Servitium| Theodore Nott

Chapter One

"Have you thought about what you will be doing after you graduate this year?" Ivory Galliano looked up. "Properly." Her father added, her brother, Soren, cleared his throat, putting his cutlery down before looking up to meet their father's eyes.

"This year?" he confirmed, but Ivory knew he was only trying to buy his time, what her brother really wanted to do was play Quidditch professionally, but their father had always said to them sports were for leisure not profession. "The wizarding world is going to the dogs, how do you expect to make the big decisions on a broom in a pitch scoring goals for people's entertainment?"  he would say, and since then Ivory knew Soren would never be a professional Quidditch player.

"Yes, do you expect to have a year off, leeching off your mother and I boy? No, you go into the world and start making your way."

Ivory sipped her drink, glancing at her mother, but she was busy staring at her own food, Anastasia Galliano, née Rackham, never said anything when their father decided to enact what he called 'parenting'. He was the man and so he would lead and she would follow, as was the case with many pureblood families, the women were to be seen and not heard when the man got to talking.

"You should ask Ivory what she wants to do, she's taking her O.W.L.s this year, she will be picking her N.E.W.T.s subjects soon." Soren shifted in his chair and Ivory glared at him.

"Ivory is a woman, it doesn't matter, she won't make a difference to our world, she could pick anything, there will always be a man to take care of her," he dismissed and peered over his newspaper with a moving image on the front, his cold brown eyes scrutinising Ivory.

In most households, the youngest child was the one that received all the attention, was babied and adored by all, however that was not the case in the home of the Galliano's. Ivory was the second and the last. She always got less support and less consideration because she was a girl. Soren was an heir, a model child, the champion that her parents had so carefully crafted, and Ivory was left to linger in the shadows.

Still, Ivory knew it wasn't great to be the apple of her father's eye, Soren was perfect, with a god's face and a genius' mind. Son of Ethan and Anastasia Galliano, he had been born with everything you could ever want: money, prestige, connections. Yet, all of the money and fame, came with a price. Bound by the last name Galliano, Soren Ace Galliano was chained and forced to carry the world on his shoulders. The world of expectations, purebloods, survival, service, loyalty and devotion- the world that had him locked in a cage from the moment he left his mother's womb.

"Okay, I think I'll work in the Ministry, perhaps Head of Department or something, that way I have close contact with the Minister for Magic, I can make a difference there," Soren said warily, downing the wine in his goblet in one go.

"That's right. The Ministry needs minds like ours," Ethan said flicking to the next page of the paper, "otherwise it will be filled with bloodtraitors like Arthur Weasley and Mudbloods."

Soren laughed before putting some seabass into his mouth, he swallowed hard, "as if they could ever measure up." Ethan smiled nastily.

"Didn't they want Dumbledore for Minister? He doesn't strike me as one to care for blood status," Ivory questioned and her father sighed putting down the newspaper and looking her dead in the eye. Two years ago Ivory would have never dared say such a thing that would even remotely suggest that her loyalties lay elsewhere but presently she had gotten past the point of caring. Ivory had learnt that people who cared way too much about everything got nowhere, neither did people who felt sorry for themselves. She had given up on her father long ago, she had stopped caring or wanting his approval, after all he was just one person out of the seven billion people in the world and just like she didn't care for her fathers opinion she didn't care for anybody else's.