Chapter 1: Before the incident
Okay let’s get introductions out of the way
My name is James Potter and despite having mild arachnophobia I was blessed with the wonderful experience of being bitten by a radioactive spider. And for the past 2 years, I’ve been London’s one and only Spider-Man. It’s been pretty great. I get to save people, hang out with my friends, and have a fun job while being with the most amazing boyfriend ever. But… I’m jumping ahead because before the good comes the bad and taking on this role came with a huge burden, one that I realized I had to share. So let's start at the beginning… my origin if you would.
2 years ago, 6:30 am
Quickly turning off his blaring alarm, James returns to lying on his back staring at the ceiling trying to fight off the sleep still clinging to him. Only giving himself 5 minutes, he pulls together because today is a big day. After writing small columns for so long he’s finally allowed some creative freedom and is now in charge of writing a big story. Except he doesn’t know what to write about. Grabbing the notepad and glasses on his bedside table, he looks through the current ideas scribbled across the page.
Can we really trust AI? Could work…
The extensive AND EPIC history of the world’s best sport, football. probs too boring
Why giraffes are actually not from our world. This doesn’t even make any sense!!!
Confused about how he thought these ideas were good enough to write down, James heads for the kitchen needing a coffee to jumpstart his brain. He turns on the kettle and places two mugs on the counter, a thud can be heard from the bedroom opposite his and the door opens. It’s not silly to say James loves easily, being surrounded by it from birth made it like a second instinct. He has an extraordinary capacity for love and even believes it could take him to scary lengths if tested. His friends and family mean the world to him and the one person who fits in both is now walking towards him while rubbing his head.
Leaning back on the counter, James takes in his best friend’s appearance. Messy hair, a red bump on his forehead, wearing an old Metallica shirt with holes in it, and one sock on. He’s a few inches shorter and has black locks that reach his shoulders, tucking a strand behind his ear three silver studs and an industrial piercing can be seen. James remembers the panic on his best friend’s face when asking him for help after piercing his firsts with a sharp compass which started bleeding profusely. They were inseparable from the first time they met at 13 and now 9 years later he doesn’t know how he managed without the other in his life.
“Wow, you manage to take my breath away every morning, how do you do it” mimicking an interviewer and putting an invisible mic close to the other person's face.
“Shut up James I woke up already slipping off my bed I couldn’t stop in time”,
“ Well it’s a good thing you didn’t pursue a career where reflexes are important cause I couldn’t handle seeing your pretty face with bruises every day” shooting his best friend a smile which is returned with impassiveness
“ I’m going to let that slide cause you called me pretty and I do have faster reflexes than you”
“No you don’t- OW” Rubbing the spot he just got punched in, he looks back just to see the other run to the bathroom as an evil cackle fills the room.
Quietly laughing to himself James turns back to the forgotten mugs. While reheating the water, he pulls out the instant coffee, pouring a spoonful into each mug.
“Hey Sirius, three sugars yeah?” He yells.
“You know me so well!” is yelled back, just as loud.
~
Leaving their apartment 30 minutes later, they head to the car when Sirius decides to be cool and attempts to slide across the front to get to the passenger seat instead of walking around it like a normal person. This ends poorly with Sirius falling off halfway and getting his trousers wet because of the early morning rain. Settling into their seats, James puts the key into the ignition starting up the car.
“Can you believe we’re working on a story together, I'm sure it will be amazing, are you nervous? Excited? Cause I’m feeling a bit of both”
James pulls out of parking and starts driving towards the main street. “Same, we finally have a chance to prove ourselves and they’ll be blown away for sure”
“So you got any ideas?”
Glancing in his rearview mirror, he looks at his shoulder bag containing the notepad he wrote down all those stupid ideas on. He brought it along because something is better than nothing but he’s not yet willing to share for fear of public shaming.
“Ideas…. No, nah none at all. Maybe you have some ideas? Your ideas are always better than mine, you should probably be in charge of ideas” he fake laughs.
“James, are you holding out on me? You’ve always been our idea man even in school, I know you got something, come on tell me”
He avoids his friend’s knowing eyes and chooses to focus on the red light, “No I don’t, I have zero ideas, nada. None”
“James”
“Yes?”
“I know you have them, tell me or so help me I will throw the biggest tantrum you’ve ever seen”
“Okay, just promise me you won’t laugh”
“I promise”
“In my bag”
Sirius throws himself with no regard for his safety to grab James’ bag. Trying so hard not to laugh because he promised he looks at James and asks “Were you high when you wrote these?” After a few minutes of laughing, Sirius turns on the radio and flicks through the channels landing on the news. A woman’s voice could be heard delivering another missing person report.
“Late last month, Rodolphus Lestrange went missing, and similar to the first victim Vincent Crabbe he was last seen entering his place of work at Riddle Inc. who are still yet to state these two disappearances. The head of the company, Tom Riddle, has instead proposed a new plan that he ensures will help strengthen our community.”
“He did it, the police have to know that, why haven’t they done anything” James feels the same way. Despite knowing the obvious corruption happening here, he still feels frustrated with the system. That’s why he chose to be a journalist to tell the people the truth and because it’s sort of like being a detective. Maybe this is another case to be solved.
“We should just become superheroes and sort this out ourselves”
“Yes you’re so right we could be like Batman and Robin, I'll be Batman”
“No you’re not mate, let’s be honest we don’t have the seriousness to pull off Batman I think we’re both Robin. We would be the Robin duo.”
“You ruin everything, James”
Pulling up to work, they leave the car and take in the building in front of them, Hogwarts, the best publishing company in London.
It’s a fairly old company and its age could be seen in the building itself. Parts of it were redone over the years making it look somewhat modern and somewhat ancient. With six stories, it features tall windows, those on the lower levels having red awnings. Coupled with the red brick layout and minimal stonework, the building looks like an apartment complex rather than a place of work. The ornamental designs on the pillars separate the building into three sections with a stone balcony surrounded by corbel protruding from the structure with its windows curved towards the building. However, James’ favorite feature is the two Gargoyles sitting on each end of the roofline giving the entire building a mystical feel which adds to the cool factor of the job in his opinion.
The nerves hit them at once taking them back to their first day, this is a new beginning. James looks at Sirius “This will go great right?”
“Yeah, your hair is messy though”
“So is your tie”
This leads to ten minutes of fussing from the both of them trying to make sure the other looks presentable for once.
“I see the married couple finally made it to work, shouldn’t you tell HR about this” Lily Evans makes her way to the two boys with a growing smile as she sees the panic on their faces. “Yeah, you wish” Sirius replies rolling his eyes “No I don’t, nervous about your story Jamie?” Lily says turning her head she fakes a pout while looking up at him and James can’t help but laugh. Passionate is the perfect word to describe Lily, in the way she feels for her loved ones but also in her morals and career, she can be stern and hard-headed while being the most kind and caring person. This is what attracted James to her in the first place, she radiates confidence that makes people gravitate towards her. The way she carries herself alone makes it seem like she’s been working at the company far longer than any of them which he can appreciate. However, after realizing the crush wasn’t a crush but admiration, he was happy to gain a friend and Lily quickly climbed up the list of people he holds close to his heart. At work, they’re not exactly rivals but Lily also got an opportunity to write a story and for the past week felt the need to constantly tell him that she’ll write a better story than him, and always being up for a challenge they came up with a bet. The team with the lower rating buys drinks for the group for a month.
Faking confidence and looking down at his friend with a smirk, James says “Nervous? I don’t even know what that word means” causing Lily to roll her eyes and return the smirk “Yeah I can’t wait to make you broke with the amount of drinks I’ll buy when I win this bet”. This triggers a heated debate of who’s going to win and why between the two with Sirius jumping in at times to defend his best mate as they make their way through the building.
Scanning their IDs they fully enter the building and head to the elevator. Pressing the button taking them to the 4th floor where their offices are, the doors slowly close. James stops the doors from fully closing after hearing a frantic voice calling for the elevator to be stopped. The tall man enters while taking deep breaths trying to recover the energy he lost running.
“Thanks” the tall guy huffs, standing to full height he looks over to the three others occupying the elevator.
“Good morning then Remus?” Sirius asks crossing his arms and smiling too hard all of a sudden
“If you call waking up late and having to run to work while carrying 5 heavy bags a good morning, then yes” Remus replies, loosening his tie and fanning his face.
James surveys a blushing Sirius and instantly wants to lock his two best friends in a room. “Let me help you with the bags” Sirius suggests and hands his own to James, Remus replies “I don’t need any help I’ve literally carried them from home myself”. Not listening, Sirius snatches the three bags “I know but I want to” looking up at Remus through his lashes and suddenly James and Lily feel like they shouldn’t be there. These two have a weird dynamic, Remus has a hard time accepting help and Sirius hates being ignored leading to the latter pushing boundaries that sometimes cause fights. James is no expert in love but in delusions, he has a PhD it always felt to him that they thrived on fighting it wasn’t toxic just fiery like you wouldn’t know if they were going to kiss or punch each other by the end of it.
Stepping out of the elevator, Lily links her arm with Remus talking to him about the episode of Gossip Girl she watched last night, stopping an argument from happening as Sirius struts through the corridor with the bags easily. While approaching his desk, James places both bags on the floor and takes his seat preparing himself for the long day. A cup of coffee magically appears in front of him and he looks up to see Marlene “Looks like you need one” she says with a knowing smile. “Wow is that you God? How did you know?” James replies making his voice quiver a bit and takes the coffee from Marlene’s hands, “Yep I just felt it, I couldn’t handle seeing you a mere mortal suffer any longer” she chuckles softly. They both attended the same secondary school and were English partners but rarely spoke to each other outside of class. They reconnected at this job but James will forever regret not reaching out to her sooner because he missed her so much. He takes small sips of his coffee savoring the flavour and feels his nerves simmer just a bit, Marlene sits on the edge of his desk looking down at him “So how is the story coming along?”. He leans back in his seat and sighs “It's not, I don't know what to write about.” Frustration and anxiety creep up again, this a huge responsibility and as he continues to think about it he becomes increasingly unsure about whether he’s ready for it.
Stopping his spiral from getting worse she places a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll do great, you’re surprisingly smart but don’t tell Lily you feel this way she’ll have a field trip” Marlene laughs as she moves away from the desk. “Thanks, Marls I will try my best” he replies feeling a little better, she returns his smile and walks back to her desk. Regaining focus, James adjusts his glasses logs into his computer, and opens the web browser. Different news articles fill the page but the one about Tom Riddle sticks out to him, congratulating him on the success of his project. A new medicinal drug that helps strengthen the immune system and can even cure the most damaging infections, it's reported that a little girl aged 15 was able to fully recover from her pneumonia because of this drug. A picture of Tom can be seen standing next to the girl and some doctors. He had pitch black hair slicked back which cut off where his sharp jaw sits. His eyes were lifeless yet piercing which gave him an intimidating presence that could be felt through the screen, he was attractive but James would rather die than be stuck in a room with him. Thinking back James recalls the conversation he had with Sirius and suddenly an idea strikes. What if they exposed Riddle? The disappearances tied to Tom are already shady enough but this new drug warrants some questions too. The claims are strange, especially with its lack of sufficient testing and how reliable is this girl’s recovery? There’s more to the picture James feels it.
He stands up in search of his best friend just to find Sirius already looking at him, a question so visible on his face. James rushes over to him and places both of his hands on the other's shoulders as he looks into his friend’s eyes. “Oh my god, they’re finally going to kiss aren’t they?” he hears someone say. Ignoring them he finally speaks after what felt like years staring into Sirius’ soul “I think I found our story”. James spent the next 5 minutes waving his arms around and frantically explaining his thoughts, it didn’t take long for Sirius to match his excitement as they started to bounce off each other. “We should take this to Dumbledore” Sirius suggests and in 0.5 seconds they rush towards the head office.
When they finally reach the door, the word “head office” is written in golden lettering on a wooden plaque. The inside of the office is concealed because of the blinds. The only time they saw The Chief (James and Sirius are the only people to call him that) was on their first day, the older man had long grey hair and a grey beard to match. He walked in with moon glasses perched on his nose and a quirky hat and welcomed them into the company. James remembers freaking out when Dumbledore shook his hand and told him “I sense that you will be a great asset to this company”. They both have an immense amount of respect for the man knowing that he started this company from scratch with his brother in the name of his late sister 60 years ago.
As they both stand there, still, a thousand thoughts run through James’ head. What if he’s in a meeting? What if this is too ambitious? What if he trips and falls in front of him and fires him?
The door opens by itself and The Chief greets them “Hello boys, I have about 20 minutes till my meeting what would you like to talk about? I hope it is something interesting”. A knowing smirk lingers on his lips as he walks to his desk and offers the boys a seat. This experience already has added 50 points to James’ Dumbledore mystical meter in his head convincing him more that this guy is not from this world and has some mythical power.
“Let's talk.”
~
3 days pass before they hear from Minerva McGonagall that their story has been greenlit and that Dumbledore has secured them a tour of Riddle Inc. and an interview. James and Sirius almost immediately jump for joy and start howling with excitement, an interview with the man himself that’s more than they wished for.
“That is quite enough from the both of you, this is still a workplace” scolded Minerva killing the celebration instantly.
“Sorry Minnie” they both say with their head bowed and hands behind their backs.
Minerva sighs before she delivers the last piece of news. “You will be interviewing a scientist called Regulus Black, I will send you the information soon.”
…
“...huh?”