A/N: I am honestly overwhelmed with the praise I'm getting for this story! There is a big twist coming up soon, and lots of fluff and angst! And even if it's just a few words, please leave me a review! It makes me happier than you can even imagine! I will be changing the rating in a few chapters, there won't be anything explicit, but sex will be not only implied, but it will be discussed.
-Morrigan
itsMrsBlack: You'll get your spoiler soon enough, just be patient my dear :)
As always, I own nothing recognizable!
Peia looked around at the three shocked faces. Lucretia looked like she was about to be sick, Melania was on the verge of tears, and Arcturus held his fork mid-air, the steak and kidney pie having slid off the end nearly ten minutes previously.
Melania was the first to speak. "I always thought something was off about that boy," she sniffled. "But I never thought that he would do that."
Everyone shuddered. It really was unpleasant when one sat down and thought about it. Killing was one thing, but doing so only to split your soul into pieces, it was a very ugly thought indeed.
"I do think we can help," Arcturus said quietly. "If what you're saying is true, and I believe that it is, our family is in danger. We have to stop him now."
Peia smirked in victory at her boys, Draco rolled his eyes at her and Orion huffed indignantly. Which only made her smirk widen.
"You know," Melania said. "I think I remember reading something about fusing a soul back together a few years ago, I'm sure the book is still in the library. Why don't you all go up there and I'll take care of these dishes quickly."
The family nodded their approval, Lucretia and Peia stayed behind to help Melania in the kitchen while the men trudged up the stairs to the library. With magic it only took the witches a few minutes before everything was scrubbed clean and put away again.
As they ascended the stairs Peia caught Melania's wrist in her hand. "Thank you," Peia said sincerely. "For not thinking we're crazy."
The older witch smiled warmly at Peia. "You're family darling, one thing I love about our family is that we never turn our backs on one of our own."
Peia snorted. "Unless they're blood traitors."
Melania's eyes turned sad. "Was your father a blood traitor?"
Peia shifted her eyes away.
"Ahh, I see. I promise I won't say anything to Orion about it. Personally I think that blood purity is a load of bollocks, one of my best friends from school was a Muggleborn, and she was brilliant."
Peia smiled. "My best friend was Muggleborn too, she was the brightest witch of our age."
"Did Voldemort kill her?" Melania's eyes shone with concern as Peia nodded. "Well that's just one more reason to stop him now. So your friend can live a long and happy life."
When they walked into the library Peia noticed that someone had conjured an extra chair that Lucretia was now curled up in. Melania headed straight for the section of books that Peia knew was devoted strictly to the Dark Arts and summoned a book off the top shelf. She settled down into the armchair opposite her husband and Peia plopped down on the sofa between Draco and Orion.
They all watched with bated breath as Melania leafed through the ancient book. When she found the page she was looking for Peia thought her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. This was the best option they could hope for.
"Basically," Melania said, clearing her throat. "That the only way to put a soul back together after ripping it apart is by feeling remorse, truly feeling what you've done. It would be excruciatingly painful, the pain of it could kill you."
Draco snorted. "Well we can give up on that theory right now then because Voldemort doesn't feel remorse. He doesn't care about killing people because he can't know how to love."
"He may not know love Draco," said Arcturus quietly. "But that doesn't mean that he can't know love. I don't believe that there is a person on this earth who doesn't deserve to be loved."
Peia didn't say anything. She was conflicted, to say the least, on one hand she agreed with Arcturus but she also knew the same Voldemort that Draco knew. He was pure evil.
"The problem with this is that we would have to figure out how to make him feel the weight of what he's done," Orion said. "I have no idea how we could possibly do that and we're running out of time to figure it out."
"Orion is right," Draco said firmly. "He's going to create his next Horcrux sometime next year."
Everyone shuddered. The thought of Riddle killing another innocent person was horrifying.
"What is the next object that he uses?" Lucretia spoke up for the first time. "If we find it and hide it, it may throw him off his game a little. He'll have to find something else to use, and like you said he won't just use an ordinary object, it will have to have meaning."
Peia smiled. "That's actually a brilliant idea, Lucretia. I think that the next object is Ravenclaw's Diadem, but since he probably has things sort of planned out we should find Hufflepuff's Cup and Slytherin's Locket too while we're at it so he can't just replace one with the next."
"Did he not use a token of Gryffindor?" Arcturus asked thoughtfully.
Draco snorted. "No, he hated everything that Gryffindor stood for, he wouldn't have wanted part of his soul housed in something that belonged to Gryffindor. Plus the only thing that I know of that was owned by him is the Sword, and that's in the Headmaster's office, I think it would be difficult for him to obtain that one."
Christmas morning Peia woke with a start as someone was banging on her bedroom door. She groaned and rolled over just in time to see two large beings launching themselves onto her bed.
"What bloody time is it?" she hissed, pulling the covers over her head and sinking into the mattress.
"It's Christmas morning, who cares what time it is!" Orion shouted as he bounced on his knees on the left side of her bed.
"There are presents, Peia! Wake up!" Draco laughed, hitting Peia in the face with one of her pillows.
"If you two aren't out of my room in five seconds I will hex you into oblivion!"
The boys were off her bed in a flash with Draco yelling as they scurried out of the room. "Fine, but you need to be out of bed in five minutes or we're coming back!"
Rolling her eyes she sat up and blinked into the sunlight. They had been in the past for almost two months now and being completely honest with herself, Peia didn't hate it. There wasn't any sort of a good future for her in her time right now, so being where she was really wasn't all that bad.
She rolled out of bed and slid into the fuzzy slippers that Melania had given her because the wooden floors of number 12 were always cold. She had slept in a pair of Orion's pajama bottoms and one of his old Slytherin Quidditch tees that she had nicked off of him the first night they were there. She knew it wasn't really the appropriate sleep attire for a girl her age in the 1940's, but she also really didn't care so she didn't bother changing before heading down to the sitting room.
Draco and Orion were sitting on the floor in front of two sizable piles of gifts like the over-sized five year olds that they truly were, Lucretia was sitting on the sofa with her gifts piled at her feet and nursing a cup of steaming tea. Melania and Arcturus were in their usual armchairs, their considerably smaller stack of gifts on their laps. Peia saw that there was another pile of gifts on the floor in front of the empty space on the sofa and realised they were for her.
She choked back the tears that were forming and smiled when Orion threw his hands up in the air and shouted "finally!" when he noticed Peia in the doorway.
Lucretia had given her a beautiful new set of blue dress robes that she said would go so well with her hair and eye colour. Melania and Arcturus gave her more new clothes and a stunning silver necklace with an enormous emerald pendant that made her actually cry. Melania hugged her and said that it was a Black family heirloom and she thought it might remind Peia of Harry's eyes, in a good way.
Orion gave her a beautiful hand-bound leather diary that had the Black family crest on the front; he said he had it made especially for her. From Draco she received a small gold ring with little channel set rubies. He didn't have to say anything, she knew that it was not to remind her of Harry, but of her parents who were both unwaveringly Gryffindor.
Two nights before she was to leave Grimmauld Place and go back for her final term at Hogwarts Peia lay awake trying to come up with a formidable plan to save the future. She knew that the best thing that could happen would be for Riddle to feel true remorse and let his soul repair itself, but she also knew that was the least likely thing in the world.
Peia thought her next option was the likeliest to work; befriend Riddle and keep him at a safe distance so he knows they're just friends, but get close enough to him to have access to the Horcruxes.
As she drifted off to sleep a plan was forming in her mind, a plan that would put her and her boys in unspeakable danger, but Peia Black was no stranger to that.
"Are you sure you want to get that close to him?" Orion asked for the hundredth time the next day. "He's going to think you want to date him."
Peia sighed. "No he won't. We're going to go ahead with our original wine and dine Abraxas Malfoy plan. Not to make Riddle jealous, but to make it known that I'm not interested in him in a romantic way."
Draco looked up from the violent game of chess he was playing with Orion and arched a brow at Peia. "You realise that this plan of yours has about ten thousand holes in it?"
Peia sneered at her cousin and flopped dramatically onto the couch. "I don't see either of you coming up with a plan."
Draco snorted. "Actually we have a plan to find the rest of what he's going to use for Horcruxes."
Peia turned to look at the boys. "Oh do tell."
"Actually," said Orion slowly. "We need to use you as a distraction, you don't really need to know the finer details of the plan."
"You're going to use me as a distraction," Peia hissed. "But it's not important that I know what you're doing?"
"Peia," Draco sighed. "This actually works pretty well with your plan. You can distract him by getting close to him, as a friend, and Orion and I can search the castle for the objects. Then we'll hide them and we can work on a way to destroy the ones he's already made."
She huffed and turned away from them. It was a good plan; it was basically a better version of her plan. She didn't like that they had been the ones to come up with it, she felt more helpless in this time than she ever had in her own.
"How are you planning on destroying them, anyway?" Arcturus asked from the doorway.
Peia raised a brow and looked at Draco and Orion expectantly.
"Well," Draco drawled slowly. "The only thing I know for sure that can destroy them is basilisk venom. Which we won't have access to until sometime in 1994."
Arcturus and Orion eyed Draco suspiciously but he just smirked back at them. Peia rolled her eyes.
"Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. It was opened in our second year," Peia huffed impatiently. "Draco wasn't it Fiendfyre that destroyed the Diadem?"
"I forgot about that," Draco said, his eyes lighting up. "I think it was Crabbe who accidentally burned down everything in the Room of Requirement."
Peia smiled slightly at the memory of her old housemate's foolishness. Crabbe had died in that fire.
"Fiendfyre is too dangerous," said Arcturus seriously. "Even very skilled and experienced wizards and witches can't hope to control it."
"Then we'll just have to learn to control it, Dad," said Orion cockily. "There is no other way unless you know a Parselmouth who can open the Chamber for us."
Draco snorted. "Lets just focus on getting the Horcruxes, we'll figure out what to do with them then."