All According to Plan

by LysandraLeigh

Thirteen-year-old Bella Black intended to go back in time to start a war in service to her patron Power. Ritual magic goes awry and she finds herself in 1993, faced with a failing House of Black, an insane alter ego, and a Dark Lord on the rise. Chaos ensues. Title drop. (A collaboration by LeighaGreene and inwardtransience)

21. Winter Break (III)

"Granger residence, Hermione speaking. May I ask who's calling?"

"Hello, Hermione," a very distinctive voice responded. She wasn't quite certain how to describe it, but there was a somewhat...almost musical quality to it, smoother and more...confident, she supposed, than any other boy she knew. As soon as she heard it, she knew she really didn't need him to identify himself, though of course he did anyway, since she'd already asked. "It's Blaise."

"Um, hi?" Honestly, she couldn't imagine why he was calling — or, for that matter, "How did you get my number?"

Blaise chuckled. "You are in the telephone directory, you know."

Which, well, she did know that, she just hadn't expected anyone from school to know what a phone book was, let alone use it to find her. "Oh, yes, of course. And, um...why are you calling?"

"Do you have plans today?"

The Grangers had returned from visiting Hermione's father's family in France on New Year's Day, and her parents had gone back to work today. Hermione had thought to spend the day curled up in bed with a novel, but that wasn't really plans, per se. Still, it was the first day she'd had to herself since coming home from school, and she hesitated to give it up.

Especially since she was fairly certain that the only reason Zabini would call her was because Lyra had asked him to invite her to do something with them, and Hermione wasn't sure how she felt about that. Spending more time with Lyra.

She had almost stopped being mad at her about blowing the two of them up with her stupid, impulsive attempt to do runic casting, but she was definitely still mad about her getting the time turner confiscated. Lyra said she'd asked Snape and he said they could have it back after the holiday, since they had no legitimate reason to need it at all if there were no classes to attend — that was the excuse for it, after all — but Hermione would believe that when she saw it.

And it really, really bothered her that Lyra had spent the better part of six (subjective) months lying to Hermione about who she was and where she came from. Not so much because she thought she had any more right to know than anyone else, she probably wouldn't have believed it if Lyra had just come out and told her, anyway, because it was so bloody impossible, but— It just bothered her, on a fundamental level, being lied to. The fact that it was enormously obvious that Lyra was lying didn't really help, it was just the principle of the thing — giving people bad information was wrong. Rubbing Hermione's face in the fact that she was being lied to almost made it worse.

But that wasn't the reason she was so ambivalent about hanging out with Lyra outside of school (where she arguably couldn't be avoided). She just...wasn't sure how she felt about the other girl. Well, no, she was sure, she felt that Lyra was dangerous. But she hadn't managed to decide yet whether that meant she should try to actively distance herself from her. (Not that she had even the faintest idea how she might do that, if she did decide she ought to.)

After all, she'd thought Lyra was dangerous ever since she'd reduced Malfoy to tears in the middle of the Great Hall and then dragged her off to discuss their transfiguration homework as though it meant nothing to her (which, apparently it probably hadn't), and Hermione had still kept spending the vast majority of her free time with her. After a few months of time turning, she'd even started actively seeking her out in the third shift, just because, well...it was amazing to have so much free time — Hermione had never had that much time to do whatever she wanted, ever — but it was also lonely, spending what amounted to half of her waking hours hiding away so no one would realize what there were two Hermiones about. Granted, she'd spent most of her life alone and friendless, but she'd grown accustomed to having other people around shockingly quickly.

And for the most part, Lyra hadn't been a poor companion to pass the time. Yes, she had bullied Hermione into going to the Bookstore more than once, but the idea of magic being restricted really was stupid, and Hermione did like learning new things, so she couldn't be too upset over that. Lyra was always willing to discuss whatever she was reading, and could not only keep up, but could make well-reasoned arguments when their opinions differed on, say, the value of spending nearly a month on theory — as they had in Hermione's first-year Charms class — versus jumping straight into performing magic — as in their first Transfiguration lesson. (Lyra, unsurprisingly, had been in favor of Professor McGonagall's approach, but that might have just been for the sake of the argument — she really did like Theory.) And, though Hermione didn't like to think about it too much, Lyra kept buying her books. Hundreds — thousands — of pounds worth of books. And she'd never asked for anything in return. Which was just absurd, but also very, very nice, and more than a bit suspicious, really, she'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop even before the whole...not doing emotions conversation.

Which, well. She was trying to wrap her head around the idea that the girl who was, for all intents and purposes, her best friend, was a bloody psychopath. She was trying to look at it — at Lyra — objectively. But she was starting to think that she was biased in favor of Lyra simply because, no matter how much she might annoy or even outright enrage Hermione (or physically blow her up), she was interesting and smart and Hermione wanted to keep being her friend, if only because, well, aside from Harry, she'd never really had friends, and she liked Lyra, at least most of the time.

So she found herself thinking things like, it's not her fault — if even half the things Lyra had said so casually about her childhood were true... Hermione really didn't like to think about it, but to be treated like that, by her own family, her own father, that could break anyone. And, well, she couldn't be sure that Lyra had been telling the truth about any of that, but everything she and Blaise had told her was consistent with everything Lyra and Lady Malfoy had discussed, and Lyra was hardly capable of developing consistent lies. Besides, one would think that Lady Malfoy would recognize Lyra as her sister. Lyra had even referenced their childhood in that conversation, and Hermione was fairly certain she'd had no reason to lie then, probably couldn't have, given that she was talking to someone who knew whether or not she was referencing a thing that had actually happened.

Or things like, it could be worse — she'd already known Lyra wasn't a (normal) human. She could have been a changeling or some kind of demon. Though, technically, she was pretty sure that because she was from another dimension, Lyra was a demon, by at least one definition — not the point. She could be one of the dark creatures Hermione had considered that actually preyed on humans for food. That had been a very real possibility, and Hermione had kept putting off deciding what she would do if that was the case, hoping it wouldn't happen. And it hadn't, but now she had to decide what to do about this.

If it had turned out that Lyra was actually some sort of malicious dark creature, Hermione thought she probably would have felt the need to tell someone — Professor McGonagall, maybe — to make sure the authorities were aware and all the proper precautions were in place. She had asked Professor Flitwick about Professor Lupin being a werewolf, and he had confirmed that he'd done the wards on Professor Lupin's office, and she had nothing to worry about. But this...this wasn't exactly the same thing. It wasn't like Lyra was automatically a danger to everyone around her just by virtue of their being in proximity to each other. She wasn't going to go around literally ripping people's hearts out or stealing their memories. But, well...

Did she want to continue associating with Lyra, knowing that she was never going to learn from her mistakes, and would probably periodically blow things up in Hermione's face (both metaphorically and literally) as long as she stuck around? If she did, did she have a moral obligation to try to...curb her more dangerous impulses? Somehow, she thought that would go over rather poorly. Not to mention ineffectively. But she wasn't sure she could just...sit by and watch as Lyra did...whatever came into her head, as far as Hermione could tell. If her only goals had been to revive the House of Black and kill whatever was left of Voldemort, maybe it wouldn't bother her, but she'd admitted that she basically worshipped Chaos (which, in hindsight, seemed perfectly obvious). Which implied that she would cause trouble just for the sake of it, if she felt so inclined. And knowing Lyra, she probably would. This was the girl who thought it was fun to make enemies of two thirds of their dorm on the very first night she was in the Castle.

So Hermione had spent the past few weeks, between the failed runic casting incident and Yule, trying and failing to decide what to do, hiding behind her anger about the time turner confiscation (and generally being busy, given that she suddenly had far fewer hours available) as an excuse to avoid Lyra as much as possible while she fretted over it.

And over that period, she supposed she had more or less managed to come to terms with it (in a rather weak, non-decision to just take things one day at a time sort of way). She'd resolved to just keep in mind that she might one day come to a point that she wouldn't be able to just stand by and watch Lyra bugger things up for the fun of it, and try not to get too invested in their friendship. (Because, all other things aside, Lyra certainly wouldn't. Did that even really count as friendship? Could one actually be friends with Lyra?) She might have to do something about Lyra someday, but she hadn't really done anything that Hermione felt the need to act on yet.

So when Lyra had caught her on the way down to the train and told her that she was doing that ritual of hers, and Hermione should come, if she really wanted to learn more about the Powers, she'd agreed. And now she was even more conflicted, because well... She'd re-read the book Lyra had given Harry about the Powers, after she had said she followed Chaos, and seeing her practicing what was very clearly black magic, it wasn't hard to put two and two together.

She was almost positive Lyra was a Black Mage. That that was the 'ill-advised ritual magic' she'd done as a child to protect herself from the Imperius, dedicating herself to one of the Dark Powers.

What that meant, exactly, she wasn't sure, the book didn't really go into detail, but it certainly sounded intimidating, as though Lyra was actually a priestess or prophet of Chaos, or something like that. And again, what that meant wasn't clear — Were there rites to perform? Did Chaos talk to her, give her commands? Was she going to try to convert Hermione? — but after that ritual, she was positive that it meant Lyra was even more unnerving than she'd thought, and quite possibly not as human as she claimed, all psychopathic tendencies aside. She might have been born human, sure, but Hermione was pretty sure humans couldn't just go around absorbing distilled darkness into their own bloodstream — or at least, not without serious consequences. And Lyra had seemed perfectly normal afterward, or at least as normal as she ever was. (Or at least, Hermione thought she was, it was a bit difficult to focus on anything other than the fact that she had casually invoked a bloody god to sit around and have a chat and that she'd apparently gotten news from home, which, since she was from another universe, meant she'd somehow seen or heard something from another universe.)

So now she was hesitating again, because while she might be more or less okay with (more like resigned to) the not doing emotions thing (especially in light of Lyra's childhood) and generally making a religion out of annoying people (which would at least theoretically let Hermione predict Lyra's behavior to an extent), talking to gods, or believing you talked to gods was...

Well, that was insane. There was no other word for it.

Because as far as Hermione could tell, there was no more proof that The Powers existed as anything other than a model to conceptualize and interact with free magic than there was for the existence of God. No proof that they were anything external to the human or humans interacting with them, with agency of their own. So it was entirely possible — likely, even — that Lyra had actually just found a way to, to short-circuit the way mages normally interacted with magic, given herself some sort of brain damage, and now had something she called a Power in her head (which Hermione was pretty sure should be called an auditory hallucination), telling her to do god only knew what. The whole 'summoning Hermes' thing could easily have been magic taking on a form Lyra dictated, either consciously or as some sort of delusion made manifest. That certainly seemed more likely than a Greek god sitting around talking to a bunch of teenagers for a couple of hours, especially since that whole conversation had taken place in English.

Hermione had spent the whole week she and her parents had been in France trying to figure out if this theoretically made Lyra more unpredictable and unstable than she'd already thought, and what it meant for their relationship — not that they were in a relationship (she tried to ignore the way she felt uncomfortably warm just thinking that to herself), just. Whatever this not-quite-friendship thing they'd been doing ought to be called. And she...really didn't know. But it somehow felt more dangerous to associate with someone who was possibly delusional rather than just a psychopath (which at least indicated fairly clearly that Lyra was rational and therefore could be reasoned with). So now she was having second thoughts about continuing their...association, again.

She sighed, trying to put the dilemma aside for the moment. "That depends on why you're calling."

Blaise laughed. "Care to come to a bookstore with us?"

"Us? You and Lyra? And, do you mean the Bookstore, or...?"

"And Harry, if he wants to come, and no, a muggle bookstore. And maybe a movie — Justin said Jurassic Park was awesome."

Called it, but, well that was just...odd. Not the movie part, she'd heard good things about it, too, though it was supposedly a bit on the violent side. "Why are you going to a muggle bookstore?"

And then there was a commotion of some sort on the other end of the line — she heard something that sounded very much like Lyra saying, "Give it, I'll explain!" from several feet away, and then, "Hang on a second, I'm putting you on speaker."

The thought struck her that it was very odd that Blaise Zabini, of all people, was not only capable of using a telephone, but familiar enough with it to casually say something like I'm putting you on speaker. Lyra had told her he was more familiar with muggle culture than most of their yearmates, and he had mentioned attending a muggle prep school before Hogwarts, but somehow Hermione hadn't imagined that meant he used muggle technology on a regular basis.

(Hermione's feelings on Zabini weren't nearly as complicated as those about Lyra, but she wasn't entirely certain what to think of him, either. "I'm more like Lyra than you, but more from habit and inclination," he'd said — who just decided to be a bloody sociopath? How was that even possible? Especially since he was clearly capable of some degree of empathy — he hadn't been wrong about anything he'd told Lyra about how Hermione was feeling about her...revelations about her childhood. She was fairly certain that being empathetic and refusing to acknowledge it was just called being an arse.)

"There."

"Did it work? Can you hear me, Hermione?"

"Hi, Lyra."

Blaise chuckled again. "Don't sound so excited, Maïa."

Since when did Hermione have a nickname?

"Yes, hi, whatever. I need better physics books, Sam said something about quantum."

Hermione wasn't sure, but the idea of Lyra studying quantum physics might be the worst idea she'd ever heard. She couldn't even imagine what she might be trying to do. "Why? And—"

Lyra answered the first question before Hermione managed to get the second one all the way out. "I'm trying to explain magic to Sam."

"—who's Sam?"

"Sam is the head of Research and Development at LES," Blaise explained.

Which just... "Really, Lyra? You have heard of the Statute of Secrecy, yes?"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea, I'm just explaining the technical details since it apparently didn't occur to Mira that her muggle Ravenclaw would want a proper explanation of magical theory, and she apparently hasn't gotten anyone else in on it yet who has any understanding of arithmancy whatsoever. And besides, the Statute of Secrecy is absolutely idiotic, I refuse to follow stupid laws."

Hermione snorted. She wasn't even going to touch that discussion. They'd already had three (and a half) debates about the merits of Secrecy, and in any case, Lyra did follow it, at least insofar as she didn't go around using magic in front of muggles indiscriminately. "And you know enough about magical theory to explain the technical details?"

"Uh, yes? But he kept trying to compare things I was telling him to muggle science things I've never heard of, so. Physics books. Are you in?"

"I don't know, Lyra..." Hermione hesitated. She felt inexplicably uneasy about the idea — not only about Lyra having information on quantum physics (she'd probably figure out how to transfigure antimatter or something and annihilate the bloody school), but on a comprehensive discussion of magical theory making its way into the muggle world. Not that she thought this person would spread it around (she didn't know much about Blaise's mother, but she was a Department Head at the Ministry, so Hermione was sure this man was trustworthy, and Ms. Zabini must have a good reason for telling him about magic), but it was the sort of thing that could bring the Statute down around their ears, if it got into the wrong hands.

Okay, maybe that was a perfectly explicable reason.

"I'll give you copies of everything I send to Sam."

Which— Damn it, Lyra! Okay.

See, the thing was, Hermione didn't really know anything about magical theory beyond what they'd covered in Charms and Transfiguration, and everything she'd been able to find in the library (even in the Restricted Section) had been either incomprehensible gibberish (advanced arithmancy was very unlike any maths she'd ever seen) or fuzzy metaphysical philosophizing. Hermione had long since (reluctantly) accepted the fact that (regardless of her sanity or lack thereof) Lyra was leagues beyond her in Arithmancy (enough that she'd probably never catch up), so if she was willing to write out an explanation of Magic that she thought a muggle should understand, Hermione was definitely interested.

Who knew, it might even give some insight into Lyra's own...connection with Magic, and the degree to which it affected her perception of the world around them. (Hermione really wanted some sort of indication that Lyra wasn't really as delusional as the whole Powers thing suggested. She was pretty sure that as long as she acknowledged that, she was still being objective...ish.)

Besides, Hermione somehow doubted that refusing to cooperate would stop Lyra from going out and finding the information she needed on her own. Granted, it might take her quite a lot longer, but she could be very persistent when she wanted to be, and it hadn't escaped Hermione's notice that the more anyone tried to stand in the way of Lyra doing something, the more motivated she was to do it.

Of course, Hermione knew herself well enough to recognize when she was just trying to rationalize something she really wanted to do for selfish reasons, but that didn't stop her being pretty good at it, if she did say so herself. She might as well take the bribe, she decided — it wasn't like she would be doing anything more than speeding up the process of Lyra destroying the world by a couple of weeks.

"Ugh, fine. My parents are at work, I'll have to call and ask if I can go."

Not that she really expected they'd say no. It had been somewhat disorienting (okay, extremely disorienting) that they had agreed to let her go to the Yule ritual at the Zabinis' house so quickly. Dad had been a bit reluctant — they hadn't even met Ms. Zabini — but Hermione did spend nine months of the year at a boarding school hundreds of miles away in what amounted to another bloody country. If she was responsible enough to do that, she was obviously responsible enough to spend an evening at a friend's house. She was quite certain the same logic would apply to her accompanying them to Foyles, or more likely, one of the university bookstores.

Not that she had made that argument, she'd half been hoping that they'd say no and give her a convenient excuse not to go, given her aforementioned ambivalence about continuing to associate with Lyra. Mum was just thrilled that Hermione had made friends who actually wanted to see her outside of school (which was a bit...well, it was true she'd never really had friends before, she was well aware of that, it just seemed rude, somehow, to point it out as she had), and had therefore practically insisted she go.

Of course, Mum didn't really know anything about Lyra. Yes, she'd made it into a rather absurd percentage of the letters Hermione had written over the course of the term, but that was almost entirely because Hermione had been time turning and hadn't been speaking to Ron (who always did his best to monopolize Harry's time, even when they weren't fighting), and therefore had spent far more time with Lyra than anyone else.

But ever since the troll incident back in first year, Hermione had taken to...very selectively editing the news that made it into her letters. At first, she just didn't want them to worry, or even withdraw her from school if they thought it was too dangerous, but there had been more and more things she didn't want them to know — they had no idea that she'd accidentally turned herself halfway into a cat almost a year ago exactly, or spent over two months petrified last spring. Which, on the one hand, it was absolutely horrifying that no one else had told her parents — they'd just held the letters Mum had written for her until she was unpetrified, Mum still thought Hermione had been deliberately ignoring her for all those weeks — but it was also kind of convenient, since she was sure they would have found some way to pull her out of Hogwarts after that.

So she hadn't told her parents about Lyra forcing her to abuse the time turner; or their day trips to an illegal bookstore in London; or Lyra blowing up the common room; or sneaking into the Restricted Section and reading about Dark (and illegal) magic; or Lyra blowing the two of them up just a month ago; or the fact that she was apparently the alter ego of one of the most notorious psychopaths in recent Magical British history, from an alternate timeline and three decades in the past; or anything about her suspicions that Lyra was a Black Mage and all that implied.

All Mum knew was that Hermione had a new roommate who was actually smart enough to keep up with her, and she'd somehow convinced Professor McGonagall to let them have their own room because the other girls were such bullies (because she had told Mum about Lavender and Parvati being horrible, that was normal enough drama that she'd judged it safe to share). Mum knew that Lyra was a transfer student, but she didn't know she was a compulsive liar (albeit a really bad one). Mum knew that Lyra was related to the mass murderer Sirius Black the Grangers had seen on the news over the summer, but she didn't know Lyra insisted he was innocent, and fully planned to help him evade the authorities if she somehow managed to find him before the dementors. She knew that Lyra was edging Hermione out of the top spot in their class without even trying (which was incredibly annoying), but she didn't know that Lyra was so unnaturally good at magic that Hermione had spent the better part of the term wondering if she was human at all.

Oh, and since Lyra had written to them directly, her parents were convinced she was a responsible, studious young lady who was interested in sharing the traditions of Magical Britain with Hermione. Which wasn't untrue, exactly, but seemed rather disingenuous, since she'd never really seen Lyra study anything that wasn't illegal and/or stupidly advanced ward-crafting, and the 'traditions' she wanted to share were definitely highly illegal black magic and incredibly disturbing. (She'd had to flat out lie about Yule, because there was no way she was telling her parents about anything that had happened that evening.)

Also, responsible and Lyra Black should never be mentioned in the same sentence.

Still, given that they had a completely inaccurate impression of Lyra (and Hermione couldn't bring herself to correct it, since it was largely her own fault), Hermione was sure her parents wouldn't object to Lyra dragging her off to a bookstore for the day, or even the movies.

Apparently Lyra agreed. "Hurry up, we'll be there in — what, Blaise, about an hour?"

"That sounds about right. I'll call a car as soon as we ring off, they should be able to meet us at the Bodleian in forty-five minutes or so."

"A car?" Hermione repeated.

"There's a public floo at a cafe in Oxford, about five minutes' walk from the main library. But I presume your house isn't within walking distance of that or a bookstore, so yes, a car." That sounded sarcastic, even for Zabini.

"Well, no, it's not, I just didn't realize... Never mind."

Lyra demanded her address over the sound of Zabini sniggering in the background, and within a few seconds, they had rung off, leaving Hermione staring at the phone, wondering absently what her parents would say if she told them exactly why she wanted to go out with her...friends. She supposed that was the best word, even though she was still extremely conflicted about Lyra, and couldn't really say she thought much of Zabini at all. At least Harry would almost certainly be coming, too. (He was just as bad as Hermione when it came to allowing himself to be dragged around by Lyra.)

She sighed, dialing the number for the clinic. On the plus side, going to see a movie was a perfectly normal thing she could tell her parents about, though she'd probably leave out the trip to the bookstore entirely, lest she be questioned about what sort of books Lyra was looking for. Hiding the better part of everything that happened in her life was beginning to seem a lot more difficult than she'd initially thought. At this rate, she wouldn't be able to tell her parents anything at all by the end of the year.

When had life become so complicated?

---

"You know it's really weird asking me to come to your office for a meeting and all," Lyra said, flopping into one of the visitor's chairs in front of Meda's desk. "I could've just come to your house, you know."

Meda hardly seemed to have heard her, rifling through a thick file, occasionally pausing to check one of the reference books from the shelf behind her. "You could have, yes, but this is business."

"And what business is this, exactly? Something about getting Sirius a trial, you implied in your letter."

"Hmm, yes. I prefer to wait for Dora before we get into the specifics."

"Dora? What's she got to do with it?"

Meda looked up at that, raised an eyebrow. "Who do you think started researching the circumstances of Sirius's incarceration? She is an Auror, and it is a major miscarriage of justice."

Huh. Lyra had...not expected that. It made sense, she supposed, but she hadn't realized Dora felt any sort of familial duty or loyalty toward the House of Black. Of course, it was clear Meda herself had never quite given up her Black roots, even if she was a class traitor (of which Lyra wholeheartedly approved), so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that she'd raised her daughter with the standard brainwashing.

Only a few seconds later, nearly twenty minutes after their scheduled meeting time, Dora burst through the doorway. "Sorry I'm late! Penderghast just would not leave me alone. Somehow he found out you taught me the Black style of duelling, and now he wants me to teach him!"

"Hope you told him where he could stick his dueling knife. It's fine, by the way, I only got here five minutes ago."

"Of course I did, I hate that kid, he's so annoying," Dora complained. Seemed a bit hypocritical of her to call anyone else a kid, since she herself was quickly shrinking into a form that looked even younger than Lyra — small enough that she could sit comfortably cross-legged in her chair.

"You both got here earlier than I expected." That sneaky bitch, scheduling things early on purpose... "And I hardly see how it matters, Lyra. Your counterpart taught a rather absurd number of Death Eaters the style. It's not really a family secret anymore." Meda closed her file with a snap and exchanged it for a much thicker one. "In any case, that's not what we're here to talk about."

Dora jumped in with an enthusiastic grin. "Right! So, Mum may have told you, I started looking into the Sirius Black case pretty much as soon as you told me he'd been remanded to Azkaban without a trial. As far as I can tell, he fell through the cracks when Crouch was forced to step down as the head of the DLE, and after that, most everyone either assumed he had a closed trial, since he'd basically admitted his guilt according to the official report of his arrest, or else had been court-martialed, the whole thing handled internally and kind of hushed up since he was an Auror."

"But it wasn't." Lyra sighed, completely unsurprised by this. The degree of bureaucratic incompetence (or deliberate obfuscation and very competently performed false bureaucratic incompetence, which almost seemed more likely), was pretty much exactly what she expected from the Ministry.

"Nope, there's no record of any kind, anywhere, of any sort of trial. He's officially been in holding awaiting a trial since the third of November, Nineteen Eighty-One." Dora's grin had become a rather grim expression. "But there's never even been an attempt to actually get him a trial — I don't really know why—"

Meda clicked her tongue impatiently, cutting her off. "Politics, dear. The higher-ranked Death Eaters likely would have known that Sirius wasn't one of them, but they'd hardly risk their own freedom to defend his innocence, given that he had been one of the most effective Light fighters. Walburga and Narcissa considered him a Blood Traitor, and Arcturus had no political influence to speak of after Bellatrix's trial, so none of them would or could come to his defense. Plus there would have been significant pressure from both the Light and Dark to allow the House of Black to crumble — we did have our enemies. And of course the Aurors would have considered him an absolute traitor, so there would have been no help there."

Dora winced. "Er, yeah, some of the Seniors weren't too happy with me for looking into it even after this long, but I've got my badge, now, so I just told them to go fuck themselves." Meda frowned at her daughter, but Lyra utterly failed to stifle a snort of laughter. The girl ignored them both. "Sirius had his own enemies, too — people he'd fought against, people who thought he'd personally betrayed them. Any of them could have stolen or destroyed his case file. It could even have been some kid he bullied in school. I managed to track down a wizard who was in the year ahead of him at Hogwarts, and apparently he and Potter had a tendency to go a bit overboard with their pranks."

Ah, yes, Lyra did recall McGonagall comparing the two of them to the Weasley twins.

"Anyway, Sirius was only condemned on one occasion, by Snape, which, you've both met him, it was obviously sarcastic — what was the exact quote, Mum? I know I got you the interview transcript."

Meda flipped to a page in her file. "Auror Moody asked, 'Bellatrix Lestrange, known to the Death Eaters as Bellatrix Black or Lady Blackheart, was the right hand of You Know Who?' and Snape responded, 'No, you dolts, it was her cousin, Sirius. Of course it was Bellatrix!'"

"Right. And then the Prophet got hold of it out of context, and everything went completely out of control."

"He was under a truth potion at that time," Meda pointed out. "Which would generally preclude sarcastic responses—"

"He's a mind mage," Lyra interrupted. "You know how hard it is to compel an occlumens to do anything."

Meda glared her into silence. "I am aware, yes. However, that fact was not widely known at the time, so it's not entirely surprising that it was taken at face value by the Prophet. Knowing that, and based on the context, it's quite clear the statement was not intended to be taken seriously. It should be a simple enough prospect to have the statement dismissed as evidence. Especially since Snape's facetious claim was not supported by any other Death Eater's testimony."

Dora made a face as she picked up her report again. "None of it holds up, there's not even a consensus on how long he'd supposedly been a spy, they just condemned him on the strength of his family's reputation."

"To be fair, the Black family reputation was...rather impressive." Also to be fair, that reputation was established when they'd had a whole lot more Black Mages in the family, and reinforced mostly by stories about Lord Henry and the first Nymphadora, but still.

Meda nodded. "And from what I gather, many on the side of the Light perceived the Dark Lord as being at the height of his power in Eighty-One, and many had thought that the Ministry was on the verge of collapse. To people who had known of him as a child, impulsively joining the Dark wouldn't have seemed terribly out of character. He was cruel and vengeful as a boy, callous and distant, positively horrid to Narcissa — but then, the House rather encouraged such traits in its heirs." That was an understatement if Lyra had ever heard one. "And the Black Madness is a well-documented phenomenon."

"Yeah, well, according to Moody, the Order — you know about the Order of the Phoenix?" Dora asked, cutting herself off.

Sirius had mentioned it in passing, but he hadn't exactly elaborated on it. "I've heard the term, but no, not really."

"Professor Dumbledore set up this resistance movement, they tried to limit the damage the Death Eaters caused with their raids, showed up to fight in the major battles, tried to get muggleborns out of the country, that sort of thing. Sirius was one of them."

"Interesting... So, kind of like a Circle of Agastya, but Light?" Speaking of which, she wondered if a Circle had been convened to address the war. She kind of assumed not, since proper dark mages were generally more effective than any of Not-Professor Riddle's adversaries seemed to have been. Perhaps there just hadn't been a clear leader amongst the uncorrupted Dark to call for it. Certainly none of the Blacks could have done it.

Dora looked confused, but Meda nodded. "Somewhat more hierarchical, but yes, essentially."

"Yeah, well, I've never heard of that Circle thing, but anyway, according to Moody, the Order thought, in hindsight, that there were clues he'd known more about the Dark than he let on — he had never informed on Bellatrix and the people she trained, for example, when he was younger and still associated with them in the summers, and by the time he did reveal said information, it was already known from other sources. He was one of those pushing to escalate the war, which Dumbledore in particular saw as something that would play into the enemy's hands. No one ever saw him use dark magic, but many thought it suspicious that he knew so much about it — that he couldn't possibly not be using it when they weren't looking. And he was almost ridiculously over the top in his fervency against the Death Eaters."

"Which is obviously absurd for many reasons, but then no one has ever accused Dumbledore's followers of being especially intelligent or rational," Meda added drily.

Dora glared at her mother. "Hey! Dumbledore's a great man!"

"A great man who did nothing to ensure that Sirius had a trial over the past twelve years. D'you think he thought it was justice, to leave him sitting with the dementors for his betrayal?" Lyra asked, her tone as innocently curious as she could manage. The glare disappeared, replaced with doubt. Ha. Point to me. "Did Moody say anything about the Fidelius?"

Her niece grabbed the file from her mother, flipped through what were apparently her notes. "Uh, yeah. He was kind of vague on how it worked, but Sirius was the only one who could reveal the Potters' location, right? Apparently he went around giving people the Secret in person the first time, but they had to renew it for some reason, Moody didn't remember. The second time they were just shown a note with the Secret written down."

"Ha! I knew it!" Of course, Sirius had already confirmed this, but Sirius was easily confused at the moment. It was excellent news that they had a witness statement supporting it, so Lyra still thought it worth exclaiming over.

"Er, what?"

"Sirius was a decoy — the real secret keeper was that Peter Pettigrew he supposedly killed, he betrayed them and set Sirius up to take the fall. And now we have proof that the Secret Keeper could've been switched without anyone knowing!"

"Er, good." Dora nodded. "We'll come back to that. Anyway, it was open knowledge that Sirius didn't care for the way Dumbledore was running the Order — he could have been looking for a way out because he thought Dumbledore was going to lead them all to their deaths. And there were some people, including Moody, who thought that Sirius was jealous of James's relationship with Lily. It didn't seem unreasonable to think that impulsive, short-sighted Sirius Black might have decided to betray them sometime in the past two years due to unrequited love for his best friend and the stress of the war." Lyra raised an eyebrow at that — love seemed like a really stupid reason to betray the person you loved, but what did she know? "So, what was that about Pettigrew?"

"Uh, they only found his finger?"

Meda and Dora gave her identically blank stares.

"Oh, come on! You're supposed to be an Auror — how many incendiary curses — no, how many curses, period — do you know of that would completely destroy a man's body, except for one finger? Not to mention his robes were barely scorched. It was obviously a set-up."

Mother and daughter exchanged a look. Dora went unnaturally pale. "How did nobody see that?" Meda nearly whispered.

That was probably rhetorical, but Lyra decided to take it at face value. "My guess? They didn't want to see it. But the important part is, Pettigrew could still be alive somewhere — if we could find him and compel him to testify, Sirius's name would almost certainly be cleared."

Meda nodded, recovering her equilibrium. "So, I take this to mean that you do want to proceed with the case?"

"Uh, yeah? Obviously?"

Her sister smirked slightly. "Well, I've spent the last month pouring over the Black Family Law and all the relevant precedents. You're the last recognized member of the House, so I'm going to need your signature on a few things..."

After all the relevant paperwork was concluded, Lyra grinned. "So now you're my advocate, does that mean our conversations are privileged? Like, if, hypothetically, I happened to have a bit of information on where Sirius or Pettigrew might be, could I tell you, or would it be better not to?"

Before Meda could answer, Dora groaned loudly. "What part of I am an Auror do you not understand?!"

Lyra grinned. "I said hypothetically. You could hypothetically leave the room, first."

Dora just groaned again.

---

Lyra was having a very strange dream. Not that it was a bad one. She just felt...quite a lot more present than she generally did when she was asleep.

Eris?

"Good morning, my little bellatrice," the goddess said 'aloud', manifesting out of the nothingness before her.

Oh, have you finally decided to tell me what you did over Yule? Eris had been 'back' enough to talk to Lyra for nearly a week now, but she'd refused to give Lyra even a hint as to what she'd done. It was incredibly annoying. And also rather out of character. Normally the goddess loved to brag about her latest exploits.

"I heard that, ducky. I do not brag."

You totally do. So...?

Eris cackled. "Hmm, well, yes, I do, don't I? As for what I did, I thought I'd show you — birthday present."

Oh, right, I forgot about that. Not exactly unusual, it wasn't as though fourteen was an especially important age. There had been a family ritual, coming of age thing last year, but Zee had had to remind her of her twelfth when they'd returned to school the year before.

The blue-haired apparition clicked its tongue, shaking its head in a parody of disbelief. "You, forget your birthday? Perish the thought!"

Sigh, Lyra thought at her, very deliberately, causing her to break out in giggles again.

"First I think a bit of background might be in order... We'll start here."

Here was Arcturus Black's personal study, which emerged from the blankness around them in much the same way Eris's avatar had. It was a small room at the northwest corner of the Keep, windows behind the desk and in the wall on the left as one entered letting in enough light that it really shouldn't have seemed as dark as it always did. Everything from the tapestries on the walls to the bookshelves behind the enormous desk was intended to make its inhabitant seem more intimidating, which was probably necessary because while the Patriarch of House Black had once been a formidable man, slaughtering his way across Spain to get to the Dark Lord who had killed his wife and children, that was a long time ago. For as long as Lyra could recall, he'd been a broken shell of a wizard, hardly concerned with the goings-on within the House or even maintaining their political power outside of it.

As far as she could tell, he spent most of his time here, when he wasn't at some family gathering or mandatory public function. It was certainly the only place she'd ever seen him, and she'd seen him quite a lot more often than any other member of the house under the age of about fifty or so. Every few months Cygnus or Walburga would complain to him that she was getting out of control (again) and he would invite her to tea and remind her of the deal he and Eris had come to when she was seven — wherein she avoided spreading too much chaos too near the Family, and he didn't disown her and kick her out, or otherwise make it impossible for her to protect Meda (and later Cissy). And she would be more careful to keep her little diversions quiet for a few weeks, until she had another idea that was just too good to resist. And then the cycle would repeat, though it had admittedly happened far less often since she'd gone to school, presumably because Professor Riddle wasn't as much of a whiny twat as Cygnus. Or possibly because he found her antics just as amusing as she did herself. It really could go either way.

But in any case, Arcturus was exactly where she expected him to be: seated in his heavy, leather-backed armchair behind his enormous black-stained desk. She would have been surprised if he wasn't, though she couldn't really imagine what the hell he did with all the hours he spent in here, supposedly working. Not like the Family ever really saw any results of his so-called work, and — she shifted her focus just slightly, to examine the book he was reading — yeah, modern history of Persia? She couldn't think of a single way that could possibly be relevant to any of the Blacks' interests. The closest thing was, what? Uncle Castor's stake in a now-defunct flying carpet importer? Sterling use of time.

An elf knocked briefly on the closed door before popping into the center of the open space. Arcturus set his book aside, glaring at it, but it was undeterred. "House Head Arcturus, sir, there is being a—"

Gods and Powers, she hated listening to elves try to speak English. Can we fast-forward through this part?

Eris rolled her eyes, but the...memory? It kind of seemed like it had to be a memory, though Lyra couldn't imagine Eris had been paying that much attention to a universe Bella wasn't even in anymore — it wasn't quite like they were seeing things from the goddess's perspective, either. Or at least, Lyra wasn't. It was nothing like when Eris had showed her Other Bella's dedication — for one thing, she was pretty sure this was all playing out in her own head, like using a pensieve.

"Almost right. Yes, we're in your mind. This is more of an illusory recreation of a specific space of time based on my awareness of it in hindsight than an actual memory. Far more accurate than a pensieve, though."

Right, basically a memory, then. From a human perspective, being able to reconstruct things that happened in the past and remembering them were practically interchangeable. Well, not in Divs, or at least, not in Divs as taught by anyone sober, but— Not the point. (Eris's amusement radiated through her perception.) The not-exactly-but-really-for-all-intents-and-purposes memory stuttered, skipping forward a minute or two, the elf disappearing from the room, leaving Arcturus to stare moodily at the door.

A few seconds later, Meda opened it, eyes red from crying and hands balled into fists, clutching the loose ends of her sleeves, a level of distress Lyra had never seen in her before.

What. Did. He. Do? She thought at Eris, each idea distinct, outlined with cold rage and implacable hatred.

Eris sent another wave of amusement coursing through her, which, really?! Whatever Cygnus had done, it wasn't a laughing matter! She drew together an avatar for herself to more clearly express her anger. "I fucking swear, Eris, if he touched her, we're going back. I swore I'd fucking kill him for her, and I will, if it takes me another thirty years to figure it out!"

Not that she thought it would — some of the concepts in the muggle physics books she'd found were...very interesting, when juxtaposed with some of the recent developments in the study of time travel. She had a few good ideas of where to start, if she was going to try to go back.

"Oh, relax, ducky. It's funny because Cygnus hasn't done anything at all — just watch."

Lyra glowered at her patron, but bit her tongue as Meda took a seat before Arcturus, fidgeting and hesitating to answer his question about why she was there. Eventually, after an impossibly long moment of suspense — Eris had better not be drawing this out on purpose — she said, "It's about Bella."

"What has she done this time?" Arcturus asked, his tone of resignation very familiar.

He actually flinched as Meda nearly shouted, "Bella didn't do anything!" then realized who she was talking to. "I didn't— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I'm sorry."

The old man rather uncharacteristically waved off her breach of etiquette. "No matter. What happened?"

"I think..." Meda's voice quavered, as though she was about to burst into tears. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, obviously trying to steady herself. It didn't work. She barely managed to keep her composure as she said, "She's gone. I think, I think he killed her. Father."

Eris burst into laughter. Lyra just stared, shocked.

What— REALLY? They just— She just— I don't know whether I should be touched or insulted, honestly, knowing that I would've killed him eventually...

"Well, it is a relatively reasonable explanation for where you disappeared to. And look at old Archie, he's terrified of what I might do to him, letting his house get so out of hand that one of my dedicates was killed by her own father." Eris tutted, then fell back into giggles.

It was true, Arcturus's face had gone a shade rather reminiscent of old porridge as the implications of Meda's accusation apparently occurred to him. "How do you know? Did you see it yourself? Could she not simply be somewhere else? With the Zabini girl, perhaps."

"No, she wouldn't leave," Meda insisted. "She promised, she wouldn't leave me with them. She promised."

Lyra winced slightly. It wasn't like she'd meant to, but she had broken that particular promise. Or rather, she had meant to, but to do so in such a way that it would render the entire timeline she'd left obsolete. (It wasn't really breaking a promise if you arranged things so that you could never have made it in the first place.)

"Oh, really, do you think so little of me?" Eris said, faking offence. "I did swear to help you protect her, if you recall, and since you've been removed from a position to do so in service to me, well... You'll see."

A furrow of concern began to develop across Arcturus's forehead. "When did you last see her?"

Meda hesitated, fidgeting a bit more under his penetrating stare. Had she ever spoken to him directly before? Lyra couldn't remember, but she was inclined to think not. It was probably understandable that she was nervous, sitting there in front of the person who (theoretically) held the most absolute influence over the course of her life, accusing the person who held the most direct power over her of murdering the only person who'd ever protected her. Arcturus was basically the only hope Meda had of getting "justice" for Bella's "death" and she had no reason at all to think he would care, given his record of intervention in their lives (or, more to the point, the lack thereof).

"Andromeda?"

Meda flinched, but finally spoke. "Er, Lammas?"

Arcturus frowned openly at that. Meda shrank into her chair, as far from him as she could get. "Lammas was almost a month ago."

"I wasn't sure anything had happened!" Meda's voice was loud again, defensive, but it only took a few more words before she faltered again, tears appearing in her eyes. "I thought she'd just run off for a bit, gone to Zee's, with Monroe, or...doing whatever it is she does."

So, basically what Arcturus had thought at first, too. Lyra somehow doubted he'd have done anything but wait anyway, if Meda had come to him with this information weeks ago. "Worthless bastard," she muttered under her breath.

"I didn't think about it, she's gone a lot sometimes, I just thought… But she didn't come back! I waited, and waited, and she didn't come back, and I'm scared, and I asked Father, and—"

"What did he say?"

"I...don't remember, really. It's not important," Meda insisted. Her body language betrayed her, though, as she curled herself into a ball in her chair, seemingly entirely unaware of her own actions. "He didn't admit it, if that's what you're asking."

"What did he do to you when you asked?" For the first time Lyra had ever heard, Arcturus actually sounded as though he might do something. As though he would be forced to face the fact that the House of Black was rotting from within, and it was all his fucking fault.

Meda couldn't meet his eyes. Her voice became thinner and softer, as though there was a clear danger before her, and she had nowhere to run — as though she was trying to hide in plain sight. "Nothing bad. Not like Bella."

Arcturus's frown grew deeper, cutting harsh lines into his face. "What does he do to her?" He asked, in a tone of— Was that horror? Did he— He actually believed Cygnus had done it, didn't he! And this was the sort of thing even he couldn't overlook — Bella was, for better or worse, a very noticeable person — it would quickly become clear that she'd disappeared, if it wasn't already. She was kind of surprised Zee hadn't started poking around when she stopped answering her letters.

Meda slowly, haltingly began to speak, but Lyra wasn't concerned with what Cygnus had done to her. "What did he do to Meda?" she asked Eris again, her tone carefully even, but the weight of her rage so heavy around them it nearly choked her.

Eris sighed, rolled her eyes. "Nothing he hadn't done before."

Lyra made a conscious effort to relax. He hadn't touched her, then. Hadn't put her under the Imperius.

But for Meda to act like that... It had been the Cruciatus, it had to have been. She'd only been under it once before. Bella had been so angry when Meda finally told her about it that she'd nearly run away from Hogwarts and stabbed his fucking eyes out that very night. For once, she had been the one complaining to Arcturus, and in her absence he, predictably, had completely failed to protect her baby sister. (She never should have listened to Zee when she advised she start with more conservative measures.)

She conjured a knife with an errant thought and, without another word, stalked over to stand behind Arcturus's chair, grabbed his hair to pull back his head, and slit his useless, thrice-bedamned neck.

Eris did a credible job of playing out her little fantasy, hot, arterial blood spraying across a silent, wide-eyed Meda as he twitched and jerked against her grip, the life going out of him.

The tableau froze too soon, and Lyra wasn't nearly as satisfied as she would have been to see Cygnus's corpse splayed out across his desk, or if she'd been able to do it for real.

"Don't go getting too distracted, now, my little bellatrice." Eris shot Lyra a teasing grin. "We haven't gotten to the good part yet. But I promise, that was the last time he ever laid a finger on her, let alone a curse."

"Show me."

The goddess cackled, dark delight and malice coursing through them. "If you insist."

The room shifted. Eris had abandoned her avatar, and Lyra was no longer in Arcturus's study, but a ritual room — not one she recognized, but then, the Blacks had dozens of properties she'd never visited, let alone attended a ritual at. Cygnus was naked, bound to a plain wooden chair in the center of...

"Is that a summoning circle?" Lyra had never used one, never had a reason to go invoking demons, but it looked an awful lot like the ones she'd seen in some of the books in the cabinets in the library at Ancient House. Elements to weaken planar boundaries; compulsions to obey the summoner and speak the truth; bindings to hold the creature invoked within the circle...and an epithet for Eris in the place where she'd expect to see the name of a demon. "That's kind of insulting, isn't it?"

Eris sniggered, her response more thought than speech. Yes, well, your dear uncle Archie never did understand the finer points of high ritual. He got the important part right, though.

The old man looked his captive in the eye as he drew a knife lightly across his throat. It must have been cursed, because it cut far more deeply than Lyra would have expected, blood welling forth slowly enough — some other enchantment on him to draw out his suffering, or part of the ritual? — that she could see the full extent of the gaping wound. It had clearly managed to sever his windpipe. Desperate, useless gasps bubbled through his bloody throat, mouth working silently as he tried (and failed) to scream.

Lyra grinned. If she couldn't do that herself, getting to see it like this was almost as good. She really should ask Meda how Other Bella had done it. Maybe if she said please, she'd share the memory. It was Lyra's birthday, after all.

Arcturus dropped the knife, stepped backward out of the circle, sat in a nearby chair, which just...not only was he attempting to summon a goddess as though she was some mere demon, but he planned on sitting in comfort while he waited for her arrival? Well, she had to give him this: he was at least ballsy enough to negotiate with the Powers. That was the trait that distinguished truly great ritualists from everyone else, according to Eris. Unwavering self-confidence. Well, that and an unhealthy disregard for personal safety.

Eris formed a body for herself, face to face with Cygnus. The tattooed face seemed strangely familiar, though Lyra was quite certain she'd never seen this particular manifestation before. Even the blue-haired, khol-eyed form she wore most often was never exactly the same twice.

"Not really," she said. It was only when she elaborated that Lyra realized she was referring to her estimation of Arcturus's confidence. "He's scared shitless, that—" She waved at the old man in his chair without looking at him. "—is ignorance, not nerve."

Then there was a sort of...flicker, and Arcturus gasped, apparently able to see her now. She grinned down at Cygnus, her mouth stretching inhumanly wide, showing far too many narrow, pointed teeth.

"Is this for me?" she asked, burying a hand in Cygnus's hair, wrenching his head back to see his face much as Lyra had just done to Arcturus (and coincidentally exacerbating the wound in his neck). "Why, Arcturus, I'm touched. And here I didn't bring anything for you." Lyra, very familiar with that light, teasing tone, snorted in amusement at what was clearly a joke. Arcturus didn't, his eyes growing wide as he stiffened in his chair. No sense of humor, clearly.

A shiver of agreement and amusement emanated from the goddess. Hmm... I think we need a bit of background music to properly set the scene, she thought at Lyra. Her grin stretched impossibly wider and with the barest extension of power, restored Cygnus's vocal cords as well as...

"What was that?"

Hmm? Oh, well. Mortal bodies aren't really meant to touch chaos in its purest form. It's at war with itself, now, some bits running rampant, growing and dividing all out of control while others wither, subsumed to feed the rest.

Was that smugness Lyra detected? She thought it was. Though with good reason. That was really neat. Maybe she could convince Eris to do it to something she could dissect afterward, just to see what it looked like.

It would be more fun if you found a way to do it yourself.

Well, fine, then. Maybe she would.

Eris ignored this as she paced slowly, deliberately toward Arcturus, staring down at him, now, as though he were some sort of exotic insect, pinned to a card for her amusement.

He shrank back into his chair, reminding Lyra of Meda in his office, but to his credit, kept his head up. His voice was even reasonably steady when he said, "As long as I have you here, my Lady, I was hoping we could talk."

"Yes, you do think you have me, don't you." Eris paused, just at the chain of runes defining the line of the circle. She glanced downward for a second, then back up at him, derisive amusement quirking her lips. "Is this supposed to be a binding circle, Arcturus? And here I thought you would know better. This magic works on demons, not—"

The world flickered again, Eris's form going strangely...foggy, though fog wasn't quite the right word — shadowed might have been closer — and blurry around the edges.

Yes, well, mortal bodies aren't really meant to touch true darkness either. You did anticipate that there would be some side effects to that little exercise over Yule, did you not?

Well, yes, but— Wait, did that mean she'd just seen Eris step into the shadow plane?

No, I just pulled a bit of obscurity into this realm to hide myself from mortal eyes.

Sure enough, Arcturus was looking around, trying and failing to hide his panic as he lost sight of Eris. For a brief moment, Lyra indulged in simply observing his reaction, but her thoughts froze as she realized the implications of that statement. ...Does that mean I'm not quite mortal anymore?

Eris laughed at her surprise. Ducky, you haven't been properly mortal for the last seven years.

...Oh.

She supposed that made sense, she'd just never really thought about it before. She had, of course, long since recognized that she didn't have much in common with the vast majority of humanity — that would be a bit difficult to miss. And she knew that Eris had changed her on a fundamental level, altered her soul to channel far more magic than she ought to be able to, but... she supposed she hadn't considered that to be one of the defining factors of mortality.

Extreme magical exposure does tend to have strange effects on mortals — dedicates often live far longer than other mages—

Except all the dedicates in the generations immediately following the Covenant, Lyra pointed out. None of them had lived more than thirty or forty years. Most were hunted down and killed by a (reasonably) fearful public, though some were murdered by other Blacks for various offences.

Yes, yes, unless they're murdered, of course. But that wasn't what I meant, anyway. You're not immortal in the sense that you can't or won't eventually die a natural death, but not mortal, in that you are in some ways an extension of me, and as such not an entirely mundane creature.

There was something else there, a hint of something Eris wasn't saying, but Lyra had no idea what it could be, and she clearly had no intention of revealing it now, as she failed to elaborate or address the implied, unspoken question in that thought.

Eris's avatar, still oddly blurred — obscured, apparently — winked at Lyra's. "Nope. I daresay I'll tell you eventually, but we were in the middle of something..."

That was true, Arcturus seemed to be getting anxious what with Eris disappearing on him, making as though to lever himself out of his chair.

Lyra sighed. "Fine, be all mysterious, then."

"Thank you, I will. Now, where was I... Oh, yes. This magic works on demons, not—

"—things like me," she whispered into his ear, before dropping the obscuring magic and blatantly invading his personal space, trapping him between arm and leg and chair, her eyes only inches from his own, staring at him in a way he obviously found somewhat terrifying. (Which seemed like an odd response — Lyra thought Eris's eyes were pretty, their colour shifting constantly, regardless of what the rest of her looked like, but she was used to other people not appreciating things she did, so.)

Context is everything, ducky. But humans do find that sort of thing unnerving. Ask your niece if you don't believe me. "You think to contain me, with chalk and blood and mortal magic? The arrogance doesn't surprise me, not really — it is only human to have an overinflated sense of your own power and importance, don't you think? But I do have to wonder…" (Arcturus swallowed hard, drew in a breath which he obviously held.) "You called me in hopes to stay my wrath against you and yours, and you open your negotiation by attempting to confine me against my will? And here I thought you were supposed to be a politician."

And then she waited as he clearly scrambled to formulate a sentence which would not further offend her. Not that it mattered, Lyra was fairly certain Eris would say whatever she had planned regardless, leading him into doing exactly what she wanted him to do. Whether that meant acting far more offended than she really was (it was actually kind of difficult to offend Eris — aspects of Chaos tended not to care much for protocol) or 'forgiving' his arrogance would be far more dependent on that end than the degree of respect he managed to scrape together.

Arcturus's eyes darted from side to side, lingering for a moment upon Cygnus's still screaming form, writhing in its bonds before he found his voice again. "I, I meant no offense, my Lady," he stuttered. "That circle was simply included in the description of the ritual I found. I didn't intend to—"

"No, I suppose you didn't." Eris radiated boredom and disappointment. Apparently she'd have preferred bravado to grovelling. Understandably — grovelling was rather dull. But she assumed a less antagonistic pose, perched on the armrest of his chair, smirking down at him. "Mind of a politician, yes, it was clever of you." Lyra didn't really see how— "See, Cygnus means nothing to you. You would have found some way to eliminate him anyway, for his crimes against a child of the House of Black." —yes, that. It was just too obvious. Throwing Cygnus to Eris would be the absolute least Arcturus should do, if he had really killed Bella.

I'm getting there, Eris thought at her. So impatient...

"But, since that child was my bellatrice, you fear my anger — and rightly so," she whispered aloud, the amusement from her silent comment carrying over in her voice. "You think, you can give him to me, and my vengeance will be sated. But Cygnus is not the only one who wronged her. His crimes were only possible because you, Lord Black, failed to uphold your responsibilities to your family."

"I know." Arcturus's voice was low, almost preoccupied, as though the thoughts behind his quiet acceptance of his failure were more demanding of his attention than Eris's continued presence.

Clearly she thought so, too, drawing pale, black-tipped fingers across his cheek. He trembled at her touch. "You should know, Arcturus Black, that you have Bellatrix to thank for your life, for your House enduring unhindered as long as it has. You taught her well, before I got to her. Even after Cygnus, her loyalty to the House of Black was too strong, too central to her understanding of who and what she was, for me to strip it from her."

That, Lyra thought, was not entirely true. She wasn't loyal to the House so much as she recognized the benefits of maintaining her place in it. She accepted the responsibilities that went along with that position — even if she was no longer the Heir (or rather, had briefly not been the Heir), as the First Daughter of the House it was her duty to protect the interests of the younger children — because she judged them a reasonable cost to pay for the advantages her position afforded her.

Justify it however you like, but we both know that you would act first to protect your House, and only afterward consider the costs and benefits, Eris thought, even as she continued to speak to Arcturus. "That, and her love for little Meda, is all that has kept you safe these years. I would not...entertain myself with you and yours while it would harm her, no matter how much I wish to. But now she is gone, and I am free to do as I will."

Lyra rolled her eyes. The benefits are pretty much always going to outweigh the costs unless the cost is literally my death. It's not like I actually need to think it through before each and every decision.

Eris quoted her own words from her Yule ritual. "On behalf of the Eternal House, this I swear: while we may falter, we shall not fall."

Yes, and?

The goddess just sent another wave of amusement at her, without elaborating on her point. "But I don't think that will be a problem, hmm? You understand the weight of what you've done, don't you? You mean to make amends for your crimes, and, just perhaps, you are willing to sacrifice enough. So, my little Lord…" Lifting her hand from his face with a last little tap at his nose, Eris leaned back a bit, smile turning a little crooked. "...let us see how this goes. What will you offer me to buy my peace?"

Arcturus hesitated. Again, Lyra was pretty sure it didn't matter what he actually said, Eris would reject whatever he offered until she got exactly what she wanted. Apparently he knew that, too, because he relented preemptively. "I would be glad offer you whatever you think is fair, my Lady."

Eris grinned, hopping off the chair, and went to stand over Cygnus as his torture continued, presumably to give the impression she hadn't decided what she wanted before she even responded to the "summons." His screams had been reduced to moans, coughing weakly and wheezing around the blood that had to be nearly filling his lungs by now, his body twisted and misshapen by the chaotic effect Eris had released upon him.

"Five hundred years ago, we formed a pact with your ancestors," she eventually said (just as Cygnus breathed his last), her tone light, conversational. "That was long ago. The circumstances have changed, both for the House of Black and for us, for the world, in those five hundred years." She turned back toward Arcturus, her face alight with potential. "Perhaps it is time we make a new Covenant."

"You didn't!" Lyra exclaimed. The men and the room faded out around her.

"Oh, I did. And he did. That's what happened on Yule. I could show you that as well, but it was really nothing but a lot of tedious talk. The long and short of it is, every Black in that universe is now bound to dedicate themselves to one of us by the time they reach the age of seventeen."

There were no words to express Lyra's shock. The raw emotion surrounded them, echoing through her mind, twined through with awe.

Demanding every descendant of an entire House as dedicates? It was unprecedented.

For a bloodline to be born with an inherent tendency toward the dark (or light) was one thing (though even that was exceedingly rare) — every mage practicing magic from the dark end of the spectrum (and neglecting the light) strengthened the influence of the Dark in the abstract, but dedicates... They were the hands of their patrons upon the mortal plane. Just as Lyra made it her business to spread chaos in the name of her Lady, so too would the others, for Madness or Destruction or Domination...

No wonder the Dark thought it possible that they would soon dominate all the futures of that universe.

"Hmm, yes. That universe should become rather interesting over the next generation or two." Eris's smug self-delight shivered through Lyra's mind. If she'd been properly awake, she was certain giddy giggles would be forcing themselves past her lips. "Those who are already grown have one year to make their Choices. Those who choose not to dedicate themselves must be sacrificed to us, lest we withdraw our favor from the House. Of course, I expect that many of them will simply be cast out of the House instead, but there is little enough to be done about that. If they will not serve, their descendants will not share in the Gift, so it comes to the same point."

"I presume you've also renegotiated the dedication arrangement?"

The original Covenant was two-fold. Firstly, Onyx and Mela (then the last two living members of the family) offered the dedication of all their descendants to the Dark, giving the Dark a claim on their magic even before they were born. In exchange, Mela asked that the family line be preserved and Onyx that they be gifted with magic to raise them above all others — princes among wizards, was the phrase Orion had used in telling the tale. So long as the House of Black served the Dark, the House would never die.

What he hadn't told her, at least when she first learned the story (only weeks before her seventh birthday), was that while the Powers had agreed to raise Onyx and Mela themselves to a level of power far beyond that of a normal witch or wizard, their children were not guaranteed the same. Moreover, there were consequences to changing a human as Onyx and Mela had been changed.

Consequences Lyra herself was intimately familiar with — the second half of the Covenant guaranteed that any descendant of Onyx and Mela who wished to achieve the same degree of power as they, would, upon their personal dedication to one of the Powers, above and beyond their familial arrangement. In exchange, they offered their humanity — some would say their sanity — as the price to be paid.

In many respects, their connection was much like that of any other Dedicate to their Patron, but in others...

Lyra was given to understand that it was usual for a Patron to give new Dedicates a gift. Generally, however, that gift was not an inhuman ability to channel and control magic, but some more mundane favor — to See, perhaps, or a favorable outcome in a certain ritual (many Dedicates promised their service in order to salvage rituals gone wrong). The only cost was their service, and they communicated...more sporadically? Other Dedicates' Patrons didn't just live at the back of their minds, anyway, constantly in contact.

The House of Black, however, had asked for power, and the cost of that was, well, the better part of the fifteenth century.

"Why would we do that?" Eris asked, smirking broadly.

Lyra raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, I suppose it would cause rather a lot of chaos to suddenly have three dozen mad Blacks running around, but I'd expect a more...measured approach to be more effective in the long term."

Honestly, Chaos was one of the more pro-social Dark Powers, comparatively speaking. If it had been Death or Destruction constantly whispering in the back of her mind, she was fairly certain she would have carved a more Angelos-like path for herself — gone on a murder spree, and consequently been hunted down and killed long before now. The Powers might be able to guarantee that the Family wouldn't entirely die out, even if they did all go entirely mad, but too many incidents like that would likely severely limit the growth of the House, and therefore the Dark Powers' influence through potential Black children.

Eris laughed. "Yes, we did. Or rather, we simply eliminated the second half of the Old Covenant. Each new Dedication will be a matter between Dedicate and Patron, no standard sacrifice of humanity for power. Though I expect some will still ask for that."

"Maybe. Probably not this generation, though." Anyone who was willing to make the Choice under the terms of the original Covenant had already done so. Which was, so far as she knew, just herself. The family history had made it very clear that making the Choice was not in the best interests of the House, generally speaking, and every child of the House of Black was raised to put the interests of the House ahead of their own.

Time is of little consequence, on a scale of gods, Eris thought with a sort of indifferent amusement. This generation or two generations from now hardly matters, now that events have been set in motion.

Lyra giggled. True enough. "Speaking of events set in motion, what else happened in that world after I left?" She hadn't given much thought to the potential consequences beforehand — why would she have? She'd expected that timeline to be entirely destroyed by her actions in the past. But now that Eris had reminded her that there were consequences, she was curious.

"Hmm, well. It hasn't all played out, yet — yes, it's thirty years ago, but the disturbance we caused in the Tapestry hasn't really...settled. It's still becoming, you might say, at much the same rate time passes here. Time is complicated like that." Her avatar shrugged. Lyra nodded. Even if time itself wasn't complicated, the way she and Eris experienced it was vastly different, anyway. "There's one meeting, though, that you might find amusing."

Lyra didn't even need to articulate the vague sense of inquiry she felt — Eris had already started creating another non-memory around them. They seemed to be at Hogwarts, now, in one of the passageways between the main entrance hall and Slytherin.

A pair of familiar voices was approaching, still out of sight around the next corner. "So, Master Monroe — when Professor Riddle asked me to show you to up to the Castle, he didn't mention it was you I'd be meeting. Would it be impertinent of me to ask why you're here?"

"Oh, most likely. Are you ever not impertinent, Miss Zabini?"

Zee gave Lyra's former tutor a cheeky grin as she led him into their corridor. "Only when I can't avoid it. So...?"

Zee had changed her hairstyle since the last time Lyra had seen her — an elaborate, Roman-looking pile of tiny plaits, instead of last year's pinned-up Victorian curls — and Ciardha looked older than she remembered. Well, he'd been old forever, but... Maybe it was the beard. She was pretty sure that was new. Made his face look thinner. Or maybe she just hadn't looked at him all that closely for a while, because he seemed shorter, too. Still quite a bit taller than she was, of course, and Zee, too, but not as much as she expected. His muggle-style dragonhide jacket hung more loosely on his shoulders, and there was more silver in his dark hair. The lines around his hazel eyes seemed deeper than they had the last time she'd noticed.

They crinkled in amusement at Zee's agreeable response, though that was only to be expected — Zee was very good at people. Ciardha had met her several times, now, and still (inexplicably) seemed to think she was a nice, normal girl, despite all the time she spent with Bella. "I'll give you three guesses, my dear, and the first two don't count."

"Bella," she said immediately. Lyra would have been surprised if she hadn't. Zee wasn't stupid, and there was only one thing — or rather, person — that Ciardha and Professor Riddle had in common. "Do you know what happened to her?" she asked, slightly too quickly, slowing to fall in beside Ciardha and pouting up at him. "No one will tell me anything!"

"I very much hope I'm here to find that out," he replied, a grim furrow appearing across his forehead.

Her tone changed then, becoming noticeably less confident. "Yes, well, I suppose if anyone was likely to know, it would be Professor Riddle, but he's been, well...characteristically unforthcoming, you could say." She gave a heavy sigh, then added rather doubtfully, "Maybe you'll have better luck getting him to talk."

"I should think the fact that he agreed to this meeting is a promising indication of such."

"If you— If he tells you, will you..." Zee slowed to a stop a few yards away from Professor Riddle's office, forcing Ciardha to turn back to see her, the light of a nearby torch falling across her wide, tear-filled eyes. She wiped a sleeve across her face before they could fall, sniffed, then composed herself with an obvious effort of will. "I'm sorry, sir, it's just— She's my best friend, and no one will tell me what's happened, where she is. The only thing I've heard is—" Her voice became low and hesitant. "I heard she might be dead. I need to know."

Ciardha, normally a relatively stoic man, but unfamiliar with Zee's wiles, softened. He reached out to pat her shoulder. "If I find out, I'll tell you, one way or the other," he said gently.

Zee gave him a hesitant smile, somehow managing to make it seem a bit scared, as though she wasn't sure she really wanted to know. She really was very good at this. "Thank you, sir. I– I really appreciate it."

Then Professor Riddle stuck his head out of his office. "Zabini, I told you to bring Monroe to me, not chat him up in the corridor and extract favors unknown through blatant emotional manipulation."

Zee whirled around to glare at him, arms crossed, every hint of sorrow replaced by annoyance and a very familiar pout — the one that said she was extremely put out by not getting her way. "Well, I wouldn't have to if you'd just tell me what happened to Bella! I know you know."

The Professor hissed something in Parsel, the phrase Lyra liked to think of as whatever the snakey equivalent to 'Gods and Powers save me from having to deal with idiot children' might be — exasperation with the stupidity that constantly surrounded him, basically. It came up a lot when people asked questions in class. "You know no such thing," he snapped. "Monroe," he added, with a nod to the older wizard.

"Riddle." Ciardha's tone was rather stern and cold. Lyra somehow always managed to forget he didn't like Professor Riddle much. She didn't really know why — he was definitely the best professor she had at Hogwarts, and he was generally pretty amusing. They were both dark wizards (though Riddle was much more of a Dark Arts nerd than Ciardha), and politically Dark, there was no reason they shouldn't get along. And yet every time they'd seen each other, once even before she started school, when they'd run into each other at the Bookstore, Ciardha acted as though Riddle had done something to personally offend him. Which wouldn't be entirely out of the question (Riddle had a tendency to annoy people when he didn't have a reason to charm them, it was part of what made him amusing), but so far as she and Eris could tell, there was no real lever to exploit, there. Professor Riddle simply didn't care what Ciardha thought of him, and Ciardha was too professional to allow his personal opinion of the Professor to affect their interactions. So she couldn't even poke at it, and then guess the cause of the underlying tension from their reactions.

And, she suddenly realized, she was probably going to have to resign herself, now, to never figuring it out, seeing as, in this universe, Ciardha was dead and Professor Riddle was, well, not.

Bugger.

Eris echoed her annoyance as they followed Riddle, Ciardha, and Zee into Riddle's office. Ciardha gave Zee a funny look as she entered behind him and Riddle.

"Tea?" the professor offered, before turning around, realizing Zee was still there, and letting out another Hiss of Annoyance (there were several different ones). "Zabini, I don't recall inviting you into my office."

"Well, that's the nice thing about not being a vampire, isn't it, sir," she said, taking an equally uninvited seat and raising an eyebrow as if daring him to physically remove her — because she certainly wasn't about to leave of her own volition. Lyra giggled. Not only was the vampire joke particularly well-delivered, but barging into a meeting with Riddle and Monroe was just unexpected of her. She would probably have done exactly that, but Zee was hardly ever so bold.

You don't really think only you learned anything through that particular association, do you? Eris asked, probably rhetorically.

But, well...kind of yeah, actually. Lyra was acutely aware of how much she had learned from Zee about normal people — almost everything she knew about unscripted interactions with anyone who wasn't a Black, Ciardha, or one of Ciardha's associates. Walburga had tried to teach her how to manage people, but Walburga thought that Bella should instinctively know a lot of things she simply didn't (mostly about normal human motivations and communication), so that had just been incredibly frustrating for both of them. Zee, on the other hand, seemed to think explicitly breaking down all the factors at play in any given interaction and all the little details of posture and expression and tone that communicated them, was a completely natural and reasonable thing to do. Bella had therefore spent the better part of two years exploiting her as an endless source of such information...to a degree she suspected most people would have considered unreasonable. She was pretty sure the only reason Zee had gone along with it was that she liked to show off.

She took Eris's shiver of amusement to be an indication of agreement. You were simply more explicit about your inquiries, she informed Lyra. Zee has been mimicking your attitude and style to a degree almost since you met.

Really? Lyra hadn't noticed.

No one is surprised.

Oh, shut up.

Riddle glared at Zee for a moment, then turned to Ciardha. "Apologies, Monroe, it appears I must delay our meeting in order to attend to a disciplinary matter within my House."

"Oh, let her stay," the old wizard said, sounding fairly amused by Zee's continued impertinence. "She has as much right to listen to this conversation as anyone."

Riddle very much looked as though he disagreed. After a long, considering moment he said, "Fine," giving Zee a glare which Lyra recognized as an indication that he may not be about to punish her now, but he would get to it eventually. She didn't think it had ever been directed at Zee before — it was mostly reserved for Dumbledore, actually — but if she knew what it meant, Zee definitely had to know as well. She did a masterful job of hiding any indication that she cared, tucking one foot neatly behind the other and folding her hands in her lap, posture excessively correct — a sure sign she was pleased with herself, though she stopped short of adding a smug grin.

Riddle ignored her, taking a chair for himself and gesturing to another. "Monroe?"

Ciardha stayed on his feet, pacing before the fire. "Spare me the pleasantries, Riddle. You know why I'm here. She's not dead."

Riddle raised an eyebrow at him. "The Black Patriarch seems to believe she is."

Zee flinched slightly, but Ciardha just scoffed. "Arcturus Black is a bloody idiot. And you know as well as I do that that pathetic waste of magic he calls nephew could never have killed Bella."

"And yet..." Riddle raised an eyebrow, made a sort of 'do you see her anywhere' gesture with a lazy wave of one hand.

"I know she's not here, you fucking twat. What I want to know is where she is."

Riddle's eyes narrowed. "Beyond the Veil? Some muggle Hell? Being reincarnated as a particularly vicious kitten?" he suggested. "How should I know?"

A particularly vicious kitten? Really?! Lyra glowered at the not-Dark Lord.

"Well, you are our Head of House, sir," Zee said, to all appearances serious.

The men just stared at her for a long moment.

"Yes, Miss Zabini, every Hogwarts Head of House is gifted with omnipotence upon their investiture in said position, including a full and certain understanding of what happens when one dies."

"She's not dead," Ciardha snapped. "And certainly not by her father's hand. Her Patron would never have allowed it."

"Patron?" Zee repeated, honest confusion on her face.

Riddle clicked his tongue. "Yes, Zabini, her Patron — the goddess she serves. Some aspect of Chaos I imagine, though I've never cared to ask."

"Eris," Ciardha volunteered.

Did I know he knew that? Lyra asked the goddess in question.

Which one?

Uh...both, actually.

Eris chuckled. I believe Arcturus told Ciardha when the House of Black contracted him to teach you. And I wouldn't be surprised if Riddle's been in contact with any number of Aspects who might have mentioned you in passing. He is one of the more popular ritualists in this part of the world, she added, making a face at the thought.

At Zee's very obvious continued lack of understanding, the professor rolled his eyes. "I'll explain in class — I could have sworn we covered black mages, but, well..."

But, well, Professor Riddle tended to get rather side-tracked on occasion. Lyra wouldn't be surprised if he had planned to cover them, but in the lesson where she'd've expected it to come up, he'd spent most of the period explaining why it was absolutely moronic that High Ritual was illegal.

Apparently he recalled that particular lesson as well, because he muttered, "Never mind," before moving on. "Even black mages are not immortal."

"Believe me, Riddle, I'm well aware of that."

The professor's eyes narrowed again. "Then I fail to see the reason for your insistence that Bella Black cannot be dead — nor, for that matter, do I see the reason for your implication that I must know something about it."

"You're our Head of House!" Zee said again.

"What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?"

"If Bella was dead, you would've announced it to the House at the beginning of the year, or whenever you found out. But you didn't, you just let us all wonder with the rumors going around, so you must have had a reason to think they weren't true, or you would've just confirmed them! Ergo, you know something. Sir."

Ciardha looked surprised by that analysis. Riddle just looked annoyed. "My reasoning was that if anyone would have opportunity and motive to learn what she was planning, if there was anyone she would have asked for information or assistance, it would have been you. But the girl has a valid point. The only reason you wouldn't make a definitive statement would be if you thought you might be publicly contradicted."

"Well, it pains me to disappoint you, but I had no idea what she was planning, nor, to be frank, did I have any motive whatsoever to investigate said plan, beyond determining that it had no potential consequences for any of us beyond her absence."

"She's not dead, then? I knew it!" Zee exclaimed triumphantly.

"She might as well be." Riddle seemed faintly amused. "I doubt she has any intention of coming back."

"So you do know where she is."

Riddle shrugged. "Not here."

"Obviously." Lyra didn't think she'd ever heard Ciardha quite that sarcastic before. "Care to elaborate on that?"

"Not particularly."

"Riddle..."

"That's all I know, Monroe. Black has removed herself from our universe. I can't tell you where she is, I can't tell you why she left, I can't tell you whether or when she might return, though I stand by my estimation regarding her complete lack of any plans to do so. Or any plans at all... I can tell you, however, that the Dark finds this development very, very interesting — and it is in Their interests, and therefore ours, to allow events to take their course as they have begun rather than correcting the assumption that Black is dead."

"But you're sure she's not dead?" Zee's expression was far too complex for Lyra to interpret.

"I'm sure she wasn't dead as of Lammas, but that was six weeks ago — there are doubtless any number of ways she could have managed to kill herself since then."

Zee scowled into the middle distance for a second before hissing, "That fucking cunt! She just up and left, without even warning me? Without saying goodbye? Damn it, Bella! We had plans! What am I supposed to do now?!"

Riddle seemed to be trying not to laugh. "Somehow I'm certain you'll manage."

Zee's scowl morphed seamlessly into a pout. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not nearly as intimidating as Bella. Everything would have been much easier if she'd stuck around."

"Oh, no, you'll have to rely on cunning and manipulation to achieve primacy over your housemates instead of the threat of any opposition becoming one of Black's playthings. What ever will you do?"

Zee glared at him, had already opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, she was cut off by Ciardha, who had been staring very intensely at Riddle since he had informed them of the Powers' interest in the matter of Bella's disappearance. "Are you...?" he began, his voice laced with heavy suspicion. "How...? Which Power do you serve, Riddle?"

The professor gave him a lazy smile that reminded Lyra of Blaise. "Commitment isn't really my forte, Monroe."

To be fair, "commitment" wasn't the forte of most ritualists. Very few mages, even among those who regularly practiced high ritual — or maybe especially among those who regularly practiced high ritual — ever dedicated themselves to a single Power. Not only did dedicating yourself mean taking on a life-long mission to advance the interests of your Patron, but it also meant not being on speaking terms with several other Powers — a sacrifice most successful ritualists weren't willing to make.

Ciardha's eyes narrowed. "But you do consult them. You asked them about her."

Riddle shrugged. "I've been known to ask the occasional question, but it was hardly necessary in this case — it's been...strongly suggested, shall I say, that I impress upon you the importance of allowing the misconception about Black's fate to stand. Both of you," he added, sending a very stern glare at Zee.

"Why?"

"Suggested by whom, Riddle?"

The professor ignored Ciardha's question in favor of answering Zee's. "I haven't been apprised of the particulars, but it seems Chaos is attempting to destabilize the Balance itself in favor of the Dark."

Who did tell him? Bella asked, slightly annoyed, because— Had he said it had only been six weeks since Lammas? So he'd known about this whole plan for about three and a half months longer than she had! And she was actually involved!

Eris sent a wave of exasperation at her. Probably Nut. Mystery isn't quite as invested in this as we are, but they've been cooperating with the plan and would have the perspective to see the necessity of insuring the claim of your death is not too closely examined before Yule. Nut more than many of the others has an interest in the future of your House — I'd be surprised if several of our new Dedicates don't choose to give themselves to the Space Between the Stars, and she's never been shy about approaching the odd mortal if it suited her ends. And you were barely involved.

Bella sent a very explicit wave of disbelief at the goddess in response to that last thought. You just like keeping secrets.

Well, yes, that too.

Zee pouted at Riddle, apparently confused. "Okay. But what does that actually mean?"

It was Ciardha who answered, apparently somewhat shaken by the implications of the Plan. "A Dark Revolution. A true Dark Revolution."

Riddle grinned. "If it works, it means Dark magic — and dark wizards — will be in ascendence over the Light, potentially to such an overwhelming extent that the Light will never recover, though that is, of course a best-case scenario. In the short term it means very little. In the long term?" He shrugged. "It could mean anything. Immediately, however, it means that you will drop the question of what happened to Bella Black."

He didn't add a threatening or else, but Zee's eyes went very wide anyway. She nodded slightly, accepting that there would most likely be dire consequences if she didn't promptly begin to act as though Bella really was dead.

Ciardha wasn't exactly the sort to bow to implied (or explicit) threats from someone like Professor Riddle — he'd killed far too many dark lords to be easily intimidated, and Professor Riddle was just an enormous dork in this universe — but he was a very intelligent, pragmatic man. Intelligent enough to realize the threat wasn't really coming from Professor Riddle, and pragmatic enough to question how serious a threat it actually was before deciding whether to acquiesce to the demands behind it.

"Who told you?" he repeated. After all, if it had been, say, Eris, she could have just been fucking with Riddle, and Ciardha by extension, on the whole Dark Revolution, destabilizing the Balance thing. There would be consequences for failing to obey a command, however, regardless of her motivation in issuing it.

The same could be said for most of the Dark Powers, though. Not that all of them would give mortals facetious commands just to fuck with them, but they weren't exactly unwilling to deceive them to accomplish their own ends. That didn't change the fact that any sane man would do as the gods ordered him, regardless of the reason given or its legitimacy.

Riddle, apparently well aware of that fact, and for some reason unwilling to reveal his source, rolled his eyes. "Does it matter, Monroe? I believe what I've been told. You either believe me or you don't. Admittedly, I could be lying, but I can't imagine a reason I would want to. You can't possibly believe I care enough for your sentiments or those of Miss Zabini to assure you that Miss Black is still alive, especially as I've already mentioned you're hardly likely to see her again. For all intents and purposes, in this universe, she is dead. Worse maybe, since you can't use necromancy to summon her back, but in any case... I can't help but fail to see the point of your question."

Which was a very good point, really. After grinding his teeth impotently for a minute or so, Ciardha appeared to accept the argument, or at least the fact that he would never know whether Riddle — master legilimens that he was — was telling the truth about anything, ever. He threw up his hands and stalked over to Riddle's side-table, helping himself to the firewhisky, poured one for each of them. He even gave Zee a half-measure.

She sniffed at it warily as he made a (rather sarcastic) toast. "To Bellatrix, then. May she find peace beyond this mortal plane, and long may she be remembered."

Riddle raised an eyebrow, but threw back his drink before saying lightly, "I suspect peace is out of the question for any Dedicate of Chaos, but she's certainly unforgettable."

Zee, right in the middle of swallowing, coughed and sputtered. Lyra laughed along with her. Even Monroe smiled — for all he disliked Riddle, he wasn't wrong.

So all the loose ends are tied up in my old universe, then?

For the moment. The Blacks will be dedicating themselves over the course of the next year, after which I imagine things will quickly become more interesting, but yes. Meda is well, Cygnus is dead, Arcturus is actually attempting to do his duty by his House, and those few people who knew you well enough to question your disappearance have been informed as to the likelihood of your return — or rather, lack thereof. There's certainly nothing left for you to concern yourself with in that world.

Well. Okay, then. She hadn't been terribly concerned about what had happened in the other world after she left, but it was reassuring to know that Meda would be taken care of in her absence. And Eris wasn't wrong, that last conversation had been amusing. But the one she really enjoyed... Can we watch Cygnus die again?

Eris laughed, the memory-scape already re-forming around them.

Best birthday present.

Anything for you, my bellatrice.

---

"Thank you, Mary," Mirabella said, nodding as the cook set the tea tray on the coffee table in the lounge.

"Thanks, Mary."

"Mmm, yeah, thanks," Lyra echoed around a chocolate biscuit.

"You're very welcome. And I just wanted to say have a good term, you two. I think you'll be gone before I arrive tomorrow, yes?"

Blaise nodded. "Train leaves at eleven."

"Okay, well, I thought so. I've already made up lunches and snacks for you to take with you." She turned a fond smile from Blaise to Lyra (who clearly had no idea what to do or say, sitting there, wide eyed, like a deer in the headlights, as the Americans would say), then back to Blaise. "Stand up and give me a hug, I'm on my way out."

He rolled his eyes at her, then rose with a good-natured complaint. "Always mothering me, Mary."

This was only slightly hyperbolic — Mary had worked for them almost since he and Mirabella had moved into this house, hired shortly after Jonathan died. Blaise couldn't really remember a time when she hadn't been around. She'd been the one to spoil him with treats and listen to his complaints about Husbands Five and Six, the one who'd told Mira that Five was acting inappropriately toward him. (Blaise, of course, hadn't recognized his behavior as unacceptable at the age of seven.) There had always been things he couldn't tell her, of course, things she wouldn't understand. She still didn't know exactly what Coco was, for example, or that Blaise could feel her thoughts and emotions if he didn't make the effort not to do so. But he had been relatively forthcoming about everything he could tell her, and when he had started to come into his legilimency, it had quickly become clear that she had always felt more conventionally "maternal" toward him than Mirabella. (Of course, she wasn't quite old enough to really be his mother, but the fiercely protective, nurturing fondness she held for him was comparable to what other mothers felt for their children.)

"Well, someone has to," she mumbled into his shoulder, squeezing him tightly. Her tone wasn't quite open disapproval — it never was — but Blaise was quite certain she found Mirabella's parenting somewhat...lacking. An understandable perspective, given that even wizards tended to find child-occlumens peculiar (Mira's parents found him hilariously unnerving), and Mira had raised him with a rather skewed perspective on other people and relationships as well. That very upbringing, however, had strongly inclined him to prefer Mira's hands-off approach to childcare than these little conventional acts of fondness Mary insisted on instigating all the time.

He rolled his eyes again, this time catching his mother's over Mary's shoulder. She gave him a knowing smirk, one which said, this is your own fault, you deal with it. Which it was, but in his defense, he hadn't had any idea how Mary would react to his childish lack of guile at the age of four. He didn't really think he could be blamed for not knowing how people worked back then, anyway — at that age, he'd almost exclusively been exposed to Mirabella and a faceless series of randomly selected au pairs, none of whom had lasted longer than a month or two. In any case, he didn't really mind enough to "deal with it" anyway. He wasn't averse to hugs, or touching people in general, it just seemed…disingenuous to let Mary believe that his actions were due to some reciprocated fondness rather than simply humoring her. And Mary was one of the few people he actually thought deserved not to be lied to (though of course that didn't mean he wouldn't).

"Stay safe, and have a good term. You'll be home for Easter?" she asked before finally releasing him.

"First week of April," Lyra said, which was a mistake on her part, but she'd realize that momentarily.

"Yes, yes, I'll see you then. And you, too, Lyra, it's always lovely having more people around this big old house." And then she stepped over to Lyra's end of the sofa, holding her arms out in a clear offer of a hug for her too.

The expression on Lyra's face was the funniest one Blaise thought he'd ever seen her make, mingled surprise and displeasure fighting for dominance, not quite entirely hidden behind a mask of confusion.

"Go on, Lyra, give Mary a hug," he goaded her, just for the glare she threw at him. He grinned.

She scowled, then turned back to Mary. "Uh, no thanks."

Mary's disappointment was almost palpable. "Oh...okay, then. Have a good trip, and tell Harry I said goodbye," she said, patting Blaise on the shoulder as she headed for the door. "Bye, Mira."

"See you tomorrow, Mary."

As soon as she was gone, Blaise raised an eyebrow at Lyra. "You know she thinks you hate her now, right?"

"What? Why? It's nothing personal, I just don't hug people."

"You hug me," he said, just to annoy her, scooting over to her side and draping an arm over her shoulders.

"I let you hug me, there's a difference," she insisted, glaring at him from six inches away, her lips set in a tempting pout. Mirabella started snickering uncontrollably, distracting him from the temptation to kiss her.

"Something to add, mother?"

"No, no, I just remembered Bella saying the same thing to me when we were your age, it's nothing, never mind."

Most people, Blaise thought, would probably find it extremely odd that he and Mirabella had such similar taste in girls as to (attempt) to develop a relationship with the same one, at the same age, albeit thirty years apart. Admittedly, based on Mary's reactions over the past nine years, most people would find nearly every aspect of his relationship with Mirabella extremely odd. Personally, Blaise found it very convenient. He'd had more than one discussion with Mira about exactly what Bella (and therefore presumably Lyra too) preferred in a lover and companion, gathering hints for his inevitable seduction of the girl still tucked under his arm.

"Right, well, since I've got both of you here, and Harry's busy meditating— Did I tell you I asked Blaise to teach him occlumency?"

"You did not." Mirabella smirked and raised a questioning eyebrow at Blaise, taking a sip of her tea.

Really, it wasn't that ridiculous. He gave her a tiny nod, tipping his head ever so slightly to the side in a silent, What, you don't think I can do it?

Granted, he was still learning himself — he'd come into his legilimency early, well before he started Hogwarts, but that didn't mean he was an expert at actually using it, or at least, using it subtly, rather than in a way "reminiscent of a drunken buffoon bumbling around a china shop." He was certainly good enough to teach basic occlumency, though. If and when Potter progressed to the point that he might be interested in learning to counter more subtle attacks, Blaise himself would likely have improved his technique substantially. And if he hadn't, he could always pass Potter off to a more experienced teacher to refine his skills.

Lyra continued to speak, oblivious to their wordless exchange. "Yeah, well, it seemed like a good idea since, you know, he's basically defenseless."

"And Harry obviously realized that you are a paragon of good, sensible advice, immediately overcoming his obvious discomfort with the very idea of trusting anyone, let alone allowing them access to the deepest recesses of his mind, to learn occlumency." Mira then gave Blaise the barest shake of her head and an almost-invisible half-smile — the left corner of her lips twitching briefly upward, which (ruling out the question she'd just implied to Lyra on the basis that she wouldn't ask it twice) he took to mean that she had actually been questioning why he had actually agreed to teach Potter, rather than whether he was capable of doing so.

He flicked his eyes toward the ceiling, not quite rolling them, then blinked slowly: Isn't that obvious? (Politics — it would be a bit of a coup to establish a close, long-term relationship with a future Lord of the Wizengamot, especially one as naive and impressionable as Potter.)

"Hey, I give great advice!"

Mira laughed. "By your own standards, I suppose you must." Then she caught Blaise's eye before flicking her own over to Lyra's face and back, grinning like a cat in cream and taking another sip of her tea.

He glared back, flipped a two-fingered salute at her with his free hand, well out of Lyra's line of sight. Oh, shut up, I didn't do it just because she asked me to! Though if he was being honest with himself, that had been a contributing factor. There was something undeniably appealing about Lyra's reckless, impulsive approach to life, not to mention the inherent allure of interacting with anyone whose mind was completely closed to him. It was very rare that anyone ever managed to entirely conceal their intentions and surprise him, which was a shame, because life without novelty tended to become insufferably boring.

Mira just gave him an infuriatingly knowing smirk in response. Bitch.

"Well, who else's standards would you expect me to use?"

"Expect is a strong word..."

"He's hoping it will help him fight off the dementor aura," Blaise explained, addressing the implied question Lyra had ignored and effectively ending his private conversation with his mother. There was really nothing to say to that smirk anyway.

He neglected to add that Potter was concerned he would inadvertently reveal all their secrets to any passing legilimens. (He hadn't actually spoken of that particular concern, just projected it clearly enough that Blaise had been able to pick it up without actively invading his mind, so it seemed the polite course of action not to mention it.) Honestly, Blaise thought that was a much better reason than the dementor thing. Most legilimens weren't quite as ethical as Snape. Even Blaise would peek a bit more if he didn't know Snape would find out. (And find some way to make him regret it.) It was just interesting, comparing the ways different people thought and felt. Not to mention it made adapting to new circumstances and expectations much easier, both in the muggle world and in his first year at Hogwarts. Most of his peers were rather different from Daphne and Theo, who were the only other children he'd known well before starting at Highgate.

"Speaking of, do they bother you? The dementors? Personally I don't see what the big deal is, but even Blaise thinks they suck."

Blaise rolled his eyes. Lyra, so far as he could tell (which was not nearly so well as he would be able to tell with anyone else), found dementors annoying, because they had a distinct tendency to make everyone around her boring and interrupt anything she might happen to be doing at the time. The fact that they flat-out ignored (or possibly didn't comprehend) her threats of violence against them and their unusual resistance to fire magic made the idea of trying to hurt them appealing, and since they were bloody dementors, absolutely no one objected to her practicing the darkest curses she knew on them.

Well, the dementors might, if she actually managed to master a spell that did have an effect on them, but her opinion on the matter was something along the lines that if they were going to make everyone else boring, it was their responsibility to entertain her, and they could all worry about the consequences later. Plus, Blaise wasn't entirely certain that dementors perceived Lyra as a sapient being — given her lack of emotional affect, they probably had little interest in her existence, and quite possibly wouldn't understand that she was responsible for cursing them...so he didn't see much harm in her continuing to do so whenever she had the chance.

That conclusion might have been slightly influenced by the fact that she wasn't wrong, he really didn't like the dementors, but more because of what they did to the general emotional atmosphere of Hogwarts than their direct effects on himself. Yes, they raised vaguely unpleasant memories of Five, but he had several very closely linked good memories of Five, as well. Memories involving knives, and fiendfire. Of course, his mother had had to obliviate Mary and the others of Five's existence after he "mysteriously disappeared", but Blaise thought that a small price to pay for the thrill of being included in the family business. (In hindsight, the sense of pride he'd felt at his mother allowing him to participate in an adult activity like murder was a bit precious.)

But in any case, it wasn't terribly difficult for him to move from the negative memories to the positive. Both his initial emotional response to Five's actions — extreme confusion and the discomfort that always accompanied situations where he hadn't been certain what he was meant to be doing — and the thrill of pride and vicious, heady awareness of exercising power he associated with Five's death were relatively neutral emotions to dementors. He didn't think he'd ever personally felt the sort of existential horror, sorrow, and misery dementors fed on (or the true, pure happiness, safety, and joy that repulsed them). It was far more unnerving to be surrounded by other people projecting strong negative emotions than it was to be periodically reminded of Five. He really didn't enjoy that at all.

Mira shrugged with habitual elegance. "I can't say I've ever had the opportunity to find out. Nor do I particularly care to."

Blaise was pretty sure her reaction to dementors would be overwhelming hatred and fury (her instinctive reaction to feeling helpless or disregarded, which were the emotions the dementors were most likely to initially evoke in her). But she hadn't asked, so he didn't volunteer that opinion.

"What were you planning to say, before that little tangent of yours?"

"Oh! I wanted to revise who knows what, make sure you're both up to speed. Things are going to take off a bit from here, I think, so it'd be best if we were all starting from the same point."

"Very well, then..." Mirabella nodded, gestured with her spoon for Lyra to continue.

"Right. So, how many backstories do we have, now?"

Blaise sighed. "Are we counting the muggleborn one?"

"No, everyone knows that's a lie. Except the Penultimate Weasley. Maybe. Gin might've clued him in. Not important."

She hadn't. Red and the Penultimate Weasley hadn't exactly been a sterling example of fraternal affection even before Red had begun to be periodically spotted publicly associating with Slytherins. Now the Penultimate Weasley seemed to consider her damn near a blood traitor — between that and Potter becoming less dependent on his companionship, the increasingly isolated Weasley Six was starting to look like dementor food even when there were no dementors around. It was kind of hard for Blaise to miss when they shared a Potions lab for several hours every week, but he didn't think anyone else had noticed yet. Well, Snape obviously, but Weasleys as a whole were Not Snape's Problem.

"Did you ever really expect that to work?" Mira asked, raising an eyebrow at Lyra.

"Well, it would have fooled most of the important people at home."

"I assume by that you mean the nobility? Purebloods who have never actually spoken to a muggleborn before?"

"Well, yeah. And people I didn't actually have to talk to, like the entire Ministry."

Mira gave a tiny shake of her head. "No, it wouldn't have. You may not act like one of them, but you're far too comfortable with our world to be muggleborn."

Lyra glared at her. "Well, you could've said something back in August, you know."

"Wait, what did you put on the forms for the Ministry if you didn't think the muggleborn story would hold?" Blaise asked. He'd told his allies at one point that they'd told the Ministry Lyra was muggleborn, but he'd never actually seen the paperwork, he'd simply assumed that his mother would have used the backstory Lyra told her she intended to spread around. (In hindsight, of course, that seemed rather silly, since Mirabella was clearly capable of judging Lyra's capabilities more accurately than Lyra herself, but he hadn't quite realized that then.)

"I had her registered as a daughter of House Black, without specifying her parentage. Not a common option, but one that has been traditionally used to reclaim magical children of squibs, or when a child has been disowned by their parents, but not the House. I believe Sirius was in such a position until he became the last potential heir of the House. Of course, adoptees are similarly integrated into the House structure. It seemed a reasonable option to employ."

Lyra frowned slightly. "Well, I suppose..." She sighed. "Sometimes I forget you're not really a noble."

Mira grinned — as well she should. For any member of a common house (and a relatively undistinguished, foreign one at that) to be mistaken for noble, by a noble, was a rather high compliment. But then, Blaise was fairly certain that Mira had learned most of what she knew about the Magical British ruling class from her Bellatrix (at least initially), so it wasn't terribly unexpected that Lyra would see many familiar indications of her native class in Mira's behavior.

"Being a Ward of the House has a connotation of being illegitimate since they don't have a place on the family tree — adoptees do, you know, since we always used blood adoptions — and unknown or unpublicised parentage makes Wards rather useless for marriage alliances. But I guess since Cissy made it clear I am a Black, no harm done."

Not to mention as the only viable heir to the House, and one who was pathetically incapable of hiding her unreasonable degree of magical competence at that, she would have no trouble finding a marriage alliance, unspecified parentage aside. The fact that she was as incapable of hiding the fact that she was a bit mad, even on a scale of the House of Black, would certainly be a turn-off for some of the Noble Houses, but most of those were Light, and would never consider an alliance with the House of Black anyway, even if it was just Lyra left. It hardly mattered, though — Blaise doubted she was likely to decide she needed a marriage alliance in any case. Even Mira had admitted that eventually, though Daphne still wasn't entirely convinced.

"I presumed it was what your Paterfamilias would have done if you'd actually managed to make it to the Nineteen Thirties."

"Nah, there were enough cadets at that point to claim I was a distant but legitimate cousin newly arrived from France or the Americas. Anyway, not important. The point is, no one believes the muggleborn story, even the Ministry."

"Almost no one believes the Travelling Cursebreaker story, either," Blaise volunteered.

"I think most of the Gryffindors do."

He snorted. "Fine, no one with a brain. Calling Malfoy out for that duel would've given it away, even if everything about you didn't scream nobility."

"It can't be that obvious." (It really was. Blaise couldn't believe he'd ever thought she might be able to pull off pretending to be muggleborn.) "I've never met another noble who acts anything like I do on a regular basis."

Mirabella gave her a rather soft smile, which was just odd to see, she didn't normally do soft. "Consciously, no, but unconsciously? Everything from the way you hold yourself to your accent to your clothing choices is Magical British pureblood nobility."

Lyra pouted at the two of them. "Fine, then. Most of the students — all the idiots, which is most of them—" (Blaise couldn't really argue with that. Even the ones who weren't idiots were self-centered teenagers who honestly couldn't care less about anyone other than themselves.) "—believe the raised-by-a-cursebreaker story. You two, the Tonkses, Cissy, Snape, and Hermione know who I really am."

"You told Hermione?"

"No, Meda told Cissy, who told Hermione, because she's apparently just as much of a brat at thirty-four as she was at four." Lyra directed a brief glare up at Blaise, the glamour she used to lighten her eyes shimmering just slightly, in a way he never failed to find distracting. He had to force himself not to stare, focusing very deliberately on the topic at hand. Apparently she'd expected him to fill Mira in on that little development.

His mother chuckled. "Perhaps not quite so much."

"Whatever." Blaise fancied he could hear Lyra rolling her eyes, there. "The Aurors apparently think I'm Cassiopeia thanks to Dora. Uh...Other Bella apparently thinks I'm some potions experiment of Snape's?"

"Why would she think that?"

"Well, Dora said she had to babysit Snape when he went to ask her about me, and she decided to disguise herself as me. Other Bella obviously recognized who she was supposed to be, but since Dora's not exactly a dark witch, it was pretty clear she wasn't. Which means she also wasn't Cassiopeia or the Original Nymphadora, assuming she's still around somewhere. She basically just dismissed the idea that Dora was a metamorph at all because they're so rare. Balance of probability was that Snape was fucking with her for some unfathomable reason. Oh! And Snape told the Aurors I was Other Bella's daughter, but probably none of them believed it because Moody knew she never had a kid. But he also implied Dumbledore thinks that's who I am."

Well, both of those were news to Blaise. "There's a few rumors going around to that effect," he noted — he simply hadn't thought there was a (reasonably) legitimate source like Snape behind them. "Either that or you're Sirius's daughter. Or both."

Lyra giggled. "Anyway, it's pretty open knowledge I'm working to revive the House, I'd be surprised if anyone doesn't know that, regardless of where they think I came from. Only...Gin, Snape, Cissy, and Hermione know that I'm planning on tracking down whatever's left of Not-Professor Riddle and murdering him. Possibly torturing him first, if it seems feasible."

"I knew that."

"I didn't," Mirabella said, a faint tone of surprise on her voice, more noticeable than when she'd exclaimed over Hermione's knowledge of Lyra's true identity. "Might I ask why?"

Lyra was clearly more surprised than Mira. Blaise surmised she thought she had told his mother about that long-term goal. It had come up between them before they'd even left for school, though she hadn't elaborated on a reason, beyond the Dark Lord "fucking over" Other Bella and the House of Black, at least until her impulsive decision to enlist the Weasley girl.

This was an ongoing source of amusement for everyone except Theo, because she'd practically been stalking him since he agreed to teach her to fight. So far, he had taught her the Protego shield charm, and assigned her the task of it seven thousand times — both because this was the fastest way to master a spell silently, or even wandlessly, and because it required almost no effort on Theo's part — so now Red kept showing up randomly between classes, glaring at everyone (Blaise was fairly certain Theo hadn't explained the point of the endless repetition), and hissing a number before stalking off. Last Blaise had heard, she was somewhere around fifty-eight hundred. Theo was going to have to teach her a second spell soon.

"He used compulsions on Other Bella from her fifth birthday until… Actually, I'm not sure he ever stopped."

Mira's eyes grew very wide — obviously she had not been expecting that. She covered her surprise well, though, after that first moment. Her voice was steady and even as she observed, "Well, that explains rather a lot, doesn't it?"

"I know, right?! According to Cissy, Other Bella loved him — she's sitting in Azkaban right now, voluntarily, because she thinks that's what he would have wanted. I just— I can't even— It's so..." She trailed off, shaking her head, abject confusion written across her features. "Apparently it started early enough it was already established by the time I made my covenant with Eris, she couldn't get rid of it without breaking Other Bella's mind. She might just have to go for it eventually, though. It got way worse over time, she can't even talk to her anymore. It's just...wrong. So I'm going to kill him. And I'm going to make it painful. And don't you dare say I can't, this is not up for discussion."

Mirabella gave her another smile, this one hard and sharp and dangerous. "Why would I do that? I have never held any fondness for the Dark Lord, and I daresay what I feel for Bellatrix is the closest I will ever find to love."

"What?!" Both witches turned to Blaise at his outburst, but he felt it was warranted. Mira hadn't actually said she loved Bella, but he'd never heard her come even that close to admitting her feelings for…anyone. Not honestly, at least, sincerely believing that what she felt about that person was in some way legitimately analogous to the way other people felt about their romantic partners.

Mirabella gave him a rather rueful, nostalgic smile. "For lack of a better term. I am very fond of Bella."

She dropped the mental defenses she kept up to prevent his casually observing any passing thought, allowing him to examine the nuances of that sentiment, rather than just the usual emotional bleed-through. (For reasons that made Blaise suspect Mira was telling the truth about his sire, hardly anyone was good enough at occlumency to fully conceal their emotions from him — even Snape could only do it by completely suppressing his reactions, rather than attempting to mask them.)

Her feelings toward his godmother were more like her feelings for Blaise himself than anything romantic. Possessiveness and pride, mostly. Trust — and of course wariness that her trust might be betrayed. That was almost gone, worn down over years of demonstrated loyalty and keeping shared secrets, though she had felt that Bellatrix had betrayed her by abandoning her to go to Azkaban for Riddle. It didn't show on her face at all, but the triumphant vindication she felt on learning that she had actually been stolen by Riddle's nefarious compulsions was strong enough in comparison to everything else she was feeling that it was giving Blaise a bit of a headache, like someone yelling in his ear.

More than any of that, though, she seemed to think of Bellatrix as a source of…safety, kind of? No, that wasn't quite right. Unconditional acceptance, or rather, acceptance with very explicitly defined terms — he didn't care to hunt down the specifics — which she felt to be a sort of metaphorical refuge from, well…everyone else.

"She was... She was different from anyone I'd ever met. At first, she was just a challenge to win her over, but… I was able to be more honest with her than I had ever been with anyone else because she simply didn't care, and, well...we understood each other. You're young, still, but I should think that by now you have at least some idea how rare that is."

Blaise winced, just enough to make it clear that he had. He didn't resent Mirabella for the way she had raised him — he doubted whether she could have done anything differently if she had tried — but it had made it rather impossible to relate to other people, at least without resorting to legilimency. (And he'd be lying if he said spending time with Lyra — her straightforward approach to life uncomplicated by the usual emotional baggage and hang-ups — wasn't a welcome break from maintaining the mask he'd learned to wear for everyone else.)

She nodded, dropping her gaze, just for a moment — a silent acknowledgment of his unspoken recognition of that failing. She also used the brief lack of eye contact to disrupt his connection to her mind and restore her defenses. Not that he minded. He would have withdrawn soon, anyway — Mira's mind wasn't very loud or…intrusive, he supposed, compared to most people, just… She was overwhelmingly sharp. Not just decisive and analytical, constantly dissecting everyone around her (though she was), but her personality shifted constantly — not flowing slowly like normal people, but crystalizing, breaking, and re-forming, shards rearranged again and again to reflect specific traits that the people around her wanted to see in her. It was kind of beautiful, watching her transform herself, like standing at the center of a kaleidoscope, but it made Blaise feel uneasily as though he was going to lose himself in her, and get cut to pieces in the process.

"She was the only constant in my life until you were born, Blaise. Losing her to that...de Mort and his twisted ideology was— He dragged her down with him, into the madness that engulfed him over the last two years of the war. If you think I would not see him dead for that, you are sorely mistaken."

Lyra seemed rather taken aback by the fury which replaced Mira's nostalgic tone as she reached the end of that sentence. "Well, I think Cissy was more objecting to the idea that I could kill him, rather than whether she wanted me to, but I can't say I'm disappointed you approve."

Mirabella scoffed. "Psh, Cissy underestimates you because she never knew Bella when she was young. I daresay she has no idea how many people — well-protected, paranoid people — Bellatrix managed to assassinate before we left school."

"We may have to come back to that later," Lyra laughed, her light tone delightfully at odds with the topic of discussion. "At the moment, though..." She paused briefly, then began muttering, apparently to herself. "Okay, covered who I am, why I'm here, that just leaves... Progress!"

"Progress?" Mirabella echoed, faintly amused. "On which project? Or projects, I suppose?"

Lyra's face was turned away from him, and in any case too close to see clearly, but Blaise could hear her mischievous smirk. "Oh, well, let's see. Other Bella's still insane; I had to design an enchantment to spy on Trelawney and get the Weasley twins to plant it in her rooms since Snape stole my fucking time turner; and my house elf demolished the last remaining fragment of the Family Magic just before we left school, but I have finally managed to capture Sirius, so there's that. Oh! And I found a copy of Flanders' Metaphysics to send to Sam."

Mirabella's forehead creased ever so slightly at that, visibly annoyed, but her emotions betrayed inexplicable concern. Blaise still wasn't entirely sure why she was so concerned about Lyra educating Sam on...well, she had to have gone well past the basics of magical theory by this point, she'd been spending hours every day writing letters in response to Sam's endless questions, and Flanders' Metaphysics was an absolute brick — but still, if Mira was going to bring Sam into the know, she had to have expected he would demand a very comprehensive explanation of magic, and Lyra was certainly the most qualified out of the three of them to provide it. Not only did she actually like speculating about how magic worked on a technical level, but being a Black Mage meant she probably had a better understanding of how they actually used it, too.

And Mirabella certainly couldn't have planned on explaining anything to Sam herself — every conversation Blaise had ever witnessed between the two of them ended in frustration and confusion on both sides. It was kind of hilarious, actually, because Mirabella was uncannily good at reading most people, especially for someone who claimed to have no talent for legilimency. Sam just deeply mistrusted anyone who was too easy to trust — under the entirely accurate assumption that they must somehow be manipulating him — and even if Mira was capable of interacting with anyone without trying to manipulate them, Sam would never believe it if she were to stop now.

At the moment, however, Blaise thought — and Mira apparently agreed — that the more important point, at the moment, was that Lyra had apparently managed to capture her rogue Head of House. A brief flicker of genuine surprise appeared on her face before she schooled her features back into serenity and raised an eyebrow in a more conventional expression of astonishment. "Who else knows?" she asked, probably wondering if she would need to do damage control to avoid Lyra being arrested for aiding and abetting him.

"Uh, Harry was there when I caught him — he just kind of showed up out of nowhere, actually. If I'd known all I had to do to get him out of hiding was kiss Harry, I'd have done it months ago."

"Why were you kissing Harry?" Blaise asked. He couldn't imagine it was because she fancied him.

"He was being all emotional and irrational and I'm really not good at calming people down, so I figured I'd just use the Zabini Approach."

"The Zabini Approach?" Blaise raised a questioning eyebrow at Mira, trying not to laugh.

"I presume she's referring to the first time I kissed her to distract her from running off to kill someone. Even Bella has trouble focusing on revenge while being thoroughly snogged."

She gave the pair of them a self-satisfied smirk, to which Lyra's only response was: "Try while being thoroughly confused, but whatever. It worked. When Sirius finally showed his face, I just had my elf pop in and take him into custody."

"Where was he?"

"Oh, you know, lurking around Hogsmeade trying to kill a rat that he thinks is an animagus." Lyra frowned. "I honestly don't know how much of that delusion is from the dementors, and how much is just Sirius — or if he's actually even delusional about that, I guess, though it does seem a bit absurd on the surface. He's absolutely convinced I'm Other Bella, by the way."

Blaise gave a snort of laughter at that. It wasn't an entirely unreasonable conclusion to come to, for someone who knew Bellatrix, and didn't know that travelling between universes was possible. If Sirius could escape from Azkaban, Blaise didn't see why Bellatrix shouldn't have been able to, if she was so inclined. "Presumably you're keeping him somewhere more difficult to escape from than Azkaban?" he asked.

"Hmm, yeah. Cherri is keeping him under house arrest, basically. At Ancient House. In the nursery, to be precise, which is just fucking hilarious, even if he doesn't think so. That elf is actually starting to grow on me. Oh! Theo also knows, I gave him access to the Library, so I thought I should warn him that he might run into Sirius there. Meda and Dora know, though I only, uh...strongly implied it. Hypothetically speaking, you know. Meda's going to appeal for a trial for him, to be held in absentia, so I thought she ought to know we have him as a potential source of information. Not that we can put him in the Chair, he's not really consistently coherent at the moment, but he can still point us in the right direction."

Mira sighed. "Just out of curiosity, what is the 'right' direction?"

"Well, I'm thinking we need to find Peter Pettigrew — apparently he's not dead, and he was the actual Secret Keeper, so if we could get him and make him testify..."

"Secret Keeper?" Mira echoed.

Lyra made a rather impatient, exasperated-sounding hiss. "Okay, from the beginning. I can do that. So, there's this thing called the Fidelius Charm — it's not really a charm, I'm pretty sure it's got to be a ritual, but that's not the point, really..."

She trailed off as Blaise extracted himself from her end of the sofa, gave him a questioning look. "My arm was falling asleep. Also, I've heard this already. I'm going to go check on Harry and finish packing."

Mira nodded in acknowledgment. Lyra just rolled her eyes and ignored him, going back to her explanation of the Fidelius Charm, a concept she'd ranted about at length on the way back to London, though he'd had no idea, then, how it was related to the whole Sirius project. "So, the Fidelius Charm, it's completely stupid, even ignoring the ridiculous misnomer..."

Yeah, he definitely didn't need to sit through this again.

---

Hey, look, I took notes as I was going along this time!

Hermione's theory that Lyra is delusional and the Powers don't really exist is actually an internally consistent philosophy espoused by many intelligent, influential people including Dumbledore and the Unspeakables, but it's actually incorrect.

The name of Zee's company is Leinster Electromagnetic Systems.

The First Daughter of a House is the eldest unmarried witch in the main line of the family. She's responsible for acting as a sort of advocate for all the younger children, representing their interests, against the adults of the house if necessary. (This position could also belong to a First Son, it's not gender-specific.)

This just didn't fit into the narrative well, but I think it may be good to mention: Lyra's ability to channel and control magic was altered by Eris to essentially that of an average adult mage when she was seven. Her body and mind, however, continued to develop relatively normally, which means her magical abilities have increased over time much as would be expected of any child growing into their power. By the time she's an adult, she will rank among the most powerful living mages. She will not be noticeably more powerful than them, but she could definitely give Dumbledore/Tom/Grindelwald, etc. a run for their money. At the moment, any of them could kick her arse easily, since she's only slightly more powerful than the average (adult) mage, and far less practiced at using magic. This does make her a bit ridiculously OP compared to other thirteen-year-olds, but she's spent so much of her life comparing herself to Cygnus (and Ciardha and Tom) that she doesn't really consider herself to be as ridiculous as she actually is.

Angelos, for those who have forgotten, is one of the "fun Blacks" from the generations immediately following the original dedication of the House to the Dark. She further dedicated herself to an aspect of the Infernal Power and killed her parents at a young age before disappearing from Europe. Lyra's Nameless Name is a reference to her.

Regarding Zee's theory that Professor Riddle must know something about Bella's disappearance, he actually just forgot that addressing the mysterious disappearance of one of his students was the sort of thing a Head of House was supposed to do, though that doesn't actually mean he doesn't know something.

Nut is an Egyptian goddess. Her name is pronounced like newt, not like the English word 'nut'.

Blaise is not entirely correct about the dementors' understanding of Lyra — they do know Other Bella, and she has made an effort to learn their language, so they know she's a sapient creature, they just don't realize she's human. Consequently, they think Lyra is another…whatever Bellatrix is. Which is technically absolutely correct.

—Leigha