Auror HQ, Mission Dispatch Wing.

You barely sat down at your desk before the file landed in front of you. It hit the wood with a loud thwap, a thick folder brimming with black tabs and dried blood evidence stickers.

Sirius didn’t even look at you. Just said, “New case. You’re lead.”

You frowned. “But I just got back from Knockturn. I thought Robards was taking point on this one—?”

James appeared then, too smoothly, coffee in hand and his charming smile twisted just slightly at the corners.

“Nope. He was reassigned. You’re a better fit,” he said, sipping. “You’ve got… potential.” The way he said it made it sound like a punishment.

You cracked open the file. A cursed body found in a Muggle-run flat. No known caster. Unstable magical residue. Probable blood magic involved. Disgusting.

You looked back up at Sirius. “Is this a joke?”

He finally looked at you. And smiled like he knew everything. “Why would it be?”

You tried not to flinch. Tried not to think about last night at the Leaky Cauldron, when you’d laughed too loudly with a junior Auror from the Muggle Liaison Office — the one with the soft hands and harmless smile. You remembered how James had been watching from the bar, bottle halfway to his mouth. How Sirius had leaned against the wall, chewing the inside of his cheek, murderous.

You didn’t get a “goodnight” from them after that.

And now you were here, with a cursed corpse on your desk and their names nowhere in the mission brief.

It didn’t stop.

The next week, it was a werewolf mauling in Derby. Then, a mass hallucination curse with lingering gas exposure — no protective gear issued. After that, a string of Inferi sightings in a flooded village no one else wanted to touch.

You started noticing things. Like how the other rookies suddenly got easier partners. How James and Sirius stopped correcting your reports — or reading them at all. They didn’t even look at you unless they were assigning something horrible. And when they did, it was with that same detached cruelty you’d seen them use on Death Eater holdouts. Cold. Precise. Almost bored.

By the end of the month, you were limping. Sleep-deprived. You'd burned through three pairs of boots, had half your gear hexed into uselessness, and you still didn’t say anything.