all lonely together [elias]

june 2001

The only thing worse than the necessary paperwork following a Ministry sanctioned obliviation was the necessary paperwork following a Ministry sanctioned obliviation in which a foreign wizard was implicated. On top of the usual forms were an additional three pages, front and back, that had to be submitted to their home Ministry of Magic. Edith Holthouse’s latest obliviation involved a German wizard on holiday on the coast who neglected to put his fire-breathing dog on a leash. Still, her job had been relatively easy compared to what the bloke from the Beast Division was having to deal with, and she was out and back to the office within half an hour.

She frowned as her eyes scanned the last sentence at the bottom of the last page: Please forward to a representative of the above’s country of origin. She was only aware of one official representative from Germany, and that was Elias Dörfler. She could send the form via the interoffice mail system, but lately she had been having issues with the enchanted paper airplanes getting stuck in the elevator and not going anywhere when there was no one in the building to use the elevators. That left her with the other option of delivering the form by hand, which is what she had been doing for nearly her entire tenure on night shift.

Exhaling sharply, Edith drummed the fingers of her right hand on the form as she she checked the watch on her left. It was half past nine in the evening. There was no way he would be at his desk at this time of night, so why did her stomach suddenly feel so tight? It had been nearly two months since their last proper conversation, if Elias dropping off a cup of coffee but not sticking around to talk counted as a proper conversation. Then her request to move to night shift was approved, and that was that. It was much easier to avoid him when they were on completely opposite schedules.

Edith hadn’t planned to avoid him from the get go. The day of birthday celebrations of laser tag, a fabulous Manchester United match, an inordinate amount of tequila, and a surprise kiss was followed by a day of innate confusion. But as she had nursed her hangover, she had come to the conclusion that they had just been drunk. The kiss hadn’t meant anything, and that fact was only reiterated when she reminded herself that he was engaged. Getting married. So, it couldn’t mean anything. She had gone to work the next day fully prepared to act like nothing had happened, sticking to the story of the whole thing being a thing that friends sometimes did when they were incredibly drunk and then never talked about again.

But she felt that feeling, the one she had felt when his lips were on hers, as soon as she saw him Monday morning. Clearly, the only logical option at this point was to avoid him all together until she stopped feeling. But by some cruel twist of fate, Elias was unaware that she was going out of her way to not spend time with him. He showed up as usual, lunch, coffee, the pub after hours with other colleagues, but it wasn’t the same. His body language was stiff, her jokes didn’t land, everything had an odd air of formality about it.

Dwelling on all of this wasn’t helping anything. She had a job to do, one that she had been excelling at recently due to her lack of late night drinking and long hours at the pubs with friends who had day jobs, along with a general lack of anything else to do. The witch pushed her chair back and stood up, taking a moment to stretch before snatching up her wand and the small stack of papers, neatly paper clipped, and striding off for the elevators. The walk to this particular desk was a familiar one, having made it quite often. The feeling of dread that now accompanied the walk, however, was a new one.

As she took the elevator down a couple floors, the thought crossed her mind to possibly leave Elias a note. Something short, but nice, about how she was terribly put out that she had missed him but hopefully they could get coffee one morning before she went home, before he started for the day. But as the elevator announced her arrival at the Department for International Magical Cooperation, Edith decided that any sort of note would be too much interaction. She would just leave the forms, the only sign that she still existed being the E. Holthouse on Line 6b, Responsible Obliviator.

She rounded the next corner as she planned out the rest of her evening, which would probably involve more paper shuffling, more coffee, and maybe a kebab from the cart down the street. It was enough to push the other pestering thoughts out her mind, but that blissful intervention only lasted a few more seconds as she rounded another corner to Elias’s desk. It was half past nine. He shouldn’t be here. But there he was. At half past nine. She swallowed hard as she took another step forward, already too close to turn around and quit her job entirely.

“Er,” Edith stammered. “Hiya,” she added quickly, holding out the papers in her hands. “Forms for you,” she started again, looking just slightly to the left of Elias’s head instead of directly at him. “Well, not for you, really, for Germany, well, about a German so you get the forms.” What is wrong with you, Edith? Did you forget how to talk? She cleared her throat before starting again, slowing her words down so she could say the ones she actually wanted to. “What I mean is,” she handed the forms over and shoved her hands into the pockets of her robes, “A German national wizard was involved in an incident I responded to, so I’m just following protocol. Didn’t think you’d be here.”

Kissing a friend was never a simple decision, but the situation between Elias and his ex-best friend was especially complicated. It wasn’t that he had somehow forgotten about his family obligations when they had last been alone together, but being close to her (and possibly drinking more than he should have) had somehow made it seem like the two commitments didn’t conflict. That he could kiss Edith whenever he liked while also agreeing to let his parents set up an engagement to a woman he had never spoken to and that no one would be hurt or upset or disappointed.

Later that evening, however, it had started to sink in that he had complicated things with Edith without thinking the decision through. She would be expecting things, and the worst part was that he wanted to give them to her. Elias wanted to take care of her, to spend his time with her, to buy her things and be near her and experience that exciting, shivery, floaty feeling that he now associated with seeing her smile. But there was simply no way to give Edith those things without hurting other people. The one silver lining that he could find in the situation was that at least no one back on the continent would ever know about his moment of weakness. If he could just make things right with Edith, get things back to the way they were, then maybe no one but himself would have to suffer for his mistakes.

But Elias had found he didn’t know how to go back to the way things were before. Everything seemed too intimate or too distant; where was that happy medium they had always been able to find? Edith didn’t seem to want to talk to him, and he couldn’t find the right words anyway, so he hadn’t been able to express his regret, or find out how to make it up to her. And then before he could figure out the best way to set things right, Edith had stopped coming to work again. At least this time it had been easy to figure out what had happened to her: she had switched to the night shift, and wouldn’t be at the Ministry when he was anymore. The news was both relieving and disappointing. While he knew it was for the best, that he needed to stop spending his time thinking about her, he missed her. And not having her around didn’t seem to do much for helping him focus on work anyway.

Weeks had passed. Elias was doing his best to do his job, be with his family, go to quidditch practice, see his friends; essentially, to keep on with things as he had been. It was easy enough to stay busy outside of work, but it was when he was at the office that his mind would tend to wander to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes and the familiar obliviator’s desk that was now the home to a young and overly-enthusiastic recent graduate from Hogwarts. His work performance was not up-to-scratch, and the evidence of that was made clear when his supervisor had come by that afternoon, asking for the monthly report of permits that had been issued, which was late. As a result, Elias was still to be found at his desk well after night had fallen, the last one in the Germanic Relations office. The room was quiet but for the scratching of his quill as he filled out form after form, trying to work efficiently but accurately to make up for his negligence. He looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps, a bit startled to find himself in the company of someone else so late. He turned to see that he was being approached by none other than Edith Holthouse.

"Hello," he replied automatically, blinking back the surprise at seeing the girl who was responsible for all of his distractions appear at his desk. She wasn't looking at him, talking nervously about something, but his attention was focused on her face. She looked healthy enough, happy enough. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, really. It had been at least a month since he had seen her, maybe more. He was trying not to keep track. "Again? Oh." His attention was redirected to the form she was holding out to him, and he took it silently from her, glad of the excuse to look away from her face. He tried to remember what she had been saying, something about an incident in Germany, but he couldn't quite recall. "Thank you," he said formally. He looked down at the form, trying to catch up with the situation, but it took him several tries to connect the words at the top of the page with any meaning.

"I was not expecting to see you, either," he pointed out. He supposed he should have guessed that the later he worked, the more likely it would be for his schedule to start overlapping with Edith's. But he wasn't expecting it to be a problem when he was staying at his desk, several floors away from where Edith was supposed to be. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about her at all. That was part of their unspoken agreement to keep their lives separate, to not let their paths cross at work or anywhere else. Edith had made it clear that she wanted space, didn't want Elias around anymore. It wasn't his place to be worrying about himself when she had made it clear that him being around made her uncomfortable, maybe even unhappy. The best way to be her friend was to give her space.

But now that she was here, and the silence was stretching between them, he thought perhaps it would be rude to ignore her or send her on her way. Professional relationships could include small-talk, couldn’t they? And there was no use pretending he didn’t care about her anymore. Even though he was surprised and a bit confused by her decision to hand-deliver a form to him, he didn’t want Edith to think he was unhappy to see her. “How have you been?”

She stayed quiet, simply nodding at his thanks, not sure why she was still standing there. She had done what she needed to do, delivered her forms to a representative from Germany, and now she ought to get back to her desk and do more things that required her to be at her desk or anywhere else that wasn’t where she was currently standing. As Elias was momentarily distracted by looking at the forms, Edith took the opportunity to finally look at him. He looked great, maybe a little tired, but great all the same. That was probably the most devastating thing about this whole situation: that she had finally come to the conclusion that he was quite attractive.

She assumed he had always been attractive and she had just been blissfully unaware. Maybe the fact only came to light after he was wearing one of her Beckham jerseys. A jersey, she realized with a sudden pang, that he still hadn’t given back to her, despite her never saying that he could keep it. Her mind flashed to the idea of him still wearing it, maybe just around his flat as a joke, and how she really wasn’t bothered that he kept it if that was really the case. But before she could continue her musings, he brought her back to reality with more words.

He hadn’t expected to see her either? She was the one who was actually supposed to be working at this time of night, but sure. She considered going into a long rant about the inefficiency of the interoffice memo system when there was a serious lack of people in the building, but that really didn’t seem like something he would care to know about. Not now, anyway. Instead, she shrugged and offered a quiet “Yeah,” as she agreed with him. She was still standing there, still not knowing why. Was she expecting him to do something? Some grand gesture to make the past two months have not happened? Whatever she was expecting, though, it wasn’t small talk.

“Fine, thanks,” she said quickly to his question of how she had been. It was an automatic response, the real answer too complicated to fully explain. She was tired, to be expected after so many weeks of being on shift, but was starting to settle into her routine of sleeping during the day. It was nice to work without so many distractions, and especially nice to work without the threat of being distracted by Elias. The same didn’t apply to thinking about him, though. He was still crossing her mind, not even in a romantic capacity. She’d see something that just reminded her of him, or have a case come across her desk that she knew he’d find funny.

But then there were the times when all she could do was replay that afternoon in the courtyard, try to recount every detail, even the fuzzy, tequila-tinged ones, everything that led up to him kissing her. Trying to pinpoint just where, exactly, everything had gone wrong, when they somehow both came to the same silent conclusion that they would never talk about the kiss that had already happened and that there would never, ever be another one after that. Then add on top of that all the frustration that she wanted there to be more after all, even when she was well aware that it would just complicate his entire family situation for him. That was enough to make her decide not to be polite and inquire after his wellbeing.

She withdrew her hands from her pockets as she made up her mind to not only not ask if he was alright, but to make her retreat. “You’re here late, so you’re clearly busy. I’ll leave you be,” she offered a small wave before turning around, fully intending to head back to her own desk. But she only made it a few feet away before she stopped and retraced her steps back to Elias. She needed to know something, and it wasn’t likely they would be seeing each other again any time soon, at work or not, so it was now or never. She got the words out quickly as she resumed her previous spot, her arms hanging awkwardly at her side as she attempted eye contact. “Do you regret kissing me?”

She was fine? Elias wanted to press for more information and get Edith to really talk to him, but he could see that she didn't feel the same way about a conversation. Obviously, his being here was an unhappy coincidence for her, not an accidental-but-planned run-in at the Department for International Magical Cooperation like he might have hoped. Perhaps if he invited her to do something they could start getting back to the way things had been and start talking again. She had mentioned watching another Manchester match, but would that be too embarrassing for them? Elias toyed with the idea of suggesting they grab a cup of coffee, despite the late hour, when his hurried planning was cut short by her sudden farewell.

“Oh, alright,” he replied, a bit crestfallen but not altogether surprised at her abrupt decision to depart. She had been avoiding him determinedly so far; it was only to be expected that she would be keeping their professional interactions from now on exactly that: professional. He watched her go, unable to shake the dreadful feeling that it would be a while before he would see her again. The distraction that had led to him falling behind in his work was certainly not going to be any less now. His disappointment at his failure to fix things had only started to set in when she suddenly turned around and marched back toward him.

“I - “ He could only look back at her for a moment, trying to read in her face what she wanted him to say, but the guidance he was hoping for was nowhere to be found. He hesitated as he looked up at her, thrown off by the sudden breaching of the subject that had been swept under the rug and undisturbed for nearly two months. The kiss had been warm and soft and freeing, and the feeling of freedom it had given him had been a unique and wonderful experience. But the good feelings had evaporated after only a few hours and been replaced by guilt and longing and confusion. “I don't know,” he answered honestly, but then instantly regretted his words. He scrambled to explain, wary of the hurt he could cause her. “We don't talk anymore. I miss you, Edith.”

He wanted to reach out and pull her closer, make up for the distance and time they had spent apart, but their onetime crossing of the line between friendship and romance had made things so difficult. And he wasn't supposed to be wanting that anyway, even when she was standing there, her hands hanging by her sides, ready to be taken in his own. His eyes flicked back up to her face, hoping he would find the answers there. The best he could do was try to be honest, though he was having a hard time figuring out the answer to her question for himself. “I didn't think.”

She thought she already knew the answer, but actually hearing something one way or the other would do wonders for her getting over it. Either he regretted or he didn’t, but either way she could figure out what her next step ought to be. Her breath caught in her throat as he started to answer, but as soon as he had started, he had stopped. She returned his gaze with raised brows, her breath coming back a bit quicker now as she waited. His hesitation was enough answer.

His real answer was even less helpful than his non answer. He didn’t know. That sounded like an affirmative for regret. He pointed out that they didn’t talk anymore, though he was half of the problem there. He missed her. Great. He didn’t think. Really comforting. She wanted to be mad at him, to yell and tell him that he needed to figure it out now so she could get on with her life, but even though it seemed like they were the only two people in the world right now, she didn’t want to be overheard.

Edith took a deep breath as she nodded, hearing his words repeat over and over inside her head. “I miss you, too,” she admitted quietly before falling silent again. If she just stopped there, they could just move past this. She would figure out how not to be bothered by everything, how to be the best friend, not the object of affection, and some how be supportive of whatever he was doing with his life. Never mind that there were still plenty of reasons she didn’t approve of the whole arranged marriage ordeal, but that was an argument for another time. A time when she wasn’t pining after him like a school girl whose first crush just asked another girl to the dance.

“But I’ve thought about it,” she started again, trying to keep emotion out of her voice. “Can’t stop thinking about it, actually,” she continued, nearly laughing at how silly she must sound. “But until I can look at you and not want to kiss you…” she trailed off, unsure of how to finish that sentence. She felt the warmth spreading from her cheeks and looked away, looking anywhere else except the man she was talking to.

She had definitely not planned any of this, not anticipated any of this from just one kiss. Was it normal to get so invested in something after one kiss? Her only one, but still. It was one kiss too many, enough to make the woman think that maybe she wasn’t the most detestable person, like she had always thought. The fact that someone could actually want to kiss her, even going on to completely regret his decision, was too much to deal with. Thankfully, given her track record, when she had her next kiss ten years from now she could make sure that he wasn’t planning to marry someone else and they could avoid all of this confusion.

Unfortunately, Edith had meant what she had said after it had happened: it was crazy, but she had liked it. She clearly liked him and no one was more surprised than she was. The way she was feeling just standing this close to him was enough proof that it hadn't subsided yet. She had been perfectly content with how she saw him before: best friend, nice colleague, someone to poke fun at when he was tired and English got confusing, just a fun person to have around.

But she also liked him too much to ask him to reconsider his entire life plan. She had spent too much time thinking about it, about Elias not going through with his engagement, how the mental image she had about them getting married (as a joke, of course) when he had first talked about it didn’t completely gross her out any more. But he had told her she couldn’t understand, it was just what purebloods did. He had responsibilities to his family, his community, and she remembered the next bit the best: to the magical line.

Edith could learn German, could learn how to behave in front of parents, could figure out how to be a proper lady if she needed to be, but she couldn’t change who her own parents were. And she definitely didn’t want to hear Elias saying that her heritage was one of the deciding factors in whatever decision he made.

“I’m sorry but I don’t want to complicate things for you,” she quickly added before he could respond, still not looking at him. She wasn’t completely sure why she was apologizing at all, having done nothing wrong except be present when Elias felt the need to kiss someone.

Was it really possible that Edith missed him? That perhaps her switch to the night shift and the silent treatment he had been receiving for almost two months hadn’t come about because she was angry with him, or even hated him? He had been so certain that this was what she wanted: space, distance, and to get on with her life without him being a part of it, but now he wasn’t so sure. If he looked at the facts, she never had explicitly asked him to stay away, something he had somehow failed to consider before. But her decision to stop coming to work without telling him, the way she wouldn’t look at him when he had tried to talk, and the utter lack of contact for so long had led him to believe that their friendship could be over for good. As upsetting as it was, he had wanted to respect her wishes, and at least not seeing her would have meant never having to figure out how to resolve the argument that continued endlessly in the background of his thoughts.

But if she missed him, too, then maybe he had misread her. Maybe she didn’t want him gone after all. He had been just as silent and distant as she had been; did she think he didn’t care for her anymore, just like he had believed of her? Elias had only thought he had been responding to her cues and putting her wishes before his own, but maybe they had been on the same page all along.

The silence was stretching between them again, and Elias was forced to remind himself not to push things any farther. No matter how badly he wanted to tell her that she should stay, that he wanted things to work out between them, it wasn’t right. Now that he had acknowledged the feelings, he couldn’t ignore them so easily anymore, and being ‘just friends’ didn’t seem like an option, at least for now. His commitments to his family wouldn’t just vanish overnight because he wanted them to, and the reality was that there was no way to make everyone happy. As much as he loved Edith and wanted to be the one to bring her happiness, he couldn’t find it in him to throw everything else away for her sake.

“I’m sorry, too,” he finally replied, not sure how else to respond. It was torture to hear this from her, that she wanted the same things that he did. The contentment he had felt sitting with her in that courtyard, being close and gentle and happy together, was something he hadn’t felt for a long time. Edith had a special way of helping him not take things too seriously and be his honest self that he had felt with hardly anyone else. He almost wished she hadn’t said anything. At least before he could pretend that there was no real choice, that he had simply made Edith uncomfortable and lost her friendship as a result of it. Now that he thought she might be willing to go down that road with him, it made it that much harder to turn and go the other way.

If she thought that expressing her feelings to Elias was the most difficult thing she had done, she hadn't considered what it would be like to endure his silence that followed it. Her mouth felt dry, her insides felt heavy, her palms felt clammy. She moved her gaze back to him, to confirm he was still there. She wanted to get mad at him, to force him into saying anything at all. Even a 'Go away, Edith,' would have been better than nothing. If they were anywhere else except at the Ministry, she wouldn't think twice before grabbing him by the arms and shaking him, trying to rattle a response loose from him.

But once he had opened his mouth and apologized, Edith immediately regretted being upset at his silence. That had been more welcome than this blanket apology, not even acknowledging the specifics she had just said. Because what exactly was he sorry for? For kissing her in the first place? For having a face that she couldn't help but want to kiss for some strange reason? For his complete rejection of everything she had said because it was too absurd? For embarrassing her for expressing her interest in him?

Let's be serious, Edith. It was the first option. Regretting the kiss altogether was the only reasonable option for him. She wasn't sure at what point in her very brief speech that she got her hopes up that he would agree with what she was saying, but it was very obvious to her now that she had. She nodded curtly as she swallowed and looked him in the eye, hoping he would take the opportunity to make some sort of addendum to his apology. But the seconds ticked by and nothing changed.

"Okay." She nodded again, blinking slowly and taking a deep breath. Glad they had figured that out. She had no energy left to be mad at him, really. At least knowing that he didn't feel the same way would help her get over her silly infatuation, or so she hoped. Until then, they could just sit on the sidelines of their friendship and wait for her to get back to normal. Night shift seemed to be helping with that, or it had been for nearly two months until tonight, and that slip up would be easy to avoid repeating.

Edith nodded one more time as she scanned his face for any hint of something else there, but either the lighting was too dim or there really wasn't anything left for her to interpret. She motioned towards the forms she had delivered, abruptly changing the subject back to literally anything else. "My department's going to need a signed copy of those forms once someone's had a chance to review them." She retreated before she could change her mind about it and before she could decide to say anything else to make a bigger fool of herself.

He could tell from the look on her face that he was failing to provide the answers she was looking for. As much as Elias wanted to say and do the things he thought she might be hoping for, he felt sure that he would be causing more hurt to her in the long run by getting her hopes up. And for what? So that he could have a few weeks or months with her before his family obligations forced him to leave her again? It didn’t matter that it might make him happy, because how could he ever find it in him to break the hearts of his parents, siblings, and maybe even Zofia herself, whose feelings he still was in the dark about? Instead of voicing his fears, Elias focused on keeping a calm face, waiting to see if Edith had anything more to say.

“Of course,” he responded, not missing the abrupt transition back into professional conversation. Edith had never been one for subtleties as far as he could tell, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed at the signal that the subject was closed. It was his fault, really; she had been the one to bring it up finally, to try to work things out, and he had found nothing useful to contribute. It was disappointing, too, that he felt like he hadn’t said what he had meant to say. He had wanted Edith to know that he cared about her, that he missed her more than he would have expected, that he could hardly go an hour without thinking about her and how he had ruined everything between them. But the moment had passed and the right words still hadn’t come. When he returned the forms, he would be sure they arrived when Edith wasn’t at her desk. That was the best he could do.

“Good bye, then,” he replied quietly, a moment too late to be able to catch her eye, for she had already turned and headed off quickly. His new mantra, that this was for the best, repeated over and over again in his mind as he watched her go, but it took all of his restraint not to go after her all the same. He would just have to hold onto the hope that, with time, things would get easier between them. That maybe she would find someone else and the two of them could find a way to be just friends, their respective partners providing the distraction from whatever connection had emerged between them when his guard was down.