No Means to Use the Stove

It's Not an Obsession

Damn! Damn! Damn! She felt like seriously hitting something, but the only something around was her own pillow and hitting soft cotton wool probably wasn't aggressive enough to wholly satisfy her need of violence. She hit the pillow anyway. As expected, it didn't make her feel any better.

Why did her body remember it all, when she couldn't remember anything with her conscious mind? She was forced to study her own memories in order to learn them by heart, but in the dark, in her own bed, she could feel the arms that weren't around her, the warm, hard body that didn't press against her back, the breath that didn't tickle her neck. Damn it!

She had been used to being alone. She enjoyed her own company. She had friends, she had her work, she didn't necessarily need a man in her life. She didn't need her other half, she was a whole person herself. She had been fine before Charlie.

She was fine still.

It was just that...it was easier to stay alone than to be left alone. Or even to have left to be alone. She had observed her friends before. She had seen how pairs clung together for no other reason than to avoid being alone, because they didn't know how, because they had always had someone. To have someone had become so important it didn't matter anymore who the someone was. She had promised herself she would never behave like that. She had promised herself she would only stay with someone she loved and only for so long as it worked.

So she had left. It had been the right decision to make. She had kept the promise she had made herself. Why, then, did she miss those arms that weren't there? Anna Richardson sighed and hit the pillow once more, not expecting it to help her distress this time either. She was one pitiful sample of a wimpy woman.

There was no reason to fight it. Not when she was losing the match anyway. She did miss him, she did regret leaving, although it had been her only option and the right choice to make.

One could regret the right choices as well as the wrong ones.

There was really no reason to be ashamed of it. There was really no reason to deny it. There was really no reason...not to go to hang around the entrance of the Ministry of Magic or the Leaky Cauldron, hoping to see a glance of him. Only a glance, mind you, only from afar. Only to feel some innocent nostalgia and wallow in self-pity for a while. That was what one had to do after a break up, wasn't it? It was customary, almost non-optional.

It wasn't immature. There was no resemblance with the way she had, as a preteen, studied the phonebook trying to determine which Denham was Paul the Gorgeous' father. None at all. She was entitled to some getting-over-it rituals. And as whining about it to her friends was out of the question, she had to settle with some stalking and stupidness.

She still had five whole days of her month's holiday left. It was better to get it over with before going back to work. Determinedly, she got up, showered, dressed up, breakfasted, and hurried towards to nearest bus stop in order to reach central London. In the small, leather-bound book called The Magical Community - Past, Present, and Loopholes in Time and Place, there were fairly promising instructions on how to get to the visitor's entrance of the Ministry of Magic.

She couldn't, naturally, enter the Ministry. She certainly wasn't going to try. There probably were some sort of Muggle-repelling charms preventing her even from seeing the entrance, anyhow. She would only observe its possible whereabouts, looking for anything familiar. Especially for one familiar redhead.

She knew there was no going back. Never mind how much she missed Charlie, it simply wasn't worth it. She was not going to trade herself for a relationship - who would it then be enjoying the said relationship? She was only making closure and naturally, trying to gain back her memories, to understand better what had happened.

It was necessary to visit places that could trigger her memory. Treating her state of amnesia was a reason even her ridiculously stern and suspicious conscious mind accepted. The other reasons for going she kept well hidden from herself. Like the laughable fantasy where she would meet Charlie again and deliberately chat him up and he couldn't resist her and she wouldn't reveal she remembered anything and they would start it all over again and she would do anything in her power to postpone the day he would tell her so that she could have another seven months, or even six, or at least three. She would just forget it could never lead to anything. She would just take whatever there was to take. For how long it was there to be taken.

Unfortunately, she knew even her unconscious mind wasn't letting her fulfill her fantasy. Apparently going to hang around the entrance of the Ministry of Magic and reading The Magical Community - Past, Present, and Loopholes in Time and Place over and over again was about as far as she would get in actually doing something.

Even so, it felt good to be taking some action, to have some kind of a game plan. She felt more in control of the situation, more sure of herself. It didn't matter that her plan consisted of only three steps: taking the bus near to the Ministry's entrance, finding a place where from she could see it clearly (if she would be able to see it at all), and staying there until something happened. Or didn't happen.

Getting off the bus, she felt almost cheery. She was a spy, she was a freaking Modesty Blaise! The fact that she had no difficulties in finding the narrow street the book had described only strengthened her great mood. She stepped into a shabby little pub, ordered a half-pint, and took a table near the window.

The tabletop had not been sponged for about a decade so she didn't lean her elbows on it. The window was so dusty she could barely see through it. The other patrons were a very homogeneous bunch of people and she didn't fit into that bunch. Normally it all would have made her self-conscious and timid. In her present Jamesina Bond state of mind, all the shabbiness of the surrounding premises only increased the feeling of adventure. And the beer was excellent.

It was very exiting, to observe the street outside of the pub. How was it possible she hadn't noticed any wizards before she had learned about their existence? They stuck out on the street more clearly than she herself in the pub. The chubby little man in a robe was carrying a broom, for Heaven's sake!

She couldn't see where exactly the weird looking people were going to. She knew the visitor's entrance before the war had been through a broken-down telephone box and that after the war it had, for safety reasons, been placed inside one of the little offices and was now managed by the Ministry personnel. Still, never mind how hard she looked, she couldn't see people going in any of the offices. Any time some wizard-looking person neared the doors, she suddenly found the foam on her beer or the state of her nail varnish extremely interesting.

She didn't let it discourage her. It was only the Muggle-repellent charm working. She didn't need to see where exactly the entrance was, anyhow. She was here to see a glimpse of Charlie or any other wizard or witch she had got to know not remembering it. She had studied the digital photos for hours and she was certain she could identify any one of them. Fred, George, Arthur, Molly, Ron, Hermione, Harry, Ginny, Alicia, Angelina, Charlie. She was here and she would keep her eyes open. She ordered another half-pint.

Two hours and three more half-pints later it wasn't so exiting anymore. There apparently weren't so many wizards and witches using the visitor's entrance and none of them seemed even distantly familiar. And her bladder couldn't take any more beer without forcing her to use the pub's loo, which was an option she really didn't want to take. When her cell phone ringed, she automatically picked it up and answered. Only to regret it when hearing her sister's voice:

"Anna! Are you back already? I only tried to give you a ring, 'cause I couldn't believe Charlie's folks would really live somewhere that cell phones absolutely refused to work. How's Charlie? How about his folks?"

Anna had an almost irresistible need to answer that everything was fine. She never whined about anything to her family. She was the one helping the others; she couldn't have problems of her own. She opened her mouth to tell a pack of lies. Then she happened to glance around and saw that the man on her right side who she had thought to be asleep had his eyes open and was looking at her in a scrutinizing manner. What if he was a wizard? Her sister's voice had a shrilling quality, the man had surely heard her through the phone. What if he knew about her and Charlie? What if she was being followed in order to make sure the Obliviate had worked? She forced herself to speak.

"Sheila...actually...I never saw his folks. We broke up three weeks ago."

"Three weeks?! Where have you been? Why haven't you told me? What happened? Why did you break up after seven months, just like that? He is married, isn't he? I knew he was too good to be true!" Sheila stopped for a moment and Anna could hear her listening. " Are you in a pub? Have you been drinking?"

Now it wasn't only the man on her right side that was looking at her. Everybody in the pub had their eyes on her and they seemed to be very entertained by the show. She could feel her Bondness draining out of her leaving only a pitiful, lonely woman behind.

"Sheila. I really don't want to talk about it on the phone."

"That's it. I'm coming over tonight. I'm bringing booze and chocolate. If you're going to drink yourself into oblivion, you can at least do it in good company."

Oblivion. Great. She didn't need any more oblivion. She knew Sheila wouldn't listen, but she tried anyway. "Sheila, please, I'm fine. I'll see you later this week, all right?"

"No way! I'll be there around sevenish and you'd better be home!" Then the phone went mute. Great. Great. Great. Anna glared angrily at the man on her right side. It was all his fault. Of course he wasn't a wizard; she had only overreacted and now she had Sheila on her back. Great. And she had developed paranoia on top of her amnesia. Great.

She hauled herself up from her chair, straightened her back and left the pub in a way as dignified as possible for a woman who had been publicly humiliated and who had drunk two and a half pints of strong lager without eating anything. She wobbled only slightly and even managed to step over the threshold without tumbling over it. She absolutely refused to give up. She would go straight to Charing Cross Road and return to her spying business.

She took long strides, only losing her balance once or twice, heading for the nearest underground station. It didn't take her long to find herself on Charing Cross Road. It didn't take her long to find the approximated site of the Leaky Cauldron. But she hadn't stood there, trying to focus on the supposed something in between a record store and a book shop, for a very long time before she started to feel extremely stupid.

She was slightly drunk and it probably showed, her bladder was still full and she stood there, staring at nothing. For the second time in a few hours, she felt immature. Being a Muggle trying to locate Leaky Cauldron was equivalent to being a teenager hanging around a grocery store trying to persuade someone over the legal age to buy them booze. The scenario only lacked her approaching every weird looking passerby asking whether they could guide her to the pub, but only if you yourself can see it, know what I mean? There wasn't going to be any Let's See How Stupid You Can Be -contest announced anytime soon, was there? She would be the certain winner.

She was stalking her ex-fiance and pretending to be a secret agent, yes, but at least she could do it in a dignified, adult manner. She retreated a couple of blocks, until she came across a coffee shop called Treats Sandwich Bar. She stepped in, ordered a cup of coffee and a chicken roll, visited the thankfully tidy bathroom and sat down at a table near the window.

Absentmindedly, she took out the small leather bound book from her handbag and leafed through it sipping her coffee. It was probably just a waste of time, to sit here and wait for Charlie to appear from around the corner. The Weasleys were a pure-blooded wizarding family. According to the book, they were likely to Floo or Apparate around, instead of walking through the Muggle London. She took a bite of her roll and then raised her eyes to look out of the window again.

The bite of bread almost dropped from her open mouth. Ron Weasley and his wife Hermione were standing outside of the coffee shop, looking straight at her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought: My break up with Charlie is no reason to be rude to his folks, and she started to nod and smile when she suddenly realized that she shouldn't be remembering these people. That they were expecting her not to remember them. With trembling hands, she took another sip of her coffee and lowered her head, forcing her expression blank.

* * *

"Move along, Ron," Hermione asked with a strained voice.

"But it's Anna, and she..." her husband protested.

"Exactly," she snapped and pulled him away from the window. "I hate it. I have always known it's disgusting, but to see it myself...I hate it. Think about it, Ron! We used to know her, she was a friend, and now she can't remember us! Obviliating someone is like denying them their human rights!"

"But, Hermione..."

"Don't you dare to disagree me on this, Ronald Weasley!"

"I'm not. It's just that..." Hermione didn't give him a chance to finish.

"It's just what?! I'm disappointed with you, I truly am! I know you work for the Ministry, but you do have your own brains still, don't you?"

"Hermione, shut up!" She stopped, surprised at her husband's roar.

"Hermione, please, listen," he continued hurriedly. "Didn't you see her? She recognized us."

"But...but that's impossible," she stuttered.

"Impossible or not, she did."

"It was probably only your red hair, she would remember Charlie's red hair even if she didn't remember his real appearance..." Hermione's babbling dried away.

"No. She remembered us." He continued before she had a chance to object. "And did you have time to see the book she was reading? I'll be damned if it wasn't the same bloody book you've been reading over and over again for the last few weeks."

"The Magical Community - Past, Present, and Loopholes in Time and Place?" her voice was cracking.

"Exactly. The point not being the damn book's title but the fact that it's a wizarding book!"

"Oh."

"Yes. So what are we going to do?"