CHESS PIECE
The Malfoys were gone before the time Evangeline woke up the next morning. The only sign of their presence being a teasing jab from her mother, Alden, about how Draco had stayed in her guest room. Evangeline ground her teeth to ignore it. It was now fairly obvious that Theodore had only been wanting to escape any suspicion falling on him, his guest room remaining particularly empty.
Thankfully it was followed by a stroke of good luck, Evangeline’s grandmother had decided to spend the holiday with some distant relations in France. Her absence was a relief to everyone in the house except Alden, who had attempted to get her mother to reconsider, but had each of her letters rejected with the claim, “All of you are too depressing to spend my Christmas with, much less my New Years.” All of them suspected she had other, more concerning reasons, but again, no one but Evangeline’s mother complained.
The holiday did include a discussion of Evangeline’s grades, but did not go as badly as it could have. Her parents had expected her charms ineptitude and were proud that her potions and astronomy grades seemed to be at the top of the list. Alden’s tongue had been sharp but it was tempered by Evangeline’s father. They did, however, decide she needed tutoring over the Summer: hiring one for transfiguration and making Theodore her charms consultant. Evangeline accepted both smoothly. She knew that it would not have gone so well if her grandmother had been present. Clark did step up to fill her shoes though, making snide remarks over her “failure to the bloodline” and “inability to cast a simple spell.” He stopped after Evangeline had his clothes washed in a new potion of hers that burned all the hair off his body (not her intended result).
It was odd to have Clark home. Evangeline had built the idea of him up in her head for over a year. Most of it came crashing down when she was reminded of how awful he could be. It only seemed to have gotten worse while he was gone. Now, Clark often held meetings in the home with various young heirs of dark pureblooded houses. Alden seemed proud of him for making more connections rather than staying holed up inside his room with a runes textbook as he used to, but Evangeline remained wary and always felt as if the meetings were darker in nature than her mother believed. Despite how large the house was, Evangeline always felt herself wanting to leave it whenever Clark’s ‘friends’ arrived. Normally, she would have had Theodore on her side, but he attended each meeting almost as religiously as Clark. It wasn’t like him. She didn’t see how it added up with his secretive actions either.
So now she often found herself back at her favorite Elder tree, alone save for Edmund. The rat, frankly, was growing fat over the Christmas holiday. Evangeline suspected the house-elves were feeding him more behind her back, though he could have also been stealing into the kitchens while she slept. The wind was just as soft as it always was, though now it stung of a more bitter cold. Evangeline had to actually sit in the branches of the tree themselves this time to stay out of the snow.
She looked out at the land below her, the trees down the hill swayed more than the common of their kind, their limbs thrashing at odd angles. The Dox orchard was divided into two parts, an upper and lower section. The upper section was where the old trees were kept – those that were planted at the very beginnings of the family’s occupation of the property. That had been back when they were still wand makers and wood workers. They had kept an assortment of the various types necessary for their fields. The ground down the hill was for a different purpose. It was the Dox burial mound. The family funeral rites sang and transfigured the bodies into trees. If the rites were done soon enough, they would often become volatile whomping willows. Right now she wished Clark was a whomping willow.
Something landed in the tree above Evangeline, making a fine powder of snow fall on her hair, she looked up to see a jobberknoll. Appearing like a blue jay, save their feathers were more marbled and spotted, the little bird bobbed its head in greeting.
Most of the animals on her family’s grounds were there for trading purposes, but they were kept well and largely allowed to roam wherever they pleased. The wards surrounding the many acres kept them in anyway. More dangerous animals or beings were kept well and in secure locations. There were a small legion of dementors on site, though their grounds were largely just a waystation between Azkaban and the ministry. The thestrals were also kept in separate forests, only a handful of them had been appropriately trained and then rest were ministry-sponsored breeding purposes for the benefit of the dying species. Regardless, the jobberknoll was friendly, it looked to be one of the few that had been spoiled by the family in years past – and thus would never leave.
“Hello little one,” Evangeline said curiously. Edmund lifted up his head, shamelessly hoping for a snack. The jobberknoll filtered down the branches until it was right in front of Evangeline’s outstretched hand. It didn’t chirp at her, just flicked its head then held out its right leg. A small paper note was tied on its skinny leg, she gingerly untied it and unlike an owl the jobberknoll did not peck her. Evangeline went to stroke its chin and the jobberknoll unexpectedly climbed onto her finger. She chuckled at Edmund’s jealous squeal as she set him down on her lap in order to open the note with her free hand.
It’s time to come in, mother is looking for you. It was in Theodore’s neat print. Watch out, the bird bites, was tacked on in the end in a much messier scrawl. Evangeline raised an eyebrow at the jobberknoll, who innocently stared back at her. She put the note away to scratch its head and received no nips from its little beak.
Attempting to set the bird down didn’t work either, no matter how close Evangeline held her hand to the tree, the jobberknoll stubbornly refused to leave. It was even willing to hang upside down! In the end, she was forced to put it on her shoulder and grab Edmund to hop down from the tree, with the jobberknoll remaining there all the way into the house.
“Well,” she said when she had made it back into her room, “if you’re going to stick around you’ll need a name.” The jobberknoll fled her shoulder only in preference for her dresser. Theodore had likely summoned her with the implicit suggestion that she get ready before Alden tried to find her. As she pulled on the dress she was required to wear for the evening, she began thinking of bird names.
“Do you like Bluey?” she asked, pulling her arms through the sleeves. The jobberknoll looked as offended as Evangeline had ever seen a bird look. She laughed, “Maybe not then, do you need a lady’s name? Something like Laurel?” Evangeline tugged the zipper to her dress up as the jobberknoll turned its head from side to side indecisively. “Not fitting quite right either?” she tugged on her shoes, “I still think you need something silly. How about Oolong?” The silly bird didn’t know what to think of that, so Evangeline decided that would be its name.
Her dress was too fancy for her tastes, but Evangeline had allowed it to be chosen for her by her mother as a measure of good faith. The top was velvet evergreen with long sleeves and the bottom skirt was cream and dotted with embroidered springs of holly. Her shoes were a bright red. She waved goodbye to Oolong and Edmund before leaving her room. Alden was calling her name from down the stairs, but stopped when she spotted Evangeline.
“Oh good, you’re dressed, I’ve been looking for you to do your hair!” she said enthusiastically. Evangeline breathed a sigh of relief and walked down the stairs. Her mother was always the best at managing Evangeline’s curls despite having none of her own. She tied it up in a crown of braids, mingling silver leaves into the strands when she was finished. Seeing it done up, Evangeline smiled softly at how good of a job her mother had done, no matter how much she wished she didn’t have to go to another fancy party.
And Alden did look beautiful as always, perfectly put together like a porcelain doll. Not a hair out of place. She had made sure her husband looked the same and both her sons had followed suit – now even Evangeline herself was visually perfect.
“Bring your violin, Evangeline, they may want to hear it!” she said that every Christmas, but Evangeline was tired of fighting that particular request. She retrieved her violin from upstairs without protest, but only Clark remained when she got back.
“I’m to bring you,” he said in monotone, then offered his arm to her. For a moment, he looked like his old school-day self. Back when he still wore the face of a perfect highborn child even at home. She took it anyways and the world swam.
Usually it was a scent, or a sound that hit her first. But this time it was the light, bright and unwelcoming. Then the rest of the Malfoy manor came into focus. Then the sound of the many people talking and laughing and existing all in one place. Then the smell of cinnamon. Quietly, she allowed Clark to lead her through the party towards their parents, wondering if this was some sort of ploy her mother had thought up to have them appear as a most happy family this Christmas.
“When did your friends leave?” Evangeline couldn’t help but blurt out through a tightly clenched smile. She said it low enough that only Clark would have been able to hear in the crowd but in a tone that portrayed her disdain to its fullest. He tensed but kept walking.
“About an hour after you decided to play in the snow with your rat,” he quipped back, moments before giving a polite bow to a passerby Evangeline didn’t even recognize. She bowed as well, though a little too late.
“I certainly wasn’t the only one playing with rats.”Clark squeezed her hand where it was looped around his arm. She felt the blood flood out of her fingers.
“I would be careful with your words, Evangeline Dox, you might soon have need of rats,” he hissed, finally letting her go and depositing her in front of her father. Evangeline threw a glare at him as he backed away, but if he recognized it it did not show on his face. Her father, Kole, raised a single eyebrow. There was a wizard chess board set up in front of him, but he looked to be already in the middle of a game.
“Thought you were excited to have him back,” he said, arms crossed. He wore a white shirt and slacks – but a vest decorated with small pine trees. Evangeline didn’t understand how he could notice the slightest change in her facial features, but had been completely blind to what was going on in his own home. Regardless, she ignored the question.
“Bit early in the party for you to be involved in a chess game,” she gestured to the board. Kole took his eyes off of her and toward the board, then shrugged. He began placing the pieces back into their original spaces.
“Like always, there’s a few to many people I’d rather not talk to and I assume quite a bit more people you’d like not to talk to,” he eyed her knowingly, then continued, “Your mother was playing me earlier. But there certainly are a lot of people she would like to talk to.” He looked miffed. Evangeline laughed, her mother had probably only lasted a few minutes before getting terribly bored. Alden wasn’t bad at chess or strategy, she just lacked the motivation for it. Evangeline and her father, on the other hand, always seemed happy for an excuse to be away from the party in a manner that was considered dignified. Though, Kole did usually make more of a show at conversing with the others than this. Evangeline dismissed it and sat at the chair across from him.
“There certainly are a few people I’d like not to talk to.”
Kole laughed and ordered a pawn forward and they fell into the comfortable feeling of a game of chess at a party too fancy for the both of them.