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Chapter Five—Learning

"I already know that spell, Grandfather."

Seneca paused and stared at Severus. It was true that he was no ordinary child, and Seneca had supposed that the Prince blood had bred true even through Eileen's unfortunate wedding to a Muggle. He spoke like a child several years older than he was, he understood adult subtleties in a way that meant Seneca rarely had to speak to him twice, and he could read already, although he was only twenty-seven months old now, a year after his mother's death.

But he had never said this sort of thing before. Seneca had thought he was smarter than that.

"You cannot know this spell, Severus," he said patiently. "Neither I nor your grandmother have ever cast it in front of you." Mariana would not have dared.

"I saw Mother cast it."

Seneca studied his grandson in silence for a second. Severus was sitting in a chair on the other side of the library table, albeit one with several padded pillows on it to prop him up to the right height. His eyes were quiet and dark, as always, but his hand closed into a little fist on the table.

"Why would she have cast a ward that is meant to silence a room, Severus?"

His grandson watched him, and then said, "Because she wanted to practice magic, and didn't want the Muggle finding out."

Seneca half-relaxed. At least Severus had taken enthusiastically to calling his father "the Muggle," and never sought to use any other name for him. "And you can remember the movements of the wand?' Seneca had cast the spell wordlessly, which meant Severus could not be sure this was the same incantation.

"Yes, Grandfather."

Seneca hesitated only once before he reached over and handed his wand to Severus. "I want to see you cast the spell."

Severus listened for a second, his head tilted to the side, which Seneca had come to recognize as a gesture that he used often himself, almost communing with the magic. Then he said, "This wand doesn't like me, Grandfather."

Seneca grunted. Part of him was proud that his grandson was smart enough to recognize a wand's affinity, or rather the lack of it, at such a young age.

The rest of him was suspicious enough to scream. He leaned forwards and asked softly, "Who told you about wands not liking you, Severus? Was it your grandmother?" That was not on the list of approved subjects he had told Mariana she could discuss with Severus.

"No one told me, Grandfather." Severus sounded genuinely puzzled. "I can just feel it. The wand doesn't like me. It doesn't want me to hold it. It wants me to put it down and go away."

Seneca slowly eased back from his desire to call Mariana down to the room. "Very well. Then put it down in the middle of the table and make the wand gestures with your hand." He glanced at the scar on Severus's forehead. He did wonder, sometimes, if the residue of the curse had caused some change in Severus, as well, if he had managed to boost his power by stealing some from the Dark Lord.

Severus nodded and laid down the wand. He slowly raised his hand, moving his fingers as if he didn't know if he should align them all or not, and then he decided to and waved his hand around with all his fingers aimed in the same direction.

Seneca fought down the instinct to snarl as he watched the heavy air swirl and dance. Ripples ran towards the corners of the room and died out. In the end, not real magic, not a silencing ward, but there was power there that his grandson could call upon.

Seneca looked back at Severus, realized the boy was waiting for him to respond, and gave him a tight smile. "Well done, Severus."

Severus beamed and soaked up the words, and Seneca nodded, letting his half-smile substitute for the full one he might otherwise have given. He had given Eileen full-hearted gestures like that, and it had built up her confidence to the point where she had thought she could openly disagree with him, even run away, and still be forgiven. Seneca was not about to make the same mistake with this generation of Princes.

Not that he would, he thought as he called the elves to take Severus up to the nursery. This time, he had much finer material to work with.

"Grandfather was having me practice a silencing ward."

Harry focused thoughtfully on Severus as he set down a tray of cheese and bread on the table between them. "Did he have you handle a wand?"

"He tried to get me to use his. But it didn't like me, so I didn't use it."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "That's unusual magical sensitivity to have so young, but I'm not surprised." He took his holly wand from his pocket and tossed it to Severus. "Touch this one and pretend that you're going to cast a spell with it. Don't move it in the right way yet. Just think about it."

Severus gave him a suspicious glance as he picked up the wand. "I could cast it if you wanted. I could do that."

"I know, but right now, I just want you to see what it feels like to you, and what happens when you hold it."

Severus closed his eyes and waited for a long moment. His fingers tapped back and forth across the wand. Harry watched curiously. He had thought he might get something of a twinge when Severus touched his wand, but it seemed the connection was neutral.

"This one likes me more than Grandfather's wand did," Severus murmured, his eyes closed. "But…" He waited for long enough that Harry wondered if something was wrong, then looked at Harry again. "It doesn't feel like your real wand."

Harry froze. At the same time, he heard an impatient rattle from the cupboard at the back of Laocoon's shop, where Harry had stored some things that he didn't want to tell anyone about.

"Where is your real wand?" Severus asked. He sounded interested and not impatient, and he handed the holly wood back to Harry and then looked around the room. "Can I meet it?"

Harry managed to smile. "I suppose it would be all right," he said, and walked over to the cupboard to open the door. He barely had time to get it out of the way before the Elder Wand sprang directly into his hold, radiating brilliant golden light.

"Wow," Severus breathed, sounding awed.

Harry had to shield his eyes against the light, it was glowing so. Then the glow died, and he was left with an ordinary-looking wand of elder wood—or at least as ordinary as it could look if you didn't know what it was. He took a deep, difficult breath.

Of course it couldn't be the real Elder Wand. Dumbledore openly carried that one, and Dumbledore was the Minister. Harry had assumed, when he came back in time, or broke the universe, however one wanted to refer to it, that he had left the Hallows behind as well. Certainly the Invisibility Cloak hadn't made the journey with him, and the only wand he'd had with him had been the holly one.

But then one morning, a few days after he'd agreed to vow his protection to Severus, the Elder Wand had shown up lying on his doorstep. Or a good copy of it. Harry had swept it inside, thrown it in the cupboard, and then waited tensely for the newspaper stories about how Minister Dumbledore had lost his wand.

But no such stories had spread. And the photographs that came out in the papers, which often showed Dumbledore with his wand, hadn't changed.

The Elder Wand had reproduced itself, or had come with him through time, or something like that. Harry supposed he would never know for sure. He did know that it was getting more and more difficult to perform magic with his holly wand, which was ridiculous. He had refused to carry the Elder Wand, hadn't used it since he stuck it back in Dumbledore's tomb in his original world. What did it think it was doing, showing up on the doorstep like a lost Crup?

"Can I see it?" Severus asked.

For a moment, Harry tightened his hold on the Elder Wand, and projected a thought to it as hard as he could. Hurt him and I'll find a way to burn you to ash. I don't care if it takes me as long as I've got in this life.

For a moment, the wand warmed in his hand, to the point where it was painful. Harry didn't know why, but he kept holding it, and after a second, the heat died away. Harry nodded and turned to Severus, ignoring the slightly wary look on his face. He still had that expression no matter how careful and gentle Harry was, but given the bastard that was his grandfather, Harry could hardly blame him.

Severus took the wand and turned it back and forth curiously, not gasping the way Harry would have expected if he had been able to sense its power. Then he nodded and handed it back to Harry. The Elder Wand vibrated, and a tone like the edge of a phoenix's song showed up in Harry's mind.

"That one feels like your real wand," Severus said in some satisfaction.

"Well, good," Harry muttered, and tossed the Elder Wand back in the cupboard. Then he shut the door and turned around to find the Elder Wand lying on the table next to the holly wand. He drew in a long, slow breath.

"Why did you hide your real wand in the cupboard, Uncle Harry?"

Harry smiled at Severus, his pleasure in the name overtaking his annoyance at the question for a moment. Then he sighed and said, "I won the wand from someone, but I didn't really want it. The holly wand is the one that chose me when I was eleven. That's the one I chose back, and the one I want to use."

Severus studied him with quiet, intelligent eyes, and then shook his head and said, "I don't know if you can do that now."

Harry didn't know what he meant until he reached out his hand and touched a mere dead piece of wood. He swallowed. All warmth was gone from the holly wand, as if it had been burned out by the Elder Wand's warning. He desperately snatched it up and tried to perform a spell, but not even sparks came out.

"Why would it do that, Uncle Harry?"

"I don't know." That made no more sense than the Elder Wand following him through times, Harry thought. It might have made a little sense if he had woken up here with the Elder Wand and not the holly one, but why would it stop now?

"I think the real wand is the one that chooses you now."

Harry glared at the Elder Wand. How could he use that? It was so recognizable. Maybe not to people in most worlds or times, but people who were used to seeing Dumbledore's wand in the papers would notice in seconds.

"Why are you so upset, Uncle Harry?"

"It looks like a wand that's famous," Harry said reluctantly. He wouldn't drag Severus into all his troubles, any more than he intended to tell him all the details about his time travel, but he didn't want to deny him explanations, either. That would encourage Severus to distrust him faster than anything else. "People are going to think that I stole it and get upset if it turns out that there's just two of them."

Severus leaned forwards and studied the Elder Wand intently. "It's powerful, right?" When Harry nodded, Severus looked up at him with wide eyes and asked, "Then you could make it just look like something else, right?"

Harry blinked. Maybe he could. Of course, that would mean he was willing to work with the Elder Wand instead of against it.

But if his holly wand really wouldn't work for him anymore, he had no choice. He refused to leave himself or Severus defenseless.

Harry sighed and picked up the Elder Wand. For a second, it shone, and Harry didn't think it was his imagination that it went white and transparent, resembling Voldemort's yew wand more than anything else.

Then it stopped shining, and it looked exactly like an ordinary, stubby wand of dark wood. Probably a little shorter than the holly one, but no one would know that unless they actually laid that side-by-side and compared them. Harry relaxed. Except to Laocoon, Severus, and Mariana, he simply wasn't important enough to anyone here for them to do that.

"Thank you, Severus," he said. "That was a good idea."

"It was?"

Severus sounded so uncertain. Harry turned and knelt in front of him. Severus was an extraordinary child, but still only a child. And he didn't get the kind of emotional support that he needed at home with his Prince grandparents, even if he got intellectual admiration.

"Yes, it was a good idea," Harry said quietly. "I hope that you never think I'll lie to you. There are certain things I shouldn't tell you because they might hurt you, but I won't lie to you and say something I don't mean."

Severus stared at him with big eyes, then nodded. "I'm hungry. Can we eat some of the lunch that Grandmother brought?"

Harry nodded and reached for the pile of cheese and bread that Mariana always sent with Severus. She appeared to think that he might starve between the time that she placed him in the shop with Harry and the time she gathered him, even though those were usually short periods of time to avoid Seneca Prince noticing. But Harry wasn't insulted by her caution, not really. With someone like her husband in the mix, it paid to be cautious.

"I like studying with you better than I do with Grandfather."

Harry rested his hand for a second on Severus's dark hair. "And I like being with you, Severus." Strange and confusing though my existence in this world usually is. Even after a year here, Harry didn't think he was really all that close to understanding the changes.

Orion had sat with his eyes closed, for hours, in the hidden room behind the black oak paneling in his library. When he sat like this, he drifted. The silver bowl in front of him, on the plinth in the center of the room, radiated light, and it was the only thing that could tell him when to wake up.

And when to come here. It summoned him, and he would open his eyes in the darkness of his unhappily shared bedchamber and know that the bowl had filled with glowing liquid starlight and that he was to come.

Now, a picture formed on the surface of the darkness behind his eyes. Orion waited, and didn't let his surprise when the image divided in two raise him from the trance he needed to use to sit there.

There had never been two images before, but then, as far as Orion knew, there had never been someone in his family who could do this, either. He breathed in, he breathed out, and the images gained form and definition.

Both were faces.

The one on the right was the face of his wife. Orion didn't bother studying Walburga's glazed dark eyes, her heavy piled hair, or her slightly-parted lips. He had seen her face like this for several months now, at least in the hidden room. She had never looked like this in real life, but he had faith that someday she would.

The one on the left was no one he knew. The man's hair was nearly as dark as a Black's, but far wilder. His eyes had a deep green shine to them that stirred Orion's memory, even though he was sure he had never seen this man before. He was half-turned in the image, looking as if over his shoulder when his name had been called.

Orion was examining him in deep absorption when the starlight breathed out a name. Harry Evanson.

That was enough to break his concentration—the bowl had never spoken to him before—and Orion's eyes snapped open. The bowl on the plinth was empty. Orion sat back and took a long, stilling breath.

He didn't understand why this room existed, or why the bowl summoned him here sometimes and gave him visions. He wasn't even sure that they were visions. He knew the people and actions he saw would be important to his life at some point, but that was all. Given that most of the time he saw people he already knew, he didn't know if he was glimpsing the future or not.

Nor did he know if he was the only Black who had been in this room, summoned to dream in front of a bowl filled with starlight that appeared and disappeared. There were no records of this room anywhere in the library, nor had Orion heard any family member mention it, but several of his relatives could well have come here for years and kept the secret. That would be like the Blacks.

Orion stepped back through the door, shutting it behind him and watching it blend seamlessly with the wall. Then he started as a wail broke the silence of the house.

"Daddy! Daddy!"

Orion made his way immediately towards the nursery that held two-year-old Sirius and his infant brother Regulus. He came up in time to clasp his hand around Walburga's wrist as she raised her wand towards the children.

"No," he said calmly.

"You don't know what they did!" Walburga spun towards him with her eyes bright and mad.

Orion sighed and prepared himself to both listen to his wife and defend his children. Walburga's madness had only been incipient until after Regulus was born, but the crying of their sons seemed to derange her senses.

Part of him that no one would ever be able to see, no matter how skilled a Legilimens they were, kept thinking about the Harry Evanson he had seen, and wondering if the man might be able to help with this problem somehow. Perhaps Orion would end up hiring him as a tutor? But then again, why would he, when his last name indicated he was a Mudblood?

But somehow, he must be able to help with this. Otherwise I might go mad myself.