He set a clipping containing a picture of Great Aunt Muriel when she was younger and wearing the tiara on the table in front of Molly. Then he laid a parchment document with a lot of Ministry seals on it beside the Daily Prophet article. Next he pulled a shrunken portrait from his pocket and restored it to full size. One of the Goblins waiting behind the table came forward and took hold of the frame, so that the person in the picture would be able to view the proceedings.
"Hello Grandmother Carric," Dantes greeted the woman in the portrait warmly.
"Hello Liam, dear," the woman responded just as warmly.
The witch in portrait, from what Molly was able to see, was dressed in wedding robes that were popular about a hundred years ago and she was wearing a tiara that looked like Great Aunt Muriel's and she was studying the group in the room with great curiosity.
"That portrait proves nothing." Molly refused to back down. "Great Aunt Muriel could've had a copy made of that one."
"Preposterous!" Malynda Carric's portrait snapped. "Craftmaster Abalock's pieces were all original and as far as I know never copied."
"That is true," the goblin seated at the table spoke for the first time. "Craftmaster Abalock was and is highly revered among our jewelsmiths and even now fifty years after his death, none of them want to attempt to duplicate his work because they feel they couldn't do it justice."
"Now madam, given the evidence I have to back up my claim that the tiara did belong to the Weyland family, you either need to produce proof that the tiara was in the hands of the Prewitt family, prior to Muriel Prewitt, or admit publicly that your Great Aunt violated her precious ethics and stole from children." Dantes' face was an unemotional mask, but his voice conveyed the level of contempt he felt for someone who would do that.
Molly was silent for several minutes before repeating yet again, "I have no proof other than my knowledge of my Great Aunt's character and the Prewitt family's reputation for honour. I know as certainly as I am seated here that Aunt Muriel would never keep anything that didn't belong to her. Nor would my family have allowed her to do so."
Tapping the Daily Prophet clipping and then gesturing toward his great great grandmother's portrait, Dantes commented. "It would seem the Prewitt family's honourable reputation is about as reliable as the Daily Prophet's reputation for truth."
Leaning back slightly in his chair, Dantes folded his hands in front of him and continued a smirk on his face. "Reputations are very fragile things…. Easily made…. and just as easily destroyed. Harry Potter the Boy-Who-Lived has experienced that first hand. I doubt that a year has gone by since his entry into the wizarding world, where he hasn't either been treated as a saviour or the next Dark Lord in training, depending on the whims of the Ministry, the Prophet, or the public at large."
"Don't you dare compare my Aunt to that vicious boy!" Molly flared up. "He has done nothing but bring harm to my family!"
"Oh really?" Dantes drawled sarcastically. "It was my understanding that your family did far more harm to him. After all it was testimony from your son's Percival and Ronald as well as testimony from your daughter Ginevra, that insured that he was condemned to Azkaban when he was in fact innocent "
Molly knew there was no point in denying the truth of that, since Potter's trial had been very public, so she said, "My Aunt wasn't a thief."
"But she was madam," Dantes tapped clipping of Muriel Prewitt wearing the tiara. "And I want what she took from my family back. "
Still convinced that he was wrong, Molly told him, "I don't have it."
Dantes' expression became even colder as did his voice. "If that is true then you have a problem madam. There is the matter of compensation due to my family for the item from the Prewitt family line that you and your children are the sole remaining members of. If you no longer have my property and you are unable to get it back, then I am within my rights to seize any property you and they may own. And if your family's goods and chattel do not equal the value of the tiara which is currently valued at 2,500,000 galleons by the way, then I can seize you and your children as indentured servants until the balance of the debt is paid off under the old laws that are still on the books at the Ministry."
Molly gasped unwilling to believe that this young wizard would make her family slaves over that tiara.
As if reading her thoughts, Dantes commented, "You're probably trying to tell yourself; 'he wouldn't be that cruel to my children'. What was cruel madam was your Aunt's failure to return the Weyland children's property."
The room around them was now silent as everyone waited to see what Molly Weasley would do.
The silence dragged on until Dantes said, "Well madam, are you going to return my property, or do I begin the process of seizing your family's assets. And since I already know that even including the business begun by Fredrick and George Weasley, you do not have enough in goods to compensate me, should I also begin the process of indenturing you and your children under the old but still active compensation laws?"
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