A/N: I do not own or profit from Harry Potter.
Sorry about the delay in posting, and I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up. I have a job, a life…you know, all that stuff that gets in the way of things. Oh, and thanks for the reviews, you chaps are the best.
Chapter 16: Half a Story
Percy pushed his glasses up his nose and straightened his robes as he pushed open the white gate to the small cottage ahead of him. It was a mild day, the windows were open, and he knocked with confidence on the door.
The woman who opened it was tall and still elegant despite her humbled surroundings. It was almost hard to tell now that Andromeda Tonks had been born a Slytherin Princess, like her sister Bellatrix. Her ink-black hair was slowly graying, but her face didn't look too much aged. "Mr. Weasley, please come in." She smiled politely and admitted him entrance, having been informed beforehand of his coming.
"Thank you, ma'am." He noted that her smile, though warm and welcoming, had the look of one that had to be reinforced. She'd been told he wanted to ask some questions. No doubt she feared he wanted to ask her questions. About her sisters. About her husband. Perhaps about her daughter. He was quick to put her at ease. "I've come to speak to," He checked the name on his list, "Wiffle. I believe he is your house-elf."
Her brows rose only fractionally, but her face loosened. "Of course. I suppose you'd rather get right to business."
"Does my mother speak of me that often?" He asked, half genuinely curious, half trying to put her at ease. He knew that she and his own mother had been a great comfort to one another in the aftermath, despite the slightly uncomfortable fact that Molly Weasley had rather brutally killed Mrs. Tonk's sister.
"She's told me about each of you." Mrs. Tonks told him as she seated him in the small but sunny living area and served him tea. "I understand you're the industrious son. I expected when you owled that you'd be all business."
The industrious son. He wasn't sure how his mother would have phrased that. The same questions he'd always wondered about crossed his mind again. Is she proud of what I do? Is she glad that I am what I am? Or even now, does she wish I were like the others? He pushed his thoughts to be background. "I am indeed." He replied with a wry smile. "And this must be Theodore." He smiled at the yellow-haired boy banging blocks against the rug. Percy had had his share of experience with infants and children. The industrious son, he'd been out of diapers before Charlie had, and he'd at least tried to bring up each of his siblings right since then.
Teddy grinned toothlessly at him as his hair morphed quickly into the same bright red as Percy's was.
"Yes, this is he." Andromeda Tonks seated herself across from him as Percy reacquainted himself with the child. He could distinctly remember the boy's mother, an irritating older girl who knocked over everything and constantly blocked up traffic on the school staircases because she'd forgotten not to jump over the trick stairs.
Percy shifted his eyes from the child up to his grandmother. "And Wiffle lives here with you?"
"Yes." Andromeda's voice shifted as well. "He's been a help to me, with Teddy. I'm not as young as I was, and with Ted, my husband, gone..."
"Why Wiffle?" Percy asked softly. "Your family had many house-elves."
"The Malfoys had many house elves." She corrected him with a proud lift of her chin. "Wiffle was born into my parent's ownership, and he was one of our household help when I was young. He was given to Narcissa as part of her dowry."
Percy nodded, understanding the desire to distance herself from her biological family. "But you only wanted Wiffle."
"Yes." Andromeda said simply, laying her hands in her lap. "Wiffle was a good elf, and I wanted to redeem him from whatever the Malfoys had put him through. He's getting on in years, and I wanted him to at least be comfortable. And as I said, I needed the help." Her eyes strayed to Teddy, who was again pounding wooden blocks together.
Whatever the Malfoys had put him through. It was a telling statement. Wiffle would likely be as disturbed and confused as most of the other former Malfoy elves Percy had spoken with. The things they had put their own son through were horrific enough to scar him forever. The things they did to mere elves had to be far worse. "I'd like to speak with him, if it's all right."
"That's fine." She turned to the doorway. "Wiffle."
Hardly a moment passed before the small figure rushed in to stand attentively at her side. Aside from having even larger ears than those that normally graced his kind, he looked no different than any other house-elf, dressed in a tunic made of threadbare napkins. His enormous green eyes were fixed devoutly on Mrs. Tonks. "Missy Andy called Wiffle, ma'am?" Old age had made his voice squeaky.
"Wiffle, this is Mr. Weasley." The round green eyes turned on Percy. "He is here to ask you some things about Master Lucius and Mistress Narcissa."
The round eyes batted uncertainly once or twice before melting as the elf looked at the floor. "Yes, Missy Andy. Wiffle will talk to the Wheezy."
Rising, Andromeda gestured the elf to sit as she left Percy to his work, taking Teddy with her.
"Wiffle." Percy began, fixing his eyes on the fidgeting elf. "How long did you work for the house of Malfoy?"
Casting a longing glance at the doorway, Wiffle responded, "Wiffle was given to Missy Cissy for her wedding many years ago."
The uniting of the Black-Malfoy clans. It had been the social event of the century, Percy knew. He could easily get an exact date on it from the Prophet archives, for they would have covered the wedding. Probably, though, close around 1975...twenty-three years ago.
"Were they ever cruel to you?"
Wiffle stared long and hard at the floor, twisting his bony fingers together.
"Wiffle." Percy said it once, firmly.
"Wiffle does not wish to tell on Master Lucius and Missy Cissy." The elf whimpered weakly.
"Do you wish to remain loyal and caring to Mistress Andromeda?" Percy asked.
"Yes, Wiffle will do anything for Missy Andy, she is the kindest Mistress Wiffle has had."
"Then talk." Percy ordered him firmly. He had no time or sympathy for an emotionally disturbed squeaker with a bad case of loyals.
"Master Lucius beats us sometimes." Wiffle said slowly. "And he sells off the small ones. And he hangs us from the ceiling and brands our feets." He held out a skinny leg to show burn marks and scar tissue on the bottoms of his feet. Percy noted it down without comment. Several of the other elves he'd spoken with had offered this detail already. "Did he ever make you do something you did not want to do?"
"He makes us to dust the dark things." Wiffle's eyes grew wide, and he clasped gnarled fingers over his mouth, before speaking again. "He hides them in the secret room." His voice had sunk to a conspiratorial whisper now."
"Did he ever make you do anything you knew to be wrong?"
"Dark things." Wiffle whispered. "He hides them in the house."
Percy skimmed through the questions about general treatment. Malfoy was a deranged, sadistic menace, and the wizard world knew that. If the kidnapping of Luna Lovegood had not landed him the death penalty, the mistreatment of a few elves wouldn't affect his sentence one whit. The general treatment was not what was important.
"Were there many women in Master Malfoy's house?"
Wiffle's face became wrinkled. "Missy Bella came often in the first days, and in the last. Madam Paisley, Madam Cosima, and Madam Edwina came with her too."
Paisley Parkinson. Cosima Zabini. Edwina Burke. Parkinson had been a deranged and loyal follower of Bellatrix Lestrange. She naturally would have had a place in Lucius Malfoy's circle. Cosima Zabini could be easily dismissed, despite her reputation. Italian-born, she had not entered the UK until 1990, and she wouldn't have become prominent with Malfoy until 1995, when she was rumoured to have pledged a substantial amount of gold (and her only son) to the Death Eater cause. Edwina Burke was another matter. Malfoy had always had connections with the Burke family, who had a monopoly on dark arts artifacts and trade. Perhaps, Percy mused, the two had chosen to mix business with pleasure.
"With whom was Lucius Malfoy the most...intimate?" Percy pressed. Most of the other elves had been more loyal to Malfoy than Wiffle. His loyalties, truly, seemed to lie with Andromeda, and as a result, he was giving more information than the rest put together.
Wiffle twisted his hands together. "Master Lucius had many friends." He offered weakly.
"Yes, but you know what I mean." Percy pressed. "Was Master Lucius ever...indiscreet with any females in the house?"
Wiffle stared at the grate in the fireplace. "Master Lucius wanted so bad a son." He whispered sadly.
"Yes. And?" Percy urged, excitement building.
Wiffle looked up at him fearfully at his change in tone. "And Missy Cissy gives him a son, and he is happy!" He cried, a relieved smile breaking onto his face at last, like the sun after a day of empty clouds.
Percy stared down at him, feeling distinctly disappointed, and what's more, lied to. "Wiffle...wait, Wiffle, come back here, we're not finished. Before, you were going to tell me something about how Lucius wanted a son. What was it?"
"Missy Cissy gives him a son." Wiffle repeated, shaking his head adamantly as he put his hands behind his back and backed toward the doorway. "Wiffle says that."
"Wiffle..."
The elf disappeared with a crack, and Percy was left staring at the empty doorway. Damned elf. He added a few more colourful mental descriptions for good measure before dropping his quick-quotes quill and rising.
"Mrs. Tonks?"
She stood from her place at the table.
"He's apparated away, I'm afraid he..."
Andromeda nodded quickly. "They were very hard on all their servants." She was hasty to assert. "The experience was traumatic to say the least, and Wiffle will have been very reluctant to talk about it."
"Yes, ma'am..." Percy scratched his neck. "Pardon me, Ma'am, but...when exactly did you become, er, estranged from your sisters?"
Andromeda's tone grew reserved, that perfect tone that all pureblooded aristocrats seemed born with. Proud, regal, and formal. "I have had no communications with my biological family since my engagement to my husband, surely that should be obvious. I know nothing of their doings from then on, except for what Wiffle has told me."
Percy glanced around, wondering where the elf had gone. He felt like he had half a story. Wiffle had run out on him. "And you would have told of anything illegal?"
"Clearly." Still the icy pureblood tone. She was warm and welcoming when she came to the Burrow for dinner or chats with his mother, but at heart she was a Black still. She could still use that tone.
"Er...all right then." He glanced down at his paltry notes. "Well, if Wiffle gives you any new information regarding our interview, I would be appreciative if you would share it with me."
"Certainly."
He gave a polite nod, and she nodded back, moving gracefully to hold the door open for him. "Give your mother my best."
"I shall. I'm sure you'll be seeing her soon."
"Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. Weasley."
"Mrs. Tonks." He stepped back onto the stone path leading up to the cottage and made for the gate. Outside, he started down the road. He needed to think.
Stupid elves.
.
He went back to Malfoy Manor that week, tried again to wring some information from them. His interview before had been very short, and his mind had been on Audrey, and wondering if she was now trapping in some secret room in the manor.
When interviewed, Draco Malfoy remained resilient, stronger yet than his father or his mother. It was easy to tell already who would hold up the family when Lucius returned from his sentence. It was easy to forget when watching him, that the boy was only eighteen. There was a certain hollowness about him which belied his arrogance. Behind the cover of Malfoy pride, the boy was simply scared and wearied. He was weak still, and he knew it, but like a Malfoy, he put on an appearance of strength and power. He was insulted at the idea of his father having a mistress, and unlike his mother, he wasn't timid. Percy took his attitude with no comment. The boy's world was gone. He could hardly know who he was anymore.
More fruitful was his second interview with Narcissa Malfoy. The woman was frail and terrified, the effects of the Dark Lord still clearly visible on her home and her person. She sat still and pale as paper as he asked his questions, and answered them as nobly as she could as her son watched them. She told him convincingly enough that she knew nothing of any mistress of her husbands'. She also reassured him that had there been such a one, a better midwife would have been found than a simple house-elf.
From the Malfoys and the Ministry, Percy got the location of the last of the elves. He knew that he was facing the possibility that he might not find the one house-elf that had brought Audrey from the Manor. But he knew also that as soon as Malfoy got out of Azkaban again, he could have a more complete, more civilised interview with the man. Nothing on earth would induce Percy to go near the prison again for a long time.
One by one, he tracked down and spoke with the former house-elves in the employ of the house of Malfoy. Their stories were long, rambling, pitiful, and ultimately, grammatically disastrous. There was no information to be gleaned from most of them other than that the Malfoys had been fairly negligent masters, only resorting to cruelty in the case of disobedience. Most of the elves, true to their kind, seemed to view any disobedience as the ultimate sin.
The dead elves of the house of Malfoy obviously had no stories to tell. Percy could only glean glimpses from their former comrades of which ones might have been closest to the humans of the house, which ones might have helped to birth an unwanted child.
There was also the former house-elf, Dobby, killed earlier that year. Percy discovered from Granger that Dobby had in his later years begun writing an autobiography. After a few pages of the elf's poorly spelled, third-person scrawl on napkins, Percy tossed it away as hopeless. Granger had informed him enthusiastically that she intended to complete and publish it someday.
No leads. Nothing. He'd come this far to hit yet another wall. Wiffle was his best lead thus far.
Percy gnawed on the tip of his quill.
Wiffle's story wasn't finished. Yet.
.
Audrey licked batter off the spoon and off her fingers as she contemplated Davis' textbooks. She was feeling strangely free after realizing she had no school to prepare for this fall. Her autumn would be one full of work, of results, of tangible attainment of goals...not studying.
Davis glowered down at the books in his lap. "The controversial book that rocked the scientific establishment." He mocked drily. "That sounds fascinating."
"Sounds like fun to me." Audrey shrugged.
He glowered at her. "Shut up, you...physicist."
She smirked and held out a second spoon to him. He took it, dropping the book and dipped into the chocolate batter with her. "Audrey." He said through a mouthful of chocolaty gooeyness, "I have no life."
"That's a switch." She observed. "It used to be me that had no life."
He sat down glumly. "I do school all day, and I have no girlfriend to talk to at night. So I do more school."
She hummed sympathetically over the sound of the dishwasher rinse. "But your grades have gone up."
"Grades, schoolwork, is about all I can remember." He said desperately.
"Well..." She traced patterns in the batter bowl with her finger. "Have you thought about getting back with Anna?"
He avoided her eyes. "I don't know."
"You could at least try."
He was silent for a long moment. After a pause which she had thought was meant to end the conversation, he burst out, "Want to know something?"
"What?"
"I didn't mean to break up with her at all."
"Then why did you?"
"I just forgot to call her. She broke up with me because she wanted to know why I hadn't gotten in touch with her, and I said I didn't remember that I was supposed to, and...things just kind of got worse from there." He stared mutely at his hands.
Audrey thought back to Anna, one of her old Uni friends. "Well." She conceded. "She does tend to overreact at times."
"I really didn't remember..." He muttered.
"Then it's no big deal." She said. "Just call her up and explain now that she's cooled down, and-"
"I don't want to."
She stopped as the dishwasher began to churn. "Why ever not?"
"I don't really...like her. I don't think. I don't think I ever did."
"Then why did you go out with her so much? What was with all the phone calls and all the snogging in corners at parties?"
He looked up at her as if the concept were completely foreign. "Audrey..."
Lucy bustled in. "I'm back, love."
"Hi, Mum."
"Hi, Mrs. Bones." Davis chimed, all himself again.
"I bring celery." Lucy handed a long stick of green to Audrey, who pounced on it as Davis looked on with distaste.
"Yuck."
"Yum." Audrey responded as both women bustled in circles around him.
"Should I be helping?" He asked as they bumped into one another putting away groceries.
"No, Davis, stay right where you are." Lucy peered into a bag and then disappeared into the pantry. "I also bought shampoo."
"Glorious." Davis deadpanned as Audrey flipped open the bottle and inhaled.
Lucy stopped and gave him a long look. "Davis, are you all right? You haven't been your characteristic self in some time."
"I'm fine." He responded quickly. "I'm just getting ready for the term...and stuff."
Both women exchanged glances. Audrey gave her mother a look, and Lucy responded in like terms. Davis rolled his eyes.
"Do you want me to leave so you can talk out loud and without raising your eyebrows up to your scalps?"
"No, dear, you stay right there." Lucy said again as she and Audrey finished their eye-to-eye. "Audrey, run these upstairs, will you?"
When Audrey returned, Lucy was seated and setting out dinner in the kitchen. "...Like I said, you can come over any time."
"Thanks, Mrs. Bones. I feel like I already do." He added jestingly. "I'm here more than Audrey is."
"Well Audrey's been a bit busy with..." Lucy glanced mischievously at her daughter. "Her beau."
"Mum, he is not a beau." Audrey closed the dish cupboard. "I didn't know people even still used that word."
Davis gave her a quick look. "You have a boyfriend?"
"Is that so shocking?" She teased, then swatted him on the arm. "You know, the guy who was working on...er, the..." She fumbled, remembering Percy's explicit instructions never to mention the case to anyone again. "You know what."
He looked blank, but nodded slowly. "Oh...right...I guess."
She skipped over her fumble easily. "Anyways, he took me out for tea again, which was a bit anticlimactic, but...bigger and better things soon. Maybe."
"Give it time." Lucy counseled. "He's probably not used to mixing business with pleasure. I mean, you've seen the poor boy, how often do you think he gets a date?"
Audrey nearly choked on her water at that. Davis snickered. "No the cream of the crop, is he?" He asked.
"Well...not really... not in looks, but I'm not too picky." She conceded.
"What, does he have glasses or something?" Davis asked, toying with his food.
There was a long pause. Audrey looked across at her mother. "Davis, he's the ginger. The ginger bloke with the glasses, Percy Weasley."
"You remember him." Lucy said reasonably.
Davis looked puzzled, then shook his head. "Nope, never met him. Red hair and glasses? God, that's got to be awful together."
Audrey wiped her hands on her napkin. "Davis, we spent about an hour with him last week. On that little...stroll through Wiltshire?"
Davis looked up from his dinner as if she were mad. "Wilt...What? What are you talking about, Audrey?"
"Wiltshire!" She bit her tongue even as she referred to the incident. "And he and his brother came along, and...you know, all that happened. On...what, Wednesday?"
Davis shook his head slowly. "Audrey, I was at home on Wednesday, I remember. I was studying."
"Stu..." Audrey echoed, the word trailing incompletely off her lips. Davis' blue eyes were genuinely blank, genuinely confused. He was, for once, in earnest.
There was a long, awkward silence before Lucy struck up a bit too cheerfully on another topic. Both young people played along, and Davis seemed to be fine, but Audrey couldn't quite get her head around it. Either she was mad, or he was.
.
She shut the door after him hours later and turned back to her mother. "He doesn't remember anything we did!" She hissed frantically.
"He's probably just...pretending. He's probably not supposed to talk about it either." Lucy reminded her. "Remember, you said that brother of Percy's took him away, almost arrested him."
"He did..." Audrey pulled back into her memory. "Off to the Ministry!" Weasley had said. And there had been a lot of muttering and whispering going on all during the ride back to London.
Was it possible? Could you...just make someone forget something? Was it some sort of brainwashing trick? But why use it on a simple cold case murder investigation?
The next time she saw Percy, she would ask him. No, she wouldn't, she decided almost at once. She'd find out in her own time. Dad, well Dad was dead, and that was that. But Davis, Davis was living, and if he was hurt in some way...
She moved back to the kitchen. The next time she saw Percy she'd say nothing. She would work around him to get to whatever it was he was hiding. She would let Dad's case rest, but as soon as someone else in her realm of being was touched, she would go straight back to pushing and pressuring him for information, clues, leads. Maybe he'd be nice about it, and maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd even be angry with her. Maybe...
Maybe there would be no more going out for tea at the shop.
She paused at that thought, then resolutely went to fetch an ironing board and her clean laundry. Well, maybe there would and maybe there wouldn't, but it would be Percy's fault, not hers. Truth was all she'd ask for.