A Discovery of Wizards // Dorian

Dorian had put things off as long as he could, without punishing the young lad for circumstances outside of his control. It had been a few months since his brother had unknowingly gifted him the burden of knowledge and it wasn’t too difficult to put the pieces together after reading the whole of his birth-mother’s letter to him. His biological father was a man named Marcel L’amour, an uncommon surname and yet one that was quite familiar to the man. It took less than a few minutes of scanning through personnel files at the MLE to find the name, and Dorian had busied himself with work away from the office for the rest of that day. He could not, however, avoid his newfound family forever, particularly as he was head of the Auror Training Academy and his apparent half-brother was one of his best trainees.

Roux had been assigned to shadow every other Auror Dorian could get away with pushing him onto, but he was running out of time and Dorian couldn’t keep him out of his final bit of training just be Dorian himself was uncomfortable. So here they were, and it was no doubt Roux knocking on his office door, right on time. “Come in,” Dorian said from behind his desk, organizing the files they would be needing today.

“Right on time, Cadet L’Amour.” Saying the surname aloud felt uncomfortable ever since Dorian had read it on the letter his birth mother had addressed to him, even before he had confirmed his suspicions by reading Roux’s personnel file. “Have a seat, we’ve got plenty to get on with today.” Dorian passed the first file across his desk so that it was facing the trainee. Inside were surveillance photographs of two men talking outside of a café. They were today’s targets and Roux would need to familiarize himself with both men before they set out on a short undercover mission.

“Thus far, we do not have enough evidence to make a conviction stick.” Especially with the way the wizengamot was ruling these days. Had they arrested the two, they would have been out on the street within a day. If they wanted to stop these sick bastards, they would need a lot more fighting power. “However,” Dorian passed the second file to Roux, “my informant tells me Grimes and Lunfete will be meeting with Harold Merchester this afternoon at the Port of Liverpool. Merchester has a history of smuggling illegal goods into the country.” The second file was little more than a laundry list of Merchester’s past convictions, but the file was rather thick compared to the first one he’d shared with Roux. Harold Merchester seemed to have enough connections to get his sentences commuted or reduced, but not enough to keep him out of Azkaban altogether. He had a reputation, and a weakness Dorian hoped to exploit in order to get to the much more sinister pair of criminals. Human trafficking was difficult enough to curb, but werewolf trafficking and the slaughter and sale of werewolf organs on the black market was something new and altogether disturbing. “We’ll be surveilling the meeting. Anything we can use to get a warrant or make a viable arrest is what we're after today.”

Poorly timed attempt at humor aside, Dorian generally liked Roux. He was a hard worker, a damn fine trainee detective, and a hell of a lot more like Dorian than Julian, as far as half brothers went. Not that Dorian considered the pair of them family in any way. Roux most likely didn't even know his father had another son, and Dorian certainly hadn't reached out to Marcel as of yet. Dorian had questioned whether or not he even needed to contact his biological father. Ariel, Julian, and Tristan were more than enough family for the quiet man, and it wasn't as if he had grown up without the love of a mother and father. Dorian's parents had been the epitome of perfect, even if there were some times in his youth when he'd moodily claimed otherwise. His displeasure with them was always short lived and logic always brought him back to a sense of understanding. They had never lied to him, belittled him, or spoke to him as if he was incapable of understanding everything grown adults knew. He was certain that if his parents had known the identity of his birth parents, they would have informed him, but to Dorian's knowledge they had been as unaware as he had and there had never been a time where he felt the need to search for anything beyond what he had. He was fully grown now, so did he really need to seek out a man who probably hadn't given his existence a second thought in over 30 years?

Travel to Liverpool was relatively simple thanks to the Floo Network. Dorian stood in the corner of an empty room, dusting the soot off his shoulders as he waited for the green flames to subside around his partner for the day. They were a few blocks away from their intended location, but Dorian hadn't thought it wise to appear right where they intended to be, in case there were any magical wards that might tip off their suspects to the presence of onlookers.

Roux stepped out of the fireplace and instantly began dusting himself off. Dorian found himself watching the lad with hawk-like attention, wondering if that was what he himself looked like when fussing over soot on his jacket, or their shared father for that matter. Dorian straightened himself up and turned toward the door, pushing thoughts of his complicated family history firmly out of his mind. “Just keep a low profile,” he offered to Roux as he headed out of the deserted building and into the street. The sun shone brightly but there was a cool breeze that brought with it the smell of fresh sea water and rotting fish. Dorian disliked the smell and often tried to avoid the ocean when he could, but work sometimes beckoned him to places such as this, as did Ariel’s desire to play on the beach from time to time.

Pedestrians walked in the opposite direction and Dorian moved off the pavement to allow them space as they passed, talking excitedly about whatever plans they had made for their day. There were enough people about that Dorian and Roux would not look out of place on the docks, but regardless he took measured steps as they neared their destination, taking care to not draw any unwanted attention their way. They passed a series of billboards which were torn and graffitied, then an empty lot with construction fencing around it but no further sign of improvement attempts. “There,” he said discretely, his eyes gazing across the road at a series of container docks behind a high brick wall and an open gate. Men in hardhats were walking through the gates toward a coffee truck that had set up at the intersection. A large blue sign read “Gerald’s Coffee” in hand painted, white letters on the side of the truck. From where he stood, Dorian could see a ship in port and cranes working to move large containers to shipping carts on the nearby railway line. They needed a closer vantage point.

Roux suggested they get a coffee from the truck where the men from the dock were heading, and Dorian indicated his agreement with a nod. Queuing up behind the hard hatted men, Dorian glanced over to the docks but from where they stood there was no sign of Grimes, Lunfete, or Merchester. “What’ll it be?” Dorian looked back to the queue where he and Roux were now next in line. “Small coffee, black with two sugars, please.” Gerald looked bored as he took their orders, and Dorian silently agreed that doing the same thing day in and day out must have been tedious. He liked uniformity and consistency, but his job was a jumble of different aspects every single day and he loved it. He had only thought of leaving the Ministry for something quieter recently for Ariel’s sake, and since then he had even joined Albus Dumbledore’s vigilante group, so he clearly wasn’t made for the quiet life of coffee making or office work.

The casual conversation from his trainee made Dorian’s jaw tighten. Roux had no idea that when he spoke of his father, he was actually speaking of Dorian’s biological father, too. A man who also drank his coffee black. Dorian tried to brush it off as a mere coincidence, after all, millions of people probably drank it the exact same way so why was it so jarring to know he shared this trait with his biological father? “I never was much for the weak stuff,” Dorian replied, trying to keep Roux from thinking anything strange of Dorian’s response to a seemingly innocuous remark about Marcel L’Amour. Dorian took his coffee in the little cardboard cup and headed across the street, wondering if they would be able to walk in past the gates without trouble and definitely not just walking away from the conversation.