Transcript AB234

Treaty of Shetland Hearings: 12 January, 1999

Maria Anastasia Hanuschak (Drm: Maria-Aloysius)

Born: Bratislava, Slovakia, 15 March, 1971

Affiliation: Death Eater- Amnesty Granted

Chief Warlock Greene: Maria Anastasia Hanuschak, you are here before the Wizengamot in accordance with the Treaty of Shetland. You are to give full disclosure of all your activities with all Death Eaters known and unknown and your own actions during the wars. I have read your profile and it seems as if you were born to a family of Death Eaters, is that correct?

Maria Hanuschak: Yes, Sir.

Chief Warlock Greene: Where would like to begin your disclosure?

Maria Hanuschak: At the beginning, Sir.

Chief Warlock Greene: Proceed.

Maria Hanuschak: Josef and Mikhail were my half brothers, the proud sons of Antonin Hanuschak and Natasha Nasevich. Natasha died of an "accident". Unfortunately accidents never happened at home. So Papa married Deirdre Malfoy, half-sister of the esteemed Lucius Malfoy. How they met, I never knew. Josef was ten and Mikhail nine when they were married. Soon after came John and then myself. John and I are, what is the saying? Irish twins. I suppose it would be we were Irish twins, but that is not for now. We were born ten months apart, costing Mama the chance to have more children. Her hands were full anyway, Josef and Mikhail were mischievous, and she was basically raising twins, John and I. I remember the mansion we grew up in. It was dark, I will not lie. Yet, there was plenty of joy. Mama had such a beautiful laugh. I always laughed with her. There was no way to escape joy when she was happy. She always played with the children. The house elves took care of the work so she doted upon us. Our home was in the Carpathian Mountains, the Slovakian end. The four of us, Josef, Mikhail, John, and myself, used to watch for wildcats during summer. Once, we found one's kittens. The mama cat came rushing at us hissing and snarling trying to protect her little ones. She bit Mikhail and slashed John. We came back bloody and crying, I was worried about John and Mikhail, and Josef, well, I knew then that he was not like my other brothers. Josef had laughed originally when Mikhail had been bitten. I was so angry at him I didn't know what to do, but then a rock just flew up and hit him in the head. I had never harmed anyone before with my magic, but from then on, Josef was more wary of me.

He, Josef, had begun to show his magical signs at age seven, maybe a bit late, but not anything terribly unheard of. Mikhail had begun at five, John eventually when he was four. I started at age two. Mama said I made the curtains open and close all the time just because I could. She was proud of me. Papa was accepting. He didn't like that I was a girl and had magical signs before his sons. Nevertheless, Josef turned eleven and went to Durmstrang. Papa was so proud of him. Everyone was really, or at least that is what Mama said as I was quite young then. Onco Lucius came for the sending off of Josef. For some reason, we always referred to our Malfoy relations in French terms. Perhaps as a sign of respect, perhaps out of high blood arrogance, I do not know. They are family nonetheless though and have always been most cordial to the Hanuschak side. Josef left though and went north to Durmstrang. He would come back for summers and holidays then return. Mikhail did the same. Eventually they graduated, years before John or I could go there.

It was Josef's fourth year about when Papa brought a strange man to our home. He was younger than Papa, but Papa respected him. They only met in the dungeons. Except for one day, when I found the strange man in the library. I had gone to look out the windows for it was raining that day and the library had large windows that looked out, over the countryside. I stopped when I entered the room.

"Come in," he said to me. I walked across the room to where he was sitting on the sill.

"Do you like to watch the rain too?"

"Yes, I do," I said to him.

"Your name is Maria, yes?"

"Yes, what is yours?"

"To you, I am Uncle Tom" That was him, Lord Voldemort, but to me, to a few, he was Uncle Tom. Most of the older Death Eater children knew him as that. He may have grown to be heartless in the second war, but before the horcruxes, he was as human as anyone else. After that first meeting in the library we would always sit together on a rainy day, watching the rain as it fell onto the mountains. He first taught me how to control my magic. He showed me how I could make things move with my mind, change their appearances, even set them on fire without harming them. He even taught me legilimency, a very basic form. We would sit facing each other and he would ask me to tell him what he was thinking. He made me figure it out on my own, though he would guide me at times. It is the strangest feeling, reading someone's mind, but you get over such things when you need to.

Chief Warlock Greene: You were taught legilimency by the Dark Lord as a child?

Maria Hanuschak: Is that not what I just said?

Chief Warlock Greene: It seems rather sensational.

Maria Hanuschak: What part of all this isn't sensational? May I continue, sir?

Chief Warlock Greene: Proceed.