Found Family

Remus

The boys had surprised him. Remus was ashamed to admit it, but he expected to be the complete opposite of their new wards.

Instead, he saw similarities to his own friend group.

Theo was the most like Remus from what he could tell. He acts strong but still has empathy for those around him that can’t advocate for themselves, probably because for a long time he couldn’t.

Mattheo reminded him of James. He’s not as sunny, but still holds the group together in the same way James did. He has layers to him that he keeps hidden from everyone, and seems like the kind of person to put his friendships above everything else.

Draco was similar to Sirius. They had similar upbringings, only Draco had Narcissa to look after him. They both have good morals and are loyal to their friends, even if they sometimes can’t show it correctly.

Enzo, funnily enough, did not remind him of Peter. Yes, he does have a problem with keeping secrets to himself, but he never tries to deliberately hurt his friends. Instead, he reminds Remus of Regulus. He speaks his mind and sees the world as it is, not wanting to sugarcoat anything, but also hopes to be better than expected of him.

As Remus thought about this, the group started heading toward the Leaky Cauldron. On the way, they ran into two of the boy’s friends.

“Theo!” Pansy exclaimed, walking up and hugging him tightly. “You haven’t talked to me in weeks.”

“Sorry, Pans. I haven’t had an owl and I wanted to give you space while you settled in with Blaise.” Theo replied, while Mattheo got a hug of his own and turned to the other boy.

“How have you been, then? I’m so glad you two got to stay with your mother.”

“So am I, although I miss having the rest of you living closer.” Blaise replied.

“I do too,” Pansy added, “We just ran into Enzo and Draco with Potter and his friends. The Weasley girl invited us to a start of term thing, and it doesn’t sound half boring.”

“You guys should come, then we can catch up before school starts.

“Oh, and I almost forgot to introduce you. These are our guardians, Remus and Sirius.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Remus greeted, “and please do come by whenever you like. We aren’t strict about visitors for the most part, as Harry might have told you.”

“We can key you into the wards if using the floo is easier than apparating. The manor doesn’t like people finding it easily.” Said Sirius.

“That would be great. Pansy isn’t accurate when apparating anyway and refuses to side along with me.”

“Excuse me, I landed in the lake one time! And it wasn’t fair anyway because you can envision your house much easier than I can.”

“It was twice, and I’ll bet you’re going to do it again. You can’t focus on anything for more than 5 seconds.”

“Fine, let’s go then. Your mum is probably waiting for us to get back anyway. It was nice meeting you.”

After saying their goodbyes to Theo and Mattheo, Pansy and Blaise popped out of existence.

“How much do you want to bet Blaise owls us later to tell us she fell in again?” Theo asked.

“Oh I already know he will. He knew what he was doing mentioning it right before leaving. It was probably the last thing she thought about.” Mattheo replied.

The group walked into the Leaky Cauldron and found the rest of the boys sitting with Hermione, Ginny, and Ron.

On the other side of the room, Molly Weasley sat watching the group closely.

Remus realized that he didn’t exactly fill her in on the situation, but it would have to be a problem he solved later. For now, he was worried about the heir situation as well as Dumbledore. He promised himself he would owl her as soon as he could and try to get her to see reason.

“Hello boys, ladies. I think it’s about time we head back to the manor. You three are welcome back with us, but I have a feeling Molly won’t be too happy.” Remus said.

“Oh, mum has been staring daggers at us since she got here. You know how she gets, ever since the first war she hasn’t trusted anyone. She almost didn’t let us come today, but she adores Harry and he needed help.” Ginny replied.

“We’re bound to get an earful once we get home, though. Now that Hermione is living with us she doesn’t mind yelling at us in front of her anymore.” Ron agreed.

“We should probably go before she comes to physically drag us away.” Hermione added.

Molly stood up as the three walked away and practically shoved them out the door.

“Ever since she lost Gideon and Fabian she’s become so paranoid about slytherins.” Sirius remarked, “I feel bad, but she can’t take it out on children.”

“I’ll send her an owl later. She deserves an explanation but I also have to set some form of boundaries. For now let’s just go home.” Remus replied.

Remus was already starting to feel the effects of the moon. He knew nothing about this would be easy, and honestly he was looking forward to the hard parts. He knew that he wanted to help, and he knew he could even though he was created to hurt. For now he would focus on the little ways he could make the boys lives easier, and deal with the rest as it came.

Mattheo

Returning to the manor was a relief.

Mattheo felt stuck in place. There was so much pressure now on his friends and he didn’t know what to do. They had been heirs before, but now everything they did would reflect on near perfect strangers. At least with their parents they knew what to think, say, and do to not get punished.

It had barely been a day of living at Grimmauld, and all of them were expected to uphold the family legacy. But what was that legacy? It would be easy enough to look in the library for family records, but Mattheo knew that wouldn’t help. Sirius is the head of house, and he’s clearly different from the rest of the Black family.

Mattheo decided he would have to ask him. It wasn’t worth mentioning to the rest of the group yet, not when he had no answers.

Everyone but Harry, Enzo, and Draco spent the rest of the night in the sitting room.

Enzo ran up to his room as soon as he stepped in the door, and Draco wanted to see more of the vinyls in the library that Harry offered to show him.

He had no idea what that was about, but he decided to ask later.

Theo and Remus sat on the armchairs by the fireplace while Sirius sat at a desk by the window.

Mattheo wanted to wait until Theo left to speak to Sirius, and instead made himself comfortable on a sofa at the back of the room.

After watching Remus teach Theo a quieting charm for what felt like hours, Theo was finally able to cast the spell without any assistance.

“It worked.” Theo remarked.

“I’m glad. Now you can cast it whenever you begin to feel overwhelmed.” Remus replied.

“I think I’m going to practice it a bit more in my room.” Theo said as he stood from his chair.

“You coming up, Mattheo? You’ve been lying there for a while.”

“I’ll be up in a minute. I’m comfortable here and it’s too quiet upstairs anyway.”

Mattheo waited for Theo’s footsteps to fade before crossing the room to talk to the adults.

“I need information.” He said to Sirius.

“I suspected you might. You can ask us anything.”

“What do you expect of us?”

“We don’t expect anything. You have free will to do or say whatever you want. I’m not very fond of censorship, if you haven’t noticed. Unless its for privacy reasons, of course.”

“I meant as heirs. You called us heirs publicly with no warning. I know nothing of your family history, and Draco only knows what his mother told him. We have no idea how to act or what the family stands for. This puts us all in danger and can ruin your reputation, but you said it like you didn’t think of the effects at all.”

“You’re right, I didn’t. I apologize for worrying you, and honestly I should have listened to Remus and used common sense. To be frank, I’ve never lived up to the family legacy, nor have I ever cared to.”

“So what do we do, then?”

“You make your own legacy. I’ll tell you what I told Harry and the same thing I was told by my dad.

“Family title and blood status mean nothing if you don’t let it.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“Does it?” Remus interrupted, “would you have thought a year ago that you would be here?”

“No.”

“So you’ve already betrayed your family. Do you think blood purity defines you as a wizard?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why does it sound so outrageous.”

“I guess by itself it doesn’t, but so many people see blood before everything else. And it’s not just death eaters. Its every gryffindor that’s called me a blood purist since I was eleven. I’ve been called a monster or an asshole more than I’ve been called my own name at this point.”

“And you didn’t deserve any of it.”

“I was in your position during the first war. My parents were some of your father’s biggest supporters-“

“Don’t call him that.” Mattheo interrupted.

“-Sorry, some of Voldemort’s biggest supporters. When I left, it mainly stopped, but my brother stayed. He stayed to protect me, and he was ridiculed and eventually killed for it.”

“You said your father told you that blood doesn’t matter, does that mean Orion tried to leave, too?”

“My father was Orion Black, but my dad was Fleamont Potter. That was my first way of betraying my family, finding one of my own. You’ve already done that, and now you protect it. I want you all, Harry included, to find something you want to stand for. Make your new motto, and bring it away from blood purity.”

“Come to us with ideas and then we can all decide how to move forward.” Remus added

“It will be hard for us to agree on one.”

“Maybe thats a good thing. Its your morals being reflected, so find something you all generally believe in and go with it.”

“Ok.”

As Mattheo stood, he remembered something. “Can you teach me that charm? I know Theo can handle himself but just in case he can’t cast it when he needs to I want to be prepared.”

“Of course. I would offer to teach you tomorrow, but it’s a full moon. You could always ask Theo to teach you.”

“I don’t want him to know. He would just tell me to drop it because he can take care of himself.”

“Ok, then. I’ll teach you as soon as I recover.”

“Thank you.”

Mattheo walked upstairs and went to Theo’s room.

“I was just starting to think you fell asleep on the sofa, and guess who just owled me.”

“It’s impossible to sleep in this house. It’s so quiet it’s deafening. Took Blaise long enough, I almost started doubting myself.”

”You, doubt yourself? Well I guess you hear something new every day.” Theo replied. “You just have to adjust to the quiet, it shouldn’t be as bad in a couple weeks.” “Well can I adjust from in here? You snore so loud its basically the same as home.”

“I do not.”

“I’ve lived in the same dorm as you for 7 years. Trust me, you snore.”

“Fine, but you take the sofa. And you promise to tell me what you talked to Sirius about.”

After a pause, Mattheo responded. “Ok.”

He knew that keeping things from Theo wouldn’t help anyone, but was surprised he could tell that Mattheo was hiding something that easily.

Mattheo fell asleep listening to Theo’s snoring, sleeping properly for the first time since before the battle.