After they had laughed themselves sick, and recovered, although imperfectly, she started going through the other papers that came with the massive letter.

  "How can we be entitled to all these things? Things I've never heard of, places I've never been? Randy, we own a Fungi, Mushroom, and Toadstool farm, of all things! It's a series of caves under the Pennines! Where are the Pennines? Come to think of it, what are the Pennines? And this here is apparently a manor house near Edinburgh. No one lives there, but this Trust pays for a full time staff."

  Randall gave the Trust documents a pawky look. "Don't pay them much, seemly. And I don't see where they've had a rise in this century."

  "That seems to be the rule for most of these properties and tenants. Charge as much and pay as little as possible, unless they are Family, then it's 'Hail, Fellow'! Rent? What's that?"

  She dropped into a seat with a Flump! that threatened the springs. "Randy, what are we going to do with this lot! I'm not cut out to collect rents, or fix plumbings, or slumlord it over people who are just trying to get by..."

  "Shush, my love." he sat on the arm of her chair and put his arm around her shoulders. "Just shush. We'll do the same with this as we did with the business. Point our Rory at it, and turn him loose."

  She looked up at him with hope. "You really think that will work? Won't Rory feel put upon?"

  Randall snorted. "That lad? The one who came to supper last week complaining the broomstick business wasn't enough of a challenge? He'll jump at it."

  She put her arms around his waist, laying her head against his chest. "It would be nice, not having to worry."

  "Love, if the money stopped comin' in tomorrow, we'd still have more than we'll ever need. Rory feels the same, I'm sure. Just... just look at this as a chance to do some good in the world. Give Rory some general guidelines, and let him make it go away."

  She looked up at him. "What kind of guidelines?"

  "Well, say someone has been a good tenant, or a good employee, tell them they've been Working to Own, and the time to cough up the boodle has come. Whether it's the house they live in, the business they work for, or the blessit fungus farm they run, it's theirs now. The businesses can be split on shares, like."

  "And if it's The Family?"

  "Turf 'em out, and see if there's some manure they can land in!"

  Her smile was coming back. She gave him a tilt of the head that made him want so badly to steal a kiss. "And if they refuse to go?"

  "Tear the bloody place down around their stuck-up noses!"

  She leaned back to see if he was serious.

  He was. "Love, on the best day of my life, you walked away from all that to be my wife, and I to be your husband. I admit, I wasn't walking away from much." He leaned his head down to rest their foreheads. "But I was walking towards everything." They stayed like that for a moment. He finally went on. "I'm thinking maybe you don't want anything from that lot. Except, say, to rub it in their faces!"

  She laughed merrily, then suddenly yanked him off the arm of the chair. He landed in her lap, no harm done. He had always been just a bit of a man, very little over her height and weight.

  He made a pro forma protest, anyway. "Hey, Missus, ain't this a bit back to front?"

  She clasped her hands behind his neck, and spoke severely. "Randolph Aloysius Spudmore, I invite you to think back. Who was it came into your little shop, bag in hand and broom over shoulder, and told you, 'Pack your traps, we're out of here!'?

  He chuckled. "True enough. An' when I mentioned in passin' that I had no broom of my own, you clocked me over the head with that broom, left it layin' on th' plank floor with me, an' grabbed your racin' broom out of th' lock-up."

  She smiled, "My old Ellerby and Spudmore. The first time I noticed you was when I found out Able Spudmore was your father." She looked into his eyes. "And the first time I knew I loved you was when you got the top speed over a hundred."

  He pretended to be shocked, "Lass! You were no more than thirteen!"

  "And you were fifteen, all elbows and knees and patches." She sobered. "It was terrible, what Ignatz Ellerby did to your father..."

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  He interrupted. 'It brought me to you. And, after you came back from school and told me you made Seeker, it never bothered me again."

  "Liar," she said. "Hey, I've got a suggestion. Why don't you shut up and kiss me?"

  ***

  She had grown up By the Gods RICH. But she smiled more the day they eloped than she had in all the years he had known her. The daughter of the house and the boy who kept the brooms flying, scandal to the winds, it was.

  And the time had passed. And she had left. But she was still smiling, even as she closed her eyes for the last time.

  That left... him. Literally, so very literally, nowhere to go, and nothing to do. So he sat at home, for the most part. And, yes, moped.

  And, fairly quickly, found out that his son, the By-the Gods Mogul, wasn't going to put up with that crap.

  The boy, as his father would always think of him, came to the last house he and his wife had shared before she passed. He came in, hugged his father, and said, "We're going for a walk."

  Randall didn't much feel like a walk, and said so. However, his son's arm had remained around his shoulders after the hug. And his son was definitely not 'just a bit of a man.'

  Randall, perforce, walked. And the farther he walked, the better he felt.

  ***

  The talk began idly, partly shop talk, which was interesting, coming from the boy, but would have bored him stiff from anyone else. And Rory still kept up with the folks who had ended up benefiting from The Family's, well, he couldn't honestly come up with a better word than 'ignorance.'

  The boy entertained him with a story about the manor up near Edinburgh. The staff that had cared for it so long went in together, and made it into something called a Bed and Breakfast. They served Muggle and Magical alike, and seemed to make no distinction between the two. They were wildly popular with a group called 'The Fringe Crowd' and they had made the rear downstairs parlor into a performance space that stayed busy year-round. Most magic went unnoticed, as there were Muggle performers that could make real magic look cheap.

  A scion of The Family had strolled in and made himself at home. In fact, he averred that it was his home, and the first thing they could do was get all these Mudbloods and Muggles the hell off his property! Oh, and 'Things Were Going To Change.' He had brought a group of similar wastrels, and they were in the process of laying waste to the Master Bedrooms floor. The staff simply took every scrap of food and drink in the manor, and vacated.

  The best-rated Apparitionist on staff was in London talking to Rory less than twenty minutes after after the first words from the new 'owner's' mouth. Five minutes to Diagon Alley, where a school friend of Rory had a shop, maybe three minutes for an owl to reach the friend's brother-in-law and return, with a full Auror Strike Team.

  It still lacked quite a few minutes of being an hour, when the scion opened the door of the manor, already screaming obscenities at what he presumed were 'his' wayward staff. Sadly, the Aurors had to go a few minutes over the hour to round everyone up. The main time-waster was having to come up with clever answers to the questions, 'Do you know who I am?' and 'Do you know who my Father is?' (The best answer to that last was unanimously judged to be: 'No. But I bet I know who you think he is.').

  Rory and his friend George had accompanied the Strike Team on their errand, and had nothing but plaudits for the show they put on. They stayed for the Second Act, which turned out to be comedy of the purest sort.

  The people who no doubt thought they were the parents of these poor abused 'youths,' (not a one less than twenty-five), descended on the Edinburgh Ministry of Magic to demand Justice! Imagine their surprise to find that Justice had already dropped in, said a few pithy words, and scarpered.

  They demanded to see their 'youths.' They were given a copy of Azkaban's Visiting Hours, (Every second full moon from three to three-twelve AM. Barring eclipses).

  They expressed outrage that their, well, you-know-whats, were bound over without trial, and demanded their release until the date of the trial.

  They were informed them their thing-a-ma-jockleys had received all the trial they were entitled to, and Justice was probably wiggling her shapely toes in the sands of Ibiza. Their doo-lallys had been sentenced to Azkaban for 'Thirty Days, or Until all Fines, Damages and Penalties were Paid in Full..."

  "Fine!" said a Putative Father. "I'll pay now! Get my thing-a-ma-bob back here!"

  The Minion of Justice sighed. "You didn't let me finish. ...Whichever Comes Latest."

  "We'll appeal!"

  '"As is your right. And as to the Fines, Damages and Penalties...?

  "We will pay them if we lose the appeal!"

  The Minion shrugged. "Okay. Will that be all?"

  "No! Release our what-sits pending appeal!"

  The Minion cocked his head to one side, contemplating the Mass of Privilege in front of his desk.

  It didn't help.

  He cocked his head the other way, and said, "Exactly what part of, '...Whichever Comes Latest...' is getting past you?"

  The Putative Father was turning purple. In fact, all the Putative Parents were turning one color or another. The Father started again, 'Look, I demand..."

  Another Minion emerged from the back, checking his watch. "Isn't that your fifteen minutes?"

  The seated Minion checked the clock on the wall. "Yep. Tag out?"

  "Tag in."

  The seated Minion got up and slapped palms with the newcomer, who sat down.

  Rory, George, and a few leftover Strike Team members gave the departing Minion a standing ovation. He acknowledged with a wave, and left.

  The new Minion straightened the papers on the desk. He leaned up, put his elbows on the desk, and folded his hands in front of him. With a professional smile, he said. "Now. How can I help you?"

  ***

  Randall couldn't help it. He laughed. He laughed so hard that he had to stop and lean on a canal railing for a while. His son watched, smiling.

  When Randall's laughter finally died down, something in the world around him had changed. The weather hadn't changed. The City hadn't changed. But he could suddenly think of her without pain. The only thing left was a bittersweet regret that he could not share this story with her.

  Rory clapped him on the shoulder.

  "C'mon, Dad," he said. "We're almost to your new digs."