Love Among Muggles

Until she went to Hogwarts, the happiest day of Andromeda's life was when she was seven. Her mother, pregnant with Narcissa, took Andromeda and baby Bellatrix to London.

Andromeda's life was governed by the clock and House Elves. In their dark mansion in Warwickshire, the day started when one elf brought porridge and a cup of weak tea for her to breakfast on while her bath was running. After bathing Andromeda, the elf dried her and dressed her and took her up to the schoolroom at the top of the house, out of sight and most definitely out of earshot.

In the schoolroom Andromeda learned many things: how to count, for one needed to count in order to make potions correctly and also to make sure that the tradesmen weren't fiddling the accounts. She learned how to read, both in English and basic runic scripts, because it is essential for the understanding of grimoires, spell books and manipulating the media. The elf taught her a little of the history of wizards and witches, because the history of their leaders was the story of her family.

Even after Bellatrix was born, Andromeda was lonely, because babies are raised in the nursery and young children in the schoolroom. By the time Bellatrix started taking lessons, Andromeda would be a pupil at Hogwarts.

Picture, then, a small girl with greeny-greyish-blue eyes and mousy hair letting herself out of the front door of one of the large houses on Grimmauld Place. Her mother, uncle and aunt are all talking in the drawing room, and Andromeda is supposed to be being quiet. Silently she sneaks out, closing the door behind herself with the quietest of clicks.

A trio of small children are playing on the pavement. They are slightly grubby, very shabby, and all having a very good time.

"Ello," one of them says. "'Oo are you?"

"Andromeda," she says. Doesn't he know who she is? In Andromeda's tiny world, everyone knows everyone else. But then, she doesn't know him either.

"That's a mouthful an' an 'alf, an' no mistake," the older of the two boys comments.

"Annie," says the lone girl. "Where d'joo come from?"

"There." Andromeda points behind herself at the door to the house. "Number 12."

The children laugh. "She's cracked!" The older boy grins with delight. "There ain't no number 12!"

"You leave 'er alone, Bill," the little girl scolds. "Mum said you ain't to pick on people what can't 'elp it."

Andromeda can barely understand what these children are saying, but she is pleased to have met them. Outside the door, she has been warned, is where the Muggles are, filthy things with claws and teeth that will burn her or drown her or eat her alive, like evil Hansel and Gretel kill the poor witch in the story. These children are normal, and she feels safer with them. She pulls a bag of Best Blowing Gum out of her pocket and offers it around.

The other children are delighted with the amazing bubbles.

"Woooooah," exclaims the small boy. "This has got to be the best gum EVER."

"Know what, Annie? Yer all right," the older boy tells her.

The little girl grabs Andromeda's hand in her own sticky mitt. "We're goin' ter the park, Annie. D'joo wanter come?"

Happy for the first time ever, Andromeda skips along in the bright sunshine with the clever children who aren't Muggles, because everyone knows Muggles are monsters.

Of course, her absence is noticed. Andromeda's mother is in a towering fury when Bill, Mary and Sam return Andromeda to Grimmauld Place. Andromeda is Flooed home. First her mother strips her, throwing all her clothes on the fire. Then she uses a Scourgify charm to clean the little girl. Once is enough to clean off all the dust and dirt and grass stains from the park.

"SCOURGIFY! Playing with Muggles, how could you?"

The second time, the Charm stings.

"SCOURGIFY! I have never been so embarrassed in all my life."

The third time it hurts.

"SCOURGIFY! I can barely stand to touch you."

The fourth time, she feels grazed all over.

"SCOURGIFY! I don't even want to look at you right now."

The fifth time, Andromeda really is grazed all over, and little pinpricks of blood well up all over her body.

"SCOURGIFY! Get her out of my sight, Melly. And keep her away from the baby until we know she hasn't caught any disgusting diseases."

Melly leads Andromeda away. Andromeda is sniffing but not weeping, because the infrequent contact she's had with her mother has taught her that noise and fuss only lead to worse punishment. Even tiny Bellatrix has learned not to cry, because no one comes when Bellatrix cries. No one makes a fuss in the Black house. Noise is her mother's privilege.

Andromeda does eventually cry, when she's in her room. Melly dabs on antiseptic as gently as possible, uttering soothing words. Melly is far more like a mother to Andromeda than Barb Black ever could be. As she cries, though, Andromeda remembers the sunshine, and the pure unbridled joy of chasing ducks at the edge of the pond in the park. She remembers a happy, astonished voice telling her, "Know what, Annie? Yer all right."

***********

May 1966

Andromeda stamped along the corridor in disgust, following other students on their way to Muggle Studies Club. There's Porky, she thought, holding hands with Arthur Weasley. I do wish they'd find something else to do on Wednesday nights...

Andromeda was in the same year as Molly Prewett, although not the same house. Andromeda had been sorted into Ravenclaw, after some humming and hawing about whether her 'great heart' would be happier in Hufflepuff or her 'tremendous courage' would develop more in Gryffindor. She'd informed the hat that if it wasn't going to put her in Slytherin but still wanted her to leave school alive, it had better be Ravenclaw or nothing. Reluctantly, the hat had agreed.

The good thing about being in Ravenclaw was that all the students in that house took virtually every OWL. Her parents may not like her taking Muggle Studies, but she would've been the dunce of her year if she hadn't taken every class she could fit into her timetable. Being thought the parents of a dunce was less palatable to Mr and Mrs Black than simply not mentioning one of their eldest daughter's OWLs, so Andromeda got to take Muggle Studies.

She didn't have to attend the Muggle Studies Club run by Claire Culpepper, but she tried to fool herself that she was only doing it as extra study. Arthur Weasley made no attempt to hide the fact that he attended the club because he loved the subject. A touch of jealousy coloured Andromeda's attitude towards him, as she veered between envying his freedom and hating him for being a blood traitor.

Tonight they were having a special guest speaker at the club, a young man from the Muggle Liaison Office. He specialised in associating with Muggles of their generation, and was going to talk all about his work with various 'Youth Cultures'. Claire, mini-dress clad as ever, was there to usher everyone in and make sure they were seated comfortably. While Claire usually made an effort to look nice, she'd gone all-out tonight. Andromeda was sure Claire had been using eyelash-thickening Charms - and her face wasn't usually that pale. This guest was clearly something special. When they were all seated, Claire went back outside and returned with... well, what looked like a Muggle.

He wore a navy suit and burgundy desert boots. The trousers were flat-fronted; the lapels on the jacket very narrow. His tie and the handkerchief in his top pocket were both also burgundy. "Evenin' all," he said cheerily. "I am your guest speaker, Ted Tonks - Mr Edward Tonks to you." He and Claire both laughed. Andromeda sat up a little straighter. Of course, she'd never met him, but his slight accent brought back memories of her one happy day.

"So, you're probably all wondering what working with Muggles involves. Not a lot of work, if you're Muggleborn like Claire and me, but an awful lot of effort if you're pureblood. Any purebloods in here?"

Molly and Arthur raised their hands so fast, you'd have thought they were attached to little rockets. Andromeda reluctantly raised hers, as did a couple of others. Muggleborn, she thought. That explains why he looks like them.

"Well, some pureblood prejudices do have foundation. Muggles did once go around trying to burn us. However, they only live half as long as we do, so while we're still sore about it, they've got on and forgotten it. They don't believe in us any more, even. Part of my job is making sure things carry on like that.

"The reason I'm dressed like this is because I hang around with young Muggles. At the moment I work with what they call 'mods'. It's mostly intelligence gathering, so we know what they believe, what they're likely to believe and, crucially, whether there have been any breaches of the Statue of Magical Secrecy. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement handles the breaches, but it's generally Muggle Liaison who find out about them first.

"As for what they believe and what they're likely to believe, that's trickier. See, Muggles want to believe in magic. They want a world where cleaning and getting about are easier, where you can always be warm, where there's always shelter. Muggles have it hard. I have to laugh at anything from our world. When I'm with my Muggle friends, if someone tells a ghost story or reckons he's been in a shop that wasn't there another time, or tries to make out he's seen a monster, I take the mick. I make everyone else laugh at him. Then he shuts up about it and doesn't tell the story any more."

Molly Prewitt raised her hand. "Please, Mr. Tonks..."

"Ted," he corrected with a twinkle. "I ain't much older than you, Red, I only left three years ago." Andromeda tried hard to remember him from her second year, but couldn't recall hearing his voice in the corridors.

Molly blushed. "Please, Ted... don't you feel bad about lying to Muggles?"

"Good question. Not as bad as I've felt when I've had to call in help to get their memories modified. Not as bad as I've felt when I've been trying to cover up what happened when some fool's gone ghost hunting and seen rather more ghost than he expected and gone nuts. And I've been to other parts of the world, places where they still believe in us and don't like us... trust me, it's better that they think we're all fairytales. At least they don't live in fear of us and don't hunt us down. Now all we need is some Pureblood Relations staff to teach the old families not to be scared of Muggles." He and Claire laughed. Andromeda felt affronted. How dare he suggest that purebloods could be scared by Muggles?

Arthur's turn for a question: "Do you ever get to handle Muggle artefacts?"

"All the time! As I said, I'm Muggle-born. To be honest, though, my job's cultural, not research-based. Are you interested in Muggle technologies?"

Arthur nodded eagerly.

"Well, there are departments within the Ministry that deal with things rather than people. Might be worth looking into, if that's your bag. Now, one more question before I show you some images of the people I work with."

Andromeda's hand was first up. "Do all Muggles talk like you?"

He looked at her keenly. "No, just the ones from Hackney. And my mum and dad are always telling me how posh this place made me; I've lost most of my accent. Muggles are like wizards; we speak in all sorts of ways. Because there are more Muggles, and they tend to live in cities, and they don't get it taught away at Hogwarts, most Muggles have a wider range of accents. Now, folks, slides. Are you sitting comfortably?" With a wave of his wand the lights went out and images were projected onto the wall of the room - Muggle images, static moments frozen in time.

Andromeda gazed at the slides in wonder. There were young women dressed a lot like Claire, sharp-suited young men on mopeds, handsome Muggle couples dancing at nightclubs or drinking coffee in funny places called coffee bars. It was like looking into another world, where people were free. She also looked at Ted, twitching his wand to change pictures and talking the class through the images.

What a wonderful place Hackney must be!