It should have been the most exciting summer of her life. A chance to intern at the Ministry of Magic, Auror Department, a chance to get a good look at her future career - she was too stubborn to entertain the thought that it might not - and a chance to get her name, skills, and potential seen and remembered. Hopefully, a chance to get her name down on the books for Auror training. She'd intended to be dutiful, hardworking, smart and capable; to 'wow' her 'colleagues' with her 'charm'. Indeed, when she'd walked into the meeting room just a few weeks beforehand, her gaze had fallen on a well-built man whose posture was downright rebellious, who looked uninterested with the proceedings, and who'd been introduced as - among other titles - a Field Agent, called Leathan Collier. And then she'd looked to the side a little, and seen a weary, slumped man, who turned out to be an Interrogation Specialist called Elphais Haddock. She had been unimpressed.

And she had remained unimpressed. It seemed to be her luck; the sporty, action man type had gotten two wet-behind-the-ears interns to look after, and she had miserably followed Haddock to his dingy little cubicle, where she had been introduced to a man who was as grumpy as he was rumpled. And he looked rumpled, indeed he did, as though all the hours of asking silly questions and being generally mad had taken an explosive toll on him. It wasn't in his clothes, precisely, or even his posture - but something about the Auror made Jez think of a rag doll that had been relinquishing in a dusty attic for too long. The general idea that Elphais Haddock would ever be cheerful - or, even worse, be caught smiling - was one that she immediately and instinctively scoffed at. Her attitude had been, of course, not grumpy at all, but she was aware that she was being short, brisk, and at times, downright offensive. It wasn't as though she could help that, just as much as she could help being stuck in an internship with the Auror From Hell.

At times, when Elphais was deigning to remember her reason for being there and allowing her to watch him interrogate, she wondered what the field agents were doing, and what their interns were watching. It made her, on the whole, a very unpleasant girl to be around. She didn't see the point in the branch of Haddock's work, and while she never came right out and said it - the only thing worse than being his intern was not being an intern at all - it was clear, in the same way his rumpled being was clear, despite few hints to it. Still, she had persevered. Jez Bain hadn't come this far for nothing; she arrived to work on time, occasionally a few minutes early, and everything about her was neat and ordered and presentable. This extended, most unfortunately, to her clothes. Those passing by would see a girl with hair in an almost secretarial bun, wearing a black blazer and knee length black skirt, black shoes, white shirt.

And when she caught glimpses of herself in the mirror, she hated those field agent in terns even more, if possible. The only thing her appearance lacked were some wire-rimmed glasses. At least, she comforted herself blandly, she had the opportunity to surprise people with her demeanour. But that was about the only upside she could imagine. She thought over this again as she approached the familiar cubicle, the bright Tuesday sun left behind, and was unimpressed - always, always unimpressed - to see Haddock had arrived already. It was as she drew closer, actually crossed the threshold into his boundaries, that the oddness struck her.

He looked clean. More than clean - his rumpled appearance, or perhaps aura, had been diminished. And the strangest of all was yet to come.

"Morning."

Jez stared at him, pure disbelief etched in her features.

"Coffee, Miss Bain?"

There was a shocked little pause, in which Jez looked from the cup of coffee to the Auror's face and back again. For a moment, she was gripped by the certainty that he'd passed the stage of madness and entered full blown clinical insanity. The next, she was regarding the cup with genuine suspicion. It could be a test, to check how cautious she was in these dangerous days... Or something.

"No thanks, Mr. Haddock," she said, in a voice that was as brittle as ever, but with a lot more paranoia in it. "Caffeine fu- scr- messes with your body clock, you know." And if anyone needs some sleep, it's you. And maybe some help from the men in white coats. She eyed him narrowly for a moment, resenting the fact that she couldn't swear in front of him (despite a few slip-ups, but they were accidental, of course) and the fact that he was noticeably taller than her. She didn't like that. At all.

Taking her seat, her bag slung to the ground and landing with a resounding thump, she slouched back. After a moment, she straightened, and even went so far as to cross her legs. That one gesture could hint at how desperate to become an Auror she really was, albeit not an Interrogation Specialist. As she sat, she contemplated his appearance and behaviour. Being renowned as she was for her inability to shut up when necessary, her head cocked slightly and the words were out before she even knew it.

"What the hell happened to you?" She asked, frankly, the blissful ignorance of how offensively she'd spoken taking root. "Have you poisoned my coffee or did you win a bet? Going to a wedding later, maybe? I know you didn't make the effort for -" me, not that I in any way blame you, even if you ARE a little twat- "- work."