Warning: Harry Potter Fanfic (no, it will never end...)
The Black women were as famous for the beauty they took with them to the grave as for the tempestuous nature that lasted beyond. Thus, Cedrella's rage found her husband in his study before she herself did; he Banished his humidor and Scourgified the air even before he finished picking himself off the floor, to which he had been thrown from his plush chair by the volume and pitch of her voice: "Septimus Weasley!!!" she screeched. "Will you or will you not speak to your son!!!" (It was not a question, not even a rhetorical one.)
"The Prewetts are perfectly respectable, pureblood as far back as you please, m'dear..."
"Respectable?? Respectable?? They are no such thing and you know it!! They're - they're Gypsies!"
"Ah. Well. You’re wrong there, my love. I believe they are Irish Travelers, actually. Quite different..."
"Equally vulgar! I cannot like it!"
"It's not as if they sell trinkets at the door," he replied, with an unaccustomed touch of asperity. "They're quite well-off, which must be a consideration. And if, as I suspect that you suspect, the girl's already... ahem, I mean, cart before the horse, as it were... good, healthy breeding stock, as my Grandfather would say..."
Choking with indignation, Cedrella tossed her still-gleaming deep-red tresses and flounced out of the room. She did not speak to her husband for a week, as he had hopefully calculated that she would not. He grinned mischievously as he Summoned his humidor, selected the most foully malodorous stogie in his cache, and lit it with a flourish of his wand.
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The library table was a jumble of genealogical references like Nature's Nobility, some scholarly treatises on eugenics, and the works of Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin. No parchment was in evidence, and not a quill in sight, however. Plain Muggle paper and newfangled "fountain" pens were what General Sir Rupert Weasley and his brother Arthur used to make their notes and figures.
"No. No, I cannot like it. Better a sturdy Muggleborn, or a country girl from the Continent. The Blacks will be lucky if they daughter out in a generation or two - more likely they’ll go the way of the Gaunts!"
“Well, really! Certainly not - a bit unstable, maybe, but in a perfectly respectable way, although they do throw a lot of Squibs..."
Consulting his notes, Sir Rupert muttered, "Mother’s a Yaxley; nothing much, but not bad. Ursula Flint, though... there’s pure blood and there’s Pureblood, as you know, little brother!"
"She did give Phineas Nigellus four boys, and they all had issue, even the one they don't talk about."
"I reiterate, I don’t like it! The Blacks are frankly degenerate. And, well, Arthur, if you'll forgive my plain speaking, I can't see what this Cedrella sees in your boy. Septimus is a good enough lad in his way, but not her style, I’d have thought."
"Moot anyway, our other six have been breeding like conies. I'm sure the family can spare one to the Black Menace. With luck she'll be barren..."
The Leaky Cauldron had a prequel contest, which ends today. In case I don't win, I'm posting this here, because I personally think it's hilarious.