Chapter Text
The British wizarding world is a meritocratic aristocracy. Perceived magical, intellectual, or influential power is absorbed into the high ranks while so-called ordinary witches and wizards sink into the serfdom they supposedly deserve. The magicless have no place in society unless they contribute directly to the hegemony, crushed under the weight of the prejudices which the ruling class pile onto their shoulders.
— A Brief Summary of the Workings of the London Wizengamot, Including an Short History of Government in Wizarding Britain, page 67 of 1028, by the Right Honourable Minister Hermione Jean Granger-Weasley, Supreme Mugwump, Order of Merlin First Class, etc.
Mione, they're getting some poor berk to summarize your summary.
— Paper aeroplane note from Ronald Weasley, Department of Magical Games and Sports, to Hermione Granger-Weasley, Minister's Office, 2011.
The third Sunday of October is unseasonably cold. When Eustacia Parkinson wakes up and slips on a dressing gown to cover her nightclothes, she finds that the temperature charmed robe has lined itself with rabbit fur. She makes a mental note to send her grandmother another thank you note for the gift; it had been a going-away present for her sixth year.
It's fairly early in the morning, only eight. Sundays are a lazy, restful day at Hogwarts and breakfast is served at ten — a concession to the rigid eight thirty mealtime during the week.
Eustacia carefully transfigures a mug from her pillow (the ceramic is covered with a thin cotton cozy as a result), puts a spoonful of her Divination tea leaves into it, fills it with an augamenti passed through a heating hex (simultaneous casting is on the Charms NEWT practical, after all) and goes to sit on the window seat. She summons her Divination journal as an afterthought: may as well use the opportunity to add to that particular assignment.
As she waits for the tea to brew, Eustacia looks out at the Hogwarts grounds from the heights of the Ravenclaw tower. The sun is glinting off of the Great Lake and melting swathes of frozen grass, crusted with a layer of sparkling ice. There are some footprints leading to the Care of Magical Creatures kennels, probably from Professor Kettleburn; and some dark stomped patches near the edge of the Forbidden Forest where some beast has come out to look at the stars. The banks of the lake resemble sugared rims of gillywater goblets, and the morning wind sends ripples across the surface, which flicker with rainbows.
The tea is weak and sweet against her tongue. Tasseography is a fading art. It's considered impolite to know other people's futures in the same way it is considered impolite to apparate directly into a home. Most wizards and witches read only for themselves. But Eustacia learned how to read the leaves from her grandmother, and in the old style. She grins and mentally composes her letter to Dowager Parkinson.
Dearest grandmama, I am glad to report that the envelope in your tea leaves this morning was not an omen of ill news, but a sign that your beloved granddaughter has taken it upon herself to update you on the latest Hogwarts gossip. As you know, the Samhain fête is being held at Malfoy Manor this year, and I have heard that Abraxas is planning to…15
In the wizarding world, logic is optional. There are some things that tend to be predictable, like incantations and arithmancy and potions, but there are other things which change every time you do them, like rituals and wards. The world is not made up of actions and reactions. Sometimes, things just happen and there's no rhyme or reason behind it. The only people who ask how or why tea leaves can predict events tend to be Muggleborns and senior employees at the Department of Mysteries.
To everyone else, it is as simple as the Muggle understanding of Newton's first law of motion: if a witch or wizard drinks a cup of tea, the future will show in the leaves or sometimes it won't. Gods exist, but only when they feel like it. Merlin enchanted himself on his deathbed and relived his life backwards as well as forwards, giving himself an extra two hundred years, like a strange wizarding Benjamin Button. Dragons become sentient every so often. Harry Potter deflected a killing curse off of his forehead. It's nonsensical, ridiculous, and above all, magical. But humans crave structure above all else, so tradition has become the system upon which everything rests, instead of science or religion. Eustacia writes her letter and addresses it To the Moste Magickal and Rightwise Dowager Parkinson and schoolboys send her calling cards when they want to take her to Hogsmeade and she wears her hair a certain way to show her status. Strict sensibilities are the only way to make sense of an upside-down world.
When Eustacia walks down to the doorway to the girls' dormitories, she finds a small stack of calling cards addressed to her. Most of them are obligatory, from eligible male students.
Eustacia expects that this summer she'll be sat down at a garden party where her mama and some of her close friends will present her with a list of suitors and she'll pick her favourites, and then the courting will begin. For now, the calling cards remind her that those favourites exist.
She flips through them with a smile. Sending a reply is good manners, so she writes out a thank-you note, duplicates it, and asks a house elf to deliver the resulting pile to all but two of the cards.
Of those two, the first is from Tryctus Abbott, a fourth year Hufflepuff who seems politely convinced that she is his future wife. She reads his note, where he begins by telling her that he's thinking about how beautiful her eyes are and ends with begging her to join him at Madam Puddifoot's at two. She writes back rejecting him, addressing the card to "my dear cousin", which isn't quite true but hopefully enough to make him stop and look up the crossing branches of their family trees.
The second has Edmund Baker's tidy script on the front.
Eustacia weighs the second card in her hands before opening it. Edmund had asked her to join him to Hogsmeade before, but never formally. The card has the hint of formality, though it's the same flimsy parchment they use for schoolwork and the writing on the inside isn't one of the many formulaic proposals taught to pureblooded boys.
Parkinson,
Drinks at the Three Broomsticks? Meet me at the entrance to Hogsmeade at three if yes.
E.B.F
The last two letters of the initials are almost invisible, but Eustacia can feel the essence of a badly aimed vanishing charm. The B. makes sense of course, but F. for Fawley? Surely not after what the Fawleys did to his mother, who despite being a blood traitor was born a pureblooded witch and should be respected as such. Ambrosia Fawley had spent some time in Azkaban for that crime. But maybe the damage had been manageable enough that Edmund could forgive it? The little Mudblood abomination of a sister hadn't even been killed, after all.
She considers it. She truly does. Every young witch or wizard of consequence has the responsibility of conducting their own affairs. She may only be fifteen, turning sixteen after Samhain, but she hasn't had a chaperone since she was ten and that was only a house elf or a nanny.
She hasn't reached this age without behaving carefully. She doesn't have Dorea Blacks's luxury of a cradle betrothal to cushion her from any fall from grace, despite her rages and her Muggle drugs. Eustacia is the picture perfect good girl, poised, polite. She is the face of her line.
So she considers it, not as a girl with a beau but with the weight of her name and house behind the thoughts.
His expression when she asked him whether or not he would let the Fawleys take him in floods her mind. Stone-faced. As still as a statue.
His eyes when Muriel Prewett laughed at him that first day of September. Flashing dangerously.
The way that Tom Riddle had looked at him during the prefect meeting a few weeks ago, appraising, curious. Riddle has a taste for power, and surrounds himself with Sacred 28 heirs. If Baker claims House Fawley, he could be an heir.
Eustacia shivers. There's something off about Baker these days, and she would prefer to know exactly what it is before she accepts his offer of a drink. She may like him, but she will not take the arm of a young man with divided loyalties, even if it's for an afternoon.
She writes Baker a polite rejection, citing previous plans with Dorea and Ancha. Then, she hurries to the Great Hall to actually make those plans a reality, as she had actually wanted to spend the Hogsmeade weekend windowshopping alone.
The other two witches are sitting together at the Hufflepuff table when she arrives, sliding her bag under the long wooden bench. Ancha's yellow tie seems to gleam golden today, echoing her buttery yellow hair. Her bob reaches her chin, very daring, very French, with swooping bangs hiding her forehead. The concession that Ancha gives to propriety comes with two thin braids meeting each other at the back of her head. Amandine Burke née Karkaroff, Ancha's mother, is a modern witch who switched her loyalties from the Eastern European leyline to the British one and supposedly suffered the pain of eternal homesickness, her hearth tugging at her core. Privately, Eustacia thinks that Madame Burke is probably a half-blood, or at least a quarter Muggleborn.
At any rate, Amandine Burke's eccentricities are continued in her daughter. But they're the delightful divine little eccentricities that make life all the more exciting.
Eustacia notes Dorea's hair. Dorea Black is much more en vogue, with her black tresses wrapped around her scalp in intricate snake-like patterns.
Eustacia herself has the luxury of keeping her straight brown hair loose down her back, a sign of childhood. Not for long: her birthday is coming in November. Her tresses reach her elbows, so she has to spell them to stay where they fall with a variant of the anti-flutter charm she uses on her skirt.
The girls make room for her. It's barely nine forty five, so there are fifteen minutes to make conversation.
Three piping hot teas appear in front of them. Eustacia picks hers up to warm her hands.
"Hogsmeade today, witches?"
"Not going alone anymore, Stas?" asks Dorea. Her slate grey eyes flick to Eustacia's brown ones.
Ancha joins in: "So, who are we stealing you away from, my dear?"
"Hufflepuff!" Dorea admonishes sharply.
"I can't stand the pussyfooting about, Dorie. It's obvious, and pretending it's not is unnecessary."
"Such a Hufflepuff!" repeats Dorea.
Ancha frowns and shoots back a sound rejoinder. "I'm shocked that you haven't done the same and asked us to shield you from Valentine Crabbe last week. Charlus was frothing at the mouth." She pauses. "Ah, perhaps I've answered my own question."
Dorea looks pleased. "Charlus and I have an understanding. He does the same. I believe he even called on that little Mudblood, Simone something." And then: "He was frothing? Really?"
Ancha’s tone is intentionally overdramatic. "I refuse to entertain lovesick witches! It's quite beyond me. Stas, of course we'll go to Hogsmeade with you, I only need to finish my Runes homework. Riddle is in my group for the triple-rune translations and he becomes an absolute git if we don't have everything done before class starts."
Eustacia is surprised. "A git? Riddle? He's only been perfectly polite to me."
"Well, no. But it's like he's thinking insults at you, even when he smiles and helps you finish your work."
Breakfast pops into being, and the topic changes to Eustacia's would-be dates, the perfection of pumpkin curd on waffles, and the lack of grain coffee in the Hogwarts kitchens.
Across the hall, Tom Riddle is holding court. There's an aura around him, or maybe it's the way that every eye in the Slytherin table flicks to him. Dorea glances at him every so often too. She has been putting off the promised etiquette lessons, and he hasn't come searching for her.
It's not entirely because she doesn't want to teach him. Sixth year is supposed to be a respite, a calm between OWLs and NEWTs, but classwork has been piling onto her shoulders. In addition to practicing for Duelling Club, reading, and needlepoint, she has balanced her schedule with clean efficiency that does not include teaching a Mudblood how to say please and thank you.
But if she sends an incompetent wizard to her mama, no matter how pretty he is, only Morgana will save her.
Dorea sighs, and takes a bite of buttered toast. Ancha and Eustacia are bickering good-naturedly about Edmund Baker and his calling card. She turns her head to the Ravenclaw table and looks at him. He's not particularly handsome, and the Fawley features are dim in his face. His nose is round, his cheeks plump, his skin freckled. What makes him striking is the Fawley hair, brown tinged with red.
Mugglespawn, she thinks dismissively. Another stain on a beautiful family.
Her attention is stolen by Imyndus Lovegood, who is cursing the Gryffindor table as a whole for turning his robes and his long hair mint green. He may be scattered and odd, but he's a dab hand at charms, and Cecelia Bones's shrieks are especially piercing when she finds that her pockets — and everyone's around her — are filled with centipedes.
Later, when the three witches walk along the cobblestones of Hogsmeade, Lovegood is still sporting green hair, tied in a long tail down his back. He all but skips down the street, directly into Zonko's, a brand new 'joke' shop.
Ancha and Eustacia drag her to a robe shop, Flickwrist's Finest Fabrics. Dorea makes all the correct protestations that she prefers Twillfitt and Tattings, but she is overruled.
The shop is small and tidy, with thick tomes of patterns open on stands and long rolls of cloth, ribbons, and thread displayed on the walls. Circular platforms are raised in intervals on the floor.
A middle aged wizard appears, and greets them. "Are the young witches looking for anything in particular?"
"Oh yes," says Ancha before Eustacia or Dorea can say anything. "Formal dress robes, ritual gowns, and fireproof cloaks."
Dorea can almost see the gold clink in the man's eyes.
He claps his hands, and an assistant comes from a side door. They're offered water and finger sandwiches, and shown to some seats around a platform. Ancha goes first, and is shown different cuts of robes in plain muslin until she settles on flashy bell sleeved dressrobes with a drooping back, a lownecked kirtle, and a dramatic cloak. Once finished, she joins Eustacia in picking out fabrics and colours.
Dorea steps up next.
The assistant flutters around Dorea, first measuring her and then swishing a dark wood wand in complicated gestures which did something or other. Dorea has no expertise in the career of modiste.
"Are you looking for popular styles, modern styles, traditional styles, or perhaps something more foreign?" asks the assistant.
Dorea looks in the mirror as the magic tape measure takes the distance between her ear and her collarbone.
After Ancha's chattiness, Dorea's silence must be unwelcome. The assistant continues. "Your friend told me that you're all attending the same Samhain festivities, miss. If I can recommend some cuts, that might help you narrow down what you wish to wear."
"I rely on your expertise," says Dorea, tightly. There's a concealment charm around her so that only Eustacia and Ancha and the shop employees can see her, but she still feels a touch uncomfortable. The windows of the shop are big, and many people are passing in front of them.
She focuses on herself in the mirror. Her shift and her stays are all the same crisp white. The muslin which the saleswoman drapes over her is also white. She could be a snow nymph, except for her dark hair.
The assistant finishes sticking the cloth into place: "This is a new style of dress robe, with poet sleeves. The neckline is a touch low, but we tailor our designs to the witch, of course."
The robes flow over Dorea's body. She imagines them in a rich deep orange.
"A bit tighter in the waist, perhaps," she says, uncommitted. "And certainly a higher neckline. But the sleeves are beautiful."
They are beautiful: full in the arms, cinching at her wrists, and widening around her hands.
"Ah, a traditionalist. Well, we have these styles…" and she's shown a book of designs.
In the end, she chooses poet sleeves and flounces and a straight neckline across her collarbones; and a simple long linen tunic for the ritual. She eschews the fireproof cloak, as she already owns one.
As Eustacia is called up to the platform, she joins Ancha, who is looking at patterned cloth.
"Pretty," she comments. She and Ancha have a very comfortable friendship, borne of years spent next to each other at tea parties and celebrations. Eustacia was always there, too, but she's liable to get stuck on books and charm theory. "I like the poppy print."
The print in question is poppies, red and orange as blood, on a dark green velvet.
"Is it too out of season for Samhain?" asks Ancha.
"I think you would look startlingly divine in anything, my dear."
"That's a yes. Dorie, darling, I wish you would just say what you mean." Ancha touches a glistening murky red fabric, which looks like it's dripping wet. The label attached to it reads 'mermaid silk'.
"Why would I when you understand me anyway?"
They turn to run their fingers over ribbons. Red, blue, yellow, pink, every colour under the sun.
"I heard you're planning to give Riddle over to your mama this Samhain."
Merlin but gossip spreads fast around the castle."Where did you hear that?"
"Muriel. Tarquin told her."
"News gets around, I suppose. Nimue wept."
Ancha shrugs. "Not always accurately. Is it true?"
"Yes, it is."
They pause in front of a case of buttons. Dorea likes the ones that look like they're made of fire, flickering warmth over the wooden walls of the case.
Ancha glances at her and says in her forthright, uncomplicated way: "I thought you had sense. He was raised in Muggle London."
Dorea shrugs elegantly, and touches a button charmed to look like a spider. It skitters away from her. "You saw him last Yule, at Malfoy Manor."
"Only at Yule. He didn't come to the other rites that year. And he didn't pledge a house. I know that those young wizards have some schoolboy obsession with him, but that's not enough to bring him into the fold."
Dorea takes a breath in through her nose. A pit of anger sits in her breast. She can be amused by bad manners or pranks, but being undermined stokes a fire in her mind. "He could have pledged Slytherin."
Ancha gasps sharply. A spark edges around the shell of her ear at the shock. "Dorie, no. I don't believe it! Abraxas's great-great aunt is the—"
"Riddle has the better claim," Dorea interrupts.
"How in Morgana's name doesn't the whole school know about it then? I thought news spread quickly around Hogwarts."
"Slytherin House protects its own. And when he claims the house in a week, everyone will know."
"Merlin," Ancha curses again. "Snakes, the lot of you."
"Yes, that is rather the point," says Dorea, and settles on a ribbon that resembles tiny golden lizard scales. She touches it gently with her fingertip, and she can feel it move. It soothes her.
"I just can't believe… The Gaunts… but anyway… the reason I brought it up is because I think Edmund Baker is going to be invited."
Perhaps the ribbon didn't soothe her enough. Her voice rises. "The Fawley half-blood? I thought that they forgot that shame!"
Ancha flicks her wand: a muffliato envelops them.
"It's like you're being purposefully dense, Dorie. There are plenty of respectable half-blood families. Your Riddle is half-blooded."
Dorea huffs. "Not half Muggle ones. At least a Muggleborn can be adopted into a house. Even you have to admit that Tom Riddle is powerful. What Amalthea Fawley did is disgusting! Unforgivable."
"Well, that's the thing, darling. His calling on Stas made me wonder if it is forgivable. Any children he has with a pureblood will be essentially pureblooded. He's powerful enough. Magic prefers a direct heir."
Dorea's voice is bright with rage. "Baker has a squib for a sister, and the Fawleys have other children in line for lordship. Tom Riddle is the only heir of an ancient line and, most importantly, he’s magical. It's different!"
"I love you, Dorea, but you're being blind." Ancha taps her wand on a tea brown linen and puts it away. The action breaks Dorea's fuming. She realizes that she hasn't been actually selecting fabrics for her robes and flicks her wrist to get her wand out of the arm holster.
"Alright, Ancha, alright. If the Fawleys adopt him, he'll at least have the air of legitimacy, if not the blood." She takes advantage of the muffliato. "But he would have to renounce his mudblood sire and his blood traitor bitch mother for me to even think about accepting him."
The words are filthy on her tongue, but they feel good.
With that, Dorea turns to head over to the wall of ribbons. Ancha stops her: "I already selected the ones you wanted."
Sudden blinding delight overshadows the anger: "Minx! How could you tell?"
Ancha's face is smug as she walks up to the salesman to confirm which fabrics, buttons, and ribbons belong to which robes.
15 By the way, upon finishing her morning tea reading, Eustacia's grandmother did ask her house elf to check the Parkinson aeries in case a note had gone astray. Grindelwald was beginning to become a significant threat, and she worried for her half-blood friends on the East European leyline. She would have to suffer a few more hours of anxiety for her granddaughter's note to reach the estate. Eustacia's own tea leaves indicate travel, two good friends, and a change of plans. This Sunday did happen to be Hogsmeade weekend, so all of those seem probable. return