Chapter 2

Nearly five years had passed since Orion Black had stepped out of his Wizengamot meeting to learn about the muggle uprising in the east, but hardly anything had changed in the Ministry of Magic. The Fountain of Magical Brethren was exactly the same, the sun reflecting off of the shining metal and lighting up the atrium.

Three years ago, there had been a rush of people running to and fro, Aurors being deployed and coming back bruised and burned. There was none of that today, which is why Orion Black was on his way to the fireplaces to floo his way home. Apparating in and out of the Ministry had gotten a bit tricky the past few years, after the muggle uprising and the uptrend of crime that had been happening. He had brought this up at their meeting today, but of course Albus Dumbledore, the current chief had shut the idea down. The blood traitors would be the ones to bring down the entire wizarding community, he was sure of that.

As he headed to one of the fireplaces, he glimpsed a tall dark man with deep blue robes walking up from the general direction of the department of mysteries. He had only seen Dante Armanati once or twice, but everyone always spoke about them. After the uprising, him and his wife had moved into an enormous estate on the far side of the English countryside. It was rumored that their land took up the size of half a forest and parts of a muggle town.

A year after their arrival, Dante and Calliope Armanati had begun working in the Ministry. Dante worked in the Department of Mysteries, which meant that he was almost never seen nor heard since they never spoke of the research they did down there. And Calliope worked in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. She was more visible than her husband, but her job was even more discreet if that was even possible. They seemed like a respectable lot however, they spoke with such few people regularly that he doubted they were muggle sympathizers.

Much of his knowledge however, came from what his wife told him. Their son Caspar was a prefect at Hogwarts, and had become the captain of the quidditch team. His niece Narcissa talked about him occasionally, her face going red each time the Armanatis got brought up. They were a popular dinner conversation.

Dante Armanati was speaking with a hooded man he saw, and he watched until the green smoke of the floo network covered his vision and he was left standing in the fireplace at his own home.

"Sirius Black, get down here this instant!" He found his wife standing in the hall, her hands on her hips looking murderous. Regulus was standing next to his mother, looking frightened and holding a small stuffed doll in his hand.

"Orion, good you're home. Could you go get your son? He has barricaded himself in his room again." Walburga rolled her eyes, grabbing Regulus' hand and pulling the boy out of the room.

This had become quite the common occurrence in the house, it usually was when Sirius was told they would be visiting someplace. Orion knew that he didn't like being around his cousins, especially Bellatrix who he suspected had been practicing her curses on her younger cousins.

Orion had always made sure to cast a few charms on both of his kids so that nothing actually harmful could be done to them, but Walburga didn't have the patience to explain that to Sirius. She always got along with Regulus more, he was a lot more willing to follow directions and ask fewer questions.

When Orion got upstairs, he found Sirius sitting on the floor of his room peeling the paint off of the corner of the walls. "I don't want to go dad." He said not even looking up.

"You know that's not an option son." Orion didn't even know where they were supposed to be going. He hadn't actually had the time to discuss or go over anything with his wife yet. "Do you have any idea where your mother is planning to drag us to?"

"Some new family, she said it was a big estate and that I had to go because they had a kid my age."

"A kid your age?" He didn't know who she could have been talking about.

"Yeah, I've never heard of them though, they were called the Aroma something."

"The Armanatis?" He asked, surprised. In the past five years they hadn't invited anyone to their estate. No wonder Walburga had been so angry at Sirius, he could easily guess what her plans were. The Armanati's younger child was almost the same age as Sirius, although, he couldn't imagine her matchmaking to be a smart idea when it came to their older son. It would have been fine for Regulus but Sirius never did something he didn't want to.

"Why don't you want to go?" He asked his son.

"There's nothing to do. Why do I need to go?"

"Well… they have a really big yard. And a forest, you would probably be allowed to roam as you please while the adults aren't paying attention." He reasoned.

"A forest?" The boy only seemed to hear the part of Orion's reasoning that he was interested in.

"Yes, are you interested in going now?"

"Okay. But I'm still angry at mother." He replied.

Orion convinced his son to come down to dinner with them, which was an event of its own. Sirius barely spoke the whole time and Orion could see how it was bothering his mother.

"I saw Dante Armanati at work today." Orion began, trying to diffuse the tension before Walburga and Sirius' fight got loud.

The comment on the Armanatis seemed to distract Walburga for a minute as she recounted the message she'd received from Calliope. "They sent this beautiful letter, when I opened it it had been charmed to show Calliope actually speaking to me."

"Did they now? That is quite exciting."

That was all it took as Walburga began to outline the entire plan of action for the week leading up to the party. Orion was just relieved that he didn't need to spend any more of his actual energy on this mundane gossip and on controlling his wife and son's argument. All he had to do now for the next week was follow Walburga's directions and listen to the rambles.

His wife's plan, as she outlined it the rest of dinner was to get new dressing gowns tailored for each of them. She needed to get intel on what the Malfoys and the Lestranges were doing and to find out exactly who else had been invited. She already knew that the Potters had, despite being quite the blood traitors. She doubted the Armanatis knew all of this rich English Wizarding history however, since it was not like they were English or even out enough to figure out which family was of what sort.

The Weasleys had definitely not been invited, but Walburga had heard from the Bulstrodes that Dumbledore and a few members of the Hogwarts staff would be present. Walburga had insisted however, that this event would be decent and that in the future she knew they would invite better people.

"As long as Sirius can behave and not embarrass us again in front of them." Walburga added loudly.

Sirius, who had been deep in conversation with his younger brother suddenly looked up. Orion could see a deep anger in his eyes as the boy stood up abruptly, the chair he was sitting on fell back with a crash and he stomped out of the room and up thee stairs.

"You can forget about dinner tonight!" Walburga yelled as she dug into her dinner.

This was not an uncommon occurrence during dinnertime either. The angrier Sirius got, the more his mother attempted to agitate him. Orion didn't really notice it for the most part, he spent most of his time working on his defensive charms and with his nose in a book.

Walburga was the one that was home with the children, and she doted on her younger son nowadays. Regulus got along with everyone, he was a sweet quiet boy who always heard others first. He was only eight years old, not that that was much of a difference from Sirius' age of freshly ten.

He was strangely aware however, and that night after dinner he went up to where their house elf lived and asked for some extra dessert and dinner to be sent to Sirius' room from their house elf Kreacher. He even sat and listened as Sirius talked about how he couldn't wait to go to Hogwarts and not have to listen to his mother all the time.

Their cousins also liked to constantly poke fun at Sirius, he was slightly hot-headed and was more likely to react and speak his thoughts out loud than the rest of them. Bellatrix Black especially, she had just finished her seventh year and just that past Christmas she had tried to curse Sirius' fingers off.

Everyone knew that even looking at Regulus the wrong way would put you in the direct path of Walburgas anger but Sirius was way too prideful to even let his family know that he had been bested by his cousin. Although, he doubted his mother would do anything to help him. She would probably think that whatever his cousins did to him was probably a good lesson.

Andromeda was rarely there at the parties, she usually got Bellatrix to stop and knew some really good hexes to throw right back at her.

He did dread having to go to another family function since he knew that some incident between him and his cousins would surely happen. It was with that dread that Sirius spent the rest of the week.