C076 - Goldsborough

[POV 3rd person Goldsborough]

A broken apart family of two with a mother and a young girl were waiting on the outskirts of the town together with four muggleborn witches and seven young halfblood and muggleborn wizards and male squibs.

Patrick had found another brothel of Auror Gruff and his merry gang of lowlives by looting the ledger of the fat woman behind the counter of the brothel in Knockturn Alley. Amanda read through it to learn something that could be used against the man who 'owned' her. As a form of payback and as something that would help her savior.

Since this Gruff auror would be accused at the Wizengamot trial on this day, Talion had instructed his elf to destroy this second brothel just like the last one and to free its unwilling inhabitants. Thankfully, the mind healers still came by from time to time and would be able to take care of these people, too, for the right price.

The mother of the toddler looked the most lost among these rescued people despite being the only one who didn't have her mind twisted by magic. She was a pureblood witch who had birthed her fiance an heir and a little girl to dote on before they even married or finished their time at school.

But fate wasn't on her side.

Her fiance died not two months after they graduated from Hogwarts.

She thought the worst had already happened... but then her husband-to-be's family took away her newborn son to raise him just as she would have. As a Bole.

At least they didn't take away her girl, too, she thought for a short while but not even three days later, her own family sold her to a brothel.

Nobody would want to marry her now anyway. 'She is bad luck,' her father had argued and sent the two into the hands of those disgusting men. She didn't know that her father had a huge mountain of debt that he would have cleared with the young witch's marriage. Since that wouldn't happen anymore, her father had been desperate to find a solution. Her younger brother, the man's younger son was the one to suggest the brothel - he had heard about it from someone on his Quidditch team.

They had used the young witch's daughter to make her get in line, though even the witch's mother had pleaded to at least keep their granddaughter... alas, their debt was too big.

Others had their minds enchanted. She was made to follow orders by threatening to harm her baby girl.

A different experience for their customers, they had argued.

It was pure hell for the witch... and yet it only lasted a little over a month.

Then, the filthy pig working at the front desk died.

The witch had called out to the man's killer, pleaded with the little elf to find her girl, and a few murders later, they were reunited. Free. Finally.

Another week later, where nobody came to touch her in that whorehouse, every unfortunate soul was ushered to the floo in this rundown house in the middle of London. She had offered to take everyone along to their destination - after all, she had nowhere to go. Nowhere that was safe.

And unbeknownst to the witch, moments after the last boy was taken along with her through the floo to York, the building she was in before was lit aflame and both brothel ledgers dropped in the middle of the DMLE with the names of the unwilling prostitutes erased.

But what could Bernice Derrick do with her life now?

Her fiance was dead. His family despised her and took away her only son. Her own family loathed her presence even more and sold her into nothing short of the lowest form of slavery.

Instead of living a blissful life as a wife and mother, she was made to endure the worst a woman could go through in her own mind. Her children taken, her modesty stripped away, her body offered to strangers, her fate as though she was a lowly squib.

"Are these the girls... and boys?" Amanda asked as she walked over after Patrick called for her. The pale blonde girl was surprised to see the males in the group, but only for a short moment before her warm smile turned even more empathetic.

"Yes. Master made me free the oneses from the other place like he did with yous all," the sinister looking elf confirmed, and he looked... a little exhausted.

'Ah, he probably jumped ridiculous distances today,' Bernice idly thought just to think about anything else.

The new girl, Amanda, gave the newcomers pitying yet heartfelt smiles.

She had become the leader of the original group in no time. Nobody else wanted to do it, and she had the firmest mind of them all. It was natural for her to become their leader.

As such, she would become the leader of this new group as well, unless someone else would challenge her.

"Hello everyone, to Goldsborough. This quaint little town behind us belongs to the one who freed you. The men who held you like cattle, they also chained the other women already living here as well. Patrick, the house elf who freed you, released us from another whorehouse just like you mere weeks ago. You are free to live here and recuperate. There's healers who come here at the request of Patrick's master to mend our minds and bodies. If you so wish, you are also free to leave," Mistress Evert, as Patrick called her, explained with a warm smile as she gestured to the houses behind her.

Gingerly, Bernice raised her hand and was called upon by Amanda.

"Um, are we truly safe here?"

Amanda gave the witch a reassuring smile and confirmed, "Yes. Patrick is a formidable elf and rescued you from hell, didn't he? And to my knowledge, nobody in the magical world knows about this place yet. Plus, there are no muggles here unless Patrick orders some handymen from the surrounding cities to fix something that can't be fixed by magic."

Bernice could hardly believe what she was hearing as the elf preened a little under the praise.

Who had the money, the power, and the desire to establish an entire town without anybody knowing anything about it? And then fill it with people freed from brothels?

"Now, there's a few homes that you can easily move into," Amanda said with an inviting gesture and started to discuss something with the elf.

-----

Two days later, Bernice held a wand in her hand. It wasn't the one she graduated with, the one she had gotten from Ollivander on that amazing day she went shopping with her parents before she was enrolled into Hogwarts. That one was taken by her father before he sold her off.

Instead, she asked that elf, Patrick, if getting a wand was possible at all.

She wasn't a formidable charms mistress or second coming of Morgana, but she felt naked without a wand regardless.

Patrick didn't disappoint - he had a trunk filled with old wands that he was allowed to share with the witches and wizards he rescued. Discarded, old, and barely functional, Bernice found a pale wand that Patrick's master had labeled as 'birch, wyvern fang core - unknown species'.

It allowed Bernice to do simple household charms, and that was all she cared for at this moment. Because among these witches and squibs, as well as those few young men, Bernice felt lost. Her blood and her fiance were all she had before. Yet, that was taken from her now. She found kindred spirits among these girls, and though she lost most of her apprehension and disdain towards muggleborn and squibs since the few living here with her went through the same thing she did... she was still inherently feeling a little superior to them. Not without a wand, though.

She needed to be able to cast magic to feel complete.

"Mistress Derrick," the elf called out as she cast a simple cleaning charm on the table in the town library to test out how well her wand worked.

"Yes, Patrick?" She asked as she shot the elf a grateful smile.

Another thing that changed. Their family didn't have an elf, but her fiance's did, and she did not particularly treat it well. A behavior she copied from them.

But how could she continue to think that way when Patrick killed all her tormentors and freed her? He even went out of his way to find her little girl for her when she pleaded with the scarred creature.

"Master has an answer to your request. A potion's lab will be installed in the house left of the library. But it will wait until the school year goes on break for Christmas. Until then, he said to buy a few extra second-hand cauldrons and a magical furnace. He wants the magical herbs to be a priority," Talion's elf explained patiently and slowly, likely to manage to convey the full meaning of his master's orders.

Bernice wasn't particularly outstanding in any subjects at school, but Snape did teach the Slytherin students properly, and she had an adequate affinity for the subject. Since there was nobody else in Goldsborough except for the one witch who was busy with studying the few books on healing in the library here, and she wanted to stay in the town short term at the very least, Bernice suggested that she could focus on her potion studies once more and create simple potions for everyone.

"I can work with second-hand. Anything to feel useful," the mother of two answered with a smile. Her family was never rich, so she didn't disdain having to use handed down items.

She got a wand, and she was allowed to stand out as a potioneer. This was a great day.

[POV Talion '2/7th-on-his-way-to-kill-Voldemort' Macnair a day after getting the cup horcrux]

'Hiding the cup in the Gamp vault for the time being was a little risky. If Malfoy, for whatever reason, was in contact with Voldemort unbeknownst to me, he could try breaking into the vault like Quirrellmort did in the first year... but with Dumbledore being as brazen as almost following me into my own family vault as well, I didn't have the time to extract the soul shard and put it into another critter,' I thought as I read the Daily Prophet the next morning. I was still debating if I should order Patrick to take the cup away and hide it in Goldsborough, but that was more of a last resort. I didn't know how the horcrux would react to Volderat, the rat housing the soul shard from the diadem, who was still hidden in the basement below the shack I live in. I didn't need them to empower each other somehow.

On a different topic, having made national news yet again, I wasn't particularly pleased with the headline of today.

'Another upset at Wizengamot: New Lord Gamp breaks ties with his father's family - by Gracius Growle'

The whole article felt like it was written by Rita Skeeter, but I didn't see her name on any article today. And, it also felt like it was written by someone in the pocket of Lucius Malfoy because it tried to paint me as an ungrateful little turd who spat on family values. Not one mention of my mother's work as a spy or the horrendous way she was wounded by Voldemort just before she passed away.

I only hoped that the evening edition of the Quibbler that I ordered fifty issues of for today would paint the circumstances for my side a little more favorably and... honestly.

"What did you loot from the vaults?" Samuels, the one of the two beaters, asked from opposite me at the table as he finished reading the article himself.

"Hmm, a few grimoires they probably stole from families they wiped out during the war and a pensieve," I answered thoughtfully. "Oh, a huge tome on alchemy by Argo Pyrites. Quite excited about that."

Hilliard sitting next to me shook his head. With some mirth, he quietly interjected, "Can't tell non-Ravenclaws that all you took was books and one pensieve. They'll laugh at you."

I really liked the more outspoken prefect.

"Could tell the Ravenclaw girls and get them even more interested than they already are," Inglebee quipped with a huge smile.

"He doesn't need any help with that," Penelope added as she sat down on the free seat next to mine. "Are you okay? That wasn't a very nice read."

I shook my head with a wry smile and explained, "Quite a few omissions. It went as I hoped in the court itself, even if the end results turned out to be a little bothersome. I just hope they get that auror who stole from my family."

"Oh yeah, what was that about? The article didn't go into detail," Samuels asked with an intrigued smile.

As such, I described the 'outburst' I had instead of giving the welcome speech, and what I hoped would result from it. Penelope looked absolutely distraught at the mere existence of such brothels.

-----

After discussing my finances with the elves, I gave Patrick the okay to buy second-hand potion supplies for the witch who asked. He didn't need my okay for any purchases with muggle money because, quite frankly, that wouldn't run out anytime soon. But wizarding money was a different matter.

In galleons, I was still very far from being a millionaire even with the riches of the Gamp family. Because I learned they were terrible businessmen. Any money they made came from transfiguration textbook publications and one deed to a shop in Hogsmeade.

But my biggest headache from all of this was the fact that Bernice Derrick was among those Patrick rescued, the one who had asked to become a potioneer for the town in the short term.

I felt no guilt whatsoever for having done it, but I was the one who killed her fiance, Lucas Bole. I was the one to tip over the first domino that set in motion what resulted in her being sold into prostitution.

This was truly a wicked timeline...

In any case, I felt no guilt for having killed Lucas Bole at the Quidditch finals, but I still felt awkward having Bernice live in Goldsborough now. I had plans to make it an official 'magical fiefdom' with the blessing of the crown - an arcane law that was never rectified even when democracy replaced the monarchy for the muggles in Britain. Having someone live there whose fiance I killed was still something that could come back to bite me.

-----

That same evening, after getting bodied by Flitwick in another sparring session, I sat in the Room of Requirement to continue working on connecting with my inner animal. Unfortunately or fortunately, I ended my trance early, having accomplished no real progress, so I took out the Sayre family grimoire from my pouch.

Eagle Vision was one completely broken ability because, with some difficulty, it allowed me to see the hidden texts if I concentrated hard enough on the pages. It was all jumbled with everything written atop of each other, so it was not a very quick read. But being able to read the hidden information at all was a boon I celebrated.

I learned quickly that the Sayres didn't particularly focus on any field of magic. Many of the older information was outdated or even wrong, but the Sayres were old. Very, very old. As old as Rome old or even older. As such, there was information about rituals and blood magic, a deeply abhorred type of magic in Magical Britain in this grimoire that I would love to learn about in due time.

Skipping to the end of the book, I read something that was pretty much a journal entry by the last Lord Sayre, who lived in a little town called Coomloughra... probably Irish or Welsh judging by the spelling of that town name. William Sayre described how he had two children, William Sayre Junior, his heir and Isolt, his daughter.

I recognized the second name instantly. Isolt Sayre, the infamous founder of the best wizarding school in North America or at least in MACUSA, Ilvermorny.

In any case, William described how he sent his daughter away for fear a blood feud would see his bloodline end with him. A new continent had just been discovered by the muggles roughly a hundred years ago according to the entry, and they started building colonies. A perfect hiding place for his daughter.

'Judging by my own inadequate history knowledge, that was early 17th century... like 1600-1640 then, no?' I pondered before continuing to read ahead.

Mere days after Isolt was put on a ship, William Junior was captured by their enemies. William's wife Rionach Sayre went ahead to fight to free their son, but she was soon slain, a news his enemies taunted him with.

William Sayre, one of the wealthiest wizards of his time decided at that moment to order the goblins to send everything he was able to safe to his daughter in what would later become MACUSA and confronted his enemies.

This grimoire I was holding was apparently just a convincing, fully functioning, and enchanted copy that William cursed to bring bad luck to his enemies with blood magic.

I was about to throw out the book despite it not appearing red in my vision because I didn't need any bad luck, but William Sayre wrote down the curse, and that reassured me greatly.

I was many things, but I was not from Gaunt or the Viridian family. So I had nothing to fear... maybe I should ask the portrait of headmaster Vindictus Viridian for more information about their grudge with the Sayre family. He should have lived around that time, maybe a little later.