Lily Evans sat on the floor of her office, surrounded on all sides by mounds of paperwork. She blew her fringe out of her eyes, scrunched up her face in concentration and muttered hurriedly under her breath, "Accio Dresden files". And promptly following that, a sheaf of moulting yellow papers, which Susan, Lily's PA, had clearly spilt tea on more than once, thunked her on the head and dropped to the floor with a loud splat. A rather loud knock on the door accompanied her sigh of exasperation.
"Come in" she called, rolling her eyes as one particular file of Dresden's attempted to wriggle out from under her and make a harried dash for the window. Shoving it into her bright green snakeskin handbag, she looked up expectantly as the door swung open. Instead of Susan's blonde head poking round, though, she was met by a long, thin face, upon which lay a nest of black hair which stuck out at all sides.
"Potter" Lily said sharply, standing quickly, and bolstering on her usual unimpressed expression. "To what pleasure do I owe this visit?"
The wizard named James Potter strolled casually into her office, and cocked an eyebrow. "I'm here to discuss the Dresden files."
Just as she was about to retort that they were under her safe remit, the lot of papers she had bundled into her handbag leaped over the lip of the bag's mouth, and bounced towards the open door. Lily bolted forward, and shut the door just as the first paper slipped in between the door jamb and the door frame.
"Harumph. I don't see what business you have with my files, Potter" Lily said crisply, yanking the offending paper from its trap and folding it under her arm, ignoring the object's squeaks of alarm.
James had settled himself on the edge of her desk, and at this, he tossed her a smug look.
"I have a file transfer request here. Documented by Moody himself. The files, and all information pertaining to Dresden, are to be passed over to me. I'm taking over the case," James cast a lazy eye over her haphazard office. "While I can see you have been keeping such good care of them, nevertheless, the powers that be feel I'd do a better job at tying up the investigation"
Lily felt anger unfurl slowly in her throat. When she spoke, she betrayed her feelings somewhat with the hard tone.
"I'm afraid while Moody is an accomplished Auror, he has absolutely no authority over magical artefacts, and his file transfer request is just that, Potter – a request. Which can be refused".
"You're not getting the files" she added, fixing him with a resolute stare.
James sighed, got up, and within two long strides, stood over her. Lily tried to ignore the feeling of slight intimidation stealing over her rather petite 5 foot 1 inch body as she raised her head to meet James Potter's 6 foot 2 glare.
"This is no longer merely a misuse of magical artefact case, Evans. This is now a murder investigation".
Lily held his gaze, but inside she was rattled. Murder investigation?
"Dresden's colleague, Drake, was found dead this morning. His house had been ransacked and several high level artefacts had been taken." James rubbed a hand over his face, and sighed.
"I'm not particularly trying to annoy you here Lily, although I can see I'm succeeding. This has to be passed over to the Auror Department".
Lily didn't say anything. She pulled the file from under her arm and handed it to James, and quickly gathered the remaining papers strewn on the office floor.
James had turned to leave when she did speak.
"I knew Drake. He was helping me with my investigation. He was an informant." On any other occasion she would have been pleased to see the shock on James Potter's face, confirming her suspicions that he had been unaware of the extent of Drake's involvement in the Dresden situation.
James Potter looked round warily, and hurriedly cast the Muffliato charm. He strode forward and pulled down her window blinds. The office was thrown into shadow, and the mountains of paperwork spotted all over the floor and desk retreated to the corners of the room.
"Are you entirely sure about this Evans?"
Lily produced her wand and summoned her black diary. The thing was scuffed and stuffed with scraps of paper and memos, but she had no problem navigating to her most relevant Drake entry. Scribed, word for word, in Incorrigible Ink, was a confession on the behalf of Aldous Drake, admitting to illegal trade of magical artefacts. James counted Dresden's name as mentioned a total of 12 times in the piece.
"We had surveillance on Drake for weeks. Not once was there any indication that he was actively working on this with Dresden". James sat down once more on Lily's desk, and frowned.
"Perhaps you aren't quite as good as you thought", Lily smirked, taking her seat behind the desk, and stretching.
She summoned her diary back out of his hands once he attempted to move onto a fresher entry. "No, no, no". she wagged her finger at him. "This is classified information, Potter. All achieved through dogged hard work. Not something I intend to hand over easily".
James considered her, again leaning over her in an effort to maximise his own presence. She was a slip of a thing, really. She was curled up in her office chair so that she resembled a cat, languorous but small framed. Her red hair was trussed up in a bun that rivalled his own hair in its messy execution, and her makeup was smudged. Her cream silk blouse strained on her quite nicely, and her black peplum skirt was equally clingy. She had several expensive rings on and a beautiful emerald necklace which tracked down into her cleavage and set off her catlike green eyes. James cocked his head sideways, and broadened his shoulders.
"Well, Miss Evans, your attachment to this diary considered, you don't get a choice. All information pertaining to Dresden must be passed over". He raised his eyebrows, somehow aware this little nugget of information wouldn't satisfy her. He smiled ruefully when he was confirmed to be correct.
"Indeed. And it will be, Potter. I'm afraid information I have procured myself outside of the remit of the initial Dresden investigation will not fall under that umbrella".
Lily unfolded herself from the armchair and walked briskly to her door, opening it wide. "I'll send on the pertinent files shortly. Right now, I'm in dire need of a yoga break. Helps focus the mind, you know yourself."
And with that, James Potter found himself briskly expelled from Lily Evans' Ministry of Magic office.
James Potter paced back and forth in his own MoM office, brow furrowed. How on earth had Lily Evans managed to persuade Aldous Drake to disclose that kind of information? Did she have something on him? Had she blackmailed him? And why had she been meddling in the case to that extent anyway? As she'd pointed out to him earlier, her findings had fallen outside of the case brief. She wasn't supposed to be digging for that level of intel. That she had, and that she had so casually revealed that little tidbit to him, indicated she had a lot more where that came from.
She had him. She knew he wouldn't be able to siphon that little black book of tricks out of her hands, he'd never get the clearance. The only way he would crack this case would be to involve Lily directly. Of course, that was much easier said than done.