Chapter Text
The creaking of the opulent mahogany door was not the loudest sound that echoed throughout the barren house, once bustling and warm. It has since become devoid of any semblance of its previous laughter and life. No, the loudest sound was the sharp, piercing scream that ricocheted off every empty wall like a stray bullet. This would not have been the strangest thing to have happened today, if not for the sweep of the house that had been done not more than ten minutes prior by the Uniforms. The house was meant to be empty. Completely empty. Supposedly. The stairs groaned in complaint under the weight of Detective Martin’s heavy boots as he made his way towards the source of the ear-splitting sound, and he isn’t quite sure what he was anticipating, but he never could have expected what he found when he pushed open the door of the master bed-
“Dad!” A piercing shout startled James from just outside his office. As if he hadn’t already been struggling enough to write anything worth bloody reading, James’ carefully curated groove, fruitless as it may have been, was thoroughly destroyed by his son’s impressive shout.
“Jesus, Haz, you scared me half to death,” James responded with a hand on his heart and a heavy breath. Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation, used to his father’s antics after fifteen years of consistency.
“That’s meant to be your job, isn’t it?” By job, of course, Harry means being one of the most successful mystery novelists of the decade. Nineteen books across the thirteen-year span of his lustrous career, twelve of them bestsellers, but who’s counting, really? Sure, he just dug himself into an unfathomably deep hole by killing off his best-selling character, but semantics.
“Where are my football shoes? Have you seen them? The game is in an hour, and I can’t find them anywhere!” Harry continued, looking more distraught by the second, running his hands through his hair in a way not dissimilar to James’ own nervous tic. “Coach Frank will kill me if I turn up without them again and the club spares are always torn, and the spikes are blunt and they’re bright orange! I hate orange!”
“Harry, calm down,” James starts, putting a comforting hand on his son’s shoulder after having walked across the office during his frantic spiel, “We’ll look for them right now, ok? And even if we don’t find them, I’ll speak to Frank before the game, alright? Frank loves me!”
“Alice loves you. Frank thinks you strut around the stands and pretend to know what you’re shouting about.” Harry levels with narrowed eyes.
“Well then it’s a good thing I just gave Alice a lovely raise for being such a good manager!” James says off the top of his head, “And I do not strut!” His son levels him a disbelieving look which tells him that, yeah maybe he struts a little.
“Did you really give Alice a raise?”
A beat passes.
“Well, now I did.”
Harry seems to chuckle and calm slightly as their back and forth concludes and they resume their searching. No more than three minutes later, James exclaims that he’s found them, somehow having turned up in the empty aquarium they haven’t gotten around to filling. Or buying any fish for. They aren’t quite sure why they bought an aquarium, really.
“How did you find them! I’ve been looking for forty-five bloody minutes!” Harry says, slightly out of breath from his increasingly frantic jogging around the house.
“Language, Harry!” Euphemia shrieks indignantly from the kitchen.
“Because I know you far too well, Haz,” James responds with a smirk, decidedly leaving out the impromptu game of shoe-ball he played the other day while procrastinating. Can you really blame him when writing has become such a bloody chore? Some things are just better left unsaid. “You’re just like me, but with far worse hair,” he continues while ruffling his son’s, frankly rather disastrous, dark locks, which Harry immediately groans and tries to fix, to no avail.
“I will never understand how I ended up with both a son and grandson who carry such intense chaotic energy!” Effie proclaims with a flourish of her free hand while fishing the shoes out on a broomstick with the other, punctuating every other word with a frustrated whack. “Was my cooking not enough to mellow you out? Are you trying to send me into an early grave with your antics every other day?” She finishes once the shoes have been retrieved, staring them down with a fierceness only a mother can muster.
“You know you love us, Ma,” James says while kissing his mother’s cheek lovingly, the fondness in her eyes telling him all he needs to know about the seriousness of her statement, “and it almost definitely is every other hour.”
Whatever fondness there was quickly evaporated at James’ words as she levelled him with a warning look while still holding the broom firmly in her hand. Harry swoops in and copies his father’s distracting gesture by kissing her other cheek with a loud, exaggerated smack.
“Love you Grams, thank you, thank you!” He says while racing off to get his kit on and pack his newly found shoes. His head sticks round the corner in a giggle of “But you love me most!” before disappearing once more.
James doesn’t know what deity blessed him with not only the most aggressively loving parents on the face of the earth, but also his carbon copy for a son. He smiles to himself as he ponders Harry’s antics, wondering if this is how his mother must have felt when he was running around the house in a frenzy himself.
“I did quite well with him, didn’t I?” James says aloud, his mother’s fondness reemerging and only growing at his words. She ruffles his hair in a similar way that he did to his own son, pausing her warm hand on his cheek and giving him a small pat. That’s all the answer James needs, he thinks as his mother busies herself with making them a quick cup of tea before they go. By the time Harry returns, cheeks red from the exertion of lugging a bag twice his size over his shoulder, it’s already nearly time to leave.
“Forgetting something, Harry?” James says with a raised brow, watching his son’s face twist in a remarkably similar way to his own when he’s wracking his brain for a chapter title. James decides to help him out before he can burst a blood vessel and bench himself from the game. “Your suit for the party?” Harry’s response is a frighteningly long sigh followed by a groan.
“Do I have to wear a suit? You know how much I hate them. Plus, they don’t even look good on me!” Before Euphemia can jump in telling her beloved grandson that everything looks good him, he continues. “What about jeans and a shirt? A nice-ish one!” Harry tries, eyes pleading and hopeful. As much as he empathizes with his son’s desire for comfort, The Book Party was an event that couldn’t be messed with. Dozens of reporters, even more photographers and countless important names in both publishing and writing would be present. James pretends to ponder it for a few moments before responding.
“I see your jeans and shirt and raise you a full suit minus the tie.” He sees Harry’s eyes narrow as the cogs start turning in his head.
“I see your suit minus tie and raise you…suit pants and button down!”
“I see your--“
“Oh, for God’s sake, boys, this is not a poker game!” Effie states with her hands placed menacingly on her hips. “Now, Harry you go and pack suit pants, suit jacket and a t-shirt, a nice one, please, not that grey thing you always wear.” Harry begins to protest but is stopped in his tracks by one firm look from his grandmother.
“James, you go grab the camera for the game and make well sure there’s storage left this time!” Harry and James’ eyes meet as they silently agree to the compromise, simultaneously turning on their heels to start on the respective tasks Euphemia has set out for them, feeling the weight of her eye roll as they go.
A few minutes later, they’re out the door on the way to the game, singing along to their carefully curated Best of ABBA playlist, oblivious to the tragedy that was being discovered not ten blocks away, in James’ name. Oblivious to the way so much would change in a matter of hours.
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Regulus never liked the irony of drinking his coffee black, yet here he was, steadily gulping it down before throwing the empty cup in an overflowing bin just beyond the perimeter of the yellow police tape he gracefully steps under. He knows the drill, he’s been a cop for over a decade, a detective for half of that. Once past the police tape his eyes follow the trail of Uniforms, MEs, and photographers. Red strings culminating at a single linchpin. The body.
Today, it’s a woman in her late twenties. Unassuming and mild. Pale skin, long brown hair, brown eyes, not a single sign of emotion on her face. There is nothing particularly remarkable about her. Nothing, of course, except for the long red streaks where words had been meticulously yet brutally carved into her skin. Just any day on the job, he thinks dryly.
“Do we have ID?” He says curtly, seeing no less than four people startle.
“Jesus, Reg,” Pandora says, hand thankfully not moving to her chest from where tweezers were carefully moving in the vicinity of the victim’s wounds, “One of these days you’re going to kill me. I became a medical examiner and not a detective because I would rather not be scared to sudden death, thank you very much!” Her hair swayed in its platinum blonde ponytail as she spoke.
“Would you rather I stomp my way through the crime scenes like Barty?” Regulus responds with a quirked brow and a nod towards where Barty was crunching glass beneath his feet absentmindedly as he tried to find the right angle for the crime scene photos. Pandora’s face tells him that no, she decidedly does not want yet another buffoon messing up the integrity of her crime scene. One too many times has Barty forgotten gloves or stepped on a faraway blood spatter. Before he can reiterate his question, a voice sounds from behind him.
“Hi, guys,” Sirius starts with a smaller smile than usual. The kind that replaces his bright demeanour only at solemn sight of a dead body laid out in front of them.
“See, that’s allowed! That’s all you have to do!” Pandora exclaims, relocating her earlier passion.
“Did Reg scare you into stabbing a vic again?” Remus says with a smirk as he bumps Regulus’ shoulder with his own.
“It happened one time!” Regulus and Pandora exclaim at once, eliciting a laugh from both his brother and Remus, as well as a few chuckles from surrounding staff which quickly died out at a single scalding look from Regulus. Only a select few people can take the piss out of him and emerge unscathed.
“It’s not like I’m sneaking up on you. You just need to be more observant,” Regulus proclaims while crossing his arms over his chest in a petulance that only being around his brother can bring out.
“Reg, I quite literally had to put a bell on you when we were little so you wouldn’t nearly kill me every time I made a cup of tea,” Sirius said with a face so strikingly deadpan it even made Regulus’ lips curl up in amusement. He would never admit this, but that sweater with a bell haphazardly sewn into the sleeve is still occupying space in his wardrobe.
Sue him, he can be sentimental.
“Anyway, do we have ID or not?” Regulus repeated, looking pointedly at Remus, who had begun searching carefully through the contents of the victim’s bag.
“Keira Jacobs, 29, seems to be a successful insurance broker according to her business card,” he stated matter-of-factly upon opening her wallet. “Cash is still inside, along with credit cards.”
“Which means that whatever this was,” Sirius started, gesturing towards the carvings on her arms, stomach and legs with his pen, “it wasn’t about money.”
Regulus hums in assent at his brother’s assessment, stepping closer to the body and crouching down to get a better look at the carvings.
“Barty, have you got close-up photos of the writing?” Regulus asks while turning his head in the photographer’s direction. Barty comes closer and stands above Regulus.
“Yeah, but I’ll stop by Pandora later on to get some post-autopsy photos without the blood too, just in case we’re missing something,” he responds, instinctively leaning further towards the macabre scene before him. Regulus nods and mutters a small thanks as he continues to examine the words.
“We’re going to need access to a huge database to figure out whatever the hell this sick bastard carved into her,” Remus starts with exasperation, rubbing a hand over his face and tutting as he too leans over the body to get a closer look. “Reg, remind me what that bureau database we used on that cold case from ‘07 was called?”
4 pairs of eyes turned toward Regulus in anticipation, but he was still entirely focused on the glaring red words before him, his brow furrowing as if he were on the verge of deciphering something.
“Reggie? You ok?” Sirius says slowly as he places a gloved hand on his brother’s shoulder. Only that seems to slightly snap Regulus out of his daydream.
“I know this,” Regulus says, eyes never leaving the victim. “Sinners may run rampant in lust, greed and wrath, but the light behind their eyes never fades as fast as the rest of us. They have something to live for because they have something to die for,” Regulus practically whispers out, eyes darting back and forth between the words as he tries to figure out where he knows it from.
“Well, we’ve got sinners run rampant on her forearm,” Remus starts, gently nudging her arm to display the words.
“Lust, greed and wrath on the other,” Sirius continues.
Pandora carefully moves aside what remains of her bloodied blouse before continuing with a slight wince, “Light in their eyes never fades as fast across her chest and stomach.”
“What about the last bit? ‘Something to die for’ seems like something a killer would take in his stride.”
“Check her mouth. Under her tongue,” Regulus says with widened eyes. If he’s right about this, then this is about to get much more complicated.
Pandora’s tweezers prod around beneath the victim’s tongue for a few moments before extracting a slightly bloodied piece of cloth with words scrawled on it. “They have something to live for because they have something to die for,” she whispers, looking at Regulus with wide eyes. Regulus sits back on his knees and breathes deeply.
“Reg, what is this? Is it some twisted religious manifesto?” Remus asks, curiosity overcoming him as they await Regulus’ answer, the words sinner and death swimming around in their heads.
“No, it’s Sin on the Kill, it’s a mystery novel I read when I was at the academy. It’s based on the seven deadly sins. The victim was also a high-powered businesswoman that represented greed. She was found with religious doctrine under her tongue,” Regulus responds, finally tearing his eyes away from the words on the cloth. “The worst part is that the quote means the exact opposite of what the killer interpreted it as. It means that at the very least sinners have passion that gives them something to live for besides promise of heaven.”
His friends stare back at him in surprise.
“What?” Regulus asks as he looks around at their expressions.
“You remember a directly quoted paragraph and specific plot points from a book you read over ten years ago?” Barty states incredulously.
“You already know I have a good memory so that question is useless,” Regulus responds just the slightest bit too quickly for it to be entirely believable. If he’s gone back to the book a few times since the academy, that’s his business.
“If it’s from a book then it’s likely its some kind of obsession. Either with the contents of the book or the author,” Sirius says as they get up and move away from the body to let the first responders, as well as Pandora gather up necessary evidence, put her on a gurney to take her to the morgue.
“The message or the creator,” Remus finishes, Barty still clicking away once the body has been moved, snapping shots of missed blood spatter and surrounding areas.
“You two go to the morgue with Pandora to find out some more information – write up a timeline on the board. Stop by Evan as well and go over forensic data – fingerprints, needle marks, skin under fingernails – anything that can point us toward who killed her,” Regulus instructs, often taking the lead on logistics during investigations ever since the Captain gave him the role of lead detective. With five homicide detectives at their precinct, it makes sense to have someone run point.
Remus and Sirius both nod in assent and jot down some notes, muttering between themselves for a few seconds before turning towards their car to head to the station.
“Could you call Meadowes and McKinnon on the way and tell them to go inform next of kin and get some information on anyone new in her life, and any recent issues at work,” Regulus says while walking to his own car. Just as he was about to get in, Sirius’ voice stopped him.
“If we’re on forensics and the others are on next of kin, what are you doing?” Sirius’ raised eyebrow is audible in his voice. Regulus smirks lightly in response before catching his brother’s eye.
“I have to get an autograph from my favourite author.”
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There are few things that James loves more than a good party. Sure, his family and friends are up there, but something about popping a bottle of champagne and swaying mildly to good music while people fawn over his talent is an unmatched pleasure of life.
None of these people know that he’s stuck in a writing slump bigger than the Grand Canyon, but that’s fine.
Once the mingling died down and congratulations speeches were made, James plonked himself on the writer’s desk with a stack of his latest novel the size of a small country and got to work signing books, arms, chests and even a few foreheads.
After about an hour of nursing a hand cramp and his cheeks aching from his best charming author smile, James’ evening took an incredible turn for the better.
His eyes caught on the most beautiful man he’d ever seen waiting in line with a book clutched in his hand. He was so stunning that he almost made him forget about the dishevelled man he saw a few minutes ago who brought the wrong book to the signing. Seriously, Sin on the Kill was truly one of his lesser works. With any luck, this incredible creature would get so flustered at speaking to his favourite author that James can start subtly flirting ASAP. Or better yet, he could flirt back.
He didn’t spend much time scanning over his toned body, dressed sleekly in all black with luscious wavy hair to match, keenly aware that his son was sitting with his mother a few metres away, but his gaze caught on the man’s piercing blue eyes. A pop of colour to his monotone ensemble that snatched James’ attention away from the messily drunk woman before him.
Of course, he quickly snapped his attention back and flashed a grin when the woman leaned forward for him to sign her breasts, but he has to keep up appearances somehow. Alice would kill him if she saw him ignoring a fan – at a book signing, no less.
Within ten minutes the striking man was before him, penetrating gaze and sharp jawline filling his vision. James dialled the charm up to eleven before speaking, eyes trained on the demure smile on his pink lips.
“Where would you like it, gorgeous?” he spoke lowly, never breaking eye contact while lifting his pen up.
“I think in here would be perfect, don’t you?” The man’s voice was like honey as he tapped his book with two elegant ringed fingers. Jesus, this guy gets hotter by the second. His quirked brow reminds James what he’s meant to be doing.
“And who should I make it out to, darling?” James says with a blinding smile and a wink, watching with an interested gaze as the man lays the book down flat and leans in closer to James, hands snaking around the hardback’s cover to open it up and reveal – what the hell?
“Detective Black will do just fine…darling,” The man, apparently Detective Black, states, smile slipping away into a hardened gaze as his badge shines up at James from the book’s pages.
One of these days James will reflect on why the detective’s rude demeanour and intense glare sends butterflies to his stomach as he trails behind him to go to the station.
Today is not that day.
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Regulus has repeated to himself that he loves his job approximately fifteen times in the last three minutes. He really does love his job. It’s extremely fulfilling and he’s damn good at it, but people like James Potter were placed on this planet to make it exceedingly difficult. Any momentary attraction Regulus felt when they first locked eyes was eradicated the second he opened his big, gorgeous mouth.
Fine, maybe not all the attraction.
“I’m just saying, Detective, there’s no shame in being a fan! It’s how I make my living, after all,” James says, leaning forward onto the table of the interrogation room, cockiness exuding from him in waves so thick Regulus can almost taste them.
Is this really an interrogation? No. Should Regulus have brought him into the interrogation room for what is decidedly not an interrogation of a suspect? No. Does Regulus feel the undeniable itch to put him behind bars and make him sweat a little. Yes.
“Mr. Potter, someone is dead. I would appreciate if you would focus your efforts on giving us some information that might help our investigation instead of—”
“You.”
“What?”
“I’m helping you with this investigation. I haven’t spoken to any of the other detectives. I don’t know what they’re investigating. I just know that you want my help. You need my help,” James says with a smirk as he leans back, arms leaning on the back of his chair as if he were talking to a friend instead of a literal detective. Regulus thinks this may be the day he switches sides and becomes a murderer instead of catching them.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Potter,” Regulus punctuates his words with an eye roll, “The only thing I need right now is to solve this case.”
“Alright then, let’s go over the facts,” James says with a nod and a whisper of a smirk that Regulus can’t quite decipher.
“Finally.” Regulus exclaims beginning to turn round the case file and point to relevant information, “This is where the—”
“Oh, you thought I meant the facts of the case?” James says, quirking a full brow and giggling at Regulus’ glare. “No, no, I meant the facts about you.”
“Excuse me?” Regulus says, disbelief evident in his voice.
“You’re an enigma, Detective Black, but I’m known to be quite perceptive when I want to be,” James starts. Regulus is not paid enough for this. “Firstly, you’re beautiful – why someone so beautiful would become a detective and not a model is beyond me, frankly, but I’ll figure it out at some point, I’m sure.”
Regulus thinks his entire face is beet red, at this point.
“Secondly, you not only recognized the book which – come on, Sin on the Kill? Not exactly my best work,” James continues before Regulus can stop his frankly ridiculous tirade, “but you also recognized the exact chapter it was from. So, you’re right. I don’t think you’re a fan. I think you’re a superfan.”
“You’ve got to be crazy if you think—” Regulus starts, feeling the frustration simmering in his blood.
“Crazy for you, Detective, there’s a difference,” James says with a wink. Heat rises to Regulus’ face in what he is adamant is anger rather than bashfulness. This seems to make James far happier than it should.
“Just because I’ve read your book doesn’t mean I’m a fan. That would imply I actually enjoyed it.” Regulus manages to get out through his frustration, staring daggers at the still-smirking man.
“You liked it enough to quote it, though, didn’t you, darling?” James whispers as if he’s placating a child throwing a tantrum.
“I have a good memory.” Regulus grits out for the second bloody time that day. “Besides, I read it when I was in the academy, but there’s no way in hell I would pick it up now.”
“Care to give me some feedback?”
“As someone who deals with real murders every day, I find it difficult to read something so flowery and unrealistic.” Regulus says while crossing his arms in front of his chest in an unconscious position of defensiveness.
“Maybe you could lend me some authenticity, then, Detective,” James says, words dripping in innuendo. Regulus’ eyes roll almost involuntarily. Almost.
“I could lend you something, alright,” Regulus huffs quietly while raising himself from his seat. One more second sitting down and his foot would certainly accidentally kick Potter’s shin.
“Yes please! Maybe handcuffs? Kinky,” James says, wiggling his eyebrows and looking far too excited at the prospect. Regulus makes a mental note to handcuff him to a holding cell and see how sexy he finds them then.
It’s at that moment that Regulus decided to fuck with him, just a little, to regain some of his sanity.
“Even better,” Regulus whispers, demeanour changing as he leans closer to, revelling in the way James instinctively leans towards Regulus to match.
“A…gun?” James says with wide eyes that dart around Regulus’ trousers for a holster, lingering just slightly too long on his waist and thighs. Regulus places his hands on the table and leans in to where his face is just inches away from James’, his foot finding the space on the chair right between his legs. He hears the author’s breath hitch.
“Guess again,” Regulus says, allowing a sultry twang to enter his voice.
“Knives?” James whispers, eyes darting down to Regulus’ lips every other second.
“Daggers, actually,” Regulus smirks.
“Really?” Excitement seeps into James’ voice.
“No,” Regulus deadpans, moving away from James and fitting himself with an unimpressed expression once more. If he sees the disappointment flash across James’ face and feels a secret satisfaction that’s his business.
“You’re so—” James starts, his momentary pause allowing Regulus to jump in.
“Mean, cold, rude, I’ve heard it all before.”
“I was going to say hot,” James continues, finding his forgotten smirk once more. Regulus blinks away his shock. “Mean too, but somehow that makes you hotter,” James punctuates with yet another wink and a devastating smirk.
“Do you often shamelessly flirt with the people interrogating you, Potter?” Regulus says while sitting on the corner of the table and opening the case file on his leg. He doesn’t miss the way James’ eyes scan over his lower body with an expression Regulus can’t quite place.
“I’ve never been interrogated by someone like you before, Detective,” James answers with a dreamy look. With the question on the tip of Regulus’ tongue, James continues, “If I wasn’t exceedingly clear, by ‘someone like you’ I mean gorgeous, intelligent, sexy—”
“Anyway!” Regulus says, turning around a printed extract of the relevant chapter of Sin on the Kill, the words carved onto the victim’s body highlighted. “Take a look at this and see if you can find any kind of significance to something someone has said or written to you before – fan mail, emails, messages, etcetera.”
“I get fan mail every day – occupational hazard. Being both a murder mystery writer and an attractive eligible bachelor is a perfect cocktail for the crazy fans,” James says with a grin, and Regulus refuses to entertain his comment with a response.
“Do you keep the mail you get? Could we look through it and try to find a connection?” Regulus asks, brow furrowing as he scans over the case file once more.
“You look so cute when you’re concentrating,” James says, continuing before Regulus can snap at him, “I’ll give you the contact information of my manager, Alice, they usually get sent to her office at my PO box. I can’t really think of anything particularly worrying off the top of my head – no stalkers or anything like that – but if I do, I’ll let you know.”
“Alright, well,” Regulus starts as he gets up, “fun as this was, I need to get back to work,” he deadpans sarcastically. “If you remember anything relevant or something happens, call this number,” he continues, jotting down a number on a piece of paper and walking towards the door. With his hand on the doorknob, James speaks, smile evident in his voice.
“Is this your way of telling me to call you later?”
“No,” Regulus responds curtly without giving him a second glance before walking out, hearing James’ burst of laughter as he leaves. He’ll deny the smile tugging at his lips to his grave.
That is, until he steps into the observation room and immediately comes face to face with Sirius’ grinning face.
“What?” Regulus asks, dropping his expression and narrowing his eyes.
“Oh, nothing,” Sirius says with a shrug, taking a sip of his coffee to try hide his smile. Regulus can’t really take him seriously when his mug says ‘I hate being this sexy but somebody has to do it’ in bright pink letters.
“Out with it, Sirius,” Regulus says while levelling a glare.
“I’ve just never seen you flirt with someone like that before,” Sirius says cheerily, attempting to hide his laugh at Regulus’ affronted look.
“I was not flirting with him!” Regulus exclaims in indignation.
“Sure, Reg.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Even if you weren’t, which you so were, for the record, he was most definitely flirting with you,” Sirius says with an accusatory finger. Regulus scoffs.
“Not very successfully.”
“…Semi-successfully.”
“Sirius!”
“Look at him!” Sirius laughs out. “He’s staring at the number you gave him with a dopey smile on his face like you just proposed!”
To Sirius’ credit, that was a relatively apt description of James’ current state. Regulus didn’t even tell him he had to stay in there.
“He’s just so…irritating,” Regulus says with a mix of disdain and intrigue dripping from his voice.
“He’s just teasing you because he liked you, Reggie!” Sirius says placatingly.
“What are we, thirteen?” Regulus responds with a glare to rival the sun.
“No, there was much less sexual tension when we were thirteen,” Sirius brushes off before taking a sip of his coffee nonchalantly.
“There was not any—” Regulus starts, but Sirius’ raises his eyebrows like he’s talking to the stupidest person alive. When Regulus stops talking and purses his lips, Sirius laughs loudly, drawing Remus’ attention from his desk.
“Shut up!”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“Shut up!”
“Remus, isn’t it true that the sexual tension was extremely—”
“Remus, do not say a word!”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”