Love Among Muggles

It was Christmas Eve, and Jack Bentley, head of the tiny Muggle Liaison unit at the Ministry of Magic, was up to his ears in unexpected work. Two of his three staff had had to drop everything to deal with an emergency. Edward McAllister was the only one still in his usual place, and that was only because he was too posh to fit in with the disguises the others used. Geraldine Cooper had been swung into place as a nurse at a major Birmingham hospital, and Ted Tonks was enjoying life as a detective with the Warwickshire police force. Jack was going to have to check up on next year's Muggleborn Hogwarts pupils, a job he found depressing.

He was sitting at his desk reading Geraldine's notes, for the vetting was really one of her tasks, when someone knocked at his door. A girl opened the door and came into the room. "Um, hello," she began. "Mr Bentley? I was wondering if I might speak with Ted. Mr Tonks, that is."

Jack said nothing for a few seconds. The girl was painfully thin, and had huge dark rings beneath her eyes, and not in the way Ted assured him was fashionable for Muggle women to do their makeup. This darkness was natural, a sign of too little sleep and possibly a great deal of crying. "Ted's not here," he said finally. I know who you are, he thought, but I'd like to know how you know Ted.

The girl rubbed the string of pearls around her neck anxiously. "I have to see him!" she said. "I don't have a lot of time - I'm supposed to be buying Christmas gifts. Please, you must tell me where he is."

Jack smiled. "He's in Warwickshire, helping to calm things down. Did you know half-a-dozen Muggles had been murdered?"

The girl dropped in a dead faint, which Jack had not expected at all.

Andromeda came round propped in one of the office chairs, with Jack patting her hand with one of his and waving a glass of Firewhisky under her nose with the other. Since the night of her birthday she'd known that people she'd always trusted to be fundamentally decent, if not particularly nice, were as far from decent as they could get. She'd realised that far from being a little backward in their attitudes, they'd covered up an awful lot of hate under a veneer of modernity, and she'd only been shielded from it because she'd been a child and children prattle without thought. Now Ted's boss was talking to her about murder in her home county. Was this something else people hid from her? She managed to focus on Jack once more.

"I'm sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "Did that come as a shock? Please, drink."

Andromeda pushed the glass away. "My mother will smell it," she said.

"Yes, and Druella won't like you drinking on a shopping trip, will she?" As Andromeda blanched, Jack was half-scared she was about to pass out again, but she remained conscious and glared at him. "I know who you are," Jack said. "Why are you here?"

"I'm Ted's... a friend of Ted. I need his help. You said Muggles were killed. Where? Where in Warwickshire?"

Oh Ted, you berk, Jack thought. What are you doing getting involved with this one? "Not far from your house, actually. There's a little village just down the road, but only Muggles live there. There's nothing for you to worry about. Tell you what, you go back to your parents and I'll tell him you dropped by." When hell freezes over, he added mentally.

Andromeda smiled. I'm happy, she told herself. I believe this man. She hoped she now wore a look of trust, even though she didn't believe a word Jack said. "If you say so. Thank you so very much."

Jack was astonished at the change that came over the girl. From a drab, grey little thing she'd become a glowing, happy creature. As he watched her stand to leave, he smiled, and waved her goodbye. As soon as the door closed behind her the smile dropped right off his face.

As a Muggleborn, Ted had plenty of political enemies. As a Blood Traitor, Jack had plenty too - in fact, Jack had more. There were plenty of people who'd dislike Ted for what he was, but they hadn't got to know him. The same people hated Jack personally. He'd grown up within their privileged circle, and they hadn't forgiven him for choosing his career rather than their prejudices. Orion and Walburga Black were quite high on that list, and Cygnus Black not much lower down.

Ted Tonks had always had an eye for a pretty girl, but most of his conquests had been Muggles, safely out of the public eye. Jack didn't know how Ted had come to know Andromeda Black, but she was sure to be trouble of the very worst sort, and if Ted had problems with her family, his troubles would all land on Jack, too. There was no way Jack would send Ted looking for Andromeda Black.

**

Andromeda had no intention of waiting for Jack to pass on a message to Ted. Still wearing her 'happy face', and grateful to what ever gift it was that helped her alter her appearance subtly merely by concentrating, she went about her Christmas shopping as though nothing had happened, using Floo to go back from the Ministry to the Leaky Cauldron. From there she walked to the toyshop just off Diagon Alley. She selected models of Quidditch players for Sirius, and a toy cauldron for little Regulus. They went in her bag alongside a book of horror stories (Witch-Finders and Inquisitors) for Bellatrix and a groomable toy unicorn for Narcissa. She'd planned her purchases during the last few weeks of the Hogwarts' term, and now went through the motions without even thinking about what she was doing. Smile and pay, smile and leave. Keep smiling, she told herself.

Andromeda usually threw any loose change she had - and in her wealthy world, that often included Sickles as well as Knuts - into old face cream jars under her bed. When her mother had announced the trip to London, however, she'd emptied the jar into her purse. She had one more stop to make before rejoining her family. Andromeda, who'd only ever had to ask her parents for something to be given the money for it, was going to open her own Gringotts account at last. She was going to start her own running-away fund. She loved Ted, but knew he was poor, and didn't find the idea of living in complete poverty remotely romantic, even if Arthur and Molly could laugh the prospect off. Meeting that man, that poisonous politician, and hearing her own relatives discuss not just refusing to take Muggleborns at Hogwarts but that it was a shame there was no way to 'put down' any magical offspring born to Muggles shortly after birth had made her feel sick to her stomach. They'd talked about limiting pureblood marriages to other purebloods only. Lucius had nodded and looked attentive, a golden boy privileged to be in the same room as his political idol, and she'd run her hands over her skirt and wondered if she was intended to be a golden girl to match him.

When she was finally able to leave her father's study and return to the ballroom, she'd worn her vacuous look of happiness. Happily, Opal Carstairs had ensured that none of the other guests would notice her, having given a display of such vulgarity it would be remembered when she was ninety. Andromeda had leaned gratefully against Broderick Bode as they danced, knowing he was safe. She'd stood next to Molly feeling as though her friend was an anchor. She knew Molly's views on Muggleborns, and she agreed with them. Andromeda had wanted to drag little Bellatrix away from her enthusiastic talk with Mr Borgin. She'd wanted to hide Narcissa from everyone, because nothing unpleasant should ever touch such a gentle dreamer of a child - but Narcissa had been enjoying her final dance before bedtime, and had herself asked for Lucius to be her partner, much to the teenage boy's amusement. There he was, being kind to a small sweet child, a child he'd have wanted to be killed at birth if she'd had Muggle parents.

Once she'd paid her six Galleons, fifteen Sickles and a Knut into her new, highly-secret account, and stashed the emerald bracelet that her aunt and uncle had given her as a birthday gift in her vault, she went to meet her family with increased reluctance. They'd be going home soon. Even though she knew that awful man would no longer be there, having left with all the other partygoers, being at home made her flesh crawl. She didn't like to leave her room now, and wasn't even sure she felt safe there. She knew it was daft, for the man had done no more than hold her hand as she rose from her curtsey, but she felt as though she'd been invaded somehow. He'd seemed to rifle through her brain for thoughts of Lucius as they discussed her classmates. She'd tried to explain it to her mother the following day but Druella had laughed it off, saying, "You've nothing to hide, so stop making such a fuss."

Andromeda hadn't known about the killings until Jack had told her. She'd been keen to see Ted to tell him about Lord Voldemort. Now she knew she'd been drinking champagne and eating smoked salmon while people were being murdered a short distance from her parents' house. She thought of all the people who'd been out of the main ballroom, unseen, for any length of time. Muggles are dead, she thought. Has it gone beyond talk?

Ted will make it all right, she thought. He's always there for everyone.

**

At home Andromeda wrapped the gifts she'd bought, then headed for the woods. The plan she'd made ages ago for meeting Ted was now put into action, although then she'd been thinking more of kissing and less of crying on his shoulder when she'd come up with it.

She pulled a Charmed parcel out of a long in the woods and quickly swapped the Muggle clothes within for her own robes, slipping her wand inside one knee-high white plastic boot. Melly had cleaned the clothes for her - Andromeda knew the House Elf would only tell Druella about the clothes if Druella actually asked if Andromeda had any, and such a thing would never enter her mother's mind. Andromeda knew where the Muggle village was because Ted had mentioned it on his visit before her birthday. As she walked through the woods, she thought over and over again, I'm like Honor Blackman. I'm Cathy Gale. I'm gorgeous. I can take on anything. She wasn't convinced she would be any good in a fight, but she hoped she looked tough.

She walked down the road towards the village. On the edge was a little row of terraced houses, all linked. The smell of smoke still lingered around them, and she could see burned ends of beams through the hole where the roof should be, and cracked and blackened windows. She shuddered. A Muggle policeman, one of two standing outside the houses called, "Can I help you, miss?"

"I'm looking for Ted Tonks," she called back.

"He's interviewing people in the pub," the policeman called, pointing up the road.

As she turned and walked away, heart pounding, the policeman turned to his comrade and said, "Did you see that?"

"Too right - and I wouldn't mind seeing it again. That weird DI - Moody, was it? - said DS Tonks was one for the girls. Lucky bleeder." They happily contemplated the sight of Andromeda walking up the street.

A pub is a pub, whether you're a wizard or a Muggle, and Andromeda felt quite at home as she opened the door of the Rose and Crown. Why, she thought, I might as well be walking into The Three Broomsticks. She spotted Ted easily. He was sitting in a corner talking to an old Muggle who was crying into her handkerchief. Things felt tougher all of a sudden. Andromeda had been scared, but these Muggles were coping with real deaths. As the Muggle got up to go, Ted wrote something down in a little notebook. Andromeda went over to join him.

Ted looked up. "And you are... oh." He dropped his voice. "What the hell are you doing here, Annie?"

It wasn't the welcome she'd expected. "I came to see you," she said quietly. "Your boss told me you were here."

"Jack? You've been to my office too? Look, Annie, this really isn't the time. I'll come and see you after Christmas, eh? I should be able to make the first Hogsmeade weekend. But this is serious."

"How do you know I don't have something serious to say?"

Ted stuck to his guns. " I've got work to do."

Andromeda glared at him. "I mean serious, stupid. As in, nothing to do with our relationship serious. Do you think I'm a complete idiot?"

"No. Can't it wait, though? I've just finished re-interviewing some people, and I've got to get over to the hospital in Birmingham this afternoon to interview the survivors. This is major."

"I'm starting to think you are a complete idiot," she said. "This fire - you wouldn't be here if it wasn't presumed to be magical, right? Jack Bentley sent you to smooth things over with the Muggles while the Aurors investigate. Would I also be right in guessing it all happened on the 21st?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think it had something to do with my party?"

Ted shrugged. "It was the most significant gathering of wizards in the country that night. There were dozens of people there who had the ability to do it, if not the desire. Of course, if anyone's going to question them, it'll be Alastor Moody. He's on this job too. He says, though, without a bit more evidence, simply asking some of the people from your party about that night could get him in trouble. I mean, we can't go bothering friends of the Minister."

"It could have been someone else, though. Someone not invited."

"True. You know, I was in Wales then, watching someone mucking around with a fake wand that had some Incendio charms built in. It's a weird coincidence, two lots of Muggles and two lots of fire on the same night. So, what's so important that you had to see me?"

Andromeda let her confident mask fall. Ted took her hands in concern when he saw how worn out she was. In the few days since he saw her in the woods she'd lost more weight and started to look ill. "I'm scared, Ted," she admitted. "I'm glad I can leave home at any point, because I just might do it. Have you heard of Lord... Voldemort?" Just saying his name made her feel as though the man from her party could hear her.

Ted shook his head. "I thought wizards didn't have titles like that."

"We don't. There was a man calling himself that at my party, but in Father's study, well away from most people. Everyone said he was a politician. The Rosiers went in to meet him, and the Carrows. Obviously my family met him, and the Malfoys did too. Gerontius Mulciber was constantly on hand. Mother made me meet him. Oh Ted, it was awful! I felt like he was searching through my brain."

"What for?"

"I don't know - for my feelings. I got all these images of the times I'd been with Lucius. The thing is, Lucius had been really sweet to Cissy so I was feeling good about him. It's stupid, but I think if I'd been thinking of how much I hated some of what Lucius does, he'd have known. He asked me about things, too. Like who I spend the most time with, why I think the Hat sorted me into Ravenclaw and so on."

"He's a politician. He was showing interest, to get you on his side. If you'd been a baby he'd have kissed the top of your head."

"It was more than that... I think it would have been worse if he'd really been interested in what I really thought."

"Do you think he started the fires?"

"I doubt it - he'd never have been able to get away from his admirers. I'm sure if Mother could have found a plate to put under her bosoms, she'd have offered him a bite."

Ted laughed. "Ouch! That's a bit harsh."

"He scared me, Ted. You know... everyone who met him was of a certain political disposition. The Bodes didn't meet him, nor the Boneses or Macmillans. If you're looking for a group of people who wanted to get Mulciber in as Minister, you could do worse than look at the friends of this Lord... you know who."

Ted looked out of the window in thought. "You think someone in that group might have framed Maggie?"

Andromeda nodded. "It's awful. I'm talking about people I care for. He was like a lens, taking all their worst points and magnifying them. You need to look closely at that. Someone in that group might have started the fire too."

"Do you have a list of guests?"

"Look in the Daily Prophet - there's a two-page special in the social section."

Ted smiled. "You're a star, Annie. You look like a tired star, though."

"I've been having nightmares ever since meeting him. He's got these red eyes, and he's looking for you, and he's going to smash my head open to find you."

"If you want, you don't have to go back. You can leave right now. No one can stop you."

"No. Who knows, I'll probably never see him again, and I want to be there for Bellatrix and Narcissa. Cissy's so gentle... there's not a lot of love in that house, you know."

"When you want a top-up, I've got love to spare."

Andromeda squeezed his hand, knowing she couldn't kiss him in public when he was supposed to be a police detective. She got up to go. "I'll expect a delivery on the fifth of February, then."

Ted began to think. He was concerned for Andromeda. He was angry at what had happened to these poor Muggles, too. Six innocent people had lost their lives only a few days before Christmas, and the official line was that an unswept chimney had caught fire, as though they'd brought their death on themselves. Maggie's situation had been political. Whoever was behind what had happened to her had identified her as a person. These Muggles had been killed simply because they existed. Whoever had murdered them hadn't even seen them as people, merely as pests. Ted thought of his own family and shuddered.

Across the pub, Alastor Moody was also deep in thought. The investigation wasn't getting very far, and he'd assumed it was because the firestarter had covered his or her tracks very well. When he'd noticed the Black girl, however, he'd darted out of sight. Ted already had a convicted spy as a friend. Now he appeared to be on friendly terms with the eligible daughter of a family of known Muggle-haters and (he suspected) Dark wizards. Moody liked Ted. He felt like he knew the young man as well as anyone. However, all his dodgy associations could not be overlooked. Was Ted a spy? Was he actually on the side of the Dark wizards, and therefore deliberately hampering the investigation into the murders.

I'm keeping my eye on you, Ted Tonks, Alastor Moody decided.