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Argus Filch had it all. He was at the top of all his classes at Hogwarts and was in line to graduate with at least nine NEWTs in the spring. If he were to be bold, which he was, he would say there was a line of at least fifteen witches all vying for his attention while at school. Magic and women came easily to him, and there was nothing that was out of reach for Argus as he enjoyed every aspect of the things that fell at his feet.
Filch Manor was extravagant and iridescent under the blanket of snowfall when he returned for the Christmas holidays. When gazed upon in the early morning sun, one would see oranges and golds, glittering from window frames and hinges reflecting the rays into the atmosphere. In the gloom of a storm, the manor was icy blue with silver lashings covering the etchings around the many balconies. Each piece of wrought iron had been carved into place by ancient magic placed there by someone in Filch’s ancestral line.
On that particular wintry afternoon, Argus thought the manor could be something from a storybook, covered in twisting ivy and blooming jasmine; it made the manor look small and homely, half of its outer walls blending into the forest around it when the reality was - it encased at least twenty master bedrooms and any number of enchanted objects inside.
The caretaker's cottage beside the manor could not be described in the same way. The forest grew around the weathered building like Devil’s Snare, entrapping the house beneath its haughty vines as they dug into the wooden infrastructure. There were no hints of orange or gold as he peered at it through the drifting branches of the ancient willow tree just below his window. Actually, that was incorrect. The caretaker's cottage did not glitter in luminous gold until after her arrival in the late winter sun, shimmering like a marigold as she stepped out of her parent’s car and ran lithely up to the rickety wooden porch to await a key to be placed in the door.
Argus stood in his bedroom, gazing out the window three stories up through a gap in the treeline, watching as her golden blonde curls bounced around her shoulders with glee when her father let a large bulldog out of the car and onto the small patch of wildflowers that grew in their front garden.
The dog bounded around the long grasses poking out from under the snow as the girl chuckled in delight. Through his open balcony doors, he heard the sweet sound of her voice, drifting up to where he stood.
“Mr Norris! Stop that right now, they are not to be eaten–Mr Norris? Are you listening to me–you can’t–come back here!” The woman chuckled as she followed her dog past the pile of firewood and the rusted axe that had been embedded in the stump of wood for as long as Argus could remember. The dog raced through the gate separating their properties and before Argus could consider his actions he was running through the quiet manor, out the front door, and towards the winding path leading to that gate.
The fading sun cast her in a halo of golden beams, illuminating her strawberry blonde curls as she leaned over to pat her dog who had given up on his adventure through the pines and settled just inside the Filch property.
Argus stepped through the trees into view, patting the side of his jeans to make sure his wand was out of sight.
“Who are you?” He asked with a touch of reverence to his words.
She blinked and stood, her eyes finding him in the shadows as he stood there half-hidden.
They stared at each other, her mouth popped open slightly and her tongue ran over her bottom lip, causing her lips to sparkle under the trees.
“Marge. Hopefully one day, Aunt Marge.” She said it so simply, like the best thing one could ever hope for was to be an aunt. “And you? Who are you? Mysterious man lurking in the pine trees.”
Argus chuckled and stepped towards the dog who flopped onto its back and begged him with a whine for belly rubs.
“I’m your neighbour. I live in Filch Manor.” Argus had never described himself in such a way, but it was befitting of the situation he found himself presented with. This girl was a muggle. She looked to be his age, yet he had never seen her at Hogwarts.
“And what is your name, neighbour ? Or are you too afraid to tell me?”
Argus flashed her a bedazzling smile, allowing the dimples in his cheeks to pop into place as he ran a hand across the side of his head, pushing his long hair neatly back into position.
“Argus. Argus Filch. And I must admit, I am a little scared of you, Aunt Marge.”
Marge bent to rub the dog's belly and chanced a glance up at Argus who kneeled beside her, indulging the animal.
“No one has ever been scared of me before, or were you referring to Mr Norris? I have been told he can be quite fearsome when provoked - but I wouldn't know you see, nothing loves me like he does.”
Argus mulled over her voice, the cadence was soft and buttery, and each word flowed into the next encased by her British accent. He wondered idly how that could possibly be true, how no one could love her.
“Mr Norris is an odd name for a dog.” He said instead of all the many things he was thinking.
Marge stiffened and paused her gentle strokes of the dog's ears, “Argus Filch is an odd name for a man.”
Argus couldn't help but let out a laugh, the absurdity that was wizarding names was something he was very familiar with.
“I suppose you're right, I meant no offence.” Argus paused to catch up with his thoughts, praying to Merlin that Marge was as curious about him as he was about her. “Is your family moving in?”
Marge flattened her pale blue coat and folded her legs beneath her, tilting her head to the last remaining light as it reached her through the trees.
“Indeed we are, my brother will join us in a few weeks - he and Petunia are moving into their new house. I begged Father to let me stay with Vernon but he outright refused me - can you believe that?” Argus tried to answer but Marge pushed on, speaking over his unintelligible ‘no–,’ “said Vernon would want to do that with his wife, not his only sister. As if I am nobody to them! I will be Aunt Marge, their future children are going to wish they were mine for all the love I'm going to give them. Oh, I can’t wait to have children myself–do you have children?”
Marge's eyes grew wide with hope as she looked first at Argus and then over his shoulder to the manor which had turned a luscious lavender purple in the sunset.
“I consider myself a child–I have just turned nineteen only weeks ago–so don't take my adolescence from me so soon, Marge.” Argus bantered, enjoying the way her cheeks flushed under his scrutiny.
“Oh, well. I’m eighteen and if I’m lucky, I’ll have a brood of children by the time I’m twenty-three. I shan’t wait any longer or I may keel over and die from the longing.” Marge bent her head to the dog and peppered kisses all over his nose. Mr Norris reciprocated with a wet tongue dragged all over her unblemished skin.
“I’ve never known someone who wants children so much. Who will be the father?” Argus thought it was probably too personal a question to ask and his hand hovered over the pocket that held his wand, lest she be a witch about to curse him out.
“Are you offering?” Marge looked up at him through her long blonde lashes with a sly grin as she hopped to her feet. “Come, Mr Norris. I think dinner must be ready. Let’s leave the rude man alone.”
Marge turned to make her way back through the garden. She was shaking her head and locking the gate as Argus finally had it in him to stand, dazed at his own boldness and shocked into stillness by her easy words.
“I’m sorry for sounding so forward. Come over tomorrow night and I’ll make it up to you.” He blurted, jogging over to the gate where she stood, smiling at him.
“Why should I forgive you, Argus Filch?”
“Because, forgiveness,” Argus started, searching for the right thing to say as he held in a laugh, “is a nice thing to do.”
The sun dropped behind the surrounding hills as Marge turned on her heel to leave, “you can’t even say it with a straight face, can you?”
Argus chuckled into the deepening night. “Come, I want to see you again. We can start over, as friends.”
Marge was on her front porch when Argus heard her reply, “Friends?” She laughed into the night, “You do understand that friends don’t try to trick you?”
“How am I tricking you?”
Marge placed her hand on the doorknob and turned, “You're already lying to me, Argus.” She grinned and Argus could make out her perfect teeth in the porch light. “I think we're going to be much more than friends.”
And with that she slid through the front door, the gentle click permeating the still forest air as Argus Filch felt several facets of his playboy’s heart melt into one, leaving room for only Marge.
That winter, Filch manor was filled with laughter and outlandish statements about moving portraits–“I swear on Mr Norris, that portrait just winked at me, Argus!”
Filch found that he was constantly tugging Marge's lips to his own to distract her from the enchanted objects and before long he swore she was only saying such things so he would shove her roughly into the cold stone wall and plaster their mouths together in a fiery heat.
The golden strands of her curls were like sunlight in the silent halls, a beacon calling to him from a wharf's end. A flashing light in the night as he searched for its source, never knowing whether he would burn on impact.
They spent every second of the Christmas holidays together, parading through the halls; guided by her light, Argus found himself enthralled with her presence, and by Christmas Eve, there was nothing he wouldn't do to see her smile light up the darkness in his heart.
On one of the warmer evenings, Filch took Marge by the hand and led her to the private beach nestled between their properties. Frost littered the sand, each step crunching beneath their boots as they strolled beside the water’s edge, listening to the waves as they crashed down on the shore.
“The sea, look!” Marge pointed out at the ocean, urging him to see the world the way she did, “It’s like champagne, the way it bubbles along the shore with the sun making it sparkle! Don’t you think, Argus?”
Argus agreed, tearing his eyes from her glowing cheeks and rosy nose. He silently cast a warming charm and went about distracting her as heat trickled down his neck beneath his clothes.
The way her body reacted beneath his touch was something he marvelled at every time her eyes hooded and glazed over and her lips parted in an ‘o’. She was magnetic. Drawing him in with the simplicity of a smile or a brush against his arm as she tugged him to look up at the snow lining the pine trees or the champagne sea.
“Stay with me tonight,” Argus whispered against her ear as he pulled her close, “I want to wake up beside you. I want to know I have hours before I have to say goodbye.”
Marge leaned into him, running a gloved hand over his chest, “Goodbye is never longer than a few hours anyway, every moment not spent together is wasted.” She placed her forehead against his sternum, her next words muffled, “The thought of you returning to boarding school makes me physically ill, I can’t bear it.”
Argus held her close, listening to her soft voice speaking over the crashing waves. “Here,” he said as he pulled a scrap piece of parchment from his pockets with words he had written for her earlier.
She opened the paper and chuckled as she read, slotting it between her cleavage for safekeeping, “Indeed it is.”
There would come a day where he would have to tell her what he was, unless he gave up magic completely, which wasn't out of the question. For Marge, Argus Filch would give up everything.
“Just remember that.” He looked down at her, brushing a curl from her cheek, “Stay with me tonight, damn the consequences. Climb out your window and meet me by the gate.”
Marge pulled away and reached up to hold his face in her hands, “Vernon is home now and he’s already suspicious of where I spend all my time while it's snowing outside.”
Argus felt his hopes falter until he noticed her sly grin.
“By the gate?” She whispered into his lips, kissing him with the languidness of someone who had hours to spare. He crushed their bodies together, not willing another second to pass where they weren’t connected.
“In one hour?” She pulled away, letting her hands linger in his for a moment before she stepped back and blew him a kiss, jogging to the golden lights emitting from the cottage between the trees.
Marge’s skin was soft and supple beneath his roaming hands as he snaked them around her shoulders and up her slender neck. When they reached the bed their clothes were already forgotten on the floor, glowing dimly in the light from the fire, the crackling logs casting a soundtrack to their frantic movements. Argus Filch didn't know living could feel this good. He couldn't recall a time when his body hummed with satisfaction and love for anyone, let alone the muggle in his bed. As they snuggled together in the early morning hours he vowed to love her for the rest of his life and then some and she returned the sentiment eagerly, peppering his face with kisses until they came together again, this time slower than the first.
When morning came, Argus considered telling Marge everything. About how the portraits really did move and how the long stick he always carried wasn't just in case Mr Norris wanted him to throw it. The secret lay thick and heavy between them like fog over the ocean as they walked through the trees to the garden gate.
Marge looked up at him and lent her head on his shoulder, sighing. “Come to dinner tonight. I’ve already asked Mother if we could be charitable and invite the terribly lonely boy next door over.” She grinned, “besides, I have some news that may interest you.”
Argus snorted softly, “My parents are skiing in France, I’m hardly lonely. Anyway, I have you.” He ran a thumb over her wrist and smirked, running his other hand over his shoulder-length hair. “What is your news? Tell me now or I’ll spend the next–” he looked down at the watch on his wrist which she had given him for Christmas, “ –forty-six minutes until dinner wondering about it.”
“I’ll be waiting right here for you.” She pointed with one finger at the stump of wood with the axe pierced through the top as Argus groaned and turned to leave, willing time to go faster.
Dinner was a polite affair, roast beef with all the trimmings with only the barest hint of awkwardness as they tried to navigate the conversation. Argus found, to his dismay, that he did not like Marge's older brother Vernon, who kept looking between him and Marge like he was trying to do a problematic arithmetic equation in his mind. Argus chewed his food politely and suggested how agreeable he found the whole meal as Marge rose from her chair with a water glass in her hand, clearing her throat gently as she tapped its side with a butter knife.
“I have something to tell you all. As you know–”
Vernon rolled his eyes, “What have you done now?”
Marge huffed, “Don’t rain on my parade, brother.” She straightened her shoulders and her wide smile reappeared, “Like I was saying, you all know how I have been struggling with moving towns and Vernon leaving home. I was really quite a handful.” She looked them in the eye one by one and they all stared back, unsure where this was going. “So here's to Mama,” –Marge’s Mother blushed profusely–“for putting up with all my drama.” Marge held the water glass up to her eyeline and saluted it towards her mother who wore a deep frown on her forehead. Marge lay a hand on her stomach and continued, “And here's to our baby,” she added confidently to the silent room as a whole, “Luckily he won't hear what you're going to call me.” The smile dropped from her face along with Vernon’s glass, shattering on the wooden floor. Marge ignored it stoically, continuing with her speech, “And here's to all of you.” She pointed the glass at Argus and he shook his head imperceptibly, the words finally making sense. “Because forgiveness is a nice thing to do.”
The table erupted in a caucus of shouts and fists flying towards where Argus sat frozen in his chair. Vernon arched across the table, knocking the roast beef and potatoes to the floor with the broken glass. Marge's mother was howling into her hands, shaking her head from side to side as she cried and her father looked to be petrified, a stone statue carved from marble sitting in a wooden chair with one wobbly leg, deciphering the words his daughter had spoken.
Vernon’s fist collided with Argus’s jaw and he reached instinctively for his wand, gripping it until the end protruded into Vernon’s chin.
Marge screamed at her brother, grabbing at his hair and cheeks, pulling in any way she could all while screaming, “This stress is bad for the baby! I love him, Vernon. I love him! Don't do this, don't take him from me!”, which seemed to make Vernon’s chartreuse face turn purple instead.
Vernon spluttered his reply, spit flying through clenched teeth, “THIS–” he howled, pulling tight at the collar around Argus’s neck, “is why you can't have nice things, Marge!” Vernon was eyeing the wooden stick poking into his neck with rage.
Argus knew the moment Vernon understood the meaning of his wand, he saw the way the blood which had been accumulating in his face and neck drained and he was left pale and ghostly.
“You! You're one of them!” Vernon reached for the wand with one hand and swung his other fist into the side of Argus’s head but the wand didn't budge from his hand. He had cast a silent sticking spell on it, no matter how badly Vernon wanted to snap it in half and toss it to Mr Norris, he couldn't.
Argus had never been in a fistfight, he only knew how to battle with magic and so by the time he got to his feet and reached the door, one of his eyes was swollen shut and the other was on its way out. He stumbled and flung himself out onto the snow, his wand gripped tight in one hand as he covered his head with the other.
What could he do? The wand may as well have been a stick from one of the towering pine trees for all the good it did him. He couldn't use magic in front of muggles and even if he could, what would Marge say? Would she leave him and take their unborn child with her? No, she loved him. She wouldn't–would she? Filch saw their time together in a kaleidoscope of colours and memories, each one distorted by the throbbing in his heart for the golden-haired woman. Love was barely enough to describe the way she had taken over his body and soul, how she had intertwined herself between the filaments in every part of him. There was never a moment where he pushed her, or tried to take their relationship further–but she had. From the very beginning, she had told him she wanted nothing more than a child. Not even him. Always eager for his touch she had thrown herself at him every day for weeks and he was a teenage boy, of course, he ached for her, of course when she rolled down her underwear and stood before him, stroking her glistening folds he had succumb. Without so much of an ‘are you sure?’ He had dove face-first into her champagne sea and had not surfaced for air since that very first day in the forest. She was like a love potion, skewing his senses until he relied on her to take his next breath. Filch manor was empty and cold until she had filled it, there were no rules when she showed up but now Argus wished his parents had been here to tell him how foolish he was being. But did any of that matter? Did any of that change the way his heart bled for her, how badly he still wanted to get lost in her golden light? How badly he yearned to bring up their child with her by his side, even if she had merely used him to get what she always wanted?
No.
It changed nothing, he could not un-love her.
Vernon growled indistinctly from behind him, “YOU!” He shouted, “You’ll never see her again, you hear me? Never!” Vernon’s fist collided with the back of Argus’s head and he fell through the gate, his bloodied face landing on the cold earth, unable to fight back.
Marge screamed, her words muffled by sobs as she tried to reason with her brother, “Stop! He’s the father of my child, Vernon, I love him! Please!”
Argus rolled onto his back and felt blood trickle from his nose into his ear. Through one blurred eye he could see the two figures hovering above him and when Vernon took the rusted axe from the stump, Marge’s cries turned feral.
Argus was fighting for his life, there was no other option but to aim his wand as the axe came swinging in his direction. He couldn't see straight. He could barely utter a spell, but he was at the top of his class and nonverbal magic was all he could muster. His thoughts were a jumbled mess when his wand acted on his behalf, he was distantly aware he must have thought something, some spell to save his life but with all the head injuries he was facing, he could not recall what that was.
A blast echoed around the quiet pine trees, snow dusted him from the fronds that rattled in the reverberations of his magic as a bright red light shot like a shockwave out from his wand and hit the only two living things within the spell's radius.
Marge, his Marge. What had he done?
She would be ok. She had to be. He crawled to his feet and searched the earth for her, finding her fragile body stupefied and fallen at an awkward angle, her hips leaning over the fence, golden curls dangling on the snowy earth.
The pops of apparation were loud in the silent night, each one like the bar of a cell, enclosing him as they searched the area for the source of magic.
“Argus Filch,” one of the figures said, reading from a scroll of parchment, “you are under arrest for the improper use of magic in the presence of two muggles.”
Argus gripped the fence, “Marge, my Marge. It’s my fault, it’s my fault.” Sorrow gripped him so tight he choked on his words, the plea faltering as guttural sobs took over.
Filch spent several days locked in a cell, surrounded by dementors intent on kissing the soul from his lips. With each pass, they took his happiness and left him feeling perpetually cold and morose. He dragged his fingers through his hair over again, tugging at the strands in vain as pieces of himself were lost forever. The love he had so willingly given, felt empty and hollow against the knowledge that he may have killed his reason for existence. No one told him if Marge lived, or where she was. No matter how much he begged the guards that dropped off his food, they spat at him and growled with disgust when he clung to their robes through the iron bars, on his knees.
When the time came for his trial, Argus Filch was a shell of his past self. The prison robes dangled off his thin frame and his hair was barely hanging on as his magic also seeped through his weakened bones and out into the swarming dementors. “Take it,” He had told them, “take my soul! I don't want it, not without her.”
Argus was strapped to a solid wooden chair with metal cuffs around his ankles and wrists. The bruises he had been given from Vernon were healed on arrival and so he saw with perfect clarity the golden curls glowing dimly beneath the swirls of patronuses warding off the dementors above.
“Marge,” Argus whispered the word like a prayer, his eyes going to her stomach and then the hollow look in her eyes as she watched him. She looked dead, or dead inside.
“Argus Filch, you have been found in the possession of a wand that stupefied two muggles, resulting in the miscarriage of an unborn child.” The prosecutor spoke so clearly that there was no way he could be misheard.
Argus had killed his child.
The prosecutor continued, “You also caused serious damage to one, Marjorie Dursley, who due to her injuries will be unable to conceive again. How do you plead?”
Argus choked out helplessly, shaking his head as a tear dropped into Marge's lap. Beside her, Vernon stood suddenly, pointing a finger down at Argus from the stands, “You have destroyed her life!” Echos of his words bounced off the walls, causing Argus to hear them over and over again. “If only you weren't so shady, Filch .”
Argus pulled at his confines, rattling the chains like a chandelier, “Forgiveness?” He managed to get the word out in a cry, the softest hint of a breath.
Marge shook her head dismissing him, perveying everything she felt with just the swish of her hair.
Argus Filch had ruined their lives and he would never find forgiveness as long as he lived.
“Guilty.” He answered flatly, not caring about living or dying or whatever lay between, he just wanted it all to end.
Dumbledore stood and climbed over the bottom rail, his gaze locked on Argus. “I have a proposition, if I may, Minister.”
Argus hadn't realised the Minister of Magic sat before him, Filch's wand on the dias he rested his elbows on, “Go ahead, Albus.”
Dumbledore placed a well-meaning hand on his shoulder but he flinched regardless. “Don’t administer the kiss, do not send this teenage boy to Azkaban over what was clearly an accident.” Dumbledore pointed with one hand up at the awaiting dementors and Argus thought he heard a small cry from Marge.
The Minister looked over his glasses and down to where he sat, “He cannot be allowed to keep his magic, Albus, you must know this. Some would see him as a murderer.”
Albus nodded solemnly, “We have viewed his memories, we know his intent, Minister, as do you. This–” He raised a hand to where Marge was shaking from head to foot, curled inwards on her empty stomach, “was an accident. Strip him of his magic and I will take him on as the caretaker at Hogwarts.”
A hum of murmured voices erupted across the circular courtroom as they decided whether or not this punishment was fair. Argus found he didn't care either way, he just wanted to be gone from this room of glaring faces and the sight of his broken love.
The Minister nodded and waved a hand toward Marge and Vernon, addressing them directly, “Any last words before we take these memories?”
Argus looked up and hoped she could still forgive him. Still love him.
When neither of them spoke, two Unspeakables raised their wands and uttered Obliviate, and he felt his mind collapse into itself, the pain too unbearable to handle, or was it the wand pointed at his head and his own snapped before his eyes that did it?
Either way, Filch's magic flowed from his body and he slumped in his chair, unable to remain conscious as his life source was taken and his reason for living was Obliviated right before his eyes. She would not remember him, not the way they had met between the pines on that warm winter afternoon. Not the way her golden light emitted from the caretaker's cottage next door, causing life to breathe from its wooden finish for the first time in Filch's life. She would not recall the way she felt when he gazed into her eyes or kissed her with such reverence she must certainly be ethereal. There would be no Argus Filch in her past, or a Christmas holiday spent tangled between his sheets, there would only be the knowledge that she could not have a child of her own and a great aching sadness that followed. They may tell her she was in a terrible accident, resulting in a broken fence, a bloodied axe, and a dream no longer able to be fulfilled. They may tell her nothing and have her find out in the years to come that she will not conceive and the pain will start all over again. She won't remember any of it, but he would. The punishment of a snapped wand and loss of magic was nothing compared to the knowledge that forgiveness was a nice thing to do, not a necessity and he would never, in any lifetime forgive himself for this.
A few years later
Argus Filch was sick and tired of finding bloodstains in the entry hall every full moon, he loathed the group of boys that called themselves the Marauders and of course, his heart ached painfully when he saw her, a distant reminder that his past wasn't some wild dream.
After scrubbing at bloodstains with his hands for over an hour in the dead of night, Filch decided he hated children with everything he had.
Footsteps sounded behind him and a small cough echoed around the empty chamber.
“Students out of bed? What are you–” Argus stood and turned to face the student in question. Long red hair fell around her shoulders and vibrant green eyes met his in the dim light from the sconces.
“I just got back from the Christmas holidays at home.” The girl spoke clearly, “You see, we were all invited to my sister's house and I had the most peculiar exchange while there.”
Argus looked her over, eyeing a small cage that sat on the stones behind her.
“I met Petunia’s sister-in-law. Marge.”
Argus sucked in a breath and leant against the broom he was holding for support while visions of sunlight and laughter ricocheted around his head.
“Marge gave me something, she said it was for Argus,” she stepped away from the cage, “she also gave me this note, and told me to tell you her name–” she pointed down at the fluffy kitten in the cage, “Mrs Norris.”
Lily Evans handed over a folded piece of paper and turned away from Filch instantly, jogging up the stairs she had just come from.
Argus looked down at the kitten in the cage as his shaking hands opened the note that he clutched. It was worn and familiar, the sides of the paper crinkled and torn and Filch knew what it would say, he remembered the words he had written years ago, for his eternal love, for Marge.
Forgiveness is a nice thing to do.