Fresh off his lunch break at the Broomsticks (an unusual venture, but paperwork was killing him today— wasn't that supposed to be someone else's job?) Mateo was on his way back into the Ministry itself to work on the last batch of evaluations. He had faith that these second-year trainees were going to do well on the whole, but he wasn't sure about Thornto ; Teo had his reservations there and that was saying a lot. There were so few graduates that came up through the ranks over his years in the ministry that he hadn't been able to work with to get to a good point. Though his position in the Auror's Office was relatively new, he had been a Hit Wizard for many years, had trained a lot of younlings in that time, but sometimes they were just hard to breach. A trainee had to be willing to make the necessary changes, to fit the mold, as it were, and some of them just couldn't squish in. They had standards to uphold.

Mostly Thornton just wasn't a team player and that was a safety issue; that could get somebody killed.

Teo was trying to figure out how best to bring this up to Sterling, but maybe he'd run it through Selwyn first, to see if the other instructor had any insight on the matter. Maybe he'd stop in and visit with Sandow, he enjoyed her particular brand of ruthless straightforwardness. This was the plan, he figured, until he stepped back into the ministry atrium and was greeted with the sight of something amiss.

It had been a long time since Mateo had dealt with Cornish Pixies, but he was about to get a crash course in subduing them.

Unfortunately they were everywhere, one suddenly tugging in his ear as he swatted it away and even as he reached for his wand, felt one pulling on the other end. Teo shook it off, stunning it with a spell, but it didn't last long before another was coming straight for him. Swearing under his breath in Spanish, Mateo looked about at the nearest batch and froze them, as another small troop went flying directly at the nearest person. "Cuidado!" He hollered at first, followed up with, "Watch out!"