April 1, 1895 - Minister of Magic's office, Ministry of Magic

"How does one start a search for a missing person?" Lottie had barely been admitted into the inner sanctum her brother's office at the ministry before the inquiry she had come to ask was spilling from her lips. But she'd made up her mind. She was worried and while she certainly wouldn't worry her family with the matter just yet she hoped that her brother might be able to help her (and be more discreet) if she approached this from a perspective of an official matter.

She breezed forward with her normal dreamy gait, but there was an air of coiled nightmare around her, a widening of the eyes that showed her true terror of the matter, a jerky movement so unlike her. She hardly noticed, instead she sank into a chair in front of her brother, fingers worrying at the clutch purse she delicately placed on her knees.

He was her older brother surely he could help.

Ozymandias Dempsey

  

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Perfect Lottie vibes courtsey of MJ <3

When Mrs. Ainsworth had announced that it was Shalott waiting to see him, Oz had already determined that he would only be half-listening. She would drift in, remark on something that was important only to her, and he could finish the review of the Transportation Ministry's reports and have his desk cleared before his next meeting started in twenty minutes. Even when she entered and made her initial inquiry he wasn't alarmed, assuming that she was doing some kind of research for her next novel. It did strike him as odd that she needed any actual procedural facts for her novel — weren't her stories generally more fantastical? — but not overly so. He had waged a missing persons search for Thomasina for a full month once (the worst month of his life, not that he advertised it), so maybe she cared less about the specific procedure and more about whatever he'd been thinking or feeling at the time.

"Not by reporting them here," he said in an offhand way as he appended his signature to the bottom of a paragraph and rolled the parchment forward. He took the break as he adjusted the scroll to really look up at her for the first time since she'd come in, and noticed how stiff she was as she sat. His brow furrowed. "What's happened?"

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MJ is the light of my life <3