The rain was just starting to come down when Theodore Apparated into the entrance hall of his building. He said the incantation that opened the door and started up the five creaking flights of stairs to his flat.
He seldom bothered to lock his front door, and as he opened it to the long narrow room he occupied, he conceded that there was probably not much point in doing so. His eyes passed over the rumpled mattress in the corner sitting on the floor, the card table facing the opposite wall, the wireframe shelf holding the record player and the records. There was little here that would be worth the effort of even climbing the stairs to get to.
That this room held nearly all that remained of the Nott family estate was difficult to comprehend. Theodore wondered what had become of their heirlooms, the carefully curated library. and the priceless dark objects that had been kept in their Gringotts vault. Some items would have been sold at auction; many would have been destroyed; some collected by the Ministry for national archives; but many things, Theodore suspected, had simply been forgotten and discarded.
The Ministry had seized the estate and the contents of the vault during the course of the investigation and his father's trial, looking for evidence of dark magic as well as more evidence to support his father's long-term collusion with the Dark Lord. Theodore had gone back for his eighth year at Hogwarts to obtain his NEWTs; returning that summer to find his father in prison, their home gone, and their assets forfeit had been rather like waking up to find the world blanketed in snow, as far as the eye could see.
The trial and appeals had dragged on for nearly four years, rapidly consuming what little liquid assets the family had. What had been left of the estate following the investigation and trial had been auctioned and the land sold to pay the war reparations to which Theodore's father had been sentenced. All told, after taxes and settling the rest of the family's debts, barely ten thousand galleons had been left, which Theodore had signed over to his invalid aunt in Harlech. They had not been a wealthy family, but his future had been secure; now, nothing was.
Theodore had no malice about what had transpired. The bureaucracy of court proceedings was so impersonal that at times Theodore felt it had all happened to someone else, that it was just a story related to him by a friend. Perhaps if his father had had Harry Potter to champion him, as he had mystifyingly done for the Malfoys, his father might even now be relaxing in front of their fireplace with the small mountain of newspapers he consumed daily. But the fireplace was gone; the wingback leather armchair and the mahogany furniture and the aged genealogy texts his father kept in the study, all gone too. Only the photograph of Theodore's mother, that had sat smiling on the desk, remained.
A large box next to the record player held all the items Theodore had salvaged from Currell Court. He had hardly known what to collect, so his efforts had ended up random and inadequate - photographs, some letters, odd boyhood mementos, a few items Theodore remembered his parents being partial to.
A representative from Gringotts had been with him, to ensure he didn't take anything of great value, and a younger trainee - he recognized her as the witch from Beauxbatons who had competed in the Triwizard Tournament. The goblin had waited in the drawing room, but the witch had stayed with him, moving from room to room as he did but maintaining a respectful distance. Theodore was very conscious of her presence nevertheless. He could not stop glancing at her out of the corner of his eye - her beauty seemed to reflect on the dim, dusty rooms, making them glow with a ghost of their former glory. Many of the rooms in the house had been turned inside out by the Aurors. Furniture lay overturned, books scattered and splayed open, jars, lamps, vases knocked about. Theodore ignored the chaos and went on about his business, but he heard the woman quietly setting some of the pieces to rights behind him.
When Theodore was finished in the house they went out to the garden. He pretended to look around at some of the statuary, but really he had just wanted to stand out here one last time.
It was a warm day, and the overgrown garden of Currell Court was heady with life. Bright vivid foxglove, just beginning to bloom, had overtaken the bank near the little stream, and he stood at the edge gazing down into the water.
The woman came up to him; her eyes were misty with wonder in the early afternoon sunlight.
"Ma foi," she said softly. "What beauty."
"It's usually much nicer," he said, before he could stop himself. He did not want to speak to this woman, his minder, but he could not help wanting to impress her. "It's gone to seed a bit. No one has looked after it in years."
"Yes, I see," she said. "Tout de même - it takes one's breath away. You must have been very happy, to grow up in such a place."
"Occasionally," he said, realizing belatedly that sounded melodramatic. What could he do? He had never been a happy person. "I mean. I suppose so. Yes."
She looked at him curiously. "Happier than now - perhaps?"
He had no response to this. Happy, unhappy, these terms did not seem to relate to his life as he lived it. He broke off a long reed from the marsh around the bank and dipped it into the water.
"Not any less so, at least," he said finally.
"You did not take many things with you from the house. You could take what you like. I would say nothing." She paused. "I do not think it is right, what has happened. You have grown up in this fine home and now you are to go - where? And when you have done nothing to deserve it, and others - they deserve much worse."
"I don't know that any of this was about deserving," Theodore murmured. "I think people are just trying to make some sense - some order out of everything that happened."
Her fist was clenched in her robes, but her voice was steady. "But there has been no justice done," she said. "Order, perhaps, but no justice. These 'reparations' - who do they serve? They cannot bring back the dead or heal the injured. To put a price on death and grief, it should not be done."
"What do you suggest, then?" he asked her.
She gave a tiny Gallic shrug. He watched her collarbones as they rose and dipped, smooth and perfect. "Service, perhaps - some good works to help others," she said, her voice pensive. "It is better for good to grow from evil - n'est-ce pas? Maybe this manor, it could be a public place - a museum inside, with works of art, and the gardens maintained, so that many people could enjoy this beauty."
Theodore almost smiled to think what his father or any of the families being called on to pay reparations might have to say about their ancestral homes being turned into "public places" for all manner of wizardkind to gawk at. He thought it was far kinder to them to let the property be seized and sold - a hostile takeover and swift execution, rather than a protracted, humiliating indentured servitude.
"I'm sure the Ministry has endeavored to find the best solution to suit everyone's needs," Theodore said.
She studied him. "But not yours," she said. "Are you not angry? Or sad?"
Always, he wanted to say. Never, he could have responded with equal truth.
"It will be good to have a fresh start," he said instead.
Much good it had done, Theodore thought, as he put water on one of the burners of his tiny efficiency kitchenette. He decided to smoke a little and put on a record while he made dinner, and had just chosen an album when there was a tap at the window.
Theodore could not think of anyone who would be sending him an owl, but the bird was indeed carrying a letter addressed to him. He did not receive mail often enough to keep owl treats on hand, so the bird ruffled its feathers and flew off in a haughty way.
He left the window open and sat on the ledge, the rain beating monotonously on the fire escape. He took a drag off his small pipe, exhaled, and opened the envelope.
The invitation inside was heavy parchment, the card elaborately embossed in silver. In elegant black script was written:
You are cordially invited
to attend a celebration honoring the engagement of
Mister Gregory Evan Goyle and Miss Bianca Ellen Bedford
on Saturday, the twenty-ninth of March, 2003
at Brancebeth Hall
He stared at the invitation for several long moments; he did not know how long. The sound of the water boiling over recalled him, and he went across the room to the kitchen area.
Goyle was getting married. Gregory Goyle, that beast - that animal - had found a woman who had agreed to marry him, and they were going to celebrate this occasion, the end of the human race's proud march of progress over the past several millenia.
There was not a single quality of Goyle's that did not repulse Theodore; his sole saving grace was that he was not Vincent Crabbe. He could not begin to imagine the woman who had consented to marry him, and did not want to. Nothing in Theodore's mind could justify it - not even Goyle's handsome inheritance after his father's death during the war, barely dented by the reparations they had been asked to pay. It could be the fortune of a giant's kingdom, all the gold in Gringotts - what did it matter? What riches could pay the price for having to fuck Gregory Goyle, even once?
And yet some woman had consented to marry him. Theodore could think what he liked of Goyle - no matter how revolting he found the man, it was undeniably true that his future prospects were a sight better than Theodore's. In five years, Goyle would be married, rich, and overseeing beautiful Brancebeth Hall, all without ever having worked a day in his life. Theodore might have gotten a promotion at work, might be living in a nicer flat, in a nicer town; but all that remained of the Nott family legacy would still be able to fit in a box.