Muggling Along by ProfPosky
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer: everything you recognize is the property of JKRowling. I've got one character and a tiny piece of plot here.
Thanks to my beta, BillyBob!
He was sitting in the kitchen of number 12 Grimmauld Place, staring into the fire as if it had an answer for him. He’d spent a lifetime avoiding this particular moment. He had no business having this particular moment.
A coal broke off from the log and fell further into the fire, sending up a few sparks. One landed on his clawed wooden foot, and he watched it, half hoping the thing would catch light. If he were Dung, he’d be drunk by now. Hell, if he’d been Dung, he’d have been drunk to begin with, and he would never have gotten to this moment.
Yesterday--if he’d stopped it yesterday, the situation could have been salvaged. A memory charm, that’s all it would have taken, but she’d been seen by Mulciber, and Mulciber had looked at her with that calculating glare and it hadn’t taken Legilimancy to know what he was thinking.
“You’re sure?” Lupin said, quietly. “A Muggle woman? Can’t we just…”
Alastor stared into the fire, shaking his head. “No, it’s too late for that. We can modify hers, but we can’t get to Mulciber, and he’ll have told by now. I’ve got to. I can’t think of anything else. Can you?”
He blinked. It was a hell of a position for her to be in, just from being his neighbor, and being nice, just from being lonely, really. She had to have been terribly lonely, hadn’t she, to befriend a battered old specimen such as himself?
“She can’t just go back to North America?” Lupin asked, staring at Moody’s despair. “She can’t just...”
“She’s a schoolteacher. How is she supposed to protect herself if they come calling? You can’t say they won’t. They might. Not as if they care about the illegality of unregistered Portkeys. And how can we get a wizard there to look out for her, which is the next thing you’re going to say, when we don’t know any wizards on the whole continent?”
“She’s a teacher? Isn’t there something at Hogwarts?” Lupin asked, desperately.
Moody stared into the fire. “She teaches remedial Reading and Writing, European History, and Art.” He did not bother to point out that none of these were Hogwarts’ subjects, that none of them ever had been, as far as he knew. Lupin should have realized while the words were half out of his mouth how ridiculous they were, and looking over at him, Moody knew he had.
“If you could get a few people together” Moody said, “don’t upset any schedules, but a few of the old crowd. I’m going to need a round dozen.”
“Whatever do you need a dozen for, and does that include us?”
“It includes you, Remus, but not me, and Kreacher doesn’t count. And I don’t want him there, and if I see him I’ll be transfiguring him into a gargoyle. He’s not to see her.” He stepped into the fire, and, throwing down his Floo powder with a desperate air, was gone.
Since she returned from her run in the park that morning, Elizabeth had been trying to get something done with the great home remodeling project that was dogging her, so that when she heard a knock on the door, she had to bite back a curse. Getting up off her knees carefully, to avoid stepping in the fresh varnish, she took a long step over to the carpet she hadn’t pulled up yet, almost falling. The bell sounded again, and there was pounding.
“Miss Stewart! Miss Stewart!” The voice was loud and growling. It must be her next door neighbor, Mr. Moody, here to explain gruffly that in Britain, one did not accost people in parks. She sighed as she pushed a strand of long, straight, dark hair behind her ear “ nothing, nothing would hold it in a pony tail no matter what she did with it”and reflected on her neighbor.
You’re an infernal busybody, she thought to herself, that’s what you are, and it gets you in trouble all the time. So what if the man wears pinstriped suit pants with a tweed jacket, and one ragged white trainer. You know he’s a bit odd. He might not be as short on cash as you think. Maybe he gambles. Maybe he gets a kick out of having a bright blue fake eye that doesn’t match his real one. Maybe he just doesn’t look at what other people are wearing “ some men are like that. Maybe the war finished him off. Although what war I’m not sure. Korea, maybe. That, or too much LSD in the 60’s. But he’s such a nice odd old man. In fact, he was not even terribly old “ just about her father’s age, probably. Just old enough to be horrified “ actually horrified, by her running up to him in the park and telling him about the sale at the corner store.
He wouldn’t understand, she was sure.
“Miss Stewart!!!” he was screaming when she opened the door. He had changed since the morning and was now wearing a black suit so old it seemed he might have stolen it from Humphrey Bogart, along with a fresh white shirt, a bow tie, and the trainer. The bowtie was a color she could not quite describe, even while looking at it, and he seemed to be at a bit of a loss.
“Earlier, in the park…” he began, but did not continue. He was picking uncomfortably at the flaking grey paint on the doorjamb.
The house was in chaos. She was refinishing the floor and pulled up bits of carpet were all over, as well as patches where she had tried little squares of varnish, and it hadn’t worked properly. After five days it still wasn’t dry. The furniture was huddled in a corner, as if taking cover and the one chair she had been sitting on was covered with magazines, in all of which other people’s home renovations were marching along perfectly, page after shining page. He seemed to notice none of this as he entered and motioned for her to sit, which she did, with a sigh.
“Earlier, in the park,” he began again, but she interrupted him.
“I’m really sorry I bothered you. I just “ I don’t tend to run into people I know, and it was so nice to see you, and that sale was all I could think of to start a conversation with but…” She saw that he was listening, but not hearing a word she said.
“When I was gone teaching…” he started, only to stop again.
“Well, I may as well…” He looked almost anguished, which was nothing like him. Usually he had a dry sense of humor and a rasping laugh, when he wasn’t warning her about anything from Japanese beetles to leaving second story windows unlocked. Now that she thought about it, it was odd that someone who was always warning her seemed so”confident, really. He never seemed frightened.
He took out a thin wooden stick. He looked at it wryly, and gave it a polish on his sleeve. Then, with an air of great solemnity and expectation, he tapped himself on the head..
“This,” he said expectantly, “is what I really look like.”
Absolutely nothing happened.
“It’s exactly what you always look like,” she said, puzzled. “Well, except for the suit.”
“The missing piece of my nose? The whizzing eye? The claw-footed leg?” He was clearly confused.
She regarded him more closely. His eye was whizzing around, and she’d never seen it do that before.
“I always knew that part of your nose was missing. And I always knew you had a real wooden leg, and thought the foot was a sort of joke. The eye whirling about is a bit scary.” She stopped for a moment, then continued, “but not QUITE as scary as the way you reacted to me in the park.”
It was not the reaction he had expected. It was very much not the reaction he had expected.
He started pacing across the very small expanse of floor that was not covered with wet varnish, carpet debris or furniture. He wandered two steps east, ran up against the fireplace, turned, strode two paces west found himself at the archway to the hall. Every few feet he stopped, opened his mouth like a fish, and then closed it again. Occasionally he shook his head. Finally he stopped, and sighed.
“Can we start over? Pretend this is a normal visit “ you, coming over for New Year’s, let’s say?
She nodded, warily.
“All right then, let’s take it from the top…Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Stewart?”
“Yes, thank you. I could really use one.”
He waved the little stick, and a tray appeared on the Ottoman in front of her, complete with a rose-covered teapot. She had the same rose-covered teapot in her storage unit in New Jersey. It was the most popular china pattern in the world.
She reached out a hand to touch it. It was hot.
That heat was real, and she started to shake. He’s the same harmless old guy who tells you what to feed the rosebushes, Lizzie. He’s the same nice guy who comes over on Christmas for lunch so you won’t be all alone. Stay calm, Lizzie, stay calm…
“How did you do that?” she asked, with an attempt at nonchalance which was totally ruined by the hitch in her voice.
“I’m a wizard,” he said plainly, and watched her.
“A wizard.” It hung in the air, and he seemed to be waiting for a response “ possibly, from the uncertain look on his face, an hysterical one. She spoke the first words which came into her mind, “where is your pointy hat?” It was ridiculous, but the only thing she could think of. Don’t be an idiot, Lizzie, it’s the end of the 20th century. They probably don’t wear pointy hats any more. Stop picturing Mickey Mouse and Gandalf and…
“I don’t wear one. Not in my line of work. I have to move around among “ non-magic folk too much. I do have a few. I could show them to you. If it would make you feel better,” he answered, simply.
“Right, you’re a “ Wizard.” Wizards and Witches. Bad stuff, Wizards and Witches, but why was that? Oh yes, oh yes, now she remembered.
It couldn’t be. He was just a nice old man. But clearly, he had done something very”strange. Her teapot “ well, the teapot, then”was hot.. . I have to ask. He could lie, but I have to ask anyway. I at least have to ask. Of course, she had never asked anyone anything quite like that before… “Are you…Do you…”
“No, I don’t worship the Devil!” he growled. He looked at her, and softened. “How would you know any different. No, it’s like “ having perfect pitch. Magic is something some people have, and others don’t. You’re just born that way, girl. Good and evil have nothing to do with it.”
It was true. It had the feel of truth to it. She exhaled. ”Would have seemed fairer and felt fouler” she thought. I read the right books.
Carefully, she lifted the teapot and poured. Hot liquid came out of the spout into the cup, and she put the pot down. Gingerly, she lifted the china cup and sipped from the lip.
“This is lousy tea,” she said, looking up into his eyes.
“Well, I’m a lousy cook,” he said simply, looking back at her, and then, they both started to laugh.
An hour and several scones later, she sat back in the chair. “So, what it seems is that you are a wizard, there is a terrible Evil Wizard trying to take over the world, and now I am in danger because I was seen talking to you by one of their henchmen..."
“Right.”
“So these men, the ones who are after you…”
“No, they don’t either, as far as I know, but they might as well,” he replied grimly.
“And they want to hurt me to get to you. Are you really that important? Not that I think you’re bragging, just…it seems so…”
He laughed sourly. “Not important. I put quite a few of them in prison, years ago. That…despised. Of which I’m proud. Hard on you though.”
“So you told me all this to get me to agree to go home. And I suppose I won’t remember any of it, either.”
“Would have been right in one, if I’d thought of this last week, before Mulciber saw you. I’m afraid going home won’t be enough now. We’re going to have to hide you.”
“A sort of magical witness protection program,” she said, evenly.
“No idea what that is.”
“Well, they put you in a new city, with a new identity, and you can’t contact anyone you know…that sort of thing.”
“Not even. Hidden means hidden. And I can’t just use magic to hide a Muggle. Not that simple, I’m afraid.”
He grimly took a small vial out of his pocket and opened it, pouring the liquid directly down his throat, swallowing.. She watched his Adams apple move and there seemed “ there seemed to be something draining out of him, although it was nothing she could see. He seemed less alive than he had a moment ago.
“What is that, poison? Something’s gone wrong. Why did you do that? I don’t understand!” she felt a little paniced, as if she ought to b edoing something, although she was not sure what that something would be.
“This is what I am without Magic,” he said. Gathering something up into himself, he continued, as if he had rehearsed it and had it by heart, "we have the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. I shouldn’t even have told you any of what I‘ve told you. No, we have to get you into the Wizarding World, and the only way to do that is for you to marry into it.”
“You want me to marry some poor wizard? Who? What must he have done to deserve a “ what do you call us? “Muddled” wife? How desperate must he be? Or how noble, to marry just to protect me. I can’t let someone do that. Should I?” She shivered at the description he’d given her of these Death Dealers and what they could do “ would love to do “ to her.
“No, child. I’m asking you to marry me.”
*****
Hermione Granger was having a field day. Somehow this wedding had brought out her inner Molly Weasley, which was a startling and somewhat alarming complication in an already forceful young woman.
“Mrs. Weasley is too busy with Bill and Fleur to cook. I’m going to just get Muggle catering --they’ll deliver it to my parent’s house and I’ll apparate with it here --that sorts this place not having decent refrigeration as well. Not that Mad Eye is going to eat it in any case. Note to Mad Eye, bring a sandwich for yourself.” The Quick Quotes Quill trailing around behind her noted this on a parchment floating beneath it. “I think the best room would be the parlor here, maybe we can hang something in front of the Tapestry.”
Remus Lupin, preparing for the full moon by drinking his dose of Wolfsbane potion “ choking it down, more like “ was trying to keep out of her way.
“Did you say Minerva was coming, Remus? Some of this transfiguration is really a bit beyond my skills. If we had her here we could save the cost of the drapes, as well. That would leave more for the cake. Has Mad- Eye given the go-ahead yet? Not that she’s going to say no, but I just feel a little leery…No, of course she’s going to say yes. He said she wasn’t a fool, didn’t he?”
She turned around to look at Remus, who had grave reservations about this entire plan. The problem was that no matter what he ran through his mind, he couldn’t come up with a better one. Maybe if any one of them knew more about the Muggle world they’d have been able to think of a different answer…
“Hermione,” he asked, slapping his forehead, “your parents are Muggles. Do you think they know someplace we could just send her to wait this out?”
“How could they, Remus, when I’ve been very ,very carefully keeping them in the dark for years? How would they have any idea what the Death-Eaters can do, and where someone would have to go to be clear of them? As crazy as it sounds, I think this is probably the best we’re likely to come up with.”
“But Hermione, we’re marrying this poor Muggle woman off to a man with exploding trash bins and a bright blue eye that can see through walls. He’s having to bring a sandwich to his own Wedding, for Merlin’s sake! I mean, he’s my friend, and a truer friend or more honorable man was never born, but as a husband…”
She turned to face him squarely, with blood in her eye. “Remus Lupin you have some very strange ideas about marriage and what women want from their husbands. There may be women who are overly concerned about things like physical appearance or social acceptance, but you’re not going to find them here in the Order.”
“Well, she’s not in the Order, is she?” he snapped back at her.
“She’s friends with him, isn’t she? She knows he’s missing bits and,” she grew suddenly concerned, “Remus, the bits he’s missing “ are there any that we can’t see, I mean, can’t see with his clothes on?”
“What? WHAT? No, Hermione, he’s an intact male.” Lupin was blushing to his hairline. “As if that’s going to make a difference. I mean, I doubt it’s going to be that sort of marriage.”
“Really? And why not? She’s going to want children someday, isn’t she? Is she so ugly that Mad Eye wouldn’t...” she seemed suddenly unsure.
“The sum total of what I know about her is that she lives next door to Mad Eye and that when she saw him in the park yesterday she accosted him, screaming 'Mr. Moody' at the top of her lungs and telling him about a sale at the corner shop. Lettuce and tea bags, if I recall. She ought to be here soon. He was going to take her to the Ministry for the license, and then bring her back here while he goes to make arrangements with the celebrant. Apparently her being a Muggle complicates it?”
“Of course,” Hermione replied confidently, for it to be unassailable, she’s got to be married in a Muggle ceremony, and he’s got to be married in a magical ceremony, and you don’t want two different ceremonies because then that raises the question of whether either one is actually legal if you have to have both, so you have to someone who is recognized by both parties. I Flooed Luna Lovegood, and of course she had a name for me. Do you need another to make a dozen? She said she’d be happy to come if you need her, and I’m sure Neville Longbottom would as well, although of course since it’s here you might not want them to, although I suspect they’ll be knocking on the door wanting to join as soon as they’re done seventh year “ or is that just Molly’s rule, and not the Order’s?”
“It has never actually been established, and we ought to look at it. Between one thing and another, we’re short handed. He had to time it so he’d be asking her while Arthur’s on his lunch hour from the Ministry and could go over there so they’d have a guard of four, and at that one of the four was Arabella.”
“A guard? Do wizard proposals require a ceremonial guard?” Her voracious mind was engaged.
He laughed. “No," he explained "but Moody did. He insisted, in fact, because he was washing out his magic and when you do that you’re never certain it’ll come back when it’s supposed to. Or at all.”
The quick Quotes Quill fell to the floor. “Mad-Eye did something to his magic?” The quiet force with which she said it showed how well she understood what that meant.
“He didn’t want anyone, especially her, to be able to question whether she’d been influenced magically, or downright Imperioused.”
“But that’s an awful chance to take, for all of us!” Hermione was practically shaking.
“He had to do it, Hermione, and it’s actually the one part of his crazy scheme I agree with. At least she’ll never have a doubt that she made up her own mind. They say onlookers can actually feel your magic draining out of you. It’s incredibly painful for other wizards to watch--almost as bad as the Dementor’s kiss, I’m told--but even Muggles feel it.”
She shook herself and tried to focus. “I hope she’s worth it,” she said. “Mad-Eye…”
“Is honorable to a fault. Well, he hasn’t got that many friends to begin with, and I’ve never heard of his befriending a Muggle ever, so she must be special in some way.”
“I’d bet you ten gallons she befriended him. She befriended him, and I suppose he let her “ he can be off putting enough, and if he didn’t like her he could always just have modified her memory so she didn’t know she knew him…”
Just at that moment, the bell rang and Mrs. Black started screaming. “Remind me to get to her later, Remus, I’ve been doing some reading and I think I can shut her up for the wedding.”
Remus, paling at the thought of Mrs. Black realizing an actual Bona Fide Muggle was entering her home, ran down the steps, cup in one hand, to answer the door.
Hermione was Scourgifying the window when she heard Tonks at the door of the room say, “and sit right down and finish it, right this minute, and then it’ll be over and I will kiss the vile taste into oblivion. Wotcher, Hermione.!”
“Hello Tonks. Do you have the robes?’
Tonks lay a package down on the sofa and walked over to where Hermione was cleaning the window, pulling out her wand and setting a vanishing spell on the dust bunnies in the corner of the room. “There was not a place open that sold them unless I wanted to go down Knockturn Alley, no thank you, so I nipped into a few Muggle shops--the ones with second hand duds. Usually you can’t move in them for the wedding dresses hanging up, but it must be the season--I only ran into a few, and most of them were really dreadful--very cheap lace, in abundance. I got the least vile of the lot; maybe Minerva can do something with it.”
“How do you think she’s taking it?" Tonks asked, most of the dust bunnies gone and the pillows plumping themselves under the influence of her wand, “seeing Mad-Eye properly for the first time I mean.”
Hermione looked at her with a wrinkle between her brows. “Well, I saw him this morning, and it’s very subtle. He looks like what I suppose he did look like before pieces started coming off of him, maybe a bit younger. It’s not a huge change, but I actually didn’t recognize him. By the way,” she added, looking sideways at Tonks with a sly smile, “All the working parts are there. I asked Remus.”
The girls looked at each other, and Tonks said, “My Remus?” and started giggling. “What color did he turn?”
“Let’s just say,” offered Hermione, with an air of satisfaction, “that if he ever becomes an Animagus we might recommend Lobster. Looks lovely in Red.”
They were enjoying this thought when the doorbell sounded again and they heard Lupin answer it it. “Who are we expecting?”
There wasn’t really time for Tonks to answer before Minerva McGonagall swept into the room. “I’ve half an hour. What needs fixing?”
Hermione pointed to the tapestry, about to explain, but Minerva cut her off. “No need,” she said, pursing her lips. With a wave of her wand it grew green ribbon leaves of various subtle colors, with pale pink, yellow and burgundy roses bunched over the names. A second wave brought a similar window treatment out of the heavy drapes, the material turning to gossamer and the gargoyle head tassels to bunches of the same three dimensional silk ribbons. With another, the couches were covered in a cream silk noil. “Potter will never see it, and at any rate, it will be back to normal the day after tomorrow.”
“Can’t we get him here for the wedding?” Hermione asked. “Mad-Eye did know his parents. They would have been invited.”
Minerva looked at her with a steely eye. “The Order is quite shorthanded as it is, Miss Granger. Potter needs a guard, and the risk, just for a wedding…” Seeing the look on Hermione’s face, she sighed. “He doesn’t take well to being left out, does he? Let me think about it, Miss Granger. If only they didn’t have to get the license. If we could have done this in total secrecy…but I suspect there will be Death Eaters watching his aunt’s house… I promise you I will consider the matter. Your note mentioned robes?”
Tonks turned to respond. “They’re on the couch, Minerva. It’s a Muggle wedding dress, the best I could do. We were about to scourgify it.”
Minerva already had the dress out of the bag and spread across the sofa. “A little worse for the wear aren’t we?” she seemed to ask it. “A bit tortured, as well. I think, the gravy…”
It was gone.
“And a nicer fabric.”
It was now silk
“With some lace on the train, and the hemline.”
She was surveying it with a seamstresses eye, and Hermione and Tonks were dumbfounded. “Do we know her height and build, Nymphadora?”
“About my height, slender--willowy, even. Dark brown hair,” the witch provided. “I couldn’t tell you a thing about her face or her figure other than that, though. I only ever saw her from the back. She was going into her house when I was heading up Mad-Eyes’ walk once. I know that must be the neighbor, though. On the other side they might as well be the Dursleys, and anyway, that’s a married couple. Somehow I think if Mad-Eye is getting married to her she must be single.”
“Oh, I don’t know that a little detail like a Muggle husband would stop him, but I recall the couple you mention. Vile creatures. They’re the ones who called the Muggle authorities about his trash bins.”
“He hasn’t gotten in trouble since?” Hermione said, suddenly thinking. “I hadn’t given it any thought, but everyone said he was paranoid, and he is, but is it only a bit, or am I just used to it?”
“Six of one, and half a dozen of the other, Miss Granger. When everyone says there is no threat, the next problem could come from anywhere, couldn’t it? But when you have a clear threat, and know where to expect it from, you needn’t start at every little thing, and even if you do, other people are more prone to consider it reasonable. So we know how they met?”
“He told me she watered his roses and took in his Ramora from the pond for the winter the year he was locked in his trunk,” Hermione mentioned, “but I think they must have been on nodding terms before then. I know she’s been in his home. He said he didn’t think she liked the furniture.”
“Oh, well, he’s got the standard Ministry approved Muggle décor, doesn’t he?” said Tonks. “They haven’t changed it since Grindelwald. Muggles don’t actually have to go in to his house in the normal way of things, he could just have an enchantment on the windows, but you know he never does anything by halves.”
“Muggle décor?” Hermione asked.
“The Ministry has approved items of furniture, paintings, things of that sort,” Tonks continued, “because you can’t exactly have a painting of Barnaby the Barmy training Trolls for the Ballet hanging in your hall when the Muggle pumblers come to fix a pipe in your flat. If you’ve got your own house it’s less of an issue, because you wouldn’t have to invite Muggles in. Arabella’s been stuck with it since Harry went to live with the Dursleys. But we’ve made her house unplottable and performed the Fidelius Charm on it, so at this point she can change it. If I were her I’d be excited.”
“Where do you live, Tonks?” Hermione asked.
“Grubby little bed-sit on a dodgy side of town,” she replied with a smile, “and I make sure the street looks grubbier and grubbier every time a certain Werewolf walks down it. I’m hoping he can be convinced to take me away from all that…”
“You’re breaking my concentration, ladies.” The girls turned back to Minerva, who was magically steaming the completed dress with her wand. Hermione and Tonks gasped as one.
“Are you positive you’re not a fairy godmother?” Hermione said, after swallowing. “That is the most amazing dress I have ever seen.”
“Oh, thank you. I’m satisfied. It’s charmed to fit, and I can always make a minor adjustment or two. Was there a headpiece with it, or must I appropriate one of Kreacher’s towels?”
“Oh, it’s pathetic, but if you can do that with the dress…” Tonks pulled a crumpled white mess out of the bag. “Looks like an albino Acromatula to me, as it is,” she noted.
With the steam from her wand Minerva uncrumpled the wad of veiling and spread it out over the couch. The girls watched her in fascination as she frowned at the dress, and then at the veil. The edges of the tulle curled into lace appliqués before their eyes, the illusion itself elongated, and the tatty fake pearls, bent and twisted on their little wire stems, unfurled to become real pearls and wax petals, turning into flowers reminiscent of those in the lace. As a final touch, it was dusted lightly with the tiniest of twinkles. “Rhinestones, but they’ll do. Diamonds don’t work,” she said with finality.
“Those are permanent transfigurations. She ought to be able to keep her dress. Young ladies always did, in my day.” She swept out of the room before they could ask any questions, and was saying goodbye to Lupin at the door before they caught their breaths.
*******
At the Ministry of Magic, things were going…oddly.
Oddly, that is, for the Wizards at the Ministry. Somewhere earlier during the day Lizzie had given up all grasp on reality as she had known it for thirty-six years.
“It was a case of go, or don’t go, but there was no room for negotiation, so I just…went,” was how she would describe it later.
That reaction hadn’t begun in the phone booth where she was issued a visitor’s pass “ the mechanical voice which spoke to them did not seem to have the power to be astounded. A few people did look oddly at them as they walked down the hallway to the security desk, but Mr. Moody had muttered near her ear, “Ignore them,” and she had. The Security Wizard was another story.
“Damn interns,” Moody muttered to her as they approached the desk. “Follow my lead.” Turning to the desk, he said, “Alastor Moody, ex-Auror, and Elizabeth Stewart.” The badges on their chests proclaimed them there to file for a license, but did not state what type, and the intern, looking nervously at her cheat sheet, did not ask.
“Wand,” she said, uncertainly, to Moody, staring from him down to a list on her desk and back again.
He dropped his wand into the scale pan and it vibrated, a ticker tape coming out of the base. The attendant read it aloud to him, “Willow and Veela Hair, been in use twenty five years. Is that right?”
He winced almost imperceptibly and said “Yes,” taking the wand back from the device without ever allowing the young witch to touch it.
“Wand,” she said to Elizabeth.
“I don’t have one.”
The attendant seemed stunned, and her composure slipped. “No wand? Everyone has a wand!”
Elizabeth just looked at her.
“Left it home? Stolen? Are you here to report a stolen Wand?” The young lady was becoming insistent, and Elizabeth just looked at Moody.
“Oh, OOOH. Yes, well, then…” she was looking everywhere but at Elizabeth as she came out from behind the desk to scan them with what looked like a funny form of Muggle Metal detector. They both passed and were waved through, without the young woman actually glancing at her again
“Probably thinks you’re a Death Eater I’m bringing in,” Moody growled in her ear, “and the wand is a throw-down. I brought it because I’m not too popular here and if it were confiscated, I wouldn’t mind loosing it. My actual wand is not Veela hair!” He said this with some emphasis, as if it were quite important that she understand and believe this point, and she filed it away as one of the things to ask about later. Had she been numbering them, it would have been number two hundred and eighty seven.
As they continued down a hallway which reminded her forcibly of every government hallway she had ever passed down in her life, she picked up the sound of footsteps running. Moody had, too, and he shoved her down and behind him and had his wand out before she opened her mouth.
“Stop right there, whoever you are!” he thundered.
“Hmm! Hmm!” It sounded like someone pretending to cough, and was followed by a childish voice. “It’s only me, Alastor, and you should put the wand away. We don’t like wands out here in the halls of the Ministry. Why certainly…”
“Certainly I of all people have reason to be suspicious of anyone who comes up behind me, no matter who they look like, Dolores. I’ve got no proof you are who you say you are, so if you’ll stand aside I’ll just continue on my way.”
Lizzie heard the throat-clearing noise again. “Well, that is the question,” the woman said, in a fake-pleasant voice which Lizzie was certain had never fooled anyone, “isn’t it? Because you told the booth attendant that you were here for a wedding license, and we both know that can’t be correct.”
“It is, and I am. Last I checked, Dolores, it was perfectly legal to come to the Ministry for a wedding license. In fact, I believe it is strongly encouraged. Now if you will budge off, I will go and do just that.”
“Who do you have there behind you? Is that your Bride? Do I know her?” The woman was evidently trying to edge around Moody and get a look at her, because he was moving now, and she was kept, she was not sure how, somewhere down behind his knees.
“Unless you’ve suddenly become head of the Domestic Licensing Bureau, Dolores, stand aside. You can go browbeat the clerk there for details later,” he said firmly.
“What’s going on here!” a firm and unyielding voice questioned from somewhere behind the woman.
“Scrimgeour, call off your lackey here. I’ve come to get a wedding license, no more, no less, and she’s ambushing me from behind and attempting to assault my fiancé.
“Is this young woman known to the Ministry?” the unpleasant man asked.
“I doubt it,” Moody returned.
“She did not attend Hogwarts?”
“No.”
“Are you certain you didn’t meet her while you were teaching there?”
Moody barked a laugh. “I can’t say as I met anyone while I was locked in my own trunk, Minister. No. I’ve known her since before that.”
“Really,” replied the man’s voice, “and yet she’s unknown to the Ministry?”
“Well, she minds her business and doesn’t cause much trouble, and it’s not as if anyone in the Ministry takes tea with me of a Tuesday afternoon, is it?”
The woman’s voice chimed in again, “We’d love to meet your Bride, Alastor. We so seldom meet anyone new.”
“Well, she’s not exactly new. In her thirties, actually. And you may meet her, but I’m not introducing you. I like her, you see.”
There was an indrawn breath of what could only be outrage, and a low throated growl that didn’t sound all that different from Mr. Moody’s, and then what seemed to be a final warning, “Make sure she’s registered as a foreign witch then, Moody. In these days we can’t be too careful.”
There were footsteps, then, and the sound of the two of them moving off. Moody turned around and put out his hand to help her up. He broke into a smile. “You’re a quick study and a smart girl. Thanks. That went as well as could possibly have been expected, thanks to you.”
She got up, with an unsteady smile on her face. “Does she look like a frog? I swear I was expecting to hear a tongue zapping a fly any second.” She darted her eyes over to him, and they both smiled.
The licensing itself was quite a letdown after that. The office was small, and crowded. “We’ve been shunted in here so they can use the lovely large counters for people filing reports about Death Eater activities and apply for assistance,” the clerk explained. “Here are the forms. They’re talking about adding another ten inches to them, but they haven’t gotten around to it yet, so you’re in luck.”
Filling them out required a few whispered questions.
“So your first name is Alastor? How do you spell that?”
“You were born where? Well, I don’t suppose you’d know the Wizarding district that’s in?”
“Why do they want to know how far apart my tear ducts are?”
“Could you tell me the names of your parents, and their shoe sizes?”
The crowning glory of it was signing the papers. Moody signed his name with his wand, while she looked on in wonder. She went to sign with the quill (which had leaked puce ink all over her hand and the robe of Mr. Moody’s she’d borrowed for the afternoon) but the attendant had stopped her. “Tut, tut, tut,” he’d said, pointing with his own quill at the sign.
It clearly stated “All applications must be signed with a Magical Signature.”
“You want me to sign with a wand?” Liz asked.
He looked at her with a helpful air, “That would be easiest.”
“But I don’t have a wand.”
This seemed to constitute a professional challenge to the little man, who was obviously standing on a box behind the counter. “Well, we need a magical signature. Would you happen to have a vial of blood? I have a list here of the types of blood that we accept…”
“Er, no. Would my own do?”
He checked the list carefully, humming slightly and moving his eyeglasses to the top of his head, squinting, as if he needed bifocals and didn’t have them. “No, I’m afraid…you aren’t a Veela, are you? Or part Mer?”
She looked sideways at Moody, who shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
“Was your wand stolen or broken? We had a memo on that…yes,” he said, pulling up a piece of parchment which looked as if it had recently been a paper airplane, “in due deference to the recent disappearance of wandmakers in Diagon Alley and the difficulty of foreign travel at this time…” Yes, here it is, if you’ve got the number of the “Report of a Wand Stolen or Destroyed”, which is form 963 A, then we can just...”
“No, it wasn’t lost or stolen,” she said.
“Lent it to someone? There’s a form here you can fill out explaining who has it and why and…”
“No,” she interrupted, “I just don’t have one.”
“Don’t have one?” he seemed terribly confused.
“No, I 've never needed one,” she filled in.
At this, she felt he would have quailed if he had let himself, and she began to feel a respect for him beyond that of a conscientious worker. “Do you mean that all your magic is wandless?” he said, ending with a bit of a tremor. “No, don’t tell me… I’m a simple man, I don’t need to know…I’ll just call Mafalda. She usually knows what to do in obscure situations.”
He pointed his wand at a little ashtray on his desk and set a small fire. Then he threw in what looked like kitty litter. “Mafalda Hopkirk, Improper Use of Magic Office.
A tiny face appeared in the small fire. “How may I help you?” it asked.
“I’ve got a woman here for a wedding license, and she hasn’t got a wand to sign with. We don’t keep blood ink supplied, either.”
“Perhaps you could lend her a wand? Do you have any One-Shot-Wonders around?”
“We’re out of everything, and what we aren’t out of, we can’t find. There must be another way. We can’t ask her to use someone else’s wand…”
“Oh no!” the little head agreed, scandalized, apparently, at having even heard the suggestion. “If she’s there for a wedding license, is there someone with her who can testify to her identity?”
Moody nodded.
“Well then, just have her write her name in ink, and have him sign beneath it with his wand. Frankly,” she continued, in an undertone, “we can’t compel anyone to use magic. A handwritten signature in ink is just as legal. Fudge came up with that rule, if I recall, and it’s unsupportable under the bylaws, so don’t worry. His witnessing will be more than sufficient.”
“You’re quite sure of that, Mafalda?” Moody asked.
“Is that you, Alastor? My word, what are you doing in the Ministry?”
“Wedding license.”
The head fell forward, followed by a thumping sound. The clerk, astonished, looked up at them.
“She’s fainted!”
Author's note: When Elizabeth is thinking in her living room, the seven words she quotes are from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. by JRR Tolkien. This is merely an allusion, and there is no crossover in this or any future chapter.