( QUIBBLER: ISSUE #9 )

[NAOMI JOHNSON]

May 2, 2017

7 KNUTS

celebrity seeker accuses half-sister of patricide!

Written by Archie Richard

Two months after the passing of one Alastair Blackwood (aged 64), the process entailing the distribution of his leftover assets to his children has given rise to an accusation of foul play from his youngest child, celebrity Seeker and Captain of the Ballycastle Bats Quidditch Team, Grady Blackwood (25). From what he has shared with us at the Quibbler, his birth was one kept in secret from Alastair's wife and two daughters. He was summoned to the Blackwood family's manor by Alastair to discuss the conditions of his will; this would be his first encounter with his half-sister, Seraphina Blackwood (41).

Grady has claimed their interaction to have been quite hostile due to Grady being a Half-blood. To those familiar with the decades-long, circulating rumors of the Blackwood family's affiliation with the Death Eaters and past support of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, this wouldn't be too colossal a shock. Even more damning, Grady claims Seraphina to have threatened his life before their father intervened.

Seraphina Blackwood is also said to have been adamant that Alastair exclude Grady as beneficiary of the will, threatening to bring to light his drunken affair with Grady's Muggle-born mother (identity withheld). Despite this, Alastair still refused to capitulate to Seraphina's demands, causing her to leave. This was when Grady claimed Alastair to have excluded Seraphina from the will, writing her out before Grady's own eyes; however, after Alastair's passing, the will listed Seraphina and her younger sister (identity withheld) as the only two beneficiaries.

This is where things become quite eyebrow-raising, for Grady was able to claim his cut of the fortune kept in a secret vault in a bank beneath Salem, Massachusetts with a legal copy of what he stated was the revised will, which was also recognized and verified by wizarding law as an official copy of said document.

Both of their documents still featured their middle sibling as still gaining an amount of the fortune, however.

Grady has theorized that the Dark Arts may have been at play, namely the Imperius Curse, which he claimed Seraphina to have possibly utilized to force her father to change the will before doing away with him. Grady concedes to knowing how serious his accusations are, but insists that his sister is insidious enough to commit such acts without a moment's hesitation or remorse.

Whether or not Seraphina played a role in her own father's demise is unsure, but the abhorrence between the two Blackwood siblings is as lucid as daylight.

Being the Headmistress of Durmstrang Institute, a school featuring the Dark Arts in its curriculum, could Grady's suspicion be more credible than we think?

To our knowledge, there has been no investigation conducted in Alastair Blackwood's death, but Grady ended our conversation with a doleful final statement: “My father had his flaws and was certainly no angel, but he cared for me and loved me no less than a father should his child. There is no doubt in my mind that my soulless sister had something to do with his death, if not having orchestrated it entirely. I know it...I'll never be able to prove it – but I know. I'll always know.”

written by desmond / template by eliza exclusively for TB