A Slytherin Black Sheep

“A Slytherin Black Sheep”
Chapter Eleven: The Malfoy Connection

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
I’m just out to find
the better part of me

-Superman (It’s Not Easy) by Five For Fighting

June 30, 1984

It was just after four in the afternoon when the Hogwarts Express shuddered to a stop in the station. Despite the thick gray clouds overhead, it was an extraordinarily hot day and everyone was glad to leave the sweaty confines to the train. Being within the carriages felt like being inside a shuddering and bouncing oven.

Illiana was waiting for Edana on the platform, her Hogwart’s robe and house tie draped over her arm. Unlike Edana who had changed into a blue cotton dress, Illiana simply removed her school sweater, but kept the skirt and blouse on.

“Have a good holiday,” Illiana wished the younger girl as she hugged Edana good-bye, her prefect badge still pinned to the robes dug rather painfully into Edana’s bare arm. “I expect to receive many letters from you.”

“I’ll try,” Edana promised, extricating herself from Illiana‘s hug. She liked Illiana, but her badge had sharp edges and Edana was not interested in having her dress torn if the badge caught on it. Repairing charms tended to leave cloth thin in the mended area. “What will you be doing this summer?”

Illiana tucked a strand of her long blond hair behind her ear and assumed what Edana thought of as her studious look. It was a requirement that every Ravenclaw master some variation of this particular look prior to the start of their second year. “I’m interning at the Ministry this summer. Assuming my NEWTS are up to snuff, I’ll be able to join after I leave Hogwarts next year. I hope this internship will help me decide what I want to do in the Ministry.”

“Don’t become an Auror.” Edana said without a trace of humor. She had neither forgiven nor forgotten the manner in which the Aurors treated her small family and did not want to see her friend become one of that mass of humorless black robed wizards and witches.

Illiana appeared taken aback for a moment, then laughed to dissolve the tension. She was well aware of Edana’s opinion on Aurors. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to lurk about in bushes trying to catch Dark Wizards. Would do terrible things to my complexion, and Dark Wizard catching does not mix well with long hair.”

Here Edana had to laugh. Illiana had very long hair, it almost touched her waist when loose. It amazed Edana that she was able to keep it tidy, but then Illiana spent much more sickles on hair potions. “I can imagine.”

“I want to do something intellectually challenging.” Illiana leaned in closer, her hair falling about her face like a pale gold curtain, her voice so low Edana had to lean in closer to hear her. “Actually, I’m hoping to join the Department of Mysteries.”

Edana’s eyebrows shot up. “You’d enjoy the secrecy.”

“I do like being in the know.” Illiana agreed with a pleased smile. “Have you given any thought about what you want to do when you leave Hogwarts? Its not that far off.”

Edana sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I know. Charlie asked me that same question. I just don’t know what I want to do.”

“You could do lots of things Edana. You could join the Ministry.”

Edana laughed. “The Ministry? No. They would never have me. Pixies will don robes and take advanced Arithmancy first.”

“You could still play Quidditch professionally.”

“I’m not that talented.”

“I’ve seen you play. You are good.”

“Good against Hufflepuff is one thing, good against League chasers - that is something else.”

“Well at least you know what you don’t want to do.” Illiana grinned.

“I suppose it’s a start.”

Illiana looked into the crowd where her parents were waving her over. “Whatever you do, I’m sure you’ll be wonderful at it.”

* * *

Edana could not find her mother anywhere around the platform. Mrs. Rosier may have become distant with her daughter after Evan‘s death, but she thus far always remembered to pick her up from the station at the start of holidays.

“Maybe she’s late.” Edana told Shadow. The cat meowed from his wicker basket.

She watched Charlie be engulfed in a hug from his mother. Edana again envied him his numerous, living sibling, and loving parents. She hoped he appreciated them, but doubted he really did. No one really appreciated the people around them until they were gone.

Charlie saw her and blew her a quick kiss before the crowd obscured her view. Edana sighed, it was going to be a long summer without her boyfriend, but maybe they could meet at Diagon Alley.

She had just decided to walk to Diagon Alley and Floo home when she passed through the barrier and found her Uncle Brian was waiting for her in the Muggle station. He wore his work clothes, a dark Muggle suit and tie, and his expression was not one associated with a random visit or pleasant news.

“Uncle Brian.” Edana sputtered. “Is everything all right?”

Uncle Brian maneuvered Edana out of the flow of traffic. His voice was soft and meant to break the news to her gently, but every word was an icicle plunged into her lungs.

“Your mother is dead.”

“Dead.” Edana repeated. Hadn’t she been through this before? Edana thought dizzily. That was Evan, a part of her brain shot back, and two years ago.

Uncle Brian interpreted her response as a request for further information. “A client found her in the dinning room this morning.”

“What happened, how?”

Uncle Brian shook his head. “Details are scarce now, Edana, it really is too soon to be sure of anything. The Ministry told me it looked as though some Dark Arts supporters broke in - you know as well as I there are some valuable items in that house - and your mother, she must have surprised them.”

* * *

Uncle Brian dropped Edana off at home to collect her things while he retrieved her mother’s body and began the funeral arrangements. Edana was preoccupied with her own thoughts and neglected to remind her uncle that she needed very little time to pack. Most of her things were already stored in her Hogwarts trunk. Edana was warned not to go into the room where her mother’s body was found, but otherwise she had the run of the house.

Once her uncle was gone Edana sank into a chair, grateful to be home, but at the same time feeling as though she had wandered into a dream world. She kept expecting her mother to appear from around corners. It did not seem possible that she was dead, but Edana had lost too many family members to revel in denial for long. Her mind was quick to grasp reality even if her heart was in shock.

The whole thing bothered Edana. Once her initial shock passed, she was able to detach herself from the situation and view the circumstances as though the dead witch was a stranger’s mother or a distant relation she did not know. It amazed her that Aurors were not about poking through things. Wasn’t anyone worried she would inadvertently move something important? In all the books she ever read when someone died under suspicious circumstances the whole area was warded off and searched.

In the library, Lucinda Rosier smiled down at her descendant from her place on the wall, but Edana could not bring herself to smile back. Lucinda reminded her too much of her own mother - both saw their husbands destroyed by the Ministry on false Dark Arts charges, both had sons named Evan.

Edana bit her lip to keep from crying. Her emotions seemed to see saw between detachment and flood. She forced herself to admire the lace on Lucinda’s gown; the way she crossed the two wands - one in each hand - like an Egyptian Pharaoh in a tomb painting until the urge to cry passed. When the detachment returned, Edana cynically wondered if her ancestor appeared so regal when her family was being torn apart by the Ministry.

The Ministry. Edana had two family member’s deaths to lay at their door, only one was justified. She sometimes wondered if the Ministry were picking up the thread of that previous administration and completing the destruction of the Rosier family that began in Lucinda’s time. Her mother had been murdered, but before a day passed the Ministry declared her death the work of dark arts practitioners. It seemed they were not bothering to look much into why she had been killed and the exact identity of her killer. Even if Edana’s thoughts were not suspicious of the Ministry by nature, the strangeness of the situation would have raised concern.

She forced herself to consider other suspects. Edana knew her mother was not unsympathetic to Death Eaters, in retrospect she realized her mother was fully aware of Evan’s activities. After Evan’s death, then the defeat of the Dark Lord, Mrs. Rosier retreated further from society and her own daughter. Was her behavior seen as a sign of madness? An insane person would surely have been seen as a security risk.

Or maybe the explanation was as mundane as the ministry suggested. Her mother stumbled across a robbery in progress. But nothing of value was missing; Edana made a search of the property as soon as she arrived at the house.

Then Edana remembered the amulet her mother had been working on, the commission Evan brought her. The commission that might have come from the Dark Lord himself. Maybe that was what they wanted. Maybe her mother refused to hand it to a stranger.

If so then the robbers were out of luck. Mrs. Rosier placed the amulet in Edana’s Gringott’s vault after Evan died, along with a few other items that might be confiscated. She knew the Ministry would not dare to confiscate the assets of a minor. They might make things difficult until she was of age, but they could not steal from her. Her record was without blemish and familial connections alone were not enough to merit seizure of property from a minor.

Edana drummed her fingers on a table. Assuming the motive was robbery, why wouldn’t her mother give the amulet to Death Eaters. She had access to Edana’s vault.

What if the robbers weren’t Death Eaters...

The Ministry had already searched the house, years ago. What if new information came forward, information that would tell them where to look....

Her uncle Brian told her what they wanted at Evan‘s funeral.

“They were hoping to uncover Dark Arts items, spare wands and the like. Death Eaters are rumored to keep multiple wands to use in their activities. The theory is that if they are caught, the Aurors will not be able to catalog every spell they have performed. They think Evan may have kept one of his wands here.”

The Death Eaters would want to keep Evan’s exact activities a mystery, the Aurors wanted a window on the Dark Lord’s past activities they could peer through to speculate on his present and future moves. Both groups had motive, method, and opportunity.

And not just anyone could circumvent the spells protecting the house and grounds.

The Rosier family was ancient, considered by most historians to be the oldest magical family in continuous residence in the British Isles. Edana had never had cause to examine the family archives in detail before, but the surnames the Rosiers had married over the centuries read like a who’s who in British wizarding history. The family might have fallen in social and financial standing, but they had never to Edana’s knowledge been required to sell heirlooms. Mrs. Rosier often liked to quote her husband that family heirlooms cannot be thought of as having a market value as that leads to their being put on the market.

When any group of people reside in an area for an extended length of time they imprint themselves on that place. This place was Rosier territory, had been since before the founding of Hogwarts. Of course the original Saxon hall (built on the site of a Roman villa) no longer existed, nor did the small castle that followed it (demolished in the reign of one of the Edwards), but the present house still stood, built a with material salvaged from the ruins of the previous castle. That was a great deal of time to create hidden chambers, passages, and other hiding places.

Edana’s eyes narrowed. Evan knew more family secrets than she did on account of his age at the time of their father’s death. Some he passed on to her, other he did not. The house was not huge, but 13 bedchambers and assorted other rooms left a lot of space to search for something as thin and small as a wand.

* * *

Three hours later an exhausted Edana collapsed on her bed. She tried each and every hiding place she could imagine Evan might use and a few she invented. The only things she found were a handful of knuts and a few dusty toys of the variety that came out of Christmas crackers. The only exception to her search were her mother’s bedroom and the room her body had been discovered in. Edana closed her eyes when she closed the door. She did not want to see.

She went downstairs to make herself some tea, Uncle Brian would not come to retrieve her until five, four hours away, and she did not have much to pack. Most of her things were already in her Hogwarts trunk, though she did add a few sentimental items from around the house.

Just as she was pouring the tea, one of the house elves came scurrying forward.

“Miss Edana! Miss Edana!”

“What is it Squeaky?” Edana seldom saw the house elf excited. She considered that he might have become unbalanced after her mother’s death. House elves became very attached to their human masters.

“You has a visitor, Miss Edana!”

Edana nearly dropped her teacup. Who would visit her here? Not any of her friends, they had seen her leave with Uncle Brian. Squeaky would not announce her uncle and was unlikely to call a Ministry official a visitor. Who then?

“A visitor?”

The elf bobbed its head up and down like buoy in the tide. “He’s in the front hall, Miss Edana.”

Edana straightened her clothes and checked her hair in a mirror. She was the lady of the house now after all.

* * *

The wizard in the entry hall was tall and slender with pale aristocratic features and eyes the exact gray of Edana’s own. They might have reminded her of Evan, but Evan never accessed her with the coldness that these eyes did. He was not a handsome man but there was something about him that commanded attention.

“Miss Rosier, I presume.” The voice was cultured, accent very upper class and somehow false. His expression trailed his words by a matter of heartbeats, composed to match his speech rather than actual feelings.

Edana did her best to sound mature, but her voice sounded like a little girl to her own ears. She felt very self conscious of her dress, why didn‘t she take the time to find less juvenile clothing? “I am Edana Rosier. Who are you?”

The man smiled like a cat, lazy and confident that the mouse would be his dinner that evening. Edana felt a blanket of ice fall around her, it disturbed her all the more to be frightened of someone who was standing in her own home.

The smile grew, like a bow drawn to fire an arrow. “I am Lucius Malfoy.”

Edana knew who he was by reputation, but the revelation of his identity only made his presence in her foyer all the more confusing. To her knowledge there was no connection between Lucius Malfoy and her small family. He left Hogwarts before Evan arrived and figured in none of her mother’s stories. As her mother conducted most of her amulet business from home, Edana knew most clients by sight and she was certain Lucius Malfoy had never been here before.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Mr. Malfoy. My mother’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday.” She knew it was rude, but Edana felt an unreasoning desire to both obtain answers and get him out of the house. She just wanted Uncle Brian to collect her so she could pull down the facade of control and collapse knowing someone else would deal with the intricacies of arranging the funeral and dealing with any mourners.

“I was saddened to hear about Lenore’s death of course,” Mr. Malfoy replied in way that that told her this conversation was not over.

“I’m certain that you were.” Edana answered, feeling a sudden unwillingness to talk about her mother and fighting to keep the sarcasm from her voice. Politeness, politeness, her mind screamed. Polite words were more likely to produce answers and get rid of him.

“I knew your father quite well,”

This was a surprise, but Edana did not show it. “Really. I was too young when he died to remember him.”

“A pity. Pure-blood families are too often targets of Ministry aggression in these times, are they not, Miss Rosier.”

“So I have been told.” Edana wished he would stop talking about her parents. She was tired of thinking about them, tired of dealing with the emotions that accompanied talk of them.

“You inquired about the purpose of my visit earlier,” Lucius said. He removed a roll of parchment from his black silk cloak and handed it to her. She unrolled it, noting the impressive list of signatures and seals at the bottom.

“This is a legal document,” Edana said.

“Yes,” Lucius confirmed. “A copy of your mother’s last will and testament to be precise. She left all of her assets and property to you.”

“I’m aware of this.”

“You may not be aware that your father’s will, to which hers defers in the matter of custody in the event that you are left orphaned, awards your guardianship only to a blood relation of your father’s.”

Edana already knew this. Her mother despised her remaining family and would not have left a dead owl to them. “My Uncle Brian is coming for me.”

Mr. Malfoy sneered. Something in his demeanor suggested he did this quite a bit. “An unmarried squib with no experience raising children?”

Edana stiffened. “He is still my uncle. My only remaining family.”

“Not exactly. You see, my dear, you and I are cousins.”

“Very distant.” Edana said thinking of Lucinda Malfoy Rosier.

“My grandmother and mine were sisters.” Mr. Malfoy informed her. He handed her a second, slimmer, scroll. It too had the look of a legal document. “I’ve already been awarded custody of you on the grounds of the unsuitability of your uncle.”

Edana could not find the words with which to reply, which seemed to suit Mr. Malfoy. He directed the house elves to bring Edana’s things and led her from the house.