"Get your filthy boots off my sofa, you disgusting son of a bitch," Percival Graves said as soon as he noticed, upon entering his office, Rodilus Hamsipood lounging on his fine leather Chesterfield, the emerald green sofa given to him by his late Uncle Jester whose tastes had been as refined as his widely admired charmwork. "In fact, get your ass off of it as well."

"Reserved only for the pretty ones, is it?" Rodilus drawled out from under the fedora that covered the upper half of his clean-shaved face, making no move to get up, twirling his black ebony wand between his fingers instead, a habit that annoyed Percival more than he cared to admit. Rodilus had crossed his boot-clad feet on the armrest and looked in his boss' office as relaxed and content as he might in his own living room. "Necked many lovely ladies on this very same spot, have you? Or fetching fellows, as the case would more likely be, knowing you."

Shrugging off his wet coat – it was raining as ever in October – and sending it flying onto the coat rack with a flick of a finger, Percival walked up to his gramophone in the far corner, swiping Rodilus' shiny boots casually off the arm rest of the sofa as he walked pass by, ignoring the whine of protest that followed the act.

"I would never entertain that kind of company at work, Rod, and you well know it," he grumbled. "I'm a professional and I take my work very seriously."

Rodilus sat up with a snort, letting his fedora fall off his face as he did so. It made a flip in the air before proceeding to hover nearby, ready to be worn again, but neither Rodilus nor Percival paid it any mind.

"To be fair, boss, is there anything you don't take seriously?"

"Sure there is. You, for instance."

"I'd like to say you're funny, but that really isn't one of your attributes."

Rodilus yawned, getting finally up from the sofa, adjusting his yellow tie, while Percival chose one of his fifteen records, and soon the sounds of The Wanderful Gangers provided them background music. Adjusting his cufflinks, Percival found himself humming to the familiar sounds of jazz, as he took his seat behind the desk and motioned for his pot to pour him a cup of coffee. The pot jumped eagerly at the opportunity to serve and soon he had a cup of steaming black coffee in front of him. The rich scent surrounded him and he breathed it in, while the pot hurried back to its place on the side table next to the cookie jar.

Percival's mahogany desk, as large and sturdy as they came, had its gleaming surface mostly covered with high piles of papers and parchments – and the occasional clay tablet – that had gathered there during his leave of absence and the sight cheered him up immensely – oh, how he had missed this, how he had missed work! Stamps were now busy marking the papers as "internal business", "notable", "URGENT", "TOP SECRET" and various other things that made Percival determined to start reading them as soon as possible. He might have been gone for some time, yes, but now that he was back, there was no longer any reason for him to avoid his various, pressing responsibilities.

Truth be told, Percival had been itching to get back to work as soon as they had released him from The Sleeping Alicorn, the best wizarding hospital in the continent, some two weeks earlier, but Seraphina had ordered him to take some more time off to rest, and it wasn't like Percival Graves to go against a direct order, extremely unhappy though he had admittedly been about it.

It had now been months since the last time Percival had stepped a foot in his own office. It had been months since the night he had been attacked, since the night when he had been stumbling along on an alley near his home, pleasantly buzzed after a few good hours spent in fine company due to the celebrations in the honor of the birth of the first born daughter of Auror Kilonski. While Percival hadn't then been taken off guard by Gellert Grindelwald's attack, precisely, since he had been aware of the wizard's sudden appearance as soon as Grindelwald had apparated on the dark alley behind him, he had still been too slow, his reflexes had been dulled by all the alcohol clouding his mind, and the fight hadn't been as long as it could have been had Percival not been as intoxicated as he had been.

Percival had no memories after the fight until the moment he had awoken in The Sleeping Alicorn, but he had been later told that Aurors Kilonski and Ipston had found him in a match box Grindelwald had been carrying in his breast pocket. He had been gone for 145 days and no-one at work had noticed that an evil wizard had assumed his identity. No-one outside of work had noticed it either, but that wasn't unexpected since there really wasn't anyone outside of work for him – no family, no close relatives, no friends who also weren't colleagues.

Afterwards, all the Aurors had been understandably mortified, to say the least, to find out that their director had been abducted and replaced by the evilest wizard of their time – and none of them had noticed anything, having instead kept on writing Grindelwald reports and taking orders from him. It was, frankly put it, a scandal, a security breach of the highest form, and while Percival had laid in The Sleeping Alicorn, unconscious and unresponsive due to the various curses Grindelwald had cast on him, several new rules and practices had already been put in place to prevent such things from happening in the future.

It had taken a month for the healers to lift all the curses and for Percival to wake up from his deep slumber, and it had then taken another month for Aurors to take his statements and to run various tests to prove that he really was who he said he was and for all the bureaucracy that was unavoidably involved when an Auror – the Director of Magical Security and head of MACUSA's Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to boot - got abducted and his identity was assumed by an evil wizard using Polyjuice Potion.

Percival had spent that month by healing, by getting better and stronger each day, by adjusting to having lost quite some days of his life with no memory of them, and while he went to all his scheduled therapy sessions with various kinds of healers, he wasn't traumatized as much as he was disturbed and absolutely furious – he always tended to get aggravated when someone inconvenienced him by abducting him, especially for such a lengthy period of time.

Feeling eyes on him, Percival looked up from the coffee cup hot in his hand, frowning. Rodilus was regarding him carefully and had apparently been doing so for some time.

"Just so you know, Persephone," the wizard began with a cough, rubbing his neck in an awkward manner as his freckled face turned gradually red, "I did kind of miss your ass of a face around here when you were in the hospital. I've been waiting for you here in your office this morning to… you know, to welcome you back."

Rodilus and Percival were both grimacing by now – sentimentality didn't come easily to either one of them.

"On behalf of everyone, mind you," Rodilus went on hurriedly as if eager to get the matter done and over with as soon as possible, "because we knew you wouldn't be happy to have everyone coming here to greet you individually. We know it'd make you… uncomfortable. In any case, we've all come to the agreement that it's not entirely unpleasant to have you back. So… welcome back."

Avoiding eye contact, Percival cleared his throat, wishing he could have just gone back to work already without ever having to have this conversation.

"Thank you," he eventually replied and busied his hands by taking a sip of his coffee. It was hot and bitter on his tongue, but he welcomed the sensation, finding it pleasant and familiar to him like routine paperwork after a brutal battle.

"And sorry for, you know…" Rodilus muttered, "for… not noticing a dark wizard was pretending to be you."

"No lasting harm done," Percival assured, uncomfortable with such a discussion about emotions and feelings and things he rather didn't talk about, especially not at work.

With the discussion dealt with, it was clearly the time to start working. Equally excited – working was wonderful – as he was determined, Percival put his coffee cup aside and pulled the paper pile stamped as "URGENT" closer to him, giving the utmost paper, 529 B, a quick glance.

"Can you fill me in on the case 529 B, please."

Rodilus made a non-committal sound.

"Before you start working on those," he said in a hurried manner, "give this a glance, will you."

A black-and-white photograph was shoved in Percival's face and it effectively blocked the case 529 B from his view. Raising a questioning eyebrow, Percival took the offered photograph, motioning absent-mindedly for Rodilus to take a seat in front of the desk. Rodilus was quick to obey and put casually his feet up onto the desk's shiny surface – only to have them forcibly removed again by a wave of Percival's hand. Percival gave the now scowling Auror a bit of a suspicious glance before looking down at the photo in his hand.

It was a photograph of a slim man in his thirties. The man, wearing a slightly rumpled suit, was standing in front of a brick wall with his arms crossed on his chest like he was attempting to hug himself. The man was biting his lip, his expressive eyes flickering shyly towards the camera and then quickly away again like he was feeling terribly self-conscious over getting photographed, like he was wondering whether it would have been terribly impolite of him to simply run off.

Pretty, more so than handsome, just the kind that did it for Percival, and he therefore made a sour face and looked up from the photograph at Rodilus, who in turn gave him an outright leer as if Percival had just been telling him how he would like the man in the photograph riding certain body parts of his.

"What's this, then?" Percival was unable to keep the irritation out of his voice.

"Don't you mean, 'who's this, then'?"

"No," Percival snapped. "I definitely meant 'what', as in is this photograph work-related, or is this yet another relative of Ellie's you're trying to set me up with?"

Ellie, Rodilus' wife, worked in the Department of Ancient Charms, and since Rodilus and Ellie were happy and very much in love, they had made it their mission to make other people happy and in love, too. So far five couples had been formed due to their meddling, and – much to Percival's irritation – both Ellie and Rodilus had decided it was high time for Percival, too, to become "happy and in love".

"Can't it be both?"

By way of an answer, Percival glared at the photograph until it took the hint and floated into Rodilus' breast pocket.

"If that isn't work-related, I don't want to see it again, ever," he said, firmly. "I've told you before I do not like it when you get involved in my love life in any shape or form. It never ends well."

"Come on, now, Percy-boy," Rodilus whined. "You've had tough times recently. Don't you think a bit of a lay could do you some good? A pretty face and a willing body – that might do wonders for you, you know. Might help you feel more alive after all you've been through. Might improve your performance at work, too, if everything has to be about work with you, in some way."

"I'm really not interested."

Rodilus sighed and fished the photograph out of his pocket. He gave it a mournful look before turning it towards Percival to show it to him again. He dangled it there between them in a hopeful manner and Percival made a point of not looking at it, choosing instead to glare at the wizard holding it.

"You can't see it in this photograph, but in certain lighting, there seems to be gold on his curls," Rodilus tried to tempt him. "I'm telling you, Percival, this man is just your type. He's all shy and blushes, but with a heart full of fire and passion and a mind as clever and sharp as anything. I could bet my monthly pay that you'd have some enjoyable times with him, if you gave it a go. And besides, you like 'em lean and on the more submissive side, don't you?"

Percival rubbed a hand over his mouth. Mercy Lewis, he would never again tell Rodilus anything personal.

"I've only just come back to work," he said, trying to rein in his temper. "I've spent mere minutes in my own office after all this time. Couldn't you at least have given me a few hours to settle in before you came in here with… that thing! I don't have the patience for this right now."

Rodilus leant forward in his chair, still holding the photograph.

"That thing," he said in a low voice as if disclosing confidential information, "has a nice perky ass."

Percival sighed.

"Just get out already, will you."

"I'm only trying to help out a friend, you know."

"I know you mean well, Rod, and that's the only reason why I haven't yet fed that photograph to you, but if you show it to me one more time, Lewis knows I will shove it so far down your throat you could just as well pull it out of your ass."

"I guess it will be my snack, then," Rodilus shrugged, placing the photograph down onto the desk between them.

"You see, boss," he went on, giving the photograph a poke to emphasize his words, "this is actually work-related: The man in the photo is one Newton Scamander – the wizard, who managed to render Grindelwald harmless for long enough for us to capture him without any casualties on our side. Newt Scamander, the man who realized it was someone else using your face. The very same wizard who cast the revelio on Grindelwald."

Now that was enough to get Percival well and truly interested. He was leaning forward and reaching out for the photograph before he had even made a conscious decision to do so. Taking a careful look at the man's face, Percival couldn't help but feel intrigued.

Newt Scamander. He had heard the name often after having woken up in The Sleeping Alicorn, but this was the first time he had been given a face to put to the name.

Apparently, Seraphina had been so impressed with Scamander's latest actions she was now quite taken by him, mentioning his antics every now and then in an uncharacteristically fond manner. She had, reportedly, been exchanging owls with Scamander ever since Scamander had returned to England, and while Percival didn't know what the two of them could possibly be writing to each other about, it was speculated he kept on telling her about various kinds of creatures in the hopes of getting her to understand them better.

Percival had, of course, read Scamander's witness statement along with those of the other witnesses, some of whom had been obliviated soon after Grindelwald had been captured. Although Percival could see why Seraphina had wanted to move on from the near disaster as soon as possible, considering the international pressure she had been under at the time, he still was of the opinion that Jacob Kowalski had been obliviated too hastily, since he, too, would have had his fair share of questions to ask the man, questions the No-Maj could no longer ever give answers to.

There was nothing wrong with the existing witness statements as they were, but this was one case where Percival wanted to be as thorough as humanly possible, considering his personal interests as well as the fact that Grindelwald was involved – if Percival knew one thing, it was the fact that Grindelwald should not be underestimated under any circumstances.

Besides, unlike the president and the majority of the Aurors, Percival wasn't convinced Scamander's part in the events had been entirely coincidental, now that he thought about it. He had perused all the reports and statements several times, and the more he thought about it now, the more Scamander began to bother him: it all just seemed to add up a little too neatly, it all seemed a little too suspicious – the man's unexpected appearances at various convenient (and inconvenient) times and places, his suspicious love for dangerous creatures, the way he had managed to render Grindelwald, of all people, harmless.

What bothered Percival the most was, however, the way Scamander had been the first one to know that the Percival Graves he had met had not been Percival Graves at all but someone else using Polyjuice Potion. How could the wizard possibly have guessed that? Percival hadn't ever met this Scamander person, as far as he was aware of, but while his own aurors hadn't ever suspected Grindelwald's disguise, Scamander had somehow managed to see right through it. He had seen through it and he had acted accordingly.

That was, simply put, suspicious.

"I need to have this Scamander brought in," Percival came to a decision, studying the photograph closely. "I have a few questions for him."

"Of course." The amusement in Rodilus' voice made Percival look over at him. Rodilus gave him an exaggerated wink. "You want to meet Scamander because 'you've got questions' for him."

"I do." Percival felt suddenly defensive. "I do have questions for him."

"Sure you do." Rodilus smirked. "You've read his file and the statements he's given, but only after you've seen a photograph of him do you decide you must have him in brought in for a questioning. Tell me, Persephone, these questions you need to ask him, do they include questions like 'Can I take you home for tonight?' or 'Spit or swallow?'"

Percival didn't bother acknowledging that with a retort. Instead, he had one of the office elves deliver an order to the aurors on duty. He told them to locate Newt Scamander and to ask him to come to meet him as soon as possible.

He had questions that needed answers and only Scamander could provide answers to those questions.

And none of that had anything to do with the shy looks Scamander kept giving him from the photograph.

A/N: I went to see the movie yesterday and I really quite liked it. I immediately went to search for some Newt/Percival fics, but to my sadness there weren't many yet. That's why I had to write one for myself, even though I've got other unfinished fics - I will not be abandoning those, either, but this is where my muse just brought me and I had to follow her (she was pointing a gun at me, I had no choise but to follow, forgive me).