Not Quite Right

Alice awoke to the singing of birds. The sun was shining into her room. She got up and opened the window to let the cool morning air in. A night without nightmares, she had to be grateful for the little things in life.

It was better since she had met the Order. She knew now that she was not alone, not the only one who had survived in a world of Death Eaters. She smiled slightly when she remembered their meetings. Remus was still here as well and he had even found love. Andromeda's daughter, a spirited and kind young woman.

Why Andromeda had chosen the name Nymphadora, Alice could not understand however. It was a traditional name of the Black family carrying the memories of old tales half-forgotten. Frank had shared a few of them with her but she had never completely understood. Had Andromeda never gotten over what she had given up? It must be hard to turn your back onto your entire family. Her love to Ted however had been stronger and probably saved her from the fate of her Death Eater sisters. He was dead for almost nine years now and she had nothing left but her daughter living in secret.

So many lives had been destroyed by this war.

Alice made her way to the bathroom. The woman staring back at her from the mirror was a stranger.

Alice had always struggled with her weight, always felt a bit ashamed when standing next to pretty, slender people like Lily Potter. The woman in the mirror was very thin but it didn't make her look good.

Alice had always had auburn hair and rosy cheeks, hair and skin of the mirror woman were eerily pale. Not even Frank's Aunt Callidora who was almost 100 years old had hair so white,

Whenever she left the house, she wanted to hide behind a long coat and a hood. She didn't want anyone to see how ugly she was.

And yet, Remus and Molly and all the other people from the order didn't seem to care. To them, she was still Alice as if nothing had ever changed. To them, she was a hero.

If they knew about the end of her torture they'd feel differently. The memory came unbidden, as those memories always did.

She had begged for mercy. Begged for mercy! No one but a coward would do that. If she had known anything, she would have told them at this point. Frank had done no such thing but she would have betrayed everything. If the others from the Order knew, they'd feel so disgusted about her. They wouldn't want her around. They wouldn't entrust her with their secret whereabouts anymore.

She felt so repulsive herself. She couldn't bear to remember but she couldn't get it out of her head either. It would remain there forever.

She felt sick, so very sick. At least, the toilet was near. She fell to her knees in front of it. Spit it all out. She couldn't, not really but it forced her to think of something else. She flushed the toilet and her head was empty of the memories as well.

For the moment.

Shaking all over she got up again and went to the sink, rinsing her mouth.

It hadn't ended there.

Everyone acted as if those fifteen years at Hospital had never existed. They had existed and she remembered them, remembered them too well.

The Healers had given her a wide variety of potions. Alice knew what those potions had been supposed to do. It had been the standard treatment for Cruciatus curse patients in the past. Keep the patient calm, keep relapses from happening, make her life a bit less miserable.

They were not doing any of these things.

The potions were completely ineffective against the effects of the Cruciatus curse. The only thing they did do was making her weaker and keeping her away from the memories which painful as they were might offer a short glimpse of the truth. Worst of all however, they had trapped her in her own mind, unable to talk, scream, or communicate with the outside world in any other way.

Safe for the chewing gum wrappers. She had found them in the pockets of one of her robes and had used them to give messages to Neville and anyone else she felt she had once known. No one had given her anything to write with, so there had been only one thing she had been able to do; scratch her own skin and write in blood. Help me; help us or just help she had written.

There was one thing she hadn't been able to remember however. The wrappers had been charmed so they could safely trade messages for the Order this way. Only tapping them with a wand in a certain rhythm would allow you to read what was written there.

Neville hadn't known of course and he had never shown them to anyone who did.

During some of the time, she had been living in some sort of dream world in her own head. Alice couldn't remember this part very well. It was a bit like the dreams she had at night and forgot the next morning, sometimes pleasant, sometimes haunting but never quite clear. There had been attacks of fear caused by she didn't know what as well. Due to the potions' effects no one ever knew about them. She had had to deal with them all alone.

The same went for the relapses of pain. They hadn't affected her body because of the potions but to her mind it hadn't made any difference.

Sometimes, she had been aware of her surroundings. These moments could have been triggered by a smell, a sound or the presence of certain people such as Neville. She hadn't known who she was or who they were but she had known that she was in a room with pale yellow walls and many beds with other people in them. These had been the moment when she had written her messages.

After a while she had always drifted back into this state between dreams and pain. Sometimes she was still scared that it might happen again. Especially at night. She didn't like dreaming anymore and was grateful for any night without a dream.

She never wanted to experience this again. Not this horrible feeling of being trapped in your own mind, trying to find a way to escape before being given another potion that made all the efforts useless, unable to communicate any of this to the outside world. It had been like a second torture.

Yes, she was angry at them.

There were times when she wondered if they really hadn't known what they were doing to her.

She heard footsteps on the stairs. "Mum, are you alright?"

She was not alright but there was no point in telling him. Especially not in the morning when he was heading off to work.

"Yes, I'm coming," Alice said. Thinking of breakfast made her feel slightly sick again. She went downstairs despite of this.

Neville was waiting for her at the bottom of the stair. He gave her a worried look. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," she told him.

Alice definitely wasn't going to tell him how the years at the hospital had really been. There was no need for him to know. It would only make him feel guilty about things he couldn't have changed. She didn't want to tell him about her earlier memory either of course. It had slipped away almost completely again, a fact for which she was grateful.

The rest of the family was already seated around the table. Hannah gave her a slight smile before turning back to Francis. She tried to tell him to eat his cornflakes in a less messy manner. So far, her success had been limited.

Alice took a spoon full of oatmeal and poured a bit of milk over it. Slowly, she started to eat. Breakfast was always the worst meal of the day. She was glad if she got anything down at all.

Neville was watching her with a worried look on his face. Alice knew what he was thinking. He used to tell her that she needed to eat more but by now he had understood that she couldn't.

"Gran, will you go to the playground with us later?" Francis asked. "The weather's really nice and everything." He grinned.

"Yes, I'd like to go too," Deborah added.

Alice sighed deeply. She never felt like leaving the house to go into the Death Eater-ruled public but most of the time, she was better after she had made herself do it.

"Alright. After your lessons," she said. The children at least were looking happy.

The lessons went quite well. Alice had never considered the idea that she might be a good teacher but it did work out quite well. Teaching also took her mind off other things.

Francis and Deborah both wanted to learn something most of the time which made it easier of course.

The children were quite good at reading and writing but struggled with anything related to numbers. She needed to explain any new calculation method many times before they finally did grasp it. When they had done so, they never forgot it again though.

Alice also told the children about the most important plants and mushrooms. This usually turned into a practical lesson in the rich Longbottom garden. Both children knew very well which plants were poisonous such as the dark Belladonna berries growing in the shades of trees or the Medea's Leaf vines which Neville was cultivating for use in healing potions. The leaves of this plant contained a strong contact poison while the berries would mess with your mind.

During Alice's Hogwarts days the use of the berries had been quite fashionable. Alice had tried them only once and been lucky; the things she had seen had been really weird but not too disturbing. Other people had lived through their worst nightmares or poisoned themselves with an overdose which had finally led to a ban of the plant at Hogwarts.

Neville was making memory-stimulating potions out of some parts of the juice now. The potion which had finally opened up the way back had contained some of it as well.

Alice also let the children cook both because she believed that they needed to be able to do this without the help of a House Elf and because it was good training for potion making. She didn't want them to face the struggles both Frank and Neville had gone through in this subject.

The most problematic field was History of Magic. Alice knew quite well that the Death Eaters' take on this was very different from anything she had learned at school. Therefore she only outlined the most important past events and avoided the more recent history completely. She didn't want to get the children into trouble.

Magical knowledge was a less controversial field. Alice told them about some of the most basic facts about magical theory and showed them a few spells. Augusta Longbottom's former wand served her surprisingly well. Sometimes, she was asking herself if Frank's mother and wife had had more in common than they had believed during their living years. Working with unfamiliar wands had been one of the very first lessons in Auror training. The danger of losing your wand was always present in this profession and an Auror who couldn't use his or her full potential anymore after that was a problem.

Still, it wasn't her own. The sacrifice of the Phoenix lady had been in vain just like Alice's own. A young, rash Mr Ollivander had captured the wild Phoenix and tried to take her feathers by magic when she refused to give any to him. Each of those feathers had turned to dust as soon as his fingers had touched it.

Only when he finally realised the wrong he had done and let her go, he found one single red and gold feather in his lap. He had used it for a wand made of poplar which had never found a suitable owner until Alice had come into the shop.

From the first day, Alice had found this story disturbing in a way. She knew that there was no real reason for that. Dragon heart string wands like Augusta's even required the death of the magical creature. Knowing this didn't change her feelings however. Looking back at it in hindsight it felt almost like a bad omen.

She hadn't believed anything like this as a girl and young woman but she had always treated the wand with great respect because she had wanted to show the Phoenix the respect she had deserved but not received in the past. Alice didn't really want to imagine this wand in the hands of Rodolphus Lestrange. The Phoenix would surely be disappointed because Alice hadn't taken better care.

She put Augusta's wand away and ended the magical part of the lesson. Francis and Deborah looked disappointed when they had to turn to maths but it was necessary and Alice wasn't sure what her magic might do if she was feeling so messed up.

When the children had both completed a rather difficult division task successfully, Alice ended the lesson. "You've done really well. Now we can go to the playground," she told them.

Francis and Deborah jumped from their seats to get their cloaks. Alice slipped into her own one and pulled the hood over her head until her eerily white hair was hidden almost completely.

She told Sandy that they were out, took the children by the hand apparated with them from their front door towards the nearest magical playground.

The magical playgrounds had sandboxes and climbing frames like Muggle playgrounds. The latter wouldn't have been possible that way without the help of magic however. There were also spells that kept children who fell down from injuring themselves. Hannah who's Ministry department was responsible for the playground had told Alice and Neville all about it. She was quite impressed by the idea, another thing which allowed the Death Eaters to win sympathies among the people.

The playground had some purely magical attractions as well, among them toy brooms for example which were almost like real ones, only charmed so they wouldn't fly to high or throw the children off. Francis ran towards these right away. He wanted a broom of his own but Neville and Hannah thought that he was too young for that. Neville's own flying experience hadn't been too great and he was worried about injuries as well.

Deborah started to play with the sand, trying to build some sort of castle. Alice settled down on an empty bench. The air smelled of spring and birds were flying around. The first green leaves and blossoms were visible in the trees and hedges around the playground. Alice took a deep breath and tried not to think about anything other than the wonders of nature awakening again each year.

A little girl with bushy black hair came running towards Deborah and the two were hugging each other.

"Hi Roxy," Deborah said and cast a nervous look into Alice's direction. The other girl was looking at her as well now.

"Hello," she said and then her dark eyes widened. "You are Deborah's Gran." She was staring at Alice as if she had seen a Dementor or something similar.

Alice took a deep breath. It wasn't surprising that her battered appearance was frightening the child.

"Yes, that's my Gran," Deborah said. "Gran, that's Roxy. We're friends."

There was a slightly guilty look on her face as if she had been caught doing something forbidden. Francis was watching the entire seen from above, sitting on his broom.

"Roxana, you're not supposed to run of like that. And no such displays of emotion in public! This isn't appropriate behaviour for a pureblood Lady," a woman's voice said.

Alice turned around to see who was talking. It was a tall, blonde witch with a slightly haughty demeanour, accompanied by two boys, one blond, the other one dark-haired.

Alice knew who the dark-haired one was. She had met him at Flourish and Blotts. The girl, Roxana, must be his sister. So this was why Deborah seemed so awkward about being seen with her.

The witch was easy to recognise as well, Narcissa Malfoy accompanied by her younger son Arcturus. He was supposed to restart the Black family line. His pale-blond hair looked exactly like that of a Malfoy however.

"I'm not a lady. Muggles are ladies. I'm a witch," Roxana said.

Narcissa shook her head, wished Alice a good morning and walked towards the bench next to her. The young Death Eater woman Alice had seen at Gringotts was sitting there.

"May I?" Narcissa asked. The younger woman didn't object.

At least they weren't here with their parents, Alice thought. She had never liked Narcissa too much but the woman was polite enough and had never participated in the Death Eaters' crimes personally.

"Shall I show you how to fly?" Roxana asked Deborah.

Neville's daughter didn't seem to be too keen on that. Unlike her brother, she wasn't really interested in Quidditch.

"Come on, it's really fun. And you can't fall down from these brooms here."

"Okay."

The two girls walked off towards the brooms, Roxana seemed to be quite keen to get out of Alice's sight. She had no idea why that would be and didn't think she wanted to know.

Francis had noticed this as well. He landed right next to Roderic. "You're sister's really stupid you know," he said. "She's scared of my Gran."

He really shouldn't be as rude as that, Alice thought. She'd definitely tell him later but not in front of the other children.

"Don't you call my sister stupid," Roderic responded brandishing a wooden stick he had been holding.

"But she is."

"And what about your sister? She's a Squib, isn't she?"

Francis was glaring at him, his hands forming a fist. "She's not! Apologise for this."

"I won't."

"You will!"

"No!"

"Debbie is not a Squib! Apologise!"

"The next word he used made Alice feel as if her stomach had suddenly filled with cold water.

"Imperio!"

How could he say that? Where had he heard about this kind of curse?

Roderic's eyes narrowed. "How dare you!" he shouted and then the word she dreaded so much. "Crucio!"

Frozen with shock Alice watched how her grandson's face contorted with pain before his legs gave way underneath him. Francis was screaming in pain, Roderic standing over him, the stick in his hand like a wand.

As soon as she could move again, Alice drew her own wand and spoke the counter spell. Narcissa had jumped to her feet, stepping on the hem of her cloak in a rather unladylike way, and ran towards the two boys.

Alice's voice shook so much she could hardly understand herself but for some reason it still worked. The effects of the curse seemed to be gone. Only moments later, Narcissa grabbed her nephew by the shoulders.

"Roderic, what have you done!" she shouted. "Why did you do that again? You know you mustn't do this!"

Francis scrambled to his feet right away. He looked shaken but otherwise unharmed. Alice got up to meet him. Her feet were barely carrying her.

"Are you alright?" she whispered.

"Yes, I am," Francis said. "I didn't think he could do something like that."

Alice forced herself to breathe calmly. Everything was okay, Francis hadn't been harmed. Roderic probably didn't have the magical power to do this anyway. Not yet.

"Come with me and sit down for a moment," Alice told Francis and they both walked back to their bench.

Narcissa was still telling Roderic off.

"Dad said you shouldn't shout at me for using accidental magic," the boy said.

Alice wasn't surprised to hear that Rodolphus thought this kind of thing was alright.

"Accidental magic?" the young Death Eater said. "This was not an accident boy."

"Do you want to go home?" Alice asked Francis. She almost hoped he'd say yes. She didn't really want to stay here among these people.

"No, Gran it's okay. I was startled, that was all. If I leave now, he thinks I'm scared of him."

Alice did feel a bit of pride for him. Maybe Francis would carry on the Gryffindor legacy. There were a few things she had to make clear though.

"Alright. But listen to me Francis: Roderic should never have done this. What you did before wasn't okay either though. You tried to use the Imperius curse on him. This is an evil dark curse as well. It steals people's free will and forces them to do things they don't want to do. This is very wrong. Those curses weren't called unforgivable for fun, Francis. They're not toys."

"I'm sorry Gran. I didn't know that. I only heard that you can make people do what you want with this. I was so angry when Roderic called Debbie a Squib."

"I can understand this," Alice told him. "You shouldn't have called his sister stupid either though."

"Really? She's scared of you. Why would anyone be scared of you?"

"I don't know that but we should never make fun of other people because they're scared. There are many things we're all scared of as well," Alice told him.

"Okay," Francis said. "I'm not going to do it anymore."

"Good."

"Can I go back and play with Turus and the others?"

"Yes, you can," Alice said, glad that the entire thing didn't seem to have bothered Francis too much. Probably she and Narcissa as well had been overreacting a bit. Roderic wasn't able to perform the real Cruciatus curse at his age and without a wand.

"You know Lisa; I've seen it right away. There's something wrong with the boy. He's just not quite right," Narcissa was telling the Death Eater woman at the moment. Roderic was still standing beside them.

Lisa was clearly unsure what to say. She worked for Roderic's mother after all. Therefore she decided to remain silent and leave Narcissa to her ramblings.

"I can't understand this, I really can't understand it. My own sister has given birth to a monster. Maybe it would have been better if they had never had children after all"

Alice swallowed. What a cruel thing to say in front of a child.

Roderic didn't cry, he didn't shout at them, he didn't come up with a witty remark and he didn't walk away either. He simply stood there, his mouth forming a thin line, his eyes staring into nothingness.

This wasn't going to do any good. He'd never understand it like this. She had to do something.

"Roderic"

The boy turned around, looking at her. "Good morning Mrs Longbottom," he said, making a few steps towards her. He took a deep breath and said. "Back then before the War you would have taken me to Azkaban for this, wouldn't you?"

Alice was surprised that he knew about her former occupation and about Azkaban.

"Children were never sent to Azkaban," she said. "You haven't learned to control your magic yet. We would have talked to your parents."

And kept an eye on them, Alice added in her mind. The Aurors would have assumed that there was something wrong in the family if something like this had happened.

"I see," he said, talking a few more steps towards her.

"Do you want to sit down with me?" she asked, pointing at the space where Francis had been sitting before.

Roderic nodded and sat down.

"Do you know why the thing you have done was wrong?" Alice asked him.

"I didn't really think anything would happen," Roderic said. "Dad told me about the Cruciatus curse and it sounded rather difficult. Not like something that would happen just like that if you say the spell. I felt insulted because Francis said the Imperius curse and I wanted to do the same."

"That wasn't the answer to my question. Do you know why it was wrong?" Alice felt almost as if she had slipped back into her old Auror personality after saying these words. She was a bit ashamed of that. He was only a child and it was pathetic to try and exercise any kind of power over him because of her feelings towards the boy's parents.

Roderic did answer this time. "Yes, I do. I'm not supposed to hurt other people. And it's dangerous dark magic."

"That's right," Alice said, surprised that someone had tried to teach him the "I'm not supposed to hurt other people" part. "You have to understand that the Cruciatus curse causes much more than just pain."

Roderic was looking at his feet. "Yes. Dad did tell me that too," he muttered having no idea what these words were doing to Alice.

Rodolphus knew, he knew it all. This wasn't really new to her of course but she preferred to forget it normally. He hadn't only wanted answers, he had known exactly what she was going to go through, knew what she was going through now and he had wanted it all. At every moment, he had known what he was doing to her and chosen to do it.

"Mrs Longbottom, is something wrong? Do you need help from a Healer? There's a Portkey to 's here."

Roderic's voice managed to pull her back into the present, ashamed that there was nothing she could get done without any memories. She quickly looked for her own children. Deborah was flying with Roxy while Francis had joined the others in some martial-looking game.

"No, no, it's alright," she said quickly, recovering herself. "I wanted to ask you why you did it. You did even though you knew you shouldn't. Why?"

Roderic sighed. "I was angry because I had to stay with Narcissa. And angry at Francis because he insulted Roxy. And because he said this curse to me. I hate it when someone tries to force me to do something."

"I can understand that," Alice said. "I told Francis that this was wrong as well."

She was going to give them a lesson about dark magic soon. So far, she had stayed away from that because of Deborah but when Francis started to do stuff like that he needed to learn more. The two children were still playing without any trouble.

"It still doesn't give you the right to-"

"I know," Roderic said. "It's just, every time I'm angry, I feel like hurting the person who made me angry. And, and sometimes, it connects with my magic somehow and it really happens."

"This wasn't the first time?" Alice asked trying not to show him how alarmed she was by this.

"It was the second," Roderic admitted. "The second time where it happened with a person. It happens with animals too sometimes. Please don't tell Mum or Aunt Narcissa."

"I won't," Alice said. She didn't talk to Narcissa about things like that and neither to Bellatrix of course.

This was really disturbing though. She could understand Narcissa's feelings in a way now even though she should never have said it in front of the boy. Maybe people like them really shouldn't have children for various reasons. Alice didn't believe that a child could be born evil though. Roderic clearly wasn't, he was too thoughtful for that.

"People know about this," he said. "And they hate me for it. Narcissa and all the Malfoys really hate me. The Notts hate me too. Dad says it's normal though. He thinks there's no need to worry about it. I can't really believe this though."

"You're quite right," Alice said wondering if Bellatrix of all people was the one who actually tried to teach him some morals. "This is not normal. You shouldn't worry about it though. You have to make sure that this doesn't happen again. You mustn't speak this curse anymore, first of all. If you feel this way again, try to make yourself stop. Think about something else, you can count for example."

That was what they had been taught during Auror training when they had been taught the Unforgivable curses and also how not go get lost in them.

"I think I should apologise to Francis," Roderic said.

Alice was pleasantly surprised that he thought about this on his own.

"Yes, you should do this. He knows that he shouldn't have talked about your sister like that too by now."

"Good. My sister is one of the people who like me, you know," Roderic said matter-of-factly. "My sister and my Dad. They're the only people in the entire world who actually like me."

Alice swallowed as she heard those words. He must feel really lonely. Would he feel that way if he was really evil?

"It must be really hard for you to feel that way but I don't think it's true," she said. "What about your mother?"

She could hardly imagine that Bellatrix would be so shocked by Roderic's affinity for the Cruciatus curse.

Roderic sighed. "Mum is very busy. She has hardly ever any time for us. And if she does, she spends it with Roxy. She loves her more than me. Probably because I'm asking so many questions. She doesn't like that. No one does. But I simply need to know. I know everyone's keeping so many secrets. And they're never telling me the truth. Their answers don't make any sense."

"What kind of questions are you asking?" Alice wanted to know.

"About all kinds of things. Dark magic, Muggles and Muggleborns, the War, the Dark Lord, where babies come from."

Alice had to keep herself from laughing at the last point on his list

"These are all difficult subjects," she said. "Things many people don't like to talk about. Especially not in front of children. Sometimes knowing the answers can be dangerous for you. Or it will bother you because you can't understand it yet. Sometimes, the adults are just too embarrassed to talk about it; sometimes it's something personal no one else is supposed to know."

"Dad told me something like this too," Roderic said. "You're really like him in a way."

Alice flinched at these words. What was he thinking? He didn't know what this meant to her of course she told herself. From him, it was probably supposed to be a compliment. Hadn't he said something about his father and sister being the only people in the world who liked him?

"I really don't understand why you don't get along with each other," Roderic added.

Alice thought that he should be able to guess the truth by now with all the facts that he had assembled. Maybe you simply didn't want to believe something like that about your own parents. She would not tell him here. Maybe some other time and place but not on a public playground with his aunt listening.

Roderic didn't seem to expect any answers himself. "Francis was right in a way," he said. "We really don't have to be scared of you. I think Roxy was scared because of all this stuff about you having been an Auror."

"What did your parents tell you about Aurors?" she asked. Maybe there was some misinformation she could correct.

"Well, they told us that the Aurors were fighting for the Old Ministry and against them. They put people into prison and could kill them as well if they wanted to. Azkaban was guarded by Dementors back then so that the prisoners would always be miserable and couldn't think of escaping. The food was bad too but Dad says it wasn't worse than the food at 's back then. He thinks it was the same food."

This was relatively close to the truth, Alice thought. The purpose of Azkaban had been just that even though most people hadn't liked to admit it openly, not even to themselves. She didn't know about the food though. She had never eaten in Azkaban and while at 's she hadn't really known what she was eating.

"Why did you fight against the Death Eaters?" Roderic asked.

Alice sighed. This was one of those questions she couldn't really answer easily. He didn't know about the entire Muggle-born issue, he had never met one. Roderic probably didn't know about the Death Eater crimes either. Without this information it was hardly possible to explain what they had been fighting for. She couldn't put everything Roderic had ever learned in question on one morning and she didn't want to do this in a public place either. Therefore she thought of a diplomatic version.

"They fought against the Ministry and wanted to rule the Magical Community themselves. It's what they're doing know. We didn't want that because we thought the Old Ministry was alright the way it was. We also didn't agree with many things the Death Eaters wanted. You really can't understand most of this though. You don't know about those old arguments and explaining them all would take too long now."

"Maybe another time," Roderic said. "Will you visit us along with Neville sometime?"

"I'm sorry Roderic but I can't do this. You could visit us though. If your parents don't mind." Alice was sure that Neville had no objections. He was meeting the entire Lestrange family on a regular basis after all.

"I'm going to ask them," Roderic said.

"We have to leave now, Roderic." Narcissa stood beside them.

"We have to leave already?"

"Yes. I told you we couldn't stay long. I'm waiting for news from Draco."

"Okay. I'll tell Roxy. I need to apologise to Francis first though."

He ran off, Alice was glad that he remembered that he was supposed to apologise. He obviously had listened to the things she had told him.

With a smile Narcissa turned to her "I'll soon be a grandmother as well, you now."

"That's great for your family," Alice said. "Do you know if it's going to be a boy or a girl?"

"Not yet. Doesn't really matter one way or the other, does it? Having both at once is nice too of course."

"Yes, it is," Alice said. Hannah hadn't been too glad when heard that she was getting twins but by now she had come to appreciate it. Only one pregnancy for both children she was supposed to have.

"I want to thank you, by the way," Narcissa said. "You've handled this really well with Roderic. For me, it's so hard to deal with this kind of behaviour from him. It should be much harder for you but took care of him even though he isn't even family for you. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Alice said. "I don't think you should have said these things front of him though. About him being a monster that shouldn't have been born." She felt the need to address this, no matter what Narcissa thought.

The youngest Black sister sighed deeply. "You're right. I shouldn't say that. But I simply don't know how to deal with this. The only thing his magic has ever done is hurting people and animals. He has no sense for politeness and other people's feelings at all. It's not normal. No other child I've known has ever been like this. I don't know where he's got that from."

If this was supposed to be a joke, it was a bad one, Alice thought. She didn't say those words aloud but Narcissa seemed to have guessed them.

"Children should be innocent," she said. "You probably can't believe it, no one can, but Bella once was too. Roderic however, it seems as if he were born that way."

She drew a bit closer and said almost in a whisper. "Sometimes I'm wondering if he could not be the Dark Lord's." She was shivering slightly. Alice too thought that the mental image was quite disturbing. "Other people have thought that too," Narcissa added. "He wouldn't even be quite human then, would he? The son of a man who has been dead for thirteen years and has undergone so many dark magic transformations."

When she had met Roderic for the first time, Alice had thought that he resembled Rodolphus quite closely. Maybe this had just been her imagination though. Maybe she had actually spoken with the son of Lord Voldemort. Still, she couldn't imagine this.

"Do you really think he'd want a son? Doesn't he want to be immortal himself?"

"I don't know," Narcissa said. "But it would explain it."

Alice remembered the look on Roderic's face when Narcissa had said those cruel words. She hadn't realised it then but he had reminded her of a young Rodolphus very much in this moment. Maybe Narcissa would be a bit less uncomfortable with her nephew if she stopped believing he was Voldemort's son.

"Did you know the Lestrange brothers as children?" she asked.

Narcissa shook her head. "They preferred to keep to themselves, the Lestranges. Probably thought that no one else was pure enough." Her expression made it clear that she found this idea very offensive.

"Or they didn't want anyone to know how magic showed itself in their children," Alice suggested.

Narcissa looked thoughtful.

"Roderic told me that his father says this was supposed to be normal," Alice added. "Maybe it is, to them."

"This is possible of course," Narcissa said slowly. "Rodolphus keeps saying that we're supposed to accept this but I don't think this can be right. But maybe, if it keeps happening in their family... I should ask him."

"Ask what?"

Roderic had returned, accompanied by his sister and nephew.

"Ask your father if he had similar things happening to him when he was your age," Narcissa informed him to Alice's surprise.

"We have to leave now," she said to Alice. "Thank you for looking after him. You're a remarkable woman indeed, Alice."

"You're flattering me," Alice said. Remarkable wasn't on the list of words she'd use to describe herself.

"She's telling the truth. I'd really like to have you for my grandmother," Roderic said.

"It would surely do you some good," Narcissa said. "But things are the way they are."

That was true and Alice feared that Roderic would never get a chance to make the right choice.

The potential was there, she didn't doubt that for a second, but given who his parents were, he'd probably never get the chance to grow up into a decent person.

Maybe, just maybe, the answer to one of his many questions would lead him upon the right path though.

People who asked too many questions weren't the people Lord Voldemort wanted as followers.