Flashback - 1924
The Auror Department of the British Ministry of Magic was far more pleasant than the grim work carried out there. There were always plenty of people sneaking in a cup of tea hours before their breaks and friends stopping in the hallways for a chat, just as in any of the other Departments.
But Nathan Johnson, the Assistant Head of the Department, believed in holding himself slightly aloft from the friendly camaraderie of his juniors. He was a handsome man, with a strong chiseled jaw and twinkling brown eyes. His dark hair was slightly windswept as he Apparated into the Department, at the precise spot designated for doing so. Nathan was a man of rigid principles and he prided himself on being a conservative man in the midst of an age where the world was littered with extremes. His attitude was reflected in every little thing about him; from the way he dressed – wearing the exact robes that the Ministry guidelines prescribed for the workers of his department rather than the casual robes his contemporaries preferred – to his exchange of morning greetings with his coworkers. He nodded politely at the numerous "Good Mornings," thrown his way and gave a slight smile to a young receptionist who he knew very well had a crush on him. The girl in question blushed brightly and stuttered, "Have a good day," but by then he had already moved on.
He undid the small Safety Spell he had put on his office lock and twisted the doorknob. Upon entering, the first thing he did was to reach for his day planner, a small brown diary in which he wrote down all that he had to do on a particular day. It was an old-fashioned way of keeping records of all that he had to do, true, but Nathan liked it anyway. As Nathan was perusing its contents and frowning at the thought of having to endure another meeting with the insufferable Mr. Black, the receptionist entered his office with a cup of tea in her hand and bright spots of colour on her cheeks.
"Would you like some tea, sir?" she asked him breathlessly.
He nodded and accepted the offered cup. "Thank you, Amanda."
But despite the clear dismissal, Amanda stood there and Nathan inwardly groaned at the thought of another woman asking him out. His age, old enough to make him seem mysterious to the young girls who joined the Department straight out of Hogwarts and young enough to make him appealing, had bought him more offers than he could count. But unfortunately for these starry-eyed teens, if there was one thing that Nathan absolutely detested, it was a so-called modern woman who threw herself at a man with a confidence that in his opinion barely masked her desperation.
To save himself the inconvenience of a weeping junior in his office, he said, "Isn't that Miss Rogers calling you, Miss Burbage? Perhaps you should go see what she requires."
Amanda looked at the door and said, "I'm sure it's nothing urgent, sir."
"Oh, you children," he said deliberately, "Never thinking anything is important. Yesterday, Mr. Cattermole from the Weather Department was so distracted by the Quidditch match on the WWW, he uttered the wrong incantation for an entire district and now look at the storm I have barely managed to evade." He held a slightly damp sleeve up for her inspection with an expression of comical dismay on his face. "A pity, is it not, Miss Burbage?"
"Yes, sir," she replied tonelessly, "I better go see what Christina wants."
Nathan nodded once again and heaved a sigh of relief when Amanda Burbage exited his office without any further drama. Returning to the book on his desk, he saw that his first job for the day was an introduction to the new Trainee Aurors who had just signed up for one of the Wizarding World's most dangerous jobs with excited smiles on their faces.
He smoothed his hair back and straightened his robes before exiting. This introduction was traditionally made to the Head of the Department but the current Head had a strange ability to discover a vital clue related to an Important Case at the same time a particularly tedious duty presented itself before him. He jovially referred to Johnson as his right-hand man and assured the Minister that he was perfectly capable of handling all the more boring tasks that fell to a Head's lot. As the Head was an easy-going man and Nathan the real force behind the Department's workings, it was not unusual for new members to mistake him for the Head. His imposing, almost regal aura and air of importance did little to dispel their belief. Later when they discovered that Johnson was just the Asst. Head, they also learnt that he was the one everyone in the Department looked up to and regarded as their true leader.
His entrance into the practice hall that was usually cleaned up and used for such ceremonies, created a stir among the small crowd assembled there. Whispers broke out amongst the teenagers and Nathan heard a girl say in a loud whisper, "So good-looking, isn't he? I wouldn't mind learning anything from him!"
He bit back a disdainful reply at the comment and patiently bore all the giggling, hushed words and murmurs with a smile fixed on his face. Christina Rogers, one of the brightest women the Auror Department had seen in years, stepped into the room and began to introduce the Trainees to him, one by one. Nathan addressed a few words to each of them individually and it was not surprising that most were thoroughly charmed by him.
"And this is Tanya Malfoy."
One of Nathan's eyebrows rose at the unusual first name and both drew together in confusion at the second. The name Malfoy was usually heard more often in the Criminal Records Section and on the lips of frustrated Ministry attorneys than in the halls of the Auror Department.
The girl standing before him seemed to be fully aware of this but her gray eyes held his in a steady regard until he looked away, feeling slightly dizzy. Miss Rogers continued to name more people but the rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. Nathan tried to convince himself that it didn't matter if he had forgotten to speak to a single Trainee; that it didn't matter if a pair of gray eyes thought badly of him. He attempted to attribute his sudden light-headedness and lack of concentration during the ceremony to the terrible quality of the tea the receptionist had bought him.
He failed miserably.
All through the ceremony, all that Nathan could think of was the expression in those eyes. It was defiant, betraying her fiery spirit, he decided and just a bit afraid of rejection. There was an underlying vulnerability too, that made him itch to rush to her side and tell her that he would take care of everything for her.
Nathan, drowning but valiant, struggled to remind himself of his dislike of extreme emotion. He replayed memories in which he had extolled on the inadvisability of women working in such a risky Department as his. He told himself about his dislike of the modern women of the 1920s, who demanded the right to vote and war alongside their men. Nathan reminded himself of his love of perfection and order, of the chaos that inevitably followed love. He started as his mind thought the word without even bothering to ask him for his permission. But as he rolled it around, first in his head and then on his tongue it didn't seem quite so bad, after all.
The next day, Nathan and Tanya met once again. She was standing by the tea-maker near his office, looking at the slightly dirty kettle with her nose scrunched up in distaste at the same time as he arrived to get himself a refreshing cup of the brew. He thought she looked like a perfect lady of the manor, confronted by a disobedient House Elf.
Why had he never noticed how adorable she looked when frustrated?
The answer that sprang to his mind almost made Nathan blush. They had only met once before. He had hardly had the time to understand her moods or behaviour in the space of a few precious seconds. It was funny how they now seemed like an eternity to him. She looked up as he walked in and said, "Tea, sir?"
"Thank you, Miss Malfoy."
Nathan cursed himself inwardly for answering her so automatically, almost like a useless Muggle machine. She gave a small sigh which unsettled her long blonde hair and flicked her wand reluctantly. As he admired the almost white hue of her hair, the tea boiled.
"Sir?"
He thought she seemed a little unnerved by his scrutiny but dismissed it as sheer nerves at meeting a superior officer on her part. Nathan was sure he hadn't been blatantly staring, had he?
"Your tea, sir."
Tanya handed him his tea a tad too quickly, sloshing some on her hand. Concerned, he asked her, "Are you alright, Tanya?" He held her hand up for inspection.
An expression Nathan couldn't identify flashed in her eyes and she mumbled an unintelligible response.
"Pardon?"
"I'm alright, sir. May I leave now?"
He nodded, puzzled by her strange behaviour and she almost ran out of the room. Nathan called out to her when he realised that she had left her tea behind but it appeared that she didn't hear him for she continued to take brisk steps away from him.
It took him three months to persuade her to speak to him. Nathan exerted himself to no end to please Tanya. There was a friendly "Hello," each time she passed him in the hallways, accompanied by his most charming smile. He checked her Training Schedule and even attempted to persuade the Department Head to let him become one of her teachers. Unfortunately, even the most careless of Heads was unwilling to let an extremely experience Auror waste his time teaching when there were criminals on the loose. So he had to content himself with entering at least one of her classes each day in the role of hands-on superior, one which he had never essayed in the past. He had a few words for everyone in her batch but eyes only for her. She seemed uncomfortable under his gaze and blushed whenever he addressed her. The red stain across her cheeks only made her seem more irresistible than ever to Nathan. Never having handled rejection in his life, he took her discomfort as a sign of her modesty and mentally congratulated himself on his excellent choice.
The time he spent actually working shrunk to a bare minimum and once, he even snapped at the Head to finish his own work rather than handing it to him. It had done very well in the past, he had said, banging his fist against the startled man's desk, but would no longer serve in the future. He was the Asst. Head of the Department, but nowhere in the rulebook was there a statement telling him that this meant he had to handle all the Department's work by himself. He bitingly added that the Head was responsible for his lack of a social life and stalked out of the room, uncaring of the fact that half the Department had witnessed his encounter with the stunned Head through the open door of the latter's office.
And through all this, the grey eyes he had seen that day, three months and yet an eternity away, continued to haunt him. He embellished them with each new emotion he saw pass through Tanya's face, until they became silvery orbs of pure light that shone through his dreams. But there remained un-interpreted the look that she reserved just for him. The meaning of the spark that lit her eyes each time she saw him continued to elude him.
Nathan was tired of observing her from afar, watching her go about her day unaware of the effect she had had on his life. A part of his mind reminded him that she was still extremely young but this sensible advice was overshadowed by the intoxication of love seeping through him. For Nathan no longer had any doubt that the emotion he felt was love in its truest, purest form. Another part whispered insidiously that perhaps she had taken him in dislike. But he denied this with all his being and so succeeded, over the course of two months, in convincing himself that she too was in love with him since that magical meeting of their gazes. Nathan knew that Tanya was simply waiting for him to make the first move.
The next day he lingered by the tea-maker at the hour he knew from a chart he had pulled was her tea break. She paused when she saw him standing nearby. He gave her a friendly smile. Both of them looked over their shoulders in almost comical synchronization. Nathan turned to see who was standing behind him for Tanya looked almost nervous. Tanya looked back to see who was standing behind her. Seeing a handsome Trainee from her class there, she waved to him to join her. However, he declined and began an animated conversation with another girl standing next to him.
Nathan watched this interchange carefully. Jealousy was tearing him apart but above it was a panicky feeling of insecurity. He realised that this girl his life had come to revolve around had secrets; secrets locked deep within the recesses of her mind that he was not privy to.
But none of this showed on his face as he handed her a cup of tea and said, "Help yourself. I'll make another one since I have a longer tea break."
"Thank you, sir."
Tanya meekly accepted the cup he handed her and gulped the tea down quickly. She then consulted her watch and said, "I'm afraid it's time for me to go now, sir."
Nathan frowned, hating the sound of that word sir. Tanya lifted her eyes to meet his again and the same emotion flashed through their expressive depths. The one he couldn't identify try hard as he may.
So passed their third meeting in so many months.
It was a strange love story. Nathan grew more and more attached to her each day but never told her how he felt. He supposed that it would be an understood thing by now. After all, they had been in love so long, hadn't they? Surely by now Tanya knew how devoted he was to her.
His love for her consumed him, until there came a point six months after their first meeting, when she was all that he could think about. Nathan decided that it was time for him to take their relationship forward another step. In his mind, they had already shared their thoughts, emotions and feelings. They had had long, romantic walks by the moonlit river Thames and held hands in gardens. Tanya had shared her deepest thoughts with him and he had responded in kind. His mind told him that it had all happen exactly as it was supposed to happen. A small, cloudy part of his brain wondered whether the scenes were just a little too perfect, the moonlight illuminating her face in his memories too bright, but none of this mattered anymore to Nathan. After all, he was in love.
Then came that fateful day, when Tanya was sent on a small, simple job of the kind usually given to Trainee Aurors in their first few months of training. The assignment was simple enough. She was to tail a man suspected of selling magical artifacts illegally for a week and make a report of his activities. Nathan had done his best to keep her away from any harm but unfortunately, there was only so long that even he could manipulate the roster before someone noticed that Tanya Malfoy had received far less than her fair share of jobs.
As always, Nathan and Tanya met in his mind the morning she left for her latest assignment. In the real world, Tanya was in the washroom calming her nerves with splashes of cool water and Nathan was in his office but Nathan no longer inhabited that world. In his fantasy, they shared a passionate embrace before she left and she cried for the pain of being away from him.
But alas, the real world cannot be ignored without consequences and Nathan was violently shaken out of his misty dreams when Tanya's body was found in a sewer in Knockturn Alley a few days later. He was beyond enraged. His vision clouded with red and hands shook as he used all the power at his command to personally search every document pertaining to Tanya's mission. But his anger was never so great as to overpower him completely for Nathan understood that their love was too strong for anyone, even Death to separate them. He began to study the shadowy art of Necromancy but soon realised that it was a useless practice, for he was an intelligent man. Nathan disgustedly threw away the book he had purchased from a dealer in the Hog's Head after a few pages.
He pursued the case of her death with an inner resolve, determined to solve the mystery. But the body of the dealer Tanya had been following turned up in a Muggle garbage dump the day after hers was found. His associates were all petty thieves and it was highly unlikely that one of them was the murderer. The only remaining link was a mysterious cloaked figure whom a woman in Knockturn Alley claimed had been the man's last customer. However the woman refused to give a formal interview. She made a living selling something that looked suspiciously like human fingernails to Nathan, so it was no wonder that she didn't want her past investigated. But the sight of Nathan's galleons made her eyes widen greedily and his promise to keep Law Enforcement away from her won him her cooperation. After seeing nearly half the gold in his account dissipate into bottles of Firewhisky, Nathan finally got the answer he craved.
The buyer's name was Gellert Grindelwald and the object that the dealer had failed to deliver was the Resurrection Stone.
Nathan continued to observe Tom Riddle as the boy furiously scribbled in his diary. He felt himself growing restless at his post and comforted himself with his favorite mental image of a beautiful girl with flowing hair and gray eyes who smiled at him teasingly.
"Not much longer now, Tanya," he whispered, "The boy has the Stone."
He thought he detected a look of betrayal in her eyes and hurriedly added, "I never truly worked for Grindelwald, Tanya, you know I didn't! But if he leads me to the Resurrection Stone I can bring you back and defeat him with a single blow. By betraying him, I can rob him of the thing he desires most – the Stone …"
His voice trailed off as he closed his eyes and blissfully considered their moment of reunion.
AN: The brilliant people who left their brilliant comments:
I love reviews. Seriously. I may not reply to every one of them but that does not mean I don't appreciate them. I especially like the reviews I've been getting for this story because most of them are so long :)
But I don't understand why I have over a 100 Alerts and a maximum of 12 reviews on a single chapter. Assuming even half the people who alert this story read it, couldn't they review as well?
If you have anything at all to say about this fanfic – good, bad or loony, tell me!