Anything for my family.

Dani Kopitar-Higgs

23rd December
Higgs Household

Karel enjoyed being home for the holidays, he missed his parents whenever he was at school. He may not seem the type to have friends, but when it came to his parents. His family bonds ran deep, it was a relief being home because it meant he could help his mother around the house. When he'd found out she'd lost her magic, he'd been suitably concerned and frustrated that he hadn't been able to help her when she needed it; it was just lucky that his father worshipped the ground she walked on, so at least she'd had someone to take care of her when she had first contracted this... flu.

The wizard had been out flying that day with Oralie, since she'd confided in him about not being confident in her Captain abilities, he'd found himself spending more time with her, it was funny really, the chain of events that had been triggered by such a simple thing. If you'd asked Karel if he had friends, he would have scoffed and told a person that he didn't do friends, only business partners. But he was slowly expanding that and finding that friends weren't always a bad thing.

He was sat on the sofa with his broom across his lap and polishing the broom handle, he should probably arrange to see Miranda, maybe they could go flying at some point, he hadn't seen the witch much since coming home and even though Karel didn't really know much about dating, he was almost certain that a golden rule of a relationship was spending time together. Karel heard a door somewhere in the house open and shut and he paused his polishing for a moment to listen for whoever it was before he put his broom on the coffee table and got to his feet, strolling into the hallway and smiling when he saw his mother walking towards him. 

"I'll clean up that mess in a minute." Karel said, gesturing to his muddied boots by the door, "I was just waxing my broom. Do you need my help with anything before I make a start?" He asked, wanting to make things as easy for his mother as he could. "How are you feeling?"

best behavior

anything for my family

anything for my son

Her son got the best version of Dani Higgs. She cared about him more than anything or anyone. He was her true legacy, even more than her career. Nothing pleased Danijela more than the fact that her son took after her and not his father. Terence was utterly gorgeous and bloody rich--and quite the Quidditch player and strategist...but that was really where his strengths ended. He was mediocre wizard at best--and his brains, well, the lack thereof was well made up by his brawn and his blind loyalty to his wife. 

Dani had never really loved Terence, but he was pureblooded, wealthy, and absolutely besot with her. It had been a fine match for a marriage. She could never really abide a husband who was her actual equal--she needed the power imbalance. She needed to be in control. And her son had shown himself to be just as cunning and entrepreneurial as his mother. She was incredibly proud.

She was also incredibly annoyed to find his muddy boots at the door when she entered the Higgs home. Her eyes were narrowed at the mess, cursing the epidemic once more for stripping her of her magic, when her son came round the corner. He seemed to read her mind and her frown shifted to a smile. "See that you do," she echoed behind his claim that he would take care of it. 

"Broom care is important. I can't fault you for putting that before your boots. Just don't forget them. It is an unreasonable hassle now to clean things. I really must get an elf." Dani really wasn't fussed that her son had opted to polish his broom before getting to his boots. He had a fine broom, they'd spent a small fortune on it---only the best for her boy...and obviously this was something Terence was incredibly passionate about this as well. So, no shortage of coin was spent on spoiling their son in respect to Quidditch equipment. 

He asked after her health and her smile grew. How lucky she was to have such a fine young man as a son. How many boys his age would have such manners or thoughtfulness? He truly was exceptional. "I am physically well. We've learned nothing it seems of worth at the hospital though, in respect to getting me to back to what I once was. You would think the whole place in filled with imbeciles with how little progress has been made. I lend my expertise where I can, but it all feels very much like a waste of time."  No one knew anything, which was absolutely infuriating to the woman. She pursued possibilities and experimentation on the theories that the inability to perform magic was linked to some neurological disorder, but she put no faith in it. She was a proper medical doctor, too, educated in the muggle realm admittedly---but their sciences would not have linked this sickness to the chemicals of the mind. She was sure of it. It was something with the body. She just didn't know what.

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Outfit

Karel had a few layers to him and very few people saw the deeper layers, the ones that his family saw. Even then, his father got a completely different version to Karel than his mother and other family members received. It was no secret to Karel that Danijela Higgs looked down on her husband. Growing up he’d never really thought much about it, he just thought that was how relationships were. They kept their discussions to a minimum around him, and he couldn’t even really remember a time that he’d seen his parents be intimate, a passing kiss on the cheek in the halls, maybe, but that was about it. As he grew older, he’d began to hone in on his mother’s thoughts and more often than not he followed her footsteps than Terence Higgs. In Karel’s opinion, his father was a pushover, he just let his wife and son walk all over him. If Karel wanted something, he got it. If Danijela told him to do something, he did it without asking questions. He had no doubt it would provide him with a lot of entertainment, should he ever feel bored.

His mother was fierce and the look she gave Karel when he joined her in the hall emphasised this, but whereas his father would back away and grovel for forgiveness, Karel just shrugged her look off – respectfully, of course. It would be different if she genuinely was mad at him, but Karel rarely gave her an excuse to do that. When he was home and not at school he was working on his business agreements, flying or just helping around the house. He sometimes took time to observe his mother and he was slowly starting to learn how best to use manipulation to your advantage and in a way that the person on the receiving end, genuinely thought you cared. He didn’t care for his clients. Even the ones he had… unique payments from saw no sign of kindness; they just heard what they wanted to hear. It was surprisingly easy, once you got a grasp on how to hold yourself and how to use your tone of voice to have the right words spilt out; it was one of the easiest ways he got secrets out of people, which he later used to his full advantage.

Karel dipped his head in a nod when his mother responded to his promise to clean things up and the corner of his lips curled up ever so slightly into the tiniest hint of a smile. Quidditch ran in the family and Karel had quickly learnt that it was quite an important sport to take part in, it opened up doors and conversations with potential clients, it seemed that a lot of people thought Quidditch players were friendly and approachable, pathetic really but it got him what he needed so he allowed them to have that false sense of security. The only people he truly cared for when it came to Quidditch was his teammates. You needed that solidarity amongst the team, a bit like how you needed business partners. If there were cracks in the team, it would crumble into a mess and no one wanted that. Especially not Karel and especially not when he wanted to win. ”An elf? Why don’t you just use father? That’s all he’s truly useful for.” Karel drawled, showing no hint of remorse or emotion as he spoke so lowly of his father. ”But even then, he’d probably screw it up somehow.” The wizards gaze flickered to the boots and then back to his mother, maybe he’d pretend he had homework to do if his father was home, he’d just need to say that he was busy and his father would jump in to make life easier for him. No, as much as he liked that idea. He’d told his mother he would do it and so he would, he wasn’t planning on leaving it, but it was always fun to think of alternatives. He may act more mature than his age, but he was still a teenager at the end of the day and he despised cleaning. He wasn’t even sure he knew anyone that enjoyed it.

He turned his gaze back to his mother as she began to speak again, giving the matriarch his full attention as she spoke. ”How can they have no idea what is going on? Are they dragging their feet, hoping that this flu will do some good for our kind? The mudbloods...” He hadn’t missed the fact that they were slowly trickling back into society and whilst he wasn’t overly bothered by them, he wasn’t thrilled. The only good thing that could come of it was they may be looking for ways to earn money or to strike up deals. That he could support, but it didn’t mean he enjoyed helping them specifically. ”You’d expect that the people who were had specific training for situations like this would have some clue.” He rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose in distaste, ”They better hurry along before even more people lose their magic. It would be a disaster if that happened.”

best behavior

anything for my family

anything for my son

The witch had no reason to doubt her son would do as he said and as she had asked, but it was the duty of a mother to hold their child accountable. She knew the faults that could easily arise from children left to their own devices with no responsibility or guidance in the world. Her parenting style was very clearly that of a psychologist. She approached her interactions with her son as interactions with someone she respected and cared for. She had always treated him much more like an adult than like a child. The doctor believed that if a child was shown coddling or held to lower expectations because of their age, they would behave accordingly. She wanted her son to be better than that...and he had proven himself to rise to those expectations. He was a great achievement of her life--and a point of rich pride for the Kopitar.

She spoke of taking on an elf and her son's candid reply brought a smirk twisting on her lips. Danijela arched up her brows at the boy, tilting her head just the slightest bit as she made a small insincere scolding of him. "You mustn't speak of your father that way. He has his purposes." Admittedly, most of those purposes were in the bedroom. Terence wasn't brilliant analytically, but he was a god in a bed. She had shagged many men and women over the years, but he still topped her list of lovers. Part of that came from what he had to work with and part came from the man's athletic ability and his drive to please. He was not so stupid as to be blind to her affairs. He knew he was not enough for her, but he tried his very best to be as much as he could manage.

Dani had spoken as coldly and crassly about her husband in Karel's presence as her son did now. Such things would be said again by both her and him in the future. There was no real expectation with her feigned reprimand that her son would take the reproach to heart. It was almost a joke between them for her to even make it. 

Her son's annoyance about the illness mirrored her own. She was able to continue her work easily enough with her magic, but she found herself annoyed by its absence on a regular basis. The woman relied on it for everything. She had to have Terence draw her baths now and conjure water for her to shower with. He was rubbish at it, too. The temperature variance was always all over the place. It was incredibly annoying...She'd given thoughts to adding muggle plumbing and electricity to the home to deal with her handicap.

"You would think that someone would understand it...which makes me give weight to the line of thinking that whoever conceived of this epidemic, because it is surely not natural--that is well conceded among my colleagues--that whoever was responsible for it is responsible now for the lack of progress. I think research is being sabotaged at the hospital." She went on to share not only her thoughts on the state of things, but also rumors that floated about in certain sects of the Death Eaters that stood opposed to the Minister's recent decisions. "There are many whispers now that it might have been the Minister who brought this down on us...but I do not believe it. I worked with Lady Lestrange for a very long time at the hospital. She is a peculiar study, but I trust I gleaned enough understanding of her to know she would not loose something like this on us." 

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Karel prided himself on being the best he could be. At school, he did things only for himself, he was a gentleman, smooth talking, cunning and intelligent. Everything he did he had a reason, an ulterior motive, something to benefit him in the long run, he had to think ahead. He had a future to think about, sure he was still in school and he had two more years to go but it was better to be ready for the real world in advance. Sure, he planned on doing an internship in final two years and he would expand his little business there, he’d have to be careful though, subtle. He knew that whilst it was easy enough at school, most teenagers were immature and gullible; it was easy to convince them to do your bidding but adults? People out in the real world, they were smart, they were cautious. If he prepared himself now in school, it would be much easier to manoeuvre out in the real world and of course, Karel was confident he’d have the support of his mother, she always encouraged him and she didn’t really seem that phased that he was breaking dozens of school rules with what he did. In fact, she even helped him sometimes if he needed to ask and find things out of the school walls.

He tried to do right by his mother, his father and to bring pride to the Kopitar and Higgs name when he was out of school, he tried his best to make his mother, specifically, proud and he liked to hope he did. He minded his manners, he was charming and mature; he knew he wasn’t like most teenagers, he acted like an adult like he’d been taught, of course, he still had his moments but it was, in fact, a rarity. Karel let his gaze sweep over his mother as she attempted to ‘scold’ him but the smirk on her lips proved that he wasn’t in fact in trouble. Karel knew when his mother was truly angry with him, she was quite frightening and certainly a force to be reckoned with but he didn’t often cross his mother's path; he respected her enough. His father, on the other hand, was a little different. The patriarch of the family was rather weak and feeble, he had no backbone and his mother was definitely the more respected member of their family amongst others. Karel arched his brow at his mother, ”I’ve yet to see these purposes.” He drawled, his father did certain things if his mother asked or if Karel asked and he gave the family enough money to survive and live the life they were and he enjoyed that, but money didn’t buy respect. Karel loved being showered with gifts from his father, but that didn’t mean much. Call him selfish, but if things like money were just going to be thrown at him, of course, he was going to take it. Admittedly, he had his own ways of earning money now, but the gold his parents gave him often went a long way, he wasn’t a fool. His mother, of course, was often behind the gift ideas and he made sure to know that he appreciated what she did, but when it came to Terence; the older wizard got a polite thank you and nothing more on the matter. That wasn’t to say Karel didn’t love Terence, of course, he did. He wouldn’t be alive without him if he was looking at it that way and he knew that his father cared for him and did everything he could but Karel’s biggest gripe was the fact that his father spoke to him like a child, not like an adult or young man and after being raised to be more mature for his age by his mother, being talked down to, never sat right with the snake.

The conversation shifting to the sickness, brought with it more interest and Karel nodded slowly as he listened to what his mother said, ”If this sickness was natural, everyone would get it. It’s like this… thing is aware of the trace. I wish I knew what special circumstances made some people… immune of it.” He didn’t think immune was the right word, but he couldn’t think of what else to say. He thought to his conversations about the flu with Oralie. ”It can’t be blood, or where people stand in the world with their beliefs, there are too many different people getting sick.” He furrowed his brow, it just didn’t make sense and that was probably the most infuriating thing for Karel, he hated not knowing things like that. ”If what you say is right and someone is behind this epidemic, they are fools for not doing the necessary research to make sure there was a cure or suitable precautions in place. It must be something spiteful, it just doesn’t make sense.” He sighed heavily and rubbed his head, he was worried about what would happen to students who had the trace as soon as they turned seventeen. Would they lose their magic or were they safe because they turned seventeen after this epidemic spread? There were so many questions and too few answers. ”Lady Lestrange?” Karel repeated, tilting his head to the side, ”Lady Lestrange seems to be strongly driven by being fair. If she was behind it, she’d need to have a damn good reason behind it.” He mused aloud before shaking his head and shrugging, ”Do you have any suspicions over who is behind it?” He asked curiously.