Chapter 11: Family matters

The hangover which Graham acquired in the wake of Sirius' celebrations was still haunting him him in the early hours of the afternoon on the day after. Remus had his lycanthropy to explain his inhuman capacity to process alcohol, Graham thought, but Sirius' tolerance was a mystery to him; for all he'd been drinking, the man must have had more alcohol than blood in his system by the time Graham had begged off the rest of the evening and made it home.

It might have been the hangover, or possibly just the comedown after the excitement of the days before him, but, gazing down at the unkept lawn from the room he'd taken to using for the medical work he'd done for the Order, Graham found himself trapped in something of a funk. He had decided on his crazy, stupid plan fully knowing that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had a real chance of carrying out their manifesto – he should have been happy that the man had been defeated. But he just felt tired, unmotivated, and dehydrated (although that, he thought, had more to do with the hangover).

The chiming of a magical alert, however, caught Graham by surprise, and he leapt to his feet to investigate its cause. He had expected that it was announcing a guest's arrival, but, to his pleasant surprise, he found that its source was in fact the trace register, which he'd hadn't thought about for quite some time. As before, Graham decided to indulge his slight voyeuristic urge to investigate this newest manifestation of magic, so he flipped through to the latest entry, only to double-take at what he saw.

"Seven new wizards?" He breathed, hardly daring to believe his eyes.

Hand trembling, he traced a finger down the page, taking a moment to read the names and ages. There was a five-year old boy, yes – but the rest of the entries recorded children who were younger than a year old, and he didn't recognise any of the surnames as magical ones -

"It worked." He said, starting to grin. "It must have bloody worked!"

His mind whirled at the implications, and he flopped into an armchair, feeling a little overwhelmed. He hadn't let himself doubt that his plan would come to fruition, but there had always been a seed of doubt for him. Maybe magic was endowed on its users in another way, he'd thought, or maybe the scheme Lily had devised had some flaw that the two of them hadn't anticipated. Graham had set out to change the wizarding world, and it looked like he would get his chance to do so sooner rather than later.

For all the excitement of his discovery, Graham shortly fell back into the melancholy which had troubled him earlier that day. The fundamental cause, he reflected, gazing glumly at the grey sky outside, was a lack of things to do. All the theories he'd set out, the possible ways of getting the magical world to accept this new wave of muggleborn students - well, none of that mattered until its execution.

He could start to talk to the parents of magical children whenever he wanted; but certainly he wouldn't need to for another year or two.

Fundamentally, he thought, he felt listless. The war hadn't been a good time, not exactly, but it had given him purpose that he now found himself lacking in its aftermath, now that he had the time to draw breath. He'd worked himself to the bone for the Order, had spent the end of the war on a knife-edge over whether everything he'd worked for had been betrayed to the enemy, and now -

"Even peace isn't good enough for me?" Graham muttered to himself, wryly. "That's pretty poor form."

He spent the rest of the morning doing nothing at all, and feeling annoyed at every wasted moment of it, until he stopped feeling sorry for himself and pulled himself together. He made a brief long-distance call, then summoned the Yellow Pages and called a travel agent – he still had some savings, and it had been far too long since he'd seen his family. A couple of hours later, everything fell into place – and he went to prepare for a few months away from the madness that was the wizarding world.

Graham left on a British Airways flight for New Zealand a few days later (magical transport over such a distance was even more expensive than the mundane equivalent, he had long since discovered); but the wizarding world didn't stop moving just because he'd left it.

"What do you mean, partial custody?" Sirius asked, his voice low, dangerous, and entirely without humour. "He's my bloody godson, and you honestly think he'd be better off with a bunch of bloody muggles who literally can't afford to look after him?!"

Although he had only been apprehended for a short time, magical law was not easily reversed. Sirius had at first been relieved that Dumbledore had been granted Power of Attorney over Harry after his arrest, and then enraged upon discovering that he had no intention of transferring that power to Sirius.

Dumbledore sighed, and took a deep draught of his tea. "My dear boy," he said, at length, "Believe me when I say that I understand your ire. Minerva said much the same thing, you know, albeit with perhaps a touch more restraint. Would you permit me to at least attempt to explain my reasoning?"

Sirius didn't drop his glare, but he shrugged and indicated that Dumbledore could continue.

"Lily Potter was a powerful and precocious witch, Merlin rest her soul, and not one prone to usinghalf-measures. When Voldemort visited the Potters that terrible night, she did - something - to do with blood magic. I have been doing my best to reconstruct the effect, but I have started to suspect most strongly that it concerns motherhood; I imagine I'll never be fully able to recreate it."

He gazed into the middle distance for a moment, before snapping back to attention.

"Sirius - so long as Harry stays close to a blood relative, he enjoys the protection his mother's blood conferred upon him - a protection which I believe to be the factor behind Voldemort's demise at his hand. Any blood connection needs the confluence of like with like to function - it is not magic I should strictly know about, of course, but I can tell you that, by and large, a year without some time in close contact will terminate the protection."

"So what?" Asked Sirius, confused but not mollified. "You-Know-Who is dead, isn't he?"

"What of his supporters, though?" Dumbledore asked. "Do you know, there have been a great many attempts to track down the boy-who-lived, my associates on... the other side... inform me - and all of them have been a failure. My instinct, if you can trust an old man's guess, is that anyone who wishes young Harry harm, abstractly or directly, will find that harm most difficult to enact, for the time being. Surely, Sirius, you understand how important it is that he stay with his relatives for at least a few months of the year?"

Sirius sat silently, glaring at Dumbledore, who smiled back benignly. But, after a few moments, he slumped back in his seat with a sigh.

"Just like you to have an actual reason." He muttered, sulkily. "Well, what counts as 'some time', and how close is 'close contact' then?"

Dumbledore stroked his beard, lost in thought for a moment.

"Well, I can't offer you a properly precise measure, magic being the mystery that it is; but I should imagine that a month or so in a year should be sufficient, but absolutely no less. A tie through blood isn't merely related to proximity, though – the power lies in the relationship, not the location."

"Right." said Sirius. "Let me think for a minute."

He stood from his chair, and paced across to gaze through the office window at the grounds, eyes clouded over in thought.

"You know what? If they're that badly off, I'll cart them all off on holiday every year, and they can take Harry with them. He might have a good time, they get a free holiday, and if we're all really lucky nobody'll get hurt."

He spun around and frowned at Dumbledore, who looked rather pleased with this turn of events.

"Is that good enough for you, old man?" Sirius scowled.

"My dear boy," Dumbledore replied, beaming at him, "I could hardly have devised a better solution myself."

After that, Sirius began to make his excuses, but Dumbledore held him back for a moment after escorting him to the stairs leading down from his office.

"Sirius," he asked, "how exactly was it that you and Mr Longshaw became acquainted? Just an old man's curiosity, of course, but I don't seem to recall you knowing each other at Hogwarts."

Again, Dumbledore noted the momentary shiftiness that the younger man displayed at the question; but Sirius was a far better liar than Graham had been, and quickly replied, chuckling.

"Well, we got to talking after Lily and James were in hiding – I'd pass messages between them. He actually came up with the safehouse system we used towards the end of the war, actually – set up his practice in one of the old Black properties, as a matter of fact."

"Ah, yes." Dumbledore replied, jovially. "A happy turn of fate, then! How fortunate for us all. Good day, my boy!"

Sirius had never fully mastered occlumency, and Dumbledore was a master of legilimency without parallel in the magical world. So it was with a great deal of introspection, that evening, that he mulled over the concept that Sirius had been trying to conceal behind his flimsy shields – for the fragmented image of a legion of babies which Dumbledore had intercepted made no sense at all.

"A week off?" Moody chuckled. "Take two, lass. Merlin knows it'd do you good to get out of here for once."

Amelia shifted uncomfortably in her seat; just because Alastor was right, she thought, didn't make the statement any less embarrassing.

"Thank you, sir." She said, rising from her seat. "If there's an emergency, I'll be here."

"I know you will." Moody said. "Oh, and – Amelia?"

She stopped at the door, turning back to face him.

"If you ever need any help with Susan – anything at all – just tell me, alright? We all miss Edgar; he was a hell of an -"

"Thank you." She interrupted him. "I'll be sure to do that if something comes up, sir."

It was only when she was alone in the lift that she slammed a fist against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment. Of course her brother and sister-in-law's deaths had been difficult on her – but it had been the middle of a war, and she'd been able to pass the package of responsibilities that had followed it onto friends and relatives because of the excuse her work as an auror had provided. But now-

Having reached the lobby, she apparated home, only to be greeted on arrival with the now-familiar sound of a young girl in tears.

"In here, Amelia!" A voice floated through from the kitchen, which was nominally cheerful but barely concealed an underlying note of worry.

"Hello, Polly!" Amelia called back, shrugging off her coat and going to join her friend. "Thank you so much again for looking after Susan."

She was greeted by a plump older lady, who was rocking a young child distractedly as she directed a pot to stir and vegetables to chop themselves. Polly Shacklebolt had been one of her mother's closest friends at Hogwarts, and after the attack that had killed her parents, her brother, and his wife, she had been a bastion of strength and support, and the only reason she'd been able to stay working after Susan had been passed into her care.

"She misses her mother, the poor tyke." Polly sighed, pausing her work to hand the child over to Amelia. "There you are, dear."

In Amelia's arms, Susan soon quieted, and stared up at her with wide eyes. Heaven knew it was a relief that Susan felt comfortable around her, Amelia thought, but it didn't change the fact that none of this was part of her life plan. She had had no desire to start a family – certainly not in the present, and, a small voice deep down whispered, perhaps in the future, as well.

"It's good that you've taken some time off, Amelia." The older woman said, apparently satisfied to leave her cooking for the time being. "Heaven knows that minding Susan is the least I can do, but you've barely been home since You-know-who fell. I think the break will do you a power of good. And Kingsley promised to keep an eye on your work while you're here, so you can keep it out of mind for the time being!"

Amelia was happy enough to agree with Mrs. Shacklebolt, and deftly moved the conversation away from her responsibilities and towards more comfortable topics. But it was only later, once she had put Susan to bed and Mrs. Shacklebolt had gone home, that she retrieved her bag, a little guiltily, and pulled out the stack of files which she'd surreptitiously been copying over the past few days, while the media frenzy which had erupted after Sirus's trial had half the ministry distracted, or at least uninterested in the comings and goings of a senior auror with a businesslike attitude.

She almost hated that her mind dwelled on things the way that it did, but – even though his actions had led to the aversion of a serious miscarriage of justice – she hadn't been able to stop wondering about the chain of events that had culminated in Longshaw risking a trip to Azkaban to interrogate Sirius (let alone the rest of the still-unbelievable story that had followed). Why had he been so particularly concerned to find out whether Sirius had betrayed his friends?

"The thing is, it can't have been the Order." She muttered, as she traced a finger down the fairly sparse report on Sirius which had been made following his arrest. "That's not how they worked."

Although she had not herself been a member, Amelia's careful enquiries (anything to stave off the grief) after her family had been murdered had been quite informative as to the way in which the Order worked; it had in fact been Dumbledore who'd furnished her with the information she'd sought.

"We all keep our personal lives very much separate from the – other things – which we get up to, Miss Bones." He'd told her. "I've assisted some of our members with their wards, if they've asked for help, but we do not commonly share our houses' locations. Edgar and Sarah were so very brave, and I cannot apologise enough for their passing – but, if it is any consolation, it was not sped on by the betrayal of a friend."

It hadn't been much of a consolation, although the news had done something for her morale at a low point in her life. Still, though – if Longshaw hadn't been worried about Sirius having betrayed his location – or that of someone he cared about – then why had he made that desperate trip to Azkaban? She remembered that he'd claimed Sirius knew where his muggle relatives were living, hence his desperation. But -

"That's just stupid," she grumbled, shoving the arrest report away and digging out Sirius' work files, "what damn situation would lead to Sirius knowing about – let alone caring about – some muggles enough that he knew where they lived?"

Although her memories of Longshaw at Hogwarts were limited to vague recollections of the rather timid young muggleborn who'd only just learned how to keep a low profile by his third year, she still didn't see how he'd got so very close to Sirius that he would introduce him to his parents; long-suffering experience had taught her that Sirius was as straight as they came, so she didn't think it likely that they'd been involved.

"Questions on questions on questions." She grumbled, flipping aimlessly through Sirius' caselog. "None of it makes a lick of sense."

An hour spent squinting at Sirius' unimpressive handwriting passed without much ado. Amelia was about to give Sirius' files up as a waste of time and catch an early night, when she stopped short half-way through a cursory read of an investigation he'd carried out a year previously, frowned, and reread the page she'd stopped at.

Sirius had been assigned to investigate the theft of the birth register from the ministry; as with several other Order members in the Aurors, he had been given lighter investigatory work than most on the basis that he spent his free time doing the dangerous bits without asking to be paid for them.

The fact that the theft had taken place was still something only a few people officially knew about (although Amelia had no doubt that the Order, at least, and possibly You-Know-Who had both found out about its disappearance), but the investigation Sirius had carried out was nothing like his usual standard of work. He'd barely set out the facts of the case, had quickly dismissed a series of sensible possibilities on the basis of relatively spurious links – apparently the fact that the thieves had set off an alarm meant there was no possibility that the culprits were Unspeakables, even though if they hadn't set off the alarm would clearly have been giving themselves away, for example.

Worst of all, he'd filed the case as 'safe to defer', a catchall term which the aurors had adopted during the war to signal cases which might not be solved, but were either solvable at the aurors' leisure, didn't represent a serious threat, or simply weren't important enough to pursue in the middle of a war. It meant that the case would be filed away – effectively closed – indefinitely. And Amelia knew, through Moody, that the Order hadn't been the ones to take the book.

"What were you hiding, Sirius?" She murmured, staring at nothing. "What are you hiding?"

December in Scotland is not, typically, the kind of environment which encourages romantic sojourns as the sun sets, but magic is a great facilitator, so David and Jessica were enjoying a picnic perched on a warm, grassy knoll on the side of a mountain, as they looked down on a snow-strewn landscape stretching down to a distant loch.

Michaelmas term had finally finished, and the pair of doctors-in-training were celebrating. On David's request, Jessica had taken him to the site of her favourite Hogwarts field trip: an unplottable mountain valley in the north of Scotland, where an eternal summer gazed down on a Scottish winter beneath it. Although they'd been engaged for over a year, it had only been a technical engagement (to avoid questions from the Ministry, should any arise); David had other plans.

"It's a quirk of the witchcraft that went into this place." said Jessica, who he'd asked to explain the magic behind the valley. "The Glenmore coven used the leyline here for an early arithmantic ritual, back when it was still a young discipline – and they trapped a perfect summer's day, just in this valley. It'll always be clear and warm, the heather will always be blossoming, and – like you can see – there'll always be a perfect sunset."

There was a moment of contemplative silence, and David said, lowly, "It's not the sunset I want to look at."

Jessica giggled, twisting to face him, only to gasp as the laugh caught in her throat, for David was gazing at her, an open ring-box in his hands.

"Jess." he said. "I've known I loved you for such a long time, but – learning about the magic in you has only made me love you more, and I didn't think that was even possible. Would you marry me, and make me a happier man than I could ever deserve to be?"

Jessica had started to sniffle as he spoke, and she found that her throat was suddenly too heavy to speak – so she settled for a tremulous smile, and pulled David in for a kiss that conveyed her answer as well as any words could.

"This is… very kind of you, Mr. Black." said Vernon Dursley, stiffly. "I don't like imposing, but it's not an offer we'd be minded to turn down."

It had been an enlightening conversation for Sirius, who had arrived to negotiate terms with much the same attitude he'd carried into battle against the Death Eaters, only to discover that the Dursleys he knew by reputation and distant acquaintance had changed rather drastically.

"Well, Mr. Dursley," he said, "A holiday's the least I can do. You're taking this all much better than I thought you'd be!"

"Never let it be said that the leopard can't change his spots." Vernon said magnanimously, giving himself perhaps more credit for his new attitude towards wizards than he really deserved. "Ah, and here's Pet again."

"You are sure you know how to look after a child?" Petunia asked sharply, as she carried Harry into the living room. "Lily never gave you the… best reputation for responsibility, you know."

"Oh, of course." Sirius said breezily. "I'm a dab hand with kids, and I'll have a house elf to make sure that nothing'll happen to the little tyke whether I'm there or not."

"...House Elf." Vernon said, slowly. "And what's that, exactly?"

"Oh, you know, just your standard elf." Sirius said, taking Harry from Petunia, very carefully. "Four feet tall, wrinkly, big ears, and loves to cook and clean. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Someone needs to have a word with Tolkien, then." Vernon grumbled, rising to his feet. "Is that everything, Mr. Black?"

"Should be," Sirius said, "and I'll floo you if anything comes up. Toodle-pip!"

And with that, Sirius apparated away, making the Dursleys jump and leaving them more than a little confused.

"Flue?" Vernon asked a few moments later, bemused. "The thing that goes on a chimney?"

"No idea." Petunia responded, dryly. "But I'm sure it'll manage to be as foolish as everything else about magic."

AN: I'm terribly sorry for the wait! I've been trapped in the mire of my professional qualifications, and I've only just had the time to start writing again as of a week ago. This chapter's rather fragmented, and a prelude to some relatively significant transition – I've no intention of getting mired in the same few weeks, so things'll start moving forwards at more of a pace.

Reviews, as always, are solicited, appreciated, and everything in between. I'll still be writing, but I make no promises as to the update schedule!