Caught Between

Chapter 4: Home Sweet Home

"Dumbledore may be eccentric, but if he's senile, I'll eat my cauldron," grumbled a voice from behind the morning newspaper.

Mack and I had been married for about two months by this time and had settled into a fairly comfortable domesticity. Of course, we both had to adjust to the idea of sharing a flat after living alone for so long, but the compromises related to bathroom time and wardrobe space were working well. I was finally remembering my new last name on a regular basis, although my new initials unfortunately spelled out "EAR". I suppose it could have been much worse.

We did, however, have to make some adjustments that most newlyweds did not. We had to re-arrange the living room furniture after discovering that my computer made odd whistling noises when placed too close to the magically powered lamps. I nearly had a heart attack the first time I saw my father-in-law's disembodied head floating in the fireplace, calmly asking us to dinner. Somehow, I had missed learning about the Floo Network through my preparatory reading, but it explained why Mack had chosen a flat in a converted Victorian house. Newer buildings just weren't equipped for fires.

I was also somewhat unprepared to see just how much Mack relied on magic to handle everyday chores. He would enchant knives to chop vegetables for my cooking and then levitate the dirty dishes to the sink after we had finished eating. He even used spells to shave instead of a razor. I tried to tease him about what I considered his over-dependence, but he wouldn't take the bait. "You rely on electricity, I don't see that as any different," he answered with a smile.

This particular morning, he had already made toast and buried himself in the Daily Prophet by the time I reached the breakfast table. "I still can't believe they tossed him off the Wizengamot," Mack grumbled. "Other than Amelia Bones, he was the most well-versed in law on the panel. I'm constantly having to rewrite my briefing papers to make them idiot-proof for some of those toadies that follow Fudge."

By now, I knew better than to interrupt his mutterings on this particular subject. The day after the unforgettable party, he had gone back to the office expecting to find the Ministry preparing to move against You-Know-Who. Instead, he encountered vague excuses or outright denials from everyone he questioned about the rumors. After a few days, one of his colleagues had not-too-subtly advised him to keep his mouth shut if he wanted to keep his job, given the current political climate. Therefore, he was reduced to expending his frustration through these rants at inanimate objects.

When he grew quiet, I spoke up. "Now that you've got that off your chest, remember that you agreed to come along with me to that awful reception tonight." I couldn't even scold him when he groaned in response; my own feelings were very much the same.

We met that evening outside the London office of Grunnings Drills, one of my company's suppliers. As the most junior employee in my department, I'd been assigned the unenviable duty of attending this party. The only thing I could do was promise Mack that we would leave at the earliest possible opportunity.

After some mind-numbing small talk with various people, I introduced Mack and myself to a heavyset man and the too-skinny woman accompanying him. The moment he spoke, I recognized his voice from some unpleasant phone calls regarding incorrect invoices. "I'm Vernon Dursley, and this is my wife, Petunia." He looked me over as if disappointed that my firm had not sent someone more important.

"Did you say Dursley?" asked Mack at my side. "From Little Whinging in Surrey?" After receiving a nod and a raised eyebrow in response, he continued, "I'm sure you must have been glad when the charges against your nephew were dropped last week. A transcript from the hearing landed on my desk, and for once, I'm glad that my department didn't get a conviction..."

He trailed off when he realized that all three of us were staring at him. I couldn't believe he'd spoken so familiarly about his job to perfect strangers after always being so insistent about secrecy. Meanwhile, the white-faced Dursleys had started backing away as if he had been holding a bomb. I didn't quite know what to make of their reaction until Mrs. Dursley hissed, "You're one of them." They then turned tail and practically ran to the other side of the room.

I looked at Mack, and he shrugged. "Did I just lose some business for your firm, Liz?"

"I honestly don't think it would be a big loss. In fact, I'd thank you."

***

Over the next few months, Mack kept his head down and mouth shut at the office despite his belief that Dumbledore, although currently disgraced, was generally right about most things. At home, he continued to express frustration with the Ministry, but there wasn't anything I could do for him except provide a sympathetic ear. I did succeed somewhat in diverting his attention by teaching him how to use my computer. At first, he only complied to humor me, but after I brought home an airplane flight simulation game, I finally sparked his interest. After that, I sometimes had trouble prying him away from the machine in order to do any work I had brought home.

A couple of days after Christmas, I fulfilled a promise by helping Mack's cousin Ernie with an extra credit project on computers for his Muggle Studies class. Like Mack, he was more impressed by the games than the practical aspects of computing. We passed a pleasant afternoon, where I alternately demonstrated at the keyboard and chuckled over the more outdated or inaccurate passages in Ernie's textbook. Meanwhile, Ernie pelted Mack with odd, disconnected questions about rules regarding freedom of assembly and the questionable legality of the Ministry's educational decrees. To me, it almost seemed like Ernie wanted to confide some secret but was stopping himself from doing so. In the end, he left without telling us anything.

It was only a few weeks later when Mack came home late from the office and dropped a book titled Locking Charms: The Keys to Security into my hands. "There was a breakout last night from Azkaban Prison. For your safety, I want to secure the doors and windows with some passwords. I'd really like to make this place Apparation-proof, but I'll need to do a lot more research for that."

"For my safety? Why on earth would they care about me?"

Mack sighed and put his hands on my shoulders. "Liz, I've seen the prisoners' files. Most of them were guilty of Muggle-torture, among other things. I don't want to take any chances with you."

After a quick sandwich, he set to work. The password spell seemed to work on the first attempt. Mack couldn't even open the door with "Alohamora". However, no matter how clearly I recited "Open", the door refused to respond to me.

The evening wore on, and after several more failures, Mack's patience began to wear thin. Obviously, the fact that I had no magical ability was the stumbling block. Both of us scoured the book's index to find a suitable solution. By midnight, Mack had grown so frustrated that he accidentally set the password to a series of four-letter words. We were both so exhausted that we thought it was hysterically funny when this turned out to be the code that finally worked for me.

I just hoped that this would turn out to be an exercise in excessive caution.

****

Then came a day where everything went wrong.

It all started when I overslept one gray, dismal morning in February. I arrived late at the office to discover that my computer had mysteriously lost several files I had been working on. Just when I thought I was catching up, the whole network went down. By four o'clock, my head was pounding so badly that I practically begged my boss to let me go home early. He refused.

Finally walking from the Underground station back to my flat, I ran into my friend Sue, who was obviously under the weather as well. I impulsively asked her up for a cup of tea, hoping some conversation would help both of us feel better. It wasn't until I was fishing the keys out of my purse that I realized I had blundered.

Leaning as close to the door as possible, I whispered, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." It was Mack's week to choose the password, and I'd been teaching him how to type. "Sue, could you wait here for a second while I, um, disable the alarm?" I needed a semi-plausible excuse to hide some things before I let her in.

I barely had time to throw a cloth over the cauldron and shove some of the moving pictures behind books before Sue slid through the door. Luckily for me, she wasn't feeling well enough to be her usual observant self. She headed straight for the couch, sinking down with a sigh and closing her eyes.

"Hang on, I'll get us some tea. Do you need any medicine? You look awfully pale." Even though Mack claimed he wouldn't trust anything that hadn't been brewed by his mother, I did keep some Muggle drugs on hand. Somehow, I didn't think Sue would want any of the Pepper-Up Potion that Mack had picked up the week before for his cold.

"Yes, please."

"Just lie down, and I'll be back in a minute." I went into the kitchen to put the teakettle on the stove and dig in the cabinets for the aspirin. When I returned to the living room, she only opened her eyes long enough to swallow the pills. I took advantage of this fact to hide the rest of the photos and be grateful that Sammy was sleeping unnoticed in his cage. Back in the kitchen, I took some aspirin for myself and started hunting for the tea bags.

"Liz? Liz, are you there? Bloody hell!" I heard Mack's voice, followed by a shriek from Sue. Momentarily frozen, I couldn't reach the other room before hearing him growl, "Petrificus Totalus."

I came around the corner to see Sue lying stiffly on the sofa, her wide eyes darting around the room before resting on me. Mack's work robes were trailing soot on the carpet as he strode away from the fireplace, still pointing his wand at her.

"What have you done to her?" I gasped. Sue seemed unable to speak.

"Full Body Bind. It doesn't hurt." He turned to me with a hard look in his eyes that I had never seen before. "How long has she been here, and what did she see? I need to know so I can do a Memory Charm."

"WHAT?" The two parts of my life that I had worked to keep separate were now colliding headlong in my living room. In the course of my reading over the past year, I had seen mentions of Muggles' memories being changed in order to keep the wizarding world a secret, but the reality of it had never hit home until this moment. To stall for time, I asked, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Of course. Rob and I learned by practicing on each other years ago." His eyes softened as his mouth twitched at the corners. "I threatened to make him forget Cassandra's birthday if he ever got out of line. Unfortunately, I still can't remember what six times seven is..."

Normally, his sense of humor was one of the things I liked best about Mack, but in this situation it only served to annoy me. "That's not what I meant. Can't you just swear Sue to secrecy and let her go?" Then I had an absolutely horrible thought. "You didn't to this to me, did you? Before you proposed?"

"No, but if the occasion had arisen, I had to be prepared to do it. It's not pleasant, but the safety of our world depends on it. Besides, if I don't do it, someone else will."

"Damn the Statute of Secrecy!" I stopped for a moment, shocked at my own outburst. Sue's eyes even gave me a flickering look of approval. My friends had always teased me because I almost never swore.

Mack's expression didn't change, so I resorted to begging. "Please, I'll take responsibility. I'll pay a fine or whatever. Just let her go. I'll make sure she doesn't tell anyone..." How I was going to do this, I didn't know. Sue was a notorious gossip.

Mack shook his head sadly. "You've said yourself that she can't keep a secret to save her life." My shoulders slumped as I admitted defeat. He put his free hand on my arm and said, "She was already lying down when I showed up. I'll just make her think she dozed off for five minutes. It looks like you already cleaned up the room." He glanced around and removed the soot from the floor with a muttered incantation. "Oh, I almost forgot. I was originally trying to Floo you to say that I have to work late tonight."

Somehow, this matter-of-fact statement kindled the anger that had been simmering below the surface during our entire discussion. Conveniently forgetting that I wasn't entirely blameless, I demanded, "How could you be so careless?"

Mack didn't answer. He just moved closer to sofa, took a deep breath, and steadied his wand. "Obliviate." Sue's formerly terrified eyes were now blinking in confusion. Mack whispered, "I have to leave. We'll talk later." He released her from the Body-Bind spell and Disapparated with a crack.

A few seconds later, Sue's eyes cleared as she looked up at me and yawned, "I must have fallen asleep. The tea kettle woke me up." I hadn't noticed the whistling noise because of all the distractions.

I gladly escaped back to the kitchen in order to try and calm myself. As I carried the tea things into the other room, I found it difficult to face Sue and pretend that nothing had happened. I'm a lousy actress, but I don't think she noticed anything strange about my behavior. It was a mark of how ill she was feeling that she was the first to suggest that she should go home. I volunteered to walk with her, and she accepted.

After we parted at the door of her building, all the anger and resentment towards Mack that I had been suppressing for the last hour suddenly overflowed. "I DON'T WANT TO EVER SEE YOU AGAIN!" I yelled at the sky as I set off through the streets of London. I dimly registered the confused and concerned looks from my fellow pedestrians as I continued to shake with rage.

The winter sun had long set when I found myself in front of a coffee shop miles away from where I had begun. Exhausted, I went inside and sank down into a chair. After the waitress walked away with my order, I laid my head down on the table and began sobbing, my anger spent.

My head jerked up when I felt a tap on my shoulder. As she set down my tea, the waitress surreptitiously slipped a couple of chocolate biscuits into my hand. "You look like you could use these. Will you be all right?" I nodded, resolving to leave her an enormous tip for her kindness.

I nibbled the biscuits automatically as my swirling thoughts overwhelmed me. What was I going to do? I couldn't forgive Mack for what he had done, could I? But it was partly my own fault, wasn't it? My tea grew cold as I again gave in to my misery and tried to evaluate my options.

Unbidden, a small voice in my brain whispered, You could just walk away. They could make you forget..

No, you can't,

a stronger voice answered. You knew this wouldn't be easy. You can't take the coward's way out. For better or for worse, remember?

Oh great, when I sit up I'll find cartoon angels and devils arguing on my shoulder.

Roused by this mental wake-up call, I raised my head from the table and looked around. My eyes still stinging, I abruptly realized that I was the last customer left in the shop. I shakily asked the waitress to call me a cab as I didn't trust myself to be able to walk home.

Half an hour later, the taxi deposited me in front of my building where I slogged up the two flights of stairs. As I put the key into the lock, the door swung open to reveal a frantic-looking Mack. He pulled me into a bone-crushing hug, whispering, "Thank goodness, you're all right! I'm so sorry about everything. I was just about to go looking for you. I just got off the phone with your sister, hoping you might have told her where you went. We'd better call her back..."

"Mack, we need to talk." I cleared my throat and crossed my arms as he led me to the sofa. I had planned my speech during the taxi ride. "We need to agree on some ground rules to prevent this from ever happening again. First, no more Floo calls except in the direst emergency. I think you said there was a phone in the Muggle Relations Office; use it. Second, you need to stop being so careless about leaving all your things about..." He made a noise as if to interrupt me, but I avoided his eye and kept going. "In return, I will no longer bring anyone here on the spur of the moment. When I do invite friends over, I will go over the flat with a fine-tooth comb to make sure nothing incriminating is left in sight before they arrive." I finally turned towards him and held out my right hand. "Do we have a deal?"

He showed only the slightest hesitation before extending his arm. "Deal." We squeezed each other's hands.

"Sue's going to be alright, isn't she?" The guilt about leading one of my best friends into this situation was still gnawing heavily at me.

"Yes, she will. Don't worry."

"Easy enough for you to say."

We dropped hands and leaned back into the sofa without touching. Mack stared off into space for a moment and then asked, "Did I do the right thing? Telling you about magic? I've heard stories of wizards hiding everything until after the wedding, in some cases for years. If I'd decided to keep acting Muggle, this wouldn't have happened."

"I would've found out eventually, I'm sure. Then I probably would have felt betrayed. It was hard enough learning that you had kept quiet for months because you weren't legally able to tell me."

"Yeah, you're right." He ran his hands through his hair. "I debated this question for weeks beforehand, you see. Once I decided to propose, I even went up to visit Grandmother Robertson and ask how she had handled everything with Grandfather. She advised me that telling the truth was the easiest way. If I'd waited until we were living together, you would surely have noticed I was hiding something."

"I might've suspected you of having an affair..." I suggested dryly.

"Hey! We Hufflepuffs are known for our loyalty!" He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer. The tension between us was not entirely gone, but the fact we could tease each other in a normal fashion was promising. "Back to our subject, I must admit that showing you everything led me to realize I'd been taking magic for granted. It's been fun seeing your reactions."

"Not today, though." I looked down and twisted my hands in my lap. "Look, I'm sorry I stormed off like that. I can't remember ever being that angry before. After I calmed down a bit, I realized I was just as much at fault as you."

"I'll try my best not to set you off again. Now, go call your sister before she decides to come over here and kill me for making you run away." He pushed me in the direction of the telephone, and I dutifully rang up Becky. She suggested that I make Mack sleep on the couch for a week as punishment, and I told her (loudly, so that Mack could hear) that I would consider it.

I returned to the sofa, and Mack drew me close again. I leaned against his shoulder and asked, "So what happens now? We've both agreed to be more careful, but I still can't help wishing that the secrecy wasn't necessary."

"Me, too. Still, I think there are things that the Muggle public's better off not knowing. After the mysterious deaths and prison escapes that have happened over the last couple of years, I don't have to be a Seer to predict that we may be heading towards another outbreak of Dark Magic activity."

I shivered. Sometimes, I didn't want to know these things either, but nothing is ever overcome by hiding your head in the sand.

The two of us didn't say much more before calling it a night. I lay in the dark, unable to sleep even though I was utterly worn out. Well, I'm lying in the bed I've made. All I can do is make the best of it. Take everything one day at a time, and all of those other clichés. Ugh.

I'm not sure how much time passed before Mack started snoring beside me. Poking him in the side and covering my own head with a pillow both failed to quiet the noise. Vaguely thinking that maybe I should have made him camp on the couch, I too, finally drifted off to sleep.

*** FIN ***