20 Blood of the Covenant

Harry

Technically, Yule began at sundown on the solstice and ended at sundown the following day. The rites were done after dark on the solstice eve but the whole day following was usually treated as a time for leisure and play at home with one’s family. And also for presents.

Overnight, the heap of gifts underneath the tree (the normal one, not the prank one that the house still liked to manifest in corners) had nearly doubled. Harry stopped on his way by and did a double take.

A small cannonball hit him in the back; he stumbled forward and caught himself on a side table that he could have sworn wasn’t in this hallway. Harry gave it a suspicious look.

“Sorry!” It was Rio, in footie pajamas, hair sticking up every which way. His wreath, no longer magically illuminated, sat lopsidedly on his head. “Sorry, I didn’t—”

“No worries. Eager for presents?” Harry said with a wink.

Rio flushed but grinned.

“Are we ever!” Graham called from upstairs, followed by the pounding of feet on the stairs. The runner, which used to enjoy tripping people, twitched, but Harry glared at it and it subsided back into stillness as Graham tumbled down the last few steps into the first-floor hallway. “Presents!”

“Happy Yule,” Harry said, grinning himself now. “See Sirius?”

“He’s still asleep,” said Rio, Graham already having run into the drawing room to start poking at the presents. Harry still wasn’t over the relief of seeing Graham moving around freely again; he’d probably be exhausted and need to go back to bed for much of the day after this much activity, but he could walk again easily for short stretches of time, at least, and that was so much better than what Healer Taleb had feared.

“I’ll go get him. No opening anything before we’re all here!” Harry called in to Graham. “Kreacher’s watching so don’t get sneaky!”

His original errand of checking the tray where overnight owl post got deposited would have to wait. Harry backtracked upstairs to Sirius’ room. The door was closed and didn’t open to his touch. Worry pooled in Harry’s gut. He knocked, waited, and when no one answered, laid a hand flat to the wood and told the house in no uncertain terms that he wanted in.

It shouldn’t have worked. Sirius was the Lord and Harry just the Heir. Harry listened to the lock clunk open and felt the door grudgingly give way under his hand. The house always had liked him better—and, he saw, Sirius was still asleep, which meant his desires, even for privacy and locked doors, were less formed, less potent.

Why was Sirius still asleep? By all rights he should’ve been up and raring to go. He loved holidays, and presents, both the giving and the getting. Harry glanced at the heavy drapes pulled over the window, which leapt apart, letting the flat morning light, such as it was through the cloud cover, filter inside. Sirius, curled under the covers on his side, one flannel-clad shoulder and messy hair all that was visible of him, did not move.

“Oi,” said Harry.

No reaction.

He sighed and stepped around to the side of the king-size bed. It had a canopy, but Sirius hated feeling enclosed when he slept, and Kreacher had long since removed the curtains, leaving only the support beams for it. Harry reached out and nudged Sirius in the shoulder. “Hey.”

There was a mumble and a shift. Harry nudged him again, a little harder, and was just beginning to seriously contemplate a tickling charm when Sirius finally rolled over and looked blearily up at him. “Harry?”

“It’s Yule morning,” Harry reminded him. “You… okay?”

“Wha? Oh hell. Yeah. Sorry.” Sirius sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. Stubble cast a shadow along his jaw and cheeks.

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’re usually chafing at the bit for the holiday morning.”

“Yeah, no, I just—” Sirius grimaced. “Haven’t seen the rite work that well in… a very long time. It—I didn’t fall asleep for a while last night.”

“Unpleasant memories?”

Sirius rolled the other way and got out of bed on the opposite side, his back to Harry and his voice muffled as he dug through a dresser. “Some. They’re not… all bad, though, which is almost the worst part..”

Harry wasn’t sure if he personally could relate, but Graham had said something similar once. “I think it’s fine to feel both.”

“Yeah.” Sirius shook himself, a doglike motion, and turned around with a shirt and trousers in hand. “Scram, would you? I’ll get dressed and come on down.” A smile, strained but true. “We can make some new memories that are good all the way through.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Harry, who was probably the last person who should be counseling other people on the holiday spirit, but whatever. He retreated from the room, detoured by his own bedroom for his wreath since the kids had both been wearing theirs, and made it downstairs just a few seconds before Sirius, who swung into the drawing room unshaven but dressed and back to his usual playful self.

“Alright! Presents!” Graham cheered, pegging a small red package across the room.

Harry caught it on reflex. “What’s this?”

“For you,” said Graham, heavily implying duh though he didn’t actually say that part out loud.

“Right.” Bemused, Harry carried the package around to sit on one of the armchairs. Bouncing excitedly, Graham started passing out presents to Rio and Sirius too, acting as silly and carefree as Harry had ever seen him. Rio likewise had rarely been this relaxed since the first time he came to Grimmauld Place, and Sirius was in his element, transforming into a dog to pounce and scatter on the shredded wrapping paper that piled up on the floor as Graham and Rio made inroads into their gifts. Watching them soothed some of the jagged edges Harry felt like he was carrying around all the time lately: they were here, and his, and safe.

He shook those thoughts away and opened the present Graham had tossed him, pretending to ignore the way Graham was trying not to stare while Harry unwrapped it. To Harry, From Graham read the card, and inside was—Harry cocked his head.

It took a second to work out what the thing was—a puzzle cube, not unlike a Muggle Rubik’s cube but all of simple pale wood, and humming with a slight, mischievous energy. Harry spun its faceted sides around experimentally and a startled grin spread over his face as it responded to him, teasing almost, twitching out of the alignment that he was trying to go for into other patterns entirely.

“It has different levels,” Graham said, almost nervously, “and when you solve one it’ll change its shape—I think there’s seven, all together—”

“It’s brilliant,” said Harry, and Graham beamed.

Tempting though it was to sit and focus on the puzzle until he solved it, Harry put it on the couch next to him and turned to his other gifts. There was an assortment of informal presents from people he didn’t know as well, including Flint, Wright, Padma Patil, and, much to his surprise, Katie Bell, who’d sent a very finely made pair of leather gloves dyed a rich green and lined with a soft wool knit that promised to be warm for all it was thin. Harry would have to send her a thank-you note since he hadn’t thought to gift her anything—then again, this was, according to the card, as much for that time Harry and Theo and Daphne’s intervention had dramatically lessened the curse’s impact on her as for any other reason.

His Vipers knew each other well enough to exchange more personal gifts. Harry saved those for last and went through them more slowly, giving them the attention each warranted. Daphne and Hermione had made a compass that Harry could key up to five people, and it would always point towards the one whose name he whispered to the glass face, provided that person was within about ten miles of him. The Weasley twins had sent everyone a shield holder—the instructions warned that each one only worked a couple times a day, but if you cast a protego on it, the deceptively simple bracelet set with jet would anchor the shield charm for a minute or two, offering protection and freeing up your wand for offensive casting. Harry put his on immediately. It was fantastic to see the twins’ less joke-like inventions coming along so well.

Justin held nothing back: his gift to Harry was a priceless set of a dozen goblin-made cut crystal potions vials, each one large enough for about one effective dose of most potions, and each one able to preserve its contents almost indefinitely. Where Justin had even found such a thing—or how he’d convinced the goblins to commission something from one of their crafters—was beyond Harry but it was worth an astounding amount of money and Harry put the small set of vials in their padded wooden case aside with great care. At least he had sent Justin something of comparable personal, if not monetary, value; talking with Hermione about the conjunctions between occlumency and arithmancy had helped Harry figure out how to enchant an abacus that could perform limited arithmantic operations on its own, which would hopefully be helpful for Justin’s extracurricular arithmancy work under Professor Vector.

From Draco, there was a small box of powder derived from the compounds in demiguise tears that, when sprinkled over a piece of parchment, revealed any hidden words or messages; the Carrows had sent him a runed metal collar he could integrate with his broom’s enchantments to help it resist curses cast at it; Pansy once again proved how well she knew him with a single earring spelled to warm up if it detected the presence of someone under a disillusionment charm, and an extra feature that would let Harry send short messages to a person in his line of sight a few times a day. The small blue-green opal winked at him in the light from the hearth. Harry weighed it in his palm and decided he was getting at least one ear pierced this holiday, as Pansy knew he’d been considering doing for a while.

The box with Theo’s name on it gave him pause. Harry had noticed the distance Theo kept of late, including at their most recent meeting for the Vipers, and respected it; he hadn’t actually been sure whether to expect anything from Theo this holiday or if Theo would wait until they’d gone back to school. But here it was, a book-shaped package wrapped in simple dull silver paper. Harry glanced around; Rio and Graham were busy tussling with something Graham had gotten and Sirius was eyeballs deep in a disturbingly large box of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes products with an unholy level of glee.

When Harry removed the paper he found himself holding a book bound in black leather. It felt and looked quite old. In Magia, Veritas was embossed into the cover; it had no ornamentation, metallic, decorative, or otherwise, which was unusual for magic books of this age and obvious value. Harry opened it. The whole thing was about the intersection of magic and truth: spells and potions to compel honesty or disguise a lie, truth as an abstract concept in runes or a quantifiable measurement in arithmancy, esoteric explorations of the nature of truth and its role in deeper magics of far-seeing, divination, oaths, and rituals.

It was rather too on the nose for Harry’s comfort. He shut his eyes for a second, wishing he could hide from what Theo had communicated with this gift, and then set it safely with his other things, because it was still precious and valuable and interesting and useful and from Theo.

Harry sincerely hoped the day would never come where he might need to actually use any of those spells against his best friend.

By now the majority of the presents under the tree had been unwrapped and both Graham and Rio were thoroughly distracted by their things. Harry could see that his gift of the complete Ender’s Game books had gone over well with Graham, as had the cleverly enchanted globe that projected images of different cities and environments if you pressed your finger to it in different places, and Rio was already intensely focused on the language tool Harry had enchanted for him; it was a simple cube carved of stone with movable character wheels on each side, and six languages spelled into it. Turning the wheels to spell out a word on the English side prompted the box to show the same word in each of the other five languages on the other sides, and it worked using any of the languages as the input source. Harry watched for a few seconds with a smile, stretched out a crick in his neck, and sifted through the presents remaining under the tree, sending them levitating towards their respective recipients.

In the process he found two more with his own name on them. One lacked any information about the sender, which was itself somewhat telling but still odd enough that Harry spent a minute running through progressively more specific and finicky detection enchantments to be safe before he touched it with his bare skin. It was, however, fully harmless and almost magically inert, which was explained when he unwrapped it all the way and found a box of rune-stones carved wholly of bone.

Made from the bones of a stag killed in a winter wood and sacrificed for Yule, read the note. Blooded, they will respond to your magic alone, and serve as one of few reliable methods of divination for non-seers.

Well, he’d have to write Barty a thank-you note. Harry hoped Barty appreciated the wallet-sized emergency kit full of every useful obscure potion Harry could think of and several of his own proprietary brews packed in stasis vials—not nearly as nice as the absurdly durable set from Justin, but high-end nonetheless.

Which left just the one that said From Sirius on the card, in case the gold wrapping paper emblazoned with cheerfully gamboling charm-animated black dogs wasn’t enough of a hint as to its giver.

He tore the wrapping paper away and his jaw dropped open.

“Like it?” Sirius said, and when Harry looked up, his godfather was smiling as wide as he’d ever seen.

“Sirius, this is—insane.”

“You said you had the book that—James kept, with our notes,” Sirius said, stumbling only a little over the name, “but this stuff is harder to get your hands on—I should know, it took us so long, I eventually wound up nicking some from Pollux’s laboratory when he was out of town, nearly lost a finger to his wards, the bastard—er. Anyways. Yeah. Now you can… make the potion and everything. Should be enough in there for three full batches.”

Three batches of the animagus potion was enough for fifteen people. Harry stared at the bottle in his hands, which was worth a small fortune on its own; using alchemy to contain a noble gas like xenon in a solid state was almost impossible, but a substance so absolutely nonreactive both chemically and magically was necessary to contain this much chimera blood, which ate its way through almost every material it touched. Even xenon wouldn’t last forever but it should be a good year or two if the quality of the alchemy was good, which Harry assumed it was, seeing as Sirius was as much of a spoiled trust fund kid as Justin or Draco no matter his grease-smeared Muggle t-shirts and always bought the next of whatever he wanted.

Harry grinned back at Sirius so wide his cheeks hurt. “You’re the best.”

“I know,” said Sirius, looking unbearably smug.

His earlier words rang in Harry’s ears. New memories that are good all the way through. Clutching Sirius’ gift, sitting comfortably with his godfather—his family—on what was unquestionably the best holiday of his life, Harry thought for the first time that he might be able to use emotional framing to power a Patronus.

Jules

When Ethan told Jules that he’d been getting together a group of younger Order recruits to handle surveillance of suspected Death Eater targets, Jules had been excited, and even more so when Ethan wanted him to come, him and Susan and Ron, although Ron had to sneak out to do it. They were the only people below Hogwarts seventh year invited to join the exact sort of thing that Jules had been wanting to—a group of people who were ready to do something. To go out there and find the Death Eaters and do what the Ministry and the Aurors wouldn’t. Ever since Yaxley took over the Auror Office, they did fuck all. And it seemed like every day there was another attack: Jules couldn’t look at Susan’s permanently tight and closed-off expression without remembering how cruelly she’d lost her aunt over the summer. Amelia Bones had been one of very few people high up in the Ministry who neither toadied to Fudge or bowed to Voldemort, and now she was dead for the crime of having integrity.

Jules probably should have asked who Ethan had recruited. Because Cedric was alright, and he remembered Edith Towler and Barnaby Murdock from some stuff their families had done with his over the years, but some of the others…

Toby Pritchard, for example. There had been some nasty rumors going around about him and his little brother, the kid who was always tagging around after Harry; and in the fifteen minutes it had taken for the group to coalesce in Ethan’s sitting room, Jules had already heard Garvis Loughty, Penny Willicker, and Annalise Devlin making the kinds of jokes and comments that Jules himself might have laughed at, a few years ago. Bet the Death Eaters line up to give their Lord some extra service, accompanied by a crude hand gesture. Yellow-bellied snakes have it coming. I can’t wait to give ‘em a taste of their own medicine, did you see that curse Hestor showed us last week?

Jules couldn’t really laugh anymore, or even smile. It wasn’t that he thought they were wrong, exactly. It just seemed…

Ethan’s front door popped open before Jules could decide what it seemed like, and Ethan trooped inside, followed by a flurry of frigid snow-laden air and several familiar faces. Jules knew Violet, Zoey, and Alvar from other Order meetings and from the group of people Dad and Ethan used to have ‘round for dinner now and then. Zoey winked and grinned when Jules caught her eye. He tried to smile back.

“You okay?” Ron said next to him, quietly, as the others exchanged greetings and cloaks were hung up to dry and chairs were found for the new arrivals. On his other side, Susan glanced at Jules, then away. “You’re looking a bit constipated there, mate.”

“Fine,” Jules muttered. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Death Eaters,” which was at least a mostly true answer.

Ron opened his mouth.

“Alright, everyone, thanks for coming!” Ethan called out, and Ron, along with the rest of the group, subsided. “Let’s get started, if we’re all ready? Where’s Timothy?”

“Timothy?” Ron whispered, while someone else answered that he couldn’t come tonight.

“Tim Bright,” Jules said absently.

Ethan, meanwhile, was frowning. “This is the second meeting he’s missed.”

“It’s his sister,” Brigit said, somewhat defensively. “She’s sick, remember?”

“Oh, yes. Alright.” Ethan looked at Violet, who made a note on a scroll in her lap. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to manage. Anything new since your last reports, or should we just dive right in?”

“Nothing on the Cosgroves still,” said Annalise. “Sat on ‘em for a week.”

“This’ll be the main branch?” Alvar said.

Annalise nodded. “Not the cadet family up in, what is it, York?”

“Helmsby,” was Holly’s contribution.

“Alright. Moving on to them now, then?” Ethan said, and when Annalise said yes, Violet made a note of that too.

No one else had any new reports, and they moved on to discussing new and ongoing surveillance targets. Jules shifted in his seat as the list went on. This was a bigger operation than he’d assumed. A lot wider spread. And it seemed like a lot of cursing in the dark; was some little old hedgewitch in the moors, a cousin twice removed of Corban Yaxley, really worth watching for three weeks just in case the Yaxleys were using her cottage to store weapons or some shite? Sure, they might be, but it didn’t seem like anything more than guessing.

Then again, some people could call Molly Weasley some old hedgewitch, and she wasn’t exactly harmless.

Jules gnawed on his lip as the meeting wore on. Ethan had told him and Ron about some of what they’d been doing. They’d found a Death Eater in disguise, David or Dan or something, and turned him over to the Order’s Aurors like Roger and Tonks. So that was good. But how many people did they basically stalk just to root out the Death Eaters? And was David/Dan/Donald Illes really such a threat?

I want to make a difference. Sturgis and Violet and Ethan, Libby and Barnaby and Cedric, they thought they were making a difference. They spoke about veritaserum and confundus charms and Jules reminded himself that they were at war.

Was this a difference? Was it worth making?

Then Violet mentioned a name that made Jules sit up straighter: “—watchers on Black haven’t turned up anything out of the ordinary.”

“It’s been weeks,” Lucille snapped. “Why can’t we just nail the bastard yet?”

“We don’t know that he’s up to anything,” said Zoey. “Andromeda—”

“She’s biased. It’s her cousin!” Sturgis threw his hands up. “I mean, for Merlin’s sake—”

“Let’s settle down,” Ethan interrupted. “I trust Andi. We agreed to keep watching Black until Imbolc, yes? He might just be a general sort of wanker instead of a Death Eater one.”

“He’s still dark.” This was from Edith, along with a scowl. Jules shifted his weight again.

Ethan sighed, shrugged. “We can’t actually focus on everyone who’s irresponsible with their magic. Let’s face it, we don’t have the resources for that. We have to narrow it down to just the ones who are causing problems, and so far, Black isn’t one of them. He just goes out with his friends—”

“And his boyfriend,” Libby Borage sneered.

“Hey!” Annalise frowned at her. “He might be the next closest thing to a Death Eater but that’s got nothing to do with him liking a bloke—”

Black liked men? Jules blinked a few times. He hadn’t known that.

“Oh, come on, are you trying to tell me it isn’t weird?” Libby said. “Or you haven’t noticed how many of those pureblood wankers are that way? More than decent folk, that’s for sure—and you know how many of their fucked-up old rituals call for that sort of shite—”

“Both of you stop it,” Ethan snapped, with an extra look towards Jules, who shut his mouth on what he’d been about to say.

Both witches obeyed, though they continued to glare curses at each other. “Libby, that was harsh,” Ethan went on. “We don’t care who anyone dates as long as they’re not dating Death Eaters and the boyfriend is about as far from one as it gets, we checked him first off. Clear?”

Libby grumbled something and sat further into her chair.

“Anyone else want to comment?” Zoey said, her expression daring them to try. No one spoke up. “Right, that’s settled. Who’s next?”

“Ah.” Violet cleared her throat. “Amy Billingsley.”

“Sturge, you want to add her to your group’s list?” Ethan said, and Sturgis did so, and the meeting carried on.

Jules half-listened. People had said stuff like that about rituals before, and wizards, like, apparently, Black, who didn’t go for witches, or, Jules supposed, vice versa, though that didn’t come up as much. But Dad had never said anything like that. And, actually, Jules could remember Dad telling some people off for spreading unfounded theories sometimes when they brought it up. Jules had personally never given much truck to the idea—yet here it was coming from someone he’d gone to school with. Liked, even. But Ethan had told her to stow it, so—

“Jules?”

“Yeah?” Jules said, blinking, and realized that the group had broken up. He grimaced at Susan, who still sat two chairs to Jules’ right. Everyone else had gone. “Oh. Whoops. Lost track of time there.”

“You sure you’re alright?” Susan said. “It’s been over ten minutes.”

Jules could hear people in Ethan’s kitchen, and the number of cloaks hanging on the wall had decreased by at least half. So some people had gone for dinner or drinks or whatever, or gone home, and some were still here hanging out. Ethan had probably gone to the Leaky with his friends his age. Fit with how Order meetings usually went. Jules wondered if this qualified as an Order meeting. Dumbledore certainly hadn’t told him about anything like this… Maybe he’d delegated the whole thing to Ethan. Merlin knew Dumbledore was busy as anything.

“Just thinking,” Jules repeated. “Where’s Ron?”

“Kitchen, I think. They said something about snacks… I wasn’t in the mood for…” Susan waved vaguely, encompassing everything that went along with socializing in a noisy group like this, and Jules nodded sympathy.

“Right. Well. I can… come with you, if that would help,” Jules offered.

Susan gave him a wry look. “Noble of you to offer, but you don’t sound very enthused.”

Jules grimaced. He wasn’t.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said. “And don’t blow me off like you did Ron.”

“Well, just—” Jules waved a hand, frustrated, groping for words, part of him imagining Harry at this meeting, pinning Jules with judgmental eyes as he sat silent through all of… that. “Is this—I dunno—right? It seems like…”

Susan tilted her head, and, when Jules trailed off, asked “What do you mean, right?”

“Not all those people we just talked about are Death Eaters. Feels weird,” Jules admitted, “snooping around in some random person’s life, you know? And… I guess how some of them were talking was… harsh.”

Eyes darting towards the kitchen, Susan said, “I didn’t love how Lucille and Annalise sounded excited about whatever curses Moody’s shown them, no. He seems the type to know some nasty spells. Death Eater spells.”

It was a good thing Susan wasn’t looking at him: Jules knew he’d reacted to that and Susan would’ve immediately noticed he was hiding something. Moody did know some really, really unpleasant curses. Moody had cast the Unforgivables, all of them, at least once in combat. Moody hadn’t taught Jules any of that stuff yet but their lessons in situational awareness, dueling tactics, what Moody called how to not die on the spot, all that involved lots of talking about everything Jules had done wrong, and in their talks Moody had been pretty blunt about what exactly some Aurors got up to in the last war.

Jules hadn’t been as bothered by that until today. Somehow he’d assumed the Aurors, like Moody, didn’t like those kinds of spells, and used them with a grim pragmatism and a healthy dose of unhappiness. But after today he had to wonder.

“But I don’t think—it’s a war,” Susan went on, her expression hard. “Sometimes you have to do hard things. If watching people who’re related to Death Eaters, or who’re rumored to help Death Eaters, or worse, rumored to be Death Eaters, can help us find even one person with a Mark, save even one family—”

“Yeah.” Jules thought about the Hillardses, missing. About Susan’s aunt, dead in her own home. Or Persimmon Vandermeer, a lawyer who took cases on behalf of squibs for free and an old friend of Dad’s, who turned up dead in her office last week. It was harder to know who they’d saved, wasn’t it? Who was alive right now because the person who might’ve killed them or sold them out or led Death Eaters to their door or just decided they were in the way had been arrested thanks to information Ethan’s crew dug up.

But at the same time— “I still don’t like it. Feels like…” A few things came together in a flash and Jules put together something that had been bugging him, vaguely, for weeks. “Like there are no right choices.”

“I know,” Susan said. “And I don’t think there are. Right ones, I mean. Sometimes you have to do the least bad thing, in a war, and then when it’s all over we’ll have to settle up… with ourselves, if nothing else. That’s what Auntie used to say.” Her lips trembled but her voice remained steady. “She said… she said she couldn’t sleep sometimes, not after the last war—that she didn’t regret what she’d done but not regretting it didn’t mean you could ignore that you’d done something questionable for the sake of a higher goal.”

“That’s sort of how Moody puts it. Except, you know, with about a quarter as many words.”

Susan laughed, and if it was a little weak it was still a laugh, which relieved Jules to no end. He hated seeing his friends the way too many of them had been lately. Afraid. Lost. Grieving. “So we just do the best we can?”

“And we lean on each other. Auntie said that, too—that you need friends, to help you. Or to tell you how far is too far.”

As with Parvati and Ron, Jules became abruptly and dizzyingly aware of how much she had changed since they were all children together, growing into herself. Growing up. Somewhere inside her was the eight-year-old who’d hit Draco Malfoy with a serving tray at a Ministry function for calling her a bad word, and the ten-year-old who’d cried when her aunt had to go away for a month for some kind of legal exchange program, and the fourteen-year-old who’d spent hours poring over dusty legal texts to try and get Jules out of the Tournament. All of those earlier selves wrapped up in the Susan looking at him now, fierce, a warrior, wearing her grief like a shield and a dare all at once.

Jules opened his mouth to tell her—he didn’t know what. That he was honored to call her a friend, though what he felt was more than that, deeper, and startling in its strength.

He never got the words out. A crash and a bellow from the kitchen had him on his feet, wand out, crouched defensively, before he registered the bellow as Ron’s voice, and Jules was moving, half-aware of Susan following him, her reaction time a hair slower—he slid around the wall into the kitchen expecting a fight, an intruder, something—

Something other than Holly Gerth, cursing a blue streak as she stumbled free of the wreckage of a spindly side table that had formerly held a tray of drinks. Said drinks were now a mess—pitchers on the floor, glasses in pieces, splatters of liquid staining the wall and the tipped-over table and Holly’s robes. Lucille helped Holly to her feet and tried to spell the drips away.

Holly ignored her friend and scowled at—at Ron. “The fuck was that for?!”

“Call my sister that again and I’ll do more than push you into a table!” Ron shouted back.

“I called her what she is!” Holly batted Lucille’s wand away and advanced on Ron, who didn’t move an inch. “Your oh-so-precious baby sister is a snake and a c—”

“HOL,” said Annalise, warningly: Ron’s wand was in his hand, and spitting sparks.

Jules shook off surprise. Raised his voice, and put command into it, the way Moody did when he was in the middle of a lesson. “Hey, whoa, stop it, both of you.”

They listened, at least enough to recognize that Jules was in the room, and stop actively threatening each other. Good enough. He took a breath. “Someone want to explain this?”

“She called Ginny a—!”

Annalise cut Ron off: “They were talking about his sister cursing Hander at school.”

Ah. Yes, that did explain a lot. Hander was Holly’s younger brother. Jules honestly hadn’t paid much attention to that whole incident; whatever Ron had known of it at the time, he’d kept to himself, and both Hander and Garvis were on their feet the next day, apparently none the worse off for whatever Ginny did. Parvati heard from Padma it had something to do with payback for a jinx that landed on Ginny. Or one of Ginny’s friends. The details were unclear. Either way Jules had other problems, specifically the much more worrisome whispers of Muggleborns turning up in Pomfrey’s office in droves with some jinx or hex on them.

He didn’t know Holly well, either, she was a few years older than Jules and they’d never been precisely friends, but she looked madder than a recently-insulted hippogriff. Jules thought maybe he’d been wrong to assume Ginny hadn’t done anything that serious.

“Badly enough to burn out her wand,” Holly added, viciously, and Jules’ brain screeched to a halt.

“She what?” Annalise turned on Ron, whose beet-red anger subsided and Ron shifted his weight like he did when he felt uncomfortable.

Jules’ stomach turned over. He couldn’t imagine—you heard rumors, sometimes, about wands getting burned out—a spell miscast so badly it backfired, or worse, someone trying to cast a spell that was just wrong—

Just too dark.

“She didn’t know what she was doing, and anyway,” Ron shifted right back into aggression, a finger thrusting in Holly’s face, “you don’t get to call her—that!”

A quick look showed rising tempers all around. Eggbert Hornby had started glaring at Ron too, as if defending a sister who’d cast a dark curse was beyond the pale; Jules knew Ron wouldn’t support that kind of magic, but also knew Ron hated anyone else insulting his family.

Time to take a page out of Moody’s Auror handbook and deescalate the situation. “Holly, don’t insult anyone’s family,” he said, “and Ron, seriously, pushing? We’re not three. Both of you go home and cool off.”

“Who put you in charge?” Lucille said, arrogant, rude, and Jules really did not like her, but this wasn’t the time to make things worse: he fixed Lucille with a steady look that said Try me and waited.

She made a scoffing noise after a few seconds and reached for Holly’s arm. “C’mon.”

“Er… bye,” said Toby, waving back at Eggbert and Annalise as he followed his sister and Holly out of the room.

Ron scowled and stomped over to the kitchen door. A moment later he’d flung it open and vanished into Ethan’s darkened backyard, and then they all heard the floo fire twice, confirming Holly and Lucille had left.

“Well,” Susan said, breaking the awkward silence, “that was dramatic.”

“Do you know what his sister did?” Annalise asked them, her expression hawklike.

Jules shook his head. Susan, however, grimaced. “Only rumors, but—word is she was upset Hander and Gerth hexed her friend—”

“Another snake?” Annalise asked.

Eggbert started. “A Weasley’s in Slytherin?”

“Oh yeah, it was a whole thing a few years ago.” Annalise waved her hand. “Think the family’s tried to keep it quiet. My cousin mentioned it to me, he’s in school with you lot.”

Jules thought back. Victor, Victor Devlin. Hufflepuff. Must be a seventh year if he hadn’t graduated yet. “Right. Yeah, Ginny’s in Slytherin.”

“Well.” Eggbert wrinkled his nose.

In Jules’ head he heard his own voice. Saying I’m sorry. Remembered promising to do better. He imagined Harry here, watching Jules go that whole meeting without speaking up, and—

The words came before Jules knew he’d decided to speak. “Oi, it’s not like Slytherin means evil. Or dark.”

“You would say that,” Eggbert muttered.

Jules narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We all know you’ve got a soft spot for your ex-brother.” Eggbert rolled his eyes. “Weasley out there thinks Black was mixed up in some plot that got cursed jewelry into a student’s hands, and here you are defending Slytherins?”

“Peter Pettigrew,” Jules said. “Barty Crouch. It’s not like the worst Death Eaters are all snakes. And there’s the Greengrasses, Selwyns—”

“If they’re not Death Eaters they’re as good as!”

“They’re neutral, if anything!” Jules snapped back. Surprising himself, even, with how true this all felt, how much he realized he meant these words. “I mean, come on, it’s not like they vote straight Dark ideas in the Wizengamot or, or run with the Death Eaters—and those families are as Slytherin as they come. And Sirius Black—” Jules’ throat closed up for a second, hating the words, they felt anathema, but he couldn’t deny— “he’s no Death Eater, whatever magic he fucks around with, and he was a Gryffindor to boot. So don’t—just—don’t go making assumptions,” he finished, weakly.

Susan put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve a good point. And you,” she said to Eggbert, “do too. Most of the Death Eaters were Slytherins. But not all. And not all Slytherins are Death Eaters either. It’s entirely possible that Ginny got mixed up with some bad types, cast a spell she didn’t really understand… she’s young, she’s from a good family.”

“Yeah,” Eggbert said, deflating. “Yeah, alright. And I mean, I’ve met Molly Weasley. Bet that Ginny girl’s not having a good time of it right now.”

Jules grimaced, remembering the strained holiday dinner he’d been to a few nights ago, Ginny unnaturally, eerily silent the whole time. She’d said maybe a dozen words total. Eyes on her food. Back ramrod straight. “No. She’s all kinds of grounded.”

“I’ll talk to Holly,” Annalise said. “She can get fired up. And it was her brother, that’ll brass anyone off, but Jules—” She waited for Jules to meet your eyes. “Your former brother’s no longer just a kid and his adopted family isn’t a good one. I’ll accept all those arguments about Ginevra Weasley. If Harry Black pulls something like this—or something worse—that won’t be the case for him.”

She swept out of the room before Jules could reply, Eggbert trailing after her with an uncomfortable mumbled “Goodbye.” Jules, meanwhile, felt like he’d just got the wind knocked out of him by a bludger.

Susan just grimaced when Jules looked her way. “You know how I feel about Black. But I—I know you still hope—” She hesitated, backtracked. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s probably just doing the best he can with what he’s got. I’ll grant he doesn’t seem to be on track to get a certain ugly tattoo before graduation.” Like Malfoy went unsaid. “But Annalise is right, too, Jules.”

“I worry,” said Jules into the silent kitchen, “that if he thought it’d save my life, he might—might join. Them.”

“Well. That’s.” Susan visibly searched for words and, her voice tight, settled on, “Not the worst reason.”

“I can’t hate him.”

This time, she softened, sighed. “Wouldn’t expect you to. Come on. Let’s go find Ron. He’s probably cooled off some by now, maybe he’ll explain whatever Ginny did.”

“Yeah.” Jules ran a hand along his jaw, gripped the back of his neck, tried to settle himself the way he’d seen Dad do after a long shift with the Aurors. Just another one of hundreds of memories. Tiny reminders sprinkled unavoidably through his day that Dad was gone. He never saw them coming. Just tripped over them like one of Hogwarts’ trick stairs and the next thing he knew he’d be blinking tears away while his stomach climbed back up from where it had fallen somewhere around his feet.

He put his hand back at his side, took a breath, followed Susan outside in search of his friend. Just do the least wrong thing. To that he added: Do the next thing in front of you, and don’t worry about the rest. Right now at least his path was easy: find and comfort his best friend.

The other things—Harry, Ethan, Ginny, the war, the Death Eaters, the Ministry—would have to wait.

Theo

Six months ago, Theo had expected Harry to be at this event with him. Had thought they might be able to all make an appearance at the Malfoys’ Yule Ball—all the Vipers, or at least all their inner group—as a sign of the changing times.

But no. Times were not, it seemed, changing as much as Theo had thought; or if they were changing it was not in a direction that he cared to see. It hadn’t been so long ago that he was dating Hermione, seriously enough to have given thought to a courtship before their relationship grew stale and rote, seriously enough to have sought the opinion of his father. A witch that Father had approved, a partner well worth whatever Theo, or for that matter Draco, could ever bring to the table—that witch could not be here tonight despite having dated one of the scions of the Dark and being presently in a courtship with another. Not when this had gone from the high society event of the season to a gathering specifically for Death Eaters.

Political tensions, Father said, and the Greengrasses… and other delicately fragmented sentences meant to convey that Hermione might not be safe here and that no one, least of all the disfavored Lucius Malfoy, was going to risk irritating the Dark Lord by inviting the Greengrass family or their mudblood ward.

Draco had been more direct when Theo wrote him via the journals. Father smashed a six hundred year old tea service given to us by the envoy from magical Hong Kong when I refused to break off our courtship. I’ve never seen him so angry. The Greengrasses have brassed Him off by staying neutral. And then there’s some of what word has it He wants to do regarding the Muggle problem… she wouldn’t be safe, even if Father would allow me to invite her. If nothing else, someone might insult her, or worse, literally spit on her, and then she’d probably draw on them, and it would be a disaster. I don’t want to put her in that position.

Reading those words had stoked the slow-burning ever-present rage that Theo could not, of late, escape. On the subject of hating to see Hermione disrespected by the kinds of narrow-minded half-arsed excuses for wizards who’d be at this Ball, he and Draco were in accord, though Theo personally would have rather helped Hermione curse them and damn the consequences.

But it had been Draco’s last words, following a beat after the others, that lingered longest in Theo’s mind: Mother is afraid.

Theo had never seen Narcissa Malfoy née Black afraid. Had tried to imagine it, hunched over the journal late last night, without success.

Watching Narcissa greet various guests as the ballroom filled, Theo could detect no signs of fear or hesitation. Her hair was perfectly done up in elegant braids, her every movement graceful, her polite smile flawless, her robes falling in pristine silver-violet folds that complemented a figure the envy of witches half her age. Narcissa had been a fixture of Theo’s childhood, a tower of subtle but unyielding strength, an object lesson in deceptive appearances. Theo, with some effort, quit his fruitless attempt to spot any minute signs of hidden fear in her body language, and instead allowed himself to smirk at the wizards and the odd witch who, caught by the vision Narcissa presented, faltered mid-step, mid-sentence, mid-sip of their drinks.

That at least hadn’t changed. Or gotten any less funny.

People were so simple sometimes: all it took was a good tailor and better poise and you could reduce them to stuttering, stammering fools. Even the ones who knew Narcissa was dangerous forgot it for the second or three they were stuck on the sight of her.

“Theodore.”

Father only used his full name, not to mention that particular tone of voice, when he was displeased. Theo schooled his expression and turned: he’d thought it would take Father longer to find him here, half hidden in the shadow of a Doric pillar hewn entirely from ice. “Father.”

“You’re supposed to be socializing. With Greengrass and Selwyn—” Father cut himself off with an irritated jerk of his head. Theo had rarely in his life seen Father so on edge. “There is much at stake, and if you wish to retain your autonomy—”

So you admit you’ve lost yours to that tattoo on your arm? Theo thought but did not say. “Yes, yes. I know.”

“Then why do I find you here?”

“Just trying to ascertain the lay of the land.” And get a few minutes to himself to—not mourn, but to, well, process. That was as good a word as any. A few minutes to rearrange the expectations and disappointments and fears that sprang up even though nothing about tonight had come as a surprise.

It wasn’t like the Longbottoms had ever been invited, or attended, in years past. Between their statement on Litha, and blood as the most uptight old biddy could wish, an invitation had been sent, Theo knew that much, and he had dared to hope that Neville might—

But it was well past the hour for respectable arrivals. If the Longbottoms were going to make an appearance they would have by now.

Theo had not asked Neville to come. Had hoped, anyway, that he might have the real thing instead of hollow memories of their stolen kiss in Harry’s study, time passed in the peace of the greenhouses, smiles shared between them under the noise of the other students at Hogwarts. Had hoped that he might have a reminder tonight of what was good in his life, instead of only—

“Go,” Father said, nodding across the crowded ballroom, where a momentary shift in groups of people had revealed Draco deep in conversation with a few men Theo unfortunately recognized.

He half-bowed. The gesture felt more mocking than he would have liked. “Yes, Father. Anything in particular I ought to do while I’m over there? Report on the specific nature of Yaxley’s jewelry? Attempt to quantify the Malfoy arrogance whenever Draco opens his mouth?”

Father leveled his flattest look at Theo, who smiled back, all teeth and no humor, a smile Father had once told him never to let anyone outside the two of them see. “I understand the stress you are under,” Father said lowly, “but I am not your enemy, Theodore, and this childish tantrum ill becomes you.”

“Don’t worry. No one will notice me compared to the tantrums of Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Theo said, nodding towards the Carrow twins, the elder set, both Marked, both stupid as trolls, and both over by the punch bowl speaking entirely too loudly for an indoor space.

Father briefly closed his eyes as if for patience. Theo didn’t stick around to see him open them again: he strode off across the ballroom, plucking a wine glass from a tray carried high by a house-elf as he went just to have something in his hand.

As soon as he reached the group of people that included Draco he regretted it. Theo found himself holding a full glass of red wine within throwing range of a man making a crass joke about Muggleborn witches. His fingers tightened dangerously around the delicate cut crystal at the laughter from their fellows and the look on Draco’s face, a cruel and arrogant contempt that Draco used to mask fear and anger.

It would, Theo decided, be an insult to Narcissa to start throwing wine on people so early in the evening. He could go with more socially acceptable weapons. “Well that was crass. Draco, does your mother know some of the rabble have invaded her party?”

“I can’t imagine she does,” said Draco, who didn’t quite manage to hide his relief.

Theo smiled at the joker, not as he’d smiled at Father, not as Harry had on occasion seen him smile, but close. His patience was already thin: at least two of this group of fools he knew from those who had been lodging at Nott Manor, and clearly, their manners had not improved while Theo was away at school.

“Who’re you calling rabble?” said the wizard, who obviously was not very smart.

“You,” said Theo, “obviously. Must you be stupid as well as crude?”

Draco looked at him with something akin to horror. It was possible Theo had surpassed a socially acceptable level of verbal weaponry. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Why you little pissant,” the wizard said, outraged, with a step forward—only to stop when one of the Notts’ lodgers grabbed him by the arm and muttered something into his ear.

The angry red flush drained from his face. “Nott?”

“Mm. Yes, that’s me.” Theo sipped his wine without breaking eye contact.

“Ah.” The joker glanced around at his friends for support. None was forthcoming. He coughed instead. “It’s, er, an honor.”

The lie was so transparent Theo was genuinely embarrassed for him. “Right. Have you greeted the Lady Malfoy yet? She prefers to speak to everyone personally, doesn’t she, Draco?”

“Yes, quite. It’s good manners,” Draco sneered, saying without words that manners were lacking in present company.

“We’d be happy to introduce you,” said Theo with a certain grating, saccharine charm he had learned from Blaise at his most obnoxious.

As he’d expected, the offer was met with mumbled half-arsed excuses and a rapid, awkward retreat. Theo watched the little gang of five until they’d vanished into the crowd, and then turned to face Draco, arranging his body language into something that would suggest ‘amiable conversation’ to anyone looking. The nice thing about balls like this was that, between the music, the general conversational din, and the echoing stone walls of the Malfoys’ ancient ballroom, it was difficult bordering on impossible to eavesdrop on anyone more than five feet away from you. “Unbelievable.”

“I know, right?” Draco took an overlarge drink of his wine, caught Theo’s expression, and rolled his eyes. “I’ve got a sober-up in my pocket, it’s fine. There’s a reason people drink at these things.”

Theo repressed the urge to ask if Draco had an empty vial of calming draught in his pocket too. The Draco of two years ago might have needed a potion’s artificial calm to get through this. The Draco of tonight had managed to surpass the last four successive generations of Malfoys by the simple act of remembering he owned a spine. “They were just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“And they got one out of you instead.”

“No they didn’t,” Theo said with a laugh, “if they’d gotten a rise out of me they wouldn’t be walking away.”

“Do not fuck up my mother’s party,” Draco said warningly.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Theo tilted his glass towards Draco in a mocking little toast.

Draco’s mouth did a tiny grimace that only Theo was close enough to spot. “I do appreciate the distraction.”

They both looked towards Draco’s parents at the same time. This time Theo’s eyes fell not on Narcissa but her husband. Lucius looked… ill. Wan and grey-washed, smiles thin at the edges, hair nearly transparent. For once the cane he habitually carried seemed less a fashion statement than a necessary mobility aid.

Everyone knew Lucius was out of favor at the moment.

Everyone knew it made Draco an easy target.

Theo and his father had appearances to keep up but they were not under so much scrutiny. And—Theo allowed himself a brief smirk—it appeared he had gotten a bit of a reputation as someone to be left alone.

“By the way,” said Draco in a casual tone Theo didn’t buy for a second, “do you know why Orpintown was so leery of you?”

“Orpintown?”

“The one you insulted. He’s an Auror trainee and all-around wanker.”

Theo’s fingers tapped lightly on the wine glass as he considered what to say. “Reaver.”

“Pardon?”

“The one who got Orpintown to shut his mouth. Reaver. He’s in the group that my father has welcomed into our family’s halls.”

Draco paused. “That’s not all of it.”

“One of them got a bit… rough… with my mother’s china over the summer. I suggested that might be a bad idea, and would carry consequences if any of them was foolish enough to continue their behavior.” Theo felt his voice and expression go flat and, with effort, hitched a socially pleasant look back up onto his face.

“And this was all just a civil discussion of what is expected of a guest, I presume,” said Draco drily.

Theo half-smiled. “There may have been a demonstration involved.”

“Right. Why am I not surprised.”

“It’s not like I could leave them thinking I didn’t mean it.”

Draco studied Theo closely, like he could see through the glib exterior to the heat and threat that hummed just under the surface. Theo inhaled through his nose, long and slow, and occluded. Tried to reel himself back from the edge. Got himself under control with ruthless discipline.

“You need to be careful with that,” Draco said with a gesture in the general direction of Theo’s face.

As if Theo was unaware.

“Shall we carry on?” he said once he thought he was back under enough control to convincingly socialize.

“Might as well.” Draco’s look of quiet, miserable anger vanished behind his glass as he drained it. A house-elf appeared at his elbow, took the empty glass away, and produced a full one that Draco settled in his hand with practiced ease. “Get it over with.”

The cause of his anger became apparent as they made one circuit and then another of the ballroom. It was expected that two wizards of like age and Hogwarts house, the respective heirs of Malfoy and Nott, should be friendly, and both of them took advantage of that expectation to move around the party together, which meant Theo had a front-row seat to the constant stream of snide comments, backhanded compliments, and veiled (poorly, in some cases) insults falling on Draco.

For his part, Draco bore it all with grace. He could snipe and insult with the best of them. He dripped Malfoy arrogance all over expensive robes and polished marble floors. He kept his chin high and his eyes steady. At some point he’d learned an expression that combined his mother’s terrifying calm and his father’s oozing contempt to great effect.

If it had been Draco they were insulting, it would have been bearable. But they were really going for Hermione. Theo saw how much worse that was for Draco, how it compounded every insult and sharpened every slight, especially since Hermione was not here and could not speak for herself, leaving Draco to stand up underneath the barrage alone. Forced by circumstances to let their disrespect pass without direct challenge.

Theo followed Draco’s lead: this was the Malfoys’ party, and Theo did not actually want to make their tenuous position worse by causing a scene. Nor did he want to complicate things for himself and for Father by drawing attention to himself that Father, for all his faults, genuinely wanted to help Theo avoid. He kept his mouth shut and listened to Harriet Jugson’s ideas for stricter control of wand rights and Linden Ellis pontificate about restoring property and land to wizards and witches fit to care for it and Carston Munger whinging about how a Muggleborn got the spot Munger had wanted in the Enchanter’s Guild.

They were so—so petty. Small and self-absorbed and possessed of such breathtakingly stubborn faith in their own roles as the victims of their lives that it bordered on delusion. Theo was so bored he gave serious thought to downing a poison and pretending to be ill, but that fell under both the ‘causing a scene’ and ‘drawing undue attention’ categories, and also, the Viper’s ring on Draco’s hand was a reminder of an implicit promise Theo had made when he put a ring of silver and basilisk scale onto his own finger. Draco was Harry’s and that was that. So Theo stayed.

And if Theo let his mind occupy itself with the puzzle of how best to physically disable or kill the people they spoke to using only what each person was wearing or carrying on their person, well, no one had to know how he passed the time until the rite.

The rite.

No one spoke of it, not directly. Most if not all of the people here had partaken of the discouraged or outright banned old holiday rites at some point; most of the families in the Notts’ circle conducted their own familial rites in secret, on their warded homes. Tonight was a Yule rite on a scale Theo didn’t think had been seen since the Dark Lord’s last rise, and before that, likely for a century or more. Tonight brought nigh two hundred magical adults together in one room to call upon Magic itself and not a one of them wanted to guess what might happen.

It loomed ever closer as time trickled away. Theo, glancing out the west-facing windows, saw the sun was no more than a sliver of orange hovering over the trees. In another minute or two it would be gone and Yule underway.

A delicate tinkling chime summoned everyone’s attention to the northern wall of the ballroom, and to the dais there that had not existed a moment prior. A hush fell over the party: they had all at once registered the only thing presently on the dais, a chair that appeared grown out of a living holly tree. Branches heavy with glistening green leaves and blood red berries still sprouted from its sides.

It was empty but they all knew what it meant.

Theo tried to steady his breathing. Father hadn’t been sure if he would come tonight. It seemed they were just unlucky.

“Fuck,” Draco said under his breath, and then, with a panicked sideways look at Theo, “my mother—”

“Go.”

Draco took off as fast as he could without being indecorous and Theo found himself alone in this crowd of dozens. He used his height to his advantage as everyone shifted towards the dais and the elegant fire pit that was busily forming itself out of glossy black stone in front of it.

And then, between one blink and the next, the chair (throne) was no longer empty.

There was a frozen moment of shock as the partygoers processed the perfectly still figure now seated there. A few people went to their knees. Then more, and in a wave that lasted forever (or only a few seconds), the whole room, Theo included, knelt before Lord Voldemort on the Malfoys’ cold marble floors.

Energy buzzed and hummed and raged inside Theo’s skin. His fingers twitched, remembering how it felt to summon flames without a wand or a word, and he sank them into his thighs through his robes. No. Held on.

“Rise,” said a papery, sibilant voice like the rustle of a cold wind through leafless branches. Theo did, just one among the crowd. He was no one special.

Fire flickered. At first Theo believed it to be his own, and his heart skipped a beat, but no: it was the Yule bonfire coming to life inside the freshly formed black firepit, burning with oddly quiet flames. Sound-muting charmwork, no doubt. Fair enough. This was an indoor party, after all. They had to be able to hear themselves talk, and bonfires were loud.

The Dark Lord spoke, and his voice rushed and murmured through the room, moving like no sound created by a human ever should, creeping inside Theo’s ears on silk-stockinged feet: “Welcome, once again, to my fire… we who gather here tonight give thanks to Magic for Her power and protection.”

An asynchronous chorus of “So mote” rose from the crowd, and when it faded all was again silent, save for the muffled fire.

“Yule,” the Dark Lord said, mused really, his mouth and the thin fingers tapping the edge of his throne the only parts of him that moved. “The dark of the year. Time of preparation and planning, of family and sacrifice.”

A chill went down Theo’s spine.

The Dark Lord rose from his throne. Prowled forward towards the edge of the dais. It gave him enough extra height to be seen over the bonfire even by the people standing directly opposite it from him. His very presence was magnetic; a small part of Theo responded, wanted to lean in, to let this man (was he a man?) draw him in. “All we who gather here tonight are a family, are we not? We are united… in purpose, in our cause… united by the magical blood in our veins.”

Theo let his eyes cut left and right; without moving his head he took in the sentiment of the crowd. Smiles. Glittering eyes throwing back the light of the growing fire. This was what they wanted to hear: the Dark Lord was giving them what they wanted.

“And we,” he spread his arms, taking them all in, and Theo knew what he was doing but still found himself feeling embraced, included, wanted, “we sisters and brothers, we kin, we know that all things come with a cost. It is us, our forebears, our families, who have fought over the centuries to keep Magic strong, to preserve our ancient places, to keep our ways and our children alive in the face of the Muggle scourge that wants to eradicate us! Oh yes… we understand sacrifice well.”

There was a shout, quickly silenced, of agreement. Again Theo looked around and saw that people agreed with the sentiment. They were growing restless, energized. Passion stoked like the bonfire. Perhaps, he thought, slightly dizzy, perhaps the fire was part of it, a sympathetic magic, the oldest kind of magic, wrought with nothing but belief and intention, no words nor wands nor runes required. And Theo himself was not immune. It ran through him like a current, like the tide.

Like a spindle turning: drawing all their individual fibers into one indivisible cord. Stronger together than any one of them could be apart.

“Tonight, we make another kind of sacrifice.” Teeth flashed when the Dark Lord smiled. “Who here will join me in Our covenant? Who here will raise their wand and work Our collective will?”

Old words. Or old meaning, anyway: Theo did not think specific words mattered overmuch, not here, not on this night. Language had its limits.

Someone stepped out of the crowd. “I will, my Lord.” Theo knew him: it would be impossible not to recognize Rodolphus Lestrange. Like the others who had spent so long in Azkaban he looked less. Hollowed out where some critical part had been stripped away, leaving an empty vessel to be filled with the Dark Lord’s cause. Rodolphus Lestrange, and Bellatrix, and Augustus Rookwood, and the others, stepping forward now at his flanks, a phalanx of the most loyal, gazed upon their Lord like they would charge headlong into the Muggles’ burning Hell itself at His word.

Others joined them. Not, Theo noted, the family members, the old or the related-by-marriage or in most cases the witches. Perhaps a quarter to a third of the attendees were naturally splitting themselves from the rest and in a flash Theo understood this to be a test not of loyalty but of commitment.

Who would be willing to torture and kill for the Dark Lord? Who would answer that question, that invitation, who would come forward when it was not an order, who would take up this cause with joy in their hearts of their own initiative? Who could be asked to support Him not only in the halls of power but on the battlefields where power was won?

As the crowd naturally sorted itself, so that the volunteers formed an inner half-moon of people crowded ‘round the fire and separated from the others by a thin but pointed gap, Theo saw his father among the inside group. Caught Father’s eye, saw the tiny, telling tilt of Father’s head, knew what was required of him in this moment.

Theo allowed his feet to do as they desired and carry him forward.

There were other faces he recognized, starkly illuminated from without by the fire—at some point the other lights in the room had dimmed, Theo realized, drawing everyone even further in, so subtly, such a clever tactic—and from within by eagerness. There was Wright, Harry’s old pseudo-mentor; there was Draco, both generations of Carrow twins, Celesta Fawley’s brother and uncle, Marcus and his aunt Jolinda Lady Flint, the current Lord Bulstrode, the aging but unbending Pierre Rosier, Conor Jugson and his old friend Hayden Mulciber, three generations of Dolohovs. And more that Theo didn’t know, which was almost worse. The Dark Lord had greater support than he had realized.

The Dark Lord stepped down from the dais, and paced a circle in the gap between the front edge of the volunteers and the fire, seemingly unbothered by its heat or the sparks falling on his stark black robe. His smile was both cold and benevolent. The face of a god taking veneration as his due. Theo wanted to shrink away and also to step closer. He did not move as those red, red eyes scanned over him.

When the Dark Lord returned to the dais he waved one hand, almost casually, and there was a collective indrawn breath as nine figures appeared along the semicircle he had just walked. They stood immobile. Unmoving. Unnaturally still—magically still—but Theo could see the closest one’s terror-wide eyes. They were awake and aware and helpless and Theo felt a predatory interest begin to stir. He fought it back. This was not some Hogwarts hall with bullies on the floor and Harry and the Vipers at his back. This was not a place to safely let himself go despite the opportunity that had fallen almost literally in his lap.

“In the ancient days, the Celts made nine sacrifices for the longest nights of the year, and on the last night a man.” The Dark Lord faced them again. He no longer looked precisely human. Skin too pale, eyes too red, hair blacker than night, teeth far, far too sharp. “Their blood spilled in the Yule fires. They gave back to Magic so that it would rise in the new year stronger than ever before, in thanks for the power gave them.”

Someone out of sight made a worshipful sound.

“Let us show Magic the depth of our gratitude,” said the Dark Lord.

People stepped forward. Nine of them, so smooth Theo realized this must have been choreographed, as they were spaced more or less evenly around the fire, and one each raised a wand to the sacrifices.

Theo could not hear the spells they cast. Could recognize only a few of their faces; distance and odd shadows and people in the way made it difficult but he saw Septimus Travers, Antonin Dolohov, and Bellatrix Lestrange among them. A flash of straw-blond hair could only be Barty Crouch Jr. pulling agonized spasms out of the sacrifice closest to the dais on Theo’s left: the immobilizing spells left the sacrifices enough movement to thrash around and show their pain but not enough to escape.

Another wave of the Dark Lord’s hand and the air filled with screams as the silencing spells lifted from the sacrifices. Theo didn’t jump but most of the people around him did. It should have been uncomfortable, standing there in a mostly-silent crowd while nine thin agonized voices echoed off the walls, but it was not: the sound of the bonfire came to full life too, for the first time, and its hungry, furious snap-crackle-roar swallowed the screams as the offering they were, swallowed them with ease and demanded more.

More would be provided. It was Travers who lowered his wand first. His place was immediately taken by another person, someone Theo couldn’t recognize, and if anyone hadn’t caught on before they did now, a tangible, eager pulse rippling through the volunteers.

Theo’s wand was in his hand. He looked down at it with distant surprise. Wondered when he had drawn it. Returned his attention to the sacrifice nearest him, who was sobbing now, Dolohov replaced by one of the elder Carrow twins who laughed as they held a crucio in place for an eternal minute.

Crucio? Really? Theo felt his lips curling back in derision he could not fully hide. Crude and artless. Not that he would expect better of the Carrows: any idiot could hate.

The screams and the fire-roar and the thunder of Theo’s heart in his ears began to blur together. He dimly registered that Father had taken his turn, participated in the sacrifice of pain and blood being dragged out for them all to join in, and that Father had stepped back, and that Father was watching him. Theo did not look back. Theo did not, in this moment, care much beyond the fact that he was now at the front of his little segment of the circle and a witch with tightly coiled hair had just lowered her wand and given the nearest sacrifice a temporary reprieve and Theo was best positioned to take her place.

Which Theo did, hanging on to the edges of his control with a white-knuckled mental grasp. Magic hazed his mind in a manner not unlike alcohol. He knew, sort of, that it was intentional, that everything about tonight had been deliberately calculated to lower inhibitions, to bind them all into a crowd-fervor. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.

He whispered the words of a curse for himself alone to hear.

Everyone around him heard the renewed screams his target made as it landed. The fire roared louder, triumphant. Theo did not think he imagined the way it licked across the stone and snapped up the blood that Theo spilled in precisely calculated arcs.

Seconds ticked down in the back of his mind. He could not take longer than anyone else had. He would do no more and no less than the others. He would—he did—drag the white-hot promise of pain back into himself, lower his wand, step back into the circle.

Too late he realized his masks had all fallen away. Theo shut his eyes and counted backwards from ten in four different languages.

When he opened them again, it was almost over. Hard eyes and magic-drunk smiles had replaced the taut anticipation of what could only have been twenty minutes prior; the last few people were finishing their participation, and faces turned towards the Dark Lord, flowers to their sun, waiting for the last step.

“Accept our offering,” the Dark Lord intoned, and cast nine times in rapid succession.

Green light flared around the room. Theo caught his breath; to use the avada so fluidly, without even a pause between one cast and the next, was a display of power even more startling than the wandless magic shown earlier, not to mention the Dark Lord’s aim, which was so precise every one of the spells hit dead center mass.

Nine bodies fell almost in perfect unison.

They did not have time to reach the floor. With one great surge, the fire burst beyond the boundaries of the pit that had been built for it. People shouted but did not have time to step away as it licked at the feet of those who’d participated. Theo wanted to step forward, sink his hands into it, see if he could control this flame, wrap this power around his will.

It snapped back into the boundaries of the fire pit, leaving only nine roughly ovoid ash-marks on the marble where the sacrifices had been.

Theo shook his head. Felt as though he were struggling to wake from a dream.

Magic lingered heavy in the room with the potency of overripe fruit. At some point, Theo saw, the Dark Lord had vanished, leaving the empty throne and dais as reminders of His authority while the Death Eaters, his loyal vassals, marinated in the aftermath of what had just happened.

People began to break up into groups again. Conversation began, murmured low, coming in fits and starts since the fire was still at full volume. The earlier atmosphere of genteel respectability was long gone.

Theo found himself kneeling before the ash-smear that had been a man mere minutes before. He dragged a finger through it, rubbed the soot, still warm, between finger and thumb. Studied the black on his hand. Wondered who he had been. Why the Dark Lord chose him, or any of them. Questions Theo hadn’t even thought to ask in the heat of the moment. He had not known a Yule rite could be so powerful. Satisfaction and adrenaline still beat through him but alongside them was what Theo could only name a feeling of fracturing: he had volunteered, and that magic cracked him open like it had the rest of them, to release their truest selves.

He was an eggshell in shatters. He was made anew. He did not know whether he could ever undo whatever had happened tonight. He suspected he should be afraid of the answer.

“Theodore.”

Few people called him by his full name. Theo rose and found himself, somewhat to his own surprise, facing Crouch Jr., hawklike and immaculate, as though he had not, very recently, been helping torture a human to death. “You are summoned.”

Oh.

Theo nodded once. No other response, it seemed, was asked of him; Crouch turned and led the way and Theo walked with him, glad that Crouch made no attempt at conversation, because it afforded Theo a desperately needed moment in which to bury himself under layers of occlumency.

He would never be as good at the mind arts as Harry, who cast protego as instinctively as he did offensive curses. Theo preferred attack to defense, had been raised as the wielder and not the target of power. But neither was he unskilled at guarding his mind, and more to the point, he had been preparing for his inevitable audience with the Dark Lord since that day in Harry’s study.

Crouch brought him out of the ballroom to a small receiving room Theo knew Lucius used to conduct private business during parties like this. Lucius was not present today. Only Father, and Crouch, and the Dark Lord, whose presence was so much worse in an enclosed space, even though he looked human again and normal, sitting at the head of a six-person table.

Theo went smoothly to one knee, head lowered. “My Lord.”

“Welcome, Theodore.”

“Shall I go?” asked Crouch, who had only bowed, briefly, at the waist, which only the most trusted and valued of the Dark Lord’s inner circle dared to do.

“Yes. Find Lady Flint, if you would.”

With a rustle of robes and a click of the closing door Crouch was gone again.

“Rise,” said the Dark Lord, and Theo did, having held the position of obeisance with steady precision despite how much he disliked it. “Join us.”

The table could seat six, but had only four chairs; Theo pulled out the nearest one, positioned on the table’s long side halfway between the Dark Lord at its head and Father at its foot. “How may I be of service, my Lord?”

“Your father tells me you have information.”

Theo did not so much as let his eyes flicker in Father’s direction. “I do, yes.”

The legilimency, when it came, was impossibly subtle and powerful. No amount of warning could have really prepared Theo. No amount of effort could have kept Him out. Theo opened the memory of that day in Harry’s study like a flower blooming in cupped palms and knew that he could do so only because Lord Voldemort was choosing not to tear Theo’s mind to shreds.

He felt the Dark Lord look through Theo’s eyes at the study. Attention lingering on the shelf of Muggle books in plain sight: Theo had paused there, had given them thought, and so they were more clearly preserved in memory form—

(unlike the things on Harry’s desk that Theo had chosen to obscure—that he had, over long hours in meditation, carefully blurred over and over into illegibility—so that now the Dark Lord, who was not digging as hard as he potentially could, would see no seam, would be drawn directly to—)

Time had no meaning while the Dark Lord was in his mind. Theo knew only that the letter was of interest. That the Dark Lord hung long in Theo’s recollection of it. That the strain of invasion, of other in his mind, grew, so time must be passing, somewhere.

And then the Dark Lord’s attention swung wider. Waited. Theo thought maybe he had stopped breathing because he had not wanted to show this, but he did—he pulled up more threads of memory wrapped in emotions he had not felt at the time, smug triumph and chilly amusement, and he opened them too so that the Dark Lord saw Neville come in. Saw Theo’s quick shift, saw the way Theo had deflected, and then manipulated Neville—

(with his honesty, because Theo had meant it, had wanted to kiss Neville of his own desire, but he could bury that under the equal truth of his duplicity, could show only physical interest and cold calculation and the knowledge that it had worked—)

It must have been enough. The Dark Lord let the memory go, and it sank back into shadowed indirect recollection with barely a ripple—but still Theo’s mind was not his own. Still the Dark Lord blew through his thoughts with careless ease. Skimming memories of Harry—memories Theo had prepared to hand over with selective honesty, showing his resentment and bitterness at the way his friends withdrew from him, or expected him to withdraw from them—

(and not showing a memory of coordinating with Harry what information to hand over, because no such memory existed, and if it had Theo would never have been able to hide it—not something so pointedly relevant, so strongly associated with his emotions about the positions they all found themselves in—he could mask some truths with others of equal or greater weight, but speaking to Harry about that would outweigh all the rest of it in importance—)

The Dark Lord kept skimming. Pressing into the freshest and most recent things and before Theo had recovered from the barely-comprehensible whirlwind of Harry-school-Slytherin-friends-impressions the Dark Lord had found and pulled open the memory of tonight.

Had stepped into the moment Theo joined the crowd. Had found Theo’s eagerness, the thrill of seeing pain and the stronger thrill of causing it, the overwhelming one-in-many of the magic that wove them all together, the fracture it had wrenched open to the very heart of Theo’s self to release what he kept there.

Then the Dark Lord withdrew, so suddenly Theo tilted and had to catch the edge of the table to stay upright.

“Most interesting,” he said.

“I can only hope it may be of some use to you, my Lord,” he made himself say.

He received a thin-lipped smile of approval. “You may go. And, Theodore—” Theo paused halfway to his feet— “exemplary work tonight. I believe you have great… potential.”

Theo’s mouth worked: “It would be my honor to realize it in your service.”

That smile widened. Theo—and Father, who had likewise been dismissed—both bowed deeply and left the room.

In the corridor they passed Crouch leading Lady Flint, who exchanged some pleasantries with Father that Theo, hovering on a razor’s edge, did not hear. Crouch studied him with narrowed eyes: Theo glared back at him until the small talk was done with and Father continued, not towards the ballroom but the receiving room and the floo point.

Home. They were going home. A good thing. Theo did not think himself capable of playing nice, right now. He stumbled coming out of the floo as he had not since he counted his age in the single digits and for a dizzying second the halls of his home were unfamiliar to him.

“Theo. Theo.” Father’s voice pressed on his ears, Father’s hands pressed on his shoulders. Theo blinked hard and wrenched himself away.

“You knew,” he said, low, furious. “You knew—”

That it was not just a test of loyalty and limits. That volunteering to participate in that rite meant a great deal more than a superficial show of willful obedience.

“I could not have told you,” Father said. When Theo pulled away he had hardened, drawing himself up tall and immovable as a mountain. “If He had seen any such forewarning in your mind—”

It would have gone poorly for Theo and Father alike. And yet—

Theo turned on his heel and left. Father did not call him back, and Theo wouldn’t have obeyed if he had. One more second standing in that hall and he would lose it. Possibly he was losing it anyway. He took the stairs two at a time and compulsively flicked the fingers of his left hand every stride, calling flame to their tips and dismissing it again, over and over. Portraits watched him stalk down the upstairs corridor without saying a word, those ancient Notts, Theo’s forebears, perhaps afraid, or perhaps knowing nothing they could say would help.

The slam of the door to his rooms was still echoing when Theo, shaking, reached his bathroom and gave in to the sick rebellion of his stomach.

Long minutes passed and any trace of food expelled by the time Theo managed to stop dry heaving. He opened his hands—a soot-streak still lingered on the left one from the sacrifice—and slumped backwards. Turned his head and pressed his feverish cheek to the cool tile wall.

Father had known. Father had known and not warned him. Father had spent almost Theo’s entire life drilling secrecy and control into him so that Theo would never slip in front of others; Father had taught him that so that Theo could determine who knew him and who didn’t. Theo had only ever shown Harry, and then rarely. Some of the others had been allowed glimpses. Hermione, Pansy, Daphne, Justin, Draco, Blaise. Theo had chosen to let them see. And tonight he had been forced to—to let Voldemort into his head, to give up things that were Theo’s alone—

And the worst part was that it had been easy.

He had shown the Dark Lord the truth. Selective truths, granted, but truth nonetheless. The Dark Lord had watched Theo torture a man, lie to and manipulate his best friend, wield desire and affection as the weapons they could be, and he had approved. Theo could see all too clearly a world in which that was the totality of himself. He felt as keenly as a blade the seductive pull of joining the Death Eaters, the acceptance and freedom they offered for the very worst parts of him.

If Theo had not already learned to value other things (other people) he did not think he would say no.

After tonight, after that ritual, he wasn’t sure if he could say no.

Theo dug his fingers cruelly into his thighs, and when that did not stop them shaking, made a cup of his hands and called fire into it, fire blazing hot and hungry, fire into which he poured his hate—

For the Dark Lord who violated the sanctity of Theo’s mind and magic.

For his father who had put him in this position in the first place, no matter how unfair that hate might be.

And for himself, for failing to reject that temptation entirely.

It was a long time before the fire went out.