WHO: Adrian Mattias and Maggie Brand
WHAT: Adrian gets an interesting letter before the wedding
WHEN: Sunday afternoon



Adrian couldn’t tell which emotion exactly that was making his body shake, but it was, and it felt like he couldn’t think or breathe correctly because of it. How could Maggie not tell him about this? What-- was she planning on never telling him? What did it--- was this a joke? He didn’t understand and it was mere minutes before their wedding was supposed to begin. She had never said a word, an inkling--- his legs felt stiff and like jelly as he walked quickly through the back hallways of the church.

She would tell him. Maggie would clear up this confusion. But he had to know now. With his free hand, Adrian banged on the door in front of him, not stopping until it opened. He watched the smile fall from Odette’s face once she realized it was him, and felt Tony nervously bounce behind him but he paid no mind to either of them.

“What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously, obviously keen on keeping the door ajar. Without a word Adrian shook his head and reached to force the door open enough to slide through. It took less of an effort than he thought it would, or perhaps he wasn’t controlling his strength like he usually did. Nonetheless, he did not care and did not respond to the no doubt reaction of the rest of the room conveyed at his appearance.

“What do you think you are---”

Adrian completely ignored his sister, pushing by her as his eyes focused on the only one in the room dressed in white. Her pure beauty, amplified to the point where if it were any other moment would have stopped him dead, did not shake him. In fact, it made his heart wrench even more. Still clutching the contents of an envelope slipped under his door not five minutes ago, he reached and gripped Maggie’s wrist sternly.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, his brow furrowed and his mouth formed into a hard frown.

She would not have described her feelings toward her impending nuptials as excited. Maggie was very happy, yes, she loved Adrian more than she could possibly try to explain, but her nerves and anxieties had gotten the best of her during the final countdown of days. Being married was not something she had ever dreamed about, she hadn’t been planning her wedding since she was a little girl...it had all been sprung on her, the moment Adrian Mattias stepped on the Magpies’ pitch more than a year ago.

Maggie tried to ignore the bits of their past that were unsavory, but the reminders that their entire relationship had been developed on a lie kept popping up. Josef looked so much like his real father that it made her chest ache, and when she spotted pictures of Adrian with the baby in magazines she felt her conscience grow weary. She had to keep telling herself it was better for all of them, to keep things how they were. Braith had gone to extreme measures to warn her of how he would react to revealing the truth behind Josef’s parentage, and Maggie had been rattled since. She used planning for the wedding and quidditch as a distraction, but if she seemed exhausted it wasn’t because of all the errands she was running. Her nervous mind kept her up at night, coming up with circumstances of how Braith could ruin their day.

Staring at the mirror of the vanity she was sitting in front of, ignoring Odette’s words from behind her, Maggie stared at her reflection. It was the calmest she’d felt in weeks, but she still had to get down the aisle. Security had been tight, so she was only slight concerned of the flowers bursting into flames because of some spell. What if he’d turned their rings into a portkey like he did her broom? What if he was waiting for the priest to ask if anyone objected?

Hearing Adrian’s voice burst her out of her stream of worry and Maggie turned, her face full of concern. She had no time to ask him what was wrong when he snatched her wrist, and she knew it was bad. He’d never grabbed her like this, and the look in his eyes was---she’d never seen Adrian like this. Maggie felt her heart drop into her stomach and she kept her mouth shut as she nodded at Odette to leave them alone. She knew her friend wouldn’t want to, but finally the door shut and she was alone with her fiance.

“Let go of me first,” Maggie said, trying to keep her voice even. She tugged on her wrist to pull away, standing so he wasn’t completely towering over her. Maybe he was just nervous, maybe he wanted her to convince him that this was the right thing to do. That happened, right?

Adrian immediately unclenched his hand from her wrist--- he hadn’t meant to hold it like that--- he hadn’t realized he had been--- and placed it back to his side. But that didn’t--- he struggled in the next moment, fully taking in his wife-to-be’s face. What was--- did she know what he was going to say before he said it? Was that recognition or confusion? He couldn’t tell, he felt so in the dark about what was going on that the fact that this might or might not be true was lost to him. His brain felt thick, like it was unable to think for itself until Maggie--- until she talked to him.

He shook his head, refusing to look back down at his hands. He did not want to see physical evidence as to these burning and aching spasms gnawing through him. It just didn’t make sense. How could it--- it couldn’t be true, because she would have told him. Maggie would have told him in the beginning, made him aware of this threat to their family if any of it held merit. But her immediate reaction disturbed him. If it wasn’t true, then what was she so clearly perturbed about? If it wasn’t true, who would play such a nasty prank on them? Adrian was the first to admit that he never understood English humor (among other things), but this did simply not sit right.

He just did not---- understand.

“I found--- someone put this under the door,” Adrian started, his tongue feeling swollen and dry in his mouth. Jerkily, his balled hand rose to produce a few crumbled pieces of parchment and news clippings. “A few minutes ago.” His hand felt sweaty and tight as he as easily as possible (which meant probably not at all) handed them to her.

“I do not understand,” he stated finally and waited for her to explain that it was a complete misunderstanding. He was not translating right, his brain had temporarily forgotten English. Maggie had not kept the truth about Josef’s real father from him, because she would have told him. She would have told him before now. She would have told him that this man, Braith Selwyn, was the reason behind her kidnapping, and why she had let the press believe he was Josef’s father instead. She would not have done that to him. She would have told him from the beginning, as he did with her, everything that was important to know.

Maggie slowly flipped through the pieces of parchment, feeling her breaths get shorter as her eyes scanned the pages. This was the last thing she had been expecting Braith to do, it was exactly what he had threatened her not to do. Her eyes watered as a copy of Josef’ birth certificate read clearly who his father was, only to be attached to a news article about the break-in at Braith’s flat. Maggie had made sure that the reports removed her name, she had made sure to separate herself from the man she used to know.

She couldn’t look at Adrian. She couldn’t bear to be the one that was causing him so much pain. Her eyes moved away from the parchment and to the sparkling of her wedding dress...Braith didn’t want her to have any kind of happiness, did he? Maggie knew she had to live in fear that he would one day decide to take Josef as his own, and now she wasn’t allowed to start a family without the deranged death eater. That had to be it, right? There was nothing she could do now, she couldn’t deny the facts when Adrian had them right in front of him, blaringly obvious that she had been keeping a very important and dangerous secret from him.

Her breath hitched as her hands started to shake. She wanted to lie and tell Adrian that Braith had been threatening her since the beginning, but it was really her own embarrassment that had kept the information from him in the first place. The kidnapping just laid the final nail into her chest of secrets, and she could no longer continue to add to it.

“He---he left us alone at first and I thought...” Maggie tried to keep her voice even, but it was becoming tremendously hard, “But after I was taken he...he said he’d kill you if I told and..” Finally, she mustered enough strength to look up at him. Maggie just felt her heart break even more, “How could I risk that?”

Adrian stared at Maggie, just stared, because after she finished, he couldn’t muster anything else. He stood, unable to think of what to say. In fact, it felt like his body and mind had completely shut down. Before there had been some shocks of anger, and confusion in a muddled kind of way, but now there was nothing. It just--- his chest suddenly felt barren and heavy. There were other things, so many other thing that were coursing through him, but he couldn’t bring himself to react. Her words had sent a deafening death to what little hopes he had been harboring, and there was no escape from it.

He just--- he struggled to believe his ears. Maggie. Maggie. His wonderful, perfect, beautiful Maggie that always knew the right thing to say and act had done this. Not even--- Adrian didn’t care about Josef’s real father, he didn’t care that Maggie had been with him, any of that. What hurt the most was her resolution to keep this secret, this huge, potentially fatal secret because she couldn’t risk it? His life? That wasn’t--- how could she not tell him? There would be no them either way.

Adrian’s face finally changed from its stoic expression to form a painful, furrowed brow. Us? Us? How could she say ‘us’ when he had never been included? She had lied, she had purposely kept the truth from him. About the safety of her, the safety of Josef-- himself! That wasn’t something you did. And to find out like this? Adrian’s breath began to pick up, his chest sinking and quickening as he wrestled with his thoughts.

How could they carry on with the wedding after this? He couldn’t--- Adrian couldn’t walk out of this room to wait for her at the altar, and look at her the same way he knew he would have if none of this had happened. He wouldn’t be able to do it, look at her the same, feel the same.... that was not how you started the first day of your marriage.

He had never, for a second from engagement, doubted there would be anything that would stop them from getting married save Maggie’s unwillingness. But now... he felt like he didn’t know her; he didn’t know the woman before him. Even as he continued to look her in the eye, his gaze never leaving her face, he had never felt so lost when before he would look at her to be found.

“I can’t believe you,” he spoke finally, his throat dry. Finally, with effort, he broke his gaze and looked down to their feet. “I can’t--- I just can’t.”

He can’t--he can’t what? Maggie felt her heart begin to pound harder and harder by the second, her breaths cutting short. Can’t what? Can’t believe her, he couldn’t believe that---he had to believe her! She was sorry, she was so sorry but---she had thought they were fine why---why bring him into something so terrible, she wanted to make Adrian as happy as he made her so why would she bring him into her mess?

Except she did, she had brought him into it, the second he kissed her and she kissed him back. Maggie had no idea at the time that she would want to marry the man standing in front of her but allowing him to take on the role of Josef’s father should have---she should have never---she had been so selfish, everything had been about her.

“Adrian,” she choked out, putting a hand to her chest, finding that it was getting harder to breathe. No, no, he had to believe that she hadn’t meant to hurt him, she had thought they were fine, she had thought Braith wouldn’t hurt them! Maggie’s eyes stung with tears, and she didn’t know what she was feeling. Guilt? Fear? Regret? “I didn’t---I didn’t---”

She didn’t what? Realize that the father of her child was a death eater, and was too bloody embarrassed that she was an absolute idiot for it? She didn’t want people to think she was some dumb quidditch slut because she wouldn’t reveal the father’s name? She didn’t think she and Adrian would go further than just faking a relationship so she hadn’t bothered to open up completely? She didn’t want to tell him the truth after they got engaged because she was terrified that he wouldn’t love her anymore? Maggie put her hand to her head, wanting to desperately touch Adrian, thinking that maybe touching him could give her some strength, but she couldn’t bear to be shoved away so she backed into the vanity behind her.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, dropping her hands in a pitiful manner. Part of her wanted to try and explain, but the part of her that had grown up because of Adrian told her that this was no time for excuses. Maggie felt a desperate, painful kind of miserable as she realized that she had to accept her mistake if she wanted any chance of repairing the damage, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never---I didn’t think, I---I love you,I never meant for anything---I never meant to hurt you!”

He wanted to take in everything she was saying to him, he truly, honestly did. Because then, if he took it all in and accepted it, then moving forward from this unrealistically painful place where they were now was viable. But it just didn’t seem possible, something he could achieve in this short of time. It was too much, too much to handle at such an important time to be.... doing this. Too much, too much.... it felt like his heart had been shattered, and there most certainly wasn’t enough time to piece it all back together.

At that moment, Adrian wished he was holding something in his hands again to distract his inner conscious. But there wasn’t, which made it all the more nastily obvious he had nothing else to focus on but what he knew he had to eventually say to her. Wasn’t there anything else? He almost wanted to think of something she could say that would make him feel better, but he knew there wasn’t. There was... nothing she could say, now.

“I know,” Adrian mumbled, unable to look at her. He believed she was telling the truth, if that was anything. “But it doesn’t change what you did,” he finished lamely, his fingers now weaving into each other in a sad attempt to help deal with the agony coursing through him. He didn’t want to speak, he didn’t want to say anything to her. And yet, he did at the same time, Adrian had so many things he could say to her, but knew none of it was going to be voiced.

“I love you, too, but---” he began to breathe heavily, finding it very difficult to speak out loud what he was finding hard to admit to himself. “I can’t--- I do not think---” It was too hard to say, Adrian didn’t want to say it to her. It felt just as wrong as not saying it straight out, but would it hurt her less? He didn’t know.

Adrian continued to grapple, eventually forcing himself to speak again purely to put a stop to the deafening silence between them. “I think I should go,” he spoke quietly, staying firm with his decision to look at the ground instead of her. “I’m sorry. I cannot--- do this right now.”

His words struck her straight through the chest. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her ears, and her entire body went numb. Maggie couldn’t move, she couldn’t unclench her hands from one another, she couldn’t push herself away from the vanity and after him. Breathing was a difficult task, her head felt dizzy after a what felt like an eternity of not taking a breath.

She felt a strangled sound come up her throat as she watched Adrian open the door and disappear. Maggie felt as if all her emotions, her guilt, sadness, fear, and anger had wrapped around her chest, constricting each breath and had tied its unbreakable knot once Adrian left the room. She couldn’t hear Odette’s exclamations of concern, she couldn’t look her friend in the eye because she was so ashamed of herself. Maggie knew that it was her stubborn, stupid pride that had gotten her to this point, into this mess, and while she felt the overwhelming desire to drop to the floor and cry, she couldn’t. She didn’t deserve to. This was all her fault and for the first time in her life Maggie was going to take on the consequences.

“Tell them it’s over,” she mumbled to Odette once she grew near. Maggie pulled out the pins holding her hair up, and then her hands frantically moved to the necklace that suddenly felt like it was choking her. It snapped easily and she thrust it onto the vanity behind her. “Tell them---thanks for coming.”

Maggie shook her head as the questions began to fly, and she muttered ‘excuse me’ as she started out the same door Adrian fled through. Part of her ached to go find him, but she knew it would only hurt more to try and make him stay. She just needed to get away from here and out of this dress. Her lovely, beautiful dress that was now ruined beyond repair.