Chapter 6: Trials 1

AN: Reminder that Henry is now 'Sherry' because having a Henry and a Harry was confusing.

.oOo.

Mycroft

.oOo.

The ritual was far less pompous than Mycroft had expected. He'd read all the books on the subject of blood adoption that Harry could find.

"Usually, people make more of a ceremony of it," Harry explained. For some reason, Mycroft still didn't find his nervous prattle annoying.

"With the magic of blood that flows, of earth that binds, and of life that grows," the Healer intoned. She turned to Mycroft. "It's important to evoke the trinity. Blood adoptions have been performed by wizards since time immemorial. The purpose can be to ensure an heir for lacking individuals, most often done by bringing suitable adults into the family. However, as in this case, it can also be done to stabilise the child's magic. According to certain sources, Merlin himself was blood adopted to cure an anomaly in his core."

"Thank you. Perhaps we should continue with the ritual now," Mycroft said, and he didn't mean it as a suggestion.

Healer Aeseraph nodded and closed the chalk circle around little Sherry. Miraculously, the boy was still sitting up.

"So, like, the ritual bath is meant to remove impurities. The nakedness, too. Some kind of metaphor for rebirth."

Mycroft reached over and squeezed Harry's hand once before releasing it again. Healer Aeseraph continued to draw runes and light candles, saying her lines with much more pomp than necessary. Mycroft ignored her. Unbidden, his mind had conjured the image of Harry sitting nude in a similar circle, skin glistening from the bath. The room would have been much colder, evident by the low light from the south-facing windows and Harry's goosebumps.

"The seed of the father," Healer Aeseraph announced. Mycroft grimaced when she pointed her wand at his groin.

The potion was simple: cypress ash and scarab beetles, with powdered mummy being the most revolting ingredient. Sherry didn't seem to notice, drinking it down in one go when the woman held it to his lips. The boy's eyes were still open and staring fixedly at Harry.

"From magic to blood, from father to son, from seed to blossom." Then the Healer looked at Mycroft, as if he needed prompting.

"You are my blood. I name you Henry Sherrinford Potter. Sic fiat," Mycroft finished.

The words rang with power that Mycroft should have been expecting. He watched as Sherry's eyes changed shades right in front of them to a greenish-blue. The hair Harry hadn't been able to bear cutting in the past eight months paled, curling slightly. It was very subtle; Blainbridge definitely wouldn't notice.

Those dull eyes didn't look any more lucid. Mycroft tamped down on the ridiculous disappointment rising in his throat as Harry stepped forward to pick up the almost two-year-old.

It would likely take a week for the effects to show. If Mycroft hadn't been so observant he wouldn't have noticed the hair, either. Following Harry out onto the street, he wanted to believe that Sherry was watching him over Harry's shoulder, but Mycroft wasn't a sentimental fool.

Except: his son's hair looked exactly like Sherlock's had when he'd been that age.

.oOo.

"A good, strong name for an heir," the Lord Arcturus Black said, limping in a circle around Sherry. "He'll know his roots and keep the family magic. Politic move, I didn't think you had it in you, boy."

Mycroft had been bewildered by Harry's invitation to what he'd called presenting the heir. The ceremony was tradition for the heir's second birthday, whether he was ready or not, and usually involved both parents.

So far the Lord Black had not looked at Mycroft once, for which he was inordinately glad. Sherry, sitting on a pouffe in the centre of the sitting room, followed his new grandfather's movements with wide, curious eyes.

"You say he hasn't spoken yet?" The Lord Black asked, wheezing.

Harry shook his head. He reclined in his armchair with a haphazardly balanced teacup and an apparent situational irreverence. Mycroft admired the man's ability to conceal every speck of the nerves he'd been dripping up until the very point they'd stepped through the floo. Harry would likely be on the settee all weekend to recover.

"This is your husband, then? The muggle?"

He had received his own cup of tea, the only acknowledgment that Mycroft was present as neither animal nor servant. However, the Lord Black's tone clearly communicated his dismissal.

"You've sullied the Potter bloodline, of course." Lord Black turned back towards Sherry, almost tripping over his own cane. "Pure for six generations, only to marry a muggleborn and dilute that by half again with a muggle. I wish I could say Fleamont would be turning in his grave, but the bastard would've thought it hilarious.

The epitome of nonchalance, Harry shrugged. "If you want to see what pure blood will get you, marry Bellatrix off. Or even Sirius, if you can get him to listen to you. I can assure you that the Holmes family is the best possible breeding. Mycroft's sister's magical, which makes him a squib, not muggle. The Black heir we provide will be powerful, maybe even another metamorphmagus."

"We'll see."

In the middle of the room, Sherry blinked his blue-green eyes and ducked his head, hiding behind his hair. As Mycroft was smiling at him, the boy's lips twitched into the beginnings of a pout. It was much easier to watch his new son come to life than to listen to his co-parent talk about him as if he were breeding stock.

When Harry talked his way towards an elegant exit, Mycroft was glad. Their family of three stepped out of the public floo ninety minutes after having entered it, which was eighty-nine minutes longer than ought to have been necessary.

"I'm sorry, Arcturus is a massive berk," Harry said, hailing them a cab back to Baker Street.

"Obviously."

Harry winced. Mycroft reached out and pulled Sherry onto his own lap. The child was a warm, comforting presence. His hair smelled like soot.

"You should wear your seat belt. I know it's the eighties, but trust me on this."

Mycroft obliged. He often found himself doing things for the sake of making Harry happy, and he still hadn't quite wrapped his head around why. His relationship to the other man was the least rational occasion in his life. "I trust you," he said.

Miraculously, it was true.

.oOo.

"He has your eyes," Mummy said.

Mycroft smiled at her, even though her observation wasn't true. Perhaps she needed new glasses. "I wasn't expecting your visit," he said. That, too, was a lie; all the signs had been there, he'd just been so busy that he'd overlooked them until it was too late to hide the evidence. Harry had scrubbed their flat clean with magic, Eurus had made her escape, and Mycroft had told Anthea to call off the day's appointments.

They wouldn't have been able to disguise the toddler living with them, not with the window seat showing Sherry-shaped wear, nor the clear proof of a child's birthday party in the form of streamers and several balloons.

Harry had looked so utterly delighted hanging them up that Mycroft didn't have the heart to ask him to remove them. In between pulling Johnny's tail and smearing the cake on his own face, Sherry had actually beheld his balloons with something akin to awe.

"I suppose there's no point in asking about your proclivities now. I should have guessed you were a deviant."

Sherry frowned from his place beside Harry on the sofa. Perhaps he'd be slow to start talking, like Sherlock had waited until he was five, but Mycroft had no doubt that he understood far too much already. There were things Mycroft was perfectly willing to let Mummy accuse him of, but not in front of his son.

Harry stood up. "Madam Holmes, you will behave yourself, or you will leave." He went to the kitchen. They listened to him put the kettle on in stunned silence, with Sherry blinking up at them.

"A bastard," Mummy sneered. "Well, I never." Her eyes darted back towards the kitchen, then she raised her voice. "I never thought I'd see the day you settled down. A husband and a child, how marvellous. And Eurus, is she not around? I'm surprised she's still alive after you let her go traipsing across all the wrong parts of Germany."

Mycroft solidified his facade. "Eurus is well, Mummy."

"And what does she think of all this…unnaturalness?"

"More tea, Madam Holmes?" They turned to see Harry holding a fresh tray. Mycroft helped himself to a fairy cake. He felt Mummy's eyes on him as he ate, but he found that he truly didn't care what she thought.

"Splendid, thank you. The baking is excellent." She tittered, batting her eyes at Harry moronically. "I see you've been taking good care of my boy, thank you for that."

If he hadn't seen it so often in his childhood, Mycroft would have experienced whiplash from her social inconsistencies. With a fixed smile, he watched Mummy and Harry exchange light banter and smalltalk. He itched for his phone in the other room, where Anthea would surely have some international incident that required his attention. Something simple and logical with infinite solutions leading out from many, many choices.

Harry was very, very good. Had he not known better, Mycroft would have believed that the man truly enjoyed exchanging pleasantries with his mother. Mummy should have known better, too, but she seemed entirely taken by his charms. Not even Eurus could wrap their mother so solidly around her little finger, but there Harry sat, making it look easy.

Sitting on his left, Sherry was avidly watching. Mycroft caught the boy's eye and raised his teacup in a mocking little toast. He felt a bit proud when the boy smiled.

That night, when Mummy had retired and Sherry had been tucked into bed, Mycroft took a seat next to Harry on the settee. He took the man's hand and held it palm-up in his own. "Why is it everyone assumes we are married, d'you suppose?"

The unbridled fondness in Harry's warm eyes was just as startling now as it had been on the day they'd met. Mycroft released his hold on the man's hand, but Harry didn't take it back. "Occam's razor? It's the easiest assumption to make, and with all those scandals going around it's on everybody's mind."

"Does the situation get better?" It came out as a whisper. In Mycroft's hand, it felt like Harry's was burning, but Harry didn't seem to even notice.

"Yeah," Harry said, sharing a melancholy little smile. "It'll be a long while still, and we're going to lose lots more amazing people."

"Is there nothing you can do?" Hundreds of issues crossed Mycroft's desk, complex many-sided beasts like how the War Cabinet was pushing for retaliation against Argentina, but none left him feeling as monumentally helpless.

"Work on policy on your side, and I'll push for progress where I can. It'll take generations, Mycroft. You can't cure hate or fear."

"It's funny," Mycroft said, finally taking back his hand as he let himself slump into his seat. "I always thought I'd end up married to my job."

"Mycroft." Harry's voice was thick with exasperation. "You do realise we're not actually married?"

They were raising a child together, though, and if he had understood the Lord Black correctly there was an expectation of at least one more. Mycroft took Harry's hand again, loosely so that the man had every chance to let go. "Would you like to be?"

Harry pressed a kiss to the back of Mycroft's hand. It was summarily the strangest, most complicated thing that anyone had ever made Mycroft feel. A tall order, considering he'd grown up with Eurus, Mummy, Father, and before the fire, Sherlock too.

"Good night," Harry said, as if that had been a perfectly normal thing to do. He threw a smile over his shoulder as he left.

.oOo.

They didn't talk about the kiss. Which was a good thing, because there was nothing Mycroft wanted to talk about less, even if his hand still burned a week later.

"You keep staring at your hand," Anthea said, handing him a Styrofoam cup of tea.

'Mind your own business,' Mycroft wanted to reply, but he paid a great deal of his budget expressly for her to mind his business. Besides, it would have been a bit crass. "Thank you," he said instead, following her into the limousine.

"It isn't cancer, is it? Or, well, AIDS?"

A deep, calming breath put Mycroft back in order. "Anthea," he said.

She ducked her head and they rode the rest of the way to work in silence.

Mycroft let his eyes sweep over her clothes, the evidence of another one night stand written in the pleats of her skirt. In the eight months they'd been working together she'd not once worn anything other than sensible shoes. Mummy would loathe her emancipated attitude; Mycroft suspected it was why he'd chosen to hire the woman in the first place.

"Harry kissed me," he said once it was just the two of them in the underground car park, heading towards the lifts.

"Did you kiss him back?"

She didn't have to sound quite so excited, Mycroft thought. "He kissed my hand."

"Oh my god, that's so cute!"

The elevator doors opened. They began the process of making their way through security. Mycroft threw away his empty cup, ready for the day to begin.

But not before rubbing against that spot on the back of his hand that his wizard had set alight.

.oOo.

Harry

.oOo.

"Do you think she's alright?"

Mycroft sighed into his tea, looking the most tired Harry had ever seen him. In his old universe the man had always been working, but in this one he seemed to work even more. It was an act of divine organisation skills—or Anthea—that he knew his adopted son at all, let alone that he found an hour or two to unwind with Harry most nights.

"I have no idea whom you're speaking of," Mycroft lied.

"Sorry." Harry offered a little smile. When Mycroft returned it, he felt more relieved than he probably should.

"It's alright, my friend." Mycroft helped himself to the last slice of Victoria Sponge. He closed his eyes and sucked the crumbs off his fingers. The sheer joy Mycroft could find in his food made Harry want to buy him a bakery. "Eurus comes and goes as she pleases; it's best not to try pinning her down."

"It's been a week, Mycroft." The look he gave in response was so pained that Harry winced. "Sorry," he said again.

"Perhaps she's staying with a friend."

"Why would she leave Johnny, then?" With his mistress gone, the poodle had taken to lying at the foot of her bed all day. It was the first Harry had realised how old the thing was—it usually pranced around with the same energy Padfoot used to have.

Mycroft's face said he really didn't want to talk about where his baby sister had run off to.

"Sorry," Harry said, feeling stupid. "Is there anything I can do? She's been making good progress in our lessons, and I probably know her magic well enough to track her if I really tried."

"Thank you, Harry, but that won't be necessary. She has a right to her privacy."

Harry remembered a network of cameras across all of London set up primarily for the purpose of spying on Mycroft's little brother. He wondered what would happen in the next fifteen years to change his mind. "Sure," he said. Maybe Mycroft read some of his doubt in his voice, because he leaned forward with a huff.

"Actually," he said, "you could look into lightening my workload some, if you mean that offer. You're paying half the rent, which is fortunate, otherwise we'd be in a much smaller flat, but I can barely justify Blainbridge's government salary for a babysitting job. Whatever gave you the impression in the future that I'm made of money, it hasn't happened yet."

Mycroft leaned back into his armchair, slightly winded. He didn't seem to notice the guilt his words had punched into Harry's stomach.

It must have cost him a lot to admit to any kind of weakness. Harry wanted to hug him. "Yeah, okay. Let me rephrase my question from before. Are you alright?"

"I'll make do, Harry, I always have. I suppose I'm just tired. My apologies."

Every week, Harry spent about fifty hours in the Ministry, and they left him feeling exhausted. Fifteen of those, he did his actual work for the Aurors. The next twenty were spent solving problems and nudging legislation in the direction that he wanted it to go, and the rest went towards networking his way through various departments. He spent most of his time in his embodied Ministry of Magic persona, especially when Moody was around, but—

Once he stepped out of the floo, he turned it off.

Let the voices in the back of his mind fade to a whisper. Allowed himself to be Harry Charlus Black again.

"You know you can switch it off, right? It's all about focus and direction. You're the one who taught me, back when."

"Maybe next year, when things have settled down," Mycroft said with another tired smile. "It's too useful to give up for the moment. If you really want to help, find a way to pay back the fifty thousand pounds I owe Mummy, or even just a way to pay for all the babysitting. The man's a natural at it, I'll give you that, but Blainbridge is well-accustomed to his government pay."

It was almost like the Dursleys' words echoed back to him. 'You're a burden,' they'd said. 'You don't deserve the food we push through the catflap.' Mycroft didn't mean it like that, but that didn't stop him from unintentionally opening old wounds. For all his adult life, Harry had never worried about the Galleons in his Gringotts vault. Now, it was Sherry's vault, and his own was practically empty.

There had to be something for him to do.

"Arcturus is teaching me to manage the Black accounts. I could syphon off a bit for an investment fund, but that's long-term. I don't even know if the companies that made it in my world are going to do well here. Back in my old dimension, you had a brother instead."

"A brother." It came out sharp. Mycroft was sitting up again, wide awake. "Sherlock?"

"Yeah. Is it a family name? He was different from Eurus, but similar, too. Do you wonder sometimes what it'd be like to have a brother that keeps you up at night, worrying?"

"Yes," Mycroft said, getting up. "All the time."

He looked upset as he walked off to the bathroom. Harry cleared away the tea tray wondering what he'd done wrong.

.oOo.

Parenting Teddy hadn't been so hard, Harry was sure of it. Maybe it was because Andromeda had always been the responsible one. Maybe it was because when he'd been two, Teddy could be entertained for hours by fairy lights cast to zip around the ceiling.

Sherry was just sitting on Mycroft's armchair, staring at Harry like he was judging him for having used a spell instead of getting up to go to the loo.

"What?" Harry asked. "It's a nice couch and I just got the blankets right. Do you want the pretty lights?"

"No."

Sherry kept staring. Harry closed his eyes. He was tired. Sherry usually managed to entertain himself.

"Read," Sherry demanded. With his wavy hair and little pout, he looked just like a young Sherlock would have. Going by his choice of books, the Holmes genes were coming through very strongly.

"How about your toy broom? We could go to the park and fly around a little."

A small giggle escaped Sherry's mouth before he shook his head and thrust The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts onto Harry's lap. Then he climbed on top of Harry and waited.

"Alright." Harry wasn't sure if two-year-olds were supposed to be reading. Teddy had mostly torn through books looking at the pictures, turning his hair different colours to match. Sighing, Harry shuffled the toddler onto his lap and opened the book at random.

At least the boy was a quiet, self-sufficient child. He'd probably inherited a genius-level intellect, but he wasn't zooming around the flat or chewing on the cushions. Yawning, Harry started to read aloud, glossing over anything that wasn't child-friendly.

.oOo.

"Kreacher," Harry summoned. He'd been putting it off for much longer than was reasonable considering the elf wanted him dead. "It's good to see you. Where have you been?"

"Kreacher is serving the good pure-blood mistress, as half-Black master demanded." He looked cleaner than when Harry had last seen him. Walburga likely wasn't doing the elf any good, but at least the locket wasn't hurting him anymore.

With the way his skin had started turning, the elf was going to live another century instead of succumbing to heart failure in '99.

"Right," Harry said. "I…do you know much about taking care of young children?"

"Kreacher be raising Bad-Master Sirius and Young-Master Regulus." Even with his clean tea-towel and scrubbed skin, Kreacher's breath was foul.

"Do you want to keep looking after Mistress Walburga, or would you like to serve Bellatrix, Arcturus…er, or myself?" He winced when he said the last. Even if Kreacher wanted to, Harry didn't want the blighter anywhere near impressionable young minds like Sherry or Eurus. Replacing the sensible Benjamin Blainbridge with a manic elf was a terrible idea.

The look on Kreacher's face was halfway between suspicion and loathing. "Kreacher will serve, I is a good elf of a noble line."

"I know you're a good elf, Kreacher. You did a great job with Regulus, and you're keeping Walburga from drowning to death in a wine glass. That's hero levels of service right there. I just thought I'd ask if you're…happy?"

Kreacher wrinkled his nose, sneering. "I is being happy to serve the pure and noble House of Black."

"Right." Harry heard the front door and cringed. "Right. Kreacher, I command you to continue as you've been. Take care of yourself, visit a house elf dentist or something. Keep on serving Walburga as best you can, and make sure never to let anyone know about me."

The elf bowed, brushing his nose against the carpet with an air of sarcasm Harry was a little impressed by. He popped out just as Mycroft stepped into the room.

The man didn't look surprised at all.

"How much of that did you hear?" Harry asked with a sigh.

Shucking off his shoes, Mycroft came and dropped onto the couch beside him.

"Long day?" Harry asked, putting an arm around the man's shoulder for an excuse to lean in and breathe in his familiar smell.

Mycroft hummed, then fixed his gaze on Harry again. "Of all the senseless purchases, I wasn't aware a hostile house elf was the reason I'm in debt."

"Sorry." In 2008, Mycroft had been the most powerful man in the country. And although money wasn't exactly the same as power, Harry had always known Mycroft to have both. "I'm sorry," he said again, sighing. "I had to do it, the elf had one of You-Know-Who's You-Know-Whats."

Mycroft closed his eyes, tilting his face towards the ceiling. "And how was your day, Harry?"

The fact he was asking had Harry smiling a little. "As if you don't already know. Long. Tiring. I'm exhausted."

"Hmmm. Chronically exhausted, one could say. What have you done with our son?"

All his childhood and well into his adulthood, Harry would have killed to hear someone talk about him like that. He'd thought that wound healed, but Mycroft's word stabbed and comforted him at the same time. "He's in his room, reading. Or looking at books, I'm not sure."

"I wouldn't underestimate the child. He is a Holmes, after all."

"He's also a Potter. He turned Benjamin's hair blue the other day. We're lucky the man didn't notice until I came home."

"Are child-minders of the wizarding variety any less expensive, perchance?"

Harry rubbed at his temple. He wanted to cover his half of their cost of living, but it was hard. He alternated, at work, between dodging Moody and building himself up as the embodied Ministry of Magic. When he'd asked Amelia for a raise, she'd rightfully pointed out he was hardly overdelivering on his desk-Auror duties. Even using his powers to befuddle her a bit, her best advice had been to change departments.

Of course, there were other wizards who had it worse off. "I could get a Potter family friend involved, but he's also loyal to Dumbledore. Also, he's a werewolf." Harry remembered raising Remus' son after the man couldn't stay out of a war to save his own life. Even if Harry saw him with a bit of nostalgia on some days, it didn't mean he wanted him around the house. Who knew what horrible ideas he'd infect Sherry with, too.

Mycroft, thankfully, agreed. "Absolutely not. Eurus would likely carve up a werewolf for potions ingredients. We need someone boring like Blainbridge, or someone who can defend themselves non-lethally. I won't have infectious diseases in this house."

He said it with finality, getting up to fetch the tea tray.

Indignance bubbled up in Harry like steam in a kettle. He was about to speak his mind when his thoughts caught up to him. He didn't actually want to see Remus, and it really would be bad to have Eurus experimenting on a werewolf. Once she left for school again it'd be safer. Perhaps the answer to his troubles was closer than he'd thought. He couldn't ask Arcturus for funds, but maybe he could sell Kreacher back to him.

Tomorrow. Or maybe at the weekend. For now, he was just tired, and it would be nice to just take a nap on the couch to the sound of Mycroft puttering around and Sherry's pattering feet.

.oOo.

Harry had said he'd watch the boy on his day off, but Mycroft had insisted Benjamin work as usual when Eurus invited herself over for a visit. It was probably better like that anyway—Harry was tired, and it wasn't even lunchtime.

"I used to get headaches as a child," Eurus said. She was sitting on what Harry thought of as Mycroft's chair, while he was on his usual place on the sofa. They would have been able to hear Benjamin and Sherry in the kitchen if not for the silencing spell.

Harry pressed his thumb against his faded lightning bolt scar, rubbing it. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Eurus."

"Look," she said.

Harry had gotten very, very good at picking up on her Imperius. He felt her wielding it turned up to full power, then very little, then—nothing.

"You did it," he said dumbly. She didn't even quip about his powers of deduction, too busy grinning.

"I used to get headaches as an adult, too," she continued, almost talking over him. "All my life. Forever." Johnny whined and hopped up onto Eurus' lap, something she never let the dog do in polite company.

"Used to." They'd been working on Eurus' control for almost four months now. Whenever Harry thought they weren't making progress any more, she'd surprise him with another breakthrough.

"They're gone. Poof," she gestured. "Vanished." Eurus broke into a grin that looked like she'd learned facial expressions from a catalogue. "Like magic."

"D'you think they're gone for good? I had migraines as a kid, because of the You-Know-What, but I can remember how grateful I was when they finally tapered off." Her answering laugh was real, if a little hysterical. "I'm so happy for you," Harry said, grinning back. He wished he could wrap her up in a hug, but Holmeses didn't often enjoy touch.

"I'm going to Oxford in September." Her face relaxed back into an easy smile. "I'm going to live in college accommodation and they're going to forget to put the toilet seat down. Or they'll leave their milk in the fridge until it goes off, or play bad music at all hours of the night. And me, I'm going to ask them to control themselves just like everyone else does.

"I'm going to Oxford, and I'm not going to have headaches, and not a single one of the people around me will be helpless puppets. They'll be dull, stupid, human, but they're going to be real."

There were tears in Eurus' eyes. Harry blinked, feeling her relief as if it were his own. "You're going to hate it," he tried to warn her, but he couldn't help smiling back. "I work with people every day, and I promise it's exhausting."

"I don't care," she said, hugging Johnny. "I don't care. I can still manipulate them the usual way. Magic can bite me."

"Give it time, Eurus. You'll probably build up a bit of a magical core now. Keep coming back at weekends so we can work on wanded magic instead."

"Sure, whatever." She jumped up, setting the dog down in a hurry. "I'm off. Give Mikey my best."

She raced out without another word. Harry shrugged and went to join Benjamin in the kitchen. Judging by the smell, they were baking apple pie, which Harry knew Mycroft would love. It was almost an hour's walk, but it'd be nice to bring some into the office. Afterwards, he'd settle down with Sherry for a nap.

.oOo.

Arcturus scowled at Harry when he held open the door. He was usually scowling, but Harry thought it looked extra-upset.

"You look like knackered."

"Thanks," Harry said. He didn't add that he'd just been thinking Arcturus looked the same. "Is your leg bothering you?"

"Bah, to hell with it. It's going to kill me, I can feel it. I know you know when, but don't you dare tell me. Some things are between a man and his Lady Magic." Arcturus sat down behind his oversized oak desk with a little groan.

Harry took his own seat across from him. He'd have to stand soon enough to look at whatever bank statements or Black property reports Arcturus wanted to go over. For a moment, it was nice to just rest.

"You look tired, boy. Aren't you sleeping?"

"I am tired," Harry said easily. Arcturus was loud and abrasive but under all that he, surprisingly, cared. "And I try to sleep. Napping takes me the rest of the way."

"I didn't take you for a fool, Harry."

He looked up. That had almost been a compliment. "Are you alright, sir?"

Arcturus sighed, placing his cane across his lap and leaning forward. "I've sworn to assist you, so you might as well tell me. Maybe grandfather Arcturus can help, eh?"

Technically, with the blood adoption, the man was his father. There were moments to argue semantics, and this wasn't one of them. "I've gone into debt," Harry admitted, choosing to talk about the smaller burden that had been weighing on him. 'Grandpa' or not, Harry wasn't going to expose that he was living with Eurus, psychopath extraordinaire. "I had to move quickly when I got here, but healing Sherry, buying Kreacher, and my new wand all put me back a fair bit."

"Your debt is not, I hope, to the goblins." Arcturus' glare was icy. If Harry were to say yes, he was sure he'd be cast from the family tree on the spot, Unbreakable Vow or no.

"Nothing like that." Harry studied his hands. 'I shall not tell lies,' they said unconvincingly. There was no way Harry was going to tell that he'd wrongfully assumed that his flatmate was loaded.

"Owing money to a friend, that's almost as bad as owing family. I understand the healers and the wand, but Morgana's tits, what did you want Kreacher for?"

At the sound of his name, the elf cracked in. If he was surprised at where he was being called, he didn't show it. "Yes, Master Black?"

Arcturus turned to Harry and raised a brow. Harry wished he'd put learning to do that higher up his to-do list, right behind Don't make an enemy of Albus Dumbledore.

"Kreacher," Harry sighed. He was tired—why was it that every time he tried to do something right, it just made something else go wrong? He missed Ron and his ability to play a chess game from beginning to end, Hermione and her ability to do all the research for him, Andromeda and her warmth at the end of an exhausting day.

The thought stabbed him like a Horntail: he missed Teddy's smile. When Sherry laughed, it never seemed quite right.

Harry turned back to Arcturus. "I ordered Kreacher to go back to serving Walburga. Grimmauld Place is his home. I'm not going to take that away from him."

The old man said nothing, though his scowl deepened as he turned it on Kreacher. "Elf," he said, "How long have you been with the family?"

"Almost a hundred years since Nurcher of the House of Black birthed me, sir." Kreacher's bow was real. With his ironed pillowcase and scrubbed skin, he looked almost dignified.

Not gentle like the Hogwarts elves, or individual like Dobby, but noble in his own right.

"And you have served us well. Tell me what this man ordered of you. Tell the full truth, or face my wrath."

Harry had never heard Kreacher squeak before. Despite his orders to keep secrets, the elf spoke about Harry destroying the locket, about going back to Walburga on Harry's orders, and even about seeing a dentist. He grinned at the end of it, showing pointy teeth that gleamed under the study's bright lights.

"Return to your Mistress," Arcturus said with a nod. "Harry, next time you purchase a House Elf, make sure to perform the loyalty vows. Frankly, boy, this is embarrassing."

He pulled a sack out of his pocket and started stacking gold onto the table. "One thousand Galleons I'll reimburse you," he said, ignoring Harry's stunned face. "I'm keeping two hundred to make up for the destroyed artefact, and because you need to learn not to be an imbecile."

The last bit was softened by the man's lips quirking into a little smile. Harry scooped the gold into his own money pouch, relief doing somersaults in his stomach. A tenth of the debt to Mummy Holmes, paid. Mycroft would be proud of him, plus Harry could put off awkwardly asking Amelia for a raise by another week.

"Now," Arcturus said, clapping his hands. "We will go over the properties again, beginning with Cassiopeia's apartment in Prim Alley. As a spinster of the direct line, she has a right to remain there until her death. Same with Lucretia, but different with Bellatrix. Properties must be rented out, House Elves must be traded with other houses, and women of child-bearing age must be married off and bred."

Harry tried not to let his thoughts show. He scraped his chair over to sit next to Arcturus and listened as the man ran him through the costs of running each property, weighed against the worth of the woman living in it.

He couldn't help thinking of Eurus back home, and all of the hard-earned funds Mycroft had put into keeping her out of Mummy Holmes' influence. He wondered if Mycroft had ever even considered that Eurus, as a woman, might be able to mother children one day.

She did alright watching Sherry for short stretches of time, but that was different.

For all that the wizards thought they were better than muggles, they had a very long way to go when it came to seeing people as people instead of writing them off as assets.

"I'm tired," Harry admitted, just wanting to go home. He'd heard enough for a day, and Arcturus had to understand that Harry wouldn't be marrying off anyone if he could help it, not even Bellatrix.

"Boy," Arcturus said when he ordered that Harry see himself out, "Don't come back before you've seen your Mediwitch. If you've been cursed by some nonsense, I don't want it in my house."

Harry smiled back at him as he went over to the floo. "It's sweet that you care," he said. At Arcturus' deepening scowl, he grinned.

.oOo.

As usual, updates of this fic will be continuing every other weekend. I'm posting at least two updates every weekend across all my WiPs, in case you want to look around.