When the sun forgets to shine | Alyra & Finn

[Deleted]

December 31st 2024

Alyra was still working through her first day at the Ministry. She felt entirely weird being here, but her initial meeting with the Minister for Magic set a lot of things straight for her. Not only was she sure that she had a good ally within the Minister herself, but, she knew that the woman was competent and working her best. Lee found her way back to her desk after said meeting, still early in the day, before lunch hour. She only got a few moments at her desk before she was told that there was another person there for her, the main Auror assigned to the Azkaban case. Lee followed the receptionist, who had been pulling her in so many directions already this morning, out of her office into the main part of the department where a girl who Lee thought looked vaguely familiar stood. “Hi, I’m Lee Pond, investigator from MACUSA, it’s great to meet you.” Lee said confidently, extending her hand to the young woman, expecting a British accent to hit her when the woman opened her mouth.

finn kylie nottingham

[finn kylie nottingham]

@alyra

12.31.2024

A lot of things had happened in the last few days and Finn was beyond stressed out. First there was the dragon attack, something she was absolutely useless at preventing, and then the mass breakout of Azkaban, in which she hoped a number of familiar names hadn’t managed to escape from. Ouroboros failed to do anything on all fronts and Finn felt like she had been caught with her pants down. The worst part, though, was that she found herself walking into the Ministry, right up to the foreign magic department, and demanding to be put on a line with MACUSA as soon as possible. They hadn’t taken kindly to the New Yorker rudely interrupting them in the middle of a crisis, but a slap of her old Auror ID on their counter and a few expletives later had her on a direct call with the New York office and a reinstatement as a MACUSA Auror ten minutes later. Even though she had sworn not to put herself back into the field, especially while in London, things were changing and she needed to have first-hand information now. If not for herself, for Ouroboros and those working in the shadows for her.

That had been two days ago though, and aside from a few phone calls to and from the United States, she sat in her apartment twiddling her thumbs, anxiously waiting to find out what her first directive was going to be. The Ministry Aurors wouldn’t want her pestering them right now, and she was to only work with them if the President or Head Auror told her to do so. Other than that, she heard nothing from her superiors until the 31st of December, when a letter was slid under her door, directing her to report to the foreign aid unit that was being established within the Ministry. She had been secretly hoping this sort of thing would have waited until the new year, mainly because she had the royal ball to attend to later in the evening with Will, but orders were orders and she had offered up her help.

To the Ministry she went, her somewhat dusty and wrinkled Auror trench coat gracing her shoulders once again, and she was led up to a flow she had never been to before. Out of an office with a door labeled ‘MACUSA Foreign Aid’ came a redheaded woman, who introduced herself as a Lee Pond. Finn wracked her brain for the name, but nothing came up, save for a student that had been a few years younger than her in school. But that couldn’t be this woman. “Finn Nottingham,” she answered, shaking Lee’s hand. “Looks like we’ll be working together until this situation is cleaned up.”

[Deleted]

Immediately, Lee was caught off guard by the lack of English accent on the woman whom she was being introduced to. The woman shook her hand and suggested that they would probably be working together until the mess was cleaned up. Lee nodded, she hoped that it would get cleaned up soon and that she could go back to the land of the sun before too long, she didn’t want Seasonal Affective Disorder to catch up with her like it did when she studied at Ilvermorny. “Yeah, seems like we will. Hopefully we can get an investigative schedule going probably after the new year.” she decided. She didn’t want to stay here all day and she didn’t want to cause anyone else to either because of her. “So are you with the ministry then?” she asked, wondering why there was an American accent coming from someone who she had never met before. If this girl was an Auror with the MACUSA, surely Lee would have met her before. Though, Lee was based on the west coast and only went to the New York headquarters when she absolutely had to.

finn kylie nottingham

[finn kylie nottingham]

@alyra

12.31.2024

Finn nodded in response to starting everything after the New Year. That was…preferred. Her worries about having to work the rest of the night were wiped away, and that meant she would still be able to go to the royal ball later that night. Not that doing work and planning out how to catch escaped convicts was less important by any means, but if she was going to be allowed to do one last fun thing before jumping back into it again she wanted it to be tonight and the next day. Plus she sort of already had a dress ready to go and plans for Will to pick her up, so backing out now at the last moment would probably reflect poorly on the royal family. They seemed to be fairly reasonable, but royalty was royalty, and she was just a kid from New York City.

“MACUSA, actually. They just reinstated me. My old supervisor back in New York was happy that he didn’t have to send someone over since I was already here.” Finn was sure Lee had already been briefed on this though. MACUSA wasn’t nearly as disorganized as the Ministry was right now, something she had observed the other day when trying to get the call out to the American Aurors. Apparently there were going to be others sent too, and she hoped that a few were her old squad mates. They were all good guys and any of them could hold their own if it came down to it. “You must be from the West Coast office then, right? I’ve only been out for a year, but I’m sure we would have crossed paths if you were in New York when I was.” Plus she had a different lead investigator back there, and unless Lee replaced him in the last year, being from the West Coast office was the only thing that made sense.

[Deleted]

Lee knew that she was getting some aurors from America sent over to the UK for the duration of the case, and she knew that there were some MACUSA aurors already over here, but, she hadn’t remembered which one Finn was, or if she even knew. There had been so much information thrown at the Investigator and it was still all in her head, but she had to actually sit down and get it all out, she needed to organize her thoughts. The last 12 hours since she landed had been a whirlwind of trying to find a hotel and get her personal life and health taken care of. “Of course, I heard about that. We’re so glad to have you here.” Lee nodded. It was honestly nice to have someone on her team who had been here during the event and could brief Lee on anything else that she needed to know regarding the events leading up to the break out and dragon attack. Finn then asked if she worked in the West Coast Office and Lee nodded. “Yeah I do. Though I was in New York a few days every month.” she explained. There were some conversations that just needed to be had in person. “How long have you been over here?” she asked.

finn kylie nottingham

[finn kylie nottingham]

@alyra

12.31.2024

The questions both of them seemed to have for each other were being easily answered and, for the most part, Lee seemed like a reasonable person. They all had to be, especially after a breakout of that scale. An event that caused Finn to get her lazy ass off her couch and force her way back on the Auror squad was obviously one of great importance to deal with. Lee was taking it all in stride too, which had to be more difficult being placed over here after the fact.

The other woman said that she was occasionally in New York, and that had Finn racking her brain to see if she had ever spotted her before. Nothing was coming to mind, so she simply shrugged, “It’s a big enough department and the investigator desks were never close to mine.” Maybe if she had stuck with it, she would have eventually been promoted to an investigator position. It probably would have only been a few more years at the rate she was going. Lee didn’t look that much older than her either, so it was definitely a possibility.

“A year? I’ve kind of lost track to be honest,” she responded. “I came over when the Triwizard Tournament was announced, and we know how well that turned out.” She could criticize the security management of the tournament all she wanted but it wouldn’t bring back all the dead children. She had a new job now, which, if done right, would hopefully prevent that from happening as often. “Can I speak frankly about the situation we’re in over here?” she asked, not giving Lee any time to answer her before continuing, “We’re screwed. Big time. I know this is an international problem because Azkaban was under international protection and we’re obligated to assist, but the Ministry has the most to lose from all of this and they aren’t putting their all into it. At least not yet. We’re going to be overworked and probably won’t get a lot of results from it.”

[Deleted]

“Oh sure.” Lee nodded when the girl explained that she had come over when the Triwizard Tournament had been announced. While it had nothing really to do with the MACUSA, there was so much drama and many rumors that went around the office regarding it. It was stupid. It was dangerous. And it put kids in danger. Why the school wanted it bring it back, Lee couldn’t understand, and obviously it wasn’t too good of an idea since the school had been targeted and the visiting schools had been blown up on the way home. There was a very short list of survivors and it was extremely unfortunate. Lee had thought that Hogwarts would shut down for sure after that, but they didn’t, instead, all of the American students were here now too. “Little over a year ago then, if I recall.” she couldn’t remember exactly when she first heard about it, but it had to be before last Christmas.

Can I speak frankly about the situation we’re in over here. Lee wasn't expecting this kind of conversation from their first visit, normally, people liked to take more time to get to know their new partners, but Lee liked the way this was going and she liked the willingness of Finn to jump into it. Lee hated wasting time at work, plus, she was here for a reason and needed to get her job done. The sooner this was over, the sooner she could go back to LA. Finn went right in, explaining how she saw the situation and Lee nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” she agreed. “However, I’m also an outsider, I don’t care about the way things work here, I don’t care about the order of operations or who I upset or overstep. I’m here to get a job done. And I’m going to be doing my best to get it done. I think we’re on the same page here.” Lee wasn’t ready to get into it all yet, but she had heard from insiders in the MACUSA about the political drama going on within the country and within the Ministry. She knew vaguely about the rising factions and the opposition. It was clear there was some sort of terrorist group forming, or formed, that seemed to strike England more than anywhere else. Lee wasn’t going to be blinded by alliances. There was something deeper going on, and she didn’t really care what it was. That wasn’t her job. But she could see that it was impeding the Ministry from doing their work properly.

finn kylie nottingham

[finn kylie nottingham]

@alyra

12.31.2024

Being new to the magical side of London when important events like this were going down was terrifying, in her opinion. When Finn first found herself here, it was on the heels of the problems at Hogwarts and the start of a growing unrest in the city. She could see how people were starting to grow frustrated with the Ministry. By all accounts, the government failed on all fronts. They were supposed to get the children to and from school safely. A murder and an attack at the train station led to heightened security, but just for the Hogwarts students. It wasn’t that these terrorists, or whatever they were, were any good at what they were doing. They were simply going after the things the Ministry decided to ignore. Whoever was in charge of the law enforcement divisions needed to be fired, or at the least, demoted. Fresh eyes were necessary if they wanted to stop the criminals. And because of their lack of action, now Finn and Lee had to deal with it.

From the way Lee put it though, they were going to be independent of the Ministry. Hopefully they stayed that way, because her allegiance was to MACUSA again. Of course she had her own agenda under all of that, but that wasn’t something Lee needed to know about yet. Or at all. What she heard from here would be used for Ouroboros and vice-versa. It was like double dipping with informants, and as long as she was careful she would walk out of this knowing a lot more than when she went in. “I like having as few strings attached as possible,” she added. “So as long as you can guarantee me that, I don’t mind helping out the Ministry if they need it.” Finn let the idea sink in before continuing, “But whatever we have to do first. I like the idea of hunting down the worst criminals known to magic. This is the sort of thing that belongs in the movies.” All jokes aside, it sounded like the plot to a summer action movie with an all-star cast and a half-baked plot. England had a funny way of getting slammed by the most dangerous criminals in existence and the Ministry simply shrugged and looked the other way. At least now she had a chance to flex her muscles for the first time in over a year.

[Deleted]

Lee was all business when it came to what she did for a living and it sounded like this girl was too. She wasn’t very happy to be in London or working with the Ministry, but she wasn’t a ministry employee and Finn felt the same way. They were here to clean up the ministries mess, they weren’t here to work with them. “the sooner we get it done the sooner we can stop working for the British Ministry”. Lee smirked. It would be so much easier with an auror who was on the same page as she was. While she tries to be all business, she couldn’t help but laugh when Finn said this was the kind of thing that belonged in movies. “Some buddy cop flick.” Lee agreed. “we'll take the holiday to rest and come back ready to dig deep at the start of the year.” she tidied the papers she had spread on her desk into a neat little pile. “Enjoy your new year.”

(End it!)

[finn kylie nottingham]

@alyra

12.31.2024

It was funny that Finn already detested the idea of working under the Ministry. There had been times over the last year where she had contemplated giving up her unemployment and requesting an official transfer of sorts to join the Ministry Aurors, but the longer she was in London then more she fought against doing that. The Ministry was, for all intents and purposes, in shambles in plenty of different areas and it was amazing that there wasn’t more public outrage from it. Back home, people would be rioting in the streets! Finn didn’t know if this was a problem from the top down or because inadequate figures were in positions of power, but she didn’t want to be their tool for too long. MACUSA was still better than them at the end of the day. “You can say that again,” she reciprocated. Though at the end of whatever this was, she was probably going to go back to doing her thing and leave them again. There was no way that they wouldn’t require her to return to New York once they were finished.

Lee suggested that they take the rest of the year off before jumping into it, and Finn nodded her head in agreement. That worked for her. That meant she could still go to the Windsor’s ball tonight and see Ellie back off to Hogwarts in a week. “Yeah, you too. Happy New Year,” Finn said as she left the office. There were a lot of things to do before going back to work, and the thought of only having a few days before getting back to the grind was simultaneously exciting and stressful.

[THE END]