Chapter 4: What's in a Home?

The train came to a stop, and Derek and Sarah sighed in unison. They silently collected their things and came out on the platform 9 ¾ with only glum expressions. Of the Marauders, only James and Remus looked at the two of them. James seemed like he was trying to figure them out for a moment, then shrugged. Remus had no facial reaction, but Derek was pretty sure he knew what was on the other boy's mind. Of the girls, Helga came by to wish them both good summers, Lily looked at them like Remus did, and the others didn't notice. They got the normal looks from Snape, his gang, Malfoy, his gang, and the gaggle of girls that the two Black girls had around them.

In twos and threes the children were let out of the platform into the Muggle area of the train station, Sarah and Derek ended up near, but not quite at, the back of the line. Derek noticed that there were a few Aurors here and there around the platform. He had heard that this "Dark Lord" had become active of late, and had begun attacking randomly. The Aurors were probably there to prevent that guy- whoever he was- from killing any of the children. That sounded like something that should be done. Sarah didn't seem up to noticing anything. Derek reassessed her situation slightly. After all, he needed to know exactly where his family was for survival, so he was keeping an eye out for them especially.

When they both were through, Derek spotted his family, and he whispered so only Sarah could hear. "If you ever need to talk, remember that I am willing to listen, as well as Lily and Remus. You may need to get it off your chest at some point." Her nod was infinitesimal, but it was large enough for Derek to see before he pushed his cart quickly over to his parents.

"Well, then, it's about time you came out. Let's get out of this cursed place…" his father muttered, turning on his heel and walking away with his wife in tow. Derek spared only enough time to sigh before hurrying after them. When they reached the car that his father had taken to the station, Derek had just enough time to throw his trunk into the back and grab the owl cage off of the cart and hop in before the car pulled away and was on its way back to Fugue Manor. It didn't seem like a very long drive, but that was only because Derek's mother and father had not yet begun to accost him.

Fugue Manor was placed well in a small village called Old Ravine. The village had three large properties that were considered part of the community; one of them was Fugue Manor. One of the other two was the abode of the Lestrange's, though Derek continually forgot what they called their mansion. The other one was very seclusive, and even the Wizards in the community were unsure of who lived there. Regardless, they were considered part of the community.

The car was accepted by the gate in front of the manor quickly, and it opened of its own accord to let the Fugues in and closed behind them. The long winding driveway was quickly navigated, and then the car stopped. The two parents got out of the car and went back into the house. Apparently, they had been interrupted in something when they had been forced to go get Derek. Derek didn't really mind them leaving; it cut down significantly on the nagging. He grabbed his trunk and lugged it inside by himself.

The mansion was accordingly huge. Getting the trunk all the way to his room would have been a nightmare had the dumbwaiter not existed. That was what it had been put in for. After all, the Fugue adults were never inclined to cast a lightening spell to help their children out. So it was a few children that had installed it… must have been 154 years before. It didn't really matter when it happened, only that it did happen and was making his life easier.

After collecting his trunk from the upstairs entrance to the dumbwaiter, Derek merely dragged it to his room and put it down in one of the corners. He flopped onto his bed and stared up at the white ceiling of the room. At least there was one place that he was himself, with no front, with no danger. A place where he could escape everything from Snape's nasty glare to Potter's superiority complex to his parent's constant nagging. And there was something to be said for getting away from all three of those things. At the moment, however, he was hungry. He sighed, as Ula had a disposition to ignore his requests for food unless he was in the kitchen when he called her. Why did even the House Elf not like him?

He walked down the stairs stealthily, but it wasn't as if he was trying to be so. It was just a habit. Something he had learned to do a long time ago. Probably about four years ago he had learned to keep his whereabouts a guess at best. When he had been Sorted into Gryffindor. When he had come back from the year, as his parents had taken a vacation and left him at Hogwarts during the Christmas Holidays, his parents had begun to accost him about his true thoughts and loyalties. Christmas wasn't fun, but at the time he hadn't realized how much of a blessing that they had unwittingly given him.

He reached the kitchens. "Ula!"

Ula appeared with a crack. "The young Master is home, I see," she said, though she didn't have any reverence that should have gone with the title she gave him. "I hope that young Master has been able to change his ways to the satisfaction of Master and Mistress?"

"That would be their decision," Derek replied with a sigh.

Ula nodded. "As it should be!"

"Can I have a sandwich, Ula?"

"Yes, young Master."

Derek left the kitchen, hoping to forestall her from bothering him more than she already had about the problems that he and his parents had with each other. But when he went through the main part of the Mansion, he realized that his parents were not home. The Location Clock had the two hands of his parents pointing to "Unknown", and his own resting on "Home". Home. Hardly.

Ula appeared with another crack and handed him his sandwich before disappearing with yet another crack. It was as if she couldn't walk, he chuckled to himself as he ate the sandwich in the silence of the Great Foyer. But quickly his mind moved to more serious matters. Where did his parents run off to in such a hurry? Not that he had cared originally, but as much as he liked not being harassed by them about his Pure Blood, he was unaware of any other time he had come home from Hogwarts and they hadn't taken the first chance to accost him.

Wherever they were, it was really important or imperative that they be there and not lecturing their son on the proper behavior of a pureblood. Not that he had ever really needed the lectures before his third year, when… Derek shook his head. That event would not help him here.

"Ula? Is there a copy of the Prophet around?" Derek shouted in the general direction of the kitchen.

"Yes."

After a moment, Derek sighed. He hadn't asked where it was. "Where is it?"

"It's in the study."

Satisfied with the answer this time, Derek headed into the study and looked around at the pile of messy paper that had flooded the room and picked through it until he came to the desk, which was far worse. However, a copy of that day's Prophet was sitting on top of a pile, and Derek snatched it, and walked out of the room reading.

LORD VOLDEMORT

New Dark Lord has Revealed his Name!

George Torley, Journalist The Dark Wizard that has been making various attacks in the Wizarding and Muggle Worlds this year and last finally has a name to go with the terror: Lord Voldemort.

The tell-tale sign of one of his attacks was floating over a house in Bristol yesterday, with yet another family a victim of this Voldemort's followers, who's name has also been revealed as "Death Eaters." The names were figured out when Hit Wizards and Aurors arrived on the scene. Voldemort came out of the House to deliver a speech to the wizards, asking them how they dared to attack him, Lord Voldemort, when they had no chance to win? He also mentioned the name of his "Death Eaters" in the same speech, stating that the Aurors were not even worth the undergarments they wore.

Voldemort then attacked, causing quite a few injuries and killing four. He then Apparated away from the scene, followed by the followers that were in the house at the time. Aurors have not released any names of the deceased yet.

During Voldemort's speech, he gave away a few clues to his nature and how he was picking his victims. He said that he did not want the Wizarding World to continue to spiral downwards with the Muggles. He denounced those not of pure blood and after a few fact checks by this reporter, it was found that all of the families that were attacked were either Muggles entirely, a Muggle-born witch or wizard, or in a few rare cases, a Half-blooded witch or Wizard.

More Stories Contained Within:

What the Ministry now Knows: Pg.2

'Lord Voldemort'? What's in the Name? Pg. 4

The Attacks So Far: Pg. 5

Derek set the Prophet down on the desk that he used for his homework, which happened to be a lot cleaner than the desk that his father used. Well, now this was interesting. On the day that it comes out in the Prophet that this new "Dark Lord" or whatever had named himself, his parents go missing and don't bother to accost him for being a disgrace to the family name. For one thing, it sure sounded like this "Lord Voldemort" or whatever, would be the kind of person to rally his parents, what with killing all the people they hated.

Derek was a little torn about the killings… On the one hand, it would truly serve the purpose to weed out all of the imperfections in the blood of wizards… but on the other, it was killing someone, and killing someone was so… so… final. Something that he couldn't imagine himself doing. He decided that this Lord Voldemort scared him. Quite a bit in fact, if all of the rumours were true. Derek, for the first time in five years, thanked God that he was Pure Blooded.

It was just after this thought, that irony decided to rear its ugly head, and he heard the arrival crack of his father. "DAMMIT! ULA!" He screamed. Ula appeared with her own crack and they began to talk quietly. Derek's mother appeared with her own crack, but instead of joining the conversation with the House Elf and her husband, she headed into Derek's study. Derek made sure to sigh and prepare before the footsteps quite reached there.

"Derek!" She said, not kindly, "Are you in there?"

"Yes, Mother," Derek said obediently.

She walked into the room, and Derek had no doubt as to what was coming. Her face was hard; it had always been as far as Derek could remember. Her dark eyes were not alluring, but tense. Her black hair was cropped short, not quite to mannish proportions, but it was a close thing. She wore a dark robe with a hood, though the hood was down. Her chin was set, and Derek knew exactly what for.

"Have you changed your ways to the ways of this family?" She spat harshly.

"There was nothing to change; I have never been dishonorable in thought to this family," Derek said calmly. Until third year. He silently added.

"Then we have not succeeded yet. You are doing something wrong, or you would have realized that you would know what you were doing wrong, and would be able to tell me why you are a Gryffindor!"

Derek, despite himself, sighed. Her eyes got angrier, but Derek continued anyway. "I do not know why I am a Gryffindor, and I have no idea how I can fix something that doesn't exist."

This time, however, she got a smirk on her face. Derek immediately went into defense mode because this was new. Up until that moment, everything had been going as it had always gone, but here was a wild card. Derek only could hope that he was prepared for whatever it was that she had up her sleeve. Little did he know that what she was about to do literally involved her sleeve. Without her smile fading or saying a word, she walked closer to him and moved up the sleeve on her right arm. A skull with a snake coming out of it's mouth was imprinted there, and pitch black.

Derek couldn't help himself. He recoiled from the gruesome image. "What is that?"

"It is called the Dark Mark. To take the Dark Mark is to become a Death Eater. The Death Eaters-" But Derek didn't hear his mother's explanation. In the back of his mind, he hoped that his face had not gone ghastly white. He was right, but like many other times that he had known things about other people, he did not like to be right. A nasty thought told him that his parents had participated. Another thought argued that that was fine as long as they weeded the Wizarding World and left him out of it. Not that he had much of a chance of that.

"So," his mother concluded, and Derek tuned back in. "Will you take it? Will you prove once and for all that you belong in this family?" He didn't want to have to kill anyone, but it was a nasty job to weed the population… and someone had to do it. Did that someone have to be him? But even if he wanted to refuse, how could he? How could he without making his life somehow worse than the living hell that he had experienced for the past five years of his life?

It was in one instant that had attained his great idea; just before his mother got impatient with him. "I'm not ready."

His mother seemed taken aback by this answer. It apparently was not one that she was expecting. Taking advantage of the lack of confidence in his mother, Derek pressed on. "I've just finished my fifth year. Tell me what I need to do to be worthy of such a high honor and I will study it up and be ready by the time I'm ready to enter my seventh year." Wow, his brain had hit the jackpot for once. His mother measured him with steel in her eyes.

"That sounds… reasonable. And you will prove that you want it by doing it all yourself-" She was making it sound like it was her idea! "-and then you will be family. Not before."

Derek simply nodded at his mother. She left the room after pulling her sleeve down over her arm. Derek sat back in his chair, stunned by what he had just succeeded in doing. If he was on a roll, his mother would assuage his father, and he would have a year and a summer to figure out everything. The problem was that he didn't know if he had enough time, despite the year that he had just bought for himself.

He only sat at his desk for a few moments before he stood up and replaced the copy of the Daily Prophet back on the pile where he had found it. He then walked out of his father's study right into his father himself. He quickly apologized "I am so sorry, Father, I did not mean to-"

"Stuff it," his father said, cutting him off. He slapped a roll of parchment against his son's stomach. It smarted, but it did not really hurt. "Here is a list of things for you to learn. If you succeed with all of them to be ready by the beginning of your seventh year, then you will be accepted. As a Fugue, as a Death Eater, as a Wizard. Don't you dare fail me, I will kill you if you don't make me proud of what you do for our name." He then stepped around Derek and walked into his study, closing the door. Derek was left holding the parchment. The risks just got slightly higher.

Of course, he had counted on being of the age of majority so that if he chose against his parents, he could escape them. Not that he expected to be able to, just that it was legal to do so. And further, legal to do magic outside of school. Oh, how he wished that he could use magic then… talk to a… friend. Talk to a friend. Brilliant. He needed to talk to Sarah. The other person who was in a similar situation at home. So that was to be his destination. But there was something else. Something that Derek thought of at that moment that made so much sense, he wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.

He ran up to his room, placing the roll of parchment on the bedside table, noting that he would hang it up later to make a show of checking off things as he learned them so that his parents would know that he was moving along. He would probably have to fake learning a few things… especially until he came to a decision about what he was going to do. He grabbed his trunk and opened it, and rummaged through his school supplies until he found a quill, ink and blank parchment. He sat down and began to write.

Dear Theo,

I hope this letter finds you well, as I have not written you in a long time. Okay, I have never written you ever, but I hope that you will hear me out before throwing this letter into the fire wherever you are.

I want to know what it is like staying away from the Fugue family out there. To me, you were always the elder brother, but my parents have truly forgotten about you. I may have not had the same problem you had, but I definitely have a problem. I would like to talk about it with you. I hope you can put aside our differences long enough to help me with this problem, as I think you may be the only one who can help me.

Sincerely, Your Brother,

Derek Fugue