Arthur Weasley's Secret Admirer

"We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy." (Chamber of Secrets, Chapter Four, page 62)

Arthur Weasley sat at his desk in his office at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry of Magic. Care was written in the lines of his face, loss of sleep in the shadows beneath his eyes. His once abundant mop of bright red hair was faded and thinned, but he had maintained the trim waistline of his youth, perhaps through many years of supporting a large family on a modest salary. His life's work was in ruins.

That morning he had confronted that rat Runcorn for informing on Dirk Cresswell. People like that now had the opportunity to promote their worthless selves by destroying others, but he was still trying to discourage it. He knew but still could not believe that someone like that could bring down as talented and accomplished a wizard as Dirk Cresswell. But in spite of what he had said, he doubted whether anyone really survived Azkaban with their powers intact, except Sirius, who had been a dog, and Bellatrix Lestrange, who had already been nuts before she went in. He shuddered to think of the poor innocent witches and wizards who were heading there now, or would be soon enough, and of their families. They would be better off going into hiding than answering the summons of the Muggle-born Registration Commission.

And Runcorn thought he could frighten him by asking him whether he knew he was being tracked. As if he didn't know who directed the Ministry now. As if he didn't see Moody's old eye following everyone from Umbridge's office door. As if he didn't know that there was a file on him in that office, or didn't imagine that they were searching his own. If they tracked him outside the Ministry, they could find him returning to his home every evening, and he was careful to keep his contacts with the other members of the Order of the Phoenix to the sort that they could not track.

But could they catch the words that were spoken privately in every room of the Ministry? He had heard that Muggles had devices for doing that more effectively than the ones Fred and George had made for pranksters. He had once asked Hermione whether she could bring him one from one of her summer vacations, because he wanted to see how it worked. She had laughed and said that her family didn't use them, and that Muggles had laws restricting the use of such things, like the wizard laws about the inappropriate use of magic.

Most witches and wizards had always thought him a harmless eccentric, collecting Muggle plugs and batteries, taking apart motors and even lighting matches. But for those who raised the slogan "Magic is Might," his love of non-magical power sources was treason. "Blood traitor," they had always called him, and "Muggle-lover," and no one needed to say those things in a whisper anymore. Now the word "Mudblood" was spoken loudly as well, but it didn't refer to him, or he wouldn't still be here. For Arthur Weasley was a pure-blood wizard.

Even his family used to rib him about sometimes breaking the laws it was his job to enforce, because he used to police the enchantment of Muggle artifacts, and sometimes he experimented using magic on some of the Muggle artifacts he collected himself. But if Molly complained about him making a loophole in the law, she had missed the point. His only aim in writing the Muggle Protection Act had been to prevent witches and wizards from abusing and harming Muggles. He meant to stop wizards who hurt Muggles by bewitching objects that were in use by the Muggles themselves, and to confiscate any Dark Magic artifacts, which were made to do harm.

He had come of age during the previous time when Voldemort and his Death Eaters had been powerful, and the murder and torture of Muggles had been rampant. He had devoted his career to trying to make sure that it would never happen again. He had thought that defending Muggle rights from within the Ministry and stopping those smaller abuses would make a difference. He had tried to prevent the rearming of Dark Wizards, and to create the legal edifice that would head them off. With what success, he thought bitterly. To see it happening all over again. To see Voldemort and his followers becoming more powerful than ever before, taking charge of the government for which he supposedly still worked.

The Death Eaters had left him in the post that Scrimgeour had given him after the Ministry had finally admitted that Voldemort was back, heading the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects. His new bosses did not much care if he confiscated such things, although they would just as soon keep them in circulation. Those who were actually fighting back were unlikely to be fooled by them anyway. Voldemort was more interested in finding out about genuine defensive spells or protective artifacts, especially if there were any new ones, and they tried to use his office for that purpose.

He knew that Pius Thicknesse, who had been the head of Magical Law Enforcement, had already been under the Imperius Curse last summer when he ordered Arthur to compile a list of all defensive spells and protective artifacts in use, supposedly to help him in his work. He was still supposed to be maintaining this list, and he tried to keep the most important information off of it, while reporting as best he could to the Order of the Phoenix on what his bosses knew. But his staff no longer worked for him, and he could not control what they did. He tried to keep himself going by reminding himself that he no longer worked for the Ministry but for the Order. Yet it was against the habits of a lifetime for him to think of himself as a spy.

When the coup came that made Thicknesse Minister of Magic and made the Death Eater Yaxley head of Arthur's own department, he had expected their first act to be to repeal the Muggle Protection Act. They had done him one better by leaving the title intact and erasing the contents, replacing them with prohibitions on certain forms of Muggle protection. Of course he no longer had any voice in creating the laws, and there was little he could do to prevent the implementation of any horrible new decree. But what tortured him most of all was the interrogations in the courtrooms below. Once he had been asked to participate, and he had simply refused, telling them he had work to do, with the implication that he did not consider the destruction of other people's lives to be work. He had been a little surprised at the lack of immediate consequences to himself.

He knew this couldn't last much longer. His days at the Ministry were surely numbered. But it was not so easy for them to dislodge a pure-blood wizard who had worked there for so long and been well-liked by most of the staff. Their encroachment on the Ministry had been gradual, accompanied by careful manipulation of public opinion. Everything done within a legal framework, as piece by piece they twisted the law to their evil purpose, paving the way for each piece with propaganda and lies. There was a rumor that a new act was somewhere in the works that would target witches and wizards with blood status who protected Muggle-borns. They would probably call it "the Muggle-born Protection Act" or some such thing, and then they would try to arrest him. But they wanted a pure-blood society, and there weren't even enough pure-blood wizards to staff the Ministry, let alone the whole society. The whole thing was what his son Ron would call mental.

He had some fear of Umbridge, who was known to like interrogating people with Veritaserum, slipping it into beverages, which he knew enough to avoid taking with her. She was so obsessed with finding Harry Potter, whose whereabouts he no longer knew, that she might be too stupid to ask him about anything else. But there were things he knew about the Order and its activities that he would prefer not to share with her, and there were still a few Muggle-borns and people with Muggle-born spouses whose identities he was protecting.

He believed that there were still people at the Ministry who agreed with him, and in a quiet way he tried to encourage them by his example. If his being here could do that, if it could help protect a single witch or wizard from the Commission or a Muggle from some depraved attack, if it was helping to keep any information from the Death Eaters or pass any information to the Order, he would stay, must stay, as long as he could. When the time came he would grab his broom from the closet and go to join his comrades, and if he couldn't get there he would die trying. It would probably be a relief, after all this uncertainty, to draw his wand and summon all the magic he had ever known to fight for his life. He would not go quietly. He would give them cause to remember the wizard he was...

He was sure he had as much magic as the other members of the Order he had known, except Dumbledore of course, even if he didn't flaunt it as much. Even if he couldn't change the shape of his face at will or see out of the back of his head, even if he couldn't transform himself into an animal. As a schoolboy he had not needed to wander all over the region of Hogsmeade in such a disguise by the light of the full moon, mapping things about it that no one else knew. He had had better things to do when there was a moon over Hogwarts, having found love in his school days. He and Molly, in their time, had not needed uncharted passages out of the castle to find those places in and around it that were suitable for discreet kissing and cuddling. Where they had secretly laughed and gloated about the fact that while their arrogant housemates carried the Gryffindor banner, they sported its proud color on their own heads. Even then they talked of having many children, of what gender they did not care, but they hoped they would all be redheads, and all Gryffindors.

He knew he was a powerful wizard, because once in his youth, during the previous Voldemort era, he had successfully resisted the Imperius Curse. He had not told anyone at the time because he didn't think anyone would believe him, though he had found out since that it could be done, if a witch or wizard's will was strong enough. Many witches and wizards were Imperiused in those days, but his contempt for the Death Eaters and their commands had been as powerful then as it was now. In retrospect it had been unmistakable, the erasure of worry, the empty-headed contentment coming up against his inability to forget, the irresistible command struggling with his abomination of the command, the latter finally bursting out in the cry "NO I WON'T!" But there was something else that whoever had tried to command him had not quite been able to erase from his mind: the certainty that if he obeyed the command, Molly would be furious.

His children...Molly...sometimes he thought that the strain of bearing them had been little to her compared with the strain of worrying about them all. Sometimes he wished that she would let her hair down a little, that he saw more glimpses of the wicked witch who had run away with him in their youth, from parents who did not want a son-in-law with no pile of gold in Gringotts. Now that they were all in so much danger, he knew that worrying was pointless.

For some reason he was remembering an occasion that seemed like a million years ago, but in fact it was five, when he had hurled himself at Lucius Malfoy in Flourish and Blotts bookstore in Diagon alley. A million years ago, before the return of Voldemort, when he knew Malfoy was still a Death Eater, but the Ministry preferred to believe otherwise. The poor Muggles Arthur was with couldn't have known the sinister import of Malfoy's insults, and were probably more frightened by his own reaction, starting a fight. He still seemed to hear the echo of Molly's voice, over a thousand miles and a million years, calling out, "No, Arthur, no!" There was no question of fisticuffs now that Malfoy had returned to his real master, beguiling even him with the same smooth tongue that had beguiled the Ministry. If he ever confronted Malfoy again it would be wizard to wizard, in a fight to the death. Arthur knew that Molly was his partner in the fight now, however terrified she was for him and the kids. But sometimes, when he felt himself acting from emotions without reflection, he still seemed to hear that cry...

***

He was dreaming. He was at work. He had work to do. Work. He felt a wave of nausea at the sordid banality of the pile of papers on his desk.

A vent on the wall emitted a puff of air, and a lavender paper airplane landed on his desk. Would this be a summons from Yaxley or the Minister, so they could finally give him his walking papers? Or arrest him? No, that would be done without warning. Would it be an invitation to tea with Umbridge? No, that would surely be delivered on a lace doily, announced by frolicking kittens. More likely it was a routine interdepartmental memo. Wearily he unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on his desk. Beneath the letterhead of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, it said:

your secret admirer secretly admires you

His heart leapt, he was right, there was at least someone at the Ministry who appreciated what he was doing and even had the guts to say so. He would have to show this to Molly. Molly...but another thought crossed his mind. Could it be that this person actually fancied him, and that Molly would start to be jealous? He laughed at the absurdity of the idea. He was a poor and very ordinary-looking middle aged man, and he and his wife were inseperable. They were all in a life and death struggle, and needed the solidarity of anyone who would be on their side. She worried every day that he might come home dead; surely she was past worrying that he might have an affair, something he had never done in their twenty-seven years of married life.

But was it so absurd? Perhaps a witch had noticed his integrity and realized (here he tingled a little) that it must be backed up by the quiet confidence that he was a really skilled and powerful wizard. This must be someone intelligent, someone he could encourage in the struggle while gently reminding her that he was a family man. Maybe a few kind words and an affectionate pat on the back would suffice not to hurt her feelings. Words like "It won't be long now," and "The Order is fighting back," and "We are everywhere."

Words like that, in Thicknesse's elevators? In Umbridge's hallways? It was one thing to risk his own security, of which there was little left, but someone else's? If he could figure out who it was, he could ask this person to meet him outside the Ministry, in some secluded place that he could surround with enchantments, where it would be safe enough to talk. But it might be a trap, or someone messing with him. But if it were a trap, wouldn't there be some detail, a suggestion they meet? He would try to be less preoccupied and to watch the staff members he met more carefully. Maybe he would recognize this person and their intentions from a look in the eyes, a look of understanding.

A drop of water fell on the page. More drops, and soon they came thick and fast. So it was raining in his office too. How refreshing. He drew out his wand and pointed it at the ceiling. "Meteolojinx Recanto!" he said, and the rain fell faster. What kind of hex was this? "Finite Incantatem!" Nothing. He thought of poor Reg. He thought of finding him later, to ask him how it went, but his wife was a Muggle-born, so what was there to hope for? His papers were getting wet. He stood up and stepped back from his desk. "Impervius!" he said, waving his wand across it.

He stepped out into the corridor, and almost slipped on a pink piece of paper at his feet. A pamphlet. He wiped his wet glasses on his robes and picked it up. "MUDBLOODS and the Dangers they Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society," it said. A sickly picture of a rose being strangled by a weed. His nausea came up again and he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment before continuing on his way. Every day, something worse.

As he entered the Auror office on his way to the main corridor, he noticed an unusual buzz of excitement there. "Has Yaxley returned?" asked one staff member to another.

"No, but he's on their tail, and we're awaiting our orders."

Arthur passed along as inconspicuously as he could, trying to hear more. He caught the words "right under our noses, disguised as Ministry employees, must have taken polyjuice potion" and "in broad daylight" and finally those that made him involuntarily stop in his tracks, "so all the Muggle-borns escaped?" He looked up into the face of a staff member, and knew that the man had registered his momentary look of triumph. He thought he saw him whispering something to his neighbor as he hurriedly left the room and entered the corridor.

His heart was pounding. Someone had managed to enter the Ministry in disguise and help all the Muggle-borns escape? He thought about where he should best go for a more detailed account. There would be gossiping in the Atrium, no doubt. But who could it have been? If the Order had been planning such a thing, he would have known about it. And the kids could not be so crazy as to come to the place that was most dangerous to them in the world, for a one-time action that could only be a drop in the bucket. It was true that Harry was famous for his compulsion to rescue people even when it meant risking everything else, especially his own life, but surely he would not risk his whole mission now, knowing the responsibility that was on his shoulders. Arthur's dearest hope was that the public was waking up, that resistance was spreading among people he did not even know. Perhaps the ones in hiding were not all far away but were underground, resisting.

But from the force of habit of his long career, another concern was mounting. They must have broken out of the interrogation room, and the dementors had lost their prey, and would probably glide around looking for more, attracted to the places where there were people. No, he had not spent his life as a Ministry employee for nothing. Whatever his title, whoever his boss, whatever anyone else was doing or not doing, he felt deeply that he had a responsibility to make sure that dementors were not let loose upon the streets of London. Relieved by a sense of purpose, he walked toward the lift. With all his happy memories, he could produce a powerful Patronus...

"Hem, hem," said a girlish voice behind him.

Involuntarily he turned and saw Umbridge coming from the direction of the Auror office. She looked a little disheveled, and he thought he saw the faint trace of a bruise on the side of her face. It was clearly costing her an effort to maintain the appearance of composure as she addressed him with an attempt at sweetness that had never sounded more forced.

"Arthur Weasley, I would like to have a little chat with you. I am sure you will join me for a cup of tea in my office?"

"That's very kind of you, Madam Undersecretary, but I'm afraid I'll have to take a rain check." At that moment a nearby office door blew open and he was drenched with a deluge of rainwater. "As you know, we're in a bit of a crisis here."

"That's exactly why I want to talk to you, Mr. Weasley," she said, her voice getting sweeter and more threatening. "It isn't raining in my office. In fact, it's nice and toasty there."

"I have work to do," he said in desperation. "This is no time for a tea party." He turned and headed for the lift again.

Unseen, the expression on her face turned to astonishment and fury at this open insubordination. She aimed her wand at his retreating back and shouted, "Incarcerous!" But at that moment a gnome suddenly crossed into her field of vision, and as she was startled into a fraction of a turn toward it, the ropes that flew out of her wand bound its potato-like body instead of Arthur's. "Eek!" she exclaimed. "Who let that filthy little beast up here?"

The lift doors opened in front of Arthur and out stepped a wizard in fine maroon robes whom he recognized as having recently become Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. "Oh good, Dolores, you've caught it," he said.

"How did it get up here?" she said, momentarily forgetting about Arthur as he made his escape. "Really Harold, this is incompetence!"

"I fear it may be something worse, Dolores. So many of them are escaping, I'm starting to think that Undesirables may have infiltrated my department as well."

***

The doors closed and Arthur descended. "Level Three. Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes," said the lift voice. "Level Four. Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures." The doors opened on level four, and a witch in rather shabby dark green robes got in, looking very sad and so preoccupied that at first she did not even notice him. When she looked up and saw him her face brightened for a moment with a spontaneous warm smile that vanished instantly when she noticed he was dripping with water. Her face fell.

"It's raining in my office," he said as cheerfully as he could, not knowing who she was or what to make of her behavior.

"I know. Do you want me to dry you off?"

"Er--yes, please," he said, a little surprised. She motioned her wand over and around him and the water in his robes evaporated. "Thanks, that's very kind of you," he said, glancing at her curiously. Her smile had been pretty, but without it her face looked weary and careworn like his, although he guessed that she was quite a bit younger. There was a slightly dangerous-looking spark in her blue-green eyes that never quite disappeared. As the elevator continued its descent, the usual announcement of floors was overridden by a special announcement.

"Due to a recent breach in Ministry security, the Atrium floo exits are now closed, except to those with specific authorization. If you wish to obtain authorization to exit the Ministry, please present yourself at the security desk for examination. For your protection, employees entering the Ministry will be immediately escorted to the newly expanded security area. No visitors are allowed at this time."

"What are they on about now, I wonder?" she said.

"Didn't you hear?" he said. "Imposters got in disguised as Ministry workers, and they helped today's Muggle-born prisoners escape."

"That's great!" she exclaimed, her face radiant again. She looked in his eye as if she knew they shared that sentiment. Instinctively he put a finger to his lips to caution her. Considering his reputation, he wasn't surprised that she knew, but the doors might open again at any moment. She had come from level four...a suspicion that had been forming in his mind was becoming stronger.

"Is it you?" he asked, looking at her intently. She nodded.

"Level Eight. Atrium," announced the voice. The lift doors opened. He felt the urgent need of a few more moments of private talk, and quickly pressed the button for level nine. After a few seconds the doors closed again, and in the bustle of the Atrium with all its comings and goings, no one had noticed their lift. Could they hear? Out of his pocket he pulled a quill and a blank piece of parchment and wrote:

Can you Apparate at 6:00 p.m. by the fork of the stream in the East Heath of Hamstead Heath? Do you know the place?

She nodded again.

He waved his wand over the parchment to erase it, then returned it to his pocket. There was a risk, but it was a quiet, wooded area. The Ministry could not track an Apparition, and if any Muggles saw them Apparate he would have to modify their memories. It had to be some place she would know. As soon as they were both there he could surround them with Muggle-proofing and protective charms.

"Level Nine. Department of Mysteries," said the lift voice. He left the lift without looking back. She pushed a button, the doors closed, and it began to ascend again.

It was chilly down here, but he did not sense the presence of dementors. Since he was here, he might as well go down to the courtrooms and see what he could see. But as he reached the staircase, he found his way blocked by the Minister of Magic himself, who had apparently just come up.

"What are you doing down here?" said Thicknesse sharply.

"I heard there was a breakout from the courtroom. I came to help, in case any dementors escaped."

"On whose authorization are you here?" he said. "Who sent you?"

Thicknesse was looking at him with mingled suspicion and loathing. Whose suspicion? Whose loathing?

Arthur looked back evenly into the eyes of his Imperiused former boss, as if willing the man to recognize him. "I thought it was an emergency, Pius. I am a senior employee of the Ministry. I have been here long enough to remember a time when--"

"No dementors have escaped, Weasley. They are, as they have always been, under the firm control of the Ministry. We have everything under control, including you. You will return to your office immediately."

"It's raining in my office, and I haven't been able to find the counterjinx," said Arthur coolly. "I was going to stop at Magical Maintenance."

"You will return to your office immediately. We will deal with Magical Maintenance."

***

Arthur Apparated in the woods of the East Heath, surprised at having gotten out of the Ministry with little incident. Thicknesse really had been on his way to Magical Maintenance to demand a solution to the weather hex, which was starting to make routine business difficult. Bernie Pillsworth had finally managed to come up with the counterjinx, though his co-workers were whispering that a witch had secretly given it to him, and that he had kept her confidence because he wanted to take credit for it himself. Somehow this made Arthur think of Hermione, who he always suspected used to help the boys with their homework more than was good for them.

By the time the weather had cleared up in his office, it had been near the end of the workday, and after putting a few things in order he had reached the Atrium at the rush hour. The wizard at the security desk, with whom he had been friendly for many years, had rifled through his pockets, asked some perfunctory questions to verify his identity, then winked and given him his authorization to exit through one of the fires. He had thought he was suspected of complicity in the break-in, so he could only assume that Umbridge and the others had other fish to fry.

He had a guilty realization that he should have gone straight home to tell Molly and the rest of the Order about the day's events. He didn't know much about what had happened, yet he might know more than any of them, being their eyes and ears at the Ministry. He should have tried harder to get more details. Why hadn't he asked the witch to meet him some other day? He had acted impulsively, without thinking. It had seemed so important at the time. Perhaps an owl would not be tracked from this Muggle woods, and not being human it could get through the enchantments on his house. If only there were an owl...

He looked around the darkening woods. As if in answer to a charm, he barely spotted a brown owl sitting on a branch in a distant tree, its body almost camouflaged, its dark eyes looking thoughtfully at him. He hooted at it enticingly. It hooted back. He walked in the direction of the tree, pulled the blank parchment out of his pocket, pointed to it, and beckoned. The owl turned its head a little and looked at him quizzically. Perhaps it thought he was a Muggle and was playing dumb. He pointed his wand and said, "Accio owl!" The owl gave him a look of scathing contempt and flew away. Animals were not objects to be summoned by wizards who did not know their names.

It would be safer anyway to send his Patronus. But how could he condense the necessary information into a short enough message? He concentrated.

Break-in at Ministry. Muggle-borns escaped. Yaxley tailing. Alert the Order.

"Expecto Patronum!" he said aloud, and a bright silver weasel sprang from his wand and bounded cheerfully off in the direction of Ottery St. Catchpole.

He heard a crack in the direction of the stream and saw she had Apparated about thirty feet away. He walked over to greet her, extending his hand. "Arthur Weasley. I work in--"

"Yes, I know," she said, shaking it. "Bette Barbary. I work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Beast Division."

"I'll put some protective enchantments around the place, so we won't be seen or heard. I track defensive spells, and I know a new one that even stops them from hearing the name." He walked around in a big circle with his wand, muttering incantations. "I'm sorry to drag you out here," he said on completing the circle, "but I thought we could talk more safely here."

"It's nice here," she said, looking around, "and you're right. They have extendable ears at the Ministry. Do you know what those are?"

"My kids invented them!" he said indignantly. "How could they--" But he knew there had been nothing secret about Fred and George's joke shop. The Ministry had helped themselves, and so had Dark Wizards. "I'm sorry I don't know you. Have you worked at the Ministry for long?"

"For years, but not as long as you. I've always been a fairly low-level employee." She seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Maybe I was in the wrong place, because I love magical creatures, and I never much wanted to regulate or control them. I couldn't talk them out of condemning that poor hippogriff for clawing Draco Malfoy."

"Oh yes, Buckbeak. I knew him. A very nice hippogriff."

"I know hippogriffs, and I know the Malfoys, and if that boy is anything like his father, he probably deliberately provoked Buckbeak with some sneering insult, knowing that hippogriffs can't tell tales. I was so happy when he escaped,"--that momentary smile lit up her face again--"but you should have seen the rest of their faces."

"Yes, I remember that, too. Accusations of incompetence."

"I always liked you at the Ministry," she said. "I appreciated your efforts to prevent the mistreatment of Muggles. You see, I had a Muggle lover once."

"A Muggle-lover?" he repeated, puzzled. What did she mean, she had one once?

"A boyfriend who was a Muggle," she said a little impatiently.

"Really?" said Arthur with great interest. That was unusual for a witch or wizard, and would have been more stigmatized than anything he had ever done concerning Muggles.

"It didn't last that long. He broke it off out of fear, I think. I was still sad about it that day when I happened to be buying books in Flourish and Blotts, and I saw you deck Lucius Malfoy."

Again he was startled, but he remembered that the bookstore had been full of people. "Er, not exactly my finest hour," he said sheepishly.

"No, you see, I hated Lucius Malfoy with a passion. That silver-tongued aristocrat who knew how to sweet-talk the powerful, and save his vicious insults for the ones underneath, that bully who always hid his iron fist in his immaculate velvet glove, he tried to get me sacked. He found out I was seeing a Muggle man, and said I was no better than a Muggle gutter tramp, but since I was a pure-blood witch, I ought to see the error of my ways, in case my bloodline...got contaminated...I must never have had it from a wizard, or I'd know the difference, but he could fix that. If I came to his manor the following evening, when Narcissa would be away, he might be able to salvage my reputation. Of course I didn't go. But who would want to hear about it? He had influence--money talks--he had convinced that idiot Fudge he was a pillar of the community. And I was afraid for my lover."

Arthur felt like throwing up again.

"Being at the Ministry, I knew you shouldn't have done it," she continued. "You were trying to go after Malfoy through legal means. We knew his manor was still loaded with illegal Dark Magic objects, waiting to be used against Muggles. But when I saw you with your Muggle friends, and heard his taunt about the company you keep, and your answer was to knock him over, it gave me a thrill."

Arthur turned pink. "My wife was excited too. You should have heard her yelling at me after we left the store."

This man is more afraid of his wife than of the Dark Wizards at the Ministry, she thought.

"Well, I guess she was right," she said, "but I was realizing that I had other feelings about you besides thinking you were a congenial co-worker. I kept that to myself, since you were married, but I kept watching your activities at the Ministry.

"I don't care about seeing your magic,"--he felt a pang of disappointment--"but since they took over the Ministry, I've seen you quietly perform a hundred feats of courage. I've seen you keep your head while the others scurried in fear. The bravest people do brave things when they don't know anyone can see them. Not to prove anything, but because it's their true nature. I wouldn't have been able to stick it out myself, if I hadn't known the Crumple-Horned Snorkack was depending on me."

His gratification at this tribute was punctured by a familiar despair. Was it too much to hope that anyone at the Ministry was still in their right mind?

"Isn't--isn't the Crumple-Horned Snorkack a mythical beast?"

"That's what most witches and wizards think, but we finally tracked them down. I work on the register of magical creatures, and I've always had contact with people who do field work. Xeno Lovegood kept me posted. Of course, that idiot Fudge refused to believe it, and put a gag order on my department about it, in case people would think the Ministry had gone silly. All he cared about was his own image."

"Tell me about it."

"But Voldemort has been a bit sharper. The Snorkacks' habitat is in Scandinavia, you know, and there were a few students at Durmstrang who had pretty convincing evidence, and some of them became Death Eaters. He wants to know about other magical creatures because he hopes to exploit them any way he can."

Her expression became abstracted for a minute before she continued. "He won't be able to hold his power base together. A movement depending on the muscle of the shafted and alienated, championing the creed of pure-blood aristocracy? Do you think giants and werewolves will be on his side when they hear themselves called filthy monsters? Does he want what Greyback wants--an army of werewolves that could destroy anyone at the full moon, including him and his followers? I don't think so.

"But I always worked with those creatures whom wizards never classify as 'beings.' They have a lot more intelligence and pride than most wizards imagine. Good old Hagrid knew it. I got to be friends with him when I was at Hogwarts. Do you know what my department is doing now? They are actually doing experiments on captive creatures, testing new potions and curses on them! I tell my bosses that this is completely pointless, that every creature has different magic, and these things won't work the same way on them as on witches and wizards. They are playing with Fiendfyre," she said, and her eyes flashed for a moment.

"And what about the Snorkacks?" said Arthur, believing, but still wanting reassurance, that she was not delusional.

"Well, they're very intelligent creatures, intelligent enough to avoid humans. They can live on very little food, and magically disappear into their surroundings when people come too near. But they've never been searched for this intensively before. I've been working on this project for years, though the old Ministry discouraged it. Now the Department wants me to find them, because Voldemort thinks he may be able to use them for his fight. It's a joke--they're the gentlest creatures in the world, and I'm afraid when he finds that out he will slaughter them in his rage. They left me on the project to tap my knowledge, so I pretend the creatures have disappeared again. I conduct the hunt in a clumsy enough way to warn the Snorkacks, so they're always ahead of the game."

He still had a lingering doubt, but she had already said so many intelligent things that he put it aside. "Are you sure it's worth staking your life on this?" he said. "Do you know they will suspect you soon, and they may torture you or give you Veritaserum, and when they have your information they may kill you or send you to Azkaban?"

"Of course I know," she said angrily, "do you think it's only for this? It's the only thing I can do where I feel I'm still making a difference. It's a small thing, compared with everything that's happening, but if there's some part of this onslaught I can stop or delay, can't you understand that I have to keep trying?"

"Yes," he said with feeling.

Then sadly she added, "I can't stop what's happening down in the courtrooms."

"I know," he said, starting forward and speaking more quietly and urgently. "Do you know about the Order of the Phoenix?"

"The phoenix," she said dreamily, as if all trouble were momentarily forgotten. "Such a magnificent animal! I always dreamed of having one. I saw Dumbledore's once."

"The Order of the Phoenix," he continued, feeling an urgent need to recall her from space, "was formed during the previous war, when Dumbledore and his friends knew the Ministry was useless. It's formed again, and we have great, experienced witches and wizards, and brave young ones too, and we have plans--"

"It will be too late."

"Too late?" he said incredulously, unable to stand hearing his own worst fear out of someone else's mouth. "How can you say that? Don't you remember what happened at the Ministry today? Didn't you hear what you said yourself about Voldemort's base? Too late for what--the Crumple-Horned Snorkack?"

"No, for my friends," she said coldly.

He was sorry. "Your Muggle-born friends?" he said quietly. There was a pause. "Listen to me, you don't have to be acting alone."

"Alone, yes," she said sadly. "That's what makes me bold, because I'm estranged from my family, and there's no one left to worry about me."

"You must have been bold before, to go out with a Muggle man."

She sighed. "My parents couldn't stand it. They didn't hate Muggles, but thought my dating one was out of the question. My mother said that at the very least I'd get my heart broken. You see, she had once had a relative who married a Muggle man, and was very unhappy. Her husband thought he should be the head of the family, and took her to live in his own poor Muggle neighborhood, and was always bullying her. My mother heard that they had a son who was a clever wizard, but had emotional problems, and got into the Dark Arts for revenge. It was very sad--she thought he even became a Death Eater. That Mark can't be charmed away, you know. How many of them might change their minds, if only they had a second chance?

"So I did get my heart broken, not by my lover, but by a bigoted society. My parents wanted me to come back to them, to acknowledge that it was a mistake and say I would know better than to do it again. But I said that it wasn't a mistake, and that I would do it again. They never forgave me for that. After that, my family avoided me. They were afraid of what else I might get up to, what I might involve them in. Somehow since then my friends have all been Muggle-borns, because they understand, bridging both worlds. And non-human creatures understand...

"My best friend is in Azkaban, being demented. I told her she should run away, go back to Muggle society." There were tears in her voice now, and she seemed to have trouble continuing. "She was afraid the Death Eaters would come after her family, would hunt them down and kill them...she insisted on facing the Commission alone." She sobbed. "Dirk Cresswell was my last ally in the department, and now they've got him too.

"I knew the Commission was trying Muggle-borns again today, and I couldn't stand it, I wanted to create a diversion, so I cast a hex to make it rain in Yaxley's office. The hex got out of control. It was a stupid thing to do, it couldn't help, it only made them vent their anger on Ministry employees. But I feel like doing anything now to stop business as usual. I want it to rain until it washes away the Ministry. I want a hurricane, a monsoon..." and her tears were now copious enough to suggest this.

He fumbled in his pockets for a clean handkerchief, but not finding one, felt he had no choice but to take her in his arms and comfort her. She buried her damp face in the robes she had dried. He stroked her hair. "It won't be long, now," he said softly. "The Order is fighting back. We are everywhere."

But when he released her, he still saw tears, and tried to brush them off with the back of his hand. Her lover frightened away. Her family avoiding her. Her best friend in Azkaban, and others to follow. She must be more lonely than he had ever been in his life. And for years she had been carrying around inside her some secret feelings--for him?

He opened his mouth again, but no words came, none seemed appropriate. He took off his glasses and put them in his pocket. He could only tell her with his mouth directly on hers, as he put all the warmth and compassion of his soul into one sweet kiss...

She held him again, stroking his back, and he knew she meant to comfort him too.

"Muggle-lover," he said fervently.

"Undesirable," she said.

"Blood traitor."

"Disgrace to the name of--"

He kissed her again. More kisses, and caresses, and eventually caressing hands started to move to the openings of robes...

No, Arthur, no!

That faraway voice again. The night after the fight in the bookstore, she had called him a little boy who couldn't control himself.

"Do you want to come home with me?" said a much nearer voice in his ear.

Home. He staggered back in sudden alarm, as if she had just aimed her wand and released him from a powerful spell. "No, my wife--I have to hurry home--she'll be worried sick--she always worries when I'm late."

She almost laughed, but the sad expression was in her eyes again. "Aren't you late already? You'd better Disapparate. Tell her you were detained by something at the Ministry." And then, more grimly, "People do get detained at the Ministry these days, you know."

"Yes, I'd better. I'm sorry...so sorry...thank you...be brave."

"You too," she said, but her voice was lost in the crack as he turned on his heel.

She shook her head and almost laughed again, but felt the familiar loneliness closing in on her oppressively. She could Disapparate too, but realized she shouldn't leave this place without clearing up the enchantments he had put around it. They might cause problems for the local Muggles, and be discovered by the Ministry and raise questions. She took out her wand. It was a good thing she was a witch with a wand, or she might have been imprisoned by his enchantments forever.

***

"Arthur! Are you here? Are you alright?" Molly ran and flung her arms around him as soon as he Apparated in the sitting room of the Burrow. "I got your Patronus, and I've been worried out of my mind! Why are you late? What happened?"

"I actually don't know that much more than what I said. It seems that imposters disguised themselves as Ministry workers, probably with polyjuice potion, and they got into the courtroom that way and managed to free the Muggle-borns who were being interrogated. It must have been quite a feat."

"Who was it?"

"Nobody knows, they got away, but I heard that Yaxley was tailing them. Have you heard from anyone in the Order?"

"Not yet. But what happened to you? Were you detained?"

"I was detained by a witch."

She turned a paler shade of white. "Umbridge?" she said, almost in a whisper.

"No, no, one of us. I'm fine, Molly."

"What do you mean, one of us? Does she know about the Order? Was it about the break-in? Arthur, be careful. You know there are spies everywhere. What did she want? What did you tell her?"

"No, she wasn't a spy, I know that for certain. She wanted to tell me that she appreciated what I did at the Ministry. You know, protecting Muggles, and then not helping the Death Eaters. I told her about the Order of the Phoenix, because she's very brave, and should be in it."

"But what did this have to do with the break-in?"

"Not very much," he admitted. He couldn't make anything up at a time like this. "It's so awful at the Ministry, we just wanted to encourage each other, that we were on the same side."

"Why today? Couldn't that have waited? After that Patronus you sent me? Arthur, are you trying to drive me mad?"

"I just met her today," he said, realizing as the words left his mouth that they would not be helpful. He could see her fear turning to exasperation.

"You told me you never stay in that evil place a minute longer than you can help anymore. You let me know something drastic had happened, and you didn't tell me you were safe. And you stayed after work for two hours encouraging a witch, while I'm sitting here picturing you being eaten by You-Know-Who's snake, or trapped in a basement full of dementors, or being interrogated by that ghastly hag..." Her voice trailed off tearfully.

"I'm sorry," he said, afraid to make any more effort to explain, lest she think he was justifying himself, when he knew he was in the wrong. But having satisfied herself as to his own safety, she was eager to move on.

"Who do you think it was, if it wasn't the Order? It seems ad hoc--we all know we can't take back the Ministry now. Do you know how many of them there were?"

"It could have been anyone. Muggle-borns in hiding, maybe. They know of three Ministry workers whom they replaced--but there may have been more."

At the word "three," Molly turned white again, and Arthur also felt himself gripped by a fear that he had managed somehow to keep at bay all afternoon. "They also took Moody's old eye from Umbridge's office door..." he faltered, for the first time really considering the significance of this.

"You don't think--" she said.

"No, it's impossible." But they looked at each other knowing they shared the same thought, the thought of their youngest son, wondering where he was, what he might be suffering, and the terrible danger he was in now.

"It had to be people with advanced magic, to fend off all those dementors--" but he checked himself, for besides being famous for rescuing people, Harry was well known for his skill in fending off dementors.

"What if it was them? Yaxley on their tail? What did that mean exactly? That he knows where they are? They may be dead!"

"They already had Death Eaters on their tail. Remember what Remus said--"

"Well, that's very reassuring!"

"I mean they've escaped before, and they can again. They've already been through worse--"

"No they haven't! Things have never been this bad before, and you know it, Arthur! I told you they were too young to go off by themselves like that! You wouldn't listen--we shouldn't have let them! I told you they should have stayed in school!"

"They? What do you mean, they? You mean Ron?"

She was stunned into silence.

"Have you forgotten," he said in a dangerously quiet tone, "that Hermione is a Muggle-born witch, and that Harry has a ten thousand Galleon price on his head? Unless I'm very much mistaken, Ron is my son. He would never abandon his friends. Never. And in case you haven't checked your clock lately, we're all in mortal peril, wherever we are."

She looked so frightened that he returned to the attempt at reassurance. "Molly, there's no reason to think it was them," he said, but he knew she was no more convinced of this than he was. She turned her back on him and went into the kitchen.

"And if it was, I'm damn proud of them," he muttered, as he sank into a chair in a state of total exhaustion.

***

After letting him sleep for about twenty minutes, she had woken him for dinner, which was delicious as usual. He had suggested they have a Butterbeer, and by mutual unspoken agreement they had dropped the terrible subject of their last conversation, not because they were angry, but because at the moment there was nothing they could do about it.

The fact that Molly used magic in her cooking did not mean it was easy. It took a great deal of magical skill to transfigure, multiply and otherwise manipulate food the way she did, and over the years she had become really expert at it. The reason, no doubt, that she had been enlisted to prepare every meal that was served at Twelve Grimmauld Place, as well as in her own home.

Arthur could not quite help feeling the contentment that always stole over him at her table. Having had a moment to reflect, he was struck by the fact that as his first instinct had told him to predict, she was too worried about his safety and about the serious matters in hand to worry much about his fidelity. She had not really inquired about that. He considered that there were witches and wizards who would just as soon picture their spouses being eaten by snakes as messing around with other witches and wizards.

He regarded this gem of a partner to whom his life was so precious, who had prepared his meals and shared his bed for twenty-seven years, who had borne him seven children and daily shared with him the joy and trouble of raising them all, who was now risking her own life with him in the same alliance against evil...

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she said, a little flushed.

He was startled from his reverie. "I'll do the dishes," he said valiantly. With a flick of his wand, they all were clean, another flick, and they were neatly stacked, and yet another sent them soaring back into the kitchen.

***

Later that night, when they were ready for bed, she said, "Did you tell your secret admirer how to join the Order?"

He jumped. He hadn't known his wife was such an accomplished Legilimens.

As if reading his mind, she said, "Didn't you know I'm an accomplished Legilimens?"

Then she showed him the purple piece of paper with Bette's note on it. "I found this in your pocket when I was hanging up your robes." He turned pink. He had forgotten that he had put it in his pocket. Maybe that was why the wizard at the security desk had winked at him.

"I--she--" he ventured timidly. "She just wanted to say that she admired me because I don't--I don't scurry in fear." He felt desirous of changing the subject.

"You know, Mollywobbles, I've been thinking about something."

"What's that?"

"Well, I always knew I wasn't as powerful a wizard as Dumbledore, or as You-Know--"

"Don't say it," she advised, rather superfluously.

"But I liked to think I had as much magic as any of the others. Like Sirius or Remus or Tonks or Moody or--or Malfoy--or you, for that matter." Somehow he did not dare mention Snape, whose powers he had never been able to estimate.

"Well, of course you do, dear."

"But I'm starting to think maybe I don't need to know that. That maybe it doesn't matter." He paused. "Because the thing is..."

"What?"

"Well, I didn't use magic to make you fall in love with me, or to make that other woman fall in love with me--"

"Excuse me?"

"And we didn't use magic to make our children, and I think they are their wonderful selves more because of the love we gave them than because of our magic. And I didn't use magic to write the Muggle Protection Act, although of course I used some magic to enforce it, but I think maybe the most important part of my work was not the part that was done magically. And I don't even think it was magic that made me able to resist the Imperius Curse--"

"To do what?"

"Someone once tried to Imperius me and failed. And I'm not sure I used magic, I think it was more like stubbornness. And that's a quality I think Muggles must have just as much. I mean, think how much stubbornness it must have taken non-magical people to keep trying to make a machine that flies, until it finally worked, and to risk their lives trying without being sure. And it was also because of your love that they couldn't make me forget who I was, but since you didn't die for me, I don't think it was like Lily's magical protection of Harry from the killing curse. Now they're trying to control me again, and they can't. But I guess they wouldn't bother trying to Imperius me again, because now everyone knows me, and if I were under the Imperius Curse it would be ridiculously obvious.

"Don't get me wrong. I love being a wizard, and you being a witch, and I love the magical world, and I know that when the final conflict comes, which will probably be soon, you and I and the kids will be there, fighting Dark Magic with magic. But maybe I also have an idea why I'm more attracted to the Muggle world than most wizards. Because when I think about it, if I'm really honest with myself, I think the most important things I've done in my life have actually..."

Here he kissed her. "Yes?" she said.

"Not required magic."

And he picked up his wand from the nightstand, and with the incantation "Nox!" turned out the light.