After three weeks living in the Gould manor there was still no sign of her mother or grandfather, with only her kneazle as constant company. Nancy ate her breakfast as quickly as she could that morning and when she rose from the table and was going to run to her room to pick up her coat, but the door opened, and Mrs. Ophelia walked in. She had on her a beautiful black dress and cap, and her collar was fastened with a large brooch with a picture of a rose.
"I've got something to tell you," she said. "I thought I'd let you eat your breakfast first. Your grandfather came back last night and he wants to see you."
Nancy felt her heart thump on her chest with happiness and at the same time she was relieved. She was already starting to think that he really didn't want to see her. She hurried to the door, but she was blocked by Mrs. Ophelia, that started combing through her hair with her fingers and stopped at a specially tangled clump of curls.
"Your hair is rough," she said quickly.
"It looks like a bird's nest." Mocked Damian, at the door.
Nancy was not a vain child and as she had never thought much of her looks, she was not greatly disturbed.
"Go and brush it. You better change these clothes. They are covered in cat's fur. I will be back in ten minutes."
After getting dressed, she was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before. At last, Mrs. Ophelia knocked at a door, and they heard him said, "Come in," they entered the room together. He was standing before the fire, he turned to look at her and a smile spread across his wrinkly, but gentle face.
"There is my little Nancy!" He spoke.
"Grandpa!" Nancy hurried to him and he gave her a big warming hug.
Mrs. Ophelia left Nancy and her grandfather together. He called the little girl to stand in front of him and tell him what she'd learned since they last saw each other. And she would gladly talk about astronomy, arts or cartography that her mother taught her at home, and he would sit back with one ankle resting on the other knee and watch her with a happy grin on his face.
"And how do you spend your time here in the manor?" He asked.
"I read books and play with Prowler around the house. I make many drawings."
Beside her, her kneazle laid sphinx-like on the carpet, swishing his tail occasionally with a lost gaze, blinking softly every now and then.
"Oh! And I found a rook in the garden." she went on.
"Did you? Did you catch it?"
"It had a hurt foot. I helped it get better. So, I gave it scraps of food and then it got better and flew away."
"That was nice of you. Well, sadly I have to go again. But you look healthy. Here." he pulled out a very long box with a lace from besides his chair and placed it in front of her. "This is for you."
She opened the enormous box wondering what would he have gave to her that was this big, and also wondering what she should do to thank him. Inside there was a perfect flying broomstick, too big for her age, but it was beautiful. On the handle it was written 'Nimbus 1500' in silver. She could only fully exploit its potential after engrossing in school. Still, the excitement won her over. She had not expected him to remember her at all and her little heart grew quite warm.
"Oh! Thank you, grandpa. I love it!" said Nancy thankfully.
"Go and play, then," He said.
She gave him a clumsy kiss on his cheek, turned and darted to the door. Every day she would slip over the broom and try to fly, failing utterly, for she couldn't reach more than two feet from the ground. But that didn't demotivate her nor reduce the joy on her little face.
The next day the library was closed for cleaning and there was nothing amusing inside the house. Perhaps it would be better to go and see the gardens. She found her coat and a pair of stout little boots and Prowler followed her outside. As she was playing by herself under a tree, just as she had been playing every day since she came to her grandfather's manor, Prowler was lying on the grass close to her looking up to ask for petting now and then. Nancy bent down and rubbed his neck softly for minutes in silence. Damian, that saw her from the house in a distance, came closer and stood near her. Presently he got rather interested and suddenly asked.
"Hey, you! That is a kneazle right? How did you get it?"
She smiled and told him she found the little kitten kneazle half drowned in a hole and she brought it home in the bosom of her shirt to keep it warm. Its mother was nowhere to be found and the hole was swum out. It was her most precious discovery and her pride. Nancy talked like that more than she had ever talked before. She had become quite excited to share her discovery and her dark eyes began to shine like stars and it looked more immense than ever. He could see now, looking closer, that her eyes were not black, but in fact, grey like his and his grandfather.
Damian had never possessed an animal pet of his own and had always thought he would like one. So, he began to feel a slight interest in Nancy, and he had never before been interested in anyone but himself. His father had held a position as an auror under the Ministry of Magic and had always been busy, and his mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself. She had not wanted a baby at all, and when Damian was born, she handed him over to the care of a servant, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Madam, she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. He never had anyone acting familiarly with him but his grandmother and grandfather, and as he always obeyed, they gave him his own way in everything. By the time he was ten years old he was as tyrannical and selfish kid as ever lived.
Breakfast, dinner and supper were very silent meals. When she went into the dining room for breakfast that morning, there were no grown-ups to be seen, only Damian and she. A table in the scenter was set with a good substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very small appetite. Damian looked with something more than indifference at the first plate Hatcher set before him.
"I don't want it," he said.
Nancy could only think that if she did that in front of her father, he would give her such a terrifying glare that she would have preferred a good beating. Nancy drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.
"Take it away! And bring me butteries with much jam!"
She stared very hard at him and didn't say anything. She could see quite plainly that this boy had been spoiled. He thought that the whole world belonged to him.
"What are you looking at me for?" he said.
Nancy shrugged.
"What is the matter with you? Speak!"
Even Nancy had found out that one of Damian's chief peculiarities was that he did not know in the least what a rude little brute he was with his way of ordering people about.
"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Hatcher." She said gazing her own plate.
"What?" said Damian, quite indignantly. "But it's his job as a servant." He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to matter to him at all.
"That doesn't seem natural." She mumbled.
He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy.
"You don't know anything about house elves. They are not people—they're servants. You know nothing about anything!" he shouted.
Nancy blushed. She remembered Hatcher's reaction when she thanked him and she reached the conclusion that maybe Damian was right. She didn't understand anything and she did not like that feeling. So, she didn't say anything anymore. For a moment Damian looked angry before the girl's simple stare, but then an idea came to him. Followed by a crash of glass and the glug of spilled liquid. Damian had knocked a bottle off the table, and made it look as if Hatcher did it.
"Hey!" Nancy squealed.
She flew across the dining room and, kneeling down, started helping picking up the broken pieces. The house-elf sprung up and begged.
"Oh, miss!" he stuttered. "Don't do it, miss!"
She didn't need to worry about helping, as the elf could have easily solved everything with magic. But her body moved on its own.
"Leave us!" Damian ordered Hatcher, that obeyed.
"Your mom like you doing servant jobs? I know mine wouldn't." He spoke.
"My mum," said Nancy, looking odd. "Wouldn't mind at least."
"Oh! I suppose she wouldn't care. Isn't that why she married a mud-blood."
Her mind seemed to awaken again to the life about her. She realized that she had forgotten that her father lived in the world. But she was far too proud let it pass. She sprang to her feet in fury.
"Take back what you said!" Her face contorted in rage and her dark eyes were wide open in a fearsome expression.
For Damian, this was an opportunity.
"Or what?" he said, defying. "I'm sure you must be happy to be living here, right? Now you are rich, and get expensive gifts. My mother said that you were very poor. I bet you don't even want to think about going back."
She threw herself into a passion fury and sprung over him. She beat and kicked the boy in a rough-and-tumble fight. She fought hard, ferocious, snarling, with her thin bare limbs.
Mrs. Ophelia came in at the same moment, and snatched the girl away from his chest. Nancy crouch in the corner of the dark landing like a cat at bay. And there was a cat beside her as tall as her knees. Prowler, her kneazle, fur on end, teeth bared, tail erect. The woman helped Damian while Nancy stood up slowly and without help.
"This is a nice way for you to behave, girl! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" Mrs. Ophelia said with greater severity.
The girl stayed in silence. Her face swollen and tear-stained and her eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor. Something inside her was hurting at the shouts of the woman and she didn't know why.
"It's my fault grandma. I teased her." The boy said.
Mrs. Ophelia paid no heed to Damian.
"Still, you hadn't any right to fly into such a fury the way you did to him."
She dragged the girl by the arm upstairs. Prowler followed them by their heels.
"You'll have the night to think over your conduct in and come to a better frame of mind." The woman said.
Like that Nancy was shoved inside her room and she heard the 'click' sound of the woman locking the door besides her. For moments she stood still in the middle of the room. She suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away from everything she understood and which understood her.
"Meow." Prowler cried for attention.
She petted his head and he licked her hand as if consoling her. She picked him up in her arms and brought him to the bed and both lay down. 'Unjust! - unjust!' said her reason. What a consternation of soul was her that dreary afternoon. Her brain was in tumult, and her heart in insurrection. Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! She could not answer the ceaseless inward question - Why she suffered. Nancy alternately cried and slept through the hours until she fell asleep.