PART III

Christmas Yet to Come

"It was what I like to call a narrow squeak," said Alphard, as he held out his hand toward the fugitive, still wedged in his hiding place between the wall and Alphard's carpet bag. "You kept a cool head through it all, though."

His putative nephew, whose bright eyes Alphard had met when he happened to spy them peering out from the Emerald Room's one blindspot, ignored the proffered hand in favor of crawling clumsily over the carpet bag and out in the open.

He was tall for his age—or at least, Alphard assumed he was—and already endowed with the happy symmetry of form and figure—dark hair, a straight nose, soon to grow into a Grecian profile—which marked him out as his father in miniature.

The boy looked up, grinning like a monkey.

"Thanks to you." He approached Alphard without an ounce of timidity, and gave a little bow—which his uncle guessed had been taught the boy by his mother, though he doubted Walburga had encouraged her son to add the touch of flair that was turning out the back of his robes like a tailcoat as he did so.

"I thought for sure you'd tell on me. Why didn't you?"

Why hadn't he?

Alphard wondered—mere whim and fancy, perhaps? He'd been bored by the whole affair of the missing nephews from the start, so by all accounts he should have been the first to sound the alarm as soon as he spotted one of them, hiding in audacious plain sight next to his bedside table.

But he hadn't.

Instead he and the boy had locked gazes, like a hunter and fawn in the thicket. Each had wondered what the other would do—neither had known themselves. Alphard would have expected a cry of alarm from a child of that age at being spotted, but the face that those bright—and, dare he say it, clever eyes were set in—had instead scrunched its nose in defiance rather than fear at the moment of discovery. The mouth planted in its center remained firmly shut—the look had said, "Only a spoilsport and a coward would give me up now, when I've come this far."

He'd never seen such a look on a child's face before. It had the ring of truth to it.

And in his life, he'd seen that so rarely—who was he to question it?

Alphard waved his hand about, breezy as a summer day.

"Oh, you know—it didn't seem much in the spirit of the season." He had never liked the rank condescension displayed by elders towards children, and so he had resolved to speak to his nephews and nieces as he would any strange, hardly-known relation. "And I thought he might be very—unpleasant, at your discovery."

The child nodded, his look knowing.

A fellow abhorrer of family scenes? Alphard wondered, wryly.

"He would've been very cross, if he had found me hiding here. But he wouldn't have shouted, much—not with Gran in the room." He peaked up through his dark fringe, mischievously. "He doesn't like to 'round her. Doesn't bother me, 'course."

Alphard's eyebrows flew up.

"No?"

"I know he doesn't mean it," Alphard's nephew said, matter-of-factly. "He just does it 'cause he feels he should."

At this, Alphard threw back his head—and laughed.

"Very astute chap, aren't you?" He bent down to meet the boy's eyes at his level and offered his hand to shake. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of your acquaintance before now."

The child stared up at Alphard, his youthful brow furrowed in confusion.

"Yes, you have, Uncle Alphard!" The boy said, all indignance, before adding, somewhat unnecessarily— "I am your nephew."

Alphard, who had been hoping to coax the boy into revealing his name (was this the mysterious 'S', or the younger one, an even more indistinct figure in his mind—despite being, if memory served, his godson) found himself unaccountably irked at this failure to cooperate.

It had been on an utter whim that he had not revealed the boy's hiding place the second his eyes had fallen on him—and how was he repaid? With sullen complaints that he didn't remember him—was he supposed to recall the name of every cheeky nephew that crossed his path?

Alphard stroked his beard and put on what he hoped was a forbidding pose.

"Oh, no, I think I would remember if I had such an enterprising young fellow for a nephew," Alphard tutted, gravely. "I've only got a seven and five-year-old for nephews, and I don't remember either of them being so amusing or, er—having such insights."

Which only went to show how much could change in the short time he'd been away. Those children who'd been paraded in front of him after tea last Easter hadn't had personalities of the sort anyone could remember five minutes later.

This boy was barely behind his Uncle Cygnus in terms of canniness, as far as Alphard was concerned.

"What's wrong with being seven?" His nephew demanded, not yet developed of the social graces to realize this was hardly an appropriate question to demand an elder answer. "I've been seven over a month."

Ah. This made him the elder of the two—well, that narrowed it down.

"Oh? And how do you like it?"

The boy tilted his head, confused at the question. He had probably never been asked for his opinion in his life—least of all by a relation. From the puppyish expression, it was clear he didn't quite understand the nature of the inquiry.

Alphard might've been another tutor in disguise, sent to grill him on the finer points of astronomy, or to dissect the meaning of the Black family crest in heraldry lessons.

"Well." The boy furrowed his brow, thoughtfully. "I—like it better than six."

"Why's that?"

"They let me come out of the nursery when there's company for longer, now." He smiled, deviously, and lowered his voice to a stage-whisper. "I put a beetle into Cissy's teacup, last week, when no one was looking."

Alphard suppressed a guffaw. This was clearly the one that Cygnus called a "terror."

He couldn't imagine why—exploits at his silly nieces' expense aside, to his uncle he seemed a rather charming fellow—and very forthcoming, which was a relief. This boy had not yet been corrupted by the infernal Black curse that seemed to come to all of them, sooner or later.

He had not yet learned the art of turning every thought and emotion into cold hauteur.

Though, to look at him—Alphard was beginning to think that was not for lack of his parents trying.

He was remarkably expressive and open in manners—not at all what he would have expected from a child of Orion or Burgie's.

"Do you really not remember me, Uncle Alphard?" The lad asked, a sudden uncertainty creeping into his voice. "You don't remember my name?"

His nephew scuffed his shoes on the worn edge of the four-poster, his initial enthusiasm at his great escape flagging a little—as he faced the cold and hard reality that was his own insignificance. Alphard was reminded of an old spaniel his grandfather used to keep—positively hangdog, the lad looked.

Then he remembered, and he laughed, carelessly.

"Of course, I do—Sirius." Alphard shook his head in mock offense at the idea that his mind would be so lax as to forget a kinsman's name. "Forgive me, I, erm—didn't recognize you for my nephew, that's all. I thought you might be a long-lost brother of mine. You've grown so tall."

The boy wrinkled his nose and gave him a look that suggested he knew full-well he was being fed nonsense by his uncle—but also returned the grin with gusto.

"Have I really?" Sirius asked, too pleased to hold a grudge. "Ace."

Alphard only smiled—and in a moment of tenderness that surprised even himself, he bent over, gave the child a small pat on the head and a kiss on the forehead.

When Sirius pulled his head back, his face was as red as holly berries.

Alphard stood back to get a better look at him, astonished that he had let that name slip his mind, when his sister was so fond of using it in full in all her correspondence about the boy.

Sirius Orion—named for Orion's paternal grandfather, the last head of the family, about whom Alphard recalled precious little, except that he had been a most formidable wizard who had occupied a minor post in the government at the end of the previous century, and whom his own grandfather had claimed—in the spiteful and envious tone that all Blacks of the lower branches of the family tree must use about their betters—had ice in his veins in place of blood.

The boy in front of him—a stout lad with rosy cheeks and the irrepressible aura of mischief lingering about him like the smell of mince pies now permeating house—bore no resemblance to his great-grandfather and namesake, beyond a pair of striking grey eyes (an infamous family trait) and a natural arrogance which usually manifested itself in Black men by an insupportable air of haughtiness, but in this child showed itself in rather more insolent boldness.

More nerve than cunning.

"Yes, indeed—I thought you were ten, at least." He furrowed his brow. "But where is your brother?"

Sirius's eyes widened, and he slapped his forehead at his own mistake.

"Oh! Reg. Merlin, I forgot." To Alphard's shock (and delight) his young nephew proceeded to kick the side of his trunk, and when that failed to rouse any sign of life, called, loudly. "Reggie! Papa and Gran are gone! Come out and say hello to uncle, silly."

He banged a few more times on the side, for good measure, and there was a small, muffled and decidedly sleepy noise from within.

"I think he fell asleep." Sirius wrinkled his nose. "He does that. Though—I'spose we have been waiting a long time."

"A very ingenuous hiding place for—" Alphard raised one eyebrow. "—Young Regulus."

He tested the name out, experimentally—Orion's uncle, of course, would be the natural choice as a namesake for a second, given he'd died sometime around when his younger nephew had be born. No one was likely to ever accuse Alphard's brother-in-law of being creative.

"It was my idea."

As Alphard assisted Sirius in the lifting of the heavy wooden trunk lid (undoubtedly the boy had not considered that what came down easily enough might not so easily come back up) his nephew chattered on about how they had come to be in his room so far past their bedtime.

"Originally I was going to hide there, and Reg was to crouch down in your carpet bag—but then he wouldn't fit, and we decided that it would be better if I was the one who hid out here. Papa would have scared him out of hiding in a second, I'm sure."

At this, the boy gave a superior look, and Alphard was reminded irresistibly of his sister.

Sirius looked over his shoulder at his uncle as they pulled the steamer trunk's lid open—Alphard found himself grateful that he had charmed the inside of it to function as a sort of snug sleeper car for himself when traveling. Undoubtedly his sister's son had been surprised to find himself in the comfortable and spacious compartment—and happily, he didn't have to tell her one of her prized brood had managed to suffocate himself in a piece of enchanted luggage.

"What happened, Sirius?" a small voice cried—echoing against the walls of the cavernous interior. "All I remember is—is you pushing me."

"That was for your own good," his brother informed him, rather mercilessly. "You would have started crying and given us both up if you'd been up here."

"But where am I?" There was a slight tremble to his tone. "It—it's very dark."

"You're in Uncle Alphard's trunk, Reg!" Sirius called down. "And if you're a bore we'll leave you down there!"

"That's not funny, Sirius. L-let me up right now, or I'll—tell Mama!"

"Well, I certainly won't let you up now!"

"You are so—so—oh, please do, Sirius!"

Moved by a rare bout of pity—or perhaps by fear the younger boy would start wailing—Alphard reached down into the compartment and pulled up Regulus, who he found sequestered there, just as his older brother had promised, looking a tad crumpled in his wrinkled dress robes, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

Alphard set the shell-shocked lad—he supposed he didn't recognize his uncle and rescuer, being only four the last time he had seen him—gently on the floor next to his brother.

"Very—very dark down there."

"Indeed it is," Alphard agreed, solemnly. "But you're out now, you see."

He rubbed his eyes.

"Fell alsheep."

"Asleep," Sirius corrected. "You're a wizard, not a sheep."

"S'what I meant."

Where Sirius looked big for his age, Regulus was slight—which made the age difference between them more pronounced, for they could not have been more than twenty months apart. Like his elder brother, he was immediately recognizable as a Black, though a less dazzling specimen of one, with calflike, enormous brown eyes he'd inherited from Melania—along with, Alphard was amused to note—something of her nervous demeanor. It seemed that he had lost his a tooth recently, and on account of this he had a slight lisp he was self-conscious of—for his brother was apt to poke at him, teasingly, whenever he should happen to trip over an 's.'

Alphard was able to get a handshake and a sheepish welcome from him.

"Is it bedtime yet?" Regulus asked, simply, yawning.

"Well past it, I'm afraid," his uncle replied, amused. "Am I right in assuming this whole scheme was cooked up by your brother?"

Regulus chewed his lower lip and nodded, shyly.

"See Regulus? I told you it would work. We get to see Uncle Alphard after all!"

The younger of the two smiled weakly at his brother. He had a timidity to him that Sirius lacked entirely—it occurred to Alphard that it would have seemed less unusual without the domineering contrast of the older one, and the smaller boy would have worn it better if his brother wasn't quite so fearless.

"Are the grown-ups cross?"

"Of course. They're even looking for us, didn't you hear me? Gran and Papa both." Regulus paled. "He tried to scare us out of hiding—but then Uncle Alphard helped us keep it up. Jolly good."

"Aren't you worried about those presents?"

Regulus turned his head, suddenly alarmed.

"What's happened to our presents?"

Because he was, at his heart, a provocateur—even of the schoolboy set—and because he was interested to see what throwing a niffler in this pile of gold would wreak—Alphard chose this moment to interject.

"Your Papa announced—" He checked his watch. "—Seven minutes ago that if you were not in the bathtub in thirteen, he is going to take all yours and Sirius's Christmas toys and incinerate them in the furnace. I must say, your brother is taking this news like the consummate soldier."

Alphard's younger nephew's absorbed this new information with considerably less calm than the Sirius had.

"What?" Regulus yelped, alarmed, and then he spun on his heel and, in his first display of real courage, whacked his brother on the arm. "Oh, I hate you, Sirius! Now you've done it—"

"Oh, stop it, Reggie!" Sirius ducked a second blow. "Don't cry."

But it was too late—the tears were already brimming over and clouding his brown eyes, and he sniffled loudly. Alphard found himself glad that it was this unassuming one who had decided to have a fit—from the little he'd seen of them, he was sure if Sirius had taken it upon himself to cry over lost toys, it would have been far more of a theatrical display.

He was hardly used to nursery children making scenes, having barely had the stomach for it when he was that age himself.

"If Papa burns our presents," Regulus proclaimed, coldly. "I shan't ever forgive you."

This threat had very little apparent effect on Sirius.

"Don't be stupid, Reg. Papa isn't going to burn our presents." He turned to his uncle, with the air of solidarity, as if they were both the adults who needed to reassure his babyish brother. "Regulus believes everything grown-ups tell him."

Alphard blinked down.

"And you don't?" He asked, amused, but Sirius was fully focused on his brother, very close to sobs now. The two bickered back and forth, repeating variations on the exchange.

"How do you know Papa won't do as he says?" Regulus finally demanded, crossly. Sirius waved his arms about, gesticulating wildly.

"Because, thickie—they cost a lot of gold, and it would be a waste to burn them."

Regulus scratched his head.

"But—don't we have heaps of gold?"

"Of course. Why else would Papa always count it up in his study? But he's not going to throw some away he's already spent." The younger recognized the logic was not without fault, though he was not yet capable of identifying the hole in his brother's theory. "Anyway, if he burned our presents you'd spend all of Christmas wailing, and then Mama would be cross, and he hates it when Mama is cross."

The boy bit his lips and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Everyone hates it when Mama is cross."

"Papa does more than anyone." Sirius jumped up on Alphard's bed and bounced a few times, experimentally. "I'm sure he just said that to scare us out of hiding, hoping he could get us back upstairs before she notices we're gone."

Alphard, mostly for the sake of his younger nephew's nerves, refrained from comment or laughing. Apparently Sirius had quite the handle on the situation already.

He was, in spite of himself, impressed.

Regulus glared, tearfully, at his brother—calmer than he had been, though he was still skeptical of his brother's read on their current predicament—as evidenced by his loud sniffling.

"But what about the Quidditch match? S'pose he says we can't go?"

"Who cares?" Sirius dangled his legs over the side of the bed and scowled. "Papa's not coming, anyway."

At this—and the telling, boyish buy unmistakeable resentment in his nephew's tone—Alphard's eyebrows flew up for the second time that night.

"What's this about a Quidditch match, now?"

Regulus smiled—the gap in his teeth became more pronounced—and he excitedly told Alphard about the Quidditch match their other uncle was supposed to take them to the day after Christmas, under the watchful gaze of their much older cousins, who, despite being witches, Regulus liked very much.

Sirius scowled and flopped down on the bed.

"Shut up, Reggie—" He proclaimed, in the direction of the musty canopy of the Emerald Room's four-poster. "Uncle Alphard doesn't care about the stupid Wimbourne Wasps or a dumb match on Boxing Day."

The younger boy refused to take this insult to his favorite team lying down, and glared fiercely at his elder brother, who gave him a rather cool look in return that looked, in Alphard's estimation, to be a juvenile imitation of his father.

"Don't talk for him!" Regulus said, hotly. "And—and don't be mean. Don't you even like presents anymore?"

Sirius gave his brother a very superior look.

"Presents are for children," Sirius informed Regulus, loftily—before turning to their uncle with a grin. "I want to know what Nepal was like, Uncle Alphard! Did you see a yeti? Did one attack you?"

"Not on this trip. Met plenty of tribesmen who hunt them, though. Interesting wizards, the Tibetans—they've perfected the art of heat spells and building magic-proof dwellings."

The two children stared up at him in rapt amazement as he described these wonders of the far east. Regulus was tinged with more uncertainty and fear than his brother, while Sirius hung on every word. It was at that moment that Alphard realized what it was to have a relative genuinely interested in his life.

Another novel sensation.

His eyes danced with mischief.

"I did bring back my nephews a few tokens…" He shrugged. "…But if both of them are too old for presents—"

Regulus practically vaulted off the floor where he'd been sitting, his pale face red with sudden alarm.

"It's only Sirius who said he didn't like presents, Uncle! Not me! I like them, plenty!"

Sirius frowned and leapt off the bed, shoving his brother in the process.

"Presents from you are good, Uncle Alphard!" He stepped on Regulus's foot. "It's ones from Uncle Cyg and Aunt Dru that are bollocks."

Regulus gasped in shock.

"That's a bad word, Sirius—it's bad and vulgar, Mummy said so."

"So you won't tell her, stupid!"

"I will, if you keep being mean—"

"Then I'll turn you into a spider, back!"

A sharp knock at the door—one so familiar to Alphard, that, had he heard it on the trunk of the Tibetan cherry next to his yurt, he would have wondered why his sister was in the Himalayas this time of year—cut through the argument like a paperknife through wax.

"I know you're in there."

Both children froze in place.

Alphard was sure that these menacing words was meant for him, but if their stricken faces were to be believed, the children both thought it directed towards themselves, and the prospect of their mother discovering them so far from the nursery was a source of far greater consternation than anything their stern Papa could have threatened them with.

Regulus turned a deathly pale and began to shake, while Sirius, the bold smile knocked off his insolent face, immediately rounded on his uncle and began mouthing childish entreaties to "hide them" and "not to let Mama inside."

"Alphard, open the door at once!"

Both of the children now looked to him—Regulus in terror, Sirius with pleading—and Alphard, taking pity on them, raised his finger silently to his lips with a smile.

"Can't—not decent."

He winked at the boys—Sirius, at least, was calmed by the gesture. Regulus's brown eyes remained as wide as saucers, and though his shaking abated, he continued to glance back at the door with anxiety.

"What difference does that make?" Her disdain was audible through the door. "You never are."

"Now, Burgie—is that any sort of Christmas greeting for me?" Alphard called, loudly, and he tapped the older boy furiously on the shoulder and pointed across the room. Sirius, quick to understand, and with a dexterity that belied his young age, shot across the room and into the wardrobe. "I can't have done anything to make you cross yet, could I? We've not seen each other upwards eight months."

"Mama knows you're hiding up here, too." Alphard stifled a laugh, immune to the look of continued alarm on his younger nephew's face—my, she was cross, wasn't he? "She sent me to tell you that if you don't come pay your respects, she'll never forgive you."

His eyes fell on Regulus, trembling with fear at the sound of his mother's impatient twisting of the door handle.

"Is that meant to be a threat, or a promise?" Alphard pushed the boy onto the floor and slid him under his bed with the same gentle care he would have taken with a carpetbag. Walburga knocked again, out of temper, and Alphard (fighting back the smile he always wore when teasing a relation who was of good value was in the offing) crossed to the door and opened it, at last, with a flourish.

"Hello, dearest sister—and happy Christmas."

He stifled a laugh at the glimpse of sullen irritation that flitted across his elder sister's face right before he swooped down to plant a kiss on each of her cheeks.

When he pulled back, his only sister (and the current mistress of Number Twelve) had managed to fasten to her face something approaching an expression of gracious politeness.

"How very sly of you, to come late and think no one would hear of it."

"Who says that I did?" He grinned and stepped aside, and Walburga took the implied invitation and glided past him and into the guest chamber. "I assume it was the indomitable Lucretia who gave me away?"

His sister arched one elegantly eyebrow.

"Who else? Within five minutes after you saw her she'd told half the guests."

He tried to keep a straight face as he watched Walburga do a graceful sweep of the room. Apart from the ruffling of the bed (which could easily enough be ascribed to him) there was no obvious sign of her two children hiding in plain sight, and judging from her calm demeanor, Melania and Orion had been successful in their venture of concealing from her the truth about her two boys' disappearance from the nursery.

Better for 'Rion's Christmas.

"What do you find so amusing, Alphard?" Walburga asked him, narrowing her eyes in his direction with suspicion.

"Nothing whatever."

She rolled her eyes and murmured her utter disbelief in his sincerity.

"You're looking exceptionally well, Burgie," Alphard said, giving her an appreciative once-over. "And very festive."

Burgie snorted, but as she was not immune to her vanity being flattered, she tossed her head all the same.

At forty-one years, Walburga was past the age that most would have ascribed to a woman's prime—but Alphard thought his sister was still beautiful and cut a trim figure, elegant in her gown of silver and blue, which set off her eyes in a most becoming manner. Those eyes could be sharp, just as her tongue could be shrewish—an unfortunate Crabbe quirk of personality she had inherited from Irma—but she had been well regarded for her looks, if not her personality, which had been, from almost nursery days, notoriously prickly.

Still, Alphard thought, watching those eyes scan the room—there was some essential vitality in her, the traces of a wild-spirited youth that had been forcibly tamed over many years, but which still occasionally peaked out at odd moments she thought no one noticed.

While Orion seemed older than his years, she still had some of the bloom of youth—or at least, the energy of it.

"You're looking at me in that way, Alphard."

"What way?"

"The tiresome way you do when you think you know something I don't."

"Oh, that." He laughed. "But hat's all the time. They could devote volumes to the things I know that you don't."

She scoffed.

"No they couldn't!"

"You are a shockingly ignorant woman, Burgie, on the whole."

She rolled her eyes again, seeing his trick for what it was.

"I know what's expected of me," Walburga shot back, primly. "Which is more than you can say."

Alphard felt a little stirring at his boot. He surreptitiously nudged his heel in the direction that would most deter his young cohort from peeking out.

"If this is about our dear Mama and my failing to pay her proper tribute, I will go with you directly to see her," Alphard said, holding up his hands in a gesture of repentance. "I cannot take the thought of her devoting our Christmas celebration to making me grovel for her favors. That would spoil your party."

Alphard walked briskly over to the bedroom door and opened it for Walburga, gesturing that she should proceed him in leaving the room.

Walburga stared at him, flummoxed—perhaps the only person more surprised at this bout of maturity was Alphard himself.

Here he was, sacrificing himself for the sake of those two nephews of his—when half an hour before he had been quite content to regret coming home for the holiday at all.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

"Of course, I'll take you to her directly…"

Walburga happened to throw the room one last fleeting look—and her shrewd eyes caught sight of the wardrobe.

The wardrobe's door was an inch ajar.

Mrs. Black's hand froze on the doorknob. She stared hard at what to Alphard looked like a perfectly innocent piece of old furniture, but for her must've been the single out-of-place sign she needed to prove to herself something was amiss. For at least ten seconds she watched the door, and her normally smooth and feminine features were transformed into those of a hawk or owl, or some other majestic bird of prey.

All at once the hunter struck—she flicked her wand, and the door opened with a bang, revealing for all the world the seven-year-old boy whose ear had been pressed against the keyhole.

Displeasure and triumph mingled freely on his mother's face.

"Sirius Orion Black—" Walburga commanded, in a low and dangerous voice. "Come out of there at once."

The boy didn't need telling twice. He scampered out of the wardrobe and shuffled over to his mother. Sirius made only one feeble attempt to charm her with a smile—but as soon as he saw the severe look on his mother's face, it faded.

"Do you have an explanation for yourself?"

The boy shuffled his feet, then, after a stern glare, fell still again. His mother tapped her foot impatiently upon the floor,

"What in heaven's name are you doing—oh, never mind. It'll be that Miss Bisset's fault." She grabbed the boy by his chin and jerked his face up to look at hers. "Where is that useless nanny of yours?"

"Looking for me in the attic with gran," Sirius said, sullenly. "Probably. It's not her fault—"

"—Silence. You should have been in the bath and in bed ages ago, and as it is her responsibility to oversee such, it is no one's fault but hers." She inspected him—he was now covered in dust from his sojourn hiding in various corners of the house. "As your nanny can't seem to even bathe you without incident, I suppose I shall have to take up the task."

Sirius gulped and instantly tried to wriggle away, but his mother had the chubby forearm securely in her grasp—and she had no intention of letting him go, now that she held him fast.

"As I gather you have no explanation for this behavior, neither will you have any cakes for the rest of the holiday—"

"—I only wanted to say hullo to Uncle Alphard—!"

"And I told you you would see him on Christmas Day with the rest of the family." Her eyes narrowed into slits. "Now, you very well may spend the entirety of it in your room, while your brother enjoys all your toys and sweets instead."

Sirius opened his mouth—then, seeing the knowing look on Uncle Alphard's face—shut it again.

"I don't care about toys," Sirius mumbled—and Alphard believed him. He was quite sure the severity of his mother's scolding was far more the cause of his pouts than any threats of toys being taken from him.

He also rather thought the boy was enjoying fighting against her grip more than he would have liked her to release him again.

"It was my idea, Burgie," Alphard interjected, lying smoothly. "I entreated him to come and see me. Even confounded the nursemaid so that he could slip past her—she's not exactly the brightest in the bunch, is she?" He clapped his nephew on the shoulder. "And we two almost got away with it, if you weren't so sharp yourself."

It was the perfect lie—exactly what she wanted to hear, for it gave her an excuse to turn her wrath on him—and anyway, wasn't it exactly the sort of thing he would do?

With any luck, it would spare his nephews the brunt of her anger—and the nursemaid her position.

Of course, it would mean casting himself as a villain for no obvious selfish end—and he would then have this to contend with, on top of Irma's annoyance at him for skirting his filial duties. No doubt Orion would be irritated with him as well, when he found out—and 'Rion could turn rather cold, when he was wounded.

And yet, here he was, doing it anyway.

Alphard was finding new sources for Christmas charity at every turn.

"You encouraged my son to disobey me, Alphard?" Walburga asked, in a stiff voice. Sirius winced as her grip on his arm tightened.

"In this little bit of Christmas mischief, I did." He smiled at her. "Perhaps you can find it in you to forgive me."

"Uncle Alphard, you don't have to—"

Walburga grabbed hold of her son's hand and pulled his arm.

"Your Uncle Alphard is a bad influence, Sirius," Walburga said, in her haughtiest tone. "He speaks in riddles and his head is full of ridiculous ideas, and I hope this incident will be a lesson to you in the danger of following his example."

Alphard gripped his chest at these slings and arrows, but he allowed himself the pleasure of a sly wink in Sirius's direction as the boy was dragged off and up to the nursery washroom, where a tub of hot water and strong soap was no doubt waiting for him.

He doubted Walburga would make good on that threat. Now that he had seen the precocity of the child firsthand, he could not imagine her resisting the urge to show him off for everyone in the family.

Unfortunately for his sister, her advice to the boy had definitely only cemented his newfound attachment to his uncle, for in his last look back at Alphard as he was dragged away, Sirius had returned the wink and added a childish grin.

That boy did not regret his actions a whit—and he had no doubt Sirius would be trouble of quite a different variety than his mother had been.

He would have to look through his trunk and find a suitably fascinating present for this budding devotee of Tibetan artifacts, now that he'd promised one.

Perhaps the Yeti pelt he'd meant as a gift for his father…surely Sirius would appreciate it far more.

He would decide later. For now there was one matter far more pressing to attend to.

He lifted the draping that surrounded his bed.

"You can come out now, Regulus."

His nephew very slowly crawled out from under the bed. There was a glum aspect to him that said that though he was five, he knew that he'd been forgotten.

"Well, at least one of you got away," Alphard said, trying to cheery him up. "You're quite adept at hiding. Where did you learn that?"

Regulus stared at the door from which his mother and brother had just departed. The tears had dried, now, but Alphard still thought him a rather lonely figure, for a child.

"Good at not being…noticed."

Alphard had the feeling that he would just as well rather have been caught along with his brother. Walburga had been so caught up in apprehending Sirius, it hadn't even occurred to her to look for the younger one.

"You're a very good and well-behaved boy, I expect, who obeys his mother and father."

He nodded again.

"Sirius was hoping she'd come, I bet."

Alphard dusted him off and gave him a ruffle of the hair.

"Now, now—come along. The nurse will be looking for you—and once your mother sees you're not upstairs, she will come back for you, believe me."

Regulus did not have to be told to follow twice, and so he dutifully trailed after his uncle. It did not take long for the nanny, a harried-looking, freckled thing of Alsatian extract, to run into them on the stairs. Luckily for her, she had apparently not yet run into Alphard's irate sister.

Alphard handed back the younger charge to the nanny, close to tears.

"His elder brother was discovered by your mistress a little while ago, and is no doubt being scrubbed pink by his mother as we speak." The girl looked alarmed at this news, so he added, "I took complete credit for concealing his whereabouts from the family. You position should be safe, at present, for me taking the fall. Much as she would like to, my sister cannot dismiss me from her employment."

After crossing herself and a few hasty words of 'thank you' in broken English, Miss Bisset hurried off with her younger charge.

Alphard watched them go, overcome with a strange sort of melancholy—altogether different from the feeling that came over him every time he returned to the house of his fathers.

Those boys were the future—and to look the future in the face was to see one's own demise.

Happily, he was drawn out of these melancholic musings by a familiar call up the stairs, signaling the discovery by Irma at last.

And so it was, with little reluctance, that Alphard left his chambers and allowed himself to be drawn back into the bosom of his family.

The future would keep. For now there was the present—and that took the form of a demanding woman who refused to admit she was going deaf.

"Coming, Mama!"

This was supposed to only be three chapters long, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. There will be a brief epilogue/coda. Stay tuned! And as always, please leave a comment if you enjoyed.