The head of the Greengrass family watched the young wizard leave the restaurant, torn by deeply conflicting feelings. Everything about this young man — Hector Granger — irritated him. And yes, William understood that what irritated him was not the boy himself, but the gap between expectation and reality. His upbringing, Hogwarts, family, acquaintances, social circles — all of it had hammered into his mind a precise and concrete image of what a Muggle-born wizard, a student at the school, ought to be. But Hector Granger had taken that image, snapped it mercilessly over his knee, and thrown the pieces in the bin.
What irritated William was the confidence with which this young man acted, moved, and spoke. There was nothing performative or affected about it — of that William could vouch, having dealt with all manner of wizards in his line of work. The boy cast magic without a wand, and not mere conjuring tricks — few could be impressed by those alone — no, it was genuine magic.
And he spoke with such assurance that the Dark Lord was a temporary "phenomenon." Though he allowed just as easily for the possibility that his judgement might be mistaken, however small that probability. But most important of all, for William — a man who had made his living balancing on the razor's edge of social neutrality — the boy had not merely gathered scattered, indirect data; he had reasoned from it, soundly, that even those who had supported the Dark Lord in the past were now preparing a strategic retreat, moving their liquid assets out of the country.
But what vexed William most was his own mistake. Based on what he knew about the boy, he had decided to set conditions for the meeting that were extremely difficult to fulfil — yet technically realistic. He had even invited Nott to witness the boy's irresponsibility when he inevitably failed to arrive at the appointed time. But no — he had arrived, and William was somehow certain the boy hadn't needed to skip any classes, break into anything to use the Floo network, or resort to anything of the sort. Why? Because a person capable of employing various magical techniques — however extraordinarily difficult — without having mastered Apparition? Unlikely. If William himself had been in the boy's position, without connections, without family in the wizarding world, without influence or money, Apparition would have been among the first truly vital skills he would have set out to learn.
"It seems to me," Sofia Greengrass said with a faint smile, "that our daughter has outplayed us."
"Our daughter?"
The privacy charms were still up around the table, so the other patrons could not hear their conversation. But they could see them. That was one of the reasons William reproached himself for his choice of venue — he had been counting on the impossibility of a Muggle-born fifth-year Apparating and, more broadly, acting with such decisiveness. It was at this very moment that William realised he had, quite simply, projected his own fifteen-year-old capabilities onto the boy — and had even padded the estimate, since one must allow for an opponent's superior abilities. He had projected, and understood that even had he been stronger and more talented, he could not have arrived here on time, had he been in Granger's position. A mistake. Insufficient information.
"What does our daughter have to do with it?" he objected, with mild though somewhat theatrical indignation, hearing his wife say such a thing. "She's clever, obedient — she would never act against us."
"Oh, men," Sofia shook her head, "you can be so intelligent, and yet sometimes so terribly dim. Would a boy — a boy Daphne has been seeing in spite of all our prohibitions and precautions, even while she was at home—"
"What?"
"That," she left his astonished question unanswered. "Would such a boy play his cards precisely the way he did, if it weren't what Daphne wanted?"
"How should I know what goes on in the head of this Muggle-born? Perhaps he simply wanted to show off."
"At the right time, in the right place, under the right circumstances? I'm quite certain that before speaking with us — perhaps long before — he asked our daughter how she envisioned a resolution to this conflict."
Sofia refilled her glass with wine. They had no meetings or visits planned for this evening, which meant she could allow herself a glass — one that would have been indulgent under other circumstances.
"But what does any of that have to do with—"
"You, my dear, ought to turn your gaze inward toward the family more often, rather than burying yourself entirely in financial reports," Sofia lifted the glass to her lips, breathed in the wine's bouquet, and took a slow sip, savouring each shade of its flavour. "Daphne and this boy are very alike in certain… behavioural traits."
"Nonsense," William dismissed it with a wave, though somewhere in the back of his mind similar thoughts had already stirred.
"You know it's true," Sofia said, as though privy to thoughts her husband had not yet fully consciously formed. "Our daughter has, by all appearances, long since seen herself beside him. Or him beside her — it hardly matters. And she trusts him only marginally less than she trusts Pansy, which is more than either of us can claim."
"Let us suppose," William conceded, reluctantly, his gaze drifting to the restaurant entrance.
"There it is, then. She entrusted him with her vision of the future; he took it upon himself to make it reality. If she saw no prospects — not in terms of advantage, but simply in any broader sense — and if he felt the same, then given the degree of mutual feeling between them, they would have watched the sunrise together more than once already."
William, grasping the implication as any devoted father must, felt a righteous indignation rise in him, though it manifested in almost nothing outward. Sofia again laid her hand on the crook of his arm, and continued:
"Simply to bring the relationship to its logical culmination before it became impossible to do so. Perhaps you didn't notice, but they are both exceptionally strong of mind. To judge them as ordinary, unremarkable adolescents — giggling foolishly, groping in corners with or without occasion, or simply over-romanticising their beloved's every movement — would be a grave mistake."
"These children," Greengrass exhaled. "And they manage, above all, to put adults in front of a genuinely impossible choice. They back you into a corner… And how, in your view, is this Muggle-born 'bringing to life' our daughter's vision?"
"The Nott lands, for one. I don't believe Granger paid full value for them, even if he had the money."
"Where would he get it? Even if his Muggle parents have millions of their pounds, you can't convert them into Galleons quickly enough — the Ministry made sure of that with its restrictions, having imposed the rules on the goblins for obvious reasons. But let us suppose he could. What would be Delacour's incentive to give away the land for a pittance? One could have played that situation to great advantage — even with the Notts and the Dark Lord bearing down on the Frenchman."
"You should turn your attention not to the country's economic climate, but to its social one — the balance of power, the new players, and where they come from, in purely theoretical terms. I may even give you a hint, but at home — any protective charm can be circumvented," Sofia gestured meaningfully toward the privacy wards, piquing her husband's interest.
William had never considered himself a genius, and he accepted that he might have overlooked something important — more than once, at that. Though this acceptance did nothing to improve his mood.
At that moment, a wizard appeared in the restaurant doorway — a man well known to the Greengrass family, a widely respected Healer. He spotted William and Sofia, smiled, and made his way directly toward them, smoothing the front of his lime-green St Mungo's robes.
"Hippocrates," William smiled, rising slightly to shake the hand of his old friend and the family's trusted companion. "You managed to escape the healer's routine and decided to dine somewhere decent."
"Not somewhere decent, Uilliam — somewhere with decent food," Smethwyck smiled, returning the handshake. "Sofia…"
She gave a gracious nod, and Smethwyck settled into a chair, adjusting his robes and giving an absent-minded pat to the stomach that refused to diminish.
"I had half a mind to change and head for one of those expensive Muggle restaurants — they know their food there too. But somehow I felt so terribly lazy. Having to change clothes, find the place, remember where I'd put my pounds… Well, the choice made itself. And I see you've already been meeting with someone. Not the best venue for negotiations, I must say."
"There were never supposed to be any," William said with a rueful smile. "Negotiations, I mean. A bit of a miscalculation."
"With whom, if I may ask?" Hippocrates picked up the menu, tapped his selections with his wand, and settled in to await both his friend's answer and the prompt arrival of his meal.
"You wouldn't know him. A Muggle-born boy who has the audacity to court your, incidentally, goddaughter."
"Ah — Granger?" Contrary to William's expectations, Hippocrates showed not a trace of displeasure. "And what did you make of him?"
"Wait… you know him?" William asked at once, drawing a gentle smile from his wife and the same from Hippocrates's not-quite-young, not-quite-old face.
"Of course he knows him, dear — Hippocrates is his physician."
"How little I seem to know."
"Simply because, William," Smethwyck shifted in his seat to find a more comfortable position, "you spend too much of your time balancing on the knife's edge of politics and economics, discarding as insignificant what seem to you mere trifles of information about the world around you."
"And of course," Greengrass frowned, "you can't say anything of substance because of your oaths?"
"Well, ask, and we'll see," Smethwyck shrugged.
At precisely that moment his order arrived — several dishes at once — and the celebrated Healer set about slicing his steak with evident enthusiasm and an appreciative gleam in his eye.
"I don't quite know where to begin… Could he have a great deal of money?"
"A merchant always comes back to gold," Smethwyck shook his head. "He could. What's more, I'm quite certain that if the desire ever took him, within a couple of years he'd be matching our wealthy families in capital."
"He said he was confident — in himself and his abilities," Sofia said, addressing Smethwyck, who had already begun to enjoy the first bite of his steak, having first drizzled it with sauce. "And what's more, that he could afford to be."
"Hmm…" Smethwyck chewed thoughtfully, then looked at the Greengrasses with a smile. "Let us say… I cannot readily conceive of a way to defeat, overpower, or kill him — whether in direct confrontation, from ambush, indirectly, or by any other means. And I have a feeling I've only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg."
"He used Dark Magic."
"Did he really?" The Healer was mildly surprised, though not enough to lose his appetite. "So he's found a way around the drawbacks of that approach to spell-casting. Clever boy."
"You say that so easily…"
"Simply because I…" Smethwyck dispatched another piece of steak, "…know something of his capabilities. Not everything, in all likelihood, but I can only underestimate — not overestimate. As for this business of him and Daphne carrying on together — I'm all for it. As a physician, I can say the children they'd have would be something extraordinary."
"What children, Hippocrates?" William's indignation surfaced again. "What, in Mordred's name, do you mean, children?!"
"Well, you know," Smethwyck twirled an empty fork in the air with a grin, "the dark-haired, blue-eyed kind — mess themselves and scream their heads off at all hours for the first little while."
"I know perfectly well what children are," Greengrass said, regaining his composure. "You know what I mean."
"I'm a doctor — a Healer," Smethwyck said serenely, addressing another piece of steak. "What else did you want to hear from me, given my field? So I say what I can — and from what I know, the children would be absolutely wonderful. And powerful wizards, without a doubt."
"Merlin… What have I done to deserve this?"
Sofia, for her part, appeared to be simply a woman in that moment — not merely a pureblood witch — and was already picturing those children in her mind's eye. Judging by the soft smile on her lips, the preliminary result of this private exercise of imagination was more than agreeable to her.
"What else am I supposed to say?" Smethwyck decided to balance his carnivorous intake with a side salad. "Purity of blood? Oh please, as if this is the first time. There are so many ways to resolve that concern that they wouldn't fit on a single roll of parchment. Your precious Sacred Twenty-Eight status wouldn't even take a scratch — after all, you're not taking someone into the family, you'd essentially be giving someone away…"
"No one is giving anyone away."
"Then he'll make it happen regardless," Smethwyck shrugged. "He'll present the illusion of a choice, where the best options are to step aside or agree."
"He already has."
"Has he? Clever boy," Smethwyck repeated. "I assure you — your daughter, my goddaughter, and that young man will slowly and surely press through the outcome that suits them both. Whether you like it or not is of absolutely no interest to either of them. But rest assured, Daphne will remain, in your eyes and in the eyes of society, a good and obedient girl who never defies her parents — and the boy will become the only suitable match for her. Do you really think what happened with the Notts was a coincidence?"
"Nothing has been decided yet," William said, with the finality of a closed door.
"They've already decided everything for themselves — and both of them have more than enough intelligence and means to see it through."
"The Dark Lord—"
"Without followers, is simply a powerful wizard," Smethwyck continued to make short work of the remaining steak. "And by reliable accounts… he is utterly mad. Such men do not live long. Crouch is not Fudge, nor is he any of those other spineless ones. I'm certain he's already preparing to reinstate the authorisation for Aurors to use Unforgivables, as before, and I'm equally certain the ICW will ratify it — just as they did the last time. He won't repeat the mistakes of the past, playing at 'don't kill' and 'diplomacy above all.' He'll burn out everyone connected — and quite a few who aren't — and he'll spit on Dumbledore's 'second chances.' All that's needed is for the Dark Lord to show his hand."
"How can you be so sure? Though… Granger himself said the Dark Lord is a temporary phenomenon. That he will exist for as long as he is useful."
"Precisely."
"But that's beside the point… I do not consent to a Muggle-born taking a pureblood daughter out of the family."
"You won't believe this," Smethwyck said with a smirk, "but no one cares in the slightest. Your health." He raised his wine glass in a toast to the Greengrasses, and they returned the gesture. "Even Malfoy is glad to have Granger in his home. Well — the Dark Lord must put a damper on that particular joy. But if one considers that the Dark Lord is a temporary phenomenon, while the Malfoys are rather more permanent…"
Smethwyck raised his glass once more, and the Greengrasses followed suit. Two phrases circled William's thoughts: When did life become so complicated? and We ought to have another child — a boy — because daughters will be the death of me.
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