Tuesday, 02 January 1923, 9:45am
Oleg’s office at Harewood House
Gaze hard, Oleg stood by the window behind his desk, letting his eyes travel over the snow-covered grounds. His hands clasped behind his back tapped a steady rhythm, the only movement and sound of the room, if not the entire house.
A hush that had settled like death itself. Ruslana’s doing.
The circumstances of it couldn’t have been any more inconvenient. An overdose, collapsed at the most important event since their arrival, hosting guests they had been working on for months. The woman had given him more than enough headaches while alive, it only seemed to fit she did so also in death.
He hadn’t disliked her. Ruslana had given him four more children, two of which were sons, and had been the immaculate representation of a Zdravkova woman. Elegant, charming, admired. Her abilities to socialize had provided him with numerous new contacts, creating ways in he might have not managed by himself alone. She had been useful in the way a woman and wife could be.
If only she hadn’t been so damn lax in other regards. Her frivolous dabbling with certain powders had never been a secret, not to him. He had warned her, had tried to force her to stop, but to no avail. The woman had been too sly, too cunning — and yet capable to keep appearances up. He had made the consequences clear, should anyone ever get wind of this, but he supposed that had been a waste of breath.
She had taken herself out all on her own.
In the worst possible fashion imaginable. It was only lucky she had had the decency to collapse out of sight instead of giving the entirety of Wizarding Britain something to talk about. For now, barely anyone knew. Still, rumours were brewing. They needed to handle this, quick and precise.
A knock on the door disrupted the silence and Oleg turned. “Enter.” His gaze cut to Lev, dead on time as usual. “Close the door, we have things to discuss.” Without further ado, Oleg sat behind his desk, waiting for Lev to take a seat opposite.
“Your step-mother’s death will have to be handled carefully,” he said, voice void of emotion, its usual point-blank tone. “The official cause will be heart failure, a fatal and tragic consequence of her decade-long struggle with health problems.” Made up, of course, but that went without saying. Everyone in this house was aware of the woman's doings. She hadn't exactly made an effort to hide it, not even from her own children.
Steepling his fingers, Oleg continued. “We need medical records forged, a few minds altered at St. Mungo’s. Her friends’ too. I don’t want anyone with even an ounce of doubt. Maybe we can find leverage in this as well.”
Grief was an emotion easily utilized as any other.
Where exuberance and exaltations for the new year rang just a day and a half ago, grief and silence had swallowed it whole.
A serpent, coiled and waiting in the shadowed corners for its prey to wander naively into its trap, it had struck without warning. His half-siblings were reeling, the younger ones especially, and while Lev had held no affection for his stepmother, he hated knowing that his sisters and brothers were struggling. At his core, Lev was a family man, and he was fiercely protective of them, even if it presented itself in a quieter way than some would like.
Ruslana was an idiot, and always had been. His father had chosen her as a wife for obvious reasons, but her ability to be a selfless Zdravkova wife and mother had always been lacking. Her propensity for potions and whatever else soured her reputation - and their family’s as far as Lev was concerned - and her consequences had finally caught up to her.
Even in death, she couldn’t be a decent mother and spare her children the embarrassment and sorrow of her actions.
“Enter.”
It was never any different. Father’s voice came cold and rigid behind the door, commanding rather than inviting, but Lev knew the shape of it by now.
It didn’t make it any less intimidating.
If there was anyone that could intimidate Lev or send a chill down the young man’s spine, it was his father. Despite being the man’s favorite of his children, Lev wasn’t spared from the harshness of his father’s approach nor his disapproval if things didn’t measure up to his expectations.
He entered quickly and quietly, shutting the door behind him as ordered.
“Your step-mother’s death will have to be handled carefully. The official cause will be heart failure, a fatal and tragic consequence of her decade-long struggle with health problems.”
Lev almost snorted his disgust at the idea of ‘health problems’, but quickly remembered himself and didn’t dare. If Ruslana had held any real health problems, they all would have been mental, but the son kept quiet as his father continued.
“We need medical records forged, a few minds altered at St. Mungo’s. Her friends’ too. I don’t want anyone with even an ounce of doubt. Maybe we can find leverage in this as well.”
“I can handle it,” he answered quietly, his mind already making a detailed list of who he would need to speak to, and how he would handle everything. He would bring Liliya along. More exposure and observation could only help her in her own practices, and he doubted Nadezda would argue. It would be his father that he would need to convince.
“The hospital will be more difficult and require more finesse, but it will be done.” He paused a moment, sitting up straight in his chair as he studied his father for a moment. “What sort of leverage are you looking for, Father?”
His wife was already dead. Condolences, whether genuine or performative, would already be assured.
“I can handle it. The hospital will be more difficult and require more finesse, but it will be done.”
Oleg grew unnaturally still, gaze cooled and lingering on Lev in quiet warning. He did not need to be reminded of the complexity of the situation by his son, as though he wasn’t quite aware and needed council. The mess Ruslana had ridden them into could hardly be any more intricate, worsened by her own son.
Dragomir had already felt the consequences for acting out of line, making decisions on his own.
Taking his mother to a place like St. Mungo’s, a public hospital they held no influence over, filled with healers they didn’t control had been utterly senseless, driven by rash action rooted in the softness Oleg had never quite managed to squash. When the message had reached him the damage had already been done.
At least the boy had had the wit to demand a private room.
The few healers involved had been paid off when Oleg had arrived, to keep their mouths shut and not immediately run to the press, but Galleons alone could not be trusted to keep this quiet. Not forever. When the family reputation was on the line, easily cracked by a scandal as embarrassing as an overdose, different methods to maintain esteem were necessary.
No. This needed to be handled thoroughly, methodically. There was no room for doubt. No time for delays.
Snapping out of the predatory stillness, Oleg released his gaze from Lev, shifting to reach for a quill and parchment. “It will,” he said, tone a fraction sharper. “Today. Talk to Dragomir, get every face and name from him he interacted with, Nadežda will take a look inside his head. There can be no leaks.”
As much as he detested his cousin’s place amongst the family ranks, Nadežda was their strongest Legilimens and he didn’t trust anyone else with this. “I have already informed her. You will go together.” End of discussion.
“What sort of leverage are you looking for, Father?”
For a moment he remained silent, continuing to write as though he hadn't heard. At last he answered, not looking up.
“Make one of the healers complicit by signing false records, keep their mind intact. Find a weakness, threaten them, I’ll leave it to you. We need someone on the inside.”
Lev swallowed hard, forcing his gaze to remain on that of his father's even as ice ran down his spine. Oleg Zdravkova was not a man for conversation or mulling. Not when his decisions had already been made. Lev had overstepped by voicing his thoughts out loud; not in lamentation, and more for himself than anything.
But it was unwelcome, and he should have known.
A churning in Lev's stomach was the only give-away that his father had made him anxious, his back strong and stiff against the back of the chair, his shoulders loose and heavy. He forced himself to maintain his father's gaze, knowing that if he dropped it or dared to look away, his father would find fault and weakness in it.
Instead, Lev tilted his chin slightly higher; prey silently staring down its predator, waiting for it to to strike.
“It will."
His words were sharp, but not the reprimand that Lev was expecting. A soft exhale through the young man's nose as silent relief filled him. Someday, Lev would better control his ruminations, understanding that his father wanted soldiers, not councilors.
"Today. Talk to Dragomir, get every face and name from him he interacted with, Nadežda will take a look inside his head. There can be no leaks.”
There was no point in bringing up Liliya now. Nadežda would be attending. Lev refrained from rolling his eyes, and gave a simple nod of his head.
“Make one of the healers complicit by signing false records, keep their mind intact. Find a weakness, threaten them, I’ll leave it to you. We need someone on the inside.”
"Yes Father." It was all that was needed. No further questions. No discussions. No requests to take Drago or Liliya along. There was a problem, and he was meant to figure out how to fix it. Immediately.
Lev rose from his chair, dipping his head in respect, waiting to be excused.
Lev acknowledged the order, rising from his chair without further commentary or question — as he was expected to do. Oleg had instilled this militaristic obedience and subordination early on, in all of his children and his sons in particular. Order, discipline, and devotion had built the family into what it was today, generation after generation, and he’d be damned if he was the one to break a perfectly working machine in favour of sentimentality and softness. Those things had no room in a world like theirs. He had done well to smother any sign of weakness the moment he had sensed it.
For those first two years of his oldest son’s life, he had worried, watching with disapproval how Lev's mother had coddled and pampered the boy, countersteering where he could. A soft boy he had been then, but her influence had been cut quite short. Maybe for the better. Oleg could still see streaks of it, here and there, though two decades of strict handling and teaching had prevented the worst.
Lev had proven himself competent since graduating from school and then university. Promising. This task would be useful, a good way for him to put into practice what he continued to claim to be capable of.
Oleg waved his free hand. A wordless dismissal before he returned his attention to the parchment before him.
Flashback
Thursday, 28 September 1922
~ 12:43 am ~
Oleg stood with his hands pressed flat against the desk’s surface, gaze hard and unforgiving as it pierced into his oldest son’s eyes, standing across and at attention. The last of their guests could still be heard through the door, saying goodbyes in the entrance hall before disapparating or finding their accommodations provided for them in the house itself, their cheerful chatter a stark contrast to the thickening air of the office.
Anger pressed against his ribs, barely restrained as Oleg continued to stare at his son, letting the weight of silence grow heavier. The party had gone over well aside from one incident, and his son would answer for it now.
Oleg’s voice was cold as steel as it pressed forward, low with barely restrained anger. “Third time," he said through clenched teeth. “Third time Liliya has drawn negative attention in public under your watch; she is behaving like a fool.” His tone sharpened, lips snarling. “After you assured me twice —", unable to contain the rising rage in his blood, Oleg slammed his fist down, sending ink jars clattering and quills rolling, "— that you had her under control.”
His eyes kept boring into Lev, glinting with fury. “What is your fucking excuse this time?”
Lev had learned long ago, that his father expected his hard stares to be met full on. Oleg Zdravkova didn't tolerate anything that he perceived as weakness, especially from his sons. A tremble, a slight hesitation in words, a gaze that faltered and lowered - unacceptable. They only intensified his rage like gasoline to a flame.
No matter how intimidated, no matter how ashamed Lev may or may not have felt, he was meant to handle his father's anger like a man. There were some in the family that called the young man robotic, the perfect soldier or the unyielding, golden son. They saw a man unquestioning, stiff and ready to do everything his father asked without a speck of emotion on his features. He was composed, well-mannered...cold, as some read him.
Sometimes, he even wondered himself if the heart he felt thumping in his chest had to capacity for more than the light spikes and lowers that came with adrenaline. Certainly, at one time it had. Lev had been told he was his mother's child - softer, gentler and happier in the short time he'd her, all of it beaten out of him within a few short years under his father's rule.
Perhaps only his siblings could truly understand him and why he operated in the manner he did. Still, even they had their comments and moments of disparagement. It wasn't that Lev cared, really. They were all welcome to their opinions, and he hardly cared about the way he was perceived if he had his father's favor.
It was when he didn't, that Lev felt alone. Incapable. Angry.
It had been some time since he'd last lost his composure, especially in public. He'd been a boy then - around fifteen - and his father had spent the better part of a weekend 'correcting' him. Liliya had never gotten him to break like that before. She had always been an annoyance, irritating like a fly that wouldn't stop buzzing around his ear. But never enough to get under his skin.
“Third time."
Lev stood still, keeping his eyes cemented on his father's as he felt himself stiffening.
“Third time Liliya has drawn negative attention in public under your watch; she is behaving like a fool.”
His father's fist slammed down hard on the desk. Lev blinked at the clattering of glass against wood, the only tell that his nerve was faltering. Fists clenched, the young man dug his short nails into his palms, willing himself to focus on the physical pain he caused himself than the fear his father was instilling.
“What is your fucking excuse this time?”
There would be no time to think of an answer. Every second that Lev didn't offer up what his father wanted would only exacerbate the man's rage. Oleg believed Liliya's behavior - her inability to control herself - was his fault. In some ways, Lev agreed it was. If he handled her more physically, if he forced compliance in the same way his father would have, Liliya wouldn't be behaving the way she was.
But Lev...didn't know if he had that in him. He supposed, if things got bad enough, he'd have to force it. Otherwise, his father's wrath lay in store. Lev exhaled, feeling his own patience waning. Surely the family could see the problem was bigger than he just not being able to control her? Surely they could see this whole arrangement was a mistake?
"She's not a child," Lev answered evenly. "I can correct her. I can stop her when I see it happening. But I can't control every decision she makes."
His jaw tightened, though his gaze never left his father's.
"I understand what's expected of me. But this arrangement isn't working. Every time I'm made responsible for controlling her, she becomes more determined to resist me."
Lev shifted his weight on his feet, shoulders back, posture straight, his chin tipped up as though he were waiting for an inevitable blow.
"If the purpose is to settle her, perhaps she should marry outside the family."
He paused. He never offered his father his suggestions, only followed orders. But he wasn't going to continue this charade without his father understanding how impossible the entire thing felt.
"At least then her marriage would gain us something besides another fight inside our own house."
For a prolonged moment, Oleg didn’t move. Silence settled once more, thick as carpet, heavy as lead. His anger pressed hard against the restraint he kept around it.
The ‘explanation’ his son was offering was nothing but precisely what he had asked for — excuses. A comfortable way out, avoidance, weakness, disobedience. It had been a long time since Lev had last dared to step out of line like this; Oleg was sure he remembered it well. Who would have thought a girl was what eventually broke him again, a disobedient child?
Oleg felt almost disgusted.
Muscles clenched, he straightened, slowly making his way around the desk until he stood directly before his son, cold eyes boring into Lev’s. A predatory stillness settled over his body, his fist itching to barrel forward, to bury right there into his son’s stomach, to see him double over and sputter and cough. It took every ounce of self-control to hold back.
He stared until his vision tunnelled, periphery blurring. When he finally spoke, his voice was little more than a low snarl, dripping with disappointment and contempt.
“I wasn’t aware I raised a fucking coward,” he said, keeping their gazes locked, pausing again. His voice lowered further. “Do you think I want her in the family? Hm? Do you think I want this petulant orphan girl married to my heir, leading the family one day? Do you think I decided that?” His face had grown hot with restrained rage, blood rushing.
“Huh?!” Spittle flew as Oleg finally burst. “Do you think I'm that fucking dumb?”
As if he hadn’t already tried to get rid of her. As if he couldn’t see that she was misplaced and incompetent, unworthy of such status, a danger to their family name and reputation. As if he were too blind to notice and too incompetent to have her removed.
The implication almost boiled his blood over completely, the fact that he had to explain something so simple insulting to two decades' worth of education.
Breathing heavily, Oleg bored his eyes into Lev’s. “This is your great-uncle Aleksandr’s doing,” he spat, “because of your cousin Nadežda’s request.” Malice dripped with every word — Nadežda had always been Aleksandr’s favourite. Granting wishes no matter how ridiculous, it seemed. Oleg had always despised her for it.
Now he was left to deal with the damage.
Teeth clenched, his words left as barely more than a hiss. “You think I don’t know she’s a problem? I assigned you that problem, and I expect you to deal with it. If a little girl is too much for you, son, I might have to reconsider your position in the family.”
Silence settled, heavy with warning and promise.
“Deal with her. Or I will.”
“I wasn’t aware I raised a fucking coward."
Lev's jaw tightened as shame and fury battled within his chest for supremacy. It wasn't the first time his father had said it, though it had been quite awhile. Oleg Zdravkova wasn't the warm sort of father who led with empathy and compassion for his sons. He ran a tight ship and there was no room for weakness or perceived failure.
Lev hated feeling his father's wrath and disappointment. The young man's entire sense of self hung on the notion that he was the golden son. The one who always got it right and received nods of approval rather than disdain. His self-worth depended on his usefulness and his father's perception of Lev's competence. Anything contrary to that tore him apart from the inside out.
He didn't move.
“Do you think I want her in the family? Hm? Do you think I want this petulant orphan girl married to my heir, leading the family one day? Do you think I decided that? Huh?! Do you think I'm that fucking dumb?
He knew better than to answer. He remained silent, his eyes locked on his father's as Oleg's face turned red with his fury. Whether he believed his father had any input into the arrangement or not, it was irrelevant now, the words he'd lain at his father's feet taken as a grave insult.
Aleksandr's doing, his father said, and with that, it was over. Lev knew better. There was no changing any of this if his great uncle had been the one to set it into motion. He knew his place, and his father's place, both bending the knee to Aleksandr's whims regardless of personal feelings.
He was trapped. If he hadn't realized it before, Lev felt the weight of it bearing down on him. Heir or not, Liliya was his problem now. Not his father's. Not Nadežda’s. His.
“You think I don’t know she’s a problem? I assigned you that problem, and I expect you to deal with it. If a little girl is too much for you, son, I might have to reconsider your position in the family.”
Ice struck him dead in the chest, and for the briefest moment, Lev thought to argue, before reeling himself back in. His own anger flared at the threat, despising his father for it. Two decades of loyal submission. Unquestioning, unwavering. Lev never asked his father for anything. He never made requests, never complained, never so much as challenged his father even when his own morals fought against Oleg's commands.
And this was what it had earned him? Threats? Insults? The implication that he'd be removed as heir and have someone - Drago? - replace him. He could feel his fists tightening, his nails digging deeper into his skin as his gaze took on a new hardness.
The golden son.
“Deal with her. Or I will.”
"Yes Father." His voice was cold and hollow, the words dripping from his lips with his own contempt. He bowed, just enough to be acceptable and turned on his heel for the door.
Heartless. Devoid. Hard. Unfeeling.
Lev would be everything he needed to be to survive.
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