Chapter Text
You would think after so many years living in Alnwick Grove that the townspeople would know how to get around. Instead, it was like trying to push through a crowd of people who were unsure of where they were and where they were going, all moving at a snail's pace.
There had to have been bruises on her shoulders from accidentally plowing into people to get across town, but maybe that was her own fault. No one else seemed to be rushing but Adeline Desford.
Just as she was about to make it off the dirt road and onto the sidewalk, a horse drawn carriage slipped in front of her, stopping her in her tracks as she awaited it's passing.
The coachman nodded in her direction, an acknowledgment to the fact that if she hadn't been the only one aware of her surroundings, she'd have been trampled by the massive horse that was currently taking it's dear time to pass her.
She smiled softly, returning his nod as she clung the stack of papers to her chest, afraid she'd drop them.
And the carriage passed, and after she'd patiently waited her turn like any presentable young lady would, she stepped onto the sidewalk.
"Adeline!" A loud, excited voice rang through her years amongst the busy streets.
Her hand was out towards the door, just split seconds from getting a chance to open it. She turned towards the direction of the call, trying to hide the look of disbelief from her face.
"Adeline Desford!" They called out again.
Adeline looked up and around to match the face to the voice, only to see Marjorie Turner, her taller, less formidable family friend, peak her head over the crowd to get her attention.
Marjorie travelled with her family most of the time on morning strolls. Adeline was shocked she didn't feel the hateful gaze from Marjorie's mother long before her name was even called out.
"Your dress is dirty." Marjorie said after approaching Adeline. Not in the way Marjorie's mother would say it, in disappointment and judgment, but in the way one would say it to bring it to the other's attention, to shield them from embarrassment.
Adeline glanced down, kicking out her leg a bit to get a better look at the bottom of her pale blue dress, covered in mud.
She was in fact, embarrassed.
She looked back up, "I walked here."
Marjorie nodded, and Adeline looked past her towards her mother, four sisters, and their handmaiden who made their way over to the two. In the handmaiden's hands was at least five rolls of brightly covered fabrics.
"Mrs. Turner. Louise. Eleanora. Josephine. Mouse." Adeline nodded to each of them in greeting. "Good morning."
Mrs. Turner gave Adeline a displeased look, one that she was never very eager to hide.
It wasn't quite out of the ordinary for pure-bloods, with their lingering gazes and hushed conversations. Mrs. Turner had never really liked Adeline and her father, despite them themselves being pure-blood as well.
It was that 'fraternizing', as Mrs. Turner would happily put it, with Muggles and Muggle-borns that had earned the small Desford family the title of less than.
"We got the invitation this morning." Marjorie spoke excitedly, gently grabbing onto her friends arm.
Adeline started to nod along with her, but then a look of confusion swept over her face as she realized she didn't know what invitation she spoke of. "Invitation? For what?" Adeline asked.
And then it was Marjorie who turned confused, and then it was quickly replaced with a pout. "Did you not get an invitation?" She asks.
"If you could tell me what this invitation you speak of is, maybe I could have a chance to confirm or deny." Adeline laughed.
"A ball at Black Manor." Mrs. Turner spoke up from behind her daughter, her chin held in a permanently high position, only unfortunately exposing her wrinkled neck.
Adeline looked at Marjorie, then back to her mother. "Black Manor?"
Black Manor. Adeline had really only heard of it. It lay so far outside of town, amongst the tall trees and tucked in between four stone walls, she'd never even seen what it may look like.
She'd heard whispers, of course. Rumors that the Black's never left the manor. They were an extremely prestigious pure-blood family, but fell to mystery as they had really never been seen, at least not here in Alnwick Grove.
"Mother's getting us all our own brand new gowns made. She says it's probably being thrown to find a girl for their son to marry." Marjorie says, turning around towards the handmaiden and pulling out the pale yellow floral fabric. "This one will be mine, the green is for Eleanora—" Marjorie started to sort through the fabrics, before realizing Adeline's face didn't look half as excited as her own.
She was half focused on the fact that the Black's were even throwing a ball, inviting the same people who are constantly speculating about their very existence. The other half was focused on the fact that her and her father didn't receive an invite.
"Well, you're going, aren't you?" Marjorie asks. "Your father knows the family, right?"
"Of course she isn't." Mrs. Turner speaks up. "They're trying to find someone suitable to wed their son."
Adeline kept her eyes focused on Marjorie in an attempt to drown out the voice of her mother. "I've yet to receive an invitation." Adeline smiles. "But I know you'll have a wonderful time. I'm sure whoever this son is will be lucky to share a dance with you."
Marjorie smiled brightly, then opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by her mother.
"Come, Marjorie, we must return home." Mrs. Turner spoke.
And with that, the Turner family had slipped past Adeline, their heels clicking on the cobblestone pathway in unison.
Black Manor. Such a mystery. She was sure it had been abandoned long ago, since the whisperings of the family's whereabouts have slowed down in the past years.
It came as no surprise, however, that the Desford's were not invited to attend. Within those very whisperings came talk of just how noble the House of Black was. They were said to be one of the oldest and wealthiest pure-blood families in all of Britain. They were rumored to be quite strict with their common pure-blood set of dated expectations and upholds.
So an invitation for the Turners, a family with high prestige in that sense, and none for the Desford's unfortunately made sense.
She wondered how many families probably were attending. She listed them off in her head as people passed her by. Almost everyone in Alnwick Grove was pure-blood, and if you were not, then you were likely the ones carrying the five rolls of fabric for a family like the Turners.
She wondered what the inside of Black Manor looked like. Would it be dust-covered and decaying, or would it be as extravagant as the manors she'd read about in her books? Marjorie must tell her everything after the ball.
"Are you waiting for someone to come out and open this door for you?" An older man in a grey suit spoke as he swung the door open. "Or do you usually just loiter outside of businesses on your morning walks?"
Adeline was startled, and at first unsure if he was speaking to her.
"Yes, you." He said crudely.
Adeline swallowed, then shook her head. "No, sir. I'm looking for Dugdale Cuffe?"
The man stared at her for a moment. "Are you the Desford girl who keeps harassing my reporters?"
Adeline's heart sunk a bit. This was the Dugdale Cuffe she'd been trying to reach for months, and they'd already gotten off on the wrong foot. She kept a straight face. Harassing was a strong word. "I have a story for you." She says, her confidence running wary.
He croaks out a laugh. "So, you are."
She nods. "My name is Adeline Desford. I'm Herman Desford's only daughter, and I want to write for The Daily Prophet." She spoke quickly, and her perfectly memorized opening line came out unfortunately unnatural.
"I know who you are, girl." He scratched the white gruff of hair that grew in patched along his cheeks and neck. "If you're looking for the tea party, it's down the street." He laughs at his own joke.
Adeline was unamused. She grabs the papers tied neatly together with a piece of thin rope. Holding them out, she spoke. "I wrote about the recent Death Eater attack at the St. Mary Le Strand Church." She spoke confidently. "I spoke to three different people and got their opinions myself, it's already edited as I—"
Adeline trails off as Mr. Cuffe leans back inside to grab something, and when he came back, he held a newspaper out towards Adeline.
She looked at him, then to the paper to accept it. The headline read in big, black lettering, Death Eater Terror Continues, a drawing of the St. Mary Le Strand Church aftermath right below it. Smoke slowly dissipating from the building and off the page as she held it in her hand.
"It's going out in about an hour." Mr. Cuffe, pleased with himself. "People don't want opinions. They want truth. I had reporters who were there when the attack happened. That's a good story."
Adeline clenched her jaw, quickly handing the paper back to him so she could go through her own again. "I wrote about the—"
"Frankly, Miss Desford, I don't care." He shook his head, cutting her off. "There are quite a few other sorts of opportunities for young women like yourself in Alnwick Grove. And if I'm not mistaken, your father is of great wealth, am I correct? There's no need for you to be traipsing along the streets, alone for that matter, muddying your dress, and distracting me from getting out my story for the day. It's The Daily Prophet. Daily."
"I want to be a writer." She said, and it came out a bit more stern than she had anticipated.
"And I want a story that'll make me as rich as The Blacks." Mr. Cuffe looked bored. "Good day, Miss Desford."
And with that, the door to The Daily Prophet was shut in her face, leaving her with her stacks of handwritten papers to go right back to her desk drawer.
The Blacks. The Blacks. The Blacks.
The name was already starting to leave a sour taste in her mouth. She'd heard it more times in the past ten minutes than she had in the past two years.
And she kept hearing it. On her entire walk back to her home. Amongst the ladies who were also on their morning strolls, however, their dresses much cleaner.
'I didn't even know they had a son.' They'd whisper. 'I'm sure he's handsome.' 'I know some of their relatives. Rodolphus Lestrange, I've always found him quite pleasing to look at.' 'I've heard they work for Voldemort. That's why they've been gone for so long.' 'Don't say that.'
Adeline should've suspected something when she woke up this morning to such grey clouds. Maybe she should've taken it as a sign that she should've just stayed home. This way she wouldn't have been so deeply humiliated by both Mrs. Turner and Mr. Cuffe. And now, whether they knew it or not, The Blacks.
"Your dress is filthy." Mr. Desford says as Adeline came threw the garden gate to his work desk, which sat amongst the overgrown Dittany and Fluxweed.
"So I've heard." Adeline smiles, shutting the gate behind her before walking over to his desk. A clutter of metal pieces and tools sat on the small table, scattered papers with handwritten notes, all illegible to Adeline's eye. "This is new." She says, grabbing one of the papers that showed a sketched image.
"I've just started it last night." Mr. Desford says, and Adeline wasn't surprised to find that he'd been out here all night and to morning.
She struggled to understand what was happening on the paper, and he took it as an opportunity to explain it himself. "Think of it as Lumos for Muggles."
She looked at him past the paper, an eyebrow up. "A candle?" She asks, worried he'd forgotten those already existed.
He shakes his head quickly and takes the paper from her. "No, no. No flame needed." He lays the paper down flat to his desk, pointing to everything with his wand as he explains it. "I'll attach a charcoal strip between these wires. This piece of battery is enchanted, and when touching this..." he grabs a small piece of rock. "...carbon, it will glow. Producing light. No more candles."
At this point of her father's inventing stages, Adeline could never quite picture nor understand what he was thinking, but that's usually when he got the best results.
Mr. Desford was a smart man. The smartest she'd ever met. He'd spent the majority of his life producing machinery for Muggles, enchanted for their own benefit in an attempt to improve Muggle life the way Wizard's already had it.
"And what will you call this one?" Adeline smiles.
Mr. Desford went back to work as he answered. "The Electric Arc Lamp."
She nodded. "I'm sure it'll be great."
And after a few seconds, Mr. Desford put his tools down and looked at his daughter, looking at the papers in her arms and back to her. He frowns. "How was your morning?" He asks, already knowing the answer in a way.
"I finally got a hold of Dugdale Cuffe." She nodded.
"And?"
"And he laughed in my face."
Mr. Desford wiped his oil covered hands on his apron and quickly began his walk towards the garden gate. "That Mr. Cuffe. I'll go give him a visit. Halwich— could you fetch my coat?"
The House Elf propped the broom against the wall of the front porch and made his way inside.
"Wait, Halwich, no need." Adeline called out after him. "Father, you mustn't do that." She almost let out a bit of a laugh at his reaction.
Mr. Desford turned around. "You're a fantastic writer, Adeline. Your stories should be in that ridiculous paper." He said, his eyebrows furrowed. "I don't care what these women are saying about you. If you want to work instead of wed, then you shall do just that."
It was then when Adeline realized that there had been 'women' gossiping about her reluctance to marry. Mr. Desford hadn't even realized he'd said it.
"It's okay." Adeline says. "I'll get there some day. He just turned out a bit more... stubborn" (was the nicest way she could put it) "than I had anticipated."
"That Mr. Cuffe." Mr. Desford repeated. "He's always had it out for us. He had a column about your mother in that paper once, you know? Lies about how she'd gone insane—"
"I remember." Adeline says, cutting him off from continuing.
It had been about fifteen years since Adeline's mother had passed. She'd grown quickly ill, and with that, came horrid hallucinations, claims of quickly approaching danger and demise. And then she was gone.
"But that's why I want to work there." Adeline says. "I'll make things better. No more rumors. Only facts."
However that column on her mother leaned more on the factual side than Alnwick grove knew.
Mr. Desford let out a sigh. "I'm sorry, my Adeline."
She smiles, though her father's words made her want to cry. "It's alright, you know I'll be back tomorrow with a new story. A better one."
"And the day after that." He added.
"And the day after that."
Mr. Desford perked up after a moment, like he had suddenly remembered something. "I have something that might cheer you up." He spoke. "I received this several days ago, just kept forgetting to share it with you." He made his way inside the house, Adeline following behind.
He stepped into his office, as Adeline removed her lavender colored cloak and handed it to Halwich, who took it up to her room.
When Mr. Desford came back out, he had an enevelope in his hand, a black wax seal that had already been opened. He took out the paper inside and handed it to his daughter.
MR. HERMAN DESFORD & MISS ADELINE DESFORD
ARE REQUESTED TO ATTEND THE BALL
AT BLACK MANOR,
ON FRIDAY, 22ND OF MAY CURRENT,
AT 8 O'CLOCK PM