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Felix is eleven when the news comes, from the claws of a grey owl with silky feathers, the owl his father only uses for formal occasions. When he takes the thick creamy parchment from the owl’s leg, tied with a black ribbon, if he is being honest, he is expecting a formal invitation home for Christmas. If he is being really honest, down to the core, nothing but the truth, he is hoping Pandora is coming home, with her pockets full of gleaming blue beetles and her hair dancing with fireflies and the baby growing inside of her. The garden has become unkempt since her departure and the corridors have grown dark.
But if he is being rational, he knows before he opens the letter that Pandora is not coming home. She has left them, not as dramatically as cousin Andromeda had, or as her cousin Sirius had, but slowly, gently, as if teasing a twig out of her hair. Letters grew shorter and further apart, visits grew more distant, until one day, Felix had awoken to realise that it was just as if his father had never had a daughter at all. And when Evan is at the Lestrange house and his father is meeting with the Dark Lord, Felix is left alone to tiptoe past the drawing room, listening to the lonely melodies Evan’s mother spends hours upon hours coaxing from the piano, rather than talk to Felix, who will always be nothing more to her than her husband’s bastard son.
Felix almost opens the letter, right then and there in the Great Hall, but before he can tear through the wax seal, a flurry of owls descends from the ceiling. Hundreds of Daily Prophets, every shade of owl imaginable. He is not normally interested in the news, but the fifth year girl across the table from him has ripped open her copy with such vigour that Felix looks up.
Evan, grainy and black and white, is staring at him from across the porridge. The shock of it stops his fingers from working away at the seal. Yes, that really is Evan, glaring over the table – it’s a pretty awful photograph of Evan, who looks as though he’s just swallowed a lemon, the same sort of exaggerated expression he has when Felix asks him to help with his first-year Transfiguration homework. Before Felix can do much more than blink, and read Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody Hospitalised, Professor Slughorn has ambled up behind him and gripped his shoulder with one hand.
“You’d better come.” He says, and his face is uncharacteristically stern. “You won’t want to be here in a moment.”
Felix crams the rest of his toast into his mouth and stuffs his unopened letter into his pocket. His palms are beginning to sweat. Evan has done something. He doesn’t quite know what, but there’s an Auror in hospital, and not just any Auror. Mad-Eye Moody is in hospital, and Evan had something to do with it. He tries to glimpse the headlines, the hundreds of blurry Evans rising at intervals across the house tables, but Slughorn is marching along at a prodigious pace, and Felix has to keep breaking into a light jog to keep up. Chester Davies has propped his paper against the milk jug. Felix glimpses words at random – Rosier, Dark Arts, custody – off the forest of papers, rustling like Billywig wings. Students’ heads are starting to pop up from their papers. Whispers are starting to pour after him. Eyes are beginning to follow him.
Slughorn has reached the end of the hall, is bustling Felix through the doorway, mopping his bald head with the back of his hand.
“Dear me… where to begin…” He’s pulled open a door, begun to descend the stairs. Felix clambers down after him. There’s a sharp sound as the Great Hall’s doors slam, and Professor Dumbledore, draped in glittering maroon fabric – an eyesore, really – strides over to them. He’s got a newspaper rolled into a tight cylinder in hand.
“Common room, Horace.” Dumbledore says. “We’ve got a visitor coming in for Mr Rosier.” He catches sight of the letter sticking out of Felix’s pocket. “I’d suggest you read that first.” His voice is very soft. It’s the kind of tone he used when he came to fetch Cecily Bobbin out of class last Thursday. And Cecily… Cecily’s sister had…
A sudden terror seizes Felix, and he knows for certain that he does not want to open the letter, he does not want whatever it and the newspapers say to be true.
He keeps silent all the way to the Slytherin common room, the letter in his pocket growing heavier with each step. It will not be from Pandora. It will be written in the dark red ink of the Rosiers, will be signed at the bottom by his father. Evan’s mother will not have signed it, because what does she owe Felix? Felix is not her son, her son is Evan and Evan is… Felix hopes to Merlin that Evan is only in Azkaban.
When they reach the common room, it is empty. Eerie. The skulls decorating every surface bathed in the green glow of the lake seem to mock him. Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody Hospitalised, reads Dumbledore’s newspaper. Devoted Death Eater Unmasked.
Slughorn and Dumbledore drift over to the other side of the common room, by the fireplace, which Dumbledore busies himself at. Slughorn catches him looking.
“You ought to sit down.” He says, steers Felix towards an overstuffed armchair. Felix perches on it. It feels as if it is swelling under him. “And…” He pauses. “Read the letter, my dear boy.”
Felix pulls the letter from his pocket as Slughorn hands him Dumbledore’s newspaper. Something seems to be stuck in his throat and his hands are trembling.
Before he can change his mind, he pulls off the ribbon, breaks the seal. It’s almost violent how quickly he unravels the letter. Dark red ink, as he had predicted, one signature (Dorian Rosier), at the bottom of the page, the Rosier crest embossed over the top of the page.
His heartbeat is in his throat.
My son, it says, and that’s new, not Felix, not Dear, but son.
I’m certain you have seen the headlines by now, but I would rather you not find out through the damned press.
This is a difficult letter to write.
Last night, Evan left the house at sunset with a few of his like-minded friends for an expedition. They were apprehended by Aurors. As you know, Evan never was one to surrender quietly. Regrettably, he rather critically injured Auror Moody. I am told he fought well. I will spare you the grisly details, but Auror Moody broke through his shield charm and Auror McKinnon hit our Evan with a stray curse. I am told the Aurors immediately ordered standard medical protocols, but nothing could be done. Evan is dead.
I am sure this was accidental. We are to bear no ill will towards Auror McKinnon, who so courageously spills our pure blood to defend Muggles and mudbloods. A worthy cause to be sacrificed like a pig for, is it not? I would be concerned that certain individuals less understanding than myself may place the McKinnons in grievous danger in the coming weeks, and he would do well to place them under more protections than simple Runic wards.
My wife does not wish to have you home for the festivities, of which I doubt there will be many. Felix, I am sorry she refuses to see you, but the fact remains that I am partially to blame for Evan’s death, and she is distraught enough without being reminded of my other failings. I am sorry. I would like nothing more than to see you. Pandora has agreed to take you for the week until the school term ends – one should not bear sorrow alone.
Dorian Rosier
The letter falls to his lap. Felix is aware of a sudden emptiness in his chest, a gripping emptiness, like a great dragon writhing inside his stomach has swallowed up his organs. He feels, as if from over a great distance, the ache in his chest.
Slughorn is suddenly in front of him, a handkerchief extended, but Felix’s face is dry. Rosiers do not bawl.
He knows his brother is not half as incredible as his father would have Felix believe. Even if he is only eleven, privately, he finds Pandora has a much more elegant way of understanding Muggles than Evan does. Than Evan did.
Pandora says magic is a responsibility and a gift, that wizards ought to be careful about doing evil things just as much as Muggles should, maybe even more.
Evan always said magic was a right, and that didn’t quite sit right with Felix. But the only thing Felix can think of now is the line of pot plants along Evan’s window, the Devil’s Snare and the fanged geraniums and the dirigible plums, and who will water them, who will prune back the fangs, who will feed the Venomous Tentacula?
And Evan will never play Quidditch with him, Evan will never be at King’s Cross, Evan will never teach Felix how to duel. Evan will never do all the things an older brother is supposed to do, and he won’t even be there to tell Felix how short he is, or to make fun of his voice when he starts growing.
It’s not real. If Felix closes his eyes, he’ll wake up. Does anyone have a Time Turner? It’s still close enough, now, to turn back time twelve hours and lock Evan in the house so he never goes out to fight. Lock the doors and the windows, and maybe Rodolphus Lestrange will die instead of Evan.
Felix can live with that.
Dumbledore’s newspaper has found its way into Felix’s hands, and he is rooting through it for scraps. There is a photograph of Moody’s face he doesn’t look at, because the mess of flesh is precisely the kind of thing Evan would have come home grinning about inflicting, while Felix picked at his dinner.
It was a Blasting curse that did it, he learns.
He wants to hate Auror McKinnon, but she looks like a stout old aunt, with flyaway blonde hair and a clenched jaw that still trembles when her photograph moves on the newspaper, and it’s almost impossible to hate someone who looks so upset.
Almost. She trembles at him from the paper and he wonders why she had to use a Blasting curse. She could’ve used a Stunning spell.
Ettard Wilkes had died too, after she’d nearly killed one of the Healers attending to Moody. There’s a bit of an interview from the head of Magical Law Enforcement. And Evan is still glaring at him from his front-page portrait. He wishes newspaper photos didn’t move.
Dumbledore’s voice drifts to him from across a great distance.
“Felix?” He is loosening Felix’s grip on his newspaper. But Felix isn’t finished – there is so much still to learn, like what spells had the Healers tried, like which store window Evan had shattered, like which of the bloodstains and pieces of flesh on the brick wall pictured on page 5 belong to his brother.
Felix is surprised to see a tear rolling down the length of Dumbledore’s nose. The shock of it makes him release the Prophet.
“He fought very hard.” He hears himself whisper. “Why did he have to fight?”
If he had only surrendered… Azkaban, surely, but not dead… Azkaban was not quite so distant as that… but surely, Evan isn’t dead, just hiding in the backyard, probably climbing up the ugly old tree to practice Dark charms on the leaves…
Dumbledore’s hand is on his shoulder. Evan isn’t a good person. Evan is his brother. Evan hates muggles. Evan loves Felix. The newspaper is gone, and Slughorn looks a little sheepish at having handed it to him.
“Sometimes,” Dumbledore says, very fiercely, blue eyes blazing from the inside. “Sometimes when you lose someone who has done terrible, terrible deeds, you cannot help but miss them.”
His hand is very heavy on Felix’s shoulder, but he looks up into the blue eyes anyway. They’re paler than Evan’s eyes. Close enough to start the strange ache in his chest.
“Your sister will be here in a moment.” Dumbledore says, glancing towards the fire, which is beginning to glow a bright green. “The elves will send your belongings after you.”
Felix wishes Pandora would’ve come earlier. In September, maybe, when Evan had taken him to the train station, Pandora could’ve come and they could’ve walked through London together and pretended they were a proper family, and that she wasn’t married, and Felix wasn’t a bastard, and Evan wasn’t a Death Eater.
Felix slips off the chair. His school robes feel too tight and too large all at once.
Pandora tumbles out of the fireplace in a flurry of white-blonde hair. Her eyes are bloodshot, and there are dark circles underneath them. She doesn’t look like his sister, when she straightens up and bows to Dumbledore – her usual bright blues and yellows have been exchanged for dark greys and blacks, and he keeps forgetting that she’s pregnant, and he supposes that’ll make him an uncle soon, but it’s unfamiliar, the way her robes flow over her stomach.
But she still sounds like his sister, with the way her shoes clack on the floor and she’s still draped in beaded necklaces and pearls that click together when she moves.
She’s softer than he remembers, when she leans down to hug him.
“Felix…” She says, and his face is buried in her shoulder, and her hands smell like those awful Gurdyroots when they push his hair off his forehead, and there’s still dirt smeared on them, so he knows it’s Pandora. “You got Dad’s letter?” She whispers. Felix nods.
They stay like that, for a moment, just fixed with Pandora’s arms over his shoulders and his face buried in her cloak, until she pulls away. She swipes a finger under each eye. The smile she gives him is tight.
He doesn’t want to think about Evan, but it’s impossible not to, when Pandora’s hair is the same colour and her skin is the same shade, and they have the same nose… at least Pandora doesn’t have blue eyes like Evan.
“Mrs Lovegood,” Dumbledore says. “You’re taking him to your home?”
Pandora lays a hand on Felix’s shoulder and nods. Felix keeps forgetting she’s a Lovegood now. It suits her, probably more than Rosier ever did.
“Yes, I’m not… I mean, it’s probably best if we avoid my parents’ house.” Pandora says. Her rings are pressing into his shoulder, through his robes. There are paint flecks all over her fingers.
“On that, you and I can agree.” Dumbledore says. “Yours will be much safer.”
Felix remembers his father’s letter and the McKinnons. Pandora busies herself searching through her pockets, presumably for Floo Powder.
“Professor?” He says. Dumbledore’s gaze snaps to him.
He thinks about the veiled threats. If Felix knows his father, the McKinnons will be attacked as soon as the Death Eaters can pull together a plan.
What if he warns Dumbledore and his father goes to Azkaban? Then Evan’s mother will hate Felix even more, and he’ll probably never go home again.
He thinks about Auror McKinnon and the Blasting curse and the bits of his brother smeared all over Muggle storefronts. And the headline Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody Hospitalised and Devoted Death Eater Unmasked and not just Evan Rosier Dead. Evan’s blood wasn’t pure – there’s no such thing, really – but it was Felix’s blood.
Pandora finds the Floo Powder.
“Thank you.” Felix says to Dumbledore instead, and pushes down the sense that really, he ought to have said a lot more.
Felix hooks his arm through his sister’s warm, living one and tries not to think about Evan’s newspaper face and Auror McKinnon’s trembling jaw. He is so tired.
He wants to go home, he thinks, but Pandora is stepping into green flames with him by her side and she is saying “Lovegood Residence, Ottery St Catchpole,” instead of “Rosier House” and then they are whirling away in a torrent of bright green sparks.