Flora And Fawna [HARRY POTTER]

22

Rosie was quick about changing Draco, noting how much easier it was to change such a small child. Almost before either of them could be missed Rosie was back downstairs, trying to hand Draco back to his mother. His mother who seemed more than willing to let Rosie look after him for the remainder of the evening.

"Oh, please," Narcissa said as Rosie sat back down and tried to pass Draco back to her. "He's so well behaved for you and I don't want Uncle Orion to send us into another room while the rest of you talk in the parlor."

So Rosie kept Draco in her lap and very entertained as she whispered stories into his ear between bites. It seemed all the adults were perfectly content to ignore the two children so long as they stayed relatively quiet.

After dinner, which featured a perfectly cooked roast duck that Rosie quite enjoyed, the plates were cleared away and Orion stood to motion the family back to the parlor. It was tradition, it seemed, to congregate after they had all eaten and share stories of their youth.

"When I was your age I knew our Dark Lord rather well," Orion Black bragged drunkenly after he had one too many scotches. Rosie narrowed her eyes and held Draco closer to her, as if she could protect his little ears from talk of such a monster. "I was only a year behind him in school and we all knew good old Tom was a brilliant wizard."

Orion hiccupped and a few purebloods listening to his eccentric tale giggled.

"Always fond of me, he was, which was how he was only too happy to take Regulus on as a death eater when Reg was sixteen. Youngest boy to join the ranks since the very beginning!"

Rosie looked away, her eyes finding a purchase on Walburga Black.

Walburga hadn't made a move to join her husband as he reminisced. Instead the intimidating woman had been watching Rosie handle Draco. Rosie had felt Walburga's eyes on her all night but hadn't looked in the woman's direction until just then. Rosie held the woman's gaze for several seconds before she looked away, hoping that something else would catch her attention so she wouldn't have to hear Orion talk about how he pressured his son to become a killer.

*******

Orion might have been the one to entertain everyone that night but it was Walburga who lead everyone to the door and wished them a safe trip home. Orion had been preoccupied with stumbling his way to bed after he very nearly was sick all over one of the house's antique rugs.

"Thank you so much for keeping Draco quiet," Narcissa said, genuinely as she finally took her son back into her arms right before she and her husband left. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't."

Rosie smiled politely, letting her arms fall to her sides. As soon as Draco was handed off he began to stir. Sometime during the night he had fallen asleep and it seemed he had been jostled when Narcissa went to cradle him. He began to whine low in his throat and Narcissa's smile fell. She and her husband left quickly, hurrying to get home and hand their son off to someone else.

*******

"Now," Walburga said and she settled back into one of the wingback chairs that had just been vacated. "I suspect you are curious as to why you are still here, now that the rest of the guests have left."

Actually, Rosie had been wondering how much longer she would be there. It was nearing nine o'clock in the evening and she was sure her sister and Penny would be worried about if she was still alive or not. Instead of admitting that, Rosie didn't say a thing. She just waited.

"The last time we spoke like this we didn't end on the best of terms," that, Rosie thought, was the biggest understatement of the year. Walburga had clearly wanted to kill Rosie, or at least seriously maim her. Rosie held her tongue.

"I was quite surprised to be invited," Rosie allowed after a pause. She just wanted to leave, get out of the house that Regulus lived in and go home to her family where her sister and best friend were waiting.

Walburga sat back in her tall chair, the bun she had in her silvering blonde hair pulling at the wrinkles in her face and making her look quite severe. Walburga's icy blue eyes pinned Rosie with a stare that would have made anyone else squirm.

There was a long silence before Walburga broke it, launching into a story.

"Mothers aren't supposed to pick a favorite child, but I will readily admit that Regulus was my favorite. My other son, who you have probably not had the misfortune of meeting,  was always rebelling. He was always getting into trouble. First he got sorted into that ridiculous lion house, then he made friends with that blood traitor's son, and finally he ran away, humiliating me. Yes, I always favored Regulus. He was my first born, and he was everything a pureblood boy should be."

Rosie had been told about Walburga's first son, Regulus' brother Sirius. Sirius Black had been in Lily's year and if her sister's grumblings held any merit, he was quite the troublemaker. Rosie could easily see how Walburga would find that distasteful.

"Regulus was the light of my life. Even after he began to write home about you. I didn't know your blood status at first, Regulus went to great lengths not to tell me and I suppose I never asked. When I did find out I was heartbroken, because I could tell it in his words that he was going down a dark path. Narcissa and Bellatrix's sister, Andromeda, married a muggleborn she met in school and she was disowned. I should have done the same but I couldn't. I loved my son too much."

By then, both Rosie and Walburga were staring into the fire, watchingthe flames lick at the walls of the fireplace.

"My eldest son is a bloodtraitor and my youngest son is dead. That was what made it come to my attention that Regulus wrote you into his will, that night he died. He left you everything. Which puts me in a horrible position."

Rosie was silent. Shocked. She remembered back to the night that Regulus died. He had kept insisting that she would be taken care of and she had been so confused at the time. But Regulus had made sure that she knew he had done something to look after her, even if he died. It had been one of the questions rolling around Rosie's mind since then, because she had wanted, needed to know the meaning behind all of Regulus' last words. He had made the effort to say them so she needed to understands them. Now she did.

"I have no love for mudbloods. It's ridiculous to think that you stole anyone's magic like some pureblood's imagine, but your very existence proves that there was a squib somewhere in your ancestry. Every family has one and they're all a disgrace. To think that you and your mudblood sister Lily Potter are descendants from a blemish on a pureblood family's name is a disgrace. I would like nothing more than to write another will, one that ensures your filthy mudblood hands can't touch a coin of my family's fortune."

Rosie wasn't certain why the woman hadn't already. She doubted it would have been that hard.

"But then I realized that I am backed into a corner. On one side I have you. My son wanted you to have all that was his in his final moments. But you are a muggleborn. On the other hand, my filthy bloodtraitor son is my only other heir. If Sirius got his hands on the family fortune, the line of Black would be tainted. Ruined. There are no good options for me, no way for me to get what I want." Walburga finally paused, and turned to look Rosie directly in the eye. There was something there that begged Rosie to understand. And then it was gone.

"Two options. My son was not an idiot. He knew that once I died, having left everything to him, his will would be read and you would get everything. Although I'm not happy, I have decided that I will let it happen and after I die it will be seen as a horrible, but legally binding, oversight on my part. I understand you have no control in who your parents were, just as I understand the estate will be better left in your hands. I loved my son, and above all else I want that to be remembered."

Walburga sits back, looking at the fire and letting silence blanket the room.  Off in the hallway a grandfather clock strikes.

Once, twice, it continues to chime until the clock strikes twelve. It was midnight.