Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’ve had a thought.” Har—Hadrian announced to the group gathered once again around the campfire on various articles of furniture that looked incredibly odd plopped in the middle of a forest.

The night before, once the meeting had trailed off, Narcissa had gone back to the Tonks Residence with Andromeda and her family for the night while Sirius and Remus took the spare tent bed.

In the morning, he’d woken up early, as per usual, gone on a walk with Teddy, who had even more questions now that he had actually met his Moon-Dad (turns out, he was still calling Hadrian Dad, which he still wasn’t sure how to feel about, beyond warm) and was already used to their wake-up-early-and-walk routine, so that had turned into a long and slightly exhausting conversation interspersed (as per usual) with Teddy catching various scents and following them around, losing track of what they were meant to be talking about. The routine had originally begun as a way for Teddy to get some energy out before school, but had turned into one of his favorite parts of the day, when he got a few minutes of uninterrupted Teddy-time. It was a nice taste of how their old normal could potentially be made into something new in this time.

After that, they’d begun preparing some ingredients for breakfast, another familiar routine that had stemmed from trying to teach Teddy some ingredient-prep skills for potions that had become another little piece of quality time for the pair of them. The smell had woken Remus, whose movement had woken Sirius, whose bitching about it being to early had woken Hermione and Parvati. Draco remained stubbornly a night owl who could sleep through just about anything (provided that sleep occurred under specific wards that he had set up around his bed) and only stumbled out thirty minutes later looking like a hot mess in search of coffee. Not long after that, the Tonks contingent arrived, complete with Ted and a smirking Narcissa baring a copy of the Daily Prophet reporting on the events of the previous night. Conversation about the paper had carried them through the rest of breakfast and clearing up, which brought them to now.

Hermione and Dra—Rion looked appropriately wary, having known him quite a bit longer than most of the others. Teddy looked excited for the same reason, as did Narcissa (if one knew how to look for it) while the rest just turned their attention towards him.

“Even after we’ve cleaned out Grimauld, there won’t be enough rooms for all of us unless we do some renovations.”

Hermione looked excited at the prospect, while everyone else decidedly did not.

“That’s right,” she said, “I forgot that our flat won’t have been built yet! That means we can make those changes we were talking about!”

“Your flat?” Sirius asked, visibly confused. “Did you divide up Grimauld into flats in the future?”

“No,” Hermione explained, “We converted the attic into a flat when it became clear that the potions lab was unusable and the rest of the house was a bit inconvenient for our purposes, especially with Teddy to think about. We gutted and cleansed the potions lab, since it was in pretty bad shape anyway, and made it into Teddy’s room, then turned the two big storage rooms on the south wall into bedrooms for Harry and I.”

“We also added a couple bathrooms in between, as well as a kitchen over by the fireplace and a dining area over in the nook behind the staircase.” Harry continued. “Now that we actually know how space expansion charms work on rooms though, I think we could do better. I also think we should just use the ground floor dining room and turn the formal dining room and part of the rest of the formal sitting room into several more bedrooms and another bathroom. Maybe add another room between Sirius and Regulus’ rooms as well, if that’s alright?”

He glance a Sirius, a bit nervous about suggesting so many changes to a house that was only partially his, but was relieved to find him nodding along in agreement. “There’s a lot of space, but only six bedrooms at the moment. You five, Remus, and Harry moving in could make that a bit tight.”

“If you will be adding rooms anyway…” Tonks asked, looking a bit unsure about asking what she clearly wanted to ask. “I was going to move out in the next couple months, but would like to be near Teddy, if that’d be alright?”

“I would like to add myself and Draco to that request, if it won’t be too much of an imposition?” Narcissa said, “Perhaps not long-term, but I would like Draco to know his family.”

Hadrian didn’t buy the temporary thing for a second, but nodded after a glance at Sirius. “I think we can make that happen. Teddy-cub, would you be okay with younger me maybe moving into the attic flat with us?”

Teddy nodded eagerly. “Are you going to make the kitchen bigger too, Dad? And add another bathroom?”

He ignored the reactions of the others around the fire at the title Teddy used for him and nodded. “We’ll need a bit more cabinet space too, and room for a bigger table. Jeannie, would that be an issue, since it’s not an enclosed space?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want to change the shape of the room, just the size, so it should be fine. Rion, will you want to move up with us and Teddy, or be on…” She absentmindedly conjured an illusory floor plan of Grimauld Place split into seven floors, including the rooftop and basement and took a look at what they were working with, then pulled out a notepad and pen to make some notes. “Sirius, will you want your childhood bedroom or Regulus’ to be preserved, or can we go all out? And do you want the master bedroom, or can we clean it out and give it to Narcissa?”

Sirius shrugged. “I’ll probably want a few things out of my room, but after that, you can do whatever you like with the house. I’ll take whatever room is left after, not too bothered about where it is, Narcissa can have the Master.

She exchanged a look with Hadrian. “We’ll figure out the floor plan, but if Parvati, Rion, and Narcissa, and maybe Andromeda could help out with decorating, we would appreciate it. Neither of us have any sort of eye for that.”

After she got nods of agreement from the parties in question, she looked back at Rion. “Right, so, do you want to be in with us on the attic floor, in with Sirius, and Narcissa on the floor below us, or with Kali, Tonks, and Remus on the library floor…Harry, could we—?”

He shook his head. “The study has a lot of the more dangerous books well-warded so only Lord Black can get to them, which given the contents is a good thing,” It also held the wardstone, but only Lord Black was meant to know that, so he didn’t mention it, just concluding, “So we can’t alter that room. We could probably expand the current bedrooms and bathroom on that floor and maybe add another or a couple en-suites, if the expansions charms work out well though probably not this week, if we have to have the house ready for when Hogwarts lets out for the summer next week.”

Jeannie nodded and scribbled a few things down, then looked back at Rion. “So, Attic floor, or the Black’s floor?”

“The Black’s floor, I think.” He said. “Then little Harry and Draco can have the rooms that will be where the formal dining room is currently.”

“Good idea,” Jeannie told him, then tugged the Sitting Room floor closer. “There’s a bathroom on that floor already, but I think we should add at least one more at some point for Harry and Draco, and that floor’s probably a good place to fit a couple space expanded guest rooms.”

It wasn’t a good idea to use space expansions on rooms that would be used to house people long-term; but they were perfect for turning closets into guest rooms. It wasn’t necessarily dangerous, but if the charms ever failed—not common, but if the house was ever attacked, the ambient magic of the house would be funneled toward the wards rather than the stones that fueled space expansion charms—they could be, and at this point in their lives, he and Hermione tended towards better safe than sorry.

“They just need to be the size of the beds so they don’t accidentally crush someone if they fall, right?” Hadrian asked, having been making notes of his own about the best order to do things.

Jeannie hummed in confirmation. “The ground floor will probably be the easiest, and the basement wasn’t terrible, since it was mostly just Kreature using it for laundry—oh, Harry, we need to make his room again, so he’s not just curled up in the attic.

Har—Hadrian made a note.

“The dueling room was a little cursed, and one of us will have to rebuild the wards before anyone uses it. Also the dungeon’s pretty awful, but doesn’t necessarily have to be done this week.”

“There’s a dungeon?!” Several people exclaimed at once, most surprisingly Sirius.

“Of course there is,” Narcissa, Rion, and Andromeda chorused.

“There is at least one in pretty much every Old Pureblood family’s home,” Rion explained. “It’s just practical.”

Parvati, Remus, Ted, and Tonks side-eyed him, but made no further comment.

“We should probably ward the venomous tentacula in the front flower bed,” Hadrian continued the previous conversation as if there had been no interruption. “And the strangling vines, so they can’t get in through the windows or onto the rooftop, if we’re rebuilding the greenhouses up there.”

“We could add a potions lab this time also, and use expansion charms on the greenhouses.”

“And that’s probably enough planning until we’ve actually done the curse-breaking.” Hadrian concluded the conversation, snapping his notebook shut. “I was thinking we’d go check it out this morning, do a pass-through, and meet back here for lunch. Jeannie and I made portkeys last night so that everyone could come back when they got tired without needing to risk a splinching.”

“We also figured we should have at least one Black and one competent curse-breaker in each group, so we thought we’d do four groups; Narcissa and Tonks, Rion and Remus, Kali and Hadrian, and Sirius and I. Any comments or concerns?”

Narcissa and Tonks side-eyed each other, but said nothing.

“Are you suuuure I can’t go?” Teddy asked, pouting at Hadrian.

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s the rule when things look dangerous?”

Teddy slumped into his seat. “Let Aunty Mione and Dad make sure it won’t kill me before sniffing my little nose around.”

“You don’t want to come with me and Grandpa Ted, Teddy?” Andromeda asked, feigning offense.

Teddy, as if suddenly realizing the implications of Andromeda looking younger and remembering him—which was fair, he had been a bit distracted by meeting his mum for the first time earlier—went to sit with his grandmother and grandfather (he’d never had one of those before!) and began asking questions a mile a minute (a trait that he and Rion blamed entirely on Hermione) about Ted and his mum.

Child suitably distracted, Hadrian gestured over to the spot they’d been using as an apparition point to get the others moving in that direction, then kissed Teddy on the forehead and apparated away.

It was time to get to work.

Chapter Text

As a wizard who had been on call as a Healer for Saint Mungo’s for over a decade and the father of a metamorphmagus, Ted Tonks considered himself rather good at rolling with the punches.

So his daughter was a son sometimes; alright, he could work with that. The same wizard appeared at the hospital several weeks in a row with various items shoved up his arse; ugh, fine, but next time it’s bloody Davis’ turn to deal with him. There was a semi-constant stream of aurors getting dragged and/or levitated into Saint Mungo’s with all kinds of injuries, curses, and other assorted maladies that six times out of ten no one at the hospital had ever encountered, and he had developed a particular knack for sorting them out, to the point that his colleagues often just called him in first when dealing with that sort of thing.

Time travel…was not actually so far out of his realm of experience as his wife and child seemed to believe. The Ministry had a few time turners per department and occasionally had people working far longer shifts than they should, and many of them tended to end up under his care at some point or another. Hell, there were at least four rooms at Saint Mungo’s reserved for Healers and Mediwixen who needed to pull double or triple shifts to grab a few hours with one of the time turners loaned out to them by the Ministry since they were so understaffed, and he himself had needed to use them numerous times. That being said, Ted hadn’t been aware that time turners that turned back more than twenty-four hours existed before a few nights ago, apparently for good reason.

So while he had been surprised, especially at the revelation that he now had a grandson who would be off to Hogwarts next term, the fact that Harry Potter—or Hadrian Black now, they were calling the older one—was involved in whatever had been so bad that his wife chose to remove over a decade’s worth of memories and send them back in time had had him sighing and resigning himself to the situation.

(There was a well-known theory in the Healing community that the Potter line had some sort of luck based blood curse placed on it a few centuries back. It had never been proven, as that would require the cooperation of a member of the notoriously tricky and deceptively private family, but they were at the center of things so often that it would have been a difficult pattern not to notice. Maybe he would be the one to confirm it someday, who knew?)

Andy and Narcissa (and hadn’t it been a shock when she waltzed into the house for the first time in his memory, also having sent back her memories) had partially explained the situation the night they received the memories, but Ted and Dora had both had the feeling that the sisters were keeping quite a lot from them.

They hadn't denied it, only said that they needed to deal with the current most pressing issues before dredging up memories of a war that would hopefully not happen this go round.

Ted had made a brief argument for communication with the rest of the time travelers, but the Black Sisters were more interested in "getting things done rather than sitting around arguing" which he took to mean they wanted to make a dramatic entrance.

Fine then. He'd known who he was marrying, and frankly it could've been worse.

Thankfully, they had correctly predicted the other time-traveler’s plans and filled in the holes; namely Moody. The man had been languishing in a trunk prison for nearly a year by that point and as soon as Dora heard that, she was on board with sneaking into the castle during the task to find and heal up her mentor. Ted had been tasked with coming along to safely transport Moody to the Hospital Wing and help Pomfrey with the sudden influx of patients, should she actually accept his help, which he was perfectly fine with.

Pomfrey had demanded to see his Healing License (probably to verify his identity, given the circumstances and the fact that they had worked together on several previous occasions), scrutinized it for a moment, then set him on Moody, since he had already done his diagnostics while she started with the recalcitrant Snape at the other end of the wing who was not convinced he needed medical attention. They would then work their way toward the middle, Ted taking the side with Delacour due to his extensive experience with cruciatus exposure.

The rest of the night was a bit of a blur until Poppy had practically shoved him through the Floo in her office, acknowledging his telling her that he would be owling her sometime over the next few days with a wave.

Being in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing for the first time in a couple of years had reminded him that they would need to have a few specialty potions on hand for when Teddy started in the fall. Over the course of Nym’s childhood, he had made many discoveries regarding metamorphmagi and their specific medical needs, especially when it came to potions.

There were several ingredients that when used on most patients had no negative side-effects, but when used on metamorphmagi could have some unpleasant consequences. Nothing particularly dangerous, as far as he had found, but he had written what amounted to an entire book on the topic, even if he had never published it, given the danger that the knowledge could pose to his daughter. He had tracked down the few other known metamorphmagi in other countries to give them copies of his findings directly and kept in touch via a journal connected to a series of others via protean charm so that he could share other discoveries as he made them, however, and as a consequence had accidentally created a reputation for himself as the foremost expert on both metamorphmagus and altering potions that were generally suited to one sex or the other to the needs of the patient, given that his particular child tended to favor a mixture at any given moment.

Now, sitting at a campfire in the middle of a forest on a  cushy yellow armchair conjured by his time-traveling…what did one call the adoptive father of their grandson? Not relevant. His grandson (grandchild? He should maybe ask at some point, but was a bit hesitant to bring up any gender issues if the ten-year-old hadn’t yet experienced any dysphoria) would probably prove to be another fascinating case study, being the son of a metamorphmagus and a rather powerful werewolf. As far as he was aware, that hadn’t actually happened before.

Decision made, he resolved to speak to Hadrian at some point about doing a full check-up for Teddy, and his metamorphmagus contacts to see if they had ever heard of another case of a metamorphmagus having a child with someone of creature heritage. Hadrian had mentioned Teddy’s silver allergy already, which meant that he showed traits of lycanthropy as well as being one of the stronger metamorphmages he had heard of, bar his own child, and aside from being a marvel in general, that may pose some unusual health challenges that Ted would prefer to be prepared for.

After all, knowing this family, being prepared for just about anything he could manage would only help, down the line, not to mention being rather permanently associated with at least one Potter.

His life was about to become even more hectic, he could feel it.

——————

Harry Potter woke up the morning after the final task to the most ridiculous group of people he could imagine gathered in the Hospital Wing. Hermione and Ron were there, of course, but Padma and Parvati Patil (he internally winced at the memory of the Yule Ball) Cedric Diggory, and bloody Draco Malfoy were also gathered around, as well as the Weasley Twins, Ginny, and a blonde Ravenclaw he had only seen in passing.

After a couple of minutes of the Weasley twins congratulations on surviving and reassuring Hermione that he was alright, he finally asked, “So what happened here?” Gesturing at the odd crowd.

“Ah,” she glanced at Draco and Padma, then back at him. “Cedric wouldn’t leave until he knew you were alright, but the rest of us have something to discuss.”

He observed the way she was fidgeting for a moment, then sighed. “The third year situation?”

She blinked. “Yes. Were there…?”

Harry nodded. “You and I, at the graveyard.”

Padma let out a victorious little noise and Hermione curse and handed her a galleon.

Cedric groaned, apparently having managed to follow the conversation. “There’s more of them?”

Hermione and the Patil twins nodded while Draco grimaced and said, “Unfortunately.”

“We should not speak of this here,” the unknown blonde girl informed them. “I know of a place where the walls don’t have ears.”

Harry glanced back at Hermione.

“That’s Luna,” Hermione told him, a look on her face that said she was a bit peeved about Luna for as of yet unknown reasons. “She knows things.”

A seer maybe? Proof of the validity of one of her least favorite topics was definitely a possible cause of her irritation.

“Alright then,” Deciding to just roll with it, he rolled off the bed, grabbed his wand off the nightstand, and transfigured his pajamas into something more presentable, since his clothes from yesterday were decidedly ruined. “Lead the way Luna.”

Chapter Text

Parvati,— Kali, dammnit— had not thought she’d ever be in a position to learn from Harry Potter again, but here she was, following the man into a haunted house to try and learn some curse breaking.

Gods, curse breaking.

Sometimes she thought about who she’d been before Umbitch, before the War, and found it hard to reconcile that person with who she’d become. The DA had been a crash course, but living under the Carrows…

It changed what skills she considered essential. Suddenly whenever she had a free second from homework, she was in Ravenclaw robes impersonating her sister in order to pass on supplies to students in hiding, or eavesdropping on the Carrows under a disillusionment charm to find out which students would need to be hidden away next, or working with Tracy Davis (the only Slytherin half-blood at Hogwarts, who was found half dead by Susan Bones the second week of classes and promptly stowed away in the Room of Requirement) who had been learning healing from her father since she could hold a wand and would soon become the reason half of them could hold their own without shaking from the after effects of the Cruciatus.

One day, she and Lavender had been curled together beneath the covers dreaming of the shop they would start someday. Now she’d done it, but without Lavender, it felt empty. No matter how many friends she made, how many customers walked out of her shop with a new spring in their step, how many articles the Prophet and Witch Weekly wrote about a “New Era of Fashion”, she couldn’t help but think that she just wanted to keep someone else from experiencing a loss like hers, wanted to put the skills honed under siege to good use.

So she’d asked around and gotten her hands on the reading list for Auror training. She’d gotten together with Tracy and Susan and Hannah and Dean and Neville, or whoever else was free, and dueled until she could barely stand every Saturday night. She went into the DMLE and asked about what it would take to get into training, had been planning on selling her shop to her assistant and signing on that next September.

Then she’d gotten an owl from Hermione Granger out of the blue, and her bones began to itch.

And now here she was—Merlin, it had only been what, a week and a half since then?—part of Lady Magic’s last ditch effort to protect the Wixen world from itself. Here she was, nervously following Harry Potter—Hadrian Black, yet again.

She understood why they’d been paired together, of course; one of the most experienced and least experienced.

They had all started on the ground floor, in the entrance hall with the screaming portrait of the last Lady Black, which Hadrian had silenced with a wave of his hand. Then he’d called Kreacher, the house elf, who had apparently done quite a bit of cleaning up over the past couple days and had managed to get rid of most of the doxies and various other pests that had been inhabiting the stagnant house, and asked him which floors were the most dangerous. Soon, Remus and Rion had been sent to the Sitting Room Floor right above them while Tonks and Narcissa had been sent to the Library Floor (“Most dangerous for Jeannie and Remus, least dangerous for those with Black blood,” Hadrian had explained) and  Jeannie and Sirius took the Black’s Floor, where apparently the largest concentration of potentially deadly (to anyone not one of the two Lords Black) was located. Kali and Hadrian would be taking the ground floor, which had the least potentially deadly objects and curses, then the basement, then whoever finished their floor first would take the attic.

“Right,” he said, turning to her once the others had gone upstairs. “Do you know any detection charms?”

She nodded, then listed off the five she knew. Two were  healer’s spells: one used to diagnose the most pressing problem first, then go down the list, and the second a more thorough one used for once a patient was out of immediate danger. Both were most commonly used in battle. The third was one to detect potions and give a general idea of what they were, and showed its results only to the caster. The fourth and fifth (she admitted to never having been able to use in a practical situation) she had learnt from a couple books on the Auror trainee’s booklist; one worked similarly to the potions-detecting one and could give a general idea of what spells were attached to an artifact, but not if they were dangerous, and the other would only show how dangerous something was, but not why or what it did.

Hadrian nodded in approval, both of the selection and of her being willing to admit lack of skill. “Good choices. Those are about the best ones publicly available, since many of the better ones were outlawed a few centuries back when patent law was established in Wixen Britain. Most of the old families have a few stored away in Grimoires, but I’m going to teach you one that you would be learning once you became a fully-fledged Auror. It’s not illegal for civilians to learn, but it is illegal for Aurors to teach.” He grinned. “And I quit before I left, so let’s get to it!”

The charm he taught her was not fantastic, but it essentially combined the functions of the two that she already knew to detect spells, which was very handy. It was also, like the potions one, only visible to the caster, which meant that, if she was able to learn it wandlessly and wordlessly, it could be done without anyone around knowing the wiser.

When she mentioned that, he cocked his head then told her, “Do the charm again, at that troll foot thing over there, and tell me what you think the colors mean.”

She did as she was told. “Uh, the orange and the way it’s moving kind of makes me think it’s a proximity alarm of some sort? And the bits of teal kind of remind me of the danger one, where it’ll say if something is only dangerous under certain conditions, which would also make sense for a proximity alarm, and it tripped Tonks on her way in, so…I’ll guess it’s a proximity alarm for if an Auror crosses the threshold? And the pink usually means some sort of mind magic with the other diagnostic charm, so maybe it will trip Aurors and make them think that they were just being clumsy?”

He dragged a hand down his face.

“Gods I wish you’d signed on a few years ago. You’ve just shown more sense and actual critical thinking ability in five minutes than most of my trainees did their entire careers. Jeannie mentioned that you wanted to be an Auror?” He asked, but she was still reeling a bit from the compliment from the youngest bloody Head Auror in history to respond for a moment.

“I, yes, I do.” She said, straightening up a bit.

He nodded sharply. “Auror training starts the first week of September, so I’ve got all summer to get you into shape. Remind me when we’re done getting the house livable, in case I forget. Maybe Tonks would help too, I know she was trained by Moody…” He trailed off, then seemed to remember what they were doing. “Right. That’s for later, for now, we’ll start on the coat closet.”

As he turned and cast the same diagnostic on the door, she let herself smile for a second, before getting it under control.

She would not let herself get distracted while attempting curse breaking for the first time in a house belonging to the Black Family.

After all, if she died now, she’d never get that training.

——————

Things were a bit more awkward on the next floor up.

This floor was one of the two most public, containing only a large room that looked like it had once been suited to cocktail parties, a bathroom, and the formal dining room. That meant that it was also, generally, the least cursed.

In any other situation, this would be a good thing. Instead, it made the whole going-around-casting-diagnostics-at-literally-everything-in-a-slow-and-methodical-manner-until-something-tried-to-kill-them rather boring. And awkward.

Rion had not spent any amount of time with Remus Lupin since he was a third year at Hogwarts, which for Remus was just over a year ago.

Which meant that his most recent memory of teenaged him was him being a bigoted little dickhead.

Eventually, Remus broke the silence while they took a break on the sofa (which had previously been cursed to swallow and suffocate anyone with a muggle parent until Rion tore the curse apart with a satisfied sort of glee).

“So,” Remus said, “You’ve helped raise Teddy?”

Rion made a so-so gesture. “A bit, I would have him on weekends, sometimes, but mostly I did a lot of his tutoring.”

Remus raised an eyebrow. “I thought he went to muggle primary?”

“Well, yes,” Rion said, “But I would pick him up after and teach him some magical subjects.”

“Which ones?” Remus asked, letting himself slouch back into the sofa to rest, which probably wasn’t the wisest choice given its recent attempts to devour him, but he was an adult and Rion wouldn’t pester him over something that (hopefully) shouldn’t turn out to be an issue.

“Magical History, a bit of Runes, Arithmancy, Potions prep—though H-Hadrian actually did most of that, since he likes to cook—and Herbology, but a bit of Magical Theory and Occlomency as well. Mostly whatever I could make into a game, with his attention span, but he’s a clever little cub and a quick learner. It helped that Jeannie got him into reading young, but also didn’t, since she and Hadrian weren’t the best at knowing what counted as kid-friendly, beyond “letting him read about dark magic is probably a bad idea”. Sometimes I’d pick him up and find out he’d been reading about the Goblin Wars—this is as a seven-year-old, mind you, and…”

Rion hadn’t noticed that he had pulled one knee up onto the couch so he could turn toward Remus, or how much more animated he became when speaking about teaching his little cousin. Nor did he notice Remus’ reaction at him calling Teddy “cub”, so naturally—a consequence of hearing Harry’s nickname for him for the last decade.

Remus did, and the part of him that wasn’t beginning to respect a future version of Draco Malfoy of all people, was coming to the conclusion that he must have some sort of death wish.

What other possible explanation could there be for his apparently exclusive attraction towards members of the Black Family?

Maybe he was cursed? He should look into that. James had been cursed and hadn’t known it until he was fifteen and his parents told him, it was entirely possible that Remus just, wouldn’t know.

He found himself snuggling back into the sofa a bit more, a bit tired from the constant casting, and Rion’s voice was just so soothing…

The peaceful moment was abruptly ruined by the sofa swallowing him beneath the cushions again, having succeeded at luring him into a false sense of security.

Well, at least they’d definitely broken the suffocation curse.

…Hadn’t they?

——————

After several days of insanity, Tonks actually found combing methodically through an entire floor combing for curses a bit comforting. Finally finding something familiar in all of the mess felt like a breath of fresh air after days of struggling to keep her head above water.

Not that she’d let that stop her from doing what needed to be done. Moody had taught her better than that.

(A son. She had a kid. A kid who was barely a decade younger than her, at this point. Jesus.)

Narcissa had actually proven to be rather decent company, and not a bad curse breaker, all things considered.

Tonks wasn’t exactly an expert, but Moody had put a lot of work into making sure she had the skills and reflexes to at least get by, in most cases. He had been very adamant in his declarations that overconfidence would get her killed, so she did her best to tame her pride and acknowledge her limits, even if that had been a hard lesson to swallow. At this point, she knew she was solidly mediocre, and really, her partner Kingsley tended to take point when curse breaking was involved, so all told, she didn’t even really have that much experience.

(As she thought this, she idly banished a book that launched itself at her face away from her with a wave of her wand and wordlessly cast a diagnostic, then broke the three malevolent enchantments on it before it could fling itself back into her face, caught it as it fell (wearing dragon hide gloves, obviously, she wasn’t an idiot), and set it on top of the nearest bookshelf, completely missing Narcissa’s start at the sudden flurry of movement.)

All that was to say, Narcissa was doing much better than many of the trainees she’d worked with, as well as a few Aurors she could name. She was very cautious, but confident enough in her wandwork that she didn’t have many issues with indecision over what to do. It was great.

After nearly an hour of working mostly in silence, they decided to take a break in one of the already-cleared-out guestrooms. There were three on the Library Floor, all along the south side of the building so they got the most sunlight, and Tonks had taken a liking to the middle one. It was the smallest of the three, but cozy, and the window was at the exact middle of the wall unlike the other two, which was nice.

Narcissa seemed amused as she followed her into the room. “It’s the window, isn’t it.”

Tonks tried both to look startled at the woman seemingly reading her mind as she sat cross-legged on the bed and pulled a snack out of the expanded belt pouch she kept for that purpose.

“…Yes,” she eventually said, when she figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth about something so inconsequential.

“This was always Andy’s favorite room too. She refused to stay in either of the others, and it took until her sixth year—my fourth—to finally get an explanation out of her.” Narcissa pulled out the desk chair and sat down, gazing out the window. “The window. It used to drive Bel—“

She cut herself off before she could finish the name, but they both knew who she was referring to.

Her mother had told her before she went off to Hogwarts exactly what her Aunt Bellatrix had done; whose families she had torn apart, who she had driven mad, what kinds of atrocities she hd committed. It was one of the reasons she generally chose to look more like her father, not because she didn’t love her mother, but because she wanted to be thought of as her own person, not Bellatrix Lestrange’s niece.

And she did look like her, in the body she was born in (Moody had made her take her base form once, just once, so that he could document it in case she died in the line of duty so that they could identify her body. He had nearly blasted her head off on reflex), eerily so.

So did her mother.

Andromeda Black didn’t go out much in the years after the war, at least not in the magical world, because most times she had to dodge curses, or accidentally triggered a PTSD response in someone. Eventually, she’d begun straightening her hair and putting on some muggle makeup to create the illusion of slightly different features and had quit happening as often, but it was the one thing she would admit to being ashamed of.

“She wasn’t always that way,” her mum had said once. “She was never…kind, I suppose, but she was never like that. Not until Cygnus and Druella married her off to the fucking Lestranges.” It wasn’t often that her mother cursed, or mentioned her parents, and pretty much every time one happened, the other shortly followed. “They ruined her. I don’t know what they did, I don’t ever want to know what they did to her, but…There are very few people in this world that I would kill with a smile, Nymphadora, and those men are at the top of the list. I could never regret leaving the Family for your father, or having you, but I will always regret allowing her to become what she did. Not noticing that she was hurting until it was too late.”

“You can talk about her,” Tonks found herself saying. “Just because she became something else doesn’t mean you didn’t love her, once.”

Narcissa stared at the desktop for long enough that Tonks didn’t think she was going to say anything at all.

“She taught me how to braid my hair.”

Tonks looked back up at Narcissa, listening.

“She wasn’t all that patient, not in general, but back then, back when Andy was off at Hogwarts and it was just the two of us, she could always find some for me. She was good with her hands, good at anything involving string. Just about every gift she ever gave me, she made herself. I still have the last sweater she made me, before…But I can never bring myself to wear it.”

When she was finished speaking, Tonks let the silence drag on, debating whether or not to say what she was thinking.

“I look like her,” she admitted, not looking at Narcissa’s face. “Or at least, I was born that way. Part of the reason I choose not to is because of who she became, of course, but. Most of it was the way mum would look at me. I’ll never tell her—and if I find out you did they’ll never find your body—but when I looked like her, she looked at me like I was a ghost. And I just couldn’t stand it, how much it hurt her, and me, and so I started experimenting to figure out what body felt the best, the most like me .”

And then, at some point, she got it in her head that she would become exactly the opposite of Bellatrix Lestrange in every way she could, which ultimately lead to her becoming an Auror. Her Aunt had done her best to tear people apart, so she would do her best to protect them, to redeem their family in her own eyes, if no one else’s.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, mourning, maybe, then exchanged a silent agreement to never mention that conversation again and went back to curse breaking.

——————

The first thing that tried to kill Jeannie was the stair runner. The second thing was an axe mounted on the wall. The third was a bloody chandelier. By the time they had even reached the fourth floor, she had done away with all pretenses and had both wands out and was leaving a pile of dormant and/or broken objects in her wake.

The first time Sirius cast a single spell beyond a shield charm was nearly thirty minutes into her magnificent, one woman war against what seemed like every single piece of furniture, article of clothing, rug, and a fair few floorboards.

“If the maddest…member of this House…could not break me…” She huffed out at one point, pretty quickly after hexing him for trying to interfere in her battle against an ottoman, “I will not…let…the bloody House!”

And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, everything stopped.

“What…?” She asked, leaning against a wall to steady herself. “Why did it—? Ouch!”

She jerked her hand back from the wall and stumbled against him, promptly passing out.

“Fuck! Kreature!” Sirius called out, catching her as she fell.

“What does Master—“ Kreature gasped. “New Mistress passed the test!”

“What? Kreature? What test?!” Sirius exclaimed, feeling the weight of the tall witch in his rather emaciated state. He had only been eating decently for less than a week after years of malnourishment, though, so he felt it could be excused this time. Would definitely be talking to Ted about nutrient potions, though.

“The test to become New Mistress, of course!” Kreature replied, unhelpfully. “Master should touch the wall.”

“Why would I—?” Sirius began to ask, then abruptly lost the strength to hold up himself and Jeannie and found himself propped up against the wall anyway.

Kreature looked pleased enough that he might start dancing, which was incredibly disturbing and Sirius would die happy if he never had to see it again.

It was also the last thing he saw before passing out himself.

Chapter Text

“Good Morning Sleeping Beauty!”

Hermio-Jeannie heard Hadrian’s voice and groaned, burying her face in. Fabric? Firm, bony fabric. Comfy fabric.

Hadrian must’ve taken that as question enough, because he kept speaking. “So remember when you told me that someday I’d accidentally participate in another ritual because I wasn’t paying attention? For some reason, it never occurred to me that I should be the one warning you .”

The glee in his tone was insufferable, but fair.

“Please tell me what I accidentally did before I scoop your eyes out with a rusty spork.”

“…Do they make metal sporks?” Her terrible best friend asked in genuine curiosity.

“Harry. Explanation. Now.”

“Alright, alright. Um. This is actually also a bit on Sirius and I—“

“Of course it is.”

“Remember how we both claimed the Black Lordship?”

“Yes…”

“Well, it turns out we both neglected to claim the house magically even though we jointly claimed it legally. ”

“… Oh, fuck me. Do I own the bloody house now?”

“You do, yes.” Hadrian let her get a few more curses out before he continued. “There is also the small matter of a particular clause in this particular family’s charter.”

“God, what now?”

“Turns out, some Black Lord way back when had a bit of a thing for strong women—“

“Don’t fucking tell me—“

“You’re not married.”

“Thank Morga—“

“You are, however, also Lord Black. There’s three now.”

“…Wha—l

“And betrothed to Sirius. You have six months to get married, and whichever one of you wins a duel on your wedding day gets the Lordship permanently. Good news, or bad news, depending on your perspective, is that there’s nothing stopping you from getting a divorce after, but you bled on the wall, so you do have to marry him six New Moons from now.”

“Fantastic.”

“In other news, the house calmed down a bit once you took over the wards, so we were able to get the rest of the house cleared out while you two were unconscious. Kali showed a lot of potential as an Auror, and Cursebreaker, honestly, I’ll definitely be training her this summer. Tonks could probably get a job as a Cursebreaker for Gringotts tomorrow if the Auror thing doesn’t work out for her but is under the impression that she’s mediocre at best, which has Moody written all over it, so we should probably let her think that for now.

“Also, one of the sofas in the big sitting room on the second floor eats people, but Rion and Remus managed to make it so it just sucks them in and doesn’t suffocate them any more. Kali wants to embroider a pillow to put on it that says “Maneater” and I’m looking forward to it.” He hummed for a second. “I think that’s all the news I’ve got for now. Oh, you were out for six hours and the rest of us are heading back to the campsite to start on dinner in twenty. The pair of you have until then to either come down or put up silencing wards—“

Jeannie chucked a pillow at his head but Hadrian dodged it and ducked out the door.

There was blessed silence for a minute or two before Sirius spoke up for the first time since she woke up.

“Are you actually that opposed to marrying me? Because the spooning and your words are sending some mixed messages.”

It was at this point that Jeannie realized that she was, in fact, spooning Sirius, and the bony fabric her face was buried in was the back of his neck. She considered moving, but decided against it.

“No, that was mostly me being annoyed at Hadrian’s delivery. I’m…” She said, gathering her thoughts. “Not opposed. More hesitant. We don’t exactly know each other well, and while I find you attractive—“

“You find me attractive?”

“—I don’t know how you feel about me, nor do I really know what you want out of life or if our goals align.”

“Those are easy enough to fix, you realize?”

“…Yes.”

“I’m still sensing some hesitation here.”

“It’s stupid.”

“How about you let me be the judge of that.”

“I’m ser— being honest, it really is stupid.”

“Tell me?” He turned around in her arms, still tucked around his waist because she was still comfortable , and gave her puppy dog eyes to rival Teddy’s.

“Fuck, fine. I’ll lose a bet to Hadrian.”

“…What kind of bet?”

“Hadrian bet me a couple years ago that I’d be married by thirty. I said no.”

“What are the stakes?”

“Loser owes Minerva a hundred galleons and a bottle of Firewhiskey.”

“Minerva McGonagall?” He asked, already laughing a bit?

“Yes. Our arguing was bothering her, so she said that whoever lost owed her for putting up with our nonsense.”

“Alright? And what’s wrong with that?”

“This Minerva will have no idea why she received the winnings in this timeline and I really don’t want to have to explain it to her.”

She was dead serious, but he threw back his head and cackled anyway.

——————

As the curse breaking group portkeyed back to the campsite, Sirius could not stop grinning. He couldn’t help it. For once in his life, it felt like his ancestors were smiling on him.

He didn’t know what Jeannie would ultimately choose to do after the wedding, but the betrothal would give him six months to win her over before then, and he would be putting them to good use. He had a feeling that this would take a bit more forethought than he usually put into things, which is why he slid into the armchair beside Narcissa.

She raised an eyebrow at him and set her tea back on the table beside her. “What do you want?”

“So I’m betrothed now.”

“You are.”

“I need your help.”

“You’re already betrothed, I don’t know what more I can do.”

“Help me win her over?” He asked, puppy dog eyes in full force.

Narcissa snorted. “Absolutely not. Just be yourself, she already likes you at least a little. Maybe start seeing a Mind Healer once you’re cleared.”

Sirius grimaced, but understood the logic behind that piece of advice and nodded in acknowledgment. Then he moved over to sit by Moony to listen in on his conversation while he began scheming.

He had six months to win over that absolute Marauder of a woman, and he had no intentions of letting her go easily.

Chapter Text

Day two of fixing up Grimmauld Place began similarly to the day before, breakfast wise, after Hadrian and Teddy took their walk, then Remus, Rion, and Jeannie went to pick up most of the building materials they would need for the structural changes they would be making that day. Once that was done, the previous day’s curse breaking group converged on Grimmauld.

Jeannie, who had spent an hour or two the previous night going back over space expansion charms and how to safely use them in commonly used areas, took over a planning discussion about all of the renovations they would be squeezing into this week.

The basement was fine for the moment, as were the third (library) and fourth (family) floors. They would be working in groups for the rest.

Hadrian, Jeannie, Remus, Rion, and Narcissa were the only ones with any practical experience with magical repairs or renovations, while Sirius, Tonks, and Kali were willing to learn. Given their varying degrees of competence, however, the only two qualified to do more extensive renovations safely were Jeannie and Hadrian, so they were chosen as team leaders with Jeannie taking Remus, Tonks, and Rion, while Hadrian took Narcissa, Kali, and Sirius, so that both were relatively even but Harry got the two that would need the most teaching.

Since the attic would require little to no demolition, they decided to all begin on the second floor (formal dining room/sitting room) where they would be splitting the dining room into two bedrooms with small ensuite bathrooms, and a smaller library/sitting room where they would be keeping books suitable for children Hogwarts age and younger. The main library would be warded a bit more heavily than it already was, given its contents, but the adults had all agreed that having somewhere the kids could find age appropriate reading material would be a good idea, since there would be three in the house and two of them were bookworms.

They would also be cutting into the large sitting room a bit to add two closet-sized bedrooms (just large enough to hold a double bed without expansion charms, and quite a bit more comfortable with them) as well as a guest bathroom. The sitting room would still have space enough to hold three large couches in a U-shape, the baby grand piano that had already been in the room (Jeannie was particularly excited that it would be serviced the next week) a study/games table, a cabinet to hold sheet music and board games for the kids, and a wizarding chess table off to one side.

Once the demolition on that floor was done and any relatively in-tact materials had been salvaged, Hadrian led his group up to the attic, where he used chalk to mark out where he wanted walls built. Because one end of the attic was already split into two storage rooms (which had been cleaned out yesterday), they had decided to use them as bedrooms like he and Jeannie had in the previous timeline, only this time instead of adding an ensuite only to Jeannie’s, they would be adding one to Hadrian’s also, essentially using the same layout of Regulus and Sirius’ rooms the floor down, even if the attic bedrooms would be a bit bigger.

Doing that would leave more space in the main area of the attic flat, as would attaching a smaller bathroom like Jeannie’s from the last timeline to Teddy’s room rather than one big one shared between he and Hadrian. That space would now have a larger dining area than the one they’d had crammed in the corner of the kitchen, and would also mean that they could make the kitchen larger.

Kali and Sirius were quick learners, and Narcissa had already had half the skillset necessary (apparently wealthier purebloods tended to do some building and a lot of their own repairs to avoid having to add outsiders to family wards, which explained a lot of the more…interesting building design choices Hadrian had seen during his years as an Auror) so by the time they headed downstairs for lunch (Kreacher had been offended enough at the idea of them going elsewhere to eat that he had huffily prepared a veritable feast) most of the walls were up, which left the flooring, cabinets, and plumbing for later.

Jeannie’s team, having several more walls to build, were about three-quarters of the way done, but had decided to take a break for the moment when Hadrian’s team came through, leading to the eight of them sitting down around the long dining table in the dining room off the first floor kitchen.

Kreacher had left the spread he’d made out on the table for them to serve themselves while he moved all his things from a corner of the attic  into the little room Hadrian had quickly built for him behind the main pantry the previous night, and he had definitely gone all out. They’d probably end up taking at least half of it back to the campsite for dinner.

Tonks and Kali sat next to each other on the far side of the table, comparing the notes they’d taken from Hadrian and Jeannie while munching on sandwiches and quickly drawing Remus and Rion into the conversation. Sirius had gotten Jeannie started on the process they would need to use to tie the guest room expansion charms into the wards on the way downstairs, but had become distracted pretty quickly by Hadrian and Narcissa once they actually reached the dining room.

In a well-practiced routine, Hadrian had pulled out a chair for Narcissa (when Kreacher had found out what they were doing to the formal dining room, he had moved the better table into the lower dining room, so instead of a bench on either side, there were now way nicer chairs) and began loading food onto two plates while Narcissa poured them drinks, then they swapped one for the other, all without pausing their discussion about what Hadrian had planned for the upstairs kitchen.

“When we made the decision to travel back in time, I decided that I didn’t want to have to hunt down appliances I liked again, since it was such a pain the first time,” he explained, then took a sip of what Narcissa had poured and hummed in appreciation before continuing. “The sink specifically was a pain to find and enchant, as well as the oven and stove, since I wanted them to be able to pass as muggle, but I do want to hunt down a certain type of stand mixer in this time, since their quality had gone down by the time I got back into baking the last go round.”

Narcissa nodded along as she ate, then asked, “What do you plan to do for the countertops? And I know you planned to do something different for the dining area.”

As Hadrian told a story thinly veiled by hypotheticals about how he’d stolen his Aunt’s beautiful white marble countertops as a final fuck you before they left and how he wanted to build a small breakfast bar at the window where he’d previously kept the dining table, Sirius nudged Jeannie under the table, nodding to the pair and raising an eyebrow. He’d thought he’d noticed something between them, but the familiarity in their movements made him think whatever it was had been going on longer than he’d originally guessed.

She just shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said, heedless of the pair in question sitting only feet away from them, well within earshot. “I only found out they’d kept in contact after the trials a week ago. Apparently they’ve been talking for over a decade.”

“Are you talking about Mother and Hadrian?” Rion asked, leaning toward them. “I tried to get details, but they distracted me, have you learned anything, Jeannie?”

“You could simply ask us,” Narcissa told him, amused.

“I did!” Rion said, dramatically throwing his hands in the air.

“No,” Hadrian said, a corner of his mouth twitching. “You just asked us to confirm that we knew each other better than you had assumed.”

“We did distract you from asking further questions, however,” Narcissa added, “Seeing as we had more important things to worry about at the time.”

“Imminent time travel, for example.” Hadrian finished.

“Fine,” Rion huffed, almost pouting. “Exactly how well do you know each other and how do you know each other so well?”

The pair exchanged a look, seemingly communicating entirely via micro expressions. Narcissa waved a hand as if to say ‘after you’ and Hadrian began the story.

“I suppose it began with my death…”

——————

Harry had, somewhat accidentally, invited Narcissa Malfoy to dinner about two months after the Battle of Hogwarts.

Most of the trials and funerals were over with by then, and he’d taken his DADA Mastery the week before. Now he just needed something, anything at that point, to occupy his time besides studying up for Auror training.

The note he had sent was mostly meant as a thank you, accompanied by a tin of various baked goods he had stress baked after taking the Mastery Exam, since he felt like his previous, rushed thank you for her part in getting him to the end of the battle had been a bit…underwhelming. Taking his cues from Mrs. Weasley, as he often did, desserts had seemed like the way to go.

Her thank you note for the thank you note and the baked goods had suggested that she may like to try more of his baking some time if what he had sent was anything to go by and before long he was half-accidentally offering to cook for her sometime, not really thinking about how it sounded. Her acceptance had sent him into a mad dash to make Grimmauld look somewhat presentable, and with Kreacher’s help, he was able to make at least a couple floors look and feel habitable.

It had been a bit awkward at first, but by the end he had confirmed his suspicions that Narcissa was a bit of a manipulative force of chaos with a wicked sense of humor and that edge that every member of the Black family he had met carried in their own way. But she cared, in her own way, about all sorts of things.

(Years later, he wasn’t all that surprised to find that she, Draco, and Snape had been faking prisoner’s deaths and smuggling them from Malfoy Manor.)

Before he realized what was happening, she had sort of goaded him into inviting her back the next Sunday for tea, then again the Sunday after. Eventually they’d begun trying different cafes and restaurants and tea rooms all over muggle London, once Hermione moved in (magical London would have been asking for trouble) though their little meet-ups had decreased in frequency to once or twice a month when he began Auror training.

They never quite stopped, once they started, but the purpose changed over time. Harry being rather clueless about magical society as a whole and Narcissa being much the same when it came to muggles, educating each other about the cultures they were raised in became a common theme. Gossip was also something they shamelessly indulged in—both being incurably nosy—and with how little their social circles intersected, there was always something to talk about. Once he became an Auror, she would occasionally act as an informant, and had proven herself clever enough never to be suspected, though it probably helped that, so far as anyone was aware, they didn’t actually know each other.

It went on like that for a couple years until one day, Harry forgot he had invited Narcissa over and had agreed to take Teddy for the weekend. Narcissa quickly fell in love with her nephew (great nephew?) and once Teddy took a shine to her as well, she ended up getting back in touch with her sister. Draco having already done so had softened Andromeda towards her a bit, and soon Narcissa could be found at the Tonks residence nearly as often as her own, catching up on lost time.

(Andromeda was fully aware of their "little dates" as she called them, as both parties involved saw her as a confidant, even if they never divulged the name of the person they were meeting. She teased them both relentlessly, if separately, and to that day, ten years in the past, they were not aware that she knew. Andromeda knew how to play the long game, and her speech at their wedding would have James Potter rolling over in his grave laughing. King of Pranksters her arse.)

When Narcissa regained her Healing license and opened up her clinic, their meetings became even less frequent, but never quite stopped. Sometimes she would still help him out on cases, or in bizarre social situations where Harry had no frame of reference. Harry brought her a steady stream of patients and had a knack for finding obscure tomes on healing or strange curses and hexes or history.

Then came the opportunity to go back in time, and now here they were.

——————

“So you just…” Parvati began, a bit skeptical, “Hung out? For ten years? Nothing else?”

Hadrian and Narcissa glanced at each other then nodded. The others didn’t need to know about the times they had discussed becoming more, even made moves in that direction a few times in the last couple of years before deciding that their lives just wouldn’t allow it. Harry had been Head Auror by then, on top of being one of Teddy’s primary caretakers, and Narcissa’s clinic was always busy.

On top of that, neither of them really wanted to deal with the drama that being in a public relationship would bring. It was always ‘maybe once Teddy’s a bit older’ or ‘maybe once I’m able to hire on a few more Mediwix’ or ‘bloody Skeeter finished her Azkaban sentence and is back with a vengence and a vendetta and I don’t want her to come after you when your reputation is starting to recover’. The timing was never right.

Although, that may have changed, now that they had quite a bit more of it.

Most of the table very obviously was not buying what they were selling.

“Do you smell that, Remus?” Sirius asked his friend.

“I believe I do, Sirius.”

“The pungent—“

“Odious—“

“Scent of—“

“Bull-shit!” The pair finished in unison, along with Jeannie and Tonks, who had caught on. Rion was just staring them down, seemingly daring them to try lying to him again.

“Alright, alright,” Hadrian said, raising his hands as if in surrender, keeping half an eye on Narcissa’s reaction to what he was about to say. “Maybe there was more to it.”

“Oh?” Kali asked, also incurably nosy.

“We may or may not have been married for a bit—“

“WHAT?!”

Narcissa briefly looked just as confused as the rest of them, before letting out an entirely involuntary bark of laughter, both at his game and at the memory of that particular period of time.

“I’d nearly forgotten that!” She said once her laughter had abated enough that she could string a sentence together.

Hadrian gasped in mock offense, one hand going as if to clutch at invisible pearls. “Mrs. Crenshaw! How could you say such a thing?!” He exclaimed in a high, posh accent, causing Narcissa to let loose another peal of laughter.

“The look—“ She cackled, “The look on her face!”

“I swear to Merlin it could fuel my patronus.” Hadrian told her, beginning to laugh as well. “And her husband’s face!”

“You’re talking about an undercover mission, aren’t you?” Hermione asked, having put the pieces together.

Narcissa nodded, but it was Hadrian who continued. “I was one of the only ones in the corps who could pass as muggle, so I ended up on pretty much every undercover job in the muggle world, but for that particular one, I needed to get information from someone without tipping them off—“

“Which meant infiltrating their social circles, which would be easier to do if he was ‘married’ to someone who looked like they could actually belong, which is how I came into it.” Narcissa finished, still grinning, one hand on Hadrian’s forearm where she had caught him while laughing.

As they told the story, Sirius began to laugh also, partially from the mental image of Narcissa swanning about and causing chaos amongst the muggle elite, and partially because he hadn’t heard her laugh like that since she was twelve and it was fucking fantastic to witness.

Rion seemed to be in a similar state across from him, along with the added dread that came from realizing that he actually sort of approved of the man his own age who had apparently been half-way courting his mother for half a decade, purely based on the fact that he had never heard her laugh like that before.

Sirius did not envy him at all. Or pity him.

He might just be laughing about this forever, actually.

Chapter Text

Getting back to work after lunch was a welcome distraction for Rion.

The realization that something had been going on between his mother and Ha-Hadrian had had a few days to settle in by the time he’d gotten confirmation, but that didn’t make it any easier to think about. Channeling those confusing feelings into building walls in what would be a younger version of his room seemed like as good a thing to do as any.

“Want to talk about it?” Lupin, or Remus, as the man had insisted, was building out the closet a few feet away from him while Jeannie and Tonks did the same to Harry’s room across the hall.

Rion huffed out a breath. “Talk about my childhood crush dating my mother? Fuck no.”

Remus choked out a laugh, but quickly cut himself off, apologizing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh, I just didn’t expect that.”

Rion waved it off, but batted a bit of plaster with a light banishing charm into the back of Remus’ trousers. He thought about the offer for a minute then shrugged.

What was the harm?

“I think the weirdest part is that I’m kind of happy for them,” Rion decided. “I would have expected to be angry, or confused maybe, but the more I see them together, the more it makes sense, and I don’t know how to feel about…all of it.”

Remus hummed to indicate that he was listening, but kept working on the closet.

“But, growing up, watching my mum get colder every time Father walked into the room, wear her expressions like armor, versus watching her practically light up with bloody Harry Potter of all people…I can’t and won’t fault her for finding happiness after the life she’s lead. Even if it grosses me out to think about.” Rion sighed. “You’re a relatively unbiased third party, what do you think of it?” He asked, not sure he wanted the answer.

Remus thought for a minute, levitating the hanger bar into place. “It sounds to me as if they’ve been dancing around it for years and never really got the chance to…give it a chance. Always something in the way.” He shrugged. “As a “relatively unbiased third party” I suppose I tentatively support it, based on the lack of impulsive decisions and the care they seem to have taken with Teddy. He clearly knows Narcissa well and likes her, which, given that he inherited the werewolf instincts from me, is impressive all on its own.”

(Remus had noticed she was good with Teddy, but assumed that it had been a consequence of Andromeda being his grandmother and her sister, not Hadrian having any sort of relationship with Narcissa.

Not that he hadn’t noticed the pair watching each other, he’d just thought it was a new development.

They made a striking pair, those two, Hadrian’s darker hair and skin a stark contrast against her light blonde, and his many scars against Narcissa’s seeming lack. But they both had that look in their eye, the look of a person who had faced many challenges and had come out the last man standing, if not the victor. The look of a person the wolf could only think of as a predator not to be trifled with.

He was under no illusions that Narcissa Black had faced an easy life, even if it wasn’t the type that himself and Hadrian had, and if there was any woman who could handle the type of life Hadrian lead, it was her. The husband she had been all but sold to as a teenager had been the right hand of a Dark Lord, whose minions had occupied her home during a war. Her sister was the sort of psychopath whose name struck near as much fear as the Dark Lord’s, the kind of villain directly responsible for tearing families apart. Most people never saw the Dark Lord directly, but many could identify Bellatrix Lestrange from a glance alone, an echo of that haunting cackle, that eerie sing-song tone of voice, even years after an encounter. The woman had to have nerves of bloody steel at the very least.

Remus had gone to school with Narcissa for years, he had seen her duel, had seen the ferocity with which she protected younger students as a prefect. He had thought her the sanest of the Blacks, sure, but the wolf had always known to see her as a threat, even if not necessarily to himself.

He had found her the hottest woman he’d ever met at one point, and she was the main reason he knew he was bisexual and not entirely gay.

Not that he would say that to her son, of course.)

He thought for a minute longer before he finally said, “At this point, I’m of the opinion that we should simply wait to see what comes of it. They’re both adults, and in the end, our opinions won’t stop them from doing what they will, so we may as well see what comes of it before forming any solid opinions.”

Rion nodded in agreement. “Say what I will about the man, Hadrian would never force my mother to do anything she didn’t want to do, though knowing her, I doubt he could even if he was the type of man to try. Wait and see is as good a plan as any.”

Remus hummed again, then changed the subject.

He could only think about the man his godson grew into being in a relationship with a woman he went to school with for so long before he felt the need to go cry or rip something to shreds or drink half the contents of the cellar.

“So, You’re considering teaching Potions this year? Will you need to retake the Mastery Exam this summer?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

——————

“So, you and Malfoy’s mum?” Kali asked once she and Hadrian were working together on Teddy’s room and the ensuite. The witch in question was on the opposite end of the building, working with Sirius on Hadrian’s room. Jeannie’s had been done first, partly as a demonstration, and after they finished with Teddy’s, they’d be tackling the kitchen.

“Sort of,” Hadrian replied distractedly.

“Sort of?” Kali asked, blatantly fishing for information.

“Not really, but also yes? Kind of. I need to have several conversations with her before I can give you a concrete answer.”

Kali stared at him for a long moment, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. He’d grown a lot since school, she thought, thinking back to how bad he’d been with her and Cho and Ginny.

“What?” He asked a bit defensively.

“Just thinking,” she said, “that the pair of you would have adorable babies.”

Hadrian choked halfway through a spell and blasted a hole in the wall, then turned to her, face flaming.

She dodged away from a stinging hex, laughing.

——————

Tonks stepped back and examined her and Jeannie’s handiwork. Harry’s room wouldn’t be the largest, but it was a decent size, room for a bed to length or widthwise across the room at the widest part, by the window, and a desk and a few bookcases whichever way he wanted to arrange the furniture despite the room getting smaller at one end to accommodate for where the staircase stood.

They had added a small closet against the staircase wall, doors sliding so they wouldn’t interfere with the ensuite or bedroom doors. The ensuite itself was pretty standard, a toilet, shower, and sink, and if he ever wanted a bath, there was one in the guest bathroom on the other side of the wall.

Jeannie had insisted on charming the walls a pleasant soft yellow rather than leaving them white for him to choose later, refusing to elaborate on why, but getting a sort of look on her face that had Tonk’s auror brain sitting up and taking notice.

There had already been some concerning behaviors she had noticed in Hadrian that had her believing that his life growing up had been less than ideal, and if anyone was going to have any knowledge of how bad it had been, it would be Jeannie. But there was a time and a place, and frankly, Tonks wasn’t sure they had built up that kind of rapport yet.

She’d keep an eye on them, she decided, but put aside those thoughts in favor of something more pressing.

“Do you think there’s enough furniture in storage for all the rooms here?” Tonks asked, not really expecting an answer. As far as she was aware, none of them had gotten the chance to check out the storage room in the basement.

Jeannie tilted her head to one side in thought. “Probably, though I’m not sure if any of it is cursed or not. Let’s go take a look.”

She made to go for the door, but seemed to trip on nothing and catch herself on the wall.

As soon as her hand hit, a hum of magic filled the room for a moment, the lights briefly flickering out then back on. Tonks’ wand was out and in her hand ready to shield, but there was no opponent, only a newly furnished room.

The pair of them stared around in shock, taking in the new furnishings; a beautiful bed frame of a dark wood carved with vines and ravens that matched the new desk, chair, and bookshelf, as well as what appeared to be a broom rack above the bed. The floor was covered in a large, beautiful floral rug in blues, greens, and yellows, and the duvet cover and the rest of the bedding was in complimentary shades. The House had provided doors to match—even the sliding ones on the closet—and some sort of brass tree in the corner at the foot of the bed by the window with branches that crept along the wall and ceiling a bit that Tonks eventually realized must be an owl perch.

Jeannie shook herself out of her stupor first and realized what must have happened. “The magic took what I was thinking about and made it better.”

She stroked a hand down the wall almost subconsciously in thanks and nearly jumped at the faint rumbling the House gave as an answer.

“I think it’s purring,” Tonks said faintly. “Which, I didn’t know houses could purr, but it did do a rather fantastic job. It deserved to be pleased with itself.”

The purring intensified.

The pair of them stared at each other for a moment, letting the adrenaline rush run its course.

“Well,” Jeannie said. “Let’s go get the others, then. If the House is amenable, I’m thinking we won’t need to be sleeping in a tent tonight.”

——————

“That,” Hadrian said (having been the last of the group to arrive at his younger self’s new bedroom) staring at the brass tree, “Is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Is that what the House was rumbling about?” He patted the wall. “Nice job, House.”

Jeannie stared at him.

“The implication that a bloody tree of any variety is the coolest thing you of all people have ever seen aside, are you saying that you knew the House purrs and just, never said anything?!”

Hadrian ran a hand through his hair, messing up the half-up do and smiling sheepishly.

“I thought it was just a Me thing. Hogwarts does it too. And the Ministry building. And the Burrow. Actually, it may just be all magical buildings now that I think of it.”

Everyone stared at him.

“You’re right,” Jeannie said. “That’s definitely a You thing. At least mostly.”

Narcissa nodded in agreement. “Some Lords can sense when their magical homes become sentient and can begin to sense magic outside of their homes, but generally that’s just a case of being tied in so close to the magic that it feels like…Severus describes it as having another sense.”

Hadrian cocked his head. “I can see that. He’s got a bit of that instinctual magic energy about him. Probably why he’s such a good potions master.”

“What would that have to do with potions?” Rion asked, looking like he was itching for parchment to take notes, much like Remus beside him.

Hadrian shrugged. “Most potions ingredients are magical. Feeling magic means you can get a feel for what an ingredient will do or how much of it you need for a desired outcome. I’m pants at it, but Luna was fantastic…” He trailed off, eyes sad, and if they had been getting ready to ask more questions, that look meant they certainly wouldn’t be now.

“Shall we go see if the House is inclined to do any more decorating for us?” Narcissa asked. “As much as I was looking forward to it, the time constraint would make it a bit of a chore.”

Hadrian grinned, as if he knew something they didn’t, which was entirely possible.

“Let’s take a look at the attic apartment first, shall we?”

——————

Arriving in the attic flat was like stepping into an alternate reality, just a bit.

Kali had wondered why Hadrian had insisted on unloading several large slabs of marble and a massive couch from his expanded bag and had left before he had finished pulling things out, curious, but knowing enough about the man that she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what all he kept in there (she had forgotten he had one also, having been overwhelmed by what all was in Jeannie’s) but it seemed that the House had taken them as offerings and put them to use.

The entrance from the stairwell lead into a sitting room where Hadrian’s couch took pride of place in a sitting area framed by a large rug and a couple plush green and blue armchairs. Just past the seating area was a dining area, a good sized dark wood table that could probably fit all twelve of future inhabitants of the house (not that she was under the impression Kreacher would ever actually want to eat with them) with a bench on the nearest side and chairs around the other three, two at the ends and four on the far side.

On the wall behind the table was a large tapestry of a line of cliffs butting up to the sea at sunset with what appeared to be a pirate ship disappearing into the distance and paintings were scattered around the rest of the room in any free wall space, many of them depicting magical creatures or scenes from magical districts in cities. To the left of the dining area was the wall with the door that lead to Teddy’s room, then past that was the kitchen.

She immediately realized why Hadrian had left out the marble slabs, since they had become countertops in a brand new kitchen. About three quarters of the other wall to Teddy’s room were now countertops with cabinets above and below, and the last section was the area around the fireplace. To the left of the fireplace was a little breakfast bar up against the window with a few stools beneath it and an owl perch and basket for mail on top. The rest of the little nook was taken up by a small china cabinet with cupboards beneath it, and some more cupboards, all of which looked shallower than they probably were on the inside. The wall against the stairwell also had a counter against it, but no cupboards above it, instead making space for a self-updating calendar, a clock, and a blackboard that took up half the wall.

Before anyone could do much more than marvel at the room, Jeannie had her bag out and was levitating a bloody upright piano out of it (how had Kali forgotten about that?) and against the wall several feet from where the entrance let out, right where the House seemed to have left space fore it.

“Perfect,” she declared, then pressed her hand against the wall next to it. “Thank you, House,” she told it, following Hadrian’s lead.

The House purred happily, letting the magic settle. 

They unanimously decided to do a bit of exploring.

Chapter Text

Hadrian stepped into his room and gaped.

Some of it was familiar, the desk he had chosen from the storage room in the original timeline, the same chair, the same row of empty bookshelves awaiting his collection against the wall nearest the main room, but the bed…the House must’ve heard him admiring little Harry’s bronze tree downstairs and decided to go a bit further for one of its Lords.

The double bed looked like it was cradled by roots of a tree, the trunk of which ran its way up the wall until branches spread out above the bed like a canopy, the high ceilings of the attic giving it room to grow branches all over the room, high enough that he wouldn’t hit his head.

Hadrian kicked off his shoes and crawled into the bed, a bit lower than his last one, but not low enough that getting up would be a pain. Lying down on his back and staring up through the branches, he noticed the walls had also changed color to a light green. He reached above his head and felt the metal of the tree, not cold like he would have expected, but warm and thrumming with the magic of the House, the Black magic, ready to protect him.

He had a sudden vision of an enemy slipping into his room in the dead of night, only to have their head bashed in by a thick metal branch and realized that the House was explaining the function of the tree, beyond being cool and a good place for an owl to sleep.

Or maybe some snakes, he thought, remembering the job he’d half been considering for years now.

Being an Auror was something he could do, had been the logical choice after finishing his NEWTs, but he’d been dissatisfied with that choice for a while now, especially once he’d gained primary custody of Teddy. As much as he liked helping people, he often felt like more of a ministry pawn than part of a force meant for the protection of the people.

His healer had actually suggested it first, before he even started his training.

Hermione had insisted they go get checked out by a healer after their paranoia had begun to settle a bit after the war. She’d been talking to Bill Weasley about her scars from Bellatrix and he had recommended a small private practice run by a pair of healers who’d been married nearly a century and didn’t look a day over fifty; Gaius and Alice. They would take just about anyone on as patients and hadn’t batted an eye at Bill’s new scars or Fleur’s Veela heritage, and Alice had actually been the one to deliver all three of their children, as well as Teddy Lupin.

Alice had taken Hermione to one room and Gaius had taken Harry to another and they had gone over their entire medical histories. That was when Harry had found out that he had never gotten his magical vaccines, and also when Gaius had practically torn him a new one over never having told anyone that he got bitten by a bloody basilisk.

Turns out, that second thing probably would have killed him eventually, but not having his vaccines was also a pretty big issue, since his family was apparently notoriously susceptible to dragon pox in particular. He had never known before then that his grandmother and grandfather on the Potter side, his great uncle and his son, and their father had all died of Dragon Pox after surviving fighting in the war against Grindlewald. Irony of ironies, it was actually Snape and a potions mistress named Cassiopeia Black that had developed the vaccine in 1979, only a few months after his grandmother’s death, his grandfather having died the year before.

Gaius had decided that the most sensible order of events was for him to do a cleansing ritual, which was the only way anyone had previously survived an encounter with basilisk venom.

Back when basilisks weren’t considered critically endangered if not extinct, there had been a market for basilisk skin boots, armor, cloaks, pretty much anything that could be made with dragon hide. Basilisks, however, were much more difficult to work with than dragons, given that in addition to being large and scaly (a basilisk at a year old could be up to eight feet long and thicker than an a thigh) could kill with a look and coming into contact with a single drop of their venom could kill within minutes.

According to Gaius (whose source was a seven hundred year old book from Greece that had been dubiously translated at best, but Harry had staked his life on a children’s bedtime story before and was no one to talk) most people who worked with basilisks kept a cleansing ritual ready to go for anytime someone had a near death encounter and a lot of the time, it worked perfectly well, and the only side effect that had been observed was the sudden ability to understand and speak to snakes. He had a theory that that was how one of Salazar Slytherin’s ancestors became a parselmouth, since Naga supposedly hadn’t made it into Britain until a couple centuries ago and left promptly, since it wasn’t exactly their ideal environment and the prejudice wasn’t worth the hassle.

Harry, who had been a parselmouth for seventeen years of his life, saw no reason not to do it, and just asked Fawkes (who hung around Luna or Neville most of the time) if he would be willing to supervise in case it went horribly wrong, as situations were wont when Harry was involved.

Of course, the one time he actually prepared for consequences, there were none, besides being able to speak to snakes again.

After that, Gaius had suggested possibly keeping a few magical snakes around to milk for their venom, as many species’ venom were commonly used in potions, but it was expensive to get, and the risk was rather high with several species. At the time, Harry had just recently watched someone he knew die by snake venom, so the prospect wasn’t that attractive to him, not to mention he was going to become an Auror and had no idea if he’d be able to care for multiple snakes while also working a full time job and keeping an eye on his godson, not to mention working on a Transfiguration mastery in his free time.

Now though…it would probably be a few months before Hadrian could test for either of his masteries, especially if he had to study for his NEWTs again, and with the House deciding to take on the renovations and decorating itself, he’d have a lot of time, especially once Harry and Teddy went to Hogwarts in September.

He’d have to ask Rion and Ted which snakes would be most needed. And do some research on how to even care for snakes. Actually, maybe he should just go to the menagerie or that pet shop on Knockturn and meet some, things had a tendency to go well for him when he jumped in head first and improvised.

Just as he had that thought, he heard a light knock at the open door.

Narcissa.

Generally, he tried not to think too hard about his relationship with Narcissa. Their relationship recently had been more steeped in tension than it had been for years, and he’d noticed a while back that they had both been trying not to spend so much time alone together, choosing instead to go out to cafes or restaurant rather then one of their homes like they used to do often.

He knew why, of course. It was like he’d told the others; the time was just never right, and they had their obligations. He had, however, lied a bit about how frequently their relationship had nearly dipped into romantic territory. They had kissed before, often enough early on for undercover work and in recent years, just because they wanted to. They had slept in the same bed often enough that if she crawled into his bed right now, he wouldn’t assume she meant anything by it unless she told him so. Enough people had called them Teddy’s parents when they were all out together in muggle London that none of them would bat an eye.

Sometimes, he had wondered why they still kept that persistent distance between them, then he would be on an undercover job for two months with no contact, or she would need to fill in for one of her healers on staff as well as cover her own shifts for weeks and barely have time to sleep, much less see him. They had still never gone out in public in the wixen districts together for fear of being recognized together and having their lives fall apart around their ears.

In this timeline, however…they should probably keep a low profile for a bit, given that she’d only divorced her husband days ago, but most of the problems they’d had in the old timeline wouldn’t really carry over.

Judging by her expression, Narcissa had been having the same thoughts.

He smiled up at her. “Come in, if you like. I think the House outdid itself,” he said, gesturing up at the tree.

She smiled back, something in her expression relaxing as she closed the door behind her, leaving her own shoes by the door and crawling into the bed next to him, rolling onto her back to look up at the branches as well. “It’s beautiful,” she agreed.

“Have they decided on a plan for the night?” He asked, remembering why he’d snuck off to his room in the first place.

They had spent about a half-hour wandering through the entire house and finding everything the it had changed. In some rooms—like the guest rooms that would become Remus, Tonks, and Kali’s—all the House had done was move some furniture around or change the wall colors.

(Jeannie’s hadn’t really changed much beyond furniture being added in, the one glaring exception being that the ceiling of her room was enchanted like the one in the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

Teddy’s room had changed the most, seeing as there had been nothing in it after they cleaned out the potions lab (incredibly thoroughly) and sectioned off part of it as a bathroom and closet. There was now a thick, soft green carpet covering the floor like grass a set of bunk beds tucked into the corner by the window with a desk below the window and the wall across from it was covered nearly corner to corner by a mural of a forest, magical creatures flying above or creeping around the forest floor. Instead of a bed, the top bunk was more like a little loft playroom, a small bookself at one end, but most of it taken up by an area clearly designed for building with Legos.

Hadrian hadn’t left those out for the House to place, but it seemed to have gotten ahold of them from his bag anyway, and organized them into little drawers and cubbies.

There was a ladder, but there was also a fire pole to slide down instead of climbing.

Teddy would love it.)

Once the exploring was done, everyone began discussing a plan for the night. Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and Hermione had gotten to bickering, then Rion had gotten dragged into it somehow, then Kali had started stirring the pot and Hadrian had wanted nothing to do with the whole thing and had chosen to let them get it out of their systems.

“Jeannie, Kali, and Rion are going to go break down the camp while Remus, Sirius, and Tonks go to pick up the rest of the family for dinner.” Narcissa replied, turning to face him instead of the ceiling. “While they’re gone, I believe you and I should have a conversation.”

Hadrian nodded, sitting up and moving back until he was leant against some of the metal roots and the trunk that replaced the headboard. It was surprisingly comfortable, especially with all the pillows. Narcissa followed suit, somewhat uncharacteristically sitting crosslegged.

(She had worn trousers today with a nice blouse rather than a skirt and Rion had nearly tripped when he saw, apparently having never seen her in them before. It was funny, because whenever Hadrian and she met in the muggle world, he rarely saw her in skirts or dresses. Though he supposed he didn’t often see trousers on pureblood witches until 1996, once people started getting a bit more paranoid. After the war had been a bit of a free for all fashion-wise, which had been part of the reason Parvati’s shop had been so successful; she had come in at the perfect time with new and interesting fashions (to the Wixen population, at least) and comfortable, familiar options for muggleborns and half bloods.)

Since Narcissa had been the one to initiate the conversation, he gestured for her to go first.

“We have spoken about shifting the nature of our relationship on several occasions,” she began, “And every time have mutually decided against it due to factors outside of ourselves.”

He nodded, but didn’t speak up yet, waiting for her to say aloud what they had both been thinking for days.

“Most of those factors will no longer be an issue, so I would like to revisit that conversation,” she said, then hesitated for a moment before saying with a directness that she had learned he needed to avoid miscommunication, “I would like to date you, for real this time, with the express purpose of marrying you sometime in the next year or two.”

He smiled, raising one of her hands to his mouth and kissing her fingers. “I’ve wanted that for a while now, as well. Trying to keep myself from loving you has never worked out all that well for me, and the prospect of someday waking up with you beside me every morning is…”

He closed his eyes, trying to put the words he had been holding back for so long into some semblance of order that would make sense. This was an important moment and he really didn’t want to fuck it up.

“I’m not the type of person who usually thinks ahead, my life just doesn’t work out that way, but the last several years I have been. Thinking of you, of what it would be like to share a life with you more thoroughly than we already have, of finally going out with you in public and not worrying about what anyone else might think, of the children I know you want.” Finally he opened his eyes and stared into hers, which were looking about as glassy as his were beginning to feel. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I want whatever you’re willing to give, Cissa.”

——————

Narcissa Black was a woman whose choice had not often been taken into account when it came to important things.

Her parents had been the ones to decide that she would go to Hogwarts instead of Beauxbaton with her friends, to decide that she would be marrying Lucius whether she liked it or not. Lucius had been the one to decide whether or not to allow her to pursue healing, eventually deciding to let her only because it may be useful to the Dark Lord. He had controlled many aspects of her life just as her parents had for long enough that she had begun to forget that she had ever had choices in the first place. He had controlled just about every aspect of the raising of her son, of what money she had access to (not that she hadn’t been squirreling some away for years) and until he had died in the original timeline, he had control over even what she wore, what she ate.

She had always rebelled, yes, but carefully. She talked to Severus, one of the best friends she’d had for many years that wasn’t as vapid as she pretended to be for the sake of her son. She had that Gringotts account Lucius didn’t know about in case things ever got bad enough that she needed to take Draco and leave. She went over their marriage contract with a fine-toothed comb (some days she couldn’t believe she’d managed to get him to sign it, honestly. Did he even have someone else look over it or just sign it blindly?) for all of the things that could be used against him.

Then the Dark Lord returned and it was too late.

Suddenly, Lucius was her only ally in keeping Draco alive when the Manor was crawling with the scum of the Earth. By some miracle, she managed not to let herself be marked, managed to manipulate Draco’s so he wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of his father’s actions.

If Voldemort’s death hadn’t killed him within months, she would have.

Then she received a poorly written but obviously genuine thank you letter from Harry Potter for saving his life in the forest, complete with homemade pastries and just like that she was drawn into his world. They became friends over the course of years, over drinks and educating each other about the societies they’d grown up in, over undercover jobs where he needed the help of someone who could think on their feet and survive in the muggle world.

Suddenly she was on speaking terms with her sister again, was meeting her niece’s son, was sobbing with her sister over the years they’d wasted, over never getting to meet the husband and daughter that had so thoroughly lit up Andromeda’s life that their absence had left her reeling. Suddenly she was part of Teddy’s life, was going to the zoo and the park with him and Harry, was holding back the love for them that grew in her chest for fear that it would never be returned—for fear of what could come of it if it was.

Because Harry respected her. He asked her opinions and took them into account, even if he didn’t necessarily agree, he asked her advice about various aspects of raising Teddy, he confided in her, he trusted her enough to ask her for help when he needed it. He supported her decisions, asked about her dreams and remembered them, wanted to help her achieve them. He spoke to her about the war and didn’t think less of her for being on the other side, despite not really having much choice in the matter. He let her come to him with nightmares, held her without question, let her sleep in his arms until she felt safe again.

They had spoken about progressing their relationship before, but now that they both knew it was an actual option? Those words carried more weight to her now.

I want whatever you’re willing to give.

Of course she kissed him, how could she not?

——————

The moment Teddy saw them, upon his and the Tonks’ arrival at Grimmauld Place, the first thing he said was, “Finally!” very loudly before tackling them in a group hug.

“Oh, thank Merlin,” Andromeda said, taking a seat at the table Hadrian and Narcissa had been setting. “I was almost convinced I’d only find out you’d gotten together when I received a wedding invitation!”

Narcissa stared at her for a long moment, not having realized she knew about Hadrian being the other half of her long-term…quasi romantic relationship. Hadrian, entirely unsurprised, just quasiruffled a hand through Teddy’s hair, a bright, happy yellow at the moment. “Well, we have another wedding to plan before ours, so that would’ve taken a bit too long,” he joked, glancing at Sirius who uncharacteristically blushed bright red, but smiled.

“We do, don’t we,” he said, a bit dreamily.

“If you think that woman hasn’t already gotten through at least half the planning already, I don’t know what world you’re living on,” Narcissa said, already recovered from the mild shock and patting Teddy’s back. “Hello, Teddy, have you been having a good time with your grandparents?”

“Yes!” Teddy replied excitedly, letting go of them so that he could flail his arms around while he spoke, a habit picked up from Draco years ago. “We played legos for hours , and Grandpa Ted’s got some wicked stories!”

“I’d imagine,” Hadrian said, pulling out a chair for Narcissa. “I was in and out of hospital for most of my Auror career, as were many of my colleagues, I’m sure Ted’s seen things most of us would never even dream of.”

Ted grimaced. “Be glad you don’t. The things I’ve had to pull out of—“

“Alright!” Andromeda cut him off, a bit loudly. “Let’s not ruin the lovely meal Kreacher’s set out for us, shall we?”

There was a bit of grumbling from Tonks and Sirius, but for the most part everyone agreed and took their seats, digging in without further delay.

Once everyone was satisfied, the entire group headed up to the sitting room the floor up, carefully steering Teddy, Andromeda, and Ted away from the Maneater onto a less malicious sofa while Rion cast a few surreptitious charms on it to ensure nobody’s sudden disappearance interrupted the upcoming discussion.

“So,” Jeannie said, once again beginning the meeting with notebook in hand. “As it stands, we’ve achieved way more in the last week than anticipated, including getting rid of the dark lord problem, outsourcing the Pettigrew problem and Sirius’ case to Madame Bones, who should be having an article in the Prophet in a few days about his innocence, according to the letter Sirius received at the camp site. The House is livable and rather lovely—“ the House purred in delight, causing the Tonkses to jump and Teddy to smile.

“Thanks, House!” He called up to the ceiling.

“Has it always done that?” Andromeda asked Sirius.

“Nope,” Sirius replied, popping the P. “I think it might have something to do with Ha-Hadrian and Jeannie holding the wards. It’s probably getting more power fed into the ward stone than it has in decades.”

Jeannie eyed Sirius interestedly. “That makes sense. I wonder what it’ll get up to once it’s got a bit more power. We’ve only been here two days and it started decorating already!”

Sirius shrugged. “I’m sure the library has some books on magical houses, we’ll have to take a look later.”

Jeannie stared at him, a slow smile creeping onto her face. “Remus, just out of curiosity, how even of an effort was the charms work on the Map?”

The seeming non-sequiter caught most of the room off-guard and confused, but Remus just sighed, obviously seeing the writing on the wall. “Sirius and I did most of the research while James and Peter did most of the mapping, since even though Sirius and James were the better enchanters, Sirius was better with charms and runes while James was better at transfiguration and potions, so he and I were best suited to the research. If it’s the wand-work you’re wondering about, Sirius did most of it, while the rest of us leant power, especially to the ritual needed to tie it into the wards.”

“Hm.” Jeannie watched Sirius appraisingly for another long moment before abruptly switching back into work mode. “Anyway, back on topic; we’ve got most of our short-term goals reached in record time. For the rest of the summer I have our goals as: Kali, Rion, and maybe me and Hadrian taking our NEWTs and masteries where applicable. Rion is considering applying for the Potions job at Hogwarts, as we’re all expecting Snape to quit as soon as reasonable. Remus, are you still considering the History of Magic position?”

Remus nodded. “I’ve owled McGonagall out of curiosity and she mentioned negotiating with the school board about hiring me on the condition that I live off-campus and travel to Hogwarts for classes and office hours, which I wouldn’t really mind, especially if it would put a lot of minds to rest about me accidentally transforming on school ground again. She’s also arguing for Wolfsbane to be in my contact this time as well, which would be a massive help. I’m considering trying for my Mastery this year as well, even if I don’t manage by September.”

Jeannie scribbled down a few notes, then reached into her beaded back and pulled out one of the Mastery study guides for History of Magic that she’d acquired from the Ministry a few years back and tossed it to Remus. “Have a read-through, if you got an O on the NEWT I doubt you’ll have much trouble doing self-study for it.”

Rion snorted. “Of course you just have those on you.”

Jeannie ignored him. “Kali, are you still interested in becoming an Auror?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I’ll need my NEWTs for that, right?”

Jeannie nodded and produced another pamphlet that detailed the requirements for entry to the Auror Academy.

“Just how many random bits of reference material do you have stored in there?” Tonks asked in slightly horrified fascination.

“A few library’s worth,” Hadrian answered, ducking a shoe Jeannie checked at hi head.

“Don’t pretend you’re any less of a hoarder than I am!”

“I was doing nothing of the sort!”

“You know the deal, I don’t mention your obscene amounts of random clothes, you don’t make fun of my libraries!”

“I literally just told the truth!”

“I didn’t take you for a clothes horse, Hadrian,” Rion said, interested, especially given the general lack of fashion sense he’d observed in the man over the last sixteen odd years.

Narcissa snorted, catching Rion off guard. “He’s not really, it’s more of a disguise hoard for undercover work.”

Hadrian, seeing the intrigued looks he was getting, sighed. “You lot can all go snooping through my closet once I’ve got it set up, but if you don’t mind, we were in the middle of a discussion?”

“Right,” Jeannie said, hiding a triumphant smirk by looking back down at her notebook. “Aside from educational concerns which can be settled in the next few days, there is the matter of the memories we’ve yet to return to their owners.”

“Ah,” Hadrian said, considering.

“What memories?” Remus asked, eyebrows knit together. “Have you been obliviating people?”

“No,” Jeannie replied. “Some people gave us memories and packages to give back to their younger selves, mostly members of the DA, which was our little Defense study group last go round.”

Kali raised her eyebrows. “Your “little Defense study group” that made up a good portion of our side of the war effort while all the adults were hiding with their heads in the sand.”

That got even more raised eyebrows.

“What do you mean?” Asked Andromeda, who despite her connection to the Order had mostly been outside of the conflict. She had known about the DA, everyone did after the Battle of Hogwarts, but she’d thought there were more adults in the fight than students.

Kali, seeing that Ted, Remus, Tonks, and Sirius were all interested, glanced at Hadrian, who nodded.

“Well,” she began, “Outside of the Aurors who were notoriously unreliable after Madam Bones death,” Sirius made a choked sound, but otherwise didn’t interrupt, “There was really only the Order of the Phoenix, not that we really knew about them until later, who mostly helped smuggle people out of the country or behind wards strong enough that the Ministry couldn’t find them, we and our graduated members had a good portion of the direct contact with Death Eaters.

“Not only that, but George, Fred, and Lee handled the news distribution and keeping it secret, sold defensive products to muggleborns that wouldn’t set off the trace, and ran an underground warding operation through a couple of friends they recruited at no charge. They also organized Oliver Wood, Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnet’s efforts to smuggle muggleborns into Alicia’s ancestral home, then later on, Neville’s, Zachariah Smith’s, and Ernie McMillian’s.

“Justin Finch-Fletchley and his family helped a lot of displaced muggleborns families find temporary safe houses until the war was over, then helped a lot of muggleborns who didn’t want to stay in the Magical world finish their muggle educations and find places to live and work in the muggle world. Dennis and Colin Creevey helped Susan Bones document a lot of what the Carrows did to the Hogwarts students during the Death Eater’s occupation, and after Fred and  Colin’s deaths, they worked with Hermione, George, Lee, Percy, and Luna to write a book on all that had happened, which Jeannie probably has a copy of, if you feel the need to rage at Magical Britain.

“Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom ran the resistance at Hogwarts with help from Susan and Dean Thomas, who helped keep everything organized and gave people things to do in the Room of Requirements after they’d been smuggled in, helped with rationing food, and Susan had a small army of House elves that had escaped from Madam Bones’ assassination with information and a vendetta who were able to keep the students fed and watered without putting the Hogwarts elves in danger.

“Tracy Davis and Hannah Abbot were our healers and them and my sister, Padma were our potioneers, though Lavender and I helped with ingredient preparations when we could, especially with how many healing potions we needed for the Carrow’s victims.

“There were more of us, but…a lot of people died during the Battle.”

“Fuck,” Remus said, slumping back into the sofa, ignoring its quiver of malicious intent at the realization that many of the students he’d taught did not survive the war. Tonks looked shell-shocked. Ted looked pissed .

“It was mostly members of the DA who sent back their memories,” Hadrian took over when it seemed that Kali had run out of steam. “I vote we send the memories back with an explanation tonight, since there’s a few more days of term, and maybe mention who else is receiving memories so they can meet up if they want to, and an invitation to a meeting here a day or two after term ends. And maybe their families?” He looked to Jeannie in question.

She nodded. “Definitely Dean’s family, especially given his apparently being a Black—“

“What?!” Squawked Sirius. “I thought all the Blacks were already here! Have there been other ones floating around?!”

Andromeda apparently hadn’t heard this new either.

“Ah, well,” Jeannie looked to Hadrian, who shrugged helplessly. “We found out shortly before traveling back that Dean Thomas was Regulus’ son. He’d only found out himself too late to do much about it, since Sirius was already dead, though he did know you were innocent, but…”

“He wanted us to send back the memories he selected, including that of a trip to Gringotts after the war, where he did an inheritance test on a hunch, since neither he or his mother knew much about his father. We reckon Regulus got his mother pregnant on purpose, since he left a will legitimizing any heirs that may be born to Dean’s mother, and left a pretty sizable vault to them and a note that apparently expressed his desire for the Black name to live on, but for his heir to do whatever they liked with it, since he’d be too dead to bother about it, and an apology for leaving them without a father, but an assurance that if he managed what he hoped to, it would be for the better.”

Sirius stared at him for a long moment, then barked out a short, broken laugh.

“Reggie really did outdo me in the end, didn’t he?” He said shakily. “Defected from the evil bastard, took direct action against him, and knocked up a muggle woman on his way out to carry on the family line. Bloody legend.”

Remus tugged Sirius into a hug.

“So,” Hadrian continued, in an effort to draw attention away from Sirius’ breakdown. “Sending out the memories tonight, yay or nay?”

“Might as well,” Jeannie said. “I’m rather keen to avoid Susan’s wrath and the longer we take the worse it will be.”

“Any opposed?”

At the silence, Hadrian nodded. “Guess that’s settled then. We’ll take tomorrow and the next day to get moved in properly, then go pick up the boys at King’s Cross.”

“Lucius may decide to cause problems when we pick up Draco, though I get the feeling Draco will not be.” Narcissa brought up.

“We could potentially get Harry to smuggle him off the train…” Jeannie looked at Hadrian who shrugged.

“He’d probably do it, Draco already kind of knows about the invisibility cloak—“

“So you do have one!” Rion exclaimed.

Hadrian just grinned at him.

”We can talk about it more tomorrow and send the boys a letter once we have a plan?” He suggested, and Narcissa nodded.

“Can we have desert yet?” Teddy asked cutting through whatever tension remained from the rest of the conversation. Hadrian was frankly impressed that he’d managed to keep quiet through so much of the discussion.

“Sure, Teddy-cub, let’s head downstairs. Would anyone who wants desert or to help writing the letters to go with the memories come down also?”

After a general noise of agreement, pretty much everyone headed downstairs, leaving only Ted and Andromeda to have a conversation they’d been putting off.

Chapter Text

Ted and Andromeda sat quietly until the others were down the stairs, then Ted put up a privacy ward.

“I’ll be honest,” Ted said, barely holding back a snarl, “The idea that we, as a society, left children to fight a war at their bloody school makes me want to go on a rampage.”

Andromeda nodded in agreement. “I only agreed to stay out of it all because you were recently killed and Nymphadora wasn’t going to let herself be left behind. But I’ve met most of the survivors. It was fucking awful, Ted. How long has Hogwarts been called the safest place in Britain and our daughter died there protecting children from a madman!”

She let herself get angry then, for the first time in years, let her magic begin to uncoil from the dark place she kept the bulk of it, the nundu lying in wait for its prey.

Ted responded in kind, just the way she’d taught him (the way muggleborns were never taught unless they had a very close pureblood friend) and began to mix with hers, warm and sharp and so very welcome after not feeling it against hers for nearly a decade, soothing her boiling temper back down to a simmer.

“What are we going to do about it?” He asked, “What can we do about it?”

“Jeannie asked me to consider taking on the Potter seat as proxy while Narcissa takes on the Black seat.” Andromeda said. “I’ve a law degree and a well annotated set of the current British Wixen laws on book, and I think it’s time I used them.”

Not many purebloods had been willing to hire her as a barrister since her “scandal”, but once Nym had started Hogwarts, she’d made a decent wage working for a firm that worked mostly with halfbloods and muggleborns and required a law degree from a muggle university, which had been a pain to get, even in the seventies, but had served her well since.

(The day she had come back in time, she had forgotten the firm was still whole and functional, as most of her colleagues had been killed in ‘96. Thankfully she’d been between cases and able to go on leave for the next month while she decided whether or not she wanted to go back to practicing. They didn’t really need the money with Ted’s job, and according to Hadrian once she became officially a Black again, she’d be receiving her very sizable dowry. On the other hand, she rather missed having something to do all day and making her own wages. It felt like spitting in the face of what she’d been told she would be growing up, and any money she made was her own to do with as she pleased, no threat of being cut off, even if she knew Ted would never do that.)

Ted thought for a long moment, idly playing with her hand in a familiar gesture that she’d almost forgotten. “I think…” he said slowly, “That we should try to set up another magical district.”

Andromeda blinked at him. “Pardon?”

Ted, clearly warming up to his own idea, began nodding to himself. “I know it may not be on the kids’ official agenda, but the magical world has been a bit too large for the areas we officially inhabit for quite some time. Even with the two wars this century, our population hasn’t taken enough of a hit for that not to be true. I know it may not seem like it, but only about half the population gets to go to Hogwarts; mainly the more wealthy who can afford tuition and all the supplies and muggleborns who get scholarships or can pay to get in on their own.

“There are a few day schools and private tutors around, but there are also many who can’t afford to do anything but homeschool, or in some cases even prefer it. Hogwarts’ standards have gone down in recent years, and as they are, the NEWT scores aren’t up to par with the ICW.”

Andromeda nodded. They’d spoken about this before, after all, especially when considering where to send Nym for school. “I believe education reform is part of the plan, but I agree that not everyone can or does go to Hogwarts.”

Ted acknowledged her statement, then continued. “Education aside, housing has been an issue nearly as long. We have the alleys, of course, and a few magical neighborhoods in muggle areas, but Hogsmeade is really the only purely magical area in Britain. I’m wondering if one of the kids downstairs might not have inherited a manor or something that could serve as a school with enough unused land to build up a town around it.”

“Huh,” Andromeda said. “That would help create more jobs as well. If we started trade school as well, perhaps we could get more people into jobs we need, as well.”

“Healers, definitely,” Ted agreed emphatically. “Builders, warders, sewists…”

“We definitely need more farmers, don’t we get something like forty percent of our food from the muggle world?”

“Some sort of company that legally trades for materials we need but don’t produce from the muggle world.”

“Livestock farmers for meat and dairy and wool.”

“Weavers?”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Something about that idea, of having a purely magical town, maybe even a city, where people were free to be who and what they were, excited them more than anything had since…well, ever.

Something felt right.

“We need to talk to the kids.”

——————

Talk about the potential idea of creating a new, purely magical town in Britain took up most of the rest of the night, Jeannie’s notebook got a workout until the whiteboards got pulled back out of Hadrian’s bag and stayed standing in the sitting room once everyone got back to bed, everyone agreeing to keeping their own running list of things a new magical town would need so they could compare later, once the kids arrived for the summer.

The next day began the chaos of moving everyone in.

Teddy was actually one of the easiest, having had most of his things packed pretty recently and used to packing and unpacking his own things from frequent trips between Grimmauld, the Tonks Residence, and Draco’s flat in London. Similarly, Hadrian had been on undercover missions often enough that packing and unpacking his entire life was pretty routine. Remus had also needed to move pretty often for werewolf related reasons and didn’t really own much that wasn’t books, which his room could easily house.

Kali had only had a small, well organized flat to unpack, made easier by Hadrian’s willingness to share his kitchen upstairs with its vast amounts of storage space they could easily share, and the overnight appearance of a craft room on the sitting room floor (in addition to three guest rooms and what appeared to be a meeting room, complete with the previous night’s whiteboards and a ton of seating where none should logically be able to fit, especially not with that much natural lighting) which easily housed all of her sewing things, various bits and bobs, and also had room that she thought might be for Jeannie’s year hoard.

Jeannie had at least previously done an inventory of what she had in her bag, and much of it had been moved in by the House itself (which brought up lots of interesting questions for later research), including her new wardrobe, and books. There were some in her room, including her favorites, her most commonly read/referenced books, and many of the ones she’d been meaning to get to in the near future. The rest, or at least many of the ones she had duplicates of in her bag, she later found had ended up in the very recently enlarged library, and many of the school-age appropriate books ended up in a smaller library between Harry and Draco’s rooms on the second floor, which she had no objection to in the slightest.

(Hadrian had mentioned that one of the first things he wanted to do for younger Harry was take him to the magical optometrist on Horizont Alley, because apparently he hadn’t gotten a proper eye exam until Gaius had firmly ordered him into one when he was nearly nineteen, which had been severely effecting his ability to do things like read and do his homework in a timely manner. She hoped that that and having books so readily available would help him develop the same love of reading that Hadrian had gained over the years.

Also, Draco was a bookworm and she wanted to put off his inevitable foray into the Black Library. And Hermione’s, come think of it. Gods, and Teddy’s.

They may need to put up better wards around the library.)

Sirius would need pretty much all new things, which Kali agreed to take on for her usual price, which he thought was fair, and Narcissa asked if she would be amenable to doing the same for her. She’d only really brought the basics from the Manor, and everything else she had were undercover clothes she kept with Hadrian’s, but she figured she ought to get a new wardrobe anyway, given her situation, and her fashion sense had vastly changed from the last time she was in 1995.

And anyway, if the Blacks were making a comeback, they might as well make it dramatic and well-coordinated. And if her new wardrobe would go well with Hadrian’s, well, that was nobody’s business.

(Kali, girl’s girl to the core, caught on quickly and had excellent taste, and mentioned something about client confidentiality with a smirk.)

Tonks…Tonks had enough random shit to fill her own flat and maybe someone else’s, honestly. The only reason it hadn’t spilled out of her room was liberal usage of expansion charms to various baggage containers and a well-honed ability to stack things in a seemingly precarious way for an indefinite amount of time. Hadrian, the chosen mover since he was already mostly finished with his own, had taken one look at the room and pulled an empty duffle bag out of his undetectably expanded pouch and cast a heavy duty expansion charm on it before summoning everything in the room into it and apparating her back to the clearing in the forest where Jeannie had organized her own bag and started conjuring tarps.

Six hours, several trips to both magical and non-magical second hand shops and donation centers, and a refresher on summoning charms later they arrived back at Grimmauld with a sheepish Tonks and the same duffle bag stuffed with what remained of her hoard, much of which had been duplicates or things that she’d bought after losing the original. Some of it went in her room, and some of it went in her very own undetectably expanded pouch to keep on her at all times, something Hadrian insisted was a necessity as an Auror, along with a fair amount of non-perishable or stasis charmed food for snacks or missions.

All up, it took about two days for everyone to be moved in to their satisfaction, which was crazy to Jeannie, who had only ever moved the non-magical way. It was also incredibly convenient, because the next day, Harry and Draco would be leaving Hogwarts.

A plan had been set in motion, sent along with the memories, but the bulk of it depending on teenagers had most of the adults in Grimmauld a bit anxious. Hadrian, Jeannie, and Kali had a bit more faith, but Harry and Kali ended up stress baking for a lot of the day while everyone else reaped the benefits by stress eating and coming up with more ideas for the as yet hypothetical magical town.

It was a long day.