LYDIA CORNER HAD NEVER had that much excitement in her life. In school, her grades were the most important thing to her. Her father made sure of that; fun and games don't make for a sustainable future was something he said almost every time that she gave him a recap of what had been happening at Hogwarts during her holidays home. So even at school, she missed out on a lot things like her friends spontaneous trips to Hogsmead, or late night quidditch matches with her classmates like Mona or Charlie Weasley who would join a handful of others to a trip down to the quidditch pitch. For awhile, she regretted it. But as soon as she found that she was one of the first students in her year to be hired by Scrimgeour, it seemed to pay off. Suddenly her late nights studying, or asking about extra credit, it paid off. It got her where she wanted, even though her father had tried to convince her to join another department.
Before she was stuck with Leo Black, her life as an auror wasn't that much more exciting as her life as one of Ravenclaw's brightest students. Her partner before Leo was Gregory Cartman, an aged wizard who could barely see out of his left eye and had scars where his left ear should have been. When he got stuck with her, he didn't sugarcoat a thing. Being an auror had become boring to him since Lord Voldemort was defeated at the hands of Harry Potter. There were only so many death eaters that were still stupid enough to act on the dark lords orders after he was gone, so that meant there were only so many "real evil son of bitches out there left for us" as Gregory put it. But unlike Leo, Gregory had been content with sitting at his desk, waiting for Scrimgeour to send them off somewhere. Unfortunately though, he retired shortly before Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. Leaving Lydia as a lone auror who had to work with a different auror every case until Leo showed up.
"Woody," Lydia called out into her flat as she shut her door behind her. It wasn't much, but it was a nice space for her to call her own. She had spent a few years looking for a nice place, but none of them ever sat well with her. The muggle neighbors were too nosy, or too uptight for her liking. But here, everyone kept to themselves. And nobody asked questions after they would see a colorful clothed witch like her mother come to visit. "Woody." she called out again as she kicked her shoes off.
Woody had been a stray cat that had spent months scaling the fire escape, sitting outside peoples windows hoping for some food. And Lydia was the only one who started leaving something out for him, eventually she found herself always worrying about him being outside on his own. She figured he had probably escaped from another flat, but nobody had bothered to claim him so she took him in. He had made a terrible habit of clawing at any wooden surface in her flat. He didn't care for any of the scratching posts that she got him, and she ending up having to mend the legs of her furniture two or three times a week.
"There you are..." she sighed heavily as she walked further into the flat, and saw the white cat curled up comfortably beside the heater. As soon as she stepped into view though, his head moved with her and as soon as he saw her walk into the small kitchen to retrieve one of the small cans of cat food, he was on his feet and was standing beside her in a matter of seconds. "you act like I don't ever feed you." she said, looking down at the cat as she opened the can, earning loud meows from him as he frantically began to circle her feet as she stepped towards the water bowl where she set the can down next to. As soon as it was on the floor, the flat was silent again.
Lydia sighed heavily, running her hand down Woody's back before she straightened herself up and made her way over to her window. Attached to her windowsill was a weatherproofed box where her mail could be dropped off along with her copy of the Daily Prophet when she was at work. So she pushed her window open and scooped up the mail before making herself comfortable in her living room. First she started with the Daily Prophet, on the front page was a photo of the four triwizard champions; Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour, the already famous Viktor Krum, and the even more famous Harry Potter. Which had been the biggest story for the prophet since Sirius Black's escape. Not only was there suddenly a fourth champion for the triwizard tournament, it just so happened to be Harry Potter.
"Same old, same old..." Lydia muttered as she dropped the prophet on the couch beside her before looking at the two cream colored letters, one had her fathers familiar purple and silver twine keeping it rolled up. The other had the same twine holding it together but it looked like it had quite the rip there, parks of the parchment were ripped, and even looked like it had gotten wet at one point.
Just as Lydia was about to untie the two letters, the evening sunlight that had been shinning in through the window dimmed, and an eerie light took its place. Even with the lights in her flat being turned on, it was a noticeable difference. Lydia craned her neck to look out her window, and the gray light that was flooding into her flat was from thick clouds that were covering the sky from what she could see.
Lydia stood from her seat and went to the window to get a better look, and as soon as she looked up, she had a sinking feeling in her chest. Covering the city block were thick dark, nearly black clouds. And just out of site, she could see a glowing green light above her building. Instantly Lydia spun on her feet and rushed towards the door, grabbing her wand from the table beside the door and crammed her feet into her shoes again before she hurried down the two narrow flights of stairs and then through the first floor of her building to the back ally entrance to the building that people rarely used.
"Glad you could join us,"
Lydia could barely step fully out of the building before her eyes landed on Maude Marth, a witch who had been a couple years older than her. And for the last two years, had been one of three witches included on the wanted list of witches and wizards actively pursuing not only dark magic, but the Dark Lords mission. She had pale brown hair and she wore dark blue robes.
Lydia swiftly pointed her wand at her, "Auror's will be here shortly you know," she pointed out, "you gave them quite a target." she added, motioning with her other hand up towards the swirling green clouds.
Maude smiled, her wand raised directly at Lydia as well. "I would hope so, I'm looking for someone in particular. Well, we are." she said nodding towards the street behind Lydia. Lydia glanced over her shoulder only to see a tall wizard with fair skin standing with his wand ready.
"Leo Black actually, we figured he wouldn't miss a chance to come and help you." the wizard spoke.
"Leo?" Lydia echoed.
✧ ✦ ✧
Leo had kept his end of the bargain to do the report on Mrs. Bennett's report, it had just taken him two days to get to it. For once, Lydia had actually managed to leave first. Which was a rare occurrence. But Leo took it as his chance to give his report to Scrimgeour without Lydia breathing down his back. So as soon as Lydia was out of the department and was well on her way home, he called it good before delivering it to Scrimgeour and leaving for himself.
The ministry had been quiet all day. Probably because it was only Wednesday, and people were just itching to leave for the weekend. So there was no small talk involved for him, he simply found a phone booth waiting to bring someone up to the muggle streets so he could apparate to the Leaky Cauldron.
After Molly's Thanksgiving dinner, Leo had been surviving on the left overs that she had insisted he take home with him. Sirius enjoyed being able to enjoy Molly's cooking away from the dim and dusty dining room of Grimmauld place. After the meeting, Sirius had made a habit of sitting outside Leo's apartment after his dog form got as filthy as possible. Which only meant he had to put up with more complaints from his muggle neighbor Katie. Eventually, Sirius suggested he just stay there for a day or two. And then turned into a week or two. Now, Leo had no idea when or if he ever planned on leaving. So, when Mona suggested the two of them try out a muggle place for dinner, Leo took the opportunity to have some space from Sirius.
As soon as Leo's feet landed outside the Leaky Cauldron, he saw through the windows only to see that it was busier than usual. A handful of the tables were taken by wizards who had their robes and jacks on the back of their chairs because the hooks by the door were overflowing already. He gave one table that acknowledged his entrance a curt nod for a greeting as he made his way up to the bar, however, his usual seat was already taken.
A wizard about his age, maybe a little younger, with red hair was seated there with a butterbeer nearly gone in front of him.
"The waitress will be right back," he spoke as Leo took a seat a few stools away from him.
"Yeah," Leo replied.
"Charlie," he introduced himself. "Weasley."
"Oh, Weasley?" Leo questioned, suddenly the tinge of irritation he had begun to have for him was gone. "I'm Leo Black."
Charlie nodded a bit, "Yeah, I know, from the Prophet." he stated, "I was just passing through, thought I'd stop to see Mona."
Leo nodded a bit, "Passing through from?" he questioned.
"Romania, technically. But the lot of us just left Hogwarts from the first Triwizard Tournament task." he explained simply, motioning to the other wizards spread out throughout the Leaky Cauldron.
"Isn't the tournament limited on who they allow to watch it?" Leo questioned, "I didn't they'd just let anyone on the school grounds to watch it." he shrugged.
"Well, there wouldn't have been a first task if we hadn't brought the dragons." Charlie replied quickly, "Someone had to be around to get them back in their cages."
Leo sighed heavily, leaning against the counter with his arms folded in front of him. "Dragons?" he echoed, "I wanted to work with them when I was a kid." Leo said, "But seemed a little boring once I looked into it."
"Boring?" Charlie echoed, almost offended.
Leo nodded, "Well yeah," he replied, "cleaning up after them must be quite a job. I guess being an auror was just enough excitement for me."
"Yes because paperwork is so much more exciting then dragons."
"There's less paperwork than you think." Leo replied, "We spend more time actually looking into witches and wizards that are up to something."
"At least with dragons you know exactly what you're getting into."
"That's what I thought was boring."
Suddenly the conversation was cut off by Mona clearing her throat. "Hey, Leo."
"Hello," he replied as she set a firewhiskey down in front of him. "you're busy tonight."
"Yeah..." she sighed heavily, "Leo, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Leo."
"We met." the two men said in unison.
AUTHORS NOTE:
we're starting to get to the spicy part of the story. And I am living for it. Be sure to let me know what you think! Be sure to tell me what you thought of getting a little bit of the story in a different point of view! Are there any other characters you'd like to see?
shout out to xonceuponatimex for helping me name Woody. And also thank you again to
justanillusion for making Lydia for me a few years ago. I love her, and honestly she's a refreshing voice to write.
stay classy!
*edited 2/20/21*