Chapter One: The Village
“I can’t believe she’s making me go!” Libby cried theatrically as she turned the corner onto Mishamash Way. Boris and Addie, who followed a step behind, rolled their eyes at each other: their best friend’s disgruntlement with this particular topic was well known.
“I mean,” Libby continued, “she knew we had tickets to see the Village Players tonight.” She sighed as her eyes found the distant end of Mishamash Market, where the marquee of the famous wizarding theatre called seductively to the Villagers and its tower speared into the New York City sky.
The Village was a vibrant and varied wizarding community, squished somewhere between the Muggle neighborhoods of Soho and Alphabet City. The maze of streets was teeming with life and color, boasting the traditions and wares of wizards from across the world. On any given day on Mishamash Way, you could find an Arabian wizard showing off his collection of illegal flying carpets and magic lamps, a Chinese diviner beckoning customers through her beaded curtain, and a yamaka-wearing old man practicing candle magic, all within the same block. At night, the Village became a different place: ladies with large chests and scantily-cut robes looked out from hooded eyelids at passing wizards, Kneazles howled from back alleyways, and sticky children followed strangers at a distance, ready to spring them for Knittles and Barbazons if the chance presented itself.
The Village was Libby’s beloved home “ or at least, it had been for seven of her almost-twelve-years, which certainly seemed long enough to her. She was well acquainted with all the regulars, and found herself waving and grinning at each of them as the trio weaved through the market.
“Hello Mrs. Rundlestein!” she called to a little old witch with an orange pointed hat who was measuring lizard skins.
“Not getting into any trouble today I hope, Miss Libra?” said the woman, whose grin showed quite a few missing teeth.
“Who me, Mrs. Rundlestein?” Libby did her best impression of a feminine curtsy before her friends dragged her further into the market.
“I’ve got it!” offered Addie, a black girl who was wearing a her usual wild assortment of both wizard and Muggle accessories. “You’re always saying how you want to learn about different cultures. Think of them as… a new species of human… or something. Think of it as an adventure!”
Boris, who was a waxy-skinned boy of twelve, snorted. Until this moment, he had been studying an old hag haggling with two men in business robes.
“Yeah, Libs, an adventure. We know how you love those.” The pair of them giggled and shoved Libby playfully.
“But this isn’t an adventure like we have at Coney, or like the time we set loose the Niffler in the jewelry store! This is just a bunch of snobby rich kids whose parents work with my mom at the Embassy. That’s not exactly what I call a swashbuckling good time.” Her friends shrugged.
“It’s a party… there’ll be free food?” Boris tried.
“You guys don’t understand,” she pleaded desperately. “These people are ridiculously boring! And rude. And their food is probably all Flobberworms sautéed in butter or something equally weird. And”“
“The dude over there pissing on people as they walk by is defined by some as ‘rude’ too, but you love him,” Boris pointed out.
“But he’s fascinating. Don’t you just want to know what makes him tick?”
“Not really!” pipped Addie. “But hey, I bet these rich kids aren’t as boring as you think they are… I bet they have all sorts of nasty little secrets. You should make it an experiment… try to find out what makes them tick.”
“And,” Boris added, “you’ve already seen the Village’s ‘Mr. Potter’s Semi-Amusing Adventures Abroad’ three times. You’re not missing anything.”
“Besides, I’m sure with all the fried Flobberworms and all, that they’re just charming people,” Addie said, tipping her miniscule witch’s hat, that had until that moment been charmed to stick out at an odd angle on her head. “Besides, I’m sure there will be a few of them when we go to school this year.”
Libby sighed, resigned. “True, but at least you guys will be with me, so we can lock them in a broom closet and make it look like an accident.” She brightened. “Okay, I’ll do it. An adventure.”
“An adventure!” Boris agreed.
At the corner of the Village square and Potswig Lane, the three children shelled out a few knittles each to get Dingle’s Droopy Dogs and iced pumpkin juice. They walked to the center of the square and plopped down on the rim of the huge fountain, in which a giant statue of a koi fish stared stoically back at them as he spewed water at whomever he felt like at the given moment.
However, the soakings were quite welcome, as it was a blisteringly hot summer day in New York City, and the cool water was a thankful relief. As they sipped their pumpkin juices and wolfed down their Dogs, and periodically got splashed, they talked excitedly about wizard school, which was the hot topic of conversation these days.
“We all better get accepted at the same school,” Boris said, finishing his Dog and throwing the wrapping it as close to the trashcan as he could make. He missed. It shouted something at him and then stuck out a pincher to retrieve the parcel.
The girls nodded their assent.
“What are all the schools again?” Libby asked. Not having grown up in a family who had gone to school in America, it was one topic she was very hazy on and therefore very curious about.
“Merlin, girl, don’t make me repeat them all again!” Addie sighed. Boris made a gesture that said “better you than me!” Libby waited. “Fine, fine, umm… Hatford, Frostbramble -that’s where my sister goes - and Wicworth are the Big Three. Everyone gets in to at least one of those, unless they’re a Squib or something. And I overheard my mom say something about how they’re easier to afford. I dunno, I don’t listen to the money stuff if I can help it. But I think you only have to shell out for books and supplies and the government pays for the rest.”
“That’s where I’ll be then,” Boris said glumly.
“Ditto, man.”
“And the others?” Libby prodded.
Except, she didn’t get her answer because at that very moment the Koi hacked Libby an especially good one, soaking her from head to toe in fountain water. Her friends broke into fits of laughter, and Libby got them back by hopping into the fountain and making a huge display of splashing them. It turned into a game as they all piled into the fountain and started soaking each other, and were soon joined by other neighborhood children when they realized fun was to be had in the Village square.
The game lasted for a good hour, and afterwards, Libby, Boris and Addie, joined by some of the other local twelve-year-olds, lay exhausted on a patch of dry grass under a tree. They spoke of Village gossip, complained about over-protective parents, gushed about the new Village Players’ show, and of course, once again breached the topic of school.
It carried them for another hour as they dried off. Everyone wanted to tell stories they had heard from respective relatives, and put in their two-knittles about which school had the better Quadpot team (apparently, Libby learned from some of the boys, the Big Three were in some sort of school league that was very competitive. The odds were on Hatworth to win the championship this year) or discuss which one had the best uniform policy (Addie said Frostbramble. Jenny and Alice said Wicworth. Libby could have cared less).
“What about classes and stuff?” Libby asked eventually. The other kids looked at her blankly. “Where are the really good teachers?” she tried again.
“Dunno, they’re all decent I guess,” said one of the boys, “I think all of them kind of specialize in something different, though I hear there’s a Re-gu-la-tory Board for the Big Three, whatever that means.”
“I think it means that there’s all these standards they have to stick to and meet,” said Libby. She pondered that. “That’s kind of boring, isn’t it?” The boy shrugged.
“Well if you’re going to be picky you going always go to one of the private schools where all the rich kids go.”
Which reminded her that she had to go to a “rich kid” party that very evening, and she hadn’t even bathed, though perhaps the fountain game counted. She bid her goodbyes, grumbled at Addie’s “Have fun!” and took off at a run.
Some of the Village shopkeepers yelled at her to slow down as she weaved through the streets, but she was starting to pick up speed and it was exhilarating. She eventually turned onto a narrow cobblestone street, whose brick walls on either side were dotted with windows with striped overhangs and colorful doors. Steps led up to each, with little stoops just big enough for a cat to sunbathe. Libby slowed when she reached a green door next to a window with a yellow-and-red striped awning.
Libby’s dad was in the living room when she arrived. He was a long, dignified man, with sharp features and very pale hair. He often was very serious, but sometimes he let his guard down with his daughter. Libby loved him dearly despite his hard shell, and relished their moments together. He had a game of Wizard’s Chess set up near the fire (it was blue, as it actually cooled the home in the summer rather than heated it), and gestured to the opposite chair as she entered. He gave her disheveled damp appearance a once-over, but said nothing.
“Hey, Dad.” She plopped down, and moved her first pawn. “Mom home yet?” she asked casually.
“Not yet.” He moved his. “Still angry at your mother, then?” Libby’s dad had a smooth British accent, like her mom. And as hard as Libby tried to copy it, she never could achieve the same effect.
“I guess not. Boris and Addie talked me down a bit, but I still don’t understand why she wants me to go so badly.”
The game started in earnest now, as he took one of her pieces with his knight. It jabbered at Libby angrily.
“Let me tell you something about myself, Libra.” She sat up straighter with interest. Her father rarely ever talked about his past. “Growing up, I belonged to the very kind of world which you are about to engage yourself with. Though my family was out of favor at the time, we still had a glorious manor on the top of a hill, complete with white peacocks, and a fountain-of-youth. I still had some of the best private tutors, and knew exactly how to behave at society functions. When I went to Hogwarts, I was sorted into Slytherin as expected, and made not-quite friends with all the right people. As I got older, I was invited to numerous parties and balls filled with the same silly girls, and the same dreary people. And just like everything else, I was expected to marry one of them and repeat it all over again with my son.”
“But you married Mom instead.” Libby had listened in fascination “ this might have been the most she ever heard him say about himself at once “ but she knew this part. He gestured for her to make a move, and she hastily obliged, feeling guilty. She had been so caught up in the story that she had halted her play.
“Right. I married your mum instead. And Libra, believe me, it caused an uproar. I was called a blood-traitor, among many other not-so-pleasant things. I wasn’t disinherited, per se, but I was stripped of the family fortune and told that I was no longer welcome to society functions.”
“But you didn’t want that anyway. You just wanted her,” Libby said. She sort of knew this part too.
Scorpius Malfoy watched his second child for a long moment.
“Yes.” Libby beamed. “And no,” he said, still watching her. “It was all I knew, and the change was a difficult one to make. For one, I wasn’t used to people talking to me without another agenda. For another, I didn’t know how to be comfortable around the people I had been taught were lower than me for my entire life. I was suspicious and uncertain, at the best of times. Your mother was the one shining beacon in my life, but sometimes it seemed like it wasn’t enough.”
Libby managed to take his rook, but then he took her queen.
“I took a perfect bride, your mother. She compliments me in every way. And when she was offered the Ambassador position in Prague, and later the States, she took it, knowing that starting a new life somewhere away from England was just what we needed.”
Bishop takes knight. Knight takes rook. Check.
“And then we had your brother, and two years later, we had you. We weren’t rich by any means, with me being cut off from my family’s money, and your mother only taking in a modest portion from the Ministry. But despite that, I was happy “ truly happy “ for the first time in my life.
“So what I’m saying is, what my ‘moral’ of the story, I suppose, is: don’t be too hard on the girls you meet tonight. All they know is what they’ve been raised with. You will seem ‘lesser’ to them in their eyes, but they are only products of what their families have made them. They’ve been bred to be manipulative, clever, but know how to keep a pristine front, as showing any sign of true emotion is seen as a weakness. Empathy and compassion are not a part of their lives, just as cruelty and harness is not a part of yours. Checkmate, dear.”
Libby didn’t care about the game anymore, though her pieces squeaked morosely at her. “But they can change. You changed,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but change does not happen overnight. It takes time. Remember that.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Just then, the “unclick” of an Alohomora sounded throughout the house, and the front door swung open.
“It looks like your mother’s home.”