Marry me, would you?

As more jokes regarding her misheard surname and Black’s making grey, Billie, who had been trying a lot more than she had expected to stay within this house and continue the discussion about her dead partner, had had enough. Because firstly of the heat (and cooling charms on herself didn’t seem to help), the too many things in her line of sight, the obvious brouhaha of the people and pans, and her personal space not being questioned. Some of the kids, notably George and Ron, also didn’t know when to shut up.

Before she had decided that it was due time to leave, Billie had met some of the others, but hadn’t stayed for lunch, therefore hadn’t seen the whole of the family. Which she was glad for, above ten people in a house and she was overwhelmed, she didn’t need to get that number to fifteen. She could have accepted the offer graciously under persistence if she had felt better with being around the Weasleys, but their persistence had only ruffled more of her feathers. But, really, those two lanky idiots had ruined it for her.

Like she had explained many times already, she hadn’t chosen the guy as her legally bound partner until marriage, nor had she chosen her surname.

She had left a bit precipitously after two hours of nothing, it was nearing eleven when she was back home, back in a calm atmosphere, in the cold home that she had been calling hers for the past year and a half. It wasn’t much, but not having a constant job wouldn’t get her anything nicer. She bathed in the quietness of the room, the simplicity of the non-decoration, and the whole twenty-metres square that was her personal space.

Billie was laying back on her bed when she heard the regular knocking that could only be an owl at her window. A small beast of an owl hooted (chirped loudly?) at her while they flew in her face and tried to shake the letter off its leg. It didn’t work, and they gave her a headache.

It was a neat though hasty script that greeted her. The bird was named Pigwidgeon and was probably hit in the head as a fledgling; no mean intentions, but he was dumb. That was what the letter apologised for first. Like they had known that their beastly little feather-ball was already a bad impression.

Second thing for which apologies were requested was the mess that the Weasley family was, a long apology for what most of them must have done or said or not done. She didn’t come at the wrong time, they were simply always like that.

Third was Charlie apologising for not greeting her, and thus not recognising her. She hadn’t recognised him though. Had they said that they shared classes at Hogwarts? Billie really had no clue, but she didn’t remember much from school either. She shook her head and finished reading the letter.

Fourth and final was him (Charlie?) asking for another meeting with her if she wanted to, to discuss in more formal manners the subject at hand. With the people of their family that could help, and not every one. Namely Andromeda, Hermione, Bill and Kingsley. It still felt weird to hear (and read) these people talk about the Minister by his first name.

Billie put the letter on her desk and left her apartment. One she needed to eat as it was coming to be lunch (though a small lunch as the few bites of the bacon roll was still weighing on her guts), and a well as find a piece of parchment she knew she didn’t have in her desk drawer, she wasn’t going to write on the back of the letter, was she? No, not with these people she had yet to know.

-

“Why did you choose the Hog’s Head?”

“Only place I can afford the drinks.” Charlie didn’t try any more small talk as they waited for his friends and family to show up.

Yes, she knew she hadn’t chosen the best place for secrecy, but no place was safer than one’s home, or Hogwarts. But they weren’t going to waltz into the wizarding school to request a meeting room in the middle of the Christmas holidays.

When Hermione Granger arrived, right on time and not early like her Hogwarts alumni (Billie still had no idea which classes they had shared), she immediately placed wards around their corner table, Silencing and Notice-me-not. A feeling Billie did not welcome without prior knowledge of what was to come. It was nice of her, but it would have been nicer if she had let Billie prepare herself for them.

“Hi, Aberforth, I’ll have a Butterbeer.” She took her bottle with her after skiing the sickles on the bartop and finally found her way in between the two silent ones. It was as if she was prepared for her drink, pulling out a clean glass from her beaded bag and serving herself cleanly. Billie looked down at her bottle, which she had cleaned the mouth off, and then at the glass of Ogden's that Charlie nursed, noting how clean the glass looked as well. Aberforth always had a soft spot for Ogden's. Any other liquor and you either brought your own glass or had a relatively clean one. Charlie too was familiar with the bar. Billie was happy that she didn’t have prissy people around her, yet. “We’re waiting on Bill, Kings and Andromeda to come. It would be nice to get to know you some more, Billie. How was your time at Hogwarts? When did you graduate? Which house were you in? What subject were you-”

“Hermione. Can you go slowly?” Charlie cut her off in her tirade. “Maybe let her answer first, and then tell her about yourself as well. I know we’re helping you, Billie, but knowing you more personally could be helpful as well.”

Right, Billie was known to love people. That’s why she was familiar with the Hog’s Head, so many social people and famous for its rowdiness. She gave a nod, still curled around her Butterbeer like a child. “What house were you in?” Hermione Granger asked her more calmly, with a slight smile. “We were all in Gryffindor, except Andromeda.”

“Hufflepuff.”

“Oh, like Tonks.” It wasn’t a question, it was a fact. A fact that Billie had no idea the veracity of, she remembered no one being called Tonks while she attended Hogwarts, nor in her Common Room.

“Who?”

“Nymphadora Tonks, the daughter of Andromeda. She was in Hufflepuff when we attended Hogwarts from ‘84 to ‘91.” When the name didn’t seem to ring any bells in Billie, he asked again, “You did graduate in 1991, right?”

“I did. But how do you know that?”

Hermione said nothing as Charlie stared at Billie still. What was he thinking? “We shared Charms and Potions for most of our years, and then Care for Magical Creatures and Transfig for our NEWTs.” Even if Hermione hadn’t finished all of her years at school, she knew who she shared classes with, from each class, and quite a repertoire of names from the years above and below. “You actually know five of us Weasleys. Two years above us was Bill, three below us was Percy, and I think in our last year Fred and George started their schooling.”

Billie stared at him with wide eyes. She had no memories of any ginger haired boys while at school, she didn’t remember anybody either.

That, half lost with information she had no idea how to take, was how Billie’ conversations with these people followed. It didn't change when Bill and Andromeda arrived. Small talk.

“Are you sure these results are real?”

“Yes.” 

That question, and that same answer, had been asked no less than eight times by the time that Billie needed to get some fresh air. She kneeled by the snow next to the front door of the dingy establishment, the cold of the snow around her hand cooled her down, keeping her mind away from the hubbub of the bar behind her.

A familiar faint sound of a crack broke her out of her trance, and a few minutes later a tall dark figure stretched through the snow covering the cobblestone streets. She was looking at the face of the Minister for Magic a few seconds later.

Kingsley Shacklebolt held a piece of parchment in his hand, from the looks of it it was a copy of a record. Billie watched him as he walked her way in his royal purple robes, he stood out like a sore thumb in the white snowy Hogsmeade. “Wright.” He greeted as he got to her level. She didn’t correct him on his mispronunciation. “I believe the rest of this discussion should be continued in a more private place.” His deep timber didn’t deter her from her place, crouching down by the side of the doorway, hand still in the melting snow. “I will gather the rest and we can make our way up to Hogwarts.”

Billie should have known that her wild imagination would come to fruition, something she had not wanted to happen. She was happy with being in the Hog’s Head with temporary wards around her table. But if the Minister would bring too much attention, she could understand finding a meeting room in Hogwarts.

Once in the castle, much warmer, too grandiose for Billie, calling back memories of the war she would have preferred not to think about, they sat around a long oval table. In less than fifteen minutes the wood was covered in parchments and everyone was standing over it, moving from one side of the other, noting things down on other pieces of parchment. And Billie sat on her own, head away from the three conversations flowing between the five people standing in front of her. She had just wanted an answer, a solution, from her ‘undead’ match.

“Minister.” She said once it was too much, this time she couldn’t just leave the room and find some fresh air, it would be worse to walk along the tall hallways of the castle than stay cooped up in the room. The people she had yet to grow accustomed to all turned to face her. “I only wanted an answer or a solution. Not a whole investigation.”

“An investigation is needed, Miss Wright.” He answered in his posed tone. “This slipped through our clutches for years, and there has to be an answer to find.”

“I know that. I just wanted to know if Sirius Black truly was-” She looked down at the paper that the Minister had brought from the Department of Archives that very day. “Undeceased. Do I still have to be matched to him? Is there another way that I can fulfil my card as a Witch of Britain without waiting for an unalive man to make me fail and lose my magic. Not that I think that what you are doing is useless, but I think that for someone who received a Order of Merlin Second Class post mortem his research of aliveness can be searched by archivists, specialists in the domain of death and records of magical beings, or even the Unspeakables. Why do you all, no offence to your capacities on the magical spectrum, have to be the ones working on this? Why do I have to be here? Can't you just assign me to another person’s case?”

“Thank you Miss Bilswith for putting to light some of your thoughts.” She preferred being called by her mispronounced surname than her first name as a whole. “But your presence right now is of a dire need.” She quirked an eyebrow. Because she was far too overwhelmed by everything to even talk anymore. “You have been matched to this man four times in a row, the last one under my supervision, as well as a fifth time with the best at the magic. The Unspeakables were sure of your match, sure of your link to the man, and certain of the magic you shared. The match would have happened with or without this nationwide situation-”

“I wouldn’t have to lose my magic were it not for this nationwide situation you allowed to happen.”

Billie had been polite, for a very long time, weeks, maybe months, she couldn’t remember how long she had been fighting with the ministry with her case. But there was no denying the fact that Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt had signed the Magic Matching thingy she had forgotten the name of, he had signed the time limits as well as the consequences of not following the law. It had been her nightmare since she had heard of the news. And now in late December nothing had changed yet. She was still matched to this guy who was not of this world of living, who couldn’t help her do her needs as a citizen, fulfil her place of the law, and was making it incredibly hard to live.

“Minister,” She exclaimed, picking her bag up as well as her outer robes, making her way to the door. “Thank you for your time but I don’t think your help is of any use.” She inclined her head towards the others in the room and opened the door before leaving the premises of the school. She was polite, not happy, but still polite.

The walk down the corridors was done by heart, the walk down to Hogsmeade with her eyes closed, the stretch of land down the slope with her heart in her throat, and the apparition two alleys down from her flat without breathing even once.  It was only once inside her little dark two-room that she realised that her outer-robes, her coat, was still in her hands and not on her back. She dropped it on the single hook by the door without a second glance.

Bilswith Wright had a few months left on her hands, a few months left with magic. And then after that she would be cast out to her muggle heritage, she would finally be like her family. The one that had been outspoken about their hatred for magic. Maybe then, when she didn’t have any more, she would be welcomed in their circle. Not that it was a prospect that Billie ever thought about actually fulfilling, she would prefer dying that be in their presence again. One thing that wouldn’t change was her job, it was a good thing that she worked a muggle job, right?

She hated having a timer on her magic. Two years at the start, months wasted on waiting for a result that wouldn’t change, and now being brought in for a saving mission. That mission that could possibly give her three more years with magic. If he was nice enough, hoping to keep her magic forever was too much to ask from a stranger.

-

Billie was brought back to the group of saviours just one week later. It was early January, everyone had other things to do. Yet these five (we shouldn’t forget the Minister himself included in there), had made it their utmost priority that Bilswith Wright managed to snag that man for herself. Literally. She wished she didn’t have to. Any simple man who would have married her just to have sex, just to have a kid (or not) but fulfil the law just as she needed to, Billie would have taken. She really would, even if it would have brought trauma at first, she would have lived with it.

But here she was with a man that was dead, having to meddle with people, having to talk and discuss things that she wished she didn’t have to, having to pull her man herself, a man that had no idea which world he would fall into and with a law shoved into his face. And he had the possibility of refusing this law. She did not.

This time, for the meeting, Billie hadn’t been sent a small letter with a time and place, with questions or anything. She had been granted the visit of William Weasley himself who apparated her away just as soon as she had put her shoes on.

All to say, she was not willing.

The meeting wasn’t even that useful for her, she could have been sent a letter and it would have been clearer. But here she was, again, in front of people enjoying a room too warm with too many things stacked around, ceilings too tall, and way too many of them in a room that was supposed to only hold a teacher or two, not five whole people standing up and moving around the small table.

This time it wasn’t a pile of papers that littered the table but a single stack, a stack that reminded Billie of the pile of parchment she used to revise her Defence NEWTs in her last years at Hogwarts.

And then she was told of  the most stupid plan she had ever heard, whether it was backed with a number of arithmetics equations or not, it sounded too far-fetched.

“So you believe that he’s not actually dead but unconscious beyond the Veil of Death in the Department of Mysteries?”

“In short, yes.”

“And how is he going to get out of there?”

“In short, you.”

“You think that I will waltz in the depth of the Ministry to enter through a Veil that has been believed for centuries to be a bringer of death of possibly pull out the body of a possibly unconscious but alive Sirius Black because you are sure that I am linked to him through other binds than the one the law just puts me through?”

Minister Kingsley thought for a second. “Yes. That is the plan.”

Head empty, Billie counted the curls of the embroidery on his collar (fifty if she calculated the circumference of the fabric around his neck well).

“Great, just great.” She picked up her bookback and exited the room. “Fuck you.”