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Chapter Twenty-One—The Hearts of the Blacks

"Look, I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Charlus Potter turned around and stared at Harry. Honestly, Harry couldn't blame him for that. He'd thought they were on their way to an understanding if not a friendship, and then Orion Black had to ruin everything.

Harry narrowed his eyes. He was going to make Orion pay for that. And he thought he knew how, although he didn't really understand the motivations Orion had that would make it an effective punishment. Harry just knew it would work.

"Why did he do that?" Charlus demanded. "Doesn't everyone know that you're not, like, I don't know, my half-brother or something?"

"I thought they did." Harry sighed and slouched back onto the windowsill behind him. He'd caught Charlus in a corridor on the fourth floor that led towards a staircase. "I suppose Black is just—volatile."

"That's one word for it." Charlus wrapped his arms around his stomach. It struck Harry how lost he looked, which wasn't the way Harry had thought he would look. "Can you please try to control him? People are going around whispering now that we abandoned you or something. I mean, our family. The Potters. And you know that's not true. I've never seen you before this year, but I would have made my parents do something if I knew."

Harry wrapped an arm gently around Charlus's shoulders and hugged him. "Yes. I'll do what I can." And if he was right, then this punishment would be a lot more effective than cursing Orion, which Harry didn't think he could have done anyway. It was too much like something Riddle would have tried. "I'll counteract the rumors, too—"

He broke off, because Charlus was shaking his head. "Why not?"

"People would say that we put you up to it or something." Charlus rolled his eyes and pulled away from Harry. "It's best if we leave it up to my parents. They'll know a lot more about politics than we do, and who they have to talk to."

Harry blinked. "Oh," he said, a little lamely. Of course that was probably the best thing, but it still hadn't occurred to him. He just wasn't used to trusting adults to do things like that.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

Harry shook himself free from memories of the primary school teachers who had never told anyone about Dudley chasing him, and Dumbledore not answering any of his questions or meeting his eyes last year, and McGonagall not believing him and Ron and Hermione when they tried to tell her about the Stone in first year. It wasn't the fault of anyone here that Harry was so messed up. Well, except Riddle. "Yeah, I'm fine. If that'll work, please have them try it. I don't want your family to get in trouble for something you didn't do, either."

Charlus blinked and cleared his throat. "But once the rumors have died down…"

"Yes?"

"My mum did write to me and say that we'd be proud to claim you as our own someday. You know, in a few years, when people believe that we didn't know about you and didn't mistreat you on purpose."

Harry felt a sharp blush covering his cheeks. Merlin, people in this time kept doing things like this. "Um, we'll talk about it," he said, hopping off the windowsill. "Right now, I don't even know if I'll be here in two years' time." Because I'll hopefully be back home.

"Hogwarts is a little overwhelming?"

"For someone who was raised at home and not ever in a place like this before?" Harry shrugged. "Yeah."

"Well, come talk to me about it sometime if you want." Charlus looked a little uncomfortable, but he was still soldiering through it. "Because you probably can't talk about something like that with a bunch of paranoid Slytherins."

I could tell Orion Black everything and he would keep the secret. Harry was sure of that, but he didn't know why, and that made him less disposed to trust Orion, not more.

He smiled at Charlus and said, "I just might do that."

"And who is this, Orion?"

Orion turns around with a cool smile. Behind him is Druella Rosier, the witch that his cousin Cygnus is almost certainly going to marry. She's also the most vulture-like person Orion has ever met—not because of what she looks like, since she's dark-haired and pretty, but because she picks and picks and picks at weaknesses until she tears them open.

"This is Harry Potter," Orion says, and gestures at Harry to come up and stand beside him. Harry half-bows. "I know that you must have heard about him." Druella was there for some of Harry and Riddle's confrontations, but if she doesn't choose to say anything about it, it would look weak of Orion to assume she knew Harry.

Besides, there's a difference between seeing Harry and meeting him.

"Everyone's saying that he's your chosen fiancé," Druella continues, looking at Harry even as she speaks to Orion. "I must say, Orion, I never thought you would be drawn to the scrawny type.

"It's as much about what I want as about what Orion wants," Harry says, making Druella start a little. Did she think Harry would cooperate with being talked about? No, she really hasn't met him, Orion thinks with no small amount of glee. "And so far, I think Orion himself is great, and his parents are, true, but his cousins leave something to be desired."

Harry tilts his head to the side as he looks over Druella. Orion stifles laughter. Then Harry turns away with a small shake of his head and says to Orion, "You promised to introduce me to food if we met at least one of your family members first."

"That I did," Orion says, and links his arm with Harry's to lead him further into the drawing room of Hypatia Place, Cousin Pollux and Irma's house. Druella is left behind them, but from the quiet way she watches them, that probably won't be true for long.

For now, though, Harry has outscored her, and Orion couldn't be more pleased.

"This is a…large place," Harry says, staring around at the ceiling and walls as Orion leads him to the table heaped with plates of food, cool fish and roasted peacocks and bread dripping with honey and marzipan. Harry is staring at the height of the ceiling, primarily, and the golden chandelier decorated with enchanted crystals of ice hanging from it.

Orion shrugs and decides to see if he can choose Harry's favorite foods from the table when there aren't any obvious choices like treacle tart to make things easier. "Cousin Pollux and Cousin Irma like it that way." He decides on a plate of bread with honey, small slices of fruit and cold meat, and a few berries. He turns it around and hands it to Harry.

Harry blinks at it. "How did you know?"

"A lucky guess," Orion says softly. In truth, what guided his choices was partially that he knew Harry wouldn't want to mess up eating with cutlery in front of Orion's judgmental relatives, and partially that he thought Harry would like these things. He slides his fingers up Harry's arm. "I got it right."

He doesn't make that a question, but Harry smiles at him as if he knows how close Orion did come to speaking it that way. "You did," he murmurs, and begins to eat, starting with the honeyed bread.

Orion leans on the wall beside him and looks around the room. It's full of constantly but slowly shifting shadows, creating images in a flimsier way than his mother's illusion magic. At one moment, Druella and Walburga appear to be talking in the shadow of a grove of tall pines; at another, Alphard is floating in what seems to be a deep pool of blue water. Orion normally likes the effect, but right now, he can only think that it'll make it harder for him to see someone sneaking up on Harry.

"Would you relax?"

Orion starts and turns around. Harry gives him a frustrated, tender glance from above his plate, which is already more than half empty.

"I promise, anything that your family decides to curse me with, I can handle."

Orion bites back the words he wants to say—that Harry shouldn't have to handle it—and goes back to scanning the room. Harry finishes eating and shakes his head when Orion offers to get him more. Orion himself only has a few bites of lemon meringue pie. He's too nervous to eat more than that.

"If I may please have your attention."

That's Cousin Irma's voice, cool and authoritative. Orion and Harry have been talking about how Riddle's trial might go—this is the day he turns seventeen, and he'll go on trial when the Ministry reopens after the New Year—but they stop in an instant. Their eyes meet, and Harry gives a small, reassuring nod that Orion thinks he probably should have been giving.

"Ready?" Harry mouths.

Orion nods and takes Harry on his arm. He follows the rest of the family crowd flowing towards the center of the room, where Cousin Irma stands on a small dais made of solidified starlight—or at least, that's the legend. Orion isn't sure it's the truth. She gives everyone her equivalent of a wide smile, which means some parts of her face unfreeze for a moment.

"Now," she says, "we welcome important news and the introduction of new family members to the gathered generations of Blacks, as is the family tradition. Callidora?" She turns towards another one of Orion's many cousins.

Callidora smiles a little as she walks towards the dais. Orion blinks at the swaddled bundle in her arms. Huh. He knew Cousin Callidora was pregnant a few months ago, but he didn't realize she'd given birth.

"I would like to introduce you," Callidora says, and faces her family with the same smile on her face, "to my daughter," She sweeps back the cloth and reveals a tiny girl with wisps of white hair on her head. Orion blinks again. White hair is a rare color among the Blacks. "Miss Evelyn Longbottom is the newest addition to the long-running stream of the Blacks. May the light of the stars rest upon her."

The dais flares softly with light, conveying the approval of the stars the Blacks supposedly descend from (or not. Orion has always suspected it's more of Cousin Irma's dramatics). There's a responsive murmur. Harry has a soft, sad look on his face. Orion wonders if he knew a Longbottom in his time, maybe Evelyn's great-niece or nephew.

"Thank you, Callidora," Cousin Irma says, her face still in the relatively unfrozen state. Orion reckons it's because a baby can't have done anything to earn her disapproval yet. Then her gaze comes to rest on Orion, and all the goodwill disappears. "We have one more person who needs to make an announcement about a new family member tonight, or so Arcturus and Melania have informed me."

Orion grins at her, enjoying the way her mouth puckers with silent outrage, and draws Harry forwards. As they step onto the dais—only the second time for Orion, since the first was when he announced he'd received his Hogwarts letter—it shivers and turns bright blue beneath them.

There are gasps. Orion frowns. He doesn't know what the blue color means.

"Are you about to announce that you have become a Dark Lord, Orion?" Cousin Irma asks, voice a rasp.

Oh. The blue color means recognition of power, then. Orion smiles smugly at her and shakes his head. "No. But my fiancé, Harry Potter, whom I would like to introduce to the family, is powerful enough to become one, and has already defeated a budding Dark Lord named Tom Riddle in Slytherin House. Riddle made Horcruxes." The noise is one of disgust this time. "Harry found and exposed them. I intend to marry him, and Harry has graciously agreed. May the light of the stars rest upon him."

It's while everyone is staring at Harry that the attack happens.

It comes from the side, a sharp, focused blast of magic that looks like an arrowhead, but doesn't match any curse Orion knows for sure. It speeds at Harry and looks like it's going to strike his ribs. Orion tries to shield Harry even as someone else cries out and people start to turn in the direction of the attack.

He bounces off a shield that Harry had hovering around himself which Orion didn't know about. Then Harry spins away from him, having deflected the attack into the wall where it leaves a prominent scorch mark, and lashes out with his own wandless magic. Orion isn't surprised when a struggling figure gets pulled towards the dais, and not entirely surprised by the identity of the figure, either.

"Riddle sent you to do his dirty work, right?" Harry asks Cygnus, his eyes cold as he appraises him.

Cygnus fights a moment longer against the invisible bonds of magic that hold him, and then gives up and spits on the floor at Harry's feet, ignoring the way that makes Cousin Irma almost faint. "I'm not going to tell you anything," he says flatly. "Half-blood. Blood traitor. Son of a Mudblood. Punish me all you like, but you can't make me tell you anything."

Harry narrows his eyes. He starts to say something, but Cousin Irma moves forwards and says loudly, "I insist that someone tell me what is going on!"

"Sorry, Cousin Irma," Orion says, and makes sure to look humble, which he knows will make a good contrast to Cyngus's absurd pride. "The budding Dark Lord I told you Harry defeated? This is one of his minions. We knew an attack would be happening at the party, but not who would launch it."

Cousin Irma stares at Cyngus. "And you follow the word of a man who is not even your Lord any longer?"

"He'll always be my Lord!" Cygnus's eyes have the light of a fanatic in them. "There will always be true Knights of Walpurgis!" He sneers at Harry. "And you will not be able to guard your back day and night. One day soon, we'll kill you, and keep you from polluting the Black lineage with your dirty blood."

"I'm dirty, am I?" Harry asks.

Orion eyes Harry a little uneasily. He's never heard Harry sound like that before, so…cold. And normally he wouldn't be offended by insults to his blood, Orion knows. After all, it's not as though his parents were ever alive here, or that Harry would care so much about an insult to the Potters.

"You think Orion is making a mistake, do you?" Harry asks. He prowls a little closer to Cygnus. "Let's see."

Oh. Orion understands part of the reason Harry is reacting the way he is, then. He has to prove himself to the family, and he knows it. And he also doesn't like the way that Cygnus has insulted Orion with his words.

Orion is…well, honestly, he's immensely flattered.

"You'll never be able to convince me you're good enough," Cygnus says, and starts working his tongue around in his mouth as if he's coming up with another gob of spit to hawk at Harry. He utterly ignores Cousin Irma's protesting shriek.

But he shuts up when Harry hisses, and the silver snake ornamenting a candelabra on a side table comes to life and climbs down the legs of the table, heading straight for Cyngus.

Orion hears the astonished murmurs of the others. He's staring himself. Of course, with the others it's because they didn't know Harry was a Parselmouth, and with Orion, it's because he thought Harry could only command the snakes in the Slytherin common room thanks to Salazar Slytherin imbuing them with magic.

But no, Harry is handling this silver snake as easily as he did the wooden ones at Hogwarts. And the silver one slithers straight up Cygnus's legs, up his torso, and to his neck, where it wraps itself around his throat.

And begins to squeeze.

Cygnus's face is going red, and he can't even raise his hands to claw at his throat, given that Harry's wandless magic is still holding them down at his sides. He gasps and throws his head back, and Orion watches dark shadows move beneath the snake, getting ready to crush Cygnus's windpipe. Harry is watching with a bright, cold face and bright, cold eyes.

Orion has faith in Harry, and it's rewarded when Harry stops the snake with a hiss and releases Cygnus from its squeeze a few moments before he would probably have fainted, or died. Cygnus collapses, gasping, bruises already rising into view on his throat. There's a bit of what might be foam on his lips.

"I don't care about earning your loyalty," Harry says softly. "I don't care if you're loyal to Riddle for the rest of your life. But if you attack me or Orion again, or encourage anyone to do so, I'll find out about it. I'm sure that you live near at least one snake decoration." He smiles. A couple people back away. "I know you do, once you go back to Hogwarts. And they'll come for you, Cygnus. When you're asleep, when you can't resist them. Do you understand me?"

Cygnus might or might not be able to talk, but he bobs his head and rolls away. Harry releases him from his wandless magic and looks around the drawing room with a smile that no one's going to mistake as pleasant.

"That goes for anyone else here who likes Riddle, too."

Then he steps down from the dais and reaches for Orion's hand. Orion takes it and fervently kisses Harry's knuckles.

Harry's done just as he should. He defended himself, and he displayed how powerful he is at the same time, which means that he doesn't look weak for letting Cygnus live. It's the best thing he could have done if he wanted the Blacks to accept him. And despite the fact that a few of them backed away, the rest are already coming forwards to be introduced, Cousin Irma foremost among them. Harry apologizes to her in a murmur for the spit on the floor and the scorch mark on the wall, and she says, "Nonsense, we all know who really caused that."

It's a lot, for Cousin Irma to forgive insults or damage to her house, as minor as this is.

Orion sweeps his gaze over faces. Walburga looks sullen and Druella has a frozen expression on her face, but none of them are going to defy Harry, or complain that Orion has chosen someone weak.

Orion smiles and tightens his hold on Harry's hand.

Good.