𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕆𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕤 [𝔸 ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝔽𝕒𝕟𝕗𝕚𝕔]

Chapter 1 | A Strange Letter

"Neera."

A young woman glanced up from the stack of papers in front of her and groaned when she saw a familiar man striding over to her, a smirk on his face. It wasn't a comforting sight, and she turned her attention back to the papers in front of her, signing another one of them before sending it off with a wave of her hand. The man approached and she let out a nearly silent sigh as he sat down in the seat across her desk. Another paper zoomed out of her room, nearly clipping him in the nose.

"Oh come on, Neera," the man said, leaning back in his chair and throwing his feet up on the opposite side of her desk. The sudden motion shook the entire table. On the edge of the table was a rather large pile of books that she had been working on reading through over the past few weeks, but with the sudden jerk of the table, one of the books that had been sticking out about halfway (she had stacked them in a hurry a few days before) nearly sent the entire pile to the ground. Neera lunged out at the last second to steady the books, and she sighed as she felt the comforting leather beneath my fingers. Neera was sure that she was going to murder this man, Ministry worker or not.

"What do you want, McLaggen?" He was honestly no better than his younger brother, and she was sick of his family by now. The same smirk as his younger brother, and the same disregard for any sort of personal space, or the word 'no' for that matter. Neera suspected that a baboon had more intelligence than him, but she kept her mouth shut.

"You know what I want, doll," he said with a smirk. "I've been asking for weeks."

"And every time, I've given you the same answer." She set the quill that she had been using back down in the inkwell and folded her hands on my desk, leaning forward a little. A few strands of her dark hair fell into her eyes, but instead of blowing them out of the way, she allowed them to stay there, uncaring about their otherwise irritating presence. There was a worse source of irritation in her midst.

"Please? I've been chasing you around Hogwarts for years," he threw up his hands in exasperation as he said this. It was true. For all of our seven years at Hogwarts, he had been chasing Neera around the halls, even though she was a Slytherin, he a Gryffindor, asking if he could take her out. Her two older brothers had threatened to do away with him, but she said that she didn't need their help, as she was more than capable of dealing with people like him.

"I'm not changing my answer," Neera said firmly. "I have no interest in going on a date with you."

"Why not? All the other girls were practically begging for me to take them out!"

Neera waved him off dismissively. "Yes, yes, I know. You're so popular." For all the wrong reasons, but still popular. He wasn't an unattractive man, with curly blonde hair that he often ran his hand through to ensure that it wasn't neat (he claimed that girls liked the rugged sort of look), with a muscular build that came from so many hours spent on the Quidditch pitch. He wasn't a terrible player either. Neither was his brother. Not that she would ever admit that to him.

Thankfully, there was a knock on the door, and she smirked to herself.

"Come in."

The door opened to reveal one of Neera's coworkers, and her face fell at the sight of him. Another man that she was well acquainted with from her years at Hogwarts. Another stuck-up Gryffindor with a stick up his arse, incapable of having any sort of fun. At least McLaggen could have some sort of fun, though it wasn't the sort of fun that Neera liked.

"Hello, Weasley," she muttered, rising from her seat to shake his hand. "I assume you have something for me?"

"A few things actually," the redhead said stiffly. He held out a small cardboard box to her. "The Minister tasked me with delivering this to you."