So I've lost my computer at the beginning of the month, with my hard drive being fried, and I'm seriously considering leaving my job so you know, life.

Chapter 10: Perhaps, they could disagree

Down in the entrance hall, Sirius and Arcturus Black were looking at each other without saying a word.

It wasn't a challenge – one of those "who will break first?" situations that were so common in the Black family – but merely an assessment.

There was – almost, if you counted Andromeda's girl – the entire fourth living generation of the Blacks upstairs, with Melania, and they'd appeared out of nowhere, most of them in their teens. They were Arcturus' responsibility – because he was the lord, because he was their great-grandfather however you looked at it – and they were Sirius' responsibility – because he was their father, because he'd somehow brought them into existence.

But Arcturus and his grandson were very different men – on some points, at least.

They would need to reach a middle ground.

Of course, Sirius could run off and take the children with him – he could, he had Alphard's gold, he had a parent's right unless Arcturus could prove he didn't deserve it, and that wasn't going to happen. He could – but he hadn't, he had come all the way to Black Manor with them, and he'd let his grandmother take a look at them, so for now he'd at least try to make it work.

Besides, for all the gold he had, it would make it easier with his grandfather's backing.

So many children, and he knew none of them, not yet.

Without a word, Arcturus looked back up the stairs – where they'd all disappeared, the children who felt like family despite them having just come to exist. He pursed his lips, shook his head.

Then the old wizard looked back at his grandson, and decided he needed a closer look at him.

In a few long strides, he was by Sirius' side.

The young man didn't flinch nor waver, but it was obvious he was tense, unsure of what to expect.

That, Arcturus thought bitterly, was the unwitting work of his daughter-in-law.

Orion had only ever come to his father three times, in the years they had been raising Sirius, to ask for – for what? Advice? Probably not. There wasn't much to advise on, on how to deal with Walburga. The witch wasn't being purposefully abusive, and most times she didn't resort to violence.

When she did, Orion had always intervened. What else could Arcturus tell his son, except perhaps to take Sirius and Regulus and leave? But Orion loved his wife, and Walburga loved her children. The problem wasn't that she didn't.

The problem was that a loving mother wants the best for her children, and Walburga was just unhinged enough to try and force her oldest son into what she believed to be right, rather than to discuss it with him – or changing her mind, meeting him in the middle. Accepting that perhaps, they could disagree.

Walburga was certain of being right – and Arcturus, personally, agreed with part of her beliefs, if not necessarily all of it, or with the way she went about them.

Sirius was certain of being right, too. And neither of them would yield to the other's belief, neither would let go of their convictions for the sake of family, of a lying peace.

The difference, in the end, laid in the fact that Walburga's folly had pushed Sirius out, that she had tried and berated him, called him wrong in the hope that he'd suddenly see the light – and Sirius' anger had led him to give up on his mother.

Perhaps he had been right to, in the end.

Arcturus raised a hand – no flinch, of course not, because Sirius wasn't afraid of being back-handed, because Sirius was hardly ever afraid of anything, because he had no reason to believe his grandfather would hit him – and pushed back some of his grandson's hair. The young man might want to consider a hair ring or a ribbon, especially while working at the Auror Office.

Sirius looked so much like Orion at the same age – not a perfect copy, of course, Orion's face was a bit broader, his eyes were brown like his mother's, and he'd inherited a cleft chin from Arcturus that only Regulus had amongst the third generation – but their countenance was much different.

"You need to sleep more."

Sirius squinted at him.

"Tell Bella to murder fewer people and I might be able to sleep better. Fewer hours at the office and all that."

Arcturus almost snorted at that. As if Bellatrix would listen to anything he'd say – as if he'd be reckless enough to say that to her face. While she wasn't officially recognized as a Death Eater in the eye of the public – yet, but it would happen at some point – the Black lord had little doubt as to what she and her husband were doing with their evenings.

"You had to go and become an Auror of all things."

Then again, Bellatrix – and most likely Regulus, too, which displeased Arcturus immensely, because the boy was hardly cut for that kind of things – had taken an active participation in this war, too. No matter their sides, the two cousins – firstborns, of course, the both of them – were on the front lines. Difficult to berate one for his recklessness without commenting on the other.

Speaking of which.

"You do realize you have a handful of firstborn Blacks upstairs, right? With all the... problematic aspects of such a condition."

Sirius took a step back, and scrunched his nose in a most unbecoming manner. For a moment, he reminded his grandfather of Narcissa – the cousin Sirius was the less often compared to.

"You mean our tendency not to care about things normal people care about? Death, pain, and the general array of feelings that make people decent individuals?"

The right corner of the old wizard's mouth twitched in frustration. Firstborn Blacks might have a rather... unusual outlook on life, but most of them were still normal people, once they got how the world truly worked. How other people expected it to work.

Sirius did have friends and he fought to protect the rest of the population, after all. Even if the young man had never cared about those "feelings that made people decent individuals" as he'd put it, he'd also found no reason to act out on that lack for his own enjoyment, like Bellatrix did.

"Don't you go and start acting like we're all murderous fiends. I am only saying you will have to adapt for them. A firstborn raising a firstborn can be... a challenge."

Walburga was a firstborn Black, and it was obvious enough that she had had more difficulties dealing with Sirius than with Regulus, her second son. Arcturus himself had had many more difficulties handling Lucretia than Orion – and Lucretia was mild in terms of firstborn Blacks. Pollux had had more luck with Walburga, but the fact that they agreed on many things did not mean they were necessarily good for each other – often times the father and daughter pushed each other further into their less-appreciated flaws.

Then again, when you looked at how Cygnus, a "normal" Black – as normal as Blacks could get – had handled raising Bellatrix, perhaps a firstborn Black was a challenge no matter what.

What was unusual with Sirius' current situation was that you weren't supposed to have more than one firstborn, for reasons obvious.

How many were upstairs, all of them Sirius'?

"Marianne, Harfang and Altair seem mild enough, but perhaps that is just a first impression. You would have to ask the triplets which one of them was born first, and hope that them being triplets doesn't mean the three of them technically count as firstborns. Then there are Dana and Nashira, Varsha and Lamia. Out of eighteen, that makes eight firstborns. It does not mean they will be absolutely uncaring of others, you certainly aren't, and you might be the most extreme case I've seen in the five generations of Blacks I've witnessed..."

"Thanks."

Sirius had a vaguely disdainful look on his face as he interrupted, but Arcturus didn't take it back.

Oh, maybe Sirius wasn't the most obvious of them all, but he truly was the most extreme case. He didn't go around murdering people for his own enjoyment like Bellatrix had most likely taken to doing, but he did tend to press on the exact right spot which would hurt anyone he deemed unworthy – without fail.

He was also the one who wouldn't do harm only to hurt, only because he was angry, because he hated you – but he would do it if he thought it to be the right thing to do, if he believed nothing else would work. Nothing would ever stop Sirius Black from doing what had to be done – or at least, what he thought needed doing at the moment.

If it worked, he would do it.

And even if it hadn't been so obvious, Arcturus thought, there was still the matter of the echo in their personalities. The small tinge he could see and feel inside each of the other Black firstborns, like a kernel of similarity – too identical, too particular to be a coincidence – hidden under their differences – but obvious to those who shared it. Sirius'...

Sirius' echo was stronger than any of the others, like the young wizard was more echo than anything else, like he was exactly what the template of their beings truly was.

The older Black – Lord Black, Arcturus Cepheus Black – had felt that echo from the children, too. They had been too close to each other, too numerous that he wasn't quite sure whose firstborn echo was the strongest in the room – after Sirius, because no one could outdo Sirius on that matter, not even Bellatrix – but...

Sirius caught Arcturus' attention again as he leaned against the nearest wall.

"On that matter, Marianne might have gotten away with not being a 'firstborn'. She is, after all, Adhara's daughter, and it doesn't seem like her mother did a Linelock ritual."

...Indeed.

"She and her siblings are not Blacks by Name, even if they are Blacks by Blood, is that what you mean?"

Interesting take. The children were there today because they were "Sirius'", so of course Arcturus thought of them as descendants from the paternal line, but Adhara was not the three teenagers' father.

Magical inheritance was what dictated both family magic – for the Blacks, an uncanny ease with the Dark Arts and a complete immunity to its mental effects – and oddest quirks like the Blacks' "firstborns". You were a Black by Blood if you were born bearing the name or from a woman bearing the name – unless your father belonged to another family magic, since the paternal line was predominant, and a maternal line of family magic only lasted through one generation without a Linelock ritual being performed – and you were a Black by Name if you were born bearing the name, if you were ritually adopted, or if you married into the family – without belonging to another family magic for wizards.

Magically speaking, Narcissa might now be a Malfoy by Name, but she would always be a Black by Blood – same thing with Bellatrix. Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange both had their own family magics – silver tongue for the Malfoys and an odd turn to anything they ever did with magic for the Lestranges – so they weren't adopted into the Black family by marriage.

Ironically enough, it was Andromeda's husband, the muggleborn Edwards Tonks, who had been taken into the family the moment he'd married the girl – as far as magic was concerned. Despite a mild dislike for the idea, Arcturus did find it hilarious whenever he had to work on the Manor's wards and other things of the kind – that a muggleborn was de facto part of the family by Name, no matter what others or even himself might think on the matter. Tradition might say that Andromeda was now "Andromeda Tonks", but magic didn't care and on its part it was Edward Tonks who had become "Edwards Black".

Anyway, the point was: family magic followed the rule of Blood. Andromeda's girl was a Black by Blood, and therefore she had the family magic. All of the children upstairs did too.

But Marianne, Adrienne and Procyon were only Blacks by Blood – and not by Name, if Adhara hadn't performed a Linelock ritual – and that was considering that their father didn't have a family magic of his own.

And it just so happened that firstborn Blacks, as far as anyone could tell, were only a thing amongst children who were both by Blood and by Name.

That was, maybe, good news. One less firstborn to deal with. Teenagers were complicated enough without being firstborns – look at what Regulus was doing with his free time, and think of how Andromeda had eloped with a muggleborn barely two months after graduation, and let's not talk about Narcissa's tranquil certainty that of course her parents would ensure her marriage to the boy she'd chosen.

Arcturus shook his head and tried to focus. Marianne being a firstborn or not didn't change the fact that they had eighteen teenagers they didn't know at all upstairs, and it was going to be their job to ensure their continued well-being.

"Either way, we need to decide what to do with them all. What do you have in mind?"

The older wizard had his own ideas, of course – but Sirius' take on the situation could add perspective, and there was no point antagonizing his grandson over everything and anything. For all that Arcturus didn't approve of all the young man's choice, he'd still proved the most sensible of Orion's sons – at least he wasn't mindlessly endangering the bloodline on the very side that had started the bloodshed.

Sirius' eyes drifted up, back towards the unseen children who were most likely trying to make the best of a very unusual and distressing situation.

"...Well. They need clothes, all of them. I doubt they came with their wardrobes packed in enlarged pockets. I was thinking Grandmother might take them to Diagon Alley tomorrow, maybe with the help of some of our family members. Aunt Lucretia might find it entertaining, and I'd have asked Uncle Alphard, except he's dead, so... Grandmother Irma, too, if there's a way to do that without having Grandfather Pollux harping on in the background. Also Callidora, and if Harfang Longbottom wishes to tag along I don't really mind."

Of course, the young man wasn't considering his own parents to help – Orion, maybe, but that would also mean Walburga and of course Sirius didn't want his mother anywhere near the children sooner than necessary. Same thing with Bellatrix – did she really need an explanation? – and Narcissa – whose husband wouldn't grace them with his presence anyway, but anything said in Narcissa's presence would get back to Lucius Malfoy unless they could persuade her not to say anything, and a first outing with eighteen little-known teenagers was not the moment to try that.

Arcturus didn't need to have those conclusions said aloud, for he knew Sirius shared his misgivings on the matter. Instead, his sarcasm latched on another omission from the familial list just presented.

"Not Cassiopeia, uh?"

Pollux's first sister was an... acquired taste, shall we say, and Arcturus wasn't surprised to see his grandson scowling at the thought of his great-aunt.

"She's a lunatic! She had me reading How to make a body disappear in eighteen lessons, I was ten years old! Said it was good knowledge to have."

Arcturus closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. While he didn't entirely disagree with Cassiopeia on the matter of usefulness, that book didn't make appropriate reading material for a boy not even at Hogwarts.

"Indeed."

Sirius snorted, and squinted at his grandfather – he knew he wouldn't get approval for that, for an outing the next day with the rest of the politically correct Black family members, but at least he could try and note the current reaction to such a proposition...

"If you are concerned about the number of adults accompanying the kids, I could still ask Andromeda or Cedrella."

The two names had his grandfather tensing, as expected.

Sirius really didn't know how Arcturus stood on the matter of the disowned. He'd let Cygnus and Pollux banish Andromeda, but he hadn't done it himself – and you could argue that she'd made that statement herself, leaving the way she did. Cedrella Black, cousin of Arcturus by an uncle bearing the same name, had been disowned when the old wizard had been in his thirties – Arcturus' father, one of Sirius' namesakes, had been the one doing the disowning. Then, there was Sirius.

Sirius, who had been disowned as his mother's son – in other words, Walburga Black didn't consider him her son anymore, but that was Walburga's problem, and a lot of relatives would snort and call her claim a big fat lie, not that Sirius believed them on the matter – but not as a Black – or else he wouldn't be here.

Arcturus Black, generally speaking, kept his beliefs and opinions close to the chest, and that meant you had no idea if he was on your side of not.

Always pleasant, that.

Andromeda Tonks and Cedrella Weasley were good indicators of his grandfather's feelings on the matter, if Sirius could get him to cough up something vaguely resembling the truth.

The old man took a deep breath, and made for his and Melania's private quarters on the second floor. He wasn't looking at his grandson as he spoke next.

"I'll contact Lucretia, Callidora and Irma. No matter what you or I think, the House of Black cannot reach out to... outsiders, not even those who share our blood. Not until we've had that family reunion, not until the ones who are and remain Blacks are all aware of the situation."

Arcturus stopped in the middle of the stairs, but didn't turn around.

There was no way to guess the look on his face from the dark back and short white hair.

Sirius still did note that Arcturus had said "the House of Black" when talking about what they couldn't do – nothing about their individual selves.

"Tomorrow, we owl Albus Dumbledore to arrange the children's schooling. We'll see to it once you get back from your shift at the Auror Office. What hour do you finish?"

Changing the topic, uh? And with a matter that did need addressing, at that. The right corner of Sirius' lips tilted, but he didn't push, and chose to answer instead.

"For now I'm working three days on, one day off, from six in the morning to three in the afternoon."

"Your supervisors are Alastor Moody and Eveline Smith, correct?"

Sirius squinted, and did not wonder if his grandfather had someone spying on his everyday life – that much was a given; Orion Black still had a silent shadow following him around on his father's orders, and he didn't doubt Regulus did too.

Instead, he wondered how close exactly that shadow was following him.

"Sure. I'm on the same shift they are, obviously."

Arcturus said no more, and started his way up the stairs again.

Sirius rolled his eyes – bloody Blacks, and he would know, he did the same when he didn't want to continue a conversation – and called out one last time.

"Also, I'm going to get Juliet. If I'm staying at Black Manor with you, she is too. I'm responsible for her and there's no way I'm letting her down just because I've somehow acquired blood children."

"...Do as you wish. I suppose you are going to insist on the adoption?"

At least he wasn't arguing against it. That might have something to do with the fact that the Black family had now more than enough blood children for the next generation – Blacks by Name and by Blood, boys and girls, some of them pureblooded and none of them muggleborns, obviously, so it wasn't that important if Sirius wanted to adopt a muggleborn girl now.

"Of course I will."

"...I'll look up the adoption ritual, then. If I remember right, it's in two parts, once to make her your daughter, and three years later to adopt her into the family itself, to make her a Black by Name."

And Arcturus disappeared from view on these words – Sirius wouldn't have known what to say, anyway.

Juliet would never be a Black by Blood, of course – how could she? She wasn't born one – but if Lord Black acknowledged her adoption, not only as Sirius', but as a part of the family despite her birth...

There would be less and less reasons to reject Andromeda and Ted and Nymphadora, or even Cedrella – and behind her, her husband Septimus Weasley and their three sons, who were cousins of the generation of Sirius' parents, but that no one ever acknowledged.

Maybe this wasn't about Juliet – maybe this was about opening the way for everyone else, in Arcturus' eyes. And for all that some might grit their teeth at the knowledge that – perhaps – Sirius' grandfather didn't care about the well-being of the child his own grandson had taken in after a traumatic experience, well. To Sirius, what mattered more was that Juliet being muggleborn wasn't stopping Arcturus from using her adoption for other potential gains – that her blood status wasn't seen as more important than everything else.

His mother would have never agreed to it, if it had been her decision and not Arcturus' – and that was the reason Sirius could never come to any kind of compromise with her.

Maybe... Maybe they could make it work. Sirius, Arcturus and Melania, the teenagers and Juliet and Fania, all together in Black Manor. Maybe it was possible.