It was one of those days with a strange cloud cover over the city, the sky at once a murky grey in colour and too bright to look at without squinting; a sort of general drizzle seemed to circulate around the air without appearing to be falling in the usual way from above, meaning it was impossible to shield oneself from, as even with an umbrella overhead, the rain found a way of getting under collars and inside coat sleeves. It wasn’t the kind of rain to deter crowds, who scurried along getting in each others’ way, some with newspapers clamped ineffectually over their heads, but it was enough to put most of them in a universally grumpy mood, and none more so than the peculiar-looking man who shoved through a cluster of tourists at a pedestrian crossing with a tempestuous expression, attracting curious and hostile looks, and hurried to cross the road as soon as the traffic slowed, before the lights had even changed.
Why, he wondered as he scuttled along the inside lane of the horribly congested pavement, were these places always in such Muggle-populated spots? He sped up to scoot around a dawdling group, and was then immediately accosted by a straight-necked, bossy-looking woman marching along with a plastic flower held aloft like a flag, herding a crocodile of chatty tourists in plastic ponchos to protect themselves from the rain, whom he had to flatten himself against the wall to avoid colliding with, and who pointed excitedly at him in his heavy travelling cloak with the mustard robes peeking out from underneath it.
‘Photograff?’ one of the last ones requested cheerily, holding aloft a camera and pointing at it.
‘No,’ the man snarled, turning away and pulling his hood around his chin with both hands, barging a couple of them out of the way as he barrelled past.
He rounded his shoulders and scurried along the street until he found the turning and slipped with relief into a tiny covered alley, which he prowled through until he reached, on the right-hand wall, the tall, rectangular outline of a doorway indented in the solid concrete. Very few people had paid any mind to this curiosity, and of those that had, most concluded half-heartedly that the landowners must have left the outline because they wanted to remember where the doorway had been should they ever want to knock it back through; hardly anyone used the covered walkway anyway, and most walked straight past the anomaly without noticing it, focusing on more promising prospects ahead. This man, however, stopped to face the shadow doorway, pulled his cloak back slightly to glance right and left along the alleyway, then vanished straight through it.
He stepped into a shady, grey-cobbled courtyard outside a building with frosted glass windows and peeling, black-painted walls. There were two picnic benches flanking a wooden door, both empty. A sign hanging from a bracket above the door read “The Red Sphinx”. He stood uncertainly, gazing around, until a heavy weight crashed into his back and shoved him forward.
‘Choo doin’ standin’ in the doorway like that?’ growled the wizard who had walked into him.
‘Sorry, sorry…’ the man said, ducking again into his hood and stepping out of the way to let the other wizard pass across the courtyard and through the door. As it swung open, a quiet hum of music and murmured voices filled the courtyard along with the scent of pipe-smoke, and then the door slammed. The man noticed with unease that the back wall of the courtyard through which he had just entered was uniform grey brick, with no indication of where the exit was. Not being able to see the way out made the courtyard feel like a locked room, and he made a mental note of where he thought the doorway had been, in case he needed to make a quick escape.
The man waited for several minutes more, skulking around the courtyard wall, before another figure stepped through the invisible entryway. It was a small man who seemed to move in twitchy, scampering movements and, in spite of being heavily hooded, gave the curious impression of leading with a raised nose, like a rodent. He headed towards the door of the pub but before he reached it turned, as if by instinct, and spotted the man hiding in the shadows. After a pause, he approached him.
‘Is it you?’ he hissed in what was probably supposed to be an undertone, but was more carrying even than a normal voice.
‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘That is, I am meeting someone. Is it you?’
‘Prenderghast?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s go round here.’ He turned and slouched off around the building where there was a narrow side return. Prenderghast followed, once again glancing left and right over his shoulders. Only once they were concealed in the shadows did the two turn properly to face each other.
‘Well?’ Prenderghast said nervously. ‘Is he here?’
‘Is who here?’ the other man said.
‘Well, him. You Know Who.’
‘You thought the Dark Lord himself was going to come?’ the little man said with disdain. He shook his hood back to reveal a small, almost entirely bald skull embedded with two sunken, watery eyes. ‘I am his right hand man. You are honoured to have me.’
‘Oh, OK,’ Prenderghast said, struggling between dismay and relief. ‘But the message Fletcher gave me said that You Know Who wanted to see me, and that I would be richly rewarded.’ As he said this he cast a searching glance over the other man’s cloak, as if expecting the bulk of a sack of Galleons to protrude from an inside pocket.
‘You have already refused the Dark Lord once, have you not?’ the other man said.
‘Well, yes,’ Prenderghast said in a whining tone, ‘but I was afraid, I was terrified…’
‘Your reward will come when, and only when you demonstrate that you are worthy of it,’ the other man said roughly. ‘This is how the Dark Lord operates.’ As said this his right arm twitched, and a shiny metal hand flashed into view from beneath his cloak.
‘Well then, what does he want from me? Help with this… ritual?’
‘No,’ the other man said. ‘Before that can go ahead he needs you to bring him the materials to perform it.’
‘The m… materials? What does that mean?’
Now the other man pushed his hood back fully in order to throw a glance over his shoulder into the shadows and peer up at the one tiny window overlooking them. Once he’d satisfied himself that they were alone, he thrust his left hand into the inside pocket of his robes and pulled out a small roll of parchment, which he thrust at Prenderghast.
Prenderghast unrolled the parchment and stared at it for a long moment, his eyes widening as he read. He only moved when the parchment suddenly curled at the edges and burst into flame, whereupon he yelped with fear and dropped it, shaking his hand so that a sprinkling of ash fluttered to the cobblestones.
He raised horrified eyes to the other man.
‘This…’ he gulped, ‘this will guarantee my safety?’ he stammered at length.
‘If you achieve it.’
‘The – Lord – You-Know –The Dark Lord – he will take me into his protection?’
‘If you achieve it.’
‘What, not now?’
‘No. The Dark Lord wishes that you stay in the safe house provided for you by Order of the Phoenix and make regular reports on their behaviour.’
Prenderghast’s eyes widened further.
‘Regular… But I don’t know a bloody thing! I’m not in Headquarters any more, I’m in a poky little safe house, they just give me food! The only human contact I have is when some lackey brings me supplies, otherwise I’m a hermit, I hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks until Fletcher brought me the note!’
The other man shrugged.
‘You have your orders,’ he said. ‘Do you accept them?’
Prenderghast stared down at the curls of burnt parchment shivering in the breeze by his shoes. He swallowed hard.
‘Yes,’ he said weakly. ‘I’ll do it.’
*
It was a cool but pleasantly still morning. In spite of the time of year the grass on the gently sloping hill was splendidly thick and luscious. Already the landscape was studded with glorious bursts of sunshine yellow from the Mimosa trees which bloomed along the sides of the road, and the timid beginnings of a clump of purplish orchids peeped through the tall grass. A woman with brownish-red hair was climbing the road on foot, holding the hand of a tiny dark child who dragged her feet in exhausted protest.
‘Come on,’ the woman said encouragingly. ‘At the top of the hill we’ll be able to see the palace.’
The child perked up ever so slightly.
‘Is it a princess palace?’ she asked.
‘No, darling. I told you, it’s a school. But it’s just as beautiful as a princess palace.’
This prospect propelled the child’s tiny legs up the steep crest of the hill, and as they clambered up the last few paces a breathtaking mountainscape unfolded before them: dozens of snow-capped peaks under an almost unnaturally clear sky dotted with a handful of fluffy clouds and, nestled amongst them in the lowlands at the bottom of the road, the glittering, magical spires of an exquisite palace surrounded by lavishly blossoming meadows waist-high with an unseasonable abundance of wild flowers. The palace shone a stunning pearlescent white that rivalled the virgin snow atop the mountains, and its many windows mirrored the blue of the sky, matching the blue silk flags fluttering gently from the top of the tallest flanking towers. The curved edge of a dark-blue lake glittered at the side of the building, reflecting the corner of the palace with peaceful clarity in its motionless surface.
‘Ooooooooh!’ the child breathed. ‘Can we really go in there, mummy?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said, ‘but do you remember what we talked about?’
‘Ess,’ the child said distractedly, stumbling off down the path.
‘No,’ the woman said, trotting after her and catching her by the hood of her coat. She crouched down in front of the child and turned her so that they were facing each other. She peered at the girl, and her chest gave a painful twinge when she saw how tired and wary that beloved little face had become. Her previously glowing, flushed cheeks were hollow and grey-looking, and she had dark purple smudges under her eyes, which had lost their trusting sparkle.
‘This is important,’ the woman said seriously. ‘What is your name?’
‘Matilda.’
‘Matilda what?’
‘Matilda Bla… Meldrick.’
‘Good girl.’ The woman gave the child a quick kiss on the forehead. ‘And what’s my name?’
‘Mummy.’
‘Come on, Tiddles. What are we going to ask the lady in the palace to call me?’
‘Mrs Mummy.’
‘Nearly.’
‘Mrs Meldrick.’
‘You’re a clever girl,’ Connie said, standing and taking the child’s hand again. As they continued along the roadside a car bounced over the crest of the hill and sped past them. Connie glanced anxiously at the car’s driver as it flashed by. It was a middle-aged woman, who gave Connie and Matilda an uppity sort of look at the sight of them tramping along the roadside, but luckily didn’t seem to pay them much more notice than that.
If Matilda looked tired, it was nothing to how Connie looked. She had bought hair colour kits from a little apothecary in Dover and smeared the potion over both of their heads in a dingy public bathroom, rinsing it off in the toilet bowl with water from the tip of her wand. Matilda had submitted listlessly and unquestioningly to this process, leaning with glazed, deadened eyes over the toilet bowl, looking far older than her vanishingly few years. The new darker colour made Connie’s already pale skin look ghostly and unwell, and the fair strands of her eyebrows and lashes were lost in contrast to the new conker hues of her hair, making her look washed out and featureless. The terror and exhaustion of their passage across the channel could be traced in the soft grooves of tension which had settled between her eyebrows, and her jaw had contracted into a tight, squeezed little underbite that distorted the usually beautiful shape of her mouth.
She had shown up at the back door of Julius’ house in Falmouth in the early hours of Sunday morning, before the sun had properly risen, Matilda fast asleep with her little head flopped in the crook of her shoulder, Connie holding her on her hip with her left arm, her wand in her right hand. She had hammered on the door with her elbow, and after a moment, saw a tiny flitting shadow through the bunched lace curtains in the glass door panels.
‘Let me in,’ she said in a low, carrying sort of voice, ‘or I’ll blast the door open and come in anyway.’
Julius had hesitated almost audibly in the room beyond, but then there was the sound of seven or eight heavy bolts and latches being released and he opened the door half a foot or so, peeping out suspiciously at Connie.
‘Let me in,’ Connie repeated.
‘How do I know you’re not an imposter?’ Julius protested weakly.
‘Oh shut up Prenderghast,’ she snarled in a hiss, shoving the door open and sweeping past him. She lit the wall sconces with a twitch of her wand and made for a small sofa in the corner, onto which she gently tipped the sleeping child. She took off her coat and laid it over her, then turned back to Julius.
He was looking bedraggled and nervy, with a sloppy growth of stubble on his chin. He was fully dressed in spite of the hour, in mustard robes that had the warm, creased look of having been slept in. Now he cringed under her gaze, as though its wattage were blinding and exposing him, and he saw her properly for the first time in the soft low light. Her face was drawn and pinched, and her eyes were glowing with a broiling storm of emotions.
‘We missed you at the party,’ she said at last in a dangerously calm voice.
‘How did you find me?’ he croaked.
‘Trust that to be your first question,’ she said with controlled force, still not raising her voice in deference to the sleeping child. She looked him up and down with revulsion. ‘I never understood what Ormond saw in you. I’ve always thought you were a weak, weasley little man with an irritating laugh.’
‘Ormond and I had been great friends for years before you came along,’ Prenderghast said, in an attempt at wounded dignity. ‘I’ll thank you to remember it was I who introduced you.’
‘And yet you went silently into hiding days before his birthday party, looked like you’d seen the Grim Reaper when I showed up at your door, and still haven’t asked where he is or what I’m doing here in the middle of the night with our daughter.’
‘Well I assume you… I assume he…’
‘Ormond is dead.’
She spoke these words in a harsh, expressionless burst, and they seemed to physically strike Julius with their impact. He staggered into a small wooden chair whilst Connie continued to survey him with disgust, her face set into a hard mask.
‘D… Dead?’ Julius repeated weakly. ‘But how… who…?’
‘YOU KNOW WHO!’ Connie thundered, her composure abandoning her with startling rapidity, her face electric with livid rage. ‘THE DEATH EATERS CAME FOR YOU BARELY A MONTH AGO AND THE NEXT THING ANYONE KNEW YOU’D VANISHED – DO YOU THINK I’M STUPID? DID YOU THINK I DIDN’T SEE MALFOY TALKING TO YOU? DID YOU THINK I WOULDN’T KNOW IMMEDIATELY WHO HAD SOLD HIM OUT?’
‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me…’ Julius whimpered.
‘WELL WHO ELSE KNEW ABOUT HIM THEN? WHO ELSE KNEW ABOUT HIS ANCESTRY?’
‘They already knew though Connie, they already knew when they came-’
‘You’re expecting me to believe they found out without you?’ Connie seethed. ‘Ormond himself only found out a few weeks ago and you are one of three people alive who know-’
She stopped abruptly, and gave a sort of flinching hiccough at the sound of her own words. Her whole face twisted in an agonised grimace for a moment, and then she heaved in a long, calming breath, and her expression settled again into a coldly composed mask.
‘One of two people alive, I should say,’ she corrected herself stiffly. ‘Three people ever. You were one of three people in the entire world who knew Ormond’s secret, and a few weeks after you have Lucius Malfoy at your desk, Ormond is – Ormond is…’ she trailed off, but she was still glaring at him with withering eyes. ‘You expect me to believe this is nothing to do with you?’
‘They already knew Connie!’ Prenderghast repeated pleadingly. ‘They asked me about it outright, I swear!’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Nothing, nothing, I swear!’
‘SO WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM?’
‘From them Connie, they wanted me for something else, they asked me to help them with something, a child called Meles, a ritual, they wanted to recruit me…’
Connie narrowed her eyes and surveyed him.
‘A child called Meles?’ she repeated.
‘Yes!’ he said insistently. ‘Yes, that’s what they wanted me for, but I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t bear… I decided to just vanish, I thought nobody would find me – how did you find me?’
The child gave a snuffly moan, her sleep disturbed by the outburst of noise, and they both turned to look at her. Her eyelids flickered but she sank immediately back into sleep.
‘Your concealment skills are far less foxing than you seem to imagine, Prenderghast,’ Connie said, her voice now returned to a venomous undertone. ‘I’ve suspected something was up from the moment you slipped under the radar after that visit from Malfoy, and I knew for a fact it was when you vanished from the office and didn’t show up to the party. I took Matilda straight to the Ministry when the party was attacked and pulled the land registry records for all private magical dwellings in the UK whose deeds had been changed in the past six months; I knew you’d be using a pseudonym so I cracked the password to your files and found your little stockpile of personal records – a noble use of your precious time by the way, running around pulling them from every public office in the country – then I cross-referenced every name I could find and discovered a match in your Uncle Leslie’s probate documents. It was the work of ninety minutes. And incidentally, your cat’s name and your birthday is not what I’d call a secure password.’
Pumpkin the ginger tabby snapped his head up from his grooming routine as though he knew he’d been mentioned and stared suspiciously up at Connie, his hind leg stretched straight up in the air, ending in an elegantly pointed paw.
Julius looked half-impressed, half-horrified.
‘Mithering mermaids Connie,’ he said weakly. ‘If you found me that easily, surely the Death Eaters…’
‘The Death Eaters are brainless thugs,’ Connie cut in, ‘and in any case I have destroyed the trail. We won’t be found.’
Prenderghast froze.
‘…We…?’ he repeated faintly.
Connie said nothing, but fixed Prenderghast with an inscrutable stare.
‘You… you intend to… to stay?’
‘I can’t go back to the Cottage, Julius,’ Connie said. For the first time her voice had a pleading note to it. ‘You know I have no family of my own. I have Matilda to think about.’
Prenderghast suffered a visible internal battle. He opened and closed his mouth several times and looked searchingly around the room as though he hoped to find counsel from the furniture and fittings. Connie watched him without expression, but with beseeching eyes.
‘Of… of course you must stay,’ he said after a few moments. He sounded as though he spoke against his better judgment. ‘It’s what Ormond would want.’
‘I will reinforce your protective enchantments tomorrow,’ Connie had said by way of thanks.
And that had been how they’d lived for several weeks; not happy weeks perhaps, but comparatively peaceful ones. Matilda had been confused at her new surroundings, frustrated at only being allowed to run around Julius’ tiny scrubby lawn and not gallop over the fields as she used to, but she had acclimatised in time, as children do. Connie had replaced Julius’ meagre security measures with a web of protective spells so powerful that almost nothing would be able to reach the house, and cast a Disillusionment Charm over herself each morning to sneak out for food and a clutch of newspapers. Between maintaining a bustling, cheery façade for Matilda she’d mostly sat at the kitchen table staring blankly out of the window, whilst Julius kept out of her way, occasionally scuttling in and anxiously putting cups of tea in front of her before vanishing again.
Each evening, after settling Matilda to sleep she ran herself a bubble bath and lay with her arms on the tub’s curved sides, her chin resting on her shoulder, gazing out of the window at the darkening sky, a shadow play of remembered scenes flickering just behind her eyes as she went through the events of the past few weeks over, and over, and over again.
*
‘It’s the damnedest thing,’ Ormond had said one Tuesday evening, stepping out of the fireplace, into the kitchen where Connie had already started preparing dinner, ‘but I had a Records Request this afternoon from Lucius Malfoy.’
‘Malfoy?’ she had cut in, almost slicing her fingernail in alarm.
‘Yep – and, well, he was asking for all records pertaining to one Ormond Blackthorn.’
Her mind had fallen over itself in an attempt to process sixty or seventy trains of thought at the same time.
‘It must have been a threat – he must have thought it was – he must want–’ she had gabbled at double speed.
Ormond unclasped his travelling cloak.
‘I thought so too, but the peculiar thing is, I really don’t think he knew it was me he was requesting it of. The paperwork came in by morning owl, and then he came swanning in just before lunch, turned to me and said “I placed a Records Request this morning – when will it be ready?” without a hint of irony. I just said we should be able to oblige within three days, and he barked “you will make it a priority, on my orders,” and left. I swear if it had been a threat he’d have said something more… Well, something more.’
‘But then, what does it mean?’
He’d pulled out a chair, tossed his cloak over its back and collapsed into it.
‘I don’t know,’ he’d said thoughtfully, ‘but I’m going to find out.’
The next night he’d sent a message to stay he was working late, came home long after she’d gone to bed, and was gone again before she woke up. The next night the same thing happened, and the following morning she’d caught him at 7am, downing a mug of coffee by the fireplace, looking exhausted but strangely fervent.
‘What’s going on with you?’ she’d said, pulling on her dressing gown. ‘We haven’t seen you for two days.’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ he said, his shadowed eyes sparkling, dropping a kiss on her forehead. ‘I’m nearly there I think, and if it is what I think, it’s… Well, see you later.’ And he’d vanished maddeningly into the fire.
That evening he’d sent an exuberant message saying he was off for a drink with Prenderghast and wouldn’t be home for dinner. Connie was sitting with a glass of wine reading Witch Weekly when he finally clattered in close to midnight, looking like a child who’d just scored a trickle at a school Quidditch match, clutching a bottle of Champagne in his hand.
‘Come to me, o wife!’ he had blared drunkenly, ‘for I come bearing celebratory beverages!’
‘What’s the occasion?’ she’d laughed as he dumped the bottle on the table and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her to her feet and twirling her around.
‘Grab some glasses and let me tell you!’ he’d said, letting her go and swinging off his cloak. ‘You truly will not believe this…’
Ormond had always known his surname was very uncommon, but, coming from a small – and, it always seemed, fairly boring – line of Blackthorns going back as far as anyone could remember, he’d never been particularly interested in his heritage. He was an only child, and had joked when Matilda was born that they’d have to try again for a boy to keep the Blackthorn line going, but he’d never felt remotely sentimental on the subject. As he sat at the kitchen table though, he was radiant with pride.
‘…so it seems that the first Blackthorn arrived in this country in the eleventh century from an orphanage in Albania. I had absolutely no idea about that, it opened up so many possibilities for me, so I got onto the authorities in Albania and tracked down which orphanage the Blackthorn baby was sent from, and would you believe they had records going back to about 750? So they ran a search on “Blackthorn” for me and found the deeds, and who do you think the mysterious Mother Blackthorn named as the father?’
‘Who?’
‘Only one Buckmaster Abbott.’
‘What, the… not the Buckmaster Abbott?!’
‘How many of those do you meet? The very same, the one who discovered modern medicine, who is directly responsible for the entire school of Restorative Healing.’
‘Why didn’t they try to contact Abbot to return the baby to him?’
‘She marked him as ‘deceased’,’ Ormond explained with a shrug, ‘and I guess nobody thought to question it; we’re talking eleventh-century Albania don’t forget, so it’s hardly likely they’d have heard of the Abbot family even if Buckmaster had been famous then, which of course he wasn’t until after he died. Anyway, the mother just signed herself as “H. Blackthorn”, so I got in the ear of old St John Parvenu, who I happen to know’s been working on a biography of the Abbott family for about eighty years, and convinced him to lend me his files on Buckmaster, and who do I find he was exchanging love-letters with?’
‘Go on?’
‘Wait for it… Helena. Ravenclaw.’
Connie put down her glass and clapped her hand to her mouth.
‘H. Blackthorn… Blackthorn… Ravenclaw…’
‘Exactly. And a bit more digging revealed the child was six weeks old when he was sent back to Britain, eight-odd months after, according to Abbott’s letters, Helena Ravenclaw was discovered to have fled the country.’
‘So Helena Ravenclaw was pregnant with Abbott’s son when she fled…?’
‘Looks that way to me.’
‘So you’re a…’
Ormond looked like he’d explode with triumph. He slapped the table jubilantly.
‘A Ravenclaw! An actual fucking Ravenclaw!’
Connie ran her fingers through her hair and slumped back in her chair, processing this revelation.
‘And you’re the only one who knows?’
‘Seems that way. Chap at the Albanian Records Office said the files hadn’t been opened in his time, and he didn’t sound young; and Parvenu bought all his Abbottenalia at auction way back when Scrivens Abbey fell down, and he’s had the papers squirreled away in his mad study since then. He pulled them out of a trunk three foot deep in old paperwork, it didn’t look like they’d been disturbed lately. I got the feeling he’d never even opened them himself. And who else is around to have talked about it?’
‘Are you going to do anything?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Connie laughed, ‘reclaim the name?’
Ormond’s face darkened slightly.
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea if it gets out to be honest,’ he said. ‘I told old Prenderghast in the pub this evening – too excited not to – but otherwise I think we’ll just keep it in the family for now…’
*
‘Mummeeeee, I‘m hungry,’ Matilda announced from ahead. Connie reached into her handbag and brought out a Toffee Teddy.
‘Here you are,’ she said, pulling off the packaging and handing it to the child. ‘That’s almost the last of your Christmas box.’
‘Lilah will send more,’ Matilda declared confidently, striding off again down the hill, biting into the toffee.
Connie smiled sadly at the child’s back and reached to push her hair out of her eyes, catching a whiff of the perfume on her wrist as she did so.
Matilda hadn’t mentioned her sister – or indeed her father – for several weeks when the parcel arrived. It had been early afternoon on a bracingly cold Boxing Day, and she’d wrapped Matilda up in such a ludicrous amount of layers that the child could hardly move her little arms, but she’d insisted on going outside to play in the snow. Connie had stood at the kitchen sink watching her through the window as she waddled around the yard, kicking at the ivory snowfall to send it up in glittering clouds, and she began to heat a small saucepan of milk to make a mug of hot chocolate with which to coax Matilda back inside in a few minutes’ time, before she soaked her gloves through and caught a chill.
She had been full of admiration for Matilda’s resilience in adapting her Christmas spirit to these new circumstances: her greatest concern appeared to be that Father Christmas wouldn’t know that they’d moved house, but Connie assured her that she’d written him a letter informing him of their new address. She had worked tirelessly to make sure that Christmas had been as normal as possible for her daughter: she managed to sneak a long blonde hair from the back of a woman’s coat in the Post Office for a vial of Polyjuice potion which she’d brewed weeks earlier, but had no luck acquiring a second hair, so she and Julius had to go out as identical twins and pick up a Christmas tree and decorations from a roadside market one evening after Matilda was in bed; she sat up until past midnight four nights running making a slightly skewwhiff red stocking with “Matilda” sewn onto the front, went miles out of her way to find little spinning tops and felt mice, coloured pencils and chocolate Galleons to fill it, and even risked a trip to Diagon Alley, under a heavy disguise, in the early morning when the shops were just opening, where she bought a bright red shiny scooter which had a mild Acceleration Charm placed on it so that a single kick would keep it soaring along for almost five minutes. She sent Julius out for a huge quantity of festive food, and they’d spent a surprisingly enjoyable day in his little kitchen, eating the enormous feast Connie prepared before doing a 150-piece jigsaw puzzle beside the roaring fire, then listening to an amusing play on the radio before putting Matilda in a bubble bath and to bed.
She’d watched as Matilda squatted on the ground trying to mould a handful of snow into a ball, and she wondered how long this would go on. Would they still be there next Christmas? After their rocky start, she and Julius had arrived at a slightly tense modus vivendi, but he spent most of his time sequestered in the tiny study on the first floor landing, where she got the feeling he went to escape from their presence. How much longer would he put up with their invading his home? She couldn’t imagine him having the backbone to kick them out – especially since she still held his cowardice responsible for their situation in the first place – but what was their plan? Did she really intend to stay here until Matilda was grown up, or the war came to an end one way or another?
She’d turned away from the window, tapped her wand on the stove to extinguish the flame underneath the saucepan, and poured the milk into a mug. Then she went to the back door and opened her mouth to call Matilda inside, but froze when she saw her standing perfectly still in the middle of the yard, squinting up at the blindingly bright cloud-covered sky, her mitten dangling from her sleeve by its string. Connie followed her gaze, and her heart halted as she saw two figures hurtling towards them, one a beautiful snowy owl laden with two parcels, the other large and black-cloaked, streaking after the owl with its cloaked arm outstretched, trying to catch the bird’s tail feathers.
Connie lurched outside to Matilda and snatched the child into her arms, then pointed her wand at the house so that a rucksack which had been packed with essentials and left at the foot of the stairs for just such a purpose flew out, and she caught it with her wand hand.
‘JULIUS!’ she bellowed, and she saw his anxious face appear at the window of his study, but the owl had already shot through the web of defensive spells, designed to let in a direct messenger as long as it was sent by a member of their immediate family, and the black-cloaked figure, having managed by the tips of his fingers to make contact with the owl, slipped through the defences on its tail. The assailant touched down on the ground of the dingy yard at the same time as the owl swooped over Connie and dropped the two parcels on her, which she caught automatically, meaning that her hands were now full of Matilda, the rucksack and the parcels, and her wand hung from two fingers, pointing uselessly at the ground. The Death Eater raised his own wand, a curse on his lips, as Connie scrabbled frantically to regain a grip on her wand, and would certainly have been too slow if not for the owl, who turned bravely to the Death Eater with a tremendous screech and flew directly at his head, her sharp claws outstretched. The Death Eater ducked to avoid the swipe of the owl’s wings, affording Connie a precious second, with which she grasped properly at her wand and blasted him with a curse so powerful that he shot backwards into the wooden fence and collapsed in a heap at its foot.
Not wanting to waste a single second more, Connie turned to look up at the window where Prenderghast still stood completely frozen, having exerted not so much as a twitch of his fingernail to save their lives, even from his safe vantage point. She concentrated all of the incredulous loathing she felt for him into a parting glare so fierce that he physically cringed, and then Disapparated with Matilda, who was frozen with shock and terror.
When they finally stopped to rest in a dingy Muggle boarding house in Dover, she had given the child the larger parcel to open. Its gift tag was inscribed with “Matilda”, and the smaller one labelled “Connie”.
‘Christmas presents from Lilah,’ Matilda had decreed happily; and although Connie had to admit she couldn’t think of anyone else who could have sent them, she had hardly dared believe Delilah could have survived the attack on the Briar House.
Delilah had been nowhere to be found when Connie and Ormond ran through the marquee screaming for her, Connie hampered by Matilda clutched under her arm, guests Disapparating around them like dandelions in a breeze, some valiantly battling hooded figures who were trying to fight their way through the marquee’s entrance.
‘Take Matilda and go!’ Ormond had bellowed. ‘It’s me they want!’
‘What about Delilah?’ Connie had shrieked fretfully back, but even as she spoke a shrill cry rent the air and Elspeth Frink thudded to the ground, defeated by a Death Eater who now stepped over her into the marquee, and turned towards them. The time for discussion was past. Connie shot a spell at the Death Eater so hard and fast that they had barely time to raise their arm in defence, but now, unaccountably, horrifyingly, half a dozen more hooded figures had materialised and were advancing, not on Ormond but on Connie who, with the weight of Matilda clinging to her hip, felt a surge of hopeless terror flood through her as she raised her wand against their more numerous and more terrible ones. Ormond roared like a buffalo and sent a burst of flame from the end of his wand straight into the middle of the group so the Death Eaters scattered and Connie rocketed backwards to keep Matilda out of harm’s way, and was still blinking against the heat of Ormond’s curse when she found him by her side.
‘Go!’ he had said urgently, managing to land a kiss on the top of Matilda’s soft little head and squeezing Connie’s upper arm, the closest part of her to him that he could grab, in a bruisingly tight grip.
‘Delilah…’ Connie whimpered.
‘I’ll find her,’ Ormond said, ‘she’ll be-’
But just then another Death Eater appeared in the marquee and Ormond threw Connie to one side, turning his wand on the newcomer, a jet of light bursting from his wand with such blinding force that she almost didn’t see what happened next…
*
‘Mum!’ Matilda yelped from further along the road. ‘There are gates here!’
‘Oh good,’ Connie called back. ‘Wait for me!’
Pushing thoughts of Ormond aside, Connie trotted to catch up with her daughter, approaching the resplendent gates with trepidation. Matilda was gazing up at a golden dove manning the gates, who was ruffling its feathers importantly at the approach of the guests. Connie caught Matilda’s shoulder gently and crouched again before her, still not sure how to convey this last message.
‘So Tiddles,’ she ventured weakly, ‘do you remember what I told you about this school?’
‘It’s a princess palace.’
‘No, do you remember… Do you remember I told you Delilah used to come here?’
‘Ess. Is she here now?’
Connie paused. She had touched upon it before, but how on earth was she supposed to explain it to a three-year-old?
‘She might be Tiddles. The thing is, I don’t know. Obviously we both want to see her, but… but if we do, we mustn’t speak to her.’
Matilda blinked uncomprehendingly.
‘It’s sort of… a sort of game.’
‘A game?’ Matilda repeated, beginning to smile, thinking her mother was joking.
‘Yes,’ Connie said desperately. ‘A game. If we see her we must pretend to all the people in the school that we don’t recognise her. We might get a chance to speak to her later but at first we need to play the game. Doesn’t that sound fun?’
Matilda looked utterly bewildered, but she nodded obediently.
‘Good girl. Now, shall we go in?’
She straightened and addressed the dove.
‘Mrs Meldrick. I have an appointment with Madame Maxime.’
The dove appraised her for a moment, and then swept its wings into a stately arch and emitted a soft, authoritative hoot which was clearly an affirmative signal, for the gates gave a hushing sound and slowly opened to admit them. Matilda grasped Connie’s hand, cowed by the grandeur, as they walked along the gravelled pathway to the stately entrance. As they approached the splendidly carved marble doors they swung open and a smart-looking young witch in blue robes stepped out to greet them.
‘Bon matin,’ she said, ‘vous-avez un réunion avec Madame Maxime?’
‘Oui,’ Connie said.
‘Oh, Eenglish?’ the woman said at once in a pretty, broken accent. ‘I apologise – my notes, zey did not say. Follow me.’
She turned and vanished behind the doors, leaving Connie and Matilda to climb the steps and make their way into what was easily the grandest room either of them had ever been in: the ceiling was dizzyingly high, with walls of gleaming marble; glittering ice statues of a beautiful witch and wizard elegantly flourishing their wands flanked the huge staircase, and several live doves perched along the glass bannisters. The floor was smooth polished glass, protecting an exquisite mosaic of crystals and sapphires beneath it, so minutely detailed that as they walked over it their peripheral vision became a dizzying blur of twinkling pale blue. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, which displayed a spectacular moving fresco of angels with fluttering diamond-studded wings, drifting gently across a gloriously blue sky in choreographed formation, like slow-motion synchronised swimmers.
‘Fucking hell,’ Connie muttered under her voice, looking around.
‘Lilah comes here?’ Matilda said in disbelief, mirroring Connie’s feelings.
‘Ah, Madame Meldreeck,’ came a low voice from behind them. Connie turned to see a stately woman descending the stairs. Whereas the witch in the blue robes who had greeted them had been swallowed up in the titanic enormity of the hall, Madame Maxime by contrast looked exactly in proportion: an effect Connie was sure was deliberate.
‘Hello,’ she said, approaching with outstretched hand. Madame Maxime took Connie’s hand warmly in her two enormous ones.
‘So pleased to meet you,’ she said. ‘And this is my leetle new pupil?’ she said, peering kindly down at Matilda, who cowered behind Connie’s leg.
‘Shake hands Tiddles,’ Connie urged, nudging her out. Matilda bravely extended her tiny hand, which vanished into Madame Maxime’s, looking rather like a mouse shaking hands with a polar bear.
‘Now,’ Madame Maxime said, straightening and proceeding back up the stairs so that Connie had to trot to keep up, dragging Matilda behind her. ‘You weesh to sign leetle Mateelde up for Beauxbatons Academie?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Connie said hurriedly. ‘I know she’s young, but we have no French blood and I know that places for foreign students are very competitive, so…’
‘Very wise – some Eenglish families ‘ave zair children signed up from birth, not to mention ze Russians ‘oo sometimes sign ze child up from ze womb.’ She gave a fruity, melodious laugh. ‘Imagine! Ze poor thing doesn’t even ‘ave a name and it ‘as a school place!’ She shook her head in amusement and wheeled off to the left, where unfolded before them a splendid gallery with black-and-white tiled floors and floor-to-ceiling arched windows which admitted gentle beams of sunlight, interspersed with dozens of enormous portraits that lined the walls. Through the windows they could see that the gallery was in fact a bridge over the vast lake they’d seen from the top of the hill.
‘Zis is ze famous Beauxbatons Gallerie,’ Madame Maxime said, indicating with a majestic wave of her arm. ‘As I’m sure you know, ze famous witch Diane de Poitiers, one of our many famous alumna, ‘ad it reproduced in ze Chateau de Chenonceau after she bewitched King ‘Enry into giving ‘er zat castle, and to zis day meelions of Muggles flock there every year to see its unique design.’ She spoke the word ‘unique’ with a fond sarcasm, as though Diane de Poitiers were an incorrigible old friend.
A loud hoot rang through the hallway, and immediately the unmistakeable sound of hundreds of scraping chairs echoed through the building.
‘Now, all ze students will now process to luncheon, so I thought eet would be a convenient time to conduct a tour of the palace – unless you would prefer to see ze Dining Hall now?’
‘Oh yes,’ Connie said at once, her heart jumping. ‘We’d like to see the Dining Hall, wouldn’t we Tiddles?’
‘I’m still hungry,’ Matilda said baldly.
‘Matilda,’ Connie chastised with an embarrassed laugh.
‘Well zen,’ Madame Maxime said with a genial, booming chuckle, ‘you must eat!’
Already the corridors were filling with students in pale blue robes, and Connie’s stomach contracted with nerves. She realised, faced with the imminent reality, that she had nothing even approaching a coherent plan if Delilah materialised in front of them: Delilah would be sure to shriek and run towards them, giving away their real identities to whomever else in the school might be watching – how could Connie stop her? Was she above putting Delilah under the Imperius Curse on sight, to keep them all safe? But then, what if Matilda forgot herself and shouted Delilah’s name? What if (and this was a fear that had kept Connie awake on many nights) Delilah had been captured and cursed, and turned her wand on them on sight? What if Connie was forced to duel her to stop her from attacking Matilda? If she were here, if she were alive and safe, then it was likely she had somehow been rescued and was under someone’s protection, and it seemed a pretty safe bet that that someone was Madame Maxime, but what if… Connie was disgusted with herself for even thinking it, but Madame Maxime was a half-giant: what if she had gone over to the Dark Side and was holding Delilah here in order to lure Connie and Matilda? In which case she’d walked right into the trap.
But even if that were true, what was the alternative? Leave Delilah a pawn in Voldemort’s game?
She remembered the Death Eaters closing inexplicably in on her at the party. She had spent weeks obsessing over that moment – why her? Ormond was battling on the other side of the tent but it was her they were closing in on. She was a vocal adversary of Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but they’d had their revenge by making it impossible for her to continue publishing; it seemed too extraordinary a coincidence that they’d come for her on Ormond’s birthday, after that business with the Ravenclaw documents, and that he was nothing to do with the attack. She’d come again and again to the only conclusion that made sense: Matilda.
*
‘But what about “a child called Meles”, Julius?’ Connie had demanded on their first night at Julius’ house, having finally settled a fretful Matilda. ‘You said they wanted you in connection with a child called Meles – what was it about?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on.’ She was exhausted after a long day spent casting a fiendishly complex web of protective enchantments over the cottage, in between trying to distract a scared and uneasy Matilda who kept clinging to her leg, whining to be held and babied.
‘No, really.’ Julius’s face immediately adopted the irritating, pleading look it so often carried. ‘I don’t know what it was about. They just said it was at You-Know-Who’s express invitation, they wanted me to assist in a ritual concerning a child called Meles. They said it was in my area of expertise.’
‘What area of expertise?’ she’d countered, more nastily than she’d intended.
‘I don’t know,’ he said dejectedly, with a hangdog expression that made her want to slap him.
‘How could you have not asked?’
‘I just said I wasn’t interested, I didn’t want to be involved in anything to do with You-Know-Who. You say you saw Malfoy at my desk; well, then you must have known he was only there for a few minutes.’
‘Yes, and then you tried to obliterate yourself from public record and crawled under a rock,’ she said, again more viciously than she intended. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, digging the sides of her curled index fingers into her temples to try and ease the tight pain that was thumping through her head. She bent her neck from one side to the other with a faint crunching sound.
‘Right, let’s go through this properly. What exactly did Malfoy say?’
‘Well, he leaned right across my desk so nobody could overhear us and put his foul face right in mine, and he asked whether I knew the Meles family. I said I thought there was a witch by that name at the horticultural supplement. I really thought he was just looking for someone. Then he said I had been honoured by the Dark Lord’s requesting my assistance with a ritual concerning the Meles child. I said I didn’t know anything about any ritual, and he said it was precisely in my area of expertise. Then he said “I warn you Prenderghast, the Dark Lord is already displeased with your colleague’s refusal to assist in this matter. His patience is run thin, and you will do well to oblige him,” and when I asked what colleague, he leaned in even closer and said “The Ravenclaw” in this nasty way, and then I said–’
‘Hang on, hang on – what?’
Prenderghast blinked.
‘They approached Ormond first about this ritual thing? And he refused them?’
‘I thought you must have known that?’
‘No,’ Connie said. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Well, Ormond didn’t tell me either, but that’s what Malfoy said. And then when I said “which Ravenclaw would that be?” Malfoy laughed and said “so he’s trying to keep it under wraps is he? He was unwise to underestimate the Dark Lord. Be sure to let him know that his little secret is out”.’
‘Which you didn’t do.’
Prenderghast looked pained.
‘Malfoy said he’d visit me at my home Connie, the following evening, he said “to receive my final answer and to proceed accordingly” – his meaning was plain, they’d have tortured me if I’d refused, maybe even killed me…’
‘But you were perfectly content for that fate to befall Ormond.’
Julius hung his head and Connie fell silent, biting her thumbnail and staring pensively at the table. Her mind was already casting back to a few weeks earlier, when Ormond had arrived home early from work in a looking tetchy and harassed. He’d tossed his cloak over a chair and asked, with no preamble, ‘where’s Delilah?’
‘Er, not sure,’ Connie had said, frowning up from some papers she was rifling through. ‘Upstairs I think. Why? What’s up?’
Ormond strode into the hallway without answering her and bellowed up the stairs, ‘DELILAH!’
Delilah had shouted something in response and then come clattering down a few minutes later, to be led into the garden by Ormond. Connie hadn’t followed, but turned her head to listen to their conversation.
‘Look poppet,’ he’d said as he led her out with his arm over her bony shoulders, ‘you know bad things are afoot, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Delilah had said stoutly, with the frankness she’d inherited, or learned, from Ormond.
‘Well, I’d feel a bunch better about it if I knew my little gnome could defend herself properly, so I thought we’d have a bit of combat training. You in?’
‘I’m in!’ Delilah had said with touching enthusiasm.
‘What was all that about?’ Connie asked an hour or so later when they’d come inside and Delilah was back upstairs. She was clearing her paperwork off the table in preparation for dinner, and Ormond stood at the sink staring through the window into the garden, absent-mindedly washing up the breakfast dishes.
‘Bad times, wifey mine,’ he’d said vaguely. ‘We need to keep those little girls safe.’
‘What’s brought this on though? Something happened?’
‘Just a whim,’ he’d said.
But his brooding, distant mood had persisted for several days, and the defence classes carried on all summer, right up to the party. Connie had watched through the window with desperate affection as Delilah battled with remarkable skill to master a Shield Charm and became an expert Disarmer, and Connie observed with mingled love and exasperation as Ormond coaxed Delilah to hurl curses at him as hard as she could, but cast his own so gently and with such deliberate ineptitude that she emerged from their lessons barely more prepared for aggressive combat than she had been when she started.
‘Come on little love,’ he’d said, ‘imagine I’m that goblin-faced Madame at school who made you shave your feet last year. Really come at me.’
‘Shave my feet?’ Delilah had laughed. ‘She only made me get rid of the dry skin on my heels!’
‘Same difference. C’mon, hit me as hard as you can.’
Wherever she was in the house, she could hear Ormond’s constant generous encouragement and praise floating in through the windows. ‘Woah, steady girl, you’d take out a dragon with that curse!’ ‘Brilliant stuff girl, brilliant! Almost took me legs off there you little soldier….’ And then, as he led her back inside, always the same signoff as he kissed her on top of the head: ‘Good work beanpole. My clever little witch.’
…Had it been just a whim? Or had something happened that day to make him come home in such a strange mood and start training his daughter to defend herself?
If that had been the day that Lucius approached Ormond about this “ritual”, what exactly had he said?
And where did Matilda fit into all this?
*
As the pupils passed Madame Maxime, they stopped and reverently bowed or curtseyed, greeting her with “Madame” in muted tones. She gazed upon them with beatific pride, receiving their salutations with gracious nods; she positively exuded calm, confidence and power, from the haughty angle of her head to the onyx glow of her frank but kind eyes, and, perhaps because of her majestic proportions, it was impossible to feel anything but safe and protected in her presence. Matilda, gazing around with eyes like saucers, clearly didn’t know whom to be more awed by between the hoards of elegant French teenagers and the enormous headmistress. At the top of the staircase they were arrested by a staggeringly beautiful young witch with white-blonde hair that reached the lowest curve of her spine, who emerged from a doorway and into their path and dropped instantly into a lovely curtsey before them, intoning “Madame”, and Matilda, sucking the crook of her index finger, gaped as if a real princess had blossomed before their eyes.
This isn’t worth it, Connie suddenly thought with desperate panic. I’ve brought her into the Lion’s Den. We should have just hidden until this is over.
But then… Delilah. Gangly, funny, kind-hearted, spontaneous little Delilah, who had always seemed caught between the explosive vivacity which had made Ormond the life and soul of every party, and a sort of apologetic awkwardness, like she was suppressing herself at every turn; and now it made sense, here in this imposing palace, with these straight-backed, dignified children, literally angels in training it seemed, these manicured hallways with their every inch of glamour – how on earth could Delilah have flourished here? The idea of her sweeping a curtsey for Madame Maxime was like imagining a dog dressed up as a kitten. She tried to remember if Ormond had ever even visited Beauxbatons; she got the feeling the disagreement over Delilah’s schooling was the closest he’d ever come to a fight with the lovely, elusive Genevieve since she’d run away, and he seemed to have given into her at once. Surely if he’d come here himself, he’d have seen that Delilah’s spirit would be trampled by this debutante atmosphere? Surely he’d have put his foot down?
She remembered the first time she’d met Delilah, only just turned ten years old, politely cautious of this new presence in her home but still determined to show off to her. Connie had already known Ormond for over a year and was accustomed to the slightly bleak, battle-hardened expression to which his face defaulted in repose, so her spirit had soared when his daughter clattered into the room (falling over her own wellington boot in the doorway in true Delilah fashion) and she saw how his whole being lit up, his eyebrows unknitted, his eyes thrilled and he gave an involuntary “aha!” as though his pleasure at the sight of her couldn’t be contained. “It’s Delilah!” he’d exclaimed with genuine delight, as though her arrival were the most gleeful surprise of his life, even though they’d been expecting her for a good fifteen minutes. He’d approached her with outstretched arms, his whole face crinkled with pleasure, actually laughing out loud, and wrapped an arm around her so tightly that she was squashed into his chest and had to duck her head solicitously to fit under his chin as if she were still a little girl – which Connie sensed that Delilah sensed that Ormond wanted her to be.
It was, had always been, impossible to separate her love for Ormond from Ormond’s love for Delilah, and as they descended back into the sapphire glow of the heavenly entrance hall she knew, for the first time really knew, that this was why she was here: it wasn’t an abstractly noble impulse to find her dead husband’s child, wasn’t a case of “what Ormond would have wanted”, was not the act of a desperately grieving widow, or displaced fear for her own daughter, that had driven her across the Channel on this barely-coherent mission: she was here because of a love which was the more insistently real for all of these conflicts, these detractions and distractions, and as they made their way back down the stairs and towards the Dining Hall, scuttling in Madame Maxime’s magnificent wake as the crowd parted for her, she felt a surge of hope that their trip would not be wasted.
‘You are our guests, so you can join us at ze top table,’ Maxime said kindly, addressing herself mainly to Matilda. Matilda glowed at the compliment and almost ran ahead of Madame Maxime in eagerness to sit at the grand raised table at the front of the hall, clambering entirely uninvited into the chair to the right of Madame Maxime’s grand throne in the middle. If that position had been reserved for anybody else Madame Maxime gave no hint of it, and beckoned Connie to sit on Matilda’s other side.
Matilda gasped like a child in a story book when the platters before them filled with an astonishing array of delicacies, grabbed at them with an enthusiasm that excused her forgotten manners, and generally looked the happiest she had done in weeks as she feasted in the palace surrounded by almost-real-live Princes and Princesses.
But even she, as the dishes faded to be replaced with a sumptuous array of desserts, hadn’t failed to notice the obvious.
She leaned over to Connie.
‘Lilah’s not here,’ she whispered.
Connie found herself barely able to speak.
‘No,’ she whispered back at last. ‘She’s not here.’
*
Madame Maxime, having given a generous amount of her day over to personally conducting a tour of the palace, left them in the care of the young witch who had greeted them.
‘Eet was a pleasure to meet you, Mateelde,’ she said kindly to Matilda.
‘Thank you so much for taking the time to show us around,’ Connie said guiltily, feeling hyper-aware of their deception. ‘I know you’re very busy.’ Madame Maxime merely gave a dismissive wave of her hand and vanished up the staircase, leaving the young witch to lead them across the grounds.
‘Ze admissions papers will be sent to ze address you provided,’ she was saying as they stepped out into the chilly sunshine.
‘Thank you,’ Connie said with another pang of guilt, knowing the forms would sit unacknowledged at the Briar House for a very, very long time. ‘It really is a beautiful school.’
‘Oh yes, we are all very proud of ze palace, I was a student ‘ere myself and feel very lucky to steel live ‘ere…’ the witch chattered away about the palace and its grounds as they walked up to the gate, which began to glide open as they approached it, until she was cut off by a dazzling flare of light and a terrible scream from Matilda.
