La maison de Rosier
Axel and Adelia Rosier were not quiet parents to put it gently. Evan was the one to keep Felix from pissing them off and take him away from it all when he inevitably did.
It had been weeks since Evan was supposed to be home from Hogwarts, no word.
The year was 1979, Evan had turned 18, he had finished his Hogwarts years and Felix was so full of excitement to have his brother back permanently that his parents were sure he'd pop.
Most eight year olds would be happy to have their sibling back but Felix was beyond delighted. Key word 'was'.
Felix told himself that Evan simply returned back with Regulus or one of his other friends but the brothers sent letters every week like clockwork, there was no way Evan could forget to speak to Felix. Something was wrong. Really fucking wrong. No one gets between Evan Rosier and his little brother.
Felix knew that Evan would never let this happen, that's why his parents telling him that Evan had run away hurt so much, Evan swore he'd never leave him, what else had he lied about? Did he really love him? Mr and Mrs Rosier told him that he was the reason Evan ran away. Was it possible for Felix to be loved? How could anyone drive someone as incredible and loving as Evan Rosier away?
With Felix anxious off his arse and his parents having been expecting to never have to be any excuse of parents in their private life again it was especially easy to piss them off. But they weren't robots, they understood he would act different with the Evan let down, punishments lightened and Felix just spent most of his time in his room.
Unlike regular houses the Rosiers didn't split by floors but instead direction. There were 5 sections of the house, the house faced east, the parents' section was the South East, the children's was North East, Child guests were kept with the sons and adult ones to their west, house elves stayed in tunnels and secret rooms all over the house, not to be seen and have the most convenience to help their masters. The centre and main front of the house was for any visitors and the South West section was communal.
There was a white corridor that ran across the front of the house. The words 'Ut Semita Tua' in large, loopy, cursive, black letters along the wall, the corridor was largely windows from the other side to show it off to anyone approaching.
There was a large Rose mural running across the ceiling, there was a leaf for each child attached with the same petiole as their siblings. Their first and middle names were above the midrib with either their wife's name or the surname of the family they were married into underneath.
As you approached the end of the corridor the names got more modern, one petiole with 'Marcel Dante' written over 'Edith Adeline', 'Lillian Adriana' over 'Asberg', 'Druella Lucille' written over 'Black' and 'Axel Henri' written over 'Adelia' no middle name stated. One more petiole with five names separating the one earlier stated with another with 'Evan Axel' over a blank space and 'Felix Oliver' with the same.
The home had been owned by Axel Rosier's brother Marcel, Marcel's wife, Axel's sister Lillian and her husband. Marcel and Lillian had moved to England together and thought the best way to make sure their children were raised with others of the correct status was to raise them in the same house as them.
Both families raised the children to believe in fighting for the cause until death and so that is what they did. Aurors came to the house on a day that happened to be when all the adult children came home, to question them, one of Marcel's children, Lucas, jumped the the conclusion they were going to imprison them and fired a killing curse at one of the aurors and it hit. There was a battle but the family was outnumbered as backup arrived and most of them had left their wands in other rooms. The only surviving member was one of Lillian's daughters who was not attending the family gathering.
Then the rose head, a beautiful thing, rumoured to be painted red with the blood of muggles and muggle borns, it had words like 'purity' and 'tradition' in Latin on the petals.
The corridor led to a room with three doors, some bookcases, a sofa, a few portraits and several plants.
There was one portrait of a knight who called himself 'Sir Rosier' he was mostly considered an old relative but no one really knew and there were tales of him being a muggle born with such envy of purebloods that he killed a Rosier and took his name, wife and children as his own, never revealing his face from a black sleeve that went up to his eyes, barring one child with the stolen wife, the child found out his blood was not pure and had such jealousy of the family that had raised him that he killed almost every member, leaving one man who managed to kill the maniac to continue on the Rosier line.
That was likely a story told to make the children scared of anyone without pure blood, appreciate their heritage and explain their small family without admitting to the incest having its downsides.
He tried to talk to everyone he saw and would explain how if anything happened to them he'd destroy anyone who dared hurt his family. No one returned his talk, they were taught not to, not to feed what might be pure delusions.
There was another portrait of a man, hairier than most, features darker than a typical Rosier, his name was 'Alp' and he didn't share his surname so it was likely he wasn't one. They were taught to go to be in their rooms by dusk and not leave until dawn or their parents woke them. They said Alp was a werewolf who was painted with a full moon in the background and so transforms every night and that if they weren't in bed in time or awoke early then he would realise there were people and attack Sir Rosier and Lady Rosier.
He didn't talk talk to them at all, he sat on the stool of a piano with a quill, some ink and a piece of parchment, one piece he was always writing on, it never ran out and when you'd think he was done with the page he would start again from the top.
Lady Rosier was a 14 year old girl, she had cold blue eyes and and black streak running down the centre of her blonde hair. She was rumoured to be Sir Rosier's (the real one) daughter but she never spoke on the matter of her death or family so it was hard to know, he also had blue eyes but his hair was covered always. They never spoke but nobody questioned it out loud.
She always looked pissed and despite being the one everyone talked to the most, was not a big talker, but they had learnt that she adored quidditch and it was an incredible sight to watch her eyes light up when you mentioned the game near or to her.
There was one portrait on each wall apart from the one you entered from. Sir Rosier was to the left of the door on the left wall, Alp, the only landscape picture in the bunch, laid over the sofa with two large windows to either side of him, Lady Rosier sat in-between the two other doors on the opposite side to the first door.
There was a large bookcase to the right of the first door and a couple smaller ones curving round the corner. There were two chairs and a coffee table infront of the sofa, a vine coming in through the window, over Alp's frame and onto it's arm, it had been cut off by closing the window but it stayed resting barely moved an inch from where it got cut as it got stuck on the window's intricate spider web design.
The room was tall, two floors worth of hight, the ceiling and top of the walls were covered in a mural of the fall of Lucifer, a reminder to stay loyal to the family.
There were candles all over the room and a discarded Slytherin tie draped over the arm of one of the chairs, Evan had taken out to put on later but forgotten about and when the house elves tried to send it to Evan Felix threw a fit and when they instead tried to put it away and told Felix he could take it out whenever he threw another fit because it would mean moving something Evan had placed.
The first door had the word 'enfants' (children) carved into the wood, it led to another hallway with a staircase leading to another. There were five doors per floor, four bedrooms and one bathroom. Each room was about ten square meters large, including one or two beds, a desk and wardrobe, sometimes pictures or enchanted carvings no one cared enough about to spend the time getting rid of (they said it was "a reminder of fallen family" to act as if it was anything more than laziness)
Axel inherited the house in 1974 and moved his family in by 75, living in England ment faster letters to Evan and the house was bigger than their first one, they kept the first for holidays and housing when visiting parents.
The two other rooms were clearly a lot newer and not a part of the original design. There was a piece of parchment on both doors, Felix had written the words 'La chambre d'Evan' (Evan's Room) and 'La chambre de Félix' (Felix's room) and Evan had used his magic to stick it to the doors.
Evan's room was the one closest to Alp, it was over double the width of the other rooms not including the bathroom through the left wall and it's important to note the staircase running above the door leading to an open second floor where his giant wardrobe and king sized bed with black silk sheets embroidered with the initials E.R. in the corner in a deep emerald green, laid under a giant semicircular window with an intricate rose stain glass pattern surrounded by silk, black curtains.
There was black railing running in ornate swirls and waves up with the starcase and along the edge of the second floor. It had white walls that were so clean and perfect it felt as if no one had ever lived there, which was fairly accurate as they had moved and added the room when Evan was in Hogwarts and they would go back to France for most holidays. Evan took most of the items he used with him to Hogwarts and most of the stuff he didn't stayed in the house in France.
There was another large window on the first floor, though this one rectangular and plain above his desk. It had some quills, stacks parchment, ink pots, some books and a large locked draw full of letters. There was an owl skull and mouse femur on it as 'decoration' an attempt to make it feel more homely but Evan was rarely there so most of his animal bones and anatomical diagrams he drew were either at Hogwarts, the old house, or with his friends.
The window had an owl perch for Evan's owl to land on, her name was Noctua, Regulus had one named Athene and Barty and Pandora drove him insane with comments asking why she didn't have a name so he took inspiration from Regulus.
There was another desk that he used to dissect animals with a hole in the wall that sent down any remains for the house elves to throw out and several glass cases to put organs on display, a mouse heart and brain currently hanging on his wall, kept fresh by magic.
Felix's room had the same set up but mirrored and without the second desk, organs and bones and F.R. instead of E.R. He had his desk equipped with all the same things as Evan's, even a draw of letters though Felix's was not locked. Evan's letters were split by topic, how serious and dates to a degree, a kind of setup that only made sense to him, but Felix had four clear sections: Evan, Caius, family, and Evan's friends. The last two were quite uncommon but what wasn't uncommon was him getting a birthday or Christmas letter from them or one of Evan's friends telling him about something stupid Evan did because they found it funny "telling on him".
Felix had paper "dragons" (birds) all over his ceiling thanks to Evan "Ils te protégeront pendant mon absence." (They will protect you while I am away.)
He had another frame in his room for Lady Rosier to travel to, the two would talk about quidditch and Felix would show her the muggle camera recordings and both kinds of photos Pandora had given him. Lady Rosier was initially not keen on the muggle pieces but opened up to them when she saw Felix watching the video, she asked to see and from that day always did, but not this summer, something was different and she knew it.
They didn't have to talk about personal things for her to know it was to do with Evan, he hadn't returned and Felix would watch the videos obsessively, not caring if his parents were home or not.
Lady Rosier looked out for him and once while he was watching the videos his mother approached and only God knows what would've happened if she hadn't told him and Adelia had caught him.
She would watch as Felix stared blankly out into the void, as he cried reading the letters saying he'd never leave him and even as he slept she'd watch over him like Evan promised he'd always do.
The thing is it wasn't just her, there was this Fox that would come to his bedroom window every evening and often sit there all night, like it was guarding him. Sometimes the fox would only run past in the middle of the night to check Lady Rosier was watching him and then leave, Lady Rosier was not confused or threatened by the fox, there was this understanding that both of them where there to protect Felix and make sure he's alright.