Guess who's hard drive died a week ago?
Chapter 9: Us and our brothers and sisters
Adrienne's eyes weren't on her older sister and younger brother when the great-grandmother she had never known called for everyone's attention – and, they didn't move onto Melania Black right away either, because the girl was engaged in a staring contest with the oldest girl of their lot.
Or rather, she and Lamia were expressively eyebrowing each other, as if they could somehow manage to convey meanings no one else could guess through the sole power of their eyebrows moving up and down. Maybe she should add a little wincing, to make it more diverse – they had some decisions to take, between her group of siblings and Lamia's, and at some point some of the teens would let something slip so it was better to agree on what was possible to disclose right now.
Not that it would change much of anything, at this point, for Sirius to learn that "Adhara's children" amongst his children actually knew a group of the others, because Adrienne's mom had gotten herself flung into Sirius Black's reality against all odds – hadn't there been a weird machine, too, in Mom and Sirius' story, now that she thought about it? – and therefore Lamia and the three others were actually cousins because the twins had been reunited.
It would hurt Sirius – Sirius, who wasn't Adrienne's dad, who was her uncle, and yet. Mom and Sirius were twins, brother and sister, but there was something more to it, anyone could tell. Adhara Black was Sirius, in a way, and Sirius Black was Adhara, kind of. It would hurt him to know that there was a world where they were together, but it was obvious it wouldn't change anything at all.
It would be hard to explain, though.
Maybe they should tell him – later. Not right now. Everything was weird enough as it was.
Across the room, Lamia rolled her eyes – Circe, did she look like Adrienne's mom! It was even more obvious now that Adrienne had to contemplate the possibility that they would never see Adhara Black again. Or Dad, or Regulus and Amanda, or Alshain, or Sirius and Eleanor, or...
Not quite, at least.
Adrienne started to bite her lower lip, then – she didn't want to think of that, of the friends who weren't even born in this time, of the people she could never meet as they used to be until a few hours ago, because they weren't those people yet, and...
A hand on her left arm got her attention, and Adrienne looked at her older sister, who was nodding at Lamia – putting the matter on hold, anyway, what could they decide through eye-rolls and lifted brows?
Marianne's brown hair wavered against her jawline as her sister turned around to look at Adrienne. She was the one who looked the most like Dad, everyone always said that. It had Adrienne wonder where her father was, now – in this time. He'd been slightly younger than Mom, right, so... If Sirius was just short of twenty years old, was Dad out of Hogwarts yet? Or was he still in seventh year, studying for his NEWTs with his hufflepuff friends?
"We'll talk with our cousins later, Adrienne. Sirius will have to leave us alone at some point, I think Juliet is only... five, right now, he has to go and get her. For now..."
A pointed look at Procyon, and their brother immediately felt Marianne had something to tell him in particular. The boy – twelve, defiant, and a bloody Gryffindor to the core – scowled at his sisters.
"What?!"
Marianne gave him an unimpressed look, and Adrienne smirked.
"For now, we're keeping our mouths shut about Mom and Sirius. I don't see the point of lying about that, honestly, but we can't just..."
Adrienne offered:
"Blurt it out to everyone and anyone, while only giving small details so that the adults all get confused and start demanding answers and we have to explain it seven times and a half?"
"That."
Procyon growled.
"I'm not an idiot!"
Adrienne scoffed, and Marianne sighed – Marianne did that a lot, and then she'd start trying to mend her siblings' rows, but her younger sister thought Procyon deserved it anyway.
"That's not... You're twelve, Procyon. You're young, and sometimes that means you don't take, you can't take the time to see all the consequences to even one action. And it's not just you, it's also Elizabeth and Aldebaran..."
As she said their names, Marianne stole a glance at the two children standing with Lamia and Alastor. They'd all been spending the summer holidays at Black Manor with Mom and their uncles, and Alshain had taken three days from his work at the Diagon Alley branch of Litzbrille to see his younger cousins. Aldebaran and Elizabeth had teamed up for a game of chess against Alshain, all while Marianne and Alastor had been arguing with Adrienne and Lamia about where the youngest of their lot would be Sorted in the coming September.
The two black-haired girls had been willing to bet on Ravenclaw, because Aldebaran liked to read and it was the only House none of the cousins were in yet – Marianne and Alastor had been vouching for Hufflepuff, because the younger boy was kind and calm and willing to listen to anyone about anything.
It had been life as normal, and then...
Marianne had blinked, and she'd fallen on the hard tiled floor of the Ministry of Magic, a spell had exploded to her right, and the world had suddenly been so, so different.
She closed her eyes at the thought – the war was still going, here, and her uncle had never gone to Azkaban and wasn't even twenty, and her mother wasn't here at all, and...
Procyon's grumbling anchored her back into reality.
"I'm 'young'! You're just three years older than me, you know..."
It had her snorting. Her little brother was just about to enter puberty, probably, because he'd been irritable for the last month and was now thinking he knew everything better than anyone else.
Adrienne – her younger sister was little better, to be honest – glowered at the boy.
"Just be careful, will you!"
"Fine, fine..."
Marianne smiled at them both – they looked back at her as if she had no reason to smile at them, but she ignored that – and nodded towards Sirius and his grandmother – their great-grandmother.
"If we listened to what they have to say...?"
Similar huffs were her only answer, but they stopped talking nonetheless.
Melania Black – seventy-six, white hair but Marianne knew the witch had been blond in her youth, brown eyes – was looking over them all – Marianne and Lamia's groups, and all the others kids – and probably asking herself what they'd do with all those unexpected children.
Standing just behind her was her uncle Sirius. He was young, so young, and yet physically untainted by the Dark Arts he'd ended up using during the second wizarding war – to save his own life, to save his wife's life, to have a chance at minimizing the collateral damage on their side while he and Mom tore through their enemies, because they were Blacks, because they were twinless twins, because they were firstborns in a family where that actually meant something.
He looked... Marianne wasn't sure how to say it. This Sirius Black didn't look innocent, not at all – though he was still a bit bewildered at the whole situation, of course he was, hell, she was too – and she had no doubt his simmering anger was there already, but... He looked more human. Physically.
Oh, he was still very pale – but it didn't look unhealthy, no matter how subdued that had been. She could guess at the presence of shadows under his eyes – but they seemed less sunken into his face like an inevitable truth, more circumstantial to a lack of sleep. His lips were still naturally pink – not streaked through with white, like bloodless tissue. His hair wasn't turning white at the tips. If he were to open his mouth, she doubted she'd see the pointed tip of his upper right canine from over here like she had for all her life.
His body seemed less still, too, even if he wasn't making unnecessary moves for all that.
His eyes, though, were just as coldly immovable. He was watching them all listening to Melania arrange a way for the teenagers to all stay at the Manor without it becoming too hard on them.
"The family bedrooms are on the first floor. We do have magical extensions built into the manor, so there will be enough rooms no matter if you all wish to have one just for yourself, but I would recommend not to try and fit three of you in only one room, because then we'd need extension charms which might disrupt the rest of the enchantments across the manor."
Marianne stole a glance at her siblings – putting Adrienne and Procyon in the same room seemed like a terrible idea anyway.
The group next to their own – the triplets, and how weird was that? – started fidgeting then. The two boys were looking at their sister like there was no way they'd let her go sleep anywhere else than with them, and Marianne had the odd thought that this was the dormitories all over again. Maybe, when they'd change their mind because they were "grown-up now", there would be a great shuffle with complaining about sharing a room with anyone, then feeling lonely and asking some of the other kids if they could share instead.
The girl from the trio – Hyades, perhaps? – raised a hand like she was in school and got their great-grandmother's attention.
Melania Black raised both eyebrows.
"What is it?"
The girl showed both her brothers.
"We're triplets, we're used to sharing everything. Can we still take just one room? I swear we'll manage not to take too much space."
The older witch had to take a pause at that – she hadn't realized, but yes, they looked about the same age, didn't they, and they'd stayed together like all the other groups of what she'd assumed to be siblings.
Triplets. Uh.
Melania was only a Black by Name, and not by Blood, but of course she knew about the family's twinless twins. She had to, considering one of her grandsons was one.
Just like Sirius and Arcturus before her – and Pollux and Irma, if they had had the time to realize – she hadn't expected that. Triplets. Technically twins – but three of them, not two.
Because apparently that was possible.
But the girl had asked her a question, and Melania should probably answer.
"...Space isn't really a problem, dear, this is a magical manor after all..."
The boy next to her – the one who didn't look like a small-sized Sirius – spoke up.
"I don't think... I don't know for the others, but I wouldn't want to be alone in a room. If we don't go back, we... We don't know anyone here. Not really. Just us and our brothers and sisters. I'd rather stay with them. At least for now."
Melania's heart throbbed a bit at that admission. These children, they had lost everything they'd ever known, hadn't they? Their mothers, their friends, their belongings. Even their father, no matter that Sirius was standing just behind her.
"Alright... If that's what you want. You would still be able to change rooms later, anyway."
A boy – brown hair, silver eyes, glasses, the one who was called Procyon and had needed to be persuaded to take the floo – harrumphed not far from the two kids who'd just spoken.
"I am not sharing a bedroom with girls! Especially not Adrienne!"
The black-haired girl next to him rolled her eyes behind her glasses.
"That's alright, I don't want to share a room with you either, idiot."
The taller girl behind them both winced at their sibling shenanigans. Ah, Melania remembered that time of her life – and she'd been the oldest, too, so she'd gotten the role of mediator just like this girl.
"Okay, you two, we'll see about that later!"
Melania hid a smile – them all living at Black Manor was going to be a catastrophe, she could feel it coming, but at the same time she was eager to have so many children running around for the next month. It was a long time ago that Cygnus' girls all came to visit the head of their family together, or that Orion and Walburga's sons would play on the grounds.
"Let's get upstairs, shall we? You'll choose a room, and put down the few possessions you might have. Then Sirius has to go and get Juliet from her caregiver, and after that..."
Melania caught sight of her husband coming back up from the basement in the corner of her eye, but he stayed in the staircase's shadow, letting her do what she had to. Behind her, she guessed Sirius had noticed too, because he moved a bit without saying anything – and he probably wanted to, because she'd just spoken of the girl he'd been wanting to adopt for a few months already and he hadn't been the one to tell them.
As if Melania wasn't keeping track of her grandsons' lives – as if Arcturus would hide any of it from her.
"After that, we'll get to know each other."
And the older witch, assured of the teenagers' attention, nodded to herself and made her way to the staircase on the right of the entrance hall – there was a similar one on the right, but none of the children went that way, following her dutifully.
Or, at least, they followed her like children who didn't know the place and didn't want to get lost because they had been causing mischief on their first day. She doubted all of those eighteen kids were angels, if only because of who their father was – of the family they belonged to, too.
As the group of teens made their way to the upper floor, Sirius called his grandmother – without moving from where he was standing.
"Grandmother! I'll take the corner room on the right, if you don't mind. And... I'll keep Fania with me, so perhaps Dana should have the room next to mine."
Melania blinked at him, then nodded. The procession up the stairs started again, and Sirius focused back on his grandfather instead. They had things to talk about before he left to get some things from his flat in London and Juliet from her caregiver.
Dana, who had taken her baby sister back in her arms, lingered behind for a few seconds – her eyes on her father and his grandfather – before following the other teenagers up the stairs.
This was...
This was all real, somehow. Mom and Dad weren't there, and yet her father was, but not quite. She had sixteen other siblings – other than Fania, and apparently there was also a girl called Juliet somewhere in the equation, and...
The group of four just before her were whispering between themselves, and she heard the name again:
"Juliet is here too!"
That was the blond boy, the youngest of the lot. Dana knew his name was Aldebaran, because she had been the one to go and talk to the teenagers of room 2 back at the Ministry. Lamia, their older sister, had been helpful, if very reminiscent of their mutual father in her sharp understanding of what was happening to them – perhaps she'd understood even better than Dana herself, even if Dana had been the one to tell her – and in the way she'd squinted and started thinking about the consequences for her siblings before anything else.
"Don't get excited, it's 1979, so she's, what, four?"
The slightly older girl, blond too. Elizabeth.
"Five. Juliet was already five years old when Dad found her parents murdered, so she can't be less than five."
The oldest girl, the one who looked so much like their father you'd think there had been only one parent involved. Lamia, who had gotten it and managed her brothers and sisters.
"This is so weird... We celebrated her birthday in February, and she was turning forty-two! Now she's five? And Dad is barely older than you, Lamia, and..."
The boy with black hair, Alastor, paused in distress. The others looked at him curiously – personally, Dana would be freaked out too if an adult she knew turned back into a small child.
"What is it?"
The boy groaned, his face paler than before.
"I'm older than Mom right now! She's, if it's July 1979 she's going to enter third year in September! If Dad manages to get us into Hogwarts, Elizabeth is going to be just one year under her in Slytherin!"
Said girl blinked, as her brother's declaration sank in. Dana had to admit, that sounded weird, being almost in the same year as their mother at school.
That being said...
"Excuse me..."
As they walked into the corridor where – presumably – the bedrooms were waiting for them, the four teens stopped and turned around to look at Dana.
The oldest girl – older than Dana herself, the only one who should be in seventh year in September – tilted her head and looked Dana up and down before answering. She'd done that the first time they'd spoken, back in room 2, too.
"Yes?"
Lamia knew, intellectually, that all the teens – and the baby in Dana's arms – here were, in a way, her half-siblings, and that if they were to remain in this time they'd become as good as actual siblings. She knew that – and she'd talked with Dana back at the Ministry, so it wasn't like she'd never seen her before.
Still. Lamia knew Alastor and Elizabeth and Aldebaran, and she knew Marianne and Adrienne and Procyon too – and, in a way, those three cousins were almost siblings already, because Dad and Aunt Adhara were almost like one person in two bodies. But she didn't know the others, not yet.
It felt weird to treat them like strangers, but it would be weirder to treat them like...
She didn't even know.
Dana flicked a lock of dark hair out her baby sister's reach when Fania tried to tug on it, and Lamia smiled a bit. She was almost six years old when Aldebaran was born, so she remembered how it was to have such a young sibling.
"I... you were talking about Juliet? You know who she is?"
Oh.
Diverging timelines or something. Not everyone here knew about Juliet. Maybe Lamia and Marianne's groups were the only ones that did know about Juliet. Maybe Juliet didn't even exist in the worlds they had come from.
Maybe Dad had never gotten there on time and she'd been killed with her parents in those worlds.
Lamia shook her head at the thought – they were, currently, in a world where Juliet was still alive. So what if she wasn't an adult anymore? What if the adoptive sister who'd been of age for a while already when Lamia was born was still a child?
At least she was there. It could have been worse.
"Dad adopted Juliet, or I guess he will adopt her in the next few months. She's muggleborn, someone at the Ministry leaked her name to the Death Eaters after she had a burst of accidental magic in 197... I mean, a few weeks ago. They... They came to her house and killed her parents, but Dad intervened then. He saved her and her brothers, and he's taken her in."
Dana frowned.
"And her brothers?"
"With their uncle. They are muggles, unlike Juliet, so they aren't in danger... In anymore danger than any other muggles, at least, since we're back in..."
Lamia blinked. She'd already thought of that, of course, in the last hour, but thinking about it and remembering how that meant it had just happened to Juliet...
"Since this is 1979 and the war is happening right now. This... This is going to be difficult."
Elizabeth made a face at her sister's words.
"You mean the fact that none of us were born when the second war ended? Yeah, I imagine it's going to be a blast going back to Slytherin with a bunch of purists all over the House."
Dana scowled back at those words – she'd had enough of that with Malfoy and his cronies since first year, and in 1979 it was probably worse than in 1991.
"Oh great, I didn't think of that! Do you think we could get sent to another House in September? The Sorting Hat did say I could have gone to Gryffindor..."
Lamia squinted at the slightly younger girl. She was starting to see a plan there, a way to keep Elizabeth out of trouble in Slytherin despite the very true possibility that a few Death Eaters wannabes were in that House right now – or, in September, but same thing.
"So that means you're in Slytherin? It'll be you and Elizabeth and Adrienne too, and possibly some of the others too... You're what, a sixth year?"
Maybe they could make this work – but for now, they had to claim bedrooms.