In the days of Voldemort’s first reign, Ernald Etheridge was Head of the Department of Mysteries.  Given that an Unspeakable reports directly to the Head, not even divulging the nature of their particular case to others in the department, he alone was the sole proprietor of many of the darkest secrets known to wizard-kind.  Secrets the Dark Lord was very interested in getting his hands on.

 

This not only placed Ernald in grave danger, but his family also.  Voldemort was anxious that Ernald himself should remain unharmed….after all, what use was he dead or insane?  As Head of such a top-secret department, Ernald’s mind was protected by hugely powerful spells which would render him immediately catatonic should anyone try to take the information from him by force, including the use of truth serum.  But Voldemort’s caution did not extend to the rest of the Etheridge family, who were obvious targets in his campaign to force the Head of Mysteries to reveal all he knew.  It was only a matter of time before he managed to kidnap one of them, for such was his desire and thus he bent his will to this task industriously.  During these dark times, the Department of Mysteries was thrown into chaos, with many Unspeakables caught, tortured and eventually killed.  And still Voldemort did not secure the information he sought.

 

Madeleine Beaumont, Ana’s mother, was Ernald’s only child.  An Unspeakable herself before Ana was born, she knew that her family could not continue to hold out hope that the Dark Lord would be toppled from power before such time as he managed to get his hands on one of Ernald’s loved ones.  A fiery, courageous woman, bearing much of the spirit her daughter would later inherit, she refused to sit idle whilst her family, especially her mother and daughter, were in such jeopardy.  Without word to her husband, she approached the Order of the Phoenix with a proposition.  She would ingratiate herself with a group of known Death Eater informants and get herself as deep inside Voldemort’s inner circle as possible with the promise of securing that information which the Dark Lord so valued in return for the guaranteed safety of her family.  The Ministry, she would reveal, was so anxious about Ernald’s safety…or rather, the safety of those secrets he safe-guarded…that there was talk of allowing him to appoint a Secret Keeper.      Though her father was much too dedicated to his job to reveal who his chosen candidate was, even to his immediate family, Madeleine would assure those she spoke with that she was certain she knew of his choice.  And here, she planned her biggest gamble.

 

Her daughter, she would tell them, though only a year old, had been tested and revealed as having an acutely advanced memory.  Given the highly developed nature of the child’s mind, not to mention the fact that nobody would ever suspect a baby to be implicated in any way, Madeleine felt sure that Ana would be her grandfather’s choice, especially as he had always proudly announced her ability to one day follow in his shoes.  Also, she would reason, certain things had happened recently that supported her theory.  Her father had insisted that Ana be retested, obviously to make sure she was capable of handling the burden he was going to place upon her.  She had found documents, she would say, describing a candidate that “none would suspect, and for whom youth would be the greatest protection.”  A long list she would present, and eventually….when the time came, she convinced them. 

 

Now, a mother, she reasoned, was best positioned to influence her child and, though it would be a few years before Ana was capable of revealing all she knew willingly, in the end this plan would prove the one with the highest likelihood of success.  Her father, she warned, would let his family die and then kill himself before he would betray his position.  There was no way of coaxing the information out of him.

 

To say that the Order was aghast at this proposal is to put their reaction likely.  Initially, they refused.  But when she adamantly claimed she would do it with or without their support, they relented.  It meant, of course, that Madeleine faced many a long year feigning cooperation with the Dark Lord, waiting for Ana to grow to the point where she would supposedly be able to reveal every secret her grandfather had entrusted to her.  It was, she admitted, only delaying the inevitable if nothing was done in the next three or four years to dislodge Voldemort from power, as he would no doubt kill both her and Ana, and possibly the rest of her family, outright once he realized the deception.  But, she reasoned, he was close to doing that anyway.  Better to buy more time and possibly use her association to bring to the Order’s notice the identity of Death Eaters and informants alike, than to hide away in corners from he who could not be hidden from.

 

Voldemort’s greed, coupled with Madeleine’s very real anxiousness to buy her family’s safety at any cost, meant that he did not waste much time second-guessing her.  He was arrogant enough not to fear any damage she may be interested in causing, and was rightly justified in thinking he could always kill her if it proved necessary.  Ernald, he had accepted, was not going to be of any use.  But the child….well, perhaps the woman was lying…but if she wasn’t….  And thus, Madeleine’s plan seemed to work.  She brought to the attention of the Order Death Eaters whom they had not yet suspected, and her information alone was used to bring a couple of them to justice, though she was never implicated in their discovery.  But the pressure began to take its toll, and it could not be hoped that she could keep her family, especially her husband, from being suspicious about her recent behaviour.

 

Eventually, Carson Beaumont became so concerned that his wife was consorting with known criminals and murderers, either willingly or by force, that he followed her one day and caught her in the act of passing on her progress report.  Waiting until she was alone, he confronted her and….nobody really knows what happened next.  Madeleine Elizabeth Beaumont, nee Etheridge, was killed by a single shot through the heart by a bullet fitting the description of the gun found next to the corpse Carson Xavier Beaumont.  Such a gun, it was later revealed, was missing from his collection.  It was established in a post-mortem that the Avarda Kedavra curse had been used to kill him, but try as they might, none could piece together the final moments of the husband and wife’s last meeting.  Had he shot at her in a fit of anguished fury?  That, at least, seemed the most likely explanation.  But why had Madeleine, whose motivation all along had been the protection of her loved ones, retaliated?  What possible reason could she have for thinking it necessary for him to be killed?  After all, she must have known her own life was forfeit, why orphan their child?  With the Dark Lord so interested in Ana, and with Madeleine’s death making it impossible for her to carry through with her end of their bargain, what chance did Ana have should Voldemort attempt to take the child himself and use his own influence to coax the information from her, or kill her in the process?  In that final split second, did Madeleine realize that by killing her, her husband had also signed their daughter’s death warrant, or worse?  Was it a final surge of maternal instinct that caused her to lash out at him, he who was so threatening them both?  Or had Madeleine been swayed by the temptation of a life of power?  Has she killed her husband because, in the end, he was simply in the way?  None who knew her could believe this, but then little other explanation made any sense.  No third party could be implicated as no evidence was found to support such a theory, and it seemed impossible to manufacture a reasonable explanation for why Madeleine had killed her husband out of love, for him or anyone else.  Perhaps she had cracked under the pressure.  For most, it hardly mattered why it had happened.  It had happened, and that was enough to shed tears over.

 

And so Ana passed into the care of her Muggle Aunt and, tragically, only a few weeks later, Voldemort was toppled from power by a boy who would become legendary.  Ana was therefore never placed in any danger, and the knowledge of her mother’s plans involving her remained the knowledge only of those in the Order who had been aware.

 

One thing they could never determine, however, though they questioned Madeleine endlessly, was whether she had concocted the entire story of Ernald using Ana as his Secret-Keeper, or if, in fact, there had been the possibility of truth in the tale.  She had always said it was best only she knew the answer to that question, and thus the only person who may be able to answer it is Ernald.  Ana herself remembers nothing….but then, he wouldn’t have wanted her to.