#thepinnocks

Nate was standing on the wooden balcony that wound its way around the perimeter of the grand, glass-domed entrance hall at Ilvermorny. He was leaning on the railing, looking smart in his tailored blue-and-cranberry robes, a bored expression on his boyish features.

The new first-years were just beginning to file into the rotunda down below when Nate heard a purring voice to his side: “Hiya, Nate…”

Nate looked over and spotted a fellow second-year—a petite and cunning young thing with long, auburn hair. “Jessa,” Nate greeted her with a smirk. 

“Unimpressive, aren’t they?” Jessa lamented, pitying gaze drifting downward to the first-years, who were all shifting where they stood and looking nervous. Except for one girl, who stood tall with a sleek dark-brown bob that rested atop her squared shoulders, a headband pushing it back from her face to reveal a cool, impassive expression as she stared straight ahead, expectant but not impatient.

Nate’s hazel eyes twinkled affectionately at the eleven-year-old in the crowd, yet still he said to Jessa in a blue-blooded drawl, “Oh, vastly—they’re gonna get eaten alive.”

The sorting ceremony began and Nate largely tuned it out, amusing a giggling Jessa with flashy little colored light trails from his fingers; under MACUSA’s strict secrecy laws, students at Ilvermorny were required to leave their wands at the school over the summer, and so knowledge of basic wandless tricks were ubiquitous amongst the student body.

And then a name was called that made everyone on the upper balcony whisper furiously:

“Harriet Jane Pinnock.”

Jessa’s plump lips fell into an oh shape as her eyes darted between Nate and the students below, putting the pieces together, ridiculously slow on the uptake. God, she really was stupid; it’d be insufferable if she wasn’t equally hot.

Nate watched his sister step forward—proud, bold, absolutely fearless in comparison to all the other sniveling children who’d been sorted before her. A hush like rustling wind fell over the hall, and Nate was aware of many eyes fixed on him. Funny, wasn’t it? How his sister’s name was said, and yet people looked at Nate. It happened in their family all too often.

But Nate didn’t give a shit about them. Let them watch, he thought with exceedingly privileged overconfidence. He was watching Harriet, proud no matter which house claimed her. “Five Dragots on Horned Serpent…” he whispered to Jessa, and she gave a half-comprehending nod as she watched the scene below, transfixed. 

And sure enough, the massive crystal inlaid in the forehead of the giant wooden snake totem lit up, and a cheer erupted from the Horned Serpent section of the balcony. “Called it,” Nate said smugly. He’d been saying it to Harriet all summer, that she’d go to Horned Serpent—she was such an unbearable know-it-all that it was obvious.

Harriet was about to step toward the statue, when suddenly, the giant panther that represented Wampus gave a rumbling roar. The whispers started up again, and Nate smirked. The choice of two houses? Good for her.

And then the Pukwudgie totem raised its arrow in the air, and the titters all around the balcony became even louder. Harriet looked between the three totems, and Nate could tell even from this distance that her sharp, calculating expression was deep in deliberation. 

And before she could make a decision, it happened—the Thunderbird, the totem directly below where Nate was stood, spread its large wooden wings. 

There were audible gasps. It was said that only one wix in a generation, at most, was ever petitioned by all four Ilvermorny houses. No one was looking at Nate anymore; all eyes were on Harriet. 

She spun around slowly, in one full circle, and then her green eyes cast upwards toward where Nate was standing on the balcony. He couldn’t be sure if she even saw him—probably she didn’t—but not a second later, Harriet gave a nod and stepped toward the Thunderbird, and the celebratory yells and applause from his section were raucous and immediate.

Nate stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle. He took an excited breath, but otherwise held his outward composure. In the same house as Harriet, away from their fucking parents, for six whole glorious years? It sounded too good to be true.

He watched her take her place beside the statue and thought, Us against the world.

Any native of New York City knew that a New-York-Summer was best spent out of the city.

Once July rolled around and the sweltering temperatures settled in amongst the asphalt, trapping yourself inside the hot iron-and-glass bars of skyscrapers was like signing your own month-long death certificate.

The average New Yorker took a few weeks off work and retreated upstate to visit family, or perhaps to whatever Midwestern shithole they’d grown up in and made excuses not to return to every other time of year. 

But if you were privileged and a Pinnock, you and every other Upper East Side resident went to the Hamptons. 

The Pinnock Family:

"You mean, besides leading the company out of the Dark Ages and into the actual twenty-first century—?"

"—I think what my sister means to say is that we will always be...grateful, to our uncle, for building this company into the institution that it is today. No one will ever take his place...but, if given the chance, Harper and I are ready and waiting to raise Giggle Water to new heights, and pilot this company into a bright, new era..."

"My son is a liability to himself and anyone who has the misfortune of engaging with him. He's a dangerous drug addict and in general, a disappointment—utterly unfit to be my heir, which is why I made the decision to divert his path of inevitable destruction away from my company and the blameless Giggle Water shareholders. Everything I've done has been for the good of this company, and so any minor fallout in the pursuit of company success is ultimately irrelevant. Though I assure you—when I find a candidate who is truly worthy of taking my place, you'll be the first to know. Business is business, and I've certainly got nothing to hide."

"Oh, definitely his decision to procreate. Like, at all. I know, I know—the fucking grandfather paradox, or whatever the fuck, I've seen that movie, too, alright? I'm just saying—did the world really need any more fucking Pinnocks?"

No one would ever be so daft as to think that Mr. and Mrs. Pinnock actually loved each other.

But most of the time, they were unobtrusively indifferent. They largely ignored each other, except for the pleasantries that were expected between a husband and wife, when they were in public and thus knowingly watched.

But sometimes, when they were assuredly behind the ironclad closed doors of their Manhattan penthouse, things would take a turn. Someone would have had too much to drink, perhaps have implied something unbecoming in the company of others earlier that night. They would lash out.

One evening, in the dead of night, nine-year-old Nathaniel Pinnock and his sister Harriet were awoken to the muffled sounds of yelling from somewhere in the apartment. They crept silently to the pitch-dark hallway outside their parents’ closed door, and sat down on the floor to press their ears against the wall, straining to listen…

“You think this fucking rock on my finger means you own me, dear?” Jacqueline was saying. “…you may know money, but I know people. I’ve got more friends than you could even comprehend, who would do anything I asked—the kids and I could be gone like that—” She snapped her fingers loudly. “—and you’d never find us—”

Hamilton Pinnock III barked out a harsh laugh. “Come now, Jackie—you may be a foolish, ridiculous woman, but you’re not stupid. You wouldn’t make it ten blocks with those children without being hunted down like a dog, and you know it. And the consequences for you, if you tried to run—to break faith on the contract that you willingly signed—?”

“Don’t you threaten me—”

“—not a threat, honey. Simply a reminder: I may not own you, but I do own them. They are living equity that legally belong to the company as long as I’m in control of it—it’s all there in the fine print. And if you care so much about them, maybe you should focus less on your incessant whining over the comfortable life I’ve so generously provided for you and consider instead the very real possibility that I’m the one who grows sick and tired of you, and I take my property with me when I leave you high and dry, to go crawling back to your pathetic, plebeian, coattail-riding family—”

“Fuck you, Hamilton! Even you wouldn’t kidnap your own children—”

No. Fuck him.