9 March, 2021
20:45
Blackberry Manor - The outskirts of Ballyclare, Ireland
Dining room

Bethany:
"Speech"
"Thoughts"
Frayda:
"Speech"
Anna:
"Speech"
"Thoughts"
Jacob:
"Communication"
"Thoughts"

The bright, deep moon on the sky was full, and the cold wind of the night would make many a person cover themselves in as many blankets as they possibly could, asking themselves if tomorrow would be as painfully cold as this night. Within the warm halls of the Blackberry Manor, however, the preoccupations were different. It was 20:45 and there were only 15 minutes left before their hatedhonored guests, the Castillo family, arrived for tonight's dinner, so the servants worked extra hard to clean and polish the house to perfection. The heavy, old-fashioned furniture floated on the air like oversized feathers, allowing the servants to scrub the floor underneath them. Even though most of the house had already been cleaned hours before, a bit of dust still lingered in the air, a product of raising so much ancient furniture high in the air. Next to the base of a grand oak table, a little house elf sneezed for the third time and rubbed her pointy nose furiously.
"How come I clean this house every day..." Frayda grumbled, scrunching her face, "And there's still that much dust on the furniture?!"
Frayda's complaints were just a little exaggerated (like always), due to the fact that she was unfortunately very sensitive to dust, so even a speck floating in the air was already enough to set off her coughing and complaining. As she rubbed her nose and mumbled about her dissatisfaction under her breath, she heard known, heavy steps coming from the kitchen, and Frayda glanced up just in time to see Bethany Blackberry emerging through the doorway, her long, curly, black hair bouncing behind her. It usually would be tied up in a messy ponytail, but tonight Bethany had taken her time to embellish her hair with fragrant oils and many colorful flowers, which in Frayda's opinion, made the auror look quite lively. The auror also wore a dark green dress, which had a long skirt that reached her ankles, and chose to finalize her look with shiny red heels, a blue eye shadow and red lipstick.
"I thought you were in the upper floor with the little lady."
Bethany stood next to the little house elf, with hands on her hips, scanning the grand living room. The paintings on the wall were looking at Bethany with some level of surprise, as it was quite rare to see her that serious. Every inch of the room was scrubbed impeccably.
"I wanted to check if you were already done with the cleaning."
"Of course! There's not much left, we just need to put the plates on the table."
The auror kept inspecting the grand room, and followed to the left end to the table...When her eyes locked on a curious object.
"Frayda?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Why the f*** are our library's puffs in the dining room?"
Frayda looked over to the colorful doodled children's puffs, left carelessly next to the doorway.
"Ah...Well. That might be my fault, ma'am. Someone had left them there, maybe one of your children, and while I was putting them back in their place, I smelled the potatoes roasting back at the kitchen and went to check... Then I got distracted. Sorry, ma'am."
"You're telling me potatoes of all things got you distracted, Frayda?"
"Yeesh! They're rosemary roasted! I'm only an elf, not divine!"
Bethany sighed and rubbed her forehead. "How can someone claim that the dining room is all clean...", she thought dryly, "And leave those puffs laying around like some kind of daycare?!"
With a wave of hands, she carefully rose the puffs and sent them slowly floating to the end of the corridor, where the library was.
"There it goes. See? It's already fixed. Nothing to stress about, ma'am."
"Right... Are you sure there's nothing else laying around? Nothing stupid? I don't want our guests to sit on our couch and find out there's a picture book or a candy under their asses."
Not that Bethany wanted the guests to sit on her couch, of course. And it's not like she wanted guests, either. If it wasn't for business's sake, she'd be expelling whoever tried to show up in the manor for dinner.
"Don't you worry." Frayda chuckled. "There's really nothing else staining your perfect mansion, ma'am."
"Good...Good. I'll go check on Anna, then."
"As you wish. See you later, ma'am~!"
Bethany nodded and followed upstairs.

In the second floor, sitting on the floor with her legs between the balusters of the railing and swinging them idly on the air, was a child, her black and curly hair much resembling Bethany, her mother; but unlike the Auror, Anna was small and had blue eyes. She had been watching her mother stress over the visit of the Castillo Family for quite a while now.
"I don't know why mama has to worry so much about changing the paintings' place or cleansing under the couch! It's just business thing, right?"
The curly-haired girl thought, looking up to the ceiling and closing her blue eyes. "And those stupid Castillos have to come to our house and eat our food, too! So much for a 'professional meeting'!"
Frustrated as she was, Anna knew their guests were necessary to the economic growth of her own family. When it comes to producing and selling brooms, the Castillos are at the very top; each one of their handcrafted brooms is precise, swift, perfect, like they have always been. It's easy to see why their commerce continues unwavering for so many generations, and why they continue to receive such a large investment from the Blackberry Family, who would not even think of passing an opportunity of profiting even more and expanding their political influence over the world.
"Hmph! Brooms! Who could even care about stupid brooms?!", the child thought, annoyed because she sucks at flying and she's petty. Despite how friendly the two families pretended to be in public, Anna's grandmother had already taught her children about how egotistical the Castillos were; how they should keep wary of the other family no matter how many meetings they had. She groaned upon remembering that she would also have to deal with them without her little brother! Oliver, three years younger than her, always knew how to distract his older sister from negative situations and make everything more tolerable for her... But yesterday, his aunt invited both siblings over to sleep on her new house, and while Oliver accepted without a second thought, Anna preferred not to, as she hated sleeping anywhere that wasn't her own bed. But now, she missed him. Not only she couldn't mess his hair or play with him, he also wasn't there to comfort her. "When I see Oliver again tomorrow, I'll hug him really tight and won't let him go again..."
Lost in her own thoughts, the girl could not hear her mother's footsteps going upstairs, until she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Baby, you know you shouldn't sit on the floor. It'll dirty your dress."
"Uugh..."
Anna stood up and wiped an unexistent dust off her dusty rose dress. It was true she shouldn't end up dirtying it; that was her very favorite dress, so she reserved it for special occasions. It was fluffy, with long sleeves, a cocoa lace and a layered, ruffled skirt. Anna thought she looked like a doll with that dress, and it made her feel beautiful. Bethany crouched down to look eye to eye with her beloved daughter.
"Are you ready for the dinner?"
"I wish they wouldn't come..."
"Me too, baby. Me too." Bethany sighed, twirling a lock of her hair. Dressing up for the dinner was fun; her daughter had even given the idea of them both decorating their hair with flowers of complementary colors to match each other's hair! But the dinner itself would hardly be as entertaining as that.
"I just hope Jacob will strike more good deals with them...", the Auror thought. Although she had been playing it cool, it was stressful to think about everything that could go wrong. But she couldn't let those worries take over her, she needed to stay calm and act naturally. Bethany took a breath.
"Mom? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I am." The mother stood up and extended her hand for her child to hold.
"Come on. It's almost time, we have to go to the living room. Don't forget to be polite pretend you like them!"
Unsettled, Anna nervously nodded and took her mother's hand, following her downstairs.
In front of the grand fireplace of the living room, stood Jacob, expressionless like always, awaiting his guests' arrival, without moving as much as a muscle. Jacob left his straight, rib-length, strawberry blond hair loose, and was clasping his hands together behind his back. He wore a light french beige suit with social black shoes, preferring a more classic and old-fashioned look to his wife's and daughter's eye-catching outfit choices.
While the blond wasn't personally happy to know the Castillo Family would arrive in five minutes or so, he still expected to strike a few good deals with them tonight. It was the whole reason to inviting them to the dinner despite knowing with his source being his mommy how selfish they are. It didn't take too much for Jacob to hear the unmistakable steps of Bethany and Anna, coming to the living room and finding him, stiff and without moving a muscle, staring at the fireplace and clasping his hands behind his back.
"Doesn't it get tiring to stay still like that for so long?" Bethany asked, but Jacob shook his head. Being this motionless made him feel more ready to properly greet the guests that were to come. He still looked over to Bethany, who stood still besides him, with an unreadable expression on her face, and holding Anna's hand, whose face was blank. Very unusual for that weirdly intense girl, as she would usually spend the entire day smiling or with an intense look in her eyes, oftentimes talking about the new books she just read or the animals and plants that live in their garden. Usually, Jacob or Oliver, who spoke less (or, in Jacob's case, did not speak) in comparison to other relatives, were typically the ones to suffer the most with her long-lasting monologues of opinions, rants and analysie about whatever thought crossed her mind in that minute.

21:00

"Huh. So it's finally time for the Castillo to arrive...", Jacob thought.
"I hope they won't be a bother to me..." Anna looked down and squeezed her mother's hand.