QUIBBLER DARK ARTS
Number 2: Wedded Blitz, Lorelei’s Story “She isn’t crazy, far from it, she knew exactly what she was doing. She was literally killing me with kindness.” Lorelei Baudelaire does not look like the Lady of one of the oldest pureblood manors in the United Kingdom, in fact, on the day I meet with her at the family pile on the outskirts of Edinburgh she doesn’t even look like a witch. Sporting muggle jeans, studded boots, and a man’s dress shirt, with her short choppy hair and lip piercing, she couldn’t be further from the traditionally elegant and poised vision of modest femininity that we have come to expect from the old families. Perhaps that’s why her mother-in-law tried to murder her. “When I met Zeb I had no idea he was a Lord in Waiting. He went to Durmstrang, so our paths never crossed at school, and I spent all the holidays with my muggle parents. When we met I must have been the only witch in Europe that had no clue who he was. Maybe that’s what attracted him to me.” Lorelei shrugs, then gives a small snort of laughter. Hiking one of her knees up to rest her boot on the chaise, which looks to be antique and painfully expensive, she is the image of insouciance and I find myself smiling along with her. Indeed, it is hard to believe that back in 2004 anybody could have been ignorant of the Baudelaires. Though not technically one of the sacred 28 due to an unfortunate blip in their pedigree some three hundred years ago, the Baudelaires have long been recognised as one of the stalwarts of pureblood aristocracy, and from 2002 when Zebulon turned 17 until he wed Lorelei in 2005, his name and face graced many an eligible bachelor list in gossip magazines and society pages alike. I ask where the couple met, and am surprised by the answer. “The Leaky Cauldron. I was there with some girlfriends letting off some steam, and he was there as part of a bachelor party. I was a few drinks in and levitating a tray over to our table when he ran straight into me and I hit the deck. He picked me up and brushed me down, all posh and apologetic. I remember thinking he had a Hugh Grant kinda vibe with a Johnny Depp kinda face.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me and laughs at her own description. “Well, that was it really. For the rest of the night we completely ignored our friends. Spent the entire evening staring at each other and talking until I nearly lost my voice. It wasn’t until the next morning when my best friend floo-called me and started screaming about bagging a billionaire that I found out about all this.” She waves a hand dismissively around her, indicating the enormous drawing room lined with antiques. 16
