To Reach Without

by inwardtransience

He hadn't wanted to be Harry Potter anymore. Things would be simpler, he would be happier. He had been almost positive he would be happier if he were quite literally anybody else. At the moment, he couldn't think of a better demonstration of the warning "be careful what you wish for." ON INDEFINITE HIATUS.

25. November 1995 — Helpless

The familiar weight and scent of his old leather jacket hanging about him, Sirius couldn't help a rather distant smile coming to his face.

He could remember when he'd first gotten this. The memory was somewhat foggy, eaten away at by those fucking demons, but not so distorted he couldn't piece together what had happened. It'd been the summer after sixth year, and on little more than a whim he'd gone out and bought a few things, that bike Hagrid had recently returned and this jacket among them. He'd just gotten away from his horrible mother, okay, it was possible he'd gone a little mad with newfound freedom. Anyway, a couple days later, he'd managed to plan a route along muggle roads to get to Lily's. He'd sort of had to piece together the rules of the road that apparently existed by trial and error, but it'd worked out.

And the instant he'd pulled up, Lily had yanked him off the bike and started laying into him with hexes. And, as usual, she hadn't even needed to draw her wand to do it. Scary girl, Lily.

After finally getting her to stop hurting him, she'd insisted that if he was going to ride that thing around like a bloody idiot, he was at least going to have some protection for when he inevitably tried to get himself killed. So Lily had enchanted his jacket. Took a good couple hours, and he still had no idea how she'd done it, or even what exactly the enchantment included. Thing had saved his life, though, at least twice. Only a few months later, he had, ah, tried to get himself killed, crashing the thing into some concrete wall somewhere, the bike had been smashed enough it'd taken a few weeks to fix the bloody thing, even using magic to cheat. He'd barely been scratched. The way he'd been caught by some weird combination of levitation and shielding and suspension charms, he thought she might have copied the safety features from those little toy brooms for kids — he'd tried not to feel insulted by the thought, since it had just saved his life. Another time, he happened to have been wearing the thing when he'd ended up in a fight with a few Death Eaters, and he'd been hit across the back with some kind of dark slicing curse. He'd thought he was dead, and had been just as surprised as whichever Death Eater that'd been when he'd been entirely unharmed. He'd checked the back of the jacket afterward, and it hadn't even been scratched.

Yeah, Lily was scary. Of course, he did like scary in a woman, but he thought that might just be a Black thing.

Speaking of, he had been slowly recovering his memory, both with these annoying meditations and mind magic exercises his mind healer had him doing and just by asking people to fill him in when he couldn't figure it out, but he still couldn't remember breaking up. With Lily, he meant. He knew she'd married James sometime in '79, and he thought he remembered something about them in May or June the year before, but... He didn't know, he couldn't remember. Of course, it was possible they hadn't broken up at all. He did have some memories that definitely suggested they hadn't. He'd heard by now there had been rumours about the three of them, which they'd apparently done absolutely nothing to counter. Actually, in some old newspaper articles he'd looked up, they'd explicitly confirmed it.

He could see that going either way. The way he saw it, there were two possibilities. What with Sirius's complicated legal situation at the time, marrying him hadn't been an option, so... It was possible they'd actually had a thing going on, the three of them. Which, honestly? He didn't think he'd have been opposed to that. Hey, James was a pretty man, and, well, he'd promised not to speak of what had happened July Seventeenth, 1975. So, that was a possibility. However, knowing the personalities of all involved, it was also possible the whole thing had been a cover — what with the muggleborn thing and all, Lily had married James for legal reasons, but she'd really only been with Sirius, and the triad stuff was just to keep some veneer of legitimacy over the whole thing. It would be the Marauders' magnum opus, so to speak, great fun. He couldn't remember which it was, but he could see it going either way.

And, well, he guessed that really would explain—

'Lord Black?' A sharp poke at his side harshly jerked him out of his thoughts. 'You're doing it again.'

Sirius glanced over toward Danielle, definitely not pouting down at her. 'I thought I asked you not to call me that.'

The younger woman let out a long sigh, her eyes rolling up toward the ceiling. 'Yes, generally. But what is the one place we go to on occasion where we really shouldn't try to get away with it?'

'Er, the Wizengamot Chamber, but—'

Danielle cleared her throat, nodding around them. Sirius glanced up. Oh. When had they gotten here? After a moment of disorientation that always seemed to follow those damn pseudo-blackouts the dementors had left him with, he shook his head, and made for his seat.

The large, slightly-elliptical hall, muddy sunlight filtering through thick clouds unmolested by an open ceiling above, was only yet partially-filled, people still scurrying about, walking along the curved tiers of the House seats, a few aides darting across the open space at the centre, the air thick with last-minute notes and messages, charmed parchment fluttering over to their targets on silent wings, all throwing unpredictable shadows against the eye-wateringly pure white marble. Sirius smirked a bit when he noticed he was already drawing attention. Well, this entire day was about making a statement, he had meant to.

There wasn't exactly a dress code in the Wizengamot. While there weren't explicit rules about this sort of thing, there were countless silly traditions that, honestly, Sirius had trouble keeping straight. To put it briefly: dress robes. If someone wanted to make a particular statement, seeing someone in a duelling kit or even bloody armour wouldn't be unusual, but that was comparatively rare. Usually, dress robes were the order of the day, fancy dress robes, sort of advertising wealth, he guessed.

So, while it technically wasn't against the rules for a Lord of the Wizengamot to walk in wearing muggle jeans and a leather jacket, it was very strange, and people noticed.

Good.

Before long he was sinking into his seat, the solid black obsidian of the desk, the familiar coat of arms of his House stitched into a heavy banner hanging from the front, the dark stone and cloth a sharp contrast against the pure white of the floor around it. His desk wasn't empty, of course. One of the aides had set the usual schedule down on a corner — with the mess he and Bella were planning on making, that was probably going entirely out the window anyway. There were a few messages from other members too. Sirius flipped through them quick, but ended up setting most of them on fire, a couple without even reading them, just on seeing the name of the sender. For fuck's sake, one of them had been from Diggory, probably trying once again to talk him out of opposing those bloody creature–being law reforms of his. It didn't seem to quite click for Diggory he wasn't doing this because he was acting out like the petulant man child most everyone seemed to assume he was, no, he had legitimate disagreements with, honestly, most of Dumbledore's people. That most of Dumbledore's people seemed to think he was also one of Dumbledore's people was simply not his problem.

He didn't need to look up to know he was drawing attention again. It was quite rude to just incinerate messages from people right here on the floor. Of course, the fact that he was doing it wandlessly was a bit of a statement as well — while the skill wasn't quite as uncommon as many British people believed it was, even simple wandless magic still wasn't something seen every day. He'd been able to do this for a long time, though. Hey, he had been paying at least a little attention when Lily had been talking about this shite — how much he'd actually heard varied greatly depending on where his hands happened to have been at the time — and Moody insisted anyone who was going to fight anywhere near him be able to summon their wands back to themselves at the very least. If that wasn't an indication of that man's insanely high standards, he considered casting an OWL-standard charm wandlessly to be a fundamental skill. Hell, even Dora was helping him pick up a little now. It was more than slightly humiliating, being taught magic by someone he could remember minding when she'd been a bloody toddler, but his pride really wasn't worth it.

He'd learned that lesson by now.

He was mildly surprised to find a message from Amelia Bones in the stack. By the time he'd gotten maybe halfway through reading the little thing, he was already grinning. It was common knowledge that Bones wasn't exactly a fan of Boot and Diggory's proposal, though she hadn't really spoken against it much in session. While Bones was technically acting as regent for her niece, she tended to prefer taking the more minimal role of the Director of Law Enforcement, so she only very rarely commented on anything that wasn't directly related to her responsibilities there. She did still vote her conscience, of course, but she was very quiet, and kept out of the politicking as much as possible.

But Mel had given Sirius the perfect opening. Bones had come by one day this week to give the expected proper thanks for one of his House defending one of hers, blah blah blah, boring society stuff, whatever. Once the ritual nonsense was over with, Sirius had managed to suck her into a conversation about how idiocy and corruption in their government had seriously crippled Bones's ability to do her job properly, something he knew she complained about constantly in private. And wow, she did not like Dumbledore or Malfoy's faction at all — she had different reasons for each, of course, but she despised them both. Eventually, Sirius had steered them around to Boot and Diggory's proposal, and been not at all surprised Bones thought it was terrible. The thing she was most angry about was the article on werewolves. While she wasn't nearly as personally invested in the subject as Sirius was, she was rational enough to realise alienating and impoverishing the law-abiding werewolves in their country was counterproductive. It would only make them desperate, and desperate people did stupid things. Getting by in this country as a werewolf was already far harder than it had to be, and these reforms would only make it worse.

The short of it was Sirius had managed to recruit Bones, at least temporarily, for this opposition alliance he and Bella had been putting together, and were about to officially announce, well, today. This notice from Bones was confirmation she would be openly siding with them during this session, which was a decision she hadn't quite made last they'd talked. They hadn't managed to recruit very many people yet, nor did he really expect to, but securing one of the Ancient Houses and the Director of Law Enforcement at the same time was fucking huge.

He wondered how Mel would react if he jokingly thanked her for choosing to snog little Susan, of all people. It had turned out very politically convenient for him. Not to mention a member of House Black taking down as infamous a career criminal as Arianna Yaxley being plastered all over the papers, that looked extremely good, he couldn't have gotten better press even if he'd paid for it. She'd probably react badly, though, not worth it.

See, Andi, he was learning!

He looked around toward the Ministry seats. The directors of each department, plus the Minister, had a vote in the Wizengamot, and were clumped together in little booths much like anyone else, though with the colours and symbols of their department instead of their House. They were on the bottom tier, actually, in the ring reserved for the Ancient Houses — since only a couple were left, most of those seats were vacant, but their seats were still kept there, for some silly reason he couldn't fathom — so it wasn't hard to spot, just across the floor at the centre, a bit to his left. He wasn't surprised Bones wasn't here yet, she usually came in with Dumbledore and Fudge.

After a second of looking, he noticed Bella was already there, staring back at him from the Director of Education's seat. The woman was distractingly beautiful, with sparkling burgundy eyes in a soft, rounded face, shimmering black hair with just a hint of red where the light touched it, the kind of figure Sirius had to consciously remind himself to meet her eyes to keep himself from staring at. But, then, she was a lilin. He could count all the lilin he'd met on his fingers, but he was pretty sure the entire race were all ridiculously attractive. Lilin and veela were just like that.

When he met her eyes, she broke to give a pointed glance at his jacket, eyebrow slightly raised. Then she slumped back in her seat, eyes turning to the ceiling, forcing out a breath exaggerated enough he could see it, hand delicately fanning at her face. Sirius laughed out loud, didn't even bother trying to keep it in.

Lilin sometimes, honestly.

Speaking of Bones, looking around, he was slightly surprised to notice the Bones seat, a few spaces to his left past Augusta, was actually occupied. Which was strange, because it was always empty — Amelia was acting as regent for the House, but she invariably took the seat for the Director of Law Enforcement instead. Sitting unaccompanied behind the desk, idly spinning a sickle on the grey-white surface, was an unfamiliar teenager with bright red hair Sirius could only assume was little Susan, who, he knew, was technically Lady Bones. He didn't think she'd ever been here for a session of the Wizengamot before, though. He had to wonder why today, of all days.

He only had a few more minutes to wait before most of the seats were filled, and Bones, Dumbledore, and Fudge were walking in, flanked by a small honour guard of Hit Wizards in Wizengamot purples, slipping into their seats. Dumbledore didn't sit right away of course, standing at the High Enchanter's podium, calling the room to silence just with his presence. And he was babbling off with the familiar script, calling the session to order, blah blah, the same ritual platitudes in a quick series, blah blah, an acknowledgement of how they'd closed out the previous session, blah blah, then asking if anyone had announcements to be aired before the Wizengamot.

Sometimes, there was nothing to be said here. Technically, whenever one of the members had been replaced for whatever reason, whenever a new heir to their title had been selected, whenever any formal alliances between members were to be formed or dissolved, that sort of thing was supposed to be announced before the whole Wizengamot. Sometimes people chose not to bother, though they did more often than not. However, those sorts of things didn't happen very often, so it wasn't uncommon at all for the High Enchanter to open the floor for that sort of business, only to move on after a few seconds.

Well, today wasn't a normal day.

Sirius smoothly popped up to his feet. 'If I could, High Enchanter?' Ignoring the grumbling from the people around him — mostly, he was pretty sure, at the way he was currently dressed, a thought which put a smirk on his face — Sirius noticed Dumbledore looked an odd mix of hopeful and concerned. He was pretty sure he knew what Dumbledore wished he was about to do. And, well, he was half right. Once he was given the floor, Dumbledore sinking down to his chair, Sirius turned to the little booth right next to his, to the familiar woman behind the desk. 'Lady Longbottom.'

For just a moment, a wave of whispers skittering around the chamber, Augusta blinked up at him with clear confusion in her eyes. But she gathered herself quickly enough, the tall, powerful woman, still intimidating as ever, meeting him on her feet. 'Lord Black.'

'It pains me to say it, Augusta, but...' He leaned a bit against his desk, letting off a careless shrug. '...I'm not certain our priorities mesh with one another's anymore. I'm afraid I'll have to dissolve our alliance.'

'And you couldn't have decided this sooner? You only even joined us a month ago, Sirius.'

A crooked smirk pulling at his lips, he said, 'Hey, what can I say? I'm new at this.' He completely ignored the derisive muttering, even the few louder jeers filling the hall. Let them think he didn't know what he was doing. Didn't bother him. It would just make them more surprised in a couple minutes here. Surprise he could work with.

It didn't seem he fooled Augusta at all, though. Not that he'd expected to fool her, the wily old sorceress had known him since he was a child, knew him far too well sometimes. She was giving him a narrowed, calculating look, clearly trying to figure out what angle he was working here. In the end, she apparently decided to shrug it off. 'If you must, Sirius. Go in friendship.'

'In friendship, my Lady,' he acknowledged, dipping into a little bow. He was well aware Augusta was making a conscious statement there — while they weren't strictly political allies anymore, she was still making the point before the entire collected nobility of Britain that they were still personal friends. Sort of a very subtle warning, like. And, since she was one of the leaders of an alliance representing a significant portion of the Wizengamot, not an insignificant warning. Honestly, he hadn't expected that, but it wasn't a sentiment he opposed, so he just went with it.

As Augusta sank into her seat again, Sirius turned back to the High Enchanter. That hopeful look was far more intense in Dumbledore's eyes all of a sudden. He'd known, when Sirius had repudiated his House's old alliances as one of his very first acts as Lord Black, Dumbledore had expected him to ally with his people. He'd been rather disappointed when he'd joined the more neutral Bones–Longbottom alliance instead, disappointed enough he'd brought up the subject after an Order meeting. Sirius had been rather annoyed with his meddling, had fled the conversation as quickly as possible. But anyway, he knew Dumbledore thought he was about to proclaim allegiance to the Light, that he would return to the fold, as it were.

Instead, his smirk still wide on his face, he sat.

Before Dumbledore could hardly move, Bella was already on her feet, just a couple seats to his left. 'High Enchanter, if I could?' Sirius wasn't sure if anyone who knew her any less than he did would recognise the barest hints of simmering hatred on her smooth, cultured voice. She really didn't like Dumbledore, but she did hide it pretty well.

While her enmity for Dumbledore could be a bit irrational at times, he'd found over their talks the last few weeks, it wasn't like she didn't have good reasons or anything. Dumbledore's dislike of lilin in general and Bella specifically was just as irrational, and he'd been making things harder than necessary for her since even before she'd started at Hogwarts. This had been before his time, of course, but Sirius had heard Dumbledore had tried to prevent her from being admitted, and if the Department of Education hadn't overruled his objections, he suspected due to bribes from her family on the Continent, she wouldn't have been allowed to go. According to Andi, who'd been in her year, if Slughorn hadn't constantly defended her — she had been one of his favourites, which Sirius thought should be a surprise to no one — it was entirely possible Bella would have been expelled long before she could graduate. And Dumbledore hadn't let up on her since, though, with her on the Hogwarts Board of Governors now, which technically meant she was his boss, there wasn't a whole lot he could do.

Sirius still couldn't understand Dumbledore sometimes. He couldn't fathom why he had gone out of his way to give Remus, along with a few other werewolf children he knew about, every opportunity at his disposal, but on the other hand had done everything in his power to sabotage a young lilin. Apparently, werewolves were people, deserved respect and sympathy, but lilin were inherently evil, and should be outcast.

So, yeah, he entirely understood why Bella might not like him.

With barely noticeable reluctance, Dumbledore let one of his more outspoken opponents have the floor. Summoning a severe, somewhat sad sense about her, Bella turned to the seats just across from Sirius, facing a middle-aged woman almost exactly at the opposite side of the floor from him. 'Lady Monroe.' The woman frowned in surprise, but got up to her feet anyway. 'I hope you don't think poorly of me, my friend,' Bella said, characteristically silky voice dripping with regret, 'but I'm afraid we can no longer be allies. I do not disagree with your principles, no, it is your methods. You, all those with you, you insult when you should prevaricate, you strike when you should sneak. You cede ground when you should dig in your heels and fight for what you believe in. No, no we cannot work together anymore. I wish it weren't so, but it is.'

It wasn't until Bella had finished her little speech that Sirius snapped out of it, shaking his head. Without even realising it, Sirius had been drawn into her words, filled with a boiling sense of injured pride, of intelligent, articulate rage. Their enemies would be destroyed, yes, of course, but they would be civilised about it. No messy murders or distasteful violence, but clever words and meticulous maneuvering. Those who stood against them would see all their power, all their accomplishments, vanish, to be left in the faded remains of their former glory, powerless to do anything but watch as she and her friends undid all they had wrought. She had done one of those lilin things, he knew, slipping her magic into her voice, worming thoughts and feelings not his own into his head, and probably a good portion of everyone who had heard her speak. That was a thing lilin and veela could both do, he knew, but he'd hardly ever noticed her do it.

Okay, sometimes he could understand how Dumbledore felt about lilin, but he still thought the man was too extreme about it.

Monroe blinked for a moment, probably shaking off Bella's influence much as he just had. There was a bit of angry muttering, so they clearly hadn't been the only two affected, but nobody reacted too badly. Which meant Bella hadn't touched everyone — Sirius could think of a few people in the room right now who would probably react violently. 'I understand, Bella. And I'm not as offended as you might fear. I had always known you would one day fly free from us and ours.' Sirius was certain she'd worded it that way on purpose. 'Go in friendship, Mirabella Zabini.'

'In friendship,' Bella said with a smile and a nod. When Monroe had taken her seat again, Bella immediately turned to him. 'Sirius.'

He was slightly surprised she'd just used his first name — that was rather out of protocol. But, oh well, it wasn't like he cared. While he got to his feet, he noticed the mutters, the looks people were giving the two of them. Clearly, most in the chamber were putting together why he hadn't announced a new allegiance immediately. The look of shock and disappointment on Dumbledore's face was almost comical. Pitching his voice casual and playful, leaning his hip against his desk, he said, 'Bella?'

And she sounded just as amused and irreverent as him. 'You know, I noticed something interesting. It seems that my enemies are yours.'

Sirius glanced around the hall, being sure to meet the eyes of a few of the worst blood purists in both the Dark and the Light, lingering slightly longer on Diggory among the Ministry seats and Boot a bit behind him. 'I had noticed that. Funny how that worked out, isn't it?'

Bella smirked back at him, and then slowly crossed her arms. In a way that, visible even from this far away, was doing...interesting things to her chest. Cursing in his head, he forced the distraction off as well as he could, tried to keep his eyes steady on hers. By the way her smirk twitched with obvious amusement, she was messing with him on purpose. This woman, honestly... 'Well, perhaps we should do something about that.'

'Perhaps we should.' He was pleased to note his voice was perfectly normal, no trace of his annoyance with himself audible on it. Good, that would have been embarrassing.

Holding her crooked smile for just another moment, Bella loosened again, dipped into an inhumanly graceful curtsey. 'My word, my wand, and my wings, Lord Black.'

He stumbled at the abbreviated oath slightly. He wasn't surprised she'd used a shortened casual version, of course — they'd decided on an irreverent, mocking tone for their entire little strategy here, he'd expected that. He just hadn't thought she would include the wings part. He knew the lilin had a similar idea to the traditional Wizengamot allegiance oath, that the members of their Imperial Parliament (pun intended, he was sure) used for a similar purpose, and that theirs did not include a reference to a wand, since lilin hadn't used them until comparatively recently, but did have something wing-related. So, he got where it came from, he was just surprised she'd included it. She didn't usually draw attention to the whole not being human thing that directly. She didn't go out of her way to avoid mentioning it either, of course, but...

Whatever, not the point. He gave the ritual response back, ignoring the muttering from around them. Not surprising — the Wizengamot could go decades without seeing the formation of an independent alliance like this. And they weren't even done yet. Voice light and casual, as though he were wondering how she took her tea or something, Sirius asked, 'Should we get started right away?'

Bella let out a long hum, the charms worked into all the little booths to project the voice of the occupant sending it to vibrate softly in his ears. 'I don't see why not.' And she smoothly sank into her seat again.

'Right. Danielle?' A thin smirk on her face, the younger woman quickly becoming his favourite muggle cousin reached into one of her pockets, pulled out a little enchanted box, set it on the table. A tap of her finger at one of the runes on the surface, and it expanded to several times its size, the wooden box now roughly the scale of a large book.

He heard the displeased murmuring from several quarters, most noticeably around Malfoy and his cronies. It wasn't technically against the law to let muggles aware of the existence of magic use enchanted objects — and, since Danielle was legally a member of House Black, such a law wouldn't apply to her even if one existed. But while it wasn't technically against the law, it was still seen as... Oh, he wasn't sure of the proper word. "Sacrilegious" didn't seem quite right, perhaps too strong, but that was the sort of impression he was going for. Something like that, anyway. He hadn't needed to have Danielle carry that for him, of course, most of the reason he'd done it in the first place was to tweak those idiots' noses.

With a wave of Sirius's wand, dozens and dozens of little stacks of parchment came lifting out of the enchanted box, floating up into the air. Once he had them all out, the standard count to get one to each member of the Wizengamot, he gave his wand an awkward little twist, with a thought handing over the levitation charm to one of the enchantments worked into the chamber. The bundles of parchment were then winging off, each coming to a gentle stop on every occupied desk in the room. Ruffling sounds filled the air as the various members started flipping through the document, murmurings of surprise and confusion following swiftly after.

Dumbledore was the first to speak — at least, the first to speak with the intention of being heard by the whole hall, anyway. 'And what exactly is this, Sirius?'

'Why, Albus, I thought that would be obvious.' Sirius saw Dumbledore twitch at the use of his first name. Technically, Dumbledore shouldn't have used his either — it was far from the first time he'd slipped during a session of the Wizengamot, and Sirius had told him very plainly that if he kept doing it he would return the favour. 'As our first joint action in the Wizengamot, Lady Zabini and I have prepared a counter-proposal to the creature–being law reforms we have been discussing these last months. You can see the official title there but, personally, I prefer to call this the G.Y.H.O.Y.C.A.Y.S.F.P. Act.' Yes, he had practised saying that.

One of the Lords behind him, he wasn't sure which, said, 'And what is G.Y.H... Well, what does that stand for?'

He glanced over his shoulder, a wide smirk on his face. 'Get Your Heads Out of Your Collective Arseholes, You Stupid Fucking Prats.'

Over the cacophony of half of the Wizengamot springing to their feet to scream at him, Dumbledore already up and shouting for calm, he heard Augusta next to him choke back a laugh. 'Colourful.'

He turned to shoot her a wink before raising his voice to address the Wizengamot again. They weren't quite done yelling at him, but he didn't particularly care. 'I am aware this is not the time to debate this directly. We just thought we would submit it now for consideration. Go ahead, read the thing. I'm sure you'll find it interesting.' Or infuriating, as the case may be.

'What?!' Oh, wow, Sirius hadn't expected that so soon. Diggory was quicker than he'd thought. The man had sprung to his feet, Sirius and Bella's proposal splayed open across the desk marked with the symbols and colours of the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures. 'You entirely abolish the– You can't do this!'

Sirius didn't have to hear a complete sentence to know what Diggory was blabbing about. Part of the idea they'd come up with involved abolishing the legal category solely for humans entirely. Instead, the same rights and privileges were accorded to all races considered beings, which included humans. Exactly what was meant by "beings" was also somewhat redefined — essentially, any person who was rational enough to understand the potential consequences of their own actions counted, no matter their race. Which meant a number of peoples living with restricted privileges or special oversight under the law as it currently stood — goblins, lilin, veela, werewolves, centaurs, merpeople, vampires, hags, and so forth — would suddenly be considered no different than mages. Legally speaking. With some considerations for people like centaurs and goblins, who had their own nations with their own laws, but magical governments were well used to handling complications brought about by dual citizenship by now.

The law semi-accidentally abolished any official designation of blood status for humans as well. "Semi-accidentally" because that hadn't been Sirius's intent writing it, but when he'd noticed he'd entirely failed to care.

Of course, using any potentially harmful magical abilities nonhuman beings might have to compel, injure, or kill a person was still illegal. But doing those things was illegal no matter how it was done. Sirius wasn't entirely sure why the punishment should be different just because they weren't human, because it was something humans couldn't do. If someone was compelled to their own detriment, did it particularly matter how they were compelled? He didn't know, Sirius personally didn't see why anything but the results should be considered. The exact method didn't seem important.

He was well aware he was skirting the same rationale people used to oppose the regulation of dark magics. He didn't think it was quite the same thing. A werewolf couldn't help being a werewolf. A lilin was simply born the way they were. It was different.

That he happened to be wavering in his principles there anyway, especially after certain conversations the last few months, was entirely beside the point.

But anyway, there was more shouting in the chamber as exactly what Diggory was whining about got around. Eventually, Dumbledore finally got everyone to shut up, ceding the question on whether doing such a thing was legal or not to the expert on the matter currently on hand. 'So far as I am aware,' Bones said, sounding somewhat exasperated, 'such definitions are policy determined by this body. There is no reason they cannot be altered or entirely removed at our whim. In fact, Director, from the perspective of legal theory, what your and Lord Boot's proposal does with the same definitions is no different. It's the same process.' Diggory was standing to protest that, so Bones raised her voice a little, her tone sharp and severe. 'What it seems you are forgetting, Director, is that your entire Department exists by the grace of the Wizengamot. There is no legal reason we could not decide to dissolve it entirely — so long as we maintain our treaty obligations to keep the Statute, that is. There is nothing in any department in the Ministry, excluding the Obliviators, that is set in stone. You are entitled to none of the specific details of the policies affecting your Department. So sit down and shut up.'

Sirius failed to stop himself from chuckling. He wasn't exactly trying very hard, but still. Not so much because of what Bones was saying, though that was plenty amusing by itself. No, most of the funny was the look on Diggory's face. Apparently, Diggory hadn't been aware that Bones was, to put it lightly, not exactly pleased with him of late. In their talks recently, Bones had gone on enraged rants about how some of the current policies made her Department's work excessively more complicated than it had to be — the DRMC criminalising things that really needn't be criminalised just made it worse. Some of these policies Diggory was directly responsible for. And this latest proposal was only going to make things more complicated.

So, no, she was not pleased with him. And Diggory was such a self-righteous, stupid sod he didn't realise his proposed policy would effectively force Bones's people to closely monitor entire segments of the population simply because they existed, overworking her Department and potentially ruining the lives of hundreds of innocent people for no good reason — he thought he was doing the right thing!

Some of the people among the Light were just so ridiculous sometimes.

Before too long, the uproar in response to Bones's rudeness had settled down again, and they were moving on. Though, if anyone had expected them to go right on to their scheduled business for the day, they got a nasty surprise. The next...well, it went on for quite a while, he wasn't sure how long, but it was very tedious. A Lord or Lady would stand up, renounce their allegiance to the alliance they'd been in, then join Sirius and Bella — most allied themselves with House Black, but a few Bella had brought with her from the Ingham–Monroe alliance treated with her instead, it made little difference — the same formulaic expressions, over and over and over.

There was a small amount of excitement when Andi stood to do the same thing on behalf of House Potter. While it was a bit annoying, the accusation that Sirius was getting his cousin to do whatever he wanted with the Potter seat, without the absent "Lord"'s approval or knowledge, was not an unexpected one. Andi produced a letter signed by "Lord Potter" ordering her to change "his" House's allegiance in this very way, floated it over to Bones for the Department of Law Enforcement to confirm it appeared genuine. While the Wizengamot processed that, Sirius couldn't help smiling to himself. Mel had said in a mirror call that she'd actually had to write that letter three times — she'd managed to fuck up and write her name as Melantha Black twice in a row.

Sirius had pretended to find it funny. He thought it'd probably just make her uncomfortable if he'd gotten too soppy.

See, Andi, he was learning!

There was really only one minor surprise the rest of the process — only a minor one, because he had expected something similar.

Toward the end of the whole shuffling of alliances, the young Lady Bones got to her feet. She didn't even put her sickle down, she'd been playing with the thing the whole time, still flicking the coin into the air and catching it, over and over, even as she stood. 'Lady Longbottom.'

Sirius blinked, glancing quick at the elder Bones, who looked entirely unsurprised. When Bones had said she would publicly support their proposal, he'd thought she'd meant she would argue in favour of its legal merits. This hadn't been quite what he'd expected. It wasn't unwelcome, of course, and it did explain why little Susan was here in the first place — Amelia never did directly take part in this kind of thing if she could avoid it. It was just sort of...big. Getting another Ancient House to join what was originally expected to be Sirius and Bella fruitlessly raging at the thickheaded pureblood twats in power would make it all seem a bit more legitimate in society circles than he'd planned on. This changed things, he'd have to rethink their plans a little...

Only looking very faintly surprised, Augusta got to her feet once again — they'd both been doing that quite a bit as people left her alliance to join his. 'Lady Bones.'

'It seems our priorities no longer align.' And the little Bones flicked her coin into the air, catching it again without even breaking eye contact with Augusta. Kid was reminding Sirius far too much of James playing with that damn snitch, and in the middle of the Wizengamot no less... 'I'm afraid we must part ways.'

Augusta paused only long enough to send Sirius an annoyed glance. The formal alliance between Houses Longbottom and Bones had stood for literally centuries, after all. He did his best to look innocent — it helped that he actually was this time, he hadn't planned this. 'If you truly must. Go in friendship, child.'

Once the pleasantries were over — little Susan managed to curtsey while her coin was in the air and still smoothly catch the thing, tricky kid — she turned straight to Sirius. 'Lord Black.'

He pushed himself to his feet yet again; he was rather glad Andi and Dora had been working him so hard to get back into duelling fitness, he would have been aching from all this standing and sitting just a couple months ago. 'Lady Bones. Same script, I'm assuming?'

The girl's lips twitched into a smirk. 'Same script.'

Faking a pout, he said just above a whine, 'My name still gets to go first.' Usually, if a formal political alliance has any Ancient Houses among their numbers, the alliance is referred to by those Houses. By seniority within the alliance by default, but otherwise alphabetically. Both of which would put Black first, but he was mostly teasing.

Susan lightly shrugged. 'Fine with me. I doubt I'm going to be much involved any time soon. I am supposed to be in Transfiguration right now,' she said, her voice all sweet and innocent, raising a few light chuckles from the surrounding Lord and Ladies.

'I'm sure Minnie's ecstatic at the thought that you're here playing with me instead of stuck in her class.'

She just smirked. 'My word and my wand, Lord Black.'

'And mine for yours, until we part ways.' He tilted his head a bit, matching her smirk. 'Do give Mel a kiss from me.'

Susan blinked, hitching for a second — if Sirius had to guess, she hadn't been sure Mel had told him about them. Then she snorted, rolling her eyes. 'I'd rather stick with my own, thanks.' And she carelessly flopped back into her seat, returned to spinning her sickle on her desk.

Yeah. Only a few moments interacting with her, and Sirius could already see how Mel could get a little stupid over the girl.

There were only a few more Houses called after that. Some names Sirius hadn't expected, but mostly not news. As the opening of the meeting was finally called to a close, far later than most of the room had expected, Sirius tuned out the proceedings for a moment, going over the list Danielle had been compiling as the whole dance had gone on, tallying the changes in the strengths of the various alliances. They'd picked up a few unaligned Houses, mostly newer, more radical families seemingly realising he and Bella were in this to fuck with the established power base as much as possible. The Dark seemed mostly unchanged — though, interestingly, a couple had abandoned ship for Ingham–Monroe, he wondered if Bella leaving had anything to do with that — and only a few had joined them from the Light. They'd taken a surprisingly large chunk out of the Longbottom and Ingham–Monroe alliances, though, far more than he'd expected. Looking over the way the numbers worked out, how the balance of power in the Wizengamot had shifted ever so slightly, noting some very particular names they'd managed to pull...

Sirius felt the positively evil smirk on his lips, didn't even bother trying to hide it. Oh, yes. Yes, this would do quite nicely.

---

The heavy thud of a bookbag falling onto her little table squirrelled into a corner of the Gryffindor common room nearly sent Mel jumping out of her chair. When she looked up from her book she immediately felt a bit silly. It was just Hermione.

Though something seemed a bit off about her. Mel couldn't say exactly what. Her face seemed oddly tight, as though she were forcing herself to not have an expression, her movements as she slid into a chair jerky and unsteady. A thing she'd noticed, when Hermione got especially worked up about something, her hair would kind of poof up a bit — sometimes she wondered if the bird's nest Hermione had had haloing her head the first few years here was just because she'd been constantly on the edge of an anxiety attack or something. Right now, it wasn't as bad as it could get, but it did seem a bit frizzier than usual, like someone had hit her with an underpowered electricity-producing charm of some kind.

As Hermione dug into her bag, pulled out a book, and then slumped back into her seat, face resolutely buried behind an extremely dry-looking Arithmancy text, Mel just sat there watching her, biting her lip. It was obvious something was really bothering her. Should she...?

Mel really wasn't good at this shite. She'd learned by now not talking about problems didn't make them go away. But she really didn't know what she was doing. Okay, Parvati and Lavender were annoying much of the time, yes, and she really didn't envy them in most anything. She couldn't imagine caring about a lot of the stupid nonsense they got worked up over, honestly. But sometimes she really wished she understood...people...shite? Just, they would know what to do here. And they'd probably know how to do it without sounding like an awkward idiot. She had no fucking clue.

And she couldn't just point Hermione at them and stand aside because, well, they really didn't like each other very much.

After what had to be a couple minutes, she'd mostly decided she was just going to let it drop. Probably not the best thing to do, but it was really the only thing she could do. Just as she was turning back to her book, she got temporarily distracted by noise at the portrait hole. She glanced that way to see Fred and George walking in. And they looked a bit... Well, someone had obviously cursed the both of them. And not with something nice, either. They were both moving cautiously and tenderly, as though in rather a bit of pain. Their clothes and hair were both ruffled, their robes charred slightly along the edges in a couple places. One of them was even missing eyebrows. People were laughing at them, as they usually did whenever the twins got the short end of something, asking what the hell had happened to them. They just laughed it off, claimed they fucked up with one of their potions experiments, blah blah.

Which was a lie. Mel couldn't read the twins well enough to tell when they were lying, but by now she knew curses and hexes. She couldn't identify which hex or curse exactly, but that was definitely spell damage.

A glance at Hermione showed she was sinking further in her chair, thick covers rising to more completely hide her face.

Well.

Mel let out a long sigh, rubbing at her face with one hand. Fuck, she was really doing this...

Her book slipped back into her own bag, and she was up walking around the table. Before Hermione could react, she yanked the thick Arithmancy text out of her hands, put it back in her bag, then lifted it to sling it over her other shoulder. She almost dropped the bloody thing — Jesus, how many books does Hermione carry everywhere? Thing was fucking heavy. Once she was sure she wasn't going to drop anything, or just fall over from the weight of Hermione's mobile library, she grabbed Hermione by the wrist, ignoring the hot glare she was getting, and started dragging her up the girls' stairs.

Thankfully, she found their room was empty. Which was somewhat weird, she hadn't thought it was — weren't Parvati and Lavender up here at the moment? Eh, whatever. She led Hermione over toward her bed, paused a moment to shrug off both their things, then pulled her on after her. A few flicks of her wand had the curtains pulled closed and then sealed around them, a silencing and a few privacy charms following in quick succession. Then she slipped her wand away, flopped down against her bed on her back, and stared up at the ceiling.

'Er. What are we doing here?' Mel wasn't looking, but judging by the odd wiggle on her voice, Hermione was a big annoyed by being dragged around, but almost amused despite herself.

Mel shrugged. Which was slightly awkward to do while lying down. 'If I've learned one thing over the last few months, it's that keeping shite bottled up really doesn't help in the end. Something's bothering you. I'm listening.'

There was silence, for just a second. 'Are you saying I'm going to have to get used to actually talking to you about things now? Because, I'll admit, sometimes I kinda liked how you would just let everything go. Personal stuff, anyway.'

Her eyes flicked to the side for just a second. Hermione was sitting against the headboard, arms crossed over her chest, an annoyed glare focused on the curtains around them. 'Hey, you're the one who said back in July having a girl best friend for once would be "fun". Isn't this the kind of shite girl friends do?'

Hermione snorted. 'Like I have any bloody clue. I quite intentionally try to avoid talking about anything but academics with most everyone. It's simpler.'

'Why, I am genuinely shocked.'

There was only the barest warning, Hermione's eyes narrowing slightly, before her foot came lashing out, slapping Mel across the shoulder.

It didn't actually hurt — after some of her lessons with Dora, Hermione would have to try a lot harder for Mel to really even notice — but she flinched anyway. Mostly out of guilt, she guessed. 'Sorry,' she muttered, shrugging against the bed again. 'That was Hazel.'

'That... What?'

Mel blinked, turned to look up at her. The annoyance from a moment ago had vanished entirely, leaving a Hermione who apparently couldn't decide if she should be more confused or concerned. Come to think of it, that was a rather crazy-sounding thing to say, wasn't it? 'Ah, it's this whole thing I'm doing with Ellie now. Sorry.'

'What thing?'

'Well...' Oh, this was incredibly awkward. They were supposed to be talking about the obvious trouble Hermione was having with the twins here, not Mel's persistent brain issues. All right, fine. Get it over with, they could move on then. 'Ah, well. I don't know if I told you, but if I were born a girl normal like, my name would have been Hazel.' Hermione just blinked at that, so apparently she hadn't known. Or perhaps didn't see the point, also possible. 'And, you know, the Dursleys were kinda...fucking awful. I learned to just...not do or even think certain things, because then they would be somewhat less awful. But sometimes lately, I've noticed sometimes there's this...'

Mel let out a sigh, rubbing at her face. She had absolutely no idea how to explain this. It was this whole...thing. If she wasn't paying attention, if she was too sleepy. If she were angry enough, or amused enough. Sometimes when Susan prodded her just right. There was this... It was like a curtain being pulled back, some wall in her own mind she wasn't really aware of, and for a moment she was someone else entirely. Someone who hadn't been beaten into a less freakish shape both verbally and physically. The person she should have been, without her honestly horrible excuse for a childhood, all the nonsense that had happened at Hogwarts the last few years, none of that fucking her up. Hazel Potter, somewhere inside her, still alive. Only for a couple seconds, and the door closed, and she was just Mel again.

The last couple weeks, it was something Ellie had brought up more than once. Sort of a lot, actually, once Mel had mentioned it was a thing that happened sometimes — mostly in the form of kneejerk sarcasm, but here and there elsewhen. Ellie was trying to get her to focus on it, to figure out, basically, who she really was. Harry, she said, had never been real, just what the Dursleys had made of her, a face she'd created to survive. Mel wasn't really any different. But Hazel was in here, somewhere, and she had to find her. Half the time Mel thought it was nonsense, but she was still trying, still trying to piece together the remains of who she was supposed to be. She didn't know this Hazel Potter person very well at all yet but, well, she was working on it.

But that was complicated, and she wasn't sure how to explain it to Hermione briefly without making absolutely no sense at all. 'Well, I'm trying to figure out what I would be like if the Dursleys hadn't fucked me up, basically. Ellie has me calling the things I'm figuring out — you know, things I think or feel or say or whatever without even meaning to, on reflex, but calm reflex, not bad reflex — calling them "Hazel", talking about them like they're a person. And, yeah, I know it sounds kinda crazy, but it's this whole thing.

'So, there, I shared something awkward and uncomfortable. Your turn.'

Hermione laughed, sounding harsh and choked, as though failing to stop herself. 'Just, it's nothing, it's stupid.'

'I'm sure if it were stupid nothing, it wouldn't be bothering you nearly as much as it obviously is.'

'God dammit, Mel. When did you get so...persistent?' She was pretty sure Hermione actually meant to say "pushy", something like that, but that would sound mean.

Mel turned to smirk at her a little. 'Learned from the best.'

With a roll of her eyes, Hermione let out a huff, slumping further against the headboard. She was silent a long moment, glaring with narrowed eyes at the sheets around her knee. 'It's just... I have no bloody clue what I'm doing.'

Well. That was not a feeling Mel was unfamiliar with. 'Did something happen earlier?'

'Nothing, it was stupid.'

'I'm sure you had some reason when you cursed them.'

Hermione winced. 'Yeah, I kinda did curse them, didn't I.'

'A little bit.'

For a few seconds, Hermione just sat there some more, staring unseeing at the sheets. Then she shifted, knees lifting from the bed, hands crossing over her ankles, hugging her legs to her chest, chin planted on her knees. 'It wasn't anything that different,' she started, her voice low and slow. 'Some Slytherins were just...being Slytherins. Some sixth-years, I don't even remember who. I was in the library and they...' Hermione trailed off, finishing with a shrug, but she didn't really have to explain. Mel was well aware people were horrible to Hermione sometimes. 'I wasn't even there with them. I was doing Arithmancy work, I didn't even know they were there. And suddenly they were...

'Well,' she said with a snort, 'between them they lost forty points and have a few nights' worth of detention, fill in the blanks as you like. Once Irma and Professor Burbage were done yelling at them, I dragged them off. You know, to get my own yelling in. I don't even know how it happened, the conversation got turned around somehow, and...'

Mel waited a few seconds, didn't speak until it was obvious Hermione wasn't saying anything. 'Turned around how? What happened?'

'They...' Hermione let out a hard sigh, Mel noticed her hands tightening noticeably around her ankles. 'They want me to make up my mind.'

'About what?'

Hermione bit her lip for a second, shooting Mel an almost nervous look. 'If, if I want this, any of this, to mean anything. Or if it's just...secretly snogging sometimes.'

Oh. Well. That was sort of an important thing to figure out, right? She was far from an expert in relationship shite, but she was pretty sure that was something that should probably be agreed on. Hell, even she and Susan had agreed on that. Sort of. Mel making it clear she had no fucking clue what she was doing, and was certainly going to make an idiot of herself and might end up bailing with little to no warning, and Susan saying she was okay with that, that counted, right? Whatever. 'Ah... And do you want it to mean anything?'

'I don't—!' Hermione cut off in mid-shout, her hands jumping up to her bushier-than-usual hair. For long moments she didn't say anything, but Mel just waited — she had enough experience trying to calm herself down by just focusing on her breathing for a little while to recognise it when someone else was doing it. 'I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing. I just...

'I didn't try to...' She trailed off again, rubbing at her face, shaking her head a little. 'It wasn't something I meant to happen, really. It wasn't planned.' After a second of hesitation, another awkward look at Mel, Hermione muttered, 'It was back in...May, I think it was May. That bloody Tournament. And I was so...angry and scared, all the time.'

Mel tried not to wince. 'Er, sorry.'

Hermione's discomfort was broken long enough to give Mel a little glare. 'Not your fault, Mel. I was just angry that you had to be in the stupid thing at all, and I was terrified that you were going to die, and I was so frustrated that I couldn't help—'

'You helped a lot, though! If you hadn't taught me all those—'

'Sure, I could help you learn a few spells, but I couldn't be in there with you! You'd be going into the maze alone either way! And I was so terrified that—' She broke off, rubbing her face with both hands, taking a few long, shaky breaths. Mel felt a little retroactively guilty — she hadn't noticed it'd been bothering Hermione nearly this much at the time. She had been occupied with her own shite, true, but still... 'And nobody else was taking it seriously! It was all some big joke to them! I was so bloody furious at them all the time, I couldn't...

'I walked in one of their stupid pranks one day. Couple third-year Ravenclaws, don't remember who.' They'd probably been teasing Luna — Mel knew the twins' infamous overprotectiveness for Ginny sometimes extended to Luna a little bit, since she'd been around so much growing up. Not that that stopped people from treating Luna like shite, but there were consequences sometimes. 'And I don't know why. I guess I was probably just in a bad mood already, but I kinda...exploded on them. I just remember I was screaming at them, and they were just laughing and joking back like always, and I had my wand out, and the Ravenclaws were running away, and I was just so...

'I don't even remember it happening, really,' she said, the trace of a hollow laugh on her voice. 'Just, I remember I was yelling at them, and then...' Hermione was silent a moment, her eyes closed, rubbing at a cheek with a hand. 'And we just... I'm convinced it's the only reason I made it through that term without having a nervous breakdown or something. Whenever I was just...too terrified and angry that I couldn't even think anymore, I would just find them and... Well, I was better.

'But now I'm not angry and scared all the time anymore, and I'm still doing it. I guess they just...' Hermione trailed off for a moment, staring blankly up at the curtains. 'I think they, you know. Legitimately like me. Romantically. And they're getting tired of me not taking them seriously.' A slight smirk touching her lips, Hermione muttered, 'I guess even Fred and George Weasley have a limit.'

'Well.' That was a lot of weirdness Mel had had absolutely no idea was happening. And didn't really make a lot of sense. Not to mention exactly how that all led to cursing them. But then, it didn't make sense to Hermione herself, so she guessed expecting it to make sense to her would be silly. But, honestly? Maybe she just wasn't thinking about this hard enough, maybe she was missing something...but it seemed pretty obvious to her. 'Do you like them? Romantically.'

'I... Well, if I had a simple answer to that question, this wouldn't be so hard, would it?'

Mel entirely failed to choke back a laugh. She glanced quick to see, yes, Hermione was giving her a look, so she quickly explained herself. 'Sorry, it's just, reminded me of something with Susan, it's nothing.'

'What nothing?'

Oh, turning back around to stuff about her, was she? Fine, whatever, if Hermione would rather be distracted for a moment. 'It was just, that day, she said if I wanted her to go away, just tell her, and she would. I said if I actually wanted her to go away, this wouldn't be so complicated.'

'So you do like her, then.' There was a faint note of satisfaction on Hermione's voice, as though internally congratulating herself for solving a problem correctly.

Mel had to roll her eyes at that. 'Yes. That was never the problem. It was other things. I just...' No, she really had no idea how to briefly explain this. Her brain was a complicated, confusing place. And a rather depressing place a lot of the time, and she was well aware Hermione cared, so she tried not to make her too depressed on her behalf. It didn't exactly help that Mel honestly wasn't entirely sure what her own problem had been. It all seemed a bit silly in retrospect. Keep it simple, then. 'You know, I'm really fucked up, Hermione.'

For once, Hermione didn't seem inclined to call her on her language. 'I had noticed that.'

There was silence for long seconds, but Mel didn't really know what to say here. A glance to the side showed Hermione was seemingly thinking to herself. Face calmer, posture less tense than before, absently picking at Mel's sheets. So Mel decided to just leave her to her thoughts for a while. Didn't seem like a terrible idea.

Her eyes were closed, picking over her occlumency to fill the time, when she was started out of her quiet by the feel of a dispel tearing apart her privacy charms. She sprung up to sitting, glanced around, after a second found Hermione had her wand out, was sliding to the edge of the bed again. 'I should go.'

Mel blinked. 'Go where?'

Pausing just at the curtains, Hermione let out a long, weary sigh. 'I'm gonna go apologise.' Then she continued, in a much lower mutter, 'I get the feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of that.'

'Hey, it is the twins. Pretty sure they're going to be doing a lot of it too.'

Hermione snorted, shaking her head. 'See you later, Mel.' And with a last, slightly shaky smile, Hermione was gone.

More confused than anything, Mel lay in bed for some moments. She really couldn't imagine she'd been at all helpful...

Oh well. She didn't understand her own brain. She wouldn't expect herself to follow Hermione's.

---

'I still think there's something off about that bird.'

While Hedwig shifted a little on her leg, giving an impression of very faint annoyance, Mel took a long breath, gathering herself. She'd known Susan would be coming, of course — they'd arranged to meet here, after all. Just, she'd gotten here early, and her thoughts had wandered off. She'd noticed the abandoned little sitting room, filled with dusty couches and chairs, was only a few doors away from the stairs up to the Owlery. So she'd gone up to collect Hedwig quick, before coming back down to the room, book splayed open in her lap. Well, the half of her lap that wasn't taken up with a calmly snoozing bundle of feathers, anyway. Sometimes she forgot how bloody huge Hedwig was, it could be a bit difficult to work around her. Not that she minded, of course, just saying.

So, she'd been distracted, and not entirely prepared for Susan showing up. And she did have to be prepared to be around Susan, especially alone like this. If she weren't careful, she would fall back into being her old neurotic, painfully nervous self, and she really wanted to avoid that as much as possible. Which she was getting better at doing. The trick was to not think about certain things, and focus instead on other stuff, something, anything that could keep her thoughts from going down loops that were just unhelpful.

She wasn't perfect at it yet, but she was getting better.

When she thought she was centred enough, she summoned a little frown, glanced up to Susan slinking across the room toward her. 'Is this how you plan to get on my good side? Insulting my friends?'

A look of confusion crossed Susan's face — at a guess, surprised by the use of the word "friend" — but it quickly vanished, replaced with a familiar smirk. 'And here I thought I was already on your good side. Silly me.' Letting her book bag slump to the floor, Susan paused for a second, frowning thoughtfully. 'Or do you mean a better side? Am I going to get to go there too?'

If she were asked, Mel would categorically deny she was blushing even a little bit. She'd be lying, of course. Something about the smirk Susan was giving her made it very clear exactly what she was referring to with "better side" and "go there".

Her smirk now looking somehow smugly victorious, Susan flopped down into the spot next to her. That jostled the couch a bit, making Hedwig on Mel's leg bounce up and down, sending a steady glare over at Susan in response. 'I don't mean to insult this beautiful creature, though.' Mel had the very clear impression Hedwig had understood that perfectly — while it wasn't by very much, she did seem somewhat mollified just with that. 'I just mean she doesn't behave like other owls. I've only even seen her a couple times, and it's already obvious to me.'

'What do you mean?' Honestly, Mel had never really thought about it before. She had noticed that other people didn't spend nearly as much time with their owls as she did. Ever since she'd started here, she would just go off for a couple hours to sit with Hedwig, at least once a week. More often the first couple years, actually. But, then, most people had more friends than she did. Hedwig was sort of the first friend she'd ever had. Which, yes, she realised was a bit of a strange thing to think, considering Hedwig was a bloody bird, it wasn't like they'd ever even had a single conversation. Though she was positive Hedwig could understand English just fine more often than not. Maybe she was wrong, but she had the vague impression Hedwig was just smarter than other owls, for some inexplicable reason. She'd never noticed anyone else going to check on their owls nearly as much as she did Hedwig, and she'd never seen anyone else doing, well, what she was doing right now, just sitting here with her. She'd been aware of all that but, she guessed, she'd never really considered if that were relevant. It was just how things were.

Susan was silent a long moment, meeting Hedwig's steady stare, clearly trying to put what she was thinking into coherent words. This was a problem Mel was very familiar with, so she just waited. 'I don't know, she just doesn't act like other owls. She just seems far more...' Susan trailed off, blinking to herself. 'You two don't have a familiar bond, do you?'

'Oh, er. I don't think so? I'm not sure.' Mel had no idea what a familiar bond would feel like. She didn't know much of anything about the concept.

'If you're not sure, you don't.' Susan gave a little shrug. 'She acts more like a familiar than a normal post owl, though, that's why I thought of it. Too intelligent, too much personality, too...protective of you. It's familiar behaviour. You are a very powerful witch, it's possible there's some...bleed-over, that's changed her a little. That sounds like something that should be possible, I'd have to look it up.'

'Ah.' Mel added researching familiars to her own admittedly rather long to-do list. She'd never thought to inform herself about that sort of thing before, seemed like an idea. Especially if it turned out Hedwig had been her familiar the whole time and she hadn't even noticed, that definitely sounded like something she should know about.

Maybe? It was possible it was something she should know about, she didn't know enough about familiars to say for sure either way. That was the problem.

But, anyway, stop being so serious. Susan was still staring at the owl in her lap, and Mel was suddenly having a Hazel moment. She suffocated the automatic impulse to censor herself, to be quiet, inoffensive — she was slowly getting better at doing that. 'Are you jealous, Susan?'

Susan blinked, eyes flicking up to her. 'Huh?'

'Are you jealous? of a bird? Well, too bad, Hedwig was here first.' Feeling a bit silly, and ruthlessly strangling the thought that she should care she was being silly, she leaned into the warm, soft feathers of Hedwig's chest, fingers burying themselves in her sides. She had to force herself into a slightly awkward posture to pull that off, her back curled a bit weird, but it was fine for a few moments. Hedwig let out a short snuffle Mel had long ago identified as a sound of amusement, then started tugging idly at her hair, fluttering twitters of affection vibrating through her feathers.

'Ah, yes, woe is me.' More than anything, Susan just sounded amused, the playful smirk clear on her voice. 'My girlfriend would rather cuddle up with her owl than with me.' Her tone turning deeper, melodramatic, 'That 'twere I engifted solace within generous arms! That 'twere I enlivened beneath gentle fingers! Pray that envy be shewn a dream, and fated be her brow on my bosom rest.'

Erm. Mel turned her head a little, so she could peek through a haze of white feathers over at Susan, just a short distance away. She was obviously trying to be all serious, but she was obviously failing, traces of a grin pulling at her lips. It took a second for Mel to find her voice. 'Are you quoting poetry at me again?'

Susan shrugged, the semi-severe set to her face collapsing into a smirk again. 'Paraphrasing. Also translating — the original is in Brīþwn. There's probably an English translation out there somewhere, but I don't know it.'

'Okay, then.' She was self-aware enough to know she'd normally be a bit embarrassed by Susan saying shite like that, but she was being so weird about it Mel was more distracted by the weirdness. For a second, she wondered if Susan was doing that on purpose. 'Anyway...' Mel straightened in her seat again, Hedwig immediately hopping over to the arm of the couch, abandoning her lap. Huh. 'Was there something you particularly wanted to, I don't know, work on or whatever.' Honestly, she wasn't sure what people like... Well, couples, she guessed, she still wasn't entirely sure what they did when they were alone together. This thing with Susan was still new enough she didn't know what she expected.

Er, that is, she didn't know what couples did when they were alone together if she excluded snogging and...other stuff. She really didn't think she was ready for any of that, though. The thought was honestly a little terrifying.

More than a little, really. She tried not to think about it.

'Mm.' Susan just shrugged, looking entirely comfortable and unconcerned. Which honestly annoyed her a little. Mel was a lot less...she didn't know, even a couple weeks ago she'd probably be far more anxious than she was now, but she still was a little bit, and it honestly bothered her that Susan wasn't. Just, no fucking clue what she was doing. 'Nothing in particular, really. What are you reading?' she asked, her head tilted a bit, as though trying to look around to the cover of her book.

Mel almost answered immediately, then remembered she was technically talking to the not-daughter of the Director of Law Enforcement right now. Er. Awkward. 'It's some book I found on shadow magic.' She folded the book closed, sliding it into her bag at her feet. 'Not that it's a particularly helpful one.' A completely useless one, in fact — it more seemed to be describing things people had done with shadow magic, the history of the discipline, without any actual helpful details.

For a second, Susan just frowned at her. Not too severe a frown, just a slight one, barely there. 'You're aware shadow magic is a restricted dark art, right?'

'Yeah, I know. That's probably why the book isn't very helpful.' She glanced over at Hedwig — in the privacy of her own head, she could admit it was because watching Hedwig was easier. Hedwig seemed to be settling in to nap, head turned away from them, still and relaxed. That was quick.

'And you know you could be fined or maybe even sent to Azkaban if anyone finds out you're teaching yourself, especially with scheduled materials.'

Also true. The only reason her mother hadn't ended up with a ridiculously lengthy Azkaban sentence was because Dumbledore (or possibly Sirius's father, come to think of it) had covered for her. 'I know. You going to report me or something?'

'No!' The word came out a bit harder, a bit louder. Mel glanced toward her to see she almost looked offended by the idea. 'I just— I'm just saying be careful with it, is all. If you really think you have to learn it, you should really find someone registered in it to take you as an apprentice. Even if it's only on paper, with someone in the family, to cover yourself.'

Mel couldn't hold back an annoyed groan. She'd tried that! She'd suggested to Dora they should just have it official, with her, so she could study by herself as well as she could and not worry about getting in trouble later. Not that she was having any luck teaching herself anyway. But, no, Dora had refused. Said it would be irresponsible, if Mel were her Dark Arts apprentice she'd feel obligated to do it properly, and she really just didn't have the time to do that. Even just their duelling lessons were already stressing her schedule quite a bit. And she'd asked Snape to teach her properly twice but he'd said no both times. There wasn't really anyone else who was both qualified and easily accessible she could ask. It was too complicated.

Susan gave her a half-curious half-concerned look, so Mel explained all that. She left Snape's name out, of course, but she did mention she'd asked a Master of the Dark Arts twice, and been rejected both times. 'How?'

'Er.' Mel was startled out of her rant, blinking at Susan for a moment in confusion. 'How what?'

'How did you ask him?'

'I dunno. I just...asked.'

Now Susan was giving her a disbelieving look, intense enough Mel suddenly had to wonder if she'd said something extremely stupid without realising it. 'You mean, you just walked up to him and said, Hey, I want to learn shadow magic, could you teach me?'

'Something like that.' And Susan was still staring wide-eyed at her, like she were completely insane. 'What, should I not have?'

'No, you... You really, really shouldn't have.' Susan slumped into her spot on the couch a little, rubbing at her face with both hands. 'Muirgen, you were really raised by muggles, weren't you.'

Okay. She'd put together by now she was saying something that must show quite a bit of ignorance when it came to magical culture, but Susan wasn't exactly being helpful. Making her a bit annoyed. Trying to keep any anger out of her voice, she said, 'Okay, what should I have done, then?'

'Mel...' Susan let out another sigh, her hands dropping as she stared up at the ceiling. 'Sorry, just thought someone would have explained this to you by now.' With a last shrug, she turned in her seat a little and—

Mel jumped, her heart leaping into her throat with almost painful force as Susan laid down, her legs across the empty spot next to her, feet planted against the opposite armrest, her head coming to softly land in Mel's lap. Er...

'Apprenticeships are a very big deal, Mel.' Susan shifted a little, her arms crossing under her chest, the way her head moving a couple inches pulled at Mel's skirt making her twitch. 'It's not something people take lightly. If it's someone in your House, people tend to be far more casual about it. But... It's a very involved agreement. It has a lot in common with how people go about betrothal arrangements, actually.'

'Ah...' Mel took a long moment, breathing slowly to stop her blood from pounding in her veins, swallowing a few times to loosen her throat. After a few seconds she was a little more comfortable. It helped that Susan wasn't actually looking at her, eyes pointed up at the ceiling instead. Not completely comfortable, of course — she had no fucking clue what to do with her hands. 'How do people go about it, then?'

'Sometimes, gifts.' Susan tilted her head a little, the tap against Mel's middle almost making her jump again. 'Used to be very common in the past, these days not so much. A House, usually acting on behalf of one of their young members, would ply a master or mistress with whatever they felt appropriate. Rarely money, but mostly wealth of other kinds. Enchanted crafts of some kind or another. This wasn't a direct trade, of course — in receiving these gifts, the master or mistress was under no obligation to do anything. It was just to get them to consider it. Some of the more famous sorcerers in history quite literally lived off of the gifts hopefuls sent them, only ever taking a bare handful of them as apprentices, if any at all. Eventually, this way of doing things fell out of favour, but you'll still see it happening. Mostly when the potential apprentice is around our age, or a little younger.

'These days, the usual way of doing it...' Susan's eyes flicked to Mel's just for a second, before turning to the ceiling again. 'When this Master rejected you, what did he say? I mean, did he say anything more than just "no, go away"?'

Mel didn't even have to think about that, she remembered it quite clearly. '"Why should I?" His exact words.'

'Right,' Susan said with a nod, 'thought it might be something like that. See, training an apprentice is an enormous sacrifice in time and effort from the master. It takes a lot of work, hours and hours every week invested in the development of a single other person, often over the course of years. It's not an insignificant commitment. And, beyond that, apprentices are seen sort of as...' Susan frowned in thought for a moment, biting her lip. 'Well, they reflect on the master. Not just while they are in the apprenticeship, how they behave in public seen as a reflection of the master's own discipline and values, but to a degree even afterward, what they get up to even decades after the end of the apprenticeship. They're seen as a continuation of their master's legacy, what they accomplish, what they do with their knowledge and abilities, says something about the person who taught them to them. So, because it's such a large investment of their time and such a risk to their own reputation, masters tend to be very picky about who they will take as an apprentice. It's not something done casually, it is a major decision. Especially for Masters of the Dark Arts, whose apprentices have a greater than average chance of running afoul of the law somewhere down the line. They're careful about who they pick.

'So, if the potential apprentice wants to be seriously considered by the master, they have to prove they take it seriously. If sending gifts isn't seen as appropriate, which was never truly common with dark arts specifically, then by some gesture. Some sacrifice of something they value, something important to them. Or, sometimes, something other people would think they should value, to make a point about their priorities. Often this is done publicly, in full view of the master's peers, whoever they are. Not always some physical thing — in fact, often, someone aiming for an apprenticeship well publicly humiliate themselves somehow, to press the idea that their name, their reputation, whatever is less important to them. To prove that this apprenticeship is meaningful for them, they'll take it seriously, and they will be a dedicated, loyal student. Worthy of the master's attention, will honour their investment and the risk they are taking.

'The point is, Mel—' Susan's eyes turned back to Mel's, a smile stretching her lips. '—this Master of yours wasn't saying no. When he said "Why should I?" he wasn't telling you he had no interest in teaching you at all. If he thought he couldn't be convinced you would be a worthy apprentice, he would have said so. To oversimplify things a little, you came to him and said, Hey, I value your knowledge and skills, and would be willing to sacrifice quite a lot to have them. And he thought about it for a second, and said, Okay. Prove it. And then you didn't prove it. If you don't, he'll never say yes. But he didn't say no. He's waiting, for you to prove you're worth the investment and the risk. That it means something to you.'

That...

Okay, most of that was news.

Though, in a way, it did make a whole lot of sense. Some of the shite she'd read in history books, a few things people had said here and there. If they were such a big deal, it did explain why so many people would go to the mastery programs at various schools instead, despite how even she knew doing it that way was considered much less..."prestigious" seemed like not quite the right word, but something like that. Apprenticeships were highly valued, she'd known that, but a lot of people didn't even bother trying for them. If people were so selective about who they took, if there was a whole complicated thing behind it, that would explain a lot.

And, well. Snape had been...not quite as much of an arse lately. There'd been a noticeable decrease in his dickishness directed toward her just with the start of the year, but especially after that conversation in the Hospital Wing... Well, okay, assuming she could take what Snape said to her at face value, he'd seemingly been working on the assumption she was a lazy, spoiled brat. She had no fucking clue how he could possibly come to that conclusion, but that was really beside the point.

Though...she guessed how much she'd been taking her school work not as seriously as she probably should have... Yeah, she had to admit his opinion of her hadn't been entirely unfounded. There were just bad conclusions in there. He'd seen she hadn't been really trying half the time, and assumed it was because she was an arrogant little twat. That it'd simply been habit by that point, after five years of being punished by her shitty relatives whenever she did better in school than her idiot cousin, wasn't a consideration. How could it be? She seriously doubted Snape knew about that. Without the full picture, his disdain for her wasn't entirely unreasonable.

That he probably couldn't help constantly comparing her to both of her parents, one of whom had been an honestly ridiculous prodigy and the other, to be entirely fair for a second here and if only for a few years at Hogwarts, a self-involved arsehole, yeah, Mel wouldn't expect that comparison to reflect well on her.

And that day, in the Hospital Wing, she'd said... Well, it was a bit embarrassing in retrospect, but she'd admitted to Snape, she was useless, she knew she was useless, and she was tired of being useless, so she was doing whatever she could to fix it. To not be useless anymore, even if that meant studying illegal magics in secret. And Snape had just stared at her, for long seconds, felt like minutes, even.

Looking back on it...he'd been surprised. In just a couple sentences, she'd completely upended his understanding of her character, and he'd needed those couple seconds to figure out how to process it. And once he'd snapped out of it, the first thing he'd said... She couldn't remember the exact words, something about approving of what she was trying to do, if not the way she was going about it.

Snape. Expressing any sort of approval of her. Snape.

And he'd been consistently less of an arse since then, even compared to the new normal of the weeks previously. Because, she somehow hadn't put this together until just now, it'd finally clicked for him his assumption she was a lazy, spoiled brat wasn't accurate. He probably hadn't figured out just how wrong he'd been — from what she knew about him from her mother's journals, she thought she'd know if he'd found out what her childhood had really been like — but at the very least he knew he'd been wrong. That she didn't deserve quite so much of his hatred.

And he hadn't said no. He was just waiting.

Mel had absolutely no idea what to think about all this. It was just... As if the world hadn't gone insane on her enough already.

'What sort of thing should I do, then? To prove I mean it, I mean.' Did she mean it? This was sort of more serious than she'd thought it was...

Susan shrugged, her shoulder bumping Mel's hip. 'I don't know enough about either of you to say. And, well, it would definitely depend on if he knows. Who you were.'

Being a little circumspect about that. Mel was reluctantly amused, for some reason. 'He does.'

'Right. Just, well. Don't necessarily think of what's important to you, but what you think he thinks is important to you. That should make a bigger impression, you know. Being who you are, something about your reputation is actually a good possibility, I know you don't care about that nearly as much as people think. But anyway, just, find some way to show what he can offer you is more important. Well, I mean, if you decide it actually is. Find something to make your point, and do it.' She shrugged again.

Yeah. Find something, and do it. Simple! Right. Even sitting there, a couple possible ideas flipped through her head, but she would have to think about it. She hadn't realised apprenticeships were nearly this involved of a thing, she'd have to reconsider if this was really something she wanted. Especially with Snape, of all people. 'Right. Okay. I'll have to think about it. Thanks.'

Susan's grin turned toward that familiar teasing tilt, her eyes sparkling enough Mel had to wonder if that was magic of some kind. 'Aren't I so sweet and helpful?'

Fighting the rebellious twitching of a smile at her own lips, Mel rolled her eyes. 'Oh, yes, sure, why not.'

'Well, since I was so very helpful, I think I deserve a reward.'

Er. Mel glanced back down at Susan. She was aware she was being a bit neurotic, but she couldn't help a sudden flash of completely ridiculous paranoia. 'What kind of reward?'

Susan let out a long, high hum, one finger tapping at her lips. 'I wouldn't say no to a kiss.'

The thought brought an immediate boiling of nerves rising in her stomach, but Mel ruthlessly ignored it, focused on something, anything else. 'Ah, well, it'd be kinda awkward to reach you, lying down there like that.'

'Good point.' Before Mel could move, Susan was pushing up again, head lifting off of Mel's skirt, and she was sitting upright again, sliding over until their arms touched. Grinning brightly at her, she chirped, 'There! Much easier.'

Mel focused on her amusement — entirely so she wouldn't focus on being nervous for stupid, silly reasons — trying to force out the fluttering awkward twitchiness filling her with a sharp scoff. 'You're ridiculous, you know that.'

'Mm, we have been over this.'

'I know. But you keep doing it.'

'I am persistent.'

Mel couldn't help laughing a little at that.

For a few seconds, Susan didn't move, Mel not entirely facing her, shaking her head to herself. She heard it before she felt or saw it, the slight sound of cloth rustling, before she started at a couple of Susan's fingers softly landing on the side of her jaw. Slowly and softly, Susan turned her face back toward hers. Giving her time to change her mind, she knew, gentle and loose enough Mel could easily break away if she wanted to. And while she did appreciate that, it was useful for another reason: it gave Mel time to beat back the nervous tingling washing along her skin, the distracting bubbling in her chest, the frantic fear trying to build in her head, which was stupid and ridiculous, and she needed to stop.

And then Susan was suddenly very close to her — she thought she might have missed a couple seconds forcing her own brain to behave — close enough she could feel the heat clinging to her, surrounded by that smooth sweet-sour scent that followed her around everywhere. Oranges? Something citrus, anyway. And quite nearly all of her vision was taken up by Susan's face, brightly framed with that odd hair of hers, too close for Mel to see much of anything else.

And then Susan was kissing her. They'd only done this a few times before — three times exactly, she remembered — Mel was still far from used to it. It was very...distracting. It made it very hard to think very much at all. Susan was just...there, and... She was always so, so...soft, and gentle, and sweet, and warm, and, bloody hell, she even smelled good, and every tiny touch had her skin tingling and her fingers twitching, but not in the bad way she was far more used to, but like she were somehow more alive than usual, she couldn't quite explain it, and it was almost too much, some vulnerable part of her was terrified every time, cringed away and screamed at her to flee, but she mostly didn't hear it, really didn't want to...

She shivered as Susan's fingers moved, sliding back to slip into her hair, her hand coming more fully against her cheek, and Susan pulled just a couple millimetres back. Eyes flicked over her face for a couple seconds — she knew Susan was making sure she was okay, that she wasn't having one of her crazy person moments. Sometimes she really had to wonder how Susan could possibly be willing to put up with her nonsense. But then Susan's lips were on hers again, she really didn't have the concentration to think about it anymore.

Because Mel was trying to...she didn't know. Do it right. Kiss her back, she meant. She really didn't know what she was doing. She always felt stupid and clumsy and awkward. Susan always moved so smoothly and confidently, like she were some kind of bloody expert. By how it only took a couple seconds for shivers to start racing up and down her spine, she guessed she sort of was. Or maybe Mel was just, what, sensitive, she didn't know. Susan had never commented, though, so, maybe she wasn't making a complete idiot of herself. But it made her far too self-conscious, her hands twitching uselessly in her lap, when she'd really rather be focusing on...other things.

It wasn't anything crazy of course. Just...soft, slow things. Right on, ah, the surface, she guessed. Smooth and gentle and easy. Which was fine, she really didn't think she was anything like prepared for anything else. And just with that, she felt too warm, and too fluttery, but not really in a bad way. Not even a little bit in a bad way.

She remembered thinking to herself, wondering exactly what couples did with each other, that they couldn't just be kissing all the time. Now she wouldn't be surprised if some couples only did exactly that. There were worse things to do with your time.

But it only took...she wasn't sure how long, exactly. More than a few seconds, but not all that long either. She was starting to get too warm, in an uncomfortable way, and that annoying part of her screaming in the back of her head was getting louder and louder, and she knew it was stupid shite, she was only uncomfortable because of crazy person reasons, but that didn't change the fact that she was getting uncomfortable, and as the seconds ticked by it was getting harder and harder to ignore. She knew it was stupid, so she fought it for as long as she could, but inevitably...

Mel jerked away — Susan's hand instantly lifted from her cheek, as though scalded — turning to face forward again. She took a few moments to try to get control of her breathing again, which was a bit more difficult than she'd expected. Must have been missing a few there. The uncomfortable scrambling in her head gradually quieted, the tingles and the heat lifting away, and she was calm again before too long.

When she opened her eyes, she found bright, yellow ones on hers, Hedwig giving her a steady stare. Her wings shuffled for a moment in a light shrug, letting out a soft hoot before turning away again.

'You okay?'

'Yeah, I'm fine.' She glanced to see Susan was watching her, somewhat warily, leaning a bit away, seemingly very consciously trying to stay out of her space. 'It's okay, Susan. I just...' She trailed off, frowning to herself a little. This shite was really confusing, and could be a bit depressing, to the point that she generally tried not to think about it herself. She had no idea how to explain it, or if she even should. 'I just, you...make me feel things.'

A smirk gradually pulled at Susan's face, reluctantly, as though she weren't sure she should be smirking right now. 'I'd certainly hope so. I think I'd be disappointed if I didn't.'

Mel shook her head, smiling to herself a little. 'That is the problem, though. I'm not used to...feeling good, I guess.' Susan did not at all seem happy with that thought, but Mel pushed past it, no good would come from lingering on that. 'I can only handle so much at once. So if I, I have one of those moments, don't worry. You're not doing anything wrong, I'm just dealing with my fucked up brain. I'm fine, really.'

For a second, Susan just stared at her. Processing, she guessed. Then she visibly eased, a bit of the nervous tension fading away. She slid a bit closer to Mel again, and Mel did her best to hold back a twitch as she felt Susan's arm slip behind her shoulders. After a second to shove off another moment of completely irrational panic in her stupid head, Mel forced herself to relax, stop being such a bloody crazy person, let herself lean a bit into her a little. Susan was slightly taller than her, but not significantly, so it was slightly awkward, but that was fine, she ignored that. She stared down at her left arm, where Susan's other hand had ended up, fingers lightly tracing over the veins in her wrist.

God, why did she smell so good? Mel didn't even like oranges!

'Well.' The whispered word, what with exactly where Susan's mouth was right now, set the hair above Mel's ear to fluttering, kind of tickled. 'Not used to feeling good. Okay. I guess I'll just have to take that as a compliment.'

Mel let her eyes close, shaking her head to herself. She was a little absurdly grateful that, due to the way they were sitting right now, Susan couldn't see that had made her smile.

---

[Imperial Parliament (pun intended, he was sure)] — In case anyone didn't catch that, back in chapter twelve it was mentioned that both veela and lilin have a more bird-like form they can take, and while veela are sort of hawk-like lilin are more owl-like. A flock of owls is properly called a parliament. Technically, the Parliament referred to isn't a lilin-only thing, but roughly half-lilin and half-veela, and they don't speak English anyway, so the pun is entirely Sirius.

shewn — Archaic spelling of "shown", chosen because in her drama voice she's pronouncing the vowel slightly different than usual.