Marcus Flint (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} marcedflint) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} finnigans_rpg,@ 2015-03-15 22:32:00 |
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Who: Marcus and Phillipa Flint (NPC) [Narrative]
What: Some interesting revelations
Where: St. Mungo's
When: Sunday, March 15, mid-morning
Rating: NSFW - Language; mentions of mental illness and death of an infant
Marcus woke up Sunday morning with a pit of dread in his stomach. It was oddly reminiscent of his first days and weeks out of Azkaban, the desire to pull the blanket back over his head and hide from the world. His mother tended to inspire that reaction a lot, and it took him a few minutes longer than usual to drag himself out of his bed and into the shower. After eating breakfast, he got dressed - not quite fully formal robes, but far nicer than his usual casual attire - though he was still certain that it was a wasted effort. The last few times he'd seen Phillipa, she had either ignored him completely, or mistaken him for his father. He would prefer the former, if given a choice in the matter, because the latter was an exercise in patience, and usually had him leaving as quickly as social conventions would allow.
His feet carried him to the floor where his mother was ensconced by muscle memory, and he stopped by the Healer's desk at the entrance to the wing as he usually did to check and see if there was any new information on her condition that he should be aware of. As expected, no insights had been made into exactly what had caused her decline, or what the future might hold. He was informed of change in the regiment of potions she was being provided, intended to keep Phillipa calmer and less combative, which he found a little hard to believe. "She's in a chatty mood today," the Healer told him, nodding towards the slightly open door of his mother's room. "Most of it is usually nonsense, but you might be able to understand better than we can." Marcus sincerely doubted that, but he gave her a polite smile and a slight nod of his head before steeling himself to head into the room.
"Oh good, they sent someone to make tea," was the first thing his mother said when he entered the room, making Marcus raise his eyebrows before shaking his eyes slightly to himself - even here, she expected to be waited on. "The cinnamon, if you will," she added, waving a hand in the direction of a tea tray in the corner of the room, never looking away from the window she was standing next to.
"How are you today?" Marcus dared to ask as he crossed the room to start the requested tea, momentarily distracted by the small stack of Daily Prophets next to the cups. A quick flick through showed that every one was open to the Quidditch pages - something he'd never seen his mother take interest in before, but before he could become too concerned, he hear Phillipa start to speak, and he set the charms to begin the process of boiling water.
"No worse than usual, I suppose," she answered with a sigh. "Those dreadful potions are just terrible, and the man down the hall is as uncouth as ever. Completely unrefined, the unbearable oaf." She continued in that vein for a few more minutes, disparaging the other patients, though surprisingly it was lacking in any slights towards any possible bloodlines. While she rambled, the kettle whisked, and he stepped away to finish the preparations, carefully setting a cup down in front of his mother, her sugar already added, once it seemed that she was done.
Two cups of tea were gone through in silence, Marcus watching his mother watch the clouds outside her window as she drank. "Where is Drudy? I want to make sure the memorial garden is going to be blooming in time this year. It's almost Patricia's birthday, and I want to make sure she has her hydrangeas this year," Phillipa said suddenly, and Marcus couldn't help the way his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Drudy had been the eldest of the house elves in the Flint household, though she'd passed away shortly before he'd started Hogwarts, and he had never known anyone named Patricia. His mother glanced over, and apparently was able to read his facial expression well enough to offer an explanation, if in a winding, roundabout manner. "Patrick always wanted a boy - family line, heir to take over, all of that - but I was rather partial to the idea of a daughter, and after the first two miscarriages we thought we might not get a child at all. And then Patricia was born - three months early, a tiny little thing, and frail as a bird. She lived four days, and then didn't take another breath. I buried her along the eastern wing, with a patch of hydrangeas to mark the spot. Someone put in a statue a few months later, a cherub, but I couldn't bear to have anything else there, where I could see it out the window everyday." She turned back to the window, looking up at the sky as she continued, "Two years later, along came Marcus - healthy as a horse, big and strong like his father, which of course just made Patrick all the more convinced of his own greatness."
There was a long silence then, Phillipa obviously lost in her own memories, which Marcus was grateful for, trying to wrap his head around this startling new information. No one had ever mentioned another child to him, and he had to wonder how different it would have been, growing up with an older sister. The possibilities of a different life spiraled out in his mind's eye, only interrupted by his mother speaking again. "He's a professional Quidditch player, you know, my Marcus. For Appleby, the Arrows, sometimes they play the matches on the wireless so that I can hear them. Wasn't really surprising, that career path - he was always out on a broom as a child, and he played at Hogwarts. It was all he talked about whenever he came home, bragging about every win and pouting about every loss. He gets that from me, that determination, that drive to be the best. Looks like his father, but he's never been nearly as stupid." The last sentence was scathing, and he was a little taken aback by the vehemence in her voice. She paused again, idly stirring her tea and taking a sip before continuing, "I still don't know what my late husband did or said, but towards the end, there were days I thought Marcus might have hated him as much as I did. That's not something that can just be asked, of course, and then my boy was in that terrible place for years. It changed him, I knew it would, and it was like having a ghost in the house instead of a person. Such a shame things didn't work out with the Capper girl, Marcus was always fond of her."
Marcus had tensed at the mention of Bryony, but it seemed that Phillipa wasn't going to make any disparaging comments, which was a relief. Not too long after that, a Healer came in to provide doses of potions, and ensure they were taken, which was a bit of an ordeal to watch. His mother struggled against ingesting the first, though eventually she complied, though not without the air of a petulant child.
"See? Not that bad," the Healer said once the routine was finished, and Marcus could see his mother rolling her eyes behind the man's back. He had to stifle a chuckle at the expression before he turned his attention to the man saying, "...time for lunch. It'll be here in just a few minutes."
As promised, a tray of food arrived shortly, and it was interesting to see that even here, his mother ate with impeccable manners, slowly and delicately, a strange contrast to the stark walls of the room and the general air of the floor. Once shed finished, Phillipa dismissed him with little more than a wave of hand, claiming it was past time for her lie down.
Apparating to his family home, Marcus didn't bother even entering the house, instead making his away around the side of the building. There was a bit of a chill in the early evening air, and he wrapped his cloak a little tighter around himself as he walked along the side of the house. It didn't take him long to find the statue and hydrangeas, buds just starting to form at the tips of most of the stems. He stood in silence there for a moment before kneeling down, brushing his fingers lightly over the plants. One of his earliest memories was breaking off one of these flowers in full bloom and bringing it to his mother as a gift, only to have been hexed for his troubles, given a lecture about touching and taking things that weren't his, and an admonishment to never come near this patch of earth again. He hadn't thought about that incident for more years than he could easily count, but armed with the knowledge he had now, he felt strangely guilty, a whispered apology escaping him for his ignorance.
He stood there for a long few minutes, lost in his own mind. The day hadn't been quite as difficult as he'd thought it was, but still exhausting, mentally and emotionally. A particularly strong gust of wind howled through the trees, shaking him out of his reverie, and with a last glance at the small bed of flowers, he magicked himself home to his apartment, eager for Bryony's calming company.