“Morgana’s bandeau, Draco!”
Pansy clutched the railing and bent double to catch her breath after her scream. Draco laughed manically, having scared the woman out of her wits by Apparating right in the middle of the stairs. He grabbed her around the waist and spun her, making her shriek again. For once, Draco didn’t mind his friend’s loudness.
“Put me down!” Draco obeyed, chuckling. “Are you possessed?” But Pansy was smiling now. “What is it? Callie’s in Slytherin?”
Last night, Patrick had brought his partners to dinner so Pansy hadn’t been able to wait with the Malfoys for Callie’s news.
“No, my Calliope’s in Gryffindor. Remember that cottage you were planning to turn into a boutique in Hogsmeade? I want it. I’ll live there. I’m not going back to Chablis. I want that cottage in my name by tomorrow. Today. Right now. Name your price.”
Pansy clutched at the banister again. “If you don’t become coherent, I’ll smack you, Draco. Alright, Calliope’s in Gryffindor. I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s more like her mother. But what about my cottage? I didn’t even think you heard me when I told you about it last year. It won’t suit you. Too small. There’s no foyer to speak of. It has only one full bath””
Draco grabbed her again, this time by the shoulders. “I want it, woman. I’ll pay you quadruple its worth. Just let me have it.”
“Fine! But why?”
Draco laughed again. He had to laugh. Or else he might have to jig. “Oh, nothing. I just want to be near my daughters.” He gave Pansy the parchment still clutched in his hand. She gasped and smiled as her eyes travelled down Callie’s letter.
“Thalia Maura,” Pansy mouthed it first, and then murmured it. “You can’t fault her taste, can you? At least in names.”
“What do you mean by that?” Draco growled mockingly.
“Oh, nothing.” Grinning and after a small shriek when Draco pretended to snarl at her, Pansy went to her morning communion with her orchids.
Draco let his knees fold and sat on the stairs, still winded with the thrill of his two daughters reunited and getting on capitally. Merlin. He had never been this giddy since... since twelve years ago.
“But Draco, you can’t.”
He jumped. Pansy had come back, pulling on her gardening gloves.
“You had this agreement, didn’t you? That you’d stay away? What if she finds out you’re back in England?”
Draco smiled. “Actually, I’m waiting for that to happen.”
“That she finds out you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m ashamed of you, Pansy. If I’m in England, who else might be in England with me?”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh, indeed. If I want to be near Thalia, think how much more she will want to be near Callie, too. She’s the mother ” What are you smirking like that for?”
“I’m ashamed of you, Draco.” Without elaborating, Pansy left with her gloves and smirk.
Lia overturned her mother’s letter beside her plate of unsalted eggs smothered in syrup.
We have too few classes to suit me, she wrote. I asked Professor McGonagall about it when she handed out the schedules (she still does that, and now that she’s Headmistress, she goes to give schedules to the rest of the Houses, too). She told me not to be impertinent and added I’ll be complaining soon enough about too much homework and will be blind to my extra half-day. And you did tell me we won’t get four periods in one day ‘til fourth year.
Don’t worry about that girl I mentioned to you. I suppose she was pushed from my mind by my fabulous house mates. Slytherin has been wrongly judged! They’re not nasty at all. They’re all rather disbelieving that I’m your daughter. They asked why I’m not using my father’s name, and then Dionelise said, “Why would she? Her mother’s name is the one with clout.” And just like that, no one else asked questions and they all rather sneered, though approvingly. I imagine not all of them are happy with me, of course, but these people kept quiet and away.
Here, I’m giving you my schedule!
Lia leaned back and perused her letter with exaggerated scrutiny. She nodded. Smooth. Casual. It would do. It wouldn’t arouse suspicion, and would keep her mum off the scent of Calliope Grace Malfoy. Lia was determined that Hermione wouldn’t know. No need to hurt her mum all over again with her father’s infidelity.
She glanced at her sister on the Gryffindor table, eating so daintily, cutting up apples and cheese then forking them to her mouth. Who would have guessed such daintiness was the product of sin? But Lia wouldn’t blame her. They were both innocents.
Lia looked away when looking began to feel like longing.
She turned her eyes instead on Priscilla, who was also eating syrup, though with pancakes. Lia grinned. She and the Head Girl were kindred spirits.
“Um, Miss August, would you mind copying my schedule here on this letter?”
“Not at all,” the Head girl replied, and with a swish of her wand, the schedule was reproduced.
First Years
Charms ~ Professor F. Flitwick
Herbology ~ Professor P. Sprout
Transfiguration ~ Professor A. Morfosa
Potions ~ Professor J. Demouit
Defence Against the Dark Arts ~ Professor H. Jones
History of Magic ~ Professor R. Binns
Astronomy ~ Professor A. Sinistra
Mondays
9:00 am “ 10:00 am ~ Transfiguration
Break
10:20 am “ 11:20 am ~ Defence Against the Dark Arts (unitas House of Hufflepuff)
11: 25 am “ 12: 25 pm ~ Herbology (unitas House of Ravenclaw)
Tuesdays
9:00 am “ 10:00 am ~ Charms (unitas House of Gryffindor)
Break
10:20 am “ 11: 20 am ~ History of Magic
11: 25 “ 12: 25 ~ Potions (unitas House of Gryffindor)
Wednesdays
9:00 am “ 10:00 am ~ Herbology (unitas House of Ravenclaw)
Break
10:20 am “ 12: 20 pm ~ (Double) Transfiguration
12:00 am “ 12:45 am ~ Astronomy
Thursdays
9:00 am “ 10:00 am ~ Defence Against the Dark Arts (unitas House of Hufflepuff)
Break
10:20 am “ 12: 20 pm ~ (Double) Charms (unitas House of Gryffindor)
Fridays
9:00 am “ 10:00 am ~ Herbology (unitas House of Ravenclaw)
Break
10:20 am “ 12: 20 pm ~ (Double) Potions (unitas House of Gryffindor)
“Thanks, Miss August.”
“No problem. And you can call me Priscilla, girls. See you.”
“Aren’t we going yet?” asked Dionelise, who was covertly shooting her brothers with corn kernels out of a very tiny, very accurate catapult.
“It’s only a quarter past eight. Let me finish this letter to my mu””
“OW!”
Lia looked up to see several Gryffindors converging on one of their number. After craning her neck, Lia saw the girl in trouble and recognised her as Ronquilla Feliciano, the one for whom the Hat shouted that everyone call her ‘Kia’. She was holding her ear.
“What happened to her?”
“I didn’t mean to! I was aiming for Maxim but that prefect beside him suddenly stood up and I was so startled I jolted my toy,” Dionelise hissed, aghast.
Just then, the Gryffindors scattered. Kia marched over to the Slytherins, and sure enough, a corn kernel was still conspicuously lodged in her right ear, which was flaming red. Lia winced and at the same time bit her cheeks and took a deep breath to tamper her threatening laughter.
“Got tired of shooting at your brothers?” Kia growled.
“You saw me?” Dionelise squeaked.
“Yes, I saw you ””
“I’m sorry, it was an ””
“”but I didn’t think you’d dare shoot at me! What’ve I done to you, you wicked hag?”
“She said she was sorry. It was an accident. Now you say sorry for using names.” Lia had stood up and only realised she’d talked after she’d heard herself. Kia turned blazing eyes on her.
“Don’t tell me what to do, missy, just go finish your disgusting slop.”
Lia blinked. “How dare you!”
“That’s enough, now,” said Quillian, coming over and glaring at Dionelise.
“Aren’t you going to take points from your sister?” Kia demanded, also glaring.
Quillian glared back. “Well, you did call her a hag, and raised a ruckus besides. The teachers are staring. So if you don’t want me to take points off Gryffindor as well, let’s just call it even, shall we? You both don’t want to lose points this fast, and both of you green first years unlikely to earn any points back as quickly. Are we satisfied?”
“She insulted my food,” Lia said through clenched teeth.
Quillian glanced at Lia’s plate and raised his eyebrows. “Er, yeah, I meant that in context in the ‘raising a ruckus’ part. Now, Ellie, we respect you so. No more corn shooting, alright? Good luck with class, ickle Ellie-jellybeans.”
Lia forgot her annoyance then. She restrained Dionelise while Quillian dashed away, laughing. By some impulse, her eyes went to Callie.
Callie was the only one in her house table who wasn’t laughing. She hadn’t risen though both legs were outside the bench. She caught Lia’s eyes and half-grimaced, half-smiled in an expression conveying sympathy, apology and torn amusement.
Lia forgot again. She affably returned the face scrunch despite resolutions of letting this girl know someone had been hurt when she was conceived.
“Ellie-jellybeans, indeed. Poor girl. No wonder she shoots them.” Kia was giggling as they lined up outside Transfiguration.
Callie shook her head, still grimacing at the narrowly averted disaster during their very first morning at Hogwarts. “You were quite horrible. Why did you fly at her like that? And at Maura, too. That was out of line.”
“I’m sorry, of course, but I can’t help it, you know, I have Mexican and Irish blood in me. And it did hurt.” Kia rubbed her ear. “Who’s Maura?”
“Oh, Thalia Granger. The friend of Ellie-jel” I mean, the Shaw girl. Maura is Thalia Granger’s second name. We met in the train, remember? We exchanged second names.”
“Thalia Maura? My uncle names his mares in such fashion.”
Callie would have balked at that, but she saw that Kia meant it as a compliment, since Kia wore a look of familial pride, probably for her uncle’s elegant taste in naming his horses. But one of their classmates had heard, and giggled it to her seatmate, and Callie could only be appalled during lunch, by which time it was circulating that the Feliciano girl thought Granger was named like a filly.
It didn’t help that as she was getting up from the Gryffindor table, Thalia Granger said in a carrying voice, “Sour grapes, and I don’t wonder at it. If your name sounds like it was inspired by a moose’s cry, naturally you’ll begrudge other people’s sweeter appellations.”
The murderous look in Kia’s face upon hearing that made Callie shrink from the thought of the next day. They’d be having Charms and Potions with Slytherins.
She dragged Kia away to their tower.
The Fat Lady seemed sober now. Last night she had been too tipsy it took several bellows from Evan Jacob, their prefect, to rouse her and open for them. She greeted them now with a smile, but they doubted her clarity of mind when, after they said ‘monkey poop’, she replied, “Your hair is lovely today, Miss Granger.”
“How could she call us ‘Miss Granger’? That drunken biddy. Besides Miss Granger’s hair is thatch,” muttered Kia indignantly as they sat down in the common room.
Callie shrugged and swallowed her defence of Maura’s hair, which was nowhere near straw. “Never mind that, we have homework and I want to write to my father.”
“You seem fond of each other. You wrote him again before we went to bed last night, and I saw that rather long letter you received at breakfast.”
“We’re best friends,” Callie said, smiling. “He’s coming to live in Hogsmeade.”
“That’s nice. He’ll be able to join us in the Fair.”
“What Fair?”
“Don’t you know? Oh, right, you lived in France. Well, there’s a Fair everywhere in Britain in the Second of May, commemorating the Battle of Hogwarts. Of course, the biggest one is here at school. It’s what I’ve always wanted to go to Hogwarts for. More than the lessons. There are supposed to be all sorts of booths where you can win prizes, Keeper and Chaser demi-games, flying carpets, and all the Hogsmeade shops bring things to give away. All the villagers come. Parents, too.”
“That sounds lovely. I’ve never been to any fairs before. Usually, we just celebrate May Second together with the family. And then it also became Tori’s birthday,” said Thalia to Dionelise, for these two were talking about the very same thing in the Slytherin common room, though they did not abuse Kia. Dionelise felt so guilty triggering the war.
“Oh, yeah, your folks probably stay away. I would, too, since you’ll probably be crushed by crowds,” Dionelise said with a wince. “I don’t like crowds.”
“Yeah, and Dad likes his privacy, he says. Besides we no longer have property here. The ancestral home was surrendered to the Ministry, along with our vaults. And he and my grandfather both warned me about our name being mud here still.”
“No, it’s not. Not really. It’s just rather... notorious.”
“What’s it like, being the daughter of such a famous witch?”
“I won’t know, Liz. I’ve always been her daughter. I haven’t had any other mother. I won’t know a difference. We’re probably just like you and your mum.”
“That’s nice. You really don’t seem like a Malfoy. You have no... self-importance at all.”
“Self-importance? I’m just a little witch, Kia.”
They had to summarise the theories of the basic switching spells for Transfiguration. Other than this, Callie was free to devote her time to writing four epistles. As she told her father about class and the teachers (Professor Annetta Morfosa was an Entometamorphmagus: she could change into the form of any insect at will), her mind wandered to Maura” no, Thalia. Seven uncles. Nana Helen. Poppy Logan. Did she write to all of them individually?
The fire mellowed in the common room; Callie brightened her lamp. Maximillian Ellington-Shaw pretended to peep at her letters. Kia shooed him away, yawning. The girl had a devil’s temper, but she was sweet and kind enough still. Smiling, Callie gathered her letters and took Kia’s arm in hers, and together, they went up to their dormitory.
They had only two other fellow Gryffindor first year girls, the same ones responsible for the spread and tainting of Kia’s innocent words regarding Thalia’s name. Their names were Jesusa Kilman and Jessica Lovett. Both were already asleep.
Kia mimed slamming their heads together and wringing their necks. Callie grinned. They quietly changed into their nightclothes.
“G’night, Callie,” Kia muttered, dropping into bed and promptly falling asleep on top of her blankets. At first, Callie stared. But when it was apparent Kia was not faking, Callie drew the curtains around the girl herself.
Afterward, she cuddled into her own bed. Hers was set where the wall of the tower curved. The night before, she had checked this wall for dampness, and, drawing the thick velvet bed drapes, she had discovered a natural recess in the stones, a slit as if for a single giant spell book to be stowed in. Callie had peered at this alcove with wandlight, and saw it was clean and as polished as the rest of the wall. She had already inserted Pride and Prejudice, Hogwarts, A History and Little Women in it. The little shelf was just the right height that she could easily reach into it even lying down in bed.
She drew up her legs and tapped Londonderry Air on her knees. There was something comforting in the darkness inside her four-poster. It smelled faintly of... ink. An odd scent. But she liked it.
If she had been Sorted into Slytherin, she would have traded for her father’s four-poster if it had not been assigned to her already. Her dad said the bed had belonged to Malfoys for generations, with the family crest crudely scratched in the upper right corner post by some tasteless ancestor. Callie had laughed at that.
She felt a tiny sense of loss not sleeping on ‘the Malfoy bed’, but it was tiny. She was very content in her essence-of-ink four-poster.
“My mum threw ink all over her four-poster in her third year. This was when she was quarrelling with Uncle Ron. She was crying while trying to finish her homework. She upset her ink bottle because her hand was shaking. She was so mad at the ink bottle she just pounded it onto her pillow like it was Uncle Ron’s head.” Lia laughed, and so did Dionelise.
They were sitting on the floor between their beds, sorting through Bertie Bott’s beans spread in a platter between them. Lia wore her favourite night-shirt, a worn Cannons robe which used to belong to her Uncle Ron. Dionelise was in a sheer white gown frilled and ruffled where frills and ruffles could be placed.
“What were they quarrelling about?”
“Oh, Mum’s cat and Uncle Ron’s rat. She must have been really upset,” Lia continued, “because the ink didn’t run out as long as she was pounding. Ink splattered everywhere. It was lucky her curtains were drawn or she would have blackened her whole dormitory. The elves cleaned it up, of course, but the smell didn’t entirely go away. It was still there even in her last year at Hogwarts, and Mum said her bed was also beside the curve of the tower wall, and the wall had this odd gap between the stones, which she used to store books, notes or quills in. If I was sorted into Gryffindor, I was to sniff around for this ink-smelling bed and try to have it. I’d have loved it, but here we are, and my bed doesn’t have any scent to speak of, just an odd chicken scratch in this post, look.”
They got to their feet and Dionelise looked. “It looks like an ‘M’.”
“It looks like a snake with corners. See, these must be eyes.” Lia pointed at two dots in the carving. They giggled again.
Lia quieted abruptly. An ‘M’, a snake, in Slytherin. What were the possibilities? But then her father would surely have better taste than this.
They were the only Slytherin first year girls so there were three other beds in their dormitory. These hadn’t been seen to and prepared by the house elves with warming pans, but if she wanted, Lia could easily move to one of them. She didn’t want to though.
The chicken scratch was somehow ‘dear’ to her, the way her old clay balls were ‘dears’ and not to be thrown away yet.
“We’re planning to move to Tonga and raise Blubbering Humdingers there.”
“That’s nice, Ginny.”
“They’re saying in the Auror office that Fred and George are being considered for Headship.”
“You deserve that, Harry.”
“And do you deserve to drink sugar?”
Hermione coughed as if on cue, having just brought the sugar bowl instead of her tea cup to her lips and gulped. Harry, Ginny and Ron exchanged looks.
They were in The Leaky Cauldron for their Tuesday morning tea. Usually, Arthur, the twins and even Percy joined them, but today all four were late, so those present were free to scrutinise their Hermione, who had been stirring her sugar and scanning the Daily Prophet upside down.
“So, are you back with us now?” asked Ginny, rubbing Hermione’s back.
“What’s the matter, Hermione? You can’t miss Lia this much. She’s only in school; you knew she was going to Hogwarts the moment she was born,” said Ron.
Hermione downed her tea and sighed.
“It’s not Lia, though I do miss her. It’s... well, I forgot to tell you about it because Lia going to Hogwarts and her questions about her ”” Hermione just gestured the word with a wave ” “temporarily drove everything relating to work out of my mind. I can only handle so much about him. Remember that day I almost missed joining you to get Lia’s wand? We were trying an Unforgiveable case that day.”
She winced and reached for her empty teacup. Ginny mercifully refilled it before letting Hermione gulp at it.
“The accused suddenly pleaded guilty after months of denying charges and keeping silence. He said he was using the Imperius on Muggleborns, making them do unlawful things, because he and his accomplices were trying to eradicate the... The Hermione Granger Fund.”
“The what?”
“Exactly! I had no idea! I must have looked so stupid in the courtroom while everyone stared at me. I demanded what confounded fund this was, and we discovered there is this huge classified account in Gringotts named after me, for the purpose of helping Muggleborns attain niches in the Wizarding community. The goblin we summoned refused to disclose who financed and maintains this account, but he did say, just to fire us up, that the financier is a Pureblood.”
“A Pureblood?”
“Yes! And of course, the goblin’s goading worked. The man in trial and his cohorts rioted. They were from old families who still think Muggleborns scum. It was all kept under wraps, and there was a motion of Obliviating everyone to keep the fund secret. But while we debated over this motion, one of the scribes sent a memo to someone outside. We never recovered it. We fired the idiot, but we had to consider modifying the memory of everyone in the Ministry. It was a mess. You realise how people might abuse this fund if news of it gets out. Ugh. And it’s named after me. I feel responsible. It’s currently worth twelve hundred thousand galleons!”
Harry, Ginny and Ron opened their mouths, but now that she was on a roll, Hermione went on without allowing interruption.
“That’s more than a million galleons. I wish someone would just bury that kind of money. It’s lucky we did Obliviate the whole Ministry, or else ” I don’t know! Even Julius looked like a goblin for a moment when he heard the amount. I’m the only one who knows about it now. As if that’s not enough, as if I wasn’t already losing sleep speculating endlessly, there was a buzz yesterday in the Bureau of Immovable Property and Possessions about him acquiring a cottage in Hogsmeade!”
“Oh,” said Ginny.
Harry frowned.
Ron grunted.
“He’s not supposed to come back! I could sue him, send him packing. But ” but, what if, you know ” do you think ”?”
“Hermione, you’re white. Calm down.”
“Ginny, you see, if it’s business, he could come and go. He wouldn’t need a cottage ” a cottage! I could sooner see Hagrid in a chateau. And anyway, he has no business here! They surrendered all their British estates, their vaults, even their ancestral home. I couldn’t think of a reason he’d want to live in Hogsmeade! And in a cottage, for Merlin’s sake. What is he playing at? It’s so small. My own Thalia has to have a whole yard and a rumpus room. And I don’t suppose he would ” it’s in the agreement ” I couldn’t ” but he violated it first ” Oh, God, it’s school term! She should be going to ” and Thalia knows her father’s name! They can’t ””
Hermione didn’t burst into tears. They just came spontaneously and quietly, ending her incoherent babbling. Ron and Harry both looked bewildered, but she was grateful that they didn’t press her just then, only let her hide her face on Ginny’s shoulder and hair.
A small part of her mind said she was overreacting. It had been twelve years, after all. But Thalia wasn’t her only child and ‘out of sight, out of mind’ didn’t work for mothers. It was her heart doing the talking right now. She was both glad and sad.
At the same time, she wanted to mangle someone very badly.