Chapter 20: Of Winshires and Gardners
“Emmy!” There was only one person in the world who called her that.
And sure enough, before the seedy man could step out of the door, a tall rather skinny man, with glasses and thin blonde hair bounded frantically into the room.
“Dad!” Emily said as her father ran swiftly to her chair and folded her in a hug.
“Emmy, are you all right?” he asked hurriedly as he finally released her.
“They haven’t done anything to you have they?” he asked, lowering his voice considerably, with a suspicious glance at Dumbledore.
“I’m fine Dad,” Emily said calmly, though, her father still looked skeptical.
Over the years, her father had become increasingly paranoid that her uncle was a conspirator in an English plot to brainwash his daughter. Any British citizen (with the exception of her mother), was not to be trusted.
“How long has Ireland been held under oppressive English rule?” he asked quickly. He did this whenever she was alone with her uncle, or any British citizen (besides her mother), outside of his supervision. Always afraid that the Brits had brainwashed her against the idea of Irish freedom.
“The Irish people have undergone five hundred years of oppression and suffering.”
This was the standard answer. Sure enough, it worked.
“Good girl.”
Her father patted her hand and smilied, apparently relieved.
Emily breathed a sigh of relief herself. At least her father would make the inevitable a bit less tense.
“The utter incompetence!” another voice came from the stairwell.
The inevitable had arrived.
“In my day, a Winshire hardly needed to be announced!”
Rowland Hamilton Winshire strode into the door frame importantly shoving the man in the trench coat behind him as he went. Indeed, he seemed like a sort of faded relic from the old Victorian era. A small potbelly hung out of his once very fashionable suit, along with a pocket watch on a long imitation gold chain. His hair, which was once full and brown, was now graying slightly and there was a bald patch directly on the top of his head. His eyes however were as sharp as anything. And he proved their worth when they immediately glanced over to inspect Emily.
“I see,” he said by way of a greeting. “Only three weeks away from school, and you’re appearance has already suffered.”
Immediately he walked further into the room and began circling Emily, glancing distastefully at her torn stockings and muddy shoes.
This was one of his favourite games. If he found nothing unsatisfactory in her appearance, he would simply say “hmm” and no more. This however, was not often the case.
“Posture is horrendous. Sit up straight girl! You are a Winshire not a baboon!”
Emily did as she was told
“Finger nails are ghastly,” he said picking up her hands to inspect her finger nails more closely.
“If they have running water in this medieval nut house, it is certain you made no use of it.” Emily glanced over to Dumbledore, expecting him to react to the slight on his school. Dumbledore, however, seemed quite composed. He continued watching the scene with interest. As if he were a university student being given a lecture by the professor.
Uncle Rowland dropped Emily’s hand and instead began to pull at a loose curl in her hair.
“And did I or did I not specifically say that your hair should be held back at all times?”
It was almost like a trick when her uncle asked questions like this. If you answered him, he would reprimand you for interrupting. If you didn’t answer her would say impatiently: “Well? Speak up girl!”
“You did, sir,” Emily said pulling her eyes down to the floor. Emily’s father looked at her Uncle as if he would like very much to say what was going through his mind. However, he knew better, and simply tightened his mouth, shifted his gaze to the floor and remained silent.
Uncle Rowland continued his inspection.
“Stockings torn, skirt ruined, face smudged. Tell me, Emily Winshire Gardner, do you intend to join those longhaired pillocks you see on American television? Because at the moment that seems to be the only ambition you are worthy of.”
Once he seemed satisfied with this last insult, he turned his attention to Dumbledore
“Am I right in suggesting that this,” he waved his hand to indicate Emily’s appearance. “Is your doing sir?”
Dumbledore looked at Uncle Rowland and smiled as though rather amused.
“No, actually. You would be quite wrong in that assumption,” Dumbledore said cheerfully.
Uncle Rowland looked as if he had had the wind knocked out of him by a particularly painful punch. Rowland Hamilton Winshire was never wrong.
“I’m afraid that pleasurable duty fell to four of our male students. I assure you, I know as little about the arrangement as you do.”
“Emmy!” her father swelled up protectively
“You’ve been-been living with b…” he looked over to Dumbledore suspiciously before whispering the next word, “…Brits?”
“It’s all right Dad,” Emily began.
“I assure you Mr. Winshire, she has been very well attended to,” Dumbledore said reassuringly.
“In fact, as I have been told, those boys were the reason her right leg is not currently broken.”
“It’s true. Really you don’t have to worry,” Emily said to her father who was still looking disbelieving.
Meanwhile, Uncle Rowland seemed to have (unfortunately, Emily thought) regained the power of speech.
“Sir,” he said impatiently to Dumbledore, who kindly returned his attention to him.
“If you cannot enlighten us on the current situation, then I would please like to speak with someone who can. After all, an owl landing on one’s doorstep in the early hours of the morning, carrying a note, is hardly enough explanation for…this!”
Uncle Rowland seemed to have run out of patience as well as adjectives. This was a rare occurrence. Indeed, Emily had never seen her Uncle so flustered.
“Actually, Mr. Winshire, you will find that I can enlighten you on many aspects of this situation,” Dumbledore said calmly, as though speaking to an overactive child.
“For instance, I can tell you that it was through Emily’s actions that several students were spared from rather terrible fates.”
Emily could not help but feel a bit proud at this. Apparently she was the only one however, her uncle was looking at her disdainfully, as if she were a child who had stolen from a candy shop. Her father kept his hand on her shoulder, and his eyes darted between Dumbledore and Uncle Rowland, as if expecting them to spring a trap for his daughter at any moment.
Dumbledore, however, didn’t seem to notice the less than warm reception he was receiving from his audience and continued gracefully.
“It might also interest you to know that Emily is far more than, perhaps, she appears to be.”
Emily looked quizzically at him. Was he talking about what happened in the cave? What she had done with James’s wand? But that was just a fluke, wasn’t it? She noticed that her father’s expression had changed from suspicion to interest at theses words. Her uncle, however, still appeared livid.
“I am well aware of her potential, thank you!” he said folding his arms in a superior manner. “And I would still like to know what the bleeding hell is going on!”
Emily blinked as she looked up at her uncle. She had never heard him swear before. Indeed the words sounded very strange coming out of his mouth. Dumbledore however looked as calm as ever and answered pleasantly:
“Well, then it seems that we both have quite a bit of explaining to do, Mr. Winshire. I can, as you put it, ‘enlighten’ you about what has essentially taken place from the time Emily disappeared from St. Magdalene’s Academy for Young Ladies up until this point. However, this story truly begins six years ago. And I’m afraid that only, you Mr. Winshire, are able to…er… ‘enlighten’ us on that particular aspect of the tale.”
All eyes in the room went straight to Uncle Rowland, who seemed to have gone considerably pale.
“I’m sure I have no idea, what you’re talking about.”
Emily could tell that he was becoming all the more flustered. What was he hiding?
“Really?” Dumbledore asked curiously. “Because I’m sure that an owl landing on one’s door step in the middle of the afternoon is not something one simply forgets after six years.”
“Rowland? What’s he talking about?” Emily’s father asked, apparently as confused as she was.
“No idea…what-what is this rubbish about?” her uncle had made the mistake of attempting to remain on the offensive side of things, which only made him seem guiltier.
“Yeah, I bet you don’t.”
That is precisely what Emily was certain her father would have said if her uncle had not been in the room.
“And I suspect,” Dumbledore continued as if he had never been interrupted, “that an invitation for one’s niece to attend a school of witchcraft and wizardry is not something one easily discards.”
An invitation? But…wait…did that mean?
“What are you saying?” Emily asked Dumbledore boldly before her Uncle.
“All I am saying, Miss Gardner, is that we have one female spot for this current sixth year that has never been occupied, and there is an extra name written on our roster. I’m afraid beyond that, you’re uncle knows far more than I.”
Dumbledore’s eyes turned back to Uncle Rowland, politely waiting for him to explain himself. But Emily was through with waiting. She knew what this must mean. She had just wasted six years of her life!
“You-you knew, all this time? And you never told me?” Emily asked her uncle, completely aghast.
Of course she would have liked for this to have sounded much stronger. More like a heroine would speak to the villain in a novel. But a small betrayed sounding voice was all she could muster. And to tell the truth, even that was a challenge when facing her uncle.
“It was for your own good!” he said defensively
“I could not have our name, your name, associated with this load of hodgepodge. Why, if word got out that my neice attended some school of magic…”
“I still don’t get it,” her father said looking from Uncle Rowland to Emily to Dumbledore, still quite confused.
But, if he had been allowed to, Emily was certain he would have muttered something to the effect of: “Knew you were hiding something. The sneaky little Brit…”
“To put it plainly, Mr. Gardner,” Dumbledore said smiling, “your daughter is a witch.”
Emily, who had expected her father to be silently stunned to say the least, was shocked to look over and see him beaming at her, as if she had just been crowned the queen of England.
“I knew it!” he said triumphantly pulling her into another embrace.
“The moment you were born, Emmy, I could see it in your eyes,” he told her in an undertone.
“You had you’re grandmother’s magic. The old magic. The Brits tried to stamp it out of you, but they couldn’t, Emmy! That Gardner blood ‘a yours is too strong!”
“Daniel!” her uncle snapped. “Do not encourage her.”
Heeding her Uncle’s warning, but still beaming at Emily, her father let her go and took one step back.
“This is impossible! Simply impossible!” her uncle turned his attention back to Dumbledore, straining to keep his composure.
“While she may have shown certain…attributes…necessary for this sort of useless hocus pocus several years ago, all of it has certainly been…detained since,” he attempted to look calm and collected as he said this, however, Emily could detect a note of panic in his voice.
“Actually you would be quite wrong in that assumption as well, Mr. Winshire,” Dumbledore said genially.
“Oh would I?” Uncle Rowland nearly bellowed, puffing out his chest, as if readying himself for a fight.
Dumbledore looked at him with an amused and pitying sort of glance.
“Yes indeed…” and with that, Dumbledore launched calmly into the story of the whomping willow.
When he had finished, Uncle Rowland was pacing the room, in a now-obvious state of panic. Her father beamed down at her as if this was the single happiest day of his life.
“That-that could have been anything…a coincidence. Mere coincidence,” Uncle Rowland muttered almost to himself as he began to pace.
“It is possible,” Dumbledore answered, appearing to consider the matter.
Emily felt her heart drop. It wasn’t coincidence. It couldn’t be!
“But highly unlikely,” Dumbledore continued. This was the signal for Emily to breathe again.
“Especially considering the letter that was sent to her on her eleventh birthday. A letter…” Dumbledore trailed off as he took out his wand.
“Which I believe she has the right to read for herself now.” With a flourish of his wand, a handsome envelope with emerald green writing appeared on the desk. He handed it to Emily, who opened it hastily and began to read the letter inside.
Dear Miss Gardner,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The letter went on, however, (as it had with Remus’s letter), everything in the world seemed to have paled in comparison to that sentence. So she did belong here! She always had! The joy that seemed to erupt in her stomach, temporarily overtook the rage that she felt at her uncle for deceiving her.
Her father seemed to have felt the same way. Once he had read the sentence he let out a buoyant laugh, that seemed to take him back at least twenty years into his child hood. Immediately he picked Emily up and spun her once around the room.
“Imagine!” he said, slightly breathless as he put her down. “My daughter one of the old kind…”
She remembered the fantastic stories he had told her of relatives like her grandmother that had achieved daring feats through the use of magic. It was strange to think that now, she was a part of them.
“Ridiculous!” Uncle Rowland snapped suddenly.
“Not that there is much anyone can do about it now. I appealed to everyone I could to make sure that her name would be removed from this school as soon as I received the letter. Even appealed to your minister, who said I wouldn’t have to worry about it. And I assume I still don’t,” here he managed to take a small breath, in his apparent passion and outrage.
“Whatever strange…quirks…the girl may still carry with her, I assure you sir, they will be dealt with when she returns to school,” Uncle Rowland finished definitely as if sure he had just won the argument.
Emily’s father threw a mutinous glance at Uncle Rowland, and seemed on the verge of speaking. In the end however, as always, he kept silent.
Dumbledore however only smiled his amused, somewhat pittying smile, looking at her uncle as though he were a small child, who did not yet understand the ways of the world.
“That all depends Mr. Winshire, on which school Emily chooses to attend.”
“Excuse me?!” Uncle Rowland hissed venomously. “I have been in charge of her education since she was six years old, thank you very much!”
“However, I’m sure you have noticed,” Dumbledore said moving his glance from Uncle Rowland to Emily. “That Emily is no longer six years old. Now that she has two choices for next year’s education. I suggest, that she make them on her own.”
“Well, of course she’s grown!” Uncle Rowland said sounding defeated, yet still determined. “But the fact still remains that I am her legal guardian!”
“No you’re not.”
Emily spun around. For, to her surprise, it was not Dumbledore who spoke, but Emily’s father.
“I’m still her father. And I say she stays.”
Uncle Rowland seemed too shocked by this sudden move to speak for a moment. Emily took the chance to verify that she was not, in fact, dreaming.
“You-you mean. I can stay?” she looked from her father to Dumbledore who nodded with a slight twinkle in his eye.
“Daniel…” her uncle hissed venemously. “We have a deal…”
“No, Rowland,” her father said in a sharp voice “We had a deal. That was before you went behind my back. I should’ve known you were a spotty sort from the start. Should’ve guessed you’d try and keep her down. It’s what your lot have always done. But you couldn’t do it, could you?” Her father seemed to be gaining confidence with every sentence he spoke.
“No, turns out that little Emmy’s made of stronger stuff than you took her to be! Turn’s out there’s more Gardner in ‘er than Winshire!” her father finished triumphantly, turning once again to beam at his daughter.
“Well!” that seemed to be the only thing her uncle was capable of saying at the moment.
“Well!” he said again as he began to head toward the staircase. “As it seems I am going to be overruled, I suppose I will let you carry on with this…useless...occupation.” In his flustered state, Uncle Rowland seemed unable to return a better adjective.
“But I will not pay a single shilling to finance your…frivolity,” he began to leave the room, but not before adding, “It appears that your father was right, Emily Gardner. You are no Winshire!” And, looking as if he had just thrown the greatest insult one human being could throw at another, Uncle Rowland stomped down the stairwell and out of site.
“Well, now that that’s settled,” Dumbledore said rubbing his hands together and smiling cheerfully.
“Mr. Gardner, if I may, I would like a private word before you go.” Emily’s father nodded, but then looked hesitantly at Emily.
“And I believe that Emily has business of her own to attend to in the hospital wing,” Dumbledore said turning to Emily with a twinkle in his eye. And she could never be sure, but she was almost certain that he gave her a wink.
“Yes sir,” she answered before nearly running to the stair case. She couldn’t wait to tell Remus.
“Oh, Emmy,” her father stopped her. “Before you go, your mother asked me to give you this note.” Her father took a small envelope from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Emily.
“She’s still on tour with the theater troupe in Paris,” he explained. And having the time of her life, no doubt.
Emily hastily took the parchment from her father and proceeded to open it as she headed down the stairwell.
Darling,
I’m so glad to find you healthy and safe (assuming of course that you are). Running away as you did gave us all a terrible fright, and I must ask you not to do it again. You know I love you dear, but you really must try harder to control yourself.
On a lighter note, Paris is lovely, and I’ve bought you a wonderful new dress to match the earrings I found in Spain. It will look wonderful and I simply can not wait to see you in it, when we return to England this summer. I miss you and your father very much and look forward to seeing you again soon. But now I’ve got to dash, darling. We’re giving a performance at the Moulin Rouge and I would hate to be late.
All my love,
Mummy
Perfect. Her mother would, no doubt, be extremely proud of her. Even though she had been born a Winshire, Emily somehow got the feeling that her mother had a Gardner spirit.
Just like her.