THE NEXT TWO DAYS WENT BY WITHOUT A SINGLE HITCH. In fact, they went by incredibly smooth. As it turned out, capturing his own sister was quite the event, and it did wonders for the chaotic reputation he had among his new team. Some saw him as some American who got dumped on them, some saw him as just another Black family member that was waiting for his chance to make a move. Timothy Veslin; or Tee as he preferred to be called, really hit it off with Leo after he proved himself as a legitimate Auror who they could trust. Like Leo, Veslin was impulsive, but over the last three years of working side by side with Robards had gotten most of his reckless behavior beat out of him. Robards was even more of a stickler for the rules than Lydia was.

After catching his own sister— Scrimgeour didn't even saw a word about the fact that Leo had left Lydia. He had gone off on his own; which in hindsight could have been bad news for Lydia too. However, just like the majority of events on his file— the end result was beneficial. Which drove Lydia absolutely insane. The fact that Scrimgeour said and did nothing against her new partner was something that just didn't understand. Instead of being desks or anything like that; there was an article that made the front page of the Prophet; BLACK VS BLACK at the Qudditch match, it even implied that perhaps Leo would be able to catch Sirius Black too.

"Can you sign this?" Lydia asked as she held out her report from the Quidditch match. "And sign the second page as a witness?" her eyes only looked up at him for a brief moment, then they went right back to the papers on her desk.

Leo nodded as he leaned forwards and took the paper from her, "So is this your final draft? Or will there be yet a third still?" he asked, smirking, hoping that she would smirk a bit too. There was a first draft balled up the trash beside her desk that she hadn't been pleased with.

She sighed heavily, "Yes. It's the last one, Scrimgeour needs them by the end of the day today."

Leo nodded as he picked up his quill and scribbled down his name as a witness. "I know I handed mine in as soon as it was finished."

"Your half page essay, you mean?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

He smiled, "Scrimgeour accepted it, didn't he?" he asked, "Lydia, they just need a paper trail of what happened. They don't need every detail."

Lydia scoffed, but didn't say anything in reply.

      Leo decided not to push it any further and simply handed the report back to his partner who was less than happy to have him around in the first place. Leo then stood from his desk and picked up his wand and tucked it inside the pocket in his jacket as he turned to leave.

"See you tomorrow, Lydia."

She muttered something that Leo couldn't quite make out, so he decided to believe it was a goodbye and went on his way to leave the Ministry. It was late in the day, but his day wasn't near over. Whoever lived above his apartment sounded like a heard of elephants late at night, so he would be up for hours still.

▫ ▪ ▣ ▪ ▫

Once Leo got to the red phonebooth, he stepped into the usual ally and apperated to the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron, just to come face to face with the fresh wanted flyer that was plastered onto the door; it was a new one of Sirius Black, the man they assumed was behind the dark mark in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup. Luckily, that hadn't affected Leo all that much. Everyone was focused on the brother and sister who were on polar opposite sides of things rather than worrying about whether or not Leo knew where Sirius was.

     Inside the Leaky Cauldron was practically empty. Leo could hear clattering in the kitchen behind the bar, there was one ancient looking wizard who was seated with a tattered looking book in front of him, and then a man sitting at the bar— in Leo's usual spot where he sat to talk with Ramona when she was working, which had been switching back and forth between the mornings and evenings.

"Your coffee?" Ramona asked, poking her head around from the kitchen.

Leo smirked, "You got it," he said as he walked towards the bar, a few seats down from the other man sitting there.

She gave him a smile and turned around to go and fetch his drink.

     Leo sat down and huffed out a long breath of air. He glanced down towards the other man, and instantly felt his stomach drop down to his feet. Sitting there in his usual black jacket, and his hair done in a certain way as always was Atticus.

"Surprise, baby brother," he said looking down at Leo. "I was a bit hurt I had to hear about your move from mother."

Leo's frowned deepened and he leaned against the bar with his arms crossed in front of him. "I know you aren't here because you wanted to wish me luck in Europe."

"I can't just want to see you? Have a drink and catch up?" he asked, arching an eyebrow heavily.

Leo chuckled, "You can't." he replied, "Remember last time we tried that? I had to explain to mom why I had a broken nose."

"That's in the past, brother-"

"It was two years ago." Leo reminded him.

Atticus sighed heavily, "That's still the past." he said simply, "How're things at the Ministry?" he asked as Ramona walked out from the back with a mug in her hand a in her other a few creams.

Her eyes bounced between the two men in front of her, "Do you two know each other?"

"Since the day he was born," Atticus sighed heavily.

Leo looked up at her, "My dear big brother." he said with a small shrug, but not even attempting to look happy that he was here.

She nodded a bit, "Should have known, he asked for a coffee too." she said chuckling a bit in hopes that it'd lighten the mood. However, neither of them were amused by it, so she quickly decided to go back to the kitchen and finish whatever she was doing before Leo arrived.

"So are you going to explain to me why you arrested our Ella?" Atticus asked, moving down to sit beside Leo. "Sure, she's a bit...different, but she doesn't belong in Azkaban, Leo."

Leo closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a heavy sigh as he tried to keep himself calm. When they first discovered what Ella was doing, Leo was absolutely revolted by it. Atticus however wasn't all that offended, he just chose to ignore it and remember that Ella was their sister. Even though his own wife was a halfblood; one that came from a poor family too, and Ella despised everything about her. To Atticus, if he didn't say or do anything, it wasn't real.

"Atticus, she almost killed me." Leo stated, "If that damn curse of hers would have hit me a bit more to the right..." he said motioning to his chest, "you'd be at my funeral."

Atticus rolled his eyes, "Don't be so dramatic, Leo." he said as he took one of the creams Ramona had given Leo for his own coffee. "She's our sister, and you two have always gotten into it. But she would never kill you. Or anyone for that matter-"

Leo scoffed, "Right, of course." he mumbled, "I forgot she's absolutely perfect, doesn't have a job, has a dark mark, is besties with Bellatrix— oh but she is just perfect. She's just darling." Leo mocked, his voice was soaked with sarcasm.

Atticus rolled his eyes, "Well at least she knows what loyalty is, Leo."

IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE:
Okay, so I've wanted to avoid this sort of
thing...I don't want to come across as uptight
or unsupportive of my fellow authors here on
Wattpad. But this is something that needs to be
said; please do not promote your story or
future stories on my work. When I first started reading on Wattpad, I never would have dreamed for promoting my work on works by microwavedcoffee or kmbell92 so please try to refrain from doing so on my stories as well. Because I will remove the comments. And if you continue to do this, I will report you.

Sorry for this long note, and I hope it didn't upset any of you! If it did, please inbox me. I'd love to talk to you about it!

Stay classy!
*EDITED 7/24*