Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Mar 22, 2024 20:50:33 GMT -8
Gee, life sure comes at you fast.
One moment Dane was marrying the love of his life, and the next his old man was dead and was inheriting the whole family business! Maybe he should have been upset about Marcus Caspar's death, but who has time for grief when they're suddenly the face of a criminal empire? Dane had worked his entire life to sit in his father's chair, and though he had his anxieties, it had been seamless transition into the new regime.
Truth be told, Marcus had been losing the business a bit in recent years as he wound down for retirement. Morale was low when Dane took over, but the new approach had ushered in a new age of success for the Caspar family. And of course, none of it would have been possible without his bride, Rosemary, by his side. Dane had his reservations when his parents approached him about a union with the Carter family, but it wasn't long before they recognized that they were soulmates. It was a quick engagement.
Dane sat in the big chair in his father's old office at the Caspar Estate--the same massive house that a rebellious teenage Dane had sworn to his parents he would never live in--and he counted his money with a deep, satisfied sigh. Everything was coming up Dane!
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Mar 23, 2024 21:27:58 GMT -8
Rosemary Carter was only thirteen years old the first time she ever laid eyes on Dane Caspar.
His brother, Max, was a good friend and housemate and Romy would be lying if she said she didn’t have a crush on him. Instead of asking Romy out on a date to Hogsmeade, just the two of them, like she hoped he would since the moment they both turned in their signed permission forms, Max asked Romy if she wanted to watch the Gryffindor vs Slytherin match with him and his friends. She wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to stand next to her crush on a Saturday afternoon even if it meant they were surrounded by every Quidditch fan at Hogwarts.
Max and Romy’s shoulders pressed together every time the crowd cheered, but her attention progressively moved from Max’s touch to the Gryffindor goal posts where the captain blocked shot after shot. He was so flawless, like he could read the opponent's mind, and by the end of the match Romy’s hand gripped on to Max’s shoulder as she watched in anticipation. The Slytherin seeker was holding back from the snitch in order to give her team one last chance to score but when the Gryffindor captain successfully blocked them, his seeker went for it. Gryffindor ended up winning the match and Romy released a loud gasp.
“That’s my brother!” Max yelled at her, referring to the Keeper, as the crowd chanted the Seeker’s name. Max didn’t have to point him out, Romy’s bright blue eyes followed Dane as he flew down to the pitch and dismounted his broom to join his team in celebration. Max was pulling her into a hug but Romy didn’t care, she was too busy watching his brother in amazement. But Romy and Dane weren’t meant to be, he graduated that May and she still had four years left of her education to complete.
When Romy’s dad breached the subject of marriage during the summer between her sixth and seventh year, Romy wanted to run away. She didn’t understand why anyone in this day and age would agree to do this to their kids. She didn’t ask questions, she didn’t want to know anything about the union until the day that her parents dragged her to the Caspar mansion a couple weeks before she was set to return to school and she went in completely blind. Marcus, Clark, Vivienne and Emilie retreated to Marcus’ office and Romy was left by herself in their sitting room. She was a curious teenager and wouldn’t sit still so she wandered around their vast mansion by herself. As she made her way up the long, winding staircase, someone met her half way.
Rosemary Carter was only seventeen years old when she officially met her husband Dane Caspar for the first time.
His eyes completely captivated her. They were this beautiful shade of green, like sea foam green. They stood on the staircase talking about anything that came to mind from Quidditch to her dreams. All the while, her mind flickered to the future while she stared into his eyes, for a moment picturing it so clearly. And the second she got one small hint of a smile from Dane, it was just completely over for her. For the first time in her life, Romy didn’t fight back when her father laid out his plans for her future. Romy spent the rest of the summer daydreaming about him and she spent the entirety of her seventh year writing to him. She never expected a response from him.
Romy wasted no time after graduation, she went straight to Dane. They decided to spend some time together, to get to know each other, before they made the decision to actually go through with the marriage. Romy knew after their first date that she was going to marry him if he would have her. They were officially engaged for a few weeks before they held their wedding at her family’s estate.
They were in the middle of unpacking their belongings in their much smaller home in Hackney when news of his father’s untimely death reached them. They postponed their honeymoon around Europe and their small apartment was all but forgotten when they moved into the Caspar home so Dane could be at the heart of the Caspar’s business operation. Vivienne moved out, but too far from them, when her husband died and Dane and Romy had this vast home to themselves. It was a lot for an eighteen year old to process.
Even now, nine months removed from when everything changed, Romy didn’t completely feel at home here. There were always people coming in and out and two wizards always posted at the edge of the property and two more near the entrance of Dane’s office at all times. So they were alone but never really alone.
Romy knocked on the dark walnut door, alerting Dane, before she opened it and stepped inside his office. She closed the door behind her, hearing the click of the lock, and she pressed her back against the cold wood panel. She wanted a moment alone with her husband after a long day at the Ministry. Her head tilted to the side and she asked, referring to his dad’s old chair, “Does it ever feel strange?”
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Mar 24, 2024 13:37:52 GMT -8
Dane hated the Caspar Estate as a kid. The old mansion had been in his mother’s family for hundreds of years and it was where she spent her very early childhood before the first war’s aftermath forced them into poverty. Marcus had bought the mansion back to celebrate some anniversary with Vivienne. For Dane, the house represented the worst of pureblood society. The sprawling mansion held dozens of rooms, but they only had need of a handful for living. The rest were for Marcus’ business—rooms to work in, plot, disappear, or house his bodyguards. Marcus furnished a full library for his children, but Dane hated reading in there. Instead he would take books off the shelves in massive stacks and haul them upstairs to his bedroom, the only place that he ever really felt at home.
When he was curled up in his bed, surrounded by the confident, smiling Wimbourne players zipping around the posters on his wall, he would flip through pages of world atlases and imagine all the places he would go after to school. Quidditch had always been the dream, and he imagined that it would be a natural outlet to the world.
So, why was Dane living in the Caspar Estate now instead of playing Quidditch in Istanbul or Prague? Marcus had been hesitant to allow his son to pursue Quidditch in school, but the two made a deal. Dane could play Quidditch until graduation as long as his grades didn’t slip, but after he would have to commit himself to the family business. For a young kid like Dane, that was a good deal. It gave him at least five long years to develop and pursue his passion, and whatever happened after he resigned himself to be happy with. And after a legendary career as Gryffindor’s keeper, Dane walked away from it all to become an Auror, one of the biggest what ifs in sports history.
He didn’t fight back. Not when his father asked him to inform on the Ministry, or when he was introduced to Romy as his future wife. Maybe the marriage would have been a breaking point for a young kid who had never been allowed to make a choice for himself, but the thing was that Dane really did like Romy. Her letters in the year between their meeting and their marriage had gotten him through the hardest days of the Ministry where he faced constant scrutiny from internal affairs. But slowly, through his correspondence with Romy and his own slowly growing resentment toward law enforcement, Dane began to accept his role as his father’s successor.
But it wasn’t until his father died that Dane discovered just how well-suited he was to the work. It was no surprise to the rest of the family when the business and the estate was left to him. While everyone else was grieving, Dane was busy working. He left his job at the Ministry to assume his role at the head of the Caspar business, and his first action as the most powerful crime boss in magical Great Britain was to secure his family’s futures: for his mother and Vivian, a lifetime allowance that assured they would never have to work a real job. For Simon it was a similar deal, though Dane would kick back the odd wet work to keep his sociopathic brother busy. And of course for Max, Dane pulled some strings on Ballycastle to have his little brother promoted from the reserve squad to the active roster. This was a thank you to Max for so generously stepping aside when their family decided to tie the Caspar and Carter families together through Dane and Romy.
The Dane/Romy/Max saga had ended quickly. Romy’s feelings for Max had mostly faded with time, though Max carried his crush well into their seventh year. Dane had taken his little brother out for ice cream one evening over the summer break between seventh year and the start of his professional Quidditch career. He told it to Max straight. “Max, I know you’re real keen on Romy, but I’ve got to be completely honest with you. I’m going to marry her.”
Max appreciated the honesty. He was just happy that Romy was going to marry someone that he knew would treat her well. And, hey! He could see her all the time still. Any hurt feelings went away quickly as Max rose to stardom in the Quidditch league. Now he was often seen around Diagon Alley with his arms around models.
Dane may have successfully avoided a war within his family, but that didn’t mean there weren’t perils outside of it. It was never far from his mind that his father had been murdered and the case never closed. Speculation ran wild about which rival family was responsible, but it seemed like everyone had motivation. There wasn’t a criminal in Great Britain who didn’t stand to benefit from the death of Marcus Caspar. If Dane seemed paranoid posting guards outside of every room he entered, he didn’t care. Someone was out there who wanted to see him fail, and more important than his safety was Romy’s.
“It’s not forever,” Dane assured Romy when they moved into the Caspar Estate. “It’s just the safest place we can be right now.”
But like everything else Dane had once resented, the Caspar Estate was growing on him too. He rarely left the mansion, instead delegating his business to proxies while he stayed safely indoors. He found that it was a good life, and he was never left wanting. Especially with Romy by his side.
Dane recognized Romy’s soft knock on the heavy door. He’d learn to differentiate her’s from the powerful booming knocks of his bodyguards. “Come in, hon,” he called to her.
“Does it ever feel strange?” she asked as she studied him in the chair.
Dane looked around his surroundings. He didn’t have a lot of time to consider much of anything if it didn’t involve moving this product or that.
“I guess so,” he said, leaning back a bit confidently. “Is this where you imagined yourself when you first met me?”
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Mar 25, 2024 7:59:21 GMT -8
Romy knew what it meant to marry into the Caspar family. Marcus had specifically sought her out because Romy had a reputation for being a nice, dependable girl but she was also young and he might have thought she could be molded into whatever they needed for Dane who was the future of their family. And Marcus wasn’t necessarily wrong, but he wasn’t aware that she had a habit of fighting against authority if she felt what they were doing was wrong. Did she like that her father in law’s business was as shady as it could get? No, but she loved Dane. She did a lot of unsavory things in order to be with Dane. Take Max for instance. Romy kept him around for so long because she hoped being near him would some day give her the opportunity to meet his brother. So, yeah, she was willing to be oblivious to certain dealings if she could be with Dane.
She thought they would have a few years, maybe a whole decade, to live a normal life while Marcus gradually handed the keys over to Dane. She wanted a nice, little, warm house with cute little kids. After they enjoyed a good part of their twenties just the two of them, of course. Instead, she found herself in a home similar to the one she grew up in, the one she desperately wanted to get away from. And her role in the Caspar family suddenly changed. She wasn’t just expected to be a reliable member of the family. Now she was a supportive wife, a caring in-law, and a therapist for literally everyone around her.
Romy still had her job at the Ministry. She had applied for the Auror training program right after graduation and before her wedding, so when she suddenly married into this family, there were a lot of whispers about whether or not she could be trusted. The constant talk about her only revved up when her father in law passed and Dane became extra protective. She had a bodyguard with her literally everywhere she went. She couldn’t travel far or meet up with friends in Diagon Alley or even apparate to work. The fireplace in their living room was connected to the Ministry’s floo network in order to get her safely from work to home on a daily basis. Romy understood why it had to be this way but she didn’t necessarily like it. She was a free spirit and she felt confined to this mansion.
So no, this wasn’t how she imagined their first year of marriage would be, but fuck did she love him. Especially when she saw how he flourished in his new role. She’d been so worried about him when it all started. It was a relief to see him sit there so confidently and it made everything else worth it.
“The first time I saw you or the first time I met you?” She asked while she walked over to him. She’d only recently admitted to having a crush for all those years to him.
Romy leaned down and placed a kiss on his cheek. “I think I imagined myself somewhere warmer. Maybe on a nice boat somewhere out in the ocean. What did you imagine?”
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Mar 27, 2024 20:17:04 GMT -8
It wasn’t all compromise for Dane and Romy. Though their marriage was meant to strengthen the Caspar and the Carter names equally, when Dane assumed his father’s role at Caspar Quidditch (his officially position was CEO of his father’s legitimate Quidditch supply company), he had made it clear to Clark Carter that their professional relationship was over and they was nothing more to him that the man who married his daughter. Maybe it was cruel to cut off family, but Dane had the capacity for hard choices. The fact was that he was going to need as many allies in the underworld as he could find and paling around with hateful politicians wouldn’t win friends on either side of the law.
But for Dane it was as personal of a decision as it was business. He resented Clark for trying to control Romy, and at the first opportunity he had to destroy him he took it. Dane was actively shopping candidates for the Wizengamot to replace him.
Romy was more than Dane had ever imagined she could be. A loving wife and a loyal partner, his expectations had been at absolute rock bottom when Dane’s father told him that there was a girl he’d like him to meet and, “If you hit it off it could be awfully lucrative for our family.” Arranged marriage wasn’t the craziest concept in the magical world, but it seemed absurd to the son of a halfblood. Dane’s parents had been able to chase their feelings, to choose the person they would spend the rest of their lives with. What purpose did an arranged marriage serve for Dane other than to tie his father to a powerful politician like Clark? But the second Dane laid eyes on Romy he knew that he was in love.
“Hi,” he’d said with a goofy little voice. “I’m Dane.” And I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you.
“I guess the first time you met me,” Dane replied to her thoughtfully. “Though I know you always imagined you’d end up with me somewhere.” He’d found it really endearing when she first admitted to him that she’d been crushing on him for years. “I guess before my dad died I always saw us in a small house. Not this giant house. A normal house for normal people, happy in a little hideaway with our two little kids.” He paused. “But I think we’re doing good, right?”
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