A/N: Note this is a sequel to "Shouyou Hinata and the Mirror of Erised". While it can be read separately with relative ease, some details may be confusing. The first book can be found on my author page. Also, this story will contain slash (M/M) though it is pretty innocent and mainly consist of failing at flirting and angst.
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Koushi Sugawara sat at the funeral of a man who most believed was better off dead.
Over the family cemetery, the sky was a dark grey overcast but no rain fell as if even nature herself refused to mourn.
The man's death had not come as a surprise-years of age and old battle scars finally catching up with him a scant two nights ago. There was little fanfare in the ceremony with only Suga, his parents, and a priest in attendance to lay the late Hisashi Noroi to rest next to his beloved wife. The Daily Prophet had run a small blurb in the obituaries mentioning the death, but even that was more tinged by relief than any real condolences. A he's finally dead! for the waiting public.
All in all, it was rather unfortunate that this man also happened to be Suga's grandfather
Suga tried to focus back on the priest words about long and fulfilled lives, but judging by the priest's uncomfortable expression even he had trouble believing that they were anything more than empty platitudes. Suga instead turned his gaze to the ornate casket, his mind turning to the last conversation he'd had with the man a few hours before his passing.
Suga had been called to his grandfather's bedside after the healers had given his mother their final condolences, reassuring her that he was at least comfortable.
The old man's room had smelled like...well, it had smelled like death. The scent cloying to the heavy fabric and fine embroideries that hung around the family estates like cobwebs. Despite the smell and his incoming demise, Suga noted that his grandfather looked as firm and austere as always-propping on the bed's headboard like a king looking down on his subjects.
"Grandson," his grandfather greeted, his mouth held with a calm serenity that Suga sometimes recognized when looking in a mirror. "Won't you sit with a dying man?"
"Of course, Grandfather," Suga responded softly, taking the single armchair beside the bed.
His grandfather met his eyes with the kind of sharp expression that always made Suga second guess the healer's prognosis.
"Koushi, I know what you're trying to do," his grandfather told him.
Suga tilted his head. "What do you mean? The healers told me you wanted to see me?"
His grandfather shook his head impatiently. "No, I mean your goals, your plans. I know you want to bury your family's name."
Suga's eyes widened briefly, more out of surprise by the directness than from the assumption. His disdain for his family's past politics hadn't been a secret for years.
He decided silence was the best response.
His grandfather nodded, taking the silence for the affirmation it was. "And...maybe, maybe that's for the best."
This time Suga's reaction was from surprise. "Grandfather?"
He nodded to himself as if he hadn't heard the question. "Yes, at the very least, you will need to warp the name to be beyond recognition."
"Is this...is this just the sickness talking," Suga asked cautiously.
His grandfather looked back up, expression rueful. "Do not assume you know everything about me just because you know my most prominent actions, Koushi. I've been this family's head since I was barely older than you are now."
Suga looked down, deciding to stay silent again.
"Not that I can expect you to know me," his grandfather sighed. "This family has barely been able to hold much more than brief conversation since you were a baby." He paused, reaching over to pick something up from his bedside table. "Do you know what this is, Grandson?"
Koushi picked the book out of his grandfather's hands and looked at it closely. "It's a memory diary, right?"
His grandfather nodded, looking momentarily pleased or possibly just reminiscent. "It's my memory diary. Filled with all my memories from my time at Hogwarts."
Suga's breath caught, doing the math.
"I want you to have it."
Suga looked up bewildered. "What? Why?"
His grandfather looked at him reproachfully and Suga briefly regretted the outburst. "First, because you are my only grandson, my heir. It isn't beyond the realm of possibilities that I'd want you to know me better." His grandfather paused, shifting slightly and regaining his more firm barring. "But, more importantly, it's because of your own plans. It's...I feel that it's important for you know my thoughts, my choices, my actions before you begin to truly take your own."
Suga looked down at the diary, deciphering through his grandfather's words. "Knowing why you thought you had to do it, won't change my mind." He looked up, meeting his grandfather's eyes with his own steely expression. "I'm not going to make the same choices as you did. I won't become a monster."
Maybe if Suga was further away from his grandfather than he would have missed the flash of pain in his eyes before he looked away, would not have heard the small sighed "so much like your grandmother". He would not have missed, however, his grandfather looking back up and his very firm voice stating. "That is all I can hope for."
Suga furrowed his brow and opened his mouth.
"You are still so young, Koushi," his grandfather continued before he had the chance. "You do not know the full ways the world works, the weight of mistakes. You don't know how our family is cursed."
Suga made again to respond.
"Not the obvious one," his grandfather corrected once again. "Not the one we hide, the madness of every seventh generation. I speak more of a less magical one. One that dogs every generation's footsteps."
His grandfather shook his head lightly, his hair briefly obscuring his eyes. "But, that's not one that can be easily fixed in a single conversation. Maybe not even a single generation." he looked back at Suga. "Koushi, my dear grandson, send in your parents. I'd like to talk to my daughter and son-in-law one last time."
Suga nodded, recognizing the dismissal. Quietly, he stepped out of the room and eased the large oak door closed behind him-a diary still clasped firmly in his hands.
"Koushi," a voice interrupted, bringing Suga's mind back to the present.
He looked up to see his mother, her silver hair carefully pinned back from her face.
"It's time to lower the casket," she told him gently.
"Right," Suga breathed out, standing up beside his parents. Joined by the priest, they all gathered around the casket with one standing on each side. With a somber barring, the four drew out the wands and gently levitated the casket off the platform and into the earth bellow.
As the funeral drew to an end, Suga stood by as his parents thanked the priest, smoothly slipping him his pay for the service. With the business concluded, the Sugawara's watched as the priest disapparated before slowly making their way down from the family cemetery-which stood at the edge of the family's land, hanging off the cliff edge above the lake bellow-and back to the mansion. Though, Suga noted ruefully, it's not as though the mansion usually had any more life than the cemetery.
The mansion stood in white marble relief, creeping out of the ground like a giant tombstone-austere, intimidating, foreboding, and home. The family silently went inside, splitting off to busy themselves with whatever personal pursuits until the next meal time.
Suga found himself, mostly without thought, wandering off to the family tapestry room-a room warded heavily against all but blood. Quietly, he slipped through the door, shutting it behind him and muttering a quick spell to light the candles. The candlelight flickered off the family tapestries, hung like wall paper around every corner. In the center of the room was a single rectangular oak table with an arm chair at each head. His grandfather's diary sat on the table, where Suga had left it.
Suga eased himself into one of the armchairs, picking up the diary but refraining from opening it. From his pocket, he drew out a single galleon-only notable by a single slash across the face of the coin. For those who knew the coin and its Protean enchantment, it represented a means of immediate communication between Suga and his friends from Hogwarts.
Contemplatively, Suga held up the coin in one hand and the diary in the other-watching how the light shone across either. After a moment's consideration, Suga sat them both down with the coin placed firmly on top of the old family book. He sighed-the sound barely audible even in the stillness of the room-and looked to the tapestries crowding him in.
Unbidden, his eyes wandered up to what could be considered the roots of the family tree-to the branch that was the reason this room was hidden. His gaze stopped on the family ancestor whose curse the family had spent many a generation working to cover up-the great Hogwarts founder Salazar Slytherin.
Today was the funeral of Hisashi Noroi-Duke of Hangleton; Lord of the Tattings, Catchpole, and Potage Estates; Head General for the Grand and Honorable Order of Secrecy and Tradition; Right Hand to the Giant; and the former patriarch of the last branch of the noble dynasty of Salazar Slytherin.
In a dark room filled with names of the dead sat his grandson, Koushi Sugawara-the Heir of Slytherin.
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A/N: I'm back! Here is the prologue for the sequel (so much shorter than most chapters will be). Chapters will post at least every Friday-I'm planning on keeping it at once a week for now.
Thank you again for everyone's support on "Shouyou Hinata and the Mirror of Erised"! Also, if you're interested in reading anything else by me, I am currently posting another Haikyuu story (a royalty AU rather than Hogwarts this time) that will update every Saturday. Unlike "Heir of Slytherin", it's planned as a single work rather than part of a longer series. It also has an "M" rating for violence and language rather than "T" so be warned. For those just interested in the Harry Potter AU, don't worry posting on this story will always remain on schedule.
As always, thanks for reading and hope you enjoy!