Disclaimer: I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

"So you made me forget."

Mary Esmond is calm, which is professional training, of course. With the tiniest spurt of adrenalin, those reactions engage smoothly, the whole machinery of the trained rational response comes to bear on what would otherwise be a roiling mess of anger and betrayed trust and … whatever it is she's come to feel for this girl, that's led to the dinner invitation and the suggestion that they see the Comedy of Errors at Shakespeare's Globe.

McConnell nods, and for the first time Mary really sees that face. It's the face of a woman ten years her junior, a young soldier by all accounts, who's lived with her own for so long that they have a nickname for civilians: Muggles, she calls them.

Mary has learned to read the flickers of emotion on professionally stoic faces; Jackie told her she'd have made an admirable poker player. She reads that McConnell is sorry that she said anything, and worried that it will wreck things, and thinking out the implications of what she's just told. Of course, if she's telling the truth, it's not as if Mary will be able to tell anyone else. But like so many of the others who've passed through this clinic, McConnell operates on a need to know basis.

"So how did you do it?" That's probably Most Secret, but Mary's curious anyway.

"This." McConnell taps two fingers against the handle of her conductor's baton, or whatever that wooden stick is.

There's a delighted squawk from the waiting room, and Mary looks up to see the little boy with the blue hair—the evident source of the noise—who's kneeling up on the seat next to the Black Widow and has hold of her long shining hair, and is pulling it toward him, as she winces.

There's a terrible hush in the room, which Mary recognizes as the silence in which a crowd awaits the response of a dangerous person. From the glances she's intercepted, it's plain that the Black Widow is regarded as dangerous.

The Widow closes one hand over his fat little fists—yes, so he won't pull further. Then she gently pries loose one little finger after another, while saying, "No, dear. Not a toy." He smiles at her hopefully, because everyone thus far has responded to his charm, and then his hair shifts from blue to moonlight-pale—just like hers—and his eyes from wolf-amber to calm sea-blue.

As other babies imitate their elders' facial expressions, this one imitates their faces.

Compared to McConnell's professional stoicism, the genteel reserve of the Black Widow is transparency itself; she smiles in a slight, wistful way as she disentangles both tiny hands from her hair. "Sit now," she says. "Good little boys don't pull on their auntie's hair."

There's a soft, barely audible sigh, a collective exhalation of relief. Potter has crossed the space between them and is poised to scoop the boy up, when the Widow shakes her head. Her hand is absently stroking the little blond head next to her, and the little boy must have rearranged his features quite a bit, for he now looks as if he could be her son. "Let him sit here a bit; he'll be off somewhere else soon enough."

That with the knowing, complicit smile of one parent to another.

That's the moment when her son comes in, carrying the baby, the usual satchel of baby things over his shoulder. (Mary has only ever seen him take toys out of it, quite marvelous toys that move under their own power, and she wonders if he has a stash of spare nappies somewhere else.) His glance shifts from his mother to Potter and back, and thence to the toddler sitting next to her. He frowns.

"Your cousin Nymphadora's son," the Widow says.

McConnell rolls her eyes, which makes her look even younger. "Great Merlin, Tonks told her mother not to call her that."

Mary can't help but agree that Nymphadora is probably the most dreadful name she's yet heard, and she can't but feel for the poor girl, for the teasing at school.

"Her da called her Dora, but her mother wouldn't go along. And it does appear the sisters Black are sticking together," McConnell says, then with a sort of frown adds, "Just a different pair this time." She doesn't explain further, nor does she break eye contact—even though Mary has the sense she's keeping the situation in the waiting room in her peripheral vision.

"You made me forget. With that. But you didn't say how." McConnell's forefinger and thumb make tiny, tiny strokes on the polished wood of the baton; otherwise she's utterly still, very clearly waiting to see what's going to happen.

The Widow's son is sitting next to little Teddy, who's reaching for his baby cousin as if she were a particularly interesting toy.

"Gently," his godfather admonishes from across the aisle.

With the elaborate care of a not-quite-two-year-old, Teddy touches the fine blond hair on the baby's head; she looks up from her brother's shoulder and tries an expression that's more or less a smile. The Widow smiles indulgently.

Her son shifts the baby on his shoulder, then asks her something about a dinner invitation. "It's awkward, of course," he says.

McConnell says, "If you'd rather I didn't come to dinner…"

Mary says, "I want to know how you did that, and why."

McConnell sighs. "The same reason, really. Magic." Mary would suspect her of flippancy, except the expression is too serious. She says, "You shouldn't have seen that. I wish I hadn't seen it."

"So if you wanted, could you give me back the memory?"

McConnell says, "Not me. But there are people who could." Her expression shifts, becomes intent; her eyes darken. "If you really wanted, they could. Derwent's the best. If you wanted…" Her mouth compresses. "But if I were you, I wouldn't." She indicates the closed door to the office of Dr. Rosencrantz. "It would put you on the other side of that door. Be glad you don't remember."

Mary says, "Magic. So explain. Lots of things look like magic, before you explain them."

"Magic. Just as I said." She shrugs. "You still talk about it, on this side of the border. Witches. Wizards. Magical people. Fairytales, except it's not. Oh, and fairies are real too."

Mary looks skeptically at McConnell, with her sensible bobbed brown hair and ordinary face and black T-shirt with the discreet scarlet letters DMLE on the sleeve, black trousers and black boots. She looks quite modern and trained; quite plainly she's an operative, like the others she's seen.

And the way that she's fingering that baton, discreetly but never losing contact, is the way that trained operatives keep track of their weapons.

The door to the waiting room opens, and Granger enters, with Longbottom a single pace behind her; Mary sees him relinquish her hand, as if they're making the transition from couple to colleagues on the very threshold.

Granger sees Potter and her face lights up the way you do when you see family; he smiles in return and silently indicates the tableau with Teddy and his two cousins and his great-aunt. The Widow looks up as well, makes full eye contact with Granger, and gives a single, magisterial nod. There's something archaic and regal about that gesture; Mary thinks that's what royal permission might have looked like, in the days when kings and queens were the viceroys of God.

"Then we'll expect you Sunday afternoon," Granger says in her usual brisk, sensible tones.

She and the Widow's son exchange a glance that's conspiratorial and relieved in equal measure, before she and Longbottom take up their usual stations.

Mary says, "I invited you to dinner, and the invitation stands." She says, "I think I might understand why your people are sensitive about fraternization."

McConnell's posture relaxes a little. "It's a long story. We hear a lot of cautionary tales, let's say."

Mary smiles. "Then you can tell me some of them over dinner." She says, "You haven't seen Shakespeare, have you?"

No, McConnell hasn't. Her dead friend's favorite band was the Weird Sisters, some of whom came from this side of the border. That's where she's heard of Shakespeare.

"The Scottish play. But there's so much more."

McConnell nods. "There's quite a lot, you know, on this side of the border." She nods toward the doctor's closed door. "Maybe I should come in here, next wave."

***

Author's note: "The Scottish play." Macbeth, of course, thus designated by theatrical superstition given its ill-omened reputation.