The house was dark and quiet, everyone having retired early, soon after Mary and Reg had announced that they were.

Inside their room, behind a battery of privacy spells, it was anything but quiet. They had talked, reminisced, kissed and bitten, pushed, massaged, rolled and grinded, and now they were so close.

Desiro realz contemple
(I want to know what you think)
Desiuro sensat sensi
(I want to feel what you feel)
Audiat, obsver
(What you hear and see)

Mary looked up into Reg's face, glowing with perspiration and near euphoria...and strain. Magic was so hard. Sure, it might make it easier to levitate a fork across the room than walking to the cupboard for one, but it demanded so much for what it offered. Her eyes locked on her husband's as they finished their spell, "A do undo mergeo".

She raised her body to clasp him to her, and he was gone. "Unh," she groaned, falling to her side and curling her body into a tight, unfulfilled ball. "Reg?"

"I'm here, honey," she heard in her head in Reg's hoarse, passionate voice. "I'm too old for this," he grunted.

She managed a little laugh as she placed an arm between her legs. "We'll remember that the next time we need to break into the Ministry."

She could now see a brick wall, lit by the tip of a wand. "Where are you?"

"I'm at the back of the building below street level," he said. "We maintenance people created a special key that would allow us entry if the usual methods didn't work."

Mary watched as he touched some bricks in what appeared to be a pattern. "That's how I was able to get to Diagon Alley from The Leaky Cauldron." Mary said.

"A bit more complicated," Reg explained. "It's my own combination." The bricks seemed to separate, creating a jagged portal through which Mary felt herself stoop with Reg to enter. She'd forgotten the sensation with her very tall boyfriend, then husband, of suddenly having obstacles at heights which she'd normally have to crane her neck to see.

"Watch out for the sign," she alerted Reg before he (they) bumped into the framed directory that hung from the ceiling. They neared a flight of stairs and she felt descent. "Where are you going?" she asked, "I thought you said the office with the Trace records was on the third floor."

"It is," he answered, "but I thought while I'm here, I should check the Unclaimed Magical Objects for anything we might need when we leave."

"What do you mean, leave?" Mary asked, sitting up. The tingling in her lower body seemed to lessen as she felt distance growing between herself and her husband.

"Come on, darling. You must have realized that we couldn't stay with your parents indefinitely. Our presence puts them in danger," Reg said.

She dropped her head, conceding the point.

"Mary, Mary, are you still there?" he asked, his voice fainter, as though he were calling to her from a deep hole.

"Yes, I'm here," she responded, her vision of Reg's path becoming dimmer.

"We can't lose each other, Mary," he said. "Who knows what would happen if we sever the Link."

"I know," she sighed as she fingered her blankets, still feeling detached from her husband and his mission.

"Honey, do you remember how strong our Link was when we got married in that Muggle town?" Reg asked, his voice dropping to a husky half-whisper.

"Las Vegas," she answered, a shiver going through her, recalling how she'd felt at the time. "It wasn't a very long Link, as I remember."

Reg's chuckle sounded stronger as he said, "That's because I couldn't wait to get back to you."

The mistiness surrounding the view she was sharing with him seemed to dissipate, as if his long strides were cutting through it.

"You were so noble, refusing to use magic at any of the games."

He groaned. "I've regretted it a few times since, when we've needed gold and didn't have it."

"We've always managed, darling," she soothed, as he approached a door with a sign that she could now read clearly—Unclaimed and Discarded Magical Objects and Artifacts.

"Here goes nothing," Reg said, casting a silent Alohamora on the door. It opened to reveal a room lit with perpetually-burning torches, regularly situated in sconces around the periphery.

Mary gasped at the miscellany of magic in the room, then her eyes fixed on a small, shiny disk. "Reg, on the table in front of you...is that an Encompass?"

He picked up the object and they studied it together. "It is," she said, excited at the discovery. "I remember reading about them. They lost favor about forty years ago because people preferred Flue Powder and Portkeys for transporting groups, but for us, it could be perfect!"

Reg pocketed the item with a smile. "If you say so," he shrugged. "What else do you see for your chicks, Mother Hen?"

She made a sound between a harrumph and chuckle and scanned the assortment that Reg showed her as he walked around the room. "There, in the corner on your right, what's that book?"

Reg picked it up for her perusal.

"A seventh-year DoD textbook? That could be invaluable."

"I believe you're right," he said. "I see a magical medical kit too." He added that to his collection. "Anything else?"

Mary considered and discounted other objects viewed through Reg's eyes. "You might pick up some of those Wizard Wheezes things, just to amuse the children, but otherwise, I don't see anything else that would be really useful."

"That's why they're discarded," Reg reasoned. "I'm on my way to the third floor now."

In the rounded atrium on the main level, Mary, through Reg, strode across the mosaic floor, sneered at the new macabre statuary celebrating pureblood domination and approached the registration desk.

"Oh, no, Reg. You'll be identified."

"Relax," he said, pulling out a black wand that was shorter than his. "The break-in is going to be detected; somebody has to be blamed for it."

"Seven inch, black walnut with owl feather core, registered to Lionel Sham," the disembodied registrar stated, shooting out the receipt for admittance.

"Where did you get that?" Mary asked.

"I took it from the blokes chasing me the other night," Reg said. "I didn't mention it to the kids because I thought it might be too much temptation for Marty."

"And why didn't you tell me?" Mary asked, as the scenery whizzed by in Reg's confident dash through little-known rooms and secret staircases.

He snickered. "Sometimes, dear, I like to surprise you. It keeps thing interesting."

"Ugh!"

Reg's voice took on a different, suggestive quality as he continued, "I have other surprises in mind for you when I return. Are you still feelin' me, Wife?"

She snuggled back under the covers and ran her hands over body. "If I weren't, we wouldn't still be talking l. So you're still feeling me too?"

"Like I could still touch you," Reg laughed again, reaching his destination. He unlocked the door of the Underage Magic office and moved through the familiar darkness to the lectern on which sat the thick book listing names and activities of all underage witches and wizards. "Just think, Mary, we're listed in here and now our kids are. You-Know-Who is probably in here," he said, rifling the pages. "I wonder what kinds of mischief he got up to when he was younger."

"Reg, please, just take care of the boys and Regina and get out of there."

"Alright, just havin' a bit of fun."

Mary frowned and ran her hand nervously through her tangled, sweaty curls. He was enjoying his adventure. She had to make him more interested in completing the task. "I'm waiting for you for a bit of fun. Won't that be better than what's in that old book?"

She heard a loud thud as a large portion of the tome was suddenly flipped to more recent entries. "Cattermole—Male," Reg said, the rasp in his voice dropping to a melancholy exhalation.

"Darling, what is it?" she asked as he became still and silent.

"The entries here include my brother and cousins and their sons," he sighed.

Mary bit her lip and didn't speak. She knew Reg's estrangement from his family still hurt him. He had been especially close to his older brother, Josephus, before the elopement. Luckily, his youngest was in seventh year at Hogwarts when Rion began his education, so there had been no uncomfortable overlap.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a small, pained voice, feeling once more the inadequacy that had gripped her the last few years, as her opinion of herself had diminished. Reg seemed to fade again, his lightly freckled hand resting on the book becoming blurry. She berated herself anew for being such a poor compensation for his sacrifices.

She heard him clearing his throat and the vision became clearer. "For what?" he asked, in a tone that seemed to embrace her. "For loving me for twenty years? What part of my life do you think I'd be willing to give up to be back in the bosom of my elitist family? You, just one of the children, or all of them?"

Her heart quickened as she heard the decisive turn of the page.

"Cattermole—Otis Rion," Reg read in a strong, business-like tone, then he murmured an incantation.

Mary could see with him, as their firstborn's name fadeded from the page, then returned in the same clerical script. "Is that what's supposed to happen?"

"Yes," Reg explained. "It doesn't wipe out their existence, just removes the Trace."

Her voice was breathy with admiration. "How did you learn abut that?"

"That's one of the things we can discuss later, Wife," he said with an audible leer.

Mary gave a small laugh, feeling so much better. "Take care of my babies first."

"Right. Cattermole—Martin Alfred," Reg said, and repeated the charm.

Mary felt his head jerk up at a sound outside the closed door. "What was that?" she asked, suddenly trembling with anxiousness.

"Who's there?" she heard a deep, gruff voice demand.

"Reg, get out of there!"

"I haven't done Regina yet," he whispered tensely.

"Identify yourself," she heard. "Hominem..."

"Reg!" she cried as her internal vision suddenly went black and all she could see was her old bedroom. She no longer felt her husband in her body; she no longer could hear his voice or his heartbeat. She was alone and she had no idea what had happened to him.

"Reg!"