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Chapter Nineteen—A Gift From a Black

"You handled that well, I must say. Although not the way I would have done it."

Harry gave Professor Greyhand a faint smile as he put down the stack of the first essays he'd assigned on his desk. He'd told the students to think of a "truth" they knew about a Defense spell they'd learned before this year or from their books, and then write an essay explaining why they thought it. He'd heard his students gossiping that they'd got off easy, since this essay required no research.

Harry was looking forward to pointing out the logical mistakes and unfounded assumptions behind those "easy" essays when he started marking them.

"I have to make sure that they know I won't tolerate blood purism in my classroom." He stretched and became aware that Greyhand was watching him in a way that made him wary. "I'm not in the mood for another duel today."

Greyhand chuckled. "I wasn't looking for a duel, Evanson. I was wondering if that owl was for you or for me."

Harry turned around, startled. The owl had already been sitting in the office, then, and it flapped its wings and hooted at him angrily when he looked at it. Harry sighed and held out his arm so the owl could glide over. He hadn't seen it before, but from the size and blackness of the owl's feathers, he already thought he knew who it was from.

"You don't look exactly happy to see the thing."

"No," Harry admitted as he reached out and unwrapped the letter and the tiny package confined by the string on the owl's foot. "It's not the bird's fault, but an unwanted suitor is sending me this."

"Why not tell him to go to hell?"

"He has a few kids he hired me as a tutor for, and I wouldn't get to see them if I rejected him completely. I have told him no, though. He just doesn't listen."

"Let me guess, a Black?"

Harry started, and then sighed. "The color of the owl's feathers gave it away, didn't it?"

"And the persistence." Greyhand scratched one of his scars, showing no intention of backing away or leaving the room as he watched Harry open the letter. "Blacks think they're entitled to anything they want."

"True enough," Harry muttered, and frowned down at the letter. It was simpler and more straightforward than he'd learned to associate with Orion Black, which just made him more sure that it was a trap of some kind.

Dear Harry,

I realized the last time you were at my house that you're right about one thing: I can't win you or marry you the "traditional" way, by just presenting the advantages of the alliance. I can't give gifts with strings on them and expect to keep you. So I'll lay out exactly what this gift is and does, and then you can decide if you want to accept it or not. I hope you will.

The package contains a key to one of the smaller Black vaults that was brought into the family by an ancestor of mine, who was the last of her line. It contains twenty thousand Galleons. It's yours. It will be replenished by a thousand Galleons once a year.

It's yours. The goblins understand who it's been given to and why, and they'll honor whatever name you want to use when you go into the bank.

I know that you probably think I'm trying to buy you. I'm not. Spend the money on whatever you want, including more of those ridiculous toys that you buy for Sirius and Regulus if you choose. You can even spend all the Galleons, and the replenishment rate won't change. Ask the goblins if you don't believe me. They won't lie for any customer, not about another customer's money.

Yours,
Orion.

Harry stared at the letter. He must have made some strangled sound because Greyhand stood up and walked towards him. "What is it? Did Black send some kind of curse on the letter or the package?"

"No. He's just a complete fucking idiot."

Greyhand blinked, perhaps because it was the first time he'd heard Harry swear, or perhaps because he thought he never did after seeing the way he interacted with students in the classroom. Harry could have told him that adults were different than teenagers, no matter how exasperating the teenagers were, but he didn't have the patience. He tossed the letter at Greyhand and paced once around the office.

What kind of an idiot is he? He says that he's practical and pragmatic and that's why he wants me in an alliance, because I'm powerful. And then he claims that he's had some kind of insight and knows he can't "win" me, but he sends me the key to a Black vault? He's acting like he's already won me!

Harry turned and stared at the black owl, who sat on the back of his chair and hooted at him. Harry drew in his breath to shout, then let it out again in a sigh. No, he couldn't yell at the bird. It was only doing its task. Animals were sort of in the same class as children for him: worthy of protection, not worthy of being yelled at.

Although that raven he used last time came pretty close.

"I must say, this is a generous offer. And one that shows his commitment."

Harry pivoted on his heel to stare at Greyhand. "Oh, come on, not you, too! This is just another means of trying to lead me down the path into his bed."

"Do you know what it means for a Black to part with money?"

"Nothing, if they can be assured of getting what they want from it," Harry said harshly, his mind flitting from the way Orion had stared at him to the way Sirius had bought him that Firebolt in the first timeline.

Greyhand paused. "I…all right."

"So you agree that this is still some other bloody ploy to buy me." Harry glared at the letter and then turned back to the owl as it hooted again. "Look, let me just find some parchment and you can take my rejection."

"I mean, traditionally," Greyhand stressed as Harry rummaged through his desk for parchment, "the Blacks as a family don't donate to St. Mungo's or any funds for orphaned children or anything else that pure-bloods traditionally do to make themselves look good. They don't care about that."

"An excellent reason for not donating to orphaned children."

"Harry."

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Most of the time, Greyhand just called him Evanson. The older man was coming up to him now, hand out as if to show that he wouldn't pick up his wand and start a duel. Harry still watched him suspiciously. He could start another duel by trying to strike or trip Harry.

"I mean," Greyhand said softly as he halted at Harry's shoulder, "that Black is trying to show you, almost the only way he can, that you're valuable to him. You should believe him when he says no strings come with the gift."

"How can I? It's money."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"It's meant to make me indebted to him and look more favorably on his suit." Harry rolled his eyes. Even in his original timeline, no one had acted like they were—courting him, or whatever the hell Black thought he was doing. Those close to him had known better than to try, and it was the one good thing about his half-blood status putting off the pure-bloods. "No. I'm not going to let him buy me. And what would happen when word of it got out? People would expect me to have the same politics as him. I'm working too hard to establish myself as someone independent."

"And bloody-minded."

"That, too."

"What harm could it do? I know you don't have a lot of money."

"No, but what I do have is mine. It doesn't make me indebted to anyone."

Greyhand considered him with a look that was a lot like some of the students' had been in the classroom. "Take it. If Black assumes that it'll make you indebted to him and he's lying about it having no strings attached, then you can rebuff him. If he's sincere, then you can accept and use it. You don't have to let yourself feel in debt."

"It's about the way I would feel anyway," Harry said, and wrote out a quick refusal to Black. He handed the letter to the owl, who took it eagerly, but when he tried to tie on the package that presumably had the vault key in it, the owl turned its back and flew out the open door of his office.

Harry rolled his eyes and glanced at Greyhand. "Have you ever seen a Black give up in pursuit of something they wanted?"

"No," Greyhand said cheerfully.

Harry calmed the impatient heat in his chest by reminding himself that he was putting up with Black for Sirius and Regulus's sake, and that he would be seeing them this weekend. All he had to do was coldly refuse Orion's insinuations, and he might get the man frustrated enough to leave him alone.

Face him down and not lose my temper. Yeah, I can do that.

"Don't do it again, Black."

Mariana put her head cautiously around the corner of the Blacks' kitchen, the place where they always seemed to meet up these days. Harry was standing with his hands on his hips, staring at Orion, who had such a calm expression on his face that Mariana was immediately sure he was up to something. Blacks simply didn't do calm or stoicism, with the possible exception of Arcturus, Orion's father.

"I have no need to do it again. You have a vault now. There's no need to give you another one."

Harry narrowed his eyes, and the air around him crackled sharp and bright with something in between lightning and frost. Mariana blinked, and glanced down at Severus. Her grandson nodded and stood silent at her side, watching in fascination where some other children would have wanted to interrupt.

"Listen to me," Harry said softly. The walls and the room nonetheless resounded with his words like a drum resounding with the beats of someone's hands. He took a step towards Orion, who only stared at him. "You know I'm more powerful than you are."

"Magically." Orion's tongue sounded as if it was having trouble working. "Yes."

"So." Harry nodded, and the magic gathered around his hands in such a way that Mariana wouldn't have been surprised to see him freeze or shock Orion. "You know that you should leave me alone."

The walls sang out, this time. Mariana gasped. Was that a compulsion?

But Orion didn't react with the glazed, blank eyes that Mariana had seen in compelled people or Imperius Curse victims. After a second, she felt silly for thinking that he would. Harry simply wasn't the kind of person who would do that.

Once, Mariana would have thought that someone who didn't take advantage of every possible weapon was weak. But Harry wasn't wrong about his own strength. He just—didn't need the compulsion.

Although perhaps to put Orion Black off, he would. Orion leaned forwards and whispered, "Why, when you make yourself more desirable with every move?"

Harry closed his eyes and then opened them again. He didn't react to the words, but said, looking at the doorframe, "Severus, Sirius and Regulus are up in the nursery."

"They're babies," Severus said.

"You mean that they don't act like you."

"I'm the good one."

That startled a chuckle out of Harry, and the frightening aura around him vanished. "You still need to go play with them right now. I need to talk with your grandmother about something."

Severus considered the merits of that request in the solemn way he did everything, and finally he nodded, turned around, and trotted away.

"He only agreed to go because he knows that I'll tell him everything anyway." Mariana folded her arms.

"I know." Harry turned back to stare at Orion, who hadn't bothered to rise from his chair. Mariana eyed him and wondered if that was confidence or stupidity. From the way he looked at Harry, maybe confidence.

And hunger. Mariana supposed she couldn't blame Black for that, but she did think that it wasn't the right approach to Harry. He seemed to get skittish at the thought that someone who wasn't a child could want him or depend on him for anything.

Then again, did Mariana want to encourage Orion Black in any of his attentions to Harry? Probably not.

"You'll take the vault back," Harry said, his voice quiet but commanding. Mariana had no trouble, in that moment, in believing that he had fought in wars before he came to Britain, and even that he'd been a general.

"I told you, it's yours." Orion spread his hands, staring at Harry with bright grey eyes from behind a fall of shaggy black hair. "You can do whatever you want with it. Leave it to rot—"

"Gold doesn't rot."

"There are some Sickles and Knuts in there, too."

"Metal doesn't," Harry said, and then cut himself off, probably realizing that he didn't want to play word games with Orion Black. "I wanted to give you the chance to reclaim the vault without a lot of legal trouble," he said then, and shifted his stance to one that seemed weary. "Otherwise, I have to go to the goblins. I don't want to do that."

"You think they'll take back the vault? It's not as if you stole it."

Mariana broke in then. "What vault are we talking about?"

"The vault that used to belong to Isla Henwise," Orion said, nodding to her as if to say that she was welcome to the conversation. Mariana wondered if he wanted her help convincing Harry, or just didn't see a reason not to grant her permission to listen. "She married into my family in the eighteenth century."

"And what is the reason for you giving this vault to Harry?"

"It has twenty thousand Galleons, and I know that he doesn't make much money as a professor at Hogwarts, or—at what he was doing before then. This is for him to spend if he wants to."

Mariana came close to choking on her own spit. That was two times more than the biggest Prince vault held. Granted, the Princes had always had more pride than money, and she was hardly raising Severus in squalor, but still…

"I didn't think the Blacks gave away money like that," she said, to say something.

Orion didn't seem to be gloating over her surprise, though. His eyes had gone back to Harry and were raking him up and down obsessively, while Harry glared at him. "They don't. Unless the person deserves it."

"Or you think that would be my price, then?" Harry asked, with a vicious sweetness that Mariana hadn't known him capable of. "Why think that you can buy me for twenty thousand Galleons and not thirty thousand? Or ten thousand? Why did you decide on that price, Black?"

"I would have given you more if I'd thought you would accept it." Mariana didn't think she had ever seen Orion Black like this: calm and utterly focused. "And not a Knut less than twenty thousand Galleons, no. Why would you think that I would not value someone who tutors my sons, who prevented my wife from bringing down scandal and shame on my family, and made my own divorce possible? Why would I not value someone with enough skill and experience to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, and do it so successfully?"

Mariana had the impression that Orion would have gone on, but Harry interrupted. "I've barely been teaching Defense a week. What do you mean, so successfully?"

"I wrote to Professor Greyhand."

The air crisped with frost again. Harry took a step forwards, and his hand reached out. Orion gasped a little and raised his own hands. Mariana saw something like a shimmering silvery collar coalescing around his throat.

"Swear to me that you won't do that again." Harry's voice hissed in a way that made Mariana wonder if he spoke Parseltongue, absurd as the supposition was. "Or I will destroy your ability to breathe easily for the rest of your life."

Orion studied him for a moment, then smiled. The silver collar around his neck appeared to squeeze harder, but Orion paid no attention. "No, you won't."

"What?" Harry's face was red, and he looked ready to charge. Mariana hoped he wouldn't.

"You don't have the malice to do such a thing." Orion's voice was soft and low. "You're more compassionate than anyone I've ever met, more compassionate than any Black. I might not be able to imitate that, but I can admire it. I can try to make sure that such a man remains in my sons' lives."

Harry stared at him and then canceled the spell, or whatever he was doing, with an easy snap of his fingers. He leaned against the wall, running his hand through his tangled hair. Mariana was glad to notice that she hadn't actually drawn her wand, although her fingers had curled hard around it in pure reflex. She let go and swallowed.

"I would do that anyway," Harry said tiredly. "Come here and tutor Sirius and Regulus, I mean. You don't need to pay me to do it."

"And if I wanted some of that compassion extended to me, as well as my sons?"

"You don't need it," Harry said, but his voice was a little uncertain. He studied Orion for a moment. Then he shook his head and repeated more confidently, "You don't need it, and you won't until you accept that you can't buy me with gifts."

For a long moment, Orion narrowed his eyes, and Mariana thought she might require her wand after all. Then Orion nodded. "Fair enough."

"I'm still going to go to the bank and have the goblins revoke my access to the vault."

"You are welcome to try."

Harry stood looking at him suspiciously for a moment more before he nodded and turned to walk down the corridor. Mariana would have turned to watch him go, but Orion was more interesting, especially the thoughtful way that he was massaging the hollow of his throat.

"He could have killed you."

"Yes, but he didn't. And he won't." Orion stared after Harry. The hunger was clear to Mariana now. "I really do want him for himself, but I don't know the right gesture or words to convince him of that yet."

Mariana opened her mouth to tell him about Harry's connection to the Potters, and then closed it. It wasn't the right time to tell Orion that yet. Despite what he had said, Mariana didn't think that he was in a place to hear it without trying to take advantage of it.

Severus ran up the corridor as fast as his legs would carry him—it was so frustrating, they were so short—and reached the nursery a few seconds ahead of Mr. Harry. Then he collapsed on the floor and reached for a block and pretended he'd been there all along.

He smiled when Mr. Harry came in, and sat up and attended to the lesson that Harry gave Sirius and Regulus, even though it was one that he already knew. But there was no such thing as too much practice when it came to wandless magic, as Grandmother would say.

He'd wanted to linger in the corridor and hear the conversation between the adults, though, and he didn't understand everything, but he understood some things. Mr. Harry didn't have a lot of money, but he didn't want the money that Mr. Black had tried to give him. Severus didn't completely understand why, but it seemed to do with Mr. Harry thinking that that he would then owe Mr. Black a favor.

Severus understood that. But he thought Mr. Harry should take the money and use it as if he didn't owe Mr. Black a favor. Mr. Black had told him to act like that, after all.

And then Mr. Harry could make himself so magnificent and powerful that he could do anything he wanted. And that would be a good thing. He was Severus's friend and Severus's teacher. He should be able to be free and respected.

"Severus, are you paying attention?"

"Yes, sorry," Severus said, and concentrated on making the block hover in front of him. It didn't work very well, but it took just enough concentration that Mr. Harry turned back to Regulus, and Severus could keep on planning.

Yes, his teacher should be respected.

So now he just had to come up with a plan that would talk Mr. Harry into accepting the money. A good plan.

Mr. Harry was really stubborn, though. So it would probably take some time.

Severus nodded, and then started as the block abruptly hopped off the floor and danced around in front of him. Mr. Harry laughed aloud.

"Very good, Severus!"

Severus beamed up at him, and decided that he would work hard and make it the best plan ever. Weeks, if he had to.

Mr. Harry was a good person who deserved it.