Shades of Silver and Black

THERE WAS A TERM FOR THIS. This huddling of powerful people creating strategies under heavy anti-eavesdropping wards and enchantments that wouldn’t allow outsiders to read lip movements. This uneasiness, the sharpness of their eyes and the calculation in their words. Had they not been surrounded by the bright white walls of the hospital, had they not had the stench of chemicals and anaesthetic potions staining the normally odourless air, they could have termed it war-council.

However, their location reminded them of their purpose. Of Cassandra’s uneven breathing in the Intensive Care Unit. Of Gideon’s broken bones in a private ward a few floors below. Of Fabian painfully re-growing each layer of his skin like a snake two corridors over.

“I don’t know if this helps, but he kept saying that he’s immortal,” revealed Theodore after Lyra asked him and Dennis to share whatever they knew about the Dark Lord. “Like, constantly. You could ask him how much sugar he liked in his tea and he’d still find a way to brag about his immortality.”

Lyra tilted her head. “Nothing is immortal. Even stars combust. But what did he do that made him think he is?”

“Rituals for prolonged life are common in Asia,” chimed Lucius, rubbing his chin almost theatrically. “I’ll make a list for you, if you’d like, to help narrow things down. It was, in fact, one of the reasons I wanted to come to Malaysia so badly. It’s rumoured that the majority of the elders are more than five hundred years old. Hence, the reason why Malaysia’s magical history is so accurate—these people have literally lived through it.”

“Like the Flamels?”

“Not quite. Unlike the Flamels where the philosopher’s stone anchors their mortality, in Malaysia, it’s along the lines of an immensely slow ageing ritual.”

“He looked monstrous when I last saw him at the ball,” said Lyra, recalling the slits he had for his nose and the corpse-white colour of his skin. “I think his method is more like the Flamels. His immortality must be tied to an object.”

“Or objects,” piqued Theodore.

“Or objects,” agreed Lyra. “So we’ll need to find them and find out how he defiled them to fuel his apparent immortality.”

“Do you think the Dark Lord will tell us if we ask him?” Dennis mused aloud.

Lucius clapped his hands together, visage over-exaggeratedly cheerful. “Yes, let’s do that. Greetings, my Lord, we’d like to know how you’re immortal so we could reverse it and kill you.”

“He might if we ask politely.”

“I volunteer you to ask him that,” said Lucius, raising his hand.

Lyra nodded in agreement. “Regulus is your godbrother, after all, and your father cherishes him dearly. I’m confident your father would much rather make him Lord Yaxley than give it to one of your cousins if you die by sprouting some draconian law.”

“In his defence, my cousins are horrid,” said Dennis.

Lucius quipped a brow. “You do realise literally all of us here are your cousins, don’t you? Rude.”

“Close-cousins,” Dennis corrected himself, turning to Lyra. “You of all people know that first cousins are the only ones that count,” he said, referring to her parents and Lyra tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“So what you’re saying is,” interjected Theodore, bringing them back on track. “We’ll need a spy—someone who’s close and is trusted by the Dark Lord in case he slips.”

“Yes,” confirmed Lyra before her lips wryly twisted to reveal: “But we already have a spy.”

All three boys looked gobsmacked like she’d announced that she was in love with a muggle. “What do you mean?” Dennis asked eventually. “What spy?”

“I gifted him a snake for Yule.” Lyra half-smiled. “I sincerely hope he didn’t think it was some grand gesture of allegiance. Or that he forgot how he isn’t the only one who can speak with snakes.”

“What if the snake turns against you and tells everything about you to him?” Theodore questioned, crossing his legs.

“That can’t happen.”

“You sound very sure for someone talking about animals.”

“Animals happen to be very loyal, don’t you know? Far less fickle than humans. Besides,” Lyra laced her hands together and placed them on her lap, “there are spells to ensure loyalty. The kind that is permanent unless the person who applied the spell cancels it, which I don’t intend to do until Cassie’s paint buckets are filled with red. The kind whose only counter-charm lies deep in Lord Black’s personal library, surrounded by enchantments which will flay alive those who aren’t born a Black and had direct permission from Lord Black to enter.”

“I thought you were at odds with your family.”

“I am now. I wasn’t when I was nine and my parents were on a date and my grandfather Arcturus was frantically explaining to my brothers along with his wife why burning the house down without a three-day notice was a bad idea. He hardly batted an eye when I asked for permission to read some of the books in his library.”

“Praise your brothers for being menaces,” grinned Lucius, clapping his hands together.

“And Lady Black for being a bundle of chaos,” added Dennis, tipping an imaginary hat.

“And me,” Lyra chimed pointedly. “You know, for actually doing all this.”

“Yeah, yeah, you too,” Theodore waved her words away and leaned forward.

“All hail Lyra,” said Dennis, making his voice deep and grave to the point of being comical.

“All hail,” parroted Lucius, masking his face to mirror Dennis’ solemn one.

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Shut up, peasants.” She leaned forward. “Now, what else can we do?”

“We need to make people distrust him,” suggested Dennis thoughtfully. “Or, at the very least, doubt him.”

“We can wait until he hurts their loved ones for being weak,” said Theodore darkly, glancing at the still-closed doors of the ICU where Cassandra laid. “It won’t be much hard then.”

Lyra shook her head. “You underestimate how much people can be ruled by fear or desire or even loneliness.” She thought of Dolores Umbridge back when they were at Hogwarts, who had followed the crowd in ostracising two cousins she was so very close to in fear of being ostracised herself. “It may have been the pushing point for you, it would have definitely been the pushing point for me, but it won’t be for everybody.”

Lucius hummed in agreement, looking at Dennis. “I like what you said about doubting him. We could spread rumours about him. My family followed him because he knew my parents back at school, but even then, my parents adore his promises of bringing the purebloods ‘back to their peak’ and reducing mudbloods. If, say, word got out that that isn’t on his agenda anymore…”

“It’s not enough.” Theodore shook his head. “My parents—I myself—wouldn’t have cared. The Dark Lord obviously promotes our superiority. Promotion of our culture and heritage is a by-product of that.”

“People are scared of war because of its unpredictability,” Lyra cut in. “That’s one of the main reasons I’m against him—he’s deliberately starting a war where we have little control of the outcome instead of doing things politically and more importantly, safely. There may be others who share my worries. We could flame them.”

Theodore hummed and said, “One of the reasons?”

“He’s masquerading as a pureblood and expects us to bend a knee to him; of course I’m annoyed by him,” stated Lyra, scoffing, and was surprised when Dennis’ eyes widened and Theodore’s mouth dropped. Lucius snickered behind his palm. “What—Don’t tell me you don’t know. It’s clear as day.”

Two pairs of eyes blinked at her blankly.

“What kind of a pureblood has to call himself ‘Lord’ in a pathetic attempt to demand respect?” questioned Lyra rhetorically. “Lord is a title. The way he styled himself as Lord shows some sort of inferiority complex and Voldemort? Really? If he was a pureblood, he would have used his own name. All the Dark Lords before him did so, even Grindelwald. The mere fact that he’s hiding his name means it’s not worth mentioning. I’m not going to even get started on the way he dresses, talks, walks, and doesn’t know the basics of how marriage contracts work among purebloods.”

The Dark Lord believed her honeyed lies about why neither she nor Lucius could take on the mark. If he had actually been pureblood, such a thing would have raised doubt in his mind. If he really was secure in his strength, he wouldn’t need to boast about himself in a third-person voice. He seemed much at times, when purebloods were much in general, always.

“But he speaks to snakes!” Theodore protested.

“So?” Lyra tilted her head. “You don’t have to be pureblood to speak to snakes. You only need to have an ancestor—no matter how distant—who can. Three-fourth of the magical population in Asia speaks to snakes. I can speak to snakes despite being only minutely related to the Gaunts and in turn, Salazar Slytherin. The pureblood Gaunts themselves died a long time ago. He could be from a lesser branch—the ones that married mudbloods and half-bloods to wash away all that inbreeding—which still makes him not pure. ”

“We have to find proof about this,” breathed Dennis.

“Why do we have to find proof when we can manufacture it?”

Theodore looked at her with a new wariness. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know?” A trace of smirk curved Lyra’s lips. “I own majority shares in the Daily Prophet. The facts are whatever I say it is. And I’m saying that the Dark Lord is a muggleborn masquerading as a pureblood supremacist to earn our trust and backstab us.”

“Nice,” laughed Dennis, suddenly happy he was with Lyra instead of against her. “We can say that’s the reason we left the Dark Lord’s service—because we discovered he wasn’t pure.”

“Staunch supporters like Bellatrix, my father and the majority of all of your relatives still might not care much though,” said Lucius, rubbing his chin. “They’re enamoured by the idea of him and the hope he gives. Even if that confession falls from his lips, they’ll think he’s lying to keep peace and think he’s even nobler. There’s no shattering the image they’ve created of him in their minds.”

“But they’re not our target audience,” said Lyra. “By doing this, we’ll be weeding out the Dark Lord’s followers. He should be grateful—this will be a loyalty test of sorts, after all. Let’s see who sticks by him. As for the deserters, well, I’m sure they’ll be feeling betrayed. They’ll be easier to bring to our side then.”

“That sounds good and all but, um, do you even need us?” Dennis asked, gesturing to himself, Theodore and Lucius. “It sounds like you pretty much got it all covered.”

“I got plan A covered,” corrected Lyra. “Plan A where everything goes exactly how I want it to with no unexpected surprises or changes in variables, which is impossible. And even then, I need the backing of noble houses. There’s a certain law I want to introduce in the Wizengamot.”

“How are you going to do that?” Lucius asked, being just as clueless about the workings of Lyra’s mind as the next person. “You’re not a member of the Wizengamot and none of our fathers or grandfathers is going to agree with us taking down the Dark Lord. They’ll need a lot of persuasions and even then, the probability is low considering they were schoolmates with the Dark Lord. The four of us might be powerful in our own rights, but we’re only heirs. Only a lord can introduce bills in the Wizengamot.”

“Or…?” Lyra prompted.

Dennis understood what she was hinting at first and inhaled sharply. “The Slytherin Court.”

Lyra dimpled. “Indeed.”

“Narcissa hates both of us,” reminded Theodore.

“Narcissa isn’t the only ruler,” retorted Lyra. “She may be the Silver Queen, but if the Green King opposes her with the backing of the rest of the court, it can happen.”

Lucius shifted on his seat warily. “This wouldn’t play in with why Narcissa has been humiliated and is at an all-time low in terms of likability among the members of the Court, would it?”

“I didn’t intend or plan for this to happen,” said Lyra sharply, tossing Lucius a glare. “I wanted Narcissa to be liked and for her to lead well. If she had, it would have been so much easier to make her introduce this bill that I’m drafting. Narcissa humiliated herself. I’m just seeing the rainbow in this storm.”

Lucius nodded and Theodore hummed while Dennis voiced, “How are you so sure Regulus will listen to you? Another set of loyalty spells up your sleeve?” He teased, not mocking in the slightest, but curious.

Lyra’s dimples deepened. “That’s where you come in.”

Dennis looked baffled. “Me?”

“Yes, you. If I ask Regulus to do this, he will but he’ll also face backlash from Narcissa. I don’t have the cleanest reputation among our housemates, you see. But if you, Mr Hufflepuff Disguised As A Slytherin and—“

“Don’t call me that!”

“—Regulus’ beloved godbrother asks for this favour because your father is hesitant about your ability to be Lord Yaxley in the future so you want to prove your worth by passing a bill that you drafted all on your own which will benefit purebloods in Britain, well, that isn’t very suspicious.”

Dennis winced. “It hits a little too close to home,” he admitted before squinting his eyes at Lyra. “And you’re fine with me taking credit for your work?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time you copied my homework.”

Dennis chuckled in agreement. “No, it would not.”

“You said this was Plan A,” interjected Lucius, bringing them back to the matter on hand. “How many contingency plans do you have?”

“Indefinite and I’m open to more ideas,” replied Lyra, sliding her eyes to each of their faces. “And everyone here—“ she lingered on the closed ICU doors “—is vital to each of them.”

“Good to know,” said Theodore.

“So you understand why I’m going to need you all to swear oaths to never betray or be disloyal to me until we meet our end-goal unless you wish to spontaneously combust and have your ashes mixed with the blood of mudbloods and poured over the graves of all your ancestors, don’t you?”

“Certainly,” answered Lucius unhesitantly.

Dennis shook his head as he added, “But you’ve got to work on speaking without making your allies want to crap themselves.”

Lyra tilted her head. “But that’s exactly my desired results.”

Dennis scowled at her while Theodore threw an arm around Dennis’ shoulder and proceeded to say: “And you’ve got to work on not using words like crap. It’s very unbecoming of a pureblood heir.”

“You said it as well!” Dennis alleged, shrugging off Theodore’s arm.

“When did I?”

“Just now—when you said that I shouldn’t say it!”

“Say what?”

“You know what.”

“I don’t know a you-know-what. I only know You-Know-Who.”

“You bloody—“

“I should have got one of my snakes.” Lyra pouted, focusing the spotlight on her. “People always behave so much nicer when I have my snakes with me.”

“That’s not true,” argued Lucius with furrowed brows. “There’s screaming here and I remember there being screaming when you have your snakes as well.”

“There was also a lot of gulping and shivering,” reminisced Lyra fondly. “I miss that.”

“You should bring Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos next time,” suggested Lucius before turning to Dennis and Theodore, both of whom were seated promptly with the faintest paling of their countenance as they recalled Lyra’s frightening snakes. “They’re the names of the runespoor I gifted her for her birthday a few years back.”

“I remember them,” mused Dennis, suppressing a sliver of shiver that slithered down his spine as the image of Lyra wearing a scarf with three hissing heads flashed through his mind. “They’re so lovely, it’s awfully hard to forget them. I’ve tried to. Believe me.”

Lyra giggled and tucked a stray strand of black hair behind her ear. The spell she had used to colour her hair to platinum had been temporary, after all, and had faded sometime during the sunset in Malaysia. She filed the choice of re-colouring her hair in the back of her mind.

Then, she weighed each of them under a heavy gaze. “Last chance to back out. I don’t intend to plan nice with the Dark Lord and stab him in the back. It’s all going to be public. It’s all going to be in the open, and none of you will be able to play double or triple agents as well due to the oath I’ll be making you take. If you become my ally, you’re going to be ostracised—not only by our community but maybe even your own family.”

“They might even think you’re holding us all under the impervious,” added Dennis, glancing at Theodore. “I mean, we were one of his staunch supporters about ten minutes ago.”

“Stranger things have occurred,” commented Theodore, switching his attention to Lyra. “And I trust you. I trust you to help me get revenge for what he did to Cassandra. You promised me red paint to gift her, and I know you keep your word.”

“I hope so.”

“You will. It’s going to be okay.” Lucius reached for her hand and squeezed, offering a supportive smile. “More than allies, we’re friends, aren’t we? We’re holding court and creating plans to stabilise power, just like we used to back at Hogwarts but now, on a larger scale. You’ve been the only queen I know.”

“You’ll be dooming your houses,” Lyra said, voice thick but steady. “Each of you is the Heir Apparent of your House—the next Lords. Our families are dark-inclined and support the Dark Lord, whether secretly or openly. Think carefully. Your families will think horribly of you.”

“In a way, we’ve all been family, haven’t we?” Dennis mused instead. “Slytherin has always been good at doing that—giving you another family to rely on. We’ve survived seven years together as the Court. This is going to be as easy as tea.”

“It’s easy as pie,” corrected Theodore with a long-suffering sigh.

Lyra’s lips curled up while Lucius snickered.

Dennis narrowed his eyes on Lucius. “What are you laughing at, your Hairgelliness?”

Amusement washed away from Lucius’ features like a tide and he scowled. “Stop calling me that. It got old really fast.”

“All the more reason for me to call you that,” snipped Dennis, turning to Lyra. “I call dibs on being your second.”

“What? No!” Theodore protested.

“Why not?” Dennis cocked a brow. “You’ve been his Hairgelliness’—“

“Stop calling me that!”

“—second for seven years. You’re perfect for that. Her Majesty,” Dennis motioned to Lyra who gave an exaggerated wave of a hand, “needs a second and as someone who not only has experience in the court but was also a silver, I’m perfect for this.”

“He’s got a point,” chirped Lyra, at which Dennis beamed.

“But—“ Theodore spluttered before clearing his throat. “I object to this. The division between greens and silvers was so two years ago. Let’s all be united.”

“No,” responded Dennis and Lyra simultaneously.

Lucius huffed, folding his arms. “Wow. Rude. And here I was going to put my second in my will.”

“I call dibs on being Lucius’ second!” Theodore blurted out, coaxing an eye-roll from Lucius and laughter from Dennis and Lyra.

Once their laughter had receded, Lyra asked to confirm: “So is everybody in, well aware of the risks?”

“Yup,” intoned Dennis.

“Yes,” answered Theodore.

“Of course,” replied Lucius.

Lyra smiled, warmth blooming in her chest as ice hardened in her voice at the thought of the Dark Lord. “We’re not going to be the rats for snakes or even snakes in disguise. To capture a predator, one can’t remain the prey. They need to become equal in every way. Only, we can’t afford to be the prey at all. The snake could strike when we’re still wearing the clothes of a rat, and the reveal would be more stupid than dramatic.”

“And Morgana forbid a Black is not dramatic,” said Dennis.

“Exactly. Being open allows more theatrics.”

“Which is highly important.”

“It’s the core reason behind revenge,” agreed Lyra grimly. “Besides,” she added as an afterthought, crossing her legs, “They say you catch more flies with honey. I bet I can catch even more with rotting carcasses.”

“And for that,” began Lucius, a smile growing on his lips, “we’ll need a proper court.”

Recruiters. Strength. Stealth. Middlemen and organisers. Spies. Seconds. A king. A queen.

They had five positions filled already, but there was still recruiting to be done. Lucius was right. They were powerful, but they needed more. More power. More people. They needed a court.

Lyra beamed and clapped her hands together. Determination and ruination burned as twinkles in Lyra’s eyes. With those eyes, Lyra could have set the sky on fire. The Dark Lord should be terrified that she was choosing to burn him instead. “Then, let us assemble the court.”

She hadn’t expected to run into him on her way back from the ladies’ toilet, least of all in a hospital, but it was unmistakably him with his tall stature and regal clothing. When familiar stormy eyes bore into hers, Lyra knew a conversation was unavoidable. She was proven correct when he began walking towards her with slight haste in his steps as if she would disappear if he didn’t approach her soon enough.

Looking at her grandfather summoned a kind of bloodless violence—the kind that did not leave bruises on the skin but still harboured a hollow, heavy ache in your chest. After all, it was not called a war if your heart was the only thing that bled. In remorse. In regret. Golden dipped memories that would never be re-lived as the path darkened.

“Grandfather,” she greeted with a tiny smile, inclining her head in respect. “What brought you by?” she asked, referring to the hospital.

“I was visiting Gideon and Fabian,” answered Arcturus, and raised a black bag he carried. “Your grandmother made them sweets, assumed I wasn’t busy and sent me on an errand to deliver them like a house-elf.”

“That sounds like her. Is she doing well?”

“Better than I expect her to be at these times. I’m sorry, my dear, I don’t have any sweets left to offer you. Had I known you were here as well, I’d have saved some for you.” He sounded incredibly upset, but his eyes displayed confusion at her presence. “What brought you by? I thought you were in Malaysia now. Are you hurt?”

“Same as you. I’m visiting someone.”

“I see.” Silence spread over them like rain. Then, Arcturus’ lips drew into a faint smile as he cut the quietude between them. “Your hair is black,” he observed Arcturus.

“It is,” acknowledged Lyra.

“I heard it looked like a Malfoy’s earlier.”

“It did.”

“But now it looks like a Black’s again.”

“It does.”

Arcturus bit his lip at Lyra clearly evading the implication he was trying to voice aloud through her curt answers, but she couldn’t precisely tell if he was annoyed or amused. He seemed to always be split between the two—a trait he had passed down to her father, who she had inherited it from.

“I heard you didn’t read any of our letters,” he said finally.

“From the past few months, the contents of all your letters held little weight. Whether I read them or not would have made no difference. You can’t blame me for assuming the same now as well.”

Arcturus frowned. “We miss you.”

Lyra’s mind went to Narcissa. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“Just because you don’t believe in something, doesn’t mean truths like our love for you will change.”

“That is contradictory since truths are only what you believe in.”

“Well, I miss you,” he said, a little irritably. “Very much so. I miss you wearing snakes like jewellery, I miss you laughing, and I miss us talking and arguing about things.”

“We’re talking and arguing now.”

“It’s not the same,” said Arcturus, shaking his head, his tone borderline a whine. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry, Lyra. I’ve made many mistakes in my life but none I regret as much as what drove you out. I’m so sorry darling, come back. Please.” He pleaded.

Lyra stayed silent. Privacy wards surrounded them wandlessly and wordlessly at her will. It was then she spoke in a whisper, “Are you still supporting the Dark Lord?”

“Lyra—“

“He doesn’t act like someone born from a pureblood household,” she blurted out, interrupting him. “You can hardly tell, but you can still tell. It’s visible despite how much he tried to conceal it. Due to how hard he tried to conceal it. It’s like he read every book there is about purebloods and tried to embody that. He tries too hard. If he really was pureblood, he wouldn’t have tried at all because there would be nothing to prove.”

“Darling, you don’t know that. Even then, he’s the Dark Lord. He’ll be doing much more good for us than harm.”

“But he’ll still be doing harm!” Lyra objected. “Blacks bowing down to anyone is wrong. But to someone with tainted blood running in their veins? That’s plain pathetic. It’s nice to know how far we’ve fallen.”

“What do you want me to do, Lyra?” Her grandfather sounded so tired, so resigned, that Lyra’s heart shattered at the idea of increasing his worries; but she did so anyway.

“Don’t support him,” she responded like she was asking him the simplest thing in the world and not something that would be a death warrant for lesser houses. “Financially or otherwise, don’t. Withdraw everything. Can you do that for your beloved granddaughter?”

Arcturus pursed his lips. “Ceasing support abruptly will not only make us an enemy in the eyes of the Dark Lord but also his followers—like your cousin, Bella.”

“Making enemies is just an unfortunate consequence of being better. Conquering them will make us more powerful anyway. You taught me not to flock to the flames, grandfather. You taught me to be the flame.”

“Making a wrong move will make us ashes, Lyra.”

“Then let’s rise like a phoenix.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy, my dear,” said Arcturus, a grimace twisting his lips. “I understand where you’re coming from. I understand what you’re heading towards. There are always crossroads in front of us, and I understand you want to play offence. But I’ll always choose the safe route for our family, Lyra. Enemies are a great asset to have to challenge yourself. But making the wrong enemies now, during a war when nobody belongs to anybody is risky. It’s a risk I’m unwilling to take. You asked me years ago to make us neutral, and I did. It’s most advantageous for us to reap benefits without participating in anything, and I want us to stick to it. I am not gambling the lives of our family. I am not abandoning them to the clutches of the fickle lady of luck. I want us—all of us—to be safe, Lyra,” he finished, emphasising certain words pointedly.

“You don’t trust me,” she said quietly and Arcturus, had etiquette lessons not been drilled into his head since youth, would have spluttered as his beloved granddaughter continued to speak: “You don’t trust me to devise a plan to keep us all safe.“

“That’s not at all what I’m saying. I was—”

“As my head of house,” Lyra’s voice rose to speak over him, “you can restrict and bar me from doing things. I don’t have a problem with being neutral, grandfather. I have a problem with doing nothing when half of my cousins are stuck in bloody hospital beds. When the other half of my cousins are losing themselves. When my brothers are severing the bonds they have with each other! You can stay silent to ‘keep us safe’ grandfather. You’re right. We do have little sway with external influences but what good is it keeping your family safe from that when we’re tearing each other from the inside out. So much for family,” she spat that word out like it was poison and Arcturus nearly recoiled.

“Lyra—“

“As my head of house, you can restrict and bar me from doing things,” she repeated, unwilling to let him explain, to influence her to change her mind. “You’ve become a pacifist but violence and vengeance sing in my blood like a war cry and calls for the head of a bastard masquerading as a Lord. My intentions don’t align with the ones you have. I want him dead, grandfather, despite the consequences, despite how I might be damning everyone’s safety. I promised—I want someone to paint the floors with his blood,” she confessed as nonchalantly as someone conversing about the weather, smiling brightly the entire time.

“And I don’t want you to stop me,” she continued, turning away from him. When she spoke next, her voice was quiet, yet the wind carried it to Arcturus’ ears like it was thunder. “That’s why I don’t think I want you as my head of house anymore.”

Bellatrix had been smart that way, leaving House Black immediately when it became clear that they wouldn’t be throwing their entire weight behind the Dark Lord. Now part of House Lestrange, she did as she pleased and was praised for it rather than ordered to not go to extremes and give three-day notices before murdering someone like she would have been at House Black.

Arcturus stilled beside her like he’d been hit with a freezing charm. Lyra didn’t dare look at him—she didn’t want to change her mind.

After the span of forever, Arcturus spoke. “Okay,” he said steadily, his voice so blank that it made Lyra ache. It wasn’t a tone he’d ever used on her, and her stomach clenched. “Okay,” he repeated. “I understand why you came to this decision. I respect your request. I suppose you want to be wedded soon?”

“Yes.” She hoped Lucius agreed to be married even though his travels weren’t yet over. Otherwise, it would be incredibly embarrassing for her considering what she just proclaimed to her grandfather.

“Okay. Lovely. Do you need help planning the wedding?”

“I have Lady Malfoy. I’m sure she’s already picked out a colour scheme.”

“Okay. Excellent. Wonderful. Great. Lovely,” he said, and each word that left his lips felt like a crucio directed at her chest. “Write me a date that works for you, and we’ll be prepared.”

“Okay. Lovely.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so.”

“Do you remember the incantation for the beheading charm?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll be okay,” Arcturus told her, although it sounded like he was convincing himself. “Are you planning to have a destination wedding?”

“I think so.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he agreed and tried to sound like he meant it.

Lyra looked at something beyond his shoulders. “I need to go now, grandfather.”

“Yes, of course, I understand.” He paused. “But I hope you know that pictures don’t determine who is family. Feelings do. I hope you know that you are one of the constellations in my galaxy. Your room will always be there at the Planetarium.”

A ghost of a smile etched on Lyra’s features, revealing craters of dimples on her cheeks while her eyes remained painfully, hauntingly sad. “I know,” she said.

But it isn’t enough, she didn’t say but based on the reflecting smile dancing on her grandfather’s lips, she could tell he knew.

Their eyes met and it was like an unspoken promise had been exchanged that they both understood in the marrow of their bones.

Lyra stepped forward and gave him a quick hug, full of warmth and apologies. “Love you, grandpa Archie.”

Arcturus huffed out a peal of laughter twined with sadness. “Love you too, Ly-Ly,” he said as she withdrew.

Then, Lyra was walking away from him, navigating her way through the labyrinth of corridors back to their make-shift war council, her heart racing in her chest. It was necessary, she tried to convince herself. It was needed. She had to keep her family safe from the war.

If, Hecate-forbid, Lyra’s plans failed, her family had to have plausible deniability should the Dark Lord look into their minds. She had to keep them far from herself, have to separate them entirely from her so they weren’t dragged in should strategies shatter like shards of glass which would be used to stab them from the back.

Theodore, Dennis, Lucius and Cassandra would know what they were getting into, they agreed to it. Her family would as well if they knew the whole picture. If she really asked, Lyra knew Grandfather Arcturus would scratch out his stupid three-day policy and order bounties on the heads of their enemies without a slither of hesitation. But Lyra didn’t want to put them up to that. Despite what she claimed, she agreed with him that their safety was a priority, hence her twisting of his words.

Days ago, her family had claimed they committed acts that hurt her in her name, to keep her oblivious of their troubles so she could enjoy life and not worry; to protect her and to keep her safe. So, Lyra hoped they’d understand later, as she now proceeded to do the same.