"So you see, I actually lived in this house as a baby. I don't remember it but I've been told my parents lived here before they... disappeared," Blair explained to the Muggle who didn't look very convinced.
They had walked up to the porch and Blair knocked on the door, which eventually revealed a middle-aged man who wasn't expecting anyone at his house. His eyes fell on Blair first before wandering to the twins standing closely behind her. George forced a nervous smile while Fred blinked at the man plainly. If it had gone his way, the Muggle would be stunned on the floor and they'd be searching the house already. But no, they just had to stand on his porch and have Blair politely explain why they should be let into the house and search through it.
"I wasn't told that this house belonged to someone who was missing when I bought it," the man said in a standoffish manner. "And that was fifteen years ago."
"Well I suppose the house wouldn't have sold as quickly if they told everyone a possible murder had happened here," George sniggered lightly.
"Murder? You didn't say anything about murder," the man suddenly perked up and looked in a state of panic. Fred rolled his eyes and jabbed his elbow into George's side, making him wince and gulp at his careless wording.
"N-No one knows if it was a murder," Blair tried to cover up. "But it was suspected. Sir, I know this is weird, but I've been an orphan for most of my life. I don't have anything from my parents and I've just recently learnt who they were. The only things they had would have been in this house and if by any chance the state didn't take all of it, I'd really like to have something of there's at least. Please, sir?"
Blair made sure to intensify her eyes and stick out her lower lip ever so slightly, making her look younger and in need of solitude from her dead parents. The Muggle faltered in his solid stance and was wavering in his choice of slamming the door in her face. Fred and George resisted glancing at each other and grinning in triumph. If Blair was useful for anything (and she certainly was in other aspects), her ability to look like a five year old was as good as she got. Her height was a bonus and standing next to the twins emphasised her 5'3 ft frame.
"A-Alright, fine," the man sighed. "But I will be there with you! This is my house after all!"
"Thank you so much, sir!" Blair cheered and lost her teary eyes almost completely. But she didn't allow the Muggle to notice as she slipped through the door and was already in the house before he could change his mind. Fred and George followed in with a grateful nod to the man, their heads having to be ducked in order to avoid hitting the low door frame.
The man led the three up the stairs and on to the next floor. Blair half expected and hoped to still see picture frames of her and her family on the walls, but was disappointed when there were only ones of people she didn't recognise. Although, she wasn't sure if her mother would have even put up pictures in the first place. Blair always saw ones of the Weasley family in their home, so she thought that that was the sort of things families did. But somehow, she doubted her mother would have had pictures of her and her father up on the wall.
"This'll be the only place that there would be things from before I moved in," the man said as he pointed up at the small door that sat on the ceiling with a thin string hanging from it. "I don't have enough things to store in the loft. So I don't think I've ever been up there."
He pulled at the string and the twins jumped in surprise when a set of stairs fell out and structured itself against the floor. They hadn't seen this sort of the contraption before and they whipped their heads up to the loft and down to where the stairs touched the carpet in amazement. The Muggle barely realised and began climbing, motioning for them to follow after him into the darkness of the roof.
George hesitantly followed after the man and saw that he had turned on an electric light that sat on the top structure of the roof. Pushing aside his amazement with Muggle technology, he took Blair's hand and helped her up from the ladder. Fred grumbled at not receiving the same treatment but was overridden when the man pointed to stacked boxes that sat in the corner.
"I think those are the ones that were here when I moved in. The rest are probably my Christmas decorations," he explained and Blair walked over to see the writing that was plastered across the box at the front. Sitting on her knees, she started pulling boxes towards her and rummaging through the things inside.
"Thanks, mate," George said to the man and he nodded.
"I guess I'll leave you to it. But I'll be listening," he warned before disappearing down the steps. They heard his footsteps along the second floor before descending down to the bottom floor, leaving them to talk quietly about things they wouldn't like him to hear.
Fred and George both sat on the floor before pulling boxes towards them, helping Blair with the search for whatever her father had. They didn't know if they were looking for a vial, book, parchments or particular ingredients. They could only push aside the household items and try to grab things that looked as if it was used by a potioneer Death Eater.
"There's a photo album in here," Fred announced, pulling out a leather bound book. Blair looked up from her box and saw the title 'My First Memories' in gold foiling. She took it out of Fred's hands and put it in her lap, anxious to find what was inside.
For her whole life, she hadn't known what her parents looked like or what happened in her life before the age of five. No one knew about her funny and cute baby stories or had anything that would hint to having a life before being sent to the orphanage. And suddenly, she now had all this information that had been left in the dust for years. She found herself developing an incredible dislike for the Ministry of Magic for putting her in the orphanage without anything about her family or herself. Only her name was left with a tiny chest full of clothes. It was only on her eleventh birthday that she found out about what she was capable of and where her last name originated from. But even that had negative connotations that made her shunned from Wizarding society.
Gathering her emotional strength, Blair opened the photo album and was greeted with a beautiful picture of her mother. Unlike the blurry one in the newspaper article, this one moved and showed Jesse Yaxley in all her beauty. Jesse smiled at the camera with a tiny baby in her arms, the two having identical dark eyes and small button noses. Blair doubted that her father had been responsible for this picture, but it warmed her heart and relieved her stress at seeing the first real quality photograph of her birth mother.
Before she knew it, she was turning the pages and grinning at every photograph in the album. Fred and George continued through the boxes and let her reminisce in her lost childhood memories. There was one single photograph of her father among the many of her mother and herself as a baby. It must have been just after Blair was born, because her baby self hadn't even opened her eyes yet. She was wrapped in blanket and tucked into the crevice of Jesse Yaxley's arms. Evan Rosier stood behind her with his hands in the pockets of his jeans and staring blankly at the camera. His icy blue eyes blinking were the only moving factor of his figure while Jesse smiled lightly at her new born baby.
"Look at this, Blair," George called and she forced her gaze away from the picture. A green book was in his hand with a layer of dust coating the front and back. Wiping his hand across it, a black shiny pattern could be seen carved into the cover.
"There's a whole bunch of ingredients in here too," he added, the sound of bottles clinking together as he ran his hand through the box in front of him. "This could have been your father's potion book."
Blair took hold of it and went to open up the pages, only to hear a sudden noise from downstairs. She looked at the twins, who heard the noise also, before listening intently to see if the Muggle's head would appear over the stairs after eavesdropping. The sound of the front door opening flowed through the house with the mutter of some words before a loud thud was heard hitting the floor. Fred took the initiative to stand up and inch towards the stairs leading out of the loft.
"You alright down there... sir?" he glanced back at George and Blair with a shrug before looking down to the floor below. The silence made Blair feel uneasy and it seemed that George and Fred felt the same; the lack of footsteps heard from the stairs or the floor below being odd and out of character for the Muggle they just met.
"We should go," George suggested and stood up. He had a bad feeling about the house and would really like to go in depth with the green book back at the hotel. Blair complied and took the green book and the photo album into her hands, holding them against her chest. She would have loved to dive through all of the boxes that once belonged to her parents, but knew that it was unwise to stay here for too long.
The three made it down to the second floor and let the loft's stairs fold up into the ceiling. Even then, no noise came from the Muggle that they assumed was downstairs waiting for them. They carefully descended the stairwell and Fred, who was at the front, peaked into the living room. The T.V was playing quietly in the corner while a sofa and two armchairs faced the fireplace in the wall. Fred searched the space for any sign of the Muggle before reaching the bottom floor.
"Sir? We've found some things I'd like to take," Blair called out into the house, but received no answer. She was about to step out from behind Fred and head into the living room to search for the man, only to jump back when another figure appeared around the corner.
Fletcher grinned at the sight of the three and the twins pulled out their wands, pushing Blair behind them and barricading her against the wall next to the front door. She clutched the books to her chest and reached down for her wand that was in her sock, pulling it out to have in her hand as a weak attempt of protection. As the T.V played in the background, Fletcher leaned against the wall and smirked with a dark glint in his eyes.
"Fancy seeing you three here," he cheered sarcastically. "The Muggle was most obliging in letting me in."
"Where is he?" George demanded, seething at the sight of the Death Eater that never seemed to bugger off.
"In the kitchen," he shrugged with jab of his thumb over his shoulder. "I needed a bin bag and he fit in just perfectly!"
Blair gulped at the obvious alluding to the Muggle now being dead and stuffed into a bin liner. She felt horrible for being responsible for his death. If she hadn't knocked on his door, Fletcher wouldn't have followed her here. He had nothing to do with Wizarding affairs yet had the rotten luck to be the owner of the house that was so desirable. If the man had been out of the house on this particular day, he wouldn't have been harmed at all. Sure, his house would have been broken into but only by magic. They would only take the things that initially belonged to Blair anyway. But now he's suffered the wrath of a crazed Death Eater and was bent up in plastic bag.
"Now to what's really important-" Fletcher started with a clap of his hands, his eyes inching over Fred's shoulder to look at Blair in the corner. "-I'm going to need that book, Rosier."