Most people didn't make appointments with the Spirit Division. Most people merely filed complaints. Occasionally they did so loudly and spontaneously and in person. Scheduled appointments were usually reserved for people who worked with spirits much more regularly, or who had reason to care about their wellbeing. Winnifred Fudge came in occasionally to ask about the legality of something she and her husband were trying to do, for example. Mrs. Daphnel had been in thrice to ask about measures that could be taken to make her son more "comfortable", the definition of which Ford had still never successfully discerned from her. Regardless, appointments were usually reserved for people who were known to the division already. Ford wasn't aware of a Miss Broadmoor, so he had no idea precisely what any of this was about.

It would have been fine on another day, but his caseload had been stacked up over the weekend and he'd yet to make much progress on it. He was hoping whatever this was could be handled swiftly.

"Of course," he agreed, as though he'd had any choice in the matter. The secretary had simply added it to his desk calendar for the day. "Was your appointment today regarding a specific spirit?"

---

Ford's eyes flashed briefly with exasperation before he covered it with his polite customer service mask. (This expression was as standard-issue in the ranks of Ministry workers as their uniform robes. Ford's, unfortunately, had several defects; he always applied it half a second too late, it was a little too thin to fully mask what he was feeling, and he tended to discard it too soon when he was truly frustrated by someone). She was writing a book. That meant that whatever she wanted from him would not be resolved swiftly, and he could forget about making any progress on his caseload for the next forty minutes while he tried to answer whatever meandering, poorly researched questions popped into her head. Her opening question didn't give him much confidence that she was very well informed on the subject of spirits, regardless of the academic nature of her work. Maybe this was to be expected — she hadn't said the academic text was primarily about spirits, and for most people who weren't in his division it was a niche knowledge area.

"That's a Muggle myth," he told her, superficially pleasantly. "Spirits aren't confined to any given areas unless they've been magically restricted. They have haunts the same way you or I do — just habits and routines they tend to stick to."

---

"Oh," he returned. He'd noted the sharpness of her tone, but wasn't offended by it — most people he dealt with in a given day were impatient with him at least once during the conversation. The living people, anyway. Spirits were infinitely more patient, since they had, if nothing else, an abundance of time to spare. "Well, there are spells and enchantments that can keep them out of certain areas, or confine them to places. Maybe you've heard of Spirit Mirrors?" he offered. Spirit mirrors were, in his personal opinion, barbaric and unconscionable, but they were unfortunately perfectly legal and could be found not-infrequently in the sorts of shops that sold artifacts or curiosities.

"We don't — recommend them," he said, hedging. She claimed this was for her novel, but on the off chance it was a real inquiry, he didn't want to go giving her ideas. "The Ministry has a complaint system for troublesome spirits, and once an issue reaches the proper escalation level we can send someone in to handle that professionally." Though unfortunately, if she wanted to go banishing spirits from her home or neighborhood or place of employment, it was unlikely anyone would stop her. The only thing preventing most people from doing it was that the magic was tricky to get right if you didn't have the practice.

---

Ford's brow wrinkled in confusion. Banishing a spirit was a frequent request they heard from living people, however much they tried to avoid following through on it. It was the division's last resort, but often the first thing on the top of mind for the Spiritually Inconvenienced. Resuming contact with a spirit once they had been banished was a new one... particularly since the types of ghosts who could find themselves summarily banished by the Ministry were the ones for whom all routes of compromise, communication, or collaboration had failed.

"I don't know that anyone has wished to," he admitted. "They'd make an inquiry with us, I suppose, and we'd track them down. What sort of a novel is this?" he asked quizzically, having forgotten the insistence that the book she was writing was an academic text.

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