The pot of water, half ice cubes - ice cubes were cheap, you just kept water in an otherwise empty freezer - right on his neck evoked some response. –Good. You’re alive, then. I was afraid I’d wasted all that bus and train fare.†She slid back into her outdoor slippers, catching the bunion on the left large toe momentarily, and grabbed at his coat. –Get indoors, now, this walk isn’t protected.â€
She’d left the front door open, her eyes darting up and down the street, but Mr. Tibbles was washing a paw with no apparent concern over by the driveway, and Mrs. Greenhowe toying with a woolen mouse, equally casual. Still, –In with you.â€
He managed to crawl - not exactly an edifying sight, but still, he managed, and when he was mostly over the sill she gave him a bit of encouragement with her right foot so she could slam the door behind them. She stepped over him carefully and grabbed his wet hair, raising his head up. –Do you want a shower now, or after you’ve slept it off?†she asked, and he surprised her by actually answering.
–Now. At least, soon as I’ve stood up, eh, Figgy? Not so’s you can haul my carcass up those stairs, is it?â€
He looked positively green, sitting up under the weak incandescent bulb that lit her hallway, but he waved a hand at her. –Can’t sick on your floor - nothin’ left, see.â€
–I imagine you’ve left a trail of sick from London to Hogsmeade,†she said, but stood there, all the same. –Hardly notable. I knew you when you’d have stopped at York and Edinburgh, at least, possibly Manchester and Glasgow as well, before you got that far north.†He was large - even the day she’d snuck into the bath to grab his wand he hadn’t seemed this large, and he was sitting on the floor. Dumbledore gone, I suppose this one seems larger by comparison. Well, something’s got to expand to fill the space. Dumbledore and Moody. She’d been afraid of Moody, but she’d respected him, deeply. He’d been the Auror who’d bothered to find her in the room where her father lay, found her behind the couch where she crouched still disillusioned, terrified, almost unable to speak.
–Well, I’m out of practice,†he said, –you should know that. Came by for baths last month, din’I?â€
She crossed her arms nervously. –So why were you lying in the gutter then.†She asked. –Not that I was surprised - I never expected to find you sitting up in a chair, or Merlin forbid, walking.†Now that they were back in the house she was nervous. He’d ask her why she did it, and what could she tell him? Nothing she had to say would do anything but make him lurch out the door looking for more whiskey.
He was looking up at her, one bloodshot eye unusually clear. She began to wonder if he’d really been as drunk as she’d thought - oh, he had been, sometime in the past 48 hours, but he wasn’t now, she could see it. Maybe the ice water had worked better than expected. He eyed her in way that made her nervous, but she wouldn’t show it - he was no Dementor, after all, and she’d been this close to them, before.
His eye narrowed - he was really coming around now, and when he opened his mouth she was prepared for him to be angry, but still he surprised her. ‘They sent you after me, no wand?â€
She blustered. –It’s hardly my fault I’ve no wand, you doxie dropping! I…â€
He leaned forward, fierce. –I’ll kill them. Sending an unarmed woman - how’d they know I wasn’t in on it, then?â€
He sounded fierce, but his body was shaking, and, shocked, she told him the truth. –No one thought you were in on it, you fool. His lot aren't t desperate enough.â€
Some sort of shock was setting in, and then –Damn! I wasn’t out of piss! Sorry, Figgy - your floor…â€
She thought, as she sat over her cup of tea, the shaking a little less pronounced, but what she thought, she couldn‘t say. Mostly she sat there, shaking shallowly, waiting for that incredibly huge man to come downstairs and - what? Explain? She understood already. He was a coward at heart, he’d been facing a threat, he’d run. Done a bunk, she thought they called it. Nothing to be terribly proud of.
On the other hand, she’d spent years without a television, and never gotten terribly fond of the Muggle contraptions, anyway. All advertisements for things you didn’t need, couldn’t afford, all silly stories nothing like her own life - she read. She read a great deal. And dimly in her mind was the remembrance of some Muggle book, a book where a boy ran from a battle, but then turned around, and fought the next one.
No rational assessment of Mundungus Fletcher could yield even the most unlikely hope that he’d do the same, and yet…
He’d been clean. He’d been relatively sober. For the past six weeks, every time she’d seen him - and it had been frequently, because they’d been cautious about Harry, but also about Dudley and Petunia and Vernon - there’d been an unusual amount of traffic through her house, and the neighborhood in general, and Mundungus had taken his turn, more or less sober, as far as she’d seen, and none of his dirty little associates had visited him to offer him dodgy cauldrons while he’d been watching - but then, that might just have been the luck of the draw.
Still - he’d showered in her bath more than once - she’d only gone in after him that one time, she’d gotten - well, not used to him being clean, but less shocked by it. He’d come by right before he’d gone wherever he had to meet up with Moody and the rest of them.
–Goin to the Burrow, then?†he’d asked. –I can take ye quick.â€
–No,†she’d shaken her head. –No, Dumbledore told me to watch out for Harry so long as he lived here, and I’m not leaving until he does.†She’d known it was pathetic, and yet - she’d felt that way.
He’d nodded, and turned round to the door, and only at the last minute said, –Stay inside, Figgy. It’ll be ugly out there.â€
She had. But, surprisingly, they had not come and destroyed number four Privet Drive, not yet, anyway. She’d heard they’d sacked Mad-Eye’s house instead.
–Heard,†in this case, meant, mostly, –read in the Daily Prophet.†Remus had come by, very quickly, to check - no. of course, Mad-Eye wasn’t here, why should he be…
–Dung - well, I might have done the same myself.†He wouldn’t have, of course, but he was a generous man- too generous, she thought. –I’m off to try to find the body, then, Arabella. We’d rather they not get it.â€
She read the papers, Muggle papers, had some idea of what could be done to and with a dead body… she hoped if anyone found him, it would be the Order, but she doubted anyone would. Probably vaporized when he hit,, she thought, and then shivered at her own cold-bloodedness, but what have you got left besides cold blood, Arabella Agapanthus Figg? No point in sugar-coating anything - it’s not a cat among the pixies this time - more like a tiger or a lion…â€
She heard him shuffling down the hallway, stiffened her back, as if waiting for a blow of some sort. He stopped in the doorway.
‘My flat.†He said, as if asking.
–Still there when I dropped by. Door was open - did you leave it that way.?†She asked, conversationally, while folding the corner of a paper napkin back and forth as if it were the most important thing in the world.
–I did. Expecting a delivery of - well, never you mind. Nothing in there anyone’d want,†he said, oddly even-toned.
–Well, if I were you I’d check and make sure there’s no camera or magical listening device or what have you.†He didn’t seem to pay any attention to that, he was staring at her.
‘Not a gutter, a ditch,†he said, and then began moving again, taking himself over to her counter and making himself at home looking for a mug in her cupboard. ‘Ye’ve found me in a gutter before, I’ll grant, but that one was a ditch. No gutters out in the countryside.â€
He satisfied himself with a large mug labeled –Souvenir of Brighton, 1957†and filled it with water at the sink, then brought it over to the table. Fishing around inside his robes, he came up with a teabag, terribly the worse for wear, and threw it in before hitting the cup with a warming spell.
–Supposed to boil then put the tea in, eh, Figgy? But this works better for me.â€
She had never in her wildest dreams thought Mundungus Fletcher had a theory about tea. She sat there, just sat there, trying not to shiver, trying not to sniffle, trying not to …
She’d panicked him, she’d thought, when the sobs came, men hated crying women, but he surprised her by saying, roughtly, ‘There, there, now, Figgy. There, there. Ye did all right. I’ll go along quiet-like. They have me dead to rights.â€
–Go where?: she managed to ask before blowing her nose noisily into the paper napkin, the same one she’d been torturing as she sat there. –It’s the Order of the Phoenix, you tosspot, not the Death Eaters! Do you think Remus Lupin is going to torture you in front of the rest of them? Do you think Arthur Weasley is going to imprison you in his cellar with the potatoes and kale?â€
He blinked. –Well, Figgy, now that you put it that way…†he stirred his tea once, twice, three times with his wand - she practically gagged, who knew where that had been - he tapped the wand on the tea cup and put it down carefully on the table. He gingerly picked up the tea cup, winced at it, and took a deep draft of it.
He’d washed his hair and her bathrobe, although ludicrously short on him, was a practical dark teal that hid the dirt, and quite large - she liked to wrap it around herself almost like a blanket, and they’d only had the extra-extra larges left when she got to the store that day she’d bought it - his hair was a rat’s nest, as usual, but he was remarkably clean, smelled faintly of freesia, (her shampoo) and looked - not quite like himself, all things considered.
He put the cup down and picked up his wand, playing with it idly while he went on - no, he began to, but then must have thought better of it, for he put it down on the table, and then spread his long, wide keeper’s hands out on the tablecloth.
–I… you… you called me Edward,†he said, cautiously.
She snorted feebly. –Edward Fletcher, youngest wizard ever to keep for the Winbourne Wasps. I saw you play.†And then, as the silence continued, she said, –I’d met you, of course. On platform Nine and three quarters. I was there with my father, and you were carrying a broom. You almost knocked me on the tracks, and then you caught me, and apologized, and smiled at me. You… didn’t know I was a Squibb, I suppose.†As the silence dragged on, she added, –And I saw you play at Hogwarts. For Hufflepuff. They haven’t had as good a season since.â€
–I was a strong player,†he said, quietly.
For a time he said nothing, and then, as if he didn’t want to ask, as if he knew he shouldn’t’ ask but as if someone or something was making him ask, –Why did you come find me this time?â€
She let out a breath and leaned back in her chair. –Habit, I suppose. And someone had to.â€
Whatever he might have said next was interrupted by a belch, and things seemed to be somehow normal after that, more normal at least, although neither of them said anything, just sat there until she wordlessly got up and made them some toast and an egg each, as the sun rose over Little Whinging.
Feathers for Figg by ProfPosky
Chapter Notes: There had to be some history to the two of them, didn't there?
Chapter Endnotes: The next chapter is already written, so there should be less than an eighteen month wait for it... Please review, even if the review is a "meh." I always wonder if the read count is half people who never went past the first paragraph...