James stormed out of the Wizengamot meeting, the red on his face probably not doing amazing things for his colour coordination when one considered the hideous plum that was traditional for the institution. People knew to get out of his way, as his brisk and angry walk was a regular occurrence each time the assembly decided to grace the magical population of Britain with another one of its riveting sessions"
"Politics, huh," a red-haired man with a few more years than James said once the latter had gotten into the lift back to his department. His home away from home.
"Don't start, Arthur," James said to the Weasley, who was seemingly going all the way up to the top floor to catch the floo, or to apparate home. "I'm going to go talk to Sirius, then go home and enjoy dinner with my beautiful wife and son and not think about this mess for a few hours."
"Until tomorrow," Arthur said with a sigh.
"Until tomorrow," James agreed with a nod, as the elevator reached the floor of the Auror department and he got off, taking the momentum with him to storm past people pushing parchments and letters into his face, to his office, where he slammed the door shut, put up a silencing charm and screamed.
"That bad?" a voice asked from the corner, where a shaggy-looking black-haired man in jeans and a leather jacket was leaning against the wall.
"Sirius," James said after exhaling loudly and stepping towards his friend to clasp his arm. They exchanged a firm handshake and hug, before sitting down and pulling a bottle of fire whiskey out from underneath James' table, along with two glasses. Two drinks were poured, before being promptly consumed. "How's the case?"
Sirius put up a hand and wiggled it around in some approximation of a so-so. "We found the entry point. The crazy bastard actually swam all the way to England over the channel. Found the spot where they started swimming in Calais."
"That's inhuman," James said with a sigh. "No wonder we had no idea."
"Probably why it was done during the full moon. Two months ago."
"Only one month in before the first massacre, this seems deliberate," James muttered.
"No matches on the footprints, no shed fur, hair, skin oils. Seems like we're dealing with a wizard here. Only a spell could erase traces so well."
"Or they have an accomplice," James suggested, wishing it were true.
Sirius slowly shook his head and gave him a queer look. "You know that's unlikely. Most wizards wouldn't want to collaborate with a lycanthrope. Unless they were paid a lot, or if they shared some ideological beliefs, as we saw in the Blood War; the most recent time wizards and werewolves collaborated to any significant level. We followed the trail inwards into France, and twisted the nose of the frogs quite a bit when we discovered that what they had covered up as some sort of wild animal attack had actually been our werewolf killing a few muggle hikers in the Perche National Park."
James dragged a hand down his face. "It would be," he ground his teeth as he spoke, "politically expedient, if we were to assume that the werewolf had a wizard collaborator, rather than being magically educated themselves."
Sirius sighed. "This is illegal, but I could twist it. I'm the lead investigator after all."
"You're not lying, you were just convinced to have a different point of view."
Sirius shook his head. "Alright, alright. Is it really that bad at the Wizengamot right now?"
"I sometimes regret that I took up representation for your seats, the seats gifted to my son, and the ones left over by the Potters. I just can't justify not going to all the meetings, voting on every petty issue, having to see those small-minded bigots, morons, and power-hungry officials bicker and fight," James said tiredly. He suddenly brightened up however and gave Sirius an excited smirk. "You'll love it, of course."
"Can't you just floo over, it's not far," the man argued weakly.
James just shrugged. "I'm planning on working very hard on the mission, finding the origin of that curse." He paused. "Perhaps some clues as to the…" he trailed off.
"It's been almost fifteen years. Whoever it was, they probably died in the war anyway," Sirius said.
"These pure-blood bastards. They raped, tortured and killed their way through so many muggles and muggle-born during the war, but it all doesn't matter because they were wearing a mask and their victims were nobodies. Well, if this comes out, even years after… Then it will have been a Hogwarts student that was attacked, not some random muggle-born working a muggle job to escape our world."
"They didn't care back then, they won't right now. Just admit it's about revenge, you know I'll support you anyway."
"It's probably a lost cause, of course. The only venue I have is doing a heritage test on the kid's hair or something," James said. "It's a complicated potion. A ritual, more like."
"Snape would help you for free, you know how he was after it happened," Sirius suggested.
James grimaced at the reminder of those dark days in school when they didn't know if the world was ending, beginning, or about to crash down on Hogwarts like a dragon on a cat. "Let him be, it seems he actually escaped this horrid country. He was the smart one, really. Look at us, still trying to prop up and sanitise this decaying institution instead of just letting it die."
"Merlin, what did they do to you at the meeting?" Sirius asked, aghast. "Where's that peppy attitude, 'I'm going to fix this country, not for myself, but for our kids, my more handsome and talented friend Sirius,' you used to say," the man said, mimicking James' voice in a high falsetto.
"One attack," James said, holding up a finger. "One werewolf attack in the last five years. The only one."
"Remus has been doing great work," Sirius said with a nod. "And this one seems to be out of the norm anyway. Why travel here from France."
"One attack and I had to vote against mandatory registration for all lycanthropes. Immediate withdrawal of all job licences. The snapping of wands for any wand-carrying werewolves not able to prove a clean record going back to their school days," James explained, watching in dark humour as Sirius' face grew blacker with every word.
"Crouch and Umbridge," the man growled. "Someone should really twist their heads off. It's not like they're putting them to good use anyway." He looked like he wanted to offer himself up as the executioner of that particular order.
"Crouch is holding on to any scrap of power and relevance he can. Trying to swing the election vote which we all know he's going to lose."
"He's been in power for nearly ten years, how power-hungry can he get?" Sirius asked in disgust.
"I sort of understand. His son disappeared mysteriously during the war and his wife died years ago. If he's not a minister, he's nothing," James said with a chuckle.
"Mysteriously disappeared," Sirius chortled.
"If only we'd kept any evidence, or used it back then when our word would have mattered," James said with a sigh. "We could have prevented this horrible back-to-back Crouch administration."
"To be fair," Sirius said. "Who exactly did we have? Who could have done it better?"
James paused. "That's true. Bones wasn't a thing back then. Albus didn't want the job… And today?"
"How about yourself?" Sirius asked, getting a disbelieving look from his best friend.
"Me, minister?" James asked incredulously.
"Well, you'd hate it. But if nobody with decent intentions is willing to step up to the task, we'll never get a good one," Sirius insisted.
"I have something else to do first," James said as he shook his head and stood up. "Maybe after we've gotten rid of this last remnant of Voldemort."
"Any clues where it might be anchored? We explored the whole school when we were students and we never found it."
"No idea, just that it's probably not in the library," James said with a sigh. He walked over to the fireplace to which he was privileged as a head auror and took a pinch of floo-powder into his hands.
"Well, I see you're raring to go," Sirius said with a sigh and also stood up. "Say hello to Neville and Marlene for me."
"Just come visit sometime," James deadpanned.
"Stop giving me such tough cases, then," Sirius snorted before the two said their goodbyes.
James stepped into the fire with a throw of floo-powder and a call of, "Godric's Hollow, Potter residence!"
-/-
James exited the green fire and immediately relaxed when his tired eyes gazed upon the comfortable and rustical home that he was privileged to call his own. He heard utensils clinking from the dining room and sighed as he realised that he'd once again come back so late, that his family had started eating without him.
Putting down his robes and shoes he walked from the living room, through the kitchen and the dining room, where he met the eyes of his beautiful wife, as he sneaked up behind his son, whose seat was facing the entrance and who was too busy scarfing down lasagna like they didn't feed him. James put up a finger to his lips in a shushing motion when Marlene noticed him, and slowly approached. Once he was behind Neville's seat he brought down his head, until it was resting over the right shoulder of the blonde boy.
"How's it going, champ?!" he suddenly asked loudly, causing Neville to drop his fork and jump up and shouldering James right in the chin, which caused him to recoil.
"Dad!" the blonde boy said excitedly, immediately forgetting his dinner and starting to run circles around James.
"You won't believe what Ron did today?!" he began, before deciding to pursue a different topic. "Any cool cases at the Aurors office? Can we play Quidditch? Can you show me the shielding charm? Can you? Can you?" the boy babbled without fear or restraint.
The two parents shared a mirthful look over Neville's blonde head. They both enjoyed having such an energetic son and all the ups and downs that came with it.
"Come on, let me eat first, then quidditch, no?" James asked as he went to sit down at the empty chair with a steaming plate set in front of it.
Neville sat down, reluctantly being forced to agree by coercion of his mother's strict gaze. He pulled his bangs to cover the scar on his forehead, which had gotten uncovered during the interaction.
James hadn't noticed how hungry he'd been until he took the first bite of the delicious homemade meal. He closed his eyes and sighed contently, once again reaffirming the reasons for which he worked and slaved away at the ministry.
To create a world in which everyone could enjoy moments like these.