In hindsight, it seems obvious at this point that my return to the fold was inevitable, Light dedication or no, but at the time, that question was far from obviously decided. I certainly didn't consider myself to have turned my back on the Light — I would have said that my arguments for the Dark and their policies and positions were simply me playing Devil's Advocate, and in some cases even a direct consequence of trying to live according to the moral code and priorities the Light (James) professed to hold.

Especially when it came to Starlight.

It was fine for the Dark, who openly proclaim their selfishness and value, or at least don't denigrate, the idea that an upper class should exist (so long as the lower classes' needs are sufficiently met — wouldn't want a revolt on our hands, would we?), to ignore their plight, or at least not inconsistent. But for the Light, with their claims that all people ought to have certain rights and be respected as people, simply for existing, that an accident of birth doesn't make one person more deserving of wealth and power than another, it seemed that as a simple extension of their philosophy they shouldn't want Starlight to be confined to the outskirts of polite society. (Of course, they really meant all humans ought to be in the upper class, or at least not in the lowest class, and for that they needed an out-group, but I wasn't quite so cynical about their perspective, then.)

How could they see upyri children starving in the streets, or werewolves disfigured by scars from confining themselves on the moon to protect humans from themselves, and not recognise that their problems, the reasons they were barred from decent jobs, from public services and places, were entirely outside of their control? Wilderfolk don't choose their parents any more than muggleborns. How could anyone speak to them, witness their suffering, and yet refuse to admit that they were people? (The cynical answer being that to see a problem you have to actually look at it — most daylighters, Light or Dark, never did speak to Starlighters, if they could help it.)

If I challenged their principles and policies, it wasn't out of any sort of malice, or desire to convert them to the Dark perspective. I did still desperately want them — James, Dorea, even Dumbledore himself — to have some explanation, some justification for their apparent inconsistency. I wanted to be convinced that the people I had come to see as the good guys were good all around, that I could support them without feeling guilty for abandoning the Starlighters who I'd come to know over the summer (which was, as I understood it, the litmus test for is this a good person thing to do?).

Even in arguing for a peaceful surrender and resolution to the conflict, I would say I was simply being realistic, reading the writing on the wall and attempting to save as many lives as possible, on both sides — another principle which I was under the impression the Light considered A Good Thing.

I should have known when James resorted to shoving me at the Samhain feast, rather than continuing to argue for his side, that they were never going to convince me that they weren't completely full of shite. And if that didn't give it away, the fact that I suddenly found myself on speaking terms with Reggie and Narcissa again should have. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't change the fact that I'd been raised Dark, or that I never did belong with the Light.

Aster didn't know whether Dorea had told Jamie she was being perfectly reasonable making him swear not to report Evans or not, but he did seem to be more himself again by the time they reported for their detention that evening. Lines, bleh. Minnie couldn't possibly think that making her copy the sentence I must not make suggestive comments toward my Head of House two-hundred times would actually stop her from making suggestive comments, could she?

Jamie's sentence was shorter — I must follow professors' instructions — so he finished almost half an hour before she did. She was about to follow him up to the Tower and see if she could coax him into a calmer, less dramatic conversation, when someone used shadow-magic to whisper in her ear. "Hey, Trixie, family meeting. Small Receiving Hall in five minutes. If you don't show up, Cissy says she'll find an excuse to challenge you to an honour duel and kick your arse in front of the entire school."

She scowled around the apparently empty corridor for a moment, trying to locate her twat of a brother. Not seeing him, she just announced to no one in particular, "It's not even curfew, yet, you overly-dramatic ponce!" She resisted the urge to say don't call me Trixie, because saying exactly the same thing Bella would wasn't exactly likely to discourage him.

Really, there was no reason to go to that much trouble to be all sneaky. It wasn't like she'd be able to blow him off any more if he'd asked her outright. Much as she wanted to say piss off and go find James, if Reg and Cissy were actually threatening physical harm to her in order to get her to talk to them, whatever this was was probably important. If she had to guess, she'd say it was probably about Evans, and therefore not so urgent they couldn't have written her a bloody letter, but she had burnt Reggie's last letter with an entirely appropriate degree of drama and fanfare when it arrived with the morning post back in...September, so... She sighed. Fine, whatever.

Also, fuck, September seemed like forever ago...

She hadn't really been expecting to find Snape lurking in the little annex off the Entrance Hall along with her brother and least favourite cousin, but she couldn't really say she was surprised either. "Reggie, Cissy, Snape. I presume this is about Evans?"

Cissy smirked at her. "Partially. Though before we get to that, what on Earth did you do to Potter?"

"...What? I mean, I made him promise not to report Evans as a black mage, but why do you care?"

"Ah, that explains it. Dorea apparently floo'd Slughorn to ask him to ask me to keep an eye on you, because apparently you did or said something disturbing to dear Cousin Jamie."

...Which meant that James had to have floo'd Dorea, rather than actually take the time to write and send a letter, and either he hadn't actually told her what Aster had said or Dorea had decided that Jamie freaking out and not believing her about Bella meant he probably couldn't be counted on to keep her in check if she really did start slipping back into Madness. Which...she was fine with that, actually, Jamie shouldn't have to be her bloody minder.

"And what exactly are you supposed to do about that?"

The blonde bitch giggled. "Well, I'm supposed to subdue you if you become a danger to yourself or others and call Dorea — though I'm not at all certain what she thinks she'd be able to do with you. I presume she's nearly as ill-equipped to deal with the Madness as anyone else outside the House." Aster groaned. "Don't worry, I'll call Bella first, you know she'd be annoyed if I gave you to Dorea and she ended up having to break you out of Janus Thickey or something."

There was something especially annoying about her usual patronising tone, today. Might've been the I'll. As in, when you lose your fucking mind again, not if. "Go die in a fire, Cissy."

"Love you, too, baby cousin."

"He did swear it, though?" Snape asked, sounding unaccountably alarmed — as though he hadn't considered that maybe it might be an issue, Jamie knowing that Evans was a bloody necromancer. (Which was...fair, Aster honestly hadn't either, before this morning's conversation.)

"Yes. After I threatened to knock him out and drag him to de Mort to be obliviated if he didn't."

The greaseball gave him a sardonic smirk that didn't quite manage to hide his relief. "I'm sure Lily will be positively touched."

"I didn't do it for her, I did it because if James gets her arrested and slapped with a fucking death sentence Bella will kill him." She turned back to Narcissa. "Why are we having a secret family meeting, and why is Snape here?"

"We're having a family meeting because Reggie wants to know what the appropriate degree of grovelling is to offer the newly-discovered Miss de Mort, I want to know how the hell this even happened, and Snape is here because he seems to think that Bella adopted Evans last night. While she was Persephone. And you're here because rumour has it you spent the better part of yesterday afternoon with Evans, Bella, and de Mort, so you presumably have some idea what's going on. And if Bella did adopt her, you need to know as much as we do — you are still a Black, in case you've forgotten."

She hadn't. "Fine. Why, exactly, do we think Bella adopted Evans? I mean, she did offer, but I didn't think Evans had accepted yet, and I'm pretty sure she didn't have time to talk to Uncle, so unless she's actually planning on challenging his leadership of the House — and she hasn't mentioned anything about that—" It was really fucking weird to be in a position to expect that Bella would share her plans with her, Aster reflected. "—I'm pretty sure she didn't actually adopt her."

She wasn't even sure she could, actually. Obviously the House would recognise it if she did, but Evans wasn't of age to consent to a legal adoption, as in one the Ministry would recognise.

Snape shrugged. "All I know is Lady Black said something about extending legal protection to her idiot daughter and started sketching runes on her forehead in blood. There was some Latin — don't ask me what, I wasn't about to go trying to get into any of their heads to eavesdrop — and a flash of magic, and then Persephone just...skipped off with Lily's body. I haven't been able to talk to her yet."

"She was still pretty fae and out of it this afternoon, so I told her to stay away from people for a while. She's probably been out in the Forest with Cassie or something. And you should definitely have tried eavesdropping on de Mort — he does it to everyone else, just seems fair." Snape gave her a flat, are you fucking stupid look. (Yes, she knew that de Mort was probably even more terrifying for mind mages than normal people, but he probably wouldn't have minded...which was just as annoying as his eavesdropping habit in its own way.) "But I don't think that sounds like a proper adoption?" By which she meant she was absolutely positive that it wasn't. She wasn't actually terribly familiar with standard adoption rituals, but even for the most superficial, least-involved, she'd think... "I mean, I'm pretty sure the adoptee has to consent, at the very least. And if she was possessed I don't think that counts."

"This is Bella we're talking about," Reggie said, his tone all dry and sardonic. "She'd probably insist they do a full blood adoption."

Well, that was a point. Aster snorted. That one she was familiar with. The House hadn't really adopted people for the last century or so, but back when they had, that was how they'd done it. That was actually why she wasn't familiar with standard, magic-only adoptions — in the highly unlikely event she would have had to preside over an adoption as the Head of the House (if she hadn't been disinherited), it wouldn't be some weak-arsed outsider adoption. Obviously Bella would agree. "And she'd have to get Uncle to agree to that ahead of time. Unless she popped over to the Keep while we were at dinner and convinced him to give her a blood sample..."

"She would have needed one of us, too," Cissy reminded them. "And even if she had adopted Evans, it wouldn't have given her legal protection — the Ministry wouldn't consider it legitimate. That sounds more like just claiming her as a ward of the House."

Snape stared blankly at her. "Which means...what, exactly?"

The cousins shared an exchange of glances. Aster shrugged. Her understanding of wardship was that it was kind of like a temporary, name-only adoption. Wards weren't part of the Family Magic, or at least not by default, and it only lasted until they came of age. She sighed. She should probably look this shite up, since it was apparently relevant now... (It was some small consolation that Cissy didn't seem to know exactly what it meant either — if she did, she would have answered already.)

"Whatever Bella wants it to mean, basically. It's a way of laying claim to and establishing guardianship over unattached children. Mostly muggleborns without a proper guardian, though if I'd actually been disowned Dorea could've made me a ward of the Potters. It's kind of a stop-gap measure, something to give them some legal standing until they're old enough to consent to an adoption or a patronage agreement. Mostly they're just treated like a child of the House, so Bella can offer her legal protection...or physical protection, if it comes down to it."

"Uncle still has to approve it, though," Reg added.

"Do you really think he would tell Bella no?" Cissy scoffed.

"I think you mean does anyone think Pater would survive telling Bella no," Aster corrected her.

The blonde shrugged, nodded. "I could see Dumbledore challenging her claim first."

Snape raised an eyebrow in silent question.

"Well, you can't just have Houses going around snatching up children willy-nilly. What if they didn't want to be snatched, or there's a House with a better claim on them? So pretty much anyone can contest a wardship, if they want to." If they couldn't, Bella could just go around kidnapping muggleborn children and claiming them for the House of Black instead of killing them.

...Which might actually be an improvement, though Arcturus would never agree to it.

"Yes, but Miss de Mort—" ("Evans," Aster corrected her brother.) "—is old enough her opinion would have to be taken into account, right? And somehow I don't see her choosing to leave the House, so..."

Cissy smirked at him, clicking her tongue. "So young, so innocent..." Reggie glared at her. "I'm just saying, if you think the Old Goat couldn't come up with some way to invalidate her testimony, that's just painfully naïve of you. After all, this poor, ignorant muggleborn couldn't possibly know what she's getting into, she's clearly been misled if she thinks the Dark has the best interests of people like her at heart."

"I'm sure that would go over well. No, muggleborns who make a point of seeking out real Magic are perfectly acceptable, Daddy said so in his manifesto, even — speaking of which, which of you fuckers is going to share their copy?"

"Why? Had a sudden change of heart?" Cissy asked lightly. "You couldn't have decided to come around, oh, I don't know, before breaking the bloody Covenant?!"

"No, it just occurred to me that it would be a lot easier to convince Dumbledore to consider actually negotiating a truce with them if I could beat him over the head with something that sounded vaguely reasonable, rather than just telling him Bella promises to stop slaughtering muggle children in primary schools if he lets them have the Isle of Man. Especially since she hasn't promised any such thing."

"Dark Powers preserve us," Reggie muttered. "Trixie is going to be our ambassador? We're so fucked..."

Aster flipped him the deuce. "I'm not an ambassador, and I'm not on your side, either. I'm just...relaying intelligence gathered from behind enemy lines, and arguing that we call for a strategic cease-fire in order to discuss a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, in the interests of preserving life on both sides."

Reg smirked. "Fancy fucking way to admit the Light's already lost, but okay."

Well, yes. What of it? "Piss off."

"Lily has our copy," Snape volunteered, steering the conversation away from pointless bickering. "Presumably it's in your bloody dorm room somewhere, if you'd actually bothered to look."

Did you know I didn't actually look, or are you just guessing? He didn't react even a little bit, and she couldn't really feel him eavesdropping, so probably the latter.

"Speaking of which, and returning to the subject at hand, what the hell happened yesterday, Black? I leave you alone with Lily for one afternoon, and when I catch up with you she's snuggling up to the Dark Lord and stealing you from Potter? Lady Black and the bloody Dark Lord are openly claiming her as their daughter? She's giving up even attempting to pretend to be normal, because reasons? Has the entire bloody world gone mad?"

"Er...no? Also, Bella's Lady Bellatrix. Calling her Lady Black either implies she's Arcturus's wife, or that you think she is or should be the Head of the House — which you don't get to have an opinion about."

Snape raised an eyebrow like really, that's what you're focusing on, here?!

"Why do you think Cissy and I haven't corrected him?" Reggie asked.

Oh. Maybe that was raising an eyebrow like do you think I don't know that? then.

"If Bella wanted to be Lady Black, she would have challenged Pater when she was my age." When she'd saved Aster's life, and basically told Arcturus that if he wasn't going to do his job she would. She just didn't want to. Probably because it was a lot harder to be a Dark Lady when you had responsibilities to the House. "It doesn't matter if you get all of bloody Slytherin to start acting like she's already our Lady, she doesn't want the job." Also, she was sworn to de Mort, kind of made her a bad candidate, since the Lord's first priority had to be the House, not her own Lord.

Reggie knew that, too. He just pouted at her.

"Anyway, no, the entire bloody world hasn't gone mad...any more than usual, at least. I wrote Bella last weekend about the Death Eater Rape Baby Theory, because Evans is really uncannily like de Mort, I can't believe it took me this long to notice, and apparently they did some ritual where he raped her mum and they left her to die — she didn't, obviously — and Bella thought she should come find out if I'd completely lost the plot, which apparently means kidnapping us to a Mafia pizzeria. I think she thinks your beloved pointy blond ponce is a bit dull, Cissy." Cissy glared at her, but didn't disagree. Aster was pretty sure Cissy found Lucius Malfoy to be a bit dull, but he was a good match, politically speaking — and being Lady Malfoy in two years, controlling their Seat and all, more than made up for his being a boring twat. "Also, I wasn't the only one who saw the resemblance, Cian met her over the summer and he said something—"

"Wait, Cian actually talked to her?"

Aster snorted at Cissy's completely reasonable surprise. Cian was one of the least sociable Rosiers. He always ended up in the library at any social function, and generally didn't say much of anything to anyone at all. "At the Bookshop, about Bella's Arithmancy essays. Doesn't count as actual social interaction. But he asked Bella if de Mort had a kid too, so she thought maybe she should look into it. And since it's patently obvious that they're related — Evans's response to what would you say if I told you we raped and tortured your mum was what's in it for me, which is possibly the most de Mort thing anyone's ever said, ever — she summoned the snakey bastard to share in the joy of discovering his long lost child. And Evans being Evans and de Mort being de Mort, they obviously hit it off, and the three of them spent all afternoon talking about nerdy Arithmancy shite and whether it's a more realistic goal to build a floating island or an underwater bubble-dome thing. Also, speaking Snakish just to be annoying. I'd be more surprised if they hadn't decided they wanted to keep her.

"What were the other things, again?"

Snape's glower, which had lightened somewhat at her comment about the Parseltongue, returned in full force. "Her giving up on the Great Charade, and deciding to steal you from Potter— Did I miss something, yesterday? Because I wasn't aware that self-righteous moron had done anything so fundamentally offensive as to justify completely subverting you. And what the hell was going on with Dumbledore? I'd've come over to see for myself, but I'm not an idiot Gryffindor with a death wish, so."

The Great Charade? Aster rolled her eyes — people said she was overly dramatic... "Well, you see, if you have the fucking Dark Lord, Bellatrix, and Death Itself telling Dumbledore to piss off on your behalf, you're not really obligated to pretend not to be entirely mad. She threatened to completely obliterate him if he threatens any of us — Bella, not Evans — so that's a thing, and honestly if it were me, I'd think that'd be enough to back the fuck down. That wasn't what had Dumbles so freaked out, though — Kore hijacked Evans to guilt-trip him about his sister's death and dismissed him as his mum."

Reggie let out an incredulous ha. "She— Really?"

"I couldn't make this shite up, Reg."

"And stealing you from Potter?" Narcissa asked, all stern and disapproving. Which was kind of weird, she didn't like Jamie any more than Bella did. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

"I don't know, what do you think it means?" Aster said, trying not to sound cagey.

"I'm hoping it doesn't mean you're going to do something completely stupid like swear fealty to her, but I can't help seeing certain parallels here, Trixie..."

Aster pouted at her. "Ha, bloody ha. Bella already made that joke. Though, I guess de Mort kind of got there first, naming me after her and all. Whatever. No, I'm not planning on abandoning Jamie for her. She just...doesn't think he treats me right."

"Bella said he made you cry," Reggie observed, sounding very hard like he was trying not to laugh. "I didn't even know you could cry, you know, for real. What are you, six? And what did he do?"

"Piss off, Reggie," she said shortly, glowering at him. There was no way in hell she was going to try to explain the whole take my word that taking my word is wrong thing, even if Reg and Cissy would probably get it better than Jamie had. "It's not important, I'm over it. And it's not Jamie's fault he doesn't— It's not important. Evans was misinterpreting our relationship, and therefore thought he should be more...accommodating of me being a crazy person than he is."

Cissy and Reg exchanged a loaded look. Snape's eyes, fixed on Aster's, narrowed, his face falling into a rather grimmer-than-usual frown. "She isn't misinterpreting your relationship. You follow Potter. He doesn't recognise that fact. He certainly doesn't appreciate it."

GET OUT OF MY HEAD, SNAPE! Snape didn't flinch. Maybe he'd just managed to put that much together observing them over the past few months. Bugger. (Also, if Snape got it, why the hell couldn't Jamie?!)

"He doesn't understand you, or even accept you. He's still hung up on his best mate Sirius going and turning himself into a girl. Lily, for some gods-unknown reason, finds this problematic. I'm aware of all that. What I want to know is why she's decided to intervene and stake a claim on you for herself, and what, precisely, she thinks that entails."

Aster glowered at him. "Yeah, well, go ask her, then, because I don't know. I would say she feels sorry for me, but we both know she's not capable, so. Is that it? Are we done, here?"

Cissy shook her head. "No, we still need to decide how we're going to approach Evans, given recent developments."

Aster groaned. "What is there to decide?"

"Oh, I don't know," Cissy paced between a pair of armchairs for a moment before turning back to Aster rather suddenly. "Do you think Bella's really going to adopt her?"

"Yes. Definitely. Well, assuming Evans wants it, and she's not a bloody idiot, so, yes."

"Okay, then do we treat her like a cousin? A niece? A sister? Someone has to make sure she actually understands what it means, being adopted, because you know Bella won't, and—"

"She doesn't even know what it means to be part of any House, let alone ours, yes, I'm aware. I've got it covered." She had been trained as the heir of the House, it wasn't like she didn't know that shite. "And...I don't know how we're supposed to act toward her. Second-marriage siblings, maybe?" Cissy frowned, probably because even if that did seem like about the right degree of familiarity, Bella wasn't actually their mother, and it wasn't as though Evans had been raised by de Mort anyway. (Generally, one would expect the children of a remarrying widow and widower to be of the same social class, at least. It didn't exactly happen often.) "Not like it really matters, though. She doesn't know enough to have any expectations. I don't think she'd expect you to treat her like Family, especially since she hasn't even been adopted yet, and I don't even know if she remembers Bella claiming her as a ward."

Cissy groaned. "I hate this," she whined. Not the idea of adopting Evans, Aster assumed — if Bella was going to go adopting anyone, Evans probably fit in with the House better than anyone else in the school they weren't already related to. Cissy just didn't like not knowing what to do or how to act in any given situation. "I wish Bella would just tell me when she's going to do something like this..."

Called it. "Come on, Cissy, you know that would completely interfere with the whole spirit of doing shite like adopting someone on a mad whim."

"Fuck you, Trixie."

"And make Reggie jealous? I couldn't."

"I refuse to dignify that with a response," Cissy snapped, all haughtily offended. Reggie just went slightly flushed, looking anywhere but at Cissy, clearly trying not to let on that he was embarrassed, even though he definitely was. They thought no one knew about their unconsummated mutual lust for each other, but they weren't that subtle.

"You know, if you asked Bella, she'd probably talk Uncle around for you. Being Lady Malfoy is all fine and dandy, but you could be Lady Black," Aster said, a gleeful smirk making it almost impossible to get the words out evenly. Cissy was trying to ignore her, but Aster knew her well enough to see she was actually considering it. Tee hee. "Plus, Reggie's much less boring than Lucy. I mean, he's still kind of boring, but—"

"Is Evans really angry with me?" a very red-faced Reggie asked Snape loudly, apparently attempting to drown out Aster's teasing and effectively changing the subject. "She knows trying to recruit you wasn't personal, right?" he added, a hint of uncertainty in his tone making him sound rather younger than he actually was (which was probably intentional).

Snape didn't buy it, either. He rolled his eyes. "You made it personal when you let Mulciber and Avery start threatening to hurt her in order to pressure me."

"Ian and Jules were threatening to hurt her for their own reasons — I just said I'd stop them, if you agreed to start coming to events with me."

"And I — quite reasonably, in my opinion — thought that was a load of hippogriff dung."

Reggie pouted in a way that said it probably was. Ian was a bit of an idiot, but not enough of one to think it was a good idea to escalate his feud with Evans while they were all still in school and she could appeal to the professors if he went too far. He'd probably been counting on never actually having to do whatever it was he'd been threatening to do, because he was a stupid coward like that.

Snape sighed. "No, she's not really angry with you, she's offended. You threatened her to get to me, made her a liability to me instead of my ally or protector, which I'm sure you can imagine is both an insult and a threat to her." Aster's brother winced, probably because when Snape put it in those terms, what he'd done was incredibly fucked up. "I doubt she believes you meant to threaten or undermine her authority over me. She knows you don't consider her to be an active player, let alone competition for my loyalty — which is insulting in its own right. But that doesn't change the fact that you did. And you did manipulate me into publicly renouncing her. Regardless of how superficial that renouncement might have been... Offended might not be strong enough a term."

Reggie winced again. "...She's going to kill me."

Not an unreasonable conclusion — if someone had done that to one of them, they would have been expected to fucking destroy them, for the sake of their reputation as a House. Evans didn't really have a reputation to uphold though. And she knew enough about the internal politics of Slytherin House to know there was more to the attempt to recruit Snape than just Reggie targeting him. Since Snape was clearly still on relatively good terms with Reggie — and it wasn't like anyone would dare try to follow his example now, regardless of whether she made an example of him — she'd probably let it go relatively easily.

"Not literally," Aster volunteered, rolling her eyes at her brother's concern. "De Mort told her about the List. And even if she does have some natural talent for ruining everything forever, I don't think she has much experience intentionally torturing people. You'll be fine, you big baby."

Snape looked very much like he was trying not to smirk at that. "Just apologise, Regulus. Offer to make it up to her. She might make you do something humiliating, but it's not like it'll ruin your reputation in Slytherin kowtowing to the bloody Dark Lord's daughter — anyone with half a brain would do the same."

"Do you really think she wants to make a point of positioning herself above Reggie in the baby Death Eater hierarchy?" Aster had to ask, because she...really didn't think Evans actually wanted people to see her as de Mort's daughter before anything else.

Bat-boy shrugged. "Putting herself in a position to tell them to piss off might be worth their inevitable fawning and favour-seeking. And if she's giving up on the Charade, her days of the Light thinking well of her are numbered anyway."

"She might re-think that, though, now that she's not halfway out to sea. Sabotaging herself with the Light really is a shite political move. If I were you, Reg, I'd apologise in private, and offer to make a limited public apology at a Slytherin House Council Meeting or something. You know, let her decide if she wants to keep up her reputation with the rest of the school, rather than abasing yourself in the middle of the Great Hall or some shite and outing her as fucking Asphodel de Mort to literally everyone." All three of the Slytherins blinked at her, as though she'd suddenly grown a second head. "What?!"

"I think you might've been missorted, Black," Snape said, trying not to snigger.

"The only reason she demanded to go to Gryffindor was to spite her parents," Narcissa informed him.

"And because I don't like being a sneaky, backstabbing, politicking arse."

Cissy smirked at her. "But you're so good at it!"

Yeah, well, she'd been good at dark magic, too. That didn't mean she'd enjoyed casting it. "Piss off."

"So, does this mean you're coming home, then?" Now it was Reggie's turn to be the centre of attention.

"What? Why would I...?"

He fidgeted a bit under her confused annoyance, actually uncertain rather than just pretending, she thought. Unless he'd realised that his tell was the way he shifted his balance to be ready to fight or flee when he thought he was about to piss off someone who might very well hex him for whatever idiocy came out of his mouth next, and was faking it to mess with her. (She didn't think he had.) "Well, Potter's obviously not okay with you being a girl, or insane, and you're clearly still talking to Bella — you're talking to us, and not being a complete arse about it. And you've been spending an awful lot of time with de Mort's daughter, so I just thought... Mother misses you, you know."

Well, she was fairly certain he hadn't been faking it right up to that last bit. That was just complete rubbish. "You mean, you miss me, because when I'm not there Walburga only has you to focus on."

Reggie scowled. "...Maybe. She has been a lot angrier since you left, though."

"Yeah, hate to break it to you, but she was always a fucking bitch, you just didn't notice because you were the good kid and she had me to use for target practice. I'm not coming back, Reg."

"Why not?" he moaned, sounding terribly inconvienced by her refusal to do something as simple and untaxing as just moving back in with a woman who hated her and made every moment of her existence a fucking misery. Selfish twat. "You know you don't belong with the Light!"

"That really doesn't matter. Walburga disowned me, Reg. She used the Cruciatus on me. She's not my mother anymore."

"Bella used the Cruciatus on you, and you still like her."

"Yeah, but I didn't like Walburga before she decided to start throwing around Unforgivables. And it's not just about that. It's not even mostly about that. She fucking tortured me for eight years, Reg. Eight years of never being good enough, of constant derision and scorn, unending attempts to guilt me into being the son she wanted me to be. Eight years of feeling my soul burn every time I cast a dark spell, every time she called me a liar and insisted I cast that shite anyway... Her casting the Cruciatus on me just says she's finally as done with me as I am with her.

"Even if I wanted to come back and try to make up for breaking the Covenant — which I don't — I wouldn't be going back to Grimmauld. That bridge is a smouldering wreck. If you really can't stand being alone with Walburga and Orion, go to Ancient House, or ask Pater if you can have the Hogsmeade cottage — maybe that'll finally drive it home to dear Wally that she's a fucking shite mum. But I'm not coming back."

Reggie matched her glare for all of two very tense seconds before muttering a sulky, "Fine."

"Fine. So, are we done now, then?" None of the Slytherins seemed to have anything to say for themselves, so after another tense second or two, she added, "Fucking fantastic," and stalked out without another word.

It's not exactly likely that Dumbledore would be able to paint Lily as mentally incompetent or even likely that he'd try, it's just more likely than Arcturus stopping Bella from doing any damn thing she pleases. (It's much more likely that he'd try to prove Bella's an unfit guardian, because the whole guardianship system doesn't work quite like Aster thinks it does.)