Her husband had not come home Saturday night.

He had not come home all of Sunday, either, and it was now early into the morning of Monday that Matilda Mulciber was sitting in her parlor, exhausted from the hysteria she had been in for the past two days. She'd listened to the horrifically detailed wireless reports about the peace rally, and knowing (but not actually knowing) that her husband had in fact been at the event caused her to have great anxieties. What if he was hurt? What if he'd been caught? Matilda had gone through the worries and scares of her husband's duties numerous times, but he'd always come home to her, battered and bruised but alive. So, where was he now? She hadn't dared spoken to his mother, as it was an unwritten rule to behave as if nothing was wrong or out of the ordinary when something like this occurred. Matilda couldn't recall the longest John had ever been incapacitated for...the earthquake last year, perhaps, but that had not been his own doing...

The door opened sharply as if the person on the other side was doing a thorough search through the house. Matilda screamed, thinking it was an auror or---"John!"

She leaped up from her seat and rushed to her husband, flinging herself around him and holding him to close to her as possible, "Oh, John! Don't do that to me!" she scolded tearfully, burying her face into his chest.