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SIYE Time:11:58 on 29th March 2024
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Hollow Ash
By FloreatCastellum

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Category: Post-Hogwarts
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Neville Longbottom, Other
Genres: Drama
Warnings: Dark Fiction, Death, Disturbing Imagery, Extreme Language, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Sexual Situations, Spouse/Adult/Child Abuse, Violence, Violence/Physical Abuse
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 131
Summary: When a mysterious woman comes to the Auror office claiming to be the victim of a terrible crime, Theia and Harry want to do everything they can to help her. The problem is, she has no memory of what has happened. As they piece together the sinister events, their own troubles and traumas rise to the surface, causing them to question who they really are. Sequel to The Aurors.
Hitcount: Story Total: 41501; Chapter Total: 2001
Awards: View Trophy Room






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Theia had still not returned from speaking to Marcy, so Harry went to speak with Pauline alone. He was grateful - he wasn’t sure why, but part of him felt embarrassed at the idea of someone else being there. As though he were confronting an old school bully.

Like Osman, Pauline looked more than put out at being there, chewing on her tongue and rapping her fingers against the bare desk in front of her, throwing a filthy look at Harry when he entered.

‘Mrs Swindlehurst-’ he began.

‘It’s Pauline,’ she said huffily. ‘This is ridiculous. I en’t got nothing to do with any of it.’

Harry raised his eyebrows slight and sat. He tapped his wand against the desk, and the manilla file he had summoned appeared there.

‘I’m sure,’ he said calmly. ‘But you might be able to help us all the same. I’m sure you want that, don’t you?’

She scowled at him. ‘You must think I was born yesterday. You arrested me on suspicion, don’t try and play nice pretending you just want a chat.’

‘Al right,’ he said coldly. ‘I think you do have something to do with this, or at the very least you’ve done something you don’t want us to know about. The more you cooperate, the easier it will be for everyone. So let’s start at the beginning, shall we?’ He opened up the file and pulled out a photo of Marcy. ‘Tell me about your relationship with Marcy.’

‘Eh? What’s that got to do with anything?’

She spoke too quickly for Harry to believe her confusion was genuine. ‘I would like you to tell me about her childhood. How did you come to be looking after her?’

‘Well her parents didn’t want a squib,’ Pauline said, as though it were obvious.

‘But you did?’

‘I felt sorry for the poor mite. Even when they were looking after her she’d come round ours for tea - her’n Ella would play.’

‘Got along, did they?’

‘Yeah, ‘course.’

‘But then her mum died,’ Harry said. ‘Must have been tough on the family. The whole community.’

Pauline shrugged callously. ‘Everyone was dropping dead of dragon pox then. Sad n’all but we had our own grieving to do.’

‘You lost someone too?’ Harry asked. ‘Your husband?’

‘Yeah,’ she replied, her expression emotionless.

‘We don’t have any record of another wizard living there. I was going to ask-’

‘Well you wouldn’t,’ said Pauline. ‘He weren’t from the country and he never went to Hogwarts. He was a wizard though,’ she added aggressively. ‘He just didn’t see why any of you lot had to know about us. Didn’t want to send our Ella to school, but I said to him the quill would have wrote her name down as soon as she did some magic anyway, so what difference would it make?’

‘Was he trying to hide from anyone?’

‘I dunno, do I? He just liked his privacy, we all does round here. What does it matter? It’s been years.’

‘You didn’t take his name when you married?’

‘Went back to Swindlehurst later, but kept the Mrs for him.’

He surveyed her carefully. She didn’t seem emotionally affected talking about her husband, but he supposed that could well be due to the passing of time. All the same, he thought it was odd for a widow to change her name back.

‘Was Marcy jealous of Ella? For going to Hogwarts.’

‘Course she was.’ A smile twitched over Pauline’s face. ‘Ooh, they used to fight. But kids do, don’t they? They love a good scrap.’

Harry remembered games of Harry Hunting when he was a child. ‘Who won the scraps?’

‘How should I know? You’re talking forty years ago, mate.’

‘At this point, Marcy’s father was still alive, correct?’

‘Yeah, but he didn’t have much to do with her. I looked after her.’

‘Why?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘You thick or something? I felt sorry for her.’

‘The thing is, Pauline, I don’t really believe you.’ She stared at him, and he waited a few moments before swallowing slightly and saying, ‘Marcy seems to look up to you a lot, but I’ve not once heard you say anything positive about her.’

‘She’s a sweet girl,’ Pauline said irritably.

‘But she’s not a girl,’ said Harry. ‘She’s a woman. Her and Ornella are roughly the same age.’

‘Well, she’s always not been quite right,’ said Pauline. ‘Mentally, I mean. We all talk about her like she’s a kid, because that’s what she is, really.’

‘Really?’ said Harry mildly, and he pulled a book out of the folder. ‘Look at this. All these crosswords and sudoku squares and word games. She’s smart.’

He flicked through the neatly filled in pages, and watched Pauline’s face. ‘Well yeah, at that stuff,’ she said at last. ‘But she can’t brew a potion, can she?’

‘No, because she’s a squib,’ said Harry impatiently. ‘But she’s smart.’

‘You’ve spoken to her,’ said Pauline. ‘You know she isn’t. Gets confused and babbles on about nothing, she’s never had any sense-’

‘I’ve got no evidence she’s always been like that,’ said Harry. ‘In fact, I think that’s quite new.’

Pauline fell into silence, and Harry thought he saw a faint blush appear over her wide cheeks.

He closed the book and returned it to the folder. ‘Pauline, Marcy said she goes to yours for mother’s day every year. Would you say she sees you as a mother?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Since her own mam died.’

‘Do you see her as a daughter?’

Pauline stared at him for a long time. Finally, in a clear, cold voice, she said, ‘no.’

‘Why not?’

‘Ella is my daughter. I carried her for nine months then she came screaming into the world. You can’t describe the love that comes with that. No one else will ever come close.’

‘My godson isn’t my own blood, but I love him just as much,’ Harry said. ‘A wizarding family took me in as a child and treated me as one of their own.’

Pauline gave him a pitying smile. ‘You’ll see what I mean when your baby is born.’

‘Love is a choice,’ Harry said firmly. ‘You choose to love a child, just as Marcy’s parents apparently chose not to.’

Pauline shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say that. Her dad made sure she was all right.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Gave us a monthly stipend. Make sure she didn’t go hungry.’

‘Ah,’ said Harry, leaning back in his chair. ‘So now we come to it. There was a financial incentive.’

She tutted. ‘Oh please. It’s not easy adding another kid to the mix when you live off the land and flogging a few potion ingredients here and there. I didn’t get much off him. Just enough to feed and clothe her until she came of age.’

‘He died before then though, didn’t he?’ said Harry. ‘When she was fifteen?’

‘There were provisions in his will,’ Pauline replied smoothly. ‘He didn’t want her, but he didn’t want her to suffer either. He knew I could take better care of her.’

‘And then she inherited the house up the road?’

‘Yeah, not that she ever stayed in it. Always hanging round us and Ella.’

Harry thought that was an odd way to put it. Like a stray cat the mewled outside the door. He was increasingly seeing a picture of neglect and irritation towards Marcy - this burden that needed maintaining.

‘Why didn’t she leave?’ he asked. ‘When she grew up?’

‘And do what? Hadn’t been to school, had she?’

‘She could have got a Muggle job.’

Pauline snorted. ‘She doesn’t know nothing about Muggles. She won’t even go into the village.’

‘Why not?’

‘Too scared.’

‘Of what?’

Pauline shrugged. ‘Muggles? Strangers? I don’t know. The Loney was all she knew.’

‘I see. Did she have any relationships?’

‘Relationships?’

‘With men. We heard from someone else that she had a reputation.’

She gave a scathing chuckle. ‘If it was my brother that said that, ignore him. He thinks that about all women except me and mum.’

‘So she didn’t?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘She must have got pregnant from someone. My colleague and I smelled amortentia in your home. You didn’t have anything to do with it?’

‘Well, I would have liked her to have a relationship,’ she said lightly. ‘Nothing illegal about brewing a love potion.’

‘No,’ Harry admitted. ‘Not yet. But certain use, especially with Muggles, heads into some pretty grey legal areas. I think your daughter may have used it on a Muggle in order to have children.’

‘You’ll have to speak to her about that.’

Harry had heard enough. He pulled out the next piece of evidence from the file, the gruesome picture of what they had found in the tree.

‘God,’ Pauline muttered, looking away with revulsion. ‘What’s wrong with you? Why’re you showing me that?’

‘When I first met you,’ Harry said, ignoring her distress, ‘you told me that Marcy had a stillbirth at the Muggle hospital in Lancaster. Now we find her baby in the Loney, and you’re telling me she’s actually never left the area.’

‘Well that’s what she told me,’ Pauline snapped. ‘I didn’t mean she’s never left the Loney ever, don’t twist my words. She told me she went to hospital and the baby was born dead. She never said she left it anywhere. It’s her you should be questioning not me.’

Harry slid the photo closer to her. ‘The baby is a little boy. Newborn.’

‘Nothing to do with me,’ Pauline said, with a hard edge to her voice. ‘Poor little mite.’ When Harry stayed silent, she suddenly spoke up. ‘What probably happened was Marcy had the baby and it was born dead. She left it in the tree and went mad from grief and thought she went to hospital.’

Harry sighed. He suddenly felt an extreme sort of grief. ‘I’ve got two issues with that, Pauline,’ he said. ‘The first is that I think if Marcy is so unfamiliar with the Muggle world she wouldn’t imagine a hospital at all. And if it was part of some delusion she would have said something along those lines to me or my colleague-’

‘Well she had been to the hospital lots of times-’

‘I’ll get to that,’ said Harry, raising a hand to quieten her interruption. ‘But the biggest issue I have is that I have never mentioned the tree where this baby was found to you.’

The silence was cold and horrified. Pauline’s face betrayed that she knew she had slipped up. ‘I just guessed,’ she said lamely.

‘What a good guess,’ Harry replied dryly. His eyes met her cold grey ones, and for the first time he saw weakness in them.

‘I just know she goes there a lot,’ Pauline said. ‘It’s a pretty place.’

‘Do many of you walk there? For the scenery?’

‘Sure, if you want.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘She can barely walk,’ said Pauline, looking almost bored.

‘My colleague saw her walking, quite rapidly, in the early hours of the morning.’

‘Your colleague should get her head checked.’

Harry almost laughed, the exhale shrugging his shoulders. He pulled back the photo, and replaced it with another.

‘Do you know what this is?’

Pauline did not look surprised. ‘A skeleton.’

‘Do you know who it is?’

She squared her shoulders and looked back up at him. ‘No.’

‘We found these remains under the tree you mentioned.’

‘Sad.’

‘Things are not looking good for you, Pauline. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a lawyer? Because from where I’m standing you seem to have an odd relationship with the woman whose baby has just turned up dead at a place you suggested without prompting.’

‘Don’t need a lawyer, I’ve done fuck all,’ said Pauline coldly. She leaned forward. ‘And you know what? You thinking I’ve been mean to Marcy isn’t evidence. Neither is me hearing about where you found bodies before you arrested me. You think you’ve been subtle? Everyone in the Loney has known about what you and that girl have been doing every step of the way. Things might not be looking good, but you can’t charge me, can you? I don’t need a lawyer to know that.’

………………………

Theia left Marcy with Judy, barely noticing her hunger from skipping lunch. After so much crying, she felt as though she had a head cold, occasionally sniffing and dabbing at her nose as though it were running, but it wasn’t.

She realised that she had missed the scheduled chat with Pauline, so she went straight back up to the office she shared with Harry. As she entered, Vali jumped up onto her shoulders, wrapping himself around her like a scarf.

‘Hello,’ she said thickly, scratching his head and feeling him purr against her neck. ‘Has Harry been feeding you enough?’

She pointed her wand at the kettle and heard it begin to bubble. The cat leapt off her shoulders as she sat heavily on the scruffy leather sofa with a great sigh, putting her wand between her knees as she rubbed her eyes, humming Aretha Franklin’s Son of a Preacher Man under her breath.

The cup of tea floated across the room towards her and she seized it. ‘Thank you,’ she said to the empty air that had handed it to her, then snorted with slightly despairing amusement.

She sat there drinking it quietly, thinking about her mother, and Dennis, letting the passing of time slide over her without awareness, until the door opened again and Harry entered. He looked as tired as she felt.

‘All right? How did it go with Pauline?’

‘I’ll fill you in when I’ve had some food,’ he said grumpily. ‘Nasty bitch.’

Theia blinked. She rarely heard Harry speak so viciously about anyone.

He didn’t bother with magic, just went straight to the kettle and began clattering about with mugs, ignoring the cat that rubbed against his legs. ‘Marcy’s had no one,’ he said shortly. ‘Her whole life. At least I had the Weasleys. I’m sure all those injuries the Muggle doctor mentioned came from Pauline or Ella.’

Theia now felt extremely uncomfortable; Harry’s rage made her feel that she was missing something massive. Before she could tentatively ask anything, he leaned against the tea trolly and violently stirred sugar into his mug, shooting her a look that she couldn’t place. ‘How do you feel about having lunch with the Weasleys on Sunday?’ he asked. ‘Or, actually, now that I think about it, just babysitting Ben?’

‘I can’t,’ she said, and she was honestly sorry. ‘I promised Marcy we would have lunch together then.’ She hesitated. ‘Won’t Ben want to spend Sunday with his own family?’

‘His mum died too,’ Harry said bluntly. ‘When he was quite young, a muggle illness. He told me at mine after some whiskey.’

‘Oh,’ said Theia. She wished Harry hadn’t brought up the thing that united them all. She hated to admit it but she often felt that her own tragedy was hers alone - an outlier, a shocking, terrible thing. When she was reminded that everyone lost their mother at some point or another, all in their own unique and terrible way, it reminded her that her suffering was nothing special. Still though, it was nice to know that she shared something with Ben. ‘Well, maybe he could come with me to-’

‘No, I don’t want to involve him in the case any further than necessary,’ said Harry. ‘We’re going to go ahead with the scheduled chat with that kid, and keep him around to get a sense of the people he knows, then he can go home.’ He was staring into the mid-distance, then he looked down at his tea. ‘I wish this was firewhiskey.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ he said sharply. ‘How was Marcy?’

She told him, and his expression didn’t move, but at one point, eyes still fixed on her, he reached for his notepad and jotted something down. She recounted everything she could remember - every phrase exactly as spoken, every thought that crossed her mind, and he listened without interruption.

‘Harry,’ she said at one point, unable to keep the horror from her voice, ‘she has named the baby Asher!’

‘That’s weird,’ he replied, and she felt relieved that he agreed that it was a strange, morbid choice.

She continued, even begin to pace, hands gesturing, recounting the horrible drama of it all.

‘Right,’ he said when she finished. ‘Want to grab lunch before we go onto the next interview?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, only now realising the dull hunger pangs in her stomach. ‘The cafeteria?’

‘No, I want somewhere quiet, let’s find a Muggle cafe,’ he said, grabbing his coat. ‘And talk about stuff other than the case.’

‘Good idea,’ she said wearily.

They left the Ministry and walked up to Trafalgar square, the rumbling traffic and heaving crowds of tourists and civil servants and school trips wrapping them in swarming anonymity. They headed to the Admiralty pub, where Harry ordered steak and ale pie (along with a pint) and Theia chose a jerk chicken sandwich. They talked quietly about Quidditch, Theia trying to disguise her lack of knowledge, and how much both Harry and Ginny missed playing it.

‘How is she?’ Theia asked. ‘Ginny and the baby.’

‘Good,’ said Harry, and she saw him grin as raised his pint to his lips. He swallowed his ale and she thought that for the first time that day he looked relaxed. ‘Not long now, I’ve nearly got the nursery ready. Well, I say that, but Ginny keeps rearranging all the furniture, then putting it all back.’

‘What?’

‘Apparently it’s called nesting. I’m assured it’s common and it’s also the reason she emptied the kitchen cupboards.’

‘She can come and do mine if she likes,’ said Theia. ‘Mine are an unorganised mess.’ He chuckled, and she was about to move on to talk about something else when Harry suddenly spoke.

‘And of course she’s having lots of tests to make sure the baby is healthy.’

‘Are there concerns?’ she asked, quite taken aback.

‘Oh, no,’ he said distractedly, but she noticed that he was gripping his fork quite tightly. ‘But you can’t be too careful, you know?’

‘Well what will happen if you find out the baby isn’t healthy?’

He hesitated. ‘I… I don’t know. I suppose at least we’ll be prepared. Not likely though, is it?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘No. No reason for it.’ He took another long drink. ‘I dropped Teddy once,’ he blurted out. ‘When he was a baby. But he bounced like rubber back into my arms.’

‘Baby wizards are pretty resilient,’ said Theia laughing.

‘Right. Yeah.’ He drank again. ‘I can’t remember if he had all his vaccinations and protective spells, either,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to talk to Andromeda.’

‘Er… OK,’ said Theia. ‘I’m sure he did, or they can do them now.’

‘Yeah,’ he said vaguely. ‘I’ll just feel bad if I forgot, you know?’

‘Are you all right, Harry?’

‘Yes, of course. Are you?’ he added aggressively.

‘Er… A bit upset after talking with Marcy-’

‘God, yes, obviously. Sorry.’

Theia picked at her chips, feeling highly uncomfortable. Harry also looked awkward, furiously stabbing at a chunk of his pie, his face slightly pink. ‘So you’re going to the Weasleys this weekend?’ she said brightly, desperately hoping that he would cheer up.

‘Yeah, they’ve turned it into a whole thing, it gets bigger every year. It’s more of a spring garden party now. I’m going to have to bring Ben, which will be… interesting.’

‘I’m sure he’ll love it.’

He eyed her. ‘Nice bloke, isn’t he?’

‘Who, Ben? Yeah, I suppose.’

‘Thinks highly of you,’ he said, and she thought she saw a mischievous glint in his eye.
‘Well who wouldn’t?’ she said with an awkward attempt at bravado. ‘Must have been weird telling him. Going to be even weirder to wipe his memory.’

‘Mmm,’ said Harry, tilting his head while he chewed on the last of his lunch. ‘Yeah, we’ll see about that.’

‘I know you’re the boss and everything so I shouldn’t be giving you career advice, but you really ought to do what Robards says once in a while.’

‘Nah,’ he said, leaning back and lazily pushing his cutlery together. ‘I think he enjoys telling me off, don’t want to deprive him of that.’

‘Probably looking forward to telling the grandkids about how he gave a written warning to The Chosen One.’

‘Shut it,’ said Harry, and Theia grinned at him as they rose to leave. ‘You sure you want to be with Marcy on Sunday? It’ll be a bit bleak.’

‘I know it won’t be easy,’ she admitted. ‘But it won’t be easy for either of us, so I’d like to be there.’ She gave him a sideways glance and hesitating before continuing, knowing how much he disliked talking about deeply personal topics. ‘Are you going to be all right? I assume it’s tough for you too.’

‘Not really,’ he said, as they stepped back out into Trafalgar Square. ‘It’s a bit different now I have a mother-in-law I suppose, but I’ve never really thought about it. Ted was sweet about Father’s Day last year though, I think he might be getting to the age where he starts to wonder.’

‘Sweet?’

‘Gave me a card he made, I think he’d been asking Andromeda about who he could give one to.’

‘That’s lovely!’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry, smiling slightly. ‘I think he’s all right, you know.’

‘Yeah I mean you probably have really good insight on it all as an orphan too,’ Theia blurted out without thinking. ‘You’ll know the right things to say and what to avoid and the feelings he’ll have. He’s really lucky to have you as a godfather.’

There was a long pause. Theia thought her face might be on fire. Harry looked distinctly uncomfortable, but half a smile crossed his face. ‘You’ve never quite mastered thinking before you speak, have you, Higglesworth?’

‘No,’ said Theia apologetically. It was a silent, but not necessarily awkward, walk back down Whitehall to the Ministry.

………………………

It was the person she had been desperate to interview - the one she felt should have been interviewed first thing. The anticipation with which her heart thudded did not overwhelm her, but seemed to give her a dark sort of energy. Not quite excitement, and certainly not dread, but something she thought would feel like vengence. It was the same feeling she felt when she returned from Azkaban visits.

Harry led them in, and though he greeted their interviewee, Theia simply sat silently. She stared into the ancient, lined face of the woman that had inexplicably terrified her. Unlike the others, Alma’s health and age had meant that they felt obligated to provide her with a lawyer, and she had not argued. The lawyer, a young, thin man, sat silently next to her, giving only a slight nod to them both as they readied themselves.

Alma Swindlehurst also seemed to be at far more comfort in the interviewing room than Osman or Pauline had been, yawning heavily, her watery eyes opening and closing slowly, the gnarled, claw like hands playing casually with the wooden beads that hung from her neck. ‘Ey up,’ she mumbled, in her thick Lancashire accent.

‘Hello, Mrs Swindlehurst,’ said Harry. ‘I assume Mr Pyke has informed you of your rights and what the process here today is?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. Theia realised that she was so old she could barely speak, mumbling everything with a vacant expression.

‘Excellent,’ said Harry. ‘My name is Harry Potter and this is my colleague Theia Higglesworth. We met only very briefly before, but we weren’t introduced.’

‘Did we? Oh.’ Her tongue slipped out and she wetted her papery lips. ‘What can I help thee with?’

‘Mrs Swindlehurst, I wonder if you could tell us why you were walking around at 3am earlier this week?’

The beads clinked together, or was it on her boney fingers? Theia wished she would leave them alone.

‘Three ay em?’

‘Three in the morning, yes, or thereabouts.’

‘Don’t know wot yeh were skennin’ at-’

‘Mrs Swindlehurst, I saw you,’ said Theia. ‘I saw you out on the fell. With a candle.’

‘Well, I don’t remember. Me mind en’t what it used to be, duck. I did always like night walks though.’

‘Why?’ Harry asked. ‘Odd time to go for a walk, you can’t see anything.’

‘Eeh, what about the stars, duck? An’ the moon an’ all. The shadows they cast on the fells. Nowt like the night for an old soul.’

‘You have arthritis, is that right, Mrs Swindlehurst?’

‘Oh me old joints? Aye.’

‘I saw you walking at some speed,’ said Theia. ‘It seems you can move far quicker than you let on.’

‘No,’ said the old woman. She looked neither surprised not perturbed, and the flat denial unsettled Theia somewhat.

One of the first pieces of advice she had been given when training to be an Auror was that sometimes it was better to stay silent and let the guilty party slip up for the sheer sake of breaking the awkward tension. But no matter how long she and Harry sat and stared coldly, Alma Swindlehurst seemed to be at no discomfort, her eyes glazing over as though she was allowing her mind to wander, her lips sometimes moving in a slow, bored sort of way, but never opening.

Eventually, Harry showed her the photos.

‘Poor bairns,’ she said.

‘Do you know what happened to either of them?’

‘No,’ she replied. She looked at Theia. ‘Could I get a brew? I’m parched love.’

Fury filled her, she felt her nostrils flare but tried to otherwise remain composed, taking her wand and flicking it in the air. She kept her eyes fixed on the harmless-looking old woman as beside her a cup of tea appeared.

‘Ta,’ Alma said as it floated towards her.

‘Ms Swindlehurst,’ said Harry, his voice measured. ‘Let’s not waste each others time.’ He tapped the photo of the baby. ‘This is Marcy’s baby. He didn’t come from nowhere. Tell me what you know.’

‘Not much, love,’ she replied. ‘I don’t remember much these days.’

‘How old are you exactly?’ Theia blurted out. ‘I couldn’t find records about you.’

‘Old,’ she said vaguely. ‘Didn’t go to school.’

‘Neither did your daughter,’ said Harry. ‘Odd, isn’t it?’

‘Ella only went because she insisted,’ Alma said. ‘I didn’t approve.’

‘Why would you not approve? Why shouldn’t they go to Hogwarts?’

‘Not our way.’ That seemed answer enough, and she fell back into silence without elaborating.

‘Where did you learn magic then?’

‘Me mam,’ she said, then sipped her tea. ‘Old magic’s best anyways.’

‘In what way?’ Theia asked. ‘Why wouldn’t you go and learn all you could at school?’

‘No need.’

‘Ms Swindlehurst, did you ever witness Marcy being beaten or mistreated in anyway?’ Harry asked.

‘Everyone beats their bairns when they need it,’ she mumbled. ‘I know it’s not the done thing now, but it was normal in my time.’

‘I’m talking about serious injuries. Broken bones.’

Bizarrely, she clicked her tongue. ‘Rough and tumble mostly,’ she said. ‘Children, you know.’

‘But why, then, was she taken to a Muggle hospital for healing?’ Harry asked. ‘As a squib, she’s entitled to treatment at St Mungos, if no one in the Loney knew the right spells.’

‘Best people stay where they belong,’ Alma said, still with that ancient, croaky voice. ‘Non magic folk with non magic folk, the rest of us to ourselves.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Just best that way.’

‘So you don’t mind that Ella’s children have a Muggle father?’

Alma gave a small, creaking shrug, her deep blue eyes rolling to the ceiling. ‘We’re people, not dogs. The lines don’t have to be pure, they’ve just got to be magic.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You’ll not be accusing me of being a Death Eater, now will you?’ she said sharply.

‘You cannot accuse my client of crimes that you haven’t-’ began Mr Pryce.

‘I’m not,’ Harry said smoothly. ‘I’m just… I’m very confused about the family dynamics at work here, as I’m sure you can understand.’

‘Of course I can understand,’ said Alma, still in a gentle, grandmotherly voice. ‘You don’t ‘ave a family so it will be harder for you to know. You’ll never understand those things.’

Theia couldn’t help but let her jaw drop, but Harry remained remarkably unfazed. ‘Doesn’t seem fair,’ he said, ‘that you know my family history but I don’t know yours.’

‘Not my fault you’re famous, duck,’ she said. She looked back down at the photos, and blinked. After a few moments, she unfolded her withered hands and gestured, palms to the ceiling. ‘I’m sorry. I wish I could help you. Poor bairns.’
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