Very kindly, perhaps protectively, Miranda’s new husband had stayed overnight after the events of the night before. She’d tried to conceal her distress, not wanting him to worry unnecessarily or think her weak, but Miranda had never been a good liar, and as if without question, Ignan had just not gone back to the castle to his Deputy Headmaster duties. Unintentionally, her spouse’s actions had made her feel feeble; a delicate witch needing protection from her powerful guardian.
He’d been there as support for his distressed wife, she knew that, but it didn’t stop her from wishing he’d not felt the need. She’d have coped without him.

Lying in bed in the darkness, Miranda glanced towards the older wizard sleeping soundly in the bed next to her. She’d wanted to spend more time with him, of course. She hadn’t wanted it to be in these circumstances. His presence in their bed now didn’t solve her problem. In the morning he’d be gone and she’d be coming back to the house alone, fearful of what awaited her.

A quick glimpse at the clock on the bedside table revealed it to be nearly four o’clock when Miranda made her decision. She slipped from the warm covers of the bed where she’d lain awake all night and pulled on the silk dressing gown that had been lying on the floor. The thin layer didn’t do much to keep out the chill but she had no desire to climb back into the warm bed.

Her wand had been under her pillow when she pulled it out and flicked it at the large wooden trunk above the wardrobe. It slipped from the wood and was gently lowered to the floor with a quiet clunk. Ignan wasn’t a light sleeper but Miranda didn’t wish to wake him from his slumber. She knelt down at the trunk, the golden initials MLC glistened in the moonlight. The top was lifted and she went to the wardrobe to begin removing her clothes.

"Are you leaving?" The sleepy voice coming from previously unconscious being in the bed made Miranda jump. She spun around to see the wizard in the dim light, her eyes alert, a pile of dresses slung over her arm.
“Well I can’t stay, now.” She responded, feeling like she’d been caught in the act.

There hadn't really been a question about staying or not that night. Once the aurors were gone, and it was just the two of them - three of them if one counted the house elf - it was a case of warding the house again. Entirely new wards, not elf magic. Not that he could imagine Musgrave would come back the same night unless he had a death wish and was really unhinged. He regretfully had to go back to Scotland and teach a full morning of lessons the next day. Miranda would go to work, it would be alright.

It was late before he made it to bed. Both of them were the sorts to sleep well after busy days, but he was aware of Miranda tossing and turning for a while before sleep found him. Noise, stirred him what felt like a few hours later, and although he identified the movement as Miranda, his wand still found his fingertips.

"It's four in the morning." Ignan protested, sat up in bed, elbows resting on his bent knees, wand resting on the blankets. "He can't drive you out of your own home - where are you going to go?"

As he asked, Gerda appeared with a crack, wild eyed and brandishing kitchen utensils with a menacing grit of her pointy little teeth.
"Gerda, elf - it's alright, stand down." Ignan ordered hastily. Gerda's outstretched arms wielded a whisk, but also a vegetable knife. Made a difference to the frying pan. Irritably, Ignan flicked his wand and the lamps lit enough to illuminate the scene. Gerda dropped her utensils in surprise at Miranda packing.

There was no opportunity to reply to Ignan’s question because a small figure appeared with a crack inches from Miranda, a sharp utensil being branded and pointed at the witch. It wasn’t until Mira had already jumped at the shock of the sudden appearance that she noticed her dressed dropped to the floor and her hands shaking as they had done the evening before.

As Ignan ordered their elf to back down and the small figure became illuminated in the brighter room, it hit Miranda just how shaken she really was. It hit her just how much this wizard breaking in had made her unsure of herself and her safety. Ignan’s words rang in her ears about being driven from her own home and a well of emotion flooded up when they began to ring true.

A hand lifted and clamped over her mouth as wide eyes stared at the elf. A wanted criminal breaking into her home and holding her at wand point had caused her to be scared of a tiny, harmless house elf. It had turned her into a shaking wreck.

It was ridiculous but it was true.

Feeling Ignan’s eyes on her as the emotion hit, Miranda span around to face the wardrobe, closing her eyes tightly to stop any tears. She felt physically sick.

The light lit enough of Miranda's expression before she turned to dispense with the irritation of being woken up. He gestured to Gerda to leave and the elf scooped up the kitchen equipment and popped into thin air, a distant clatter in the kitchen could be heard below them.

Ignan cleared his throat from the bed behind Miranda,
"If you're going to flee," he began softly, "then travel light." There was a pause, his gaze studying what he could see of her packing, "only take the blue and the -"

The older wizard hastily reconsidered the attempt of humour to try and diffuse the situation and rolled out of bed on his wife's side. His bare feet landed on the rug beside the bed and he reached a hand out to her elbow nearest him. She was shaking ever so slightly.

"Miranda, come on now." He extended the offer of physical contact and gestured for them to sit down. "We've not been married a month and you're packing a trunk, talking about leaving over another wizard." He sighed gently. "You're not going to let a tramp get one over on you, whatever he said or did, but it's alright to feel … unsettled."

Inwardly he winced. He was absolutely awful at this - it was as awkward as talking about feelings with teenagers for patronus creation. Worse.
"Where would you feel safer being?"

[M for language]

"If you're going to flee,"  Ignan’s voice now held less irritation, more of a weak attempt at humour. His wife didn’t react. She kept her back turned, eyes closed as she tried to control herself. Countless times before, the healer had been threatened. She’d obviously been scared at the time but had been all too aware of the security at the hospital. She’d brushed the attacks off, putting them down to the risks of her job.
She’d never had her own home and privacy violated before.

The movement behind her announced her husband climbing out of the bed and his hand touched her elbow. She reluctantly turned to see his tired face, struggling to maintain her own calm expression. Showing weakness was not a talent that Miranda had. Even in front of the wizard she’d said her ‘I dos’ to, she wanted to maintain the cool detached and strong persona that she showed the world.

Despite his gesture to sit down, Miranda remained standing, the clothes still at their feet. She shook her head, Ignan didn’t seem to really understand exactly who Musgrave was.

“Unsettled? I’m fucking freaked out. He’s not just a tramp.” She insisted, crossing her arms to stop the shaking being so visible. “He’s a criminal ex auror who’s been messing about with dementors and knows where I live.”

"Unsettled clearly wasn't the word." Ignan replied hastily, more assured. Any sign that he'd been asleep dropping from his voice. "The wards are stronger now, he won't be coming back. Mira." Seeing this wasn't a viable route to discussing it with her, Ignan took a step back, left hand fingertips momentarily rubbing at the tension building between his eyebrows. "Tell me what I can do to help reassure you. I mean, where are you planning to go?"

He gestured at her trunk and the clothes spread around, "You've not answered me that? Were you going back to the cottage? You think if he does come looking for you, it'll be safer to be with your granddaughter and daughter?" There was an edge to his voice that suggested that was more than a terrible idea but a ruddy irresponsible one. If Lawrence Musgrave was coming after Miranda again then Ignan wouldn't hesitate to break his neck.

Taking the words in as Ignan gestured to the mess she’d now made on their bedroom floor, Miranda now began to feel quite ridiculous. All she’d wanted to do was to get out of the house where she now suddenly felt so unsafe. Ignan was more than capable of dealing with it if Musgrave came back, but her husband wasn’t able to stay every night to babysit a worried wife who couldn’t hex a caterpillar.

Evidently the cottage wouldn’t have been safer. If Musgrave had found her here in Ignan’s house, he would easily find her in her own property. She’d not even given her daughter a thought.
Staring at Ignan for a moment in thought, Miranda contemplated her marriage to him. It hadn’t been for his ability to discuss feelings and hold her when she felt down. She didn’t need that. She needed the wizard who considered things logically and looked for a resolution to a problem. He worked to be that resolution.

“You’re right.” And she hated saying it. Her arms were still folded but she lowered herself to sit on the bed. “But in the morning you’ll be gone and I’ll be coming home after work to merlin knows what.” She paused and looked down, “I’m suddenly…acutely aware… that I can’t…that I’m not… that I’m a healer and not a master of defensive magic.”

Just savour that moment, he told himself as Miranda sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. Apparently it was an incredibly rare occurrence to hear a wife say that.

"You are a healer, yes, and a bloody good one. The best I have met in my life." Ignan agreed truthfully, settling down beside her so that her slight shoulder pressed gently into the top of his arm, such was their height difference.

He did not take any delight in seeing Miranda like this. She was a tremendously assertive woman, and he adored her tenacity and command, always very happy to cast aside traditional notions of what a wife should be. Yes, she was rather incapable of defensive spells and hexes, but in a fix, one's own magic sometimes reacted faster than intention. If nothing else, Miranda was physically strong, and had fought Musgrave off before the aurors had arrived, which counted for something.

"Which… is why you're so important, or, at least how I perceived from your explanations to the aurors last night." Ignan narrowed his eyes a little, studying the floor before them. "If you feel a little safer for it, you can always stop the night at Hogwarts instead? Much as I know you hate it." He glanced to Miranda, "I rue leaving you here alone more so. I'm sorry." He reached his arm around her shoulders gently, hand resting flat on the back of her shoulder furthest from him.

"What would you have done to help him, if you had to?" Ignan asked out of curiosity.

Had she not have been so distracted with her worries, Ignan’s suggestions and demeanour would have been very touching. As it was his suggestion wasn’t appreciated and his wife shook her head at the suggestion of staying at Hogwarts. Even a fear of Lawrence Musgrave showing up in their living room didn’t make her want to spend a night more than she needed to at the school.

Despite herself Miranda leant into Ignan as he put an arm around her. He smelt of sleep mixed with lingering aftershave; a smell she’d become accustomed to. A hand was placed on his thigh, “Don’t be sorry. We knew what we were getting into.”

"What would you have done to help him, if you had to?"

Miranda pulled back and looked up into the face of her husband “I was never going to help him. I never will.”

"Good for you." Ignan replied quietly, though he frowned a little, "I was considering your healer's oath, I suppose." His hand on her shoulder moved gently across her dressing gown, his gaze lowered, contemplating.

"You told the aurors he said he could hear dementors? Has he just lost grip on reality, or is that a possibility?"

Ignan's knowledge of dementors was more on fighting them off, attempting to ward properties and treating recent exposure and shock. He'd never come across anyone claiming prolonged exposure. Musgrave had identified that he would need a healer, and he had gone tot he best he knew of, a former classmate, and now Head Healer. If it were something he had control of and knew how to cope with, he wouldn't have done that.

"I can hear them when I'm not with them. The screaming. When I am away from them." Musgrave had near pleaded the night before. Miranda had concentrated hard on the wizard seated before her. She’d heard the screaming herself, she’d heard the voices he’d heard.

“Not just a possibility.” The witch stated, feeling oddly calmer at the chance to genuinely discuss it without being questioned for her own sanity. Ignan took her seriously and wanted her opinion and explanation. The aurors had been more focused on sating the stressed Head Healer and getting out of there. Discussing the situation was calming; it was something she was confident in.
“I heard them myself,” She’d not told the aurors that information. Very few people needed to know the strength of her legilimency.

Dark eyes stared down at the dimly lit floor as she thought over her short journey through the wizard’s mind.
“You know the feeling that possesses you when in the presence of dementors? That chill, the consuming fear that grips your mind and body?” Ignan agreed, letting her continue, “It should pass when they’ve gone. A bit of chocolate and some happy thoughts and you’re ok. Part of the reason dementors were such a powerful device in Azkaban and in the war was because of the lingering effects that extended exposure can have upon the mind.”
The witch glanced back up to her husband, wondering if she was telling him what he knew. She probably was.
“The mind and soul exposed to a dementor is like a virus. The body battles it and within time you heal. Our run in in Norway will have done its damage, but we’ve had the time to heal. The longer and more frequently you come into it’s path, the more damage that will be done, the more the virus takes over and the longer it lingers; no chance to heal.

“Musgrave is cavorting with dementors with a frightening regularity. He’s still reeling from the effects, the virus so to speak. The entire world is now against him; the voices tell him this. That makes him extremely dangerous.”

It was perhaps a little strange to have asked her about dementors and the mind, considering they were sat with dresses on the floor round their feet at 4am on a January morning. However, talking about healing, explaining things to Ignan seemed to be something Miranda took some enjoyment over. The act of doing it allowed her to feel in control, and as far as he could tell, the panic was over being out of control, and at risk. Besides, better to know your enemy.

"I heard them myself." Miranda admitted, and Ignan's eyes widened, surprised. Grief, whatever must that have sounded like. He tried to imagine a moment, and let Miranda continue.

"If he continues?" Ignan asked tentatively, "If the dementors don't kiss him, he'll lose his mind?" He frowned, "they'll be doing us all a favour. Or, the less likely, but rather more unsettling thought is that he figures a way through it. Wizards have controlled dementors before." Ignan shifted a moment, thinking on matters a little further still, "You said he smelled? Not like he's got great resource behind him. He's probably cracked. Turn up in a ditch somewhere and be in with the rest of your dementor patients in a week."

"If the dementors don't kiss him, he'll lose his mind?" Ignan asked. In response, Miranda shrugged, unsure as to the real extent. The morbid wish to study him at the hospital came to her mind. She suddenly found herself wondering why she’d not delved deeper when she’d had the chance. She’d been too scared of him being in their house to focus properly. Fear impeded the legilimency skill unless one was trained to use it under pressure. Miranda was not.

Of the belief that Musgrave didn’t pose any immediate danger to his wife, Ignan suggested the wizard to show up at her hospital having gone loco. Less optimistic than the wizard, Miranda knew there was more to Musgrave and the situation than that.
She shook her head lightly.
“He’s letting them in, Ignan. He wants to control them and he wanted my help to lessen the effect.” The witch stood up from the bed and stooped down to pick up the dresses from the floor. “He told me I’d rue trying to disarm him. He knows where I am and you’re not going to be here every night to scare him off.” A weak laugh escaped Mira’s lips and she shook her head again.

“You know, I got a T in my Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWT.” A thought was added to herself, “Musgrave was in that class.  He got an O.”

Ignan tried hard not to visibly reel over that admission. Troll. Merlin, she might as well not admit she ever studied it past an OWL. He was sure she had a good OWL in it to even study it in the last two years. Anyhow - it was all besides the point.

"An O doesn't mean you're clever, or powerful, or strong." Ignan countered, considering the students in his lessons. The fact you could jump through Ministry dictated hoops and remember facts and wield your wand to a sharp enough degree was not the end-all of being a decent wizard.

"Rather like your new trainee healers with all their NEWTs, you still make mistakes and Musgrave made a mistake breaking in here. He made a mistake to let you in his mind." He watched Mira straighten out the creases of a dress. "Should he find you, it'll be because he wants your help again. So, help him. You're a cracking legilimens, and you hold that over him. Lean on the cracks." He glanced up at his wife, an altogether darker expression crossing his face in the low light, "I'll make this place safe, don't worry, and if he comes near you again, I won't hesitate to break his neck."

There was a slight attempt to not reveal how shocked (or was it horrified?) Ignan was about Miranda’s confession. His attempt didn’t do much to conceal his surprise but his wife didn’t feel the need to explain herself. However, the irony of her marriage to the current Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, wasn’t missed. His was the subject she resented yet was forced to take in order to have her chosen career. Now it was her incompetence in his speciality that had allowed Musgrave to escape and left her reeling in the aftermath.

"An O doesn't mean you're clever, or powerful, or strong." Ignan explained and Miranda disagreed with pursed lips as she placed the dressed back in the open wardrobe. An O in DADA meant that one was more powerful and strong than her. That was all that mattered. Her opponent had been an auror. He was dangerous and she was incompetent.

It was what Ignan said next that surprised the healer. He told her to help Musgrave, to hold it over him. When the darker expression crossed his features, Miranda watched him carefully; she’d seen similar darkness in his eyes before.

“…I won't hesitate to break his neck." The words, said seriously, dangerously, caused Miranda to hake her head.
“You’ll do no such thing.” Her eyes held a threat of her own. “I want to be sat on the wizengamot the day that Lawrence Musgrave gets sent back to Azkaban with no chance of return.” A very tiny part of Miranda also wanted to see the damage he’d do to himself with his attempts to control the dementors. She was probably best not to share that with Ignan.