Chapter Text
Between her English mother (born to a long line of Ravenclaws) and Irish Catholic Muggle-born father (Hufflepuff), Ellen Gallagher's built her life around the principle of keeping it as complication-free as possible. Christmases with batty Nanny Ruth and New Years with aggressively non-Magical Aunt Ailbhe more than fill her yearly drama quota.
So when Department Head Hawley asks her, inadvisably, for an audit of the Auror Office's expenses, she merely smiles tightly and complies.
"I don't believe it!" Meredith Hawley exclaims indignantly ten minutes later in the tearoom, arranging teacups on saucers with unwarranted aggression. "It's the third time, Ell. You need to just speak up and tell Dad you don't want to do it. And no offense, Ell, but it's not even as though you're the best person for the job. For someone who has a NEWT in Arithmancy, you're pants with numbers. He's picking on you, is what it is."
Ellen takes the proffered cup of Earl Grey, blowing on it and inhaling a large lungful of the fragrant steam rising from its surface.
"It's easier to do it than argue," she says placidly. "And you know the only reason he hasn't asked you is because he doesn't want to be accused of nepotism, Merry."
"There are plenty of other people he could ask," her friend huffs. "Like Albus, for example."
"He's even worse than I am," Ellen protests.
"Or Ems."
Ellen makes a face. "You know he's never going to speak to Emmett if he can help it. Poor sod."
"Lucky man," Meredith retorts. "Hell, he could ask James. Or Scor."
"Or Teddy," Ellen suggests, nibbling on a biscuit. "I bet he was thinking of it. Too bad he's in hospital, though."
"Are you going to see him? Tomorrow. On your way from St Mungo's, I mean."
"May as well."
Meredith rummages in her reticule, producing a crumpled packet covered in lint. "Oops."
Ellen takes it gingerly by the corner, squinting at the packaging.
"LUSH," she reads. "That's the hippy Muggle shop? That you can smell for miles?"
"Yeah." Meredith smiles sheepishly. "For Victoire. I know she's having trouble getting away, with the baby and all. But she mentioned how good it smelled last time she was in Muggle London, so I thought I'd get her some bits and pieces."
Ellen lifts the packet to her nose and sniffs.
"You're a dear," she says, tucking it away in her own overstuffed handbag. "Now I haven't got either of them anything."
"Just go buy a packet of gingersnaps," Meredith suggests, laughing. "Mum says they work wonders for morning sickness."
"I'll think about it. Now," Ellen says, dusting the crumbs off her bright turquoise top and spelling her tea-things clean, "I'd better go start work on that audit."
---
Ellen and Merry were the best of friends - had been, since being thrown together at the start of Auror training, two quaintly-dressed young girls "adrift on an ocean of male testosterone" (Ellen had said, in such an arch tone that Meredith had giggled uncontrollably despite not having the faintest clue what "testthingamajiggy" meant). They'd proven themselves eminently competent witches, and the men had discovered to their chagrin that Ellen could outrun not a few of them.
("I actually run," she'd confided to a baffled Meredith. "Muggles consider it a sport." She'd plowed on, ignoring Merry's squawks of astonishment. "I join them on weekends, in the park."
Meredith had come along to one of these "parkruns" and cringed with second-hand embarrassment at all the skin-tight clothing.
"That can't be decent!" she'd exclaimed, averting her eyes from her friend's figure, tightly outlined in something Ellen called "spandex".
"Oh don't be silly," Ell had chided. "Nobody's looking. It's supposed to be aerodynamic."
"Aer-what?"
"Oh, never mind."
"At least now I know where you're going on Saturdays," Merry had joked when she had recovered somewhat, elbowing her friend in the ribs. "I thought you were getting it on with a man."
"Nope. I go for a run and then eat all the calories I've just burnt in cake," Ellen had said, in Mugglespeak that sounded for all the world like gobbledygook to her colleagues who were more firmly entrenched in the wizarding world. "Now. Cake?" she'd asked. holding open the door to a coffeeshop with a large, cryptic green sign.
"You're spending time in public dressed like that?" Merry remembered hissing indignantly. "Have you no shame?"
Ellen, needless to say, had been amused.)
It had been disappointing for them when they were split up after training.
"I bet Dad thought he'd better separate the wild cards, stop the revolution," Merry had laughed, straightening the curtains in their tiny flat.
"He's not being very successful then, is he?"
While Merry's flower-girl clothes and rosy cheeks still aroused the suspicions of some senior staff, there was no denying that she had done some very good work with her new partner, Emmett Yaxley. Ell, for her part, had had the rather unusual experience of being passed around from one partner to another, the victim of the odd number of graduates from their training group and several minor departmental organisations.
"I like James," she'd said rather frankly when they were discussing the issue at a recent staff meeting, then backpedalled. "I mean, I like to think I've gotten on with everyone, but I think we might do with more stability."
And it seemed for the meantime that she'd ended up with James.
---
James reacts with impish amusement to the news that Ellen's been asked to do a financial audit for the third time in less than two years.
"Well, least it's the Auror Office," he says philosophically. "I'd think most of the money goes to wages and St Mungo's. Should be straightforward enough."
"You try doing it," Ellen grumbles. "You'd be surprised at the number of Galleons that go towards stationery. Also, the number of people who think it's perfectly acceptable to put potions for personal use on their expenses."
"You mean, it's not?" he feigns amazement.
She glares at him through slitted eyes, miming choking herself with her necklace.
"Relax," he says, patting her arm. "We're having a lull in any case. Might as well keep yourself occupied, eh?"
"Hmm," she sniffs. "By the way, have you anything for Teddy?"
---
It's on one of those days during the "lull", when Ellen's wearing one of her nicer dresses and making her meandering way from the tearoom, that everything goes tits-up. It starts, really, with a commotion in the hallway outside Minister Potter's office. She goes for a look, still clutching her tea, and finds herself carried on the crowd. There's the sound of china shattering and she finds herself quite abruptly before an admittedly handsome man, looking like a befuddled Muggle in a red pinstriped shirt and jeans.
Being definitively deprived of her ten-o'-clock caffeine hit (and a very nice bit of china besides) makes her cranky, and she later admits to being on more or less her worst behaviour when she meets Arthur Stewart.
---
Destiny has a sense of humour.
When Arthur comes back, he's twenty-seven years old. He's done his time in Afghanistan, come back beaten and bruised with a scar on his left shoulder, and not fighting is beginning to sound like a really attractive career option when -
He really couldn't tell you how he'd got there. Sallied forth into the Minister of Magic's office without so much as a by-your-leave, all the building's defenses peeling away to let him in.
There's a tall, gangly man in the corner with shockingly green eyes and jet-black hair like a birds' nest upon his head, and he goes "Oh".
Someone asks who he is. He says, "Arthur," and he means Arthur, yes, Arthur James Stewart, born 1986. It's the right answer but it comes out wrong, like another Arthur altogether - someone not quite from this world.
It takes what feels like seconds for him to be swarmed by a small army - hah, it's not Afghanistan any more, get the war metaphors out of your head - of quaintly-dressed men and women, brandishing sticks and poking and prodding. He doesn't quite know what they plan to do to him with a bunch of twigs; Her Majesty's government hasn't got people working on personal WMDs, have they?
Then the layers of people fall away abruptly and he's faced with a small woman, auburn-blonde and lily-pale, less oddly-dressed than the rest.
The man - who is still in the corner, watching - heaves a palpable sigh of relief.
"Thank Merlin you're here," he says. Merlin? Really now. Who do they think they are, wizards in a play? He'd just been heading out to revisit a coffeeshop he'd used to haunt as a student, and now he's god-knows-where and his day is only getting weirder. Why won't the stupid universe just give him a break?
The woman shrugs and approaches Arthur like he's some sort of timid animal. Well. She seems nice enough, and he doesn't know where he is, and she doesn't have a stick. Arthur thinks he'd better make nice.
"Sorry, um. Sorry. Just, d'you know where I am? Because I was just heading to Picadilly Circus and - " he spreads his fingers where his hands are clasped quite firmly on his knees, and there's a little bit of a twitch there still - oh. Her eyes zoom in on it like she knows what to look for.
"This isn't it," he finishes lamely. Nothing ever goes to plan, now does it?
"You're in the Minister's office," the lady answers, and he'd like to say she does it like she expects him to understand, but no.
She says it because she knows he won't.
And that gets him angry, the sort of seething primal rage that's the reason he's alive, and -
"If you had a gun, you would pull it on me." She enunciates the words, fluid like honey and frigid like ice, and the combination unsettles him. She goes on. "Would you pull the trigger?" she asks, watching for his reaction, and there's no fear in that gaze, no repulsion; merely beady-eyed academic curiosity. The entire thing is wrong.
"Look," he grits out, voice harsh. "Don't ask questions like that when you haven't the faintest idea what it's like, when all your battles are fought for you by men who sweat and bleed and die - you've never had to pull a trigger to save your own life." He knows he's shouting.
The lady inclines her head, just barely.
"No, I've never pulled a trigger," she admits, with a curl to her lip that's entirely inappropriate. "But guns aren't the only way. I notice you don't mention crying. Some of that's good once in a while, you know?"
She says it like she knows, and he doesn't know what to make of that. Of course he's heard of women murderers, but in all honesty he can't really contemplate the idea. He re-evaluates: Probably not a murderer, no - police? All wrong again, both for women in general and for her - she doesn't seem the type, too petite and fussily dressed (a pearl necklace, really?).
"I can see the wheels turning in your head, love," she observes, amused. "I'm your average Ministry employee. Nothing to write home about, here. Moving on."
The woman's turning now, to the bloke in the corner, and she goes, "well?"
He shakes his head.
"I can't explain it. Of course there's the matter of how he got in, the wards don't let just anyone do that - but. I can see him." His eyes open wide like saucers as if to get the point across. "He's something else."
She frowns, seeming to understand something from that exchange. Arthur remains baffled.
"Arthur," she says carefully, like picking over pieces of broken glass. "Arthur, love. We need to try something. I promise it won't change anything - I just want to put a little bit of magic in you and see what happens, all right?"
"Magic," he croaks. "You're having me on," he decides. This was a dream. Maybe he was still asleep in the barracks, dreaming about what he'd do when he actually got back to London. It wasn't as though that didn't happen only every other night. This had to be just an especially vivid dream.
"No-oo..." She looks concerned. "No-one in your family's magic, are they?"
"I think I'd know about it."
Some of the people in the room smile wryly. "You'd be surprised," someone mutters, and someone else hisses a little frantically about a "Statute of Secrecy". Arthur is a little too stunned to catch whom it is.
"I don't suppose you'd take my word for it?" the woman tries. "Oh. Well. I s'pose not, then. Does anyone have a glass, or a bottle or something?"
The man in the corner comes forward and hands her a mug off the stack on the desk. She produces one of those sticks from her pocket.
"Okay, this is empty, see." She waves it under Arthur's nose; the brown tea stains running up the insides make him cringe. "Aguamenti," she says, tapping the rim with her stick. A stream of water flows out of it and fills the cup before his very eyes.
"W-what's that?"
"Just water. Wouldn't advise you to drink it, but you know. You could."
"No, I mean." He waves frantically. "The stick! Why does it do that? How does it do that? Have twigs always done that and I've just not noticed?"
"My wand? They channel magic. And they're not sticks. They've got very powerful stuff in them."
"What sort of stuff?" he asks suspiciously. He wouldn't put it past Her Majesty's Government to be secretly working on really tiny, really powerful 3D printers.
"Oh, like - unicorn tail hair, phoenix feathers, that sort of thing."
"Unicorns are real?!"
"Yes," she says patiently. Arthur catches on that the patience is feigned when she continues. "Would you like to continue this Magic 101 at some other time? Maybe make an appointment? I'm free Wednesdays. No, really, I'd like you to understand, it'd be rather unethical if you didn't, but this is kind of urgent."
"You want to put magic in me. Forgive me if the idea makes me slightly apprehensive."
"It won't hurt, cross my heart. You'll still be you, just. You know, I push the magic out towards you, it sticks around for a little while, it disappears."
"What's the point, then?"
"Oh? Right! Um. Jamie here - James Potter, Minister Potter's eldest son - can see magical auras. I imagine it's very distracting."
The dark-haired man from before fairly beams, striding across the room to shake Arthur's hand. It's gentle but firm, but he's got fairly sweaty palms - Arthur supposes that's a character study all on it's own. "Sorry we forgot to introduce ourselves, just, it's all very interesting, you know? Look, Ellie's excited - Ellie's never excited."
The lady - Ellie? - raises a slender eyebrow.
"I didn't think you'd want to know. Ellen Gallagher, at your service." There isn't a trace of irony in her words. "If you're what Jamie seems to think you are, I will be. But getting back to the point. Jamie here should be able to tell what happens to the magic while it's in you. Nothing much does, usually, but we're thinking you might be special."
He raises an eyebrow. "And why is this?" Not that he isn't used to people expecting him to be special, somehow, but it hasn't really happened in a while.
She shrugs. "Let's just say there's something about you."
"I can't quite put my finger on it," Jamie chimes in.
" - But there is," Ellen finishes. "In the name of scientific curiosity if nothing else?"
"Fine," he spits, resigned, standing and settling into his prototypical military posture, as though the thought of going to war could make him feel any safer. He's surprised to find it almost does. It's been his life for the past two years and everything before is starting to fade into the background - what do most people even do after graduating from uni? He doesn't actually know.
He's not prepared when a surge of warmth blooms into his body, almost like a reaction to a lover's touch, entirely out of place in this glaringly public setting. It localises in his shoulder and it feels like something clicks into place. He has the strangest urge to throw off his coat and top and see if the scar is still there, because he knows how he'd been hit but just now, it doesn't feel like it'd ever happened.
Jamie's green eyes are so wide they're probably in danger of bulging out of his head.
"Ell! Merlin - no, that shouldn't be possible, he shouldn't - Ell, his body took your magic and used it."
He looks thunderstruck, and Ellen mildly curious. "Is any of it still there as just magic?" she wants to know.
Jamie frowns. "Lemme see - yes. But, oh. Ell. It doesn't look like yours at all. It has to be - he'd no magic when he walked in, but it looks like your magic decided it belonged to him."
There are probably far-reaching implications to that that Arthur's missing, but the only thought he can hold on to is, he has magic. In his flesh, and apparently somewhere else in him that he's not conscious of.
"You said it wouldn't change anything," he hears himself say, flat and almost accusing.
"In fairness, nothing in current magical knowledge that we're aware of indicates that it would've," Ellen replies, sounding as absent as he feels. "Oh, this is brilliant." She skips on the spot in excitement. "Oh, Jamie. Tell Mr Potter, won't you? I'm going to send this poor man home, he looks like he needs it."
---
Arthur wakes up alone in his one-room flat to half a dozen text messages from old friends demanding to know why he'd missed pub night.
"It's just a dream," he tells himself, over and over.
And he can almost believe it - except his shoulder doesn't hurt and, for the first time since his mother died, someone had tucked him in.