The Skull Beneath the Skin

Author's Note: Yes, I do genuinely believe this theory to be canonically plausible. I haven't actually put a bet on it, but I certainly wouldn't bet against it. The character of Andromeda may be made up practically out of whole cloth, but Romilda's reasoning is not. The title is from T.S.Eliot, but don't let that put you off.

The Skull Beneath the Skin

I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath on day;
And I cried for more than a week, dears,
But I never could find where she lay.

I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day;
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For her paint is all washed away,
And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,
And her hair not the least bit curled:
Yet, for old sake's sake she is still, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world.

The Lost Doll, Charles Kingsley

An unhappy memory is not lost. That is the ultimate irony of Azkaban, a place founded by a petty-minded Ministry who could never have dreamt of the saving glory of failure. So this unhappy memory is chosen carefully. There might have been a different one, a last glimpse of the child torn from you by infamous hands. This one is better: this one is chosen and to sacrifice for good is not surrender. Besides, all is not yet lost; with luck the continent still beckons; but you feel that you have had your share of luck.

Cobbles surround the memorial of a different war on a damp and chilly morning in Diagon Alley, taking the action that you know may prove the fatal delay. Rationally you have considered that you might abandon Rodolphus, that his injuries will only slow you down, but how long would you last on your own when they have tortured in him in your turn and know where you are going? Besides, you are not a coward. Blacks may be wrong, desperately wrong, they may be treacherous, but they never run. If they want you, you will go. And Barty will be there, the necessary insurance against the Killing Curse that is the only thing that can stop everything. The Dark Lord will rise - you cannot doubt it - even without your aid, and it may yet not come to that. You have thought about Narcissa, but Narcissa is frail and will have her own pain to endure and in the end you have chosen simply to be selfish, to secure a lasting memory, and for the baby freedom from everything that you have loved and held of most worth.

I here and now renounce all claim to the governance of this my daughter Romilda.

*

Of all the benefits of being a witch rather than a Muggle, Andromeda Black considered that not having to balance plate in one hand, glass in the other, and somehow convey buffet food to one's mouth should not be underestimated. On the other hand, she reflected, scanning the cold collation laid on by the Ministry of Magic as the hovering plate and glass at her elbow chinked gently together, this meant that there was an unfortunate social expectation that one would actually partake of the food provided. Having avoided food poisoning at many a BBC occasion by dint of popping one or two grapes on her plate and otherwise sticking to gin, Andromeda did not view the spread before her with enthusiasm. They were the same caterers. She selected a couple of cheese biscuits, some Stilton and after a moment' hesitation a celery stick, and retired in search of bearable conversation.

She found it scowling in a corner.

'I really wouldn't do that if I were you.'

Severus Snape looked up, a mini-quiche halfway to his lips.

'Seriously. If you are thinking of ending it all, I'm sure your second years' latest attempts will be both quicker and kinder. Crucially, they won't have involved eggs sitting for five hours in an over-warm pantry.

'If I didn't know you better, Professor, I'd say you were impugning the standards of our dear Ministry.'

'Would I do that? These biscuits look all right. Oh God, get behind the curtain, quick! There's Umbridge going to give a speech.'

The curtains, star-spangled velvet hanging from the ceiling to pool upon the floor, muffled the dulcet tones of the Hogwarts High Inquisitor quite effectively. Andromeda remembered the parties held in the room during her first couple of years with the Ministry, before things became too serious for parties. People were always sneaking off behind the curtains.

'D'you know, I once caught Phronsie in a clinch with Faramond Waldegrave back here,' mused Snape.

Andromeda laughed. 'I was just thinking the same thing - different people, but the same thing. We must be getting old. Look, Severus, would you come round one evening next week?' She raised her voice a little for the benefit of the undoubted listeners on the other side of the curtains. 'I've some interesting results I'd like to run past you, and we could have supper. It gets so very dull eating on my own when Ted's at work.'

'I'd be delighted.'

He drifted back out into the room in time to stand and clap ostentatiously in Umbridge's view, and Andromeda waited a moment, and headed over to Crux Croaker. Only as she headed for the Floo did she see him again, bumping against her side in quest for the street.

'Family?' he muttered, amidst apologies.

'That's the question.'

*

Romilda Vane was a foundling. These days, this was a point of interest. There weren't as many foundlings as there used to be. Generally there were still one or two each Hogwarts year, and of course among the children a few years older than Romilda there were the orphans of You-Know-Who's campaign, but there weren't so many foundlings. These days if a mother died it was more acceptable for a wizard to raise the child himself, and with the trend towards smaller families - although there were always exceptions - parents were less likely to find themselves unable to feed the extra mouth. Nonetheless, there were still a few, left in doorways in Diagon Alley, under pub tables, in front gardens, with a keepsake in a drawstring pouch and a lengthy roll of parchment detailing precise feeding and sleeping arrangements, with a stuffed animal (never popular with adoptive parents, that one, given the cost of taxidermists' fees), with nothing at all. Very occasionally, a family name would be given to be held by the Ministry until the child came of age, but that was rare. A large number of foundlings, after all, were Squibs, more than there used to be. Parents were required to register a child by its third birthday, a practice said to be the relic of superstition: that nothing be taken for granted until the dangers of infancy had been overcome; but really everybody knew that it was a perfectly sensible way of allowing families to deal privately with the embarrassment of Squibs, one way or the other. Older foundlings were more likely to be Squibs, tried perhaps by their parents but showing no signs of magic. The Ministry administered its own tests, and likely suspects (because even the Kransfeldt-Hammelkraft test was not absolutely reliable beyond the age of six weeks) were either fostered out to Squib families or placed within a Ministry Institution until the Hogwarts register could be consulted. Indisputably magical children were offered to the family at the top of the waiting list. They were rarely turned down.

Romilda was not a Squib. It had said so in the record left with her at the foot of the Diagon Alley war memorial, giving her birth date, details of inoculum potion received, and the words "My daughter is a witch." Mummy and Daddy - carefully differentiated in Romilda's mind from "my mother" and "my father" - had told her how the owl had arrived at breakfast one morning with a letter in its beak summoning them to St Mungo's. They had known it could only be one thing and Mummy had hurried upstairs to put clean sheets on the cot as Daddy did the washing up, and then -

"And then we went to St Mungo's, and we signed the parchment, and we had you." They had been so frank about it that it was years before Romilda understood that there must have been more to it than that. Nor had anyone ever mentioned that the Ministry had surely not taken the parchment at its word, and how she had performed in the inevitable test of magic.

She asked if she had seemed to miss her mother. Her parents thought not. She had been too little, and such a sweet, happy baby, so trusting; her mother must have been very good with her, for Romilda to be such a happy baby. Romilda had been far too young, of course, to have any memories of her mother, only she knew, sometimes, when she was poorly or had a bad dream and Mummy hugged her close and comforted her, that this was not her mother, that the sense, the smell of the other witch had been different, and she wondered if she might know any more than this fact of difference. If she might know her again.

It was said that it was a common thing in children for them to imagine themselves foundlings, to imagine themselves really the children of great witches and wizards, even, among the little ones, that they were really Harry Potter. This was an escape from everyday life, and perfectly healthy. Muggle children, Romilda was aware from school, sometimes imagined themselves witches and wizards in just the same way. Romilda, knowing herself both a foundling and a witch, had never imagined anything of the sort. Nor as a small child had she given much thought to her mother and father, and what her life might have been like had they not given her up. Her parents were always willing to talk about it if she wanted, but really she was perfectly happy with Mummy and Daddy and Tolly her pet puffskein, acquired after much pleading for her eighth birthday on the promise that she would not, no, not once, but never, take him out of the house or show him to Muggle visitors. She attended her Muggle primary school on weekdays, had swimming lessons on Monday evenings, went to the cultural centre on Saturday mornings, and was perfectly happy as she was. It was hard to say as she grew older whether she began to wonder more herself, or whether it was the realization that Mummy and Daddy wondered about her that set it off.

Sometimes, odd things happened. She had been seven one summer day when they went to the St Mungo's Summer Fete and she had fallen asleep sitting with Daddy and Granddad, watching the WWN vs. St Mungo's annual charity cricket match. She had lain on the tartan picnic rug, her head in Daddy's lap, and woken hearing another voice mingled with the men's, an elderly woman with a touch of starch about her, and she had looked up bleary eyed and all of a sudden as she looked up the woman had seemed to lurch backward. Really, it was a trick of the heat and the light, and the old woman had collected herself and fanned her programme over her face as Daddy said,

'Romilda, this is Augusta Longbottom. Madam Longbottom used to play cricket herself. She knows all about it.' Then Granddad had taken her to buy some lemonade. Romilda did not really feel like lemonade, but she drank it all the same, and went to the lavatory on her own, which felt very grown up. Granddad said that Augusta Longbottom had been a member of the Ministry side that had so famously met the Indian delegation in 1925 and lost by only twenty runs. When they went back to their seats a boy a couple of years older than Romilda with a smiling, pudding face was standing with his grandmother.

'This is Neville, Romilda,' Madam Longbottom said, and Romilda said How d'you do?

*

The winter that she was nine, Romilda decided that she wanted to grow her hair. Her mother kept it short and bobbed, with a neat fringe over her high forehead and grips at the side during school. Now Romilda decided that she was growing up and she wanted long hair like a proper witch. Plaits were in fashion at school, and the argument that she would be leaving her school in the summer for two years of Hogwarts preparation held no sway with her. Mummy didn't want her to grow it. She said it would be a nuisance to care for, hot in summer, and short hair was much more sensible for children. Romilda even thought that she heard her parents arguing about it, and Mummy's voice, upset, but giving in,

'Well, when somebody sees her in the street, you can think what to say.' Over the next two years, Romilda's hair grew thick and black and shone in two glossy plaits over her shoulders. Looking back at photographs of those years, it was plain how much it changed her looks. Without the fringe her face seemed longer, her jaw had a stronger line, her dark eyes were almost hooded under her brows. Before, she looked like any little girl. Now she looked like herself. Always, she would look like herself, and sometimes other people, older people, would look at her.

The Vane family didn't have the Daily Prophet delivered. They had the Weekly Slogan on Sundays, and on Saturdays whatever Daddy fancied from the village shop. Mummy and Daddy listened to This Day in the mornings on the WWN, but Romilda was not very good at getting up in the morning, and usually found herself chased upstairs half-way through a story to clean her teeth. So it was on the Muggle news at six o'clock in the evening that Romilda first heard of Sirius Black.

'...the public is warned that Black is armed and extremely dangerous.' Romilda looked up from pounding a recalcitrant piece of sky into her jigsaw. Behind the newsreader a photograph of a man glared out of the screen. The picture seemed to thrum with suppressed energy, almost as if it ought to be moving, as Black's shadowed eyes burned out of the television screen. Romilda realized that her parents were no longer watching the news, which had changed to a story about badgers, but were looking at one another with strange expressions on their faces, of - what? Not surprise; more as if this were something they had expected, yet not quite in this way.

'What is it?' she asked. Daddy looked at her, deadly serious,

'Sirius Black,' he said. 'He's a wizard.'

The next day, of course, they had to buy the Prophet. Mummy accidentally used it to wrap the chicken carcase after dinner, but Romilda rescued it from the dustbin. The outer sheet was only creased. Sirius Black, blinking dazedly from behind curtains of matted hair, did not look so very scary now. Rather he looked - what? Yes, he looked oddly familiar, like someone Romilda ought to know. She shook her head. She didn't know anybody who looked the least like that, not even the old tramp in town who wore his grey hair in a greasy pony tail and sang rude songs. Perhaps he looked a bit like an actor she had seen in something. That would make sense. They saw films quite often, Daddy was interested in them; it was quite likely that Romilda might have seen someone look a bit like Sirius Black in something or other, and she never remembered actors' names. She meant to ask her parents about it, but what with Hogwarts term beginning next week, and buying her last things, and packing, and her grandparents coming for dinner, somehow there wasn't time, and she didn't have a moment to look at the Prophet again.

*

Romilda was sorted into Gryffindor. Mummy and Daddy had both been in Ravenclaw, although they were quite dismissive about the house system in the way that lots of grown-ups were. Nonetheless, she felt obscurely that they were quite pleased that if she wasn't in Ravenclaw, she was in Gryffindor. Of course, even though they'd never have said so, they must know that Gryffindor was the best house: everybody did. It was quite obvious. Before she went to Hogwarts, Romilda wouldn't have minded being in any of the houses, even - secretly - Hufflepuff, but once she had been sorted, she knew that Gryffindor was the best. She was especially proud that Harry Potter was in Gryffindor.

The Sorting itself had been fascinating. She had thought she'd seen Harry Potter at the Gryffindor table, and she had definitely seen Percy Weasley, who had been very nice to her one Christmas concert when she had lost her headdress, but being last in the list of first years called up alphabetically it had got quite boring watching one student after another sit on the three-legged stool with a vacant expression as the hat considered where to place them.

At last, Professor McGonagall called her name.

The hat, fallen over her eyes, was darker inside than it should have been. Romilda had played Blindman's Buff often enough to know how hard it was to block out all light with a hat unless one tied a scarf round the eyes as well. There always seemed to be a chink by one's nose.

'It's the dark inside your head,' said a small voice in her ear. Romilda frowned.

'Is it? I thought bone was supposed to be translucent. There was something on Blue Peter about it last year.'

'Bone may be,' said the voice, which she supposed to be the hat, 'but your head isn't. Unless your brain is particularly small, of course.' Romilda decided she had better hold her tongue.

'Now,' said the voice, 'where shall I put you? Romilda Vane - how very interesting. Romilda Vane.' It stressed the last syllable a little unnervingly. 'Your parents were in Ravenclaw. You have a good brain, of course, but I don't think Ravenclaw would be interesting. Hufflepuff would be good for you, but one does owe a certain duty... Slytherin would be very interesting, but Gryffindor - Gryffindor would bring you out. Would you like that?'

'I don't know.'

'Then let's see how you do in - GRYFFINDOR!'

Even to a magical world-raised child the four-poster beds in the Hogwarts dormitories were fantastic. As the other girls stood around pretending they didn't mind where they slept, Romilda bagged one by the window, located her pyjamas, which the house elves charged with unpacking had set to warm on a gloriously heated rail, shoved a small stuffed bear beneath the bedcovers, and set her things upon the bedside table: a clock, a photograph of Mummy and Daddy, and after a moment's hesitation a neat little ebony box. She had been in two minds about bringing it, afraid something would happen, but it had stood by her bed since her seventh birthday, and she just couldn't leave it behind. The mysterious contents, treasured and gently fingered, carried some meaning she did not know how to read. A little white sock that Romilda somehow knew had not been her own. A piece of ivory, smooth and flat, carved a bit like the curve that Daddy used in drawing, with a hook at one end and a hole at the other. A silver necklace, charmed not to tarnish, set with an amber bead. An astonishingly old brass brooch set with bits of Austrian crystal. An old book with ivory boards. A bluebell pressed flat and tacked into a parchment leaf; Romilda held it to her nose and smelt the imaginary scent. A big marble glowing with the dance of a twisting flickering flame. A velvet pincushion. The treasures of another girlhood.

'These were your mother's,' Mummy had said on her birthday. 'She left them for you.'

Hogwarts was every bit as wonderful as Romilda had expected. Of course, not everybody was nice, and some people like Fred and George Weasley were downright frightening, but really she was very glad she was in Gryffindor and it was nice to meet girls from the other Houses in lessons and clubs. She joined the Charms Club, the junior choir, the hiking society and netball. She liked Professor McGonagall, who reminded her of her old headmistress. Professor Snape was scary, of course, but his lessons were exciting, and if he did not look upon Romilda with any particular favour, as the months came on she realized that he did look upon her as someone who might be expected to know the correct answer. She did not see that behind her back the glittering black eyes looked on her with a well-concealed curiosity. In the corridors, Romilda became reasonably adept at dodging jinxes, and briefly the envy of her friends for accidentally being on the receiving end of one from Harry Potter that made her legs dance for ten minutes before they could say the spell right to remove it. And even here sometimes other odd things happened, the things that had always happened to her. She had not been at the school a week before she got a peculiar feeling that some of the portraits were following her around the castle. She heard them whispering, almost too soft to hear, do you know who she - , and sometimes in paintings on the common room walls she thought she saw a man with a pointed black beard and green and silver robes watching her from out of the corners of his eyes as he pretended to sleep.

It was funny being in the same House as Harry Potter. Harry was so famous, he who had defeated You-Know-Who when he was only a baby, and yet he seemed quite ordinary and honestly not that exciting, although of course he must be a great wizard. Romilda was eleven years old and life was too full to be particularly interested in Harry Potter. If she had liked any boy like that, and really she thought all that sort of thing was rather silly, it would have been Draco Malfoy, whose pale pointed face could not have been described as handsome, but was in some way oddly comfortable to consider. Then on Hallowe'en Sirius Black broke into Hogwarts and slashed the Fat Lady's portrait to ribbons.

They spent that night in the Great Hall, which was rather fun, though Romilda, turning over in her purple sleeping bag, wished that Dumbledore had thought to provide mattresses. It was a little bit irritating that Berenicia kept waking them all for the next week with nightmares, but Romilda had more important things to think about. The Daily Prophet had been full of photographs of Sirius Black. Romilda did not have a subscription, content to flick though the copies in the common room if she were interested, but lots of the older students did, and at breakfast the next day ('Where do these journalists get their information,' wondered Percy Weasley) copies were circulating along the benches. The face Romilda had seen on the television stared out of the paper, tormented eyes darting from side-to-side, hair wild, his face... She swiped a copy from the common room at lunchtime and retreated with it to the girls' lavatories to sit on the windowsill and try and remember.

Penelope Clearwater came in and stood in front of the mirror tidying her hair.

'Did you know you've got a huge great smear of ink across your cheek, Romilda? Make sure you clean it off before your next lesson.' She dashed off, doubtless to catch five minutes with Percy before the bell rang. Romilda rubbed at her cheek, which left a black mark on her finger, and lifted her gaze to the mirror. She looked down at the paper again, at the man in the photograph gone still and quiet (he seemed to feel a certain restraint at being in the girls' toilets), and back at the face in the mirror.

'I know who he looks like,' she thought. 'He looks like me.'

*

Long dark hair, not quite black, but dark enough to be called so. The strong line of the nose above slightly thin lips. But most of all, the bones visible in that hollow face, chin, cheeks, brow. It was like looking at Mummy and her sister, different but the same. I look like him, he looks like me.

So that was that. The question she had never asked was answered: she was a Black. The other question was, what was she to do about it.

She didn't go to the library. She might have thought of it, but before she did so she was halfway down the stairs to Herbology with the Hufflepuffs. The class, a nice peaceful one potting up Hairy Catweed, gave her time to think. She would not go to the library and find a family tree for the Blacks. She would not look up when Sirius Black had been born and see whether he had ever had a wife (surely the Prophet would have mentioned it?) and confirm that she was indeed just old enough to be his daughter. She was twelve years old, and she didn't need to know. She was Mummy and Daddy's daughter. She was at Hogwarts, and in Gryffindor house, and perfectly normal tank you very much, and she was going to stay that way.

People say blood does not matter, but actions, art, sense, confidence teach otherwise. Muggleborns are lucky; a new world opens before them, a marvellous world offering dreams. Not without some disquiet did the half-blood children at the Saturday morning cultural centre wonder, could I leave my family behind, could I enter the new world alone? There are other complicated things about Muggleborns. Though often strongly magical themselves, one does not quite know if they are liable to throw Squibs onto established wizarding lines; opinions differ, though two Muggleborns having babies is another risk, and the Saturday morning centre is very keen on tackling cultural impoverishment. Most people are half-bloods, and purebloods, too, but some purebloods are dangerous. Of course, Romilda might well be a half-blood. Mummy and Daddy are, and she privately has given the half-bloods her allegiance, the people who would accept her, a magical foundling of no lineage but her own. Yet Sirius Black's face - and if Romilda knows one thing about old families like the Blacks, it is that they marry their own kind, though parents, and Romilda feels terribly sophisticated for knowing this, are not necessarily married, and that is another reason there are foundlings. But she has always considered herself a half-blood and it is probably best that she continue this way. Romilda did not tell her parents of her discovery, for it was not important, and she kept to her good intentions, though she did find an old photograph of Sirius Black in an album in the Gryffindor common room cupboards and looking at it she thought that by and large though he looked like her - and very handsome - he did not look how she thought her father would. When she had been nine, Romilda had spent a series of rainy holiday afternoons looking over family trees with her older cousin Clarinda, who considered foundlings far more interesting than Romilda did herself, but was principally interested in looking up the bloodlines of the boys she liked at school. Romilda remembered that there had been lots of Blacks. It didn't matter. She was in her first year at Hogwarts and had a lot to learn. At the end of his first year, Harry Potter was rumoured to have won his sixty points for Gryffindor by defeating a servant of You-Know-Who. Romilda had begun to pay closer attention to Harry Potter. It was another species of inoculation.

*

'Severus. How nice to see you. Do you want a drink - a proper drink. I bet the Death Eaters serve elf-made wine, Mum and Dad always did. Oh, the things we do for love.' Snape took the glass held out to him, something red, agreeable and German, probably purchased through the Wittenberg staff club, and settled himself in a comfortable chair. He liked the Tonks-Black household, so very much removed from the atmosphere of Hogwarts. 'Ted sends his complements, but he won't be home 'til one.'

'That's all right.' He shrugged black bat-shoulders. 'It's you who wanted to see me.'

*

Romilda forgot. Or rather, she did not forget, but she concentrated on important things and others sank from the surface of her mind. She was good at Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and History of Magic. Admittedly History of Magic was mind-numbingly boring in lessons and Romilda dozed in them as much as the next young witch who had had Astronomy the previous night, but she had discovered the texts of Binns' lectures in the library. Tolly the puffskein died of old age, and she wept for hours and then bore it stoically. She dropped netball, which was simply feeble, at the beginning of her second year, and joined the dramatic society instead, winning a huge round of applause for a small role in "The Witches of Westward Ho!". In her third year, Professor Umbridge arrived to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. Romilda found the theory rather interesting, and though Harry Potter raged against the woman every night in the common room, Harry had got grumpy and stringy and spotty, and Romilda had gone off him. She admitted her mistake pretty quickly when Umbridge attempted to prevent the Gryffindor Quidditch team re-forming. The woman was a cow and a fascist, a word Romilda regretted using when she had to try to explain it to everyone in the third year Gryffindor girls' dormitory except Danielle, who was Muggleborn and curled on her bed in uncontrollable giggles at the stumbled explanation and that the rest of them had never heard it.

*

They were at breakfast when it happened. The Daily Prophet had got rather less popular over the last couple of years, and fewer students took it, but Margot's mother was a Prophet reporter, and by the time her owl arrived Romilda's gang had already noticed the staff table looking sombre and deep in conversation. Snape's black eyes swept the hall, passing swiftly over the Hufflepuff table, the Ravenclaws, more slowly over the Slytherins, and coming to rest on Gryffindor. On her? No, surely upon Harry.

Ten faces stared out of the front page: nine wizards and a witch, their faces gaunt, robes all alike, leant a kinship by the prison life. It was the witch who drew Romilda's attention, dark unkempt hair around a white face with a strong jaw and great hooded eyes, a thin mouth smiling faintly, and underneath the ravages of Azkaban, the frame of beauty.

'I know who she looks like,' thought Romilda, defying the world, 'she looks like Sirius Black.'

This time she went to the library.

Which Wizard, not the recent one, older. Nature's Nobility for the family trees, The Fwooper Dictionary of First Names. Bellatrix Lestrange, nee Black, the warrior, the fight, daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black, nee Rosier, first cousin to Sirius Black, two sisters with a child apiece, one the mother of Draco Malfoy and now Romilda knows why he feels so familiar. Bellatrix Black, who married Rodolphus Lestrange, brother of Rabastan Lestrange - hrod for fame, the wolf and the rock - and bore no children. But no, because Romilda was a foundling and she knew these things, not no children at all, no children listed; no children of age to be registered when the mother was sent to Azkaban. Romilda opened the Prophet with sick fingers. No children in 1983, when Romilda was less than a year old, with two years to go before registration. One more place to look; the Hogwarts alumni magazine, and its annual picture of the new Head Girl and Boy. A dark-haired girl looks out at her through heavy-lidded eyes, composed, unreadable. But older children mean nothing. How can on know what one will look like grown-up? Mummy as a teenager looks nothing like Mummy now, but Nanna as a child looks like Mummy. There is another place after all, the souvenir programme for the Christmas concert held every year in Manchester, adorned with photographs. Turning back each year, and there she is, soloist, a little girl half-drowned in crimson robes and thick dark hair, serious, still, her mother.

Nothing is inevitable. Narcissa Malfoy sits on quangos and has a certain reputation in academic circles as an Arithmancer. Her son is the Slytherin Seeker and, if Romilda is honest, a pillock. Andromeda Black used to work for the Ministry of Magic, and is a Natural Philosopher in Wittenberg. She is married to a Muggleborn weather forecaster. Her daughter and Romilda's cousin - astonishing thing - is an Auror with her own very short entry in Which Wizard. Biology is not destiny, but Romilda cannot think that she will ever again not be terrified. She performs in class what the professors say and only what the professors say, and feels Snape's glance burning through he and knows why, and does not know whether it is because or despite of this that she has become more skilful. Bellatrix Lestrange was ordinary once, and Dumbledore even appointed her Head Girl, which he surely would not have done if ... Umbridge gives high marks for Romilda's essay in Defence Against the Dark Arts, agreeing with the statement that it is a mistake to study dark magic believing that it is harmless if one is simply curious. Most of the other Gryffindor students disagree, so Romilda's house points are a bonus. Life goes on as usual. She is terrified of seeing Mummy and Daddy again. They will know in a moment.

Romilda would have done anything for Mummy and Daddy. Now even thoughts like that are dangerous; they are the thought of a Black who might take that anything literally. Very well, then, do it. Be a Black born to disregard the rules and seize what you want, to hurt others to your own advantage, to pile up the world and climb on top of it in order to enjoy the view. For Mummy and Daddy, change your mind, go back on everything you never promised them aloud. Break the rules. It isn't a Hogsmeade day on Saturday, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible to leave the school grounds. The hiking club walk will be going through the village. You will be taken ill - something from Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes will do nicely - and return to the castle. The Knight Bus calls outside the Three Broomsticks at ten o'clock.

*

The girl at the door wore Muggle trousers with the ease of one Muggle-educated, if not Muggleborn. Andromeda remembered the first time she had worn jeans, and her mother's tolerant amusement.

'I think they'd be more comfortable, darling, if you wore a pair of pants.'

She stepped back into the hallway.

'You must be my mysterious correspondent. I'm Andromeda Black,' she smiled, 'come in.

The child sat in an armchair sipping occasionally from a glass of butterbeer, familiar and not familiar, wondering quite obviously how, now she was here, she was to begin.

'You're not often shy, are you?' said Andromeda. The girl shook her head. 'It shows; you don't know how to cope. Just pretend that you know what you're doing. That's what everyone else does.'

Romilda smiles, gulps the remains of her butterbeer, and says suddenly,

'Do you know why I'm here? I mean, who I am?'

'No. Your letter said it was something 'private and important'. Judging from your appearance, I would say you're a cadet relative of mine. A foundling, maybe - I can't think of anyone on the family tree, even among the married-outs. You might even be a Squib, someone could have put you on the bus easily enough. But I don't know.'

'My name's Romilda Vane.'

'It doesn't ring any bells. Romilda... You're not a Squib, of course - I've worked with enough to tell - were you called that before they passed you on, however it was done?'

'I was left in Diagon Alley, by the war memorial. She wrote that it was my name.'

'But you don't know who wrote it. Ah -'

This is the moment Romilda knew that she could not anticipate, could not control. The moment where it could all go wrong. Professor Black's face drains not of colour, but of personal feeling. It is a blank canvas assembled of familiar, unreadable features: dark hair, firm brows, thin lips, sculpted nose. There is nothing there to show what she is thinking, except that she is overwhelmed, and that is everything.

'Do you know who you are?' The voice is level, surprisingly light, expressionless.

'I think - I am your niece.'

'Yes. I didn't know there was - How do you know?'

'I look like her. I worked it out. There are photographs all over the place, when you start to look. And we look like one another; I've seen people seeing it all my life, I just haven't known. My age works, and the names.'

'Undo your hair.' Romilda pulls out the clip at the nape of her neck and combs her hair forward over her shoulders like the girl in the photograph. Professor Black's hands are shaking.

'I haven't seen her in - Excuse me.'

Romilda sits in the armchair with her empty glass of butterbeer in the strangled embarrassment of being left alone in a stranger's house. A copy of one of yesterday's Muggle newspapers lies on a coffee table nearby, and she reads it because it is the easiest thing to do. She is desperate for the toilet, but cannot go out into the hall. She must not hear where Andromeda Black is crying.

*

'This is my daughter, Nymphadora. She's an Auror. I think you'd like her. You could meet her, if your parents agreed. She'd like a new cousin.'

Romilda hands back the photograph.

'She looks nice. She's very pretty.'

'Yes, she is.' The girl wears formal robes and a formal expression that cannot quite damp the gleam of impish eyes in a heart-shaped face. She is slighter than her mother, and has bright purple hair.

'I can't tell you about her - about them. You're underage and I have a duty to your parents.' Romilda does not say, what about your duty to me? Professor Black would say it is the same thing.

'I know. I don't want to know.' She left me first. 'Not - I just want to know that she's all right.'

'I see.'

'And she might wonder about me.'

The girl is only thirteen, not small for her age, but not yet grown, face pale against the hair still hanging by her cheeks.

'That's why you've come. You think that I can do it for you.'

'Now she's not in Azkaban. You could. You're her sister - and you're a dark witch.'

'Oh, Romilda, I am not. I wish I were.'

*

'It wasn't difficult; she's the image of her mother, assuming a person can grasp the concept of Death Eaters not sacrificing their children at the dark of the moon to appease old powers. I imagine a good few people have wondered. Dumbledore knows - whether because Phineas Nigellus told him, I couldn't say. Binns doesn't know: he just confuses the two of them.'

'The Ministry never told us.'

'Loath as I am to put in a good word on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, not only is it possible that the Ministry does not know, but it would have been against all procedure for the management of foundlings.'

'So it would, and Bella did choose. It's so strange to think of it. She must have known the child was likely to end up with half-bloods - or were there pure-blood families on the list, after the war?'

'She might have been doing what she thought was best for the child,' Snape said drily. 'You underestimated your sister, Andromeda. You failed to consider that she might grow up.'

'I certainly didn't see what she would grow in to. What's the child like?'

'She's a very ordinary teenage witch. Bright enough, a solid worker. A little brash - Gryffindor's a bad influence - likes to impress her fellow students. A shining light of the dramatic society -'

'She would be.'

' - with excellent comic timing. Concentrates in lessons, making her one of the less dangerous group in Potions. A little too impressed with Harry Potter; of course, the boy encourages it. We must hope judgment comes with maturity.'

'When I think of myself at that age... I confess my one regret in marrying Ted is that on certain subjects it does destroy all authority I might have had over my daughter. I don't mind Remus Lupin personally, and if she were ten years older I might look on it quite favourably, but as it is but I can't think that a middle-aged werewolf with a guilt-complex is the ideal object for the latest crush. And I don't even object to her not wanting me cramping her style in the Order of the Phoenix, but she really needs to brush up on her Occlumency. Dumbledore never did pay enough attention to the margins.'

Snape sipped his drink without comment.

'I suppose I was impressed with Romilda. She was very collected and unromantic. She'd thought about it. I wonder if I was as she expected?'

'You, Andromeda, are never as expected.'

'I'm glad to hear it.'

'And you are right. You are not a great dark witch. It is ironic that Bellatrix, who wanted to be a Natural Philosopher, is. Will you do it?'

'I could hardly say no to her.'

'Ah. And to think that I had believed you asked me here for the pleasure of my company.'

'I have to tell Narcissa, of course, but I can hardly ask her...'

'I suppose not.' He put down his glass. 'It's times like this that make me glad my family are all dead.'

*

Romilda does quite well in letters, but she is right in the other thing; the moment Mummy and Daddy see her, they know. They don't say anything, but they know. There is roast lamb for dinner when she comes home, and they eat it normally and politely and talk about the events of the term and what Mummy and Daddy have been doing and not the news. Then the plates are put to wash, and Mummy and Daddy have coffee, and Romilda says,

'I know who they are.'

'Yes,' Daddy says.

'I want to see her letter.'

Mummy and Daddy sit on the sofa holding hands. 'If you're sure,' Daddy says, 'I'll get it now.'

*

'You can't save her,' Snape had said. 'The business with the Weasley girl as willing collaborator, it won't wash. Besides, why should she want to come back? Voldemort taught her the Dark Arts, and she works for a righteous cause.'

'If she had had a choice -'

Snape shook his head.

'There was never really much emotion in it for you, was there? It's always been purely intellectual, quite safe. Oh, you liked being a rebel, you liked getting up the nose of people like Phronsie Hallow and Dumbledore and the Ministry, something with which I sympathise, but the Dark Arts have always been a science for you, not an art. Not beauty, mystery, and the lure of a flaming world under your hand.

'Why do you think Crux Croaker always remained loyal to the Ministry? You ran for your soul in the Scholomance, but you have never stood on the edge of the precipice and wondered if you fell if you would fly. It doesn't tempt you. You have done great work in philosophy, and Cheering Charms will never again be used on Cruciatus victims. You love your husband and your daughter and your sisters, and your heart is half broke with jealousy.'

Andromeda's hands in her lap were red and white. 'Why should she have a child to give it away, when Narcissa's died because of her, and I could not? Why should she have that as well as everything?'

*

They had told Romilda about the letter when her Hogwarts letter arrived. Mummy and Daddy would hold it until she was of age, and then she could take it herself or ask them to keep holding it for her. It was written by her mother. It had been examined for every kind of enchantment and there was none. Mummy hands it to her, signed and sealed as on the day the Ministry gave it to them with the baby.

'Do you want to read it on your own?'

Romilda nodded, and went upstairs to her room.

To my beloved daughter Romilda,

You read this because I could not come for you. I should have destroyed it else. So I do not think now that we shall meet again. I shall not tell you who I am; I think that if you read this you know. If you do not, any genealogist could tell you if you will not ask those who are now your parents. I wonder how old you are? I wonder if I am still alive to be proud of you? You will go to Hogwarts, I know, and I shall be so very proud of you.

I do not know what you look like now, but I think if I saw you I should know you again. You looked so very like my youngest sister when she was small, and I suppose you looked like me, but of course I cannot remember that and photographs are never quite the same. You could talk to my sister, if you wanted to know about me. If you know who I am, you will know which one. We quarrelled long ago about something that mattered very much, and about which we could not agree, but you could trust her for the truth.

I have never been sentimental. I shall not claim to love you more than any mother ever loved her child, but I did love you very much, and I love you still if I can. If my act is unforgivable I do not expect you to forgive. Nor should you think there is anything you shall ever owe me, not even to be happy, although I hope so much that you are. Give your obedience to those who love you. They have chosen you, and it is a great thing to be chosen, and both of us owe them a very great deal.

Your father loves you, too. Do you know who he is? He has a sister, too, but I cannot honestly advise you talk to her; I do not think that she would understand. Perhaps his parents are still alive; their family always lived a long time, and I think that they would like to know you if you wanted it. It is my decision to leave you. Your father thinking it kindness to me might not agree, but he is hurt and I act alone. If you will blame, blame me for everything, I shall not know, and if it helps you it shall not hurt me. We sought for you a better world. We seek it still, and though there are many things I have never been much good at, and more of which I was afraid, I do know that when I gave you up I gave you all that then I could, that I loved then as much as I have ever loved, and that the only reason I might ever have wished things had been different would have been for you.

*

Andromeda Black sends a short letter to Romilda at Hogwarts. I have sent a message as you wished, it reads, but there cannot be an answer. All in all it is a weight off the mind, but still Romilda spends her fourth year in a whirl of denial of terror. More than ever she throws herself into life at school. If I can forget, she thinks, there will be no danger. I am in Gryffindor, I am Mummy and Daddy's daughter, I believe in Harry Potter, and it cannot happen to me.

Ron Weasley nearly dies in Professor Slughorn's office, and Romilda spends the next morning in the girls' toilets being sick.

Dumbledore dies, and Romilda is numb. She doesn't know what to think any more. What if Mummy and Daddy are hurt? She can't think why anyone would want to hurt them, but she can't think why for most of it. It is only hours before all the school learns that it was Snape who did it, and that he has fled with Draco Malfoy - why Draco? There are rumours, but no-body seems truly to know - Draco who is her cousin, and Snape a half-blood too, and now a Death Eater and murderer of Albus Dumbledore.

Romilda sits in the common room crying. Mummy and Daddy wrote that she should stay at school until the term ends with Professor Dumbledore's funeral, when the children will go home on the heavily guarded Hogwarts Express. Berenicia is gone already, and Margot won't be coming back next year. Margot's father is French, and Beauxbatons has agreed to take her. The common room empties, and the portraits are snoring, but still Romilda does not go to bed. She does not know what to think and she dare not dream. Her hollow face in the mirror frightens her.

There is a cough behind her and she wheels around. The man with the pointed beard watches her from a pastoral scene. He favours her with a sardonic smile.

'My name,' he says, 'is Phineas Nigellus, late headmaster of this school. I hear from my young relative that you know who you are. She has asked me to speak to you, because she thinks you may be frightened.' He shrugs elegant shoulders. 'Andromeda always was sentimental beneath it all. I don't know what she expects me to say. Nonetheless, you are my daughter, too, Romilda, and I am very proud of you.'

*

Professor Snape, like Sirius Black, is on the Muggle news. The newsreader says that he is armed and dangerous. Ted Tonks, delivering a special report, looks strained and drawn. Draco Malfoy is not mentioned. They say that Snape may have joined up with a dangerous gang. Romilda looks at the picture of Nymphadora Tonks she has cut out of the newspaper. The young woman winks at her. It is not hard to think of Professor Snape as a Death Eater. Mummy and Daddy have always said that the world is not divided into nice people and Death Eaters, but none the less it is easier to believe unpleasant things of unpleasant people, even if Snape wasn't so bad altogether - though evil about talking in lessons - and never really picked on her.

Glittering black eyes stare out of the front page of the Prophet, which Mummy and Daddy now buy every day. Of course he was never horrible to her: he knew. Those eyes and looks and questions were all because he knew, and suddenly and unaccountably Romilda felt better. Everything was horrible and difficult and they didn't even know if Hogwarts would be open next year, but Professor Snape knew, and he had murdered Dumbledore and fled, and he could tell her. He could tell Bellatrix Lestrange what she owed to the parents of Romilda Vane, and surely they would be safe? It would be all right. Nobody could hurt them. Give your obedience to those who love you, oh mother, to lay upon me such a divided duty. It is not possible, and so Harry Potter must kill Voldemort and everything would be all right, and all the Death Eaters would be caught again and taken back to Azkaban. All except one, or maybe even two, and probably they would go far away and Romilda would never see them and never be held in arms that once had cradled her, and breathe a scent that once had been the world, more comforting than Mummy after a cry, and look at her mother's eyes that were her own. Probably it was better that way, but it was a very empty thing to think.