There was one nice day in late July, and it was the sixth anniversary of Arcturus' death. Her dad hadn't realised, too wrapped up in working with Gisela on something which Aurora and Harry were not to be privy to, even though he normally told them everything. In truth, Aurora wasn't sure her dad even knew the significance of the date. He had never mentioned it, and she had never taken much comfort in marking the occasion with anybody else.
That year, though, she went to the manor. She took Harry and Dora with her — Harry, because he was getting frustrated cooped up in the house all the time, and Dora, because they needed an 'adult' around if shit went sideways, which even Molly Weasley admitted was unlikely.
She sent Kreacher away to Silver House to 'clean' for a while. It didn't seem like a good idea to keep him around, especially in Harry's presence. He was unnerved enough by just being there.
"This place is massive," he said as they went through the kitchens and upstairs into the main entry hallway. "How do you even know where you're going?"
"It's not that big," she said, "Malfoy Manor's much—" She broke off, stumbling over her words as she realised what she said and the memories she had inadvertently called upon, "—bigger. Hogwarts is bigger and you figured that out." She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "Anyway, we won't be in here much today. We have to make the most of being outside. There's a beach down that way—" she gestured to the grand oak doors that led to the front garden and the path that wound down towards the sea "—and I'll come join you two there when I'm finished with my stuff."
Dora had given up on asking Aurora what it was, exactly, that she wanted to do today. When she had told Harry what she was doing, he had just sighed and told her she was a weirdo, and pinky-promised that he wouldn't tell her dad about it. Hopefully, he wouldn't find out in any other way.
She went out to the yew clearing behind the house, and knelt before Arcturus' grave again. She ran her hands over the smooth upper curve of the marble headstone, and said softly, "Thank you."
The ground beneath her feet seemed to hum in response. At her neck, Julius let out a gentle hiss, "He speaks."
"What does he say?"
A moment's pause, and then, "I do not know."
"Excellent." He was just as helpful as always. Aurora reached into the pocket of her robes, where she had put the vials of her, Arcturus', and Regulus's blood, and withdrew all three of them. When she set them on the soil, the ground seemed to tremble beneath her. Then, she laid her new yew wand between herself and the vials, and waited.
Nothing happened. The wind rustled through the trees and, down past the house, the sea lapped against the shore. "Lord Arcturus," she said, voice stilted to her own ears. "I call upon thee." Still, nothing. "Julius, what the fuck—"
The hairs on the back of her neck pricked up. Something was watching her. She turned, but saw nothing but the wide expanse of green grass and blue sky. Turning back, she focused on the vials. There was only so much that she could do here with the trace still on her, and the last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to this.
"Right," she said, and dug in her other pocket for the salt, mercury, and sulphur that she had brought with her. "Julius, can I use this? Or will it disturb sacred ground?"
"How should I know?" he hissed. "I was not privy to the construction of the wards. That was only my elder brother."
"Shall I get him then? Track Elise down and take him back? Or will you comply?"
A low, annoyed hiss. "You can use it," he said grudgingly. "But move away from Lord Arcturus' grave, please. You need to be more neutral."
She wanted to be close to him. If anyone would and could help her, it would be him. He was the one she needed to guide her, she was sure, even though he had not been able to do so in so long. Moving into the centre of the clearing, she made a small circle of salt, with a triangle of mercury and a pinch of sulphur. Her yew wand lay across the centre of it in one sharp line.
Her hands trembled as she took the vial of her blood, and uncorked it. The scent was overwhelming, and it should not have been; a metallic tang followed by the dark mess of decay. She swallowed tight to keep her bile down. It should not smell like that, she was sure. As soon as it was exposed to air, though, the blood seemed to darken in colour, and her arms grew numb.
"Is it supposed to feel weird?"
"What is weird?"
"Like…" Like her veins were too big and her heart too small and panicked. "I don't know." Her head swam. She held the vial tight. "Lord Arcturus—"
"You are not ready."
The sound of his voice almost made her sob. On instinct, she doubled over, holding the vial close to her chest. "Arcturus—"
"You do not know what you are doing." His voice was stern, like when he used to teach her to make potions with him, giving instructions so she did not scald herself. "Put the cork back in and set the vial down. Spill my blood, not yours, for goodness' sake; you cannot resurrect the living."
She did as she was told. His blood hissed like oil in a pan when it touched the damp soil, and around her, she felt the wind embrace her. He was here. She could get an answer. This was what Julius had meant; all the spirits lingered here, in this place, or at Grimmauld Place. The two were inextricably linked, and it was only a matter of how to draw them out. It almost made her smile that it was the thought of her being endangered that made Arcturus' spirit come forth.
"Can I..." She started, then cut herself off. The clearing had gone still again, and there was no sign of Arcturus' presence anywhere other than in her own head. "Can I speak to you? Is this what this means, this ritual — I can speak to you?"
There was a long moment of silence. Aurora's heart twinged. This was stupid, she thought. She was being stupid, and she barely even knew what she was trying to do. She just wanted answers. And if she could hear Arcturus' voice again, if she could connect with him — she needed it.
"You may," came his voice, rich as ever, and Aurora almost sobbed, but stopped herself. He wouldn't want to speak to her if she was crying. "But not for long. Death is always watching. This is the only way I can crossover, and still — it is not complete.0
"Bellatrix Lestrange tried to kill me," she said, because there was little point in trying to dance around it. "I don't know why I'm alive. I don't know why my uncle Regulus wanted me alive, or why you did."
"I know," Arcturus' voice said, "I've been watching."
The air before her seemed to shimmer, like he was dancing upon his own grave. "Then you'll know, I need answers. Bellatrix said I don't know what this family demands of me yet, and she meant more than just pure blood. What did she mean?" He was silent. "My Lord, please."
"I am no longer your lord, Aurora."
"Well then, tell me," she said, impatient snapping in her voice, 0your lady demands it."
Why was he here now? How was he here now? Aurora was not sure that it was even real; if he could have spoken to her all this time, why only now? Not all the other times she sat here and cried alone, when she felt like her heart was being torn out of its chest, when she thought she would go mad from sheer loneliness the summer that he died? Perhaps it was only the blood, perhaps it meant something that she did not quite understand yet.
But she wanted to scream, when she saw him in her mind's eye, whole and healthy and shimmering, because he wasn't real, but he could be. He was there like he had been six years ago.
It was the blood, it was the ritual, it had to be.
The temperature of the clearer dropped several degrees. Aurora pulled her robes right around herself in an effort to conserve her own body heat.
"A child of the House of Black," Arcturus began slowly, "has a path to follow that no other house will ever come quite close to. There is a price to power, Aurora. Death demands his prize."
The words were familiar, haunting. "I know. I know that."
"I had wondered… I had hoped that I could delay the hour of my death. You were not supposed to have all this thrust upon you so long, without anybody to guide you."
She bristled. "I've been guided well."
"I know, my girl. But your father never stayed in the family long enough to know its secrets, and Lucretia passed too soon for you to learn. I suppose that was all my fault, too.
"You are almost seventeen," his voice said. "You're almost ready for your rite. And yet, there is no one left alive to help you with it."
"My rite—"
"The House of Black must survive." The air around her went colder and colder, until she felt like she herself was walking into death. He had given up on conversation; these words sounded like a speech he had prepared long ago, and Aurora was unsure if he even knew she was there. Was this even a conscious spirit, or merely an imprint of him, forced to guide her into some family fate? "This was what our founder decided, many centuries ago, when he brought the sorcerers' army across the water in search of glory. We survive at any cost. Toujours pur does not mean only that we do not consort with muggles — we would not have survived those early years otherwise. It means that the line is pure. The family name remains, Black to Black to Black, never changing, never leaving the ancestral lands.
"My grandfather explained it to me," his voice said, and yet it was amplified now. It was not one spirits speaking but dozens, hissing and whispering and snarling. Screams rang in the distant trees and Aurora had to fight her instinct to run. There was something strange in the air, a smell of decay. "I was younger than you are now, but he and my father were... Concerned, about the direction I was heading in." Caution laced his voice. "We bind ourselves to the land, and to the family. We swear to its values as decreed by our lord and we pledge fealty to him and every other. You are in the unique position of being lady, and not having sworn the oath yourself.
"But you have completed the first part. I know you have your own blood here. This land is a part of you. You could not be Lady Black otherwise, and you could not have called me. In centuries to come, a lord might call on you, spill your blood upon this soil." The vision of him wavered. He seemed to age before her. "We do not have long. Death does not—" He took in a gasping breath, as though still alive, as though a knife had been plunged into his back and bled him, and Aurora could not help herself from lurching forward, trying to grasp ahold of him on instinct. Her fingers wrapped closed around nothing but thin air. "He comes," Arcturus said, brown eyes wide. "He always comes. Look at him, Aurora — his eyes..."
The image before her wavered. From Arcturus sprang Death himself, cloaked in darkness, pale of skin and dark of hair and his eyes — for the first time, she saw, his eyes were pure silver.
Then Arcturus was back, wheezing.
"Come back at Christmas," he told her. "On the winter solstice, if you can. You'll be seventeen by then; you'll be ready. Bring the vial of your blood with you, and bring mine and Regulus' too. You'll need your father with you, and Andromeda, if possible. There is a scroll left in my quarters, in a secret shelf beneath the window, wrapped in a green ribbon. Do not open it until that day, until you are ready to accept all that this legacy demands of you. You must read it and feel it organically."
His voice was snatched away by the wind. In just a second, inevitably, Death appeared before her. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, accusatory. "I needed to speak to him, I brought his blood here—"
"He should not have spoken to you. You have not yet fulfilled your bargain. Weakening the veil will only bring you pain."
"What bargain? The rite? Why do I have to do something? If — why can't I just speak to him?" Death's face seemed to change, between Arcturus and Grandmother and Lucretia, shifting constantly. "Why not?"
"Walk with me."
"No." She planted herself firm and rose to her feet. "No. I want to know. I demand to know."
"Remember who you are talking to, girl," Death said, voice low, "I am not a human, open to suggestion."
"Then what are you?" she spat. "A god? You told me you were not."
"I am everything, and I am nothing that you will ever understand."
"Try me." She met his eyes, those hollow pits. They had been silver, a moment ago; her mind scrambled to remember. "If I must do this rite, explain it. Let me do it. Let me speak with my ancestors."
"You think you are all-powerful, child of the House of Black. But it is I who gave our house this power, girl."
"Then explain it, oh Lord," she said with a sarcastic smile, curtsying so low her knees trembled. "I'm tired. If you bargained with Lord Hydrus to protect this family, then tell me how. Tell me how to protect myself. Everything about my life seems to have been dictated by this — this blessing or curse, this bargain he made with you for nothing but power and longevity, for a dynasty that I am now the head of. Do you not have a duty to him? If this rite is of your making, do you not want me to know it?"
Then, Death laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. She could only tell by his cold smile that it was a laugh at all; it sounded like the scraping of bone against bone, like the cracking of ribs, the slice of flesh.
"I had no hand in the rite, child," he said, voice rasping, "that was a mortal invention. When you have a taste of power, your kind are quite happy to keep it, by whatever means you can.
"You should consider yourself lucky you have not completed it," he told her, voice now softer, sweeter, like syrup, "you poor thing... Your ancestors will not all welcome you."
Her body went cold. "I am Lady Black."
"And what does that mean, child? Do you even know?" He stepped closer, clasped a cold hand around the vial of her blood that she still held. She had not known he could touch her like that. His hands were freezing, but they were so real; they felt just like human flesh. Somehow, she had expected them to be skeletal, or putrid, rotten, but they were almost like those of a normal man. In a way, that made him all the more horrifying. "Let me show you."
The sky changed colour.
It was a grey day, and it was cold, and there was nothing but open land running down to the sea, where black ships were coming over the horizon. Death stood in the centre of the clearing, free of gravestones, right where Aurora was, as yew trees began to sprout around them, far too fast, rising so high they could blot out the weak sunlight coming through the clouds.
A young, dark-haired man stood behind him, clasped his hand. He wore a blue tunic and a silver coronet. A knife balanced on their joint fist. Blood ran from his palm.
"Blood to blood, Earth to earth."
Another young man, with brown curls, under sunlight, in a long green gown. "Let this child cleave to his kin."
Another and another and another. "Let his power grow inside him."
The yew trees grew and the headstones multiplied and the waves crashed upon the shore.
"Let the world answer to his call."
The manor rose up higher, casting a great shadow over the clearing. "Shore to shore, sky to sky.
"Make this child a beacon of light."
A young man with a a familiar face; he looked like Castella, and Aurora could almost see her face in the trees behind them, staring out of the shadows.
"Make this land abound with his spirit."
A young Phineas Nigellus Black, his face haughty and cold, his silver eyes gleaming.
"Make the world feel the imprint of his life."
Then another man, with roaming dark hair and a long nose and wide eyebrows, and his eyes, unlike all the rest, were a shade of tawny brown. Phineas Nigellus stood by him, with another man — Sirius the Third. Their blood fell upon the ground. Arcturus' hands were nothing but red.
Aurora's stomach turned. "This doesn't help," she said, "this doesn't explain—"
The scene changed.
The first young man had his wand to the throat of an unarmed man, a muggle, his sword on the ground behind him, out of reach. Green light flooded the field behind them. Another man with a knife, slicing the throat of his enemy. The blood fell on a rock faraway, but Aurora could see it seeping through the floor of the clearing.
Someone was burning on a pyre; ash and blood and green light and a laugh. A village went up in smoke.
Two young men were locked in a duel, lights blaring through the air between them. She was stood in the corridor at Grimmauld Place, stuck between them, when a stray spell struck them. She fell to the floor and then fell through it, and she was back in the clearing, watching, as three young witches knelt on the floor.
Arcturus stood above them, his wand pointed. His hand trembled around it, his face screwed up in concentration. He was still young, no older than the age Aurora was now. His hand slipped around the wand handle.
He spoke. "You have betrayed this family." His voice was as she had never heard it before; cold and hollow, monotonous. This was not the Arcturus she had known. "You have betrayed our values, our blood. You..." His voice shook, just for a moment. "You knew the price of your betrayal."
"Don't do this," spat the girl in the middle, "you know you don't want to do this."
"Don't tell me what I do and do not want!" Fear laced his voice; it arced higher and higher, and then he pushed it down. "I will do what I must, as I am bound to do. I swore to carry out the will of this house and defend its values. I am loyal. You are not."
"Arcturus," the girl said, lip trembling. "No."
He raised his wand. His hand shook. For a moment, Aurora held her breath, thinking, he's not going to do it. Of course he isn't going to do it.
But he did. The clearing lit up green and the three girls screamed, and Aurora tried to close her eyes and she couldn't, she couldn't look away. Green light flooded the clearing. One after another, they fell. When they were still, Arcturus slashed each hand and spilled their blood on the grass. The yew trees grew taller.
When Aurora closed her eyes, she was back in the present, kneeling just as those three girls had. Death loomed over her. "What was that?" she asked, voice tearing through the air. She could hardly breathe through it. "Why would you show me that?"
"That is the rite," Death said, "its completion."
"Death demands his prize."
Death knelt down so that he levelled his gaze with her own. "Yes. And no. Every generation, the Black family gives me one of its own. Every generation, the heir is bound to the lord, to his will, and the will of all the lords before them. And there is always someone who defies them. So the family tree must be trimmed, its rotten branches cut off and culled.
"I did not make you this way. Toujours pur, is that not your motto? Hydrus thought he was so clever." Death let out a sharp laugh, and Aurora's heart jolted. "Cut out the corruption. Keep the family line intact." His face contorted in something like a sneer, that was horrifyingly human. It reminded her of Draco. Her heart pounded faster and faster, and the heat of the day seemed to grow, surrounding her like a greenhouse.
When she looked down, all she saw was blood. The brown of the soil took on a new red tinge, the grass seemed to wither around the gravestones. The vial she was holding grew hot in her palm.
"He killed them," she whispered, chest rattling. "Those girls... Arcturus wouldn't do that."
"Wouldn't he?" Death asked, voice like a snake's hiss. Julius was cold at her throat. "Wouldn't you?"
"I — no. No, I wouldn't."
"Let me rephrase." She took a step back and he took two closer, darkness swallowing her vision. "Wouldn't Draco?"
He would. Her chest tightened around the knowledge she had hidden in her heart. Maybe not her, if she was lucky — but if he was pushed enough, if the right person said the right words, what might Draco do to Elise, or to Dora, in the name of purity? In this darkening world, what might anyone do? Bile clogged her throat and she turned away, eyes burning.
"So that's it? That's the rite — to commit murder?"
"Oh no," Death said, "the rite is what you saw earlier. Murder is merely a consequence of it; I do not demand it, but your family loves to serve me. Your lord would say some choice words, you would agree, you would spill your own blood. That is why your blood is there. Your great-grandfather made sure your blood was taken when you were still an infant, to be sure that, if he could not gain access to you later, you could still be bound to the family."
Bound. The word turned her stomach. Like some animal, like he would have caged her. That wasn't Arcturus. None of this was Arcturus. This was not the family she knew and it certainly was not the one that she wanted. He had never said he had anyone see her as a child.
"How?" she asked, dreading the answer she already knew. "He never visited me when I was that young."
"No. But his grandson did. Your dear uncle Regulus, he visited you, remember?"
"He put a blessing on me. Hydrus' blessing, that's what he was doing, he was trying to protect me. He wanted to save my life not — not bind me to this family."
"Oh, Lady Black." Death sounded almost sad. "Those are one and the same."
She took a step back and he did not follow. Tears stung her eyes and she could not even understand why, just that it hurt, that it made sense and she didn't want it to. Of course she was not worthy of saving just for her life. She was the daughter of a mudblood and a traitor. It was only the Black blood that mattered, her utility to the house. It needed an heir. The line had to continue — Andromeda was a blood traitor, Bellatrix and Narcissa had married and given their names away already. She and Regulus were the last hope of redemption.
A glimmer of fear crept in, winding its dark tendrils around her heart. Arcturus knew he would not be able to see her, that was why he had sent Regulus. He must have known her father would not acquiesce easily, much less her mother. He had admitted doubts about her father's imprisonment, so had her grandmother, from time to time.
Her mother had been a deliberate target of Bellatrix. If he had sent Regulus, then he had known. He had not protected anyone but her.
Nausea lurched through her, and Death laughed, and she backed away. The sun's heat pressed in, and she stumbled to cling to a headstone, hoping to keep her balance. No, she told herself, he wouldn't have. He didn't know. He loved her. He had always loved her.
He hadn't known her. He had known he was the head of a house that was slowly dying, and his role was to make sure that it didn't, by any means necessary.
"I want to speak to him. I don't — he didn't have my mother killed. Tell me, that's not what you mean!"
"You wanted to know about the rite. This is what it entails." Death inched closer and she did not flinch away. "You pledge yourself to the House, and to your lord." With him came the cold breeze, piercing, more like the North Sea in winter, than the English Channel in the height of summer. "You promise that you will make sure it remains strong, that you will purge it of corruption. You promise to maintain its values — purity, resilience, rationality, supremacy." The yew trees seemed to grow taller and taller, a black canopy above her, covering the sunlight. "You spill your blood with that of your lord and you swear the oath, and you cannot escape it. You are bound to a will far greater than your own — the will of the house. You are not bound to me. You are bound to Fate, as I am, too. As all those who walk this earth are."
"And the blessing? Hydrus' blessing — they wanted me alive. Regulus cared, didn't he? He cared for me? He fled Voldemort, he changed his mind, he wanted something better."
"Regulus was a coward," Death spat, and something like hatred glinted in his eyes, like this was some personal vendetta, like he knew him. Not for the first time, Aurora wondered, had Death always been this? "He thought he could cheat me. He did not care for you. He cared about what he could do with you. He did not die for a righteous cause. He was angry, and petty, and that is all."
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked. "You never—"
"Because, Lady Black," he said, and now his voice was soft, embracing, a low purr that said he cared, he was trying to help, and it was so, so much worse, "you've earned it. I've seen generations waste themselves and the gifts I bestowed upon them."
She swallowed tight. His eyes were like stars, brighter than the sun was now, and she could not bear to look at him. "I want to speak to Arcturus." Her voice came out a soft tremble. Death stroked her cheek.
"Speak up, child."
"I want to speak to him," she said, stronger this time, setting her jaw. She could not take Death's word. He was a trickster, he existed to deceive and to wound.
"Of course. If you wish it." His face changed into Arcturus', just as he had been the day he died, pale and gaunt and dying, and Aurora fought the urge to vomit. She wanted to lie down and curl up in a ball, she wanted to blot it all out because the noise of it was all too much.
"The real Arcturus."
Death laughed, and waved a hand. He disappeared, and by the grave, a shade of Arcturus appeared, eyes sorrowful and wide.
He knew.
"Is it true?" Aurora asked, voice trembling. She hated that — he would hate that weakness in her. "About my mother, about me."
"It is complicated, my dear. Your uncle—"
"I didn't ask about him," she snapped. He was avoiding the question, he couldn't answer, he knew he was guilty, she could tell by his eyes, Merlin, his fucking eyes, those kind eyes, those old, wise, reliable eyes — "I asked about you."
The words hung in the silence. A raven crowd above them, and Aurora's body ran cold.
"Regulus was going to die," he said, voice hollow. "He knew it. You were our only hope. But I wanted to save you. Your life was always endangered by this war, Aurora, I would have done everything to protect you."
"Me? Aurora? Or the future Lady Black?"
"Both." He made a move as if to embrace her; but he was a phantom, and he could not go beyond his gravestone. Aurora shrank away, the trees chittering around her. "I told Regulus to cast the blessing to protect you — he knew he was going to die anyway, he thought he may as well seal it."
"What do you mean? Seal it?"
"Death cannot be cheated. He always demands his prize. To save you," he said, as simply as if this were basic mathematics, "someone else had to dis. This was Regulus."
"Not my mother?"
He paused. "Someone. I do not know. Regulus thought he might find a way around it, keep himself alive as well as you — but he failed. He is dead."
"No one ever found a body."
"Aurora, dear, what you're implying—"
"Did you have my mother killed?"
"No! Dear Merlin, no, girl!"
"I saw what you did to those three girls! You killed them, for this family, you killed them! Who were they?"
His eyes filled with sorrow, his voice shook. "They were my cousins."
"Why did you kill them?"
"You do not want—"
"I do want to know, actually," she snapped, even though she was terrified of the answer.
"Bevause I had to. Because I was given no other choice. I have regretted it all my life—"
"You liked them. You were a murderer."
"Many people are. You are in a war, one your parents fought long ago — do you think they have not killed?"
"That's different."
"My girl, I did not expect you to take such things so personally."
"Why did your grandfather have you kill them?" She knew the family tree, and she knew every name that had been burned off, and why. She knew the stories from Callidora and Cedrella. "Who were they?"
"Cora was a squib. The other two, betrayed the family in other ways. I — they did not deserve it."
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because I was a child, Aurora," he snapped, for the first time, with true, bitter anger in his eyes. "Much changes in sixty years. I changed. I swore I would never be that person again. When, years later, I was heir and my uncle Cygnus revealed his son was a squib, I was the one who stood between the child and our grandfather and forced them to let him live." Marius. He had saved Marius — by stripping him of his memory, his identity, his family, who should have just loved him anyway. "And I did not have your mother killed."
"But you let her die. You knew we were all targets, and you did not protect us, from Bellatrix — you were her lord!"
"Your father would never have accepted my help."
"Did you ever even offer it?" His silence told her no. The world seemed far too small, and yet she felt smaller still. "Merlin." She stumbled back, dazed, clutching a gravestone. "You let her die! You knew! How could you?"
"I did not fight in the war. I was a neutral party, which in those times was near impossible—"
"You let her die! You could have gotten me killed, or my father — but you let her be killed, you let my father go to prison, you — you wanted me to be raised a Black! You wanted me here, so your lineage could continue! So you could tell all your friends about your great-granddaughter, your heir, you could tell them all I was a pureblood, you could pretend your line hadn't been sullied, you could raise me like them!" The words poured out of her, an anger she had never thought she could levy at him, and yet it felt like it had been there forever, a dam waiting to burst. Thoughts burst to the forefront that she had been trying to suppress for years now, and she could not stop them.
"This was not some conspiracy," Arcturus said, voice clipped. "I loved you, Aurora. I never meant to cause you any pain. I did not mean for your mother to die, but it was a war. I saved you, did I not?"
Saved her. He had and yet right now, that didn't feel like it meant anything. He hadn't known her. He loved her now, but as an infant? He only knew what she could be. Eyes burning, she spat out, "That isn't fair."
"Aurora—"
"It isn't! Fuck, you're no different to the Malfoys, really, are you, that's what Draco's been trying to tell me! All the time I was with you, you tried to lie about who I was, you tried to cover up my impurity, and it never worked but you kept trying, because you could never admit it! You could never admit your failure to keep the line pure, and you couldn't bring yourself to actually defend me, could you? You—" Her breath came in short, scared gasps now, the sort she might make if she were drowning, trying desperately to keep herself afloat "—you let her die and you and Regulus just saw me as — as a means of keeping your bloodline! He never really changed his mind about Voldemort, did he — I saw his room, his wall, all those newspaper clippings, that fucking shrine of his! He was obsessed! But he just didn't want to have to face reality and he didn't want to leave the family in the lurch, and you — you never even told me her name! You never thought maybe, that's something I should know! You tried to cover up everything about me, because you were ashamed, that this is what the House of Black fell to."
"Aurora," he said, "that is not true. You are upset, Death has upset you, but if you calm down—"
"Don't tell me to calm down! I'm right, I know I am, and I'm so fucking sick of everyone lying to me, pretending I'm something I'm not, making me pretend, I'm sick of people refusing to accept reality, I'm sick of having to chase answers about every facet of my life because there's no one left to tell me who I am and I — I don't want to be told, anymore, I want this all to just go away!"
Her words rang in the clearing. Arcturus' form faded before her, and she lurched forward, fear seizing her chest. "As you wish," he whispered, and then, in a heartbeat, he was gone.
Aurora stumbled and fell to her knees. "No," she hissed, clenching her fist around the grass, "you can't do this — come back!" There was nothing but silence. "Arcturus, come back! Please!" A whisper of nothing on the wind, prickling the back of her neck. Regret coiled itself around her chest. She needed him; she needed his love, his embrace, his approval, and he was dead and yet she chased that still, and she had let it go. She had lost it, if she ever fully had it.
He had loved her. She knew that was true. Nothing could make her believe otherwise, because if she did, she would break in two.
But Regulus had not saved her out of love for her father, for his own niece. He had done it on orders from his lord. They had known she was in danger and they had taken only that one measure, not even knowing if it was enough. Enough to save her, but no one else.
She knew in her heart, that Arcturus could have done more, to protect her family, if he had wanted to. But he hadn't.
It should not have been a surprise. There was little love lost between Arcturus and her father. And yet she could not help but resent it, the feeling that she was just a means to an end, part of an orchestration that had been going on for generations. Another in a long line of Blacks, destined to kill their relatives, destined to fulfil that one ideology, that one prophecy, destined only to perpetuate the line, and be forever bound to their past.
"Fuck that," she hissed, and forced herself to her feet. The world lurched around her. She should not swear in a sacred space like that, but right now she could not bring herself to care. "Fuck all of this."
She stormed her way down to the beach, passing the manor with fury burning inside of her. She felt like she could torch the place, with its secrets and its mysteries and its infuriating portraits and its heavy, reeking grief. The beach brought her no comfort like it had when she was a child; the roar of the waves was like the wardrum of an oncoming army.
As she approached the beach, she forced herself to calm her face, slow her gait. They couldn't know anything was wrong.
She didn't do a good enough job. When she came near him, he turned awa from the battered shore and asked, eyebrows raised, "Are you alright?" She nodded silently and pulled her robes tighter "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Aurora stared at him blankly. "There are no ghosts at Black Manor, Harry." She swallowed tightly. "I'm fine."
He held her gaze, and she squirmed beneath his scrutiny. "You don't look fine. You look like you've been crying."
"Well, I haven't, it's just the sea wind stinging my eyes. You don't know how lucky you are to wear glasses."
He frowned and turned away. Dora came over then, and Aurora could tell she knew there was something wrong, but she didn't pry, just put her hand on Aurora's shoulder and said, "I think it's time we go home."
-*
When Aurora arrived back at Arbrus Hill, she went to her room without a word to her father, and lay on her bed, and did not come out for dinner. She didn't cry, either. She tried to; she screamed into her pillow, screwed her face up, but the tears wouldn't come. There was an empty cavern in her chest which she knew she would never be able to fill again.
Her dad came by after dinner to ask what was wrong. She lied and said she was on her period, and he went away and came back five minutes later with a hot water bottle and some strawberries, and perched on the end of her bed. "I know that's not all," he told her gently, as he stroked her hair. "I do know what today is, you know. I know why you wanted to go to the Manor." Aurora buried her face deeper in her pillow, and he sighed. "Just come and find me when you want someone to tell, alright?"
She didn't answer. He pressed a gentle kiss to her temple, and with a heavy sigh, left her to her emptiness.