September 29th, 1982: Reginald Cattermole
The hardest part isn't being the only free man in Wizarding Britain who knows that You-Know-Who is dead. It isn't the frustration of feeling like he's been dragged into a war he wanted no part in, and it isn't the torment that he's faced when he's gone to work in the presence of dementors every day in the past week and a half. It isn't even his anger at his dead wife or her friends for making him complicit in a plot that could land him in Azkaban for the rest of his life—the mingled rage, grief, and shame he feels every time he thinks of Mary.
No: the hardest part is trying to keep the whole damn thing a secret from his nosy-ass roommate, Gilderoy Lockhart.
"How was work?" Gilderoy asks innocently enough as Reg is shaking off his cloak.
"Fine. Long. I'm just… adjusting." Every time he's gotten home from Azkaban in the past couple weeks, it's taken a couple hours for him to shed the crippling panic and misery that's followed him around for the previous nine hours—to feel like himself again. He can only imagine what it's like for the people who've been trapped in there for months or years on end.
That could have been Mary, he reminds himself. If she hadn't gotten herself decimated by Death Eaters, Mary could have been rotting in an Azkaban cell, drowning in depression. Is it better that she didn't live to see this? Should he be grateful that his wife is in a better place?
"You're telling me," Gilderoy declares. He folds his hands together and stretches them above his head, popping his shoulders. "I still don't see why you gave up a perfectly good job at the Ministry to go work in that dismal place. Hadn't they just given you a pay raise?"
"Well, it wasn't exactly the cushiest of jobs," Reg reminds him. "Even with the raise, the pay was a pittance. Besides, the other employees don't exactly give Magical Maintenance very… it's harder than you would think, what we do, and requires a lot of training, and you wouldn't know that from the way the rest of the staff treat you. Maybe not restocking the Floo powder or cleaning up owl droppings, but I'd like to see one of the Minister's support staffers try to enchant the windows with weather or get their own offices to stop raining."
"And you're treated better by dementors than you are by wizards with a bit of a chip on their shoulder?"
Reg shrugs. "Sure, it's gloomy, but… I mean, I like working with the people."
"They're hardened criminals, Reg. If I were running the place—"
"But you're not," sighs Reg, "and they're not so bad. Most of them aren't that lucid, and the ones who have a little of themselves left are pretty…" He doesn't want to say "complacent," but he can't think how else to phrase it. It makes him intensely sad to see such strong, capable wizards reduced to flinching and babbling and screaming while he tries to all but hand feed them their meals, but there's something calming about talking them through each bite until all the gruel is gone—ensuring that, if they get nothing else good out of their time in Azkaban, at least they get a little kindness, some sustenance.
He doesn't know how to put this into words, though, so instead, he adds, "Besides, in the time I've been working there, everybody I've seen is in there on petty offenses or because of the Order of the Phoenix. You know I haven't seen a single Death Eater?"
"So you're saying, what, that the Ministry busted all the Death Eaters out?"
Dammit—he shouldn't have gone there. He may not know for sure, but what Reg does know is that the Ministry is leaning on the Prophet while its top ranks, starting with the Minister post, are slowly being filled with Death Eaters. There's been a recent uptick in Muggle deaths, and if Reg isn't seeing any Death Eaters anywhere in Azkaban, he wouldn't doubt that Malfoy broke them all free and they're the ones responsible for the increased crime.
But he can't just tell Gilderoy that. Gilderoy already knows too much—after all, James Potter showed up at their flat three months ago claiming he was going to kill Voldemort, and Gilderoy knows that Reg was in contact with Potter before that. The last thing Reg needs is Gilderoy figuring out that Reg knows what he knows and handing him over to the authorities.
Does he really think his best friend would have him sent to Azkaban just because he's gotten himself embroiled in this mess? Perhaps not. But then again, their friendship has never been tested like this before, and Reg doesn't know if Gilderoy—who's a celebrity now that his book about the Turkish hag he defeated is flying off the shelves of Flourish and Blott's—would want to compromise his newfound fame by associating with somebody who's got ties to the Order of the Phoenix.
"I'm just saying," says Reg, covering himself, "that most people are in there for—for tax evasion or crimes of passion or doing dodgy stuff to try and stop You-Know-Who, and now they're trapped in a prison filled with dementors for it. If I can make sure they're eating and bathing and getting their bums wiped, then I'm making way more of a difference than I ever did working Magical Maintenance at the Ministry."
Gilderoy scrutinizes him for a long moment, but eventually, he shrugs. "Suit yourself," he says. "Hey, what do you think about Transylvania?"
He's been bouncing ideas off of Reg for where he should travel next, claiming that he'd like to write another bestseller. "I'd buy that book," says Reg. He calls over his shoulder as he turns down the hall toward his room, "Everybody loves a good vampire story, don't they?"
xx
His supervisor, Lynda Goosander, obviously doesn't understand why Reg is bothering to make sure the inmates are properly cared for. Apparently, the person who had this post before him just shoved the trays through the bars at mealtimes and doused the prisoners with Aguamenti once a day with no concern for their wellbeing. But it's not like there's an abundance of other work to be done, and she lets him do it, for which he's grateful. If all goes according to plan…
He puts extra care into mealtimes—that's going to be important soon, and he needs to know who's of sound mind and who's not, who can understand basic commands and who's going to need to be coaxed. Some of the answers surprised him on his first day: he wouldn't have expected Peter Pettigrew to be the most functional member of the Order in Azkaban, and he wouldn't necessarily have expected the always perfectly composed Alice Abbott to be a blubbering mess, either. But Reg has come to learn that your personality out there doesn't necessarily have any bearing on the way you react to dementors in here. It's not possible to brace yourself for what the dementors will do to you, not really.
Besides Pettigrew, Frank Longbottom and Kingsley Shacklebolt are the most conversational of the members of the Order—Reg is usually able to get a few words out of both of them when he visits their cells, and they usually, though not always, are able to feed and bathe themselves. His favorite part of his workday is getting to see Sturgis Podmore—they were a few years apart at Hogwarts, but both in Hufflepuff, and Sturgis sort of took Reg under his wing when Reg was a first year. It's hard to enjoy seeing him when they're both under the influence of dementors and Sturgis can't string two words together, but at least he can guide Sturgis through the motions of eating his gruel and scrubbing off dirt in the bucket Reg uses at bath time, knowing that his friend is at least neither hungry nor dirty.
The hardest part, of course, is seeing Hogwarts's staff: Hagrid, McGonagall, and Dumbledore. He hasn't heard any of the three say a single coherent sentence yet, though he has had to wake Dumbledore out of what looked like several pretty debilitating nightmares. The former headmaster keeps screaming out for somebody named Ariana in his sleep; when he's awake, he mostly sits in the far corner of his cell, rocking back and forth on his haunches, lashing out when Reg lets himself into the cell and tries to undress him and get him into the tub.
He's running out of time—every day they wait brings another round of deaths in the paper—and he's worried about how he's going to get through to Abbott and Dumbledore and a good half of the others. Reg just wants to swoop into those cells and save everybody, and he's not just talking about members of the Order: nobody should have to get locked in with dementors for their crimes, not even Peter Pettigrew or perhaps (Reg thinks when he's feeling particularly furious with his job) even the Death Eaters, back before they escaped. But he's got limited time, access, and resources, and he needs to prioritize.
Sometimes, Reg really hates his life, he reflects on Friday night as he's finally Apparating off that blasted island at the end of another long workday. As usual, the compression of Apparition coupled with the sudden release of the fog over his thoughts is disorienting, and it takes him a minute of standing there in the chilly autumn air before he's collected himself enough to brave the conversation he's about to have.
He misses Mary. She was a goddamn secret lesbian, and she probably never loved him, and he misses her.
Pushing open the front door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, he calls out Lily Potter's and Sirius Black's names.