Time did what time does and progressed in the natural way it does. I had gone from telling my best friends, knowing that their families and others I knew, already knew and were hiding that fact from me to dealing with his return. Soon enough people came to accept that Voldemort had returned and I was forced to accept that I was yet again condemned to be a secret. Not only his secret but their secret too. Once again, I found out who knew about his daughter.

NARCISSA MALFOY: Told by Voldemort in order to protect me. 1996

LUCIUS MALFOY: Already knew but I assume was told things by Narcissa. 1979

PIUS THICKNESSE: Told by Voldemort, but I don’t think he remembers. 1997

BELLATRIX LESTRANGE: Knew and hated it. 1979

Other Death Eaters would perhaps find things out but they were not very smart so I doubt it. If students had Death Eater parents, they would suspect me as something but didn’t know what. It was perhaps inevitable that other students would find out. I am lucky that most of it became to be speculation, rumours.

The worst was when Professor Albus Dumbledore died. A flamboyant end is what he would have wanted but nobody saw it like that. For once I wasn’t trying to hide the secret of my birth I was trying to hide that I had helped to do it. I was now the niece of Dumbledore’s killer. He always had a way with words and I remember a particular saying he liked “you will find that I will only truly have left when none are loyal to me.” Since Professor Snape was always loyal to him, as so many are, including myself, I feel he never left and we did ok.

This lasted for the next year, Unless I am mistaken it was fairly common knowledge around the school and the Ministry, where I was training. Snatchers and Death Eaters may have not known to what extent we were related but everyone could see that he protected me and I was an “untouchable”. I don’t know what extent this would work today, and I am not willing to test it out.