Rating:
PG
House:
The Dark Arts
Characters:
Lucius Malfoy Original Female Witch Original Male Muggle
Genres:
Drama General
Era:
Multiple Eras
Stats:
Published: 03/10/2005
Updated: 03/10/2005
Words: 3,883
Chapters: 1
Hits: 314

Closed Doors

bruno

Story Summary:
Tyke’s mother has an unusual hobby – she breeds house-elves. But life isn’t always kind to those who are weak, something Tyke is about to find out.

Posted:
03/10/2005
Hits:
314
Author's Note:
Thanks to Lazy Neutrino for beta reading!

Closed Doors

London, October 1980

One evening, Tyke's mother received an owl.

Olive was sitting on the sofa, reading a book while she waited for William to visit them. Dad was hiding in his study, as he always did, only occasionally peering out to see who came and who left. Not that anyone seemed to care whether he was there or not. Ten-year-old Tyke was sitting on the floor, reading a book he'd found on the shelf. With awe he stared at the moving pictures in Lovegood's Guide to the Magical Beasts of Central Africa, an old leather-bound brick of a book that he wasn't allowed to remove from the sitting room.

The floor was cold, but Tyke hardly noticed it as the Mokele-mbembe raised its head calmly to look at him, water plants dangling from the sauropod's mouth. "I'll go to Africa when I grow up," he said into the air. "I'll find monsters and capture them, just like Lovegood did a hundred years ago."

"Don't be silly, dear," his mother replied calmly without taking her eyes off the book. "Squibs don't do things like that, wizards do."

Her words stung, even though he'd heard them before. He opened his mouth to say...what? He didn't know. Before he could think of anything, there came a knocking sound from the window, and Olive Pommeroy got up from her seat in the sofa. On the windowsill stood an owl, but Tyke didn't bother to look at it. With a big lump in his throat he returned to the images in his book. The Mokele-mbembe turned its head back toward the water and ripped off a chunk of seaweed, and behind it another emerged. With something that looked strangely like a smile, it closed one eyelid and winked at him. With his mouth open, Tyke stared at it, but the moment was gone - the huge animals kept on feeding, taking no notice of him.

Olive let out a pleased sigh, and brought the letter over to the bureau in the corner. Smiling, she picked up her swan quill and started writing a reply to the letter. The large eagle owl was still sitting on the sill, staring at Tyke with stern eyes as if it wanted to ask the child why he was sitting on the floor.

"I'll go to my room," Tyke informed her, and got a vague hum in reply. She was busy with the letter now, and wouldn't notice that he took the book with him. Holding it close to his chest, he walked out, discreet but fast enough to make sure she didn't have time to look up and call him back.

In the hall he let out a long sigh and smiled quietly to himself - he'd never come this far with it before.

"You're not supposed to take the books out of the sitting room," a voice said from one of the corners. Tyke turned to see his brother William, hanging his robes on the coat stand. His face was smiling, but his eyes were cold as he stretched out his hand. "Give it to me." Without protesting Tyke handed it over.

"Go play in your room - I have business to discuss with Mum." He ruffled Tyke's black hair as he passed him. Tall and dark, Will entered the sitting room, and Tyke could hear Mum's voice.

"Will, darling! There you are. I just got the most charming letter from Mister Malfoy..." Here the sound of her voice was cut off as Will closed the thick doors, shutting Tyke out.

He didn't go to his room. Instead he walked into the kitchen, a large warm and friendly room in the centre of this big and cold house. It was quiet there now. Tyke walked over to the cupboard in the corner and lay down on his stomach. With a careful hand he knocked three times on the cupboard door before opening.

"You all right?" he whispered to the little heap of rags and feathers. The feathers belonged to the pillow he'd ruined just a week ago; there had been feathers all over his room, raining down over him like brown and silver snow. He'd laughed, he remembered that, reaching out for them, trying to catch them, and he'd cried later on when Mum found out.

"We're all right, Terrence sir," a little voice whispered back. A pointy nose stuck out from the rags, a silver feather still resting on the tip of it. Tyke pushed it off with his finger, and the house-elf wrinkled its nose for a second, trying not to sneeze. He pushed the downs back and looked straight at Fussy, lying rolled up in her nest like a cat. Close to her heart lay a tiny elf, still sleeping.

"He's still tired after this morning, Terrence sir," Fussy excused her baby.

"Yeah, we did play a bit rough." Tyke poked the baby with his finger, and got an irritated arm slapping his wrist. As he laughed, the baby house-elf opened its drowsy eyes to peer at him. With a snort, it turned its back to him and snuggled closer to its mother. It looked so warm, so peaceful, that Tyke wished for a second he could curl up beside them, burying himself in feathers made of silver.

"What are you going to name him?" he asked.

"Well, your mother has already decided a name for him," Fussy said, covering her young with a pair of mittens. "But to me he will always be Dobby."

"Dobby. That's a nice name," Tyke replied and nodded.

"Yes, Terrence sir." Fussy watched her little one with big green eyes. Then she lifted her eyes to look at him, and what he saw in those eyes startled him - it was like looking into dark pools of water. Sad water. He blinked. Sad water: that didn't make sense at all. "We will sleep now, sir," Fussy said.

"Yes, me too," Tyke said and got up on his knees. "Good night."

Mum was still talking to Will in the sitting room, so Tyke brushed his teeth and got into bed on his own. He knew she would come upstairs later, when his brother had left - still, he couldn't help feeling left out. Redundant. It's because I'm a squib, he thought bitterly. Just like Pug.

Pug was the second youngest of the seven Pommeroy brothers, sixteen years old now, and off living with friends. He'd left after a fight with Mum and had never come back. Tyke remembered the last words she'd hissed at him. "Get out of my house, you squib! You're a disgrace to the family!" Tyke wasn't suppose to hear these words, he understood that, but this was a big house with many a corner to hide in, and Tyke was good at hiding. From behind the sofa, or from the corner next to the sitting room doors, he'd heard many things over the years - secrets he would never tell anyone.

"You're a disgrace to the family," Tyke whispered to the ceiling of his room. "Get out!"

*

A group of boys in the sixth grade had taken to waiting for him outside the school gate with malicious smiles on their faces. Nowadays, someone else would stand there, waiting for him, making sure no one touched a hair on his head. So when Tyke walked out the gate this afternoon, he wasn't surprised to see Pug standing there, the cigarette in his mouth, scowling at the pupils passing him.

Nodding at each other, they started walking the long way home. Pug didn't talk much, just walked with his hands in his pockets, keeping an eye out for the bullies and their older brothers.

"Fussy is calling her baby Dobby," Tyke explained to him, and Pug made a vague sound in reply.

They stopped by a cornershop so Pug could buy more cigarettes. "He's really cute," Tyke continued as they neared the counter. "He's got green eyes, just like Fussy, and he's really strong. He nearly broke my finger when we were playing, and he got so upset when I cried out that I had to take him on my lap and hug him just to calm him down."

"Don't get too fond of him," Pug muttered as he paid.

"Why not?" Tyke asked, surprised.

Pug pushed him outside again, and they continued walking. "Why can't I get fond of him?" Tyke asked again, a bit annoyed with Pug now for not answering his question.

Pug watched him for a moment. He looked tired, Tyke saw, as though he hadn't slept properly for a whole week. "How old were you the last time Fussy had a baby?"

Tyke thought about it for a while. "I can't remember," he answered with a shrug. "I was just a kid back then."

Pug sent him one of his rare smiles. "Little Dobby is going to live with someone else," he explained.

"What?"

Tyke stopped dead and Pug turned to look at him with a bewildered expression. "What do you mean, what?" Pug replied flatly. "Where do you think Fussy's other baby went to?"

"I never thought about that." Tyke watched his shoes, as he always did when he felt embarrassed.

"Well, that's the problem with you, Tyke, you don't think." Pug's voice was dry, and Tyke lowered his eyes to the ground. He knew it was true, it had to be true, otherwise the others wouldn't have to tell him so all the time.

Soon they reached the beginning of Tyke's street, and Pug didn't want to go further. "Don't tell Mum, all right? This is our little secret," Pug said, and Tyke nodded.

As Tyke pushed the doorbell to his house, Pug's words kept on churning in his head. Fussy opened the door and let him inside. "Dobby is in the kitchen, Terrence sir," she said with a bright smile. "He is waiting for you."

He hesitated, then hung up his jacket. "I think I will go to my room," he muttered and walked up the stairs, not looking at her. Once up in his room, he lay down on the blue bedspread, staring up at the ceiling.

*

At six o'clock he walked downstairs after finishing his homework. Dinner should be ready by now, but the dining room was empty. Confused, he watched the large table; there should be plates here now, piles of steaming hot potatoes and meat, vegetables and soup - but there was nothing but the dark oak tabletop. Scratching his head, he entered the sitting room only to find it deserted.

With slow steps he neared the door to his father's study. He stood there for a moment, collecting himself while staring at the uninviting surface of the dark oak panel. Raising his hand slowly, he hesitated for a long time before knocking. No voice spoke up, so he opened the door carefully to peer inside. "Excuse me, Dad, but..."

"Get OUT!" A roaring voice; all he saw was his father's red face and a flurry of papers, and the door slamming in his face. Tyke backed away from the locked door, his face ashen.

It took a minute to swallow the tears away.

He found his mother in the kitchen, sitting by the large table next to a young man. The stranger had to be new in the Pommeroy house; at least Tyke didn't recognise him. He had long white hair pulled back into a ponytail and looked utterly bored.

"And as you can see," Olive said, pointing at a paper on the table with the tip of her swan quill, "I'm extremely careful to not mix these two lines as it will result in an unstable temperament in the offspring. It's my experience that a small amount of inbreeding is the easiest way of getting offspring with the desired qualities..."

The young man looked at Tyke with an expression of looking at a rare, and slightly alarming, specimen. "This is your...son, Mrs Pommeroy?"

She turned to see Tyke standing in the doorway. "Ah! Yes, this is Terrence. Come and say hello to Mr Malfoy."

Tyke entered the room, and bowed to Mr Malfoy. With one eyebrow raised, the wizard gave him a scrutinising stare that made Tyke feel uncomfortable.

"All our house-elves are, of course, registered with the Ministry," Olive continued, not seeing Tyke's confused face.

"There isn't any dinner?" he asked, feeling like a fool under Malfoy's hard eyes.

"We'll eat later." His mother was frowning now, not appreciating the interference. Again she turned to the paper, and this time Malfoy took his eyes off of him. "You can see Spike's contribution three places in this pedigree - I remember him, an excellent house-elf, owned by Mrs Black. You know her, I gather?"

Malfoy smiled, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "Indeed; she's the aunt of my coming wife. This will be my wedding gift," he said and winked, and Olive giggled.

Luckily, they weren't looking at him anymore, which gave him the opportunity to observe them. Tyke slunk down in one of the chairs on the other side of the table and watched his mother with horror. He could hardly recognise her, being all silly and giggly in front of this man who was younger than most of her sons. He wanted to shout at her, tell her to stop making a fool of herself, but he remained quiet, watching them with a sullen expression on his face.

"You'll sign here, then," Olive pointed with her finger as she gave the swan quill over to Mr Malfoy, "and here, and here... Oh, all these forms! Isn't it awful how the Ministry sticks its long nose into everything? I remember the days when the authorities would let people use their common sense and leave us in peace."

"Definitely, Mrs Pommeroy," Malfoy replied as he signed the papers. "It's gone too far. It's all those Muggleborns and their crazy Muggle ideas. Then again, you never know. Things might change sooner than you think."

"I do so hope you're right," Olive replied and stacked the forms into a neat little pile on the kitchen table. "Do you have the box?"

"Right here."

"That's good. You can't Apparate from here, you see. Just a little safety precaution - you never know nowadays." Olive winked at him.

Malfoy nodded in agreement. "I understand perfectly; in fact I have the same wards at home. May I say it's been a pleasure doing business with you. I do hope we will stay in touch." With this they shook hands, and Olive giggled again.

Tyke gritted his teeth from seeing his mother behaving like that, but when Malfoy put a strange box on the table he started feeling cold. "What's going on, Mum?" he asked, but he must've spoken too quietly because none of the two adults bothered to give him an answer.

Olive walked over to the cupboard door and opened it. From where Tyke was sitting, he caught a glimpse of Fussy sitting among the feathers, holding her child in her arms. Little Dobby was apparently awake, and waved his tiny arms to make his mother set him free so he could play like he usually did.

"Give him to me, Fussy," Olive replied, her voice cheery.

Fussy didn't let go - she held her baby hard, burying her face against her child's head, not hearing, or refusing to hear, Olive's command. "Come on now, Fussy - don't make me send you out to clean the tiles on the roof again. Be a good girl and hand him over."

Still, Fussy refused. Olive reached her hand inside the cupboard and grabbed the little house-elf, and as she pulled him out Fussy followed after, still clinging to little Dobby. The baby had understood that something was wrong and was now fighting them both - and in the struggle Fussy lost the grip around him.

Olive held the struggling house-elf up to take a last inspecting look at him. "I can guarantee that you will find him most useful for many years to come," she continued. Malfoy nodded and opened the door to the cage standing on the table.

On the floor, Fussy stood next to Olive's feet, holding on to the hem of her skirt while staring up at little Dobby who was squirming in Olive's hands, protesting loudly. Each cry from Dobby seemed to hit her like a whip.

"He's rather loudmouthed for a house-elf," Malfoy said with a frown. It wasn't so much what he said, as the look he gave Dobby - it was the same expression he'd had when looking at Tyke.

"They're like that as babies. It's just the first few days," Olive explained. "When he understands who's in charge you will have no problems whatsoever. Since you already have one, she will do the work for you. Hold him for me."

She gave Dobby to Mr Malfoy, who seemed disgusted by the thought of touching him. Nevertheless, he grabbed him, and Dobby made a tiny squeal in pain, as if the man held him too hard. Olive found a small vial in her pocket, held Dobby's head firmly and let three drops fall into the house-elf's mouth. "Now, this will calm him - he won't wake up until tomorrow morning. We wouldn't want any strange questions from Muggles passing by, would we?"

Her voice was calm and straightforward, but Tyke couldn't make sense of her words. He held on to the chair, his knuckles turning white as he watched Fussy fumbling with his mother's skirt, and lowering her head as if she couldn't take the sight any longer. She trembled like a beaten dog left out in the rain, and when she met Tyke's eyes for a second she turned away as though she was ashamed of her tears.

Then Olive held up little Dobby, one of his arms hanging limp from her hands - all of a sudden her hands seemed too big and her polished nails like claws, and Tyke couldn't stand looking at her anymore and ran out.

He wandered up and down the corridors for a while, doing his best not to think, but soon found his way into the sitting room. Again, Olive was sitting in the leather sofa, reading her book with a contented smile on her face. She glanced up at him before returning to her book.

Tyke walked quietly over to the bookshelves and found his favourite book. As he sat down on the floor and opened Lovegood's book, he looked up at her. "Will Dobby be all right?"

"Oh, I'm sure he will," she answered lightly.

Tyke wasn't so sure, remembering the calculating stare he'd received from their guest. After pretending to read for a few minutes, he couldn't be silent any longer. "Mum?" She made a humming sound as she turned a leaf in the book. "What happens to Dobby if he doesn't turn out to be a...good house-elf? You know, if he can't do his chores and things like that? If he can't do magic?"

Olive frowned. "That won't happen," she stated firmly in the way she did when there was nothing more to discuss.

"But if it did...?" Tyke was pushing it now, and he knew it. But this was important, at least to him.

"Then he would bring him back here, and get his Galleons back. We can't take money for a product that doesn't work properly - that would be stealing, wouldn't it? We're not common thieves, Terrence."

A smile broke out on Tyke's face. "Then we could keep him," he said, and watched the Mokele-mbembe move in the misty landscape of Congo's rainforest.

Olive laughed. "Oh no! What use would he be if he couldn't do his work? A house-elf that can't do magic - that's a contradiction. It would be useless, a waste of space. No, I'd have him put down then." She placed her book beside her on the sofa and looked at his horror-stricken face with what seemed like irritation. "Really, Terrence, sometimes you ask too much! Go and see if Fussy has dinner ready. Come on! Off you go."

Feeling numb, Tyke rose and walked out. Passing his father's study, he noticed a scraping sound from the inside, as if someone was dragging his or her fingernails against the door. He leaned toward the door and placed his ear against the wood. He thought he heard the sound of someone crying, whispering the same phrase over and over, but he couldn't make out any of the words. Frowning, he peeked in through the keyhole. There was something moving in there... Then a loud crash scared him and the door was pressed back against his face, the doorknob hitting him on his forehead. Staggering back, Tyke stared at the door and saw the doorknob moving. Slowly, the shining orb turned around, and he ran away as fast as he could, his heart thumping in his throat.

He stopped by the stairs, and took a deep breath to calm himself before entering the kitchen. There he found the fire crackling merrily, bathing the floor and the walls in a warm light. Bringing a chair over to the fireplace, he sat down beside it to warm his freezing body.

Fussy was working with the pots and kettles. Although he didn't feel like eating, the wonderful smell made Tyke's mouth water and his stomach grumble. With a feeling of guilt for getting hungry, he watched Fussy from the corner of his eye. "How many babies have you had, Fussy?" he asked.

"Five babies, Terrence sir," she replied. Her voice was flat and emotionless, but her face looked terrible - her eyes, huge and dark, seemed to have lost every spark of life as she moved among the steaming pots, mechanically, like a sleepwalker.

Five. And none of them were here. Tyke shuddered. "I... I'm sorry, Fussy. I'm sorry about...this."

"You shouldn't feel sorry, sir," she replied, without looking at him. "Fussy is a good house-elf, sir. She does everything to please her mistress, Fussy knows her place..." She kept saying this over and over, in a quiet tone of voice, like she was chanting a mantra to herself while stirring the pots.

After a while, her monotonous voice became too much to bear and he sneaked over to the pantry and picked out the leg of a chicken and an apple. "Tell mother I'm not hungry," he muttered and walked out.

He hid in his room, and when the time came he cleaned his teeth and put on his pyjamas. With the lights off, he waited in bed until he could hear his mother's steps in the corridor outside his room. The door was opened; he could see the light illuminating the tidy floor of his room - then the door closed and he was alone once more.

He couldn't stop the thoughts churning in his head. "He can't do magic? It would be useless, a waste of space." "Squibs don't do things like that, wizards do."

"You're a disgrace to the family," Tyke muttered to himself. Some time during the night he managed to fall asleep. He slept heavily, and did not dream.