"In the midst of great joy do not promise to give a man anything; in the midst of great anger do not answer a man's letter." (Chinese Proverb)
Lucius Malfoy would remember the 7th of October as one of the days that qualified as downright abysmal. It was raining to begin with and during breakfast in the dim, vaulted dining room overlooking the grey and foggy garden he was showered by owls, each of them bearing worse news than the next. First arrived a message from Narcissa that she was planning to arrive later that day from the extended summer vacation at her family home.
The next owl, that he recognized as the ill-tempered black familiar belonging to Lepidus, announced a meeting for the evening. The Death Eaters had returned from Cologne, and as Lucius knew from the article in the international news section of the Daily Prophet, the mission had been unsuccessful. Worse than that, it seemed that Lepidus had even been recognized as the perpetrator. Their leader would be in an extremely foul mood indeed.
Finally, as he got ready to turn back to his now stale and cold toast, a third owl ringed with the Hogwarts crest had landed, and when he identified Eleanor's handwriting and eagerly turned to read the letter it was carrying, he found himself in for a harsh shock.
"Damn!" He swept the contents of his breakfast off the table with a jerk of his arm, sending silverware and china flying in all directions. Even his vicious kicks at the house elves that presently cowered around him to mop up tea and collect the shards of broken china did not help to improve his mood. He tore off his dressing gown that now sported a large gob of orange marmalade on its sleeve, threw it on the floor for the elves to clean and stalked from the room, crushing her letter in his hand.
When he arrived in his study he flattened the crumpled parchment and re-read her cold and hostile accusations and her announcement that she wished no further contact with him. Aside from his personal disappointment he knew that he would now get into serious trouble with Lepidus. Their leader would want to know tonight, what progress he had made with Falco's granddaughter and he would have next to nothing to report. Instead he would have to tell the Death Eaters that Eleanor now knew what they were up to and had announced her decision to fight them.
However, he found that he was more troubled by the personal impact of her hostility. The realization of the extent to which he would miss her enraged him even more. He tried to combat his foul mood by alternately trying to figure out who had alerted her to his ploy and devising exquisite punishments for them and plotting elaborate schemes for winning back her trust and clearing himself of her suspicions. If only he had not asked her so persistently about the homunculus. Around noon he commanded Dobby to pack up and bring him Eleanor's cloak and prepared a message to send back with it.
"Dear Eleanor,
As you requested in your letter I am returning your cloak. I am deeply troubled and hurt to read your accusations. I wish you would find it in your heart to consent to a meeting where I could address your concerns and defend myself. At no point did I pursue my relationship with you for selfish reasons of cheating you out of information. I have always been motivated by genuine attraction and the wish to be close to you. If you are prepared to listen to enemies bent on separating us you should also listen to me and allow me to show you my sincerity and devotion. I appeal to your sense of fairness and hope to see you soon.
Yours, Lucius."
He put a lightness spell on the packed cloak to make the delivery easier for his owl and sent out the message in the hopes of receiving an answer from her, but by nightfall, when Narcissa had arrived and started to turn the house upside down, he was still waiting impatiently.
He tried to keep his temper under control as his wife started whining at him about tasks she thought he had neglected during the summer and Draco annoyed him with unrealistic demands for treats and toys that his mother's relatives had spoilt him with and that he now missed at home. Later at night the prospect of getting on his broom and flying to London for the Death Eater meeting seemed almost enticing. It was still raining and a cold autumn wind kept whipping sheets of water at him as he made his way through the darkness. Even the repelling spell that he had used did not help much.
He found that his associates arrived with tempers almost as foul as his own as they shook out cloaks, stowed brooms and talked in suppressed whispers. Lepidus was late as usual and opened the meeting by dragging a lifeless human body into the room and unceremoniously throwing it to the ground among them. The man had not had an easy death by the looks of him. Lucius felt the tenseness in his muscles. He knew that Lepidus in his current state of frustration would strike out at the slightest provocation. Finally their leader started proceedings with a snarl.
"We have been thwarted in every way," he announced. "Vlad Harkoff's muggle servant has proved to be an ignorant idiot who could not give us any information, even though we were as persuasive as we could be." He indicated the corpse at his feet. "By the way, Mulciber, get rid of this garbage when we are done. No one in Budapest could help us, although we put several of the Kenessey & Ferrara employees under the imperius curse. The Sartorius house in Cologne has held no clue. Has anyone anything useful for us, or are you all completely incompetent? What have you all been doing while we were gone, risking our freedom and our names for the cause?"
Lucius felt Lepidus' hard eyes come to rest on him. "Malfoy, what of your progress with the Sartorius witch?" The blond wizard swallowed hard. He realized he had started to sweat despite the fact that his clothes were still cold and clammy with rain.
"I have spoken with her, and I find her ignorance is profound. All she knew was related to the improvements her grandfather had made to the generation process, but she wasn't even sure if Falco had ever made a real specimen. She thought it unlikely given the ban of 1911. You must understand, her parents were obsessed with leading a muggle life and did not talk to her at all about magic. The only useful information she had was related to the fact that her father ran a bookstore in London for some years. It was sold before his death. The store may hold some clues for us."
Lepidus took a step towards him. "How did you obtain the information? How can you be sure she spoke the truth? Did you give her veritaserum? How much pain was she in? Was she under the imperius curse?" Lucius clenched his fists. "I asked her. She had no reason to doubt me when she spoke to me. I am convinced she told the truth."
The older wizard almost spat at him. "You lily-livered fool," he hissed. "You never could lay hands on a woman, could you? I thought your father taught you your lessons, but it seems that even a cruciatus curse doesn't get through your thick hide. You trust her. How quaint! How chivalrous! Are your really that stupid?"
By now Lucius was furious enough to disregard punishment and repercussions. "Your heavy-handed approach has caused us nothing but grief, Lepidus! You got your name all over the Daily Prophet for your caper in Cologne. Are you happy about the fame and publicity? I go ahead and torture or otherwise tamper with a Hogwarts teacher, and next we'll have the whole damn Ministry of Magic and their aurors on our tail. But that's what you want, isn't it? You don't care about restoring the Dark Lord as long as you have your Death Eaters to follow your moronic orders and wreak mayhem and call attention to themselves. Your demented and inflated ego will land us all in Azkaban before we have achieved anything. I am getting close to questioning your ability to lead."
Lepidus whipped out his wand, but before he managed to get a curse off Lucius had shouted "Expelliarmus!" and his opponent was thrown backwards scraping the floor with his robes, smacking into the muggle corpse, and losing his wand in the process. The other Death Eaters stepped in and separated them. Lepidus was too furious to talk. "You will regret that, Malfoy," he finally spluttered as two of the Death Eaters held him back.
Lucius tossed back his hair and sheathed his wand. It had felt good to finally give in to his anger and take it out on someone. Lepidus, however, was not done. When things had calmed down somewhat and everybody had returned to their places he swiveled back to the blond wizard. "You will meet with Sartorius, and you will put her under the imperius curse at the least and make her reveal to you what she knows. I want no margin for doubt or error. If you fail I will take care of her myself and expel you from the Death Eaters. When the Dark Lord returns he will learn of your disobedience."
Lucius winced. 'Fat chance,' he thought as he remembered that Eleanor would probably never so much as even look at him voluntarily, but he had the sense to incline his head and keep his mouth shut. Thankfully Lepidus did not address him again that evening and he finally made his wet, cold and uncomfortable way home without any further incidents.
The next morning, in between sneezing and forcing down mouthfuls of a vile-tasting potion against colds, he wrote a letter to his London agent and gave Lewis Lark instructions on locating the bookstore that had belonged to Wilhelm Sartorius. Then he made his way down the chilly hallways to the dining room ignoring a serious case of sinus pain and steeling himself to bear his wife's incessant and vapid chatter over breakfast. He remembered Eleanor's visit, their conversation about alchemy and their subsequent entertainments with grim nostalgia.
Despite the fact that her students were more interested in muggle life than she had ever hoped, Eleanor found that her duties at the school had become a burden to her. Her mood got progressively worse the closer she got towards Friday evening, and she had to admit to herself, that she hated Lucius Malfoy as much for his betrayal as the for the fact that she was now prevented from ever seeing him again. She had really been looking forward to another night of abandoned love-making, which now would never be repeated.
To take her mind off her disappointment she immersed herself in the school library every free minute she had and began reading every scrap of writing about homunculi. If she was going to try and recover her grandfather's creation she needed to be better informed than the Death Eaters who were hunting for the same prize.
Friday night came and went while she kept tossing and turning in her own bed, trying not to think of a certain blond wizard and his amazing capabilities under the influence of vorax potion, and on Saturday noon she dragged herself to a late lunch in the great hall looking almost as exhausted as she had done on the same day the previous week.
Thankfully only a few teachers were sharing the high table with her, and Albus Dumbledore was not among them. Professor Sprout however waved to her, and as she sat down next to her, she pushed a page of the Daily Prophet towards her. "Look at this Eleanor," she said, and pointed at a large headline. "Someone really seems to have it in for your family. I wonder what's going on." Eleanor folded up a slice of dragon meat, basil and oregano pizza, pulled the paper over and chewed absent-mindedly while she began to read.
"Vicious Attack in the Hart of London
Last night a London bookstore was raided in an incident that bore all the marks of a magical attack. Several unknown persons broke into the Four Elements Books and Curios shop on the Strand that is known among wizarding folk as a reliable supplier of magical books only second to the renowned Flourish & Blotts on Diagon Alley, and that muggles frequent for esoteric literature, tarot decks and curios. The store was founded by a rather secretive member of the Sartorius family, Wilhelm Sartorius, who emigrated to England with his wife and daughter in 1974 in order to protect himself from You-Know-Who. He owned the store for several years with a muggle business partner named Oswald.
The present owner, Lisaberta Moffett, a respected witch, was not present during the early morning attack, but a muggle night-guard who patrolled the store and several other properties in the vicinity was callously killed using the unforgivable avada kedavra curse. Nothing seemed to be missing according to Ms. Moffett, who this paper interviewed shortly after the raid. The chief auror in charge of the case warned the public not to jump to conclusions and to assume that the attack is related in any way to the willful destruction at the Sartorius home in Cologne the Daily Prophet reported on Monday.
'We simply do not know who we are dealing with, yet. There seem to be certain similarities, but we just don't have enough proof to either confirm or deny that theory. We are working very closely with our continental counterparts,' he told the Daily Prophet during an exclusive interview. We will of course keep reporting on this horrible crime as new clues come to light and are publicized by the Ministry.'"
"Your pizza," warned Professor Sprout, but Eleanor did not hear her, nor did she pay attention to the steady drip of tomato sauce and cheese down the sleeve of her robe. "Thanks Pomona," she finally managed to squeeze out. "This is horrible, I need to find Marvin Oswald. Oh, Hecate, what a mess! It's all my fault. I'm going to kill Lucius! P-please excuse me." While the herbology witch stared at her uncomprehendingly, she dropped her half-eaten lunch back on her plate and sped from the dining hall.
"What's wrong with her?" asked a curious Professor Piotrofski from across the table. "Is the dragon meat off again?" Sprout shrugged her shoulders. "Beats me, Lana," she said. "I guess she knows something about the attack on that book store last night that even the Daily Prophet is missing. Mind you, it was her dad's place originally."
Pitrofski raised a quizzical eyebrow and turned back to her meal. "I hope 'Lucius' does not mean Lucius-I'm-a-Death-Eater-bloody-Malfoy," murmured Pomona to herself as she pulled the newspaper back and remembered their encounter at the Silver Teapot during the summer. She was still of the opinion that her colleague had looked rather disgustingly smitten with the dashing but villainous wizard.
Eleanor didn't remember how she got back to her room, but she had slammed the door behind her and now stood in the middle of her study, breathing hard and trying not to scream with anger and frustration. While she had lain awake during the night trying to fight her memories of his kisses, of the caresses of his knowing and powerful hands and of his naked body, Lucius had undoubtedly been out in London, breaking into the old Sartorius store, tearing the place up, hurling death-curses at muggles and searching for the homunculus.
And just days earlier he had had the gall to write her that stupid letter that had come with her cloak protesting his innocence. "Oh, you'll see me again, Lucius. Don't worry," she growled menacingly, so that Isis gave her a curious stare from her favorite spot in the inglenook. "You will come to regret your 'genuine attraction and the wish to be close to me'. In fact, you'll wish you'd never met me when I'm finished with you."
She tried to calm her breath and her thoughts and decide on her next steps. After she had read the article she was convinced that Marvin Oswald, her father's friend and former associate was in grave danger. She wondered what the moronic reporter from the Daily Prophet had smoked to be so thoughtless and stupid as to publish Oswald's name when there were people like Lucius Malfoy and this Death Eater Lepidus about, who had no qualms about breaking, entering, abduction and murder. Did these idiots have no sense? Did they think just because Voldemort had disappeared the world was now a place of flowers, butterflies and goodwill?
Finally Eleanor decided that the only course of action she could take was to fly to London, locate Oswald, let the chief auror know about her suspicions and advise her father's friend to seek safety. She changed from her robe into practical muggle clothes: a pair of black denims with a belt that held her wand sheath, a thick grey turtleneck, heavy boots, a warm knee-long wool coat with a hood and some fur-lined mittens. Then she pocketed some galleons, pound notes and a credit card, mounted her broom, opened the window and jumped off the sill, catching herself halfway down the Hogwarts battlements in the cold October wind that stung her face and eyes.
By the time she flew over the outskirts of London she was thoroughly thankful for every stitch of clothing that covered her. She reinforced her invisibility spell as she moved her broom below the patchy grey cloud cover and raced towards her old home. Her father had kept his old business documents in the attic and Eleanor hoped that she would be able to find a location for Mr. Oswald. She prayed to the triple goddess that Mr. Oswald hadn't moved a lot over the last few years.
About an hour later she sat cross-legged under a dim light-bulb surrounded by old yellowing receipts, stock lists and book catalogues and stared at a small snippet of paper with a South Croydon address and phone number. "Please be there, please be there," she whispered as she climbed down the rickety ladder from the loft and made her way to the phone in her study.
It seemed to take an eternity until finally the answering machine picked up on her call. Mercifully the male voice on the other end did not just quote back the number she had dialed, but identified himself as Marvin Oswald. She left a breathless message telling Oswald who she was and warning him to get out of the house and go to the next police station or to contact the aurors at the Ministry. She wasn't sure how open her father had been with his associate about the wizarding world and hoped that if Oswald didn't have a clue about aurors he would simply ignore the bit about the Ministry and not dismiss her whole message as a demented prank.
Outside it was getting dusky. She needed to get to Croydon herself, in case Oswald missed her message or didn't believe her. She looked up the address in an old muggle street atlas, penned a quick note, grabbed her broom and left the house. A summoning spell in the front garden presently brought an owl to her that belonged to the official postal service and bore a ring with the crest of the WOM, the Wizarding Owl Mail. It folded its wings and perched on the banister of the stairs leading up to her front door, eying her with its serious, bright orange eyes. She put a few sickles of stamp money in the pouch it was carrying and tied the note to its leg.
"Get this to the auror in charge of last night's book store robbery at the Ministry of Magic, please. It's very urgent," she instructed the bird. "I've given you enough money for a class one priority delivery." The owl hooted at her softly, blinked its eyes and flew away while she protected herself with another invisibility spell and took off in the direction of Croydon.
The clouds had thinned and the air now held the promise of a night frost. A full moon rose over dark hills and glimmering streets as she finally circled over the small hamlet near Croydon where Oswald lived. She realized that the house she was looking for sat in an isolated spot behind a small wood. There were lights in some of the windows and she sighed as she realized that Mr. Oswald had to be home and therefore had either missed or ignored her message.
She touched down with a light crunch on a gravel path in front of the house, snuck around the side of the building and stowed her broom against a trellis with roses near the garage. Then she made herself visible, approached the front door and rang the doorbell. She could hear the noise of a chair being moved inside, and then a tiny elderly woman wearing a big purple dressing gown opened the front door and peered up at her.
She raised her hand to her mouth in a gesture of shocked surprise and then called back into the house. "Oh, Marvin, come quickly, it's Eleanor. The message wasn't a joke!" Then she waved to her visitor. "Come in, my dear, come in. My, you have grown!" She didn't wait for Eleanor to wipe her feet, but grabbed her hand and with surprising strength pulled her right into the hallway, slammed the door shut and reached up to give her a hearty hug.
An old man, not much taller than his wife, came up to them. He walked with a slight limp and sucked on an enormous, long pipe. Eleanor could not imagine a couple of muggles that looked more like wizarding folk. "Well, that's a nice surprise," said Mr. Oswald. "We haven't seen you since you were a little girl, just going off to Durmstrang you were. All nervous and excited, yes. And your poor mum and dad just besides themselves, afraid they'd made a mistake in sending you. They sat with us the evening after you'd left and drank three bottles of elderberry wine. They had to sleep in the guest bedroom. Couldn't stay upright on a broom, hm!"
He also hugged her with one hand, holding the pipe out of harm's way with the other, and then shot her a glance out of clear hazel eyes. "So what's this business about us having to leave our home and go to the police or warn the aurors? Sounds like some wizarding mischief."
Hurriedly Eleanor described what had happened, talking about the raid on the bookstore, the dead muggle guard and explaining about the Death Eaters and their quest for Falco's homunculus in order to rehouse Voldemort's disembodied spirit. She decided that if Mr. and Mrs. Oswald knew about Durmstrang and had watched her parents drink themselves under their table, they would not be shocked by tall tales about the Dark Lord or the illegal pursuits of her grandfather.
Old Oswald shook his head in disbelief. "Dreadful business," he exclaimed. "But what would they want with us? We don't have the homunculus. I know that your father talked about many things over the years, but he never mentioned anything dubious about his dad."
Eleanor felt herself grow impatient. "They don't care! They leader is a horrible wizard named George Lepidus. He will torture you until he is satisfied that you really don't know anything. He is evil! He won't listen to you! Nothing you'll say will convince him. They abduct and kill people, and if you are a muggle, they are merciless. Remember what they did to my uncle's family, and they were pureblood wizards. You need to leave until this is over. Please believe me!"
"Oh dear," sighed Mrs. Oswald and started shaking, tears were running down her wizened cheeks. Obviously the mention of Conrad Sartorius brought back memories for her. "Marvin, dear, she's right! Let's go and be safe. I know we're old and don't have long, but I don't want to go being cursed by some horrible Death Eater who killed poor Conrad and Lena and the babies." Her husband took a long suck from his pipe and almost disappeared behind smoke as he straightened himself. "Very well, Patsy. Let's get our coats and some sturdy shoes and get out. The police station is just through the trees on Hazel Grove. We can make it in twenty or thirty minutes or so."
Eleanor watched them get ready then kept them waiting in the hallway while she carefully snuck out of the house and checked for any intruders on the outside. Everything was quiet. She opened the door and waved the Oswalds out. "Walk as quickly as you can," she whispered. Don't look back or come back, even if you see lights and hear noises. Try to tell the police a story that doesn't get them straight out here. It's too dangerous for them. The Death Eaters will just kill them. I've owled the Ministry of Magic and they should be sending some aurors any minute." She walked with them to the edge of the wood, then took her leave. "Aren't you coming with us?" asked Mrs. Oswald nervously, wiping tears from her face. Eleanor shook her head. "I'll stay behind, keep them off your trail if they come. Be safe. I'm sorry I haven't visited sooner. May the gods bless you and protect you."