your disobedient servant, fabian prewett (disobedient) wrote in raveled, @ 2017-06-05 14:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! decade: 1970s, ! log, fabian prewett, lucretia black prewett |
Week 7 Prompt VII - Heir
WHO: Fabian Prewett and Lucretia Black Prewett
WHAT: Going through Orion Black's things
WHEN: 1979 in the days immediately following Orion's death
WHERE: Prewett House
WARNINGS: Old ladies being drunk!
It was really a rather rubbish picture. The photograph had no color, it was black and white (or yellow and grey by this point), and the three boys in it barely moved. The oldest one, who was around eight years old, had an elbow on top of the head of one of the younger boys, and was grinning at his brother’s discomfort and attempts to swat the elbow away. The third boy was laughing, sometimes hiding his smile behind a robe sleeve that was old-fashioned even for the 1930s. Lucretia was certain she was the only one who’d saved the photograph. Well, perhaps Alphard, but who knew? Besides, Sirius probably would have thrown it on a bonfire after Alphard died, not knowing what an effort that picture was. It was strange to think about now, with photographs all over The Daily Prophet and all the assorted magazines, but when she was younger photographs had been considered positively indecent in Pureblood society. Sad Muggle replicas of true Wizarding art. Allowing her wedding to be photographed had even been mildly scandalous, which seemed ridiculous now. The photograph she held in her hands was the result of a five-child adventure that had involved distracting multiple adults, finding an out of the way wand, and sneaking into Cedrella’s window to rifle their little hands through the mysteries their cousin had acquired from Hogwarts. There’d been a lot of arguing over what the camera was, then once they figured it out, the five spent the next hour taking absurd and ridiculous photographs, feeling delightfully naughty (and disappointed when they realized they had no idea how to make the camera give them the pictures). Which of course Cedrella had eventually had developed, and thought were hilarious. She’d given them each copies. The others had probably burned them after Cedrella was disowned (including Cedrella), but Lucretia didn’t have it in her heart to destroy the only picture she had of her brother smiling. Tomorrow was Orion Black’s funeral, and Lucretia had realized with a pang that she might be the only one mourning the little boy in the photograph instead of a man of the House of Black. The boy that had been obsessed with Hogwarts’ weird architecture, had a fondness for Ancient Runes and warding, and who had a horrible habit of leaving windows open in the winter causing everybody else to wake up half-frozen. He’d never been a particularly effusive person, but the life he’d led had closed him in on himself so much that at the end, Lucretia wondered if he’d been capable of enjoying anything. She was far from a Muggle-sympathizer, but that didn’t mean that she thought their society was perfect. Her brother’s life made her profoundly… sad. And tomorrow people were going to celebrate that sorrowful thing. ‘You’ve had too much wine. You’re getting maudlin.’ Lucretia smiled to herself, setting the photograph down and picking up the wine glass, taking another drink. Or perhaps not enough wine? She rubbed a hand over her face, trying to wake herself up, wincing when she ran her hand over a cut above her eyebrow. She’d have to heal that tomorrow morning. And remember to use some of that French cosmetic lotion Druella had recommended, she’d seen the circles under her eyes and showing up to her brother’s funeral in such a condition would be providing a meal to the vultures. “Mistress Lucretia?” The woman blinked. Oh yes, Ignatius had left the house elf while he went to his Herbology meeting. She nodded at him. “Yes?” “There’s a visitor.” That was a surprise. She’d told the elf to turn away most of her family (getting hit with one vase by Walburga was enough for the day). “Master Fabian.” Oh. Probably pushed over here by her brother and sister-in-law. Lucretia was almost frayed enough to tell him they could just pretend he’d pretended to care, and he could go home, but she bit her tongue and waved her hand to indicate he should be shown in. She raised her head and smiled as Fabian appeared in the doorway, “Hello, Fabian.” Lucretia said, “How are you?” She gestured for him to take a seat, “I’m afraid your Uncle is at a meeting. He should be back in a couple of hours if you’d like to come back.” Unlike many other people her age, Lucretia didn’t see the point in pretending not to understand that young people found them wholly uninteresting. She certainly didn’t volunteer to spend time with her parents at their age, and she expected they rather felt likewise. "No, that's all right; I've come to see you. Gideon meant to come with me but there's some sort of emergency at Mungo's. Apparently there was an attack--" Fabian stopped there and shrugged helplessly. Lucretia knew as well as he did the sort of thing he was talking about, though from the look of her she'd not had the wireless on to hear about today's crimes against humanity. Fabian wondered which of his so-called friends had been on the dealing end of today's attack, and how many of his other friends had been injured or worse trying to defend against it. It was not a question Fabian wanted to answer so he didn't consider it very long. The sober appearance of Fabian's clothes, which were dark, with the shine of his cufflinks and the buttons of his waistcoat muddled by a spell (they wouldn't be tarnished; not the done thing), revealed his purpose: he was here for a formal mourning call. Honoria Abbott, whatever else one said about her, would not let her boys forget propriety and manners. A member of the extended family was dead, and so the call must be paid, and not by boys hiding behind their mother's skirts like the under-eleven set. By adult men. "In any case, as I said, it's you I've come to see, to offer my condolences about your brother. I'm sorry for your loss. I know he meant a great deal to you." This last, at least, Fabian could say with sincerity. He'd detested Orion quietly, but he could at least be sorry other people were hurting. “Of course there was,” Lucretia greeted the news of an attack with a snort. It was rather indelicate, but she found that she didn’t care very much, whether because of the wine or everybody’s insincerity she wasn’t sure. Oh, everybody was very sorry about her brother and everybody was related to them somehow, it wouldn’t surprise her if some of them used their ‘grief’ to slip away from responsibilities and well… be violent extremists. Lucretia wasn’t an idiot, “I understand. People who are hurt and living take priority over the dead.” She agreed. It was always interesting seeing children in formal robes. Of course, Fabian was grown, but to her eyes he still seemed very young. She wondered how long that would go on. Did her parents still see her as a little girl? Of course, that would assume that her parents had ever seen her as a little girl to begin with, which was doubtful. What would they see in the coffin? A man with greying hair and worry lines, or a baby boy? She still had to figure out what she was going to wear tomorrow. There was protocol, of course, but emphasizing her femininity might not be the best of ideas given she intended to be rather… active in matters going forward and Lucretia wanted no mistakes made about it. Everything was about image, right down to Fabian’s cufflinks. The words were rote, of course. But she nodded, accepting his condolences. People expected certain things of their elders, and that included being stuffy and overly proper. “Thank you, Fabian.” Lucretia said softly, “I think that losing a sibling is… of course you understand you know your siblings in ways nobody else does. So mourning them is a very lonely thing, even when you’re surrounded by people.” It was one of those things people didn’t speak about very much, but eventually two of them would go through the same thing. That was the way of things. She picked up her wine glass and refilled it. That was… how many glasses? Not that it mattered. She took a drink and her smile turned conspiratorial, “I declare you to have performed your duty, and therefore discharge you to leave and change into less ridiculous clothing as you wish.” She cast her eye around the boxes that were strewn about the room. Each of which had represented a shouting match with Walburga to get them here, wishes or no wishes, “You can take some of the liquor if you wish.” Lucretia waved at a stack of boxes, “I don’t think it would be possible for your uncle and I to consume it all, and given its quality it would be a shame to waste it.” And Fabian was one of the more responsible young people she knew. He wasn't supposed to laugh on a formal condolence call, but Fabian found himself smiling nonetheless. "I will, if you truly don't mind. But I've nowhere to be for quite a while and you do look as though you could use some company, or at least some help unpacking these boxes. Sometimes it's better to do things by hand than by spell--heresy, I know--and if nothing else, I can offer my assistance there." That Lucretia might not be entirely sober enough to move boxes of fragile things on her own, even with her wand, was both true and impolitic. Fabian turned instead to the correct and polite thing to say, sprinkled with enough hard-earned professional knowledge to make it properly sincere, which she'd earned. "If you prefer to be alone, though, I can consider myself dismissed. I know sometimes grief is best experienced in private." Being barren had always placed Lucretia just a bit outside of traditional expectations, and being able to be a bit more human around the children than parents usually were was one of the few perks that came with the situation. So she appreciated Fabian’s smile. “Oh, you’re offering to babysit.” She said with a smile of her own, “How very responsible of you. I can’t decide if your mother would be proud of your responsibility, horrified by my lack thereof, or both.” Most likely both. “Yes, you can help unpack the boxes. Nothing in them is cursed,” She wouldn’t have left those lying around, and they were mostly Orion’s personal effects. Unlike some members of their family, he didn’t just curse things for the sake of cursing them. “Most of them are just going to be architectural drawings, wards, alcohol, and ledgers. Perhaps some school things.” She wasn’t certain. Orion was never sentimental, but he also kept his own council so much that what he’d had in his study was a mystery to all of them honestly. Alphard had been pretty much the only one preventing Orion from locking himself in there and drinking himself to oblivion, and they’d seen how that turned out. She took another drink of wine, “If you’re going to stay, you can open up something now, to make this less boring. I think there was some sake he said was difficult to get.” She really was going to an effort, so Fabian chose to do the same. "Dad told you and Uncle Ignatius about my interest in all things Japanese, I take it." Lucretia had never set foot in his flat, so there was no way she could know that there was a handsome plate repaired in the traditional kintsukuroi fashion on the display shelf over the wall that served as his kitchen. "I rarely turn down a good sake. Thank you--I promise to put it to good use." He moved to the boxes to start picking through them and putting things away. "Do you have a preference on where I start?" “Maybe,” Lucretia answered. Of course he had, and of course she’d remembered. Lucretia had grown up with approximately 50 million relatives, memorizing who liked what and who could be wheedled into what favors and so on and so forth was an indispensable skill. “I had a couple of Japanese pen pals, when I was very little.” She remembered, “I always rather liked the writing systems, and how you could apparently convey different things using the same words depending on how they were written.” She wasn’t sure if she was feeling so forthright because of the wine or because the longer she sat in her house alone the longer she realized that’s what her brother had done, and the more guilt over his… everything, gnawed at her. Lucretia didn’t like guilt. “I… I’m not sure. Orion was always more organized than I was. I just tend to put things into piles and then the elf puts them away.” Domesticity was more Druella’s wheelhouse than hers, “Finding ledgers and business related things are most important.” It would be like studying for exams all over again, in some respects. “Also perhaps the warding notes. He was rather good at them, we’ll go through and see if anything is worth archiving.” Intellectually worth it, rather than as a historical curiosity of the Black Family. "I'm sure I shall find them professionally fascinating, if not downright invaluable. Though of course I won't reveal anything to the Solicitor's Guild without your express permission. Independent researchers come up with the most fascinating ideas precisely because they haven't been told what they can't do," Fabian added. Auror training had been an asset for him as a solicitor in precisely that way: he came at things from a different angle. He found himself looking at the sides of the boxes for anything like a clue or a cipher that would tell him which box was which. Orion probably didn't use Universal Wizarding--too modern and pedestrian for that generation--but he might have gone for Waffling Septenary for organising his papers. "Aha, yes. He's coded them and I can figure out which is which based on the runes here." Fabian indicated the markings on the side of the box. "I'll look for the ledgers first. In my profession following the money is something of a given." “Yes, I will have to go through them first.” Lucretia agreed, “Though I probably won’t understand most of them.” Any more than he would understand her screeds on different forms of communication magic, “Sometimes I think the interest arose out of a desire to make people leave him be.” She shook her head in amusement, noting dimly she was being far too informal. Perhaps she would just make sure Fabian was drunk enough to either embarrass himself in return or forget. Merlin, she was glad she was old enough that doing such a thing was only a normal level of inappropriate instead of a horrifying one. “That does rather sound like Orion.” Meticulously organized. He’d never really understood that Lucretia was organized… after a fashion. She knew where things were, and that was what mattered. “Yes, of course,” Lucretia agreed, “Those are what I need to spend all night studying, so best to find them first. Though I would be careful, following that money might land you in a maze from which you will never escape.” Sometimes she thought her family’s resources were so far flung and diverse that nobody really knew what was going on. It was possible. "Please," Fabian said, eyebrows rising as he peered over non-existent spectacles at Lucretia. "I'm a solicitor. Following the money down rabbit holes and into the dragon's lair is in the job description." He smiled again to allow the jest to be light, adding a touch more seriously, "Orion Black's estate will certainly be the most complicated financial matter in Britain. I pity the solicitors who are holding those bindings. “ "Don't tell cousin Narcissa I said that--about the complexity of the estate. It'll just inspire her husband to tangle his up further by way of competition." Which was probably impolitic to say but well, it wasn't untrue either. If he was a youth compared to Aunt Lucretia, Lucius must appear a babe in arms. “I don’t, they’ll be seeing as much of the estate as we do by the time the whole thing is managed,” Lucretia said lightly. Actually, she valued their solicitors. They were more than worth their weight in gold, “But yes, you don’t need to remind me.” The woman sighed and rubbed her forehead. Given that Regulus was dead and Sirius was disowned, matters were… complicated. And not that they’d advertised it, but her father wasn’t in any mental shape to take the reins. That warranted another sip of wine. “He set out his personal affairs well enough. The main question is about the familial…” Lucretia made a gesture that was supposed to encompass the idea of ‘everything’, because a better word wasn’t coming to her. “Historically, I’d think it was an interesting situation if it didn’t involve me. A daughter versus a male cousin.” Tracing up to her father as origin point since Orion was a dead end. She raised an eyebrow of her own, “I should think you’d be in favor of tangled estates. The more complex, the more work, after all.” “Besides, it allows you to use all those byzantine loopholes and rare clauses, unlike a straight-forward ‘I leave my wife everything’ cases.” She certainly preferred intellectual challenges. "It's a lot easier to enjoy the spoils, as it were, of familial distress when it's not your family, even at a distance." Fabian was wandering through the piles of boxes, hoping they contained what the marks on the sides said they contained. "I've gone through the lines of Dad's--Uncle Ignatius'--side of things but a collateral heir like Gideon is nothing compared to the Black thicket. And I don't keep close track of the tapestry since I'm not on it and not likely to be, but the cousin marriages just complicate the testmentary wards. Untangling it--well, there's a reason why they put four covens of experienced wizards on the Wizengamot.” "Ahhh, here's one that may be of interest." Fabian lifted it by spell and levitated it to Lucretia, carefully not touching it. His blood was pure and he was a distant cousin, as all the families of the Sacred Twenty-Eight were, but there was no point in chancing any curses Orion might have laid on the box. “Yes, that’s true,” Lucretia agreed, “Rather like trainwrecks are only interesting if you’re not on the train in question.” She took the box in question, using her own wand to place it on the table in front of her, reaching in and pulling out a book at random, flipping through it. Well-written, organized, and boring. She fought the urge to sigh, looking back to Fabian. “Yes, well, the main question is about female inheritance,” Lucretia said, “Father ceded his position to Orion, and some messiness in the 1300s means you can’t reclaim a voluntarily ceded position.” The interesting thing about rules was they tended to be amended only after unusual circumstances proved they were insufficient. She’d always liked that about Ravenclaws. Hufflepuffs followed the rules, Gryffindors ignored them, Slytherins snuck around them, and Ravenclaws simply did things so preposterous nobody had thought to forbid them yet. “So am I allowed to be his heir?” She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile, “Now 40 years ago I would have relished this fight, but now I find the idea tiresome. I’ve constructed a life accepting my position and limitations.” She picked up something else from the box, a rolled up piece of parchment, and unfurled it with a surprised raise of an eyebrow, “Ah. I’m surprised he kept this.” Fabian was, of course, familiar with the broad strokes of entail history and the concerns about how they'd been applied to the House of Black. Normally there was a written document with intent filed to accompany the entail spells, but apparently Orion Black had gone his own way with that and, unusually, either lost or failed to update the document, or hidden it somewhere because he didn't want someone to try to overrule his decisions ... who knew? It was a complicated business, though, trying to wind down all the spellcraft and intention. Normally you had a solicitor carry these spells through so they would survive your death, but there were other ways to do it, some of which were rather Dark, but it wasn't as if Fabian thought Orion Black would care. He was about to say something about unwinding the spellcraft when Lucretia held up the parchment. "What is it?" he asked, actually interested now in the contents of the estate. Lucretia smiled at what seemed to her like a polite question that Fabian probably didn’t care about the answer to. He was indulging an old woman. When had she gotten old enough for that to not be insulting, and if they were that old, why did it feel like her brother had died so young? It was a strange business, this being old and young all at once. She unrolled the old parchment, spreading what turned out to be a map of Hogwarts on the table, “Oh, my brother was interested in architecture growing up.” Lucretia explained, “He spent a lot of time trying to understand the castle at Hogwarts. He claimed there was an ever-changing room in there somewhere,” Lucretia shook her head, if it had been anybody else she would have dismissed it as a childish fantasy. She rolled the parchment back up and put it back in its box. There wasn’t any of that little boy left in the body that was waiting to be buried. Don’t dwell on it. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled. “Thank you for staying, Fabian.” Lucretia said as she finished off what she decided was her last glass of wine for the evening, “I do hope I haven’t been too improperly human tonight.” She gave him a smile. Acknowledging awkwardness could help it, sometimes. "Nonsense. Human beings are so much more interesting than their facades." But the lady had given Fabian his marching orders, so he rose to his feet. If nothing else, he'd have the pleasure of mentioning to Headmaster Dumbledore that there was an architectural map of Hogwarts in the Black papers and seeing what he had to say about the ever-changing room. "I hope I've been of some small assistance, with the archiving if nothing else. If you find when you've slept on things--" Fabian carefully chose not to say and you're sober "--that you'd like me to work with you on cataloguing things, I'm at your disposal." Merlin alone knew what he'd find in there, and it was probably useful as anything else he was doing for the Order. |