fracture
The second thing that cements their place in the Order happens a few weeks later, at another meeting. Blair is already at Grimmauld Place, conversing in low tones with Dan about neutral topics. She tries not to venture into anything personal, afraid that it is dangerous territory.
Regulus suddenly strides in and murmurs, “Horcruxes.”
“Horcruxes?”asks Remus.
“He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is using horcruxes,” Regulus responds. He and Blair never refer to Voldemort as the Dark Lord when they are at Order headquarters.
It confuses them, sometimes, and they have to be careful, especially when they’re at the Malfoy Manor.
“What are those?” Dan asks.
Blair almost teases him about there being something he does not know, but she realizes that they are not there yet.
“When Voldemort commits murder, the act fractures his soul. He takes the piece of the soul that fractures and hides the fragment in a precious object.”
The room gasps.
“He made six of them,” Regulus says, despair evident in his tone.
“We don’t have much time,” Dumbledore says grimly. It is the first time Blair sees him without the trademark twinkle in his eyes.
-
Finally, the Order has some good news. Lily Evans Potter and Alice Longbottom announce that they are both pregnant and are due to give birth at around the same time - in around five months. They both laugh when they are teased mercilessly about having planned this.
They deny it. They reason out that they were both so immersed in Order business that the pregnancies just happened.
Nobody believes them.
Sirius looks gleeful. “War babies!.” Remus claps the backs of both Longbottom and Potter, muttering, “You dogs!” Severus looks bereft, but gets up to congratulate Lily.
Dan, unfathomably, looks at her, with a strange, unreadable expression on his face.
He asks her out a week later, but not before approaching Sirius to ask for his permission.
Sirius waggles his eyebrows at her from across the room. Reg gives her a knowing smirk. She glares back at the both of them.
Later, when they are comfortable with each other again, Blair asks Dan why he asks for Sirius’s permission.
“I want to respect some of your traditions, Blair,” he says with conviction.
Blair smiles and knows she has made the right choice, comfort and power and neutrality be damned.
-
After he comes up with a plan, Dumbledore forms a team to study and destroy the horcruxes. It includes Dan, Severus, the Potters, Remus, and all the Black siblings, although Sirius confesses that he has no knowledge of and interest in dark artifacts at all.
Blair accidentally kills a muggleborn child the next day, while accompanying Bella to the raid of a magical orphanage.
The girl was only four, likely just showing her first signs of accidental magic.
She takes to sleeping with copious amounts of calming draught every night.
-
In the middle of everything, once more, little things happen to remind Blair that life does go on.
Cissa gives birth to Dracio Lucius Malfoy on June 5, 1980. She sends the birth announcement by owl post, penning a note to Blair, “See me when you’re not busy protecting wizardkind, Auntie Blair!”
Blair and Dan reveal their newly-rekindled relationship to the Order a few days later. To her infinite surprise, no one is resistant, although Sirius attempts a few mocking protestations: “That’s my sister you’re shagging, Humphrey!”
The only vaguely dubious comment comes from Moody, who admonishes them, “Don’t end up like the Longbottoms and Potters over there, mind. The miserable sods got their ladies knocked up in the middle of the war.”
Everybody laughs.
Lily Evans Potter and Alice Longbottom give birth on the same day, much to the incessant teasing of all the Order members. On July 31, 1980, Harry James Potter and Neville Longbottom are born.
Sirius is, of course, Harry’s godfather, but in a surprising turn of events, Lily asks Blair to be Harry’s godmother. Blair is so taken aback she can’t hold back her tears.
Later, when Blair holds baby Harry, Dan looks at her like she is the whole world.