"What does your family do?"
Of all the questions Pandora's father had asked Xenophilius back then, that one had troubled him the most.
His family had not been well-off. Before he had even entered Hogwarts, his parents had died in an accident, leaving him only Carriage Castle and a meager inheritance.
After a fierce internal struggle, he had told the truth about his family.
That was probably why the Treadwell Family had looked down on him for so long.
He still remembered how it had felt to be scrutinized and judged by Pandora's father.
Now it was his turn to speak with his future son-in-law, and with his mind nearly at a standstill, the first thing that came to him was the question he remembered so vividly.
The moment he asked it, though, he realized something was wrong.
How was Vizet supposed to answer?
The Ministry of Magic had placed Vizet in his care from the start. Weren't Vizet's "family" Xenophilius and Pandora?
After all that, hadn't he simply asked about himself?
Xenophilius pressed his lips tightly together and struggled to keep his face blank, as though looking stern enough could hide how inappropriate his question had been.
The question brought back a pressure Vizet had not felt in a long time, and he fell silent.
He had rehearsed countless versions of this moment.
He had imagined Xenophilius asking how he planned to care for Luna, or whether they would move away.
He had imagined worse questions, too—whether Xenophilius might suddenly ask if Vizet had harbored designs on Luna all along.
He had even dreamed up plenty of absurd scenarios. In some, Xenophilius wore splendid robes and pointed to a mountain of Gold Galleons, demanding that Vizet take them and leave Luna at once.
Vizet had given at least some