Episode One Hundred and Nine
Mage disappeared as soon as she arrived. It was much like her first meeting with Gwen, leaving her with more questions than answers and that burning feeling in her stomach, telling her that she was missing a very vital connection.
Something was not adding up and her brain couldn't figure out any possible answers, or even the right questions to ask to get to the answers.
She sat in her bedroom that night and a thought occurred to her. She hadn't yet looked inside the black box her mother had given her. It was still sitting in her mother's study on the desk. She wiped her forehead in frustration and as soon as she could apparated to the old house.
Her meeting with Lord Voldemort was something she didn't want to think on, but he had raised many questions and posed several very real answers that seemed just on the brink of possibility. But believing a dark wizard was foolish, especially not without a strong foundation to back it on.
She took a deep breath and concentrated on his words, the words she had to believe were untruths and dark lies. She believed now that Henry was not her father and that Jeremiah was, but she still had no real physical evidence of either. Having been told so by the Dark Lord made her want to stop believing.
The box lay open before her and she stared at it many long minutes.
Hidden within the box were numerous letters, doctors bills, test results. They all connected together like little bits of dirt compounding into a great boulder over time. She looked over each piece as if it alone held the secret, but no single piece could put it all together for her. Her mother must have been searching for years.
Her hand rested on her forehead and she closed her eyes to rest them. It was a good thing that she had waited to open the box because she would not have had the patience to deal with the decoding before now. But the Dark Lord had raised many questions and whether or not she chose to believe him was entirely up to her and the black box. If the box backed up his story…
She couldn't think, not truthfully in her heart that he could really be telling the truth. Not even if Gemma had backed up his story. Not even if Ann's uncertainty on the matter made her worry. She couldn't believe that the Dark Lord would ever be honest with her.
Yet there it was in plain black print on several rolls of parchment and plain white paper.
Henry LeFey was not her father. He had suspected so when he learned his brother was sterile, the very day he announced he was having a child, after ten years of trying. He noticed how Beorc worried, something she rarely did. He went to the clinic and was tested and learned that he shared his brother's fate. He was the last of the LeFey line.
The story however, did not just end here nor did it begin here.
There were papers confirming Henry's death a record number of three times (he had faked his death twice before it really happened, trying to escape the death eaters). He had written a love letter to her mother, stating his intention to become a death eater to earn the approval of her parents. There was a blood test, confirming once again that Gwen was not his child.
There was a tearfully written letter desperately begging for his wife's forgiveness. He had tried to kill his daughter when she was born, deadly angry about his wife's suspected infidelity. There was a picture of Gwen, tiny with a bare chest, the livid red scar in a jagged star shape sticking out noticeably. There was a picture of Henry in a long sleeve shirt, rolled up slightly. Something red was protruding from underneath the edge of the cuff, something that could be the bottom of a snake slithering out of a skull.
The picture of Henry LeFey had become brilliantly clear and any little shocks or bumps along the way had been smoothed out over ten years of happy memories. Yet Gwen couldn't believe that he had tried to kill her, she could only believe that he had been insane, snapping in a moment of agony and doing the first thing that came to mind. Stupid and foolish and deadly, but not evil. That had been Henry LeFey.
But the answer had provided very little to comfort Gwen and she had still not finished with the contents of the box. She hugged her arms to her chest and sat still for a long time just breathing.
Graves found her not much later, still motionless but for her breathing. He laid a soft hand to her shoulder and she shook her head lightly side to side. She laughed and her face broke into a half grin, half grimace. The pain was so close to the surface that it was threatening to spill over.
Her beloved took her into his arms and held her until all the tears were gone. He held her until the sun broke over the horizon. He held her until she was ok to let go.
That morning, Corwin Graves was finally allowed to have Guenivere LeFey. He spent every moment he could taking care of her, kissing her and cuddling her. They spent the entire day in each other's arms, reveling in the new day and trying to force the pain out of their lives.
When they returned to Hogwarts Gwen had the black box tucked under her arm.
