Hadrian took a deep breath while he stood before the courtroom door. His auror escorts were waiting patiently for him while he rested his nerves beforestepping into the courtroom.

'The week following the dinner confrontation with Malfoy has been a busy one' Hadrian mused while walking towards a large uncomfortable wooden seat facing the Wizemgamot members.

FLASHBACK

At breakfast an official looking owl landed in front of Hadrian. The owl was carrying what looked to be an envelope sealed with the ministry seal, on its right foot. Haughtily it stuck his foot out and thrust the envelope above his plate; not caring in the slightest that Hadrian wanted to strangle the beast for its behaviour. Glaring at the animal he reached for the envelope and took it. The owl didn't even look at him as he took off and flew away and back to the ministry, leaving a muttering Hadrian behind. The people close to him could clearly hear muttering him along the lines of "Obnoxious little birds, just as useless as that inbred government."

After a moment of glaring up at the people who looked at the situation in amusement, he opened the envelope. In it was a letter explaining that he was summoned for a trial for line theft on the Black Family taking place the following Saturday. His accuser; Lucius Malfoy. Outwardly his face was a mask of indifference with no emotion being shown on his face, but if you looked carefully enough you could see his eyes twinkling in delight. He got the Malfoys right in the position where he wanted them.

At first his new friends were worried. Standing trial in front of the Wizemgamot was not a thing to take lightly. Adding on top of it was that the trial was being held for line theft. It was certainly not something that made the situation any brighter.

But Daphne, the ever watchful person, noticed that Hadrian wasn't worried. In fact he showed slight signs of glee and happiness. And so she decided to corner him later on the day.

Hadrian was walking through the corridors searching for an empty classroom that he could start using for his 'extracurricular' training when he was grabbed by his right arm and dragged into a dark alcove.

Hadrian immediately lashed out with his magic and pushed the intruder away. His right arm finally free allowed him to draw his wand almost faster than eyes could follow. Lighting up the alcove through a silent lumos he saw Daphne Greengrass standing a few feet away looking rather shocked.

"Did you just use wandless magic!?"

Hadrian, slightly relieved that it was only Daphne who grabbed him but at the same time angry that she grabbed him, heatedly replied "None of your business! Why did you grab me Daphne! You should know better than do something like that! What if I had reacted first with force instead of checking who grabbed me!?"

Daphne looked quite ashamed at that. Indeed she knew better than to grab someone randomly. You never knew how the person would react. "Sorry… I just wanted ask you something."

Hadrian sighed and nodded, the anger was slowly flowing out of him. "Don't do anything like that again okay. For all I know you were Malfoy and he wanted to take some revenge for last night."

"Again I'm sorry."

He nodded again in acceptance as he heard the truthfulness in her voice. Raising his wand, he erected some silencing wards.

Daphne recognised what he was doing, every pureblood was learned how to do spells and wards that would allow for private conversations that had to be kept private.

"So you wanted to ask something?"

"You planned it didn't you?" She asked suspiciously while carefully checking his facial expression, hoping to catch something on his usually stone blank face.

He knew what she was talking about of course, but almost for the fun of it he decided to drawl it out a bit longer. "I'm sorry what did I plan?"

Daphne's eyes narrowed. Clearly she didn't find his faux innocent as amusing as he did. Crossing her arms across her chest and tapping the floor with her right foot in essentially a perfect image of a princess not getting her way, she hissed back "Don't make me out for a fool Hadrian! You planned it all out! Last night with Malfoy and the trial!"

Hadrian decided to speak the truth… Sort of… "I didn't plan out last night nor the trail"

Daphne clearly didn't believe him as she now turned even more angry "Don't lie Hadrian! I will not believe that the Blacks have you running around here with all the blackmail and discretion secrets they have on all their political opponents with the risk of someone discovering them using legilimency! You purposely knew that Malfoy secret to humiliate the Malfoy brat in public and lure Lucius Malfoy out!"

He couldn't help but smile. Through one observation she uncovered the entire plot he and his grandfather had made. The end goal is still unknown of course even Daphne could not guess that right away on the brink.

Two things he already noticed about Daphne and that is that she is unbelievable smart and good in observing and drawing the right conclusions.

The fact that she looked very pretty while she was mad didn't help at all to wipe that smile of his face. Wait… What? Pretty? Where did that come from?

Having had his fun in provoking Daphne, he relented and told her the truth "Okay fine. I did humiliate him on purpose and I did provoke Lucius Malfoy to retaliate on me. But I got it all in hand for the trail, there is no chance for me to be convicted of line theft. What I don't understand is why you are so upset?"

Daphne blanched. Indeed why was she upset at this moment?

She wasn't really upset but more annoyed about the act of innocence Hadrian performed just to crawl a bit under her skin. She is used to that kind of behaviour from her little sister and has grown mostly impassive to it, so that was clearly not the reason.

But then what caused her to be so upset? She could feel that it is mostly fear of Hadrian losing and Malfoy acting all high and might and harassing her again. But she felt there was more, but she couldn't pinpoint it out yet.

"None of your business, just don't make a fool out of yourself in front of the Wizemgamot" and she pushed past him and marched away leaving an amused and curious Hadrian behind.

FLASHBACK END

Having taken his seat Hadrian let his gaze wander through the courtroom. It was a cold and bland room, everything was grey of colour and even the seats of the Wizemgamot members looked slightly uncomfortable.

The members in said seats amused him to no end, he could clearly see the excitement and obvious interest in him in their eyes. Some of what he knew were members of the 'light' faction, even smiled and nodded to him. Most definitely stating their thanks for the discrediting of the Malfoy's and dealing a hard blow to the 'dark' faction.

Speaking about Malfoy's, the state of Lucius Malfoy's face made it very clear that he didn't have the best week of his life. Exhaustion was clearly written all over his face.

It had been very amusing for Hadrian to see Draco Malfoy trying his very best to save his face in the Snake Den. But clearly most of the normally Malfoy aligned houses and their children had severed a lot of their ties with the Malfoys.

Even to their allies, the Malfoys always acted superior and arrogant, and thus most of the alliances with the Malfoys were about necessity rather than loyalty. With the loss of face, the Malfoys weren't useful to those houses anymore and they slammed the door closed full in the faces of the Malfoys.

A lot of the 'dark' houses more than willingly cast the Malfoys aside and jumped in the political warfare to claim the position of being the flagship of the 'dark' faction.

He was brought out of his musing by the banging of a hammer. The wielder of the hammer no less than the Minister of Magic himself; Cornelius Fudge. Alongside his seat sat undersecretary Delores Umbridge and the Chief executer of the Wizemgamot Albus Dumbledore

"We are here gathered today for the trial of one Harry James Potter. He has been accused of Line Theft on the Black family."

Fudge's gaze flicked up from the note he was reading out loud to Hadrian. "What is your plead Mr. Potter?"

Before he could answer the courtroom door was blasted open with a loud bang and an old confident but quite angry voice clearly boomed through the courtroom. "So this is what became of this shit hole after Fudge took over!?"

Everybody turned and saw a very angry man standing there. The man was dressed in formal looking black robes, on which the Black crest was proudly displayed and around his shoulders was just a black cloak. Many of the attendances to the trial paled; the Black Crest, salt and pepper hair reaching down to his shoulders, his sharp jaw line and the huge looking black Head of House ring on his right hand could indicate only one person standing there in courtroom doorway; Arcturus Black III.

Having a very angry Arcturus Black III is not a pretty thing to have in front of you, even if you're not the target of his wrath. Before his self-imposed political exit after the fall of Voldemort, he made quite the name in the political field. He was cunning, he was ambitious, but most of all he was ruthless. He was in itself the pure embodiment of the Black family reputation.

The only thing that mattered for him was his family, if it wasn't of interest to House Black, then it was of no interest to him. Only a select few people outside of his family held the interest and friendship of Arcturus, most notably Charlus Potter, husband of Dorea Potter nee Black.

Arcturus strode into the room, walking with equal measured steps with his cloak bellowing after him, his face only softened a little bit when his eyes met Hadrian's but only to grow absolute furious when he saw on what he was sitting. No Black should ever sit in such a chair.

"It absolutely astonishes me you complete morons, that you dare to trial someone with Black blood in his veins without informing the Head of House of the change of time for the trial!"

This information honestly surprised Hadrian, the letter hadn't mentioned a precise time of the trail, only that it would be held on Sunday and that he would be picked up by aurors and brought to the ministry on Sunday morning.

It seems that this was intentional and part of some scheme to have Arcturus absent to the trail. Hadrian internally smirked and shook his head in exasperation. How dumb could the minister be, Arcturus would have killed anyone in the most gruesome ways if they were involved with this scheme or if word somehow reached him about it.

"What makes it even WORSE is that the trial is about affairs concerning the HOUSE OF BLACK! YOU PLANNED A TRIAL AND TRIED TO KEEP THE HEAD OF HOUSE ABSENT TO SAID TRIAL!" Arcturus furiously yelled to Fudge in his face

The receiver of Arcturus' rant cowered in his seat, clearly showing him to be the coward many accused him off, and he let out high pitched whimpers of fear.

Arcturus, smelling blood, bore his steel grey eyes into Fudge's. "This whole affair reeks of Malfoys, did he pay you enough to pull this off? Just because that inbred mongrel Draco Malfoy was publicly destroyed?"

He sneered at Fudge with clear disgust as he cowered away more and more. How did this idiot make it to minister? In the old days people like him were cannon fodder… Used for jobs and then discarded easily away when the job was done.

Arcturus lifted his eyes from Fudge and addressed the room. "Well let's take care of this then."

With a wave of his hand, documents arrived in front of every Wizemgamot member.

Arcturus started explaining the documents. "In front of you is a charter from the Black Family bylaws about a particular rule if for some reason the succession of the Head of House title ends in the main family line of House Black. My son Orion is dead, and my grandson Sirius has renounced his claim to the Black Family title. Due to the fact that my grandson has no child, the main family line would die out if Sirius and myself would drop dead right now. So it is my right, given by the Black Family charter, to choose my next heir among any other Black family branches. Even branches formed by female Black family members."

He turned his face and looked straight up to the Malfoy Wizemgamot seat and saw a very pale looking Lucius Malfoy sitting there, clearly he wasn't having the best time of his life right now and internally Arcturus was grinning victoriously.

"You see Lucius Malfoy, I'd rather have a muggle be Head of House Black than some moron with the name Malfoy." he viciously hissed, while narrowing his eyes.

"For all you fools still wondering about Harry's or rather Hadrian's claim to House Black, I chose the branch formed by my dear niece Dorea Potter nee Black as Hadrian here, grew up since the fall of Voldemort in my household. I groomed him as my heir and no inbred idiot with the name Malfoy will hold him back from his rightful title."

Dumbledore's eyes widened with shock as he thought back to the night he was in Gringotts after that mysterious letter. Arcturus had beat him to the Potter will and had enacted it before he got his hands on it. It was his plan to have the will sealed by rights of Chief Wizemgamot, but Arcturus had enacted it before Dumbledore had even came near it. Since he had not been named in the Will, he could not reach the contents of it and uncover who was named his Magical Guardian.

"Hem hem." was voiced, clearly heard throughout the silent courtroom.

"Excuse me Lord Black, but can we safely assume that you are Mister Potter's magical guardian?"

Arcturus eyes bore into eyes of the pink clad toad like woman that had just spoke, with a dead calm voice he answered back. "You may indeed assume that I am heir Black-Potter's magical guardian Madam Undersecretary. "

She smiled sweetly at him "Can you indulge us into how you came into that position Lord Black? Since the half-bre- Goblins refuse to hand any information over to the Ministry about Mister Potter."

"I was named his guardian by the Potter Will and on my orders the contents of the Will was being kept secret to anyone not mentioned in the Will. I don't want any people prone to "the Imperius curse" that walk around at this idiotic institution and society having any possible way to gain information about Hadrian." He sneered back.

Many of the 'light' and 'neutral' Wizemgamot members nodded in understanding, they too believe that most of the claims of being under influence of the Imperius curse during Voldemorts war were false.

One of the Wizemgamot members spoke up. "But how can we be sure that you are indeed his Guardian if we don't know the contents of the Potter will?"

Arcturus piercing grey eyes turned to the Wizemgamot member that spoke out. "The Potter Will, will remain confidential but I have documentations signed by Lord Ragnok, owner of Gringotts institution, himself that I am indeed named his guardian in the Potter Will.

With a flick of the hand a document appeared in front of every Wizemgamot member and his gaze flicked over the whole Wizemgamot body. "Of course I don't have to add that it would be most… foolish… to take this documentation in doubt as Lord Ragnok wouldn't take it very kindly to be accused of lying."

"Now that we have taken care of these matters I want to get out of these accursed halls as soon as possible." Arcturus' gaze then swooped over to Fudge. "I think I have given enough documentations that Hadrian is indeed my heir and the fact that I am willing to testify in trial for him, that should already be proff enough of the legitimacy to his claim."

"Let's cast the vote shall we Minister?" he sneered at the fat minister.

The minister gulped and quickly nodded. "A-all in f-favour of Mr. Potters i-innocence please r-raise your hand?"

One quick look around of the minister showed that almost everybody had raised their hands.

"A-all in favour of Mr Potters accusation p-please raise your hand?"

Even a blind man could see the outcome so he quickly banged his gavel on the wooden desk. "All cleared from charges."

Everybody was in the process of standing up and walking away, some were on their way to talk to Arcturus and Hadrian, most definitely trying to get some brownie points with the both of them.

Fudge tried to scurry away as quickly as possible, so quickly he almost forgot his bowler hat. Malfoy slumped down into his seat, he had just lost his last card; house Malfoy is ruined. The prospect of Draco inheriting the might of House Black was the only thing that withheld some families from renouncing their allegiances and alliances to house Malfoy.

Hadrian only smirked when he saw Arcturus standing there. He had just been witness to how Blacks conduct their business. They take control from the first moment, they strike hard and decisively, leaving their opponents no chance to defend themselves. It doesn't matter if it's in the Wizemgamot, in the courtroom or on the battlefield. A Black always strikes first…

Arcturus showed today that even though they are in rough times since Voldemort, the Blacks still overpower all other houses and alliances. They still possess knowledge, enough to destroy whole houses. And today that house was House Malfoy, but which house is it tomorrow?

The lords of the Wizemgamot will return to their homes with 2 words in their mind; Toujours Pur.

Because House Black has always been pure, not in blood, but to each other. To the outsiders, not having knowledge that this was all orchestrated by Arcturus and Hadrian, it looks like Lord Black returned from his exile to save someone of his own family that was being retaliated on by the Malfoys because he spread hurtful information about them. And thus Arcturus stayed true to his family words.

But Arcturus wasn't finished; "WE ARE NOT DONE YET!" he thundered through the courtroom, freezing everybody to their spots. Finishing all conversations that were already started or about the start.

"I, Arcturus Black III Head of House Black, hereby challenge Lucius Malfoy, Head of House Malfoy , to a family honour duel on the grounds of slander on Heir Black by Lucius Malfoy."