Helpfully, Dumbledore composed notes for what he thought Sirius should and shouldn't say at his trial; dropping them off the day after James' wedding had been his pretext for a lengthy visit to politick. Any slight anxiety Sirius might have felt about his lack of preparation neatly vanished. Narcissa edited Dumbledore's notes for him, asking him to further explain his memory of certain events and then deciding whether or not to include his clarifications. The final result was mostly truthful. The trial when it finally started lasted another week, despite being a closed-door affair with no contested charges. This was mostly because the context for every single charge and any collected evidence had to be entered into the official record and secured with anti-tampering charms while the court was in session - Moody's job, since none of the regular court recorders had high enough security clearance. The only surprising parts of the affair were the witness statements Moody read into the record. Some were extracted from Death Eaters using veritaserum, but there were others from Marlene McKinnon and from the muggle families he'd petrified and hidden rather than killed whilst on Lucius' raids, before they were obliviated of course.

The funniest part of the trial came at the end, watching Augusta Longbottom's expressions as Crouch read off the charges one last time, each one more damning than the last, and asked for the Committee's votes. Sirius pleaded guilty to everything - terrorism; destruction of property; abuse of hundreds of corpses; various infractions of the Statute of Secrecy; use of all three Unforgivable curses; murders of Edgar Bones, Elphias Doge, Salim Sarwar, Fleamont Potter, Victoria Crouch, one auror and seven hit-wizards; murders of multiple Death Eaters; murders of hundreds of muggles and injury of hundreds more; and reckless release of a dementor into London. He was unanimously pardoned for everything due to Auror approval of his espionage activities and the extenuating circumstances of having Voldemort and/or other Death Eaters breathing down his neck.

Madam Longbottom looked like she had been forced to swallow a jar of slug pickling juice by the end of it, even as she agreed to each vote. She looked a little happier when Sirius offered up the list of names he was currently willing to incriminate as soon as Crouch announced his tabula rasa in the eyes of the court. Crouch's eyes gleamed in turn, and he dispatched a copy with Moody immediately to issue the outstanding arrest warrants. Orion frowned as he read the list and locked eyes with Elaine, whose expression was perfectly neutral. Narcissa raised an eyebrow and touched her fingers to her lips as she read the list, and Orion didn't even glance twice at her. He must not have been including her in his own political meetings except as they pertained to the Committee, Sirius decided, or else he'd be looking at Narcissa with just as much suspicion as Elaine. Well, the fallout would come in time, just not here. Hopefully Richard stayed well clear of it.

Crouch elected to schedule Rookwood's and the Traverses' trials next, with Sirius summoned to testify only two days after his own verdict. The three Death Eaters glared at Sirius with utter hatred as he recounted for the Committee everything he remembered hearing them saying at the Inner Circle meetings as well as the few times Sullivan had been on missions with him. As Sirius had anticipated, Sullivan took the opportunity to shout out during the discussion of the attack on Foulness that Sirius had been the one to cast the last blasting curse.

Crouch fixed him with an impatient stare. "We know. He has already been pardoned," he said coldly, and moved on. Sullivan and Megaera seemed to wilt in their chain-wrapped chairs. Rookwood took to staring at Crouch instead of Sirius, as if he couldn't believe the man could be so blasé about the death of his wife and destruction of his own property. Sirius hadn't had all that much to say about Rookwood anyway, mostly just listing the people he'd Imperiused in the Ministry and his contributions to the plans to assassinate Crouch. Moody and Crouch actually had much more evidence on Rookwood than Sirius did, between the surveillance on the man and his veritaserum-compelled interrogation. Turns out, Rookwood had been sufficiently roughed up during the arrest and still getting over Voldemort's Cruciatus-supplemented Legilimency from the week before, he really hadn't been up to resisting the truth potion.

All three were sentenced to life in Azkaban without parole. It was only when the final verdict and sentencing were issued that Megaera started screaming accusations about Narcissa being Voldemort's chief propagandist for months. Narcissa calmly silenced her and explained that she had also been issued a pardon by the other members of the court in their very first closed session, by reason of coercion after her husband was Imperiused, her father-in-law murdered, and the lives of her mother-in-law and unborn child threatened.

It was after the trial of the Inner Circle that Orion cornered Sirius in the corridor outside the courtroom, shuffling him off into a dark side hallway with one lonely door at the end of it. He snapped out a privacy charm. "You've had your respite, Sirius, and now it's over."

"Oh?"

"You put Lord Selwyn's name on the list of Death Eaters you gave to Crouch and Moody, against my instructions."

"I know that."

"You shouldn't have."

"Really? And why is that? I clearly recall his detailed opinions on the best way to assassinate Mr. Crouch. He has murdered. He has raped. He embezzled galleons from legitimate business and even government grants in order to fund the Death Eaters." That last bit he (or more precisely, Narcissa) only found out recently from Lord Selwyn's daughter Anita, who was angling to become head of the family now that her younger brother was mentally disabled.

Orion frowned. "Be that as it may, he was offered protection of House Black and is now firmly aligned with our interests. He will not misbehave again."

"Not publicly," Sirius said with a snort. "I'm not the one who offered him protection. I owe him nothing." Lord Selwyn had not appealed to Sirius for protection, and being both the head of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight houses and publicly known to be backing Orion, and a sociopathic creep, Narcissa decreed him the best sacrificial candidate to demonstrate Sirius' power. She hoped his fate would serve as sufficient threat to bring others into the fold.

"You owe him your freedom," Orion corrected irritably. "Or did you forget that he nominated both Narcissa and Madam Avery to the panel presiding over your trial?"

"You're sorely mistaken if you think Crouch ever would have let me take what I know to Azkaban, Father. Lord Selwyn made a mistake when he decided to rely on your promises without hearing from me. Perhaps this will damage your reputation, but it won't hurt our House." Narcissa's words again, composed two weeks ago for the day Orion decided to confront Sirius about what he was doing.

Orion's expression hardened. "You are nineteen and getting too old for this tiresome teenaged rebellion."

"But perhaps just old enough to think for myself and expect to have my opinions listened to," Sirius said sardonically.

"No."

"Huh. Honestly didn't expect you to be so up-front in your denial. You usually dissemble and let Mother play the harridan."

"You have deliberately ignored my teachings for too long to claim any right to control the political positions of our House. I have asked your opinions since your triumph over the Dark Lord as a courtesy and appeasement only, and that is a courtesy I am no longer willing to extend. You know the people that are untouchable due to prior agreements with our House. These are agreements I will not permit you to upset, including those with Lord Selwyn. If you try, the repercussions will be severe, and not just the kinds of superficial burns and bruises you got from your mother's misguided efforts a few weeks ago."

"I doubt you're so adept at torture as the Dark Lord was."

"I don't have to be. There are far more effective ways to deal with you."

Whatever comeback Sirius might have said in answer to that died in his mouth. It was true, after all. Voldemort had never really understood Sirius. He had applied pain and terror with finesse, but Sirius had survived and bested him. That alone was proof that pain was not a significant threat to him.

Orion though... his father knew Sirius extraordinarily well, knew his likes and dislikes, had been the first to see his strengths and weaknesses, knew his secrets and fears. Because even if there was no real love lost between them, they were father and son. Orion had molded an unwilling Sirius for fifteen years, growing ever more creative in his manipulations as Sirius matured, until he couldn't take it anymore and ran away. His only regret then had been leaving Reggie defenseless in that place.

Which he had just done again.

Sirius felt an odd jolt at that thought, and staring into his father's cold eyes, he felt himself tumbling into the older man's mind. It was an obscure kind of Legilimency, Sirius understood, a trigger and a lure meant to capture him as soon as he happened on it, a kind of mental synchronization only possible between two Legilimens who knew each others' minds very, very well. Only... he didn't understand the trap, if he was now in Orion's mind, where his father was theoretically vulnerable, and Sirius was not.

Memories flitted by. The first was a glimpse of a time Walburga turned her wand on Regulus instead of him. For a heart-stopping moment, Sirius thought this was recent, until he saw how young Reggie was and that Sirius himself was also there. Walburga was driving the younger brother out of the family drawing room to save his ears from Sirius' insolent, blood-traitorish words. Sirius intervened to protect Regulus, clumsily fighting back against his mother with schoolboy spells that were no threat to a witch of Walburga's caliber. He held out a long time before slumping to the floor, but Orion was sure he would keep his silence for a long time after this. Orion's attention in the memory was not on his wife or the frightened cries of his just-turned-twelve-year-old younger son but rather on Sirius, gauging his reaction. The moment was flavored with satisfaction at instructions followed and objectives met.

Thoughts shifted. "He looks like you," Walburga whispered, staring down at their firstborn. Orion looked at the sleeping infant and thought she was right. It amused him, how much a mere physical resemblance in a child too young to even smile so frustrated her. In a few years, that could be very useful.

A few years later, Orion mused regretfully that while Sirius indeed took after his father in looks, there was far too much of his mother in him temperamentally. A vivacious child, easily excited, easily angered, easily hurt. Easily influenced, which meant outside influence would have to be tightly rationed until the boy was strong enough to resist.

It started simply when Sirius was too young to know better, with a strict mother and stricter tutors, all instructed to offer no praise for precocious accomplishments, only loftier goals. Orion was Sirius' only possible, albeit often inaccessible, source of approval other than a younger brother and the cousins whose opinions could never bear the same weight. When he grew a little older, Orion became both harder to reach and harder to please, their time limited to family dinners and the calculated hours Orion spent educating and appraising his heir in the arts of politics, intrigue, family traditions, and occlumency. Sirius subconsciously turned to acting out and argumentation, and he had reaped the benefits of increased paternal attention as well as increased maternal punishments. Orion was pleased with his progress, pleased with his resilience... until the great rebellion that was his Hogwarts Sorting.

Sirius realized suddenly why he had never been allowed any close friends outside the family when he was very young. It was the same reason his parents had been so furious with his Sorting. It wasn't about tradition at all. It was because he as Heir Black would not have made the same kind of friendships in Slytherin, where people like Richard and Felix had been taught to predicate every friendly action on the expected benefit, just as Sirius had. It was the same reason Orion had mentioned neither he nor Walburga could cast a corporeal patronus.

More memories, conversations with Bellatrix and Elaine Avery about coaxing Sirius back to the family now that he had taken Bella's offer to join the Death Eaters, or else. Orion didn't know why his irascible son had agreed to Bella's clumsy threats now. Perhaps because Bella had always been genuinely affectionate towards him. Perhaps Sirius craved the feminine warmth he'd always been denied at home. Well, too late to have Walburga change tactics, but Orion would still capitalize on the opening. He'd expunge the weakness later, after it had served its purpose to bring Sirius back to his father's side.

The reason... was because every close relationship was a vulnerability to exploit. By loving no one, Orion was essentially immune to emotional attack. He could only be brought down by overwhelming external forces, as Voldemort had been. Sirius was not sure if the conclusion was his own from watching these memories, or something else Orion was offering up from his own mind. But he saw clearly, that detachedness was something Orion had always wanted for Sirius as well.

Next memory was older, an argument with Walburga about the need to discipline Regulus again as a means to control Sirius. "Dear Morgana, Orion... one of my sons already hates me. Will you take Regulus too?"

Orion rolled his eyes. "You had them all to yourself for nine months in the womb, a year or more at the breast. What more do you want? They are my sons to raise as I please."

"They are my sons too!"

"And you are my wife, cousin." She cowed immediately at the moniker, as she always did, ever since their wedding day when she first learned she was the lesser of their partnership, despite being several years older than him and a powerful witch. But as far as he was concerned, once two sons were gotten, her usefulness as a spouse was over. They were back to being cousins who barely tolerated each other for shared familial duties. "You will do as I say, or it will be worse for you, and for your hideous elf, and for our youngest. Don't tempt me to lock him in the cellar this time."

The cellar was where frowning Orion locked Sirius, naked and wandless in the dark, every time his parents discovered his plots to reach out to his school friends over the summer, something which was strictly forbidden as soon as he got home from first year. It was the same cold, empty cellar he now knew to lead down to the dementor's lair. It could have been his end if he had ever explored the cellar floor to any significant degree, instead of expending all his frustrations against the door back to the warm rest of the house.

The cellar. Orion had for years been trying to use the dementor beneath it to strip away that bedamned nobility of spirit his heir had insisted on picking up from his insipid little Gryffindor friends. He had started out only putting Sirius down there rarely, when the dementor already had a meal closer to hand and was unlikely to reach further, but the boy was so recalcitrant when he came home after his third year at Hogwarts. Ironic, that Sirius would willingly surrender to the thing what Orion had most deeply wanted him to in his endless quest to shelter his little brother.

Sirius shuddered. He should have known there was an ulterior motive for his father to be so helpful that day, and not just the political justification the man had offered up. He had known what the ritual would do to Sirius. If he hadn't wanted that to happen, he would have suggested they find some other willing stooge to do the dirty work rather than risk a Black. It was a pity the dementor didn't manage to take away Sirius' damned protective streak as well, but then again, Orion knew how to use that.

It was no great effort for Orion to step back into the role of controlling head of house after their years apart. He might not be able to lock Sirius in the cellar any more, but there were plenty of other things he could do. There were flashes of Reggie again. Crying. Screaming. Lying senseless in his bed. They weren't memories, now. They were threats.

For the first time since he had agreed to take up the political mantle that had fallen at his feet, agreed to follow Narcissa's lead, Sirius felt a spark of genuine fear and doubt. He had accepted Narcissa's and Richard's advocacy mostly because he had already seemingly survived the worst, living a double life at Voldemort's side and cut off from most everyone he valued for a year. He wasn't afraid of what the Ministry or Sacred Twenty-Eight might throw at him, because it seemed nothing could hurt more than life already did. He was wrong, though. Narcissa and Lyra and Reggie were all living at Grimmauld. Even if Orion decided they were too valuable to target, he had other options. Richard's floo was perpetually open because Winston liked company and never kept the damn thing secure no matter how many times Elaine closed it. There were the Potters, Remus, Peter, Audrey, even innocent bystanders like Snape or the surviving Boneses or the muggle families Sirius had spared over the summer whose names Orion knew from the trial. Sirius had willingly subjected himself to Voldemort's whims to stop an unjust war, had willingly committed massive war crimes himself when the need arose to protect his brother. Of course he would do anything to stop the violence from springing forth again, this time specifically directed against him and his own.

Perhaps he would even surrender.

Orion nodded as he watched the caution crawl back across Sirius' face. If you cross me, the first thing to happen will be the death of your cousin, and her body will be discovered in such a way as to be incontrovertible evidence of the gruesome criminal behavior of... someone you suppose to be under your protection.

The silent thought was fully formed in Orion's mind, ringing out like a bell to buffet Sirius' presence with its force. For a split second, Sirius' mind was utterly blank with horror. Surely Orion wouldn't kill Narcissa and lose access to the Malfoy family resources... but then Bellatrix' face drifted into their shared thoughts. Sleeping peacefully in the attic, forever, or until she could be put to some use for the family. Even if that use was to be sold as potions ingredients on the black market. He hadn't even thought of her.

Orion waited a moment longer. When Sirius did nothing, said nothing, neither acquiescence or argument, he unceremoniously booted Sirius out of his mind and smiled. "Don't worry. I'm sure the Ministry was planning to try for charges against Selwyn even without you, so no one on our side besides Narcissa and Elaine have to know about this, and I'll tell them to keep quiet. It's too late for Crouch to renege on the deal with you, even if you double-cross him now. You'll be fine. You just have to show some common sense and keep to the plan. We'll even come up with something trivial to say about him, not enough to send him to prison, maybe enough for a fine, so Crouch and Longbottom don't fault you." He laid a fatherly hand on Sirius' shoulder and squeezed briefly. "You'll learn. You know I won't stay angry with you, so long as you listen. Oh, and you should come to dinner this week. Your brother misses you. He's lonely since we can't send him back to school until the furor has died down from all these trials..." There was another flash of a smile, with all the teeth. Then he dropped the privacy charm and turned to walk towards the lift.

There was no evidence in his bearing of what he had just threatened. No hint of the rot hidden beneath clear skin, bright eyes, and expensive robes. That was a curious thing about Orion Black. He wasn't like Voldemort. He didn't need to constantly expose his body to the rigors of Dark magic to still be one of the blackest wizards Sirius had ever met. He used others - his employees, his allies, his wife - to destroy both his enemies and themselves. Honestly, Voldemort had been far easier for Sirius to deal with, personally. The Dark Lord had readily accepted Sirius exactly as he had presented himself. He had been cruel, harsh in his punishments, mean-spirited... but he had never in Sirius' experience tried to force his followers to be anything but what they were. He demanded obedience in deed, not conformity in thought and manner.

"I need to talk to you."

Sirius jumped as Alastor Moody suddenly interrupted his scattered thoughts. He hadn't even noticed the auror come out of the courtroom, still watching his father's back. "What? Er, I mean what about?"

Moody cast his own privacy charm, the same one Orion had just dropped. "You alright, lad?"

"Fine. What do you want?"

Moody eyed him a moment but didn't push. "It's about the dementor you used in the ritual."

..."Yes?"

Moody scowled, and his magical eye spun wildly, something Sirius was starting to recognize as an expression of irritation or excitement in the auror. "Even though the Ministry captured it at the final battle, it's completely uncontrollable. It won't accept the same agreements the other Azkaban dementors have, keeps trying to escape, or Kiss the prisoners. We're having to keep a dedicated patronus guarding it at all times. Any ideas why it's still so different from the others?"

Sirius grimaced. Probably because the others were all creations of Ekrizdis, not Algol Black. "My father says it's bound to our family. That's why it was possible for my ancestors to keep it hidden away."

"Do I want to know how that works?"

"Probably not." He didn't feel like explaining right now that every Lord Black going back several centuries had been regularly feeding muggles to the thing. Fortunately, he didn't have to. That aspect was not included in the published Complete Works of Ekrizdis, assuming Moody could get his hands on the tome. No, it was hand-written in the margins on the copy of the book kept in the Black family library. Sirius had checked out of morbid curiosity one day while he was still holed up at Grimmauld recuperating. Of course, it didn't take a genius to guess how the unholy relationship might work.

"Think it would obey you?"

Sirius shrugged uncomfortably. He didn't relish the idea of having to be personally responsible for a dementor, now or ever. Then again, he supposed he had fed quite a lot to the dementor already; it may well have transferred its binding to him already rather than Orion. In which case he would be stuck with it until he died. "Maybe. I've no doubt it would recognize me anyway."

"Worth a try, then. I'll call on you once I've got a secure timeframe set up with Prewetts or Longbottoms as backup. No need for anyone to know your involvement who doesn't already."

No. No need for a price to be paid, at least not in public. After all, no Black had bothered to seek elected office since such a thing came into existence with the Ministry of Magic in the 1700s. With Blacks traditionally answerable only to themselves, and their victims carefully contained to muggles and members of their own extended family, there was no need for anyone to acknowledge the blood staining their hands. No need at all, not when it was more politically expedient to pretend the rich and powerful family was as morally pristine as their blood was pure, keeping any Dark family magic securely to themselves where it couldn't touch the public. Expediency was the same reason Lucius and Abraxas were spoken of as martyrs in the Prophet and even left out of the sealed official record of Sirius' misdeeds. The better for the Ministry's credibility, the better for the Malfoys' reputation and continued availability of their resources. No need for the world to know the depravity of such influential families.

Sirius snickered involuntarily. Moody raised an eyebrow. Sirius made a vague gesture. "Politics. It's ridiculous sometimes."

Moody smiled. "Aye, it is. But you're doing fine, lad. Let's get you home."

Ah, yes. Doing fine. Going home. As if everything wasn't completely different than it had been just ten minutes ago. Shit... Sirius had no idea what the fuck he was going to do in response to his father's ultimatum.

Author's note: Even though Orion Black really only came into this story recently, he's implicitky been functioning behind the scenes as a dark mirror to multiple other characters. Horrible father, obviously, but also a manipulative bastard like Dumbles and just as ruthless as Voldemort or Abraxas. Tried to make that scene less exposition-dump than actual epiphany, but the proof's in the pudding. Probably if I weren't publishing this serially I would have done a better job sprinkling in bits of Black family character building earlier on. oh well

Algol is one of the stars in the constellation Perseus. It's an Arabic name translating to "The Demon's Head."

Thanks for the reviews. Next update will probably be in 2 weekends again; I'm busy next week.