Regulus washed his hands of minced beetles and took the mirror out of his back pocket, where it was all but burning a hole in his jeans.
"Yes deer," he said dryly.
His husband's face filled the entirety of the small reflective surface. "Hey love! Am I interrupting anything? Do you have a moment?"
Regulus sighed privately at his impossible husband. He was at a phase where interrupting the brewing would be quite unwise, but he also had a hard time denying the man. "I think I may find a moment for you, Mister Potter," he sniffed and set the mirror on the shelf, propped it up against a jar of newt eyes so that he could continue brewing while he talked.
"Oh, great. So you know how the Sharke that somehow made its way to the Mediterranean sea the other week and upset the Sea Serpent there and caused massive flooding in the Amalfi Coast region?"
"Yes. I believe the Zabinis own an estate there, by Naples," Regulus recalled. He personally preferred the North of Italy. Not at all because that was where Evan retired to after faking his death in the war. (Great minds think alike and all that.)
"Funny you would mention that," James said brightly. "They got flooded."
"Oh dear," Regulus said dryly.
"Yep. So there's quite a few objects of questionable legality floating around and Italian authorities called us to sort out the mess. Mrs. Zabini became much more welcoming once I name-dropped you and it's been going pretty well. But there's this one box, yes?"
"Yes," Regulus echoed, stirring the potion quickly lest he lose track of how many times he stirred clock-wise. James must've seen the concentration on his face because he waited until Regulus looked up.
"It's a similar size and design as the one you got Malfoy for her birthday a few years ago. Antique, lots of pearls..." Regulus nodded along with the description. So far it appeared to be quite the standard work of Swiss-Italian carpenter and spell-crafter Bittertee. The man had an obsession with nacre and pearls that made his work easily recognisable. "...decorative lock, definitely an undetectable expanding charm, some nasty anti-theft hexes - Pads tried poking it and had to leave to the healer's, and tentacles."
Regulus paused in the middle of an eye-roll at his brother's inexplicable habit of poking cursed objects. "What do you mean it has tentacles?"
"Tentacles!" James cried, and the image became shaky. "Pink tentacles, about as long as my forearm. We counted at least six but they're wriggly so there might be more." The image stabilised, showing only James' right eye and the said pearl-covered box in the background. It was tipped askew, tentacles coming from underneath the half-closed lid. One of the tentacles picked up something shiny from the flooded floor and pulled it inside the box.
Leaning closer to the mirror's surface, the ex-spy squinted at the small image. "Get me a better look," he ordered the Auror.
James fumbled about for a second. "Better?"
"Hmmm..." Regulus hummed, focusing on the pearl jewelry box and its appendages, on the way it moved around in the few inches of water covering the floor, how it wrapped itself around a cabinet and squirmed until it figured out how to open its drawers and search their content. "Use Semper Salutem to disable the hexes first of all. Then try Pretium Dimittere. Wand movement is as if you were trying to pull a garden snail out of its shell."
The view got jerky again as James paid more attention to the incarnation than to the way he was holding the mirror. Upon the Semper Salutem the box shimmered in glittery blue, proving it truly was Bittertee's work.(*)
"Good, now Pretium Dimittere," Regulus murmured. "Keep the movement slow, like melted cheese."
"Hmm, lasagne," James sighed, making Regulus crave the dish that very instant. "Pretium Dimittere!"
The jewelry box fell off the cabinet it was ransacking and splashed on the floor.
"Are you serious," James said.
"No, I don't mistake octopi trapped in jewelry boxes for cursed objects," Regulus smirked, "you're thinking of my brother here. Could you stop by that little restaurant in Rome for lasagne on your way home?"
"And cheesecake in the jar?"
"And cheesecake in the jar."
James Potter-Black might not know his sea creatures but he did know his husband. Regulus turned off the mirror and returned to his cauldron, a soft smile on his face.
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(*) Like all (old button) NOKIA phones have the same code to unlock, all Bittertee's creations had the same password to make them less hostile.