“And her young friend,” Mrs. Vandergriff said, turning her twinkling green eyes on James and giving him a secretive smile. She was lithe and athletic, appearing almost ten years younger than her thinning-haired husband. Her own hair was dark, swept up and held in place by an emerald and silver comb that accented her forest green dress.
Mr. Vandergriff clapped James on the shoulder, turning him toward the door. “I’ve met your father on several occasions,” he confided briskly. “Someday I shall succeed in coaxing him and your mother to visit us here at Blackbrier. I do hope your stay here will speak well of us.”
James nodded, not quite sure what he could say to express his response thus far. His first impression was that, with the exception of Millie’s sister Mathilda, Blackbrier Quoit was both the richest and warmest household he’d ever visited.
“Dinner in mere minutes, I’m told,” Mr. Vandergriff exclaimed, turning to address the gathered family. “Isn’t that right, Topham?”
“Indeed so,” Topham answered with a nod. “If the family would like to convene in the drawing room, we may begin with hot cocoa and liquorice toddies, wherever age appropriate.”
“Age appropriate nothing,” Benton jibed, walking backward along the marble-tiled hall, his arms held wide. “It’s Christmas!
Toddies for everyone who wishes!”
“Oh Benton,” Mrs. Vandergriff rolled her eyes with the weary affection of the mother of a born rogue.
“The servants,” James whispered to Millie as the family moved into the high bookcases and upholstered couches of a long library-like room, “they’re all… Muggles?”
Millie nodded. “Happened about a year after the Night of the Unveiling,” she answered behind an upraised hand. “All the upstairs house elves were replaced with Muggle staff. Topham’s the butler.
Blake’s a valet, along with the other bloke. I always forget their names.
There are two ladies’ maids and a footman or three. Of course all of them have to sign secrecy contracts and that sort of thing.” She sighed, glancing back toward the door where Topham stood respectfully at attention. “Mattie and Bent and I all grew up with house elves caring for us. It’s a little hard getting used to having actual humans around.
But time marches on, apparently.”
“I guess Piggen was right,” James muttered.
“Who?”
“Piggen. He’s the Gryffindor house elf. He says all the elves are worried that they’ll lose their jobs. I told him it wasn’t that bad a deal, since they were all basically slaves anyway, but they don’t see it that way.”
Millie nodded and shrugged. “Mummy says that hiring Muggles is a way to spread goodwill for when the Vow completely breaks down.
She says that keeping unpaid servants around is a relic from a darker age, anyway.”
James considered this, but his reply was drowned by Topham, who suddenly spoke to the room at large, announcing another arrival.
“The Countess Eunice Vandergriff of Blackbrier,” he proclaimed loftily.
James turned to see a woman so ancient and wrinkled that he wondered briefly if she was older than the manor itself. She walked imperiously in a sweeping burgundy dress, her back ramrod straight as she clacked a cane to the marble floor, seemingly more for effect than support.
“Mother,” Mr. Vandergriff said grandly, moving to kiss the old woman on the cheek. Millie and Benton followed suit. The Countess accepted this with stoic patience, eyeing the room severely. Her gaze alit upon James like a set of weights and he had to resist the urge to shrink back from her stare.
“Please introduce me to our guest,” she said, nodding once toward James. Her voice was high and tremulous, painstakingly genteel.
“Of course,” Mrs. Vandergriff said, stepping back and smiling aside at James. “This is Mr. James Sirius Potter, Millicent’s new friend from school.”
The Countess’ eyes crinkled slightly at the corners and she seemed to suppress a small, knowing smile. “Millicent’s new ‘friend’, indeed?”
James stepped forward, his mind racing as he wondered what was expected from him under the circumstances. “Nice to meet you, er, ma’am.”
“In this house, you may call me Lady Blackbrier, which is my less formal title,” the Countess said, extending her gloved hand, palm down. James shook it tentatively by the fingers. She seemed content with this. “And I shall call you James, rather than by your more formal title, I think.”
James blinked up at the woman, who regarded him with slightly raised brow.
“My more formal title, ma’am—I mean, erm, Lady Blackbrier?”
“Certainly yes,” she answered smoothly. “You are the firstborn heir to the master of the Black estate of Grimmauld, are you not?”
“Er…” James frowned, replaying her words in his head. Was it possible that she meant Grimmauld place? “I… guess so?” he answered.
“Then by law that makes you the future Earl of Black Downing, if I’m not mistaken. And I’m quite certain that I am not.” She cinched her left eyebrow a notch higher, giving James the impression of a regal wink. A moment later, she turned away and said in a louder voice, “What does a lady need to do to get a toddy to warm her poor bones from the cold?”
Topham bustled, and the conversation in the room gradually resumed.
James stood exactly where the Countess had left him, his eyes wide, completely flummoxed.
“Well,” Millie said brightly, half a smile cocked onto her lips.
“Does this mean I must start calling you ‘M’Lord’?”
12. – Midnight rendezvous
The answer to James’ early, idle question—would he and Millie, while visiting her family, be more or less supervised than they were at school—was answered over the course of the following hours and days.
Every moment was scheduled, it seemed, and there were always people around. It was less like being supervised, exactly, and more like attending a sort of school for aristocrats, where the lessons were tea time, formal receptions, incomprehensibly dull party games, and long-winded introductions to this visiting family or that impressive dignitary or the other guest foreign ambassador whom James had only ever seen in photographs in the Daily Prophet but whose knee Millie remembered sitting on when she was five years old, and whose children she asked after with sincere fondness. It took James awhile to realize that many of the people that appeared in the paintings decking the manor house walls were real, living people, albeit much older, who frequented the home over the holidays.