"Come in," Ethan said, quickly straightening the parchment on his desk but leaving it visible.
No point hiding it now. He needed to know what she knew.
Catherine Thornton entered, elegant even in casual morning wear. Her blonde hair was perfectly styled, pearl earrings catching the light.
She looked every inch the wealthy businessman's wife, which was exactly what she'd become.
But when her eyes fell on the parchment with its emerald ink and official seal, something shifted in her expression.
Nostalgia. Worry. And something else Ethan couldn't quite place.
"That's..." She moved closer, tentative, like approaching something that might bite. "Is that from Hogwarts?"
"Yes." Ethan watched her carefully. "The owl just left. I wrote back accepting my place."
Her hand went to her mouth.
For a moment, she looked younger—like the woman in the wedding photo downstairs, the one standing beside Marcus Drake in dress robes, both of them laughing.
Then the moment passed and she was Catherine Thornton again, collected and controlled.
"Of course," she said softly. "You're eleven. Marcus said you'd get your letter when you turned eleven."
She sat on the edge of his bed, movements careful. "I suppose I've been... trying not to think about it."
Interesting. She'd expected this. Which meant she'd been actively avoiding the topic.
"What do you remember about it?" Ethan asked, keeping his tone curious but casual.
Eleven-year-old excited about magic school, not adult interrogating a source.
"About Hogwarts? About... all of it?"
Catherine's fingers twisted her wedding ring—the new one, not the one from Marcus.
"Not as much as I should, probably. Marcus tried to explain his world to me, but I was never..." She paused. "I never really fit there, Ethan. The magical people were polite but distant. They have their own society, their own rules. I was always just 'the muggle wife.'"
There it was. Resentment. Old wounds.
"When Marcus died..." She swallowed. "When the Ministry people came to explain what happened, they were so cold about it. 'Occupational hazard of curse-breaking.' Like he was just a statistic. They settled his vault affairs, gave me some paperwork, and that was it. No support, no follow-up. Just... done."
Ethan processed this carefully.
The magical government—this "Ministry"—had a bureaucratic system for handling deaths. They "settled vault affairs," which meant there was a legal process for inheritance.
His mother had received paperwork. Useful.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it.
Not for Marcus Drake the stranger, but because he needed her cooperative right now.
"That must have been hard."
She looked at him with sudden intensity.
"Are you sure you want this, Ethan? You could... you don't have to go. You could stay here, attend St. Augustine's with Richard's connections, have a normal life. Magic took your father from you. From us."
Ah. There was the resistance.
She saw the magical world as the thing that killed her first husband. She'd remarried into safety, wealth, and mundane normalcy.
Sending Ethan to Hogwarts meant acknowledging that world still had a claim on her family.
"I want to go," Ethan said firmly. "It's part of who I am. Dad would have wanted me to learn."
The invocation of Marcus softened her.
"He would have," she admitted. "He was so excited about the idea of teaching you, showing you everything..."
She trailed off, then seemed to gather herself. "What do you need from me?"
Perfect. Now he had her cooperation.
"The letter says I can get help getting to Diagon Alley," Ethan explained, showing her the parchment. "I wrote to Hogwarts asking for someone to show me around. But I also asked about Dad's vault at Gringotts. Do you know how I access it?"
Catherine stood, moving to the window and looking out over the gardens.
"Marcus left everything to you. When the Ministry settled things, they gave me documents—vault key, inheritance papers. I put them in the safe downstairs."
She turned back. "The vault key is small, gold, with a number on it. You'll need that for Gringotts."
Excellent. Physical key, like a safety deposit box. Old-fashioned but straightforward.
"And there's a letter," she continued. "Marcus wrote it before one of his expeditions. Just in case. He left it with the bank to be given to you when you came of age or..."
She gestured vaguely at the Hogwarts letter. "Or when you entered the magical world. I don't know what it says. He never told me."
Ethan's pulse quickened.
A letter from his father—probably explaining family history, possibly containing information about the grimoire or artifacts.
That could be valuable.
"Can I have them? The key and the inheritance papers?"
"After breakfast," Catherine said. "Richard is at the office until late tonight. We can go to the safe before lunch."
She moved toward the door, then paused.
"Ethan... be careful in that world. It's not like ours. The people there, they have different values, different priorities. Don't trust too easily."
"I won't," Ethan promised.
And he meant it completely.
After she left, he sat back at his desk, mind working.
What he'd learned:
His mother had the vault key and inheritance papers in a safe downstairs. She'd give them to him today.
There was a letter from Marcus waiting at Gringotts. Unknown contents but potentially crucial.
The magical government—this "Ministry"—had formal processes for death and inheritance. Bureaucratic, efficient, cold.
His mother felt alienated from the magical world and carried resentment about how they'd treated her. She wouldn't be an active resource—she'd enable him but wouldn't participate.
She knew the basic geography. Diagon Alley existed, Gringotts was the bank. But not the details.
No one from the magical world had checked on him in two years. He'd been left alone.
That suggested either they didn't care about half-blood orphans, or they assumed muggle-raised children didn't need monitoring.
Ethan glanced at the clock. 10:03 AM.
The owl had been gone for fifteen minutes.