Chapter 18: Plan and Prep

Luca had slapped Slytherin's locket shut out of sheer shock and reflex as soon as the voice inside of it addressed him. He laid awake past midnight wondering if he should talk to Snape, McGonagall, Mr Weasley, or someone else entirely about it.

He meant to ask Blaise his opinion the next time he opened their messenger, but got distracted first thing in the morning by news that Daphne was pregnant. It wasn't until that afternoon after Care of Magical Creatures let out that Luca thought again about the locket, now buried deep in his trunk. On a hunch, Luca took the scenic route back toward the Slytherin common room.

He stopped in the middle of a deserted corridor in front of a portrait. Blaise had pointed it out to Luca once last year when they slunk off for some time alone. Luca had been curious where the name of Slytherin house came from, and here hung a portrait of him.

Salazar Slytherin looked down at Luca in turn. The locket hung squarely in the centre of the portrait, around his neck. Luca forgot about it immediately as he met Salazar's gaze. There was no mistaking it. Those were the same eyes that had looked out at him.

Luca looked up and down the corridor before lowering his voice. "Do you speak?"

Salazar's eyes squinted and he turned his face to the side. Luca scratched the back of his neck, then ensured again he was alone before focusing intently on the mental image of a snake.

"How about now?" Luca asked in Parseltongue.

"Ah." Salazar lit up, raising his chin. "A fellow Parselmouth. How charming. I see you're also a student of my house."

"Er, yes." Luca mindlessly touched his tie. "I have a question for you."

"Certainly."

"Do you know anything about your locket?"

Salazar's hands were steepled together like an inverted triangle in front of his lower abdomen. He raised one to graze oil-lined fingers against the locket's underside. "I apologize that I do not. The real Salazar Slytherin did not spend much time with me before I was hung. There's another portrait that hangs in the Headmaster's office that might be of more help."

Luca chewed on his lip while he thought. "Have you hung here long?"

"I believe so. My neighbours have not changed in some time."

"Do you remember ever talking to another boy that looks like me? This would've been over fifty years ago."

Salazar turned his face and raised an eyebrow, about as close as he seemed to get to taken aback. "I don't believe my memory lasts that long."

Luca figured that was a long shot. He didn't know why he asked anyway if Voldemort had ever chatted with this portrait. "I have your locket."

"Oh?"

"You're inside of it," Luca replied. "I saw your eyes. You talked to me. Do you know anything about that?"

Salazar's eyebrow rose again. "Why are you asking me when you have something like that at your disposal?"

Why indeed. Luca headed off for his dorm. Rather than grab the locket out of his trunk, he pulled out the messenger he shared with Blaise.

Are you around, by any chance? he wrote in it.

Luca doubted Blaise would be. His workday wouldn't end for a few hours yet, and Blaise was always hard to get a hold of until after five o'clock. Luca watched a little while anyway for a reply before inevitably sighing and packing it along with everything else he needed to the library. He had half a mind to ask Ginny instead what she thought since her dad worked with artefacts like this, but Luca didn't want to risk it being confiscated. Not yet.

Blaise had written in his messenger when Luca checked at half-five: I just got home. Everything all right?

Kind of, not really, Luca replied. He kept his messenger far enough out of the way that Sophie and Ginny wouldn't be able to read what he was writing, if they even cared to try to look. I meant to write you last night but I got distracted. Snape gave me a locket of Salazar Slytherin's. It got checked over and everything and nobody could open it, but I did when I spoke Parselmouth to it. This is going to sound really weird. There were two mirrors inside, and Salazar's eyes were in them. He talked to me…sort of. He asked something about if things worked out with 'the boy'. I think he thought I was Voldemort.

Luca could see Blaise in his mind's eye, sitting at his kitchen table with his tie undone and jacket sloughed. What Luca wouldn't give to smooth out the likely wrinkle in Blaise's brow with a press of his lips.

I see, Blaise wrote. Did you talk to him at all? That's really bizarre.

No. I shut it right away. I don't really know what to do.

Talk to Snape, maybe?

Maybe. This is going to sound weird too, but I don't want anyone to take it away from me. What if they break it? And it doesn't seem hostile. I showed it to Ginny yesterday before I figured out how to open it and she didn't feel anything when she touched it. I feel something, though. It feels friendly. I think it's probably something only a relative of Slytherin would experience. What do you think?

There was another delay. Well, you're coming home next weekend. You could bring it with you and we could see about it? Does it already mean something to you?

I don't know. Luca tapped his quill in thought before continuing. It's a family heirloom. I've kind of just embraced that I'm all cocked up about everything to do with that, so it doesn't feel sinister that I get attached to something this silly. I always wanted to know where I came from, and one thing to do with that is that I'm a Slytherin. I might have the opportunity to talk to a distant relative. I don't want to squander that. What if the Dark Artefacts office takes the locket back and they do something that makes Salazar disappear?

No, it's okay, I get that. Would you be willing to hold off doing anything with it until I can be there with you? If you're going to be possessed or something stupid like that, you should probably have somebody nearby that can summon an Auror.

Luca snorted quietly to himself. Yeah, I'll wait.

Any weekend plans, then?

Mostly that consisted of homework. With the Easter holidays only a week away, all the professors had something due the last class prior. Luca didn't find any of it terribly difficult, but the sheer amount of feet he needed to write kicked his arse well enough on its own.

By Monday morning, Luca had managed to practically forget about the locket. Monday evening, he forgot it completely when a pale Professor McGonagall sought Ginny out in the library. When Ginny didn't return after half an hour, Luca and Sophie put their heads together to conspire on what had happened. Luca's best guess was a death in the family, although he really hoped that wasn't the case.

To his relief, Ginny was beaming when she came back to the library shortly after nine o'clock. She put her head down between Luca and Sophie. "Come with me. I want to tell you something."

Luca packed his things up and trailed behind the girls out into the corridor. Ginny led them down to the same room they'd chatted in Thursday.

"So you two remember Sirius Black, right?" she asked.

"Er, yeah," Sophie replied with a blink. "How could I forget, after second year?"

"He's the one that broke out of Azkaban, right?" Luca asked. "Wasn't his name cleared later on? Or am I thinking of someone else?"

"No, that's him," Ginny said. "Turns out he's actually been alive all this time."

"Oh really?" Sophie's eyes went wide as her spine straightened. "How? I thought he died when you went to the Department of Mysteries with Harry Potter."

"Nope. He fell into an archway," Ginny replied. "The Unspeakables figured out how to pull him back."

Ginny glowed about it, Sophie was a little uncertain, and Luca considered himself decidedly indifferent since he had no feelings either way about Sirius Black. He decided it was a good thing regardless of circumstance that someone once thought dead could show back up like that. In the same breath, a very strong yet odd form of jealousy afflicted Luca that night as he tried to fall asleep. He almost wished he hadn't seen his mum's body, and didn't have the family mausoleum to visit when he returned home to Romania over the holiday.

Professor Vance shared Ginny's mood in the morning during Defence. It put Luca in a good place for a grueling Potions lesson, although Ginny made an interesting noise when Sophie went as far as saying that maybe it would be a good lesson.

"I don't think so," Ginny said. "Just prepare for that."

Ginny was right. Luca about shrunk down in his seat when Snape marched into the classroom. He couldn't recall actually seeing Snape in this foul of a mood. That included the time Fergus Cowley and Daryl Morden got into a duel in the common room, and Snape got hit with a Dancing Feet Spell when summoned to interject.

Luca and Sophie were the only Slytherins in seventh-year Potions, and they were the only two who didn't catch anything from Snape during the class. Everyone else left with their chins down and faces long.

"Does this have something to do with Sirius Black being back?" Luca asked Ginny.

"They hate each other," Ginny replied. "I cannot emphasize that enough. Plus, er. . .I guess it isn't released quite yet, but Snape's going to have to sit in front of the Wizengamot too."

"He is?" Luca's stomach flipped.

"It's kind of like Dagmar, I think." Ginny readjusted her strap on her shoulder. "Everyone knows she wasn't the one that led the siege, or killed Dumbledore, or anything like that. But she's going to have to be charged with it in order to be cleared. Snape's going to have to go through the same thing. He aided Voldemort here until a good time came to flip on the Death Eaters."

"So why's he still here and not in Azkaban or under house arrest, or something?" Sophie asked.

"It's a bit different for him," Ginny said. "He didn't do anything like the Malfoys or Mr Nott or Mrs Ramstad to help Voldemort get to Hogwarts. I heard Dumbledore tell Snape up on the Astronomy tower that he was going to have to placate Voldemort in order to keep the castle's occupants safe. That's what Snape did, and then he instigated everything that got us Hogwarts back from the Death Eaters."

"Are you helping Snape for his trial, then?" Luca replied.

"I was going to wait until it's confirmed he's facing one, and then offer if he doesn't ask." Ginny paused. "Today is not a good time to bother him."

"Definitely not," Sophie quietly agreed.

Wednesday was no better for it, nor was Thursday as it dawned. Luca noted while he took a seat at the Slytherin table for breakfast that Snape looked his most dangerous yet up at the staff table. It was no wonder why as Ginny swung by to collect Luca and Sophie on their way down to the dungeons for Potions. She had a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Guess what, Luca?" Ginny held it out to him. "I think focus is finally off you and me."

"Oh?"

Luca grew curious enough to take the paper from her. Across the front splashed a picture someone had taken in Diagon Alley of Potter and Sirius Black exiting Gringotts. Neither looked happy at the impromptu shot, and Luca didn't blame them.

"He's handsome when he's smiling," Luca commented.

Sophie scoffed. "Of course that's what you'd notice."

"Because I have eyes?" Luca passed her the paper. "Go on, have a look."

"Terrible." Sophie playfully reprimanded him anyway. "Incorrigible. And entirely correct."

The three of them laughed, which was the last strain of joy that circumstance permitted them to feel until they left Snape's presence an hour and a half later. Herbology went much better with a chipper Professor Sprout and interesting lesson in the warm greenhouses. Luca looked forward to an empty schedule for the rest of the day, which he planned on using to get started on Easter homework assignments.

That prospect was dashed when Luca, Sophie, and Ginny approached the Entrance Hall. Kingsley Shacklebolt leaned against the wall by the Great Hall doors.

"Hey Kingsley," Ginny greeted him. "All right?"

"Just fine. You?"

"I'm okay."

Kingsley's gaze fell on Luca. "Mind if I borrow you for a minute?"

Luca shrugged. "Sure. Could I just quickly grab a sandwich?"

Kingsley gestured toward the Great Hall with a smile, so Luca dipped in to grab one off the Slytherin table. He hoped he'd still have an appetite after whatever Kingsley wanted, but he didn't seem in a very serious mood. Maybe it was some sort of good news. Did Sirius Black returning somehow affect him?

They doubled back down the corridor Luca had come through on his way in from the greenhouses. Kingsley stuck his head into classrooms in search for an empty one. Luca followed him in, unwrapping his sandwich before taking a seat behind one of the desks.

Kingsley slid back onto the desk in front of Luca, using the chair like a footrest. "Did you happen to see that the Death Eater trial dates have been made public?"

"Er. . ." Luca slowed chewing briefly before covering his mouth. "I didn't, but Blaise has been keeping me in the loop. He said Dagmar's is Monday, and Draco's off work now until his uncle Rodolphus' trial. Blaise said everyone's pretty nervous."

Kingsley nodded. "I wanted to see where you'd landed on being a character witness for Dagmar."

Luca felt bad to have forgotten about that. Kingsley originally asked at the same time he took Luca's memory of the siege. Not long after that, Luca's picture had appeared in the Daily Prophet. Everything irrelevant to that went out the window.

"Can I really be helpful?" Luca asked. "Won't Potter talk about the Chamber of Secrets? Shouldn't our memories of that have lined up, along with Draco's?"

"They do," Kingsley replied. "The Wizengamot has already viewed them as part of preparation for the trials."

"Are you concerned it won't be enough?"

"No, but I don't want to pull any half-measures for something like this."

"Is there any unique perspective I can really offer? I mean, I guess we're family. . ." It still felt like a foreign concept to Luca, as if every time he mentioned it aloud he remembered all over again. "I don't remember anything about her from when I was a baby. There're a few things, but I don't think it's to do with Dagmar. I think it's Hildegard I remember if I push it hard enough."

The way Kingsley's brow furrowed upward at that made Luca feign interest in something out one of the windows. There was nothing but clouds until a bird flew past.

"I don't have any holes in Dagmar's character," Kingsley eventually said. "It helps to have multiple people assert the same thing, especially for the charges Dagmar is up against. Maybe don't repeat this because I think everyone understands anyway, but she faces life in Azkaban if the Wizengamot doesn't believe that Voldemort is inside of her. All the proof I have is circular in nature, and the only two people that can display the two souls present inside of Dagmar are her mother and Helka. Both are hardly impartial."

Luca took another bite of his sandwich, even though it both felt and tasted like cardboard between his teeth. "Would I be more helpful as a piece of evidence?"

Kingsley hummed.

"You proved I'm related to Voldemort, right?" Luca asked. "I think Draco mentioned it when we were down in the Chamber."

"It would certainly be helpful in proving Voldemort's motives, as well as how he ended up inside Dagmar in the first place," Kingsley replied. "You realize that would become public knowledge though, don't you?"

A flutter of nerves made Luca's hand twitch. "Isn't it pretty much already?"

"It's in a weird in-between place." Kingsley shrugged. "Anyone that looks at it has been able to put the pieces together, but that's where the speculation stops since the Ministry hasn't confirmed it. There's no telling what kind of paper trail exists in Bucharest regarding your adoption, and if it's even reliable. If it was forged that you and your mum were biologically related, it could just as easily be forged that you weren't. That can all be skipped over—potentially—if it's stated and proven that Hildegard is your biological mother. She's already provided substantiated memories to show that she's a doppelgänger. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you what's all behind the door you might open if you come forth as Voldemort's son. I think you've already gotten a taste."

Luca ran his fingers through his hair. "It's the truth, though. So it should probably be brought in front of the Wizengamot. I don't want Dagmar to go to Azkaban. She's already being held hostage because of me. I still don't know how I feel about Hildegard, but she probably doesn't deserve it either. What do they think about it? Would they want me opening that door?"

"They were already prepared to. The only thing stopping them was respecting your right to keep it quiet."

Luca fiddled with the remains of his sandwich. "Everyone already knows anyway. Well, they think I'm Voldemort's son. I'm having a hard time really caring right now that everyone knows I'm a biological copy of him. This would all be coming out over the holidays, right? I'll have two weeks away from here to brace to come back. And really, there's only like ten weeks left of the school year after Easter. I could grin and bear it."

"You've done nothing wrong, so people can think whatever they want," Kingsley said. "Of course it's easier to say that than to experience their trepidation, but I sincerely doubt you'll encounter anything more challenging than how the last few weeks have gone."

"I think you're right." Luca really did believe it too. "Looks like the papers have maybe moved on, now that Sirius Black is back."

A warm, genuine smile took over Kingsley's straight features. "Why pick on some kid whose worst crime was simply existing when someone as notorious as Sirius is walking the streets of London again?"

"With his famous godson, no less."

Kingsley laughed before returning to seriousness. "So just to confirm, you would be all right with being mentioned next week?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Are you sticking around for the trials?"

Luca hummed. "I hadn't thought about it. I told my grandparents I would be there Monday. I was going to spend the weekend with Blaise first."

"Speaking of your grandparents." Kingsley reached into his cloak and pulled some thick but narrow pieces of parchment out of an inner pocket. "I took the liberty of getting you Courtroom Ten passes for April sixth—nine o'clock on the Tuesday right after Easter. Bellatrix will be in front of the Wizengamot."

A lump rose in Luca's throat. He took the passes and looked them over with trembling hands. "I'll write my grandparents about it. I don't see why they wouldn't want to come. I'd like to sit in, for sure. Who's the fourth one for?"

"Blaise. I figured you'd want him there with you."

Luca's smile was tight, but lifted by gratitude. "Yeah, I would."

"Draco will be there as well." Kingsley paused. "Amelia believes it might be beneficial for Voldemort to attend all the trials of his Death Eaters. She really wants to drive the point home that he has no recourse other than to leave Dagmar's body. If Voldemort is willing to attend, we'll ensure that you're seated well away from him."

"I'd appreciate that." Luca suppressed a shudder.

"If you want to attend any other trials, just let me know and I'll try to get you in," Kingsley said. "I think the two I could guarantee would be Dagmar and Hildegard."

Luca chewed briefly on his lower lip. "Hildegard's was Wednesday, right?"

"Mhm."

"I might tell my grandparents to expect me a day later, for Dagmar's." Luca's heart started to pound already out of nerves. "I'll think about Hildegard, but I don't know. I really don't think I'm ready to properly meet her or anything. But I also don't know if I want to miss the opportunity if she might be going to Azkaban. I just don't know what that opportunity would be. I don't have any questions anymore about why I was given up, or why I didn't have a name when my mum adopted me. Now it's just. . .I don't know."

"It's completely up to you, and no pressure."

"If I change my mind, can I send you an owl?"

"Anytime, for anything you need."

Luca walked with Kingsley as far as the Great Hall before they split ways. Kingsley headed upstairs, while Luca went straight in search of Sophie and Ginny. They sat together alone at the end of the Slytherin table. Ginny had her legs crossed underneath with her foot rested against Sophie's calf.

Sophie noticed Luca first, straightening in her seat as Luca dropped down beside Ginny. "What was that about?"

"Kingsley gave me passes for Bellatrix's trial." The lump returned to Luca's throat. "One for me, my grandparents, and then Blaise if he wants to come with me."

"Aw."

"I was gonna run up to the owlery so that I can write my grandparents and see if they're interested. Wanna come with?"

Neither of them had anything going on before they'd all planned to migrate to the library, so they trailed behind Luca. At one point when Luca looked back to say something, the two of them had grown comfortable with few enough other students around to hook their fingers together. They descended into whispers and quiet giggles while Luca penned his letter. Moments of silence were filled by the ruffle of wings and ended with a smack of lips that made Luca anticipate the upcoming holiday all the more.

With that sent, Blaise was the other one Luca needed to write. Luca pulled their messenger out along with his homework when he, Sophie, and Ginny arrived at the library.

Let me know whenever you're around, Luca dashed down. I have some things I need to fill you in on. I was also wondering if you might ask Dagmar if she's ready for us to see each other this weekend.