Or, Tom realized mid-sip of the smooth cognac, I have fallen into the trap of underestimating a Black.
Merlin, how did he not put that together earlier? Regardless of how many laws he was drafting, negotiations he was in the midst of, or consultations with his NEWT students that he was working off of, Tom should have known sooner. It’s true that he only spends a comparatively tiny portion of his time reading the pre-OWL reports of students, but the case of Lord Sirius Black and his intentions had been a preoccupying topic, especially in the past few years.
Tom may not have spared more than the occasional extra thought for two of the fifth years that intrigued him, but he had been discussing the solidification of the Black political bloc with his wing of Lords for the past two years, and it was all connected.
Sirius Black notoriously sorted Gryffindor, and by all reports he was a true lion. Bold, brash and righteous in his dealings with his schoolmates and teachers. He befriended the Potter heir, and it was an open secret that his relationships with his parents suffered due to his sorting. He went on to bond with an untitled classmate (who by all accounts was an adequate Consort Black now that Melania had passed on the position) and had shown no signs of siring a child of his blood to pass his title. Until Sirius Black had shown up to the first Wizengamot session as Lord Black, his public behavior had fit perfectly within the confines of what Tom had heard and known of him. But the dark-haired man who sat in the Black seat was not the Sirius Black that Tom had expected, and the realization rankled as he sat in the Malfoy parlor sipping his cognac that he, like all the rest (and how that rankled even worse than the realization that’d he been wrong) had somehow forgotten that Sirius was trained by Lord Arcturus. Just like his brother, just like his cousins, all of whom were respectfully feared by any intelligent magical citizen.
For fucks sake, he had thought to himself only moments earlier that Narcissa’s fierceness was learned at Arcturus’s knee. To think the former Lord Black wouldn’t teach his heir the same lessons, let alone different instruction directly from Lord to Heir, was the height of folly, and Tom had to wrangle his magic back from where it had gathered in his fingertips. It wouldn’t do to destroy one of the Malfoys’ tumblers while he was ‘calmly’ sitting and enjoying a pre-event drink.
Sirius Black had chosen to play the wizarding aristocracy for fools, and they had all, Tom included, let him. This. This was what Narcissa and Bellatrix had been hinting at over the years. The Blacks were tied so tightly to their family magic, even those who married into other houses, and Tom would bet a tidy sum of gold that all living Blacks had made oaths to the family magic to play into the picture their future Lord had painted with his sorting.
Tom’s mind raced as he thought about all the connections Sirius Black must have been making under the radar, the friendships and alliances he had forged in his adolescence with an atypical approach for a Black and how it all led here and now to a Neutrally positioned House and a bloc once again headed by a Black, to allies on both sides of an ever widening spectrum and family members who had all produced same-aged children.
Masterful.
Tom respected it as much as he hated it.
Oh, not the fact that the Blacks had made such an incredible long-term play. He couldn’t do anything but respect the slow restructuring and feel a bit of awe at the subtle politicking that had played out over the past thirty years. No, what he hated was that he hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t noticed despite years of intrusive thoughts about the Black heir, despite having multiple witches he trusted caution him and bring the subject up when they were able.
Hating or envying the Blacks was basically wizarding Britain’s collective hobby, and there was little Tom loathed as much as following along with the crowd.