Harry still didn't know how to feel about all this. By this point, he'd pretty much decided he wouldn't ever figure it out. Not today, at least.

It was maybe a kind of depressing thing to think (which was why he didn't say these things out loud), but he wasn't entirely sold on this whole family concept. He meant, he did get it, theoretically. Well, sort of — it depended somewhat on whose idea of 'family' they were talking about here. How ordinary people tended to think about their families, Harry sometimes found that really squishy and fuzzy and confusing. All mixed up feelings and memory and ideas about what should be, and it was a whole bunch of vague undefined things layered on top of each other over years, and he wasn't entirely sure how it worked.

Which, that was fine, he didn't need to know how it worked. He hardly ever knew how things worked, and he still did them — and it wasn't like these were his families he was talking about, so that he didn't understand how they worked didn't really matter. But, that they weren't his made it all the more alien, if that made sense? Like, say, magic, he didn't get how magic worked, but he could still do it, so that was fine, but he didn't do normal families, so it was still weird.

(If that made sense, he wasn't certain it did.)

See, both the Dursleys and the Blacks had explicit rules for how the family worked, in a way Harry didn't think other families tended to. The Dursleys, he thought that was mostly because they'd just been trying to control Harry as much as possible, but the Blacks, he had the feeling that was because too many of them were like Lyra and Sirius — completely fucking mad, all of the time. They needed the rules to tell them what they should be doing at any given moment, because the vague, fuzzy, undefined layers of normal people relationships were, just, not even a thing to them.

As completely mad as that might sound, Harry could at least understand that. The Blacks were just constitutionally fucked up in a way that had not been quite obvious to him before this summer, but it wasn't hard to figure out how the family worked from the outside. There were rules, clear and obvious ones.

Harry had thought needing explicit rules in order to know how people were supposed to behave with their own family — as Sirius had clearly indicated the Blacks did, with his flood of memories during that rant on Hallowe'en — was kind of weird...but the Delacours didn't do that, and Harry had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to be doing with himself, and this was just kind of awkward.

Not bad, really. Just awkward.

He thought Liz was fine, so far, as uncomfortable as talking to her had been at first. It had been kind of uncomfortable just looking at her, really. Even if he hadn't known who she was, he might have guessed they were related at a glance, especially having just seen James at the weird Hallowe'en ritual thing — her face was rather rounder, her eyes rather lighter, more of a pale greyish-blue, but they did look pretty similar. And there was her hair, of course, apparently the Potter Hair was a thing, she kept it short because it was just as much an impossible mess as his was. (He was told his hair was magic, which probably should have been a surprise, but it really wasn't.) But she was...fine, he guessed.

His brand new aunt he'd never met before, as random as it sounded, actually kind of reminded him of an older, calmer Hermione. In the bookish, magic-nerd kind of way — after getting through the where have you been all this time conversation, Liz had talked about her work a little bit, and Harry had only understood maybe every other word — but also in the very intense, sometimes unnervingly ruthless kind of way. She'd made excuses for herself, that she hadn't really had a choice, but Harry didn't buy it, she could have given her father (Harry's grandfather had apparently been a huge bastard, which was vaguely disappointing) what he wanted and gone back home at any time, but she'd decided she'd rather be bloody homeless than give up — no matter how she tried to downplay it, Harry still thought that was fucking impressive, okay. But also kind of scary, in the way that Hermione could get sometimes that made him wonder if she might not be just a little bit mad.

Apparently, the not giving up thing had stuck, because later on she'd decided to use blood magic to have kids with her wife. Who was a veela. Which was a big deal, because humans and veela couldn't have kids with each other, everyone had thought that was impossible, for millennia. Now, Harry was less impressed with people doing things that were supposed to be impossible than any random other person might be, given that he spent so much of his time with Lyra and she did impossible things all the time...but he also acknowledged that Lyra was bloody mad.

So yeah, his brand new aunt just deciding to create an entirely new kind of magical being just so she could start a family with her wife, Harry knew enough to recognise that was brilliant and impressive, and maybe just a little bit completely fucking mad, even if he hadn't been that surprised when he'd had it explained to him.

But it was awkward, because he didn't really know how to talk to her. At some level, aunt to him still meant Petunia, and he wasn't certain how to deal with an adult who was a stranger but also related to him, and... He was just trying to act casual-but-friendly, and it...mostly seemed to be working? Liz wasn't offended or anything, and didn't think he was being, like, especially weird — she could feel him there, eavesdropping on her surface thoughts and feelings, but didn't seem to care, not even twitching (which did make sense, he guessed, she did spend all her time around veela) — so it was probably fine. He thought. Maybe.

Meeting the rest of her family just made it more awkward.

They'd all gathered in one of the private rooms above the Three Broomsticks, and by the time Liz had led him there it'd been getting sort of late for lunch, well after noon. The second the door had opened, they'd been rushed by a little girl, yelling...something — the only part Harry had understood was mama. The girl had abruptly frozen, staring wide-eyed up at Harry, childish excitement and impatience replaced with surprise and a squirming nervousness.

Harry hadn't put together until later that Maëlie had been staring at his hair — she'd only ever seen the Potter Hair on people she was closely related to.

Introductions had quickly gone around, starting with Maëlie, because she'd been right there; she was the youngest at just eight, and she had the Potter Hair too (though she wore it longer, a pitch-black, twisting mane scattered over her shoulders, that just looked impossible to deal with), her eyes a bright silver that sort of reminded Harry of Luna Lovegood. Maëlie didn't speak a word of English, instead Gascon and the Speech (meaning the native veela language) and a bit of French — she was eight, and she was working on her third language... — but Harry was getting better at the...mind-magic language interpreting...thing. Besides, Maëlie had gone shy and quiet as soon as Harry had walked in the door, that they didn't share a language hardly mattered.

Next had been Chloé, who was definitely a veela — the smooth silvery hair and gold-orange eyes and the burning heat of her magic, thick with a good-natured curiosity and cheerfulness (and an edge of concern for Liz, Harry wasn't certain what for), yeah, he'd met enough veela by now that that was unmistakable. Harry thought there might have been a bit of resemblance with Gabbie, especially around the eyes, but it was pretty vague, he could be imagining it. (They were related somehow, but he had no idea how closely.) Of course, she was also distractingly pretty but, well, veela. She seemed perfectly nice, if very talkative, she'd pretty much taken over the conversation since Harry had shown up, mostly in the form of asking Harry all kinds of questions and trying to get all the young people talking to each other — which wasn't easy, because awkwardness and language barriers. (Though Chloé did speak English herself, if with a very obvious accent.)

Then there were Isabèu and Eulalie. Isabèu was the younger of the two at thirteen, about six months younger than Harry, and was the most veela-looking of the kids — she had the silvery hair, though a little darker than Chloé's, her eyes the same unnatural orange. She seemed rather excited about this whole being in her mother's home country and having a new cousin thing, all bouncing in her seat and chattering. Another one with the Potter Hair and silver eyes, Eulalie (they mostly called her Laïa) was sixteen, and wasn't nearly as excitable, though she seemed nice enough, all smiles at least. (Though she seemed less than impressed with the food, picking at her plate with a polite scowl.) Neither spoke much English at all.

The only one of Liz's kids who did speak English was Doriane. At twenty, she was the oldest — and the first half-human half-veela person in the history of ever, apparently (there were more now, besides these four, Liz said she'd been helping other couples for years) — and looked kind of odd, with her black Potter Hair cut very short, the orange veela eyes, both of her ears pierced multiple times, and was that a bit of metal jabbed through her eyebrow? Like...okay? She came off a bit colder than the others, all smirking and snarking — though not really in a mean way, some people were just like that, Harry could tell she didn't mean anything by it. By the light-hearted groaning and smiling rolls of eyes from the other girls, the teasing was just expected by now. Despite her English being the best of the bunch (better than Chloé's, even) Doriane didn't really talk much, mostly just provided occasional sarcastic commentary.

For a moment, after being introduced to all of them, Harry wondered if there was a reason Liz and Chloé's children were all girls, if they'd done that on purpose or something. But, duh, that was obvious — of course they were all girls, Liz and Chloé didn't have a Y-chromosome between them, bloody idiot...

And they were all nice enough, he guessed, it wasn't like Harry disliked them or anything. It was just awkward. They'd been in here for what had to be a couple hours now, and he still didn't really know what he was doing. The conversation bounced all over the place, Harry couldn't say what all they'd talked about. School stuff had certainly come up, random shite about friends and all, what their home back in Gascony (which was somewhere in Aquitania?) was like — Gabbie and her family also lived there, much of the clan all lived together, though they didn't necessarily all know each other very well, there were literally hundreds of Delacours, apparently — quidditch and languages and even a few bits about magic.

Though that was partially Harry's fault: because of the language barrier, he kept doing the projecting thing he'd picked up from Gabbie, and Liz's family all thought it was very neat. Liz and the kids couldn't project back at him, obviously — or, Doriane said this was obvious, at least, Harry wasn't certain why (because they were only half veela?) — but that was fine, he was getting good enough at that mind magic interpreting thing Blaise did that he could mostly pick up what they were saying, anyway. It was a bit...fuzzy, there were occasional misunderstandings and confusion, but it was good enough. In fact, the Delacours had all settled into speaking a mix of Gascon (which was supposedly not the same thing as French, but they sounded very similar to him) and the Speech (which sounded completely alien), for Maëlie's benefit, Harry technically speaking English but using mind magic to cheat, Liz or Doriane only switching to English now and again to clarify something he wasn't quite getting.

He did think it was kind of cool, actually. He meant, he probably should still learn French. It hadn't quite sunk in just how rare English was in the magical world until this last week — most of the kids from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons didn't speak a word of it, the only reason the Delacours he'd met knew some was because Liz was British and Régis had some business in the muggle world. (Though Arte's English was very good, which was odd, there must be an explanation for that.) It was probably mostly just veela who would be okay with this particular workaround, so it wasn't something he should rely on too much, but at least he knew he could get by somewhere nobody spoke English if he really had to.

Anyway, he was a bit uncomfortable, he'd never stopped feeling awkward, but...he thought it was going fine? It seemed like it anyway. Even if he didn't know what he was doing...or if he should even be doing anything, really. He meant, Liz had never said what she expected from this, visiting Britain and meeting him, so...

Well, she'd implied she intended to teach him Potter things, like the family traditions and history and stuff Lyra and Sirius referenced for the Blacks all the time, which... The importance of this stuff didn't click to Harry the way it did for people who were raised in it, but he wasn't against it, that was fine. It might even be interesting...maybe? He meant...

Part of him was kind of leery about it. He meant, the more he learned about politics and stuff, the more he got the odd feeling that...the Dark was kind of...right, about stuff? Not the Allied Dark Dark, like the former Death Eaters, more like the Common Fate and...whatever the other one was called, it was Latin, that part of the Dark. He wasn't certain about, like, the stuff about regulating magic, there was definitely magic that people shouldn't be allowed to do...but some of the magic that had been made illegal was...kind of stupid? It wasn't the idea of banning certain kinds of magics he thought was dumb, necessarily, they'd just banned too many things, he thought. And, well, Hermione was right, throwing people into a prison (with dementors) for reading a book was so fucking stupid he didn't even have words. Like, okay, if someone used the magic they found in a "bad" book to hurt someone, fine, punish them for that, but just for reading it? What if they were reading it so they'd know how to fight against that kind of magic, in case they had to? So stupid...

Also, he hadn't realised the Light were apparently bloody racists. Which...did make sense, when he thought about it? Ron's family was Light, and he'd flipped (if temporarily) about Hagrid being half-giant. It was mostly the people from Light (and Death Eater) families who'd had problems with Lupin being a werewolf, and with Stacey this year — Harry knew nothing about vampires himself, sure, but Stacey herself seemed nice enough? Everyone was uncomfortable hearing about Sylvia, though the Light kids were the weirdest about it. And these last few days, it was mostly the Light kids being stupid over the veela among the Beauxbatons students — there'd been some grumbling about Fleur Harry had overheard that was, just, awful, people were terrible sometimes.

Harry somehow hadn't noticed until September this year that at least part of Lavender and her friends' problem with Hermione was that she was muggleborn. He had no idea how he'd missed that.

Of course, not all the Light were terrible about this stuff. There were Light families in Common Fate, and they tended to be better about it — the Longbottoms were one, and Neville was...less bad (he was still weird about Sylvia, but fine otherwise). The Lovegoods were, like, super Light, and they were fine. It did depend, some.

The Dark, in general, were much better about this particular thing. Which did make sense, really, racist people did call nonhumans dark creatures — why would the Dark use the label they used for themselves to refer to other people like an insult? He had no idea why he'd thought it was the Dark who were all the racist people, that was obvious...

But, well...the impression he'd gotten talking to James, and the things Liz had said about his grandfather, Harry had the feeling the Potters might have been...the bad kind of Light. Maybe? They wouldn't have always been like that. He'd learned over the summer, from the books about the Potters Lyra had made him read, that the first Lord Potter had been a Longbottom, which had been a Dark family at the time, and his wife had been a Peverell, who were apparently famous for a lot of them being full-on necromancers. So, if the traditions Liz was talking about would all be, like, recent stuff, from the last few generations, maybe that wouldn't be so good. If Harry was just going to learn his family had been a whole bunch of awful, stupid, racist people, he wasn't certain he wanted to know.

Though, if the family hadn't always been racist and terrible (which seemed very likely), Liz would probably pick things from their history to teach him more selectively. She had married a veela, after all, he doubted she wanted to talk about that stuff any more than he wanted to hear about it. So, he was kind of ambivalent about the whole thing, he guessed. It might be interesting, sure, but...

But beyond just teaching him stuff? Liz had mentioned, talking about her father kicking her out of the family — just for marrying someone he didn't approve of, because she was a dark creature, the horror! (arsehole) — that if she were to be brought back into the family, Harry would have to full-on adopt her...but she hadn't said it like it was a suggestion. He meant, Harry hadn't gotten the impression Liz was, like, looking to become a Potter again, all proper like. He had no idea what she was looking to get out of this. So he didn't know how to deal with her, exactly.

So, talking to her family was kind of awkward. Not bad, just awkward.

While Isabèu ("Izzie") was on an energetic ramble about her and some of her friends back at Beauxbatons getting caught playing around with a football in someone's garden — apparently there was a big magical town right outside of the school gates, the students often went out on off days and get themselves mixed up in all kinds of things — Harry noticed Liz, Chloé, and Doriane had huddled together at the other side of the table, muttering to each other about something serious. It felt serious, anyway, though Harry couldn't tell what it was they were talking about from here.

His attention wandered enough he lost track of what Izzie was saying. "Oh, shite, I'm sorry, I wasn't— Is something wrong?"

It didn't seem like Liz and Doriane noticed he was talking to them, but Chloé shot him a smile. "It's nothing, lovely, it's only starting to get a little late. We should start thinking about getting ready to go home." In English, so it was obviously intended for him.

"At least before la pichòta princesa falls asleep at the table." Doriane ruffled Maëlie's hair a little, the girl half-asleep tucked in against her side. (Apparently, "Maëlie" literally meant princess in some language or other, they called her the little princess sometimes.)

"No," Maëlie groaned, the sound long and whining — and also slightly muffled, her face pressed against Doriane. She said something else, but Harry didn't quite catch it. Protesting that she was so very awake, presumably.

Laïa said something then, in Gascon, but Harry hadn't been focusing on her, he didn't catch that either. Liz response was also in Gascon, he focused on her in time to interpret it. "I will have to come in to talk to Maxime about it, you know. Chloé and Maëlie must go home for now, though — I haven't even asked Harry about the townhouse yet."

Izzie was bouncing in her seat and twittering with excitement, so Harry had to raise his voice a little to ask, "What townhouse?"

"Ah..." Liz hesitated for a second, exchanging a glance with Chloé. "You remember I explained that the Potters have a property in the Refuge, where my uncle Lyndon lived."

Yes, he did, though he still wasn't certain what the Refuge was — he was assuming it was a magical settlement somewhere, since it'd sounded like she was talking about a village or something. Not Hogsmeade, obviously, but maybe something in Ireland? There was supposedly a magical town somewhere over there, he didn't know what it was called... "Sure, what about it?"

"Since Fleur is the Beauxbatons Champion in the Tournament, Isabèu and Laïa wanted to join the rest of the students here, but Maëlie is too young, and the three of us are too old, we would need somewhere else to stay. Also, since Gabrielle ran off and is refusing to go home, Régis would like there to be a few more reliable adults in the country. I thought Doriane and I could fix up the old townhouse to be liveable again — so far as I know, hardly anyone has set foot in the place since Lyndon died, it's probably not in great shape — and Chloé and Maëlie would join us once it's ready. With your permission, of course."

"Oh, that makes sense." With the way the Beauxbatons carriage was absurdly expanded they could probably take a couple more kids, and they'd brought professors with, so it wasn't like they'd fall behind in their classes. (Izzie and Laïa didn't speak nearly enough English to sit in on classes up in Hogwarts.) And the townhouse probably was a mess, Harry had heard what Grimmauld Place had been like — the Potters hadn't been nearly as completely mad as the Blacks, but this townhouse of hers had also been abandoned for longer, so who knew what the place was like now. Probably not suitable for anyone to stay in, at least. "Yeah, that's fine, if you want to." It wasn't like Harry had even known the place existed before Liz had told him about it, what did he care...

...Wait a second. Couldn't they just... "You know, I'm sure Sirius would be willing to put you up at Ancient House. There are more than enough empty bedrooms..."

Liz and Chloé both twitched in surprise, Doriane raising her pierced eyebrow. "Well," Liz said after a moment, sounding a little taken aback, "we wouldn't want to impose..."

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind." In fact, Harry thought this was a great idea. He'd gotten the impression that Sirius didn't really...do well alone. Hermione was convinced that the Blacks had a predisposition to something she called bipolar disorder, and after explaining it to him, yeah, that did make a lot of sense, those up and down moods Sirius would get. (Far as he could tell, Lyra had it too, she just only got the up moods.) It hadn't been that long since he'd been in Azkaban, and dementors were terrible, and he'd been miserable when they'd all been leaving at the end of the summer...

Harry suspected Sirius had been drinking. A lot. He tried not to let Harry see anything was wrong, but the couple times he'd seen him since the beginning of term... Well, Sirius didn't try very hard to keep Harry out of his head, he picked things up. And Gin was going to Ancient House for dueling lessons with him now, a couple times a week, and she said sometimes he seemed rather...disheveled. He was never actually drunk, but there were potions for that.

Harry suspected actually having other people in the house would be very good for Sirius. Even if he protested, Harry would probably tell him the Delacours were staying with him, whether he liked it or not.

(Because, they were supposed to look out for each other. That's what family was for.)

"I can ask him right now, if you like," he said, reaching into his (expanded) pocket to pull out a hand-mirror. Part of the lecture he'd gotten after being selected as a fourth bloody Champion and the Revel had involved carrying the mirror Sirius had given him over the summer at all times — Sirius had been rather exasperated with him when Harry had explained he'd had to have Blaise floo call him because he hadn't had the mirror on him. Which, yes, okay, it was reasonable to make sure he always had a way to contact Sirius, just in case he really had to, but it hadn't occurred to him he would have to at Hogwarts, supposedly the safest place in the country. Sue him.

"Ah...I don't know..."

Brightly smiling, Chloé said, "What she does not wish to say, is she does not know this Lord Black, and she does not know if he will be comfortable housing a blood-traitor, her subhuman wife, and their half-breed children."

"I realised that, yes," Harry said, smirking a little. Liz didn't bother with occlumency at all, that much had been pretty bloody obvious.

But Liz wasn't listening to him, she'd turned to hiss at her wife in English. "Chloé, you shouldn't speak like that in front of the children."

Chloé mostly managed to hold in her amused smile, but she was still doing the veela throw your feelings out at everyone thing, intensely enough Maëlie and Izzie giggled. "Darling, they hear that sort of thing from other children all the time. What I say sarcastically, they have been told worse with intent to hurt them. You know this."

"Yes, I just..." Liz forced out a long sigh, her eyes tipping to the ceiling for a second. "Fuck it, never mind. I don't mean anything by it, Harry, I'm just saying, I've never met Black at all. Well, a couple times, actually, but he must have been two or three, and that doesn't really count."

Well, no, Sirius was under the impression he'd never met Liz at all, so. "I'm sure he won't mind. He's a bit of a blood-traitor himself, you know, and I know for a fact he likes veela just fine." Sirius had gone to parties that had transitioned into orgies thrown by veela, but that didn't seem quite appropriate to, just, come out and say...even though he doubted any of the Delacours would care — that sort of crazy shite was apparently just a normal weekend for veela. "He'd probably love having you around, honestly. Big empty house all by himself, you know."

He wondered if he should warn them Sirius would almost certainly end up flirting with Chloé at some point (and Liz and Doriane too, probably). It was probably fine, Chloé was a bloody veela, she must be used to that sort of thing by now...

Liz and Chloé looked at each other for a long moment — Harry got the impression they were having a silent conversation of some kind, either through mind magic or just with expressions, though he wasn't picking up any of it himself. Doriane said something to them, though he didn't catch that either, it was in the veela language and he hadn't been paying attention to her. With a last doubtful frown from Liz and a crooked smile from Chloé, Liz turned back to Harry. "All right, if your godfather is comfortable with it, that should work. We will still have to go back home to pick up some things sometime this evening, and I'll have to talk to Maxime about Laïa and Isabèu, but we don't need to tend to either right this second. If you wanted to call him now."

"Right, I'll do that." He hesitated for a second, then slipped out of his chair. "I'm gonna go downstairs and meet him at the grate. Back in a couple minutes?"

A moment later, Harry was in the hall outside their private room, the stairs down to the main area of the pub to his right. He didn't start moving right away, leaned against the wall and swiped at the surface of the mirror to activate it — he didn't know how these things worked, exactly, but they were pretty cool. (Sirius claimed he and James had used these to talk to each other when in separate detentions, but Harry had the feeling he was making that up, no idea why he did things like that.) After a brief delay, there was a tingle of magic against his fingers as the enchantments took, and Sirius's face appeared on the surface.

Harry noticed immediately that Sirius was rather more well-groomed than usual, without the stubble he normally didn't bother with, the dark wall behind him vaguely familiar. The Black office under the Wizengamot Hall, that was it. "Oh, I'm sorry, are you busy?"

"No, no, pup, don't worry about it. I had a meeting a bit ago, but I'm free now — Emma and Meda are handling the rest, and good riddance, I'd probably just bugger it up." Well, at least Sirius was aware of his limitations, that had to count for something. "Is something wrong? Weren't you meeting with Elizabeth today?"

"Nothing's wrong, Liz and her family are in the other room right now. It's about them, actually."

His head tilting, Sirius said, "What about them?"

"Well, you know, Izzie and Laïa — Liz's kids, the middle two — they want to join the Beauxbatons people here, because their cousin is one of the Champions, but the rest can't stay with them, so they need a place to stay while they're in Britain. I was thinking..."

The look of faint concern vanished, replaced with a bright smile. "Oh, sure, no problem! The elves cleaned up far more of Ancient House than we really need, there's plenty of room. Who all we talking about here?"

"Um, Liz and Chloé, and Maëlie — she's only, like, eight, too young for school. Doriane too, but she's an adult, I think she'll probably spend a lot of time back home?" She had to have a job or something, right? Harry sort of doubted she could just spend the whole year hanging around in Britain. He wouldn't think Liz should be able to either, but she was some big-name blood alchemist, apparently, she'd probably be fine taking a break for a while. And she could probably pop back home for a day if she had an appointment to do a...blood alchemy thing. (Harry didn't know what that entailed, exactly.)

"So, one of the family suites, then. Doriane can slip off to one of the single bedrooms if she doesn't want to be stuck so close to her parents, but, sure, no problem. Yeah, just bring them on over, I should be home in a couple minutes."

"Ah, I thought you could come here and talk to them first..."

Sirius looked slightly confused as to why he should bother meeting people before inviting them to stay in his home for months on end, but he nodded anyway. "I'm gonna pop back home and change out of these robes quick, but I can be there in five minutes or so." The background swirled, moved, Sirius presumably standing up and moving toward the floo. "You're at the Three Broomsticks, right?"

"Yeah, in a private room, I'll meet you at the floo and bring you up."

"Right. See you in a few."

"Thanks, Sirius." He did realise it was sort of a big deal, just, asking him out of the blue to host complete strangers in his house...

But Sirius just chuckled, shaking his head. "Sure, kid." And the mirror went dark.

The floo in the Three Broomsticks, like most of these sort of places in magical Britain, was right in the middle of the main room, out in the open. This being the Three Broomsticks, probably the single most popular pub in Britain, there were plenty of people about. Not as many as there might have been — it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, and while it was an official Hogsmeade weekend most students had moved on — but a good half of the tables were occupied, a few people sitting at the bar. Mostly adults, it seemed, very few looked to be student age.

Which was a good thing, as far as Harry was concerned. Over these last days, since his name had come out of the Goblet, a lot of the other students had gotten very stupid. Because, apparently he must have gotten himself into the Tournament because he's a self-righteous, glory-seeking– blah blah, the usual nonsense people who'd never actually met him before assumed must be true. It kind of reminded him of second year, when half the school had been convinced he was the Heir of Slytherin or whatever, all glaring and hissing at him all the time.

Though, maybe it was just because it was still early, but it wasn't nearly as bad as that time. For one thing, in second year most of Gryffindor hadn't backed him like they were now. He couldn't convince a lot of them that he really hadn't put his name in the Goblet, but, well, they had two Gryffindors in the Tournament, most of them thought that was great, no matter how it'd come about. (Angie had been a little irritable at first, she'd really been hoping she'd get it — Harry had been hoping she'd get it — but she'd gotten over it quickly.) Because Ron wasn't around anymore, he'd been spending a little bit more time with Neville and Seamus and Dean, which was probably why they kind of seemed to...take it personally, when they overheard little Ravenclaws or Slytherins mumbling about it. Because, they were actually sort of friends now, see, at least a little bit, they really hadn't been before.

And there were even people in other houses defending him too, especially in Hufflepuff and Slytherin. In Hufflepuff, there was Justin, who was actually a pretty good mate these days, he'd said he'd gotten into an argument in their common room that first night over the whole thing — and had actually gotten backup from Susan Bones and Cedric Diggory (their quidditch captain, alongside Angie another favourite for Champion), alongside a few other people Harry didn't know as well. He should try talking to Susan sometime, she seemed nice, and was friends with Hermione and everything, so she probably wasn't an idiot about that sort of thing, like far too many mages. Anyway, according to Justin, that first night Hufflepuff had...had a house meeting, discussing what they should do about having two Hogwarts Champions, both of whom technically shouldn't have been in it in the first place...and then they'd had a vote on it.

Because Hufflepuff had house meetings and class representatives and votes and shite, that was a thing, apparently. It was bloody weird. Their internal government Harry somehow hadn't realised was a thing all these years had decided Hufflepuff would support Lyra in the Tournament, but also that any kind of Hogwarts victory was acceptable, so they wouldn't oppose Harry either, even if they weren't officially supporting him. But they weren't supposed to shun him for being a rule-breaking bad person, they could actually get in trouble with the other Hufflepuffs if they did.

Hufflepuffs still gave him some nasty looks sometimes, but at least they were subtle about it.

The Slytherins were mixed, as they always were these days. In their year, Daphne and Tracey and Theo were obviously not being arses about it, and Malfoy and his Death Eater wannabe friends weren't happy, but were too terrified of Lyra to say anything. (Harry suspected they'd been involved in Lyra being hospitalised at the end of last year, and knew she hadn't been obliviated, and were waiting for the shoe to drop. Either that, or it was related to Lady Malfoy inexplicably deciding to stab Riddle in the back, he wasn't sure.) The older kids, well, the ones from families that were allied with the Blacks, the non-racist side of the Dark, tended to be friendly with him these days, or at least polite, and that hadn't changed so far. (It was still early, who knew what would happen a couple weeks from now.) The rest of the upper years mostly seemed to be angry at Lyra, and not him, which...it was probably kind of shite for him to say, but he was fine with that.

The younger kids, well, they didn't seem to care, they were just excited the Tournament was happening at all — most of the lower years, that's how it was turning out. Which did make sense when he thought about it. When he'd been their age, he hadn't even been aware of the drama going on between the older kids half the time...still wasn't, really...

Oddly enough, it was actually the Ravenclaws who were being the biggest prats about it. If one of these everybody decides that the Boy Who Lived is actually terrible now situations were to happen again, as they seemed to every now and again (people were so stupid), Harry wouldn't have guessed the Ravenclaws would be the worst — in the past, it was always the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs who gave him the most trouble. It was kind of weird...but also kind of made sense, in a way? He meant, the only Ravenclaw Harry really knew very well at all was Luna, and she wasn't very well-liked by the rest of her house either, so...

So, while Harry waited for Sirius to show up, leaning against the bricks next to the floo, he didn't really draw much attention — or at least, no more than he always did going out in public. There were hardly any Hogwarts students in here at all. That was Morgana Yaxley at a table with a couple of her friends, mostly Slytherins. Yaxley had never really bothered Harry much...but then, she was older, in the same year as the Twins and Angie and Alicia, even the Slytherin upperclassmen from Death Eater families (which the Yaxleys were, he thought) had never really made a point of giving him shite. Thought meddling in the feuds of little kids was beneath them, he assumed, even if Harry was the Boy Who Lived or whatever. Though, Yaxley herself was apparently...sort-of friends with the Twins, so she might be fine, actually... Whatever, point was, Yaxley and her friends were pretty much the only Hogwarts students in the place. When Harry walked in, a couple of them had glanced his way briefly before just going back to their conversation, one of them, Harry vaguely recognised him as one of their chasers, tipping his butterbeer bottle at him cheerily before ignoring him.

Sometimes it was still weird, realising that most of the Slytherins were actually perfectly fine with him. He'd been so accustomed to the idea that they all hated him for no reason...

From the adults in the room, there were plenty of glances in his direction, turning back to their companions to have whispered, shifty conversations. And while some of those glances were...sort of unpleasant — Harry honestly had no idea what kind of rumours would be going around outside of the school by now, but probably nothing good (it was never anything good) — nobody spoke to him directly, or came over to bother him. Which, that was fine, the pointed looks and the staring weren't...too bad. He was kind of used to it, honestly. Mages tended to be stupid about the Boy Who Lived stuff, this really wasn't that different from normal.

He was still rather relieved when Sirius came bouncing out of the floo a few minutes later — perfectly smoothly and casually, without even the hint of a stumble, because of course he did, everybody was better with the floo than Harry was. In these last couple minutes, Sirius had changed into jeans and a tee shirt with some text and a bloke on fire, must have gotten it at a concert over the summer in California. ("Rage Against the Machine" sounded like it'd be one of those terrible noisy bands Sirius and Lyra really liked for some reason Harry didn't get at all.) Sirius seemed to get more heated looks from the pub's patrons than Harry...

...which wasn't any kind of surprise, when he thought about it. After all, Sirius had been public enemy number one during that whole totally a mass-murdering Death Eater on the loose thing, and shortly after being exonerated had quickly made himself public enemy number one for putting a muggle in the Wizengamot. There were a lot of people who really didn't like Harry's godfather.

Which Sirius was perfectly aware of, of course, Harry was pretty sure it only encouraged him.

"Hey, kid," he said, clapping Harry on the shoulder. As it often was, his head was a sparking, noisy mess, but it wasn't so scattered that Harry couldn't follow his thoughts if he wanted to — this wasn't one of his up moods, just Sirius's normal flamboyant cheerfulness. "Let's not keep the Delacour ladies waiting, yeah?"

Rolling his eyes, Harry turned to lead the way toward the stairs. He could practically feel Sirius swaggering after him — Lyra and Sirius were unnervingly similar, somehow managing to walk over-dramatically was one of those things they had in common — but he also picked up a tingling nervousness starting to crawl over Sirius's head. Well, not nervousness, exactly, but definitely something...anxiety-adjacent.

Oh, wait, it was just occurring to Harry now that James might have talked to Sirius about Liz, and it probably hadn't been flattering. There had been that argument leading up to their parents' funeral, Sirius and James would have been close then, and... Huh. This might be awkward, actually, hadn't thought of that...

So Harry wasn't entirely surprised when, at the top of the stairs, Sirius stopped him with a soft, "Hey." Sirius had his hands in his pockets, giving Harry a narrow-eyed suspicious sort of look. "You okay? About Liz and everything. Is there anything we need to talk about, or..."

"No? I mean, yeah, I'm fine. If I had a big problem with Liz, I wouldn't have suggested inviting them over to stay at Ancient House."

"I don't know," Sirius drawled, a smirk twitching at his lips, "you can be a damn push-over sometimes. You and James have that in common."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Are you okay, with Liz coming over and everything?"

"I wouldn't have agreed to it if I weren't comfortable with it," he said with a dismissive flick of his fingers. Which was bullshit — he was lying, but it was a small lie, so it was...probably fine? "It might be a little awkward at first, it's not like I ever even met Jamie's sister, but if she ran off to the Continent to marry a veela she can't be that bad, I'm not worried." That part wasn't a lie. "So, which room they in?"

"Er, over here..."

"Go on, open the door for me."

Walking across the hall, he shot a frown at Sirius over his shoulder. "What?"

With that suave, lopsided grin of his, he said, "You know me, gotta make an entrance."

Harry kind of wanted to turn him back around and shove him through the floo to Ancient House, bring the Delacours along after him, but it was too late for that now. Bracing himself for whatever his insane godfather might have in mind, Harry pulled open the door.

In a blink, a waist-high, shaggy black dog was charging past him, yipping cheerfully. There were some squeals of excitement from inside...followed by Liz telling Izzie she really shouldn't be giving an animagus ear-scratches before even being introduced, hardly even audible over Izzie, Laïa, and Maëlie all giggling.

Harry sighed.

[la pichòta princesa] — For anyone wondering what the hell language this is, Occitan.

[Apparently, "Maëlie" literally meant princess in some language or other] — It's technically a Francophone feminisation of a Breton (Celtic) word for a chieftain.

[a tee shirt with some text and a bloke on fire] — Fun facts: the cover of Rage Against the Machine's debut album features a famous photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thíck Quảng Đức, protesting the authoritarian anti-Buddhist policies of Ngô Đình Diệm, the fiercely anti-communist president of South Vietnam. Because I guess you should know exactly what's up with an album before buying it.

On a semi-related tangent, what the hell is with anti-communist Catholics? (Christians in general, really, but especially Catholics.) I was raised Catholic myself, and I always thought those people were strange. Like, if you think Jesus would be at all cool with capitalism, we did not read the same Bible, that's all I'm saying.

Yeah, delay, whoops. We were both distracted by other projects for a bit. Probably shouldn't hang as long again in the near future, but we'll see. —Lysandra