There was a knock on the door — Daphne, Liz had felt her coming, was still trying to finish the paragraph she was on. "Good morning, Liz, Severus. Is this a bad time?"
Since when did Daphne use Severus's first na— Oh, the holiday thing was still going, never mind. Liz still wasn't done reading, Severus answered first. "Daphne. Is something the matter?" Now that Severus pointed it out, there was something...off, about Daphne. She wasn't intensely concerned or anything, the feeling mild enough Liz hadn't noticed it at first.
"There are packages at the owlery for you."
"I can't say I'm surprised there are a few — it is Christmas, after all."
...Oh, it was Christmas, wasn't it? Liz had completely forgotten about that, honestly.
It'd been a few days since the solstice now — which had been awesome...or at least what she remembered of it had been. She was pretty sure she remembered most of the night, with the food and the lanterns up the trees and stuff, and the music all over the place. She'd been asked multiple times if she wanted to dance, but honestly she didn't even know how, and it involved strangers touching her, so, no. The play sword-fighting thing she'd found people doing was much more her speed. After doing that for, shite, couple hours at least, she'd gone to get food with some of the locals she'd been play-fighting with, and that was when she'd been given the gin, and from that point things started to get...fuzzy. She knew she'd gone to find Dorea eventually, though she didn't remember why, and had they stumbled on Severus snogging a woman? Or maybe not snogging, but about to snog or something, she didn't know. Severus had insisted on taking her back to their rooms, before accidentally-very-drunk Liz made a complete idiot of herself, but she didn't actually remember getting there — she'd just woken up in bed the next morning, still wearing her fancy dress (though the local jewellery she'd ended up accepting over the course of the night had all been stacked up on the side table), nauseous and with a terrible headache.
It'd been a pretty great night, even if she couldn't quite remember everything she'd done toward the end. And honestly the accidentally-very-drunk part had been nice too, she could kind of understand why people did it now. Though she could have done without the hangover the next day. Severus said there were potions to prevent it from happening if taken ahead of time — while explaining that the potions he'd given her the next morning to make it better, but not get rid of it entirely, were all he could do after the fact — but he refused to tell her what they were, ugh, bastard...
(Not really annoyed about it, because she realised it probably wasn't good for a thirteen-year-old to drink too much too often, for health reasons, and she hadn't actually intended to start doing it all the time anyway, she was just saying.)
But anyway, all the other people who'd been invited had families and shite, so they couldn't just stay at the Greenwood the whole winter holiday, they'd started trickling away bit by bit the day after the solstice itself. Susan, Hannah, and Hannah's mum had left just yesterday, the last to go, Tracey and Sophie the only guests besides Liz and Severus to still be here.
(The Davises did have their own Yule traditions — Tracey and Sophie simply weren't welcome there at the moment.)
Which meant the guest hall was really quiet now, without all kinds of people and far too many little kids running around, Liz liked it better this way. The Greenwood in general was pretty quiet and calm. Technically, their solstice thing was still going on — it lasted for a bit over a week, Liz thought — the rules still gone for the holiday and people avoiding doing any actual work if at all possible. People would gather occasionally to have a little party here and there, but things were a lot calmer than they'd been that first night, just...people hanging out, being families and neighbours and stuff, she guessed. She was told they'd slowly ramp up back into their normal routine by the new year, but until then they were lazing around doing whatever they felt like, putting shite off and just being.
It was kind of a cool holiday, Liz thought — definitely better than muggle Christmas (not that she'd ever really gotten to participate in that). Though she wasn't actually doing much anymore, this far along. Just hanging out with Severus — who was kind of the closest thing she had to family, legally speaking, making this a perfectly acceptable thing for them to be doing during the holiday — and reading and occasionally doing potions stuff was kind of nice too. Liz thought most of her friends would probably be bored, but it wasn't like she had anything better to do.
So, as slow and eventful as things were at the Greenwood, Liz had managed to forget about Christmas entirely.
...People hadn't sent her gifts, had they? She'd kind of assumed that, since they were all doing this thing at the Greenwood, Liz wouldn't be expected to, and... Well, she'd hated trying to figure out gifts for people last Christmas, to be honest — she could afford to get people pretty much anything, but was absolutely terrible at deciding what they might actually want — so she'd been glad for the excuse to not have to. But nobody had actually said anything about not doing it this year, maybe she should have asked? Oops...
Oh well, she'd just remember to get slightly over-the-top birthday presents — like Hermione's book ordering thing this year — for everyone who sent her something to make up for it. It'd be fine, it wasn't like her friends didn't already know she was terrible at this shite.
Finally folding her book and setting it aside, Liz asked, "If it's only post, why wasn't it just sent here?" Apparently it was normal for people's homes, especially big places like the Greenwood, to have wards to redirect all the post to a single place, so owls weren't just flying around all the time. Like Hogwarts did, sort of. She'd heard that the Greenwood's owlery was kind of like a post office, all of the letters and stuff dropped off there and sorted for people to come get them, but she'd never been there — Severus had gotten a few letters while they'd been here, but the locals had brought them over and left them in the common room for him. Which did make sense, when she thought about it, it wasn't like Severus would have a box in their post office thing...
Of course, Tamsyn's bloody duck had seemingly ignored the post wards and come right to her like normal — and, like normal, waited for Liz to write a reply, which was good, because she'd left her owl at Hogwarts. Severus, who'd been there at the time, had thought that kind of suspicious, but had dismissed it with a nod when she said Apollo was a familiar. (Supposedly familiars interacted with wards differently than normal post...birds? Don't know, whatever.) Still, if they'd gotten post they should have found it in the common room this morning, was the point.
"There are enchantments on some of the packages." Daphne didn't explain further than that, just saying it as though it were an explanation, must be a rule here or something. And that also suggested that people had sent Liz gifts, dammit... "And there's also... Well, you'll see when you get there. They thought it best for you to come to them."
Nicely ominous there, Daphne. But fine, Liz detoured to her room to slip on a dress quick — Severus had just given her an exasperated look for going out into the courtyard for breakfast in the shorts and vest, but she should definitely put on proper clothes to go out into the town. (Also, it was colder past the guest hall's wards.) While she was doing that, Severus put shoes on, though Liz didn't bother, since it wasn't like Daphne was wearing shoes either. Once they were ready, Daphne led them through the courtyard and out into the town.
It was a surprisingly long walk to the owlery — though, when she thought about it, it really wasn't that surprising. They followed one of the ring roads for a while, passing by clumps of people here and there chattering or playing little games, occasionally waving and calling greetings to them (mostly Daphne). Eventually, they turned onto one of the straight roads, moving away from the Wheel in the middle. They walked on and on, far enough they left the town proper behind, the path continuing on under a cover of unseasonably green branches. Eventually the path emptied out into a clearing, standing within three ancient-looking towers — simple stone blocks with tiny, irregularly-shaped windows, each maybe only six or seven metres tall tops. In a little courtyard in the middle was a much more modern wooden building, one wall open to the outside, Liz could make out from here a few tables and cabinets that must be their post boxes. Beyond the towers the sea stretched to the horizon, a few islands dotted about and a long peninsula stretching out over there, the shore jagged and rocky, the breeze off the water colder than most of the Greenwood, wet and fragrant.
As they got closer, Liz noticed that the pale stone tile in the courtyard was struck through the middle with a strip of twining green and yellow, the wheel of the Greenwood worked into the design here and there. Two of the towers were on this side of the line, one on the other. The line continued past the courtyard in the form of little posts sticking up out of the ground every several metres, painted with colourful patterns she couldn't make out from here. That must be the wardline, the boundary of the Greenwood — it made sense they'd had to walk so long, then, they probably had incoming owls land outside of the wards proper for security reasons. Which was maybe slightly paranoid, but Severus had said the Greenwood was one of the safest places in Britain...
They walked under the shade of the post office, Daphne told the men here that Elizabeth Potter and Severus Snape had come for their things — in Cambrian, but Liz was pretty good at following that by now. While one went off toward a back room, another fiddled about the cabinets that seemingly made up eighty per cent of the walls, after a few seconds handed Liz and Severus each a little wooden tray, letters stacked inside. Severus's tray, unsurprisingly, was more full than hers, this bloke got so many letters. While packages were set down on one of the tables — her friends had definitely gotten her Christmas gifts, dammit — Liz and Severus went through their letters.
One envelope was heavy, expensive parchment, noticeably thicker than the others, which she didn't bother opening — it was from Gringotts, must be her quarterly...whatever they were called. She'd looked over the one she'd gotten back in late September — it'd been sent to Daedelus, Gringotts' shite not quite straightened out yet by then, but he'd forwarded it to her — and she honestly hadn't understood a lot of it, all confusing tables and dense financial and legal speak. By a funny coincidence, she'd also gotten another letter from Daedelus — Diggle, that was. Checking over the letter, more talk about how the magical economy functioned and what Daedelus himself did for work — they'd been sending an occasional letter back and forth on that stuff ever since she'd fired him — and wishing her a Happy Christmas, which was nice of him, she guessed.
She was almost certain she was going to re-hire him. She didn't know how all this financial shite worked, and the only reason she'd fired him in the first place was because she'd been annoyed about Dumbledore and everyone not telling her about any of this Potter shite — but Daedelus hadn't known she was being kept in the dark, and had already apologised for it and everything. He seemed like an alright bloke, but she still wanted to meet him in person, to get a feel for him, before hiring him again. Probably arrange that for some Hogsmeade weekend coming up...
She'd also gotten a letter from Dorea's cousin Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora. It was kind of rambly, but by the look of it mostly congratulating her for getting on the duelling team — Dora had been on the team herself, had considered going pro before ending up in the Aurors instead. She suggested checking out a shop in Charing, tell the proprietor that Dora Tonks sent her, for ICW-approved gear, maybe they could meet up over the summer and Dora would give her a few pointers, and that was really it. Didn't even mention Christmas, which was kind of funny, Dorea's absurd metamorph cousin was such a bloody airhead.
Besides that, there were just a couple brief notes from people in the quidditch team or the study group who knew her well enough to feel guilty they weren't sending her gifts, most of them with certificates for store credit at bookstores. (One of the few things everyone knew she actually wanted was books.) The longest and most interesting was from Padma — she'd gone to visit her family in India for the holiday, and relayed some divination talk she'd had with her local cousins, which was neat.
She'd also sent a store credit thing, which was definitely the most expensive of them, justified as being from the whole family — including the ones living in India, who were sort of nobility over there — and not just Padma, but still. It didn't have a specific value on it, it was just a voucher she'd bring to Twilfit and Tattings, any one whole outfit she got would be covered by the Patils. Which was ridiculous, because T&T was kind of expensive — it was the place a lot of the fancy nobles walking around got their robes done. Liz guessed it wasn't great that she only really had the one nice dress, especially since she was a super special noble lady or whatever, but still, what the hell.
Also, apparently "one whole outfit" included the shoes and even the underwear, which was a little embarrassing. And she didn't even like the underwear mages wore, so...
"Damn."
Liz twitched, glanced up at Severus. He was also standing here going through his letters, had a long, multi-page one in his hand right now. There was something flickering around in his head, though maybe not as much as she might have expected — Severus almost never swore out loud. "What is it?"
"It appears we've been invited to tea at Malfoy Manor."
Okay, but that was hardly unusual, was it? Severus was going over to the Malfoys' all the time, she didn't— "Wait, we?"
Folding up the letter, Severus let out a quiet sigh. "Yes, we. Narcissa holds a private lunch at the Manor every year — the guest list is very short, most years none but the Malfoys, Irénée, and myself." Because he was Draco's godfather and therefore also sort of family, she guessed, though Liz had no idea who Irénée was. "This time, you have been invited as well. Such is expected, as it is now public knowledge that I'm your guardian, but it hadn't occurred to me..."
"It's okay, I get it." It still slipped her mind sometimes that other people would do things differently because Severus was technically responsible for her now — she'd been blindsided by the Greengrasses also inviting Severus for the holidays — she could hardly blame him. "Are we going?"
"It would be terribly rude for me to refuse, but you can make your excuses. Or you may attend, if you wish. It is a small, quiet, informal gathering, so I don't expect you would feel overly crowded or observed. The most uncomfortable aspect of the lunch is likely to be witnessing Narcissa and Lady Melete quarrelling with each other."
"Is that her mother-in-law?" Liz had accidentally picked up from Draco's head that his mother and grandmother didn't get along.
Severus nodded. "Lucius was a loyal Death Eater, but I sincerely doubt he would be so foolish as to attempt to harm you — if for no other reason, his wife would be exceptionally angry with him, and nobody should wish to anger a daughter of the House of Black unnecessarily." Especially when one happened to be sleeping with the Black in question, Liz would guess. "And, of course, you can always call Nilanse and leave at any time."
"...Right, I'll think about it." Ever since their truce for the sake of the quidditch team, Draco had been...fine. A bit tedious to deal with, she guessed, the pompous little shite, but he wasn't that bad.
She guessed she could stand a couple hours stuck talking to him, as long as they kept to school and quidditch and duelling. Polite nonsense, she could handle that. Though if none of the food was edible, she might decide it wasn't worth it and just have Nilanse pop her away...
By then, they were done gathering the packages they'd been sent on the table — glancing that way, one jumped out at Liz immediately. The prospect of New Year's at the Malfoys' abruptly dropping away, Liz pointed at the thing and not-quite-shouted, "Is that a broomstick?"
"It appears so." Severus turned to give her a raised eyebrow. "I take it you didn't order one."
"No, I went out to Hogsmeade and got a new one right away, the weekend after I got out of hospital." She'd ended up getting a Cleansweep 9 this time — they'd had a couple of 8s there, the same model she'd started with, but they were trying to push the 11s these days, so the price difference between the 8s and 9s had been practically nothing, so why not? And since it was pretty close to the same thing as her old broom, only a slight improvement in the specs — probably the biggest change she'd noticed was the cushioning charm was nicer, the speed boost was so tiny — she hadn't needed very long to adjust to it, so, had seemed the thing to do.
"Ah yes, I remember now. Who sent it?"
Severus started moving toward the table to check, but before he got there Daphne said, "That's part of why we wanted you to come here in person. It was sent to Liz anonymously."
He froze in mid-step, his head lurching, turning to give Daphne a look Liz couldn't make out from this angle. "Who the hell would send someone a broomstick anonymously?" Liz asked. "Those things are really expensive..." And besides, she already had one — it wasn't a secret she was on the school quidditch team, surely whoever it was would know that.
"That is a good question. May I?" he asked the post office people in Cambrian, his wand appearing in his hand. They retreated from the table with smiles and nods, letting the Dark Arts expert in the room do the necessary curse check. Several charms and maybe a minute later, Severus said, "It should be safe to open the package. Check if there is a note inside."
Right, okay. Liz hesitated for a second — sending someone a bloody broomstick without a tag or something was extremely suspicious — before walking up to the table, pushing aside a couple of the packages to make a nice big open spot. The thing was wrapped in heavy brown paper, enchanted against impacts and the elements, Liz fruitlessly searched for the seam for a moment, before realising it was sewn shut. Jesus. Very, very carefully, so as to not nick the broom underneath, Liz cast a weak cutting charm down the length of the shaft, started peeling the paper op—
The instant she spotted the cursive, golden lettering set into the wood — so dark it was almost black, polished to a mirror shine — Liz dropped it, the still half-wrapped broom clunking against the table, and took a step back. "That's a Firebolt."
Liz felt the flashes of surprise in Severus and Daphne's head, Daphne even let out a little gasp. "Are you certain?"
"Considering I just found 'Firebolt' written on the handle in fucking gold, yeah, pretty damn sure."
"I hadn't realised they'd begun selling Firebolts to individuals."
"Yeah, I hadn't either. Last I heard, they were still only making them special for professional teams and police forces and such. That was back in October, Draco mentioned the Irish National Team had just gotten a full set, but still." Of course, Draco had mentioned it at all because he didn't think the Irish team should exist in the first place — magical Ireland was part of magical Britain, so it was kind of funny that they had their own team — and he had no idea how the hell they'd managed to afford a full set of Firebolts, but that was so completely beside the point. Or, kind of not, when Liz thought about it, because if most of the Slytherin team was surprised the Irish National Team could even afford them, how the hell had whoever'd sent this thing gotten his hands on one?
"I see. May I?" Liz stepped aside, letting Severus look at the ridiculously expensive racing broom. Severus didn't actually touch it, instead levitating it up, a wandless charm directed with his free hand carefully peeling the paper off. Fucking hell, that was a pretty broom. They'd used ebony for the handle — ebony had a very high magical resistance, perhaps greater than any other wood, so the broom could channel a greater volume of magic than most could tolerate without bursting into flames or exploding — the colour almost-but-not-quite black, slanting grains of dark brown showing here and there, the dark surface giving the polish an easily visible gleam. The foot posts were also shiny, almost looked like silver, carved into gracefully curling arcs, little swirling patterns over the surface. The bristles were perfectly straight and symmetrical, without the slightest defect visible anywhere, almost unnaturally perfect, how had they even found that many straight little twigs?
Liz wasn't as much of a broom nut as most people on the quidditch team — though she could admit the enchantments on them got pretty impressive sometimes — but fucking hell, that was a seriously pretty broom. And intensely magical, Liz could taste a tingle on the air from all the way over here, Jesus...
Still holding the levitation on the broom, Severus sorted through the wrapping paper with one hand. In time he picked up a stiff black card, looked at both sides before handing it to Liz. It wasn't paper, some kind of...really thin ceramic, she thought — smooth and hard, cool to the touch. Engraved on the surface was... Liz didn't know what the term was, a certificate of authenticity, maybe? A brief note from Ellerby and Spudmore, the manufacturers of the Firebolt (and a couple other less well-regarded high-performance brooms), done in gold lettering — in French, because of course, but English had borrowed enough words she could guess what it said. There was a five-digit registration number — though the first two were zeroes, because there still weren't that many Firebolts out there — a brief statement about it being made in December of '93 by...er, she thought that meant a team supervised by Randolph Spudmore (the lead designer). A couple details about the construction, only some of which she understood, and that it'd been made personally for Elizabeth Potter.
...Huh. Okay, then. "At least it's real, I guess. Do the numbers match?"
"They do," Severus said, pointing at a string of gold numbers set between the fittings for the foot posts — let's see...yep, they matched. Severus had been casting analysis charms while she'd been looking over the card, bundles of illusory runes floating over the surface. "Can you think of anyone who might possibly have a Firebolt made for you?"
"No, not really." People didn't tend to like her, for the most part, and the people who did definitely couldn't afford one — well, Dorea, she guessed, but she knew Liz already had a new broom, and definitely wouldn't have done it without asking her which one she would like. Speaking of which, "Whoever they are, they don't know me very well."
"How do you know?"
"I guess I don't know for sure, but... Um, 'hazel' is French is aveline or something like that, right?"
"Aveline is the nut; avelinier is the tree. Why?"
"What does this say?" she asked, turning the card toward Severus and pointing at a part of the description.
It took a second for him to turn his eyes away from the broom, probably part way through an analysis charm. "Assuming you intend to indicate the bristles, they are birch."
"Right, that's wrong. Birch is for speed — for my playstyle, they should have gotten hazel, or maybe apple." She only vaguely remembered what "hazel" was in the first place because her new broom had hazel bristles, and the care instruction booklet that'd come with it was in both English and French. And Liz was pretty sure the word for apple should begin with a "p", so, seemed a good bet.
"There is another suggestion that this was not sent by the Malfoys. They would certainly have included a note, but I cannot think of any other halfway reasonable possibilities." Liz didn't think it being from the Malfoys was even halfway reasonable, it wasn't like they were that close...though they were filthy rich bastards, who knew... "Did Draco send you anything?"
To check if there was a note in there? Liz sorted through the packages, turning or flipping them to look for names — and sorting them a little while she was at it, ones for her and for Severus had gotten all mixed up — she'd gotten a couple more of those wooden boxes mages liked to use for gift packages to join the old ones she already had, and also— "Ah! Here it is." It was also in heavy brown wrapping paper, though not the same stuff, a little more crinkly and held closed with tape. "What a shock, it's a book."
"Open it."
Well, all right. This was much easier to get open than the broom, and after a couple seconds Liz was holding a primer on British ballroom dances, which, okay? It was a nice book, with diagrams in it showing where people were supposed to put their feet and drawings of proper poses and shite, but what the hell? "I have the feeling Draco is trying to tell me something." A stealth insult, maybe, that she wasn't a proper fancy noble girl?
"I would imagine he believes he is." It could be her imagination, but she thought Severus was faintly amused. "There's a letter — check if it mentions the broom."
It was annoyingly difficult to get through the damn thing — for everything except essays and exams Draco wrote in pretty swirly cursive, like the poncy rich bastard he was, and Liz had never learned that shite, and of course he was just as pompous and verbose in writing as he was in person. "Er... No, doesn't look like it. He knows I was invited for their New Years thing, but other than that, just Draco being Draco. Ah shite, I should probably bring him something — I completely forgot about Christmas gifts this year. At least he didn't get me fucking jewellery or something, the way rich purebloods can be I wouldn't put it past them." Some of the shite the other girls at school wore to classes, ridiculous...
"He never would — if you do receive jewellery from a boy, you should assume it's a courting gift. Books are safe."
...Good to know. "Even if they're about bloody ballroom dancing?"
"Even if they're about bloody ballroom dancing." No reason to mock her Severus, honestly. "It appears the broom is safe to touch, at least." He grabbed the ridiculously expensive thing out of the air to prove it, his fingers running over the surface — there was a faint hiss of magic at the edge of hearing, Severus wandlessly prodding at the enchantments, she assumed. "However, the enchantments on broomsticks are fiendishly complex, so I cannot guarantee some malicious alteration hasn't been made. There are two letters I want you to write. The first will be to the manufacturer, to ask them to confirm they built the broom and sent it to you directly; if they did, it is almost certainly safe for you to use. The second will be to Dorea, to ask whether any of the Black accounts have recently made a large payment to Ellerby and Spudmore, or perhaps simply any unexpected withdrawal — it is possible an intermediary was used."
"Wait, Dorea? You think Dorea bought it?"
"No, but she is not the only Black. As absurd as the suggestion may seem, I suspect such an extravagant gift is meant as an apology — and also to stand in for twelve years of missed birthdays and holidays."
It took Liz an embarrassingly long time to figure out who he was talking about — the only other Blacks she could think of were the Tonkses, and that didn't make any bloody sense. Not that what Severus was thinking made any more sense. "Sirius. You think Sirius Black sent me a Firebolt for Christmas."
"Yes." Severus let out a little sigh, finally set the broom back down on the table. "Black has the wealth, certainly, and while he is a careless fool, he is not completely incapable of showing remorse when his thoughtless actions bring harm to someone he has reason to care about — you would never have encountered the dementors had he not escaped, and so your injury was, however indirectly, his fault. I cannot think of any other possible benefactors, however I wish I could. I know the Prophet reported that you were injured, but did they mention your broom had been destroyed in the incident?"
"Er...I don't think so?" She tended not to read newspaper articles about her very thoroughly, but that one hadn't been about her, her mention had really been pretty short. "It's been a while, so I could be wrong, but no, I don't think so."
"I thought not. I find it not unreasonable that it might have occurred to Black to send you some token of apology, in so doing displaying his characteristic sense of proportion." Said sarcastically, of course, implying Severus thought he had no sense of proportion whatsoever. Which, if he had sent a bloody Firebolt to a kid he'd never even met, fair. "The question that concerns is me is why this gift in particular occurred to him."
"...He must have been at the game." Theoretically, he could have heard it from someone who had been there — someone who knew her broom had been smashed, which wasn't actually very many people — but who the hell would have told him?
Severus nodded. "Precisely."
"Meaning he would have gotten close to the school at least twice, that we know of, without being spotted. At least once in a crowded place, with hundreds of people around."
"So it would seem."
"And the dementors are around the school...why, again?"
"The Minister is an idiot."
"I'd like to say I'm surprised the magical government is worse than fucking useless, but I'm really not."
Severus didn't respond, but she could feel the cool shivering of amusement in his head anyway, so he really didn't have to.
None of the other packages were particularly suspicious, so now that they were done dealing with the broom (for now) they could finally get going. Severus conjured a pair of shoulder bags, and started shrinking things to be packed up. There weren't that many things here, it didn't take very long. Just as they were about to leave, Daphne asked, "Liz, did you have plans for lunch?"
Liz had kind of forgotten Daphne was there, honestly — it'd been a while since she'd said something, just hovering silently at the edge of Liz's awareness. "Ah...not really? Me and Severus aren't doing anything for Christmas, if that's what you're asking." She glanced at him quick just to check — he hadn't said anything about that, she'd just kind of assumed neither of them gave a damn about the holiday — but he didn't react, so.
"I wanted to show you something. We can pick up lunch on the way, have a little picnic."
"Oh, well, okay." Not like she was doing anything else today, so...
But first they had to go all the way back to the guest hall to drop off their post. The long bloody walk was mostly filled with bland, polite chatter from Severus and Daphne — mostly stuff about this or that building in the town, farming shite, whatever — but Liz was hardly listening, distracted thinking about what the hell she was going to get Draco. She should bring something, since she'd forgotten Christmas and all (or Yule, whatever), showing up at the Malfoys' empty-handed would be rude. Not that she really cared about being thought of as rude, but she didn't want to embarrass Severus with his friends, so.
She didn't know much about Draco, honestly — which was maybe kind of sad, given they'd been teammates for a year and a half and classmates for another year longer than that, but. He was a quidditch nut, a surprisingly good duellist (but not good enough, she won, ha ha), and a pompous, stupid wealthy, racist arsehole, and that was really it. Not so much of an arsehole lately, but she thought he was just playing nice, hard to say. (She suspected he probably knew some basic occlumency, so she couldn't check.) Maybe a couple tickets to a quidditch game? He could bring Pansy, she would like that. Not the quidditch, no, she thought it was boring, but her crush on Draco was so obvious — even to people who weren't cheater mind mages, she'd overheard the Hufflepuffs gossipping about it. (Kind of mocking Pansy a little, because it really was very obvious, and also it was Draco, so, why?) Not a bad idea, but she had a few days, she'd think about it.
Liz emptied out her bag, just dumping the packages on her bed. It'd all gone through the owl post, dropping them wouldn't break anything, she'd go through all this shite once she was back from whatever the fuck Daphne had planned. She met Daphne back where she'd paused to wait in the courtyard, and they started off.
At first, they just walked silently — Daphne had worked to keep up polite conversation with Severus, but she must know Liz well enough by now to know she didn't care for smalltalk, so. (Severus didn't either, actually, but Daphne only knew him from school.) Normally that would have been fine, but, well, maybe a distraction wouldn't be a bad idea. Even with all the shite all over the place in the Greenwood — and there was always something going on, weird buildings or weirdly-dressed people, chattering or playing unfamiliar games or whatever, and bloody plants everywhere, and nymphs, still wasn't used to that — Liz still found herself fighting not to stare.
Daphne was annoyingly pretty sometimes, and it really didn't help that she wasn't dressed normal. With her hair being all yellow and being just super pale in general, she seemed to go with deep, vivid colours, the contrast really sharp and eye-catching. And, well, there were bits of her body showing that wouldn't normally. No sleeves, sure, and the skirt was shorter, but then there was that whole shoulder, one strip on her side over her hip, a patch of her lower back just there...
It was distracting.
"Hey, what's the deal with the piercings? I've been meaning to ask." It'd occurred to her again, because she was following Daphne a half step behind, so Liz had noticed she had the line of them along her spine that most of the locals seemed to, colourfully dyed glass and glinting metal. Liz also knew she must have the ones following the curve of her hips down toward her groyne — one time she'd worn the local stuff such that one of the ones toward the top had shown, Liz only assumed, er, the pattern was the same she'd seen on other people rather less thoroughly dressed — and she couldn't help wondering what else there was. Daphne didn't have any facial ones, obviously (the Greengrasses were pretty much the only locals who didn't), but Liz had seen enough to know nipple pierces were very common...
And now she was thinking about Daphne's tits, she should probably try to avoid doing that.
While Liz scrambled to think unperverted thoughts, Daphne said, "It's an old Mistwalker tradition, all of the Clans do it. We assume there was a ritual purpose, once, but now it has become little more than a rite of passage. And also art — it can be quite beautiful."
Oh, well, she wasn't certain that was the word she'd use, but she wasn't arguing. Some of the locals she'd seen had done a lot of the fucking things, their faces practically half-metal, and more all over their bodies, all metal and glass, some with dangling bits or little chains stitching across... It was neat, that was all. "So it is a Mistalker thing. I haven't seen many piercings on mages before, most girls don't even have their ears done." In their study group, the muggleborns all did — excluding Hermione and Liz herself (who she argued should count) — and so did Padma, but she was the only magical-raised girl who did. Actually, Liz double-checked quick, and Daphne didn't have her ears pierced either, which was kind of funny.
"You might see it more often among the commons, but no, it's quite rare in the nobility, and the wealthier families close to them. They have an old superstition about it, ironically enough." Because the nobles themselves considered Mistwalkers to be backward superstitious primitives, she meant.
"What kind of superstition?"
While they continued on, pausing at a spot people had gathered in the Wheel to pick up some lunch, Daphne explained all that. It was sort of complicated, turned out. Back a few centuries ago, around the time of the Statute, there'd been ideas floating around about how the health of one's body affected one's magic — the thought had been that mutilating one's body would, naturally, mutilate one's capacity to channel magic as well. And it was complicated because that was actually true...to an extent. Lingering curse damage could interfere with someone's ability to properly cast spells — attempting to channel magic through curse scars generally didn't end well — and if someone were so unhealthy that they had trouble concentrating on what they were doing, well, obviously their spells would be much weaker. But, as much as there was a point there, piercings and tattoos and stuff were very superficial alterations, so didn't interfere with casting magic whatsoever.
In fact, if properly enchanted, they could even be a benefit. Not so much for wizardry, in most cases — for the same reason they couldn't interrupt magic being channelled inside someone's body, they couldn't boost it either — but it could help with some kinds of witchcraft. Enchantments to tweak the magic in the environment a little bit, so it could be more smoothly guided into whatever thing a person was doing, it was really subtle shite and kind of hard for Daphne to explain. The Mistwalkers assumed that was what the things had originally been for — the old priesthoods had done a lot of rituals and shite, and presumably the whole-body patterns and the jewellery had been designed to work with their rituals, to make them go more smoothly and amplify the effects.
They didn't actually know for sure — most of these kinds of things had been passed down orally, and there'd been a big disruption during the wars around the time of the Statute, a lot had been forgotten — but in the centuries since they had been trying to reverse-engineer some of it, to design shite to help with this or that kind of witchcraft. It was a slow process, though, and very delicate. All the jewellery was enchanted, normally just to promote quick healing, and to stop many of them from wandering or being pushed out (which Daphne said was a problem muggles had trying the same things), but mostly they just looked pretty.
They certainly did that. In fact, in a random, thoughtless impulse Liz nearly asked if she could maybe get some done while she was here, just for the hell of it, but she managed to stop herself. It was some special Mistwalker tradition or whatever, they'd probably say no. Besides, they looked like they'd be distracting, she might end up regretting it before too long.
Picking out food Liz could actually eat was always hit and miss, but it was rather easier with a local along. She transfigured a leaf pulled off a tree into a bowl for her soup, and also grabbed a... It was kind of like a cheese toastie, you know, a sandwich sort of thing — though unfortunately no bacon, cheese and mushrooms and beans and some kind of vegetable, dunno, which was fine, she guessed — but kind of battered all around and fried somehow? so it didn't drip stuff when you were trying to eat it, the rim of her bowl transfigured over to make a lid to put the sandwich on. Because she needed a hand to carry a mug of mead too, of course, though they had to go to a different spot to get that. (Dorea tasted it quick first to make sure it wasn't a really sweet kind.) Once that was all settled, they were off again, Daphne leading her to another one of the straight roads leading out of the Wheel.
Anyway, it was because of that superstition about piercings being equated with mutilation, and thus crippling people magically, that Daphne didn't have the facial ones. She still did the ones other places, since it wasn't like anyone who cared were going to see them, so. Daphne wished she could do the facial ones, since it was a big important cultural thing and everything, but the rest of the noble kids would be very judgemental about it, so unfortunately she couldn't. "That's ridiculous."
"I know, but there's nothing we can do about it."
"No, I mean, why don't you just do the piercings and shite anyway? They're obviously wrong about it being bad for your magic, so who cares?"
There was a flutter in her head, Daphne shot her a look — couldn't say what kind of look that was, maybe exasperated? "The impression the rest of the nobility have of my family is already...well. There's no reason to make it any worse for myself than it has to be."
She said that as though it were the perfectly obvious, self-evident thing to do, but Liz just gave her a flat look right back, because that was such shite. "Daphne, hate to break it to you, but people aren't going to just forget you're a mister, no matter what you do. If they're going to do their self-righteous condescending shite anyway, you might as well do whatever you want, and tell people who don't like it to go fuck themselves."
"I suppose, but avoiding that sort of gossip if possible is just...less aggravating on the day-to-day."
"How is people thinking, oh, look at the cute little Mistwalker, thinking she's a civilised person, how adorable, how is that any worse than what they might say if you're walking around with neat piercings in your face?"
Her pace slowing a little, head shivering with...something, Daphne silently blinked at her for a couple seconds. "That is a...good point. I never thought of it that way. I suppose it's not that much of a difference."
Personally, Liz thought she would find the condescension more annoying than people being stupid and wrong, but it wasn't her life. "I think if it were me, I'd do what I wanted and tell everyone who didn't like it go to hell, but I guess you're not me."
"Still, you have a point. I'll think about it, talk to Mother. Thank you, Liz."
"Um, sure, no problem, I guess."
This road reached the edge of the town rather quicker than the road to the owlery, but it was kind of funny-looking — along both the road they'd come in through and the one to the owlery, the density of buildings around had gradually tapered off, but here the town seemed to continue on like everywhere else before abruptly ending where the forest started. The path continued on, though narrowing somewhat, curling and rolling to weave between the trees, after a short distance the forest cutting off the low background noise in the town as effectively as a silencing ward.
Liz could see light ahead, glimpses of a clearing in the middle of the trees, when she started to feel something...weird. There was something funny on the ambient magic here, feeling louder and...deeper than normal somehow, an odd, tingly...something running up from her feet in little pulses. Liz wasn't an expert with this shite, she didn't even really knew how to explain it. Just that there was something big here.
It wasn't until they stepped into the clearing that Liz remembered: way back in September, Daphne had offered to show her the Gate.
The clearing was made of two circular sections, joined in the middle — almost like a figure-eight, though the spot in the middle didn't pinch together quite that much. In the middle of the circle nearer to them was a water fountain, made out of what Liz assumed must be glass. The main body at the middle was a dark, brownish blackish colour, a circular post with a bit of a curve to— No, not a post, it was a tree trunk, a few feet up splitting into a few different 'posts' and then splintering into a web of branches, transitioning into lighter shades of brown, the leaves dyed in vibrant greens, thin enough that they glowed from refracted sunlight. Here and there in the branches were white blossoms — Liz wouldn't have been able to tell before visiting the Greenwood that those must be apple trees. Beneath the branches were bushes and herbs and shite, displaying flowers in a variety of shapes and colours, just as detailed and life-like as the tree, here and there a glimpse of a rabbit or a fox or whatever else showing through, spouts and sprays of water sprouting out seemingly at random from this that and the other thing to splash down into the pool, filling the clearing with the gentle babbling of falling water.
The fountain was kind of seriously impressive, actually. It was very detailed, and so lifelike that when Liz spotted a bird up on one of the branches, she'd thought it was a real bird before she noticed it wasn't moving. It was definitely all glass, if she looked closely she could see everything was far too rigid, that the light didn't strike it quite right, but still, how the hell had they done that?
Scattered across the ground around the fountain — paved in ancient-looking greyish stone, lines of grass and stubborn little weeds poking through around the edges, occasionally broken with a patch of flowers or a tree — were statues of people, painted in vibrant, realistic colour. Liz could tell from here only some of them were human. Heroes of the Greenwood, apparently — Daphne said the Gathering (some kind of local government thing) could move to have one person or another memorialised at any time, though it required the unanimous consent of all the family groups here to be confirmed, so there weren't very many.
Making their slow way around the fountain, Daphne brought her to the first, pausing in front of it for a moment, explaining that this one was Cynddelw the Silent, one of the famous Bloodravens, Mistwalker warriors sworn to Gwenffrewi of Aberdyfi during her war against Ignatius Gaunt. He'd been one of the last true Mistwalkers, the people the term was originally meant to refer to — old Celtic warriors with some kind of magic tattoos to make them stronger and faster than ordinary people. They'd been so scary that the Romans had originally mistook them for some kind of bloody demigods or terrifying nonhuman beings or something, though as wands grew more common taking such extreme measures grew less and less worth it (apparently it was incredibly risky, the subjects dying horribly when it failed), the Bloodravens were supposedly the very last to ever exist. Daphne confirmed that, apparently knowledge of how to do it was on of the things that had been lost completely during the wars leading up to Secrecy. Cynddelw himself had died during the final battle at Hogwarts, according to the story succumbing to his wounds after fighting and killing one of Gaunt's basilisks (because he'd had several, fucking madman) — one-on-one, with his bare hands, because these people had been absolutely terrifying.
Liz stepped closer to the statue, squinting up at it. The man had rather dark blond hair, long curls held out of his face with a beaded headband (very similar to what some of the locals still wore today), beard let grow long and plaited through with more beads. He was in a tense sort of crouch, as though ducking a curse and prepared to leap into motion, a sword, an axe, and a pair of knives fixed to his belt, the strap of a quiver going over one shoulder, the end of a bow poking up next to his head. He was rather underdressed, wearing little more than a loincloth and a few bands of embroidered cloth looped over him here and there, like he'd just grabbed a few scarves and called it good, a sort of cloak thing draped over his shoulders, set at an angle, the opening over his shoulder so he could easily reach for arrows. Since he wasn't covered much, the magic tattoos were very obvious, arcing, twisting bands of green and blue and black and red, his natural skin tone only showing in patches, the lines seeming to force his face into a bloody, threatening glare.
The craftsmanship was absurdly lifelike, the colours and the drape of the cloth, if he wasn't maybe twice life-size (and hadn't any mind she could feel at all) Liz might have easily mistook him for a real person. In fact... "Can I?" she asked Daphne, reaching toward his hand, splayed fingers just touching the plinth. Daphne nodded, so she ran her fingers along the...ceramic, that was ceramic, cool and smooth to the touch. Liz traced over a spot where skin tone met a stripe of blue tattoo, but, there wasn't any seam, the material unbroken. "This is all one piece. How did you do that?"
"They didn't. A scaled-down model would have been made of wood, then cut into pieces by colour to use as references. The craftsmen shaped and fired the ceramic, coloured and polished, and fitted them all together; the pieces were then fused into one with a brief ritual."
"...Huh." Neat.
They moved on, Daphne pointing out this and that statue, a little bit explaining who it depicted. There were humans and nymphs, even a few fairies — one of them was the famous Morgen, Daphne claimed based on a real painting of her from her last known visit to Britain back in the Sixteenth Century. (Which was a good thousand years after her first known visit to Britain, but Avalonians supposedly didn't age, so.) From a distance, Liz had mistook her for another nymph — her skin was a light sky blue — but from close up it was obvious she wasn't. The clothes were a little weird — a knee-length skirt and a wrap around her chest, leaving her shoulders and stomach uncovered, over that a long cloak in an odd silvery colour (almost like Liz's invisibility cloak, sort of, though obviously not the same thing) — but the big tip-off was that her eyes and ears were noticeably too big for her too-long, too-narrow face. Nymphs were pretty close to human proportions, but that was definitely off. Looking at her hand, resting on the glittering silver-and-crimson grip of a sword at her hip (because of course), Liz noticed her fingers were too long and had an extra joint in each, like house-elves and goblins. She guessed they were all from the same world, so.
As they got further around the fountain, it turned out there were actually figures in there, a human and a nymph looked on by an Avalonian — a depiction of the semi-legendary founding of the Greenwood, Daphne explained, but Liz wasn't really paying attention. Because the Gate itself had come into sight now. Some couple dozen metres away, at the centre of the other circular section opposite the fountain, at the top of a shallow grassy hill, speckled at random with violets. It was a free-standing stone archway, plain and ancient and weathered, looked perfectly unremarkable. (Save for that it was standing at all, Liz was pretty sure arches didn't work like that.) But Liz could feel the power of its magic from here, those pulses running through her feet, deep and rhythmic and...
Like the earth was breathing, almost. Freaky.
Liz kind of wanted to go up there and touch it, but she had the feeling that would be a bad, bad idea.
They sat on the rim of the fountain pool, looking out toward the Gate. They ate mostly silently, hardly speaking a word — Liz didn't know about Daphne, but it felt...wrong, somehow, like just talking was disturbing something that definitely shouldn't be disturbed. At least partially because if it wanted it could probably squish Liz like a bug, which she guessed an actual Avalonian almost certainly could, so.
Though, in retrospect, Liz would figure Daphne had been quiet because her thoughts had been on something else.
Once their food was gone, they ended up talking about stuff to do with the Gate and fairies and the world they came from and whatever else, Liz sipping intermittently at her mead. Daphne knew a fair bit about fairies — on the other side of the Gate was what humans called Avalon, which was a kingdom with a parliament and everything (the famous Morgen legitimately was a fairy princess, it was a whole thing), given their technology level more in the sense of the modern UK than Dark Ages shite — supposedly their technology was even more advanced than the muggles', but they still used bladed weapons for magical and cultural reasons — and there were a bunch of other countries over there, which Daphne knew less about. Apparently they had a kind of UN-like international government...thing, though there were still wars and stuff sometimes, it was complicated.
Daphne didn't know shite about how the Gate worked. The arch itself wasn't the Gate, though it could act as a door between worlds when the Gate was open — technically, the Gate was the little hill and the clearing around it, they could appear anywhere here, the arch had just been put there to mark the spot and make the magic a little easier. But the fairies had built the Gate, before the Greenwood had even existed, no one on this side had any bloody clue how it worked. Which was a little disappointing, but oh well.
Supposedly, there'd been a Gate somewhere around London, but the Ministry had moved the archway to study it somewhere else. They'd managed to activate the arch, but of course it was separated from the Gate proper, and also it wasn't open on the other side, so all they'd accomplished was to make a hole in reality that didn't actually go anywhere. They were calling it the Veil of Death now, because what went in never came out and mages were superstitious weirdos like that.
While they talked, Liz was trying to, sort of, loosen up her mind-stuff, like when she did potions, kind of just spreading herself out and trying to passively pick up stuff. It was a little like listening to people's minds, but when she was doing that she focused on them in particular — this wasn't pointed in any specific direction, more passive than that. Kind of like listening to a group all at once, but again, not really. As hard as it was to even explain, she had gotten some practice with it brewing, so it wasn't so difficult to do anymore. Trying to get a better feel for the magic in the area, though she still couldn't say what it was that was so weird. It was just off, she didn't have any more specific thing to call it.
She was getting little tingling...things, what Liz knew by now were subtle divinatory nudges. They were so subtle, though, that Liz wasn't actually getting anything from them, which was honestly more frustrating than anything. Like someone whispering just at the edge of hearing, so she could hear that they were talking but not the actual words they were saying, distracting. And it didn't help that people were a lot noisier than ambient magic — there weren't a lot of people around, but there was Daphne right next to her, and occasionally Liz would catch a thought or feeling, though normally it was more fairy-related shite to supplement whatever she was saying out loud, sometimes kind of neat, but it wasn't—
Fingers light on Liz's knee, she slowly leaned over, lips touching soft and gentle and warm, they—
Liz leapt to her feet without thinking, abruptly almost painfully tense, keyed up like getting an electric shock, her heart pounding and— "What was that?"
Daphne blinked up at her, surprise and confusion dimly prickling along the edges of Liz's mind, hardly detectable through her own...whatever the hell was going on in her own head just now. "I'm sorry, what did I say?"
"You didn't say— You were— This!" she hissed, reaching into Daphne's head to wrench it back up, Daphne imagining kissing Liz playing out in front of her eyes again. Again, Liz's breath caught and her skin crawled, she took another step back, trying not to— She didn't know, she didn't know what was going on, but not good, certainly...
"...Liz, are you a legilimens?"
"Yes! Obviously! Answer the question!" A little bit of compulsion might have slipped into her voice, the back of her neck tingling — she hadn't meant to do that, but she found she couldn't really care just now.
Daphne cringed, a little, an odd strangled cough escaping from her throat. "I– I don't know what you want me to say, Liz. It was what it looked like."
Well, yes, obviously, she could see that, she meant— Liz forced herself to take a breath, long and shivering through her nose, her fists shaking at her hips — oh hey, her wand was in her hand, when had that happened...
"I'm sorry, Liz, I didn't mean to...make you uncomfortable." There was an odd shifty twinge in her head as she said that, since Liz was still in there she could see it clearly: Daphne didn't really feel she was in the wrong here, since Liz had been the one snooping in her head without her permission or knowledge, but also it wasn't actually a lie, because she did regret that Liz was...
Well, Daphne didn't have any better idea what to think of her reaction than Liz herself did. She felt weirdly shaky, magic sizzling in her veins ready to strike, jittery panic loud enough Liz was having trouble thinking straight — though she honestly had no idea why, it just— It wasn't like Daphne had actually done anything to her, but she didn't know what— "Is that why you brought me out here?"
There was an odd lurch in Daphne's head, surprise and...concern? "No, I didn't— I remembered we talked about the Gate back at school, I thought you would want to see it." It wasn't a lie.
Liz forced a long breath, trying to calm down, but it wasn't working very well, her wand still shaking at her hip and the noise in her head still too loud (she could probably use a calming potion about now, but she hadn't brought any). "Did you do all this, the holiday and everything because— Are you— What do you want?"
"...Liz, I don't know what you're trying to ask."
"What do you want from me?"
Daphne let out another funny little stuttering cough, the compulsion trying to draw the words out of her, her hand jumping over her mouth and her eyes squeezing shut. After a couple seconds her eyes opened again, giving Liz a flat sort of look with a flicker of irritation. No fear over the creepy mind magic fucking with her head, as she got from Tracey and Dorea now and then (and Hermione more rarely), just a little annoyed — more like Liz was just being a bit rude than anything.
She could be annoyed about it all she liked, but that Daphne fought so hard to not answer the question wasn't making Liz any less suspicious.
"I'm not planning anything nefarious, Liz. I thought you would like to see the Gate, nothing more. I invited you to the Greenwood for the holiday because I thought you would enjoy it, nothing more. I just wanted you to have a good holiday, to be happy. What you saw a moment ago, I didn't mean anything by it, it was an idle thought..." Liz picked up a wiggle of dishonesty, but apparently Daphne noticed it too, trailing off thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps not so idle — I do enjoy your company. But I wasn't about to actually kiss you. And if I were going to I would ask first. I really didn't mean anything about it, Liz, it was just a thought, honest."
Liz's first thought was that she was lying, but it didn't feel like a lie, she hadn't noticed anything, but also Daphne had fought off the compulsion, and maybe she was— Ugh, she didn't know! Rigid and tense, her fingers probably too tight around her wand, breath thick and hot in her throat, Daphne's eyes crawling on her skin like ants, her head was such a confused mess she could hardly– clearly Daphne had to be lying, she couldn't really be– whatever, but Liz had no idea what she could possibly want, why she would– so she had to be lying but it didn't feel like it, but she couldn't—
"Liz..." Daphne slowly rose to her feet, stepped closer—
"Stop!" This time the compulsion crashed home, Daphne abruptly wrenched to a halt, still staring at Liz, the nervous tingles running along her skin turning sharper (like wasps), her breath harsh with a subtle burn of lemon and bleach—
A strangled groan slipping through her teeth, Liz squeezed her eyes shut, tight enough she saw spots in the darkness, pressed the heel of her free hand hard against her forehead, desperately trying to keep herself from completely losing her shite in front of Daphne like a crazy person. Why the fuck was she freaking out so badly, nothing had even happened! Daphne wasn't going to hurt her — she wasn't much of a duellist, and she'd caved to that harder compulsion just now, Liz would flatten her in two seconds if she tried anything, there was no reason to— What the fuck was even wrong with her, she needed to—
Once she had at least a little bit of control over herself — her head was still a confused mess, Daphne's eyes still crawling on her skin like ants, but at least she couldn't taste Petunia's damn sanitiser anymore — she took a few more thick breaths, trying to clear her throat. "I don't... I need to go." Unsteadily, her legs too stiff and a little numb, Liz turned to start back around the fountain, not really thinking about where she was going so much (did she even know how to get back to the guest hall from here?), just, away.
"Liz, wait, I—"
Not turning to look, pointing back at her, "Stay away from me." She hadn't meant to use freaky mind-control superpowers again, but Daphne immediately stopped. Though, Liz belatedly noticed that she'd pointed back at Daphne with her wand — hadn't meant to do that, oops. (Maybe more threatening than she'd intended, but it'd worked, so she didn't honestly care that much.) Wrenching her wand away from Daphne, shakily returning it to its holster — the nerves along her back flaring, but there was no reason for that, she would feel a hex coming and could still stop Daphne with mind magic — she ground out, "Just, leave me alone, Daphne."
Without waiting for a response, Daphne's mind noisily clattering behind her, Liz walked away.
The further she got away from the clearing — walking numbly through the town, blind to her surroundings, as meaningless as the quiet chatter around her — the panic filling her head gradually tapered off, the painful tension in her limbs easing. Until she finally meandered to a halt in the middle of one of the Greenwood's streets (she had no idea where she was), staring down at the paving bricks in front of her feet. Inexplicably exhausted, and terribly confused.
She had no idea why she'd reacted like that. In retrospect, she'd been terrified, but that didn't make any fucking sense. Sure, Daphne had been imagining kissing her, and stumbling across that had been unexpected, and she couldn't really... Daphne must have been lying, somehow, or dodging around the truth. It was already kind of hard to remember the exact words she'd said — it might be worth double-checking all this in her pensieve later — but she was well aware all these noble types liked their word games and whatever, or maybe her occlumency was just good enough when she tried, fuck knows. It was fuzzy, but she thought Daphne had admitted it wasn't just an idle thought, which suggested she'd thought about it before, and Liz hadn't noticed, which was unnerving, and she didn't—
She thought Daphne had... She hadn't said it, but at least she'd implied that she liked Liz, like– but that couldn't possibly— Liz must have misunderstood, or she was lying somehow, or something. Most people barely tolerated Liz most of the time, and it was true that they'd been...more friendly lately — because of her part in getting Tracey away from her family, she'd assumed. Tracey, yeah, that was a thing, if Daphne had just wanted to show her the Gate and hang out, and hadn't meant to– wouldn't she have brought Tracey with too? Tracey was still at the Greenwood, so, that was...
Going back over it, Liz thought she could maybe, kind of, put together what she'd been thinking: Daphne couldn't possibly actually be thinking about kissing Liz just because, so she must have some kind of ulterior motive. But Liz couldn't imagine what that would be, and it was weird and unexpected and confusing, hence freaking out like a crazy person. She thought, maybe. It didn't help that she didn't like being touched, especially without warning — which didn't seem like too much to ask, that people not touch her without asking first, but she wasn't normal and it didn't occur to some people that they shouldn't — and that flash had felt very real for a second there (Daphne clearly had a vivid imagination), and even though she'd been feeling it from Daphne's perspective (since it was her mind) it'd still been seriously unnerving, and having that thrust on her had set her off even before she'd had long enough to think about why Daphne would—
Ugh, she really wished people would do a better job of keeping their thoughts to themselves sometimes. She realised this was an unreasonable thing to ask, since Daphne hadn't even known she was a mind mage before just now, but still.
Thinking over what had happened, Liz was starting to make herself nervous again, her neck tingling and her chest starting to tighten and— She didn't know, this whole thing was just unpleasant, she really didn't want to deal with it anymore. It was barely noon and she was so tired, she was, just, done for the day already. Which sounded kind of pathetic even in her own head, but, as Severus had said a couple weeks ago, people only had so much emotional energy, and that had been seriously unpleasant, and she was done. Burying herself back in the guest hall with a book for the rest of the day sounded like an excellent idea. Except she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going, she had no idea where she was. But that was fine, she could just ask someone for directions...
She was maybe halfway back to the guest hall when it occurred to her that, if there had been... Well, if she'd had any shot of anything happening with Daphne in the future, she'd probably just fucked it up. And theoretically, she might have liked to one day, though since her brain was such a fucking useless piece of shite she was nowhere near ready for even just dating or kissing or whatever, she was fully aware of that. Knowing that there was no way she could possibly do that until she was less crazy might be a good part of why she'd been so blind-sided just now, actually, it really wasn't something she was thinking about even a little bit.
Hell, she'd literally masturbated while thinking about Daphne, so, Daphne having idle thoughts wasn't even necessarily unwelcome...theoretically.
Theoretically, because Daphne couldn't possibly actually— Liz was, well, Liz. She was a bloody mind-reader, so she was well aware that people thought she was cold and strange and off-putting, people generally didn't enjoy her company, and Daphne was also in Slytherin, so she would have seen Liz in just the vest things, so she would know about the scars on her chest, and she also knew about the scars on her back — Liz still didn't know how that'd happened — and had even put together what they were from, more or less (due to comparing with Tracey, Liz assumed), and Daphne was– she couldn't actually— She had to be after something, that was the only way it made any sense — not that Liz could imagine what it was, so it didn't make that much sense — which was just confusing and frustrating, and—
Ugh, she was giving herself a headache. She hated this.
Walking back through into the courtyard of the guest hall, Liz let out an exhausted sigh — well, she'd been having a good holiday until just now, at least...
January 1994
"Are you prepared to leave?" Severus asked, as he stepped through the door into the sitting room. He'd changed out of his normal, muggleish, lazing-about-the-house clothes into yet another set of black robes — they all looked so similar, Liz honestly had no idea how many different ones he had.
"Yeah." Liz stuck in a spare bit of parchment to mark her page, set the book aside — one of Severus's, about the use of runes in blood magic, which was neat. She popped up to her feet, buttoning the stiff formal jacket closed over her nice robes. "We're apparating straight there?" They'd talked about that, that it'd likely be expected for them to floo, but Liz might not want her first time meeting the Malfoys to start with her tumbling arse over teakettle across their rug. She still hadn't gotten the hang of flooing yet, bloody thing...
"Yes. Do you have Draco's gift?" Come on, Severus, honestly, she wasn't that hopeless. Rather than verbally answer, she gave him a flat look, reached into her pocket and pulled the envelope up enough for him to see it before dropping it again. "All right." Severus stepped closer, within arm's reach — and then hesitated for a moment, watching her, his head hesitantly shifting. Trying not to look uncomfortable, Liz just stared back up at him.
Things had been a little awkward, the last few days. After the incident with Daphne, staying at the Greenwood had been terribly uncomfortable, she'd only managed a couple days before she'd asked Severus if they could go back to his house for the rest of the holiday — or maybe the school, whatever, she just didn't want to stay there anymore. Severus had asked if something had happened, but she hadn't wanted to talk about it. But, thankfully, he hadn't pressed the matter, they'd packed up and left that evening.
Because he was annoyingly perceptive like that — not really a surprise, he was the head of Slytherin — Liz suspected he'd guessed something had happened with Daphne. She had still been acting off when she'd gotten back to the guest hall, he'd noticed at the time, and he had picked up on her getting...distracted by Daphne at dinner their first night there, and— She was pretty sure he knew, at least in the broad strokes. And he'd tried to ask her about it a few times, not coming out directly but kind of talking around it, and she'd always avoided the subject, because she just didn't want to talk about it. He'd given up before too long, but...
It was awkward, that was all. Less awkward than staying at the Greenwood, but still.
Whatever he was thinking there, he seemed to dismiss it with a tiny, hardly audible sigh. "Remember what we discussed, before."
Somehow, Liz managed not to roll her eyes. "Don't go off alone, or with Lucius, try not to be a complete bitch to the hosts — yes, I remember."
"Funny, I don't recall one of those myself," Severus said, with a faint cool flutter of amusement.
"It's what you meant, I just took out the euphemisms. Honestly, Severus, I'm not a total mess, I can handle pretending to be relatively normal for a few hours."
Liz didn't know how to read that odd, lurching feeling, nor the hesitation right afterward — if she had to guess, Severus didn't like something about what she'd just said, but also didn't know what to say about it. Finally, "I don't recall asking that of you, either."
"Again, euphemisms. I know, you don't think I should talk about myself like that, I don't see the point in beating around the bush, we've talked about this. Are we going or not?"
His voice low and smooth, he insisted, "Working to shed yourself of the harmful views forced upon you by your abusers is not 'beating around the bush'." Liz cringed — she did not want to have another of their Liz-is-fucked-up-and-guess-what-it's-because-of-the-Dursleys conversations today (or preferably ever) — but thankfully Severus just held out his hand, for the apparation, seemingly willing to drop it for now. Right. Good, then.
A moment later, they landed with a crunch of boots against gravel. They were standing on a drive of crushed white stone, tiny bits of embedded quartz dimly winking in the wan winter sunlight, a few depressions in the surface from the passage of, shite, probably carriages and whatever. A lot of the land around was forested, tree branches bare and skeletal, save for a few clumps of buildings poking up here and there — where the Malfoys' vassals (including the Crabbes and Goyles) lived, she assumed — and a larger clearing where the manor itself stood, surrounded by gardens. The gardens were also mostly bare for winter, though there were some evergreen bushes here and there, a fountain somewhere off to the right was still running — Liz couldn't hear the patter of water from here, but she could see the jets, so.
There was a tall wrought iron fence just in front of them, though like the gates of Hogwarts there wasn't a wall extending to the sides, just the gate on its own supported by two pillars of the same white stone the path was made of — Severus had explained the one at Hogwarts marked a gap in the wards people could more easily move through, Liz assumed it was the same here. Liz had let go of Severus's hand once the apparation was over, but he paused right in front of the closed and barred gate, holding his hand out to—
Oh! Right, she wasn't keyed into the wards, got it. Taking his hand again, they walked straight through the gate, a wave of electric tingles running over her, the metal bars parting around them like mist — which was so neat. As they continued on, Liz glanced over her shoulder, saw that the gate had been entirely unaffected by them passing through. She was going to guess that if she hadn't been with someone who was allowed in, they would have seemed perfectly solid, but— That was so cool, she wondered how they'd done that...
The manor itself was also made of the same white stone, light enough that it caught the sunlight even through the cloud cover (or maybe that was magic). It was one of those funny buildings that kind of imitated the aesthetics of a castle, while actually not being one, with the towers toward the corners, the roofs with those jagged bits on them, which Liz was pretty sure were meant to shield defenders from arrows. These were probably too small to be used for that — though it was hard to tell for sure from this far away — but besides that, this definitely wasn't a proper castle — the walls of castles, generally speaking, weren't eighty per cent window. That much glass wasn't exactly very defensive, see. Just copied some of the aesthetic bits on castles without the function, because some people thought they were pretty, like Hogwarts — which was fair, the place did look kind of neat.
While they walked along the path, Liz noticed there were these white birds wandering around the gardens for some reason, concentrated to the right in the area around the fountain — probably a couple dozen, but they were moving around too much to count precisely. Didn't know what the deal with that was, but she guessed fancy noble types could be— Oh, those tails, they were albino peacocks! Albino animals were kind of a big deal in apothecary and potioneer circles — bits from albino animals tended to have far fewer magical impurities and unwanted properties, very useful for the more sensitive potions — but they were very hard to breed in any significant numbers, since the albino trait tended to come tied with other health problems. Feathers were especially prized, though Liz didn't actually know why (probably some useful potion they were good for), but she did know enough to realise that the Malfoys having even that many was special.
...Draco had mentioned that his father played around with animal husbandry in his spare time. It looked like he actually knew what he was doing, who would have figured.
The front entrance of the manor kind of stuck out a little bit, stretching up overhead into a blocky little tower — Liz had seen enough pictures of real castles to assume it was trying to imitate a gatehouse. The double doors were tall, but not overly tall, the groundskeeper might have to duck his head to get through it. Liz had initially mistook the doors themselves for more stone, but as she got closer she realised they were wood, but somehow made an unnatural white. At least, she assumed it wasn't just painted, the little delicate flowery carvings along the surface (like the trim on old fancy buildings) looked too fine to have a layer of paint on it, but Liz had no idea how else they might have managed that. Well, magic, she guessed, but still.
There was a knocker built into it, a short moment after banging on the thing the right-hand door was pulled open a crack, someone peeking out at them before opening it the rest of the way. The person who opened the door was a young woman, just out of school age, and wasn't a Malfoy — she was a human servant, apparently, which was odd, Liz had thought that's what house-elves were for. While the woman welcomed "Master Severus" and "Lady Elizabeth" to the manor, Liz decided, to hell with it, pushed out a thought into the air around Severus's head: I thought mages used house-elves for this kind of thing.
There was a brief pause, Severus not answering until after the woman accepted his cloak. It's considered terribly rude to have an elf greet guests at the door. If you're visiting someone and they have an elf take your cloak, assume you're being insulted.
...Okay. Good to know, she guessed.
Still carrying their things folded over an arm (presumably she'd drop them off somewhere later), the woman started leading Liz and Severus through the building. The entrance hall was just as white as the outside, probably made out of the same stone and polished to a shine, silver glinting on light fixtures and other decorative bits here and there, parts of the floor covered with long rugs woven in colourful geometric patterns. There was a grand staircase ahead, also white and silver, ascending halfway up before splitting in two and curving off to either side. They weren't led up the stairs, instead cutting to the right through another pair of double doors, these hanging open. The hallway beyond was also very pale — the centre third of the stone floor was covered with an absurdly long sky blue rug, but the walls were more of the unnaturally white wood, the trim along the floorboards and ceiling and around doors leading off to both sides done in more blue accented here and there with glinting silver.
Liz was beginning to sense a theme.
The hallway eventually ended in a T, the woman turned to the left, toward the back of the manor — this hallway was no different than the previous one, though she noticed there were only doors on the left side now. After a bit of walking, the hallway opened up into what was obviously a sitting room of some kind, more blue and white and silver. It was vaguely circular — or octagonal, looked like — bookshelves and portraits along the left-side walls, the carpeted floor arrayed with sofas and chairs and tables and such. The right side of the room stuck out into the grounds just a little, and the walls there were mostly made out of window, from knee-height all the way to the ceiling, a ring of padded benches set along the rim. In the middle of that segment was a table ringed with chairs, already set with a few plates and cutlery, apparently where they'd be having lunch.
"Ah, Severus!" A woman in a light blue dress was sweeping toward the door to greet them, black hair long and curly, her long, narrow face pulled into a bright smile, dark eyes glimmering. She was really pretty, honestly, skin flawless and features dramatic and striking, Liz was trying not to notice. Liz was about ninety per cent certain that was Draco's mum — she'd seen pictures but they'd never met in person, and so many of the purebloods looked practically the same, so.
That certainty ticked up to a hundred when Severus was greeted with cheek kisses, which was bloody weird to watch — she guessed they were friends, but still, what the hell? Though Severus was tall enough Narcissa had to tip up onto her toes to reach, which was honestly a little funny to watch. Liz wasn't sure if she felt more like gaping or laughing.
Liz was first introduced to Narcissa, as she was told she should be calling her — which was a little awkward, Draco's mum really was distractingly pretty, hopefully Liz staring wasn't obvious to anyone else — and then they were led further into the room, toward where a woman was sitting on an armchair and a man an adjacent sofa. The man was Draco's dad, Lucius — long, straight, unnaturally white hair, with the same high brow and long nose and pouty lips Draco had inherited, wearing trousers and a button-down shirt in blue and white, which seemed oddly casual for fancy magical nobility, but Liz guessed they were in his house — who was acting polite enough, but Liz didn't think she was imagining the attentive looks he kept giving her, occasionally flicking to Severus, probably trying to figure them out. The woman was Lucius's mum, Melete — her hair a brownish-blonde (Liz wondered what Lucius's natural hair colour was, the white was a glamour Lucius and Draco used for some unexplained reason), wearing a green dress in a rather more old-fashioned style, the skirt and sleeves long, clinging almost corset-like around her middle. She didn't look old enough to be Draco's grandmother — there were lines visible around her eyes, but she didn't really look any older than, say, Petunia — but mages aged slower than muggles, Liz still wasn't used to that.
Though, she had had Lucius really young. Preparing for the trip to the Malfoys', Severus had explained that Draco's grandfather had accidentally knocked up his grandmother when they'd been still been in Hogwarts, maybe fourth or fifth year (Severus didn't remember exactly). They'd had the magical nobility equivalent of a shotgun wedding and everything, it'd been a big scandal at the time. They'd gotten on well enough for long enough to have a second kid some years later — Lucius's sister had married out and publicly distanced herself from the family's politics, they hadn't spoken in years — but as Abraxas got deeper into Death Eater shite their marriage had badly soured, they'd hardly tolerated each other's presence toward the end. With Abraxas dead (from Death Eater shite), a lot of the tension had supposedly gone out of the household...except for Melete and Narcissa not liking each other, of course, though Severus hadn't explained why that was. Point was, even with Lucius being a handful of years older than Narcissa, Melete didn't just look it, she was actually a little young to have a grandchild Draco's age.
And Draco was in here too, quietly waiting for the introductions to get out of the way. Once that was over with, the adults quickly falling into a boring conversation — something about some recent event, Liz neither knew nor cared — Draco stepped up toward her. He was dressed a lot like his dad, trousers and button-down long-sleeved shirt, though his were in darker colours, black and blue. With one of those little nods the purebloods did, he said, "Hello, Liz. Happy new year."
Liz knew there was a more formal version of that he was supposed to use, the adults had all just been saying it a minute ago (something about good fortune in this season of blah blah, pompous nonsense), but obviously he knew she didn't give a damn. She opened her mouth to answer, but someone beat her to it. "Draco," Melete said, a hint of reproach on her voice, head flickering with frustration, "you know better than to address a lady with anything short of her full name."
"It's fine, Lady Melete, I actually prefer 'Liz'." Draco's grandmother gave her a glance, made a doubtful, disdainful sniff, then turned back to their conversation. Okay, then. "Right, hello, Draco. Before I forget, this is yours," holding out the envelope. "I meant to send this to you for Yule, but with everything going on..." Liz vaguely gestured in Severus's direction, implying it was all the shite with the trusteeship that had distracted her. "Yeah, I forgot to send them. Sorry."
As he accepted the envelope, Liz noticed his eyes flick toward his mother — Narcissa was keeping an ear on them, listening in without making it obvious she was, Liz wouldn't have known without mind magic. She'd caught from Draco before that his mother was on his arse about his manners sometimes, and there had been that thing with his grandmother a second ago, so, probably considering how to respond. "That's alright, Liz, I understand. Are Dumbledore's people making trouble for you and Uncle Severus?"
Woah, that was weird, Draco called him "Professor Snape" at school, like everyone else. "Um, a little bit, I guess. Apparently someone left the Aurors an anonymous tip that— Well, I don't know what it was, honestly, could have said he was secretly sacrificing babies in forbidden rituals to forgotten dark gods for all I know." Draco's lips twitched, his head fluttering with amusement. "Anyway, he was interviewed by the Aurors, but just the once, nothing came of it. And apparently someone sent a petition to the Child Welfare people to try to claim custody of me for themselves, but it was dismissed immediately. That's really it, so far."
"Of course someone tried that. Did they tell you who?"
"Ah, the Carmichaels, I think. The letter I got didn't say who specifically."
Draco let out a little scoff, all but rolling his eyes. "The Carmichaels are Dumbledore sycophants. I'm not surprised they tried something underhanded." Going through proper channels at the Ministry was hardly underhanded, but okay. "May I?" he asked, holding up the envelope.
She was confused for a blink, but she guessed fancy noble people probably thought it was rude to open this kind of shite right in front of people. "Oh sure, go ahead."
Not that there was a whole lot to find in there. She'd written a generic letter, using the ones she'd gotten from not-really-friends as models, and of course there were the quidditch tickets. Buying tickets for quidditch games ahead of time was actually kind of a pain, but she'd eventually found these things — each of them were good for three games at the Tornadoes' home pitch, apparently when coming in the attendant would mark them somehow, she didn't know how that worked. Just one game hadn't seemed like enough, given they weren't that expensive and also she'd completely forgotten Christmas (though Draco had seemingly believed her lie about why), three was a happy medium. They only worked for home games, but she doubted Draco would care.
In fact, he smiled a little when he found the tickets, a faint ringing in his head. "Mother, Liz bought me Tornadoes tickets," he said, holding them up for her to see.
"I see, how thoughtful." Glancing to Liz, "We've followed the Tornadoes for years, you know — Draco and I were there for their League wins in Ninety and Ninety-One, in fact."
"Yeah, Draco told me about that." Well, he'd mentioned that he followed the Tornadoes, she hadn't known Narcissa went to the games with him...though she guessed he would have to go to the games with someone. "I guess you two can go, but actually I was thinking you would take Pansy."
"Oh ha ha," Draco drawled, cheeks pinking a little as his mother and grandmother smirked, Lucius's mind flicking with exasperation (he didn't approve of Pansy?), "very funny, Liz."
"I thought so, but I'm told I'm a humourless cold witch—" She'd almost said "bitch", barely caught herself. "—so what do I know."
Draco huffed. "You're not humourless. Your humour is bloody weird, I'm pretty sure you're the only person in the world who thinks you're funny, but it does exist."
"Severus thinks I'm funny. So does Miles."
"You're not helping your case, Liz."
Fair enough.
They just hung around talking for a while, sort of broken into two groups, the adults discussing current events and politics and shite, she and Draco...mostly quidditch, honestly — they didn't have much in common, quidditch was a safe topic. After some minutes another guest arrived, which Liz at least hadn't expected. Irénée Rosier — tall and blonde, her hair unusually short for a mage, in magical-style trousers and long-sleeved tunic that Liz realised was professional dress of some kind — was a relative of Lucius's through his grandmother (the same Éloïse Malfoy the original Tamsyn had had threesomes with), and also a more distant relative of Narcissa's through her mother (apparently Narcissa and Lucius were like third or fourth cousins or something), and also Draco's godmother. It'd slipped Liz's mind that Draco would also have a godmother, but in her defence the topic didn't come up very often (Liz assumed she must have a godmother too, but she didn't even know who), and also it didn't matter, so whatever. In case the name didn't give it away, Irénée was actually French — she did speak English, but she had a pretty obvious accent.
At one point, Draco explained that Irénée was an artificer, and occasionally entered duelling tournaments for the hell of it, which explained the clothes and the hair. (Also, she was a dyke, had been living with a woman for going on seven years now and everything, but Draco didn't say that part out loud.) That was kind of neat, but Liz didn't actually care, she doubted she'd ever meet Irénée again.
...Heh. She was bent, a (part-time) professional duellist, and an artificer — so, Draco's godmother was basically Liz fifteen years in the future. That was kind of funny.
Eventually, they moved over to the table, and lunch happened. The food was brought in — by more human staff, weirdly (come to think of it, wasn't there something about house-elves not being seen?) — but the tea was actually poured by Narcissa, kind of making a whole thing of it, which was weird. Liz was guessing it was some classy cultural thing she hadn't been around enough fancy people to pick up yet. It was a pretty light lunch, finger sandwiches and biscuits and shite, because apparently New Year's Eve was a day people had parties with big feasts and dancing and whatever, it was expected that they didn't need much the day after.
People were supposed to just grab whatever from the platters in the middle of the table, though there were actually separate plates for Irénée, who had some kind of unstated dietary restrictions (hers was mostly raw fruit and cheese), and also Liz. Apparently Severus had warned the Malfoys ahead of time that Liz didn't eat sweet things — and that wasn't a guess, Liz had accidentally caught the (very faint) thought from Narcissa's head when she skipped over asking if Liz wanted sugar in her tea — so she had her own stuff, which was surprisingly nice of them, honestly. She preferred coffee, but the tea was fine, and she had a...scone kind of thing, didn't know what to call it exactly, which was a little dry but fine, there were these herby cheeses on little...rye cracker things, and nuts that had been encrusted with salt and spices, mostly cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, maybe, and holy crap, these things were really good, actually...
Liz was dragged into talking a bit, the sort of nonsense basic polite questions she'd noticed adults liked to ask children. How did she like Hogwarts, what classes was she taking, what did she do for fun, that sort of thing — nothing really personal or intrusive, it wasn't a huge imposition to, just, play along. It helped that, obviously, Draco was in all of the same core classes (both being Slytherins, even in the same sessions), plus Runes class, and was also on the quidditch team and in the duelling club, so if she played her cards right he would take over babbling for a while, didn't have to try to keep it up herself. He actually talked about her playing quidditch more than Liz herself did, going off on how her stupidly reckless flying (per Severus) worked in their overall strategy, on for some minutes like a complete sport nut. Of course, since she kicked his arse in the tournament (ha ha) he wasn't also on the duelling team, so she had to talk about that one herself, but they hadn't even had their first meeting yet, so there was really nothing to talk about.
Yeah, Irénée, she might do shite with the League after school, depends, too far away to say for sure. Of course she was going to go for a Mastery (mostly because she couldn't imagine what else she would do), um...something Runes-related or Potions, maybe? Again, too early to say. No, Severus wasn't trying to push her into Potions, it'd always been one of her best classes, honestly...
Thankfully, that part of the conversation was over before too long — she was getting a few odd looks from the adults, Liz had the feeling that they hadn't expected the Girl Who Lived to be kind of boring, actually (Draco thought it was as funny as she did) — and then it was all politics and gossip and shite, where Liz really had nothing to contribute, so. She'd get pulled in now and then by Draco, more quidditch shite or gossip about their classmates or whatever, but it wasn't so bad. Kind of boring, but Liz had definitely had more uncomfortable meals before.
After the food was mostly gone, they ended up, just, lazing about, chatting and sipping at tea and slowly picking away at the remaining biscuits. Liz stayed at the table, mostly so she could more easily look out the window. There wasn't a whole lot to see, but there were bushes and, like, statues and shite over there, the forest in the distance, not super interesting to look at but better than the room — Liz assumed poking through the bookshelves would be rude. Draco hung around — she got the feeling he was grateful to have someone his own age around, for once, even if Liz wasn't the greatest conversationalist in the world — mostly more quidditch talk, and a bit about the Sirius Black situation.
Apparently Draco knew that Sirius was innocent too, at least of the Death Eater, betraying-Liz's-parents-to-the-Dark-Lord part. Liz hadn't seen that coming, though she really should have. His mum and Sirius were close cousins, and were around the same age, so they would have known each other really well...and also his dad, at least, had been a Death Eater — Liz had never actually heard one way or the other whether Narcissa had been, at least not for certain, just rumour and innuendo — so obviously he would know if Sirius were one of them. Draco didn't actually say that part out loud (but he did think it), but still. He claimed that, from what Narcissa had told him of Sirius, anonymously sending her a Firebolt for Christmas was exactly the sort of thing he would do — also, she had a Firebolt now? Could he try it out? (She had already gotten a reply from Ellerby and Spudmore saying they'd sent the thing directly, so it shouldn't have been tampered with, so sure, why not? It wasn't like she had any use for the thing anyway.) She should definitely bring it with next time she visited, they could fly around for a bit, work on their cross-passes, it'd be fun...
Liz was slightly blindsided that Draco took it for granted there'd be a next time...but, she guessed with how magical nobles figured kinship, since Severus was her guardian and his godfather, Draco was kind of her, like, stepbrother or something now, and fuck, that was a weird thought...
As unsettled as she was by that realisation, she was kind of thankful when Narcissa came over and tried to get her attention. "Oh, sorry, what was that?"
With a little amused smile, Narcissa repeated, "Severus suggested you might like the library. I could show you around, if you like?"
There was a clattering of surprise in Draco's head, only barely showing on his face, though Liz didn't know what that was about. She guessed nobles could be pretty funny about their— Oh! Something about the way Narcissa asked had told Draco he wasn't supposed to come with, that Narcissa wanted Liz on her own. Right.
That was a little weird, Liz guessed. Not that showing her the library was really that suspicious on its own (except for how nobles could be about their libraries and things), but there was... Well, Severus had warned her not to go off alone with Lucius. He hadn't said anything like that about Narcissa, and she had gotten the impression they were friends, and it didn't feel like Narcissa was scheming in there, but...
Reaching out toward where Severus was talking with Lucius and Melete, Liz pushed out, Hey, Narcissa wants to show me the library, alone. He twitched a little, his eyes flicking in her direction. He didn't say anything, but she did pick up a feeling — far louder than Severus usually was, must be projecting it on purpose — a sort of smooth and warm... Approval, that's what that was. "Right, okay."
The walk to the library passed mostly quietly, Narcissa not trying to fill the air with meaningless chatter like most people seemed to want to — but then, she was friends with Severus, she was probably already used to people who were bad at that shite. Apparently the library was on the second floor, though they didn't backtrack to the stairs in the entrance hall. Through the opposite end of the octangular sitting room the hall continued on, after a bit of walking there was a doorway on the right side — no actual door in the frame, just an opening in the wall — leading into a little circular room, which Liz guessed was one of the tower things she'd noticed from outside. Up a spiralling staircase to the first storey, some more walking down halls, first to the left and then turning right at a T junction — this was right on top of the sitting room, Liz thought — toward the centre of the building, some more walking...
Eventually there was a set of double doors set into the hallway, and on the other side the decor abruptly changed — darker colours, blue and black, still a little silver in the light fixtures, but a bit easier on the eyes. They passed through another sitting room — this one looked a little more lived-in, furniture set at less rigidly-symmetrical angles, papers and a magazine in uneven stacks on a side-table, a pair of dark leather gloves set on the arm of a chair (she instinctively knew those were Lucius's, Seer shite) — and not far past there they finally stepped into the library.
And "library" was the correct word — in terms of scale, it was less like Severus's and more like the Potters'. The carpeted floor was in a blue and white chequered pattern, the bookshelves mostly that funny white wood all over the place here, not just along the walls but also in free-standing rows stitching across the room. Though, the shelves weren't straight — the whole room was actually circular — arcs of shelves splitting the room up into segments, writing desks and chairs and sofas set up in little nooks here and there. From the entrance, there was a hallway that shot straight across, meeting another at right angles in the middle, where stood a pedestal with a big, thick, handwritten book that Liz knew from her visit to Clyde Rock would have listed every book in the library and where it should be — there were little silver plaques here and there on the shelves with numbers, to help find things.
The most interesting part of the room itself was probably that the ceiling was entirely glass. Well, mostly glass, there were supports (more white wood), making a web criss-crossing overhead, the spars occasionally meeting at the top of a pillar stretching up past the shelves here and there. There must be some kind of enchantment on the glass (no, probably carved into the wood), because the entire library was filled with soft, pleasant yellow light, reminding Liz of the guest hall back at the Greenwood — had they done some kind of elemental sunlight thing too, to make it easier to read wherever? Would it still work at night? Because, it was a cloudy day, Liz didn't think it should be this consistently lit in here...
Anyway, Narcissa wandered around, explaining that this nook was history and literature, and this nook over here was natural sciences, and then there were potions and healing and blood magic and such over here, and so forth and so on. Liz was a little surprised Narcissa was just like and here are the blood magic books, but she guessed blood magic wasn't completely one hundred per cent illegal, so that wasn't necessarily an odd thing to do — if she pointed out soul magic books, then yeah, that would be a bit much. (Liz was a hypocrite, of course, she was just saying.) And then they had a graphic arts section, you know, enchanting and wardcrafting and stuff, Liz asked for permission before poking about the shelves a little. There was a lot of French and Latin, unsurprisingly, but there was plenty of English too, some of the books bloody ancient-looking — not as old as some of the ones toward the top of the tower at Clyde Rock, but still — and a lot of them were, like, academic books, thick explanatory text with breaks here and there for strings of runes, which Liz had already learned was what most higher-level Arithmancy and Runes books looked like, which could be kind of hard to— Ooh, integrated subsumption enchantments, neat!
Narcissa was mostly quiet while Liz poked around — you could make defensive enchantments that powered themselves by subsuming incoming hexes, that was so cool — for long enough that Liz was a little startled when she spoke. "Severus asked me for advice. I hope you won't be cross with him — as much experience as he has with young women after a decade at Hogwarts, he has never acted as a primary guardian before."
...Okay. Liz glanced up from her book, to find Narcissa looking through one herself (couldn't see the cover from here), leaning against the back of a chair. There was something shifty going on in her head, whatever this was about was definitely the real reason Narcissa had wanted her alone. Trying to push down a flare of nervousness — she really wished Severus would ask her before talking to people about her shite — she asked, "What did he talk to you about?"
Still not looking up at Liz, she didn't answer right away, casually turning a page. After some awkward seconds, Narcissa said, easy and smooth and calm, "Your mother and I were lovers."
Liz jumped, nearly dropping the book in her hands — that was not something she'd expected to hear today. "What? You mean... Like, really?"
Narcissa's lips twitched a little, amused. Which, okay, fair enough, that hadn't been particularly articulate, but come on, just... "Yes. For a time in fourth year — that is, my fourth year, her fifth — and then briefly two years later, while we were both in the senior duelling team."
"...I have no idea what to say." She'd already known Lily was bent, she had that photo with her kissing Cassie Lovegood — though obviously she'd ended up with James, so maybe she was both? Dunno. She hadn't given much thought to who her mother had been shagging — Lily had been dead for over a decade, it wasn't like it made any difference anymore — but she definitely wouldn't have figured she would have done anything with Draco's m— "Hold up a second, aren't you, um..." Calling the hostess a crazy racist arsehole was probably rude. "Lily was muggleborn."
With an odd flicker in her head — quiet, Narcissa's occlumency was quite good — Narcissa let out a little sigh and glanced up from the book, meeting Liz's eyes for the first time since letting Liz poke through the shelves. "Didn't Severus tell you anything about the Knights of Walpurgis?"
"Ah, no, not really. He doesn't like to talk about back then."
"I see. It is truly a very complicated subject, and quite afar from what I meant to speak with you of. There was a greater diversity of thought among us than most outside the movement assume. Yes, we wish to resurrect practices that have been suppressed over the centuries, and rediscover magics that have been forgotten, to resist the encroachment of muggle culture and ideology; there was some dissent as to why we must do so, and how it is to be accomplished." Liz wondered whether Narcissa realised she was speaking of the Death Eaters in first person. Probably. "So long as muggleborns adapt to the new world they find themselves in, and do not attempt to change us to suit their sensibilities, than I have no qualms with welcoming them into our country."
...Right, hadn't Bulstrode said something like— Oh, he'd also said he was in Narcissa's faction, she'd kind of forgotten about that. Huh.
"I only met Lily back in second year because she and Severus were looking for someone to teach them to fit in — proper etiquette, the stories and practices they wouldn't have grown up with. It was truly Lily who introduced me to Severus in the first place. To be honest, it seemed to me that Lily was quite determined to leave her life in Cokeworth as far behind her as she possibly could." Given she grew up in the same shitty town Severus had, Liz couldn't say she was particularly surprised. "That you came to be at all should tell you all you need to know about what kind of muggleborn your mother was. Or did you think Lily would ever have been considered an acceptable wife for a Lord of the Wizengamot if she hadn't made a determined effort to adopt the culture of her new country for her own?"
"...I guess not." Tracey's mum had kind of done the same thing, and she wasn't particularly, er, muggleish either, and... "I hadn't thought about it, honestly."
Narcissa let out a little hum, turned back down to her book, casually turned another page. "But that's not what I meant to speak with you about. And I do apologise, I realise this must be terribly uncomfortable for you. I thought the blow might be lighter if I mentioned my relationship with your mother, before admitting that Severus has reason to believe that you enjoy women, and suspects that you are harbouring some shame over it."
Liz almost had to laugh at the euphemism — almost, because she did not want to talk about this, her stomach lurching and her hands tightening on the book and Narcissa's eyes already crawling on her skin like ants. Which was especially annoying, because she wasn't even looking at her, stupid... "He s— Ugh, I wish he hadn't..."
"He's concerned, and doesn't know how to help," she said, smiling a little, with a twitter in her head Liz didn't know how to read. "It's quite sweet, honestly."
...If she said so.
With another indistinct flicker of feeling, Narcissa gently folded her book closed, looked up again. "It's all right, Elizabeth. I'm hardly likely to tell anyone of your private matters — I have nothing to gain from doing such a thing, and I've already promised Severus I wouldn't. He only spoke to me of it because he knows about my own preferences, so knew I would be a sympathetic person you could talk to." She straightened from her leaning pose, and started moving to reshelve her book.
Okay, she could kind of understand that, in the abstract, but she still wished he hadn't done it. "Fine, I'm not angry with him." Not really, anyway. "But I still don't want to talk about it."
"Fair enough. We needn't just now if you're not comfortable." Narcissa didn't reach for another book, looking back at Liz from a few metres away, her hands folded behind her back — Liz suspected she'd only gotten a book in the first place as a prop, so Liz wouldn't feel like she was being watched, because Slytherins are bloody sneaky like that. With a soft, friendly smile, "It is enough for today that you know you can talk to me if you do someday wish to. Lucius doesn't open post addressed to me. If you haven't any questions, we may return downstairs now. Or if you would like to collect yourself first, I can leave you to read for a few minutes."
...
Well, since Narcissa had already cornered her anyway...
She meant, she'd stopped feeling so nervous pretty much the instant Narcissa had said they could go back — she didn't really want to talk about this, but she definitely didn't want to be forced to talk about it (she hated feeling trapped) — and they were alone, and it hadn't felt like Narcissa was lying when she'd said she wouldn't tell anyone. And she was kind of wondering, "I don't know... Is it...common? I mean, there's you—" Liz nearly mentioned Irénée, before remembering she wasn't supposed to know that. "—and Lily, and Cassie Lovegood, and Ailbhe Greengrass, and there's Emily Scrimgeour and her girlfriend, er, Deidre, I think? So, you know..."
"Deirdre Nic Cormaic — those girls..." Narcissa trailed off and shook her head, as though disapproving, but she wasn't quite covering the faint curve to her lips or twitter of amusement in her head. "And common, well, I suppose it depends on what you would call 'common'. From what I have seen, one in twenty, perhaps as many as one in ten. No one has ever done a proper accounting, so I can't say for certain. Your mother enjoyed both men and women, which I suspect is rather more common than women alone — though again, I don't know for certain." She smiled a little. "It sounds like you've simply had good luck."
"...Oh." So, maybe it was still a freakish thing, but it least it wasn't an exceptionally strange freakish thing. Still weird, Liz was even a little unnerved by her own...whatever, but.
"Elizabeth, I understand that— Well." Narcissa cut herself off, her eyes flicking away for a second. "I've heard that muggle culture can be quite intolerant when it comes to any number of things. Institutional Christianity has some very peculiar ideas about love, which have become deeply ingrained among the muggles of Europe. Perhaps muggles like us must keep their preferences a shameful secret, but it is not so here. It is not something to be ashamed of, not in the slightest.
"That I enjoy women is not a secret — ask most of our peers, and they will tell you as much. And yet I am a respected figure in our society, a sitting member of the Wizengamot, and even — if you will allow me a brief moment of flagrant immodesty — among the most powerful individuals in the entirety of our country. One does not preclude the other."
"...Oh. Okay." That did make sense when she thought about it. It was...
Well, obviously mages weren't actually freaks, the Dursleys were just wrong about that one, like they were about a lot of things. (They weren't wrong about Liz being a creepy devil child, when it came to childhood mind mages both muggles and mages agreed on that one, but magic in general, no.) Liz had kind of thought... It could be hard to tell sometimes, what was just a Dursley thing and what was an everyone thing. Unless Narcissa was fucking with her — which, it didn't feel like she was, though her occlumency was good enough Liz wasn't one hundred per cent certain she'd be able to tell — this was another thing the Dursleys had been wrong about. So. Yeah, good to know.
She did still feel weird about it, but it'd taken a while for Liz to stop feeling... "Guilty" wasn't quite the right word. Whatever, point was, it'd taken Liz a little while to stop feeling weird over the being magic thing. In retrospect, she'd kind of just accepted the Dursleys' opinion that she was an evil...whatever, but since she'd been able to make Vernon stop she hadn't actually cared — she would rather be a monster than go back.
Thinking about it, she realised that was probably the same reason she didn't really care about people talking about how she was obviously an evil dark witch and, well, the silly rumours some of the kids at school passed around, like little kids giggling over ghost stories. And also Ronald's insistence that she'd murdered his sister too, really. It wasn't the suggestion that she was a murderer that bothered her — if anyone believed him, maybe she'd be worried about being arrested (she wouldn't survive a week in Azkaban), but nobody important did, so — if he would just leave her the fuck alone she doubted she would care.
When people annoyed her directly about all that, that bothered her, but that some people thought she was a monster really didn't. She'd long ago accepted that she was.
(She heard a faint echo of Severus saying something about beliefs forced on them by their abusers, but ignored it, as usual.)
So, her liking girls was just like that, kind of — but even less so, because mages cared about that less than they did her being an evil dark witch or whatever. All that shite didn't bother her, so there was no reason liking girls should. Might take her a while to internalise the idea, but yeah, she'd try to remember, good.
She was still annoyed with Severus for talking to Narcissa about it without asking first — he'd probably guessed she would tell him no, the clever bastard — but she wasn't going to hold it against him too much, at least.
"Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't any concerns to mind," Narcissa was saying. "You are the last remaining Potter, so the pressure to marry will be...quite intense."
"Yeah, Severus told me about that already. I was thinking of adopting. You know, adults? So they can do the whole keeping the family going...thing...and people will leave me alone about it."
For a second, Narcissa just blinked at her — there was a stuttering flare of something in her head, Liz couldn't tell what. Whatever it was, her voice was still perfectly smooth and calm when she said, "That may work well enough. There are certain more conservative elements of our society who might find the thought quite charming. Though, keep in mind that the rights of whatever heir you choose will certainly be challenged by a Light family close to the Potters — the Fawleys, the Carmichaels, probably not the Longbottoms...perhaps the Atwells or the Greys..."
"For fuck's sake, how many cousins do I have?" Liz didn't realise she'd just cursed until after she'd already made it all the way to the end of the sentence. "Er, sorry..."
Narcissa just smiled, dark greyish eyes reflecting the amusement simmering in her head. "Close cousins, very few — besides Draco, young Lady Dorea, and Nymphadora Tonks, I can't think of any offhand. More distant relatives, well, the nobility are very interconnected." Her smile ticked a little wider, slanting slightly toward a smirk. "Due to long centuries of our ancestors all fucking each other, you see."
Liz let out a startled guffaw, helplessly smiling back at her — Narcissa was all, well, fancy and dignified and shite, was just so unexpected...
The conversation trailed off there, not really anything important left to say. Well, honestly, Liz was kind of vaguely curious about her mother's sex life now, but that seemed like a weird thing to ask about, and also she would rather take notes about integrated subsumption in enchantments, so cool. Narcissa provided a piece of paper and a quill (ugh, bloody mages), Liz jotted down a few things — the title of the book, so she could track down a copy herself later, and then just a few basic thoughts, since she really hadn't had time to read much — and then they started on their way back to the sitting room.
On the way back, following a step or two behind Narcissa, Liz didn't even bother trying not to stare this time. Because apparently liking girls wasn't something to work herself up over, and also Draco's mum was really pretty. There was a sort of shifty tingle in Narcissa's head — Liz suspected Narcissa knew she was looking, but she pretended not to, and she didn't know Liz was a mind mage, so she probably didn't realise that Liz knew she knew and wasn't saying anything about it. For whatever reason, fuck knows, Draco's mum had turned out to be really hard to predict...
The New Years' party wrapped up pretty soon after that. Apparently Irénée was hanging around for a while — she was going to go flying with Draco, Liz was invited to come with them. But Melete was sneaking off, and it was clear they had the option of leaving, and Liz had had enough social interaction for the day, thanks, maybe next time. (Because apparently there was going to be a next time.) Severus got another round of cheek kisses from Narcissa, huddled up with Lucius to have a quick whispered conversation — there was a brief flicker of something sharp and cold in Severus's head, didn't know what that was about — while Narcissa and Draco said goodbye to Liz. Which was very awkward — Liz was pretty sure staring at a bloke's mum with him standing right there was a weird thing to do, but Narcissa was distractingly pretty, especially when she was being all nice and smiling and ugh...
It took a bit to get their cloaks and out of the house, the long walk across the grounds passing in silence. As soon as they were on the other side of the gate — the bars again parting like mist to let them through, so cool — Severus pulled her into an apparation, and they were back.
Reaching to unbutton her silly fancy jacket, Liz glared up at him. "You're a sneaky bastard, you know that."
His lips twitched. "I assume your talk with Narcissa went well."
That was so not the point. "You're still a sneaky bastard."
"I should hope so — as much work as I put into developing the skills of a sneaky bastard, it would be quite humiliating were I unable to orchestrate even so simple a scheme as this."
"Uh-huh, sure." Comparing this to being a spy back in the war was very silly, but Severus was incongruously silly sometimes, she'd already stopped being surprised by that sort of thing. "You can make up for talking to Narcissa behind my back by getting pizza from that place in Charing for dinner tonight."
Severus was laughing on the inside, his mind practically shivering and crackling with it, but it didn't show at all on his face or voice. "As you wish. I haven't anything on this afternoon, if you wanted to take another look at those divination potions."
"No, I've already talked to people far too much today. I'm going to go read in my room, come get me when it's time for pizza."
"Very well." The air around him still tingly with his amusement, Severus casually hung his cloak up by the door, and started walking off toward his room without another word. Liz turned toward her own, pulling at the buttons holding her dress together and shaking her head to herself.
She could admit in the privacy of her own head that living here was a big step up from stealing muggle hotel rooms, but still, he could be such a pain sometimes.
Oh hey, Apollo the post-duck was curled up waiting on her bed — she must have another letter from Tamsyn already. Where did the bloody bird put the thing...
Uuuggghhh. Kind of hate this chapter. I've been feeling pretty consistently awful lately, and was 90% not feeling it and fighting to power through in a few points. If this chapter seems mediocre, I'm blaming my unexplained health issues.
And yeah, this fic again and not By Gods Forsaken. Been 1000% not feeling that one lately — the next chapter is sitting half-done, but I haven't touched it in a while. It'll happen when it happens.
Yes, in headcanon the Veil of Death in the Ministry is actually a broken Gate to fairyland. The Unspeakables are fully aware of this, the whole point of the project is to open a portal to the other world independently. I haven't decided whether or not Dumbledore knows what it really is — you can pick whichever you find more amusing.
Anyway, chapter, bleh. Sleep.