Chapter Two
"Ginny, are you absolutely certain your mother never mentioned either the Duke of Atherton of the Duchess of Claremont to you?"
Ginny tore her thoughts from aching memories of her parents' funeral and looked at the elderly, white-haired healer seated across from her at the kitchen table. As her father's oldest friend, Healer Albus Dumbledore had taken on the responsibility of seeing the girls settled, as well as trying to take care of Healer Weasley's patients until the new healer arrived.
"All Hermione and I ever know was that Mama was estranged from her family in England. She never spoke of them. My brothers don't know much either, but you'd have a hard time finding them to ask them, they're all off and married with families."
"Is it possible your father had relatives in Ireland?"
"Papa grew up in an orphans' home there. He had no relatives." She stood up restlessly. "May I fix you some coffee, Healer Dumbledore?"
"Stop fussing over me and go sit outside in the sunshine with Hermione," Healer Dumbledore chided gently. "You're pale as a ghost."
"Is there anything you need, before I go?" Ginny persisted.
"I need to be a few years younger," he replied with a grim smile as he sharpened a quill. "I'm too old to carry the burden of your father's patients. I belong back in Philadelphia with a hot brick beneath my feet and a good book on my lap. How am I to carry on here for four more months until the new healer arrives, I can't imagine."
"I'm sorry," Ginny said sincerely, "I know it's been terrible for you."
"It's been a great deal worse for you and Hermione," the kindly old healer said. "Now run along and get some of this fine winter sunshine. It's rare to see a day this warm in January. While you sit in the sun, I'll write these letters to your relatives."
A week had passed since Healer Dumbledore had come to visit the Weasleys, only to be summoned to the scene of the accident where the carriage bearing Arthur Weasley and his wife had plunged down a riverbank, overturning. Arthur Weasley had been killed instantly. Molly had regained consciousness only long enough to try to answer Healer Dumbledore's desperate inquiry about her relatives in England. In a feeble whisper, she had said, ". . . . Grandmother . . . . Duchess of Claremont."
And then, just before she died, she had whispered another name – Charles. Frantically, Healer Dumbledore had begged her for a complete name, and Molly's dazed eyes had opened briefly. "Malfoy," she had breathed. ". . .Duke . . . of . . . Atherton."
"Is he a relative?" he demanded urgently.
After a long pause, she'd nodded feebly. "Cousin. . ."
To Healer Dumbledore now fell the difficult task of locating and contacting these heretofore unknown relatives to inquire whether either of them would be willing to offer Ginny and Hermione a home – a task that was made even more difficult because, as far as Healer Dumbledore could ascertain, neither the Duke of Atherton nor the Duchess of Claremont had any idea the girls existed.
With a determined look upon his brow, Healer Dumbledore dipped the quill in the inkwell, wrote the date at the top of the first letter, and hesitated, his brow furrowed in thought. "How does one properly address a duchess?" he asked the empty room. After considerable contemplation he arrived at a decision and began writing.
Dear Madam Duchess,
It is my unpleasant task to advise you of the tragic death of your granddaughter, Molly Weasley, and to further advise you that Mrs. Weasley's daughter and niece, Ginevra and Hermione, are now in my care. However, I am an old man, and a bachelor besides. Therefore, Madam Duchess, I cannot properly continue to care for two orphaned young ladies.
Before she died, Mrs. Weasley mentioned only two names – yours and that of Charles Malfoy. I am, therefore, writing to you and to Sir Malfoy in the hope that one or both of you will welcome Mrs. Weasley's daughter and niece into your home. I must tell you that the girls have nowhere else to go. They are sadly short of funds and in dire need of a suitable home.
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and scrutinized the letter while a frown of concern slowly formed on his forehead. If the duchess was unaware of the girls' existence, he could already foresee the old lady's possible unwillingness to house them without first knowing something about them. Trying to think how best to describe them, he turned his head and gazed out the window at the girls.
Hermione was seated upon the swing, her slim shoulders drooping with despair. Ginny was determinedly applying herself to her sketching in an effort to hold her grief at bay.
Dumbledore decided to describe Hermione first, for she was the easiest.
Hermione is a pretty girl, with light brown hair and brown eyes. She is sweet-dispositioned, well-mannered, and charming. At seventeen, she is nearly of age to marry, but has shown no particular inclination to settle her affections on any one young gentleman in the district.
Dumbledore paused and thoughtfully stroked his chin. In truth, many young gentlemen in the district were utterly smitten with Hermione. And who could blame them? She was pretty and studious and sweet. She was angelic, Dumbledore decided, pleased that he had hit upon exactly the right word to describe her.
But when he turned his attention to Ginny, his bushy white brows drew together in bafflement, for although Ginny was his personal favorite, she was far harder to describe. Her hair was not golden, not was it truly red; rather, it was a vivid combination of both. Hermione was a pretty thing, a charming, demure young lady who turned all the local boys' heads. She was perfect material for a wife: sweet, gentle, soft-spoken, and biddable. In short, she was the sort of female who would never contradict or disobey her husband.
Ginny, on the other hand, had spent a great deal of time with her father and, at eighteen, she possessed a lively wit, an active mind, and a startling tendency to think for herself.
Hermione would think as her husband told her and do what he told her to do, but Ginny would think for herself and very likely do as she thought best.
Hermione was angelic, Dumbledore decided, but Ginny was . . . not.
Squinting through his half-moon spectacles at Ginny, who was resolutely sketching yet another picture of the vine-covered garden wall, he stared at her patrician profile, trying to think of the words to describe her. Brave, he decided, knowing she was sketching because she was trying to stay busy rather than dwell on her grief. And compassionate, the thought, recalling her efforts to console and cheer her father's sick patients.
Dumbledore shook his head in frustration. As an old man, he enjoyed her intelligence and her sense of humor; he admired her courage, spirit, and compassion. But if he emphasized these qualities to her English relatives, they would surely envision her as an independent, bookish, unmarriageable female whom they would have on their hands forever. There was still the possibility that when Harry Potter returned from his mission in killing the Dark Lord in several months, he would formally request Ginny's hand, but Dumbledore wasn't certain. Ginny's father and Harry's aunt had agreed that, before the young couple became betrothed, their feelings for one another should be tested during this period while Harry did his duty for the Order of the Phoenix.
Ginny's affection for Harry had remained strong and constant, Dumbledore knew, but Harry's feelings for her were apparently wavering. According to what Mrs. Dursley (Harry's aunt) had confided to Dumbledore yesterday, Harry seemed to be developing a strong attraction to a female auror who was his partner in the mission.
Dumbledore sighed unhappily as he continued to gaze at the two girls, who were dressed in plain black gowns, one with shining brown hair, the other's gleaming pale copper. Despite the somberness of their attire, they made a very fetching picture, he thought fondly. A picture! Seized by inspiration, Dumbledore decided to solve the whole problem of describing the girls to their English relatives by simply enclosing a moving picture of them in each letter.
That decision made, he finished his first letter by asking the duchess to confer with the Duke of Atherton, who was receiving an identical letter, and to advise what they wished to do in the matter of the girls' care. Dumbledore wrote the same letter to the Duke of Atherton; then attached it to a large owl, and sent it out the window. With a brief prayer to Merlin that either the duke or duchess would reimburse him for his expenditures, Dumbledore stood up and stretched.
Outside in the garden, Hermione nudged the ground with the toe of her slipper, sending the swing twisting listlessly from side to side.
"I still cannot quite believe it," she said, her soft voice filled with a mixture of despair and excitement. "Your mama was the granddaughter of a duchess! What does that make us, Gin? Do we have titles?"
Ginny sent her a wry glance. "Yes," she said. "We are 'Poor Relations.'"
It was the truth, for although Arthur Weasley had been loved and valued by the grateful country folk whose ills he had treated for many years, his patients had rarely been able to pay him with a coin, and he had never pressed them to do so. They repaid him instead with whatever goods and services they were able to provide – with livestock, fish for his table, with repairs for his broomsticks and home, with freshly baked goods and potions. As a result, the Weasley family had never wanted for food, but money was ever in short supply, as evidenced by the often mended, hand-dyed dresses and robes Hermione and Ginny were both wearing. Even the house they lived in had been provided by the villagers.
Hermione ignored Ginny's sensible summation of their status and continued dreamily, "Our cousin is a duke, and our great-grandmother is a duchess! I still cannot quite believe it, can you?"
"I always thought Mama was something of a mystery," Ginny replied, blinking back the tears of loneliness and despair that mister her blue eyes. "Now the mystery is solved."
"What mystery?"
Ginny hesitated, her sketching pencil hovering above her tablet. "I only meant that Mama was different from every other female I've ever known."
"I suppose she was," Hermione agreed, and lapsed into silence.
Ginny stared at the sketch that lay in her lap while the delicate lines and curves of the meandering roses she'd been drawing from her memory of last summer blurred before her moist eyes. The mystery was solved. Now she understood a great many things that had puzzled and troubled her. Now she understood why her mother had never mingled comfortably with the other women of the village, why she had always spoken in cultured tones of an English gentlewoman and stubbornly insisted that, at least in her presence, Ginny and Hermione do the same. Her heritage explained her mother's insistence that they learn to read and speak French in addition to English. It explained her fastidiousness. It partially explained the strange, haunted expression that crossed her features on those rare occasions when she mentioned England.
Perhaps it even explained her strange reserve with her own husband, whom she treated with gentle courtesy, but nothing more. Yet she had, on the surface, been an exemplary wife. She had never scolded her husband, never complained about her shabby-genteel existence, and never quarreled with him. Ginny had long ago forgiven her mother for not loving her father. Now that she realized her mother must have been reared in incredible luxury, she was also inclined to admire her uncomplaining fortitude.
Healer Dumbledore walked into the garden and beamed an encouraging smile at both girls. "I've finished my letters and I just sent them with an owl. With luck, we should have your relatives' replies in the next few weeks, perhaps less." He smiled at both girls, pleased at the part he was trying to play in reuniting them with their noble English relatives.
"What do you think they'll do when they receive your letters, Healer Dumbledore?" Hermione asked.
Dumbledore patted her head and squinted into the sunshine, drawing upon his imagination. "They'll be surprised, I supposed, but they won't let it show – the English upper classes don't like to display emotion, I'm told, and they're sticklers for formality. Once they've read the letters. They'll probably send polite notes to each other, and then one of them will call upon the other to discuss your futures. A butler will carry in tea. ."
He smiled as he envisioned the delightful scenario in all its detail. In his mind he pictured two genteel English aristocrats – wealthy, kindly people – who would meet in an elegant drawing room to partake of tea from a silver tray before they discussed the future of their heretofore unknown – but cherished – young relatives. Since the Duke of Atherton and the Duchess of Claremont were distantly related through Molly they would, of course, be friends, allies. . . .
