The First Day Of Forever
In true keeping with the patterns of Alessia’s lives, the morning after their wedding Alessia and Orion were rudely awaken by their sons at four o’clock. Apparently Kreacher didn’t want to give them sweets that early in the day without due authorisation and so the two boys went to a higher authority, meaning their father and stepmother.
Which was all well and good. They were responsible enough to recognise that they wouldn’t get anywhere by arguing, and that they should take the problem to their parents. The only problem was, well, they took it to their parents at four in the morning.
“This,” Alessia yawned as the door shut behind the two hellions, “is not how I imagined our first morning married.” She sighed and flopped back down onto the bed, curling up. “Can we start today again?”
Orion snorted beside her, and lay down, stifling his own yawn. The reception had lasted quite a while. “That sounds like an excellent idea, my dear.”
She laughed sleepily and curled her head into his shoulder.
Within moments, both were asleep.
*******************
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, it was eleven o’clock on the morning after their wedding. Everything was right with the world and it was exactly the type of morning you would want for the beginning of an happily ever after.
Alessia stirred, grumbled, and turned away from the sun. Then she sat bolt upright.
“Shit!”
She sprang out of the high bed, hissing at the still cold flagstones, and darted for the wardrobe, rummaging through it.
“What?” Orion blearily blinked at his suddenly panicking wife. “What’s happening?”
“The date, Orion! Look at the date today!”
He checked, and then swore, joining her in rummaging frantically through the mess of clothes. While the house elves had indeed made sure all of Alessia’s and Orion’s clothes were washed, pressed and stored in the right room, they had neglected to seperate or order the clothes. Alessia’s Hogwarts Quidditch robes hung beside the ones from Orion’s first ball. Orion’s every day robes hung beside Alessia’s Invisibility cloak. That was without mentioning shoes and socks and other miscellaneous items of clothing.
It was a mess.
“Where are they? Are they even here?” Alessia threw a dress handed down in her family for three hundred years carelessly over her shoulder, followed by a pair of faded Muggle trousers.
“They have to be in here somewhere.” Orion replied worriedly, the robes from his inauguration as High Lord Black falling from the hanger as he roughly searched past them.
“Aha!” He held up an aubergine robe in triumph, before looking closer and snorting in disgust. “That isn’t mine.”
Alessia looked over. “That’s mine from Great Grandmother Zabini three years ago. I’ve been meaning to throw it out for ages.”
“I can see why.”
Finally, they found the robes they were looking for, right at the back of the huge wardrobe. Alessia grabbed one, sighed, and swapped with Orion. “There we go.”
They turned and looked at the room now strewn with robes. Then they looked at each other. After a moment’s dithering, Orion grabbed his wand from his bedside table. “Bene servetur.”
The robes soared back onto hangers and into the wardrobe, which shut behind them. Alessia started to laugh. “You realise we could have just used a Summoning charm in the first place.”
They looked at each other in comic dismay for a minute. “We,” Orion said eventually, “are hopeless.”
Alessia snickered. “Agreed.”
“And the boys are never hearing about this.”
“Also agreed.”
They scrambled into their robes, washing faces and tidying hair as quickly as magically possible, and then hurried downstairs.
Sirius and Regulus were lying in the hall on their stomachs, pouring over some book or other. They jumped to their feet as soon as they heard the two coming down. “Dad! Mum! What took you so long?” A babble of noise then ensued from the two really very young boys.
Apparently, they had found the sweets anyway, and then had been sentenced by a very exasperated Kreacher to time-out before they had been able to eat any which was evidently a great travesty. However, despite Kreacher magically reinforcing the time-out, they had been able to escape, and then decided to wait quietly to show Alessia and Orion that despite Kreacher’s grumblings to the contrary, they were really very good boys.
Alessia dissolved into a fit of giggles quite at odds to the stern image of authority her robes presented. Orion merely sighed and said he hoped that, amid all the excitement, the boys had remembered to pack for their visit to Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella’s.
The subsequent stampede upstairs revealed the contrary.
Sighing, the two newly-weds slid into their seats and tucked into the light breakfast Kreacher provided. “How on earth have you managed so long?” Alessia asked curiously. “I’ve always been able to send them home when it gets too much, but you can’t.”
Orion shrugged, his face clouding. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t the most involved father until a little while ago. Walburga didn’t want me around the children too much, and I assumed that they wouldn’t want to see their absentee father either. Recently of course, I have been trying.” Unsaid went the fact that, had Walburga’s attempt to murder his father not suceeded, doubtless, Orion would still be absent on business trips, trying to avoid his mad wife and strange, silent sons.
Alessia reached over and squeezed his hand reassuringly, inwardly wincing at her misstep. “They love you, Orion. You’re their father, and they idolise you - I think you’re doing fine.”
He smiled weakly. “They love you too, my dear. Their new mother, and James and Lyra’s aunt, not to mention ex-Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch Team. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to announce a national holiday in your honour.”
They both laughed and moved on from the awkward moment, eating quickly and then standing just as the boys thundered down the stairs.
“Okay, both ready?” Two freshly washed faces nodded eagerly. “Hair combed? Ears clean?”
Both boys suitably prepared, Alessia and Orion each took one hand (Alessia got Regulus) and spun on the spot.
With a crack, they disappeared, reappearing with an equally loud crack in front of a tall townhouse in central London.
Yelling, Regulus and Sirius detached themselves from father and stepmother respectively, and dashed up the stairs to the front door, which opened instantly.
Two of Druella and Cygnus Black’s three daughters spilled out, and the four cousins greeted each other enthusiastically.
Much older than the others, Bellatrix was already a second year at Hogwarts, and while she had been given permission to attend her uncle’s wedding, that had not extended to the day after. She was much more cheerful now that Walburga was no longer poisoning her ears with Pureblood mania, but Alessia didn’t know her too well. Probably for the best - Vivien’s memories of her godfather’s death at Bellatrix’s hand were still raw.
Andromeda was about the same age as Regulus, and Narcissa barely old enough to walk. But the four were adorable, and Alessia and Orion smiled to see them interact.
“Alessia! Orion! There you are!” Druella Black neè Rosier bustled past the gaggle of children on the steps and down to the street with a wide smile on her face. She embraced both of them, exclaiming over how well they looked despite having seen them both yesterday.
Druella was a force of nature, in the way that some women are - she wasn’t interested in anything but being a society wife and mother (Alessia thought it a crime for such a sharp mind to be wasted, though Druella seemed happy enough), but after Walburga’s incarceration, she had blossomed and become a regular mother hen. Or bear.
Perhaps both.
Either way, she was very hard to resist.
After far more time than they should have spent in idle conversation, they finally managed to extricate themselves with the excuse that they would be unpardonably late, and Apparate to the Ministry before Druella dragged Cygnus out of his office.
*************
They managed to make it to the Wizengamot session in good time, through what miracle they had no idea.
Somehow, they even had time to exchange idle conversation with Edward Bones and Hecuba Greengrass, House Greengrass’ newly widowed Regent. Alessia noticed Lord Lestrange’s shadowy looks, and made sure to keep him in the corner of her eye at all times. She didn’t trust that man farther than she could throw him.
Dumbledore’s gavel banging was particularly forceful today. She stifled a snicker - he had certainly not wanted the alliance between Peverell and Black. He considered her a misguided if fundamentally good-hearted girl, owing to her having been brought up by the almost obscenely Gryffindor Potters. Her Sorting into Slytherin had obviously been a tragic mistake, and he had been most irritated at having lost the lucrative opportunity to tie House Peverell to one of his lackeys. Too bad for him.
"Order, order. The 2,204th biannual meeting of the Wizengamot, in the year of our Lord 1965 is hereby in session. As always, the first item on our agenda is the claiming of seats, acknowledgment of Heirs and other major House business beginning with the High Houses. High Lord Orion Black, of the Most Deadly and Most Fierce House of Black, do you have anything to announce that has come to light since the last session?"
Orion stood with a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Everyone knew that he did - they had all been there yesterday aftr all. “In the intervening time between the last Wizengamot session and this, as I am sure many of you well know, the Most Feared and Most Deathly House of Peverell and the Most Deadly and Most Fierce House of Black were allied through the ties of marriage. The marriage between High Lady Alessia Peverell of the Most Feared and Most Deathly House of Peverell and myself was legally confirmed and witnessed on the fourteenth of March in the year 1965. I will continue to reside at Castle Tenebris. This is all that I need to bring to the attention of the Wizengamot at this time.”
He sat back down abruptly, and Dumbledore was forced move on to Alessia, despite clearly wanting to say something to declare the marriage invalid. Well, it was so terrible to be him, having finally lost the opportunity to slide one of his anti-Pureblood Muggleborn pets into an High House.
"High Lady Alessia Peverell, of the Most Feared and Most Deathly House of Peverell, do you have anything to announce that has come to light since last session?"
Alessia stood, with a small smirk playing on her lips. “In the intervening time between the last Wizengamot session and this, as is common knowledge, the Most Feared and Most Deathly House of Peverell and the Most Deadly and Most Fierce House of Black were tied by marriage on the fourteenth of March 1965, through my marriage to High Lord Orion Black of the Most Deadly and Most Fierce House of Black. I intend to reside predominantly in Castle Tenebris.” This wasn’t an idle decision. Many of Alessia’s experiments and artefacts lay in Castle Orcus, and House Peverell’s domain was much darker than House Black’s. Neither of them had wanted to have Sirius or Regulus be harmed, or to uproot them once more, so Castle Tenebris it was.
The session moved on, and both Orion and Alessia took a mischievous delight in the amount of announcements that had arisen due to their wedding.
Seven betrothals were announced, four broken, and one Blood Feud declared.
Unsurprisingly, it was between Gaunt and Black - the first session the Gaunts had attended for years.
Twenty one minor feuds were also declared and settled at the same time, all over duels that had taken place last night. Wine did strange things to people.
Houses Weasley and Malfoy had taken their feud from a Blood Feud to a Death Feud. That had made some waves. Death Feuds were incredibly rare due to the fact that most Death Feuds declared led to every member of both Houses being butchered. The latest, between Houses Capulet and Montague in Italy, had died down when the heirs were killed, and then a month later, the rest of the family had joined the heirs in the mausoleums.
At some point, Orion was sure, they would see Malfoys and Weasleys brawling in the street. That would be hilarious.
Well, at least this session was more interesting than the last.