She emerged from Heathrow's Customs (a formality, once she'd given the proper code words to the inspector), claimed her bags and headed down an interminable hallway toward the taxi stands. Just at the point where the public was allowed to meet arriving passengers, she saw a man in a chauffeur's livery who looked absurdly like Bryan Ferry. The sign he held reading "ELIZABETH GOODWIN" forced her to do more than file him away for future reference. Dreading what this might mean, she walked over to him and said, "I'm Elizabeth Goodwin."
"Mr. Alastor Moody's compliments. Allow me to take your bags, and please follow me," the chauffeur said.
How would Alastor know to hire a chauffeur, let alone the sign-holding-at-airports kind? Have I ever mentioned such a thing to him?
The chauffeur held open the Rolls Royce's back door. She looked inside and saw Alastor in his formal antique Stewart tartan kilt, regulation doublet and all, smiling, holding a glass of champagne out to her. She smiled back, although she was a little put out when his magical eye suddenly swiveled, leaving only the white exposed. He was probably just watching the chauffeur put her bags in the trunk, she told herself, but she always felt that whatever the magic eye was watching was of greater concern to him than what the real eye saw. After all, it saw through opaque objects and could be used telescopically or microscopically. His habit of looking two directions at once had provoked some of the worst arguments they'd ever had, and she felt a new one coming on - she just didn't have the patience right now to make allowances. But when the trunk slammed, the magic eye zipped around and fixed on her, and there was nothing to argue about.
"I feel like a slob, next to you," she admitted, stepping in, sitting down next to him and leaning over for a kiss. She was wearing a track suit and trainers, her usual airport attire; she wanted to be comfortable on long flights.
"Don't worry about it," he said, giving her the champagne and picking up his own glass from the minibar in front of him. "Cheers."
They drank; the champagne was very good. He passed her a small blini spread with caviar.
"Oooh! Thank you!" she exclaimed. Then, after the blini and more champagne were gone, "To what do I owe this lovely greeting?"
"We're celebrating a raise I got at work - and my new leg," he said, extending the artificial limb, hiking the kilt up and the sock down until the whole limb was visible. "I think St. Mungo's got it right this time. Beautiful, isn't it?"
Having been trained as a physiotherapist, she eyed it critically. It consisted of a large socket for his thigh, which had been severed just above the knee; this socket in turn was attached to a knee hinge, from which swung two pieces of metal designed to mimic the two bones in the shin. Another hinge substituted for the ankle; and the leg ended with a shoe/foot, also in metal, designed to look like the Doc Marten-esque shoes he favored. "It looks nice, but I still think you should go to a Muggle prosthetic maker," she said. "It looks heavy-"
"It's sturdy," he said, pulling the sock back up and the kilt down. "I doubt anything Muggles made would let me keep working. Can't be running after a Death Eater and then whoops! Off it comes! What do I do then, say, 'I'm sorry, sir, will you wait a moment while I put my leg back on?' I don't think so! This will stay on even without spells until I take it off! And it resists spells to make it come off! Where do you find that in Muggleland? Huh?" And he gave such a raucous laugh that the chauffeur looked over his shoulder, through the supposedly soundproof glass partition.
"Of course, Alastor," she soothed, leaning her head on his shoulder. It was a comforting gesture that also hid her face, even from that magical eye. She closed her eyes and saw him as he was when they first met fourteen years ago: Sunlight illuminating shining red-gold hair; face unscarred and unlined; a long-limbed, wiry, well-proportioned body. Then she pictured how he had looked after the battle where he lost that leg and his eye, three years ago. She had come home from a competition in Ireland to find a note in his large, untidy, hurried scrawl, asking her to come over as soon as she could. She went over and found him in bed in his upstairs bedroom, facing the opposite wall. She went right to his bedside and called his name softly; he thanked her for coming, warned her to brace herself and turned over.
She had to stifle a scream, and as she stood there with her hand over her mouth and took him in, she began to wonder how she was going to tell him she couldn't stand to look at him now; he was unrecognizable; she never was the nursing type; she had fallen in love with his good looks; she couldn't possibly love a man as deformed as he was now; it might be cruel but it was kinder to end their relationship now instead of letting it drag on …
He sat up, reached over and took her hand off her mouth, and she felt the same electric flash she always had when he touched her. He said nothing, but took her other hand and held it too, the remaining eye staring into hers intently, daring her to leave him. She leaned over and kissed him, and that too was as exciting as it always had been. When they came up for air, she still saw the damage, but she saw him, too. The scars would fade. The soul inside was unscarred, but it might become scarred if she abandoned him.
That's not to say the man inside was unchanged. He'd gotten ... odder … during his recovery. Of course, with the war and his job he had gradually become harder (on the outside) and more abrupt since they'd met, but losing eye and leg and whatever else had happened seemed to have done far more in a short time. He'd always had a certain gallows humor about his work, but things that he once would have said in a quiet undertone with a wink he now shouted with a sort of maniacal glee, as if he wanted unseen foes to know he could cope. Yet he wouldn't tell her what had happened, not even when he woke screaming with nightmares — assuming he let himself sleep in the first place - or overreacted to sudden noises. She'd asked him to go with her to the supermarket with her recently to get a tin of baking powder. As they were walking to the aisle where baking supplies were kept, a mousy middle-aged man behind them dropped a jar of bolognase sauce, which shattered; Alastor had yelled, "Get under cover, Elizabeth!" shoved her down and launched himself at the unfortunate man, thinking that he had hit someone and that the bolognase was blood. It was a good job his wand had gotten stuck in his jacket pocket; it gave her enough time to get between Alastor and the poor clumsy man and bring him back to reality. Later he admitted he had been certain the man was an undercover Death Eater. She was sure now that he had shell shock or PTSD or whatever they were calling it now, but she doubted he would appreciate a suggestion to visit a Muggle psychotherapist, and doubted there were Wizarding psychotherapists. Surely if there were a magical remedy for that he would have sought it out.
"But the foot ... It doesn't bend, does it?" she asked. "That's not going to help your gait any." He'd been through two artificial legs and had already developed a pronounced limp. She was a qualified physiotherapist, though she'd never practiced, and knew that such a limp would in the long run cause problems in the hip of the severed leg, in all the joints of the other leg, and perhaps in the back, too. "Maybe I can lead you through some physiotherapy —"
"Pagh!" he scoffed, pouring them both more Champagne, then wrapping his arm around her. "That's what the staff is for. Wait till you see it. Special project by Ollivander, the wand maker. Not only looks cool but I can cast spells with it. Took him a long time to find the right piece of wood for something that big - I reckon it's as tall as you are — never mind enough of same stuff my wand has for a core."
"Alastor, I have no idea what any of that wand stuff means."
That was a mistake, because it allowed Alastor to show off how much he knew about wand making. He went into great detail about wand materials, lengths, cores and flexibility or lack of it, and how you could tell a lot about a wizard if you knew about their wand. "The wand chooses the wizard," he intoned as if reciting a deep spiritual truth. He'd said it many times before. He'd also said that he gained a huge advantage against criminals by reading about their wands in their files. Of course, he wouldn't tell her about his wand, beyond what she could see: it was made of some kind of black wood and was more than a foot long.
Elizabeth wasn't much of a talker to begin with, but as often happened when he went into Wizarding lore, she could find nothing to say. It didn't stop Alastor's lecture about wands; he kept going until she probably could have built a wand if she could have found any of the core material.
"So, how did your trip go?" Alastor asked into a long silence.
"Jenny and Geoffrey were eighth; Annie and Keith were twelfth."
"Too bad," he said.
"They earned it," she said with some disgust. "Geoffrey missed the toe loop-lutz combination he didn't want to work on - missed it in both programs - and Jenny fell twice in the free skate on his bad throws. Keith and Annie had a blazing row before their free skate and they were just going through the motions, skating like robots; then he dropped her during a death spiral and she left the ice before the end of the program, but as it was nearly over anyway and they were in last place, the judges didn't disqualify them. I wish they had. I'm ready to tell all four of them to find other partners and another coach or give up competitive skating as a bad job." She wondered if that was as much Greek to him as his discussion of wand cores was to her.
"Maybe they'll learn something if you do."
"Jenny might. She's a good kid. The others?"
"And do you have ... paperwork?"
"Unfortunately."
He sighed with exaggerated disappointment. "Then I'll take a rain check on the night of unbridled passion I've been wanking to for the last week." Again the loud, maniacal laugh, but this time she laughed with him. Out the tinted window she saw that they were still not in central London yet, and they lived at least an hour and a half's drive beyond that in good traffic — and the traffic today was ghastly. And that gave her an idea. She put her champagne flute in the minibar, deposited herself in Alastor's lap and whispered her idea to him. His eyebrows shot up, but the smile that spread across his face told her he liked her suggestion. ...
The paperwork had to do with the documents she'd collected. Some had to be decrypted; all had to be translated. It usually only took a few hours, but it had to be done quickly. She didn't like having espionage in her home.
But after reading the cover letter and the first document in the stack, she put her cost on over her dressing gown and pajamas and went next door to Alastor's. When he opened the door, he went from looking ready for a fight to looking like he'd won the lottery, until Elizabeth asked her question:
"What is Durmstrang Institute?"
He grabbed her arm, pulled her inside and slammed the door shut. The fighting expression had come back. His wand had appeared in his hand and was pointing at her face. "A Wizarding school in Scandinavia. They specialize in the Dark Arts. How do you know about it?"
The only way to deal with Alastor when he started to slide into an inappropriate combat stance was to show complete fearlessness, even if she didn't feel it. She had no other advantage over him: she was fifteen inches shorter, more than 100 pounds lighter and she hadn't the slightest hint of magical ability.
"Put that thing down, Alastor Moody! I'm on your side, remember?" And when he'd slowly lowered it, she went on more easily, "One of my documents mentioned it. The whole thing reads as if the Soviets want to make their Wizarding population participate in putting a hex on the West."
He demanded to see it, so they went to her house. He muttered the word "Babylonius" over the papers, scanned them and frowned.
"If it hadn't mentioned Durmstrang by name, I'd say to throw it in the rubbish bin," he muttered. "At the very least, this points to a massive violation of the International Statute of Secrecy. Huge security hole. I'd better take this along to the Ministry. We'll look into it."
Against her better judgment, she let him have the letter. For two weeks, that was the last she heard of it. Alastor got sent away on a case and Elizabeth was occupied with her two troubled but talented pairs teams. Then one day her brother, Nigel, came to the rink while she was evaluating a new, promising novice pair. Nigel was less than a year her senior and they had been almost as close as twins as children; they had grown up on the ice together, and the precocious Goodwin and Goodwin had been the leading British pairs team in the latter half of the 1950s. After Squaw Valley, Nigel had shattered his kneecap playing football (idiot!) and that had ended their skating career. Their lives still ran along parallel lines, though they weren't together very much; where Elizabeth's covert activities were on an as-available basis, Nigel was a full-fledged agent with cover as an dealer of antique art. He had recruited her into her role as a courier and rough translator; she had an aptitude for languages and spoke, read and wrote German and Russian like a native, thanks to having maternal grandparents born in one of the German colonies in Russia who'd fled to the UK at the time of the Russian Revolution.
"Reminds me of us at that age," Nigel said. This team Elizabeth was watching were cousins, not siblings, but they looked similar, slender and dark-haired, pale skinned and gray-eyed, the boy towering over the girl, the better to fling her about. Then Nigel dropped his voice. "Madame Prime Minister wants to have breakfast with you tomorrow morning at 7 at 10 Downing Street."
So she turned up in her smartest red wool suit, worn at the most important competitions, and was led into the Prime Minister's presence. Something about her reminded Elizabeth of Alastor, though that was a little absurd - the PM was a very proper, unscarred and unmagical Englishwoman. Maybe it was her reddish hair and her sense of her own power.
"Good morning, Miss Goodwin."
Elizabeth preferred Ms., but she had the sense that the PM wouldn't use that title. Still, the woman seemed friendly enough, carrying on small but not too small talk about the weather until they were served the usual full English breakfast. Elizabeth's eggs had been fried over easy in olive oil and well peppered, a very individual taste acquired on a trip to Italy, which she took as a sign the PM had checked her out very thoroughly.
"I thought we'd discuss a certain letter acquired by an MI-6 double agent which you passed to your lover. Do you often allow him to see classified documents?"
"Never, Ma'am," Elizabeth managed. "Just that one because it touched on matters in his ... area of expertise."
"Magic," the PM said.
Alastor had told her once that national leaders were exempt from the Internationsl Statute of Sectecy.
"It was a bit of a surprise to find out about this intelligence from the Minister of Magic and not MI-6 itself. However, I must say it was probably just as well; I doubt if it had gone through the proper channels it would have been taken seriously."
Elizabeth relaxed a bit.
"So you have a close relationship with this Mad-Eye person."
"Who?"
"Alastor Moody, widely known as Mad-Eye because of the glass eye he wears."
That nickname was news to Elizabeth. How close was their relationship if she didn't know that he had a "widely known" nickname? The fact was that they both lived very separate lives. And the fact that she didn't know this about her long-time lover was damning to her judgment and her effectiveness as an agent, however part-time she was. Nevertheless, she nodded.
"Good, because I want you to work with him on this matter. You're taking your best skaters to a competition in Moscow next month?"
"Well, actually, I was considering resigning as their coach."
"No. You must attend this competition. And you must bring Mad-Eye Moody with you. We need to show the Soviets that the magical and non-magical communities of the West are united on this issue."
Alastor had only seen figure skating on the telly, and he'd derided it. He thought football and cricket were both absurd. Rugby he approved of, but he told her that something called Quidditch was a real sport. All she knew was that it sounded like polo played on brooms. She dreaded bringing him to a figure skating event, especially when she was already on eggshells with her teams. Alastor's brusque demeanor was likely to make things worse. But there was no arguing with an order from the PM herself. She would have rather argued with the Queen, who was revered but only a figurehead.
So she went to the arena and found Alastor waiting in her office, his magical eye swiveling every which way, his normal eye fixed on the view out her windows onto the rink, where the Zamboni was preparing the ice for the morning compulsory figures practices.
"They call you Mad-Eye?" she asked.
"Heard that one, did you?" he grunted. "I hope you won't use it."
She gave him a long, gentle kiss. "Never. Shall I make some tea?"
As she filled the electric kettle from her water cooler, Alastor spoke up.
"So I'm supposed to go with you to Moscow next month as your assistant. I've got a month to learn all this rubbishy figure skating jargon well enough to fool your peers. At least I have an excuse for not actually knowing how to skate. Guess I need to thank Rosier — or was it Lestrange?" He thumped his artificial leg on the floor and laughed. "Then I meet a contact or two among the Slavic Wizarding community and see how serious they're taking this hexing-the-capitalists thing. And you dig up whatever you can on your side. Your brother is going to meet us there, too."
"Great," Elizabeth said, pouring the tea. She wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic. She would at least have liked the two most important males in her life to know each other. Nigel had met Alastor once by accident and had seemed to like him, but that was long before Alastor acquired his scars, physical and psychological. Nigel, of course, had no idea Alastor was a wizard; at the time they'd met, Elizabeth had no idea either. Alastor had only said that Nigel seemed decent enough.
They'd met when Alastor moved in next door to her in 1969. She had seen him at a distance out her kitchen window a few times coming and going, his long, wavy, red-gold hair glimmering in the sunlight. She had a weakness for ginger men, for long, wavy hair and for tall men, and he seemed to be very tall, too. But she was taken. Chris was tall, dark, handsome and wealthy, if a little distant sometimes, but she had been accused of the same, so she didn't complain.
One morning as she was planting tulip bulbs by the fence, Alastor came carrying a large flat of plants toward his side of the fence. He let them drop, then peeked over. "Morning," he said.
She looked up and stared. He had dimples. She had a weakness for dimples.
"Alastor Moody," he said with an Irish accent. "Your new neighbor."
"Elizabeth Goodwin," she said, standing up unsteadily and dusting the dirt off her hands. She had weaknesses for non-English accents and broad shoulders, too; even so, the effect this man was having on her was greater than the sum of those parts. Please, don't let him be too intelligent, she prayed. I'll never get over it.
"I'm going to be planting some roses along here, hope you don't mind," he said. "Be right back; I need my garden tools."
They talked as they worked. Nothing too far out of the ordinary: plants, gardening, weather, work, school, childhood, upcoming marriages (of course he was taken). Yet when she was done weeding and took her leave, she felt as though she were walking on air. She started to fix a cold roast beef and cheese sandwich, looked out the window as he stood up to unkink his back and wipe his brow, and impulsively leaned out the window to ask him to join her. They ate seated at the cast-iron table in her yard and talked about food and music and more plants and books and the neighborhood. She had plans to visit Chris that afternoon and to go to the symphony with him that evening, which suddenly seemed less interesting than spending the afternoon planting bulbs and listening to Alastor's beguiling voice.
A few months and many conversations over their shared fence later, Alastor threw a party at his place. Elizabeth, who had not been invited, felt left out and lonely somehow as she heard snatches of music and laughter, so she went into her study. About midnight she went to shut off her front porch light and saw Alastor walking by, alone, looking pensive in the light from her porch. She went out.
"Evening, Alastor. Is everything all right?"
His face lit up and he came up the walk and up the stairs. "Evening, Elizabeth. Yes, quite so; I just needed to clear my head. A few too many toasts to my fiancée and I. We're not disturbing you with the party, I hope?"
They talked a bit, just about the weather and some of their neighbors, then he said he had to go back to the party. She wished him luck and held out her hand to shake his. He took it, then raised it to his lips to kiss- and then they were in each other's arms; and then he lifted her chin and kissed her lips as if she was the one he was going to marry next month - then as if they had just gotten married - then as if they were alone on their wedding night -
She broke away, or did he? They stared at each other; he looked as surprised as she felt. She spun and ran inside, standing at the locked door until she heard his footsteps thumping away.
She didn't sleep well that night.
Or for the rest of the week.
She knew his wedding was going to take place that Saturday in his backyard. She didn't know what time, so she made a point to plan to be away from the house all day. She'd go somewhere with Chris; that'd distract her. But strangely, no signs of preparation could be seen in his yard. Didn't he say there were 150 people coming? A marquee to set up? Caterers and flowers and tables and chairs and a small band?
Chris came down with a bad cold on Thursday and called off their trip Saturday morning. He was prone to colds and bronchitis. Alastor's yard remained empty and silent all day. Perhaps she'd gotten the date wrong, or they'd changed the venue. She decided there must have been a change in location when she didn't see him for days after that.
The following Friday she was late from the rink, having subbed in a session with a novice pairs team as a favor to their regular coach, whose car had broken down. She'd had to break a 5:30 dinner date with Chris, who had been none too happy. Alastor was in his back yard, pacing restlessly and seemingly swearing to himself.
"Everything all right, Alastor?" she called.
"No," he growled, coming toward her. "Surely you noticed how quiet it was here Saturday."
"I did."
"That's because my bride-to-be decided she didn't want to marry an or- a man in law enforcement."
"She didn't!"
"Called it off and stuck me with an unrefundable cost for the honeymoon, which is paid in advance, so I went by myself. Don't ask me how it was; I was drunk the whole time."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Alastor," she said in a controlled voice. Why was her heart leaping so?
He chuckled. "At least that wasn't anything in comparison to what her dad got stuck with for the wedding itself. I am told he's furious and swears he's not paying for her next attempt at a wedding, if there is one. Won't be with me, you can count on that."
"Never say never," Elizabeth said. "I've split up with Chris a couple of times, but it never lasts." A cold wind cut across the yard.
"Brr," he said. "What say we continue this conversation down pub? My treat."
Now Elizabeth had been brought up properly; an engaged Englishwoman in 1969 shouldn't be going down pub with a man not her fiancé. But she decided she didn't care, really.
Alastor was silent all through the half-mile stroll, and so was she. He got a half-and-half and she ordered a sherry, and they found a corner table with a view of the door.
"Raqi just decided - or I think her mum may have - that she wanted me to transfer to ... a safe desk job, something with regular hours. I told her I'd rather ... not." He seemed to be choosing his words with unusual care. "She accused me of not loving her. I accused her of not understanding me. She threw the ring at me and - and left. I haven't seen her since. Her dad accused me of forcing her to break it off, which is ludicrous. End of story."
She wanted to say he was probably better off, but that seemed cold.
"Probably just as well," he said after a few moments. "Cheaper than a divorce." He winked.
"True," she said. "But hard to do when so many people expect it and want it. The second time I broke it off with Chris was after we'd ordered wedding invitations, and my parents took it very personally. What did your parents say?"
"Absolutely nothing," Alastor said. "They're dead."
"Oh, my, I'm sorry -"
"Don't worry; I never mentioned it, and at my age most people still have their parents around." He took a long pull from his glass. "Dad died when I was 14; Mum when I was 20, right after I finished my training for the job. They were much older than me. I was an accident. My two brothers were 17 and 15 years older. They're both dead. One got ... hit by a train and the other died ... of the flu. I still have a sister, about 12 years older than me. She was elated when I told her the wedding's off. She hated Raqi. I should have listened to her. She's usually right about people."
She was trying to frame a tactful question about why he'd ignored his sister when she spotted a dark-haired man in a dress shirt supporting a blond woman in a red miniskirt who seemed to be already drunk. The man's back was to her, but the woman's hairstyle and figure reminded her of Jeanne, Chris' secretary. "Alastor, check out that woman," she said. "I think I know her."
"Yeah, I see her down here all the time with that bloke," he said. "She's always pissed to the gills and he's always yelling at her. Sometimes he slaps her around a bit. But she always leaves with him and makes it clear they're going to fuck like bunnies when they get home - pardon my French. They deserve each other. I think he's married. Whoever his wife is, I feel sorry for her, and I would even if this self-important pissant weren't so damn punchable. He's always bragging about his money and family and shite. He has a cousin who's an Earl of something or other. You can just see he thinks well if himself from the look on his face. Wait till he turns around, you'll see what I mean."
He turned. Elizabeth inhaled sharply, her face burning. She kept her cool, dropped her ring at Chris' feet and left without looking back. Before the door closed behind her, she heard Alastor swearing, but paid no attention.
Alastor caught up with her a block and a half later, muttering this was no time for a lady to be walking alone, and escorted her the rest of the way with his arm around her shoulders.
"If I'd known," he finally said, "I would have punched him before now."
"If I'd known," she croaked. "At least I do now."
They made it back to their places. He walked with her up the stairs to her front door, his arm still around her. She unlocked the door, turned, and they embraced as if they always did. She didn't even reach his shoulders, and his open coat wrapped around her like a blanket as he pulled her close. She closed her eyes; she'd never felt so secure with Chris, or any other man for that matter. But they didn't really know each other, did they?
But he lifted her chin with one finger and kissed her in that slow, soft, intoxicating way he had the night of his party, and she found herself running her fingers through his thick, wavy hair and responding in kind. They went inside with every intention of going upstairs to her bedroom, but when the door shut behind them they decided silently that the foyer would do. ...
The difficulty of a relationship between them made itself felt soon enough. Both had demanding jobs that took them away from home at random intervals. He couldn't tell her much about his assignments, and she wasn't sure the time had come yet to tell him about her second job yet. But she understood enough about making enemies with your work not to protest when he cited that as the reason he felt obliged to stop seeing her some ten months later. She just nodded and wept; and so did he.
But they were still neighbors, and they kept saying hello when they saw each other. And they sometimes found themselves gardening together. And talking. And laughing. And offering each other cool drinks. And going down the pub. And ending up in bed together. And spending all their free time together. Until they broke it off again. This time Elizabeth took the initiative, telling him at the same time about how a Stasi agent in Potsdam had trailed her on the way to a critical meeting, and how that reminded her she had ruthless enemies, too.
For a time, that seemed to have scared him off. It was a year before they had a normal conversation. But it was only three weeks more that before they quit pretending they didn't want each other.
One autumn night Elizabeth and Alastor were in her bed; he was sound asleep and she was in a state where her body was fully relaxed and her mind was tranquil but conscious, enjoying the feel of his skin against hers. She found herself thinking of Alraqis, Alastor's ex-fiancée, and feeling sympathy for her wish to have Alastor home safely every night. But she also understood how he loved his work; and for them to be together every night meant she had to give up her work, too ...
A small click made her jump. Alastor didn't stir. She recognized the sound as a window lock being disengaged. She barely made out a silhouette at the window and, deciding to take no chances, reached across Alastor's sleeping body into her nightstand drawer, withdrew her tiny .22 revolver with what had to be the smallest silencer ever made, and shot at the silhouette. The window pane shattered; Alastor sat bolt upright, and the silhouette disappeared.
Alastor leaped out of bed, peered down through the window casing, pulled on a dressing gown and his brown overcoat, told Elizabeth to stay where she was and ran downstairs. Suddenly wondering how the window lock had been opened when the window was still shut, Elizabeth pulled on a cotton nightgown, checked her gun, stuffed it into her pocket, dashed downstairs and outside, barefoot, to find Alastor, his back to her, bending over a woman dressed in black, wearing a skull-like mask, spread-eagled on the ground. There was no ladder to be seen. Alastor muttered something and started looking closely at the ground; Elizabeth turned and saw a light brown stick, carved and polished, in the grass. She picked it up and asked, "What's this?"
"Don't touch that!" Alastor hissed, spinning around, and the stick tugged itself out of her hand and arced through the air to his outstretched left hand. In his other hand was a similar stick, black or nearly so. Before she could say anything he flicked his stick at the body, which seemed to fade into the grass, seized Elizabeth's arm and dragged her into the house. He slammed the door shut and shoved her up against it, pointing the black stick at her face.
"I told you to stay inside!" he snapped. "Muggles aren't supposed to see magic being performed!"
"What?" she stammered.
"Swear you'll never tell a soul about any of this!" he snarled, jabbing the wand at her. "Swear it. Swear it!"
"Swear I won't tell anyone what?" she demanded, wondering if she could possibly reach her gun before he could … what? Turn her into a newt? She nearly laughed.
"That I'm a wizard, that wizards exist, that you've seen magic — anything to do with magic!"
Somehow she didn't question those assertions. Something else bothered her far more.
"Don't you trust me?" she demanded. "I just killed someone for you!"
"More than I trust anyone, or I would have simply wiped your memory clean already. I don't want to do that. It would mean you wouldn't know me anymore, and I would never be able to see you again. But swear it! Now! Or I'll have no other choice!"
She swore, keeping her eyes fixed on his; he eventually lowered his wand, bowed his head and drew her into his arms. She felt his heart racing.
"I'm sorry," he finally said in a muted tone. "But you have no idea how serious this is."
He spent the rest of the night - once he'd contacted his superiors, filed a report, magically repaired her window and got rid of the body - explaining that one little fact about himself. He said the woman who'd tried to kill him — and possibly Elizabeth too — was his ex-fiancée, Alraqis, whom she'd never met but had seen several times at a distance.
"Evidently she'd joined the Death Eaters," he said of his ex. "They're the darkest of wizards and witches. That's what I do — I'm an auror; I investigate crimes related to the Dark Arts, aka black magic. It's very dangerous, obviously, but I'm very good at my job. It runs in my family, going back to some of the first aurors in the 1700s. Anyway, only Death Eaters wear that kind of mask, that's how I know she wasn't just here on a personal vendetta, although I wouldn't be surprised if she'd volunteered to come kill me. And clearly she didn't think a little Muggle woman in a froufrou semi-sport would pose a threat, or she would have come for me when I was alone."
He ended his explanation by telling her that Muggles — people who couldn't use magic — were not supposed to know about the wizarding world. He talked quietly about witch burnings and how the secrecy law protected both wizards and Muggles. "So that's why they'd come Obliviate you if they learn about this. I lied in my report, said I was alone, that I'd been cleaning a gun I'd bought out of curiosity when I realized I was being broken into. I've never lied in a report before. Obviously the ministry won't be very happy if they find out. So you don't know anything about this, got it? Or the Ministry of Magic will come to make sure you don't know anything about this, and maybe other things, too."
She nodded, unable to find anything to say. He sat back, closed his eyes, blew out a breath, then chuckled. "At least now I don't have to hide my wand from you," he said.
Alastor spent the day at the rink watching Elizabeth give lessons and coach her teams. During an hour that had gone unscheduled, she showed Alastor some basic maneuvers and taught him their names. He watched her with both eyes, and when her next lesson was due, told her he'd never realized how beautiful skating was. When the rink opened for public skating, she went into her office and got her binder of typed notes on skating technique, which she'd compiled since she found all the available books on the subject inadequate. "Don't lose this, Alastor," she said. "It's my only copy."
"Well, you should have more than one copy, then!" he bellowed.
She shouldn't have worried; as this was now part of his cover, a professional issue, he applied talents she didn't know he had to it. He returned the binder the next day, able to quote from it verbatim, and he seemed to have understood it. A few days after that he seemed to know the entire history of the sport, from the earliest attempts to glide on ice using bones to the ongoing debate over the role of compulsory figures in competitions and indeed in the sport overall. And by the time they were ready to go to Moscow, he could tell you who the leading competitive skaters were in each country, both seniors and juniors, and cite their strengths and weaknesses. He could watch a skater and correctly tell you what was right and wrong with their technique, and even if their boots fit properly or their blades needed sharpening. He knew who made the best skates, who made the best costumes, why the judges didn't like to see boot covers in competition and even why a Zamboni was called a Zamboni.
"I knew you were intelligent, Alastor, but I never thought anyone could learn all that in a month." He'd told her once that at school he'd been sorted into the house best known for brains and that he held the record for the most A-level equivalents (he told her they were called Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests, but she thought he was joking) with the highest marks; that many departments in the Ministry of Magic wanted him badly but all he'd ever wanted to be was an auror.
He shrugged. "Photographic memory," he said. "Dead useful."
But whatever he had learned, he had the sense not to act on it. Mostly he sat quiet by her side while she worked with her teams. He had doffed the magical eye in favor of an eye patch; the unconventional metal leg was safely hidden under his trousers, and instead of the staff he used a regular wooden cane (but complained about it being too short), his hair trimmed and neatly combed, his jumper and shirt and woolen coat sober and unremarkable and his scars concealed by either makeup or magic; but he still failed to blend in with the skating crowd. He looked more like a dressed-up retired hockey player, truth be told. And it was obvious that her teams and the other skaters who saw him were afraid of him. Not that that was a bad thing. His very presence made her skaters speak to her with more respect, work harder — and do better, at least in practice. It remained to be seen if that would carry over to the competition. If it did, she might encourage Alastor to drop in more often at the rink.
They flew into Moscow on an Aeroflot plane. That probably wasn't the best way to introduce Alastor to Muggle aviation; the turbulence was bad and the service indifferent. They deposited their bags at their hotel and went to the rink for a short afternoon practice, more for the sake of discipline than of actually learning anything.
After the skaters had left with their parents, Alastor and Elizabeth went out for a mediocre Russian dinner that was still better than what the Soviet citizens could get, she was sure. Nevertheless, she made a point of eating all she could, knowing she was not likely to have much time or inclination to eat until after the competition was over.
He took her back to the hotel and left, saying he was going to check out the night life, maybe pick up some girls. She knew that was only his cover, that he was most likely going to meet with some other wizarding folks and talk about this hex thing - but she still felt more than a twinge of anger; she didn't know for a fact he wouldn't be tempted. After all, there were plenty of women even in the UK who loved a big, gruff teddy bear of a man with battle scars, and in the USSR that type was probably even more popular. Her evening would be more boring; she was going to meet with a disgruntled female Russian coach she'd known since they were rival skaters on the junior international competitive circuit. And Svetlana never touched alcohol.
Svetlana had the blond hair, roundish face and high cheekbones of the typical Slav and was still as slender as she had been in their competitive days. Elizabeth wasn't fat, but she had put on some weight since retiring. Hanging around with Alastor, who was constantly eating and who drank a lot, made that almost inevitable.
Svetlana had nothing but the usual slogans and platitudes to say about her life in Mother Russia, but in the process she gave Elizabeth a box of Russian chocolates. Only one pound of chocolate was in the two-pound box. The lower layer consisted of documents neatly folded to fit and not arouse suspicion. She knew that from the code words Svetlana used when presenting the gift. She also knew that at least one of the documents was highly important. She didn't dare open the box in her room. When Alastor returned to his room at 3 a.m., acting like he'd had plenty of vodka shots, she knocked on his door, gave him the chocolate box and told him to eat it and sober up. He winked — "eat this and sober up" was also a prearranged code for guard this with your life.
"I shall undoubtedly eat chocolate," he slurred as she left. UDC — undetectable extension charm. He'd put it in a bag that was much larger than it appeared. She relaxed a little.
Her teams did markedly better in the short program than they had in Romania. Jenny and Geoffrey placed third, while the other tied for sixth. Under cover of bragging about how he'd drunk his friends under the table and left with both their girlfriends, Alastor communicated to Elizabeth that his meeting with the wizards had been productive. Overtly, he went on to say that not only did they not mind being bested by a more manly man, they were interested in buying some old art from his friend Nigel. And then, not part of the script, he added, "Where is Nigel?"
"He should be here," Elizabeth said, scanning the crowd.
But Nigel didn't make his presence known to them. And the next day, at the free skate, he still hadn't turned up. Elizabeth found it hard to focus on her skaters, but they still both outperformed themselves. Jenny and Geoffrey finished second, and might have moved up to first had Jenny not slightly overrotated a double axel; and Annie and Keith also moved up in the standings to hold fifth all by themselves.
"I told you you had it in you!" Alastor said to Jenny and Geoffrey, who both nodded unsmilingly. Elizabeth wondered when he'd spoken to them and what he'd said.
Elizabeth couldn't truly celebrate because Nigel still was nowhere to be found. He hadn't checked in at the hotel he favored, and none of his art contacts in Moscow nor the British Embassy had word from him or of him. Elizabeth considered the situation dire enough to warrant sending a message to MI-6 through a numbers station. She didn't expect an answer, but she decided to wait for one, telling her teams and their parents that she and Alastor were going to stay to meet her brother and see the sights with him. Jenny's mum, a thin, shrewish woman, looked at her as if convinced she was really going to have an orgy with Alastor, her brother and assorted members of the KGB.
Two days later, she got her answer: She was to meet with Alastor's contacts in her brother's stead. An hour after Elizabeth got that message, she was told by the British Embassy that Nigel's body had just been found in a canal in St. Petersburg. She was in favor of returning to England immediately, but Alastor dissuaded her. "Not until this meeting tonight," he said. "You have orders, and if anyone criticizes you for staying, you can always say you weren't able to get a flight out, you were too distraught, the officials were delaying you in an attempt to get a bribe, whatever."
"But even if I weren't so upset, I'm not trained to deal with these kinds of situations!" she said.
"On-the-job training, best kind," Alastor crowed.
"Thank you for your sympathy, Alastor. I'm really touched. My only brother, my best friend, and that's all you can say?"
"Priorities, Elizabeth. There will be time for grief and sympathy when this is all over." But he said it very gently, stroking her face. "I have a feeling if he were able to tell you, he'd say you need to do your duty first."
She nodded. Her family was military, very backbone-of-England, and certainly would have counseled her so. So she stiffened her upper lip and prepared as best she could for the meeting by drinking tea and reading the documents from the chocolate box that Nigel was supposed to receive. She tried to eat, but her mouth was like sawdust and the food none too good. She dressed in her best and, with Alastor, even spiffier than ever in a well-tailored suit, hailed a taxi and rode to the run-down apartment block where they were to meet his Russian Wizarding contacts.
She hadn't heard Alastor give the address to the driver, so she wasn't sure where she was. The neighborhood looked vaguely familiar to her, but she supposed apartment blocks looked very similar, especially during the extended Moscow winter twilight. They were allowed inside by a guard who examined their passports with deep suspicion; he gave them the unwelcome news that the passenger elevator was broken and that they'd have to climb ten flights of stairs to get to the designated apartment. He watched Alastor limp away with a smile, perhaps delighting in making this lame fellow ascend so many stairs or perhaps change his mind about the meeting. Instead, Alastor pressed the button and the elevator door opened. He regarded the open cabin, then the guard, with equally deep suspicion, and headed for the stairwell.
"I'm sure I'll need to stop a few times; three-inch stiletto shoes were a bad idea," she said, giving him a chivalrous excuse to rest as much as he needed on the way up.
"But they go so well with the rest of the outfit," Alastor said, starting laboriously up the stairs. Absolutely true; they were dyed to match this suit. "Anyway," he murmured in a voice that didn't echo up and down the stairwell, "we'll only go up the first flight. Then we'll take a shortcut."
Halfway between the first and second floors, he removed his wand from his inside coat pocket. "Take my arm," he murmured. "Ascendio largo!"
And they slowly rose to the tenth floor.
"Clever," she said.
"Yes, isn't it? I added the largo part myself; otherwise we would have shot through the roof. Now let's see …" he stuck his hand in his side pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. "We need to find apartment 3331."
Elizabeth looked at the paper. "That's not 3331. The first characer is a Cyrillic zed."
"What? Babylonius! … Oh, you're right. Dammit, why do Russians have to reverse all their letters if they're not making them up entirely? What's that one that looks like two Ks smushed together back to front?"
When they reached apartment З333, Alastor knocked twice, paused and knocked twice more. After a few moments, the door opened the tiniest fraction; a brown eye peered through the opening, then the door shut again so the chain could be removed.
"Come in, quickly!" said the familiar, slender woman at the door. Elizabeth held her surprise in check — just barely — until the woman removed a wand made of birchwood or something light-colored like that and said, "Muffilato!"
"Svetlana!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Svetlana Alexandrovna Mikhailovna!"
"I too am surprised to see you in the company of a wizard," her old skating friend and rival said, putting away her wand. Elizabeth wondered if Svetlana had ever used magic in competitions. "Especially my colleague, the renowned auror Alastor Moody, whose fame reaches even into darkest Siberia. How do you know each other?"
"We're neighbors," Elizabeth said.
"We're lovers," Alastor said at the same time, pulling his magical eye out of his pocket. "Excuse me a moment …" he said, turning his back to them all and swapping the patch for the prosthesis.
"Ah, you would choose a Muggle for a lover, Moody," said a deeper voice from the other end of the apartment. A tall, thin man in a vaguely military costume strode forth.
"Karkaroff," Alastor growled, turning around and glaring at him with both eyes as if he'd like to perform a Killing Curse on him for old times' sake.
"Igor Ivanovich, I have told you before, if you're going to spew forth anti-Muggle nonsense I am going to denounce you to the authorities — the Muggle ones, that is. Do not forget I am Muggle-born."
"I forget nothing, Svetlana Alexandrovna."
"And do not forget your mother was a halfblood!"
A second wizard, younger than either Svetlana or Karkaroff, stepped between them. "Please, comrades — pardon me for using that term that has been perverted by the Soviets for their own depraved purposes — but this is not the time for old prejudices and grudges." He presented himself as Boris Yuriev and apologized sotto voce for Karkaroff, but Alastor waved the apology aside. "I know him, professionally," he said, and Karkaroff narrowed his eyes.
"I saw the error of my ways," Karkaroff muttered.
"Did you really," Alastor said.
Elizabeth cleared her throat. "I may not know much about the Wizarding world, but I agree we should put old grudges aside for the sake of international peace."
"Yes," Svetlana said. "Even Igor Ivanovich can see that there are terrible things at work in the world today. The letter you received in Romania, Elizabeth, is a few years out of date. The sentiment has evolved from merely hexing the West in order to destabilize its economy to starting a nuclear war — a war there is reason to believe our side would win, in a matter of speaking."
"Surely the Soviet government wouldn't actually —" Elizabeth began.
"The Russian Wizarding Council first discussed how best to protect ourselves in the event of a nuclear war after the first atomic bomb was detonated by your American friends in 1945," Svetlana began.
"As did the Ministry of Magic, the Magical Congress of the United States and just about every other wizarding authority in the world," Alastor countered.
"That is not the point," said Svetlana. "The point is that our wizarding authorities believe they could survive a nuclear war, and don't believe they have any reason not to commit magical aggression against the Muggle West if the Soviet Union is willing to provoke a nuclear conflict. They have offered us much if we agree to protect all our allies this way."
They all looked at each other. "I am just glad that You-Know-Who never got the idea to try to start a nuclear war," Elizabeth finally said.
"This was the Dark Lord's plan all along!" Karkaroff hissed.
That was even a surprise to Alastor.
"How better to reduce the Muggle populations of the world?" Svetlana continued.
"How does the Russian Wizarding Council know the spells it may have developed will work?" Elizabeth asked.
"Animal testing," Boris said.
"Also, since we are not kept behind the Iron Curtain the way our non-magical comrades are, it is entirely possible that witches and wizards loyal to the USSR or the Dark Lord could easily disable the West's offensive and defensive capabilities. Perhaps even cause them to launch the weapons first at friendly targets, or — well, the possibilities are endless." Svetlana looked aghast at the possibility. The Russian wizards were both stony-faced, and Alastor's real eye was opened almost as wide as his magical one. Elizabeth's stomach clenched harder than it had shortly before their free skate in Squaw Valley, harder than it had the time she was being tailed by a Stasi agent in Potsdam and couldn't shake her ...
"And worst of all," Karkaroff said, "the council is set to vote tomorrow. If they approve, the operation begins within 24 hours."
"This is why we wanted to meet with Nigel when we did," Svetlana added softly. "And probably what led to his assassination."
Elizabeth reached for Alastor's hand, but he had already reached for hers and was squeezing it harder than her stomach was clenching.
"They've agreed to hear from representatives of the Western governments, magical and Muggle, if any wish to attempt to convince them to reject the offer," Svetlana added.
"That's … going to have to be us, Alastor," Elizabeth said into a long silence. "Well, maybe you can find someone on such short notice, but I'm probably not even going to be able to get a reply on a message I could send home by the time they meet."
"I'd have to send a Patronus to the Minister of Magic," Alastor muttered, "and I will, but I don't think I can explain this in any way with one. I could let her know at least that I needed to see her immediately. I used to be able to apparate from John O'Groats in Scotland to Land's End in Cornwall, but that's maybe a third of the way I'd have to go for this trip … hate to do end-on-end apparations, let alone three or four in a row; they're confusing as hell, but I guess there's nothing for it."
"What's apparation?" Elizabeth asked anxiously.
"Um, what's the word … teleportation," Alastor said. Elizabeth felt stupid; she'd seen him do it before, many times.
"Why not a klyuchevym portom?" Boris asked.
"Come again?"
"A … you would say a harbor key?"
"A Portkey?" Alastor asked. "I don't trust the damn things. How do I know the object selected is not already set to reject my spell and take me on a one-way trip to the middle of a nuclear reactor - or Azkaban? I think I'd prefer the nuclear reactor. At least it'd be quick. Wouldn't use the Floo Network for the same reason."
"That's just as well, Auror Moody; the USSR isn't connected to the Floo Network," said Karkaroff.
"And I'd never get there in time on a broom. That settles it," Alastor said. He stood up, took out his wand and conjured up a ram that resembled the one on his staff, made of silky white light. It leaped through the window and vanished.
"Well?" he snapped at her.
"Well, what?"
"You're coming with me, aren't you? You're going to have to talk to your Prime Minister, get her to send someone to come back with us."
Elizabeth jumped up. "What do I do?"
"Take my arm and hang on tight. Don't let go until I tell you, and don't say anything until I tell you." And when she did so, Alastor made a decent military left-face —
It was, near as Elizabeth could tell, like being sucked down a pipe just barely big enough for oneself. The only thing that made sense to her was the rough cloth of Alastor's overcoat and the warmth of Alastor's arm inside it. Just as abruptly, they were spat out of the pipe somewhere unfamiliar to her: they were in some field that smelled of manure; a city glimmered in the middle distance. She kept her mouth clamped shut and her hands clamped tightly on his arm while he made a few "hmmm" noises.
Alastor made the left-face again; there was a flash of light this time, and they got sucked down another pipe — but this time they emerged in midair, seemed to hang suspended for a brief eternity, and dropped into icy wet chaos. Next thing she knew she was floundering alone underwater in absolute darkness — she must have let go of Alastor in her shock, and now he was nowhere to be found. She remembered in a very rational corner of her mind as the rest of her panicked, some long-forgotten lesson in espionage or perhaps just sailing, that in the dark like this it was best not to try to swim for the surface because you may not be actually going the right direction — or was that what the trainer had said? She couldn't imagine surviving very long in this chilling bath, even if she did find the surface before reflexes forced her to inhale water —
Then she was zooming diagonally, not under her own power or that of the sea (the water was definitely salty) — she bumped against something large but not too hard that wrapped around her and made a turn, and they were sucked into another pipe and deposited on solid ground, both of them retching and coughing. Alastor, however, was pounding her back.
"You all right?" he asked between coughs.
"I'm not dead yet," she got out.
"Well, let's go inside," he said, pulling her to her feet, leading her to the door of what looked like a country house and knocking on it with his staff (How on earth did he still have that? Elizabeth wondered). "Millicent!" he roared.
A man opened the door. "Alastor, what the hell are you doing here at this hour?"
"Shut up and let us in, Dawlish!" Alastor growled. "We're freezing to death, almost literally, and we need to see the minister immediately! She knows what's going on, or she should!"
"Dawlish, is that Mad-Eye Moody?" came a authoritative female voice from another room. Alastor groaned.
"Yes, Minister," said the young man.
"Well, let him in!"
"Minister, he has a Muggle with him!"
"It's all right, John — for now." A woman who for all the world reminded Elizabeth of her Prime Minster with white hair appeared at the top of the staircase facing them, then started down in a hurry. She was wearing a dressing gown that looked like a Japanese kimono.
"Alastor, I got your Patronus," she said. "And you," she said to Elizabeth, leading them into a sitting room, "must be the agent sent by your Prime Minister to see what the Soviets are trying to coerce the Russian Wizarding Council to do. I'm Millicent Bagnold, Minister for Magic for the Wizarding communities of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Dawlish, bring blankets and plenty of hot toddy for these two! Miss Goodwin, I take it the situation has deteriorated since you passed that document to Alastor."
"It's b-b-b-ad, Minister," Elizabeth chattered. "It isn't j-j-j-just about a m-m-mere econ-n-n-nomic hex anym-m-m-more."
"The Soviets seem to think the Russian magical community can protect the USSR from a nuclear holocaust, so there's no reason not to bomb the West," Alastor added. "Assuming they can get our Soviet Wizarding comrades to go along with them."
"Are you sure, Alastor?"
"The Russian Wizarding Council is taking a vote in —" he looked at his watch and swore — "must have stopped when we fell into the English Channel. They're voting in less than 24 hours, and the USSR is ready to start bombing 24 hours after that."
A knock, and Dawlish came in, leading servants. Soon Alastor and Elizabeth were warmly wrapped and sipping enormous mugs of hot toddy. Elizabeth was clutching her mug with both hands, both for warmth and to keep herself from spilling it, although it was only half-filled; she was still shaking.
"Drink it," Alastor murmured. "It'll warm you up just like that."
The servants left; Dawlish hung back until the Minister dismissed him with a curt "Thank you, John."
"You didn't do a side-along apparation all the way here from Moscow, Alastor?" the minister exclaimed when Dawlish shut the door behind him.
"I had no choice," he said. "I wouldn't have gotten here on time otherwise."
"That was tremendously risky."
"No kidding," Alastor said. "And I don't think we're going to have much choice but to return the same way. We need someone high enough in the Ministry to make a convincing argument to the Russian wizards not to cooperate with the USSR in this matter."
"I'll go," Bagnold said. "I've already alerted my counterpart at 10 Downing. I don't know what she's planning to do. Excuse me a moment." She disappeared into an office off the sitting room.
"I'm going to have to collect some other Aurors or their equivalents for the trip back," Alastor muttered. "It'll be much more dangerous. It's likely we were spotted when we made our first intermediate stop."
"That light," Elizabeth said.
"We must have apparated into a prison yard or onto a military base. We were outside Krakow, I know that. Either way, we were hit with a spotlight right as I was about to disapparate, and my concentration slipped, and that's how we ended up in the English Channel. I was going for Le Havre; we fell in a few miles offshore of Torquay."
"And yet we made it here all right," Elizabeth said.
"Got lucky," Alastor muttered. "I really didn't want to spend any more time in the Channel than necessary. Then I realized you weren't with me -"
"I'm sorry I let go -"
The Minister re-emerged from her office. "The Prime Minister is expecting us at Chequers. You may come as you are; I'm going dressed like this; we don't have time to smarten up."
So they stood up. Elizabeth took Alastor's arm, and they were sucked into the pipe again and came out near an even nicer country house. Soon they were inside, and the Prime Minister was greeting them again, also wearing a dressing gown.
"Is it raining?" she asked Elizabeth and Alastor.
"We fell into the English Channel on the way," Alastor said nonchalantly.
The Muggle PM decided she didn't want Alastor, whom she took for Bagnold's bodyguard, or Elizabeth to join what she took as a highest-level meeting. So Alastor decided to collect his Aurors for the trip back to Moscow and vanished in a cloud of silky light. Elizabeth sat in a waiting room, reading old editions of The Economist and the Times and feeling very useless.
Alastor returned with seven other people, three men and four women. "Are they still talking?" he asked her.
"I assume so," Elizabeth said.
"All right," Alastor said, turning back to his squad. The women seemed young to middle-aged, as did two of the men; the third had long white hair and a long beard.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we're apparating first to the Deutschmagiergesellschaft in Frankfort, then to the Československý Metlobal Liga in Bratislava, then inside the chambers of the Russian Wizarding Council in Moscow. Everyone know where those are? Good. We're travelling in a tight circle formation with the Ministers in the center. I'm guessing the Minister of Magic will be taking the Muggle PM side-along, and I'll be taking Elizabeth." That raised a few eyebrows. "Now, we have to assume we'll be attacked when we reapparate. If anyone of us gets killed, injured, lost or splinched, do not stop to help them or recover their body. The same goes for Elizabeth here. Protect the Ministers at all costs. They must arrive in Moscow more or less in one piece. Is that understood?"
They all nodded, and Alastor drew Elizabeth to one side. "Do you have your gun?" he asked.
"I was just going to ask if we could go get it," Elizabeth said. "I wouldn't dare bring one into the Soviet Union on an airplane."
"All right, let me just tell the others —" he began, but then the door to the PM's office opened and the two women emerged.
"We're ready," the Minister said. The PM looked a little apprehensive.
"Sorry, no time," Alastor said. "Or maybe Madame Prime MInister can get one somewhere?"
The .38 that the PM procured for Elizabeth was very heavy and felt clumsy, so much so that she almost changed her mind. But it was well maintained, and she decided it would be better than no weapon. She pushed a clip into it, cocked it, and pocketed the others in her still-damp jacket.
"Everyone ready?" Alastor said. "Wait a second … Elizabeth, empty your pockets." He waved his wand and her suit and court shoes transformed into dry army fatigues and combat boots. Bagnold changed her own clothes and the Prime Minister's similarly while Elizabeth reorganized herself and took Alastor's arm with her left hand. In her right she held the gun, ready to fire. "All right, on the count of three," Alastor said. "One! Two! Three!"
They made it to Frankfort all right, collected their wits, did a headcount and made the second jump. Again, everything seemed to be going well. They were in a pitch behind the Czech Quidditch headquarters. Elizabeth had never seen a Quidditch pitch in person, and craned her head up at the goals far above her in amazement. How did Muggles in Bratislava not see this in front of their noses?
"All right, one more jump. Are we ready?" Alastor said. "One —"
"Tam sú! Tam sú! Dostať ich!"
Jets of green light and gunfire burst out. Alastor thumped his staff on the ground and leaped sideways in a flash of white light. Elizabeth aimed at a figure in front of her waving a wand, squeezing her trigger and ducking; then she was shooting at a soldier who took the place of the wizard she'd shot; then she was crawling across the ground and taking aim at an old hag wearing black robes. The hag fell in green light; someone bellowed something that sounded like "You stupid!" and suddenly the attackers vanished in silky black smoke. She waited; then a deep voice said, "They're gone."
She pulled herself to her feet, glad she was generally in good shape from continued skating and thrice-weekly jogs, but thinking if she was going to see any more combat she should practice, and looked around. Others were rising from the ground, too; Bagnold was helping the PM to her feet. A large, brown figure in front of the two women did not stir.
"Alastor!" Elizabeth shouted, holstering her gun and running for him. She fell on her knees at his side, rolling him over and tearing at his coat. His shirt was soaked in bright red blood; a jet of it spouted a good three feet into the air. "Alastor! Alastor! Help him, someone!"
A young man as tall as Alastor and as dark as Alastor was pale gently but firmly pulled Elizabeth to the side. He had already drawn his wand; he squatted down and ripped open Alastor's shirt, and was pointing the wand at the wound, mumbling — and the bloodstains seemed to be sucked into the wand. Then he touched the wound itself and mumbled something else — Elizabeth's ears were ringing so much she couldn't hear — and in a moment a mostly intact bullet and some bits of shrapnel rose from the wound. When no more metal emerged from Alastor's chest, the young man mumbled something else, and the wound rippled and disappeared entirely. He touched Alastor's neck with one finger at a pulse point, frowned a moment in concentration, then nodded at one of the women, who stepped forward with a quart glass bottle full of a deep red liquid as the young man cast one final spell that brought Alastor back to consciousness; the good eye opened, though it seemed glazed and unfocused, and the magical eye's iris and pupil slowly rolled into view. Elizabeth found herself numbly supporting Alastor's head while the liquid was poured into his mouth in increments and he swallowed it. The rest of their party was standing watching, including the PM, who had what seemed like a gallon of blood splashed across her fatigues and seemed every bit as pale as Alastor. She kept saying the same thing over and over to Bagnold, though Elizabeth still couldn't hear it through the ringing in her ears. She turned back to Alastor, who was still being fed the burgundy potion; was it her imagination or did he seem to be regaining a little color? His good eye was certainly more alert; he was looking up at her and managed a slight smile between mouthfuls of the brew. She stroked his hair out of his eye and tried for an encouraging smile in return.
The PM knelt beside Elizabeth. "He saved my life," she said. "That bullet in his chest was heading for me. I don't know how he did it; he was at least ten meters away, then suddenly the shooter had no gun and he was … as you found him."
Astonishingly, Alastor struggled to sit upright. "Yeah, I saw him out of my replacement eye and had to do something."
"You've earned the Order of Merlin," said Bagnold, "and perhaps something comparable from the Muggle government, such as the Victoria Cross?"
"I don't know how we'd manage that and stay within the terms of the International Statute," the PM said, "but certainly —"
"Don't worry about it," Alastor said, getting to his feet. "It was only a bullet. Nothing fatal, assuming one doesn't bleed to death first. Now, is everyone else all right?" He looked around and did a headcount. "Good. We still have to get to Moscow; they're not going to delay the meeting just because I got shot in the heart. In formation, everyone!"
The Russian Wizarding Council's meeting was already on when they arrived, and a middle-aged witch with hennaed hair was addressing them until she realized a large group of people had just apparated into it.
"Babylonius," Alastor said. When he spoke next, his mouth was moving in English but the words came out in pristine Muscovite Russian. "Ladies and gentlemen, I pardon you for barging into this meeting, but I bring you the highest representatives of the United Kingdom governments, Magical and non-magical, who have come at great personal risk to address you on this matter." He stepped back and gestured to the PM, who approached the podium and started to speak in her well-trained way. Elizabeth may not have liked her politics, but she loved to watch the Prime Minister's Question Times. It was hard not to root for a fellow woman who could verbally outduel a roomful of privileged public school boys.
But Elizabeth didn't hear the PM's speech. Her ears seemed to be filling with cotton. The room was getting dark. The floor tilted. She grabbed for Alastor's arm ...
She came to in a sort of back room, laying on a couch. Alastor was sitting on a footstool, looking at her with both eyes.
"You haven't been eating enough, have you?" he asked, giving her a sip from his flask. She expected a liquor, but it tasted like someone had dumped a lot of black pepper into cold, scorched coffee. She coughed and pulled herself into a sitting position, looking at him questioningly.
"You were out for nearly three hours," he told her. "Your PM and the Minister of Magic both spoke to the council, and they've been debating. I'm supposed to get an alert when they're ready to take the vote."
Just then the door opened and the young, dark man who had removed the bullet from Alastor's chest said, "They're ready, Alastor."
"Thanks, Kingsley. Come on, Elizabeth."
The three of them marched into the council meeting room and stood in the same corner Alastor and Elizabeth had occupied when she passed out.
"We vote," said the hennaed witch. "All in favor of cooperating with the NATO alliance …"
Maybe three hands went up around the room.
"All in favor of cooperating with the Warsaw Pact …"
No hands went up.
"All in favor of staying neutral …"
The room was now a forest of raised arms.
"We are decided. We shall refuse to assist the Soviets in this matter but likewise shall not warn the Western governments. This meeting stands adjourned."
Both the British leaders looked disappointed, but were also consoling each other. The chief witch approached them and the three women went into the room where Elizabeth had come to. A tall, old wizard with a flowing silver beard who had been part of the group guarding the Ministers approached them.
"Not the best result, Alastor, but better than I expected," he said. His eyes lit on her, merrily twinking. "A pleasure. I'm Albus Dumbledore. You must be Elizabeth Goodwin, to whom Alastor is so devoted."
She looked up at Alastor, who turned so red some of his fresher scars blended in. "I thought you said —"
"Later, Elizabeth!" he hissed.
"Oh, do not worry, I forget names so easily," the man said, turning away.
"The hell he does," muttered Alastor. "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the hotel. We need to make reservations for the return trip. No way in hell I'm Apparating back, even if it didn't blow my cover and leave you unprotected."
He kept shutting down her attempts to discuss what was on her mind. It was only when they were safely back in his house, alone, and he had checked the whole place thoroughly for who knows what that he let her finish the sentence.
"A long time ago, when you told me you were a Wizard, you swore me to secrecy," she said. "And you said that nobody in your world could know about me; otherwise, they'd wipe my memory."
"Right."
"Well?"
"Do you want me to wipe your memory?"
"Of course not, but —"
"Things have changed since then, Elizabeth. I've arrested so many Death Eaters and Dark witches and wizards in the course of the war that the Ministry makes allowances for me in other areas. So far it's mostly been when I … overreact to situations."
He looked off into the distances. She took his hand and squeezed it.
"But they know I'm calmer when you're around. So they have tolerated my relationship with you. And now that you've done what you have in this instance, they'll not lay a finger on you as long as you keep your end of our bargain. Exceptions are made for spouses."
"We're not married," Elizabeth pointed out. "And I thought we'd agreed we wouldn't get married. We couldn't get married. It was too much of a risk."
"Not officially, no," he said. "You'd be a target for my enemies. And I'd be one for your enemies. But … isn't our relationship pretty committed? At least it is from my end. I can't do without you, at least knowing you're there to come home to. Don't you know that?"
She nodded.
"And I reckon you feel the same way, am I right?"
She nodded again.
"Well, then. What's there to discuss?