DEVIL'S SNARE ━ james sirius potter ✓

▬▬ 30. NEW YORK

⠀⠀"Go on."
⠀⠀"Albus' business is doing well. Lily's engaged."
⠀⠀"Already? She's only started dating that guy before I left."
⠀⠀"Maybe they bonded over the trauma of you leaving like that."
⠀⠀"You told me to leave without a word. To protect them," James snapped.
⠀⠀"Life goes on."
⠀⠀James played with the phone cord, fingering the photos sitting inside his desk drawer. One of him and his parents on his first birthday; he and his siblings the day he started Hogwarts; him with Evan and Asher in their red Quidditch uniforms; another with him, Evan, Asher, Callen, Dominique, and Laurel sitting in the library, laughing. He stared at the blonde, an old familiar ache growing in his heart. Moving that picture to the side, he found the Polaroid of him and Laurel on his birthday, with her laughing as he put on a pair of pink Spectraspecs. The ache in his heart only grew.

⠀⠀"Scamander's doing quite well," Tien continued. "The Ministry opened up a new department within the Auror department a little after our last phone call. It's small but it's important. She is an Investigative Healer a damn good one at that, or so I hear."
⠀⠀James felt a sense of pride surge through him. He made sure he didn't show it through the phone though. "Oh, really? Investigative Healer, huh. What do they do?"
⠀⠀"Usually they heal the wounded in crime scenes, but they also do examinations of dead bodies to find the cause of death. Things like that."
⠀⠀James paused for a second. Holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder, he fumbled through his file papers, finding the one about the dead body found a few days back, with the cause of death unknown. The only thing was the purple foam from his mouth.

⠀⠀"Do you think I can request her help?"
⠀⠀"Why ever would you do that? I know you still like her, Potter. Maybe even love. Even after all these years."
⠀⠀"Maybe I do. But that's not the point. We don't have Investigative Healers in New York. Just healers or investigators. I need someone like her for the case. She could be the key to everything."
⠀⠀Howard paused over the phone. "You can. But be careful."
⠀⠀"You got it, old man." Then he hung up. He cringed as he realized what he just said. Tien was right. He was starting to sound more and more American.

⠀⠀The bus pulled up a few blocks away from the Woolworth Building, where the MACUSA headquarters were. James wasn't a huge fan of his supervisor here, Howard, a bald and lanky (except for his growing stomach) middle-aged man with a grey mustache. It curled at the ends and bounced a little, so much so that the entire department quietly made fun of him. He was nowhere near as cool as Tien and James always wished he were back in London for that reason. And other reasons too, but that wasn't the point.

⠀⠀James pulled the yellow cord on the bus to get it to stop, hopping off the bus, walking towards the building. Quickly waving his wand in front of the owl at the entrance, he entered the revolving door, appearing at the lobby of the MACUSA.
⠀⠀ He remembered the first time he had walked in, looking at the splendor of the building, reminding him very much of Gringotts back at home. But two years later, he didn't feel that nostalgia as much, heading straight towards the elevators, greeting some of the people at the front.

⠀⠀"Potter!" he heard a familiar female voice from near him. Turning his head, he saw Avani Fang, his coworker and friend, who he was sure had a crush on him. She was a very pretty woman, about a head shorter than him, with medium length curly black hair, dark brown eyes, and bronzed skin.
⠀⠀ There had been instances where they were more than friends, pushed up against each other's naked forms in a broom closet on a drunken night once or twice, but he had made it clear that it wasn't ever going to be more than that. And she understood. But she still pursued him.

⠀⠀"Miss Fang!" James exclaimed, smiling as she came up next to him. "Excited for our meeting with Howard?"
⠀⠀Avani groaned as the elevator dinged, taking a sip of her coffee. "Ew. Don't call me that. Miss Fang." She imitated his accent, causing him to elbow her, which she easily dodged.
⠀⠀"Howard makes me want to die," she continued. "Honestly, that man has a whole-ass wife and he still hits on me on a weekly basis. Like he doesn't realize how horrible I feel that he's attracted to me when he looks like that."
⠀⠀James let out a laugh, walking into the open elevator. Her fast-paced New York lingo had his head spinning sometimes. "Sometimes I forget he's married."
⠀⠀Avani scoffed as the elevator doors closed in front of them, pressing the button to the floor they were going to. "Not gonna lie to you, I saw pictures of him when he was young, and he was what you English would call a—" she brought out a terrible British accent, "—dashing lad."
⠀⠀"Oh, quit it," James said, rolling his eyes. "All you do is make fun of my accent."
⠀⠀"Lies," Avani replied. "I've told you many times I find it attractive." She smiled at him.