House of Lee Family Bible
House of Lee Family Bible
Barnaby shouted at me in the shady lane for as long as I could take before I grabbed his arm and forcibly brought him home. He only paused while we were in between spaces, and picked right back up again as soon as we'd arrived. I dragged him with me, still shouting, through the front door, which he slammed angrily behind him.
That brought all four of our houseguests skidding into the hallway in alarm, but by then I'd had enough of being shouted at. I drew my wand in a flash and screamed, "Silencio!" at Barnaby. His mouth continued to form words but not a sound came out. "Ugh, I'm sorry Barnaby. I'll lift it in second, just please stop shouting long enough for me to explain" I begged him. I watched as his fiery glare softened and he nodded before mouthing "I'm sorry" to me.
I cast Finite Incantatem, trusting him not to start shouting again, but being ready just in case he did. The first words out of his mouth however, were a verbal apology. "I'm so sorry Samhain. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that. You was smart to shut me up. I just, I flipped out. I thought Grandmother had used an unforgivable curse on you or something, I was ready to duel her! My own Grandmother, for Merlin's sake. Please just tell me you actually saw her lift the curse before you put the ring on."
I hesitated. Barnaby thought his grandmother had lifted the curse. That was the only logical reason he could think of for why I'd willingly put the ring on. I was sure he'd start shouting again the second I said otherwise, so instead I asked him, "Did you get the book?" He nodded slowly as he pulled my magically enhanced purse out of his pocket. He reached inside and when he pulled the heavy book out, I saw that it had already started to rot.
"Crap. We don't have much time before it disintegrates. We need to read this right now, the original must have something on it that repels the Geminio Charm. Barnaby can you just trust me for now and I'll explain what happened with your grandmother as soon as we've read what's in the book?" I pleaded with him. He met my eyes. "Yeah, of course I trust you Samhain" he replied. But he was looking very scared as he said it.
We moved to the kitchen table and I carried the book as delicately as I could. "Is there anything we can do to stop it rotting?" I asked my friends.
"Freezing Charm maybe?" Diego suggested. "No, we wouldn't be able to turn the pages" Ismelda shot him down. "What about Impervious? I know it's to repel moisture, but maybe it'll help slow it down?" Alexi offered. "Okay, try it, that shouldn't hurt the book" I told him. Impervious didn't make a noticable difference right away but after a few seconds we could see it wasn't deteriorating quite as fast. "Good idea Alexi, that bought us some time at least" I said, opening the book up to the first page and reading out loud.
HOUSE OF LEE FAMILY BIBLE
Born: Marcallous Reid Lee (b. 1459-1571)
Son of: Kyuss Reid O'Liathain & Siobhan Curry
Married to: Sloane Morrigan Blake (b. 1466-1502)
Children: Fiona Shale Lee (b. 1488-1537)
"Crikey, this goes back more than five hundred years! And it looks like it could have gone back even further, this record only starts from when they changed the surname to Lee." Ismelda exclaimed, clearly impressed. "Barnaby your family is probably as old as the sacred twenty eight, and you're all pure bloods aren't you?"
Barnaby gave Ismelda a withering look and replied, "Who bloody cares?"
I turned the next page of the book as I wrapped one arm around his waist. One of the things I loved most about Barnaby was how he always shut people down for getting excited over pure blood stuff. He always made me feel worthy and never stood for anyone talking down to or about Muggle Borns or half-bloods.
The next page continued on where the first had left off.
Designee: Fiona Shale Lee (b. 1488-1537)
Daughter of: Marcallous Reid Lee & Sloan Lee
Married to: Icarus Greengrass (b. 1475-1569)
Children: Erin Ember Lee (b. 1513-1558)
"All the women died so young." Alexi noted, frowning. I felt Barnaby move closer to me. "Maybe it was just the time period, or something." I said hesitantly, hoping Barnaby wasn't reading anything into that. We went through some twenty odd pages of ancestry and started to notice some curious things.
Firstly, some names had been crossed out here and there, only of married in spouses, never direct decendants. Of those ancestors children, some had large X's drawn next to their names, and no following lineage recorded after them. I wondered out loud if that might mean they'd been disinherited and Barnaby agreed that sounded likely.
Another odd thing we noticed was that every time a man was married into the family, his surname was changed and written as Lee on the following page when he was listed as the parent. "I suppose that's not so strange these days, but given the time period it started in, the late fifteen hundreds, it is rather unique." I admitted.
The last peculiarity that kept cropping up was the letter 'C' written next to a direct descendants name. This had a pattern, at first I thought it had to do with the 'Designee' title, but not every Lee who had the title also had a 'C'. Yet every single time the 'C' appeared, seventeen in total, it was on a direct descendant, never a married in spouse. And that person's husband or wife always had a premature death.
Like in the case of Barnaby's great aunt Lyra, his grandmother's older sister. Lyra Lee had been the 'Designee' and also had a 'C'. Her first husband, Antwoord Burke, had died young and his name had been crossed out. Her second husband Cyrus Lee and their daughter Lisidia Lee both had an 'X' next to their names, but no death date. I remembered their names from when we'd sent out our engagement announcements.
The last person to have the 'C' was Lyla Lee, Barnaby's grandmother and current Designee. Her husband Giles Lee, had died very young as well and had his name crossed out. But the names of their children had not been crossed out nor marked with an 'X'. Cecelia and Cecil Lee each had their own pages, as did Barnaby. Barnaby's page was the last entry, which he said was strange because he had two younger cousins, Uncle Cecil's twin sons Atlas and Apollo.
After Barnaby's page there were a lot of empty pages. I turned them quickly, trying to make sure I didn't miss anything, but being careful as the book was in a very bad state by then. I thought that was all that was in it, until I turned to the very back of the book and was startled to find a collection of faded, crumbling, pictures and a handful of very old sketches.
"Are these, mourning portraits?" Merula asked, trying to mask her disgust as curiosity. I looked up at Barnaby to see he was nodding his head. "Yeah, I think so. I've never seen any of these before, but I think I recognise some of the people from portraits in Grandmother's house."
"No offense mate but this is pretty creepy." Diego laughed nervously. "They've all got their eyes open, it's like they're staring at us." he shuddered.
"Oh look at the eyes though! I thought it was just on the colour photographs, but you can see even on the black and whites, the eyes have all been coloured in purple." Ismelda pointed it out to us.
We checked through again, of the twelve photographs and four sketches, every single one had purple coloured eyes. "Can we check back through the list of people marked with a 'C'?" Alexi asked."I think it matches up to everyone with a portrait." I tried turning back a page but it crumbled in my fingers. "No, this book is about to become a pile of dust. Merula did you get the names copied at least?" I asked her.
She handed me a very untidily scrawled bit of parchment. "I did my best, got all the names and copied everything unusual like the letters and crossings out. I didn't get all the birth and death dates though" she admitted. I put the crumbling book down on the table and it collapsed instantly in a poof of dust making us all cough as we stood up to get away from it.
I studied the list for a few minutes. I was pretty sure I already understood but I was extremely reluctant to offer up my assumptions without some pretty concrete confirmation. "Let's start with portraits. All of the sixteen were direct descendants, not married into the family, and they all did have the letter 'C', you were right Alexi. The last person who had it was Madam Lee, who is still alive. That would confirm the theory of mourning portraits" I suggested.
"From what Merula copied, it looks like the majority, if not all of them had a spouse who married into the family and died young, and had their names crossed out. From those couples, if the 'C' person remarried, all new spouses and children were marked with an 'X' and no following lineage was recorded. But children from the first marriage didn't have an 'X' after their names." I looked at Barnaby to continue.
"Yeah it looks like the 'X' means they were disinherited" he said. "And that they either had no more decendants in those lines, or no one wanted to include them in the history after that" he concluded thoughtfully. "What about the 'Designee' title, what's that about?" Ismelda asked.
"That's the current legacy holder of the family's main fortune." Barnaby explained simply.
"Barnaby did you know that it's only ever been women who held the title?" I asked him. He pondered that for a moment before replying, "No, I honestly never thought about it. I didn't even know my mother had been Designee until she died, all I remember from when I was growing up is Grandmother being the head of the family" he admitted.
We were silent for a while after that. Finally Alexi spoke, "Seventeen does seem to crop up a lot. Seventeen curses right? Seventeen people marked with a 'C', I reckon that's as good of a confirmation as we could ask for on that theory."
I nodded my head, it was pretty clear. "But why those seventeen people, and not others?" I wondered out loud, stalling for time.
I thought back to what Madam Lee had told me, she had said that if I was sure about Barnaby, the curse wouldn't 'activate'. She'd also said if my feelings ever changed, the repercussions for me would be 'dire' and Barnaby would be affected as well. She'd also basically admitted that she'd been cursed, when she told me she 'knew from personal experience'. I sighed quietly as I hesitantly started to relay my conversation with her to the group, I avoided looking at Barnaby as I spoke.
"From what Madam Lee said, and what we've seen. I am pretty confident that the curse 'activates' against a couple if they try to separate. The married in spouse, well it looks like they die, having their names crossed out is one step past just writing their date of death. It's as if they wanted them to be remembered for being excluded. Although it's unclear if it's immediate death or down the line somewhere.. and the direct Lee descendant becomes a 'C', so cursed, I guess." I laid it out and stopped talking.
Barnaby looked at me and I could see more pain in his eyes than I knew there could be. "She didn't lift the curse. She didn't because she couldn't, she's not the one who started this. Samhain why, how could you do this?" He didn't wait for my answer, he just left.