THE BONDS OF BLACK
November 1
Astronomy Tower
As the fourth years proceeded from Astronomy toward their Wednesday second period, which conveniently lay only a few floors below in the same tower, Harry reached out a warm tendril of magic to tap Black's aching person.
Black sent back a pulse of understanding before following Harry down a level and several corridors, till they reached a barren stretch of wall opposite an arched hallway. They in fact stood before the entrance to the Room of Hidden Things — not that Harry would reveal that treasure. He was already about to do a greater favor for Black than he had in years.
Harry gently clasped his rival's wrist, took in a deep breath, and exhaled with a surge of golden-white energy until all residual Cruciatus aftereffects were dispelled. Ocean-blue eyes then met thunder-gray as words begged to break free from two proud mouths.
Black caved first.
"Wherever did you learn to heal the effects of the Cruciatus?" Black drawled.
"Why haven't you learned?" Harry returned evenly.
The boys sighed simultaneously. Both understood what they were trying to ask each other, both understood their addiction to hurting each other stood in the way, but neither wanted to be the first one to be vulnerable.
After a minute of silence, Harry shut his eyes, swallowed his pride, and confessed his care.
"I didn't think your father would Crucio you until Yuletide," Harry whispered softly.
"Of course, 'tis not the fact my father tortured me that disturbs you, but that you couldn't ignore my suffering," Black scoffed.
"You're not the only Slytherin who's been disciplined with a Cruciatus," Harry reminded.
"I suppose you would be the expert, Herr Evans," Black sneered. "Interesting how you never mentioned your time in Nurmengard during our years as friends."
"It wasn't relevant," Harry dismissed.
"But it is relevant to Riddle and his gang?" Black questioned.
"Didn't your father just punish you for disinformation on the subject of Tom?" Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Your group is a gang, has been since our first year," Black scorned. "You just hide it by playing the lovable boy wonder while Riddle pretends to be a reserved academic."
"You think I'm lovable?" Harry poked.
"You have your moments," Black sighed wistfully.
Harry figured that was the closest he would get to a "thank you."
"You have potential for white-magic healing," he advised his former friend. "You shouldn't waste it—if only to bless yourself with a longer life than your family typically enjoys."
"I would say the same to you," Black returned.
Silence fell between the two again.
"Shall we head to Charms?" Harry suggested. "Can't afford ol' Merrythought giving us detention with our first match on Saturday."
"Admit it, that's the only reason you healed me," Black retorted somewhat lightly.
Harry snorted before walking to class with his rival for the first time in years.
November 4
Slytherin Quidditch Tent
"You've made me a very happy captain," Harry commended his team after the match.
As always, he ended the Gryffindor match as quickly as possible. With Algie the best seeker besides himself and Caelus Prewett arguably the best chaser in the school, Harry caught the snitch as soon as he saw it. But in the record-setting three minutes it took for him to spiral dive to victory, one of his own chasers managed to score.
"Darren, congratulations on scoring within three minutes. That's a new record for you," Harry praised.
The team applauded.
"Conlaed, great support," Harry lauded his second-year beater's role in distracting Gryffindor keeper Grisha McLaggen just as Darren made his shot.
The team applauded again, not quite as firmly as for Darren, but in good cheer nonetheless.
"Black," Harry addressed his rival. "You denied Gryffindor from making the board. Good job."
Selwyn, Crockett, and Parkinson converged on Black and led the reserves in chants and cheers. Harry gave a parting nod, gathered his things and led his two friends from the tent.
"How will we celebrate our victory?" Conlaed asked.
"My and Harry's victory, you mean?" Darren poked.
"I was critical to your success," Conlaed insisted.
Harry sighed fondly as the two bickered. Whatever potion Tom concocted for Conlaed focused the boy's raw power into physical output and constitution, allowing the second year to become quite the effective beater despite his small stature and vulnerability to bleeding episodes. Some would consider this cheating, but Harry likened it to the brooms they rode. Just as a broom honed a wizard's innate levitation powers, so too did this potion simply hone the physical amplification techniques Harry was already teaching Conlaed.
"After matches, we Quidditch boys—the ones with good sportsmanship, that is—usually meet for drinks in the prefects' bath," Harry shared.
"You never mentioned this to me before," Darren accused, dark-caramel eyes flashing.
"He just told you why, Rosy," Conlaed taunted.
"Go Crucio yourself," Darren retorted.
"I doubt you can even cast that curse," Conlaed scoffed.
"Can confirm Rosy has had performance issues," Harry ribbed Darren.
"I was eleven!" the third year fumed as his cheeks turned rosy.
"Might I suggest not speaking of such things openly?" came a gentle chide from Walburga.
"Only friends can see us, much less hear our words," Harry described the concealment he had laid over himself and his lads. "What are you doing down here?"
Walburga signaled that she wished to talk to Harry privately, at which the Quidditch captain nodded at his two juniors to go on ahead.
"I wished to thank you," Walburga stated as she added an extra privacy ward or two.
"You are one of Tom's most trusted, and you will be head girl next year," Harry waved off. "That, and we both know Orion needed someone to brag to."
"I appreciate you enlightening me on the chamber sooner than later, but I am speaking of how you healed my brother," Walburga clarified.
"Ah," Harry understood. "As I see it, Black matters are for Blacks. He didn't need to be gawked at by anyone who could sense his pain."
"Sense his pain?" Walburga asked.
"Dark magic leaves traces," Harry recited one of Professor Albus' lessons on the subject.
"Even Selwyn remained ignorant of my brother's ordeal," Walburga provided.
"I'm much more experienced with dark magic than a politician's whelp," Harry answered.
Walburga gave a nod, but she seemed unconvinced Harry's sensitivity came merely from power and experience.
"He still thinks of you as 'Harry', not 'Evans'," Walburga divulged.
Harry allowed his surprise to show, but said nothing. Walburga so rarely spoke of her brother to him, even during the years the two boys traded hexes regularly.
"The loss of your friendship is his greatest regret," Walburga added.
"Why are you telling me this?" Harry asked.
"I think you have known, deep down, that he feels this way," Walburga contended. "I know the break between you was bitter. But I believe that if given the opportunity, he would prove himself the faithful friend he was to you for years."
"Fair-weather faithfulness," Harry countered. "I didn't end our friendship because he cast mud on me. You just heard me joke with Darren about how he tried to Crucio me. It wasn't even the fact it took your brother months to give something resembling an apology. It was that he did his stunt to curry favor with the Slytherins who hated me for my last name. I always stood by Black, I was the one he turned to when others mocked him, and he threw me away for a seat by the common room fireplace — one he didn't keep long."
"What if my brother did not do it for the masses?" Walburga suggested.
"Then for your father?" Harry questioned. "I would have sensed if he was under duress."
"What if he thought he had lost you to another?" Walburga proposed.
"So he blames Tom for everything?" Harry intuited. "I suppose he would. Tom won much of what your brother thought would be served to him on a gold platter. But your brother still commands his own following. He's still, in fact, the Slytherin whom Tom respects most outside of our group. Even now, if he humbled himself, repented of his wrongdoings, and converted to Tom, your brother would become our thirteenth coven member."
Walburga gave no response.
"If not, with the caliber of Slytherin that Tom is looking for, our thirteenth will almost certainly be your other brother," Harry assured.
"And if Alphard were interested in a friendship with you, but not a relationship with Heir Slytherin?" Walburga posed.
"Not possible," Harry declared.
Walburga maintained an even expression.
"Moreover, your brother would be delaying the inevitable," Harry continued. "I think you can see that Tom's plan for next year is a beginning—a manifesto, if you will. Your brother's qualms with Tom aside, will he really side against the defender of our magic and heritage? Will he sit and wait for the inevitable muggle siege of Grimmauld Place? Or will he stand with you and Orion in defense of his home when the marauders descend? Because the Ministry won't help you. Why, muggle-lovers like Potter may even call it 'reparations'."
Harry took in a breath to reign in his passion. Although he didn't share his cousin's hate for muggleborn witches and wizards, Harry had seen first hand how degenerate muggles could be. If Grindelwald's lessons had not been enough, Harry saw again the deplorability of that race when he rescued his cousin from that awful orphanage. Then, he saw it yet again when he met Tom's father. He had never met a good muggle, and he doubted he ever would.
"Look, regardless of what happened between your brother and me, I'd like to say I'm a friend of your generation of House Black," Harry told Walburga. "If his life was under threat from some muggle, or even a wizard out to kill him for his heritage, I'd defend him. As Orion said, our ancestors have a history that predates even their time in this land."
Walburga gave a nod of acceptance, and so concluded the discussion.
Faculty Tower
"C'mon Rosy, even grinches can smile," Harry nudged the third year as they and Conlaed walked the fifth floor to the prefects' bath.
Since the three left their wands in their rooms, the custom when attending a private party, Darren could only punch Harry in the shoulder.
"I doubt he felt that," Conlaed snickered before flinching from a threatened punch.
"Eat grass," Darren jeered.
"How original," Conlaed retorted as his composure returned.
Harry led the two to the bath's entrance, waving his captaincy badge before the door handle to gain admittance. To his surprise, he found not a small fellowship, but a pool party.
Darren promptly turned around, but his retreat ended with a simple arm grab from Harry.
"The boy wonder finally arrives!" Algie shouted from amidst a dozen fourth years.
Harry tossed his hair and leapt into the air, twisting into a reverse position and backflipping thrice across the length of the pool until he landed right beside his fellow seeker.
"And now you've drowned your bathrobe," Kirk chuckled while Algie sputtered.
"Bathrobe?" Harry asked the Hufflepuff seeker before revealing the illusion for what it was.
Randolph, who apparently was invited to this party, put Harry in a headlock and shoved his head under water before any of the four witches could applaud him.
"L–oony Le–strange," Harry sputtered after squirming out of his more muscled friend's hold, much to the amusement of the guys surrounding him. "Anway, what's with the crowd?" he asked regarding the rather packed pool.
"My nephew-in-law's debut as 'Games Captain'," Algie announced.
"Barty's your nephew?" Conlaed asked as he appeared beside Harry.
"Algernon's the baby of his generation, barely older than his flesh-and-blood niece," Harry quipped with a pinch to Algie's cheeks. "Both of his brothers are married—one to Callidora Longbottom née Black, sister of Charis Crouch née Black."
"Harry has the Black tapestry memorized," Goldwin mock-whispered.
"Shut up, Avery," Harry retorted.
"I am on a first-name basis with these fine wizards and witches, thank you very much," Goldwin said of the most popular Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs of their year.
"Can it be? Goldwin Avery and Randolph Lestrange making friends outside of Slytherin?" Harry quipped.
"Like Riddle said, magic is magic, no matter the Hogwarts house," Randolph shrugged before snapping his finger for an elf to bring him and Harry a drink.
"Riddle me this—why do you call him Riddle? Aren't you friends?" Algie wondered.
"My cousin prefers his last name," Harry lied. "I alone call him 'Tom' to annoy him," Harry gave a half-truth. "But he doesn't even think of himself as 'Tom'," Harry told one truth.
Not that anyone besides Harry and Tom knew what the Heir of Slytherin called himself.
"I rather regard myself as more than my surname," Frederick opined.
Gryffindor's newest beater hailed from a line of muggle financiers on his father's side, a family Harry believed wealthier than House Nott — nevermind Houses Lestrange and Avery. So though the Cambridge name carried no magic heritage, Frederick understood "pureblood culture" better than the vast majority of purebloods.
Fortunately, Harry had an answer ready after sipping from a glass of Pear Dazzle.
"My cousin feels 'Riddle' suits his character," Harry explained. This technically was no lie. Tom disassociated from his surname so thoroughly that his "Riddle" persona felt no more real to him than a character from the Tales of Beedle the Bard.
As whenever the subject of Tom arose, Harry's non-Slytherin friends looked like they had a dozen questions each, foremost doubtlessly being how are you related again? As always, Harry looked for a distraction, and he found one in Darren being his usual antisocial self.
"Rosier! Jump in, or I'll pull you over," Harry hollered at the still-robed brunet sitting by himself at a nearby pool edge.
Darren glared.
"Is my brother giving you trouble again?" asked a melodious voice as Druella swam gracefully to Harry's position.
"Always," Harry answered.
"You heard your captain, Darry," Druella chided her brother. "These boys won't bite. Unless you fear Grisha, Su, and Pomona?"
"Of course not," Darren scoffed.
Druella locked her lavender gaze on her brother's dark-caramel eyes and tamed them within 10 seconds.
"You've got to teach me how to do that," Harry laughed as Darren begrudgingly disrobed and joined them in the heated pool.
"It'll be great practice for your sons," Randolph remarked suggestively before retreating from an irate Darren.
"A romantic, Randolph is not," Druella pronounced.
"With his looks and name, he hardly needs manners," Harry chuckled.
A brief pause set between Harry and Druella, during which time they seemingly drifted a little away from the other thirteen.
"What led you to plan a party with Bartemius?" Harry asked. "You typically arrange events at the underground harbor."
"Change of scenery," Druella suggested lightly. "It's certainly much warmer here."
"So it is," Harry agreed.
"Besides, when Crouch suggested interhouse fun, I could hardly be the crone standing in the way," Druella said.
"How did you get him to attend?" Harry nodded toward Alphard, who floated elegantly amidst friends and fans near the midpoint of one of the pool's side walls.
"Crouch did. He's one of Alphard's favorite cousins," Druella answered, pointing out how the two were currently next to each other.
"Interesting," Harry murmured. "Well, it doesn't hurt to be friends with a Youth Representative to the Wizengamot, now does it?"
Harry and Druella shared a short chuckle in honor of Palomydes, whose stint would last till August 16th after his sixth year. Yet even with that day nearly two years out, Bartemius was already campaigning — hence why he argued for the creation of the "Games Captain" position in the first place. Although Bartemius' pursuit of the political ladder would waste his mental and magic gifts, Harry wouldn't complain about a politician who worked for votes. Especially one of Bartemius' blood, money, and birth.
"Is your godfather still trying to convince the Heir to run for Minister of Magic?" Druella asked.
"Yes," Harry laughed. "And Tom would rather be Caractacus Burke's errand boy."
"You ought not make such jokes!" Druella complained while smacking Harry on the arm.
Heat coursed through both of them as ocean-blue eyes stared deep into lavender blue.
"I hear you are no longer seeing Hornby," Druella ventured.
"Someone suggested I see other witches," Harry breathed out.
Tom had apparently been quite serious when he demanded Harry to end his "dalliance" with Olive. The next time Harry met with the Ravenclaw for some snogging and fondling, Olive released pungent discharges throughout the course of her arousal. Olive then endured a relentless bleeding spell until she and Harry mutually agreed to drop the "benefits" aspect of their friendship with benefits.
"I know one witch interested in claiming your newfound availability. But she doesn't share," Druella advanced.
Harry swallowed as he drank in the approaching lithe figure, whose pale-blonde hair shone like silver under the moonlight and whose fair, heart-shaped face seemed near-divine.
Blood flowed through the boy wizard's chiseled abdomen as his netherwand activated. An enchanting rush of magic then caressed his body, lighting a fire in his gut. Harry's desire throbbed against Druella, and he parted his lips to connect with the beauteous witch.
"Ignotus," a young voice shattered the moment.
Harry shut his eyes in frustration before looking up at the interrupter, who stood on the nearest pool coping wearing a school uniform and an expectant expression.
"Orion," Harry greeted without much cheer.
"Marvolo requires our presence," Orion informed.
"I'm hardly in a state to meet him," Harry grumbled.
Orion stepped aside to reveal the Peverell cloak bundled around Harry's wooden wand and a school attire.
"I have been told you can dry yourself, so I did not bother to bring a towel," Orion stated.
Harry groaned at his cousin's power play, but swam toward the pool edge anyhow.
"What's going on?" Randolph asked as he swam to Harry's side.
"Nothing to concern yourself over. You may return to your party," Orion answered politely.
"Why, thank you for your permission, Black," Randolph drawled as he stayed in place.
"Randy," Harry said softly.
"Don't Randy me," Randolph snapped. "What's this task an eleven year old can help with that I cannot?"
"The Heir will reveal all at the proper moment," Orion replied.
"And your 'proper moment' came when you skipped out on the war commemoration?" Randolph retorted. "The one your own father arranged?"
"The Heir is far more important than the self-aggrandizement of marionettes animated by my gold," Orion sniffed. "Perhaps if you saw that, you would rank among the Heir's trusted."
"Excuse me?" Randolph growled.
Orion gazed down on him with dispassion.
"Orion, Randolph, please," Harry mediated.
Randolph snarled, then acquiesced. But before retreating, he grabbed Harry's shoulder and whispered into his right ear.
"I see why you two get along. He's almost as insufferable as you," Randolph condemned.
"Randy?" Harry gasped, but his friend was already swimming away.
"You know he didn't mean that," Druella whispered from Harry's other side. "They just feel a little hurt by how quickly you and the Black heir have warmed up to each other."
"They?" Harry asked in surprise.
"I must insist we depart," Orion urged.
Harry called his clothes to him and dressed within the pool. Nodding farewell to Druella, Harry levitated from the water dry in all regions but his hair.
The Chamber of Secrets
"You tarried, Ignotus," Tom chided just as Harry flew himself and Orion down into the temple from the cave system's forest entrance.
"Lestrange gave him trouble," Orion defended Harry as they disembarked from the besom.
"I remember when you could silence Lestrange with but a glance," Tom reprimanded Harry.
Harry made no response. Fortunately, he was the only one who could get away with that.
"When we entered this chamber, you wondered whether the water was by design or the portent of flood," Tom recounted. "You will scout the chamber's edges to make a judgment."
"I'm swimming in that?" Harry shuddered at the centuries-still water.
"I must go on a hunt, so you or Orion will go for a swim," Tom dictated.
Orion paled.
"I can hold my breath longer," Harry accepted the task. "You say you're a good drawer, Orion?"
Orion nodded happily.
"Good. I'm going to relay what I see into your mind, so it's up to you to provide Heir Slytherin with the layout of his ancestor's chamber," Harry delegated.
His words belied a cheek faint enough for Orion to miss, but clear as day to Tom.
"Ignotus," Tom purred as Harry stripped.
"Yes?" Harry responded with a hair flip.
"Do not publicly engage in lewd conduct again, and certainly not before wizards of culture such as Orion," Tom rebuked. "Or I may…tame…that organ of yours."
"How would you do that?" Harry sighed.
"Pasiphae's Curse," Tom grinned menacingly.
"I'm going to take a swim now," Harry decided.
"Flood from the lake," he pronounced as he shot back up to the walkway.
Orion, who was just finishing drawing schematics on a paper Tom conjured, scrambled away from Harry.
"You need a day-long bath," Orion judged.
"It wasn't so bad," Harry grinned before feinting a lunge at Orion, distressing the boy.
"Feel free to clothe yourself at any time," Tom drawled.
Harry cleansed himself with magic first, but made sure to bathe himself in enough light that he blurred his features. Then, he clothed himself.
"You do know your parents were naked when they created you?" Harry asked.
Tom glowered.
"The siring of my heir and spare are the only instances in which I shall be naked before another," Orion claimed.
"You could learn from our friend," Tom endorsed Orion's puritanism.
"Blacks have sex only to carry on their family line; and even then, half remain celibate," Harry dismissed.
"If only," Orion muttered.
Tom raised an eyebrow upon reading Orion's mind. Harry, however, remained in the dark.
"How's the pet, Tom?" Harry shifted topics. "Did a live unicorn satisfy his appetite?"
"For now," Tom answered.
"Why do you not want to feed the mudbloods to the basilisk?" Orion complained to Harry. "Is that not what Salazar Slytherin intended?"
"The petrifications next year will be Heir Slytherin's manifesto for a long term mission," Harry explained. "If he appears bloodthirsty, he will attract only violent curs to his cause. If he presents as a bitter blood purist, vandalizing the castle walls with hateful messages, he will rally only the most traditionalist purebloods. But if he makes a statement with each petrification—catches one muggleborn after another in a shameful or contemptible display, he can build a case. Turn the hearts and minds of our student body against muggleborns, and convince current moderates to pick up their wands and join his crusade."
"We are fortunate my cousin was raised in the art of war, are we not?" Tom smiled.
Orion nodded.
"I believe you retain access to Grindelwald's secret coffers, yes Ignotus?" Tom asked.
"I should be able to fund your crusade," Harry agreed, sensing where his cousin was going.
"Alone?" Orion asked.
"The secret to Grindelwald's war chest was that the vast majority of gold was muggle," Harry divulged.
"What?" Orion exclaimed.
"Muggles are far richer than wizards," Harry stated. "The great muggle oligarchs could look at the combined gold of Houses Black, Malfoy, Nott, Lestrange and Avery and laugh."
"Nay!" Orion protested.
"Consider," Tom re-entered the conversation, "without a shred of magic, the muggles have constructed weapons that can destroy cities in less time than you can say Avada Kedavra."
"By cities, we mean the likes of London in her totality," Harry clarified.
"Impossible!" Orion denied.
Harry placed his hands on Orion's shoulders and shared the vision that birthed Grindelwald's mission.
"Where are we?" Orion wondered as he looked about a Japanese city in its prime.
"Hiroshima, Japan. The date is August 6, 981 years after the Founding of Hogwarts," Harry described. "Look in every direction. I want you to absorb every last detail that you can."
Orion did as asked, particularly when Harry began a ten-second countdown.
"Zero," Harry solemnly finished as an atomic explosion consumed everything in sight.
"What happened!" Orion exclaimed, curls flying as his head turned this way and that.
"Oblivion," Harry answered. "Nuclear fission, as the muggles call it. Naturally, such a weapon became quaint, say, seven years after this, once muggles harnessed nuclear fusion."
"What?" Orion asked in confusion.
"Muggles now possess weapons thousands of times more powerful than what you witnessed," Tom explained. "Tell me, what is the most destructive calamity caused by a singular witch that you know of?"
"The Twin Terrors," Orion cited the great plague and great fire that ravaged London 305 and 306 years ago respectively, deeds attributed to the infamous Gormlaith Gaunt.
"Yet London's walls withstood 'Gormlaith's Ail' and 'Gormlaith's Gale'," Tom said bitterly. "What if I told you the muggles could now obliterate the entire London metropolis—every single building in every last borough, every suburb even—in less than a second?"
Harry placed his hands on Orion's shoulders and shared another memory: a first-hand memory this time.
"Kuzkina Mat," Grindelwald introduced to a three-year-old Ignotus. "The mother of all bombs."
Ignotus beheld the world's most terrible weapon: a 26-foot-long, lead-cased hydrogen bomb. A bomb boasted to be 3,333 times more powerful than that which reduced Hiroshima to rubble.
"When my vision came to fruition that horrible August sixteen years ago, not even I imagined that to be the mere spark of apocalyptic blaze," Grindelwald declared.
"How do we defeat them, Lehrer?" Ignotus asked with worry, looking up into his teacher's ice-blue eyes for reassurance.
"We do not," Grindelwald answered.
Ignotus gaped with horror.
"Many within our ranks believe muggles pose a lesser threat than the wizarding establishment we seek liberation from," Grindelwald stated. "They could not be more wrong. I did not become Führer for personal gratification, but for the greater good. Only united can we of magic master the muggle race. But know this: muggle powers can now be destroyed only by muggle powers. Our mandate is to control their money, politics, and weapons of war, such that we direct their chaos against each other."
"But how much of the world will they destroy?" Ignotus fretted as he clutched his necklace.
"Every day, their capacity and propensity for extermination grows," Grindelwald warned, his alabaster face as grave as Ignotus had ever seen it. "We fight so that when the muggle powers make total war on each other, their fire is not so fierce that it burns the world entire with it."
Harry brought Orion out of the memory, but still held on to the boy's shoulders so he wouldn't collapse in his shock.
"Moreover, the muggles will find us by the end of this century," Tom added to Orion's fears. "No number of illusions, enchantments or bewitchments will save the Statute of Secrecy. Now is our last chance to purify magic society so that we may stand a fighting chance against those beasts. But we shall have to labor and toil every step of the way. I always shall. Ignotus always will. Will you, Orion Black?"
"Yes, Heir Slytherin," Orion pledged.
"The sacrifices will not only be physical," Tom forewarned. "I will also ask for material investments, some that you will not see immediate return on. Are you willing?"
"Yes," Orion promised.
"Tell me, and tell me true. Does your ring grant you access to the Black vault?" Tom asked.
Orion nodded as he stroked the emerald-eyed skull at the center of his silver ring. While each Black possessed a skull ring, only the Black patriarch and heir wore hereditary rings.
"My father and I alone can open the vault," Orion confirmed.
"Good," Tom approved. "For you will have a great role to play in making my debut possible."
Orion's pale eyes brightened.
"As you may know, Hogwarts is the world's primary supplier of sentient mandrakes," Tom prefaced. "For millennia, this plant has featured in the strongest potions. Among these ranks the Mandrake Restorative Draught, an elixir reputed to break any paralytic malady."
"We must, of course, poison a significant share of the mandrakes growing this year," Tom schemed. "But we cannot poison all, or even most, lest we raise suspicions. We must buy the mandrake harvest, preferably offering the sum Hogwarts receives for a full supply, and sell only to potioners aligned with our designs. I believe House Black best primed for this task."
Orion hesitated for a second or two, then nodded.
"Hogwarts keeps a reserve supply though. Should I make an offer for that too?" Orion asked.
"It's for the best that Hogwarts keeps the reserve supply," Harry said. Tom's jaw tensed ever so slightly, but he had conceded to Harry's argument — one that Harry proceeded to repeat for Orion's sake.
"When Tom begins the petrifications, we don't want the first reaction to be one of fear," Harry explained. "In fact, we want most people to laugh at the poor sucker caught in some illicit action. A quick brew of a restorative draught later, and it will be seen as a harmless prank. When another muggleborn is petrified, and one after that, we want our fellow students to continue laughing along. To think this the work of an overeager do-gooder."
Tom humphed.
"Every time the issue is made light of, sympathy for the victims will decrease," Harry predicted. "Hopefully, by the time the Hogwarts mandrake supply runs out, a number of our schoolmates will start thinking that whoever gets petrified 'had it coming' or 'got what they asked for'. And because everyone petrified will be caught in some form of misconduct, the message will be that muggleborns care nothing for Hogwarts, they've been disgracing the school for years, and it's only right that someone's finally doing something about it."
"Is that not obvious?" Orion voiced genuine confusion.
"Sadly, it is not," Tom bemoaned.
Harry withheld a sigh. A part of him felt ashamed that he was making such plans against his fellow students — even if, unless one of his friends had been running a spectacular bluff, he wasn't particularly close to any muggleborn. But as all things Tom set his mind to, it would happen one way or another. So either Harry could make the plan, or he could leave it to two melodramatic blood purists with views extreme even among Slytherin purebloods.
Harry winced when Tom flashed him a knowing smirk.
December 1
Defense Tower Undercroft
Harry watched the undercroft door open for Orion, the only one besides Tom with whom Harry had shared the method by which to unlock the door.
"Ready?" Harry asked while tilting his head toward the mannequin behind him.
"I do not understand why I am struggling," Orion lamented. "I am heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black! How can I be the last to succeed in this task?"
"You are my youngest squire," Harry offered in consolation, not that Orion took it to heart. After all, Conlaed Greengrass stunned the Squires of Walpurgis with his innate talent for the violent curses. Palomydes on the other hand, though one of the older members and heir to the eugenist legacy of the Notts, apparently held an aversion to shedding blood himself.
As did Orion.
"Power is not your problem," Harry told the first year. "Tom is quite particular about those he allows to join his company, and I can tell you that even now, you are not the weakest."
Orion perked up slightly, but remained rather deflated.
"Will. Accuracy. Knowledge. Direction. Speed," Harry recited his thesis for dueling. "You exert a great amount of willpower in your casts. Your spells are more accurate than those of many Hogwarts graduates. You clearly have access to a wealth of knowledge, and you are quicker to the draw than a wizard your age has business being."
Orion smiled at the last compliment.
"Direction is your problem," Harry said. "Your spells are not immediately lethal because, simply, you don't want them to be."
"I try!" Orion protested.
"It's not an easy thing, cursing a living being to die," Harry related. "And to induce a rapid death, well, you often must be quite brutal. Rupturing guts, bashing brains, snapping necks. These are not the easiest things to visualize, much less actualize."
"Is that why you prefer incineration?" Orion asked.
"I've always had a flair for fire, like my mother before me," Harry shrugged. "Moreover, my fireblasts can obliterate almost anyone upon contact. You wouldn't feel a thing."
Orion flinched.
"But very few witches and wizards are that powerful," Harry said. "Your own power is considerable, and you almost certainly will be one of the most formidable duelists of your generation. But every so often, you will contend with a peer. In these duels, you will need to strike fast and fierce."
"Watch carefully, both with your eyes and your magic," he directed as he turned to face the mannequin. With a simple flick, Harry tore a deep gash into the mannequin's chest.
Orion gasped as a multitude of tears spread from the primary wound, despite Harry not exerting active influence over the mannequin.
"Sectumsempra," Harry coined his curse as blood-like liquid cascaded from the mannequin. "The true curse isn't the initial cut, but an infection that travels throughout your victim's blood vessels. Just like a single punch can shatter a window of glass, this curse can kill with a thousand cuts—as slowly or speedily as you like. Best part is, you don't have to actively sustain the curse. The initial cast is enough."
"I have not read of such a curse," Orion admitted.
"Good, because I invented it," Harry smiled brightly. "Well, likely rediscovered it—I bet at least a few witches and wizards have cast curses such as this. But this will allow you to mortally wound foes in one cast, and the rapid blood loss should preempt a countercast."
"You create spells?" Orion asked.
"Bending magic comes easily to me, like my mother before me," Harry explained. "It's more a matter of me doing something with magic, then figuring out a consistent incantation for it, than the other way around."
"You created this spell for me?" Orion asked with shining eyes.
"Well…" Harry began before Orion rushed forward and hugged him.
"You haven't tried the spell yet," Harry chuckled.
Orion disengaged and stepped past Harry to face the mannequin, which Harry returned to full form with a wand wave.
"Sectumsempra!" Orion yelled.
Though his cast fell noticeably short of Harry's, Orion clearly understood and reproduced the curse. After twenty minutes of practice, Harry became confident that Orion posed a lethal threat to the vast majority of witches and wizards.
"Now, remember, this curse is for enemies," Harry instructed. "I want you to say it."
"Sectumsempra is for enemies," Orion repeated.
"Don't cast this unless you intend for your opponent to die," Harry warned.
"I'll use it only to spill muggle blood," Orion agreed.
It's like he was made for Tom, Harry mused.
"Alright, we should still have enough time to shower before dinner with Horace, if you'd still like to come," Harry said.
"It will be just you and me, yes?" Orion asked.
"Yes," Harry confirmed.
Unfortunately, the friendship budding between his lads and Orion capsized after Samhain, when Tom began calling Orion by first name and implied him to be the favorite after Harry. Now, Orion did sometimes lord his position of favor over the others, but Harry empathized all the same. Orion was not close to his sister, leaving the only people he considered friends to be Walburga, Tom, and Harry. One was almost certainly Orion's future wife, and one was an aspiring dark lord, so Harry took it on himself to provide Orion with a brotherly figure.
"How is your courtship of Miss Rosier progressing?" Orion asked.
Definitely a brotherly relationship, Harry reflected.
"It isn't official yet, since that would require Darren to begin chaperoning us," Harry said.
"I presume Marvolo can as well. His reputation is beyond reproach," Orion suggested with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"No thank you," Harry declined.
Both boys laughed.
December 16
Aviary
Harry did not visit the aviary often, as he did not even own a messenger bird. Between his mother's heroism and his own exploits, the number of witches and even wizards who would engage in letter correspondence if given the opportunity was more than Harry could handle, much less cared to. However, Wizengamot summons were one of the few exceptions Harry made to his "no letters" rule, for which Orion offered to lend his crow.
Thus, on a chilly Saturday morning after breakfast, Harry fed a crow hard-boiled eggs before tying to its leg an envelope carrying millennium-old stationary.
Whitehall, then met Orion at Grimmauld Place, Harry impressed upon the messenger bird's mind until it flew out of sight.
His work done, the boy wizard sought to exit the aviary, but nearly walked into Alphard.
Alphard? Harry questioned his internal use of Black's first name.
"I did not realize you had a messenger bird," Black said.
"I borrowed your cousin's. Your cousin Orion's, that is," Harry clarified.
"I knew which cousin you were referring to," Black drawled.
"Couldn't hurt. You have, what, six cousins currently at Hogwarts?" Harry returned.
"Seven," Black returned.
"Lucretia Black. Orion Black. Torr Burke. Gabriel Bustrode. Skadi Longbottom. Bartemius Crouch," Harry recited. "Six."
"Seven," Black insisted.
"I…oh," Harry realized what Alphard was saying.
"I never thanked you, for healing me," Black continued.
"Didn't you thank me through Walburga?" Harry pointed out.
"Yes," Black admitted. "But I should talk to you myself. I just haven't gotten to it."
"We sit next to each other every Potions class," Harry reminded. "Not to mention we have Quidditch practices thrice a week."
Alphard's blush added a portrait-worthy rosiness to his cheeks.
"You know that's not what I meant," Black protested.
"I know," Harry chuckled.
"You know me well," Black murmured.
"Haven't we always?" Harry posed.
"Not always," Black whispered. "I made a mistake that Yule…"
"As I told you on your twelfth birthday, I can forgive what you did," Harry reiterated. "Lestrange and Avery took much more pleasure in that affair than you did, and I forgave them, didn't I?"
"Did you?" Black questioned.
Harry furrowed his brows in bewilderment.
"Or, to rephrase, did Riddle ever forgive their insults and hexes from those first months?" Black questioned.
"That has nothing to do with the previous question," Harry scoffed.
"Doesn't it, though?" Black pressed. "You spend more time with Orion these days than anyone besides Riddle."
"You spend more time with Bartemius as the months pass," Harry countered. "Should I assume your relationships with Bulstrode and Burke are collapsing?"
A hint of doubt passed through Black's face.
"Is Burke still angry about your dueling club stunt?" Harry asked.
Black looked at him in surprise.
"What? I have a talent for reading people, regardless of whether I am friends with them," Harry shrugged. "I reckon Burke's not angry about a nonexistent dueling club, but that you seemed more ready to help a random muggleborn than him."
"He never asks me for anything," Black defended himself.
"Of course not, his father is considered a joke among the pureblood elite," Harry said. "How would it look if he started asking you for favors?"
"How am I supposed to know what he wants if he says nothing?" Black complained.
"He probably wouldn't mind help in Defense, Charms, and Transfiguration, given your performance far exceeds his in those fields," Harry suggested. "In return, he may offer to tutor you in Ancient Runes, given you chose to waste your time in Divination."
"It's not a waste—" Black protested.
"Take it from someone raised by a seer for three years, glimpses of the future are so narrow that they almost always mislead," Harry shared. "How many tales did the people of Ancient Hellas center on this concept?"
"In those stories, prophecies tended to come true," Black returned.
"Only when suckers put stock in them," Harry dismissed. "If you ever hear a prophecy, ignore it. Let it go in one ear and out the other."
As on many matters, Alphard did not seem ready to take Harry's advice.
"You're staying at Lestrange Manor this Yuletide?" Black asked.
"Yes," Harry answered.
"I doubt your friend would have invited Riddle by himself," Black opined.
"There are misconceptions among our elders about Tom's heritage, as you well know," Harry waved off.
"Have you considered that our peers genuinely care more for you than him?" Black posed.
"Irrelevant. Tom and I stand together, as we have since the day we met," Harry declared.
"Then that means his grievances are yours," Black argued. "Riddle has a grievance with anyone here who didn't praise him from that Samhain on."
"It's true that Orion never thought of Tom as a 'mudblood', and that's part of the reason Orion is a favorite," Harry conceded. "What's your point?"
"If you're unwilling to be friends with anyone not on favorable terms with Riddle, what will you do when Lestrange and Avery fall out of his favor?" Black questioned.
"Projection, much?" Harry retorted.
"I am not saying it will be sometime soon," Black continued. "But if Riddle so quickly favored Orion over boys who have been with him for years, he will eventually elevate younger sycophants above his first followers. What will you do then?"
"You talk so much about forgiveness," Harry murmured. "Why, when you haven't forgiven me for a crime I didn't even commit?"
Black gave a questioning gaze.
"On the night of our detention, you claimed you had a lot to say," Harry recounted. "But everything you've said, from the train to now, revolves around Tom. Around the fact you thought I had abandoned you for Tom—because what? Because I stood by him when all your friends mocked him? Because I 'slummed it with him' when he had no one?"
"I-I…" Black stuttered.
"Walburga said your greatest regret is the end of our friendship," Harry advanced. "I believe that. But you smothered it after the Samhain of our first year. It was a cold corpse by Yule, and a rotting carcass by the time you begged for my forgiveness on the last day of March."
Alphard hung his head in utter dejection.
"I still care about you, Alphard," Harry sighed. "I never stopped. I couldn't…ignore you, no matter how much I tried to occlude my feelings. That's why I hexed you, and why I couldn't bear to see you suffer from the Cruciatus."
Hope pierced through the gloom in Alphard's thunder-gray eyes.
"I've been hurting, Harry," Alphard admitted in his most vulnerable voice. "I am hurting. There are still nights when I can't fall asleep without a potion."
"Like I said, you hardly were any worse to me than Lestrange or Avery, and look at how close I am to them now," Harry said.
Unfortunately, what Harry meant as an assurance ended only distressed Alphard.
"When we come back from Yuletide, we can begin working on the project Newt assigned," Harry promised. "You always wanted to ride Aidon, right? Now that you can see thestrals, I should be able to teach you—with him, at least. No promises about other thestrals."
"You made a promise once, if I could ride him by the end of fifth year," Alphard recalled.
"Have I ever broken a promise I made to you?" Harry asked.
"I guess not," Alphard breathed excitedly.
"I see no reason to start now," Harry determined. "If you can ride him, then you'll do the riding race for the Youth Olympics two summers from now."
Alphard engulfed Harry in a vibrant, stimulating, vanilla-honey-musk scented embrace. A hitch of breath later, porcelain cheeks turned pink as Alphard abruptly disentangled and ran out of the aviary.
"Alphard, you forgot to send your letter…or whatever you came to do?" Harry called.
Alphard flushed more madly than ever before sprinting away as fast as Harry had seen a wizard besides himself sprint.