August 29th, 1889 — Destiny Hotel, London; Tearoom

It had been precisely nine days since her father had told Bellona and her sister the news, nine days of combing through back issues of Witch Weekly, nine days of listening extra hard to gossip, nine days of knowing the best way to garner information was to do so firsthand. And so, here she was, garnering information. 

She had chosen the Destiny for two reasons. First, because she refused to join any of the clubs in Hogsmeade that were not The Lady Morgana, a prestigious institution that simply would not have her. Secondly, though, and far more importantly, because it was her haunt, her turf. From what she had learned of Calliope Riley—who would, in due course, be instead Calliope Zabini—any advantage was desirable.

"...of course, had I known my father's intentions," she continued the small-talk with a polite smile, her full cup of tea all but forgotten on the table before her, "I certainly would have made more of an effort to learn more about you! I feel terrible having to ask questions!"

There was something akin to a predator in Calliope's features, Bellona was sure of it—that she might merely be projecting did not at all enter into the witch's head.

"My governess always did warn that keeping one's attentions focused upon one's own circle was ill-advisable—I shall heed more carefully the advice of my elders moving forward."

The barest change of inflection, the hint of a challenge, on the word elders. The woman sitting across from her was older by less than half a decade, but Bellona clung to those years, a lifeline. Merlin help her should this bride expire; no doubt the next wife would be younger than Bellona herself!

@"Calliope Riley"/Elias Grimstone

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   Elias Grimstone

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It was time. Calliope could not confess to be worried. She had had step-daughters before, and had done well enough to suffer them. That these girls were older was of no consequence: they were not any better situated than her, so she could hardly be sniffed at as their father's choice of bride.

Besides, it was not them she was courting, and she had already gotten Mr. Zabini on side. That was what mattered. As long as she did not endanger the engagement by making outright enemies of them so soon, Calliope had no real desire to be friends.

“Well, I am so sorry to have you feeling so wrong-footed,” Calliope offered, not sorry in the slightest. She was less interested in gaining Miss Bellona Zabini’s polite effusions than what the girl really thought of her, if only to file it away for the future.

She certainly felt the word elders was rather pointed. “But I hope you shall not think of me as your elder,” Calliope interjected, with a little laugh, as though Miss Zabini thought her too old. “I shall be far happier to answer your questions than offer you any advice.”

“But have you and your sister still a governess to keep you company, these days?” Calliope added breezily, slipping in a question of her own with her most agreeable accompanying smile, as though she thought them young. Younger than her, both, but evidently getting a little old to both still be unmarried. And probably wondrously lonely, of course, without a mother to support them.

(Well, perhaps there was a hint of condescension in it.)

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   Bellona Zabini

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The only questions Bellona had for her future stepmother—how she had managed to trick Cosmo Zabini into marriage, and whether she was a sheep or a wolf—were hardly appropriate, and so the debutante resolved then never to seek information directly from the woman before her.

"Of course not," she reassured with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I was to Pendergast's the autumn after Hogwarts, at which she was...presumably off to a new engagement," Bellona finished with a shrug. She had not paid the matter much mind at the time, and under the circumstances, it was hardly of importance to her now.

No, Camillia was company enough for Bellona's tastes. Too many women in a household, she thought as she eyed Calliope Riley carefully, was disaster waiting to happen.

  

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Of course. New money or old, the Zabinis had always seemed a perfectly respectable family, save the unfortunate situation of Cosmo’s first wife. The girls had gone to Pendergast’s, obviously; Calliope would have liked to have gone herself just to have the forged connections from it, if the school had only have opened sooner and she suspected that her father was at all inclined to spare the money to send them. That said, she consoled herself by knowing that she had done well enough without - and no amount of ladylike refining had made this Miss Zabini a real success.

“Indeed,” Calliope said, making a particular effort to be friendly. Smiles abound.  “Well, I am dreadfully glad you are out of Pendergast’s by now,” she said lightly, innocently, “- for between you and your sister, it will be a lovely change to have some ladies at home for company.” (Lovely was rather not the word for it, but one must make do. And considering Camilla’s failure to marry, Calliope suspected they would both be at their father’s home some time still. Her new home to be; and she would have to make it feel as such in spite of them.)

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   Bellona Zabini

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Bellona's smile in answer did not quite reach her eyes, and the witch was glad to have a teacup before her to provide her with some occupation as she collected her thoughts. Calliope Riley was the sort of woman to be managed, and no woman who hoped to run a successful household of her own managed folk without careful calculation.

"But you have the late Mr. Riley's daughters, do you not?" she inquired, pleasantly enough. "Are they not old enough to offer you some degree of companionship?"

Knowing that Mrs. Riley had been married—had had stepdaughters—previously had not lightened Bellona's spirits. True, it was an arrow in her quiver, but it just served to illustrate how far ahead the woman was in life, how much more successful she had been than either of the Zabini girls.

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   Calliope Zabini

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If the Riley pair were a thorn in her side, Calliope knew perfectly well that she couldn’t show it. “They are at school most of the year, I’m afraid,” she commented (thankfully out of her hair), “and to Pendergast’s themselves, soon,” - well, Morgana at least, but Morgana had always been the more reserved of the pair to begin with - “but for the moment they are both still girls, and not truly mature ladies like yourselves.”

The Zabini sisters were different kettle of fish, maybe. But whilst the Riley girls had had little enough choice in the matter, Calliope supposed it might be a little more shameful in this case, full-grown women introduced to their new mother as if they were children, without there being the slightest thing they could do about it. Cosmo seemed close enough to his daughters, but Calliope could not imagine that either of them held that much sway.

And they would hold even less, eventually. “And I cannot tell you how wonderful it shall be to have some adult company about in the future, particularly when one is bound to be spending plenty of time in the nursery.” Yes, Viola was still only six, but plainly that wasn’t all Calliope meant. There would be little sense in this marriage if she didn’t generate some security for her investment. A son would do quite nicely.

But of course Miss Bellona could take that as nothing but Calliope’s appreciation for her company, if she liked.

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   Bellona Zabini

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it was only her knowledge of her father that stopped Bellona's eyebrows from narrowing at the comment, the knowledge that he would not skimp on the expectations of society even to secure an heir from his new bride in advance of their nuptials. Doing things entirely by the book had always been Cosmo Zabini's way, and while Bellona would not have put it past the Widow Riley to use all the tools at her disposal to get ahead, she did still harbour enough respect for the man that sired her to give the pair the benefit of the doubt.

"Not too swiftly, I hope!" she protested jovially, with another smile that did not quite reach her eyes. At least the Misses Riley would not be troublesome with school to occupy them, even if their stepmother was to become burdensome. "Camilla so loves to entertain—I expect you've been to her parties in the past?—that it would be cruel to stop her from showing you off too soon."

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   Calliope Zabini

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“Oh no, no, there is all the time in the world,” Calliope agreed, lightly enough, though her smile was about as lacking in sincerity as that of the witch opposite her. She was keen to provision for her future as fast as possible - naturally; who could blame her? - and it would certainly be worthwhile to keep an upper hand on these two young ladies, for however long they remained in their father’s orbit. But she was still young and fit. She supposed if she found she enjoyed raising boys, she might bother to even have two or three.

“I shall be entirely at her mercy, I’m sure,” she added, of Bellona’s elder sister. She had known Camilla at school, being closer in age to her than to this Zabini sister, but she had as little intention of subjecting herself to that woman’s whims as she imagined Camilla wanted to show her off to her friends. “But what about you - what is it you enjoy?” Calliope pressed. If the elder sister was the consummate hostess, what indeed was she to expect of the younger? (Hopefully her hobbies and habits were less lavish, for that was Calliope’s fortune Camilla must be burning through!)

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   Bellona Zabini

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"Oh, I am quite social myself," Bellona answered, "though I do not share my sister's...flare for hosting. I am simply satisfied to enjoy her creations!"

A sip of tea before she continued, "I do suppose I like to nurture my own skills—I am an animagus, of course, and am quite gifted in languages."

Two points in her favour, if Bellona's intelligence was correct.

  

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Calliope had enough self-control not to start visibly at the unexpected answer to her question, but she felt a muscle in her cheek go taut with the effort of not altering her expression.

She took a sip of tea in response. “Oh, but how impressive!” She exclaimed, once she had safely set the teacup down. She was genuinely impressed by the notion that this girl had succeeded in performing an animagus transformation. She had no sympathy for a young lady who could not even be considered accomplished by usual standards (musical, for example, and with some artistic skill, and certainly a grounding in a language or two) but she had to respect the woman who could hone any skill to that degree. “Français, peut-etre? Ou italien?” She was best at the former, and presumed the latter because of the Zabini heritage, but she would like to improve her speaking. (She hadn’t wanted to be friends with the Miss Zabinis, but perhaps she would be able to learn to tolerate them after all?)

Still, she was bitterly jealous about the animagus revelation, despite having never considered the ambition before. (She suspected, frankly, it was beyond her - she certainly did not have the time.) “And what is your animagus form, if you will indulge me?”

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   Bellona Zabini

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"Both," she replied in Italian with modesty that was quite blatantly false, "as well as Twi, though that proves far less practical in London than some other tongues." Her Italian was spoken not like an Englishwoman, but someone who, if not from Italy, had at least had a particularly militant instructor in the language.

"My animagus form is a dormouse," she added in her mother's mother tongue by way of both demonstration and answer, before taking another sip of her tea.

Miss Riley masked her feelings well, but Bellona wondered if she wasn't making an impression on her father's choice of bride nonetheless. Business was not the only avenue in which asserting dominance was paramount, and while the debutante might have let that slip in certain areas (her friendship with Antigone came to mind), she would be damned if she did so in her own home.

  

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Italian, Calliope could manage, for she had been musical from a young age, and had attended enough operas to have been introduced to it, even without the overlap of all romance languages to help her along. Twi, however, was most certainly not in her wheelhouse, and would have sounded jarring and discordant to her ear even if she had known what the blasted girl was saying.

Calliope might have seen the fun of belittling someone in a language they clearly couldn’t translate, if it had been her, but what Miss Bellona had done was almost worse, for she had asked a question and now could not even comprehend whether or not it had been answered! She suspected it had, for she had caught the English word within the strange sentence, but Miss Zabini’s animagus form could have been a bird or a horse or the rear end of a donkey for all she knew.

She raised her eyebrows, half expectant and half to seem impressed, but she was seething slightly on the inside, and she wasn’t sure she could quite feign her look into something sweeter. “Charming,” Calliope said carefully, searching for some way to disparage the girl politely, without being able to speak in foreign tongues. “How wonderful to take such pride in your background,” she said finally, aware that there were particular aspects of that background that none of the Zabini children could view as an advantage. “Are you still close with your mother?” She asked, brushing casually past that scandal and wondering whether it was still a sore spot.

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   Aldous Crouch

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Bellona could not say she was surprised by the question—she had been expecting it, sooner or later—but that expectation did not make it any more welcome.

"No," she answered primly, firmly, unwilling to delve into that subject any more than necessary.

(And as far as Bellona was concerned, no depth was necessary at all.)

Of course, it was a lie—but the socially acceptable one. After all, her mother had brought a great deal of scandal to the family, and a great deal of strife as well, particularly where Father and Lavinia were concerned. It would be quite shocking to anyone who knew anything if Bellona were in touch with the woman who had brought all that into the Zabini house, however unknowingly. If Bellona would not confess her secret correspondences to even her sister or Angeline, she sure as Hell was not prepared to divulge her deepest secret to this interloper.

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   Elias Grimstone

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Definitely still a sore spot, then. And Calliope was so well placed, by virtue of her new position in the family, to rub their mother’s absence in without even trying, which was quite the blessing. This Miss Zabini could throw all she liked at Calliope - animagus abilities, a language she didn’t understand - but she could not reinstate her rightful mother, any more than she could not carve out her own muddied veins.

“Well, if it worth anything, I am sorry for that,” Calliope said with the expected sympathy, imagining only that she would miss her own mother if something tragic happened to her, and not particularly interested in the Zabini girls’ trials.

“But I am so looking forward to us becoming close,” she reaffirmed with a smile, privately laughing at the ludicrousness of that. How could she and Miss Bellona ever be close, indeed!

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"It is my deepest hope that we should be," Bellona lied, smile devoid of any warmth.

Close enough to drive scissors into your thigh, perhaps.

  

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