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"It's wrong is what it is."
Laughing, Aurelia sat down before the fireplace. It was normal size at present as she'd no intentions of using the floo network (always was a bit dodgy on the international connections anyway) when a simple call home would do. "It's Muggle life, Mum," she said, stretching one leg and then the other. "I've almost got the microwave down and, really, you've been telling more for ages that I needed to eat more salads." And she'd gone and bought a few cookbooks that afternoon, (she needed to practice with her debit and credit cards, hadn't ever used those before and it was all a bit mystifying) so sooner or later she would sort out the stove.
"I don't see why you won't let yourself cook properly," her mother sniffed. "It isn't as though anyone will see you. You're at home."
Aurelia shrugged. "I need to minimize my use of magic, Mum. If I don't then there's every chance I'll forget and hex some suspect into next year." She'd done that once in London when she'd been over there for training. The paperwork had been horrendous, but no more so than traveling to the future to retrieve him. She could only imagine what the higher ups would say if she lost a suspect in downtown Toronto with dozens of Muggles right there to see the whole thing. "And since I'm supposed to be undercover, it wouldn't exactly be a shining moment."
Her mother's face (or at least it's green and flickering equivalent) twisted with annoyance. "You're going to waste away to nothing, you know that right?"
"Hardly," Aurelia said, wishing she had just popped over to Norwich and had this conversation in person. At least then she could pat her mother's hand and pretend to be sympathetic. Unlike her father who'd been Muggle-born in this very city, her mother had lived her entire life amongst wizards. For her, Muggles were the peculiar people she passed on her way to and from appointments. She'd never been given cause to consider the realities of their day to day existence, much less ever expected that her eldest child would be living among them as if she were one.
Though, to be fair, Aurelia had never expected that last either. She certainly never would have thought she'd take a transfer to the Canadian Ministry of Magic at all, much less agreed to take on an undercover assignment for them.
And yet—she tapped one finger against her wine glass. "I'll get used to it, Mum." She smiled. "Might even invite you and Dad for dinner some evening. I'll cook."
"Properly?"
"Not when I have a perfectly good stove just waiting to be tried out."
Her mother looked briefly horrified, but then smiled amiably. "Well, darling, if that's what you wish then that's what we'll do."
It wasn't fair to tease her mother so, but Aurelia couldn't help herself. Besides, her father never seemed to mind listening to his wife's lengthy rants as to the safety and health of their children.
Most likely because she was voicing his thoughts for him. Aurelia didn't think her mother could literally read minds (though it wouldn't have surprised her either); her father felt things in a deeper fashion than his wife. The largest difference between them lay in the fact that he held back much more than his wife. Most of which, Aurelia believed, had much to do with the first war with Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Those years had been spent largely just outside Toronto thanks to her father's insistence that she, her mother and siblings return to his native Canada. Aurelia didn't know how much her father's Ministry work had to do with that move and she'd never asked. She knew well enough now what sort of things had gone on during that time, she'd survived plenty enough of them herself in the most recent war. It was a terrible thing to share with a parent, but it had become an unfortunate truth of their relationship.
Her mother would never hear the screams of a wizard tortured by the cruciatus curse or the grief of one dealing with the consequences of an imperius. She had and her father had as well.
She buried a sigh and summoned up a cheerful smile for her mother. She made chitchat for a little while longer, telling her all about the house and the neighbourhood, but never once saying a thing about her assignment.
Aurelia wasn't the first Auror they'd tried this with. She was the latest in too long a line. The communities had separated too cleanly. Wizards and witches could live their entire lives without ever having more than cursory contact with the Muggle world, adapting to it would be almost impossible.
The Ministry had learnt that the hard way. Three deaths had resulted in a half-dozen oblivations along with some skillful charms and illusions to clean up after the mistakes of Aurelia's predecessor. One incorrectly cast spell from a broken wand had sent automatic weapon fire into a crowd and ended three innocent lives.
Recently transferred from the British Ministry, Aurelia had been on the team sent from Ottawa to clean up the mess. She'd seen the bodies, the grieving families, and she'd stood by and watched those people's memories be altered by her coworkers.
They would unknowingly live with a lie for the rest of their days for one man's mistake.
"Be careful, darling," her mother cautioned before breaking the connection. She never gave Aurelia the chance to placate her just as she'd never given Aurelia's father one either.
Given that her father had retired happily whilst many of his coworkers had not, Aurelia was willing to forgive her mother her superstition.
Finishing her wine, she brought the glass into the kitchen to join the dishes from breakfast and dinner. She looked at the plates and bowls, quelling the urge to murmur 'scourgify' and reached for the tap.
She would adapt. She had no other choice. There would be no families grieving for their loved ones, witnesses walking around with carefully erased memories, because of her mistakes.
The Ministry had chosen her for her familiarity with Muggle life just as other Ministries and Departments around the world were doing the same with their recruits, all of them intended to be a first response against wizard incursion.
And that was the goal. Voldemort was gone. Most of the witches and wizards who'd followed him had been hunted out and dealt with, but no one believed the ideals he'd espoused could be so easily extinguished.
Picking up the sponge, Aurelia dug the dish liquid out from beneath the sink and set to work. In the morning she would again meet her control officer, a squib who'd spent decades working with the Muggle police, for another session on the firing range. Guns seemed bulky and inefficient compared to a wand and an inexhaustible supply of spells, but she'd seen for herself what happened when wands and Muggles mixed.
She scrubbed at the dried food on a plate, frowning to herself as she did. "Don't forget," she murmured, warning herself. "Not even for an instant."
*
Greg Parker met her downtown. Dressed as he was, she wouldn't have imagined the man to be anything more than the average Muggle. She wouldn't have even pegged him to be Muggle law enforcement, though she knew he was.
He smiled at her and held out a brown cup. "Coffee," he said, his smile widening just a touch. "Tim Horton's," he clarified. "Colloquially known as Timmy's."
"Butterbeer it's not, hmm?" she asked, taking the cup and giving it a curious sniff.
"No, but I think it's better, actually." He saluted her with his cup. "Ever order from one of these places?"
She shook her head. "I have been using the takeaway menus that you gave me," she said, sipping the hot liquid cautiously. It wasn't quite sweet enough, but it was good. "Nice."
"How about the debit card, used to that one yet?"
Aurelia made a face. "Mostly."
He laughed. "Okay, shopping trip this weekend, then. Muggles are tech savvy folks so you've got some catching up to do. Speaking of that, how's the computer coming? Figure out how to turn it on yet?"
"I'm not that bad," she said, laughing. Well, mostly she wasn't, but she had been when she'd first started. Wizards had little interest in technology. Why bother when a well-placed spell would do?
Greg was smiling. "So, we've got the turning it on covered, what about the rest of it?"
"Fair to middling," Aurelia decided, shrugging. "I spent an embarrassing amount of time on that thing this weekend past. I meant to sit down for a few hours and the next thing I knew it was midnight."
"Time well spent. Before you know it we'll have you buying Ministry memorabilia off E-bay and posting cat pictures on Facebook—and I know you have no idea what I just said, trust me, we'll work up to that," Greg assured. "You can't assimilate a lifetime's worth of data in a couple of weeks."
"You managed it quite nicely," she pointed out, feeling relieved to be able to admit to the inadequacy.
"I've had years with some of this stuff," he said, shrugging. "It was different when I started. Technology's really exploded in the last couple of decades. Makes it a lot harder for folks like you to get a handle on things."
"Still—" Aurelia looked at him. "You really, really deserve more credit than you give yourself."
"So I've been told," he said, but his cheeks reddened a little as she watched. A compliment on his capabilities was not something he was accustomed to receiving from an Auror. Squibs just couldn't go far in the magical world and few of them had much contact with Ministry personnel. As much as some had tried, their lack of magical ability critically hampered their advancement in the wizarding community. There were things they simply could not do and no amount of assistant from other witches and wizards would alleviate the problem.
In this world, however, their situations were drastically reversed.
Technically, Aurelia was a Canadian citizen as well as British. She'd spent time in this country, around these people, but she might as have been born on Mars for all the good it did her. She spoke the languages, but didn't understand the words.
"It'll get easier," Greg said, giving her a nudge.
"Mm, and who's telling me that?" she asked, managing to smile. "Sergeant Parker or Greg?"
"Both." He reached into the pocket of his coat to produce her id. "You'll be needing this. Officially, the story has it that you're Metropolitan Police, lured back home by the promise of good coffee and substandard pay. The Ministry's got it all set up with the locals so no questions asked. Just play up the accent and you're gold."
She laughed and pocketed the identification. "Won't do much good should I slip and start talking about Quidditch though."
"Well, no, but they'll just write it off as some crazy English thing," he said, laughing. "Which is why you're gold. Speaking of Quidditch, it'll be nice to finally have someone to argue with," he said, grinning. "It's just not as fun when you're the only one following."
"All right, but I must warn you, I'm shit with the local teams."
"Ah, that's fine, gives me a chance to indoctrinate you to the Hammers, myself," Greg said, "but there's talks of starting up a Toronto team, so I may find myself switching allegiances."
Aurelia laughed. "From what I've read, you'd be best sticking with your current favorite."
"Ooh, she's gone native already," Greg said, grinning. "Remind me not to let you anywhere near my people. You and Ed might come to blows."
"As long as I don't accidentally hex him, that's fine."
"Speaking of accidental hexing," Greg glanced around before continuing, "How's your wandless magic? Your dossier said it's a strength."
"It is," she nodded. "I made a habit of it years ago. Auror is not a career where one wants to be too dependent on a wand. Situations have an awful habit of going awry when a wand is either compromised or removed entirely."
Greg said nothing to that, but he didn't have to. She'd met him on the clean-up of the last incident. Instead, he took his time, walking for a little while longer before he looked at her. "You think that'll be a strength or a weakness?"
"In truth? I don't know," Aurelia sighed. "I've been going back and forth on that one from the moment I took the assignment."
"Care to share a little of that?"
She stopped walking, leaning against a building as she considered it. The city was teeming with life, people walking to and fro at a brisk, intent pace that spoke of places and obligations that would not wait. She pictured them running from spells and curses that shouldn't ever be cast.
"They don't know how close they came," she said, watching a boy chase after his mother.
"They never do." Greg took up position at her side. "You saw a lot of that mess, huh?"
"I was just starting out then," she said, sighing. "I was so young. I had no idea what I was getting into. Not really." She brought the coffee to her mouth, taking a long swallow. It wasn't a time she wanted to think much on. There were too many ghosts and too many wounds back in those dark hours to dare revisiting them much at all. "I just think about it sometimes. Probably more than I should."
"That's the way this stuff works. You tell everyone that you're fine and then you try to ignore the demons nipping at your heels." Greg's tone told of personal experience and Aurelia reminded herself, yet again, that although the Dark Lord had not reached this far, there were plenty of other ways to gain such knowledge. Most of them were not even magical.
"I came here to forget about it," she said, taking her eyes off the crowd. "And that doesn't answer your question at all, does it?"
"More than you think," he said with a little grin. "It's my job, remember?"
"And you do it very well." Aurelia tipped her head back, feeling the brick pressing against her back. "I've been restricting my use of magic since I accepted the assignment. My first instinct is magic and countering that instinct has been quite...interesting." She laughed. "You should have seen my first attempt at laundry."
"That bad huh?"
"Bad enough I nearly used magic to clean up the mess." The basement of her new home had nearly flooded with the suds. "Mum wanted to send me a house elf. I had to argue her out of it."
"Wow, a house elf. Haven't seen one of those in years," Greg said. "Not many of them came over here. The temperature doesn't agree with them. Not easy wearing rags in the middle of January. So, deplorable lack of house elves aside, the clean up on the house went okay?"
"Oh, yes, the basement is spotless at present. I was exhausted by the time it was all said and done though," Aurelia rubbed the back of her neck. "How you lot manage to find any energy to get anything done is beyond me."
"We manage just fine and you will too," Greg said. "The less you use magic the better, at least for now. Time will be your friend when it comes to getting off the stuff." He tugged her arm, pulling her into moving once more. "You've been using it daily your entire life. The only way to counteract that is taking the time to do everything yourself. Cooking, cleaning, candlestick making, and, yes, the occasional scrubbing of the floors."
"Well, I've got that one covered in spades. The dishwasher and I still haven't worked out a suitable truce, I've been doing it mostly by hand and saving any attempts at the dishwasher for when I've actual time to clean up a disaster. Same plan for cooking, actually."
"Sounds good to me," Greg said. "As for your familiarity with firearms, we'll still need to work on that. I don't want you going out into the field until you're as comfortable with them as anyone else on the force. This is another one of those situations, though, where your transfer works in our favor. You weren't Armed Response so no one is surprised that you don't know much about guns. Yet."
"Well, I do know which end the bullet comes out of," Aurelia said, following him down the steps and into the subway. "I'd say that part's key."
"Oh it is," Greg agreed. "If you forget, then I have to do a lot of extra paperwork and that would be bad. Also you'd be dead and that would be worse."
"So glad I rank above paperwork," Aurelia said, dryly. "I'm ever so relieved to hear that."
"You should be," he said, looking back with a smile as she shook her head, laughing at him. "Some people aren't even worth the ink in the pen, but they're politicians and, as such, very bad men."
"You are ridiculous, you know that, right?" Still she was coming to think quite a lot of the man and that was not something she did lightly. Friends were a risky thing to have when the war had been at its peak. Betrayals (whether willing or the result of an imperius curse) had made trusting anyone a terrible risk.
"Of course I am," Greg was saying as he led her onto the subway platform, "It's a fine art that took years of practice to properly develop." If he said more, she didn't much hear it. She was busy reminding herself that the days of Voldemort and his minions were long past and, at any rate, an ocean away.
Not much distance by wizard or Muggle reckoning, but Aurelia was going to pretend otherwise. Right now she wanted to pretend that such distances mattered and just enjoy the company of her newly minted friend.
It had been a long timing coming and she thought she deserved it.
Greg elbowed her as they sat down. "Gets easier, you know. Sooner or later, the ghosts start keeping their distance. Only drop in for a face to face once in a while instead of every day."
"Quite ready for them to start doing that now," Aurelia murmured, closing her eyes.
He said nothing to that, but his hand covered hers and squeezed lightly. It wasn't much, but she smiled just the same.
*
For someone who'd never had a mobile phone before, Aurelia took to that part the easiest of all.
Of course, with the amount of time she spent on it calling one department or another (and then calling Greg to complain that, really Muggle forensics took forever and how on earth did the force get anything done waiting so long?) she hadn't had much choice, but on the whole her feelings were mixed when it came to mobiles.
They all seemed so very attached to them. Cleaner than owls, at least, but the recharging part seemed most aggravating. She kept forgetting about it.
"They're looking for you again."
Sitting in her car, Aurelia looked up at the grinning Greg Parker. "Do you always drink that stuff?"
He held out one of the Tim's cups. "Yes, and so will you. Eighteen hours into a forty-eight hour day? You'll drink the stuff by the gallon."
"Will not," she vowed, taking the cup despite herself. "So, what do they want and why are you playing messenger?"
"The DNA results you've been waiting on have come back," he said. "Your partner's thinking you might want to make an arrest this morning."
"I would," Aurelia dug her phone out of her pocket and looked at it with dismay. "Really, why do they make these batteries so small?"
He laughed. "Because most people remember to charge them. You'll get used to that part too."
Getting out of the car, she looked at him and sighed. "There's so much. I was so confident in the beginning. Wasn't going to do it the way the others had, I wasn't going to screw up, but now? I'm not terribly sure. I burn everything I try to cook myself, I can't charge a bloody phone, and those damn results take forever when a simple word would do it!"
She curled fingers around her cup and leaned against the car. Greg propped himself up beside her, looking at the cup in his hands. "And there you have the reason why I left. Everything took me forever among wizards. While everyone else was flying through life, summoning up whatever they needed with one of those simple words, I was fumbling my way around. Here—"
"Here the world works at your pace." Aurelia looked at him. "Why didn't they have you do this?"
He laughed. "Because they don't trust a squib and, at the end of the day, they think you can't do a thing without magic. Drink your coffee, Aurelia, and then we'll go make your arrest. They're wrong, so are you, and after we get the bad guy, we're going to prove it."
"I'm not sure I can believe that," she said, but she sipped the coffee as instructed.
"You don't have to," he said. "I have the benefit of experience, remember? You just have to believe me."
She made a face. "I hate it when you're rational, Greg. You're always right when you're rational."
"No, I'm not," Greg said with a smile. "I just make it look like I am. Sometimes I get lucky and it all bears out."
"And me?"
"Sometimes, you get lucky too, but we'll cover the Owls and Serpents section of the lesson a little farther down the line." Greg made a face. "You'll need to bring something alcoholic for that conversation."
Aurelia laughed. "I've dated Muggles before, Greg, and some of them never knew the difference."
He raised his eyebrows. "Didn't cook, I take it?"
"I will pour this coffee down your pants," Aurelia said, and grinned when he made a show at edging away. "And I can spell it there."
"You can," Greg agreed, grinning back, "but then you lose and you're too competitive to lose just to make me squirm."
"Dance, actually, but you make a fair point," Aurelia tossed the remnants of her coffee into the nearest pin and tugged her car keys out of her pocket. "So, you promised me an arrest."
"So I did, so I did," Greg agreed. He went round the car and got in on the passenger side. When she joined him he looked at her. "And I also promised to prove two Ministries wrong."
Aurelia put the key in the ignition. "And me, you promised to prove me wrong as well."
"That too," he said, "but you'll take it more gracefully than they will. Magic doesn't make anyone infallible, no matter how much the Ministry would like to make people believe otherwise. Enjoy being wrong, Aurelia. Means you're still willing to learn something."
*
As much as Aurelia heard, and agreed, with Greg, it wasn't quite that easy. As convincing as the man could be when it came to logic and reasoning, this was not the sort of situation where logic and reason ruled the day. Not when there were two schools of logic to draw from. Wizard logic made using magic and potions to solve crimes a quite standard methodology whereas its Muggle cousin considered magic (and therefore potions) to be the realm of fantasy with no place in a court of law.
No, this was something she was going to have to see for herself.
"I hear the training wheels are officially off."
Aurelia looked up at her partner and smiled. "You hear correctly," she said and stood up enough to see the holstered gun on her hip. "And I believe I'm even a better shot than you."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see about that," Mike said, sitting down across from her. "I think a few hours at the range this weekend are in order. Loser buys wings."
"Well, then, you'll just have to forfeit the entire thing," Aurelia smirked. "Being new to the city, I haven't a clue about the restaurants yet."
"Liar," Mike grinned. "I know for a fact the SRU guys have been helping you cheat. Fastest way to find you anywhere is to check with Greg Parker. We're starting to think he's got you lo-jacked."
Having no idea what that meant (but resolving to ask Greg about it later) Aurelia laughed and shook her head. "No, I believe it's just good solid police work in action. Perhaps he could give you guys a few tips if you're unclear on the matter?"
"Smart ass," Mike leaned forward to grab a pen off her desk, ignoring the wounded look she gave him. The man was forever stealing her pens and it had taken forever to find a decent brand she liked. Just the same, using them had made quills seem so terribly inefficient. "Still, if you needed a training officer, you could've done a lot worse than Parker. How did you pull that off, anyway?"
"He's an old family friend," she said, shrugging. "He volunteered." She grabbed her notebook and one of her remaining pens to start reviewing case notes. They had a handful of active homicides and she'd just begun solo interviews. Those were the worst in terms of frustration thus far. Witnesses were terribly unreliable with the brain's natural inclination to fill in the blanks and provide detail that hadn't really been there.
She'd complained about it to Greg more than once and he'd mostly stopped chuckling. "It's human nature and you can't help them along. There are a thousand charms and potions, but nobody else in the city can rely on that kind of back up so--"
"Neither can I," Aurelia muttered, frowning over her notes.
"You can't what?" Mike asked.
She smiled. "Nothing. Just thinking out loud."
"Gotta watch that," he grinned. "You'll start to sound like one of us."
"Heaven forbid." Aurelia looked at the notebook in front of her. It was overwhelming really, how they did all this. No spells, no Veritaserum, just hard work and long hours. She hated witness interviews, but Mike worked miracles in them. He'd sit there with his tie loosened, one light curl hanging over his forehead, and a charming smile on his face and slowly, carefully coax answers from terrified witnesses. And, in turn, she'd watched him (just as slowly, but a good deal more ruthlessly) take a suspect apart until even the scariest of them at least flinched.
"Hey, don't look like that, kiddo," Mike said, leaning over to poke her with her own pen. "You're doing better than you think."
Aurelia didn't answer that, just kept right on going over her notes. Some things she just didn't want to argue. Not that Mike was willing to let her ignore it either.
"You are," Mike said, and got up. "Come on, I want to run something down on the Sorenson case and you are going to help me."
"If this is another Tim's run..." she made a face, letting him pull her out of her chair.
"You're starting to warm up to the stuff and you know it."
"Yes, I'm beginning to suspect Stockholm Syndrome," she said, grabbing her things as they went. "Frightening, really."
"Is not," he said, tugging her braid. "Accept it, Aurelia, Tim's always gets you in the end. The whole damn country does."
Aurelia smiled. Not just the country, though yes that was true, she was beginning to believe Muggles as a whole were doing the same.
And that was the scariest part of it all.
*
A few hours later and she was sitting beside an eight year old. Meghan. The daughter of a victim, still clutching the bear given to her by the first responders, sniffling quietly as her uncle (raging drunk and bleeding from a wound in his shoulder) was arrested and dragged from the apartment building.
Aurelia wasn't naive enough to believe these situations were confined solely to the Muggle realm. She'd seen the frightening results of magic-born abuse on her infrequent visits to St. Mungo's. The children's ward had always been one she'd avoided as much as possible and didn't envy her sister the mediwitch one wit. That was a life she couldn't imagine leading.
"You're going to be all right," she soothed, wrapping one arm around the little girl's shoulders. Meghan responded with a shudder then pressed herself close. The sniffles became full on sobs and Aurelia pulled her into her lap.
She started rocking the girl, humming, wishing she could spell away the hurt and knowing she never could. There were just some things that magic couldn't fix. Some pains just had to be lived with.
Mike walked back into the house, his expression dark and angry, and he stopped at the sight of Aurelia with Meghan in her arms. The anger drained out of his face leaving nothing but sadness in its wake. "Mom's pressing charges," he said, speaking so quietly that Aurelia almost didn't hear him over the sound of her own humming. "The dad's deployed to Afghanistan, but due back at the end of the week. Army's going to fast-track it. He needs to be here."
Aurelia nodded, but didn't try to relay any of it to Meghan. Fast in the Muggle world didn't necessarily mean fast at all. Not that it mattered, really. Portkey, apparation, or broom wouldn't have gotten the man here fast enough either.
Nothing short of a time-turner could get the man here fast enough to keep any of it from happening.
She sighed and pressed her cheek against Meghan's hair. True, sometimes magic just wasn't enough, but she'd give almost anything to say otherwise.
*
"You look tired."
Walking into the SRU's building with a covered plate in her hand, Aurelia couldn't help returning Greg's smile. "Hardly," she said around a yawn, "This is me on a whole three hours sleep and nary a energy potion in sight, I'm positively brimming with energy."
Greg laughed. "Right, right, I forgot." He waved the folder in his hand, using it to gesture at the plate, "Do I want to know what that is?"
"Oh, yes, you absolutely do," Aurelia said, quite pleased with herself. "However, I dare not uncover it while we are anywhere that anyone else might see—or smell."
"Smell?" Greg's eyebrows rose. "Is that—" He leaned closer. "Did you cook?"
"SHhhh," she hissed,, nodding at the rooms beyond him. Somewhere beyond those doors Greg's team was training, working, and just the slightest hint of free food would bring the works of them out of the woodwork. "We both know what happens if they hear you."
"True, true, whatever you have, I see none of it because my people and their very large appetites will take care of every last piece." Greg grabbed her by the elbow and fast-walked her into a conference room. "Okay, first question is, can I eat it and not spend the next few months in the nearest ward for magical maladies?"
Aurelia glared at him. "At the rate you're going, you won't need to take a single bite for that to be a problem. It is neither magical nor terrible, in fact having tried it out on my own partner and an embarrassing number of people at the station, I can say it won't kill you or turn you into a teacup."
Tucking the folder under his arm, Greg took the plate from her and carefully lifted the foil. "Brownies?"
"Uh huh, home made in my very own kitchen."
"And you didn't set anything on fire?" Greg put the plate on the table and worked one of the brownies free. "Nor flood yourself out with the clean up?" When she shook her head to both questions he grinned broadly. "By jove, I think she's got it." That was followed up by a large bite of brownie and an exaggerated moan of pleasure. "Yep, yep, you do," he said, catching crumbs with his free hand. "Definitely edible."
"Wordy suggested I try them," Aurelia said, pleased. "He swore by his mother's recipe and got a copy for me."
"Ah, that explains it, doesn't matter if it's polyjuice potion or brownies, a recipe's a recipe." Greg finished the brownie in quick bites. "So, how's it?"
"I am completely and totally overwhelmed," Aurelia said. "I've never been more tired in my life, everyone I talk to from home thinks I've either gone native or completely mental—"
"And you're loving every minute of it?" Greg asked, smiling.
"After a fashion," Aurelia said. "Don't get me wrong, I'd really much rather use magic at crime scenes," there was never going to be a day she didn't think forensics was utterly tedious, "but yes, I think I might not hate it all."
"A ringing endorsement if I ever heard one," Greg said, shoving another brownie in his mouth. "God, these are fantastic."
She laughed. "I'm glad you think so."
He put the plate aside, brushed crumbs from his fingers, and she braced herself for the gently asked, "So?" that she knew was coming.
"So?"
"Yeah," Greg said, with a grin. "So?"
"So, now I go to work," Aurelia said, nudging the plate toward him. "Answer my phone, check my email, and—I hope—catch the bad guys and all without a lick of magic to help me along."
"Just another day at the office, huh?" Greg grinned. "Ain't it great?"
Oddly enough? Yes.