George would return home for the night, would catch the milk train to Hogsmeade in the morning.

Home. It did not feel like home, the Ravenclaw thought, crossing the street from the solicitor's office to a small park. She was not ready to return, not yet. She needed time to clear her head, to process all that had transpired.

She and Alexander were orphans. George had known that going into this meeting. What that meant, though, what that truly meant, was apparently a great deal more.

George and Alexander were to split the financial holdings and investments fifty/fifty, her father's former partner had told her, with funds prepared for their schooling and a modest allowance, but the rest held until their eighteenth birthdays. This last he had offered apologetically: the standard was seventeen, when one became of age, but their father had placed the funds contingent on the completion of their schooling. Typical.

The physical property—that is, the London house—would go to George as the elder of the boys, likewise upon the age of eighteen. In the meantime, their possessions would be stored and the property let to supplement the boys' allowance. What?!

The Waterford brothers would take up residence at the St Mugo's Home for Inconvenient Children until the conclusion of George's studies, at which point it was expected that both would return to the London house. What on earth had Father been thinking?! A children's home?!

And of course, there would be space for them at Pankhurst, Waterford, & Payne should either of the boys choose the law as a profession. Why are you winking?

So, not just orphans, but homeless orphans. 

She would have to tell Alexander. Indeed, George realized, she would have to do a great many things for Alexander from now on, his only living family. It was a heavy responsibility.

It was a burden George did not ask for.