Secrets, Stories, Selwyns [Harry Potter]

chapter one: back

chapter one: back

*thirteen years later*

Silas Selwyn and his daughter Rae lived in Great Hangleton. This town was considerably larger than Little Hangleton, a small village just six miles away from where Silas and Rae resided.

One day, Silas was walking on a street not far from his home when he saw a muggle newspaper with the word "murder" on the front page. Though he hated anything muggle, including their newspapers, he had to admit that the word murder intrigued him. Maybe it was because he was happy a muggle had been killed, but he didn't really know why he touched something made and owned by muggles.

It was quite an interesting story. It was about a murder in Little Hangleton, and seemed to involve wizardry. However, the muggles didn't know that.

UNEXPLAINABLE MURDER IN LITTLE HANGLETON

Just one day ago, the body of Frank Bryce was found in the Riddle house up on the hill near the edge of the village. Bryce had been the gardener at the house for as long as anyone could remember. Though its occupants died 51 years ago, he continued to tend to the garden. No one knew why he stayed, for in those fifty one years, only three times was it owned by someone else. Never did they stay long.

The Riddles were very wealthy, but were all mysteriously killed one night in 1943. Their bodies showed no sign of harm and it was very unlikely all three just dropped dead. Frank was suspected of killing them and was brought in for questioning. He claimed a young dark-haired boy had been climbing up the hill the day previous to when the Riddles were found; unfortunately for Frank, nobody in the village had either known or seen such a boy. Due to the lack of evidence, Frank was released.

Yesterday, on August 17th, Frank's body was found in the Riddle house. Mysteriously like the Riddle family's deaths, there seemed to be no harm to his body at all. It is believed to be some sort of murder but no one can figure out how it happened.

This was why Silas suspected wizardry to be involved. Frank was quite obviously killed by the killing curse, Avada Kedavra. It shows no sign of harm when you die, matching the description of the news reporter.

Silas tucked the newspaper under his arm and continued home. He worked in Diagon Alley as a shop assistant and could easily apparate back to Great Hangleton. However, since the streets were filled with muggles, he was forced to apparate a ten minute's walk away into an alley next to the library.

Silas reached his home, the middle of the street and the largest. It was somewhat like a mansion, with four full floors and a gate and fence complete with a garden and fountain. He had inherited it from his parents, being an only child. He also had inherited a rather large sum of money, all safe in the Selwyn family vault in Gringotts. He only worked to have something to do.

Once he entered, he called for his house-elf. "It!" And It the House Elf appeared.

Yes, he had named his house elf It. But what did it matter? He believed elves inferior to wizards; he thought them as nothing more than servants. They didn't deserve real names if they were not people.

It cowered under his master's glare. It seemed like his master was always glaring for no apparent reason. In his head, yes, Silas had a reason. Was that reason really reasonable? No. Silas hated anything he believed beneath him, and It just so happened to be one of those things. Most would criticize this way of thinking, but as one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight pureblood families, it was common among them to think these things.