Alexandra gaped up at Professor Flitwick in shock. He was waiting for her to cry out, but she just sat there, staring ahead. She couldn't believe her ears.

"But — Professor — there must have been a mistake..." Alexandra said in a hollow tone. "I — I lost my parents to Dragon Pox — years ago!"

"That's what we thought, too," Professor Flitwick muttered, now pale in the face. "But perhaps I'm not the right person to tell you this... Professor Dumbledore would like to speak with you personally... He'll be here any minute now."

      So Alexandra just sat there, her gaze fixed on nowhere as her racked nerves were messing with her mind. Were her parents alive all this time, only to have died recently?

      But that didn't make sense. If that was true, then why would they leave Alexandra with her grandfather? There had to be mistake.

      Alexandra waited impatiently for Dumbledore's arrival, her heart still pounding in her chest. So when the door to the office swung open after long minutes, she jumped to her feet at the sight of the Headmaster.

     "Good afternoon, Miss Starling." Dumbledore beamed down at her. "Please, take a seat."

      "I'll — I'll leave you two to it, then," said Professor Flitwick rather awkwardly, leaving the office and closing its door behind him.

     Alexandra sat back down in silence, forgetting how to speak. The words had lost their way down her throat and she had no idea what she was supposed to think or believe.

      "I'm sure Professor Flitwick had told you the news?" Dumbledore questioned softly.

       "How is this possible...?" Alexandra muttered under her breath, throwing her gaze down. "Sir, my parents died when I was a baby. From Dragon Pox. And then my grandfather — my dad's father — took me in. And you're telling me that my parents have been alive all this time, and only died a while back?"

      "I'm afraid not, Miss Starling." Dumbledore gave her a sympathetic smile, a sad expression washed upon his face. "They died around fourteen years ago, indeed."

     "Then — then how — how could you have found them?"

      "It was just a few days ago when a few Aurors had gone to the Castle Combe village in England for a mission," Dumbledore started explaining. "That village is, as I'm sure you know, where your parents used to live."

      But Alexandra didn't know. Although she decided not to intrude and let him speak on.

       "But that's when they saw it," said Dumbledore. "In the graveyard nearby, they saw their graves with their names upon it; Henry and Adeline Starling, died in December, 1961."

      Alexandra's heart sank at those words. That was in fact the date she knew her parents to have died.

     "Your parents were Purebloods, Miss Starling, so they were well-known by their names in the Wizarding world," he went on. "So naturally, those Aurors went through the village, questioning the villagers about the deaths of Henry and Adeline Starling. And that's when they came upon what they never expected to hear..."

       "Wh-what was it?" Alexandra mused weakly, her vision now blurred with tears.

      "The old Muggle villagers said that their bodies were found in their house fourteen years ago," Dumbledore explained. "They said that when the doctors tried to look for a cause of death, they found nothing; no heart attack, no poisoning, no sign of external or internal bleeding... nothing."

      "Which means that they were murdered by the killing curse," Alexandra mumbled under her breath, mostly talking to herself as she had her gaze fixed on the floor.

       "Unfortunately, that's what the Aurors came to understand as well." Dumbledore nodded.

       "But why?" Alexandra finally let out loudly, a tear rolling down her cheek. "Why would they kill them? And who would even want them dead?"

      Dumbledore sighed, shaking her head lightly. "No one knows."

***

After Dumbledore had spoken comforting words to Alexandra, she bid him goodbye and left the office. Professor Flitwick, who still felt sorry for her, offered to walk her back to the Ravenclaw common room and to talk to her on the way, in order to make her feel slightly better.

     Alexandra much rather to be alone with her own thoughts, but she was too polite to tell him this. So as Flitwick was talking on, Alexandra's mind wondered away.

      Why didn't her grandfather tell her anything about the her parents' death? Why would he lie to her and tell her they had died of Dragon Pox?

      But what if he had been lied to as well? Maybe someone had Confunded him, making him believe that, that was how they had died.

       But just then, Alexandra was snapped out of her thoughts when Professor Flitwick said,

       "... and your parents were in one of the first generation of students that I taught at Hogwarts," he said, grabbing Alexandra's attention.

      "You — you taught them?" she asked as a small smile crept through her face.

      "Of course!" Professor Flitwick squeaked happily. "They were one of the brightest ones in their year, too. And they married very young and had you. I always thought they were perfect for each."

       All her life, whenever Alexandra asked her grandfather about her parents, all he told her about them was that they were both Purebloods, and told her that was something she needed to be proud of. But now, she had finally found someone that could tell her more about them.

      "What were they like?" Alexandra asked excitedly, her eyes glimmering with curiosity.

      "Your father was the shy and quiet type, his head always stuck in a book. But your mother... oh, Lord..." Professor Flitwick chuckled at the memory. "She was a troublemaker. But just as smart as your father, that's for sure. Probably why they both landed in Ravenclaw."

      Alexandra stopped in her tracks at those words, her eyes widening and her stomach lurching.

      "Miss Starling?" Professor Flitwick said worriedly at the expression on her face. "Are you all right?"

      Alexandra tried to shake her head to get herself back to reality, before muttering, "Yes... I'm fine." But that was far from true. She wasn't fine at all.

     Even though her grandfather had never mentioned her parents' Hogwarts Houses directly, he had always told her as a kid that she belonged in Slytherin. That was why Alexandra thought that perhaps her parents were in Slytherin too, making her want to be in that House before being sorted.

       Yet, he had never mentioned that they were in Ravenclaw, just like her.

      But there was more to her confusion than just her parents' Hogwarts Houses. There was a worse matter at hand. Alexandra knew that her grandfather was never a good man, but this was beyond imagination, even for him.

      All her life, Alexandra used to visit her parents' graves in the small graveyard near her grandfather's house. If her parents were laid to rest in a village named Castle Combe, then that meant that the graves she always used to visit were empty.

      What dark secrets was her grandfather hiding?