Hogwarts, June 20th, 2014
Delphini has never felt this much tension in the air at the castle. Not even when she had first set foot in it, and the walls themselves seemed to hold their breath. Everyone has theories and suspicions. Everyone whispers, and everyone becomes very quiet when she approaches. They even go as far as trying to silence their minds around her, now that they know she can enter them, useless as the attempts are.
They don't think she meant to kill the champions, but her obvious involvement in preparing Travers for the tasks and her interest in the healing arts do make it look like she might have had this whole thing planned from the start. And doesn't that make for an extraordinary explanation of why on earth her name was not called forth by the Goblet when everyone expected it to?
No one else in the castle knows the name behind the attempted murder of all three champions. No one but her ranks as high in student's suspects lists. There's a miniscule part of her that she allows to be proud of it, in a very twisted way, because they all think of her as cunning enough, intelligent enough, dangerous enough, to pull a stunt like this and come out looking the hero. If only they knew that the last thing she wants to be is some kind of saviour.
Delphini has taken to spending more and more time in plain view. Consciously displaying herself out in the open with her friends, forcing the world to become her alibi as the newspapers write and write about the failed Tournament, finding eloquent ways around the default victory of Slytherin.
Finding convoluted ways to constantly bring her up in less than heroic ways. Slowly but steadily waking ghosts of the war, pocking that spot at the back of everyone's neck that springs up fear. Feeding the fire to the rumours about Scorpius as well, for if he is what some think, and the Malfoys raised her this way, wouldn't she make the perfect lieutenant?
So Delphini adds yet another coat of varnish to her façade, carefully toning down certain aspects of her. She adjusts, tuning her image to the thoughts she picks up on, concealing her core as best she can.
X
She cannot write to her family. The mere thought of putting any of it down in words is enough to make her mind scream. It's too dangerous. She has considered - in her sleep deprived ruminations - cursing her letters, should they be opened by anyone but her family, but that would only spark more suspicion.
She cannot warn her family about Euphemia, and, for the first time in her life, Hogwarts feels like a prison. She can't just hop and leave for the weekend, and there are no Hogsmeade visits she can take advantage of. It's infuriating. It's also the most frightening thought that ever crossed her mind. It creeps in again and again, dragging cold nails against her spine, making the hairs at her nape stand on their ends. It lives at the back of her mind, ever present.
What if Euphemia targets them while she's here? What if Euphemia is planning to take her family from her? What if Euphemia gets to them before she can?
It has been five days. Five long, painfully slow moving days, and all she can do is hope. All she can do is trust that, should anything happen to them, the Prophet wouldn't take long to let the world know. Five days, and her family still lives. Five days. Alive, still, but not safe.
It's only now that Delphini sees the error in her ways. She has tried to keep the deranged witch a problem of hers, shielding her family as much as she possibly can. Shielding the world, even. Euphemia will not comply, though, and she has the perfect hook with which to draw Delphini near.
Euphemia knows Delphini's weakness. And Delphini hates that it proves her father right.
Delphini will not back away from a fight, not if Euphemia goes for her family. That much is settled within her. What she must do, at any cost, is keep Euphemia away from them.
But Delphini knows that she cannot simply hunt the witch down. No matter how much the dark creature within her wants to, no matter how right it feels when she lets that darkness in her spring to life, no matter the way her magic sings with the notion of exacting revenge. As far as the world is concerned, Euphemia Rowle barely exists, and nothing about her survival is menacing. Not to the world. Not yet. Not ever, if she has a say in it.
If she is to do something, anything, she needs to ensure that it remains a secret. Euphemia was never a Death Eater, merely a wife. And nothing that came close to Aunt Narcissa, who never bore the mark but was always counted amongst the Dark Lord's followers.
Delphini cannot reach out for her family, so she looks for guidance where she can, with the one wizard in the castle she can completely trust on this, and not endanger in the process.
X
She hears the shackles that dangle from him before she sees him. Though she is as silent as can be, the Bloody Baron is already facing the door when she comes through it.
She welcomes the harsh wind that blows up here, and the cool touch of the moonlight on her skin. Delphini offers the Baron a smile, not an open, happy thing, but a demure, discreet smile, more visible in her eyes than on her lips. She curtsies, the Baron bows his head.
"Good evening, Miss Black. I believe congratulations are in order."
"Not quite, sir," she says, pushing her hair off her face. It's not tied or braided, not tonight. There is no need for deceit here.
"As I understand it, you saved three lives just a few days ago."
"Five days. But I let the culprit escape."
The Baron's silver eyes look into hers, the stars oddly visible through them. The chains rattle again as he approaches her, hovering.
"Are you telling me you know who did all that?"
Delphini explains, and answers every question. She omits almost nothing, and the Baron mostly listens.
"And why did you wish to discuss this with me? Your intentions towards this witch seem clear."
"They are. I have to protect my family from her, sir."
"Not yourself?"
Delphini lets the question linger, thinking of a way to phrase her answer. The Bloody Baron does not wait long, nor does he extract the answer from her. He places a long, immaterial, cold finger under her chin, raising her eyes to his, carefully, so as not to cross her flesh.
"So similar. So very similar in the way you protect what belongs to you. And not at all the same."
Delphini feels her eyes shift, her anger visibly surfacing before she yanks it back inside, into that corner of her. The creature at the back of her mind growls through her thoughts, and muffles the sound of the Baron's low, rumbling laughter.
"The anger is all the same, though."
He allows her a moment to compose herself, a moment in which to bring the darkness to heel.
"Thank you, sir. I apologise for my behaviour."
"Be careful, Miss Black. Be extremely careful of that anger of yours."
"Was it their demise? Their anger?"
"I cannot say. I only know that it was mine, and I would not want such a thing to befall you."
Delphini allows him a moment, then. She has heard the rumours about the Baron and the Grey Lady, and she has seen the sorrow in his eyes more often than he would like to admit. She does not pry. Some matters are best left alone. Quiet.
It's the Baron that breaches the silence once more. He knows that there's a piece missing to Delphini's puzzle. She has explained her connection to Euphemia, but not the full extent of the witch's plans. She has not said a word about the prophecy.
"I see now," he says, "you do not doubt what you must do, you doubt the way the world will respond to it."
"Precisely," she says, raising her green eyes to his starry pupils.
They hold each other's glance for a quiet minute. Delphini keenly aware of her omission and of the way the Baron simply knows that she's hiding something. The two of them carefully accessing the other over a void she'll not fill and he'll not ask about.
The Baron looks away first, turning around to face the grounds, and hovering closer to the battlements of the tower. Delphini follows, standing by his side.
"You are concerned with the world's reaction, but do you care, Miss Black? Do you care about what the world might think of you? And do you care about something as fleeting as that when compared to your safety? To the safety of your family?"
"Didn't you, sir?"
"I cared for nothing but what I thought of myself. And that, too, was my undoing."
And though there is not any physical depth to the eyes of a ghost, Delphini sees it. Delphini sees the sorrow in him, the sorrow of someone that could not keep the one he held dearest safe.
"You haven't answered me, Miss Black. Do you care?"
And in that moment she knows. She cares not for whatever happens to her. She cares only for the safety of those she holds dearest.
"No, sir, I do not."
The Baron nods. The moonlight plays within him when he moves.
"Well, then. I have my answer. Do you have yours?"
Delphini smiles. A gentle, calm smile that blooms from the certainty in her mind. She bows her head to the Baron, her heavy eyelids hiding the feverish glint in her eyes.
She leaves, and by the time she reaches the last step of the tower's staircase, her plan is clear.
Euphemia will be stopped. She'll be undone.
X
Hogwarts, June 27th 2014
It is on the way back from a lazy afternoon in the lawns surrounding the Black Lake, after the other schools have left, that Delphini finds her right hand being tenderly held by Radagast's left, and tugged. Her mind is pulled up from her intricate scheming by the same gesture. Her body compliantly meets his, their feet adjusting their stride so as to better move together. Sigmund and the girls keep walking just ahead, acting as if nothing has changed.
Radagast nuzzles the hair just above her ear, and whispers into the shell of it.
"What's on your mind? You've locked yourself in again. It's time you come out."
Delphini halts, pulling her face away from his, and looking up, just a little, into his blue eyes, saying nothing.
"You no longer have your apprenticeship to keep you busy, nor the Tournament, so you've resorted to being quiet. You're with me for the most part of the day, but you're not really here, love."
"I'm sorry," and she means it, "I'll talk to you, just not here."
She cannot tell him the whole truth, but she can offer him a modicum of what troubles her. She can trust him with some of her burden, and that will have to do. For now.
He, too, is someone she holds dear. He, too, is someone to be protected. He calls her love sometimes, and Delphini wishes she could reply in kind without gulping.
Radagast beams, his smile wide, his propriety forgotten for a moment. Delphini offers him a smile as well, and nods. A couple of months ago, she might have tried to kiss his worries away, to deflect the matter in ways that left the both of them dizzy and panting, and ever yearning for more. Not now. He has noticed her in ways only her family had noticed her so far, seeing past the pretty veneer she wears for the benefit of the world. He can see into her eyes and catch glimpses of her inner workings, and that makes him trustworthy.
He calls her love.
He is also another weakness of hers. They all are, if she's honest.
They walk again, catching up to their friends. Syrianna and Freya exchange knowing and assuring looks, saying nothing. Sigmund immediately jests, in that carefree way of his.
"The way you were looking at one another, back there… Merlin! I felt half inclined to conjure a tent just for the two of you, really."
Radagast uses his free hand to smack him on the back of his head. Something about the physicality of it feels satisfying to her. Delphini focuses her attention on the path ahead, and slides a pebble just large enough into Sigmund's way. He trips as he tries, and fails, to dodge, and ends up losing a shoe.
"Point taken! No more jokes until we're inside," he grins at them, putting on his shoe again, dirty sock from the dust in the path and all.
Radagast laughs and Delphini laughs with him, prompting the others to join them. And she cares not one bit that she is transparent to them as well. She only cares for their safety, so she soon retires back into her head.
She needs a way to protect them all.
X
Later, Delphini walks into the Study Hall and sits down by a group of Hufflepuffs, dropping her satchel at her feet and not caring that half its contents are spilled. She has decided to start taking on her summer homework, just so that she has an excuse to be with Teddy during the extenuating, last days of his OWLs.
Teddy greets her with a smile, and she ruffles his blue hair, caressing the half-moon shaped shadow under his eye with her other hand.
"You desperately need some sleep."
"That I do. But there's still Transfiguration to go."
"Do you need help?"
"I can't let you help me."
Delphini laughs, a little too loud, making heads turn all around, and earning a thoroughly aggravated glare from Professor Sinistra.
"It's not funny, Delphie. You'll put us all to shame, and the itty bit of confidence in our skills that we still have will be gone. Plus, I'm pretty sure he's here for you." Teddy points his chin as he speaks, waving his quill at someone.
It takes but a couple of seconds until Delphini registers the steps approaching her, and her mind is quick to recognize them. She leans her head back, smiling openly at Radagast.
"I thought you weren't coming."
"I'm not here for Study Hall. Headmistress McGonagall asked for you."
Delphini practically leaps off her sit, her throat suddenly tighter. She doesn't even take the time to look back, her belongings utterly forgotten on the floor.
Radagast catches her wrist. Just long enough that he can slip a small piece of parchment into her hand, giving her a pointed look.
X
She's quick on her way. Her feet click and clack through the corridors and over the staircases, moving with ease through the throng of more or less idle students, all eager to move out of her way.
Her mind has taken off on all sorts of directions, leaping from thought to thought, unable to focus. Her hand still clasps the piece of parchment, her carefully filled nails digging into her soft palm. It pains her not.
Her robe is falling off her left shoulder, her skirt is slightly askew. Delphini stops walking and adjusts it all. Skirt, socks, tie, robe, the collar of her shirt. Everything is methodically put back to sorts, while her mind slows down, finding comfort in order.
She unfolds the bit of parchment, then, finding precisely what she expected to. The password has changed, after all.
"Montrose Magpies," she tells the gargoyle that guards the staircase. It turns, and Delphini climbs up.
The door at the top is more than simply ajar, yet not enough that she can slide inside without disturbing it. She raps her fingers on the wood, a hurried gesture that's nothing but a show of courtesy. The hinges creak, announcing her as she pushes the door further. The portraits on the walls dare not make a sound.
Her eyes scan the room, finding Headmistress McGonagall at her desk, sunlight pouring over her from the tall windows behind her back.
Delphini dares hope that all is well. Then, she notices a small object partially concealed by the Headmistress' right hand, and her heart flutters with relief, right before it sinks.
Her family is safe. Her plan is gone.
X
"Good afternoon, Miss Lestrange. Have a seat, will you?"
Minerva waves her left hand to the chair opposite her, and then uses it to push a plate of biscuits forward. She takes in Delphini's appearance as the girl sits down. She's neat, as always, even with her mane of black curls, which remind everyone so starkly of Bellatrix Lestrange and yet are never let to be as wild as hers. Today, she has chosen pull her curls away from her face, twisting her hair into a low ponytail.
"Good afternoon, Headmistress. May I be of use?"
The elegance, the poise, the measured gestures. Minerva never met Tom Riddle, but his daughter certainly shares of his eerie grace, at least as far as Dumbledore used to describe him. His keen intelligence is also there, in her eyes, and at a glance she knows that her secret is no longer.
"Miss Lestrange, I have discussed this matter, at length, with the faculty. We have, though not easily, come to agree on who's to be Head Girl come the autumn."
"But I'm not even a Prefect," she interrupts.
Something in Delphini's voice sounds of near rejection, even if nothing else shows it. She's mostly intrigued by her decision, and Minerva is tempted, for a fleeting second, to let the girl in her mind. It would certainly be easier.
"You have the grades, you always did. You're well aware that it was your behaviour that kept you from becoming Prefect in the first place."
"And now my record has been cleaned?" Delphini smirks, tilting her head, and Minerva feels a slight disturbance. Not a proper buzz, just a hint of an invasion.
"None of that, Miss Lestrange," she orders, though passing it as an answer. "Your actions during the third task were nothing but honourable, and deserving of the highest reward. Your record was not expunged, but it was made more than even."
"We both know that there's more to it, Headmistress."
"There is, Miss Black," she purposefully says, sliding the Head Girl badge that she has been barely concealing with her right hand forward, across the desk.
It remains untouched. Delphini's eyes are on it, yes, but she has not made a single movement towards it. Not outright rejection, once more, but reluctance.
"You proved yourself on that day. You're more than what the world believes you to be, and I will not let that be forgotten. You have Hogwarts' trust, and mine."
'You have something your father could never fathom,' she thinks, more than a little sure that if she wills the thought into the room, Delphini will pick up on it.
"You have Hogwarts' protection, Delphini, come what may. Honour that badge, and these walls will never fail you."
Only then does Delphini's pale, slender hand emerge from the girl's lap, gliding over to the badge on the desk. She doesn't take immediately, lowering a single finger to it at first, then a second. Minerva watches, enthralled, as both fingers remain very still, as if expecting something to happen from simply touching it. The reluctance is still there, but the rejection seems to vanish from the girl's features as her hand wraps around the badge.
"Thank you," she says, simply. It's all it takes.
"You will receive a letter, over the summer, with a comprehensive list of all your duties, and we will have time to go over it come September."
Delphini nods. Minerva offers her the smallest of smiles.
"Have a biscuit, Lestrange."
X
Her mind is frazzled to say the least. Her family is safe, but her plan is gone, crashed by the badge she now holds.
The moment news of this reach the world outside of Hogwarts, she will stand no chance of laying low. And if she can't lay low, she cannot take action against Euphemia. The world has forgotten that she exists, and Delphini needs it to stay that way.
She has spent hours inside her own head, ignoring family and friends, just so that she could come back to Hogwarts with less of a weight on her shoulders. It is not to be so.
It will not be so.
Her mind is drained. She could not enter McGonagall's mind, but the thoughts she could perceive were nothing short of astonishing. Her badge as Head Girl will be so much more. Minerva McGonagall has offered her the sort of protection she has learnt to expect only from those closest to her. Minerva McGonagall is willing to help her shoulder whatever the world may throw at her, by publicly recognising her as one of Hogwarts finest.
Delphini never makes it back to Study Hall. She does not bother with dinner either. She simply makes her way to the Chamber, sticking to the less travelled corridors, to the ones that bear scars on the walls, ordering Peeves to keep her path clear.
Amidst the cold, stone walls, surrounded by the murmur of water, Delphini sits on her conjured armchair and plans again.
She emerges much later, carrying with her a leather vial holder filled with care, and on her pocket a flask of hope.
X
Hogwarts, June 28th, 2014
Delphini is sitting on the floor in the Common Room, sideways to the fireplace. It burns despite the summer, for the chill in the dungeons never gives way to the warmth of the outside world. She is not wrapped around herself, however.
She is wrapped in Radagast's arms, and Syrianna's head lies comfortably on her right thigh. Freya's leaning on her twin brother, their hair mingling; some of Freya's reaches Delphini and cascades over her arm and chest as well. Sigmund is reclined on the floor, leaning on no one, but perched up on his own elbow.
It's late and they are all killing time. They can't leave the castle until the last day of June, but classes are over. Teddy is celebrating the end of OWLs with other fifth years, as he should, otherwise he would probably be here too. No one bats an eye whenever Delphini sees fit to smuggle her cousin inside. Travers has taken charge of all the seventh years, and they've claimed the Great Hall for the night. He stopped by their little pile up earlier, bottle of firewhisky in hand, with a glint to his eyes and a happy grin to his face. He hadn't had the chance to properly thank Delphini, before, but none of them really felt like partying tonight.
There's not much to do. Whatever's not packed in their trunks yet can simply be tossed in at the last minute. So they're killing time, reading by the fireplace. Their only disturbance is a tabby cat - they think it belongs to a second year boy – making the rounds between their hands, demanding to be petted by each of them.
There are others, all sitting about in mild boredom. After a year with two other schools, and the near catastrophe of the last task, these last few days feel dull, grey.
Sigmund loudly flips a page of the newspaper, watching it slowly fight the air on its way down. He leans forward, his attention focused on a small article.
"Has anyone read the Prophet, today?"
Delphini raises her eyebrows, her mind pulled away from her book. Radagast's breathing shifts behind her back, and she lets him answer.
"Not really. Lately, it's nothing but the Triwizard Tournament, which they won't admit Slytherin won, and the Quidditch World Cup. It's going to be the silliest of silly seasons this year."
"Well, here's the one bit in the whole newspaper that's not related to any of those."
He flips the newspaper on the floor, the pages creasing and rustling, the central ones slipping away. Then, he points to the bottom. Under the fold and close to the centre, bold letters read 'Missing Muggles Mysteries Multiply'.
The four of them move, pouring over what little information there is.
"Try saying that three times fast," Syrianna jests, immediately realizing her mistake.
These aren't macabre accidents anymore. People are going missing in unexplainable ways, it seems. Muggles, all of them, none found, no clues but lingering traces of magic, yet unnamed. All of them magically gone.
All seven of them.
Delphini feels a cold finger drift down her spine, her skin prickling as it goes. The baby hairs at her nape stand on end.
'Seven Muggles,' her mind echoes, her throat bobbing as her breathing becomes stuck. Everyone knows of her father's love for the number seven. Everyone knows of his seven Horcurxes, and of the eighth that won them the war. She cannot help but immediately think of Euphemia. But how? What for?
The idle mood is ruined. They are all too aware of what happens next. Someone, somewhere, will come up with a theory that somehow goes back to the war and to the surnames still associated with the losing side. It's too close a hit for any of them not to be disturbed by it. Even Sigmund, that has no such surname, knows someone will try to use this so that he has no father.
They scatter. Freya first, then Syrianna. Sigmund up and leaves a little later, throwing the Prophet into the fire, bidding them goodnight.
"What do you think? Should we leave?"
He hasn't asked again, he hasn't demanded anything from her, yet Delphini knows there's another question between them.
"I have to talk to you, Radagast."
He hums, and Delphini takes comfort in the way his chest rumbles. He lets go of her and stands, shaking the dust off his pants more out of habit than out of necessity. He offers her his hand, pulling her up from the floor, but she's the one to guide them out of the room, and into the cloister where Radagast first voiced his concern for her during the Yule Ball. They move silently, naturally finding a darkened corner, away from the moonlight.
Radagast takes a seat first, pulling her into his lap. Nothing salacious, just a measure of comfort in the way he knows she likes best. Quiet touches, the warm closeness of another body. He leans against a cold stone column, and she leans against him, head on his shoulder, an arm around his waist.
"I'm going to be Head Girl."
"That's not at all what I expected," he replies, huffing, moving slightly to better adjust his back against the stone, "but congratulations, love." He plants a soft kiss on her forehead.
"McGonagall is trying to protect me. And Scorpius, come next year, I think."
"Hm-mm."
"I worry about him, Radagast. He's coming to Hogwarts after the summer, and there's only so much protection I can offer him here…"
"I've heard the rumours, Delphini, and I've seen you and your family silencing them."
"At home, or at our gatherings, because it's our circle and we set the rules. Because we can force them and scare them into silence. But here? With hundreds of kids that only know one side to us? They know nothing of what happened in my home during the war, or after it."
"They know nothing of what's happening now, you mean. They won't pity him, they won't see him as an orphan, because they think of him as something else altogether."
Delphini becomes silent. The blow is mighty and, despite being completely predictable, it is still unexpected somehow.
"Plus, I'm afraid I've made it worse with all this."
"You mean saving everyone's hide in the tournament? How is that making it worse?"
"There are plenty of people that believe I planned the whole thing. The Prophet even wrote about it…"
"Rita Skeeter doesn't count."
"Skeeter is the least of them. Journalists with actual credibility wrote about me. Everyone knows I can read minds, now."
"Use it, then. Scare them into leaving Scorpius alone next year. Merlin, you get to dock points for being mean to Scorpius!"
"I can't just scare this mess away, Radagast. Astoria's dying, I'm afraid she won't make it past the winter."
"Which is why you buried yourself in that apprenticeship, I figured that much, thank you," Radagast scoffs.
Delphini wonders if she has ever allowed anyone to get away with this much sarcasm.
"And Teddy doesn't have a grandmother anymore, and he's falling apart, even if he won't show it."
"And you expect me to believe you and that aunt of yours won't invite him to live at the manor?"
Delphini chuckles. It's true, she's made plans for it all. She'll ask Teddy on the train back home.
"I'm worried I can't keep everyone safe," she dares whisper into the night. She's afraid of saying it out loud, as if it could be summoned into happening.
"Now, there it is. You silly creature, took you long enough to get to the point."
Delphini springs up on his lap, scooting her bottom from his thighs and onto his knees, and placing both her hands on his chest, indignant.
"Excuse me?"
"You're excused. You've been troubled all year long, and you never once thought of telling me about it? Of asking for help? Yes, you do owe me an apology, but I've forgiven you already. You're welcome. Teddy and I spent the entire year figuring out ways to put you at ease so that you would say something."
Delphini knows then that she's transparent to Radagast in a way that's only theirs. Both crystal clear and yet perfectly opaque in some facets. She does not deserve him, and he does not deserve to be dragged into whatever the future holds for her, but she needs him.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Radagast." She moves her hands from his chest to his cheekbones and kisses him before her mouth can speak the reason she's truly sorry for. Before she can betray her secret. Before she can reveal herself wholly to him.
Radagast smiles into their kiss, wrapping his arms around her again and pulling her closer.
"You are not alone in this," he says, pulling back just enough, "know that, Delphini. Remember that."
A weakness, absolutely, but a necessary one.
X
King's Cross Station, June 30th, 2014
The Hogwarts Express is still fuming, cooling as the students pour out, and the platform is swallowed in the merry cacophony of families gathering again, complete once more. Most of them, anyway.
James Potter passes her by, running the opposite way and bragging already. Teddy is all sagged shoulders, sad eyes and dull blue. Delphini has made him an offer of permanent living quarters at Malfoy Manor, but it only saddened Teddy. The thoughts irradiating from his mind are tears all of them. He misses his grandmother, how could he not, but he misses everything else more acutely. He has missed Andromeda for months now, and the pain is slowly becoming duller, or maybe he is just growing used to it. What he misses today is having his own family, his own person, only his and no one else's, waiting for him on the platform. The perfume of his grandmother, the way it lingered in the rooms she left and on him after a soft caress. The smell of biscuits baked in the morning when he came into the kitchen.
Delphini has to pull her own mind further into herself, shield it even from the pain that exudes off Teddy's. Still, they walk side by side, towards her family, until Teddy simply stops, frozen in his grief.
"Teddy, why won't you come with me? Come stay with us for a while, you don't have to live with the Potters."
The clan is all here. The Potters, the Weasleys, the whole bunch loud and happy, spread over three or four smaller groups. Delphini never understood their kind of comfort, the raucous love, the mess, the litter of siblings and cousins. It's not for her, and she suspects it's not for Teddy either.
"Teddy, if you don't want to come with me, do you want me to move in with you for the summer? We could just live at your house, I'll be seventeen soon enough." She offers before she even thoroughly considers it, nearly flinching afterwards, when she actually thinks about living in that particular house. Delphini chides herself immediately. She's the only one to blame after all, what's her discomfort next to Teddy's pain?
"The two of you living together at Tonks House is most certainly not an option," her uncle says from behind her, his soothing voice sounding with a note of amusement. "Malfoy Manor is open to you, Teddy, you'd be more than welcome."
Teddy offers a mere hint of his usual smile. A thank you and a greeting all in one. Delphini glides into Uncle Lucius' embrace, breathing in the familiar smell of him and receiving the customary kiss on the crown of her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Aunt Narcissa, but no one else. She frowns, her eyes darting back and forth, looking for her little cousin. She's soothed only when her waist is enveloped by smaller, skinnier arms, and a silver blond head is pressed against her chest.
"I missed you," he says into her clothes.
"I missed you, too," she says into his hair. There's more pain here. Quieter, still an undercurrent instead of the rolling waves she sensed from Teddy, but Delphini worries that Scorpius might just be better at hiding it. He is a Malfoy, after all.
Aunt Narcissa reaches them, standing close to her, a hand on her shoulder, a little squeeze of comfort.
"Welcome home, little bird. Teddy, it's so good to see you. I was wondering-"
"Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy, but no, I couldn't," Teddy quickly cuts in, stopping the offer from being made a third time. "I'm staying with the Potters, for now. Can I, just, show up every now and then?"
Delphini keeps Scorpius firmly against her with her left arm, while reaching for Teddy's neck with her right one. She wraps it around him, pulling him closer, until his head is leaning on her crown, and murmurs little things of comfort no one else can hear.
"Show up, pop up on the fireplace, send an owl, fly over, whatever you need, Teddy."
They go their separate ways then. They greet the Potters from afar, exchanging worried looks. The moment Teddy is in their arms, Delphini glances over to her other people waving a quick goodbye. They'll be together soon enough.
All she wants is to go home. She wants her family off the platform, and Scorpius out of the spotlight. She wants to see Draco, and to see how Astoria's doing. She sharpens her mind's focus, evaluating her surroundings for any sign of Euphemia.
All she finds are the usual rumours, made much worse. And the pain in Scorpius' mind, together with the grey place where his happiness used to be.
X
Malfoy Manor, July 7th, 2014
Scorpius is very quiet in his parents' bedroom. He is sitting by the window, tucked into an armchair that sits square in the rectangle of light that the window paints on the floor. Even Nala has learnt to be quiet while in this room, lying splayed on the sun for long hours, or climbing onto the armchair with him and snoring just a little on his lap. He has taken to reading here, while his mother rests every afternoon.
There's a routine to his mother's sickness, a steady thing, equal parts of despair and eerie comfort. It's predictable, now. He gets up in the morning, and has breakfast by himself, over a book. He gets dressed and walks down the corridor to greet his parents. Father is always up, dressed and reading the newspaper by the window, while Mother lingers in bed, gathering her strength. They spend a little time together in the sunroom downstairs, most days his grandparents join them, then lunch. After lunch, Father carries Mother up the stairs, and then locks himself away in the library or in the potions room. That's when he takes over, sitting on his father's armchair by the window, watching over his mother's sleep.
Mother doesn't stir in her sleep. She lies on the bed, facing the side where Father sleeps, and her body drags her mind into slumber. Sometimes, they talk for a little while. Most times, Scorpius reads while Mother sleeps.
The book on his lap is well deserving of being called a tome. It concerns dragons, and the now forbidden art of raising them. He has long left the books of children behind. Pretty tales, fairy tales, stories written so that the imagination could bloom. He prefers books about the real world, and real things, his imagination haunts him enough as it is. Scorpius knows all fairy tales to be foolish, for all the times Father has kissed Mother, she is still cursed.
There's a knock at the door, barely that so light that it is. The door handle lowers and comes back up, not a sound to it, and Delphini's bright eyes peek around it.
She has been a welcome addition to their routine. The same way Aunt Daphne and Uncle Blaise are welcome variation, with his little cousin Caius in tow.
Delphini walks up to him, a glass of pumpkin juice in her hand, with a couple of ice rocks in it, cheerfully clinking to the movement. She sits down on the armrest, extending him the glass and not saying a word.
He happily takes it, sipping from it, slowly. He turns his attention back to his book as Delphini turns hers to his mother. The bed stands in the shadow, the other window in the room hidden by heavy curtains, but his mother is clearly visible. A pale, slender creature almost the same colour as the sheets, her brown hair, now dull, in stark contrast to it all.
Delphini stands and moves just a little away from him. She prefers to read sitting on the windowsill, sideways to the light. Her book is much smaller, and easy to manoeuvre with a single hand. A treaty on healing potions, from what he can gather. She returned home with a small treasure of plant extracts in a leather folder, and is currently working with Healer Harvey and Father on how best to use them.
He takes another sip from the juice, feeling better now that Delphini is here. She, too, ends up locking herself away in the library or in the potions room, but she always makes a little time in the afternoon to be with him, and a little more after dinner, when they actually talk.
He has even started to hope that maybe, just maybe, she'll come up with a way to undo the curse.
X
Delphini glances up from her book, observing Scorpius for a little while. His forehead slightly furrowed in concentration, his silver hair slowly drifting over it. He turns another page and takes another sip from the pumpkin juice.
She makes sure to always bring a cold beverage with her. Thick juices are just better for her purposes, always poured over ice, so as to numb the taste. She is pretty sure Scorpius wouldn't be able to taste her concoction, but she'll rather be certain.
She only offers beverages to Scorpius. Uncle Lucius and Aunt Narcissa are far too aware of what comes next, but there's no despair to them. They worry about their son and their grandson, but they need not hope for a different outcome.
Draco is another matter altogether. He's in denial and the last thing he needs is more hope. He alone seems to hold all the hope in the world, desperately holding on to it, clinging to every bit of information, to every half recipe of yet another potion lost in another old book in the library.
They are diligent together, but Delphini is wiser when it comes to expectations. They cannot save Astoria, but they can surely help her get better. They have a month from now to improve her stamina, to make sure Astoria can be up and about for Scorpius birthday for at least half the day. Then, they'll have three weeks to make sure she is better, even if her improvement is short lived. Just long enough, just better enough that she can stand on the platform with Scorpius.
Draco is desperately clinging to the notion of finding some sort of treatment. Not a cure, just a treatment. Something that will stave off the curse. Something that will allow him to keep Astoria longer, that will allow Astoria to watch her son grow up.
But Delphini knows better, and so does Astoria. They are in this for Scorpius, so that Astoria can be well enough to stand on September 1st and accompany her son to the platform, well enough to wave him goodbye while he takes off for Hogwarts for the first time. After that, they both know there's very little chance of Astoria ever seeing her son depart from King's Cross Station another time.
So when Astoria finally moves, her legs stretching and then folding again under the sheets, her mind slowly grasping reality once more, Delphini rises from her seat and walks up to a little table by Astoria´s side of the bed. She opens a couple of vials, carefully counting drops into a glass of water, spooning out two dollops off a jar and mixing it all together. She takes two glasses to Astoria. One with the sour looking concoction, and another with fresh water, to rinse it all.
Delphini offers one and then the other, and Astoria manages to thank her in between, through the bitterness and her scrunched up nose. They exchange a little smile at the end. It doesn't spare her from the sharp pang of guilt, though. Because she can try and make her better, she can delay her departure, but she does not have a way to make her stay. All she has, if Scorpius wishes it, is a stone buried at Hogwarts, and the delusional thought that it could be their solution.
"I'll let Draco know that you're up, then," she says, "do you need anything else?"
"I could eat something. Don't worry, I'll ask Narkey to bring me something, little bird."
Delphini leaves, not before combing Scorpius hair back off his forehead, and dares feel a little better. Appetite is always good.
X
She walks downstairs, into the sunroom where she knows she'll find her aunt and uncle. Draco needs not being warned, he moves like clockwork through his days. Holding fast to the rhythm of Astoria's waning, coming and going with every minute improvement of hers.
Two quick blurs run past her. The Kneazles chasing each other, she figures. No wonder Darkie has taken to Uncle Lucius' study. He has somehow become her uncle's pet overtime.
She takes a deep breath when she enters the room. The windows are open, letting the breeze in, which carries the inebriating perfume of the flowers inside, along with the occasional calls of the peacocks.
Her aunt is standing by the marble top table. She has a basket of flowers to her left, and several vases in front of her. They'll be carefully filled with flowers and greenery, then spread about the manor at the sound of little elvish cracks. Her uncle is sitting on his favourite leather wingback chair, an ankle sitting on his other knee, half hidden by the Prophet. They don't notice her right away, so she enjoys this little moment that's only hers.
The quiet, the ease, the sunlight, the everyday gestures.
It's Guivre's hissing that gives her away. The dark serpent lazily slithers across the room, a bulk to his middle that speaks of a recent meal, his scales still holding little blades of grass. He rubs his head against her bare ankle in greeting, feeling warm on her skin. Delphini kneels, gathering him in her arms, and hissing back.
Aunt Narcissa smiles over the periwinkle flowers that she's arranging into a crystal vase. Uncle Lucius lowers his newspaper, smiles using only his eyes, and nods once, asking her to come closer without saying a word.
She carries the snake with her, leaving her familiar to wind his way onto the top of the other wingback chair. A twin to her uncle's but never used by him. It's mostly Draco's, but he has been absent from it.
Delphini sits down beside her uncle, petting Guivre's head when it comes to rest on her shoulder, and adjusting the flowing skirt of her light dress. It's dusty pink and has a pattern of flowers to it, but efficiently tailored. Feminine, but sharp. Graceful, but not helpless. A thorny rose. A charmed blade.
"Have you taken a look at the Prophet, today?"
"Not really. I skimmed over the front page."
"You're on it. They know you'll be Head Girl next year."
"How did they take it?"
"As it was to be expected," he replies, sniffing. His pale eyebrows, a bit more silvery than they used to be, rise on his forehead in contempt. "Here, have a look."
He extends her part of the newspaper, keeping the middle pages for himself. The Ministry has been hard at work, hoping to use the Quidditch World Cup as background for diplomacy. Nothing official, nothing properly signed, but preliminary deals made over banter and clinking glasses during matches certain figures are expected to sit through. Delphini skips over most of it, her eyes looking for her own name.
It's not there, not really.
'Lestrange to be Head Girl at Hogwarts. McGonagall ascertains her trust.'
The headline hangs just over the fold, drawing the readers under it. Bruce McKenzie, the Hufflepuff that's to be Head Boy, barely gets a mention. She has always found it a little odd that Head Boys and Girls are now announced in the newspapers. It became habit after the war, and she's almost certain that Hermione Granger being Head Girl caused it.
She is thankful. If the news is out now, it will simply be fact by the time September comes along, and that makes it easier for her to be out of the spotlight if needed be.
When needed be.
She reads through the unusually long article in which McKenzie is only worth a paragraph. The content is not unusual at all. A little fear, born out of natural mistrust for her surname and the family she calls hers. It doesn't matter that Potter trusts her, or that McGonagall actually quilled a couple of lines in her defence. It doesn't matter that she saved the champions, it doesn't matter that she's a stellar student. The world will still rather focus on the ghost of the war.
She turns the page, not really interested anymore. She skips over the gossip columns; she knows what those will say. Rita Skeeter and her lot have been having field days back to back ever since the tournament.
Her brain skips down the pages of the dull, new regulations that the Ministry is continually rolling out. Standards for broomsticks and cauldrons, more and more prohibitions on the use of whatever new Muggle devices are causing trouble.
On the last pages, however, tucked neatly and without bold headlines or moving pictures, there are several articles worthy of notice. A couple of opinion articles on Muggle relations, and the problems their ever developing technologies pose for the wizardkind. One is particularly spiteful, calling for full segregation and a tighter Statute of Secrecy.
Delphini's attention sharpens. Under those articles, there's another. As vague as its predecessor, it states merely that there are no new clues to the seven missing Muggles, only pilling evidence that their abductions were magically achieved. Exactly what evidence it does not say. She worries that this isn't simply a matter of the Ministry not knowing. The Ministry is hiding something, and that elicits a shiver in her spine.
When she at last raises her eyes from the page, Uncle Lucius is keenly focused on her.
X
Lucius is quick to access his niece. Her green eyes move quickly, left to right, then lower and left to right again and again. Her entire body leans forward, pouring over the newspaper. Her hands hold on a little tighter, extracting a rustle from the pages.
"I have read those, what troubles you? You don't think those are actually the work of a wizard, do you? Who would want to…" His voice falters, swallowed by memories.
When did Muggles last go magically missing? When where they the victims of freak accidents and weather phenomena that could not be explained otherwise?
He meets Delphini's eyes. It can't be. It cannot possibly be. His sweet star of darkness has no qualms about stating her supposition, however.
"It could be Euphemia. She is furious I didn't act on the prophecy," she says, folding the pages and setting them on the table between them. "I just don't know what she'd use the Muggles for."
Lucius has more than a couple of thoughts on that, but they are all best left alone. He remembers what Muggles where used for, before. He remembers what the Dark Lord liked them best for.
Author's Notes: To the lovely people that joined this readership during my 3 month long absence: hello there, welcome! To my faithful bunch that hasn't budged through my very irregular schedule: hi guys, I missed you all, very dearly.
I haven't abandoned you, or this story. It's getting written, just slower. January was a rough month for me, then February was sort of actually nice, and I found myself settling into a steady rhythm of working and studying and writing, and then it all went up in smoke. Covid19 touched ground on my country as well, and I work exclusively in an Emergency Department. Daily life is more than just a little abnormal and March was a terrible month for me. I tried writing this, but my emotions were permeating the plot and that was no good. So I wrote other stuff, expunged myself of the bad stuff, and then got my head back in the game.
So let me know what you think, I thrive on reviews.
