June 2nd, 1982: Reginald Cattermole

The last thing Reg is prepared for is for Remus Lupin to show up in Reg and Gilderoy's living room at one o'clock in the morning and say with haggard eyes, "We need to talk about Mary."

It's completely out of the blue, for one thing, and completely inappropriate, as far as Reg is concerned. He knows Lupin is close friends with Mary, but Lupin's not close friends with him, and he's got no business inserting himself into Reg's marital problems. If Mary wants to confide in him, fine—if anything, even though he's mad at her and scared for her, Reg encourages it—but it's none of his business to show up in the flat where Reg is staying and tell Reg what to do.

That is why Lupin's come here, isn't it? To tell Reg off for moving out and leaving his wife behind? Why else would someone who to Reg is practically a complete stranger show up here and say he needs to talk about—?

And then it occurs to Reg that there's another reason, a more sinister reason, that Lupin might be here. Lupin's a vigilante. Mary's a vigilante. She confessed it outright the last time she and Reg spoke. She's out there every night putting her life on the line, probably, now that she hasn't got to hide what she's doing from Reg anymore, and if she got herself into trouble—if she did something risky because Reg left her, and it backfired—

"Gilderoy," sighs Reg, "can you give us a moment?"

Reg isn't looking at him—can't tear his eyes away from Lupin—but he can imagine clearly the look of confusion stifling the bravado with which Gilderoy always carries himself. "Reg, are you—?"

"Please."

There's a terse pause, and then Gilderoy says, "Well, I suppose so. Good to see you, my boy, Lupin."

"Likewise." Lupin's voice sounds cracked, like he's been crying, and the dread is already sinking low into Reg's stomach.

Too soon, Gilderoy lays down the parchment on which he's been scribbling his latest chapter and saunters off to his bedroom—and then Reg and Lupin are alone. With every second that Lupin stands there in the middle of the living room, his shoulders sink lower, and so do the corners of his lips, and the whole effect—Reg just can't stand it, so he offers, "Sit, please."

Lupin takes a seat in the armchair Gilderoy just vacated, kind of falling into it like he's lost the energy or maybe the will to hold himself upright. With whatever news Lupin is about to deliver, Reg wonders whether he's going to look like that in a matter of seconds—worse, even, because Lupin is Mary's friend, but Reg is her husband.

And the bitterness bubbles back up through his esophagus and into his throat because Lupin knows Mary in ways that Reg never has and probably never will. They fight together, apparently. They've been part of the same impenetrable group for over a decade now, and Mary's never really let Reg into that part of her life. The vigilante thing… it was the last straw, and it went on for years, but even before then—even before Liz and Millie died and Reg's suspicions about Mary's extracurricular activities started to grow—he could never really access her the same way that friends of hers like Lupin could.

Reg doesn't just want Mary to be safe. He wants her to have friends and a life outside of him, but he wants them to belong to each other at the end of the day, and the simple truth is that they never really have.

"Just tell me," Reg croaks. "I can take it."

Hesitating, Lupin finally says, "We don't know for sure that she's dead. You know that Alice and Emmeline were staying at your flat, right?"

Numbly, Reg nods. The way Lupin says it, he believes there's still a chance Mary's alive, but if it's only a chance—if it might not be true at all—if the last thing Reg ever did to Mary was leave her without assuring her that he was coming back someday—

—because Reg was coming back someday. Wasn't that always the plan? Wasn't that what he told Gilderoy when he moved in here: that it was temporary? But if he's been stripped of his chance to tell that to the only person who it mattered to tell—

Lupin mumbles, "Alice, um… when she tried to get back home from work, she found that your building had been completely burned to ash and that Emmeline was dead in its remains." His voice wavers here, and he takes a second to compose himself. "Mary was protecting her location. She, um—she did a spell to become Em's Secret-Keeper. So if Death Eaters tracked Em down, that means they got to Mary first and tortured it out of her. We can't know for sure whether they left Mary alive or not, but Aurors are out there right now looking for her to—to get confirmation one way or another. They might not find it, but they're trying. I told Alice to tell you straightaway if they find anything, but… but I wanted to be the one to warn you myself. Mary was… um, Mary is… incredibly important to me in ways I can't even…"

Reg's whole body is itching and tingling and heavy, like all he wants to do is move, but he can't. Instead, he's frozen in his seat on the couch, numb and motionless except for the heaving of his chest as he gasps for air that isn't enough no matter how fast he gulps it down. "Mary's… Mary's…"

"I'm so sorry." Lupin's apology comes out hollow-sounding. "I know you love her very much. I do, too, in my own way."

"I told her. I told her." Reg's eyes are popping. "This is exactly what… and now… if she's really… if she's really gone, Lupin, I don't know what I'm going to…"

"I know," Lupin murmurs. "I don't know what I'd do, either, if…" He clears his throat. "I'm tired of my friends dying. I know it's not the same, but…"

Reg attempts to raise his hand to his face to wipe it dry. Fails. It feels like a lead blanket is compressing all his limbs down as far as they'll go, like he's hitting resistance every time he tries to raise one of them. "I'm sorry to hear about Vance. I know she was very important to you, too."

"Thank you. I hope Mary…"

The tears are coming freely now. Reg hopes so, too, but he doesn't really believe it.

xx

Lupin stays and sits up with Reg all night, long after Gilderoy awkwardly informs them at two in the morning that he can't keep his eyes open any longer and toddles off to bed with empty assurances to Reg that Mary will be just fine. It's uncomfortable—they barely know each other, really—but Reg appreciates it all the same, somewhere in the far recesses of his mind between his panic and his grief, the kind that shows how little faith Reg has that Mary is still alive somewhere.

"You don't have to stay," he tells Lupin around half past four. "It's late."

"Not on my sleep schedule," Lupin assures him. "I Disapparate to Canada for work every day. I keep strange hours. Anyway, it's no hardship not to rush home where Sirius is asleep and be alone with the knowledge that Emmeline is dead. Believe me: you're doing me a favor."

"Why Canada?" asks Reg, groping around for something else to focus on. "Mary told me you were working abroad, but she never really explained. Why not Britain? And if not Britain, why Canada specifically?"

"I… couldn't find work in the country," says Lupin haltingly. "And Canada… Canadians speak English."

"So do plenty of Europeans. The time difference wouldn't have been so dramatic in any of those countries."

"I had a… let's just say I had a family connection in Canada who suggested it to me."

"An aunt or a cousin or someone?"

"Or someone," Lupin agrees.

He looks uncomfortable as all hell, so Reg lets it drop, even though he's vaguely curious now in the part of his brain that has room to think about anything but Mary. Lupin clears his throat.

"Cattermole," he hedges, "um—"

But he never finishes his thought because, with a crack, Alice Abbott just at that moment appears a few meters away. Judging by the look on her face, at first, Reg is sure that she's here to tell him Mary is dead. Then again, she'd probably look like that either way, considering that Vance is apparently dead, too.

He clings to his last ounce of hope, his last few seconds of not knowing for sure, and asks, "Is Mary—?"

She shakes her head, but it doesn't mean Mary's dead; it could just mean that they haven't found her alive or dead yet—and then Abbott says, "I'm so sorry. We found her corpse ten minutes ago."

Reg doesn't really hear what comes next. Abbott and Lupin confer briefly about funeral arrangements for Vance and something to do with word leaking out about embezzled Ministry funds before Abbott was ready for it—Reg doesn't know. All Reg really knows is that he's a widower and that he can't seem to get enough air.

How can Reg be so in love with someone he truly knew so little about? For her to have lied to him all those years, did Mary even really love him back? He had his suspicions sometimes, didn't he? Reg wanted a nice, stable life with somebody who could depend on him and whom he could depend on back, but Mary—he'd thought she wanted it, too, but apparently, she hadn't, not if she'd gotten herself mixed up with vigilante justice, Lily Potter's Minister of Magic run, and her extremely volatile relationships with her equally dangerous friends. Sometimes, Reg even wondered whether they knew her better than he ever did—whether she loved them better than she ever loved him.

He'll never know for sure. She's not alive to tell it to him anymore.

Abbott seems to be saying something to Reg, but he can't really hear that, either. Then she sighs, crosses the room, hunches down, and pulls him into her arms.

It takes a minute of Reg clinging to her back and wailing into her ear before he composes himself enough to choke out, "She never loved me. She never loved me."

There's a pause, and then Abbott asks, "She told you?"

Reg frowns. She's saying that like he's right—like Mary didn't love him—like she confirmed it to Abbott, who's now confirming it to him. But Mary wouldn't—

—would she?

"Told me what?"

"Shit," says Lupin hoarsely somewhere behind them. "I don't think he knew, Al."

"Told me what?"

Reg's voice is rising hysterically, and Abbott shushes him as soothingly as she can and says, "It's all right. It's all right, now."

"If Mary—if Mary—I need to know. I need to know who my wife was. If I can't ask her anymore—I know I fucked it all up, I know I did, but—"

Releasing him, Abbott exchanges some kind of look with Lupin, then glances down at Reg with her jaw set and says, "Cattermole, you don't know how sorry I am to have to tell you this on top of what's just happened, but if you really want to know…"

"Just tell me. If she was cheating on me or—or—or—"

A ghost of a smile crosses Abbott's face, pissing Reg off royally—but then Abbott continues, "She wasn't cheating on you. She would never have cheated on you. She just, um… she…"

She looks desperately back at Lupin, who says stiffly, "Mary was a lesbian. She made it abundantly clear to all of us that she loved you very much, but… she wasn't in love with you. She was gay."

And it's one too many pieces of news for her to have to break tonight to Reg, who promptly falls apart crying again. Tutting, Abbott bends down to hug him again, even though Reg wants no part in anyone who knew this and kept it hidden from him for god knows how long.

He didn't just lose his wife's life tonight: he lost his wife's love. At least, that's how it feels.