Investigation Begins
Its been a little over a week since Mr. Malfoy had seen this mystery witch and refuses to tell Draco anything claiming 'the less he knew, the better', which Draco was far from fond of hearing. Similarly, Mattheo couldn't figure out why an auror would be so important that Lucius went as far as to lie to his father in order to hide that this person might be alive. Both of them started to believe Mr. Malfoy simply saw someone who looked similar to this person and were ready to accept it was all in the man's head...that was until another death eater had apparently lied to the Dark Lord about the same thing.
A reunion had just ended when Lucius and Narcissa had been dragged away for a brief discussion with Snape. Out of interest, Draco followed after his parents and professor in hopes of learning something new while Mattheo was instructed (or forced) to have a discussion with his father.
The two waited for the rest of the death eaters to leave before his father finally cleared his throat to speak. "Severus has informed me of your studies and tells me you've been an upstanding student..."
"I suppose, haven't really been putting forth that much effort." Mattheo looked blankly at his father, trying to make out any features that could prove they're related. If it weren't for Harry telling his friends what Voldemort looked like as Tom Riddle, and Mattheo happening to overhear as he was hiding in the restricted section, he could've been easily convinced that the man he's talking to wasn't his biological father. But the similarities between him and his father during his own Hogwarts years were strong enough for him to second guess that theory, not completely though.
"I could tell that much when you were passed up as house prefect." His father's words brought him out of his thoughts and watched from his peripherals as his father stood up and started walking circles the table, Mattheo looking straight ahead as if going through an interrogation. "I simply don't get why you didn't aim for the goal of prefect and why you're clearly not interested in being head boy of your class."
"Apologies, father, but I've been more focused on not giving myself away and gathering intel like you asked me to."
"So you're saying it's my fault you aren't properly representing our family? Do you know how embarrassing it sounds to say a descendent of Salazar Slytherin isn't the top student in the house he created?"
Mattheo felt his father's eyes glue to him as he paced around the table, the clicking of his shoes echoing during the breif moments of silence, thickening the tension between them. "I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. I'm saying that it feels more important to focus on laying low and not giving away who I am. Wasn't that the whole reason I wasn't properly given the last name 'Riddle', or even 'Gaunt' for that matter?" He heard his father's shoes come to a halt before hearing them get louder and louder, coming right at him. He was going to speak when he felt a hand grab his jaw and forcefully turn his head to meet his father's angry gaze.
"Just because you don't possess the name of a Slytherin descendent doesn't mean you should treat the house with such disrespect. Even with the name you have now, it still belonged to a proud Slytherin who was willing to do anything for power." His father spat out quickly, almost fast enough the Mattheo didn't have the time to process the information....almost.
Mattheo snapped his head back the moment he felt his father's grip loosen and glared at him. "Right, the name belonging to my 'grandmother' that's conveniently dead alongside EVERYONE ELSE in my family. Clearly she was SO proud of her house that absolutely no one knows who she is. Which, technically still makes her entire existence WORTHLESS to you!" At this point Mattheo had stood up from his chair and matching the same look of anger his father had in his eyes.
Mattheo watched his father's fits clench and unclech, restraining himself from lashing out and hitting his son or the table beside them. Voldemort took a deep breath and turned away from Mattheo before speaking again. "You're right about one thing, your grandmother is less well known when compared to her husband, or even my own mother, but you'd be viewed as even more suspicious if you had either of those names."
Mattheo scoffed and waved his hand dismissively at his father, who still had his back turned and began walking away, excusing himself from this conversation. "The moment you tell me one thing that makes your little story sound real is the moment I'll start taking my classes seriously!" Without giving his father a chance to respond, Mattheo had opened the door to the dining room and slammed it shut.
***
Mattheo was reading peacefully in the Slytherin common room when he heard the dorm entrance slam shut and heard an even louder sound from books slamming on the table in front of him. He looked up from his book to see a large stack of what he believed to be nothing more than Hogwarts yearbooks and Draco looming over him and smiling, appearing to be quite proud of himself. "Huh, didn't think you were allowed to check out that many books" Mattheo shrugged his shoulders and went back to reading his own book.
"You can't, convinced a few people to check out some of these for me," Draco sat on the couch beside Mattheo and stared down the stack of books as if he was able to read them without ever turning a single page.
"Why exactly did you want a bunch of school books and why did you feel the need to bring them to me?" Mattheo turned to the next page on his book, not quite giving his full attention to the idiot he unfortunately calls his friend.
"Snape also lied to your father." Now this had gotten Mattheo's attention, he sighed and placed his bookmark on the page and set his book aside, letting Draco know he could continue speaking. "After the reunion I listened to a conversation Snape had with my parents. Apparently your father didn't quite believe the report mine had given him and sent Snape to the same area just to make sure my father wasn't lying."
"And I assume the professor also saw this mystery person?"
"Exactly, but he gave the same report my father did at the reunion. 'There was nothing out of the ordinary'." Draco did his impression of Snape's voice, causing Mattheo to chuckle a little before Draco continud. "But, when he pulled my parents aside, he also mentioned seeing 'L/N', which spiraled into a conversation with then trying to figure out how she was alive."
"Okay, and what does that have to do with...." He gestured at the stack of books on the table, not sure what to call it. Now that he properly looked at it, it was a collection of books from the history of pureblood families throughout the UK to different articles on all the powerful students that graduated from each house within a span of who-knows-how-many years.
"It's clear they won't say anything about this mystery auror so I'm taking things into my own hands. Based on her being supposedly dead for almost fifteen years, and how it takes three year to be an auror, the earliest she could've graduated Hogwarts is 1978-"
"Okay one, how do you know she went to Hogwarts? Two, why did you bother getting five Howarts yearbooks? Three, how can you be so sure she's even a Pureblood?" Mattheo raises an eyebrow and can see Draco processing all he'd been asked to try and come up with the most reasonable answer.
"I highly doubt both my father and Professor Snape would be scared of anything other than a Pureblood, and I'm just praying she also happened to attend Hogwart. As for the books, I was gonna get a sixth book but realized the library removed everything that included your father and placed them in the restricted section." Draco grabbed the book on the top of the stack and handed it to Mattheo. "I assumed, since your father knew her she had been at hogwarts the same time as him or after him and tried grabbing books from when your father started in '38 to the latest she would've grated Hogwarts in '78."
Mattheo stared blankly at his friend and blinked a few several times. He was shocked to see how determined Draco was to get to the bottom of this and all the though that went into the research. "Is that also why you have almost 40 years worth of books on every. Single. House?"
"I couldn't get a clear hint as to what house she could've been in!" Draco huffed, clearly annoyed with the amount of doubt his friend has in this endeavor. "I figured she wasn't a Slytherinf if she attended during the 70's or my parents would've known her well enough to at least use her first name-"
"Or" Mattheo cut him off again and set down the book saying '78 on it and grabbed the next one from 1970. "It means she didn't attend Hogwarts with your parents and Snape, meaning they're saying her last name out of respect for someone older than them."
Draco groaned and quickly grabbed the book on Pureblood families. He, thankfully, only needed to grab one as the book was enchanted to update itself everytime a new member of these families were born. "I'm just hoping this women went to Hogwarts or else I'm throwing something into the fireplace"
The two sat in a fairly comfortable silence as the read through their respective piles and took notes. Mattheo agreed to go over the yearbooks and the information on Griffindor and Ravenclaw students while Draco took on going through the family line of Purebloods and researching all Slytherin and Hufflepuff students. If they could find anything on this person than they both agreed to check the restricted section for anything before accepting they were looking for a ghost..