3: Blood of the Covenant

June 13, 1996

FIRST ROUND OF SEARCHES TURNS UP NUMEROUS ILLEGAL DARK ARTEFACTS

Yesterday, June 12, the Auror Corps searched the manor homes most suspected of harboring Dark texts, artifacts, and enchanted objects. Deputy Auror Roger McKinnon, second in charge of the Corps, led searches on Carrow Manor and Grimmauld Place. The Carrows have known ties to the Death Eaters—though current Head of House, Lady Bryanne Carrow née Kehl, has never been convicted, her late husband Artemus Carrow died a Death Eater in the First Wizarding War, and her aunt Lakely Kehl was found to be a Death Eater and sentenced to life in Azkaban in 1982. Lakely Kehl escaped earlier this year in the mass breakout, and though no connections or communications have been discovered between Lady Carrow and her aunt, the sympathies of Lady Carrow and her daughters Heir Hestia Carrow and Miss Flora Carrow have remained uncertain. Aurors Dearborn, Hufford, Fenwick, and McKinnon undertook the search of the Carrows’ ancestral manor. The search revealed several cursed and Dark objects, the precise nature of which the Aurors have not disclosed, “for safety purposes,” according to Auror Erin Hufford. Heir Hestia Carrow and Miss Flora Carrow were not charged but Lady Carrow has been found guilty of possession of illegal Dark objects and will serve one year in Azkaban.

Similarly, the Black family home in London, Grimmauld Place, was searched due to the family’s former connections. The late Mr. Regulus Black was a suspected Death Eater before his mysterious disappearance in 1980. The late Orion and Walburga Black were known blood supremacists with Death Eater sympathies. Lord Sirius Black’s cousin Narcissa Malfoy née Black married Lucius Malfoy, known Death Eater, and Bellatrix Lestrange née Black was one of the most notorious Death Eaters in the last war and one of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s closest lieutenants. Lord Sirius Black was exonerated of all crimes pertaining to the use of Dark magic or Death Eater activities in the last war. However, the honorable late Lord James Potter insisted that Lord Black had been a practitioner of Dark magic—up until he died at the wand of none other than Lord Black himself. On these suspicions, Grimmauld Place was slated as one of the earliest homes to be searched. Aurors McKinnon, Dearborn, and Proudfoot, as well as Auror Trainee Savage, searched the Black family’s ancient London townhouse, and discovered that the Blacks were in possession of illegal texts. Again, Heir Hadrian Black was not charged, but Lord Sirius Black was found in violation of the Decree for Restricted Texts and will be fined.

Several other old magical families, noble and non-noble, were also found in possession of various Dark and/or illegal objects, texts, creatures, or enchantments, including prominent krup breeders Pepper and Argo Strickland, who will be charged a fine as well as six months in Azkaban to be served by Argo Strickland.

For a complete list of violations charged and known Dark artifacts discovered, see page 17.

Andromeda

As far as Andromeda was concerned, there was no way this would go smoothly.

She and Jules and Remus stood on a windswept rock, shivering despite liberally applied warming charms. Despite the blue sky, the ocean wind was strong and cold, and the sea was gray and wild. White-tipped waves surged across the water’s surface and crashed against the cliffs. Ocean spray spattered against magical shields to keep the outcropping from getting dangerously slick. The smell of brine was overwhelming; Andromeda didn’t know how Remus stood it.

“They’re late,” Jules said.

Andromeda checked her watch. “Only a few minutes.”

“I see the skiff,” Remus said.

Jules and Andromeda squinted, but it was another thirty or so seconds before their eyesight could pick out what Remus’ wolf-senses already had. A small boat scudded across the waves, nearly bouncing from one to the next as magically generated wind pushed it faster than it should have been able to go. Andromeda felt seasick just watching it.

As the boat neared, she could make out its passengers: two wizards and a witch. The witch and one of the wizards wore the newly-minted Azkaban Security Officer’s uniforms of scarlet robes and black furred caps. The second wizard’s head was bare and his robes were a nondescript gray.

Andromeda forced herself to relax.

The mainland outpost sat behind them, and two more security officers hurried out just in time to help hold the boat steady. Remus added his wand to the fray and between the three of them they levitated it out of the water and held it in place while the third passenger stood and inched towards the edge.

Jules was practically vibrating with tension.

Andromeda nudged him, just a little, and he lurched forward just in time to grab Ethan’s arms and help him out of the boat.

Ethan staggered on the rock and Jules hooked an arm around his waist. For just a second Ethan half-collapsed on Jules’ shoulder, shaking, eyes closed and face pressed to Jules’ hair. He shifted and turned and clutched Jules to him with desperate force. Jules returned the embrace without hesitating.

Such powerful emotion, a moment so clearly not for her, made Andromeda turn away and watch as Remus and the security officers from Azkaban’s mainland outpost lowered the boat back into the water. The officers in the boat mistimed their jets of wind, and before they could get under power again, the waves picked it up and smashed it against the rocks. Once, twice, accompanied by the ominous sound of cracking wood, and then they got their shit together and surged out of the danger zone, back towards the island.

One of the guards wiped his forehead. “Only th’ second time we’ve tried this, tha’ was, wish they’d ha’ given us more training or somethin’.”

“You did well,” Andromeda said. Merlin help them if the conscripted guards on the island were as incompetent as these idiots.

“Nah, we didn’,” he said. “But we’ll learn. Boat didn’t break, an’ everyone’s safe.”

“Mm. Is there anything else required of us? Or may we take him home?”

“Take ‘im, an’ do what you will,” the guard said. His partner had already started back up towards the low, ugly brick building. “We’re jes’ here for th’holding cells down b’low.”

Andromeda watched them hike back to the outpost for a few seconds, then returned her attention to her companions. Remus had joined the embrace and Ethan’s shaking had eased a bit.

“Come on,” she said quietly, offering her hand to Ethan. Remus could Apparate with Jules. “Let’s go home.”

Ethan reached out and took her hand, and for the first time since he’d gotten off the boat he met Andromeda’s eyes.

Just before she Apparated, she thought she saw a flash of something there.

Then they were being squeezed through unfathomable darkness and bursting out the other side on the walk to Potter Manor, and Andromeda thought she’d imagined it.

They reconvened in what had once been James’ study. It looked mostly the same, save for the air of disuse about his old chair by the fire, and the fact that the letters scattered across the desk were now in Jules’ or Remus’ handwriting instead of James’. Ethan stopped and looked around with naked pain carved into his face. If Andromeda had ever doubted that he cared for James, that look would have convinced her.

The four of them sat down by the fire. James’ chair stood empty still. Andromeda felt its reproachful presence like a thorn pressing into her spine. One more name added to the list of everyone she’d lost. She hadn’t liked James, exactly, but he was a good man, a father, loved and loving in return.

Ethan seemed to be taking pains to avoid looking at the empty chair.

“How are you feeling?” Jules said, tentatively, eyes roaming Ethan’s face.

“They fixed me up on the island.” Ethan’s voice was a monotone. He coughed and tried again with a little more inflection. “They’ve… a healer on duty. I’m a little atrophied from lack of exercise but not really malnourished… they save the shit rations for the nasty prisoners on the lower levels.”

“Inside,” Jules clarified.

Ethan’s hands twisted together in his lap. “I mean… strange… it’s… not having the dementors is…” He looked around the room, at Jules, Remus, Andromeda, Jules again, the empty chair, the desk, the window overlooking the manor’s beautiful gardens. “I’d forgotten what this felt like.”

“Your first mind healer appointment is on Monday,” Andromeda said. Thank Merlin Dumbledore managed to get back to Chief Warlock so he and Kingsley could sign off on this early release. Ethan was a mess as it was without another few months inside. “Once a week is the minimum they recommend.”

“I’ll do two. I want to get better,” Ethan said.

Jules reached over and took his hand. “You’re needed.”

Ethan smiled, but it was humorless, joyless. Andromeda supposed that was to be expected. You didn’t recover from Azkaban in a day. “I know. I’m… grateful. The guards—they wouldn’t tell me what’s happened, how Albus got back to Chief Warlock… what’s been going on?”

Remus took a steadying breath. “There was a battle at the Ministry. We let it slip Jules was going to go to the Department of Mysteries, in the hopes of drawing You-Know-Who out to get him. It was supposed to be Tonks who took Jules’ place using her abilities—” and if he thought Andromeda missed his miniscule pause before her daughter’s name, he was very wrong—“but Jules decided he wouldn’t let anyone take the risk on for him.”

“Your dad would be proud,” Ethan said quietly.

Jules attempted a smile. It came off forced.

“Jules and Ronald rather cleverly pretended to slip and reveal details of the plan in front of a young Slytherin from the Crabbe family who of course passed word on to the Death Eaters,” Andromeda said. What they would be able to accomplish if they could realistically kidnap one of those children… “We knew it had been discovered when Yaxley insisted on accompanying us to Hogwarts to fetch Jules, so we came up with an alternate plan. We insisted Hadrian come so that we would have a decoy.”

Jules scowled. Andromeda raised her eyebrows at him. “You know it was the best alternative.”

“You used my brother as bait.”

“To save you? Yes,” Andromeda said. “I would give my own life for yours. You are the Boy Who Lived.”

“When I was a baby.” Jules looked mulish. “No one even knows what I did.”

“Albus does,” Ethan said.

Jules sneered and for a second he looked alarmingly like his brother. “Well, he’s not telling, so that’s not exactly useful, is it?”

“As I was saying,” Andromeda cut in, “we insisted that Hadrian come as well. But things got out of control at the Ministry and the boys were chased into the bowels of the Department of Mysteries alone.”

“Meanwhile their friends at the school rallied,” Remus said with a strained grin. “Gryffindors and Slytherins working together.”

“All four Houses,” Jules pointed out.

Ethan nodded. “Impressive loyalty. Then again, Slytherins are very loyal, to their own.” He shot a smile at Andromeda.

“There was a bit of a showdown with Umbridge. Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley led her to the Forbidden Forest by convincing her there’d been a weapon they were designing out in the woods for Albus.”

“Granger,” Ethan said. “The Muggle-born, friends with Hadrian?”

“That’s the one,” Remus said.

“She was in our Defense group,” Jules said.

Ethan frowned. “Was that smart?”

“They hate Umbridge as much as we do,” Jules said. His lips twisted. “Even Theo Nott seemed like he had it out for her… then again maybe it’s an act. They’re friends with Hermione and Finch-Fletchley, though, and I don’t think it can all be fake.”

“You’d be surprised how manipulative Slytherins can be,” Andromeda said.

Jules shrugged. “You’re all right.”

“This is a little beside the point, isn’t it?” Remus said, resting a hand on Jules’ shoulder. “After… you know.”

“What?” Ethan’s eyes flickered between them, sharp and watchful. He missed, Andromeda thought, even less than he had before Azkaban.

“I’m getting there,” she said. “Hadrian and Jules’ friends rode thestrals to the Ministry.”

Ethan twitched. “Who thought of that?”

“I think Luna,” Jules said. “Lovegood.”

“The Lovegoods have always been batty,” Ethan muttered. “But effective, I’ll give her that.”

“They arrived at the Ministry and went haring off after the fight,” Andromeda said. “Details get a bit hazy at this point. The two groups split up, different people found one another and fought back against the Death Eaters—essentially the teenagers were being hunted through the Department of Mysteries and trying to survive until we could fight their way through and our reinforcements arrived. Eventually we all ended up in the Death Room.”

“The what now?”

“I doubt the DOM’s secrets have ever been so thoroughly exposed,” Remus said drily. “They have a room called the Death Room where they study this veil that supposedly leads to wherever we go when we die. It’s…”

“Disturbing,” Jules said with a shudder. His eyes slid away until he was looking somewhere else. “Harry and I found it when we were looking for th—a hiding place. It…”

He trailed off. Ethan caught Andromeda’s gaze for a second and she knew he’d caught what she had. Jules had almost said something very different from hiding place, something prefaced with the. He was referring to something specific.

“It’s disturbing,” Andromeda said briskly. “The fight centered around it, on this sort of round set of risers with the veil on a dais in the bottom of the room. It was a chaotic mess. Smoke everywhere, Death Eaters in masks, no one knew who they were fighting. Half the Order were called in short notice and still thought Nymphadora had taken Jules’ place and didn’t realize we had the teenagers there.” Kingsley had been freaking out over almost attacking Hadrian at one point. Part of Andromeda wished the Slytherin had been accidentally killed by friendly fire. It would solve a lot of issues.

Ethan swallowed. “And… James?”

“He and—Sirius and James and Andromeda were dueling Bellatrix,” Remus went on.

“All three?”

Andromeda had to work to keep her hands still. “I… don’t know who was fighting whom.”

Ethan looked her dead in the eyes. “There’s no way Bellatrix was holding off all three of you,” he said in a measured voice. “Unless she wasn’t.”

“She—” Andromeda choked on her own voice.

Sirius. Her cousin. Blacks never turn on one another, her mother had taught her, and Andromeda hadn’t, no matter how badly things went. Even during the first war Narcissa had kept up her annual visit to Paris, where she spent one week alone touring art museums and visiting Muggle orchestras. She’d have been an easy target; not even Lucius knew of her penchant for Muggle art and she was unguarded on her forays into the nonmagical world. It would have been a golden opportunity for information and ransom. The Order never learned of it. Nor did they ever know that Andromeda was still written into the wards in the home their parents left Bellatrix. One for each daughter, they’d decided, medium-sized but well-appointed homes near magical communities, and once upon a time the sisters had sworn that all three houses would be as if they belonged to all of them.

So no, Blacks didn’t turn on one another. Andromeda couldn’t force out the words. Ethan heard them, though, knew what she meant by her silence, saw in her heavy gaze the chaos of that fight and the way Sirius’ spells had flown not for Bellatrix but for James.

Jules looked between them. “What? You don’t mean…”

“I do,” Ethan said softly. His eyes glittered. “What happened then, Andromeda?”

Remus cleared his throat. “One of Sirius’ spells hit James. A Stunner.”

“Stunners don’t kill.”

“He fell through the Veil,” Jules whispered. His eyes closed.

He’d seen it, Andromeda knew. She hadn’t, too busy fending off her sister.

“Jules went after Sirius,” Remus said. “Chased him out of the Department while the rest of us were busy cleaning up. Dumbledore arrived right about the time James—fell, tied up the leftover Death Eaters and helped us sort things out. By the time we caught up, Harry and Jules had blown half the Atrium to pieces. Harry stopped Jules from going after Sirius through the Floo.”

“He defended Black after Black killed James.” Ethan’s eyes narrowed.

“In fairness, James was no father to him,” Andromeda said. James’ greatest mistake had been sending that boy away. He was powerful, intelligent, cunning, and fiercely loyal. He might have been Jules’ closest confidante, advisor, and friend, if things had gone differently. Instead they had to deal with a potential new enemy. “Whereas Sirius is everything he’s ever had for a family.”

Jules frowned.

“You’re not family to him,” Andromeda said bluntly. She and Remus had their differences, she and Ethan had—fewer differences, but one thing they all agreed on was that Jules and Harry needed to be split apart. “You have to realize that, Jules. Harry grew up in a negligent, abusive household. He sees family as who he chooses, not his blood relations, and frankly, you treated him awfully for years.”

“I know,” Jules protested. “I’m trying…”

“It’s too late.” Andromeda had learned the choose your family lesson too late, and not well enough. Harry—well. It was obvious that familial sentiment meant nothing to him. “And if there was any chance, you’ve wrecked it now.”

“Your fight,” Ethan guessed.

Jules’ shoulders curled in around his body like the edges of a wilting leaf. When he spoke his voice was small and miserable. “I told him I… wished he’d stayed with those Muggles. Said he deserved what they’d done to him.”

“Oof,” Ethan said.

“Yeah.” Remus leaned over and wrapped an arm around Jules’ shoulders, who leaned grudgingly into him.

“No coming back from that,” Ethan said.

Jules’ hands twisted together and he said nothing.

“It’s okay,” Ethan said quietly “Jules. Look at me.”

Jules looked up.

“Harry was your brother once, but no longer. He’s most likely been illegally blood adopted to the Blacks, he’s a Slytherin who’s befriended Death Eaters, his adoptive father killed James, and he stopped you bringing Black to justice.”

“Twice, if you count their lawyer friend wringing those pardons out of the Minister,” Andromeda put in.

Ethan leaned forward and Remus’ arm fell away from Jules’ shoulders as Jules instinctively shifted to meet Ethan halfway. Ethan’s hands fell heavily on Jules’ shoulders. “You need to let him go.”

Remus looked away.

“I don’t want to,” Jules said quietly, pleadingly. “I don’t… I want to apologize.”

“The things we say in the heat of anger,” Andromeda said softly, “we mean them. On some level, what you said to him was true.”

“It wasn’t. I don’t think that!”

And, oh, Andromeda knew he didn’t, knew exactly what it was like to be so furious and desperate and wounded that you lashed out and said something, anything, to reduce someone else to the same state of agony. She knew those were the moments you spit lies designed to tear people to shreds. She knew it was worst between siblings who could find one another’s weakest places and stab them there as if with goblin steel. But Jules didn’t know that, and she could not tell him.

Holding on to your siblings, in a war, didn’t work. The Black sisters’ bonds had been shattered by the first war and they grew up as close as sisters could be. Andromeda needed to cut Jules away from Harry before he made the same mistake she had and tried to keep believing in someone who was already gone. It risked their cause and it risked critical information.

It would wreck Jules, and they needed him whole.

So she looked him in the eyes. “Yes, you do, and you know it,” Andromeda said.

Jules held her gaze and she saw his resolve crumple. Saw him believe her.

She’d almost never lied harder in her life.

***

Ethan

They told him about Umbridge breaking down, Fudge being ousted, Kingsley’s coup and the carefully worded referendum which would allow him indefinite and unprecedented power. They told him about the political battles and manor searches and dementor containment—as if he hadn’t noticed that over fifty dementors spent two hours cramped into a wing of the prison that was only supposed to have one of the damn things at a given time. They told him about conscription and Albus being reinstated as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and the Death Eaters who’d been thrown back in Azkaban, including Lucius Malfoy.

They told him about Mum, growing weaker by the day. They told him James and Remus and then just Remus had been to see her once a week as they promised. They told him she had stopped recognizing his friends by March. They told him he wasn’t allowed to see her until the mind healers declared him stable.

Ethan pretended he wasn’t three seconds from fighting his way into St. Mungo’s, mind healers and prison sentences be damned.

Jules

“I have to train.”

Moody sat back slowly and his recovered magical eye scanned up and down Jules’ body. “You are training. With several Aurors, and your little club at school.”

Jules shook his head. “I have to really train. I have the whole summer. I’ve done dueling lessons with Dad—that’s not training for a fight, for a battle. That at the Ministry was like nothing I’ve ever been taught how to deal with. But you know.”

“Nymphadora Tonks was supposed to be my last apprentice. And only because she’s a Metamorphmagus,” Moody growled.

“I don’t care.” Jules flicked his wand into his hand, which did not shake, and offered it up to Moody. “Teach me.”

“Why?”

“I told you—”

“There’s another reason, isn’t there?” Moody’s magical eye roved over his face. “I can tell, boy, don’t lie to me. You’re holding back.”

Jules swallowed. “Harry can—can fight, not just duel. With Dark magic, more or less. When we fought—he was holding back. And then he wasn’t and I couldn’t win. I can’t even face my twin brother. And I have to be holding off Death Eaters. This war isn’t going to wait for me to graduate and go through Auror training and learn the normal way. I have to get better now.” He shoved the wand forward. “Please.”

Moody stared at him for the longest few seconds of Jules’ life.

“Fine,” he grunted, rising from his seat at one of the many desks set up in Potter Manor, de facto logistical center for the Order. “Keep that. Meet me by the pond in ten minutes. Your first lesson is now. Impress me, and you’ll get a second.”

***

Harry

Aiden Sullivan. Former Acting Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, now demoted to a regular elected representative since Dumbledore got himself reinstated. Relative of Ginny’s friend Finn Sullivan. Friend of another elected representative, Rufus Scrimgeour, who Harry had met at a Potter gala years before.

“And he wants to have dinner?” Harry repeated.

Sirius nodded. “Tonight. Seemed a bit spur of the moment, but I think it was only supposed to look casual. Scrimgeour was watching from the other side of the Wizengamot chambers—don’t think he knew I noticed.”

Harry looked back down at the paper in his hand. Sullivan had scribbled his Floo address on a bit of parchment. Berkshire House. “Who’s going to be there?”

“Finn,” Sirius said. “Friend of yours, he seemed to think?”

“Yeah, now a fifth year Slytherin, friends with Ginny. He was in the Defense club I ran last year,” Harry said.

“Nice. You planning to do that again, by the way?” Sirius waggled his eyebrows.

Harry laughed. “I think so, yeah. It was really fun, and I think it helped a lot of people.”

“Well, good that you know Finn. Have you met his parents? They’ll be there too—Aiden’s cousin Allen Sullivan, and his wife Kayley.”

“What’s her family?” Harry said.

Sirius shook his head. “Muggle-born.”

Interesting. He hadn’t known Finn was halfblood—not that it mattered, but there were enough blood purists left in Slytherin that the house usually knew the blood status of all its members. Either Finn was hiding it on purpose or he was just too politically unimportant for people to care. Harry suspected the latter. “So we’re invading their family dinner?”

“Scrimgeour and his wife Elizabeth, born Gable, are invited too.”

“Then it isn’t a friendly thing,” Harry said.

Sirius smiled wide enough to show his canines. “Nope. Political.”

“Should be fun. Leave around six?”

“Sounds good.” Sirius plucked at his Wizengamot robes. “I need to go get these things off. They’re ridiculously heavy.”

“Casual or formal dress?” Harry said, following Sirius out of the study.

“Eh… more casual than formal, I think,” Sirius said. “Does it matter?”

“Probably not too much.”

Harry went downstairs to his room and spent a few minutes sorting through his clothes. Not too formal, but still nice, still respectable. He chose blue robes with a split down the front to show brown trousers, a popular style in the summers, since increased airflow helped the robes’ built-in temperature regulation charms keep him cool.

Someone knocked lightly on his door. Harry tugged the robes into place and called out for them to enter.

The door swung open and Graham inched into the room. “Where’re you going?”

“Hey, Graham. Finn’s,” Harry said.

Graham took in the robes. “Not a friendly visit?”

“Good eyes. Nope. Politics.” Harry glanced in the mirror and started hitting his hair with charms to calm it down and make sure it stayed that way all night. “Have a guess?”

“Uh… Finn’s, what, second cousin? Isn’t he on the Wizengamot?”

“Yep, elected representative.”

“So not too much power, but still a good position. Is… does he want to ally with Sirius or something?”

“Here’s hoping.” Harry stowed his wand. “Another elected rep, Rufus Scrimgeour, will be there too, and Finn’s parents. Elizabeth Scrimgeour and Finn’s parents aren’t directly involved in politics, so it’s not technically a business dinner…”

“But it is,” Graham finished. He grinned. “Guess that’s why we weren’t invited.”

“Yeah… actually.” Harry felt for his bond to Eriss and pushed a desire for Alekta down it. She’d be able to chivvy the bird out of Grimmauld Place’s owlery, tucked up below the roof and accessible only to the birds from outside. “I could write Aiden, see if Finn’s friend Graham might be able to join us at dinner.”

Graham hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I… Father would…”

“Your father can’t touch you now. Metaphorically or literally.”

“Still no,” Graham said, “but thanks. I just—I can’t.”

Harry didn’t understand, but then, families made little sense to him. Graham would hopefully grow out of this illogical tendency to cling to a family that had abandoned him just because of biology. He shoved a never mind at Eriss and said, “That’s fine, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Okay.” Graham lingered until Harry had gotten his hair sorted and his glasses in place, then trailed after him down the stairs, where Harry met Sirius in the kitchen.

“Spiffy,” Sirius said. “Graham, you coming?”

“No thanks,” Graham said.

Sirius shrugged and stepped into the fireplace. “Right, we’ll see you later, then. Berkshire House!”

He vanished into the Floo system and Harry took a pinch of glittering powder. “Try not to blow anything up with Fred and George’s pranks.”

“Will do,” Graham said with a grin he seemed to have copied straight off the twins.

When Harry stepped out of the Floo (smoothly, thank Merlin), Sirius was already exchanging pleasantries with Aiden Sullivan. He broke off whatever he’d been saying and half-turned to lay a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Here he is. My godson and Heir, Hadrian Black.”

“Well met, Heir Black.” Sullivan held out a hand. His handshake was firm but made no attempt to establish dominance the way Vernon used to complain about when he met other businessmen; Harry supposed wizards didn’t rely so much on physical interactions.

“Well met,” Harry said. He was an Heir, which afforded him respect and an automatic place at these sorts of dinners, but with his Head of House present, decorum required that he defer to Sirius and their host.

Sirius had been trained in these rules since birth, and followed them with an ease Harry wondered if he’d ever be able to gain. “Is this a family property?”

“One of several,” Sullivan said, leading them through his entry hall. It was a fairly typical space from what Harry knew of wizarding architecture: tasteful, tall and narrow, lined with family portraits and exuding an air of old comfort. The portraits eyed them and whispered as Sullivan walked past. “We’ve tended to invest in real estate. The Head and their family still live in the main house, in London, but there’s plenty of properties for all the Sullivan branches.”

Harry tuned out Sirius’ response, which spent a little more time on the details of wizarding real estate portfolios than Harry cared to know about. He paid attention to details of the Blacks’ properties, obviously, but otherwise he considered investments in things like real estate to be the business of their account manager. Magical contracts were glorious: he could trust Gringotts to manage them in the Black’s best interest and focus on his own projects.

Instead he looked around the house, to keep himself occupied, while Sullivan led them through the entrance hall, a stately ground-floor sitting room, and into their dining hall. They’d gone for dark woods, honey varnishes, and yellow-and-gold accents for a decoration scheme. The walls in the sitting room were painted a delicate eggshell white rather than the dark colors of Grimmauld Place’s wallpaper. It also contained many more windows. Harry found himself mildly intrigued by the difference in atmosphere between Grimmauld Place and Berkshire House.

“The Scrimgeours aren’t here yet,” Sullivan said as they stepped into the dining room, “but I believe you know Finn, Hadrian?”

“I do. Hi, Finn,” Harry said.

“Hey, Harry,” Finn said with a smile that was eighty percent polite, twenty percent conspiratorial.

“And my cousin, Allen Sullivan, and his wife Kayley.”

“Well met,” Sirius said, offering them a respectful half-bow. “Sirius Orion Lord Black.”

“Well met,” the unfamiliar couple murmured. Allen was the spitting image of Finn in a few decades, complete with the gap in his teeth, the freckles, and the clever glint in his eyes. Kayley had clearly given Finn his straw-colored hair and warm smile. She came around the table and clasped first Sirius’ and then Harry’s hands, led them to the table, and engaged Harry in a conversation about his schoolwork so smoothly that he barely noticed the transition from standing to sitting. When he caught on he kept his admiration well-hidden but began to turn the conversation around, plying her with questions about her work as a tutor to pureblood children. Finn chimed in with stories about his days under a tutor and Allen talked about his travels while working for the International Confederation of Wizards. Harry managed to keep the conversation flowing in that vein while Sirius and Aiden spoke idly of their Wizengamot colleagues’ latest gossip.

They had been talking and sipping wine for about thirty minutes before Aiden stopped midsentence, excused himself, and left to greet the Scrimgeours, alerted by the wards that they were on their way in the Floo.

Rufus Scrimgeour walked into the room and brought an unmistakable air of power with him. Harry found himself unconsciously sitting straighter in the man’s presence, some instinct telling him to watch his step. Years ago, at the gala, he’d been too young to really notice—this kind of power wasn’t evident to a prepubescent boy accustomed to the power plays of Muggle public schools. Now, groomed by five years in Slytherin, he felt it as keenly as a blade.

Sirius and Scrimgeour shook hands with the familiarity of work colleagues who were not friends. Something in their manner hinted of circling predators, both curious if the other wanted a truce or a fight.

“My Lady Elizabeth Scrimgeour, Head of our House,” Scrimgeour said. Harry noted to himself that though his wife was the family Head, Rufus Scrimgeour had introduced her, since he already knew their company. It was these sorts of little rules that Finn would take for granted and Harry still needed to make habit.

“Well met, Lord Black. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Elizabeth Scrimgeour said, tilting her head in response to Sirius’ half-bow. “Lovely to see you, Aiden, Allen, Kayley.”

The Sullivans got their greetings out of the way, and then Rufus turned his attention on Harry.

“I believe you’ve met my Heir, Hadrian Black,” Sirius said.

That was Harry’s cue: he rose and stepped forward, offering his hand with a polished smile and practiced “Well met”.

“I have, though you bore a different name,” Scrimgeour said in his laconic drawl. “Well met, Heir Black. I must say, your new station suits you rather better than your last.”

“So I’ve heard,” Harry said with a curving smile designed to invite its recipient to join him in a joke. Scrimgeour and Elizabeth both returned an expression that said they knew exactly what he was doing as he shook their hands. That was all right. He hadn’t meant to fool them, just to charm them by matching their level of social control. They would be amused by the teenage Heir exploring the grown-ups’ game; they would see him as a future player; they would congratulate themselves on spotting his deliberate charm but think no less of him for it.

Elizabeth and Kayley deftly shifted the party back to the table while they caught up. Harry watched them as subtly as he could and decided this was a real friendship.

Rufus and Aiden’s dynamic was harder to figure out. Harry put himself on small-talk autopilot and watched them throughout the meal. No real topics ever came up, nothing more involved in politics than personal dramas and minor scandals, but there was an undercurrent of something rushing around between the adults at the table. Awareness of the unspoken nundu in the room. Finn was aware of it too but didn’t care. He was clearly used to listening in on these kinds of not-negotiations.

By the time they got to dessert, he’d guessed Rufus and Aiden were actually friends, but that they’d be closer if they weren’t in the same political body. Aiden seemed to like focusing on welfare policies from what Harry had read of Wizengamot transcripts. Rufus had a ruthlessly pragmatic approach to the arguments he made on the floor. It showed here, in the way Rufus seized the conversation and dragged it where he wanted to go, while Aiden tried to slow things down and include the entire table. Watching their power struggle was at least as amusing as seeing Sirius stuck between his duty to deal with the adults and his desire to slide down towards the foot of the table and jump into Finn’s bright chattering conversation. Harry was equal parts proud of his restraint and incredibly frustrated that Sirius didn’t enjoy his position more.

The last bite of perfect crème brûlée slid down Kayley’s smooth throat and Harry felt the atmosphere in the room shift.

Finn tossed Harry a cocky little wink across the table. They think we don’t listen, his eyes seemed to say. Harry grinned back at him. He’d be pointing out later that Finn’s parents were acutely aware of how closely their son listened, and how they’d made him intensely curious and involved in their politics by dint of implying he was too young to understand.

Elizabeth opened with a falsely even comment about the fine the Viridians had had to pay last week in the manor raids.

“Appalling, is what it is,” Sirius grumbled. “Harry, what was it they got fined for?”

“A few books, same as us. Iris tells me they managed to hide their rarest copies but got hit with some things they hadn’t known were illegal.”

“Clever of the DMLE,” Kayley observed. “Making things so nebulous.”

“Bloody infuriating that bill passed. I’ve been trying to think how to break the current majority bloc for a month, and I can’t come up with anything.” Scrimgeour accepted a glass of whiskey on the rocks from a house-elf with a nod and sipped it. The alcohol did nothing to burn the scowl from his face.

“I’d have suggested reaching out to the traditionalists, but…” Allen trailed off because none of them needed an explanation as to why that wouldn’t work.

Sirius fiddled with his fork, then put it down a bit too decisively when Elizabeth cast a politely scathing look at his fidget. He’d been raised to this but he was not, Harry thought, a natural. He was also about to cut straight through Rufus and Aiden’s well-trained conversational tap-dancing. Harry recognized that set of Sirius’ shoulders and had to swallow a smile.

“Let’s cut to the chase here, if we may. You wish to convince me to bring House Black’s resources firmly to your side in opposition to the Light.”

For a few seconds there was silence. Finn had an elbow on the table and a hand over his mouth that one might think was rudeness if they didn’t know he’d been raised with better manners, or if they didn’t recognize the silent delighted laughter crinkling the skin around his eyes. Harry tossed Finn a wink across the table.

“Well put,” Kayley said, setting down her wine glass. “That is, I’ve gathered, the point of this little tête à tête.”

“Not that we were expecting it to be said so bluntly,” Aiden said into his tumbler.

Sirius laughed his short, barking laugh. “You invited a Gryffindor to your table, Aiden, what were you expecting?”

“Someone more mature than James Potter,” Rufus said. His leonine eyes peered out at Sirius with something between curiosity and guardedness.

“Well, that you’ve gotten, because as it happens I would be happy to form such an alliance.”

The silence was even heavier this time. No one knew how to break it, clearly, so Harry decided he might as well take the opportunity to carve out a place for himself in the conversation. “Albus Dumbledore and James Potter abandoned me to the Muggles and Sirius to Azkaban. Did you really think you’d have to work to convince either of us to oppose them?”

Rufus’ heavy gaze shifted to Harry. He imagined that if he hadn’t been carrying the weight of Slytherins’ expectations, Gryffindors’ scorn, his father’s contempt, and Dumbledore’s piercing observation, Harry might have quailed under those eyes. Instead he met and held Rufus’ gaze as squarely as he could without seeming rude.

“You, we considered a wild card.” The quick slide of Aiden’s eyes to Finn gave him away: he’d gotten intel from his cousin’s son, and he hadn’t known what to do about the wayward former Potter, eyeballs-deep in Slytherin politics and Dark magic. “Lord Black, we couldn’t quite… well, you understand.”

Sirius shrugged. “Sure I do. But we can skip the bullshit now. There’s not much we can do in the Wizengamot at the moment, but I’ll vote against the Light like I’ve been doing, and I’ll stand with you against all their idiotic policies. Including the conscription one for Azkaban.”

Rufus grimaced. “Oh, tell me about it. I’ve been deluged with owls from my constituents—I’ve had to set up an owl ward so they go to my study instead of following me around all day, or we’d have had half a dozen just during this meal.”

“Might’ve been entertaining if one of them spat a curse at you over steak,” Elizabeth said. The smile she gave her husband over the table was steely, but somehow also fond. Harry watched them, the different but equal kinds of power they wielded, the way their words and body language fitted together and flowed around one another. If you weren’t looking you’d never notice the perfect partnership.

Harry had grown up watching Petunia snipe at Vernon, watching Vernon talk over her at the table, internalizing all the tiny ways they undermined each other when it counted. Their neighbors weren’t much better: they were the worst that asinine Muggle middle-class suburbia had to offer, all competing with each other and pretending humility so no one could tell them to shut up about their mediocre children’s exaggerated accomplishments. Hazel and Vanessa were easy together but young, too. He’d never seen this kind of marriage. Never realized how a romantic partnership could age like fine wine. Something in Harry’s chest ached. He wanted this and hated that he wasn’t certain he was capable of it.

He only realized he’d completely lost track of the conversation when a sudden rustle of movement snapped him out of it. Sirius was getting up from the table and good-byes were being passed around. Probably people would’ve dismissed his silence as an Heir following protocol slightly stricter than absolutely necessary, and sitting out. Rufus knew better, though; his attention lay on Harry like a scratchy sweater Harry couldn’t shake off, right up until they stepped into the Floo and reemerged in Grimmauld Place’s brightly-lit kitchen.

“You good there?” Sirius said, squinting at Harry’s face. “I thought that went rather well, but you look, ah, a bit peaky.”

“Fine,” said Harry around a lump in his throat. Then he remembered this was Sirius and he didn’t have to be so careful. It still hurt a little, forcing the words out, but he managed. “How do you have a… how do you make something like Rufus and Elizabeth have?”

Sirius sat down slowly at the table and waited until Harry had done the same. Witchlight burned warmly over their heads and even though there were no windows in the underground kitchen it felt bright and welcoming, cozy and warm. Harry felt as home here as in the Slytherin dormitories, and safer. “You mean, without a good example?”

Harry nodded jerkily. Merlin. This was so unfathomably stupid. It wasn’t like he had given too much thought to romance before, even when his friends were dabbling in it and mostly failing: why now? This didn’t even matter. There was a war brewing.

“Beats me.” Sirius dug one fingernail into a scar of unknown origin on the table’s worn surface. “I never had a great example either. The Potters, I guess, came closest… I only spent a couple of summers there, didn’t want to impose so I moved out once I hit seventeen. But—near as I can tell, it comes down to communication, and work. It doesn’t just happen, okay? You have to—try, and keep trying, and keep talking to the other person, and then if they say they don’t want it, you have to let them go.”

That last bit Harry knew well. Oh, he knew how to let people go, how to hold them at bay with slippery words and fake, polished smiles, how to harden his heart until they bounced off its shiny shell without a dent. He was too good at keeping people out, not good enough at letting them in. All these years and he could count on two hands the number of people he trusted enough to even hypothetically consider dating, and he had no idea if he had or could develop sexual interest in any of them.

Then again, this probably wasn’t supposed to be easy. He just—it had almost ruined his and Daphne’s friendship, and then he’d stopped thinking about it without even realizing it, and now he’d seen what he wanted but wasn’t sure he’d ever get and he couldn’t stop himself thinking about it anymore.

Sirius’ hands covering his snapped Harry out of the spiral. He was suddenly and intensely grateful to his godfather for having the sense not to hug him in that moment. “Hey. It’ll be all right. You’ll find someone, yeah? And if you don’t, your friends’ll be there for you, and that’s as precious as a romance.”

“I know,” Harry said. Breathe, he told himself. Breathe. In, out. In, out.

Sirius sat there with him in silence until Harry’s breathing steadied, and then he started rambling about the conversation and the Wizengamot and Harry would be paying more attention but he just relaxed under the torrent of words that had nothing to do with emotions. He was fifteen-almost-sixteen and he had decades to figure that out. It was fine. It would be fine. He had Sirius and his friends and Eriss and he would be fine.

It took Eriss winding herself around him and hissing reassurances into his ear for Harry to fall asleep that night.

***

Pansy

There was something soothing about the way heels clicked when she walked. Pansy had hated them when she was younger, because they hurt, but she loved them now, because she’d grown used to them and she associated them with the magicless kind of power that was her specialty. Even just going over to Greengrass Manor meant she slid her feet into three-inch pastel blue stilettos chosen with as much care as her fitted, lightweight summer robes. Most witches used Cushioning Charms in their shoes, but Pansy special ordered hers with no magic on them. Dangerous things, she believed, should not be comfortable: otherwise she would grow careless and entitled.

“Pansy?”

Pansy’s smile was as genuine as it was practiced. “Hi, Roxanne. Good to see you.”

“You, too. Hermione and Astoria are out with the horses but Daphne’s upstairs somewhere,” Roxanne said.

Pansy knew her way around this home; she’d spent too much time here not to. It still wasn’t comfortable, exactly. There was a layer of ice under Roxanne Greengrass’ warm maternal surface and Pansy had never been able to relax in her home. She knew, from Daphne, that Roxanne had clawed her way up to the top of her family’s sphere of influence and kicked down any challengers. At sixteen, Pansy considered Roxanne with a mix of wariness and admiration. At six, she’d just been afraid.

Daphne’s rooms were on the third floor of the east wing. Pansy knew her heels announced her presence in the hallway, which was fine; she wasn’t trying to hide. She wasn’t nervous about hanging out with Daphne without Hermione or one of the boys there to balance things out. She wasn’t.

“Pansy, hi. Hermione and Astoria are out with the horses,” Daphne said, looking up with a grin when Pansy pushed open the door to her sitting room. “Why are you laughing?”

“Your mum said almost the exact same thing,” Pansy said, sitting down into the armchair she liked best. “Except, you know, without the smile.”

“With a fake smile,” Daphne corrected.

Pansy flicked her fingers. “Same difference.”

Daphne snorted. “True. Did you see what Luna made?”

Pansy shook her head.

“These dress robes.” Daphne held up the offending article of clothing, and Pansy’s eyes widened: it looked like water, or maybe ice, in the shape of a gown. Like it should be see-through but somehow wasn’t. “She didn’t even include a note, I just recognized her owl. Stupid thing always tries to eat my hair.”

“It’s lovely,” Pansy said. “It’s very you.”

Daphne’s lips twisted slightly. “Slytherin’s ice queen?”

“Well, you are.”

“Ha. True enough. It looks like it’ll fit,” Daphne said, eyeing the robes critically.

Pansy swallowed the things she wanted to say about ice queens and cruel kings and the Slytherin hierarchy and how Harry and Daphne seemed designed to step into those roles side by side. In her head they looked like a storybook painting, contrasting but matching. In her head jealousy made it easy to think of all the poison she could spit.

But this was Daphne, her friend and fellow Viper, so Pansy refrained. “Of course it’ll fit. It’s Luna. She probably sent fairies to measure your sizes in your sleep. You can wear it to a Yule party or something. You’ll terrify everyone.”

“I do that already,” Daphne said with exaggerated haughtiness that made her statement no less true.

“How’s your mum this summer?” Pansy said carefully. It was only mid-June, they’d only been home a short while, but—well, Daphne rarely spoke about her parents during the school year. Pansy noticed things.

Daphne shrugged and carefully laid the robes aside. “She’s… brittle.”

That said a lot. Pansy nodded and changed the subject. Conversations were like water, and could be redirected fairly easily if you spent enough time paying attention to how they flowed. If Daphne didn’t want to talk about that, Pansy would make sure they talked about something else.

Ten minutes later, Daphne blurted out “She’s worried” in the middle of a story Pansy was telling about two goblins her father worked with. Pansy stopped and waited.

Daphne took a deep breath. Her hands twisted together in her lap. “About—about this war, and me, and all of us.”

“Understandable.”

“Mhm. She—I think she’s afraid of me losing what she’s built for me,” Daphne said. She lay back and stared at the ceiling. “The family, the influence, the—she couldn’t marry for love. She married for the House, and she raised me to be—like her, but better, so I could push back against our world hard enough that I’d have room to marry who and when and how I wanted. So I’ll be at the top and our House with me. But—if I stand with Harry, I don’t… she’s not sure we’ll come out on top, I guess.”

“It’s Harry,” Pansy said, “and he’s got all of us with him. We’ll be fine.”

“I know that. Mother doesn’t. Do your parents even care?”

“They didn’t even want me going into politics,” Pansy said. Her lips curled in a sneer she didn’t try to hide. She loved her parents, and Mum was a powerhouse, but she hated political games for all she was good at them and planned to step down in favor of a proxy as soon as Pansy graduated. “They don’t care, so long as I stay alive to carry the House. And they’re young. They can always make another Heir.”

Daphne sat upright and stared at her. “Have they told you that?”

“No! Of course not,” Pansy said with a slight grimace. “No, they’re—decent parents, they wouldn’t. But I know they know that. You at least have Astoria to take over.”

“I never want her to,” Daphne admitted.

Pansy nodded. That was fair. Daphne carried the burden of Roxanne Greengrass’ expectations because she’d been doing so her whole life and that left her strong enough to take it. She couldn’t tip it all onto Astoria now; they both knew she would falter.

“I’ve never seen her afraid,” Daphne said. The words came out breathy, quiet, sounding like surrender.

Pansy went and curled next to her on the sofa. “Everyone is afraid.”

Daphne leaned her head on Pansy’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

Eventually Hermione and Astoria came back inside, windswept and dirty. Daphne fussed over the stains on Hermione’s robes while Hermione complained about how the horses all seemed to hate her and Astoria laughed. Pansy felt like a little bit of an outsider. It was a familiar feeling. Pure blood counted for less when everyone you knew had it, and in her tutoring classes as a kid, she’d been magically the weakest. She’d been silent while Draco Malfoy and Theo Nott and Celesta Fawley and Margot Kinney had bragged about their accidental magic. She’d gone to Hogwarts with resentment curling behind her poisonous smile, sure of her place in Slytherin, ready to take on all of them to prove that being an untalented witch wouldn’t make Pansy worthless.

Mostly she was over it now. Mostly. Pansy knew full well she was pretty if not beautiful, and clever if not gifted with a wand. Moments like this it still came back, though. Daphne, lethal and cold; Hermione, the brightest witch of her age. A prodigy for all she’d never known about magic until she was eleven. Of course they were close. Of course Hermione had folded easily into this family; of course Astoria looked at Hermione almost the same way she did Daphne.

Then Daphne turned around and grabbed Pansy’s arm and yanked her into their circle— “Pansy, for Circe’s sake, tell Hermione she cannot wear Eleanora Fawley robes to ride horses, I don’t know if even the elves can get these stains out” —and some tight knot in Pansy’s chest eased. She joined the happy high-volume argument and when Hermione and Astoria weren’t looking she met Daphne’s eyes and tried to convey gratitude.

Chapter 4

Theo

Death Eaters were not his favorite sort of people.

Theo nodded and smiled politely at the guests dirtying his manor. Allies of the Dark Lord’s, all of them; and every last one invited here by the same. Ostensibly it was for safety but Theo knew perfectly well this rabble had never lived anywhere half so nice as Nott Manor and that it was being dangled as an employee benefit. Where Voldemort was finding so many utter lowlifes with a taste for violence and susceptibility to gold, Theo didn’t know. The wizarding world was not that large.

Yet here they were, eating the Notts’ food and tracking mud on the Notts’ floors and—Theo winced as a crash came from the dining hall—possibly breaking the Notts’ china.

Sure enough, this was followed up by a distantly heard reparo. My god, Theo thought, already altering his path from the library stairs, the idiots can’t even manage a wordless reparo as godsdamned adults.

He stalked into the dining hall. Seven faces turned towards him on a swivel: guilty, belligerent, smug. “Morning, gentlemen,” Theo said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Having fun, are we?”

“What d’you want, eh?” snapped one of them. The ringleader. Theo hadn’t bothered remembering any of their names; odds were half of them (and all men, honestly, it was disappointing) would be dead by the end of summer.

“I want you to stop breaking my things,” Theo said evenly.

Ringleader made a show of looking around at all the dishes on the table. Theo could not avoid looking anymore, either, and winced at the absolute mess of spilled food, scattered cutlery, and discarded dirty plates. He’d ordered the elves not to go anywhere near the dining room while these morons were eating after he caught Ringleader and one of the others casting crucio on Hinny for… well, no good reason that Theo could determine.

Theo had turned it back on them, of course, for daring to harm a bonded servant of the House of Nott; but there was no sense risking another such incident. The Dark Lord would be peeved if Theo tortured any of his little pawns into insanity.

“Don’t see nothin’ broken, do I?” Ringleader jeered. Theo shook off the violence that came so easily these days. “How ‘bout you, eh? Little nobby lad wants to know if we broke his mummy’s fancy plates.”

Apparently the cruciatus hadn’t taught them their lesson. Theo took another step into the room as Ringleader’s minions laughed obediently. Well, the Dark Lord was fond of the cruciatus as well: perhaps they were simply… desensitized to it.

Theo fancied himself more creative than that.

He flicked his wand and Ringleader cut off with a choke. His torso convulsed. The others petered off in confusion. Then, with a jerk, Ringleader collapsed to the floor and lay there flopping like a fish.

The others cried out and went for their wands, only to find them dead sticks in their hands.

Theo smiled. “Oh, didn’t we mention? The Manor is protective of its residents. Your magic won’t work here if I don’t want it to.”

“What’re yeh doin’ ter Rupert!” one of them bellowed.

“Nothing much.” Theo glanced over: a few long strings of drool hung out of Ringleader Rupert’s mouth. “He’ll be just fine.”

It was a healer’s charm in case someone ingested something toxic and needed to purge it. For most people, it would be a harsh but short-lived jinx—it caused vomiting but only until the stomach was empty.

Theo, however, had an advantage: his unusually delicate magic sense allowed him to feel the spell, cast and hold it at the same time, so that it never quite reached completion; the body never expelled anything, only convulsed, contractions rippling up and down the man’s esophagus, wracking his abdomen, drawing on and on and on—

“Please, my Lord,” gasped one of the new-marked Death Eaters, falling to his knees. “Please—it was me, I broke the plate, I’m sorry, only don’t—”

Theo ended the spell and slid his wand neatly away. Rupert the Ringleader finally vomited for real, spewing his half-digested meal across the stones. The other man shut his mouth with a click.

“Clean that up,” Theo said, pointing at the vomit, “and treat this place with respect. My elves deserve better than to spend their days in your filth.” He paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder at them; most terrified, but a few angry enough he knew the Dark Lord would be hearing about this, which was why Theo added, “and I am not your Lord. That is someone else, who would no doubt be… disappointed to learn that this is how his honored servants spend their days. Like Mudbloods wallowing with pigs.”

In the corridor, out of sight, Theo let himself slump against the wall and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.

Merlin, that had been satisfying. But—he couldn’t get them out. He could only do so much to curb them, when the Dark Lord himself ordered the Notts, and his other loyal Death Eaters, to play host.

Theo didn’t have a choice.

He missed Harry.

***

Harry

Quality Quidditch Supplies sold a range of protective eyewear with a range of sixteen possible colors for the straps, from a demure dark brass to a few shades of violent neon, waiting to be selected at home. The spell would only work once but it was a handy bit of customization. Not to mention, they were self-sizing, another enchantment that worked only once but made it easy to shop for other people—especially valuable in Harry’s case, as he had several wards at home to shop for. Sirius had been entertaining Graham, Rio, and Veronica for the day in his garage. Hopefully Harry didn’t go home and find them all covered in soot.

He rang up his purchases and checked his watch on the way out of the store. There was still almost an hour before he had to meet Sirius and Hazel for a discussion of House Black’s proxy, so he turned up the street towards Flourish and Blotts, which had a new book release event today.

As he walked, he turned over the political snarl facing them. The Blacks were an ancient House with allies, feuds, business partners, and grudges dating back centuries. One such feud was with the Ogdens. Some Black had snubbed some Ogden in the sixteen hundreds over an Abraxan mare they both wanted. Purebloods got hung up on the stupidest things sometimes. Harry was hoping he could convince Sirius to patch it up, though, because Tiberius was a powerhouse, and right now firmly in Dumbledore’s camp.

Not that Harry especially wanted Voldemort to win, just—he wasn’t all that fond of Dumbledore winning, either.

He was optimistic about the Ogdens. Sirius and Tiberius both liked expensive alcohol. Harry was pretty sure alliances had been born on much weaker common ground.

A familiar mane of hair caught his eye as soon as Harry stepped into Flourish and Blotts. “Hermione,” he called.

She looked up, blinked, and saw him. “Harry! Hello! Come see!”

Some things never change. All the decorum drilled into her by the Greengrasses was totally gone, and Hermione was practically bouncing in front of the display of books with covers featuring an eerie display of moving strings of numbers. “It’s Thomas Loving’s latest on occlumency for the arithmancer! I can’t believe it—he’s talking about a lot of the same ideas as you see in Muggle computer science, except written for the mind.”

Harry blinked, suddenly glad he’d come. “Oh. Well then. That’s… going to change some things. I wonder if you could use arithmancy to encrypt your mind, instead of shielding it using traditional Occlumency.”

“Merlin, I didn’t even think of that.” Hermione grinned. “I was… well, wondering about how much easier advanced Arithmancy would be.”

“Well, that too. Bookworm,” Harry said, with a teasing note in his voice.

Hermione blushed furiously. “Harry Black, are you flirting with me?”

“And what if I was?” Harry said.

“I know you’re not,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And anyway, I’m… taken. Possibly.”

“Oh?” Harry leaned up on the display and smirked. “Draco dearest finally found his bollocks, then?”

She laughed and then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Don’t be cruel.”

“Come on, everyone’s seen the way he looks at you. Pretty sure Daph and Theo had a bet on.”

“They did.” Hermione sighed. “Daphne won. Theo said Draco would’ve asked me by the end of fifth year. She’s been absolutely insufferable about it.” Then her eyes slid past Harry, over his shoulder, and she winced. “Don’t turn—”

It was too late. Harry’s eyes landed on the distinctive figures of Julian Potter and Ethan Thorne. Icy rage flooded his body and he couldn’t quite feel his fingers.

“Bollocks,” he heard Hermione whisper.

“Ah, Mr. Blotts!” Thorne beamed as one of the two owners hurried from the offices behind the checkout counters, just to the left of the entrance. They must have some kind of monitoring spell, Harry noted distantly, so they could hop to it as soon as an important person came in.

Mr. Blotts, a slightly pudgy man with ink-stained fingers, went up to them with an obsequious smile. Hands were shaken. Mr. Blotts led Jules straight to the New Releases shelf labeled Defensive Magicks, while Thorne followed along behind, hands in his pockets and a genial smile fixed on his face.

“Harry, just go,” Hermione hissed, “I’ll buy you a copy of the Loving book—”

“I’m not getting run out of a store just because of a couple of puffed-up toadstools,” Harry said, but quietly. He snatched several copies of the book and turned towards the counter.

Behind him, Hermione snarled, “God save me from Slytherin pride.” Her footsteps followed.

Harry did not so much as look in Jules and Thorne’s direction as he got in line for the counter. A display of wizarding fiction stood to his left, waiting to catch the eye of anyone queued up. One of the books on it was the latest in a series Harry knew Graham and Rio loved. He grabbed two copies of it—one for each—and then, to balance things out, he asked Hermione what she would recommend for Veronica and Dylan.

Looking at him the way you might a hippogriff of dubious temperament, Hermione quickly found a stand-alone mystery novel for Veronica and a collection of short stories for Dylan. She shoved them into Harry’s arms.

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate it,” Harry said tightly.

The line inched forward. Then again.

Harry stepped up to the checkout counter as soon as he could. A charming smile had the young wizard behind it blushing and avoiding eye contact. Hermione tapped her toes behind him, clutching her own copy of Occlumency Techniques for the Ambitious Arithmancer.

Harry’s grip on the books tightened as voices approached from behind.

“—keep up with new Defense releases.” Thorne.

“Not about to let Dark wizards get the better of me.” Julian, his voice hard.

Harry kept his eyes on the clerk. He was blushing still, looking between the Potters and Harry, and seemed to be trying to add up the books’ prices as quickly as he could.

“Naturally, naturally,” said Blotts. “Step this way, Heir Potter, I’m sure you have things to be doing, wouldn’t want you to wait—by any chance are you planning to take up your family’s Lordship soon?—Eddard, set those aside, would you, I’ve got the Boy Who Lived here—”

Sorry, Harry mouthed at Eddard, as Thorne and Jules came up on his right.

“Thank you, Mr. Blo—Harry?” Jules demanded.

Thorne glared, then looked suspiciously at the titles Harry was trying to gather into his bag. “Not reading up on the Dark Arts, are you?”

“I assure you, we carry nothing of the sort!” Mr. Blotts squawked.

Jules snatched one off the counter, already cracking the cover. “This is just fiction.”

“Yes,” Harry said tightly, “it is, and I’ll thank you not to rifle through my belongings.”

“Merlin, it’s just a kids’ book,” Thorne said, peering over Jules’ shoulder, “go on, Jules, give it back—not quite what I’d have expected of you, Harry, I hear quite some rumors about what you get up to at school, and I have every right to ensure you aren’t getting into things you—”

“I have not granted you leave to speak familiarly with me, Mr. Thorne.” Harry knew his voice was glacial and didn’t even try to dampen down his eyes. “You will refer to me as Heir Black or, and this is my personal preference, simply refrain from speaking to me at all. As for the books—” He snatched it back from Jules’ hand. “I’m buying gifts for my wards. Eddard, how much will it be?”

“Oh—er—” Eddard quailed under Blotts’ glare, but he squeaked out, “Two galleons, eight sickles, and twenty knuts, please, Heir B-Black.”

Harry began counting out coins.

“He’s not Heir Black, he’s adopted,” Jules snapped. “And what d’you mean, wards?”

“He is too Heir Black. Were you hiding under a rock for the last year? The family magics accepted him,” Hermione said from behind them all. Thorne spun around to stare at her but Harry ignored them all. If he could just pay and get out of here— “It’s enormously rude of you to treat a fellow Peer like this, Heir Potter.”

Jules had the grace to flush, but Thorne’s face darkened. “Right, we all know about that illegal blood adoption—”

“I recommend you stop talking unless you want to meet me before the Wizengamot on charges of libel against a Peer of the Realm.” Harry slapped the last galleon down on the counter. “Keep the change, Eddard, as an apology for having to put up with this little display.” He cut one last sneering glare at Thorne—ignoring Jules completely—and turned to go.

Once in the Alley proper, Harry tucked himself up against a building with a Notice-Me-Not and tried to get himself under control. The barest sight of James made him want to kill things. Actually conversing—seeing the casual entitlement as they skipped the queue, the way Jules thought it was acceptable to just grab Harry’s things, the way his once-brother had let Thorne talk to him—that seriously tested Harry’s discipline.

“You alright?” Hermione said, coming to stand next to him in a way that subtly but neatly shielded him from easy sight of the rest of the Alley.

“I will be.” Harry rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“He’ll come around. And if he doesn’t, he’s not your problem.”

Harry sighed. “Isn’t he, though? We were brothers, and… he’s grieving. I can make… allowances. It’s Thorne I can’t stand. How Jules tolerates him, let alone likes him…”

“Thorne was James’ best friend for most of Jules’ life, and is no doubt stepping into the absence James left,” Hermione said. “Also, Harry, you’ve made plenty of allowances for Jules’ behavior. It’s not as though being a Gryffindor inherently makes someone unable to appreciate and understand a Slytherin’s way of thinking. Case in point.” She tapped herself on the sternum.

“He’d see me and Sirius dead if he thought he could get away with it,” Harry muttered darkly.

“And you feel the same about him,” Hermione said.

Harry lifted his head and looked hard at her.

Hermione snorted. “I’m not an idiot, Harry Black. You are going to ruin that man’s life and I am going to help you. Which reminds me. You mentioned some… legislation that your, ah, tutor showed you. I want it.”

It took a few seconds to process all of that. “Okay, one, your help is appreciated because you are a bit scary, and two, why?”

“Because I am not an idiot.” Something not quite anger was hardening her face. “I can see you slipping away from a certain side of things. I consider you a friend and… and the Vipers are the first real group I’ve ever had. I can’t in good conscience follow you unless I believe in where you’re going.” She smirked. “I already owled the Wizengamot Administration Office about those old bills and voting records from the sixties. They sent me a polite no. So I made Daphne send the exact same letter. Copies will be arriving within the week.”

Harry let out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh if he were anyone else. “Only you, ‘Mione.”

“Owl me.” She poked him lightly in the shoulder, telegraphing every movement, which Harry appreciated. “And now you should be going home before those… people leave the store.”

As he walked away, Harry thought that Hermione and Barty would probably get on like a house on fire, if they managed not to kill each other.

<>

Harry spent the rest of the week swimming in correspondence. As Heir Black, he could simply write to people and expect an answer; on top of that, the House of Black received a constant stream of mail from businesses and researchers seeking investors, socialites and social climbers hoping to draft off the House’s prestige, and political players trying to feel out the unknown Sirius Black’s policies. Harry fielded most of it because Sirius hated the task of putting quill to parchment almost as much as he did attending the two Wizengamot sessions that were mandatory for sitting vote-holders every year.

One of which, in fact, was rapidly approaching. Litha, the summer solstice, the date of solstice rituals and a mandatory Wizengamot session, preceded on June twentieth by a variety of parties and balls. The most prestigious solstice event was being held at the Longbottom home this year.

The Longbottom crest glared up at Harry from the invitation.

Neville hadn’t spoken to him.

Harry couldn’t not go. He was Heir Black, scion of his House and mentee of a Death Eater; he was the erstwhile brother of the Boy-Who-Lived and sort-of sleeper agent for the Order of the Phoenix. Harry could not afford to avoid an event that would be stuffed to the brim with Ministry loyalists and Voldemort’s opponents just as he wouldn’t be able to avoid the Malfoys’ Yule Ball come December.

But he would have to see Neville. Stand in a receiving line and greet his maybe-former friend like a stranger. He would have no way of knowing if Neville would publicly snub him until Harry was standing there in full view of dozens of their society’s most influential people.

Neville was a Gryffindor and one of the most honorable people Harry had ever known. Probably he wouldn’t be that petty.

The problem was that, if their positions were reversed, Harry actually might be that petty, so it would be unreasonable of him to hold someone else to a higher standard.

“You,” said Theo, heaving open the door to his study, “are brooding.”

“It’s three in the afternoon and sunny. Impossible conditions for brooding.”

“And yet you manage anyway. Must be a gift.” Theo spotted the envelope in Harry’s hands and grimaced. “Didn’t get one, myself. Father used to be invited every year—never took me along and he rarely lasted more than half an hour for canapés.”

“Wonder how many Vipers got one,” Harry said.

Theo threw himself into a chair next to the massive oak desk. He counted on his fingers. “Probably Finn, if he comes with his, what, uncle? Something. Luna. The Weasleys. Aaron, Mason… that might be it. Technically the Derricks and Puceys aren’t real political players, or aligned with the Dark Lord, but they had accused family members last time, so…”

Harry nodded. Things were heating up. Lines were being drawn. He could feel the political situation shifting around him even though he didn’t yet know the players well enough to see its shape. “I can’t not go.”

“Agreed. Your robes will make a statement too,” Theo said. “Too traditional and you look… well. But too modern and—the Longbottoms, Augusta at least, are certainly aware of their own status.”

“Merlin save me from people who’ll read into my political leanings based on my fashion choices.”

Theo laughed. “Well, if it’s any comfort, I think you’re actually the first Black to be invited to a Longbottom party in two hundred or so years.”

“Not very comforting.”

<>

With Pansy’s help, Harry wound up donning a semi-modern open robe of grass green over a white tunic and hunter green hose. He buckled a wide belt of supple dark brown leather over the robe and tunic. The whole ensemble would’ve been unbearably warm for a Muggle, but thanks to the wonder of thermoregulation charms embroidered into the hose and tunic, Harry was perfectly comfortable as he stepped out of the Floo into the Longbottoms’ open-air summer receiving room.

A house-elf greeted him, dressed in a clean white pillowcase belted at the waist with a buckle featuring the Longbottom crest. “This way, Mistress’ guest be coming, this way,” it said, bowing and showing him through the columns into the manor’s rear garden.

Grimmauld Place had a bigger-than-it-should-be garden that Harry quite liked—half-wild, moderately dangerous, easy to get lost in—but it had nothing on the sprawling Longbottom lands. The manor itself was set on a gentle rise so that the grounds were laid out in full view below the Floo point.

A manicured hedge maze loomed in the north of the house, somehow both menacing and inviting; to the west lay manicured walking paths in geometrically perfect patterned plots full of flowers and greens; to the south was a sea of grass with wooden walkways and platforms charmed to hover over the grass-tops, on which the party was being held. A large central dais supported several dozen round tables draped in white and arranged around a hole in the middle of the dais that looked down into the pit where the bonfire would burn in an hour or so.

Harry followed the flagstone path down from the receiving room to the point where the rocky, scrubby side of the hill transitioned into the field of tall grass, where a wooden platform obligingly swung into place at his feet. It kept moving gently, though he suspected the work of charms like those on Hogwarts’ moving staircases, that ensured no one would lose their balance. Of course, at Hogwarts, rumor had it the castle was enchanted to deliberately throw people off the stairs if they were hostile invaders, which was probably not a feature here.

The receiving line was only about thirty guests deep when Harry got to it. He chatted idly with the witch in front of him, a silver-haired official in the Office of Muggle-Worthy Excuses, though they kept their voices down as was polite. Harry tried not to miss Sirius as the line crept forward. They’d both agreed it wasn’t worth the hassle—not with the Prophet harping on Sirius’ supposed cold-blooded murder of his former best friend. Better to let some time elapse before Sirius went out in public. Especially since Sirius himself didn’t want to deal with high-society events like this.

Harry drew himself out of his thoughts as the witch in front of him turned to face Neville and Augusta Longbottom. The aging Viscountess was dressed in dark golden-yellow closed robes buttoned from throat to hem with about a hundred pearls; the sleeves drooped and merged into the same fabric as the rest of the robe where it fell around her legs. Impractical, in Harry’s opinion, but he imagined it would generate a lovely ripple effect when she walked, which was probably the point.

The Ministry official moved aside and then Harry could avoid Neville no longer.

“Lady Longbottom, Heir Longbottom,” he said, stepping forward into a traditional bow. “Merry meet, and blessed Litha.”

“Merry meet, Heir Black,” said Augusta. “Welcome. It is an honor to have you here this Litha.”

“I expect I am the first Black in some time to attend,” Harry said somewhat drily, echoing Theo and steadfastly avoiding eye contact with Neville.

“The first such in some time who is worthy of the invite,” Augusta said with a thin smile. “Lord Black could not attend?”

“He was indisposed.” Mindful of listening ears behind him, Harry said no more, only, “I will be representing our House today, and the honor is mine in attending.”

“I am sure you will uphold the dignity of House Black,” said Augusta.

Harry bowed again, shallowly now that they had formally greeted one another, and began to step aside.

“Harry, wait.”

And just like that it was inevitable. Harry steeled himself and looked at Neville.

Dressed in Litha-appropriate robes of pastel yellow that set off his healthy tan, Neville looked so much better than the cowed and stuttering first year he had once been. He hadn’t lost the soft youthful roundness of his body but there was a quiet strength under it now that might easily go overlooked by someone foolish enough to count only muscles that visibly bulged. Harry was unsure and he hated it.

“I don’t know how long you mean to stay,” Neville said, with searching eyes, “but there’ll be an announcement when we light the bonfire and… I hope you will wait to hear it. It would mean a lot to me to have you here.”

“Gladly,” Harry said, and meant it.

Neville hesitated, then nodded once. He didn’t look like he’d found whatever he’d wanted to see in Harry’s face; but it would be rude to linger longer with one guest, even a close friend, so he turned back to whoever’d queued up next and Harry was free to make his escape.

Several moving walkways fanned out from the one where Neville and Augusta stood like spokes of a wheel or the rays of the sun. Harry scanned them quickly, picked out a familiar figure waiting fifty feet away on a platform with an open bar manned by an elf, and went that direction.

Blaise had a glass of white wine waiting when Harry got there. “So, that could’ve gone worse.”

“He could’ve shunned me outright,” Harry agreed, taking a polite sip instead of knocking back half the glass like he very much wanted to. “Mm, this is excellent.”

“Italian.” Blaise sketched a shallow bow. “A contact of my family’s.”

Harry eyed him. “I imagine there’d be some logistical problems connecting Zabini contacts to a British party.”

“I have some leeway as the Heir,” Blaise said. “My mother allows me quite a lot of independence. Says I’m mature.”

“Her mistake,” Harry said lazily, which drew the amusement he’d sought to cover up their layered conversation. So Blaise’s mother didn’t necessarily know he’d been using the family contacts to do favors for his British friends, and might not approve if she did, which was… interesting. “And how is Romesse Baresi these days?”

“He’s well, I think.” Blaise stared into his wine. “I haven’t seen much of him lately.”

“Busy days for Casa Zabini?” Harry said carefully.

Blaise glanced around them. Only the house-elf behind the bar was near enough to hear them, which some people might have overlooked. “The busiest,” Blaise said with a cocky little lift of his glass.

Harry politely changed the subject to something less weighted.

They went to socialize after the first glasses had been empty. Harry nursed his second without really drinking for quite a while: it was polite to be seen with a glass in your hand, but dumb to actually get drunk. Blaise was a steady presence at his side, murmuring pithy observations about many of the guests who approached Harry into his ear. Harry inevitably found them useful.

Griselda Marchbanks had just tottered away to greet Bertie Williker (and after saying at a high volume that she couldn’t imagine anyone besting Albus Dumbledore’s NEWT scores) when Harry spied the Potter contingent. He made a face into his wine. James’ will had officially remanded custody of Jules to Andromeda Tonks, which effectively meant Jules was living with the most radical people in the Order of the Phoenix, and that was exactly who made up the Boy-Who-Lived’s entourage as he swanned in fashionably late.

“The bonfire’s in, what, half an hour? Do they think they’re too good to socialize?” Blaise hissed.

Harry sighed. “Probably. Let’s go greet Aaron.”

When he saw them coming, Aaron lifted his own glass of something dark brown and iced in such a way that his Vipers ring glinted in the dying sunlight. Harry acknowledged the gesture with a barely-there tilt of his head and a flicker of his own ring.

“Mother, Father, this is Heir Hadrian Black and Heir Blaise Zabini,” Aaron said. He turned to the younger Slytherins. “My parents, the Honorable Dame Ursula and Sir Robert Jigger.”

“Merry meet, and blessed Litha,” Harry said with the head-shoulders-only half-bow appropriate for a Lord’s Heir to a respectable but non-noble knighted family. The Jiggers had earned the honor three or four generations ago for advancements in potions and the Wizengamot had reconfirmed their title with each successive head of the family since then. He knew Aaron hoped to be the one to elevate his family to a Wizengamot seat.

Dame and Sir Jigger returned the greeting, and Harry invited them to call him Hadrian. Blaise similarly offered the use of his first name. It was polite, considering what exactly they were to the Jiggers’ son and heir, but something almost defiant in Blaise’s expression made Harry worry.

“How is the wider world treating you?” Harry asked Aaron once the pleasantries were out of the way.

The Ravenclaw alumni grinned. “Well, there’s the family business, but I need a Potions mastery first, and I’m considering attending a Muggle university to study business and finance.”

His mother made a face, but Sir Jigger gave a faint, probably unconscious nod of approval. Harry noted both reactions. “If you haven’t, I hope you’ll speak to Hermione about it.”

“That’s the Muggleborn girl, yes?” said Dame Jigger. “Brightest witch of the age and whatnot?”

Her tone was derisive, and Harry worked to keep his face neutral. “She’s certainly one of the brightest people I know. More to the point, her parents both attended Muggle university beyond a basic four-year degree, and run their own oral healing practice, so they would have experience both with the educational system and with operating one’s own business. I’m sure Hermione would be able to ask their advice on behalf of a friend.”

“I’ll do that,” Aaron said, studiously not looking at his mother.

“Pity there aren’t more institutions of higher magical education,” Blaise said smoothly. “There’s the Magical University of Rabat, of course, but few from England attend.”

“Well, naturally,” scoffed Dame Jigger, whom Harry was liking less with every word she said.

“They do have an excellent Transfiguration program and business classes,” Aaron said.

It was Harry’s turn to redirect. “Founding such a school here in Britain would be a worthy project.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sir Jigger, lighting up. “I run a program for potions mastery candidates myself, but unfortunately I don't have a license from the Ministry to oversee a full apprenticeship, so typically I employ them until they can get accepted to a recognized mastery program elsewhere. The range of skills I get from Hogwarts graduates are ridiculous. Even people who’ve all passed the Potions NEWT can be anywhere from a second-year apprentice level to what I’d expect of a Hogwarts fifth year.”

“Unsurprising,” Blaise drawled. “Snape only accepts O students into NEWT classes but once you’re there…”

“NEWT classes really are a whole different beast,” Sir Jigger said.

“I’d appreciate your insight regarding applications to mastery programs, sir,” Harry said earnestly. “I’ve been considering one myself—Lord Black plans to continue running the family assets for a while yet, and I hope to attain a Mastery and work in the field for a while before stepping up into his shoes.”

If the mention of Sirius made their faces shutter a little, at least the Jiggers had the decency to ignore it—though that may have something to do with the way Aaron glared at his father. “I’d be glad to offer my advice,” Sir Jigger said. “Owl me, Hadrian, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

“Are any of your little friend group planning on going into the Ministry?” asked Dame Jigger.

“I believe Miss Granger is,” Blaise said with a sharklike smile. “Hermione, that is. The Muggleborn.”

“I could offer her some pointers,” Dame Jigger mused, “though without connections it really is difficult to get one’s foot in the door, as it were. Still, if she’s bright and willing to work hard, I’m sure there’s a position that would suit.”

As someone’s adjunct second researcher of currency deflation? Harry thought nastily, but he pasted on a smile and assured Dame Jigger that her support was much appreciated. Aaron looked a bit like he wanted to drown himself in his liquor.

A musical series of chimes drew the small party’s attention to the central platform, where Augusta and Neville had mounted a wooden dais that had not previously existed next to the unlit bonfire. Other guests began to make their way across the sea of grass to the central platform. Walkways obligingly shifted to make the journey more convenient and within moments nearly two hundred people had convened on a platform that Harry would have sworn could only fit a quarter of that number when he’d looked at it from the house.

“Blessed Litha,” Augusta said, magic strengthening her voice so that Harry heard it as though she were speaking at a normal volume right in front of him. The crowd echoed the blessing back to her in a rumble of sound. “It is as always an honor and a pleasure to have you all here for the summer solstice. Before we light the bonfire, however, my grandson and I have an announcement to make.”

Neville stepped forward. His eyes found Harry in the crowd. “As most of you probably know, my parents have been in long-term intensive care since 1981. They w-were not expected to ever recover.” He paused, visibly swallowing. Harry could feel sympathy running through the crowd like an electric current. “But recent medical discoveries changed that prognosis and a few weeks ago Lady Longbottom and I decided to put them in the care of private healers overseas.” Now the sympathy was turning to anticipation, excitement. Harry’s heart beat a steady drum in his chest. “It is my…” Neville swiped at his eyes. “It is my great honor to introduce f-for the first time in fifteen years, my parents, Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom.”

By the time he got to their names, the crowd was so tense you could’ve cut it with a knife. Harry didn’t breathe as Neville held out a hand and four people mounted the steps to the small dais, which widened to accommodate them.

Two of the newcomers wore the bright green robes of a healer and helped the other two climb the stairs. At the top, the healers stepped back, leaving a blonde woman and a brown-haired man standing on either side of Neville, who took his mother’s arm to support her frail body. The crowd erupted into applause.

Neville stood stalwart but even from a distance Harry could see the tears rolling down his face.

Frank and Alice said nothing, just waved, with enormous smiles. Alice was sobbing by the time the applause wound down and leaning heavily on Neville.

“They will continue healing in private care but we wanted to light the Litha fire together as a family for the first time.” Augusta put a hand on her son’s shoulder: Harry had never seen the old woman smile so broadly. No one mentioned that Algernon Longbottom was nowhere in sight. “Mother Magic bless us this night.”

Oh. A traditional phrase—more so than Harry was given to expect from the Longbottoms. “Interesting,” Aaron murmured, as the family descended from the dais and it vanished. The healers helped Frank and Alice take up positions at the south and east points around the fire while August and Neville moved to the north and west. “They haven’t done more than just light the fire in the past—it’s usually more of just an excuse for a big social shindig.”

“That,” Blaise said, “is a statement.”

Harry added it all up. ‘Blessed Litha’ being written as a greeting on the invite had cued him to use it on arrival, but he hadn’t known it was unusual to see. Neville, Augusta, Frank, and Alice were all wearing closed robes more traditional than Harry’s tunic-hose-and-overrobe getup. And now the appeal to Mother Magic before the fire…

He looked around as the Longbottoms found their places and the gathered guests went silent. Many faces showed the kind of studied blankness of a politician or socialite with something to hide. Others whispered to their neighbors, tense or speculative or intrigued.

Ethan Thorne looked thunderous, Andromeda Tonks utterly impassive. Jules was frowning.

Harry smiled.

“Incendio!” cried the Longbottoms in unison, and though not one of them held a wand, fire bloomed: the traditional way of lighting a solstice fire. Calling on the native magic of the Sabbat, which Harry had felt thrumming around him since he woke that morning.

Litha was about inner power and peace and abundance. As the musicians began to play lively music, and Harry spun into the dance with everyone around him, he let his quiet hope grow to a nearly painful force in his chest.

Later, Frank and Alice were the first to jump through the fire. One of the healers walked them to the jump point and another waited on the far side. The frail, almost ghostlike couple took a running leap. The fire bent around them and almost seemed to buoy them to the far side, where the green-robed healer caught them both, only for them to fall, laughing and sobbing, into each other’s arms. There was another round of applause.

A line formed behind them. Harry took a place in it behind Blaise. Sweat streaked their bodies from the dancing that had resumed more sedately after dinner. It was well after dark now and the bonfire blazed twenty feet high. Shouts of “Blessed Litha!” and appeals to Mother Magic could be heard on occasion as the more traditional guests dared show their hand after the Longbottoms’ display of deference to the old ways. Harry watched one such, an old wizard with a cane, shout something in what sounded like Old English before taking a running leap at the fire. He seemed to hover in its heart for a long second, limned with light, before landing on the other side where his son’s steadying hand waited.

“Jump with me?” said a familiar voice.

Harry turned.

Neville stood there, holding out a hand, his eyes fierce and hard.

“Yes,” Harry said.

They stepped up side-by-side when it was their turn. Harry reached out with his magic as he ran, one two three and push off into the fire. Around him he could feel summer in its full glory like a waxing moon on the point of tipping over. Blazing with life. Lifting and strengthening and filling him until he was nothing but a vessel for light and magic.

Then he landed on the far side, panting, staggering with the force of it. Neville was in no better shape. They leaned on each other as they made their way to the nearest free table and collapsed.

Light was not weak. It could be hard, merciless, blinding even. Harry was reminded of all of that when he looked at Neville and got a strong, bizarre sense of a sword freshly tempered in the forge.

Then he blinked and Neville was just his friend again.

“That was… something,” Neville said with a cautious smile.

“Really was.” Harry grinned back, and when Blaise came over, something impossibly free and open in his normally sly, reserved countenance, the three of them sat back to drink and talk of nothing important.

It was not forgiveness. But it was a start.

<>

The letter from Marcus Flint of all people fell on his desk and Harry looked at it with raised eyebrows. Then up at the owl who’d dropped it.

Haughty and proud, the bird clacked its beak at him.

“Demanding,” Harry muttered, but he handed it a few owl treats. Barn owls always seemed vaguely spooky to him with the heart-shaped ghostly faces. The owl happily crunched treats in its beak while Harry skimmed the letter.

It was hardly the first time he’d received a missive from a recent Hogwarts alumnus—mostly Slytherins, but a decent number of others. Some wished to trade on schoolyard acquaintances in pursuit of a job through the Black connections but there were others either blatantly or subtly seeking an alliance of one kind or other.

Flint’s letter was interesting mainly because Harry wouldn’t have expected it. He and Flint had never been close outside of their cooperation on the quidditch team, and of the boys who’d been flying when he joined, Bletchley had been the one to try and give Harry a subtle hand up when he needed it. Flint had ignored him until he was useful and then had not cared a whit for Harry off the pitch. Yet here he was, writing Harry from a position in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, about… nothing in particular. Office gossip. A witch in the gobstones club whose little sister had been a Hufflepuff who flew against the Slytherin team Harry’s first year. A bloke with a gambling problem. A witch and wizard who had been dating for a few months but whose first lovers’ quarrel had flooded the break room and made the chairs all dance an Irish jig for three days. And Flint invited Harry to lunch the next day at a nice but not especially exclusive restaurant in Tangent Alley.

Sirius frowned when he looked it over. “Flint? We’re related to one of them, a few generations back… somewhere. Big family. Lots of cousins. This bloke’s the Heir?”

“I think so.” Harry consulted a mental list. “His aunt holds the family Wizengamot seat, but her husband’s dead and I don’t think she has any kids.”

“A son, but he’s an Azkaban lifer. Jolinda Flint? She’s a Death Eater. May not be Marked but it doesn’t matter.”

“Marcus isn’t. Or… wasn’t. He didn’t give a flying shite for my blood status, anyway. Only quidditch.”

Sirius handed the letter back with a grim expression. “You never know. Family pressure can… just be careful with him.”

“Voldemort has no reason to want me harmed,” Harry said softly.

“I know.” Sirius studied him for a long moment. “But he does have reason to want to lean on you one way or another. Maybe he thinks Jules would walk into a trap for you.” Harry snorted, and Sirius shrugs. “Who knows what goes on in that batshite fuck’s head? And for all we know, Jules would. You strolled right into the Ministry for him. Or it could be that you’re the Black heir, or just that you’re a powerful wizard friends with a lot of his minions’ kids.”

“I’ll be careful. I promise.”

And Harry was, to the point of showing up an hour early and sending a disillusioned Eriss to scout the restaurant for him. He smirked in his tea when a shriek and a clatter came from the kitchen accompanied by a pulse of mischief down their bond.

Marcus Flint arrived before Eriss came back from whatever chaos the snake had wrought, though Harry wasn’t worried; all he felt from his familiar was peace. “Heir Black. Merry meet.”

“Merry meet, Heir Flint.” Harry gestured at the table; it was interesting that Flint had waited to sit down until invited. A show of deference from a graduated titled Heir, working a respectable job, to a student still in Hogwarts—

“Marcus.”

“Hadrian, then,” said Harry. “It’s been a while. Ministry treating you well, I take it?”

“Well enough. I don’t mind it—I work in the office that organizes little league quidditch. Didn’t think I’d like working with tots but they’re pretty neat, actually.” This meeting was just full of surprises. “I think I’m on track to be deputy head of the office in a few years.”

Marcus’ eyes slid sideways.

Casually, Harry popped his wand and cast a strong privacy ward while pretending to fiddle with it. “Speak freely.”

“Slytherins stick together,” Marcus said, looking at Harry with eyes as hard as his namesake.

Harry nodded slowly. “So they do. And we are both members of the honorable house of serpents.”

“My aunt… recommended… me for a certain… group.”

That was, perhaps, the least surprising revelation of this whole series of Marcus Flint events. “Congratulations. I’m given to understand membership is somewhat exclusive.”

Marcus grimaced. “I’m not sure congratulations are in order.”

“How’s your occlumency?” Harry said, because really, if a Marked follower of Voldemort was going to go ‘round having clandestine meetings about how he didn’t like following Voldemort, he ought to be able to guard his mind.

“Mind like stone, have I.” Marcus tapped his temple and flagged down a waiter. Harry dropped the ward long enough for Marcus to order a butterbeer and both of them to select something from the entrée menu then cast it again once the waiter left. “It’s a bit of a family gift. Flints aren’t deep thinkers,” you got that right, thought Harry, “but we’re solid of body and mind. He could break me but not without leaving me a gibbering wreck and really there’s no one left to take the family from my aunt.”

“Here’s to being valuable,” said Harry, raising his teacup to Marcus’ pint in honor of his own similar position. Since the Ministry he had doubled down on his mental shields to the point that he went to sleep with migraines almost every night and spent two hours of every day doing focused observation to build a store of detailed mental memories with which to trap or fool a legilimens.

Marcus toasted and drank deeply enough that Harry was mildly concerned. They sold alcoholic butterbeer here, not the student-approved version Madam Rosmerta peddled to Hogwarts students. It was comparable to Muggle beer in terms of alcohol content but drunken wizards caused a lot more chaos than drunk Muggle men.

“So you’re not sure how pleased you should be,” he prompted.

“Not at all. It—look. He’s not… right. Not all there. Aunt Jolinda talks about him like a bloody deity, alright, like the Muggleborns about their God, all ‘be good or He will smite you with fire and brimstone’ kind of shite. I don’t… it’s fucking terrifying. And supposedly he can’t bloody die.” Marcus took another swallow and his disturbed expression was so profound that Harry found himself unsettled quite against his will. “We’re gonna, what, install an immortal god-emperor who uses the Cruciatus on people for disobeying, and expect that to go daisies and sunshine? Don’t think so. Eventually he’ll get bored and then… did you know his animagus form is a cat? Great big bloody snow leopard. Snakes’ll kill and eat each other but cats play with their food.”

“Don’t say that around McGonagall,” Harry said, which got a snort out of Marcus and lightened the mood a little.

The waiter reappeared and Harry dismantled the ward again so he wouldn’t notice the way sound bounced oddly as he stepped up to serve their meals. It went back up as soon as the wizard was gone. Harry and Marcus picked over their food in silence for a few minutes.

“I mentioned a bloke in my department. Ferdy Cartwright. He’s head of my office, actually.”

“The one with the gambling problem,” Harry said, remembering the letter.

“Yeah, him. He’s in deep with the goblins. And… I’ve been ordered to lean on him.”

Harry had been wondering why someone in this particular department would be of much use to Voldemort. Now, having learned that little league quidditch was a thing, he put the pieces together in a flash and felt a slow, cold rush of anger. “He wants you to use this man to pressure people through their children?”

Marcus nodded unhappily. “It doesn’t sit right, y’know? I’ve got a second cousin who plays. Sweet little witch. I know Slytherins are supposed to ‘use any means’ and whatnot but… I don’t like threatening kids.”

“Why’d you come to me?” Harry said.

“You never let that sort of thing slide,” Marcus said with a shrug. “Never handled it like a lion, but I saw you make sure you and yours were safe. I’ll—if you want, I can… tell you stuff. I’m no one, really. Foot soldier. I know that. I’m useful ‘cause of my name and my wand and not much else. But I can… give you what I can, in exchange for…”

“I can’t take the Mark off,” Harry said softly.

“I know. Just… if you can… keep it from happening.”

Harry sipped his tea and pretended to think. Really, he’d decided to do something without any reciprocation, but Marcus was a Slytherin and he expected to have to play the game. The more Harry seemed to deliberate the more he’d be willing to offer in exchange.

There was just one thing to check first. Harry looked up so quickly Marcus couldn’t react and whispered, “Legilimens.”

And bounced straight off a shield of solid stone.

“Satisfied?” Marcus said sourly.

“Had to check.” Harry shrugged. “Do you have somewhere you can store an artifact safely?” At Marcus’ nod, he continued, “I’ll send you a journal within a few days. My owl will find you when you’re alone. Three drops of blood on the cover and speak the incantation I’ll put on the first page, and no one but you will be able to read it. Instructions for how to use it will be inside, but that way you can pass me anything you hear directly. Don’t endanger yourself.” He took in the relieved slump to Marcus’ shoulders and added, “We both know this is getting ugly fast. If it goes badly for your particular… group… I’ll testify on your behalf, okay? As long as you can keep yourself from doing anything too horribly illegal it should be alright. And if you have to do something horribly illegal make sure it’s something you can say was under duress.”

“Thank you,” Marcus said hoarsely. “I… thank you, Heir Black.”

“I make no guarantees. I don’t control the Wizengamot and won’t pretend to—and if this goes the other way, I hope you’ll speak for me in return,” Harry said delicately, which got him an immediate reassurance that yes, Marcus would do so. “I appreciate that. But if you’re mine, Marcus, I will do my best by you.”

“The Houses of Black and Flint are allies of old,” Marcus said. “Once we take our future places, I would be willing to renew that alliance.”

“Magic willing, I would be honored to do so.”

Harry took down his ward and they made careful small talk until their food was gone and they could politely depart. Satisfaction curled in his gut as he took the Floo home to Grimmauld Place.

Sirius wasn’t there when he got back but the kids were busy doing a summer assignment in Dylan’s room, spread out on a bed that was much too small for all four of them. He knocked on the open door and politely pretended not to notice Rio hiding a novel under his Potions textbook. “There’s a library, you know.”

“But this is more comfortable,” said Veronica with a grin.

“Hmm. Well, in that case…” Harry opened his mind, feeling around him for the magic of the house, and made a request.

With a shudder, the bed grew larger. Dylan squeaked and nearly fell off the edge. The room gave a shiver and expanded a bit to make space. “Whoa,” Veronica said, eyes wide. “I thought only Hogwarts did stuff like that!”

“Grimmauld Place can’t move around as much inside as Hogwarts does, but most really old magical buildings are sort of… spatially flexible,” Harry said. “You guys can probably ask for things like the lights to come on—small stuff, but the longer you live here, the more it’ll respond. It’s easiest for the owners in magic, though.”

“So, Blacks,” said Rio.

Harry nodded.

“Our manor was like that. Never listened much to me,” Graham said.

Rio and Veronica all began to pepper him with questions about the Pritchards’ manor. Harry left poor Graham to it and retreated to his study. He had to request a new journal from Hermione and a letter to send to Gringotts.

<>

Within a few days, arrangements were underway to buy Ferdy Cartwright’s debt with the goblins, who were happy enough getting their money and forking over an extremely binding contract. Reading it, Harry winced. The goblin collections team could have literally stripped the clothes off Cartwright’s back. Voldemort probably would’ve been more lenient.

Harry meant to be quite generous with the wizard. Honey caught more flies than vinegar and he’d also be forcing Cartwright to sign a binding agreement not to gamble in any way, shape, or form for the next five years or until his debt was repaid on penalty of losing his magic.

The enchantments notified Harry of Marcus’ addition to the network bare hours after he dispatched Aoife with a blank journal. The Flint heir’s first message followed minutes later, a simple Greetings, Hadrian.

Glad that you received it, Harry responded. He didn’t get anything back but assumed Marcus simply didn’t have anything to say.

Harry stared at the journals for a long moment. Promising to testify on Marcus’ behalf was… significant. There were real-world consequences, potentially major ones. He wasn’t about to risk his own House’s standing by speaking on behalf of an accused Death Eater unless he had proof.

It was time to learn more about memory retrieval.

<>

Justin arrived at Grimmauld Place two days later with a number of Muggle suitcases and his school trunk, all of which was unloaded from a hired car by an extremely harassed Muggle driver. Harry missed the entire spectacle and had to be regaled with it by the kids over dinner since he’d been eyeballs-deep in two separate projects at the time.

“You have more paperwork than my father,” Justin remarked when Harry invited him up to the study after their meal. Sirius was out again with Ian and the kids minding themselves, which meant Harry was free to pick his friend’s brain on a few things.

“About half this is research. I need to figure out how to duplicate and store memories so that they can be verified later by the Aurors,” Harry said. “Sirius still remembers enough from the Auror program that he could teach me, and the Blacks managed to get their hands on a lot of spells they legally shouldn’t have had.”

“Rich people,” said Justin.

“Pot, kettle,” Harry sniped back.

Justin smirked and took the chair in front of the desk. “So why d’you need legally verifiable memories? And why not just take ‘em from your own head?”

“If I take them out, they… fade,” Harry explained. “Become dull and dim—it’s a way to handle the aftereffects of trauma but risky when you might need to recall an important detail. You can take memories out if you need to protect them or share them on a temporary basis, especially since that charm is way easier than a copy, but this is a… long term project.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You haven’t said why,” Justin said.

“There’s a war coming,” Harry said bluntly. Justin blinked and straightened. “I don’t know yet which side is going to win. If it’s one… I have options. If it’s the other, though, I’ll need a way to keep—certain people out of Azkaban.”

“Contingencies. Smart. Alright, who are we protecting here? Unless you can’t say, in which case please don’t.”

Harry really loved Hufflepuff pragmatism sometimes. “Marcus Flint.”

Over the next half hour, he caught Justin up on the situation in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, the contracts, and the binding confidentiality agreement Harry had paid through the nose to get from Gringotts.

“This all looks alright,” Justin said, peering at the small cursive font. “Merlin, those little buggers like making this hard to read, don’t they? Still, I don’t see a way around it. Voluntary memory modification for all involved Gringotts employees save your oathbound account manager as to who bought the debt… and from here on Cartwright pays you directly… and you’ll be making him sign confidentiality too, I expect?”

“At wandpoint if I have to.”

“Smart. Huh. Flint. Wouldn’t have expected that, really. Imagine him working with little kids?”

“I literally can’t,” Harry said.

Justin laughed. “Never can tell with some people. I’m just glad he was surprising in a good way. So you’re saving memories of your conversation with him, complete with timestamp, so the DMLE can verify he was under duress from the start?”

“Exactly. It’s not actually illegal to have or take the Dark Mark—just to, you know, do crimes. I’m not going to copy the bit where I told him point-blank not to do anything horribly illegal or at least make sure he can claim it was coerced if he does.”

Justin laughed again. “God, yeah, please don’t. What’s your second project, then?”

“Getting patents on the journals and selling a version of them that doesn’t use illegal runes. I’m thinking families would love a way to keep faster touch with their kids. I… don’t want to file the patent until after things… settle down, though. The potential for…”

He trailed off, but Justin nodded, clearly getting it. “Right, it’s a hell of an advantage. Wait—didn’t you mention you use yours to communicate with your tutor?”

“Yeah. Ah… he… lied and said the magic was proprietary,” Harry said.

Justin blinked. “Oh. So… your Death Eater mentor lied to You-Know-Who to keep this magic secret for you?”

“Yeah.”

“...and you’re just mentor and apprentice, right?”

Harry threw a quill at him.

<>

Having Justin around led to some surprising conversations about Muggle finance, which Harry had never particularly studied, his own Muggle education having been abysmal compared to Justin’s private schools and hired tutors. Then Draco came over and spent eight hours holed up with Justin in the parlor. Even Kreacher couldn’t eavesdrop on them. Harry tried not to be amused about Draco Malfoy, pureblood prince, and Justin the Mudblood being so close. He failed.

<>

The native magic of Britain has been practiced around our land’s cyclical seasons for millennia. Winter, spring, summer, autumn: each framed by the cross-quarter days, each with its high holy Sabbat. The Founders four were individually powerful wixen; yet together, bearing between them four elemental affinities and four seasonal, they worked wonders.

Helga Hufflepuff walked in springtime. Hers were the victory of hope and life over despair and darkness; new beginnings, softness, rain and sun mixed. Vibrant, yes, and strong; but dirty, struggling, fighting. She was stubborn and nurturing as the earth in which her famed gardens grew.

Godric Gryffindor bore summer in his heart. Litha is our day of light, light that blinds and burns, light like a sword, defiant, lancing fearlessly into the dark. A child with a lens can concentrate sunlight to a point so fine it lights a wandless fire. Light brings life and death in turn. Gryffindors are pure of heart: the embodiment of blind Justice seeking those who have done wrong.

Rowena Ravenclaw was the introspection of autumn, quiet, a harbinger of that which you may not wish to hear. Like the air that buoyed her wings, she sought clarity not of purpose but of mind, the pursuit of knowledge in all its many forms. Autumn is the time for looking in and back. It is the time of endings and their new beginnings.

Salazar Slytherin, born to the cold, was winter. The Slytherins who have followed him are cold and dark like a knife, subtle and insidious, the way a winter wind finds its way past even the warmest of cloaks. They are patient in the way of the dark between the stars, which will outlast every effort, no matter how valiant, to hold it at bay. Like the light that opposes it, winter is a time of contradictions. Darkness offers peace and solace as easily as it shields the hired blade who walks by night.

Harry set down the book and blew out a long breath.

It had found its way to his bedside table by pure happenstance. Harry had a lot going on this summer and kept a stack of light, casual reading within easy reach at all times. This particular one, The Seasons of Hogwarts, was technically a collection of short biographies of notable Hogwarts alumni. He’d thought the year’s wheel embossed on the cover an odd choice but otherwise given it no thought.

Finding a detailed treatise on seasonal symbology of Hogwarts houses was not what he’d expected.

Unbidden, the image of Neville as he was right after the bonfire, recovered in near-perfect detail thanks to Harry’s occlumency, came to mind. Neville burning from the inside out with a smokeless, heatless fire. Neville as keen-edged as a sword. Neville, the Gryffindor.

Harry’s mind raced as he considered the implications. It didn’t seem that practical an idea, in the large scheme of things, but it was certainly interesting to consider how well the author, a witch who had lived and died in the eighteen hundreds, matched Harry’s own observations about the Houses and the sorts of people they tended to produce. Slytherin and Gryffindor, pure of purpose and pure of heart—in many ways, moral relativism versus moral absolutism. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, the steadfast and the clear-seeing, associated with the seasons of looking outward and looking within.

Hermione fit the mold as well. Ruthless she certainly was; and bold, too, and often utterly uncompromising.

And then there was Jules.

Harry shut the book and put it back on his bedside table.

***

Andromeda

It was the third Order meeting since James had passed, and in Andromeda’s opinion, things got worse every time.

“We need to make sure we don’t lose the Wizengamot!” Benjy bellowed for the third time. “Last time, when His people had power—”

“It doesn’t matter if we hold the Wizengamot if the Aurors never catch the bloody bastards!” Garrett Robards yelled back. “Potter’s gone! Fucking Yaxley’s Chief Auror now! There’s no way—”

“—already lost Greengrass and Selwyn to the Dark—”

“—can’t keep playing defense forever—”

The Floo burned bright green, and everyone fell silent as Albus stepped out, smiling serenely around at the Order of the Phoenix. “Thank you all for being here.”

A general murmur of greetings rose in response, and slowly, they began to settle down around Molly’s expanded dining table, in the close and warded kitchen of the Burrow. Andromeda tracked who sat where. James’ death had shaken things up and by now they had begun to cool and harden into a new shape. New fault lines divided a once-united group. It was only natural, in the face of loss and rising sociopolitical tension, for opinions to polarize. Any Slytherin worth their salt would see it.

And use it.

The divide was largely generational. Pluto Dearborn, Elphias Doge, Rupert Runcorn, Massia Carmichael, and Kierney Towler, all septuagenarians or older, clustered at the foot of the table and spoke little. Benjy Fenwicke, Hestia Jones, Kathy Bell, Daedalus Diggle, and Roger McKinnon were the loudest supporters of a plan focused around defending key Wizengamot and Ministry officials. Some of the Aurors, like Kingsley and Nymphadora, were relatively neutral in the whole affair, along with those who didn’t necessarily know what to think, including the Crockett twins, Alvar Cornfoot, and Sturgis Podmore.

Andromeda was most interested in the last group, the one that formed around Ethan on one side of the table as Dumbledore transfigured the chair at its head into a colorful squishy monstrosity just shy of a throne. There was Robards, right at Ethan’s elbow and still glaring at Benjy; and Emmeline Vance, Ivar Dillonsby, and Zoey Sideris made sure to sit next to each other, heated looks passing between them.

As she took a seat between Ethan’s crowd and the group of Albus’ old friends, Andromeda privately lamented Remus’ absence. He was a weight to balance against Ethan’s hotheaded nature and he often had excellent insights after meetings.

Then again, if he was here, he would perhaps be able to bridge a gap that Andromeda thought best left to widen.

The meeting went well as long as mundane matters lasted. Andromeda spoke little, preferring to watch. They spoke of upcoming legislation. Patrol schedules. The Ministry was a lost cause, in her opinion, but many of the remaining Order disagreed, and she wasn’t about to burst their bubblehead charms on the matter, so on they prattled about random spot checks for the Imperius and putting compulsion-flushing draughts in the building’s water.

None of it would work. Not in the face of generational galleons and ingrained bigotry. Andromeda knew better than any of these middle-class progressive half- and purebloods just how little the Ministry ran according to what the populace chose. Bribes would be paid, livelihoods would be threatened, and most people wouldn’t have to do anything more than look away. The recalcitrant few would find themselves less a few extremities or, for the very stubborn, dead.

Albus’ plan of personally bodyguarding Wizengamot members had some merit. Most of them could bunker down behind old wards and sending an off-duty Auror and a Gringotts-trained cursebreaker ‘round to bolster those protections would go far. The rest could manage with safe houses, emergency beacons, alert wards, guards. The strongest would cast Fidelius Charms on their home but you needed advanced theoretical and practical training for that—it was an enchantment, not a simple charm—as well as a claim to ownership of whatever you hid.

Garrett, Ivar, and Emmeline were generating the more proactive ideas. Andromeda suspected Ethan and Zoey of helping cook up propositions like a surveillance detail on suspected Death Eaters and targeted raids to find evidence that could be submitted to the Aurors, though Ethan’s barrister training and Zoey Sideris’ time in Ravenclaw had made them circumspect enough to let their friends speak up. Benjy and Garrett went at each other. Ethan interjected blandly instigative statements now and then. Dearborn, Doge, and Towler called weakly for reticence and got repeatedly shouted down by the younger lot in between heated rebuttals of Jones and McKinnon’s insistence on defense.

The Crocketts, Cornfoot, Podmore, and, surprisingly, Kathy Bell were showing signs of agreement with a more active response as time passed. Albus’ presence kept a lid on the cauldron, but Andromeda tracked every subconscious nod and every twitch of a wand hand.

Molly was the holdout in every regard. Broken by Arthur’s loss, she was mostly concerned at this point with keeping her children safe, and objected shrewishly only to the thought of putting them in danger. Her oldest was here helping his mum and listening with a perfect poker face to the meeting. Her second oldest was a member but off recruiting on the continent. The third one was rarely mentioned, Andromeda understood he was some sort of Ministry flunky and not speaking with his parents, and the twins…

Well, as Albus wound down the meeting, Andromeda switched her attention to Fredrick Gideon and George Fabian Weasley. It was all too clear that Molly had seen her dead little brothers in her twin sons and clearer that she had unwittingly punished them for not living up to the men whose names they bore. This was the first Order meeting they’d attended officially, and it had resulted in a screaming match with their mother, though Andromeda was certain they had eavesdropped heavily before. Now they sat with Mundungus Fletcher. The association wouldn’t concern her if she could trust that they were only cooking up pranks in that workshop of theirs.

Or if she hadn’t heard rumors of their association with Harry Black at school.

There were others, of course—recruits from the intrawar generation, recent graduates. Diggory. Hopkirk. Meadowes. Brocklehurst. Willicker. Names Andromeda knew from her youth as those her family might favor with a conversation as a contract but never consider social equals. Those were not, however, invited to this meeting; presumably the Weasley twins had only come because they nominally lived here.

Andromeda had been subject to many a rant from Molly about how little time her children spent at home.

She came back to herself as Albus packed himself off, last to arrive and first to leave. Reinstatement as the Chief Warlock and the war-panicked demands of unhappy parents took up much of his time. There was still food on the table and the ones with families weren’t expected home yet, so the rest of the group stayed, the volume in the room rising as more than one conversation struck up in Albus’ wake.

Andromeda shifted around the table and had an amiable late dinner with Kathy Bell. She’d been a few years ahead of Andromeda in school and a Gryffindor, so they knew little of each other from their youth, but being so close in age was an automatic sort of camaraderie in a room with four generations represented and they were both mothers to boot. It culminated in an invitation for tea at the Tonks home on Thursday.

Eventually, of course, it got dark, and the Floo roared almost nonstop as Molly packed people off with as many leftovers as they could carry. Privately Andromeda thought their family would be a bit better off if Molly spent less money on absurd quantities of food but those weren’t her galleons to spend. The last to go was a large group off to the Leaky instead of home, to share drinks and talk more. Ethan was the last of that crowd through the hearth and he met Andromeda’s eyes before throwing the powder down with a barely-discernible nod.

The Crocketts were with him, and Podmore, and Cornfoot, and Sideris, as well as his new friends in Garrett and Emmaline. They would drink. They would talk, and air their grievances, and echo one another’s opinions back and forth until the lot of them were in a frothing rage. It was exactly what Andromeda had hoped when she suggested Ethan get a feel for them away from, as she’d said, the “old codgers” in the Order. Normally she wouldn’t use such language but it appealed to Ethan’s Gryffindor and consequently contrary nature to see his elders in such a way. Andromeda hadn’t bothered telling him that being off on their own would mean they’d feed on each other’s youthful fervor and go to sleep more radical than when they’d woken that morning—not quite the done thing, when Ethan was one of the people she intended to radicalize.

This war would not be won by playing it safe. They’d tried that last time, and look what that wrought. Chaos. Festering unrest. The Blacks were bad but by no means the only bigoted bastards just begging for a well-timed Avada. Too many of them got off with a stinging hex to the wrist. Too many of them walked right back in to the halls of power.

Andromeda didn’t mean to see that happen again. Sometimes you had to scorch the fucking earth to give new growth a chance.

***

Sirius

It was a beautiful night. The stars were clear and bright and lanced so directly into Sirius’ tattered soul that it was almost painful. He was a son of the House of Black, though. He and the night sky were kin.

Know the stars and know thyself. Up here, drifting with his motorcycle silent, the constant noise of the Muggle world a distant memory, Grandfather’s words were as clear as though the old man had said them only yesterday. Know the stars and you are never lost.

He’d meant it literally, but not only. Night flights had done more for Sirius than any mind healer to clear his head and remind him who and when he was, after Azkaban. Up here in the starlight there was no room to hide. Not even from himself.

Sirius lay back on the motorcycle’s long, padded seat, legs dangling, and let it float, while he listened to the symphony of the skies.

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