Chapter Text
James was not pleased to be back in the office. He had spent a month and a half holed up at Potter Place with a conspiracy-theorist Lily and a sulky teenage daughter. Addy at least was happy to see him at mealtimes. Harry really was sulking. He wouldn’t have thought her capable of it. In the past, she had argued solemnly and resorted to setting Archie as a fall guy for pranks set around the house when she didn’t get her way. Harry was also doing a bad job pretending she wasn’t sulking. She gave big enthusiastic smiles to her parents and uncles and cuddled Addy to no end but she kept pacing the house and rifling through cabinets and leaving messes that she knew would annoy her mother. She hid his inkpot too. His favorite mug had gone missing 2 weeks ago. He was stuck settling for his third favorite mug because – no surprise – his backup mug was missing as of last night. Would Lily be upset if he took her mug tomorrow?
James had shut the house down to all visitors beyond Sirius, Archie, and Remus. Dumbledore’s letter asking for a meeting with Archie had been burned. If asked, James had never gotten it through the filters. After a month and half spent shoring up defenses and conducting his own private investigations, he was recalled back to the office. Back to his desk and to the little fern that no one seems to have watered in his absence. Back to the picture frame showing a happy family and a daughter with an old familiar face. He looked resolutely back to the files facing him. He already felt beaten down by expectations and duty.
...
It was only his third day back when Lord Riddle came knocking. When the door opened without James’ say-so, he glanced up frowning at the intruder. Well that was odd – Riddle usually sent Malfoy to talk to department heads.
“Excuse me, Lord Riddle. I don’t believe we –“
“No, we do not have an appointment. I have come to inquire as to nature of your bias to the …hmmm….RBC case, as the papers call it.”
James sent a cool gaze towards the interloper in his office. “I do not answer inquiries on an open case. You have no proper claim to classified information. However, if you want to sit with one of our aurors to divulge anything you might find important…? We will probably call you anyway in about a week’s time.”
“I have nothing to divulge to the auror’s office.” Riddle looked rather incensed to have questions turned around on him.
“No…from a few semi-private meetings with the boy in Professor Snape’s office, we do not expect you will have too much new information to add. Just to corroborate Snape’s account.” James looked hard at Riddle, trying to read micro-expressions and giving the task up with no small frustration. He had hoped goading Riddle with the assumption that he wasn’t important might have sparked something. In truth, he was hungry to see the upcoming interrogation that might uncover something about Voldemort’s identity.
Riddle turned to his first point of business. “I have come as a humble messenger really, from the Minister’s office. I have been tasked with this unpleasant business-“ he said this with a sneer “- of urging you off the case. We feel justice might be impeded if we allow personal bias to interfere with the facts.”
James was so satisfied that he hadn’t allowed any trace of anger on his face that he smiled instead. The grin probably looked out of place to Riddle and his grin grew even larger at the thought. He shook it off his face and remarked casually. “I must say I am surprised to hear the minister’s office gave you this mission. Of course we have discussed this concern and I have already given my notes and the point position on this case to Auror Kingsley. This has been his case for a week already. I suppose Auror Baxton has been too preoccupied to pass this along to you. I can’t imagine why he would suddenly have reservations when he has been so open in the past – he’s helping Auror Moody on the search for Voldemort’s accomplices.” Not exactly true, that. Again, an attempt to spark some detail on Voldemort’s origin – which he shouldn’t strictly been doing.
Auror Baxton had been reprimanded before on being too loose lipped on confidential details of cases and his reluctance to report to Riddle’s minions no doubt came from his probation – not because there were true rumors on Voldemort’s similarities to Riddle. Pity. If only the Daily Prophet would report on that instead of running editorials about everyone’s feelings about the child, then we might get somewhere. Riddle rose smoothly and bowed his head in a farewell. “I am pleased that we are in agreement about the way this case should be handled.” If he exited the office with more rush than was his wont, James pretended not to gloat.
In truth, Kingsley was the official point person on the case but James would be damned if he truly removed his influence. He had personally organized the list of people to be interviewed and had carefully interviewed Snape himself before he handed the case over. Kingsley was probably inclined to interview him again, but James believed he had prepped Snape well in case he was interrogated again. He had asked every possible version of Kingsley’s questions without too much trickery and expected Snape would be further prepared the next time. James had only asked about the sequence of events and very carefully did not probe into Snape’s analysis of events. Snape should be clever enough to evade those.
And Snape really was evasive. It was impossible to guess at what he suspected. However, even with his terse answers, he remained truthful about a couple things James would have preferred to bury if he could. Rigel’s magical output, for one, was undeniable. Enough people could fill in the blanks after Rigel dueled so athletically and with so much endurance against 4 opponents in the dueling task.
James had the benefit of years of experience with Harry’s work and knew visually how many potions bottles could be filled. He had not seen her a full capacity, he knew, but she had filled enough DMLE orders with her specialty ward potions that he could fill in the blanks. So when Snape surprisingly offered the information that Rigel Black was a brewer of such talent that only came about in a thousand years…James’ mouth tightened…he knew all this already.
James allowed one question to slip from his mouth that he almost wished would remain unanswered – if Rigel experienced an uptick in magical power in his third year. Snape uttered a low “yes” and looked as though it had been pulled out of him by force. So there goes Harry’s and Archie’s thought that Rigel might have been older. Snape had been even more sullen after that vein of questioning.
After he packed up his notes and thanked Snape for his help in the investigation, he extended his hand out to Snape. Ostensibly, an innocent gesture. A commonplace gesture of good bye and good fortune. The tall, solemn man across the desk hesitated and then clasped his hand in what James thought suddenly, might be understanding.