Blinks. I'm back. I've been accepted at a University I like, and my dad won't go bankrupt getting me there. There's also been some family trouble, but I'm okay now. So. I finally have some time to write again...until late April to early May, when I'm taking all of my Advanced Placement exams...grr.
Thanks for editing the very rough draft version, Mell.
Draco glanced up at the head table during lunch. Professor Snape was absent—for the fifth meal in a row. He glanced around. No one else seemed overly concerned. It wasn't actually all that unusual for Snape to become scarce when the students weren't safely locked away in their classrooms, but at the moment, for Draco, his disappearance was one of many building concerns. Snape hadn't been in the Slytherin common room the night before. Hell. Most of Slytherin hadn't been in the Slytherin common the night before. What was more, Gryffindor's House points were holding steady, and Longbottom wasn't twitching.
Draco's eyes narrowed.
There was something rotten in the House of Slytherin.
—
Severus led Fen into the small office only by pulling him in by the arm. The child, already unnaturally quiet, seemed to be attempting not to breathe. Already naturally pale, his skin had gone a marble white. For some nebulous and aggravating reason, the boy had become a statue. If not for Severus's physical hold on his elbow, he would have stood stock still in the Ministry hallway. That, or bolted faster than a spooked unicorn. Severus had no illusions about which was more likely. When they were in the office, he shut the door behind them.
A worker glanced up from her small, cluttered desk. "Can I help you?"
Severus nodded back at the young witch. She seemed competent. Odd, seeing as she was only a year or two out of school. He frowned. Though the planes of her face were vaguely familiar, he didn't know her.
The witch seemed to notice Fen for the first time. She smiled. "Hello, dear." She didn't seem particularly surprised when he didn't respond. She only sent Severus a knowing look that he didn't bother to read and pulled a folder from a drawer. "Would you take a seat?" she asked. Two chairs in front of her desk were waved at. Severus led the boy to a chair but preferred to stand with one hand firmly reassuring the boy's shoulder. She opened the folder to reveal a sizable stack of forms. "You realize this isn't the standard procedure," she said.
"This isn't the standard situation," he replied flatly.
She said nothing, but the quill that leapt to attention over the mountain of forms looked rather stiff. At last, she sighed and turned her attention to the boy. "What's your name then, dear?"
Fen looked away.
"Fenrir Albtraum Svartálfar," Severus answered for him
She glanced up. "Is that right?" she asked Fen.
Again silence.
"It was verified through the mail registry."
The quill pen scratched in the name after a reluctant pause. "Who were his guardians?" she asked Severus directly, finally giving up on asking Fen.
"He had none—that I know of."
Scritch.
"Mmm." This time the knowing look was shared. "Where was he found?"
Severus didn't hesitate. "A Squib living on the edge of the Forest bordering the Hogwarts School of Magic found him two days ago. He notified Hogwarts, and the school"—he grimaced—"elected me to go fetch him. Then I discovered the boy wasn't an enrolled student."
"Ah." She had taken out a second quill and was tapping it against her thumb absently. "And you didn't pass him off to a ministry official because…?" Her voice had suddenly chilled, he noticed. Her manner had also turned slightly hostile after he mentioned Hogwarts.
His eyes narrowed. She was a working-class witch, one more than slightly resentful of Hogwarts because she had been taught in a ministry-funded school. However, this begged the question of how a young nobody had managed to bag a Ministry desk job. Severus was under the quite accurate impression that the government only handed out posts to the children of wealthy election campaign donors.
As to her question, he answered, "Unfortunately, according to the school, I must be the one who handles this."
"Even though it goes against standard Ministry procedure?"
He met her gaze evenly. "I'd rather not lose my job." He briefly thought about how many staircases Hogwarts had and silently added, 'or break my neck.'
She finally sighed. The quill scribbled a quick note. "Just age, then," she muttered. "Eight?"
"Possibly eleven."
She frowned at Fen. Severus reached into one pocket. He handed her the Hogwarts letter. There was a quiet moment as she gently held the envelope in both hands and stared at the remains of the broken seal. Severus suspected that he had just given a childhood dream a bitter fulfillment. The letter was finally set down on the desk reverently. She nodded, and in an instant, her whole manner changed. "Right, then. This"—she stripped off the top sheet of parchment—"isn't glowing, so no one is missing a little boy with his description."
Severus's brow furrowed at this, but he nodded.
"And this"—she signed the next sheet before spinning it around to him—"makes him an official ward of the Ministry. Have him sign the bottom." Without waiting for a response, she began sorting through the stack with a muttered "No…no, no…n—ah. Here. School form. Sign for Hogwarts under Non-Ministry-Supported School." The unspoken 'or I'll kill you' was deafening.
Severus blinked at her. She met his gaze—this time heatedly, rather than cool. A few things suddenly fell into place. "You were a Ministry ward," he said flatly.
She nodded, looked at the letter. "I was supposed to go…"
"Your parents went to Hogwarts?"
She shrugged. "I'm a Dubois."
He frowned. Old family. "They had money."
She looked away.
He closed his eyes. Old blood. Slytherin family. The war. Property seizure of suspected dark supporters. Standard Ministry procedure. Of course. One thought nagged him, though. "You tuition wasn't paid for at birth?" The way her eyes snapped to his in confusion gave him a none too vague urge to snap the Ministry's collective neck. Of course her parents had paid. And of course the Ministry had grabbed back the gold with rotund greasy fingers. What was the cost of a year at Hogwarts now, more than the average working family made in a year? The Dubois family had not been a charity case; they would have paid in full.
He bristled, then. It had been a lot of money, but the Ministry had gone too far. Canceling the contract and collecting the gold had only served to hurt Adelle. He blinked. Yes, Adelle. Adelle Dubois. He had attended the gala that celebrated her first bout of accidental magic—the Wizarding equivalent of a debutante's introduction to society. He remembered because it was there that he first saw Voldemort. Of course, back then the wizard had been only a mysterious but charming guest of honor. Severus remembered watching him dance with Adelle, then five. He dropped his gaze. A year later, the little Lady Dubois had vanished and Voldemort had become a terrifying Lord of Death.
By now, Severus had completely forgotten his reason for coming to the little office. Instead, he looked up at Adelle. She had been meant to be his student—in his House. The Ministry had gone too far.
He searched his pockets for a piece of scratch paper. Though a good number of student essays counted, he eventually picked up the envelope from Svartálfar's Hogwarts letter, took the self-inking quill Adelle had handed him earlier, and began to write. As she looked at him confusedly, he told her, "Your name will get you an audience. Give this note to Lord Luc—" He paused and looked at her. She had the smooth, blooming features of youth. In dismay, he watched her perpetually guarded look be crowded out of her eyes as hope slowly crept in. "Lord Adonis Nott," he finished. Nott. Not the best. Nott couldn't get her as much compensation as another Lord, but at least he wouldn't demand…compensation.
After a minute, Adelle took the envelope from him carefully. It was another minute before she realized a small child was staring at both of them. She looked down quickly, and she noticed that Fen hadn't signed the form that would make him a Ministry ward. With a sigh, she leaned forward over the desk and folded his fingers around her quill. "Fenrir, I know you don't like this, but you have to sign the form. It's a way to show the Ministry that you're…levelheaded. Until you sign, they'll always have an eye on you. Signing gives you"—she shrugged—"more freedom."
Despite the incentive, it was still a bit of a surprise when Fen suddenly twisted the quill in his hand into position and, with the same careful, crimped style that one might label a jar, he printed his name.
—
Many forms later, Adelle clapped her hands together. "Well, I think that's everything."
"Not everything."
She glanced up.
Severus gestured to the Hogwarts letter lying abandoned on the desk. "The boy was on Hogwarts' student registry before he became a ward of the Ministry. As Guardian, the Ministry is required to pay for his schooling at Hogwarts or another school of equal caliber—not that there is one," he added, momentarily forgetting his fervent desire to reduce every last brick of the enchanted castle to rubble.
Her eyes narrowed. "I see." She started to rifle through the stack of forms. After the fourth time through, she threw up her hands. "I can't— There's a form for reimbursements. They would use it on birthdays so you could buy yourself a "reasonable" gift." She sent Severus a pitying look. "You'll have to talk to my—er, department head." She pointed in one direction. "The first right, fourth door on your left. …Maybe the boy should stay with me, meanwhile. She's not very good with children."
"Odd that she would choose something so child-oriented for her career, then," he remarked as he stood.
"Yes. Well. I'm sure she has her reasons." She glanced at Fen. "Don't we all?"
He sighed ever so slightly. "Don't we all."
—
Severus didn't need Adelle's directions to find her department head's door. His ears led him there just fine.
"—Irene's family has always gone to Hogwarts!"
The feminine voice that replied was both grating and sweet, sickly so. "Which is lovely, but that child is not your son. And I'm afraid that you two are forcing our hand."
"…What are you saying?"
A throat was cleared loudly. "I am saying that if you persist with this foolishness and enroll the child in a school for young witches and wizards, you will be putting hundreds of innocents in danger."
"Toby is not—"
"—If you do this, then you will have proved yourselves to be unfit for guardianship, and the child will be moved to a location where it will be properly contained."
Another woman's voice entered the fray. "I don't care what Toby's parents were! My baby—"
"—HEM-HEM!"
Severus gritted his teeth at the sound. It wasn't what aggravated him the most, though. Merlin. This was his third incident of a child being denied access to Hogwarts in twenty-four hours! He turned and glared at his reflection in the brass plaque on the wall. UMBRIDGE, the bold lettering read. Umbridge, like umbrage. The expression on his face described the latter word perfectly. He felt murderous. Hogwarts. Hogwarts! That damned castle was a worse bully than any student it had ever dished out. From hundreds of miles away, from a bloody different isle, it was forcing him into the role of the white knight: partaker of quests, righter of wrongs, defender of all things Hogwarts! He seethed. He all but broke his nose as he savagely pinched the bridge of it. Morganna hex it. Morganna hex it all; he couldn't afford to care!
—
He was starting back towards Adelle's office, planning to adopt Svartálfar on the spot and pay for the boy's school expenses himself, when Umbridge's door banged open and slammed shut again behind him. He turned in time to see tears explode from the eyes of a worn, middle-aged witch. Irene, he supposed.
She noticed his presence and jerked, staring with eyes like a startled doe's.
He tried to scowl, glare, anything. Nothing. He could only stare back at the tiny, bookish woman.
No. Merlin, no. Now, of all times, he couldn't afford to care.