First Day at the Office

Chase watched the look of disgust cross his features. Chase couldn't help but feel a stab of annoyance, it wasn't Felix's fault.. he was sent by the devil to torture people who had been bad... But Chase was smarter then that.. she knew to hate him.. and in her mind she connected his face with pain. She smiled at him and knew that he felt sorry for her.. felt sorry for what had happened to her, she had told him not to, but how could you not? It was a devastating thing to have to happen to someone.

When he spoke about his injury to his shoulder, it suddenly made sense why he rolled it so often. "Wow... I'm sorry.. that must have been really traumatic.." she said smiling at him, and crossing her arms over her chest. "I can just imagine.. you find there are such things as Dragons, and the first one you see attacks you." She grinned. "They aren't very intelligent.. and they have pretty viscous tempers... but some of them can be pretty nice I think.." Chase grinned. "I'll end up having to heal them one day.. if I ever get past that giant stack of folders on my desk.." She said shaking her head, but looking at him. "Bad things happen... and sometimes when you work with animals.. creatures... magical and not.. it calms you.. makes you happier, controls your mind, and helps you settle on something not as important as what is happening.. I had a dog a long time ago... his name was Dragon funnily enough.. he was a Shih-Tzu though.. he died of cancer shortly after my parents did..." She said simply, not wanting to elaborate on her family's death, and giving him a look as though to say 'don't ask.'

Bran was slightly amused at her words. "Yeah, I was a little scared of leaving the house for a few weeks after I got home from St. Mungo's, but I think that the attack strengthened my passion for magical creatures even more, if that makes sense." Bran didn't think it did, but hey, Chase was a smart girl, maybe she could make heads or tails of it. "Luckily, dragons don't scare me anymore," he said, laughing. He heard her comment about a stack of folders and laughed again. "I hear you. If I get a stack of reports the size of mine each day, I don't think I;ll ever get to do anything else." Paperwork really was boring. You'd think that in a magical world the paperwork could just file itself, but things didn't work that way.

Bran felt more sympathy when she mentioned her parents death, but got the feeling that she didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't ask. He figured that if she wanted to talk about it she would mention it, besides, he'd already been very personal when he asked about her scars. Asking about her parents would just be too much for one day. He then decided he'd change the subject. "Well, since neither of us are going to be able to be free of our workload once we start it, do you think we should just checkout the research center real quick before we get to busy?" he asked her, hoping she would agree. Bran could have sworn had seen an Augurey in there, and only that and the Mooncalf was missing from his collection in regards to XX classified creatures.

"Oh I understand completely." She said smiling at him. "After I got away from Felix, I was terrified of just about everything.. but I realized that most of what he had told me was a lie, and I was able to leave the house, and see people who had been poisoned against me.. like Jack Dyllan, she works here you know." She said grinning at him. "She's Ms. Gould's personal worker thingy.." She said and shrugged. "She does whatever she wants basically." Chase smiled at Bran and looked back at the door. "I'm sure the paperwork will lessen as we get more experienced." She said smiling.

"Lets do it." She said giggling and she put her hand against the door and pushed it open. The door opened easily without even a squeak, and she looked back at him and grinned before stepping into the room and looking around. It was a HUGE room. filled with cages that had animals in it, and some side rooms. There were quite a few people in the room, some people were going through the cages, feeding them, some were writing things down on clipboards. Some glanced up at them, but otherwise didn't bother with them. Chase was grinning broadly as she turned to look for Bran.

Jack Dyllan. Bran had never heard the name before, and was surprised to find that it was a woman. The name "Jack" pointed towards male in his mind. Chase acted as if she was someone important, but it didn't matter. He was sure he'd meet her at some point, she was, after all, Zoe Gould's personal assistant. It would be kind of hard to miss her. She was probably the high class perfectionist kind of woman. Most assistants were, in his experience, like his old boss's assistant back at the pet shop. She was a hard woman to like. He pushed Jack Dyllan from his mind, however. He was doing a lot of prejudging lately, and, come to think of it, that was probably because he was hearing about a lot of people he had never seen that were obviously people he should have met before. He had apparently been too out of touch with the wizarding world while he worked at the pet shop.

He smiled when Chase mentioned less paperwork. "I sure hope you're right," he said, meaning every word. It would be a dream come true. He hadn't even finished three reports and he already dreaded returning to them. Chase pushed open the door to the as if she was a little girl doing something she knew would get her in trouble. She clearly still had a slight doubt towards her having authorization to be in there. Bran easily remembered the large room and began scanning his eyes around in search of the augurey. He walked in after Chase and immediately forgot about her. He glanced at some other people in the room doing their own research, only noticing them because they were in his line of sight when looking at the many different cages filled with creatures. Cage wasn't the correct word, however, as that implied a dismal habitat. These creatures lived in large enclosures that had obviously been bewitched match their creatures natural habitat. It was almost like a little piece of home had been taken with each animal.

After looking in about a dozen different containers, Bran saw the augurey. The green and black bird was easily recognized, though their nickname had to have been given by someone with awful vision. The Irish phoenix, these creatures were often called, but they looked nothing like the phoenix. If anything, they looked much more like colorful vultures. Unfortunately, the name stuck, however misleading it was. Augureys did have one handy use. They would sing when rain approached, which was a very helpful thing indeed. In fact, Bran knew some meteorologists who would benefit greatly from an augurey. Bran pulled his camera out of his pocket, where it was always kept, and quickly snapped a few pictures of the bird. Another creature down, but so many to go.

Chase nodded. "Me too." She said with a giggle, wondering how much more stuff was piling up on her desk already. She had completely disregarded the stuff she had gotten already, and gone exploring, but she knew she'd have to get back to her desk eventually. But for now, it was time to explore with her new friend Bran. Once the door was open, she completely lost Bran to the world of the room they had just entered, he was dazed, and seemed to forget everything about her being there. Chase followed him into the room, watching as he gravitated towards a bird thing. She had read about it, but she forgot what it was, until she opened the little folder that was connected to the gate into the enclosure.

Picking it up, she read through it a bit, and realized that the bird in the enclosure was actually an augurey, and this particular one, was on some special potions to help cure a disease it had picked up. It appeared that the bird was being taken care of by Magical Creature Healers, and it was on the road to a quick recovery. "Wow..." She said smiling at it, and then her head lifted up to stare at it as it started to sing. She looked down at the folder and frowned. Apparently these birds only sang when it was going to rain. "Hmmm... seems like it's going to rain soon I guess." She said grinning. "Though we'll never know.. they like to keep the weather the same down here... so we'll only know if it's raining after work and on breaks if we go outside." She said giggling before letting the folder fall back down to it's original hanging spot. "Why do you take pictures of them?" She asked, coming over to look over his shoulder.

Bran jumped so hard he dropped his camera. He had heard the augurey singing, and was entranced. He, unfortunately, was stuck in here for many more hours, so could not step outside to see the bird's work in action. He was just about to take one last picture when all of a sudden someone spoke practically in his ear. He spun around after he landed and realized that it was Chase. He had completely forgotten that she was even in the same room as him. "You about gave me a heart attack!" he said, trying to catch his breath as he retrieved his camera, which was thankfully unharmed. "I...I take pictures...." Bran was still struggling to catch his breath. He calmed himself and continued. "I have a goal...to take a picture of every...magical creature that exists. I haven't gotten one of an augurey yet, so I thought I'd take the opportunity." Bran frowned. "I know it's kind of...silly, but I like to keep a record of all the creatures that I've seen. All I need now is a mooncalf and I'll have finished all of the double X classified creatures. I have plenty of triple X's, multiple fours, and ten fives as well, though all but one of the fives are dragons. The other one is a quintaped...but I'm rambling...sorry...." Bran felt a little embarrassed about his hobby, though it was more of a passion.

"So," Bran said as he flipped through the folder attached to the cage, "apparently this augurey is sick. That seems to be right up your alley, eh?" He wondered what experience she could have healing animals, as she had just finished at Hogwarts. He was sure there was something, as she had an air about her that showed knowledge. "Did you heal any creatures before you came to work here?" he asked, hoping to draw the attention away from his obliviousness. He just became too enthralled with magical creatures and should have remembered her.

Chase jumped when Bran jumped, and stood there, staring at him, her heart beating unpleasantly fast as she looked at him. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!" She said laughing, and looking in at the bird he had been fascinated with as he spoke. "Oooohhhh, that's so interesting!" She said looking at him, not being sarcastic at all, and smiling in his direction. It was possible that she didn't even know what sarcastic was. "I mean really, to see pictures of all of the creatures out there! You could make that into a book, if you put descriptions with them.. and talked about them a bit! Oohh, that would be exciting!" She said grinning at him, as he rambled on. "Don't worry about rambling though!" She said seeing how embarrassed he was. "I talk a lot too! We'll be best friends." She said grinning at him, before looking at him pointedly. "Wanna be friends?" She asked suddenly, a little bit blunt, but still looking completely truthful..

When he asked her about healing animals, she frowned. "I've healed things.. and I've been healed.. so erm, I have experience with that.. and I took Care of Magical Creatures, and graduated pretty high up.. soo.. yeah, I do know how to handle it, I just need to read those folders, I think I'll start off with something a bit easier then an augurey." She said grinning. "I'm thinking start off small, work my way up.. unless they really need me to help with something.. if that's the case..." she said and frowned. "I'm sure I"ll spend a lot of time in here at first.. just taking care of the animals.. getting to know them." she frowned and then shrugged.

He stared at her. She asked him if he wanted to be her friend. This was perhaps the most awkward situation he had been in since he tried to explain to his parents how his shoes had been burnt when he got his picture of a Common Welsh Green. He still didn't think they bought his story of "leaving them out on a hot day." "Well...um...yeah...of course I want to be your friend," he said. It was the truth, but her bluntness would have made him say yes if if that weren't the case. You can't really say no when someone asks you that question. "I, uh...I assumed that we were already friends...." Bran had been thinking of Chase as almost a friend, but was sure that Chase, the kind of girl she was, had already counted him as one.

He nodded his head knowingly when she spoke of healing animals in Care of Magical Creatures. That was something that was done in your seventh year, if you took it at NEWT level. He hadn't been too good at it, his only weakness in the subject, but was still better than most of the people in his class. It was very demanding work, and Bran suddenly respected her more. If Chase was able to heal magical creatures then she was certainly a talented witch.

"In a short time, you'll be the one healing this bird," he said, smiling as he pointed to the augurey. "Perhaps I'll be able to research it too. I've already gotten some theories about the bird's pitch in regards to the amount of precipitation that falls afterwards," Bran said, looking eager to get started. He then remembered his paperwork and lost his grin. "Well, we should probably head back to our cubicles and actually EARN our paycheck, don't you think?" he asked in an amused tone.

Chase grinned at him. "Good, I thought we were too already, but I wanted to make sure it was okay with you." She said grinning at him and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. "I like having friends don't you? I bet we'll spend a lot of time working together... like I said, you ever find a hurt animal, and you just call me, and I'll do my best! I think I'm supposed to be getting a mentor or something... someone to teach me how to do stuff.. but for now.. I'm pretty sure I'm just supposed to read those packets, and fill out paperwork that was sent to me already.. can you believe we already got that kind of stuff though? You'd think the people who did the stuff would be able to fill out their own damn paperwork.. but as it is... we were stuck with it." She found herself grinning though, and she looked at him.

"I sure hope so! He doesn't look like he's feeling to well.." She picked up the folder again, and looked at his 'charts'. Reading over what had been doing to heal him already, and she immediately spotted the trouble. Without a thought, she picked up the pen that had been attached to the folder also, and scribbled in a footnote, and signed it with a flourish before glancing at him. "They weren't giving him enough.." she said slowly, blushing bright red. "Yeah.. so I just wrote in a note saying how much they should be giving him.. hopefully they take my word for it.. or he'll be in a lot of pain for a while.." She sighed and ran her hand through her short hair again, before looking at him when he mentioned paperwork. "Oh.. yeah... I guess we should.." she said sighing, and glancing around the room. "I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time in here again anyway." She said and then reached out, taking his hand and grinning. "Lets go!" She said, heading towards the door. "I hope we see each other a lot Bran, you're a cool guy, and I like you." she said simply, and pulled the door open, leading him back out into the cubicle area.

Bran laughed. She didn't need to ask to be his friend, but it was cute nonetheless. "I do like having friends," he said simply. He frowned when she mentioned that the bird was not being treated correctly. He was slightly disappointed in his fellow staff members. Chase really was good at her job. It was only her first day and she was already covering other people's mistakes. He smiled to himself when she mentioned them spending a lot of time in here. He knew it was true, and that it would probably take a few weeks, but it would be worth it. Secretly Bran thought that perhaps Ms. Gould was behind the large amount of paperwork, as if she wanted to test her new employees. That was ridiculous of course, but his mind filed that thought away for safe-keeping anyway.

He followed Chase out the door and closed it behind him. He laughed at her compliment. "I'm sure we will see a lot off each other, as your cubicle is only ten feet from mine." He laughed again, not only at his comment, but also at his ability to crack himself up. Well, perhaps we can get together at lunch," he suggested, certain that she would agree. For some reason, she seemed to like him. "Well, I better get started or I'll never get home," and with that said he went to his desk and sat down, rereading the report that he had started before Chase had found him. It was about a kelpie, that was right, and he continued with his work, not minding it as much as he had before. If paperwork was the price for research, he was more than willing to pay, and pay enthusiastically. He had found a friend, which was the first in a long time. He smiled to himself, thinking of the days to come.