[Warded: Private]

I'll miss you, Bags. You were always a much better person than I am. You did a good job. I'm sorry things worked out the way they did.

I made the right decision. It so easily could have been me. And then who could protect my son? I was right to come back. I can not put my family through that sort of loss. Elizabeth can hold onto her lofty ideas if she wants, but the reality is that this is how we're going to keep living. If it were just myself, perhaps things would be different. I might have stayed or tried to fight back.

It hardly matters now. This is how we will stay safe. The government is the constant, corrupt or not. It is never a good idea to be on the other side of it.

As difficult as it is, sometimes. Banning smoking from the office. Merlin, I've never been so stressed in a regular work day in my life. I'm practically chain smoking on my lunch break. I still do not understand her appointment. A stickler for the rules does not make you a good leader.

Today is Sunday. I am going to take my son to lunch and perhaps, if it doesn't rain, to the playground.

[Warded: Private]

I do not like the way they've made the separate offices defunct. It just means all the (former?) aurors and hitwizards are lumped together in the same category. We have people who are trained to go after dark wizards who are on the same level as people who just weren't. I suppose there's no need for dark wizard catchers when all the dark wizards are paying the law enforcement.

Merlin. I would still bloody well love to know what the toad is doing in the Head's office. She's not qualified. I went in there on Thursday to turn in a report and the entire office was pink. With lacy things all over the chairs and the filing cabinets. That isn't even practical. And she was hanging plates of kittens on the wall. This is a place of work. None of that is remotely useful or tolerable or acceptable. They're changing department staffing, they're adding whole departments. And they put Dolores Umbridge in charge of the entire law enforcement department.

Never mind. Almost everything has to go through me before it gets to her. A small relief.

I don't know how I get through the day any more. I go to work and I hate it. I go home, and Elizabeth does nothing but yell or go completely quiet. I prefer the latter. It's funny (haha) how two people grow apart so quickly. How reliant you become on your environment to supplement whatever is or isn't happening at home. When you say 'Till death do us part' you don't realise you're setting a bloody goal.

Something needs to happen. I can't do idle. I need a bloody hobby.

It's for Terence. It's for Terence.

For my son.

What are you doing back at work?

[Warded: Private]

Things did not go according to plan. Elizabeth and Terence are safe at home and the wards are as tight as I can possibly make them. But I was kept at St Mungo's for far longer than was necessary. I suppose, if I were to feign optimism, all the injuries I sustained have completely healed and healed properly.

Elizabeth and I went to get our ID cards earlier this week. I don't know what to make of this, except that it is likely keeping them safe. It's keeping him safe. Besides, the country doesn't run if there isn't a government. There has to be a system, even if it isn't the system we had before. You have to follow the rules. Resistance is messy and slows things down. The people will follow whatever path is set in front of them. They do what is easy, whatever causes the least amount of disruption in their lives.

I wish Elizabeth would understand. She keeps going on about how we could go into hiding, or we could leave the country. She even said I should have stayed at....

Well, with my former colleagues.

I married her because she was smart. Resisting would have been incredibly stupid and everything she's been spewing recently has been more of the same. Running will not help anything. It will simply be running, and it will mean starting all over again somewhere else and constantly living in the fear that we're being followed. Terence doesn't deserve that. We do what we have to.

Everything will be fine.

I was not expecting to have to get in touch of Umbridge of all people. The woman is not capable of leading a horse to water, let alone a Ministry department.

In any case, I suppose I'll be back on Monday, regardless.

Everything will be fine.

[Warded: Private]

Elizabeth is fine. More importantly, Terence is fine. Confused and a little shaken up, but fine. Her mother is unbearable, as always. It's time to go home soon, I think. Very soon. She's a muggle - which I'm fine with, my mother was too - but I'm fairly certain she's getting senile.

Elizabeth is panicked. She's worried, which is certainly understandable.

The best thing I can do for any of us is go back to work. A new... administration. I suppose we'll see.

Right now, I have to get my hand fixed. I need to go to Mungo's. And then get in contact with whoever they've put in charge of the DMLE. The sooner the better. Tonight would be best.

Priorities Tonight:

• Get Terence and Elizabeth moved back home.
  
  • Wards. No one gets in unless I want them to.
    
• Cigarettes. Lots.
  
• Mungo's. Magic is difficult, writing is impossible. Something for the leg.
  
• Find out and contact whoever is in charge now.
  
• Contact Anthony - make sure he's breathing.... Never mind, I'm sure he's fine.
  

[Warded: DMLE]

We have a body. Remains were found in Godric's Hollow. MacDonald and Thomas are still on the scene question witnesses. The body has been sent down to the Department of Mysteries. Expecting a report in the next couple of hours.

What a mess. I miss the days when dismembered body parts wasn't a common occurrence.

I'm almost out of cigarettes. Hell.

I'm out of cigarettes. So, when you get a moment.

[Warded: Private]

Muggle hunts? Elizabeth is getting scared. There's only so much I can tell her. Her parents are muggles. Blood purity was never important to me. I never would have married a muggleborn if it was. I'm a half-blood myself. My mother was a muggle.

I do not think Dumbledore would let such a law pass. No matter what anyone might say about him, he believes humans are humans, magic or not. You can't hunt humans for sport.

She asked me if I would quit, if the law was passed. I told her no. What can I say? I signed up to enforce the law, whatever they might be. I can't go back on that now. Not after twenty-two years.

Lovely riots. Tinworth again. Interesting, what people do under such stress.

Another year nearly gone. Perhaps next year will be better.

[Warded: Private]

I never used to look forward to Christmas much. It always seemed a bit frivolous and over done. I suppose it just wasn't a very big deal when I was growing up.

But it's different with Terence. Christmas was a bigger affair in Elizabeth's house and she has certainly brought that here for him. He gets so excited. He's been asking for all sorts of things since the middle of November. He's getting old enough to understand the gift giving tradition and the Father Christmas stories.

I've just finished putting the presents under the tree. I have a discerning feeling that I will be woken up to Terence tearing down the corridor screaming "Father Christmas!"

I think I'm rather looking forward to it.

Happy Christmas, for those of you who celebrate it. I hope you choose to spend it with your families. I certainly will.

[Warded: Justin Smythe, Lainey Robins - charmed to buzz until read]

Head over to the Diggles' residence in Kent and take care of any messy clean-up there might be. If there's nothing, make sure to get a statement from Dorcas Meadowes as to why she should be receiving dismembered remains.

I can't wait to read this report. I'm sure the excuses will be brilliant.

[Warded: Private]

With ten days to Christmas, I suppose I should get gifts for Elizabeth and Terence. I haven't known precisely what to get her in years. Terence is relatively easy, I suppose. He's four, after all, and amused by most anything. Jewellery is always an option. But expensive.

She wants to take a family picture to send to her relatives and mine. I don't see the point. I haven't spoken to Anthony in years. Perhaps just a picture of Terence.

I suppose I'm obligated to attend this bloody office party. Speaking of.

Who's the genius who thought it was a brilliant idea was it to put biting mistletoe all over the office?

Gifts ideas for the wife?

When it's convenient for you, I need to assess your hand-to-hand combat skills before I let you at my trainees again.

[Warded: Private]

Terence read a book to me before he went to bed last night. He's getting so big. If there's anything that I don't like about this job, it's the time requirements. I make it home almost every night, but the nights I don't, I swear he grows another two inches.

These Foundation riots are ridiculous. I can't afford to have an opinion on the matter of vaccinations and while I understand the frustration, there are other ways to obtain them without begging at a Malfoy's feet. I have better things to do with my squad than worrying about such a fickle public. Why do they expect anything different?

For those of you that cleaned up that protest yesterday: I hope you're just waiting until the last second to get your reports in. You've got an hour to get them on my desk.