...

Despite the slight feeling of shame that filled him for it, Cyrus couldn't help but let out a relieved sigh he felt as he watched the door to the ballroom close behind the boy as he swept through it.

Taking a moment to collect his thoughts, he let out another breath before he focused back on his loving wife.

"So?" He started, a slight smile on his face as he turned towards her, a mischievous feeling swelling up in him as he took in the woman he'd fallen in love with so long ago. "About your vegetables..."

She pouted him, before rolling her eyes as a smile grew on her own face. "That's not what I want to talk to you about, and you know it." She finished with a dramatic finger pointed at him, before she moved closer towards him, her chair not making a sound as it followed her whims across the floor. "What's wrong?" She questioned, the smile on her face dying down. "I haven't seen you this quiet since... Well, you know."

He let out a slight sigh at that.

"What happened at work today?" She continued, laying a single hand on his shoulders- An act he found himself appreciating.

"It's... The culmination of a few things,"

"Hm?" Roxanne raised an eyebrow at him. "Do those things involve a boy with yellow eyes?"

"You can say that," He answered on instinct, surprising her in the process.

After a moment, the woman let out a giggle at him.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about Daphne too much now, I am sure she's got her head screwed in right, and if..."

"That's not what's bothering me," He admitted, cutting the woman off, earning a more noticeable look of surprise in the process. He turned his gaze down towards the food and really took in the past few days. "That boy might actually be a pureblood." He let the words out, a hint of relief filling him as he said them- Relief he wasn't sure where the source of came from, but relief all the same.

Roxanne blinked at him a few times at the words before a confused, almost Astoria-like, expression filled her face.

"...And that's a bad thing?"

"Roxanne, he's an orphan." He pointed out. "An orphan pureblood. That's rather hard to wrap one's mind around."

"...I suppose." The woman shrugged. "But it's not the strangest thing in the world-"

"No, it isn't," Cyrus remarked easily. "No, what's strange is what I found when I looked into him."

"Oh?" Roxanne questioned, blinking a few times before another smile rose up on her face. "Beat me to that thinking did you?" She questioned, amused.

"Roxxy," He continued, his mood unchanging. "I didn't find anything."

Her look of confusion returned.

"So... He's probably not a pureblood then?" She let out a shrug following it. "That's fine as well-"

"No." He shook his head, cutting her off again, this time feeling a slight hint of guilt at doing so. "He is. I am sure of it."

A sense of unease finally filled his wife's face at those words. At the certainty in his voice-

"Honestly, it would've been a lot easier if he wasn't." He admitted. "I... Wouldn't have batted much of an eyelash at that. But then I looked into him- At first it was because of the stories I'd heard regarding his home-" Something flashed across his wife's face at that, something laced with... Anger? He'd known the woman long enough to know her tells, even if she tried to hide them. He took that as a sign to continue on. "Pureblood or not, no child of our world should be forced to go through such a thing, so I took the liberty of trying to find some form of a solution that wouldn't overstep any boundaries and..." A hand swept through his hair as he let out another sigh. "Nothing. At all. No record whatsoever of a boy named Rodrick-"

"Muggle-born children don't have their records made until well after they're sent a letter you know-"

"And even if he were one, there's no record of him all the same." A beat passed. "At least, one anyone can access." He leaned back into his chair, and slowly lowered his hand towards the woman's own one on the table.

"Cyrus... Records can be..." She started up, worry now lacing her face. After a few moments of pondering, the woman found the question she seemed to want to ask- "Why are you so sure he's a pureblood?"

"Because Malfoy wouldn't have shown any interest in him otherwise."

The woman mulled those words over with a frown, her gaze briefly filtering towards the closed door before rounding back on him. "You're not wrong but... If any of the stories we've heard from Daphne, I am sure his son would've mention-"

"No." He quickly shook his head. "Malfoy's interest didn't start during the year." He continued, frowning. "I found something detailing a little exhibition the man took a year ago." He paused for a moment recalling that with a hint of trepidation. "Malfoy was the one who took Rodrick on his first trip into the magical world."

Confusion, wariness, and a hint of paranoia rapidly swarmed the woman's face at that.

"Malfoy?" She questioned, disbelieving him. "Lucius Malfoy, one and the same?"

He nodded, a strained feeling swelling up inside him. "I felt much the same when I found out."

"...Okay then," Roxanne remarked warily. "I suppose... Pureblood is..." She took another glance towards the closed door again and back to him. "Maybe his records are under another-"

"It isn't." He cut her off again, his worry overtaking every other feeling. "I checked Hogwart's records as well." He admitted, earning a rather major frown from the woman. "Rodrick." He stated. "That was all it said."

The wariness and worry skyrocketed on the woman's face as she processed that.

"That was the start of my worry," He shook his head. "That someone out there... For some reason... Could manage to hex Hogwart's own system..." He took another pause, a breath coming out to fill it as the tension in his shoulders rose. "And then this morning, I walk into my office, and there on my desk, I find an untouched record." He locked eyes with his wife. "An exact copy of the one hidden in the castle, only this one had a confidential law signed by a minister of magic writ into it."

"Fudge..?" His wife remarked, blinking a few times as she processed the words. "He had something to do with this?"

"No." He shook his head. "Not Fudge, another one..." He let out a gulp. "A minister for magic who'd no doubt been coerced into it, given the second name signed into it- And yet likely thought it not to mean much at the time, nor matter really."

"...When?" Roxanne questioned.

He didn't answer immediately.

"Cyrus..." She stated his name, a tad louder. "When?"

"Over fifty years ago." He admitted, before turning back to look towards his wife's widened eyes. "A plot fifty years in the making... Involving a child with an unnatural talent for magic who hadn't and wouldn't be born for just as long... One signed and held by a minister for magic, and Arcturus Black, the known leading officer of the Architect of the World Wizarding War." He grasped hold of his wife's hand with an iron grip. "Signed by a pureblood who'd once followed one of the most dangerous wizards in history."

"Signed by the man known as one of Gellert Grindelwald's Lietenunets. And also the one who willingly gave him up in the end and was rewarded for it."

Roxanne just sat there, staring at him with widened eyes as a hint of fear and dread filled her before she turned towards the door, somewhat shakily.

"...That poor boy." She whispered. "What on earth is he entangled in?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is... I have a bad feeling that the orphanage he was put in, was chosen by design." He admitted. "That his terrible upbringing was made by design." He let out a long breath at that before he closed his eyes. "And I am not sure whether to be angry that someone would do this... Or worried that someone set it in stone over fifty years ago." He lowered his gaze and let go of the woman's hand. "The magic this speaks of Roxanne is..." He just shook his head. "It's on another level."

...

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