Ezekiel Artemis Black was not a happy man. The fact that he was being summoned by his boss on the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had something to do with this.

It wasn't easy being him, honestly. The last Black. The last heir of one of the most powerful and ancient houses, and the darkest House at that. And there he was working with the DMLE as an Auror. Ever since his graduation he had applied as an Auror in order to clean up his family's name and so far he had failed miserably but, he kept trying. Perhaps, he though, if he were able to bring down a major dark mage the name Black could be redeemed. But that was just a hopeful dream, one that was crushed when he was assigned to the cold case unit of the Auror department after the administration found that he had no connection to any dark group or character faults.

He had tried to be philanthropic, not for a shallow reason, but because he had heaps of money and there were some who really needed it, but that hadn't worked either. Not even the most desperate ones wanted anything to do with him. One had said that he preferred to die as the lowest scum than to owe him anything. Politics was also a big No for him, as the only ones that would make some alliance with him were Houses that were almost as dark as his. Other venues showed the similar results.

The current Lord Black was the son of Regulus Black, the last "Noble" Black. Of course, between the Traitor and the Zealot, the bar wasn't that high. He was born and raised on the Ancestral House of Black. His uncle Sirius had already left the family and his two cousins were married off by that time. It wasn't until he was five that his father died that all went down the hill. His grandmother had gone mad with rage and started acting out, to the point that her magic was barely contained and had to be sent to the psychiatric ward in St Mungo's. His grandfather joined his father later that year and he was left in the care of his cousin Narcissa and her husband Lucius. He didn't stay long, not after overhearing how he would be joining his father once their firstborn was born.

The only thing his father had left him before leaving him was an envelope, inside was a message for him to request asylum and an address, along with another smaller envelope for one Andromeda Tonks. So, summoning the only ally he had, his house elf Kreacher, he went to the address that his father had left him. His surprise to find his third sousin was by no means small, but the fact that she was married to a muggle-born law-wizard and also had a daughter with him was a bit too much for him. Still, he requested sanctuary and even though they were no longer part of the family and he was (admittedly) a pure-blood little jerk they welcomed him with open arms.

He would never forget the endless patience and love that they had showed him. They managed to turn him before it was too late, showing him the prejudice of the Black family and the insanity that they bred. Also their daughter Nymphadora could smack the life out of him when he went out of line, as she was a Metamorphmagus that meant that she could change her fists to make them bigger and harder. It had taken some time but they eventually became friends, and as he was accepted into the Aurors, colleagues.

During his childhood he had heard of the Dark Lord's demise at the hands of Harry Potter, and the betrayal of his uncle. By then the name Black had been pretty much being dragged trough the mud, but the fact that it was his uncle the one that had betrayed the Potters made the reputation of the family hit rock bottom. No one could believe that the one "good" Black had sold his friends out. He had died after being confronted by one of his "friends", Peter Pettigrew one night. Witness said that they fought and the small wizard had tried to apprehend him and bring him to justice in plain sight at Muggle London only to be hit by a cutting curse that split him in half and crashed into one of the gas lines under the bastard managed to blow up the entire street, himself and Pettigrew. The police managed to identify their remains, since their magic had tried to protect them in vain from the damage.

The hate that this generated made it impossible for him to show his face in any part of the magic community, even neutral grounds such as the Leaky Cauldron made it clear that he wasn't welcome. The Light despised him and Dark sought to stay away from him and paint themselves as victims, the less intelligent simply tried to flee with various degrees of was clear that staying in Britain was no longer possible, but as the Tonks family couldn't simply move to another country he was instead schooled in the Muggle side of Britain.

The jump from the magical world to the more "logic" based one was difficult for him but given that he had no other options until he was of age and could take ownership of his house and the founds that were being managed by Gringotts, he dived into the books. His uncle and his cousin were of great help for this as they were also schooled on the muggle side until they were old enough to get to Hogwarts and in return, he taught his cousin what he knew of the noble side of the magic community along with her father's side. To his surprise, he found that he liked the ideas of the Muggle world and was fascinated by their possible applications on the magic world.

Once he was of age the problem remained, as the only one truly capable to inherit the Black house and it's inheritance, he had no choice but to start his magic education. Since the way that the magic community saw him and his family hadn't changed a bit it was decided that he'd enter the next best choice and was enrolled into the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the US, as a mean to avoid the confrontation with other families that may want to take retribution on him since his uncle was unavailable.

So, during his time abroad, he made the plan to bring his family's name back where it belonged. He had it all down to the last detail, except for the fact that people's disdain for his family had grown and no-one would give him the slightest chance. Still, he hadn't given up yet.

And so, he worked at the cold case only good thing was that he was allowed to perform interviews if he thought that it was needed and, if no other Auror was available to follow the case, he could continue the investigation himself and even make the arrest. Since no one would move a finger to help him even if he were on fire, that meant that he was able to perform his investigations as he saw fit. It also meant that he lacked backup. Well, official backup anyway, his cousin usually lend him a hand.

If there was something to say about his work, it was that he was bloody good at it. The job on itself was almost automatic, to archive old cases and await for their statute of limitations to be reached, and this was made automatically by magic. That was, as he found out, because once the Auror assigned to the case reached a dead end they simply stopped looking for clues, as they only considered the ways of the magical realm.

His first attempts were rather clumsy, but he put all he had learned to use and even managed to get some retired Aurors from all over the world to lend him the memories of their career.

With this knowledge and the thousands of hours of experience provided by more experienced Aurors to sharpen his methods at his disposal, it didn't took long before he had managed to get himself quite a reputation. He knew of course that the other Aurors spoke behind his back, but he had proven himself a capable investigator capable of closing some of the cases that had baffled the department for years. Sadly, some cases usually involved a member of one of the Old or Noble Houses, such as the last case that he had handled and the reason that he suspected as for why he was being called.

As he made his way from his office he tried to ignore the whispers and looks that he got from the rest of the staff. One would think that they didn't had better things to do. They even went as far as to move out of his way, as if merely touching him would kill them. He also noticed the loud noise of a full sprint coming towards him.

"Hello Dora, as subtle as usual I see" he said, stopping and looking at her. She had chosen to wear a purple hair this time, and he imagined that she would be wearing some of kind of punk clothes below the mandatory black robe that was required as the uniform.

''Shu-huff-t... up'' she responded as she tried to catch up her breath. ''Everybody is saying that Madam Bones called you. Is it true?''

''Yes, I suppose that it had to do with the situation from this morning'' he said as he started to walk towards the office again.

''I told you to wait, I was already getting the arrest warrant when you came back. You rushed, and now all the work we did is going to be for nothing'' she whispered angrily.

''He was leaving the country an-'' ''So what! We could have gotten an order to extradite him and sen-'' ''He was going to Bulgaria''

That had seemed to calm her down a bit. Relations with the Bulgarian nation were never on the best terms. All the former Voldemort's supporters that didn't had enough money to buy themselves an out had tried to flee there.

''How did you knew?'' she said, still with a bit of anger in her eyes ''He made no reservations for an international portkey, we made sure. And even if he had, the moment the warrant was created any service that he may had ordered would have been cancelled."

''Because...''

''A-hem'' The sound made both turn their heads to the by now very familiar sight of an angry Madam Bones giving them a hard look ''As much as I'd like to hear the answer of that, as well as the rest of the entire hallway'' she said, shifting her sight to the numerous people that were following them without their knowing. ''I think that this very private conversation should be kept in my office. AS. ''

As both of them walked into her office Amelia Bones remembered that this was only the beggining and could't help thinking "What a shit day!"