Chapter 2

Scowling at the large pile of papers sat on his desk, Scorpius dropped into his chair and picked up the coffee James had left there for him. Just as Scorpius contemplated how his best friend could possibly have so much energy on a morning, James came bounding in to the cubicle with a huge grin on his face.

"Good night?" He asked with a wink.

Scorpius just grunted in reply and took a large gulp of his coffee.

"Tell me you actually took her home!"

"'Course I did," Scorpius scoffed. "Left this morning." Truth was he had snuck out while the redhead still slept. That was how he always liked to leave them. He gave out as little information about himself as possible, he always went back to their bed, and he always left before they woke.

Contrary to popular belief, Scorpius was actually quite a private person; not many people actually knew the real man behind the handsome face and persona he displayed to the public. James was one of those few, but Scorpius had never let a girl get to know him too well, and vice versa in fact. He had always had a fear of getting hurt if he let somebody become too involved in his life.

"Well then why are you so grumpy this morning?" James questioned.

"It's Saturday morning Potter and I'm up before dinnertime when I should be sleeping off a huge hangover... Besides, she was a bit whiney." Scorpius grumbled before downing the rest of his coffee in one go. "Thanks for the coffee by the way."

"Oh it was no problem at all" James said.

"No problem at all because he sent me to get it!" stated a voice Scorpius was not expecting to hear.

Lily Potter strolled into Scorpius' cubicle with another large pile of papers which she dumped unceremoniously on to his desk before punching her brother's arm.

"Ow! Lils, what was that for?" James moaned rather theatrically while rubbing his arm.

"That was for trying to pass off my kindness as your own." She retorted before sticking her tongue out at him childishly. "Dad says he wants you to look through these files before you report to him at 1pm sharp. I'm going home now for some sleep." She then said to Scorpius through a huge yawn. "I'll tell you what, I cannot wait to qualify so I don't have to do all these silly night shifts; they make me wish I'd taken a nine-to-five desk job sometimes!" She waved lightly before she swept out of the cubicle.

Scorpius sat staring at the space Lily had just exited through. He had no idea what it was about the girl that had caught his attention three years ago when she first walked in to the Auror department, but he had been trying to work it out ever since. Yes, she was pretty, not the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, but her beauty was understated; natural. She had striking dark red hair, and almond shaped hazel eyes, framed by thick long lashes. Her skin was pale with only a small scattering of faint freckles over her nose and cheeks. Her Auror training meant that she kept well toned but not too skinny, but there was one feature though that Scorpius knew he wasn't the only one to admire. He had heard many a comment from his co-workers about how Lily Potter possessed the finest arse in all of Britain; comments which had James frequently threatening to remove people's eyes for.

"Oi mate!" James shouted while clicking his fingers in front of his best friend's face. "Snap out of it. Big brother in the room remember." He added with slight humour in his voice.

Scorpius smirked at his friend. "Going back on what you said last night Potter?"

"Watch that smart mouth of yours, or I might well do that Malfoy." James warned. "Now, let's see what's in these reports; I'd quite like to have McNair in Azkaban by the end of the week."

They spent the next two and a half hours going through all the information they had on Tobias McNair. His uncle had been a Death Eater, however his own parents had managed to stay out of the war as much as possible. The McNair family on a whole were quite a well off pureblood family, who, with the exception of Tobias' uncle, had rarely ever been in trouble with the law. Scorpius however, had a suspicion that many of the old English pure blood families had exceptional skills when it came to covering their tracks based on some of the stories he had heard from his father as a child.

Over the past ten years, there had been a number of attacks on Muggles and the attacker had never been identified. The attacks were similar in some ways; having all been performed on Muggles who could not remember a thing about what had happened to them, however, they were different enough to present the possibility that they were performed by different wizards, so the ministry had never been able to pin the attacks on a single member of the magical community. Of course, there was also the problem that, as the victims were all Muggle, there was not a lot the ministry could do to break through the heavy memory charms that had been placed on each of them to conceal the identity of the attacker. Having too much magic performed on them could have a detrimental effect on any one of the victims' sanity, not to mention the extent at which it would break the International statute of Wizarding Secrecy Law.

The reason they were currently researching Tobias McNair's history was because of an anonymous tip off, but they couldn't bring the guy in for questioning with no other reason for doing so. It would also make for a very short interview if they didn't find out as much as possible to link him to the crimes. The trouble was that although there were several reports of people having their suspicions about the very private family, there were no actual eye witness accounts to prove any family members had been involved in anything sinister.

"Urgh, this is useless," James said as he threw down the report on an attack on a 25 year old woman that had occurred five years previously, "Let's get something to eat; I'd much prefer to hand our useless backsides over to the boss on a full rather than an empty stomach."

Privately, Scorpius agreed that their research was in fact useless, but he had never been one to give up so easily. He was however starving and in dire need of another coffee as the effects of the last one had worn off some time ago, so he agreed and followed James to the canteen.

They had just arrived back in Scorpius' cubicle with their sandwiches when Harry Potter himself walked in. "Food down boys, we have a lead. "

"What do you mean?" James asked sounding rather annoyed at being interrupted during lunch.

"It means you have work to be doing because there has been another attack; except this time, they chose someone who happens to be a Squib who is known to the ministry."

"You're joking!" Scorpius gasped.

"Nope! We've managed to get him moved to St Mungo's and I'd like you both to go down there to be present while the specialist Healers try to recover the victim's memory."

"On it boss!" Scorpius and James said as they jumped up and saluted in exact time with each other. They grabbed their sandwiches and cloaks and rushed out of the cubicle, leaving a chucking Harry behind them.