"Could you please tell me where you got this from?"

"..."

Axel paused. He couldn't just say,

'I got it after I won its allegiance by killing your husband,' as the system had informed him.

Or could he?

'No, let's not risk it,' he thought. Accepting would be equal to admitting a crime. This woman may not resent him for her husband's death, but if he accepts, she will always have the power to get him a death sentence whenever she wants.

"I picked it up from the road," he said finally. It was technically true.

Evelyn shook her head in disappointment,

"How did she recognize the wand?—that's probably what you're wondering right now, aren't you?" She asked him with a sad smile.

Axel didn't say anything, but his silence was a loud agreement.

"When you have the same wand pointed at you multiple times, you just know… no matter if most of it is covered in leather," she said in melancholy, and Axel could see that her Occlumency was slowly going away, showing her real emotions.

Axel looked away from those eyes,

"I'm sorry for what happened to you in the past. But I really can't help you with anything…"

Evelyn shook her head.

"I'm not asking for any help. I'm just asking you to hear me out. Then I'll say what I want from you," she said earnestly.

Axel sighed,

"Go on," he might as well hear her out.

Evelyn looked at her wine glass as she slowly swirled it.

"You know, deep down, I've always wished for his death. But there was nothing I could do. I was already bound by contract, and bewitchment charms.… I had given up hope a long time ago," she said, a hollow look coming to her face as she remembered the past.

She then looked back at Axel as light returned to her face.

"But then one day, he was suddenly gone, finally leaving us for good, and I was finally free, as all the magic binding me failed when the person with whom it was keyed to disappeared. And that was the happiest day of my life! You cannot imagine how much it meant to me and how much gratitude I felt towards the person who had finally rid the world of that scum... I tried finding who it was, but I couldn't…. And then, I saw the wand in your hand," she said as a smile came to her face. She stood up from her seat, surprising Axel.

She had wondered how he got it and if he knew anything about the one who had killed her husband. And most of all, how was he able to use that wand? She felt extremely curious about the boy, especially since he was someone whom her daughter had befriended.

"I needed answers. So I tried to find everything about you," she said, walking around the table to stand on Axel's side.

Axel listened to everything she was saying and he was still on guard.

"You checked my background? What did you find?" He asked, feeling uncomfortable since she was standing too close.

Evelyn smiled as she recalled her research, her Occlumency slipping further.

"Do you want to know what I found?" She asked.

She already knew that Axel was injured. Finding out more about his injuries led her to know a shocking fact! Someone named Axel had been admitted to Saint Mungo's on the same date as her husband. Though the rest of the records about him had been mysteriously removed.

She also came to know from Daphne that Axel often keeps a knife around with him and is quite powerful. What a coincidence that Cyrus had been killed by a knife. And she also found out from Olivander that the only reason her husband's wand would serve another is when he has been bested by someone.

Knowing all this, she was smart enough to connect the dots and come to a conclusion.

Her Occlumency shields dropped completely as she finally stopped resisting her emotions altogether.

"?!" Axel was prepared for some questions, but Evelyn did something completely unexpected.

"I found that: You're the benefactor I've been looking for," she said as she gracefully knelt on the ground.

Axel stood up in absolute surprise,

"What the— What the hell are you doing?!" He asked hastily, his voice coming out loud after being completely bamboozled.

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Evelyn had a serious look on her face,

"I'm expressing my gratitude. Bowing is too small a gesture to express the magnitude of my gratitude," she said earnestly.

Axel shook her head,

"Whatever it is, get up! Just don't kneel like that!" He shouted uncomfortably as he tried to lift her up.

Click* *Creak*

At this moment, the door behind Axel opened and Daphne's voice came.

"Mom, what's all the noise ab—" her words stopped abruptly in her throat as she saw the scene in front of her. What she saw was the back of Axel, who was gripping a kneeling Evelyn with both of his hands, whose face appeared to be quite close to Axel's legs.

"!"

As soon as the door opened, Axel turned his head and Evelyn peeked from the side of Axel's leg to see a wide-eyed Daphne giving them a last glance before running off.

"D-Daphne?! Sweety, I-It's not what it looks like! I swear!" Exclaimed Evelyn as she rushed to explain.

Meanwhile, Axel looked up at the ceiling blankly.

"... What the fuck just happened?" He muttered as he questioned reality.

He recalled similar scenes when he'd sometimes walk into some Alley to see some woman kneeling in front of a man, moving her head back and forth. Did it really look like 'that'? What a bad timing she had.

His life always manages to surprise him by taking the strangest of turns.

He wondered whether everything was his fault. Was it his fault that he tried to rob a mad wizard? Was it his fault that he was rude to a hat? Was it his fault that he had precious ingredients lying around in his room since he never thought a Troll might be wandering in the castle? The list seems to go on and on and he was too lazy to complete it.

Now he only had one thought in his head:

'Will she still do my homework?'

Yep. So much happened, and this was what he was most concerned about.

"Why was mum kneeling?" Asked a voice, and Axel looked down to see Astoria looking up at him with curiosity.

"..."

As he thought about how to explain it to the girl, he realized something else.

How would Evelyn explain this to Daphne? She'll say, I was just kneeling in front of him. Why? To express my gratitude. What kind of gratitude? He killed your dad.

Boom. It's game over for him once someone picks that off Daphne's unprotected mind. And he can't have that. Hogwarts is not a safe place. He already knows three people who use Legilimency freely. Dumbledore, Martina, and Snape.

He turned to Astoria.

"Where did your mom and Daphne go?!"

Axel rushed to Evelyn to prevent her from speaking anything about him murdering a pureblood Lord.

And it would seem that he had barely made it in time as he found the mother and daughter standing facing each other.

"How could you?!" Asked a furious Daphne and Axel saw that Evelyn didn't seem to be thinking smartly right now.

'She's definitely going to tell her!' He realized.

"Sweety, it's not what you think. I was just—"

"Your mom was just helping me with something," he said as he rushed to stand between the two.

"..." For a moment, all of them stood in silence in which he signal Evelyn not to speak about it.

But then Daphne shook her head.

"Oh, what was she helping you with?"

"Well..." Axel paused.

Axel had managed to rushed here in haste, but he still hadn't thought of an alternative explanation.

Daphne shook her head in disappointment.

"I need to go..."

"Wait. I swear she wasn't for doing what you think she was doing—" began Axel. Daphne became even surer that something was up.

"No you wait! First you didn't even so much as thanked me for the gift I put so much effort into, and now this?!" She shouted as she left with tears in her eyes. Right now, she wasn't thinking straight.

The image of her mother kneeling in front of her father came into her head once again. That was the real reason. Not some weird bullshit like her mother giving a blowjob. She's not foolish enough to misunderstand it. In some ways, Axel is just like her father. Like how apathetic he is.

"Wait...What gift?"

Axel couldn't even ask her what gift she was talking about before she had left. But... this time, he could at least warn Evelyn.

"Don't tell her about the murder thingy," he whispered, fairly nonplussed with the whole ordeal.

Evelyn looked at him in confusion before her eyes widened as she slapped her forehead.

"Right! Of course, You could be in trouble!" She muttered in realization.

After that, Evelyn temporarily gave up on Daphne and decided to focus on finding ways to help the benefactor who was looking troubled.

"Don't worry, it's just a misunderstanding. She'll come around," she told Axel to reassuringly to Axel.

"Let's first talk about your problems, shall we?"

"Tory, will you go look after your sister?" She asked Astoria.

"Okay!"

Astoria looked at the two of them before nodding and starting to leave. Though before she did, she turned around.

"Am I getting a new daddy?" She asked innocently.

"No!"

Shouted Axel immediately while Evelyn began laughing,

"There'll be no more daddies here now, sweetheart,"

...

A while later, Axel was on his way back to his temporary gangster residence in Lambeth, still thinking about the series of events.

After that, Evelyn had managed to persuade him to let her help with the ingredients for his Potions and diet after repeated insistence. Though that was it for now. He wasn't going to give her the potion recipes to make them for him despite the fact that he could have a constant supply of those right from the next day if he does. The recipes are precious, and he can't risk them being stolen. He needs to think more about this.

As he walked along the snow covered streets, his ears picked up a conversation.

"Hey! Looks like that kid is loaded, eh Benji?"

"Yeah man, looks like it's a merry Christmas for us,"

Axel snapped out of his thoughts as he heard the voices from his surroundings. The taxi driver had dropped him off earlier than the destination due to the dangers of this neighborhood. And he realized that he had been walking in this dangerous place with expensive clothes on his back. This was just asking for trouble.

The disdain he felt towards these people made him ashamed as he realized that Cyrus must have also felt similar disdain when he saw Axel.

"Hey, where did he go?!"

"What the fuck?! He was right there!"

Axel just walked by the gang without doing anything. He wanted to avoid any similarities between him and Cyrus and he couldn't be bothered with these pitiful people right now. He wanted to think more about what happened today.

He went into the room in Johnny Scars' villa that he had been staying in and laid down on the bed. As he recalled the events, Daphne's words came to mind.

"First you didn't even so much as thank me for the gift I put so much effort into, and now this?!"

"What the fuck was she talking about?"

Frowning, he looked at the window to see it completely covered with snow. He got up and opened the window that was completely covered in snow and voila, he found a pile of things wrapped in different types of wrappings lying on the snow-covered window stool.

"Are these… Christmas gifts?" He muttered in disbelief. He had never received a Christmas before this year.

This day was getting more and more bizarre. There were actually people who'd bother sending him gifts.

So, he did get Daphne's gift, huh? But what about the other gifts lying here?

....