October 15, 2024 – 9:59 PM
Phineas Black — Played by MJ
4th October, 1894 — The Headmaster’s Office
“Phineas,” he declared at the feeble knock at the door, without looking up. “Come in.”
He had asked his son here for a progress report. He had meant to do this sooner – his son had been here a month, and they had not yet crossed paths (besides being in the same hall for dinner) – but countless other things had... taken precedence. So he had sent instructions for Phineas to visit the Headmaster’s Office that evening. Once the boy had stepped far enough in, he raised a lazy hand to see him halt there at an almost unreasonable distance, where he could still see him from head to foot over his desk, and where he would not be infected with whatever contaminants were no doubt on him from mixing with his more feral classmates.
“Tell me,” he added, in a tone that already bordered on bored – “how have you been getting on?” Though he was speaking to the boy, he did not pause in his annotations, instead preferring to feign that he was in the midst of most important work. (He was making a list of suspected ingredients in a new moustache wax.)
Phineas Black II/Henry Berkwood
October 20, 2024 – 3:29 AM
Phineas Black II — Played by Steph
This, Phineas thought, was probably the worst part of being at Hogwarts. He wasn't accustomed to seeing his father so much--he'd done the math, actually, and realized that over the course of the next seven years, he was going to see his father more times than he had in his entire life up until this point. And that was just if he counted seeing his father in the Great Hall at meal times. He wondered if this feeling was specific to what his family was like, or if it was normal to feel like this. If he ever got on friendly enough terms with Professor Valenduris' children who were at school now, perhaps he'd work up the courage to ask if feeling like your father was half a stranger was a normal feeling for the children of professors. Asking Sirius, of course, would have been useless.
"I have been getting on all right," Phin said, because it was true enough, and because he didn't think his father would actually appreciate any complaining he might do. "Classes are interesting, and I am trying to make friends." He did not mention his one and only correspondence with his mother's since arriving, and hoped his father wouldn't bring it up--either because he didn't know, or because he didn't care.
October 29, 2024 – 9:30 PM
Phineas Black — Played by MJ
He regretted the open question: the boy had presented him with an entirely spineless, insipid answer. All right, he said – and if that was so, if that was the best he could do, Phineas II was going to turn out as mediocre as everything about his prior existence had suggested he would be.
But perhaps this was not a lost cause yet? Perhaps he was finally of the age at which one might begin to do some moulding. At any rate, he wanted the boy to give him an inside view of the new professors this year, to pick out the weak links – but he had been distracted by the latter part of his statement, and his eyebrow arched at the phrasing.
Friends were hardly the point or the priority of his schooling, and he would probably be a better student with no associates at all, but nevertheless... “Hm. And would you say you have been succeeding?”
November 15, 2024 – 7:34 PM
Phineas Black II — Played by Steph
Phin felt like that could only be a trick question, but he didn't know how to back himself out of it now. And he was never entirely sure where he'd gone wrong, anyway, so there wasn't much use for trying. "Yes," he said. Success was usually better than the alternative, and Phin would rather tell his father that he was successful at something he didn't want Phin to do than to admit to failing at it. That felt like adding insult to injury. And it all felt like a futile effort regardless, which was probably why he was going to go mad before his next birthday.
December 8, 2024 – 6:14 PM
Phineas Black — Played by MJ
Then he might have said so with more confidence, and not bothered with all the trying to wishy-washy remarks, mightn’t he? Phineas did not bother to disguise the roll of his eyes.
He scribbled Lionfish spine and knotgrass? onto his parchment. “Well then,” he said, absently sneering. “If that is so, why don’t you list out these new friends of yours?” If any were unsuitable, perhaps he could find cause to expel them?
December 29, 2024 – 3:58 AM
Phineas Black II — Played by Steph
"Of course," Phin said immediately, even though he could feel the tips of his ears heating up. He wasn't lying, he was making an effort to make friends, but something about standing in front of his father and having to report on it made him feel like he'd done something wrong anyway. At any rate, he dutifully listed off names of students he knew came from respectable families and who he'd had at least some kind of pleasant interaction with. Or at least not unpleasant. "==And obviously I'm keeping up friendships I already had before school," Phin finished, because nearly everyone his age that he knew from before Hogwarts were the children of his parents' friends. Or his mother's friends, anyway. He wasn't convinced his father liked anyone at all.
January 10, 2025 – 12:52 AM
Phineas Black — Played by MJ
If Phineas paid his son very little attention as a first year, Phineas II had warranted even less of his attention before he had come to Hogwarts. He had been Ursula’s plaything then, or his nanny’s responsibility, and either way of no value or interest yet.
His hasty insistence (of course) was hardly compelling proof, but then – Phineas cared less about his social advances than his academic ones. “Alright, enough,” he said, with a wave of his hand, bored of the registry of names; before he moved on to probing about his classes and professors – “And have you related all those to your mother? Has she written to you at all, yet?” (This was worth asking because of course he had not written to his wife directly, and would prefer not to, if he could help it – if she were in trouble, he imagined he would hear it from Elladora or perhaps his sons, if they were sad enough to write to her regularly.)
January 10, 2025 – 10:39 PM
Phineas Black II — Played by Steph
Phin swallowed uncomfortably. Ah, there it was. The thing he definitely didn't want to talk about. "I wrote her at the start of September," he said, "to tell her I was settled, and she replied. I didn't want to trouble her if there wasn't interesting news." He didn't really think his mother wanted to hear from him, anyway. His presence at home annoyed her enough.
February 21, 2025 – 12:21 AM
Phineas Black — Played by MJ
Of course Phineas II looked shifty about this: here he was, probably already shirking his filial duties. “You ought to keep writing to her weekly, regardless,” Phineas disputed – he might find interacting with his son tiresome, but it was rather a mother’s duty to feign an interest.
(Besides, he thought it more for Ursula’s benefit than Phineas II’s: letters from her son as a sustained reminder of her responsibilities to her family, lest she forget when otherwise left to her own devices.) “It is no trouble to her. Indeed, she will be grateful for the occupation.”
April 11, 2025 – 10:47 PM
Phineas Black — Played by MJ
“Yes,” Phineas said dispassionately, “How are your puffer-fish eyes – I mean, professors?” He corrected himself hastily to the latter; the former was a suspected ingredient in the moustache wax he had just scribbled down on the parchment. He was getting his lines crossed.
His top lip curled as he twirled the quill between his fingers thoughtfully. “How are they treating you?” With utmost regard, he hoped. “Are there any incompetents amongst them?” He rather fancied a firing, if he could only find an excuse.
April 13, 2025 – 10:18 PM
Phineas Black II — Played by Steph
Phin blinked at his father's slip up, but didn't comment--mostly out of a fear that any deviation would just make this conversation longer. "They're treating me well," he said. "I mean, you know, challenging me. But they're fair about it." He didn't comment on competency. He wouldn't wish having to face his father on anyone.
