"Hey! Lena!"
Slowing her walking, hands in her pockets as she turned slightly to look at where Charles Potter was walking quickly towards her (with a few of his reluctant-looking friends following him at a slower pace). "Potter."
Catching up to her- both their respective friends shifting restlessly behind either of them as if waiting for a duel- the boy gave her a guilty look. "I-... I wanted to say I'm sorry about last year. I mean you came back and all, so it must not have been too bad, but-"
"Trust me on this when I say I would not have come back had anyone less than Dumbledore himself asked for a personal favor… He was Jack's friend after all." She then tilted her head. "Would you like to try your apology again or are you going to admit that you didn't think you did anything wrong?"
The boy flushed red and she saw a few of his friend's faces darkening, but a glare kept them from trying anything. After a pause, Charlie rubbed the back of his neck. "I won't apologize for trying to keep my friends safe-"
"I don't expect you to."
"-But I do feel bad about trying to trick you with polyjuice potion. And for not trusting you in the first place… I don't think anyone even remembered you grew up with Muggles, we were all so afraid and you didn't look worried and-... well it just kind of spiraled."
Lena nodded. "Common mistake of the masses and usually the thing that starts the most riots, I am afraid. If everyone should be afraid, then the person who is not will either be torn to bits because the hive mind thinks they should conform or they will be seen as a hero. You were just pulled into the insanity of the rest of the idiots- I don't blame you for that."
The bushy-haired Ravenclaw- Hermione Granger- huffed. "You sure sound like you are."
"I am not blaming him, Granger, I am merely disappointed." Her eyes drifted from the girl and then back to Charlie. "I had expected someone so… sunshine to be better about judging on face value. I guess I will just have to lower my expectations yet again."
Ron Weasley stormed forward getting in her face angrily. "You think you're all that! Do you really think that you can talk to him like this? Do you know who he is? What he's done for you?"
She felt Theo and Draco go for their wands, Blaise surely palming one of the knives that the whole court pretended not to know she'd given him and she held up her hand to still them. "Ah. I thought that you might play that card. Shove the title of 'Boy-Who-Lived' in my face because apparently killing a single man is any real accomplishment other than making you a murderer…" Her eyes slid to where Charles was watching her with a frown. "And here I thought that you were better than hiding behind your fame. I am disappointed for the second time today."
"I'm not-"
"Lena. Your meeting is in ten minutes." Daphne's voice was calm, but it had a note of warning in it.
Glancing to the side to see Professors Black and Lupin heading towards their group with almost identical frowns, she nodded. "Wouldn't want to make Tharokk wait. Shall we? I think two disappointments are enough for today… I think that we might need to hurry though."
"Save us seats." Draco grinned.
Looking at the wiry dark-haired boy who was the shadow at Daphne's back, she smirked. "Payback time."
With a chuckle, Theo took off, his robes billowing out behind him as he ran and she gave a noise of outrage as if to chase him- knowing that the others would say that he'd pissed her off or give some excuse to the adults and then slip away from them in the village, as she and Theo were the fastest runners of the group.
After her transaction with the goblin that worked with trading lesser-known and… rarer goods, handing-off a package after much talk over the contract and price negotiations behind a privacy barrier, she took the bottle of butterbeer from Draco and joined her friends in talking about simpler things while they walked around the small snow-covered village.
Though they, seemingly like everyone else, were drawn to where a crowd was forming.
Theo- who was the tallest- furrowed his eyebrows. "There's a new shop where the antique boutique used to be."
"Oh?" Daphne's eyes were sparkling. "I wonder what they're selling?"
The boy squinted. "They seem to be selling-"
"Chocolate." Lena grinned. "It's a chocolatier. Come on then- let's go in."
"I don't think with the crowd-"
Blaise's frowning tone was lost on her as she slipped through the crowd like she was so used to doing, using her small frame and the gaps between the groups to get to the front, grinning at Marie Meyza- a former Slytherin in Janus' class who had graduated and then, with a bit of encouragement, gotten into a prestigious cooking school in France instead of going into the Ministry like the rest of her family. "Marie! Good to see you!"
The girl beamed and moved to pull her into a hug, her lightly accented voice cheerful. "Lena! Janus told me you'd come to see my setup!"
"Ah, I see the Queen herself has graced us with her presence." Isaiah Duval- a Ravenclaw alumnus and Marie's newlywed husband- gave her a slight sneer that held no weight. "Come to check on your investment?"
"Not really. More here for some hand-made chocolate, as I might leave some out for the others."
As there were others manning the shop and taking orders she was not worried about the two owners of the small shop talking with her- not when she'd been the one to give them the money to start up the shop as an investment, knowing how good Isaiah was with numbers and Marie was with food (especially chocolate)- but the others were surely surprised when they finally got through the crowd.
The two alumni were both on the poorer side of the pureblood community, especially with Maria's family refusing to help her out with her choice in careers, so they'd taken the opportunity and also invited a few of their friends to help them.
A Slytherin a few years up from Janus that Lena had yet to meet was running a smuggling business and had agreed to provide the couple with higher quality ingredients for a massive discount, the lady that rented out the building was a former Ravenclaw with a Slytherin son who convinced her to lower the price, and Lena had asked Madame Zabini to pull a favor from a food critic to come in on opening day the middle of last week and try the chocolate (which he apparently raved about to anyone who would listen).
Lena had heard that there were a few other Hogwarts alumni that had gotten into unique jobs and getting in contact with a few of them through the goblins so she could try to put a bit of the Farland vault to use for investing was childs play.
"Have fun?" Dumbledore smiled at her, eyes twinkling brightly over his half-moon spectacles as he eyed her full bag of chocolates when they got back to the castle.
She shrugged, holding out a small paper-wrapped treat, grinning when he gave a loud hearty laugh at finding his bust had been made into a chocolate. "Try it."
The old man did, eyes crinkling. "Lemon flavored chocolate."
"Lemon flavored chocolate. Though personally, I think my peppermint chocolates in little 'L' shapes are better... but to each their own." Lena chuckled, patting his arm as she walked past, her voice teasing. "You should be able to get a discount- y'know- on the account of being old?"
Dumbeldore's chuckles followed them as they made their way back to the Common Room.
Levitating a pile of shrunken objects, Lena hummed as she made her way into the Chamber of Secrets. :Merry Christmas!: Looking around, she shrugged when she didn't see the newly named 'Delphi', starting to unshrink the objects. A large sofa that she'd ordered from the goblins that was waterproof, a sturdy wooden bookshelf, a bunch of small magical lily pads whose roots didn't need soil to root in as it took its nutrients from the water, and a small tank of catfish and their eggs that would quickly populate the small pond.
:Heiress is giving gifts?: The snake moved from the pipes, its eyes seeming to gleam when she saw her pond. :I too have a gift. Come this way:
Following the snake, curious as to what her gift would be, she blinked when the snake led her to where a man was standing, looking at the ground, obviously petrified.
Lena looked to the snake. :How isn't he dead?:
:The man was looking in the lake. He had just been a rat and I smelled dinner, but then thought you would like a gift:
Peter Pettegrew obviously wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Thanking the snake a million times, she went straight to Snape's office. "Snape. I need a favor."
The man looked up with a raised eyebrow. "What did you do now, Miss Farland?"
"I need to use your potion labs to make two potions."
"And why on earth would I do something like that?" The man sneered.
Thinking, worrying at her lip, she looked at the man pleadingly. "I'll lend you a rare book on potions I got in Knockturn, but I need to make a potion first... Please?"
With a long sigh, the man nodded. "You have the next two hours and I want that book in the morning."
Nodding, she ran to the potion labs, getting set to brew two large batches of mandrake restorative draught. Cleaning up hastily, she quickly moved back to the Chamber and put six of her seven vials of restorative potion on the empty bookshelf.
Taking the last vial, she tied the man up in her invisible webs of magic, making sure that it was as tight as she could make it so he couldn't escape, and then poured the vial down the short man's throat.
Lena then moved to sit back on the couch, making sure her fingers were loosely gripping the stings of her magic.
The man seemed to crumble into a pile on the floor, coughing and wheezing.
"Peter Pettegrew… I have a few questions for you."
Stilling, she could tell the man was looking at where he was, finally lifting his head with those crazed eyes looking at her as he grinned at her with rotted teeth. "I have heard of you while roaming the halls of the castle trying to get into Slytherin… the Mudblood Queen that thinks she's worthy of-" The man stood up and took out a knife and her hand closed around the strings, making him go stiff. "What- what is-"
"My name is Lena and I have little patience for people that betray their family, blood or not." Wrapping a string around each finger, she tilted her head. "Now tell me… what was your Lord like? Before the Potters, of course. Because I've met a few versions of him… but I think that you knew him as someone completely different."
"You don't deserve-"
She twitched her right index finger, making the man point the knife in his hand at himself. "Tell me what I want to hear or I make you gut yourself slowly while your organs drip slowly onto the marble floors. Because I will heal you each time, wait until you're conscious and then make you do it again. And again. And again. By the time I am finished with you, you will beg me to-"
"Okay!" The man looked to the knife, shuddering, and then to her. She saw a flicker of fear in his eyes before it was covered with manic insanity again. "My Lord was… magnificent. He could walk into any room and draw everyone's attention. His gaze was like-"
Lena scowled, making the knife dig into his stomach just slightly. "Tell me about his goals, fool, not his appearance. I know all too well about that. No, what did he want? "
Pettigrew grinned madly. "Death to all with anything less than pure blood. To use the dark creatures and then turn against them when we had the Magical world in our hands, make the rivers run red with the blood of the non-magical."
"Insane." She nodded, notedly disappointed. "He was insane."
"HE WAS BRILLIANT!"
Shaking her head, she moved the man so he was gazing in the water and slipped into the snake language. :Darling, will you come to petrify the rat again?:
:Of course Heiress.: The snake moved out behind her, the man once again petrifying.
With a sigh, she let her web of magic unravel and didn't bother to move the man and then saying goodnight to the Basilisk, moved back to the Common Room.
Maybe she'd turn the man in later.
If she went near him right now she was afraid she'd kill him in irritation.
Lena was almost out of the Defense classroom when Sirius Black stepped in her path. "Miss Farland. I thought I said to stay after class?"
"I thought Blaise warned you that I don't want to talk to you." She stepped to the side, the man matching her. Narrowing her eyes, she glanced to where the others were waiting for her and sighed softly as if it was painful to be near the man. "Fine... But the next time you don't let me leave, I will curse you and Dumbledore will back me up on it."
The man nodded, his grey eyes unusually solemn.
Moving back to the desks, she sat down in the front row heavily. "What's this all about then?"
Lupin moved forward with what looked like an old piece of parchment, putting it in front of her and then tapping it. "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."
Watching ink come to existence, reading over what looked like nicknames and the title of the 'Marauder's Map', she raised an eyebrow. "A map. Cool." Then she scanned it, pleased to see it didn't have a few of the secret passageways she'd found, nor the Room of Requirement or the Chamber of Secrets.
"This map was one that Sirius, James Potter, I, and one other made when we were in Hogwarts. It's supposed to show the real name of whoever is on it…" The man flipped open the map before putting a finger down on a room. "...Did you know?"
Lena stared at where the map of the room showed three pairs of footprints.
One Sirius Black, one Remus Lupin, and the third… 'Helena Potter'.
"That's not me." She stood rigidly. "Your map's wrong. Sorry, but I can't help you." Moving towards the door, Black caught her arm and she spun so her wand was at his throat. Her voice was soft. "You and I both know that there are over a million spells to track someone down, especially if related by blood… so whoever you think I was, she died the moment you didn't even try to find me."
"We thought you dead, Helena." Lupin's face was anguished.
Backing up slowly, wand still raised, she tore her hand from the Auror's grip. "Helena doesn't exist. My name is Lena and the only family I've ever known was Jack." Then she turned and ran from the room, taking the passage to the Chamber of Secrets that was activated by parseltongue so they couldn't follow her, even with their stupid map.
Sinking into the sofa, she curled herself into a ball.
She needed to think for a while.
She had to figure out if she wanted a family that didn't even know her.
A family that had left her in Hell.
A family... without Jack.