I don't own Harry Potter. I just own this rather crazy idea that came to me.
The Patil Triplets.
Seven years. It had been seven years since the nightmare every parent had regarding their children happened, and she hated having to put on a smile as she watched as friends and family crowded around her only two daughters. Over the years, her daughters' personalities had grown; right now Parvati was lapping the attention up and appeared to be genuinely happy, making it clear that despite her clearly high intelligence she was the more outgoing of the girls, while Padma had a more serene and polite smile on her face, but Shehani Patil could see while her daughters were happy, it was bittersweet.
Shehani didn't blame them.
For Shehani and her family, while they were trying to be happy that Parvati and Padma were celebrating a birthday, the real anniversary was far from something to celebrate. It was a reminder to them all that Padma and Parvati had a birthday without their triplet here.
Shehani remembered how she and her husband had been sleeping in their bedroom when the wards had suddenly activated. Alerted they had immediately rushed to their daughter's room, and they'd discovered only Parvati and Padma were in the cot, both wide awake and bawling their eyes out at the terrible sound of the ward alarm, but the siblings were crying in their cot because their sister was gone. Kidnapped.
As the keeper of the wards, Rajal had been the one who felt the wards the more closely, and he had driven himself insane trying to discover how the burglar had gotten in and kidnapped Pavini.
It was not a House Elf. Unlike many other families in that damn country who abused their elves, the Patils had always treated their elves with respect and kindness. But so many people underestimated the House Elves and what they could do, but not her or her husband, and even if You-Know-Who and Dumbledore had thought to use one to break in, although that was unlikely since both men were simply too arrogant to make that kind of leap. Both men struck her as wizarding supremacists in some manner, they would never use House Elves, but they were not going to take the chance, so the Patils had made precautions.
To pass through the types of wards safely, Rajal had made sure each of their elves was keyed into place. Any House Elf that got in without being keyed in would set off the alarms and the House Elves in the family would immediately prevent the intruder from leaving.
On top of that, the ward scheme was multi-layered and extremely difficult to get under, even with a highly trained Curse Breaker doing the pushing.
The sounds of Parvati and Padma's wails after they realised their sister was gone still gave her nightmares, but while she felt the pain of a mother, both Padma and Parvati's pain was closer to the heart.
"They are putting on a show." Shehani sighed under her breath when she heard her brother speak. Aahir was gazing at his nieces sympathetically while he turned to his sister. "How are you coping?"
Shehani wished he would not ask that question, but she didn't blame him. Ever since Rajal's decision to move to Britain in the hopes of expanding the family's business empire, Shehani didn't often see her family, and while she was happy they were concerned, she wished they didn't ask the same questions each time they met.
She turned back to face her daughters.
Everyone assumed the Patils had just two daughters, twins. But in fact, they had triplets, a girl called Pavini. Shehani and Rajal had both been concerned about having children and bringing them up in Britain as they moved into a property the Patils had purchased several decades ago, but the country had been embroiled in a war. Those were terrible times for their family, and even with their home protected by wards of great power, it hadn't prevented the leaders of the two sides from taking notice of their presence.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Shehani had often laughed at the lengths the overly dramatically named Dark Wizard had gone to make himself feared; while she felt the Taboo curse was a nice little touch designed to spread fear and terror, she thought he had taken things just a little bit too far), and Albus Dumbledore had both tried courting the Patil's allegiance.
But both wizards had made a mistake.
In You-Know-Who's case, it was thinking that the Patil family would ever allow themselves to become murderous terrorists who wanted to slaughter muggles. The family had been doing business deals in both worlds for generations, and it was a lucrative investment on their part. They were not going to suddenly become monsters. And besides, both Shehani and Rajal both had some liking for muggle culture and didn't hate it like their British brethren, but it was enough to put them off magical Britain for good.
But what disgusted the Patils the most was the sheer hypocrisy You-Know-Who and his sick cult spouted; they were always talking about how they supported a pureblood-only society, which was impossible in itself since they needed muggle-borns to help them with the economy, but they were willing to slaughter any pureblood who didn't conform to their point of view, but while that was sick in itself, the fact they slaughtered whole families who had rich histories of their own was unforgivable.
And people like Dumbledore let them off. Preaching the Death Eaters should be forgiven, and the old fool was listened to.
Albus Dumbledore…. Shehani had never really had an opinion about the great wizard; she might have respected him for some of his accomplishments, but her anger towards him for how he had barely stopped Grindelwald when the Dark Lord (now Grindelwald was a proper Dark Lord in her opinion; powerful, charismatic and he'd had a more far-reaching set of plans; in comparison, his successor was nothing more than a rabid dog foaming at the mouth, a violent perpetually furious animal and should have been put down the moment he'd shown signs of megalomania) had been attacking sacred sites in India, but when Dumbledore had approached the Patils and demanded they support him and his side. He gave a number of good reasons, but the Patils had refused. They knew only too well if they did that they would be targeted by the Death Eaters, and they had no idea what would happen to their children if they didn't survive.
Dumbledore had labelled them dark.
The moment he did that, some of the businesses that Rajal was trying to cultivate just died out because everyone believed the old wizard. It never occurred to them that their children's lives were more important than what some old wizard thought. By that point, both Shehani and Rajal had begun regretting their decision to move to Europe in the first place.
British wizards were so full of themselves, believing themselves to be better than everyone else. They ignored the Patil's blood purity which went back thousands of centuries in India, making them older than most of the sorry excuses for purebloods, who hadn't done anything for centuries to improve themselves, while their family had adventured and prospered for countless generations.
But no, the British only focused on their country of origin and sneered at them for it. And they were not the only ones. The Changs, Zabini's, Li's, and several other families from other countries were looked down upon. Some of them were centuries older than half of the so-called Purebloods in Britain, yet they were sneered at.
Sometimes Shehani wished they'd never come, and that little voice had started yelling when their daughter had been kidnapped and no trace of her had been found.
"How do you think?" She asked rhetorically with a sigh. "We went into the muggle world again; Parvati and Padma both felt Pavini's presence there, seeing iconic landmarks; Big Ben and the London Underground, and the Tower of London, but when we got there, the trail had gone cold. We have looked everywhere for any sign of her, but even the sibling bond can do so much."
Shehani's mother, Eshna, overhearing the conversation, came over, "Have you come any closer to finding out about the….abuse she suffered?" The older woman asked softly, her eyes sympathetic.
Shehani flinched, remembering the horrifying days and nights that seemed to stretch for all eternity when Parvati and Padma had been growing older, and they had kept their parents awake for long periods over a few years, screaming that Pavini was being hurt. What made it worse was that Pavini sometimes suffered dreams where there was a bright flash of light. But as they had gotten older, Parvati and Padma had described their sister being hit multiple times, her pain reverberating through their bonds. Rajal and Shehani had become even more determined to find Pavini, and make sure whoever was hurting her paid the price.
"No," she whispered, looking down.
Eshna sighed and wrapped her daughter up in a comforting hug. "You'll find her, sweetheart. I promise."
"I hope so, mother. It's the only thing keeping me going," Shehani whispered as she clung to her mother.
"We know, sister. But what still concerns me is how the abductor got in in the first place," Aahir commented.
"I know," Shehani nodded. "We're still no closer to discovering the truth," she continued, "nor who could be evil enough to destroy such a sacred bond as a sibling bond."
Aahir and their mother frowned angrily. When they heard the news, they had been horrified like the rest of their family. To destroy a bond in such a manner was appalling and it was just never done. Whoever was responsible was pure evil, but what was telling was they had wanted Pavini to be alone. Forever.
X
Four Years Later.
X
Shehani was reading a book in the family lounge in their manor when Rajal suddenly rushed into the room, panting hard, but his eyes were ablaze with so many emotions it was dizzying. He was clutching a letter in his hand. "Shehani, I've just received an urgent letter from Gringotts," Rajal panted after a moment of getting his breath back, "it's Pavini."
Shehani leapt to her feet. "What about her?" She demanded, her heart rate speeding up.
Rajal was about to respond when Parvati and Padma both ran into the room. They had been in their rooms when they had suddenly heard a shout coming from their father's office, and they had both watched in astonishment their father rushing down the stairs to the lounge to their mother.
"Mother? Father? What's going on?" Parvati, the more vocal sister, demanded.
Padma frowned thoughtfully. "We just saw you running down the stairs, Father."
"It's your sister. She's in Gringotts," Rajal told them. "She turned up with Hagrid, the Hogwarts groundskeeper, but she had an argument with Hagrid and asked the goblins if she could check a family account," he continued.
"What family account?" Shehani mentally went through what she knew of Hagrid. He was a large, gentle, but not particularly smart man who was one of Dumbledore's lackeys. But why would Pavini be with him? And what the hell was this about some account?
"I don't know. The goblins didn't say. But it was all a con. Pavini wanted to speak to a goblin in private so Hagrid wouldn't interfere, and she told him she wants to know her real family. After that they did a heritage test, discovered who she was, and sent a summons," Rajal explained.
Shehani's mind was racing, and she could see the same thought being shared all around. "The person who abducted Pavini wanted her to think she was someone else," she murmured.
"Only it didn't work, just like that time when someone tried ripping the bond apart," Parvati folded her arms, glaring angrily at nobody in particular. Padma mirrored her sister, folded arms and glare in particular as they remembered the pain they'd felt which they'd later learnt was someone's sick attempt to rip up the family and sibling bonds like it was allowed. "She might not know who we are, but she obviously felt something over the years to give her enough clues to demand a heritage test."
"We'll soon find out," Rajal's voice was terrifying. "When we discover who was behind this atrocity, I will make sure they regret it. Now, we should go to Gringotts."
As the family got ready to leave for Gringotts, none of the Patils - the sisters and their parents - didn't realise that they would be having the shock of their lives.