Endymion could only chuckle at the eye-roll and that remark, since the the idea of losing his elder brother and gaining an entire inheritance from it had scarcely entered his head as he’d said it, even as a jest. Not that it wouldn’t have been nice, to daydream away about the thought of that added surety in finance – but on the whole he hadn’t any real worries in life, second son or otherwise. He was quite certain that his mother would ensure his wellbeing if it came to it almost at any cost, if he lost anything their parents had set aside for their other children, or ever found himself in dire straits.
Besides, he was rather grateful that his position as not-first-son had propelled him into some kind of career after Hogwarts, both by having given him a nudge of some ambition that he might’ve otherwise lacked, and in assuring a diversion in his daily life as he grew up and needed something to do with himself that wasn’t – well, the rakish pursuits Oz had evidently always fallen back on. Indeed, Endymion liked to think that working for Gringotts must have instilled in him some sensible notions of money and saving and income he might one day put to good practice; you know, that or the ingrained conviction that if he were ever in trouble, he would one day have the good fortune to stumble upon some rare, invaluable object in a curse-breaking venture that would set him up for life.
(And beyond that, Endymion had clearly read far too many romances and bucolic poems in his life, because a simple, humble, penniless existence still all sounded rather idyllic and romantic and lovely to him. Abject, wretched poverty whomst? Never met her.)
“First flower language, and now defending your family’s honour in the same conversation,” Endymion teased idly, although he would probably be better off writing these things off as ‘callously breaking people’s hearts’ and ‘the temptation of cold-blooded revenge’ than considering any dash of (lowercase) romantic feeling in them from his brother, “I never knew you were so sentimental, Oz.”
