Chapter 3. Negotiations.
A large round table, at which I sat alongside my mothers, and to which Mr. Greengrass had just arrived with his wife and daughters.
"You're late..."
Bella showed just a hint of displeasure. Their petitioner, however, showed not the faintest trace of embarrassment — he simply pulled out a chair, helped his wife to her seat, then his two daughters, one of whom was, as far as I knew, roughly a year younger than me. Only after all of that did he sit down himself.
"So then, shall we get down to negotiations?"
"Did you not hear me?"
Bella raised an eyebrow.
"Come now, Bella — the thing is, as far as I understand... a marriage alliance with our family means considerably more to you than it does to us."
Hmm... his wife and daughters were very well trained. Not a gesture, not a flicker of expression to betray that what he had just said was complete nonsense.
"Is that so?"
Cissy smiled at our counterpart — and it was a very telling smile. She made it perfectly clear that she knew exactly what he needed. The fact that as a Healer at St. Mungo's she was bound by oath was a separate matter entirely, but even the mere knowledge of it, in negotiations like these, counted for a very great deal.
"Without question. As far as I am aware, for Draco..."
Greengrass nodded in my direction, and had my mothers and grandmother not trained me as they had, I might not have noticed the slight unease that crossed his face. His wife showed a similar trace of it — but the daughters understood nothing and simply continued to sit there like two ice sculptures.
"...a suitable match from an ancient magical family comes down to one of my daughters, or else the Parkinson girl. But the latter, from what I have been able to learn, is rather lacking in the looks department. As for the others — you would not seek ties with them yourselves. Either they are too deeply entangled in the business with the Dark Lord, and you have only just managed to disentangle yourselves, or they are too bound up with Dumbledore, and his side is most certainly not where you would go."
"You would be right, Mr. Greengrass..."
I decided to enter the conversation — though this moment had been planned in advance, and Cissy herself had given me the signal that I could speak.
"...if Mama Cissy were still of the House of Malfoy, or if I were of that house as well. That family did indeed have a rather poor history with the continental houses, but we are Blacks. That particular problem will not stand in our way."
I shook my head.
"No... there are certainly those who will refuse to discuss a marriage contract with us, but for many it will be more than enough to know that the Malfoy line has ended. So the choice of a future companion in life is quite broad for me."
I allowed myself a slight smile.
"Moreover, I am giving entirely serious consideration to the possibility of a marriage contract with the Delacour family."
"They are... Veela..."
The elder Greengrass stared at me in astonishment.
"...your line would end..."
"Why on earth would it?"
I raised an eyebrow in genuine surprise.
"The Blacks are acquainted with methods for producing heirs even from a full-blooded Veela — let alone from a quarter-Veela..."
I shrugged.
"A quarter Veela?"
Greengrass gave a slightly contemptuous smirk. "You believe that nonsense? I had thought the Heir of the Ma... of the Blacks would be better educated."
"Well, since you yourself have raised the matter of my education..."
I chose not to continue the subject of Veela, whose magic did indeed pass in full from mother to daughter along the female line. However, I also knew perfectly well that bloodline mattered no less than magic. And blood diluted to that degree opened the door to certain rituals and potions that could work on a girl — ensuring the birth of an heir. The same could have been done with the current Lord Delacour's wife as well, but he evidently lacked the relevant knowledge.
"...perhaps I should note that I have made considerable progress in developing the gift of which you have learned. We never made any particular secret of the fact that I possess the gift of removing and breaking curses. But I am not only capable of removing and breaking them — I can also sense them."
I smiled as I watched Mr. Greengrass go pale.
"And you are all cursed. I have not even examined the curse closely yet, but I can already tell you that it is highly complex, and removing it will require approximately a year of work on my part — studying the curse, calculating the correct approach... and that is only if we are speaking of removing the curse from your younger daughter. On your elder daughter, the removal will take roughly two years, and as for you and your wife..."
I shook my head.
"At my current level, that would take somewhere between ten and twenty years each."
"So you can remove the curse from my younger daughter? Excellent — we will give you the elder as a bride if you take on the removal of the curse from the younger."
"A valiant attempt..."
Bella entered the conversation.
"...to get both daughters treated for free. Truly magnificent audacity. You don't often see that sort of thing these days."
"I... that isn't quite what I..."
"Oh, spare us."
Bella waved her hand at him in a way that made it clear protests were pointless.
"...you know, if it weren't for that audacity of yours, we might have even agreed to the terms you intended to put forward. We would have asked for a somewhat larger dowry than the usual, perhaps. But you chose to push all the way to the end... well then..."
She reached into the inside pocket of the jacket she wore over her robes, produced a small scroll case, set it on the table, and with two fingers rolled it across toward Greengrass.
"...this is our first and final offer."
After a brief check for any unpleasant surprises, Greengrass took the case and carefully opened it, then drew out the parchment inside and read through what was written there.
"This..."
His hands trembled slightly, and anger flared in his eyes.
"Don't be hasty..."
Bella shook her head, and the smile playing at her lips was one she didn't even try to hide.
"...think very carefully about what you want to say right now. As I said, this is our first and final offer. If you refuse — or if you say something unpleasant to us — the offer will be void."
The nostrils of the Greengrass patriarch flared, and I could plainly see him wrestling with his anger. Meanwhile, the parchment passed from his hands to his wife's; she read it quickly and gave a slight tremor, and tears began to run down her cheeks.
"What does it say?"
The elder daughter could not hold back, and I glanced at her and shrugged.
"The thing is, your father decided he could deceive us — or rather, he intended to arrange things so that we would remove the curse from both of you for free, and quite possibly from your parents as well, as future in-laws. But it was all meant to appear perfectly respectable: in exchange, he would give you to our family as my wife."
I shook my head.
"More precisely — judging by how this conversation began, your father was counting on concealing the curse from us entirely and presenting our betrothal as something I needed far more than you did. The trouble is, we are Blacks; we never act on guesswork in matters like these, and we paid to have information gathered from people who can find out anything about anyone. It did cost something, of course..."
The smile on my lips widened slightly.
"...and as a result of your father's attempt at deception, we drew up a contract of our own. One in which we offer him the option of transferring one of his daughters to us under a very strict contract — effectively placing you into a form of bondage. Though two hundred years ago, a contract like this would not have been called bondage at all. It would have been called a concubine's contract."
The girl flinched and lowered her head. The younger one, however, apparently hadn't yet fully grasped the situation and was simply looking back and forth between me and her parents with curiosity.
"Nico..."
"I agree."
I looked in surprise at the elder daughter. So did her father and mother. No one had expected that from this girl.
"Daughter... you don't understand..."
The mother tried to reach her daughter, but the girl shook her head stubbornly.
"Perhaps there is much I don't understand, but... you are the ones who began these negotiations with deception, so why are you now behaving as though they..."
The girl nodded in our direction.
"...are the ones acting dishonorably?"
She looked at me.
"If we sign this contract — will you cure everyone? My little sister? Mama? Papa? Me?"
"Yes..."
I gave a short nod, silently noting how interesting her order of priorities was. Her little sister and her mother first, and only then her father and herself.
"...although as I said before, it cannot all be done at once. It will take approximately a year to study the curse on your sister, and during that time we will need to meet at least once a week. After that, I will be able to remove it. Your case is somewhat more difficult. And your parents... I will not take on their cases for at least the next seven years — I simply don't have enough experience yet."
"May I..."
The girl swallowed against suddenly thickened saliva.
"...read the contract?"
I shrugged and nodded toward her parents, since the contract was with her mother. All things considered, I rather liked the girl. If things worked out, I had no intention of mistreating her. Quite the opposite — I would take care of her as best I could.
"Daughter, I don't think..."
"Do you have any other options?"
"No..."
The girl's father shook his head.
"...they..."
He gave a slight contemptuous nod in our direction.
"...at least have something to offer us. They had something to offer. The other masters... they won't take this on for free, and we simply don't have the artifacts or the money they would require."
"Then may I look at this scroll?"
The girl's mother passed her the contract with a trembling hand, and the girl, furrowing her brows in an endearingly serious way, began reading through it. A thought began to nag at me. A young girl in a situation like this could not possibly be this calm — not merely understanding what was happening, but remaining composed through all of it. Either she had some gift that helped her, or she was the same as me...
For a while we simply sat in silence, until the girl raised her eyes to me.
"I... didn't understand everything..."
She dropped her gaze, embarrassed.
"...might I clarify a few details with my parents?"
"Of course..."
I nodded.
"...Mama Cissy, Mama Bella — let's step out for a while. I believe there's an ice cream parlor somewhere nearby. I've been wanting to see what all the talk is about."
"All right..."
Both mothers rose and we headed for the door. In the doorway, I half-turned back.
"The room is booked for two hours. We'll return..."
I glanced at my watch.
"...in an hour. I think thirty minutes will be more than enough time to sign the contract — or to decline it."
"I agree with my son..."
Cissy nodded.
"Now then, dear girls — what sort of ice cream do you like?"
"Strawberry!"
The little one still hadn't understood the situation at all and simply beamed at me, while the elder one looked at me with a slightly thoughtful expression and only gave her answer after about thirty seconds.
"Pistachio."
"Very well — I'll bring some."
We left the room and stepped out of the unassuming building in which every room was purpose-built for exactly these sorts of negotiations. We walked calmly along Diagon Alley, and upon reaching the café I had wanted to visit, we settled in at one of the tables.
"Think they'll agree?"
I looked at Bella, then shifted the same questioning glance to Cissy. Meanwhile, a waiter approached and we placed our orders.
"Who knows..."
Bella elegantly tucked a stray strand of hair back into place.
"...with Greengrass, you can never be certain of anything. What I can say is that you handled your first round of negotiations more than creditably. And if the contract is signed, you can put a tick next to 'successful' as well."
"Good..."
The ice cream arrived and I tried the much-talked-about product with curiosity — only to find that there was nothing remarkable about it at all. Ordinary ice cream, the sort you could buy from a Muggle shop and find not only equally good but considerably cheaper. I shared exactly these thoughts with my mothers.
"I agree... though it's hard to admit..."
Bella shook her head. After that we simply talked about nothing in particular — the sort of light conversation about everything and nothing that all of England's gentry conducted. It was only at the very end that I ordered ice cream for the girls.
"Well then?"
I walked back into the negotiating room, handed the ice cream to both girls, and asked that question. Greengrass senior's answer was to slide the scroll case back across the table toward me — the contract, no doubt, returned inside it. I made a point of examining the case carefully, and detecting no curse on it, I looked to Cissy, who checked it for potions and gave me a nod.
Only then did I take the case, and drawing out the contract, I saw the signature — and the name written into it: Daphne Greengrass.