Factory prices!
Giovanni Panerai was overjoyed opening his very first watch shop back in the 1860s for fabbrica (factory) prices! (As was surely displayed in bold writing; the very first thing interested customers’ eyes landed on, of course).
Except this really is the most insignificant part of a truly significant story. Yes, without Giovanni there really would be no Panerai wristwatches at all… Yet, it was really down to an incredibly powerful Seer, a said interested customer who saw a watch for such fabbrica-low prices, that the watch somehow made its foray into the ancestral home of the Noble House of Black.
Because she had a feeling, is all.
It was generations later that this feeling she had came to a head in the form of her great-great-great grandchild, Sofia Rossi.
She was draped over a red-burgundy couch, clouds of smoke forming much-too deliberate spirals in the air, with fingers blithely dangling a cigarette over a vibrant rug that made quite the centrepiece for a dark-oak themed room.
“—I mean, what do you think? Are my troubles blaring any sightseeing red alarms on your behalf of my being a total, irredeemable dick?”
Her eyes flick over. She sighs another breath of the last tendrils of smoke. “Darling, I quite frankly think you talk too much and I don’t care.” Her eyes light up with the spark of an idea, and she sits up, pointing the cigarette bud at her… most esteemed guest. She really needed to get out more if this was the company she’d been reduced to.
He raises dark eyebrows, but seems amused with the honesty. He sits with an almost aristocratic grace, mid-length black hair curled just enough to touch his collarbones. She does distinctly remember him saying he came from “old money”, and hopes she can at least put the theory to the test now and actually interest him into a dalliance with cartomancy. She’s always been particularly skilled at divination.
She stamps her cigarette into a tray before it begins to nip at her fingers. “And it just so happens I think you quite frankly need to take your mind off your…” her eyes rake over his form, uncomfortably all-seeing, “homoerotic friendship. Ah-ah!” she says to his embarrassed splutter, “I know. I’ve heard it all. I’ve been acting as your therapist for the last hour and a half rather than what I actually am, dear, and that is a fortune-teller. So, do us all a favour, and let me do my job.”
Her voice carries the extra cajoling tone of a plea if Sirius Black had ever heard it, and so he flicks a hand, bored; allows her.
A pleased smile upturns on her lips. “Finally.”
(And yes, finally, because this is truly where our story begins.)
A deck of freshly blessed cards later, four chosen, and Sofia Rossi is slow to turn the first over, feeling the odd excitement in her stomach prickle now like magic to her very fingertips.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Sirius repeats, “Is that a good oh or a bad oh? Can you at least be a smidgeon more descriptive there?”
“Oh.”
“Merlin, not a double oh. Now you’re just being mean.”
“The first card to be so ominous is an ominous sign in itself of what is yet to come.”
“Well, didn’t that just made me feel super!”
“Hush, now.” She turns the second, “Oh!” she gasps.
“Really? Is that really, genuinely necessary? Is it to do with… you-know-who?”
Her eyes snap to him, wide and stricken.
He backtracks, palms facing upward in apology, “Shit, no, I didn’t mean… I meant… ugh… homoerotic friendship,” he mumbles shyly. “I meant that guy.”
“Oh.” He glares. She smiles, “Well, it is to do with neither. Though, please do not mention such an evil, despicable, loathsome, vile…”
“I get the picture. Y’know, it’s nice to be around people who aren’t fascist monsters once in a while. Kudos to me.”
She turns over the third card. “Huh.”
“This feels like a lot of mystery. Don’t fortune tellers usually describe each card throughout the experience? What’s with all the suspense?”
Her glare this time is a marginal more aggressive. “I have my own, superior way of doing things. Patience.”
He taps a finger to his mouth, thoughtful. “I liked that. That’s a kink, right there.”
She shakes her head in grave disappointment. Too brazen, the youth of today. That and she found them ridiculous, such as the one in front of her was proving himself to be.
She turns the final card. She pauses, a moment or two. The four cards laid out in front of her suggest a crucial picture for the future.
“You have all four spades.” She is quick to note, as soon as she’s finished her appraisal.
“What does that mean?”
“Something bad; truly awful.”
“Magnificent! What else?” He responds in a false-cheery tone.
She gives him a sharp look. He slouches into the armchair with a disgruntled huff.
“I must advise that you will suffer misfortune. An ending of a sort that is… unfortunate. For you, at least.”
“I don’t think I quite like this.”
“Ah, this is interesting.” Sirius yawns. “There is an… immature young person with black hair in your future.”
“What?”
“Oh!” Sofia exclaims, yet again, “I just got an image! That never happens! Oh, but an image! How remarkable!”
“Ugh, what image? And dark hair is not my type.”
“I would hope not. They appear not only not your type, but I imagine quite clearly outside of your age range.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then. Wait, fuck, shit, what? Is this kid like, my kid? Am I a dad in the future? Please tell me I don’t go bald.” His face is horrified with the thought.
“Godfather,” she whispers, suddenly. A picture behind her eye forms, a veil that grasps out at her like spindly hands of Death itself. The dark blanket-like silhouette of a body pulled through; a wretched scream in her ears.
“Godfather? I’m this kid’s godfather! Hey, lucky them, what can I say? I thought you said all my cards were ominous? I think I’d love that… really make a good, mischievous difference in this kid’s life.”
“You don’t.”
“What?”
She gasps like her throat has been burned with boiling hot water, “You don’t. You can’t. Not with how your cards add up. Deceit, danger, imprisonment, you become a godfather only in name, do you see? Do you understand? You can’t. You cannot. You won’t.” Her voice is ragged.
“Right. I… can’t. Hey, imprisonment? What the shit do I do? Damnit. I guess I’ll be more careful? These cards suck ass.”
“Language.” She clears her throat, embarrassed. That was a strong reaction. And to have an image! Powerful magic is afoot. She must assess, so as to do her due diligence to do what Magic has ordained. She cannot ignore this.
“Sirius Black. I want you… to look into my crystal ball.”
Sirius snickers. She stares. His snickers taper off, “Oh, you’re serious. Ha! You are serious… about me, Sirius, looking into your—”
“That was especially lame, even for you.”
He pouts, “You could be nicer, even for you.”
“I will take your suggestions to heart, so long you do me this favour. An experiment, if you will.” She motions her hand, and the crystal ball comes floating.
It settles on her meticulously clean table.
He looks into the sway of blue cloud within the glass, “Ooh, that’s a nice watch.”
The memories rush through her, the precious heirloom of her family, the vital role she must play in gifting the blue-faced prized wristwatch with brown, leather straps, circa 1860, to a fellow stranger. To young Sirius Black, who came strolling into her shop tucked into the nook of Knockturn Alley as a form of excitement, and who found pitiful comfort from the stresses of his normal life from a strange fortune teller (forcefully-turned-therapist) that he did not know.
It is not long before she is shoving a much-obliged Sirius Black out of her front door.
“Wait, I—I can’t just take this. And I didn’t pay for the séance, or whatever.”
She lets out a pained, agonised noise, and sniffles. “It was a card-reading. Cartomancy.”
“Yeah, that. Carto-smancy shit.” She erupts into a flurry of tears once again, blows her nose into a magically produced napkin. “And you really don’t look like you want to part with this…” he dangles the wristwatch daintily, “and honestly, I’m not going to wear it. I like rings, maybe I could have a… a ring instead. Does that sound like a better trade-off?”
“No, you leave, you don’t come back. And you keep that safe, do you hear me? It’s destiny. It’s fate. You must keep it safe.”
“Uh—I’ll keep it safe?” The door slams in his face.
He sticks it in the attic of Grimmauld Place, lest his family discover such a muggle contraption and he’s blasted biweekly with Crucios again. He really cannot wait to get out of this big stupid house and away from his shitty fucking relatives. Maybe being imprisoned would be a bloody reprieve, come to think of it.