Originally from the poor outskirts of magical Chicago, the Raines family rose to social prominence in one generation because of the ambitions and abilities of Miles Raines during the '20s. Through his efforts, those of his brother and sister, and his careful selection of spouses for himself and his five children, he had, before his death, his family quite firmly entrenched in the upper class.

After his death, however, things began to fall apart. His heir was his twenty-year-old son, Charles. As the second son - he was the fourth of the five children; his ex-brother Benjamin was the second - his education had been largely humanistic rather than political, and he was beset by anxiety management issues and a strong belief in his own incompetence. His wife Lila, who he had acquired against both of their wills, was as young, pretty, and vivacious as she was immature and spoiled. Charles' strategy for dealing with their relationship was to avoid Lila. Lila's was to have an affair with the family's Muggleborn gardener, Nick.

Things blew up unexpectedly in the spring of -10 SA when Charles' old-maid sister, India, accidentally discovered her sister-in-law's secret and proceeded to tell everyone she could get to listen about it. Among those she informed was her brother, who had been growing progressively fonder of his wife since she announced her pregnancy before Christmas. Though the situation proved mostly salvageable and Charles claimed the baby girl he named Catherine, the scandal and his initial reaction did an effective job of destroying the marriage in everything but name.

Things have just been getting worse ever since.