Chapter 4

Albus had been thinking about it – about her – all shift long. He was supposed to be reviewing and filing Senior Auror Campbell's incident report, but all he could think about was waking up beside Riley that morning. Every time they so much as looked at each other over vials of their hangover potion, he had felt a bolt of electricity run through his chest.

And then there was the way she said his name, as though she knew exactly who she was waking up to before she'd even opened her eyes.

Turn off that damned light and come back to bed, Al.

He shuddered. What he wouldn't give to hear her calling him to the bed regularly.

"All right, mate?" Scorpius asked, looking at him concernedly from across their shared workstation.

Albus nodded and smiled across their table. The Junior Aurors didn't get individual cubicles like the other Aurors and Senior Aurors – instead, they had wide desks with chairs on opposite sides, situated in an open work space near the filing cabinets. So far, they'd been seeing more of the incident report cabinets than they had other witches and wizards – not to mention the odd hours they worked, today's being an unusual noon to eight shift.

"Yeah. Just a boring file," he said, gesturing to the parchment before him and hoping that pitiful explanation would suffice.

Scorpius seemed to buy it, as he nodded and picked up a second file for his own review as he replied, "They're not exactly Dickens novels, are they?"

Lily Potter was taking the patient charts to the reception desk at St. Mungo's, fretting about the state of her lime green training scrubs. She'd just been on the second floor, where the Magical Bugs unit was located, and had quickly charmed off a bit of snot and repaired a fabric tear created by a stray nostril spark from a three-year-old girl suffering from a case of the Dragon Pox.

As much as the work often disgusted her, Lily Potter also treasured her time in St. Mungo's. She loved working with people, and taking care of sickly witches and wizards was second nature to her. She'd volunteered in the Hospital Wing back in school when a group of about a dozen third years got on the wrong end of a collection of Blast-Ended Skrewts in Care of Magical Creatures, and from that moment forward, she enjoyed learning as much as she could about the profession of medical care.

Being a mediwitch wasn't easy work, though. It often kept her away from her family, and she felt as though she rarely had time to meet up with her friends. Her friends were understanding, though, just as her brothers and parents were. Gran Molly, on the other hand…

Well, it was Lily's job and her passion, and that was that.

This evening was especially crazed, as Dragon Pox had spread around a wizarding day care center located in Hogsmeade. The children had been rushed to St. Mungo's early this morning, and Lily had been working nonstop for over thirteen hours. Judging by the stack of patient folders on the Welcome Witch's reception desk, she wasn't heading home anytime soon.

"I guess we're all enjoying a little overtime this week," Lily said to the portly witch. The greying blonde grimaced unhappily, but Lily offered her a smile, handed her the completed files, and grabbed a fresh stack of folders before heading back to the magical lifts.

James apparated into the alleyway beside Matilda's father's gallery. It was a primarily muggle area of London, but Mr. Cornfoot had gotten quite the good deal on the upscale location, and it was within walking distance to the London street entrance of the Leaky Cauldron. It was between a muggle bar and bank, and it looked like a private attorney's office to the muggles that passed by; although, if the passerby were magical, they'd see a tall window display of green and white fanged geraniums artistically arranged in an ancient vase with Latin carvings and a door sign that read The Gallery of the Ages, Magical Collections of Centuries Past in an elegant scrolled font.

Mr. Cornfoot was always fond of the dramatics – quite like his daughter.

James stepped up to the doorway and stepped inside, where he saw several handsomely dressed wizards and witches sipping on elfish wine and wandering through the gallery, stopping at various glass box displays of random artifacts.

"Mr. Potter," said a kind-faced boy, whom James recognized as Mr. Cornfoot's personal assistant, Henry, who was fresh out of Hogwarts and interested in magical history.

"Hi, Henry," James replied cordially. "How's it going tonight?"

The boy smiled and handed James a tri-fold pamphlet about the pieces in tonight's gallery. "It's going well, I think. The Minister for Magic was here earlier."

"That's great, Henry." James accepted the pamphlet and stepped forward as he noticed Matilda talking with a rather portly looking wizard and, seemingly, the man's wife.

She turned just as James stepped toward them and immediately placed a smile on her face, excusing herself from the older couple and stepping toward him. The smile was the one that James knew she reserved for such important social events – he'd seen it at several gallery shows like this one, as well as at his own Auror Certification Ceremony, the May 2 Victory Banquets, and whenever the press decided to snap a few shots of them out on dates. (The press had to be particularly slow on real news for that to happen, but they had been blinded by cameras a fair few times in their relationship. James hated it but dealt with it; Tilly enjoyed the attention, even if she didn't outright admit it.)

"Hi, James," she said, kissing him chastely on the cheek. "I see you opted for your law enforcement tie," she added, and he could practically feel the disapproval radiating from her.

He put his own faux smile on and replied stiffly, "Yes, as I have to go to work after this, I thought it might be good to go ahead and wear it. Is that a problem, dear?"

She clenched her jaw but continued her efforts to look the ever-pleased hostess as she noticed the witches and wizards milling around the gallery nearest to them. She took a deep breath and said, "No matter. I would've preferred the gold one I laid out, but it's fine. Can I show you where the exhibit begins?"

Harry shifted his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, peering down at the reports before him. Back when he was an Auror – and even as a Senior Auror – he had never seen Robards act remotely this stressed about budgets. Unfortunately, he assumed that Robards had perhaps shouldered that responsibility alone.

Harry wistfully thought of asking his old boss and mentor to come on as a consultant for this endeavor, but knew that Robards' poor health and age wouldn't allow it – and nor would the wizard's wife.

He sighed, then heard a knock at the door.

"Come in," he called, not standing from behind his desk, but instead taking a sip of the cold butter beer beside his inkwell.

The well-lined face of Anthony Goldstein came in, closing the door behind himself. As the Captain of the Hit Wizard Squad, Goldstein was one of Harry's most trusted employees. It was going to be painful to tell him that his request for more staff was being denied.

"You look terrible," Goldstein said, sitting down in one of the leather chairs in front of Harry's desk.

Harry grimaced. "I feel it." He handed his colleague a bottled butter beer and said, "I'll get straight to it. I hate to do this to you, Anthony, but the department's making cutbacks. I can't approve your request for more Hit Wizards."

Goldstein shrugged. "Ah, figured it'd be a bit of stretch." He took a sip from the dark-colored bottle. "D'you think they'll ever realize that we're the last department that needs to cut back?"

Harry sighed and ran his fingers through his dark but slightly greying hair. "Probably not. They figure if Voldemort is dead and the remaining Death Eaters are imprisoned or rehabilitated, they've little need for us."

"Isn't right. There's plenty of crime that needs to be stopped."

Harry nodded his agreement. "Hermione and I have looked over the reports, and we don't know how to cut anything else out. As Deputy Head of the DMLE, she's got to make a proposed budget. Luckily, she accepted my suggestion for the Aurors and Hit Wizards to take on no new additions for a year and to offer early retirement to a few of the folks that are nearing the age mark."

Goldstein nodded. "I'll hate to lose Sylvia Brownsfield– she's a damn good squad member, but she'll take you up on the offer to retire early. She's got grandkids and great-grandkids to look after."

"We'll be losing Gathers and Haines, too," Harry said, taking another sip of the cold butter beer and peering at the employee files he'd stacked on his desk. "Gathers has been using a bit of his sick time lately, especially after that attack in Hogsmeade last year, and Haines has been planning her retirement trip to begin in a year's time anyway. We're not the only ones, though – Hermione's going to lose a few attorneys to the retirement offer, too."

"Eh, well," Goldstein said, peeling the label from his bottle. "It could be worse. At least we're not firing the newbies, eh?"

"Not yet," Harry agreed, though the Captain of the Hit Wizard Squad was voicing his own fears aloud. Harry prayed it wasn't coming down the pike.