For the "How I Met You" challenge, though it's been expanded from the original concept a fair bit!

With the prompts navy, envelope, seal, and "I swear, if I see that once more, I will kill (him/her) resurrect (him/her) and kill (him/her) again! Gah!", which has been changed slightly.

Also for Blue [BlueEyes444], who adores rare pairings, and I've never seen a RegMary before ;)

ReginaldMary [Cattermole]

Spinning

Mary gazes warily around the station, looking for the sign that led to Platform 9 ¾. She doesn't think she will find it – she had been to King's Cross station before, and she had never noticed it. Her robes felt itchy and strange, and a girl passing in the other directed snickers behind her hand, obviously laughing at the weird little girl in the bizarre clothing.

She flushes red and buries her cheeks in her hands, blood bubbling up to her cheeks in a most unattractive way that she cringes at, even at eleven. Oh, how she wishes she could just go home and attend school with her friends, who don't care that she has squished eyes and likes to read and occasionally sets the classroom on fire when she's angry.

"Hello?" A voice sounds near her, and she parts her fingers, keeping her cheeks hidden from view. The source of the voice appears to be a boy around her own age, though he is quite a bit shorter than Mary is. The most interesting thing about him, though, is that his clothing is almost identical to hers. "You look a bit lost. Are you having trouble finding the platform?"

His face is friendly, his smile kind, and she feels herself warming to him already. Later, she would learn that he had this kind of effect on everybody. But now, she simply smiled back shyly, her hands parting a little more. "Are you a wizard too?"

"Yeah," he tells her, glancing back at his parents, who both look very similar to him – friendly, comfortable, and slightly on the short side. "Where are your parents?"

"They couldn't come, so my Aunt dropped me off. She thinks I've won a scholarship to a boarding school in Wales," she explains, dropping her gaze to check that her suitcase is still by her side.

"She doesn't know about magic?" the boy asks in surprise, and Mary shakes her head. "You're a Muggleborn, then?"

"What's a Muggleborn?" she asks, and he begins to explain, taking one hand away from her face and tugging her in the direction of a brick wall that apparently leads to the platform.

Once on the other side of the wall, their luggage piled around them, the boy grins.

"I'm Reginald, by the way, but everyone calls me Reg."

"My name's Mary."

Everything seems to go perfectly from then on. Reg is sorted into Hufflepuff, and she into Ravenclaw, so there's none of the inter-house rivalry stopping them when they finally get together in their fifth year.

He proposes one autumn day, the year after they've left Hogwarts, with the wind from a freezing lake washing over them. She grins and says yes, kissing him with a fierceness she didn't know she had. Afterwards, she blushes as she tries to explain exactly what came over her when she tackled him into the lake.

Life is simple for them: a boy and a girl in love, living in a cottage on the outskirts of a town, with children and chickens and a rainbow of kisses that taste different each time.

"Mummy!" Ellie screeches, glaring fiercely at her brother over the table, who is wearing a smug grin like he's just won something. This expression turns to guilt as their mother turns away from the pot on the stove, a wooden spoon in one hand and her wand in the other.

"Alfred!" she scolds, the wooden spoon waggling in the boy's face. "Were you making that rude gesture again?" Seeing his guilt, she sighs. "I swear, if I see that once more, or have Ellie complain to me about it again, I will kill you, resurrect you, and then kill you again, and you'll never go to Hogwarts! Gah!"

She throws up her hands in irritation as her husband enters the room, his voluptuous beard freshly trimmed. "Long morning?" he asks, kissing her on the cheek. She smiles in spite of herself; though not much to look at, Reg has always known how to cheer her up.

"Are you sure it was a good idea to send Alfie to that school?" Mary asks him in a near whisper, because although she attended a Muggle primary school herself, she definitely didn't remember the children acting this way, and teaching each other that sort of thing.

"He'll be fine," he reassures her, and she has to roll her eyes when Alfred makes the gesture again.

"Alfred!"

After a fairly quiet breakfast – well, there were only two scuffles between Ellie and Alfred, and there was no toast on the ceiling this time, so she counts it as a success – Mary walks Reg to the door. She'll never tell him how worried she is every time he leaves the house to go anywhere, because though Reg's pureblood and none too powerful (and so not a threat to them) the leaders of the current regime doesn't seem to care who they kill.

He kisses her cheek, and she waves him away with a fond smile, Maisie sleeping soundly in her arms like a little angel in pastel blue. So far, Maisie has been the least difficult of the children – she hardly ever cries, and seems content to silently watch the world go by with a blink of her wide blue eyes.

A crack sounds from a few paces away from the door, and Reg disappears in a swirl of navy blue robes and fair hair.

They come for her in the night, a sea of black robes and cruel metal masks that betray no possible hint of humanity. Reg is working late, possibly by the design of those who rule these cloaked men, because evil and the government are synonymous these days.

The front door bursts open with a clang, the back door following shortly, and five strangers enter the cottage, wands pointing at Mary's frantically beating heart.

"Mary Cattermole, 30, Mudblood?" a cold voice asks, and she shudders, leaning away from the source of the voice, only to encounter the heat of a lit wand pressing into her shoulders. She nods silently, and the figure seems satisfied. "Mary Cattermole, you are accused of stealing a wand belonging to a witch or wizard, and impersonating someone with magical blood. Do you plead guilty to these charges?"

"No, I – I'm a witch! I-" she cannot speak any more. The pain racing around her body makes it impossible to speak, white hot knives driving into her skin and twisting like corkscrews, the figure laughing cruelly as she sinks to the floor. The pain stops, slows, though she can still feel her skin tingle as if it is on fire.

"Do you plead guilty?" the man asks, more insistent now, and she sees his hand tighten around his wand.

"I'm a witch, I swear! I went to Hogwarts, I'm a wi-" the pain takes over again, lightning bolts of pain stabbing her repeatedly, again and again and again until she can't think, can't breathe, can't see. Somehow, a single word manages to penetrate her haze of pain, and she looks at the doorway through teary eyes.

"Mummy."

"Alfred!" she cries, her throat so choked and tight that she can't say anymore, but she screams with her eyes for him to run. But he doesn't, he just stands there sleepily, a tiny child in purple pyjamas leaning against the doorway.

"Deal with that," the cold man says, nodding to another of the robed figures who leaps forward, a delighted grin on his face.

"Don't take my children!" she screams, desperate for her children to be safe, because they're far too young to have to face this twisted reality that invades their lives. Looking bored, the icy figure flicks his wand, and she moans as the pain takes over again.

"We won't take your children, if you plead guilty to the charges," the cold man says, as if it is perfectly sensible to sign away your life for something you know you haven't done. But the pain is too great, and Alfred is, is… 'Alfred is in danger!', her mind cries out, and she nods numbly. "Get up, and make arrangements for your children. You will not mention us, and if you do not make arrangements for them, we will be forced to kill your children. Can't have nasty half-bloods running around all by themselves, can we?" he laughs, nudging her with his toe as if she disgusts him.

She stands shakily dread and fear sealing her feet to the floor, and walks towards the newly installed telephone hanging on the wall, four wands following her. The owner of the last wand is occupied with shoving her three children into a corner and standing menacingly over them.

She fumbles with the phone, the hot tip of a wand pointed at her neck, and one wrong word, one sudden movement, and she's dead. She pleads with her aunt in frantic whispers to look after the children, to just take them for the night because she and Reg need some time alone. She wishes that were true – she would far rather be curled up with Reg on the couch than be moments away from certain death, or worse. Mary hates having to lie to her family – though a Muggle, this aunt had always been her favourite – but it's the only way to keep her safe from the knowledge of what is really going on here.

She hangs up the phone and casts a longing look at her three children who are all bundled together in a corner, looking bewildered and scared. She wishes she could hug them, touch them, whisper words of comfort and tell them it's all going to be okay – but she can't. The mass of cloaks turn as one and disappear, taking Mary Cattermole with them.

Days pass, hours of pain that blend into each other until she can't tell them apart except for one previous visit from Reg, her mind going mad with worry and the repeated curses she is subjected to. She is a Muggleborn, a Mudblood, and she is nothing to them. A trial date is appointed for her, a chance to escape – but the shred of hope dies quickly. She will not be allowed to go free.

She sits before them, arms chained to an iron chair like a bird trapped in a cage, shuddering when the Dementors venture too close. She sobs as the lady before her laughs cruelly, calls her a liar, tells her that her children mean nothing.

There is a flash of red, and the lady is silenced, and Mary follows her rescuers in bewilderment, including the one who told the robed men to bring her here, who has apparently changed his mind. Sighting her husband, she clings to him, babbling and crying out her confusion. They need to get home and get their children, she says, but then there's a man who isn't her husband that looks just like him, and a flash of silver light, and an ancient witch in fluid robes speaking in a strong voice that belies her age, and she can't take it all in. She grabs Reg's arm and rushes into the fireplace, feeling the world twist and turn, though nothing can compare to what is going on inside the Ministry walls.

She steps out of the cubicle and turns to him, her hair falling out of its bun, loose strands curling around her ears. "Reg, I don't understand-"

"Let go, I'm not your husband, you've got to home!" the man who should be her husband exclaims, pulling her hand away from his arm.

"I don't-" she starts, but there's a rush of water and she freezes, backing away into the corner. Yaxley, the man-who-is-not-her-husband, and his two compatriots disappear with a crack, and Mary is alone.

September, 2017

Ellie sobs and gathers the sleeping child into her arms. The ground is soft under her feet, the sky a cloudless blue, but her eyes are dulled with tears, as they always are on this day.

She holds the child in one arm and brushes the names carved into the unforgiving stone with her hand, the words burned into her memory after twenty years of coming to this spot.

"Ellie?" Maisie asks softly, fresh-faced and bright at twenty-one. She doesn't fully understand her sister's tears, nor will she ever, being too young to remember their parents beyond a few soothing words and flashes of navy. Still, seeing the gravestone hurts, being reminded of all that the three siblings have lost. First their father, killed for trying to get through a fireplace and reach his wife after the Ministry was sealed; then their mother tortured to death for information regarding those who helped her escape, after it was discovered that Harry Potter and his friends had entered the Ministry and helped the Muggleborns to flee.

Maisie holds out the envelope to her sister, the seal already cracked open and worn from all the times she has opened it in the last few hours.

"Alfie's coming home," she whispers childishly, and Ellie clutches her daughter to her in joy and disbelief. It will be the first time all three of them have been together in ten years, after Alfred moved to Australia to escape the memories, and Ellie married an Irishman straight out of Hogwarts. Maisie stayed in England, never fully understanding, never really knowing how to feel.

"Alfie's coming home," she whispers again, and the world seems bathed in light.

Please review! I adore feedback, and would happily welcome any uggestions or requests you may have =]