Hydrus eviscerated another cloud pixie, eye twitching at how many of the little pests were apparently set on stopping him from reaching the Flamels. He was nearly one and a half thousand metres into the air, riding a Firebolt he'd purchased for the visit, and the things were becoming more and more prevalent the higher he went. They were smaller than the palm of his hand but had nasty, needle-like teeth that felt like a clothespin being snapped on his skin whenever one got too close.
His one hand gripped the front half of his broom like a venomous snake reared to strike, and he was impressed by just how far down to the nub he must've run his previous Firebolt. He had to be going at least twice as fast as he could've on the old broom, which he'd rode through nearly half the war despite having it since his third year, and he hoped it wouldn't be too much longer before he reached the alchemist's residence.
Luckily for him, eventually he spotted an unnatural looking cloud and he zipped over to it.
On its cottony surface, there was a lone cabin. It was made of logs as thick as Hagrid that somehow turned at each corner rather than being split into new sections. In fact, as he landed and observed it closer, the entire house seemed to be one, great-big tree that coiled around itself to form a perfect shelter.
"What in the name of my ancestors…" Hydrus turned to the side and immediately spun away on his heel. There was an old woman in the garden, stark naked, and he immediately tried to purge the memory from his mind. "Who are you?"
"Hydrus Black," he called. "I'm here to see Nicolas Flamel."
"What do you need with… Oh!" The woman's voice was growing closer, to his dismay. "You must be Hydrus. Nicky told me you might be coming."
He growled. "And you didn't think clothes would be appropriate?"
"Oh, pish-posh," she said, laughing. "I grew this home, I'll wear what I damn well please. Come inside!"
He couldn't remember the legendary alchemist's wife's name, but she grabbed his arm and drug him towards the front door, forcing him to walk backwards and completely robbing him of any advantage his 'surprise' visit might've had. The place's features astounded and baffled him in equal quantities as they entered.
There was an oversized clock on one of the walls with dozens of hands, more than he could possibly count, all turning around it at different speeds. The ground outside had perfectly mimicked the way it would feel to stand atop a pile of blankets, but the wooden interior was like walking around on some sort of foam mat despite the arboreal nature of it. The air smelled of some flower he couldn't possibly name, and there were runes carved into the walls that seemed to be slowly moving around like living beings.
The old woman pushed him into a couch, and Hydrus firmly smacked his hand over his eyes as he caught another glimpse of her walking away. "I'll be right back!"
'Magic preserve me,' he thought. 'What the hell have I gotten myself into?'
He'd come here to find out just what Nicolas had divulged, and to whom, but now he'd been put on the literal back foot. Some sort of weird feline creature leapt onto the couch and mrowed at him, so he allowed it up onto his lap even as he felt displeasure rolling off Apophis. As he stroked its fur, Hydrus turned his head to the side.
"Settle down," he said. "I can't allow them to know you're here."
"If you say so…"
"Alright, I'm decent." Hydrus reticently turned and saw the woman was indeed now clothed in a set of robes. "What do you need, deary?"
"To potentially kill your husband." He needed to try and regain his control over the situation. "He betrayed my secrets."
"Oh please, I'm the only one he told. I'm the only one he ever talks to." She plopped down onto the couch next to him, and the weird, many-legged cat ran over to get into her lap. "He's down in his lab right now working on those weird runes you showed him, I've never seen anything like them."
"Yes, well—"
"He's worried about you, you know." She gently stroked the cat's fur, and the look on her face actually panged Hydrus's conscience. It felt like he was trying, albeit failing, to bully someone's grandma. "Scared you might end up like the last one of Alby's little projects and become a dark lord."
"I won't," he said with a twitching eye. "Trust me, I have enough of Dumbledore's nagging to tide me over for a lifetime. I'd like to go and speak with Nicolas now."
"So you can go and scare the pants off of him again?" The woman shook her head. "Just talk to me, deary. He and I tell everything to each other."
"Perhaps I haven't made myself clear."
He flooded the home with his magic. An improvised healing spell he'd come up with, something that could handle his arm and chest at the same time, easily took care of the fact that he hadn't bothered to suppress the other portions of his magic. The air around them turned cold, a threatening black mist filled the room, and the smell of death hung heavy around them.
"I'm not here for silly games and eccentricities." He stood. "I'm here because your husband betrayed me."
"Yes, yes." The old witch waved her hand, both her and the cat completely unbothered by his display. "I promise that antisocial boggart hasn't seen anyone besides me and those folk who were at your little meeting in years. If anyone's going to spill your little secrets, sweet heart, it isn't going to be him."
She scoffed and shook her head, as Hydrus grit his teeth. "I'm not—"
The sound of a door slamming open echoed throughout the home, and Hydrus turned to see Flamel had arrived, wand drawn and eyes wide.
"What the hell are you doing here?" the wizard demanded. "How did you find this place?"
'Finally.' Hydrus sneered back at the man. "I warned you not to—, could you stop?"
The Flamels' cat had wandered back over to him, reared up on three of its legs with the other four pressing against him, and the thing was staring up at him intently. He glared back at it until he realised it wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to him, and instead was somehow staring exactly at where Apophis was. The basilisk's annoyance was radiating through him.
"Haha, don't mind Calliope." The alchemist's wife said. "She just always knows when someone doesn't want her around."
An idea struck Hydrus, so he switched to Parseltongue. "Be good, but reveal yourself." Apophis appeared, draped around Hydrus's shoulders with his tail draping down to just past his waist. "It's not me who doesn't like her."
"Oh!"
The woman finally reacted to something properly; her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hand as Apophis reared up. The snake's crimson plumage flushed up like a crown and he gazed down at the cat through his amber lidded eyes. The cat stared back, unimpressed.
"A basilisk!" Nicolas Flamel had approached and both Hydrus and Apophis pulled back as the man leaned in close. "Male, obviously. Very well-fed. Must be… What, two years old?"
"Yes," Apophis lied immediately.
"No." Hydrus tried stepping back, but his leg just hit the couch. "He's not even one—"
"I see." To both the basilisk and the human's surprise, Flamel reached out and began turning the snake's head to and fro; his thumb ran down Apophis's scales and he was mouthing something that looked like counting. "I see… I can't imagine just how much magic you must've pumped into the creature for him to have grown so large so quickly. Tell me, what has his diet been like? Has he lived his whole life in Hogwarts? Have you imprinted any runes onto his bones like your own?"
To Hydrus's dismay, Apophis's mood had done a complete one-eighty. "I like this one."
"You like everyone," Hydrus hissed back with a frown. "I'm not here to talk about my familiar, Flamel. I'm here due to the fact that in less than twenty-four hours after our meeting, your name dissolved off the scroll you signed. I warned you that—"
"You may kill me depending on the circumstances, yes, yes." Flamel tapped his thumb against Apophis's 'lip' and the little traitor actually opened his mouth so that the alchemist could look at his fangs. "I only told Perenelle, and don't plan on telling anyone else. Now, tell me, what have you been feeding him?"
"Oo, speaking of feed, I'll go get us some biscuits." Perenelle stood and beamed at Hydrus who glared back at her. "Do you take any sugar with your tea?"
'I swear to Magic I'm never coming back to this awful country.' Then he winced at the accidental nationalism. 'And I've really got to stop hanging around Arcturus.'
Hydrus glanced about 'Moony Manor' as he tried to decide what to do with the place. He'd sent a notice ahead of time through one of Fenrir's people, setting up a meeting with Remus in Ireland, so the time-traveller only had another half an hour or so before the other man would realise he'd been ghosted by the 'client'. It was obvious who the werewolf would've spoken to about the meeting on Sunday, but that didn't mean he could get away from it scot-free.
'I should've brought the twins,' Hydrus thought. 'They'd have plenty of ideas.'
Still, he did have some of his own.
With a wave of his wand he transfigured the insides of Remus's couches to stone. With another, he vanished away the bars surrounding his owl's cage. He cursed the walls into being an awful shade of purple by forcing the stud's beneath the drywall to leak out a rare type of mostly-harmless fungus that Luna had discovered in southern Spain in his past life. The lightbulbs throughout the whole house were evaporated, the windows were turned to sugar glass, and he hid sticking runes beneath all of the carpets.
The house had an old-timey record player, so he carved a rune into it that made it grow deafeningly louder the farther away from it you were. On the roof he laid out self-filling seed troughs that would attract all manner of birds and squirrels alike to defecate on the man's property. He conjured up no less than ten artificial raccoons that wouldn't destroy anything, but would absolutely fight back if someone tried to grab them. Finally, unsure of what else he could do, Hydrus decided to just cast a subtle charm on every wall decoration in the house that would cause them to slowly turn off centre.
To make sure his old general knew exactly why this had happened, he capped his work off by leaving a small, handwritten note on the coffee table explaining that he shouldn't share secrets with anyone, including pet dogs.
He made sure to use howler paper for it.
Tonks pushed open her door with a groan. The fact she'd apparently forgotten to lock it didn't even begin to get past the wall of mental exhaustion her brain put up. It had been Physical Training day at the academy, the AIs favourite day, and it seemed like every time Tuesday came around lately the instructors wanted to push them further and further. She shut the door with her hip and started to trudge toward her bedroom.
"Good evening."
She grunted a response automatically, then jumped. "What the fu—, Hydrus?"
The teen was sitting in her chair, with a cobra the size of a python spooled atop his shoulders. The snake was staring directly at her, hood flared, and she began to deeply regret leaving her wand in her rucksack. Hydrus was slowly petting the snake in front of his chin like an old man would stroke his beard, and Tonks wasn't sure who she should be more afraid of.
"I'm disappointed, Tonks," he said. "Out of everyone in that meeting you certainly weren't my first pick for who'd betray my secrets."
She pulled her bag off her shoulder, though not setting it down to try and at least make it a little easier if she needed to grab her wand. "Breaking and entering is a crime. Under section—"
Hydrus flared his magic and she doubled over, dropping her bag. The teen stood and sauntered over to her as the pressure grew. Tonks grit her teeth and tried to straighten up but it was to no avail, the boy's magic felt like the crushing weight of death itself was sitting on her shoulders.
"What did you share? And to whom?"
She couldn't even consider lying as fear continued to burrow through her being. "I only told my mom about you, and what you were like." The words came quick and with the occasional crack in her voice. "That's it. I didn't say anything about the runes or whatever."
"Hmm," Hydrus hummed. Tonks whined as she more felt than saw the snake's snout brush against her skin. "And what did you say I was like?"
"T-, That you were scary." Honestly she couldn't even remember more. "I don't know."
Hydrus hissed something and the cobra hissed a response, then retracted itself back onto the teen's shoulders. "For your sake, cousin, I hope you aren't lying to me."
The magic finally retreated and Tonks nearly sagged to her knees. She was shivering from both the cold and the adrenaline as she looked up to see Hydrus staring down at her, stoic and unmoved.
"I mean it, I sincerely hope you're being honest with me." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small purse that he tossed at her feet. "Buy some damn furniture." As he stepped past her towards the door, he called back, "I don't care what some tapestry says, you're family. And my family doesn't live like this."
With that he slammed the door shut, shaking her whole ruddy apartment in his wake. Finally Tonks allowed herself to fall onto her arse and begin breathing. Her hands were still trembling and she desperately wished that she had someone else around to tell her it would be alright.
For years her mother had told her horror stories about how awful the Black family magic was. She never, ever, flared her magic around Tonks or her dad, and apparently she rarely worked with conscious patients because of it. All this time the younger woman had thought she was just exaggerating, but now she knew first hand just why her mother drank.
'What the fuck have I gotten myself into?' she thought. 'Morganna help me.'
Tonks looked at the small bag of coins and scoffed. She swatted at it, but rather than going flying away it merely flopped over.
'The hell?'
She picked it up and opened the drawstring. Her mouth dropped.
Apparently the small bag had been enchanted so that it was larger on the inside than it physically appeared.
Much, much, larger.
"...And so we owe it to our communities to not just be good. We need to be great," Sirius said, reading from the slowly-changing script card James had prepared for him, his voice echoing around the theatre. "Whether that means saving people's lives, or just filling out routine paperwork. Excellence is a habit, not a coincidence."
He sat the card down and stared out across the diverse crowd who immediately stood and began to clap and cheer. Keeping a sigh from escaping his lips, he gave a short 'thank you' then stepped down from the podium and returned to the backstage area where Amelia was waiting for him with a smile. Before he could start complaining, she wrapped her arms around him and smothered his lips with her own.
"Thank you," she said after finally releasing him. "I know how much you hate these conferences."
"Yeah, well," he half-heartedly grumbled. "Maybe if I always got receptions like this afterwards they wouldn't be so bad."
"Gross." Sirius turned to glare at James who was sitting backwards in a chair nearby. "Have you no shame?"
"And how many of your own awful snogging sessions have I had to suffer through witnessing?" Sirius snapped back.
"Probably more than I know about, ya pervert."
Sirius snorted at the joke, and James smirked in victory. Amelia just sighed. "We should get going. Shouldn't leave Giannis alone for too long."
The boy had been sleeping when they left, but she was right. They'd set up enchantments and wards to keep him safe from anything, even himself, but children had a way of somehow always finding a way to get themselves into spots of trouble. Sirius had seen for himself just how much potentially self-injuring mischief children could get up to from his time babysitting James' kids, so him and Remus had wrapped Giannis's room up so tight he'd have felt comfortable leaving the Minister of Magic himself unguarded in the place.
Before Sirius could agree with his fiancee though, a scrawny looking man ran up to the three of them. "Mr. Black! Would it be possible for you to do a quick Q and A?"
"Er—"
"Please?" the man practically begged. He was drenched in sweat and had to push the wiry glasses he wore back up his nose. "The crowd is begging for it, and even the next presenter said he'd rather you go up again than have to deal with it."
"Sorry, but I'd be nothing if it weren't for my captain." He patted Amelia on the back. "Wouldn't feel right going up without her, and she's got somewhere to be."
"Nonsense!" James jumped in. "I'll go check on Giannis. Since Sirius needs someone to hold his hand, you can both go up and I'll take care of things on the home front."
The Black Sheep and his fiancee both glared at the Potter patriarch but the attendant had already run off with a gleeful smile on his face. Amelia let go of Sirius to fold her arms in front of her chest.
"I hope you know I'm going to tear you a new one for that later."
"Aw, come on." He grinned, and Sirius already knew the man was about to work his usual magic. "You're always complaining to us about how Sirius is the only one they ever want to hear at these conferences, now they'll have to listen to you."
Amelia made to respond, but as soon as she paused to think that over Sirius knew it was a lost cause. He liked to think that he had a certain charm and charisma of his own, but James was something else entirely; the man could sell plywood to a wandmaker.
"Here," Sirius said with a sigh, taking off the amulet that Hydrus had given him. "He should still be sleeping, but if he's up, you'll need this to actually understand him."
James hummed to himself as he stepped out of Amelia's floo. The mini-mansion she lived in was like the woman herself, almost entirely 'presentable' but with little homey touches here and there that told you there was a real person living inside. He made his way up the nearby stairs to the third floor where Sirius had said Giannis's room was, silencing himself once he reached the top of the stairwell.
He knocked lightly on each door he came across, sparing a bemused grin for the politeness he'd accidentally shown to a toiletries closet he discovered on his third attempt, but on the fifth after just a moment he heard a "Hello?" come from the other side.
When he opened the door, he found Giannis staring back at him with wide eyes and tense posture. The boy was sitting at a small desk, a wide assortment of papers splayed out before him, and James ruefully wished his own children could be so studious. Maybe he had spoiled them.
"Hey there." He knelt down low so as not to tower over the child, not entering the room. "My name's James, we met at the church, remember?"
The boy didn't say anything, but slowly nodded.
"Sirius and Amelia are running a bit late at work today," he said, making sure to keep his tone gentle but not patronising. "They asked me to come make sure you were still asleep."
The boy swallowed. "I was… Just…"
"Tell you what," James said. "I'll keep this between us, alright?"
Giannis sagged down a bit in relief. "Thank you."
"Of course." He straightened up. "Still, you should probably be in bed. It's late."
"I know," Giannis mumbled. "I just had a bad dream. Wanted to get back to work."
"Here." James slowly made his way across the room, then lifted Giannis up and carried him back to bed. "I'll keep an eye on you until Sirius gets back, okay?"
Throughout the course of his career he'd seen far too many kids like this. It was a less common sight these days since the department preferred to send him out on more dangerous busts, but in the early years of domestic disputes and missing persons cases there was a kid like this in nearly every other home he went to. Parents who enjoyed a bit too much fire whiskey, people who suddenly stopped showing up to work. It always drove him to make sure he did his best for the kids he found left behind, and appreciate his own all the more.
"Okay." Giannis said as he shifted in his bed. "Do... you know Hydrus?"
"Ah," James started. "I've seen him a few times, but we really hadn't spoken before meeting the same day I met you. Sirius told me he was looking after you, right?"
"He's my best friend," Giannis said, nodding quickly. "He gave me this journal that let him talk to me even though he was really far away."
As the boy continued to rant and rave about all the things Hydrus had told him about, an appreciation for the teen began to blossom within the auror. He was only half-listening to what the boy was saying but it was obvious how much it had meant to him. Hydrus had always put on haughty, disdainful airs when James had seen him, whether it was at Remus's or during the end-of-year duelling tournament at Hogwarts, but it seemed there was a more gentle and kind side to him as well. He could tell Giannis was finally winding down from his over-sharing as he paused to try and come up with the next thing to say.
"And… And he said that there's these things called basilisks." Giannis spread out his arms. "He said they can be really big, and that their venom can kill anything. Venom is the, um, poison that certain animals can make."
James smiled at the boy's elaboration. "Is that right? Sirius told me how much you liked animals."
"They're awesome." Giannis's grin widened James's own. "Did you know about froads?"
As the boy began to explain all about the artificial amphibians, James took note of the way he finally became slightly less animated with his words. The boy's eyes were beginning to droop by the time he'd moved on to stone constrictors, a snake which had apparently led Hydrus to discovering the boy in the first place, and before he'd even gotten three words into his explanation of 'pandemonium bats' he was yawning.
"Would you like to hear about the time my friend Frank saved my life from a manticore?" The boy's eyes widened slightly, and he nodded. "So, it started when we heard about some really, really bad people who were hurting magical creatures…"
James made sure to make the story as unexciting as possible, going into great detail about the paperwork they had to fill out and the various legal departments who'd approved certain stages of the operation. He knew better than to cut out early, even when he was absolutely certain the kid was fast asleep, so he made sure to get all the way to the part describing the train ride to Amsterdam before he fell silent.
He reached out and fixed the boy's blankets, making sure he was properly covered before standing up. Giannis was around the same age as his twins, and if it weren't for the fact that the boy was already safe and sound he'd have taken him in himself. His sons were both enthralled by the little Greek child, and Lily hadn't managed to last through even half an hour of their whining before she'd promised to buy them both bracelets to actually understand what he was saying. She'd told James to do it, he'd told Sirius to do it, and apparently he'd told Bellatrix to do it.
Sirius had said that the woman had spoken to her father about making sure Sirius had access to the vaults, but he still chose to just pester her instead.
The man really was a legend.
He glanced over at the boy's desk and shook his head at the runes he saw there. James had a more than decent understanding of the subject, he'd done countless experiments with them to try and recreate his ancestors' invisibility cloak, but the ones Giannis was drawing went straight over his head like they were, well, Greek.
'Yeesh,' James thought as he lifted one of the pages up, squinting at the signs. 'I thought Sirius was just bragging, but the bastard really is two-for-two on the prodigy kid front.'
He could vaguely make out the patterns and schemes Giannis had put together, but what the individual markings were or how they even meshed together was completely lost on him. As he was about to set it back down, he noticed an oddly glossy page mostly buried beneath the others. After sliding them to the side, he frowned as he realised it was one of those Z-ray thingies his wife had told him about.
'Come on, Padfoot,' he thought as he lifted it up to the window to allow the moonlight to shine through it, revealing a rune-carved skeletal foot. 'You should know better than to let a kid see shit like this. No wonder he's having bad dreams.'
James sighed and shook his head, sitting the Z-ray back down. He and Lily would have to have a proper sit down with the Black Sheep to explain just all what he could and couldn't do around kids, even if only to make sure he didn't go around showing off crime scene photos to their own brood.
Arcturus sat in pain. His head was throbbing as Titus Cobblecoat, Marcus Cobblecoat's brat, rambled on and on about how his latest business venture was a sure-fire hit. It had taken all of thirteen words, an unfortunate yet appropriate number, for the Black lord to write off the idea of 'interchangeable wand grips'. If it weren't for the fact that the moron's father had saved his life in the Alps he would've thrown him out on his arse.
Or at least had Kreacher do it for him.
"I've spoken to no less than three of the nation's finest wandmakers—"
"This country only has one fine wandmaker," Arcturus said, sneering at the fool for trying to prey on his appreciation for magical numbers. "Tell me, did Ollivander agree with your assessment?"
"Oh, um." The man's face was nearly purple with embarrassment. "I haven't yet had the chance to meet with—"
"Get him to sign off on this idea of yours, and you'll have every last knut you need." Arcturus waved him away, doubting he'd ever see the fool again. "And don't even think of using my name to get in any doors."
Cobblecoat stood and stiffly bowed, clearly angry but too much of a coward to say anything. That was the real problem with the younger folk these days, none of them had a spine. Not like his grandson, or his great-grandson for that matter. He smiled as he thought back to the way Hydrus had shouted him down for trying to turn down a duel on the teen's behalf.
'The family will be in good hands,' he thought as he reclined back in his chair. "Kreacher!"
The elf cracked into visibility before him, bowing. "Lord Master Arcturus."
"Get me a drink." A rare pang of familial longing struck him. "And tell Hydrus to come see me."
"Yes, Lord Master Arcturus."
The elf bowed again and vanished. Thus far Arcturus hadn't seen any repeats of the hesitation he'd noticed that day Sirius stopped by, but it almost left him more paranoid as to just what had caused it then. Before the madness could rise up, Kreacher reappeared with a glass in one hand and Hydrus's wrist in the other.
"Here's you is, Lord Master Arcturus."
Hydrus brushed off his sleeve where the elf had been grabbing and took one of the seats in front of Arcturus's desk. The patriarch threw back his drink, the burning taste hardly singing his throat as he tossed the glass aside. Kreacher magically caught it in the air, and slowly brought it towards its hand.
"Another," Arcturus said. "And bring one for the boy."
Kreacher bowed and left as Hydrus cocked an eyebrow at him. "Celebrating? Mourning? I'd bet my liver is stronger than the average teen's, but I'd prefer not to show up to dinner wasted."
Arcturus glanced out the window and estimated that it was probably around 5 in the evening. "Just eat here. I wish to speak to you about the third task."
He couldn't care less about the tournament besides the prestige it would bring when Hydrus won, but he needed an excuse for the visit. His great-grandson bowed his head. "I won't say no to the food."
"Hmph."
Arcturus doubted the child even could. He'd shot up like a mountain since arriving on his doorstep, and Bellatrix spoke about his appetite frequently. The boy would probably be taller than him by the end of the school year, not that that was saying much with how low his head hung these days as age settled on his shoulders.
"Bella mentioned that she was asking around for more details on it," Hydrus said. "Have you heard anything?"
Arcturus waved the idea off. "I leave such matters to her. I want to know what you're doing to prepare yourself."
Kreacher reappeared, holding a tray with two glasses on it. Hydrus took his first, and to the old man's pleasure drank it down in one gulp. He shivered and shook his head out afterwards, but given his age and the age of the whiskey that was still an impressive reaction. Arcturus took his and sipped it.
"I don't need any special preparation," Hydrus said, smacking his lips a touch as if to try and banish away the taste. "I spent most of my life trying to find secure places to live, and that meant finding ways to make them not secure enough to stop me from getting in."
"Bah, modern homes don't compare to the old works." Arcturus said, shaking his head. "You're looking at some sort of Euro-African tomb that could hold untold horrors. Gringotts' curse breakers assured the IWC of its safety before it was purchased, but I of all people know how much such evaluations are worth." Hydrus frowned, and the old soldier smirked as he practically read the boy's mind. "I said Bellatrix was handling the matter, I didn't say I haven't done any research myself."
Hydrus shrugged, maintaining his cool perfectly. "Then you know more than me. Still, if those fools can go trudging about the place and not set off any sort of missed traps, not to mention the amount of work they've no doubt done to it for the tournament, I'm sure I'll be fine."
"Hmph." Arcturus nodded in approval. The boy was unflappable. "Make sure not to succumb to the madness unless absolutely necessary. Who knows what troubles you'll cause if you blow half the walls out like you did to that little shit Malfoy's hovel."
Hydrus sneered at him. "I'm afraid you won't like what I'm about to say, but I firmly find myself aligned with my father regarding this family's curse. I'm not looking for excuses to use the madness, I'm struggling to find outlets to let it out in."
Arcturus held back the growl that came bubbling up from his throat. That 'curse' had saved his life countless times in the war, and had helped to define their family's legacy. He took a deep breath.
"You just don't understand," he said. "Once you've been pushed to the brink—"
"I have lived on the brink, Grandfather." Hydrus stared him down, and for once Arcturus had to respect the mettle he saw in the teen's eyes. "Do you think human cruelty and viciousness comes to a polite halt between wars? That you and yours alone are familiar with atrocities?
"I've seen a man have every bone, every, bone, broken in each of his hands for having enough common sense to not get himself killed." Hydrus wagged the fingers on his own hand. "I've done worse to others for less. I once killed a woman for eating food that didn't belong to her, can you imagine that?"
Arcturus was old enough to not show any reaction to that, though internally the turmoil running through him was palpable.
"I didn't want to participate in this silly little game Bellatrix has entered me into, but now that I am here, I sure as fuck don't plan on being intimidated by it." Hydrus settled back down, and the old soldier finally realised the boy had been smothering the room with his magic. "You go on and on about how soft everyone is, but you have no one to blame but yourself for strutting about in velvet-cushioned locals."
Arcturus reached up and stroked his beard. He wanted to toss the boy on his head and tan his arse raw for talking back to him like that, but for once he wasn't sure if he even could. Maybe he even had a point. They'd tried their best with Sirius to beat some humility into the boy, force him to rise above the pain and tribulations, but all it had done was squeeze him right out of the family.
With Hydrus, he saw the full potential of the jewel they'd tried and failed to grind and polish.
"Kreacher!" he snapped. "Get us another drink."
"Give me something for company," Hydrus said quickly. "If I am going to get sloshed, I might as well actually enjoy it."
Hydrus stumbled out of his fiancee's floo, and before he could catch himself on a chair or something else that definitely should've been there to catch him he fell onto the floor. He groaned and laid there for a while. The part of his brain that still remembered the difference between 'up' and 'down' told him he should stand back up, but it felt like there was some great weight crushing him.
Arcturus hadn't stopped at one bottle, which meant Hydrus couldn't either since he was drinking something softer. He wasn't entirely sure what all the effects of alcohol were on 'undeveloped' minds like the one he had now, but the ramifications were lost to him as he stared up at the slowly rotating ceiling. With a giggle to himself at the realisation that it wasn't actually rotating, and just how obvious that was, he flipped over onto his knees.
"Come on," he muttered. "Up we go."
His body didn't listen.
"I said, up we go."
He actually managed to get onto his feet, but he was off balance and immediately stumbled forward against his Bella's desk. Again he laughed at how stupid this all was; how was he supposed to kill Voldemort when he couldn't even stand up straight? There had been some crash of glass when he hit the desk, but he couldn't be bothered to check out what it was given how much more inviting the cool surface was against his cheek.
"Hydrus?" It was Bella, but even she couldn't pull him away from the comforting touch. "Hydrus are you alright?"
"Fine," he mumbled. "I'm fine. Don't mind me. I'm fine."
She sucked her teeth and disobeyed the silent order he'd given to leave him alone as she pulled him off his new favourite desk. His arm somehow got to be draped over her shoulder, and she began to walk him back to her bed. He groaned as she gently dropped him onto the mattress, and his legs made the decision to pull themselves up beneath him.
"I warned you," she said with a sigh. "He always does this with his favourites."
"Yeah yeah, c'mere." He shifted slightly, vanishing away his boots and most of his clothes. "You're warm. C'mere."
Bella giggled and snuggled up beside him, so he flipped over to be the 'big spoon'. "Maybe I shouldn't have warned you."
"So warm…"
Hydrus traced his finger over the ridge of her collar bone. He'd seen that bone before, in the other timeline. The woman had looked like the victim of a tornado that had swept through a knife store the last time he'd seen her. His finger slowly brushed its way up to her throat, and he could imagine the way he'd plucked out the last bit of life she'd somehow clung to.
"I killed you, you know," he said. "For all the people you killed. Flitwick. Nev's parents. The Patil twins..."
He tried to think of some more, but Bella said, "Huh?"
"Caro Torquentia..." he muttered, remembering the verbalisation of the curse he'd used to do it to her. "I made it myself. Was supposed to be better than the killing curse, but it wasn't. Not really."
"Hydrus." Bella turned over to face him. "What are you talking abo—"
"I hated you." He wasn't looking at her, he just kept staring at her throat. "I hated you with every fibre of my being. And now I've got fucking Dumbledore asking me how many kids we're going to have."
It was too funny, he let out a bitter and strained laugh as he pressed his forehead into her chest. He wondered what his followers would've thought if they saw him like this. Would they hate him? Would they be disgusted? Neville probably would've killed him, or at least tried to. If anyone in his army could've pulled off the feat it would've been that man. He shook his head.
"I wonder if I'll have to kill you again," Hydrus muttered. "I hope I don't. Please don't make me kill you, Bella. You're too warm."
BBaRtS
And there's 32. Hydrus's various retributions, a quick check in with and unrealised revelation for Giannis and James respectively. A tiny bit more information about the third task, more of that next chapter. And finally a drunken Hydrus letting a few beans spill, and boy is Bellatrix going to have a field day with that next chapter. Fun fact, originally this chapter ended with his second bargain breaking and him freaking the fuck out, but I've decided to delay that to give it proper build up and gravitas instead of just his inebriation sending him spiraling. I want it to be a happier moment. We'll see a lot of Bellatrix next chapter, as well as the next meeting of Hydrus's little group.
Speaking of that, I was re-reading the past ten chapters of this fic to try and get a general vibe alignment, and a much, MUCH better idea for the visualisation came to me. Next chapter when the group meets I'll mention what my original idea was, but the new one I think fits way better AND it almost feels like I intentionally foreshadowed it. Seriously, as someone who's only planning for writing is certain plot points that I have to fill in the gaps for, there's no better writing-related feeling then when an idea comes to you that fits perfectly in the puzzle that you hadn't planned for. Now, some people might not like it/think its cheesy, but I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner and that's what matters lol.
Reviews!
"Ah damn, Sirius and Remus forgot all about Kreacher in the next room when they talked about that." - I tried to give a better layout of Amelia's place in this chapter, at least in the sense of how far Giannis's room is in comparison to the floo, but this wouldn't be something I would worry about. Besides, as we've seen, Kreacher is 100% team Hydrus because he's kinder to Regulus than Arcturus is. At most, even if Kreacher did over hear, I'd think he'd just tell Hydrus about it.
"Oh good god Giannis, has the folder." - He's such a studious little thing, learning all about the 'Z-rays' and what not...
"Speaking of which, did Flamel actually reveal anything? He just said he was working with Dumbledore and Hydrus. He didn't actually reveal anything did he? It seems if that was the case, then Tonks' name would have burnt off as well." - We did see Perenelle at the end say to tell her everything, so I tried implying it there. And I couldn't decide whether or not to actually mention Tonks' name burning off since I was worried about it being repetitive, but maybe I should've. Either way, we saw Hydrus confront her too. And unlike with the Flamels, Tonks actually gave him the reaction he wanted. We'll see next chapter if his generosity at the end made up for his intimidation in her books.
Also bot comments are getting out of control lol, both on FF and AO3. I have no idea what's going on with them but hopefully the sites start cracking down soon.
And that's all! Thank you to everyone, as always, for reading and especially thank you for reviewing. Whether its just one review at the end or the people reviewing every chapter, they all mean a lot. See y'all next Saturday, less-than-three.
