Edward and the family

Edward was not offended by Will's stiff manner. Concern filled his face. "My child, I know you've suffered a great deal living on your own all these years. When your mother passed away, I was in Egypt securing certain interests for England, and I didn't hear the news in time. I'm truly sorry."

Edward began making conversation, paying little mind to Will's behavior. After all, this was their first meeting in eleven years; some distance was only natural. With apparent "concern," he asked about Will's life over the years and whether he had settled into Hogwarts.

Once the atmosphere had softened, Edward crouched half a meter in front of Will—a distance that maintained aristocratic decorum while still seeming sufficiently intimate. He reached out as though to pat Will's shoulder, but quickly drew his hand back with a casual motion and adjusted his collar instead.

His voice, however, carried a note of feigned heartache. "Look at you, child. You're nothing but skin and bones."

That was utter bullshit. The food at Hogwarts was excellent. In fact, with his frequent trips to the kitchens for extra meals, Will had put on quite a bit of weight that year.

"Father..." Will pretended not to notice Edward's gesture and put on a pitiful expression, as though he had suffered terrible injustices over the years. "I miss Mother, and I miss you too. I've been so lonely since Mother died..."

Of course, he was only acting.

In truth, Will was thinking. The Howard family was a towering presence in England, an old aristocratic dynasty second only to the royal family. If what his books said about wizards entering the service of high-ranking Muggle officials was true, what sort of wizard could they possibly fail to recruit? Why pay so much attention to an illegitimate son like him?

There were only a few possibilities. First, they distrusted wizards and their mysterious magic. After all, wizards really could warp reality, manipulate souls, and kill without a trace.

Second, cooperation between the Wizarding World and the Muggle world was less extensive than he had imagined, with wizards mostly serving governments rather than private individuals.

Third, they believed he had enormous potential and was worth investing in.

He could not help recalling that he had not seen a single wizard in the castle earlier. He had not even detected any flow of magic.

If either of the first two possibilities was true, Will felt he could carry out his plan smoothly.

"Good boy, my dear boy. You don't have to be lonely anymore. Your father is here." Edward comforted Will, still oblivious to anything amiss. Instead, a flicker of smug satisfaction crossed his eyes. With all his years of political experience, surely a few words were enough to fool a child? All the more so when that child was his own illegitimate son.

Edward wore a smile he considered gentle, while a barely perceptible scrutiny lurked in his eyes. He looked more like a man assessing a tool than a father regarding his own son.

A few minutes later, he had Thomas take the now-composed Will to his room to rest, then get ready for a small family dinner that evening.

"Your uncle is a wizard too. You two can have a good chat about Hogwarts. Perhaps he'll be able to teach you a few things." Edward spoke to Will like an ordinary father trying to foster family ties.

That information made Will's eyes light up.

Around seven that evening, Edward put down the telephone. The handover of his affairs in Egypt was nearly complete, which took a considerable weight off his shoulders.

Just then, someone pushed open the study door again.

"I hear my nephew's back?" A man who looked about twenty-four or twenty-five walked in. Fashionably dressed, with glittering diamond studs in his ears, he wore no formal attire, opting instead for a flashy outfit featuring a leather jacket. He looked like a carefree hippie.

This was Hobart Philance Howard, Edward's youngest brother, who was also a wizard.

Hobert brought a chill in with him, as though he had just returned from outside.

Edward frowned. His brother had been like this since childhood:

Hobart had been born with all the prestige of English nobility, but with a wild, unrestrained heart. As a child, he had chased the gardener's tool cart through the castle gardens, smearing his expensive silk shirts with dirt. The governess who taught him court etiquette got a headache every time she saw him. At the royal races, while everyone else wore formal clothes and polished shoes, he turned up in a casual waistcoat and canvas shoes, even slipping away between races to feed the ponies by the course, utterly unconcerned by the gossip in aristocratic circles.

Later, after going to Hogwarts to study magic, he constantly caused magical mayhem whenever he came home, leaving the family at a loss. Ministry of Magic officials had even been forced to visit and cast Memory Charms on servants who had fallen victim to his pranks.

Now in his thirties, he was still the same unpredictable “wild young master,” without a trace of the propriety and composure expected of a nobleman. Sometimes Edward envied this brother, four or five years his junior, who had neither political burdens nor business affairs to deal with.

He was more like the family's personal miracle doctor and its link to the Wizarding World.

"He's resting. You can have a proper chat with him at the family dinner tonight."

“That won't do. I'm going to see him now. I bought him a present, and I'm sure he'll love it.” Hobert hurried off like a child who had never grown up.

Edward sighed. Hobert's unrestrained behavior was one of the reasons he had brought Will back. The family needed more Wizards it could trust.

Wizards' powers were impossible to control. Particularly after an incident in which a Wizard with sinister intentions had targeted the royal family, they had drastically reduced the number of Wizards they employed. After all, no one wanted dangerous people capable of killing them with a flick of the wrist roaming freely at their side.

England's Wizarding population was small to begin with, numbering only around thirty thousand. Even fewer were willing to serve Muggle aristocrats and the government. The royal family and the prime minister also deliberately kept Wizarding resources under their own control, making it difficult even for an old aristocratic family like the Howards to find trustworthy Wizards.

Even if they found one, that Wizard would be nowhere near as reliable a prospect as Will—a child tied to them by blood and easy to control.

That was how Edward saw it.

Indeed, he felt no familial affection for Will. Whatever else he might be, Will was merely that commoner woman's child. Illegitimate children were a dime a dozen in the Howard family's history.

He had paid Dorothy child support not out of guilt, but simply as a matter of procedure. His father had also had several illegitimate children, and they had all been dealt with the same way. If every child his father had sired were counted, Edward would have far more than five siblings.

Aristocrats were quite happy to spend a trivial sum to let those illegitimate children live their own lives without coming to cause trouble.

The Howard family was also willing to welcome talented illegitimate children into its ranks. The truly outstanding could even be formally granted the Howard surname, rising to prominence overnight as members of that ancient noble family.

He believed a little boy like Will could never resist such temptation. It was wealth and status that ordinary people could not attain even through several lifetimes of effort.