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“James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell – also, Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much.”

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of course it’s a coincidence that he shaved a day after their kids played a game called “guess how old dad is”.

-

“Morning.” “Is this because three kids thought you were like 50 years old or something?” “Why?”

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Orion jerked his head awkwardly and stared down at the dog—it looked up and let out a low whine—then back at his wife.

“It’s a—stray,” he answered her, tersely. “Got into the house somehow. I was about to get rid of it.”

“A stray?” she repeated, raising one eyebrow at her husband, sardonically. “Rather handsome creature for a stray.”

“You think it’s handsome?” Mr. Black said, incredulously. “It’s a mangy beast, in my opinion.”

She looked back down at the dog. For some reason the animal was very nervous at being scrutinized—though it remained in place, it didn’t quite seem to want to meet her gaze.

“He seems tame to me.” She looked back up at Orion. “Are you sure it’s not the Malfoys’?”

“Positive,” he said, in a clipped voice. “Abraxas only keeps Irish wolfhounds—and he never lets them in the house. That is an unwanted pest.”

Walburga stepped closer to the dog, and to her husband and son’s great surprise, bent her knees—gracefully, it was true, she could have curtsied to a queen if she ever met one—and patted him on the head. At first the creature flinched at her touch, but after a few brisk pats it lost its odd skittishness and actually leaned into her hand.

For some reason her husband seemed extremely annoyed by this.

“Do not pet it, Walburga—” Mr. Black ordered her, irritably. “It could be rabid—or have fleas.”

- Black mask, The Black Sheep Dog Series

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Hii! For the piece of Irma, Pollux, Arcturus, Melania ... you can chose! It doesn’t matter because everything you write is amazing!!

“I don’t know what’s to be done with her.”

Nobody gathered around the table needed to ask Pollux to whom he was referring. Even if they had, he, busy grumbling to himself and uncorking the after-dinner port, would probably not have answered, distracted as he was. His eldest child and only daughter had just passed her sixteenth birthday, and as such it now fell to her mother and father to begin the important task of ensuring her a secure future.

Walburga was already proving a difficult case. 

Her father deeply regretted letting his daughter have her fill of wine at the event and giving her the opportunity to speak publicly about her hopes for the future.

“Getting away from this house, for a start” had not been a speech well received by the distinguished family and friends gathered in his ballroom.

“What’s to be done ought to’ve been done long ago.” His wife jerked the bottle out of his hand. “By her father.”

“Bah.” He settled into his chair. “Takes after her mama in temperment, if you ask me.”

“Nobody did ask you, Pollux Black.”

Arcturus, presiding at table, lifted one of his clawed hands, and the pair fell silent. All parties assembled breathed a sigh of relief, knowing full well that Irma and Pollux could go on for hours, if not headed off early.

“But who is likely to marry such a willful girl?” Cassieopia asked, pulling her shawl around her shoulders. “She’s not at all like the debs of my day. Always talking back. Could a husband even be found for her?”

Arcturus let out a humourless laugh.

“A fortune hunter might find it in his heart to ignore it.”

The girl’s parents exchanged dark looks. Their daughter’s dowry was far more impressive than they would have liked–owing to the peculiar bequest of their spinster Great-Aunt Elladora, who had left the lion’s share of her private fortune in a trust, destined for her eldest Black grand-niece, when she came of age.

The last thing Burgie needed was anymore help in the “independence” department.

“She’s threatened to curse more than one of Edmund Yaxley’s sons.”

“Yaxley’s boys all have lazy eyes and crooked ears. Cursing them would be an improvement, quite frankly.”

“True, but one can hardly say as much to their father’s face. We still meet him for drinks in town upon occasion, and he does business with Regulus.”

“Does he? I thought they’d given it up after that deal–something to do with a pair of bunk Hippogriff foals he sold your brother.”

“No, Lycoris, that was Edmund Selwyn. And it was a Jarvey kit—"

“—What about Orion?”

The group fell silent and looked around at the far end of the table as one. It was Melania Black, wearing a coat so voluminous that her delicate features almost disappareared in the fur, fingers trembling around her cup of after-dinner chocolate, who had spoken.

Irma peered at her husband’s cousin’s wife with a mixture of incredulity and pity. She was a pretty thing, but Melania, well…she didn’t exactly understand how they did things in this family, did she? No matter how long she’d been married to its head, she never really felt like one of them.

“What of Orion, Melly?” Irma sniffed. 

“I mean–how would he do as a…husband for Walburga.”

A cacophony of opinions on this scheme from every person followed.

“‘Rion–what an idea!” “He’s four years younger. What would people say?” “Far too young to be thinking of marriage—a veritable cub.”

Melania, for her part, kept her eyes fixed on her husband, directly across from her. He watched her in silence. Melania so rarely gave an opinion about anything (he didn’t approve of women having them, as a general rule, so this suited) that he found himself unexpectedly intrigued.

“Whoever Orion marries will one day take your place as mistress of this family,” he remarked, tone sardonic. “It is not a thing to be taken lightly.”

“I know that.”

“He could have anyone.”

“He’s very fond of Walburga, though, dear.” Melania had one of those naturally soft voices that carried—or perhaps it was that when she spoke, people tended to fall silent. “And didn’t your grandfather always say that the benefit of a large family with many branches was the occasional marriage that—kept it together?” His eyes flashed. “It would keep all that gold in the family.”

They were the magic words. The truth of them dawned on Pollux, Irma and Arcturus all in the same moment.

“Orion is, after all, very steady,” Irma remarked. “A sensible boy.”

“And it would keep Burgie around,” he husband agreed, in a rare moment of accord with his wife. “So we can keep an eye on her.”

A suitable punishment for an insolent girl flaunting her desire to run off with the first wastrel that would take her away—better to keep that one in the fold. The couple turned to Arcturus, knowing full well it was useless to think any further without his word.

The Head of the Black family steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair.

“It is something to…consider.” He took a luxurious sip of brandy. “The boy’s too young to be thinking of it, at any rate.”

Later, when they were alone he asked his wife if their only son had put her up to this peculiar request.

“Certainly not.” She smoothed the wrinkles from his shoulder. “You know Orion would never dream of presuming like that.”

But his mother was not without eyes–and if she could put a word in for him, so much the better.

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“You know, Lucretia, I’m positively sure it looks like a Grim”

It was inspired by Burgie’s phrase “I am not an expert in Divination, as you know… ”   (“Black Mask” written by our one and only @izzythehutt) 

And also…I do hope we’ll see a sequel to “A Matter of Priorities” soon ;) @icebluecyanide

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Orion covering Walburga with his cloak when she’s cold but refuses to admit it :)

It was just her luck that she would be stuck waiting for the carriage with only Orion for company.

She wondered if her mother had planned it this way—Irma had been prone to silent fits for months, ever since her only daughter had informed her of her staunch intention to never marry her cousin—or if Orion had arranged for them to be alone together in this way out of spite.

Perhaps, she thought, glancing up through thick eyelashes at his impossibly handsome silhouette—his eyes were fixed firmly ahead—It really was a coincidence.

In any case, she didn’t intend to make conversation with him.

Walburga shivered. She’d had her frocks for spring done early, this year, but the damp of March in Sussex was proving to be more than her sprigged muslin gown could take, even covered with the matching wrap. If only it were not seen as uncouth for a witch to conjure a flame and hold it up to her hands—

A sudden, soft warmth enveloped her whole person.

Walburga arched her neck up to find Orion, looking down—for at some point in the past year he had surpassed her in height to a disagreeable degree—all calm patience, and, she realized, with a start—sans cloak.

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

A faint, masculine and annoyingly pleasant scent clung to his cloak.

“You were cold,” he said, simply.

“I didn’t say so.”

“It was obvious.”

“Presumption is a monstrously unattractive quality, ‘Rion.”

“Would you rank it above or below stubbornness, Walburga?”

Her face flushed. Around the same time that Orion had grown tall and stopped calling her ‘Burgie’, he had ceased to be intimidated by her, too. She was not used to having her words thrown back in her face by her younger cousin, and she found the experience of it…unsettling.

It gave her an odd sensation in her chest. 

It was at that inopportune moment that the carriage pulled up in front of them.

He helped her up into it, and it was then that Walburga realized he had been waiting there with her, for no other reason than to see her off.

“I have no intention of calling on you to return your cloak, 'Rion.”

“Then I shall have to call on you,” Orion replied, with solemn patience. “Whenever is convenient, of course.”

She stuck her head out of the carriage, cross—though now that it was around her, she had no intention of throwing his cloak out the window, as she would have liked to. He was as arrogant as his cloak was comfortable.

“Perhaps I shall throw it in the fire and be rid of it that way.”

“As you wish.” He smiled and shut the carriage door. “You can buy me a new one as — a wedding gift.”

The coach was off like a shot, before she had a chance to throw a tart reply in his face—or, happily, before he got a chance to see her blush.

If he wanted his cloak back, she thought, wrapping it snugly around her shoulders. He could come and get it himself. 

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The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, 1976

Regulus loves reading.

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Padfoot to everyone.

One of the first tries, I'm still in process of figuring out how I want to draw him.

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moony, wormtail, padfoot, and prongs in jackets

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The best man and godfather.

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Natalia Szwed aka Tutajszwed (Polish, based Katowice, Poland) - Babushka Cat, Paintings: Digital Art

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#i just think this look

DORIAN GRAY (2009)

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Miss Lucrezia ( 👑the eldest daughter of Arcturus)

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Orion&Walburga Part 2

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BEN BARNES Dorian Gray (2009, Oliver Parker)

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mean girls but make it the 70s

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Sacred 28 Families, part I.