apples and scented candles • h.potter ✓

• two •

Corben grinned upon seeing her and sat down on the chair opposite. Audra frowned up at him, as though having forgotten that he was supposed to come, but she put her book away and returned his smile.

"So, Ms Fenwick," he began, tapping his fingers on the desk, while he eyed the large book with apprehension, wondering if he had to read such hideous things if he became an Auror, "what are we going to learn today?"

"Today," she began, with a tinge of dramatic tone in her voice, "we will be on an actual battlefield. And you will watch."

Corben's eyes widened and he stopped tapping his fingers. "What?" he muttered stupidly.

"Well, Auror is more about practical than theory," Audra said as she casually put on her cloak, as though she wasn't taking an amateur to an actual battlefield.

"But, Ms –" he stuttered, unable to process the information that he really was being dragged into a fight.

Ms Fenwick pocketed her wand and gave him a mischievous smile. "I was joking. We aren't going to battle. But the smuggler we have been looking for for three months has been murdered, and we are going to investigate that. You will be there as my assistant, and also to observe how the field work is carried out."

Corben let out a sigh of relief, and glared silently at his mentor for a few seconds, allowing his heart rate to return to normal. But she paid him no mind as she strode out of the room, and Corben leapt to his feet to follow her.

"So, you still do these kinds of work?" he asked once he had caught up with her. "Like catching petty thieves?"

Ms Fenwick shot him a look over her shoulder. "Never underestimate your enemies, Mr Zabini," was all she said.

••• •••

"So you're going to be the stubborn one and not talk to him, huh?"

Harry bent down to pick up the pen which had fallen, and sighed in response to Hermione's words. However, he didn't say anything and instead continued to pack his bag, relishing, rather selfishly, in the long exasperated groan that she let out.

"Harry, sit down and listen to me!" she said sternly. Yanking his bag off his hands, she pushed him and forced him to sit down on his chair, before she dropped the bag and sat on his table. "You know how Ron is," she began, and he rolled his eyes, bringing his head down to hide his face in his hands. "He's just protective of his sister. If you just talk and explain to him – Ginny and I both tried, but it's you he will listen to."

"Look, Hermione," he said quickly before she could speak any further. "It's not my job to spoonfeed him every explanation he can make for himself – he is old enough to do that. I'm glad you tried to talk to him, I appreciate it. But he has to realise that his little sister isn't little anymore."

"Harry, I know but –"

He didn't get to hear the rest of her sentence for he had already stormed off his office, but he did hear her frustrated shriek as she cursed the egocentrism of men. He slowed down and stopped once he reached the lift, and waited for it to arrive.

Harry hadn't had much to do today. The Auror team has been trying to catch a smuggler who has been illegally transporting native magical plants of Britain to Africa. The locations of his hideout was revealed to them by an anonymous person, but the place was empty when they went to investigate. Recently, however, the corpse of the smuggler was found in that very place, and judging by the way it was mangled, it was very obviously a murder.

The team has gone to look into it, but Harry hasn't been part of the team. Thus, he was left with mostly a free day after he was done doing his day's work, but due to Ron blatantly refusing to talk to him, he was left on his own, with Hermione being busy in her own department.