. They lived in the United Kingdom, obviously, so that was probably something that was proven true at least once a day.

So she would fix that with a charm or two, then tell her multitude of make-up options to sort themselves out nicely across her skin while she picked out something for it to compliment, besides her eyes and complexion. And then it was breakfast and off to the Ministry for Ms. Safiya Jordan.

At any rate, Saf was dreadfully bored now that the students were back at Hogwarts. Robert was interesting to some extent, and they got along impeccably well. He still had no idea, which was also quite grand. But now that there were less owls to respond to - although, really, she felt that anyone mental enough to write an owl to the Minister of Magic and expect a personal response needed to shut up about whatever their problem was anyway - she found that her days drew on and on.

She was due for a distraction, really, and considered trying to find one during her lunch hour. Which was... absolute ages away. A whole forty-five minutes. Merlin help her, but she was going to go mad quite soon if someone didn't come to entertain her or give her something to do. Minister or not.

If there was one thing about Robert that could yank Michael's chain, it was that Robert could feel absolutely elated about being able to prank Michael and would milk it for all it was worth. And the longest running prank he'd been playing on Michael was the bloody dogs. He didn't just have one footstool that thought it was a dog. He had two--and they reproduced litters of footstool puppies with the reproductive rates of rabbits. It wasn't that Michael hadn't asked how you spay and neuter a footstool. It was the pure fact that Robert apparently knew and was refusing to tell him because Robert enjoyed Michael's frustration of having to deal with lots of tiny footstools running through the house, barking and peeing on the floors.

So, Michael had finally had enough. He now had toddlers in his house, and was finding out that identical two year olds added into the mix was pure hell. Michael was now taking the battle to Robert. If he wasn't going to be part of the solution, then he wasn't just part of the problem, he was going to be delegated to deal with the problem.

In Michael's backpack, he had nearly a dozen dollhouse sized footstools in an assortment of designs and upholstery fabrics, and all the footstools were barking and snarling and biting and just causing all sorts of chaos in his backpack. Even with the wizarding world's usual weirdness, this was an exception that gained him all sorts of sideways glances as he walked through the atrium and up to Robert's office.

Uh oh, he remembered, as he walked into the outer office and saw Jordan there. He didn't know that he could simply walk past her with the noisy backpack that was suddenly starting to smell like one of them had not taken well to porting and had left a mess in the backpack. And Michael was without his pooper scooper.

He decided a familiar, casual approach would suit best. It wasn't as if she were entirely unfamiliar with him coming here. But rarely did he bring such literal foulness here.

"Good morning, Ms. Jordan," he smiled, acting as if the rising din and odor did not exist. "Is he in?"

She was legitimately so bored that she had started to pick at her nails, ruining the polish that she had charmed to coat them. Her thumbs were the worst, as her middle and third fingers could reach over without her even noticing and mess it all up. Safiya looked down, frowning deeply when she realized what she had been doing.

Of course, her attention was turned to something much stranger. She was absolutely certain that she smelled something odd, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. For a breath, she almost believed it could be her, though the very idea was bizarre. Saf had never been accused of smelling that badly.

The silent question behind her eyes was answered when she looked up when someone spoke. Or, she thought it had been. But then she couldn't see anything in particular that would be the source. He was carrying a bag that almost seemed to be moving and making some sort of racket, but she merely tilted her head, turning her attention back on the man himself.

Tremaine, equally, was not one she associated with unpleasant smells. Curious.

"Last I checked," she confirmed. "He usually tells me before he heads out for something." Looking down at the log she kept on the desk, Safiya took a moment to glance it over. "Do you have an appointment with him?"

Drawing her gaze back up to him, Safiya recognized that, probably, Michael could have just gone on in and Robert wouldn't have been too angry with her. But there were two reasons she decided to slow him down. First, she was going to be just as bored after he left, wasn't she, as she had been before he arrived. But second, Robert had been dealing with all manner of nonsense after the students had gone missing, and that didn't seem to end.

As much as she told herself it wasn't true, she actually cared about whether or not Robert was feeling up to having meetings. So at least she could try and be helpful.

Did he have an appointment? Was she for real? She was going to try to do the dutiful sentry thing on him? Oh, fine. He'd play.

"Actually," he said, "I don't normally need one, but in this case, I really didn't want him to know I was coming. Don't get me wrong. I love the man, but he can be a true pain in the ass at times. I don't often get a chance to get him back, but I've decided today is the day.

"Look here," he said, taking the pack of his shoulder. He opened it, reached in and pulled out a random puppy--an odd little dollhouse sized bloke who looked like he should have been a proper Louis the XVI footstool, but had been given a weird little tartan plaid upholstery. Poor little buggar. He didn't look like a proper plaid ottoman, nor was he a decent Louis the XVI. He was going to be hard to adopt, except by someone who understood not fitting in exactly with societal expectations.

He put the puppy on her desk, and the puppy barked and starting running in rings. Near as Michael could understand, his sibling had little tassel tails, and this one was still trying to look to see if he had a tail. He didn't, but it hadn't kept him from looking for it. And this little one was probably the friendliest of the whole litter. He just always worked so hard to be accepted and loved and was still rather oblivious at being hurt, as if it didn't exist. If Michael didn't already life in a nuthouse, he'd have been sorely tempted to keep him. After all, what was one more footstool around?

"Cute little buggars. They think they're cocker spaniels, but they grow up to be full sized footstools, and it makes my house look like a furniture store. And my mate, Robert the Wise in there, apparently knows how to spay and neuter a footstool and he refuses to tell me because he thinks its funny as hell that I have 15 to 20 puppies a year at my house.

"Its not so funny, trust me," he said. "So, the man needs to deal with them for a day. Just one day. So, either be part of the mischief or just look the other way so I can do it myself. Either way, he's getting these 9 puppies in his office shortly." He paused and gave her a mischievous grin. "He prides himself on his skill with pranking. I think its time he learned he's not all that and a bag of chips. I'm always up for confederates, though," he added.

The poor man looked surprised, which Saf was only half proud of accomplishing. She didn't particularly like to disappoint people, even if it was rather fun to ensure her own entertainment. Then again, when he explained his reason for being there, Safiya almost jumped back.

Peering into the bag, her eyes widened and she stared at the so-called puppies and then back up at Michael. Her eyebrows lifted briefly as she tried to train her features and force them back to normal. It took a minute and a cleared throat, but she ended up nodding.

"I can't say I understand it," she confessed, her tone lighter than the surprise she felt. "But with the ridiculous amounts of pygmy puffs I've inherited by working here, I guess I have a bit of an idea."

Speaking of ideas, she had just come up with a brilliant one. "In fact, I may be able to help. I've got a stack of letters I'm meant to take in around lunch time so he can look them over, but I could go in with the bag in tow. Maybe if you hang about he'll come to tell me off and then you can tell him off instead? I'm sure he'll get over it as far as I'm concerned. At least, eventually, anyway.

"What do you think?"

"Hm," Michael said in response to the pygmy puffs. "That actually started as one pygmy puff, if I recall, and one of your predecessors could not bear to get rid of it, so now we have an endless supply. I bet you could take a basketful of them to Eeylops and sell them and no one would be the wiser for it."

He did like her idea of simply leaving bag and all. The bag, after all, did not have the nicest aromatic quality to it now anyway. And the puppies did seem to like it. That would serve Robert right. He could pay for the cleaning bill for Michael's bag. Michael scooped up the puppy from her desk and deposited him back in the bag and closed it up.

"I think that would serve him right," Michael said. "I'll be happy to give him a piece of my mind--again--about the dogs." Michael decided he could make the matters ever so slightly worse, and he knew just how to do it. In his pocket he had a bag of tiny pieces of black socks--the only food the dogs ate. If he used a simple charm to scatter the food pieces all over Robert's floor, it would be akin to herding cats, Michael figured.

"I think it'll work," Michael said, putting the bag on the floor not far from Robert's office door.