RESURGAM

FULL NAME: lucretia charis black.

KNOWN SOBRIQUETS AND/OR PSEUDONYMS: absolutely not, and should the attempt be made, you’re 10 knuts worth of ‘god help us.’

REGISTERED BLOOD STATUS: pureblood.

KNOWN LANGUAGES: mandarin, japanese, gyeonggi dialect, english, archaic chinese (limited knowledge, mainly for the decryption of older forms of divination and runic talismans), baihua (note: written language), and basic french. 

BIRTHPLACE: london, england. 

GENDER, PRONOUNS: woman, she/her. 

FAMILY: arcturus black iii, O.M. (father), melania macmillan (mother), orion black (twin), pollux black (uncle), cygnus black iii (cousin, †), walburga black (cousin), alphard black (cousin, disowned), druella rosier (cousin), cedrella black (cousin), charis black (cousin), callidora black (cousin). 

MARITAL STATUS: not married.

SPOUSE, IF APPLICABLE: n/a.

OFFSPRING, IF APPLICABLE: n/a. 

ORIENTATION: heterosexual and heteromantic. 

DATE OF BIRTH & AGE: twenty-three ; may 9, 1927. 

WESTERN ZODIAC: taurus. 

PROFILE:

EYE COLOR: black.

HAIR COLOR: black. 

BUILD & HEIGHT: 5′5 ft. bird-boned, narrow - very sparing of softness and coated in a meticulous gesso. posture is calculated and never really seems to relax. fluid and assertive with something to prove. 

IDENTIFYING MARKS & SCARS: red spot in the side of her right index finger from when she was splinched. after a head injury at the base of the stairs, there is a thin, easily concealed line of scar tissue at the back of her head from which hair no longer grows.

SCHOOLING: hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. 

HOUSE, IF APPLICABLE: slytherin. 

O.W.L.s.: astronomy ( A ) ; charms ( E ) ; defense against the dark arts ( E ) ; divination ( P ) ; herbology ( A ) ; history of magic ( E ) ; potions ( E ) ; study of ancient runes ( O ) ; transfiguration ( E )

N.E.W.T.s.: study of ancient runes ( O ) ; defense against the dark arts ( A ) ; potions ( E ) ; transfiguration ( E ) 

OCCUPATION: shopgirl at the verdant reliquary.

   MINISTRY FIELD, IF APPLICABLE: n/a.

REGISTERED WAND: 11 in., mulberry wood, dragon heartstring, and slightly yielding.

AMORTENTIA: shucked oysters, puffs of chimney smoke, the steam off of a glazed ham, lilies. 

BOGGART: death ; a faceless, cloaked figure animating her thoughts and shortcomings as manacles chaining her to her fate. she also has a terror of war bombs, being tricked into bankruptcy and leaving a secure environment. 

PATRONUS: horse ; historically a symbol of high class, youth, human endeavors (war, migration, entertainment), and the mediator between heaven and earth. in dreams, the black horse of death is synonmous with misery. unable to be cast (for now.) 

KNOWN AFFILIATIONS: orion black, druella rosier, and ignatius prewett. 

CURRENT MAILING ADDRESS: 12 grimmauld place, islington, london, england.

LAST SEEN LOCATION: carkitt market.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: disappeared for ten weeks after cygnus died which had been explained as a period of mourning (to anyone who had been nosey enough to ask), or otherwise the excuse she’d given her parents of having a bad case of cerebrumous spattergroit (that of which causes memory loss, which was ideal when avoiding certain questions.) it’s only been a few weeks since she’s been out in public - is hardly ever at the townhouse, always on the move. 

                ‘   maybe,   ’   he  answers,  mischievous  smirk  slipping  onto  his  countenance  with  practiced  ease.  that’s  where  he  thrives  after  all,  getting  in  just  enough  trouble  to  leave  behind  a  smile  and  a  story.   ‘   could  be,  y’know  ?   or  could  be  they  jus’  like  me.  ‘m  funny,  handsome.  there’s  plenty  o’  reasons  i  could  draw  a  crowd.   ’   he  swallows  down  the  unhelpful  thought  that  the   mudblood   label  he’d  been  gifted   (   if  anyone  could  call  his  baby  brother’s  name  in  black  and  white  print  a  gift ;   a   thing   to  cause  blood  to  boil,  watch  the  saccharine  smile  of  the  trickster  spirit  turn  acrid,  an  urge  to  play  at  a  game  far  more  permanent   )  by  certain  circles  might  also  draw  a  crowd,  but  not  the  kind  he  wanted  to  attract.

                features  turn  into  a  frown  of  confusion  at  her  words.   ‘   tha’s  not  a  team,   ’   he  says  with  confidence,  but  in  a  gentle  voice  incase  she’s  made  a  mistake   …   even  though  he  doesn’t  understand  how.  thaxter  has  been  reading  about  quidditch  since  he  was  six  years  old,  and  has  what  most  would  qualify  as  an  absurd  and  useless  amount  of  knowledge  stored  in  his  head  about  it,  both  regarding  the  current  state  of  the  game  and  its  history.  he  is  decently  confident  that  the  bogan  broomfleet  has   never   been  a  team,  and  certainly  isn’t  one  currently  active  within  the  uk  and  ireland  league.  his  confusion  turns  to  curiosity  as  she  continues  her  blatant  lie,  and  something  lights  in  the  back  of  his  mind ;  the  small  spark  of  potentially  being  impressed  with  the  absurdity  unfolding  before  him.   ‘   the  montrose  magpies,   ’   he  says  with  a  nod  when  she  references  the   “ wiffleball  league ”   he  plays  for.   ‘   i’m  impressed  you  know  about  our  recreational  work,  most  people  just  watch  the  quidditch  game.  personally  i  think  the  wiffleball  is  even  more  difficult  to  master  than  the  quaffle,  so  i  appreciate  the  recognition.   ’   a  pause.   ‘   you  know,  i  don’t  think  i’ve  had  a  chance  to  play  stix.  what  position  ?   ’

“you think so.” lucretia’s features pinch as she assesses his face, not nearly as bland as she’d like to admit, but of harmless quality as a dog's might be, which is to say it demands too much attention, but it is still incorrigibly well-meaning. still, she cannot understand other’s adoration for him as something as certain and ordinary as rain, wind, or flowers turning their heads to follow the sun. “this doesn’t seem happenstance to your charm. maybe they like to humor you because you’re annoying.” 

then, her hand flung into the air as if to bat away gnats or smoke. “you’re wrong.” she’s certain, lofty as an animal and proud as one too, and by all counts unmistakably miffed. if lucretia had a tail, it would curl in a signal of warning at thax; as would her claws appear, and the black eyes narrow, which they do, cat or not, as offended as being thrown into a pool of water, or a vat of cold air. “it is a team. they’re portuguese. how have you not heard of portugal?”

                 normally,   normally  thaxter  is  not  particularly  bothered  when  one  individual  hasn’t  bought  into  his  act,  so  long  as  the  crowd  was  still  on  his  side.  that  was  the  important  thing.  and  perhaps  bothered  is  not  the  right  word,  not  quite,  but  rather  that  he  sees  it  as  a  challenge  of  some  kind.  she,  standing  in  front  of  him,  has  become  an  audience  of  one   (   despite  assertion  otherwise  )   and  he  is  under  personal  obligation  to  try  to  entertain.   ‘   so  not  a  quidditch  person,  aye  ?   ’   he  asks,   ‘   or  just  more  of  an  arrows  person  ?   ’   he  selects  one  of  the  english  teams  at  random,  even  though  any  of  them  are  equally  likely.

                ‘   sounds  like  th’start  of  a  riddle,  but  i  don’  think  you’ve  given  me  enough  to  go  on,   ’   he  says,  eyebrows  raising  slightly  in  question.  skull  tips  as  he  looks  at  her,  as  if  he’s  trying  to  pull  another  hint  from  her  countenance,  but  the  empty  smile  gives  him  nothing.  there’s  a  flash  of  a  memory,  but  he  was  at  hogwarts  at  the  same  time  as  practically  every  wix  from  the  country  between  the  ages  of  twenty  one  and  twenty  eight,  so  that  hardly  helped.   ‘   thaxter  wood,   ’   he  says,  identifying  himself  as  if  it  is  a  token  to  be  traded,  for  which  he  hopes  he’ll  be  granted  something  in  return.   ‘   an’  you  are  ?   ’

“oh, is this what this is? you’ve gathered this crowd because you’re a quidditch player?” when she looks around she sees a sight of all ages, all peoples. if someone could have divined the hour for her, she would have alchemized it into something worth her wait and sold tickets (after all, talents, abilities, and knowledge are all currency to be estimated and exchanged). the crowd would have gathered in a line while she stood at the front of it, arms crossed, exactly the way she regard him now: impatiently, and with one hand out. “i do like the sport. all the black’s do. i mean, have you heard of the bogan broomfleet? we have our places reserved at the team’s VIP boxes at every match. you’ll see me, lucretia black, on VIP box number 3.”

when she shakes his hand, and kneads his name through her head, it is only conducive to the glass-eyed acknowledgement of a stranger. no semblance of interest betrays her, no flicker of recognition. it is these very rare instances when life doesn’t feel like it drags, where one is allowed to act and fester without inspection or interruption at the scandalized tales of their last names. “so, maybe when you get big enough from whatever wiffle ball league you play in, you might see me at the box, cheering on - ” lucretia pauses to look past his shoulder, bright and wry for the mistake she is keen on making. “joao stix.”

                the  way  he  had  hidden,  as  well  as  thaxter  wood  could  given  his  personality,  over  the  summer  was  now  less  possible  given  the  return  of  the  quidditch  season.  despite  some  personal  misgivings,  mostly  concern  for  his  family,  quidditch’s  hot  topic  was  all  smiles  whenever  a  camera  is  turned  to  him.  partly  because  he  was  a  stubborn  git  who  refused  to  let  whoever  it  was  talking  about  him  make  him  disappear  completely,  and  partly  because   (   as  he  had  since  he  was  a  child  ;    little  thing  that  yearned  to  hear  stories  about  himself  repeated   )   he  had  an  vain  streak  in  his  soul  that  thrived  off  of  the  attention.  he  hadn’t  exactly  planned  to  turn  the  front  of  the  restaurant  where  he  intended  to  have  dinner  into  a  photo  opportunity  but …    well,  sometimes  things  just  happened.  he’s  grinning  wide  as  the  camera  flashes,  arm  around  a  witch  of  similar  age  to  himself,  and  gives  her  a  wink  as  she  heads  off.  he  doesn’t  mean  anything  by  it,  but  he  can  feel  the  headache  that  his  manager  is  going  to  have  as  he  repeats  his   reel  it  in,  thax   speech.  it’s  just  good  fun  to  cause  a  stir.

                he  watches  with  curiosity  as  someone  pushes  to  the  front,  questioning  the  man  with  the  camera.  he’s  both  impressed  and  in  disbelief  and  he  cannot  wait  to  see  what  she  does  next.   ‘   we’re  not  charging,   ’   thaxter  assures  her,  stepping  forward  with  a  bit  of  a  bounce.   ‘   if  y’need  t’get  past,  go  on  in,  but  if  you’re  a  fan,   ’   he  pauses  and  flashes  her  a  smile,   ‘   i  mean  your  up  here  already,  you  might  as  well  jump  in.  there’s  not  really  a  line  s’much  as  a  crowd  so.   ’   he  shrugs  slightly,  caroming   (  or  quite  nearly  )   back  to  his  original  position,  a  few  paces  back.  he  cocks  his  head  in  an  invite  and  holds  out  his  hand  to  her.   ‘  i  know  ‘m  not  pertinger,   ’   he  name  drops  the  seeker  of  the  magpies,   ‘   but  i  promise  ‘m  more  fun.  even  for  two  minutes.  bet  i  can  make  you  laugh,  miss … ?   ’   he  says,  fishing  for  a  name.  he  found  people  liked  it  when  you  were  a  bit  more  personable  with  them.

lucretia seems to wobble like a flickering light; at times she seems to be similar to orion in height, jarring pedestrians like ants who have just noticed the spider in their midst, and at other times she can vanish so well that someone would be able to mistake her for an open seat on the 10:15 a.m. train that passed by surbiton station. but now, both sick of standing and waiting, lucretia doesn’t take to the notion of drawing attention to herself kindly. she is whatever the emotional opposite of a cherry-on-top or a pertinger is.

"not at all.” she likes the tea from here like everyone else in london; she likes the gargoyles in the private parlor even more. so she offers a simple and bland smile, a well-worn groove as far as social reflexes have taught her. a smile that empty can mean absolutely anything. in this situation, it is also a cover for the very rare sense of surprise that doesn’t take root at her stomach. rather, the sort of the curiosity of roots who spread beyond their borders. but in contrast, she slips aside from his hand, and thax altogether, like the easy shadow of a serpent through brush where the air won’t be as stuffy and never makes gambits or claims. “i’m not part of your audience. or whatever you’d call this.”

it’s been weeks since the news broke out and it has beat onto her senses like a fist at the door. a part of her, the nerves dedicated to damage control, had already dialed down the distal regions of her brain to silence. only the steel remained, sorting from task to task as a machine might. so she had spent entire weeks smiling – blandly, pleasantly, consistently (much like a clock or a photograph in eternal loop) to everyone who can see her, especially those at the front counter. the kind that cuts gossip short and discourages extended conversation by feeding on other’s sympathy. only then when she is alone in the four walls of her room does it come loose like a knot.

here, in the brief interim before the sound of a customer entering through the door, lucretia’s smile persists the way a rubber band yanked between two fists persists: tightly, and with an interest in snapping. she is not used to this—feeling displeased at lazarus, someone that had inspired genuine appreciation—but as it were, the new wizengamot law had only added onto the mole hill of problems that had to be taken care of, and lazarus wasn’t someone she wanted to take care of, least of all with the kind of flair that the burial society acted upon.

“so,” voice tempered like a rattle of laundered coins that she could pass as genuine, “i hadn’t considered it till i overheard a gamble on my way here, but which family do you think is going to drop first like flies?” 

    // diagon alley                  @thaxterwood​

here, lucretia is a nondescript, a bystander among many just adjacent to the action, a tendon in the neck that turns the head rather than the head itself. and lucretia being a hare doesn’t know a thing or two about delay, other than it being a hindrance, which is why she hasn’t understood why the entrance at the restaurant has been barricaded by all these people. really, thaxter wood is someone who she should know and should be interested in, but isn’t. be it a careless disregard for sports or an extended leave of ten weeks, lucretia has now looked at him a dozen times, sideways, mirrored, so intently that she’d slightly recognize something about him by way of the reflection of milk glass dinnerware winking at her from inside the restaurant. however, it does not, because she doesn’t care, so she easily relegates him to the role of bus boy, or one of the annoying sort of peddlers that had come into some money after selling necklaces, probity probes and other joke items after the news of the dinner party barreled into wizarding london. 

as both a hare and a child of immediacy, her stride takes form as a bird taking flight into turbulence –– soaring effortlessly into the headwind in non-flapping venture. “excuse me, hi ––” she’s cut off by the circumference of a camera that she takes up entirely with one beady eye, bright and unimpressed, and then the corner of her mouth and jaw, each set equally as firm, turns to its owner. “what do you think you’re doing?” and then, rearranging her fur stole, she turns to whatchamacallit: “how much do you want so i can skip the line? and before you ask, i’m well acquainted with the owner.”

𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴: 𝟾.𝟷𝟽.𝟷𝟿𝟻𝟶 𝚊𝚝 𝟷𝟽:𝟹𝟹 𝚑𝚛𝚜. 

𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃 𝙰𝚄𝙳𝙸𝙾 𝟶𝟶:𝟶𝟶:𝟷𝟸 

      timestamp :     —— ,  august 16th, 1950    location :     the  dressing  room,  the  norris  estate,   public  &  unwarded tagging :     @miresofblack​

                  taliesin  only   vaguely   remembered  the  coat  in  question,  but  he  was  not  one  to  tell  lucretia  black,  of  all  people,   no.   their  history  was  somewhat  complicated,  transitioning  from  something  he  might  have  described  as  antagonistic,  to  what  it  was  now:  habitual,  a  practice  of  routine.  they  were  friendly  because  it  made  sense,  and  they  kept  up  the  relationship  because  that’s  just  what  was  done.  instead  he  listens  to  what  she  has  to  say,  her  spiel  of  stupid  house  elves  and  the  confusion  that  had  occurred,  and  found  himself  being  pulled  up  the  stairs  and,  subsequently,  into  the  dressing  room  belonging  to  mr.  and  mrs.  norris.  he  frowns  as  they  step  inside,  but  lets  the  expression  fall  from  his  face  before  lucretia  sees  it.  he’s  uncertain  about  traipsing  through  the  house  without  the  hosts  guidance,  both  due  to  the  fact  that  it  feels  rude  to  disturb  their  things  and  because  he  was  somewhat  anxious  about  what  he  would  find.  what  he  knew  about  cecil  norris  was  that  he  was  willing  to  dabble  in  black  markets  and  illegal  commodities.  he  felt  there  was  already  enough  heat  on  him  without  stumbling  across  an  example  of  those  business  practices.  he  intends  to  let  lucretia  do  most  of  the  searching,  while  he  stands  in  the  doorway.   ‘   remind  me  what  it  looks  like  again   ?   ’

much of how she moves forward is in mathematical steps.

she follows the problems she can solve, and she’s undone by those she can’t. the deeper she looks, the more she finds (or, in this case, doesn’t find).

the room is placidly silent. it is haunted by the absent presence of what once filled it and what had soon filled it. it is in these arresting moments, in-between when the world is about to erupt into motion, that lucretia finds herself arriving like a foot through a glass window, or an arm shoved blindly into the wrong sleeve. the light is here is patient, listens well, soaks two silhouettes from the entrance of the room deep into the silvery exposure of a wide spanning mirror. but in spite all its grandness, none of it arises anything in greater fluctuation than true exasperation not unlike from when she had ushered taliesin into the dressing room. but her frankness mustn’t be mistaken for anger — only focus, as frank and easy to follow as a swung gavel. theft is a crime, after all.

“it’s a paul poiret piece,” she says with a grim, thoughtless wave of her wand. “as you probably know, it’s french. it’s black and of panne velvet with a wadded collar.” and then, her eyes flash at him, bright and hard. “and the big-headed, springy servant stole it. and quite well, as i cannot even use the accio charm to full effect.”

and then, “accio, lucretia black’s coat,” and only the faintest rustle of a passementerie and a row of vitaldi babani dresses. “see? it’s out of sorts. i don’t know if it’s my wand or the room, or a hiding incantation used on my coat.” and so, while her conjecture can’t arrange themselves to a solid clue, the only trail to follow was the one proved by the brandishing of taliesin’s own wand.

artemis glances around the room, behind her, before glancing back to lucretia with a delicately arched brow and feigned confusion,   “ i don’ possess the magic t’vanish; do y’think i’d still be here if i did? y’must have t’wrong person, lass. ”   over the course of the night, her accent had thickened past it’s normal brogue. yes, she had been taken from her trial, but she had not vanished into thin air; she had been ushered out a door and made to sprint through back alleys and side streets. there was no elegance in what she was made to do. the anger that would have burned through her veins is dulled only by the rocks glass in her hand filled with two knuckles worth of amber liquid.   “ as fer the chicken, i couldn’t tell ye. i had the salmon which was cooked t’perfection. ”   the corners of her mouth upturn just so, a smirk beginning to form on delicate features.   “ if t’chicken was raw, you’ll have t’take it up with our gracious host, if y’can find him. though since you ate it, i cannae imagine that you were displeased with yer meal. ”

the burial society, for lucretia, sinks like a weight dropped onto her chest. It crushes her, this sac of gravel that she is forced into relations, that has no purpose but to depress her, even if it had organized itself so efficiently to form a solitary boulder.

boulders are smooth; they press evenly from one side to the other, and in the dealing of relations, especially cousins, lucretia had never been so fortunate. that rock that is this troupe of deviants crumbles into countless shards that dig into her stomach, so when she observes artemis’ expression grow from a flatline into the smallest trough, the tiniest disturbance, it only twists something equally as corrosive within lucretia.

sucking air in through her teeth, she focuses on that – the breathing. not of week’s past as she held a wand at the neck of a guard in the trial of the wild thing new-caught, or the meetings that undertook the besiegement of the ministry, but simply resisting the connivance of how a bushy tailed beast could even begin to understand the social cues and emotions of a real human.

no, it is something you treat like water, and you tread it. you keep your head above water. you think about who you will tear apart when you come out on the other side, alive, and all the more barbaric for it.

possessions —

they’re sitting in what lucretia calls the royal room. there’s a chandelier of variegated shine sitting above their heads like an imperial orb that speaks of most boastful things, like claret or golden filigree. but across from artemis, though, lucretia thinks she'd rather be anywhere else in the world even if she is glowing in different colors from all different shards. being beneath an anvil sounds more welcome. in front of a spear. hanging off a cliff, or being chased by a swarm of quintapeds. the distaste is palpable in the way she is bodied and tempered like a pyre, the quality of smoke and ash only matched by her eyebrow as it climbs into an arch. in a moment’s indecision, she glares resentfully at the snifter of kina lillet in her hand. 

as it were, lucretia doesn’t have to look from above the rim to sense that of what she doesn’t care for: tiredness. it’s also not the same sort of unhappiness she’s felt all night, the sort that will stick and will forever be as time, which is also the length of an hour, so there will be no goodness or a well-meaning vowel to offer - especially when the clock begins to near towards the penultimate hour. 

“well,” she exhales in frustration, almost as if the air around her has been pinched out of her. “seeing as you are ever the debutante tonight, maybe you’ve got a platitude about your latest vanishing act or even how the wasn’t chicken raw enough for you at dinner?”

timestamp:  16,  Aug.  1950  ·  location:  norris  house,  the  conservatory  (  unwarded,  public  space  )  ·  tagging:  @miresofblack​!

he’d  found  himself  in  the  conservatory  a  few  times  that  night  and  lazarus  tipped  his  head  from  side  to  side  in  thought  as  he  found  lucretia  there.  electing  to  open  with  a  joke,  he  teased,  ❛  you  know,  i  don’t  expect  harvesting  plants  to  be  part  of  your  job  description.  ❜  the  whole  evening  had  a  horrific  weight  on  everyone’s  shoulders  and  lazarus  hoped  that  this  didn’t  all  prove  to  be  a  mistake  that  blew  up  in  his  face.  helena’s  attack  on  cecil  norris  had  saved  the  man’s  life  but  it  had  also  led  them  to  the  trick  situation  that  they  were  in  at  all.  even  he  knew  that  his  obliviation  techniques  were  not  strong  enough  to  overcome  what  had  been  done  and  he  was  not  about  to  ask  helena  hyslop  of  all  people  to  try  and  cover  up  for  him.  no,  he’d  done  things  his  own  way  and  he  had  to  be  confident  they’d  worked.  shaking  his  head,  as  though  to  pull  himself  back  into  reality  as  he  looked  at  lucretia,  that  easy  smile  came  back  to  his  face.  he  pushed  down  the  feelings  of  anxiety,  replacing  them  with  a  placid  lake  of  comfort  and  ease.

such as black-winged bats fleeing from unwanted light, she too weaves away from light chatter, hand pressed to the wall till her hand finds the shape of a knob and finds nervous pleasantries to null. however, in trading one source of light she gains another, only in the shape of someone that isn’t any less pleasant than the scent of plant-life. it doesn’t make her smile, but her eyes brighten with brief warmth and appraisal.

she’s never been one for delicacy, but by all accounts had she possessed the spirit of things that are made by candlelight and the stories made thereafter, she would not have thought of herself to be the wrong kind of company for magical plants like that of the white snakeroot, the castor bean, rosary pea, oleander, and persian tobacco that rest in potted rows of the conservatory. they bespoke of slow-grown violence in the way they branched; raised, smooth and gutted from the insides; at times purple-striped, and mottled, making the skin irate and throat shut. where they bloom, lucretia thorns. but were she also someone that knew the right words to things, she’d consider that she did possess the soft, underhanded care needed to coax things out the dirt. if she, too, had the right imagination that comes with having bold roots that burr into cinderblocks, she would have thought of orion and how she possessed something magical in the bones that meant she’d been good at preening and emitting light. then, she would have smiled. 

location:  norris  estate  ;  dining  room

timestamp:  august  16th,  1950

tagging: open

there  was  something  unnerving  about  the  norris  estate,  and  it  wasn’t  just  the  missing  host.  every  guest  in  attendance  seemed  a  little  more  on  edge  than  usual,  but  that  was  to  be  expected   —  if  their  invitations  were  as  disconcerting  as  druella’s  was.

with  a  simple  flick  of  her  wrist,  the  placard  emblazoned  with  her  name  went  flying  across  the  dining  room  toward,  straight  toward  the  opposite  end  of  the  table  where  she  had  seen  a  matching  ‘euphemia  gibbon’  card  earlier…  only  to  circle  back  around  and  fall  right  back  into  it’s  original  place  like  it  never  left.  her  lip  curled  in  something  resembling  disgust  as  she  read  the  names  on  either  side  of  hers  —  not  company  she  usually  kept.  a  small  gust  of  wind  that  seemingly  came  from  nowhere  billowed  the  tablecloth,  as  if  the  house  was  daring  her  to  try  it  again…  and  like  the  grown  ass  adult  she  was,  dru  stuck  her  tongue  out  at  the  not - so - inanimate  object.

she  was  about  to  leave  ( the  dining  room,  though  the  leaving  the  estate  did  cross  her  mind  more  than  once  throughout  the  night )  when  she  spotted  a  familiar  face…  and  because  she  was  still  channeling  her  inner  first  year,  she  pouted,  folding  both  arms  over  her  chest.  “whoever  made  these  seating  arrangements  has  a  death  wish,”  she  grumbled,  head  canting  to  the  side.  “i  can  only  hope  that  you  faired  better  with  your  assigned  dinner  companions  than  i  did.”

at the far end of the room, resting like a panther sunning itself in the presence of lesser beasts, lucretia is still and silent. robed in ivory and the bearing of a marble bust watching in charged silence known best by dormant volcanoes, she is as mich as direct and unsavory. “i don’t know,” comes the flat and orderly tone. “and i don’t care for them at all.”

“i hate it here.” airily, plummy, and dismissively, her hand motions to the air as if to gesture that her distaste for the party was in its architecture or its aesthetics. after all, she has vision aplenty, but other people craft the clothes or paint the paintings, so she cannot trust the scaffolds of a missing man’s home when their beautiful oddities all but seemed a menagerie of his own making. 

absently, with eyes upon no fixed point, she turns to the curve of druella’s elbow to lead them down the length of the hall as if she knows its best to be displayed elsewhere, which is not the same as trying to hide. it would imply that lucretia black was afraid or troubled or anything beyond absolutely inconvenienced, especially when lucretia’s demons were more distasteful and diseased than someone as inconsequential as an animal trainer. 

like now. looking at druella is so often like looking into a painful mirror, which in turn so loves to leer back, and play with its food. and as far as meals go, that of dark creatures and beautiful, breakable things to knock over ,are certainly appetizing enough. druella’s bones are fat with mess and lucretia knows when to reel that wiliness like fish caught onto hook.

𝒔𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔 : the date is may 25th, 1938, and spring is not the only thing twisting dark damsons by their stems. 

Rowan felt the thrill buzz through her as she got a response to her question. Finally someone who she could hopefully give her information she could use to write a good piece about. It wasn’t until the person turned around that she recognized the Raven-haired beauty that always seemed in control of, well, everything.

“Miss Black, lovely seeing you here,” Rowan replied, ever as warmly and ignoring what could be considered a personal dig. “Hey, low hanging fruit is all it takes for someone to take a bite.” She replied with a smile.

Rowan grabbed a quill that she had tucked behind her ear, almost impossible to see behind her long curls and a piece of paper she had held in her hand and started writing. “Were you there? At this festival.” Rowan asked directly as the quill moved at the pace of her words. “Did you see anything or anyone out of the ordinary?”

“and you are that someone.” lucretia regards this so flatly and dead in the eye it’d shame even the minister of magic for waylaying her. though it wouldn’t be right to call it scathing, or unreceptive unto the other’s efforts. "i was there, but not for the entirety of the day. if there was anything out of the ordinary, i didn’t notice,” she says in earnest, no balm or indication, only what she has offered at the wake of june 13th and every day after it. almost nothing. which is to say: not quite guarded, implying the active maintenance of a façade, but naturally obscure, like the details of far off mountains or both sides of the moon.

but if there’s anything lucretia learned since then, it’s that very little is certain, and it’s better to assume more moving parts than not enough. all the more, now, that change that can be made when the pen is permitted to be mightier than the sword (a fact that had unfettered in her a degree of hate for every byline that added to walburga’s freak value to the press.) a sentiment that uncle pollux had matched tenfold, and whereby they family had agreed to do the impossible to not have the black family’s indignities on any article ever again.

but this, too, is a gesture careening into an offense. lucretia’s insight on mr. norris’ disappearance in the tabloids would have her chastised for having expressed herself in a way incapable of judgement and moderation, while the rest of the sacred, pureblooded families would have considered it a bleak attempt for notarization.

lucretia chuckles then, as if she is keen to a secret that rowan has yet to find out. lesser to known to the greater public was that pollux had upturned any and all writers after his son’s fall from grace. “but, i wouldn’t write that,” is all she says, narrowing in on her to intimate at a fact (not quite a secret, after all) they both know: the black family was worth its weight in galleons and secrets to govern over wizarding london’s opinions. “i’m sorry i wasted your ink,” she lies lazily, like the cat that ate the cheese, swallowed the rat, and drank the milk.

“i figure you’re busy, taking to inform us citizens and what not—” her back turns to rowan, but not unkindly; instead, her slow gait seems an invitation to join. “but right now i’d like it if you’d join me for lunch. i’ve got a few questions of my own and.. i think there could be something enlightening to us beyond whitehall.”

Rowan Shafiq was weaving her way through all the people, trying to get a quote. With everything that was happening, she wasn’t the only writer vying to get more information. Nothing the press loved more than a mystery or three. Though in her mind, she was felt more concern - she was truly in the dark and had to be open to all answers, making her wonder if one of her compatriots had something to do with it.

Unlike the other reporters however, Rowan was bold enough to begin cold calling on people within the Ministry itself. Let them drag her out, she might get a quote or two first. She stopped and looked around, tapping someone on the shoulder. “Hello, did you happen to speak to Cecil Norris before he went missing?”

the ministry inquiry does not descend upon her.

lucretia descends upon it, as if everything that had occurred over the past few months had been little more than a matter of altitude, cabin pressure, and landing gears. it unfolds like that, at least: reintroducing her slowly, nerve by nerve, to the particular dregs of the auror investigation offices, though it no less summons what little patience she has, all because of a goat herder of some significance.

with one foot off from the elevator and several meters away from the the floo fireplace, the whirling voices around outside the ministry are at breakneck pace, but they’re so tangled— by the time she is capable of thinking, ‘noisy,’ and ‘shut up,’ it’s only when she is thinking of knocking someone out of her line of sight partway to ireland that lucretia feels someone beside her.

hello, the other says. you, lucretia thinks. she looks rowan up and down as if it had taken her a moment to recall the other’s name, though whether this was symptomatic of apathy or arrogance could not be said.

“miss shafiq, that’s lazy journalism. very low hanging fruit,” is lucretia’s greeting, hitting all the flat notes in her dull regard for rowan.