Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…
Placing: After the war - could be canon…
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Consequences
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"What exactly happened in there?" Susanna stared at Pollux, fury in her eyes. "You told me that the ritual would be safe for all of us!"
Pollux meanwhile was leafing through different kind of scrolls – the scrolls he had brought with him and that held answers to the ritual.
"Susanna, calm down," Marius said. He was sitting next to an unconscious newly named Eridanus Black. "Whatever happened, it hasn't hurt him too much. A little bit of rest and time and the burns will be gone without any evidence that they have ever been there in the first place."
"Still, this shouldn't have happened!" Percy, now named Perseus, objected.
"It shouldn't have, Perseus," Pollux said sighing. "But that doesn't mean that there's no reason for it to happen."
Perseus grimaced at his new name.
"What do you mean, Pollux?" Susanna asked frowning.
"I haven't found an explanation, yet," Pollux said. "But there's always a reason for things like that to happen in rituals like the one we just did."
"But what exactly did happen?" Susanna asked, her hand carding through her younger son's hair.
"I'm not quite sure," Pollux replied. "But the spectre that visited us without invitation was somehow already bound to Eridanus. It wouldn't have been able to enter the ritual circle if it hadn't had a connection to one of us already. Since it went for Eridanus it's a good guess that the connection was to him."
"But how?" Marius frowned. "Eridanus shouldn't have any connection to a ghost –"
"I'm not sure that that was a ghost," Pollux replied. "A spectre, yes, but a ghost… well, it didn't have the usual appearance of a ghost. It wasn't silvery but coloured. It obviously could touch things and it wasn't stopped by the runic parts that stopped the ghosts from leaving the circles they were in."
"But if it wasn't a ghost, then what was it?" Perseus asked darkly. "And what did that thing to… my brother?"
Pollux sighed.
"That's what I try to find out," he said, his fingers still travelling over the scrolls writing, searching the answer furiously.
After that, silence reigned, only interrupted by Pollux changing scrolls.
Marius was still sitting next to his younger son, his hand carding through the child's hair. Susanna meanwhile had wandered next to Perseus and was now rubbing the nervous boy's back soothingly.
"Aha!" It was that noise that stopped the silence in the room about half an hour later. The other three conscious people looked, expectation in their eyes, at the forth.
"What did you find?" Marius was the first to ask his brother.
Pollux who had been still looking at the scrolls, looked up at his brother.
"A possible answer," he replied.
"And what does this possible answer entail?" Marius asked concerned.
Pollux frowned for a moment, scratching his head a little bit nervously.
"Nothing too bad," he said. "Nothing too bad."
"Pollux!" Marius' used a definitely scolding tone of voice when he voiced the other man's name this time around.
Pollux looked at Marius an innocent expression on his face.
"Don't worry too much, Mar," he said softly smiling. "I should have thought of it from the start."
"You should have thought of what?" Marius frowned.
"The boy's name," Pollux replied.
Susanna frowned as well at that.
"What's wrong with Eridanus' name?" She asked.
"Nothing's wrong with 'Eridanus'," Pollux replied. "Eridanus is a nice, true name of the Black family – even if it hasn't been chosen in centuries."
"So what -?" Susanna asked confused.
"It's the rest of his name that should have told me that there's something more going on than I thought," Pollux replied.
Perseus, Susanna and Marius frowned.
"I don't understand," Perseus said.
It was then that understanding showed in Marius' eyes.
"Iudex Azccabanis," he repeated surprised. "Neither of it is a Black name."
"Exactly," Pollux replied. "Neither of it has a star context."
"But why does it matter?" Susanna asked confused.
"Because he was adopted by us. Our ancestor should have chosen a Black name for him. To not chose a fully Black name just means one thing: The spectre changed it," Pollux looked at the others seriously.
"But why should the spectre -?" Perseus started to ask, but was interrupted by Marius.
"There's only one reason: Your brother has been born with the right to another family name. Basically, for whatever reason, he's heir to another family you're not heir to. Meaning that he's the heir primus instead of secundus."
"But how's that possible?" Perseus asked frowning.
The answer was a sigh from Pollux.
"I guess that's our fault," he said. "Normally it isn't, but we basically opened a portal to the afterlife. This enabled the spectre to contact us and chose Eridanus as his heir."
Perseus frowned.
"I don't understand," he said.
"Basically, I guess that the spectre was not yet part of the afterlife," Pollux replied. "He was coloured and the scrolls tell us that that means that he refused to move on to the afterlife while at the same time refused to stay on earth as a ghost."
"So what is he?" Susanna asked frowning.
"Basically he's a dead soul who stayed into the pathway between death and life, waiting for a time when he finally can fulfill whatever he still wishes to do," Pollux replied. "I guess the spectre was waiting for someone he could name an heir and when we did the ritual he saw his chance and decided to give his inheritance to Eridanus."
"But what about the fire and –"
"Whatever Eridanus' inheritance entails, it seems that he was still lacking some things to inherit. The flames, I guess, was the visible expression of the magic he was given by the spectre when he was made the spectre's heir."
Marius and Susanna exchanged a concerned glance.
"What about the burns?" Marius asked. "They shouldn't exist if it was solely his magic changing, should they?"
Pollux frowned at that.
"Normally they shouldn't," he said darkly. "But they do. I can't explain how, but I will look into them. Hopefully I'll find an answer."
They all looked at the sleeping Eridanus Black, once known as Harry Potter. The boy's eyes were closed, but half of his face was red with burns, the burned flesh looking gruesome, destroying his youthful forehead and right side of his face.
The lightning bold like scar on his forehead had vanished totally beneath the burns.
"Don't worry," Pollux said. "It should heal without leaving any scaring at all."
Susanna frowned at that.
"That doesn't reassure me at all," she said. "That ghost or whatever it was still hurt my son and now you tell me that it might've been our fault that it happened in the first place!"
At that, Pollux shook his head.
"It definitely wasn't our fault," he said. "We might have enabled the spectre to act, but in the end, nothing would have happened if Eridanus wouldn't have had a connection to that spectre already. That he already had the connection just means that he would have suffered through that eventually sometime in the future."
At that, Susanna and Perseus both frowned in confusion.
"But why?" Perseus asked. "I mean: That spectre – shouldn't it have been unable to reach him without the ritual?"
Pollux sighed.
"Yes and no," he said. "That the spectre was able to enter the ritual circle means that your brother was already its heir in some way. I guess that the spirit's inheritance was bound to some specific conditions, conditions that your brother fulfilled since birth. I also guess that him inheriting has something to do with his position in the family –"
"Why?" Perseus asked confused.
"Because the spirit and our ancestor called him 'youngest son of Erich Grey'," Marius answered before Pollux could do more than open his mouth. "Your original father's name should have been lost after the ritual, yet your brother was still called his son even after Eridanus was already accepted as our son and heir secundus. This wouldn't have happened if his position in the spirit's family would have nothing to do with the Grey family. Am I right, Pollux?"
The other Black brother nodded.
"There are some exceptions to that rule, but all in all we will have to assume that his position as head of said unnamed family is somehow bound to the fact that he's Erich Grey's youngest son."
"But… what family are we talking about?" Perseus asked confused. "I mean, is there a way to find out what family we're talking about and the reasons why Ha… Eridanus magic needed to be altered so that he fit the criteria to inherit that family?"
The two older Blacks exchanged a dark look at that question.
"There aren't a lot of families that require a special kind of magic for the heirs to inherit the headship of said family," Pollux said.
"A lot of them are highly specialized in their kind of magic," Marius added darkly.
"And even more of them are regarded as the darkest families throughout history," Pollux added. "Families like the Slytherins… the LeFays… the Hohenheims… and Ekrizdis."
Marius snorted at that.
"We Blacks might have a dark reputation and are seen as a thorn in their sides by many of the light families, but we're nothing compared to those families – nothing at all," he said nearly silently. "Whatever family Eridanus has been part of since birth, the moment he takes up his lordship, he will change the whole wizarding world just by existing."
Perseus wondered if it was too late to commit a murder and then suicide to keep the timeline running like it should have. Regretfully, he guessed that his new parents would find a way to stop his plans before he could make them true.
"Our future is damned," he thought, inwardly groaning. "Absolutely damned."
Regretfully he doubted that Harry was at fault this time around. He clearly remembered the younger man telling him that it was on his head if something went wrong with the half-baked ritual he insisted on doing yesterday night – and Percy was no idiot: He was quite sure that it had been the ritual last night that somehow bound his brother-in-law to one of the darkest families in the history of magic.
"Let's just hope that it isn't Slytherin," Perseus thought. "Harry will kill me if I made him the cousin of You-Know-Who…"
And worse than Slytherin wasn't possible, was it?
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Harry meanwhile looked around the room he found himself in when he opened the eyes in confusion. The room was dark, only lit with a few green burning candles and decorated in black, dark greens and dark browns.
The whole room looked like a study, but without any windows or any kind of other lights but the green light of the candles. There was a desk in front of Harry and some chairs. At his left side was a wall full of bookshelves, at his right a wall of closed, heavy, dark green curtains.
Harry had never seen the room before in his whole life.
"What… where am I?" He whispered to himself.
"You're in my lair, youngest son of Erich Grey," a voice answered his question. Harry knew that voice. It was the same soothing tone of voice he had heard twice before now.
Harry turned around, his eyes wide – just to meet the red, bronze, golden eyes of the man who had hurt him two times already. He stumbled backwards.
The man held up his hands.
"Don't worry, youngest son of Erich Grey," he said. "I'm not here to hurt you again."
Harry's eyes narrowed at that.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" He asked darkly.
The other man raised an eyebrow in inquiry and Harry elaborated.
"Why do you call me 'youngest son of Erich Grey'?"
The other man smirked at that.
"Because that's what you are," the man replied half amused.
Harry pressed his lips together.
"Solely because Erich Grey decided to adopt us," he said. "I do have a name, you know."
The spectre grinned at that.
"I am aware of that, youngest son of Erich Grey," he said amused. "But I won't call you by it until you show me that you are worthy of your name."
Harry started at the other man.
"Worthy of my name?" He repeated confused.
The man bared his teeth in a resemblance of a smile.
"Don't worry," he said. "I know that you will be worthy of it sometime in the future. You have the potential to be, or I wouldn't have chosen you."
"Chosen me for what?" Harry asked cautiously.
The answer was another grin that looked more like a baring of teeth.
"I chose you as my heir," the man said, stepping near Harry and stroking Harry's cheek with cold fingers before Harry could flee from his touch. "You are my heir. You alone. I saw your memories and I couldn't stand to see a light like yours being suppressed by a man you suddenly call your big brother. You should shine on your own – and you will shine on your own the moment you take up my inheritance."
Harry frowned at that.
"What inheritance are you talking about?" He asked confused. "Who are you?"
Red eyes lightened up with unearthly light at that.
"The moment you are ready to be my heir, I will tell you my name, youngest son of Erich Grey," the spectre replied.
Harry frowned at that.
"So… what should I call you until then?" Harry asked. "I somehow get the feeling that this won't be the last time I see you, even if I'd wish that it was – and I need something to call you if I interact with you more often…"
The spirit grinned his teeth baring like grin again.
"I guess you are right, youngest son of Erich Grey," he said amused. "You might need to call me something sometime in the future…"
He stopped speaking and Harry raised an eyebrow.
The man shrugged.
"Pater should do for now," he said. "It's at least the correct word for you to describe me."
Harry frowned at that. That word sounded somehow familiar, but he couldn't for the life of him think where he had heard it before…
The spirit grinned, as if he was part of Harry's confused thought process.
"Don't worry. The meaning might come to you at a later time," he said. "Until then I will do everything to make sure that you will become the heir I need you to be. Don't try to argue. Today we will begin your training."
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I hope you liked it.
Ebenbild