IN THE WEEKS FOLLOWING Elladora's trial and Leo's unexpected new alliance with the Order of the Phoenix, Scrimgeour had slowly started to lengthen the leash he had put Lydia and Leo on after the mission to the Riddle Manor that turned into a nightmare for him. The cases he handed over to Leo and Lydia weren't anything special, and he gave most of the more...interested cases to the likes of Veslin and Robards. But if Leo were to be honest, he wasn't going to complain too much about the types of cases he got to go on. It meant getting away from his desk again. He felt like he was a dog finally let out of his cage, the Ministry, specifically the Auror's department had begun to get quite suffocating.

"–what should I do?"

Leo snapped out of his thoughts, and brought his wandering eyes back to the frail looking old woman who sat across from her table from Lydia. The woman was so small that she looked like one trip could literally snap her ankle in half. Her skin stretched over her hands as she shakily set down her teacup; it looked like her skin was made of paper.

"Mrs. Bennett, I assure you, we will be keeping an eye out for this house elf." Lydia assured her, offering her a small smile of reassurance.

Leo huffed out a bit of air as his eyes glanced at the shelves of small tea cups. It looked like Mrs. Bennett had been collecting them for decades. "My guess is he won't try coming back here," Leo added, glancing at the shattered window in her small living room, and the hole that she had blasted into the wall when her spell missed the elf. "it looks like you put up quite the fight when he was here."

"You're sure he was here to kill you?" Lydia questioned, trying to keep her tone as even as possible. As sympathetic as she could, Leo had to look away entirely so both Mrs. Bennett and Lydia wouldn't see the smirk that appeared on his lips.

A house elf trying to kill someone was a stretch. Most freed elves wouldn't even raise a finger to even their owners. Although ones like Kreacher might try to kill people who hated their owners...but the story that Mrs. Bennett was trying to sell to Lydia and Leo was beyond unbelievable. It was delusional.

"Oh yes, positive," she replied, "he just appeared here! He smelt horrendous, he tracked dirt all over my rug. It's an original that I purchased in Japan last month, it cost me nearly three-hundred galleons, you know..."

"Right..." Lydia said quietly.

"Ma'am, are you sure he was here to actually kill you?" Leo questioned, turning back around to face the two. "It's not exactly in a house elves nature to kill anyone."

"Well, why else could he have been here? The thing must have known that my dear Tommy passed away two weeks ago...he must have known that it was just me here...the thing probably saw me as an easy target..." she said, her voice growing more and more dramatic as she spoke. And her eyes began to welt with tears.

"Perhaps he learned about your rug?" Leo suggested, "Maybe looking for an easy way to get a few coins..."

"Mr. Black, you aren't suggesting I'm lying are you?" Mrs. Bennett snapped back, Leo also earned an irritated glance from his partner.

"No, no, of course not." Leo said quickly moving swiftly to sit down in the third chair at the small table. He leaned against the table, "Mrs. Bennett, I've been doing this for awhile now-" alright, that was a bit of a lie. But he had seen a handful of cases about house elves, and none of them involved attempted murder. And usually, they were because of some fake accusations from former owners. "-and a house elf isn't a violent creature. I just want to make sure you're giving us the most accurate report so we can make sure this doesn't happen again."

Mrs. Bennett's eyes immediately began to fill with tears again. She let go of her cup and swiftly covered her eyes as she began to loudly weep. Leo quickly glanced at Lydia who looked equally as irritated with the woman.

"I-it's ju-just been so lone-lonely here without Tommy..." the old woman cried, and instantly Leo leaned back in his chair, and held a hand up towards the woman before putting it back down on the table. As if to tell Lydia that he knew there was something about the woman's report that just wasn't sitting right with him, and he had been right. "there w-was n-no house elf h-here." she wept.

"Excuse me?" Lydia questioned.

"I've missed having visitors...a-af-after Tommy...h-his friends st-stopped coming for t-tea!" the woman weeping grew louder, as if that was even possible.

"Unbelievable...." Lydia muttered.

"I'm s-so sorry!" she cried.

"You know-"

"It's alright, Mrs. Bennett." Leo said quickly, cutting Lydia off before she could inform the old witch about the possible consequences of reporting a fake crime.

Once they, well, Leo managed to convince Mrs. Bennett that everything was going to be alright and she wasn't in any sort of trouble, the two of them made a swift exit from the flat in Diagon Ally. And Lydia was beyond unhappy with how Leo handled Mrs. Bennett, and even more unhappy with the fact that their time had been wasted with a case that wasn't even real. As it turned out, Leo was handling the child-friendly cases from Scrimgeour better than Lydia was.

"Lydia," Leo sighed heavily as she stormed ahead of him out of the elevator towards the jurors department. "Lydia, she was a lonely old woman, what were you going to do, arrest her? Send her to Azkaban?"

Although she didn't turn towards him, Leo could tell she gave him the biggest eye-roll that she could muster up.

"You and I both know what type of people Azkaban needs the room for." Leo said, "There're are plenty of other witches and wizards out there more dangerous than a old woman who files a fake complaint because she's lonely."

"You're only saying that because you've gone soft since you and Mona started seeing each other." Lydia stated, "You were picturing Mona being upset after something happens to you or you being lonely after something happens to her."

Leo rolled his eyes, "I have not gone soft."

"Have to."

"No, I have not."

Lydia stopped dead in her tracks, causing Leo to nearly run right into her. "Leo, the last four cases you've let go with a warning at best."

Leo scoffed, and cocked his head to the side. "That drunk wizard reported another drunk wizard for stealing his wand when he just accidentally picked it up. That muggle that saw a ten year old start that tree on fire was an easy fix, a memory charm did the trick. Were you going to take a ten year old in for a bit of underage magic? Really, Lydia?"

Lydia sighed heavily, "Leo, we've got to show Scrimgeour we can't get pushed around out there. Otherwise we'll never get a real case again. We'll be stuck with drunk wizards and lonely old ladies."

"Scrimgeour knows we can handle ourselves, Lydia." Leo said with a sigh as he stepped passed her. "If you want, I will do all the paperwork on Mrs. Bennett, but not until tomorrow."

"She's all yours." Lydia replied irritably.

"You might want to, I dunno, unwind tonight." Leo told her, "You're being a little bit of -"

"A bit what?" Lydia snapped.

Leo sighed as he picked up his jack from his chair and looked up at his partner across their desks. "You're kinda being a bitch today." Leo said simply, his words taking Lydia by surprise. "Look, Lydia, I know these aren't the cases you want right now. Trust me...I don't want these either...but until Scrimgeour feels like we can actually be let off our leash completely, this is what we got. And it's even more miserable when you're acting like it's miserable."

Lydia opened her mouth to reply, but she quickly bit her tongue and took a deep breath. "I'll see you tomorrow then." she replied, and after she took about deep breath, "And I promise, I'll try to act less miserable."

Leo nodded a bit, "I'll see you tomorrow, and I'm serious, I'll do the paperwork on Mrs. Bennett tomorrow."

Lydia seemed to relax a bit and nodded a little bit. "Look, I'm sorry..." she muttered, "I'm just worried about everything right now...I've wanted this job forever and it seems like I'm not even getting to do it."

Leo sighed heavily, he hadn't been anticipating a deep heart to heart conversation right now. Downstairs at the statue, Mona was probably already waiting for him. Molly had insisted during the last meeting that Leo join them sometime for dinner at the burrow. And tonight was the night that Mona had chosen.

"Lydia, before long, we will be back out there helping with the wanted lists. I'm sure of it. We just have to show everyone that we can handle ourselves. It won't be long now."

Once Lydia seemed calmed down enough from the day, Leo said his goodbyes and swiftly left the department. He definitely wasn't looking forward to a meal with Arthur and Molly that wasn't with the rest of the Order. He hadn't ever been good at relationships, and he definitely hadn't ever really been the type that went out of his way to meet families. Perhaps this happened differently, he knew Arthur and Molly already, and the closest conversation he had with either of them about Mona was from Arthur when he told Leo they didn't want Mona being involved in the Order. But there was something about this that was unsettling, the last time he had met any family as someones boyfriend was when he dated a no-maj girl the summer before his seventh year. Partially just to spite his parents, and her family hadn't exactly liked him. Since then, he had always put off meeting anyone's parents. The only difference was, he couldn't put off meeting the Weasley's because he already knew them.

Leo made his way down to the statue sure enough, where he found Mona waiting for him. She had insisted, not wanting him to arrive to the Burrow on his own. Although he had done it a handful of times already regarding the Order, but she didn't know about that or any of his visits with Arthur and Molly.

"Finally," she sighed heavily, "I was starting to think you decided to just go home." she added, quickly pecking his cheek with a kiss.

"I thought about it." Leo sighed heavily, earning a bit of an eye-roll from her. "What? It was a long day."

"Scrimgeour finally gave you a better case?" she questioned as the two of them began towards the long hall of fireplaces.

"Not exactly," Leo replied, "Lydia's just having a hard time with having these little cases."

"And you aren't?" Mona asked.

Leo shook his head, "Surprisingly, no."

"Fine by me." Mona confessed, "I never really understood the appeal of being an auror, no offense."

"None taken," Leo sighed heavily as they joined a short line at one of the fireplaces. "but it's just nice not being stuck at my desk all day."

One by one, the people in front of them disappeared in an eruption of green flames, followed by a puff of smoke as the ashes settled. Until finally it was their turn, and Mona tightened her grip on Leo's hand, as if to make sure he didn't change his mind last second and go home instead of the Burrow. The two of them stepped into the fireplace, and instantly were surrounded by the green flames that felt like ice cold air that lifted them up and out of that fireplace and planted them firmly into a much shorter fireplace in the Burrow.

Immediately Leo was met with the smell of what had to have been a complete feast that Molly had prepared. It had been years since he had even smelt something like it, it gave him the same warm and welcoming feeling that he had every year at the start of term at Ilvermorny during their feast to kick off their new school year.

"Molly insisted," Mona said quietly as the two of them stepped out of the fireplace.

"Just in time," Molly greeted walking into the living room, immediately greeting Mona with a hug and then giving Leo a small one as well. Which made Mona look incredibly relieved. "Arthur should be here any minute too." she assured Mona before she looked back at Leo. "Leo, I wasn't sure what to make, and I figure it's so close to your holiday in America– Thanksgiving, and they usually have a bit of everything, so I thought we could have a Thanksgiving dinner together."

Leo smiled and nodded, he felt relieved too. Not even the slightest thing made it seem like Molly was familiar with Leo. Which gave Mona the impression that things were off to a great start. And made it clear that it was going to be easy to keep any of the previous conversations about Voldemort, Death Eaters, and even Leo's family that he had with Molly or Arthur were going to be easy to avoid.

AUTHORS NOTE:

I will die for Leo, Lydia, Mona, and Mrs. Bennett. No questions asked. Also someone tried to tell me Leo probably would be a trump supporter. How does that make y'all feel? Personally it makes me feel sick.

Anywayyy...I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!

Stay classy!

*edited 2/20/21*