Entry 10: Changing Tides (1/?)
Title: Changing Tides
Entry Number: 10
Author: mihnn
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG13
Genre: Mystery/friendship/hurt/comfort
Spoiler Warnings: None.
Word Count: 1432
My fingers fumble as I reach for my packet of cigarettes. I thumb open the cardboard box and sigh when the sight greets me. There are only four left. I will have to make it last the night. Wincing, I pull out one of the smooth white cigarettes and place it between my lips. I quit once, when I was fourteen. Again when I was twenty-one, then for my twenty-fourth birthday and last year when a health scare convinced me that I needed my lungs more than I needed my fix. Contemplating my failure, I chuck the box into the bottom drawer of my desk, thinking that the saying, ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ would bode well for me. Who knows? Maybe I could one day wean out of the habit for good. I ignore the lack of truth to my thoughts and reach for my lighter.
It’s unusual for the type of lighters that are popularly used. Unlike most, it’s gold with the Malfoy family crest indented into the metal. I have always been amused by the fact that I was using a family heirloom that I was never meant to use in the first place. Like most things owned by my family, it was simply an item to showcase wealth, rather than an active purpose of use.
The moment the cigarette is lit and I inhale deeply, my shoulders sag noticeably. I let the smoke escape through my nose, taking every pleasure I can from that first hit. I relax immediately, the feel of the cigarette between my fingers a welcome memory.
“I thought you quit.”
I raise an eyebrow as my partner enters the office with his own weakness in the form of hard liquor in his hands.
“I did,” I say with a smirk before placing the cigarette between my lips and tasting that sweet nicotine. Today was the first day in a year that I had given in to the temptation. With my fingers shaking at the gruesome sight that had greeted me today evening, I intended to have only one. But one was insufficient. I nearly finished off the packet I had purchased at a weak moment. And now there was only four left.
Theo Nott nods knowingly before he places the bottle of amber liquid on my desk and goes searching for three glasses. We are dressed the same, he and I. After the day we had, our jackets had come off and our shirtsleeves rolled up to our elbows, our shirt top buttons undone and our ties loosened. Even my blond hair, which is usually slicked back neat, falls over my eyes in disarray. Anyone who looks at me would know how many times I had run my fingers through my hair in frustration.
Just as Theo pours the drink in equal parts into the three glasses, the last person of our party enters.
Blaise sighs as he pulls off his hat and places it on the hat rack with practiced precision. He then moves onto taking off his coat and his jacket before tossing them aside.
“Long day?” I ask with amusement.
Blaise glares at me while his fingers yank his tie loose and fumble with the top button of his shirt. “You tell me.” He looks pointedly at the cigarette in my hand and I feel somewhat ashamed.
Theo hands a glass over to Blaise and slides one over to me. He lifts his own. “It’s going to be a long night.”
I take a small sip of the tangy liquid and place my drink down, my eyes studying Theo as I wait for him to drain the glass before I look to Blaise. “Did you talk to the reporters?”
“Bloody vultures,” he curses. “They expect a bloody miracle.” Blaise places the glass on my desk and makes his way to the large white board that covers one wall of the office I share with these two men.
Since my first day at work in this particular division two years ago, I have never seen the board empty. I only know its white because of how frequently we change what we pin on it. It’s usually littered with pictures and graphs, information and contact sheets. Today, Blaise puts up a series of new pictures amongst the cases we are already working on.
I stand up from behind my desk and join Theo as we lean against his desk, which gives the best-unhindered view of the whole board. Even though I still have the cigarette between my fingers, my hands shake when Blaise places the last picture up on the board.
It’s a photograph that was taken at the crime scene earlier today. A woman was found hidden down an alley, her hair blood-soaked and her face mauled beyond recognition. I haven’t seen such a gruesome sight in so long. Blaise and Theo are far more adept at solving such murders.
Theo sighs from his place beside me. “This is too familiar.”
I look at him, surprise evident in my voice. “You’ve seen this before?”
“Once. Four years ago,” says Blaise. “You were still in fraud.”
I let out a low breath as I lean back further. I had been wondering why Blaise seemed less rattled than me. This is the first time I have seen such a dead body. It makes me feel better and worse to think that there has been another before much like it. “I assume that you never caught the killer.”
“Oh, we caught him,” Theo says bitterly. “His lawyer managed to get him off on a technicality.”
“Dare I ask?”
“Compromised evidence,” says Blaise, before Theo mumbles under his breath, “Fucking Harry Potter.”
Fucking Harry Potter indeed. Just like Blaise, Theo and I, Potter attended the Hogwarts School for Boys that is in our district. Ever since the first day of school when I had offered my friendship and Potter slighted me to become friends with Weasley and Longbottom, I knew then that we would always be on the opposite end of all issues. Potter has a sense of nobleness that none of us care to compete with. Because of him, scums who commit crimes are placed back on the streets since Potter, in his high and mighty spot above all us mere mortals, believe that justice is fairness, even to those who are accused of the crime.
I have lost count on how many sleazy businessmen I had personally apprehended only to go free when Potter found that the methods I had used were far from sanctioned. I don’t care how unlawful our actions are as long as the person responsible pays his dues; none of us do. But, Potter does. He believes so much in the purity of the justice system, that if any person is brought to the judge unfairly, he will fight for that person’s rights. He is a lawyer who is not a friend to us detectives. While we do everything in our power to stop the murderers and thieves, Potter sets them free because our actions are not noble enough. How he can treat these awful human beings higher than what they are worth, I will never understand.
I drag on my cigarette and blow out the cloud of smoke through my lips. “Great. Let’s go get him.” I reach for the ashtray on Theo’s desk and butt out the cigarette. I was hoping for some action rather than spending the night in the office and staring at a board without any answers.
Theo and Blaise share a look.
“That’s not possible,” says Blaise. He rubs his eyes tiredly. “At the time of the murder today evening, Dudley Dursley was behind bars in the Azkaban Penitentiary serving his three year sentence. It wasn’t him.”
I look at both of my partners, confused. “I thought Potter got him off.”
“He did,” Theo says. “We got him on theft a few months later.”
“Potter didn’t defend him?”
Blaise shrugs. “We expected him to. Turns out the two of them are cousins.”
“He must have gotten sick of always bailing his family out of prison,” Theo says quietly before reaching for his drink.
I share a look with Blaise. There is probably another reason why Potter could have decided not to defend his cousin: he believes in Dursley’s guilt for the theft unlike for the murder. It’s something that I can see we’re all thinking of. But we will never voice such an idea. Who wants to admit that the work done in our department is wrong, and if not, far from perfect?
Entry Number: 10
Author: mihnn
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG13
Genre: Mystery/friendship/hurt/comfort
Spoiler Warnings: None.
Word Count: 1432
My fingers fumble as I reach for my packet of cigarettes. I thumb open the cardboard box and sigh when the sight greets me. There are only four left. I will have to make it last the night. Wincing, I pull out one of the smooth white cigarettes and place it between my lips. I quit once, when I was fourteen. Again when I was twenty-one, then for my twenty-fourth birthday and last year when a health scare convinced me that I needed my lungs more than I needed my fix. Contemplating my failure, I chuck the box into the bottom drawer of my desk, thinking that the saying, ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ would bode well for me. Who knows? Maybe I could one day wean out of the habit for good. I ignore the lack of truth to my thoughts and reach for my lighter.
It’s unusual for the type of lighters that are popularly used. Unlike most, it’s gold with the Malfoy family crest indented into the metal. I have always been amused by the fact that I was using a family heirloom that I was never meant to use in the first place. Like most things owned by my family, it was simply an item to showcase wealth, rather than an active purpose of use.
The moment the cigarette is lit and I inhale deeply, my shoulders sag noticeably. I let the smoke escape through my nose, taking every pleasure I can from that first hit. I relax immediately, the feel of the cigarette between my fingers a welcome memory.
“I thought you quit.”
I raise an eyebrow as my partner enters the office with his own weakness in the form of hard liquor in his hands.
“I did,” I say with a smirk before placing the cigarette between my lips and tasting that sweet nicotine. Today was the first day in a year that I had given in to the temptation. With my fingers shaking at the gruesome sight that had greeted me today evening, I intended to have only one. But one was insufficient. I nearly finished off the packet I had purchased at a weak moment. And now there was only four left.
Theo Nott nods knowingly before he places the bottle of amber liquid on my desk and goes searching for three glasses. We are dressed the same, he and I. After the day we had, our jackets had come off and our shirtsleeves rolled up to our elbows, our shirt top buttons undone and our ties loosened. Even my blond hair, which is usually slicked back neat, falls over my eyes in disarray. Anyone who looks at me would know how many times I had run my fingers through my hair in frustration.
Just as Theo pours the drink in equal parts into the three glasses, the last person of our party enters.
Blaise sighs as he pulls off his hat and places it on the hat rack with practiced precision. He then moves onto taking off his coat and his jacket before tossing them aside.
“Long day?” I ask with amusement.
Blaise glares at me while his fingers yank his tie loose and fumble with the top button of his shirt. “You tell me.” He looks pointedly at the cigarette in my hand and I feel somewhat ashamed.
Theo hands a glass over to Blaise and slides one over to me. He lifts his own. “It’s going to be a long night.”
I take a small sip of the tangy liquid and place my drink down, my eyes studying Theo as I wait for him to drain the glass before I look to Blaise. “Did you talk to the reporters?”
“Bloody vultures,” he curses. “They expect a bloody miracle.” Blaise places the glass on my desk and makes his way to the large white board that covers one wall of the office I share with these two men.
Since my first day at work in this particular division two years ago, I have never seen the board empty. I only know its white because of how frequently we change what we pin on it. It’s usually littered with pictures and graphs, information and contact sheets. Today, Blaise puts up a series of new pictures amongst the cases we are already working on.
I stand up from behind my desk and join Theo as we lean against his desk, which gives the best-unhindered view of the whole board. Even though I still have the cigarette between my fingers, my hands shake when Blaise places the last picture up on the board.
It’s a photograph that was taken at the crime scene earlier today. A woman was found hidden down an alley, her hair blood-soaked and her face mauled beyond recognition. I haven’t seen such a gruesome sight in so long. Blaise and Theo are far more adept at solving such murders.
Theo sighs from his place beside me. “This is too familiar.”
I look at him, surprise evident in my voice. “You’ve seen this before?”
“Once. Four years ago,” says Blaise. “You were still in fraud.”
I let out a low breath as I lean back further. I had been wondering why Blaise seemed less rattled than me. This is the first time I have seen such a dead body. It makes me feel better and worse to think that there has been another before much like it. “I assume that you never caught the killer.”
“Oh, we caught him,” Theo says bitterly. “His lawyer managed to get him off on a technicality.”
“Dare I ask?”
“Compromised evidence,” says Blaise, before Theo mumbles under his breath, “Fucking Harry Potter.”
Fucking Harry Potter indeed. Just like Blaise, Theo and I, Potter attended the Hogwarts School for Boys that is in our district. Ever since the first day of school when I had offered my friendship and Potter slighted me to become friends with Weasley and Longbottom, I knew then that we would always be on the opposite end of all issues. Potter has a sense of nobleness that none of us care to compete with. Because of him, scums who commit crimes are placed back on the streets since Potter, in his high and mighty spot above all us mere mortals, believe that justice is fairness, even to those who are accused of the crime.
I have lost count on how many sleazy businessmen I had personally apprehended only to go free when Potter found that the methods I had used were far from sanctioned. I don’t care how unlawful our actions are as long as the person responsible pays his dues; none of us do. But, Potter does. He believes so much in the purity of the justice system, that if any person is brought to the judge unfairly, he will fight for that person’s rights. He is a lawyer who is not a friend to us detectives. While we do everything in our power to stop the murderers and thieves, Potter sets them free because our actions are not noble enough. How he can treat these awful human beings higher than what they are worth, I will never understand.
I drag on my cigarette and blow out the cloud of smoke through my lips. “Great. Let’s go get him.” I reach for the ashtray on Theo’s desk and butt out the cigarette. I was hoping for some action rather than spending the night in the office and staring at a board without any answers.
Theo and Blaise share a look.
“That’s not possible,” says Blaise. He rubs his eyes tiredly. “At the time of the murder today evening, Dudley Dursley was behind bars in the Azkaban Penitentiary serving his three year sentence. It wasn’t him.”
I look at both of my partners, confused. “I thought Potter got him off.”
“He did,” Theo says. “We got him on theft a few months later.”
“Potter didn’t defend him?”
Blaise shrugs. “We expected him to. Turns out the two of them are cousins.”
“He must have gotten sick of always bailing his family out of prison,” Theo says quietly before reaching for his drink.
I share a look with Blaise. There is probably another reason why Potter could have decided not to defend his cousin: he believes in Dursley’s guilt for the theft unlike for the murder. It’s something that I can see we’re all thinking of. But we will never voice such an idea. Who wants to admit that the work done in our department is wrong, and if not, far from perfect?