Chapter 769 - Culling Aftermath Ⅹ (1/2)
The higher they went upstairs, Edwyn ceased to babble and became rather quiet. The little golden-haired boy nervously clutched his tattered bunny rabbit to his c.h.e.s.t. ”Is this your first time upstairs, Edwyn?” Peregrine asked his nephew with concern.
Edwyn slowly shook his head. ”Uncle Beat says that I'm mostly a wizard and not much of a house elf. But I'm good at moving about,” the little boy proudly said. ”I can pop into almost any room in the house because I can feel the house magic.”
”Interesting,” Peregrine truthfully murmured rather intrigued by the natural manifestation of house elf of his nephew that could be controlled, unlike most wizarding children.
”But Grandmama and Uncle Beat don't want me doing so,” Edwyn much more subdued replied. ”They said that father and grandfather are terribly mean and will hurt me if they catch sight of me. I won't be in trouble will I, Uncle Per-Per?”
Peregrine almost missed a step at being called uncle and uncle per-per at that. ”No, your father-, my brother has gone far away. And your grandfather is very ill, he is at St. Mungos. He won't ever leave and return.”
”Oh, good,” Edwyn said with an innocent smile before they emerged out into the kitchens where the anxious figure of Beat awakes.
”Uncle Beat, I met Uncle Per-Per!” Edwyn excitedly cried out to the house elf. ”He says, I can live up here now and you too! And that I can get a wand and go to Hogwarts someday!” He excitedly babbled all the things he was going to do and the adventures he was going to have.
”Beat is most happy!” Beat tearfully sniffed as he blinked back tears and tugged on his ears from emotion.
”Why don't you help Beat make cookies for tea?” Meredith whispered affectionately to her grandson to distract him. ”Afterwards, we can pick your room together!”
”Yes, please!” Edwyn said as Peregrine carefully set the four-year-old down, who happily went to help his uncle Beat make cookies.
Waving goodbye to the four-year-old, Peregrine and his mother make their way to the study, where Peregrine firmly closes the door behind him. ”Is Edwyn, Daiman's son?” Peregrine roughly asked not wanting to waste any time.
”Yes,” Meredith tiredly replied as she sat down. ”You brother hated all the house elves after I took you away. Ultimately, he blamed them for separating the two of you that dreadful day.” She paused and scrunched up her face with terrible old pain. ”Under your father's hand that hatred only grew and became twisted into something so terrible that even now it churns my stomach to think of what he did.”
Peregrine fingers dug into his palm as he asked a question he had never dared to ask before. ”Then mother, who was Tilly's father?”
Meredith does not reply as Peregrine turns ash-colored and green. ”How, how could he!” Peregrine raged. ”No matter the depraved mind that Father possessed how could he possibly permit and turn a blind eye to his own son forcing upon his own daughter!”
”I never fully understood your father's sickly, twisted mentality,” Meredith quietly explained. ”But of this much I am certain and that in his mind Tilly was not his daughter but rather a mere house elf.”