A/N: From this point on, things might get a tad confusing if you haven't yet read "A Muggle in Magical Britain," which I rather selfishly suggest you do… :)
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The Unfortunate Case of Mr. Herbert Chorley
"Now don't be nervous," Percy said, trying to be comforting. It did not help that Percy Weasley himself– wizard, legislator, Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation– was shaking slightly and had turned bright red. Edie was not comforted. For her part, she turned pale, and slightly green.
Edie Filbert was not helped by the thought that she was a survivor of the Battle of Hogwarts, and had faced much worse in the past– the Cruciatus Curse, for one thing: being tortured by a Death Eater hadn't been a terribly pleasant experience, after all. Memory of the (albeit slightly sardonically) encouraging words from the Sorting Hat did not help either; nor did even the presence of Percy Weasley beside her, holding her shoulder protectively (and a little too tightly, to tell the truth). And the feel of the cold, metallic badge with the words LEGISLATIVE AIDE on her blouse definitely didn't help.
Because even though she had fought at Hogwarts, and visited Diagon Alley, and been treated at St. Mungo's, and attended a Quidditch World Cup– even so– Edie Filbert was a Muggle, and as she and Percy stepped into the fireplace at the Burrow, Edie experienced the unnerving worry that most witches and wizards wouldn't be nearly so accepting of her non-magical status as the Weasleys were.
"Ministry of Magic!" Percy declared, releasing a handful of Floo Powder, and instantly the two were engulfed by emerald-green flames. Edie clenched her teeth. There was a time when this sort of thing had shocked and awed and amazed her. Now it just made her head pound.
The first thing Edie saw when she opened her eyes was the gold statue in the great foyer of the Ministry, four small figures standing proudly on a high pedestal: one holding a sword, one a cup, one a locket, and one a diary. Well, mostly proudly– occasionally the one with the locket slouched a little, until the female figure with the cup jabbed him in the side with her wand and he straightened up. Despite her queasiness, Edie smiled a little, because she'd met Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger in real life, and the behavior of their statues was surprisingly true to reality.
"Why good morning Percy!" a sickeningly sweet voice said from behind the two. Edie whirled around. The woman laughed in a high-pitched, tinkling sort of way, and Edie felt surprised that such a sound could possibly come from such a squat, toad-like witch. But then, she was a witch, so maybe it was some sort of charm. The woman smiled at Edie's evident wariness: "Now there's no need to be jumpy, my dear. Nobody's going to harm you here– this is the Ministry!"
Edie nodded slowly.
"Good morning Dolores," Percy said, sounding slightly surprised himself. "I thought this was your day off?"
"Oh, day off, shmay off! You didn't really think I would miss the chance to meet the redoubtable Miss Filbert, did you? Don't be silly, Percy! I've already met her sister, as you know."
Edie felt a sudden stab of something like horror. This was the woman who– thinking the younger sister was Edie herself– had wiped poor Sharon's memory, giving the girl years of incomprehensible nightmares. No, the cheerful tinkling tone of voice was not a charm– it was just human subterfuge, false charm, same as any Muggle woman might use, because Dolores So-and-So could not possibly be pleased to meet the girl who was living proof of her own incompetence.
"Pleased to meet you," Edie lied quietly, shaking the woman's plump hand with her own clammy one. Dolores smiled.
"I expect we'll be seeing each other soon," she replied. And to Percy: "Ta-ta!"
When she had gone, Percy turned to Edie, grimacing. "I'm sorry about that," he said tersely. "I don't know how she found out– we've been trying to keep a tight lid on the Act, but–"
"It was bound to happen eventually," Edie said. "It's not your fault."
Percy frowned, as though wondering why she was suddenly the calm one, the one doing the comforting instead of being comforted.
"413, right?" she asked, wanting to get out of the lobby and thus the view of other unknown witches and wizards.
"Come on."
In the lift to Percy's office on the fourth floor, Edie was pleased to see that the swirling purple memos above her head did not inspire either fear or sickness. The horrible woman might be harboring malice toward her, Edie mused, but she'd been right about one thing: nobody was going to harm her at the Ministry. Muggle haters existed, of course, and even in the government, but there was a new minister and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was dead and the Death Eaters had less and less purchase than ever. The Law was on her side, and the quiet support for the new Muggle Protection Act indicated that the Ministry was on her side too. Nobody was going to hurt her. Maybe people like Dolores Toad wanted to… but they wouldn't. After all, who would openly support Muggle-baiting so close after the Second War was won in the name of rights?
By the time she and Percy arrived at his office and stepped inside, Edie was feeling positively cheerful.
The middle-aged man vomiting in Percy's wastepaper basket quickly wiped the smile off her face.
Percy cleared his throat.
The man turned around and looked at the two through red, bleary eyes, as though he'd been crying. Edie gasped.
"I know you!" she said. "You're the Prime Minister's junior minister! You went cra– I mean, you retired." Edie flushed.
The man, she realized, wasn't so old as she'd first suspected– his hair was gray but still thick, and his hairline showed no sign of receding. His eyes were red and ringed with dark circles, but there were no wrinkles on his face. He was like a man prematurely aged by a great shock– and Edie didn't have to think too hard to guess what sort of shock that was.
"Herbert Ch-Chorley," he said, extending a hand (after wiping it half-heartedly on his wrinkled slacks). Percy winced, but Edie shook the hand gamely. She could sympathize.
"I– I'm not sure where…" the man looked around. "This isn't my bedroom. Not my bedroom. Not. Not."
"Mr. Chorley is currently in the residential ward at St. Mungo's," Percy said solemnly. "He has sustained some permanent mental damage from the imposition of a crudely-performed Imperius Curse a couple years ago."
Edie shuddered, and a fleeting thought flitted across her consciousness– this could be you. But she wasn't disgusted or afraid, only supremely empathetic, so Edie flashed Herbert Chorley her warmest smile. He vomited in the wastebasket again.
"Lately he also appears to experience near-constant nausea," Percy added, looking regretfully about his spotless office.
"But I'm not mentally ill!" Chorley asserted angrily, wiping a bit of spittle from the corner of his mouth with a vicious swipe of his hand. "Not. Not."
He looked intently at Edie.
"You're like me. Not a witch not not not a witch. I can tell. Do they keep you locked up too? They won't let me go home. I'm not crazy. They won't let me go home. Won't. Won't."
His voice had become so plaintive by this point that Edie didn't quite know how to respond.
"Why don't we take a seat?" she suggested kindly, as Percy wearily slumped into his desk chair. She and Chorley sat as well, facing him across the tabletop. Edie raised an eyebrow at Percy.
"We don't keep him locked up," he insisted, glancing at Chorley, who was once more driving the porcelain bus, so to speak. "He's in what's called 'protective custody.' But he's right that he's not exactly mentally ill– there is some permanent damage, to be certain, but it's relatively minor compared to the state he was in when he entered St. Mungo's. He was quacking like a duck. Now, he simply has some trouble with language, fluctuating physical symptoms such as this nausea, and… acute paranoia."
Edie sighed. 'Protective custody' seemed a characteristically Percy-esque semantic trick. "If he's mostly all right, then," she argued, "why can't you just let him go home? He has a family, doesn't he?"
Chorley looked up at this. "Wife had a baby last year. Named him after me. They told me. But I haven't seen it haven't haven't."
"That's horrible!" Edie exclaimed. She looked at Percy desperately. "You said he's not really that ill– why can't he go home?"
"He knows about everything!" Percy pleaded, as though that was an argument which would register with Edie Filbert (it wasn't). "And we can't wipe his memory, because it's likely to cause even more instability."
Edie froze. "I know about everything," she whispered. "Are you going to put me in… in… 'protective custody' too?"
Herbert Chorley nodded conspiratorially.
But Percy only sighed, seemingly exasperated, and reached across the desk to hold Edie's hand. She didn't pull away, but she didn't exactly squeeze back either.
"No one is going to wipe your memory as long as I have anything to do with it," Percy said seriously. "I promise you: you're safe. Mr. Chorley is an unfortunate case– if an Obliviator tried even the weakest memory charm, he'd only cause more damage. Debilitating damage. There'd be no way for Chorley to function in the world, as he can now."
"But he doesn't," Edie said, shaking her head. "He's trapped at St. Mungo's. He isn't in the world."
Percy ran a hand through his hair– the tell-tale sign that he was tense and highly displeased by the direction of the conversation.
"What do you suggest we do, Edie?" Percy asked. "When we can't keep him here, and we can't send him back. And don't say we send him back with all this knowledge of the magical world– you know that's against Ministry policy."
"Does that mean that after the Muggle Protection Act is passed, either I'll have to be locked up too, or lose my memory again?" she asked once more, trying to remain calm but feeling the intrusion of frightening tendrils of doubt into her confidence in Percy's honesty.
"Don't be ridiculous," Percy said. And that was that.
"Now Mr. Chorley will be cited as a case study in the abstract of the Act I'll be presenting to the Wizengamot next month. His experiences, as you doubtless recognize, parallel your own encounters with Death Eaters during the Second War and previously. Furthermore, his background indicates…"
Percy droned on, and Herbert Chorley emptied the contents of his stomach once more into the wastebasket.
And as hard as Edie tried, the inklings of doubt wouldn't let her concentrate. Their cases were similar, hers and Chorley's. So why did the Ministry treat them so differently? Because the inklings of an answer at the edge of her thoughts terrified her, Edie took Percy's advice: Don't be ridiculous. Stop asking questions.
Unfortunately, not asking questions was not Edie Filbert's strong suit.
