The Keep

3. Behind the Lore

The lore told that Ekrizdis' family lived in the Keep for generations until Ekrizdis, which was then the sole heir of the house, fallen madly in love with a mermaid who lived in Puffinholes shore (a shore that lies beneath the rocky cliffs of the Keep's foundation).

As Ekrizdis followed his love to the North Sea and build Azkaban as his own house there, his ancestral house was left abandoned for hundreds of years. Until one day, Brotherick Gillivray, a descendant of Ekrizdis' family and one of Hazel's ancestors, found it under layers and layers of Concealment Charms, and claimed it to be his, to no one's objection.

A Gillivray then means nothing, not weighing the ring that the name brought on, like these days. It was Brotherick Gillivray who started the dynasty.

He was told to be a wizard of wit and knowledge. He was the one who have found Ekrizdis Keep out of bleak nothingness of the island's rocky cliffs, after all. With that kind of wit, creating great poisons may not be such a big impossibility, but the lore of the land told different tales.

It was told that the ghosts of Ekrizdis, the ghosts of his vile ancestors, and the ghosts of all who had died in their hands influenced and used Brotherick Gillivray, who was a brilliant but naïve young wizard. The ghosts were told to use Brotherick as mere puppet, to spread to the world the vileness which has been dwelling within the Keep for centuries.

While other lore told that Brotherick Gillivray was just as vile as his ancestors. It told that he dedicated his life to follow Ekrizdis' steps, and succeeded.

And yet another lore told that, Brotherick Gillivray was the most vile of them all, who made use of the ghosts of his ancestors and harvested the dark power of the Keep to his own benefit.

The Keep was indeed infested with ghosts, but not one of them was Ekrizdis, nor his family. They were all the Gillivrays' cursed descendants.

Among the lore of the land, hid the truth of Brotherick Gillivray.

While not at all connected by lineage to Ekrizdis, Brotherick Gillivray was indeed a brilliant wizard fascinated by the dark arts. He was heavily obsessed with Azkaban and Ekrizdis, and committed to learn from Ekrizdis, even from any bits and pieces left behind after centuries of age.

Through his dedication, Brotherick managed to find Ekrizdis' family house under layers and layers of concealment. But the house he had found was no more than two or three stones standing on a patch of sand.

Refusing to let his fantasy die and his hard work unrewarded, Brotherick built himself an eerie-looking house on a dramatic standing. He filled it with the worst kinds of charms and enchantments of his own imagination, and announced to the world that it was Ekrizdis Keep that he had just found.

Brotherick Gillivray's name started to ring across the wizarding world. The ground-breaking success of his family's poison lines soon followed, resulting in the immediate expansion of their little poison store in Knocturn Alley.

Not long after, Brotherick Gillivray was awarded the Potion Master of the century (by fame, indubitably). The Gillivrays was one of the poorest of pure-blood families, but Brotherick brought them soaring to the highest order.

With his fame and title, Brotherick received many marriage proposals from ancient families of wizards. Predictably enough, he married the daughter of another Potion Master's family, Selma Slytherin. And so, Brotherick Gillivray's success grew even more.

His ever-expanding poison store has then gained its famed name: Poison Master's Apothecary.

By the time the Keep had its fourth master, Gregory Gillivray, the Apothecary has not only grown wider in its size, it has also branched out to potions. And despite of its origin, the Apothecary has gained yet another great success. On the respectable banner gleaming softly by the sun of Diagon Alley was written:

Poison Master's Apothecary

cures for most malignant of poisons

trust us, we make them

Success over success brought Gillivray names to the Ministry of Magic. And with seats on International Magical Trading Standards Body, Gillivray names wrung to the whole world.

Poison Master's Apothecary soon became a worldwide prestigious brand of potions and poisons. Its branches sprung up on every respectable wizarding communities from Africa to Alaska. Its herbal farms spread wide in variety and exoticism, from tropical Borneo to tundra Iceland.

But there was always a price for such fortune, and a steep one it was.

Gregory Gillivray, who has expanded the family business to potion, was not only defying his predecessor's will to keep the business exclusively for appreciation of the dark arts, but also the one who desecrated the ancient pure-blood family name. Gregory Gillivray, who was a Muggle-born, was not even a Gillivray.

Gregory's father-in-law, Dedalus Gillivray, the third Master of the Keep, was a rather different man compared to his father and grandfather, a kinder one. Not as ambitious as the men of his family, Dedalus had a space in his life for kinder things, like love. Dedalus fell for a Herbologist who was a supplier for the Apothecary.

Expectedly enough, Ivy Wonderbee was not at all interested to the man who inherited the money-mongering establishment. So, Dedalus turned to his family's old ways of deceit and trickery. He forced Ivy's hand to marriage by threatening to cut the demand of harvest from the Apothecary, which by then has monopolized Scotland's herbal farming industry.

Faced with financial doom of her family's little farm, Ivy agreed to marry Dedalus.

Ivy Gillivray was a woman as true as her simple upbringing. She learned to love her coarse and jaded husband, and bore him twin daughters, Lilly and Holly Gillivray.

It was just after the twin's tenth birthday when Ivy passed away by exhaustion, after giving birth to twin sons, who were both died at birth.

At her death bed, as Ivy comforted her heart-broken husband, she said, "I have loved you, husband. And oh, how it warmed and lightened my heart. If I may have one favor to ask, please, please let our daughters find this contentedness within their hearts."

Broken-hearted and broken-spirited, Dedalus never marry another woman. He neglected his daughters and his business in his grief. The Apothecary was taking a slow but steady fall as Dedalus withered away in his sorrow.

But Dedalus kept his promise to his wife. He let his daughters married a man of their own choosing.

*Picture used in this chapter is credited to https://slytherincorner.tumblr.com/post/161209054637