With the summer months came a slowdown in social commitments. Most families took their children to their country estates or abroad for prolonged vacations and would not return until closer to the beginning of the new term. Walburga and Orion as well decided to leave the bustling of London for their estate in Dorset. From there Walburga continued to make discrete enquiries into her grand-daughter's lineage. If Dorea Black would indeed prove to be a pureblood, it would herald the involvement of another likely influential family in her upbringing. This family would be another piece Walburga would have to carefully manoeuvre to ensure she and Orion would get access to the girl, and depending on the family, this would require careful preparation. After all, while she hoped the girl to be a pureblood, Walburga was positive the girl would not come from one of the sacred 28, and chances were this family might have been on the opposing end of past schemes the Black family had cooked up over the years.
In the end, it was surprisingly easy to obtain the information she was looking for. All it took was an invitation to the head of the St. Mungo children's ward for lasting spell damage under the guise of lining up his ward for this year's Witches' Aid Society's annual fundraiser. An feigned interest for the well-being of society's youngest, an exclamation on the importance of his life's work, a promise of ample financial support for the underfunded ward's renovation, a little bit of heavily spiked lime sponge cake as well as a confounding charm for good measure and a tidbit of expressed concerns over rumours she had heard about her wayward son. When they finally saw the old man's back that evening, Walburga leaned into her husband's embrace.
"Wasn't that lovely, dear?" she said sarcastically, batting her eyelashes at her husband, who only shook his head at his wife's antics. While he himself was curious who the mother of the child was, he did not see the same urgency as his wife. His son was as stubborn as a mule. Quite frankly they would have to run him through to even stand a chance to get to his daughter. "Once he comes through, I shall have to make a trip up to town to relieve him of those confusing memories though" Walburga mused. "Shall we plan for luncheon at the Cullière d'argent sometime next week?"
Despite Walburga's initial euphoria, it took almost a fortnight until she finally heard back from the old fool and Walburga's impatience grew with each passing day.
"How difficult can it be to just create a copy of a damn birth certificate?", she raged to her husband.
"She might not have been born there, dear. If she was born at home, they might not have documentation on her." After a short pause he added, "I sincerely hope not though. While I can quite see myself attending a fundraiser for, how did you put it? - The Witches' Aid Society's efforts to promote the happiness and well-being of society's youngest, I'm not quite sure I would be able to muster the same level of enthusiasm for the promotion of happiness and well-being of society's most boring registry, should you now find yourself in the need to champion the department for the registry of underaged witches and wizards."
Walburga laughed as she threw her napkin at her husband. "You just wait. I would make it a success, you my dear married one of the most coveted hostesses of wizarding Britain. Though in this instance, I would wager it falls to you to make eyes at Thelonius Thornhill, you were in the same year after all."
When a discrete owl finally arrived two days later, Walburga eagerly ripped open the envelope. Sneering she discarded a long-winded letter included, thanking her again for her hospitality and her commitment to support the St. Mungo children's ward. Taking out her grand-daughters birth certificate she quickly skimmed over the names, the child's full name, the father's and then finally her eyes landed on the mother's name written down in neat script "Marlene Elspeth McKinnon". A smug smile tugged at her lips. Looked like Sirius retained some standards after all. Of course, if you had asked her a few years back, she would have sneered at the mere idea of her son courting a blood-traitorous McKinnon. The family was as old as it was pure for sure, and commanded decent wealth, though nowhere close to the Black family, but they had always been firm supporters of the light, champions of muggles, mud-bloods and the downtrodden (they had even supported this ludicrous initiative stopping the hunt of werewolves a few generations back, could one believe it?) and had repeatedly blocked Veronica Wilkes nomination to the Hogwarts Board of Governors. But at this point, Walburga was no longer picky.
With a renewed spring to her step, she flounced into her husband's office and smugly set down the birth certificate for him to read.
"So half McKinnon I take it. Glad Sirius did not lose all of his common senses, with what they probably smoked up there in Gryffindor tower. I wouldn't have been surprised had our son picked up some mudblood just to spite us."
"We need to rethink our stance regarding the McKinnons." Walburga mused while perusing the shelves for their current version of "Wizarding Genealogy Almanach".
"I think after centuries of clearly opposing views on so many issues, it will take more than us softening our stance on their most recent moronic ideas. Surely you did not fail to notice how the onesie that girl wears in the picture already has the McKinnon crest stitched onto it." He held up the picture of their tiny granddaughter attached to the front page. "And they did not even think to inform us that we now share a grandchild."
"Don't presume me to be naive Orion. They are not going to be easy to side-step, I am well aware of that. But, if we want our granddaughter to be accepted within our circles, we cannot continue to go bashing half of her ancestors left and right. Could we embarrass or out-manoeuvre them? Sure, especially with the Malfoys on our side, but this would only ever be a short-term solution, and I would prefer not having to constantly watch my back with them."
"Let us start slow then." grinned Orion, picking up a paper from his desk. "I think it is high time that Septimus Weasley finally gets a chance to put a bit of food on the table. Let us approve his application for the Board of Governors, the McKinnons seemed quite in favour of his election, and we can just shrug it off as something we don't particularly care about anyway. But even so, we are no step closer to winning them over, and that is not even taking our son into account."
"At some point, he will bend.", snapped Walburga, "or I will make him.
"Like you did when he was sixteen?" Undeterred by his wife's death glare he added, "You'll do that, that worked so well the last time you did it that I am no longer concerned. Face it Walburga, Sirius is like you. Far too stubborn for his own good."
Walburga considered her husband with a sneer before she harrumphed unladylike and dramatically prowled out of his office. She would find a way. In fact, she would expect her husband to find a way with her together. That girl was the last of the Blacks. She belonged to their house, not to the blood-treacherous McKinnons. Should their sons beget them an heir, Dorea was theirs.
All the while in his office, Orion released a deep breath. Of course, he wanted his granddaughter to grow up as a true and proud Black. But he didn't have the same righteous indignation his wife seemed to carry all the time. He was rather realistic. It would be quite a while until they had that girl in their home. Carefully he picked up the picture with his newborn granddaughter again. One could already make out some surprisingly dark downy hair. He grinned, the girl would look like a Black. No, the McKinnon's dishwater blond locks were not in the girl's future. He gently removed the picture from where it was attached to the documents and set it up right next to his and his wife's wedding picture prominently displayed on his desk.