The Keep

4. The Blood-Curse

Lilly and Holly Gillivray, having only each other to cling unto, were almost inseparable.

Both of them grew into two brilliant witches. Lilly inherited their mother's love of herbology and potions. And Holly inherited the love of their grandfathers, the dark arts and poison-making. 

Inheriting a great legacy, they both vowed to bring the family business back to its former glory, with just the two of them. But that was until Lily fell in love.

Gregory Moorstroller was an employee of the company. He was a loyal helper and guardian as the twin fought against the world of men, money, deceits, and trickeries.

While Holly was disheartened to lose her sister to marriage, she gave Lily her blessing to marry as long as Gregory were willing to take their family name, so that their children would be Gillivrays.

Gregory Moorstroller became Gregory Gillivray. They married, and soon enough, Lily bore him twin sons.

As the babies grew stronger and stronger inside her, Lily grew more and more paranoid. The image of her dead mother and dead brothers haunted her mind. And as Lily's mental state deescalated speedily, her health worsened, leaving her to be confined to her bed for months, which only worsened the situation even more.

Lily hardly met her husband and her sister, and when they were home, they were always working. Not even once in a week did Holly come to snuggle into Lily's bed. Yet when she did, Holly's mind was never there with her.

Lily grew jealous as she saw how well her husband and her sister work together to build the company back up. They even managed to expand the Apothecary to potions and opened a shop in Diagon Alley, which was her dream. 

And as if to complete Lily's paranoia, from afar, she saw that something has grown between her husband and her sister. Something aside from professional and familial relation. Something that has begun to soften Holly's hardened heart.

Lily turned to despise the babies inside her. Not only that they might kill her, but they had also taken the two people she loved the most in the world away from her.

Lily's mind kept on turning itself on its own, that most of the time she didn't even know what was right and what was wrong anymore.

It was a dark stormy day in Ekrizdis Keep when Lily gave birth on her own. 

Holly sensed something that called her back to Lily, and went back home. When Holly entered the chamber, Lily was sitting up on her bed, smiling, while she was drenched in sweat, tears, and blood.

Lily was cradling one of her twin sons on her chest. And on her feet was her other son, red and bloody, as his blood was still bursting from the knife which has been plunged into his little chest.

"Come, sister, meet your nephew," Lily smiled as she reached out her bloody hand. Holly took her sister's hand in her own bewilderment, and sat by her side.

"What will you name him?" Holly asked groggily. Her eyes could not move away from the slow flow of blood which was seeping out of her other nephew's little chest. 

"Basil," Lily's eyes sparkled in joy, "like grandfather. May you grow as gentle and as strong as your great-grandfather, Basil Gillivray." 

Holly forced out a smile, even though she was still trapped within her own horror. 

"And you too, sister," Lily said softly, with such gentleness in her eyes. 

"May all that you wish come true. May what you see here, never be seen again in our family. May the stronger one prove their worth, or leave before blood spilled," Lily's smile grew wider and wider as her eyes glowed brighter and brighter. 

Lily reached far to her dead son and caressed him softly. With gentlest smile she scooped a handful of his blood. Lily took her dead son's blood and swept a horizontal line across Holly's face. The blood seeped into Holly's skin in burning prickles of a thousand needles and dried away in a mere second.

Realizing what her sister just did, Holly sprung backwards.

As Holly was standing frozen in disbelief, Lily swept her dead son's blood to his brother's face and said softly, "I bind thou in the name of my son and mine." 

Basil's cry broke even louder than the thunderous storm outside when his brother's blood seeped into his skin.

"What have you done!?" the voice was a mere whisper from Holly's dry throat. 

Lilly only answered with her calm and comforting smile while swaying both her babies in her arms.

As if her heart was yanked away from her chest, Holly fell to the floor as white as a ghost. Lily had cursed their family for generations to come.

When Gregory arrived, Holly was holding Basil in one hand while Lily was leaning on her shoulder with their unnamed son laying on her chest. Both looked as peaceful as if they were sleeping, if not for the bloody gore surrounding them. 

Lilly has died from exhaustion, just like their mother. And in her cold hands, was the son she has killed.

Several months later, Gregory and Holly married. Holly made it so that Basil felt the amount of love Lilly would've given him. They never had a child of their own.

Then, it was common for mothers' and babies' health and safety to be compromised in multiple births. But for a lineage with high frequency of multiple pregnancies like the Gillivrays', the lost was almost too devastating. There were not one case in the Gillivrays' history where all the twins or triplets live through deliveries. One or two would be still-borns, and in some cases, all of them.

The little amount of the Gillivrays' children who lived bore a genetic-flaw. They cannot build their own immunity against a certain strain of the commonest of influenza: the Nerve-Wrecking Flu.

Common Nerve-Wrecking Flu ordinarily came with symptoms of sneezing that led to several minutes of stiffed face muscles, due to temporary loss of motoric capability of the nerves surrounding the nose. The worst it could bring was humiliation and embarrassment of having your face frozen in sneezing expression for several minutes.

But not for the Gillivrays' children.

The Gillivrays' children suffered Nerve-Wrecking Flu in various level of extreme aggravation. Some had the disease throughout their life, but it was manageable enough with constant medication. And for some other, they would be completely healthy until the disease claimed them suddenly and unexpectedly.

For the latter, breathing would feel like pieces of glass grating the inside of their lungs. The paralysis would come to their facial muscles first, and it would spread gradually, until it claim their whole nerve system. The sickness would come with drastic waves of fever and cold, and frequent seizures. It could take a child's life in matter of hours since the first fever or cold.

The horrifying number of still-borns and high mortality rate of the Gillivrays' children soon spread to the wizarding world, as if to verify to the lore of the Gillivrays' blood-curse.

Luckily, Poison Master's Apothecary was known for its poisons and potions.

Life-expectancy and life-quality of the Gillivrays' children have improved throughout the centuries. Even the children who suffered from the suddenly devastating kind of the Nerve-Wrecking Flu could now live to their adulthood.

And as a very bright silver lining, in the process of pursuing the remedy of their own hereditary disease, the Apothecary has invented The Highly Efficacious Remedy for Common Nerve-Wrecking Flu. It had become the most sold potion throughout history.

But while their business and wealth were blooming, the family was withering in numbers. 

Rumors of the Gillivrays' blood-curse have spread across the wizarding world. Gillivray had become a name people cautioned their children not to marry.

*Picture used in this chapter is credited to http://www.theartbo.com/all-stories/2016/2/20/poetic-and-grim-photographs-by-laura-makabresku