Usurping the House of Black
Aww, teenage Aster continues to be adorable.
I'm not sure I would have called you my Right Hand, though. Not because you weren't obviously mine or because you weren't clearly the more respectable and socially aware of the two of us, just mostly because I don't think I was really in any sort of a leadership position at the time. For you and Sev, sure, but. I was under the impression that a proper Dark Lady needs more followers than just her Right and Left Hands.
Honestly, I think I would have called you more of a scout or guide or something, at that point. Sev and I had kind of just been muddling along as best we could, and then you came along to help us actually find a path of some sort — not really leading us, but sort of...making sure we got where I wanted to go without stumbling headlong into the various traps and pitfalls we would have walked right into on our own. I mean, can you imagine how badly things might have gone if you hadn't become a girl, and Bella hadn't told the Baby Death Eaters you were allowed to be Light, and Reggie hadn't faltered and we'd kept to our original plan of pretending we were no longer friends?
Sev would probably have ended up a Death Eater — we didn't realise when we made that plan they'd been marking recruits before they left school — and I wouldn't have just left him in Britain alone. You and I would probably be in Dumbledore's little army, but you would still have hated me, because I'd still be pretending (poorly) to be Prefect Evans. I can see it now — I would've eventually realised that I wasn't going to be able to keep up the facade and probably would've bitten the bullet and married Potter just to gain some legitimacy for when the charade eventually collapsed under the pressures of war, you would've hated me even more for using him... Bella would've been happy, though, with you to bring some actual military knowledge to the Old Goat's side, and me around to counter their silly ritual plans.
Well, assuming Dumbledore swallowed his distaste for ritual enough to let me actually do shite. I guess I probably wouldn't have dared actually dedicate myself to my Lady, if I didn't know I had Thom and Bella to run to if things went catastrophically pear-shaped with the Light, but I can't imagine I would've been able to not do ritual magic. It's possible he would've refused to have me, I guess. In which case I probably would've been in a good position to try to defect to their side after all.
But that would've left you as the only dark-minded person on Dumbledore's side... Yeah, that probably wouldn't have gone well. Maybe they would've kicked you out, too?
Ah, well, enough of the what-ifs. The next bit is that meeting with Arcturus, right? I've read your version, and I have to say, it could be better. Obviously everything to do with the House of Black was already old hat for you, but the internal politics and especially the whole thing with the Family Magic choosing our Head of House? That's just cool. And you obviously don't think so, so I've done you the favour of writing my version of events for you. Keep it or don't, your choice.
(Seriously, though? Keep it, your version is boring.)
The House of Black was highly mythologised in Magical Britain, long before Lily Evans ever stepped foot into that world. In many ways, the stories told about the House were exactly what a muggle child might think to expect from a magical noble family, with the vague connotations of evil that go along with magic in that world — a family steeped in unholy dark power, their wealth and influence absurd even by the standards of the hidden magical world, their reputation honestly quite horrible. No one would have been surprised to learn that they really might have occasionally sacrificed a baby to a dark god when no one was looking, or have a cannibalistic Samhain feast, or expect every one of their children to kill someone in cold blood before starting school. But there was a certain effortless, dark grandeur about them, deeply ingrained standards of behaviour and presentation and expectation holding them well above the every-day magical riff-raff.
Holding them above even the other nobles, truth be told. Aster would probably blush to hear it, but she'd been very much the subject of gossip, those first few weeks of her first year at Hogwarts. Not only because she had been Sorted into Gryffindor, but because she was so very obviously a Black. If Narcissa had been a Gryffindor, or Regulus a Hufflepuff, there likely wouldn't have been nearly the same reaction from their fellow students. For all Narcissa was an enormously stuck-up, self-conscious perfectionist, portraying British Noble with a degree of exactitude which would have been amusing if it weren't absolutely clear that she was entirely serious about it, and Reggie looked like a Black — striking, dramatic and obviously wealthy, with that near-permanent sardonic I'd be laughing at the world if I weren't too cool to do so smirk — they were missing a certain...charisma, perhaps. An unconscious hint of danger, of wildness and potential, that made them, and every other noble in the school, seem like pretenders of a sort.
It was in the way he — Sirius, at the time — sized up a room when he entered, the way he moved, with the lazy awareness that no one in the immediate vicinity could possibly pose a threat to him, an animated quickness that sprang from boundless energy, and a rather sharper grace than the other noble children, who were trained to dance and glide but not to fight. The timing of his jokes was always perfect and the dismissal of the sidelong looks and whispers behind his back effortless. He never paid the slightest attention in lessons and yet always knew all of the answers, responding to professors' questions with an attitude suggesting that they were wasting everyone's time with their elementary exercises. A challenging grin met any implication that he simply didn't belong in Gryffindor, or anywhere else it damn well pleased him to be, daring anyone to say such a thing straight to his face, and the swagger which should have seemed affected on a short, slight eleven-year-old somehow simply added to the impression that his act of confident insouciance was not, in fact, an act at all.
The boys in his own class, of course, had a somewhat different perspective, sharing a dormitory as they did. Stories filtered to the rest of the House nearly by the week of some new and disturbing thing Black had said or done: suggesting that he knew how to cast the Unforgivable Curses, obviously surprised that the other eleven-year-olds in his dorm didn't know them; or mentioning in passing that he'd attended at least one dinner with an infamous werewolf terrorist; or claiming that the charms they were learning in Defence were completely useless in a real fight (demonstrating this fact by disarming Scott Walters and bloodying his lip with a quick jab in a matter of seconds...and then being legitimately shocked that Walters hadn't managed to dodge the punch — and moreover, had no idea how to heal a fat lip); telling ridiculously over-the-top stories about demonstration duels between his mad cousin and "that wanker she's shagging" — i.e., the bloody Dark Lord — and generally making everyone deeply uncomfortable with some regularity. (Though none of this was at all inconsistent with the young Gryffindors' expectations for a Black.)
The overall impression was somewhat like seeing a wolf-pup dropped in a litter of corgis — obviously out of place, but equally obviously superior. (And somewhat adorably unaware of those facts, so perhaps a wolf-pup that believed itself to be a corgi.)
Lily often thought, over those first few years at school, that it was a damn shame Sirius Black was such an arse to Sev, because he was easily the most interesting person in their year, and the one she would have been most interested in befriending if he weren't so determined to make an enemy of her. The House of Black mystique wore off a bit, seeing Sirius day in and day out — muddy and miserable after being knocked off his broom in Quidditch practice, or obviously hung-over in the wake of one of the big Gryffindor House parties, and after getting the better of him and his friends on a few notable occasions. (The hexing fake firsties entrapment plan is still and always will be bloody hilarious, especially the fact that he fell for it multiple times.)
But the humanising of Sirius Black really did nothing to damage the notoriety of the House as a whole. Even if he was a hell of a lot more approachable than he might've seemed those first weeks, the hints he dropped over the first five years of his tenure at Hogwarts only made it seem more likely that there was more truth than speculation in the rumours about the House and the madmen who supposedly made up the majority of its members.
Granted, by Nineteen Seventy-Six there were only perhaps a dozen or so Blacks left — Aster, Narcissa and Reggie, Bella, Walburga and Orion, Arcturus, and a handful of more distant cousins who had not yet married out of the House or been dragged into the War and gotten themselves killed thinking that they could pull off the same sort of mad exploits as Bella.
This, of course, only made the House a rather romantically tragic thing in popular perception — not piteous of course, they were far too dangerous to pity, but a proud, aristocratic family in obvious decline, laid low by its inherent flaws, unwilling to compromise its self-conception in order to get with the bloody times and save itself from what seemed like all but certain ruin in the next generation or two. Because the House of Black was never anything but dramatic.
If one were to ask Asteria, she would lay the blame at the feet of Arcturus, their patriarch, for his stubborn refusal to abdicate that position even in the face of his obvious and crippling depression (a direct result of the murder of his wife and children decades before). Narcissa or Regulus might have given a more nuanced perspective of the incipient collapse of their House, citing shifts in the mores of Magical Britain over the past centuries and the resulting decline in prestige of certain segments of society, decisions by the Wizengamot limiting their legitimate influence, and the loss of direct control of the wealth of human Magical Britain to the goblins in the Seventeenth Goblin War. Ultimately, they would likely consider it a consequence of the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy, that their once-grand House had come so near to falling.
Bellatrix, when Lily asked her, claimed that this showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the relationship between the House and the Dark, and between humans and the Powers in general.
"We exist to amuse the gods, Princess. Humans, conscious beings in general, really, but the Blacks specifically. That's what the Covenant was — serving the Dark means entertaining it. Stability, consolidating and establishing control and simply holding it, that's boring. Without conflict, without struggle, there's no story. We rise to the pinnacle of power and influence only to squander it and fall because it's not the achievement itself that matters, it's the struggle to attain it. The story is in the journey, not the destination."
Which was, Lily thought, a surprisingly philosophical way for Bella to see the world and her place in it, but Bella could be surprisingly philosophical sometimes, Lily had found, especially when discussing the House and what it meant to be a Black. Or the Dark. Those two topics were fundamentally entwined. Much of Bella's contribution to explaining what it would mean for Lily to be adopted had focused on the more magical and spiritual aspects of the process, in contrast to Aster's more material and legal concerns. Not that she was terribly concerned that Lily's dual dedication to the extremes of polarised magic would be a problem — the Covenant was no longer a consideration, and even if it were, Lily's dedication to Persephone would supercede her ambivalence toward the light end of the magical spectrum.
Kore herself wasn't entirely dark, but that was less important than the fact that the Dark, the Blacks' conceptualisation of it, was relatively young. Compared to Death Itself (or even just Persephone), the Dark (most often embodied in a five-hundred-year-old teenage Black called Angel, of all things) was little more than a petulant child. It was hardly likely to pick a fight with Death over Lily's soul. Of course, it also, in Bella's words, obviously fancied Thom, and therefore was every bit as excited as Bella to bring his daughter into the Family. (Yes, it was weird that there were gods out there who fancied her biological father...though probably not so weird as it would be if Lily weren't so deeply familiar with Magic herself.) It might show up at the adoption ceremony to introduce itself, but it almost certainly wouldn't object.
Most of what she and Bella had discussed in terms of her adoption had been to do with the Family Magic. Bella had introduced her at Ancient House, that day she and Aster had spent the better part of the afternoon playing horribly violent training games.
Aster had been right, Lily had had no idea the sort of damage mages could do to each other in a real fight. Well, she had intellectually, but it was something entirely different to see it. That Aster kept demanding they keep going — obviously elated to be fighting someone she didn't need to pull her punches against — even after incurring and having to heal multiple complex fractures and several bone-deep cutting curses, had made Lily very uncomfortable. As had her uncontrollable giggling when Lily brought this up afterward, because that was nothing, Evans. That was child's play, Bella wasn't even using anything really malicious... Yes, she had been in a noticeably better mood afterward, enough she'd let Lily heal the (much abused and greatly worsened) damage to her back, but tired, relaxed, and downright happy — giggly and affectionate, it was bloody weird — wasn't actually much of an improvement over suicidally depressed in terms of unnerving Lily, especially given that it was a reaction to getting her arse comprehensively kicked for literally hours. Being crushed by Potter's rejection and betrayal at least made sense...
Lily would much rather have gone back inside and continued to acquaint herself with the Black Family Magic, but she couldn't drag herself away from watching — knowing that Aster was out doing stupid shite and getting hurt, but not knowing what or how badly, would have been even worse than watching.
So she'd had to content herself with the short introduction ritual Bella had made, dragging her to the ritual room at the heart of the building and sacrificing a few drops of blood to the keystone of the wards. Not just at it, but to it — the blood had been absorbed by the stone as though by a sponge, leaving no trace save for an uncomfortable, oppressive feeling of scrutiny as the heavy power that had surrounded her from the moment she stepped foot onto the property with Bella sank into her, sifting through her memories and... It sort of felt like it was weighing her, somehow, making some kind of judgment, though she couldn't have said how or what, exactly. Whatever it was, the Family Magic had obviously decided it approved of her. The oppressiveness vanished after a moment or two and the magic retreated, leaving a sense of acceptance in its wake rather than the heavy suspicion it had held before she was introduced.
And then Bella had let her sit and commune with it for a few minutes, getting a feel for what it was as it had, in her words, gotten a taste of Lily. The whole process was...very strange. The impression Lily had gotten of the sentient construct (was it a construct? it didn't seem...constructed, precisely) was one of simple intelligence, power, and barely-restrained violence — like a big cat of some sort, perhaps, but one that had just been assured that she posed no threat to it, and would ignore her unless she poked it in the eye or tried to set it on fire or something. Which was fine, Lily hadn't objected when Bella decided that she ought to teach her how to apparate while Aster was off talking to her mind-healer like a responsible person who cared about her own mental health, but she definitely would've preferred to continue trying to coax it into communicating with her — she was certain it could communicate, at least to some extent — rather than watching Aster repeatedly get the shite beaten out of herself. Apparently enjoying every second of it, because Lily's roommate was insane.
Noble Houses' estates apparently tended only to allow trans-dimensional travel in certain areas, which was neat, and accordingly had certain rooms set aside for the purpose. Most of them were decorated relatively distinctively to make it easy to visualise them, which was even cooler. (Little things like that still occasionally reminded Lily that she basically lived in a fairy tale now, and that it was somehow actually real life.)
When they arrived in the little courtyard which was apparently the apparation room of the Keep — an ancient tower which the Blacks had acquired at some point in their long and checkered history, now the primary residence of its Head of House — Aster was already waiting for them, sitting on a little decorative bench and glaring into the middle distance. Lily hadn't actually managed to figure out apparation in the hour or so Bella had spent teaching her last week, and couldn't have apparated directly to any of the Black properties anyway, since she'd never been there before, but that was fine. Bella was perfectly willing to lead her to the Keep through Shadows, an altogether less miserable means of transportation than side-along apparation, albeit somewhat slower. (Lily couldn't actually cross into the Shadow plane on her own yet either, but she thought she was closer to managing that than she was apparation.)
"Yeah, but, you know, proximally, it's definitely Arcturus's fault," Aster noted, still frowning at nothing.
Obviously she'd caught the last bit of the explanation as they slipped back into the mundane plane. It was, Lily had decided, very strange, listening to someone talk in the shadow plane. Not bad strange, just...strange. She was fairly certain she wasn't actually hearing anything when they were in the Shadows, though Bella was obviously actually speaking, since her explanation continued unbroken for Aster to hear when they crossed back.
"Yes, well, I'm not going to argue with that. And the Family Magic isn't going to leave you alone just because you keep pouting over its fussing."
Oh, was that what she was doing?
Aster sighed. "I know that. I just don't know how to make it stop. Go hover over Evans!" she snapped, making a shooing motion at the empty air. "She's not even a Black! Clearly needs to be watched more closely than me!"
The Family Magic didn't seem to think so. It had sort of tingled at her when they crossed back to this plane, like crossing any other major ward line, but the sense of I'm watching you that it had initially held toward her didn't return any more than it had when she'd gone to find Aster and Remus at the so-called Cottage in Hogsmeade. (So-called because it was nearly twice as large as Lily's parents' house.) Narcissa had been annoyed that Lily had dragged her out of bed to let her in, especially when they realised that Lily had already been keyed into the wards, but in her defence, she hadn't known that she was welcome to just wander into any Black property she wanted to now. She'd quite reasonably thought she was just being added to the wards at Ancient House. But no. Apparently the Family Magic had decided she was allowed to visit any property she liked without a physical member of the Family to watch her, which was weird and cool and really made her wish she'd spent more time trying to talk to it.
Bella giggled. "She's already been accepted as an exception — I added her when she was at Ancient House. And it's just worried about you. Would you rather I explain that your magic is light now because you purposely tried to hurt it?"
Aster turned her pout on Bella. "No, I'd rather you explain that I'm fine, I'm not under attack, it doesn't need to hover like an overprotective daimon!"
"Yes, well, if you don't open yourself up to it and let it see for itself that you're fine, it's not going to believe me."
The younger Black groaned. "Never mind! I'll talk to it when we do the adoption thing."
"Speaking of which...?" Lily inserted. They were actually here to talk to Arcturus about that very subject, and while she wasn't sure how long it had actually taken to get here, they hadn't had that much time to spare before their appointed meeting with the Black patriarch.
"Mmm, yes, let's go get this over with."
Aster sighed again, rising with only the faintest hesitation, all of her weight on the leg that didn't have a serious bite wound in its calf. Lily was impressed. If she didn't know that Aster was wounded, didn't know to look for little discrepancies from her usual posture and habits, she wouldn't have noticed. Which was impressive because she'd turned an ankle a couple of summers ago, and it had been all she could do to drag herself from point A to point B, she wouldn't have stood a chance of pretending she wasn't hurt. Aster did limp, occasionally, usually when she was distracted and not paying attention to moving smoothly, but the fact that she could so easily stop limping was slightly mind-boggling. Seemed dead useful, though, given that most people wouldn't take the revelation that Aster had been bitten by a werewolf last weekend nearly as well as Lily. Even Narcissa had doubted her certainty that I'm not going to change, okay, it's not a big deal, bloody hell...
Yes, it had been a bit shocking when Narcissa had mentioned it, Lily had had a moment of visceral moment of oh, fuck, Aster... (and another on actually seeing the wounds, which were frankly awful), but she'd taken Aster at her word when she'd said she'd been bitten before, so obviously it wasn't a big deal, which was more than most people could say.
In any case, Aster had decided it was probably for the best to not tell her Head of House she'd been bitten — or at least not draw attention to it, if it turned out he'd already been told by Bella or Dorea — so she was making a point of hiding the fact that she was injured.
"Why did we have to come, again?" she asked. Bella never had explained that, just sent a letter telling them that they should meet her this afternoon at the Three Broomsticks, that they were going to talk to 'Old Archie' about 'this whole adoption lark'.
"So he can tell my adorable would-be daughters to their faces that he doesn't want me to adopt you?" Bella suggested, leading the way into the tower fortress.
"Er..."
Aster snorted, followed immediately by, "Ow. Bella, don't make me laugh!"
"He hasn't even met Asphodel, and I assume he wants to tell you off for being a stupid teenager and actually living up to the reputation of the House before letting me re-inherit you."
"Living up to the reputation of the House?" Lily repeated.
Aster gave an exasperated little huff. "Being a selfish, short-sighted idiot and giving zero fucks about the consequences of my actions. Believe me, I've already been thoroughly informed that the only thing I managed to do by breaking the Covenant was make it really fucking clear that I'm as much a child of the Dark as anyone." She pouted. "Pretty sure Pater doesn't care that the Dark still thinks I'm fucking precious, though."
Bella rolled her eyes. "Oh, he's definitely still annoyed. You broke the Covenant! He can't just sit around on his arse and expect the gods to ensure the survival of the House anymore. How dare you make him have to actually do work as our Head of House!"
She was still speaking as she flicked her fingers at a door, which opened with a silent, wandless charm. The tired-looking old man revealed behind it glowered at her.
It was kind of hard to guess the ages of magical people, Lily had found. Especially since people who were more powerful and surrounded by more magic tended to age more slowly than even the average mage. Aster, for all she had always acted a few years older than she actually was (especially when it came to snogging and/or shagging anyone who would have her since their third bloody year), would look young next to the fifteen-year-olds in Cokeworth, and if she didn't know better Lily would have guessed Bella was younger than Petunia, despite being about six years older. Thom was about fifty, which was slightly mind-boggling — if he'd been a muggle she would've guessed maybe...thirty-five? (Still probably too old for Bella if she were in her early twenties, but not old enough to be her father too old.)
Anyway, Arcturus looked about as old as Granddad Evans, so about seventy or seventy-five, if he were a muggle...but that didn't really mean much of anything. He could be in his eighties, or he could be a hundred and twenty, and she doubted she'd be able to tell the difference. His hair was a solid, steely grey, and his sharp-chinned face was going a bit jowly and sunken, making his cheekbones more prominent than his grand-nieces' (she imagined he'd looked rather a lot like Reggie in his youth), but his deeply-set dark eyes were still sharp under their bushy brows — tired, but not wandering like so many seventy- and eighty-year-old muggles Lily had met. He was seated behind a heavy desk of black-stained oak, its surface covered with what Lily suspected was dragonhide. It made him look smaller than he probably was.
Of course, she wouldn't have expected him to be a large man — their personalities might make them seem larger than life, but all the Blacks Lily had ever met were actually kind of tiny, physically. Sirius had barely been her height (five-five) and she might've actually had a couple of pounds on him. (Narcissa was actually an inch or two taller than Lily, but she was kind of a bastard, so she didn't count.) But Arcturus wasn't projecting the kind of energy that made his younger family members seem to overwhelm any room or conversation they entered, or the air of power and authority Bellatrix so easily summoned when facing Dumbledore and Dorea Potter last week.
When he opened his mouth, he sounded old and tired, too. "I am aware of your opinion of me, Bellatrix. I assure you, you haven't the foggiest idea how much work I actually do in the service of our Family. Please, sit." He gestured at a little group of armchairs situated for conversation on the opposite side of the room, rising to join them.
Lily followed Aster's lead in doing so, though Bella meandered over to a little side-bar to pour drinks for the lot of them. A bit early, Lily thought, for whisky — it was only four. Aster seemed glad for something to do with her hands, but Lily set hers aside after taking a small sip, just to be polite. There was no side-table, but the broad, plush arm of the chair was conveniently wide enough to support a glass or an ashtray, or a small diary like the one Arcturus brought with him from the desk.
"...Asteria. You look...well."
Aster's eyes narrowed, though whether at the hint of disapproval in the pronouncement of her name, or because she couldn't tell whether the old man legitimately hadn't noticed she was injured, Lily wasn't sure. After a moment, she nodded. "Uncle."
"And you must be the Asphodel de Mort Bellatrix is so...enthusiastic about welcoming to the Family," he noted, turning to Lily. As he caught her eye, she felt a hint of pressure behind them, a sense that the room was closing in around her, somehow — the tell-tale signs of a legilimens testing the boundaries she'd imposed between them.
This wasn't entirely surprising, Aster had mentioned that her Head of House (their Head of House) was a natural legilimens, like Sev and Thom. She hadn't thought to ask, though, whether she ought to let him in. What the protocol was, meeting a strange legilimens for the first time — was it rude, keeping a legilimens out? She shouldn't think so, generally speaking, but she was kind of petitioning to join this man's House, it might not be entirely inappropriate for him to want to make sure she wasn't trying to take advantage of Bella's generosity or some such thing. But on the other hand, if she let him in, he might think her incapable of protecting the House's secrets, or weak-minded in general, or form some other undesirable impression based on her thought-patterns and memories. Her immediate impression of him, along with the things she'd heard from Aster and Bella, was that he wasn't quite as easy-going as Aster and definitely not as mad as Bella — he might not take it well that she was dedicated to her Lady, or that her personality was a bit dark, even compared to, say, Aster and Reggie.
Thom probably wouldn't care if she tried to keep him out. She also probably wouldn't be able to if she tried. He was smooth enough she hadn't noticed him trying to establish contact until he drew attention to the fact that he'd already done so by 'talking' to her, commenting on her vaguely ambivalent disapproval of the actions that had led to her existence with an exceedingly casual, entirely unapologetic It was nothing personal. And you needn't pretend you actually care — no one here expects you to, and putting on a show we all know is false would be exceedingly tedious, don't you agree? Sev, on the other hand, would probably be deeply suspicious if she suddenly decided that she didn't want him in her mind and pushed him out. But he wouldn't dream of intentionally legilimising a stranger to get their measure. He kind of hated his natural inclination toward being an invasive twat. But Lily had a suspicion that both Thom and Sev might be somewhat poor examples of normal mind-mage behaviour, so...
Yeah, all that was pretty much meaningless, probably. (Damn it.)
And it was kind of too late to ask now. (Double damn it!) Unless...
"It's Evans, Lord Black. Lily Evans," she said, correcting him as politely as possible. Though perhaps she shouldn't have. She had, after all, cut ties with her parents fairly decisively last weekend. Force of habit.
The old man's eyes narrowed. "Yes, of course, Miss...Evans. What a very...muggle name."
"I hear there are a lot of muggles called Black, too, Uncle," Aster said, in the absence of a response from Lily, who was quite frankly too taken aback to come up with one. It had been years since anyone had taken such an obvious immediate dislike to her for simply being muggleborn. Of course, Arcturus had probably already been inclined not to like her, and she knew she was insulated at Hogwarts due to all the biggest pureblood supremacist arseholes knowing that Lily didn't act like their stereotypical conception of a muggleborn (basically Charity Burbage, to a T) and, more importantly, that she had just as much respect for Magic as any of them. (More than most of them, honestly.) Yes, Mulciber and Avery were still complete dicks to her, but more because she'd made a habit of standing up for the other muggleborns and weirdos they liked to harass than because they considered her a mudblood.
Still, it was hardly important. As soon as he was distracted by Aster, she asked, «Bella, should I let him into my mind?» She was pretty sure Lord Black didn't speak Parsel, even if he did manage to catch her low hiss over Aster's resigned explanation of the fact that she wasn't concerned about having been bitten by a werewolf, damn it! (She seemed annoyed that it had only taken about ten seconds for him to have changed the subject to that particular topic.)
Bella giggled. «Not necessary.»
It took a moment for Lily to make out the meaning behind the odd accent Thom said was the absence of Parsel magic in her speech. Apparently, what one understood in the snake tongue was heavily mediated by magic — snakes couldn't actually talk, after all — and Bella was just...making the sounds? It was really weird listening to her speak it, actually. She barely noticed that Thom wasn't speaking English. Bella, she actually had to think about what she was saying. But not too hard, or she couldn't understand anything. The whole speaking a language you never learned thing was weird like that.
Like, she was pretty sure Bella's name in Parsel wasn't actually "Bella", she had no idea what the word Thom used to refer to her in a name-like way actually was. It didn't have the same connotation of sharing a household as the word which meant mother/sister. It felt kind of quick and venomous, like it might actually be an adjective used to refer to a certain sort of snake, like they called her Princess of Serpents — i.e. Baby Basilisk. If she knew more about snakes in English, she might be able to figure it out, but.
"Pater, did you actually invite us here to harass Asteria about being a werewolf?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Bella! I'm not a werewolf!"
Bella giggled. "Yes, yes, I know."
"And how, pray tell, could either of you possibly know that?" Arcturus demanded. He seemed annoyed, but Lily fancied there might actually be some genuine concern for Asteria behind the obvious irritation. "You've both admitted that she was bitten!"
"You can't see the Curse?"
Arcturus gave Bella an entirely baffled blink. "What? No I— Be serious, Bellatrix!"
Bella seemed equally confused. Aster had mentioned that this happened, occasionally, Bella expecting other people to have the same awareness of Magic as herself or Thom, and seeming legitimately surprised when they just...didn't. She shot Lily a vaguely amused I told you this happens sort of look over the glass she'd been holding between herself and her great-uncle as though the alcohol could ward off his interrogation.
"I'm not having you on — she was bitten, but she's not going to Turn. The Curse obviously hasn't managed to integrate itself into her soul, it's kind of just unravelling now."
Arcturus did not seem any less baffled at that explanation, but Aster apparently hadn't known that, either. "Wait— What?!"
Bella sighed. "Well, normally the Curse is transmitted through the ritual act of the Bite. A kernel takes root at the animus-anima boundary and so-called filaments proliferate on the animus side within a matter of minutes, drawing on the victim's physical being for energy as it tries to integrate itself into their soul. The soul is the locus of the re-writing commonly referred to as the Turn, modifying your fundamental identity to support itself long-term and integrating a series of compulsions to reproduce it. If your soul were hospitable to it, you'd probably already feel it yourself, the metamorphic process. Supposedly it feels a bit like getting malaria, on a much quicker timeline. It generally completes before the new moon immediately following the Bite. If the curse doesn't manage to integrate itself, it eventually loses coherency and dissipates — like a seed might germinate, only to wither and die if denied sunlight."
She shrugged, then apparently realised that all three of them were staring at her with various expressions of disbelief, in Lily's case because that was so cool. Self-replicating curses were horribly, horribly dangerous, Lily had barely heard of them, let alone anything about how they actually worked — anything on how to create them was considered Anathema for obvious reasons. Now that Bella pointed it out, it made sense that the Werewolf Curse was one of them, that would explain why it was never discussed in textbook examples or case studies, but—
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Uncle, stop staring at me as though I've completely lost the plot! This is common knowledge, there are at least half a dozen researchers in Dai Llewellyn who could tell you more than I could."
"That there are six people in Britain who know more about this subject than you isn't actually the definition of common knowledge," Aster pointed out, only to be ignored by everyone.
"And you can tell this by looking at her." The skepticism in Arcturus's voice was almost palpable.
"Yes? I mean, I'm not great at reading souls — they tend to make complicated impressions on external magic and obviously I'm a shite legilimens, I can't get inside them, I'd probably need a couple of analytics to properly visualise most people's — but I know Asteria and the echoes she makes in the world, and the Curse has a fairly distinctive pattern. There are still traces of it in her blood, and to a lesser extent in the flesh around the physical wounds. The kernels haven't entirely lost coherency yet, but they're obviously no longer active."
Arcturus, like Lily, just stared, entirely at a loss for words. Aster, though, rolled her eyes. "I keep telling you, humans can't see patterns in ambient magic, Bella!"
"I'm not looking at ambient magic at the moment. Well, mostly. It does move slightly differently around werewolves, but the traces in your animus are far more noticeable, and they'd be behaving differently if they'd taken."
Normal people couldn't see the patterns in the magic of a person's body without a magesight charm, either, and even with a charm — which was fairly common, Madam Pomfrey had taught Lily the one most healers used back in September — they were still incredibly confusing, but being able to look at a person and diagnose curse damage on them wasn't quite as absurd as seeing patterns in ambient magic. Even people whose magesight was sensitive enough to see ambient magic, like Aster, couldn't make out actual patterns in it. They were too subtle, and too close — like trying to make out the patterns of air currents in a fog bank, while standing in the fog.
"Which you would know because...?" Arcturus asked, sounding rather disturbed, though the only hint of it in his face was a slight widening of his hooded eyes.
Bella grinned. "Well, obviously I've watched people be turned before. And I've been bitten twice now myself, so I've had ample opportunity to watch what happens when the Curse fails to take, too." Lord Black, on the opposite side of the little pod of chairs from Lily, let his eyes flick toward the ceiling like Powers preserve my sanity in the face of the madness which is Bellatrix, and he drained his drink, summoning the decanter to pour himself another as she blithely went on. "But as I said, I know Aster. I might not be able to read her mind, but I definitely know what her magic is supposed to look like—"
"Also not something normal people can see," Aster interjected.
"—and she's fine. Also, I stand by my assessment of the general irrelevance of the limitations of normal people. Their designations of possible or impossible are clearly arbitrary, which you would know if—"
Aster cut her off, voice heavy with exasperation. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I should stop filtering out ambient magic, and I'd probably be able to do your freaky inhuman magesight tricks, too." If Lily had that kind of potential, she'd definitely learn how to use it, no matter how annoying and confusing it was until she mastered it. (Or how blinding the wards of Hogwarts were — that was apparently also a problem.) "Whatever. Do you know why I'm definitely not a werewolf? Because it'd be nice to have something to, you know, tell people."
Bella hesitated for a moment. "Because you used that ritual you shared with Thom to graft a dog's instincts into your own soul so deeply you might as well be wilderfolk? I mean, not like you can really tell people that, I guess, but that's our theory for why you haven't Turned. Mine and Thom's."
Both Aster and Arcturus seemed to be somewhat speechless at this revelation.
Lily somehow managed to choke on air as she realised the implications of that suggestion. "Did you two just– just casually find a bloody vaccine for the werewolf curse?!"
Bella snorted. "No. The ritual Aster used is intended to be a superficial thing to help bird-animagi learn how to fly without killing themselves, not a true therianthropic metamorphic integration. I doubt most people are capable of so fully committing themselves to the process, especially if they haven't already mastered a physical animal transformation, and those who are likely don't have the experience with subsumation to survive it. Plus, you know, fucking about with therianthropy rituals is one of the most likely suspects for the initialisation point of the Curse — try that sort of thing with the express purpose of thwarting the Curse and fail, and you might just end up with more strains of the Curse floating around."
"Er...right. Never mind." It would've been so neat if they had, though...
"I concur," Bella said firmly. "Amusing as it is that Aster has come to join me in entirely baffling your sense of what is and is not possible, Uncle, we both know that's not why you asked us here, today. So. You have a problem with my decision to adopt the girls," she prompted him.
He cleared his throat, eyes flicking from Bella — almost too comfortable, with her feet curled up on her chair and a challenging, almost smug smirk on her face — to Aster — vaguely annoyed, clearly not comfortable, eyeing the decanter as though considering whether she dared summon it away from her Head of House — to Lily herself.
She couldn't really guess what she looked like to him, but she was mostly just finding this whole conversation fascinating. Not only its topic — though the werewolf curse was fascinating in its own right, and some of the hints Bella had dropped over the few hours they'd spoken suggested she knew much more about magic, that she perceived more about magic, than anyone else Lily had ever spoken to. Regardless of her claim that there was really nothing unusual about her ability to see and interpret ambient magical patterns, the fact remained that Lily had never even heard a suggestion that such a thing was possible from anyone else.
The pressure around the edges of her mind briefly intensified. "One might say that."
"May I ask why?" Lily asked, since Bella clearly had no intention of doing so, distracted by a sign language conversation with Aster, of which Lily understood nothing. Arcturus might have, but his eyes were firmly fixed on her. "I mean, I can see maybe not wanting to re-inherit Asteria after she kind of pulled the rug out from under your Family Magic, but I don't believe I've done anything to offend the House of Black, or you personally, my Lord. Unless refusing to allow you to legilimise me is considered offensive, I guess."
Lord Black raised an eyebrow. Had he not realised that she could feel his attempts to find a weakness in her defences?
"I said you could ignore him, didn't I?" Bella asked, either because she didn't understand the distinction Lily was making here between it's not necessary to let him legilimise her and it's not polite to not let him, or because she wasn't sure whether her Parsel had been comprehensible. Which would be a legitimate concern — Lily had only managed to understand her about half the time when she and Thom had first been teasing her in the snake-language, back on Samhain, but she was getting better at picking through her weird, non-magical accent. (Honestly, it was slightly baffling that Bella could understand her, Lily couldn't even pick out the differences between most of the sounds when she tried to just focus on them and not the magic.)
"Well, yes, but I believe you've also told me that politeness is for people who are afraid of offending other people, so you can understand my uncertainty."
"Well, it is, but no, it's not impolite to just not let him into your mind. And you don't want to get into the complexities of adding a level of mind-magic sparring beneath the existing conversational undercurrents. And overt conversational traps, for that matter. And since he appears to be disinclined to answer your question: why, precisely, do you disapprove of my adopting Asphodel, Uncle?"
"If the House were to revive the practice of adopting outsiders — and I'm sure you and Asteria are both fully aware of the reasons that practice was abandoned in previous centuries, Niece — it would not be to adopt the nameless bastard of that nameless bastard you're so besotted with, simply because you find the idea of sharing a child with him to be absolutely irresistible." Ah. So this was about Thom.
Bellatrix glowered, interrupting before he could continue on to his next reason — Lily presumed he did have more than one. "I'm sure you're aware, Uncle, that I am not so easily swayed by such girlish emotional motivations as you imply. And Asphodel is favoured by Persephone — I sincerely doubt that her children will not have Magic's favour in turn. You may safely lay aside your fear of an embarrassing proliferation of Black squibs in subsequent generations."
"Ha!" The patriarch gave a sharp, dismissive laugh, ignoring the latter point, presumably addressing the reason the Blacks had abandoned their one-time adoption practices, entirely. "Then what is your motive for bringing the nameless chit into the House if not for your infatuation with her sire?"
Bella pouted at him. "Am I not allowed to find her entertaining on her own merit?"
"Given that you never petitioned me to adopt the Zabini girl, I think not."
"You really should make Zee your blood-sister, or Asphodel's godmother or something, though," Aster inserted. "I was going to write you, but I forgot — she's basically already a Black anyway, and she knows us too well to be an outsider."
"We've had a reciprocal conpatres agreement since we were teenagers, Aster. Zee's relationship to the House is not in question, here. Don't change the subject. And I'm arguably as responsible for Asphodel's existence as Thom. If he'd had his way, I would have killed her mother once she'd served her purpose, and Asphodel would never have been born. I would hold an interest in her existence regardless of whether Thom recognised her as his — though he'd have to be blind and stupid not to."
"So you're claiming a maternal responsibility simply because you refrained from killing the girl's bearer?" Arcturus said skeptically. "You would have been, what, nine? I'm inclined to say that doesn't count."
Bella shrugged. "That and I've been informed that we female people have certain maternal instincts that supposedly kick in at a certain age, regardless of our personal preferences and better judgment on the issue of offspring."
Aster gaped at her cousin. "You what?"
Bella giggled. "It's true, Dru warned me about it. She blames Narcissa's existence on hormones and wine. Also her Lovegood violinist having more poetry and compassion in his soul than the entire House of Black combined." When Aster continued to gape, she added, "She was very drunk. Possibly on Wyrm. Possibly because I thought it would be funny to see her react without censoring herself for once. I definitely wasn't wrong."
"Isn't it lucky, then," Arcturus said drily, ignoring Bella's confession of drugging her mother for giggles, "that you're engaged to be married. Plenty of opportunity and indeed obligation to produce offspring of your own — Powers preserve us all. Have you spoken to the Lestranges about this? I had not considered it, but your simply acquiring a daughter or two would necessitate a renegotiation of your nuptial contract, would it not?"
"I don't see how. Asphodel and Asteria would remain daughters of the House of Black, regardless of my relationship to it. There is, I believe, precedent in Maia Acantha's marriage into the Fortescue family after bearing three bastards for the House."
"Thus undermining the argument that you wish to take any responsibility for either of them, maternally motivated or otherwise," Arcturus (reasonably) pointed out.
"Quite the contrary: at this age, assuring their social and financial security is all an adoptive parent might reasonably be expected to do for them, which integrating them into the House — or properly situating her in the inheritance structure of the House, in Aster's case — would easily achieve. It's hardly as though they require a caretaker."
Arcturus's disapproving frown grew grimmer. "I will not re-inherit Asteria, Bellatrix. Regardless of the conditions under which she chose to act against the House and any remorse she may feel for those actions — not that I believe she truly harbours any such feeling — the restoration of equilibrium to her mind does not ameliorate the consequences of her choices while Mad, for us or for her. She's lucky to continue to bear our name. I will not reward her running off and getting a bloody sex-change by allowing her to claim rights as a fully recognised member of the Family!"
"For the record," Aster spat, glaring right back at him, "I never claimed 'any such feeling', as you put it. I'm not sorry, I don't regret it, and you can go fuck yourself if you think me being a girl now has a damn thing to do with any of this!"
Bella's response was much calmer. "Hmm, if you think back on it, Uncle, I believe you might find that the actual underlying destabilising force behind the episode which resulted in Asteria breaking the Covenant was a combination of you forcing her to participate in the Yule ritual on pain of being entirely cast out, and me cruciating her in the wake of the ritual, leading her to believe I hated her. Walburga pressuring her to renew her vows to the House on Lammas almost certainly sparked off the specific incident, but she had to have been planning it for some time, at least on some level.
"I'm not saying she isn't responsible to some degree and I know you really don't know what it feels like to be Mad, but you do know what it looks like when one of us is falling into it. The signs are obvious enough in hindsight. If nothing else, we bear a degree of responsibility as well for alienating her and failing to realise her increasing instability. Which is why I offered to adopt her, in case you were wondering — though becoming a girl and in so doing earning the forgiveness of the Dark for breaking the Covenant doesn't hurt — and why you will have the forbearance to allow it."
"I will do no such thing!" Lord Black declared, nostrils flaring as he scoffed at her. "I know you think yourself in a position to make demands, Bellatrix, but that is simply not the case, and on this subject I will not be moved!"
"How often do I actually make demands of you, Uncle? I think I can count the number of times on one hand. And you give me what I want every single time I make an actual demand because I am in a position to challenge you for the leadership of this House, and have been since I was Asteria's age. If the Dark has forgiven her — and it has — you have no right to contest—"
"The fuck I have no right! I am the Lord of this House, Bellatrix! And that– that thoughtless little shite fucked us over as much as the Dark in breaking the Covenant! I have every right to refuse to exonerate her, she—"
"She acted like a child of the Dark, pushed beyond the bounds of sanity by the pressures of being a member of this House under a neglectful shite like you, Archie, darling," Bellatrix interrupted, her voice dangerously cold. Hard. Uncompromising. "If the House dies in this generation, that's on you as its Lord, not on her. If you'd done your fucking job — reined in the excesses of our parents' generation, paid even the least attention to the problems festering under your fucking nose — she wouldn't have felt the need to break the Covenant any more than I would have needed to make the fucking Choice. You will not cross me on this."
"Or what? We both know you don't want to challenge me for the leadership of the House. If you did, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we? If you truly think you would have done a better job, the fault is as much yours as mine for failing to take on the responsibility yourself!"
"Yes. We do both know that, don't we. Perhaps I'm as selfish and irresponsible as anyone else in this fucking family, when it comes right down to it. But it's recently come to my attention that Narcissa and Regulus would be open to a dynastic marriage—" Arcturus attempted to interrupt, but Bella refused to stop talking. "— which would allow me to abdicate in favour of Cissy within a few years. We both also know that Asteria is my daughter in spirit more than any of the other two dozen and more children of this House I've had a hand in raising, and I'm fairly certain I've made it clear on multiple occasions that if you refuse to defer to my judgment when it comes to her I will take the decision in question away from you, regardless of how little I envy you the position of patriarch."
Aster seemed to lose her composure at that — as though she didn't already know that Bella considered her a daughter in all but name. She bit her lower lip to stop it wobbling, and summoned the decanter away from Arcturus after all, throwing back a quick shot and pouring another to sip at. Neither he nor Bella seemed to notice, their attention fixed on their furious staring contest. Lily did, but their chairs were too far apart to reach over to her, so she had to make do with a reassuring smile.
"Yes, you have taken a more direct role in raising her, haven't you? Your little favourite," he spat, as though it was some sort of insult or embarrassment, that Bella should favour Aster above her cousins. "Why is that again? Oh, yes, because you twisted little Sirius's soul to mirror yours in the effort to save his worthless life. I should have let him die!"
"Oh, fuck you, Archie! That wasn't your choice either, and you were glad enough for my actions at the time — Siri was the only viable heir to the House, you almost killed Orion for his stupid, reckless hatred! I've thought that she would be the redemption of the House in the eyes of the Dark since she was about four. She was my favourite even before I saved her soul, she is the only member of the House with whom I feel any actual sense of kinship and I will be adopting her! This is no more negotiable than my decision to raise her and Narcissa in kind, or my curtailment of Walburga's programme of polarised magic lessons, or my refusal to allow you to attempt to correct her obsession with James Potter, or—"
"Oh, yes, and look what that got us! Your would-be redemption of the House is a broken, disgraced blood-traitor who turned himself into a girl on a lark! Leaving us with the soft-hearted baby of the House, or a bastard bitch with no Black blood to speak of — I will not allow you to marry the two of them to each other, can you imagine the scandal, two third-degree marriages in two generations? — which means—"
"Oh, yes, such a fabulous Head of House you are, more concerned with the opinions of Society than the good of the House! Cissy's blood is clean, she and Regulus are an excellent match in terms of pedigree, so fuck the scandal! Aster turning herself into a girl is hardly relevant, and I never approved of Potter any more than you did, but attempting to twist a mind you have never understood into an entirely new shape was never anything more than a recipe for disaster — the arithmancy suggested that she'd kill herself within the year! And you're one to complain about her being broken — is that not the point of the approach the House takes to raising children? If you don't manage to break them, they might end up challenging your decisions and— Oh, wait."
She cut off with a heavy glare, obviously making a point about their own relationship, though Lily wasn't certain that it was entirely valid. Bella might have found a way to come back stronger and more dangerous after being broken, but from what she'd gathered from Aster and a few dropped comments discussing the Covenant and Bella's Choice with the woman herself, she had actually been fairly thoroughly broken when she was very small.
Arcturus quoted a short, harsh phrase at her, something in Gobbledygook.
Bella's glare only narrowed. Magic snapped in the air around her and she leaned forward, as though on the verge of rising to her feet, but her nails dug into the leather arms of her chair, clearly physically restraining herself from reaching for a weapon. Obviously she was attempting to keep her temper. "People are not swords, Uncle, and if they were, it would not be Asteria's fault that Orion's impatience shattered her before she was properly tempered. Do you recall our conversation that evening? The one where you begged the Dark to spare your pathetic life despite your utter failure to act in the interests of the future of the House — not only with me, but with Aster as well? The one where you begged me to salvage your heir, if I thought there was any chance of doing so, and agreed that to that end, I would have the final word in all matters to do with her raising and education? Asteria is mine, and you will officially recognise that fact."
"I. Will. Not," Arcturus hissed between clenched teeth. "You failed, Bellatrix!"
The hiss that escaped Bella's clenched teeth held a rather different meaning. «Eat yourself and die!» Lily, taking a sip of her neglected drink, fell into a fit of coughing, choking on the burning liquor as she was startled into laughter. "I did not! She's alive, she's willing to embrace the House again despite the best efforts of you and everyone else to drive her away over the past five years—"
"You did! You alienated her as much as I did— You used the Cruciatus on her!"
"That was a miscommunication, and Aster has forgiven me for it."
"A miscommunication?! You failed— Your child is an adult now, and she's a blood traitor! Worse than useless! If there weren't so few of us left, I would have disowned her entirely back in August! I will not condone your adoption of her! Not under any circumstances!"
"Then you leave me no choice!" Bella snapped, that declaration followed by another in Welsh, and a positive flood of magic into the space at the centre of the little circle of chairs, an equal amount of power drawn through Arcturus, who winced as he was caught up in the...spell? It didn't really feel like a proper spell. It felt, in fact, like the Family Magic, pulling away from both of them as well as from Aster and the walls and the very air to circle around the room.
The Family Magic, as Bella had described it, discussing with Lily what it meant to be adopted by the House, was a sentient entity — not human, but undeniably thinking and feeling. It drew its strength from the living members of the House, its Head more directly than the rest of them, but Lily would almost certainly notice the draw on her magic when she completed the adoption ritual. It bound them together — they could draw on it too, at need, and through it each other. It was originally, she claimed, the product of the interactions between the intent of dozens of blood wards, their power augmented over centuries by human sacrifices and the strength of the bloodline, and their priorities and collective personality, influenced by those of every member of the House who had ever held some connection to it, rather like an Aspect was influenced by the beliefs of those within its sphere of influence.
Bella wouldn't go so far as to say the Black Family Magic had its own soul (maybe it was more like the collective soul of the Family?), but it was certainly conscious. Its priorities were supposedly always there, at the back of the minds of the members of the House, reminding them of their responsibility to it, even sometimes sort of...speaking to them. Not in words, so much as in images and feelings. Dreams, sometimes. Some of them could, supposedly, understand it more clearly than others — Bella left it unsaid that she was one of those to whom it spoke clearly, though Lily had understood that to be the case.
The Covenant that Aster had broken had been woven through it, its breaking destabilising the Family Magic in a way, severing a connection to the Dark none of the human members of the House had been fully aware of. Unbalancing it, though it had begun to regain its sense of equilibrium, investing itself more deeply in the remaining members of the House. That was, Bella suspected, the actual reason Arcturus hadn't wanted to disown Aster — she had hurt them, it was true, but she was still one of the stronger mages in the family, and as such an important pillar of support for the vitality of the Family Magic. It hadn't wanted him to disown her. Lily didn't have the same magical prowess most of the members of the House boasted, but Bella had warned her that the magic was likely to latch onto her just as fiercely as any of them because she had a strength of will and certitude that was generally lacking in the trueborn members of the House.
Lily...wasn't really sure what to make of that. She didn't know what it meant, exactly, what the consequences might be of the...spirit of the House of Black sort of...taking direction from her? It was one thing for Aster to take direction from her — she was only one person, and a fairly self-sufficient person at that. Lily's goals, as long as she could remember, had largely revolved around achieving a comfortable life for herself and Sev, with the kind of security they had only dreamed of growing up. Living somewhere pretty, where they didn't have to worry about money and finding work (the twin eternal worries of every adult in Cokeworth). Somewhere kids didn't trip over dead kittens in alleys on their way home from school, and they'd never have to see the stupid bullies who liked to give Sev shite for having some vestiges of pride and self-worth despite being even poorer than they were. Where he wouldn't go hungry or have to wear clothes from charity bins in the first place, but if he did there wouldn't be anyone around who would beat him up for refusing to act poor and desperate. Maybe with an actual garden.
When they'd started school and she realised exactly how ridiculous the magical world was, how utterly asinine it was in its treatment of muggleborns and ritualists and anyone not entirely human and mundane, that definition of comfortable had expanded to include being able to practise magic as she wished, without interference from arseholes who didn't know a damn thing about her or Magic. She liked the idea of a Dark Revolution, or even of taking their ball and going home, in a sense — saying fuck this shite to Britain and starting a better nation from scratch — she could easily see involving herself in Thom and Bella's movement, pushing for a less violent approach, one with less collateral damage, and there was plenty of room in that plan for Aster as well.
But somehow she doubted that the spirit of the House taking direction from her was quite the same thing. She still wasn't entirely certain what it was, really. Its presentation was, in Bella's words, not exactly a protective ancestor spirit nor an actual totem, nor an independent place-bound spirit embodying the ethos of the people who lived there (like a poltergeist or nisse), but somewhat reminiscent of all of them. (Lily still liked the idea of thinking of it as a collective soul of the entire House, a sort of genius familiae.)
It was simple, she said, emotionally speaking. Straightforward and unapologetically itself. Not unlike Bella, she'd admitted with a surprisingly self-aware smirk. Lily hadn't been entirely off in imagining it to be some sort of dangerous animal, though it might be better thought of as a wolf than a cat. It might be dismissive of outsiders it had determined were not a threat, but it was fiercely protective of its Family. Like the rest of them, really — it was hard to say where the influence of the Family Magic on its people ended, and the brainwashing the children were subjected to began.
The Family Magic, though, was more...nurturing, Bella claimed, than the collective attitude of the human members of the House. It might be rooted in them and their blood wards, but the Black elves had had a significant impact on it as well, over the centuries. Their connection to it was rather different, supposedly, less of a support system — or rather, what elves considered a 'support' system was more a system of restraints on their magic than reinforcing it and making them stronger. Like a seat-belt, or parachute harness. They weren't slaves, as some of the things Lily had heard about the role of elves from light noble kids implied, they were members of the Family, but what they needed from the House was different than the humans' needs. They took pride in keeping the Black properties in good order and taking care of its people — both human and elvin — in a way the human Blacks tended to be too selfish and anti-social to consider a priority, and that bled over to the Family Magic as much as the humans' pride in their strength, independence, and resilience.
The Family Magic cared for them and supported them, but it wasn't subservient to the members of the House, or even its Lord. In some ways, Bella said, the Head of the House should be thought of as its partner in taking care of the rest of them. He could use the Family Magic to impose his will on any of them, but he had to convince the Family Magic it was in the interests of the House as a whole to do so. Patriarchs who tried to force the Family Magic to do their will tended not to last very long because, though a sitting Head of the House could designate their heir and they were most often accepted, it was ultimately the choice of the Family Magic whether it would cooperate with any given individual. It had its own favourites, and had been known to abandon a Head of House if they attempted to abuse it or its power in ways that in fact damaged the House.
And a member of the House, if they were dissatisfied with the leadership of the Head of their House, could challenge that leadership, making their case to the Family Magic directly and offering themselves up instead. There was some need to demonstrate a certain degree of channelling capacity in order to make a challenge, Bella hadn't been terribly specific about what it was — something about the Family Magic drawing on the Head of the House for support more directly than the rest of them?
But in any case, Lily was fairly certain that was what she was witnessing, here: a challenge over the leadership of the House.
The flow of magic slowed and ceased, power in the air condensing into a trio of ravens, which shifted to take the form of an androgynous, feather-clad child as it came to rest between them again, looking from one to the next with all-black, star-flecked eyes. It lingered on Lily and Aster, frozen in shock, for a moment but then dismissed them, instead addressing more Welsh to Bella and Arcturus, who had both risen to their feet — before leaping back into the air and investing itself in Bella, with no ceremony to speak of. The birds which were the manifestation of the magic simply flew into her, through her, transforming as it did back into the formless non-construct, its energy flowing back to the wards and the members of the House.
It almost felt as though nothing had changed, at least to Lily. The energy surrounding her felt a little more...chaotic. More active, with more potential. Arcturus fell back into his chair, obviously exhausted. His eyes drifted closed as magic continued to pour out of Bella into the wards. Her eyes glowed violet, a painfully wide grin stretched across her face as she did...whatever she was doing, or let the Family Magic do whatever it was doing to her.
Was this normal? Lily didn't know, and she didn't think Aster did either, meeting her questioning look with a wide-eyed, slightly terrified stare.
Even if it was normal, how long could she keep this up? The walls were glowing, the wards growing visible as they were overcharged — that couldn't possibly be healthy...
And then it cut off, all at once, like a switch being flipped, as Bella collapsed bonelessly to the floor.
Aster was on her knees beside her almost instantly, wounds apparently forgotten in her concern. "Bella?!"
She had a pulse, Lily could feel it beating under her fingers, weak and thready, but growing steadier even as she tried to decide whether it was a good idea to try to move her or wake her up. Aster had no such compunctions, jolting her awake with a quick and medically questionable ennervate.
She woke with a gasp, eyes snapping open as adrenaline shot through her system, though they weren't quite focused, and the words that tripped off her tongue definitely weren't English (or French, or Welsh, or any other language Lily recognised).
"Bella? You're speaking Elvish, and it's scaring me."
Bella closed her eyes, a hand rising to massage her forehead. "'Ah, fuck, ow, that's a hell of a rush,'" she mumbled, the lack of emotion suggesting she was translating her earlier words. "Also, 'did it work?'"
"Did what work?" Lily asked, somewhat reassured that she obviously recognised that they were supposed to be speaking English, understood that Aster hadn't understood what she'd said before, and had the presence and awareness to attempt to explain herself — if not entirely successfully.
"Oh, it did, good."
"Bella, what are you talking about?" Aster demanded, still sounding very worried.
The new Lady Black sat up and blinked, the whites of her eyes abruptly vanishing, and turned to catch Aster's with an inhuman, birdlike quickness. "You... We try to save you. Light magic to make you like it. We cannot stop it. We are... Would help. But you...push away."
Aster winced. "Ah...That was...on purpose. I meant to do that — make my magic like the Light. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I meant to hurt them, Walburga and Arcturus, and Bella even, but not... I'm sorry. I...wasn't thinking very clearly."
"Hurt, trapped little dog scared-mad-angry, bites, hurts all?"
Lily assumed that meant the Family Magic thought Sirius had been like a wild animal backed into a corner, striking out indiscriminately, which as far as she knew wasn't quite accurate, but Aster seemed to doubt her ability to explain that. She just gave an awkward, one-shouldered shrug. "Kind of?"
The magic possessing Bella nodded very seriously. "We understand. Little dog not scared-mad-angry, now? Is still of us. Must know this, always. Still Family."
"Yeah, I know, I'm still part of the Family. You don't need to hover, though, I'm fine. And you didn't...let me get hurt, or whatever. I did that on purpose. And I really am sorry I hurt you," she added, clearly anxious. Probably because I'm sorry didn't mean much to purebloods — if you wanted to apologise, Lily knew, you had to do something to make up for the offence. And whatever breaking the Covenant had done to the Black Family Magic, Aster probably wasn't in a position to fix it.
The Family Magic grinned, gesturing at itself — at Bella. "This one...makes us whole. We are well. And you. All well. Is good."
And then it blinked and was gone, the light-flecked darkness of Bella's eyes retreating to their irises. She groaned, letting herself fall back to the floor. "Possessing me on top of forcing me to over-channel to heal yourself is not good for me," she informed the ceiling, before letting her head flop to one side to address the girls. "I'm fine. Going back to sleep. Do me a favour and don't ennervate me this time? Cheers."
Lily was pretty sure she was unconscious before either of them managed to come up with anything to say in response.