Book Two ― A School Divided
Chapter Forty-Four ― Two Sides of Green, Two Sides of Black
Note: This chapter has been beta-ed by user Outliner.
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"So, you actually used that book?" Harry asked, surprised, as Daphne commented on what had happened on Slytherin earlier that day. They were both hiding from the school at large as the news of Snape's attack on them had hit the Daily Prophet, with Hermione and Tracey more or less answering questions on their behalf. The foreign schools were already aware of the news, as were the Hogwarts students, but seeing it printed so prominently reignited the whispering, which had died off in the aftermath of the First Task.
"It was useful to me, Institutions," Daphne confirmed. "Though it was hard to read."
"You can say that again," Harry grumbled as he side-eyed the bag which carried the books suggested to him by Salazar's portrait. "That man is way too confident in my ability to understand things."
"You're clever, Harry," Daphne defended him, staring at her boyfriend as though daring him to disagree.
"Clever or not, I have some strengths in life, and understanding books like those is not one of them," he spoke, resting his head on the pouf languidly, sending his hair flying backward as he craned his head to look at Daphne, who was laying on the bed, looking at him.
"Well, maybe you're better at other things," Daphne conceded, stretching her body slightly to grab Bill's blue book, which rested on a nearby nightstand. "How is this one treating you?"
"It flows naturally," Harry praised it honestly, but with slight tiredness in his voice. He still hadn't fully woken up from the nap. "I'm far from being able to advance to the next stage of Occlumency, but I do feel progress, which is good."
"Mind if I take a look at it?" Daphne asked, and Harry waved her his permission. She opened the first page and started reading it, but barely a few paragraphs into the introduction, as Harry seemed to be close to dozing off by himself on the pouf, she nudged him with a foot with a question on her lips. "We've changed a lot since we've first met, haven't we?"
"I think so, yeah," Harry agreed, looking at nothingness as he thought about the question. He furrowed his brows reflexively before facing Daphne, who had a pensive expression on her face. "Why do you ask?"
"I was thinking about a comment I made to you back then about Granger," she responded. "About her being a Ravenclaw."
"Oh?" Harry asked carefully, holding back the desire to remind Daphne to call her Hermione, knowing it was still a sore topic with the Slytherin.
"Well, I don't think that anymore," Daphne declared. "I think she's quite far away from being a Ravenclaw, actually. And even then, I don't much think of people in terms of their House affiliations anymore. It feels empty and incomplete."
"I feel like it means less nowadays, what with Gryffindor being less on my side than the Hufflepuffs," Harry spoke dryly.
"That is odd," Daphne frowned. "I asked Tracey about it, but she's just not very welcomed in Gryffindor yet, though they have been receiving her more warmly ever since the rumors about her fancing you started."
"They respect Neville more than they respect me," Harry smirked a bit amusedly before looking a bit grave. "I think that they saw what happened to the dragon and thought it wasn't very chivalrous."
"They're right on that account," Daphne deadpanned, and Harry couldn't help but nod a bit ashamedly. Noticing his distress, she sat up and cuddled with him, trying to reassure him with her presence. They sat in silence like that until she turned around in his grasp, making sure she was sideways but still in his lap. "Is that why you've grown closer with him?" She asked curiously.
"Well, not really," Harry defended himself. "There wasn't any trickery to it. I like him. He's a good guy. We share a lot of experiences because of what happened with both our parents," he cut himself off for a second, wondering if Daphne knew, but of course, she did and nodded sadly in recognition. "I guess some part of me did approach him after I noticed how people respected him more unanimously than me inside Gryffindor, but it wasn't a conscious thing. Is that bad?" He asked a bit uncertainly, but she shook her head.
"I wouldn't think less of you even if it was a conscious decision, Harry," she spoke kindly. "You're in a difficult situation, and you want to do great things. There are much greater evils in life than getting closer to people who can be useful to you in the future. It was what I did with you in the beginning," she said, inching closer to him to give him a light kiss. "And I think that ended up well, don't you?"
"Yeah, I'd say that," he smiled affirmingly before looking at a distant point.
"You're thinking of something," she affirmed, urging him to speak on it. He remained quiet for a second before turning to the blonde.
"Yeah, I was thinking about the basilisk and the Chamber," he spoke with distant eyes, his hand automatically reaching for Fang, which was on the floor nearby. His palms caressed its scabbard before he rested it on Daphne's lap. "I was just scared when I was in there, but now that I think about it, some part of me was very proud that I was considered enough of a Gryffindor to be given Godric's sword to kill the basilisk. I think that I clung to the notion of being 'a true Gryffindor' for all of Third Year, to some degree, but I've been thinking about it less and less ever since I found Salazar's portrait," he mused, passing his fingers through Daphne's hair. The motion helped him think, and she seemed happy with it. "And you talked about how we've changed, and I wonder if I would still be able to grab the Sword if the Hat was here."
"You're asking if you're still a true Gryffindor," Daphne guessed, and he nodded.
"And if it's a good thing if I'm not," Harry added. "I don't feel like a true Slytherin, that's for sure."
"I don't think there is such a thing as a true anything when it comes to the Houses, Harry," Daphne added kindly. "It's just like I said, right? Does it matter? Aren't we supposed to be opposites because of our affiliations? But we're still very similar in some cases, and even where we're very different, we are compatible."
"True," Harry conceded, though Daphne could see that he was still unconvinced about letting the problem go.
"Well, think of it this way," Daphne suggested after a bit of thinking. "Do you think I'm a pure Slytherin?"
"I guess you're pretty close to one idealized kind of Slytherin," Harry spoke slowly.
"You're approaching the point I wanted to make," Daphne grinned vaguely proudly at him. "Just earlier, I was wondering about how much of a Slytherin Pansy is, though she and I are very different people. Tracey might be the most Slytherin of us if you look at what the Sorting Hat sings every year. But she still wobbles through the school more like she's an unsorted student than as a Slytherin, and she has the right way of it," Daphne rested her head on Harry's chest, closing her eyes. "I wish I had that perspective earlier in life. I used to think in terms of House affiliation and labels so much. I get why my father is sometimes reluctant to talk about the political parties as if they're solid things. It's all varied through the prism of personality."
"That's a deep way of thinking about it," Harry praised his girlfriend, and she smirked against his body.
"I'm a deep person," she purred, enjoying his contact before she spoke more seriously. "But I have been giving this more serious consideration recently."
"I guess I have too, but not in terms of House sortings," Harry spoke idly, making Daphne look at him curiously. "You know how I've been speaking with Sirius lately?"
"Yeah."
"A while back, I was reading one of Salazar's books, and I was convinced Sirius was a hedonist," Harry spoke vacantly, remembering his magical notebook and the notes he had taken on his godfather. "But now that I've been writing to him more often, and now that I've thought about it more, I just don't think he can be a hedonist."
"How come?" Daphne asked gently, putting her hands on Harry's chest to delicately push herself away from it so she could look at his face more comfortably.
"He spent more than a decade in Azkaban, Daphne," Harry said sadly. "I don't think he can really feel pleasure that much, for it to be the center of his morality. Sirius hides it well, but looking over at his letters, I can tell that he's forcing himself to put on a brave face whenever we talk, but that deep down, he is beyond full recovery," his eyes grew fierce and angry before he continued. "Dumbledore sending him away from England before he was ready didn't help. He's been trying to return to stay closer to me, but he should be seeing a specialist."
"There are no Healers that could be convinced to help him without revealing his identity?" Daphne suggested gingerly. She knew that a Healer's Oath superseded any possible secrecy Oaths—it was more or less common knowledge—but remained hopeful that someone might be able to help Harry's godfather. She was unsurprised when he shook his head negatively.
"None that I would trust his life with, or that he would, for that matter," Harry said, holding Daphne tighter for support, feeling afraid for Sirius's welfare. "I think he'll be done with medical supervision now, even though I feel like he's still struggling."
"Can't you convince him to continue?" Daphne asked kindly, trying to comfort Harry by petting his hair as relaxingly as she could.
"I think that he's going through the same thing that I went through with learning Occlumency," Harry spoke after a few seconds trying to find the proper words to express his suspicions. "But he's much older. Convincing him to do anything after what he's been through seems impossible, at least for now."
"I see," Daphne exhaled slowly, trying to find a way to help Sirius, but it all came down to Harry's level of trust for a potential Healer and his skepticism that Sirius would welcome medical help after all. "We'll find a way to help him and to take you away from your relatives," she declared, resting her forehead against his. Up close like that, she could count individual specks of green that were slightly darker than the average emerald of his eyes, and she allowed herself to be lost in the exercise for a while, feeling Harry's apprehension begin to die out slowly. Both of them had larger monsters to slay before dealing with Harry's home life, but Daphne was determined to not allow her boyfriend to return to the Dursleys.
"I'm honestly more concerned with Sirius than with myself," Harry breathed out. "I think I'll manage to stay away from the Dursleys. Do you remember that American family I wrote you about?"
"Yes," Daphne nodded slowly, recalling one of their conversations over the break.
"I have faith that they'll find something that will send my uncle into a disarray, and I can sneak away in the process," Harry spoke softly. "But there are other things to deal with first, right?" He smiled at his girlfriend, though there was a fair amount of anguish in his eyes as he did so. Daphne wasn't an idiot, and she knew Harry very well at this point. The issue of his livelihood over the summer concerned him, regardless of his reassuring words, but mulling over the point would do nothing for him at the moment. She would find a way to deal with it for him if it came to it.
"So, about you thinking that Sirius was a hedonist, maybe it would be good for you to read Salazar's book suggestions," Daphne stated lightly, trying to send Harry's mind away from its current state. When he looked at her inquisitively, she shrugged and explained some more. "It's not like you're going to find the solution to who Sirius is by reading it, but if it helps, it's worth it, right?" After Harry seemed to be pondering the question, Daphne picked up Bill's book and waved it side to side. "Plus, it'd give you something to do while I go through this."
"Alright then," Harry conceded the question, magically summoning the Ethics book and automatically pulling the Parseltongue notebook. He turned to Daphne with an apologetic smile and asked. "Do you mind hearing some Parseltongue?"
"Of course not," Daphne responded immediately, without taking her eyes away from the notebook. Harry nodded and was about to start re-reading it when his tired eyes made him remember how close he was to dozing off just a moment ago.
"Actually, I think I'll take another quick nap," he explained, already closing his eyes and settling on the pouf. Daphne prodded his head with her shoe, and Harry opened his eyes with a slight frown, but she just gestured for him to lay down on her lap. Harry got up, laid down, and closed his eyes while Daphne began to read with a concentrated look on her face.
The days passed by with that routine set in place. Harry and Daphne would spend time in the Room of Requirement, with him cycling between reading Bill's Occlumency manual and Salazar's books. Unbeknownst to Harry, Daphne started to purposefully create a schedule, taking the same path every day at the same time with her entourage, hoping to catch the attention of those in Slytherin that wished to stop her from taking power. After a week or so of this, Montague and his closest friends started to wait for them, having noticed her movements.
"Only a few days more of this," Daphne spoke to a tense and nervous Tracey.
"Bole agrees that this is idiocy," Tracey responded in a low register.
"Aileen caught Snape in the back. We can catch Montague the same way," Daphne spoke more certainly than she felt.
"At least have the diary in hand if you need to ask Harry for help," Tracey pleaded again. The reminder she was lying to her boyfriend made Daphne want to fidget and cringe slightly, but she kept her expression neutral. The few questions asked by Bill's book were making an impact on her already preternatural talent to reign in her emotions around strangers, and her progress outshone Harry's in the field, though he didn't seem to mind.
"It's pretty obvious you'd be better at this than me," Harry smirked at her wryly when the subject came up in conversation. "Don't get coy about being good at something now. Weren't you perfect at everything?"
The memory of the conversation made Daphne grin a bit fondly, though everyone watching the scene from afar with hatred in their eyes and violence in their minds would mistake it for a cocky smirk. Montague's hand wavered towards his wand, but the sheer numerical advantage and, most importantly, the closed ranks around Daphne, made an attack hard to start.
"They know that the only way to disperse a group so tightly packed in one place would be an area of effect spell, but that would cause too much damage to Hogwarts and catch the attention of the teachers—" Bole said, his eyes glazed over in concentration once everyone was told of Daphne's intentions of how to ambush their ambush.
"Didn't stop them from attacking Madeleine," Blaise interrupted idly.
"This is different," Daphne insisted with a sideways glare directed at the indifferent Italian boy, and Bole continued.
"And the older ones of us know the Shield Charm too well, which would more or less nullify the effect," Bole stopped to think about it for a second before speculating. "Because there's no Apparition inside Hogwarts and the corridors inside the Dungeons are narrow, with enough people, the best strategy for a fight, in my opinion, is to just form a barrier of overlapping Shield Charms from your strongest casters and have the others cast jinxes and curses from behind it."
"That's an old Muggle war strategy," Tracey said with a loose frown, recognizing it vaguely from her exposure to Muggle society and culture via her parents.
"It'd break down if we get flanked or hit in the back," Aileen cautioned, having imagined what Bole was proposing.
"Well, getting flanked isn't a concern in the Dungeons," Sterling posited. "Unless they get into some abandoned classrooms, but we just have to be there first."
"Which is why choosing the best location is ideal," Daphne spoke, staring at everyone. "We need to find a place where you can hide in the classrooms to spring a trap and from where we can't be ambushed from the back."
"The problem is that also stops us from running away if things go badly," Bole mused. "And someone is going to have to be around you, even as we try to trap them. We can't risk them bringing you down in the very beginning of their ambush."
"I'll go," Tracey immediately volunteered, but Bole looked at her passively.
"How's your Shield Charm?" He asked neutrally, and Tracey gritted her teeth.
"I'll be there," she bit out through a clenched jaw, unwilling to not be there to protect her best friend.
"What's the use of being there if you're not the best alternative?" Bole asked with a raised eyebrow. Tracey tensed and glared at the boy but didn't answer anything back, recognizing his point despite her reluctance to not stand beside Daphne. "Who has the strongest Shield Charm and wouldn't be odd walking with Daphne by herself?"
"Me, I think," Blaise raised his hand, and Daphne nodded with an apologetic glance at Tracey.
"I think so too," the blonde agreed, and that was that.
They had chosen one of the many dead-end corridors of the school, one which was conveniently near a bathroom, and long enough that Aileen and half of their little group could hide in the closest classrooms to appear behind Montague, and that Bole and another half could hide in the furthest ones. Every day, Daphne's entourage would lose one person, or two, sometimes none, giving to everyone else either the feeling of normality slowly resuming or of Daphne's supporting waning, depending on who was looking.
"Only a few days more of this," Daphne repeated to herself.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Britain, a young woman was in a boat approaching Caen from Portsmouth. They had already arrived in Ouistreham, and her charmed passport perfectly resembled her appearance, whatever it may be.
"Broderick does good work," Amelia had summed up when Tonks tested the passport's abilities to track her physical changes.
"How does this even work?" She asked, awed and a bit uncomfortable. Her gift as a metamorphmagus was so deeply ingrained into her at this point that the idea of someone inventing something which could track it, even at a limited capacity, was disturbing to her. Even then, there was some hidden relief within her that something would remain immutable even as her appearance changed.
As she saw the city of Caen get into view, her impression of the passport in her pocket remained decidedly divided. Tonks put those thoughts to rest, focusing on maintaining her appearance throughout this brief foray into the Muggle world.
As Mad-Eye had told her many times, people, including wizards, don't track faces; they track profiles. By being capable of changing her appearance, she was impossible to follow unless an expert was doing it, but that would be meaningless if she couldn't change her clothes, gait, mannerisms, and speech patterns.
She took a step forward when the ferry docked, towards the line of people making their way through the immigration control, and tripped over her own feet. As she focused as she was on not changing hair length or color on her way down, she couldn't break the fall with a quick forward step and had to use her arms instead. She rose with gritted teeth.
"What's the point of changing behavior if I can't stop tripping?" She grumbled to herself before issuing a resigned sigh. The problems with a naturally clumsy person being a metamorphmagus, whose depth perception suffered due to their shifting appearance, was too much for even Mad-Eye to crack easily. Her mentor still sent suggestions from time to time, something he only did with problems he had yet to solve. On her chosen everyday form, she was less clumsy, even though it was still a problem by every reasonable measurement.
But she was not in her chosen everyday form, but that of someone taller and wider than her, with longer legs and a strange center of gravity. Whenever she didn't pay attention, the slight metal bumps on the floor of the ferry tripped her, but if she paid attention to those, she would catch her hair starting to shift according to her mood, and that was a much bigger problem with Muggles all around.
She passed through passport control without incident. Broderick's work was exceptional, with her internal musings about the ability of anything to track her changes notwithstanding. She could have just magically confounded the Muggle, but leaving a paper trail and the appropriate memories in order would not create loose ends in this delicate, highly illegal extracting operation.
After exiting the ferry, there were only a few streets until her designated meeting point with Sirius. In her opinion, selecting that place was one of her most inspired moments if she allowed herself to gloat. A sort of place that wizards avoided as a matter of principle but did not actively hate or despise, which would cause the wrong sort of attention. Somewhere wizards mostly ignored these days, with so strong a regularity but so unconscious an impetus that it felt like the perfect meeting place for an extraction. Mad-Eye would have been proud, she thought, controlling the desire to puff out her chest in satisfaction, the brief distraction making her almost stumble. She got back into stride with no consequences other than some amused pointing and giggling from children playing near the docks.
Five minutes later, she stood by the entrance of a magnificent building, as imposing on height as it was on architecture. The detailing on the construction would awe even the staunchest of blood supremacists if they would ever embrace the idea of being caught dead within a mile of such a building. Churches, let alone cathedrals, were impressive things, even for a non-religious woman such as Tonks. Her father was Anglican, however, even after finding out he was a wizard. One of the few openly Christian wizards during Hogwarts, with most Muggleborns more or less abandoning religion after finding out about magic. But Andromeda had thrown away the cloak of religious belief, magic or mundane, along with many other things once she'd run away with Ted, and he had respected that by not imposing his beliefs on their daughter, who Andromeda swore would get to choose her creed when she was older. As a teenager, Tonks came to the conclusion that she didn't believe in anything, and both her parents nodded along and moved on with their day.
Even for all her rebellion, and even though she knew this church did not follow the beliefs held by her father, Tonks bowed her head discreetly in reverence of the building. She entered the place. Some Muggles were doing the same, making a sign of the cross with their fingers as they crossed the threshold into the spacious, cavernous inside, supported by large columns on both sides that formed archways into narrow aisles. Tonks followed through the church nave after weaving her way through some information panels that were put there for the benefit of any tourists. Sirius was sitting on a bench halfway between the altar and the entrance, with a tense, fidgety manner that did not accurately represent the aloof, relaxed, playful Sirius that her mother had described so vividly.
Tonks sat by his side and said in a low, quiet voice. "Sirius."
The wizard relaxed fractionally, though he continued fidgeting. Tonks thought that despite his rebellion against the Black family, he probably felt uncomfortable inside a church, let alone within the context of ensuring he'd find his way back to England after leaving his property somewhere in the tropics.
"Nymphadora?" He asked warily, and she stiffened.
"Don't call me that," she said harshly, doing her utmost to ensure her hair didn't shift color in irritation. Some amusement invaded Sirius's previously dull and reserved grey eyes, and his mouth formed into a small roguish grin. His teeth were white and healthy, and he looked more than fine at a glimpse. But the colors molded in his eyes, the traditionally Black grey shifting and swirling even as his amusement took over his features, and the shadows of ten thousand screaming days still appeared in flashes, like waves washing over rocky islands during a storm. Tonks wasn't a Legilimens by any measure, but one of her best features on the Auror force was a keen eye for detail, a necessity for a metamorphmagus, and she was invaded by an image of Sirius manically practicing that easy-going grin in front of a mirror. She suppressed a shiver and hoped that seeing Andromeda would reinvigorate him a bit more.
"Andromeda did hint that you hated your name, but I wanted to check," Sirius teased her, before turning fully to face her. "I'm assuming this isn't the form you usually take?"
"It isn't," she confirmed with a shake of the head. "And it isn't my birth form either."
"I'm guessing you dislike your birth form for the same reason why Andy dislikes her appearance at times?" Sirius asked, with his smile turning sad. Tonks was briefly curious as to how he knew she didn't like her natural, untransformed self before the answer came to her in a flash. Of course, her mother had told him.
"It's not really because of my aunt," Tonks started but didn't elaborate. The mere suggestion of Bellatrix made that strange light in Sirius's eyes flash more keenly, but he saw that Tonks was unwilling to say more on the subject and nodded respectfully.
"It's good to meet you again after so many years," Sirius spoke solemnly and honestly for a while, his face turning sorrowful and pained at the thought of so many years lost in prison. Tonks was old enough to remember Sirius's arrest vividly, and the absolute disbelief in her mother's face, and the tension that had come over her mind whenever the topic came up in the ensuing years, one which had only vanished once news of his innocence reached her. Andromeda privately told her husband and daughter upon receiving the news that she was afraid that it was the curse of every born Black that they go mad before their time and that it would happen with her next.
"It's good to meet you again too," Tonks offered her hand to him, and he shook it firmly. His strength was back, she recognized by the firmness of the handshake, which by itself was an impressive feat. Azkaban wasn't all high-security, life-long cells, evidently, and many people had actually left the prison, but even those in medium and low-security regimes, with much lower exposure to the direct effects of Dementors, often did not ever recover their strength after regaining their freedom.
Sirius grew misty-eyed with the remembrance. "Ah, I remember when you were small enough to carry with two open hands," he said fondly, his eyes growing dimmer as his mind got carried into happier times. His arms automatically rose a few inches in his lap, his hands recreating the act of balancing a baby on two open hands. Tonks used his daydreaming to analyze the man, and the more she looked, the more concerned she got. Not because Sirius would be openly unstable, but because he seemed to be under a deeply unhealthy suppression of unspeakably horrible things constantly playing in the back of his mind. She could only hope that he wouldn't burst violently when that which he suppressed overcame his resolve to ignore them. Sirius came back to himself and concentrated on Tonks. "What will we be doing, then?"
"Well, Portsmouth is the last remaining large port of entry into England which hasn't been magically reinforced with new security measures after the second attack on Bertha, and Fudge is pressuring Amelia into closing it, as is Dumbledore," Tonks claimed and Sirius's gaze darkened again at the mention of the Minister, and even more at that of the Headmaster. "We'll be using the last few days before it's closed off to get you into the country safely," she spoke, looking at him a bit impishly before continuing. "You can come as a dog or a human, but it'd be easier if you were a human."
"Ah, one of those things you thought you would never say, right?" Sirius smirked slightly, and she snorted reflexively.
"You can say that again," Tonks muttered, and Sirius had to abort a barked burst of laughter so that it didn't echo loudly in the silent cathedral. They spent a while facing the altar, and then he rose slowly.
"Well, let's go then," he said, offering a hand to help Tonks get to her feet, which she took with a neutral expression. They walked side to side before Tonks slid into a column and shifted her features, aging them to a point where she could conceivably be of the same age as Sirius. As an afterthought, she made some of her hairs become grey.
"I do not have grey hair," Sirius sulkily complained once he recognized what she was doing. Tonks narrowed her eyes as if to observe his hair, looking for grey tuffs.
"Eh, I can see a few," she spoke in turn, enjoying his squawk of protest with a side smile. It was good that he was still vain, she thought. She offered Sirius her elbow as they walked out. He took it but looked at her quizzically. "When people look at couples, they turn the couple into a single unit," she spoke seriously. "This minimizes the odds of some wizard recognizing you, even if you look nothing like the posters anymore."
"I guess it's fine," he granted, looking at her uneasily. "It's still weird to think you're my cousin."
"It's weird to me too, but it'll be over soon," Tonks calmed him down, and in the distraction of looking at him, she tripped, and he held her before she could fall.
Sirius finally laughed in that barked way of his that Andromeda described to her daughter, though it was rougher than what Tonks initially thought it would sound.
"It also helps that I can stop you from tripping," he claimed, and she glared at him, his smirk growing the longer she did. "Your mother was also clumsy as a teenager."
"She was?" Tonks demanded eagerly.
"Oh yeah," Sirius smiled sideways. "I have a lot of stories about Andy, trust me."
"Well, we have our entertainment for the trip," Tonks smirked, her eyes glinting in delight at the thought of accumulated blackmail on her mom. Sirius laughed loudly again, and Tonks noted with satisfaction that that light on his eyes had dimmed once more, though it still dominated his gaze whenever he wasn't actively laughing or smiling. There was hope, she concluded, and that was as valid a reason to be happy as any other.
They arrived at the boat with no issue, and Tonks handed Sirius his own magical passport, designed to also mimic his appearance exactly. While the former prisoner looked nervous whenever he crossed by a person of authority, the trip itself was tranquil, with them distracted by the stories Sirius and Tonks exchanged about Andromeda and her career as an Auror.
England approached in the horizon, then so did Portsmouth, then the docks, and they both tensely made their way through immigration. They knew that the Ministry was detecting the entrance of two wizards into England through their wards. And they knew that this was the last plug to fill before the entire system was more secure. Though Amelia guaranteed that no Aurors would be on the scene, ensuring that they would be safe from that potential threat, the Patrols could have been paid by Malfoy or someone else to do the same or could be there out of a sense of earnest proactivity. They would have to hope that Cygnus's politicking around and incentivizing people to sue Malfoy would be enough to safely sneak Sirius into the country without triggering an immediate reaction. Amelia and Tonks had simultaneously scoffed at the idea of a Patrol doing proactive work these days, but now that she stepped into English soil, that skepticism was no longer valid. Sirius was tenser than ever, looking nervously around to see if someone recognized him or stared at them oddly. Tonks would have comforted him if she wasn't so nervous herself, despite all her training. Mad-Eye would have been enormously displeased, but this was a hugely important extraction, with direct consequences to her family and people she loved. And a little girl as well, as Cygnus's face pulsed on her mind's eye.
But nothing happened. Sirius and Tonks crossed by immigration into Portsmouth without catching attention to themselves. After they walked enough distance so that no one would be connecting the ferry's arrival with her Apparition in the unlikely event that someone in the Ministry was paying attention to them, she grabbed Sirius's arm and transported them away, towards Andromeda, and towards family.
A very different impression of the Black Family was currently being built by Lucius Malfoy, as he poured over the details of the Black family tree. Normally, he would subcontract work like this, but this work was far too important and far too sensitive to be dealt with by anyone but himself and his wife. Narcissa was good at the Mind Arts, better than him, and had designed a simplified version of the enormous tapestry that was prominently displayed in the Black family home in London. Their current predicament was that if Andromeda, who had been very publicly disowned from the family, could be the representative, those dead-ends burned by wand fire could now be in control of the entire family. The Black finances were likely meager compared to the Malfoy's, but the name — Malfoy wanted the bloody name, the Englishness of it all, and it made him fume that Cygnus and his fucking speech got that part right — was still valuable. One by one, Malfoy would investigate those burnt ends, looking for potential heirs, and one by one, they were discarded as threats or set apart for more active consideration. Those who were potentially in their family's way would go to Narcissa's desk, and she would poke and prod, talking with people in their society, start gossip, and wait to see what came up. No detective in the world is as efficient at finding out information as the bored men and women of leisure that frequented the Malfoys' social circles. And so, information came. He worked through it all, but no conclusions were forthcoming yet, and with each promising path struck off the tree, the less hopeful Lucius got about finding in whose hand the Black Heir ring resided using that strategy.
Another owl arrived, carrying a heavy package, and landed tiredly on his desk. Malfoy gritted his teeth angrily and pointed to the bowls of sugar water and grains that Narcissa had left in his office for the wave of owls coming in and out of the Manor, inside and outside the regular hours for such deliveries, which had forced him to forfeit his usual approach to daily life, and the tea meetings where he made most of his influence were turning less frequent, as he forced to respond to torrents of red-sealed letters which demanded an immediate response from a team of lawyers and people under his pay, managing petty crime and the Patrols to clog the justice system and stop the suits against him. The strategy worked at first, but he knew it was only a matter of time until Amelia Bones used her influence to streamline the increase of petty crime into a separate, temporary court, while civil suits against him were put into the hands of the main court, making them both more visible and harder to influence throwing money around. Still, he kept motivating more and more acts of petty crime to make Bones's life more inconvenient, out of spite if nothing else, though straining her reputation was always worthwhile. If only she wasn't so damn good at prosecuting people, he thought with a sour expression.
Because of Cygnus, these damn letter packages would arrive multiple times a day, from lawyers and Lords alike, offering plea deals for cash, political favors, or just informing of a new group of lawsuits put against him. Greengrass had successfully leveraged his newfound influence, born out of that accursed Speech of his, to make minnows in business and politics alike turn against him. Death by a thousand cuts. And now that the news about Snape had hit the Daily Prophet's first page, again the public fell in love with the Greengrass family, and the wave of suits came rolling in. Most of them were insignificant. But there were just so many.
"Another box?" Narcissa asked with a weary, tired look on her face. Lucius hadn't heard her enter and stared at his wife for a second. It was rare to see her look so visibly affected by something, and she only looked that tired immediately after waking up.
"Unfortunately," he breathed out and then turned to her with a concerned frown. "What's the matter?"
"People are starting to whisper about our incessant prodding on obscure parts of the Blacks," Narcissa informed him, and he passed a hand through his face. Of course, they'd notice eventually. They were hoping it would take a while longer. "I just got out of a Floo call with Mrs. Montgomery telling me all about it."
"Oh?" Lucius asked tensely. Narcissa looked at her husband, raised an eyebrow, and when his stance did not lose its alarm, she rolled her eyes, irritated. Despite her annoyance at him, Lucius couldn't stop but feel a pang of fondness at the sight. Only he saw Narcissa act so inelegantly, and it thrilled him whenever he did.
"Please, Lucius, you know perfectly well I had her on a leash barely five minutes into the conversation," she informed him, and he grinned slightly.
"Of course," he conceded amusedly, and though his tone was undoubtedly polite and charming, Narcissa recognized the amusement and narrowed her gaze at him. He remained quiet, knowing that his wife would be like that as long as she was irritated, and she finally sat down across him with a long-suffering sigh. He reached for her hand across the table, and she accepted the unspoken invitation after a second of outward resistance. He squeezed her hand gently, and she appreciated the gesture by blissfully closing her eyes. Not taking his gaze away from her hand, he asked. "The Montgomery family is the one with two girls in Ravenclaw, right? Older than Draco."
"The same," Narcissa murmured, not opening her eyes, and spoke on after breathing out. "But they had a son a few years ago, and they're debating on whether or not he'll be the heir to their business. The Montgomery's are not a noble family, but they are wealthy enough for some traditions to impose themselves."
Lucius hummed, but then something clicked in his head and he stopped squeezing his wife's hand as he had been doing. Narcissa opened her eyes with a frustrated expression, wondering why Lucius had stopped but was immediately cut off from her upcoming complaining by his thoughtful, stricken expression.
"What is it, dear?" She asked, sitting more properly in the chair and pushing it closer to the desk behind which Lucius continued to look at a distant point, beyond their joined plane of existence.
"Do you think it's possible that the Black family was inherited by a woman?" He posited carefully, looking at Narcissa speculatively. His wife looked at him surprised before her eyes widened.
"You think Andromeda..."
"I'm just wondering," he defended himself. "But it would make an Heiress very clear. The metamorphmagus girl. She's an Auror, and a good one, from what the Patrols tell me. Even without her powers, she'd absolutely pass the test required to get a hold of the Black Heir Ring."
"There have been magically weaker Black Lords than Andromeda," Narcissa commented, concentrating on her memories of a woman she hadn't seen in decades. "But still, a woman inheriting the Black family? I don't remember that ever happening, and the family is old." She suddenly turned aloof, and Lucius watched the telltale sign of his wife focusing completely on her Occlumency as all of her facial features loosened and relaxed, making it seem as though she had fallen asleep. He waited patiently for her mental review, and as she fully returned to his office, heard her speak. "No, it has never happened."
"Because a male Heir was always available, and traditions demand as they do, but other families, as old as the Blacks, allow for women to inherit, with varying degrees of acceptance," he cautioned her. "Look at the Bones, for instance. The Abbots were briefly led by women twice in the past century as the family thinned out, despite having never considered the idea beforehand. I'm not asking you if the Black family ever was inherited by a woman, but whether you think that it could, legally."
"Even with my memory and Occlumency, dear, I couldn't remember all the details of the family charter," Narcissa informed Lucius, who reluctantly nodded, having expected it. His wife's mouth thinned in annoyance at the reaction. "I have not seen the thing in over two decades, and never in its entirety. Do not give me that look."
"No, I'm not disappointed in you," Lucius explained and then sighed tiredly. "I was just wondering. If your sister and her daughter are Lady and Heiress respectively, you'd be the next in line, and then Draco."
"Are you asking me if I would be amenable to an accident befalling my sister and niece?" Narcissa asked directly, and Lucius maintained his neutral expression, which was answer enough. She looked at him, and then her lap, and to him again, though her mind was elsewhere, in lost memories of her childhood, most likely. He knew the answer before it came. "Andromeda is no longer family to me..." She trailed off, looking saddened by the statement, which did not surprise him. Narcissa had spoken to him on some occasions that Andromeda had protected her from the worst that came from Bellatrix as the older of the Black sisters grew into her madness as a teenager, and that she was one of her favorites growing up. It broke her heart when Andromeda ran away with Ted Tonks, despite their relationship already being fraught by their different stances on blood purity. The ensuing war and Lucius's role in it had permanently killed off any possible attempts at reconciliation. "But she is still my sister. Unless it's necessary to ensure Draco's birthright, I would rather that she didn't die."
Lucius nodded, and with that, made a promise. No action until Andromeda's identity as a potential Black Lady was confirmed. He already had people looking for her after she disappeared from her house, and his people in the Ministry kept tabs on the metamorphmagus, but they hadn't been instructed to strike anyway. He would merely have to reinforce that she was not to be harmed when found again. He did not break promises, not to Narcissa.
His wife seemed thankful, and despite Andromeda's representing the Black family, and despite the clear support she lent to Cygnus, Lucius secretly wished that she didn't have the misfortune of being the Black Lady. He would kill or frame her for life if it came to that, and he knew that Narcissa would agree with it. But still, Narcissa didn't think he knew—or pretended not to know—that she kept tabs on her older sister and secretly nudged her daughter into the fast tracks of the Auror Academy, despite it all. Narcissa loved fiercely, and though she would never reconcile with Andromeda and would accept that they were political enemies with no hesitation, a part of her was still a Black, and that part still cherished the other Black sister.
Lucius went over his desk, leaving the letters he had to respond to the side for a second. Because of his lack of mastery of Occlumency, he always found it better to just write what he thought out, to help him think. He had made a series of assumptions when he started this searching exercise, as he was wont to do. Now that they had nearly exhausted the possibilities that came with the first approach, he put a new line under the assumptions list.
'Female inheritance?'
If that path led to nowhere, he'd have to scratch other assumptions off the list, some of which seemed so unlikely. The Black family being inherited by a foreigner, or someone outside the family tree due to distance inheritance, someone faking their deaths, Sirius Black as the Lord... He sighed. There was still so much to be done.