Love Among Muggles

Jack Bentley, head of the tiny Ministry department dealing with Muggles, looked up as Ted Tonks entered their cramped office. The official reason for the lack of space was that most of the operatives worked 'in the field', keeping an eye out for breaches of magical secrecy and dangerous Muggle trends. In fact, the head of the department it should have been part of - Magical Law Enforcement - wanted nothing to do with it, and Jack was content to rule his tiny Ministerial kingdom alone. Ted's desk, the one nearest to Jack's, was usually covered with Jack's unwanted paperwork and discarded memos.

"Hullo Ted," he said in surprise. "I wasn't expecting to see you until the departmental meeting next week. Geraldine Cooper says Tolkien's been at it again - we've warned him not to write any more books, so I suppose I'll be catching the train to Oxford to talk to him. At the moment it just looks like a resurgence of interest in his old ones."

Ted located his chair beneath a stack of files, which he placed on the floor. He didn't care about his work at that moment. "I've been to see my friend in Azkaban," he said. "Used the Floo network to get to Aberdeen and then flew out from there." He rubbed at a patch of soot on his robes. Some of the long-distance floo journeys could be grubby if the chimneys en route weren't cleaned often enough.

Jack shivered. "How was she?"

"Pretty bad. She didn't have a happy life among the Muggles, and with the Dementors around it's all she can think about." Ted had hugged his friend and helped her put ointment on her tear-chapped face, but without his wand, which he'd had to leave at the entry for fear that a prisoner could snatch it and use it to escape, he couldn't heal the long scratches she'd torn down her arms out of fear and despair.

"Ted..." Jack sat back in his chair and toyed with his silver serpent-shaped paper knife. Ted knew of old that this fiddling meant his boss had to say something unpleasant. "Have you thought about the implications of visiting her?"

Ted's jaw set in a firm line. No one knew about Maggie's girlfriend, and few of her friends had been prepared to brave the flight across the North Sea, the Dementors or simply the shame of being known as the acquaintance of a potential criminal. Without him, she'd have been alone between her arrest and trial. "Yes," he replied. "I've also thought of the implications of not visiting her."

"I'm not going to tell you to stop going," Jack told him.

"Good, because you'd have to sack me."

"Listen. If you keep going, you could end up in the same position. People could start saying you were involved."

"How? I don't have access to any secrets. I'm not even part of the community, most of the time. I can hardly be spying on wizards when I'm deliberately surrounding myself with Muggles, can I?"

Ted was angry, and Jack knew there was no point labouring the matter. Left to himself, Ted would think about this, but if Jack tried to push him, Ted would become stubborn. "Okay, okay. Look, I've put Geraldine onto vetting Muggle families of children who'll be eligible for Hogwarts next year. There are only eight, but she's going to have to check up on them every so often over the next ten months. This means she's going to have to leave the group in Wales for a week or so, but she's convinced something is going on there. I was wondering..."

"Oh, Jack, no. Not the hippies."

"I'm sorry, Ted, really I am, but this could be big. You said yourself, the Mods are quiet. Tell them you're taking a short holiday and hippie-sit for Geraldine for a week. After that it'll just be days here and there."

Ted folded his arms. "This is to get me away from the trouble, isn't it."

"I don't have anyone else," Jack insisted. "Edward's too old, and the hippies butt up against the occult loonies he works with from time to time. Someone might recognise him. I can't do it, I've got to see the author."

"I could visit Tolkien," Ted insisted. "I'd love to meet him."

"I can't do fieldwork," Jack pointed out. "I've never lived among Muggles."

Ted scowled. Despite Jack's protestations, Ted suspected his politically adept boss had planned things out deliberately. He appreciated the fact that Jack was trying to take care of him, but he didn't need it.

Jack smiled. "You don't have girl trouble again, do you?"

"What? No, not this time."

"I thought there might be some pretty Mod you'd miss."

"No, no... I'm sticking with witches," Ted said. Jack raised an eyebrow, and Ted said no more. "Listen, even if Geraldine takes more than a week to do the first lot of surveillance, I'll have to leave. I'm not missing Maggie's trial."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Jack said.

**

Ted's next move was to visit Amelia Bones. Being a very junior employee of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, recently transferred from the Department of Magical Games and Sports, she usually got all the unpleasant jobs. She was a tough cookie, though, and threw herself into whatever work came her way. Ted found her knee-deep in parchment files in the records section, looking up precedents for a burglary case. He remembered her from Hogwarts. She was a square-faced girl, handsome rather than pretty, and rather plummy. There was something of the country squire's daughter about her: without being told, he knew that she would be able to ride and to Stun game birds and had masses of solid common sense.

"Miss Bones?" he asked politely. "I'm a friend of Margaret Packham. I was wondering if I could sign for her belongings, as no one else has."

"Of course," said Amelia, putting down files. "I could do with a break. They're under my desk." She took him through to a larger room, where the esteem each operative was held in was clearly marked. Amelia's desk was small and scratched, and nowhere near a window. She pulled a cardboard box out from beneath it. "She was arrested before she entered her flat, so she had only her work things with her - pen, parchments, things like that. Her clothes are here too. I'm afraid we do have to keep her wand, in case we need to check her spellcasting history."

Ted nodded. He examined the contents of the box. It was still there! He pulled out a small gold lion on a delicate gold chain. He put it back, on top of the robes this time.

"I was in Gryffindor with her," Amelia said. "Not in the same year, of course... Weren't you in Gryffindor too, a few years below us?"

Ted nodded. "I bought her the necklace for Christmas a couple of years ago. She helped me get my job here... I probably shouldn't say that now, though, should I?"

"Don't talk rot," Amelia told him. "I will admit, your visit did surprise people. Most of her friends have gone to ground, and she always seemed to have so many."

"Can you talk about the evidence?" Ted asked quietly.

Amelia shook her head. "I'm afraid not, but I haven't been given access to it anyway. It's too sensitive. The Wizengamot will see it at the trial, but it won't be revealed before that."

"All right. Thanks for the things, anyway."

Amelia Bones watched Ted go. She had a strong impulse to tell him he was being watched, but sensed that it wouldn't affect his behaviour at all. If he cared what people thought of him, he would never have gone to see his friend in the first place.

Ted spent the rest of the afternoon in Diagon Alley. He sometimes resented the time he spent away from the wizarding world because his work forced him to hide what he was. He wished he could divide his time equally between both Muggle and magical places. Flourish and Blott's had a new supply of book disguise kits in stock. These had been available for several years, but were invaluable to any wizard who had to maintain the appearance of Mugglehood. You took a hardback book, slipped the dust cover inside the plastic disguise kit sleeve, and put the cover on a different book. Now anyone non-magical looking at the second book would see the pages from the first. The Charms within the kits only lasted for a few weeks, but they did at least enable Muggleborn Hogwarts students to take textbooks home during the Christmas and Easter breaks. Ted had a set of work-related books at home that he renewed the covers on once a month.

He had one more meeting that day, but that would be in Muggle London, and most of the people who'd be at the meeting had day jobs. He whiled away the afternoon outside the ice cream parlour writing to Andromeda. Several times he erased the writing from the parchment and started again, not wanting to share bad news with her. Sitting at this table in the cold autumn air brought back bittersweet memories. Claire had mentioned that some gossipy friend of Mrs. Black had seen Andromeda, Claire and Ted together outside the ice cream parlour during the summer, and that she'd given Andromeda quite a beating for it. Despite his best intentions, Ted found himself pouring out his heart about Maggie for the fourth time, and gave in. Andromeda would get the letter whether it was happy or not. He owled it before setting off for the BBC buildings at White City.

Wizards didn't read television, or use a radio of the sort Muggles enjoy listening to, although their wireless did seem similar to radio. The BBC was about as Muggle as an institution could be, and for that reason a small group of Muggleborn wizards met there regularly. Michael Osborne, who worked in Goblin Liaison, had a brother who worked as a cameraman for the Corporation and allowed the group to meet in an equipment store-room. The group had started off informally, as a way for newcomers to the wizarding world to help one another fit in to their new society. They'd met in the Leaky Cauldron until Jerry Gribbins, a nervous little fellow who had some talent for Divination, had insisted that they start meeting in a purely Muggle location about eight months previously. You never knew who might turn up to a meeting, although Ted, Michael and Jerry went to most of them.

Maggie was the main topic of discussion, although no one had any useful information to impart. Ted itched to be able to do something more to help her, and he couldn't. The only person who could have told any of them how precarious the Minister's position was would have been Maggie herself, had she still been working for him. None of the other Muggleborns had professional connections that far up the social scale. Ted, of course, had Andromeda, but he didn't want to get her into more trouble than she'd been in during the summer. He didn't want to risk having her whisked away by her family if they discovered the illicit relationship.

He spoke quietly to Jerry. "What's your gut feeling?"

"You can't go by gut feeling," Jerry whispered, looking upset.

"True, true," Ted said, but his heart sank because Jerry was obviously hiding something. If Jerry's instincts said things looked bad for Maggie, she might really be convicted. It could mean a longer spell in Azkaban, and the short term she'd been imprisoned for had already damaged her.

"You should trust her more," Jerry said suddenly. "She'll be your greatest strength."

"Maggie? From Azkaban? She needs our strength."

Jerry looked confused. "The other one. There's another girl." He shut up, and Ted realised Jerry was simply spouting stuff that came into his head. He did that a lot. Muggles tended to regard him as odd, but he'd never been completely at home among wizards, so Jerry lived mostly in a sort of limbo. He shared a flat with Michael, and worked as a dishwasher at a small wizard-owned café.

"Listen, you lot," Ted announced. "I've got to cover an assignment for Geraldine Cooper - hippies in Wales, just my luck. Will someone please check up on Maggie for me this weekend? I'll cover any travelling expenses."

No one said anything. Then Michael stepped forward. "I'll do it."

Even so, Ted went to Wales the following day with a heavy heart.