A very large shout out to all of my lovely reviewers. I can't believe it's been over a year since I started TPMW... Whoever coined #Snarlie, I'd love to give you credit as credit is due, but I truly do have the greatest readers. Your reviews are bringing SO much comfort to my otherwise hectic life right now.
At Hogwarts, Charlie had never given much thought to Care of Magical Creatures. Beyond her owl and an affinity for nifflers, she had never held much interest in the subject. The majority of it had been spent sneaking off during class to snog Sirius somewhere near the Quidditch Pitch while Professor Kettleburn attempted to retain what remained of his limbs.
Suddenly, she sorely wished she has spent more attention.
"GET. THEM. OFF!"
Everything had been going well.
She was on her first real graded assignment from the Ministry. Cian Dearborn and Emmeline Vance were in tow to observe, grade, and assist – if necessary - in the arrest of Alfred Gugle.
On paper, the wizard had seemed relatively harmless. Charlie had initially questioned why he was assigned to the hit department instead of an auror. The wizard was a rogue healer who was testing the abilities of Swooping Evil venom. He had been releasing them into muggle neighborhoods and had evaded auror capture twice before he was transferred onto Charlie's desk.
A few minutes of research had showed Charlie that Swooping Evils resembled something between a bat and a butterfly. They were pretty, even, with their bejeweled wings in shades of sapphire and emerald.
They were terribly beautiful, brain-hungry butterfly bats.
It had only taken a few hours for her to track Gugle to a village in Scotland. She had successfully evacuated the small village under the pretense of a gas leak and a few charms to keep them from returning. With an air of what Charlie would later argue was most certainly not arrogance, she had marched up to the stone house and knocked on the door, prepared to take the little healer man into custody without much effort at all.
Charlie would deny later that she had giggled.
Cian would later remind her that she had.
When the door opened, she began her long-winded required speech of rights by the Ministry of Magic and been met with a swarm of the aforementioned sapphire and emerald brain-hungry butterfly bats.
As Cian and Emmeline observed, Charlie had sprinted across the lawn in the opposite direction of her target, while a blood-curdling scream escaped her mouth. A few charms blasted in their general direction had been useless. The thick skin of the creatures appeared to just bounce them off.
"HELP ME!"
She screamed the word towards Cian, who had bent at the waist in chortling laughter as she circled the house for the second time.
"You've got this, Fraser!" he called back gleefully as Emmeline slowly shook her head.
Across the village, Charlie was aware there was a pond.
She was also aware that it was July, and the water would be mosquito-ridden.
Her year of training in the Hit department of the Magical Law Enforcement Department had not taught her much about magical creatures. But it had taught her Mad-Eye's favorite phrase.
Constant Vigilance!
Her legs turned to the general direction of the pond as she pumped her burning thighs forward and prepared to brace herself for the stinking water.
Most flying creatures, she reasoned, did not like water. She did not see how these creatures would be anything different. Perhaps if she was fortunate, there would be a proper number of algae in the stagnant pond that would rid any human-like smells off of her long enough for her to run back to the unassuming stone house and let her arrest the little bastard inside.
Her breath left her mouth in a silent scream as her body made impact with the pond water in an ungraceful belly-flop, which allowed the murky green water to fill her mouth.
Charlie felt confident in saying that this pond was adequately full of algae.
She allowed herself to stay submerged for several moments, her body convulsing in the lukewarm waters as she waited to see if the Swooping Evils would breach the surface.
As her lungs began to scream for air, she broke the surface to grab a gasp of air and found the above skies to be empty.
Somewhere, she thought she heard Cian scream like a small child.
Grinning, she sloshed through the reeds back to shore and began a quick sprint to her original target – the stone house. Upon reaching the yard, she watched Emmeline and Cian shift through the spells she, herself, had used as they shouted profanities.
"The pond," she shouted at them, watching green water drip from her hair, "Have a dip!"
The stone house seemed empty. A large metal bird cage had tipped over in the front room, and the kitchen was covered in carefully labelled vials of what Charlie assumed was venom from the beasties attempting to feast on Cian's brains. Not that they would find much there, honestly, she thought.
Alfred Gugle stared at her from behind thick-framed glasses, his small red mouth gaping in surprise as she stepped over the felled cage which had released the beasts on her.
"Alfred Gugle, you are under arrest. If you have any most of those -!" She pointed out the door, "I suggest you disclose this now, or I will hex you."
A vial slipped from the wizard's fingertips, "They're all gone," he squeaked.
"Very well," she took a deep breath, "I'm not reading you the rest of your rights. You'll get them at the Ministry, and I have pond scum in my teeth. Get over here."
Obediently, the wizard stepped over broken glass and held out his small, sweaty hand. She clasped the fluorescent purple cuff around his wrist and held to the other section as she felt the familiar pull at her belly.
She would lose some points for not allowing Cian and Emmeline to observe her arrest, but Gugle seemed like he wasn't the sort to squeak to anyone at Azkaban that she hadn't read him his rights. In all honesty, she recalled as she listened to her trench coat drip onto the Ministry floor, an auror had to do it before transferring him. The arrest here seemed more important, anyway.
Other Ministry employees stopped to stare as she led the squeaky-voiced wizard through the Ministry's lobby, her clothes drenched in fragrant, murky pond water. She did not care about the puddles she left in the elevator, or the way a frog-faced woman stared at her with an open mouth as she exited towards the Magical Law Enforcement Department.
This was her first successful assignment.
After turning in Gugle, she would be a full-fledged hit witch.
Tonight, she planned on celebrating with Remus. He had promised her a party, and for once, Charlie wasn't dreading company. There would be aurors there, and Order members. Molly had written to ask after her favorite flavor of cake.
Alastor was seated in the center of the department when she passed through the doors, the other aurors standing around with looks of eager anticipation. A quick glance around the room told her she had been the first to return out of the remaining three recruits from her class.
"Charlie Fraser, presenting Alfred Gugle for processing."
Mad-Eye grinned, "Get him to processing then, Fraser."
Charlie frog-marched the healer towards the processing desk, her grip unnecessarily tight on his wrist. She wondered if Emmeline and Cian had gotten out of the pond and returned back to the department. Hopefully, Cian wouldn't hold it against her later.
After signing a few pieces of paperwork, Charlie remained standing as the processing auror read Gugle the rights she had decided weren't pressing at the time of his arrest, and hesitantly turned back to face the rest of her department.
In a year, she had forged a few friendships within the ranks. Kingsley Shacklebolt had started their tradition of getting drinks every first and last Friday of the month. If Cian was not particularly displeased with her performance that week, he could be caught joining them with a few others from the department – Emmeline and Hestia Jones, another auror. If it wasn't terribly later, Arthur Weasley would stop by the Leaky Cauldron to grab a pint before going home to Molly and the kids.
"Shower up and then come in for debriefing," Mad-Eye called to her from across the department.
Relief filled her.
It had been Louisa's insistence, she recalled, that had driven her for leather leggings that had now glued themselves uncomfortably to her knees and backside. Lou had held a long-winded lecture on the necessity for her to look like a 'bad ass' as a hit witch, and had filled Charlie's modest wardrobe with leather, suede, and satin in shades of obsidian, emerald, and smoky grays. When she had left the house that morning, she had felt confident in the corset-topped blouse and skin-tight leather leggings. Over the last year, she had filled out to a healthy weight. For the first time in years, Louisa had not admonished her lack of cleavage by throwing her inserts at every opportunity.
Now, Charlie sorely regretted her wardrobe choice and thought that the smart trousers Emmeline had worn were likely a better option. Surely they hadn't trapped pockets of fragrant pond water in pockets that bulged behind her knees and sat uncomfortably close to her crotch.
She took a quick walk through the girls' bunk room, where most aurors slept during the week while they were on call. Stopping at her locker, she seized a pair of soft sweats and hurried to the shared showers.
After selecting a clean stall, Charlie quickly stripped down and slid beneath the deluge of hot water streaming from the showerhead.
A groan escaped her mouth as she watched bits of green fall from the creases in her joints.
"Careful, Fraser, or someone will think we're committing adultery in here."
Charlie froze.
"Dearborn?"
"Thanks for leaving me and Vance to deal with the butterflies, Fraser. Class act, there."
She laughed as she dipped her head back beneath the water, scrubbing her hair free of the odorous pond scum, "You had it, Dearborn," she echoed his words back to him.
The auror echoed her laugh, his voice throaty. She wondered how long ago he had returned to the department, and whether he had already turned his notes in to Mad-Eye.
From an outside perspective – as Vance often reminded her – their friendship was peculiar.
Cian had disliked her when she joined the department. He had freely told her so on numerous occasions. When Charlie was not struggling with basic shield charms where her other recruits had flown through without difficulty, she was flailing about in their Legilimency courses.
For months, Charlie had struggled to determine what level of effort she should apply in her lessons with Dearborn. From her conversations with Remus, it would be nearly impossible to hold back for too long with Dearborn. He was a talented Occlumens, that perhaps rivaled Snape. But Charlie had never wanted to appear overeager in her lesson. She had frequently pressed images to the forefront of her mind that she wouldn't mind the auror seeing and had been satisfied to receive marks that equated to barely passing.
Mad-Eye, she thought, would know she was faking them. She didn't necessarily need to worry about her grades in the course, as much as she needed to worry about Dearborn.
Now, the pair had few issues. Several nights a month they left work to grab pints at the Leaky Cauldron and share a few stories of their times in the war. Cian didn't flinch away from her tales of being a Death Eater. Rather, he had seemed to accept both sides of it. Whether this was because Moody had already debriefed him, or he was simply a realistic man, Charlie didn't press too much thought. It was nice, she reminded herself, to get along with a few people at the department when so many of them had skirted around her as though she had some contagious ailment.
She was careful to always wear something that covered her arms.
Around Dearborn, she threw caution to the wind. The auror had accompanied her home several times after particularly gruesome assignments, when she risked splinching herself in exhaustion. Other times, he had properly escorted her home when she had overindulged on firewhiskey at Tom's. He had seen her Dark Mark a handful of times and had never bothered to make a comment about it. After all, she reminded herself, it was on her employment file at the Ministry.
Known Death Eater.
After properly scrubbing herself to pink-skinned cleanliness, Charlie quickly dried herself with a soft flick of her wand and dressed. Throwing her still damp hair into a sloppy ball at the top of her head, she stepped out to watch Cian slink from the shower in a towel that hung dangerously low on his hips.
"See you out there," she called, as she darted to the girls' bunk door.
She didn't enjoy Cian's confidence.
There had always been air about the auburn-haired wizard that dripped with sex appeal. He had all the basics of attraction down – a chiseled jaw, a fresh spray of dark stubble, and ocean blue eyes. Lou had made plenty of coy comments about the auror, despite her budding romance with Dominick Avery.
That is what they call sex in a pair of shoes, Charlie.
But Charlie couldn't help but make comparisons.
Whereas Cian was brash and oftentimes rushed into decisions, Charlie thought of how calculating and precise Severus was. After nearly two years of no contact with her husband, she found her thoughts drifting more and more to the dark-haired wizard.
Severus spent half of the summer at Spinner's End, and the other half at her home in London.
Though all of their mutual friends were well-aware of their separation, there was intention behind his actions. Severus left items each few days he would stay at her home. Once, it was a stack of lesson plans on the marble-topped coffee table. Another, it was a pair of his pajamas. Charlie left the items untouched until he returned for them, choosing to spend those nights in the bunk room at work.
It was enough of a presence that it had been noticed by Cian.
I thought you were separated, he had said.
Charlie had wanted to assure him that they were. The process of changing her name had taken enough time to be bothersome, and she had been pleased to return to her maiden name and free herself from a small bit of Snape. However, she had stared down at the pajama pants wadded in her laundry basket and found her stomach twisting.
There was no need for him to do it, other than to protect her, she reminded herself.
Remus in the last few weeks had grown increasingly insistent that she reach out to Snape. The summer had just begun, really, for Hogwarts' staff and students. In two months, Severus would be returning to the castle to begin a new school term. According to Remus, the last had been particularly brutal on his students. William – Molly and Arthur's oldest – had Snape for Potions. He was in his third year now at Hogwarts, and apparently had never encountered a more brutal version of the potions master.
Charlie sometimes found herself sitting in the Ministry cafeteria, wondering whether he had eaten breakfast when too often he went without. She caught herself, nearly two years later, overfilling the kettle with enough water for two.
Cian hadn't pressed her for an answer that night, or any days afterward. Despite every opportunity to remind him that she was, she went mute. When he lingered over her desk with his intoxicating cologne, she thought of the soft, medicinal scent of her husband. If she nearly toppled over in a state of intoxication or exhaustion and the wizard caught her with his broad, hard chest, she thought of the wiry, lean muscle that had lined Snape's.
But each time she had sat at her desk with quill in hand, her parchment remained empty.
What could she say to someone who had taken everything away from her?
Charlie hugged the long sweatshirt sleeves to her chest as she crossed the department floor to Mad-Eye's office. Soon, Eugenia Wallace – the mousy witch who had sold out the Longbottoms – would be returning from her assignment, along with Gregory McClaren, the draft pick of the Chudley Cannons, who had decided to drop a cushy career in professional Quidditch for a grueling one as a hit wizard.
The others had not survived the last twelve months of training. Whether it be from injury, as the case with the Russian wizard whose name Charlie had never bothered to remember, or from failing examinations as the Bulgarian who had worked for Rabastan had done in Legilimency.
"Come in," Mad-Eye barked when she knocked.
Alastor Moody's office was ominous. Each wall was covered in Foe-Glass and the free spaces of his walls were covered in old Prophet articles advertising successful arrests of renowned Death Eaters. The auror's desk was piled with paperwork – processing, old arrest audits – and a large bowl that likely at some time housed a goldfish.
A pair of opened envelopes sat on the wizard's desk, covered in pond-scum fingerprints.
"Those are your progress reports from Vance and Dearborn. What do you think they say?"
Charlie paused, "That I passed?"
Mad-Eye snorted, shifting through a stack of papers on a file cabinet behind his desk, "That's all they'll say? Nothing about your progress in the program, accounts of the arrest?"
A sigh left her mouth, "I'm sure they have all of that as well."
"Not interested in those bits, are you, Fraser?"
"Not particularly."
Alastor sat abruptly at his desk, the mechanical leg squeaking as he adjusted himself comfortably.
"You'll be issued some paperwork to fill out, Fraser. A new badge. Some security clearances," the auror began, "The typical things for a woman in your new position."
"I've passed then?"
The auror had moved to grab an envelope, and he paused, "You've passed, but there are restrictions. Ones that will not apply to your colleagues."
Charlie's eyes narrowed, "What does that mean?"
"You were a Death Eater, Fraser. I understand that the circumstances to which you gained that Dark Mark are not the same as it was for others. I know that you were bullied into the position – but you used your abilities to further Voldemort's cause, did you not?"
As her eyes fell to her lap, Charlie attempted to calm the budding heat that began in her lungs.
In twelve months, she had proven herself just as capable – if not, better – than the others she had entered her training program with. She had worked harder, spending hours gaining additional instruction from Remus. Even Dearborn had agreed to tutor her on the subjects she struggled with – shield charms and tracking spells.
There was no reason she should be restricted because of her former affiliation with the Dark Lord. After all, he had hired her despite it.
"An auror will accompany you on any arrests involving those with known involvement to Voldemort."
"Like Wallace?"
Mad-Eye fixed her with a stern look at her biting comment, "You will be subject to more scrutiny than your peers. It's in your interest to have a witness, girl."
Charlie's face heated, "'In my interest'?"
"Yes, your interest. Do you know what happens when a hit witch loses her credibility? When you've shot off one too many Unforgiveables in the chase? You become the hunted, Fraser."
Alastor tossed her an envelope, "Hand this over to Maureen at the front. She'll start your paperwork."
Her fingers trembled as they gripped the envelope.
"Stay out of trouble, Fraser."
Thank you for your patience in this update! I would like to thank my new beta, Teru, for helping me get this out in a timely fashion and for assisting in our new cover art. Writer's block is a real beast. A few people have messaged me about the timing of updates. Frankly, I've tried to keep it to a two week time-line in the past but I don't like making promises to you that I can't keep. I'll be posting rough estimates of updates on my profile and my Facebook page. I, unfortunately, am in a town that is affected by COVID-19 and am transitioning to work from home because of it. I'm not sure yet if this will mean more frequent updates or not. I hope all of you remain safe out there!
House Cup
Year 2
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Slytherin - 30
Hufflepuff - 45
Ravenclaw - 30
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