Chapter 1
When he thinks back to who he was as a young man, Caelum can and will readily admit he was a little shit.
He likes to think that the change began the first time he looked in a cauldron and felt the first stirrings of curiosity. In a potions lab it doesn’t matter if you’re the pureblooded heir apparent of House Lestrange or a mudblood throwing things together and hoping for a miracle. What matter is your results.
But if he were honest with himself, Caelum would admit that potions didn’t change his world view, they just made him a little odd.
Maybe then, it was brushing elbows with halfbloods for the first time, forced into respecting those of lesser blood when they showed themselves to be ingenious and talented. But he suspects that’s giving Harriet Potter entirely too much credit—if she had just been another potioneer to him he would have never considered her past her blood status and wild new ideas. He would have never been convinced of her worth as a person.
No, if Caelum is being honest, truly honest with himself, the change crept upon him so slowly that he barely noticed it himself. He’d be raised to sit above the world of the common folk, to tip his nose up and sneer at the patrons crowding in front of the stage from his safe and elevated position on a balcony. He’s been raised to forever be on the outside looking in and, upon looking, find what he saw lacking. He was born for one purpose and one purpose only—to be a pureblooded heir of a financially powerful house to help secure the political future of one Tom Marvolo Riddle and the SOW party. Everything in Caelum was straining against any form of change, any shift in worldview. That’s what makes it hard for him to pinpoint exactly what shifted him onto a new path in life, what brought him closer to the stage.
If Caelum could be honest outside of the quiet of his own heart, he would begin the story with an alley of amazing smells, a bowl of soup, and a girl who could never answer questions honestly.
Yes, Caelum likes to believe it was potions that saved him, but in reality? It was probably the food.
-BREAK-
He’s frowning again.
Despite all the good manners and good habits trained into him by the Governess at a young age, Caelum is frowning during a meal. Of course, he’s sure if his Governess could see the particular meal he was meant to consume, she would quite understand.
“I’m really not sure if I can trust this.” All he gets in reply is a soft laugh and challenging smirk.
“I promise you will survive consuming ‘peasant slop’. It hasn’t killed me yet.” There’s an uncharitable reply which leaps to mind, but Caelum bites his tongue and looks the Potter Heiress squarely in her eyes.
“It’s not the status of the meal, but the contents.” He appraises the stew in front of him once more. It’s brownish, with oddly shaped chunks of meat and what look like purple carrots floating in the liquid. It was labeled ‘mystery stew’ on the menu board. The stall owner was a hag. “I would bet good money that’s a child’s spleen I’m meant to be eating.”
“A spleen? You think that if she went through the trouble of killing a child, she’d waste the spleen on stew?” Caelum’s head snaps up in concern, bile rising in his throat, only to stop short when he sees Potter’s eyes. They’re sparkling with that mocking mischief she seems to wear around her like a second skin. Most people would be scared of making fun of the Lestrange heir, but she’s never hesitated. He bites back another uncharitable reply, because while Potter might lack good breeding and manner, his etiquette is impeccable.
“Do you usually eat stew prepared by hags?” It comes out a little plaintive. Damn. He’d meant to sound scornful.
“Hags, vampires, even—” her voice drops into a hush, and he unconsciously leans in “—the occasional squib.”
“Oh, piss off” And there it is again. She’s broken his barrier of politeness. He scowls openly as she breaks into fresh gales of laughter.
“In all honesty though,” Potter says when she finally calms down, “If she were actually killing children and feeding them to the local populace, she wouldn’t have a stand. Leo doesn’t like people who attack kids.” And there it is again. This Leo character she’s constantly mentioning. The one he isn’t allowed to meet. Every time he tries to get to know the mysterious character who consumes nearly half of Potter’s free time she tells him he’s not allowed to meet the other man “until he’s ready”.
And when will that be?
When you stop being such a ponce.
Caelum didn’t think he could scowl any deeper, but the mention of Leo manages to drive him to a new depth of dissatisfaction with his situation. Potter leans over her bowl, and takes another hearty sip of her stew.
“If you don’t want yours, I’ll eat it.” She reaches across the table for his bowl, and for reasons even he can’t fully understand, Caelum fends her off with his spoon. He looks down at the poorly fashioned bread bowl and suspicious looking soup once more and sighs. The wind rustles his hair, the sun shines on his face, and he’s the best dressed person in the alleys.
Caelum takes a bite of soup.
Now who’s the ponce? He thinks triumphantly, trying to pretend he doesn’t enjoy the stew.
-BREAK-
Dinner parties are the most exhausting part of fundraising season. He floats behind his parents from one mansion to the next, eating meals which cost 300 galleons a plate in the name of the SOW fundraising committee. As though the party could get any more ridiculously wealthy than it already is.
“So, Caelum, I hear you’ve been formally apprenticed?” It’s Arabella Carrow, somehow seated next to him. She always leans in close to him, speaks in an overly familiar manner with him.
“Yes, Master Whittaker was impressed with my previous work with him and decided to take me on officially. He is one of the best.” Please let that be the end of the conversation.
“I never understood how you took school so seriously. In school,” Arabella adds, opening the conversation to include the seats surrounding theirs. To include his mother. “He was always ever so studious. We’d all go play Quidditch, or attend club meetings, or eat, and he’d stay behind to study. We always joked he’d die bent over some books.”
“Yes,” He replies with a terse smile, “I always noticed that your extracurriculars flourished at the expense of your curriculum.” Now Merlin, please let that be the end of the conversation. Arabella merely titters.
“Oh, I could have studied more, but I did well enough for my needs.” In the name of bloody Salazar Slytherin, do insults just roll off this girl’s back? Caelum feels his smile slip ever so slightly into a grimace. Please let no one ask—
“And what needs are those?” It’s his mother, sickly sweet and toxic, always willing to start an argument. Arabella hesitates upon recognizing who asks the question, but nevertheless continues on.
“We all know what the needs of the party are. I am prepared to do my duty as a pureblood woman. I am merely waiting for the right partner.”
“Most likely a halfblood.” Someone scoffs further down the table. Bellatrix’s head snaps in the direction of the voice but can’t seem to pinpoint it.
“Surely none of you are questioning our Lord? Surely none of you doubt his dedication to preserving pureblood society?”
“It’s a difficult potion to swallow though, Bellatrix, is it not?” Lord Rosier, inclining his head with the faintest inklings of a mocking smile curling the edges of his mouth. “That our grandchildren will be impure? That your son’s children will not be qualified to attend the very institution he attended?” Bellatrix’s face convulses, and Caelum watches his mother with an odd sort of fascination. Had she resigned herself to mongrel grandchildren?
“You forget,” she hisses, the edges of her madness becoming sharp in her anger, “That my grandchildren will have Black blood running in their veins. They will be pure no matter who their mother may be.”
“I believe,” Lord Rosier replies silkily, “That your son’s children will be Lestranges, Lady Lestrange.”
His mother is silent, but Caelum knows what she’s thinking. He may be a Lestrange, but he will always be a Black first in her mind. His stomach roils as he stares down and his beautifully catered French dinner. He could use some stew.
-BREAK-
Caelum doesn’t know how to be hungry. Growing up, his house elf ensured he was never uncomfortable enough to even consider crying. After all, Madam Lestrange detested noise, detested bother, and most certainly would detest her son until both of those no longer applied to him. Sometimes, in fits of boredom and pique, Caelum would consider letting out a slight whine, but was so satisfied that he generally couldn’t be bothered to get around to it.
Even when he grew older, Caelum would seek food whenever he felt so much as a tickle in his stomach, discomfort not suiting the child who could hardly scrape a knee without his mother threatening those around him. He loved it when she threatened people for him, loved to feel the full force of her rage against others, loved to feel her love in the magic she pressed protectively against his skin.
“You might be a Lestrange by name,” His mother would say to him in the dead of night, when she crept home from those parties his father wasn’t invited to, “But you’re a Black by blood.” And he, in a small voice still unused to speaking, would reply perfectly.
“Toujours Pur.” Always Pure. And his mother would smile, something dark in her eyes, and hold him possessively to her chest. And she would whisper into his soft hair and toddler-soft skin,
“Mine. You are mine.”
Really, Caelum never had any reason to doubt. He was his mother’s by blood, and his father’s by name, and he was pureblooded and destined to be powerful. And he was better than anyone else from those few facts alone.