The Lady of (New) Avalon

Waking up, on the other hand, was decidedly not nice.

Her back ached — lashing hexes had a wider area of impact than cutting curses, but they landed with a similar degree of force, bruising muscle as well as breaking skin — and any movement tugged and cracked the scabs beneath her bandages, and she felt vaguely hung-over from whatever weird, exhausted pain-high she'd managed to stumble into last night (or possibly from not having nearly enough water with all the running and the crying and the blood loss).

The second thing she noticed, after her general physical condition, was that she wasn't in her own bed, or even at Hogwarts at all. There were no windows in Evans's piece of the dorm either, but the cloth walls she had enchanted glowed faintly with constellations of silver runes, and those were missing. Also, the pillow she was currently drooling on smelled more like snake than undead cat. "Evans?"

"Hmmm?" a lump on the other side of the bed muttered.

"Why're we at de Mort's house?"

"Eeh?"

Aster groaned, a hand scrabbling blindly at the side-table, hoping to find a wand. Aha! Success! It was even her own wand. Lovely. She flicked off a tempus charm. It was already ten? Ergh, they were going to be in so much trouble when they got back to school... "Evans, we're late for Transfiguration."

"Wha...?" That was apparently enough to actually drag her more fully into consciousness, though, because she added, "Transfiguration? ...Don't care. Where's Bella?"

Obviously not here, and honestly, she wasn't sure why Evans would expect her to be. Yes, she was probably in the house somewhere, but... "How the hell would I know? Why are we at de Mort's house?"

"Because I didn't want to levitate you back up to the Tower and probably have about fifteen people ask me what the fuck I was doing with my semi-delerious and/or unconscious, clearly injured roommate, and Bella said we didn't have to." Which wasn't at all the same as saying no one expected them to...but Aster didn't really care any more than Evans apparently cared about Transfiguration. "Are you feeling better now?"

"...Surprisingly, yes." Headache and physical pain notwithstanding, she did feel...less conflicted. Kind of...numb. Not like taking a Chill Pill, though, more like the air being clear after a thunderstorm, like some kind of balance had been restored, or something. But also kind of...distant? Yesterday, sitting in Dumbledore's office, seemed like a really long time ago. But she wasn't completely fucking miserable, anyway. "You hurt me."

"Er... You did kind of ask me to."

"Yeah, I know. I'm not angry, just kind of surprised you actually did it."

Evans groaned in a way that implied she thought it was far too early for this conversation, but didn't actually drop it. "Why is that surprising? You seemed like you needed it."

Oh. That was...weird? She thought it was weird. That Evans would just...do something she obviously wasn't entirely comfortable with, just because she thought Aster needed her to. Not bad, kind of the opposite, really, just...unexpected. And... (No, Aster, do not go swearing her undying loyalty just because she put your needs before her own comfort just once. Do not!)

(She really, really wanted to, though.)

"Though I wish you'd let me heal you. I had no idea how much damage I was doing... I don't know how lucid you were, after, you seemed kind of out of it, but Bella said to leave it..."

Aster shook herself out of her little reverie. "I knew what I was doing. I don't want it healed. It's not... It wouldn't count. ...If I keep trying to explain why, I'm going to sound like a crazy person."

Evans let out a single, near-silent huff of laughter. "I already know you're a crazy person, you do know that, right?"

"Doesn't matter. In case you haven't noticed, I don't really like being fucked in the head. And I'm not mad enough or drunk enough or overly-tired enough to talk about it at the moment."

Evans snorted. "Well, you're at least going to let me look at your back and make sure it's not getting infected or something. Do you have your wand?"

"Yes?"

"Good, cast a light charm. I can't find mine." She did, raising her head enough (against the complaints of her back) to see Evans's wand on the same table hers had been sitting on and pass it over to her. "Cheers." She flicked the sheet down to Aster's bum, vanished the bandages and let out a pained-sounding hiss. "Fuck, this looks even worse in proper lighting."

It didn't feel that bad, comparatively speaking. "It probably looks worse than it is. I seem to recall Bella telling you I'd had worse."

"That doesn't mean this isn't bad, Aster! It looks like I fucking flayed you!"

It probably didn't. Flaying was much neater than lashing hexes. "Really? It doesn't hurt that bad. Cissy actually did hit me with a flaying curse once. Also doesn't hurt as bad as being burned, or a few dozen nerve-tweaking curses. And it's not even in the same category as being fucking disembowled." Though that hadn't hurt so much as instantaneously thrown her into shock, with that stomach-turning sensation that gods and Powers this is bad and a deep and sudden awareness of her own mortality. (Almost dying was, she had decided, very unpleasant, no matter how you almost died.)

"What?"

Aster sniggered at her shocked outrage. "I take it you've never seen the sort of damage mages can do to each other in a real fight before?"

"When the hell would I have?"

...Good point. It was still bloody weird to think that most people didn't ever see anyone try to kill each other, let alone regularly get into serious fights, even for practice. Aster couldn't remember the first time she'd seen a training fight, she'd been that small. "Eh, ask de Mort, I'm sure he'll share some memories with you. Or Bella would probably let you sit in on her trainees next time they practise. Actually, she might just demand that you learn how to defend yourself properly, especially if you take her up on the adoption thing. So you'll probably end up seeing for yourself anyway."

Evans was quiet for a long moment, casting a debriding charm (which was not pleasant, and why had she waited until now to do that? hadn't she already started it healing last night?) and another sterilising charm (even less pleasant, right after the debriding), and re-bandaging her back before asking, "So, she was serious about that?"

"Don't be thick, Evans, of course she was." Aster cast a numbing charm on herself so she could actually roll over and stand up without whimpering.

Evans glared at her. "I left that off on purpose. You're going to hurt yourself worse if you can't feel it."

Aster ignored her. The muscle pain was enough she wouldn't forget that her skin was damaged as well. "Did you grab my robes last night, or am I stealing something from Bella again?"

"Er...I did, but I don't know what happened to them," Evans admitted, easily distracted from her would-be healer lecturing.

Well, fine. She still hadn't managed to gain enough weight she couldn't just take the least fae thing she could possibly find to wear back to school. Which would probably be dueling robes, Bella would want them back eventually, but whatever.

"I thought she was, but Sev said whatever she did with the runes wasn't, so then I thought maybe she was just doing...whatever that was, instead."

What? Oh, the adoption thing. "That was claiming you as a ward of the House, so if Dumbledore tried to force you to talk to a mind healer to ostentiably make sure you weren't compelled or befuddled, but actually to tweak your thoughts so you wouldn't want to associate with her and de Mort, or just outright forbade you from seeing them or something, she'd have an excuse to intervene." Not that Aster thought Dumbledore was exactly likely to do something like that, but Bella could be a bit paranoid at times.

"Seriously? He's just my Headmaster. He might be able to forbid Bella and Thom from coming to the school, but I'm pretty sure he can't forbid me to see them anywhere else."

"Your birthday's in the summer, right?"

"What? I mean, yes, it is, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Evans was not pleased to learn exactly how few rights she had as an underage, unaffiliated muggleborn, and only slightly mollified when Aster explained how the whole wardship thing worked, and that she did have rights now, but only as a member of the House of Black. She followed Aster around the entire time she was hunting through Bella's wardrobe for clothes, washing her face and charming her hair, asking increasingly annoyed questions about muggleborns' position in the legal system and how House law and British law even worked together (idiosyncratically, was the answer).

By the time they meandered out into the kitchen in search of food and/or Bella, though, she had mostly resigned herself to the fact that Britain and its government and the way it functioned (or didn't) was just a little more fucked up than she'd already thought it was.

She sighed. "I don't know, it's just— Well, fine, I guess, I mean, I don't disagree with Bella claiming me. Sounds like a pretty good deal, honestly, especially if the alternative is Albus bloody Dumbledore. I just wish someone had told me all that a while ago, you know?"

Aster made a noncommittal hum, hunting through the cupboards and cold box looking for anything that might be considered breakfast-like. Four different kinds of fruit juice, a bit of lox, and a rather sad-looking pear were all she managed to find. Well, also Bella's stash of nutrient potions, and a jar of oats for porridge, but neither of those counted as food. There wasn't even any milk or sugar for the porridge!

Honestly, she knew neither one of them could cook, but this was ridiculous. She poured herself a glass of grapefruit juice and stalked into the sitting room/parlour area situated between the dining room and the tiny library/study to see if Bella was there, and if so, complain to her about the lack of food, but she didn't make it that far, as Evans followed her, still complaining about no one teaching muggleborns anything important—

"Yes, well, there was a suggestion back in the Forties to create such a class—" de Mort said, addressing Evans's complaints with a slightly muffled groan, and startling Aster rather badly. She spun around to see him lying on the sofa with a pillow over his head to block out the sunlight streaming through the open windows.

"Gah! Why are you hiding on the sofa?" Creepy fucker!

He moved the pillow to give her a snakey glare. "I'm not hiding. You like to snuggle in your sleep. And you," the glare shifted to Evans, "kick people. And you both think much too loudly when you're unconscious. The bed was beginning to feel a bit crowded."

Evans twisted her face into an apologetic sort of grimace. "Sorry. I'm not used to sharing."

"What a coincidence. Neither am I."

There was a certain pointed waspishness in his tone that apparently Evans felt demanded a defensive response. "Hey! I'm not the one who decided to crash here! Blame Bella."

"Oh, I do," he glowered. The expression lost something given that he was...kind of sparkly, in the sun. The little scales that covered his skin had a sort of Antipodean Opaleye sheen to them. Looked a bit twee. By which she meant, could you be any more adorable, Mister I want to be a sparkly lamia princess? No wonder he never let people see his real face in daylight, they'd—

BELLA!

Aster winced. No fair, de Mort doing the indiscriminate mental shouting thing! It wasn't like she'd been eavesdropping on him...

There was a small crash from the study at his mental bellowing, followed quickly by a very annoyed Bella appearing in the doorway. "You made me drop my levitation charms. What do you— Well, you are a bit sparkly... I don't know what you're complaining about, I told you they'd be up before you went to bed, and look, they are."

"I tried to go to bed an hour ago. They wouldn't let me."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure it would simply have been impossible to wake them up and kick them out. Aster's wounded, it's not like she'd be able to put up much of a fight, and I think you can take Asphodel. Pretty sure."

"Bellatrix, I am not in the mood for your cheek this morning!" the stroppy, sparkly Dark Lord snapped. Nor yours, he added silently, his attention and magic suddenly (and kind of terrifyingly) focused on Aster. She bit back a startled, anxious eep.

"Apologies, Master," Bella said, sounding far more amused than sorry. "I only meant to point out that the bloody Dark Lord being kicked out of his own bed by a couple of unconscious teenagers is fucking hilarious. If you can't see that, you really do need some sleep. And oh, would you look at that, the bed is now entirely vacant."

Bloody Blacks never know when to stop taking the piss... de Mort grumbled, hissing something at Bella — presumably a rude something, because Evans went a bit pink, and Bella grinned.

"My Lord knows that I will accept any punishment he deems necessary to rectify my transgression," she said, her tone all sultry and heavy with implications, which... Okay, Aster really didn't want to think about what the hell he might have suggested, but she also really couldn't help herself.

De Mort sighed. "The commentary from the peanut gallery rather ruins it. Asphodel, if you want advice on topping your new pet, I'm sure Bella will oblige you. I'm going to bed." He swept past Evans (now a much brighter shade of red) without another word, leaving Aster wondering what the hell she'd been thinking.

Bella grinned. "We can do that. In fact, I was planning on talking about that with both of you, anyway. Come on." She led the way over to the hearth, grabbing a tin of floo powder from the mantle. "We can go to the Parliament, since someone will continue to bitch about you two thinking too loudly if we stay here."

Of course he would, obscenely powerful creep. "What, now?" Aster complained. "We are supposed to be at school right now, you know. And someone told me I need to eat regular meals."

"I'm sure the kitchen will still have croissants or something if you ask nicely, and the Old Goat is well aware that you're in the midst of an ongoing emotional crisis." Oh. Right. Aster had kind of forgotten, in the midst of hunting for food and attempting to explain the complete madness that was the legal system before finding some bloody coffee, and getting all distracted by stroppy Lord Sparklebum. "He and Dorea agreed that it would be best if you stayed home until you felt up to returning to lessons. I could have taken you back, but we really need to have a talk about power exchange games, and you, Princess, weren't exactly in an objective frame of mind last night, and Aster was barely conscious. Also, Aster, I think Dorea wants you to talk to McKinnon before you go back. Not sure, I stopped listening because she kept trying to slip defences of her refusal to raise her spawn properly in between actual pertinent questions and commentary on yesterday's events."

"And Evans?"

"Is obviously very concerned about the roommate she's become so close to these past weeks. Besides, what's he going to do if she misses a few days worth of lessons? write to her guardian? Oh, wait..." She smirked, holding out the tin.

Fine, whatever.

Aster went first, which meant she was in an excellent position to see Evans follow her a few seconds later, tripping out of the fire and catching a toe on the hearth rug in one of the least graceful flooing attempts she'd ever seen.

"Circe's saggy tits! That's terrible!" she spat, attracting the attention of everyone else in the atrium, though Aster didn't think Evans actually noticed that. She was too busy coughing and grinding the ash from the fire more deeply into her jumper as she tried to brush it off. "Who the fuck would ever think that travelling through the bloody fireplace is a good idea?! Fucking Santa Claus?!"

"You know, you normally do a really good job of not sounding like a muggleborn, but that might be the single most mugglish thing I've ever heard you say."

Evans glared at her, clearly trying not to look embarrassed about her clumsiness, or possibly about sounding like the muggleborn she'd been raised. "Sorry, should've said, why the hell would anyone do that when shadow-walking exists?"

"Shadow-walking isn't nearly as easy as Bella and de Mort make it look, and you're more fucked in the head than I am, if you think being pulled under the Dark is less miserable than using the floo." Aster thought shadow-walking was terrifying, and she was actually relatively good at using magic to sense her surroundings. But then, Evans saw nothing wrong with muggles shooting themselves off into space, so maybe that shouldn't be surprising. "And you can't tell me you think the floo is worse than your fucking adder stones."

She appeared to need a moment to consider the relative degrees of stomach-turning disorientation there, or maybe she'd just realised they were having an argument about the floo in the middle of the Parliament's atrium, to the amusement of the bloke at the front desk and the half-dozen or so club members who'd been mingling and meandering to or from the apparation area. "Er...what is this place, exactly?"

"Bella's club, obviously."

"Her...club?"

"Yes?" Had Evans really never heard of a club before? "It's kind of like a common room, for people who don't actually live together." Though this particular club did have a few rooms members could borrow or let, so some of them did kind of live together, when they happened to be in town and didn't want to apparate home drunk or whatever.

"I know what a bloody club is, Asteria! It just seems...weird, Bella...socialising with people, just because."

Oh, that. "She keeps a room here, uses it as a public office for business meetings." There were a few Black properties around that were used for similar purposes, but Arcturus didn't support the Death Eaters, so she really couldn't use them for meetings she held on de Mort's behalf. Also, sometimes you just didn't want to bring casual fucks and/or play-torture victims home to your actual house. Aster vaguely recalled a few comments on the logistics of such things, in the course of that very illuminating conversation they'd had about sex a few years ago. "And even Bella can't be serious and productive all the time. She's not opposed to drinking and card games and intelligent conversation," she explained, leading Evans over to the desk.

"She's not here at the moment, though," the concierge informed her.

"I know, I thought she was right behind us, but she might've gotten caught up with de Mort."

"She should just be a few minutes," Evans volunteered. "She said we should go on ahead, she'll meet us here."

Aster nodded. Somewhat annoying, but not entirely unexpected that Bella would want to have a word with Lord Sparklebum before joining them. (She loved that nickname, it was even better than Lord Snakefucker. She was definitely going to keep using it at least until he'd overheard it a couple of times, and probably until she thought of something more rude and/or annoying.) "Which room is hers, again?"

The concierge gave her a small frown. "You know I can't allow you to simply wander the building unaccompanied, Miss Black. You're not a member of the club. I don't believe we've even been introduced."

They hadn't been. She didn't see that they needed to be, since he clearly knew who she was, or at least that she was a Black, which should be more than enough, but whatever. "Bellatrix Asteria, formerly Sirius Orion. This is Asphodel, de Mort's long-lost daughter. And you are...?"

"Winston. Edwin Winston." Win Winston? Really? The names some parents chose for their kids, honestly... "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm sure. But I still can't let you poke around annoying all the actual members while you wait for your cousin to show up."

Aster gave the stubborn doorkeeper a dramatic groan. "Is Cass Rosier here? Or Marc? Dahlia? Dolph or Bastian Lestrange? Addie Thorne? Cindy Parkinson? B.J. Crouch?" She would add Malfoy to the list, but she would actually rather stand around waiting out here than suffer his tedious, tedious company. "Literally half of your members know me, I refuse to believe there isn't a single person in the entire club right now who could vouch for me." Hell, Lord Stryke, who'd just apparated in and brushed past them without acknowledging their existence, knew who she was, he just wouldn't vouch for her because he hated the Blacks.

Win Winston gave her a terribly put-upon sigh, but cast the same discrete little shadow-magic whispering charm Reggie had used to demand she join the Secret Family Meeting on Monday. "Madam Charleston, there are two individuals requesting your presence at the front desk, should you have a moment. Miss Bellatrix Asteria Black and her companion, Miss Asphodel de Mort." He dropped the charm. "Mirabella Charleston will join us momentarily."

Aster rolled her eyes. "Thank you!" As far as she knew, Zee didn't come here all that often. Aster wouldn't have expected her to be around, and they'd probably be interrupting whatever specific business had brought her in, but if it were really important she could have told them to wait, rather than coming to fetch them immediately.

Which she did, appearing from the depths of the club not a minute later. "Well, look at you!" she exclaimed, sashaying over to them and kissing Aster on both cheeks. "Miss Asteria Black. Suits you. And this must be...?"

"Zee, this is Lily Evans, known as Asphodel. She's my roommate. Lily, Mirabella Charleston née Zabini, known as Zee. She's Bella's girlfriend, and pretty much the coolest person in the entire world."

Zee chuckled at that introduction. "Mira is fine, darling. Come, come, Gio and I have been visiting with Tony and Morgana — they're in town to introduce little Augustus to his British cousins. Thank you, Eddie, my prince — exceeding my expectations as always!" She gave the wizard at the desk a blindingly sincere smile, before leading them past him, explaining, "When I asked him to arrange some excuse for my presence to be required elsewhere within the hour, I hardly imagined he would find actual people to interrupt this tedious familial nonsense. Bella will be along soon, yes?"

When Aster confirmed this, Zee ushered them into one of the small, heavily warded private parlours which were often reserved for sensitive political discussions. Bugger. Should've said no and skipped the awkward catching-up-with-cousins thing entirely. At least, she presumed that was why Zee had asked, because if Bella wasn't going to rescue them soon she would have found some excuse to not go back in at all.

After a quick round of introductions, they'd managed to waste about ten minutes explaining to Evans how they were all related. Zee's Aunt Aradia (the younger, more normal of Zee's aunts) had been knocked up by one of Dru's younger brothers while they were still at Beauxbatons. Their son Antony had married one of the Nott girls a year or two ago, Aster vaguely recalled she'd attended their wedding, but she'd honestly only spoken to Tony maybe twice before that. She and Reggie might've considered the Rosiers to be closer cousins than they actually were, but they didn't actually attend Rosier family gatherings. Tony didn't even blink when she was introduced as Asteria, probably just figured she was yet another more distantly-related Black, there were almost as many at one point as Rosiers.

Gio, of course, knew exactly who Aster was, and had been. She looked almost exactly the same, still, and he, unlike his cousin, had attended Hogwarts, graduated two years ago. He had, in fact, had the honour of being one of the first blokes Aster had ever deliberately seduced (mostly so Cissy couldn't have him, but he was also shy and sweet — shockingly innocent, for being Zee's younger brother — and easy on the eyes, there were far worse people to practise blowjobs on). He was very, very much a wizards' wizard (which meant he never would have gone for Cissy anyway, but they hadn't known at the time), seemed to find it a bit disturbing that she was now Asteria. Not that he actually said as much, just...stared, all awkward and unnerved about it.

Bella showed up before the conversation progressed much past establishing that Zee's mum had gone positively gaga over the (alleged) infant (Aster hadn't even heard that there was another little Rosier, but she'd kind of been out of the loop for a while), and commandeered him for the foreseeable future, sending his parents off to have a nice, relaxing, child-free day out with their cousins. Which, while making small talk with cousins you hardly knew over tea and scones was absolutely the sort of thing Aster could imagine Gio thinking was a perfectly fine way to spend the day, she wasn't at all surprised that Zee used her, Evans, and Bella showing up as an excuse to ditch them at the earliest opportunity. Both Morgana and Antony knew who Bella was — Morgana was a couple of years younger than Meda, they'd been in Slytherin together, and Bella did go to Rosier family events — they were more than happy to let Zee escape if it meant Bella wasn't going to join them. (When she wasn't being vaguely terrifying, Bella was inexplicably considered a bit of a buzz-kill by practically everyone. Aster had even heard baby Death Eaters complaining before that she had absolutely no sense of humour to speak of, which was completely ridiculous.)

"Sorry," Bella said lightly, unlocking the door to her study with a complex little charm Aster was willing to bet she'd invented herself — there was, after all, no point in locking something if anyone else had the key. (Which meant Aster and Evans really couldn't have waited there, Winston could've said as much...) "I didn't expect that to take quite so long, got a bit tied up."

Zee gave her a wicked, insinuating smirk. "I just bet you did."

"Not by Thom. I did have something I wanted to ask him, but before I could leave a letter came in from Dorea."

Zee started speaking before Aster could ask whether Dorea was writing about her or James. "Did this letter have something to do with the reason Asteria and— Do you really go by Asphodel?"

Evans shrugged, nodded. "I assume Aster has a better idea who should be calling me by which name than I do."

"Asphodel, then." Zee gave her a rather peculiar, amused sort of smile, eyes briefly cutting over to Aster, before quickly returning to Bella. "Did Dorea's letter have something to do with the reason Aster and Asphodel are here this morning, and not at Hogwarts?"

"Tangentially. I petitioned Uncle last night to remove Aster from Dorea's custody. It seems he wrote her this morning asking what the hell she'd done, and she immediately wrote me because it appears I've offended her."

"You... You did what?" Aster stuttered.

Bella's eyes tipped toward the ceiling all exasperated, as though Aster was the one over-reacting, here. "Oh, calm down, I'm not saying you can't see her, go over for tea or what have you, and I'm not saying you have to stay at Ancient House this summer, but you're not living with the Potters anymore."

Well, no, she knew that, she couldn't, not with...James, but— "You... My birthday's in two weeks, Bella! You couldn't have just waited? I know I can't– can't go back, but— It's not Dorea's fault—"

"The next words out of your mouth had better not be that it's not Dorea's fault her son — the one she was entirely responsible for raising? — doesn't understand that you don't break promises to family."

"That wasn't what I was going to say!" It had been. "I was going to say it's not her fault I freaked him out being a crazy person."

"If he was just freaking out about you being bloody mad — which, I'm not sure how that can possibly be a surprise after living in the same room as you for five bloody years — he could've just run to mummy panicking about you and/or Bella killing him, he didn't have to go whining to the Chief fucking Warlock about me being evil, psychotic, delusional, or some combination of the above," Evans pointed out, taking an exceedingly casual, uninvited seat on a settee, looking for all the world like she belonged there, despite still wearing the muggle outfit she'd had on yesterday for her meeting with Dumbledore. "In fact, I'd argue the fact that he broke his promise before talking to Dorea suggests he's more worried about me being a crazy person than you."

"But—"

"Aster, if you don't stop trying to defend James Potter being a judgy, self-righteous, bigoted arse..."

Then you'll what, Evans?

Before she could ask, Zee interrupted. "I do believe I've missed something. What promise did Dorea's son break? And what does this have to do with Asteria's living situation?"

"Asphodel was less than entirely discrete about her relationship with Death at the Samhain revel," Bella began.

"Yes, you mentioned that. And that you and Thom got to pretend to be actual parents, and that Lady Persephone told off both Thom and the Old Goat." Evans raised an eyebrow at the fact that Bella had apparently gone and told Zee all about her, but didn't object. Presumably she trusted Bella to know whether Zee could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.

"Yes, well, the Potter boy, being a lost little Light brat doing his very best to follow in dear Daddy's political wake, took it into his head that he was obligated to report Asphodel as a black mage, because ooh, scary baby necromancer! what if she has a dream about being a dead person or something that has absolutely nothing to do with me?! the horror! Aster, quite rightly, assumed that if he were to report her to anyone who took his accusation seriously enough to get her arrested and investigated, I would kill him for making what can really only be interpreted as a deliberate attack against my daughter, and therefore made him promise not to tell anyone. Which promise he promptly broke, because the Light don't consider promises made under duress to count. You have to actually make them swear on something," she added, turning to Aster, "if you want them to keep their word, even to family."

"It wasn't under duress!" Aster objected.

"You had him disarmed, at wand-point, and were threatening to incapacitate him and drag him off to the Dark Lord to forcibly alter his memory if he didn't swear to keep his mouth shut."

Well, when she put it like that..."I was trying to help him — keep him safe from you! And he pulled his wand on me, first!"

"Keep him safe from his own stupidity, you mean? Terminal idiocy? Good phrase. You and I both know that you had no intention of harming him, but—"

"He did, too! I had just explained literally thirty seconds before!"

"Aster, my duck?" Zee interrupted, sounding vaguely amused. "People who didn't grow up around the House of Black don't always understand the difference between intense and erratic. Regardless of how reasonably and consistently you believe you were acting, it is entirely possible — even likely — that the Potter boy was unable to predict your behaviour, and therefore believed you posed some threat to him, whether you intended to give that impression or not. It should not be surprising that he told you what you wanted to hear simply so that you would allow him to remove himself from what he perceived as immediate potential danger, with no intention of following through on that promise."

"I— But— But he knows me! He had to know..."

"He doesn't know you though." Did she have to sound so cold and hard and unforgiving saying that? Wait, stupid question, this was Evans... "I don't think he ever really did. I mean, if he did, he would've understood you were legitimately sorry you caved to my seduction back in September. Not to mention, he wouldn't have gotten so stuck on the metamorphosis thing. Anyway, Potter ran off and narked on me to Dumbledore and floo-called Dorea to tell her that Aster had scared him. Presumably Dumbledore assured Potter that he wouldn't let either me or Aster hurt him, because he definitely needed protecting from us. Not like Aster wouldn't have died for him if he'd asked her to, and I didn't already assume Dumbledore knew I was a necromancer, seeing as he was there when I channelled his bloody mum, or anything, but whatever. Dorea asked Slughorn to ask Narcissa to keep an eye on Aster for her. Aster, Narcissa, Reggie, and Sev had a secret family meeting about me.

"Were you joking about Narcissa and Regulus, by the way? Because Sev wasn't sure, but I could totally see it. And Cissa would be a great Lady Black."

Aster was briefly thrown by the abrupt conversational detour. "What? No, they've fancied each other for years."

"Really?"

"Dark Powers, Bella, yes!" Zee scoffed. "They're bloody obvious about it!"

"Obviously they're not that obvious," Bella said, as though it was perfectly reasonable that she'd never noticed her baby sister fancying her (more boring) first cousin. "Why didn't you say something? Why didn't Cissy say something? Bloody stupid... Never mind, I'll talk to her about it later. Don't forget to give her mirror back," she reminded Evans.

"Yes, Mum," Evans said, her voice thick with sarcasm and amusement.

Bella just blinked at her for a long moment. (Aster agreed, hearing someone call her Mum, even sarcastically, was bloody weird.) "...So, is that a yes, on the adoption thing?"

"Er...leaning toward yes? I was kind of hoping we'd be able to talk about it at some point, before you said you wanted to talk about me and Aster, and then we got distracted catching Mira up, and now with Cissa and Regulus— It's very hard to have a linear conversation with you people, you know."

As though Evans didn't give Aster conversational whiplash all the bloody time? She snorted. "You were the one who brought up Cissy and Reg," she reminded her.

Evans just shrugged, ignoring her hypocrisy. "Anyway, I had a meeting with Dumbledore yesterday. I asked Cissa to sit in, in case things went particularly badly and I needed someone who could make a legal argument for me to not have a blind date with a bloody dementor, and Aster tagged along because... Honestly, I'm not really sure. I mean, I'm not complaining, you're easier to play off of than Cissa, but I think we had it covered."

Aster pouted at her. "You're family now, Evans. You're my sister. If you really think I'd let you talk to Dumbledore alone, you're a fucking idiot." And then, because she really couldn't help herself, she asked Bella, "You didn't tell Cissy to treat her like a sister too, did you?"

Zee giggled. "Feeling a bit jealous, are we?"

Aster felt herself go pink. "Of course not, I...just want to know where we all stand. Is that too much to ask?"

Bella just gave her a vaguely patronising smile. "No, I told Cissy that she and Reggie can consider Asphodel a second-marriage first cousin once removed."

Right. Okay. In that case, Aster wasn't entirely certain what her being Evans's sister implied about her own relationship with Bella, but that was far less important at the moment than that, yes, she had been right, Cissy had actually been the one stepping on her toes in that meeting.

"Besides, I don't live with Cissa," Evans pointed out. "Didn't we talk about this the other day? I distinctly recall coming to a consensus on the fact that we share a nest, which makes us sisters."

Zee raised an eyebrow at Bella.

She shrugged. "Snake relationships are simpler than human relationships. Mostly because snakes don't really have relationships."

"I...see."

"They — these two and de Mort — spent like twenty minutes discussing the meaning of a bunch of indistinguishable meaningless hissing," Aster informed the skeptical Zee. "All I got out of it is that Bella and de Mort's relationship is totally incestuous."

Zee snorted. "It always has been. Though if you consider that problematic, I'd rethink whether you want to refer to Asphodel as your sister." Seven fucking hells, if Aster's face could stop getting all hot and embarrassed, that would be great! "Oh, sorry, love." Zee's eyes flicked between Aster and Evans, narrowed slightly in confusion. "Was that not...?"

"Did I know that Aster fancies me?" Evans asked. "Yes. Has Aster admitted it yet? No. She will, though. It's just a matter of time. And ear-scratches— You know she's an animagus, right?" Zee nodded, which was news to Aster, but not entirely surprising, since Bella had apparently filled her in on Evans being a bloody necromancer. "Yeah, well, she's such a sucker for completely platonic petting, I'm beginning to think no one's ever actually been nice to her before."

"They haven't, really." Damn it, Zee! Aster was pretty sure her face was literally glowing. "So, what happened in the meeting with the Old Goat?"

"Ah, well, it was going fairly well, I thought, right up until Dumbles mentioned that Potter had told him that I'm a necromancer. Which, as I think I said, I had already assumed Dumbledore knew that, I had an alternative explanation for my channelling his mum ready — namely, he delayed the ritual, there was bleedthrough and, poor little muggleborn that I am, I didn't realise how important grounding is when you're at the centre of a major working like that, blah, blah, blah. But Aster kind of...froze, when she realised that Potter had ratted me out, and Cissa decided that driving it home that the Light are utter toe-rags was more important than showing solidarity, and I tried to smack her, which was probably stupid, but she was being mean to Aster, and Aster already looked like Potter had just stabbed her in the fucking heart, making Cissa stop twisting the knife was really the least I could do.

"Which...apparently is a much bigger deal than I thought it was? I mean, I did say I was stealing you. You didn't actually expect me to just sit there and watch someone hurt you, did you?" When Aster didn't answer — she couldn't, because...yeah, she hadn't really believed Evans had really meant that she was staking a claim on Aster's loyalty until that exact moment, and...and she didn't know how she felt about the fact that she was, and that she was making a bloody good job of it — Evans went on, gesturing vaguely at Aster. "She just gave me that look for about ten seconds, and then took off. Which you'd better not be planning on doing again right now, Asteria. You're still injured, and you're obviously comfortable with Bella and Mira and myself, there's no need to run away from any of us."

Zee chuckled, meandering apparently aimlessly around the room, poking at the decor she'd probably designed — small abstract sculptures and animated landscape paintings, mostly — as she told Evans things Aster wasn't really sure she wanted her to know. (Though she wasn't sure enough to ask Zee to stop.) Not quite pacing, like Aster found herself doing slightly anxiously, drawn closer to the door entirely unconsciously — she hadn't even realised she was doing it until Evans pointed out that she looked like she wanted to run off again.

"Oh, but you see, she's not comfortable with you, Asphodel, darling. You're positively terrifying to dear Aster — acting like you care about her, like you'll take care of her, like no one else ever really has. Kindness, generally speaking, has been sorely lacking in Asteria's life, save when her family has attempted to use it to manipulate her in some fashion. She doesn't trust it. That look is love and terror and need and it's too good to be true and I'm going to get burned again. Not wanting to want the thing she wants more than anything in the entire world. There's no shame in wanting to belong to someone, Asteria."

Zee, somehow, was suddenly very close to Aster. She'd snuck up on her with her aimless wandering, their paths intersecting so when she turned to address her, a single step brought her too close for Aster to look her in both eyes, loose, tousled curls filling her peripheral vision. Warm hands cupped her face, holding her transfixed, surrounding her with understanding and sympathy and making it seem, as soon as she spoke to Aster directly, that they were the only two people in the room.

"But... But what if... What if she throws me away?" she found herself asking, the question fighting its way past her reluctant lips in a very small, hesitant voice. There might not be any shame in wanting to belong, but she didn't... She couldn't– shouldn't... Fine, yes, Zee was right, she was scared.

Zee gave her a soft smile. She was too close to see her mouth, but Aster could see it in the way her eyes crinkled, hear it in her voice when she said, "You don't really think she will. And that's why vows of fealty are reciprocal, love."

"So, you think I should...?" Zee's approval really shouldn't mean this much, but Zee wasn't a crazy person. Or at least, not the same kind of crazy as Aster and Bella. A bubble of hope rose in her chest at the thought that she might think that Aster swearing herself to Evans wasn't a terrible, entirely mad idea — the sort of idea she ought to think was terrifying and reckless and absolutely should not act on immediately, without another moment's thought, because Evans wasn't exactly a Lady, but she had the potential to be a really good one, exactly the sort of person she'd always been taught to admire, to respect — the sort of person she'd been taught to be, when she'd been the heir to the House — and Bella approved of her, and what else did she need to know?

"It's your choice, Asteria. I've hardly met Asphodel, and I would caution you not to do anything rash if I thought it would make any difference to speak of, but... Do you trust her?"

That was what it all came down to, really, wasn't it? Trusting your lord to follow through on their promises, keep their word and protect you to the best of their ability. Trusting their judgment, that they would hold your honour and your life in high regard, that they wouldn't betray you, or ask you to betray yourself. That they would lead you true, give you direction and purpose — that they would be there when you needed them.

It was just...Zee was right. The idea of trusting Evans was fucking terrifying. Well, not quite that, exactly. The idea that she already trusted Evans — of admitting that she trusted Evans — was terrifying. Trusting people was a weakness, if you trusted them, they could hurt you, like James, betraying his vow, or Bella, when Aster had thought that Cruciatus meant Bella hated her.

But that...didn't really matter. Because as much as Aster didn't want to be a crazy person, throwing herself into one thing after the next, even if she wanted to take the maybes and what-ifs into account and maybe for once be more reserved about trusting someone, she couldn't. She did already trust Evans, even if she didn't want to admit it, even to herself. She might've hated her until about a week and a half ago, but she did know her.

Yes, she was a coldhearted, manipulative bitch, but when she made a promise, she kept it, and she definitely understood Aster better than James ever had. (Low bar maybe, but.) Granted, most of the promises she'd made to Aster over the past five years had been swearing to get her back for whatever prank she'd just pulled on Snape, and she'd most memorably used her understanding of Aster to set off the chain of events that led to her entire fucking world imploding over the past two months, but that didn't change the fact that she was...reliable. Predictable. (Death did tend to be.) Kind of like the fact that the idea of her attempting to defend Aster (for example, from Narcissa) was slightly ridiculous, wouldn't stop her from trying. Well, Evans trying to defend her in a physical or magical altercation was ridiculous. Evans trying to ruin someone's life over making her cry would probably be scarily effective. (Reggie was so lucky Snape liked him.)

And she'd be lying if she said the ear scratching wasn't a factor. Not just the actual physical contact, though that was nice. They'd only had a truce for...twelve days? (fuck, it seemed much longer than that — it'd been a hell of a week) and Evans had already demonstrated that she would put up with Aster being a neurotic fucking mess in a way no one else she knew would. She'd even gone out of her way to find Aster and make her feel better last night, which was kind of...more than just letting Aster curl up next to her as a dog when she came to Evans. Kind of a lot more.

She obviously didn't really care, not like Marley, for example (if she were still speaking to Aster), or Dorea or Moony. They would feel bad that she felt bad (and probably shower her with useless platitudes or some shite trying to make her feel better), and Aster was pretty fucking certain that any show of sympathy Evans put on was exactly that: a show. But it was a pretty fucking good show, and not nearly as important as her willingness, for whatever unfathomable reason, to just be there with Aster when the rest of the world was falling apart, making sure she wasn't alone and finding ways to get Aster to do things that were a hell of a lot more effective than platitudes for making her feel better.

It had been less than two weeks, and she'd already seen Aster at two of the lowest moments in her entire life, and instead of taking advantage of that to hurt her in some way, she'd helped. Even when she really didn't have to. Even when it would've been much easier for her to just stay up at the school last night, or even just let Aster wallow in her misery under her desk on Samhain. She hadn't needed to drag Aster out and make her take a purification bath — part of that whole thing was that everything going on before the bath was outside of the ritual space, the time and place of liminality whose beginning it defined, and therefore outside of your immediate focus after the bath. (Which had made it much easier to face the idea of leaving the room at all, helped her keep her head seeing James again not an hour later.) She definitely hadn't needed to follow her out to that cave and cast lashing hexes at her until she couldn't feel anything else, couldn't think at all, just...blissfully numb, her mind quiet and calm for once.

And, well, she hadn't been wrong about Aster feeling like she needed to be punished for fucking up everything, it wasn't out of the question that she would've taken it into her head to do something stupid and dangerous and maybe get herself killed if she'd been alone, but even so, it did take a certain amount of trust to just sit there and let someone throw dark magic at you, even if you did kind of ask them to.

And there really wasn't much point trying to deny that trust, even if admitting it was slightly terrifying. Not when she'd just kind of demonstrated it in a major, very tangible way (as her back could attest).

Are you a Gryffindor or not, Asteria? Grow a fucking spine...

"...Yes." She breathed the word out so quietly she thought Zee might not have heard it, even standing as close to Aster as she was at the moment, but she smiled again.

"Well, there you are, then." She released Aster's face and stepped back, turning her toward the sofa Evans had commandeered with a gentle hand on her elbow. "Go on, love. Sit down."

She did. Probably closer to Evans than necessary, but she didn't object, just raised her arm so Aster could lean into her more comfortably. (Since she couldn't really lean back at the moment.) Zee smiled at them like Aster had done something right, like she was proud of her. She closed her eyes, rather than see it, that sincere certainty — that alone was almost enough to make her do it, especially now that she knew she could. That it wasn't somehow...wrong (mad), deciding to follow Evans, rather than try to make her way through life all alone and lost and confused.

Evans, meanwhile, was staring at Zee with the most open look of admiration Aster had ever seen on her. "How did you do that?" she asked, turning to peer down at the girl tucked under her arm as though she'd never seen her before in her life.

"Oh, shut up," Aster grumbled under her breath.

"Zee's kind of obnoxiously good at people, that's how," Bella offered, draping herself across an armchair. Zee was kind of unfairly good at people, Aster suspected she was cheating somehow, even if she had no idea how.

She took a seat as well, giving Evans a deceptively innocent smile. "Years of practice, darling. Now, where were we?"

"At the part where Dorea and Albus Dumbledore are unsurprisingly terrible at managing crazy people, so Narcissa called me to deal with the situation. Lots of tedious arguing about in circles. Dorea demanded we fetch her fucking spawn to make sure Aster hadn't murdered him — not that anyone would blame you if you had." Aster snorted. Bella might not, but everyone else probably would. "He tried to convince me that he wasn't at fault in this little mess because you scared him, as though that's any excuse. I had to step out before I just up and strangled the little brat, so I brought Asphodel to Asteria, she'd run off to the middle of nowhere to hide in a cave, which I suppose running away is a slightly less awful way to deal with problems than trying to violently murder them. Slightly."

Zee let an amused little smirk creep onto her face, though she quickly suppressed it. Mustn't encourage Bella to violently murder people, after all. Not when there are witnesses around. Even if they are witnesses who already know you're colder than Bella, and at least as dark. De Mort had once told Aster that Zee was a manipulative, morally-bankrupt little minx, who might actually be dangerous if she were inclined to turn her talents toward more productive goals than imitating a bloody veela, sans mind magic, which was perhaps the most complimentary thing Aster had ever heard him say about anyone. (Aster had been about eight at the time, and had pretty much only understood that de Mort thought Zee was dark — on a scale of people like him and Bella — and not actually the kind, charming, soft-hearted, Meda-like person Aster had thought she was the first several times they'd met.)

"You...didn't actually murder the Potter boy, did you?"

"No, I dragged him into the Shadows and lectured him about keeping our promises for a while, and then left him there to consider his choices for, oh...maybe a quarter of an hour, before Dorea's panicking got too shrill and repetitive to be amusing and Dumbledore started threatening to escalate the situation and try to force me to bring him back, which, good luck with that, but James fucking Potter is a bloody stupid thing to get into a duel to the death over, and Thom would be annoyed if I hurt his precious school, so I did pull him out. She shuffled him off to the Hogwarts hospital wing for some sort of nerve soothing tonic, the Old Goat used the wards to eject me from the Castle, because apparently leaving children alone in the Dark to think about what they've done wrong is traumatising and we don't do that, Bellatrix — bloody stupid, if you ask me, writing lines is just tedious, barely any incentive at all not to do exactly as you please, but whatever."

"You... You just left him in the Dark?" Aster repeated, slightly incredulously, lips twitching as she tried not to laugh. She shouldn't, being left alone in the Dark was one of the most existentially terrifying things she could imagine, but... "Did he piss himself?"

Bella raised an eyebrow at her slightly vindictive tone. Aster just shrugged — it had kind of surprised her, too. "He did, yes. Disgusting little twit. He was damn near catatonic when I pulled him back out, gibbering like the mindless idiot he is."

"Is being left in the Shadows really that terrible?" Evans asked, sounding rather skeptical about the whole thing. "I mean, it's kind of weird, not being able to see with your eyes, and I'm not sure I've quite wrapped my head around how orienting yourself works, yet, but... It's not that bad, is it?"

"Yes," Aster informed her, in concert with Zee, who looked absolutely horrified at the thought. "It's bad enough when you're with someone who can actually find their way around and get back to the real world, and I'm good at magic-sensing. Being left there, especially if you can't understand anything you're feeling, would be like, I don't even know. Getting chucked through the Veil, maybe? Except not being dead, yet — with the possibility of being painfully killed and/or eaten alive by some eldritch horror you can't even see coming."

"The most dangerous denizens anywhere near Hogwarts are bloody boggarts," Bella informed her.

"Yeah, well, I didn't know that, so I'm pretty sure James doesn't know that." In fact, James might not even know what shadow-walking was, period. That would make it even worse. (Good.) "And Magic doesn't like him nearly as much as it likes you, Evans. He probably couldn't understand anything that was going on. I'd be kind of surprised if he actually heard Bella lecturing him, beyond just getting that she was bloody furious." After all, it wasn't just that you couldn't see with your eyes in Shadows, you also couldn't hear with your ears. Aster's (brief and terrifying) experience of it was really more like 'hearing' de Mort in her head.

"So, wait...do I need to poison him, or not?"

Bella grinned. "If he's stupid enough to try to talk to Aster again, go for it."

Zee tipped her eyes toward the ceiling with an exasperated sigh. "I doubt that will be necessary, Asphodel. Dorea is an intelligent woman — she'll ensure that her son knows why Bella was terrorising him, regardless of whether he understood her lecturing him or not. And while I know what he did to Aster was unconscionable, I would consider being left in the Dark to be a psychological trauma on par with being left in the company of a dementor for several months, at least."

"When've you met a dementor?" Bella asked, immediately distracted. Though, Aster was actually kind of curious about that, too.

"I haven't. I've met plenty of people who've spent a month or two in Azkaban for minor offences, though, and if I were abandoned in the Dark for any period of time with no assurance that I would be rescued, I'm quite certain I would be as thoroughly traumatised as any of them."

"Oh, okay."

"Why?" Zee asked, rather than try to explain that no, actually, traumatising someone as thoroughly as a couple of months with a dementor, super casually, wasn't okay by outsiders' standards, even if he had kind of just crushed Aster's soul. (Which Aster knew, she just didn't care — he deserved to be just as miserable as he'd made her.)

Bella shrugged. "Well, when Thom and I were talking about recruiting them, I suggested you might be a good intermediary, you know, since they can't really talk to me and they don't really like Thom. I didn't think they'd bother you that much. He thinks you'd try to stab them or something, which I thought was hilarious. Not really important, I just wondered if one of us was right."

"...Right..." Zee muttered, glaring suspiciously at Bella. "I'm just going to head off that train of thought right there — I don't want to meet a dementor, please don't arrange for me to 'accidentally' run into one just to see what would happen."

"You're no fun."

"Your idea of fun isn't actually fun for anyone other than you."

"And Thom," Bella pointed out lightly. "And Aster." Aster felt her face grow warm again, but she couldn't really deny that last night had been...good? in a way, if not exactly what she would call fun. "And I don't think Asphodel was really not having fun last night, at least until she freaked out about maybe actually hurting Aster."

"Oh? And what exactly happened last night?"

"Well, from what Asphodel told me, I gather she decided to cement her claim on Aster by instigating a power-exchange game—"

"That's not why I suggested it!" Evans protested. "Aster was just so miserable, and she didn't need to be, she didn't do anything wrong, and she was feeling so guilty about everything going wrong like it was all her fault and she needed to suffer for fucking it up, so I— I thought it might help, if I did something and said, okay, that's enough, you've been punished, we can move on, instead of her just...torturing herself, being miserable and guilty until she thought she'd suffered enough and was ready to forgive herself."

Zee was nodding, as though that actually made some degree of sense, which...Aster wasn't really sure if the whole thing hadn't been as absolutely mad as it seemed when Evans said it now, in the light of day, or if Zee was just used to crazy-people logic.

"So you engineered a moment of catharsis for her," she summarised, which sounded much more official and was definitely a phrase Aster should remember when she inevitably had to talk to McKinnon about it, because attempting to achieve a moment of catharsis sounded much more like the sort of thing a mind-healer would approve of than asking someone to flog her until she felt less shite for ruining her entire life.

"I...guess? I don't know, I'm not a bloody shrink, it just...seemed right."

Bella made a speculative little humming sound. "In that case, I think you missed the mark a bit."

"I do feel better today, though," Aster objected.

"Obviously. But the thing about Asphodel punishing you physically instead of you punishing yourself by wallowing in your angst and guilt and all those silly negative emotions is, she should have been the one to decide what was appropriate to address the transgression, and when you were done. Also, catharsis is supposed to be like a break-through, emotional release sort of thing. You have to build up to it. Lulling someone into a pain-trance is different."

Zee gave Bella a look like who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend. "How the hell would you know that? Not Thom, surely...?"

Bella snorted. "No, Thom's in it for the physical stimulation and pushing his limits, not the weird emotional orgasms. Marc explained when I asked him what he gets out of our sessions. Which is pretty much entirely incomprehensible, but I'm used to normal people not making any bloody sense by now. I probably shouldn't have expected to understand the answer in the first place."

"Marcus Rosier is not a normal person, Bella. And even if he were, it's not as though all people who aren't you and/or Thom are all emotionally identical anyway."

Bella ignored that interjection entirely. "Whatever, point is, Princess, if you'd done it right, Aster would have accepted your judgment that last night was enough, she doesn't need to suffer through healing slowly to justify not feeling like shite about things she didn't really need to feel like shite about in the first place."

"...Oh." Aster fancied there was a hint of annoyance and disapproval in that single syllable, so she wasn't entirely surprised that Evans followed up with, "Stop feeling like shite, Aster! Bella agrees with me that none of this is really your fault, anyway!" glaring down at her and poking the top of her shoulder.

"Evans, if I could just stop feeling like shite whenever I wanted, do you think I would choose to sit around feeling like shite? It doesn't work like that. Just accept that I'm fucked in the head and move on."

"You're not just deciding not to feel like shite, I'm giving you permission to not feel like shite. There's a difference."

It didn't work like that either, but before Aster could really articulate why or how or...whatever, Zee giggled, looking at the two of them like aren't you just adorable. "I know Thom probably wasn't nearly this cute at sixteen, but can you imagine tiny, pouting Thom telling Candy Malfoy to get his head out of his arse and stop being miserable over being a hopeless fop, or whatever?" she asked Bella.

"Don't be ridiculous, Zee, there was no room for Candidus's head up his arse, it was already fully occupied by that enormous bloody stick. If anything it would've been him telling Thom to stop being such an overly-dramatic, brooding sod — I gather he wasn't really adorable but he did have a tendency to over-act on occasion. Not unlike this morning, really."

"Wait, Mister Sparkly Lamia Princess was having me on about being a stroppy arse?"

"Oh, well, he really was tired and annoyed, but he goes all cold and flat and entirely unamused when he's really angry. He may not like you keeping him up, but he can't deny that Asphodel literally kicking him off the bed when he tried to get away from your unconscious snuggling by putting her between the two of you is fucking hilarious."

"...Oops?" Evans repeated.

Zee seemed to be having trouble breathing, she was laughing so hard. "Really?"

"Yes, really. I've been informed that I'm to put them up at Ancient House from now on — there are to be no more teenage girls spending the night in Thom's bed."

"Why didn't you just take us to Ancient House in the first place?" Aster asked, as Zee giggled even harder at the idea of Thom fucking teenagers. (Other than Zee and Bella when they were younger, Aster presumed.)

"Too many people keyed into the wards. Including Dorea."

Right. Dorea. "Why did you ask Arcturus to revoke her custody of me, exactly? And does she know it wasn't my idea?" Because Aster liked Dorea, even if Dorea often clearly didn't understand her. Bella had already suggested that Aster might be a danger to Dorea and James, she didn't want Dorea to think she hated her, too.

"Yes, yes, she knows you had nothing to do with it. She even knows it has nothing to do with where you spend your summer hols, and who you associate with outside of school. I can tell you not to go over to Rock-on-Clyde, but you're not a child, I'm not going to stop you." Oh, really? Because that was not the impression Aster had gotten from her earlier declaration that Aster no longer lived with the Potters. "I just wanted to make it as clear as possible that I think she's unfit to raise a child of the House of Black. Or any other child, for that matter. Not that it makes much difference at this point, but it's the principle of the thing. And if I'm going to make it my business to start going around adopting people, I might as well take you in, too."

What? That didn't even make sense. Aster was already a Black, Bella 'adopting' her wouldn't make even the tiniest bit of difference in her standing within the House, or in Britain at large. "Why?"

"So you don't have to impersonate me to send Zee flowers, obviously."

Oh. Right. She'd forgotten about that, sending Zee a thank you for helping me turn myself into a girl, sorry I woke you in the middle of the night gift. She didn't have access to the Family's money anymore, what with being disinherited and all. She couldn't just go grab some coins out of the vault at the bank, so she'd taken a couple drops of aging potion and told the florist to send a bill to the House. People knew that Sirius Black was persona non grata, but she didn't really look like Sirius when she wore feminine robes and hairstyles. Well, her hair looked the same, but no one outside of Hogwarts knew she'd worn it that way as Sirius, too. No one had questioned her when she said she was Bellatrix Black. (Which was even true, anyway, seeing as someone thought he was funny.) Arcturus must have thought it was odd that Bella had been sending flowers to someone and asked her about it. "Ah...sorry. I didn't think you'd mind."

She waved it off. "I don't. But if I adopt you, you get a spot on the Family Tree again, inheritance rights and all."

Did Aster want a spot on the Family Tree again? She...wasn't really sure. If Bella had offered to adopt her two years ago, she would've said yes in a fucking heartbeat, but— Wait. "You think Dorea's a bad parent, but you don't think Walburga's a bad parent? If you're just going to flounce in and start adopting people, you couldn't have done it when I was fucking seven?"

"Walburga's not a bad parent. She taught you all the shite she was supposed to teach you. The fact that you hate her is kind of immaterial. And I can pretty much guarantee that if I'd taken you when you were seven, you'd hate me even more than you hate her."

"Doubt it," Aster grumbled. Bella, at least, hadn't made her do dark magic. Not outside of the Holidays, anyway.

"Ah, no, you would have. The only examples I'd ever had of how to raise a child were Cygnus, Druella, and Thom, raising me. Even leaving out the Imperius, any failure, any slip with Cygnus, was punished with disproportionate violence and pain, and standards moved, so I was never, ever good enough. Plus, Dru's Dru."

Auntie Druella was scarily intelligent, absurdly accomplished, and generally made everyone around her look like clumsy, bumbling idiots just by existing. Even Bella seemed unrefined in comparison. Well, Bella was just as accomplished and intelligent, and more graceful in a dangerous, predatory way, but when they were in a room together, Dru somehow managed to make the very idea of being a terrifyingly effective battlemage, rather than a sophisticated Society lady, seem...positively barbaric. Slightly distasteful, even. She also hated childish immaturity, rudeness, and crassness, had no patience for mistakes, and demanded perfection from everyone around her at all times, on pain of verbal evisceration. Walburga had made her teach Aster and Narcissa (and Reggie) history, practical politics, languages, and the non-magical arts when they were small, and Bella was still in school. Aster was pretty sure even Narcissa had left every one of her lessons feeling just as stupid and incompetent as she had, they were miserable.

"You would not believe what I considered to be realistic expectations when I was in school. And Thom's approach when I was a child was to let me read whatever I liked, with no structure whatsoever, and make me practise dueling spells thousands of times in a row so I'd leave him alone and let him get his own work done. Since that's not really a good way to learn boring shite like ettiquite and potions, I'm pretty sure you would've hated having me as a guardian."

"Are you fucking kidding me? You taught all of us loads of shite when we were kids!"

"I taught you fun things. Magic theory. History. Strategy. Flying, dancing, and dueling. And honestly, half the time I was just teaching you to play games. The sort of shite Dru came up with to keep me busy when I was that age, and otherwise unoccupied — I didn't realise that counted as teaching at the time. And besides, it honestly never occurred to me. I was your age when Orion cursed you. Still in school most of the year. Would you think you could do a better job raising a kid than Walburga, starting today?"

Well, no, but...

Bella correctly interpreted her silence. "Yeah, that's what I thought. If you want me to adopt you now, though, or in a couple of weeks I suppose, I can do that."

"Can you, though? Would Pater sign off on it? He did disinherit me just a few months ago, if you recall."

"For being a selfish little shite and attacking the House in a spiteful act of defiance, refusing to bow to his will and Walburga's for years, and generally acting like a mad, sixteen-year-old Black? Yes, I recall. But the Dark has forgiven you, and breaking the Covenant just means that the gods won't find some way to save us from our own suicidal recklessness. Arcturus has done far more damage to the Family through his apathy the past five decades. And I'd like to see him try to refuse me. Though if I do have to usurp him over this, I may have to actually marry Cissy and Reg to each other so I can abdicate the position in favour of Cissy." She shrugged. "Really, knowing that would work actually makes things a lot easier. He knows I don't want the job, if I can turn around and give it to her, that's actually more leverage for me. Not that I wouldn't have gotten my way on this anyway, but."

"You should do it!" Evans said enthusiastically. "Then we'd be sisters for real!"

Yeah, now that she mentioned it, that was probably why Bella had said that Aster should treat her like a sister in the first place. Of course, that just meant that their...whatever was going on with the two of them would be just as weirdly incestuous as Bella and de Mort, but she doubted Evans actually cared.

"So, that is a yes on the adoption thing, then?" Bella asked yet again.

"I haven't even had a chance to fill her in on what being adopted actually means, Bella." They'd gotten distracted by Lord Sparklebum before they'd gotten past the political implications of wardship and/or adoption. And the legal ones, kind of. The pro legal reasons to do it, at least. Namely, not having Dumbledore as a de facto guardian, and being recognised as a member of the House of Black beyond her seventeenth birthday. There were cons, too, though. Especially since they probably weren't talking just a name-and-magic adoption, here.

"Any reasonable person would say that the advantages that come with membership in the House of Black far outweigh any other considerations," Zee argued.

"Are you sure? Because I'm pretty sure that most reasonable people would say even the smallest chance of getting the Black Madness outweighs...pretty much everything else."

Zee raised an eyebrow at Aster's comment. "I thought that was a blood thing, not a Family Magic thing."

"It is," Bella informed her. "The House of Black uses a blood adoption ritual. It uses blood magic to essentially make a member of the House a third biological parent to the adoptee. It's illegal, of course, and we'd have to wait until you turn seventeen to officially adopt you outside of the House — as though a few months makes such a difference in one's ability to decide what one wants to do with one's life."

"A lot can happen in a few months," Aster had to point out. A few months ago she was still Sirius, and hadn't yet broken the Covenant.

"Well, sure, but you were just as capable of making major decisions a few months ago. Or are you actually regretting breaking the Covenant?" That was said with a teasing grin, because Bella knew as well as anyone that she didn't.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Though it was a point that, a few months ago, she hadn't really understood the meaning of that phrase, or why Bella had always told her there was no point second-guessing anything as long as you always did whatever seemed best, knowing what you knew at the time. She'd probably known that Aster would eventually end up going mad and doing some really stupid shite that would, in hindsight, be obviously stupid, even though it absolutely seemed reasonable and not at all catastrophically self-destructive when she did it. In that light, it made a lot of sense to insist that if you always made the best choices you could, there was nothing to regret.

Aster had occasionally made bad choices, but she usually knew she was doing it, just decided not to care. And she couldn't really complain about the consequences when she deliberately did the wrong thing, which included bitching and moaning and wishing she could go back and change the past. She could probably count on one hand the things she actually regretted. The only two coming to mind at the moment were telling Reggie about the Yule ritual when she was seven — if she hadn't, Orion wouldn't have lost his temper and almost killed her — and fucking Evans.

And honestly? She didn't even really regret fucking Evans anymore. She had, when she'd still thought she could fix things with James, wishing she'd never fucked things up in the first place, but now that she knew how little he cared for her, how little he respected her, she kind of thought she might've lucked into doing the best possible thing she could have at the time, despite knowing at the time that it was a bad choice.

Zee, finally recovered from her bout of helpless giggles, groaned. "Are you doing that on purpose?"

"What?" they asked in concert.

"You," she said, pointing at Aster, "acting like her." Bella.

"Not...really?" Well, kind of, Bella had taught her that, but she wasn't going out of her way to say shite Bella would say, not like when she'd played Bella for Dorea, the day after her metamorphosis.

"Aster's always acted a lot like me, Zee, she doesn't have to try. Anyway, I doubt Kore would let you pick up the Madness, so I wouldn't worry about it."

"There are other things to worry about, though," Zee said, rather disapprovingly.

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that you two look nothing alike, perhaps? As I understand it, her physical appearance is likely to change rather obviously, is it not? And there are only so many ways to explain such a change."

Bella shrugged. "I'd guess she'll probably end up with darker hair, but she can always charm it red again, or tell people she's decided to charm it dark."

"And what if she ends up significantly shorter, or something? You should at least try to be discrete about doing illegal blood magic in Britain, Bella. Even the House of Black isn't entirely untouchable."

"I know, I know. Especially with Arcturus as Head. But honestly? I could be staging an annual Wild Hunt, or displaying the gruesomely-murdered bodies of my enemies in the middle of public streets, or razing other Houses' ancestral keeps to the ground for relatively minor insults, or not-so-subtly taking over half of Europe." All of which were things the House had rather notoriously done in centuries past. "If the worst thing they think I'm doing is the occasional blood ritual on members of my own House, the ruling class of Britain should be more relieved than anything."

"And if certain individuals who know that occasional blood rituals aren't the worst thing you're doing use it as an excuse to get you in front of the Wizengamot? sentence you to Azkaban just to get you off the battlefield for a while?"

The Dark Lady smirked at her girlfriend, obviously thinking her overly cautious. "If the Light have the votes to sentence me over a bloody adoption — which I don't think they do — and if I let them take me to Azkaban in the first place, you don't really think they could keep me there, do you?"

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" Evans said, heading off Zee's response. "I mean, I can just use glamours like Thom does, at least until I'm out of school. It's not as though people go around touching me all that often, so it would just be visual. I might have to tie it to an enchanted ring or pendant or something, but if that's the biggest drawback..."

"The biggest drawbacks, or what I think you'll think are the biggest drawbacks," Aster explained, "are legal. And social, I guess. I was just getting to this, earlier. You're a member of the House of Black for legal purposes involving outsiders already. If you decide not to be adopted, you'll lose the protections and privileges of being a member of a Noble House, but as an independent, fully qualified, legal adult British mage, you'd be able to sign contracts and make important choices for yourself, without having to get Pater to sign off on them. Inside the House, you'd be swearing loyalty and fealty to the House, binding yourself to our house laws and integrating into the Family Magic. He could actually force you to obey his orders through the Family Magic, instead of just pressuring you with the threat of invalidating your wardship—"

"That's a non-issue," Bella interrupted. "He's dominated a member of the House through the Family Magic exactly once in the last twenty-five years, and that was because I threatened to execute Orion if he didn't."

Oh. Aster knew that Bella had threatened to kill Orion for her, but she hadn't realised that was the only time Pater had ever put a geas on anyone. "Why didn't he just let you?" she grumbled. Orion hadn't become a more tolerable parent after he'd been muzzled. He'd actually gotten worse — more resentful, temper shorter, and he'd started drinking. He just couldn't physically or magically hurt the kids himself, so he'd forced Walburga to curse them for him.

The question had been mostly rhetorical, but Bella answered it anyway. "Because deferring to me would have hurt his pride even more than negotiating with me. If you're letting a mad, sixteen-year-old schoolgirl make the judgments you should be making, and carry out fucking death sentences on her own recognisance, you might as well abdicate. And he couldn't abdicate in favour of Cygnus or Orion, and Walburga would have been little more than a puppet for Orion. I was still in school, and it's kind of tacitly acknowledged that making the Choice makes you less than ideal as a Head of House, anyway. So—"

"You made the Choice?!" Aster exclaimed, loudly enough that Evans flinched. "When?!"

"My seventh birthday. You didn't know?" No! No, she had not known! "Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised — I don't go around talking about it, and the adults wouldn't have wanted to give you ideas about doing the same."

"What's the Choice?" Evans asked, looking from one of them to the next — including Zee, who didn't look surprised at all, she'd probably known Bella was a black mage for years.

"Eh, it's kind of irrelevant now that Aster's broken the Covenant between the House and the Dark. The bloodline was dedicated to the Dark in perpetuity by Onyx and Mela, the only survivors of a blood feud back in the Fifteenth Century. In exchange, they asked for the power to utterly destroy their enemies, and that the House would never die. This means we were born with our magic attuned to the dark end of the spectrum, and the Dark Itself already holding influence over our souls — in much the same way you were born with an unnatural affinity for Death, due to Kore ensuring that Harrison survived to bear you. There was a bit more negotiation which led to a declaration that if any of Onyx and Mela's descendants wanted to reach the same inhuman level of power that the Dark gifted to them, we would have to choose to dedicate ourselves on top of the bloodline dedication, and in exchange we would sacrifice our humanity — some would say our sanity. That's the Choice."

"So you gave up...?" Evans asked, her tone somewhere between horror and awe. Which, Aster supposed, was fair — a seven-year-old doing that kind of ritual was both horrifying, and kind of awesome. (Completely mad, but still.) Especially since Aster knew she had to have done it so she could fight back against the adults of the House more effectively.

Bella shrugged. "All of the shite emotions, basically, and the ability to empathise with most people in most situations. In exchange, Eris fucked with my mind to make me a perfect occlumens and re-made my body to channel far more magic than any seven-year-old ought to be able to handle. Kind of like Persephone did for you at Samhain, but...more."

Bella having made the Choice and dedicating herself to Eris actually explained a lot, Aster thought — no wonder she acted so much like the legendary Blacks they learned about when they were children, she was practically one of them — but... "Wait, you're not actually a sorceress?"

"Are you not actually a girl? If you mean, is Asphodel likely to inherit my channelling threshold, no, she's not. Thom's a fucking cheater, too, I have no idea what his was before he started using subsumption to increase it. You certainly won't end up less powerful, though," she assured Evans. "Maybe somewhere around Aster? Similarly, you probably won't lose any magical talents, even if you don't gain any. You could, but I sincerely doubt Fate would fuck over a necromancer like that."

"What do you mean?"

"The creepy mind-mage charisma thing, or being a Parselmouth," Aster explained. "You might end up being a proper legilimens, if it was really your channelling threshold that was holding you back, or you might end up with some of the less common Black magical talents, like annoyingly sensitive mage-sight, or something."

"Or Dru's sense of timing, maybe?" Bella suggested. "And Aster, I'm fairly certain I told you not to use that filtering charm, you'll never get used to mage-sight if you do."

"But Bella..." Aster whined. "It's like I'm seeing everything through a bloody fog, it's terrible."

"You're still interpreting the magical sensory input as visual because you always filter it out, so you haven't had to learn to interpret it directly. It should clear up in a couple of months if you stop using the charm."

As though the idea of walking around in a fog for a couple of months wasn't kind of daunting, given that she found a couple minutes of that shite to be vaguely maddening. Besides, "Not everyone's you, Bella. I didn't start using the charm for almost two years after I started coming into it. I think if I were going to get used to it, I would have!"

"I think you'd be surprised how much difference mastering your focusing and occlumency exercises makes, and if you don't even try to do something because you're not me and therefore assume that you can't, you're definitely not going to be able to do it. I may be fucking brilliant, unfairly gifted, and a cheating cheater who cheats—"

"Don't forget humble," Zee interjected.

"Oh, hush, you. I was going to say, none of that matters nearly as much as working your arse off to be as good as you possibly can. Aster's also unfairly gifted — it runs in the Family. And she's at least as stubborn as I am. You didn't bitch and moan and insist that you couldn't possibly meet the standards I set for you for focus or visualisation or precision or casting speed. Why on Earth should magical perception be any different?"

"Because, Bella! Using free conjuration to make anatomically correct constructs and creating multi-part illusions and casting thirty dueling charms in a minute are things other people can do!" Granted, they weren't things most people could do, and no one expected children to be able to do them — Aster had been floored when they'd started conjuration in Transfiguration, and she'd been informed that free conjuration was a NEWT topic, and even Transfiguration Masters didn't bother making all of their conjurations "properly" all the time. Bella had taught her conjuration when she was nine (she'd barely had the channelling capacity to pull it off; Narcissa hadn't managed it until she was eleven) — just (relatively) simple shite like leaves or paper or cotton cloth, but she'd never been allowed to fudge them. Do it right, or don't do it at all had been somewhat of an unofficial motto for Bella's lessons longer than Aster could remember. "Seeing patterns in ambient magic isn't something humans can do!"

"And only two mages in a thousand can possibly reach Hit Wizard combat standards; it's absolutely impossible for nine-year-olds to learn their Unforgivables; if you're fully attuned to one end of the magical spectrum, you shouldn't even bother trying to cast spells from the opposite end, the resistance would be far too high to hope to succeed; and becoming an animagus before you've fully come into your power is an absolutely absurd suggestion, that's mastery-level self-Transfiguration."

It wasn't that hard, really. Casting spells on yourself was always easier than forcing them on someone else, or even just the external universe. It was easier to transform into Padfoot than it would be to conjure a dog. (To the standard of conjuration Bella had set when she was a kid...which was probably also mastery-level, but really just a matter of visualising things really, really clearly, anyone could do that if they practised.) And she really hadn't been able to cast light magic properly before re-dedicating herself — she'd barely managed a non-corporeal Patronus-mist when Professor Vane had tried to teach them last year, and she'd had to over-channel to manage even that. And the Unforgivable curses were heavily emotion-based — even if a child couldn't channel enough magic to make them very effective, there was no reason a nine-year-old couldn't form the spells properly. (Disregarding the fact that casting the Imperius hurt like hell — making Cissy lick her feet had been worth it.) Which, fine, she got the point, but...

"Yeah, okay, but the only people who claim to be able to be able to interpret currents in ambient magic are you, and people who are bloody possessed."

Bella just shrugged. "Other people do have mage-sight, you know. It's the same ability. I don't really see why naturally having overly-sensitive metaphysical senses should be considered so much more unusual than having great eyesight or something. There are people who think we have too much magic in our blood, though," she admitted, turning back to Evans. "There's a correlation between channelling capacity and how mad we are, though that's more because being up makes it easier to channel magic than because being too close to Magic drives people mad. And the Black Madness is often conflated with the insanity often exhibited, historically, by Blacks who made the Choice, which, obviously, power and madness are linked in that case."

"Don't forget old Henry's eugenics programme," Zee added. "They've been purposefully selecting marriage partners with an eye toward magical prowess and a talent for battle-magic in particular for centuries. There's a certain degree of sadism and sociopathic disregard for the value of human life that goes along with that. And every single one of them is addicted to fighting."

"At least part of that comes out of the Covenant. We're all children of the Dark, you know that. And I still contend that if more people tried to kill each other on a regular basis, there would be far fewer viv addicts around."

"Huh?"

"Here, give me your hand," Bella said, holding out her own.

Evans did, rather cautiously. Understandable — the last time Bella had said that, she'd set Evans's dislocated finger. "Wh—" Aster felt Bella's magic washing through her, dark power pricking at her skin, before Evans could get the question out. "Oh wow..." She trailed off into breathless giggles. "What was that?"

"That is called being lit up. Viv is an alchemical drug. Taking it is kind of like that, but burning into the magic that maintains your actual life to sustain the magic high, rather than taking it from an outside source."

"Viv is horrible, disgusting stuff," Zee added, giving Bella a distinctly disapproving look. "If you really want to get high on magic, ask Bella or Thom to light you up, or just summon Magic — don't take viv. Most people who do only take it twice. The first time gets them hooked, and the second time they scrape together enough that they burn up before they have to come down, because the withdrawal is like overchannelling and experiencing magical exhaustion simultaneously."

"Ah...noted."

Bella, on the other hand, shrugged. "I don't think it's that bad, really."

"That, Bella, is because you're a fucking freak," Zee informed her, all flat and serious.

Bella giggled. "Anyway, fighting for your life is like that, but better." She gave them a mad grin. Aster knew even before she said it that her next words would be, "You've never really lived until someone's tried to kill you."

"Also noted." Aster could hear her silly, magic-high grin in her voice. "Speaking of summoning Magic, if you adopt me, I get to participate in the Black family rituals, right?"

"You can do that now, if you want," Bella noted. "But, yes, you'll be integrated into the family magic, and therefore expected to participate, especially at Yule."

"Really?"

"Don't sound so excited about that, Evans. The Yule ritual calls for a human sacrifice. Er...you knew that, right?" she asked Zee belatedly.

She smirked. "Of course. I've been helping Bella pick out good sacrifices for years."

Wait, what happened to Zee pretending to be a normal person? She just gave Aster's open shock a little shrug, and an even smaller roll of her eyes — sometimes we all feel like making fuck the world choices, unless Aster was entirely misinterpreting the gesture.

The idea of ritual murder did steal the wind from Evans's sails a bit, excited interest fading from her posture. "Oh. I'll think about it, I guess. Are there other things I should know? About being adopted, I mean," she added quickly, presumably in case Bella had opened her mouth to tell her more about the Yule ritual.

Which she might have done, because she closed it immediately, letting Aster explain, "The House would rightfully take priority over yourself at every level of concern — survival, obligation, interest, et cetera. Our House law excludes individuals from owning property, making contracts, and having independent external loyalties, and once you're part of the House — integrated into the Family Magic, I mean — the only way you can really leave is by being disowned." Or disowning the House, like Andromeda had, but Aster could tell Evans about that later, when Bella wasn't in the room with them. (Andromeda was still a touchy subject, five years after her decision to run off with her muggleborn beau.) "House Law almost always takes precedence over state law in most of those cases, even criminal cases that don't involve anyone from another House sometimes, so members of the House don't have many rights as individuals at all.

"Members of Noble Houses do have certain rights and privileges that are different from members of common Houses and independent mages unaffiliated with any particular House — I'll find you a book on that, it's all stupidly tedious." Evans shifted to look down at her, presumably giving her a look that said and this isn't? "Worse than this. But there are also responsibilities to client Houses and allies, and you have to uphold the image of the House, which means etiquette lessons, and comportment, and learning a lot of history you're probably never going to use unless you find yourself needing to defend mashed potatoes with the famous last words of rebel goblins. And—"

"Wait, wait, wait — defending mashed potatoes?" Bella interrupted, giggling at the absurdity of it.

Aster bit her lip to avoid doing the same. "Minnie tried to make me leave them when she kicked me out of the Samhain Feast. I declared them my Peak Cavern and insisted that I would not yield, and she was so taken aback she didn't even try to stop me taking them with me. Though I'm still not sure why she was kicking me out, anyway. I told her I'd be good," she added as innocently as she could.

Zee raised an eyebrow at her. "Good, or good?" she asked, with a heavily insinuating tone on the latter pronunciation.

"Very, very good, if you must know."

Evans snorted. "You didn't."

"Yes, I did. Why is this surprising? I've been saying shite like that to McGee for years."

She didn't really expect an answer, but she did want to know, so she was pleasantly surprised when Zee provided one. Less so when it turned out to be that, "Girls are expected by most people to be more reticent when it comes to sexual matters than boys, especially in mixed company. Sirius suggesting he'd like to shag Minerva McGonagall is improper and off-putting, but funny, especially since I imagine she would over-react to such a proposition. Asteria suggesting she'd like to shag her Head of House is positively perverted, and borderline disturbing."

"That's fucking moronic, Zee."

"I'm not saying it's not. But the extent to which you were raised without gendered expectations for your behaviour is anomalous, even among the Dark Houses."

"I hate everyone," Aster grumbled, changing the subject back to her list of all the terrible shite that went along with being a member of the House of Black. "Bella will probably insist you learn to defend yourself regardless of whether you choose to be properly adopted — see her complete paranoia about me being assassinated—"

"Paranoia suggests that there isn't an arithmantically significant probability that assassination will be your ultimate cause of death."

"You did the arithmancy on how I'm likely to die?!"

"Is that weird?" Bella asked, turning to Zee.

"Yes."

"Is it?" Evans asked, sounding surprised. "Muggles do actuarial statistics all the time, there are whole companies whose business it is to, well, essentially bet whether you're going to die prematurely."

"There's a difference between making an actuarial table, and figuring out how one person specifically is most likely to die. Most people don't want to know that."

"...Oh." Evans looked over at Bella, who gave her a confused shrug and a normal people, right? expression, because of course she did.

"Anyway, if you actually decide to be adopted, you'll have to memorise the house laws and the outcomes and major arguments in about a hundred and fifty important, precedent-setting Wizengamot decisions since the Statute was passed. You'll have to learn French, Welsh, and Gobbledygook at the very least, and be prepared to engage with members of other Noble Houses without embarrassing the House of Black, which means being able to discuss philosophy and music and art and current events, and/or avoid getting trapped in such tedious conversation without offending anyone, which is much easier said than done — or, if we don't like them, offending them just enough that they know we don't like them, but aren't so insulted that they can reasonably retaliate..."

Somehow, even as she continued to explain all the tedious social requirements that didn't seem like a big deal when taken individually, but all piled up to be obnoxious and stifling and miserable, Aster suspected that this was completely pointless. Evans was definitely going to say yes, regardless of how much annoying Society shite she might have to put up with and the dangers of being too closely associated with Bellatrix; the restrictions on individual freedoms that were inherent in their House Law; and even the chance that Persephone wouldn't intervene to ensure that she didn't end up as mad as Aster, because, well...

Given a chance to belong somewhere, when you didn't really belong anywhere else, who would say no?