Chapter 18: One last thing
Sirius smoothed his insincere smile and kept his eyes on Rita Skeeter, journalist extraordinaire – out of the ordinary, for certain, in tactics as well as in mannerisms, in her abrasive personality covered up by a perfect knowledge of the lines which she could legally cross.
The woman looked ready to put her impromptu interview back on track – misdirection only worked so long – and Sirius wasn't sure of how to handle that, considering how it had all derailed...
Another witch, only slightly older than Skeeter, interrupted them.
This time the new stranger had her eyes specifically on the journalist, not on Sirius and James.
"Rita."
Sirius let himself relax a tad, just enough not to feel the tenseness in his neck while remaining ready to spit out a disguised accusation if needed – he didn't know who this witch was, but something had shifted in the dynamics around the table, something that told him Skeeter would be dealt with if he let everything take its natural course now.
James, him, blinked. The woman was very tall, with sun-tanned skin and small grey eyes.
She also, most importantly, had a similar pearl on her right ear as the one on Skeeter's left ear.
He remembered suddenly what those were for – his aunt Hyacinth was hard of hearing, and wore a similar pair of earrings to help with that. Normally you'd wear both earrings to actually be able to hear clearly if you had trouble like Aunt Hyacinth, but...
Skeeter and the newcomer didn't seem to have any trouble hearing, so they had to be using those for something else. Something like listening in on each other's conversation, perhaps.
It would explain how the journalist could know about Arcturus Black's revelations to who James assumed was Rita Skeeter's "partner in writing".
James exchanged a quiet, measuring look with Sirius, and they didn't say anything as the other woman scowled mildly at her writing partner.
"I already told you you were too aggressive. If we're to work together, you have to..."
Skeeter's countenance wavered for a moment, before settling on looking contrite – whether she actually felt so was another question James didn't know the answer to.
"I... Gretchen, come on, I was being perfectly reasonable with my questions!"
The other woman huffed.
"The problem is how you asked them, Rita, not that you asked. Hand me your notes, I want to check something."
Skeeter grimaced, but handed her notepad over.
The other journalist flicked through three pages before shaking her head.
"That's creative writing, but I thought you wanted to be a journalist, someone who's looking for the truth, not just to make a hit with sensational formulations and approximations."
Skeeter opened her mouth – to protest? – but her partner wasn't done, and the younger witch didn't seem to want to truly interrupt her.
"I mean, look at that part: 'after charmingly threatening me with false accusations and subtle reminders of his admittedly shaky legal authority, Auror Trainee Sirius Black...'. I'm not even sure how you managed to cram a 'charmingly' in there..."
The older witch glanced at Sirius, who gave her his trademark dishonest smile, and shook her head.
"Sorry for the inconvenience. We will see more of each others, I think, but Rita here is still learning the ropes. She used to work for Abraxas Malfoy and hasn't yet shed off the sensationalism."
"Rita here" threw them both a venomous glare over her colleague's shoulders.
Sirius looked unconvinced – but at least, now, he knew who was handling the story about his children's appearance. James wasn't certain of what his friend would do with that information, but Sirius would find something. He always did.
The two wizards watched silently as the journalists left – "No, we are not asking them more questions, you've put them on their guard and now it's too late!" – before tucking back in and returning to their conversation about yesterday's happenings.
James just hoped they'd manage to shield the children from Skeeter – or Skeeter from the children, if they were anything like Sirius, but that was admittedly a lower point of concern. Her own damn fault if she got on the bad side of a family known for their cruelty and ruthlessness.
Time was ticking, of course, and eventually their lunch hour ticked away. James tried to convince Sirius to drop by the Potter Country House with the kids on his next day off, even if James himself would work most of that day – the evening could be an answer.
Sirius gave him a non-committal shrug – he didn't know what they'd be doing tomorrow, so the day after tomorrow was obviously too far away – and they made their way back to the office.
Just before they could drift to their respective supervisors, Marilyn Rapace walked out of her private office.
"Black. In here."
Sirius stole a glance at Smith and Moody, who had both looked up and at their boss, but he found nothing there – except a suspicious look on Moody's face, but, par for the course.
With a shrug, he left James behind and did as he'd been told.
Rapace closed the door behind him.
Sirius didn't chance a tentative smile with her – no point, and the witch wasn't even looking at him.
Marilyn Rapace was, to say it all, youngish. Thirty-four years old when she'd become head auror – of course, the turn-over these days was higher than usual, what with her three predecessors having died in less than a year, but then again, she'd lasted five years since then. While some of the older aurors in the office had been cautiously unconvinced for a while, it hadn't lasted, either.
Currently, her broken nose was pointing away from the trainee she'd summoned, and towards the back wall, as if she could see through it if she tried hard enough.
Sirius eyed the chair in front of Rapace's desk, and decided he'd rather stay standing.
"Madam."
The witch shook her head but didn't look away from the wall.
"Black. Did you have any... problems, with your grandfather?"
"Which one? Because we did bump into the other Black dinosaur on the way out, and that one is more likely to cause problems than Lord Black. I think he's tattling to my parents right now."
Sirius heard Rapace sigh deeply before she finally turned around and sat at her desk.
"The children?"
She didn't have any herself, he believed, but her sister did. Sirius wasn't sure where that put her on the matter of caring about unknown teens belonging to one of her office's trainees, though.
He shrugged.
"Well enough, considering the circumstances. I think they are a bit anxious at the idea of living in a time of, ah, civil unrest, and they've lost everything they had, so."
There was a pause, there, and Rapace looked like she'd been about to say something – to ask something, maybe – but his words had her reconsidering.
She closed her eyes a moment.
When she opened them again, she looked almost reluctant.
"...They haven't grown up with the war."
"Doesn't seem like it, no. They had their difficulties, from what I gathered, but not that one."
It could mean so many things, that little fact. Maybe some of them had never even had a war. Sirius hadn't asked, just like he hadn't asked if any of the older hims had, perhaps, been on the other side.
"It ends, then. It ends, and our world is still there."
Sirius blinked at the head auror, unsure of what to say. None of the children seemed like they came from a deeply different world – Nashira aside – so he doubted they'd grown up with Voldemort as head of state, and it wasn't like he didn't believe in victory for their side...
But Rapace, her? She was young, true – for having already spent five years at the head of the Auror Office, not so much in actual years of life and suffering.
She'd still lived twice as long as he had so far. She'd been part of the Auror Office before the troubles with Voldemort and his Death Eaters began. One of her cousins was out there, voluntarily infecting people with lycanthropy and playing along with the Dark Bastard because it allowed him to make others suffer.
Her brother hadn't survived the bite when a werewolf – and Sirius wasn't supposed to know that, but he did, because Mother had spent hours and hours making sure he'd remember everything about everyone of the littlest importance in the wizarding world – most likely that very cousin, had attacked him years and years ago. They'd found Lucian Rapace too late to do anything, three days after the full moon.
The war hadn't even started, back then.
Maybe Marilyn Rapace hadn't dared to hope, not anymore – not until children from overmorrow had appeared and proven her wrong – hopefully.
Sirius didn't want to find out that half of them had happily grown up in blood-purist households, being fed the usual bullshit, and therefore they'd been mostly unaffected by a war raging around them. That sounded unlikely, given what he'd seen of them so far, but, quills crossed.
Eighteen children falling from nowhere into his arms had seemed unlikely, too.
"Anything you can tell me, Black? Names, guilt, dates?"
Sirius grimaced.
"Not so much, no, and even if I'd gleaned anything... I'd be doubtful about its usefulness here. I mean, for some of them, Evan Rosier married a muggleborn!"
Rapace's mouth fell into a hard line, and she closed that chapter of their discussion:
"I see your point. That aside, you should go and take a look next door. Visitors tried to force their way in while you were out eating, and they might get what they want if they don't stop harassing the Familial Affairs Unit, despite not having an appointment."
Sirius squinted, taken by the unpleasant feeling that he knew exactly who had come and demanded an audience with the FAU – why else would Rapace tell him about it?
"Any chance that person looks vaguely like me with dark brown hair and a much worse personality?"
Rapace stared, unamused – as if that would ever stop Sirius from dissing his mother.
"Speaks like she knows better than anyone else and you are being profoundly arrogant by thinking otherwise? Thinks everything except her family is beneath her notice and the Ministry's authority exists for her convenience only?"
At this point, he suspected the head auror just wanted him to say it himself, so he didn't stop.
"Old enough to be my mother, perhaps?"
Finally Rapace raised a sarcastic eyebrow and answered:
"Yes, Black, the visitors, notice the plural here, all share a last name with you."
"More than one? Damn it! Any intel regarding the kind of trap I'm walking in here? Because I'm not dealing with the old hag and my darling brother the same way I handle Dear Old Dad, if I have to go on a rescue mission for the FAU employees."
Rapace gave him a look – Sirius honestly didn't know her well enough to say what kind of look it was, in truth, but it did look stern and not-overly friendly, though that might be attributed to the subject of their discussion – and scoffed:
"Your grandfather, the 'other Black dinosaur' as you called him, and your parents. I doubt they are expecting you, even knowing you work here. They certainly didn't seem to expect any kind of resistance when they stormed in and demanded guardianship over your children."
Sirius almost rolled his eyes – except none of this was laughing matters. Of course it had to be Pollux and Mother leading the charge.
He gnashed his teeth, and moved for the door.
"As asked, Madam Rapace, I'll be going. Someone does need to extract the hostiles from the FAU office, I guess..."
Sirius saluted his supervisors without stopping by their desk, wordlessly pointing at the office's main door and then at Rapace's to communicate his immediate assignation. Moody's eyes remained pinned on him until he walked out of the common space and into an empty corridor..
Level 2 of the British Ministry of Magic was a long, curved corridor that you could access through the usual lifts, opening right in the middle of that corridor. At each end, shorter corridors opened behind heavy oak doors. The layout was easy enough to remember: on the left of the lifts, the Division of Magical Justice and its many subdivisions; on the right, all the other divisions – all those that worked more on the side of law enforcement.
The Familial Affairs Unit – a small, barely staffed subdivision of the DMJ – was just across the lift access, on the other side of the corridor – and roughly in the direction Rapace had been staring. Easy access for visitors, people with complaints, people with blood and inheritance claims.
It took Sirius only a few seconds to discreetly let himself in without knocking, because he wanted to hear what Grandfather Pollux and Mother were trying to sell before they could notice him.
All three of the FAU employees were present, and two of them were at their desk pretending they hadn't noticed the overbearing Blacks their boss was patiently listening to. Sirius eyed them for a second, put a finger to his lips when the youngest one noticed him, and moved on.
He knew his parents' backs like no one else's, and his grandfather's voice was unmistakably disdainful – even when his words held no such particular meaning. Generally speaking, he knew how to handle them. On the other hand, Sirius didn't much know the boss of the Familial Affairs Unit, and her he couldn't predict.
Sarah-Louise Perks was about his father's age, perhaps a bit younger, with perfectly straight brown hair and long black eyes. If tasked so, Sirius could probably link her to one of the families of japanese descent, but he had better things to worry about right now.
Like the fact that she'd been the one to come to the Potter Country House to assess the situation when Sirius had run away from Grimmauld Place. She'd seemed posed enough, sharply aware of things he'd refused to even hint at, and willing to reach a compromise if her next visit – to Sirius' parents – proved difficult. At the time, Sirius hadn't been certain it was good news for him, because she had listened, but might also allow things to happen on the other end of that confrontation.
Somehow, her second visit had been much simpler than he'd expected: She'd only come to confirm with the Potters that they took responsibility for him for the few months left before his seventeenth birthday. No – more – angry retorts from Mother, no meddling from his grandfathers. All this sounded very suspicious, but he'd been willing not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Sirius could only suppose that Mrs Perks did her job well, and didn't let powerful noble Houses intimidate her – but he couldn't be sure, and for now that wasn't reassuring enough.
Especially as he could hear his mother put forward a reasonably fair point.
"He is barely older than those children! My son may be of age, now, but he isn't out of his teens!"
Sirius gritted his teeth, and decided that whatever had been said before he'd gotten there was most likely enough. He had a say in all this – and more importantly, regarding Mother and Grandfather, he had their family head's support.
He took a step towards the chairs they were all sitting in. Mrs Perks noticed him then, and her eyebrows rose just slightly. Before any of the three visitors could wonder why, Sirius was speaking:
"Oh, so I am your son once again, then?"
Grandfather Pollux's head snapped around, eyes on him before he'd finished. Dad visibly tensed, and turned around slowly – his face a picture of conflicted wariness.
Mother coldly rose up from her seat – but she didn't face him, she kept looking towards the ministry employee she'd likely been harassing for however long they'd been here.
She didn't even look at him. Of course she didn't.
Mrs Perks tried to acknowledge his presence with a "Mr Black", but his mother's hard voice cut her off with a single word:
"You."
Sirius rolled his eyes – Dad winced and Grandfather pursed his lips, but since Mother wasn't looking at him, he didn't see how that mattered.
"Me. I work next door, what did you expect?"
A disdainful sniff.
"How would I know about that? You've made it clear that it wasn't any of my business, I believe."
Considering that both her husband and father knew, as well as the look Dad threw her way, it was an enormous lie – and Sirius didn't know what to make of the fact that she'd thought a lie necessary.
He wasn't about to start an argument for something like that though. Merlin knew they had enough to argue about already.
A chair trotted its way from the back of the office at a wave from Mrs Perks' wand, and Sirius stared for a moment before shrugging and sitting down. Hopefully he'd have all this wrapped up – and the problematic family sent on their way – before sitting down would get necessary, but with them...
Might go either way.
No longer behind the three people he shared blood with, he caught his mother's profile – and her line of view flickering away from his before she sat down with a pinched look on her face.
"Your parents were proposing to take care of the children you've recently acquired, Mr Black, as they have already raised two sons, have the means to support a large family, and you've already taken responsibility for one child earlier this year."
Sirius gave Mrs Perks a tight smile and jumped back on the – admittedly fair – point his mother had been making when he'd walked in.
She might not have been wrong, but acknowledging it would give more worth to his own objections. Honesty, and all that. No one was perfect, and if his fault here was his age, well. There were worst things, and the old hag checked those criteria.
"I might be a bit young for all this..."
Mother scoffed and looked at him for the first time. There were grey streaks in her brown hair, Sirius noticed absentmindedly.
"At best you'll manage to be their older brother. From what your grandfather told me, all but one are less than ten years younger than you. You cannot act as their father."
Sirius squinted at her, and tried not to raise his voice like he used to during the last year at home. He was an adult, now, and she'd washed her hands of him. He already knew she wouldn't change her mind about anything, he didn't have to live with her.
There was no point screaming. If his tone was a bit scathing, though...
"They are mine, regardless. Father, brother, something in the middle, it's still better than you, Mother. You've already proven you aren't fit to take care of a child, not if that child doesn't follow your every wish and belief."
Dad cleared his throat, then, but it was for nothing. His wife certainly wasn't listening to him, and Sirius was already tugging at his collar to reveal the scar she'd carved on his skin the morning he'd left Grimmauld.
"I don't suppose you forgot this, Mother?"
Dad closed his eyes. Grandfather looked vaguely surprised, jaws shut tight and a mean tilt to his lips – he was probably angry at both Sirius and his daughter for the very situation they were in, because it wasn't like he entirely disagreed with the sentiment behind the scar, was it?
Mrs Perks didn't move at all, face blank. She hadn't seen the words "blood traitor", back then.
Sirius waited.
Mother's face shivered, like she'd been about to make a face, to reveal something – but she wouldn't let it happen. She wouldn't let him see. Finally, she stood up to leave – she knew there was no point, not anymore, not after that.
Still, she spoke one last time – just before going through the door, where it would be easy to leave with the last word, if only because she'd be gone before anyone could respond:
"Don't make it sound like I butchered you with a rusted knife, Sirius. This spell isn't pleasant, perhaps, but it barely draws blood and cannot endanger a life. If you ever come back, if you become who you always were... I can make the scar disappear. You know that."
And she was gone. Because there was nothing quite like branding your rebellious son with what you considered a mark of shame and then putting the blame on the victim.
Sirius stood up too. Dad and Grandfather Pollux would soon walk out – as soon as they got past that particular bit of theatrics – and Mother would most likely be waiting for them in the Atrium.
"Mrs Perks. Don't hesitate to call for me if she tries again."
Mother wouldn't, not this way – but this was as much a warning as an offer for help. The FAU would call for him, no matter what. If Grandfather kept hounding them, if Mother tried to blackmail them. If they didn't call, if they let themselves be manipulated, Sirius wouldn't hesitate.
Oh. One last thing:
"I have Lord Black's backing, just so you know. If you want to go against that, be my guest."