Chapter Text
“Kei Tsukishima, registered animagus and auror.” The receptionist glanced up at him. “Is that you?”
Kei nodded. He tried to stop his hands from shaking as she handed him a scroll of parchment and a quill over the counter. He quickly signed it, gripping the quill so tightly he was afraid the ink would burst out and bleed over his hand. The receptionist gave him a quizzical look. “Are you alright, sir? You seem tense.”
He handed the parchment and quill back to her. “I’m fine.”
“If you say so.” She gave him his identification card. “You’re free to head to the auror’s office, Mr. Tsukishima. They’re expecting you.”
Silently, he took the card and made his way through the enormous, echoing entrance hall of the Ministry of Magic. The decor was far bolder than the Ministry back in Japan. The tiles darker and sleeker, the booming hall filled with hundreds of ringing voices. He squeezed himself into the crowded lift. He was stuck between a witch carrying a covered cage that was, from the noises inside, presumably full of pixies, and a freckled man about his age who looked just as fidgety as he was, though worse at hiding it.
When they arrived at floor two, the anxious wizard followed him off the elevator. So he must be an auror, too, Kei noted. Wonder what he's so worked up about.
They headed down the hallway, their shoes clacking against the marble floor. Enchanted windows lined the walls. It was raining, and although he knew it was just a work of magic, he couldn't help but shiver as thunder boomed across the artificial sky. The freckled man nearly jumped out of his skin, and Kei snorted.
As they reached the doors of the auror headquarters, the wizard froze. "Are...you coming in?" Kei stood there, awkwardly holding the door open as he awaited an answer, but the man only trembled in response. The poor fellow looked as green as a Romanian Longhorn.
He nodded weakly, and walked through the doorway. Kei followed behind him.
As soon as he entered the room, two men in their mid-thirties approached, adorned in thick robes that looked more costly than a year's worth of rent. "Hey, Yamaguchi!" The taller one crooned, keeping his voice at a stage whisper as to not draw attention from the desk workers surrounding him. "Have you got those galleons you promised us yet?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Yamaguchi was either very uncertain of himself or a terrible liar.
"You knocked over an entire vat of potions and ruined our whole operation. We would have nabbed that witch yesterday if you hadn't intervened. You're lucky Daichi didn't do more than suspend you from the hunt."
"Those potions were damn expensive," the other interjected, crossing his arms provocatively. "Ordered them off our own paychecks. You know how competitive the world of aurors is, right? It's a miracle you even made it past training- probably wouldn't be here if you didn't spend half of first year kissing Shimada's ass so he would give you extra help."
"It was an accident! How many times do I have to tell you? I can't afford to pay for it, I haven't even received my first paycheck-" He was on the verge of tears. A weak one for an auror, Kei couldn't help but agree. Even so, he didn't deserve this sort of treatment.
None of the other aurors in the office were paying any mind to the dispute. Was this how they treated people here? Kei tsked. "Pathetic."
"What did you say?" The taller wizard turned to Kei with a dangerous glare.
"He obviously didn't mean to mess up your potions, so stop being an asshole about it. By the looks of you, you have more than enough money to throw around, and by the looks of him, well..." He glanced at Yamaguchi: his scrawny appearance, his patched-up suit, the buttons missing from his jacket. "He doesn't. So why don't you get lost?"
The men stalked off, grumbling to themselves. One of them turned to glare at Kei, who ignored him in response.
Yamaguchi looked like he wanted to shower Kei in a thousand thank-yous, but he strided off towards the front of the office before the other could get the chance.
He was greeted by a sturdy wizard, who stuck out his hand and smiled at Kei.
“You must be Tsukishima,” he noted. Kei nodded, wincing at the wizard's iron grip.
"My name's Daichi."
“Nice to meet you,” Kei said, his voice slightly winded from the unexpected workout that apparently entailed a Daichi handshake.
“The same to you,” Daichi replied. “I’m afraid I don’t have a job for you just yet. I know you were expecting to be set straight to work as soon as you arrived, but a couple new workers are terrifyingly good at their job. As individuals, they aren’t too good; Kageyama doesn’t get along with anyone, and Hinata is an incredibly clumsy worker. But together, they keep each other in check.”
“I see,” Kei nodded, though he wasn’t sure he saw at all. “Well, when do you expect to have a new job in? From what I’ve heard, there are more dark wizard operations running in the backstreets of London than even the Ministry can keep up with. That’s why they sent me here, after all.” The annoyance was clear in his voice, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The Minister of Magic himself had requested Kei be brought here because of his outstanding work back in Japan. He had closed more cold cases, arrested more witches, and put more suspected law-breaking wizards through a successful trial than he could ever hope to count. And now they were telling him they didn’t have a single job?
“One will probably open up soon.” Daichi didn’t specify when soon was, which frustrated Kei further. “In the meantime, Sugawara can give you a tour of the office.”
A perky wizard rose from their chair in a nearby cubicle. “Hey, Tsukishima. I’m Suga.” They grinned, then began to stride across the office. It took a second before Kei realized he was supposed to be following them.
***
Kei arrived back at his flat late that evening, utterly exhausted. Sugawara had set him to filing paperwork after they had finished showing him around the place.
“We have enchanted quills that do these,” they had explained. “But we like to give newcomers the job of doing a few stacks, just so they can get an idea of the kind of cases they’ll be working on. I’m sure it’s not as necessary for you, Tsukishima, since you’re an experienced auror already. But Daichi thought you should try some anyway, considering London differs a bit from Tokyo.”
Sugawara had been right about the difference. Though there were the everyday “Death Eater sightings” (that were more often than not the result of the witness indulging in too much firewhisky beforehand), there were cases far more bizarre than he had encountered during his time as an auror in Tokyo. He had an inkling this would be an interesting job.
He got to work early that morning, arriving through a telephone booth. Kei hoped the time would affect whether or not he would be assigned a case, but he could only hope.
There were only a handful of witches and wizards at the office when he strode in through the doors. Not even Daichi was there. Instead, a reserved but kindly dark-haired witch nodded to him. “Ukai wants to see you. He has a job available.”
Kei barely stopped to thank her before he raced into the small front office that read Keishin Ukaion a plaque above the entrance. Cigarette smoke filled his next breath.
“Oh, sorry!” Ukai exclaimed. “I didn’t think you’d be here so early. I was just having a smoke.” He put the cigarette out in an ashtray on his desk and cleared away the smoke with the snap of his fingers. “Go ahead and sit down.”
Kei eased himself into the unstable chair that faced Ukai’s desk. “The lady outside, uh…” He reached for her name. “Kiyoko. She said you had a job for me?”
“That I do." Ukai sorted through a messy stack of papers until he found what he was looking for. Clearing his throat, he continued, “It may not be a very big job, or it may be huge. It’s hard to tell. All we know is there’s a potion-selling operation going on. Their wares are illegal, of course. Not necessarily the potions themselves, but the way they're being distributed. They’re badly made, and they’re being traded in bulk with high risk factors. Deadly potions, awful stuff. The details are on the sheet.”
Kei looked over the paper. It listed the neighborhoods rumored to be involved (mostly muggle, far displaced from the Ministry), and the descriptions of some of the witches and wizards known to be partaking in dealing the potions. Amortentia, Bloodroot Potion, Drink of Despair, Elixir to Induce Euphoria, Essence of Insanity, Garrotting Gas, Potion No. 86, Weedosoros. “How soon do you want me to start?”
“As soon as possible.”
Kei had only been in London for about a week, and so most of the streets were unfamiliar to him. He didn’t imagine he would be inclined to visit the neighborhood he now stood in, even if he had lived in London his whole life. The buildings that surrounded him looked ready to fall apart at a moment’s notice. There was no way he would be able to find any trace of this potion cartel wandering aimlessly around on foot.
He crouched down. He didn't make a habit of doing this. It wasted quite a fair amount of time and energy, but the long and arduous process of becoming an animagus had not been for nothing. As he inhaled, he felt himself growing smaller, his arms shrinking into feathery black wings, his human nose extending into a long, dark beak. His feet became sharp, three-toed talons. He lifted himself off the ground, flapping his wings until he was soaring far above the cityscape.
The alleyways were empty except for litter and discarded bottles. An occasional passerby glanced up at him, or pointed, if they were walking with someone. But to muggles and wizards alike, Kei appeared to be an ordinary crow.
As he flew lower in an attempt to get a closer look at the houses that lined the block, he spotted a stray cat wandering about. It seemed to be taking its time, prancing leisurely between the buildings. Kei didn’t dare approach; he knew all too well what a feline could do to him in this state. He avoided the furry obstacle, turning his attention back to the buildings below. Occasionally he dipped in, trying to get a look inside of the windows of the houses. But he saw nothing out of the ordinary; families sitting inside their living rooms, watching television, or empty bedrooms with clothes strewn about the floor, or apartments ready for the next renter to move in. None of them looked like dark wizards inhabited them. Not any magical folk whatsoever, for that matter.
He heard an impatient meow from the alley below. Alarmed, he looked down to see the cat sitting not ten feet underneath him, staring directly into his eyes with its own gleaming yellow ones. Kei nearly squawked. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but did that cat just…wink at him?
There were was one registered feline animagus in London, and it did not match the description of what Kei had seen in the alley earlier.
He was rifling through the filing cabinets that lined the back wall of the auror office with an air of frustration. He had followed that cat for three blocks before it disappeared under the porch of a small corner house. Kei knew it had been aware of him. Either it was a very inept cat, or an unregistered animagus. For the sake of this case, he hoped it was the latter.
"Hey, Tsukishima!" a voice called. He turned to find the wizard from the other day racing up to him. “Tsukki!”
“How do you know my name? I don’t think I told you.”
“Oh, I heard you talking to Daichi. Sorry. I just wanted to thank you for yesterday. With the galleons. You sort of saved my hide back there.”
“Right. I remember.” It seemed so insignificant amidst the commotion of the day, and his futile animagi research. “You don’t need to thank me. I just don’t like it when people act all high and mighty.”
Yamaguchi looked as if he wanted to continue their conversation, but Kei hurried away before he could speak. Yamaguchi was nice, but he had work to attend to.
“So you say you think the cat was an animagus?” Daichi’s gaze rose from the pile of case records at his desk to give Kei skeptical look. “I trust your word, Tsukishima, but I do think that’s jumping to conclusions a bit.”
“It exhibited characteristics and movements that were humanlike,” he explained. It sounded a lot better than saying, ‘the cat winked at me’.
“How so?” asked Daichi. Kei sighed.
“The cat winked at me.”
“It winked at you. And that’s why you think it’s an animagus?”
“Listen, I know how it sounds, but-”
“Alright.”
“Huh?”
“You can go out searching again tomorrow. I doubt you’ll find anything, and I know that Ukai wouldn’t conclude this to be evidence. I won't mention it to him. I trust that you’ll come back tomorrow afternoon with more clues than a stray cat.”
“I will, sir.”
“I’m putting a lot of faith in you, Tsukishima. Aurors don’t have time to muck around in unimportant cases with little to no evidence.”
“I understand.”
“Alright.” He flashed him a smile. “You’d better get home; it’s past closing time.”
"Muck around," Kei scoffed irritably as he scuffled out into the London street. Checking into the auror office was an inconvenience, but an unfortunate necessity. “They tell me they don’t have any jobs for me to complete, even though they asked me to work here, and when I finally get an assignment, I’m accused of slacking off.” He sighed, shivering as cold air filled his lungs.
The weather was rainy and bleak, as Kei had found it often was in London. But the dreary sky wasn’t what was souring his mood.
The alleyway where he had spotted the cat the day before was absent of change. There were still broken bottles and litter in the gutters that were squeezed between the buildings and the cracked asphalt drive. The houses to his right still had paint peeling on the sides, the roofs badly in need of repair. But there was no sign of any sketchy potion-selling business. There were no businesses at all in this area, apart from the sad-looking corner store with its stained brick walls the next block over.
Passing through the alley with no clues, Kei turned left and followed the sidewalk nearly overgrown with weeds. He passed the small, worn houses, his desperation growing worse by the minute. He’d really like to meet the aforementioned Kageyama and Hinata that Daichi had seemed so fond of. He would make sure they never had the courage to steal Kei’s work again.
“No, no,” he murmured to himself. “That isn’t a productive way of thinking.”
“What isn’t?”
Kei whipped his head up to find the source of the reply.
A man stood on the porch of a nearby house, which looked ready to fall apart underneath him. The condition of the building was far worse than any of the other homes on the block, and the stranger suited the place perfectly. He looked rumpled, like he had been through the wash far too many times. He wasn't much older than Kei, but his catlike eyes gave off the air that they had seen far more than his in their time.
Kei glowered at him. “And who are you?”
“Tetsurou Kuroo. Welcome to the neighborhood, Blondie.”
“My name is Tsukishima. And I’m just passing through.”
“You don’t look like you’re in any hurry. Are you looking for something? Or someone?”
Kei pursed his lips. “No one in particular.”
"There's not much else of a reason to be walking around here."
Kei gave the man a once-over, lingering again on those unsettling eyes. "Actually," he considered, "Would you mind if I came in? I'd like to ask you a few questions."
“Sorry about the mess,” Kuroo said as he closed the door behind them. Mess isn’t the right word, Kei noted. The house was desolate and nearly absent of furniture, with only a few things strewn about. What was messy about the place was its water-stained ceiling, the wallpaper peeling down the walls, the missing floorboards beneath their feet. He bit his tongue to avoid comment.
“I’ll go heat up some tea. Uh, you can sit on the couch, if you want.”
Kei didn’t make a habit of visiting strange homes. He imagined that if he did, he would prefer much nicer places. But Kuroo looked like he knew something, and that sly grin he kept giving Kei when he thought he wasn't looking didn't do much to smooth his feathers.
He heard the screech of a kettle, then a loud “Shit!” and the clang of metal against metal. Kuroo entered the room a few moments later, carrying two steaming mugs of tea. He set them down on the poor excuse for a coffee table, and blew on his forefinger. “Sorry about that,” he murmured. “The kettle was hotter than I thought.”
Kei smiled amusedly despite himself, holding the label of the tea bag and swirling it around inside his mug. "There's been reports of some strange goings-on in the neighborhood. I was wondering if you'd seen anything." He sipped conservatively his drink. Some store-brand mint flavor, more than likely.
“What sort of goings-on?"
He chewed on his upper lip. Kuroo's disposition didn't scream magic, but he didn't seem muggle-like either. Kei gave him a half-answer. "A group has been selling substances to the residents. Have you seen any unusual, mmm-" What would be a muggle-safe term? "Gang activity, perhaps?"
Grinning, Kuroo took a long drink of tea and swallowed. "Do police officers wear robes now, or are you just a really underpaid auror?"
Kei looked down at his tea and back up at Kuroo, who winked. The familiar, all-knowing strangeness of those eyes clicked a moment too late. "You're-" was the only word he could manage to get past his lips before the drink did its work and his vision faded to darkness.