Chapter Five

Discovery

It was nearly summer. The weather was mild and the world seemed beautiful. Looking out the window, she could see the great blue sky stretching on forever above the trees, which seemed to go on and on. She was sitting curled in a window seat with a book open on her lap that she was half- heartedly reading. She found it interesting, but it was just hard to concentrate with that great, bright outdoors to look at.

The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, having failed to hold her attention, got closed and laid aside. Just for now, I think, I'll have a break.

Defence Against the Dark Arts had caught her fancy as soon as she'd picked up the books. It was interesting, and it seemed worth learning. But it was much more than the subject for its own sake that fascinated her. It was the Malfoys strange reaction to it.

She had first noticed a barely perceptible scowl on the face of Lucius Malfoy when he had glanced over her shoulder and saw her engrossed in a chapter devoted to the Boy Who Lived, and the fall of He Who Must Not Be Named. After that, she made sure she kept her eyes shrewdly open and that the Malfoys thought that they were still half closed.

She had learned about Hogwarts from Hogwarts: A History. She knew about its long and impressive history. And she'd learned about its four houses, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. She had also gathered that both the grown Malfoys, and their son Draco, and most of the family going back for generations, had been in Slytherin. Somehow this didn't surprise her. In fact, it rather fascinated her that they had apparently known her parents, and that they had been Slytherins, too. She wouldn't be Sorted until she actually got to Hogwarts, but she wondered a good deal what house she would be put in.

She knew very well that she'd make a good Slytherin. She was ambitious, cunning, and a Pureblood's Pureblood as far as anyone told her. She had the potential to be very unscrupulous when it suited her needs, and so far, she was a very talented witch. Bella smiled wryly when she reflected that growing up in state care homes followed by a stint on the street was something that was probably better at cultivating Slytherin traits than these proud wizards would like to admit.

The Hogwarts term was over, as near as she could guess. Narcissa Malfoy had left a little while ago, and though they hadn't spoken before she left Bella had an idea that she was going to meet her son at the train station. That meant Draco would be home later today. It also meant she could ask him about Hogwarts, because there were some things that the books had not explained, and they were things she wanted to know.

Looking around, she could see the evidence of Slytherin pride that permeated the house. She had wondered before why the house was full of the serpent motif, beginning with the handle of that wardrobe, which did seem to like her. But she doubted that even a lot of school pride could leave this big a mark on a family, and reflected that this must have been a very strange place to be fourteen or fifteen years ago, when Lord Voldemort had been at his full power and held the wizarding world in terror.

Very interesting indeed.

The Malfoys did not hold He Who Must Not Be Named in the same light as, for example, the authors of the books she was reading, or the old articles she had read in the Daily Prophet about Voldemort's fall. She had read between the lines when she'd learned about Mr. Malfoy's position as a reformed Death Eater. In fact, they seemed to turn a very sympathetic ear to the occasional reports of wizards who had gotten in trouble by being too outspoken in their disparaging views about Muggle born wizards. Bella paid close attention to them when they got talking about this. They thought of the old wizarding families as a sort of royalty in the magical world, and believed they families should be the ones in charge and keeping the Muggle- borns in their place. Bella was learning why people had followed Voldemort.

She heard a scrabbling sound in the hall and went out to see what it was. Looking out into the hall she saw two house elves directing a trunk that was floating several inches off the ground. Exiting the room, she headed down the hall in the direction they had come from.

As she came to the top of the stairs she saw a boy of about her own age facing the opposite direction and standing with his hands in his pockets.

"Hello," said Bella, coming down the stairs.

He jumped, and spun around. Bella saw the fair, sharp face and pale eyes of Lucius Malfoy looking at her in surprise and intense curiosity. "Hello," he said. The he added, with an approving half smile, "You must be Bella."

"The very same. But you can call me Spiky if you want." She grinned. "And you're Draco? I'm glad to meet you." Bella saw Narcissa Malfoy about to enter the room, and then thinking better of it, turning about and disappearing through the door. Bella noticed that she was smiling too. Draco hadn't seen her.

"Spiky?" His smile had spread to his voice.

She chuckled. "Nickname. I'll explain sometime. Say," she added, "Are there wizard punks?"

He looked at her blankly. "No, I don't think so...not that I know of. Hey," he said, changing the subject, "let's got have something to drink."

He called for Lerrick, and Lerrick appeared. Draco told him to bring them pumpkin juice and Lerrick scurried off. Bella followed Draco into the sitting room.

They both flung themselves into the great soft armchairs and Bella stretched. Draco was eyeing her intently, and she could all but feel the question that was itching in his mind. Finally, he asked it. "So, where are you from?"

She smiled slowly. "Well, do you want the whole story, or just how I washed up on your father's doorstep?"

"As much as you'll tell me," he said, and then, his smile broadening, he added, "And where did you get a name like Spiky?"

"A friend gave it to me after I got a Mohawk," said Bella, and then in answer to his blank look, "You know, with the sides of the head shaved and a big spiked thing going up the middle?" She gestured accordingly, and saw him nod, looking bemused. "I started spiking my jacket too. I don't think Spiky would've stuck if it hadn't been such a rotten pun." She laughed.

"As to how I got here, that's a longer story. I grew up in foster care, went through a couple different homes, and I hated my last foster family, so I ran away. That was last September. Me and the people I was with, we broke into this building one night, an old house not too far away. It was raining and we had gone in there to sleep, but the house was condemned, and we didn't know. The police came and were going to arrest us, and my friend Jack told me to run, because they'd take me home if they caught me. So I took off like a bat outta hell." She went on to tell him about how she had run from the police, threading through backyards and finally being caught by their house elf, and about the long interview with his father that had followed.

"Wow," said Draco bluntly. "Dad never told me that. How come the Ministry never found you?"

Bella sighed. "You know, everyone keeps asking me that and I probably have less idea than anybody. I mean, I don't know how the Ministry keeps track of its babies, but I bet it's a lot more efficient that what Muggles use, and it's pretty hard to avoid that. As far as I know I just slipped under the radar when my parents..." She shrugged. "They just...missed me, it seems like. I have an ID bracelet from when I was found. Your dad says it's a replica of the kind the Ministry gives to wizard's kids, but not the real thing. It was sort of a forgery, I guess."

"And you never knew you were a witch?" he asked, almost disbelievingly.

"Nope."

"So, what are you going to do? Are you going to go to Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, eventually. You father's arranged for me to be brought up to snuff here, with private tutors. I've got a lot to learn in the mean time, but my teachers all say I'm a quick study so far." She shrugged again. "Your dad said something about starting me year after next, at sixth year level. I'd better be good, otherwise I'm dead." She laughed a little ruefully.

Draco took a sip of pumpkin juice and looked at her, once more seeming (albeit half grudgingly) impressed. He gave a low whistle. "That is a lot. And you're taking all the same subjects as us?"

"Yeah. Oh, I was going to ask you all about Hogwarts! It slipped my mind. You don't mind, do you? I know you just got out and everything, but I've really been dying to hear about it from someone who's actually there."

"Oh, I don't mind, especially since you've never been there. Say, have you been Sorted yet?"

"No. That won't happen to me until I actually get there."

"Oh. I hope you make Slytherin." He chuckled. "It's the place to be." And Draco launched into a long description of what Hogwarts was like, complete with all its teachers and the students he knew. He told her all about the Triwizard Tournament and all the strange problems surrounding it, from accepting a fourth champion to the death of one of the others.

"Someone died? Who? Did you know them?"

"Oh, not well," said Draco dismissively. "But everyone was buzzing about it right before I left. I mean, it is pretty suspicious. Potter came back with a dead competitor, and," Draco leaned in closer, "you won't believe the crazy story he was telling. Nobody else does."

"What story?"

Draco smirked and said smoothly, "That You-Know-Who's back."

It was a little while later that Bella was coming down from her bedroom, having left Draco to unpack his things, that Bella was reflecting on what he had said.

Was it possible? Could it be that Voldemort had returned? And what would happen in the Malfoy house if he did? She knew about the Malfoy's prejudice against Muggle born wizards. She didn't know what to make of it herself, and didn't know any Muggle-borns to base an opinion on. But she was still careful not to disagree with them and not to offend them. She thought Lucius Malfoy would support the Dark Lord if he were to rise to power again, and she didn't know what she would do if it came down to a choice between her desire not to harm people and her loyalty to the Malfoys. The choice frightened her.

It was thoughts like this that carried her down to the sitting room where she heard the animated voices of Mrs Malfoy and Draco, laughing and talking. She followed the sound and found them taking tea. Mrs Malfoy had a small box on her lap that seemed to be full of pictures. She was looking hard at one of them, apparently trying to see something in the background. But Draco saw Bella and called for her to come over.

Mrs Malfoy looked up and, seeing Bella, she smiled. "Come sit down, I wanted to show you something. I've just found some old pictures, I was just showing Draco."

"Pictures? Cool," said Bella with interest, looking at the stack of photos that Mrs Malfoy had just handed her. Then, noticing the three young women in the photograph on top, she let out a gasp. "Mrs Malfoy...is it?"

"Yes," she said, smiling. She pointed to the young woman with Bella's face and her piles of auburn hair. "Your mother. I thought you'd like to see it."

"And that's you", she said, pointing to the younger Mrs Malfoy. "But who's this?" She pointed to the third woman, on the right. She was tall and pretty, with a great curtain of thick, shining dark hair that she was constantly throwing back over her shoulders, and looking sharply out of the picture with heavy lidded dark eyes.

"Ah", said Mrs Malfoy, with a mixture of sadness and discomfiture in her voice. She glanced at Bella. "That's my sister, Bellatrix. You were named after her." She looked as though she had been going to say more but then though better of it.

Sensing this, Bella looked hard at her. She could feel that Mrs Malfoy was holding something back, that there was something she didn't want to tell her...no, not quite. She thought she wasn't ready. "Mrs Malfoy, what is it? I didn't know you had a sister."

She sighed. "Bella, I didn't know how to tell you this. I thought you'd have time to form your own opinions, and I'd be able to tell you then..." She stopped for a minute. "No, I was kidding myself thinking you wouldn't guess before long."

Bella bit her lip. She shifted the photograph, and looked briefly at the one underneath it. It was Lucius Malfoy and a few other men, who shared his proud bearing and slightly cold demeanour. "That I wouldn't guess what?" she asked softly, but as she spoke the words she had already guessed.

She put a hand over her mouth. "They were..." "Death Eaters," finished Mrs Malfoy. For a moment she didn't meet her eyes.

Draco broke the silence, saying quietly, "I thought you knew they were." He was no doubt thinking of the less than discreet approval of the Dark Lord that he had expressed over pumpkin juice that very afternoon.

A number of things went through Bella's head just then. Now that she thought of it, of course it made sense. Lucius Malfoy didn't have that attitude for nothing. He had been a Death Eater before the Dark Lord's fall.

"Were they both?"

Mrs Malfoy nodded. "My sister," she said in a low voice, "is in Azkaban Prison right now, sentenced to life. There were a few others from my family who served the Dark Lord, too, though I think they are all dead by now."

It was unsettling to see how quickly the atmosphere in the room had changed from one of animated conversation to funereal lull. Bella wished she could take the solemn look off of both their faces, but she felt it was beyond her power. "I'm sorry, Mrs Malfoy,"said Bella.

She shook her head, the colour coming back to her cheeks. "Don't be sorry for things you cannot change. But now that you know that our parents served the Dark Lord..."

"How do I feel?" finished Bella. To tell the truth she wasn't sure how she felt. She had never known her parents and would have slapped her own face if she hadn't asked herself questions like this before. She knew they were questionable characters. But this, this was a confirmation, not that she was the product of some ill advised tryst between a pimp and a drug addict, or one of the other likely stories that had flitted through her head in erstwhile moments in the Muggle foster homes. No, nothing like that. Her parents had been intelligent, educated people who had dedicated themselves to the service of someone known far and wide as the most evil Dark wizard who ever drew breath. "I suppose I feel all right...I don't know what else to say, to tell you the truth. I had guessed this, sort of. It's the reason why they died, isn't it? But I still...I'm sure it was what they would have done."

"They were proud to do it, Bella."

Bella nodded, looking down at the picture. Death Eaters, she thought, as her mother looked back at her. My parents were Death Eaters.