All things Harry Potter belong to J K Rowling. All things Magnificent Seven belong to someone else too. Everything that falls between, much like sofa change, is mine. This just flowed from my fingers after a prompt from a fellow fan of the boys. If you're not familiar with the Potter world, then this probably won't make a lot of sense. If you're a purist M7 fan, now's the time to mosey on.

Ezra Standish watched his colleagues efficiently and quietly rummaging through his office from his vantage point on top of a tall bookshelf. None of the FBI minions thought to look up, so none saw the small, jade-eyed weasel curled up with just the tip of a quivering nose, long whiskers and two white front paws peeking over the edge. Thanks to the foe glass that one of his favourite uncles had gifted him with, Ezra had seen them coming in time to transform and scamper up to his present hiding place. It had been a regular occurrence for months now; every week, two or three agents would storm into his office and rifle through his files, trying to find evidence that he was corrupt. They had yet to find anything, but it didn't stop them from trying.

Grimacing, Ezra once again cursed his mother and her latest gift of a very expensive automobile. Maude Standish was an exceptionally talented and wealthy witch, who was appalled at her 'sweet baby boy's' choice of career and was determined to bring him back into her circle of influence. Admittedly, joining a law enforcement agency, particularly a muggle one, hadn't been high on Ezra's choice of careers either. But when he'd been approached by a recruiter at Harvard – another life choice he'd made to irritate his mother - he'd decided to give it a try, knowing exactly how much it would annoy his interfering, overbearing, elitist mother. In that goal, he'd succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, but otherwise the experience hadn't left him particularly fulfilled. Knowing that he was making the world a little safer one bust at a time just didn't compensate him for all the time he spent in the sordid world of Muggle criminals. Particularly when the he also knew that the criminals he managed to arrest would most likely end up on the streets again due to their lawyer's competence, the DA's incompetence, or the general leniency of the legal system - most likely due to a combination of all three.

As soon as he'd driven his new car into the car park of the Atlanta FBI office, he'd been spotting by a colleague who'd interrogated him on the car's origin. Since the colleague was only a passing acquaintance, Ezra hadn't felt the need to explain himself to the nosy man. He'd since requested a transfer and started fresh in the Denver FBI office, but the rumours had followed him and it hadn't taken long for his fresh start to sour.

Due to his exemplary record and high arrest and conviction rate, which he'd attained through pure talent and hard work rather than any magical means, his colleagues at the Bureau tended to be jealous and bitter. As a result, he had made no friends or allies within the department and always felt he had to watch his back against both sides of the crime war. It wasn't an unusual occurrence and Ezra was long used to enforced solitude. As a child, he'd been moved around constantly and encouraged by his mother to only befriend the children of the rich and powerful pureblood families and use them for his own purposes. The problem was that the other children had been given similar advice by their parents, leading everyone to form shallow and brittle links with each other that were easily betrayed and broken, leaving Ezra feeling even more alone and worthless.

Given his family's influences, his need to conceal some of his more unusual magical abilities and his affluence, Ezra now had certain tastes that were deemed snobbish along with habits that were seen as downright antisocial by his peers. Because of these factors, none had tried to befriend him at school or work, soundly rejecting his infrequent and timid attempts at friendship. After being rebuffed a number of times, sometimes quite brutally, the Southerner had quickly learned to keep to himself.

In fact it was safe to say that, aside from two cousins, the only friends Ezra had ever had were the pets he managed to hide from his mother and the wild animals he encountered. Unusual even in the magical world, Ezra had been born a metamorphmagus and could transform at will into almost anything or anyone he chose. He could even transform into a phoenix, although he only took the form without any of the creature's magical properties. His nanny had discovered his ability when she'd entered the nursery to find he'd transformed into a tiger, after reading a storybook about one that came to tea, and was busily stalking her pet rat.

After informing Maude of her son's latest magical manifestation, Nanny had immediately resigned stating she'd been trained to care for children, not animals. There followed the first of many lectures and punishments he'd received from his mother over appropriate behavior and appearances. The discovery that he could change into other animals and people had been made on his own, when he'd fallen from a gargoyle whilst exploring his uncle's castle at five years old and subconsciously transformed into a snowy owl to save himself from certain death. Another time, he'd been squeezed into a dark corner trying to make himself as small as possible to avoid a strapping from his latest tutor and found himself in the form of a small house mouse. Teaching himself the control needed to prevent spontaneous transformations took him a few months, but he was nothing if not a quick student and was motivated by the need to keep his abilities from Maude. Even at the tender age of four, he'd not liked the speculative gleam that had appeared in his mother's eye when she'd looked at him in tiger form and experiences as he aged reinforced his instinctive belief that she would use what he could do to her own advantage and his own detriment.

Maude had been reluctant to allow him pets, disliking the dirt and noise she claimed surrounded them, but eventually allowed him an owl so that she could use it to correspond with him during their frequent separations. Then when he went to school Ezra had managed to befriend a wild kneazel that had been running rampant in the surrounding grounds and terrorising the gamekeeper and students, naming him Leonard when the cranky creature decided to adopt the unusually powerful boy wizard. Ezra had had to apply for a licence to keep the animal, but given his impressive pureblood lineage and also the fact that he was doing the school a favour by reining in the behaviour of the grumpy, vicious kneazel, the Ministry of Magic was happy to hand over a licence. Leonard was positively ancient now and rarely left his cushion on Ezra's couch, but he was still affectionate towards the only wizard he'd ever liked. Ezra now had one of Leonard's progeny as a livelier pet, a half kneazel - half Norwegian Forest cat called Achacius, who was besotted with Ezra and the bane of the life of Ezra's spectacled owl, Horatia.

Truthfully, was it not for the small amount of good he felt he was doing for the community of unsuspecting muggles in Atlanta and now Denver; Ezra would have quit a long time ago and spent his time at home with his pets. Thanks to large inheritances from his father and one of his maternal aunts, Ezra really didn't need to work at all and could afford the very best in everything, which was a major reason behind the rumours of his corruption within the FBI. Explaining that his extravagant clothing and tastes were paid for by a large stash of wizarding money in the American branch of the wizard bank, Gringott's, just wasn't an option. On muggle record, he earned a reasonable salary due to the nature of his work and his abilities at it, but certainly not enough to support the lavish lifestyle he led. Hence the rumours of corruption that had snowballed into the current avalanche of antipathy he was experiencing.

Watching the men give up and leave his normally pristine office in a state of complete disarray, Ezra ground his sharp little teeth in frustration and scrunched his furry features up into a scowl. Perhaps it was time to admit defeat and move on to a less annoying and dangerous livelihood, like dragon taming. He'd always been good with animals and he'd heard that Hungary was lovely this time of year.

TBC⨪