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THE MAN WITH THE NERVOUS look and hunched posture, almost cowering before Alethea like a labourer before his lord, reminded her of one of the cursed dolls, locked behind thick and blessed glass, hanging in the room for defence against the dark forces. Blonde hair and a porcelain face, with features too soft to be anything but girlish.
"My name is Clarence Owen and I work for Gringotts Bank," he said in a voice that was also too high-pitched to have come from a man.
Alethea adjusted her position under the iron sword of her heritage and threw a sidelong glance at Professor Dippet, who listened to the conversation with his hands clasped behind his back.
They had all said that Dippet was not a good choice for the position of the Headmaster, and Alethea recognised in the man's eyes that he was too old to hold such an academy together.
When Alethea was ordered to his office that dreary morning, she had almost forgotten, as she walked through the castle corridors, that she had made a pact of secrecy with Professor Riddle and that nothing could happen to her.
The thought that she might be expelled had paralysed her with every step she had taken through the ever-changing maze.
It had been a relief to find only the Gringotts employees waiting for her to discuss the inheritance that had been denied to her for years.
Alethea swallowed, burying her intrinsic uneasiness beneath her anger, and turned her eyes back to the little man, judging him in the way only the gods should. "I know who you are. You were the one who denied me my inheritance two years ago. You said I didn't have the emotional clarity to handle such an amount of gold and possessions," she summarised the page-long letter she had received two weeks after her mother's death.
Mister Owen cleared his throat and adjusted his tie, revealing his obvious intimidation for a reason Alethea knew all too well.
Gringotts had been searching for a male Desmond heir who shared even a modicum of blood with her parents. When her distant uncle also died a year ago, before the estate and titles could be passed on to him, Alethea alone was left.
Her relatives, all blessed with only daughters and widowed suffering their fate, spoke all too often of the curse that had fallen upon the House of Desmond when Alethea was born. The girl who should never have seen the light of day.
"After all, you were just a child then. We're talking about a fortune that is... um, very difficult to compare to another. We're talking titles, scholarships, research, a seat on the High Court, and you were a girl." His gaze frantically scanned the room as he spoke, pausing abruptly at times to regroup his thoughts.
"I assume you are here now so I can sign the papers giving me authority over all my property?" Aletheas looked around the room with disinterest in her eyes, mimicking the demeanour she had observed in her mother as a child when she had taken care of the business. Never show the lions your true emotions; hide them even from the weak.
