That night, Jane didn't sleep.
She couldn't have said where she intended to go. She only knew that, before she realised it, her hand had found the iron handle of the garden door and pushed it open.
Freezing air greeted her.
Frost covered the grass, turning the lawn silver beneath the moonlight. Beyond the manicured edges, the lake stretched dark and still, its surface like black glass beneath the night sky. The moon hung above it, a thin crescent of light against the darkness.
Jane stepped onto the stone terrace, her breath misting in the cold.
Somewhere in this country, hidden behind wards she couldn't yet break, there was a child she had never met.
She pictured him despite herself. A boy sleeping in a house that wasn't his, in a bed that might not be warm enough against the winter cold. Surrounded by people who knew nothing of the world he should have grown up in. Held by hands that couldn't understand what he was or the power he carried.
She thought of Lily.
She thought of the green eyes she would never see in person. Of the photographs now stacked in the library, alongside the records she had gathered and copied. Birth certificates. School records. Pictures of a girl with a gap-toothed smile. Fragments of a life that had already ended.
Lily at seven had looked open-faced and carefree.
At eleven, she had been smiling at something just beyond the edge of the photograph, her red hair bright even in the fading light.
Jane remembered those familiar eyes staring out from the worn paper. Then she caught her own reflection in the glass of the garden door, the same colour, the same inheritance staring back at her.
"You should have known," she whispered into the dark.
She drew her robe tighter around her shoulders, but the cold continued to seep through.
Four months had passed since the tragedy at Godric's Hollow. Four months of letters, questions, and doors that refused to open.
And somewhere beyond all those obstacles, a child was waiting.
A child with Lily's eyes.
With her grandmother's eyes.
With Jane's eyes.
She remained on the terrace until the cold had settled deep into her bones and she could no longer feel her feet. Only when the sky began to lighten and grey dawn spread across the horizon did she finally return inside.
.....
On a Tuesday morning in early March, Jane locked the blue journal away in a mahogany drawer.
She stood over the desk for a long moment before turning the brass key. Her fingers rested on the polished wood, tracing its dark grain without conscious thought.
The lock clicked in the quiet library.
Jane turned the key a second time to make certain it was secure.
Inside the drawer lay everything she had gathered: letters from France, mundane records from Cokeworth, and the partial family tree with a deliberate asterisk beside a name she had never spoken aloud within the manor.
All of it was sealed away.
Jane crossed to the window. The garden lay pale beneath the weak morning sun, with frost lingering in the shaded patches of grass. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the cold glass. Her breath fogged the surface, blurring the oak trees beyond.
Somewhere beyond those frozen grounds, there was a child.
A boy with her eyes. Her grandmother's eyes. Morgana's eyes.
A boy waking each morning in a house that didn't understand what he was.
Her thoughts drifted to the little things she could never know.
She wondered about his hands. They would be small, perhaps no larger than Morwenna's. Did he reach for things with the same sudden certainty? Did he point at birds in the garden, delighted by their movements? Did he laugh when something fell and startled the adults around him?
She had no answers.
And she wouldn't have any for many years. Not until he was eleven, when the cage built around him finally began to crack and he stepped into a world that had spent a decade pretending he didn't exist.
The glass remained cold against her skin.
Jane stood there until her breath clouded the pane, blurring the garden into a pale, indistinct shape. At last, she straightened, ran a hand through her red hair, and turned away.
She hadn't gone an hour without thinking about Harry.
She knew she wouldn't start now.
The thought of him remained deep within herl. It didn't interrupt her every task or demand her attention. It simply stayed with her.
But thinking wasn't the same as acting, and there was nothing more she could do.
Every path she had tried led to a barrier she couldn't cross without risking more than she could afford. For now, they had no choice but to wait, and waiting had never suited Jane's temperament.
Still, life didn't stop for those who were missing.
Morwenna would turn two in seven weeks. She seemed to change by the day, her words coming more easily and her will growing into something unmistakably her own.
Jack had watched Jane struggle through these past weeks. He had already reached his own conclusions about Harry, but he had waited for her to reach hers. He didn't press her or demand that she move on. He remained beside her, as steady as the foundations of the manor.
Jane returned to the desk and rested her hand on the locked drawer. The wood felt smooth and cool beneath her palm.
She checked the lock one final time, then slipped the small iron key into her robe pocket. It was light, but she couldn't forget it was there.
Only then did she leave the library to find Jack.
She found him in the entrance hall.
Morning light streamed through the leaded windows, catching dust in the air and casting a golden haze across the wood panelling. Jack stood near the arched entrance, facing the hall. Morwenna was beside him, and both wore the serious expressions of people occupied with important business.
Morwenna wore her green dress.
The green dress. She asked for it so often that Tilly had quietly arranged for three identical versions to be kept in rotation, making laundry considerably easier. The velvet already bore the creases of a busy morning, and a silver button at the collar caught the light whenever she moved.
At that moment, however, Morwenna stood perfectly still, pointing at the large oil portrait of Edmund Keith.
"Edmun," she said firmly. "Down."
Edmund Keith, painted in 1743, looked down at her from his gilded frame with bewilderment. His lace cravat remained as immaculate as it had been when the artist first painted it. His eyes shifted towards Jack before returning to the little girl.
"I'm afraid I can't come down, young one. I'm rather fixed where I am. The canvas is quite restrictive."
Morwenna considered this in silence. Her brow furrowed, mirroring her father's thoughtful expression so closely that Jane paused at the doorway. Then she tilted her head, her white hair shifting with the movement.
"Up," she declared instead.
She pointed firmly at herself, resting her other hand on her hip and puffing out her chest. As far as she was concerned, this was a perfectly reasonable solution.
"I'm afraid that's also beyond me," Edmund replied, spreading his hands in sincere apology.
Morwenna turned to Jack.
The look she gave him made it clear that the matter had now been formally escalated to parental authority. Her lips pressed together in growing displeasure, her emerald eyes wide as she waited for her father to put things right.
"She wants to visit Edmund's portrait," Jack explained when he finally noticed Jane in the doorway. His attention remained fixed on Morwenna, and he spoke with the same seriousness as before. "We have been discussing the logistics for the past ten minutes. The structural integrity of the canvas remains a point of contention."
"Da," Morwenna confirmed, nodding as she pointed upwards again.
"I'm considering all available options." Jack brushed his thumb over his signet ring.
Jane watched them for a moment.
Their expressions were remarkably alike. Jack considered the problem with careful attention, while Morwenna approached it with the same absolute seriousness. Neither seemed to find anything unusual about treating a toddler's wish to visit a portrait as a matter requiring proper discussion.
Something in Jane's chest finally loosened.
The tension had been building inside her for weeks, so constant that she had almost forgotten what it felt like to be without it. Now, little by little, it began to ease. The ordinary warmth of her family offered a brief reprieve from the shadow cast by the Ministry's letters and everything they had revealed.
She crossed the hall and crouched beside Morwenna, gathering her daughter into her arms.
Morwenna came willingly, settling against Jane's hip as naturally as if that had been her intention all along. Her small body was warm, carrying the faint scent of lavender soap and the crisp morning air.
From her new vantage point, she regarded Edmund's portrait with the solemn approval of a tiny aristocrat.
"Mimi up," she informed him.
"So I see," Edmund replied, looking rather relieved to have someone else take charge of the situation. "You are considerably more effective at achieving your aims than your father ever was."
"She always is," Jack said, a faint smile touching his lips.
He finally looked at Jane. His expression held a quiet understanding, acknowledging the way her shoulders had relaxed without drawing attention to it.
....
The birthday preparations began in earnest that afternoon.
More accurately, Morwenna discovered that preparations were underway and immediately placed herself at the centre of them. She seemed entirely convinced that her involvement was both necessary and expected, and the household soon found itself accommodating its smallest supervisor.
The kitchen was the first place she took charge of.
The room smelled of rising dough and dried herbs hanging from the rafters. Tilly and two other house-elves had already begun preparing for the feast. Large parchment ledgers lay open across the oak table, filled with neat handwriting as they discussed the quantities of flour and the ingredients needed for the celebration.
Morwenna planted herself in the middle of the stone floor, one hand resting on her hip.
Tilly presented her with a wooden spoon, its handle worn smooth and dark from decades of use.
Morwenna accepted it with the dignity of someone receiving a sceptre.
Then her inspection began.
"What did she just do?" Jane asked from the doorway, resting one shoulder against the frame.
Morwenna had approached a large sack of flour. Holding the spoon in her left hand, she pointed it at the sack and studied the pale dust clinging to its rough fabric with unwavering concentration.
"She is checking the quality of the grain," Tilly explained, his tone every bit as serious as the child's.
"What, exactly, is she checking for?"
Tilly hesitated, his fingers adjusting the front of his apron.
"Tilly isn't entirely certain," he admitted. "But little miss is being very thorough."
Apparently satisfied with the flour, Morwenna moved to the next station.
A deep blue ceramic bowl held the eggs gathered that morning. She examined them one by one, leaning so close that her nose nearly touched the brown shells.
Tilly hovered just beyond her reach, the silver oak-leaf toggles on his forest-green tunic catching the light as he prepared to catch any egg that slipped from her little hands.
At last, Morwenna chose one.
She lifted it with painstaking care, turning it in her palm as though weighing something invisible inside. Then she returned it to the bowl with surprising precision.
"Good," she declared.
"Wonderful," one of the nearby house-elves replied, bowing slightly. "We are most reassured by your findings."
Tilly nodded approvingly at the edge of the table.
"Little miss has excellent judgement," he murmured. "We shall adjust the butter accordingly."
Jack appeared beside Jane in the doorway. He watched as Morwenna tapped her wooden spoon against the table leg before moving on to inspect the fresh blocks of butter.
For several seconds, he said nothing. His thumb brushed absently over his signet ring, and his eyes followed the small, white-haired figure as she went about her duties.
Then he turned and walked away without a word.
Jane listened to his footsteps fading down the corridor towards his study.
A moment later, laughter drifted back through the manor.
It was quiet and almost disbelieving, but unmistakably Jack's.
Jane let out a slow breath. Leaning against the doorframe, she closed her eyes as the remaining tension slipped from her shoulders.
His laughter brought her back to the present.
For a moment, the frozen terrace, the locked drawer, and the fears she had carried for months receded, leaving only the warmth of the kitchen and the family she still had.
.....
Decorating the Great Hall for the upcoming celebration brought a new set of challenges. Jack had spent the morning searching the deeper storage vaults before finally emerging with the cedar trunks containing the Keith family's birthday decorations.
As the trunks were opened, their lids creaked through the hall, and magic stirred around them. Silk streamers rose from the chests and drifted between the stone pillars. Tiny golden and silver lights, no bigger than fireflies, floated near the ceiling, darting through the shadows in brief, flickering bursts.
Wooden animals were arranged across the tables and shelves, each enchanted to dance whenever music played. Their joints clicked with every movement, adding a faint rhythm to the preparations.
Jack spread most of the decorations across the long oak table, carefully untangling the silk and sorting through the enchanted pieces.
That was when Morwenna discovered the changes to the hall.
Standing at the edge of the table, which reached almost to her chin, she examined everything within reach. Her green eyes moved from the floating lights above to the wooden figures arranged across the tabletop.
The dancing animals caught her attention first. She reached up with her left hand and picked one up for a closer look.
It was a small wooden fox, carved in the middle of a leap. Hundreds of fine lines had been etched into its wooden coat, giving the surface a rough texture beneath her fingers.
"Sss?" she asked, turning towards Jack.
"Not a serpent," he replied from the tall ladder where he was securing a floating wreath of winter greenery. "A fox, Mimi."
Morwenna turned the little figure over in her hands, her brow furrowing. She glanced at the carved serpent winding along the hall's dark wooden panelling, then looked back at the fox.
Disappointment settled over her face.
"No sss," she declared.
She put the fox back on the table, her expression solemn. Her interest in it had vanished completely, as though she had inspected the creature, found it wanting, and dismissed it.
Her attention shifted to the streamers.
They lay in a shimmering tangle across the tabletop, their colours changing from emerald green to translucent gold in the firelight. Morwenna decided that their arrangement was unacceptable and set about correcting it.
Unfortunately, the streamers had other ideas.
Enchanted to drift freely without becoming tangled, they slipped through her fingers like water. The moment she released them, they floated back into their original positions.
Morwenna wasn't about to surrender to a handful of decorative ribbons.
A quiet battle began between a twenty-two-month-old toddler and several yards of enchanted silk. She tugged at an emerald streamer with her left hand, only for it to float lazily back into place. She tucked a gold ribbon beneath a heavy silver candle holder, but it slipped free again with a faint shiver.
She tried braiding the streamers together. They promptly unravelled themselves with a soft rustle.
Morwenna's concentration grew absolute.
The battle continued for nearly fifteen minutes.
At last, Jane intervened, the corners of her mouth twitching as she bent to lift her frustrated daughter before the escaping ribbons could wind themselves through the girl's hair.
« Ma petite, » she murmured.
Morwenna gave an indignant little huff. Her white hair stood up in static tufts, and the crescent moon birthmark behind her left ear caught the light.
Behind them, the streamers drifted back into place, settling into a shimmering cloud above the table.
By Jane's assessment, the decorations had come off considerably worse than her daughter.
.....
Aldric and Seraphina arrived on Thursday evening, three days into the birthday preparations.
The Floo flared to life, flames licking high against the bricks. The sitting room filled with the smell of hot ash and woodsmoke, briefly pushing back the winter chill.
Morwenna stood beside Jack's chair when the fire burst into green flames. She neither flinched nor retreated, turning instead to watch with open curiosity. Her head tilted as the rush of displaced air stirred her white hair. Her wooden serpent remained tucked securely under one arm, pressed against her side as she watched the hearth with emerald eyes.
Aldric Keith stepped through first. His dragonhide boots clicked against the stone floor as he brushed the soot from them. The flames rose briefly around him, responding to the arrival of the former Head of House.
Broad-shouldered and imposing, Aldric had black hair streaked with silver at the temples and a beard that framed his jaw. Authority came naturally to him. Years of leadership had made it part of his presence, something he no longer needed to assert through words or deliberate gestures. With his family, his expression was usually softer, but his eyes still held the unmistakable confidence of a man accustomed to being obeyed.
Then he saw Morwenna.
His stern expression softened at once, and some of the tension left his shoulders.
"There she is," he said .
He crossed the room in a few strides and crouched to meet Morwenna's eyes. Despite his size, he moved with the ease of someone who had long been familiar with young children.
Morwenna studied her grandfather with the same intense attention she gave everything new in her world. Her gaze travelled over his face before settling on the gold Keith signet ring on his hand.
"Dada," she said.
Then she pointed at Jack.
"Yes," Aldric replied solemnly, following her gesture. "That's your father. I'm your grandfather. We have met before, Morwenna, though you may not remember much of it."
She considered his explanation, her eyes lingering on the lines of his face. Then she pulled her wooden serpent from beneath her arm and held it out to him.
Tilly stood nearby, the silver oak-leaf toggles on his forest-green tunic catching the firelight. His large eyes followed the exchange with quiet anticipation.
To Morwenna, offering her favourite toy was the highest form of introduction.
Aldric accepted it with both hands, treating the little wooden serpent with the seriousness one might reserve for an ancient artefact. He examined its craftsmanship before looking back at her.
"Excellent work," he remarked. "Is this yours?"
"Mine," Morwenna confirmed.
"Of course."
He returned the serpent to her with equal formality.
Behind him, Seraphina stepped out of the Floo. Her silk robes barely rustled as she approached Jane, who reached out to brush her fingers briefly against the silver embroidery on her sleeve. Their greeting was quiet, carrying the familiarity of a relationship shaped by years of shared history.
Seraphina was an elegant woman with watchful eyes and the composed stillness characteristic of the Noctua line. It wasn't coldness, but a habit of careful observation. Her movements were deliberate, and she rarely acted without purpose.
With Morwenna, however, that reserve softened.
She chose the chair nearest the hearth, where she could see both the room and the entrance, then settled into it with her hands resting in her lap. She understood that a child's trust couldn't be demanded. It had to be given freely, in its own time.
Morwenna studied her grandmother for a moment, the firelight shining in her emerald eyes. Then she crossed the room and climbed straight into Seraphina's lap, as though she had already considered her options and reached a final decision.
Seraphina's usually unreadable expression softened completely. She wrapped both arms around the child and closed her eyes for a brief moment, holding her close.
Across the room, Jack stood with his back against the wall, facing the hearth. He met his father's gaze, his thumb brushing once over his signet ring.
Aldric smiled, openly enough that the last traces of his usual reserve disappeared.
"She has your mother's instincts," he said quietly.
The fire crackled in the hearth as the family settled together, welcoming the return of the manor's former master.
.....
Jane's family arrived on Saturday afternoon, as the sun began to sink behind the manor's trees.
The Floo flared three times in quick succession, each burst of flame casting flickering light across the bookshelves and velvet drapes.
Morwenna had been sitting on the rug, seriously examining a picture book with Tilly. At the first flash of green fire, she looked up. She watched without blinking until all three visitors had stepped out of the hearth.
Celestine Evans emerged first, and the source of Jane's composed elegance became immediately apparent. She appeared to be middle-aged, though the LeFay blood in her veins would likely preserve her appearance for decades to come. Her green Evans eyes were both sharp and warm, and her burgundy hair was gathered into a practical knot.
The high elven blood running through the Evans line showed in the grace of her movements as she stepped away from the hearth.
Her gaze settled on Morwenna, and she paused briefly.
Then she crossed the room and crouched beside the child, lowering herself until they were at eye level.
« Bonjour, ma petite, » she said softly, her voice warm as velvet.
Morwenna studied her with steady, unblinking eyes.
"Maman," she said, pointing towards Jane.
"Yes," Celestine replied. "She is your mother. She has my eyes, and so do you, little one."
She touched the corner of her own eye, then pointed towards Morwenna's.
"The same."
Morwenna raised a finger and touched her eyelid, her brow furrowing as she considered this discovery.
Lucien Delacroix stepped out of the flames next, and his arrival changed the atmosphere in the room.
Veela presence carried a certain weight of its own.
Lucien was strikingly handsome, his features beautiful without appearing unnatural. A faint golden radiance seemed to follow his movements, with tiny motes of light shimmering around his silhouette whenever he moved. His cheekbones were sharply defined, and his natural warmth filled the room without any effort on his part.
The tips of his ears curved into elegant points, a distinctive Veela trait far more pronounced in him than in his daughter, and stronger in Jane than it would ever be in Morwenna. Such gifts didn't always pass evenly from one generation to the next.
Jane had inherited the shape of his ears almost exactly, and Morwenna had inherited Jane's. The toddler's ears were smaller and more delicate, but their pointed tips were still noticeable. Seeing Lucien standing in the firelight made the family resemblance unmistakable.
He looked at Morwenna with warm amber-gold eyes and spoke a few quiet words in the Veela tongue. It was unlike any ordinary human language, its sounds closer to music, a soft hum that seemed to resonate through the air itself.
The fire flared briefly, its flames leaning towards him as though drawn by his warmth.
Morwenna grew very still. For a moment, she seemed to be listening to something familiar, though she couldn't have explained why. Then she held out her wooden serpent.
Lucien accepted it with a smile that seemed to warm the entire room.
« Magnifique, » he said, his voice carrying a gentle, musical lilt.
Morwenna appeared entirely satisfied with his assessment.
Elara Valcourt arrived last. Her dark hair was pinned into an elegant updo, and her expression was composed. She belonged to the generation between Jack and Jane's parents, old enough to have spent decades building her authority but young enough to carry it without apparent effort.
She surveyed the sitting room with cool grey-blue eyes, taking in the furniture, the arrangement of the space, and the ancient magic humming within the stone walls.
Then she noticed Morwenna.
Her expression barely changed, but the skin around her eyes softened slightly as her attention settled on the child.
Morwenna stood still, studying the newcomer with intense curiosity.
Elara lowered herself into a crouch, moving slowly and deliberately. For a moment, they simply regarded each other.
Morwenna had offered her wooden serpent to her grandparents, including Lucien. This time, however, she did something different.
She walked across the rug and placed her left hand firmly against Elara's knee.
There was no hesitation in the gesture.
Elara looked down at the small hand resting against her robes. Her own hands, folded neatly in her lap, paused for a brief moment before relaxing. Then she opened one hand and laid it gently over Morwenna's, her thumb tracing a single, slow line across the child's knuckles.
« Bonjour, » she said quietly.
« Bonjour, » Morwenna replied, pronouncing the word with careful precision, as though she had been saving it for this particular moment.
Across the room, Jane felt Jack slip his hand into hers. His fingers gave hers a single, reassuring squeeze.
The evening settled into the comfortable rhythm of a house filled with family. Morwenna moved freely among the adults, entirely certain that she belonged wherever she chose to go.
She proudly demonstrated the frost patterns she could create on the sitting room windows for Aldric. He watched the designs spread across the glass, a hint of hope showing through his usual reserve.
Later, she guided Celestine through the library, pointing out the carved serpents along the shelves with a toddler's pride.
During the conversation after dinner, Morwenna fell asleep in Seraphina's lap without warning. One moment, she was awake, listening to the adults talking by the fire. The next, she had gone still, trusting completely in the arms holding her.
It was Celestine who eventually brought up Harry.
She waited until Morwenna had been taken to the nursery and the evening conversation had fallen into a heavy silence. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the unmistakable firmness of an Evans woman whose patience had reached its limit.
Lucien sat quietly beside her, but his attention sharpened at once, his amber-gold eyes fixed on Jane. Elara said nothing, though her professional instincts were already at work, weighing the tension in the room.
Jane told them everything she had uncovered.
She recounted the events in chronological order, with the precision she usually reserved for important legal matters. Rather than dwelling on her feelings, she laid out the facts, one after another.
She began with the photograph in the Daily Prophet and the green eyes she had immediately recognised as belonging to her bloodline. She described the week she had spent searching mundane archives and the records she had painstakingly recovered from birth certificates, school documents, and other official papers.
She explained her visit to the Ministry in November and the bureaucratic obstruction that had followed her through its corridors. She told them about the twelve-to-sixteen-week waiting period that had dragged through the winter, leaving her with nothing but silence.
Finally, she described the letter that had arrived: its cold language, its legal explanations, and its crushing conclusion. The case was closed, and Harry Potter had been placed beyond their reach.
Then she told them what had happened to Sirius Black.
When she finished, the sitting room fell silent. Only the occasional pop of a log in the hearth broke the stillness.
Celestine's expression remained composed, but her green eyes had gone cold.
Lucien spoke first, muttering three words in French that were decidedly unfit for polite company.
« C'est une honte (It's a disgrace), » he added.
"Someone inside the Ministry wanted this outcome," Elara said, cutting through the silence.
She sat upright, her hands resting motionless on the wooden armrests.
"This isn't merely Dumbledore's doing. Wizarding law is clear. When a magical orphan has a designated godparent, that person has the first claim to the child's care. If the godparent is unavailable, responsibility passes to the nearest eligible magical kin.
It doesn't automatically pass to the nearest blood relative regardless of magical status. And it certainly doesn't pass to a mundane relative, or a potentially Squib aunt, simply because she shares the child's surname."
She paused, her gaze moving across the family.
"Your documentation was complete. Your blood connection to the boy was proven beyond doubt. Anyone who understands magical heritage would recognise the Evans bloodline. Yet Ministry officials reviewed everything you submitted and still found a procedural excuse to close the case."
She let the silence linger briefly before continuing.
"That doesn't happen through an innocent mistake. Someone with enough authority to seal the placement records, redirect a formal challenge, and make the entire process appear lawful knew exactly what they were doing and why."
"Minister Millicent Bagnold?" Jack asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His thumb brushed his signet ring.
Aldric's dark eyes narrowed as he considered the possibility.
"It doesn't have to be the Minister herself," Elara replied without hesitation. "It only requires someone who controls the Department of Family Rights and Disputed Placements. More importantly, someone who controls the records hidden beneath that office."
Her gaze settled on Jane.
"The name on your letter."
"Bertram Achilles Fawley," Jane replied, speaking the name with measured contempt. She had memorised it the moment she broke the Ministry seal. "Senior Head of Records and Placement."
Elara fell silent. Her fingers began tapping a measured rhythm against the armrest.
"I know that name," she said at last. "Not well, but I have encountered it in the older archives."
She offered no further explanation. Elara wasn't in the habit of sharing information before she had decided what it was worth.
"He has held that position for a long time," she continued, lowering her voice. "Long enough to have been useful to someone long before Albus Dumbledore ever needed him."
A log shifted in the grate with a soft hiss, sending a few sparks upwards. The scent of woodsmoke mingled with the aroma of tea and old paper.
"So this wasn't the work of one man," Celestine said, smoothing her skirt.
"It never is," Elara replied. "One man can't make something this thorough, this fast, and this difficult to challenge legally."
Her eyes moved slowly around the room, taking in the ancestral portraits and the old magic woven into the manor's stones.
"What Dumbledore arranged required cooperation at several levels of the Ministry. Perhaps they agreed willingly. Perhaps someone was forced to cooperate because of a debt. Either way, Harry Potter's isolation from the magical world was never an improvised decision."
She paused, her attention briefly turning towards the library door, behind which Jane had locked away the blue journal.
"It was a comprehensive plan."
Nobody spoke for several seconds. The fire cracked sharply, the sound startling in the quiet room.
"It was carried out by more than one person in power," Elara concluded.
"And Black," Celestine said, frowning. "There's no trial on record for him."
"None that I could find," Jane confirmed.
"Because there wasn't one," Elara said.
The firelight flickered across their faces. Upstairs, the faint sound of Tilly's footsteps passed through the nursery. Seraphina's hand rested lightly on Morwenna's back as the child slept in her lap.
"What can we do from our position in France?" Celestine asked at last.
"Ze documentation already exists," Jane replied, her voice growing firmer. "Everyzing I have gathered is safe and sealed away. Ze bloodline connection has already been proven. When Harry finally enters ze wizarding world at eleven..."
"Nine years," Lucien said softly.
His amber-gold eyes turned towards his sleeping granddaughter, their warmth dimming.
"Yes," Jane confirmed. "Nine years."
The silence that followed belonged to people who understood two difficult truths at once.
Nine years was a long time for a child to remain ignorant of his heritage, separated from his family and the magic that should have been his birthright. Yet to families like the Keiths and the Evanses, nine years was hardly a lifetime.
The Keiths had waited centuries for certain blood debts to be settled. The Evans line had remained hidden for generations. Compared with that, nine years was another winter to endure.
It would require patience, but patience was something their families understood.
Morwenna stirred in her sleep, nestling closer to Seraphina's shoulder. As she turned her head, her left ear shifted to reveal the crescent moon birthmark behind it. She murmured something indistinct, then settled again.
Celestine watched her granddaughter in silence, the firelight catching in her green eyes.
"Then we prepare."
As she spoke, the fire flared, its flames leaning briefly towards the centre of the room before settling into a steady burn. Warm light spread across the gathered family.
For a moment, the shadows retreated to the corners, as though the ancient magic woven into the manor had answered the Evans matriarch's resolve.