November 20th, 1981: Reginald Cattermole

There's something going on with Mary.

To be fair, she's always been a little—well—flighty. They started dating in sixth year, but he always felt sort of like she was with him only because she wanted to be with someone, to check that box, and it happened to be his turn next. She dated almost all the other Hufflepuffs in Reg's year before him, and none of those relationships ever seemed serious; she always seemed distracted, sucked up in whatever drama was happening between her and her fellow Gryffindors. It's why he could never understand why she stayed with him: he hadn't ever gotten the impression at Hogwarts that he was a priority to her.

He's not stupid—he knows that Mary, right along with the rest of the Gryffindors from her and Reg's year, got mixed up in whatever awful thing claimed Liz and Millie's lives at the end of sixth year. To this day, even now that they're long since married, Mary won't admit to it, but he heard the rumors going around the school, and he knows there's some truth to them.

After Hogwarts, it felt like she was finally seeing her friends for who they really were—getting some much-needed distance from them. Sure, they kept in touch; Mary even acted as Lily's campaign manager during Lily's run for Minister of Magic. But Mary started spending less time with the Gryffindors and more time at home with Reg and their real friends, like Gilderoy and Greta and Veronica. It was brutally obvious that the Gryffindors were still wrapped up in something suspicious, even illegal, that Mary had distanced herself from.

Just look at what happened the day of Reg and Mary's wedding shower, when what looked like a talking Patronus showed up in the middle of opening gifts and prompted all Mary's friends to Disapparate without any explanation. Mary didn't give Reg a straight answer afterward about where exactly they'd all gone or why it was so important, and he still doesn't know whether she wouldn't or really couldn't. He suspects it's the latter—and that, out of some misguided attempt to defend their honor, Mary just didn't want to admit that she didn't know what was happening.

It's not like Reg doesn't want Mary to live her own life. She has the right to spend time with the people who make her happy, no matter what he thinks of them. It's just—he thinks those Gryffindors are dragging Mary back into something really, really shady, and she doesn't seem happy when she's with them, not anymore, not in an exceptionally long time.

He tries not to allow himself to speculate about what, exactly, it is that Mary and her friends have gotten themselves into. He reads the paper: he knows there are vigilantes working independently to capture Death Eaters and hand them over to the Ministry to be arrested. He'd just hoped that, when whatever misguided attempt to emulate those vigilantes resulted in Elisabeth and Millie dying when he and Mary were sixth years, it had knocked some sense into her and her Gryffindor friends—that he wouldn't ever have to confront her about being involved in anything illegal.

He's been pretty sure in the back of his mind for a while now that she's definitely dived back into something highly illegal, but he doesn't allow himself to consider it, let alone ask her about it. If he acknowledges it, then it's real, and he's got to face up to what it means that his wife is risking her life out there when he's not around. Even if it doesn't kill her, vigilantism could land her in Azkaban: it isn't legal, and public sentiment wouldn't exactly be on her side, either.

His suspicions are raised again when Mary's late for dinner with some of Reg's fellow Hufflepuffs one Friday night in November. Reg isn't trying to control her—he knows she doesn't owe him a minute-by-minute itinerary of what she does every day that might be making her run late—but it's Gilderoy's going-away celebration. If he weren't already worried enough about what she's been getting up to that's got her acting so secretive, he certainly is now that she's blowing off Gilderoy on the last chance she'll have to see one of their best friends in the world before he leaves for Turkey in the morning.

At first, Reg tries to cover for her—tells everyone that she sent an owl over lunch saying she might be stuck late at work. They believe it, although Ver makes a stink about how she doesn't understand how a wizarding naturalism columnist for the Daily Prophet could possibly have to work overtime. "I mean, come on. Her job is to write, what, one article a week? It's not like she hasn't got more than enough time to meet her deadlines," she drawls, sipping on her glass of white wine, but it's not because of the alcohol that she's acting like this—she's always callous and gossipy and blunt. Usually, Reg finds that bluntness refreshing, but it always rankles him when Ver directs it at the people he loves—including when they're in the room. Well, at least she's not only taking shots at people who aren't around to defend themselves: normally, Reg likes that about her.

Even in the middle of the lie—even when he's pretty sure Mary isn't working late—this irritates him a bit. What, doesn't Mary work hard enough—isn't she good enough at what she does—to justify full-time employment?

He keeps this particular sentiment to himself, however. He's not like Ver. If there's one thing Reg likes to avoid, it's calling anybody out on their bullshit.

But even he's feeling frustrated when it's almost an hour into the party and Mary still hasn't shown. She was supposed to handle the cooking—she knows how useless Reg is in the kitchen—and Amos is complaining loudly about how hungry he's getting and how he can't be out late tonight with Cedric and the babysitter waiting for him at home. "I'm sure Mary will be home soon," says Reg, but it sounds weak even to his own ears.

"Can't you just do a head Floo over there and ask how much later she's going to be?" Davy suggests.

"She's in the field today," Reg improvises wildly. "She's working with some—er—Valcores."

"Are you sure she's writing about Valcores?" Gilderoy repeats. "I thought she said that this week's piece was on Demiguises."

Ver adds, "Why would she be in the field on a Friday night, anyway? Her column runs on Saturdays. I'd think she'd be holed up in the office writing right about now."

Greta chooses that moment to rescue him. "If you aren't sure how much longer we'll be waiting for Mary, I can help you get dinner started, Reg. Do you have any cheese?"

"Thanks, Greta. Mare was going to make ribs, but—"

"I'm no good at grilling," she informs him as she steps up and follows him into the kitchen, "but I know a macaroni recipe so easy that even you can pull it off. I just need—let's see—cheddar, mozzarella, feta, provolone, and gouda, plus salt and pepper, butter, milk, and elbow noodles, of course—"

Reg doesn't have a single crumb of cheese anywhere in the house, so the two of them Apparate over to Greta's flat to pick up what they need. When they reappear five minutes later, laden down with a couple of cloth grocery bags stuffed full of cheese, Greta's saying cheerfully, "When you cook it the Muggle way, this recipe takes about an hour to make, but we can speed that up significantly with magic. I used to make this at Hogwarts when I was first learning how to cook. Liz, Ver, and I would all sneak down to the kitchens to learn from the house-elves, and we'd experiment with different types of cheese until we found the right combination. This one time…"

But she trails off without finishing her thought. Reg knows exactly why: even four and a half years later, it still hurts sometimes to talk about Elisabeth.

They've boiled the noodles, mixed everything together with a thick layer of cheddar cheese covering the top of the dish, and stuck it all into the oven by the time Reg hears the telltale crack. "That must be Mary," says Greta brightly, but Reg is suddenly reluctant to follow her into the living room. Suddenly, after a whole evening of waiting on and covering for her, he doesn't want to see Mary at all.

"I'm so sorry, Gilderoy," he can hear her saying as he and Greta emerge from the kitchen. "I got out of there as soon as I could, but my deadline was midnight tonight, and—"

When Reg finally lays eyes on her, Mary doesn't look well. There are dark circles under her eyes; her skin looks sallow; her hair, shoulder-length and brown today, is mussed and oily. She's hugging Gilderoy, but then she lets go and lays eyes on Reg. When she smiles at him, it looks sad and tired.

"I'm just glad you're here now, my darling Mary," says Gilderoy warmly. "I wouldn't want to leave for Turkey without saying goodbye to my favorite Gryffindor!"

"Reg and I were just making macaroni," says Greta as she races up to Mary and seizes her hand. "We put a spell on the oven, so it should be done in just a few minutes."

"Thank you so much, Greta. I'm really sorry. I should have budgeted my time better."

Her eyes finally connect with Reg's. He's still annoyed and frustrated and let down, but she looks like she feels guilty enough to make him feel guilty, too, like just by feeling impatient, he's not being sympathetic enough to her.

Amos stops complaining, at least, when Reg and Greta serve dinner. There's no room for a big enough table to seat all of them in Reg and Mary's flat, so they all plunk down with their glasses and plates on the sofa and in armchairs and on the ground of the living room. Reg keeps waiting for Mary to make the toast she told him last night she wanted to make to Gilderoy, but she never does—just sits there alone in her armchair picking at a few bites of her macaroni and avoiding everybody's gaze, even Reg's, especially Reg's. She never laughs, not even at any of Ver's jokes. Mary always laughs at Ver's jokes, even when they're cruel.

Amos and Davy leave right after dinner, leaving Mary and Reg with Gilderoy, Greta, and Ver. These people are supposed to be his and Mary's best friends. Reg knows they're his, at least, and he knows Mary cares about them. Ver was Mary's maid of honor at the wedding, and Gilderoy was Reg's best man; Greta is still flatmates with Ver and sees Mary almost as often as Ver does. There's always been a piece of Mary—the Gryffindor piece—that Reg hasn't been able to touch, but he'd thought for years now, ever since they got engaged at the end of seventh year, that that didn't matter: that Mary was still his. Now, though, watching her watch no one, lost in her thoughts light-years away—

The flat feels too empty when the last few guests finally Disapparate, leaving Mary and Reg to look nervously at each other. Reg knows why Mary's nervous—she did bail on them all for half the night—but it's stupid that he has to feel nervous, too, when he didn't do anything wrong, just because he's afraid of confrontation, and he knows there's going to be a confrontation, even if it's a mild one.

"Where were you?" he asks simply.

Mary bites her lip. "I told you already—I was stuck at work. My column was due tonight, and I was running behind, and then Andromeda Tonks asked me to help her revise the piece she was working on, and…"

"So you weren't with any of the Gryffindors?"

"Why would I have been with the Gryffindors?"

"I dunno. You've just… been seeing a lot more of them lately. I thought after everything that happened between you and them… that after Marlene…"

He doesn't finish his thought because he can't—because he doesn't know what happened between Mary and Marlene: Mary's never told him. All Reg knows is that they were best friends, and then Lily came into the picture, and Liz and Millie died, and things were different between them somehow—colder. Reg knows Mary still cared about her for the rest of Marlene's life. When Marlene died, Mary cried for days. She could barely even get the words out to tell him what had happened. And yet—it was Reg who got Mary through that, not any of the Gryffindors. Now, though…

She told him the other day that Marlene's death has brought her back together with her housemates: that they understand each other. Reg wants that for her, he does, but when did Mary stop feeling like he understood her? Doesn't he still, and shouldn't he still? He's her husband, after all: doesn't that mean they're supposed to be closest in the world to each other?

All Reg wants is to love his wife and be loved by her in return. Is he being selfish—or is she?