November passed into December and with it the student bodies attention seemed to turn towards growing excitement for the winter Holiday that was coming towards them.

The weeks leading to the break in schooling pass quickly. Ravenclaw beats Hufflepuff in their quidditch match. Defense returns to the normal practical studies that Lupin excelled in, the papers Snape had requested done discarded quickly it seemed though Atlas hadn't even bothered to write one himself. Atlas spends a few evenings over the passing weeks in the Defense room, perusing the bookshelves and occasionally relenting to Lupin's offering of a cup of tea during which he manages to get Atlas to discuss whatever it was he found interesting in the last book he'd borrowed.

And soon Hogsmeade came about, Atlas suffered through the crowded shops, and relished in a bit of release from the crowd by wandering the book shops stacks for a solid hour. And by the time he had finished he returned to the castle and rested before the journey back to London in the morning.

As the Hogwarts Express boarded many students were brimming with the excitement to return to families and enjoy the warmth of the holidays.

But holidays were not the relief and respite for Atlas in the way that they often were for the rest of the Hogwarts population. Many happily looking forward to weeks off of classes and schoolwork, time with family, and days spent doing what they pleased. Meanwhile Atlas had very little to look forward to regarding his few weeks off for winter holiday.

He had the large and empty Grimmauld Place to return to, which while he was a fan of the solitude he wasn't quite as much a fan of the lack of things to do there. He'd read near every book in his home, and rarely felt brave enough to risk sneaking out to find some other activity to fill his time.

He also had the more present weight of his grandmother's gaze upon him. He loved her, and wanted to do her proud. But the weight of her approval always sat heaviest when he was home with her. Sat in the parlor or at the dining table, listening to her talk of what was to come and what was expected, telling her what he had done in school but only the things she would hold approval of.

He would not be mentioning his teas with Lupin or his table partner Hermione.

Then there was the societal expectations that rose when on holiday. For the winter that was namely the annual Malfoy Christmas party, and the New Years soiree at the Greengrass estate. Both events Atlas would be forced along to, and both events Atlas would rather skip out on. He saw enough of his housemates in the day to day of Hogwarts, he was not relishing the extra interaction on what should be a break.

But he couldn't exactly refuse to attend, his grandmother would disapprove of any attempt at shirking the duties of their status and so Atlas had long ago realized it was better to just go along and suffer through.

The journey back to London was well enough. Atlas sat against the window with a book titled Life and Undeath: A Look into the Living Dead that he'd snagged from Lupin the other day. He had his legs stretched out before him and Mina was sat beside him happily chatting to Theodore, Daphne, and Pansy. The journey was made even better by the fact that Malfoy had elected to sit elsewhere, in a compartment with Crabbe and Goyle, likely going on and on about what his father was planning for the Hippogriff that had 'maimed' him at the start of the school year. Atlas was grateful to not be subject to it.

Pansy was even behaving herself, giving Atlas space for once in their many years of knowing each other and not for the reasoning of having some other pure blooded boy in the eye of her affection. She simply sat beside Daphne, looking through a holiday edition of Witch Weekly with the other girl, oohing and aahing about this beauty tip and that scandal. Daphne laughs and jokes along with her and Mina offers her little bit of commentary as it goes.

Truly not a horrid start to the holidays as far as Atlas could imagine.

"Do you plan on reading the whole two weeks?" Theodore inquires, leaning forward from where he sits directly across from Atlas, peering at the book in his hands. "Doesn't that negate the point of a break?"

"Some of us enjoy learning beyond the regiment of a guided classroom experience, Nott." Atlas remarks dryly as he turns his page.

"Some of us enjoy fun as well, but you'd have little experience with that," Theodore teases with a bright smile that results in Atlas sitting up and swatting his book at the other boys head. He feigns offense as he exaggeratedly rubs the spot on his head Atlas had hit him.

"Well we can at least rest assured he'll have to have some fun Christmas and New Years." Pansy remarks, glancing up from the gossip in Witch Weekly to look over at Atlas. "No books and reading allowed at social functions."

"I'm sure I could find a way." Atlas drawls. He could, but it would run a high risk of his grandmother snatching whatever book he'd smuggled along and getting rid of it completely as punishment for not putting forward the adequate social show that would be expected of him.

"My cousin is actually coming along, and he's loads of fun." Pansy informs them, "My mother invited him and her sister to stay with us all Holiday and so he'll be at both events."

Atlas rolled his eyes and glanced away out to the countryside, a cousin of Pansy's didn't sound entirely fun to him, though perhaps all her less favorable traits came from the Parkinson side rather than her mothers french side. Atlas looks back over at Pansy, who has moved on to excitedly showing Daphne and Mina a dress ad in the magazine that she is insisting she'll get for Christmas.

He didn't have much hope there really.

Kreacher is waiting upon the platform. The sour house-elf hunched against one of the brick columns wringing his hands and scanning the crowd until he spots Atlas. The house-elf gets what is the nearest to a happy look upon his face and hurries forth to collect his luggage.

"Hello Kreacher," Atlas greets as the house-elf vanishes the suitcase along to home and the pair begin walking. "Grandmother busy?"

"The Mistress has tea with the Carrows, but she wished Kreacher to inform sir that she will be back for dinner." Kreacher informs him, the house-elf walking faster than Atlas even with the shorter stature. Atlas had learned early that Kreacher was not fond of the station, evidently too noisy and cluttered for the older house elf. "Has school been well, sir?"

Atlas shrugged, "well enough." He supplies, knowing the house-elf was prone to worrying himself especially over Atlas's happiness. He figured sometimes it was some left over fondness of his father, who Kreacher always spoke highly of whenever Atlas was willing to listen.

Kreacher nodded, but glanced about the space with nerves that Atlas recognized well enough. Atlas quickened his own pace, Kreacher now hurrying to keep up though he did not complain, and soon enough they reached the apparition point on Platform 9 3/4 and Atlas took the house-elfs hand once offered.

He felt the familiar twist of apparition and blinked, the next moment he opened his eyes seeing not the crowded and bricked halls of the platform but the familiar dark wallpaper of his home. Kreacher snapped his fingers and the gas lamps all came to life, lighting the space in the familiar warm low lighting Atlas was well used to.

"Would Master Atlas like something to eat before dinner?" Kreacher inquired, "after the long journey."

"I'm fine Kreacher," he starts, though seeing the slight droop in the house-elfs expression brought him to add,"though some tea would be nice, I'll be in my room." Kreacher nodded and with a pop disappeared likely to the kitchen to ready Atlas's tea.

Atlas made his through the entryway towards the stairs, passing familiar portraits of centuries worth of family members. Some nodded in acknowledgment of him as he passed, while several stared down at him with raised looks questioning his worthiness. It was a well known sight to Atlas, and he paid all the portraits little to no mind now a days.

He remembers being a little boy once and spending hours pestering the portraits with questions. Some would give short and succinct answers, others would huff and glance away angry at being disturbed, and a few actually were willing to participate in lengthier conversation. He'd long outgrown his fascination with his ancestral family members, but they had provided some bit of company as a boy growing up with little else to do.

He spends the early portion of the evening in his room, sat up in the small velvet chair sat by the window alternating between reading and looking out at the small park across the street from Grimmauld Place watching as muggle children run about the grass. He sips his tea, which Kreacher keeps well stocked as the hours pass, and does enjoy this little bit of being home.

The sun is setting and the smell of dinner is spread through the house when Atlas hears his grandmother return. He shuts his book and listens the the taps of her heels as she moves about the downstairs. He sighs, glances out the window to the street lit by the lamps before pushing himself up from the comfort of his chair and making his way downstairs. His grandmother would be displeased if he made her come up to him upon his return home from Hogwarts.

He makes his way down the stairs, slowly as he stretches out from hours spent sat about a chair reading, and spots her settling her coat into Kreachers arms before he pops away to return to tending dinner.

"Grandmother," Atlas greets.

Walburga Black was a stately looking woman who took care to present the best of herself to the world. "We represent House Black, to be anything less than perfect is to be a failure." She had told him that once, and she held herself and him to such standards. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, and only held a few bits of grey to it as show to her age. She wore elegantly made robes and had a old antique broach bearing the family crest often paired with them.

And when she saw Atlas she gave him a smile, holding out her arms she settled them upon his shoulders and studied him astutely. "You've grown a bit, we'll have to visit a tailor before you return to school, be sure your robes fit properly." She patted his shoulder lightly, "come, Kreacher should have dinner prepared if the little thing listened properly this morning when I'd left."

Atlas and his grandmother make their way to the dining room. A long dark wood table sat the stretch of it, and Atlas took the seat he always did, not far from his grandmother who took the seat at the head. It was the sort of dining room that always felt vast even if it wasn't actually as large as it felt, the sort that would only ever be filled when parties were held, and would never feel warm really. There was a distance to everything, even when Atlas sat in the seat on the right of his grandmother, distance still loomed.

Perhaps that was just the way of the Black family. Hold tight — to family, to ideals, to expectations — but hold it all at a distance.

Dinner was quiet save for the occasional inquiries his grandmother posed as they ate.

"Are you doing your work for your classes?" was her first.

"Yes." He responded, though he left out the few ones he'd skipped. He did what mattered, and while he certainly had received detention and the disappointment of whichever professor he'd skipped out on he always made it up in the classes and work he did supply.

"Has Dumbledore found a decent professor for the sham of Defense class or is it still one I should worry little over?" Atlas could recall the way his grandmother had reacted to the standards of the past two years of Defense, narrowed eyes and a huff of dismissal.

"Fine enough," Atlas fibbed just a bit. Professor Lupin was certainly the best of the teachers they'd had, and actually taught good and interesting material. And while he's certain his grandmother would approve of that, he was less certain of what she'd think of the man himself. Especially considering Lupin's past with his uncle, and the other curious theories Atlas holds about the man. "Better than the last two years, but the class is what it is."

Walburga nodded, a pinched look that said she thought it was a waste of a course. "And you are keeping up with your housemates?"

Atlas sighs, just the smallest bit but it does garner her attention. "Of course, many annoy me more often than not but I am sure to behave appropriately." Mostly, none of them have hexed him or cursed his name so he supposes he hasn't driven anyone away.

His grandmother studies him, grey eyes sharp with an observance that always makes Atlas want to shift in his spot. He resists, and focuses upon the meal in front of him despite the slight nagging awareness in his mind of Walburga's studying of him. It's not until she sighs and looks away to sip at her wine that he drops a bit of the tension in his shoulders, rolling them out and glancing her way.

"Social ties are very important." She recites, "so you must suffer them."

"I am aware," Atlas responds plainly.

"Good," Walburga looks to him, with less of the sharpness than before, and reaches to pat his hand. She eyes him again, just the tiniest narrow before she adds, "and they must be carefully curated. Proper friendships and acquaintances, no… unsavory types."

Atlas swallows, and shrugs turning to grab his water. "I hardly tolerate the proper type, I can't imagine wanting to force myself to interact with the unsavory." He sips his water, and feels once again the sharp pressure of grey eyes upon before the leave.

"Kreacher," Walburga calls out, "more wine." Atlas side-eyes her a moment, and doesn't think of teas in the defense room or the table he shares in Ancient Runes.

The first day after returning to Grimmauld Place is spent with his grandmother. They go as she'd wanted to get his robes fitted, and then spend some time picking up various needed items for the holidays. They have lunch at a fairly nice restaurant, and its the type of day that Atlas had always liked growing up.

Not pushed into social events where he had to be presented to the rest of the pureblood society for approval. And his grandmother was doting on him, she remarked her praise when he informed her of his marks at school, and they talked about the book he'd been reading recently. His grandmother applauded his knowledge, and had always been more than willing to nurture his further expansion into any subject of magic he showed interest in.

It was days like these where he could put aside the pressures he felt upon him, not forget as he doubted he'd ever be able to forget them, but he could ignore them in favor for the idea that his grandmother just doted on him because he was her grandson, and not the sole heir she had left for their house and blood.

They spend the evening after dinner in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place. His grandmother skims through letters with a glass of wine not far from her hand, and Atlas delves into a book bought earlier in the day on their outing while sipping on tea. Occasionally his grandmother will inform him of some piece of information from her letters that she deems necessary, but mostly its a quiet bit of company that Atlas enjoys.

It's late when he yawns, and settles his book on his lap, his eyes moving from the letters on the page to peruse about the room. And it catches on the most significant part of the room, the intricate tapestry showing the whole of the Black ancestry up to present day.

Tracing along it he moves from the stump of the sprawling tree out until he spots the blasted spot where his uncle was. It was hardly the only black spot upon the branches but it was the one most present to Atlas, the one most often brought up when told what not to do. His eyes skim over it and trail to his father, for all the disgrace his end had brought it hadn't been enough to result in him being blasted away entirely. Atlas glances only a moment down to the place where his own portrait and name rest, swallowing hard with the knowledge that it can only really branch out from him.

He backtracks, eyes moving to linger upon the name attached to his fathers.

Elena Rosier.

His mother is a topic not talked about within 12 Grimmauld Place.

His father and his uncle were useful as deterrents, mistakes to avoid. But his mother was just a tragedy, and a stain in the eyes of Walburga Black.

She'd been a Rosier, part of a branch of the family that had moved off to France sometime in the earlier part of the century. She'd only moved to Britain when she was fourteen, having been put under the guardianship of the Rosier family of Britain and moving in with her cousins following the deaths of her parents.

From what Atlas has heard she knew his father fleetingly through her cousin Evan Rosier and from school. But the two didn't have some great love story, at least not the sort that are spouted about in books.

Like most pureblood marriages theirs was arranged.

A bit young, as the two married fresh out of school with their betrothal having been announced the previous winter break. But they were in the height of war, and people were dying.

Atlas wonders if they thought it was luck that they got pregnant so quick. With what came after he doubts it.

He knows there was some closeness between them, it wasn't some cold forced marriage where the two held no love for each other. But he doesn't know whether they were in love, when he was little he'd hoped they had been. But that might just make the whole thing worse, what with his father dying and his mother…

She didn't die, not really. Though he hardly can count himself as having a mother, even if she still breathes and lives.

The cruciatus curse, when used in such excess as the Death Eaters had used while thinking they'd get something out of her about whatever it was that his father had done, was a cruel thing. Atlas hasn't truly had it used on him, aside from the side affects he's held over from when he was inside his mother, but he's read enough. Too much can cause irreparable damage, leave someone just not entirely there.

So once he was born and brought by his grandmother to 12 Grimmauld Place, his mother was moved to a deeper more permanent residency within St. Mungos. Left there to live out what life she had, a forgotten shadow by both Black and Rosier families.

When he was very little, once he'd learned of where exactly his mother was, he'd asked his grandmother to go see her. She'd said yes, and Atlas had been ecstatic. A tiny boy of four or five, who'd grown up without his mother and now would finally meet her. When they got there his grandmother had brought him into Elena's room, pointed her out and told him "there is nothing there, as you will see. Just an empty shell waiting to die. When you realize this we'll go home and that will be that." And she left him, alone in a room with his mother who did nothing. She didn't react when she saw Atlas, she barely even blinked. Just sat, gaze turned to the window looking out to the streets of London. Atlas recalls spending hours trying to gather her attention, to get her to speak, to get her to see him, to even just look his way. Until eventually, tears burning in his eyes, he'd left and took his grandmothers hand when she held it out and they returned home together.

That was the one and only time Walburga had brought him to St. Mungos to visit his mother.

But hardly the last time Atlas had gone.

As years passed he'd sneak off to St Mungos to visit her alone. For a while he'd always get Kreacher to help him, the house-elf having always had a soft spot for Atlas that the boy at a young age had taken advantage of. He'd stopped after a certain point, when he'd noticed that Kreacher always ended up punishing himself after these visits as it seemed he was aware of Walburgas disapproval of Atlas seeing his mother.

He'd taught himself how to take muggle transportation about that age. Figured out how to get himself to the public entrance to the hospital in London that was obscured to muggles. Found spare muggle change anywhere and everywhere he could whenever he snuck from the house. And took himself there, rarely as it was always a task and a risk.

His mother rarely ever reacted to him. And after a certain amount of time visiting he stopped expecting her to. That wasn't really why he went, in truth he hardly knows why he goes. Other than that it's his mother, and something in him tells him he should.

When he does visit he usually just reads, out loud for the sake of his mother though she always just sits, looking out the window.

He goes this holiday, his third day home. His grandmother is visiting Narcissa Malfoy and some other pureblood ladies for tea. So Atlas has the day free to himself, and he spends it making his way through London to St. Mungos. Finding his way to the Janus Thickey Ward, checking in with the Healers who recognized him well enough after all these years. Sometimes he had wondered why they never informed his grandmother of his visits, but he supposes maybe they're just happy someone is visiting Elena.

When he arrives to her room she's still sat in the same old chair, facing the window and sitting in the quiet of the room. Her head tilts though, the barest acknowledgment of his presence within her space.

It was something, but usually about all he ever got.

He settles himself into the chair opposite of her and Atlas shifts upon the hospital furniture until he can get himself into some semblance of comfort before pulling out and opening the book on the living dead that he'd borrowed from Lupin.

He reads quietly aloud, just enough volume that he knows his mother can hear but quiet enough to remain only in the room.

Hours pass, quiet save the slow rhythm of his voice and his mothers breathing. She doesn't move, doesn't look his way, doesn't do anything. Just sits and stares out the window, and he is unsure whether she even really listens.

He flips the page, near three hours into this visit and reads.

"In vast similarity to the zombie of the Southern Americas there are less spread about tales of Inferi. Corpses raised by necromancy that have no will of their own. They are bound only to carry out the task laid by the master who raised them from death. They are capable of superior strength and speed and resistant to most forms of damage. The most useful defense found for these creatures of the dark is—"

"Fire." Soft and rasping voice cuts Atlas's abrupt.

He glances, his mother is looking at him. Blue eyes that had never looked upon him were pointed his way now, still clouded with the mist of a mind not all there. But staring at him, blinking with some semblance of dazed confusion.

"Mother?" Atlas is hesitant, it could be a fluke, it could be—

She shoots forward, grabbing his arms and looking him over with a new franticness to her gaze. "Reg?" Her eyes blink, "Reguls… have you…" her head shakes and she breathes harsh and quick. "No, no, no…" her head shakes faster and she releases him curling back into her seat and looking away, out the window. Her whole body shaking.

Atlas is frozen in his own seat. Eyes wide as he tries to process the moment.

A shaken breath escapes his lips, and he forces himself up from his seat. Tucking the book under his arm he steps towards mother, still shaking in her seat, and looks down to her. "Mother." He tries, voice quiet as a breath, but she curls further.

His chin raises and he forces a stronger breath out, slow and even. And turns leaving the room and making his way from the hospital entirely.

He walks home.

He ignores the fact his mother had looked at him for the first time in his life, really looked at him, and all she'd seen was his father.

He ignores it and walks, even as snow falls and a chill settles low in his bones.

He returns home, and ignores Kreachers fussing at how cold he looks.

He ignores the shaking of his own hands, and does not think of the panic his mothers eyes had held looking at him as though he were his father. He does not wonder at it, does not wonder at whether that was how she'd looked that last day she'd truly been whole.

He ignores it, and falls into his bed to ignore it further.

As he drifts, warming slowly and the shaking ebbing to a stop, he hopes greatly for this holiday to just be over.

Thank you so much for reading!