What would happen if there was a slight change in the family tapestry of The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black?
Specifically, four years before the birth of a certain Sirius Orion Black III, a little baby girl was welcomed into the world.
She wa...
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----------------------> MALANIA MACMILLAN CONSIDERED HERSELF TO BE A PLANNER. Whether it be back at Hogwarts for doing homework or even while she was competing in duelling tournaments around the world. Malania was a plotter, creating strategies for handling galas and life in general to simple things like playing a game of chess and buying presents for her grandchildren.
In fact, the first thing Malania did in the morning -after kissing her husband awake, of course- was to design a schedule either in her mind or on parchment to map out what the rest of her day was going to look like, allocating time slots for different events and prepare outlines for all the tasks she was due to do that day.
With that being said, Malania wondered how exactly she greatly she miscalculated the amount of time it would take to get all her children, grandchildren and in-laws together in the same room while taking caution that they don't either hit each other with knives or spill blood on her precious carpets; she had just had them replaced, after all.
It was Portrait Painting Day, or as James preferred to call it, "The Day We All Stand Still". Her darling Sirius, on the other hand, favoured the title "Day of Absolute Boredom" while sweet Regulus opted for naming it "Day of Dread".
Lucretia, Ignatius, Fabian and Gideon would cringe, grimace, scowl and wince respectively, the expressions on their faces speaking much louder than words while whenever Malania had asked Archie, Orion or Lyra if they looked forward to the day, all she would receive in return was an awkward laugh before the three made some sort of excuse that would get them out of the conversation.
Similarly, Charlus, Pollux and Alphard would fall into a mysterious illness whose symptoms would coincidentally make themselves visible the night before the Portrait Painting Day -not that their silly excuses ever dithered Malania from dragging them to the occasion- while Cygnus, Andromeda and Molly would simply sigh tiredly as the day arrived as if they were prisoners of Azkaban being sent to receive the kiss of a dementor.
Walburga and Bellatrix were two sides of the same coin when it came to their feelings regarding the day, both women loathing and detesting it with every cell in their body. Perhaps the only ones who remotely enjoyed the day were Narcissa and Druella, both of whom adored having their portraits painted for the first twenty minutes before they complained over how unnecessarily long it was taking for the remaining two hours and forty minutes.
Malania couldn't help but feel a little down as she recollected all of their reactions and think that her family, even though she loved every one of them dearly, were ungrateful to the great volume of time, energy and thought she put into actually making that day as perfect as it could be.
Every five years, Malania organised a day to have a family portrait painted. She had been doing this fun little tradition ever since she had been pregnant with Lucretia, having had the epiphany that the majority of portraits in the House of Black was singles or in the rare case, of a couple, but no family.
