Aurora's father managed to dig out some truly hideous decorations for Christmas, just as promised. They spent the day after her return putting up a tree and various banners all over the house, making Grimmauld Place the most cheerful she had ever seen it. There was silver and gold glitter all over the hallway, an angel in a wide-skirted frock and high wig atop the tree, and some horrific, puce-coloured baubles to go on the branches, which her father and the Weasley twins helpfully transfigured into various faces.
"I have to say, it is strange to see my disembodied head on a tree branch," Aurora muttered when Fred showed it off to her, looking far too pleased with himself. "And you've got my eye colour all wrong, they're meant to be brown, not grey."
"I think it's a good likeness. Sorry I didn't pay you that much attention, Black."
"You didn't even consult me! You got Potter's eyes right on!"
"Been looking at Potter's eyes have you?"
"What?" Harry asked, turning with a confused look on his face. "What's this about my eyes?"
"They're like fresh-pickled toads," Aurora snarked back, grinning as he went red and shot a glance at Ginny, who also went pink, to Aurora's curiosity. Perhaps she really had been the one to write that Valentine, after all. Then she turned back to Fred and said, "Change it. I don't look like that."
"You look fine," he said flippantly, going to hang it.
"But I don't look like that!"
"Okay, I'll change the eyes," he said, pulling a face as he changed their colour from grey to brown. "Merlin's pants, you're not half tetchy today."
Aurora just scowled and turned back to her own box of decorations — gaudy, glittery silver and green bows — as her dad started teaching Harry and Hermione the lyrics to God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs. It had been Draco who taught her that song, one Christmas long gone when she and Arcturus had hosted the Malfoys, along with the rest of the extended Black family. There was not one person there who she thought she would ever sing carols with again — they were either dead, or hated her. For a moment, the thought was sobering, made her cold.
But then her father joined her, an arm around her shoulders, and his enthusiasm was so infectious that she could not help but join in — after a suitable display of grumpy reluctance — and smile herself, allowing for a moment of joy.
-*
On Christmas Day, Aurora awoke in her childhood bedroom, to a life completely different to that she had eleven years ago. There was a small pile of presents awaiting her when she got downstairs, carrying those which she had been given by her friends earlier. That last year in Grimmauld Place had been a somber occasion, just her and her grandmother and Kreacher. She had had to wear frilly pink robes which she now could only imagine Pansy wearing. Narcissa Malfoy had sent her a pearl necklace which she wore to her grandmother's funeral less than a year later.
This year was different in a good way. Breakfast was raucous and joyous, everyone chatting and laughing over plates of bacon rolls and pigs in blankets. She was sent no pearl necklaces, but far more practical things: new boots from the Tonkses, a broom compass from Harry (which she had thought of as a useful insult until she discovered he had gotten the same thing for all the Weasley children), a scarf and ornate comb from her father, books from Hestia and Remus, and from Gwen and Robin, from Elise the suspected sugar quills and some lavender hand cream, and from Theo, a book on the history of Astrology, and a pair of pretty purple silk hair ribbons.
After their loud breakfast — which really was more of an early lunch by the time everybody dragged themselves out of bed — everybody went to St. Mungo's Hospital to visit Mr. Weasley, who was still being treated for his snake bite. Aurora hadn't seen him yet, but going to see him on Christmas with everybody else seemed only polite. She had never been to the hospital, and as the visit wore on, she realised quickly that she never wanted to again.
It was obvious, but it was full of people dying. She could practically feel death pressing in through those whitewashed walls. The walk to the ward Arthur was in felt endless, as the clinical smell from covering up illness sank in. She didn't dare to look at any other wards or windows, or the Healers in their lime-green robes. It all just reminded her of the last weeks of Arcturus' life, and her terror then, that they should have brought him here and gotten him proper healers, and he might have been with them a little longer, were it not for his pride.
Their conversation with Arthur went quickly; Molly began to argue with him over the use of an apparently novel medicinal invention, called stitches, and Aurora slipped out of the room, beginning to feel faint at the thought. It all felt so much more real, that Arthur, someone she knew, was a casualty of the war that had yet to be acknowledged at all, but took from their ranks anyway.
It was quickly apparent to Aurora that she had nowhere to go, and in all honesty with herself, was not sure how to find her way back to her group. With no choice but to plow on rather than admit the embarrassment of a meek return, she headed downstairs, finding a sign that pointed towards the Malfoy Wing. Dedicated to hospital donor, Lucius Malfoy. Aurora's heart dropped. She had forgotten Lucius donated to the hospital, so much so that he had apparently had a wing named in his honour, as Draco had told her many months ago.
Out of curiosity, she tiptoed inside, slipping past the Healers on duty who were talking briskly and paying no mind to the heavy flow of visitors coming in and out for Christmas Day. It was just like any other ward, just with a particularly awful person's name on the front, though then again she realised, she didn't know what any of the other wings' namesakes had been like.
And then, she saw the door labelled Mr. Bartemius Crouch. The door was wedged firmly shut, an enchantment shimmering around the doorframe. Even as she passed she could feel it radiating softly, warning her away. Her head grew drowsy. She had to go somewhere else, she thought, though could not remember well. This was not where she was to be. There was nothing there for her, and the patient was absolutely fine.
She left as quickly as she could, deeply unsettled and not even listening as someone called after her, their voice lost as tough trying to cut through deep water.
She blinked when she reached the exit, wondering what she had thought the point of entering was. She started making her way back along the fourth floor, considering going to the tea room to bring something back for everybody, when she found Potter, Granger, and the youngest Weasleys wandering along the corridor.
"Hello," she said stiffly, stopping.
"Aurora," Harry said with a relieved sigh, "we wondered were you'd gone."
"Just wandering about," she told him, shrugging. "I don't really like hospitals. It's all very uncomfortable."
Potter nodded. "We're just trying to find the tearoom, but we've ended up on the wrong floor."
"Yes, we'll have to go back upstairs. That's where I'm headed too, I'll go with—"
"That's Professor Lockhart," Hermione gasped suddenly. Aurora turned around, surprised, to see their former Professor wandering out of the Janus Thickney Ward, a dreamy look in his eye.
"Hello," he said brightly, bounding along towards them. "I suspect you'd like my autograph, wouldn't you?"
Aurora merely stared. She had not known why Lockhart had had to leave Hogwarts, but now she was beginning to get an idea of what had really happened that night at the end of their second year. From the looks of it, he had lost his memory entirely.
"How are you, Professor?" Ronald asked, a guilty edge to his voice.
"I'm very well indeed, thank you." Lockhart pulled a purple peacock feather quill out of his pocket with a flourish. "Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined up writing now, you see!"
Perhaps more than merely mental memories, too. It was mildly horrifying, to see him in this state, detached from his previous self.
"We don't want any at the moment," Ronald said, "thank you. Um, Professor, should you wandering about the corridors? Shouldn't you be in a ward?"
Lockhart's face fell, unsettled by recognition. "Have we met?"
"We… Yeah. We have," Potter said uneasily. "You used to teach at Hogwarts, remember?"
"Teach? Me? Did I?" He had an unsettled look about him, as though he were reaching for something that wasn't quite there, and had yet to work out where it had gone. Then in an instant that look was gone and he brightened. "Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen and you can give them out to all your friends, and then nobody will be left out!"
Before any of them could reply, a Healer poked her head out from the door, and cooed, "Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?" She hurried up the corridor towards them, and Aurora stepped back in alarm as she smiled warmly around at them.
"Oh, Gilderoy, you've got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day, too! Do you know, he hardly ever gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can't think why, he's such a sweetie, aren't you?"
No visitors, even on Christmas Day. Aurora felt a deep and unexpected sorrow for him, as he was taken by the arm and led back to the ward, and despite the futile excuses of the other children behind her, she followed. This was the ward for permanent spell damage, apparently, for long-term residents who saw little improvement in their condition. It astounded her, that with all the supposed power of magic, the idea she had grown up with that it made one infallible, so many people suffered anyway, and would suffer for the rest of their lives. Even Lockhart, though she did not know how he had been afflicted — despite a worrying feeling that she might get an answer from Potter — seemed so dispossessed of himself, and so alone in the world, abandoned in a time of need.
She hardly heard the conversation the others were having, watching instead as the healer made her way through the ward with tender care for each patient in each bed, speaking to them with soothing words, showing them in any way she could that they were loved and cared for. And then the Healer turned as a curtain moved on the other side of the ward, and asked, "Mrs Longbottom, are you leaving already?"
Aurora's stomach plummeted as she followed the Healer's gaze to see Augusta Longbottom appear, with Neville trailing behind them, downcast and subdued. Her heart hammered as she tried to distract the others, knowing the last thing Neville wanted was for anyone to know what had happened to his parents, but Ronald was too quick and called tactlessly, "Neville!"
Neville jumped as though he had been punched. Aurora glared at Ronald, who seemed entirely unaware. "It's us, Neville," he pressed on cheerfully, "Have you seen, Lockhart's here? Who are you visiting?"
"It's not your business," Aurora muttered under her breath to him, as Neville floundered for an answer.
"Are these friends of yours, Neville, dear?" Augusta asked, and Aurora turned away as the old woman came nearer, certain she could see her family resemblance, know her name, recognise her guilt.
"Yes, yes," she crowed, holding out a hand to Harry. "I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks very highly of you."
"Er, thanks."
"And you two are clearly Weasleys. I know your parents — not well, of course — but fine people, fine people indeed. And you must be Hermione Granger? Yes, Neville's told me all about you, too. Helped him out of a few tricky spots, haven't you? He's a good boy, but he hasn't his father's talent I'm afraid. And who's your other friend with you? Turn around dear."
Aurora turned, still at a loss for what to say, and settled on a horribly meek, "Aurora Black, ma'am."
Augusta Longbottom's extended hand went limp, for just a second, as she stared at her. "Lady Black, is it?" She looked her up and down assessingly, pursed her lips, but then shoved her hand further forward. Aurora shook it hesitantly. "Yes, I believe our families are acquainted. My dear brother-in-law, Harfang, was married to your… Oh, what will it be? A distant cousin, Callidora?"
"First cousin," she said. "Twice removed, I believe. We were actually re-acquainted a year or so ago."
"Interesting woman, Callidora. Not that I see much of her nowadays. I heard you helped Neville out with his Potions some time ago."
"Oh. Yes, I did. And he helped me with Herbology too, he's rather good, and I'm afraid I'm hopeless."
"Hm, well — that's one talent he has, I suppose. Nothing like his father, of course." She pointed over her shoulder to the space where the curtains had been drawn.
"What?" Ronald asked, agape. "Wait, you mean to say that's your dad in there, Neville?"
"What's this, Neville?" Augusta asked sharply. "Haven't you told your friends about your parents, Neville?"
The poor boy had gone purple, flushed with embarrassment and overwhelmed. That secret he had kept to himself all these years had been exposed, and she saw the tremble of his lips as he stared at the ceiling and shook his head.
"We all know he is proud of them," Aurora cut in sharply, before Augusta could make things worse for her grandson. The older woman faltered, looking at her with interest. "Very proud."
"As he should be," Augusta said. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Neville! They didn't give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them!"
"I'm not ashamed," Neville told her faintly. But he would not meet anybody's eyes.
"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it," Augusta snapped. "For those of you who don't know, my son and his wife were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers."
Ronald, who had been craning to get a look at the beds at the end of the ward, fell back down sharply, aghast.
"They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the Wizarding community. Highly thought of, the pair of them. I — yes, Alice, dear, what is it?"
Neville's mother had come down the ward now, looking frail and tired, with wispy white hair that fell limp around bony shoulders. She did not speak, mouth pressed firmly shut, but she held something out to Neville.
"Again?" Augusta asked, voice weary. "Very well, Alice, dear, very well — Neville, take it, whatever it is."
Neville already had, some sad sort of smile just trembling at his lips. In his hand was an empty wrapper for Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. "Very nice, dear."
"Thanks, Mum," Neville said, voice impossibly soft.
Aurora stepped back, behind Harry, as Alice turned to them, a glimmer of curiosity in her eyes. It turned, suddenly, into something darker, a terror gripping her body. She began to shake, raised a hand, and Aurora turned away, busying herself with looking at the pile of autographs on Lockhart's bedside table, her heart pounding. Her fault, her fault. The child they had tried to help, the child that she knew looked so much like the woman who had tortured her. There was a mirror on Lockhart's table and she saw Bellatrix Lestrange reflected in it.
"It's alright, Alice, dear," Neville's grandmother was saying behind her. "Come now, let's get you back to bed. You've said your goodbye to Neville."
A moment later, Aurora braved the scene enough to turn around. Neville's mother was gone and he was staring defiantly at them all as though daring them to laugh. But nobody made a sound.
"Well," Augusta said as she re-emerged from the curtain, pulling on a pair of green velvet gloves. "We'd better get going. Very nice to have met you all. Neville, put that wrapper in the bin on your way out, she must have given you enough to paper your bedroom wall with by now."
But Neville slipped it into his pocket when Augusta wasn't looking. Aurora watched them go, cold and shaken.
"I never knew," Hermione said tearfully, once the door had closed behind them.
"Nor did I."
"Nor me."
They all looked between Aurora and Harry, who seemed himself to have some knowledge. "I did," he told them, with a nervous glance at Aurora. "Dumbledore told me but I said I wouldn't tell anyone. That's what… Someone, a Death Eater, used the Cruciatus curse on Neville's parents and cause them to lose their minds."
"Who?" whispered Hermione. "That's so horrible…"
"I don't know—"
"It was Bellatrix Lestrange," Aurora told them in a clipped voice. Hermione sucked in a breath, and looked at her like she never had before. "My father's cousin. A few nights after You-Know-Who's death… Or whatever we can call that." She shook herself, taking a steadying breath. "We ought to go to. Everyone will be wondering where we are, and we do have to keep to time — Harry and I are going to Andromeda's with my father later."
She swept away, ignoring Lockhart's protestations, her heart hammering so furiously in her chest that she was scared it might just break through her ribs. Augusta had every right to hate her and to look at her with scorn, and Alice had every right to stare at her like she was a monster. Her grandmother had told her that Bellatrix had gone after the Longbottoms because she knew Aurora had been put there, and thought Potter might follow; it was her fault, her father's fault, this was the price blood traitors paid, why it was dangerous to associate with them. She knew in her head it was not the whole truth, it was more to it and at the least, she was not to blame herself. But it didn't stop her conscience sickening and waning.
"There you all are," her father said with a sigh of relief, grinning. "We were just about to head."
Aurora smiled back at him with watery eyes and hugged him tight when she reached his side.
"Hey," he said with a startled laugh, as the others spoke to Molly Weasley, "what's this for?"
"Nothing," she told him, "just wanted to hug you. It's Christmas, right?"
"That it is," he said, surprise still evident in his voice as he held her tightly. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said. "I'm okay." She looked up at him with a feeble smile. "I love you, Dad. Just wanted to remind you."
-*
Aurora, Harry, and her dad went to Tonks Cottage with Remus after they returned from the hospital, for Christmas dinner. Ted's side of the family were not there that year, half of them having gone to Wales, and the others preferring a quiet Christmas to themselves. Privately, Aurora suspected they wanted to keep the circle smaller this year, with everyone who was there. In truth, it may even be a target, seeing as Harry was deemed likely to be murdered anytime the Dark Lord got a chance.
Not that anyone else seemed bothered about that. It was a loud, chaotic affair, filled with laughter and gossip, Andromeda interrogating both Aurora and Harry about their term at school and their O.W.L. progress, Dora changing her face every five minutes, Ted starting up an impromptu karaoke session between their main meal and pudding. Of all the differences between her family, Aurora determined that the one thing they all had in common was being truly atrocious singers.
Andromeda maintained a degree of civility over pudding, though said nothing to Aurora and Harry being snuck glasses of wine by Dora while she and Ted were in the kitchen. By the time they finished and decamped to the lounge, though, the sound of their chatter was at an all-time high, and Dora put on something called a CD player, containing all sorts of new music which only she and Harry seemed truly familiar with. This did not stop Andromeda and Aurora's father from trying to dance along, pretending as if they did know it perfectly well and acting affronted whenever Harry or Dora called them out on an incorrect lyric.
"They all look ridiculous," Aurora commented to Remus, who just grinned, shaking his head.
"And should they not be allowed to look a bit ridiculous? It is Christmas, after all."
Aurora shrugged. When her father extended a hand to her to haul her up to join them, she made the same reluctant show as when dragged into Christmas carols, but secretly, surrounded by her family and friends, without anyone to judge her, she found her heart was lighter than it had been in a long time.
The revelries continued throughout the next week, seeing a different relative or friend every day. Her father was keeping himself entertained, she realised; he was happiest when he was not in Grimmauld Place, and so determined to get out somewhere else every day, even if it was to St. Mungo's, which Aurora had visited once out of politeness towards Arthur Weasley, and she never wanted to go there again. No matter how big the hospital was, it made her feel immediately claustrophobic, like she could feel death pushing in.
On the morning of New Year's Eve, with everybody else visiting Arthur Weasley in hospital, Aurora took the time to wander the halls of Grimmauld Place on her own. Things were oddly quiet without everybody there; only Hestia Jones remained downstairs in case of an emergency, and the house elves were taking the day off in the back of the kitchen. Apparently there was some sort of tension between Tilly and Kreacher, which Dippy was reticent to give any hints as to the nature of, other than that they disagreed on the nature of duty. Aurora put it down to Kreacher merely being more crotchety than usual. She hadn't seen him in quite a few days until he reappeared a few days before the New Year, complaining about her father's presence yet again. Aurora gave him a wide berth, to let it all out of his system, and instructed the others to do the same. She would get the truth out of him eventually, she was sure, when he was willing to speak up as she wished he would.
Instead, that day, she decided to go to the one room she had never entered; her Uncle Regulus's childhood bedroom, right across the hall from her father's. She entered with trepidation, a cold chill working at the back of her neck.
It could not have been more different to her father's old room, which she had seen before; it was painted in emerald green, Slytherin banners hanging from the walls, along with dull landscapes of a gentle sea and dark caves. There was no warmth to the room, and Aurora felt oddly weightless when she was inside it. The windows were darkened, and she could barely make out the white street below.
Around her neck, Julius hissed. "What is it?" she asked him in a whisper. "Julius?"
The snake fell silent. Then, after a moment, "This room is not right, Lady Black."
"Whatever do you mean?"
Cold crawled over her skin, raised the hairs on her arms. "He is still here."
"Who? Regulus?" Julius hissed again and said no more. "You are rather useless at times, you know."
"I cannot help it. I still retain something of my old self, and he is scared. I am only human."
"You're a piece of metal."
"Am I, now? How rude, child. Like calls to like, and I can sense him."
"What do you mean, like calls to like?" Julius hissed. "I asked you a question, Julius. Stop being annoying and tell me."
"I do not know what he is, so I cannot say. But I feel him. I am dead, and he is dead, and yet we both occupy this space now, do we not? We share our blood."
Aurora frowned, puzzling over his words. "But how do you occupy this space? What mechanisms — I mean, you're not actually Julius in the sense of a reincarnation… Do you mean he's like a ghost?"
"No. I do not know. But his is not the only spirit I feel in this house… They linger. I cannot escape. I will say no more," he said, more defiantly this time. "Pretend I am not here."
"Well, if anything tries to attack me, you're supposed to protect me."
Julius hissed again, this time a more imperious, derisive sort of sound. "You don't need protected. Not here."
That was somewhat comforting, at least. Aurora crept over to the desk, covered in layers of dust which she swept away to reveal old parchment, a dried-out quill, and a drizzle of candle wax still tacked onto the mahogany wood. In a corner of the desk was a stack of strange gold contraptions; one with interlocking circles, with a handle that made them turn and create a sphere. There were runes inscribed along their curves — or at least, what looked like runes — but Aurora did not recognise them at all.
Next to the sphere was what may have been a mirror, with black velvet curtains drawn over a milky, slightly cracked surface, and then a crystal pyramid, again with those unfamiliar runes. But the pyramid itself seemed familiar; it reminded her of an Agrippan pyramid, with one's Arithmantic numbers inscribed upon it to charge its power. Together with the runes, though, she did not fully understand its purpose.
"You don't happen to know what these runes mean, do you, Julius?"
She held the pendant aloft and away from her so that he could see. His emerald eyes twinkled. "They are old," he said, "I was never taught, but my father wrote with them. Soul runes, he called them."
"Soul runes? What does that mean?"
"What it sounds like, I suppose. They were part of his rituals. Perhaps more popular in Normandy than in England."
"Did he ever use those in the blessing?" she asked before she could stop herself. Julius was silent. "You know, when your father cast the blessing upon you and your brothers, so that you could not harm one another."
"I do not know. My father did not deign to inform me of what he ordered us to do. We only knew to obey. That is why he bound us in the first place. He was afraid we would not obey him, and that we might not obey his successor. Cyphus. I was the youngest, but everybody knew I was best suited to lordship. He did that to bind me, confine me to a pitiful existence trying to achieve immortality and failing, no doubt because of his ridiculous bargain."
"What bargain?"
"Oh, how should I know? Father never told us anything, least of all me! We are bound still, and we had no say in the matter." He quieted for a moment, leaving Aurora to ponder his words. "But yes, I think he may have used those runes. He always did. He loved experimenting, especially when it came to us. He sought immortality, you see. He never got it — and a good thing, for the sake of the entire world — but oh, he would never stop."
"But if you never learnt these runes, how does my Uncle Regulus use them?"
"Who is to say he did? He may only own something with those runes on it and not know what they mean."
"No," Aurora said, with inexplicable confidence, "no, he must have understood. He was bright."
"May I ask what your evidence for that is?"
"I just know."
Julius laughed flatly. "You just know."
Aurora ignored him and pulled gently on the handle of the top drawer of the desk. It was stuck firmly shut, but she wiggled it about, trying to free it from sixteen years of disuse. The wood groaned, but gave way, and the drawer sprung open. Julius let out another hiss of displeasure, and she stifled his protestations by clasping the pendant tight.
The drawer was neat, even neater than Aurora's own. Everything was divided into sections, sheafs of parchment were bound together, nothing seemed at all amiss from the meticulous collection of specimens.
She took to the parchment first, searching for anything he might have written that would give her clues. Everything was blank, but for a few splodges of ink around the edges, as though the writing had been scrubbed off and only a few spots missed. She reached to the back of the drawer, finding a handful of ciphers, packaged together. She didn't know how to differentiate them or categorise them, but flicking through, she only searched for something with runes on it, and was sorely disappointed when there were none.
She placed the ciphers back carefully, gaze lingering on the remaining quills and disused ink pots and, poking out from the bottom of the pile of parchment, an old photo frame.
Aurora lifted it out, finding cracked glass and splintered wood around a small oil painting of two young boys, unmistakably her father and his brother. They could only have been around ten and eleven, both in black silk robes edged with green, both with perfectly gelled hair and straight, strained smiles. Children. Her uncle had kept this, hidden away, but he had kept it all the same.
Aurora smiled, placing it back for safekeeping.
"I do wonder about this mirror-thing," she said to Julius. "It's odd."
"I do not like this room. I can feel him. It is too much."
"Regulus?" She looked around, though of course her uncle was not there. Her gaze landed on the Black family crest painted above the four-poster bed, and the yellowed newspaper cuttings beneath. Curious, she walked over to inspect them, wondering what sort of thing her uncle had been interested in, what he had a passion for.
They were all about the Dark Lord.
It should not have been a surprise, and to the rational part of Aurora's brain it was not. Yet, it was somehow difficult to work into her self-curated image of her uncle, this collection of cuttings spanning the wall, pasted up there like a shrine to some wicked god, someone who had killed so many people, someone whom Aurora had been determined to believe her uncle had died fighting.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Calls Minister Jenkins 'Pitiful and Weak', 'Muggle-Lover'; Senior Ministy Official Disappears; Bellatrix Lestrange Suspected Death Eater; Three Muggleborns Dead in You-Know-Who's Tirade Against Impurity; Journalist Who Claimed You-Know-Who To Be Halfblood, Found Dead in Winchester.
Over and over, more and more.
Who Really Is You-Know-Who — A Lifetime of Murders; In Defence of the Pureblood Regime (from a now-defunct paper, Merlin's Herald); Inside the War.
It turned her stomach, this stark evidence of who he had been, even if it had not been who he died as. It made angry tears bloom in her eyes, as she realised him, and as she realised her own ignorance, too. She hadn't seen Draco's room in years; might it be like this, might he collect stories and anecdotes and idols and dream of joining up some day? It wouldn't have surprised her.
She turned away sharply, feeling nauseous, and went back to the desk, doing a last rummage through and finding nothing. She didn't want to disturb the room too much; Julius was right, there was something strange, a presence that ought not to be there.
The pressure of who her uncle had been haunted her. Not a good man, not if he was obsessed with someone like that, a murderer whose ranks he sought to join. There had been an image in her head, that perhaps he was to be pitied, forced into the ranks of the Death Eaters, even though she had known her grandmother herself had been reticent to give any overt support to the Dark Lord. But here was evidence of his personal interest, even intense passion, for the cause that had almost killed her, had killed her mother and so many others. It had taken him in the end, too, and she hoped he had changed.
But that shrine on the wall disgusted her and rocked her to her core. She could feel him, in her torturous imagination, cold hands of a phantom around her neck. Only her imagination, she knew.
Still, she was on sudden alert, listening for every movement with her heart in her throat. The past came back to haunt her in unexpected ways, spectres she hadn't even known existed.
"Lady Black?" Julius said, voice soft. "Are you quite alright?"
"Yes," she said thickly. She shook her head, rolling her shoulders back. "I just didn't expect… Well, all of this. All of him."
"Families have a tendency to disappoint," Julius told her. "It is true. I do not know enough of this Dark Lord, but I can measure the shape of him. This family does not bow to false lords."
"Well, they did," Aurora snapped back, heart racing. "No matter what else he did, or they did, they bowed. And even if they had not bowed, they certainly never would have fought against him."
But her father did, Andromeda did, those who had been exiled did. They had been cast out, away from the family's power, but they had fought. Now she had that power.
She turned sharply back to the desk, rifling through for Regulus' ciphers, and the sheafs of indicipherable, coded notes. "I still need to know what he did. Even if he isn't the person I wanted to believe he was, he saved my life and I must know why."
"And if the answer is not to your liking?"
She swallowed tightly and let the question linger in the air. "It will be an answer nonetheless." She placed the notes and ciphers in her pockets and closed the door tightly, as though that might contain the history within this house from spilling over. "You said you could feel more than one spirit here, Julius?"
"I can always feel spirits. There are so many at your school it overwhelms me. There are only a few here, and they are different. Not ghosts. There was another, once, a strange and wicked one, but it is gone now, and I am glad."
"Who?"
"I do not know. It came after the boy's death and it kept us locked away. But we are safe now."
Regulus' spirit, she thought, it must have been. something must have changed between then and now, to make him more amenable, whether her father's presence or just as a result of time.
Downstairs, she heard the front door unlock and the hallway flood with whispers. They were all back from hospital, and she knew it would not be more than five minutes before her father came looking for her after his arrival.
She made sure everything was back in place before slipping out the door, closing and locking it softly behind her. Then she hurried back to her own room, just managing to stow the papers and ciphers away in her trunk before her father appeared at the door to say hello, and remind her about the MacMillans' party that evening, as if she was capable of forgetting.
Before getting changed or anything of the sort, though, Aurora had to speak with Potter. She managed to get a moment alone with him after lunch, in the library, on the pretense of working on a Potions essay together.
"I'm almost certain Rita Skeeter will be there tonight," she told him, "in her Animagus form — the beetle." She had managed to tell him, Granger, and Weasley that detail a few days before, but only in passing, due to how many people were around them all the time. "This could be our chance to unveil her, or to capture her." That had been Granger's suggestion, to blackmail Skeeter into keeping quiet. Aurora had had to admit it was a good enough idea, but she also had a desire for revenge lodged deeply within her. Skeeter keeping quiet would be good, but Skeeter thoroughly ruining her own reputation and exposing her own lies, would be better.
"We have to make sure we get ahold of her somehow. She'll be keeping watch on everyone, of course, but I suspect she'll be watching out for us, too."
"I knew I shouldn't have agreed to go," Harry muttered, and she shushed him.
"You shouldn't have to worry about her. And soon enough, you won't. Hermione made me this jar," she told him, pulling over the enchanted jar on her bedside table. "She had to get Fred and George to enchant it, but it won't break, and there's a hole in the top just enough to let her breathe. Hermione thinks we should keep her there for a couple of weeks. Give her time to reflect."
"A couple of weeks?" Harry stared at the jar. "Stuck in there?"
"Yes, I'm not so sure. I'd like to make use of her as soon as possible, but we can decide the details later, once we actually have her. Now, you'll have deeper pockets than me, so I think you should keep this."
"Trying to plant the evidence on me already?"
"No," Aurora said sharply, then calmed when she realised he was only teasing. He raised his eyebrows. "Just take it, Potter."
Grudgingly, he did, though still glaring at her. "You're not really going to keep her in a jar, are you?"
"I don't know. It's not up to me, Hermione came up with half the plan. But this will trap her for the meantime. Personally, I'm inclined to just expose her secret right then and there, but that'll only get her thrown in jail, and not so much damage the credibility of what she's actually said. If anything, it'll make her more credible, that she may have heard what others could not, and therefore know the truth."
"I suppose," Harry said, glaring at the jar as if it, too, had done him a personal injustice. "You're sure she's a beetle?"
In truth, she had questioned multiple times whether she could trust Pansy's word on the matter. But she had seemed genuine and it was all that Aurora had to go off of. It had to be the truth. She couldn't stand for it to be otherwise.
"I suppose we will find out tonight," she said, pushing the jar into Potter's grip as she stood. "Be ready for eight o'clock, please."
"We don't have to be there until nine!"
"Yes, but I want to be organised. And make sure you comb your hair."
"Of course I'll comb my hair!"
"Just checking," Aurora retorted with a snide smile. "And mind that jar!"
Harry barrelled into the lounge at twenty-five to nine, much to Aurora's consternation, dressed in new dress robes the same bottle-green as he had worn the year before. She had forced him to buy new ones, having seen him try them on a few days prior and realise the hem was three inches up his calves. She looked him and down with scrutiny, lounging against the sofa.
"And here I thought boys always blamed women for being slow to get ready."
"You said to comb my hair!"
"I have five times as much hair as you do, and I have been here far longer than you." In truth, she had only been waiting five minutes. She had known Harry would be late; the eight o'clock deadline was a preventative measure.
"Where's Sirius? He's later than me."
"He'll be here. He's still picking out a bow-tie."
Potter pulled a face. "You made him wear a bow-tie?"
"He wanted to wear one! Anyway, just sit down, we'll only be a moment."
She herself was in a new inner robe, which was really more a dress Dora had seen in a shop and thought would suit her well; deep purple velvet embroidered with stars, which fell to just above her ankles. It was worn beneath a matching velvet cape and secured with a slim silver belt. It was a tad unorthodox, but Leah told her everybody would be, and that slightly shorter dresses were acceptable given the buoyant dancing that would be taking place. In her hair, she wore the purple ribbons Theo had given her for Christmas, threaded through the braids which held the front of her hair up at the back of her head, letting her natural curls flood straight down her back.
Potter sat, thrumming his fingers against his knees, impatient. When he got bored of that, he ran his hands through his hair, and when he got bored of that, started pacing around the room. Aurora glared at him as she watched.
"Tonight will be fine," she told him with a sigh, "if you only stop working yourself up about it all."
"I don't like… People. It's going to be like one of the stuffy dinner parties my aunt used to have."
"I think it will be quite a bit bigger than that. And from what Leah said, it won't be that stuffy. Anyway, if it's that bad, you and my father will suffer together."
Potter fiddled with his hem. "You really do this all the time?"
"It's not so bad. Just give it a chance. I didn't make you come, you chose to, you can at least be a bit more cheerful."
"You basically coerced—"
"Bickering already?" her father asked as he breezed into the room, turning in his midnight-blue robes as the tail whirled around him.
"No," they said in unison.
He looked between them dubiously and sighed. "Will you be able to stop bickering while at the party?"
"Maybe."
Pinching his brow, his muttered, "Well, at least I'll have some entertainment. Come on, we'll be late. You're both alright with the Floo, yes?"
They both nodded, and followed him to the kitchen, where they went through the fireplace to Arbrus Hill, and from there, on towards Fort MacMillan. Aurora had seen the grand fortress in pictures, its imposing grey stone set within misty mountains full of pine trees. She had imagined it would be cold inside, given the winter weather, but the lord's hall was pleasingly warm from the constantly roaring fireplaces. Aurora stared around at the ancient portraits and busts of lords and ladies long gone by, and the grand golden sceptre glistening with sapphires which was held up beside the doorway.
"Aurora!" Leah's voice cried as she barrelled towards her across the grand hall, in icy blue silk and silver beading that made her glisten with every step. "You're late!"
"I am not," Aurora retorted, hurt. "It's ten to nine. You said to be here at nine."
"You're always early for everything."
"They're not," Aurora said, jabbing her thumb towards her father and Potter, who were just stepping out of the fireplace behind her, looking bewildered. "They're absolute nightmares."
"Oh, they're Gryffindors," Leah said dismissively, wrapping Aurora tightly in a hug. "And you're here now, come on, please, my mother is dying to see you, and she'll be so excited about meeting your father and Harry Potter! My dad's a big supporter of Dumbledore, too — most everybody here is, so you don't have to worry about anything awkward here — and he's delighted we're the ones to finally get you out of your seclusion."
"Is that right?" Aurora's father said faintly. Potter said nothing, but followed them through the entrance to the grand blue ballroom, and then on to the high table where Lord MacMillan sat conversing with Vaisey.
"Father?" Leah called. "Lady Black and Lord Potter. And Sirius Black," she tacked on, an uncertain twinge to her voice.
Lord MacMillan beamed, as did Lord Vaisey. Felix grinned at Aurora and Leah, though his gaze glinted curiously at Potter.
"Lady Black," MacMillan said smoothly. "As charming as ever. And Lord Potter; it is lovely to see you outside of the Assembly Chamber. My son speaks very highly of you."
Ernie smiled as though Potter could receive no higher recommendation than his. "Er, thanks," Potter said awkwardly, running a hand through his hair, then pausing as though he had just remembered being told not to do that. It made him look nervous.
"Now, Mr. Black… Why, I remember you from my schooldays."
"You do?" he asked in a cool tone. "Oh, dear."
MacMillan chuckled. "No, no — I was in my sixth year when you started, I'm sure. Your father was quite the character, Lady Black. Come, come — the children want to socialise, I can tell, how about we catch up?"
Her father stared at him, but somehow propelled himself into action, with a few clumsy steps towards the adults at the high table. Ernie hurried down, followed by his youngest sister Louise, and Felix Vaisey, and took Aurora by the arm, whispering, "Hannah and Susan are somewhere about, though you might want to avoid Zacharias Smith, he's been an awful bore. Blaise Zabini's here, too, from your house."
"Blaise? Why?"
"My father's cousin is having an affair with his mother."
Aurora let out a cold laugh. "Has he written his will yet?"
Ernie stared at her for a moment and forced a nervous chuckle, as if the entire Wizarding world didn't know of Estelle's reputation. Annoyed, Aurora thought Theo would have laughed, had he been there. She needed a good conversation at these things, to direct her from the awfulness of most of the people around her. But Ernie continued his ceaseless chatter about who was there and why, and of course who liked him the most. At least, Aurora thought, listening to the list with at least a more interested expression than whatever Potter was managing, Rita Skeeter would get plenty of gossip out of tonight.
Meeting up with Hannah and Susan was fun, at least. Aurora liked the two girls, especially Susan, who she secretly thought should have won the title of best duellist in their fourth year. "That's Amelia Bones," Harry whispered to Aurora, pointing out Susan's aunt, "she stuck up for me at my trial."
"Of course she did," Aurora said simply, "she's fair, and she's solidly Dumbledore, too. Most people here are."
"Leah said. I didn't realise you two were such good friends. And I've been thinking, about the D — that thing I told you about, Elise came to our last session and I think that — what?"
Aurora was staring fiercely at the beetle perched on Terebell Huntingdon's shoulder a few paces away. "Nothing," she said breathlessly, "how about we get a drink?"
She dragged him away with a half-hearted offer to bring back drinks for everybody else, and once they were out of earshot, bent over champagne flutes, whispered, "Skeeter's on Lady Huntingdon's shoulder."
Potter made to turn around and Aurora shoved his shoulder. "Don't look, you idiot, that'll make it obvious we know! But she's here, that's got to be her, there aren't many beetles hanging out on people's shoulders in the highlands in December." She took a long sip of her drink, handing Harry his own glass, which he appeared baffled by. "We have to get her, this is our chance, if we can start a conversation in that area—"
"Lady Black," said a familiar, velvety voice. Her stomach dropped instantly. Her hands tightened around the glass as she took another long drink and turned to face Blaise.
"Zabini." She looked him up and down slowly, with a cold, deliberate smile. "I had thought you'd be with the Malfoys. Such a disappointment."
"Mum thought she'd get more out of this party," he explained, while looking Potter up and down. Potter glared stonily at him in response. "You look good, Lady Black. If I'd known, I'd dressed up a bit more."
Aurora swore she heard Potter whisper, "What the fuck?" under his breath.
"Your mistake," she retorted. Blaise picked up a glass, smirking.
"You wound me, Lady Black." His gaze flickered to Harry again. "Is he going to be hanging around you all night?"
Heart pounding, Aurora replied evenly, "I'm on babysitting duty while my father talks to the grown ups. If you'd give us a moment, actually—"
"Aurora," her father's voice cut through the crowd behind them. She withheld a groan at Blaise's curious expression. "Are you aware — oh. Who's this?"
"Blaise Zabini," she said in a small voice, trying to play it cool.
Her father's expression hardened. "Ah. I see. Pleased to meet you. You two, come with me a moment?"
Surprised, Aurora bade Blaise a quick and relieved goodbye, following her father to a quieter spot. Potter kept glancing back over his shoulder, trying to see if Skeeter was still on Lady Huntingdon's shoulder, but she appeared to have gone now. If it had even been her.
"Are you aware," her father asked her quietly, when they were away from others' earshot, "that the MacMillans are considering you might want to marry their son?"
"Oh, do they? That's nice."
"Aurora!"
"Well, I kind of thought that might be the case — we haven't discussed it, and I don't know if I would or not, but it's good to know I'm seen as a desirable match, for anyone."
"Well, we've just been discussing it! Lord MacMillan asked me if I've put any thought to your dowry in the last two years. And Lords Vaisey and Thorel did too — or I think it was them anyway."
Aurora withheld a laugh at the flustered expression on her father's face, trying to keep down the growing knots of nerves inside of herself. "This was always going to happen. I'm… A young woman, now. I'm of age next year. Which will be this year, as of a few hours' time."
"You're not marrying Ernie MacMillan."
"I never said I was. He's far too dull for me."
"Well, they're considering it — I've been ambushed, they asked if you've got any suitors, I said no, then I remembered about that Blaise bloke—"
"Blaise is definitely not a suitor!"
"But I still said no, 'cause it's not like anyone's asked me, but I don't really think I like anyone asking me anyway, you're far too young."
"I am sixteen."
"That's too young!"
"You were nineteen when I was born, you hypocrite! And I know you and my mum were my age when you got together!"
He scowled and whisked Harry's glass out of his hand, downing it. "And you're too young to drink, too, Harry."
"You told me you started drinking at school when you were fourteen."
"Well, that was a different time. God, I hate this stuff. What is wrong with people? I thought we'd at least moved on a bit since I was your age."
"The lords of the assembly never move on," Aurora muttered, watching the cliques coalesce before her. "Not even the progressive ones."
Just then, there was a loud screech from the band at the top of the room, as someone started up on the fiddle. Her father's mood brightened, and he grinned as a wizard announced the first dance: a riverside reel.
"What is that, exactly?" Aurora asked, never having heard of it before.
"Much more fun than anything you've done with the Malfoy lot, I guarantee you."
"That doesn't really answer—"
"Lady Black," said Ernie MacMillan's voice from behind. She turned, putting on a smile as he inclined his head to her father and then offered his hand to her. "Would you do me the honour of the first dance? If it is alright by your father."
Her dad let out a strangled noise. "Would it matter if it weren't?" she asked before she could stop herself, voice tense. Ernie's forehead creased in a momentary frown. "Yes, Mister MacMillan. I would be delighted."
At least he, presumably, knew what he was doing with this dance. She gave her stunned father a sarcastic little wave and let MacMillan lead her to the ballroom floor, where Leah was locked into a pairing with Felix Vaisey, both of them just about managing to look happy about the situation.
"I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with these dances," Aurora told Ernie over the chatter as people rushed to find their partners. "In fact, I've never been to an event of this sort before."
"Oh, it's quite simple," Ernie said. "I'm sure you can pick it up. If not, just copy what I do, this one's easy to do that with. When I reach for you, take my hand, and I'll turn you. When I skip or hop, you do the same. And when I turn and run, you do the same then, too."
"Run? How do I run, in a dance?"
Ernie shrugged. "However you want to. Sometimes you have to scream."
She stared at him, sure this was a joke, but he was entirely serious. "Alright then," she said faintly, "screaming it is."
"You'll find its rather cathartic, actually. And trust me, it's far better than any dull waltz or structured quadrille."
"I like a quadrille."
"This is still far better."
"I think you may be rather biased. But, you may be right. I suppose we shall see."
Then and started up again as everyone fell into positions, and Ernie guided Aurora to stand across from him, between Felix Vaisey and Robert Huntingdon. "We're supposed to alternate pairings formations," Ernie explained, "because we wind up turning as a four at one point. It's not that difficult, just copy me, I'm really good."
"He's useless," Leah said, eyeing her brother with disdain. "You have to pas de basque twice — like a pas de chat, but smaller — then Ernie'll do it, then you again, then Ernie, then you turn each other, then turn to the top couple — Felix and I — do the same again, turn to your own partner, put your hand in the middle and walk clockwise for four counts, turn and walk back for another four, walk in to meet Ernie in the middle, turn under one another to swap positions, stand back so me and Felix can run down, and then do the same again but with Hannah and Huntingdon."
Aurora tried to remember even half of that. "Don't worry," Felix told her, "I've only done this twice and it really is easy enough to look like you know what you're doing."
"I prefer to actually know what I'm doing," she said, and Felix laughed.
"You'll be fine. I'm sure you'll be better than me anyway, you know I've two left feet."
She did recall numerous particularly inelegant Quidditch dismounts recently. "Don't knock into me, then," she told him, "I shan't have anything make me worse."
But it actually wasn't so difficult as she had thought. The music was lively, quick, and the dance repeated again and again, only sometimes more intense. It was easy enough once she got the hang of it, just fast, and Ernie clearly a lot more confident than her, but the music propelled her and kept her right, as did the symmetry of movement all around her. All the turning made the room a blur, made her head spin and breath catch, but in a good way.
It went on forever and yet was over too soon, the music swelling to a close just as Aurora felt she knew what she was doing. They went through another four different dances, alternating partners, before Aurora noticed her father hadn't moved at all all night, merely watching on the sidelines, another empty glass in his hand. He looked forlorn, alone, so ill at ease with everyone and everything around him. Aurora's chest tightened with guilt that she had talked him into this, when he was so unhappy with it.
"Will you excuse me for this one?" she asked Felix, who she had just been dancing with. "I should speak with my father."
"Of course," he said, nodding. "Everything alright?"
Aurora nodded. "Absolutely — I'll be back soon."
She hurried away across the room, and reached her father at just the same moment as Potter did, leaving him rather bewildered when he finally noticed them.
"Enjoying yourselves?"
"Very much so," Aurora told him breezily. Potter pulled a dubious face.
"I'm not really sure who I was dancing with, to be honest."
"Lord Thorel's niece, Alina Carroll."
"That doesn't mean much, but thanks."
"Are you alright?" Aurora asked her father, ignoring Potter's comment. "You've been in the same spot all night."
"'Course I'm alright," he said, a blatant lie. His grip tightened around his wine glass, which Aurora regarded with suspicion. "I'm just not used to being at such big events. It's really full of people. All a bit much." He forced a strained smile. "You looked like you're picking it up alright."
"Yeah," Aurora said enthusiastically. "It's actually really fun. You should join in."
"Oh." Her father blinked. "No, no, dancing isn't really my thing."
"Yes it is. I've seen you dance."
"Not like this. Not socially. I'm too old for all this."
"Lord Abbott's about three times your age and he's still up there. Come on, Dad, it'll be fun! You need to enjoy yourself."
"I am enjoying myself."
"You look bored out your mind," Aurora said flatly. "Doesn't he, Potter?"
"I…" Potter glanced between them both, as if unsure of whose side he was supposed to take. Aurora gave him a firm look and he acquiesced. "A bit. But dancing's a bit crap, anyway."
Aurora sighed, glancing over her shoulder to see everyone gathering in groups of three. "Come on, look, this one calls for three. You two are coming with me."
"Aurora, I really don't think—"
"Put your glass down," she said firmly as she grabbed his hand, and then Potter's. With a sigh, her father did so, and she smiled. "It's fun when you get started, just you wait."
Apprehensive though he was, her father started off the dance moodily, but Aurora knew as soon as he started that he knew it, innately, from some deeper memory she had yet to realise. She didn't know what to do beyond the quick instructions Lord MacMillan gave them while standing across from her before they started, but her father led the way for her and for Potter, and eventually, as she put every ounce of enthusiasm in her body into swinging him around, he began to smile, even to laugh at Potter's flailing and her snapping every time that she messed up herself.
When the dance finished they were all breathless, and though her father's smile faded quickly, it had been there, however fleetingly. "That wasn't too bad," her father said, already making his way to leave the dance floor, "but I think I'm a bit tired out."
"No, please—"
"Lord Vaisey," Potter whispered in her ear suddenly. Aurora jumped, staring at him, as he hurried off the dance floor behind her father. She had no option but to follow.
"What about her?"
"There's a beetle on his right shoulder."
Her heart picked up. She turned ever so slightly, to see the beetle out the corner of her eye. "That's her. It's got to be, hasn't it."
"Got to be who?" her father asked, frowning.
"Doesn't matter," Aurora said quickly, turning around at the edge of the table. "Hey, Leah's hailing us over, we should go."
"That's change of tune. Am I just to stand here now?"
"Well…"
"What's going on?" Her father glanced between them, suspicion creasing his brow into a frown. "Why are you two sneaking around together?"
"Sneaking around?"
"Us?"
"Never!"
"We wouldn't dare."
"Not a sneaky bone in either of our bodies."
"Yeah, right, cause I'll believe that. You've both got way too much of your dads in you. Come on, spill. I'm cool, you can tell me."
Potter and Aurora exchanged glances. Aurora raised her eyebrows in a way that asked, Should we tell him?, and Potter shrugged in a way that said, I dunno, up to you, and she glared at him in a way that said Make up your mind, and he sighed in return and turned to her father.
He leaned over to whisper in his ear. Aurora's father's eyes widened. "You're joking? Ha!"
"It's not funny," Aurora said in a clipped tone.
"Do you just like capturing unsuspected illegal Animagi? Is this a new hobby? Should I be worried?"
"Keep your voice down," Aurora hissed, trying to keep her gaze subtly focused on the flitting beetle. "Actually — well, you are decent with an immobulus?"
Her father stared at her, the corners of his mouth lifting into a barely concealed smirk. "You want me to attack someone at a formal event?"
"It's not an attack—"
"I've got plenty experience causing a scene."
"Dad…"
He grinned, fingertips already twitching towards the wand in the pocket of his dress robe. "Am I the coolest dad, and godfather, in the world?"
"If you do it right, you might be in contention."
Her father grinned, a spark in his eye as if there was nothing in the world that brought him greater joy than causing mischief. "This is a lot more fun than dancing, I must say." He turned, eyeing up the beetle that was now fluttering around Lord Vaisey's shoulder. "We need to move closer," he said, "and if anybody asks, nobody knows anything. Least of all you two."
"Got it," Aurora said, unexpectedly thrilled by the prospect. She and Harry stood next to each other, following her father, trying not to catch one another's eyes lest they laugh or give away any other entertained expression.
They kept up an idle chatter of mostly gibberish, approaching until they were close enough to Vaisey, and her father turned, asking Harry if he had spotted the MacMillans again anywhere, slipping a casual, "Immobulus," under his breath as Harry responded.
The beetle by Vaisey froze, and her father made a clumsy step back, barging right into him.
"Father!" Aurora cried out, trying to look as shocked as possible, reaching for him as both he and Vaisey wobbled on the spot, Vaisey's wine going flying. "Oh, gosh, Lord Vaisey, I am ever so sorry — my father — he's dreadfully clumsy, I'm so sorry."
Her father made a great show of having fallen onto the floor, and as he stood, grabbed something off the stone. Aurora's cheeks flamed with embarrassment, while Potter watched on, nothing less than supremely amused.
"Ah, dear," her father said, "looks like someone's been rather vigorous with a mop here."
"Father!"
But Lord Vaisey laughed along with him, somewhat unsettled but with his usual decent temperament. Felix Vaisey caught Aurora's eye over his shoulder and grinned, as the crowd around them turned back to usual conversation, seeing no real gossip was at hand. Her father slipped a shiny beetle into his pocket, and clapped Vaisey on the shoulder.
"Think I'll go check on my robes. You two, with me."
Aurora and Harry followed, hiding smiles until they were in a deserted hallway, and Potter burst out laughing.
"This isn't funny," Aurora reprimanded with a smirk. "You've got her, then?"
"A marauder's work is never done," her father responded with a deep, theatrical bow, sweeping back the tails of his robe and beaming. "And you can always count on a marauder to get the work done."
"Mischief managed?" Potter asked, grinning, and Aurora and her father simply could not resist their own smiles.
"Mischief managed."
"To be contrary," Aurora said with a smirk, "mission accomplished. But yes, the mischief has been managed, too."
"What are you going to do with it now, then?"
"Potter has a jar," Aurora said, and he helpfully took it out, right on cue.
Her father stared between them. "You're putting a journalist in a jar?"
"Yes. It was Hermione Granger's idea. What we do after that is still up for debate."
"Aurora and Hermione disagree."
"Debate is healthy. But, she did come up with this presumably indestructible jar — the Weasley twins helped — and she has some sort of plan. We'll see her and Ronald tomorrow to discuss it."
"So that's why you wanted to have them over to Arbrus Hill?" Her father laughed, shaking his head. "Hand it over, then, Harry. I have to say I wasn't expecting this. Do be careful, though. Skeeter's dangerous with a quill."
"She won't have any in there."
"No but presumably you'll have to let her out at some point?"
"She committed the bigger crime. She's not going to out herself."
For a second, there was a fleeting frown of worry over his face. But it cleared, into a grin, and he said, "We'll make marauders out of you yet."