65 The Siblings' Past

A few weeks after the Slytherin leader's selection, Draco had finally received two very extensive reports on Alex and Anastasia.

According to what the private investigators found, there was indeed a blood connection between the two of them. The reports were very detailed and mostly focused on Anastasia, whose life was like a roller-coaster if everything stated was true.

Lord Sokolov's younger brother had a secret relationship with a young lady from the Vasiliev family. The girl, Tatiana Vasilieva, after accidentally getting pregnant, escaped from her family and the standing engagement with another man, in fear that she would be condemned once all of it became known to others. The child she gave birth to was Anastasia.

Unfortunately, Tatiana was in bad mental health after birth. She was also afraid for her child and suffered from depression as a result. Even magic wasn't able to save her, in the end.

After her death, the younger Sokolov brother found out about the accidental child he had with his first love. Of course, he wanted to take it in to be raised within the family, however, if the Vasiliev family, as well as the cheated fiancée, ever found out about what had happened - there would be no escape from heavy consequences.

As such, for the first three years of her life, Anastasia was raised secretly, in the Muggle World. But eventually - everything changed.

Because of his frequent outings into the Muggle World, the young Sokolov inevitably got familiar with muggle women, who flocked him wherever he went. After all, the Soviet Union wasn't considered wealthy at the time, and many normal families had to work hard for survival. Yet, there was a man who dressed like a prince whenever he came to visit his young daughter, who was constantly showered with expensive gifts and love.

What woman was able to resist this kind of temptation?

As such, after a while, the young and slightly frivolous wizard fell in love with the muggle woman, who was his child's caretaker (after much effort on that woman's part). This wizard finally decided to leave his family, as he now had a young daughter who needed his constant attention (and not just the crumbs he was able to give before) and a wife, who was pregnant with his second child - Alex.

Maybe the young Sokolov wasn't as intelligent as the Vasiliev heiress, or maybe his family's determination to find him was bigger than expected. Either way, after the first few uneventful years, the Sokolovs found out that their youngest family member escaped to marry a muggle, and even had children with her.

It was unknown why the Sokolov family was so determined to get their youngest son back, but either way – he resisted. He changed his surname to Orlov – the muggle wife's maiden name – and abandoned his wealth and magic to live as a muggle while hiding the children from the eyes of his family.

However, in the end, he didn't succeed and died from unknown causes. The two children, Anastasia and Alex, were forcefully separated from their muggle mother and came to live with the Sokolovs, while said muggle woman was Obliviated and sent to a psychiatric clinic after losing all of her memories.

Everything was peaceful for a while, yet Anastasia, who was older than her three-year-old brother when they were taken away, wasn't able to forget the parents she grew up with. So, she devised an escape plan to visit her mother and, hopefully, somehow make her remember the two children.

But the Sokolov family easily found out about her plan and prevented the escape. In the end, Anastasia, who was very talented with magic, tried to use a wandless spell which was too strong for her body to handle. The half-hearted spell hit the older Sokolov brother's wife, who was pregnant at the time, and caused a miscarriage, while Anastasia was turned into a squib. Ultimately, she was Obliviated and sent away to live in a muggle orphanage.

It was unknown what happened in the few years that she had stayed there, however, one thing was clear – she hadn't lost her memories that night and didn't commit suicide like the matron said when Draco and Alex came to inquire.

Instead, a few years after coming into the orphanage, she somehow returned to the Vasiliev family – the family to which her real mother belonged to before she escaped due to an accidental pregnancy.

In turn, the Vasiliev family adopted Anastasia, saying that she was the youngest daughter of Tatiana's older brother and, due to health reasons, she was introduced to the Magical Society a few years after her seventh birthday.

Draco frowned as he skimmed over the Russian girl's many impressive achievements and other unimportant details that the investigators decided to include.

There were a few things that didn't seem to connect.

First, the Sokolov family had a long wizarding ancestry – they wouldn't have made a mistake of wrongly declaring a child as a squib. So, it was either that they did it deliberately (but for what reason would they do that?), or Anastasia had somehow managed to recover her magic.

Draco was inclined to believe in the second option, but it was also slightly fantastical. After all, squibs were the children of the magical families who were unable to sense or otherwise utilize their magical cores. In other words, they had no way to control their magic even if they had it inside them.

For example, Neville Longbottom was thought to be a squib for the longest time because when he turned seven he didn't display any signs of being able to use magic. It was only when he was eight, and almost got accidentally killed by his grand-uncle, that he performed an accidental bout of magic that saved his life. And, before that, Neville's family members tried all sorts of ways to coax the magic out of him – with no results.

In the end, magic was something that people had to discover for themselves – it couldn't be coaxed out with the help of outsiders, and only some very dangerous rituals could make it easier to sense or use.

So, the question was: how did Anastasia manage to go from someone who couldn't use their magic – to a prodigy who was winning international dueling tournaments a few years later? Was it just that the Sokolovs somehow misjudged the situation and the girl's magic was only temporarily inaccessible? Or did she have some unconventional outside help?

But then, who would help her, and for what reason?

Even if the Vasiliev family found out about Anastasia while she lived in an orphanage, at most, they would offer her some financial assistance. After all, if she was a squib, it was usually a pointless endeavor to try and make her magical again. She wouldn't be the first or the last to be unable to use her magic after having it for a while – and it was harder to coax it out once again after one accidentally lost it.

Then there was another question – why was the Dark Lord Rasputin's favor lost when Anastasia's mother escaped from her family, and then recovered after her daughter came back? It was to the point that pureblood circles speculated that the girl was his own daughter!

Draco's eyes narrowed in thought as he once again scanned the documents in his hands for any clues. Finally, his gaze stopped on one unremarkable word – talent.

At that time, after the duel at the tournament, didn't Anastasia mention that the Dark Lord appreciated her for her talents? Back then, Draco thought that she was talking about her powerful magic, exceptional control, and skillful spell-work. Yet, maybe it was a lot more straightforward?

The pureblood families had their own talents – particular directions in which their magic evolved in over time. The Malfoy family had a talent in Mind Arts, which made it easier to use Occlumency and Legillimency, as well as granted them a better memory.

While the Vasiliev family… well, their talent seemed to have stopped appearing in the descendants - the members of this family were all magically powerful, yet none of them inherited the specific magic which made them outstanding. Just like the Black family, which didn't produce any descendants who were full-fledged Metamorphmagi until Nymphadora Tonks was born, this Russian family suffered from the same fate.

And yet, there was one key difference – no one knew what the Vasiliev family's talent was.

In general, people tried to keep their talents secret – after all, adding one surprising advantage was better than having something about which everyone and their grandmas knew already. Yet, over the years, as a result of intermarriage and constant use of similar magic, these talents slowly became common knowledge.

The exception was only those, which were either hard to detect, particularly rare, or had only a tiny possibility of ever showing up in the family's children. And, of course, the uncommon cases of muggle-borns' children inheriting their parent's magic.

Could it be that Anastasia's mother, who had escaped all those years ago, and now Anastasia, had the family's talent? Was it something that the Dark Lord needed?

Was it why he showed so much attention to the girl and even elevated the importance of her whole family?

At that time, after the duel between Draco and Anastasia, the girl mentioned that the reason for Rasputin's closeness with herself was dangerous to other people. She even advised him not to pry…

Draco sighed and rubbed his head tiredly. As long as he avoided this pair of troublesome siblings, he would be able to bypass any danger related to them. Yet, his frequent encounters with them were something that couldn't be coincidental.

After all, what were the chances of Draco visiting Alex's family shortly after the boy found out where his long-lost sister was supposedly living, encountering said sister in her brother's home during Yule celebration (without said brother's knowledge), having Alex follow him to Hogwarts and then encounter the Russian boy's sister once again in an international tournament?

The chances were so close to zero, that they couldn't be called chances anymore. Yet, there were a couple of other words which could adequately describe the situation: fate, destiny, prophecy and other Divination stuff.

In this new life of his, there was one thing which he definitely knew the fate was leading him to investigate – his own death and rebirth.

At first, there was the Egyptian scepter, which reacted to those, who remembered their past lives. Then, a few months ago, Draco saw his past self inside the Mirror of Erised.

Did it mean that the Vasiliev family's magic was related to death or reincarnation?

Was Alex only a side-character whose presence helped to lead Draco in the correct direction?

Or was he just imagining threats around himself?

Draco once again flipped through the pages of the investigation reports and skimmed through the ones which detailed Alex's life. In the end, he couldn't find anything suspicious – the boy didn't seem to be aware that his sister was alive, or even that she was only his half-sister through their father. Besides, there were no recent connections between the two of them and Anastasia showed no intention of contacting her half-brother.

Draco rolled up the pile of parchments and put them on one of the shelves in his room.

For now, he wouldn't involve himself further in these matters, but if, in the future, fate continued to lead him in this direction – he wouldn't be unprepared.

After all, if his speculations were correct, this meant that he would have to get himself involved with the Russian Dark Lord – be it as friends or enemies. Because, ultimately, Anastasia's talent's relation to death meant that Rasputin, just like Voldemort, was chasing after immortality – albeit in a slightly saner way.

Draco's eyes flashed with coldness and determination. In the end, he still wasn't strong enough.

He may not know for what reason he was reincarnated in the book series, or who selected him and kept directing his actions, but one thing was very clear – his destiny was his own to control. Even if someone did him a favor by helping him retain his past life's memories, it didn't mean that he had to dance to their tune.

One way or another – it was his right to live life however he wanted.