Endurance

In September, it's as though the world makes a concerted effort to look like things are going back to normal. Hogwarts starts up again, though without Dumbledore as he's still on the run from his charges of consorting with the Order of the Phoenix. Snape is installed as Headmaster instead, and I sympathize with all the unfortunate students not in Slytherin, especially Harry Potter, but I've got my own situation to deal with.

I can only work at the pub during daylight now that I'm a registered Muggleborn, but Tom makes sure I always have enough hours, even if I end up working when it's not very busy. Being pitied, given special allowances, that's always made me defensive and angry, even when I was a little kid, but now, even more than then, I crush those feelings down. I can't bite the hand that's feeding me. With my options shrinking by the day, my only choice is to endure. And endure I do.

People begin to notice I don't work the later shifts anymore and infer why, and regulars who have known me for years begin to ignore me or glare when I serve them. The Alley is cold with unfriendliness. Viktor sends letters that I never open. Weeks of spirit-numbing drudgery and degradation pass.

-o-

October is brisk, and quickly turns cold. The Ministry announces that they're sponsoring an All Hallows Eve parade in the Alley as a way to clear the air of all the fear and paranoia that's set in recently. Children are encouraged to come in costumes, shops will give out candy, and there will be lots of Aurors around just in case. The 'just in case' is left unsaid, but Crouch has made his position on the Order of the Phoenix clear in plenty of other ways. The notion of a wizarding Halloween parade puzzles me for a while. Would the children still dress up as vampires and witches? Even though those are real, normal things for them? Wouldn't that be a bit like dressing up as a dentist or something?

I'm in the pub on Halloween, serving gallons of the specialty pumpkin soup to the lunch crowd that's gathered before the parade is to begin. The pub has been strange these last months. Arlo and Jacek no longer argue, and Tom is not his usual cantankerous self. I'm guilty of it too, I suppose. I used to mouth back to rude customers, but now I just bite my tongue and take it, too worried for repercussions to do anything else. But the Halloween crowd eases that, a bit. There are loads of little kids, all under Hogwarts age, obviously, running around in all sorts of costumes (and I think I do see a few vampires in the mix), and the parents are all in good moods because the children are entertained. Arlo even brings his six-year-old son, who believes himself ferocious in his dragon costume. The costume's wings are enchanted to make him float three or four inches off the ground when he flaps them, so I tell him he's even scarier than the real dragon I saw once, and his face shines eagerly. Seeing Arlo's chest all puffed with pride takes some of the weight off my shoulders. But his wife stays away. She's a registered Muggleborn like me and doesn't much like to come out in public anymore.

The parade starts from the pub, so we empty out a bit after noon, and it's quiet while we bustle around, cleaning up.

But about twenty minutes after the parade leaves, a series of swift cracks announce the arrival of several people by Apparation. I'm behind the bar, replacing stacks of tableware on their shelves, so Tom shouting is the first I know that something's wrong. "Oi! There are Aurors about, you won't get far—" A bolt of red light crashes into him, sends him careening back into the racks of mugs, just next to me.

I smother a shriek and rush to Tom's side, staying bent over so the Order members—who else would it be?—don't see and Stun me as well. Tom's breathing shallowly, but I shake his shoulder anyway, terrified. I hear the Order members talking together, and then going out the back, into the Alley. Shame fills me for not trying to prevent them—the parade is going on out there, there are children and families and everyone I care about!—but Tom's shallow breathing is so loud in my ears, louder than my thundering heart and I can't leave him. He was the very first person in the Alley to ever be kind to me, before even Bigby or Madam Malkin. He's the reason I survived my summers, in a very literal sense.

So I wait with him through the faint noise of chaos in the Alley outside, the screaming of children and their families, the crash of glass and wood shattering, spellfire and disaster. And what could I have done even if I were brave enough to go out there, I demand of myself savagely. I'm no duelist, no warrior. I'm useless.

The Order's attack is over in only fifteen minutes, I find out later. Several score members Apparated into various points along the Alley, including the four who arrived to the pub. They didn't seem to have any goal besides scaring people and wrecking some stores, but they certainly succeeded at that. They completely destroyed the facade of Gringotts, lit Quality Quidditch Supplies on fire, and smashed up loads of windows, including Flourish and Blotts and Ollivander's, which resulted in lots of damaged merchandise.

Mediwitches and -wizards arrive swiftly, along with practically all the Aurors in the DMLE, it seems. Tom is taken to St Mungo's, along with the other wounded, but he dies that night. News comes to us at the pub the next day, and all of the staff end up sitting in the kitchen, numb and silent together.

-o-

Reconstruction goes quickly with the aid of magic, but the outrage that is born of this event is ferocious and immediate. On only the second of November, Crouch releases a series of new sanctions against Muggleborns and safety measures for the Alley and other predominant magical locations. We get Anti-Apparation wards put in the Alley, like Hogwarts'. They function in storefronts and outside, but not in the flats upstairs, so people can still leave their homes that way if they need. Or rather, most of them can. Muggleborns all have their Apparation licenses revoked.

But more significantly, Crouch declares that all registered Muggleborns are to have Traces put on their wands, like the ones on children. I am notified of this on the morning of the 3rd of November via a letter that comes swooping at the window with no help from an owl. It rattles its corners against the pane until I let it in, at which point it unfolds and forms itself into a rudimentary face. "To Miss Nita Linese, of Forty-Four flat three, Diagon Alley, London." It speaks in the same horrible, saccharine voice as the kitten from the DMLE holding cell, and I scowl in reaction. "Hereby be aware that agents of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Muggleborn Oversight Committee shall present themselves to your location on the 8th of November at 9 in the morning, sharp, so as to apply the Ministry-approved Tracing spells on your wand. You are expected to be prepared and compliant for the duration of this procedure. Refusal to do this will constitute an offense for which arrest shall be warranted. Speak an affirmative now or an agent shall be dispatched to your location to ascertain your reception." The letter hovers in the air expectantly.

It's an effort to unclench my jaw, but I do it. "Yes."

"Your cooperation is appreciated. Sincerely, Madam Dolores Umbridge, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." The voice sounds downright chuffed with itself, and I show it two fingers as it soars back out the window. But that's such a paltry, ineffective rebellion that I just end up resenting myself for it.

I'm waiting in the main room on the morning of the 8th. Having already agreed to it, resisting seems like a pointless gesture, and I don't have the energy for those anymore. So I'm sitting silently at the table, my wand resting next to my empty tea mug. I don't touch it. I don't know exactly what the Trace will entail: the one on children, from what I remember, just detects what sort of magic happened near them, and doesn't have anything to do with the wand at all. But I never looked that deeply into it, so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they really are just making Muggleborns the legal equivalent of children.

There's a rap at the door exactly at 9, and I have to pause to quell the sudden shaking of my hands. I have a mad impulse to hide my wand somewhere, say something daft and brash like I lost it, like Budge flew off with it and won't come back, like Sylvester ate it and has been pooing daffodils and platinum rings all week. Of course it would be foolish, but it almost feels worth it to do something so utterly bonkers, if just to feel something other than sick, writhing, disgusting fear.

I spend so long settling my nerves that they knock again, and I quickly stand. But unexpectedly, there's noise from Rachael's room. I freeze: hadn't she gone to work already? She's been perpetually worried for me ever since the Ministry kept me overnight for my hearing, and I don't want to concern her any more, I didn't want her to see this, I didn't want her to know— Her bedroom door opens to reveal her in a rumpled dressing gown, wiping her eyes and muttering grumpily. But she looks up and sees me and blinks. "Nita?"

"I thought you were at the shop," I gasp, as they knock a third time, loudly.

"Not feeling well," she mumbles, and crosses to the door as though her legs are fragile.

"Oh, no, don't—" I say, but too late. The door's open.

There is a surprised silence. Then a man says, "Rachael? Rachael Percival? …This is flat number three, isn't it?"

"Yes," Rachael says, sounding just as confused. "Clive, it's… it's been a while. What are you… doing here?"

"Looking for someone who's not you," this Clive person says jocularly. "Do you know a… let's see, we're supposed to see a Nita Linese, do you know anyone named that?"

Rachael turns to me in confusion, and reveals two men standing in the door. They're wearing Old Guard sashes with little silver pins at their shoulders. It's my turn to frown. "I thought they were sending Ministry officials," I say before I can think.

"Nita?" Rachael sounds alarmed. "What's going on?"

"The Ministry has deputized the Old Guard," the taller, older man says. The younger one looks about Rachael's age, so I assume he's Clive. "We're now permitted to perform routine Ministry business on behalf of the Muggleborn Oversight Committee."

"I see," I say, feeling my expression twist into something savage and foul. The taller Old Guard furrows his brow at me while Clive looks vaguely worried.

"Well, no reason for this to take long, eh?" Clive says, clapping his hands together. "Miss Linese, we'll just need your wand for a moment, then be on our way!"

"Her wand," Rachael repeats. "What do you need with her wand? Clive, what's happening here?"

"They're Tracing it," I force myself to say. "There was that proclamation, when they did the Anti-Apparation wards."

Rachael's eyes go very wide. "You've done this to other people already?" she demands of Clive.

He scuffs his toe on the floor, but meets her eye. "Yeah, Rach, I have. It's the Ministry that's done it, and it's for our safety. We've got to take steps against the Order of the Phoenix, you must believe that."

"The Order, yes, certainly," Rachael says, voice rising. "But how does Tracing Nita's wand help with that? She's not in the Order! Her life has been hit way harder by all this than most peoples', I reckon! You can't really think this is right, Clive, you can't!"

"Don't let's make a scene here, Rach, please. I don't like it either, but what am I supposed to do?"

"You could leave the rotten Old Guard if you really felt that way!" she snaps.

"We're not here to argue morality," the older man interjects sharply. "Linese, your wand."

"Wait!" Rachael retorts. "No one move 'til I come back." And she turns and goes back into her room, more swiftly than she came out of it. If she's still feeling ill, I can't tell. I hear her rummaging through something that rustles, during which time I stand like a lump next to the table, too full of feelings to even identify them. When Rachael reemerges, she's pulling her own Old Guard sash on over her dressing gown. She marches right over to me and stations herself at my side, arms tightly crossed, eyes flashing. Clive looks at his feet while the older man sighs.

"Very dramatic, Miss. Linese, your wand." He pulls a slim box about fourteen inches long and an inch deep and wide out of a bag he's carrying and holds a hand out for my wand. In my mind, the move is overlaid with the other times people have done the same thing. The guard at the DMLE where I was held for my non-disclosure hearing. Ollivander during the Wand Weighing when he said my wand was holding a grudge against me. Snape at the beginning of seventh year when he confiscated it from me for fighting with Athenias Ash. My hand is shaking again when I raise my arm and lay my wand—my bloody wand—across his palm.

He takes it expressionlessly and slots it into the box, which he shuts and clasps shut. He takes out his own wand and taps the box at various points, muttering words I can't make out. Runes glow duly all over it, but they're strange, loads of them are inverted, and I can't tell what they mean in context. Rachael stands stiff and furious at my side the whole time, and shame swells up and washes away the mess of everything else I was feeling. What good am I if I can't even stand up for myself as well as Rachael can? Even if it's ineffectual, she still does it.

The taller man gives my wand back. It doesn't look different, and I can't tell if it's my imagination that it feels different or not, but it does. "Have a nice day, both of you," the older man says, and turns smartly to leave.

"Er, bye then, Rach. See you around, maybe?"

"I've never regretted anything between us before, Clive." Rachael's voice is clear and icy. "But I'm ashamed of you now. Get out of my flat."

He ducks his head, and does. The door shuts behind them, and we're left in silence. Rachael releases a deep breath and leans against the table. She really is still sick, I realize guiltily. She'd been hiding it to face down the Old Guard men for me. Because I couldn't do it myself.

Rachael is only sick through the next day, which is a relief, but she continually apologizes that there wasn't more she could do, and asks why I hadn't told her they were coming so we could have planned something better. I try to explain to her that this isn't the sort of thing that can be resisted, but I can't get the words out. No matter how many languages I learn, I'm never able to make people see what I mean. All the lessons Mum ever taught me about endurance stay locked up inside my heart.

Viktor still sends letters. I still put them in the box in my wardrobe, unopened.

-o-

In December, Arlo disappears. I hear a while later that he and his wife took their son and moved to Canada, but the first day he doesn't show up, we're afraid that something has happened to his wife, since she's a Muggleborn. The stuff they're doing to Muggleborns now is scary, and I don't blame them for wanting to get away, but I wish Arlo had warned us first. Jacek is inconsolable for days.

I work more in the kitchen after that. I prefer it there. No one glares at me, or mutters quiet (or not-so-quiet) words like Mudblood. I wish I could brush the insults off like I used to at Hogwarts, but they're not just insults anymore, they're threats, and I can't just walk away unruffled. So the kitchen is safer. Jacek doesn't seem to want to talk, which suits me fine. The other servers take care of the front. No one is sure who owns the place now, who inherited it, if anyone, so we continue on with business as normally as possible, even though it's strange and hard.

I begin to feel that everything that happened before this year happened to a different person. Surely it was never me who was chosen as champion of the Triwizard Tournament? Surely it was never me who kissed Viktor Krum, and giddily told him 'love'? Surely it was never me who attended the Euro-Glyph School of Extraordinary Languages, or who co-authored two articles for the Magical Language Review Quarterly before I was even out of my teens, or was specifically hired to do translation work between entire governments? Surely not, because those are interesting, challenging things to have done, and there is nothing interesting about me. The biggest challenge I take on these days is the lunch rush on chip orders, and sometimes I can't even handle that. I had spent all those years at Hogwarts and after clawing my way up to be something, and now the world's gone and torn me back down. And there's nothing to be done about it.

Christmas is difficult. Rachael doesn't go home for it, and in fact seems to have had a pretty significant split from her family over everything going on, so she comes with me to Madam Malkin's flat for lunch. Normally it would be dinner, but they don't want to make me break curfew. I try not to think that only last year, Viktor was here with us, chatting about Quidditch and asking Bigby about tattoos. I definitely don't think about the tattoo of a dandelion he must still have on his chest, the one he said he would like forever. He's smart: he'll figure it out eventually, how bad for him I would have been. If he knew even half of what my life looked like these days, he would be glad to be rid of me. Perhaps I should write and tell him, just to make him see— No. No, of course I shouldn't do that.

Bigby and Madam Malkin and Rachael do their best to distract me from what Madam Malkin calls my 'doldrums', and I do my best to seem appreciative, because I am appreciative, truly, but they can all tell I'm lying, and I give up part way through the afternoon and go home.

There's a large eagle owl on the ledge outside the window when I get in, looking cold and baleful. Budge balances on the sill inside, shrieking furiously at this intruder. MUM! he screeches when he notices me. make her go! horrible horrible! she say she fly fast than me, Mum! I sigh, too tired to be amused, too tired to be impatient, and let the eagle owl in the window. MUM!? Budge's offense is piercing and total. I give the intruder owl a Knut and it flaps off with slow, powerful strokes that seem designed to show off to poor little Budge, who twitters triumphantly at her retreating tail feathers. The letter is from Viktor, as though I couldn't have guessed. If he didn't send one at least weekly, I would imagine that my thinking of writing to him made this materialize. But I know the truth is that he's still letting me ruin his life, even all these months later. I should never have let him get that tattoo.

In a moment of weakness, I crack the seal on the envelope and pull out the sheet of paper. Perhaps, I rationalize, this is the one where he'll finally say he's let me go. Maybe this will be the last one. Maybe I can stop feeling guilty every time an owl comes to the window.

My love, he writes, and my heart plunges.
I still hope you read these, even if you do not answer. I do not blame you. Perhaps I am inappropriate to do this when you no longer want me. But I read of the things happening in England and I weep with fear for you. These new injustices, these Traces on wands… Tell me you are still safe? Tell me you have escaped these things that are happening?

His English has gotten much better, I notice through my despair.

Nita, I have nightmares of you screaming. Fleur still will not say very much of you. She tells me you do not wish to be spoken of. But she tells me you are healthy. This is comfort, but I still dream. Tell me you are well, my love, and I will stop writing if you wish, but please tell me.
If this reaches you in time, Happy Christmas.
With all of my heart,
Viktor

The letter trembles in my hand. It is a harsh and bitter hope that rises in me. An impossible, angry hope. Write to him! my heart wails piteously. He will take you back, he will make you safe, he will solve everything!

I crush it mercilessly. Yes, from the look of the letter he would take me back. And then what? I would drag all my problems along with me and wreck his life too. Not even true love can solve government-sanctioned discrimination, and the last thing I want in the world is to see him hurt because of me.

I stuff the letter back in its envelope and put it in the box in my wardrobe with all the others. I'm going to need a bigger box soon.

-o-

The advent of 1997 brings with it a slew of new public safety laws. The two main ones state that Muggleborns are no longer permitted to hold their own Gringotts accounts, or appear in public without an escort of blood status of Halfblood or higher, even during non-curfew hours. There are a few letters of protest to the Daily Prophet about that one, but they take the stance of the inconvenience to 'real people', as the writer calls them. "How are we meant to run our lives if we're to be at the beck and call of Muggleborns whenever they need to run an errand?" the concerned citizen asks.

I barely go out anyway except for work, but I effectively become a shut-in. Rachael walks me to the pub on days I work, and Bigby comes to walk me home when he closes up the shop. Bigby is also the one who takes legal ownership of my Gringotts account. He offers to make something called an Unbreakable Vow to not do anything with my money without my permission, but I turn him down. Who knows what the laws are going to do next? Maybe he'll have to do something with it. Part of me wonders if Bagman was going to show up and suggest he take ownership of my account, but he seems to have enough pride or sense not to. It should be funny to think that he never had a way to get my money. If he'd acknowledged me as his child, I wouldn't need anyone to take legal possession of it, but since he's denied me now, he has no right to demand he take ownership. It's hollow satisfaction, though.

Most things are hollow these days. Even my anger at the escort rules. I remember how I would have felt only a few months ago, the boiling rage that would have filled me, the humiliation, the shame. I feel those things now, yes, but they are pale and wan. I don't really care. It's so much easier not to care. It's easier to endure if I don't care.

-o-

My lunches with Fleur have dropped off to monthly events, but in February we meet at the pub, as that's the easiest place for me now. We use a private dining room because traffic is thin, and sit with our onion soup and bread and butter and I search uselessly for anything to say. Conversation was never my strong suit, but now that I do nothing and go nowhere, I'm even worse.

Fleur is the one who finally breaks the excruciating silence with, «I hope you still want to be a bridesmaid for me this summer?»

I look at her, loaded spoon hanging halfway between the bowl and my mouth. «What?»

«I mean…» She looks at her hands, nervously twisting her engagement ring around her finger. «I know you're going through a lot, so if it's too much stress I would understand if you wished to back out—»

«No, I mean… you still want me to be?» I ask in amazement. I had thought she had finally thought better of having me involved and found that excuse I had long anticipated.

«Of course!» she exclaims, so emphatically it's nearly a shout. She covers her mouth briefly, blushing. «I'm sorry. I just… I know what I'm like sometimes, so I didn't want to be something else for you to deal with on top of everything else. But you are my friend, and I want you to be there. Just… not if it will be trouble for you.»

«Oh. No, I don't think so. I mean, it might be nice, to have… a distraction.» I hope calling her wedding 'a distraction' won't offend her, and her brilliant smile reassures me that it doesn't.

«Wonderful! I was thinking about dresses. Do you have any styles you don't want to wear?»

«Nothing low cut,» I say at once. It's been a long time since I had to worry about my old burn, but it rears up as insistent as ever. «So a high neckline. Or like, not below the collarbones.»

She nods thoughtfully. «So like on your dress from the Yule Ball?»

«Er. Yeah, exactly.» I don't like thinking about the Yule Ball though. The Yule Ball means Viktor, and Viktor still hasn't stopped sending letters, and I can't stop thinking of how I'm letting him ruin his life for me. «Just like that.» My throat is tight. I hope she can't hear. I take a spoonful of soup.

«I really liked your Yule Ball dress,» she muses. «I was actually thinking of doing the bridesmaid dresses in gold because of it.»

«Oh? I can just wear it again. I still have it.» A stupid thing to suggest, I realize as it comes out of my mouth. Wasn't I just thinking how I didn't want to remember the Yule Ball? And then I go and offer to wear the same dress?

But fortunately, Fleur says, «No, it's very pretty on you, but the style won't suit some of the others, and I want you to match.»

I let out a relieved breath and she chats on about her and Bill's wedding plans for much longer than my lunch break is supposed to go. But Jacek doesn't scold me when I get back, and that makes me feel even worse.

On the weekend after Valentine's day, the Daily Prophet reports an attack on Hogsmeade by the Order of the Phoenix. There's a blurry photo of red-cloaked figures casting spells into a crowd in The Three Broomsticks. Loads of Hogwarts students were there celebrating, and it's a miracle no one was seriously injured, except for one kid whose name they don't release since they're a minor. Bur rumors persist that he was Muggleborn.

-o-

In March, the Ministry and the Muggleborn Oversight Committee start arresting people they accuse of being unregistered Muggleborns. I'm walking home with Bigby one afternoon when we see them taking Mr Bellamy from Flourish and Blotts. He's yelling and protesting all the while, but they don't care, just jam on some handcuffs and Portkey away. I don't realize I'm shaking until Bigby touches my arm. I startle badly. "The shop's closer, if you want to go there."

"Yes," I whisper. "Yes please."

So we do, hurrying down the little side alley to the parlour, where Bigby lets us in. We sit down in the back room, on either side of his scarred up table. "You're registered," he says, after a long silence. "They're not going to do that to you." The rumble of his voice brings me back down to earth and I take a deep breath.

"I know." I'm still trembling a bit, in my hands, and I clench them into fists to make them stop. "I'm sa—I'm as safe as I can be." I swallow. That is true, I tell myself. I am as safe as I can be. "But Mr Bellamy… I didn't even know he was Muggleborn. How do they know? Why do they hate them so much? They can't really think we're all involved with the Order, can they?"

He dolefully shakes his bald, shiny head and fiddles with a scrap of paper, as though to distract himself. "If I knew that, I'd…" He gives up the paper and looks at me. "I don't know. My father, he thought that way, and I never understood. I told you, how my brother…?" I nod, remembering how he'd told me about his older brother running away from the family as a teenager. He had been explaining why he took me in every summer, but this appeared to be something else. "I think that was why, mostly. Dad's hatred. I was always ashamed… I should have run, the same as him. But now…" His gaze is grave and heavy. "Let us help you. You're good as a daughter to me and Marigold. We should help you best as we can."

Gratitude worms up through the morass of everything else. Smooth, warm gratitude, like honey in bitter tea. "But what is there to do?" I ask helplessly.

And he doesn't have an answer.

I visit with Edgar before Bigby takes me home. Sitting out next to his little grave marker, surrounded by bins, in some ways it's like the last eight and a half years never happened: I work at the pub, the Ministry knows what sort of magic I perform, and I have no idea what I'm going to do in the future. Sitting with my dead best friend with my back against the grimy brick wall seems appropriate, somehow. What else am I going to do?

-o-

Early one Sunday in April, Rachael knocks on my bedroom door. "Nita? Are you awake?" I am, sort of: curled up in bed and pretending I'm somewhere else, somewhen else, but awake. But I let her in anyway. I haven't any pride left to protect from Rachael. "I want to show you something," she says, sounding strangely eager. "Come on, get up."

"Can't you show me here?" I mumble, pulling the duvet up around my neck.

"No, it's at the shop. Come on."

"The shop's shut on Sundays."

"I know, this is special."

"You're not throwing me another surprise party, are you?" I ask suspiciously. It's nowhere near my birthday, but it pays to ask sometimes.

"No," she says. "Well…? No. Come on!" She goes to my wardrobe and pulls out a shirt and skirt, and throws them on top of me.

My protest is muffled and halfhearted, and when I get myself disentangled and sitting upright I find she is still standing at the wardrobe, staring at something inside. "What?" I ask nervously.

"Are all those letters from Viktor?"

Oh. "Yes," I say shortly. I'd had to find a larger box for them several weeks ago, so they're more noticeable now.

"That's… a lot of letters," she says, sounding almost awed. "I knew you still got one every so often, but that must be like… more than a hundred."

"I know," I say. I can't talk about this. The rest of my life is stupid enough already without Rachael joining the Get Back With Viktor Club. "Let me get dressed if you want me to come see whatever it is at the shop."

"Er, yes, right. Sorry." She shuts the door behind her, and I slowly dress in the clothes she threw at me, a dark blue button-up blouse and my goldenrod-coloured skirt, one of my favorites. I consider brushing my hair and give up when I don't immediately see my hairbrush anywhere. Maybe I should just cut it all off again, really revert to childhood properly…. It's grown past my shoulders since I graduated and I can take care of it all year round, and that means it actually tangles now. I haven't figured out if it's worth it yet.

"Ready?" Rachael says when I emerge. She's got her cloak on and holds mine out to me as well, my green dandelion cloak. But thinking of it like that makes my throat catch, so I take it quickly and throw it on without really looking at it. Rachael leads us down to the Alley and thence at a quick clip down towards the shop. She's taller than me and I have to hurry to keep up, so at first I don't notice that the rumbling crowd blocking half the Alley is actually directly in front of Madam Malkin's, and we're headed right for it.

"Um, Rachael?" I call dubiously. "What exactly is this surprise?"

"Let's just say I finally found a good use for my Old Guard sash," she says grimly, and begins to elbow her way through the crowd, forging a path between annoyed people that I follow nervously.

But when we get to the front of the crowd and I see the display windows, I understand the consternation. There are only two mannequins in the display, a male and a female, repeating a simple set of motions. The male is in sleek, formal robes of inky black. He bows deeply and offers his hand to the female, but draped over his hand is Rachael's Old Guard sash. And instead of the nondescript, vague wooden facial features the mannequins usually bear, she has placed a silver mask over its face, with empty, gaping eyes and swirling, hypnotic designs on its cheeks and forehead. The female mannequin is in formal robes as well, and she tentatively reaches for the offered sash before pulling back and clasping her hands to her chest. She looks between the male mannequin and the crowds outside, as though unsure. Rachael has given her a mask as well, but it's pure white, with 'WHAT WILL YOU DO?' in garish blood-red paint across it.

"What does the silver mask mean?" I whisper. That seems to be the central point of the display, but I don't know what it signifies.

"It's the best I could do to make a Death Eater mask." Seeing my incomprehension, she goes on, "Of course, sorry. Death Eaters were You Know Who's supporters, fifteen years ago."

All the blood drains out of my face as the implications become clear. "Oh my god. Rachael, that's… why on earth would you do that? People will be furious, people will…"

"I know," she says grimly. "But it's time someone said something about all this absurdity. Madam Malkin agrees with me."

"But the shop!" I protest desperately. "You'll be lucky to only have a boycott on your hands! Why would you risk that?"

"Madam Malkin was already thinking of retiring," she says. "And I don't have the experience to take over the whole shop myself. If it's going to close, she wants to do it in a blaze of glory."

I stare at her in amazement. "You're serious. They may hold both of you in, in some sort of contempt of the law, you know, public decency or whatever, now that the Old Guard are deputized to the DMLE."

She smiles down at me. There's not a tremor nor shadow of fear in her face. "I'm just sorry it's so little."

The crowd swells and gets louder and angrier as the minutes pass, and in very short order, a squad of Aurors show up with a whole lot of very angry Old Guard in tow. The Auror in charge is the man Dawlish who I often saw with Madam Bones, and he looks entirely fed up with the situation. They clear the crowds back from the shop—Rachael and I have moved well away by then, almost around the corner—and when the Old Guard see what's in the window, they all start shouting and gesticulating like mad. Most of it is directed at the Aurors and Dawlish, who seems to be trying to calm them down. One of the Old Guard yells, "Well I think this is doing a great deal of damage, Dawlish! It's intentional and perverse and we need to take it down now!" so clearly he's not getting very far with them. Then there's the sound of smashing glass, and the shouting from the Old Guard and the crowds rises sharply in volume and emotion. Dawlish must do an Amplify spell on himself, because his voice rises hard and clear above the clamor, saying, "Do not enter the building! Do not enter! Destruction of property is still a crime!" But there is a surge inwards toward the shop, and more smashing sounds, and then spells start flying and Rachael and I hurry away.

"You shouldn't have done that," I moan as soon as we're back inside. "There was no reason to do that, I'm not worth all that, you could be in real trouble now, the Ministry's insane, they have this kitten that talks—"

"Woah, Nita, hey, slow down," Rachael says, gripping me by the shoulders. I stop babbling, but the panic simmers just there under the surface, ready to boil over again. Rachael's eyes are wide and concerned. "Yes we did have to do that. And furthermore, we wanted to do it! It was for you, yes, but more than just you: it's all of it! The Old Guard, the Muggleborn Oversight Committee, the Order of the Phoenix, all of it! It's all daft. The world got along just fine before everyone started saying Muggleborns were the cause of everyone's problems. And when you look at the facts, all this stuff the Old Guard and the Ministry are doing are completely in line with what the Death Eaters wanted to have happen all those years ago! If that display helps people wake up and see that, so much the better."

I bow my head, accepting that what she says is true. And that she is better and braver than me. And that she will probably suffer for it.

The damage to Madam Malkin's is incredible. All the windows are smashed, all the furniture is broken to splinters, and every single scrap of cloth and clothing is piled up in the street and burned, including the two mannequins in their finery. Madam Malkin's flat upstairs is undamaged, except for one window that got broken, by accident or on purpose no one can say. She does get a visit from several Aurors and Old Guard deputies who tell her in no uncertain terms how utterly unacceptable such a display was and she really should have known better and they were very disappointed, but some combination of her age, the fact that her shop had just got trashed, and her own blood status (it turns out the Pomfreys and Malkins are both quite old families) protects her from any real repercussions, and she in turn protects Rachael. It takes several days to sort out, but by the end, the shop is gone and they are safe.

The more unsettling thing that comes out of it is the posters that go up all over the place, showing a figure in a dark cloak and silver Death Eater mask. The figure's arm extends up towards the corner of the page, where a stylized sun has the Ministry's M in it, with rays extending out labeled things like Honor, Family, Safety, Purity. Underneath are the words, "We Want What You Want". My stomach clenches every time I see one, and Rachael is tight-lipped and furious that whoever put the posters up—the Ministry? The Old Guard? Some former Death Eaters acting independently?—have subverted the point of her display. But still, she is safe.

-o-

In May, Muggleborns are forbidden from working any job that puts them in contact with the public. This means I work exclusively in the kitchen of the pub now, no busing tables or serving at all, but on top of everything else, it just feels like one more thing. One more thing on a huge pile of things that is slowly going to crush me.

-o-

In June, I turn twenty.

Fleur seems busier than ever, but we still meet for semi-regular lunches, and she keeps me up to date on the wedding, which is going to be held on the first of August. She seems happier than ever about that, despite some oblique complaints about Bill's mum.

I continue to work at the pub, unobtrusive, unobserved.

Viktor continues to send letters. I continue to put them in the box in my wardrobe.

-o-

On the first of July, Fleur and I are supposed to meet, but the news that morning derails everything: Dumbledore's been killed. There are a dozen versions of what happened, even by the time I get to the pub in the morning. The Prophet just says there was an altercation somewhere on the coast, that the Order of the Phoenix was there doing something nefarious, and that agents of the Old Guard finally succeeded, after a pitched battle, in subduing and defeating the elderly traitor. His body was recovered by the Order, unfortunately, but nonetheless, this is a great blow against the enemies of safety and unity. The stories circulating through the pub crowd (and it is much larger than usual, as the death of Albus Dumbledore is enough to make even the most taciturn want to share news and gossip) are wilder: Harry Potter was there, and a werewolf, and Mad-Eye Moody and loads of old Death Eaters who everyone knows are still in Azkaban. Dumbledore only had one hand, or it was infected, or it fell off or something. Who killed him? Oh, it was Snape, or it was one of the Order of the Phoenix turning cloak, or he did it himself somehow. What was he doing on the coast? Oh, he was in the middle of some horrible ritual designed to bring the Ministry down, or he was trying to resurrect You Know Who so that he'd have an enemy to fight that would make him popular again, or he was getting ready to sacrifice Harry Potter for some reason, or no reason, he was just mad. The rumors got wilder and wilder by the hour, and no one could agree on which were true.

For myself, I couldn't quite tell what to feel, let alone what to think. I interacted with Dumbledore maybe twice in my life, both times during the Tournament, and while he seemed genial enough as a person, he also had a hand in some very questionable decisions that were made about the Tournament. Part of me still doesn't believe they were really going to let us go in against dragons without any warning. So I can't say I'm personally sad that he's dead. And he was really really old. And if he really was behind the Order of the Phoenix's attacks all these months, then maybe it's a good thing in the end? Yet the Order has done such outlandish and unreasonable things, I find it hard to believe even Dumbledore would condone them. I don't know. But it's still gauche for everyone to be drunk and singing in celebration by 2pm that afternoon.

The Ministry makes a statement via the Prophet a couple days later, saying that while Dumbledore may have been a great man him his day, what with defeating Grindelwald and discovering a dozen uses if dragon's blood and whatnot, in his later years he clearly went off the deep end and that therefore no mourning will officially take place. Furthermore, they announce a new status called Blood Traitor, which is for people of a recognised lineage who nonetheless take the side of the Order. Dumbledore is posthumously made the first Blood Traitor, but others, the statement says ominously, will surely join him soon.

A/N

I know it's all been one big angst fest lately, and I'm sorry! But the next chapter is Fleur's wedding, and I have not taken anyone off the canon guest list ;)

E.I. signing out