Family Album: The Truth in the Oracle

The Truth in the Oracle

I am all the daughters of my father's house.

Twelfth Night, W. Shakespeare

Love, according to some ghastly film she had once seen, meant never having to say you were sorry. Andromeda had her differences with Muggle popular culture, but this she would concede. It suited her. Her family weren't much good at apologies, but they could manage love.

Life might have been easier at times, certainly at the Ministry, if it had not taken Andromeda such a very long time to understand the benefit of a social apology, something that, looking back, Bellatrix had grasped around her Hogwarts sixth year, and this was another reason that Bellatrix had been an excellent Head Girl, and Andromeda had stood no chance of being picked. But Bellatrix, unlike Andromeda, had understood and wanted the benefits of defence. Still, that was only a surface difference; Bellatrix would never have apologized about something that mattered. So when Narcissa's letter came, and contained neither an apology nor a request for one, Andromeda was not foolish enough to think the omission mattered, at least not in that way. Quite the contrary; the omission mattered because some things didn't need civility. Civility would have been the proof that things were irreparable. Civility was what happened when one left one's sword at the door. Love did not carry one at all.

The Malfoys' eagle owl - ostentatious, but then Lucius had always had a slightly ostentatious streak - was at least being put to good use this morning, depositing a bulky parcel wrapped in brown paper and string and angling for an owl treat before swooping away into some rather black clouds. Ah well, rain would fill the reservoirs. Andromeda finished her eggs and bacon, fortifying herself against a dreaded committee meeting scheduled for 10 o'clock and bound to run into lunch, and turned to the package. Under the slightly damp outer wrappings, Narcissa's letter lay atop of another parcel, wrapped in more brown paper and sealed with the purple wax of a No-tamper seal. Whatever else it was, it was secret. Andromeda hesitated and then relaxed: Narcissa wasn't an idiot, wasn't going to compromise herself now. She touched her wand to the seal and coughed slightly on the violet cloud that billowed up. Inside, a neat pile of printed pages lay in a cardboard sleeve. She picked up the first page. Kissing Cousins, it read, A Novel by Anonymous. Surely Narcissa hadn't written a novel? She turned back to the unread letter.

Dear Andromeda,

Have you heard anything about the enclosed? It's a proof copy (mysterious tale of acquisition to follow). We need to talk about how we're going to respond - you'll see what I mean when you read it. Can you let me know as soon as possible when you could come round to go over it? Sorry, but I can't come to you; I've had flu and they won't let me leave the house (also, your carpets were rather nice as I remember them, and I'm afraid apparating might cause me to be sick on them).

Love from,

Narcissa

P.S. Don't read page 52 whilst holding anything.

Andromeda should have known that her habit of flicking through novels before reading them properly would one day exact its price. Had she begun at the beginning, she would have understood what she faced. As it was - 'Oh cousin,' moaned Sirius, as her mouth closed over his rampant sex, 'take me, take me now!' He wound his hand in her thick black hair; Death Eater, Voldemort's paramour, his cousin Bellatrix, he had betrayed everything he believed for her, and she was all he had ever wanted. Two minutes later, two hundred pages of proofs were scattered over the dining room floor, and Andromeda, reeling with a shock of which she had not believed herself capable, knocking her head on a table leg as she crawled to pick them up, tried to remember a suitable sorting spell. She generally left the paperwork to her apprentices.

Dear Narcissa,

How on earth did you get hold of this? Do you have any idea who wrote it? I can't believe anyone would publish it - is it part of a collection? I'll read it properly tonight, and I can come round tomorrow afternoon. I'm not sure quite when I'll get away - we've got a delegation visiting the lab so I'm trapped, but I should be there by half-past four.

With love,

Andromeda

Andromeda addressed the envelope and shoved the family owl out into the storm with no mercy, located her keys, a pair of warm boots, and the article she'd been reading the previous evening, and picked up the Portkey that would transport her to an icy little courtyard outside her laboratory in Wittenberg, a privilege of academic rank. Then she hesitated. She had locked the re-sorted pages in a bureau drawer, but with her initial shock at the contents - at the first page - she had neglected to follow Narcissa's hint, and now she found herself forming a horrible idea of what she might find there. It was no good. She couldn't possibly leave without checking.

The young Muggle writhed naked in his bonds. Thin cords, ensorcelled against the knives of any rescuer who might think to brave the dungeons, bound him hand and foot to the stone pillar beside the empty throne. Blood trickled from skin rubbed raw in futile attempt at escape. All around him the orgy of the damned roared on, witches and wizards driven by lust and strange liqueurs to acts of desperate abandon. Their flesh gleamed in the lurid light of magical fire as they bent their bodies in almost impossible contortions. The air was filled with the cacophonous sounds of unholy pleasure, and over it all, the hideous wails of their victims' screams.

A naked witch approached him, leading a goat on a chain. She was chained herself, leather cuffs held feet and ankles, and her white neck was encircled with heavy links. The stark lines of her face, between curtains of long black hair, seemed oddly familiar, though he was certain he had not seen her before. She reminded him of one of the witches who had seized him from the seminary: some familial relationship, perhaps? Her hand trailed lazily down her body, beaded with sweat, and onto the rough hair of the goat. Even as he called out silently to Heaven, the Muggle found his helpless body, chained and naked, respond to her against his will. He groaned, and she laughed at him.

Andromeda slapped the paper down and hissed. 'I'm going to have their blood.'

*

Narcissa opened the door herself and ushered her sister in out of the wet dark of late afternoon. Crumbs of snow from Wittenberg still clung to Andromeda's boots and she stamped vigorously on the doormat as she handed over her heavy travelling cloak. Narcissa stroked the fur around the hood and examined her sister.

'You look smart.'

'Thank you. We had a delegation from Hekseskolen in. They're thinking of introducing a course in magical ethics, so they're going around gathering evidence from interested parties. You know the Norwegians; they like it when one dresses up.'

'An ethics course?'

'I know: the end of a thousand years of tradition in European magical education. Don't think they weren't aware of the irony when they asked me about my own education in the subject and I told them that the only place that had ever suggested I consider it was the Scholomance.'

'There's an optional course in the Muggle Studies NEWT,' Narcissa protested valiantly. 'Oh God, listen to me, proud wife of a Hogwarts governor. That's where Lucius is this afternoon. He won't be back for ages - they always overrun. Well, come in properly and have something to eat. Do you want to borrow some slippers?'

How long is it since they last spoke? Nearly five years now, and it is as nothing. Less time since they saw one another, at least, since Andromeda stood beside Narcissa's bed looking down on a pinched face drained of blood, at Lucius sitting helpless, when the whole world had fallen in. Afterwards, Narcissa would not see her. Lucius was apologetic but unmoving.

'I'll always tell her,' he said, 'but I can't ask her.'

'Will she be able - ' she trailed off. It wasn't her business; not if Narcissa wouldn't see her.

'I don't know. Frankly, it was touch and go as things were. She hasn't been well for a while.' He had shown her out. They had said goodbye and he had moved to close the door before he finally said it.

'Andromeda. It isn't the baby. It's Bellatrix. She blames you for Bellatrix.'

'For Bella? But why?'

'Oh for God's sake, Andromeda,' and for a second he looked almost like her mother, 'why do you think?'

Andromeda had attended her sister's trial. Her mother and Narcissa were too ill, but someone ought to be there. Bellatrix probably couldn't see her among the crowd, and would certainly not have shown it if she could, but Andromeda knew that Bella deserved to have somebody there, and so she went. She remembered Rabastan and Rodolphus, poor devils, not up to the Dementors; she wondered how much of them was left. She remembered Bellatrix, straight-backed and strong, the last raking glance of her eyes around the dungeon court before she had swept out. Afterwards, Andromeda had run into a weeping Roswitha Lestrange in the corridor.

'He should never have married her,' she sobbed. 'Oh, never, it should never...' Roswitha, ten years older than her brother and on the edge of total loss of self-control, caught sight of Andromeda. 'Your sister. He should never have married her.' Trapped by the crowd of onlookers, Andromeda shrugged coldly.

'That's funny,' she said, 'I was just thinking the same thing.'

It wasn't that none of that was important now, but nor did it have to matter. Narcissa handed her a pair of crimson slippers.

A house elf brought sherry and rock cakes, Draco made them, he's keen on potions at the moment, and it seemed a safer option, and Narcissa curled herself up in an ample armchair.

'So, what are we going to do about it? And how on earth did you get it?'

Narcissa smiled. 'A secret mole - it is moles, isn't it - sent it by Muggle post. God knows how she got a spare. She made me promise not to do attempt to contact her - I had to say yes, she'd lose her job if they knew - but at least it gives us time to prepare.'

'Hmm. There's no hope that it's a really bad practical joke by someone with too much time on their hands?'

'Definitely not. It's to be published in April - nice summer reading.'

'God. Can we stop it? I suppose that's the sort of thing that wouldn't have been a issue, once upon a time, but now?'

'Well, that's the question. Although, you know, it isn't really unique. Didn't Rosier's father have some massive collection that the boys used to talk about?'

'I'd forgotten that. Yes, he brought one back to school one year.'

'Did he? I never knew.' Narcissa reached across for a rock cake. 'Still, that hardly helps us now, and I doubt it was about real people. No one was sitting in the common room whilst people read filth about his close relatives. What are we going to do about it?'

Andromeda frowned. 'I'm not sure. I don't know that there's anything we can do. Have you talked to Avernus Caughtler yet?'

'No. I didn't think it needed to reach legal ears until we'd discussed it.'

'Maybe. It's just - what charge could we possibly make? It's sold as fiction.'

'It is fiction. No one could ever believe those things of Bellatrix! Not even of Sirius. It utterly traduces the family name.'

'More than the two of them have done already?' said Andromeda drily.

'Certainly differently.' Narcissa twisted herself round and sat up. 'It's horrible. It's utterly degrading. And people will read it, and either they'll laugh or they'll - and the publishers will make money. It isn't going to go away, Andromeda. It's going to sell, and everyone is going to read it!'

'Surely not - '

'You would, if it were about someone else. I would. Nymphadora's classmates certainly will. Who's going to miss out on the fun?'

'You're right. We'll have to talk to Caughtler. But think: what possible charge could we make?'

'It's libel!'

'It depicts acts of torture and murder. Even if they're different acts of torture and murder from the ones on which Bellatrix and our dear cousin stand convicted, I can't see a jury being very sympathetic.'

'All right. But what about the sex? Adultery's a serious accusation.'

'As serious as torture and murder? You have to have a reputation to claim it's been damaged. She'd get about a knut. And could we even act on Sirius's behalf?'

'That's a point. I don't know actually know who would, now Uncle Alphard's dead. But what about you? You did read page fifty-two?'

'Oh yes. Oh God.' Despite herself, Andromeda couldn't help smiling. 'If I ever find out who wrote it, I really am going to skin them alive. But that's no go. I'd have to say why it would be recognised as a portrait of me.'

'I can see that might be a little embarrassing.'

'It doesn't particularly appeal. We need another approach. There is one I wondered about : the vampire scene. Page eighty-nine,' Andromeda added, as Narcissa rummaged though the pile.

'Ah yes, here we are. The vampire laughed, and she saw the point of his fangs press into his lower lip. She was not afraid. Behind the heavy panelling, her cousin was watching at a peephole, alert and ready. Between them, Bellatrix and Sirius would be able to subdue the creature to their Dark Master's ends, but first more than curiosity must be satisfied. The vampire cast off his gown. The stark pallor of his body against the crimson velvet curtains of the bed made even the witch's white breast look swarthy by comparison. Blue veins pulsed unnaturally beneath his skin as she dropped her silken under-robe to the floor. She reached to touch his awakening flesh, knowing even as she did so that her cousin was surely caressing himself in silence as he watched them together, and '

'Stop!'

'Don't worry; I'll spare you. Though I did note that he uses 'white breast' four times in that scene alone. Anonymous wasn't very inventive with adjectives.'

'Inventive or nor, the depicting of carnal knowledge of a vampire might give us a shot at restricting sales - at least we could keep it out of the under-seventeens' dormitories.'

'Oh?'

'The Fellows of the Scholomance, to persuade us to attend those ethics lectures, liked to throw in titbits. There've been quite a few prosecutions in Eastern Europe over the centuries on the grounds that carnal knowledge of a vampire is technically desecrating a corpse. Of course, the perpetrators are usually dead themselves by the time the cases come to trial, but it does serve as a bit of an object lesson to young people with romantic ideas. There were always a couple of girls at the Scholomance who arrived wanting to do their fieldwork in Roumania.'

'Andromeda, that's brilliant!'

'I don't know that it'll fly, mind you.'

'Hmm. Much like the desecrated corpses. Still, we can mention it to Caughtler.'

*

Sleet spattered against the window; the sisters could hear it through the curtains. Narcissa reached for another rock cake.

'So,' asked Andromeda, 'how are you?' Narcissa scraped a burnt crumb off the bun with her fingernail.

'Oh, much better. Not quite up to standard, but well enough for use.'

'I'm glad to hear it. You had a rotten deal.'

'Oh, I don't know. Sometimes it was quite fun when I was little. Not when I couldn't eat anything, or felt really under the weather, but lying on the sofa, listening to the grown-ups gossip, that wasn't bad at all.'

'Hmm.' There are other things Andromeda would like to ask, but she can't. One doesn't.

'It occurred to me,' Narcissa says, 'that last time you came, Lucius may have said something to you, about Bellatrix.'

'Yes.' He had said that Narcissa blamed her. That that was why Andromeda's sister wouldn't see her.

'He wasn't wrong, but,' she wiped a sultana round her plate. 'It was complicated. There were other things.'

'He was right.' Andromeda remembers. 'I met Bella in Diagon Alley one day when - when she had Draco with her. She'd been in Madam Malkin's. I said that Alice Longbottom was a cow.'

'She was. Smug, sanctimonious, and with a very nasty mind.'

'Yes. But Bellatrix asked me, and I said yes, she was.'

'Ah.' Narcissa does not contradict her - her sister does not expect it. 'I haven't been in Madam Malkin's for years. It went downhill after the old woman died.'

'I only go for Nymphadora's school things these days. They just don't cut like they used to.'

'No.' Suddenly, Narcissa smiled. 'I think I've just seen a silver lining. We're not going to get this thing stopped - but we're not going to be the only ones embarrassed. There's a good few people who won't like this at all.'

'Hmm. Are you thinking of the chapter with the over-use of 'ravishing'?'

'That's the one. And doesn't she deserve it?'

'Definitely. Such a pity she can't appreciate it. Wait a minute.' Andromeda tapped her wand against her fingers. 'Do you think your mystery source has sent Augusta Longbottom an advance copy, too?'

'Oh my God!' Narcissa caught her sister's glee. 'No, she said she'd only got one.' She rifled through the loose pages. 'Here's a good bit. The tears gleamed on the witch's plump cheeks, as she trembled - trembled half in fear, half in delirious anticipation at the figure of the mighty Muggle who stood before her, a figure that represented all her nightmares, all her dreams. Her breast glowed red with shame and desire at the sight of the mighty engine of her ravishment. Oh let's. Augusta will go absolutely spare.'

'If I were the publisher, I'd be very worried. I'm convinced that vulture on her hat isn't really stuffed. But I don't think we should send it just yet. Augusta Longbottom is high-minded. They might cut that bit of it for her, and I'm sure she'd try to stop the whole thing, but she won't be able to. The Frank and Alice stuff is as much as she'll manage, even with the Ministry backing her for the sake its Aurors' reputation. No, I think you should ask your source for a finished copy, a day or two before publication. That's what we'll send to Augusta - once they've spent the money on printing and poor quivering Alice is bound in with the rest. Let them fight it out then - we'll lose in the end, I expect, but it won't be the launch they'd looked for, and if the Auror sections are condemned it'll cost a packet to remove them.'

'And meanwhile we put out a high-minded statement about venal publishers seeking to profit by exploiting the pain of families who sacrificed loved ones? Titillation at the expense of grieving relatives, and so on.'

'There's nothing like moral outrage to get one into the papers.'

'Of course not. A weapon needing neither spell nor potion to augment its massive potency as it says in chapter six.'

'A very palpable thrust.'

A house elf trotted in with a tray and cleared the plates away briskly. The clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour musically. Narcissa shifted her feet in her chair.

'Have you got to get back, or would you like to stay for dinner? And Ted, of course, if he's not working. You could telephone him,' she finished, a little self-consciously.

'You've got a real telephone? Not just the old house one?'

Narcissa shrugged. 'Well, they are useful. We use it to talk to Lucius's mother. It really is horrible speaking to Vienna by Floo.'

'I'd love to stay, thanks. Ted's working 'til late. You'll have to come round to us when you're completely better.'

'We will. Here, we'd better put this stuff away. Can you pass me the box?'

*

'I love you,' she moaned. She buried her face in his hair, holding him against her breast as he bit down, drawing blood. 'Oh my cousin, how can you bear it day after day, so far from your true company, hiding your true allegiance, your true passion, suffering the affection of such Mudblood filth? Are you never afraid of them?'

'I do it for you,' he whispered passionately. 'I'd do anything for you. It doesn't matter what I suffer - I'd suffer worse, I'd suffer Azkaban - to help the ones I love.'

'I am glad to hear it.' The voice, a susurration of dry leaves, came behind them. 'So you will be glad to prove it. The Potters hide from me. They dare to think they may escape my wrath. Find them for me, Sirius, and prove your loyalty.'

'My Lord, I shall.'

'Did you read the end?' Narcissa asked.

'Yes. I didn't want to, but I did.'

*

'There's one other thing,' said Narcissa later, stirring sugar into her coffee, 'that I do wonder about.'

'Oh?'

'Who wrote it? The style is abominable, the dialogue risible, there isn't a page without a white or trembling breast and I'm fairly sure that quite a lot of the stuff described isn't physically possible, but the characterisation is actually quite good. Leaving aside the obvious, you know, it really is like them.'

'I know. Frank Longbottom, Alice, Wilkes,'

'You read the bit with the house-elf, then?'

'It's un-missable. But they're cameos. Cameos are easy. That's why there's one of me. But Sirius and Bellatrix are proper characters. It isn't just hanging scenes together and putting in a few well-known biographical details. It's them.'

'That's why it's horrible.'

'I know. But it works. I was reading it, Cissy, and I knew how they were going to behave. They weren't realistic, but they were real. I mean, I'd bet my wand that Sirius was never chained to a wall and begging our brother-in-law to bugger him, but if he were, I could imagine it being like that.'

'That's it. And you know what it means?'

'It was written by someone we know.'

'Any ideas who?'

'Not really. I can't think who knew both of them well enough, at least after Sirius had taken up with Potter.'

'Oh well. It doesn't matter.'

'No. Look, I'm sorry, I really must go. I've got to be at work early tomorrow - tutorials first thing. Give my love to Lucius, and we'll see you both on the tenth.'

'Definitely.'

*

Andromeda closed the front door behind her, switched on the light, and hurried over to turn off the burglar alarm. They had had it installed for the Muggle insurance, for which, appearances apart, it was entirely unnecessary, but she had not been ungrateful over the years to know that even a disillusionment charm was no proof against movement sensors. She left her cloak and boots for the house elf to see to, and scooped up the carrier bag she had dumped in the hallway earlier. It bore the legend of a Wittenberg copy and print service; thank heavens, thought Andromeda, for Muggle politics and schools that taught Russian rather than English. She had been a little worried that Narcissa might have felt morally obliged to burn the original, but what did she really know of her sister's moral scruples? Better not to think about it. That was how one survived, deciding not to think about things, about what people had done, and what one had done or left undone oneself.

Ted, coming home half an hour later, found his wife asleep in bed and knew that things must have gone all right. He had read the book himself the previous night, taking the chapters as she finished with them, and finding the bag on a chair on the landing, carried it off to the study and safety from casual droppers-in.

'I know who wrote it,' he said aloud, 'and why. You will go ahead with publication, won't you, now it's achieved its end? It might be a little obvious, otherwise, and people don't like being manipulated.'

'I don't know what you mean,' said a cool voice from over the mantelpiece. 'To my mind, people like being manipulated very much. They appreciate being saved the difficult decisions. What they don't like is having it brought to their attention.'

'Perhaps. But my wife has a certain pride - inherited, no doubt, but hers all the same. I'd hate to see the plan backfire. You've managed it very cleverly so far.'

'Oh, we shall certainly go ahead. I'm even planning a companion volume: Phoenix Rising. But allow an old man his curiosity; how did you guess?'

'Despite my magical education, I retain some power of logical thought. I asked myself: money aside, cui bono? There'll be some temporary embarrassment, of course, and I can't imagine Nymphadora's going to have much fun at school, but scandals move on and other things remain. You're a soft old serpent really, aren't you?'

The answering silence nonetheless managed to convey a tone of offended dignity. Ted shrugged, closed the box file, and turned to go. Only as he opened the door did the reply come.

'Edmund,' it said, 'you may call me Phineas.'