Wizard with a Mutation : Chapter 37

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Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don’t mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

Manhattan [3rd November, 1980]

–Scott Winters–

He yawned as he made coffee for himself. It was nice to be back in the States, the land of the Free and more importantly, the land of the best coffee this side of the world. Sure, Italians probably had much better coffee but he loved the coffee culture in the States and how it was available pretty much everywhere, and more importantly, how it jolted him into awareness.

“Maybe four shots of Espresso were too much,” He blinked as he set down the cup. He needed the focus for today because not only was he scheduled to meet Rothschild for an exclamation, he was also supposed to meet President Seraphina who did not live in Manhattan.

In fact, no one knew where the MACUSA’s president operated from, at least nobody he knew. It was kept secret because the current MACUSA did not have the strength to fend off an attack from a  sufficiently powerful Archmage. All the times he had met the President, it was in a closed building with no windows and magic isolating enchantments on every wall that he had seen.

It was honestly overkill just for secrecy because MACUSA did not have the same Magical Net system that Magical Britain did, mainly because of the sheer size of MACUSA and how it would take more magic than there was in wizards on the entire continent, just to power a Magical net that big.

So, he needed to be prepared for anything because who knows what awaited him in the secret location that housed the single most important person in all of MACUSA. Wearing his formal clothing, properly, since he was going to meet the Head of State, he checked himself out and after finding everything to be proper and in its right place, sheathed his wand, and went out of his Apartment building.

Oh yeah, he lived in an apartment, on the Upper East Side, where all the rich and wealthy lived. The apartment was surprisingly bare of any magic, having all the essentials from the No-Maj community and only having a magic security system on the door, which was pretty unnecessary since the building itself was very much guarded by what was essentially a private military, since the richest of the rich from the East Coast lived here.

He had maintained contact with many of his college friends, No-Maj and otherwise, so it was important to have the space be neutral so that he could invite his friends over for some food or something. He didn’t even have a Floo at his apartment.

He got out of the apartment building and began walking in a certain direction. He smiled at the reliable bodega open as he went in and got himself a cream bagel, the New York Classic. It was still early for pizza but a cream cheese bagel was the best way he could start the day, with a healthy dose of sugar.

He did not put any sugar in the coffee earlier because he likes his legal mental performance enhancing drugs to be as pure as possible but that did not mean he could not enjoy a good sugar spike. His brain worked the same as the No-Maj when it came to releasing happy chemicals when ingesting sugary treats.

Healing a taxi, he went downtown, where the MACUSA HQ was. There was still time for his scheduled meeting with Rothschild so he figured he could meet with some of his peeps before heading to the heavy meeting.

“Keep the change,” Tipping the driver, he went inside one of the many revolving doors at the entrance of one of the skyscrapers that littered the skyline at this place, he appeared on a white floor with hundreds of people constantly taking calls, typing stuff, throwing stuff, catching stuff, and more.

He smiled at the familiar chaotic order that was the first floor of MACUSA. This was low level stuff such as permits, complaints, notices, evictions, summons, etc. but someone had to do them and so the people here did.

It was also why this floor was the largest one of the HQ. In total, they had seven such floors, yeah, a magically significant number was used here, with each floor becoming smaller and smaller until the top floor, where the office of the President as well as all the departmental heads’ offices was the smallest.

Those were mostly empty though because MACUSA, much like the USA, was a firm believer in federalisation, just not to the extreme degree that the No-Maj went. So, there were multiple scattered bases throughout the country, governing pockets of wizards, headed by different departmental heads.

IT worked pretty well for them, especially since they could just outright abandon any one of the outposts and get work done from any other one since, in theory, all of the buildings were disposable. In reality, Manhattan HQ was the HQ, housing the most wizards and the most government employees along with the senior most staff working out of the same office in Manhattan.

Hell, as far as he was aware, Rothschild was pretty high up in the chain of command, having clearances second only to the President when it came to MACUSA secrets and federalism or not, he was sure that losing Rothschild would be very damaging.

Despite the man’s recent activities that confirmed some of his opinions about the man, it could not be argued that Rothschild was a pillar in some of the more classified secrets of MACUSA, and Scott being one of them as well.

“Scott!” He turned around as he entered the second floor, smiling as John Smith, his handler ran towards him with his arms outstretched. He smoothly sidestepped the overly excited man and laughed as the middle aged man pouted at him.

“You’re back!”

“Yeah, my work there was finished.”

“I heard. Hey! Is it true? Did you really kill Voldemort?” John leaned in and asked him.

He recoiled at that nonsense, “What? No! Didn’t you read the news? I thought everyone must know by now.”

The man waved his hand as they headed to the cafeteria, the official gossip zone of the building, “Pssh. Yeah, I read it but I thought it to be blatant propaganda. What? Like a less than a year old babe killed one of the more powerful Archmages on the planet? What do the Brits think we are, idiots?”

He deadpanned at the man as they sat down on the corner table, a bunch of sandwiches floating right in front of them, courtesy of the wand of the gluttonous fool in front of him, “That is the truth. Harry Potter did kill Voldemort.”

He took little joy in watching John choke as the man blurted, “What?!”

____xx____

Magical Britain [Same Time]

–Albus Dumbledore–

“Ah, Andromeda, just the person I was hoping to meet,” He peered through his glasses, meeting the gaze of one Andromeda Black-now-Tonks, as she arrived at Hogwarts as per his request.

She sat down in the seat in front of him, “Headmaster Dumbledore. To be honest, I never thought I would get to repay your debt. If it weren’t for you, I would not have lived.”

He waved his hand as if it was a trivial thing, “Oh, my dear, please! I would have hated seeing yet another talented witch falling into the hands of Voldemort. Plus, Love is the purest emotion there is, some even say that it surpasses most magic but that is neither here nor there. I assume you know why I have called in a favour?”

The previously Black’s eyes narrowed shrewdly at him as she replied slowly, “I assume it has something to do with my Healer background, and the fact that Sirius has not been seen in St.Mungos meant that he does not wish to be healed by anyone?”

He beamed at the obviously smart woman. It was much easier dealing with people who were quick on the uptake. “Precisely. Marvellous! This is the portkey that will take you to him. There is a house elf assigned to him. And if he does not cooperate, do not hesitate to send a Patronus to come fetch me but just in case, mention Harry’s custody to him and he should be willing to do just about anything.”

“Wait a minute! I did not agree to this. This is a long term case. I have a family, a child. I can’t just abandon them to work on this, even if it is my brother. Certainly not for free. I have–” Her words were stuck in her mouth as he threw a bag on the table.

She hesitantly opened it and her eyes widened as she quickly took hold of the bag of gold as if her life depended on it, “I will make sure he is in proper shape within a year.”

He nodded,  “That is all I can ask for.”

He did not know why people made such a big deal about money, especially since most wizards were a step away from being self-sufficient. He supposed that being a Black before she was thrown out of the house, Mrs.Tonks must have been habituated with a certain level of opulence that was most certainly missing from her life with Mr.Tonks.

Ah, the thoughts of the younger generation. Not something that he could understand, even in his lifetime.