his cross to bear III
Haron was restless at the welcoming feast.
He kept glancing over at his godfather, hoping to catch his gaze. But Sirius Black stayed focused in his discussion with one of Beauxbatons’ professors while the headmaster of Durmstrang engaged in a conversation with Professor Flitwick. Professor Snape was glaring daggers at the man from his side of the table, but Lord Black did not seem to register it. In fact, he didn’t look away even from the woman he was speaking to once, and she was starting to get flustered.
“Maybe we imagined it,” he murmured, tapping his fork against his plate. He’d been pushing around the meagre contents of it for the past fifteen minutes. “Maybe...”
Padma elbowed him. “He’s trying not to attract attention to you. Dumbledore is right there, and judging by what you told us he’s way too interested in Lord Black to not pick up on him taking interest in a student. Be patient, hun.”
Su-a made a sound of agreement, putting down her chopsticks. Last year they’d cajoled the elves into preparing more diverse fare. Or rather, Su-a had threatened to commander their kitchen and cook dinner for herself, which was enough for them to start sending out surveys for the students to write the type of food they liked to eat. The small international community of Hogwarts was very grateful, though they knew it wouldn’t last long. Such initiatives had been taken before and the elves were always accommodating to the students, but it usually only lasted until Argus Filch noticed the ingredients in the kitchen had diversified for him to throw a tantrum.
Haron’s theory was that the man had read Hansel & Gretel a little too often, and he dreamt of fattening them all up and roasting them for his consumption. To put it simply, the students being happy gave him hives so he did all he could to stop it, and the headmaster indulged all his whims short of letting him reinstate corporal punishments.
Thankfully, the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students would be distracting enough to give them some respite; they would hopefully have a full year before Filch ruined their fun again.
“We can go to their sleeping quarters, pretend we want Krum’s autograph and catch him alone that way,” Su-a suggested.
“You should go to the Shrieking Shack tomorrow night,” said Luna airily. She sat next to Su-a, at the very edge of the Ravenclaw table. Shielded by the three of them, the little girl was never bothered by their housemates at meals. “That’s where the Moon frogs used to sing. Press the knot on the Whomping Willow, and it’ll let you pass.”
“Will he be there?” asked Haron. They’d soon learnt not to question the strange ways Luna used to share information.
“Wait, did he tell you before telling us?” hissed Padma, leaning forward. Before Luna or Haron could respond, her shoulders slumped. “Never mind, you knew just by looking at him, didn’t you?”
Luna hummed. Padma shook her head. “Incredible,” she muttered.
Su-a snickered.
“Not there, but you’ll find him still. And some answers you’ve been seeking,” she said, in response to Haron’s question.
“Excuse me, could you hand me a slice of flan?” asked someone from behind Haron.
He took the small plate and turned to hand it over, pausing when he saw the French blond girl from earlier. He’d seen her flit around the different tables, trying to seek the food she wanted to eat. The issue seemed to be that most of the French dishes were placed next to the other Beauxbatons students, whom she seemed to want to avoid at all costs. She even made a stop by the Gryffindor table and talked to Haron’s brother, whose usual charisma seemed to have failed him in the face of the supernatural beauty.
“Oh, hi. Here you go.”
She raised her eyebrows and murmured her thanks.
“What year are you?” she asked.
It was Haron’s turn to be surprised. He didn’t expect her to linger.
“We’re fourth years,” he said, pointing at Su-a and Padma, “and Luna’s a third year. You’re in your last year, right?”
“I am in Terminale, yes.”
He saw her glancing back at the other Beauxbatons students, who were staring at them with strange expressions. Haron made a decision.
“Do you want to sit, maybe? I noticed your corner of the table was a little... hostile, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
She frowned and opened her mouth, seemingly about to say something biting before she deflated. “I’d love to sit.”
He gestured next to him and leaned closer to Padma to give her space. She smiled and gracefully lowered herself on the bench, placing the flan back on the table.
“I’m Haron, by the way. And this is Su-a,” the Korean girl waved with her free hand before going back to the macaron she had just picked from the tray in front of her, “Padma,” she gave her a quiet, oddly bashful greeting, “and I already introduced Luna.”
“Lovely to meet you. You attract an awful lot of wrackspurts,” said their youngest friend.
Su-a chuckled. “Don’t ask what wrackspurts are,” she whispered conspiratorially. “She’s just trying to say you look troubled. Are you okay?”
“I’m... overwhelmed. Hogwarts is very... different than Beauxbatons,” she admitted. “Ah, it seems I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Fleur. Enchantée,” she added with a little smile. Her French accent was very strong, Haron thought, though not to the point of being uncomfortable.
“Nice to meetcha,” said Padma, who seemed to have recovered from her earlier stupor. “Merlin, veela allure sure is something. My bad. It’s been a while since I’ve been exposed to it so my brain kind of turned into mush for a second. Is that weird to say?” she asked when Haron and Su-a turned to stare at her with wide eyes.
Fleur chuckled. “Not at all. I prefer when people don’t skirt around the subject. Did you meet other veela before?”
“Mhm, a friend of my mum’s is veela. She lives in Czechia now so she hasn’t come round the house since I was little.”
Padma started asking the French girl about her hobbies. Haron followed the conversation distractedly, turning back to the professors’ table without even meaning to. Still, he learnt that Fleur enjoyed making enchantments in her free time, she had a pet kneazle and solved arithmantic equations when she was bored. She also liked fashion design, which prompted a squeal from Su-a, and a myriad of questions.
“Haron’s our model, usually. He’s good at sitting still while we poke at him, and he isn’t bothered if we don’t put him in scratchy fabrics and levitate a book in front of him, so he doesn’t get bored. Luna does it too, but she’ll wander off if we don’t keep an eye on her.”
Fleur made an amused sound at this. Haron turned back to the conversation in time to chime in.
“If you put a sticking charm to her shoes to keep her there, she just takes them off and goes to the Forbidden Forest barefoot to feed the thestrals.”
Luna wasn’t listening; she hummed a song while she piled macarons on top of each other, seemingly trying to make a tower out of them. Su-a and Padma chucked and nodded in agreement.
“My little sister is the same,” Fleur started, “she’ll sit still until she sees something shiny and then I’ll have completely lost her. One time...”
The evening continued in much of the same manner. Fleur’s presence made it easier for Haron to stay focused on what was happening in front of him, and he almost didn’t mind when they made their way back to Ravenclaw Tower without his having met his godfather’s eyes once. He had made peace with it, and so he didn’t expect when Padma tugged his arm before he was about to enter his dorm and whispered, “meet us in the common room at midnight. We’ll go to the Shack then.”
“Classes are cancelled so there won’t be anyone coming back from Astronomy class,” agreed Su-a.
Haron nodded and went up to his room. He nodded at Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner, Kevin Entwistle, Stephen Cornfoot and Terry Boot. He might not hang out with his dormmates, but they weren’t terrible people. Just a little too quidditch-mad for his taste. Haron liked flying, but the scrutiny given to players in the field was definitely too much for him. Besides, Ravenclaw already had a Seeker, and he wasn’t interested in trying out for other positions. He might dislike Cho but he wasn’t petty enough to take her spot when he was much less passionate about the game than she was.
The boys were playing a game of exploding snap and did not particularly bother him, though they asked a little about Fleur. Haron gave them a noncommittal response and pulled out a book on rebound spells. He got to reading, setting the enchanted alarm clock Padma gave him for his birthday to ring at midnight. Only he would hear the sound, which was just as well since Stephen was a light sleeper. He’d found that out when he was eleven and restless about sleeping in a room full of boys he didn’t know nor trust and often camped out in the common room or roamed the castle at night, evading Filch and Mrs Norris. Stephen woke a few times and grumbled at him for interrupting his sleep. Haron had to learn a light-foot charm to move around without disturbing him.
Midnight came at a slow pace. When it did, Haron jumped out of his bed. He quietly left his dorm room and tiptoed to the common room, where the girls were waiting. Their eyes were raised up towards the staircase leading to the girls’ dorm, where Mandy Brocklehurst was reprimanding them.
Haron rolled his eyes. While Lisa Turpin and Morag MacDougal were nice enough girls who were simply closer to the boys in his dorm than they were with Padma and Su-a, Mandy was unsufferable; she was nosy and incredibly judgemental. She disapproved of Su-a and Padma’s interest in fashion, their defence of Luna, and Haron’s friendship with them. He wasn’t quite sure what her problem was, but it was incredibly grating. The girls wanted to handle it themselves, though, so he didn’t step in.
He stayed in the shadows, well aware that announcing his presence would only make things
“... going who knows where after curfew! I don’t want you to lose us any house points. Do you realise how bad this looks? An international quidditch star steps into the castle and you just happen to be sneaking out the very same night, it’s no wonder people think you’re--”
“People think what, Mandy? Because it seems like you’re the only one who finds issue with us, constantly making assumptions about us and making up stories when we don’t pay you any attention. Why don’t you just chill out?” exclaimed Padma, raising her hands up. “We haven’t gotten caught sneaking out before and we won’t today either. Just go to sleep and mind your own business.”
“I’ll-- I’ll report you,” threatened Mandy.
“I thought you didn’t want Ravenclaw to lose points?” asked Su-a sweetly, tilting her head.
The girl winced, aware that her threat just fell through. “Well, if you break the rules, I should--”
“Or you could, again, mind your own business, babe,” repeated Padma. “We have a Transfiguration essay due tomorrow and I’m pretty sure you haven’t started it yet, why don’t you do that instead of wasting our time?”
Mandy frowned. “You’re such a bitch, Padma,” she said before turning back to their dorm.
Padma adjusted the twirling butterfly hairclip attached to her hair. “I know.”
Su-a chuckled. “I love you, Padma, but you act like a mean girl from the movies sometimes.”
Su-a loved muggle cinema. Her parents bought her a TV when she was young. It was kept in the shed of their house, away from all the magical appliances, and she owned a pretty impressive collection of VHS. Her dream was to create a similar medium for magical audiences to enjoy. As it stood, theatre was a popular entertainment for wizards and magic allowed more impressive setting changes than on muggle stages, but it had nothing on the cosiness of watching films at home. Su-a thought she might be able to replicate animated films at the very least with magical painting, but she needed to master the basics first.
She had seen Heathers in the cinema in 88 and had not recovered from it, or so she said. Haron wasn’t too sure what it was about. He thought he might prefer not to know.
“Says the girl who keeps giving Cho the evil eye?” scoffed Padma.
“You’re both mean,” said Haron, snickering.
They whirled around.
“Haron,” whined Su-a, “you scared me.” She trotted forward and linked arms with him. “Shall we go?”
At his nod, Padma started walking and responded to his comment, “also we’re not mean, I think. Cho and Mandy both had it coming. Justice is harsh, but it’s not mean, hun.”
He chuckled. “If you say so.”
They quieted as they left the common room, passing through the corridors in silence. Filch must have been occupied in another part of the castle, because they encountered no one at all. They stepped into the Hogwarts grounds and glanced at the Whomping Willow apprehensively.
"That thing’s so gnarly,” muttered Su-a. “Which knot was Luna even talking about?”
“I’d say I wish she accompanied us but her dorm mates would have totally snitched on her. Besides, she’s a bit spooky at night, our little moon,” commented Padma.
He observed the tree attentively, until he noticed a more prominent knot at the roots. Haron took out his wand.
“Can you cast a Lumos, Su-a?”
“Sure,” she said and did just that.
He thanked her and cast three spells in succession, pointing his wand to the ground, and a rock at his feet grew legs and started running towards it, dodging the aggressive branches. When it reached the knot, it slammed against it. The Whomping Willow stilled. Haron released a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.
“What spells were those?” asked Padma with round eyes.
Haron replied distractedly, already making his way towards the hidden entrance of the Shrieking Shack behind the tree. The spells were things he found in a book about the enchantments of Hogwarts, specifically on the chapter about the specific workings of the suits of armor and gargoyles that decorated the entire castle. They were supposed to act as protectors of the school in case of an attack, and the complex spellwork placed on them used principles of animation of the inanimate, target designation and motor control. The wand movements were complicated, and the incantations were in Old English, but he had thought them worth learning.
“I always forget you’re the nerdiest nerd in all of Ravenclaw,” murmured Su-a with a breathy laugh as she struggled to crouch behind branch, “which is saying something.”
“That’s not true,” protested Haron. “There’s, um, Penelope Clearwater?”
“She graduated last year,” said Padma with a deadpan look. “Try again.”
Haron fell silent. After a beat, the girls started laughing. He pouted a little but didn’t get to say anything in his own defence. After several minutes of traipsing around in a dirty tunnel, they had finally got to the Shrieking Shack.
The inside of it was horrifying. Claw marks barred the entirety of the walls and shredded the little furniture still in place, and layers of dust enveloped everything.
Padma sneezed. “Gross,” she complained, and started casting cleaning charms every which way. Su-a soon imitated her.
Haron made a turn around the room, trying to figure out what Luna was trying to show him, but the depressing hut didn’t deliver its secrets so easily. He could see runes carved into the ceiling, and knew enough about them to understand they were meant to keep something in. The claw marks made it obvious which creature had been captive in those walls, and when.
“A werewolf,” he murmured.
They’d learnt about them last year. The headmaster hadn’t quite managed to find them a replacement for that fraud Lockhart, but a rotation of retired Aurors had been sent for the Ministry. Each of them were more or less competent, but as a whole they had managed to catch them up on what they were meant to learn the previous and current year, on top of teaching them about various spells they probably shouldn’t have shown them.
Nothing as bad as Mad Eye Moody’s demonstration on the Unforgivables, though.
These Aurors were veterans of the last war and sometimes even the previous one. They were twitchy, scarred and had survived unimaginable things. Haron had even been taught the Patronus charm by one of them, an intensely traumatised woman by the name of Mary MacDonald who volunteered the most often to give lessons to his year grade. She couldn’t handle it for longer than three months, however, and was sent to St Mungo’s after an intense flashback made her magic lash out and harm her. Haron tried to visit her in the summer, but he saw Lily Potter exit her hospital room followed by reporters and lost his nerve. He didn’t try again, though he wrote her a letter to thank her for her teachings.
The man who had taught them about werewolves definitely disliked them, and believed they deserved a mercy killing and nothing else. Haron had heard that Charlie had loudly argued against him, screaming that Remus Lupin had been a werewolf and a hero. The retired Auror didn’t come back to Hogwarts after that.
“This is where Remus Lupin transformed,” he realised, disquieted.
“Who?” asked Su-a. As a foreigner, she was not as knowledgeable about the particulars of the war, even of its end.
“The man who died to protect him and his brother,” explained Padma. “He was Charlie Potter’s godfather, like Sirius Black was Haron’s.”
“And it looks like they were a couple,” said Su-a. “Haron, look.”
He turned and met his friend where she was, crouching in front of a derelict bedframe. Her hand was pressed against a wooden post, where words were engraved in shining silver.
“It’s like a diary,” he marveled, tracing his fingertips against the words.
In sloppy handwriting, the first inscription said, “first transformation,” along with a date corresponding to Haron’s parents and their friends’ first year at Hogwarts. Several of them were in a similar vein, though those who stood out were both sweet and heart-rending at the same time. “I made friends,” one said, “They found out,” enounced another. “Animagi,” was scratched out furiously, and only made sense when the words “A rat, a dog, a stag” were written years later. He didn’t understand it all. Most were unreadable. The magic had faded. Some were legible, but puzzling, “he betrayed me,” others hopeful, “I forgave him,” and “I love him.”
There was a gap of years after what he understood to be their graduation, then a last one was dated the year of Haron’s birth.
It said, “I asked him to marry me. He asked if he could take my name.” Right next to it, another handwriting lovingly sketched out a future that would never come: “In a year I’ll be Sirius Orion Lupin.”
“They were engaged,” he murmured.
“You can read this?” asked Su-a. “It’s illegible to me.”
“It must be the Guardian’s Oath,” said Padma. “What does it say?”
“It says that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were in love.”
***
“He’s alive,” he murmured feverishly.
He paced in his room, trying to come to terms with the fact.
“I inquired.” Sirius whirled around; his eyes bright. “Discretely, of course,” amended his visitor, a hand on the doorsill. “I know you wouldn’t have been able to help yourself, you would have gone to him if it was confirmed.”
“Reggie, he’s...”
Regulus Black, now commonly known as Damyan Zmeyov, dipped his head. He stepped forward and embraced his older brother. Sirius inhaled shakily, taking in the comforting scent of his brother, the warmth of his arms around his middle. Tears pricked at his eyes, he let them fall.
“Yes, Siri, your godson is alive.” Sirius sobbed. Regulus made a pained noise. He hurried to add, “he’s not with the Potters. He has a fake name, calls himself Haron Pierce, and he’s been using the trust you set out for him. Flitwick pointed him out to me when I asked about promising students.”
“Haron Black. If he wants it,” enounced Sirius, wondering. “My baby is alive,” he repeated again, “but how? Do they know?”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. His fingers brushed against the engagement ring he never took off, even if he
Regulus hissed at the thought. “I don’t think so. He’s hiding, the only way they’d have found out is through the press or through their golden boy. And that boy is dim as a beater’s bat.”
“Reggie!” admonished Sirius. “He was Moony’s.”
He shook his head. “He was supposed to be. They never officialised it, you know that. Just because they told the press to make themselves look good doesn’t make it true.”
Sirius made a wounded sound. He did know that. But James had promised. His brother shushed him, hugging him tighter.
“I know, Siri. I know.”
They stayed like this for a long while. After some time, they shifted to the ship’s balcony, overlooking the Black Lake. They stared out at the lakeshore, mourning quietly. Sirius didn’t know what his brother longed for, he rarely spoke about the past. And he’d been a bad older brother, too raw about his own losses for Regulus to feel like he could confide in him. Trust was being rebuilt between them, slowly knitting itself back together since Sirius had found his little brother drowning in a lake of Inferi and fished him out of the cursed waters, since he told him to leave with the horcrux he found and figure out a way to destroy it.
Because Sirius had trusted Regulus the Death Eater to do the right thing, he’d won back his little brother’s devotion. It felt like so little after years of selfishness, but Reggie had always been too forgiving.
But now they were back where they started, and with the confirmation that Voldemort was still out there they had come to Albion to make sure they could finish the job and truly end the war before he could rise again. Sirius had been prepared to face his demons and ghosts again to do what had to be done. He hadn’t expected to find a star amongst the clouded skies, used as he was to the world snatching every thing he loved from him. First he had lost Remus, and the illusion that he could ever be a light wizard. He had lost his esteem for James, his respect for Lily. His trust in his leader. E
He had lost everything, except Regulus.
And now Haron.
His baby. The only gift from James Potter he had wanted to keep. The boy he had sworn to protect, and failed so thoroughly. His son in magic if not in blood, and the only Heir he would accept for House Black.
Haron who was crossing the Hogwarts grounds with the two girls he sat with, holding something to his chest as his steps stuttered upon seeing Mad Eye Moody stomping towards him.
Sirius didn’t hesitate.
In a second, he was out the door, Regulus at his heel.