The Sins of a Father

Chapter Thirty One!

          For dinner I dressed in some tan pants with a bright red cashmere sweater; as for my hair, I remembered that I wanted to cut it. Perusing around the house I was able to find some scissors. Quickly I headed back up to the bathroom, gathered my hair in a low ponytail. Took in a few deep breaths and started cutting away at my hair. I could physically feel the pain of losing my hair but I knew that I needed some kind of change. When I finished my  hair rest an inch above my shoulders and it looked really could considering I did it myself. 

When I was ready I thought about the address that my grandmother had sent to me, and apparated in front of a local muggle neighborhood. I quickly gazed around the street praying that no one saw me then made my way to the front door of the house that the address had been printed on the parchment.  My hand reached for the knocker placed on the door but the door opened before I touched the knocker. A man who had some scruff lined along his jaw, a man with messy black hair, a man I used to trust, until the same night that my father killed Dumbledore. Without a second thought I whipped out my wand, and screamed "Stupefy!"  and he flew across the floor. I ran over to him, picked him up by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the wall, I had my wand at his throat.

"What do you think you are doing here?" I snarled, my wand digging harder into his flesh.

"Raven darling, what are you doing?" my grandmother demanded, hands on her hips. and marching towards me. 

"Grandmother I have to tell you something about this man. He's dangerous, he's evil, deceitful and a liar and – "

"And he's a friend to the family," she cut me off to tell me that.

"What? How? Grandmother, he's a Death Eater, he worked for the Dark Lord himself," I snapped. I could've sworn that I saw him dead during the Battle.

"Raven, please unhand him, Tobias and I will explain – for heaven's sake girl, lower your wand and let the boy breathe," she commanded. Reluctantly I shoved my wand in my back pocket and let him go. Then Grandmother took my arm into hers and guided me into the dining room.

"Grandmother, I would have imagined that you and Tobias would get a divorce?" I asked changing the tight subject.

"No, later Tobias became interested in magic and we are now doing just fine, so I take it you two know each other?" she asked bringing back the non-desired conversation. I turned to glare at him.

"Yeah, the school year before last  dad hired him to be my 'protector'," I sneered, using air quotes between certain words.

"Oh really? My son must have loved you if he thought you needed a protector at Hogwarts," Eileen mused, folding her arms across her chest.

"He only used Dimitri so that the other Death Eaters could get into Hogwarts if Draco Malfoy failed to do so," I explained.

"Well sweetheart you must allow me to tell you the story about that," she mused.  My body felt extremely tense by having him next to me, even though Grandmother was about to come up with a story. I still very much wanted to hit him or worse. "Raven you might want to get comfortable, it's sort of a long story," she paused to watch me relax a little bit in my chair then began again. Dimitri sat in the chair adjacent to me and kept his eyes trained on me like a hawk.

"Now, let me see where to begin... Ah when Dimitri was a young lad his parents had both been muggles and he a wizard, they didn't allow him to go to Hogwarts but since they found out that Severus was a wizard also and we were friends with them to begin with, he asked Severus if he could learn magic through him and so every summer Severus would teach Dimitri the ways of magic until there was nothing more to teach him. Shortly after that Voldemort returned and killed Dimitri's family, so Tobias and I took him in. Severus tried to mourn with him and tried to help him get past this but how does one get over losing parents or loved ones in general?"