The World Has Turned and Left Me Here

James woke up to the sound of his alarm, feeling rather more sluggish than usual, and for a moment he wasn’t sure why he felt so ill rested. He reached over instinctively to tap the top of the alarm clock on the bedside table to turn it off, hitting it harder than he meant to as his limbs felt rather heavy, groaning at the sunlight streaming in through the window as he let his arm flop lifelessly back down onto the bed next to him, his sleepy eyes slowly closing. A few seconds later they snapped open again as a bolt of excitement shot through him when James suddenly remembered what day it was, why exactly he’d found it so hard to fall asleep last night. And he remembered exactly who's arrival he was expecting this evening. He sat upright in bed, not feeling remotely tired anymore, as a grin broke out across his face.

Three months... In some ways the time had passed so quickly that James couldn’t believe he’d already been here for that long. But in other ways, he felt like it had been a lifetime. Getting used to sleeping alone had probably been the hardest part – even now, three months into having a double bed all to himself he still woke up every morning on one side of it, his arm stretched out to the other side, where Teddy should be.

Teddy. The broad smile plastered across his face was going nowhere as James scrambled out of bed and dashed excitedly into the open plan living space, flicking on the kettle and going to look out of the window to see what kind of day it was. He still wasn’t really used to the fact that the seasons were reversed here. Over in the UK he knew the weather would be turning bitterly cold, frost covering the ground in the morning, with all the autumn leaves gone and the trees bare. In stark contrast, spring was slowly blooming into summer here: the trees lining the streets were plush and vibrant green, and the skies clear and blue. James had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that Christmas was just around the corner.

His colleagues, who were all from warmer climates, took the piss out of James mercilessly for walking around in just shorts and a t-shirt, as for them the typical twenty-degree weather was in fact rather cool. But to James it was akin to the height of summer back home. In fact, given his red-headed genes, he was rather susceptible to the sun, and was having to cover himself in sunblock every day now to avoid getting burnt. Ella, his colleague and probably best friend on the island, found this particularly hilarious, and had starting making frequent references to James being part vampire.

It looked like another stunningly sunny day, so James hurried through his morning routine, eager to get out there. Approximately half an hour later, he was stepping outside the flat as he donned a pair of sunglasses, strolling breezily in the direction of his office. He had already had a cup of tea before leaving the flat (his hot tea drinking habits were something else that his non-British colleagues liked to tease him about), but decided to stop at a local coffee shop along the way and get himself an iced tea, because why the hell not. He picked one up for Ella as well, and he carried them one in each hand the short distance to the office, having to push open the door with his hip when he got there. The receptionist, who had become quite familiar with him over the past couple of months, smirked as he entered the foyer.

“Do you think you’re in the Caribbean?” he asked amusedly as James passed by his desk en route to the lifts, probably in reference to the fact that James hadn’t taken off his sunglasses, having no free hands to do so, since his attire was quite typical of what he'd been wearing for a good few weeks now.

“Might as well be, mate” James replied cheerfully. “It’s cracking flags out there.”

The receptionist raised an eyebrow at that, and James could tell that he’d never heard that expression before. Figuring it would funnier not to explain it, and let him try and work it out, James continued on down past the staircase to the lifts on the other side. The building wasn’t just for Mo's little company, there were a number of different offices on the other floors. James wasn’t exactly sure what all of them did, but as far as he knew the building was otherwise inhabited by muggles, the receptionist included. His office was spread over the sixth and seventh floors, with mission control and planning on seven and the excursion space directly below.

James entered the lift, laughing a little as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirrored wall inside, before clutching one of the drinks to his chest freeing up a hand for him to press the button for seventh floor. The receptionist had been right to give him shit, the sunglasses were rather ostentatious, and combined with his tight fitting t-shirt and the plastic cup he had in his hand with the big green straw poking out of it, he did look a bit of a yuppie prick. James leaned casually against the back wall of the lift as he waited for it to reach his floor, stepping out into another small foyer when it did so.

Since it was a magical office in a muggle building, they had to have some security to stop people wandering in, so James had to scan his wand in order to get through the door. He awkwardly clutched the drinks into his chest again, having to keep one balanced under his chin while he dug his wand out of his shorts pocket and held it against what looked like an ordinary card reader on the side of the door. A moment later, the lock clicked open, and James pushed the door open with his elbow, pleased that he’d managed to succeed without dropping anything.

He had expected to be the first one here, as it was a good forty minutes or so until they were due to have their briefing for today’s excursion, but a James was mildly surprised as he entered the office to see Ella already here, sat at her desk flicking through a book.

“Morning” James greeted her jovially, placing the drink he had brought for her down on the desk in front of her. She made an appreciative noise as her eyes flicked up from the book to see him putting it there, then glanced up at James and spluttered a loud laugh.

“Fucking hell, Jamie, what are you, going to the Bahamas after we’re done here?” she shot at him, in her thick Australian accent. James coolly repositioned his sunglasses atop his head and levelled her with an unimpressed stare.

“You know what, for that I should take that iced tea back” he threatened, and she snatched it up at once, holding it out away from him, as though he actually might. James laughed.

“Thank you” she said sheepishly, taking a sip through the straw, and then looking back at him with a mischievous grin again. “You could have remembered that I prefer the peach though” she said in a stage whisper.

“You’re not going to get a rise out of me today” James retorted defiantly. “I’m in far too good a mood to get sucked into this” he made a circling gesture at her face, and Ella laughed.

“Oh I’ll get you, one way or the other” she said dismissively. “So, today’s the big day, huh?”

“It is indeed” he grinned. “In just-“ he glanced at his watch “twelve hours, my man is going to be here with me. Twelve hours!” he beamed. “I am going to be having so much sex tonight” he added, almost as an afterthought, as he sat down in his chair, at the desk next to Ella’s.

“We’re all very happy for you” she replied bemusedly.

“You should be. Three months, I haven’t been laid for” James reminded her, and she laughed again.

“You know, I thought it was quite sweet how excited you were getting about him coming here, but it takes some of that away from it to know it’s just because you’re finally going to get a shag” Ella said off-handedly, looking down at the book again. James leant over to see what it was she was reading – something about stunning spells.

“I’m excited to see him for lots of other reasons, too” James countered. “I’m really looking forward to YOU meeting him, actually.”

“Me?” Ella replied, looking surprised and giving James her full attention again.

“Yeah, if you give him half as much shit as you give me, I can’t wait to see how that pans out” James smirked.

“Why, can he not take it?” Ella asked warily.

“Oh no, the exact opposite” James assured her. “If you think I'm a nightmare, just wait until you meet my other half.”

“I have SO many questions for him” Ella grinned. “’Was James really a sports celebrity, or is he completely full of shit?’ That’ll be my opener, I reckon.”

“You’ll be very disappointed, I’m afraid” James told her nonchalantly. “If I was going to make something up, I’d have gone for something much more difficult to fact check.”

“What, like your boyfriend being able to change his face whenever he wants?” Ella asked pointedly, and James laughed.

“Again, I don’t know why you think I’d lie about that” he said incredulously. “It’s not like you wouldn’t find out eventually, is it?” he shook his head in exasperation, but smiling all the while. “You know what, now I’m excited for you to meet him for a whole bunch of different reasons.”

“I’m on to you, Potter” Ella shot back, eyeballing him suspiciously. “The truth is all going to come out now. Unless he’s in on it actually, which I bet he fucking is. I bet you’ve already primed him for all the lies he has to back you up on, haven’t you?”

“There’s no reasoning with you” James said, waving a dismissive hand at her, and she cackled. James was saved the hassle of having to defend himself any further as Mohamed entered the office, effectively putting an end to their bickering.

“Morning, children” he smirked which James knew meant he had heard the tail end of their conversation, and he shot a sidelong glance at Ella, who stuck her tongue out at him.

“Morning” James replied good naturedly, as he flipped open the notebook on his desk, looking for the notes he’d made a last week when they’d been planning this mission they were about to go on.

“Since you’re both here we can make an earlier start then, eh?” Mo ventured, and both James and Ella nodded. Today’s mission was just for the three of them, their other colleagues would be at the museum.

“Sure thing, boss” Ella replied casually.

“Let me just get a coffee and we'll get started then” Mo told them, heading through to the small kitchen next door. While they waited for him, James perused his notes to remind himself of the details of the excursion. They would be heading South to the Taupo Volcanic Zone today. It wouldn’t be James’s first time entering a volcano, but it would be his first time entering an active one. Perhaps he ought to feel some trepidation about that, but he was actually quite excited at the prospect. While reading his notes, he caught Ella out of the corner of his eye, making some jabbing motions with her wand, her eyes still fixed on the book. Distracted, he glanced up at her in mild amusement as she muttered something under her breath while making the same motion, and some red sparks shot out of the end of her wand.

“You’ll have someone’s eye out doing it like that” James told her, putting a hand out to her wand and gently pushing it down.

“It says a sharp forward motion” Ella countered, turning the book around to show him.

“You don’t need to use your whole arm” James told her, fighting back a smirk. Apparently Australian schools didn’t teach defence against the dark arts – not in the same manner that James had learned it anyway. He had been helping Ella out a lot in this area since he’d been here.

“It’s in the wrist” James advised her, flicking his wrist to show her a less aggressive motion. She tried to copy him, but with a little too much of a flourish, this time accidentally shooting what looked like a tiny, red bolt of lightning out of the end of her wand, which James hastily withdrew his arm to dodge.

“Fuck, sorry” she laughed, as James shook his head in disapproval.

“Hopeless, you are” he muttered, getting up to stand next to her and holding onto her wand hand, showing her the correct movement.

“There’s almost no swish” he told her. “You’re not waving your wand around. It’s like you’re just pointing at someone.” He did the motion a few times with her, and then released her hand for her to have a go by herself, but he stayed stood next to her, out of the firing line.

“Better” he nodded watching her.

“Stupefy!” Ella cried, flicking her wand out. James huffed a laugh at her excitable tone, but nevertheless it had been effective. A projectile of red light shot from the end of her wand straight at the flip chart she’d been aiming at, knocking it to the ground.

“Aha!” Ella declared proudly, while James laughed some more.

“Oi, what the hell is going on out there?” Mo’s voice called out from the kitchen.

“Destruction of company property” James called back to him, and Ella punched him in the thigh. Mo appeared from the kitchen a moment later, sipping from a mug and looking curiously down at the upended flip chart at his feet.

“Stunner?” he asked Ella calmly. She nodded, grinning. He made an impressed face and looked back down at it.

“Nice going” he said casually. “You’re really getting the hang of it.”

“Thanks” she said, looking pleased. Mo stepped over the chart paying it no further mind and made his way towards the conference room, gesturing to the other two.

“Right, come on then” he said. James grabbed a pen from the pot on Ella’s desk and picked up his notebook and his iced tea before following him in. He took a seat at the table opposite Mo, who was leaned casually back in his chair sipping his coffee. There was a large map laid out on the table of the area they would be going to today – left there since they had done the mission planning in here a few days ago. Ella filed in behind James and sat next to him, and the two of them looked to Mo expectantly.

“James, you want to take the lead on this?” Mo asked him, and James was rather taken aback.

“Me?” he asked, surprised.

“You did most of the mission planning” Mo shrugged. James supposed that was true, he and the intern had done the reconnaissance trip, so James had had more input into the mission planning than anyone else. But ultimately all the major decisions had been made by the two directors, as was protocol. Apparently reading the uncertainly in his tone, Mo gave him an encouraging nod.

“Um, alright then” James said, feeling equal parts pleased about being offered the responsibility and worried about potentially not being up to the challenge. The latter feeling was alleviated somewhat as he looked down at the map, which was annotated with a lot of lines and arrows, with post-it notes stuck here and there. Much of it was in James’s own handwriting.

“So, Mount Tongariro” James started, pointing at a specific point on the map. “Our entrance point is on the Western side, avoiding the muggle hiking routes that pass through the area. We traverse this ridge here” he traced with his finger the path of a large arrow that he himself had drawn on the map the other day. “And there’s a small opening just beyond this rock formation here” he tapped on the map at the relevant point. James was pretty much just going over what they had discussed during the mission planning a couple of days ago, but both Ella and Mo were listening to him now with rapt attention, and James had to fight back a rather smug smile at feeling so important.

“The opening drops down into an empty cavern, but it’s quite close to the main vent of the volcano, so we need to be on the lookout for any magma escape” he went on, pushing the map aside to reveal a large sheet of paper underneath it, on which he and the intern had sketched a rough map of the inside of the volcano. “We go down further from there” James said, now tracing a route along the make-shift map. “There’s a concealed doorway of sorts around here, that had powerful traces of magic. No idea whatsoever is behind it, but something that needs strong protective enchantments by the looks of things.”

“That’s where the fun starts” Mohamed chimed in, with a smirk. James nodded, returning his smile.

“Based on what we’ve found in that area previously we should be prepared for fire barriers and confundus charms” James now gestured to the whiteboard on the wall behind him, where a list of potential threats was written, with the most likely ones circled. “We also shouldn’t rule out fire crabs or acromantula.”

“But really, we have no idea what to expect” Ella interjected, pointing the straw of her drink at James, who chuckled.

“No, we don’t” he agreed. “This stuff is an educated guess, though. Fire crabs are known to have territory in this area, and we’ve come across them inside volcanoes before.”

“Anything we need to be on the lookout for given that it’s an active volcano?” Ella asked, this time directing the question to Mo, who looked rather surprised at being called on.

“Lava” he replied lazily. “You probably want to steer clear of it, as best you can.” James laughed at that, and Ella looked torn between amused and annoyed.

“Is that your serious answer?” she asked Mo with a raised eyebrow. He shrugged.

“Pretty much” he replied evenly. “There’s a good chance of there being fire dwelling creatures in there. Salamanders, most likely, but they’re no threat to us. Fire crabs, like James said, pretty likely. Beyond that, the only environmental risk is some sort of unexpected lava flow. Suppose there could be an eruption, if we’re really unlucky.” Mo looked rather unconcerned about this, as he had done when it had come up the other day, and James had to hold back another laugh.

“And if there is?” Ella asked, looking rather alarmed at this. James didn’t recall, but she must have left the room for some reason when they were discussing this the other day. That was why they did these mission briefings, to make sure everyone was in the loop. Mo gestured to James to fill her in.

“We all stay together throughout the mission” James told her. “So in the event of an emergency we can evacuate instantaneously - we don’t want to have to round everyone up. There were no anti-apparition wards on the entrance chamber. Once we get inside the inner chamber, first thing we do is make sure there’s none there either, and if there are, we take them down before going any further.”

“Alright” Ella replied, although she was still frowning slightly.

“We’re well within apparition range of the office, so the evacuation point is the landing bay downstairs” James told her. “And standard mission protocols apply otherwise. We advance in a triangular formation with team leader up front. For confined space work-“ James glanced over to Mo. “I assume I’m the spotter?” he asked. Mo looked rather surprised again.

“I thought you’d be team leader, actually” Mo told him. Now it was James’s turn to be surprised.

“You what?” he asked, quite sure he couldn’t have heard that correctly.

“No, I’m serious” Mo told him. He so often wasn’t that James did appreciate the clarification. “It’s your baby, isn’t it? You did the recon, and the planning.”

“Do you think I’m ready?” James asked him bluntly. Mo looked amused at that.

“Do you not?” Mo put to him. James didn’t really know what to say. He was a little overwhelmed at this amount of trust being placed on him. He wanted to be team leader, of course he did. But he had never dreamed it would be handed to him so easily like this. Especially not at a job he’d only been at for three months. Especially not for a mission that was going to involve a lot of improvising, since they had only really planned as far as the entrance chamber. But then again, Mohamed was nothing if not unconventional as a boss. And James certainly felt as though he had earned his trust in these past couple of months. And it wasn’t as though he was being asked to do this completely alone, Mo would be by his side the whole time.

“Alright…” James said, a little uncertainly. “I’m team leader then?” he hadn’t really meant for it to come out as a question, but the inflection on the last word had made it sound like one. Mo was still looking like he wanted to laugh.

“Once more, with feeling” he smirked. James cleared his throat, while Ella did indeed laugh.

“I’m team leader, then” James said, with much more confidence than he actually felt. “Mo, you’ll be spotter then.”

“Aye aye” Mo replied with a salute, and Ella snickered some more.

-

“What did I tell you? Fire crabs!” James called to Ella, not having chance to see her reaction, as he had to fire a series of stunning spells at the creatures advancing on him, scuttling at an alarming speed and leaving trails of flames in their wake. Fortunately, they were still not far from the main vent of the volcano, so they had quite a lot of natural light to work with. James wouldn’t have fancied trying to take on this hoard in the dark, but as it was visibility was good enough that he had no real trouble seeing them coming, and hence firing spells in the right direction to keep them at bay.

He heard Ella cry ‘Stupefy!” repeatedly while he was taking care of the ones immediately in front of him. James, being considerably more practised with the spell was able to fire it wordlessly, flicking his wand rapidly and taking them out with what he considered to be pretty good efficiency. However, his attention was drawn away from the crabs and back to him team-mates, as he heard Ella squeal, and looked behind him to see one of the crabs had managed to reach her. It was pinching her leg with one of its large foreclaws, the pincers sinking deeply into her flesh inducing a trickle of blood that ran down her shin.

“Depulso!” James shot a banishing spell at the thing, which hit it square in the back and caused it to fly up into the air. James hit it with a stunner as soon as it flew far enough away from Ella to avoid the risk of accidentally hitting her. He heard it land on its shell with a loud crack and winced slightly. Really, they shouldn’t be hurting the crabs, they were an endangered species. But he didn’t really have time to stop and feel bad about it, as the rest of the hoard was still advancing on Ella, who wasn’t firing her spells as rapidly as James had been and was struggling to hold them at bay. Deciding that more collective action was required, James waved his wand in a sweeping motion, casting a frosting spell around them, which made the crabs shrink back.

Mo, who had been on Ella’s other side dealing with the crabs advancing from that direction, followed suit, and the two of them spread the cold front in a circle around them, pushing the fire crabs further and further back, until they began to scuttle back through various little holes in the rock, to wherever they had come from. James conjured a semi-permanent snow cloud above them to make sure they wouldn’t come back, before turning his attention to Ella again. She had already started patching herself up, and was dabbing the bloody wound on her shin with antiseptic from her pack.

“You alright?” he asked her, and she nodded.

“Yeah. Need to work on that stunning spell” she muttered, looking annoyed. James knew it was herself she was annoyed at and not him, but he didn’t think any less of her for it. They all came from different backgrounds. Ella’s medical training, for example, far outstripped his own. Indeed, once she’d cleaned the wound, she healed it in an instant with a quick press of her wand to the skin. Satisfied that she seemed to be fine, James took a look around at all the upturned, unconscious crabs now littering the floor of the chamber they were in.

“Hmm, suppose we’d better move them out of here” James ventured. “We don’t want them to freeze to death before they wake up.”

“Why not?” Ella muttered darkly, but she obligingly helped the other two sweep the lifeless crabs back out of the cavern towards the way they had entered the volcano from, one chamber over.

“Is that one dead?” Mohamed asked James, gesturing to the upturned one that had attacked Ella, that James had sent flying. He went to investigate, gingerly nudging it over with his foot, and wincing again when he saw a large crack in the top of its shell, from which a viscous blue liquid was oozing. He did feel quite bad about it, but it had been self defence after all. The crab would certainly have killed Ella if given half the chance.

“Yeah, it’s dead” James called back to Mo grimly. Accidental killing of an endangered species was something they had to notify the ministry’s magical creature department about. This was going to involve some paperwork.

“We’ll have to report that” Mohamed replied calmly.

“Yeah, I know” James frowned. “What do we do with it, just leave it here?”

“Nah they’ll want it for the research lab” Mohamed replied casually. “Stick it on some ice and send it back to the office.” He and Ella continued with the task at hand, rather carelessly sweeping the crabs further back towards the chamber beyond, leaving James with his own unfortunate job. Grimacing distastefully, James did as he was told and conjured a small crate, filled it with ice and carefully levitated the crab’s body into it, trying hard to ignore the horrible trail of blue slime left in its wake, dripping down the side of the box he had floated it over. He very much hoped that the ice would be sufficient to slow the decomposition enough to prevent the entire landing bay back at the office from smelling of rotting shellfish by the time they returned.

By the time James had fixed a lid onto the crate and sent it back to the office with a modified apparition spell, Mo and Ella had made decent progress on clearing the now quite cold chamber of the live but unconscious crabs, and James went to help them move some of the stragglers still littering the edges of the room. He passed quite close to Ella in the process, who muttered slyly to him.

“We don’t get paid enough for this.”

“Speak for yourself” James smirked back, and she huffed irritably. In reality, the difference in their salaries after tax was pretty much negligible, but it was a long-standing joke between them that James was technically her superior, and James would never miss an opportunity to remind her of that fact.

“Alright, that should do it” Mohamed piped up, sending the last few crabs sliding across the floor with a swish of his wand. “What’s next, boss?” he asked, turning his attention to James, who couldn’t help but smile.

“Let’s get that door open, shall we?” James suggested, turning back to the wall in question. There was no actual door to speak of, the rocky wall looked the same as all the others down here. But on their reconnaissance mission James and their intern had found traces of strong magic at a certain spot, that almost certainly indicated something hidden behind it. James cast a glance behind him as he approached the wall, to make sure that the other two were in formation, stood a few feet behind him and spread apart on either side of him with their wands at the ready. When he reached the wall, James ran his hand softly over the rough surface, looking for the spot where the magic was strongest. He had some experience in this matter, but the magic here was so blatant that it didn’t need a particularly practised hand to identify it. He found the spot in almost no time at all.

“Alright, are we ready?” James asked, glancing back over his shoulder again. Both Mo and Ella made noises of assent.

“Alright” James muttered to himself, steeling himself for whatever was about to happen. He raised his wand and made a slashing motion, forcing a deep crack into the rocky surface. The sound of it echoed eerily through the chamber, but for a moment nothing else happened. James was just starting to breath a sigh of relief when suddenly, a bright burst of flames spouted from the crack, narrowly avoiding James who dived and rolled sideways to avoid it. The flash of fire was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and James hastily looked to the other two to make sure neither of them had been hurt. Fortunately, they had all been half expecting that to happen, and had apparently all managed to dodge it in time.

“Everyone alright?” James asked anyway, to be sure.

“Wasn’t expecting that delay” Mo replied with a breathy laugh, which Ella joined in. James grinned at them both. That wave of relief combined with the dispelling of nervous energy after a close call often had this kind of effect.

“Alright, well, I’m going to push in a bit further, so be ready” James instructed them both, waiting for the two of them to take a defensive stance before raising his wand again. This time he hacked the rock hard enough to break through to the other side, creating a wide crack that extended the full height of the wall. This time he was ready for the spout of fire that burst out of the opening, and simply stepped aside to avoid it. He repeated this action twice more before there was a hole in the wall large enough for a person to squeeze through. He then set to work disabling the fire barrier, carefully untangling the enchantment with a series of his own counter-spells, diffusing it one piece at a time. Once he was satisfied that it had been effectively disarmed, he picked up a small rock from the floor and threw it through the hole to make sure. Nothing happened.

“Nice work” Mo said appreciatively, as James turned back to him. He shrugged bashfully.

“That’s the fire barrier down” James replied evenly. “But there could be other protective measures in place.”

“How do want to proceed?” Mo asked him calmly.

“Er, well I was just going to stick my head in and have a look” James offered, wondering slightly as he did so whether that was an incredibly stupid idea. Mo laughed, presumably at James’s uncertain expression.

“Go on then” he grinned, gesturing to the hole in the wall. Feeling slightly better about his plan, or lack thereof, James did exactly that, tentatively peering through the hole, lighting his wand and poking it around to see what was on the other side. It was a small room, containing a single chest and apparently nothing else, aside from a whole lot of dust and cobwebs. James retreated from the hole to relay this information to the others.

“A chest?” Ella asked, looking rather surprised. “Is that it?”

“Well, we don’t know what’s inside it” James put to her. “Must be valuable, whatever it is, if someone’s gone to trouble of hiding it inside a volcano.”

“Not necessarily” Mo countered. “The ancient civilisations used to hide their treasure in volcanos all the time, it’s a convenient way to keep it out the hands of the muggles.” James wondered vaguely why their missions didn’t involve volcanic territory more often, if that was the case. As if reading his mind, Mo went on. “In fact, it’s such a common location for ancient hoards that most of it has already been recovered, centuries back.”

“Why’s this been missed then?” James frowned. It was visually hidden, but anyone with even the slightest ability to detect traces of magic should have picked up on it straight away.

“Dunno” Mo shrugged, looking rather unconcerned about it, but this didn’t placate James.

“There’s strong magic on that room” James pointed out. “Too strong to just be the fire barrier. There’s got to be more to it.”

“You think there’s traps?” Ella asked him seriously.

“I don’t know” James said slowly as he thought it over. “Nothing was set off when I threw that rock in there, so it doesn’t look like it. Unless it’s some sort of enchantment that’s only activated by human presence. But that would be a complicated spell – and for what? Just a chest?” he shook his head, still frowning pensively. “Whatever is inside it must be valuable. Maybe even dangerous.”

“Could be a powerful magical artefact” Mo ventured. “Maybe that’s what you’re picking up on.”

“Or maybe there’s protective spells on the chest itself?” Ella suggested uncertainly. A sudden idea struck James at that, and he turned back to the hole in the wall immediately, now raking his eyes over every inch of the chest itself, looking for any signs of something amiss.

It was a fairly large trunk, it would probably comfortably fit a couple of people sat down in it. It looked to be made of old, slightly rotting wood that was pale in colour, roughly fixed together with rather rusty looking nails, half of which hadn’t been hammered in all the way. The arched lid was shut, with no obvious fixing locking it shut, so it looked like they would be able to just walk over and open it up. There was nothing particularly unusual about it at all, but something about it gave James a great sense of foreboding. This was all feeling horribly familiar.

“Mo, do you get mimics in this part of the world?” James called back to him, his eyes still on the chest.

“Not for the past couple of hundred years” Mo replied, sounding surprised. “Why, what are you thinking?”

“I’ve seen one before, in India” James told him seriously, now carefully examining the base of the chest, where those awful green tendrils might come from. “And it was a lot like this. There were barriers on the way in, but when we found the actual chest itself, it looked to be completely unprotected. It didn’t make sense, it was too easy. We knew there had to be hidden traps of some sort. Then we woke the thing up, and all hell broke loose.”

“I’d be very surprised if that’s what it is, mate” Mo replied reasonably. “They’re rare the world over, but especially in these parts.”

“I know” James muttered quietly, more to himself than to Mo. “But something about this has got my alarm bells going off. I don’t know…” Maybe he was just over-reacting because of what happened last time. And maybe he also had mimics on the brain because of Teddy’s current case, which Teddy gave him the occasional non-specific snippet of information on in their texts and phone calls. There was nothing really to suggest that this was one, apart from that strange feeling in James’s gut. He had never much been one for divination, but he did believe in intuition.

“Let’s have a look” Mo replied, now sounding quite serious. James moved aside and let him peer into the hole for himself.

“Can someone tell me what a mimic is?” Ella asked, looking completely nonplussed.

“It’s an animation spell” James told her. “A violent one. If that chest is one, then it’ll try and rip us all to shreds the second we get close to it.”

“You’ve seen one before?” Ella frowned seriously.

“Once” James replied grimly. He didn’t offer any further information on it, he hadn’t really told his new colleagues all that much about his rather undignified exit from the UK ministry, as he wasn’t sure how well he came off in that story. Ella looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but James’s attention was turned back to Mo, who had retreated from the hole in the wall and was now shrugging at James.

“It looks just like a chest to me, James” he said calmly. “But it’s your mission, what do you want to do?” James looked between him and Ella, the former looking rather at ease, the latter looking rather worried. James himself was very much torn between the two.

“I don’t know” James replied honestly. “Give me a second to think it over” he added, leaning against the wall next to the hole and looking through it again. There was nothing more to be gained from a visual inspection, but James wasn’t really examining the chest anymore anyway, he was running over it all in his head.

It was incredibly unlikely, he knew that. Mo was right, mimics were extremely rare, so much so that about four months ago James himself had never even heard of them. And he knew that between his botched mission with Taylor and Teddy’s current case, he had been seeing and hearing about mimics in general a lot more than anyone normally would, which was certainly why they were at the forefront of his mind. But even if this wasn’t a mimic, he was right about this being similar to that other mission in the sense that it seemed too easy. There had to be hidden traps, of that much he was absolutely certain. He briefly considered down-grading their current excursion to a reconnaissance mission, doing some investigative work and taking it back to the office for analysis. But that seemed like an over-correction. Even if the thing was a mimic, well James knew how to deal with them now, he supposed. And whatever protective spells were on this chest, they shouldn’t really just leave it here now they had exposed it, it would be dangerous to anyone who came across it. No, they really ought to proceed. But with caution.

“I’m going to try and open it from here, I think” James said finally, turning back to Mo and Ella. “See what happens. But first, tell me what mimics are like in this part of the world. The spell varies across the continents.”

Mo looked rather impressed at that, which James had to remind himself not to feel too smug about. After all, the only reason he knew that was because of Teddy and his research on the subject.

“There’ll be what looks like a mouth of some sort” Mo replied with another shrug. “A long tongue, with spikes all over it.” So that was the pacific variation then, a spiked tongue.

“Any other limbs?” James pressed him. “Vines, creepers, anything like that?”

“Not to my knowledge” Mo frowned.

“Venom?” James asked.

“What the hell kind of mimics have you been dealing with?” Mo asked him incredulously.

“The South American ones have a knock-out agent on the tongue” James told him, and Mo looked even more impressed. Ella was looking at him with a raised eyebrow, as if half wondering if he was just making all of this up.

“My boyfriend had to do a ton of research on them for a case he’s been working on” James explained.

“Right, so this isn’t like, common knowledge then?” Ella asked, still looking rather incredulous at James’s apparent wealth of knowledge on the subject.

“No, it’s not” Mo told her reassuringly.

“It’ll seem like a creature, but it isn’t” James told her seriously. He wanted her fully prepared for what might happen, however unlikely it was that the chest did have a mimic spell on it. He wasn’t going to repeat Taylor’s mistakes. “It’ll try and pull you into the mouth so it can rip your arm off with it’s teeth, which are very real” he told her, and she shot an alarmed look at Mo, who made a face which James could clearly see was him telling her to just ‘go with it.’ He was starting to feel a bit like an alarmist here, but if he had learnt anything at all from his dad (and from Teddy, for that matter), it was that it was always best to err on the side of caution.

“We need to hit the inside of the mouth with a disintegration curse” James ploughed on. “That’s how we kill it.”

“Alright” Ella replied a little uncertainly, looking back and forth between James and Mo, who was still looking quite sceptical, but didn’t say anything to counter any of what James had just said.

“And if it’s NOT a mimic, which let’s be honest, is likely” James said, and Mo gave a curt nod in agreement. “I still think me opening it is going to set something off. So be on your guard” James added.

“Alright” Ella said again, although this time with more conviction. James shot one last look to Mo, who nodded again in approval.

James took his post at the opening in the wall again, raising his wand and casting a beam of light over the chest one last time. He then carefully cast a banishing spell at the lid to gently lift it open. No sooner had the lid opened a mere crack than an all-too-familiar loud screeching sound emitted from the thing, echoing off the rocky walls of the chamber. It was all James could do not to scream ‘I knew it’ as a dark pink tongue, covered in spikes of all different lengths and looking rather like an elongated pufferfish began snaking out of the lid, moving much more quickly that the last one James had seen, and whipping seemingly blindly around the room. James was immensely glad he had chosen to cast the spell from here, since he almost certainly would have been hit by it if he was anywhere inside the room.

“I don’t believe it” Mohamed yelled over the screeching, dashing forward to James’s side to gaze into the hole with him. There wasn’t really any time to respond, as the tongue darted quickly right at them, as though in response to hearing Mo’s voice. The pair of them jumped back as the tongue poked out of the hole in the wall, and James heard Ella behind him make a noise of surprise before he saw a blue spell hit it, and the tongue retreated back into the room, the screeching lowering in volume. James hastily looked back to Ella, who’s wand was raised and appeared to have been the one who had cast the blue spell. He was about to ask her what it had been, but before he had chance the mimic apparently decided to take it’s chances again and the tongue darted out of the hole again, straight at Ella, who had to duck and roll to the side to avoid it. James heard Mo shout something, and a second later the screeching stopped entirely, leaving the chamber in eerie silence. It took James a second to realise that the tongue was now moving extremely slowly, and he looked over to Mo, who was holding his wand aloft and looking pleased with himself.

“Impediment jinx” he said triumphantly. “I’ll hold it, you get in there” he shot at James, who didn’t bother to respond, squeezing himself through the hole in the wall, ducking under the tongue and hurtling towards the chest. He had no idea how long Mo would be able to hold the thing still, so he figured he had best be quick about things.

The mouth of the chest was almost identical to the one James had encountered in India, the brim lined with long and jagged teeth several inches long. James kept his arm well clear of it while he shot a disintegration curse inside, aiming at the exact spot where the tongue came out of. The flesh where James had hit it turned black and looked rather charred, but the thing didn’t seem to be dead yet. It had apparently broken free of Mo’s impediment jinx though, and the tongue was now thrashing around as though in pain, the screeching returning louder than ever. James scrunched up his face, since he was unable to put his hands over his ears, and hastily dodged the tongue’s whipping movement as he fired another curse at the inside of the mouth. The effect seemed to be the same at the fist time around, and James was starting to get incredibly stressed, wondering why this wasn’t working. Fortunately, Mo apparently hit it with another impeding spell from the other side of the wall, and screeching disappeared again, the tongue’s movement slowing to an almost imperceptible pace.

“Ella, get in here!” James bade her, and she appeared a moment later, her somewhat smaller frame slipping through the small opening with much more ease than James had.

“I think I’m going to have to stick my arm in there” James told her quickly. It was only thing he could think of at the moment. There must have been a reason that Taylor had done that last time. “But it’s going to try and snap shut on me, I need you to stop it, alright?”

“Alright” she agreed, her eyes narrowed seriously. Without further delay, James plunged his wand arm into the mouth, careful not to catch himself on the teeth, which were now dangerously close to his bicep. His wand sunk into the flesh with very little resistance, like he was pressing into a slackened cloth of some sort, and James knew that it was going to work this time. He fired another disintegration curse, and there was a long, deafening screech. The tongue went stiff pointing straight up and James saw the lid trying to close, but Ella was holding it open with a spell of her own, giving James enough time to retract his arm. By the time he had done so, the noise had stopped, and the tongue had gone limp, draped lifelessly over the bottom row of teeth and spilling onto the floor. James raised his wand defensively for a moment, just in case, but nothing more happened, and Ella lowered hers, breathing out a long and slow breath.

“You got it?” Mo called to them.

“Yeah” James called back, finally lowering his own wand and laughing breathlessly. Even he was amazed that he had actually been right about this one. The room suddenly went much darker as Mo came to look through the opening, blocking the light behind him from coming through.

“Everyone alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine” Ella told him. “Come in here and look at this thing” she added. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’ve only ever seen one before myself” Mo replied, turning sideways to squeeze himself through the opening into the room with them. With all three of them in there besides the trunk, there really wasn’t much room to manoeuvre, and James had to flatten himself against the wall to allow Mo to get to the chest to take a look for himself.

“I can’t believe it” Mo said again, shaking his head in amazement. “I’ll be honest with you mate, I thought there was no chance it was a mimic.”

“I don’t know how I knew” James replied honestly. “Something about it just…” he shrugged. “These things seem to be following me around at the minute” he added, as a throwaway comment, but as the words came out of his mouth he began to wonder if it actually was coincidence or not. If nothing else, James and Teddy between them encountering three in the space of half a year seemed to suggest that mimics weren’t as rare as everyone seemed to think they were. Maybe there was a resurgence of sorts going on with this spell. James was going to have to tell Teddy and his dad about this.

“Amazing” Mo muttered to himself, leaning over and carefully examining the inside of the mouth. James frowned, as he realised that the mimic that he and Taylor had encountered in India had turned back into a normal trunk after Taylor had disabled it, but this one still looked the same as it did when it had been animated. Maybe Taylor had used a different spell on it. Or maybe it had taken a minute or so for the teeth and tongue to disappear, and James hadn’t noticed since he had been arguing with Taylor. Or maybe they only disappeared after the lid was closed.

“The last one I saw had treasure inside it” James told Mo. “When we killed it, the teeth disappeared and the treasure was there. Should this one not be doing that as well?”

“Dunno” Mo shrugged. “The last one I saw did that as well, but you said there’s different types, right? You seem to know more about ‘em than I do.”

“Do you think the treasure’s underneath?” Ella suggested, leaning to the side to take a look at the base of the trunk, possibly thinking about trying to go in from the side.

“Can we take it apart?” James asked no-one in particular, wondering if that were even possible. He supposed it must be, Teddy had said the ministry had dissected his mimic. James grimaced, not particularly wanting to know what it might look like on the inside.

“Well I don’t suggest we do that here” Mo said calmly, straightening up again and look at James. “We are inside an active volcano, after all.” James huffed a laugh, as he had all but forgotten that part.

“Take it back to the office then?” he suggested, and Mo nodded.

“We have to get rid of that snow cloud as well” James said, gesturing back towards the chamber they had come from. They couldn’t just leave it there, in the middle of the fire crabs’ habitat.

“You do that, then” Mo told him. “Ella, you get the tongue back inside this thing so we can transport it.”

“Why do I always get the shit jobs?” Ella grumbled, but she did shoot a smirk at James as they both started making their way back out into the main chamber with some difficulty, having to squeeze past each other to get out of the tiny room they were in. Ella set to work, using her wand to roll up the long tongue that was laying halfway across the chamber, and James fired a counter-enchantment at the cloud overhead.

Once both tasks were successfully completed, the three of them apparated together back to the landing bay at the office, taking the chest with them. They landed in the middle of the room with no problem, but James was rather startled to discover that the crate containing what he had thought was a dead fire crab that he had sent on ahead of them was now in several, rather charred pieces, and long trail of blue ooze led to the very much alive crab, scuttling limply around the edge of the room.

“Oh fuck” James exclaimed, half laughing as he went to go and investigate.

“Thought you said it was dead” Mo called after him.

“I thought it was” James replied, genuinely surprised as he reached the thing. It made no move to attack him, shrinking away from his looming figure instead, and James felt very sorry for it.

“Guess we’d better get it to a… vet…?” James suggested, wondering if there were any in the area who had experience with fire crabs. They were indigenous creatures, but they weren’t domesticated.

“Oh, bloody hell” Mo muttered, sounding aggrieved. James could get behind that sentiment, they had enough to be getting on with this afternoon.

“There’s a sanctuary outside Christchurch” Ella offered. “That’s probably your best bet.”

“Alright” James muttered, shooting a wordless stunning spell at the crab, which froze before collapsing downwards, its legs folding in underneath it. “Guess I’m going to a fire crab sanctuary today, then” he muttered, rather bewildered at this turn of events.

“I’d better come with you” Mo frowned, while James conjured a new crate. “They’ll want to create an incident report about how it was injured. The last thing we need today is you getting hauled into the ministry.”

“Brilliant” James replied deadpan.

-

It was a very busy afternoon. Mo and James had left Ella in the office to start writing up the mission report, with strict instructions not to touch the mimic until they returned from the crab sanctuary. They had apparated there, so it wasn’t a long journey, but the people running the sanctuary had kept both James and Mohamed for a lengthy interview each, and had them fill in no small amount of paperwork about what had happened. Mo was going to have to send proof of his business licence to the ministry alongside some of the forms, to avoid a hefty fine for venturing into the crab’s habitat in the first place. It was all quite a lot of hassle for what had ultimately resulted from little more than a poorly timed stunning spell, and James resolved to be much more careful in future with the local creatures they encountered. Apparently this part of the world took their conservation much more seriously than any of the territories frequented by the UK curse breaker office. Which on the whole, James did consider a good thing. But he was itching to get back to the office and examine that mimic.

When they finally did make it back, Mo had insisted they do the mission debrief before anything else. He said that once they started looking inside the mimic they were likely to be down there for the rest of the day, and since James was about to take a week of leave, they really ought to do the debrief before he disappeared. Which was fair enough really, so James didn’t fight him on it. They had gone over Ella’s report of what had happened, talking about what they had learned and what they might do differently next time. These sort of debriefs were a far cry from what James had been used to back at the ministry, where their debriefs were really just reporting back to the higher-ups and the goblins. Here, their debriefs fed into a constant loop of learning and improvement. They even had a noticeboard on the wall of the office where they stuck little notices of anything important they had found which might inform future missions. In fact, when they got back to the office they discovered that Ella had already done a little cartoon drawing of a mimic (that was far cuter than something that was in reality so horrible had any right to be) ready to be stuck up on the board.

By the time they were done, there were only a couple of hours left in the working day. Which actually turned out to be plenty of time for them to crack the chest open and look inside, given that there was no treasure whatsoever inside of it. That had caught James by surprise, as he couldn’t fathom why on earth it would have been there if not protecting something. Mo had said that they would do another mission to go back and search the room where they had found the mimic for any hidden doors or passageways, but that would all wait until James returned from his week off. With there being nothing much else to do on this until then, Mo sent Ella home a little early, but asked James to hang back for a chat. Figuring he probably wanted to talk strategies for the future mission, James agreed. He confirmed plans to meet up with Ella over the weekend so she could finally meet Teddy, before bidding her goodbye, and going to make himself a cup of tea in the kitchen as she left. Mo waited patiently at his desk for James to return. Normally they would use the conference room for this sort of thing, but there was no-one else here, so James dragged a chair over to sit at the side of Mo’s desk so they could talk there, sitting back comfortably in it, both hands wrapped around his mug.

“I just wanted to check in with you after today” Mo said without preamble, lounging back in his own chair casually, as he always did. “I think it went well, all things considered.”

“No major injuries” James shrugged. “But no treasure either. And the thing with the crab was less than ideal. I’d give it a solid six out of ten.” Mo laughed at that.

“I thought you did a great job, personally” Mo countered, and James was rather surprised. He examined Mo’s expression carefully, to try and determine whether he was joking or not. He didn’t seem to be. “You did very well with the mimic” Mo added by way of explanation.

“I got lucky, guessing that it was one” James shrugged. It didn’t feel right to take full credit for that when it was purely coincidental that he’d had so much exposure to mimics recently. And it hadn’t even occurred to him until Ella had said something about the chest itself having enchantments on it.

“Fucking right you got lucky” Mo said good naturedly, and now it was James’s turn to laugh. “It was a one in a million shot, and quite frankly I still can’t quite believe that you were right” he added, and James nodded in agreement. “But I liked the way you handled it” Mo told him, turning serious again, and James was once again taken aback. “You made sure Ella was up to speed and knew what to do. You attacked it from a distance, to minimise the risk. And once we knew what it was you didn’t waste any time getting in there. And you called Ella in for help when you needed it, instead of trying to be a hero and taking it on single-handed. A-plus performance all round.” James didn’t know what to say to that, and took a sip of his tea, letting that wash over him.

“I know I threw you in at the deep end a bit, having you take the lead” Mo went on, gesturing vaguely. James said nothing, just listening attentively. “I’ve been thinking about it for a little while now. I could have talked to you about it first, that probably would have been the sensible thing to do, but I kind of just wanted to see how you’d handle it. I appreciate you rising to the challenge, I know you were a bit unsure about it. But I can’t fault you at all, you surpassed my expectations, even. I’ll be giving you a lot more responsibility from here on out. You’ve earned it, kiddo.”

“That’s…” James swallowed the lump that had appeared in his throat, feeling thoroughly overwhelmed by all of this. So much so that he didn’t even bristle at Mo calling him ‘kiddo’, which ordinarily would rile him up to no end, which he was quite certain Mo was counting on to cut through the seriousness of this discussion with a bit of humour. James had been rather pleased with his own performance, but he hadn’t been expecting quite this much praise for it. He certainly wouldn’t have received this much recognition back at his old job, and he found he didn’t really know how to take it, his immediate instinct to shrug it off and downplay it. He fought against that, not wanting to appear dismissive of Mo’s obvious gratitude for his efforts.

“That’s really good to hear” James said sincerely, relieved to hear his voice coming out much more steady than he currently felt, although he took no responsibility for whatever the hell was written across his face, that was making Mo smirk back at him like that. “I came here because I wanted more responsibility, and you’ve been so great at allowing me that” James told him earnestly.

“I wouldn’t call it ‘allowing’” Mo countered calmly. “Sounds like your old place didn’t value your potential at all, I’m sure as hell not going to make that mistake. You’re exactly what this team needed, and it’s helping me out as much as it’s helping you to give you more responsibility.

“I appreciate it all the same” James told him honestly. “I want to do a good job. It’s nice to be on the same page about that.”

“What an odd thing to say” Mo said rather bluntly at that, tilting his head to the side and surveying James curiously. “You know, you never did give any real specifics about why you left the UK. I feel like there’s a story there.”

“There is” James replied slowly, wondering how much about it he ought to reveal about that. After everything Mo had just said, he supposed there was little James could say now that would make Mo lose confidence in him as an employee. Mo was looking at him expectantly, and James knew he was being expected to provided some sort of explanation.

“I had a mission that went badly wrong” James offered, opting to go for the abridged version. “Near miss with my colleague in which he easily could have died, kind of wrong. The same mission where we encountered the mimic, as it happens. But that’s not what the near miss was, it was a cave-in.” James paused, frowning at himself, feeling a bit like he was starting to babble. For the amount of times he’d had to recount this story to various people, you would have thought he’d tell it better.

“Anyway, the board didn’t agree with me about how seriously things had gone wrong” James ploughed on, now frowning for entirely different reasons. “They didn’t even agree that it had gone wrong at all, actually, given that we retrieved the treasure. It didn’t sit right with me. And me trying to… get that point across…” James knew this was an extremely mild way of putting what had actually happened, but he was speaking to his current boss after all. Probably best to leave the specifics out of it. “Well, that didn’t go down too well” he muttered darkly. Mo looked surprised by this.

“That’s why you left?” he asked.

“In a nutshell” James shrugged. There were more complexities to it than that, but he didn’t especially want to get into them. Especially the goblin-treasure related complications. Bill had indicated that James’s take on it was apparently a very controversial opinion.

“Well, shit” Mo replied, looking taken aback. “I thought it was just because they weren’t giving you a long enough leash.”

“That was kind of part of it” James explained. “If the team leader had actually listened to me, things wouldn’t have gone as badly as they did.” He realised after saying this how arrogant it sounded out of context, and hastily added “I wanted to pull back when my colleague first got injured. We didn’t have a medic with us.”

“How badly injured?” Mo asked, his eyes now narrowed in concern, which actually brought James out of his brooding state somewhat and incited a feeling of mild amusement. This had all happened so long ago that there was certainly no point in worrying about it now.

“Broken arm” James told him, shrugging again.

“I can’t believe you didn’t have any medical training of your own” Mo said, shaking his head disapprovingly. James had to admit, in hindsight that now seemed insane to him as well.

“Yeah, I know” James agreed.

“So, you weren’t on the same page with your team leader? Is that what you meant?” Mo asked, circling back to how they had started this tangent, and James realised he still hadn’t really answered that.

“I wasn’t on the same page with the whole organisation, it seemed” James admitted, wondering if he would ever feel any less betrayed about that. He supposed that not a lot of time had passed, really, the whole thing was still quite raw. But he was living a whole different life now, it shouldn’t still feel like a punch to gut the way it did now, talking about it.

“I was angry about Andrew – my friend who was injured” James went on, finding it hard to stop himself now that he had started. “And I was angry that our trainee had quit over it, because she agreed with me that the whole thing had got fucked up. But mostly I just felt like the whole department had let me down. I worked really hard at that job, and I thought I was doing it well. But apparently my attitude was just too big of a problem for them. And by attitude, I mean prioritising my friend’s life over some fucking treasure.”

There was a pause, in which James felt slightly embarrassed about this outburst, and looked down at his mug as he sipped his tea, to avoid having to look at Mo, who was wearing an expression of something akin to fatherly concern.

“I have to say, I find that very surprising” Mo said, his tone quite calm, but that same expression still on his face. James tried to shrug nonchalantly, but he coupled it with a grim smile and knew that he’d probably only succeeded in looking even more pathetic.

“Working here, with you, it’s been amazing” James told him truthfully, trying to bring the conversation back to something a bit more positive. “You’re not like any boss I’ve ever had before, and I mean that in a good way.”

“That’s probably because I don’t really think of myself as your boss” Mo offered. “Or, I don’t think of you as my subordinate, anyway. I like to think I have a mentor/mentee relationship with you and Ella. And Ethan, for that matter.”

“That’s exactly it” James agreed, smiling.

“The way I see it, if any of you aren’t performing at your best, then that’s at least partially my fault” Mo went on evenly. “Because it’s my job to bring that out of you.”

“That’s… a lot of responsibility” James said, frowning slightly. He wasn’t sure he entirely agreed with that sentiment, he had always thought the onus of his own success or failure ultimately lied with no-one but himself.

“It is” Mo agreed. “And it’s a responsibility I take seriously. Ella’s been something of a protege to me for a while now, but you’re something else” he mused thoughtfully. “You don’t need as much guidance as her. You just need someone to point you in the right direction and let you loose.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence” James replied, slightly bemused. This conversation had taken a rather strange turn.

“Don’t tell Ella I said that, eh?” Mo added, frowning slightly. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s very capable. I wouldn’t have kept her on this long if I didn’t think she had something. I think her biggest problem is confidence.”

“That’s not so much a problem for me, right?” James replied, with a rather cheeky smile and Mo laughed.

“But for the record, I do still need your guidance” James said earnestly. “I want to learn as much as I can.”

“Yeah, I know” Mo replied waving airily. “I’d like to teach you everything I know, in an ideal world, but six months is barely enough time to scratch the surface.” He followed that up with a rather appraising look at James, who merely raised both his eyebrows in question. Mo sat up straight in his chair and leaned forward conspiratorially. James couldn’t help himself from also leaning in, internally laughing at himself for this ridiculous behaviour, when there was no-one else here.

“I haven’t told anyone else this, because nothing is set in stone yet” Mo told him, his voice low, and James’s interest was piqued. “But I’ve been in talks with the board at the museum” Mo went on. “They’re part of a larger conglomerate of non-profits across the pacific, and they’ve been really impressed with our work so far. They’re talking about setting up a long term framework for artefact recovery, and we’re one of the preferred contractors if they do.”

“How long term are we talking?” James asked with interest.

“Ten years, at least” Mo replied, and James let out an involuntary noise of surprise. Mo grinned amusedly at this before going on.

“Now I’m not promising you anything here, there’s a lot of red tape to get through before any of this is even close to being confirmed” he stipulated, and James nodded to show he understood. “But it’s looking good. If we carry on delivering the way we have been for the past couple of months, I fancy our chances for this.”

“That would be incredible” James said enthusiastically, and Mo’s grin widened.

“I’m glad you feel that way, because if we do get it, I want you in the team” Mo said quite seriously, and James gaped at him, awestruck. Even after everything Mo had just said, this was very flattering. Performing well on a six-month placement was one thing, but Mo was basically offering him a semi-permanent job without even so much as an interview.

“You sure?” he asked, a little sceptically.

“Why on earth wouldn’t I be?” Mo asked, looking just as confused as James felt. James couldn’t help but laugh.

“Because you’ve only known me for three months” James put to him.

“Well unless you’ve been hiding your real personality this whole time, I think I’ve gotten to know you well enough” Mo countered.

“Yeah, but…” James wondered for a moment if he should just shut up and stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. But he had never been very good at just shutting up.

“You must know a ton of people more qualified for this than me” he blurted out, and Mo looked highly amused. “And you’re just offering it to me straight up without even talking about what’s involved. Would it be more of the same of what we’re doing now? I’ve got to imagine there would be more structure to it if we’re forecasting ten years.”

“Let’s not start counting our chickens” Mo told him, making a quelling gesture, pushing his flattened palms in a downwards motion. “When the details start to firm up then we’ll talk logistics. But there’s nothing right now that makes me think you won’t be a perfect fit for it.”

“You sure?” James asked again, but this time he was grinning.

“I’m sure” Mo assured him, still looking amused. There was a pause in which James took another sip of the tea which he’d been largely neglecting, distracted by the series of staggering revelations in the past ten minutes or so. He grimaced as the lukewarm liquid filled his mouth. They had apparently been talking for so long that it had gone cold.

“Your fella’s coming out here this weekend, right?” Mo asked him. James grinned widely, hardly able to believe that he’d not thought about that once since sitting down with Mo for this chat, the excitement and anticipation of it hitting him full force again. This day couldn’t possibly get any better.

“He’s arriving in” James glanced at his watch. “About four hours.”

“Well, might be time to put it to him, see what he thinks about you being over here longer term. What he thinks about coming here with you” Mo suggested. James’s good mood was dampened ever so slightly at that. It hadn’t gone over particularly well the last time he had broached that subject with Teddy. But then, a lot had happened since then. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind, He didn’t want to be troubled by it just now. He wanted to bask in the good aspects of this news for a little while first.

“Alright, I’ll see” James replied non-committally.

-

About four hours later, James found himself in the arrivals lounge at the international portkey office in a state of high anticipation. He pulled out his phone to re-read the last text he had received, about an hour ago.

T: Heading to the portkey office now. See you soon! xx

James smiled fondly as he read it. It wasn’t a remarkable text in any way, certainly not up to the usual standard of banter he and Teddy had fallen into with their text communications. James had a thread of messages exchanged between them for the past three months that often had him in stitches re-reading it, which he did sometimes when he was particularly missing Teddy. No, all in all it was a very boring standard, informative kind of text. But James had read it about a hundred times since receiving it, because he was so excited at the promise of seeing his boyfriend very soon indeed.

James put his phone away and looked back towards the double doors in front of him, behind which somewhere Teddy was in the process of going through border control. The doors opened every three minutes or so and someone walked through into the arrivals lounge, and James’s heart started racing every time they did, but so far he had been disappointed. He wished he had brought a newspaper or something to read while he waited. This was agonising. Not that he would have been able to concentrate on reading anything right now. He was practically vibrating out of his skin in excitement.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, going to read Teddy’s text again, but then thinking better of it. It was ridiculous behaviour, after all. Instead he found the thread of messages between Luke and himself, deciding to send him a message. It had been a couple of weeks since they last spoke.

J: Hey bud, how’s things? Not heard from you in a little while.

J: Just waiting for Teddy at the portkey office. Don’t worry, I’ll keep him out of trouble while he’s here.

J: I will also make sure he brings you back a fabulous gift.

With nothing much more to say than that, James stuck his phone back in his pocket again, looking up to the double doors just as they opened, and a pair of middle-aged women walked through. Huffing in annoyance, James leaned moodily back against the wall, trying his hardest to get a grip on himself. He was going to go mad if he didn’t calm down. He watched the women who had just arrived being greeted by a young man, who was probably the son of one of them, if James had to hazard a guess. The women both hugged him in turn, chattering excitedly.

Feeling rather envious, James tore his gaze away, scowling at the door which was stubbornly refusing to relinquish Teddy to him. It was stupid really, three whole months had passed by largely in the blink of an eye, what was twenty more minutes? That was approximately how long James had been stood here and it felt like a lifetime. They were so close.

James felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and took it out immediately, wondering if it would be Teddy saying that he had been held up somehow. James was rather surprised to see that it was a response from Luke. It would be something like 7am in the UK, Luke must be up early.

L: I will accept designer sunglasses or aftershave. No tacky fridge magnets please.

Grinning, James started crafting a response. He was half-way through typing up some snarky comment about Luke not being able to pull off designer sunglasses, when a low voice muttered in his ear.

“Hello stranger...”

James looked up hastily and nearly dropped his phone in surprise. He just barely had time to register Teddy’s grinning face before he was engulfed in a hug, Teddy’s arms thrown around his neck and pulling James almost uncomfortably close, not that he was complaining one bit. James just about had the wherewithal to stick his phone haphazardly back in his pocket before he wrapped his arms tightly around Teddy’s waist, turning his face inwards to breathe Teddy in, feeling the warmth of it wash over him. Feeling Teddy’s body pressed against his own, fitting right into place, like it always had. Good god had he missed this.

“I can’t believe you’re really here” James said, his voice coming out much smaller than he had expected, taking himself slightly by surprise. Teddy pulled back, placing both of his hands either side of James’s face and looking at him like he’d never seen anything so beautiful. James could do nothing more than beam back at him, his hands still on Teddy’s hips, before Teddy leaned in to kiss him. James responded with enthusiasm, not giving one single fuck about the disgusting display of public affection they were putting on for the rest of the arrivals lounge. This was three months worth of pent up affection, and he wanted to shower Teddy with every single bit of it. Teddy’s lips felt strangely alien on his, merely because it had been such a long time since James had felt another person’s lips on his own. Possibly the longest he had ever gone without such a thing in his entire adult life. He didn’t like the weird unfamiliarity of it at all, and he was determined to kiss Teddy until that feeling went away. Until it felt like it used to. Comforting, familiar, loving.

Unfortunately, they were in the portkey office after all, and there were limits to how long they could stand here doing this. Teddy pulled back after what was probably a full, solid minute of making out, which was still not nearly long enough for James. Although it did give him the opportunity to take a good long look at Teddy, who was still stood extremely close to him, both of his hands on James’s chest, apparently unable to stop himself from openly staring at James’s face, grinning like an idiot. James might have laughed, were he not fully aware he was doing exactly the same.

Teddy’s hazel brown eyes were open wide and shining under the fluorescent lights overhead. There was a bloom of darker brown just around the pupil, that faded to a lighter, almost amber colour around the edge of the iris, and James let himself get lost in it just for a second, wondering as he did so why he had never taken the time to marvel at how breath-taking it was before. Perhaps what made it even more so was the fact that Teddy’s eyes were clearly full of love for the thing he was looking at, which just so happened to be James’s face.

Teddy’s hair was a dull, mousey blonde that James didn’t think he had ever seen on him before. In fact, it had been so long since Teddy had worn his hair anything other than bright blue that it looked very strange on him, and James didn’t like that so much. This whole thing felt bizarrely unfamiliar enough without Teddy not quite looking exactly like the version of himself that lived inside James’s head. He had once said that he wore the blue because James liked it – with James having been away for so long, was Teddy trying out some other looks? That was a conversation for later, maybe.

The final thing that James noted from his thorough examination of his stunning boyfriend was that he looked categorically exhausted. That was probably to be expected, since he’d told James yesterday that he intended to stay up all night in order to try and reset his sleep cycle to New Zealand time. Still, something about the dark shadows under his eyes and the deep set frown lines between his eyebrows suggested that he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a while. He had been crashing on Luke’s sofa for quite some time now, but perhaps there was more to it than that. Another conversation for later.

“I’ve missed you, so fucking much” James said quietly, putting a gentle hand to the side of Teddy’s face, sweeping a gentle thumb over his cheek.

“The feeling is very much mutual” Teddy replied, huffing a breathy laugh, which James joined in on.

“Come on, let’s get you back to my place” James said, dropping his hand from Teddy’s face and finding one of Teddy’s own with it, interlacing their fingers. Teddy grinned at him, before looking around to where he’d abandoned his roller suitcase a few feet away from them. He pulled back from James to reach out and grab it, but kept a firm hold on James’s hand the whole time, as if he never wanted to let go. Which at this precise moment, James never wanted him to.

James led the way towards the apparition station one room over from the arrivals lounge, that he had scouted out when he first got here. He wondered vaguely why people couldn’t just apparate straight from the arrivals lounge, but he supposed that would be rather chaotic, and quite annoying for the people waiting there. He couldn’t stop himself stealing sidelong glances at Teddy as they walked, feeling like he might burst with happiness. It was almost overwhelming, how joyous it was to finally see him in person after all this time apart. He might have felt quite self-conscious about it were Teddy not doing the exact same thing, the two of them smirking at each other like school children when their eyes met.

“Did you stay up all night then?” James asked, trying to gauge exactly how long they had before Teddy experienced a post-adrenaline crash. It would only be fair to let him sleep if he needed it, but James was probably going to have a very hard time keeping his hands off him once they were alone.

“More or less” Teddy replied evenly. “Had a nap at around 4am, for an hour or so.”

“That was, what, about three hours ago?” James asked, doing the math is his head. That was good. That would have taken the edge off his tiredness.

“Yeah” Teddy replied. “This is odd” he added, gesturing to the large clock on the wall of the arrivals lounge just before they went through the door to the apparition station. “I feel like I’ve jumped forward in time.”

“Well, you have, in a manner of speaking” James shrugged. “Your position relative to the sun is very different to what it was half an hour ago.”

“Knew that astronomy class would come in handy eventually” Teddy ribbed him and James grinned.

There was no time to debate the point further as they reached the departure point. Teddy was already holding onto his hand, so James led the way, taking Teddy with him as he apparated back to his flat. They appeared in the living room, next to the sofa, and Teddy took a glance around them.

“So, this is my place” James offered, gesturing around. Teddy didn’t reply, pulling his hand out of James’s in order to free it up so that he could push James up against the back of the sofa, leaning into him with his whole body and crashing their mouths together. James very nearly toppled right over the thing, since he foolishly hadn’t been ready for it, but Teddy kept a tight hold of him, kissing him with much more fervour than they had back at the portkey office, his hands roaming over James’s chest, and then around his back, apparently touching every bit of him that Teddy could reach.

“Tour later” Teddy muttered between urgent kisses. “Bedroom now.” James huffed a laugh. He certainly wasn’t going to argue with that.

-

They never actually made it to the bedroom in the end, neither of them willing to pry themselves off the other for long enough to actually move away from the sofa, which was as good a place as any for their reunion, so to speak.

An impossible to determine length of time later, they were both laid across it, pressed incredibly close together so that they would both fit, which even so they barely did. But James had no real desire to move right now. Eventually they would relocate to the bedroom, but for now he was quite happy lying half next to half on top of Teddy, their arms encircling each other, their faces inches apart, stealing lazy kisses whenever the mood struck. James ran a hand through Teddy’s now flaming red locks, chucking to himself.

“What?” Teddy asked hazily.

“Your hair” James told him. “It changed.”

“What?” Teddy looked surprised by this. “When?” he asked with a bemused frown.

“During” James smirked. That wasn’t a usual occurrence, and James could only assume it meant this session had been particularly mind blowing, for both of them.

“Hmm” Teddy replied, his frown deepening, to James’s slight surprise. “My metamorphoses has been on the fritz lately” Teddy told him.

“How come?” James asked, a little concerned. That usually only happened when Teddy was ill.

“Stress, probably” Teddy replied, shrugging as much as he could in his current pinned down position.

“You’re stressed?” James frowned.

“What else is new” Teddy replied with a grim smile. James supposed he did have rather a lot on his plate at the moment, with this big case at work, everything going on with Luke, and James’s absence piled on top of it all.

“I’m sorry” James said regretfully, burrowing down to plant a gentle kiss on Teddy’s jawline. Truly, the timing of this job placement had been terrible for Teddy, and James did feel bad about that.

“I saw my hair it’s natural colour a few weeks ago, for the first time in a long time” Teddy offered. “I’m going grey.”

“Are you?” James grinned, not entirely sure why that delighted him quite so much. “Let me see!”

“Absolutely not” Teddy replied flatly, and James laughed.

“Please Ted” he implored, and something in Teddy’s expression softened for a second, before turning indignant again.

“No, fuck off” he said sternly, but his tone was undercut by the smirk he couldn’t quite supress. “I’ll have you know this is traumatic. I’m getting old James.”

“Don’t be ridiculous” James laughed. “You’re twenty-nine.”

“I’m an old man” Teddy countered stubbornly. “A grey old man.” James laughed even more.

“I still love you, even if you are getting old” James growled, peppering Teddy’s neck and collarbone with kisses.

“Yeah well, you’ve always had a thing for older men, haven’t you” Teddy said pointedly, and James laughed again.

“I wouldn’t start slinging mud if I were you” James advised him with a smirk. “That’s much less problematic than having a thing for men six years younger than you.”

“I don’t have a thing” Teddy replied indignantly, and James grinned gleefully. “I fancied YOU, you prat. Your age had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, I bet that’s what they all say” James replied, laughing at Teddy’s unimpressed face.

“I forgot how much of a shit you are” Teddy told him, and James smirked.

“No you didn’t” he smiled happily. “Anyway, on the whole, I bet Luke is much worse”

“He’s not, you know” Teddy countered. “I wouldn’t let half the shit you give me fly if it came from anyone else.”

“I get special privileges, do I?” James smirked.

“Yeah, you do” Teddy replied softly, pulling James down towards him for a long and luxuriant kiss. They were both smiling like dopes when they parted again.

“I love you, Jamie” Teddy said quietly.

“I love you too, Teddy” James replied happily.