The rest of the term came and went, as school terms usually do, with the common fervor of exam taking. Soon Harry was back on the Hogwarts Express headed for a winter break filled with parties and his first full Rite at Yule. It was when Harry was packing that he discovered something he hadn't even known he had missed.

Theo leaned against his bedpost, his single duffle already packed, charmed and waiting. He was watching Harry pack a small bag of essential items he wanted to take with him over the holidays, a task which had already taken the black haired boy half the previous night. Running out of regular conversation topics while Harry fumbled through his school trunk, Theo turned to more obscure topics.

"You're getting right chummy with Longbottom, I see."

Harry shrugged. "He was my partner for our Rites lessons, along with Mandy. His parents knew my parents. Aurors, the pair of them. In St. Mungos care of Mira's uncle. He's actually an interesting guy once you get past the nerves."

Theo let out a low whistle. "He's still a strange one to be taking the Rites."

Harry shook his head. "The Rites themselves are nothing but tradition. Susan Bones is taking them and her aunt is a top ranked official in the DMLE. Bones doesn't buy into any of the stuff we believe in, but she still takes the Ministry approved Rites. Why should Neville be any different?"

Theo frowned. "That's what confuses me about Abbot, Longbottom and Bones in particular. All three of them are as pure as the driven snow, but they DON'T believe in blood supremacy. Yet they take the Rites that only purebloods are allowed to take?"

Harry laughed. "Stop thinking about it. It's all about tradition. They're taking the Rites, that's good enough reason to associate with them. The Rites classes don't come cheap, so taking them means you have the gold to spare. So what if they're anti Dark? None of them are out and out blood traitors."

"Sins of the Father, Harry. Longbottom and Bones both fought against the Dark Lord. Bones' parents died for their indiscretion and Longbottom's parents were driven insane for withholding information."

Harry shrugged, putting his Potions books into the small bag he would take home with him over the hols. "So did my parents. Where do you think I got this scar? Falling into a well?"

Theo looked confused. "Well, no. But you're different."

Harry shook his head. "Whatever. Hey what's this?" Harry pulled up the tiny shrunken chest from where he had hidden it. "I totally forgot about this after I got out my mum's Charms notes!"

Theo came over and looked at the tiny shrunken trunk. "An Inheritance Trunk! Nice."

Harry turned to Theo, stunned. "You know what this is?"

Theo nodded. "Pureblood tradition. Most parents and grandparents put one together for at least the heir of the family in order to pass down family secrets. If the time for ascension comes and the parents are still alive, the trunk is opened in a small ceremony and the parents go over the contents with the child. Strange you got one now, usually they don't become accessible until you turn 15."

Harry nodded. "I've got two. My parents wanted to give me one before I started Hogwarts, and there's a second one still in my trust vault." Harry unshrunk the trunk and put it on his bed. He opened it and noticed the letters he had missed before.

Theo smiled a rare smile. "That's nice. What are those?"

"Letters I couldn't open before. Didn't even think about them once I got to Hogwarts."

"Couldn't open?"

"My Aunt thinks there was a timed sticking charm set up to only open after I got to Hogwarts. I tried everything, even ripping the envelope off. The bloody thing would just repair itself and still be sealed. I wonder if I can get it open now. Harry went for the largest envelope first, thinking that maybe it was a longer letter about his time at Hogwarts.

The envelope opened, revealing not the one letter he expected but four. One was addressed to R. Lupin, the second to S. Snape, the third to A. Bones and the last was written to a scribble. Harry couldn't make heads or tails of who that letter was addressed to, and neither could Theo.

"So what are you going to do?"

"S. Snape is either Professor Snape or somebody related to him. I can give him that letter, but I prefer to owl it to him once I'm safe at home. I can get my aunt to stop by the Ministry to give Madam Bones her letter, since I have to go by anyway for our Civics assignment over break, and our owl can find this Lupin person."

"You're just going to hand over letters, even though you don't know what they say?"

Harry shrugged. "They're not my letters. Not my job to monitor what my parents write in letters, even if they have crossed the Veil."

Theo sighed. "So you almost done packing? I swear you're a girl with all the stuff you need."

Harry rolled his eyes. "We have a lot of homework to do, and I don't want to get behind. Without the Granger mudblood the Fawcett girl is just average, but still. Less competition is still competition. The girl's no slouch at Charms theory. "

"You pulled out top marks in Potions didn't you?"

"Nope. Draco."

Theo's eyes popped out of their socket. "How?"

Harry chuckled. "Extra Credit. But I've got top marks in Charms. Mira's got me beat in Transfiguration, and Longbottom pulled out top marks in Herbology."

Theo smiled. He was in the top five percent, but didn't pull out any ultimate top marks. "What about DADA?"

"Titania. You don't honestly think that the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange is a slouch at DADA? All of them were doing fake battles since they could form words."

Theo laughed at the image of a baby Titania pointing a chubby finger at her sister and trying to cast an Unforgivable. Then he paused. "But Bellatrix was in jail until the girls turned seven."

Harry shrugged. "Who raised them until then?"

Theo paused, feeling foolish. "OH. Right. Come ON you've got to be done by now!"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. I'm done." He hefted his back onto his shoulder as Theo did the same, and they walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast before the train left.

The train ride was uneventful, and Harry enjoyed the time he got to spend hanging out with his closest friends without interlopers. Soon he was back at the Manor, back to his wonderful single room and his private bath, and the freedom to wear whatever he pleased. Sure there would be parties and Rites coming up pretty soon, but he had Boxing Day to look forward to: his closest friends, and only his closest friends, for a whole day.

Harry never thought he would have that to look forward to, but being placed in separate houses from one of his best mates was hard. He didn't have the satisfaction of telling both Blaise and Theo how the day went, or having Blaise there to snicker as a mudblood made a foolish mistake. Tracey and Daphne couldn't curl up in the corner of the Ravenclaw common room and make fun of the other girls, namely Turpin and Fawcett. The two girls annoyed him with their constant whispering, and they were even worse after Granger left for the rest of the term.

All in all, sometimes he wished he had been sorted Slytherin, but he was just as happy to be a Ravenclaw. Nobody gave him evil looks like he had seen his housemates give Slytherins, and there was the extra bit about not being hexed on sight by some errant Gryffindor over some imagined slight. From what Dru and Tristan had told him, the number of Potions 'accidents' had reduced considerably when the class had been switched school-wide from Gryffindor/Slytherin to Gryffindor/Ravenclaw.

That Harry could imagine. Ron Weasley had lost his house 250 points over the course of the first term due to his attempts to tamper with other people's potions, his included. The fact that Neville's potion production had improved tenfold after warding his cauldron was proof enough. Daphne had enlisted the help of NEWT Charms and Potions students to impove the spell to cause a reaction to the errant hand that tried to add ingredients to a cauldron not thiers. Ravenclaws helped because it meant extra research. Slytherins helped because it meant that they could tamper with the potions of others and not risk retaliation. Even Hufflepuffs helped, because it meant protection from Gryffindor pranksters and Slytherin meanies. How Daphne managed to get all of those NEWT level students from different houses to work together, Harry wished he knew.

Harry contemplated these things and more as he took a long relaxing soak in his private bath. To have five solid days of not having to wake up at the crack of dawn just to have the bath to himself was rewarding, even if it meant trading in his nights for the various dinner parties and galas he would attend for the Yule season.

Tonight was the first of these. Less prominent families simply held holiday parties with canapés, sparkling grape juice for the younger set, and cocktails and champagne for the older set. The more elaborate the party, the more prominent the family, was the rule.

So soon Harry, after reading through the next chapter of Most Potent Potions II, Modern Potions Innovations, was selecting an outfit to wear to the Davis' house. He went with a silk emerald shirt, steel gray wool slacks, and a dark grey robe lightly lined with dark lynx fur. He chose black dragon hide boots, shined with Hunnington's Best and his best silver robe clasp. It was understated, just formal enough to look proper without being an overt display of wealth and status. There would be enough of that posturing when it came time to go to the Ministry Gala and the Malfoy's event.

Harry stepped out into the hallway and saw his twin sisters prepping for their winter party debut with Drusilla. Drusilla was wearing a dark green evening gown and dark ballroom slippers. Her hair, which seemed to have gotten even lighter blonde, was pinned back with two clasps embedded with diamond and emerald chips, and one of her Black Family pendants hung from her neck. Harry noticed it wasn't the bejeweled one she had gotten for her birthday, but the simple solid silver one hanging from a silver chain.

The twins were wearing dark ruby dresses that looked darling on them. Crushed red velvet on top, knee length satin with black tuille petticoats. They each also had their first pendants hanging from their necks, and black satin shoes. In other words, the two black haired 9 year olds looked like the picture of Pureblood perfection.

"Hey Dru, ready to go?"

Dru looked up from her painstaking inspection of Ophelia and Cordelia (Phee and Cord) and smiled. "Yeah, they look good and they know what to do. I shouldn't worry about it."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "It's just a small gathering at the Davis house. Phee and Cord have no chance in embarrassing you in front of anybody, unless you fancy her brother?"

Dru scowled. "Not in this lifetime. But still, people will be there, and people like to talk. I'd hate for the twins to have their first party be a failure when we know full well that certain wizards are known for their long memories."

Ophelia scowled, tossing a dark ebony pin curl back and forth as she shook her head. "We are standing right here, gits."

Harry smiled. "Get used to it, people will be doing that all night. Did you girls say goodnight to Orion? He's probably awful bitter that he's the only one left behind with the Governess these days."

Cordelia smirked. "We said goodbye alright." Ophelia sprouted a twin smirk and Harry suddenly worried deeply for the young scion.

Dru smiled sweetly, which was almost as bad from the Slytherin girl, and walked towards the stairs. "Mother and Father will be waiting, we shouldn't tarry."

They walked down the stairs and met Cassi and Orion Sr. at the front foyer. Orion was splendid in black and pewter, while Cassi shone in a light silver gown.

"Shall we go?" Orion looked at his children. He really considered Harry a son, even though the boy was not formally adopted in order to preserve any claims to his Potter inheritance. However, if a person familiar with the Black family cared to look beyond the Potter nose and his mother's eyes, they could see that the set of his jaw and cheekbones was very much a Black family trait. Sure, he got his messy hair and slightly shorter than average height from the Potters, but those certain other features meant that he could never be disclaimed as a Black descendant.

They arrived right in the middle of groups Flooing into the party. The Davis house could not be claimed as small, per se. It was an old family home, built in the early 1700s and actually had separate quarters for the four house elves that served the family. Mr. Davis was bedecked in black accented with green, while his wife, a ravishing beauty with dark hair and grey eyes, wore a light green gown studded with tiny crystals that caught the candelight in a most fetching way. Tracey's curly locks were piled on top of her head, and she wore a Slytherin green gown with silver accents. Phillip, a Ravenclaw two years above Harry, wore dark blue dress robes with lighter blue accents, and Catherine, the youngest daughter, wore a purple dress and similarly had her golden curls piled in a loose manner on her head. She was the same age as the twins, and enjoyed hosting her second official party at the home.

The party was splendid, good conversation among close family members, as the invitation list had been loosely intimate, only close friends and family members allowed. The boys talked Quiddich and about the upcoming qualifiers for Puddlemore and Chudley, as both teams were in desperate need of reserve players. The girls talked about whatever tickled their fancy, although Harry did notice them giggling more often as they eyed the group of boys from across the room.

All in all it was a good start to the Yule season.

December 23rd

Harry looked at himself in the mirror once more to make sure everything was in place. Today would be his first Yule Rite, and he wanted everything to be perfect. As was customary, he wore all black. A black shirt that was a silk and cotton blend and wool pants, with special black dyed dragon hide boots. Even his robe clasp was polished onyx with his two family seals on either side. Today he was acting as a representative of both the Black and Potter families. As such, custom was that he wear both family crests to represent them at the ceremony. Cassi would be wearing both her Black and Fitzgerald crests, and he guessed that Draco and Aunt Narcissa would wear the Black and Malfoy crests. He adjusted his cloak once more, and went over the Latin he would need for the ceremony.

At sunset the combined families of Black, Malfoy and Lestrange came together at the family site. Everybody wore hoods, as was the custom before presenting one's name to the fire in preparation for the actual Rite. The mood was solemn, and one of the elders began setting up the ritual fire. Soon everything was prepared and the eldest person of the family, at this moment Cassiopeia Black I, called for the youngest member of the family to present his name. Harry took his bundle of herbs and whispered his dedication to them before walking to the burning fire pit.

"I am Harry James Potter, here to honor my family and my self." Harry dropped the bundle into the fire, which flared blue, accepting his opening offering. He dropped his hood and bowed to Cassiopeia and gave her the standard opening greeting for the Rite.

The twins were first, saying the proper words and casting their offerings into the fire, one by one. Then it was Harry's turn.

"May your days be long and your magic strong, Matriarch of the House Black." He then turned on his heel and walked back to his place.

Next came Draco, then Drusilla, then Tristian, and while everybody expected Ursula Prewitt to be the next one in line, as well as the woman herself, she was restrained by the woman standing next to her. The woman nodded to the other form standing on her right and the slight form of a witch made its way to the fire.

"I am Nymphadora Druella Tonks. I have forsaken the name of my father who is unworthy of this honor, and I present myself as Nymphadora Druella Black. I have reclaimed my proper heritage and I am here to honor my proper family and my self." Nymphadora then dropped two items into the fire, the first was a scroll, and the second one was a bundle similar to Harry's. The flame flared purple and then blue, before returning to its proper golden hue.

Needless to say people were shocked, but because the fire flashed the appropriate colors nobody said anything.

She then dropped her hood, reflecting pale blonde hair of a respectable length, with no traces of any crazy colors. She then spoke the rest of the opening rites and turned around to find her place back in line.

Things continued, as family members went up, and soon even the oldest member had been dedicated to the fire. Then the real Ritual began.

In Latin: "You are all called and chosen by blood and magic for the cause we have come to honor today. In purity and magic we come together to honor the gift we have been born into.

We honor Magic in its purest form, blessed to be the wielders of pure magic. No distinction shall we draw as wielders of magic. We shall not dishonor our magic by binding it to form. We shall be balanced in our casting, balanced in out study, and honest in our interaction with Magic. Light and Dark are limits mortals put on Magic. We honor not the laws of mortals but the laws of Magic herself. We bind ourselves to all magic, and swear upon our lineage to uphold all of the ways of our Forefathers. We will forever hold ourselves in purity of blood and magic, as our ancestors did, so shall our descendants be. "

"Our duty is to magic first, and users of magic who limit Magic for their own purpose shall be cast out from among us, lest they become a cancer that takes away what our Forefathers and Magic herself have granted."

Candles appeared in front of everybody. They too were black, but each had runes inscribed on them. Harry took hold of his for the next part of the ritual, holding the candle in his wand hand. Once everybody had taken a candle the chant continued.

"This candle represents my magic. The burning represents my desire to use my magic in the way that it was intended. I swear to protect my magic from those who would deny me full access to the power Magic has granted me. I will protect Magic in her purest form, and destroy those who violate Her laws. As the sun tracks across the Earth, as winds blow and rivers flow, I will protect Her from the destruction of her true balance. As the season grows long, and on this night which last beyond any other, strengthen my magic to do Her will. So Mote It Be."

The runes glowed gold as twilight faded into darkness, and once again each member of the family, from youngest to oldest, lit their candles on the Ritual fire, and set them in the candelabra to burn through the lengthy night. Once that was finished everybody went to the warming tent for silent reflection. Nobody was allowed to talk until dawn, when the candles would stop burning and the closing of the ritual could take place. It was a powerful silence, with chairs and beds for the old or the sleepy, but mostly the family members kept to themselves, not daring to breathe too loudly lest the spirits invoked in the ritual be disturbed.

The night was indeed long, but that's what made the ritual for Winter Solstice so taxing. Having to stay up the entire night and not eat or make noise while the ritual magic took hold. Harry didn't find it too taxing, as he sat and watched the stars, having slept most of the day. He looked at his sister, who had also slept most of the day. She was used to being quiet, and stared up at the stars, occasionally going to the fire pit to watch it being handled by Cassiopiea I, the only one allowed to tend the fire as the Ritemaster. Being quiet was hard for Harry, especially when he wanted to talk to Mira, or anybody for that matter. He especially wanted to find out about the newcomer. The girl he had barely met before, Nymphadora, sat off to the distance hugging her knees. Sometimes she looked up at the stars in their dazzling glory, but mostly she simply stared off into the dark, in her own deep contemplation. The night seemed to drag on forever. However soon it was over, and dawn cracked the sky. As the sun rose everybody gathered their candle stumps from the candelabra and resumed their places to close the ritual.

"We have seen to our honesty, our magic thusly pledged. So Mote It Be."

December 24th

Tonight was the Black Family Dinner, the official Yule dinner that only members of the Black family would attend. The party would take place the day after Boxing Day, two days before the Ministry Gala and three days before the final party of the season, the one at Malfoy Manor. The Malfoys traditionally hosted the final party of the season, to send the children off to Hogwarts or wherever they were continuing their education, and this year would not be any different.

However, tonight everybody would be talking about last night, the reentry of Nymphadora to the family fold. Nobody was foolish, even Harry knew that his housemate had to have completed certain Rites in order to partake in the Rites she had just bound her magic to last night. She would be the primary topic of conversation.

The dinner itself was at Cassiopiea's house. It was the most prominent Black property with two libraries, a small ritual chamber, and even a large dungeon area. It was the Black Ancestral Home, where, on that very spot, the Black family began it's ascent into pureblood infamy sometime in the 800s. The Manor, really a small castle, had been built up and improved upon over the centuries, and the dining room the sat in, one of three, was grand indeed, with portaits and enchanted mirrors lining the walls, floating candles, and everything gilded in silver, the ceiling itself inlaid with silver, gold, marble and fine jewels which were arranged to show the Four Formal Rites of the Seasons. It was the very epitome of extravagance, but such an old grand house should be exactly that. The table that ran down the middle was laid with the best in Victorian formal dinner service, and the house elves wore the Black Family Crest on well starched towels. Each place was charmed so that whenever the person at the Head of the Table spoke, everybody could hear. The charms even overrode privacy charms, so that there was not even a small chance that important statements by the head of the family might be missed.

After the dedication of the food, the questioning began.

"Druella, tell us how you came to be Nymphadora's 'sponsor'." Cassiopiea sat at the head of the table, waited on by her own personal house elf.

"It has been a secret I have kept since she turned eleven. One of her housemates asked why she was not taking the Rites classes that other purebloods took, and she informed them of her heritage. Sometime in October I got an owl from her, asking if there was a way for her to take the rites as a halfblood. I told her that she had to play her cards right, so to speak. I told her of the Consession of 1066 and the provision in the Magna Carta that allowed for halfbloods to claim their pureblood ancestry through a series of rituals that were decidedly frowned upon by the Ministry."

"They aren't banned outright?" Lucretia queried.

This time Lucius shook his head. "Nobody bothered to attempt it, and now there would be such an outcry against such a stunt that the Minister dare not defy centuries of precedent."

Druella nodded. "The rituals are Dark, at least by today's standards. Nobody would even attempt them unless they were serious. So she began them, under my supervision. She's my granddaughter. The sins of her mother need not be her burden if there is a way to undo them. But she dared not publicly participate in the Rites until she was a legal adult. She is such now, and thus she can practice her Rites in the open. However, as last night proved, she has taken the important rites, including the Rite of Ascension."

Nods of understanding crept through the room. Druella continued.

"She did not want her mother to know what she had done until it was too late to reverse the process. Having her birthday during the Yule season made things easy. She could to her birthday Rites under my supervision. I wrote her note allowing the Hogwarts Ritemaster to oversee her holiday dedications. I simply made up the excuse that I wanted to see my granddaughter, and Andromeda allowed it. My daughter thought that I had finally come to accept her marriage to that mudblood."

The adults laughed at the very Slytherin ploy of the elder Black woman.

"But Nymphadora, why would you do it?"

The girl, who was still sporting blonde hair, but with a dark purple streak just near her jaw line, looked serious for once. "I felt deprived of my heritage, my lineage. There were not many halfbloods or muggleborns in my year, so most of them took the Rites. Most of them took the FULL Rites. At first I just didn't want to be left out. Then as Grandmother began teaching me the family history, I realized how much I was missing out on because of my parents."

Nobody disagreed. Nymphadora's class was one of the first ones to benefit from the fertility potions brewed for the benefit of the pureblood households in order to allow previously barren women the ability to produce sires to continue family lines. The sheer percentage of purebloods to others had risen to a respectable 1/3+ in that year, and had increased to be a slim majority by the time the current first years entered school. At the growing rate, purebloods would outnumber halfbloods 2 to 1 in the coming generation, provided that all the current pureblood children married purebloods and produced at least three heirs.

"So you have renounced your father's name." Cassiopeia I asked.

"Yes ma'm. I have filed with the Ministry as of my birthday on the 26th to have my name officially changed to Black. The approval letter should come to you by Boxing Day, as the head of the family. As I am an adult my mother need not sign it or even see it."

"But to turn your back on your Mother!" Lucretia looked slightly horrified.

"I lose my mother, but look at what I gain. Even though I lose my mother, I have much to gain. Even if I had regrets at one time, the barest of chance to be accepted by my whole family mattered to me. My mother will be disappointed, my father furious, but if Great Aunt Cassi signs the seal to those papers, I am a Black, and nobody will be able to take that away from me again. I did not have a choice in how I was born, but to have a proper place in the world when I graduate is important. In time, even if my father does not accept what I have done, what I have had to do in order to restore my status, my mother may forgive me."

The questioning continued, but Harry tuned it out in favor of the roast goose on his plate. He was halfway through the course of the meal when a gong rang out, and he looked up.

"Attention, family. Through trial and flame our lost daughter has been returned to us. Let us welcome Nymphadora Druella Black, a true member of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black."

Glasses were raised, toasts given, and Harry gained a cousin, although he might have in the same measure lost one forever.

A/N PLEASE READ AS EXPLAINATION OCCURS BELOW

Druella is the mother of Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa. This would make Mrs. Rosier Black Nymphadora's maternal grandmother. Since it is obvious in Nymphadora's name that Andromeda kept up the tradition of giving her child a pureblood name at least that maybe she took it one step further and gave the girl her own mother's name as a middle name. Persons to whom J.K. Rowling has not given death dates for will be assumed to have remained alive for the duration of this story.

The rites ritual is considered "Dark" because it references the use of ALL magic, with no deference to what type of magic it is. This includes magic labeled Dark by the Ministry. So while it might not involve blood or sacrifices, it does require that the user be balanced in learning magic, namely learning ALL spells, regardless of intent or label used by the Ministry. Light families would never promise their magic to such a thing, thus the separation of rituals. Just assume that the "Light" rituals make liberal use of 'good magic' and 'integrity in casting' and no references to purity of blood being a requirement for magic.

I enjoy reviews. Next up, Harry back at Hogwarts for the Spring term.