"Hello, Mister Lovegood," I politely greeted as I stepped into Three Broomsticks pub and saw the man just standing past the door dazedly staring at a wooden beam.
"Mister Macnair," Xenophilius returned as he slowly started looking in my direction and offered a hand. "Thank you for meeting me."
"Sure. Glad this worked out," I replied as I guided the two of us to a booth as pointed out by Madam Rosmerta.
Once we sat down and had our drinks floated over, I wondered why Luna's father hadn't said a word... until I noticed he just stared at the pale scar going over my nose. It looked like he tried to stare through my face until I scratched my head awkwardly and got his attention, though only for a short moment.
"Sorry. It's a habit. Magical scars are a fascinating topic, you know. I've studied them quite a bit," Lovegood offered in explanation.
"Like an interest in healing?"
Xenophilius quickly shook his head at my question and clarified, "No, no. Years ago, I worked on a story about the ministry grafting tracking spells into lingering magical scars at St Mungo's to keep track of wizards and witches after the war."
"Ohhh, well, uh, in that case... no tracking spells here," I said as I pointed at my nose, "This wasn't treated after it was inflicted just before my birth, so I assume it wasn't charmed either. Though, I suppose, maybe someone other than the ministry put something in there before it was healed by my own magic..."
"Tell me more," Xenophilius said with shining eyes.
"Well. I'm quite certain this scar came from Voldemort. He attacked my mother as she was pregnant with me when he found out she was a spy. The wound likely killed her, but she shielded me, and I lived," I explained stating what should have been guesses as facts, because I knew them to be facts by now. "I was born with the scar, and she passed away."
The man didn't even flinch when I said the dark lord's name out loud.
He just merely... looked at me with more and more interest.
"Yes, yes. I can see it. Selena Macnair, she hid it well, but she had a somewhat low opinion of muggleborn and in turn of muggles. She would not have brought you to a muggle orphanage herself," the blonde-haired wizard mumbled under his breath and likely spun out the entirety of the story in his conspiracy-prone mind.
Curious to find out that my mom wasn't an enlightened witch who found blood purity in its entirety a ludicrous idea, I asked, "You knew my mother?"
"I know both of your parents. Though, I'll gladly admit that I have not spoken a word with either of them during my time at Hogwarts. I was a year above Selena, and two years under your father - as well as in a different house," Lovegood described without looking me in the eyes. Instead, he was still looking at my scar. "You think a witch or wizard placed you at the orphanage then? Selena won't have trusted many, but maybe she was out of time and out of options... she was at least able to name you before she... you know."
"Oh? How did you know she had time to name me?"
"Your Hogwarts letter and the fact that the orphanage named you Tim," Lovegood explained as if that didn't bring up more questions than answers.
"You know about that name?"
"It's called investigative journalism in the muggle world. Are you not aware of it?"
Awkwardly smiling in return, I decided to change the question, "So, uh, you've been at the orphanage?"
The older wizard nodded and retold, "In preparation of this interview, I needed to gather enough information to ask questions. Since the matron told you your name was Tim, your muggle identity would have been used on the Hogwarts letter even if you learned that your name was Talion. That is not the case, however, with Mother Magic in play. A mother giving their child a name becomes something we know as a 'true name'."
"Are 'true names' real? My law tutor didn't explain any of that to me in our lesson this morning when we discussed that I may take up the Gamp lordship," I asked since apparently that wasn't common sense or even just law in this world. But maybe Limm, my law tutor, wasn't all knowing after all. To be fair, I had to admit that it was only the second lesson this morning and it could still come up later. I could just ask next week.
"Well, I think so," Lovegood affirmed... and he was still looking at my scar.
"Uh, do you want to check the scar for tracking charms?"
Finally looking me in the eyes with wonder, Luna's father inquired, "How'd you know I was interested?"
Fighting every urge in my body to groan and roll my eyes, I gained a wry smile and countered with, "Just a hunch..."
When he took out his wand and actually did check my scar with a spell that didn't really sound like a spell, our conversation drifted to conspiracy theories surrounding my father's side of the family. But it didn't escape my notice that Xenophilius' wording led to him learning quite a few facts about me.
There was a method to his madness, it seemed.
-----
[POV with Patrick, the house elf]
'Master Talion has quite a few weird orders. Master Walden would have never cared for others. Much less witchfolk and those who are weak. And these women fits both. Goldsborough is almost finished... I should be able to take them one by one as he ordered.'
Patrick stood around three corpses. All three belonged seedy looking wizards. All three were dismembered by the magical rope Talion had left with his elf for self-defense. A magical item that could cut through anything with the right intent, especially mere human flesh.
'Patrick should start with those who can talk. Use fireplace travel to get to York like Master always does.'
Slowly making his way to the girls 'employed' at this brothel, Patrick shook his head. These three wizards dying here today would surely get someone's attention. But their minds were too strong to get charmed to go away. It had always worked before. These three fools were here for a purpose.
It was time to free these girls as ordered.
Magically subdued and unable to leave, nine squib women, three muggleborn witches and the 'star' of the brothel, a veela, Talion's elf found these women just like he left them. Huddled together in their living quarters. They weren't as furnished and presentable as the rooms the customers would use with the unwilling prostitutes, but nobody would pay good money to shag someone who smelled and looked like they hadn't washed themselves in weeks.
As such, they were... well, not 'allowed', but goaded to regularly shower and take care of themselves. That all stopped the day Patrick killed the old lady at the counter. Since then, the girls robotically ate what Patrick brought them - usually at the end of the day. They barely took care of themselves, and it didn't look like any of them wanted to flee, courtesy of the bindings that were placed on them. Patrick would have considered them mentally dead if it weren't for the fact that they expressed themselves more and more the longer they weren't called upon to work.
Especially one squib woman. Someone with the same pale blonde hair color as the wizard his master was currently talking to, not that Patrick knew.
"Mistress Evert. We need to leave. Patrick has dealt with a few bad wizards. It won't be long before other bad wizards come," the elf explained when he appeared in the room. "Patrick has prepared floo powder for you."
Amanda Evert, the squib, firmed her mind and slowly started standing up when she heard the order. She looked at the little disfigured elf, a creature she only remembered knowing about once the lock on her mind loosened after they bound her to this place and asked, "Where to?"
"My master has a place prepared where yous all can live," Patrick said without explaining much.
And he didn't need to. Just the fact that nobody had touched her in weeks and that she could eat good food every night made Amanda lose almost all apprehension in following the elf. Little could be worse than what she had lived through this past year.
"I can help the others to go through the fireplace. My disgusting piece of shit father taught me how before he learned what I was," the blonde girl said with a lot of venom in her voice.
It had been her father who, once he learned she was a squib unable to wield magic, placed her under house arrest so that his neighbors and acquaintances slowly forgot he had a daughter.
Something other magicals were quite willing to do because they, too, feared getting ostracized for 'birthing a squib' - even if there were other families who still treated these children well. That had not been the case with Amanda's father. He eventually didn't want to feed her anymore and, in a particularly vicious streak, sold her to 'recoup what he lost raising her.' She who had killed his wife during childbirth.
"That would help Patrick a lot. Patrick can help you all move into your new homes on the other side," the elf said, and to Amanda, his grateful smile looked particularly bloodthirsty.
But she didn't mind. She'd have followed the literal devil if it meant getting out of here.
Amanda helped up the veela sitting next to her and brought her to get out of there first. She heard no protest from the poor girl.
The fireplace was in a discrete corner of the entry hall of the establishment to welcome guests. It spared them to walk to the brothel and fear getting seen on their way - the same reason the fireplace wasn't in a more prominent place. The only one who could clearly see who came and went was the one sitting at the grand desk the old woman used to sit behind.
"I know one of them. He was with Gruff when I was sold to him," Amanda commented without flinching away from the sight of the dismembered corpses in the entry hall. Their heads, by mere chance, were visible to them quite clearly when they came up from the basement.
"Patrick will inform his master," the elf commented without much care. This Gruff guy was an auror who was on the list of people to die very soon. He had, after all, stolen from his master when the man plotted the sale of the brothel's deed with the goblins after forging a signature from his master's grandfather.
Patrick would have loved it if Gruff had been among the people sent here.
"Who is your master? What can you tell me about them?" Amanda asked as they stood before the fireplace with the bowl of floo powder next to it. It didn't escape her notice that Patrick had said absolutely nothing about his master since meeting the elf and she could only assume it was a 'he' by the way the elf called her 'Mistress Evert' before. But that might have been deliberate.
"Master is a young but powerful wizard. You will learn more when he wants you to learn more. Patrick doesn't know why, but master has arranged for you to live freely in his village once Patrick gets you out," the elf explained, and Amanda almost froze in her tracks.
What in the world did the elf mean by 'his village'???
"He... he owns an entire village?"
"Yes, yes. Soon, he will. Many houses are there, but nobody lives in that place when master is at school," the elf revealed. He had Talion's permission to say as much.
Amanda swallowed a wad of saliva. A school student who owned an entire village and he wanted to populate it with 'lowly whores'? After going out of his way to free them?
Try as she might, Amanda Evert could not figure out what kind of man this young wizard was.
"Say 'York Laundry-Fever' to get to the other side. Patrick will be waiting for you to bring the other females?" Patrick instructed as he gave the squib the name of York's public floo point.
Amanda mutedly nodded and watched the elf pop away.
-----
"This row of houses is already furnished. You can all choose one or live together in those two big houses at the end of the road," Patrick pointed out once all the freed women stood with the elf on the outskirts of Goldsborough.
The three new elves and he had been quite busy fixing and cleaning as many of the homes Talion already owned and they, or rather Patrick, spent quite a premium to have the plumbing fixed by a big team of handymen from Leeds and York.
"What should we do here?" Amanda asked when she noticed none of the other timid girls made any effort to walk forward.
"What do you want to do?" Patrick asked as he tilted his head in askance.
"We do not have to work?" The veela asked incredulously. A good hour away from the brothel meant her mind was slowly coming back. The fog in her brain was continuously lifting. She was starting to form complete thoughts again.
"Master has no need for your work. You could tend to a vegetable garden in the dryads' stead so that Patrick doesn't need to cook for you all every day," the elf proposed, though he had been unsure.
Talion had been quite insistent with the elf that he should look after these witches and squibs, but sadly, he hadn't been very clear. Since the young wizard didn't say where this 'looking after' ended, Patrick didn't know if he should just take care of them like he would for a toddler.
Patrick casually pointing to the edge of the forest where supposed 'dryads' lived and took care of vegetables short-circuited the slowly recovering brains of those who knew what a dryad was. This place was becoming more and more mysterious if even elusive dryads lived here to take care of gardens but there were no other humans.
"Take one of the houses Patrick has pointed to. Patrick will be back when you do," the elf said with a small eye-roll because these women took their sweet time and snapped his finger to disappear. He felt Talion calling for him.
After a few jumps, he stood in front of his master.
"You called for Patrick?" He asked as he stood in a clearing outside Hogsmeade, their usual meeting spot. By now this long distance travel was no longer as tiring to the elf as he jumped all over Britain quite often since Talion all but freed the elf from the shackles of Walden Macnair's cruel 'ownership'.
"Yeah, I hope I didn't interrupt anything, but I was allowed to leave to give an interview with the Quibbler's owner," Talion said as he regarded his first elf. "How goes the teaching of Urd, Skuld, and Verdy?"
That brought a small frown on Patrick's face. They were diligent and learned incredibly fast... but one of them, Verdandi, dared to ask for a shorter name because she had trouble saying it out loud. How incredibly rude of her! Even if it was just a nickname, Patrick thought very little of such behavior.
"They be good elveses. But Patrick has to inform you that he has freed the thirteen females from the brothel," the elf offered and stopped there to the increasing frustration of his master.
"Well? Tell me why and how they fared since then," Talion eventually snapped when Patrick didn't elaborate.
Inwardly grinning as he teased his master, Patrick would admit nothing and instead explained, "Three wizards entered even with the wards. They didn't go away, so Patrick had to kill them. One of the squibs says she knew him as a man working for Gruff. Patrick killed them with the rope like you said Patrick should. Patrick brought them to Goldsborough, and when you called, they be choosing a home."
"Remember to scorch the place. Don't use the explosives we used at the finals lest someone links it to us. Use the vials of 'Wyvern Ichor' I brought from Italy as fuel," Talion explained after thinking about it for a short moment. Wyvern Ichor was a harvested ingredient from a sack growing in most fire-breathing wyvern species' bodies. This ichor was tens of times more flammable than even gasoline and harder to put out than a grease burn. It hurt Talion to have to use up some of his stash for the brothel, but he wasn't a pyromaniac.
These situations were exactly what he bought it for.
Purchasing it without Flitwick knowing and smuggling it back into the country, that had been the challenge. But it was well worth it to burn down the place that was as good as stolen from him by Gruff and a co-conspirator at the goblins. Especially since it was used to do something so wicked.
"They be asking Patrick what to do. Can Patrick tell them to make their own food?"
"Yeah, of course you can. You're not their slave. Just look after them to make sure as best as you can that they don't starve themselves and stock up their pantries when you can. Go to Sirius and drop off the letter as instructed after dealing with the brothel. You're not equipped to make sure those women don't take their own lives either. That's a healer's job... you said one of them spoke to you inside the brothel to tell you about that henchman?"
"Yes. Mistress Evert, a squib," the elf clarified.
"If she's up for it, take her to Leeds and have her buy clothes and daily necessities for the girls. Give her cash, not the card, and help her move the stuff back with your pouch. If all works well, she can be a leader among those who wish to remain at Goldsborough. And, uh, impress on them the importance of staying quiet about the murderous escape unless they are talking to a professional healer," Talion ordered with an awkward smile.
The young wizard had dreams of creating his own faction, but once it came to it, he wasn't in his element like he was in a duel. He had the drive, the resources, and the means to give them a better life... but deciding anything for them still didn't feel right in his mind just yet.
"Uh, and if they wish to learn something or busy themselves, bring them books. A learned mind is a free mind."
With that, Patrick was sent away once more to deliver the letter at Grimmauld Palace after causing a gigantic fire in Knockturn Alley. It was his first time using Wyvern Ichor, after all. Who could know how much was needed to deal with the place after looting it?