Beta'd by the unique InsaneScriptist.

Of destruction and distraction

Dorea and her friends went shopping the day after receiving their Hogwarts letters, wanting to get in ahead of the rush. Dorea spent that day attacking the libraries in search of more useful books, occasionally asking Great-Aunt Cassiopeia or Aunt Lucretia for recommendations. As she'd been doing this for well over a week now, she had a tentative list ready as well as the very helpful list of OWL requirements Uncle Septimus had sent her with her birthday present. Said list suggested that Dorea could take her History and Astronomy OWLs now and pass them, which was tempting because doing so would grant her unlimited access to Uncle Cygnus' vaults, which included all of Grandad Pollux' books that he had inherited from his and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's father. Great-Grandpa Cygnus had been a strictly traditional but somewhat kind man from what Great-Uncle Marius and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia said about him, so he probably had good books. It would also give her free time to study in that wasn't marred by the monotonous droning of an out-of-date ghost and save her from further late-night star-gazing sessions in the Scottish winter when she already knew everything on the curriculum. She hadn't found the Planetarium last year, having been rather absorbed in exploring the parseltongue passages, but she had managed to confirm that one had been included when the school was built. It had in fact been one of Rowena Ravenclaw's pet projects.

Papa was against her taking any OWLs early, but Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was all for it. This discussion had been running back and forth even before the funeral and neither party was willing to concede an inch. In the meantime however Dorea had set aside a small pile of books to take to Hogwarts, as she had every intention of advancing her education as far as possible. Her cousin Anthony would be coming to Hogwarts this year too, so she had to look out for him like her older cousins looked out for her. Deborah and Dawn couldn't really do it as they both had their OWLs this year, which left Patricia –now in sixth year– Stephanie, Gregory and herself. Gregory was amusingly blind to everything other than Quidditch and History, so despite Anthony being his little brother he wouldn't be much help. Patricia would be working hard preparing for her NEWTs next year, so it would mostly be Stephanie and Dorea watching out for the youngest Black. Well, youngest British Black: her cousin Martin and his pretty wife Leonie had a baby daughter now, whom they'd called Phoebe. She would eventually be attending Beauxbatons though, not Hogwarts.

However a week after Dorea and her friends had spent the day in Diagon Alley, ordered new uniforms, replenished their supply of parchment, quills and potion supplies, bought their new textbooks –including just one copy of Lockhart's works between them– and trawled the other shops for interesting bits and bobs, the goblins finally came through and transferred over to the Black Vault Bellatrix's dowry and a few additional personal deposits she had made. Aunt Lucretia had been summoned by Papa to examine them and had brought to Black Manor the next day a shallow cup made of gold with two handles and a badger engraved on the side. Dorea had been curious, but upon seeing it Papa had gone white and locked himself, Aunt Lucretia and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia in the study with it. Judging by how the door was Warded they were probably arguing, so Dorea left them to it. However her preliminary packing was interrupted an hour later when Papa came looking for her, his face rather grey, and quietly asked her to come downstairs so they could talk to her.

Dorea then learned that Tom Marvolo Riddle had mutilated his soul and there was a bit of it in Hufflepuff's cup, but that removing it was going to tire Great-Aunt Cassiopeia so badly she might die. So Dorea had to stand behind her Great-Aunt in one of the Ritual rooms in the basement of Black Manor and listen to what was involved in deconstructing and exorcising Soul Jars, so that the knowledge wouldn't be lost. That Voldemort hadn't just stopped at one was a sickening thought and explained a lot about how anarchic his crusade for so-called pureblood supremacy had become before he fell afoul of her mother. Aunt Lucretia also showed her how to draw a secure Exorcism Ward and promised her books once she passed her Runes OWL, which was nice but Dorea mostly felt sick that her great-auntie who was the only mother she remembered was probably going to die and it was all Voldemort's fault for chopping up his soul in the first place.

Then the process began and Dorea wrapped her arms around her Great-Aunt's middle from behind and paid close attention to the spells and wand movements, because this was important and she had to learn it. Her Blood Ward activated as the first spell hit the cup, shimmering visibly across her skin as her forehead burned, but Dorea did her best to look past it at what her family was doing. The Diagnostic Charms, the Shield Charms, the unravelling of the structure of the Enchantment, all as a dark cloud howled at them from within the boundaries of the Exorcism Ward. Dorea wasn't afraid of the disembodied spirit –it couldn't touch her– but she was terrified for her relatives, especially when Great-Aunt Cassiopeia started leaning on her and Aunt Lucretia sunk down on one knee.

As abruptly as it began it was all over, the dark cloud collapsing in on itself and vanishing and the glowing ward drawn on the stones beneath their feet fading to nothing. Papa quickly caught Great-Aunt Cassiopeia before she fell and tipped a Strengthening Solution down her throat before carrying her away upstairs. Dorea was left behind to help Aunt Lucretia totter over to the potions rack for a Strengthening Solution of her own, then disconsolately follow her back up to the ground floor.

Great-Aunt Cassie spent the next four days in bed being waited on hand and foot by Kreacher, who was the only house-elf expressly informed on the subject of horcruxes. Sirius still didn't like seeing him but even he had to admit that Kreacher had a stake in Voldemort's downfall and he was very attentive to Cassie. However the fact remained that the wonderful and crotchety old lady had severely over-exerted herself, which not even the Healer they called in could do anything about. As Healer Duthridge said after examining her, she would either pull through or not.

Dorea was incredibly upset about the whole thing and was spending all the time she could with Great-Aunt Cassie, only coming out of the room when her combat tutor came over for her lessons or to use the bathroom and sleep. Even when Cassie was asleep –which was most of the time to be honest– his darling Dorry-Rose sat in her bedroom doing her embroidery or reading a book, regularly glancing over at the woman who raised her to make sure the elderly lady was still breathing. Sirius's heart ached for his baby girl, who'd seen far too much death already this month without losing Great-Aunt Cassie. He'd already decided that his daughter could take her OWLs if she wanted and that he wouldn't stop her from learning about the nastier and more dangerous Family magic that only a few days ago he'd been fiercely vetoing; his daughter looked up to Cassie as a role model and forbidding her from following in the elder lady's footsteps would only result in her defying him. Sirius didn't want Dorea to feel she had to choose between making him happy and following her heart; he didn't want to emulate his mother like that.

To keep himself from brooding Sirius threw himself into the Lockhart project, sending wizards all over the world in search of eyewitnesses to his supposedly heroic exploits. He visited Great-Aunt Cassie every day though, to tell her what had been achieved so far and get her advice when she was awake. Auntie Lulu was recovering well at home with Uncle Iggy, which was a relief, but Great-Aunt Cassie wasn't improving. Admittedly she wasn't getting worse either, but that wasn't all that comforting really.

Sirius reminded himself that Great-Aunt Cassie was seventy seven, which while not as old as Grandpa Arcturus had been when he died was still very old for a Black. They didn't live very long as a rule, possibly due to all that in-breeding or more likely because of their family magic being Dark and therefore corrosive to those not fully in control. Great-Aunt Cassie had been one of the few to be a true Dark Arts Mistress, but she was old, frail and really shouldn't have been dismantling a horcrux with only a Runes Mistress to back her up. Sirius knew very well that he may as well have not been there, as while he was a Transfiguration Master and had recently gained his Charms Mastery in preparation for the Curse-Breaking Mastery Uncle Iggy had promised to prepare him for, he had been no use at all to the ladies. It was a bitter admission, but it was the truth. Though seeing Dorea's Ward in action –as Aunt Lulu had promised it would be– had been breath-taking and humbling: he could hardly believe that he'd helped make that possible! Yellow fire dancing over her skin without burning her, the sowilo rune an angry red on her forehead… Sirius no longer feared for his daughter's safety, but that did not mean he wanted her to get more involved in horcrux-disposal than she already was.

When the first of September finally arrived Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was slightly better, but still spending most of every day either in bed or sitting in an armchair wrapped in a blanket, as she refused to miss any more Thursday teas than she had to. It was still an improvement though, so Dorea didn't feel too badly about going away to school for several months. She had lots of books packed, Papa had agreed to let her take two OWLs early –she'd be sitting them at the beginning of the Christmas holidays– and apparently the investigation into Lockhart was going well enough that Dora was sure they'd have enough evidence for it to be worth bringing the case before Amelia Bones by the New Year. Dorea hoped it would be sooner than that, as it had been in the Prophet last week that Lockhart would be Hogwarts' Defence teacher this year and she was dreading it. In fact, she was tempted to skive off entirely and go the self-study route; after all if he never saw her in class he wouldn't ever realise she was missing, would he?

It was with this hopeful thought in mind that Dorea boarded the Hogwarts Express, finding the compartment Daphne was sitting in with relative ease and settling in opposite her, Fizz wrapped around her shoulders. The boomslang hissed languidly about rats, sunshine and how he would miss climbing trees as Dorea opened The Darkness Within and concentrated on the printed words before her; Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had answered a lot of her questions and explained various points to her over the holidays, so she'd made considerable progress through the thin volume. Her Occlumency had progressed also, but Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had warned her that she would not be able to progress to true mastery until after puberty, which meant she would not be able to start delving into black magic until she was fifteen at the very least and possibly not even until she was seventeen. Dorea had accepted this as being for her own sanity and was turning her academic efforts towards the Potter Grimoires in the meantime: they contained a lot on Wards and Transfiguration, so most of this year's extra reading was geared towards those subjects.

She had brought Transfiguration Expanded again, both the first and second volumes this time, but also Fluidity of Form, a Greek text from the Library of Alexandria side-by-side with its English translation. The book dated from before the Statute of Secrecy so the translation was rather archaic, but Dorea had picked up quite a bit of Ancient Greek over the years alongside her Latin lessons and she was managing just fine so far. She also had a dictionary of Ancient Greek so she wouldn't get stuck as well as a grammar text; it wouldn't do to misunderstand something.

Her latest Rune book had been a gift from Aunt Lucretia, who agreed she was ready for practical projects. It was called Three Hundred Seals and was in Chinese, but Dorea was perfectly fluent now so she wouldn't have a problem. The book was the standard starter text for using Seal Script in talismans, wards and rituals, so Dorea wasn't really worried about getting in over her head. Uncle Ignatius had given her a Russian book of weather and secrecy magic called General Winter –or at least that was what it translated as– which contained numerous Charms that all had Ward equivalents. Dorea had leafed through it once already while sitting with Great-Aunt Cassiopeia and was hoping that the book would give her an idea of how to convert other Charms into Wards. Her attempts at keeping the dorm above freezing had so far all been Warming Wards rather than proper Heating Wards, and they had all failed rather quickly.

She'd also brought The Standard Book of Spells (Grade Three) because their little independent study group was well ahead, Self-Defensive Spellwork because they'd need it what with Lockhart attempting to teach –he'd barely managed an 'Acceptable' on his Defence OWL– and The Chatelaine's Complete Potions Compendium, which was another antique text but gratifyingly wide-ranging in recipes and had its own associated notebook containing the editing, explanations and modifications of various past generations of Blacks. The notebook was nearly as thick as the original text after so many years of use and Dorea was hoping that brewing everything in the book would enable her to slim it down so that a revised edition of the original volume could be printed, privately of course, for ease of usage.

She was also taking Refinements in Scrying, which was a good follow-up text to An Introduction to Scrying that Blaise had borrowed and started learning from over the summer, so she could delve more into different scrying mediums and which ones worked best for her in which circumstances. Cards could be quite good for scrying with, for instance, especially in complex, social or abstract situations. Dorea was also taking a lot of sheet music, particularly Chopin. Playing helped her deal with stress and think things through, so she'd done quite a bit more practicing than had been strictly necessary last year. Dealing with Lockhart and his fans would probably send her running to the piano even more this year –the man was a lying fool but he was pretty to look at– so it would be wise to be prepared. Besides, Fizz liked feeling her play; he claimed it was almost as good as magic.

Doera was roused from her musing by Padma and Hermione entering the compartment. She hadn't seen Padma at all over the summer as her family had been in India, so she set her book aside and got up to hug her.

"Padma! You look very well. Have a good holiday?"

"I had a lovely time, thank-you," Padma said pleasantly; "My father was very pleased with my marks and bought me some very pretty jewellery; my sister was rather jealous and may join our study group this year. Oh, and I bought you this, but I thought I should give it to you in person rather than post it." She handed Dorea a parcel wrapped in elaborately decorated paper. "I found it in Delhi; it should have more information on parselmouths than I was able to give you."

Hermione made a strangled sound but did not interrupt as Dorea carefully opened the parcel. It contained a book titled Children of the Naga, which took her a great deal of self-control to not just sit down and read. Instead she set it down on top of The Darkness Within, thanked Padma profusely then turned to greet Hermione, who was fidgeting.

"Hello, Hermione."

Hermione's face set in resolve. "I talked to my parents," she announced, "and they said you had a point. So I'm going to try and write more concisely because not everyone is as interested in all the fine detail as I am." It was clearly not something she was happy about, so Dorea smiled delightedly and hugged the startled Muggleborn.

"I'm so glad. I was worried about you, you see: I wouldn't want you to lose marks over something that trivial."

Hermione hugged her back then pulled away. "They said that too; I know you do care Dorea, it's just… why can't people be interested?" She seemed genuinely outraged.

Dorea patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Think of it this way: if you can summarise it well enough that people can understand it and want to know more, they can ask you and you can add all the details in."

Hermione looked much happier at that prospect, no matter how unlikely Dorea knew it to be, and she and Padma sat down, leaving room for Blaise, who had not yet arrived. Given that Dorea had not yet gone into much detail on Family Magic with Hermione –it was not really something you were supposed to share– she slid The Darkness Within out of sight and picked up Children of the Naga, eager to read a book on parselmagic that did not utterly vilify it without actually going into detail of what it entailed.

Blaise eventually hurried into the compartment barely five minutes before the train was due to leave, muttering mutinously in Italian about 'priorities' and 'idiot step-fathers'. Dorea patted him sympathetically on the leg as he set his trunk in the overhead rack and shifted sideways slightly so he could flop down next to her. Zee was her best friend; it was something she'd realised over the summer holidays. Dee she trusted to get things done for her, tell her what she needed to know and back her up and Trey was the best person to cheer her up, but when she just wanted to be and not feel lonely, Blaise was who she looked for. He was calming and didn't judge her. It was almost like having a brother: Zee wasn't above teasing her over her foibles.

"Excuse me for being so late, Rhea; my new step-father doesn't seem to realise that I need to be on time for the train," Blaise said in Italian as the whistle blew and the train started moving. "I don't think I want to go home for Christmas this year, whether or not he's still there." Her friend did love his mother dearly, but he found her tendency to run through husbands like most women did shoes to be highly disconcerting. Zee wasn't the only one to feel that way, but he actually had to live with his mother and the man she was currently married to.

"You can stay at my house; my father won't mind and you'll enjoy it more than staying at school," Dorea replied in the same language. Zee usually spoke Italian to her whenever he could, as it was his mother tongue and while his English was fluent he liked Italian better.

Her friend's head slid across to rest on her shoulder. "Thanks Rhea; I'd like that a lot. I read that book you gave me on Water Magic during the summer: it's really interesting and I'm pretty good at it. Want to see?"

"Certainly, but not now." Dorea said absently. "You seem tired."

"I am; I've barely had any sleep since the wedding last week," Zee grouched. "Why couldn't Mum just go on her honeymoon right away and let me stay with you? It would have been less stressful. Jonas doesn't like me at all as it is without Mum giving him more reasons."

"Rest; I'll save you something to eat for later," Dorea said firmly. "Don't make me hex you."

Blaise chuckled, eyes closed. "I adore you Rhea. Until later?"

"Goodnight."

It took all of twenty minutes for her Italian friend's breathing to even out and his head to start to slip forward off her shoulder; Dorea set her book aside to lower his head and shoulders onto her lap and shift his legs around so he wouldn't be uncomfortable lying that way. Then she returned to her reading. The book Padma had given her was delightfully positive and marvellously detailed. She would be able to experiment!

"Dorea?" Dorea glanced up at Hermione.

"Yes?" she replied quietly, not wanting to disturb Blaise. Admittedly Blaise was a heavy sleeper where noise was concerned, but if she tensed he would be up in a split-second.

"Erm, I heard you mention parselmagic last year," the Muggleborn said tentatively, "so I tried to look it up. All the books I could find say parselmouths are evil."

"British and indeed most other European cultures vilify parselmouths," Dorea said calmly, "because several highly infamous wizards of a violently destructive and dangerous bent have had the gift. Herpo the Foul was the most infamous in antiquity, but the self-styled Lord Voldemort was the most recent. However being a parselmouth doesn't make you evil: it just means that you can speak to snakes. It's what people do with their gifts that defines them, not what those gifts are. Paracelsus was a parselmouth."

"In India parselmouths are revered," Padma volunteered. "There are many poisonous snakes and being able to communicate with them has saved many lives."

Hermione was wide-eyed, but didn't seem to be outraged at the idea of her precious books being biased; possibly there had been more than one talk with her parents this summer. "Could you tell me more?"

Dorea let her attention go back to her reading as Padma and Hermione's conversation continued, Tracy and Daphne both joining in after a little while. She'd heard most of what the raven was saying before and her new book was much more interesting.