Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

AN:

This is a very long chapter, but I must warn you that there isn't much action in it. It's mostly a lot of talking, but the things said are very relevant and it was necessary for me to expand on them at this point. I promise that the next chapter will be much more interesting.

Now, answering some questions from reviewers:

About Voldemort's physical strength and such. As a reviewer pointed out, Voldemort underwent several rituals during his life –this was vaguely mentioned in Black Heir, if I'm not wrong- and he mostly used snake or basilisk blood. That's what Orion suspects, because Voldemort never told him, but Orion thinks this because Voldie's features turned snake-like during the brief period of time in which he ripped a piece of soul from his body to make a horcrux – that happened in BH, as well. Anyway, it's quite clear that Voldemort is physically strong, even stronger than Orion when Orion has already taken Lez's blood. Though, as the reviewer said, we don't see much of this physical strength of Voldemort's, and that's because given his pureblood ideas and prejudices, he sees using physical strength as something beneath him because that's what muggles would do. Instead, he relies on his magic. Though, with Orion, he does get more physical than usual for him. Orion does as well. So, at present, Voldie is stronger than Orion, but not really by that much. But I don't think we'll ever see them having a fist-match; when they fight, they will do it with magic, so physical strength isn't such an important point.

In the previous chapter, with the last paragraph before the first line-break, I was trying to convey that Orion is relying more on Voldemort, perhaps unwittingly. This points towards a closeness between them, especially when it comes to war-planning, since Orion and Voldemort acknowledge each other as intelligent, powerful wizards, unmatched by no one but each other. Despite the mistrusts that remain when it comes to personal matters, and their shared reluctance to openly admit that they care about each other, when it comes to war, they make the perfect pair – regardless of, or perhaps due to, some of their disagreeing points of view; or a little bit of both, I would say. They certainly always challenge each other. So Orion relying more on Voldemort could have both negative and positive consequences. I can certainly believe that Voldemort realizes that Orion now relies on him, Orion seeing him as worthy of it, and Voldemort inwardly likes it and that should sooth his complex self a bit. But on the other hand, given Voldemort's manipulative ways, it could also backfire at Orion.

I hope you enjoy the chappie!



Chapter 32

Orion's feet landed on hard asphalt, and he immediately glanced around with alertness while he forced all his dark magic to still quietly inside his core, dimming his magical aura as much as he could.

As usual when he triangulated from Potter Manor, he had apparated into the alley of the Leaky Cauldron. The alley was filled with overflowing trashcans, crammed between the smoke-blackened walls of two old buildings, but there was no one in sight. By the looks of the dark sky, it was way past midnight already, and he could hear the beat of loud music coming from a distance, evidence of muggle London's nightlife at its full swing.

He was about to pluck out the Black heir ring to portkey to Voldemort's side, when he shot the Leaky Cauldron another glance. In all honesty, what he had said to Calypso about having a night of wild sex with Voldemort had been pure rubbish, intended to change subjects and pull out her mind from worried thoughts concerning the war.

Now, as he gazed at the wizarding pub, he thought 'why not?'. It wasn't as if the Aurors would be expecting him to go into the Leaky Cauldron, of all places. And he didn't want to go to Malfoy Manor yet, nor return to Potter Manor, since he now desired to have a brief respite from everything.

He hadn't had any frivolous distractions in such a long time. He hadn't had fun in ages! He wanted to lose himself for a while, clear his mind and thoughts, relax, forget for a bit about all pressures, duties and concerns…

Not think about Calypso's worries and what could possibly be going on with her – she still wouldn't tell him, though he didn't bother asking anymore. Not think about how in a week he was going to see Lezander, and he didn't know how he would be received or if Lez would even remember absolutely everything about his life. Not think about Draco still lying unconscious in a healing coma and about Lucius' words about disownment – it would crush Draco if it came to happen. Not think that, about a week ago, he had killed Gellert, unknowingly ridding from his life the only grandfather he had left and known, or that Vagnarov had died that very same night as well, both leaving a very large, empty hole in his life.

Not think about Arian, the confusion that the light wizard created in his mind, all the things he wanted to know about him, and about what the wizard knew and wouldn't openly say. Not think about the catastrophic consequences of muggles discovering their world. Not even think about the imminent battles and the possible deaths of people he knew. And definitely not think about the pregnancy thing and all the games that Voldemort played and his devious machinations. Ugh! He wished the wizard would somehow stop.

Resolved, Orion flicked his wand, transfiguring his elegant over-robes into a cloak, and he pulled the hood over his head, shrouding his face in shadows. Then he glanced down at himself: there was still a film of darkness glowing all over him, even after he had done everything he could to dim his magical aura.

It wasn't unexpected. Since he had stopped drinking the aura-suppressing potion and after having absorbed Gellert's unique dark magic, he could no longer completely restrain his magical aura. During the week of detoxification, he had practiced as much as he could to be able to restrain his magic and dim his potent aura, but he knew it would always be visible no matter how much he practiced to gain control over it.

Nevertheless, now he was powerful enough to pull a glamour over his body which would shimmer down and veil the glow of his magical aura, to make him look 'normal'. Glamours were difficult and precise charms which required vast amounts of power and concentration to perform and hold for some amount of time, that's why he only resorted to them in very few instances. And at present, he did, and observed how his magical aura seemed to vanish into thin air.

Satisfied, he then hunched his shoulders and made way to the door of the wizarding pub and inn, as a rat scurried past him through the empty boxes and overfilled trash bins that teetered along the filthy alley.

He lowered his head as he stepped inside the Leaky Cauldron, his back hunched, and he slowly dragged his feet towards the bar, mimicking a limp. The ground floor of the Leaky Cauldron, which served as a pub with several adjacent private parlors and one large dinner room, was almost empty.

Tom, the bartender and innkeeper, was cleaning some glasses behind the counter, while an old record of the wizarding rock band 'Weird Sisters' was playing on an old enchanted gramophone at the man's back, filling the place with animated, upbeat music. However, there wasn't much going on in the pub.

A group of mangy-looking wizards were smoking pipes, drinking beers and sharing lewd jokes and wheezy guffaws, while a hag was munching down what looked like raw liver at another table.

Orion approached the bar's counter, feeling highly tempted to ask for Kristakoff's Aged Scotch – Gellert's favorite drink which he had acquired a taste for, after being continuously prodded by the wizard. But ordering such an expensive and exclusive drink would be asking for unwanted attention. So he decided to settle for common beer.

"A pint," he grumbled in a low, coarse voice, flipping a couple of knuts on the counter. "And keep 'em coming."

Tom grasped the coins without even shooting him an uninterested glance, and Orion settled himself in one of the booths at the farthest corner of the pub, a good distance away from the pub's scant patrons.

Soon after, a long thick glass brimming with foamy yellow liquid floated towards him, settling on the table without spilling a drop.

Orion wrapped his fingers around the warm glass, and lifted it up, murmuring with a wry twist of his lips, "To Gellert."

He swooped down a mouth-full, his nose scrunching in distaste when the warm liquid trickled down his throat. And he decided that beer was definitely not his thing. It was actually quite disgusting, but he took another long sip as he settled more comfortably against the back rest.

Raunchy laughter suddenly erupted, and Orion glanced from underneath his hood at the table of scruffy-looking wizards. They were playing some sort of game, with cards that flashed images of nude or scantily dressed witches posing in several lewd positions with things like cauldrons, brooms or telescopes. He saw one of the shabby wizards looking his way and he purposely lifted up his drink in a silent toast, and the man's attention went back to his mates and the card-game.

After his second pint, Orion's green eyes peered at his newly refilled glass with fondness. Really, muggle beer wasn't that bad after all. He was feeling quite comfortable and relaxed, with a warm and cozy sensation floating in his belly, while his mind felt pleasantly sluggish and empty. Though, even if he was utterly unconcerned about being discovered because he knew he could hold his own against any wizard, he felt the sudden wish of being with someone instead of alone.

Indeed, if he could, he rather be having a couple of drinks with his father. Sirius and he had never gotten drunk together, and he knew it would be the type of thing his father would enjoy. Moreover, something like that could help smooth things over with the wizard.

Sirius was still angry about the whole 'attack on the wedding' thing, even though the wizard had learned about his promise to Remus of not killing any young wizards or witches at the wedding. Orion had even gone as far as promising to his father that the entire Weasley family would be spared from serious injury during the attack, but Sirius was still angry at him, feeling hurt that his information had been 'taken advantage of'.

With another sip of his third pint, Orion hazily decided that he definitely had to do something about his father. He was still feeling bitter and resentful about how Sirius continuously preferred light wizards over his own kind, and it brought back unpleasant memories of how the same had happened when he had been Regulus. Yes, he had to do something about it, and an idea slowly unraveled in his mind – he still had the fake locket with Regulus' message.

Actually, he had the fake locket with him at present. Since leaving the cave, he always carried it on him. During the day, before the meeting with Voldemort and the Dark Allies, he had considered the possibility of showing Voldemort the fake locket – Regulus' message most particularly. Why? Probably for his past self's sake, to show Voldemort that even though he had made Regulus his pet and boy-toy, abused him and treated him like trash, ultimately making the Death Eaters punish him so gruesomely, Regulus had still bested him in the end. It was a matter of pride for him, to let Voldemort know that he - Regulus- hadn't died pathetically, that he had done something against him. Obviously, Voldemort already knew that Regulus had found the locket with intentions of destroying it, but the wizard didn't known about the fake locket and the message contained within.

In the end, however tempted he had been, Orion hadn't gone through with it. Why stir the past in such manner? Why confront Voldemort about what he had done to Regulus? Even though the wizard could believe that he was doing it for the sake of an 'uncle' he had never known, it would make the man question his motives. And it would also create disputes between them. That, he couldn't afford. They needed to heal the breach between them for the war, and they were doing pretty well so far.

Nevertheless, he could use the locket to make Sirius understand, even though it would cause his father much pain and grief. With it, he could make Sirius bluntly confront the consequences of his mistaken choices, past and present.

That decided, whilst feeling a bit heady and pleasantly dizzy, Orion pushed away the half-empty glass of his third pint. He was aware by now that he was a bit drunk. And a small frown crinkled his forehead when he caught sight of the same mangy-looking wizard shooting him another glance, this one covert. He fleetingly realized that coming to the Leaky Cauldron when he was in the Auror's Most Wanted List had been an act of rash impulsiveness from his part – something his father would do.

Hmmm. Perhaps he should have gone to wizarding St. Petersburg or Moscow instead. He knew them like the back of his hand, as well as London itself. On the other hand, even though he doubted that Russian Aurors would be on the lookout for him as much as the English were, there were still bounty hunters to think of. He had a price on his head – a rather generous one, if the latest issue of the Daily Prophet was to be believed. The English Ministry of Magic was ready to pay quite a large sum of galleons for his capture, sparing no costs.

When he caught sight that several of the shady wizards were now glancing at him while muttering between themselves, their game forgotten, Orion decided that he wouldn't push his luck. He wasn't overly concerned, he could defeat any wizard, but it was pointless to ask for trouble.

He scuffled to his feet, left a few knuts as tip, and moved towards the door of the pub, making sure that the hood still covered his face. The moment he scrambled out the Leaky Cauldron, a summery breeze slapped his face, making him feel a bit nauseous for a second. Almost swaying, Orion took a deep gulp of chilly night air and instantly felt better, his mind clearing a bit, thankfully not feeling as sluggish as before.

He slowly made his way along the seedy alley, while he pondered where to go next. Abruptly, the clap of footfalls reached his ears and he hurried his steps a bit, knowing that he had been followed but deciding that he shouldn't run or it would be suspicious.

"Oi! You there! Why don't ya show us your face!"

Orion completely ignored them and continued shuffling his way through the alley as steadily as he could manage, while his mind refused to supply him with any answers as to where he should go.

"Got somethin' to hide, mate? Oi, stop, I say!"

When a beam of red light shot past his shoulder, Orion suddenly mused what on earth he was doing. He was scrambling away from a pathetic lot of wizards? Him, who could easily reduce them to dust?!

Swaying a bit, he flicked his right wrist, caught the Death and Life wand that came shooting into his hand, and slowly turned around to face them. As expected, they were the bunch of wizards who had been in the Leaky Cauldron. None of their faces rang a bell but they looked like shady characters, their robes tatty and stained, the five of them looking quite scruffy and dirty. They were no heroes, these ones, but perhaps they were looking for a fight, or for the possibility of earning some galleons if it was their lucky night and they had just discovered a wanted dark wizard.

Orion regarded them with impassivity, putting as much weight as he could on his feet so that he stood firmly in his full height. They had halted a few paces away from him, their wands drawn and aimed forward, their eyes scrunched as if trying to see underneath his hood. And with a small upwards tug of his lips, he decided that he could have some fun as well.

"Who are ya? Answer us!" spat one of the them, the wizard's voice drunkenly slurred. "Bit suspicious, innit, that ya go around wearing a hood? Show us yer mug!"

Feeling a frisson of vicious enjoyment, and without having to concentrate much, Orion instantly called forth a bit of his Necromantic abilities. The moment he knew that his eyes had to be glowing in all blackness, he carelessly pushed down his hood and shot them a nasty smile.

"Merlin's great hairy balls, it's the boy!" croaked out a wizard, looking absolutely terrified while he stumbled several step backwards, loudly crashing into a trash bin.

"Galloping gargoyles!" shakily gasped another man, before quickly turning tail and scrambling away out of the alley.

Another wizard squeaked and dissapparated in the bat of an eyelash, like the other, abandoning the rest of his companions without a second glance. The three others left had all backed away from Orion, looking too terrified to string two thoughts together and get away as far and as fast as they could.

Suddenly, one of them seemed to gather some of his wits back, and he shrieked urgently, "Dung! Alert 'em!"

Dumbly nodding, a grimy-looking squat wizard with straggly ginger hair disapparated with a loud 'crack', while Orion calmly mussed over the nickname 'Dung'.

Ah, yes, he recalled… The one who had just left had to be Mundungus Fletcher. His dad had told him about the man – a thief, and Order member. So 'Dung' was going to alert the Order? Orion scoffed. Fine by him. At least now he knew where he could find Mundungus during a weekend night – downing beers at the Leaky Cauldron. Perhaps that tidbit of information could prove useful in the future.

Shooting the remaining two wizards a feral grin, and deciding that he could play a bit with them, he lazily lifted up a hand, widely spreading his fingers as he started summoning his dark magic, feeling it excitedly pulse inside him.

Abruptly, four wizards suddenly appeared between him and his two preys; two of them apparating in with loud 'cracks', and the other two soundlessly. Mundungus hadn't returned, but he had certainly sent the Order members he had undoubtedly found wherever they had their headquarters. And Orion quirked a surprised eyebrow.

From the two who had apparated noisily, one's face didn't ring a bell, but the other he recognized as Elphias Doge – Gellert had told him about the man. Dumbledore's old childhood friend and Special Advisor to the Wizengamot didn't seem to be much of a threat. And he noticed that the old wizard's eyes were puffy – not long ago, the man had cried, he had been mourning.

Orion sniggered under his breath. So the old coot hadn't revealed to his old mate that he was alive? Figures. His amusement increased when he saw how Doge was staring at him in horror, as if he was seeing Grindelwald himself. Well, the old bugger was right in a sense. Doge surely believed what was being printed in the papers about him being Grindelwald's grandson. And Doge knew about Albus' murky past with Grindelwald.

Nevertheless, it was the soundless 'apparaters' who caught his attention. One was Moody, who had his wand trained straight at him, pinning him with his magical eye, while his scarred face wore a guarded expression but also a twinge of triumph. The other was Arian. And that was the cause for his surprise. In his drunkenness, he had forgotten that Arian was part of the Order now. He hadn't expected the light wizard's presence. Ooops!

He loudly chuckled and merrily winked at his 'nemesis', without feeling remotely fazed. And to his satisfaction, he saw that Arian looked as surprised as he felt. The handsome light wizard had a stunned expression on his face, and Orion doubted that it was due to his Necromancer's eyes. Arian knew about his abilities. No, it had to be because he was evidently drunk. Orion scoffed and rolled his eyes. What, did Arian take him for a prim ponce who didn't touch a drink?

With some effort, Orion finally forced himself to regard the Order seriously, noticing that the two shabby wizards that had been there before had disappeared. Since he hadn't heard any 'cracks', they had probably ran back to the Leaky Cauldron, too wasted to attempt apparition without risking to splinch themselves.

Well, Moody, he could take. Hell, he could take on all of the old wizards, no matter how powerful they could be. But adding Arian to the mix, however, was a matter entirely different. He pouted a scowl at the light wizard. Arian was cutting short his fun – he hadn't had the opportunity do to anything before he arrived!

Yet, no matter how drunk he was, he was coherent enough to know that it was time for him to call it a night and apparate away.

In the next second, the moment he tried to do so, Orion abruptly felt as he was being slammed down by a Giant's foot, and his boots stumbled on the pavement. He couldn't apparate! Someone had cast anti-apparation wards. Ah, yes, Moody was shooting him a nasty little half-smile. It figures that the ex-Auror would have the trained instincts to have cast such ward around the area the moment he arrived.

Orion glanced at them again, and didn't think about it twice.

He turned heel and pelted down the alley as fast as his scrambling feet could take him. He swiftly ducked down as three beams of light flashed over his head, and quickly cast a powerful shield charm over his body. The second he left the alley and took the turn into the muggle street, he transfigured his clothes into a black T-shirt and comfortable jeans, while he settled down his Necromantic magic so that his eyes turned back to normal. With another flick of his wand, he cast at himself a sobering charm, knowing that he needed to gather back his wits.

Instantly, his mind cleared, somewhat, but he still felt that his thought-process was a bit slow and foggy. How many pints had he gulped down?! He grumbled under his breath, knowing that another sobering charm so soon after the previous one would do more harm than good.

Orion momentarily skidded to a halt while he quickly glanced around, then kept rushing along the street, without even needing to glance back to know that the Order was fast on his tracks. Well, he was much faster than them, given that he had Lezander's blood pumping through his veins. He soon caught up with the group of young muggles he had spotted and shuffled in between them, ignoring some of their glances. Most of them were boisterously laughing and playing around, and by the looks of them, they were out for a night of partying.

For the moment, they served as a good shield. The Order wouldn't dare attack him if he was in the midst of some muggles. Nevertheless, the instant the group turned a corner into a new sideway street, he glanced over his shoulder and saw that the four wizards weren't that far behind, with Arian in the lead. The light wizard seemed resolved to get to him before the others.

Swiftly, Orion tried to apparate again, but it didn't work and he muttered under his breath with apprehension. How wide of an area had Moody cast the anti-apparation ward on? If he was feeling a hundred percent sober, he wouldn't think twice before trying to break through the ward, knowing he would succeed. But given his current state, he didn't want to risk splinching himself and losing a limb in the attempt – those took time and much pain to get back, and he didn't feel that his situation was that desperate.

He glanced around the new street he had entered into with the bunch of young muggles, and quickly saw that it was filled with pubs and nightclubs. The moment he caught sight of Arian turning the corner and stepping into the street, he broke off from the muggles and speedily scrambled his way towards the busiest nightclub he spotted.

The entrance of the place had a long line of muggles dressed up in their finest, with two thugs standing like sentries on each side of the flashy metal door, their expressions haughty as they superiorly pointed a finger at the muggles they chose to let in – mostly scantily dressed girls in high heels and a bunch of young men richly dressed, who looked as if they had loads of daddy's pounds to frivolously spend.

Orion was about to covertly flick his wand, and Imperio one of the thugs so that he could be let inside, when somebody slammed against him, an arm tightly wrapping around his waist. Suddenly, his already slightly sluggish mind felt even foggier, and he took in a deep breath of an amazingly delicious scent. He blinked up at the man that was holding him, seeing Arian's calmed features coming into clarity.

At some point the light wizard had transfigured his clothes as well. The young man was wearing some sort of silky silver shirt that looked like the latest muggle fashion, with black trousers and shinny shoes along with it. And he saw that every muggle in the line was staring at Arian enraptured, as if he was some sort of celebrity, several girls not only heavily fluttering their eyelashes at him but also attempting to jump through to get to him. Even more of them, and several men included, were fervently yelling things: asking for Arian's name, promising to give him ridiculously impossible stuff in exchange for his telephone number, vouching to take him to amazing places on a date, declaring that they were some famous person or other, or something along those lines, from what he could make out.

One of the thugs opened the metal door wide open for them, the sturdy muggle's expression slack and almost delirious-looking. And before he could even bat an eyelash, Arian dragged him inside by the clutch he had on his waist, without saying a word.

Orion wasn't that far out to know that the light wizard was laying it on thick with his Veela allure. Merlin, he couldn't even think straight! The only thing he could wrap his mind around was the fact that Moody and the two others had seen them get inside the club. He had gotten a glimpse of them before the thug had closed the metal door behind Arian and him.

They reached a beautiful young woman clothed in a mini skirt and a tiny top, who stood behind a small counter, selling the entrance tickets to the place. But it only took one glance from Arian and she seemed unable to do anything except coquettishly giggle at him with adoring, lustful eyes, waving at them to pass without paying a penny.

And Orion was swiftly pulled into the depths of the club, without being able to beep a word against it. He was dragged along a narrow, dimly lit corridor; its walls covered from floor to ceiling with mirrors which he thought were quite tacky and also pompous given their golden adornments and the dim light from small chandeliers that reflected on their surface. But other than that impression, he couldn't coherently string two thoughts together. Every time he breathed he felt his nose clogging and his brain shutting down with Arian's heavy, mouth-watering scent. Last time, he hadn't felt the Veela allure this strongly – the light wizard was doing it on purpose!

Orion repeatedly shook his head, trying to clear it. But he couldn't think about anything except pushing himself closer to Arian, which he did. Moreover, he felt an irrepressible desire to paw over every inch of the wizard's body, to trail his fingertips along Arian's jaw line, to mesh their lips together and suffocate him with a hungry, deep kiss, to card his fingers through his locks of bronze hair, to grope his arms and arse.

The heady, hypnotizing sensation only dimmed briefly when they reached the main floor of the club after coming to the end of the corridor. Loud music was pumping through the huge dance floor, even making the metal floors shake and vibrate, while masses of bodies danced to it, writhing, swaying, rubbing and undulating against each other. The music pounded so loudly and the beat was so fast that his ears were ringing, but the muggles seemed to love it. Several of them even looked high with some muggle drug or other, their movements either slow as if they were in some sort of spiritual trance or frenzied with fiery energy and lust.

Orion had to scrunch his nose and shield his eyes when clouds of white, misty, cold air were shot over everybody's heads, with flashy lights suddenly lighting up the place with neon green and violet rays. At which the muggles jumped as if they were one, roaring in delight and yelling, as if possessed, while the music got even louder. It was something he was definitely not used to, having his senses assaulted in such a brutal way, and he would thank even the memory of Merlin himself if he came out of the club without being partially blind or deaf.

Arian had pulled him into a corner, besides some small round tables and lounging loveseats, but the place was so packed that muggles were still bumping and undulating against Orion. He felt as if he was being humped by mongrels, and he even felt someone daring to grope his arse, but he hardly paid any attention to it. The moment a straight thought miraculously entered his mind, he tried to apparate for the third time, and he ended up loudly groaning when he didn't succeed.

Finally, he balefully glared up at Arian. He didn't know what the wizard was up to. Why wasn't the wizard handing him over to his Order mates? Why use the Veela allure to get him inside the club and lose the Order amidst the writhing mass of muggles? Why was the wizard, in short, helping him out? It didn't make any sense. Nor did it, the way that Arian was staring at him – hungrily, passionately, as if this was a perfect opportunity for him to do something, but also guardedly, as if the man didn't trust himself or as if he feared his reaction. It was all very perplexing, he decided.

Suddenly, Orion became fleeting aware that he had no need to stand there, turning deaf, with puffs of misty air trying to cut short his respiratory system and with laser beams attempting to blind him. In his intoxicated, foggy and addled mind, he finally slowly realized that even though he couldn't safely apparate away, he could use the Black heir ring to portkey to Voldemort's side. Or he could very well have an all-out duel with Arian, or leave him and find Moody and his mates to dispose of them. He couldn't care less about muggles being injured in the fray or about what they witnessed. The Ministry would surely take care of obliviating and altering their memories as soon as they could.

Yet, Orion stood there, squarely meeting Arian's odd gaze without attempting to leave. And he didn't know if it was due to the Veela allure or his own unrelenting curiosity – which, he knew, had a knack for landing him in sticky situations. It was always his curiosity or his infrequent flares of brash impulsiveness which got him into tight spots.

Scowling, he peered up at Arian again. He was still feeling the Veela allure effects, but he felt much more in control of himself, and it had to be because Arian wanted it to be so. Indeed, the wizard looked as if he was teetering on the edge of speech and probably wanted him to be coherent enough to understand the wizard's words.

While they kept being pushed together by dancing muggles tightly surrounding them, Arian pressed himself even further against him, and with an imperceptible twitch of the wizard's hand, Orion suddenly found that all the noise considerably dimmed - the music, voices and yells becoming muffled.

Orion sighed with relief, his ringing ears certainly feeling grateful for the respite, while he distantly wondered why he hadn't already cast a charm for that purpose himself.

Suddenly, Arian leaned over him, his warm breath tingling on Orion's neck, making him shiver as the wizard whispered into his ear, his voice sounding like a taunting caress, "Once upon a time, there was a very special mirror at Hogwarts, before Albus disposed of it. It was called the Mirror of Erised. Do you know about it, hmmm?"

Orion slightly jerked backwards, staring up at him with befuddlement. The light wizard was gazing at him with a very serious expression on his face, and that only added to his confusion. He was highly disconcerted – not due to the wizard's words, which didn't quite make sense to him, but due to the man's attitude.

Was it him or Arian acted slightly different each time they met? This Arian wasn't like the arrogant, devious one he had met for the first time at Dumbledore's headquarters in muggle Paris – telling him to 'take the garbage out' when referring to Barty Crouch Jr., and being quite ruthless about it. Nor was he like the glorious, winged Veela from their second encounter, egomaniacally spouting religious nonsense while looking utterly self-confident, yet also noble with his desire to peacefully unite the muggle and wizarding worlds, even sounding like an altruistic idealist during some parts.

And now… well, he didn't quite know how to describe the way in which the light wizard was acting at present, but the man's attitude was entirely different than before – there was something very intimate in the way that the wizard was pulling them together while whispering into his ear.

With a slight feeling of apprehension, he realized that Arian not only intrigued him as much as Voldemort always had, but also that the light wizard had many faces. He wouldn't go as far as to say that the wizard had split personalities, but something had certainly made Arian the way he was – someone who acted so differently towards him every time they met.

Was it due to trauma? He knew those things could happen; it could be a reason. And there was still the question of what on earth had occurred on the day that Arian's parents had died. Had Hyperion Valenor lost control of his magic, like Ariana Dumbledore had once done? Or had it been the fourteen-year-old Arian? Or, had Arian killed his father on purpose, perhaps to 'absorb' the man's light magic? Could the wizard be so ruthless? 'Yes', he would say from his first impression of the man, and he would answer 'no' after their other two encounters.

Or was it due to Arian's past lives? He knew that Arian somehow remembered all his past reincarnations, fully. So could it be that such unprecedented phenomenon had deeply affected Arian, causing him to shift between personalities? It could be. Orion shuddered with apprehension and a modicum of dread. Vagnarov had always told him that no one was supposed to remember their past lives for a very good reason – to keep sanity intact, so that one's current identity wouldn't be lost in the myriad of all past others. Was this what had happened to Arian?

Abruptly, he felt the scar on his forehead being gently caressed, and he gazed up at Arian, who was charmingly smiling at him. Yet, there was also a strange flicker of sadness in the wizard's sky blue eyes.

"Ahh, but you know about the Mirror, ne c'est pas?" said Arian, his smile turning dazzlingly angelic, while he gave Orion's scar one last, soft brush with his fingertips. "You saw it through one of your first visions caused by your horcrux-link with Voldemort, during your first year at Durmstrang. You saw a possessed Quirrell attempting to get the Philosopher's Stone from the Mirror, before Albus 'compassionately' killed the wizard - for the wizard's own good, of course." His smile spread, and something sparkled in his eyes, as he said softly, "Do you know where I was when I Saw that happening, hmmm? Come, come, I know that I was being spied on by the Aux Atrum." His lips twitched. "I saw one of them trying to hide from me under some bushes, as if by then I couldn't see through Disillusioning Charms!"

"You were with the Flamels," slurred out Orion, as nonchalantly as he could, while he hazily wondered why they were discussing the issue.

"Oui," said Arian gravely, dropping his hand as he pierced him with intense, cerulean eyes. "I was still a teenager. I knew much back then, but I was still unaware about a couple of things." His expression hardened. "I loved the Flamels, Orion, even though I only spent a few years with them, and even though I knew I lived with them because Albus wanted it so. Because he wanted them to tutor me, mold me, even. Nevertheless, I loved them. Nicolas was like a father to me, and Perenelle…" He sighed, his voice suddenly turning melancholic as he shot him a wry smile, "She was special. But not long after I Saw the incident with the Philosopher's Stone, the Flamels destroyed it and they died, convinced by Albus that it was 'for the best of everyone involved'."

"He has a way of doing that," interjected Orion dryly, already having figured out most of what the light wizard was disclosing, thus feeling a bit impatient and quite uninterested with the current topic.

"Oui, my granduncle is a master manipulator," bit out Arian sharply, something fierce glinting in his eyes. He let out a soft, low chuckle, and his whole demeanor turned to one of deep amusement, as he whispered conspiratorially, "I also Saw Albus gazing into the Mirror of Erised before he used it to conceal the Philosopher's Stone." A wide, dazzling smile stretched on his lips, his eyes glowing with a mocking glint. "Would you like to guess what he saw in the Mirror, hmm?"

Orion blinked at him, fleetingly wondering why the wizard was wasting time by talking about such trivial matters. Who cared!

"Non?" said Arian with a feigned sigh of disappointment, before he shot him a gorgeous grin that had a fair share of nastiness behind it. "My poor, dear granduncle saw himself surrounded by his dead parents, and by my grandmother and namesake -his little sister, Ariana- with Aberforth at one of his sides, finally reconciled with Albus, and… guess who at his other flank? Your grandfather, Gellert, with an arm wrapped around Albus, like a perfect happy couple, reunited at long last." He widely smiled at him, and whispered silkily, "Albus can be such a sentimental old fool sometimes, ne c'est pas?"

Orion snorted, dizzily swayed a bit, and crossed his arms over his chest. "It doesn't surprise me. What's your point? Because surely you're not keeping me here to chat about the sodding Mirror or the old coot's deep secret desires, are you?"

Something intense flashed in Arian's sky blue eyes, and the wizard's expression turned to one he couldn't quite decipher, as the wizard pinned him with his gaze and said softly, "Do you know what I would see in it, hmm? Us, like we were before, millennia ago."

Utterly flummoxed and mystified, Orion blinked at him twice, his mind swarming with heady confusion - and a loud hiccup escaped from his lips.

Millennia ago? He had been told that his soul was an 'old' one by the Dementor Cadmus, but from his one week of experiencing his past lives, the oldest life he remembered was that of Sextus Black, and that life hadn't happened as far back as millennia ago.

He slowly shook his head with puzzlement, dumbly blinked again, and frowned. Though, he had also experienced several brief stretches of past lives from which he didn't know who he had been or at in what century they had happened. Those foggy memories had to have been of lives previous to his one as Sextus Black, since the recollections had been very short, distant and unclear. So who had he been millenia ago? And exactly what had gone on between the Arian and the him of that past life?

He peered up at Arian with a confused frown crinkling his forehead, and saw that the light wizard was watching him like a hawk, studying every blink and every twitch that he made in response.

Abruptly, so suddenly that Orion didn't have the time to know what was happening, Arian tightly cupped the sides of his face and meshed their lips together.

His disconcerted gasp was muffled by the wizard's persistent lips, as the floor under his feet seemed to sweep away, everything in his vision swaying in a whirlwind of colors. Orion felt himself sagging in the wizard's arms as they wrapped around him, pressing them together, while he felt as if all his senses were being assaulted by a deep desire, his mind melting into mush, utterly unable of a having a coherent thought. The heavenly scent wafted all around him, making him nearly frantically deliriously with the need to drink in the wizard. When he felt Arian's warm tongue sliding across his lips, he needily parted them, granting him access without a thought, feeling as if he would die if he didn't feel the wizard's tongue plunging in.

Instantly, Arian's tongue hungrily delved into his mouth, and soon as it happened, Orion felt an explosion of immense, unbearable pain wrecking his body, seeming bent on tearing him apart. His magic and whole magical core seemed to fiercely flare inside him, as if savagely battling against something, and at the same time, attacking him. It felt as brutally painful as when the Unbreakable Vow had clashed with the Life Debt he had owed Dumbledore, and Orion wrenched himself from the wizard as a scream he couldn't suppress tore out from his throat, echoed by someone else's.

Gasping for breath, his throat aching as if burned, with black spots dimming his sight, and feeling tears of pain rolling down one cheek, he blindly crashed backwards into one of the club's small round tables, spilling some muggle's drinks while some glasses tumbled over and shattered on the metal floors.

He heavily panted with pained, labored breath, even his lungs aching, while he bent over to press his palms on his knees to steady his legs and prevent himself from slumping to the floor. Slowly, very slowly, the pain ebbed away, and Orion shot a glare full of loathing at Arian.

Yet, when he saw the light wizard's expression, he realized that the man hadn't done it on purpose, as he had instantly thought. Arian looked to have been in as much pain as he had – the other scream had surely been his- and the wizard's fluctuating emotions were clear to see on his face. There was deep longing, piercing sadness, but also mad rage, intense frustration and an understanding of what had happened and why. Orion, for his part, didn't have a remote clue other than it seemed that their respective magic had clashed against each other. Not fully knowing what had happened only served to anger him even more.

He forced himself to gather every ounce of strength he could muster, and slowly drew up to his full height, darkly glowering at the light wizard, as he hissed out, "What the fuck was that?! Why the hell did you kiss me, and why-"

"They're playing with us, still!" spat Arian, now looking as furious as Orion himself. "We are what They respectively want and They still deny us the…" A look of deep frustration flashed across his chiseled features once again, and he bit out angrily, "I can't even kiss you in this life!" Abruptly, the wizard grasped Orion's face in his hands, searchingly boring his sky blue eyes into Orion's bright emerald ones, and he whispered fervently, "But you will solve it, ne c'est pas? When the time comes for you to decide, you'll remember, you'll understand, and you'll chose me – us."

Orion forcefully jerked away from the wizard's clutch, and snapped sharply as he demandingly glowered at him, "They? Who's 'they'? You can't mean the Spirits – they have nothing to do with you. And what the bloody hell are you babbling about? I'll remember what, exactly?"

"Your first life," said Arian quietly, utterly ignoring Orion's first question, which didn't pass unnoticed by him.

Orion felt at the end of his rope with impatience and unresolved questions, but quickly made himself gather back his cool composure, and he glanced around with a bit of worry. To his relief, it seemed that none of the muggles had noticed what had happened between them. It would have seemed very weird to them, to say the least. But it was evident that his scream and Arian's had been muffled by the loud, pounding music, and the light wizard must have cast a notice-me-not charm at some point, because no one was glancing their way, not even the muggle whose drinks he had spilled.

He gazed back at Arian, and said shortly, "Look, I told you that I wouldn't be remembering more about my past lives. I told you that Vagnarov created a block in my mind-"

"It will matter not," interjected Arian with supreme satisfaction, beaming a dazzling, angelic smile at him. "A soul's first life leaves a permanent imprint in one's personality, no matter how much the person is reshaped thereafter in each subsequent reincarnation. I know this because it was also my first life when we first met, and I remember everything. And so will you, no matter how hard you fight it."

He took a step forward to be inches away from Orion, and intently bore his cerulean eyes into Orion's green ones, as he whispered softly, "I see him in you. Despite all the time that has passed by, you're still him. Most of your personality traits are the same." Something glowed in his eyes, and he chuckled under his breath. "Your temper, your occasional bouts of foul mood and aggressive violence, your ambition, your desire to always excel, to become all that you can be, to accomplish greatness, or at least what it involves in your opinion, your desire to make an indelible change in the world, your fierce need to protect those you love and care about, and even many of your past flaws."

A corner of Arian's lips quirked downward in a faint grimace, and he added dryly, "Your megalomania. And your passion but also lust for many others. You could never be faithful to just one person, ne c'est pas? Not to mention some other addictions. You truly shouldn't drink so much."

"I'm not a drunkard – I hardly ever drink!" spat Orion seething, bristling with indignant anger. "And I'm not a bloody megalomaniac!"

"So you don't deny the rest, hmm?" inquired Arian calmly, evident amusement gleaming in his azure eyes.

Supremely irritated, Orion waved a hand dismissively and fixedly pierced him with narrowed eyes, as he said slowly, trying his best to clearly enunciate, "Are you trying to bamboozle me, or what's your deal, huh? You kissed me knowing what would happen, and I'm still waiting to hear why, exactly, our magic reacted that way - so violently, besides the obvious fact that mine is dark and yours light. I want to know who are 'they'. I highly doubt you're talking about the Spirits, right? And I want to know why you insist about our past lives. Why does it matter so much to you?"

He paused, fully glared at him, and bit out crisply, "And why did you kiss me?! We're enemies, right?"

"Mais oui, of course that I'm your enemy," said Arian, looking startled. "I'm the Vindico Lumen – we have opposing goals."

Orion gritted his teeth, and briskly carded his fingers through his hair. "You're not answering my other questions!"

"Nor will I," retorted Arian impassively, shooting him a wide, unrepentant smile.

Taking in a deep breath to calm down - and knowing that the wizard would never tell him more than what he wanted, when he wanted, and where he wanted- Orion pulled an unfazed expression over his face. He also knew, to his immense frustration, that he couldn't forcefully rip the answers he desired from the man – not from a light wizard who was more powerful than him, at present. Oh, how things would change when he became the VA! He would make Arian pay, that was certain.

"Fine, so you admit we're enemies," groused out Orion, holding unto what Arian seemed disposed to discuss, while he speared him with narrowed eyes. "So why do you go around kissing me? And why do you clearly allow yourself to be affected by the lingering feelings you obviously have for the person I was in my first life, according to you?"

Arian gazed at him with annoyed impatience, and said matter-of-factly, "Because you're him."

"That's in your sodding opinion - and I don't know who you're talking about!" spat Orion, nearly seconds away from yanking his hair with exasperation.

"Do you want me to tell you, hmm?" said Arian softly, his sky blue eyes gleaming.

"No," snapped Orion briskly, glowering at him, before he pulled a neutral expression on his face and tilted his head to a side. "Would you anyway?"

"Non," replied Arian, shooting him a sharp grin. "I rather you discovered it for yourself. You have a very vengeful streak and I wouldn't want you to pin the blame on me, ne c'est pas?"

"Well, fine by me," bit out Orion irritably. He shot him a mocking glance, and sneered scathingly, "So let me get this straight. You have 'feelings' for me because you had feelings for who I was during my first life, which evidently is very important to you. Yet, we're enemies, and you acknowledge it. Then what the hell do you think will happen?" He quizzically gazed at him with narrowed eyes, and demanded crisply, "What are you trying to imply? That if I remember being this person you care so much about, you'll do – what? Join my ranks, see things my way, help me with my goals and relinquish your own?"

Arian erupted with loud, boisterous and rumbling laughter, and after a few moments, he shook his head, and said in a low, seductive voice, while he played with a lock of Orion's hair, "Oh, non, quite the contrary. It will be you who will change your tune when you finally remember. You cared about muggles once, and you will again. Like before, you'll want to create a better world for them." He cocked his head to a side, and murmured softly, "So you see, you'll be the one joining me, aiding me."

"You're barking mad - you're fooling yourself," harshly gritted out Orion, swatting the wizard's pesky fingers from his hair. "There's not a single thing in the world which would make me change my goals."

"Ah, but there's a person for whom you would - me," interjected Arian, beaming a dazzling, gorgeous smile at him. "Hmmm. You'll remember who I was and what we had, and you'll want it back, and you'll know that the only way to get it is to attain by my side what we once desired. It's your views which have drastically changed after centuries of being manipulated, not mine."

Orion stared at him with wide eyes. The wizard was delusional! Merlin's balls, was the man truly unhinged? And what was he babbling on about? Well, the jab at the Spirits was obvious. But he wasn't quite sure if he really wanted to know what the rest was about. He grimaced and shook his head. No, he definitely didn't want to know about his first life or his involvement with whomever Arian had been. There were many reasons why people didn't remember past reincarnations, and he knew it perfectly well. He had suffered the consequences during a whole week and it had been hell.

Moreover, he wasn't any of the people he had been in the past! He had changed a lot from rebirth to rebirth, from what he could recall, and the only thing which matter to him was his current life. Why on earth should he care about the things he had done centuries in the past? He had already coped with the things his past selves had done when he had been forced to experience the memories of those lives. So now he shouldn't care – he didn't!

"Don't believe me, if it scares you," said Arian with a small smile, looking supremely confident and self-assured. "We'll see what choice you make when the time comes, hmm?"

Orion waved a hand dismissively, a stubborn and irked expression on his face. He was no longer remotely satisfied with the conversation, since the wizard refused to talk about the more pertinent questions he had asked, and the current topic was utterly uninteresting as far as he was concerned. He disregarded the whole matter, despite of how much Arian seemed to think that it was important.

He didn't care two straws about their 'first life'! Even if he remembered it, which he was sure he wouldn't, it wouldn't affect him or his views. Please, as if! And he was still feeling a bit sloshed, and now his temples pounded. Oh, for Circe's sake, he hoped he wasn't getting a hangover so soon! Never – he was never drinking that foul yellow thing again. Beer never again! Merlin's knickers, he should have known better – it was what muggles drank!

Suddenly, he caught sight of something which instantly uplifted his mood. He shot Arian a wide, feral smirk, and glanced back at the people he had spotted. It seemed that Moody, Doge and the other fellow had convinced the thugs to let them inside, or most probably, they had covertly shot some spell at them. Given their disheveled looks, the wizards had been shuffling through the mass of undulating bodies, searching for him, during quite some time. To his increasing delight, Moody had not only spotted him and was making a beeline towards them, but the ex-Auror and the other two were also quite a sight to behold.

They were wearing muggle clothes, undoubtedly transfigured, but also very poorly chosen, as was expected from wizards who didn't have the foggiest idea about what any muggle with half a brain wouldn't be caught dead wearing. Indeed, for a moment Orion even felt that he would fondly pat their backs for providing such entertainment. Moody was drawing gawking stares by being clothed in an old woman's frilly purple nightgown adorned in flowery patterns and heavy lace.

By the looks muggles were shooting them, they believed that the ex-Auror and the other two similarly dressed wizards were part of some funky spectacle orchestrated by the club. Some muggles were even expectantly gazing at them, cheeringly clapping their hands, as if anticipating a fun and bizarre drag queen show.

Moody utterly ignored them, evidently uninterested in fathoming the reason for the muggles' peculiar behavior, while the other two wizards shot puzzled glances at the muggles and then at their own nightgowns, clearly not seeing anything wrong with their chosen attires.

"Don't even think about it," whispered a sharp voice into his ear.

Orion blinked up at Arian, and then shot him a large, happy grin. "Why not? They are fair game. And you want to play fairly with me, don't you? So why shouldn't I attack them when they will be attacking me as soon as they can?"

Arian pinned him with a hard gaze. "Firstly, I'm with them and you can hardly expect me to cross my arms and watch how you kill them, hmm? And second, the place is crammed with muggles-"

"Do you think I care about that?" scoffed Orion with a roll of his eyes.

"You used to care about muggles when you were younger, ne c'est pas?" pointed out Arian harshly, his expression uncharacteristically grave and thunderous.

"I grew up," snapped Orion shortly, shooting him a scowl. "I learned what and who was more important. I'll always care about my own kind instead of about bloody muggles. You should as well."

Arian narrowed his azure eyes at him, as he remarked sharply, "You changed because you were manipulated-"

"By whom?" hissed out Orion mordantly, piercing him with narrowed eyes of his own. "Who could have manipulated me when I was a ten-year-old boy? Because that's when I started learning about my kind and their history, and that's when I began forming my views. The Spirits didn't know anything about me before I bought my wand from Gregorovitch and stepped into Durmstrang. So who could have manipulated me, in your opinion?"

The light wizard looked momentarily stalled, the deep frown on his face making it patently clear to Orion that Arian didn't know, but that the wizard stubbornly believed he was right. Abruptly, for a very fleeting moment, Orion saw a strange expression flashing across the wizard's chiseled features: as if a horrifying possibility had entered Arian's mind, leaving him speechless and very shaken, deeply pained even, but which he refused to believe or acknowledge in the following second. The expression was gone so quickly, that Orion didn't know if he had seen and deciphered it correctly, or if he had imagined it all together.

"You must leave - now," said Arian curtly, glancing over his shoulder.

Orion followed his gaze and saw that Moody and the two other wizards were a few feet away from them, their wands' tips already surreptitiously poking out from the long, lacy sleeves of their nightgowns.

Feeling a flare of giddy anticipation, he chuckled under his breath, flashed Arian a wide grin, and said nonchalantly, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm looking forward to a bit of fun and a good duel-"

Abruptly, he clamped shut when that strong, delicious scent wafted around him once more. He felt his mind melting into a puddle of goo, while lust, desire and need stormed through his body. He felt himself peering up at Arian with bright adoring eyes, feeling as he would do anything the wizard ever asked of him. Yes, indeed! Arian wanted him to leave? He would do so immediately! Why had he even hesitated to comply?!

He was moving before he even realized it; his feet taking several steps towards the exit. Seeing what was happening, he slowly realized –as his brain sluggishly caught up with his actions- what Arian was compelling him to do by using his Veela allure. And Orion felt a sudden surge of fury, which seemed to abruptly clear his mind for a moment.

"You bastard!" he spit out enraged, his green eyes flashing irately. "I'll find a way to stop it from affecting me – that, I promise, and you'll bloody pay for using it against me!"

Arian shot him a sweet, angelic smile, oozing warmth and gentleness, though his eyes spoke another matter. They were glimmering with sharp deviousness and content self-satisfaction as he said in a low, smooth voice, "The only way you can form a resistance to it is if you spend many long years by a Veela's side, slowly becoming inured to our allure. Quite a conundrum for you, hmmm?"

Before Orion could bit out a very nasty retort, and tell him where he could stick his conundrum, he felt his mind instantly becoming foggy again. And before he could even blink or attempt to fight it, he abruptly wanted nothing more than to obey the flawlessly gorgeous, breath-taking creature before him.

He was robotically taking another step, when the light wizard suddenly grasped his arm, a pensive expression crossing Arian's face. The wizard's azure eyes flickered towards the three wizards about to reach them, and then gazed back at Orion, who was staring at him with glazed eyes while slightly swaying on his feet.

Arian flashed him with a blinding smile showing his pearly whites, and all Orion could do was ogle without a thought in his mind.

"If you want some answers to your questions, ask that berserk creature about you – about Regulus," whispered Arian into Orion's ear, his clutch on Orion's arm tightening. "And ask your father about Bathilda."

Hazy confusion swam in Orion's mind, and he was only able to blink dumbly before he felt a familiar force wrapping around his body. With a startled gasp, his mind suddenly became clear from its fogginess, free from the allure, in the same second that his body was gripped tightly and pushed into a swirling whirlwind. The last thing he saw was Moody reaching them, lifting his wand, aiming straight at him as something was bellowed, but Orion was gone before even a spark came out from the ex-Auror's wand.


Groaning, dizzied, and with his mind a mesh of myriad confusion, Orion's feet landed on stone floors before he stumbled and crashed against something which toppled over and loudly echoed in his new surroundings.

He groaned again, clutching his head as he tried to stand up. His skull was fiercely pounding, nausea rolled in his stomach, and he needed to heave in a deep breath before he could scramble to his feet. He didn't feel the Veela allure anymore, but now he felt again the consequences of having drank so many pints. He felt as if he had traded one intoxication for the other.

Yet, he could think more clearly now, and one realization quickly popped into his mind. It was now clear to him just how much he could be deeply affected by Arian's allure – easily falling into the wizard's full control, if Arian wanted it. But the light wizard didn't hold all the cards. Arian was affected by who Orion was – or rather, who he had been. And Orion knew he could use that as a powerful tool. Moreover, he was still going to research into spells to resist a Veela's allure, even if it was only partially – there had to be something!

"Who's there?!" demanded a familiar voice, the guarded shout coming from somewhere high above.

The sound of feet quickly descending stairs resounded in Orion's ears, and he quickly drew out his wand, tensing and forcing himself to become alert, just in the precise moment that the voice spat, "Lumos!"

A flare of bright light momentarily blinded Orion, before his pupils shrank, taking in the sight before him, and he gasped confusedly, "Dad?"

Wearing burgundy boxers, Sirius was standing on a narrow staircase, wand aimed at him, looking sleepily disheveled as he stared at him with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

After a blink of his bluish grey eyes, the wizard instantly tucked his wand in his boxer's waistband and quickly reached his side, as he said hurriedly, "Are you mad, pup? What are you doing here?!"

"I…er…" mumbled Orion, strengthening up as he dizzily glanced around, slowly realizing where he was.

Rows of house-elf heads hanging from a wall, curtains drawn over a portrait, the dark and dim light from old candelabra, the troll foot… He was in the middle of Grimmauld Place's grim entrance hall. How…?

"Are you drunk, son?" said Sirius, a lopsided grin spreading on his face while he hoisted Orion up to his feet.

"I might be a bit sloshed, yeah," grumbled Orion, groaning once more as he rubbed his forehead. "Had a few pints in the Leaky Cauldron."

Sirius let out an amused bark of laughter, heavily patting Orion on his shoulder, which almost made him stumble again on the troll foot that served as an umbrella stand. "Never drink alone, pup!"

"Sobbering charm," muttered Orion beseeshingly, shooting his guffawing father a miffed glance, "and coffee – I think."

"You shouldn't be here," reprimanded Sirius, though the wizard didn't sound too stern or truly concerned, his voice still laced with amusement.

Nevertheless, his father seemed to heed his plea because in the next second a beam of light struck him, and Orion felt all haziness and headache receding from his mind as nausea faded away from his stomach.

He took in a relieved gasp of air while his father steered him into the kitchen, and soon, after a flick of Sirius' wand, there were two steaming mugs of coffee on top of the old kitchen table.

Orion slowly took a seat and clutched one of the mugs, seeing that his father was still regarding him with amusement while also expecting a reason for his impromptu visit – which, by the by, he was trying to unravel himself.

"He forced me into an apparition," breathed out Orion in wonderment, after taking a big gulp of his coffee, slowly feeling his wits fully coming back to him. "Just how powerful is he? Forcing someone into an apparation, and through Moody's anti-apparation wards no less… Though he couldn't have apparated me here if I didn't already control the wards of the house, yet…"

He shook his head, and stared at his father, perplexed. "It was all so surreal… in the muggle club… the weird things he said… the kiss… and then…" He frowned confusedly, and muttered, "And then he sent me here. He said something about asking you and a berserk creature about…"

"Who, pup?" said Sirius frowning, quizzically gazing at him. His lips twitched, and a roguish grin spread on his face. "And you were in a muggle club? I would have given my entire Playwizard collection to see that! Amazing places, aren't they? Next time you should invite me if you're out for a night of fun!"

His grin widened and he conspiratorially winked at him. "And who kissed you, pup? I'm happy to know that this whole marital bond breaking thing hasn't dampened your spirits! And that you're finally taking advantage of being free from Voldem-"

"What?" said Orion, jerking his head up. He frowned and rubbed his temples. "No, you're mistaking things… I wasn't…" Abruptly, he tensed and quickly glanced around. "Hang on, I shouldn't be here. If Aurors are monitoring the place-"

"The wards will alert you if they try to break in to get you," interrupted Sirius nonchalantly, shooting him a beaming smile as he lazily leaned back on his chair.

Orion snapped his head around to pierce him with his gaze, and he demanded quietly, "You never allowed the Order to use this place, right?"

"Of course not!" replied Sirius instantly, looking indignantly offended. "I would never endanger you like that – I know you like this house and it's legally yours, not mine anymore." He let out a bark of laughter and shot him a wide, lopsided grin. "I'm still officially 'dead'. The Ministry still doesn't know how to fix their records to acknowledge a resurrected wizard – I'm the first one in wizarding history!"

He waved a hand, and added cheerfully, "And you know that I don't control the wards of any Black property anymore. Ever since you resurrected me, they don't recognize me. You had to key me in to this house's wards yourself, pup. Remember?"

"Um, yeah," said Orion, with a trace of relief. He took another large sip of coffee, and quickly sobered up further. "I shouldn't stay long, just the same. Everyone knows that you live here and they could be hoping that I would visit you." He shot him a wry smile. "To persuade you to join 'my evil ranks'."

Sirius shook his head with amusement, before a worried and curious expression flickered across his face. "Not that I don't like having you here, pup, but you didn't make much sense before. What happened and who forced you into an apparition?" His gaze trailed over Orion, and his lips quirked upwards, restraining a laughter. "And why are you wearing muggle clothes? It isn't like you to-"

"Oh, right," muttered Orion, grimacing as he looked down at himself.

With a flick of his wand, he transfigured back his clothes into his wizarding attire, and then cancelled the glamour around himself, seeing his magical aura becoming visible once more, blackness unfurling all around him. And he let out a tired sigh: keeping up a glamour for so long was always very draining. Finally, he gazed back at Sirius in silent contemplation, the latest events swirling in his mind as he deeply pondered about them.

"I bumped into Arian tonight," he said at last, frowning as he fixedly stared at his father. "It was my fault, really. I acted impulsively, stupidly – I'm never doing that again." He scowled, angered at himself, before he continued, "To make it short, I took some drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, Mundungus Fletcher saw me and alerted some of the Order, and Moody, Arian and two others appeared. Arian actually helped me to get away, into a muggle club, and then…"

He intently pierced Sirius with his gaze, who looked amusedly proud of his son's mischievous escapade. "And I think he wants me to discover something… about him, perhaps, and definitely about myself as well. Dad, does the name Bathilda Bagshot ring a bell?"

"Bathilda?" mused Sirius with a slight frown, as he calmly took a sip of his coffee, looking, by all means, as if having been awoken by his drunk son in the middle of the night was something that any father would be proud of and cheered by.

Indeed, Orion was half expecting him to pat him on the back and produce a bottle of firewhiskey to share between them. Thankfully, his father seemed to take the question seriously, and Orion nodded, expectantly gazing at him.

He hadn't told anyone, except Calypso, all the details about what Gellert had disclosed to him. Therefore, his father barely knew anything about Gellert's past, only the essentials about the wizard's intimate involvement with Dumbledore. But he had never mentioned to Sirius that Gellert had stayed those summer months, decades ago, with his great-aunt, Bathilda Bagshot. So he didn't quite know why Arian expected Sirius to know anything about the witch.

In turn, he inwardly reviewed in his mind what he knew about the old woman. From the scant things Gellert had told him about Bagshot, he knew that the old witch wasn't a blood relation, but a political one through marriage. She had been married to someone of the Grindelwald line, though he didn't know exactly to whom. 'Great-aunt' could indicate any sort of different degrees of political relation to Gellert.

Furthermore, he knew that the old witch had lived, and still did, in Godric's Hollow. She had been a neighbor of the Dumbledore's, close friends with Albus' mother Kendra, though the witch supposedly had never known the truth about Ariana's 'condition', the circumstances of Kendra's death or of Ariana's herself. Regardless, the witch had known about Gellert's liaison with Albus.

And he could easily deduce that she must have suspected something during the flurry of events that happened after Ariana's death: how Aberforth broke Albus' nose during the funeral – Bagshot must have been present as a close friend of the family, and seen it – and then how Aberforth went to live with a distant aunt of theirs, Aurora Valenor.

Perhaps Bagshot had even known Aurora, perhaps she had even seen the baby that Mrs. Valenor had taken in her custody along with Aberforth. Had Bagshot discovered the existence of Ariana's baby? Was that why Arian had mentioned Bagshot to him? Because the old witch knew about Hyperion Valenor, thus about Arian and his relation to Dumbledore? Did the witch know something about Arian's or his father's past that the light wizard wanted him to discover?

Orion frowned, and slowly rubbed his forehead. Perhaps. Arian had said that asking Sirius about 'Bathilda' would answer some of the questions he had demanded from Arian – though he didn't quite see how. What could Sirius possibly have to do with Bagshot?

On the other hand, what he factually knew about the old witch was that she had been a magical historian – a very famed one, at that. She was the author of 'A History of Magic'; he had seen that book in Hermione's clutches often enough during the year. It wasn't a textbook used at Durmstrang, since it had obviously been written from the Light's point of view. During Durmstrang's class of History of the Dark Arts they always used textbooks authored by dark wizards. Historical 'facts' presented by light and dark historians always greatly differed, no matter how 'objective' historians were supposed to be.

So, it was also clear that even though Bagshot had been married to some Grindelwald, she was a light witch nonetheless. But she must also be a very tolerant and unprejudiced one, since she had welcomed Gellert into her home for his summer holidays, which the wizard had initially intended to spend looking for clues about Ignotus Peverell and the Invisibility Cloak hallow. Though, he knew that Gellert would have never breathed a word about his quest to Bagshot.

"Ah, yes!" suddenly exclaimed Sirius, looking mightily triumphant as he jumped to his feet, as if a recollection had finally struck him. He shot Orion a large grin. "I remember now, pup!"

Startled out of his musings, Orion stared at him with round eyes, before his lips tugged upward with amusement. Only his father could look at ease and utterly comfortable and unabashed whilst standing in the middle of a gloomy kitchen, with coffee mug in hand, wearing only dark red boxers. Why, if there were witches present they would be undoubtedly swooning at Sirius' feet, since if there was something his father was always arrogantly proud of was his good-looks and physique.

"Follow me!" said Sirius excitedly, clearly with the hope that they were about to embark themselves in some thrilling adventure.

Leaving his mug on the table, Orion quickly trailed after his giddily cheerful father, whilst he forced himself to remain alert about any twitch in the wards, lest some Auror suddenly attempt to swoop inside. He was fairly confident about the wards holding up, but he also knew that Aurors had to be surveilling the place from the outside, at the very least. And there was no knowing what could alert them about his presence inside the house.

He swiftly clambered up several stairways and finally entered his father's room. Sirius was already disorderly going through a wardrobe, carelessly flinging out clothes, boxes and other encumbering items in his quest to find and pluck out something from the wardrobe's depths.

In the meantime, Orion inspected the bedroom with fleeting curiosity. It had been ages since the last time he had been there, but nothing appeared to have changed. Sirius' bedroom still looked as that of his teenage years, with old Gryffindor paraphernalia, pictures of muggle motorcycles, a wizarding photograph of the Marauders, posters of muggle women in bikinis, and the sort.

However, there was a moving picture that he had never seen before, pinned in the middle of a vacant spot on the wall: a black-haired baby was zooming in and out of the picture on a tiny broom, roaring with laughter. He blinked and stared at it – it was him. And it was the first photograph he had ever seen of himself being younger than ten.

A hand gently landed on his shoulder, and Orion glanced up at his father, who was widely grinning at him, holding a piece of parchment in his hand.

"That's you in the picture, pup," said Sirius fondly. "I found it a while ago, when I went through my old stuff after you resurrected me. You know how it was. I was feeling a bit disoriented and needed to find an anchor in the past." His grin turned sheepishly self-conscious and slightly abashed. "I was feeling mushy and melancholic as well. But I'm glad I found it."

Orion gazed at him in silence, and Sirius shook his head as he continued, his voice turning grim with self-recrimination, "I cannot believe I didn't remember the picture and the letter after Azkaban. I forgot how many times Lily had written to me! She always sent a lot of letters telling me about you. I thought it was because I was simply your godfather. But it must have been because she didn't want me to miss important stuff. She must have wanted me to know all about you, my son, even though she and James wanted to wait before telling me the truth. As you once told me, they wanted to wait until the war was over. So that you, the son of a Black and a muggleborn, supposedly, could be in no danger of Death Eaters -particularly Bellatrix- wanting to kill you due to how your existence 'tainted' an important dark pureblood line."

Sirius handed him the worn out piece of parchment, and muttered quietly, "For your one year birthday, Lily sent me this letter and the picture. I wanted to be there, but I couldn't. Since Lily and James were already in hiding and couldn't go on Order missions, Dumbledore had me very busy. I missed the moment Lily gave birth to you because I was away from London for Order business as well, but I really regretted missing your first birthday too."

He shot him a faint smile, and poked the picture with a finger. "I sent you that present though – a toy broomstick. I always thought you could have been a great seeker! Even James thought so. Look how you fly, and just a baby!"

Orion mutely nodded, not quite knowing what to say. His father seemed deeply affected by the memories and the moments he had missed. But other than spitting out what he thought about Dumbledore sending his father on Order business precisely during important moments of his childhood, he couldn't think of anything else to say.

He had already shared with his father the suspicions he had of just how much Dumbledore must have known, deduced, or suspected, about Lily's true lineage and his own. Moreover, his thoughts had quickly turned to the piece of parchment, wondering why Sirius had related Bagshot with the letter.

Without wasting any more time, his gaze quickly scanned the contents. The relevant sentences to the matter-at-hand immediately jumped to his eyes: We had a very quiet birthday tea, just us and old Bathilda who has always been sweet to us and who dotes on Harry… Bathilda drops in most days, she's a fascinating old thing with the most amazing stories about Dumbledore. I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew! I don't know how much to believe, actually because it seems incredible that Dumbledore – and there it ended.

Something lodged in his throat, and Orion quickly glanced up at his father, as he said hoarsely, "Where's the second page?"

"I never found it," muttered Sirius darkly. "Kreacher must have disposed of it years ago while 'cleaning'." He shot him a puzzled frown. "Why? I don't see how it could be important-"

"Do you remember what it said?" interrupted Orion swiftly, piercing him with his gaze as he felt increasingly agitated.

Sirius slightly frowned, before his bluish grey eyes widened, and he said excitedly, "Oh, yes, you're right!"

He shook his head, slapping a hand on his forehead and chuckling under his breath, before he continued with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, "Merlin, I had completely forgotten about that as well! Lily wrote about what that old lady had told her regarding Dumbledore's relationship with the psychopath. Merlin's staff, and to think that I didn't remember about the old lady's gossip! Lily believed the old woman, but I never did. And it was true, all this time-"

"So Bagshot really told Lily about Dumbledore's affair with Gellert?" interjected Orion sharply, pinning him with a firm gaze, urgently needing to confirm his grave suspicions.

"Yes," replied Sirius with a bark of laughter, evidently still finding the whole matter very amusing. Suddenly, it seemed as if he had picked up on something, and he shot him a frown, looking annoyed and displeased. "You used to call Lily 'mother' or 'mum', when you referred to her. I wish you still did, pup."

"Er… right," said Orion startled. He shrugged his shoulders unconcernedly, and pressed on, "Fine. So the old witch told mum about-"

"Yes, pup," interrupted Sirius with a flippant roll of his eyes. He frowned, and grumbled darkly, "Not that I like thinking about Dumbledore fiddling with the deranged mass-murderer. I still don't understand how Dumbledore could have done such a thing – it must have been hormones and lust. I still remember that when I was a teenager I couldn't quite control myself either. Poor Dumbledore, he must have been seduced and tricked by wiles, I pity him really -"

"That's rubbish, Dumbledore was no victim in their affair," snapped Orion, angered and deeply stung, "and you'll do well to remember that the 'deranged mass-murderer' was Lily's – mum's father, and thus my very own grandfather. The only one I ever knew. And I cared about him, so I don't like it when you disparage him. He wasn't deranged and he did a lot of things for me, like allowing me to kill him before he was driven to kill me instead!"

He leveled him with a hard gaze and slapped the letter into the wizard's hands. "And you're missing the entire point. Don't you see what it means? What that letter indirectly proves?"

Sirius briefly gazed at him, perplexed, before he stared at the piece of parchment in his hands, his expression one of clueless puzzlement.

Taking a quick, pacing turn about the room, Orion carded his fingers through his hair with great agitation, trying to put his rushing thoughts in order.

"Arian told me to ask you about Bagshot, obviously knowing about this letter," Orion said in his pacing. "And that's the only reference you have about the witch, right?" He spun around to pin his father with a piercing gaze. "There are no other letters mentioning the old witch, that you either have or otherwise remember, correct?"

Sirius quickly nodded, still looking as befuddled as before, and Orion continued sharply, "Then that letter is really what Arian wanted me to see. And he knew what I would think of it, what I would suspect. It's evident!"

His father kept staring at him with obvious confusion, and Orion took in a deep breath, calmed down his brisk strides around the room and quickly reached Sirius' side to stand directly in front of him.

With a sigh, he said quietly, "Father, Bathilda Bagshot was Gellert's great-aunt, a 'very nosy old witch' by his account, and she was a close friend of the Dumbledore's. And she was a historian, to boot. So she knew the Dumbledore and Grindelwald families and perhaps dug into most of their secrets, as would be expected given her profession, and she had a deep knowledge regarding wizarding history. If those aren't the ingredients to find out about Vindico stuff, then I don't know what else could be!"

Orion pinned him with a grave gaze, and added pointedly, "Through old friendships or marriage, she had amazing connections with both the Dumbledores and Grindelwalds. She knew about Albus' relationship with Gellert, she must have suspected something about the weird stuff that happened around Ariana and about the girl's 'ill health'. All of that is logical, but what stands up the most is what that letter points towards."

At Sirius' continued uncomprehending silence, Orion released a sigh, pointed a finger at the piece of parchment in his father's hand, and said crisply, "Even when that letter was written, Bagshot must have been really old, over two hundred years old, and yet, she took the trouble to frequently 'visit' her new neighbors in Godric's Hollow. To see me, to see Lily, to 'gossip' to mum about Albus' and Gellert's relationship. And if that's not telling enough, doesn't it strike you as rather odd that an old witch would tell perfect strangers about that matter? Something that had to shame her, something so intimate regarding people she was related to or had been close to."

His jaw clenched, and he added sharply, "Furthermore, mum and I inherited Gellert's mother's eyes - that's what he told me when he was dying. Do you think Bagshot, who must have known the woman, wouldn't have noticed the similarities, especially in mum's features? The Spirits told me that mum uncannily resembled Antigone Grindelwald in looks, as well."

"You think…" Sirius faltered and stared at him with bafflement. "You think Bagshot knew back then that Lily was Grindelwald's daughter? And that you-"

"I think it's possible she figured it out," interjected Orion, sighing as he carded his fingers through his hair. "I also think that there must be much more she knows about. If it was simply that, it's not relevant enough to pique my interest, is it? I already knew about mum's and my relation to Gellert, and Arian is aware of it. So he wanted to point me towards Bagshot's direction, due to something else."

He scowled, crossing his arms over his chest, and added dryly, "He's sneaky that way. Before this, I was merely fleetingly curious about Bagshot because she was Gellert's great-aunt. Now, Arian has truly made me become interested in her and the secrets she must be keeping. He wants me to dig into the matter, as simple as that. So when I have the time, I'll pay her a visit."

"Say the word and I'll go with you, pup," said Sirius staunchly, shooting him a lopsided grin.

"Thanks, Dad," muttered Orion, not really understanding how his father could be so cheerful and carefree about the matter when it had only served to make him feel more irked and frazzled.

He hated that there were still many things he didn't know about. And it extremely irritated him that Arian was making him jump through hoops instead of directly telling him whatever the wizard wanted him to find out about. Which, of course, raised in his mind the second issue the light wizard had mentioned to him.

"The berserk creature," he mumbled, staring at his father without really seeing him. "Ask about Regulus…" He shook his head, and a deep frown spread over his face. "He was referring to Kreacher, of course. But I already know everything regarding Regulus and what happened, and Kreacher didn't have anything to do with any of it…"

"Regulus? What?" said Sirius numbly, his face slightly paling as he stared at him nonplussed.

Orion shot his father a worried glance, which turned assessing in the next second. He knew that Sirius' 'little brother' was a painful and difficult topic for the wizard, yet now he remembered the decision he had taken at the Leaky Cauldron. His hand brushed against a pocket of his robes, feeling the fake locket inside.

Could he really be so ruthless as to force Sirius to confront some of his demons? It would be like shock therapy, and it would be quite merciless on his part, but it would work. And he needed his father to be steadfastly on his side. He needed to tie the wizard more tightly around him, so that Sirius would never again even think about helping the Light side. And he would have to unscrupulously use Sirius' remorse against the wizard.

His jaw clenched with firm determination. Yes, he would it. But first, he had to find out what was the second thing Arian wanted him to find out about.

Orion frowned, and without a second thought, he turned on his heel and made way to the door. "I'm going to Regulus' room. Are you tagging along?"

He didn't need to glance over his shoulder to know that his father was reluctantly following him onto the landing and past the second door that led off it. He could even feel the dread and unease coming off the wizard, as he turned the knob of the door and stepped inside the bedroom.

Sirius hung back, shifting hesitantly on his feet without crossing the threshold, but Orion paid him no mind and calmly sauntered to the middle of the room, glancing around with a proprietor's knowing gaze. This was, by all accounts, his bedroom. Not only because he had been Regulus, but because he had inhabited the room during the couple of weeks in which Grimmauld Place had been his home, before they had moved into Black Manor in wizarding Moscow.

After escaping from the Dursleys and the room becoming his when Sirius appointed it to him, he had never changed much about it - because he had instantly loved it. Knowing what he knew now, the sense of familiarity that the room had always given him was no surprise. Indeed, in Grimmauld Place he had always felt at home, no matter how gloomy it was.

His gaze trailed over the room with fondness: Slytherin colors draping every inch of the place, the Black family crest grandiosely and skillfully painted over the bed with the banner of 'Toujours Pur', a vast collection of ancient and obscure Dark Arts tomes –which he nearly knew word for word- filling the numerous shelves around the room along with several books on wizarding pureblood etiquette, protocol or diplomacy, and several framed wizarding pictures hanging on the walls.

Orion's lips tugged with wry amusement as he glanced at the pictures. In one, a young Regulus was alone, apparently, though he knew that the elbow that peeked from one side of the frame was that of a young Severus, his picture self even then too sour, antisocial and snarky to come out in plain sight. Another picture was that of the Slytherin Quidditch team, with Regulus haughtily sporting his Seeker uniform.

He dryly chuckled under his breath. He had forgotten about that. It seemed that James Potter and his father had been right; he would have made a good Seeker if he had ever found the time to indulge in it.

Orion wistfully sighed. He knew he was an excellent flier – he had honed that ability whenever he had a chance at Durmstrang- yet he had always regretted not having the time for Quidditch. He would have loved to have been the Seeker of the Hydra team at Durmstrang, to have been pitched against Krum before the wizard graduated two years ago. Alas, he had never found the time for Quidditch.

A smug smirk tugged his lips. Nevertheless, he had always beaten Draco in the scant times during their holidays when they had played Quidditch with their friends, a long time ago. And he had always won, regardless of how much Draco had whined about the unfairness of it.

Why Draco had always proclaimed that he won unfairly, he never knew. Perhaps because back then Draco had been a pompous, spoiled, whiny, wheedling little brat that thought that being the older cousin – by a few months, mind you- should be reason enough for Orion to let him win. Being a Malfoy had surely been another incontrovertible reason in Draco's mind, because 'a Malfoy always wins', either due to true skill or because others 'knew their place' and kowtowed to Malfoys.

Orion shook his head with amusement and finally caught sight of a clippings album on top of the desk. He calmly made his way towards it and trailed a finger over the cover. This, he clearly remembered. It had instantly caught his attention the moment he had first gone through Regulus' things during his first night in Grimmauld Place.

The album was filled with yellow newspaper cuttings, making a ragged collage of news, all of them regarding Voldemort and the wizard's so called first rise. Back then, when he had been ten years old, he had devoured the information, but he hadn't realized what the album meant; that Regulus had been infatuated with Voldemort for a long time before becoming a Death Eater, that his obsession had ran deep.

This, of course, he was very much aware of by now. But he nonetheless stepped away from the album with a faint grimace on his face. He didn't like to be reminded of the unsavory similarities between him and his past reincarnation, even if he and Regulus were in essence one and the same.

He glanced over his shoulder at his father, seeing that the wizard was still uneasily shuffling his feet at the threshold, and sighed. Even when he was a kid and Sirius had nightly come into the room to tuck him in bed, the wizard had always stayed as briefly as possible.

Orion impatiently waved at him to come over, and called out as he carefully eyed every inch of the room, "Do you see any change? I don't detect anything. Nothing has been added, moved or removed." He frowned, and muttered, "I wonder what the hell Arian wants me to find."

Dragging his feet, Sirius finally made it to his side, glancing around very quickly and fleetingly, as he grumbled with a scathing snort, "It's the same, only that the foul thing has taken upon itself to constantly clean the room like a possessed maniac."

"It's clean, you're right," said Orion aghast, unblinkingly staring around. "That's peculiar, isn't it? Kreacher never took care of…" He trailed off and a deep, irked frown spread over his forehead, as he muttered under his breath, "I'm going about it the wrong way. I can't expect to suddenly find a mysterious letter or something of the sort. I know this room and the items in it like the back of my hand, and there's nothing of significance here. And Arian did tell me specifically to ask Kreacher, though I can't really see what he can know that I don't already…"

He sighed, conceded defeat, and finally called out, "Kreacher!"

"Why are we here? I don't understand what you're looking for or what's the point of this whole thing," said Sirius gruffly, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "And what does Regulus have to do with anything?"

"I don't know, Dad," said Orion soothingly, trying to make his father relax with the tone of his voice, since the rigid stiffness in the man's shoulders was evident.

The moment the house-elf popped into the room, Sirius rounded on the creature, menacingly aimed his wand at Kreacher, and spat angrily, "You! You supposedly know something about my brother – spill!"

Orion hadn't seen Kreacher in ages, but he looked much the same: tiny, half human-sized, his pale skin hanging off him in folds, white hair sprouting copiously from his bat-like ears, and the creature was still wearing the filthy rag in which he had first met him. And though the contemptuous glare that the house-elf shot his father didn't surprise him at all, what did puzzle him was the way in which the creature was now gazing up at him. There was a flash of something in the house-elf's large eyes: fervent anticipation, feverish hope, even reverence, he would say, and it completely baffled him. He had always gotten along fairly well with the house-elf, but not nearly well enough to incite those emotions in the creature.

"Master," wheezed out Kreacher, bowing low to his knees, "back in my Mistress's old house, at last."

"Um, yes…" Orion cleared his throat, before he carefully eyed the creature and said slowly, "Do you know anything about Regulus that I should know about?"

Kreacher's eyes sparkled with some deep emotion, and he croaked out, "Does Master remember?"

"Remember what?" said Orion bewildered, his heart suddenly thundering in his chest.

"The locket," whimpered out Kreacher, gulping for air as his thin chest rapidly rose and fell, his eyes round as saucers, fixedly staring into Orion's. "Doesn't Master remember, at last? Master's locket, Master Regulus' locket. Kreacher tried, again and again, and failed and failed, but then…" His eyes glimmered tearfully. "Master came back. Master found locket in his old room, as he said he would if he died and came back. And Kreacher let young Master take it! Kreacher didn't fail, not in everything, did he, Master? And Kreacher helped Master in the cave, obeying against his instincts and wishes-"

"This cannot be about the Slytherin locket!" snapped Orion briskly, piercing him with his eyes while a mesh of incoherent thoughts violently swirled in his mind, trying to make sense of the creature's strange words. "I didn't take you… How can you know anything about the cave?! Regulus didn't take you. He took an old house-elf. He took your father, Kreacher. I know this! A week ago I was in the cave and flashes came back-"

He clamped his mouth shut, feeling increasingly frantic, before he barked out, "Regulus made your father drink the potion. Your father was old, he died after he drank it-"

"NOOO!" shrieked Kreacher as he lunged for the poker standing in the grate of the bedroom's fireplace.

Instantly, Orion reacted and launched himself upon the house-elf, swiftly grasping him by the shoulders while he used his other hand to tightly clutch the creature's face, forcing him to look up at him.

"What's- what's all this about, pup?" said a gargled voice.

"Stay out of it!" spat Orion without a thought. He immediately realized the hurtful tone he had used, and briefly glanced at his father over his shoulder, took in a deep breath to calm down, and said quietly, "Sorry, Dad… I'll answer all your questions, but first let me figure out what the bloody hell is going on. I know as much as you do, at present."

Sirius jerkily nodded, looking too disconcerted and shaken to do anything else, and Orion gazed back at Kreacher, relaxing his grip on the house-elf, as he said softly, "Please, tell me about the locket and the cave."

"Master always liked Kreacher, always kind," said Kreacher tremulously, gazing up at him with wide, watery eyes full of adoration. "And Master Regulus said that the Dark Lord required an elf…"

Something lodged in Orion's throat, feeling as if his heart would explode from his ribcage in any moment, as he realized that Kreacher kept using 'Master' and 'Master Regulus' indistinguishably while addressing him. A flare of frenzied alarm surged through him, feeling as if wild, frantic thoughts were crashing all around his mind, but he stiffly nodded at the creature to continue.

"Master volunteered Kreacher," said the house-elf, his breathing coming faster. "It was an honor, and Master Regulus ordered Kreacher to do everything the great Dark Lord ordered Kreacher to do, and then come back. Dark Lord took Kreacher to a cave and made Kreacher drink nasty potion, all of it… and Dark Lord dropped locket into the empty basin and filled it with more potion, and then sailed away, leaving Kreacher on the island… and the pain, the terrible things Kreacher saw, and the thirst… Kreacher drank from the water of the lake, and dead hands dragged him down…"

"Why don't I remember? Why don't I remember sending you to Voldemort?" inaudibly whispered Orion shakily, feeling as if the floor had been yanked away from his feet. Indeed, even his sight momentarily swayed, before he forced himself to gather back his wits. He pierced the house-elf with his eyes, and murmured, "And you used your elvish magic then, right? To dissaparate from the cave when no wizard could have done it due to the wards Voldemort had cast. But you did it, because I.. because Regulus told you to come back."

"Yes, Master," said Kreacher, fully meeting his gaze.

"And then?" pressed on Orion, his voice tight. "You got back, you must have told Regulus what had happened, and then?"

"Master remembers, yes?" said Kreacher fervently, gazing at him with teary, hopeful large eyes.

"No," murmured Orion quietly, jerkily shaking his head. "I don't. I'm deducing it."

The hopeful glimmer in Kreacher's blood-shot eyes faded, and he rocked on his feet as he wailed with self-hatred, "It's Kreacher fault then, that Master doesn't remember! Kreacher's fault, fault, fault-"

"No, it's not!" said Orion firmly, tightly clutching the house-elf by his tiny, bony shoulders. "You did nothing wrong, I'm sure. But I need to figure out the truth, I don't remember and I should! Something happened! Continue, please."

Kreacher took a deep, tremulous breath, and croaked out, "I came back, I told Master Regulus what happened in the cave, and Master was very worried, very worried…"

"Worried?" demanded Orion confusedly. "Are you sure? Didn't he look triumphant to know about the locket and where it was hidden?"

"No, Master was worried!" wheezed out Kreacher vehemently. "Master told Kreacher to not say anything, to stay hidden, to not leave the house. And then, Master came to find Kreacher in his cupboard, and Master Regulus was strange, disturbed, and asked Kreacher to take him to the cave where Kreacher had gone with the Dark Lord…"

A tremor violently shook his emaciated, old body, and tears started pouring down his grayish, sunken cheeks. "And Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the other one, and told Kreacher to take it, and when basin was empty, to switch lockets… And Master ordered Kreacher to leave without him, to go home and never tell anyone, and to destroy the locket! And kind Master, good Master Regulus drank all the potion, and Kreacher did as ordered – and watched… as Master was dragged beneath the water… and…"

The house-elf let out a moan, loud sobs issuing agonizingly from him, while he madly rocked back and forth, as he wailed, "And Master died! Because Kreacher wanted but couldn't go against Master's orders! And good Master Regulus died, and it was Kreacher's fault and then Kreacher went back home with locket, and tried again and again to destroy it, but couldn't! And Kreacher failed-"

"But Regulus didn't die that way. Of that, at least, I'm sure!" snapped Orion fiercely. He quickly kneeled down in front of the wailing creature and gently grasped his gaunt, teary face, making Kreacher meet his eyes. "Listen to me. It's obvious you know, and soon I will want to know how. But right now, I want you to say it out loud." He searchingly gazed into the house-elf's blood-shot eyes. "You know that I was Regulus, right?"

"Yes," said Kreacher with a muffled sob.

A strangled sound came from behind him, as if a mouse had been fatally stomped on and crushed to death, and Orion glanced back over his shoulder, startled. His father was as pale as a ghost, not a tint of color on cheeks or lips, the man's gray eyes wide and unseeing, and it seemed as if the wizard had been struck mute, deaf and dumb, though his body was slightly shaking.

Orion shot him a concerned glance, but figured that there wasn't much he could do to help his father cope with realities at present. And unraveling what the heck was going on was a much more pressing matter.

He turned to face Kreacher again, and said softly, "Good. So listen to me carefully. I don't remember these things you've told me about, but…" He deeply frowned and his jaw clenched. "But I didn't die in the cave, Kreacher, so you mustn't blame yourself for that. And it's quite clear to me that I did indeed ask you to destroy the locket… I must have been desperate, I don't know…"

Orion shook his head as he let out a sigh, and continued firmly, "But I shouldn't have asked you to do that. It's obvious that you tried to destroy it during many years. And failing to accomplish it, since you didn't know what it really was and how it could be destroyed, evidently drove you mad. But from now on consider yourself free from that order. I revoke it. And the locket was used and disposed of some time ago, do you understand?"

"Yes, thank you, Master," croaked out Kreacher, gazing at him with wide, watery eyes, gleaming worshipfully.

"Merlin's staff, what a mess," breathed out Orion, tiredly rubbing his forehead as he slowly stood up.

With a deep, dark frown, and his mind rushing with jumbling, disorderly thoughts, he plucked out the fake locket from his robes' pocket, and offered it to the house-elf. "Is this the locket I made you swap for the real one that day?"

Kreacher hesitantly grasped it in his bony, gnarled hands, and closely inspected it, nearly pressing his long nose against it, before he handed it back, and said solemnly, "Yes, Master."

Orion's frown deepened while he pocketed the locket again, but he knew that the house-elf could only, and would only, have answered truthfully. Therefore, he didn't quite know what to make of things and he started pacing the room, briskly carding his fingers through his hair while he attempted to make head and tails from the puzzle before him.

What he remembered, and what Kreacher did, vastly differed. Moreover, just about a week ago, when he had gone into the cave with Dumbledore, he had reexperienced flashes of Regulus' memories regarding the affair. And most importantly, he clearly remembered exactly what Regulus' feelings had been… and those couldn't have been faked, they had been too detailed and intense… but Kreacher had told him that Regulus had been worried when he had found out about the locket, and if he fitted that with the rest, then…

Abruptly, he sucked in a gasp of air as several realizations struck him like lightning bolts, making him falter in his strides.

Nearly stumbling to the floor, he took control over his legs and swiftly swirled around, gazing at Kreacher with wide eyes, as he breathed out, "Merlin's sagging scrotum, I did it on purpose!"

He stared at the house-elf unseeingly, and continued breathlessly, "That has to be it… I underestimated myself - I had underestimated Regulus, just like everyone in his life had! I modified some parts of your memory, and I did the same to myself! To protect you, the family, and also myself, because the moment that the Dark Mark started burning on my arm before I had the time to attempt to destroy the locket, I knew I was going to die – so I acted swiftly, radically!"

Orion quickly reached Kreacher's side, and said adamantly as he fixedly gazed down at him, "You see, I must have erased from my mind any recollection of your part in the affair. I knew Voldemort would try to legilimize me. In the eventuality that I wouldn't be able to completely occlude my memories –which I did end up succeeding in, that I remember- I didn't want him to know that you had helped me. Because I gave you the mission of destroying the locket, knowing that I wouldn't be able to do it myself since I knew I wouldn't survive his punishment. I thought he would kill me and that I wouldn't have any chances of coming back and destroying the locket myself. So in the little time I had between making it out alive from the cave and coming back home, I quickly modified our memories."

His eyes widened and he carded his fingers through his hair, as he added musingly, his voice slightly shaky, "From my memories, it was necessary for me to modify your appearance, to make you look older, just like your father, so that Voldemort wouldn't come to get you. Your father was really old anyway. He died of natural causes shortly, didn't he?"

"Yes," wheezed out Kreacher, staring at him with large eyes.

"Yeah, I remember that," said Orion, sharply nodding at him. "I knew that your father was in his last days, so I must have used it for my benefit! I changed what happened slightly, making it look as if I made my old house-elf drink the potion, instead of myself. So that Voldemort would see the house-elf dying, and thus be assuaged in his concerns that any creature could have remained alive knowing about what I had done and about his locket. But in the end, it wasn't necessary – I remember that Voldemort wasn't able to break through all my mind barriers, no matter how much he tried. Severus had taught me well in the arts of Occlumency."

He shook his head, and pensively regarded Kreacher, as he continued, "And from your memory, the only thing I had to change was the last part – making you believe I had died in the cave, so that you wouldn't go looking for me, since I knew I would die that night anyway. And of course, I had to wipe out from your mind, and also partly from mine, our interaction when I came back home!"

He briefly paused, his eyes became round as saucers, and he breathed out, "I made you forget about having seen me, making you believe I had died in the cave. And to myself, I erased the part where I told you that I would 'come back' in a way – telling you those things that I made you believe I had said in the cave, and not at home."

Orion sucked in a deep breath, jerkily carding his fingers through his hair, as the full truth of his last words unraveled in his mind, something finally clicking into place, at long last. Something which, nevertheless, both immensely deeply perturbed him and puzzled him with wonderment.

He shakily sat down, crossing his legs, and pierced Kreacher with an intense gaze, as he murmured, "Tell me about the strange things I told you - those you remember as if I had disclosed them in the cave." He searchingly bore his eyes into the house-elf's, and added quietly, "You know what I'm referring to. At the very beginning, you said that 'Master' had found the locket in his old room, as he said he would if he died and came back, and that you let 'Master' take it, as Regulus had ordered you to do. But by 'Master' you were talking about the current me, not Regulus, right?"

"Yes, Master," mumbled Kreacher, looking deeply relieved, as if a heavy burden had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders.

The house-elf imitated him, seating himself on the floor as well, crossing his stick-thin knobby legs, and it struck Orion that it had always been like that between them. He clearly remembered being Regulus and much younger than now, seating with Kreacher in the middle of his bedroom as they played chess, while his brother went out gallivanting to visit James Potter and while Walburga didn't spare him a second thought and while his father was always away with business. Yes, it had been with Kreacher with whom he had played as a child, playing wizarding board games, or taking his broom to fly around the backyard, practicing his Seeker skills while the house-elf released the bludgers and snitch for him.

He shot the old house-elf a warm smile, and something snug wrapped around his chest when he saw that Kreacher had obviously realized the same thing, since the creature answered with a little smile of his own – something he had never seen before in his current life, even though it looked more like a twisted grimace. But it was the intention that counted in his opinion, and Orion's smile widened.

"Tell me what I said to you," he prodded gently.

Kreacher vehemently nodded, and wheezed out quietly, "Master Regulus told Kreacher that Kreacher had to destroy the locket, but Master also said that perhaps Kreacher wouldn't be able to do it. But the first was still an order and it had precedence over the latter, Master! So Kreacher really tried!"

"I know, I understand," said Orion softly. "What else did I say, Kreacher?"

"Master Regulus said to Kreacher that he would die but would come back." The house-elf's blood-shot eyes grew large, as he continued with a reverent whisper, "Master said he would die and be reborn, coming back as someone very powerful and that Kreacher would know it was Master because of his powerful dark magic and because he would be the next Black Heir. And if Kreacher had failed in his task to destroy the locket, then Master Regulus told Kreacher that Kreacher had to let Master take the locket when he came back."

Orion choked, and had to close his eyes to fiercely rub them. He had suspected as much after the things Kreacher had said, of course, but it was still hard to swallow, difficult to digest and nearly impossible to come to terms with it, or to remotely fully understand the implications and how it was possible.

He grasped unto what he could make an effort to clearly determine, and eyed the house-elf closely, as he muttered, "So when I was ten years old, you knew I found the locket in Regulus' room and you did nothing to stop me from taking it because you were obeying the orders he had given you. But Kreacher, how could you have possibly known that I was him back then? Even I was unaware of it until a couple of months ago!"

"Kreacher knew because Master was the new Black Heir, just like Master Regulus had said," replied the house-elf stoically. "And Kreacher had more proof when Kreacher saw Master today, after so long." The creature gazed up at him fervently. "Master has become as powerful as Master Regulus said he would be! Kreacher feels it."

Orion wearily sighed, feeling a sharp twinge of disappointment. "So you simply believed what Regulus told you."

"Kreacher believed what he saw. Kreacher believed the grand tapestry of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," declared Kreacher solemnly, staring at him with a hard and stubborn glint in his eyes. "After Master Regulus' death, Kreacher inspected the great tapestry day after day, during many, many years, waiting to see the name of the next Black Heir-"

"Hang on," interrupted Orion sharply, shaking his head. "I know that Regulus died about a month before I was born – the reincarnation was unprecedentedly swift. And Sirius and I have long figured out that my mother must have used the traditional pureblood dark ritual to properly give me my real name, so that I would appear in the Black's family records. My name appeared on the tapestry a few days, weeks at most, after I was born. You didn't have to wait years to see it, but just a month. My dad and I saw my name on it, ourselves."

"Master Sirius," said Kreacher snidely, looking very affronted at not being believed, "saw Master's name on the tapestry because moments before the portrait of the great Arcturus Black had claimed that Master was a proper heir. Master's name wasn't on the tapestry before that. Master was accepted by the house's magic. Master found secret rooms only accessible to those of Black blood. Because of it, Master could go into the library where the portrait of Master's exalted ancestor, Arcturus Black, sensed Master's innate dark magic, sensing the greatness it could grow into if properly developed. Even if Master was Master Sirius' son, the tapestry would have never shown Master's name if Arcturus Black hadn't accepted Master as the Black Heir, because-"

"Because pureblood's tree-lines never include bastard children," interjected Orion stiffly, the realization, though it had just struck him, didn't sting any less. "So it was required for me to be accepted by an ancestor, or the imprint of one like the portrait, for the tapestry to acknowledge me as a Black."

"Yes," said Kreacher with curt solemnity, shooting him a quizzical glance.

Orion sighed and carded his fingers through his hair, as he muttered, "I always thought my name had been there almost since I was born, when Lily used the spell to give me my real name. I hadn't realized that it would have never appeared on the tapestry if I hadn't met Arcturus' portrait and gained his acceptance, though I hardly spoke two words to him that day-"

"Master must realize something very important," interrupted Kreacher sternly, pinning him with his deeply crinkled, aged eyes. "Kreacher's old Mistress's house accepted Master the moment Master stepped inside and welcomed the House's magic. Master didn't feel aversion to the House's dark magic. Master unwittingly accepted it, and he was accepted in return. Then Master explored the house, found the secret rooms warded by Black blood, and read the ancient tomes of Black House's magnificent library. All of it was proof that Master accepted himself as a dark wizard, knowingly or not. Arcturus Black's portrait would have never claimed Master as the Black Heir if Master hadn't done these things."

"But I didn't do anything!" choked out Orion, feeling deeply perturbed and troubled. "I didn't know about these things back then. I thought I was just a muggle boy when I stepped into this house. True, I felt right at home, but it was surely because I had been Regulus Black, so the familiarity was merely a residual feeling from my past life!"

"But in Master's magical core, Master had stronger light magic than dark magic," said the house-elf curtly. "Kreacher, the house, the wards and the portraits, all sensed this. Master's dark magic was very underdeveloped, and still, even though Master was then more light than dark, Master welcomed the dark magic of this revered house. Because of this and the potential of Master's dark magic, Master became the Black Heir then. And Master read, studied hard and constantly trained his innate dark magic, finding pleasure in it, and thus, Master's dark magic quickly soared and grew in the weeks Master was here, as it had the potential do to."

Orion's head jerked, but he quickly nodded at the creature in the next second, silently expressing that he considered the matter closed. He understood, there wasn't much more that Kreacher could tell him about the issue, and most importantly, the subject had left him very shaken since it had strung a deep cord of suspicions inside him. And the suspicions hadn't been his own, initially.

Now he could only think about Gellert's paranoia regarding that someone must have meddled with him because it wasn't logical, in the wizard's opinion, that a ten-year-old boy would have so easily embraced dark magical kind when, for starters, a Dark Lord had killed his mother. Or that it had been unnatural of him to have studied the Dark Arts so fervently, or to have staunchly supported the views of dark wizarding kind no matter how much he had read to form his own opinions – even this, Gellert had claimed that it wasn't normal in a ten-year-old boy who had been raised as a muggle.

And now… and now Kreacher had told him that he had welcomed the house's dark magic, and unwittingly done all of those other things without a second thought. It sounded to him that he had acted as if affected by something, as if something had spurred him on.

Moreover, he realized that Gellert wasn't the only one to have raised the issue. Merely an hour ago, hadn't Arian implied something similar about being manipulated? And when he had sharply told the light wizard that it could have only happened when he was young, hadn't he seen a mesh of very strange expressions crossing Arian's features? Yes. Now he was certain that he hadn't imagined it and that he had interpreted it correctly. A possibility had entered Arian's mind, something that could perhaps explain the matter, and the light wizard had been very shaken and horrified by it.

Needless to say that all these things left Orion with a very bad taste in his mouth.

And now he knew exactly what Arian had wanted him to discover. Oh, no, it wasn't Kreacher's part in the cave-and-locket affair, or the truly Slytherin way in which Regulus had covered all his bases, or what had happened when he had first stepped inside Grimmauld Place. No, what Arian had wanted him to know was that Regulus had known he would be reborn into the next Black Heir, and what that meant. And all the implications of it threatened to boggle his mind into a state of utter chaotic frenzy.

Nevertheless, Orion took a deep gulp of air, forced all those thoughts away, for the time being, and managed to make himself calm down.

"Thanks for your help, Kreacher," he said warmly. "You can go back to your cot now."

The house-elf slowly rose to his feet, old bones cracking, and gave him a low bow, wheezing "Master" before popping away.

Tiredly sighing, Orion finally glanced around, looking for his father. He felt a twinge of concern when he caught sight of the wizard. At some point, Sirius had plopped down on Regulus' bed, and the man nearly looked to be in a catatonic state. Sirius' shoulders were hunched over, his frame slightly shaking, his gray eyes wide with a haunted look in them, his face gaunt and pale, and his breathing was shallow.

Orion's worry increased and he slowly crawled until he was in front of the man, and he sat on his haunches, eyeing him closely.

"Dad?" he said quietly, hesitantly placing a hand on the man's knee and gently shaking it. "Did you-"

"I heard it all," croaked out Sirius, his gaze suddenly snapping to Orion's face. His shoulders shook, and he took in a deep, shaky breath, and murmured, "Snape… that's what Snape realized today during the meeting, wasn't it? That you…" He thickly swallowed, and his gray eyes roved over Orion's face, as he whispered, "That you were Regulus?"

Orion stared up at him in surprise, and his expression must have been obvious because Sirius let out a hollow, humorless bark of laughter. "I'm not as dim-witted as I look, pup! I can put two and two together."

"Sorry," said Orion sheepishly. Then he squarely met his gaze, and said curtly, "Yes, father, I was Regulus."

Sirius jerkily shook his head, before he moaned and bowed his head, clutching it in his hands. "I don't understand… I don't understand anything… how can you be… why did Kreacher… Regulus? Why? And how can you-"

"I was Regulus," said Orion, gently grabbing the man's wrists and firmly pulling the wizard's hands away from his face, making Sirius look at him. "It seems that Kreacher suspected all along and had been waiting for a sign indicating that I knew as well. I think that when he saw me today, after so long, and after sensing how powerful I am now that I have Gellert's magic within me, Kreacher saw this as a sign. A further indication must have been when I asked him about Regulus, or at least it prodded Kreacher into trying to determine if I knew that I had been Regulus."

"But how can you know?" said Sirius hoarsely, his voice tight. "And why didn't you tell me?"

"Honestly? Before tonight I had no plans of ever letting you know that I had been Regulus," replied Orion coolly, shrugging his shoulders. "And I wasn't aware of it for a very long time. It was after I resurrected you that I found out about it."

"I don't understand," bemoaned Sirius, repeatedly shaking his head.

Orion sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "You don't remember anything about how I confronted the Dementor, but it happened then, Dad. That Dementor had been Cadmus Peverell. It was Cadmus who Kissed you the second time you were locked in Azkaban, and he targeted you specifically because he hated all Blacks. His reasons for this were many: because he had an unwanted son with the pureblood witch he had been forced to marry, who had been a Black; because this wife of his, Ursula Black, poisoned the woman he loved and repeatedly resurrected, but failed, because Eloise was never happy when he brought her back; and ultimately, because when his son grew up and went looking for him, with the hope of finding and getting to know his father, their reunion didn't go well."

He fixedly stared at the wizard, and continued calmly, "Cadmus couldn't have cared less about his son, and by then he was way into becoming a Dementor. His son, on the other hand, after having his hopes crushed and seeing that he was hated and despised by his father, ended up stealing the Resurrection Stone from him. Thus, Cadmus was left with no means to keep attempting to bring Eloise back to life. Not that it would have made much difference. From what I faintly remember, Cadmus was truly insane by then, not even human anymore."

Orion shot him a wry smile, and added dryly, "You see, I was Sextus Black – Cadmus' son. So when I confronted him to free your soul and resurrect you, Cadmus took his revenge. I had summoned Eloise's spirit, made her remember, and used her to make Cadmus go into the Necromancer's Gate and thus truly die. My plan worked, but Cadmus didn't cross the Gate before taking his revenge and unlocking something within me. Due to it, I started having flashes of my previous lives. This happened during a whole week after the confrontation, but it also happened during it, because Cadmus forced me to specifically reexperience some of the worst memories of my past lives - that's when I discovered that I had been Regulus Black. And during the week after, I knew I had been many others as well."

"Others?" croaked Sirius, still with a lost and haunted expression on his face.

Orion waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, but I don't want to discuss that." His jaw clenched, and he muttered crisply, "There's something going on with my rebirths, the Spirits definitely have everything to do with it, and now I know that Regulus knew a lot but he ended up using it for his benefit." He shot Sirius a bright smile. "I was a Slytherin through and through, Dad. No matter what promises the Spirits made to Regulus, he didn't become their puppet, as they must have hoped."

He sat up straight on his haunches, grasped Sirius' knees, and continued excitedly, "It struck me when I was talking to Kreacher, Dad. That Regulus ended up erasing from his mind many important things. Do you know what was the last thing Regulus said to Voldemort? 'Death is only the beginning'. That was Vagnarov's favorite phrase – a Necromancer's phrase. Because of it, because I remembered saying it, I discovered that Vagnarov had met Regulus, and I made him tell me about it."

Orion paused, and continued slowly, as he ordered his convoluted thoughts, "Vagnarov told me how the Spirits had asked him to seek out Regulus. For that purpose, Vagnarov went to a SlugClub reunion party and there, he invited Regulus back to Durmstrang."

He shook his head, and muttered, "Vagnarov couldn't tell me what happened during Regulus' meeting with the Spirits, because he was excluded from it. But I know that the Spirits told Regulus something about Voldemort's horcruxes, because I remember how I started researching about them. And then how I went through Voldemort's stuff in his study, looking for something. And I found the diary, knowing what it was. Voldemort gave the diary to Lucius only after Regulus 'betrayed' him. So when Kreacher told Regulus about going to a cave with Voldemort and about a locket, I must have realized that the locket was just like the diary."

He shook his head once more, and fixedly stared up at his father, who was mutedly gazing back at him. He couldn't tell if his father was following him, but Sirius did seem to be listening to him intently. Though, he couldn't quite decipher the expression on the wizard's face – there was anger, alarm, dread, denial, and a whole bunch of other emotions he couldn't figure out.

Orion shot him a grin, and said animatedly, "But the point is – what I realized while talking to Kreacher- was that even though I remember everything about Regulus' life, I don't have any memories regarding his meeting with the Spirits! I never realized this before now! So it's clear that before answering Voldemort's last summon, Regulus must have also wiped that recollection from his mind. I thought about everything! And it's obvious, isn't it, what happened?" His eyes widened, and he continued excitedly, "I suspected some of it, but now Kreacher gave me all the proof I required. And it's what Arian wanted me to realize!"

He shook his father's knees, and rushed out eagerly, "Not only did the Spirits must have told Regulus all about the VA matter, promising Regulus that he would be reborn into a VA candidate if he died, and also telling him about the horcruxes in the hope that he would find some and destroy them – because they were no longer interested in Voldemort, because they didn't consider him to be fit to be a VA candidate- but also, they told him, specifically, that he would be reborn into the next Black Heir! They must have, because now we know that Regulus promised this to Kreacher!"

He jumped to his feet, almost bouncing in his excitement. "Do you see what it means? That against all odds, against all Necromantic theories, against all laws of magic and soul, the Spirits found a way to control reincarnations! They found a way to control my rebirths! Of course, when telling Regulus he would come back as the next Black Heir, they were referring to the offspring of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy – because they have always planned that union, because it would have joined again the Peverell lines."

Orion shot Sirius a wide smirk. "Because they never suspected that mum would unwittingly break through the compulsion that Slughorn had cast on her. The Spirits never expected that Lily Evans wouldn't be carrying James Potter's son, but yours. But her love for both of you did it – in the end, I ended up being both a Potter and a Black, and of course, a Grindelwald. So I am the Black Heir they wanted, just that I was created in a more convoluted and indirect way, and much sooner – thanks to mum."

He gleefully chuckled under his breath, and excitedly paced around the room, as he continued loudly voicing everything he had realized, "And the crux of the matter is that there is indeed a specific pattern in my soul's reincarnations! And the Spirits partially control it. They cannot decide precisely into whom my soul will be reborn, because if so, Regulus' soul wouldn't have been reborn in me. Given that when I was born they simply thought I was James Potter's son, they would have waited for the birth of Harry Potter's son with Draco Malfoy since they would have worked to bring that union about. So it's clear that even though they can't completely direct my soul's rebirths, they did something to make sure that my soul would follow the Peverell bloodlines, only reincarnating along those lines!"

Orion swirled around to pierce his father with his eyes. "Do you understand how momentous this discovery is - that there's a blood-pattern in my soul's rebirths? It goes against every Necromantic precept and notion! And I always thought that the VA matter was all about the bloodlines, but it isn't! It's also about my soul and my reincarnations - and that's exactly what Arian wanted me to realize! That's why he keeps mentioning my past lives, that's why he insists so much about it. I will become the VA because I'm thrice blooded with the Peverell lines, but it must also be due to my soul!"

He slightly frowned, and glanced down at Sirius as he said quietly, "And there's something else. Regulus told Kreacher that he would come back as the next Black Heir and Kreacher has waited all these years for me to remember that I was Regulus. So Regulus must have told Kreacher that after being reborn he would indeed remember his past life, at some point. Why? Why was Regulus so sure about that? What Cadmus did to me was utterly unexpected and unprecedented – even Vagnarov was baffled by it. And Cadmus did it out of his own volition, for revenge – the Spirits had nothing to do with it, and they would have prevented it if they could or had known about it. Yet, Regulus expected to remember his past life after being reincarnated, and there was no way he could have known about what a Dementor would do to me."

Orion's frown deepened, and he muttered under his breath, "Regulus must have discovered something, then. Arian is also waiting for me to remember everything about my past lives, especially my first. So there must be something about the whole VA matter that would make me remember, and Regulus discovered this. Though, it hasn't happened yet."

He rubbed his forehead, and snapped with annoyance, "Bloody hell, whatever it is, Regulus discovered it and was certain that it would happen, but he erased this knowledge from his memories as well, before going to Voldemort. I wish I hadn't been so thorough!"

Orion sighed, but he ended up shelving those thoughts to a corner of his mind, for later perusal. There was something much more pressing which caught his attention.

He crossed his arms over his chest, shot Sirius a victorious smirk, and asked rhetorically, "And I ask you, why are the Spirits so reluctant about me meeting the Kraljica Mati? Why do they dread it so much? Because she must know what the Spirits have done regarding my reincarnations, because she must be willing to tell me about it! It must be that. And I'll tell you something else, I'm not waiting another week to see her. Oh, no, I'm going tomorrow! And I'll get to the bottom of things!"

"Right," said Sirius stiffly, rising to his feet.

Startled, Orion glanced at him. During his rant, he had almost forgotten that his father had a voice, since the man had been so strangely quiet through all of it.

"You remember all about Regulus' life," said Sirius with a thunderous expression on his face, piercing him with his grey eyes. "About how he died, as well, from what I heard." His voice grew louder, and he spat angrily, "And you still support Voldemort after knowing?! Surely you know what was done to Regulus! How can you, pup?! How can you support that-"

"This is what you ask, after everything I've revealed to you?" interrupted Orion with disbelief, staring at him, his jaw agape.

"It's what matters to me! And what should matter to you!" barked out Sirius fiercely, wildly waving a hand. "I barely understood a thing from what you babbled about. Souls, reincarnations, Necromantic thingies, bloodlines and plots, wiping memories, and rebirth patterns and whatnots? It's way over my head, pup! And I don't give a pixie's arse about all that toss. I'm asking if you know what they did to Reg-"

"Of course I do!" snapped Orion with irritation. "Don't you get it? I was him and I reexperienced his memories." He frowned, quizzically eyed the wizard, and said crisply, "How do YOU know? You told me that you learned about Regulus' death from the Daily Prophet. But his body was never found, Voldemort must have cleanly disposed of it, and I very much doubt that anyone who wasn't a Death Eater ever found out about what happened to him."

"Do you think that when I became a Death Eater to protect you and your identity as Harry Potter, that they didn't taunt me with what they had done to Regulus?!" yelled Sirius madly, stepping in front of Orion and tightly clutching his shoulders, brusquely shaking him. "Do you think they didn't rub it in my face? That they didn't mockingly jeer about how many times they had fucked Regulus, about how he had screamed, about how they had enjoyed brutally raping my little brother?! Do you think they didn't tell me over and over again? Or about what Voldemort did to Regulus?! That Regulus was his pet, his fuck-toy, constantly used and abused, and that he loved it and asked for more-"

"That's a lie!" spat Orion furiously, forcefully wrenching free from his father's grasp. "I didn't – Regulus didn't like being treated as a pet, and he didn't put up with it, either. He didn't love it!" His jaw clenched, and he added acerbically, "But yes, he was raped as punishment because Voldemort detected that Regulus had gone through his things and found the diary, and thus that Regulus had found out about his horcruxes. And when Voldemort confronted him about it, Regulus didn't deny it. He knew it was fruitless, he knew he would be killed."

He took a step forward and jabbed a finger into his father's chest, as he hissed out, "But I never screamed – not even once. How little you knew your own brother if you believed all the taunting rubbish the Death Eaters told you."

"BUT YOU STILL SUPPORT THAT PSYCHOTIC MADMAN!" roared Sirius, savagely raking his fingers through his hair in his anger, looking quite deranged. "How can you after-"

"After what, exactly?" bit out Orion impatiently. "You must have an inkling about what Regulus felt for Voldemort. Even when he decided to turn against him, to seek out the horcruxes, that didn't change. He wanted to use them to have control over Voldemort, to make him his! And you know how I feel about Voldemort as well. What happened between them then is easy to understand and I don't begrudge it anymore, not after what I discovered today. Voldemort dealt out punishment, Regulus expected nothing else, and I took it, without a single scream, and in the end, I knew I had won nonetheless!"

He folded his arms over his chest, and said sharply, "What's more, today I saw some of my rapists. Dolohov, Mulciber, Nott and Yaxley, in particular, had taken great pleasure in it, surely because I was young, unobtainable, handsome, and Voldemort's. And you know what I feel when I see them? Absolutely nothing. Because they meant nothing to me when I was Regulus and they mean nothing to me now. They are merely wizards that Voldemort and I are using for our plans, for the war. They're just pawns."

Sirius violently shook his head, his hands balling into fists, shaking, looking at the end of his rope, as if he had many things he wanted to scream to make his son understand. "But he killed Regulus... er, you… and-"

Orion let out an amused bark of laughter, and scoffed. "Is that what they told you?" He leveled Sirius with a hard gaze, and said coolly, "No. I killed myself. Voldemort didn't have the chance, if that was indeed what he had planned to do, which I'm not really sure about."

He shook his head, and snapped impatiently, "But don't you understand how complete Regulus' revenge was? How utterly Slytherin? How he planned it so thoroughly and slyly? Even when he didn't remember about VA matters when he died, or about all the stuff he had also erased from his mind, he knew he was winning! I felt victorious when I plunged the shard of glass into my throat, because I knew I would come back, greater and more powerful than ever before - more powerful than Voldemort, Dad! That is my revenge - Regulus' thoroughly brilliant revenge, don't you see?"

"That's no victory!" roared Sirius furiously. "Voldemort tortured Regulus, ordered his minions to rape him, one after the other, and you still think that you won something?! How can you still be on their side? How can you even work along with them?!" His eyes turned unseeing, and he growled under his breath, "And Snivellus was there when they tortured Regulus, wasn't he? That's how he knew, that's what the greasy slimy bastard was muttering about. I'LL KILL HIM! I'll tear him limb from limb-"

Orion took in a deep breath to garner patience. It was like talking to a brick wall. The most important points seemed to go into one of the wizard's ears and come out the other, without being processed by the man's brain.

It seemed that his father was unable to grasp, or even attempt to understand such a Slytherin plot for revenge. And not for the first time, he damned his father's Gryffindorish mind. Any dark wizard worth his salt would utterly understand and reverently applaud the brilliance of what Regulus had done. But he knew it was pointless to keep trying to make Sirius understand it - the man was still such a Gryffindor. What wasn't plainly visible, and all subtleties, completely eluded the wizard.

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" he finally snapped angrily, cutting short his father's vitriolic rant. "Severus was the only one who helped me! He was the one who conjured the shard of glass for me. You should be kissing his boots!" He frowned, pinned Sirius with his eyes, and added with relish in a soft, silky murmur, "And Lucius helped me as well, in his way. He made me feel pleasure when he fucked me - it was his parting gift. I'm beginning to think, given also what Snape said to me earlier today, that Lucius must have truly loved Regulus."

Sirius blanched, clamping his mouth shut, looking as if he had swallowed something the wrong way, and Orion eyed him with vicious satisfaction.

"Something is very wrong," muttered Sirius, repeatedly shaking his head. "It's not possible that you can support them… it's not possible after everything Voldemort did to him - you…" He gazed at him with wide eyes, seemingly searching for something in his face, and breathed out, "You looked very troubled when that foul creature rambled about the house and the tapestry and you accepting stuff… why?"

"Well, now I don't really have to ask if you understood a word about what he said, do I?" said Orion with a roll of his eyes. "You clearly didn't pay attention, or thought it didn't matter." He narrowed his eyes at him, and added curtly, "I was troubled because what Kreacher said made think about one of Gellert's suspicions. That I had been affected by something-"

"I KNEW IT!" cried out Sirius frenziedly, almost jumping in the air.

Bewildered, Orion stared at him with round eyes. "You knew what?"

In the bat of an eyelash, Sirius grasped Orion's shoulders, intensely boring his eyes into his, and said frantically, "Don't you see, pup? You're not yourself! It explains everything – you have been brainwashed by that horcrux thingy! That Tom portrait thing in the locket did it! You're maybe even possessed!" He clasped Orion's face in his hands, and added fervently, "Don't worry, pup! I will help you, we will find a way to destroy it's lingering influence on you!"

Utterly flabbergasted, Orion gaped at the man, before loud chuckles erupted from his throat. "Dad, I opened the locket the night before I went to Durmstrang, not earlier! And I found it in Regulus' room the day after we discovered I was your son. It could not have anything to do with what Kreacher said in the end or with Gellert's suspicions! You're grasping at straws."

He shook his head with amusement, and continued soothingly, "Tom didn't brainwash me, father. True, the ideas he shared with me did of course influence my own. He helped me realize a lot of stuff, he helped me understand dark wizarding kind better, and also Voldemort. But I hardly think that's cause for concern." He sniggered under his breath, gazing amusedly at the wizard. "I'm not possessed, father. I'm simply dark and support my own kind – just what you find so hard to do yourself."

"Pup, the locket must have been full of insidious dark magic!" cried out Sirius, clearly not having heard a word of what Orion had said.

The wizard was wildly gesturing with his hands, evidently getting more wind under his sails with each passing second, as if he had finally been given the chance to passionately state his innermost, long-held, crucial suspicions about the evil forces that must have taken hold of his son, for years, under his very nose!

"It forced you to keep it a secret from me, pup – you didn't tell me about the locket during all those years you had it!" continued Sirius frenziedly. "That Tom was Voldemort, that portrait in the locket whispered to you for years - Merlin knows what!- making you believe he was your friend while it spread it's vile dark magic over your mind, corrupting it, spreading it's claws all over you, to turn you dark!"

"I would hardly say that Tom 'whispered'," piped in Orion with a fond chuckle. "He drawled, snapped, and yelled at me, and thoroughly annoyed me on purpose. Well, I concede that he was also very charming and seductive when he wanted to be." He sighed wistfully. "I sometimes wish that Voldemort hadn't merged back with him. Tom didn't mind telling me he cared about me – though the sly bastard probably spouted words of love because it suited his purposes." He grimaced, and muttered under his breath, "And I did because I was a child and didn't know better."

Sirius' gray eyes grew large, and he stated with fierce and firm determination, "You must fight it, pup! Clear your mind and all that stuff that they say about Occlumency – it could help. Try it, try it! You must regain back control of yourself! Push against that malignant magic that must be in you - drive it away!" He paused, and then gasped as if the most perfect solution had suddenly struck him. "Merlin, we'll get Remus' help – he'll know what to do!"

In a flash, Orion immediately grasped the wizard's arm before the man made any attempt to contact poor Remus, and he said soothingly, "Nothing is wrong with me, Dad. I'm not possessed or otherwise influenced by anything." He rolled his eyes, and added gently, "The only thing in me is Voldemort's piece of soul, nothing more. It must be very weak and small, because I'm a horcrux by accident. So I don't think it can influence me - and if anything, I think I would have noticed, father."

Sirius gazed at him beseechingly. "Pup, we must seek help-"

"I am myself!" snapped Orion with irritated impatience. He leveled the wizard with a hard gaze, and added sharply, "Really, Dad, think about the stupid things you're blabbering about. And calm down or I'll cast on you a calming spell – or better yet, I'll put you to sleep and be done with it."

"The influence of the locket must be the reason why you don't care about what Voldemort did to Regulus, or what he has done to you," said Sirius persistently, his voice slow as if he was talking to an addled-brained child. "It must be the reason why you still support Voldemort, why you have forgiven the things he did."

Orion stared at him neutrally, and said coolly, "Perhaps I forgave him in the same way that I forgave you." He narrowed his eyes at him, and bit out sharply, "Do you know that you were foremost in Regulus' mind during the torture? I kept thinking about you, wishing I could see you one last time. And I wished you had answered the letter I had sent you two days before. But you never did. You didn't even open it, did you? You probably vanished it on the spot."

Sirius flinched, a torn, haunted expression sweeping over his face, and Orion felt a flicker of satisfaction. Good, he had driven his point across. It was better to finally make the wizard confront his demons than allow him to keep rambling about ridiculous 'possession' theories. And there was truly nothing else he wanted to talk about with his father other than what was required to fulfill his initial intentions.

Orion stood face-to-face with the wizard, pinning him with his eyes, and he whispered mordantly, "I sent you that letter two days before I found the locket, two days before I died. Do you know what I wrote? I confided that I didn't want to be a Death Eater anymore, I said I wanted to heal the breach between us, and I asked you for help. I asked you to help me hide for a while, to help me start a new life." He leveled him with a hard gaze, and hissed out bitingly, "But . you . didn't . reply."

"I didn't know," said Sirius hoarsely, staring at him with tormented eyes full of grief. "I didn't know that Regulus-" He swallowed thickly, and his eyes searchingly roved over Orion's face, as if he was finally realizing and admitting to himself with great effort that, indeed, all pointed towards that his brother's soul was the same as that of his son's. "- that him, that you were asking for help. I thought it was just a letter asking me to come back to the family. I thought mother had put you up to it again."

"But you didn't care enough about me to even open it," said acidly Orion, piercing him with unmerciful and accusing eyes. "You did the same to him as you have done to me. You chose your light friends over Regulus during your years at Hogwarts, and you chose them again when you didn't reply to a letter – when your reply could have saved his life."

He pulled up to his full height, and added sharply, "And with me, you chose your light friends over me, as well. When you went after Pettigrew to avenge James, knowing there were Dementors because I had told you, and breaking your promise to me that you wouldn't go. And you chose your light friends over me, once again, today. When you threatened to tell the Order about my plans to attack Bill Weasley's wedding."

"Why are you saying these things?" whispered Sirius, his voice uneven and tremulous, as he stared at him with a hurt and wounded expression on his face, Orion's words clearly stabbing him deeply.

"Because it's the truth," replied Orion coldly, making himself gaze at him with contempt. "Because you have to understand how much you continuously hurt me – Regulus and myself. Because you must understand what you caused when you repeatedly chose light wizards instead of me – your brother and son. You know what the respective consequences were: Regulus' death, and almost mine and all the other things that happened to me due to it when I confronted the Dementor to bring you back to life, which wouldn't have been necessary if you hadn't gone after Pettigrew. In short, I'm telling you these things because you must see that I'm the one who you should have always cared about, and to whom you should have been, and must be now, loyal to."

'And because what I have said will tear you apart and fill you with deep-rooted grief and regret, and you'll try to forever make it up to me,' he inwardly thought. 'And it better work. Because if not, I would kill you if you ever did anything that could be construed as a betrayal towards me.'

But he didn't say it, because he had warned Remus about the latter, and that was enough. He didn't think that Sirius would understand that he was truly capable of doing it, or his reasons, and it would unnecessarily crush the wizard if he openly said it to him.

The truth of the unvoiced words didn't grievously pain him; he accepted it without scruples. He knew, in his insides, that after killing Gellert he was capable of killing anyone else if it was necessary, his own father included, because it would pale in comparison.

This reality didn't worry or grieve him as it would have time ago. He knew he had changed, he knew he was hardened - Remus persisted in remarking upon it, as if hoping he would be scared by it and thus make an effort to change back into his more compassionate self of his younger years.

But he wasn't scared, and he felt no dread. When admitting to Calypso the stuff he had, when he had gazed at Draco in his bed after encountering Arian outside Potter Manor, he had voiced and revealed things about himself and his nature, accepting them with open arms. Since then, he didn't feel ashamed or apprehensive about any of it. He was who he was, with no remorse.

Orion gazed at the wizard, seeing that Sirius' shoulders were slumped over, and that there was a wretched, deeply pained expression on his face, and he plucked out the fake locket from his robes' pocket.

"I want you to have this," said Orion, pushing the locket into his father's limp hands, "and always keep it, as a reminder of what happened to Regulus. A reminder that you didn't do anything to help him and thus lost him, because you could have prevented his death. It will, I hope, also remind you of everything I've said."

Without a pause, he fished out the Black Heir ring from his pocket and he flicked his wrist to grasp the wand that came shooting out, but he momentarily halted when he saw how utterly despondent, dejected and crushed Sirius looked, as if he had received a fatal wound from which he wouldn't recover.

Orion sighed, and said quietly, "I love you, Dad, you know that, right?"

"Yes," murmured Sirius without glancing up at him, his fingers jerkily tightening around the fake locket. "I love you too, son."

And without any more words, Orion taped the ring with his wand's tip, instantly feeling how his body was plunged into a swirling tightening of space and a rush of colors.


Orion landed in the middle of Malfoy Manor's master bedroom, and he immediately checked to confirm that his mind shields were fully up, as usual. Then, he didn't have to glance around much before he caught sight of Voldemort, and he inwardly huffed.

The wizard was elegantly and restfully lounging on an armchair by the fireplace, evidently waiting for him with the utter confidence that Orion would make an appearance that night, as the man had so arrogantly stated hours before. Yet, Voldemort didn't even twitch at his arrival. With supreme disinterest in Orion, the wizard still gazed into the flickering flames in the hearth, his long fingers slowly caressing the stem of the glass of red wine in his hand, gently tilting the glass in a circular motion, tiny crimson stars sparkling when the firelight played with the crystal.

Annoyed at being so blatantly ignored, Orion loudly cleared his throat. But when Voldemort didn't do anything except briefly glance at him to then gaze back into the fire, Orion scoffed and proceeded to start removing the numerous pieces of his attire.

One by one, he neatly folded them on top of the seat of an armchair near the large four-poster bed. His clothes were followed by his wands and wand-holsters, while he wondered why he had ended up showing up there, after all.

Perhaps it was because his father's ridiculous ideas had made him think about Tom, missing him. Or perhaps, after everything he had learned that night, it was because in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter if he slept with Voldemort and if he continued to do so whenever he felt like it. Or perhaps it was because he wanted to fall asleep in the warmth of someone's arms, and Merlin knew why he considered that Voldemort had to be the one to provide it.

When he was finally standing naked in all his glory, not even remotely abashed after how well Voldemort intimately knew him, Orion drew down the bed covers, and said loftily, "My father thinks I'm possessed by your locket."

At that, Voldemort did fully turn his face to gaze at him, an eyebrow quirked.

Orion shot him an amused grin, as he slipped under the covers and yanked a pillow to puff it. "Yup. What you heard. It was quite funny, if you ask me. I think he would have gotten hold of a muggle exorcist if I had let him." He sniggered under his breath. "I don't doubt the idea crossed his mind."

"You saw your father, when?" inquired Voldemort blandly, slowly rising to his feet as he settled his glass of wine on the fireplace's mantelpiece.

"Just now," replied Orion dismissively, cozily burrowing under the bed covers. He shot him a glance, and said lightly, "He was very unhappy that we're going to attack the Weasley's home during the wedding. So I popped into Grimmauld Place to have a drink with him and smooth things over."

Voldemort narrowed his crimson eyes at him, as he divested himself of the black, silk sleeping robe he was wearing. "That was inordinately foolish of you. Aurors could have-"

"But they didn't," cut in Orion, poking out a hand from underneath the bed covers to wave it dismissively. "Not that I'm ever going to take that chance again, mind you."

When he saw that Voldemort was finally completely naked and calmly making his way to the bed –taking his bloody time- he stated firmly, "I didn't come here to shag."

And then Orion noticed, as his gaze appreciatively trailed over Voldemort, that the wizard wasn't wearing the Black heirloom pendant. Perhaps Calypso had been right when she had said that Voldemort must have been scared by the hocrux-connection thing that had happened the last time they had sex.

"What did you come here to do, then?" hissed Voldemort impassively, pulling up the covers from his side of the bed and smoothly getting in.

"Rest. Sleep. Your bed is more comfortable than mine, and I can put you to good use as a very snuggly pillow," replied Orion airily, rolling to a side to face him, as the wizard luxuriously stretched out under the covers. In the next second, he yanked the receding bed covers to himself, and snapped with annoyance, "Oi! Don't hog the sheets, you always do that, and then I wake up cold in the middle of the night!"

Voldemort scoffed scathingly, and propped his head on a hand, eyeing him closely with narrowed eyes, as he hissed suspiciously, "You look exhausted. What have you been up to?"

"World domination, as always," said Orion flippantly, shooting him a roguish smirk.

"Without my help? Doubtful," drawled Voldemort arrogantly, his lips slightly quirking upwards. He shot him a pointed glance, and hissed imperiously, "Come closer."

Orion huffed, but of course that he ended up obeying, worming his way under the covers until he was face-to-face with the wizard, but he warned again, "No shagging-"

"You're not the only one who's tired, boy," hissed Voldemort with sharp irritation, as he maneuvered Orion around to have Orion's back pressed against his chest.

When he felt Voldemort resting his chin on the top of his head, while the wizard wrapped an arm over his waist and the man's long, skillful fingers trailed over his chest, Orion sighed contently and placidly rested his head on a fluffy pillow.

Voldemort's unusual gentle, slow caresses had a soothing quality to them, and Orion could have almost purred under the ministrations. Of course, he didn't, but he did sigh again, feeling very snugly comfortable. And he slightly pushed himself backwards, burrowing and nestling himself against the wizard's front. He felt then that Voldemort was very aroused, though thankfully the wizard didn't give any signs that he would do anything about it. The wizard's nimble fingers kept caressing him, now drawing small circles on Orion's taut, flat belly, and they didn't go lower or move from there.

Orion closed his eyes restfully, and murmured, "You wouldn't reconsider merging back with all your horcruxes, would you?"

Voldemort's caresses briefly halted before they were continued, and he hissed calmly, his warm breath puffing against the back of Orion's head, making locks of hair flutter, "No." His voice turned cuttingly snide, as he added in a low hiss, "Why? Do you miss my younger self?"

"A bit," replied Orion coolly. "You would be more like the Tom of the locket if you had a fuller soul."

"Ah, I see," hissed Voldemort with cruel, jeering mockery, "and you would have back the Tom you so pathetically love and yearn for. I remember how you cried words of love to him, pouring your little heart out."

"What I said to Tom then has little meaning. I didn't even know what love was, back then. I was a child," said Orion flatly, and he was very tempted to add crisply, 'But I did mean it when I said it to you, you despicable scumbag.' But he didn't, because not even he liked to remember about that.

"You're still a child," hissed Voldemort, resuming his lingering caresses on Orion's belly.

"Then you're a pedophile," volleyed back Orion with a snort.

Voldemort scoffed, and drawled with supreme arrogance, "What if I am, boy?"

"I couldn't care less," replied Orion pointedly, "as long as you don't bugger any other 'child' than myself."

"And if I fuck adults?" hissed Voldemort silkily, his fingers roving over Orion's stomach. "You wouldn't have any problems with that?"

"You're asking? How very considerate of you," said Orion mockingly. He gave a small shrug with the shoulder that wasn't pressed against the bed, and said neutrally, "You can do whatever you want. We're not married anymore. Oh, and you should know that I'm going to Zraven Citadel tomorrow."

Abruptly, Voldemort's fingernails slightly sunk into Orion's skin before the wizard's fingers relaxed and the caresses pleasantly continued, as the wizard hissed calmly, "Why the change in plans? You were going in a week."

"The next meeting to plot the attacks will be in four days," replied Orion smoothly. "Armitage promised he would have by then the layouts of the Irish and Scottish Ministries, and Yaxley is getting the magical blueprints of the English Ministry and it's wards from Pius Thicknesse. So I figured that we wouldn't get much done if we didn't know with how many vampires we can count with. So it's better if I go tomorrow to Zraven Citadel and start negotiating."

He paused, and murmured quietly as his eyelids tiredly fluttered down, "Then, I will be able to tell you exactly how many vampires will participate in the attacks, and during the meeting we can decide where to send groups of them – to which Ministries, buildings, departments, floors, and such. You know? We would be able to plan something more detailed. And perhaps Lezander or some other representative can also attend the meeting. The werewolves will show up, so it's only fair that a vampire does as well, so that they can participate and relate the information back to their fighters."

Voldemort hummed but remained silent, and soon Orion relaxed further under the man's gentle caresses, his mind slowly drifting away in a tired, unencumbered, deep slumber.

The following morning, Orion would wake up with Voldemort's arm tightly wrapped around him, the wizard's hand pressed gently and possessively on his belly and his own hand laying on top of Voldemort's.