Chapter 2: 'Duty' sounds like 'death sentence'

I don't own 'Harry Potter'

"Traditionally the House of Black has always been run similar to what you would consider to be a dictatorship. What the Head of the family says, goes, no exceptions. Every member of the family born with the Black name follows the word of the Lord Black to the letter without question.

"More often than not, even if a descendent is born bearing the name of another House the Blacks will still keep themselves apprised of the child, ensuring that the child's life is sufficiently acceptable so as to not reflect badly on the House of Black. Even with yourself, Arcturus did in fact make some enquiries as to your placement after that Samhain, though Dumbledore and his sycophantic supporters put a quick end to that line of investigation."

Rose watched as the older woman sneered at the idea of the former Headmaster and pondered her words. If Arcturus Black had succeeded in gaining custody of her, she probably would have been raised as the perfect Black with her grandmother's relatives. What a lovely mental image that is. I probably would have run away like Dad, living with those arseholes.

At the time of that shitty Halloween there'd been more than a few Blacks remaining; Arcturus, Callidora, Pollux, Cassiopeia, Lucretia, Walburga, Cygnus, Narcissa, and they were only the ones that hadn't been disinherited. Granted a few of them were the scum of the earth, but the point was the Blacks had been alive to take care of her. She could imagine the woman in front of her might have her primary caretaker as the only person on that list not married or widowed.

What if, indeed. She knew there was no point in thinking about what could have been; Rose knew how her life had played out in the past, and she knew how things had changed this time around since being thrown through the Veil. (She really needed to start researching again, her accident was too intriguing to ignore. Maybe the school library has something hidden away?)

She refocused as her crazy aunt gestured to the complicated diagram on the board. That is a lot of lines. What was the crazy woman up to now?

"However, just because the Lord Black was rather militant in his actions didn't mean he was uncaring of his family's feelings," Aunt Cassi explained. "Before the previous Sirius and Phineas, the previous Lord Black was Crucis Black, Phineas' grandfather. His older relatives died when he was a child, leading him to head the family at a young age.

"Unlike many of his predecessors, he was equally concerned with the happiness of his family as well as their political reputation; he allowed his oldest son to marry a woman from a lesser family, as the Tripes were barely known at the time."

The woman gestured to the family tree pinned to the left side of the board. "This kindness continued with his other children, allowing his three daughters to remain unattached and his youngest son to continue his dalliances."

"Dalliances?" Rose had long since wondered why Eduardus Black had been disinherited; she'd never found any reports of him, which was strange seeing as how the more recent arsehole generations of the Black family had quite happily admitted to removing the 'unworthy' parts of the family tree. Such lovely humans, indeed.

"Let's just say his preferred method of socialising consisted of warming the beds of high society men and their sons, and we'll leave it at that."

So he shagged his way through the Wizengamot and their male relatives. Brilliant. Go Eduardus.

"Don't laugh," Cassi glared, "it's so far removed from inappropriate it's ghastly. Anyway, Crucis was happy to let his grandchildren follow the examples of his children. His only granddaughter married into the Blishwick family – small, unnoteworthy, and they faded out of existence a few generations later – his oldest grandson married a Max, and the last grandson Arcturus died single and childless.

"Unfortunately his grandson Cygnus grew up to be a resentful little man who despised the fact that he wouldn't be inheriting the family any time soon if at all. He was a horrid man who decided to raise his children to be just as awful as himself. Crucis' son Licorus and his grandson Cygnus had both already passed away by the time he died, meaning the family fell into the hands of my grandfather, Phineas Nigellus Black. That was probably the start of the end for the family."

The woman paused and Rose kept quiet. She had a feeling her aunt had complicated feelings about the family history in recent generations. Not that she could blame her; Rose herself felt strange about the Black history and she hadn't ever met any of these people. Cassiopeia had grown up with Phineas as a grandfather and had had to live with the following two Lord Blacks after Crucis ruining things. It was no wonder she was off her rocker.

"Rose, my grandfather wasn't a good man, and he certainly wasn't a nice man. He was uncaring of the family's emotional fulfilment, but he understood politics, he knew how to build and maintain alliances, he knew what it was to be one of the most powerful magical families in Britain, if not the most. He was ruthlessly pragmatic in maintaining our status, and despite the dubious ethics he employed the results spoke for themselves.

"Unfortunately he was also prejudiced beyond belief and couldn't care less about compromising on his beliefs."

The blonde girl paused from her note taking and blinked up at her aunt who was smirking at her. Weird woman.

"Phineas Nigellus Black was homophobic – he was probably gay himself and stupidly insecure going from what we know about him – hated muggle-borns with a passion, and thought muggles to be the scum of the earth who should be slaughtered for the good of magic everywhere. Shortly after donning the Black Head of House ring, he kicked Eduardus out the family for his 'reputation', despite the fact that Eduardus had actually been rather good at keeping his activities a secret.

"His sister Iola was disinherited when she fell in love with a muggle, and he even quickly got rid of his own son Phineas when he expressed a wish to support the rights of muggles. All three individuals were magically strong and intelligent, potential assets to the family, but instead of compromising with them he 'pruned' the family tree and proceeded to ignore them for the rest of his life.

"You know what happened after that," Aunt Cassi gestured, "Sirius took over, disinherited Marius and Cedrella, married off Orion and Walburga, then handed over the reins to his imbecilic son Arcturus when he died. Not that his son Regulus would have been any better, but I digress. Arcturus completely ignored the disaster that was Cygnus and Druella's family, let Sirius and Regulus grow up with Walburga as a mother, and proceeded to disinherit Andromeda and posthumously disinherit Alphard for leaving money to your father Sirius."

"This family's recent history's a bloody disaster," Rose muttered.

The older woman huffed. "While your language is completely atrocious, I suppose your description is not entirely inaccurate."

Rose looked down at her notes while her aunt shuffled some pages on her desk. While this lecture was pretty interesting she wasn't sure how it related to her question about the Wizengamot and political relationships. If she wanted to get things done she needed a more active education on their government rather than just trusting someone else to make good decisions for her.

"The one thing Phineas did well was arrange marriages for political alliances."

Bingo.

"In the five most recent generations there have been over a dozen marriages with high-ranking families. The Flints, the Gamps, the Yaxley family, Burke, Bulstrode, Macmillan, Longbottom, Crouch, Crabbe, Potter, Prewett, Rosier, Lestrange and the Malfoys. Even Marius married a Selwyn despite Delia being disinherited, and the Weasleys still have a better reputation in France, even if they weren't allied to the Blacks. Not to mention Sirius' new wife as a member of the House of Bones.

"Every single one of those families has a seat on the Wizengamot. The Blacks managed to cultivate a reputation amongst families from every sect, light, grey and dark. Of course most of them were dark, but my grandfather managed to arrange marriages with such a variety of individuals that it boosted the family's reputation immensely from all angles."

Cassiopeia pulled out her wand and pointed to the complicated diagram on the board. "This shows how the families relate to one another. More specifically, which allies are allied to one another and other families, and how closely. For example, the Crabbes. They have traditionally been in a subservient position to the Malfoy family for generations ever since a Lord Malfoy saved the Heirs to both the Crabbe and Goyle families. In recompense the Malfoy demanded obedience, and the Lords Crabbe and Goyle pledged their families to serve the House of Malfoy from then on."

Huh. That explains that. I thought they were just being used as muscle by Draco for no apparent reason.

"If you were to gain the support of the Malfoy family, you would no doubt also secure the support of the Crabbes and the Goyles, as well have a higher chance of gaining the support of the Burkes."

"If you look at this, you'll see that some families have more ties than others, even if they don't appear to wield as much power overall compared to the more well-known names. The Burkes for instance have traditionally been a rather small family, though they have close alliances with the Houses of Goyle, Crabbe, Flint and Crouch."

The older woman stopped and turned to her with a smirk that sent a shiver down Rose's spine. Oh Jesus Christ, what now?

"As Heiress Black, it is your duty to maintain these alliances with members of the families close to your age."

Rose blinked. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I could have sworn you just said something about maintaining connections with such a ridiculous number of people when I already have to do the same for the House of Potter."

"Oh, don't worry my dear niece," came the airy reply with a sharp grin that did nothing to soothe her, "I'm sure you'll figure it out."

I actually hate her.

Rose tuned out the barking instructions of Cassiopeia – and she was suddenly so thankful she hadn't been raised by the crazy bat – and refocused on the warm hand in hers, making sure not to take out her frustration on the boy in front of her by crushing his hand.

Neville was far too innocent to bear the brunt of her temper.

She knew that Aunt Cassi was determined to hammer the idea of being a proper Heiress Black into her head, but forcing her to learn every little possible thing even remotely related to the role was exhausting. And ridiculous. Rose was going to be at school for most of the year, yet she was still being forced to learn about events she was highly unlikely to attend. Like balls.

Balls were sometimes held during occasions such as Yule or Midsummer, traditional occasions which were beloved celebrations of Magic, allowing families to invite like-minded individuals to their homes to celebrate whichever wondrous event was at that particular moment of the year.

Though more often than not balls were irritating excuses to parade around wearing metaphorical flashing signs for whatever status people wished to advertise at the time. Hey look, there's an incredible rich moron looking for a trophy spouse! Did you know I have at least three times as much money as you? I have an independent business meaning I can have both a fulfilling career and a personal life! Does anyone want to team up with me to spread idiocy and a lack of common sense to the masses?

What a fucking joke.

Despite only being eleven there was no doubt she'd end up with more offers of marriage that what was acceptable – she didn't care that girls used to get married at her age, it was gross, end of discussion. Any possible marriage of hers would only happen when she was seventeen and out of school. There was no way she was going to deprive herself of an education (even if it wasn't really needed) just because some self-entitled bastard tried to tell her what to do. No thank you.

While her new – and deeply unwanted – education was at the very least designed in a way to build Rose a spine of steel, it was so annoying at having to do it. She already knew that nobody would be able to force her into anything, so what was the point?

The point was that she was known to be part of two Noble and Most Ancient Houses, and the vast majority of her close friends and relatives were also fellow members of the magical aristocracy. She had to learn how to interact with them in a manner befitting a Black. Rose had known there would be certain expectations when she donned the Heiress Black ring, but considering the Lord Black was Sirius she hadn't thought there would be much to do.

Of course her mad great-aunt had quite happily fucked that up for her, though to be honest she should have expected a little more from the family that had given both Grindelwald and Voldemort pause. In her defence she'd been a little more focused on preventing the Black family falling into the hands of various related arseholes to be more worried about what being Heiress Black would entail. Thank fuck Lucius Malfoy didn't gain control of the Blacks. He probably would've bought more peacocks.

"You should relax Rose, you're doing great with the steps."

She looked up to see the kind blue eyes of her cousin and godbrother and tried to smile, though judging from his concerned expression it was more of a grimace. Not that she could help it; this was something she'd never been that good at, and ironically had been something that Neville had excelled at even in his clumsiest moments.

Dancing was something that she despised. Actually, it wasn't the dancing part, it was the implications behind it. Practising steps with Neville was fine, and taking a spin over a dance floor with a cousin or a friend had never bothered her (even she and Draco had partnered up during her scant forays into the public eye in her past-future), but learning to dance for the sole purpose of cosying up to brown-nosing morons made her skin crawl. I suppose I could always 'accidentally' step on someone's feet …

"Rose?"

The girl sighed quietly. "Sorry, Nev. It's just not really something I like that much. Dancing isn't really my forte, and being made to learn this just to socialise kind of annoys me. I mean, I don't want to act like I'm looking to get married or anything, I'm eleven for crying out loud."

Her friend grinned, though with a flash of sympathy in his eyes. "You know, seeing as how you have a lot of friends – male friends – of a similar status to you, you could feasibly get away with just monopolising their time to avoid anyone you don't want to deal with.

"Besides, your dancing isn't that bad."

Rose eyed him with a raised brow and his lips twitched before he amended, "Okay, I'll admit it baffles me how you walk so gracefully but can't even go four steps without messing up. Is there a reason for that?"

She stuck her tongue out very immaturely and enjoyed his laughter, grinning as Cassiopeia started berating them loudly from her place at the side of the floor.

"I'll have you know I'm perfectly graceful, thank you very much."

His lips twitched. "If you say so."

Rose forcibly relaxed her shoulders and fell into the position of being led. The problem with her grace was that it revolved entirely around physical combat; ever since the war she'd been on edge and prepared for an attack, which had eventually resulted in her being inordinately graceful in her everyday life.

She didn't think people would compliment her stance so much if they knew she was making sure she could retaliate in less than a second.

"How are your parents doing?"

Neville visibly brightened at the topic. "Great! Mum's started teaching me some charms to use in the greenhouses, and Dad's taking me to visit some muggle gardens in London next week. I want to see if I can incorporate some muggle species into the first greenhouse, or maybe even do some cross-breeding to see what happens. You know …"

Rose smiled at her cousin as he started geeking out over plants and realised she hadn't tripped as she listened to him. She focused on the impassioned words with a smirk.

I can do this.

A/N: Hello people!

I know some people might seem put off at the lack of a proper plot, but I did warn everyone about how it would mostly focus on Rose's life rather than time travel. That's not to say some plotlines won't appear, but they won't always be the focus.

Another thing to mention after a recent review reminded me, if something offends you in some way and think there should be a warning (I will usually try and leave warning for any issues I feel need to be addressed) please let me know so I can correct this. I myself am very open-minded and liberal in listening to other people, so sometimes I miss things that others might find offensive. Not because I don't care, but because I don't even blink an eye at hearing or reading about certain things.

Btw, you guys have no idea how hard I fought the urge to sleep instead of posting this chapter. My new job is completely mental, and my feet are throbbing from running around all day. Oh, the joys of adult life lol.

Until next time. Happy reading!