A.N.: After decades I think I've finally found a face-claim for Harry that I adore: Tom Holland. I fell in love with him after watching The Impossible. Extraordinary acting in an excruciating film. I can see him as fierce, emotional, brave little Harry, and as the young man he grows into with a will of iron and compassion for almost everyone. With Michael Malarky (Enzo on The Vampire Diaries) as adult-Harry.

Other face-claims include Joe Dempsie for the twins; Chris Hemsworth for Bill Weasley; Natalie Dormer for Tonks; Matthew Goode for Cleitus Lestrange (to be introduced later); Oliver Jackson-Cohen for post-puberty Neville, because who didn't fall in love with Luke Crain in The Haunting of Hill House; Jude Law for Remus (because he was sooo calm and charismatic in Crimes of Grindelwald); Charles Dance for elderly Theseus Scamander (I imagine him as a cross between Winston Churchill and a heart-of-gold version of Tywin Lannister in old age!); George MacKay for Ron; Olivia Coleman for Andromeda; Jude Law's daughter, Burberry model Iris Law for Susan Bones.

Eldest of the Pleiades

Taking a Stand

Finally, they let the poor boy go to the Hospital Wing, where undoubtedly the Matron would vie with Mrs Weasley for the privilege of caring for him. Ellaria felt a tug in the pit of her stomach, that she should have gone with him, perhaps - but she was a stranger to James and Lily's son, and she stifled a wince that perhaps she hadn't been needed here after all…she should have allowed them time in Mexico to recover, before dumping her children with their great-grandfather…

But, no…the twisting feeling in her stomach disappeared as she glanced across the office at the cut cheekbones and bright, grim eyes of her husband, now as much a stranger to her as the child of their best-friends.

She did need to be here, no matter what her maternal instincts were telling her about the mistake she had made in leaving Maia… There was a secret not even Dumbledore was privy to.

And it was time she told it…

She would have liked Scrimgeour here for this, too, though she distrusted him on a personal level. One did not become Head of the Auror Office without a significant interest in politics, and Ellaria despised agendas that did not benefit the people as a whole. But Edgar's stern, resolute sister was Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, outranking Scrimgeour, and she remained to bear witness, alongside Professor McGonagall and Sirius, the person who had more right to the secret than anyone - and the one person Ellaria thought would never learn it.

Ellaria reached into her pocket, thinking about the object she wanted, and felt reassured by the sting of cold metal against her fingertips, the little box clattering softly inside the folds of her coat.

"Something about Voldemort's speech struck me, Dumbledore," she confessed quietly, glancing from the closed door to Dumbledore, who suddenly seemed every year of his considerable age, the lines of his face deeply engraved like the oldest oak tree. He lifted eyes that seemed impossibly young, resting on her face. It had been a long time since she had seen them; he had to be remembering the last time they had met.

He'd never hear her apologise for being right all along; she wondered if he'd apologise for not taking her at her word.

"Which part of the speech?" Dumbledore asked.

"The 'steps he took' ages ago to prevent a mortal death," Ellaria said coldly, stifling a shudder. She was a seasoned Auror trained by the best of their age, sought after all over the world for her expertise - who had spent more time in warzones than out of them, raised her children amid revolution - but even she was shaken by Harry Potter's memories, Voldemort's rebirthing. "Bragging that they should have known he would rise again…"

Dumbledore frowned gently at her, as she placed a dented tin on the grand old desk.

Carefully, she cleared her mind of everything but the eight telepathic passwords, created by her daughter and kept safe within herself; no-one but Maia knew about the box, and even if they found out they would never torture the passwords out of her even if they tried. She filled herself with the sensations and memories associated with the passwords, sighing softly, and tapped the box delicately in the tune of Beethoven's Symphony No 7. Her lips twitching, because this was Rigel's addition to the spell, she spit onto the tin. The tarnished metal hissed and fizzed where her saliva met the metal, and with several clicks, the box collapsed. She sighed grimly, reaching over to move the lid aside, revealing several delicate vials glowing phosphorescently.

"And what was inside the tin without unlocking it?" Professor McGonagall asked, and Ellaria was suddenly sixteen again.

"Breath-mints," Ellaria said, smiling delicately. She always kept the tin close. Only one person knew where to find it, or how to access it. Pass the parcel… She hadn't anticipated it would be to Professor Dumbledore that she passed it, but was relieved that it was. She would not wish this odyssey upon anyone. Dumbledore deftly bottled Harry's memory of Lord Voldemort's rebirthing, emptying out the Pensieve for this new cache of memories.

"What's all this?" Sirius asked, frowning as she uncapped the vials and emptied their contents one by one into the Pensieve, all but the last, smallest vial. She kept that one aside.

Ellaria looked into her husband's stormy grey eyes. She took no joy in telling him, "Regulus choosing sides."

For the first time in over a decade, she took her husband's hand, as he frowned bemusedly at her; together they descended into the Pensieve, into memories she had not explored in years.

They watched horror - and devastating bravery. Nobility in its purest form - and true sacrifice.

Her eyes stung as she returned to Dumbledore's softly-lit study. Professor McGonagall was gasping with shock, her face bloodless and eyes bright; Madam Bones had pulled out a handkerchief and was blowing her nose loudly, her monocle tear-speckled. Dumbledore was more solemn than Ellaria had yet seen him, and he sat wearily behind his desk as if, finally, the burden was too great to bear standing up.

Sirius slumped to the floor, leaning against a bookcase as he panted and gasped for breath, head in his hands and pale as the brother they had just watched dragged beneath cursed waters by Inferi. First James and Lily reappearing during Priori Incantatum…now this… Sirius' pale eyes were bright with the tears coursing over his cheekbones, dripping from his chin - cheekbones and a jawline so like her children's it made her stomach hurt, seeing them in him. They were hers, and yet, there they were in his face. Their faces. Their children.

Her eyes stung as she carefully decanted the memories from the Pensieve into their vials. Then she went to her knees before Sirius, locking her hands around his wrists to pull them gently from his face; his hands shook, and tears coursed freely down his face.

He gazed reproachfully at her, devastated. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She sighed heavily, her entire body aching with exhaustion. She said sadly, "He was gone, Sirius. We were at war… You were already so fraught with what James and Lily were going through, I couldn't…I couldn't risk putting more on you… You were so close to the edge, Sirius, I couldn't…"

For a long moment, Sirius stared at her, with those haunting grey eyes swimming with tears. Fraught... He had been close to the edge, they both knew it; they had all been. Seeing James and Lily had broken Sirius.

He rested his head back against the bookshelf, blinking tears from his eyes, and the tiny tremble of his lower-lip undid her.

She cradled his hands against her chest, threading their fingers together…the way he used to do to her when she was distracted and upset…physically drawing her to him, calming her down with his nearness, his warmth, the gravitas that had developed in his late teens as the War raged and they realised they would be leaving Hogwarts and entering a battlefield.

"He was alone," Sirius whispered hoarsely, tears glinting down his cheeks. "And he was afraid."

"When you're afraid is the only time you can be brave," Ellaria whispered hoarsely. She dipped her head to kiss Sirius' trembling hands absently, the same way she did with her children when they were upset. "And he wasn't alone, Sirius…" She held his eye, and smiled tremulously, her eyes burning. "He was with someone who loved him more dearly than anyone, loves him still, to this day."

Sirius gulped, and fidgeted, and freed a hand to roughly wipe his face. He cleared his throat, and sighed morosely, "Kreacher." He sniffed, after a minute, and squirmed, trying to stand; she helped pull him to his feet, once again startled by the reality of him being here, right in front of her…an Animagus…

It explained a lot; but stoked her curiosity. When had he done it?

And why had he kept it from her?

Returning to the Pensieve, she carefully decanted the memories back into their vials.

"And what was it he died for?" McGonagall asked, her voice constricted.

"A Horcrux," Ellaria said quietly, glancing up at Professor Dumbledore. "One part of Lord Voldemort's soul, encased in an ancient locket.

"And where is it now?" Dumbledore asked. Ellaria, in answer, picked up the last, smallest vial, and emptied it into the Pensieve.

Once more, they descended into the Pensieve, into the dreaded cave with its mirror-smooth lake, the eerie green light, the pale faces in the water. Ellaria sat, grim-faced, wrapping a bandage around her palm. She had no scarring in this memory; both her eyes were dark and sharp. A little girl sat beside her.

She couldn't be more than eleven or twelve, and Sirius felt it like a Whomping Willow branch to the stomach, seeing his daughter. Because there could be no confusion: She had inherited all her parents' looks, though she resembled Sirius more closely, from the softer, more feminine jawline to her extraordinary cheekbones, and the plump lips she hadn't yet grown into. She had large hands and long, elegant fingers - Sirius' hands, he had noticed them the moment she was born, and the constellation of moles and beauty-spots scattered down her front, inherited from Sirius, who had them in the exact same places - and her knuckles were white where she clutched her wand, the only indication that she was petrified beyond reason.

She looked painfully young, especially in this place, and Sirius opened his mouth to ask Ellaria, the real Ellaria, what the fuck she had been thinking, bringing their daughter to this place - but he couldn't look away from her, for fear of what might happen, didn't want to raise his voice in dread of what the noise might disturb - it was a memory, but the tension felt far too real.

The eerie greenish light bleached his daughter's cocoa-caramel skin of colour; up close, his eyes glue to her, he noticed the freckles on her nose, and how the eerie light turned her naturally hazel eyes to black. Her mane of natural curls, which Sirius remembered painstakingly combing through and learning how to braid, were drawn away from her face into a big puff, some of the curls escaping. One of them tickled her neck, making her twitch, eyes wide; they flicked once to her mother, and she set her jaw.

The boat docked, and Ellaria climbed out. Their daughter looked like she was fighting a Sticking Charm, but she stood up, and took the hand Ellaria extended to help her onto the island.

Sirius frowned, wondering - why were they here? Kreacher had given Ellaria the real locket; what would be the point in taking the one Regulus had left?

It became very evident very quickly that neither Ellaria nor their daughter had any intention of drinking the eerie potion, or of removing Regulus' fake locket.

"What about Uncle Regulus?" It was a shock, to hear that name coming from her. Her eyes skittered across the surface of the lake, her expression pinched, grief-stricken, harrowed.

Ellaria sighed quietly, wincing as she glanced across the water. "They won't have left anything of him, love."

"Nothing?" For a second, the little girl looked five years younger; a little child looked to her mother for confirmation. Ellaria sighed softly, reaching out a ringed hand. She placed it gently over her daughter's heart.

"He's here. The rest doesn't matter," she said gently. Ellaria turned to their daughter, so like each other, and yet so different; Sirius was there in their daughter's face. "I know you're afraid, Maia," she said gently, and her words echoed unpleasantly over the still water. "When you're afraid is the only time you can be brave." Maia's eyes had not strayed from the still water, and she let out a shaky breath. She shivered from head to toe in complete and utter terror; but her features were set, determined. Her face showed no sign of fright or hesitation; her wand-hand was steady when she raised it, though her knuckles were white.

Then she nodded. And Ellaria disturbed the cursed denizens of the lake.

None of the witnesses moved, none made a single sound. All eyes were glued to the little girl, and to the ripples in the water, the dreaded Inferi waking.

His stomach hurt, and Sirius realised he had been holding his breath since the tiny boat docked. Slowly he hissed in a breath; and choked, when Maia performed the curse for Fiendfyre.

She had transformed; no longer was a child stood on that island with her mother. A proud, stern-faced sorceress commanded a legion of sentient monsters conjured from cursed flame, Chimaeras and serpents and dragons.

As the lake hissed, the flames swirling outwards, consuming everything they touched, Maia raised her chin, her shoulders straightening, a sense of calm emanating from her, of power, and she held her wand aloft, as if conducting not a host of cursed flame-monsters, but an orchestra performing the loveliest of symphonies. She looked calm, now, coaxing the flames here and there, never letting them get too high, or go too far. She was controlling the deadliest of curse-fires. The lake was evaporating into nothingness; its contents, reduced to the finest ash, if anything at all.

Mother and daughter were illuminated almost lovingly by the firelight, their beauty, their likeness, the glossiness of their hair, which for Maia was growing bushier in the intense humidity that made their gorgeous skin shine with sweat, their eyes glittering furiously.

Ellaria wiped sweat from her chin, eyeing the emptying cavern all around them. The inferno gentled, as the last of the Inferi was destroyed; and the flames started to grow smaller, the heat less fierce, and Ellaria reached into her pocket as a single basilisk of flame soared towards them.

In one move, Ellaria threw an ancient golden locket into mid-air; Maia's flaming basilisk roared, swallowing it. As the basilisk became a ribbon of flame, and then nothing more than a puff of smoke that billowed away from the island in a strange, breathless breeze, it was evident that the locket was gone, destroyed, just like everything else in Lord Voldemort's cave.

The evil of one of the greatest Dark wizards in centuries, undone by a little girl playing with fire.

The only thing that remained untouched was the island, and the eerie green potion protecting Regulus' locket.

Maia lowered her wand with a delicate sigh, looking tired; Ellaria reached down and cupped her daughter's face, the expression on her own very tender. She bent her head and kissed Maia's brow.

"It's gone," said Maia quietly, sounding relieved.

"Destroyed utterly," Ellaria told her, and the two of them seemed then to relax, as if a great burden had been lifted from them. Maia nodded, a stern set to her jaw, and they gazed out over what had once been a lake full of Inferi. It was now a chasm of ash, still hissing in places from the cursed-fire. Maia lifted her wand, one last time, and the tiny boat rose from the darkness, settling in front of them, mimicking the movement as if suspended in water. Maia climbed in first, then Ellaria, who quickly rearranged her features to conceal her unease as Maia sat down placidly, gazing at her. The boat started to drift in mid-air across the chasm, toward the shore that was now a precarious pathway, and the memory faded.

Back inside Dumbledore's office, Sirius gaped at his wife.

"How old?" he asked gruffly, and Ellaria gave him a measuring look before she answered.

"Maia was twelve," she said simply.

"What was it?" Madam Bones asked, frowning. "The locket."

"A Horcrux," Ellaria said quietly, her throat tight. She cleared it delicately, staring glumly at the glowing memory she decanted back into its little vial. "There are so few ways to destroy them… Maia found a way."

Something flickered in Dumbledore's eyes, like triumph, or even amusement, and he turned to one of the cabinets filled with delicate instruments. As he rummaged, Madam Bones frowned and asked what a Horcrux was; but it was Sirius who answered, grimly, explaining the Dark magic necessary to preserve a piece of one's severed soul into an object for safekeeping; "There were books in my parents' house about them, I'm sure I remember…must've been how Regulus recognised what Voldemort had done…"

"That's where I learned what Regulus had discovered," Ellaria said, and Sirius frowned at her, bewildered. "You were alleged to be Voldemort's right-hand, Sirius; your mother left everything to us, I'm sure she felt you'd finally shown true pureblood pride for the first time in your life…she left you the Gringotts vault…actually, Professor - you can make use of the house, if Sirius agrees."

"My parents' house?"

"Yours, now," Ellaria said softly. She had set foot inside it once, and then never again; she had taken the books out of the library and taken in Kreacher and left the place behind. She knew how her husband felt about that house; she knew the ghosts wandering those halls. She hadn't wanted her children anywhere near the place where their father had been so unhappy, where their uncle had been brainwashed into joining the Death Eaters by fanatics… She had found photographs of Bellatrix Lestrange, and fought the urge to burn the place to the ground, thinking of solemn Frank and of kind Alice, and of their little boy…

"My father put every practical protection known to wizards on that house," Sirius said, frowning at Ellaria; he flicked his grey eyes at Dumbledore. "Ideal for a base of operations; located in London. Plenty of rooms."

"You are sure?"

"Take it or I'll have my daughter burn it to the ground with Fiendfyre," Sirius growled low; Ellaria was not unfamiliar with her husband's childhood memories in his family home. He had run away at sixteen and never looked back. The Dementors would have starved, had it not been for Hogwarts; Sirius had so very few happy childhood memories. She touched her palm gently to his lower-back, and his glower softened.

"I'll have Kreacher go on ahead; no-one's set foot inside that place for a decade," Ellaria said. She wondered what the grand old house would look like now, and already regretted the time and patience it would take to rid the house of its Dark artefacts.

"Kreacher? He's still alive?" Sirius gaped.

"Oh, yes," Ellaria smiled, for the first time all night. "He's been with us since your mother died." Sirius gaped at her. Dumbledore turned from the cabinet, sitting back down behind his desk, and they tabled a conversation about his family's despised elf in favour of staring at a very old diary with a great singed hole gored into its centre.

"Are we trying to match tit for tat here?" Sirius asked, frowning at the book, but Ellaria reached for it, turning it over in her hands… She saw the name, and glanced up sharply at Dumbledore.

"I think perhaps we may take a seat for this," Dumbledore sighed, glancing at McGonagall and Madam Bones. He withdrew his wand and twisted it in mid-air; squashy armchairs appeared for the two witches, a cosy loveseat for her and Sirius. Purely on instinct, they reached out and held hands between them.

She felt the same sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach that she had felt when she had been called up to Dumbledore's office to be told the majority of her family had been murdered.

It wasn't quite as bad; but it was still earth-shattering.

"It is time we discussed your godson's academic career," Dumbledore began, his eyes lingering on her and Sirius.

A.N.: Oh, how things would have been different…

I keep seeing fan-art where Harry's scar isn't just you know, the neat little bolt they gave him in the films, but instead is like lightning literally ripping the sky open, covering half his forehead - I like that. Considering it's Dark magic and he's the only person in history to suffer a curse-scar from that particular failed curse, I think it might be a bit more dramatic, you know?

Also, I wanted to work it into the story somewhere, where we compare Regulus' sacrifice with Snape's. Snape was blackmailed into switching sides because he was in agony over Lily's death in spite of Voldemort's promise that he could keep her just as long as he got to obliterate her baby, Snape tyrannised children and became worse than James ever was, for years, he only ever thought of himself and his own pain; whereas Regulus sacrificed his life, without ever thinking about himself. He went to his death quietly, bravely, and made sure Kreacher couldn't be discovered or his family killed for what he was about to do. I'm a big fan of Regulus, and really wish Sirius had lived long enough in canon for Harry to tell them about him. I will be bringing it up in this story that Lily was once friends with Snape, and Remus and Sirius have to try and explain that…