Who: Dedalus Diggle and Eliza Alderton
What: Fights and secrets
Where: Their flat
When: This morning



Dedalus wasn’t quite sure how he had been able to sleep that night. Actually, he wasn’t even sure if he had. There was a good chance that he had just laid there all night, thoughts whirring around in his head, making it impossible for him to completely relax. He kept thinking about what had happened with Ralph, about what was going to happen for his best friend now that he was no longer Ralph Merridew. Technically, he was no longer the same person he once knew. True, he had the same face, and the same personality, but that was it. Everything else had changed for his friend, and it was all done to try and keep him safe. They took away his name, his friends, his memories, just to protect him.

How many more times were they going to have to do that? How many other people were going to have everything stripped away from them so that Voldemort and his followers wouldn’t find them, and kill them? Was it just going to be his best friend? He could deal with doing this to other people, as selfish as that sounded. He didn’t know these people, he didn’t know their loved ones or their friends, or their history. But he knew Ralph’s. He knew what he was taking away, and it hurt. It pained him more than anyone could know, to see his friend and his loved ones suffer. He wanted to tell everyone he was alright. He wanted to give them a heads up that he was alive, that he was starting a new, safe life. But he couldn’t. Because that could ruin everything. They would all want to see him, and then it’d make it easier for the Death Eater’s to find him, by tracking down his friends. It just wasn’t an option.

He opened his eyes to look at the clock. 4:30am. It felt like he had been laying there for an eternity, but it had only been an hour or so. Dedalus kept getting up every now and then to pace around, or try and read a book to make himself tired. Nothing was helping though. It was useless. So, he dragged himself back to bed, and just decided to close his eyes, and wait until a reasonable time to ‘wake up’. In other words, he’d wait for Eliza to get up, and would then try and act like he had gotten a full night’s sleep, like nothing was wrong. He had to act like that, because she was already against his decision. Even if she never said it right out front, he knew she was. He didn’t even have to get into her head to figure that out.

Once he felt her shift beside him, and heard her footsteps moving into the other room, he waited for a few moments and then followed her lead. They didn’t say much to each other, but just went about their morning routines. It was rare for them to be up at the same time, since he had very strange work hours, but he had taken a day off, despite Mungo’s being extremely short staffed. While he was completely dedicated to his work, he knew he’d probably wind up accidentally killing someone if he wasn’t concentrating on what he was doing.

He didn’t bother to get dressed or anything, and just sat on the couch in the living room, staring at the wall while she got ready to go…somewhere. He hadn’t even bothered asking her where she was off to. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. There was too much going on in there. So, he gave her a kiss and watched her leave, now having the apartment to himself. He moved back into the bedroom and laid down, resting his head on the pillow with his arms tucked underneath it, watching the fan spin overhead, feeling his exhaustion catch up with him.

God, this was the worst…

She did not feel at all guilty for going against everything Dedalus had told her to do.

Eliza pushed the key back into their flat's lock with relative ease, feeling like the twenty tons that had been resting on her shoulders for the past two weeks were now lovely breezes floating about her. Breakfast with Miranda had been quick and---no, not quick, they cried for a lot of it, but after the initial shock of everything wore off, things were---good. Eliza was sure she'd never had such a good conversation with the girl before, and with the ideas already swirling in her head with how to help, Miranda would and could be happy once again, and it was all because of her.

Smiling at the thought (and thinking about tomorrow, when she was going down to the Ministry to further help out her friend with her future endeavors), Eliza pushed the door open and dropped the keys onto a side table. She didn't hear Dedalus moving about, and hoped that it meant he'd finally been able to sleep. Eliza was the lightest of sleepers; she knew that her boyfriend hadn't been able to get rest that night, because neither had she. Before now, before seeing Miranda's face light up with a new sense of purpose, Eliza had been fighting off the guilt and worry that telling her Dedalus' plans for Ralph would be tremendously horrible, but now.

Eliza had never felt so proud of herself.

She moved quickly through the flat, dropping her bag and shawl onto the back of the couch, and she pushed the door of their bedroom open, standing in the door frame. Eliza's eyes examined Dedalus' lying form with a solemn smile, and she tilted her head. He wasn't asleep.

"Do you want something to eat?"

No, he wasn’t asleep. Unfortunately. Still in the same position he had been in since she left, he opened his eyes and looked at her. She looked a lot calmer than she had when she left, but then again both of them had been pretty tense since he had brought Ralph into their home that night. He didn’t blame her for being uptight, worried, and upset about the situation, but he really wished she just…supported him on what he had done. What the Order had done.

“Not really hungry…but I’ll eat if you are.” He shifted his arms so that he could rub his face with his hands, and then swung his legs around so that he could sit at the edge of the bed. His neck moved one way, and then the other, hearing the bones crack, relieving some of the pressure that was building up there. His muscles were all tense, there were dark rings beneath his eyes, and he probably looked as though he hadn’t eaten in a few days…which was rather accurate, seeing how he hadn’t. There wasn’t any time to eat. There wasn’t any time to do anything but work, and get things set up for his friend. The Order did a lot, and he wasn’t working alone, but he felt a little more responsible for him. Like, he had to put his all into making Ralph as safe as humanly possible.

Rising to his feet, he moved over to the door, and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “So, where’ve you been?” The question was asked innocently, not as though he were trying to get anything out of her.

She really hated seeing him this tired. Eliza wasn't very good at handling stress and she wasn't even directly involved with the whole Ralph situation. She couldn't possibly form any rational idea of how deeply Dedalus was feeling about this, with Ralph being his best friend, with the secrets of the Order---she wasn't even going to try and say she really understood, but she could do the best she could to make everything better.

"Elliot needed me to watch Liam for a few hours, those new rules about underage halfblood kids--he hasn't found a new sitter." Eliza was certainly surprised at how easily the lie slipped off her tongue, but it could have been that she had been practicing it in her head since she decided last night to meet Miranda. She rarely went against rules, so when she did her mind needed to focus and plan on it as much as she possibly could. "But his neighbor got back, so."

A smile crossed her face. As long as Miranda didn't do anything stupid (which she was sure she wouldn't, Eliza had never seen the girl more serious in the entire seven years she'd known her), everything would be fine. And then--things could get back to normal. Or something like normal.

"I feel like I should offer to watch him all the time, but---Elliot would actually take me up on that, I think."

It was strange, that she hadn’t ever mentioned that she was going over to watch Liam. Usually she told him in advance so that he knew where she was going, but…well, maybe she was so used to just leaving while he wasn’t there that she didn’t think about saying anything. That was probably it. So, with that in mind, he gave her a smirk. “Well…you never know. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, seeing your nephew every day, woul-…”

It was then that he had a burst of noise rush through his head. He shook it off, raising a hand to rub at the back of his neck, hoping she wouldn’t notice. His mouth opened to speak again, but the sound just came rushing back. He heard women crying, he heard Eliza’s voice, and then? Then he not only heard, but saw the face of Miranda Dodderidge in his mind. His eyes blinked, currently not focused on her, but on the ground between them.

She wouldn’t have…right? She wouldn’t have told her where he was. But then why did she lie about it? Why didn’t she just tell him where she really was? It was definitely that day, since more and more images and sounds from their morning meeting were now flowing freely into his head. He tried to make them stop, but it wasn’t until he heard Eliza’s voice utter that location did he finally snap his attention back to her, his face looking solemn.

“You weren’t at Elliot’s, were you?”

Seeing as she didn't lie often, Eliza wasn't accustomed to the idea of getting caught in one, therefore her expression at his accusation wasn't neutral and confused, but quite shocked that Dedalus had called her out on a quite believable lie. She'd been babysitting a lot since school ended, her brother needed the help, he was near hopeless without his wife and--

"--why would you say that?"

In all other instances, Eliza would have let the guilt arise and bubble over into a tearful apology and revelation, but there was no reason to doubt her and if---if Dedalus was taking out his bad mood on her, after it was him and the Order that had given Ralph this final solution to his problems then...no. She was not going to take any sort of attitude about it, she had a feeling that he was aware about how she felt about everything, but she was allowed to think those things, she wasn't a member of the Order.

Feeling a flash of rare anger, Eliza's hands went to her hips, "Why would you say that, Dedalus?"

Honestly, Dedalus was quite sure that before now there had not been one time where he just wanted to be as far away from Eliza as he could be. Not only because his emotions were flaring up, but because he wasn’t able to answer her without giving away yet another secret that she was never supposed to know about. But, he was stuck there. He wasn’t able to move, and he had to just deal with her asking him those questions, and try to think of some way to tell her that he knew she was lying to him, that he knew she had told Miranda when he had specifically told her that it was something that couldn’t be done.

But she went and did it anyway. She didn’t even seem to care.

“If it’s the truth, then convince me that you were really at your brother’s. Tell me that you were there, and that you weren’t having a nice chat with Miranda Dodderidge, Eliza.”

The words were spoken with a hint of bitterness, but it could also be considered a plea of some sort. He wanted her to tell her that she was at her brother’s. He wanted her to tell him that she hadn’t been anywhere near Miranda, but he knew that she had. He just wished he didn’t.

She could not honestly believe this. He had--he'd, "You followed me?"

Eliza let out a scoff that was nearly identical to that of the girls in her Gryffindor dorm, a sound she wasn't used to letting out herself. She could not fathom that Dedalus had actually gotten up, followed her, somehow---knew where she had--no, there was no way he could have. Eliza may have just ruined her own lie, but now her eyes were widening with confusion and she moved away from Dedalus and toward the kitchen, holding her hand up.

"How did you know that, Dedalus!" she was already caught, he was already going to be mad, so she might as well attempt to figure out how the hell he had figured her out with just--he just looked at her? Did he not trust her at all? Of course she had gone out and told Miranda, but that was weeks after she had kept her mouth shut about the terrible things the Order was doing, and now he would decide to not trust her.

She didn't make it three steps before she turned back to face him, face quite red and expression hard. She couldn't even think about the fact that she was in the wrong here, not when Dedalus was up to something, not when there were more secrets to find out.

“So you’re admitting to it then?!”

He didn’t even bother trying to answer any of her questions. He was too focused on the original conversation that they had been having. Along with the fact that he already pissed off, a headache was forming near his temples. This entire situation was just getting worse, and worse. He thought that after last night, things would go a little bit smoother. He thought that after Ralph was finally settled in, he could sit back and breathe for a moment. But he couldn’t. Now he had to worry about Miranda. Now he had to worry about what she was going to do, or who else she might tell. It didn’t matter how much he trusted her, or how much he cared about her, because he did, but he couldn’t take that risk. He thought that Eliza would understand that, but…she didn’t.

“You went, and you told her everything, didn’t you?” His blood was boiling beneath his skin, feeling completely frustrated, angry, and…betrayed. She had gone behind his back, and she had done something that was bigger than she realized. “She wasn’t supposed to know! No one was supposed to know! I told you this, I explained the severity of the situation to you, and you still went and you told her! And not only did you tell her, you told her in public! God, Eliza, do you even know who could have heard you?! Do you know what people would do to you if they found out you knew where he is? What they would do to her?! To him when they found him?!”

"I---I didn't tell her---everything!"

Eliza sputtered, hands going up. She was thrown off by Dedalus' tone, even though she'd been expecting it. She was sure they hadn't ever actually fought to get to the point of this kind of anger, and she didn't know what to do. Eliza felt very strongly about this so--so she knew that she had to yell back, but with Dedalus lecturing her as if she was some---fool, it made her feel absolutely furious. No, she had sat in silence for far too long with this. Two of her best friends' lives were being torn apart, and she was supposed to just accept it?

"I know the consequences, I know how serious it is, Dedalus," she snapped fiercely, surprised at the tears that had jumped to her eyes. "Just because I'm not a bloody brilliant Ravenclaw, some--some special Order member doesn't mean I don't know!"

She didn't feel guilty, she didn't feel guilty. Miranda's life would have been ruined if she had let these secrets remain secrets. She couldn't sit around and let the Order act as if they knew what was best for people, Miranda wasn't a person to them, she was just a piece of Ralph's rather complicated puzzle; if they cared they would have found a way to make it work, but--she did not feel guilty.

Eliza wiped at her eyes, turning away from him for a moment. She didn't feel guilty, she didn't.

"All she knows is that he's going to the bloody university four minutes away from her," How bloody sick was that? Miranda would literally have been a block or two away from Ralph all of her life and had not known it. "And---and yell at me all you bloody want, but I wouldn't---take this back for the--the world and---and--"

She clenched her fists before pressing them to her eyes, shoulders hitching greatly in a furious sob, "You bloody spied on me!" Her hands were thrown down immediately as tears spilled out of her eyes; Eliza could not believe that after all of this time of keeping these secrets for the Order, he could have stooped so low.

Damn it, the last thing he wanted to do was to ever see her cry. He hated that she was able to burst into tears and make him feel like a complete and utter schmuck, even though he didn’t think that he was being unreasonable. And then, on top of that, he had to listen to her go on in her head about how the Order didn’t care, which just made him even more angry, which made his head hurt even worse. His hands rose up to press the heels of his hands into his forehead, shutting his eyes tightly, trying to get her thoughts out of his head while she was talking to him. His hands dropped down eventually, and he swallowed roughly, clenching his jaw as she spat her words at him. All of them strung together into a sentence hit him hard like a whip, stinging upon impact.

What was he supposed to say to that? How was he to continue to look her in the eyes, as tears continued to trickle down her cheek, and explain that he hadn’t spied on her. Because, which was worse? Invading her thoughts or spying on her? It didn’t even matter that it was unintentional, because he still chose to use it against her, didn’t he?

No, no, he wasn’t going to be made into the guilty party here. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and unless he had overheard the powerful thought, than he would have never known. She would have kept it a secret. Maybe he was being hypocritical, since he himself had a fair share of secrets, but this wasn’t the same. Her telling Miranda was her interfering with the Order.

“I didn’t spy on you, Eliza. Why the hell would I spy on you, when I thought you were just going to keep your mouth shut?! I didn’t tell Miranda because I couldn’t. None of us could! And it’s not because we think she’s part of Ralph’s complicated puzzle, it’s because if she knew where he was, and if she found him, and people were tracking her because they know she’s close to Ralph, than they would not only kill Ralph, they would kill Miranda, and they would go after her entire family just because she knew the location of someone that they were hunting down. Not to mention the fact that if they were to take her, and if they were to go into her head to figure out all she knew, they’d find something. They’d find him, because she’d know. This isn’t about not caring, why can’t you get that?!”

In all of his anger, he didn’t even realize that he had just mentioned something that hadn’t been said out loud at all.

She wasn't going to comment on his nasty tone, or his harsh words, his scolding. She wasn't going to find it ridiculous that he actually thought she didn't know the consequences of her actions. She wasn't going to do anything besides focus on the fact that he'd used the exact wording of her previous thoughts on the situation. A complicated puzzle. He could not have possibly known she was seeing it that way, there was a one in a billion chance that he'd use the same phrase---his tone was so accusatory it was as if she had actually said them out loud.

Eliza stood frozen in her spot, any tears that had fallen completely dried and pushed away from her eyes. Her arms hung limply at her sides as she stared at Dedalus in complete disbelief.

"You can read my thoughts?

It explained a lot, everything. He'd heard her thinking about Miranda. He was a Legilimens--Eliza's eyes dropped down to the ground, mind swirling as she came up with other instances that it felt like Dedalus had read her mind. It had never occurred to her that it could have been something other than a coincidence, but now she didn't know. Had he done this before? Pry through her innermost thoughts to find---anything.

Her cheeks sucked in as she pressed her lips into a hard line, trying to force back the tears that had reappeared in her eyes. He could have found out anything, he could have--how could he not have told her this? She'd kept the secret about the Order, she didn't tell a soul about his time turner, she never mentioned that Elphias' virus was sent by the death eaters, she never betrayed his trust, and now---

---now he was scolding her for something he'd been doing for...for who knew how long.

"I have to go," she mumbled, turning away quickly to fetch her purse. She had to go, she had to go.

He was expecting her to go around in a circle. To point out that she told her where Ralph was because she cared too much about her, and how she deserved to know. And that would only cause him to give the same exact reasons why she shouldn’t have told her, and…it would just be a continuous circle of fighting that wouldn’t get anywhere. They were both hard headed on their opinions, and nothing the other one said was going to change anything.

But she didn’t say anything about Miranda. She changed the topic entirely, focusing in on something he hadn’t even realized had been revealed. His legilimency. When she spoke the words, he was absolutely stunned. He froze completely, swallowing roughly again as he stared at her, hating the fact that even after she knew, he couldn’t control the fact that her thoughts were still audible to him. He wasn’t focusing hard enough, and everything she was thinking was loud and clear. “Eliza-…”

Her name was the only thing that came out before she cut him off, turning around to try and get away from him as quickly as possible. Instinctively, he rushed forward, grabbing hold of her wrist to turn her around. It wasn’t harsh, but it got her attention. Once they were face to face, he looked her straight in the eyes. “You can go, but not until you hear this.” A beat. “Yes. I am a legilimens. Yes, I can read your thoughts. But no, I have never used it to ‘find anything’. Not when I can control it. Not when I have a choice about what I hear, or see, and what I don’t. Whether or not you believe that is up to you, but that’s the truth of it.” He stayed where he was, before letting go of her wrist. Taking a step back, he looked at her for a moment. “That’s all I had to say. So go, if that’s what you need to do.”

With that, he turned around and walked back into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him, sitting back on the edge of the bed with his throbbing head in his hands. He was sure that it was about to split open any second…

She flinched as the door slammed, and Eliza's hand went to cover her mouth as a new wave of tears flushed through her. She could not believe things had escalated so quickly between them and---she did not feel guilty. Sticking to her initial beliefs that this was the right decision, Eliza let out a shaky breath and went to pick up her purse and shawl. She didn't feel bad. She didn't feel bad.

Except she couldn't just leave like this. Eliza looked toward the bedroom with a deeply concerned frown, still bent in the process of picking up her belongings. She hated the idea of leaving him after a fight, they'd never had one, but Eliza always tried to settle things, even petty arguements. She hated that everything went back to her mother, every single little bad thing in her life, but the last thing she'd said to her mum was that she never wanted to talk to her again, and---

Biting her lip, she pulled on her shawl and slung her purse on her shoulder. Slowly, she made her way to the bedroom door, stopping mere centimeters away from the wood. Shutting her eyes tightly, and not exactly sure how all of this legilimency stuff worked, Eliza strongly thought about what she wanted to say to him. Dropping her forehead gently to the door,

I love you--I'm sorry, but I need to think...I'll be back--