Thomas Prest: A Simple Magician

Kingsley's day was getting worse and worse by the second.

Not only did he wake up with a killer headache, and had a stand-off with his long-time trusted colleagues, causing their mutual trust to deteriorate to a degree, but then he also had to be among the unlucky guys connected to the attack on their very own Minister.

On top of that, the sniveling coward refused to even admit he was attacked.

Just great. How was one supposed to do his job when everyone and everything was trying so hard to prevent him from doing just that?

At that point, the day went into his personal history as the worst day of his life...

But little did he know it was far from over.

The DMLE naturally discovered some clues on who attacked them even though it was through Pensieve... which meant these memories were according to their very laws useless as evidence in the court.

Gee, one could wonder why and how that particular law got passed...

Nevertheless, thanks to these Pensieve memories, the DMLE had clear suspects and their suspicions were only confirmed when the first thing in the morning the Minister did was order the redaction of the article about them.

Now, imagine Kingsley's utter bewilderment when these same suspects showed up in the Ministry's footsteps just a few hours later and he was sent to confront them by Amelia Bones because, for some reason, she thought him the most qualified man for the job.

Clearly, she was wrong but he still did his best.

He pulled out of his sleeve every trick he knew, from giving them secret information in order to make them slip up and reveal something they would definitely have no other way of knowing but being in the Minister's house yesterday, to even bluntly pointing out they knew about their yesterday's escapades and were on their trail.

Yet, the redheaded woman stayed as cool as a cucumber throughout it all. Kingsley had to admit, the way she joked when he outright accused her of the crime due to her red hair was... it was just utterly bewildering.

Suggesting Molly Weasley as a suspect? Only an utter idiot would believe a woman of her... proportions... could ambush an Auror and take him out. Maybe if she sat on one it could work but that was neither here nor there.

He would love to label Natasha cocky as heck but... her behavior clearly worked.

And that was what frustrated him to no end. The level of self-assurance and self-confidence she displayed in the face of his silent accusations was making Kingsley very worried because these two were obviously like Malfoy and his ilk. Criminals who knew exactly how to evade justice by using Wizarding Britain's very own laws.

Worse yet, these two actually had the gall to attack the Minister himself, which even Malfoy would never dream of doing, and on top of that, they got away with it. That only made them that much more dangerous and the thought they were roaming free because of some technicality in the law was making Kingsley's mood plummet even further.

It totally didn't have anything to do with the fact he was shooed from the Minister's office before even saying one word because of a few sentences from Tom.

Or maybe it did.

He would like to believe he was not that petty but right now, he wasn't exactly in the best state of mind. If he could throw them into jail for talking back to him, he would gladly do so, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. That's how fed up he currently was.

Kinsley sluggishly approached the office of his boss to present his findings on Tom's and Natasha's backgrounds he was ordered to investigate. He was not so proud to say, he found out nothing in their archives, which will most definitely not please his boss and it pleased him even less. The whole investigation went nowhere very fast.

On top of that, right now he wanted nothing but to finally get home and sleep off his rising migraine but the department now needed all the capable hands. Days like this really sucked.

As he got closer to Amelia Bones' office, its door suddenly flew open and the Minister huffily walked out of it... and Kingsley already knew their situation got only worse.

Looking up, Kingsley sighed in exasperation, 'Merlin, why do you punish me so?'

Despite his personal feelings, he walked into Amelia's office with a professional facade donned on his face as he knocked on the opened door to announce his presence.

"Boss? You free?"

Amelia Bones, a redheaded woman in her mid-thirties, looked up from the documents on her table, a massive frown visible on her face.

"Oh, Kingsley. Just the man I needed." She said with a grimace and Kingsley instantly knew he would not like what she was going to say next. "I need you to call off the monitoring of our two suspects. Apparently, our new Minister has a new sugar daddy." She said sourly and with a great distaste in her tone.

Merlin, he was totally right. He did not like that one bit!

"Haaa," Kingsley let out a deep and tired sigh. "Can't we at least-"

"It doesn't matter." Amelia instantly cut him off, giving him a disapproving and stern look. "You know how these things go. Even if we arrested them for something, with the Minister's backing, we would need to involve the Wizengamot if we wanted any result. The second they met with our honorable Minister and managed to bribe his ass, the game was over for us." She scowled.

"And involving the Wizengamot would be practically announcing that DMLE is too incompetent to protect the Minister." Kingsley nodded in depressing understanding, knowing that this would be the conclusion the 'esteemed' Wizengamot would arrive at, completely tanking their already abysmal budget even further.

Right now, only a certain few trusted highest-level Aurors knew about the attack on the Minister. Nobody would be stupid enough to inform the whole department about something so sensitive and Amelia clearly wanted it to stay that way.

'Politics... how lovely.' In times like these, he really pitied his boss. His work as an Auror was already stressful enough. He could not imagine having to balance it with all this political bullshit.

"What about Dumbledore?" Kingsley asked with a twinge of hope, only for Amelia to scowl at him with a very angry glare.

It was so sudden, that he even took a step back due to how angry her look was. There was no need for more words. He totally understood that Dumbledore was not an option.

"You are dismissed, Auror Shacklebolt." Amelia almost growled out, not in the best mood. "And don't let me find out you informed the old coot about this or I will demote you so far back that you will be glad if your main duty is sweeping the floor and cleaning the toilets."

Needless to say, Kingsley ran out of her office as fast as he could. He had no idea what beef his boss had with a great man like Dumbledore but since she didn't want his help, he would not try to persuade her.

Honestly, he was more afraid of grumpy Amelia Bones than Dumbledore. Especially when standing in front of the irritated woman.

Reaching his own desk, he sat down and his head instantly dropped on said desk with a groan, 'I guess that's one case closed. But Merlin's hairy ass if it doesn't feel extremely bad.'

Yup. Definitely the worst day of his life...