The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

The Grindyswallow

Remus couldn't get Marjorie Grant out of his mind. Every moment, her face seemed to hover in his mind, those eyes - so exactly like Ned Veigler's - blinking up at him from the photograph in James's file. It seemed that the image had indelibly burned itself into his brain and he couldn't push it out, no matter how many times he squeezed his eyes shut. All he could do was wonder where she was, what was happening to her, if she was okay, if she was alive, and, most urgently, if she was Ned's.

James could feel Remus's anxiousness, and it drove him to work all the harder, pouring over information, watching and rewatching various memories in the office penseive, trying to spot who it was that took the girl in the midst of all the cacophony of the battle at the Ministry of Magic that day. It seemed every witness that had submitted their memories for the investigation was somehow just detached enough that James could get close, but not actually see the face of the man who took Marjorie's hand as her father lay dying on the floor of the Ministry. He could see Grant, laying there prone, and a figure take hold of the girl's wrist and pull her away, even as she shrieked and screamed and tried to get back to the man she knew as her father.

Records showed Grant had met Anne Viegler the year Ned had come to Hogwarts, precisely as the Marauders had guessed. Anne was classified as widowed, and when Xavius Grant had come into her life, she married him near to immediately. Within a year, she was dead - of dark magic undistinguished, the file said. Mungos mediwizards had done their best but an unusual sort of curse had been cast upon her and there'd been no explanation they could come upon, no healing spell or potion, and of course there was no way to bring her back from the dead. So it was that Grant had adopted her daughter and Marjore Veigler had become Marjorie Grant.

James sat at his desk, leaning over the file, his eyes moving across the text of the reports for the hundredth time, searching for any small detail that might unravel the mystery and allow him to go and save the girl, or at least to get some answers for Remus. His eyes hurt from reading the spindly handwriting the forms were written in, and he rubbed his eyes under his glasses, letting out a long, low breath that shook his lungs. He pressed his eyes until he saw red spinning dots and colours, a kaleidoscope of blood vessels and brain cells.

The door opened and James looked up, his eyes readjusting to the light in the office, and saw Mr. Underhill, shaking out an umbrella so that it became his wand again. He took off his hat and hung it up on the coat rack beside the door, then sank into his desk chair.

James waited until Mr. Underhill had settled himself in behind the desk, then he got up and walked over, standing directly across from the auror. Mr. Underhill paused in unfolding the Daily Prophet he had set out before him, James's shadow cast long over the pages. Slowly, Mr. Underhill looked up.

"Yes?" he drawled.

"You said you knew Xavious Grant, yeah?" James asked. When Underhill nodded, he added, "Personally?"

"We went to Hogwarts together, and attended the Auror Training Program together as well. As much as you know Frank Longbottom is about as well as I knew Xavious Grant. Why do you ask?" Underhill leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised as he stared up at James.

"D'you know much about his wife? Anne Viegler?"

"She was a muggle," Underhill replied, "I didn't know her until after Xavious was married to her. She was timid, as most muggles are when they become aware of What We Are."

"The file says she was a widow."

"Yes."

James considered, "D'you know anything about her late husband?"

Mr. Underhill thought for a moment, his eyes becoming unfocused as he processed the question and James could nearly see him sifting through his memories of the muggle woman, searching for anything that might answer his assistant's inquiry. Finally, Underhill replied, "She was always very secretive about her past, she didn't much like to talk about the life she'd lived before marrying Grant. She never changed her name though, in her late husband's honor. Grant was very patient about it, but there were things that seemed to upset her that never quite set right with him. He worried about her. And when she became ill and was in Mungo's, there was one night she had a visitor... Grant and I had worked late and I accompanied him to the hospital, and when we arrived to her room we only just saw the shadow of the man leaving. We never found out who it was."