Emma sat on the rock as requested by her mother and looked up ready to hear what she was about to say. However, Kat glanced around them, as instinct from her many years of serving as Auror reared its head, and started waving her wand in several complex motions and muttered quietly as she cast protective charms around them that would prevent anyone from overhearing them or even seeing them should they walk past.
Once satisfied, she turned back to her family, where David had already taken a seat on the rock beside his daughter, beside him was space for his wife to perch once she was done with her spells. With a deep breath, Kat sat down beside her husband and braced herself to tell her daughter everything that had happened in the last few months.
"The case has been built up against Leopold Blanchard and a warrant for his arrest is ready to be put out when the time is right," She began. She raised her hand, politely cutting Emma off who already had a question. "All questions at the end, okay?"
"Okay," Emma replied and nodded at the request. She should have known that would happen, but then again, she hadn't thought she'd have a question so early on.
Kat flashed her daughter a supportive smile before she continued with her story (she and David had always encouraged Emma to be inquisitive), hoping to answer all of Emma's questions before she had a chance to think of any.
"At the moment there is just a watch out for him so that he cannot leave the country," she revealed. "As of yet, he hasn't attempted this, which we thought he would try immediately with the warrant brewing up for him. He must know he's wanted so trying to escape the country would lead to a quicker arrest than staying in hiding. Contrary to popular opinion, the man isn't a complete idiot." She took a deep breath, centring herself before continuing. "The contract has been located as Zelena handed it over willingly when we asked for it. That's probably the simplest part of the entire investigation. There is a black burn on the centre as the contract has been broken, but it is still proof that it existed in the first place for it to be able to be broken.
"Cora and I have been in communication, via both the Owl Post and the Floo Network, which is why this is the first time we've met in person, so that she could provide her evidence and reasoning behind why it is her signature on the form. She was blackmailed by her husband who threatened to have Zelena arrested if she didn't sign as she had drafted the contract in the first place. At first, she wasn't sure what she was drafting, because Zelena's job is in administration, she drafts contracts every day and thought nothing of it at first until she received more information. By the time she realised what was going on, it was too late and she was in too deep. Leopold had all he needed then to blackmail Cora and Zelena to continue with his request. However, we only received the confirmation of that just last month, until then, we really didn't have a lot of physical evidence. That's why Harry couldn't make the last Task as we were searching Leopold's house for at that time for the contract."
"What more evidence did he need when you knew he didn't have the contract at that point?" Emma asked, confused, unable to help the question slipping out despite her mother's request.
Kat swallowed but allowed the question without commenting. "We were searching for evidence for more than just the contract, honey. The case against Leopold is for double murder, theft, fraud and illegal activity, the latter being the contract."
"So, he did murder Regina's father?" Emma whispered, sadly. LJ had been right. She saw just how upset her girlfriend had been when she spoke of her father's apparent suicide. Finding out that the man who had married her mother and treated her like dirt was the reason her father was dead would crush her further still. There was no way she could find out that before the Final Task as she would go to pieces, but she deserved to know as soon as possible. It was a delicate situation; timing would be the difference between eventual acceptance and a complete and total breakdown. Then again, despite being told this information, it really wasn't Emma's to share.
"He did," Kat replied. "However, Cora isn't aware of this yet. She believes we're only investigating her husband on the latter two activities. Everything is tied together though."
"What do you mean?" Emma asked, thankful that if Cora didn't know everything, she wouldn't be able to tell Regina anything either and especially not before the Task was completed.
Despite the heavy conversation, Emma was actually quite glad for it. It was keeping her thoughts far away from the Final Task and it was the final information she needed so that she wouldn't be even thinking about the outcome of the investigation throughout the Task to distract her.
However, to Emma's surprise, it was her father who started answering the question.
"Many years ago, there was a very sought-after debutant named Evangeline Elisabeth Nolan," he revealed. "Or more commonly known as Eva."
Emma's eyes widened as the familiar surname.
David nodded. "Yes, Eva was my cousin. She was the daughter of my father's older brother."
"The one Granddad refuses to speak about?" Emma asked. Clearly her mother's request for Emma to not ask questions had now been completely ignored and Emma's promise rather uncharacteristically, thrown out of the window. However, neither of the Senior Swans seemed bothered. It had been expected that there would be many. They still had their own that were currently unanswered.
Again, David nodded. "The very same. The two never got on as Richard was set to inherit all of my grandfather's money due to being the oldest brother, which he did eventually when my grandfather passed away. My father had to make his own way in life, which he did very successfully, but the brothers were never close, so I never knew my cousin personally. All I knew of her was just from whispers around the Wizarding World. We were also in different Houses at school as she was in Slytherin, so our paths rarely crossed then either. Anyway, everyone was in love with Eva, she was beautiful, kind and rich. Leopold wanted her immediately despite her being ten years his junior. However, he somehow managed to woo her and they were soon married with Mary Margaret on the way after a very short courtship.
"Unfortunately, it didn't take very long after their wedding for Eva to see him for what he was, for all of his ambition, the cunning ability to hide his true self from a fellow Slytherin was not a part of Leopold's skill set at the time. So, Eva saw him as he was, a power-hungry monster and she wished to leave, but he wouldn't let her. She had no source of income and had a child to look after. In secret, she started writing a book under a pseudonym, hoping that if it were successful, she would have the money to leave and take her daughter with her. All of my grandfather's money was still in my uncle's name and part of it had gone to Leopold as part of their marriage, almost like a dowry.
"She contacted me as a longshot because she knew of my publishing connections. I mean, she was my cousin at the end of the day, so I felt I had a duty to help get her out of that situation. I put her in contact with a publisher and I promised to sell her book once it was released.
"However, like I mentioned to you a few months ago, a couple of months before it was due to be released, she was found dead in her bedroom one evening. Her wand was on the floor beside her and the killing curse had come from it, so people took it as suicide."
Emma swallowed as she heard all of the information unfolding. She couldn't even comprehend that despite all of this, Mary Margaret was in fact her second cousin, meaning that each of the Champions competing were connected in some way as she was the same relation to Elsa as well. Perhaps that was what the Chalice of Potential saw, their family connection rather than the potential to win it was the potential of power in the bloodline.
Kat was then the one to continue with the story as David's information started to peter out.
"As you know, Henry Mills died a year later," Kat said. "He had just lost all of his money, or so it seemed. However, when we first saw that Leopold had come into a lot of money, it looked all above board. There was a contract with Mills Limited that fell through so Henry Mills lost his money to Leopold. However, when you looked into it further, the company the deal was created with was set up in Leopold's name and he forcefully took the money by arranging a corrupt deal that Henry couldn't have known was coming until it was too late."
"But why would he do that? He already had enough?" Emma asked. "Regina's father had no need to give him any money surely or did Blanchard have some dirt on him?"
"You've cast the correct charm there. Blanchard knew that Zelena was not Henry Mill's child," Kat replied. "Her true father is irrelevant to the story, but Leopold knew this and blackmailed Henry Mills to allow him to set up the deal for transfer. Henry just didn't know that Leopold's true self and that he corrupted the deal last minute to so that all the money would be drained from Henry's account."
"I just can't believe it," Emma whispered.
"It's fairly unbelievable information," Kat agreed but she pushed on because they were barely halfway through. "There was also the fact that Leopold also wanted Cora for himself. He was wifeless after Eva passing away, despite that being his own fault, and desired her. He believed that she was a rich woman in her own right, something that wasn't the case, and wanted that money too but he took her beauty at face value, imaging that a woman of such beauty must come from money and chose to marry her based off of that instead of research into her genealogy.
"Anyway, that evening, Henry was found the same way as Eva was with his wand casing the killing curse that was found beside his dead body. Are you keeping up or do you want to stop?"
Emma nodded, it was a bit of information overload, but then again Emma was pretty used to that after this year's research in preparation for her coursework and the Championship. "I'm good. Keep going please."
Kat took a deep breath and nodded too. "Okay. So, we started looking into Leopold around the same time as you mentioned the marriage contract for completely different reasons. We had received an anonymous tip that Leopold's money wasn't all his and should be investigated. In fact, we still don't know who the tip came from, but by Merlin we're thankful that we did. From that and your information on the contract, we were able to piece together all the information. Your question on how is all related is also answerable from it.
"The contract between Leopold and Robin Locksley Snr is because Locksley had found out how Henry had died and needed money. He decided to kill two birds with one spell; blackmail Leopold for money and try to gain more power by having a powerful witch join the family. He knew that his son was in love with a Hufflepuff and wouldn't allow it. There were rumours for years that Robin Locksley Snr was in love with Marian Maiden's mother, but she chose her husband over him, so he shunned the family and wanted his son to stay away from them. That's where the contract came into play. The one Regina was involved with was the second contract to be created. They had already carried one out as a test despite contracts being illegal."
So, Emma's suspicion was correct. They had tested it out before signing Regina to Robin. "Between who?"
"No one you'll know," Kat said reassuringly. "Two of Leopold's thug's children. It wasn't anywhere near as complex and thankfully, they were already secretly dating so it went well for them. However, it still proved that the contract worked."
"Got it," Emma said. "So how are you going to arrest Blanchard after all of this? He didn't turn up earlier, sending Mary Margaret's nanny instead, so I doubt he'll come tonight. Everyone knows that he hates Mary Margaret."
Kat frowned slightly. "I think hate is a bit strong. He dislikes his daughter as she is just like her mother at heart, she's just tainted by her death and his lack of empathy which has led her down a dark path. She's truly innocent in all of this and just needs help that she will be provided with as soon as the year is up. She will not be returning to the family home this summer, in fact, no one will. It is being seized and held as key evidence and belongs to the Ministry for now."
"Right, but you still haven't said how you're going to arrest him?" Emma pointed out.
"We will send out a false alert this evening," Kat said, "saying that Mary Margaret has won the Interhouse Tournament and has won the prize money. It's a hefty amount that shouldn't be shunned, so he would be a fool not to arrive to accept it with her for appearances sake. We're hoping he'll arrive despite being wanted because he'll want the money. That's when we strike."
Emma swallowed. "So, what do I need to do in the Task? Do I need to let her win?"
Kat reached out and took her daughter's hand, squeezing it supportively. "No. You need to do whatever you can do to win. You don't need to do anything you wouldn't have done. It'll all happen once the Task is over, preferably when all the spectators have gone, we don't need this to be a public spectacle, we would actually prefer to make a quiet arrest."
"You know Harry doesn't want that," David said, speaking again for a while. "He wants everyone to know just how despicable that monster is. The Task has members of the press appearing to cover the event and you know your father will be in attendance and the bonus of that is that he'll be able to put him away without trial if he's there at the arrest. Everyone knows he doesn't deserve one with all the evidence you've been gathering."
"Grandpa is going to be here?" Emma asked, changing the subject slightly as she grinned at the idea of his presence. Her grandfather being there to watch the event she had a great chance of winning filled her with even more confidence. He would be so proud of her, even more so than usual if that were at all possible.
Kat nodded. "He is, yes, but it's because he's a school governor, not because of his position on the Wizengamot. It's just a coincidence really."
Emma sighed. "Tonight is really going to be a memorable one then, isn't it?"
"It is," Kat confirmed.
"Then bring it on," Emma said and her parents smiled at her proudly.
"That's our girl," David said as he stood up. He waved his wand to remove the protective charms around them and reached out to take both his wife and daughter's hands, essentially bringing an end to the heavy conversation. "Let's get walking again before our bums go numb. I want to hear more about the final of the Quidditch Cup. James was too focussed on your Beaters and Ravenclaw to provide a solid recount."
By lunch time, Emma felt like she'd not stopped talking. They'd moved away from Leopold Blanchard and moved onto Quidditch and school life in general as they walked around the Black Lake and the school grounds before they headed into the school itself where she pointed out the new lounge, where they popped their heads in to wave to her friends who were in there.
Kat and David both saw Ruby and Victoire sitting with their boyfriends and the questions started immediately as Kat wanted to know how they had got together. Emma answered honestly and said that the boys had invited them to the Hogmanay Ball and things had flourished from there. When her mother had asked if anything was blooming for her, Emma had just blushed and coughed before moving on swiftly. She noted her parents' exchange of glances, but she didn't comment on them before pushing on. After everything her mother had said about Regina's family, now was definitely not the time to reveal that the two of them were together.
By one o'clock, they returned to the Great Hall to eat and as they approached the Gryffindor table, Kat turned to husband.
"Am I allowed to sit with you or will I be banished to the Ravenclaw table as I'm not a Gryffindor?" She asked, her eyebrow raised to show she was teasing.
Emma laughed. "Course you can, Mum. This once mind. We don't allow others to associate with us all the time." She winked to her mother before they sat down at her usual place and Emma immediately started piling her plate with quiche and salad. The latter was to appease her mother who was watching her carefully to make sure her plate wasn't piled high with too many carbs. Although they would bring her energy in the Task, she didn't want Emma to be too sleepy to compete from eating too much pastry.
Not long afterwards, Ruby, Victoire and Minnie arrived and sat with them at the top of the table.
"How's your morning been?" Emma asked her friends.
"Oh, the same as usual, hanging out in the lounge so these two could be with Teddy and Billy," Minnie groaned and rolled her eyes as she reached forward to grab a bread roll. "At least I didn't have to put up with you and Regina on top of it, seventh wheeling three couples would have been too much this morning."
The fork Emma was holding clattered out of her hand and hit the floor. Her breath hitched and she felt numb. One of her best friends had just outed her, albeit accidentally, to her parents and she didn't know what to think, feel or react.
Minnie clasped her mouth as she realised what she'd said as both Victoire and Ruby's eyes widened in shock, not one of them daring to make a sound. Not even Ruby who liked to make a joke out of everything. Even she realised the severity of the moment.
Emma blinked, feeling tears sparking as she slowly turned to look at her mother who was sitting beside her and her father who was sat opposite. It was David who spoke first.
"We know, Em," he said gently.
"What?" Emma asked, her voice high in shock.
Kat chuckled quietly as she took hold of Emma's hand and offered her a reassuring smile. "We know. I mean, why else would you care so much about the opposition's situation of you didn't care about her? Your father and I speculated for a while, I knew there was something you weren't telling us, but it was confirmed today when I saw you together. You reminded me of your father and I when we first started dating. Shy smiles and lingering looks when the other wasn't looking. It was quite obvious actually."
All while her mother spoke, Emma's breathing returned slowly and carefully. "And you're okay with it?"
"We love you, Emma," her father said as he reached out and took his daughter's free hand. "You're our daughter and nothing will ever change that. If she makes you happy, then we are too. Who are we to judge on young love?"
Emma released a strangled breath as she jumped up out of her seat and rushed around the table to hug her father, burying herself into his chest as his strong arms reached around her to squeeze her tightly. Kat soon joined them and the Swans had a strong and emotional hug in front the entire student body of Hogwarts, but Emma didn't care. Her parents finally knew her deep secret and they accepted it. A large weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she felt like she could properly breathe again for the first time that year. It was a beautiful feeling.
"Thank Merlin you're okay with this," Emma muttered as she pulled back and returned to her seat. She then turned to Minnie and glared at her. "But I swear to Merlin, if you pull something like that again, I will kill you."
Minnie swallowed. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean for it to just slip out like that."
Emma nudged her. "It's okay, but next time I have something to tell my parents, just let me say it."
Kat turned to her daughter and raised her eyebrow. "Do you have anything else to tell us?"
"No!" Emma said sharply which just made her parents and friends laugh.
Despite all the heavy conversations that had happened just that morning and the fact that she would be competing in the Final Task that afternoon, Emma had never felt happier. She just needed Regina to join them to make it all complete.
"So, the Final Task," Victoire murmured, changing the subject completely. She leant forward so that no one would overhear them. "Teddy gave us some information earlier. He heard it from Uncle Harry who accidently let slip when he saw him earlier. He and the judges are already here to set everything up. Want to know?"
Emma glanced to her parents, silently asking them if she should engage in the speculation.
"It's up to you," Kat said. "It's your honesty at the end of the day."
"A little intel wouldn't hurt, Katie," David murmured, using his wife's rarely used nickname to try to soften her a little.
However, it was Emma who spoke. "No, I don't want to know. I want to go in as equal to the others as possible. I want to win this on my terms."
Kat flashed her daughter a proud smile. "That's our girl."
Victoire shrugged. "That's fair." She turned to her sister. "You heard her; she doesn't want to know so don't blab this either."
Minnie flushed pink and sunk in her chair a little bit. "I said I was sorry."
Emma laughed. "You do kinda deserve it though."
"I suppose," Minnie agreed. "At least they're cool with it though."
The Gryffindor Champion looked at her parents who were still looking at her the exact same way they had been all day, full of love and pride.
"Yeah, that's true," Emma agreed.
They rest of their lunch was much calmer than the beginning. Despite wanting to ask their daughter more about what was going on with her relationship, they thought it was best not to bring it up again. Time was ticking and soon it would be time for her to prepare for the Final Task and bombarding her with personal questions right now wasn't the best way to prepare.
After the meal, Professor McGonagall rose at the front of the Hall and called everyone to attention.
"Good afternoon all," she greeted. "Please can the Champion's chaperones please retrieve their Champion and make their way out of the Great Hall."
Everyone at the top of the Gryffindor table shot out of their seats to hug Emma tightly and wish her luck. Both of her parents pressed a soft kiss on her forehead before they stepped back.
"Who's my chaperone?" Emma asked, the confusion at the forefront of her mind rather than the fact it was time to head to the Final Task.
Minnie grinned as she stood up and offered Emma her arm. "May I escort you, Miss Swan?"
Now Emma was even more confused whereas Victoire and Ruby just laughed. Clearly, they were fully aware that of what was going to happen.
"It's your partner from the ball," Minnie revealed. "August, Tiny and I were called up to Professor McGonagall's office yesterday to see if we were game to accompany you again. I don't know who Regina will have and Tiny wasn't too pleased but begrudgingly agreed when McGonagall said she'd give Hufflepuff five points if he did."
Emma snickered at the comment before she glanced around the Hall. She saw Elsa being escorted by August and Mary Margaret was on the arm of Tiny, who really did look rather embarrassed to be on the Hufflepuff Champion's arm once more. When Emma turned to the Slytherin table, wondering who would escort Regina when Robin was no longer there, she was happy to see that Zelena had stood up and taken her sister's arm.
"Let's go," Emma said to Minnie as they walked forward towards the double doors at the back of the Hall where the Headmistress was walking ahead of the Heads of House and Professor Flitwick as the Deputy who was walking quickly to keep up with everyone.
When they arrived, each Head of House stepped forwards to take their Champion's hand and to replace their chaperone's.
"Good luck, Em!" Minnie called from behind her as she was led from the Hall by Professor Longbottom. It all felt like it was a big show for nothing, but Emma allowed it to happen, well she didn't really have much choice in the matter, as she was led from the Great Hall and towards the stairs.
"Where are we going?" She asked Professor Longbottom quietly.
"You'll see," he whispered back conspiratorially.
A/N: sorry for the missing update yesterday, so have two chapters in two days instead. Love, Emss xx