2
She had known it was a bad idea to stay out until two in the morning, especially–no, absolutely–because she had an interview at the ministry the next day. Not only was that a big deal, but it was kind of the penultimate piece to her greatest dream. And yet, it was 2:07 in the morning when she'd finally come home and collapsed into her bed, her brother already snoring in the adjacent room. When she was startled awake by magic at 6, per her alarm, she wondered what had possessed her to do it.
Fuck.
She rolled out of bed swearing, still in the shorts and t-shirt she had worn to the bonfire the previous night. Somehow she stumbled her way down the hall into the shower before she was fully awake, stripping off her grimy clothes and rushing under the freezing water to snap herself out of it. Downstairs, she could hear water running in her parents' shower, too, meaning she had less than a half hour to compose herself before she and her father would leave for his work.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid." She spoke to the shower, describing herself in the simple adjective. She cradled her head between her forearms, leaning them against the wall beneath the spigot. Why was I that dumb?
It was very unlike her, but she remembered why she had made the lapse in judgment. Sidney had been in South Africa studying Advanced Magical Theory ever since term had ended in June, and he claimed to have been missing her terribly. She was feeling non-confrontational, and so she had not resisted his ravenous appetite for her until he asked her to come home with him at one-thirty. That had been the wakeup call that she had somewhere to be in six hours.
The shower did not insult her back, and she sighed, frustrated with it. Twisting the faucet off, she shook her head. "You never do anything right."
She normally did not like to take showers in the morning, because then her hair needed straightening. No matter what she did to it, if it got under water it reverted nearly instantaneously to its natural, wavy shape–contrary to the classically straight look of the Malfoy family. She had inherited the right color, white-blonde, but only her brother got the straight touch. The wavy look was from her mother's side. Usually something inherited from her mother would make her happy, as it meant that it did not carry the Malfoy legacy of shame. In this case, however, she hated how young it made her look. At every opportunity, she made sure her hair was straight.
On short notice, in wake of her error in staying-out late, the ministry would have to do with her wavy-hair appearance. Sidney liked her straight hair, she remembered. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she decided maybe it did not look too bad wavy...
Back in her room, she was still rubbing sleep from her eyes as she selected her outfit. It was best to go conservative, she decided, and so she chose a vanilla blouse that matched her hair color, threw on some black tights and then pulled over them a knee-length ebony skirt. She did not have time for makeup, and would not have applied any, anyway. Conservative, conservative, conservative.
Her father was having a cup of tea in the dark kitchen when she came down, already dressed for work. He looked up at her and gave her a tired smile as she entered, which she returned blandly. "You look professional," he complimented her. "Ready to go?"
"Yes," she breathed, crossing to the muggle-type refrigerator her mother had insisted on getting, despite her father's objections. She pulled a water bottle from inside and downed half of it in one swallow. She may or may not have been feeling nervous. "Do we have enough time?"
"Plenty of time," her father said. He looked like he was about to laugh. "Take a moment to breathe, Rhysta. You have nothing to worry about. They can't possibly say no to you." She made a noise in her throat that clearly conveyed she doubted his words, and he did laugh. "Well, I know you have nothing to worry about. You should eat something."
"Not hungry," she mumbled. "Should we wait a bit longer, or can we go now?"
Her father sighed, and pulled up his sleeve to check his watch. As he did, the skin of his arm was exposed for a moment, and Rhysta caught sight of slithery ink imprinted there. She looked away quickly, a familiar, sour feeling settling in her stomach.
"I suppose we can go now," her father said. He finished his tea and placed the cup in the sink. After they had verified that she had all of her appropriate and required credentials in her handbag, they stepped outside the front door. It was a chilly morning, and Rhysta had chosen not to wear a coat. She wrapped her arms around herself as her father reapplied all of his specialized locking charms behind them. When that was complete, he took her by the hand and spun them on the spot.
She rarely side-along apparated, mostly because she was not yet accustomed to how it felt and it made her feel sick to her stomach every time she did. By the time they flashed back to color in an alleyway in London, she was extremely glad she had not eaten anything before they left. It would not do well to walk into the Wizarding Regulations Authority with vomit down the front of her blouse.
Her father held her under the elbow as he doubled over, moaning. "I was afraid of that. You can take the Knight Bus home afterwards."
"That would be even worse," she groaned. The feeling passed, and her father took away his hand. "I'll be fine, I'm meeting some friends in Diagon Alley later. I can just walk from the ministry."
Her father raised an eyebrow. She was familiar with the look: I don't want my precious princess daughter walking unsupervised through the bloodthirsty animal streets of London. She hated when he gave her look, because it made her feel like a piece of gold he was fearful or dropping in a gutter. She was thankful when he checked his watch again and put it off. "We'll talk about that later."
They walked out of the alley into early morning London. It was not incredibly busy, but a significant number of muggles–all oblivious to their arrival in the alley, of course–were still making their way along the sidewalks on their way to their strange muggle jobs.
Muggles had always fascinated Rhysta. She always felt that her father held disdain for them, although whenever they came up in conversation he remained mostly quiet. Her mother, however, encouraged her excellence in Muggle Studies at school, and Scorpius had introduced her to several of his Hufflepuff acquaintances who were muggle-born. While she found that if engaged in conversation they tended to be rather boring, Rhysta nevertheless held a desire to understand how they could live their lives without magic. According to her dormmates at Hogwarts, her affinity with them was unusual, if not downright troubling. That's what she got for being a Slytherin, though.
She followed her father down the sidewalk, her cold hands stuck firmly in her armpits. She had only been to her father's work in the ministry twice before, and both times getting there had involved flushing herself down a toilet, an experience she was not keen to repeat. Thankfully, this time around her father led her instead to a seemingly abandoned phone booth sitting on the muggle curb.
After stepping inside herself, her father joined her, and she found that the phone booth was rather more spacious than it had been a moment before, having adjusted to the greater occupancy. She glanced around the interior, taking in the strange muggle receiver and button system. When she was a second year she had badgered her parents until they had consented to installing a phone system in their house. Her mother, who worked multiple shifts at St. Mungo's in the magical maladies ward, was used to using a phone to contact some of her patients and patients' families, and had been delighted to give in to Rhysta's encouragement. Her father never understood the thing or its necessity, and it was clear now that he had not become more enlightened since.
"Okay, let's see here," he murmured, leaning far closer to the labeled buttons than Rhysta thought was healthy, alternatively squinting at a slip of parchment he'd pulled from his pocket. After a moment, he frowned. "They told me I had to type in 'MAGIC' for it to work, but there are only number buttons here. Did they make a mistake?"
Rhysta sighed and gently nudged her father out of the way. "Look here. You see how there are sets of three or four letters on each button? You have to press the button that corresponds with each letter. Like this." She typed down 6-2-4-4-2 slowly, spelling out the word for her father as she did so. As soon as the last 2 was pressed, the phone booth shuddered and she felt the familiar sensation of sinking underground.
Her father was still glaring between the phone and his parchment slip. "I really how no idea how that stupid muggle thing just worked."
She grinned. "Seriously, Dad, you are really old-fashioned. And don't call it stupid just because you don't know how it works."
"I know how it works," he snapped back, putting the slip back into the pocket of his jacket and crossing his arms. "I just think it's really stupid, is all. I don't see what the need is for all this muggle crap when our technology is so superior."
"Stop," she begged him, trying to appear authoritative. She crossed her own arms and squared off against him as the lift began to slow. "Don't belittle them and their stuff like that, you know how it makes me feel. Just because they're different than us and we have to keep our lives separate doesn't mean we're any better than them."
The lift doors slid open, revealing the already-crowded ministry atrium floor. Wizards and witches bustled around outside. Her father dropped his aggressive stance and shoulders and gestured for her to get out. "Sorry. It's just... you know how I feel about muggles. I don't know if I'll ever see differently."
Rhysta sighed, but led her father out of the lift. He joined her and they waited for a short line of wizards and witches to pass by before placing a hand on her back and guiding her forward into the morning din. She had never been somewhere so busy as the Ministry of Magic, especially in the early hours of the morning. Thousands of witches and wizards shuffled through the halls she was now walking through every day, sorting out the magical maladies of the time with poise and practice. Sometimes she wondered if her career would someday wind up here; now that that decision was coming closer, she realized a decision would have to be made one way or another.
For the second time in as many days, walking and thinking too quickly meant she was not paying attention to where she was going.
"Oof!"
She stumbled and cried out, bouncing off of the side of whoever she had run into. She managed to collect herself even as her father flung out a hand to catch her. The wizard whose back she had run into swung around and began to apologize, even though it had quite clearly been no fault of his that Rhysta had run into him. "I'm so sorr–"
The man, a rather tall gentlemen in his early forties with shockingly red hair, caught sight of her father and stopped his words dead. "Oh. Malfoy."
Her father turned his attention from catching her to the man she had run into, and she watched startled recognition flash behind his eyes. "Weasley," he greeted curtly.
Oh. "Sorry," Rhysta murmured, looking down at the floor.
"It's all right," Ron Weasley replied pleasantly. She looked back up, and saw a polite grimace on his face, albeit with steely eyes. His face was covered with freckles, which made him look less like the annoying prick her father's stories had made him out to be. "I shouldn't have been standing there. My wife yells at me for that all the time."
"This is my daughter, Rhystara," her father introduced stiffly. "Rhysta, this is Ron Weasley."
"A pleasure to meet you," Weasley said, reaching out and shaking her hand. "You're a friend of Rose's, right? She's mentioned you a time or two."
Rhysta felt herself blushing. On a routine morning, she would be handling this unexpected introduction with ease. Today, however, her prerequisite nerves were making everything awkward. Only more so because out of Weasley's sight, her father was eying her with trepidation. "I wouldn't say friend, exactly, sir. We've had a class or two together the past few years. I don't talk to her often, but I've always enjoyed our conversations."
"Well, she's always spoken highly of you, too. Unlike what she's said of your brother, of course." He tried to smile again and it came off as more of a pleasant expression, this time. "What brings you to the ministry this fine morning?"
"None of your business," her father snapped.
Weasley turned back to him, his expression darkening considerably. "A little touchy, eh? Actually, Malfoy, it's a good thing I ran into you. Or, rather, that she ran into me."
He chuckled at his own joke, and her father rolled his eyes. Actually rolled his eyes. "What do you want, Weasley?"
"I need you to run some files by your boss, and then get 'em back to mine by six tonight. The Wizengamot's having a cow over the Reuter case, and we're trying to get it all settled before we pull our hair out. I'll send 'em down by noon today, and if could copy and file them that'd be good, too. You know, just in case."
Her father rubbed at his temple before nodding. "Whatever. I'll get it done. Tell your boss he owes me."
"Like hell he does," Weasley replied rather rudely, but from her father's bland reaction and Weasley's almost bored tone Rhysta got the impression that this was a regular interaction between the two of them. Even more so when Weasley turned back to her and gave her his grimace again. "Nice meeting you."
He moved back off into the mass of moving magical folk along the floor, and her father touched the small of her back again to propel her forward.
"What was that about?" she asked him.
"Nothing," her father said quickly, putting too much emphasis on paying attention to the route. "I'll have to run some paperwork for the Auror department."
Tell your boss he owes me. Like hell he does. No 'thanks'. No 'you're welcome'. "He's an Auror, right?" Her father nodded reluctantly. "So when he was talking about his boss, was he talking about Harry Potter?"
They arrived at a set of lifts just in time to slip in amongst a jumble of others, and her father, unfortunately, was spared the necessity of answering her. She glared at him, trying to make it clear that she still expected an answer, but he was avoiding her gaze, and that sent her a message that the conversation was over, no argument.
They traveled down the lift shaft, listening to the tones of every floor and what every floor was responsible for. At the fifth tone, her father nudged her and they squeezed past a number of wizards to join a train leaving the lift. They emerged onto the floor of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, which was where both her meeting was scheduled and her father's work was located.
"7:12," her father announced, glancing at his watch as they strode down the hallway together. "18 minutes early. I'll wait outside with you until it's time. The administrator never accepts visitors until their scheduled appointments."
She nodded and gulped. Her heart was beginning to flutter in anxiety... years of preparation had been leading up to this day, and she had been stupid enough to get less than four hours of sleep the night before. If she did not pass out before he appointment time, Rhysta was half-sure she would be sick.
They walked until they arrived before a glass door with golden writing on it reading, International Office of Registry, G. Britain Branch. The door opened magically for them as they approached, and they both stepped through. Inside, a batty-looking middle-aged woman sat behind a miniscule desk and the largest typewriter Rhysta had ever seen in the very middle of the room. Around her, filing cabinets filled the room from floor to ceiling, except for the three other doors, one on each wall, that were not labeled. The typewriter on the desk was typing itself. In one hand, the secretary held a cigarette from which was curling a double-helix of smoke. In the other, she was writing in midair, on nothing, with a quill that had no ink on it.
She glanced over at them as they entered, not halting her midair writing. "Good morning." From the way she said it, Rhysta felt as though it were nothing of the sort.
"Good morning," she managed to say. "Rhystara Malfoy. I have a seven-thirty appointment with the director of the Wizarding Regulations Authority."
The cigarette smoke solidified into a single line and turned in midair, pointing straight to the door to Rhysta's left. The secretary never moved, but flashed her a rather yellow smile. "Waiting room's right behind the door. He should be with you in just a minute."
Rhysta thanked her as the cigarette smoke returned to its previous helical formation. She and her father moved to the left and through the door, which also opened as they arrived. Inside, another door labeled Director Sam Dobly led off from a white-walled room with a few wooden chairs and a small table laden with magazines.
Rhysta shivered and sat down in one of the chairs. She wished her knees would stop shaking. "I can't believe this is where they test you. It seems so... unimportant. And dirty."
Her father grunted. "If you ask me, this place has a whole streak of misplacing its most important institutions. But nobody seems to agree with me on that account." She did not know what to say to that, because she did not want to argue with him about his brash statement, so she said nothing at all. After a moment her father asked her, "Did you have fun last night?"
Sidney's lips traveling down her neckline. The mixed emotions of delight and reluctance. Wanting him to stop, not wanting to speak up and break the beautiful moment.
"Yeah," she toned far too unhappily. "It was great."
"Scorpius told me young Acres was back in town, and that you were with him last night."
Rhysta's head snapped up. Before her tired mind could think about it, she demanded, "What did he tell you?"
Her father's eyes narrowed at her in suspicion. "Nothing more than that. What should Scorpius have told me?"
"Nothing," she said, too quickly again. Shit. Leave it to Scorpius to take her morning, not even be there himself, and make it worse. "Yeah, that's why I went to the bonfire. It was good to see him. I didn't realize how long it'd been."
Because I wasn't paying attention.
"How was his trip, then? All of his schooling went as he had hoped?"
"Yeah. He's hoping to go back after he graduates this year and learn more about it. He said he was surprised how much you can combine wizarding theology with muggle history and explain so many discrepancies between our history and theirs."
Her father nodded, and she knew he had neither been paying attention to what she'd said nor understood it anyway. "Good, good. Unless there are things you aren't telling me, I happen to like that boy. I think he's good for you."
"You just like him 'cause he got 9 O's on his O.W.L.s." Just like I did.
"Well, that certainly is a redeeming quality–"
The office door opened, and a plump wizard with a receding hairline and a ruddy face appeared on the threshold. Rhysta glanced at her father's watch as he turned in surprise. 7:16. Fourteen minutes early, and being received early. She tried not to sigh aloud. Wrong again, Dad.
"Ms. Rhystara Malfoy?" the plump wizard said. Rhysta stood and nodded, and he stepped forward to shake her hand. He was only perhaps two inches taller than her, and struck her as a very friendly man. "Director Samuel Dobly, at your service. I'm ready for you, if you'd just step in my office to begin your interview."
He turned to lead her in, and her father cleared his throat after he had gone, looking down at his feet and seeming very uncomfortable. "Right then, well... I'd best be off to work, then. Stop by afterwards and let me know how it goes, okay?"
She nodded, and he leaned down to kiss her cheek before he left the waiting room. She took a deep breath, trying to still her quaking nerves, and then smoothed down her skirt anxiously before following Director Dobly through his office door, closing it quietly behind herself.
Dobly's office was covered in filing cabinets in much the same way as the secretary's room had been. His desk, however, was much larger, and was free of typewriters. Behind his large, spinning chair a few pictures on the wall displayed Dobly with a much shorter and much thinner woman that must have been his wife, and a much shorter and much younger boy that must have been his son. The only other adornment in the room was a giant portrait that portrayed a tall witch transforming into a wolf and back again, over and over and over.
The director himself was easing himself behind his desk with a slight bit of difficulty. "Please, sit," he said, beckoning towards the lone chair across from him. Rhysta stepped forward and sank into it, thankful she had not found a way to trip on the way over to it.
Dobly dropped rather heavily into his own chair and pulled a parchment piece from a drawer, setting it atop his desk and wetting his quill. He began to scribble on it. She followed it uneasily, watching upside-down as he scripted her name and the date. "So, Miss Malfoy... you are interested in becoming an Animagus."
"Yes, sir," she murmured.
He looked up and smiled encouragingly. She felt a little better. "A very prestigious honor, that. Not many can claim as much. We only hand out one or two licenses every year, actually, and not one to someone as young as you in decades. Your school transcript we received from you clearly shows that you're up to the challenge."
"Thank you, sir."
"I want you to understand," he continued, "that being here isn't an automatic ticket. Today, I'm going to ask you a few questions, mostly just a background check, and then my office will look into you more closely to make sure you won't present a danger to anyone if you're granted a license. If you do not want, for any reason, for this information about you to be sought, inform us immediately so that we may terminate our investigation. Unfortunately, that would also mean termination of your application for the license. Do you understand this, and are you willing to meet these terms?"
"I do, and I am," Rhysta responded. She hoped she sounded more confident than she was.
"Very good. If all's well and good, we can begin." He scribbled something and underlined it on the parchment. "What drew your interest to becoming an Animagus? What's the greatest reason behind your seeking registry?"
She swallowed. "The Hogwarts Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, as I'm sure you're already aware, sir, is an Animagus. When I was in first-year Transfiguration, she personally came to my class and moved me up a level because she felt I was ready. She said I had real promise in the field, and ever since I've wanted to live up to her praise. I feel like becoming an Animagus would be the best way to do that, and I've also always wondered what life looks like through the eyes of an animal we can't communicate with."
"I've often wondered the same myself," he said amiably, scribbling faster. "What specific things have you done in the field of Transfiguration to prepare for the grueling work Animagi transformation requires in order to learn?"
"Under some tutelage from Professor McGonagall, I was able to advance another class level forward. I actually took my N.E.W.T. level transfiguration test at the end of last term with the then-current seventh-years."
"What did you receive on it?"
"An O, sir." She tried to say it humbly, but winced when she realized that was impossible.
"Impressive," was the director's only comment, although it seemed his dancing quill had several more. "How old are you, Miss Malfoy?"
"Sixteen, sir."
"Good heavens!" he said, actually halting his quill to stare at her with a raised eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yes, sir."
He hummed a note to himself, and went back to his writing. "Very impressive. I read your entry essay myself, and I must say, you seem to have a better grasp on the subject than do many applicants closer to my own age. You must enjoy Transfiguration very much, if you've done so well in it."
"My favorite subject, sir."
"Mine, as well, as it happens. Your father works as clerk, is that correct?"
"Yes, sir. In the Office of Magical Law."
"And your mother is a healer at St. Mungo's, is she not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good, good." He paused in his writing, sucked on the end of his quill for a moment, and then dipped it into his ink well once again. "Now, then. I assume you are aware that your father was, at one time, a Death Eater in the service of You-Know-Who?"
"What?" she blurted. Oh... hell. "What does... I mean... Yes, I knew that."
Now the director was reading off of another sheet he had pulled from a drawer. "The Wizengamot acquitted him of all charges, along with his parents, because officially during the Battle of Hogwarts they switched allegiances and saved the life of Harry Potter, enabling him to kill You-Know-Who and end the war." He dropped the paper back to his desk and looked at her with the same expression as before. "Is this consistent with the course of events you are familiar with?"
"Yes... I... It is. May I ask something, sir?"
"Of course." The quill was back in motion.
She considered biting her tongue, but found that she couldn't. Whether it be a mistake or not, she couldn't help asking, "What does any of this do with my application to be registered as an Animagus?"
"Background check, my dear," the director of the Wizards Regulation Authority told her simply. "I'm afraid we have to examine all angles behind you, Miss Malfoy, in order to be assured of our sanction in awarding you your transfiguration license."
"But that's not me," she protested, gesturing with her hands toward the papers, trying to convey her distress. "That was my father twenty five years ago making a mistake because his family was in deep with the wrong people. I shouldn't be judged based upon that."
"I would tend to agree with you, Miss Malfoy," the director said. "Unfortunately, I am a slave to the book of regulation, and it is my officials that will make the final decision. And unless they are allowed to make certain inquiries into your past and your family's past, I'm afraid we won't be able to award you your license."
No. No no no no no no no no no. This couldn't be happening to her. She had come so far, and worked so hard... she pulled an all-nighter the day before her O.W.L.s, for Merlin's sake, so she could complete one of the dozens of essays and theses she had written to the Department of International Magical Cooperation, applying for her Animagus license. It was unraveling before her, now, she realized, all because of her father. All because of her name. It was falling apart right in front of her eyes and she could do nothing to stop it. Please, Merlin, no. This can't be happening to me.
She listened and answered numbly as the director asked her a few more questions about her transfiguration education and other schoolwork. He pulled out the two-foot long endorsement form that McGonagall had written in her favor, and read through it, highlighting all the redeeming points and checking it off as filling in the requirement for professional recommendation. She was not really paying attention anymore; her mind was still back on the words "Death Eater". It must gotten considerably colder in the confined office, because she was trembling.
"Well, Miss Malfoy," the director finally said, "I believe that will about do it. Very impressive transcript and credentials, especially for one so young. I intend to give you a positive recommendation to my board, I can assure you. With any luck, they'll be able to look past your family's dark transgression and award you your license. Is there anything else you'd like to include in your interview?"
She sat motionless, feeling devastated. Had she really wasted the past three years of her life spending time inside pouring over restricted section textbooks and ancient scrolls for extracurricular homework assignments when instead she could have been out living with her friends? Was all of her tireless, steadfast work laid down by McGonagall for nothing? A normal person would cry; she certainly felt like crying.
Instead, she looked straight up into the director's eyes and let her caution fly to the wind. "Sir you can't judge me based on what my father did when he was young because it was a different age in time and he was terrified he'd be killed if he didn't play the part his family expected him to play and I've spent years out of my life training and preparing and writing for this chance and I want it more than anything else in the world."
Her lungs were completely empty by the time she was finished, but instead of sucking in desperate lungfuls of air she clamped her mouth shut in shock at her outburst. She did not dare to move as the director regarded her with blank eyes and finished writing on his parchment. It was a precarious minute–it couldn't have been more than a minute. Maybe two minutes. Certainly not more than five? Sitting in the chair across from the director, feeling as through the walls were crumbling around her, Rhysta cursed the name she had been born with for the millionth time.
Finally, the director set down his quill and pushed his paper away. "Thank you very much for your time, Miss Malfoy. I will relay your information to the board, and you can expect a final decision from them in six to nine months. It will be mailed to you." He stood. On autopilot, she followed suit. They shook hands without her noticing. "I am truly rooting for your success," the director added with a grim smile. "Good day, Miss Malfoy."
She was back out in the waiting room with the director's door shut tight behind her before she finally realized everything that had happened. Her eyes danced around, settling on nothing in her horror. Fingers ran themselves through her hair–her bloody wavy hair. Both hands snatched themselves back to her sides in frustration. If she didn't start to move, she knew she would start to cry, and if she started to cry only her mother or Scorpius would be able to make her stop. She didn't want to see either of them right now, and she definitely didn't want to see her father. Therefore, she had to move. And move right now.
Out the waiting room door. Past the creepy thing in the waiting room and the cigarette, too. Out into the main hallway of the fifth floor. She made it to the lift without much difficulty, keeping her eyes on the ground and her mind racing through insignificant things. Nobody recognize me. Nobody recognize me. Nobody recognize me.
She had to work hard not to run back to the phone booth. By the time she was there her frustration and terror had resolved into fury. She nearly broke the buttons trying to type in letter combinations of "GROUND", "SURFACE", and so forth. When the lift finally began to move upwards, she didn't even notice, and kept hitting buttons. The doors sprang open and the sun shone into the booth painfully before she stopped.
Muggle London was an entity she'd never truly learned how to navigate, but she knew the general way to the Leaky Cauldron. In any case, she knew what it looked like from the non-magical side, and would so recognize it when she came upon it. It ended up taking the better part of an hour or angry stalking about the streets with her arms stuck under her sides before she came upon it. She could only imagine what a sight she was to the muggles, who probably thought it odd that a formally-dressed sixteen-year-old was on the warpath in the middle of a now-pleasantly warm summer day.
After wandering for an hour, she finally found the entrance to the magical alley that hid behind London's muggle aboveground. The pub was boisterous and busy, and Rhysta wanted nothing more than to avoid any cheery interaction. She took great care to sneak through the shadowy corners to the backdoor, and managed to notice great attention in doing so. She spotted several people she knew enjoying themselves, and kept her head straight down so as to avoid being seen and stopped. And talked to.
And pitied.
The alleyway entrance was wide open out the backdoor of the Leaky Cauldron; so many witches and wizards were streaming back and forth on the busy day that it had no chance to close behind them before more were on their way. Rhysta slipped through the gap and immediately skimmed down a side road, skirting down streets that were more vacant and paralleled the main promenade, lined with flats on either side.
She wasn't very sure where she was going. Certainly not out amongst the shops, where happy students were beginning to go about buying their supplies for the new Hogwarts year with their friends. Backtracking the sidestreets was not a delightful prospect, either. It was not like her to sulk, and, like it or not, Rhysta could not deny that she had entered Diagon Alley and avoided all human contact with the express intent to sulk. Come on... you're not even crying. You're stronger and better than this. Get over yourself.
It was not as if the world was ending. It was not as if the Dark Lord was swooping down on the buildings around her breathing fire and tearing apart the city. As her dormmate and best friend Natalia Longfellow would say, "The sun won't wait for you to rise, love. It's going up either way. Better get out there are enjoy it while you can."
But it wasn't just some passing fantasy, or some boy she had been crazy over that dumped her... she had wanted to be an Animagus since her first Hogwarts dinner, ever since the strange tabby came skirting through the doors and freaked out the first years by sprinting up the middle aisle and leaping onto the professor's table. A moment later, it was no longer a cat... it was Professor McGonagall, looking out upon all of them kindly, if not with a smile.
Minerva McGonagall was Rhysta's role model. The first time McGonagall had come to her class halfway through the second week of first year, and then asked her to stay afterwards to speak privately with her and Professor Wilkins, Rhysta had been terrified; her brother had teased her all summer about how the Hogwarts headmistress used to be head of Gryffindor house, and how she secretly had it in for Slytherins. As the rest of the class had filed out of class, Rhysta was sure she was about to be rung out for some evil-doing that she had been no part of. From what her father had told her behind her mother's back at a young age, as well, it was just the kind of thing Gryffindors did.
She was shocked when McGonagall actually spoke, Professor Wilkins looking on with a smile. "Miss Malfoy, when Professor Wilkins first told me he had a first-year who was mastering his spells at a fifth-year's pace, I was concerned that he had been hit with a most powerful Confundus charm. Now that I see it for myself, however, I must say... Brilliant, young woman! Brilliant! I would like to have a frank discussion with you about accelerating your studies."
From there on out, McGonagall had gone from being her most feared teacher to being her most loved (except for perhaps Professor Longbottom, but anyone with a heart loved Professor Longbottom). Rhysta spent days' worth of time away from her regular studies working on independent studies from Professor McGonagall. By her third year, some of the subjects she was studying were not even included in the seven-year Transfiguration curriculum. Sometime around her thirteenth birthday, she had begun reading about Animagi, and, remembering her excitement upon first seeing the rushing tabby transform at her first dinner, the next day she had begged McGonagall to teach hers how to become one.
The past three and a half years of her life had been almost devoted to intensive research outside of her already advanced classes, writing yards and yards of essays to submit to Transfiguration experts and communities in order to earn the prestige and prerequisites for the Animagus license program. She had not even begun the process of learning how to transform into an animal, as that was illegal before the license, but in a sense she had already pledged her entire schooling to the effort.
Now, once again, her family's name was bringing her down.
Malfoy. Why was I born a Malfoy? She'd earned her fair share of cruel looks and ridicule at school; all of the children of former Death Eaters did. Even the fact that her father had switched allegiances did not spare her, for she found that many students, both older and younger than her, had fallen beneath the cruel influence of Draco Malfoy in his youthful naivety and arrogance.
She had never understood how her brother could bear it, being in Gryffindor house. At least in Slytherin, as she was, the people around her did not glare at her with contempt and derision wherever she went. Except for her close friends, actually, they glared at her instead with judgment that had nothing to do with her parentage, the classic and perhaps justified prejudice of the pureblood roots of Slytherin house. Scorpius, in Gryffindor, dealt daily with his own housemates cracking insults and angry comments at his expense, and seemed to shrug it off as if it did not matter. The ridicule just seemed to bounce off of him, and he used his example of excellence to speak for himself. Seven O.W.L.s and Quidditch captain showed everyone that he was not a slacker who sat back and let the world run itself, like the reputation of his father had become.
And then he was friends with Albus Potter, the son of the Boy Who Lived, himself the Boy Who Infuriated Rhysta To No Definite Extent. As far back as she could remember, she could not stand being in the same room as her brother's best mate, for a variety of reasons. One of them was that his laid-back attitude was completely incompatible with her own penchant for hard work and dedication. Another was that the natural intelligence he obviously possessed annoyed her, as his already good grades could raise his merits monumentally if he would just give the same effort to his studies that he and Scorpius gave to Quidditch.
Chiefly, however, what made her the angriest, and the most resentful of him, was that he was the son of Harry Potter, and that the slimy arsehole had wormed his way into her life like an annoying wart that was impossible to get rid of by befriending her brother. Planting the fact that his father was infinitely more noble and heroic than her father, and thereby loved by the wizarding world in the exact opposite sense that she and her father were hated, right in her face.
Walking down the scarcely-occupied street of flats, Rhysta felt her eyes begin to burn. She swore under her breath and wiped her eyes. She did not allow herself to wallow in self-pity, or even feel self-pity. She was a stronger soul than that, and she would not sink down to that level, even right now in her darkest moment. Even if everything she had worked for did not pan out and she was forced to change her entire outlook on school and life, she would not become weak. She refused to.
With this in mind, she forced herself to dart up the next avenue and walk out into Diagon Alley, woefully self-conscious of how out-of-place she looked in her dress. Her advancing age seemed to make up for it, at least; mingling in with the crowd, she saw that most of the students rushing about were about third-year age and below, beneath the level that dared to judge a sixth-year, and their parents were far too busy hurrying to keep up to do anything but offer her a friendly grin in passing.
She had a few sickles in her handbag; she tried never to carry more than two galleons on her at any time, but had been meaning to stop at Gringotts before shopping. With the meager money supply, she purchased an ice cream at New Fortescue's Parlor, an actually older establishment that had held its "new" name since being rebuilt almost twenty-five years prior. She sat down on a bench and nibbled grimly on the vanilla cream, trying to distract herself. Her eyes began to search the crowd for her friends from school, even though she knew they did not like to come shopping for school until closer to September, and she had not scheduled to meet either Natalia or Angelica until noon for lunch. Her loss... she could use the company, and she was in no mood for the kind of company her other option–Sidney–offered. She considered it for half a moment, and was surprised with the shiver that the mental image of his face shot up her spine. You know, if that makes me so uncomfortable, maybe I should do something about that...
At that precise moment, as if her loneliness had magically conjured them from nothing, her brother and Potter sauntered by whilst talking loudly, making her start and do a double-take.
They were laughing about some joke, and Potter was directing the conversation to another boy she had never meant from Gryffindor, perhaps a few years younger than all of them. For a moment, she thought that they had completely missed her up in their bypass, but then Scorpius looked up and glanced to the right and stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing her.
"Rhysta!" he said, smiling at her. Potter and the other bloke turned around at his exclamation, and the git actually flinched upon seeing her. She sneered back at him as her brother walked back to stand next to the bench. "Hey, I thought you weren't coming down here 'til noon. You're almost two hours early." As if this revelation suddenly clicked in his sometimes thick skull, his smile disappeared. His voice became cautionary. She hated how well he knew her sometimes. "How did your... uh... yeah."
He glanced over his shoulder at Potter, and Rhysta could have smacked herself in the face for how obvious he was being. For sake of not being laughed at, she had begged her family not to tell anyone about her interview. To cover, quickly, she tried to glance nonchalantly up at the sun and said, "I don't want to talk about it. No big deal."
Scorpius and Rhysta had always been much closer to each other than brothers and sisters with their small age gap usually were. They rarely fought–occasional bickering fits did not count–and he had always been there for her early in her Hogwarts life when she just needed some general advice or someone to talk to. Except for his tendency to be inflexibly overprotective, Rhysta loved her brother very much.
Unfortunately, this meant he saw right through her fib, and she mentally swore as recognition dawned on his face. He turned back to his friends. "Hey, Al. Can you take a hike for a minute?"
Potter glanced between Scorpius and her for a moment, his eyes dwelling on her. She thought he was hesitating, and was about to come out with a dismissal rather than confront another row with him, but instead he just nodded. "We'll wrap around. Take your time."
Scorpius sat down next to her as they walked away, resuming her conversation, and Rhysta stared at him, wondering whether or not she actually wanted him there. He sighed as he settled himself on the bench, and then said, "So?"
"So."
"How did it really ago? Right now I'm getting a vibe of 'not as you'd hoped'."
"I told you, I don't want to talk about it."
"That works on people you don't know, Rhysta," Scorpius murmured, "but I'm your fucking brother. It makes me upset when you're upset. What's up? How'd it really go?"
"I'm not talking about it, Scorpius," she snapped at him, crossing her arms over her chest and staring defiantly forward. "Let it go."
Her prat of a brother only sighed and settled his hands in his lap. "All right. I'll wait."
She glared over at him, furious, and he gazed calmly back. It was one of their other differences, the kind where she had inherited their father's trait and he their mother's. This time, however, she was determined not to let his seemingly indifferent patience outlast her sharply stone-walled temper.
She waited. He waited with her. They waited together. People walked by, some shooting them strange glares, which she ignored pointedly and Scorpius pleasantly. More than once she just tempted just slap him across the face and walk away, but decided it would not have been proper of her, especially considering that, even if it was unwelcome and entirely snobbish of him to do, he was just trying to help.
The crumbling was inevitable. They must have been sitting there silently for ten minutes when finally she sighed and looking down guiltily at her hands. "It went bad."
"I got that," Scorpius commented. "Anything else?"
"It wasn't even my fault," Rhysta explained unhappily. "It was just... everything I turned in was great, and the director said he was very impressed with my transcript and McGonagall's recommendation letter..."
Scorpius waited. "But."
"But..." Her defenses broke. She told him the whole thing, everything from getting no sleep the previous night to the Authority's heavy interest in their father's history. She tried to tell it impartially, but she could not keep the bitterness out of her voice as she talked about what the director had told her in his interview office. "Everything I've done in the last four years, Scorp, all of McGonagall's tutoring and all of my essays, it could all be for nothing because Dad was freaking in the bed with the wrong side of the war for a few months."
"Well, it was more than a few months," Scorpius admitted grimly, cringing as if expecting to be delivered a blow. When it did not come, he continued, "I'm sorry, Rhysta. If I could reinforce to them how smart and committed and good-hearted you are, I would. It's a shame they've gotta judge you on something you can't control."
"It's not fair!" she blurted. Now she was angry; she felt tears again, and cursed herself. I will not cry in front of my brother. Not now. "I'm so sick of it. Everywhere I go, Scorp, if people know who I am and they don't realize that there's more to people than their last name they stare at me like I'm about to pull out my wand and start hexing the legs off people. And they do it to you, too! And you just take it."
Scorpius shrugged, averting his eyes. "It hurts me, too."
"You don't show it?"
"Neither do you, most of the time. You're really strong like that. You kind of just shoulder it and carry on, and only ever complain about it when you're alone, later. I really admire you for that, actually. It's really inspiring."
She wiped at her eyes before he could see the tears and sniffled. "I don't feel as strong as that. I've wanted that license forever, Scorpius, I've worked so hard for it. I love Dad, but times like this I am so ashamed of who we are." She hesitated, and then added, "I wish I had been born with a different name."
"Don't say that," Scorpius said. He did not use a reprimanding tone; just a suggestive one. "I know life isn't great when everyone knows our father was a death eater, but we should at least be happy that we have a good life, with plenty of money, and that we've both been as successful as we are."
She glared at him. "You're saying this whole thing like it's this magnificent speech you've given before."
He grinned wryly. "I have. To Albus, probably a couple dozen times."
"To Potter?" she repeated incredulously. "Why on earth would you ever have to say any of this to Potter? His family's got it made! Both of his parents are heroes!"
"You know better than that," Scorpius responded dryly. "Sometimes, Al's got it just as difficult as you and I do, sometimes even worse. Maybe not for the same reasons, but he's got people looking over his shoulder all the time, too, crazy to see what he's doing."
"If we have so much in common, why does he have to be a git all the time?"
"Probably because you act like a bitch to him all the time. And I know you're not a bitch. If you didn't take it all out on him, I know he would be happy to be nice to you. It's exhausting just watching the two of your row."
Rhysta sighed and rubbed at her face, then decided to keep her eyes buried behind her shield of hands. "Scorp... I really wanted this. I really wanted this, more than anything."
"Are you sure you didn't get it?" Scorpius asked gingerly, rubbing at his neck awkwardly.
"I don't know," she moaned. She removed her hands and blinked out at the street, sighing. "From what the director said, it seems like the decision board is going to try and find reasons not to grant me the license. It didn't even sound like a recommendation from the headmistress of Hogwarts would make a difference."
"When do you find out?"
She snorted. "Six to nine months."
"Hmmmm," her brother hummed. "That kind of blows."
"You're telling me."
He scooted a little closer to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, squeezing comfortably. She leaned into the embrace, thankful for her brother, as he said, "Well, no matter what, you certainly have the school skills to do whatever you want. And there are people in the world who will stop treating you differently just because of who Dad is. You just have to find them. Speaking of that, I wanna talk about Sidney Acres..."
She froze, aware of how he easily he would notice her tenseness. "Why?"
He eyed her in his peripheral vision. "Because you were getting really friendly last night and I want to know how your relationship with him is going."
"Oh." I don't know. And she really didn't. She had started dating Sidney Acres because he was cute and they had sat next to each other in Herbology all year. He was really smart, which she liked, and very polite, which was a bonus on some other bastards she had dated, and after a while she had really started to fancy him. Over the summer, though, when he was off studying in South Africa and their only correspondence was only the occasional letter, she had grown consumed by finishing all of her Animagus paperwork before the deadline, while also applying for a number of advanced courses not usually offered at Hogwarts, and she had more or less stopped thinking about him. It wasn't like she hated him, or anything, but when he had been so happy to see her last night she had felt rather indifferent towards him, and, truly, how physical he had been getting had not made her comfortable in the slightest.
"Oh?" Scorpius repeated. "What does 'oh' mean?"
"'Oh' means oh," she answered unhelpfully, looking her brother in the eye. "It means I'm not sure how it's going, and I'm not sure where I want it to go, if I want it go anywhere at all. I haven't had time to think about it since he got back. So that's that."
He grunted, and stood up. He rummaged in the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a small drawstring packet that he dropped in her lap. "Here. Use the Leaky Cauldron fireplace to floo home and change. Don't meet your friends dressed like a fashionable mother."
"Thanks," she said quietly, and seized his hand before he could walk away, squeezing it and shooting him a toothless smile. "And thanks for listening."
"That's what I'm here for, sis." He returned the grin, and then sighed. "Now I gotta go find Albus again. I'll bet a galleon I can bet where he's hiding."
"No bet here," Rhysta called after him as he set off for Quality Quidditch Supplies. She watched his retreating back as it rejoined the dense crowd. She felt a lot better after their discussion, but the sour feeling in her stomach that refused to be sweetened by the ice cream was still there, billowing beneath the distraction she was trying to heap on top of it. She didn't like feeling glum... not one bit. Looking out at the laughing younger-years showing off their new school supplies to their friends, she wished for a moment that she could return to those carefree days, when it didn't matter that she had a boyfriend who she had unintentionally grown apart from or that her life's educational goal may have just been squashed.
The next moment, she was glad her wish had not come true. She stood, finishing off the ice cream cone, and set off back towards the Leaky Cauldron. Even if her outlook didn't look great now, Rhysta knew she would feel better after she was back to school.
Everything would be better once she was back at Hogwarts.