[{lovecraft estate}] i am malicious because i am miserable || phillip

The invaders had apparently been at it since noon, rummaging through her mother’s extensive collection of antiquities in search of items they deemed cursed and unsuitable for public domain. Had the heiress not been informed directly by one of the loyal servants of the Lovecraft household, she might have been none the wiser, the family who bore her mother’s surname more than willing to further disassociate themselves from the woman that had almost ruined their chances at wealth upon her imprisonment. The young witch had become irate at the thought that they had been so careless with her mother’s things, with her things, but had come to expect very little from a family that only prided itself in their wealth and status when it was most convenient for them. Poor fools, she noted, that she would not hesitate to prosecute for their subversion should the need arise.

However, it was not the subject of loyalties that disturbed her but rather the way in which the Ministry was once again stripping her from her things, physical manifestations of the mother she could only embrace in her memories, items that were gifted to her upon her imprisonment, things that she cherished with the heart she did possess. The pain was too great, each item removed equaling an even deeper wound in her chest, a happy recollection only replaced with indignation towards the world that had made it its cosmic duty to make hers as miserable as possible. Surely this was much more inhumane than the Cruciatus Curse, but only because every item in the family storage room was of sentimental value.

“No, no, absolutely not,” she started, walking towards the man inspecting a black lacquer chest of drawers, the flowers painted upon it charmed to move as the drawers were opened. “You cannot come in here and take whatever you want, I have rights and you’re disrespecting every single one of them,” she said, Effie resting a hand on her shoulder as a reminder to keep her calm. Her grandfather had told her to be cooperative, to remember that government officials were working under strict orders and took no interest in her personal affairs to form an opinion on them. But Genevieve had never believed as much. She had decided long ago that the series of unfortunate events that was her life was no coincidence but a carefully elaborated plan to eventually break her, the mark on the inside of her forearm, one she kept well hidden under a concealment charm, the only thing they were truly after.

Effie ushered her back to her seat, her mother’s favorite chair that had been set next to the door, a pot of freshly brewed tea waiting for her attention but receiving none of it. Too exasperated to enjoy anything as common as tea, the woman motioned over one of the other maids for a cigarette instead, lighting it and letting the smoke fill her lungs as the smell of cinnamon permeated the air. The smoking had been a disagreeable habit she had picked up in Capri but the fact that they were charmed in this way to keep the smell of smoke away from her clothes and hair lest they disturb her sensibilities, made it the habit she depended on in times like this.

Turning to see yet another worker for the ministry, this one considerably younger than the other ones she noticed, entering the door, she sighed heavily. The young woman had had enough, “How many more of you idiots does it take to rummage through my mother’s things?” she scoffed, “I ought to sue the entire government for this abuse of power, are you even old enough to understand how valuable these things are? Of course you’re not, the Ministry will recruit just about anyone with a pulse as long as they can fill your head with their ridiculous ideas, have they managed to brainwash you, too?” she wondered, arching an eyebrow in question. It had been mere coincidence that this young man would bear the brunt of the beginnings of her anger but someone had to and he seemed like an easy target.

Working for the Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes was certainly not Phillip Donnelly's dream job. He spent his days removing hexed Tupperware from the homes of wealthy homemakers and dying of boredom in equal measure. When he'd read the pamphlet so many months ago, he'd thought this Office of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had sounded at least slightly interesting. And since he had only applied with the DMLE as a stepping stone into the Department of Mysteries, Phillip had dared to ask 'how bad could it be?' and now he wished he had never applied in the first place.

Dealing with cursed objects had sounded mysterious, intellectual, and even entertaining, but Merlin knew Phillip had been wrong. When he wasn't filing copious amounts of paperwork, he was busy disenchanting mailboxes that bit their owners, cauldrons that wouldn't collapse, and shoes that tied themselves (to each other). It wasn't glamorous, it wasn't fun, and worst of all, he hadn't learned a damn thing new.
When a new assignment hit the cluster of desks that were, in Phillip's opinion, situated far too close to one another, he was the last to volunteer for it. In the first few weeks of the job, the young wizard had done exceedingly good work for the Office, but in the months since, he had begun to slack off. Disinterest and boredom had never been the right mix for the Irish wizard's productivity. Despite his efforts to shrink into his paperwork, Phillip's boss had tapped him and the rest of the Office, in on the newest job, by the middle of the day. It was a tricky one, and they needed all hands on deck.

Alongside the second team of employees, the leader briefed them on the task ahead, whom the home belonged to, the families involved, and specifically the types of items they might find and need to dispose of. Phillip imagined this Office was rather busy in the days following the death of the Dark Lord, but by the time he had graduated, most of the truly dark objects had been found and dealt with. Most, but according the reports, not all. Today, it seemed, was going to be more interesting than the rest of the past year combined.

Phillip fixed the clasp on his itchy ministry uniform and apparated with the rest of the team. He landed with a frown at the fence line outside. The rest of the Office had been here most of the afternoon, so when Phillip arrived, he expected the ministry called them in to finish and clean up, not do anything remotely interesting. Phillip walked into the room with his group, only to be called out by the only witch, not in a uniform. Her cloak was far too expensive to be in the British ministry's employ, so Phillip assumed she owned the items they were here to investigate. Rolling his eyes at her, the young man shrugged before offering an answer to her rhetorical riddle.

"An entire office, apparently,"

Phillip's sarcasm mixed with the frown on his face, showing exactly how unamused he was by her tantrum and how little it changed the job he came here to do. "Let me guess, these items are very personal to you," Phillip began, the idea of the ministry brainwashing him as he stood in what was the attic of a dark family was laughable, and Phillip Donnelly very rarely found anything amusing. "Near and dear to your heart, family heirlooms, perhaps?" It was clear that he was condescending, but Phillip did not attempt to hide it. "And you think we are the brainwashed ones?"

Genevieve was silent for a few moments longer than appropriate for a woman of her status, her eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly as if to express what she had been expressing in that exasperated tone of hers. The other men had been apologetic, had even entered the basement with a look of verging on sympathy or possibly pity, though the young witch knew it had nothing to do with her concerns. A long time ago people used to believe her situation was poor due to the acts of her parents, a sad little soul caught in between a difficult situation that she had no control over. Nevertheless, as she had grown older and shed that cloak of innocence she had worn so easily, she was transformed into the spitting image of her mother, and with it had also inherited her reputation.
But the woman was hardly concerned with the thoughts of others, she had grown accustomed to the criticism and had come to assume that she was automatically disliked. On one hand, this made it difficult for her to form connections with her peers but on the other hand, and much more importantly, she felt no need to disguise her words behind platitudes that she no longer felt. Not like the Ministry members, at least. This boy felt no need to do so either. However, it only managed to upset her.

“Did you perhaps miss orientation? I know that the lot of you are raised like barn animals so one can only assume that they’ve taught you to be agreeable and apologetic when the time calls for it?” she asked haughtily, raising an eyebrow in an effort to beat him down into submission with her curt tone rather than to explain to him why he ought to apologize to her. Genevieve thought that the entire world had to apologize to her but that was a philosophical argument only minorly related to the events happening in her home at that moment. “Just in case you’ve missed the memorandum, this is the time to be agreeable and apologetic,” she continued, taking another inhale from her cigarette before blowing the smoke in his face. It was only a gesture of rudeness, the smoke, after all, had a smell of incense and it filled the otherwise lifeless room with warmth.

But it did not dissuade him, in fact, he continued to speak as if he were speaking to a child and that sentiment only made the pristine young witch clench her jaw and that whatever came forth was not too obvious a spectacle on the volatility of her emotions. “What would you understand about family heirlooms and items precious to one’s heart?” she rolled her eyes at him, making sure to look up at him and hoping that the coldness radiated as harshly from her expression as she wished it would. “You confuse my loyalty to my family and my memories for being brainwashed and yet your life’s aspiration was to work as a cleaning boy for the Ministry? That’s who you’ve chosen to give your loyalty to? The big machine?” she tittered lightly, walking past him as she shoved past two other men toward the cupboard. The men only apologized, stumbling over the words as they scurried off to the corner.

That was more like it. Turning back to the “boy” she had just walked ahead of, she turned to him and smiled, a sinister expression on her face, “Well, aren’t you curious about where I keep my most precious possessions?”

"Must have missed that day," Phillip said with a shrug, pretending like he hadn't heard or didn't care about the rest of what she had said. He was used to being treated as less-than around people like her, and though it had never really stopped bothering him, Phillip didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing it bothered him. She reminded him of what he should have been doing, and Phillip tried to keep up the act, but the smoke blown right in front of him made him scowl before clearing his throat. The witch had set out to make him uncomfortable, he was sure of it, and she had succeeded. Worse yet, Phillip had been the first to blink. The wizard knew he'd kick himself about it later, but Phillip had never had a perfect poker face.

The next thing she said only served to hammer another nail into his coffin. Ocean green eyes darted toward her, but they held no hint of an apologetic or agreeable nature. Phillip wondered if she had chosen her words very precisely if somehow this witch knew what had happened with his family or if she had just gotten lucky. A part of him, the rational, very Ravenclaw part, knew better than to think she knew a thing about him. She was cruel. The paranoid part, which very often ran the show, thought otherwise. Phillip couldn't stop himself from worrying that she knew everything about him, and he had somehow given her the perfect opportunity to use his past as a weapon. This woman was going to be a thorn in his side for the rest of the afternoon.

The big machine. Phillip sucked in a harsh breath, refusing to break contact with her as she accused him of being everything he was worried he would become. This department is a means to an end. Phillip had a much greater purpose, but working for the Ministry had been the very last place his teenager, schoolboy self, had ever expected. Phillip detested the Ministry and most everything they stood (or, more often, lied down) for. He wasn't loyal to the Ministry or the shadow forces that governed it, but he couldn't tell her that. The wizard knew she wouldn't believe him and far more likely wouldn't care. The only thing he was loyal to was the memory of his family, and he did all of this for them.

Including, but not limited to, biting his tongue.

Phillip clenched his jaw so tightly he managed to bite down on the inside of his cheek, too, and as she moved away from him, he noticed the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Momentarily, he ignored her, not following, but something drew him to move after her. Maybe it was because she had dared him to, or perhaps it was because some part of him had to prove that everything she assumed was wrong. Phillip had carried a chip on his shoulder for the last seven years; a little longer couldn't hurt.

"That depends. Are your most precious possessions the sort that the Ministry would be interested in?" Despite being out of Hogwarts for a short while, Phillip had quite a bit of real-world experience. Growing up the way he had, mostly alone, the wizard had learned how to get a feel for a person relatively quickly, and everything about Genevieve was screaming one thing: trouble.

Whether or not the Ministry held orientations to help guide their young employees through the complexities of human decency or if they all gathered after work for a pint at the local pub to initiate its new members, the young witch could not care less. For obvious reasons she had very strongly shaped opinions on the functions of the government and as such had always felt a victim of its ridiculous pushes for reforms, except for the time it was in her favor. Even though the fact that he had indulged her with an answer pleased her, it was, in her mind, the beginnings of what could be a wonderfully pleasant acquaintanceship if he continued his little act. Genevieve might have said something witty like she’d report him to his superiors but the thought of ever talking to any of those bureaucratic pigs, even if just said in jest, seemed like too much to bear. Then again, they were taking away her mother’s things after having taken the woman away several years prior.

Had she been paying closer attention to his reaction or cared to know what he was about; she might have noticed the slight change in his disposition. But so consumed in herself and her own feelings was the witch that she often missed the subtle details that might have proven key in the ideal plan for manipulation. There must have been something about him that was intriguing enough for had it not been she might not have willed him over for a second conversation. Perhaps it had to do with her intense desire to explain herself, even if she never cared what others had thought about her before. She was hardly going to denounce her family’s beliefs, but she wanted him to understand that she had chosen to side with them willingly. Genevieve knew the facts, understood them to her benefit, and aligned herself, not out of fear, but rather, out of allegiance.

Then again, maybe it had more to do with this sense of commiseration she expected from someone close her age. He was certainly younger than her, she could see it in the rosiness of his cheeks, or at least had never been exposed to the tribulations of the real world. But in comparison to every old, washed-up man in the room he seemed to have a little more sense. Genevieve was in a vulnerable place, however, and her beliefs could have been easily chalked up to the need for the sympathy she so often loathed. She did not want to part with her mother’s things, these things were the only physical memories of the woman that she had left. It was a tragedy.

“Everything I own is something of interest to the ministry, hasn’t anyone caught you up, yet?” she looked over at him, curious to know how much he knew about her and if he believed it. “Don’t you know who I am?” she scoffed, turning back to her quest toward the back storage room. Taking out a key whose handle was decorated by a slithering snake that had been charmed to move when touched, she unlocked the door and beckoned him inside. “After you, sir,” she said sarcastically. “Now tell me what the ministry wants so that I can give them that and they can go away. And then, if I’m feeling magnanimous I’ll forget that horrible thing you said to me earlier and won’t have you fired.”

While Genevieve was polite and cooperating with the ministry investigation, Phillip couldn't shake the sense that it was all one big act. He could tell she didn't agree with the Ministry being here, but she wasn't about to make an enemy of the Ministry by refusing the request either. It was a delicate line to walk, and she was doing it with dramatic style, and he should have been impressed, but in truth, Phillip was annoyed by it. He had never played his part, and he rarely understood those who did.

When his father was killed, and his mother and sister went missing, he was supposed to get over it. Move on, that was what the counselor had told him, but Phillip never would. It had always been one of his defining traits. The fact that he couldn't let it go, so many years later, he was still searching, but the more he thought about it, the less proud he felt by his recent actions. Phillip hated the Ministry as much as the next person, possibly even more than the witch leading him to another room, yet he was working for them here. In league with the same people who abandoned the search for his family years ago and left him in the care of an alcoholic quasi-relative.

Back when it first happened, Phillip had spoken out about it every chance he got. He screamed at professors, stomped his little feet in the ministry hall when his uncle brought him (after months of pleading), and eventually began his research. He stole books from the restricted section, practiced magic he shouldn't have known about at Hogwarts, and wholly ignored the Prefect's badge they gave him out of pure spite, but none of it got him any closer to answers. And so, little by little, his search began to morph until he had convinced himself that working for the Ministry would get him further than working against. He signed up right after Graduation, only to find out he wouldn't get access to the Department of Mysteries for at least a year.

And now, where was he? Confiscating nonsense from a self-important witch and barely making enough for rent, that's where.
"Am I supposed to?" Phillip asked, snapping back to reality as the snake key turned, and Genevieve asked him if he knew who she was. The wizard heard the lock click into place and then click a few more times as the magical charms disarmed, and Genevieve opened the door. Stepping in after her, Phillip stifled a yawn by placing his hand lazily over his mouth. It was early, and he hated his job, which made the idea of going back to bed more than appealing. In between a second yawn, Phillip answered her question with less sarcasm than before and frowned at her threat.

"We've received reports that there are potentially dangerous cursed objects in the collection." Turning away from Genevieve and to the dossier, he had folded up chaotically in his cloak pocket Phillip cleared his throat before reading aloud. "Items belonging to the late Hesperia Grosvenor, nee Lovecraft, have been flagged for investigation. These objects may include but are not limited to jewelry, furniture, cloaks, trinkets, mirrors, quills, antiques, books, and crystals. All artifacts are considered extremely dangerous, and caution is advised." Looking up from the page as he finished, Phillip ran a hand through his hair and shrugged.

"Are they wrong?"

“You come into my home, you rummage through my possessions, you claim to be looking for supposedly cursed items, you insult me, and you have the audacity to claim to not know who I am?” she scoffed, pausing as she walked into the room, the seriousness on her face hopefully conveying how displeased she was with his words. But she was not angered by his behavior, not yet anyway. It took much more than a pouting child to cause her any grief, but it certainly did not mean that she would not react to his words. “Am I boring you, Mr. Donnelly?” she asked, her eyebrow arching delicately in question. He might not have known who she was but she certainly knew who the lot of them were, she had a contact at the Ministry which she strung along with promises she’d never keep for this very purpose. So that when strange men came into her home and made a mess of things, she’d be able to identify them by name. “According to your file, this is your first year, is it not?” she added.

The room was filled with family portraits, they had been stored here when the home had undergone renovations and somehow had never found their way back to the main hallway. Genevieve suspected that they knew too much and had been kept down here with the hopes that they’d eventually stop talking or forget what they had seen and heard. Though more realistically, like her own mother, they had been forgotten with time and branded relics of the past. “Genevieve is that you?” one portrait spoke, the eyes of the man in the portrait following her as she rummaged through her pocket for a key. “Oh, look at you, you’ve grown so much,” another one said, it was an aunt from three generations prior, Aunt Vesperina. Out of the family of portrait, she was certainly the nicest, but her platitudes had worn off with time and Genevieve had found it much easier to ignore them.

“Be quiet,” she heard the voice of a male relative, though she had forgotten his name, as he grumbled to himself, something, or another about the book in his hands and how he never had the time to read. The rest of the portraits took little notice of her, minding their own business by having empty conversations with each other. It had been one of the sad things about the Lovecraft portraits, the family had been secretive to a fault which meant that when it came time to be immortalized by an artist, there was so little known about them that their painted representations had only but a few phrases to work with. Unlike some of the portraits at Hogwarts, it was obvious that they were not real.

The sound of her mother’s name as Phillip read the document in her hand made her wince, it was still painful to hear it and the woman did not dare say it unless she was forced too. Years later, it still hurt. Walking closer to a portrait that was empty, nothing but the landscape of rolling hills and a sunset, she unhooked the portrait, carefully turning to Phillip, “do you mind?” she said but handed him the painting anyway, using the key in her pocket to unlock the small door before her, as she reached in to retrieve a mirror. It had been a gift from her mother, the last thing she had received before the woman had been locked away in Azkaban and held a significant amount of sentimental value. She would not allow the Ministry to take this away.

“It is just a mirror, as you can see,” she showed him. It was more than that, but he did not need to know the magic within the mirror and how it allowed her a glimpse into the past, “I would prefer not to have the Ministry’s dirty hands all over it, some of the items are there,” she pointed at the shelf in the corner. They were items, of course, but none of them were cursed. “They are wrong,” she said pointedly, “my mother is being persecuted for her beliefs and so am I. I know that you cannot understand it because you think the Ministry is on the right side of history as they are the governing body but one day you will become an adult and realize that not everything you hear is real,” she added. She gripped the mirror tighter in her hands.

To say that Phillip wasn't intimidated by Genevieve would be an absolute lie. She was commanding and well-read, and it was clear that she was aware of this. There was something about the confident way she accused him of intruding while simultaneously calling him a liar that made him uncomfortable. And Phillip assumed that was her exact intent. The wizard's discomfort increased tenfold when she called him by his name. Phillip was confident that he hadn't introduced himself, so the idea that she knew more about him than he had offered was unsettling. And then she mentioned the file she had read on him, and he coughed awkwardly. Her words made the dossier, packed the brim with information on her family and possessions, feel like a mere paperweight. Maybe he should have read further into it.

Or maybe the subject line should have warned him to approach Mrs. Reinhardt with extreme caution.

"I don't think it is appropriate for you to have my information, Mrs. Reinhardt." Of course, Phillip knew who the Reinhardts, Grosvenors, and Lovecraft's were. He did live in the magical world after all, and he'd had to be hidden under a rock for the last ten years to avoid at least one of those very influential names. Phillip was an intellectual; he craved knowledge, he was a true Ravenclaw through and through, but he was also incessantly lazy. Quite possibly, the only trait he hadn't inherited from his blue and bronze former house was the need to rub what he knew in everyone else's face. Phillip knew who Genevieve Reinhardt was, but he didn't want her to know that. It was just easier to pretend as if he didn't know more about her than he cared to.

Phillip avoided eye contact with the portraits that began to spring to life as Genevieve passed them. He had always found magical paintings alarming; they were creepy and awkward, and most of all: they were a lie. It wasn't truthfully the person; it might have looked like them and sounded like them, and perhaps it even knew their life story, but it wasn't them. It wasn't real. Immortalizing a memory inside of oil and canvas was dishonest, and it was a disservice to anyone who missed the person. He wasn't surprised that so many of them seemed to have been forgotten in this locked room ages ago. Curiously, Phillip ran his hand over the ornate frame that had been collecting dust for years. Not even the house-elves and servants, of which he was sure there were many in an estate like this, came into this room. That was interesting.

"Um, okay," Phillip shuffled to tuck the paperwork under his arm just in time to have the portrait shoved into his hands. It was heavier than it should have been. Looking at it upside down, Phillip noticed the paint layered on thick, and silently wondered if there was another painting hidden underneath. The smell of fresh grass and fields of lavender distracted him from his investigation, and he looked up at what Genevieve had produced. "Just a mirror?" He asked, the disbelief evident in his tone, and raised an eyebrow. Setting the portrait she'd handed him on the ground, Phillip was unaware of the copious amounts of dust and cobweb that now collected on the wool of his ministry-approved black cloak. "May I see it?" Phillip reached his hand out for the object before he finished the question, ignoring her plea as if he had the right to inspect it either way.

The young wizard found it odd that she would produce the one thing she didn't want them to touch and offer up a buffet of items he was looking for at the same time. Assuming that she was only forthcoming and helpful to get him to leave quicker, Phillip ignored the gesture. He was well aware of how the world worked. It wasn't quid-pro-quo; it was every wizard for themselves. "I do not doubt that that is true," Phillip offered, partly because he knew better than to assume the Ministry was acting altruistically and somewhat because he wanted to catch Genevieve off guard by agreeing with her. "The ministry is not the hero of this story," Phillip pondered quietly, turning the ornate hand mirror over and avoiding Genevieve's eyes.

Holding the mirror out toward her, Phillip shrugged again, his eyes lazily moving to meet hers, and spoke. "The ministry has no interest in this object; I see no reason as to why you can not keep it." Phillip released the possession back to Genevieve. While the mirror had underlying magic, he could feel it when it touched his palm, and it didn't have the sort of attributes the Ministry was after. Most importantly: it hadn't tried to curse him, convince him to kill muggle-borns, or give him unearned amounts of wealth. He sensed nothing illegal, but Phillip was still a rookie, after all.

"Look," Phillip began, holding back the sigh that dared to creep up and relaxed slightly. "The way I see it is this can go one of two ways. Option one, you can show me the dark objects so that I can be on my way and out of yours. Or option two, you can continue to assume you know who I am and what I believe in, and I will return the favor by rifling through everything you own until I find the truly horrific stuff." The sort of stuff that ruined families and fortunes. The nefarious types of artifacts he was sure she had hidden in inappropriate places around this magical home.

Phillip had never been good at poker, but he knew how to play a good game of chess. And the most critical objective of any game was sizing up your opponent. He could tell that Genevieve was not the sort to be trifled with. Phillip assumed that she could and would mop the board with him if he wasn't cautious. And so, it was not without careful consideration that he chose to threaten her.

“And I do not think that it is appropriate for you to have no idea who I am or what I am capable of,” she retorted, the curtness in her words not discreet in the way that she voiced them. “Yet, here we are,” she added, her mouth tightening just slightly, the cute pouts were reserved for the love of her life but this wretched Ministry worker certainly did not deserve even half of the politeness she had been granting him and so she looked at him with disdain and would have looked down at him if he had not been such a gigantic figure hovering over her like a troll. It was a strange juxtaposition, the desire to find privacy and live far away from the prying eyes of the world, a contradiction to her desire for glory, recognition of her family name.

“Are you blind?” she retorted instead, raising an eyebrow delicately in question as she held up the mirror in her hand slightly higher. It was her flavor of cooperation—the gesture of compliance perhaps contradicting the provoking words that she spoke in turn, after all, the Lovecraft women never went down without a fight. Then again, the young witch had already decided that she would not simply turn over her things, Ministry guidelines be damned. But, there was no reason to let anyone in on her plans, especially not the overgrown child that stood before her in regulation uniform he obviously had no business in.

She was reluctant, but only for a moment, before carefully handing the mirror for inspection. It would not grant him any of her or her mother’s secrets, Hesperia had made certain that only her daughter would be capable of accessing its charms, but it did not make her any less ambivalent. This item held memories and allowing them to be in the possession of another, even if ever so briefly, filled her with a mixture of emotions that she could not quite explain. It might have been fear, the same sort she had felt as a child when her mother had been so cruelly ripped away from her arms. Or, perhaps, it was the sort of anxiety that plagued her thoughts when she considered losing the only connection she had to the past. The realest depiction of her mother as she remembered her.
But rather than lend insight into her thoughts, the young heiress became filled with irremediable indignation.

A part of her expected him to take the mirror regardless of its value to the Ministry; after all, it would not have been the first time that someone came into her home and made a mess of things, in both the physical and psychological sense. And so, when he returned it she looked at him suspiciously, rather than to take it for the gesture of good will that it probably was. The Ministry is not the hero of this story, he said, and frankly, the words caught her off guard. Had she not been jaded from years of malignant intention, she might have wondered if in another life, they were kindred spirits destined to great conversations over the failures of British politics.

But that Genevieve had only existed when she was much too young to know better. “Why thank you, its nice to know that the Ministry feels the authority to decide what part of my property I may or may not keep,” she frowned a little, her tone dramatically sarcastic as she closed the secret compartment as she led him to other items. Anything, she decided, to draw him away from the precious item in her hand.

Genevieve paused, mulling over her options. Though she hated to admit it, he was right, the faster he left her home on whatever wild goose chase he had arrived on, the quicker she could return to her life. “There are no horrific items to be found,” she said firmly, certainly aware that there was indeed plenty of it in the very room that they stood but being wise enough to not let such thoughts show on her face.

“Like I said, you may take whatever you’d like on that shelf, those are the only things my mother could have possibly cursed and surely, it was done for good reason,” she said decisively, daring a brief glance at the mirror in her hand and slowly bringing it up to stare into it, the shadowy figure of a woman almost visible from the corner of her eye. Bringing a hand quickly to tuck a few loose strands of hair behind her ear as she pretended to be appraising her appearance, she nodded at the shelf again.
“I do hope I never have the displeasure of having to see you again, Mr. Donnelly,” she said, wrinkling her nose a little as she glared at him. “Take the items and leave.”

While the hand mirror might not have been on Phillip’s official requisition list, that did not mean it wasn’t of interest. He could tell just by having it in his hand that it was bound with some sort of magic, more potent than your typical enchanted item, but not so much that he worried about it contacting his skin. Maybe he should have been more worried, though, because he felt the tingle and thrum of magic as he handed it back to her. It wasn’t what the ministry was after, but it was powerful and influential just the same, and he was undeniably curious about its magic. Unlike the mirror, Phillip was entirely disinterested in Genevieve’s name or position; he didn’t care that she was an heiress or that she likely knew twelve different spells to dispose of a body without breaking a nail; her status did not impress him. 

Here they were, Genevieve had said, and Phillip felt as though he could feel her teeth grinding at the words that she wasn’t saying. Merlin, he could relate. “Indeed,” he responded, his tone flat and unenthusiastic. Phillip wasn’t impressed by his position either and had no real motivation to do an excellent job for this ministry department. He wasn’t a devout believer of good vs. evil; he hadn’t signed up because he wanted to rid the world of dark objects, and he wasn’t trying to make a good impression on his bosses. As with everything else in his life, Phillip intended to do the bare minimum, bide his time, and move on as soon as possible.

The young wizard couldn’t help but notice the regard with which Genevieve clung to the mirror, looking into the reflection, and Phillip was careful to divert his eyes before she looked back at him. It didn’t take a genius to know that this was not the ideal situation for either one of them, but Phillip had never been the sort to make concessions to make someone else more comfortable. He didn’t believe Genevieve when she claimed he would find nothing terrible in her home, and Phillip couldn’t help but wonder if that had been her intent all along. The ministry was sent here for a purpose, and she had already not-so-discreetly threatened him once. His sea-green eyes moved away from her and back down to his hands; palms turned up. As he silently checked for wayward signs of a curse starting to take hold, Phillip bit his lip to stop it from showing his worry.

“Good reason?” He asked, not entirely confident that he was uncursed but putting his hands back at his sides anyway; Phillip looked to the shelf Genevieve pointed out. He couldn’t imagine a good reason for cursing an object, but he doubted there was a thing in the world he would agree with Genevieve on until she spoke again, and he nodded. With a bit of luck, they’d never see each other again, not that Phillip had ever had anything of the sort. “The feeling is mutual, Mrs. Reinhardt.” Phillip moved away from her and began inspecting the items on the shelf with his wand in his hand. Minor spells he’d learned during his whole two weeks of training, he watched the auras change slightly. Some of them were enchanted and cursed, but nothing as foul as what the ministry said they were on the lookout for.

A middle management colleague moved into the space and double-checked Phillip’s work, and the younger wizard sighed. Phillip would have been content to finish his analysis alone, write up the stupid report – he’d been instructed to use a quick-quill because his handwriting was atrocious – and clock out for the day, but it seemed fate had something else in mind. “Young miss!” His colleague called, and Phillip groaned as he realized the other wizard was summoning Genevieve to them. “We will need you to sign some paperwork, forfeitures, and the like,” The aging wizard said before shoving a stack of parchment into Phillip’s hand and excusing himself. “Great,” Phillip muttered and turned toward Genevieve.

As much as Genevieve longed to see neither Phillip Donnelly nor any other thug for the Ministry step into her space, she understood these sorts of things were arduous processes that would likely take months to complete. Genevieve also knew that they had arrived with the intent to make their case rather than contribute to any ongoing investigation; a handful of cursed items would be enough to ask for permission to explore onwards, and the thought of all of those malicious hands rummaging through the wealth of information stored at this and many other family owned homes and spaces was enough to provoke the beginnings of a headache. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Mr. Donnelly, I assume you’ve been plenty educated on the merits of being a good citizen and working for the law of the land,” she rolled her eyes at the thought, “I bet you’ve made mummy very proud,” she added sarcastically, as she watched him move over to the shelf.

In truth, Genevieve was none the wiser when it came to her mother’s actions and often, it was her inability to answer for her crimes that upset her even more thinking about them. It wasn’t the acts, that bothered her, it was her inability to inhabit her mother’s mind and understand what had led her to do the things that she had done. Obsessed with following in her mother’s footsteps, oftentimes to a fault, the young heiress had become consumed with the idea that she wasn’t the daughter that her mother deserved. That she didn’t understand. That she was in a room full of clues and could not figure out the pattern that would lead her to some moment of clarity—one that she hoped would open her eyes to her purpose, to her calling.

As she watched the men look around, her hands clenched tightly, her nails digging into the crescent-shaped impressions so well inscribed into the palms of her hands to satiate her anger. Genevieve wanted to maintain a coolness about her, a feeling of mild anger and displeasure but nothing to provoke any more harassment and the longer she watched, the heavier the weight of her feelings became. Just as she thought to say something she was called over and she frowned at the unknown man’s remarks. “And if I do not sign?” she asked when the man finally walked away, looking up at Phillip as if to challenge him to say otherwise. “Will you forge my signature or spread more lies about my family? Asking a woman in my vulnerable state of grief to sign papers forcibly giving up rights to her property has to be illegal, is it not?” she asked, but her tone of voice was rather expressionless, betraying her words.

Even though, rationally, Phillip knew that Mrs. Reinhardt knew nothing about his mother when she made the rude comment, it still felt like it ripped right through him. Like somehow she'd seen his biggest weakness, and like a predator, the witch had zeroed in on it quickly. Phillip was glad for the distraction of whatever mundane assignment he busied himself with, but the refuge didn't last as he was so used to.

A superior approached him, gave him a new assignment, and then called the wicked woman back over to sign the paperwork, and Phillip didn't bother to keep the scowl from his face. "Your signature confirms that the ministry has confiscated the listed artifacts," Phillip answered her dramatic and emotionally manipulative questions with a level voice and absolute disinterest. The wizard droned on as he strung together more words than usual; Phillip repeated the protocols he'd learned in his brief training at the Ministry. "If you do not sign, then the items will likely never be returned. Without proper paperwork and an owner attached, should they be cleared, these items will be forfeited to the goblin auction house." He figured hearing that her precious heirlooms would be falling into the hands of lesser beasts might encourage her to sign.

And the faster she acquiesced, the sooner Phillip could leave.

The tone of his voice visibly took her aback. The audacity of someone so miniscule to come into her home, take a hold of her precious property, and not have the decency to show a modicum of empathy on her behalf? “Really, Mr. Donnelly, customer service doesn’t suit you,” she said instead, her eyes trained on him with a frown as she signed the paper in a hurry. She’d be damned if she allowed her mother’s things to fall into the dirty hands of those foul creatures and anyone else who’d take them home. “If so much as one of these objects is not returned to me, I will bury you in so much paperwork you’ll wish you never joined the Ministry,” she threatened, sure that there must have been at least a dozen regulations that had been broken by one of the many strangers wandering about her house.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” she said, pausing mid-signature as she considered the implication of her action. They’d take her mother’s things and never return them and just like that, an important memory would be snatched away from her just like her mother had been. The thought itself made her even more indignant, “but it is what you all do, is it not?” she asked, her voice a little lower and to the trained ear, verging on what seemed like disappointment. But Genevieve knew that expecting pity from these monsters was a waste of time especially when they enjoyed their exploits so shamelessly.

“Do you need my permission to get out of my home as well?” she asked as she finished, practically tossing the quill onto the piece of paper to demonstrate her anger.

“Really, Mr. Donnelly, customer service doesn’t suit you,” Phillip shrugged at her comments, silently agreeing and displaying just how little he cared in one movement. Phillip had never been a people pleaser, he didn’t like being around others, and he didn’t manage to go out of his way to make them more comfortable. There was no time, or reason, for those sorts of things in Phillip’s world, and even if there were, he certainly wouldn’t have wasted any effort to help a witch-like Genevieve Reinhardt. It was as if she didn’t fully understand why the ministry was here in the first place, and Phillip wondered what it must have been like to live in such a delusional world. The ministry wasn’t trying to steal her land and galleons; they were here to remove dark, cursed objects before anyone could use them to hurt people.

Phillip wondered if Genevieve even understood the gravity of the situation, and as she went on to shame them for doing their jobs, he supposed he got his answer. While she could hide behind snarky comments about government oversight, Phillip knew the truth. Her family was probably full of death eaters and supporters of blood supremacy, and Mrs. Reinhardt was either just like them or complacent, both of which were equally condemnable in Phillip‘s opinion.

“You are one to talk about shame,” Phillip said gruffly, but he should have stayed silent. There were many things Phillip should have done but didn’t. He had never been good at following rules or staying quiet. Someone who typically hated any conversation had the unhealthy habit of inserting his opinions. Fueled by hatred and bad memories, the tips of Phillip’s ears felt like they were on fire as his irritation began to evolve into anger. Mrs. Reinhardt held the parchment as if it were a weapon as she finished signing, and Phillip pulled the pages from her hands just as roughly as she had dropped the quill. “No Mrs. Reinhardt, I do not.” Phillip tried to keep his hands from shaking as he shoved the pages into his pockets destructively; they crumpled as they fell inside.

“Shouldn’t be too difficult for a poor, half-blood, ministry lad like myself to climb out of an ivory tower.” His words clipped by the remnants of his near-lost Irish accent, Phillip emphasized the last words. He turned quickly to leave before realizing he didn’t know which way to go to get out of this horrible place.