Black Mask

by Ieyre

Christmas 1979—danger, secrets, lies and their shared history loom large over the Blacks' first Yuletide season as a reunited family. While life as a fugitive proves bleaker—and more boring—than Regulus could have imagined, a botched espionage mission at Malfoy Manor draws Sirius deeper into the Black family web. [Sequel to 'In the Black']

3. Chapter 3

'Come on, Harry, haven't you seen enough of this house to tell what kind of wizards my family were?' said Sirius testily.

- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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CHAPTER THREE

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"Is that—?"

"—My grandfather—and every other Black in the entire effing country?" Sirius finished for him, in a frantic whisper. "What do you think I've been trying to tell you?"

It was with great physical effort that Sirius forced himself to look away from Orion—who had held the stare for a half-second, no longer than anyone else would upon meeting eyes unexpectedly with a stranger.

"They're supposed to be in Suffolk at my granddad's place, they must've changed the plan at the last second. Damn." Sirius dragged him closer to the door. "We have to get out of here before someone recognizes me—"

Frank steered him out of the alcove and into the room, his grasp gentle but firm.

"Black—calm down. Think about this for a minute rationally," Frank muttered. There was nothing jovial about him now—his voice were serious and steely, the Auror who had been working under Mad-Eye Moody for nearly a decade. "They have no reason to recognize you. You're a massive blonde Norwegian right now."

"You wouldn't be saying that if they were all Longbottoms—!" Sirius looked around and his face fell like a house of cards. "Oh, great—King Git's spotted us."

Lucius Malfoy was, indeed, striding towards the two men, wearing an expression of lordly beneficence to match his velvet robes.

"Ah, Mr. Svensson—!" Malfoy's cold gray eyes turned to Frank—his stare decidedly chilly. "And, Klöcker, wasn't it?"

The carefully cultivated pause said everything they needed to know about Mr. Malfoy's opinion of the man Frank was impersonating. Longbottom didn't let it bother him.

"Well met, sir." Lucius's smile was cold.

"We were beginning to think you weren't coming."

"Ah, yes—Mr. Malfoy. We got held up with business, you see?" Frank said, all modest apology—and he bowed.

Malfoy ignored him, and he stepped past Frank towards Sirius, and smiling smugly, held out his hand.

Sirius chanced a glance down at it—a diamond signet ring glittered on his index finger—and the looked back up into the pale, pointed face, waiting with studied expectation for the handshake between equals.

In the body of Nicolaus Svensson, Sirius was a good deal taller than Malfoy—if he had been in his own, they would have been the exact same height. He had not seen Narcissa's husband up close since the summer he had run away, and so he took a moment to study him now. Marriage and the escalating war suited Lucius, for he looked sleek and well-pleased in his Christmas finest, surrounded by the splendor of the Malfoy family pile.

A more self-satisfied prick had never been born, in Sirius's estimation.

He suppressed his natural urge to unleash a look of scorn and took the outstretched hand Lucius offered.

"Yah, Herr Malfoy." He squeezed a smidgen too tightly before releasing it. "Ist—good to see you—again."

"And you."

According to the dossier, Svensson and the Malfoys had met only one other time—and it had been brief, an exchange of pleasantries meant to pave the way for potential business partnership in future. Sirius knew Lucius well enough to see his familiar manner for what it was—ingratiating, but not built on any real personal history between the two men.

Lucius's eyes glittered. The look was rather shrewder than it might've been, and it made the younger man uneasy. Sirius took care not to blink or break eye contact first, and so it fell to Malfoy to do so.

He stepped back from the two men and gestured to the ball room, all hospitality.

"My father will be delighted to see you again. Can I get you and your…friend—drinks?" Lucius snapped his fingers, and an elf appeared at his right with two goblets. Both men took the goblets and pretended to drink. They were not supposed to let anything interfere with their wits, though Sirius thought a swig of wine right now would help steady his nerves. "Come and meet my wife—she's just over here, talking with my mother-in-law."

Frank leaned over, as if to translate, and muttered into Sirius's ear:

"Just follow my lead and stick to the plan."

"You cannot leave me alone out there," Sirius hissed back, but the other man was already straightening up. "Promise me you—"

"He would be delighted," Frank said, smoothly, stepping hard on Sirius's foot under his heavy dress-robes. "As would I."

Sirius didn't chance a sideways look at his partner. He let their gracious host lead them to a circle in the center room where a number of ladies stood. The second their faces came into view, he inwardly groaned.

It had to be them.

In the center of the group stood Narcissa Malfoy, her platinum blond hair up in an elegant knot—the hostess and belle of the ball. Like Lily, his cousin was only just beginning to show signs of pregnancy—her red gown delicately draping over the small bump—but there was a glow about her cheeks Sirius had never seen before. On her right stood her mother, Druella Rosier Black—also blond, her long, pale fingers resting on Cissy's shoulder, ready at a moment's notice to steer her favorite daughter into view. On Narcissa's left was a younger girl, a brunette he did not immediately recognize—maybe she was a Malfoy cousin—Sirius passed over this nonentity, for on her left, looking rather distracted and staring haughtily into the middle-distance, was his mother, Walburga.

Sirius gulped.

"Ah—a family party, I see." Lucius clasped his hands together. "Introductions are in order, I think. Narcissa, ladies—you will forgive Mr. Svensson his language barrier, I trust? Your charms are truly beyond words."

Narcissa and her mother smiled, the younger girl forced something timid that ended up looking more like a grimace. Walburga didn't even bother pretending to find Lucius's comment amusing.

Malfoy introduced Sirius and Frank to each of the women in turn—he bowed, mechanically, to his aunt, his cousin and her friend—she must've been a Slytherin, probably in Regulus's year— the names and relationships barely registering. When he turned at last to his mother, Sirius had a moment of inner panic, and it took real effort to keep the dull expression plastered on his face. To his relief, Mrs. Black didn't seem particularly interested in the tall, surly Norwegian. She barely met his eye, and her curtsy was cold and perfunctory.

"We arrived just in time to hear that we are to offer you congratulations, Mrs. Malfoy," Frank said, when the introductions were finished.

"Yes, isn't it wonderful news?" Cissy's mother said, breathlessly. "A son, we could not be more thrilled—"

"—And to think," a voice observed, wryly, from behind Sirius. "It only took four years of marriage."

Druella flushed and dropped her hand from her daughter's shoulder. Lucius's sleek smile turned glacial.

"Ah," he said, cooly. "Lucretia."

Sirius and Frank both turned their heads—it was the elegant woman that had slipped out of the hall when they arrived. She stepped into the circle and took her place on Walburga's other side.

Malfoy cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen—may I introduce Mrs. Lucretia Prewett? Mrs. Prewett is our Aunt Walburga's sister-in-law." Lucius had dropped his obsequious manner: it was obvious he didn't much care for Mrs. Prewett, and if her droll smile was anything to go on, the feeling was mutual. "Lucretia—this is Mr. Svensson and his—associate, Mr. Klöcker."

"Oh," Lucretia said, her eyes sparkling with wit, and she turned to face the only other men in the circle. "So you're guests? I thought you were hired to guard the door."

Frank's smile was gracious—Lucius's less so. Sirius noticed his mother's eyes flashing, a sure sign that she, too, was annoyed at her flamboyant sister-in-law.

"You're a rather strapping man, aren't you, Mr. Svensson?" Lucretia looked him over, frankly. "From whence do you hale—a woodland glen in the far north?"

Sirius forced himself to stay as composed as Frank was—it was difficult, when Lucius and his mother looked so irritated. He groped around in his mind for the Norwegian phrases he had spent half the night memorizing, trying to ignore the teasing, flirtatious look his own aunt was giving him.

He was not getting paid enough for this.

"Erm—jeg forstår ikke, Fru Prewett—"

"My friend hales from Norway, Mrs. Prewett," Frank stepped in. "And I'm afraid his English is—not so good."

She gave Frank a rather feline smile.

"Well—speaking is overrated, anyway." Mrs. Prewett turned her flirtatious gaze on Frank. "Don't you agree, Mr. Klöcker?"

"Oh, really, Lucretia!" her sister-in-law scolded. "Control yourself, won't you?"

"I'll have you know, I am a model of self-possession," Lucretia said, innocently.

Sirius bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep himself from laughing at the look of scornful disapproval on Walburga's face.

Lucius cleared his throat and looked around the room. Sirius noticed his gray eyes were scanning the crowd, looking for someone. He wondered if it was the same someone he and Frank were looking for: but then they stopped on old Abraxas, waving impatiently at his only son.

"Ah—I see my father beckoning. You don't mind, do you, dearest?" Lucius turned to his wife. "You'll amuse our guests while I…attend to him?"

"Of course not, dear," Narcissa said, neutrally. She didn't look too enthralled at being left with these foreign wizards, but her husband's look stymied all comment to that effect. Frank cleared his throat.

"Pardon me, Mr. Malfoy—would you mind if I joined?" he said, hesitantly. "I wanted a word with you and your distinguished father…alone."

Longbottom was almost as smooth as that slippery Malfoy tosser, Sirius thought, watching the Frank work on Lucius with mild awe. There was just enough suggestion in the tone for him to take the bait. Like any Malfoy, he had a nose for when gold was in the offing, and Frank was the apparent mouthpiece for the taciturn and dull-witted Svensson, he of the piles of prime European real estate.

If Frank was the mouthpiece, he had more power in this situation than Svensson did—theoretically.

"Of course, Klöcker," he drawled, thoughtfully considering the other man. "We'd both be…delighted."

"I'm much obliged to you, sir." He looked over at his companion, who was fighting desperately from showing the inner panic. "Let me tell my friend I am to leave him with these charming ladies."

Frank leaned over to Sirius's shoulder and whispered:

"I'm going to get us in this game. Find out if he's here, will you?"

Sirius nodded.

"I'll catch you up later. As soon as you know, find me."

Frank pulled away and gave him a pat on the shoulder. He tried to feel as reassured as he should—Longbottom knew what he was doing, had not lost his cool, and the mission was right now going exactly as planned. There was nothing to worry about, truly.

He could deal with the complication of his family being here: he just needed to keep his head.

Still, it was with a heavy heart that he watched Frank and Lucius Malfoy walk away, leaving him alone and defenseless in a nest of female relations.

"I was only teasing, Narcissa dear, you know that, don't you?" Lucretia said, as soon as the other men were out of earshot. "I hope you weren't offended."

"Of course not," Narcissa said, coldly. "Don't be silly."

"Good. And anyway—" The older woman continued, matter-of-factly. "If there was a problem, you can be sure it was with your husband, not you."

"Lucretia!" Druella gasped, giving her cousin by marriage a scandalized look and jerking her head in Sirius's direction, but the dark-haired woman looked unabashed.

"Oh, fiddle—he can't understand a word, remember?" Lucretia turned towards Sirius. "You don't know a blasted thing I'm saying to you, do you, Herr Svensson?

"Fru Prewett…jeg forstår ikke," Sirius repeated, thankful he could at least remember this one stupid Norwegian phrase. He had a feeling he was going to be saying it a lot this evening.

"See? It's only us women. And we're all family." Lucretia's eyes fell on the girl next to Narcissa, who was blushing furiously. "Oh, I'm sorry, dear—excepting you."

The girl nodded, opened her mouth to say something—then closed it again, clearly embarrassed.

"My husband is not at fault for anything," Narcissa addressed Lucretia, tartly. The older woman was fiddling in her clutch and didn't notice the stony look being leveled in her direction. With a flourish of her wrist, she pulled out a small Chinese fan and snapped it open.

"You don't know that, Cissy, that's the point—" Lucretia fanned herself and continued, airily. "In my experience, men never want to admit that anything is their fault. Especially as regards…that area."

Narcissa gave her mother an annoyed look, as if she expected Druella to defend her husband's manhood against these allegations—but it was her aunt who stepped in.

"I hardly think you're in a position to be lecturing us on this subject, Lucretia," Walburga said, voice heavy with irony. "Considering you never had children of your own."

"I suppose that's fair—though Ignatius and I never tried. But you know I'm right, Walburga." There was a glint of mischief in her eye as she surveyed her sister-in-law. "It took you almost the same amount of time to fall pregnant, didn't it? And that wasn't from a lack of trying, from what I recall." She turned to the two youngest women in the circle and smiled slyly. "My brother Orion takes all his duties—including those of the marital variety—very seriously. My dear sister-in-law here used to complain to me about his…ardor."

Sirius was taking a sip of wine—he thought it suspicious if he didn't—and choked.

"I did no such thing!" Walburga said, crossly, over her sister-in-law's laugh.

"You did!" she teased. "Don't deny it. Who could blame you? Every night for four years? That's more than most women could bear." She stopped fanning herself and tilted her head. "You do have to admire my brother's stamina, at least."

Even Aunt Druella laughed. Sirius's insides curled in mortification. Is this what women always talked about when they were alone? Lord, let it never be said that they couldn't be as loutish as men.

"You are telling tales about me, Lucretia Prewett," Mrs. Black turned to Narcissa and her friend and addressed them, severely. Cissy had rolled her eyes—the brunette looked mortified beyond measure. "Do not believe a word she says—she's been like this since we were girls."

"I won't deny that, of course—doesn't mean my tales aren't true," Lucretia said, tapping her on the shoulder with the fan. Sirius's mother swatted it away in annoyance.

"Once the two of you got going, of course, he did well enough by you," Lucretia continued, fanning herself harder. The mood in the circle shifted, minutely. Her sister-in-law's eyes glinted dangerously—her exasperation had turned to something else entirely. "Two in less than two years. And both boys. Whatever happened later, all in all, I'd say that was not a bad bit of—"

"—Yes, thank you, Lucretia," Walburga cut her off, coldly. "That will do."

Lucretia fell silent, and the hand holding the fan abruptly dropped to her side.

Druella and Narcissa exchanged knowing looks, and the former crossed over to her sister-in-law and tucked her hand in the crook of her arm in what was probably meant to be a 'sisterly' fashion.

"You must be missing Regulus something dreadful," she consoled. Mrs. Black jerked Druella's hand out of her arm.

"He's only been gone a week," she snapped, defensively—a tad too defensively, Sirius thought, even for her. "I do wish people would stop making such a fuss over it."

"Who is making a fuss?" Lucretia asked, curious.

"Everyone," Walburga replied, severely. "They're all acting so surprised—and no one seems to think the marriage will come off. It's very vexing."

Both her sisters-in-law clucked their tongues in sympathy, while Narcissa shot her younger girlfriend a significant look and nudged her. The girl bit her lip.

Sirius felt a tiny stab of concern—not for himself, but for his mother. In the flat she played it so cool, it had not even occurred to him that the rest of their family would start nosing in over Regulus's absence this quickly. He cursed himself for not thinking of it—after all, what else did these people have but family gossip? They lived for it.

Druella gave his mother an awkward pat on the arm.

"Well, dear—it's only surprising that you sent him away so suddenly, it's not like you or Orion—"

"Speaking of my brother," Lucretia interrupted, serenely, looking over Druella's shoulder. "He appears to have spotted us."

On reflex, Sirius turned his head in the direction his aunt was looking—indeed, his father was clearly visible through the sea of wizards and witches, scanning the crowd—and immediately upon having found what he was seeking, had started towards them.

As Sirius turned his head back, he felt the unmistakeable sensation of being watched—and realized, with a start, that the brunette whose name he had already forgotten was looking at him.

Their eyes met for a second, and she blushed at being caught staring and looked away again.

"What does that man want now?" Sirius heard his mother mutter, half to herself, half to Lucretia. His aunt held up her fan to shield her mouth from the rest of the group and spoke just loudly enough for him to still catch the words.

"I can tell he's in a foul temper," Lucretia murmured, quietly. "Do you want me get rid of him?"

Walburga let out a short sigh of resignation.

"No, it's fine—" Her eyes narrowed in the direction of her advancing husband. "I'll deal with it."

"Are you sure?" His aunt whispered, with more urgency. Sirius frowned and leaned sideways so he could catch everything she said. "I saw Papa drag him off into the corner to give him a drubbing a little while ago, I'm sure that's why he looks so put out. "

"I know how to handle my own husband, Lucretia!" Mrs. Black hissed back, just as the man himself arrived.

As soon as his father entered the circle, Sirius straightened up again and rearranged his—that is to say, Svensson's—expression to look politely puzzled by the goings-on of the English witches and wizards around him. It wasn't necessary, though, as Orion barely registered the Nord—or indeed anyone else in his immediate vicinity—and made a beeline straight for his wife.

"I need to speak to you," Mr. Black said to her, in a low voice. "Alone."

Walburga stared up at him, cooly. Sirius watched the exchange with apprehension. Lucretia had been right—he did look like he was in a bad mood.

"Does it have to be right now?" she asked, after a long pause.

Apparently Orion's bad mood was catching. Sirius could feel the hostility practically radiating off of her—he did not envy his father in this moment.

"I would rather it was," Orion said, his eyes narrowing with a hint of warning. "It won't take long, trust me—come."

Mrs. Black made no move to follow her husband. In fact, Sirius would've bet money that after being given that order in front of her sisters-in-law, his mother had no intention of going anywhere with him.

"What is this about?" Sirius's mother asked, haughtily.

"You can guess what it's about," he said, irritation now obvious.

"No, I can't," she shot back, tartly—just as annoyed. "I am not an expert in Divination, as you know, and nor am I a mind-reader."

Sirius gaped. He was not the only one who was staring at the two of them: Druella and her daughter watched the unfolding argument with lurid curiosity. It was no wonder—his parents never argued in public.

At least—they never used to.

Her sarcastic response pushed him, and to his son's surprise, Orion actually grabbed her by the arm.

"I am not doing this right now, Walburga," he hissed, not making much effort to keep his voice down. "Do not make a scene—"

"Orion Black—I am shocked at you!"

The sound of his sister's voice loudly chastising him froze Sirius's father.

"Imagine my brother, bullying his poor wife," Lucretia scolded, forcibly pulling her brother's hand off Walburga's arm. "And at his own father's birthday party!"

"I am not bullying anyone," he said, quietly. His sister continued to speak as if she had not heard him.

"And snubbing the rest of us—you haven't even said hello to me yet this evening! What on earth has gotten into you?"

Mr. Black turned towards his sister very slowly—then turned his eyes to the rest of the people he had up until now been ignoring—Druella, Narcissa, and the two perfect strangers who were all gaping at him.

He let out a long sigh.

"I didn't see you, Lucretia," Orion said, taking a step towards his sister, still glaring at him. She tossed her head, haughtily, then tilted her face up towards him. Her brother bent his head and kissed her on the cheek. "There, is that better?"

Sirius's aunt smiled affectionately at his father and did something that he had only ever seen her dare do—she patted her little brother on the cheek and kissed him back.

"Well, it's a start," Lucretia said, pulling away, her eyes glimmering with mischief. "You know, right before you arrived we were talking about you."

"Oh…?" her brother asked, wryly. "Dare I even ask what was said?"

Sirius's mouth twitched at the guileless expression on his aunt's face.

"I was telling everyone what an attentive husband you were when you were first married—and then you go and start a quarrel right with your wife right in front of us!"

"I'm sorry if I've ruined the picture of domestic felicity you've painted," Mr. Black said, studying his fingernails.

"I don't know if 'felicity' is quite the word I would use to describe your…attentions." Lucretia's innocent smile turned wicked. "Perhaps you're only quarreling because you enjoy making up so."

At the flash of discomfort on his father's face—Orion very clearly understood what Lucretia meant—Sirius actually laughed. Hastily he turned his snigger into a coughing fit, but the sound drew Mr. Black's attention.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure, sir," the older man said, turning his cold eyes on the taller man.

Sirius stopped coughing and straightened up, as if he half expected his father to bark at him for poor posture. Lucretia clasped her hands together in delight.

"You haven't met yet, Orion? This strapping viking of a man is Mr. Svensson—" Orion gave his sister a disapproving look. "Oh, don't worry—he can't understand a quarter of what we're saying." Lucretia raised her voice and pointed to Mr. Black in an exaggerated fashion. "Herr Svensson—allow me to present my brother, Orion Black."

Orion held his hand out. Sirius looked down at it, then back up into gray eyes staring very intently at him—and took the proffered hand.

"Hyggelig å møte deg, Herr Black—" Sirius shook it, slowly. "Is—good meet you."

His grip was forceful: Sirius tried not to make his discomfort too obvious. Just as he had been during the toast, he was left with the sensation that Orion could somehow see through his disguise—could tell that it was his worthless older son he was being introduced to and not Nicolaus Svensson, richest wizard in northern Europe. Sirius comforted himself by remembering that his father viewed every new person he was introduced to—and foreigners in particular—with a deep and abiding suspicion.

Surely that explained the probing look the older man was giving him.

"The pleasure is all mine, Svensson—I'm sure," Mr. Black replied, smoothly, letting go of his hand.

"Das—Herr Black," Sirius said, dully. He flexed his fingers experimentally. They still worked.

He looked back up into his father's face—the shrewdness lingered, and he was greatly relieved when Orion stopped scrutinizing him and turned towards the rest of the hitherto neglected females in the circle.

"My sister is perfectly correct, of course—I have forgotten my manners," he admitted, addressing his sister-in-law and her daughter first. "How are you, Druella?"

Druella was so relieved that he had recomposed himself that she only laughed.

"We're very well, Orion—very well indeed," she said, patting her daughter's arm. "As you know. Wasn't it sweet of Cissy's father-in-law to host us?"

Aunt Druella was too busy simpering at her daughter to notice how Orion's mouth thinned.

"Yes, he's been very—sweet." Mr. Black nodded at his niece. "And you, Narcissa? You're looking well."

"Thank you, Uncle Orion."

"I was just speaking to your husband, Cissy. He passed on your message to me—or would 'suggestion' be a better word for it?" Narcissa smiled, and her uncle looked at the girl at her other side. "And you must be the famous Ms. Battancourt. I hear much of you."

He gave her a faintly ironic smile and bowed to her, the girl smiled, shyly, before curtsying to him.

"How is your great-aunt?" he asked, with polite interest. "She must be happy for your company, all the way out there in Cornwall."

"She's very well, sir—thank you for asking," Ms. Battancourt said, demurely. She had a light accent that Sirius couldn't quite place.

"And how long will you be staying with her?"

"Through the new year, I think, at least—" She paused and looked sideways at her companion. "Narcissa has very kindly invited me to—"

"—Orion!" Lucretia cut the girl off mid-sentence and turned to her brother. "I just remembered I needed to speak to you about something right away."

Her voice was falsely bright and cheery, connoting urgency. Orion turned in the direction she was looking.

"Oh—you do, do you?" Her brother cocked an eyebrow up and gave her a grim smile. "Can't it wait?"

"No, it cannot."

Unlike her brother, Lucretia Prewett was not about to take 'no' for answer. Peering over her shoulder, her nephew saw the source of her sudden desire to flee—his irascible grandfather Arcturus was peering about the room, and upon spotting his headstrong daughter, looked ready to pounce.

She snapped her fan shut and stuck it back into her diamond clutch bag.

"You don't mind, do you, Walburga? If I steal him away for a bit."

"By all means," Mrs. Black said, dryly. Sirius's mother looked quite ready to see the back of both of them.

"You can at least wait to say 'hello' to our father," Orion informed his sister, with a huff.

"It's never just 'hello'," she muttered back, darkly, rummaging about in her bag. "And I wasn't joking, I do need to talk to you."

"You haven't seen your sister in a long time, dear," Walburga pointed out, cutting off his incoming protest before it could leave his lips. "And she wants to catch up with you. Whatever it is you need to say to me," she stressed the word delicately. "It can keep."

Every single person there could tell that Mr. Black's wife was trying to get rid of him. He rolled his eyes in resignation and let his sister loop her hand into the crook of his arm and tug him away from her.

"Fine—if it's that important, Lucretia," Orion sighed and addressed his wife. "But I still need to talk to you—later."

"I look forward to it," she replied, impassively.

With one last frown in his wife's direction, Orion Black let himself be dragged away by his sister—who threw Walburga a wink and waved cheerily at the lot of them. The two of them managed to disappear into the crowd just before Arcturus started towards them. Sirius's paternal grandfather had an ivory topped cane he needed to walk, and it made his approach very slow.

That was good, as it gave his grandson the chance to make an exit from this unfortunate circle of female relations before he arrived.

"Der—drikke?" Sirius turned to Aunt Druella. "Fru Black—drink?"

He mimed a glass of water. Narcissa and her mother exchanged a look, but the Battancourt girl muffled a giggle. Walburga only gave him a contemptuous look.

"No, I'm fine—but don't feel obliged to stay, Mr. Svensson—" Druella said, kindly. "By all means, help yourself. We know you've had a long journey."

They wanted to get rid of him as much as he wanted to leave: great. Sirius nodded to each of the remaining women in the circle. His mother barely looked at him—she had gone back to pensively staring into the middle-distance—and when he hurried toward the food and drink table in the back of the hall, he felt his confidence grow. He had managed to make it out of his first skirmish of the night relatively unscathed.

The Battancourt girl was the only one of the ladies left whose gaze lingered on his back as he scuttled away.

---

Maybe it was the presence of so much magic in the immediate vicinity—or maybe it was just the fact that this was a TV about the same age as him—but no matter how much he fiddled with the antenna James could not get the picture to come up clear. Every time he banged on the top of the set, the black and white image of the middle-aged Muggle and his much younger wife (mistress? sister? With this program you never could tell) became sharp for a split second before going fuzzy again.

A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, and his glasses slipped down his nose. He pushed them back up, cursing under his breath.

Just as well, as it was a stupid program anyway. The only reason James had started this attempt to fix the television—a Muggle object he had the most rudimentary understanding of—was because it took his mind off of thinking about Sirius, out on yet another dangerous Order mission without his best mate, partner-in-crime and always trusty second at his side.

All respect to Frank Longbottom, Auror Extraordinaire—but keeping Sirius Black from getting himself killed took a special kind of expertise, and James didn't trust anyone else to do it.

Lily always teased him that, out of all his friends, Sirius was the one he was most protective of—the one who seemed, on the surface, at least, to be the most capable of looking after himself. Lily was perfectly correct to point out that if his best friend knew how many hours James had poured out his worries over him to his wife, Sirius would unleash a barking laugh at his expense and tell him to get his priorities in order.

And he would be right. With Lily and the baby on the way, he had quite enough things to worry about.

The trouble was that James had gotten rather used to being the primary worrier in Sirius's life, and even though he knew his wife and child had to take precedence over everything else, Sirius included—he couldn't seem to help himself.

Padfoot needed looking after, whether he realized it or not.

James fiddled with the dials on the back of the set, but all they did was make the gray blobs greenish blobs, and then when he turned the the dial back the other way, reddish blobs. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, absently. This would probably be a better distraction if he actually understood how the telly worked.

It wasn't just the mission tonight that had him worried.

Two days after their fight, Sirius had turned up at supper-time at Godric's Hollow, looking put-out but not thunderously angry, as he had been when he had stormed out of the cottage. Over a dinner of beef stew and potatoes, and coaxed by Lily, the two of them had patched things up. Sirius was extremely touched at being asked to be godfather to their baby, and had apologized, rather stiffly, for the way that he had reacted to James and Lily's attempts to follow Dumbledore's lead.

He remained uneasy, though—and things were odd and strained between them. Since that day, James had barely seen him—and every time he did, Sirius was withdrawn, in a black temper or utterly distracted, as he'd been in the Leaky Cauldron this afternoon. He was completely preoccupied with dealing with his brother—Regulus always had to have someone with him, and Sirius, Lily and Remus were taking turns—and parents, who apparently insisted on having formal dinners every night in the flat. When James had dared to ask why Sirius's presence was also required for these meals, considering he was the 'bad' son who had been disowned, his friend had only laughed coldly and made a cryptic remark about 'revenge being a dish served best in five courses.'

He did not understand that comment—and he wasn't meant to. If Sirius was not going to volunteer its meaning, James knew better than to push.

His best friend's relationship with his mother, father and younger brother was the one thing James had never truly understood about Sirius. It was not from a lack of trying on his part. In school Padfoot had turned changing the subject from his family into a near art-form, and without exception he denied caring a whit about anything his parents did or said. If they came up at all, it was to be laughed at for their backwards, snobbish views—or to be complained about when the subject of summer or Christmas holiday plans were suggested, and Sirius inevitably was not allowed to go with the other three.

Padfoot didn't like to let it show, but James had always suspected there was more to the story.

The night he'd shown up on the Potters' doorstep, soaked to the skin and dragging his school trunk behind him, was the closest James had come to the heart of it. The tear tracts had still been visible on Sirius's face—he looked as though he'd cried the entire broom flight. He had been so tired and was so upset that for the first time in James's memory, Sirius had let his guard down. He had rambled for what felt like hours, a tirade of pent-up grievances—about how they didn't understand him, that he was never good enough, and who would want to be, they were such pureblood maniacs, and he was well-shot of his mother, who had never loved him anyway…

He'd just sat there like an idiot, not knowing what to say—not understanding at all.

That part of it hadn't changed, James thought, sliding his hand underneath the set—he let out a violent exclamation and pulled it out again. His fingers were now covered in a sticky black ooze; he stared down at it, irritable, and sighed again. There had not been a single day of his life when he had been in doubt of his parents' love—how he could hope to get what Padfoot was going through?

Sirius must've seen that, because he wasn't confiding in James now anymore than he had then. He had been hoping for a Christmas Eve reprieve, maybe the two of them could go for a run as Prongs and Padfoot in the snow, like old times—perhaps he could get Sirius to open up about what was really going on with Mum and Dad Black after a couple drinks.

And of course—selfishly—he wanted Sirius there for himself. It was the first Christmas since his own parents had died.

The sound of movement in the room jolted him out his thoughts, and James poked his head out from around the faux-stained wood set to find Regulus, standing at the door staring at him.

"Oh—erm, hullo." James pushed up off the floor, leaving a greasy residue on the orange shag rug—the last hold-out of Mrs. Black's taste purge of the apartment. "I was wondering if you were going to come out."

Regulus made no comment as he watched James readjust his horn-rimmed glasses; they were lopsided and had slipped down his nose again. The shorter boy was looking at him with the same studied, haughty air he always had—or at least it was the only look James had ever known him to have.

The most he had ever had to do with Regulus in school had been on the Quidditch pitch. That had not endeared them to one another—the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin had been particularly fierce in the years they had both played for the House teams—but James had a feeling Sirius's brother wouldn't have liked him even if he hadn't trounced his team four years in a row.

"I heard noise, so I came to see what it was," Regulus informed him, primly. His eyes flitted to the television screen and they became wide as saucers.

"What—is that?" he asked, fascinated.

"That?" James turned towards the TV and gave it a good kick. "That's Coronation Street."

The kick did what him fiddling with the antenna and back of the telly had not—it fixed the screen's picture and sound. Now the people on the television could be heard audibly talking about their torrid affair, and there was no longer a squiggly gray line cutting through the center of the image.

"Hey—that did the trick!" He looked over at Regulus and was surprised to see that the younger boy was utterly enthralled.

"It's like a moving photograph—that talks!"

James laughed.

"Didn't Sirius explain what the telly was?" he asked, watching Regulus walk towards the box with the 'moving photographs' with extreme caution, as if the muggles inside it might spring out and attack him at any moment.

"He did, but I didn't believe him—" Regulus kneeled in front of the television and stared into it from a foot away. "I thought he was having a go at me—"

He considered telling Sirius's younger brother that he shouldn't sit so close, but his enthusiasm was infectious: it reminded James of his own reaction when Lily had first shown him the television at her parents' house when they were dating.

"You know, there are some wizards and witches who're talking about our kind doing broadcasts on it."

"Really?"

He looked up with undisguised excitement, and at the sight of James's knowing grin, flushed. Remembering what his mother would say if she caught him examining such an unsuitable Muggle technology, Regulus forcibly dragged his eyes away from the television and marched over to the sofa. He picked up the heavy book sitting on the coffee table and buried his face in its dusty pages.

James sat down on the armchair, still grinning, and settled in to watch the last twenty minutes of the program.

"You don't mind, do you?" he asked, casually, folding his hands behind his head. "If I watch?"

"I don't care," said the muffled voice from behind the book.

Lily had told him that her mother used to love this show when she was a girl growing up—James could not follow the plot very well (everyone seemed to be interconnected, but there were too many people, and did everyone live on the same damn street?) but he found Regulus continually peaking up from over the edge of his book to watch it entertaining in and of itself.

"If this is distracting you," James remarked, after he caught Regulus watching for the sixth time. "I can turn it off."

"I am not distracted by that—Muggle contraption!" Regulus insisted, peevishly, sticking his nose back in the book. James shrugged, a smile still tugging at his lips and got out of the chair. He felt the eyes on the back of his neck as he walked over to the set and switched it off.

He turned back around to find the younger Black brother glaring at him.

"You don't have to stand on ceremony with me, you know," James pointed out, wryly. "I'm not going to tell your mum."

Regulus silently huffed and didn't reply. Not for the first time, James wondered how the Black parents had produced such wildly different sons.

"I don't care what you say to my mother or anyone else," Regulus told him, with a priggishly, and then he turned back to his book. James rolled his eyes.

The younger Black brother's stomach rumbled loudly.

"You hungry?"

Sirius had told him before he left for the party that Regulus had not yet eaten dinner. A half-eaten steak and kidney pie sat on the coffee table between them; Lily had made it for the occasion, thinking a nice meal might soften the younger boy up.

Sirius's brother looked at it and his stomach gurgled again.

"No, I'm not."

Regulus buried his head in the book again—the forehead visible over the top of it slightly pink. Lord, James thought, pulling out a Quidditch magazine from his bag, if this was what 'night's in' were like in the Black family, no wonder Sirius had run away.

---

"That was a close escape," Lucretia said, flinging her diamond clutch, and then herself down on the plush cushions of the love-seat. "Quick—close the door behind you before anyway sees where we went."

"As you wish," her brother said, dryly, and he snapped the door to the Malfoy Family library shut behind him.

Orion looked around the room with mild curiosity—he had been to this house dozens of times, on social calls, usually with his father, but he'd never set foot in the library. It was immense, far larger than any of the libraries in the various Black family homes. While their family had sought to spread their wealth and interests over a wider playing field—in addition to Number Twelve and the manor in Suffolk, smaller Black houses and cottages were dotted across the country—the Malfoys had consolidated their land into the single, vast Wiltshire estate.

Malfoy Manor was built on a grand scale, meant to impress and intimidate in equal measures, and the library reflected that intention to a 't'.

Thousands of books, a collection nine centuries in the making, lined the walls in shelves that stretched up to the frescoed ceiling. A fire crackled in the giant stone fireplace, the centerpiece of the handsome room. The mantle was adorned with gilt, Rococo ornaments, no doubt pilfered from some hapless Muggle aristocrats during the Revolution, and massive French doors lead out to the garden that bordered the hundreds of acres of countryside that belonged to the family.

Looking around the room, Orion couldn't help but think all this ostentation was distasteful and that the room had failed in its purpose—it didn't seem a very comfortable place to read, after all, and what else was a library for, in the end?

"Tell me," Orion said, taking a few steps towards his sister, who had already managed to find a half-full bottle of brandy in the side table, and was pouring herself a generous drink. "Do you intend to spend the entirety of our father's birthday party fleeing from his presence?"

Ignoring his question, she took a sip of the brandy and pulled a face.

"Dreadful," Lucretia remarked, holding out the glass to him. "Try this—it's awful."

He looked down at the glass of amber liquid and back up at his sister, who was staring at him in honest expectation.

"Why would I drink this?" Orion asked her, flatly. "You've just told me it's bad."

"To amuse me—you're so droll," she said, smoothly. "You have a talent for making elegant, cutting remarks. I would enjoy hearing my brother insult this brandy."

He laughed, in spite of himself.

"I suppose that's meant to be a compliment," He frowned. "You can't hide in here forever, you know."

"If this is the only liquor to be found in this room, I certainly can't." She lounged back on the love-seat and wrinkled her nose at the glass. "I thought the Malfoys were even richer than we are, what do they mean by it, to keep such swill around?"

"Lucretia." Her brother's expression turned very stern. "I am not going to make excuses for you all night—"

"I didn't ask you to, did I? I just need something a bit stronger than that punch to—steady my nerves." She looked up from her drink and frowned. "Oh, don't give me that look! I saw him corner you, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

He didn't bother contradicting her—with his sister, there was no point.

"Papa has been unbearable all evening," she continued, taking another sip of brandy. "Old Malfoy has been rubbing your niece's baby in his face and he's on a tear—you're only envious because I'm better at dodging him than you are."

"He spotted you sneaking out of the hall during his toast," Orion pointed out, dryly.

"He did?" Her brother nodded; Lucretia cursed under her breath. "He's going to get me for that—and I only did it because I needed a breath of fresh air."

"A breath of fresh air?" he repeated, with a snort. "More like you needed a smoke."

"What's wrong with that? You look like you could use a smoke yourself." Lucretia opened up her clutch and pulled out an ivory cigarette case. "Do you want one?"

"Of course I don't, Lucy—honestly." He reached forward and snatched the case from her hand. "You can't do that in here."

Mrs. Prewett crossed her arms and scowled.

"You have become such a scold, 'Rion." She reached forward and took her cigarettes back with a haughty sniff; his sister elegantly pulled one out, along with her long cigarette holder. "No wonder Burgie asked me to get rid of you."

In spite of his irritation, Orion smiled. Lucretia was the only person who still called him by the diminutive nickname of his youth—it was one of many things that were the prerogative of an older sister. He didn't mind, but Walburga hated being called 'Burgie'. The only people who still dared were her mother and Lucretia.

She and Walburga had been best friends when they were girls—and then his wife had made the capital mistake of marrying him, which quite 'spoiled' their intimacy, in Lucretia's opinion. One couldn't be best friends with one's in-laws.

"My wife didn't ask you to get rid of me, Lucy—I could tell she was nettled at you for interfering."

"Not so nettled that she didn't take advantage, though," Lucretia pointed out, innocently.

Orion let out an affronted huff and settled himself in the armchair opposite her.

"You were sticking your nose in for your own amusement, as usual—all that rubbish about me bullying her—please." He put his legs up on the settee between them and glowered at his sister, who only laughed—a airy, tinkling sound like a bell being rung. "That woman has never been bullied a day in her life. If anything, the two of you used to bully me."

His sister smiled mischievously and summoned another dusty glass from the sideboard.

"Can you blame us? You've always been so easy to tease." She poured him the remainder of the brandy and shoved it into his hand. "All of Papa's bluster—and underneath it poor Mama's soft heart. How could we resist?"

He wasn't listening to her, was instead nursing the glass and staring pensively into the fire.

"What did he say to you, Orion?"

He looked up from the fireplace. His sister had put down her glass of subpar liquor, and she was scrutinizing him carefully.

"Who?"

"Don't play stupid—I'd know that hangdog look a mile off. Papa!" She furrowed her brow. "He was awful to you and you're stewing over it. What did he badger you about, when he dragged you off into the corner?"

He considered whether he should answer her honestly or not.

"He's been at me over Regulus."

"Well, I could've told you that was a mistake. Packing him off to France without at least pretending to ask permission?" She leaned over and rapped his foot with her clutch. "That was an amateur mistake—not like you at all. What were you thinking?"

"I couldn't tell you, Lucy." He stared back into the fire.

"That's obvious." She lit the end of the long cigarette holder with the tip of her wand. Her brother wasn't paying attention, not even to scold her—and this uncharacteristic behavior was of concern to Mrs. Prewett. "You have to take care with that boy. Regulus is under a lot of scrutiny—far more than he would've been, if—circumstances weren't…what they are."

She trailed off delicately. There was no need to say more, they both knew what he was referring to.

"I'm well aware."

She watched him for a long moment, her teasing look turned to genuine concern—far more obvious now that he wasn't looking at her.

"You mustn't let him get to you, 'Rion."

"Father?" Orion let out a humorless laugh. "I don't."

"Oh, please. Of course you do. You always have. You want to make him happy—as if anything could. Men are so silly. I've never met a man who didn't want to please his father."

A shadow passed over Orion's face.

"I have," he said, coldly.

His elder sister stared at him. The firelight playing across his face emphasized the circles under his eyes—her brother looked very drawn.

"You know the real reason I skipped out during the toast?" She asked, tactfully changing the subject. "I thought Papa might go up there and give a speech, and I wasn't about to give him the chance to point me out in the crowd and remark on how many years I've been married and how many grandchildren I've given him."

"You should count yourself lucky you haven't given him any grandchildren."

She took a thoughtful drag from her cigarette.

"Is that what this is about?"

"What?"

"The prodigal son." Her brother looked up from the fire, alarmed. "Don't shout—you brought him up. And Burgie nearly bit my head off in the ballroom when I mentioned him—"

"Why would you think it a good idea to mention Sirius in front of my wife?" he hissed, sharply. "In mixed company? Have you taken complete leave of your senses?"

"Are we allowed to say his name again? I thought it was forbidden." Lucretia took another drag from her cigarette, nonplussed. "Relax. It was a passing remark. It's very hard to pretend as if he never existed, you know—"

"You have no sense of propriety at all, Lucretia!" he snapped. "Where is your husband tonight, anyway? Why can't he see fit to control his wife?"

"Like you control yours, you mean?" Lucretia shot back, cooly. "The key to my marital felicity is that I only make Ignatius see Papa twice a year. He'll be at the Christmas party, that should be good enough for you."

He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and went back to brooding. Anyone who knew him well would recognize that he was thunderously angry, though the only clear sign of it was in his flashing eyes. Orion was a master of masking his emotions.

"How did he come up, anyway?" he demanded, after a minute or so.

"We were talking about childbirth, and I might have alluded to how long you and Walburga tried before you had your boys." Lucretia's feline smile returned. "And how hard you tried."

"Of course! That what you were laughing about when I walked up."

"Burgie told me quite a bit in those early days of your marriage, 'Rion." Orion's eyes narrowed into slits.

"I'm glad the two of you had a good laugh at my expense," he said, silkily.

"Don't get your back up! I'm only teasing. I thought your eagerness was very endearing."

"I suppose she complained about it," he groused. "Well, she never complained to me, I can tell you that. From what I recall—" He shot Lucretia a sideways look; she was trying very hard not to laugh. "—She seemed to be enjoying herself well enough at the time."

His older sister watched him slouch in the high, wing-backed chair—a very undignified pose, for him.

"I'm sure she did," Lucretia placated, sweetly.

"You do not need to patronize me, Lucretia!" Orion snapped, icily. "I am not a child anymore, I'll remind you. I'm a grown man, and I'll thank you to treat me like one."

"Be that as it may—you'll always be my little brother, Orion." She stopped waving the fan. "And I'm concerned about you."

"You needn't be—I wish you'd butt out."

"Well, I am not going to." He looked up, surprised by her vehemence. The look she fixed him with was quite severe. "What were you and Walburga fighting about, really?"

He fidgeted in the chair, dickering with the answer—but the look she fixed him with was steady. She was not going to be put off.

"She doesn't want to host the Christmas Eve party at Grimmauld Place," her brother admitted, honestly.

Lucretia's mouth opened in shock.

"Does Papa know about this?" she asked, dropping ash on the cushions.

"Oh, yes," Orion leaned back in the chair. "That's the other thing he's on me about. He was less than thrilled by the suggestion."

"I don't wonder!" her sister exclaimed. "Not have the family party at Grimmauld Place? I've never heard such an absurd notion."

Orion smiled—thin and humorless. Never heard such an absurd notion…he could fill his sister's head with far absurder ones, if he cared to.

He looked around at her, and was unsurprised to find her fixing him with a decidedly shrewd look.

"What is really going on between the two of you?" He blinked, warily. "And don't pretend there's nothing, because I'm your sister and I can tell there's something amiss. You're not doing a very good job of hiding it."

"You wouldn't believe me if I did tell you, Lucy."

"Why don't you try me?" Lucretia said, her chin jutting out in a fit of stubbornness.

He looked down at her—his sister stared up at him with that obstinate expression that had always forcibly reminded him of their father—and he sighed.

Why not? She was not going to leave else wise.

"On the earlier subject of my disgraceful eldest son," he asked, forcing himself to keep his voice neutral and bland. He had to go about this very carefully. "Do you knowing anything about what he's doing now?"

The last thing she had expected was for him to change the subject back to her nephew—the one thing in their family that was completely taboo to discuss, outside of whispered conversation.

"Why would I?"

"Because you hear things we don't—from your husband's people. Tell me—you have an inkling of what he's up to, don't you?"

She fanned herself slowly.

"I have heard—rumors," she admitted, timidly. "I'm told he runs with a very fast set."

"Who told you that?"

"My Prewett nephews—I think Gideon and Fabian are part of the same set, actually." She tilted her head coquettishly. "They told me he's living in London."

His expression darkened.

"Well—I can tell you, your Prewett nephews are right about that much."

"Really? How do you know?"

"How do you think?"

Lucretia lowered her cigarette, slowly.

"No—you haven't seen him!" she exclaimed, extinguishing it on the cushion. "Not—recently?"

Her brother got up from the armchair and walked to the fireplace. He leaned on the mantle; he could practically feel his sister's eyes through the back of his skull, staring through him. Orion spun on his heel to face her.

"Is yesterday recent enough for you?"

His sister looked at him for a full ten seconds—her expression a smooth blank, then, to his surprise, Lucretia burst into a wide grin.

"Why, Orion Black—you sly devil—" Her voice was full of faux accusation. "You've been sneaking out of Grimmauld Place to see your son, haven't you?"

She clasped her hands together in delight at this news, far better than she could have hoped for.

"Keep your voice down!" Orion hissed. His sister only laughed harder.

"You have—I'm right! Oh, this is delicious—" She sat up straighter. "You must tell me where you've been meeting him—clandestinely."

He glanced at the door, then back down at her face. Lucretia was hanging off the sofa, dark brows drawn up in an expression of keen interest. His dratted sister was not about to let it go now.

"In…Lisson Grove," he admitted, voice brimming with disapproval. "In a Muggle housing block."

"In a Muggle—is that where he lives?" He rubbed his forehead and nodded, in a manner that suggested it took every ounce of his strength to admit this shameful fact. "Good God. How on earth did he end up there?"

Orion crossed his hands behind his back and scowled.

"Salazar only knows. You should see the flat. Execrable in every conceivable way—" He rolled his eyes. "Naturally, he loves it."

"I'll bet he does." Her eyes were alight with interest. "And how is my infamous runaway nephew? How has he been? Is he as impish as ever?"

"Is that really the appropriate question to be asking in such a moment?" her brother said, with withering sarcasm. "This is a grave matter—I wonder at your tone."

"Well—you know I've always been fond of Sirius," Lucretia said, fanning herself elegantly, a circumspect expression on her face. "He's just so charming—how could one not be?"

"It's easy enough to be charmed when you only have to see him four times a year," Orion groused. "Imagine being that hellion's mother or father."

Lucretia's eyes widened.

"Goodness—Walburga doesn't know about this, does she?"

"Of course she does. She's been seeing the blasted wretch, too!" he admitted, tiredly, leaning on the fireplace. His sister let out a gasp, shocked and delighted in equal measure. "I hope this sufficiently explain why the two of us seem to have taken complete leave of our senses. That boy has a talent for driving people mad—he's only gotten better at it since he ran off."

"But how did this—"

Orion held up a hand to silence her.

"That is as much as you're getting from me. Content yourself with the knowledge that your nose for gossip is as good as ever—and for once in your life let it lie, Lucy," he said, in a firm voice. "If I ever do tell you the rest, it's not going to be here, believe me. I can't believe I've said as much as I have. It must be this repugnant shoe polish you've made me drink—it's gone to my head."

His sister struggled to control the natural desire to leap on this salacious news, and after thirty seconds of visible struggle she collapsed back down on the cushions and digested it. Her face slipping into an impassive blank. She was very thoughtful and quiet—too quiet for Orion's liking.

The crackling of the fire—normally a sound that brought him comfort—seemed unnaturally loud this evening. He stared into it for what felt like hours. The only noise he heard from behind him was the occasional sip of Lucretia drinking from her glass of brandy. By now she would have finished her glass and moved onto the one she poured for him.

"Do you know what his trouble always was?"

The break in silence startled Orion. He turned to look at her, tried to come up with a simple reply—there should've been an obvious one. He knew the answer to that question all too well.

Didn't he?

"The trouble with him," she continued, in a matter-of-fact tone, when no reply was forthcoming. "Is that he was born a boy."

Orion met his sister's eyes, and he found her expression to be quite serious, not flippant at all.

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean it. You can get away with so much more in this family as a woman than a man. It's the one advantage we have." Her brother blinked at her in utter astonishment. "If Sirius had been born a woman, he wouldn't have run away. He'd have just done as I did."

"Which was…?"

"Marry out of the family, of course."

He repressed a harsh laugh at his sister's shockingly naive views of Sirius, the boy that had sworn off all conventionality as a way of thumbing his nose at his mother.

"If you think that, you don't understand my son at all."

She sighed.

"Maybe you're right. He does lack my finesse, I suppose." She waved her hand again—it was beside the point. "The point is that if he were a girl, he could've pulled it off."

"Pulled what off?"

"Causing trouble while remaining in good standing with the family, of course!" she said, her impatience with her obtuse brother obvious.

"Oh, really, Lucy—you've made far less of a success of that than you think you have." She huffed loudly. "And what does being a woman have to do with it?"

"Nobody takes what we ladies do all that seriously—so long as we're discreet, we can think what we want. Men, on the other hand—" She shrugged. "Black men are expected to tow the party line, always. That's something you've always understood—and so does Regulus. Of course—" She looked askance at him. "—He does always follow your lead, poor boy."

He could only just still hear the string quartet playing through the heavy walnut door of the library.

"What am I to take that to mean?"

"Well, Regulus is just like you, isn't he?"

"Is he?" Orion asked, puzzled. "The thought's never occurred to me."

"He is, believe me! A creature of duty, not too imaginative—frightfully conventional." Her eyes glittered, and she waved the cigarette with as much careless dismissal as she was treating her younger nephew to. "Eager to please at the cost of everything else. It makes life hard for the two of you—Blacks, after all, are not eager to be pleased."

He realized, with a jolt, that she'd managed to do what he thought she wasn't capable of anymore—in the midst of all her flippancy and shallow amusement, his sister had landed a real blow.

"What a flattering picture of us you paint," he replied, curtly. She ignored his obvious offense and continued, unperturbed, to analyze the situation, gesticulating with feeling.

"—Sirius, on the other hand, well—he's far too much of a free-thinker." Orion's brow furrowed, she didn't seem to notice. "Your firstborn son has quite the mind of his own, from what I remember. You'll never catch him towing any lines—"

"—And the only person he cares about pleasing is himself," he finished for her, bitterness unmistakable.

Admitting such a thing out loud was so out of character for her brother that it gave her momentary pause. Lucretia was forever pushing people too far—but she had spent so much of their youth bossing Orion around, she could push him farther than most.

"I don't think he was ever meant to be the heir, you know," she observed, sagely. "There must've been a mistake."

"A mistake on whose part?" Orion asked, drolly. "Mine or God's?"

"Both, I'd expect."

"There were no mistakes!" her brother said, harsh. "It is what he was born to do and be. It isn't a matter of choice—these things never are."

"Oh, Orion," Lucretia shook her head, her voice full of pity. "You're the only one who still thinks that way."

He scowled at her. His sister had always been an irritatingly presumptuous woman. She thought she was the final word on every subject, and too often the times she was most confident of her rightness were when Lucretia was most off the mark. Her dismissal of Regulus was living proof of that—if she knew what his younger son was capable of, when really pushed, she would not be comparing Regulus to him, the man who couldn't even escape from a conversation with Arcturus Black unscathed.

And she didn't know a damn thing about duty.

"I'm surprised at you," he said, back to the fire, surveying her cooly. "I would've thought for sure you'd try to ply me for more information on how all this came to pass."

"I already know you aren't going to tell me," She paused and considered him, her face carefully masked. "I daresay you regret saying as much as you have."

"You're right," he said, and he turned stern again. "It goes without saying you won't speak of this to anyone."

Lucretia looked up at him, all innocence, and his expression grew even more severe.

"Not even Walburga?"

"Especially not Walburga," he said, darkly. "I mean it, Lucy—keep your nose out of it and your mouth shut."

"I will not," she insisted, indignant. "There's a great deal more to this than you're telling me."

"It's for your own good that you don't know anything else. And anyway—" He gripped the mantle and sighed, heavily. "I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."

Lucretia rose from the love-seat and joined him by the fireplace.

"…Are you in trouble?"

His sister touched his arm, gently, in a rare gesture of comfort—he did not react, but he didn't brush her off, either.

"Yes," he admitted, straightening up again.

"How bad?"

He said nothing for a long while.

"…Did your Prewett nephews tell you what he's been up to since he left school, by any chance?"

"No," Lucretia answered him, quietly. "But—I have my suspicions."

Why did Orion have a feeling that the Order of the Phoenix was the 'fast set' to which his sister was referring?

"Well, then—you already know." He sighed again, weary to his bones. How he longed for his study, now. "Suffice it to say, our father is going to be livid."

"Don't trouble yourself over that, 'Rion—he's never happy," Lucretia said, giving him a sympathetic pat on the arm. "It's ever since Mama died. Without her to bully, he's turned to you and I as his consolation prize."

He crossed his arms and gave her a wry look.

"And you always manage to slink off, leaving me alone with him."

"Didn't I tell you it was easier to be born a girl?" She grinned at him, but he didn't return her smile. "I'll keep your secret—but that doesn't mean you can stop me from nosing around. It's too delicious not to."

Orion sighed. He wondered if telling her it was a matter of life and death would stop her—no, that would probably stir his sister's curiosity even more. She was, in her way, like Sirius—she had a talent for finding trouble, and an indulgent husband who let her.

Of course, her brother and father were no better at tempering Lucretia's impulses.

Apparently Orion couldn't control anyone in his family.

"You look tired," Lucretia said, with gentle and fond exasperation, and she drew closer to get a better look at the bags around his eyes.

"I am tired," her brother said, annoyed. "Can you blame me?"

"You take too much on your shoulders." She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "…You aren't ill, are you?"

Orion was struck by how much in this light she reminded him of their late mother. Lucretia wasn't as pretty as Mama had been—her face had too many sharp corners, which had always made her rather more handsome than beautiful, but she had never minded overmuch. His sister had other qualities to recommend her—charm first among them, and despite knowing her his entire life, Orion was as susceptible to it as anyone. Like the insolent nephew of whom she was so fond, it was impossible to stay annoyed with Lucretia for very long.

However ill-advised it had been, Orion found he couldn't quite regret telling her part of the truth.

"Of course not."

He didn't regret lying to her, either.

---

The blood was still pounding in his ears when he made it to the long walnut table in the back of the hall.

His hands shook, and when he looked down at them, Sirius felt a jolt of alarm in the pit of his stomach, then rising panic. He must've been going mad, because for a moment he didn't recognize what he was looking at.

Then he remembered.

Everything he was staring at—unnaturally thick fingers covered in fine blond hairs, the perfectly rounded, manicured nails—that was all meant to be there. These were Nicolaus Svensson's hands. He was inhabiting another man's skin, a man who he'd never met—he had nearly forgotten.

Without warning, Sirius began to laugh. He turned his back on the crowd and leaned one hand against the table, while the other muffled his mouth. When he turned sideways, he caught sight of an elderly witch, who shot him a disapproving look—that only made him laugh harder.

He turned back around to the hall. A wave of nearly supernatural calm washed over him, followed closely by a spike of adrenaline, born from his burgeoning confidence, rather than his fear. He had just done that and actually gotten away with it. He had stood in a circle of his closest female relations, and not one of them—not Cissy, Dru, Lucretia or even his own mother—had given him so much as a second glance.

What had seemed like such a close shave in the moment had not been at all. It was pure nerves on his part; there was no reason for them to suspect he wasn't who he said he was—he was a stranger very few people at this party had any interest in, as anonymous and invisible as a foreign ghost would've been. He was free to go anywhere in this room, listen into any conversation, if he wanted to.

This was the perfect mask.

He could do this. Dumbledore had trusted him to, and he could—this was far more up his alley than the last mission he'd been given.

Frank was right…he needed to relax.

His spirits refreshed, and with a renewed sense of purpose, Sirius scanned the room, looking for the svelte, dark-haired man his partner was inhabiting, but he didn't see him—or Lucius, or his father, the elder Malfoy. Longbottom must've gotten them alone, was working out the details of the game tonight.

He let out a sigh of relief. Frank was too smart to get caught—and even if he was, Sirius could comfort himself with the fact that the Malfoys weren't likely to let an Auror of his stature disappear under their roof, even if he was on an off-the books espionage mission.

Of course, the Malfoys were the type of wizards who could make murder look like an accident…

He shivered. Frank was clever, and he'd been preparing for this for days—he was not going to be so stupid as to let himself be left alone with them, and in a giant, crowded room of party guests they weren't likely to try anything. It would be far worse if he were caught. Being in the Order didn't afford him the same protections that working for the Ministry did.

"Take care to drink some potion on the sly every hour, and you'll have nothing to worry about, Black."

Frank's words from earlier in the evening echoed in his head—shit, that was something else he had to remember. Sirius fumbled in his pocket for the watch that the Potters had given him as a gift on his 17th birthday. When he extracted it from his interior pocket he swore under his breath. Damn—it had stopped again. In his desperation to escape the Death Eaters that night in Hogsmeade he had landed hard on the ground and cracked the front glass. For the past week it hadn't run right, despite his efforts to repair it.

Of all the nights for him not to have a working watch…

Had it been an hour yet? He dropped the watch back in his pocket and looked around the hall—there was no clock in sight, not even an ostentatious, gilded grandfather like he would have expected. Well, it had to be close at this point, and he had more than enough potion for the evening—better not take the risk.

He pulled the silver flask out of his inside pocket and carefully unscrewed the top.

"Le punch n'est pas à votre goût, Monsieur Svensson?"

His start of surprise was so violent that he almost dropped the hip-flask onto the floor. Sirius fumbled with it, it nearly slipped out of his hand—gelatinous potion swished around the tops of the edges of it, dangerously close to spilling—and, flustered, he spun on his heel.

A pair of clear blue eyes stared up at him.

It was the brunette who had been standing next to Narcissa—the one he hadn't recognized. She must have followed Sirius to the table, for she had somehow ended up on his right side, by the punch bowl. Funny how she had slipped past him undetected like that.

This girl had just asked him a question in French.

She looked up at him, polite and attentive, and he realized that she was waiting for an answer. He lowered the flask slowly and stared at her, his mind a sudden blank. A string of French governesses had made Sirius passingly decent at the language. Le punch…he looked down at the untouched glass on the table next to his hand, then at the flask he still held in his right hand, and like a bolt, he understood.

She was asking him if he didn't like the punch.

He started to formulate a reply, then remembered that it didn't matter if he could understand, it mattered if Svensson could, and running the dossier over again in his head, he couldn't for the life of him remember if he was supposed to know French or not.

Maybe if he said nothing, she would get bored and wander away again? But no, despite being struck dumb and the blank stare, this French girl showed no sign of leaving. At some point in the last ten minutes she had wandered up, ladled herself out a glass of punch and firmly planted her feet next to his, and she looked up at him with a very clear and straightforward gaze, as if he were the most interesting person in the room.

Disconcerted, Sirius stared back—and without the distraction of his relatives around, actually took the time to examine her.

The large blue eyes were her most striking feature. They were set in a heart-shaped face, above a straight nose and a full mouth, below gently sloped eyebrows which lent her face a perpetually curious expression.

She was not a bad-looking witch—if you went in for the well-bred, straight-laced and demure type. Sirius thought she could've done herself better, frankly. Her light brown hair was done in ringlets and pulled up out of her face—the hairstyle was practically a relic, and it didn't suit her at all—it made her look missish. Sirius gave her outfit a sweeping appraisal—and grinned inwardly at the slight blush the look elicited. That blue gown she was in was also not doing her any favors—all those frills up the neck, she was hiding the best parts, and the lace collar reminded him unpleasantly of a china doll. It made her look even younger than she was, and she couldn't have been older than eighteen.

Still—he had to concede that she was kind of pretty.

And a stranger—even if she was jabbering at him in French, he would've known he'd never seen her before tonight. So she wasn't one of Narcissa's Slytherin friends, as he had first assumed—she had definitely not gone to Hogwarts. He knew every half-decent looking English girl between the age of seventeen and twenty-five, and though she wasn't a drop-dead stunner, he would have remembered that pair of eyes.

She tilted her head, and a curl fell out of her bun. He felt an irresistible urge to tuck it back in, because the way it dangled about her neck was…distracting.

Well—this bloke probably knew a bit of French. It couldn't hurt to answer her question, could it? Sirius cleared his throat and screwed up his face in a look of intense concentration.

"J'avais besoin d'une…boisson forte," he said, wrenching French lessons from a dozen years ago from the bowels of his memory, and he tacked on an apologetic smile. She looked down at the flask in his hand, then back up at his face.

"Puis-je essayer un peu de votre boisson?"

She mimed picking up the flask and drinking it. Sirius's grip on it tightened, and he pretended not to understand that she was asking to take a sip.

"Je suis désolé, mon français n'est pas bon, Mademoiselle…?"

"—Battancourt," she supplied for him, helpfully, apparently not offended he couldn't remember her name. Sirius liked the way she trilled the 'r'.

"Ah—danke, Mademoiselle…Battancourt."

Sirius took his time with her name, and he enjoyed trilling the 'r' as she had. Ms. Battancourt clapped her hands together, apparently impressed. Something stirred in Sirius—something that felt suspiciously like his ego.

"You have a good ear, sir," Ms. Battancourt said, switching abruptly to English.

"Danke," he nodded, momentarily forgetting that he should have to think far longer to understand her compliment—or how odd it was that she should go back to speaking in a language that was neither of their native tongues.

"Your French accent is very good," she continued, lifting up her glass of punch and delicately sipping from it. "I must tell you, it is much better than your Norwegian."

For a moment Sirius thought he hadn't understood her correctly—except she wasn't speaking French anymore. Ms. Battancourt's expression remained mild, but her clear gaze took on a formidable quality.

"Erm…excusez moi…" Sirius put on a puzzled expression, then for reasons that were inexplicable to even him, decided to go back to one of the few stock Norwegian phrases he had memorized for such occasions. "Jeg forstår ikke, Frøken Battancourt."

I don't understand, Ms. Battancourt.

"Your Norwegian accent—it is not very convincing." She placidly watched the color drain from his face. "You sound like a Swede."

She finished her drink and set the empty cup down next to his full one, still looking up at him with polite interest, completely immune to the string of expletives running through his head as he stared at her in mute horror.

"Who are you?" he blurted out.

"Have you forgotten so quickly? We were just introduced." The tone was of mild rebuke—but there was a twinkle of amusement in her clear blue eyes. "My name is Colette Battancourt, monsieur."

She curtsied politely, but Sirius did not bow back, as he should have. He just kept staring at her—his deep and profound confusion must've been obvious, for the girl—Collete Battancourt, apparently—stifled a laugh.

He couldn't for the life of him understand why that was the question he'd asked. Maybe he had been expecting her name to yield some profound insight into how the hell she had seen through his deception, but no such insight had been forthcoming.

He had no idea how this girl had found him out, or—more pressingly—why she was behaving so strangely now that she had. Considering she had just accused him of being a liar and a fraud, Ms. Battancourt was damn near blasé.

"I might ask you what your name is," Ms. Battancourt continued, frankly. "Your real name, I mean. I think it is not Svensson. You are an…Englishman, non?"

"Why do you think that?" he asked, very aware of how crummy his Swedish accent was, but not willing quite yet to give up the pretense. The girl shook her head and tutted.

"You can stop pretending. I know you understood every word that was said back there, sir." He blanched, but as Ms. Battancourt was refilling her cup with punch, and either didn't notice or wasn't troubled by it. "And you speak French with an English accent. You are no more Norwegian than I am."

Well, shit.

He turned his back on the ballroom, towards the table where the half-empty punchbowl sat. At his right side, the girl did the same—leaving them free to speak, at least for a little while.

"This is an interesting theory you've concocted, Mademoiselle Battancourt," Sirius said, very quietly—hardly moving his lips. "Tell me, have you shared it with anyone else?"

"I have not," the girl murmured back.

Sirius's eyes widened. If that was true—no, it must be true. If she had told anyone in this room, he'd already have been caught.

"And why is that?" he asked, keeping his voice light.

"Because I am curious as to why you have done this," she whispered. "I think if I give you away now I will never know."

What was this girl playing at? Did she think this was a game? Sirius chanced a look at her, and found that her eyes were staring into the punchbowl, twinkling with a sort of girlish mischief as she waited for an answer. That damned curl was still tickling her neck.

She did think it was some sort of game.

"Meet me by northeastern pillar—past the string quartet," he whispered. "Don't make it look like you're following me."

Still clutching the silver flask in his right hand, Sirius abruptly turned around and began walking across the hall.

His first, immediate gut instinct was to lose her and find Frank, fast—but just as quickly he discarded the notion. If he ditched her now, the French bird could fly to any number of authority figures—one of the Malfoys, or, God forbid, his grandfather—and confess her suspicions about him. He had to keep her interested, or the game was up.

To his surprise, when he made his way to the pillar, Ms Battancourt was already there, eyes dancing with expectation. The girl was still holding her glass of punch and sipping from it. As he made his approach, she waved cheerily at him—Sirius scowled.

"Eager, aren't you?" he said, and he pulled her gently by the shoulder farther into the shadow of the pillar, positioning them so that he had his back against the crowd and no one could see his face.

She looked around their surroundings and then back at him.

"This does not seem quite proper, sir."

He leaned closer—she would have been quite a bit shorter than Sirius, in Svensson's body he towered over her.

"If you were concerned with propriety, Ms. Battancourt, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all," he informed her, bluntly. From this close, he noticed there was a smattering of freckles on her nose.

"You're quite right," she admitted, softly.

Sirius pulled back up again and surreptitiously looked around their immediate vicinity. No one had taken much notice of them. They had reached the point in the evening where all the guests had had a few glasses of wine and were feeling rather relaxed and inattentive—especially to things like young witches being pulled into the corner by strange foreigners.

"You're an odd sort of girl, Ms. Battancourt."

"In what respect?"

"In your approach to dealing with men in disguise that you meet at parties," he said, bluntly. "I'm surprised you didn't say anything. In my experience, most well-bred young witches wouldn't have the nerve to act as you have. It's positively daring."

This delicate flattery was made much easier by the fact that he was impressed—albeit grudgingly. The girl did not take it for granted that he was praising her.

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's an observation. You're taking rather a risk, speaking to me this way." He smirked. "What if I were a dangerous criminal?"

"What reason would a dangerous criminal have to infiltrate an old man's birthday party?" she scoffed.

"You'd be surprised." He lowered his head towards her again, and said, more seriously, "When did you figure it out?"

"When Mrs. Prewett teased her brother—you laughed," she said. He mumbled several curses under his breath. "You tried to cover it with a cough. I think I am the only one who noticed."

"Was there anything else?"

"I saw you were eavesdropping on her private conversation with Mrs. Black. You also—" The girl giggled, nervously. "Erm…blushed at things that Mrs. Prewett said."

At the recollection of his aunt's remarks, Ms. Battancourt looked out of sorts, more like the shy wallflower she had first appeared to Sirius.

So she did have delicate sensibilities about some things…interesting.

"You were blushing too, if I recall," he observed, dryly—and she turned red again and twisted the stray curl around her finger. Sirius smirked—he had discomposed her. "Tell me, is that how all women speak when they think there are no men about who can understand?"

She shook her head, and the ringlets bounced about her head. That hairstyle really did make her look like a porcelain doll—she really ought to let her hair down, so to speak.

"Non. Mrs. Prewett is a bit…franker than most."

"Frank—that's one way of putting it. I'd say indecent, myself." She muffled another laugh behind her hand—he noticed she was wearing satin gloves, another old-fashioned sartorial choice—and he smiled. "I wouldn't have expected that—not even from her."

"Is Mrs. Prewett well known for her boldness, sir?"

He studied her cooly for a moment—the question seemed innocent enough, and he had to give her something.

"She has…a reputation for stirring things up, let's say." Sirius gave an ironic smile. "Compared to that uptight brother of hers, she's practically a rebel."

"That was not the first time you'd met Mr. Black, was it?"

There was a coyness to the question, and the girl's innocent smile no longer entirely met her eyes. Sirius crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I think you're trying to draw me out, mademoiselle."

"Well…I did not follow you here to learn nothing, monsieur."

Ms. Battancourt raised her punch glass again, and at the action, almost on reflex, Sirius lifted the silver flask still clutched in his right hand and unceremoniously clinked it to her cup.

"À votre santé," he said, lifting it up to toast her, and he took a swig from the flask. Sirius pulled a face—essence of Nord hadn't gotten any better since the last time he downed some of the Polyjuice Potion.

She raised one of her eyebrows—it had the effect of making her look more woman than girl.

"To yours, sir." Ms. Battancourt raised her own glass and sipped from it. "You're still not going to let me try that, are you?"

She watched Sirius carelessly drop the hip-flask into the front pocket of his robes.

"It wouldn't be to your liking—trust me," he said, flashing her a mysterious smile.

Her eyes flicked back to his face.

"I will have to take your word for it."

Ms. Battancourt lowered her empty cup and stared up at Sirius, wearing that curious look on her face again. He considered his next move—gaining her trust was key—and quickly, for he had things to do. She seemed clever enough, but the old-fashioned clothing, the foreign manners, the profoundly reckless choice to speak to him this way—everything spoke to her inexperience.

Frankly, this girl was lucky he didn't mean her any harm.

"If you don't think I'm a criminal," he said, picking up their earlier conversation again, casually. "You must have some other idea of what I'm doing here—incognito, as it were."

"I do not." She fiddled with the bracelet around her wrist, then looked up into his face—and gave him a probing look. "I cannot see a reason why one would do such a thing—to pretend not to speak your own language is…" she trailed off. "Bizarre."

Sirius snorted.

"If you knew the people in this room as well as I did, you'd be looking for an excuse not to talk to them, too."

Affronted, she turned her nose up—now looking every bit the stuck-up pureblood witch he would've expected to hang around with Cissy.

"If you do not like the company," she said, cooly. "I wonder why you came at all."

Inwardly, Sirius rolled his eyes. What a priss! All these girls were the same. Maybe he'd been wrong to think she wasn't just as priggish as her kind usually were.

Still—he looked down at her and felt some unease. It wouldn't do to annoy her too much as this stage of the venture. Ms. Battancourt didn't seem vengeful—but you never could tell with these straight-laced types. Nice and easy would do the trick. He wasn't going to walk away from this conversation until he was sure he had her on his side.

It was time to employ the famous Sirius Black charm.

"I like the company I'm keeping now," he said, his tone of voice unmistakably flirtatious. It was the same voice he always put on for Rosmerta, and he usually got at least a smile for it. "It's a sight better than I thought it would be."

Instead of softening her, all he got for his trouble from this girl was a look of suspicion. Sirius frowned, confused as to why this tactic hadn't worked. Didn't she recognize flirting?

"Well, at least you like someone in this room," she replied, voice tart. Sirius's eyebrows flew up—apparently she didn't—or he was repulsive in this body, more like.

"I wouldn't bother acting offended on the Blacks' behalf, miss," he told her flatly, dropping the charming routine. "They've all said far worse about each other—no need to get your back up over it."

"I am not offended," Ms. Battancourt said, flushing pink again—but he noted, with relief, that she had dropped the snooty act as quickly as he'd dropped the flattery. "I just—I still wish to know why you are here, that is all."

Sirius considered her, thoughtfully. This one was tricky. If he wasn't going to flatter his way out of this, then maybe, just maybe—he would have to take drastic measures.

"Can you keep a secret?"

Her blue eyes widened a fraction, and she nodded, very slowly.

"Then I'll tell you—in confidence. The truth is…" He leaned forward—for a second she looked apprehensive, but her curiosity won out over her fear, and Ms. Battancourt moved her head to allow him to whisper in her ear. "…I'm meeting someone, and I don't want to be recognized."

She let out a small gasp, and the girl's cheek brushed up against his. It was very smooth, and the touch startled Sirius—he moved his head back so as not to risk it happening again.

"Recognized by whom?" she murmured back, as quietly.

"By anyone." Ms Battancourt pulled away from him and stared into his eyes, surprised. "In truth, you're just about the only person in this ballroom I don't know, mademoiselle."

"Then you are a—family friend?"

There was a part of Sirius—the very stupid, very reckless part that came out in situations of stress, excitement and danger—that would've enjoyed telling her the truth, then and there, just to see what she looked like when she was really shocked.

"If you can be an unfriendly family friend, then yes," he replied cryptically, settling on a half-truth. "That may be the best way to describe my—association with the people here."

Her eyes narrowed a fraction.

"So you have met Mr. Black before." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair—but Svensson's was too short, and Sirius found the gesture unsatisfying.

"Why exactly are you so sure I know Orion Black, Mademoiselle Battancourt?"

"As soon as he walked over to us, your shoulders tensed up," she informed him, smartly. "And you grimaced at him when he shook your hand. You did not like him there, at all—I could tell."

Well, wasn't she clever? He frowned, annoyed and impressed in equal measures.

"He has an uncomfortably firm grip." She raised an eyebrow. "Alright. So, the two of us have…a history."

"What kind of history?" she pressed.

"The kind that doesn't get you an invitation to his father's birthday bash," he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. "He's not the sort of man who forgets when he's been…crossed. None of the Blacks are."

"How well do you know them?"

"Too well," he laughed, bleakly. "Most of them wouldn't be too pleased if they knew I was here, him most of all, so I was forced to take…quite drastic measures to come tonight."

This explanation, in a strictly technical sense completely true, did not do much to convince the young lady.

"That is why you did this?" she asked, politely skeptical. "You were that desperate to meet this…friend of yours?"

"He's really more an acquaintance than a friend," Sirius said, shrugging nonchalantly. "And it couldn't wait. He's quite busy—and I must confess, I thought this way of going about seeing him would make things more…interesting."

It took the girl a moment to process this, and upon taking in his full meaning, her eyes flashed with disbelief.

"So this is all a game to you?" she asked, indignance obvious. "Amusing sport?"

Sirius threw her a dashing smile—or at least he hoped it came off that way, but judging from her frown, on Svensson's face it was coming off more like a leer.

"A bit higher stakes than whist or piquet—but yes, of a sort. I assure you, I mean no harm," Sirius told her—and that Ms. Battancourt seemed to believe, probably because it wasn't a lie. "So now you know. You'll keep my secret, won't you?"

"I don't see why I should," she told him, archly. "It is most improper behavior, sneaking into other peoples' houses, even if you aren't a criminal. You really ought to be thrown out of this party on your ear!"

Sirius grinned—he'd gotten her. She was definitely not going to tell anyone.

"You wouldn't have me chucked out!" he told her, with a hint of smugness. "You're enjoying this conversation too much. I bet it's the only interesting one you've had all night."

"It is not!" she exclaimed, indignantly, and she turned her nose up in the air. "Mrs. Malfoy and I were getting along quite famously before you turned up."

Sirius leaned against the pillar and crossed his arms.

"Oh, I can only guess at the profundities Narcissa Malfoy graced you with," he snorted, derisively. "Fashion tips and an endless list of her husband's virtues?"

Ms. Battancourt glared at him. Sirius should have taken it as a sign to apologize, except he was enjoying himself too much, so he settled for a cheeky grin instead.

"If Narcissa is one of the people here who does not like you, I am beginning to see why," she told him, crossly. "Whoever you are, sir, you have no manners or dignity!"

"Very true. I've never had much use for either," he agreed, laughing at this description of himself—she turned red again, this time with displeasure. He held up a mollifying hand and bowed his head. "I apologize for my words. I would never have impugned the honor of Mrs. Malfoy if I knew you were such bosom friends."

She puffed out her cheeks, still annoyed—but not very, Sirius could see, because the way her eyes twinkled told him ballgowns and Lucius was exactly what Narcissa had been blathering on about.

"I do not know her—so well," Ms. Battancourt confessed, sheepishly. "But she has been very kind to me this evening."

"I bet she has," Sirius said, heavily sarcastic. Colette Battancourt was exactly the sort of polite, easy-going girl in whom Narcissa would find a rapt audience. "Is she the one who invited you to this jamboree?"

She shook her head—the act made the ringlets bounce around her ears.

"Non—it was my great-aunt Eugenie who brought me. Over there, see?"

She pointed to two women across the room, and Sirius turned his head to get better look. The ladies were speaking in the corner just opposite, a part of the ballroom currently inhabited solely by spinsters and maiden aunts. The older of the two, an ancient and venerable witch with greying ash-blond hair, was stooped over a tray of sweetmeats held by a stringy house-elf, struggling to keep it upright on his head. She wore a lace ballgown that made Sirius's mother's dress look positively modern, and was deep in conversation with a mousy, middle-aged lady whose only distinguishing feature was the necklace around her throat, bedecked with bottle-cap sized white stones which was giving off an almost incandescent glow.

"Who is that with her?" Sirius muttered, more to himself than the girl—though she chose to answer him all same.

"I thought you knew everyone," Ms. Battancourt said, wryly. Sirius refrained from comment, though he would have dearly liked to point out he couldn't be expected to regurgitate biographical details of every person in the room on command, as most of them were too boring to remember. "I met her earlier. I think her name is Ms. Burke."

"Burke…"

Faint interest stirred in his mind—there was something important about that woman—and then Colette surprised him by immediately supplying the answer.

"Those opals she is wearing are quite something, don't you think?" Ms. Battancourt remarked, off-handedly. "Myself—I don't think she can quite carry them off."

Opals…!

He started to laugh—that woman was Belvina Burke's daughter—she had to be. And that meant the outrageous rope around her neck was Elladora's famous necklace! Sirius squinted and leaned forward to get a better look—Ms. Burke had shifted her body towards the center of the room to watch the string quartet, which gave him a clear view of the infamous disputed heirloom.

He could see at once why Druella wanted the jewels. Even from far away, the magical properties were practically radiating off of the necklace. The stones were enormous—it looked as though it weighed about three pounds, a tribute to decadent excess. It probably cured warts or dragonpox, kept your hair from growing gray…maybe it helped with fertility, that would explain why his aunt thought Cissy needed it so badly…

"What is so amusing?" Ms. Battancourt said, and he turned back around, still chuckling.

"Private joke," he said, trying to recover his composure. "So, Eugenie Fawley is your great-aunt? That explains how you speak English—with only the barest hint of a French accent, I might add. Puts my French to shame."

It was coming back to him now, what his father had said in that circle of relatives—she was visiting from Normandy.

"My grandmother taught me," Ms. Battancourt conceded, grudgingly. "Eugenie is her sister. I am staying with her in…Cornwall."

"She looks like a cauldron of laughs," Sirius observed, jokingly—but when he turned around to look at the girl, she didn't join in. He frowned. "How long will you be gracing our fair shores, Ms. Battancourt?"

"I do not know…" she said, softly, gazing across the room, eyes clouded. "It all…depends."

"On what?"

"On how quickly I…do what I came to this country to do," she said, turning back around and busying herself with the empty punch cup.

"You mean you didn't just come to visit?"

"Non…I came to find a husband."

For a moment Sirius thought she must've been joking—except there was not even the faintest trace of a smile, and her matter-of-fact tone of voice was cold and bloodless. Sirius stared at her in astonishment.

"That's what you're in England for?" he said, incredulously. "The marriage market?"

Colette Battancourt blinked up at him, and her eyebrows furrowed.

"Of course," the girl replied, evenly. "Why else would I be here?"

It was like someone had poured a bucket of ice water on him. Out of nowhere, Sirius felt disappointment and inexplicable anger directed at his near-stranger, though why he should even care was a mystery. It should not have blind-sided him—arranged marriages were still incredibly common among witches and wizards of a certain social milieu, his own family was using the prospect of one as a cover to explain Regulus's disappearance.

Why was he shocked that Colette Battancourt was the same?

Purebloods could be counted on to do this kind of medieval nonsense the world over…for some reason the thought of her stuck in one of those bloodless unions bothered him.

"Men must be thin on the ground in France, if you had to come all the way across the pond to find one." There was a new hardness in Sirius's voice. "Was it your mother's idea?"

The girl blushed, but she did not look down or flinch, and her blue eyes remained resolute and fixed on his. She was not about to be shamed—by him or anyone else.

"I'm afraid she does not think anyone back home is good enough for me." She shrugged. "My mother is a…very proud woman. Battancourts are expected to marry well, and as I am also a Fawley—"

"—Your family are one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Of course. It makes perfect sense. With that kind of lineage there are certain…expectations, naturally." Sirius expression turned cold, and he made no effort to hide his sarcasm. "So…you're here to catch a man, then." The young wizard crossed his arms in front of his chest and appraised her with fresh eyes. She had seemed so genuine and artless, now he thought he detected the telltale signs of calculation. "You have someone in particular in mind, or are you just putting out a lure and seeing who bites?"

"Not that it is any of your business, sir," Ms. Battancourt snapped back, cooly. "But I came here tonight hoping to renew an old acquaintance—and perhaps, if it suits…"

She trailed off—he didn't need her to finish the thought to know what would happen next. Her parents would write to his, and then the proper arrangements would be made, a marriage contract would be signed, an exchange of gold would occur.

The memory of Narcissa and Lucius's wedding suddenly rose in his mind. The ceremony had been held in this very room four years earlier—it had been all pomp and circumstance, a chance for the two families to show off to each other and every other pureblood family in the country how much gold they had.

The thought of this girl, with her loose curl and splash of freckles, being lead to the altar by some over-bred toff—it irritated him immensely.

"And who is the lucky man?" Sirius asked, sliding down the pillar he was leaning against, carelessly. "Your prospective future bridegroom, I mean?"

The girl went back to fiddling with her empty glass. Ms. Battancourt clearly regretted having even broached this topic with a stranger in the first place, and was now debating whether it was wise to say anything more. When she looked up from the crystal cup and saw the way he was scrutinizing her intensely, something in her spirit stirred.

"His name is Rabastan Lestrange," Ms. Battancourt admitted, at last. Sirius's face froze. "Do you know him?"

He stared down at her, his mouth hanging open. Colette chewed her lip—the intensity of his gaze was unnerving to her, but she refused to break eye contact. Abruptly, he unfroze with a jerk—it was as if his brain had been playing catch up, and now that he understood her it was working double-speed. A frantic energy seized the stranger; he seemed to be thinking fast and hard.

"As it happens, Ms. Battancourt, I do." Sirius pushed up from the pillar, his expression inscrutable, a new resolution in his voice. "Have you met Rabastan? I suppose you must know him a little, at least, if you intend on renewing acquaintances."

"I've met him a few times. I've been to England before." She looked uncertain. "He was…polite and attentive. I liked him…well enough."

"Well enough to marry him?" Sirius wrinkled his nose in mock-disgust. "He's a bit old for you. And he's not exactly a looker."

Ms. Battancourt glared at him.

"I'm not looking for a handsome husband!" she informed him, hotly. Sirius grinned.

"Maybe not…but if one crossed your path," he lowered his face to hers, still wearing a sly smile.
"I don't think you'd protest much."

"My mother advises against marrying for looks," Colette told him, primly. "She says handsome men cannot be trusted, because often they are arrogant and think too well of themselves."

"A very wise woman, your mother," Sirius replied, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "No doubt Rabastan is amply qualified as a son-in-law, if her standards are what you're going on."

Her blue eyes went wide, and Sirius, seemingly realizing he had perhaps gone too far, set his jaw.

"So, about your future intended…" Sirius said, with a casual air—though his back was rigidly upright, and anyone who knew him would have recognized meant he was on the attack. "Have you had any luck?"

"In what?"

"In renewing acquaintances. Have you seen him, yet?" he pressed, with a tad more urgency. "In the hall, I mean. Is he here tonight—Rabastan Lestrange, is he here?"

Her eyebrows drew apart again, giving him the same naturally curious expression he had noticed before, and she frowned.

"No—I was told he and his brother would be guests this evening—but I haven't seen either of them, and Narcissa was very thorough in reintroducing me to all her family—" Sirius's mouth twitched, but she was shrugging and didn't notice. "If Mr. Lestrange hasn't arrived by now…I doubt he is coming, non?"

"Oh…you never know," her companion murmured, throwing a thoughtful look towards the heavy oak doors that lead out of the ballroom. When he looked back at her, "So—Rabastan Lestrange. Well, not who I would have pegged you with, but we've only just met—and what do I know, in the end?"

It was impossible to miss his derision.

"He is from a very good family," Ms. Battancourt sniffed, haughtily.

"And that's what matters most, is it?" Sirius muttered, folding his arms in front of his chest. "Well…anyway…he can't be the only one you're considering."

"I did not come into this corner to discuss my personal business with you!"

"But we've gone this far—might as well have out with all of it. Perhaps I can give you advice, help you size up the lucky gents." She turned up her nose at him and closed her eyes with a sniff, but Sirius was dogged. "Do you have a back-up plan? Someone else you're thinking of?"

"Well…" she hesitated. "There was—another man. But he isn't a possibility anymore—at least, I don't think he is, though Narcissa told me she still believes it won't come off, and that I have a chance."

"Have a chance with whom?" Sirius interrupted, impatiently.

"Regulus Black."

His mouth fell open.

"That is the real reason Aunt Eugenie brought me tonight—she thought we would see him," Ms. Battancourt continued, immune to Sirius's shock. "She has gotten my mamon's hopes up—I don't think she will soon let go of the idea that I might marry into the Black family."

"I'm getting a clearer picture of your mother by the minute," he remarked, sardonically. "As for Regulus Black—didn't his—erm, mother say he's in France right now?" Sirius remembered that it had been spoken about in front of them both. "I thought they said he was already tied up with some girl."

"Yes—but there is a rumor going about the hall that this marriage will not go ahead as planned," she said, conspiratorially. "Narcissa told me she thinks he will be back before I leave, and there will be no fiancée with him."

So Cissy was filling this girl's head with dreams of being married to the Black family heir? Sirius felt pity and a stab of annoyance at all parties concerned. It was bad enough that his own family bought into the absurd idea that they were royalty, but the fact that they had managed to successfully sell the idea to wizards abroad was bloody absurd.

If they ever got out of this mess, he was going to have warn Regulus to watch his back, lest he be accosted by fortune-hunting young maidens at the behest of their mothers.

"And you believe her?" he asked, cooly. "You trust Mrs. Malfoy as an…authority on the matter?"

"Well, she is his cousin. I expect she would know better than you or I." Sirius snorted, but she paid his dismissal no mind. Colette had tilted her head and frowned up at him. "And anyway…I do think there's something odd about this story. They say he is in Provence—but I don't believe it."

"You don't?" he asked, too quickly. "Why not?"

"I may not know England as well as you, sir—but I do know France," she said, in a superior voice. "And there are no Provencal families with daughters that are good enough for the Blacks! And I heard they sent him away very suddenly. It is suspicious." Her eyes darted about the room, and then back up at him. "I think they are lying about why he is absent this evening."

"What…exactly do you think happened?"

Sirius tried not to make his unease too obvious at this unpleasant news—but Ms. Battancourt's flippant shrug did not suggest she had any idea that Regulus Black was really in hiding from Lord Voldemort.

"Perhaps he has taken to drinking…or a spell has gone horribly wrong and disfigured his face. Maybe—" the girl lowered her voice to a scandalized hush. "—He has gotten this Provencal witch pregnant, and they must hurry the marriage along."

At this last suggestion all his apprehension evaporated, and Sirius burst out laughing again.

"What is so funny?" she asked, annoyed, putting her hands on her hips.

"Have you met Regulus Black, Ms. Battancourt?" he chortled. "If you had you'd know why I'm laughing at the thought of him with a love child."

This comment elicited a reluctant smile out of Ms. Battancourt.

"I met him at a garden party last summer. He's a sweet boy. It is true that he does not quite seem the type…" She frowned. "But you never know. There was that business with his brother."

Sirius grew very still.

"'That business…with his brother'?" he repeated, slowly. She'd heard of him? "What do you know about the brother?"

"Only that there was a scandal years ago," she told him, biting her lip again. "My great-aunt Eugenie doesn't have much to do but gossip, she mentioned it to my mother at the time. She said that the elder son was very wild, that he ran away when he was sixteen—and he never came back."

"I can't believe that story made it all the way to France," he said, inwardly marveling at his own notoriety.

"I've been told this scandal was a cause of great shame for the Blacks," Colette said, looking across the ballroom in the direction of the lady in question. "Well, you must have noticed the way Mrs. Black snapped at Mrs. Prewett when he was mentioned."

Sirius felt an uncomfortable twinge in the pit of his stomach.

"I didn't, actually," he lied.

"She was upset by it." Ms. Battancourt gave a sad shrug. "Who can blame her? I cannot imagine what it is like to have such a callous son. It must be very painful for her to hear him spoken of."

Hot indignation shot through him at that, and he frowned and set his teeth.

"That's a rather presumptuous thing to say," Sirius said, bite in his voice. "You don't know how she really feels—and you don't know why the brother ran away. He might've—had a very good reason for leaving."

She shrugged.

"Perhaps," she said, voice airy. "For me—it does not seem likely."

"Why not?" he demanded, getting more annoyed by the minute.

"Well…what good reason could one give for doing such a thing?" she retorted, severely. "From what I understand, he had responsibilities to his family as their heir that he did not want—and so he left. It seems to me, as you say, that he took the easy way out."

Sirius clenched his fists under the ruffs of his dress robes. Was this the rubbish Narcissa was feeding her—or was it more bollocks rumor mongering from the rest of this family? Is that how his parents were saving face—by spreading it here and there that he was a lazy son who didn't take his duties seriously?

Maybe that was what they really thought of him. He wouldn't put it past his parents—three years gone, and they still didn't really seem to understand why he'd left.

"'The easy way out'," he repeated, softly. "You think it's easy, leaving everything behind and striking out on your own?" He considered her, expression thoughtful. "Could you do it, Ms. Battancourt?"

Her cheeks flushed pink

"What kind of—of course not—" she sputtered, defensively. "I would never want to do such a thing!"

"That's very good—because I don't think you'd have the courage to," he shot back.

At this insult, her flushed face turned bright scarlet.

"Courage? You think this takes courage?" she asked, incredulously. "I think it is cowardly to run away from one's obligations to one's family—"

"—And if one had material objections to the ideals of one's family?" he challenged, archly. "Is it better to just go along with it? Some might say that it's cowardly to stay, and take the path of least resistance. Has it even occurred to you that—"

He cut himself off; Sirius had remembered who he was supposed to be and what he should to be doing, and felt yet another bolt of self-recrimination.

The girl stared up at him, face still pink, but no longer angry—her blue eyes widened in understanding.

"You know him, don't you?"

A quiet, calm—and keenly perceptive question. Sirius found himself unduly impressed again. She did catch on, quick.

Or he was really obvious.

"You've got me, miss." He held up his hands in surrender. "I do, and one doesn't like to hear slander against one's friends—it gets one hot and bothered. You've got it all wrong about him." He smiled, ruefully. "I apologize for my vehemence. It's not your fault. No doubt you were…misinformed."

She blinked up at him, in her quiet, thoughtful way.

"So you know him—well?"

He could see she was intrigued, in spite of all instincts of decorum and breeding—she was curious about him. He felt a stirring of ego at the interest. It had never occurred to Sirius that running away from a large fortune and well-born family would make him notorious in that social world.

He liked it. It was sort of like being an outlaw.

"Oh, yeah. Practically better than he knows himself." The ghost of a laugh flitted across his face, and he continued, boldly, "I have to tell you—he would be very amused at your assumptions about the scandalous behavior you think his younger brother might be imitating. There was no baby, or woman of low birth—and he certainly wasn't fleeing from any responsibility. Those were the last things on his mind when he ran off."

"Then why did he leave his family—truly?"

"Nothing all that exciting, I'm afraid," he said, staring across the room, his smile grim. "Just a run-of-the-mill blood-traitor who was fed up. A political idealist. Took a different view of things than his family—the Black sheep of the Blacks." She furrowed her brow. "You look disappointed."

She did, to his surprise—and annoyance—seem a tad let-down by his admittedly sanitized version of the true story. Apparently his prosaic reasons for leaving home were not a particularly stimulating scandal in the impressionable French witch's eyes. Perhaps like the Blacks, blood-traitors with unsuitable ideas were a commonplace occurrence in the Battancourt family. Merlin knew in his family they were a knut a dozen.

Colette Battancourt tilted her head, deep in thought—then lowered her voice and looked furtively around, though no one was paying them any mind in their little corner.

"What is he—" She hesitated, surprised by her own daring. "What is he really like?"

Sirius nearly laughed. Daring to have an interest in him was apparently the most inappropriate question she'd asked yet, in her eyes.

"Doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. Real dangerous bloke. " Her eyes widened, and he was seized with the urge to tease her again. "Daring. And I have heard him described on more than one occasion as…sexy."

Up until then she had been interested in Sirius's somewhat shameless up-selling of his own charms, but at the use of that particular slang the girl scoffed.

"My mother says that is a vulgar word," she informed him, primly.

"So does mine," he grinned back. "Personally I find it an—effective descriptor, for a certain type of bloke—and a certain type of bird." Sirius's eyes twinkled with mischief. "What's the matter, Ms. Battancourt—never met someone you'd call sexy?"

A creeping blush colored the girl's cheeks, and she tugged at her satin gloves.

"Certainly not," she replied, discomposed. "I would never—speak like—use such crass language!"

"Your loss." His smile widened. "Crass language can be very fun. But I guess your mother wouldn't approve, and if I've learned anything about you, it's that you take great stock in her opinions."

She glared at him, hotly.

"I think you are having me on about all of this," she remarked, skeptically. "I think you know nothing of the Black sheep brother—you are not his friend, and you are making it all up to…to shock and provoke me."

"If you want to believe that, it's your prerogative, of course." His eyes gleamed. "I mean—shocking and provoking you is amusing. But it's not exactly a challenge. Why would I have to make things up to do it?"

"Vous êtes incroyable!" She looked as though she was about to stomp off—then he gave her a slow smile, and to his surprise and delight—her own mouth twitched up. "You are—are—a rapscallion of the first order. I find you quite impossible."

"You wouldn't be the first, by any means. But we've gotten quite off the original point, haven't we?" Sirius's smile became rather fixed and grim. "I was going to give you advice about your potential husbands, and we got side-tracked with all this talk of…old scandals."

The abrupt subject change startled her, and her hands dropped to her sides.

"I suppose," she said, stiffly. "You expect me to believe you know Regulus Black and Rabastan Lestrange, as well."

"As it happens, I do. The former better than the latter." He tilted his head, considering her seriously. "No one could accuse you of having a type, Ms. Battancourt. It's hard to imagine two wizards less alike than that pair."

Sirius pictured Rabastan Lestrange in his mind's eye—the last time he had seen him up close, which had been, predictably enough, at a party at Grimmauld Place. The younger Lestrange brother was tall and thin, with close-set eyes and the sort of rangy look of everyone in his family—not as thicket as his brother Rodolphus, but powerfully built enough. Sirius supposed he must have manners, if he had convinced this girl of it, but he had not ever seen a sign of them.

Next he thought of his slight, haughty brother, who had blushed and stammered and hid behind their mother's legs at the first girl in a party dress he'd ever been introduced to, who played the piano impeccably but got awful stage fright when asked to perform for anyone outside his immediate family.

The only thing Colette Battancourt's two prospective husbands had in common, Sirius thought, grimly, was the wizard they had both, until very recently, called their master.

"I wonder at your parents' wisdom in sending you to England, given the current—climate," he remarked, voice laden with sarcasm. "Don't they know there's a war on in this country?"

"Of course they know about it," she replied, calmly—Sirius thought he caught the barest flicker of anxiety in her eyes, but she hid it well. "They think I will be perfectly safe with my great-aunt. It does not seem likely to affect me, anyway—at least, that is what we have been told."

Sirius watched her absently fiddle with her necklace, and he felt an irrational anger at himself for having ever thought she was pretty or clever. This witch was clearly as shallow as a sink basin, and he had already wasted far too much time humoring her when he should have been focusing on the mission.

"It would appear Mr. and Mrs. Battancourt are almost as naive as their daughter," he said, cooly.

She dropped the necklace and gaped at him, astounded.

"You think I am naive?"

"Astonishingly so. If you were any greener, you'd be a cabbage." Her face darkened—from anger, not embarrassment. "You're way out of your depth, mademoiselle. You've no idea what the people in this room are really like—and for your own sake, I hope you never do."

Confusion and fear were now competing with her anger.

"What are you talking about?" Ms. Battancourt asked him, astonished. "What do you mean?"

"There are some very nasty characters here tonight," he murmured back, lowering his head to speak in her ear, softly. "And I would hate to see a girl as innocent as you mixed up with them."

His breath tickled her neck, and she pulled back as if she'd been burned.

"Who are you to say I am naive?" the girl demanded, hotly, staring up into his eyes. "And why should I trust the word of a man who sneaks about in disguise?"

"Because he has nothing to gain from lying to you."

She opened her mouth to argue—it hung open. She could say nothing to that. It was perfectly true.

"And on the subject of your prospective fiancées," Sirius continued, and he was speaking very quickly now—keenly aware that he had little time. "I feel compelled to advise you not to marry either of them."

"Why not?" she whispered, voice faint. She was far too surprised by the deadly serious expression on the Nord's face to bother protesting. Inappropriate and brazen as it was for him to speak to her like this.

"For starters—Rabastan Lestrange is nothing more or less than a brutal thug." Her whole body froze. "And as for Regulus…however impressive the gold and Black family name may be, it is not worth having that woman for a mother-in-law, believe me."

"How dare you—"

"Narcissa's spotted us," he cut her off, looking over her shoulder. Indeed, his cousin had been scanning the hall, clearly looking for her friend. Now was his moment. He looked back down at Colette—chewing her lip, torn between suspicion and insatiable curiosity. "So it seems this audience is at a near end. It's been stimulating for me—I hope you can say the same, Ms. Battancourt."

"Stimulating is not the word I would use," she said, glowering—and Sirius saw that her 'French' was up, but he could tell she was more annoyed at his dodging her questions than his presumption at telling her how to run her life.

No, Colette Battancourt wasn't shallow—she was naive, a schoolgirl who didn't have the faintest clue of what she was dealing with.

It was a pity…and though it wasn't his problem, he did feel the natural urge to put her on her guard. She had no idea she was in a room full of snakes. Probably she would ignore him, but he could sleep easy knowing he at least tried.

"I bear you nothing but good will—so I'm going to give you a little more advice." He put both hands on her shoulders, very gently, and looked into her eyes. The girl tensed, but she met his gaze without fear. "If I were you, I would stay away from the Blacks and the Lestranges altogether. You'd be better off a spinster than married into either of those families."

Thunderstruck, the witch jerked out of his grip and took a step back, half-tripping on her gown. Without thinking, he reached out with one hand to steady her, gently.

She didn't pull away, though her shoulder trembled a little.

"Who are you, really?" the girl asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

For all her indignance at his brazenness, the girl still wanted to know his real identity—his attempts to distract her had not been successful at throwing her off the scent. If circumstances had not been what they were, he might have told her. Unfortunately for Ms. Colette Battancourt, Sirius wasn't in a position to take her fully into his confidences.

She was going to have resign herself to enjoying the mystery.

"An unfriendly friend, remember?" He flashed her another grin. Narcissa had been accosted by her mother halfway through the hall, but she was close to getting rid of her and continuing her pursuit. "As it doesn't seem likely we'll see each other again, Ms. Battancourt—a little something to remember me by."

Before he could think better of it, Sirius acted the way he always did when he was enjoying himself—extremely rashly.

He grabbed Colette's hand, raised it to his lips and—in an act that was uncharacteristically courtly and gallant—kissed it.

"Au revoir."

He let go, and the man who was definitely not named Nicolaus Svnsson winked, ducked behind the pillar, and in a blink of the eye—was gone.

Colette stared, punch-drunk, at the hand he had dropped so carelessly a moment before. The place where her palm met her wrist—the spot he he had the supreme impudence to touch with his lips—still tingled. Numb, she raised it to her cheeks, where she could feel the heat of her embarrassment radiating.

He…he had…

She peered into the crowd, knowing before she looked she wouldn't find him. That man she had set out to discover the true identity of—who had managed instead to draw her out and baffle her, shock and embarrass her, fill her head with nonsense she was sure must be falsehoods…

But what if they weren't?

Worst of all—she still had no idea who he was.

On that front, at least, Colette was in luck. He had been so busy taking liberties with her right hand, he had not noticed what her left hand had been doing at the same time.

She lifted up the silver flask she had palmed from the front pocket of his dress-robes and examined it, wide-eyed.

She might yet find out who he was.