(A/N): We're back in 1967 with Sebastien (ew), Cipicia, and Miasenna. We follow on directly from his last chapter, with Cipicia saying she killed Leonides. Characters in this chapter are acting weird for good reason, I promise.
This chapter used to be 512, and was moved up to be closer to its predecessor, now 508.
Trigger Warnings: Child abuse (particularly Sebastien forcibly removing Mia from the conversation, context in the end note to avoid spoilers), Sebastien being a creep in general, Sebastien being a sadist. Mention of the Ministry of Magic being corrupt (turning a blind eye to purebloods being awful, even before the wars). There's some stuff in the end note about an item of furniture mentioned near the end of the chapter that contains an explanation of what could be considered animal abuse, but again, it isn't in the main chapter, so if that bothers you feel free to skip it. It's just me adding context for my decision to include that particular piece, and how it fits into the world of this story as I imagine it.
October 19th, 1967
Sebastien
"Oh Merlin, I've killed him!"
I didn't react to the words, at first- my brain simply couldn't comprehend them. Then, when they finally seemed to penetrate, I still didn't understand what she meant by that. Cipicia and I hurt our children, yes- and we had threatened to end their lives on occasion, certainly- but I didn't think she was legitimately capable of killing either of them... especially not Leonides. Not her special, wonderful, baby boy. It was so incomprehensible to me that it actually made me laugh- half shocked, and half believing she must somehow be joking, even though her entire demeanor more than told me that wasn't the case. At the sound of my laughter, both Cipicia and Miasenna- my wife and daughter- looked at me with disgust.
"You cannot be serious," I said, still trying to cling to the minuscule chance that she was wrong- or mistaken, whichever- and that disgust mellowed slightly as she realised I wasn't laughing at what she had said, but the absurdity of it. "You cannot- You can't-" She said nothing, but I saw the pain in her eyes- knew something irreversible had taken place, even if it wasn't quite what she had told us. "That's not your purpose!" Cipicia flinched, and Miasenna watched on warily. "You're supposed to- to-" The word 'protect' wouldn't come out, likely because I knew we had both long since failed at that, too. "Even if he's not human- even if he's a half-breed, and we need to keep him locked away for the rest of his life- he's ours, and we guard what is ours; you know that." Except... he wasn't 'ours', was he? He wasn't 'mine', at all- and maybe some part of me had always suspected, but I'd certainly never known about it on any conscious level. Still... in this case- and this case only- blood didn't matter. Or, at least, it mattered less than our reputation.
Reputation, in this world, was everything- it meant safety, prosperity, and above all... status. Our reputation- as the current heirs of the Joannis and Meliflua families and the parents of the next, and as the cream of the crop of pureblood society as a whole- was the thing that allowed us to maintain the lifestyle we were accustomed to, not the wealth we possessed. Sure, near limitless galleons gave us the means to purchase most things... but there were some things only a reputation like ours could buy- such as a type of privacy the Ministry of Magic didn't afford most of its subjects; a blind eye, so to speak. If we were to lose our reputation, then we would lose that privacy- that protection- and without it... well, there would be a rapid change of lifestyle, either way. Either we would need to be far more careful than we currently were, or... we would find ourselves getting very well acquainted with the inside of a cell at Azkaban.
"I know that," She said quietly- barely breathing the words. "I did what I- what I had to do. I did what I had to do. I did what I had to d-" I grabbed her by the upper arms, effectively cutting her off with the apparent shock the contact brought.
"What?" I asked. "What did you do? What did you convince yourself you had to do?"
Her pale blue eyes bored into mine, and I found it hard to ascertain exactly what I saw there. Fear and pain, for sure, but beyond that... maybe some sort of suspicion? A kind of awareness I hadn't seen in a long time from her- as though she had woken directly from slumber, wide awake. "I..." She hesitated, her eyes darting wildly as if she was fighting to find the words to say- clearly the alcohol was taking effect, since I had only ever seen her struggle this much when she was quite heavily inebriated. "I gave him a choice." A choice? ...what kind of choice? "I told him to leave, or I would kill him." Oh.
"I would have thought he'd take that opportunity and run with it." It wasn't a joke- not really- and none of us were laughing, particularly not Miasenna. Miasenna. Suddenly, I understood a little better- of course Leonides would refuse to leave his little sister, and of course this would spark Cipicia's temper and cause her to lash out, but... enough to kill him? It still seemed improbable, to me.
"He... he tried to fight me. Well," She started to amend her words. "He tried to argue, saying that if he left, he was as good as dead anyway- he's right." She closed her eyes for a minute, breathing deeply as if to try to steady herself. "I hurt him. Badly." Obviously, the steadying hadn't worked, because her voice still shook. "If he was human- if he wasn't what he is- it surely would've killed him, but... it didn't."
She fell silent, and I didn't know why until Miasenna spoke up- horror written plainly across her face. "Where is he?" She demanded. "What did you do with him?" At first I didn't understand why she asked that question in particular, but then it all clicked into place. Leonides had already been on crutches when they had returned home- when I had last seen him- and then she had hurt him 'badly', as she described it. He wouldn't have been able to get far on his own, and she wouldn't take the risk that he would be found nearby- especially not by any of our staff- so if he was alive... if she had not literally, physically killed him, then... she must have taken him somewhere. Done something with him. "Where is my brother? What did you do to him? I want him back- bring him back!" Cipicia turned her face away from her daughter in a gesture that reeked of shame, which only seemed to further enrage her. "He never did anything to you! He never did anything to anyone! He didn't do anything wrong, and you- You hurt him, because he wanted to stay! Did he even try to fight you- to fight back?!" Cipicia made a sound that sounded almost like a sob, or maybe a whimper. "You hurt him- you always hurt us- why?! Why?! Why, why, why-"
I stunned her before she even had the chance to realise that I was reaching for my wand, and as her body hit the rug with a thud, Cipicia's head whipped around. "Silence at last-" I cut myself off, surprised by the way she rushed over to the young girl's side, and only became even further bewildered as she hovered over the girl with an incredibly concerned look on her face. My puzzlement continued to grow as she tenderly lifted her daughter's limp body- cradling her unconscious form in her arms briefly- before depositing her on my favorite, dragon leather sofa... where she stayed by her side for another long moment, gently moving some hair out of her face, until finally turning her attention back to me.
Her face changed upon looking at me; that tenderness left, and replaced only by guilt, fear, and possibly... resentment? "I apparated him far away, don't remember where, exactly- doesn't matter; he wouldn't be there if we went looking, anyway." Still, having a starting point would likely help us try to track him down, at least. "You... did you really have to stun her?" She seemed pained by this, and I allowed myself to relish in it only for a moment before I shrugged rather deliberately.
"Would you prefer to have her yelling at you all morning?" She swallowed thickly, but said nothing. "Let me guess, you think you deserve it? Deserve her anger- her hatred- because of what you did to him?" Again, she said nothing- did nothing- but I knew I was right; I swept forward to grip her jaw, and it was sign enough that she didn't retaliate with violence. No, instead, she merely dug her fingertips into the veins at my inner wrist- less of a deterrent, and more of an acknowledgement. "Darling," I purred for the second time that morning, and I absorbed the flicker of disgust and shame in her eyes hungrily. "Don't punish yourself too hard... after all, you know how your father feels about being left scraps to play with."
(A/N): Trigger Warnings (Spoilers): Sebastien stuns Mia with his wand, and lets her fall to the floor.
The chapter name is a line from the Shakespeare play Hamlet, and are the last words of the titular character. I know this line, however, from Buffy (no one is surprised by this), from when Giles says it in season 2 episode 8, the Dark Age. I didn't know it was from Hamlet until I watched Passion of the Nerd's video on the episode, (because I am uncultured, as we know), but I like hiding little references in my chapters whether they be from things like Buffy or from Shakespeare, so this counts as a twofer, I guess. It actually isn't mentioned whether William Shakespeare was magical or muggle, but considering that lines from Macbeth are in the Hogwarts school song, I imagine that at least in the movie canon, he either IS a wizard, or he's well-liked among wizards. I wasn't sure whether that would mean a pureblood like Sebastien would know his stuff well enough to quote it or not, so I made his actual dialogue along the same vein as the line, but not actually BE the line, to turn this into a reference for me rather than him legitimately quoting Shakespeare, just in case.
So, dragon HIDE is what is mentioned in canon, and the difference between hide and leather is sometimes a little hard to distinguish, even with real animals like cows. I'm saying that dragon LEATHER is basically hide that has been treated more extensively, so it's probably more supple/considered to be of higher quality/more expensive, and used for different purposes. Dragon hide is already quite expensive, so to have an entire SOFA made of the even more expensive leather is just the Joannis's (particular Sebastien, who almost certainly chose all of the furniture and decorations for his office) being absolutely over the excessive and ostentatious. Except, Sebastien's sofa isn't just regular dragon leather, it's BABY dragon leather- like calf leather/kid (baby goat) leather, etc, baby dragon leather is softer and more 'luxurious', but less resistant to spells than regular dragon leather- which is ideal for a couch, which likely isn't going to see much beyond cleaning spells, which kind of need to be effective. Sebastien didn't mention that it was specifically baby dragon leather, because OF COURSE it's baby dragon leather, anything less has no place in his house. I imagine it's like a sort of chesterfield design, because that's just what I associate with rich people, and especially offices belonging to men from old money, which Sebastien is.
I imagine it as being green, sort of looking like a mexican alligator lizard, for reference, which means it's probably from something like a Common Welsh Green- which is the dragon Fleur faced in the Triwizard Tournament- or a Romanian Longhorn. I think the Longhorn is more fitting, considering it's from further afield (and thus more 'exotic') and its horns are highly prized as a potion ingredient, which lends more incentive for people to want to go mess with them/incite them to cause issues, which will make it more likely for them to be able to get away with killing them 'in self defense' in order to harvest them for ingredients and/or materials. I also thought that a baby dragon would most likely be lighter in color (as babies sometimes are, in various species), and the Romanian Longhorn is dark green, so that makes sense as to why the sofa is a more mid-toned green. Mexican alligator lizards can be more yellow toned or more blue toned, which I imagine is also true of Romanian Longhorn's, and this particular dragon was more blue toned- though the processing of the leather may have affected the color, too.
(note, baby dragon leather is a very divisive topic about whether it's humane or not, because the companies that produce it claim that they only harvest the leather from baby dragon's that have died of natural causes, but can either provide no proof of this, or the 'proof' that they do provide is extremely suspicious. However, even if the baby dragon DID die of natural causes, mother dragons are KNOWN for being very protective of their babies, and while they're always going to prioritise any still living offspring that might be around them at the time, they're going to be rather protective of the recently deceased baby, and thus have to removed/pacified in order for the baby dragon to be removed for processing. The companies argue that taking the baby dragon and using it to produce 'useful' items [almost all of them are unnecessary luxuries, unlike regular dragon leather] is actually MORE humane, since they consider the natural process of the mother dragon/the other babies eating the deceased baby to be a bit 'barbaric' [which is ridiculous, because nature is just LIKE THAT sometimes, and it's better for those around the deceased creature to benefit from them, especially those with which it was competing for food, or who birthed it- and therefore provided sustenance even at a risk to herself). Wow, I didn't expect to get sort of 'animal rights'-y there, but uh... yeah. Hm... should I tag that for animal abuse? ...magical creature, abuse?
I considered having Sebastien catch Miasenna with a levitation charm and gently lower her, and then changed my mind and had him let her fall, because again, he's a sadist, and while he doesn't get THAT sort of enjoyment out of hurting Mia (at this point in the story, at least) he doesn't really think about preventing people from hurting the same way others might.
Sebastien refers to Mia as 'her (Cipicia's) daughter' because he isn't very fatherly, and right at that moment, Cipicia IS being suspiciously motherly.