Narcissa Malfoy was writing to a friend. Unlike Lucius, she did have friends. Lucius had people he used or people he hated because he could not use them. Narcissa kept her friends away from Lucius and Malfoy Manor.
Maeve,
I have just come back from visiting the Earl of Blackmoor.
Sirius has bought a new house in Mayfair. The house is not large. Mayfair is an expensive part of London, but it is not known as a magical district.
Sirius is rebuilding it as a magical house, so eventually, there will be plenty of room. It had been used as an embassy by a nation named Baluchistan or Belachan or some such thing.
At least he has the floo working, and I could visit without setting foot in muggle London.
I asked Sirius about what happened at Hogwarts and how Dumbledore died. The Daily Prophet had a lot of sensational stuff but not many facts.
Lucius and Draco were both there, but they told me less than what was in the paper.
Sirius was much more helpful. Apparently, the Dark Lord was not as dead as we hoped he was. Saul Croaker and this unspeakable presented the rediscovered founders’ treasures. They certainly looked real.
Then, they brought out these odd things: an old diary and the Gaunt signet ring. The ring was odd. House Gaunt is supposed to be extinct. The last surviving Gaunt died in Azkaban, but the ring was still here. All signet rings for extinct houses are returned to Gringotts by family magic and placed in the family vault. The ring stays there in case an heir shows up. The ring wasn’t in the vault, so the Gaunt head-of-house was still alive. Sirius explained that one.
Sirius told me the Gaunt ring belonged to the Dark Lord, but he never took it. The Dark Lord was the last head-of-house of the Gaunts, but he didn’t want people to know that. Sirius thought the Dark Lord was ashamed of his family, so he used the ring to hold a curse. All these things held curses that the Dark Lord used to keep himself alive.
What was never explained in The Daily Prophet was that these curses were removed, not by the unspeakables but by the Gringotts goblins. If you think about it, the goblins often deal with similar things with all the tomb raiding.
Then came the weird part. The phantom of the Dark Lord indeed appeared. The phantom had been captured by an unnamed person in a drop of Elixir of New Life, made by Nicolas Flamel. The Longbottom heir dropped the phial holding the elixir. The phial broke, and the stasis charm keeping the Dark Lord alive failed. So, the Dark Lord was killed by accident, and since all his cursed soul anchors were dead as well, he finally died.
Having the Dark Lord appear in spirit form was terrible enough. Then Death came and sent the spirit to Hades. BOOM! THE END!
But Death wasn’t finished. Dumbledore had collected the Deathly Hallows. These are the same Deathly Hallows from The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Death gave the Hallows to the Peverell brothers, and Death wanted them back. Dumbledore said that the story was fiction. NO! WRONG!
Dumbledore had taken the Elder Wand from Grindelwald. Sirius said that Dumbledore could have done that only after many other people had fought Grindelwald and exhausted him.
The Potters inherited the Invisibility Cloak from Ignotus Peverell. Dumbledore had somehow persuaded James Potter to leave the Invisibility Cloak at Hogwarts with the headmaster. Sirius didn’t understand why. The Potter boy was there, and when Death told Dumbledore that having the three Hallows at the same time was fatal, Dumbledore begged the boy to take the cloak. The Potter kid told Dumbledore ‘there was nothing he could do’. I know that Dumbledore said that to other people when they were more trouble than they were worth to him. It was great to hear one of his favourite lines was said to him, the old fraud.
The Resurrection Stone, the last Hallow, was offered to Dumbledore by the unspeakable. Sirius was sure Dumbledore knew what it was and snatched it from the unspeakable’s hand.
So Death himself sent Dumbledore off to his afterlife, which serves him right.
Today, a strange thing is happening. My husband woke up this morning complaining that his magic wasn’t working. It’s true. He can’t even make a Lumos work. I called our private healer to come and see Lucius. I hope it’s not contagious. Draco is healthy so far.
The last bit of news is excellent. Sirius has reinstated me in the Black family. Andromeda is back as well. Sirius gave Malfoy Manor to me. I now get to live in Malfoy Manor as long as I like. If Lucius acts up, I can kick him out. I did have to swear an oath of allegiance to Sirius, but that wasn’t bad. Technically, I’m still married to Lucius, but the manor and everything in it is now mine. I also have my vault at Gringotts again, with my share of the income from the Black family trust paid into it. Lucius can’t touch any of it.
See you at Madeleine's for coffee.
Narcissa
-ooOOoo-
The Boxing Day holiday at Greengrass Manor began well. Harry had made a quick visit on Christmas Day, and there was heavy snow that night. There were more guests. Sirius and Alicia were there, and Hermione’s parents arrived as well. Lord Greengrass opened guest houses on the estate for each of the families.
Some people did not have holidays. Amelia arrived with Susan and Harry but left soon after. She did not return until the last night. Cyrus was regularly distracted by urgent mail and calls. The fallout from Dumbledore’s departure would cause problems for a long time.
One of the first problems to be settled was finding a new headmaster for Hogwarts.
The school board had appointed Professor McGonagall as the temporary headmistress. The school board then had problems of its own. There were twelve members, including the Headmistress and the deputy. Four board members had resigned after Dumbledore’s death. One of the resignations was Lucius Malfoy, who cited health reasons for his departure. The school charter required the board to appoint replacements for any vacancies. The new appointments were Augusta Longbottom, Cyrus Greengrass, Amos Diggory, and Linus Selwyn. Amos Diggory was a light faction member in the Wizengamot. Augusta Longbottom moved her Wizengamot seat from the light faction to the grey faction. Cyrus was a grey leader, and Linus Selwyn was a minor leader of the traditional Wizengamot faction.
On Christmas Eve, the board held a meeting and permanently appointed the new board members and Professor McGonagall as the new headmistress. The school still lacked a deputy, a transfiguration professor, and a Gryffindor House professor.
Finding a new Chief Warlock for the Wizengamot would be a long process. For now, two deputies would take turns chairing Wizengamot meetings. The appointment of a delegate to the ICW would take much longer.
Harry got owl-mail after one of the traditional snowball fights at the Greengrass manor. It was from the new headmistress.
Harry,
Please come and see me when school resumes. I have been sorting through the piles of stuff that Dumbledore left and found something concerning you.
I know that it looked like I was doing nothing about the problems that you were having with Dumbledore. Happily, I can now tell you what was happening. The heads of the Hogwarts houses, including Professor Snape, were lobbying the board members to have Dumbledore removed. We nearly had the numbers when the grand unveiling of the founders’ treasures removed the problem for us.
We knew that Dumbledore had an unexplained obsession with you. What I found has shed some light on that.
I won’t put anything else on paper about this. Please enjoy your break, and don’t worry about your future at Hogwarts.
One last thing: I must find a new Slytherin head-of-house and potions master. Severus Snape has resigned from all his posts at Hogwarts. His magic seems to have faded to the extent that he can brew potions, but he can’t do more than that. The healers and the unspeakables are investigating.
Minerva McGonagall
-ooOOoo-
Harry was feeling like he was twelve years old in an adult world. He never felt that way before. It was not comfortable. Harry was uncertain about almost everything. Tom had gone, and he now knew what it felt like to be alone, which was even more odd because he was surrounded by people who supported him.
Luna Lovegood had arrived at the manor on Boxing Day and enjoyed the company of her alliance friends. She did have one task, and even Luna was reluctant to do it because it was strange, even for her.
Luna caught Harry as they were walking to the frozen lake.
“Harry! Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, Luna, what’s up?”
“I have something new. I mean, it’s so new that I don’t know what I should do.” Luna looked around, and she showed signs of being nervous. Harry was concerned. Luna had never been this stressed before.
Luna took a breath, “I had a dream last night. I dream all the time, but mostly, I can ignore what I dream about. The Fae are very mischievous and try to trick me all the time. But this time, it wasn’t them. I had a visit from Hermes.”
Harry smiled at Luna. “How do you know that it was Hermes?”
“Because he told me. He also said that you would get proof today that he is Hermes and that the Gods from Mount Olympus have you in their sight.”
Harry frowned. The last thing that Harry needed was more attention from magical powers.
“I don’t like the sound of that, Luna.”
Luna stared at Harry. She seemed to be looking through him, which was often the impression that Luna gave.
“You will hear the words ‘Hecate spoke to me last night’. That will be the sign that Hermes spoke to me.”
“That’s all?” Harry asked.
“Yes. That is all. I don’t know if there will be more. Messages from Hermes are new to me.”
The lake was frigid and windy. The group decided to return to the manor and sit before the fire.
-ooOOoo-
The conversations at Greengrass Manor were almost all about what was supposed to be the show-and-tell session for the founders’ treasures.
Each event was discussed, and questions were answered. Unspeakable Davis was there, and he gave answers and explanations that unspeakables rarely provided.
Hermione had been silent for the two days they had been at Greengrass Manor. Harry was not in a hurry to change that. He was unhappy with the psychic bond or whatever it was between them. It was blindingly obvious that Hermione was struggling with it as well.
After dinner, Neville, Susan, Daphne, Tracey, Hermione and Harry had been playing parlour games when Hermione frowned and said, “Hecate spoke to me last night.”
The general response was a look of surprise.
Daphne said, “Hermione, how long have you been having conversations with powerful deities? Of course, after the drama with Death at Hogwarts, it isn’t surprising that we might have strange dreams.”
Hermione replied, “It was a dream. It was the oddest dream, more like a nightmare. I was terrified. I tried to get away in my dream, but the harder I ran, the closer Hecate came to me.”
Harry made himself busy with packing up the game they had just finished.
Luna walked into the room. She looked at Harry and smiled.
Harry took the opportunity to involve someone else.
“Have you found anything interesting in the library, Luna?”
Luna looked around the group. “The Greengrass library has a lot of ancient texts with details of how the Gods of Olympus have acted towards wizards over the centuries. It has mostly been unpleasant. The Gods call for wizards to work on difficult tasks, and many wizards reject the call. The general attitude is that wizards have their own lives to live and aren’t going to submit to a bunch of omnipotent beings, no matter how powerful they are.”
Tracey said, “That sounds like the Labours of Hercules. Only it's the Labours of Fred Wizard, and it doesn’t have that zing in the title.”
Luna smiled, “Fred Wizard responds, ‘I don’t want to do that. I’ve got plans for my life.’”
Daphne smiled, “Then Fred Wizard has nothing but disaster and gloom forever. No one can work out why.”
Susan turned to Hermione, “What did Hecate say? Did she have a horrible, difficult task for you?”
Hermione bit her lip, “I don’t know. I didn’t listen.”
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