The day after the funeral, all three of the Arbrus Hill household traipsed downstairs in low spirits. Aurora's dad was melancholy, staring distractedly across the room at breakfast and barely engaging with Aurora and Harry's — remarkably civil — attempts at small talk and conversation.
Just as they were finishing breakfast, and Aurora beginning to lose hope in her father's mood ever improving, two owls arrived at the window, bearing letters with the Ministry seal. A pit of dread filled Aurora's gut as she went to fetch them both, until she saw the departmental seal.
"Harry," she started slowly, hands shaking, "did Dumbledore happen to mention anything about our O.W.L. results when you were with him?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah — he said they'd be soon." He caught on and his face paled. "You think that's them?"
"Department of Education — I can't see why else they'd be writing to both of us. Merlin." She untied the two letters and handed the owls some treats before they flew off towards the forests. "This is yours."
Harry took it gingerly, like he was afraid it might blow up in his face. "It isn't a Howler."
"Could be."
"It's not." Still, she didn't want to open hers.
"You'll have done fine," her dad said, looking up. His voice sounded faint and faraway. "Both of you, you've no need to worry."
"My Herbology practical was atrocious."
"I don't think I looked at the sky the whole last hour of Astronomy."
"Oh, Merlin — what if I've failed everything?"
"You'll be fine," Harry said dismissively, having turned rather green. "I'm not so sure about myself."
"Right." Aurora forced herself to peel open the seal, and unfold the envelope. "We'll open them together and we won't tell each other what we've got until we're both done reading. Okay?"
"Yeah." Harry opened his gingerly, and Aurora looked away, sitting down with a sigh and a pounding heart. She hadn't expected the world to narrow back down on her exams so soon, but it was just another reminder of how the world kept moving. Tragedy could and would strike at any moment, but the world would continue to turn, work would continue to be done, things like exams, which seemed so meaningless in the face of a war, and murder, would still be sat and graded and students like Leah and Ernie, who had been thoroughly trampled on by fate, would still have to sit down and see the fruits of their labour, however bountiful or withered they may be.
But she forced herself to read and get over the nausea in her throat. Somehow, despite the rational part of her brain knowing it was not, in fact, the end of the world, the sight of the letters on the page still brought frustrated, disappointed tears to her eyes.
"Damn," Harry said, pleased, "I passed nearly everything."
"Oh. Well done."
She had done better. She had passed everything. Seven Os: Ancient Runes, Astronomy, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Potions, and Transfiguration. Three Es: Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology.
She swallowed tightly, eyes crowding with hot tears of disappointment. They were fine, she told herself, the results were absolutely fine. More than that, they were beyond what most people would receive. And she'd known Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures were her weak points, and doubtless she had only just scraped the E with her theory exam for Herbology, but Arithmancy… It had always been difficult, but she had really thought she'd done well enough for an O. She had thought she might make it.
"Well?" her dad said, looking over her shoulder, and she folded the parchment over quickly but neatly, forcing a smile. "How are they?"
Potter shrugged. "Mostly Es and As, failed History and Astronomy, but I got an O in Defense."
"An O?" His face finally brightened. "That's fantastic, Harry, well done!"
"Yeah," Aurora said, her voice a hollow echo, "well done, that's great."
"How'd you do?" Her father had a forced, but teasing, grin. "You don't have to be humble, you know."
"Humble?" Potter raised his eyebrows. "Nah, she's got straight Os and she'll be bragging about it forever."
"I haven't, and I won't, actually," she said in a clipped voice. "But it was alright. I didn't fail anything."
"That's great! Even Herbology was fine?"
"I somehow scraped an E."
Her father's mouth fell open in delight and he stood up to hug her tightly. "But that's brilliant Aurora, how can you be upset with that?"
"I'm not. I got an E in Arithmancy, too, that's all."
"Two Es and the rest Os, that's nothing to scoff at!"
"It was three Es. Care of Magical Creatures."
"Okay, then, three Es and seven Os. It isn't exactly bad, is it? That's got to be pretty close to the top of your year."
"But it won't be the top of my year," she said sharply, before she could stop herself, and turned away, eyes smarting. "It's fine. I knew — I'm not the best student. I'm not perfect. That's fine." She had just wanted to be.
"Well, I think it's worth celebrating. You're the best student in the world to me — Harry, you're a very close second."
He winked, and Harry laughed, and Aurora tried to let that cheer her up. She hadn't done terribly, and the rational part of her mind knew that. But she really had wanted to do better, and her heart still tugged her down. She would just have to muddle through these next two years, she supposed, and try to earn better N.E.W.T.s despite everything going on, no matter how impossible a task that seemed. At least she would be dropping Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures; but Arithmancy, she had so wanted that O, had so wanted to prove herself.
"We should try and have a celebration," her dad said, "for you both, and Ron and Hermione — something to cheer everybody up, hm?"
She thought instantly, with a bitterness she did not want, that Hermione Granger would surely have gotten an O in Arithmancy, she would surely be better than her; she would be the best in their year, and it was not really a surprise but it still needled to have a way to prove that it was true.
"They really are brilliant results, you know," her dad told her, as they started clearing away their breakfast plates, Harry devising a letter to his friends. "You did the maximum exams Hogwarts let you, and you did them all excellently."
"Living things just hate me. That's fine. But I just thought I was alright at Arithmancy, and I guess I'm not."
"You're brilliant at Arithmancy. You got an E! And it's a horribly difficult subject."
"Yeah," she said, glaring at the saucepan. Her father had gotten all Os in his O.W.L.s, she knew, and without even trying. "Yeah, it's fine — I'm just being silly. I am okay, it's not the end of the world, is it?" She took to scrubbing the pan with vigour, turning her back to her father. She didn't want to look at him and try to put on a brave face, and pretend that she didn't want to just be allowed to be upset. He wouldn't understand, and anyway, he had far bigger problems than her stupid exam results. Aurora couldn't put all this on him, too.
Theo came into her mind, then. He would understand her perfectly if she wrote to him and told her her grades and how he was feeling, and he would absolutely believe in her. If he could, if she let him, she knew that he would be here, and hold her tight and make her laugh, and both of their souls would be at ease. But she cast that thought away, along with her anger and her frown.
"I'll sort these," she told her dad, "go see where Harry's gotten off to." There was that familiar itch beneath her skin, that desire to just burst out from within her body. Somethig just needed to explode. "I might go see the Tonkses soon, and let them know how I've done."
At least they would be proud, she thought. Andromeda would understand better, the feeling of working and working and never having it pay off quite right. She would hug her tightly, and Ted would make the perfect joke and Dora would laugh, and she wouldn't have to be the perfect child.
It was unfair of her to feel like that, she thought. She should be able to gloss over this and focus on what really mattered; when she returned to the lounge, Harry and her dad were already moving on, back to talking about the Order and the war and Dumbledore. She tried to do the same.
-*
Gisela Reisen arrived two days later, and no one knew where they ought to put her. Aurora's dad had nominated her for Order membership to Dumbledore, who had accepted. The only problem was, Headquarters was still compromised by Kreacher. Aurora had been putting off the issue, despite everybody else's frustration with it. They had more or less left her alone, seeing that she needed to take her time.
But Kreacher had to be dealt with, and so while Harry and Aurora's dad went to meet with Gisela at Hogwarts, with Dumbledore, Aurora and Dora went with Kingsley to Grimmauld Place.
When she arrived, Kreacher knew it immediately. Her grandmother's portrait screamed and she rushed to quiet her down. "Filth! Scum! I have heard of your misdeeds, child, you pathetic—"
Aurora snatched the curtains closed and tried to put the cold words out of her heart. From the end of the hall, she heard the patter of tiny footsteps on the wooden floorboards.
"Mistress?"
She turned, nauseated at the sight of him. "Who are you talking to? Me, or her?"
Kreacher scraped into a low bow, holding her gaze. Dora and Kingsley came to stand just behind her, watching, wands out. "Only you, Mistress."
"Tell me — is there anybody else here?"
"No, Mistress."
"Has anybody from outside of the Order been here?"
"You are not yet in the Order, Mistress."
"Don't be cheeky — anyone but the Order, or me, or Harry, Hermione, or the Weasley children who were here in the summer?"
He shook his head. "No, Mistress."
"And have you broken your vow not to tell anybody the location of the Order's headquarters, or how to access it?"
"No, Mistress. I could not, Mistress."
She took a step closer, and he shrank away, eyes wide and full of tears. "Is it true that you want my father dead?" He did not say anything. "Kreacher. Answer me."
"Kreacher wants Lady Black to be free of her father, so she may take her proper place in society, and know it, without him hindering her."
"Did you participate in a plot to have my father killed? Answer me, Kreacher." Slowly, bitterly, he nodded.
"I regret it, Mistress, believe me!"
"You regret that I found out. You would have had him die! My father!"
"His presence is an insult to the House of Black! Mistress Narcissa saw that!"
"You worked with Narcissa? She was in on this?"
"Of course!" Kreacher snarled back, as Aurora advanced on him, blood burning through her. "Mistress Narcissa has always wanted what is best for Lady Aurora, and for the House of Black!"
"Narcissa is not your mistress," Aurora told him, voice hollow, "and she has never wanted anything that did not benefit her. She is selfish, and she no longer cares about me!"
"Forgive Kreacher, Mistress, please." He sunk into a bow on wobbly knees. "Kreacher lives to serve the house of Black, Kreacher loves Mistress Aurora — truly, I do!"
"Then why would you want my father dead?"
"Because he hurts Mistress Aurora! He hurts her reputation, hurts her chances of survival! Because he has caused you such pain with his absence and distance and cruelty and favouring of the Potter boy! You have changed, Mistress Aurora! The House of Black cannot change — it is all Kreacher knows, Mistress!"
She resisted the urge to lash out only because Dora and Kingsley were behind her, watching, but it was hard to keep the cursed from pouring from her lips, or the violent spirit from tearing out of her limbs. "You serve me! My interests! You do what you are told, Kreacher!"
"I was trying to help!"
"Well, you didn't! I cannot trust you, Kreacher! You almost killed my father, your actions led to my best friend's father, and my father's friend, dying, and could have lost all of us the war, and our own lives! Because you are stuck believing what my grandmother told you and put in your head!"
"Please, Mistress — Kreacher's intentions were pure, Mistress, please don't hurt me!"
She had not realised quite how close she had gotten to him, until he let out the yell of fear and she realised she was right above him, towering above him, and despite the pounding of her heart, she forced herself to pull back and rein herself in.
"I am sorry. I do not mean to… I would release you. I would give you clothes."
"No, Mistress."
"If you do not wish to serve me, that would be the choice! I gave you that choice, when I became Lady Black, as I gave all these elves. You promised your loyalty to me, even with another choice. When I came to pledge this place to the Order, I gave you the choice again, and you promised your loyalty and you rescinded it and — I don't understand why!"
"It was no choice!" Kreacher spat back. "Kreacher has only known the House of Black, Kreacher must serve the House of Black, the house has been good to Kreacher! Generations of my line of elves have served this house!"
"So you just hate me?" Tears smarted in her eyes. She had seen enough betrayal, but this stung, it felt so personal.
"Kreacher loves his Mistress, Lady Black! Kreacher wished to serve you! Master Sirius has never been kind to Kreacher!"
"You called him blood traitor, his friends and godson filth! This place is hell for him! You think he should die because of all that?"
Kreacher was sobbing now, and threw himself on the ground. Aurora's stomach turned. "This family loved Kreacher, once," he whispered, "now it is only Mistresses Narcissa and Bellatrix who care."
"That is not true. I care about you, Kreacher."
"You do not. You care for yourself and your new family and a new world that does not love the old. You do not love where you came from."
"I love the people I came from," she said, kneeling down so that she could look him in the eye. She heard and felt Dora and Kingsley shifting in the shadows, but kept her focus on Kreacher, trying to get through to him, silently begging the world to let them understand each other. "Kreacher, if my father died, I would never forgive you. I still likely will not." He let out a wet, sorrowful sob. "But please, tell me what you told Narcissa and Bellatrix, and their friends. I — you've been there for me since I was a child. I respect that, a lot. I… I'll help you. I'll make this place better for you, I will. But I need to be able to trust you, and I need you to tell me what you told Narcissa and Bellatrix."
"Only where Master Sirius would be, only how to hurt him."
"You must have said something before. When did this all begin?"
"Christmas, Mistress. Master Sirius ordered Kreacher out and Kreacher ran, to a home that loved him, that values elves."
Of course. It was as Arcturus had said; house elves may be bound to a family, but it was a question of loyalties and friendship to them. Human and house elf could never really understand one another. Their psychologies were entirely different, their magic a part of it. Long ago, before they were house elves and really just elves, they were friends, helping with chores out of friendship and goodwill, who humans had to be careful giving gifts to. They helped one another and humans gave them shelter and then, as humans were wont to do, took advantage of the magic of others.
And Kreacher, for all he was bound to the House of Black, and to its head in Aurora, he wanted to be appreciated, loved, wanted friendship, and he had sought that with Narcissa. She should not have taken him for granted. She was supposed to be better than that.
"You were cruel to him. And to me, and to our guests. I never wanted you to feel you could not serve this house, and me, but you have not been kind."
"Kreacher wanted out. Kreacher wants the old family back! Narcissa promised — she promised Kreacher could be with her, and Lady Black, if Master Sirius was dead, and all could be as it once was!"
"She wanted me with her, too?"
"Yes, Mistress — Mistress Narcissa only wants Lady Aurora to be happy and safe, to make the family proud!"
Her eyes burned. "I see."
"Kreacher promised Mistress Narcissa he would tell her what he could, but Kreacher knows Mistress Aurora wants to fight, Kreacher only wanted Master Sirius out the way, Mistress Aurora was never meant to be there!"
None of them had expected her to go, she realised with a shock. Bellatrix had, perhaps, but it was just what Lucius had said and Pansy had implied. They had thought Harry would not trust her, or she would not trust him. Them trusting each other may have cost them; but it had saved her father's life. For all the other damage they had done, they had saved him.
"What did you say to her, at Christmas? You just promised you'd tell her what you could?"
"There was little Kreacher could say! But Master Sirius — he taunted Kreacher, asking questions, and Master Regulus would not have liked it, he wanted to know things Master Regulus told Kreacher to make sure nobody could know! He hunted down someone who was not supposed to be found!"
"You knew why my father was visiting Gisela Reisen?" Kreacher nodded. "What is it that you think she knows?"
But Kreacher just wailed and thrust himself at her feet again, and Aurora nearly toppled over trying to scramble back.
"Kreacher, please—"
"No more, Mistress!" he gasped, and Aurora had to reach out and grab him to stop himself from hitting his head on the wall.
"Do not hurt yourself, Kreacher!" she told him sharply, "I forbid it. You — you should not hurt yourself over this. You… You're not allowed to tell me, are you?"
"Regulus made Kreacher swear… Kreacher would never tell anyone in the family."
"Alright," Aurora said gently, "that's alright. I'll figure it out myself. But — you know, Regulus probably didn't mean me. I wasn't really in the family at that point, was I?"
Kreacher contemplated her with round confused eyes, but shook his head. "Kreacher does not know… Kreacher will not say."
She swallowed tight around the bile and anger in her throat, but forced herself to nod. "Alright. If that's the case… Kreacher, please understand me, now. It is not safe for you to be here. I want you to go to Black Manor." His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open in protest. "I know — but it is still one of the family homes, and it will welcome you. I need Grimmauld Place uncompromised. You will go to Black Manor — you will tend to the house and the gardens and you will not leave their bounds. You will not communicate with the portraits. You will not speak to anybody but myself, my father, Andromeda, Dora, or Tippy and Timmy. You will only come to me when summoned. Or, you can be set free, with your memories erased."
She did not want to make him do either. He looked horrified at the thought, humiliated by the punishment, and despite everything, she felt her sympathy for him growing. She could not let herself feel this pity, she told herself. She needed to be harder, more ruthless, she could not let sympathy and the reminiscence of childhood get the better of her. Perhaps she had done this, too. She had not respected him as she should, she had left him isolated and bitter. This would likely only make it worse. But she had to keep the Order secure. She wanted him to show he loved her, and yet, she wanted to hurt him, too.
"I'll have you visit me," she told him. "But I cannot abide the sight of you right now. You've disgraced your position."
"Kreacher does not want to—" He cut himself off, looking like he had swallowed a lemon. Instead, he spat out, "As Mistress commands."
With a click of his fingers, he disappeared. Aurora was left staring at the empty spot, trembling, her eyes burning with tears.
"Aurora," Dora started tentatively, but she waved her off.
"I'm fine," she said through gritted teeth. "Just — fine."
"Are you sure—"
There was a knock at the door. Grandmother's portrait started screaming. Aurora closed her eyes, wishing she could just stop time, wishing that she could disappear and get away from all of this. But it was for her to calm Grandmother down and close her curtains, to stand by with a polite and neutral smile, as Gisela Reisen breezed down the hallway, looking quite at home in the darkness.
She was tall and elegant; her face was tanned and lightly freckled, and dark blonde hair curled gently around her cheeks. For a moment she reminded Aurora of Narcissa, but she forced the thought from her mind.
"Good afternoon," she said, inclining her head first to Aurora and then to Dumbledore. "You must be my generous hosts."
Her dad shot her a look from behind Gisela that said, be nice. Harry was watching Gisela carefully, like he expected her to start hexing them at any moment. "Lady Aurora Black," Aurora introduced herself, ignoring her father's grimace. She strode forward, smiling. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I've heard so much."
"And I, you." There was a cold uncertainty to Gisela's smile which Aurora did not like. "Your father has told me an awful lot about you — I think I may know more about you than about him."
Despite herself, Aurora smiled, feeling her cheeks heat. "That's nice," she said, voice clipped. "Professor Dumbledore?"
"Yes, my girl." He swooped in and held out his good hand to Gisela, who politely ignored the fact that the other one looked like it was in the process of rotting away to mulch. "It's an honour, Miss Reisen. Allow me to introduce myself — Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster—"
"Yes," Gisela cut him off with an amused little smirk, "I know who you are. The most famous — and oldest — wizard in Britain needs no introduction."
Dumbledore's smile was pleasant, though Aurora was sure he did not appreciate the old comment. "How about we have a little chat in the drawing room? If you are not too weary from your travels, of course."
"Not at all," Gisela said with a steady smile, handing off her trunk to Dora without even looking her in the face. "Please, lead the way."
The moment Gisela was safely behind the drawing room door, Dora dropped her trunk with a thud. Glass clattered inside. "Who does she think I am, her bloody maid?"
Aurora's dad winced. "I'd forgotten Gisela can be… presumptive."
"That's one word for her."
"She's bright, and nice enough, she's just… Used to a certain way of living."
"Maybe," Aurora said, "but she didn't have to be rude to Dora."
Harry looked like he was trying not to laugh at her. Aurora glared at him, and turned around, stalking in the direction of the library. "I've things to do. Tell me when they're done."
Today, she knew exactly where in the library she needed to go. There were various sections dedicated to different family members and their writing over the year. Most were classified by the author theirself, but one area pertained to magic of the family itself, the spellbooks and potion books made by members of the House of Black.
But books were not going to help her. She could not rely on words and thoughts to tell her that which they had already failed to do. Aurora knew that she needed something more practical, she needed to be able to feel the magic that she needed to understand.
Bellatrix had said there was something she must do, that Arcturus had not told her, and there was an unknown weight of the jewels she wore — the lapis nocte ring — and that the ancestors would reject her. And she knew deep down that Bellatrix had not been bluffing, simply trying to rile her up. There was truth to her words, and she had delighted to see that Aurora did not understand.
Aurora had to understand.
Behind all the old shelves of dust-covered books, there was an alcove lined with old scrolls and vials of blood, and little jars with chips of bone. Grandmother had shown her once when she was very small; little Aurora had been fascinated, at first, but when she had gotten older and discovered what it really meant, it had made her feel sick to think about. Even now, it sent a shiver through her. Looking at it gave her the same feeling as raking her nails down a chalkboard, and she had to force herself not to look away, squirming.
There were names written on labels, or, on the older vials, etched into the glass. When she was a child, Grandmother had said they were relics, like those of saints, and that just by touching them, Aurora might become closer to her ancestors and be healed by them. She had seen no such claims in anything that she had read, but then, that was not infallible.
The vials were almost all from the lords of the house, from Hydrus right down to Arcturus, with a few exceptions — Castella, she noted, being one of them. Of course, she was a daughter of the Lord Apollo; her husband and cousin, Lord Dionysus, had relied on her stronger claim to legitimise his own lordship, and the claims of his children. It made sense for her to be there.
Grandmother had said that she would be told their significance when she was older. Aurora had asked why they were here, and not at the Manor, and been told that Arcturus thought they were safer in Grimmauld Place. He did not like to see them, and be reminded of what they meant.
Aurora could not quite bring herself to touch the vials or the little jars, but she took down the old and withered scroll and unravelled it carefully. Against her fingertips, it pulsed with magic. Its rhythm was tied to her own heartbeat, and when it touched her rings, they burned.
All that it contained were names; forty-one names, one from each generation of the Black family, until her. The names were written in ink that had dried rust-red.
Not ink. A lump crowded in her throat. Blood.
Even Grandmother had not thought that appropriate reading for a five year old.
She did not know what it meant, though. Words were only words and names were only names. She clasped the scroll tight, looking down to the very last line, expecting it to contain Arcturus' name, but it did not. Instead, she saw her own name there: Aurora Black. They had cut out her middle name, whoever had written this. The thought carved out her chest. Above her was written Regulus Arcturus Black, then Orion Phineas Black.
It seemed like a list of the heirs, but then, her father's name ought to have been there. It did not even look like it had been scored out. It had never been there. Upon closer inspection, she realised, her name looked different to all the others. It was not written in blood, but in plain black ink. She did not recognise the handwriting; it was not Arcturus, nor was it her father, not that she had expected him to have had anything to do with this.
Aurora set it aside for now, not wishing to contemplate writing her name in blood. It reminded her of Umbridge's blood quill, and all that she had done to Harry and everybody else, and made her head feel like it may burst.
The vials. The jars. Here was the blood and bone of her own ancestors. They must have some sort of spell preserving them; even Hydrus' looked perfectly intact, as sure as if it had just been taken from his skeleton, the blood and fleshed cleaned off. The thought made her nauseous. There was nothing with her name on it, at least. Though, she noted as she searched along the row, there were no bones for Regulus; only the vial of blood. Even that made her feel sick.
"Alright," she whispered to herself. "Alright."
She wished someone could have explained all this, sat her down and made it seem less awful, more normal. She wished she did not have to do it herself, feel her mind crowd with all the questions, like who were her family and what had they done and what the hell was she living in?
With cold hands, she reached for the little sack at the end of the shelf, and pulled it down, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process. Inside, were a cluster of many, many sticks of wood, of varying lengths. They tingled beneath her touch. They were not wands, as such, not in the way she understood them, but they trembled with power, too, and she recognised the wood. It was the same colour as the yew of her own wand.
There were forty-one of them.
Blood and bone and yew. Something about that rang a bell. Something she knew in the back of her mind and had forgotten.
"Blood and bone and yew," Arcturus had muttered in the final days, "remember — the blood and the bone and the yew."
The Healers had said he did not know what he was saying. That mystery illness was taking him. "It is time," he had told her. "It is your time, as much as it is mine."
But he had not stuck around long enough to tell her what the fuck any of it meant. Bellatrix knew, though. If she knew, someone else would. Andromeda, her father. She could ask portraits, though she had a suspicion they would be of little use to her. They seemed deliberately uncooperative, most of them. Perhaps that was by design. Perhaps the House of Black guarded its secrets too carefully.
At the top of the scroll, when she read it again, was the family motto and crest. But shimmering so faint it may have been written with spider silk, was another set of words: Mors petit praemium suum. Death demands his prize.
She knew that. Every story where a mortal tried to cheat death, he demanded something in return. She had suspected this about Hydrus's blessing already, that in using it, one somehow pledged themselves to death, even though Hydrus seemed to have escaped it, while Castella did not.
None of the pieces fit together, but she dusted off the vial of blood that had Arcturus' name on it and took the jar of tiny bones. When had these been collected, she wondered? Who had put these here — Lucretia, perhaps, that day they had come to clear out the house? She could have explained, if she knew. Someone could have left something for her to understand, instead of leaving her so unmoored and confused, unprepared.
When her hand closed around the vial of Regulus's blood, her own ran cold. She felt it like a wave crashing over her, so close that she could almost smell salt in the air and water clogging her throat. Blood rushed in her ears and it sounded like the sea rushing towards the shore.
Throat clogging, she slipped the vial into her bag. Something was wrong with it, something was wrong with her, she could feel it in her chest. When she touched the yew branches, she could feel the pulse of magic like the heartbeats of her own ancestors.
From around her neck, Julius hissed, "Show me mine."
She had almost forgotten him. But she turned, and sure enough, there was a vial nestled between Claudius and Cyphus that said, Julius. Even though he had never been the heir, his blood was here, too, and his bones. She picked it up, and it felt like ice. "What does this mean?" she asked. "Do you know why your blood and bones are here?"
"My father," he hissed, "he insisted upon it. We had to draw our own blood and spill it upon the sacred ground." The Manor. The yew clearing. That was where all the gravestones lay. "We bound ourselves to the land, to the house, to the family. So that none of us could leave."
"What do you mean," she asked, feeling like the room had just dropped several degrees, "none of you could leave?"
"I mean just that," he said. "You surely know what I mean. I'm speaking with you, aren't I? I can't leave. This family is blood and it is more. It is a promise. None of us can ever truly escape the House of Black, My Lady. We all return to the same earth."
"Will you just give me a straight answer for once?" she hissed.
His reply sounded like a laugh. "I am. I told you before about that enchantment my father made us swear to, that we would not harm one another? He was obsessed with the idea that the House of Black would destroy itself — no doubt my mother had given him some wretched prophecy of hers — and he made sure we were all bound together. To serve one another, in perpetuity, and to keep the line strong. Once we had settled in England, he made my brothers and sister and I swear a bond to him, the way lords pledge fealty to their king. It was not uncommon. I believe the tradition persists."
"I have not sworn such a thing."
"Well, Lady Black, you have no one to swear such a thing to. I do not know how magic works today, but it seems the tradition is kept up. I know it is. I can feel them."
"What do you mean, feel them?"
"The spirits. All of us together. One big, happy, dead family." He almost sounded gleeful.
"You couldn't have told me before?"
"You did not ask."
"Are you intentionally…" She trailed off. A thought came into her head. "When did they take the bones?"
"Oh, after our deaths, I imagine. At least, I can't recall giving permission for my bones to be taken out of my living body and shattered into a tiny pieces. It would have been painful, and I do not like to be pained."
Of course, she thought through the daze of confusion, Julius was a coward.
"Do you know why they're kept here, rather than at the Manor?"
"I would have thought that obvious, Lady Black."
"Well, it's not."
"This is the heir's house. These are the relics of the heirs. The land this house is on was home to the family's London residence, in my day. They kept building and changing it, but it is as closely tied to the Manor and its own wards as possible."
Of course. "So, the Manor — the yew wood here, comes from the clearing there."
"Yessss."
"And it ties the houses together."
"The land, yes."
Her heart raced. She felt like she was on the brink of something. "So then, symbolically, it binds the heir and the lord."
From around her throat, Julius let out a pleased hiss. "Indeed, Lady Black."
"Because the bones of the heirs and lords are in that clearing, beneath the ground, and the blood…" Blood and bone and yew. She had heard tell of the blood curse, or blessing — it would make sense if blood was used in some sort of ritual way. Even though that complicated everything terribly, again. "You spilled your blood in that clearing, didn't you? And now it's here… But why didn't I do this?"
"It is done twice in one's life. Once, as a very small child, by tradition — though my father had us do it at a later stage. The blessing is placed upon the infant, and when they grow up, they have it confirmed. They must pledge fealty to their lord. It is how we survive."
"But… But my uncle did something, but that was different — that was the same spell Hydrus made you and your siblings carry out, not this."
"I don't know," Julius said, sounding annoyed. "I am not omniscient, Aurora."
Everything seemed so tangled together. She knew there must be a way to make sense of it all, but she had yet to find it. "Do you think it would be a great affront for me to take these?"
"You are Lady Black. This house belongs to you."
That meant more than just the building. Her pocket felt heavy, weighed down by more than just the mass of the vials in there. Again, she felt that sharp sting like sea air, as though she were on the manor's lands again, staring over the horizon from the beach.
Aurora swallowed tightly. If there was one thing she felt certain of, it was that Hydrus Black had been more closely tied to death than any other, and as consequence, the magic of his descendants had been, too. Blood and bone and yew, all were common tools for the rituals of death magic. Usually resurrection, sometimes spirit trapping, but they were all significant. It was no coincidence. And if, as Bellatrix said, she was supposed to have her ancestors welcome her, then, what better way to invoke them than with blood and bone and yew?
Hydrus Black seemed to have thought of everything to protect his family, or at least his idea of what family ought to be. This tradition had stretched for generations, so it seemed; his old blessing had been found and reused and altered to fit the needs of its user. And it all came back to Death, over and over again; ironic, she thought, that Death was haunting both her past and her future.
She needed to visit the Manor. Again. But first, she knew, she needed to find out what Gisela knew of her uncle, and his death.
As she left the library to the sound of chatter and too-light laughter, she swore she could smell the sea again.