Days After Death

All things considered, Harry believes things are going quite smoothly.

The team loves Lily so far, not that he had any doubt they wouldn’t. Five minutes into introducing her to them and she is already everyone’s best friend, cracking dirty jokes with Andy, listening to Harold’s rant on how badly the Appleby Arrows played last night, advising Beatrice to divorce her shoddy husband. She’s combing through them all and the work day has barely started.

Seamus snorts next to him.

“What’s up, Seamus?” Harry asks his former friend tiredly, eyeing the pile of papers on his desk that he’ll eventually have to get through, lest he want the Minister of Magic herself banging down on his door.

“Nothing,” Seamus sniffs, though Harry, and any person with any knowledge of basic social cues, would know Seamus clearly finds the situation funny, but he can’t tell if it’s good hearted or mocking. Probably mocking. “Just wonder what she’ll say to me. Probably tell me my toffees are still shit and I shouldn’t eat them.”

Definitely mocking. No doubt he remembers how Lily used to come by his office when she was much younger and Ginny used to visit him there. She detested Seamus’ lollies.

“They are shit,” Harry says, not wanting Seamus to patronise her and think Harry had just brought his child here for the sake of it.

“They’re the same as yours, you bugger.”

Harry gives him a wane smile before clapping once, loud enough to get everyone’s attention. Lily keeps talking passionately to Beatrice, her cheeks red with what Harry knows is outrage from the way her eyebrows are bunched together. Merlin, give him the strength to rein this girl.

“Miss Potter,” he says sharply, which causes her to stop short and look at him as if he’s the one who interrupted her, “I don’t know if you know this, but the work day has started.”

The team chuckles softly and she gives him a charming smile with cutting eyes.

“I thought I could just bond with my teammates, Sir. I am meeting them officially for the first time.”

Of course Lily had already known Seamus and Bowie Spinnet, who Harry’s had over his place for drinks in his earlier days. It was why the two blokes were sitting back and watching the situation unfold with stark amusement, their gaze flitting from Harry’s stern face to Lily’s playful one. It contrasted the stares of awe and disbelief from the others on the team quite comedically.

Beatrice looks on the verge of tears after Lily’s inspirational rant (she had a point, Beatrice’s husband didn’t deserve her, in Harry’s opinion at least), so Harry thought it was now or never to get some semblance of direction for the day before everyone is distracted.

“Meet them later,” Harry waves her off, before a Ministry official knocks on the door to their boardroom softly. They come in without permission, and Harry immediately recognises them as Nero, Hermione’s assistant.

They’re carrying a pile of paperwork, and because of Nero’s small and skinny stature, Harry can’t help but rush over to help them carry the load. He’s not even sure how Nero got to knock on the door with their arms so full in the first place.

“Thanks, Sir,” Nero says, breathlessly. “Minister wants that paperwork done by Monday. That underground team of trolls are standing trial in three weeks.”

The whole team, except Lily (who has her lips pursed in interest), collectively cringe. Harry looks at Seamus, and Seamus looks ominously at the pile, like he wants to light it on fire. If it’s anything about Aurors, it’s that they hate paperwork.

“Thanks, Nero, tell Hermione I’ve got the team on it,” Harry lies, knowing he’s going to beg and plead with her for extra time on his break. And it has to be him, because the rest of the department (the whole bloody Ministry, for that matter) is terrified of her. Harry thinks it’s the way she walks so briskly. Ron thinks it’s her large floof of hair that gives her an intimidating appearance (which is one of the reasons why he’s so attracted to her, apparently).

Nero nods and leaves, and Harry turns back to the team, whose eyes are trained on him.

“If I convince her at all, it’ll probably be an extra twenty-four hours and nothing more,” he says uselessly, and they groan. To be fair, they are an atrocious lot that has already had extension after extension on this tedious troll business. Ron had even told him his wife had struck a weird friendship with Minerva McGonagall from the stress of it, which made both men uncomfortable. Honestly, if Harry were a better man he’d grit his teeth and get through it.

But he vehemently hates the look of it, and not only that, but he’s proper shit at it too.

“Wait, you guys can’t do paperwork?” Lily looks confused, looking around at all of them.

“We’re about the fight, darl,” Andy sniffs sullenly, “not the bloody essays.”

Lily scratches her head.

“Well, I can do it.”

Everyone turns to look at her, eyes wide. Even Harry is surprised.

Lily, in turn, stares right back at all of them.

“What? You all can galavant around England and face some of the worst magical perpetrators in Europe but shy away from a bit of paperwork?”

She sniffs, unimpressed. Some have the gall to rub their necks, embarrassed. Harry’s just glad there’s a volunteer. Rich, he knows, since he’s supposed to be their boss, but anyone who knows him personally would know he’s not half as responsible as he lets on. A leader, maybe, sure. But only in the practical bits.

“Great,” Harry says, grateful, genuine, but also final. “Thanks, Lily. It’s your first day on the job, so don’t feel too pressured, ask for help if you need it. The recording of the case is all in there, but if you have any questions on it, feel free to ask. We may hate paperwork, but we don’t mind sharing some of the load, there's a lot there.”

He’s saying all this, and he means it, but a part of him knows it’s quite useless. Lily will probably knock this out of the park by tonight just to brag about it the morning after.

Lily just smirks at him, crossing her arms and leaning into her chair. Her eyes twinkle with cheek, and she exudes pure confidence and comfortability, red hair tied up into a high ponytail, one leg crossed over the other with ease. It feels like she’s been here for years. She fits into the picture so much so that Harry rules out the adjustment process he had been concerned about initially; how Lily would get along with the people here, how she would adjust to the workload, how he would adjust to her being here. It all feels so natural.

“Alright, Monrow and Civers have been apprehended two days ago,” Seamus explains, fishing out some papers, letters and parchment from the front desk next to the large piles. It includes Lily’s admission papers, which Harry fails to understand why Seamus felt the need to bring, and information about their current case. “Monrow’s pressing for bail, so that tells us he wants out quickly. I think we should try pressing him before he’s out of bail, when he’s all nippy.”

Seamus throws together some loose pieces of parchment and paper, constructing a basic case study and hands the sheets to Lily.

“Review these to catch up on our current investigation,” Seamus informs her, gesturing to Harry. “Harry can inform you on any missing key details.”

Lily flips through them, expression neutral, to her credit. Of course, he had already told her all about the drug case they were pursuing, and the gang that seemed to be involved with it. The ‘Looking Owls,’ it seemed, were becoming highly interested in ethromorphis recently, which may be the reason why the drug had spiked so high in the past year. At least, that’s what Hermione had been worried about.

“There’s some sort of organisation behind this,” she had told him, “a planned orchestration, Harry. And they’re targeting the weak because they’re the easiest to exploit.”

The weak being Squibs and muggle borns. Mostly Squibs. Hermione had always been adamant about reforming the magical system to make it easier for these individuals, quench some of the prejudices against the populace, but if there was one trait that the whole wizarding society shared it was stubbornness and hostility towards change. It was a miracle Hermione had even forced her way towards becoming Minister of Magic the first time, then the second, and now on her third term, she had to act even more impartial, sacrificing a little more of her values. It hadn’t been easy for her, and it still wasn’t. She normally found herself having to play off all sides of the coin, so she turned to Harry and his team to undertake the mission personally and privately, which was how he knows this whole drug case is really bothering her.

“Monrow is part of the Owls?” Lily raises a brow. “Didn’t he used to work for the Department of Magical Housing?”

Andy nods.

“Yeah, he did. He was my brother’s mate.”

“Some upstanding citizen,” Seamus shakes his head. “We don’t know for sure if he’s part of the Owls, per se. But we have intel that he’s been associating with him, and his drug test proved to be positive a few days back, so he’s been using. Excessively.”

“Seamus, I want you and Andy to proceed with the interrogation,” Harry says, and Seamus shoots him a look. Merlin, sometimes he truly forgets Harry is the one in charge. “Play good cop, bad cop on him. He won’t be familiar with interrogation tactics, so it might just break him.”

“Good cop, bad cop?” Andy frowns, confused whilst Seamus rolls his eyes. “What’s a cop?”

“I’m guessing I’ll play the nasty one,” Seamus grumbles, ignoring his coworker and, well, obviously. Seamus is the nastiest one here.

“Who’s this Civers?” Lily asks, feigning curiosity though she knows already thanks to Harry’s private debriefing with her earlier.

“A Squib,” Beatrice says, shaking her head. “I think it was her first time even being in the Ministry when we arrested her.”

It gets Harry thinking. What is he going to do with Civers anyways? They usually apprehended wizards or witches early in the morning to lower the chances of violent resistance, and after doing some investigation on Civers’ character, it was evident that she had had a history of drug use, mostly Muggle stuff as it was easier for her to get her hands on, an even longer history of mental illness. She had been unstable, nearly stabbed Harold in the thigh when they had taken her in, then began to rant how she was innocent, how she was sober when she clearly was not. She was questioned briefly on her family who she seemed to have not remembered, andher memory of her older sister and estranged mother had been ostensibly wiped blank. She may not know anything useful after all. And then what were they supposed to do? St Mungos had a sister contract with a rehabilitation centre for drugs such as ethromorphis, but they didn’t accept Squibs. Do they keep Civers and hook her up on Veritaserum to get some answers? Harry isn’t a fan of taking things that far, but they’ll draw a dead end soon enough with her.

Harry pinched his eyes behind his glasses, rubbing at them.

“Harold, call a Healer,” Harry said. “Andy and Seamus, you’ll interrogate Monrow at four today, tire him out just a little longer. Try not to get him to call a lawyer. Beatrice, you and I will question Civers. We’ll take a gentler approach and work our way from there. On second thought, Harold, better make it two Healers. Her– The Minister would want a diagnostic run on Civers as a Squib, and they won’t be able to do that in St. Mungos. Might as well be here. Lily, you can start on those papers.”

“Whoa, what? Just because I agreed to pull all of your weight doesn’t mean I want to sit cooped up in an office all day when I could help.”

“Fine. Bring the papers to the questioning room and try to get some done there, if you want. Bowie can help you. I can introduce you to the desk ladies–”

There’s a soft knock on the door once more, and the whole team holds a collective breath, envisioning more paperwork (except Lily, who stares at the door with disinterest). Harry envisions Nero bursting through, almost folding themselves under a weight of workload too heavy for them to bear when moments tick by, and no one comes in.

Hesitantly, the person behind the door knocks once more and clears their throat.

“Come in,” Harry says, sometimes forgetting that he needs to give permission. Nero has been bustling into meetings without shame since they started working directly under Hermione.

The door opens, and Harry recognises the bundle of tight, short brown curls on his son’s head first.

“Pardon my interruption,” James says, though he flashes Lily an unapologetic grin, eyes alight. She wiggles her fingers at him.

“That’s alright, James,” Harry nods, but he can feel his team looking at him, and he can’t help but feel the familiar sinking of dread in the pit of his stomach. James turns back to him, face remaining pleasant, open, but there’s something heavy set between his shoulders and gaze, once more. “What did you need?”

“Trigganon’s team was set to patrol Briton last night,” James says, and he’s beating about the bush, and Harry knows he is because he doesn’t want to embarrass their family in front of all his colleagues. “It’s Albus.”

There’s a moment Harry is very acquainted with, ever since Albus had hit sixteen, possibly even earlier than that. Lily scoffs loudly, crossing her arms and turning her head, not embarrassed but furious. His colleagues, his team he has given sweat and bone to have respect him for not only the child who had saved the wizarding world, but the man who continues to do so, look away from him. Out of pity, out of respect, or maybe a shared mortification, Harry knows not.

But he’s aware of what he has to do, he’s aware of what’s expected of him, and like a machine, his mind goes quiet and his body moves for him.

“Lead the way,” he says.