April 1986

Sirius enjoyed just watching the youngsters play around the garden at the Black estate. The days that the large group gathered, including Harry, Daphne, Draco, Susan, Hannah, Neville, Traci and Blaise, would often find them taking turns on Harry's toy broom. Cassandra would visit often, as she enjoyed watching Hydrae relax around the children.

Suddenly they heard some shouting going on between several of the youngsters. Sirius was the first to arrive to investigate what the argument was about and he found Daphne pouting with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Cassandra and Hydrae came running up behind him as Sirius was asking the children to explain what was happening.

"It's not fair," said Daphne, stamping one foot on the ground.

"What's not fair?" asked a bewildered Sirius.

"The broom won't go high enough!" she shouted.

"High enough for what?" asked Cassandra.

"You can't play Quidditch on a broom that doesn't go higher than the top of your head," she complained.

"You're a girl, you can't play Quidditch," said Draco.

"Girls can play Quidditch if they want to," argued Susan.

"I just want the broom to go higher," said Harry.

"I think it goes high enough," said Hannah.

Neville shook his head in response to Hannah. "I agree with Harry, I want to go higher."

Hydrae smiled at the interaction, especially seeing how Neville was not the shy boy he remembered. Sirius had frequently told Neville stories about his parents, and also encouraged him not to worry about any accidental magic.

"But I want to play Quidditch," said Daphne.

"We'll figure out a variation of Quidditch using these smaller brooms," offered Cassandra. "But we will have to use hoops close to the ground. Your parents would all be quite upset with Sirius and Hydrae if any of you fell off and got hurt."

"We can all get brooms?" asked Draco.

Sirius laughed at the group. "If you all want to learn Quidditch, and are willing to play on these brooms that keep you close to the ground, then why not? I'll get you all brooms!"

Hydrae shook his head, seeing the man who was his godfather having fun and doing so without pranking anyone. It was good for Sirius and good for the group.

"When do we get the brooms?" asked Blaise, who was now getting excited with the others.

"Not today, not today," said Sirius."Maybe we can have them for next week. Hydrae and Lord Black have some trips coming up this week, so we will have to wait for Hydrae to return."

Cassandra turned to her boyfriend, "So, Drae, what trips do you have coming up? I know you have the duelling competition soon."

Sirius turned and looked at the couple, and before Hydrae could answer he barked out a laugh. "Drae? She called you Drae? What a nice little pet name."

Hydrae turned and glared at Sirius. "You're just jealous you don't have a girlfriend."

Sirius gulped slightly at that statement.

Cassandra slapped Hydrae on the arm. "Nice going there mister sensitivity, you obviously wounded him."

She then turned to Sirius, "I knew of you back in school, even if you were a few years ahead of me. Everyone knew the Marauders, or at least who they were."

"It has been many years," said Sirius softly.

Cassandra then put her hand to her mouth as she gasped. "You were pursuing Marlene McKinnon when you were in school, until her family…." Her voice trailed off.

Hydrae looked between Cassandra and Sirius.

Sirius turned to Hydrae and steeled his features before speaking. "Harry's parents were such a great couple, once they got together. I had hoped to have a relationship like that if I could, and Marlene, I was starting to grow up and well, her family was attacked by the Death Eaters. That was not long before Voldemort attacked Harry and killed his parents. And then, well, you all know the rest."

"I'm sorry, I had no idea," said Hydrae offering his condolences.

"When do we get to play Quidditch?" demanded Draco as he walked up to the three adults as he was getting tired of waiting for something else to happen.

Cassandra leaned towards the blonde boy, "You, young man, will need to learn manners and learn to be patient. We will work on setting this up, but it is not happening today."

Tracey had followed him over to the adults and frowned at Cassandra's words. "If we cannot play Quidditch can we at least get some ice cream?"

Sirius shook his head, "From Quidditch to ice cream? Really?"

Hydrae laughed. "They're five, give them a break. To a five year old there is some sort of connection there that makes sense."


~~~MiB~~~


Saturday, April 12, 1986

Geneva, Switzerland

Duelling competition

Hydrae and Arcturus were speaking together in between matches. So far, Hydrae had not been really challenged during this competition. He was now awaiting his final duel of the day, and already knew that he would be in the elimination rounds starting the next day.

"It just seems to get easier for you," commented Arcturus.

"Maybe it's easier to focus as I'm already back in England, and we have a plan for the soul anchors. I don't need to worry about creating a name for myself like I did in Australia to create the reason why you would discover me," said Hydrae.

Arcturus frowned, "Be careful what you say around here. You never know who might have ears."

Hydrae thought back to his fourth year at Hogwarts and the problem with a certain reporter for the Daily Prophet.

"Mister Black," called out a voice that Hydrae recognised immediately.

Hydrae turned around to see his former, or is it future, charms professor walking towards him.

"Mister Black, I am excited to see you here competing," said Flitwick. The half-dwarf was seemingly bouncing on his toes. "I had heard about your success in Australia and I have been eagerly awaiting your arrival on the European duelling circuit. I must say, so far you have not disappointed my expectations."

"Why thank you," Hydrae replied, slowly, as he had not yet formally met the diminutive professor.

Filius narrowed his eyes, "You know, you may be a Black, but you do bear a certain resemblance to another former student of mine, James Potter."

Arcturus inserted himself into the conversation. "James had Black blood in him, perhaps that is the similarity that you are noticing, Professor Flitwick."

The diminutive man looked up at Arcturus. "Perhaps, it is, Lord Black." Filius was not startled by the appearance of Lord Black. "But, as I was saying to your heir, I am looking forward to continuing to watch him duel."

As the former duelling champion walked away, two young women showed up to see Hydrae. Hydrae raised an eyebrow at the two.

"I was not expecting to see either one of you here today," said Hydrae.

Cassandra smiled shyly, but Amanda spoke up for the two of them. "I have duelled with you before, and I have watched you duel many times. If your girlfriend has not seen just what you can do with a wand, she should not be denied such an opportunity."

Before Hydrae could respond, one of the officials for the tournament came by and sent the spectators away, leaving Hydrae by himself to prepare for the upcoming matches. Arcturus accompanied the young witches to the observation stands, and noted that Filius Flitwick had been given a seat behind the judges table to watch all of the scheduled duels.

Several hours later and Hydrae had completed the preliminary rounds and was scheduled for the quarterfinal match. Flitwick had noticed that he had used a different style with all of his duels, not allowing anyone to get a grasp on any sort of routine that he would possibly be using. Even Amanda noted that Hydrae did not copy any of this duelling tactics from the duels she witnessed in Australia.

The elimination rounds of the tournament would begin tomorrow morning and people were congratulating those that had made it to the quarterfinals. Arcturus walked up behind Flitwick and called out to him.

"Professor, you have observed my heir this day in all of his duels, I must ask, what is your impression," spoke the Lord Black.

Filius had a look of frustration on his face which quickly changed to a large grin. "I think that his skill is amazing, however, I have one complaint about everything I have seen from him so far."

Arcturus raised an eyebrow, but before he could speak, Amanda questioned the half-goblin.

"How can you complain about his skill or his success?" asked the Australian witch.

Filius smiled at her and seemed to bounce on his toes. "Oh, I am not trying to be overly critical, but I must say, this is a duelling tournament. Hydrae, here, is not duelling. He is fighting. There is essentially a different strategy. His training clearly has not been to prepare him for tournaments, but for fighting, for defending himself. Arguably, the difference is subtle and of no consequence as long as he stays within the rules of the competition, which Mister Black has easily been doing. To me, the bottom line is in observing his skills and how he responds to any of the challenges presented in this competition." Filius then turned back to Hydrae. "I cannot guess at who trained you, young man, but whomever did, they should know they did a fine job, a fine job indeed."

At that time, one of the officials came by and requested that Flitwick join them as they discussed the progress of the tournament. Filius said his goodbyes to the group, and then went to converse with the officials.

The competition continued the next day, and while the competitors were all quite skilled, most of those who had been in attendance for the entire tournament were not surprised by the outcome as Hydrae Black had won his first European duelling competition.


~~~MiB~~~


Upon their return to England, Arcturus took Hydrae aside. "Your plans for developing a name for yourself in magical society have gone quite well. Now don't you think we, or you, need to focus on the reasons why you came back in the first place?"

Arcturus sat down heavily in a chair in the study across from Arcturus, who took his seat by his desk.

"I have been successful so far," said Hydrae. "Clearly with your help and guidance. But we have removed young Harry from the situation I grew up in. Bloody hell, that sounds strange to talk about my younger self in the third person like that. We rescued Sirius. We have obtained the basilisk venom and harvested the beast." He took a deep breath before continuing. "We need to destroy the locket, now that we have the means to do so. Then we need to obtain the ring, and then find a way to obtain Hufflepuff's cup. Oh, and we need to get the diary."

"Simple steps, when they are available, would be the most prudent," commented Arcturus. "Start with destroying the locket. Then we get the diary. That should be easier than dealing with Riddle's family shack and the hidden ring."

Hydrae nodded in response. "I would assume that you're right of course. Part of me wonders if Riddle will be able to notice if we are destroying his soul anchors."

"From what you have said, Riddle is still far away from here, hiding out in his wraith like form, somewhere in Bulgaria," said Arcturus. "While he might be able to detect a change in his soul anchors if he were already to have obtained his new body, I am not sure that he can tell anything about a change in these anchors now. Was there any indication he was aware of your destroying the locket, or the diadem, or even Dumbledore's stupid attempt at destroying the ring? If there was, you either skipped over it or he did not overreact to those events; which is not the way that Riddle would have reacted to any of this if he could somehow feel a change when his soul fragments were destroyed."

"I suppose you do have a point," agreed Hydrae.

"So then, we take the easy steps first," said Arcturus, but the statement came out almost as a question to Hydrae.

"Easy steps," agreed Hydrae. "We have the locket, and we have the venom. And it will be a huge burden removed off of Kreacher who still feels bad for having lost Regulus."

"Then we head down to the basement, prepare the room and prepare ourselves," said Arcturus.

Thirty minutes later the two men were staring at a crystal box on the centre of the table in front of them.

Arcturus spoke up as he stared at the crystal box holding the locket. "So, now what? You're the young hero who has done this before."

Hydrae coughed slightly at the comment. "Well, we will need to open the locket. Or more specifically, I will need to open the locket, speaking in parseltongue. Then the soul fragment will try to influence us not to destroy it, but hopefully my occlumency is stronger and it won't be an issue. Then I stab it with the poisoned fang."

Arcturus turned to face Hydrae. "Now that sounds dangerous. We harvested the fangs. Didn't you have a dagger that you used to cut out the fangs? Wouldn't that be safer to use than a fang that could leak venom onto you?"

Hydrae reached inside his shirt, pulled out a dagger wrapped in a magical sheath and hanging from a chain around his neck. "Oh, you mean this dagger?"

Arcturus glared at the young man.

Hydrae shook his head, "Yes, this would be better than a fang."

Arcturus nearly growled at the young man. "You are not amusing. And don't be foolish. This is serious." After a brief pause he added, "And no making jokes about my grandson's name!"

Hydrae held the dagger in his hand and placed the locket on the counter. He closed his eyes momentarily as he made sure his occlumency shields were ready. He then made a hissing sound as he said "open" in Parseltongue. The locket opened up and a shadow seemed to begin to emit from the locket. Before the shadow could make any comments or project any further images Hydrae jabbed the dagger into the locket. There was a scream and a black cloud flew out of the locket.

He turned and faced Arcturus who had a slight frown on his face. "That's all there was to it? No fancy light show or taunting?"

Hydrae smiled slightly. "I've heard the soul anchors try to talk their way out of being destroyed before. I knew what we were doing would work so I decided to ignore the protests and just get it over with."

"Good thinking boy, it seemed to work fine," said Arcturus who had taken a deep breath. "Now, we need to visit my granddaughter and fetch that diary."


~~~~MiB~~~~


The next day Arcturus and Hydrae arrived at Malfoy Manor. Narcissa greeted them at the door, as they had sent a message to her that they wanted to come and visit.

"I know that today is not one of those scheduled play dates, so why are you two here?" she asked, her tone a little short with her grandfather and his heir.

"We need to deal with some things that your late husband had acquired," said Arcturus flatly. "I am sure you are aware he had acquired some rather dark objects."

Before Narcissa could respond, Draco came running into the entryway to see who had arrived. Upon seeing Hydrae he began to pout. "Oh, it's only you," he said, the displeasure in his voice not hidden from any of them.

Hydrae gritted his teeth slightly and was about to say something to the young boy, but Draco started to yell at him. "You're the mean person who killed my father! I don't know why Harry has to put up with you! I hate you!"

Hydrae knelt down on one knee in front of the angry child. He sent a wandless calming spell at Draco before he began to speak. "You may not understand it now, young man, but someday you may better understand what happened. Your father attacked your mother's grandfather, your great-grandfather. As a member of the Black family, it was my responsibility to help him, to protect your great-grandfather. In fact, as his announced heir, it was my obligation to help Arcturus. What your father did was wrong. He may have done many other things that were wrong, but that is not what mattered at that time. I could not allow Lord Black to be hurt. You still remember your father as the man who led your family, who cared for you and your mother. I can understand that you are upset and angry over the loss of your father. But I did what I had to do in response to his foolish actions. Someday, maybe you will understand that I did what seemed the best thing to do at that time."

Draco frowned for a moment. Then he looked at Hydrae and added, "Maybe. Maybe my father did something wrong. I don't understand why my father tried to hurt Lord Black. But I don't have to like you, no matter why you did what you did."

Hydrae smiled slightly at the young man. "No, you don't have to like me. But don't take your anger at me out against your mother, or your great-grandfather, or any of your new friends."

Draco continued to have a frown on his face. "Um, okay. But I still hate you."

Hydrae sighed, "I can understand your being angry with me." Then he stood up and turned to Narcissa. "He is allowed to be angry with me."

Narcissa took a deep breath and smiled at her son before turning to face Hydrae. "My apologies for his outburst."

Hydrae shook his head, "No one needs to apologise for the young man expressing his feelings. I'm sure you still have issues with me anyway. So, you have nothing that you need to apologise for."

"Thank you, heir Black," replied Narcissa. She then turned to Draco. "Now, you go run along and play, I'm sure you can find something to do without getting into too much trouble."

Draco looked back and forth between his mother and the two men who had arrived, he then smiled at his mother and went running down the hall.

Once he was gone, Narcissa turned to her grandfather. "So, what exactly do you need to do here? What are you looking for?"

"We have reason to believe that Lucius has an item he was given for safe keeping by the self proclaimed dark lord, Tom Riddle, whom others knew as Lord Voldemort," stated Arcturus.

Even Narcissa shuddered slightly at the speaking of the name Voldemort in her own home. "I have no idea what such an item that could be. I would suspect that something like that might have been kept either in his study, or possibly in one of his special rooms in the cellar."

"Special rooms?" questioned Arcturus as he raised in eyebrow.

Hydrae shook his head in order to hide his knowing smile, remembering the chambers where he and Ron were kept while Hermione was being tortured after they have been captured by the snatchers. "Perhaps we should start down there," he suggested.

"I'll show you to the stairs, but honestly, I have no desire to go down there," admitted Narcissa. "And I refuse to be responsible for any trouble you get yourselves into with whatever it is you may come in contact with down there."

Hydrae nodded and smiled. "Of course, we are taking all the risk upon ourselves here."

Arcturus and Hydrae descended the stone staircase into the cellar, which Arcturus quickly recognised might be better described as a dungeon. The Lord Black turned to Hydrae, "I take it you've been down here before."

"My friends and I were captured by the Snatchers, a group or renegade witches and wizards that were working with the Death Eaters to capture muggle born and other sorts of blood traitors during the next war, with a particular goal of capturing the three undesirables who were on the run," said Hydrae.

Arcturus nodded quietly and then looked around at the various cells and short hallways. He then slid his wand into his hand and did a quick wave. Sensing the presence of dark magic he pointed his wand at a door that was originally not easily noticeable. "Perhaps behind there we will find what we are looking for."

A revealing charm cast by Hydrae made the door come into view for both of them.

Hydrae raised an eyebrow before he commented, "Not that Lucius really worked hard at hiding this room."

"I'm sure the bastard didn't think he really needed to, as it is clear my granddaughter had no desire whatsoever to investigate anything down here," said Arcturus.

Hydrae then cast a charm to determine if there were any traps on the door, and found no evidence and any further magic. He shook his head slightly and then cast a spell at the door to open it. The door creaked open slowly at his words, and then Arcturus cast a light spell into the closet. There were several bookshelves with many tomes, some with text in other languages. Hydrae's eyes were drawn to a familiar small black book that was on the top shelf by itself. He then summoned the book to him and it was completely blank, just as it had appeared when he found it in the girl's bathroom.

Hydrae could sense the evil presence of the horcrux within the book and simply nodded to Arcturus who withdrew one of the crystal boxes and allowed Hydrae to drop the diary into it once the cover was removed. Hydrae then sealed the box closed and Arcturus placed it back into the magical satchel at his side.

"Should we investigate any of these other items?" asked Hydrae.

Arcturus frowned as he shook his head. "No, not today. Let us not get distracted from our main purpose here. One more horcrux to be destroyed and one more step towards preventing the megalomaniac's return."

The two ascended the stairs and met with Narcissa once more prior to leaving.

"I presume you found what it is that you were searching for," she said coldly.

Arcturus nodded simply before adding, "There is a hidden closet down there where we doing the particular item we needed. However, that closet is filled with many items, dark books and artefacts that would be quite dangerous if your son was to stumble upon them. Hydrae did add a special locking spell that would prevent anyone else from opening that room. For their protection, of course."

Narcissa looked towards Hydra, and gave the thinnest of smiles. "Thank you for that, for protecting Draco this way."

Hydrae nodded quietly in response. Then he and Arcturus made their way to the floo in order to leave. Just before they stepped through the flames, Narcissa called out to Hydrae. "I don't hate you, really I don't, but that doesn't mean it's not hard for me at times."

Hydrae paused and turned back to her, and have her a small smile, then he threw the floo powder into the flames as he called out Grimmauld Place and stepped into the fireplace.


~~~~MiB~~~


AN: Sorry for the long delay (and shorter chapter). I have been very busy. I am about to change jobs (leaving the office I have worked at for nearly 30 years) and this change professionally has been very time consuming.

I have gone back and edited chapters 8-11, fixing many stupid grammar mistakes (and reminding myself of exactly where I am in this story).

Next update may not be until March, but with my new job starting next year I actually will have more time to write.