Love Among Muggles

Ch xx

Andromeda Black and Claire Culpeper, like many Hogwarts students, weren't big fans of current affairs. Andromeda was used to picking up bits of information from her family at home, and didn't have to rely on outside sources to keep her informed of major events. Marlene McKinnon, however, was aiming for a job in the Ministry when she left Hogwarts and liked to keep up with the news. Every morning over breakfast she read the Daily Prophet. Some of the older students from other houses read the paper, but it was mostly a Ravenclaw and Slytherin thing. The Ravenclaws just liked to know what was going on, and the Slytherins thrived on the cut and thrust of politics.

"And I don't know what Slughorn thinks about it, but I think it's a definite improvement," Hellebore Smith said, discussing a modification to a potion that she'd thought of with Broderick Bode. "What do you think, Marlene?"

"Hmm?" Marlene's eyes stayed fixed on the page.

"About the vetiver?"

"What about what vetiver?"

Hellebore frowned in annoyance. "You weren't paying the slightest attention, were you?"

"No." Marlene looked anxiously at the newspaper, her young forehead creased like an old woman's. "A Muggleborn who works for the Ministry has been killed. It happened a couple of days ago but the Aurors have only now revealed the details - they've completed their investigation."

Andromeda, who was sitting opposite Hellebore, dropped her teacup. Ted had been doing dangerous work since Christmas, and had nearly been killed once already. Had he fallen foul of Dark Wizards one final time?

She tried to grab the paper from Marlene. "Get off," Marlene said. "I'm still reading that."

"Who was it?" Andromeda begged. "Who's been killed?"

"What do you care?" Marlene asked, bewildered. "I thought you didn't like Muggles."

Andromeda tried to pull herself together. "I've never met any Muggles, but I have met Muggleborns who work for the Ministry," she explained offhandedly.

Marlene shrugged. As far as she knew, Andromeda hadn't been seen with any Muggleborns since the previous summer. Opal Carstairs had made it widely known that Druella Black had disapproved of her eldest daughter's friendship with Claire Culpeper. She didn't know what to think of Andromeda. "It doesn't say... Oh, heavens!"

"What?" Andromeda squeaked.

"Caractacus Potts has been arrested for the murder," Marlene said. "They got him quickly enough."

"Venus' father?" Broderick said, looking shocked. "Why would he do a thing like that?"

Hellebore, who understood little of human nature, simply shook her head. "The man must be mad."

Andromeda feared the worst, knowing that she'd told Ted to keep an eye on Potts, but then she got a grip on herself. Moody had been watching him, hadn't he? Ted was safe. He had to be. She pushed aside her porridge bowl. "He'll be all right," Andromeda said, thinking of Ted.

Marlene, misinterpreting her, groused, "Well, of course he will! As far as most people will see it, he's a pure-blood and the victim was only a Muggleborn."

"I'd better go and see Venus," Andromeda decided, making the best of Marlene's mistake. "It's going to be awful for the poor girl." Perhaps Venus knew who had given her father his new job - and had that task been murdering Muggleborns? Whatever Venus knew, Andromeda wanted to learn it too.

As Andromeda left, Marlene scowled. "You know, I used to think she was pretty decent, but she's been really dreadful since Christmas. She's a Black all right."

Andromeda caught the prefect's words, but didn't turn back. She wanted to tell Marlene that a mere McKinnon had no right to speak disparagingly of one of the wizarding world's premier families. It's ironic, she thought. Here am I, desperate to leave them, yet I'll defend my parents when they're insulted.

She walked over to Venus, who was white-faced and had dropped a slice of toast in her lap. Slytherin was quite a hierarchical house; all the older students sat together and the ones Andromeda knew best were at a different part of the table. Lucius, while in Venus' year, was permitted to sit with the older students, but he was the exception. Several of the younger pupils looked at Andromeda as she approached. Andromeda was a Ravenclaw, but her name gave her a certain standing within Slytherin. Even Professor Slughorn had a tendency to forget that she was in another house. "Venus," Andromeda said, laying her hand on Venus' bony shoulder, "I just heard the bad news."

Venus turned suddenly and buried her face in Andromeda's sleeve, crying bitterly. "How could he have been so stupid?" she wailed. "He was supposed to be moving up in the world, importing and exporting on behalf of important people."

"Oh, do shut up about that," Jezebel Parkinson said from a little further along the table.

"Jezebel!" Andromeda said, shocked at the other girl's lack of sympathy.

"Well, we've all had it up to here with her over the past couple of months," Jezebel replied. "Giving herself airs and graces. At least now we won't hear any more about her father." One or two of the other girls nodded in agreement.

Andromeda sniffed. "It seems some of you need to learn a thing or two about aspiration." She tugged Venus to her feet, and the toast tumbled to the floor. Venus rubbed half-heartedly at the butter stain on her robes. "I've got a free period next, so I'll walk to your class with you."

Venus carried on sniffing as they walked down the Great Hall. Andromeda was embarrassed - she would never display her emotions so openly. "Venus," she said gently, "don't make a scene. It only makes things worse."

"Pongo's going to drop me now," Venus snivelled. "I just know it."

"Act with dignity and he might not," Andromeda advised. "Besides, your father hasn't been convicted yet, has he? So hold your chin up. I didn't think your father knew any Muggleborns."

"He doesn't," Venus said with passion, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve and trying to look calm, although her cheeks were damp and her nose pink from her crying. "My family doesn't mix with people like that, and the mudblood was killed in Muggle London. He would never go there. He doesn't have anything to do with Goblins, either, outside banking."

"Goblins?" Andromeda was confused.

"The man worked in Goblin Liaison, Lucius said. Fitting, really, inferior creatures dealing with each other."

While Andromeda's sympathy was disappearing fast, she could have hugged Venus from gratitude. It wasn't Ted! Ted was alive.

**

Ted was, in fact, sitting in a Muggle café just off Oxford Street. He'd been having a trying few days, and was still trying to absorb the fact that Michael was dead. Paula Green, who'd been on probation at work since the inspections of Muggleborns, had handed in her notice at the potions research lab where she worked as soon as the news broke. Michael's murder was the final straw for her. She'd never felt fully part of magical society, and her husband was a Muggle who thought she worked in a lingerie shop (which was the reason he never tried to visit her at work).

Paula wasn't alone in her fears. Ted knew other Muggleborns were getting more jittery by the day, and he couldn't blame them. The trio who worked in Muggle Liaison had believed they were relatively safe as they moved in circles where they didn't have much to do with Muggle-hating pure-bloods. Today Gerontius Mulciber, the Minister for Magic, had called Jack Bentley, Ted's boss, into his office and told him that if a new bill was passed, access to Hogwarts would once again be limited to only the most well-connected Muggleborns, just as it had in the days before the war against Grindelwald, and that the coming reduction in their work meant that the Muggle Liaison office would have to lose staff.

Jack sat beside Ted, trying to blend in among the Muggles. Ted had decided the Leaky Cauldron would be a poor place for Jack to let off steam, and so had brought him somewhere where his conversation wouldn't be overheard by anyone who knew either of them. Jack had been ranting for about five minutes. "That pompous old windbag," he blustered. "He's not taking down my department that easily. I'd like to know which git came up with the bill. Mulciber himself is promoting it, but the doddery old fool hasn't had an idea of his own since the 1930s."

"Shh, Jack," Ted cautioned. "If you keep bellowing like that well have to call the Obliviators in for the whole pub."

"Pah! He's just trying to cover up the fact that Potts was one of his supporters with a show of rectitude," Jack said. "Potts was a very minor supporter, but he had a seat on the Wizengamot."

Potts was scarcely of any consequence, Ted reminded him. There was an American tourist at the bar, well dressed but identifiable from his sunglasses and giant camera, far more expensive than anything a Briton would carry, who kept looking their way, and it made Ted nervous. Ted had been followed before, and while the other Muggleborns had believed non-magical places to be safe, Ted feared he was becoming nearly as jumpy as Alastor Moody.

"I keep asking myself, what did Potts get out of removing Osborne? Nothing. Nothing identifiable. What did anyone get out of it? With the Packham case, they got a new Minister, but..."

"You believe Maggie was framed now?" Ted asked.

Jack nodded. "Yes. Now I do. I think, politically, the gloves are about to come off. Mulciber's not going to ruin my department." Jack was ambitious, and had no intention of seeing his little department shrink any further. "They're going to have to persuade the Wizengamot to pass the bill keeping most Muggleborns out of Hogwarts, and we're not going to let them do it."

"We?" Ted was confused.

Jack pulled a sheet of parchment out of the briefcase Ted had made him carry. Ted wanted to groan. He quickly handed Jack a biro before he could get out a quill. Jack began scribbling. "The Weasleys and Prewetts, they'll support us. The McKinnons. The Boneses. Ludo Bagman owes me a favour, and he's a good sort. He'll lend a bit of glamour to the campaign."

"Crouch," Ted suggested.

Jack shivered. He and Bartholomew Crouch had hated one another for years. "You can talk to him," he said.

"What about the Cuffes?" Ted asked.

"No, too neutral. The Puceys might be good, though, they don't like Muggles but they don't mind Muggleborns, and there's whatsisface, the black sheep of the Bulstrodes with his half-blood girlfriend. It'd be nice to have an old name or two on board. The Hawleys. Madam Marchbanks. Oh yes, we've got plenty of people who will see things our way, and lobby for it or even vote for it. Since the war, plenty of wizards and witches from old families have taken Muggleborn or half-blood partners, and they've got seats on the Wizengamot too."

Ted broke into a smile. "You've forgotten the most important person of all - Albus Dumbledore."

Jack nodded. "And he knows everyone." He looked down at his list. "I'll start with Edgar Bones. He's in the office today." He sipped his coffee. "You know, this stuff isn't half bad. We could do with a few cafes like this in - you know where."

Ted nodded.

Jack glanced around the café and lowered his voice. "These Muggle girls show an awful lot, don't they? I mean, when I was growing up a bit of calf was considered daring, but you can see these girls' knees! And - and more. Where will fashion stop?"

"If my sisters are anything to go by, two inches short of arrest for indecency," Ted said gloomily.

"Ah, Muggle ideas could do so much for our society," Jack said with pleasure, watching the miniskirted waitress. "If only Mulciber knew what he was missing out on."

Ted looked out of the window and thought of Michael. Michael had been so predictable. He'd had a job, and a routine. In the morning, anyone who knew him would have been able to find him. If I'd been with him, Ted thought, perhaps I could have helped him. He rubbed the cufflinks Annie had sent him for Valentine's Day. It had been he who'd gone to St Mungo's to break the bad news to Michael's girlfriend. Some Valentine's Day she'd had. A thought struck Ted. "Jack, how did Potts know Michael's routine?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know. The paper didn't say. Look, I want to go and get started on this list. I'll see you back at the office later, okay?"

Ted waved him away, deep in thought. Potts didn't know Michael, and couldn't know his route to work. Ted and Jerry knew it, of course, and most people who had any business in the Leaky Cauldron in the morning would have seen Michael there, but not which roads he'd come down. That meant that apart from the Muggleborns, two groups of people also knew Michael's route to work through the streets - those who worked with Jerry and those who worked with Michael himself.

"Cherchez la femme," said the American tourist, slotting himself into Jack's vacated seat. Ted looked up in alarm.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ain't that what detectives are supposed to do?" he asked. He pushed a small card over the table. Willard Polowski, MIA the card read.

"Missing in action?" The acronym was unfamiliar.

"Magical Investigation Authority," the wizard whispered. He removed his glasses, revealing a pair of intelligent blue eyes. "I've been stationed with the Department for Int Mag Co-op. You Brits are going to hell in a handbasket if you don't watch out."

"You think so?"

"I met that Michael guy a few times in the Lobby at the Ministry. Nice fellow. He mentioned you a few times, too. Got the shock of my life when people at the department I was visiting told me to avoid him."

Ted bit his lip. Had people at the Ministry shunned Michael, even those outside his department? He hadn't said anything, but then Michael, like Ted, had been trying hard to convince the other Muggleborns that everything would be all right, and that the Ministry clampdown on Muggleborns had to end sooner or later. Ted had always thought the staff in International Magical Co-operation were decent sorts. "I guess I never see that side of things. I've been out in the field."

"Yeah, the hippie murders got everyone's attention. Michael told me all about what you'd done. I guess people will forget about those now, huh?"

Ted shook his head. "I won't."

Willard drew in a breath. "Look, Tonks. I'm staying at the Leaky Cauldron. I'm not supposed to get involved with British politics, but if you need me, call me."

"Why are you doing this?" Ted asked.

"I fought in the last war," Willard said. "I ain't about to fight in another. If you ask me, someone learned the wrong lesson from Grindelwald. Besides, you've been working with hippies, and that's exactly the sort of experience we need. We've got a department like yours, but we've got far more people who need watching. Why don't you ask your boss if you can transfer to California?"

"California?" Ted thought of golden beaches, endless sunshine and movie stars. Then he thought of his family, relying on his wages to give his sisters a future, and of Annie, virtually alone in her expensive trap of a life. He thought of Michael and Maggie, no longer able to fight for themselves, and of Gladys, waiting to testify at a trial that might never happen. "I've got too much to do here," he said finally.

Willard smiled. "When you're finished doing it, we'll take you."