Sirius lowered himself to the very edge of a chair, every muscle tensed. If anyone had asked him how he might expect to feel, seeing Dumbledore again for the first time in nearly a dekatria, he probably would have said he'd be thrilled — he'd been so starved for human company for so long, he thought he might almost be thrilled to talk to Snivellus in person again. (Almost. And only because he seemed to have grown a sense of humor since they'd left school — forcing Little Bella to mark Potions essays was much funnier than her getting that stupid elf to lock him up in the nursery when she'd found him.)
But as soon as he'd come through the floo at Château Blanc — the name a reference to the confusion which had, or so the story went, surrounded the pronunciation of the family's name when their long-distant ancestors had immigrated to Britain — Sirius had realised that this was not going to be a happy reunion. The tone of Dumbledore's letters, which he'd sent a fair few, had been largely penitent, begging his forgiveness for the part he'd played in Sirius's stay in Azkaban, which Sirius had grudgingly given. (It wasn't as though Dumbledore could be blamed for Sirius's weakness or the Rat's treason or Evans being too paranoid for her own good — she was the one who insisted they couldn't tell their Fearless Leader that they'd changed Secret Keepers, Sirius still didn't know why.) The look on his face today, though, was one Sirius recognised from the war. He'd never seen it on Dumbledore before, but on Jamie and Marley and Frank and Alice, as they watched their friends die one by one, and there was no one to blame except each other and themselves and the entire bloody war.
Sombre. Hurt. Ever so slightly accusing. And tired.
"Who died?" he asked, even before offering a greeting, hating the trepidation in his tone, but unable to will it away.
"Sirius, I— We should sit," he said, even as Little Bella followed him out of the flames.
"Hey, Siri." Her characteristic nonchalance contrasted dramatically with Dumbledore's obvious distress.
"Bella, what's going on?" Her latest owl had arrived just yesterday — he'd already been in California, Harry and the Zabinis had showed up two days before, finally, and they'd just started to catch up — demanding that he meet her here, today, because Dumbledore wanted to talk to them (and for security reasons was under the impression that their summer plans were completely independent of the Zabinis', and they were staying on the continent somewhere). He'd spent twelve hours on a muggle aeroplane rather than take an international portkey (never again), and just floo'd in himself about two hours ago. "Didn't the school year end almost a week ago?"
She glared at him, but didn't 'correct' him, so she must have finally accepted that he wasn't going to call her by that stupid pseudonym when he knew who she really was. It was slightly surprising that Dumbledore didn't correct him either, but maybe he saw it, too. "It did, yes, but the academic calendar holds no sway over Poppy Pomfrey. She only let me out of the hospital wing this morning."
"Why were you in hospital?"
"That, my dear boy, is to do with the matter we need to discuss," Dumbledore said, motioning toward the door.
Bellatrix rolled her eyes, led the way into the corridor, calling back over her shoulder, "I was briefly kidnapped and tortured the day before we were supposed to come home."
Sirius nearly laughed at that, the idea of someone kidnapping and torturing Bellatrix, rather than the other way around. Not to mention it was fucking hilarious that someone had gotten the drop on her. Don't laugh at the idea of teenagers being tortured in front of Dumbledore, Sirius, he reminded himself, though he couldn't keep all of his amusement out of his response. "You were what?"
She spun on her heel to face them, continuing down the corridor without breaking stride, flipped him off. "You heard me."
"By whom?"
She shrugged. "Dunno. I was obliviated. And the list of people who don't occasionally want to torture me is probably shorter than the list of people that do, so." That was...probably true. Sirius himself was admittedly on the latter list — Little Bella might not be as bad as the original, but trapping him indefinitely in a small suite of rooms was almost as bad as putting him back in a cell. "Anyway, it wasn't that bad, they didn't do anything that couldn't be healed in a day or two, Pomfrey's just ridiculous. Didn't want me to strain myself in the last stages of blah, blah, blah." She spun around again, looking around the intersection they'd come upon as though she wasn't exactly certain where she was going, then shrugged slightly and set off to the left with every appearance of confidence. "And then there was a misunderstanding about Harry — he's fine, I'm...pretty sure. Maïa's article said so, anyway, and I don't see any reason to doubt it, especially now that His Excellency here has changed sides. Oh, this one will do, I think."
The sitting room she'd led them to was one of the more completely furnished ones — which wasn't saying much, most of the Château wasn't furnished at all, Sirius had only been using a few rooms before he'd headed to the Americas, and restoring rooms he didn't need had seemed like far too much work. She plopped into a chair, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. "I'd offer tea, but I don't think we have an elf here. Kind of short notice, arranging this meeting, you see."
"What do you— What does she mean, you changed sides, Your Excellency?" He wasn't entirely certain why they were using Dumbledore's proper style of address, but he also didn't really think that was the important question at the moment. Obviously Harry was fine, but why would he think he wasn't?
Something rather pained flickered in Dumbledore's eyes. "There is no need to stand on ceremony, my dear boy. Not... Not after everything that has happened."
Not after I left you in that hell hole for twelve fucking years, you mean, Sirius thought, biting his tongue.
"He announced that Harry was dead, and then two days later announced that he actually isn't. Though apparently no one knows where he is, so he can't prove it, and the Aurors claim that the circumstances of his disappearance are suspicious, even though I'm...pretty sure that my being abducted and tortured and Harry escaping incarceration in muggle suburbia are unrelated incidents. I mean I don't know, I was obliviated, but I will admit that breaking all the tracking charms on him and sending him home early does seem like a thing I would do, since I do recall that we were going to go on holiday as anonymously as possible, for his protection, you know. And Maïa says I was planning to, so."
Sirius stared blankly for several long seconds, wavering between outrage — why hadn't anyone told him Harry was supposedly dead — and confusion — it would have been helpful if someone had told him at some point exactly how they were framing this holiday thing, because he had only the vaguest idea what their cover story was, and he was obviously meant to be supporting it — before breaking into uncontrollable sniggering. "Well, if you're looking for confirmation, he's definitely not dead. He was having breakfast at the hotel when I left."
"Oh, good, it would have been awkward if he'd gone and gotten himself killed while I was busy."
Busy. Being tortured. Sirius rolled his eyes. How she could expect anyone not to believe she was Bellatrix, he had no idea.
"Where is he? What hotel?" Dumbledore asked, a legilimency probe attempting to worm its way into his thoughts.
"Stay the fuck out of my head, Albus!" he snapped, disrupting the magic with a bit more force than entirely necessary, causing the old man to wince slightly, though he didn't apologise.
"You did just hear me say that the plan is to remain anonymous, did you not, Your Excellency?" Bellatrix said, her only acknowledgment of their byplay a calmly raised eyebrow.
"Sirius, my boy," the old man said, his tone nearly pleading, despite having just attempted to take the information he wanted. "You must understand, Harry's safety, his security, is of the utmost importance, and there are forces... You must tell me, Sirius, it's for his own good."
Sirius gave him a considering hum, not that he needed to think about it. "No."
Dumbledore, apparently not expecting that answer, stared at him in shocked silence for a long moment. Sirius couldn't imagine why. Any personal loyalty he'd held for the man had long-since eroded under the influence of the dementors, and he couldn't possibly believe that Sirius would approve of sending his godson off to live with Lily's sister. He wasn't certain, but he thought he might actually have let Elizabeth raise Harry before Petunia. Well, knowing what he knew now, at least.
Yes, James had always... Well, hated was a strong word, but he'd never really gotten along with his older sister. He had never really known her that well. She was even older than Bella — the older one, not the little one, obviously — but she was a dark witch and ran off to France and married a veela, so he hadn't liked her on principle. And then he'd disowned her after she refused to come to Charlus (and Dorea)'s funeral. But Dorea had liked her — she'd once told Sirius that he reminded her of Liz, that most of her problems with Charlus and the House of Potter were that she just didn't quite fit in with them — and Sirius had always trusted Dorea's judgment, and Liz was, at the very least, a witch, and she knew what it meant for Harry to be the last Potter.
Petunia on the other hand — Sirius had only met her once, but she'd been the most mugglish muggle he'd ever met, taking pride in how boring and "normal" she and her husband were, disparaging James and Lily as freaks on their wedding day. (Behind their backs, of course, Lily would have hexed her if she'd heard.) It wasn't hard to believe she hadn't told Harry anything about magic before he'd started school, and if she'd feared him so much after his first year at Hogwarts that she'd felt the need to lock him in his room, it wasn't a far stretch to imagine she'd abused him badly enough as a child that she expected him to want retribution.
Of course, he would've picked almost anyone else before either of them, but that wasn't the point. The point was, Dumbledore had put Harry in a terrible situation and insisted year after year that he return to it, despite Harry asking to go anywhere else — despite him running away from the muggles two years in a row — and it reminded Sirius of having to go back to Grimmauld Place every summer and he hated it. Even if this summer hadn't been his first real chance to get to know Jamie's son, he certainly wasn't about to tell Dumbledore where he was so he could drag him back and hand him over to an abusive cunt like Wal—
Petunia. An abusive cunt like Petunia. (Walburga is dead, he reminded himself. If there was any justice in death, her soul would burn in hell for eternity, the hideous bitch.)
"Sirius, my boy, I know— I know the House of Black has a– a vested interest in Harry, but surely you can see that it would be better, he would be safer—"
"I said no, Your Excellency," Sirius said sharply, putting on his best impression of Jamie's Lord Potter voice. "I don't see that it would be safer to leave him a sitting duck under a blood ward that may or may not do anything to protect him against the vast majority of his potential enemies. I don't see that it would be better to drag him back to be your precious Boy Who Lived — even Jamie would have drawn the line before letting you turn his son into a bloody celebrity for– for what? Because Lily saved his life with some esoteric ritual? In that case you can go ahead and lionise half the fucking Order! And Lily would have killed you as well as Lord Snakefucker—" (Little Bella giggled at the name.) "—before she'd let you turn her or her son into a bloody mascot for Light Unity."
That annoyed him. Probably because he knew it was true. "Lord Black," he said coldly, "while I understand that certain Magical British traditions may give your rights as Harry's godfather precedence over all others, and you certainly have a right to challenge my custody, you have no right to abduct him in defiance of the Wizengamot order remanding him into my care in Nineteen Eighty-One."
"Well if you'd actually taken care of him and not just—"
"Point of order," Bellatrix interrupted (cutting him off with that fucking silencing jinx, again, but it was probably better if he didn't start shouting obsenities at Dumbledore anyway, the second it took for him to break it gave him time to remember that.) "Sirius isn't Lord Black. I'm the Acting Head of the House—"
"Unofficial Acting Head," the Chief Warlock corrected her. "You are only fourteen, Miss Black."
Sirius let out an unamused bark of laughter. "You signed her petition for my trial, and it's not as though there's anyone else to file a counter-claim, so until I'm cleared, she's the de facto representative of the House as recognized by the Wizengamot, regardless of her age."
Dumbledore glared at him, as though Sirius was taking sides, here. He wasn't, it was massively irritating that Little Bella was the Head of the House (even if he didn't much want the job himself), but he couldn't deny that it was true. It was an obscure technicality, but from what Andromeda had told him, if the Chief Warlock recognised an official petition presented by an self-proclaimed Acting Head of a Noble House on behalf of a subordinate member of the House, in the absence of a recognised representative from that house to hold their Seat or countersuit from another claimant to the title, the Wizengamot was obliged to officially recognize the Acting Head as countersigned, regardless of the age, species, or magical status as the claimant. There was precedent.
(She had been almost unbearably smug when she'd explained it to him. So smug it had come across in her bloody letter, her delight at having slipped one past the Old Goat and his staff.)
Technically, Little Bella didn't even need him to be the legal Head of the House, now, she could just keep on as the Acting Head indefinitely and do whatever she wanted with the full political authority of the House behind her. Well, until someone realised they could amend that law to include a minimum age — it probably wouldn't be that difficult to get enough votes to kick Little Bella out of the Wizengamot. She was very aggravating. He gave it maybe six months before everyone remembered why they'd been all too happy to let the House of Black die in Eighty-One.
"My dear boy, you can't truly mean to support her claim."
"It doesn't really matter if he supports it or not, at this point he's persona non grata, and it is legal. Meda may not be a Black anymore, but she's very good at what she does. But speaking of being fourteen, Harry is too, which means he's old enough to have opinions now. He did leave voluntarily, I wouldn't have forced him. If Siri tells you where he is and you drag him back to Britain, and we bring a case against you, I'm pretty sure he'd choose to stay with us rather than his awful muggles. And publicly being rejected by your little National Treasure would look even worse than that little misunderstanding about his supposed death."
The temperature in the room rose a few degrees with the heat of the old wizard's anger. Bellatrix shivered under the sudden flare of light magic responsible, her glare nearly as fierce as his. Which, well, Lily had claimed Bella was a black mage, he wouldn't be surprised if the little version of her was, too. Dumbledore's little display of power probably hurt. Not that Sirius was about to tell him to tone it down, she was the one trying to make a power play as "the Acting Head of the House", she could deal with it herself if it bothered her that badly. Though he was pretty sure she knew better than to get into a magical pissing match with someone as obviously powerful as Dumbledore. The older Bellatrix might stand a chance at forcing him to back down (maybe), but the little one hadn't quite grown into her power, yet.
"Yes," Dumbledore said, "regarding that little misunderstanding — tell me, Miss Black, if you simply intended to take Harry on holiday, why go to the trouble of sabotaging my monitoring charms? What message were you and your...handlers attempting to communicate?"
"Er...handlers?" Little Bella blinked at him in what Sirius was certain was genuine confusion.
"Surely you don't expect me to believe that you have been working alone — or, as Miss Granger has suggested, that some ancient ward or another just so happened to block those spells."
"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, Your Excellency."
Dumbledore's voice grew as clipped and sharp as his glare. "I refer, Miss Black, to the person or persons who raised you. Who trained you to the position you have so capably stepped into this past year. Who have been facilitating your acquisition of restricted reading materials and who deliberately designed a ward to give me the impression that Harry had died. Who accompanied Harry to the point from which he disappeared, after your path and his diverged. And what precisely they intended to accomplish in misleading me in such a way."
Sirius thought he caught a faint smile tugging at the corner of Bella's lips, but she quickly suppressed it, meeting Dumbledore's eyes with a coolly unimpressed expression. "The person or persons who raised me are dead, Your Excellency. Their identity is of no concern to you, or anyone, really. I've been officially recognised and registered as a Daughter of the House of Black, which is all anyone outside the House needs to know. And I don't exactly need someone to help me get books from my own bloody library. Well, unless you mean the house elf I ordered to fetch them. As far as I know, no one else was involved in Harry's escape, but then, I was obliviated. And your question doesn't even make sense, if someone did intentionally mislead you into believing Harry was dead, which, I haven't heard any evidence that they did, I'm guessing they...wanted you to think he was dead?"
Sirius couldn't help a snort of laughter at her tone of complete incomprehension at the last bit, especially since he was certain that she was implying that whatever political mess she'd caused was exactly what she'd meant to do. His amusement drew Dumbledore's attention back to him, his face a mask of stark disapproval.
Sirius flinched — disappointing Dumbledore usually meant he'd put people he cared about in danger. Well, sometimes it meant that he'd defended them a little too viciously — Dumbledore didn't like it when Order members killed Death Eaters, didn't want to escalate the conflict too far, seeing as they were outnumbered about twenty to one, as though the Death Eaters wouldn't already have killed every one of them, given the opportunity — but he hadn't really fought anyone for about thirteen years, so.
"Perhaps, Sirius, you fail to grasp the importance of Harry being returned to my custody for the same reason he was allowed to leave the castle unsupervised in the first place — the Black properties may be well-warded, but they would hardly keep out one of their own."
He was fairly certain that was intended to be cryptic and ominous, something to make Sirius say, what do you mean, but there were only three Blacks left, and two of them were sitting in this room, so it wasn't hard to figure out the implication at all.
"You mean...Bellatrix isn't dead?" he exclaimed, putting on what he thought was an appropriate degree of false shock and horror before reverting to more normal tones. "I already knew that." Her death had been announced in Tuesday's papers — Mirabella Zabini had told him when she and the boys had arrived — but he hadn't believed it for a second.
"You knew."
Sirius rolled his eyes at the old man's obvious suspicion. What, did he think Sirius had helped her escape? He didn't even know where they'd taken her, though if she had been in hospital, she couldn't have still been on Azkaban, they didn't have a healer there at all. "Quite frankly I'm surprised you expected anyone to believe the Unspeakables could have killed her, but yes, the Family Magic would have alerted us if she had died."
Well, it might tell Little Bella, at least. It should, but Sirius didn't really know what it could do anymore, since it was well and truly broken. But it didn't really matter. After some of the shite he'd seen her pull in the war, he wasn't sure he'd believe Bella was dead even if he saw her hit with a fucking Avada. Some people, you really wanted a necromancer to confirm their souls had left the mortal plane.
Little Bella nodded. "It would've been better to say she just died of whatever happened to put her in hospital in the first place than to say it was an escape attempt that went wrong," she noted. "Though you'd still have the problem of what to tell everyone when it turns out she's not dead either, because you can't possibly believe she's going to stay in hiding forever."
It sounded to Sirius like she was trying not to laugh. Which, well, now that she pointed out that Dumbledore seemed to be making a habit of announcing false deaths, he was trying not to laugh, too. Little Bella was much funnier than the other one. Which was kind of weird since he was pretty sure she was actually a blood alchemy copy of the original. He would have expected their sense of humor to be similar.
(It had only taken him a few conversations with her to decide the blood alchemy theory made much more sense than the older one escaping and de-aging herself and worming her way into Gryffindor for reasons unknown, even if the little one hadn't admitted it yet. It was possible she didn't even know, but he doubted it, the resemblance was impossible to miss.)
He cleared his throat, trying to focus on the conversation at hand. "If Bellatrix left Azkaban, it stands to reason that she's not waiting for her precious Master to come back for her anymore, and if she's not doing what she thinks he would want her to do, there's really no reason to think she'd be after Harry. But even if she was, that's all the more reason to keep him on the move, in disguise, rather than leaving him sitting in Little Whinging, completely vulnerable," Sirius insisted. That was, in fact, probably the best defense any of them had against Bellatrix, if she decided she wanted to kill them (though Mirabella didn't seem to think she would, and she did know his crazy cousin better than anyone). "That's what any Auror would tell you," he added, on a sudden stroke of inspiration. "You can ask Moody if you don't believe me." The paranoid old Auror had been Sirius's mentor, once upon a time, he was fairly certain he'd agree with Sirius's reasoning here.
For a moment, he thought Dumbledore was going to lose his temper, threaten to get a Wizengamot order to hand Harry over or something, but when he spoke, it was in that familiar, grandfatherly tone of disappointment, shaking his head ever so slightly. "It pains me, Sirius, to see you fall so far from the Light. I blame myself, of course — all those years, it's hardly any wonder you cannot bring yourself to trust my judgment any longer. But you have, you realise, confessed that you know the whereabouts of a minor who has been, to the best knowledge of the Aurors, abducted by persons unknown. Surely you can see that it would be in everyone's best interests if you return him to Britain to prove that he was not taken against his will, and, if you no longer trust me, consult with the Aurory to arrange his protection—"
Bellatrix sighed loudly, interrupting what admittedly sounded like a reasonable compromise — Sirius was positive that the Aurors would agree that travelling anonymously was far safer for Harry than remaining anywhere in Britain, and it wouldn't really hurt to let him go back long enough to just make a statement — to say, "I'm going to stop you right there, Your Excellency."
"What is it, Miss Black?" Dumbledore asked patiently, clearly trying to be the adult in the situation, Sirius thought.
"It may be in your best interests to bring Harry back to Britain, prove to everyone he's still alive, salvage morale even if you still look like a bloody idiot for telling everyone he was dead in the first place — I'm sure you'll find a way to work in the Boy Who Lived thing, make it seem like he cheated death again or some such rubbish. But it's not in Harry's. As soon as he's back on British soil, he's legally under your so-called protection, he has no recourse if you decide that it really is safest for him to stay with those fucking muggles, despite the fact that he's recieved official correspondence from the Ministry there, which means his residency information is on file somewhere, and therefore vulnerable. All the consultations in the world will be for nothing if you refuse to allow the Aurors to implement whatever plan they come up with. And we have no reason to trust you won't do exactly that, given your historical lack of concern for the safety of children in general, and for Harry's upbringing in particular. No. I'll tell you what I told Hermione: I'm taking my baby cousin on holiday, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Including you, Your Excellency."
Sirius found himself laughing rather nervously. Dumbledore clearly had no idea what to say to that invitation. After a moment, however, he decided on an avenue of attack. "Regardless of your opinion on the matter of Harry's safety, Miss Black — a subject which is not your concern, but that of wizards much older and wiser than yourself — the law is on my side. Even if Harry is currently beyond the boundaries of my custody — though that is a matter which I think you will find is open to debate — the fact that you removed him from Britain without my knowledge or permission in the first place is itself a very serious crime, in addition to the property damages caused enacting your plan. I think that, upon a brief consideration, you will find that your interests are also served by returning him to me immediately, whereupon I will have far less incentive to prosecute these crimes. And as you insist upon being recognised as the Acting Head of your House, Miss Black, you must realise that all responsibility for Harry's abduction will fall on you, unless you give up those who are truly responsible."
Bellatrix grinned. "Go fuck yourself, Your Excellency."
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed, as though he couldn't believe he'd heard her correctly. Sirius, his eyes flicking from the furious old man to the tiny, unrepentant sociopath and back, felt the nearly overwhelming urge to pop into Padfoot's form and go hide under a desk somewhere. "Uh, Bella...maybe we should just—"
"No, Siri. I'm calling his bluff. If he wants to see what will happen if he blows this up into a huge fucking trial, I'm game. I'll get an order to compel Harry's muggles to testify as to the quality of his homelife. It wasn't exactly growing up in the House of Black, but still not the sort of thing normal people would condone. I'll call witnesses to describe the egregious lack of concern for student safety at Hogwarts — he's lucky no one died with a fucking basilisk on the loose for what, eight months? I'll put Harry himself in the fucking chair and question him about the House of Potter and his knowledge of Magical Britain beyond Hogwarts. Which is nothing, by the way.
"Even the most fanatical of the Old Goat's followers among the noble houses will consider exiling one of their own, the last of his House, to be raised in complete ignorance on the word of a jumped-up commoner who hasn't the slightest idea the import of his actions for the future of said noble house, to be a crime in and of itself. I believe I already mentioned that Harry will choose us over those fucking muggles. He might not want them dead, but he certainly doesn't want to live with them, either, and I will make sure that he's well aware whose idea it was to turn the first holiday he's ever taken into a matter of national-level, policy-setting scandal. Not to mention, Dumbledore's credibility is already shot, what with announcing Harry's death and then almost immediately retracting said announcement — doesn't matter whether Harry's alive or not, either way he was wrong, and very publicly so — how do you think it will look that he took so little care of the Boy Who Lived that he either died or managed to fall into a situation where he could have died? Well, again, I mean, he was bitten by the basilisk, playing the hero because no one else was apparently up to the task. And his so-called guardian doesn't even know which one it is.
"Of course, it will look even worse if, oh, I don't know, it's discovered at some point in the course of the investigation that the House of Black did inform the Chief Warlock of our plans to take Harry out of the country for the summer, given that he is the boy's official guardian. Pity he's too overworked to get through his bloody inbox in a timely manner, but hey, we did inform him that if he did not address our petition, we would assume he had no issue with it and proceed accordingly." She gave Sirius a grin which reminded him altogether too much of the older Bellatrix about to strike a killing blow before turning to the now white-faced Headmaster with a very challenging glare. "I believe I also mentioned that Meda is very good at what she does. So. If you want to bring this to the Wizengamot floor, Your Excellency, go right ahead. Honestly, I can't think of a better way to announce that the House of Black is back than ousting the Chief Warlock in an Icarian trial."
Right, maybe Dumbledore had had a point about not escalating things, back in the Seventies. Pity he didn't seem to realise he was picking a fight with the same person now. And even more unfortunately, she was right. Regardless of whether she'd meant for this to happen, unless he was very lucky, Dumbledore's political career was over.
(And from what Andromeda had told him about Narcissa and the Allied Dark, Dumbledore wasn't going to be that lucky. Sirius would like to say he couldn't believe that bitch still held any power after Mouldyshorts' fall, but she'd managed to come out of the whole thing with even more influence than she had before her husband was outed as a Death Eater, and he wasn't even a little surprised.)
Sirius could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen Dumbledore look quite this angry — it wasn't often that anyone refused to defer to his authority, and he was openly threatened even more rarely. Light power rolled off him in agitated waves, causing Bellatrix to scowl at him and...Sirius wasn't really sure what she was doing, some sort of freeform spell, maybe? The ambient magic between them twisted, not tainted dark to push back against the light magic, just...somehow forcing it to part around her, like a rock in a stream. It was surprisingly subtle for her — Sirius didn't think Dumbledore had actually noticed.
After a moment he recovered sufficiently to...quote the Hogwarts motto at her? "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus, Miss Black."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, if we're just throwing around vaguely threatening bits of Latin, I always liked 'Et consumimus aliquem ut nos devincant.'"
And we will consume any who might subdue us?...That was not a motto of the House of Black. Sirius thought it might actually be a line from a poem, though he couldn't place it.
Dumbledore ignored her quotation in favor of elaborating on his threat, as though Bella couldn't possibly have understood it to have responded as she did. (Sirius was certain she had, she just didn't care.) "You may currently represent your House, Miss Black, but you are also a student of Hogwarts. It would be extremely...ill-advised for you to continue to defy me in this matter."
"You can expel me if you want, but I'm not dragging Harry back to Britain for you, and if you recall from our conversation back in November, you do have reasons to keep me around. And it should go without saying that if you press charges over that little indiscretion, the trial will almost certainly reveal all the other 'little problems' you've kept in-house over the past few years, which will in turn almost certainly result in your being removed as Headmaster. So I'm going to stick with go fuck yourself."
Sirius interrupted before Dumbledore could respond to that argument, projecting as much calm as he could in an effort to defuse the situation. "You're not going to win this one, Albus." The Chief Warlock's furious glare shifted to him. Sirius quashed the urge to tuck his tail between his legs and shut the hell up, keeping his voice even and his face carefully blank. "You have no political leverage that Bella can't counter, she doesn't recognise your moral authority, and doing whatever the fuck we please with no consideration of opposing social interests is practically a family tradition. And to be perfectly honest, I actually do support her on this one." Dumbledore opened his mouth to say something, but Sirius talked over him. "You fucked up announcing Harry's death. Even if we brought him back today, it wouldn't save your political career, and it's not like the penalty for taking him away in the first place is going to get worse if we wait to bring him back after our vacation." ("Excellent point, Siri!") "And if Bella really did inform you ahead of time, you have no grounds for a legal complaint. So you might as well just go, you're never going to convince us to give him up."
Little Bella beamed at him.
Dumbledore just stared, as though he didn't recognise the man sitting before him. All the anger seemed to go out of him in a rush, leaving only defeat. "You truly are not the man I once thought you were, Sirius," he said, sounding, if possible, even more disappointed than he had earlier. "The man I thought you could become."
Yeah, well, the man he'd thought Sirius could become had had direction, a purpose in life. He hadn't lost everything — everyone — who mattered. Hadn't spent twelve years in the company of dementors, stewing in his guilt, remembering every terrible choice he'd ever made. Hadn't been forced to face the fact that as much as he might have wanted to be that man — the man James had always seen in him — he just wasn't.
He never had been.
"James is dead, Dumbledore. And if I was ever going to become that man, it wasn't going to be for you. I'll show you out."
Dekatria — a thirteen-year span of time, kind of like a decade, but with more magical significance.
An Icarian trial — a trial wherein the injured party not only fails to win the case they brought to the Wizengamot for mediation, but actually implicates themselves for other crimes, resulting in their own conviction
Et consumimus aliquem ut nos devincant — IRL, this is a re-translation of the Addams family motto (Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc). In universe, it's a line from a poem by Aradia Montreve.
This scene was supposed to be much shorter and funnier, with Dumbledore telling Siri and Lyra that Bella was dead, and neither of them believing him, going off on a tangent about the Death division in the DOM and what the hell they actually do if not necromancy, just to demonstrate the similarity in their personalities. And then I realised that Dumbledore would have more important things to ask them about, like what the fuck they did with Harry, and who Lyra's mysterious backers are.
—Leigha
