Part 1

Commodus was born on a Tuesday.

The Fudge family took out an ad in the Daily Prophet for the announcement, as was proper for a family of means.

Callidora and Cornelius Fudge welcome their son and heir to the family, it read.

Abraxas Malfoy took a moment after the wednesday wizengamot session to congratulate the undersecretary most heartily.

"A brilliant, buoyant young boy," Fudge exclaimed, beaming from ear to ear as he accepted the lord Malfoy's handshake.

"You must pass along my regards to your wife. Have you chosen a name yet?" Abraxas said, his eyebrow raised in a perfect arc. Cornelius had spent many an hour practicing the very same look in his bathroom mirror, but had yet to achieve even half the intimidating bravour.

"Commodus, we have named him Commodus Aurelius Fudge," Cornelius declared. He had meant to put that in the papers, too, but had forgotten with all the excitement.

A son, he had a son!

"Quite a name," Malfoy said, not quite sneering. "Are you trying to imply, about yourself…" The brow rose again in question.

"Oh, no, nothing about myself. We Fudges have always liked a nice, strong K-sound in our names. It builds character, see?" Furthermore, it saved money on monograms, for the Fudges were a family of means who did not want to be wasteful. "Callidora chose it. I think it means like a comet*, maybe he'll have a future in astrology."

There was nothing hidden about the sneer on Malfoy's face now. "Quite," he repeated. "Best of luck, then."

Cornelius accepted the parting handshake with the appropriate amount of pomp, and gathered his parchments to go home.

Callidora would be so pleased to hear of all the greetings, from even the Minister and the Malfoys.

The Fudge family had an heir to this last remaining branch on the family tree. Their future was looking bright and fortuitous.

A son, a beautiful son. The fruit of his seed in her Black womb.

Cornelius was pleased as punch.

*My beta Eider Down insists I firmly remind you that Commodus linguistically bears no relation to comet, the meteorological phenomenon. The nomenclature lies somewhere between nominative determinism and massive foreshadowing.

xoxox

Commodus grew up the way wealthy heirs were wont to in the 1960s; he wanted for nothing except some actual parental attention. His personal elf attended to his every need. His father bought him whatever he wanted, no whim going unobserved.

Their parody of familial normalcy was the family meal, observed every other evening at seven, sharp.

"Put your book away, Commodus," his mother said, without bothering to look.

"The Minister was most pleased by the speech I'd written her. She said I'm indispensable, my love. Can you fathom it? This humble Fudge, indispensable to the Minister herself."

"I'd hope so, dear. You're undersecretary." Callidora was always very polite in her features, but there was something underneath, too. Like she was beholden to knowledge the rest of them weren't.

"Faustina sent a letter, my assistant opened it. She's doing very well at school and shan't be coming home for Christmas."

"Her name is Calliope," Callidora said.

"She doesn't like the name, dear. People tease her, call her Cantaloupe. That's a marrow all the way from the Americas. Children can be so cruel."

"Back in my day, schoolyard bullies were nowhere near as well read." Callidora sniffed.

Commodus continued to read his book, pausing every now and then to put a forkful of food into his mouth. He'd just gotten to the exciting part where the man said No Man can defeat me, so prophecy has decreed, and the challenger was whipping off her helmet to say-

"Commodus, dear, go wash up. Your tutor will be here soon."

"Yes Ma," he said, dutifully closing the book. "Thank you for dinner."

Commodus had heard the Malfoy heir was given fencing lessons, and the Longbottoms went riding abraxans, and the Patil boys hosted magic carpet races every full moon.

Unfortunately, he was a Fudge, and so he put away his storybook and went to wash up. His tutor would be stepping through the floo any minute, and he had his bloody harp lessons to look forward to.

xoxox

Faustina was the kind of girl that made parents thanked the stars that she wasn't their responsibility. Aloud, they affectionately called a spitfire. The word was thought to come from the way the flames under a cauldron would hiss and crackle if a potion boiled over, and none of the muggleborns were in any way inclined to correct this assumption.

She thought of herself as an adventurer, the kind of princess who could save herself from whatever castle she found herself hidden away in. For the first ten years of her life she'd been her daddy's greatest joy. She'd been her mother's shadow, learning about socialite politics and Unspeakable research in equal parts. Nobody had ever told her what to do, what to wear, how to act or how to think, because her parents had been far too busy doing whatever it was adults usually did.

Then, he had come, in a blue bassinet with his tiny little fingers that clutched at her heart from the very first gummy smile. She'd been utterly delighted.

Then her elf Cleander was reassigned to be his elf, and she was banished to the castle dungeons. It was the same magical castle where everyone else sent their children, too, but it always seemed a bit more restricting to her than to her peers.

Calliope had become Cantaloupe—who had fiercely renamed herself Faustina. It was so much more than her middle name, it was her promise to never back down from a fight.

It was an ode to devil's pacts at crossroads dire, the beginning and the end of everything she stood for.

After her first year of school she returned to the brother who had once giggled at her, and found he'd forgotten about her entirely. Commodus had mostly stopped drooling by then and was transitioning from learning to talk to being told to shut up.

After a year spent doting on him, he didn't properly remember her name. Faustina sewed her heart together and promised herself not to bleed so easily again.

She ended up getting six OWLs and five NEWTs. In the summers, when she saw her baby brother order around what used to be her elf, she swallowed her envy and put on a brave face. When her parents spoke of political matches and arranged marriage, she smiled sweetly and promised they'd rue the day they married her off.

Faustina found a job working for the Ministry. She allowed her parents to pull a few strings that moved her up to more senior positions, despite being a woman. When men came her way with bouquets and intentions, she told them to wait until hell froze over.

She'd gone from princess-in-a-castle to a woman with her own flat, a kneazle, and gainful employment. For now, she was content.

Commodus wasn't half as lucky.


Part 2

"Cleander," he called, somewhat preoccupied with the act of lacing up his boots, "if anyone asks, I'm going to the shops to buy milk."

"You have lessons now, and we already have milk, young master," the elf said, bouncing in place. "Cleandy does the shopping anyway. You should be thinking up better lies, young master."

"Right." Commodus straightened, then began buttoning the rather excessive number of clasps on his coat. "In that case, I'm going to play in the snow."

He opened the front door to find beaming February sunshine.

And his tutor Saotorus, standing on the stoop. "What's this about snow?"

"…I was going to the village. To meet with Lyra. We wanted to fish for plimpies." The words tumbled out as Saotorus helped him back out of his jacket.

"Whatever will I do with you, my boy? They pay me to tutor you, but you'll never make it as any kind of politician if you can't tell a lie."

"I don't want to be a politician. I'm going to be sociology." He kicked off his boots and followed the man to the library.

"Only girls can grow up to be socialites, Commodus," Saotorus said, sinking into a chair. "Now, what's a better excuse than snow in February? Come now, lad, every good lie has a truth in it. Let's start with the fishing and go from there."

xoxox

In 1978, Commodus was waved off from Platform nine and three quarters—by his tutor and his elf.

"I'll miss you terribly, I don't know what I'll do all day without you driving me up the walls," Saoterus said, ruffling Commodus' hair. "Make sure you write. Tell me what they teach you at that fancy school, will you? I've always wanted to know."

"I promise I'll write," Commodus said, in the way that eleven year old children did.

"Mistress said Cleandy must give young master this," the elf said, handing over a basket.

Commodus lifted the flap to find a packed lunch and a money bag bulging with what promised to be some generous pocket money. "Thanks, Cleander," he said, before wrapping his elf in a tight hug. "I'll miss you, too."

"It will be quieter without young master's mess," Cleander said, nodding gravely. The expression didn't suit the elf's young face with his smart goatee.

Commodus laughed. "See you at Christmas," he said, shouldering his bag. He got on the train resolutely, one foot after the other just like Saotorus had told him to. He didn't bother to look back at the platform filled with parents kissing their children goodbye.

xoxox

"Mother," Faustina said, barging into the woman's office.

"Daughter. I can't fathom how you keep getting in here. The security must be in an atrocious state. Did you at least have to hex someone?"

"Mother, it's a set of spinning doors, it's really not that hard. But who cares about that, did you really send Commodus off to school all alone?" Faustina examined the chair at the end of her mother's desk, piled high as it was with stacks of unfiled paperwork. Before she could step towards it, Callidora had conjured a seat for her, a wing-backed armchair entirely out of place squished between the teetering piles of books.

There was just enough space on the desk for a summoned tea set.

"Everybody sends their children off to school alone. Surely you noticed, my dear, that Hogwarts is a boarding school?"

Mother prepared two identical cups of tea and handed Faustina one.

Honey and lemon, whether she liked it or not.

Faustina drank it anyway, not willing to give up the pleasure of a high quality earl grey. "Mother, he's just a boy. Did you really not have the time to bring him yourself?" You callous bint, she added from the privacy of her own mind.

Across the table that was groaning under the weight of so many more important things, Callidora sniffed. "There's been all sorts of hubbub here since that scandal in Egypt. They've been working us to the bone. There's even security posted at the doors so we can't leave for breaks."

Faustina eyed her mother's oversized form wobbling almost as much as her piles of paperwork were. The auror on guard hadn't even blinked at her as she'd strolled past him. "Wow, I'm sure Egypt is a real mess."

"Yes, yes. Unspeakably secret, of course. A matter of international importance."

"Right. And dad, he was too busy to see his favourite child off to school?"

"Don't be ridiculous, dear," Mother said. Of course your father doesn't have a favourite, Faustina wished for her to say. "He's practically running the country. With all that nonsense between the dead eaters and hors d'oeuvre de phoenix, he hasn't been home in months."

"Yeah." Faustina had heard of the death eaters, going around casting their hideous green marks over the houses of their victims. What had started as petty vandalism against muggleborns had escalated into muggle-baiting and even the occasional kidnappings of various politicians whose latest vote didn't suit their leader Lord Voldymore.

She'd have been worried about father, if she didn't know he barely went home anyway, as mother had just confirmed.

Now, with another faction in the midst, the Prophet had it pinned as an all-out disaster of political malaise. No wonder dad had been working long hours.

"You still should have made more time for Commodus. He deserves better."

Mother sighed, seeming to deflate several sizes. "Let's talk about something else. Tell me how things are going in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Is Ludo still attempting to court you? You deserve to have someone by your side, love." She wrinkled her nose. "Even if that person is Ludo. We still have a dowry set aside for you, you know."

She meant well, Faustina knew she meant well. With careful precision, she set down her cup and squeezed out of the conjured chair. "It's alright, mother. Things are all…right. But my break's over now. See you around."

With a parting peck to Callidora's cheek, Faustina left, back to her own desk piled high with her own unfiled paperwork.

No matter how hard she tried, she was still her mother's daughter.

xoxox

Dear mum and dad,

School is alright. The hat put me in Slytherin. You might have told me it's just a hat. My dorm is nice. I have my own room but six of us share a bathroom, which smells like old socks. The prefects told us it's a tradition but the elves told me that they've tried every freshening charm without success.

Classes are fine. Potions is easiest, because Saoterus taught me so much already. Slughorn is a bit mad. He has invited me to a party already. I did not know professors could host parties. I want to be a professor one day.

Did you know there are muggleborn here? I mean, I knew they had to be somewhere, I guess, but I wasn't expecting them to be so…normal. You can only tell because they don't know what Quidditch is yet. The head girl is a muggleborn. She almost caught me out after curfew once but got distracted by her boyfriend. Maybe I should get a boyfriend, it seems useful to have someone to meet when sneaking around at night.

Yours sincerely,

Commodus Aurelius Fudge

xoxox

My dearest Commodus,

You father and I were ever so pleased to hear about your sorting. Slytherin is the best house, of course, and our hearts are bursting with pride.

Work has been very busy. There was a scandal in Bremen involving some animals enchanted to mimic a quartet. I very much wished to take you and Saoterus on a trip to Germany with me, but of course you are at school now. I miss you, my son.

Your father and I are quite sorry we were not able to see you off at the station. Your sister was very upset, if you'll believe it. We have high hopes for her latest courtship with Eugene Bones. You must write to her also, encourage her to settle down. She will be pleased to hear of my apologising to you.

I am glad that Saoterus prepared you well for your schooling. We were concerned, in the beginning, by his youth and his Squib collegiate credentials. We want you to do well in your studies and for you to make many alliances amongst your classmates. My cousin has assured me the Blacks will extend familial hands of friendship and give you aid, should you require it.

My dear child, the muggleborn, the half-bloods and the muggle-raised are everywhere these days. Do not be alarmed. They will adjust to our culture, they always do. Socialise as you will, but do try to focus on politically meaningful associations as best you can.

If anybody ever implies that you should have a boyfriend, you must hex them most severely. These kind of rumours must not be spread by accident and especially not by yourself. I know you meant nothing by it. We will find you a suitable match when the time comes.

With all my love,

Your mother Callidora

*This message was created by Dictaquill™ and is valid without a signature

xoxox

Dear Faustina

Mum told me you told her she should have seen me off at the platform. Thank you for that, but you didn't have to. I didn't really mind that much. Lots of parents weren't there, I guess. That's what Slughorn said anyway. I should be proud that my family serves our government so well.

Slughorn remembers you, by the way. He said he thought you were the biggest disaster, up until he met James Potter and Sirius Black. Also I should tell you 'thank you' from him, for preparing him for that. He will be retiring soon because he has too many grey hairs or something, I don't know, I wasn't listening. Slughorn talks a lot.

James Potter serenaded Lily Evans in the middle of the Great Hall yesterday after breakfast. It was awful. If this is what it means to be in a relationship, I understand why you keep dodging them. Mum says you should give Eugene Bones a chance but I think Eugene is a terrible name, so, whatever.

Okay mum said I should write and tell you she said sorry to me. I have written. You don't have to write back if you don't want to.

Yours,

Commodus

xoxox

"Dad," she said, pushing her way past his assistant, "Dad can you please tell mum not to tell Commodus to write me letters?"

Cornelius looked up from the map spread across his desk. There were green snakes and red cocks set up like chess pieces across the landscape.

"Hello Faustina dear," he said, and she realised suddenly that somewhere in the past twenty years, he'd grown older. There were premature wrinkles in his forehead, like he'd been kneading it too hard. On his lap sat the customary crumpled bowler hat.

Taking the tea tray from the assistant, she transfigured a simple chair for herself and set about making up their cups. "You look tired, dad," she said, cramming several biscuits onto his saucer.

"Thank you." He held his cup in one hand and clenched his hat in the other. "It's these skirmishes between the Order of the Phoenix, and the Death Eaters. The aurors are running themselves ragged trying to keep track, and Azkaban isn't what it used to be. Bit of a mess, really. It's good to see you, Faustina darling. Are you still seeing Ludo Bagman?"

She gritted her teeth. "I was never seeing him in the first place, dad. He's too…sporty. And enthusiastic. And a twat. I told him to get lost months ago."


This is as far as I got with this plot bunny. Thanks for letting me share it with you as day 27 of an update every day this month.