A/N: This is a birthday present for my good friend LittleReaderOfBooks, because my first present was too depressing for her. So, this is really my second try at a birthday present. (sighs) So, since I've wholeheartedly pulled you onto the ship Mythea and told you to make yourself at home, and you've created this really good headcanon about who Anthea really is, happy birthday, my dear friend, and enjoy.
PART THE FIRST
Never Forget an Exception
Sortings are boring.
That's what Mycroft Holmes thought, at least until there was an exception.
The Ravenclaw fifth-year drummed his fingers on the table absentmindedly, watching the Sorting with a noncommittal eye.
"Spinnet, Alicia!" McGonagall called.
A tiny, black-robed girl with dark curls spilling across her shoulders scuttled to the stool and hesitantly hauled herself onto it. As she raised her face, warm hazel eyes framed by rectangular spectacles and filled with flecks of green scanned the Hall, resting on Mycroft as the Hat dropped over her eyes.
Ravenclaw, Mycroft's mind suggested automatically.
Thirty seconds passed. Then a minute flew by on silver wings. The Hat was muttering to itself, its words indistinguishable to the Hall.
Ravenclaw, Mycroft's mind insisted. Get on with the program.
The second minute crept by.
She's in Ravenclaw! Mycroft's mind muttered mutinously.
"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat yelled.
Shocked, Mycroft sat up straighter as the girl with green-flecked eyes sprang off the seat and, with a short glance at the Ravenclaw table, turned and briskly walked to the Gryffindor table, red-and-gold accents dotting her robe. She was an exception. Mycroft was never wrong. Never.
Of its own accord, Mycroft's mind filed her face away as an exception. Exceptions were not boring. They never were.
PART THE SECOND
Never Forget The Incursion Of Personal Space
If Mycroft had learned anything in his six years by far at Hogwarts, it was how to negotiate his way through a crowd of people. Oh, God, how he hated people. Of course, he didn't mind his close friends, but Mycroft could only tolerate the company of others for so long. When the teachers dismissed the classes, Mycroft had a habit of throwing his things together quickly, saying a few words of farewell to the teacher before sweeping out the door and getting a head-start to the next class. Usually, the hallways weren't too crowded, and Mycroft was able to get to the next class without much interaction. This was especially true on sunnier days, when most students decided to take the many shortcuts through the courtyard and take in the air, leaving the hallways open to the few that chose to stay indoors.
However, when the rain was pouring down and nobody dared to venture into the courtyard, there were people, almost too many people, and Mycroft hated it. No matter how early he ventured into the hallways, people were already there, and Mycroft one day found himself stuck in a group of fourth-years, moving just about as quickly as a Canadian glacier. Growing increasingly uncomfortable, Mycroft sent out his senses to look for a hidden passageway to get his person quickly to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Smirking slightly, he stopped in the crowd, shuffled to the side, ignoring the outbursts of protest from the people next to him, and dove through the golden tapestry to his left. Running through the passageway, he emerged around fifty yards from the Defense classroom. There weren't many students inside this corridor, so Mycroft thought he would be able to navigate through the crowd easily. At least, until...
Flump!
"Oh!"
Mycroft staggered, thrown off balance. He only managed to stay upright by staggering to the other side of the corridor and grasping hold to the wall. A small form was struggling on the ground before him. The girl lifted her head, holding two broken halves of a pair of spectacles, and Mycroft recognized the exception that had become such an interest to him, just a year before.
"Sorry!" she squeaked, noticing the tall Ravenclaw before her. Mycroft noticed a hint of ruddy hue on her cheekbones. The girl hastily started to scrape her things together, shoving her spectacles into her pocket.
Mycroft's mind sprang to life. "Here," he said, and the girl froze. Mycroft's eyes darted rapidly over her person. No injuries, just a bit of a shock from diving through a tapestry and slamming into a Ravenclaw sixth-year. A neat label on her bag read: Alicia Spinnet. Mycroft extended his hand to the second-year. "I can repair your spectacles."
Stunned, she handed the halves over. Mycroft neatly laid his bag to the side and pulled out his wand. A simple Reparo later, he handed her spectacles back.
"Thank you...I don't know your name. I'm Alicia."
As she shoved her spectacles on and staggered to her feet, Mycroft made some further deductions about the girl. Quidditch reserve player: Chaser, studious, has only a few close friends, Mycroft filed away with the face of the exception.
"Mycroft Holmes," he said with a brisk nod. "Well, I should be getting off to class, then. G'bye."
He grabbed his bag and whirled away. "G'bye," Alicia called after him. "And thank you!"
PART THE THIRD
Never Forget The Time In The Library
As a seventh year, Mycroft frequented the library more and more. There was something about it that seemed to draw him in more often than it did in his past years at Hogwarts. Perhaps it was the sanctuary, the lack of people around the area. Perhaps, especially on Quidditch weekends, it was because not many people decided to make the library their refuge. Whatever reason reeled Mycroft towards the library worked its magic one sunny Saturday, and the library found Mycroft within its walls, working diligently, albeit alone.
Alone...it felt good.
The library door creaked as it opened. Mycroft ignored it, keeping his attention on his Muggle Studies homework. It wasn't very difficult for Mycroft, with him being half-raised in Muggle Britain, but after seven years of being immersed in Magical Britain, he felt that he needed...what did they call it? a touch-up on his Muggle know-how. After all, he was aspiring to gain a position in the Muggle British government and use his magical ties to his advantage.
The unknown intruder quietly pulled a chair out and sat about twelve yards away from him. Perfect. Not too close, Mycroft thought. He twisted around in his chair to have a look at the intruder. It was the exception...what was her name? He seemed to have deleted it...and then the memory sprang back to life. Alicia. But...what was Alicia Spinnet, one of the star Gryffindor Chasers, doing here? Mycroft shrugged this off and returned to his work, a particularly flowery essay on Muggle British politics expanding to life under his quill.
Twenty minutes later, he had finished a last stroke with his quill and was now resting it in the pot of ink, when a loud BANG could be heard to his left, in Alicia's direction. His hand jerked and the inkpot fell with a clunk, emptying its contents over the wooden table. Mycroft cursed, and he heard Alicia whip around and notice his blunder. "Oh, sorry!" she squeaked. Mycroft looked over at her, ready to deliver a sharp retort, when he noticed what had happened.
In frustration, Alicia had apparently flung her Arithmancy book across the room, and it had hit a bookshelf squarely, slid down and flung itself onto the floor. Mycroft swallowed his retort, finding that he...what was the word? sympathized with her. Arithmancy had been quite difficult for him. "It's fine," he muttered. "Nothing got on my essay, anyway." He grabbed his wand and began siphoning up the spilled ink.
"Say," Alicia said suddenly. "I know you, don't I? I blundered right out of a tapestry and into you last year."
"Hmm," Mycroft sniffed, letting his wand regurgitate the ink sullenly back into the pot. "If I remembered, I must have deleted it."
"You're Mycroft, aren't you? Mycroft Holmes."
"Indeed I am...Alicia. Trouble with Arithmancy?"
"Yes," she said firmly, walking to pick up her book from the floor. "It's just so frustrating."
Mycroft bit his lip, in the middle of shoving his things into his bag, his wand still retching in annoyance at having to swallow and spit out a pot of ink. And he did something that he'd never thought he'd do, for this exception that had quite literally blundered into him and had always remained in the back of his head, no matter how much he'd tried to delete her.
"I can help."
Ten minutes later, Mycroft marched out of the library, leaving behind a grateful Alicia and a polite nod to the librarian. For the rest of the year, he took to hanging around the library, even if he didn't need to complete any work.
However, by the time he'd graduated from Hogwarts, he'd deleted everything about the exception. He was ready to move on.
PART THE FOURTH
Never Forget When He Saw Her
Mycroft hadn't sweated quite this much since his days as a double agent for the Order of the Phoenix.
He was sitting in a chamber, a voting member of the Wizengamot, as they were trying a former Death Eater. However, Mycroft wasn't sweating because of the decision he had to make.
Oh, how I hate being around people.
Mycroft tried to swallow his distaste, his dislike. But the foul taste of being in a bowl of goldfish couldn't go away. He already knew what he'd vote for, he'd already deduced that the man was a criminal to Muggle- and Wizard-kind worthy of a lifelong term of incarceration. Guilty. Boring.
Kingsley Shacklebolt, why did you make me, the Minister of Muggle and Magical Affairs and one of the Order of the Phoenix's double agents, a voting member of the Wizengamot?
Mycroft had, after several years of living a double life during the Second Wizarding War, serving as both an undersecretary to various Ministry of Magic officials and undersecretary to various Muggle British officials, obtained minor positions in both the Muggle and Magical governments. He'd worked hard, studied long and sleepless nights, and filed away all the information he needed for the things he would do, and the places he would go, and the people he would meet.
Mycroft suppressed the urge to curse at his forgetfulness to file away something to keep him from getting bored.
The man sighed, and tried to come up with something to alleviate him of his boredom.
Meandering through the very deeps of his mind, he opened cabinets, took memories into his hands, watched them for a while, then neatly placed it back into its precise location. Occasionally, he would delete it if he didn't feel like he particularly needed it any longer.
He visualized himself walking through the shelves of memories and repeating this process until he finally came to the end of the last shelf. Sighing, Mycroft opened up the last memory and took a glance at it. His eyes widened as he found a young girl sitting inside on a stool, the Sorting Hat propped on her head, and he jumped back, startled. On closer inspection, he scanned the girl over. Eleven years old at most, dark curls spilling over her shoulders, wide warm hazel eyes with specks of green staring back at him. "Who are you?" Mycroft muttered confusedly. "Why are you here? I would have deleted you by now. I've only stored away two Sortings in my lifetime: mine and Sherlock's."
You can't delete me, the girl said. Her mouth never opened, but Mycroft could hear her echoing around and around and around in his head. You've tried. Oh, you've tried plenty of times, Mycroft Holmes. You've deleted my name, any instance in which you might have met me, and even my real voice. the girl continued, a hint of reproach in her young tone. But you can never delete my face. You can never delete anyone's face, Mycroft Holmes. I thought you knew that. Her voice lost its reproach. I'm only speaking to you because I'm an exception. I've always been an exception to you, and yet you don't even know...
The cabinet blew shut, and Mycroft found himself sitting in the Wizengamot. Kingsley was calling, "All in favor of lifetime incarceration?" Mycroft raised a hand.
I'm an exception I'm an exception I'm an exception I'm an exception.
The voice echoed around and around in his head, as he levelled his gaze to the ground as the prisoner was led away. His breath caught in his throat.
There was the exception, older, taller, thinner than the memory, curls cut short, and without her spectacles. She was one of the Aurors standing guard right there at the door. Slowly, she turned her head and looked straight at him. You can never truly delete me, the girl whispered one last time. The Auror's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as to why a member of the Wizengamot was staring straight at her. Then, she looked away.
You can delete my name, you can delete my information, but you can never really delete my face, Mycroft Holmes, the girl's voice whispered. Then just as fast as it had appeared, it dissipated like smoke.
Mycroft kept an eye out for that Auror the next time he joined the Wizengamot. And the next. And the next. And the next.
PART THE FIFTH
Never Forget When He Hired Her
"So, Mr. Potter, I understand that you've been thinking about assigning an undercover Auror to my personal staff."
"Yes, Mr. Holmes, we've been taking an interest in assigning Aurors to some of the Ministry officials, especially the ones that interact frequently with Muggle Britain. You're at the top of the list here, because of your roles in both the Magical and Muggle governments."
Mycroft was standing in a work area with the Head Auror, tapping his new umbrella on the floor. To ensure that his identity as the Minister of Muggle and Magical Affairs was safely hidden, he'd taken a page out of Rubeus Hagrid's book and concealed his wand in a compartment inside his umbrella. He did look rather eccentric walking around the streets of London, tapping his umbrella on the pavement, but it was the only way he could have his wand and conceal it at the same time without shoving it mercilessly into his pocket like most...amateurs.
"The problem is, Mr. Potter," he began. "I was already thinking of hiring a personal assistant, it's a bit hard to do everything all on my own. Would this Auror be always around?"
"Yes, but I see your concerns, Mr. Holmes," Auror Potter acknowledged, nodding. "Perhaps... oh, I've got it," he said, nodding more energetically. "This way, Mr. Holmes, if you please." Auror Potter dove down a way, and Mycroft followed hesitantly. They both ended up in front of a file cabinet in a corner. Auror Potter pulled out his wand and pointed it at the cabinet. A drawer eased open and a file flew out and into his hand. "One of our best Aurors, Mr. Holmes, recently resigned her post. She suffered a rather serious injury and almost both bled out and lost a hand."
"Your point, Mr. Potter?" Mycroft asked curiously.
"The thing is, she was half-raised in the Muggle world. Because of her injury, she wants to go back to the Muggle world. She has credentials, recommendations, everything she needs for a good job. Add to that her training in the Auror force, and she's basically unstoppable. Perhaps she could double as your personal assistant, she's had training with Muggle workspaces too."
"File?" Mycroft asked, and Auror Potter handed it to him. "These are all her qualifications. She was an exemplary student. And may I say," he added, lowering his voice, "she's a spectacular Chaser. Not that you'd need Quidditch in Muggle politics, but she was one of my teammates in the Gryffindor Quidditch team back at Hogwarts."
Mycroft flipped through the file. Perfect score on a training exercise, perfect score on a Muggle computer-programming test. "What's her name?" he asked.
"Ah, Mr. Holmes, that's where it gets complicated."
"Oh?"
"Per Ministry policy, if an Auror chooses to return to the Muggle world, they are required to change their name if they choose to go undercover. This Auror made herself open to this option and chose a different name."
"Then what's her name now?"
"Elise Bailey. I knew her quite well, even before she became an Auror. She signed up for an underground organization against the Umbridge dictatorship in her seventh year."
"You mean, the underground organization that you organized and carried out, right under the noses of Dolores Umbridge and her followers."
A hint of red crept into Auror Potter's face. "Yes, Mr. Holmes, that's true."
"Good work, then," he replied. Another thought crossed his mind. "If she was in your organization, then she must have fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, if I am correct."
"That's right," Auror Potter told him. "She did fight. We didn't know what had happened to her until after all the casualties were counted and her name wasn't on the list. However, we were really puzzled as to her whereabouts...until she came to the Auror office and signed up for training a week after the battle," he laughed at the last bit. "Weren't you there too, Mr. Holmes?"
"Yes," Mycroft sighed, "I was. However, I was trying my best to look like a Death Eater, at least until you came back to life. Then, I went berserk. Or so they thought, before I Stunned them."
Auror Potter chuckled darkly. "I must say, Mr. Holmes, it is a true stroke of luck that both your intellect and your combat skills were not turned to the wrong side then."
"And they still are turned to the right side today, Auror Potter," Mycroft told him in a low voice.
Auror Potter solemnly nodded.
"Well, then. Best be going," Mycroft sighed, straightening. It was then that a photograph fluttered to the floor out of the file.
"Oh, my bad," he said.
"Not to worry," Auror Potter told him, picking up the photograph and handing it to him. "This is Elise's photograph, from her Auror identification."
Mycroft took it into his hand and scanned it. His heart began to speed up, and his eyes widened as he quickly inhaled.
The exception.
Mycroft's mind raced back to that moment in the courtroom, when he'd discovered the girl on the stool that he couldn't get rid of, no matter how hard he'd tried. He remembered the young Auror looking at him, her delicate eyebrows furrowed. He compared her with the image.
Exactly the same.
Mycroft's mind flashed back to the present. A woman with dark curls framing her round face, freckles dancing across her face, and hazel eyes filled with specks of green smiled out of the picture. She had grown from the first time Mycroft had seen her, this Elise Bailey, or whatever her real name was.
"You all right, sir?" Auror Potter's voice jerked him back to the present. "You seem quite pale."
"Fine, Mr. Potter, thanks for asking," he replied quickly and inserted the picture back into the file. "Is there any way I can get an interview with Ms. Bailey?"
The interview was organized and set for a date the week afterwards at Mycroft's office at the Diogenes Club. Mycroft was slightly apprehensive at the prospect of finally being able to revisit the exception that had interested him so much as a teenager, but he had to admit, he really needed a personal assistant. It was just a coincidence that the top choice had to be the exception.
Just a coincidence, indeed.
A week later, Mycroft sat in his Diogenes office, Elise Bailey's file opened on his desk to her picture. The man studied the woman's picture, poring through his mind for any possibility of her real name. If I had deleted it, I wonder if there is any way I can possibly get it back, he asked himself.
The answer came as a soft knock on his door.
"Enter," he called out. The door swung open to admit a slight, rather petite woman with dark curls reaching nearly to her shoulders and dressed in a dark blue sailor's jacket who, upon entering, gently closed the door behind her. She looked like she wanted to say something, but swallowed it upon catching sight of the room's occupant. "You may speak in here. The rules of the Diogenes Club do not necessarily apply in my personal office. Unless, that is, I enforce it myself."
She blanched slightly and nodded. "Hello, then," she started out, her voice lyrical and almost...pleasant. "I understand that this is the office of Mycroft Holmes?"
"Yes," Mycroft nodded, standing up and walking around his desk to extend a hand to her. "And I assume that you are Elise Bailey?"
"Yes," the woman nodded, accepting it and giving it a cordial shake. "You were interested in hiring a personal assistant, if I am correct?"
"Absolutely, Ms. Bailey," he told her with a slight nod. "Please sit down."
Mycroft walked back behind his desk and sat down as Elise pulled a chair towards the front of his desk and sat down. This woman, he could see, was definitely used to being undercover, as Mycroft could see her eyes flick towards the door almost immediately, realize that the door was the only exit in the room, and flick back to Mycroft. Noticing that he was examining her and she him, Elise blushed slightly and looked down. Her whole demeanor spoke of an easy yet alert stance.
And her face, the face that had hung around Mycroft's mind for years and had never left him since...the face of the exception. The number of freckles dancing across her nose had only increased, and the young face that Mycroft had seen under the Hat had matured into that of a worldly woman who knew her priorities. However, the eyes still remained, steady, flecked with green, and unflinching.
Mycroft shook himself out of his reverie and picked up her file.
"Oh," Elise said in recognition of the folder. "I understand that my credentials and experience have already been sent to you." She nodded towards it.
"Yes," Mycroft replied. In fact, the magical section of her credentials had been hidden away. Only some Muggle credentials she'd picked up had remained in the folder, definitely decreasing the folder in size. As far as Elise knew, Mycroft was just a Muggle who didn't realize he had ties to magical politics. "I found that they were...quite exemplary, Ms. Bailey."
"Really?" she said excitedly, her eyes widening. Then, she realized where she was and sobered. "I mean, thank you, Mr. Holmes."
Mycroft ignored her outburst. "You have been called here today to discuss your...psychological capacity for this position. Your credentials and experience exceed my expectations greatly, and if I had the choice, I would hire you on the spot. However, being a government official's personal assistant is not an easy task. One thing being is that you'll need to adopt a new name. Correction: a lot of new names."
"All right," she said slowly.
"You may be involved in not only politics, which is, I might say, truly more dangerous than you would initially believe…"
At this, Elise chuckled, grinning mischievously. Mycroft desperately tried to ignore the little dimple on the right side of her mouth.
"You may," he continued, "also be involved in undercover missions and dangerous situations."
Elise leaned forward, obviously interested.
"Sometimes, these missions may be both physically and emotionally difficult. I must also inform you that you may lose your life at any point during your career."
The last bit was hard to deliver for Mycroft. Something about the young woman in front of him made him feel a bit...protective. Somewhat like the feeling he had towards Sherlock.
The woman in front of him leaned back, taking the last bit in and rolling the idea over and over in her mind.
"I've only explained part of it, actually not even half," Mycroft told her. "If you do not want to partake in this occupation, I will not be offended if you choose to leave."
Elise bit her lip and looked away, obviously doing a cost-benefit analysis of the occupation.
"Take your time, Ms. Bailey," Mycroft said.
After a few minutes, Elise looked back at Mycroft. A small hint of apprehension lay in her eyes, but she took a deep breath and told him, "Continue, please," her voice filled with determination.
Mycroft scanned the girl. A fighter was the first description that came to mind. Driven by moral values, determined, courageous but not to the point of stupidity, more analytic than she looks came next.
Satisfied, Mycroft gave her a little smile, leaned back and pulled out a desk drawer. Rifling through the papers inside, he finally pulled out a few documents and laid them on the desk, as well as a fountain pen.
"Here is the paperwork you would need to fill out, Ms. Bailey," he told her.
"That's all?" she asked him inquisitively and with an air of carefully concealed surprise. "You told me I was here in order to evaluate my psychological capacity for the job."
"That is precisely what I have just done, Ms. Bailey," Mycroft told her.
"Oh," she exclaimed. "Really?"
"Yes," he replied. "Read through, take your time."
Elise shakily picked up the papers and read them through quickly, her hazel eyes flicking across the pages. A few minutes later, she set them back onto the polished wood of the table and looked straight into Mycroft's eyes. For once, Mycroft felt slightly uncomfortable as Elise stared right at him like she was examining every aspect of his identity. Then, she gave a little sigh, almost like, Mycroft thought, she was saying, All right, I trust you, at least somewhat.
"Pen?" she asked, her voice betraying no hint of fear or apprehension. Mycroft handed the fountain pen to her as she shook back each cuff of her dark green peacoat jacket to expose her wrists. As the cuff slid from her right wrist, Mycroft noticed a light pink scar running almost clearly across the base of her palm. It looked much like a wound inflicted by spellfire, and Mycroft reasoned that it was the wound that had rendered her the temporary loss of use of her right hand. Elise took the pen with her left hand, balancing it uncertainly, as if she was not used to using it for writing. She quickly reread each paper and signed the bottom with small, loopy cursive with a flourish. Handing it back to Mycroft a few minutes later, she told him, "Thank you very much, sir. I resigned from my last job recently due to personal issues, and I've been very lucky to get such a good job offer in such a short while."
"I'm glad that you've decided to climb on board, Ms. Bailey."
"But sir, that's not my name anymore." She inclined her head slightly to the papers she had just signed as she said so, her lyrical voice trailing off slightly as she got up.
Mycroft read the signature at the bottom of the papers and quirked a smile. "I hope to see you very soon, then," he told the woman as she walked to the door.
"Say," she said suddenly, turning around just as she was about to turn the handle and exit. "I have a feeling we've met before. Or at least seen each other."
"Oh, really?" Mycroft said skeptically, his heart speeding up just a tad bit. "If I remembered, I must have deleted it."
"Okay, that's creepy," the woman said, shaking her head slightly. One of her curls flapped into her face, and Mycroft had to suppress the urge to brush it away. "Because I distinctly remember someone telling me that when I was twelve, in school."
"What school did you go to?" Mycroft asked despite himself.
"Oh, some boarding school in Scotland. But that's not important, really," she told him with a wave of her hand. "Well, I'll be seeing you, then."
Mycroft sprang out of his seat and gave her his regular office address. "Come to this address at nine on Monday morning and we'll discuss your duties."
"Thank you," she replied, taking the paper and extending her other hand. Mycroft shook it cordially.
"I hope to see you then...Anthea Grayson."
PART THE SIXTH
Never Forget When Her Eyes Were Filled With Stars
The wheels of the private plane touched down on British soil, and the whole craft shuddered as it glided to a stop. Sighing in relief, Anthea stretched in her seat as Mycroft rubbed his eyes. They had spent a week at a Pacific trade conference that was, in Mycroft's own words, "absolutely meretricious, useless, and it wasn't necessary to invite us anyway, so why bother". Anthea had grinned at this statement, and Mycroft had allowed himself a slight smirk. The two had struck up a tentative friendship, Anthea's quiet confidence matching Mycroft's snarky disposition. Mycroft had tried to push all thoughts of the exception aspect of his personal assistant away and was choosing to focus solely on his work and duties as a government official living a double life between Magical and Muggle Britain. To his satisfaction, his endeavors had succeeded, but his mind's hallways and corridors always seemed to have at least one passageway to the face of his personal assistant.
Suddenly, Anthea's phone buzzed. Covering a yawn with one hand, she reached the other hand for her BlackBerry in her briefcase. Pulling it out deftly and spinning it so it landed in her palm, she tapped away at it until she got the text pulled up. "Oh," she sighed a bit regretfully.
Several scenarios whipped through Mycroft's mind. However, all but one flew away with his personal assistant's next words. "Mycroft, the car won't be here for at least ten minutes, it's trapped in traffic."
"Could you call up a different one?" Mycroft asked, slightly desperate. It was nearly midnight, and he was eager to get back to his flat and sleep until a respectable hour.
"No. I already checked," Anthea sighed frustratedly, a wayward curl fluttering up from her face. "That car's the only one available at this hour. I can't contact anyone else."
"We might as well wait outside, then," Mycroft told her, getting up from his seat. He trusted that their luggage would have been unloaded, and he picked up his briefcase and umbrella as he prepared to exit the plane. Mycroft waited for Anthea as she slipped her phone into her case and unsteadily got up. Unsteadily...Mycroft scanned once over his colleague (in more ways than one). Fatigue flew up first, followed by slightly hungry, bored, anxious.
"You can pick up something to eat when you get to your flat, Anthea," he told her.
"Yeah, but first the car needs to get here," she pointed out. Irritable flew into Mycroft's line of vision, but it was what came next that bothered him the most.
Blames self for car.
So Anthea blamed the tardiness of their car on herself. Probably contributing factors to her irritability and anxiety.
"Don't blame yourself for the car, Anthea," he sighed. "Your irritability and anxiety will only get worse."
Wrong thing to say.
"Then stay away, if it bothers you so much," she hissed in annoyance, giving only a brief nod to the pilot before whirling off and bounding down the stairs to the runway.
Mycroft huffed once, nodded to the pilot, and walked out of the plane after his personal assistant.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs, Anthea was nowhere in sight. Confused, Mycroft looked around. Anthea's briefcase had been laid at the side of the tarmac, and her flats had been placed neatly beside it...but there was no other sign of the slightly irascible woman that had stormed off the plane, green-hazel eyes stormy and brown curls flying.
Mycroft walked over to Anthea's briefcase, setting his down gently next to hers. He kept the umbrella in his hand, though. You never know when you'll need it, the Anthea in his head (who happened to know about his magical abilities) whispered. Shaking this off, he looked at the grassy patch at the side of the tarmac. By the lights of the plane thirty yards or so away, he could see a dark figure lying in the grass. Confusion and worry pricked at a corner of Mycroft's mind.
"Anthea?" he called out.
No answer.
Grasping his umbrella handle tightly, he cautiously set one well-polished shoe on the grass. He thanked whatever supreme being was watching that the ground was not muddy or wet and continued the rest of the way to the figure. Sure enough, it was Anthea. She was lying in the grass, hair framing her face like some dark halo of sorts. Her hands were folded over her torso, and her eyes were closed. A sort of peace had descended over her face, but as soon as Mycroft began to bend over, her eyebrows knitted and her eyes shot open.
"Care to sit?" she asked courteously, sitting up and drawing her knees up to her chest. "I was just looking at the stars and...thinking."
Mycroft hesitated.
"The ground's not wet," she pointed out rather unnecessarily.
Mycroft sighed and sat down a good forty-seven centimeters away from Anthea. Exhaling slightly, she lay back down and crossed her legs at the ankles, staring at the sky. Silence consumed the pair for a minute's time, and then Anthea broke it as easily as if she was wielding a sledgehammer.
"Some stargazers think that the Milky Way is just pollution in the sky," she began dreamily, a little smile spreading across her face as she stared into the sky. "But I just can't get over how close each star is to each other. It's just a huge stripe of companionship and togetherness running across the sky for me."
Mycroft shifted a little bit. This talk of companionship and togetherness was driving him insane, but he still listened. He looked at the sky and saw the Milky Way, dimmed considerably by the London city lights. "It's much too affected by artificial light-glow for you to see the whole thing, Anthea," he sniffed. "To see that, we'd need to go out into the wilderness."
"Are you inviting?"
In the darkness of the nighttime, Mycroft felt his face grow warm at his slip in pronoun use. "Continue," he choked a bit.
"When I was a girl, we used to go on midnight picnics during the summer. They'd last right into the early hours of the morning. We'd bring snacks and go to the park, my parents and extended family and me. My cousin was a flutist. Did I ever tell you that?" She paused. "Well, in any case, she was a flutist and she'd play for us as we ate crisps and laughed under the stars."
Mycroft could envision little Anthea listening to the dancing notes under the stars, maybe even doing a little dance with her older siblings - did she have older siblings? as she continued her story.
"And a lot of the times, I'd go on the swings," she breathed. "I never got to go during the day; the kids there all laughed at me, called me a teacher's pet. Later, I learned to stand up for myself, but when I was really little, the only time I'd ever really swing was at night, with the cool breeze whizzing through my hair and against my face. Sometimes, my mother, Serine, would come over and push me so I'd go really, really high, so high that I felt that if she'd pushed me hard enough, I could just float up and touch the stars. And it felt...oh, Mycroft, it felt like flying. And from then on, before I went to boarding school and my life went spectacularly awry, I had a dream of growing up and learning to fly. More specifically, becoming a pilot."
Mycroft was listening intently. Anthea had told him snippets of her past as he had gradually gained her trust and he hers, but this was the first time she'd been so explicit with him. Perhaps it was the fatigue speaking, or she was starting to trust him more.
Or he was just wasting his time formulating absolutely inane theories about Anthea Grayson.
He sighed and took his gaze off the stars and onto Anthea's face again. Her eyes were wide open, seeing right into the past, the stars in her eyes, joy written all over her face amidst all of the trouble happening, the face Mycroft couldn't forget, the face remembering her past.
Mycroft filed this image away safely in his mind.
PART THE SEVENTH
Never Forget When The Truth Came Out
"Mycroft," Anthea hissed angrily as they ran through the old, dilapidated building, "for the love of all that is good, why did you choose to kidnap a known assassin and question him in a dilapidated factory?!"
"I didn't know he would just turn on us like that, Anthea," he replied, desperately trying to keep up with his personal assistant's quick clip. "And I abducted him, I didn't kidnap him!"
Mycroft silently cursed himself for making such a slip. He'd been tasked by both the Muggle and Magical governments to work on an investigation that spanned both worlds. However, he'd led Anthea on to believe that, rather than the true fact that a whole gang of wizards and witches hell-bent on wreaking havoc in Muggle London, there was a whole organization of criminals hidden around London poised to strike. It was one of the most complicated things he'd ever done in his entire life, but he still pushed on. One of the final steps was apprehending the leaders, which he had been able to do, and question them on their motives. He and Anthea had been negotiating with one of the lower-position wizards about disclosing the location of some of the others to the government. However, Mycroft had made an almost fatal slip in his assumption of the wizard's mental capacity and had been dismayed to find that the wizard had pulled a Muggle gun, believing Mycroft to have been insulting him.
And now they were running hard and fast through the building, Anthea's curls flying behind her and Mycroft's umbrella tucked into the crook of his elbow.
The pair wheeled off and into a long, narrow walkway suspended high above the main floor. It creaked ominously below their feet as they stepped onto it, and Anthea flung out a hand across Mycroft to stop him. "Don't move!" she whispered urgently. "I don't think it's stable enough!"
Mycroft stopped, Anthea's blouse-covered left arm blocking his path forward. He stared at it for a second. Something was different, but he couldn't place it. He shook his head slightly and dispelled the thoughts racing around and around his head. "We'll need to get out somehow without him noticing," he whispered back.
"I'm already thinking on it," she replied, head whipping around as she looked for ways to get out. The two had grown closer over the years that they'd been working together, even more so during the Lazarus project. Mycroft had a feeling that it had grown a little bit more than a simple friendship, but Anthea seemed to veer off course whenever he tried to ask her about it and he didn't dare to bring it up again.
"We can't compromise this platform any more than it is," Mycroft pointed out.
Anthea muttered a particularly unkind word. "That's great. So the only way out is…"
"Down," Mycroft realized, a sinking feeling expanding inside him. He wasn't too keen on heights, but knowing Anthea, she was probably in her element. "Well, you were a Quidditch player," Mycroft muttered.
"Excuse me?" Anthea asked.
Oops! "Nothing...just...throat," Mycroft choked.
"I've got the slightest feeling that I don't believe you, but okay," Anthea replied. "I think...I think I've got a plan."
"Might I remind you that some of your plans have been downright outrageous and superfluous, Anthea?" Mycroft looked over at her. She looked back at him. Her curls, usually arranged neatly around her shoulders, were awry. Her face was a touch paler than usual, and her freckles stood out more on her nose. Frantically, her eyes flicked over Mycroft.
"Just...trust me on this one. Please. I...please. I promise, I know what I am doing." Her eyes were deadly serious, her tone pleading.
Dilated pupils.
DILATED PUPILS?!
"Please, just promise me," Anthea whispered.
"I promise," Mycroft replied.
DILATED PUPILS? Mycroft's heart beat a little bit faster.
"Here's my plan, then," Anthea told him, gulping in air. "We fall."
"What?!" Mycroft spat. "What was that?!"
"You heard me right!" Anthea told him. "We fall! The platform's not stable anyway. Then the assassin will presume us dead!"
"But...oh."
"He sees sense. There may be hope for him yet," Anthea grumbled.
"Mmm," Mycroft hummed agreeably. Truthfully, he had just realized that both he and Anthea were a wizard and witch, respectively. She thought that he didn't know...thought that he was just an innocent Muggle with ties to the magical world that he didn't even realize.
She was going to risk her life to save his.
And he was going to have to let her.
"Right," Anthea said. "I'm going to move to your left. Don't you dare move."
"Okay."
Anthea slowly inched to Mycroft's left. The platform creaked and groaned ominously beneath them. "It's not as far as it looks," she said placatingly. "We can make it down."
Not so sure about that, Mycroft thought. It's more like making it down, but then severely injuring ourselves. But then he remembered the Arresto Momentum spell, and he went along with her. "Okay."
"Now, we're going to have to find a way to destabilize the platform so we can fall…" Anthea trailed off.
"What?"
"He's there," Anthea muttered angrily. Sure enough, the wizard was poised at the exit, looking straight at them. "We need to make an exit!"
"Destabilize the platform, then?"
The wizard slowly lifted something in his hand and pointed it at them. From the distance, Mycroft didn't know if it was a wand or a gun, but it didn't matter. The wizard pointed the object straight at the platform.
"Well. That escalated quickly," Anthea muttered.
"That, Anthea, was the most feeble attempt at sarcasm I have ever witnessed in my whole career."
"Shut up, Umbrella Man."
A crack from above and the shaking of the platform startled them both. "Oh my -" Anthea gasped as they jerked forwards and grabbed the railing.
Both their heads jerked up as they looked at the thick chains suspending the platform from the ceiling. One of them had been severed through. Before their eyes, another chain snapped and the platform tilted dangerously.
"Mycroft, take hold and shut your eyes!" Anthea yelled and thrust out one hand towards Mycroft.
I'm going to have to let her risk her life.
Red sparks hit another chain (definitely spellfire) and Anthea grabbed Mycroft as they fell.
Time slowed down.
Through slightly shut eyelids, he saw Anthea shake her left arm forcefully. Mycroft's breath caught as he saw a polished Ollivander wand gripped in her hand. She wheeled it up and pointed it at the intruder's retreating back. As Mycroft watched, she sent first a silent Stunner at him, hitting him squarely. Then, she pointed it at the ground. Arresto Momentum, Mycroft realized.
Time sped up again as they gently touched down and quite literally hit the ground running, Anthea shaking her wand back up her sleeve.
"Go, go, go!" Anthea whispered urgently.
They ran for God knew how many meters until they ended up at a railing by the river. Anthea immediately caught the railing and leaned over it, breathing heavily. "Oh...my...God...oh…" she gasped.
They stood at the railing for some minutes, trying to recover.
This is it, Mycroft realized. She can't hide her secret from herself for so long.
"Anthea?"
"Yes?"
"Your left arm."
She wheeled around to face him. "What?" she spat.
"Do I have to repeat everything I say?" Mycroft asked calmly, inserting a hint of sarcasm into his tone. "Please show me your left arm."
"Why?"
Mycroft sighed. We'll just have to do this the hard way, then.
He unhooked his umbrella from the crook of his elbow and stepped back. With a couple of deft twists, he successfully detached the handle from the umbrella and upended the umbrella (sans handle) into his right hand.
"Will this convince you...?" he asked, showing her the eleven-inch-long ash and dragon heartstring wand. A few sparks shot out of the end, and the wood was warm to touch, as if welcoming back its master.
And suddenly, Mycroft remembered.
This wand, being pointed at a pair of broken spectacles.
This wand, regurgitating ink into an inkpot at Hogwarts.
I saw her name those times.
I can remember her name!
Broken spectacles...inkpot…
Bag on the floor…
Strap…
"Alicia," he breathed.
"Sorry...what?" Anthea spluttered.
"You're Alicia."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, trying to resort to ignorance.
"Alicia Spinnet. Gryffindor."
Silence passed between the two of them. Anthea, no, it's Alicia now, broke it.
"Fine."
She looked like she was about to burst into tears, but she shook out her left sleeve and held up her wand.
"Happy now?" Her voice was wobbling. "Cypress. Phoenix feather. Ten inches squat."
Mycroft calmly slid his wand back into his umbrella and twisted the handle back on. Alicia shoved her wand back up her sleeve.
"So. I'm a witch. I'll admit it," Alicia said, spreading out her hands in a gesture of defeat. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing," Mycroft breathed.
"Sorry?"
"Do I have to repeat everything I say? I said, nothing. I'm a wizard. I don't turn away anyone of our kind."
"Well...then...thank you." A tear spilled over. Mycroft wiped it off her face, her eyes widening in shock at the gesture.
"Besides," he said. "Besides, I knew who you were a long time ago."
He stuck a hand out to her, and she took it as they began to walk.
"Even before I hired you."
PART THE EIGHTH
Never Forget A Face
There are some things even Mycroft Holmes cannot delete.
Especially faces.
Especially hers.
Alicia Spinnet, Elise Bailey, Anthea Grayson.
The little girl sitting on the school that Mycroft placed in the wrong house had always stuck around in his mind to remind him that he was not entirely infallible.
She had grown up to be the one person outside of his family to whom he had opened his heart.
She loves him, too.
She can see that he would do anything to keep her out of harm's way. She's more than just an exception to him now. She's more like family. Or maybe even a bit more.
The pair was sitting on the bench. Anyone walking by would see two sharply dressed colleagues enjoying the autumnal sunlight in companionable silence.
Or maybe more than colleagues, they would realize as the woman took the man's hand.
"Thank you, Mr. Holmes. For everything."
"You're welcome...Mrs. Holmes."