Muggle Meets Wizardry
Wednesday, June 26th, 1995
As the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, one must be prepared for disaster, and have plans in place for any interruption or emergency. Any disastrous thing could happen at any moment, but to Minister Julian Moore, whose service throughout the 90s had been mercifully uneventful - the most eventful thing being the Bishopsgate bombing two years prior, which had resulted in many rude phone calls, angry letters, fiery speeches, and at last a heavy increase in security - the greatest disaster he could face would be the familiar coughing from the stubbornly-stuck portrait hanging above his mantelpiece.
Everyday he sat behind his desk the toad like face seemed to smirk at him, though of course he could never prove this fact, especially to his head, which, though having to deal with teapots turning into gerbils and dragons being transported to England, was still hard pressed to believe in such bizarre happenings. He was a Muggle, afterall, though to him he was just ‘normal.’
But today, when he’d reached his desk after deciding to take a stroll to work instead of the car, he’d sat behind it and immediately flinched, as the portrait was empty. Completely vacant, as if the man inside had simply decided to stand up and walk out the frame. Maybe even that’s what happened, because not a minute later the toad-faced man with the pale wig was walking back into the frame of the portrait, sitting himself down and coughing harshly, as usual.
Instantly, Moore straightened behind his desk and adjusted his spectacles, before giving up and simply removing them, placing them aside on his desk and waving a hand at the portrait. “Yes, what is it?”
As always, the response was robotic and urgent, “To the Prime Minister of Muggles. Urgent we meet. Kindly respond immediately. Sincerely, Fudge.”
Moore genuinely had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes, for when was it not ‘urgent’ that they met? It was truly remarkable enough that the ‘Other Minister’ (as he liked to call Mr. Fudge) was able to get Moore to have to resist rolling his eyes at all; usually such a higher up politician wouldn’t dream of it. But, then again, his colleagues wouldn’t dream of a whole separate world of magically talented people existing right under their nose either.
“Yes, yes, he may come,” Moore instead said with another wave of his hand, standing from his seat and turning to the window to look out at his British citizens bustling about, oblivious to the world hidden beneath their feet. Well, actually, the Prime Minister didn’t know where exactly these wizards and witches hid, but from all the fairy tales he recalled his mother telling him as a child, and the ones his younger sister read to her children, he thought maybe that would make sense.
Except, he noted, as the flames beneath his mantelpiece again burst into a bright green and a familiar balding man stepped out, tipping his bowler hat with a familiar smile, those stories also described wizards as old and grizzled men with long beards. Hardly the man stood before him, who could have easily shed himself of his peculiar robes and sat among the Prime Minister’s colleagues, and he wouldn’t know the difference.
“Hello, Prime Minister,” Fudge nodded, and for the first time Moore took notice of the sagging dark circles beneath the man’s eyes and the way he had to hurriedly straighten the wrinkles in his robes. In his first visit he had appeared clean and put-together, in his second he had been sopping wet, pale, and shaken, and in his third and latest simply angry looking. But now, he only appeared exhausted and worn, rubbing his temple before standing straight and again forcing a tight lipped smile, the creases lining his face deep and concerned. “I’m sorry to have to say this is not going to be a happy visit.”
Moore could have guessed that from his appearance alone, but he only nodded, coughing in his fist and straightening formally, “Alright… What is it this time?”
With a heavy sigh, Fudge met his eyes sadly and stated, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back.”
In an instant, Moore recalled a past visit where Fudge had passed a note saying this ‘You-Know-Who’s name. He wet his lips, and nodded slowly. This man, whoever he was, scared the Other Minister so much so that he wouldn’t even dare say his name, and now he claimed him back, returned from the dead, after waving off the possibility years before.
“Okay… Wh-What does that mean?” Moore asked, sliding back down into his seat as Fudge walked forward to take one before his desk, sinking into it with exhaustion that now made perfect sense. If someone burst into the Prime Minister’s office at that very moment claiming Hitler and the Nazi Party had risen from their graves and were prepared to jumpstart World War III, he’d no doubt act the same. “For er - my people, what does that mean?”
“Well…” Fudge tilted his head, looking out of Moore’s window behind him to the sea of British citizens bustling about the streets, oblivious to the murderer that had returned, and could be on the loose at that moment, for all Moore knew. “During the First War many Muggles - that’s your people - lost their lives from the Dark Order’s attacks - that’s the… ‘bad side’ you could say - because they just didn’t care. They treated Muggles as people who simply ‘got in the way.’ I had to be the first on the scene to respond to lots of these incidents when I was working in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.” Fudge paused, sinking his face into his hands and rubbing his temples once more, before sitting up and running a hand over his remaining hair at the back of his head. “I saw… The things that happened… The things that they did… It was awful.”
Moore swallowed hard. Clearly, this ‘Lord Voldemort’ was not someone to dismiss or ignore. He could and would cause real damage to the peaceful world he was lucky to be running throughout the 90s. He didn’t even want to ask for Fudge to elaborate, as the vacant, dark look in the man’s blue eyes turned gray told a story of death and terrifying destruction. Of memories he’d tried so hard to forget now flooding back as he imagined a world with Lord Voldemort returned.
“Surely…” Moore cleared his throat, straightening in his seat and leaning forward with his hands clasped together. Fudge raised his head to lock eyes with him, and he felt slightly uncomfortable by the amount of trust held in the man’s gaze. Fudge clearly saw Moore as something of a friend, though he couldn’t say the same about the reverse. “Surely you can do something about it, right? You’re a wizard, you can do magic!” He chuckled halfheartedly. Forced. “Surely you can fix well… anything!”
Fudge smiled sadly, so that every wrinkle in his face creased once more and added ten years of age. “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.”
-*-*-*-
September 12th, 1995
It was nearing ten o’clock, when Moore had promised himself he’d be coming home that morning, and the rain was pounding onto the windows. Autumn in Britain was notorious for rain, so Moore was gazing out at the streets below, turning over the possibility of if he’d be able to get a peaceful ride at ten, or should he leave early. Or maybe wait a little longer, until the crowds passed.
Cough.
Moore spun around in his desk chair sharply. Certainly he’d have to go with the latter, and getting home would have to wait, because in only less than three months Fudge was back.
“What is it now?” He demanded, exasperated as he practically threw himself out of his chair and strode over to the frog man’s portrait.
“To the Prime Minister of Muggles. Do you have time for tea? Kindly respond immediately. Sincerely, Fudge.”
Moore was certain his jaw dropped so far it hit the floor. He gaped at the man, seemingly smirking at him with mirth at the message he had just delivered, and could only shake his head in disbelief. “Alright… sure. Of course! Yes, yes, we can have tea.” He was a politician, for goodness sake. He knew how to be respectful.
As he turned and headed for his cupboard where he readily kept a variety of teas and alcohol available, Moore poured two cups and carried them on plates to his desk, ignoring the way his darkened office lit with green and the clicking of Fudge’s shoes stepping out of the fireplace onto his wood flooring.
“Sugar, Minister?” He simply turned and asked, but instantly felt his shoulders sink at the sight of the man. Something had to have happened, whether this was just a teatime visit or not, because Fudge had gotten substantially balder, thinner, and greyer despite the last visit being under three months ago. “Are… Are you alright?”
Perhaps he was shocked, as Moore himself was, at the concern in the Muggle man’s voice, but the wizard shrugged, saying, “Yes, of course. Two cubes, please,” and stepped forward to sink into the chair before Moore’s desk once more.
After a long moment of tea sipping and the continuous patter of rain against the window, Fudge slowly set his teacup down on its saucer, and eyed Moore curiously. He looked a great deal cheerier than before, if no less exhausted, and smiled genuinely when asking, “So… What brought you into politics, Prime Minister?”
“Oh!” Moore set his own cup down, shrugging his shoulders as he straightened in his seat and turned the question over in his head. It was quite the question; one he found himself at a standstill at being able to answer. After a long pause to think, however - which he rarely got nowadays, always expected to be the first person in the room with answers, and to never hesitate before solving a problem - Moore again met eyes ever going grayer in Fudge’s wrinkled face and said, “Well, I suppose it all came from my Uncle. You see, as a young man…”
Maybe it was the clear interest in Fudge’s wide eyes as he continued to talk and he listened, leaning closer, tense shoulders lowering, deep wrinkles flattening. Something had to be making Moore keep on talking as the night drew on, and the rain slowed to a stop, as if the clouds themselves wanted to listen to his story. And whenever he stopped, Fudge would simply open his mouth and ask another question. Then another, and then another, and then…
Long until the clock chimed midnight did the pair of men sit drinking tea, and by that time any hope of hailing a cab was lost, and Moore would simply have to walk home, whilst Fudge got to disappear within the green flames and return to his mysterious world. But the man was a great deal happier than he’d been when he’d arrived, and for some inexplicable reason, that made the walk in the sodden streets of London worthwhile.
-*-*-*-
It happened again in December.
“To the Prime Minister of Muggles. We need to talk. Kindly respond immediately. Sincerely, Fudge.”
Fudge had been particularly… disturbed, during this meeting, mind seemingly a million places beyond Moore’s small office, but he still provided the tea and chat all the same, willing to listen as the man ranted about snakes attacking Ministry officials outside the ‘Department of Mysteries’ and understanding hardly any of it. What he did gather, and recalled from previous meetings, was that the man seemed to have a peculiar relationship with another man called ‘Dumbledore.’
“May I ask… Who is this ‘Dumbledore?’” He dared to ask as Fudge was preparing himself to leave an hour and a half later, and the man turned, adjusting the bowler hat on his head, and stated, “A colleague.” before stepping in the flames and wishing him a, “Happy Christmas” then disappearing.
He didn’t come again until March, looking even more harassed and angry as he’d been when the disturbance at the ‘Kwidditch’ thing had occurred. Apparently it had to do with this Dumbledore person, who he finally admitted to having a testy relationship with as it was, but had now completely severed ties with.
“I suppose it’s been a long time coming,” Fudge said, pouring himself a glass of whiskey this time. “But still… I always saw him as a source of comfort or mentorship. Or at least I wanted to. I could tell he never really wanted to help me, however…”
Moore decided right then he didn’t like this Dumbledore person one bit.
What came out of this seventh visit? Quite honestly Moore didn’t know, but he learned quickly that he didn’t mind. He got to sit and listen to Fudge for once, instead of the other way around, and this time he actually started to understand a great deal. This whole Wizarding World still boggled his mind to un-Godly ends but at least Fudge didn’t bother him all that much anymore. He was actually coming to understand why the man kept asking for tea whenever bothered - the company of someone from a completely separate world, so separate you felt you could tell them anything, felt so much safer than any possible political colleague Moore had been forced to call a friend throughout his term.
Regardless, they met again every fortnight, with Cornelius - sometime between tea, alcohol, and fireside chats they’d come to a first name basis - getting increasingly tired and stressed but that only meant more tea, more alcohol, more fireside chats and more breaches of the relationship the Muggle and Wizard Minister’s should properly have.
Julian was positive the ‘rule book’ Cornelius had used to refer to in terms of why these visits were necessary probably didn’t intend for the meetings to be longer than an hour, leave the men drunk, or be this often, but who could possibly be watching? Who was that frog-man in the portrait reporting to when he was forced to watch the foolish men laugh into the night, afternoon, or morning? (Because Cornelius could never pick a fixed time to drop by in the chaos that came with running a world gradually getting closer to being invaded by Lord Voldemort)
That was another thing - Voldemort. They rarely mentioned him, and when they did, it usually meant they were treading into drunken territory with the whiskey intake (Julian was never a whiskey drinker before, but Cornelius was, and he was quickly realizing the Other Minister might be a bad influence). Nevertheless he did come up, always with some terrifying tale of a group of Muggles found dead from the first war. Julian couldn’t believe he’d never heard of such a tale before, but then Cornelius regaled him with the stories of the ‘Obliviators’ who would obliviate your mind of any memory of such events. That of course didn’t settle his mind in the slightest.
“So, when I step down,” He said after Cornelius had finished with that particular story on a bright lunch hour in late April. “Or am forced out or whatever happens to me… will I get ‘obliviated’ too? Was my predecessor…?”
A sudden dawning reached Cornelius’s eyes, and he slowly set his glass down, gazing out the window behind Julian’s head with a vacant look in his eyes, that had slowly started to regain their normal color of blue. “I… Suppose yes… It’s in the rules, afterall…”
“But surely, as the Minister for Magic,” - he was surprised by how smoothly the phrase rolled off his tongue nowadays - “You can make exceptions?”
For a moment, he recalled a meeting months before, when Cornelius had sadly explained that with both sides using magic, it rendered the extraordinary ability simply ordinary, but the kind smile the man gave him now wasn’t filled with sadness, but hope. Or something like it, or maybe the most hope you could have when faced with the odds they’re friendship - or whatever this may be - were.
Regardless, he surprised him by skipping their next scheduled meeting, and instead sending a message the day after, asking not for tea, but again having the frog-man say, ‘Urgent we meet.’
“There’s nothing in the rulebook saying I should tell you this,” Cornelius had begun, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking quite disgruntled, “But we’ve far exceeded the boundaries of that ridiculous thing by now.” Julian nodded, silent so he showed he was willing to listen, even as the man sat himself down and began to rant about secret organizations and a woman named Umbridge and again that man called Dumbledore.
“I’m tempted to ask if I might be allowed to come into your world and give this Dumbledore a piece of my -” Julian allowed himself to be cut off, too posh to continue his line of thought, by Cornelius’s joyous laughter, as the man threw his balding head back and slapped his hand across his knee, swiping a tear to smile at the Prime Minister and say, through chuckles, “I highly doubt the rules would let that one fly, Julian.” He cleared his throat, relaxing in his chair to smile genuinely across the table into Julian’s own blue eyes. “Though I wish I could take you through those flames and show you a piece of all I come and talk about. You probably think I'm mad at times.”
“Quite honestly I don’t; I only think of myself as mad.” They both laughed, Cornelius raising up his nearing empty glass of whiskey and Julian swiftly doing the same. “To maddenned men then,” The Other Minister declared and the Prime Minister grinned brightly. “To maddened men.” Clink.
“Though I must admit,” They locked eyes across cylinders of tipped glass. “I wish I could show you some of my world too.”
“I’d like that, Julian.”
May 20th he learned Cornelius had a brother, Thaddius, who was married and lived in france but had one son whom he was the uncle to (Rufus Fudge, a student at a magic school called ‘Bow-Batons’, or at least that’s what it sounded like). He was divorced, however, having been married years ago as a young man but the wife wanted no part in the man he was becoming as Minister. In turn, Julian told him of his past failed relationships with women, the press and it’s nagging for a young handsome man such as himself to find a wife, and how his sister already had three children of her own.
June 3rd he confessed to homosexual tendencies, and was surprised to learn the Wizarding World had no prejudices against such love. “It’s blasphemous to me that your people would feel that way. I’ve heard of how Christianity is treated as the only religion in the world, but even then I have plenty of wizard and witch friends of varying sexuality who practice the religion.” Cornelius had said, and Julian had simply listened, wide eyed, his mind again wondering about the possibility of being able to escape to this world that everyday sounded a little less frightening.
On June 17th he finally mustered up the courage to ask if Cornelius himself had ever had such tendencies, and after several sips of whiskey (in which his face remained a bright cherry red) he said he was only confessing because he trusted Julian very much, for reasons he couldn’t explain, but said yes all the same. The Prime Minister still couldn’t reason with himself the kind of joy that had come to him with that confession. Or how, after several more sips of whiskey, he and Cornelius had taken to standing before the window overlooking the town of London, blanketed in night, and their lips had brushed up against each other just so.
Overall, Julian found he had begun to quite look forward to the cough of the frog-man in the portrait more than anything else he’d hear in a day as Prime Minister.
-*-*-*-
Saturday, July 6th, 1996
Awaiting an urgent phone call from the President of Brazil, the Prime Minister’s mind was a hundred places elsewhere other than the strange affair he’d begun with Cornelius Fudge, but that didn’t stop the frog-man from coughing. It never did. Curiously, instead of grinning and striding to the drinks cupboard as he usually did this past year, however, Julian instead turned away from gazing out across the city of London to frown at the portrait tightly.
“What is it now?” He really had a long list of more important things to do than sit and drink tea while being embarrassed by the highly unprofessional thoughts that came to his mind whenever he allowed himself to look into Cornelius’s eyes, as blue as a summer sky, too long. A bridge had just collapsed, in a very awful and disastrous way at that, leaving no explanation for why. It wasn’t old - less than ten years - and had cost the government a pretty penny to maintain it. He’d met with all its engineers, all at a loss to how it had managed to snap cleanly in two, sending a dozen cars plunging to their deaths in the river below.
He’d increased police force in response to a well-publicized murder, and yet a second happened a day ago, and the press had wasted no time in constructing some lie that there weren’t a ridiculous number of police on the scene during Emmeline Vance’s death. Again, he’d met with weather specialists to see if they’d hid that lightning storm from the news and no, none could explain it, other than again, it had to be the government’s fault.
Not to mention Herbert Chorley’s absurd behavior as of late.
It was all making the world feel quite angry, all the time. Jumping at shadows, shouting at neighbors. The smoke in the air wasn’t helping as it blocked out the sun and dampened everyone's moods, though again, that damn smoke couldn’t be explained either.
Nothing made any sense, but of course, who always popped in in Julian’s life when the world didn’t have a crumb of sense left to it?
“To the Prime Minister of Muggles. Urgent we meet. Kindly respond immediately. Sincerely, Fudge.”
“Listen,” The Prime Minister turned from his gazing out the window to fully face the portrait, narrowing his eyes at the man as if he was speaking directly to Cornelius himself. “Tell him it’s not a very good time right now, not at all. I'm waiting for a telephone call, you see... from the President of Br -”
“That can be rearranged,” said the portrait at once, and Julian couldn’t suppress an eyeroll this time. Cornelius had clearly taken hold of all of his dignity as a politician. “But I really was rather hoping to speak -”
“We shall arrange for the President to forget to call. He will telephone tomorrow night instead,” said the little man. “Kindly respond immediately to Mr. Fudge.”
Julian blinked, then cracked half a smile, tipping his chin and chuckling. Even in dark times like these (literally) Cornelius still always found a way to make him laugh with the bizarre nature of his world’s magic. The never ending depths of what they could be capable of. “Okay then. Yes, yes, I'll see Fudge.”
With that he circled around his desk, adjusting his tie and briefly checking his hair in his reflection from the window because, angry at the unexpected meeting or not, he still desired to look presentable to a man whom he had regrettably kissed in their last meeting. He had just sat himself down once more when the orange flames beneath his marble mantelpiece turned a bright green he’d grown accustomed to, and the same man he’d always seen step out of those flames did, looking just as grim as Julian had when gazing into his mirror each morning.
He went through the same routine as always; brushed ash from his sleeves onto the antique rug Julian had imported as a gift from the President of China just last month, straightened his long pin-striped cloak, and tipped his lime-green bowler hat off to the Prime Minister.
“Ah… Julian,” Cornelius began, striding across the ridiculously expensive rug now partially ruined with ash and stretching out a hand. “Good to see you - Oh! Bad week too, I take it?”
It had been a bad week, hence why Julian ignored the handshake and instead stepped right into hugging the man. This may clearly be a formal visit, but it didn’t change the fact that their relationship was not formal in the slightest - he might as well ignore the pleasantries and show how he actually felt about their friendship.
“Would you kindly explain what in Heaven’s name is going on with London, Cornelius Fudge, because I highly doubt you haven’t anything to do with it.” He released him from the embrace, holding the shorter man at arm’s length briefly to take in his appearance, and the fact that he was thinner, balder, and greyer than before, as well as possessing several more wrinkles he was sure their union and teatime had flattened the past year. “And would you like tea or whiskey this time?”
Cornelius grinned, “Actually I brought something of my own,” He retrieved a bottle from within his robes, “Because a week like this requires something a lot stronger than you have.”
Julian eyed the bottle suspiciously. ‘Firewhiskey’? This was clearly a drink from Cornelius’s world, and that inexplicably made him nervous. Would it make him fly? Or have smoke come out of his ears? Cornelius must have noticed the apprehension that had instantly taken hold of him as he let go of his arms and took a half step back because he waved a hand, saying, “You don’t have to drink it, I won’t be offended. I’m not sure the kind of reaction a Muggle would have if you did, anyway.” Relieved, Julian released a sigh and turned for his cupboard to prepare a shot of plain whiskey for himself instead.
“So, I assume this has all got to do with that You-Know-Who fellow?” Julian asked, sitting himself down behind his desk as Cornelius sat in front in his usual, gladly taking the empty glass Julian provided and pouring his own whiskey. “Yes, yes, of course. The Brockdale Bridge, the Bones and Vance murders, the dragons in the skies causing all those storms… All of it - him.”
“Dr - Dragons?” Julian choked out, having been attempting to take a drink when Cornelius had said that and nearly spitting it out. “There’s dragons? In the sky?” He spun around in his seat, eyeing the suspicious dark clouds overhead out his window and squinting to see any winged beasts behind them. “But… Where?”
“Well you can’t see them now, of course,” Cornelius waved a hand, downing half his glass and swallowing before saying, “Nor I. Disillusionment charms. You-Know-Who is smarter than that. By the way, don’t say his real name, it’s taboo.”
Julian didn’t bother to dwell on trying to work out in his mind what a ‘disillusionment charm’ was, or what this ‘taboo’ meant, instead reclining back in his desk chair and staring up at the ceiling, where his ceiling fan was droning on silently, because despite the clouds blocking the sun the weather of June was still unbearably hot and humid, though now he supposed that had to do with those dragons in the sky.
“So these dragons… they aren’t on your side then?” Cornelius shook his head sadly, lowering his glass. “No… I tried, believe me. Dumbledore and I both,” He winced here, some unknown grief passing over his eyes, dimming them momentarily. “But his forces had already recruited the dragons, seeing as how we got the giants and Dementors.”
“Giants?” Julian pushed his chair away from his desk half a foot. “There are giants now too? On your side?”
Cornelius nodded, again waving a hand, then rubbing it across his tired, aged eyes. “Yes, giants. But I don’t intend on sending them to cause any chaos in the Muggle world, trust me; They should be no concern of yours.”
Julian wet his lips, letting those words sink in as Cornelius downed the rest of his glass then immediately refilled it, turning them over in his head until there was no hope that he’d be able to understand them any more, and finally concluding there was no point, and instead he simply asked, “So you’re back to working with Dumbledore then, hm?”
“What?” His friend’s eyes snapped to him over the glass in shock, then he gasped and placed the glass down, rubbing his hands together and shaking his head violently, repeating, “No, no, no,” before sucking in a deep breath and stating, “He’s dead.”
“What?!”
“Yes, it was quite sudden. Quite a shock. Just last week, actually.” Cornelius shook his head, drowning himself in his glass of whiskey again before placing it down with a quarter left and saying morosely, “He was just the beginning, though. There’ll be more coming, so many more…”
Julian swallowed hard. “Are we at war, then?” They had to be, right? Voldemort may have returned a year ago but only now were things affecting his own world and people had started dying. That had to mean war, it just had to.
“Yes, we’re at war, Prime Minister, I myself declared it,” Cornelius again rubbed a hand over his eyes. “And I can only wish the choice was not shortsighted but, nevertheless, what’s done is done, and steps must be taken.” Julian didn’t desire to linger long at all on the fact that the Other Minister had been to one to start the war that would surely be the fall of his career, simply asking the man, “What must be done, then?”
“Oh, nothing for you, I suppose.” Cornelius had returned to spinning hsi bowler hat - that nervous tick he always had but Julian had found strangely endearing all the same - abandoning the firewhiskey. “Though I don’t know how Callaghan and Thatcher managed last time.”
“Yes, last time!” Julian snapped his fingers, grinning as he nearly leapt from his seat, “I’ll simply contact them for advice, then! See what they would have done!” He sank himself down again simply at Cornelius’s sad expression, not needing to hear what he had to say. “But they’ve been Obliviated, haven’t they?”
Cornelius nodded. “I’m afraid so. I can still have my colleagues at the Ministry dig up old reports and see if that might help. Or, you know what? The Queen of England is still on the throne, isn’t she?” Julian nodded, as she had been for the past forty-plus years and never seemed keen on standing up. “The Royal Family has long known of the Wizarding World’s existence. You could ask her for advice! I doubt that’s against the rulebook.” Julian hardly cared about the ‘rulebook’ enough anymore even if it was.
They fell into a morose silence, each man swirling his drink, but after a while Julian looked up and watched Cornelius watching him, opened his mouth and closed it several times, then finally thought on the right thing to say and asked, “I assume this will be your last visit?” Cornelius nodded, gnawing at his bottom lip slightly. “At least for a good long while.”
“Shame,” Julian shifted up straighter in his chair, nodding to the firewhiskey in his friend’s hand, “If you stopped by next week I would have liked to try that magic drink of yours.” Cornelius laughed heartily, something he couldn’t explain in words the gratitude he felt at hearing. “I would have loved that, Julian.”
His tongue got caught on the word, and so did the Prime Minister’s thoughts. Loved. He wet his lips again, shifting in his seat, this time in an awkward sort of way. It was his tick, which Cornelius adored as much as he loved watching that bowler hat spin. Loved.
“I don’t have to be back for another hour,” Cornelius shrugged his shoulders, smiling in a crazed, foolish sort of way, like a teenaged boy caught back in his schoolboy days. “And I doubt anyone at the Ministry will care if I broke the rules during an annual visit to the Prime Minister of Muggles.”
Julian chuckled, feeling that same foolishness overtake him at the title. “Muggles. What a peculiar name for ‘normal people.’” Cornelius cocked an eyebrow up. “In my opinion ‘normal’ is quite a rude thing to say.”
“How about perfectly ordinary?” Cornelius shook his head. “I don’t think you’re ordinary, Julian Moore.”
And if they had leaned across the desk and closed the space between them during this debate? All of London except for a frog-man in a portrait frame would be none the wiser, especially to whatever foolish, most certainly highly against the rules things they did after that. Besides, they were at war weren’t they? In Julian’s mind, the Ministers of separate worlds coming together at last deserved a night of joy before Voldemort could take even this secret, strange relationship from them.
-*-*-*-
Far away from the Prime Minister’s office, in another part of London, Draco Malfoy sat, very much out of his element, playing cards with Hermione Granger’s family. They had been the first ones to gladly accept housing him this summer, and, having no desire to endanger her Muggle family more than she already was by coming at all, Hermione had discussed with her parents that the teens were to travel to the Burrow within a fortnight and remain there for the rest of the summer, unless the desire to join Harry at Grimmauld Place, where Sirius and Remus would no doubt desire his company, got too strong.
In the meantime, Draco was content to sit and watch as the trio of Granger’s played their favorite game, though he didn’t dare join in, not understanding it in the slightest. At most he attempted to watch them, chin cupped in one hand, idly eating from the charcuterie board Mrs. Granger had made with the other.
But then, the burning began. First a sensation in his face, stinging and biting at him like the fire Harry had raged upon his home just a week before, but then it spread beyond his head, which already was becoming unbearably hot with the pain, and snaked its way through his arms and legs, but most importantly, the great snakes of phantom fire grabbed hold of his heart and tore a piece clean off. Severed it in two so that Draco was left howling.
The cards scattered across the table. Hermione was at his side in seconds, but he only shook his head against her voice, reaching to him through a haze of cotton clouds. He groped at his shirt, trying to reach his chest though he knew if he did he’d light his hand on fire. He gasped and howled on and on against the pain, cringing and recoiling like a snake in the grass for what felt like an eternity, all the while he cried. Sobbed. That part of him that had just been ripped away, at the same time leaving him with the feeling of being on fire, which was worse even than the horrific experience of getting tattooed with the Dark Mark… He knew what this all meant. He knew what had been done.
Eventually the fire died. Eventually he lost his voice to scream any longer, though the screams had been so horrific, the looks held within the Granger family’s eyes felt like he was still screaming in front of them. But he wasn’t, which meant it was over, though that didn’t stop the tears and sobs wrecking his body as the night droned on, and all Hermione could do was rub his arm and squeeze his hand as he whimpered his wants for his mother or father to hold him instead, though he knew they never would again.
Because he knew, using the same piece of himself that had just been ripped to shreds from his body, that he had just been removed from his family. Cut away. Burned off. Severed and detached like a limb, leaving only a cindered face remaining on an ancient tapestry. Just like his Aunt Andromeda, or his distant cousin Sirius Black before him, Draco Lucius Malfoy was no more.