Mrs Granger extended her a warm hand, which she shook. "Pleased to meet you, Clare, and so is my husband." Daniel Granger nodded to her, smiling just as warmly, and dressed much the same as his wife in jeans and a button up shirt.
She and Mrs Granger sat down and she looked at the table for the first time. The cutlery was silver. The glasses were crystal.
Clare felt lost. This whole situation was just too different from the script she'd followed for the last three years.
The masked lord behind her cleared his throat. "I'm going to go sort out dinner should be ready in five or ten minutes — The bar's all yours, Dan." He then left them.
Daniel Granger grinned, stood up, and started pulling bottles off the nearby cabinet.
Emma leaned forward and smiled. "I hope our lord didn't intimidate you too much?"
"Ah, no, not at all," she lied.
"Slytherin can be quite a scary person, but he has a good heart." Emma hesitated. "At least, to those he considers his friends."
Clare nodded and hardly noticed when Daniel Granger poured her a shot of some orange coloured liquid.
"So," Emma continued, "how much do you know of what this is all about?"
Clare blinked. "All this?" she looked around. Clearly something different was going on. "I don't really know anything."
Emma nodded. "Well, I'll leave the details to our lord to tell you when he gets back, but I will say we might have need of a valuable service you can provide, and, if we're a good fit, we might like to make you an offer."
Clare's mind raced. A 'valuable service'? There was only one kind of service she knew she could provide and she didn't really like providing it. On the other hand — she thought of the small pile of silver and bronze under her mattress — if the offer was good enough, she might be able to have enough money to finally buy a wand.
She wrung her hands in her lap under the table. "What kind of offer?"
Emma smiled. "Later. Why don't you tell us a bit more about yourself?"
Clare grimaced. "There isn't really much to tell. I'm a prostitute."
Emma's smile didn't falter. "We know that, but how did you become one? I'm sure our lord knows every single detail, but we don't."
Clare's shoulders dropped.
Daniel Granger finally sat back down after messing with the bottles and glasses at the drinks cabinet.
Clare grabbed the glass of orange liquid beside her, took a sip, and felt a heat pass through her body and up her throat. It wasn't as though she had any dignity left to lose. She put the glass back down. "I'm a muggleborn — never knew about the wizarding world — parents were convinced there was a perfectly rational explanation for all the weirdness that happened around me. Anyway, when I was eleven I received my letter for Hogwarts. I was so happy — it answered all my questions." She took another sip of the orange liquid.
"But then my parents poured water on that dream — didn't let me go — refused to listen to the witch they sent around — said it was all a lot of silliness and that I was going to go to a normal school and get a real job."
She looked up. Dan and Emma were listening attentively.
"And that's what I did — or tried to do, at least. Did well on my GCSEs and was half way through my A-levels — I guess you don't know what they are — but I never stopped thinking about the magical world — about the world I could have gone to." She paused. "I was seventeen when it happened," she said with a noticeable hint of bitterness.
Emma's smile had faded by now. "What?" "It was summer — I'd just reached my birthday and was looking to make some summer pocket money — to help me when I went to uni, you know? — and this man had what looked to be a great part time job offer. I wasn't paying too much attention to the contract, although it wouldn't have helped much even if I had, I guess."
Clare sighed. "I was tricked into signing an immigration contract. The kind of thing a muggle born signs when they want to completely move to the magical world and leave nothing behind in the non-magical world. The moment I signed the contract I was stunned and locked away for a week while the immigration company did their work. When I was let out I found my identity had been completely erased — no records no papers — no memories. My parents, my friends, my family, anyone who'd ever known me — none of them had any clue who I was." Both Daniel and Emma Granger were now wearing identical looks of disgust.
"I know, right? And then I learned the worst bit. The price of the service I'd been tricked into purchasing was far over what I could afford to pay. They tricked me, not only in erasing my family's memories, but they made me pay for it! Or they make me pay for it, rather. The repayments are far higher than I can make anywhere with no magical education — The person who set the whole thing up — I still don't know who did it — they sold my debt to this place. The owners now set both my repayments and my wages. That's how I became a prostitute. I have literally no other choice."
Daniel and Emma Granger's faces were grim. "And the collar?" Emma asked.
Clare deflated from her righteous rant. "That was me making a bad situation even worse. I'd tried running away before — once or twice — but I never got very far. Then, one time, I got all the way to a non magical police station. I tried to tell them everything. Everything about magic, about the situation I'd been forced into, about the people who go around erasing people's memories."
Clare snorted.
"I'm sure they thought I was crazy, but it didn't matter. The moment they made the official report, the obliviate wizards turned up, and I woke up in a ministry holding cell, waiting to be tried for a medium class breach of the International Statute of Secrecy. The wizards who owned my debt turned up at the trial and persuaded the court to release me into their 'care,' which the court agreed to, but only under the condition that I wore this." She tapped the collar. "It's keyed to the wards and I can't leave without permission. This isn't Azkaban, which I'm grateful for, but I'm still a prisoner."
Silence filled the room.
Eventually Emma spoke. "What would you do if you weren't in this situation?"
Clare shuffled her feet under the table. It dawned on her just how much she was telling these virtual strangers. "Buy a wand and go to magic school, but I don't know if that's even possible — They may not take people like me."
Dan and Emma shared a look.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you enjoy reading? Visit my site on Tiendup! There you will find the advanced chapter in PDF format, ready for your convenience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://fictiontopia.tiendup.com/