The Matriarch

Prologue: Death's Theatrics

Harry had enough wit left to know that falling into pure white after being hit by the Killing Curse only meant one thing. It was over. It was done with.

During his walk into the Forbidden Forest he had made his peace with the fact that his dreams for life were not to be. He had been destined, from birth, to die for a cause. There was anger in him. Who wouldn't be angry after being told that the life one leads was only tool to end another? The only purpose his life served was to snuff out someone else's. It was even worse, since the snuffing out part wasn't even done yet. He would have to trust his friends to complete the task and rid the world of the monster Voldemort.

Because there he was, in this White, waiting for something to happen to him in the afterlife. The silver lining on the horizon was that now he would finally get to meet his parents. He would see Sirius again and could tell Cedric that he was sorry for not being better back then. A ludicrous thought, he admitted, yet it had kept him awake at night.

"None of that, now." a voice, so ethereal as if the night sky formed a mouth and spoke, came from behind him.

Harry tried to turn, yet it felt more like the white world around him shifted. His body remained standing, unmoving and while the white world turned he kept stable in its middle.

"That is, because this world is you. All there is in here is centered around the nucleus of your soul - your very existence."

"Who are you?" Harry asked, yet he had a feeling he knew. "Death?"

"Right in one, Mr. Potter." the voice said, yet a body, or even a shade of where it came from was not to be seen.

"Where are you?" Harry asked. When he looked around, the white world turned up and down, left and right, but Death was not to be seen.

"Where Death is? Everywhere, of course. I am the universal, basic principle of life. Do you honestly believe I would need a body?"

"It would make talking to you easier."

"Hmm," the voice breathed out. "Fair enough." it said and right in front of Harry a white mist formed into the rough shape of a human body.

"Maybe you would enjoy seeing this?" Death said and shaped into the carbon copy of Albus Dumbledore. "Hello, my dear boy. Forgive an old man the intrusion… or maybe you would like to see something more like this…"

Albus Dumbledore's shape liquified and reformed into another shape like water shapes inside a container. When the liquid shape solidified, Harry saw his mother standing in front of him, fire-red hair and blazing green eyes that looked at him with pride.

"You don't need a body, but you feel the need for cruelty?" Harry asked Death.

The mockery of his mother rubbed her chin and frowned at his question. "Cruelty? No. That wasn't my goal at all. You were the one insisting on redundancies. If I need a body so you'll listen, I just take from your mind the ones you're most likely to listen to."

Harry shrugged and the white world moved a little as if it had a hiccup. "Good choices, then."

"I thought so too." Death, still wearing his mother's shape said proudly. Then she became serious, straightened up and focused him with the same green eyes he saw in the mirror. "Now, to why I'm here."

"There is more to dying than just… dying?"

"No, of course not. But you are not dying." Death said as if that was the most basic of knowledge, explained to a child.

Harry could only frown. He didn't know how to answer Death incarnate, while standing in a pure white world, at the reveal of his non-death.

"Is that a surprise to you? Does that shock you, even?"

"It's not something I expected to happen after getting a Killing Curse in the face."

"The magic of the soul really took a dive for the obscure since all that Herpo business." Death mused, but shook away any stray thought fast. "In any case, I got the soul that was due… even if its… not exactly first hand. More like what you'd find while trash diving some demonic realm. Ew."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked, but the moment he spoke the question, he knew the answer. "The Horcrux. You're taking the soul-piece, but not me? That doesn't seem like an e..." he stopped himself. Even if he was in limbo, and somewhat in an existential crisis, he would not advertise to Death the tipped scales on that deal.

"Like an equal trade?" Death finished for him. "No. It isn't. But I have to accept it. Conflicting interests, you see?"

"No. To be honest, I don't see. Whats happening now? Are you keeping me or are you sending me back…"

"Yes, that. We're gonna do that."

"Sending me back?" Harry scoffed. "That's gonna be a quick detour. The moment I wake up he'll just cast another curse on me."

"Not back to the forest, you numbnut." Death gave back exasperated. "Send you back, as in… back in time. The Weavers have decided to unweave a lot of the fabric around Gaia… just for their widdle special boy."

It wasn't hard to discern that annoyance was an understatement when it came to Death's opinion on his return, or whatever it was. Yet, Harry decided to not play on it and just push on forward. If he could go back and redo all of the crucial wins and failures of his life, he could save hundreds, including many of his friends and allies.

"These… Weavers. Why do they send me back?"

"I think they disliked the knot you left a bit too much. Plenty of knots in the fabric of the universe, but yours is worthy of a reset… or so I'm told, anyway."

"And you are here, because? Are they too shy to face me?"

"No." Death simply answered, but the predatory grin on the face of his mother's shape made Harry sufficiently uneasy.

"Then why? Why are you here?"

"In return for your rebirth, I made them give me some concessions. You see, I greatly dislike seeing something twice. I can do without you bumbling around for eighteen years only to be offed. That was… meh. Seen better."

"You're gonna handicap me? Just… for fun?"

"Nooo, that's too harsh, it's… just… shake it up a little. Make it a bit more exciting for everybody involved." Death quipped cheerfully, yet the predatory grin didn't go away. If anything it even intensified as Death waved her hands and drew letters into the air. The letters soon formed blurred out sentences, and, to Harry's further confusion, checkboxes.

"The Weavers say I need to give you the chance to choose." Death snipped with her fingers and the sentences became sharp and intelligible. "You may take two options."

There were three options, so Harry soon felt he had no other choice but to make lemonade out of the lemons Death presented before him. The three choices to leave out were all bad.

His choices read:

Be born without disabilities, such as being a squib or untreatable blindness.

Be born with all your memories.

Be born with the same sex as previously.

Harry studied the options and to his dread always came to the same conclusion. But he would not yet admit to it, rather he needed more information. "When and where am I reborn?"

"Aah, now that would be telling, wouldn't it?"

"Nothing? Am I supposed to make a decision on this without anything? We talked about cruelty before."

"Life is cruel and I'm at the end of it." she waved away. "Choose, or I choose for you."

"You know as well as me that being born with a disability is not an option and having all my memories too good an opportunity."

"You're choosing one and two, then?" Death smiled at him with an evil grin.

"Yes." Harry answered, somewhat defeated, while his brain already made plans for when he would wake up a girl. Wrapping his head around that would take him a while, he was sure. Maybe he could even deal with it if it meant to destroy Voldemort before his bid for power broke the wizarding world. It all depended on when and where he was born and if he read Death's expression right, he was about to find out.

"Ah, this is going to be great, I just know it. And I already have the perfect nook for you to be placed in. Just you wait." she said and waved her hand again. Her body liquified, fell apart and vaporized into nothingness.

Death let him fall into unconsciousness with one last farewell. "A good life to you, Antara Elladora Black."

Chapter 1: The Void she stares into

Harry woke while kneeling inside a crib, grasping for a stuffed dragon the size of his own body. He had his mouth around one of the woolen horns and gnawed on it.

He recognized a dull, constant pain coming from his mouth. He was teething and it hurt. Gnawing on the horn of the stuffed dragon dulled the pain a bit, so for now Harry continued his treatment of the horn. He felt a need to scream for his… mother? There was a bit of a blur in his mind. He remembered many faces, but one stuck out as especially important. He suppressed the scream, anyway.

Old Harry's mind fought back against the feeling, but it was still there. He had great affection for Walburga Black.

Walburga Black was his mother.

"Bloo-ey 'ell" his untrained mouth mumbled out. Then he chuckled a baby's chuckle when he realized that his first words in his return-life were "Bloody hell".

He kept biting around the horn and collected his thoughts. He marked down that he was definitely not concerned enough about the screeching banshee of Grimmauld Place being his mother. Then again, when he thought it through the woman in his new memory, standing over his crib, feeding him and hugging him had little to do with the woman he knew from a enchanted portrait.

Who knew Walburga Black could be a caring, loving mother? It made Harry wonder what happened to her over the years.

Voldemort came to mind, but maybe that was too easy?

In any case, he had no other option but finding out in his current situation. He was somewhere around a year old, he guessed. He had no knowledge of when babies teethed. Maybe it was sooner? It definitely wasn't after the first birthday, so he knew. Bottomline, however, was that he was incredibly young and therefore absolutely stuck. Stuck a good generation before his previous life.

So who was he now? Obviously his older memories came in conflict with his current identity. The name Death spoke rang in his head. Antara Elladora Black. He had no memory of an Antara on the Black family tree. He would know. He had stared at the spot where Sirius was burned off for hours not too long ago. His eyes had wandered, over Death Eater and Blood Supremacist, yet none of them was named Antara. He concluded that he was a new addition to the household, then. Was he younger than Sirius? Older? Was he the little sister of both brothers, a middle child or maybe the oldest?

He rummaged his few memories, but couldn't remember having seen a young face resembling either of the brothers. The only thing he could see, as more of a blur than anything, was another toddler. A girl. She had sat with him in a crib.

"Huh," he babbled into the horn.

Thinking of that girl also brought him back to his own change of sex. There was an obvious disconnect there, he immediately realized. He was steadfast in his identity as Harry Potter. In his mind he was male and an adult. Yet his body was that of a baby and of the female variety. He counted his lucky stars that he was woken in the body of a baby. They were so asexual to him that he would have time to see the body as his, until he would have to look into the mirror. Had he been woken in an older body, he would have felt like a creep.

It was an odd thought, to feel guilt at imagining his own body just a few years from now. It was his body. Yet all he could imagine was a little girl that was not him. He dearly hoped he would get used to it, maybe even embrace it at some point. He feared to suffer a serious case of personality disorder otherwise.

Harry let his mind wander as he kept gnawing on the dragon. He made a mental list of the people he would eventually meet. Sirius, again. The Black family in all its horrid glory.

His parents.

It was odd to think he could very well be older than his parents. Maybe they weren't even born yet? If Sirius was his little brother, he would welcome James Potter and Lily Evans at Hogwarts as firsties.

Hogwarts. That was another can of worms. He would go to school again, and to boot with a lot of the Inner Circle - people that had tried to kill him and succeeded in doing so to his friends. He knew they would become monsters and his fate would be to watch them grow into that over time.

He would even be family with some of them. Bellatrix Lestrange being right… hold on.

He had a name to the toddler that had been in the crib with him.

"Boody 'ell" he whispered again. Bellatrix was his age? Bellatrix played with him in a crib? His entire baby body shuddered at the thought of playdates with the future right hand of Voldemort.

But he stopped in his internal rant before it even started. He had to be smarter than this, he chastised himself. None of them were Death Eaters yet - Merlin, some weren't even born yet, or just finished potty training. Death liked to play it interesting, indeed.

If his conclusion was correct and he was as old as Bellatrix, it would be another three years until Sirius, his father and his mother were born. Andromeda was probably already on the way, and Narcissa would come a bit later to the party. There was vast potential here, he was sure, but he also lacked the informations to truly plan. For now all he could do was wait until he was old enough to ask questions and pose as an incredibly intelligent child. Who knew? Maybe the adults would spit out their deepest secrets to the puppy eyed girl for which all that should be just random noise.

For Merlins sake, his teeth hurt. He needed something else to chew. The dragon had become a sloppy, drooled over mess and Harry was somewhat disgusted by it at that point. He looked around, trying to find anything to sink his growing teeth in, but could find nothing but expensive looking pillows and blankets.

And a wand?

Harry's young face scrunched together in a confused frown. Who would let their wand lie around a crib? The hell was wrong with some wizards?

He tried to stand up to wobble over to it, but his legs were still a bit too unstable for him to do so. He resorted to crawling. It wasn't far away, anyway. The wand was long, noticeably so. It was of a dark wood harry couldn't identify and felt warm, but alien in his hands. Not all too surprising he supposed. The chances of a strangers wand fitting him were almost zero.

He waved it around and a few sloppy sparks came from it. It would do.

First on his agenda was to transfigure himself something to chew on. He decided to take one of the smaller pillows and with a wave of is wand and the spell in his head he transfigured the garish thing into a piece of soft wood. Hard enough to chew on, but soft enough to not hurt him.

He grabbed the block clumsily and stuck it in his mouth. Heaven. Absolute bliss. The dull pain subsided every time he bit down a bit more on the wood. He had never done it in the first place, but even in his future he swore he would never be annoyed at teething babies crying. They deserved to cry. It felt horrible.

The door opened and he heard a dress rustle against the doorframe and floor. Harry looked up to see the much younger face of Walburga Black looking down on him. She was beautiful, he had to admit and her loving gaze made him feel fuzzy inside, despite himself. Yet her expression soon changed to one of horror.

"ANTARA, NO!" she shouted and jumped forward to the crib. With one swipe of her hand the wand was out of his own. "That is not for you. Merlin and Circe…" she sighed.

Harry felt amused and happily chewed away on his wooden block. The young woman - she could not be older than late-twenties - made an exhausted impression. She had deep rings under her eyes and her eyes were reddened. Despite her evident exhaustion she carefully took Harry out of the crib, after putting the wand into her luscious robes.

"Where did you get the wood, my little star?" she asked softly while pulling the wood out of Harry's mouth with the utmost care. "I hope you didn't use your mummy's wand. But it would serve her right, wouldn't it? So scatterbrained."

That did not please the baby side of Harry and against his own will, he started to wail. At least he could quickly press it back to pleading sobs, lest he annoyed himself with his own screams.

"Oh? Yes, I know. You're hungry aren't you?"

"No," Harry thought. "Give me back my block, woman. This hurts like hell."

Yet, of course, his thoughts found no way to his mouth. All that came out was a pleading babble of sounds. Frustrated Harry resigned to suffering through the pain in his gums. He just hoped Walburga would get the hint sooner or later.

She sat down with him on a broad, black and silver armchair. Before Harry knew what was happening, his new mother slid the neckline that went down to her navel to the side to expose her chest.

"Oh… I'm apparently hungry… right. Merlin damnit."

"There, there." Walburga whispered and moved his mouth closer to her chest.

Harry decided that he truly had no choice in the matter, even if just for this he would already need a shrink afterwards. Something about Oedipus and Freud was definitely within his current situation. His baby part knew what to do and did so with gusto. His older part just suffered through the humiliation of being breastfed as, technically, an eighteen year old, figuring that he had been through much worse already.

He used the time to study the woman that was his new mother. He had already seen that she was a beauty. However, she was slim, almost gaunt in her features and the tired impression she made was exaggerated, even for a mother with a baby girl to care for. Yet she smiled down at him with a fond smile. There was little similarities with the Walburga from the portrait, and Harry quickly found that memory being overwritten by his new experiences.

Something crashed outside the room and Harry was shook away from Walburga's chest by the woman's immense flinch. There was horror in her face. Her eyes were wide and watching the door. Her ears were listening for the smallest of noise. She was truly terrified for whatever reason, Harry didn't know.

Quickly the woman righted her robes again and laid Harry back in the crib in a hurry. She made to leave the room, but once more the door opened. This time it crashed against the wall, and a man stumbled through the frame.

He was drunk, absolutely hammered. Through glassy eyes the man sent a glare through the room, pausing shortly on Harry. He stopped at the sight of Walburga, who was trying her best not to show it, but trembled in obvious fear of the man.

"Orion," she said in the way of greeting, but it came out as a plead more than anything.

Harry startled. That man was his father?

"Good to…" he burped. Harry could smell the whiskey from his crib. "Good to see you dress as you're told. At least I can look at you now."

"I-I'm glad you…" she answered quietly, but was cut of by the man's shouts.

"Shut up, I didn't ask you anything." He mumbled something unintelligible, and then his gaze wandered to Harry in the crib. He sent Harry a glare and spoke quietly, but in a dangerous whisper. "Know what they say? She's a miracle. A miracle! Pah!"

Orion pulled his wand and pointed it at Harry. A spell formed on the tip of it. It was about to fire when Walburga ripped herself out of her terrified stupor and launched herself against his wandarm. Orion shouted bloody murder and his bludgeoning curse went wide. It sailed over the crib and bumped like a heavy fist against the wall.

Harry sat shocked. Did his new father just try to curse him? What in Merlin's name was wrong with the man?

The answer to the question was soon revealed, to Harry's horror.

Unchecked he sent a backhand at Walburga that hit the woman straight against the jaw. She barely flinched and only stumbled for balance, not out of pain. Her eyes teared up, but her gaze found stability and resolve. "D-d-..."

"What? What you worthless wench?!"

"Don't hurt her." Walburga hissed at him. "Never hurt my baby."

Orion shoved his wife with such violence, she fell against the armchair and toppled it over. "You want to tell me how I raise my daughter?" he shouted at the fallen woman.

Walburga stood up, slow but deliberate. Her robes, as supportless as they were, hung over her body, barely covering her privates. Her jaw had begun to bruise and her unstable stand spoke of something gone awry with her legs. Yet she stood as proud as she could, despite her entire body shivering in fear of the man that now pounced on her.

He took her by her long, black hair and dragged her over to the crib, all the while screaming. "Even the Daily Prophet writes that bloody Antara - what a stupid name, cunt - was a 'miracle'." he pulled her hair so hard, Walburga screamed in pain. She landed over the crib, brusing her ribs on the wood of it's side.

"Know what've been a miracle?" Orion soved her again, just so his hands could grab her robes and pull on them to fully expose her. "A miracle would've been a damned son, you useless whore."

He forced her around and bent her over the crib, while he grabbed her arms behind her back so tight, it forced them into almost unnatural angles.

"Maybe we just need to try again… and again… and again." Orion slurred as he pulled open his own robes.

Harry was frozen, unbelieving of what he was witnessing. It didn't process in his mind. How could anyone be so brutal, so incredibly cruel to his family? His eyes were incapable of looking away, but he could at least direct them to his mother's face, filled with pain as her own husband brutalised her.

"Maybe this time you don't disappoint!" Orion shouted at her while his free hand delivered punches to her back, against her ribs and slaps on her behind that left ugly bruises. "You just had to prove it to him, had to have this useless child. Cygnus already laughs at me. LAUGHS AT ME!"

Orion ranted and Harry could only watch helplessly as the man beat his wife into a bruised mess while raping her. He saw blood run down her thighs. He heard the cracking of breaking ribs. But during all this Walburga would not even so much as sob. She looked down onto the pillows, not even seeing anything.

"Sarah would've given me a boy. You had to spawn another witch. You just had to, didn't you?! You're useless. You're nothing and you deserve all this. Do you understand that?"

When Walburga didn't answer he gave her a punch against the back of her head that would knock out adult men. "ANSWER ME!"

"Y- y- ye...s." she pressed out.

"YES WHAT?" Another punch against her head, so hard it made her scalp open. Blood came freely from the wound and ran down her blue and yellow beaten jaw.

"Yes...L-Lord B-lack" she forced herself to say.

Orion couldn't possibly see it, but Harry recognized it immediately. Walburga's face was distorted in limitless, yet barely contained rage. It was hate. It was pure. Yet it was not unleashed, not called upon. The woman glared stoic at the pillows beneath her, burning, mad rage glistering in her eyes.

Harry was scared into a paralysis, while his baby self whimpered. His quiet sounds made Walburga focus on him. He flinched when he saw the hate. But it was not directed at him. When she saw him, shivering and crying for his mother, Walburga forced herself, despite everything, to mouth "I love you" at her daughter. Through tears and blood she gave Harry - her little Antara - a small, sad smile.

With a pathetic last thrust Orion was done. "Maybe this will make a boy. One can only hope. You will not clean yourself up. Understood?"

Not taking her eyes off Harry, Walburga gave a defeated "Yes,"

"Don't disturb me for the rest of the day. I have enough of you for now." he spat. With unstable steps he stomped out of the room, not even caring, or not able to care about his attire.

As Walburga slumped onto the ground all tension left Harry as well, and he couldn't help but start to wail. Inside there was a turmoil in him he had not known before. He had never experienced a feeling like this.

This was what the old Bellatrix had meant in the Ministry. This was it. Hate. This feeling enabled people to cast the Cruciatus.

He had thought he hated Voldemort, or Bellatrix Lestrange, or Umbridge. No. That was just disdain, a severe dislike and disgust. This wasn't hate. But Harry knew, in the very deepest corners of his heart that he hated his father beyond all else.

Walburga was grabbing for her wand that lay on the floor. She crawled to it; carried her broken body to the long, dark wooden wand. With shivering hands she picked it up, waved it in a circle and suddenly the room fell into an eerie silence.

Only then she allowed herself to scream. Harry's blood froze as he heard his mother cry out her pain so loud her voice cracked. Inbetween her screams she cursed her husband, swore vengeance on him.

And then it came, the Walburga he had known from the portrait. She began to cackle, hoarse and unmelodic. She laughed, through the blood in her mouth, her eyes shot around the room, her tongue hung out of her mouth. She rolled over to look at the ceiling and cackled until she had to spit out the blood that threatened to suffocate her.

"M-" Harry tried to speak through his own tears but the baby he was in was in hysterics. He focused and centered himself. His mother needed his help. How? Harry was unable to walk, unable to do any magic without a wand. And even if he had one, would he be capable of complex healing spells? He dared not even try.

"Mo… Momme?" he finally was able to say.

It was as if some switch was flicked. Walburga had cackled through the blood coming from her lungs and suddenly, she stopped. The moment she heard her little Antara speak, she was as if brought back from another world.

"M-my litt-le star…" she gasped, becoming painfully aware of her many broken ribs. On her elbows she crawled closer to the crib. Close enough for her hands to caress Harry's little feet. "It's over… now. Hush, Antara. Hush…"

Her head lolled to the side. She had trouble breathing, as bubbly sounds came from her mouth whenever she took a breath. Her eyes grew distant and unseeing. Only her hands, still weakly caressing his feet let him believe that she was not yet lost. Harry didn't know what to do. He needed help. He needed someone who could do the magic needed for his mother to keep breathing.

He could've hit himself for not thinking about it sooner. "Kweacha!"

With a pop Kreacher the houseelve appeared next to Harry's crib. His eyes grew wide as he saw Walburga on the floor. His hands trembled. His entire body shook. Harry knew the signs of a houselve trying, but failing to go against orders.

"Little…" he swallowed. His eyes never so much as twitched away from his Mistress. "Little Mistress has called? How can… can Kreacher be of service?"

"Momme!" harry wailed. He pointed at Walburga. He waved in hysterics, trying to order the elve to heal her by gesture alone.

"K-Kreacher… cannot." he said, but by every other way of communicating intent and meaning, by mimics and gestures, Harry knew Kreacher tried with all he had to ignore them.

Harry needed to get him to circumvent them. He needed the elve to have some possibility of working around his Master's orders.

Harry slammed his elbow with all he had against the wooden bars of the crib. he felt his little bones break, and just with all his eighteen year old self he could keep the baby he was in from screeching like a banshee at the pain.

"Owie!" he said to Kreacher through tears.

The elve's eyes went wide. His face found a small smile and without a word, he popped away, just to come back with so many potions against pain, wounds, bloodloss and broken bones, half of St. Mungo could've been healed with it.

"Kreacher brought potions for little sneaky Mistress." the elve almost laughed in glee. "Kreacher will place them next to Mistress' mouth. But the bed is unstable. Little Mistress should be careful."

Merlin damnit, I never thought I'd love this elve. Harry thought and let his unbroken arm swipe around to kick over the potion, right into the open mouth of Walburga.

"So clumsy, little Miss." Kreacher giggled and took the now empty potion vial away. "Little Mistress couldn't possibly make this mistake with this bone mending potion."

Sure enough, Harry let his arm swipe again and the potion fell into his mother's open mouth.

They did it again and again. Blood-Replenishing potions followed Skele Gro, followed Pain-Reducer, followed Wound-Knitting-Potions. Every time Kreacher's eyes grew brighter and when they at last finished, he had the same admiration in his eyes when he looked at his "little, sneaky, clever, cunning Mistress" as he had for the portrait of Walburga back in Harry's old life.

Walburga coughed up the last bit of blood that cluttered her airways when the Blood-Replenisher had restored enough blood in her system to become coherent again. She looked around in a dazed confusion, first at Kreacher busying himself with her daughter. She paled as she saw her Antara's elbow sticking out of her arm. "Antara!"

"Momme!" Harry cheered. "Owie." he added while pointing at his elbow, but the grin he gave his mother made the woman stop in her tracks.

"Kreacher!" she finally shouted. "Why is Antara's arm…?" her eyes grew wide again in that terrifying, burning rage. "Did Orion…?"

But Kreacher knew enough about his Mistress to make sure she wouldn't do something she would regret in her weakened state. "Little Miss was so terrified, she broke her own arm on the bars. Every time Kreacher tried to give a potion, little, sneaky Mistress pushed it over into Mistress' mouth. Kreacher will take better care, next time."

Harry watched his mother as it slowly sunk in what Kreacher had just told her. She eyed the emptied vials around her, fully aware that these doses were appropriate for adults, but not for small children. She was also aware that Kreacher had enough sense to not bring adult potions to a child's aid, especially not when he also thought about the appropriate doses he was currently applying.

"A-Antara? Did… did you?" Walburga gestured around her, gobsmacked. "Did you heal mommy?"

Harry nodded. He noticed that Kreacher had finished healing his arm, even though the bone was still hurting with that same sort of dull pain his teeth produced. Given the circumstances, his teething and his recently healed bone couldn't keep him from opening his arms wide, asking his mother to carry him.

Walburga didn't hesitate, even though she was still soiled by her own blood, her bones still hurt from being healed and she was still starkers. She couldn't keep her eyes from her daughter. "You healed me?" she asked again in disbelief.

"Momme owie." Harry stated, while cursing himself for not being able to produce much more sounds than that. His untrained facial muscles be cursed. "Kweacha hal-p."

"Yes... yes, Mommie did hurt." Walburga pressed her eyes together and for a short moment her face distorted into a fierce snarl. "You should've never seen this. You shouldn't have to. That this…" she gave her daughter a sad smile. "That this is the moment you start to speak? It is bittersweet, but appreciated. Had you not… Kreacher wouldn't be able to go against Orion. My little sneaky Antara."

Walburga gave him a big smooch on his forehead. He stood in awe at the woman. He wasn't sure if he would have been able to muster the mental fortitude to be so loving, so caring after the brutality of Orion.

He was sat down in the armchair after Kreacher was doen righting the room back to immaculate state. Had Harry not seen what had happened here, he wouldn't have been able to guess.

Walburga dressed herself again in the robe that was barely worth the name. The passionate, erotic part of it was gone, displaced by the taint of Orion's orders to wear it for his viewing pleasure and for the easy access it provided him. It was no more a lavish, luxurious robe, but symbol of his sadistic violence. Yet his mother wore it with grace and pride, even with her dried blood still on her chest and face.

She sat down in the armchair and lifted Harry up to her lap. They looked at each other, none of them saying a word, nor making a sound. Harry waited for his mother to close her eyes. Her lids fell down heavily, her exhaustion apparent, worsened by the assault she had suffered.

Harry kept awake. His mind raced. So many things were beginning to make sense and never would he doubt Sirius' stories again. He would never again believe them exaggerations, made to paint his family in the worst light possible. Orion was a sadist, worse than Umbridge, on par with Voldemort. It was no wonder that Walburga would become the insane banshee Sirius had described her as, if this was the treatment she had to endure from such a young age. Hate breeds hate, violence breeds more violence. The Black household had been a bloody circle of brutality, devoid of any love or compassion.

Harry was lying down on his mother's. Nowhere was more comfortable, nowhere more safe than in her arms. There he tried to sleep, and there he plotted.

Once he would be able to make him, Orion would suffer tenfold, so he vowed to his mother, his future brothers and himself.

Chapter 2: Black Years

The violence didn't end. The following years of his new life were riddled with the signs of Orion's ever increasing brutality.

It was his first birthday, on the first of May, 1957 that he also found the reason why Walburga suffered at the hands of her husband, without ever seeking help.

He had seen his grandfathers before, yet they never so much as spoke with him. Arcturus and Pollux Black were hard men, forged in the flames of the Grindelwald Wars. Their sole goal? The continuation and prosperity of the Black family, against all odds and even against each other. Harry had found out, by just sitting in the same room as them, being his baby self, that the marriage between Orion and Walburga was practically the glue holding two warring sides of a Clan together.

On his first birthday, Harry tried not to be smothered by his grandmothers Melania and Irma. Other than their husbands, they were bubbly ladies in their forties who have been spared the horrors of war by being birds in golden cages while the world around them burnt. They were both rather beautiful, even if the years already drew some wrinkles in their faces. Still, compared to the scarred, deeply wrinkled and hard faces of their husbands they seemed positively youthful.

Harry sat between them trying to read a book. Of course, everybody assumed he just pretended to do so. Which one year old child could read? They thought it was cute that little Antara tried to be so grown up. Walburga's insistence that she could, in fact, read was waved away as her having illusions of grandeur, projected onto her daughter. It was testament to Walburga's precarious, belittled standing within her own family.

The two women gossiped over his head as his ears found much more interesting conversation across the room. It was Pollux, slightly tipsy on his third glass of firewhiskey who lamented. "This would have never happened with him."

"Don't…" Arcturus warned with a guttural growl.

"You know I am right, Arcturus." Pollux hissed at his cousin. "This law will ruin Britain. Dumbledore plays you like a fiddle. Even Callidora couldn't keep Longbottom from joining that traitorous bastard."

"You sound like a peasant, Pollux. Spare me your whining. You lost and we all must suffer for it." Arcturus' voice was something that fascinated Harry. It was deep, quiet, but rumbled through a room like an earthquake, demanding to be heard, even if its just whispering.

"Lord Grindelwald…"

"Was a fool. He had no vision beyond his ridiculous doctrine." Arcturus waved anything off that Pollux could have answered. "Yet we have to deal with the fact that one of his… assumed… generals is part of this family, Fieldmarshal Pollux Black. The fact that we are still members of the Wizengamot is all due to me and my efforts. Do not presume to lecture me."

"And yet Dumbledore does what he wants with his Phoenix. Thirty-Five Seats, Arcturus. He might as well rule as Minister. And all he uses it for is to tell us that thousand years of legacy are suddenly illegal. He is the one presuming to tell you what to do."

Arcturus scoffed. "He has done so for the last six years. The next time the Elders are called to Commitment they will not choose to follow the Professor again, I assure you."

With an almost violent swig Pollux cleared his firewhiskey. He snorted the flames out of his nostrils - a habit Harry seen on him since the first time they had met - and held the glass out for Kreacher to refill. "Big words for someone who has lost over forty Elders in one Commitment. Your confidence is but a mask, Arcturus. You should know when your time has come."

"And what is it you think I should do? Give you power over the Alliance?" Arcturus gave a humorless laugh. "Your sense of humor is improving, I see."

"You will give the power to Cygnus… in time."

"Your son? Why should I if I have a perfectly fine heir to take over?"

Pollux smiled, leaned back and made himself comfortable as if he had won a major battle. "Not him. We had agreed on that by Vow. But his next child will be a son. You know the protocol. The first heir to be born..."

"Enlighten me how you would be privy of such information if not even Druella herself is aware of a pregnancy? What have you done, asked a Seer?"

Arcturus began to laugh in earnest when Pollux's face said all that needed to be said. He decided, with a snip of his fingers, to indulge in his first glass of firewhiskey, with the mocking grin on his face never vanishing. "You become desperate, Pollux."

"It's not like Walburga has spawned an heir. Her first birth was barely successful. Who knows, she might be barren at this point."

"Neither has Druella, so the discussion is for naught." Arcturus then focused his eyes onto Harry, or for him, his granddaughter Antara. "I'm surprised you would be so cold when speaking about your daughter?"

"She may as well be yours." Pollux shrugged. "With Alphard and Cygnus my line is steadfast - secured. And Cygnus is only nineteen. A good age for sons. I have no need for a daughter that believes her one year old girl understands Charms theory."

Both of them now looked at Harry. Their eyes analysed him, like an object to be weighed and measured. Harry kept his own gaze on them, never wavering. Pollux was not in any way interesting to look at. He had an all around defeated pose on him. Arcturus, however, stared at Harry with his dark grey eyes and it felt worth to gaze back.

"Yet, I have never seen a child so… focused." Arcturus grinned at Pollux. "I might even dare hope this marriage was not a mistake. Who knows? If she stares like this with one, maybe she casts like this with seven, chants like this with eleven and makes even grandfather Phineas tremble in his grave with seventeen?"

"Indulge in your dreams, Arcturus. You already sound like my daughter." Pollux stood up. He righted his robes and was about to leave. "Make a donation to the Mind Ward in Mungo's before you let go of the Patriarchy. In your own interest."

Harry was torn away from the discussion by excited women streaming in the room. In front of everybody, still unsure on her feet, was Bellatrix. The girl jumped in his arms and gave him a hug as tight as her little arms allowed.

Around him were the female Blacks, all cooing at the cute little cousins being so caring to each other. The day blurred into a back and forth, from one grandaunt, to grandmother, to uncle, to aunt, and so on and on and forth. He was flooded in presents, mostly cute pink dresses he all denied in favor of a black one his mother gave him. She knew that he hated pink, hated playing with any of the toys they gifted him with and despised nothing more than being handled like a puppet.

She gave him a black dress, simple and without much decor. If he had to wear dresses, these were the ones he chose. She gifted him a book, and he chose it over all the colorful toys.

She listened. She understood. And so again Harry vowed to do anything to make this woman happy the moment he could do so. Through all the tumult Harry vowed this, because bit by bit, he began to understand the structures of the Black family and how to use them to make his mother free.

Chapter 3: First Blood

Harry woke to the screams of his mother. Again.

He was so done with it. He was so tired of seeing her exhausted, beaten and brutalised. It always shattered his heart when she came to him for sanctuary, never crying or faulting, but always just that one step closer to the edge. She was always scurrying slightly towards that banshee in the portrait in the hall of Grimmauld Place. She was not supposed to seek refuge with her seven year old daughter. Walburga shouldn't have to feel safe only when her little Antara held her tight.

Her screams tore through the night. The door to his room opened and two pair of small feet entered. Harry saw the silhouettes of his brothers in the doorframe. Sirius had little Regulus by the hand. His future Gryffindor brother tried to be strong for Regulus, who sniffled and let silent tears fall down his cheek. Yet, Sirius too had red streaks down his face.

As always in these nights they climbed onto their sisters bed and held onto her. Sirius to his right, Regulus to his left. Harry let his hands stroke their backs with soft circles.

"I hate him." Sirius whispered as if he spoke a forbidden truth.

"I know…" Harry answered him.

Sirius held onto him tighter, his fingers digging into his sleeping gowns. "Why…?"

"Sirius… Regulus." Harry began. he held his brothers tighter to him. "Father is… father is an evil man. But we must…"

"He should just die." Sirius interrupted. "He hates mum and you. I want him to die."

"Sirius, we need to…" Harry tried to reason with him again. As so often, Sirius was the one who wanted their father gone, not understanding the fallout Orion's death would cause. He didn't think, as the personality of the Sirius of Harry's old life had suggested. He didn't…

Harry couldn't finish his thought. Regulus spoke up, his mousy voice loud next to Harry's ears. "Siri is right. I don't wan' papa anymore."

Harry's mind grinded to a halt. It was one thing to have the hot blooded Sirius say he wished death upon his despised father, but it was another thing entirely to have their father's darling, Regulus, speak out in favor of his papa's death.

"He would be dead, then, Regulus. He will never come back. Father would be gone and the Alliance would be in jeopardy. Pollux would see his chance and…"

"Would he hurt mommy again?" Regulus asked.

"N-no… no he wouldn't." Harry answered, his voice shaking.

Regulus closed in even more to his ear. His voice whispered, so quiet that even Sirius on the other side barely heard his voice. "Can you make him go away, Anti?"

Had it been only his sweet little brother asking, Harry would have eventually found an excuse, or a way to appease him. They trusted him with all their heart and Harry, as loathe he was to admit it, used this trust to keep them from rebelling against their father. After all, the future of the Alliance hinged on their father's words. Pure and honest Orion Black, whose word was contract, whose support was everlasting once gained. To the Alliance he was everything cold-blooded, ruthless and stubborn Arcturus failed to be.

Harry would have found all these excuses and made his brothers understand, had there not been their mother coming in through the door at that moment.

The quiet cackle let the hair on his neck stand up and goosebumps cover his arms. Walburga shivered and the bit of moonlight coming through the curtains shimmered on the wet streaks of blood coming from her head and mouth.

"Little Stars?" she whispered. "Where are you my little stars?"

Harry shot up and stood next to his mother in a heartbeat. He hugged her; felt her body tremble in the mixture of rage and pain. At his touch she kneeled on the floor and leaned into his hands stroking her head.

But the cackle didn't stop. It didn't stop. Harry tried kissing her forehead, wiped away the blood with some handkerchief from his nightstand, caressed her bruised arms and legs, but the cackle didn't stop.

"Mother?"

"My little stars, shining so bright. But I don't see you." she mumbled. "Don't see you, don't see you. My little stars."

Harry's heart beat so fast he felt his ribs shiver with every pump. It was fast and didn't go slower. He looked his mother in her eyes, but all that came back was an unseeing thousand mile stare and a deranged smile, disconnected from the world.

Had he finally done it? Had his father finally broken his mother? The mere thought brought black hate deep from within his guts. His stomach turned acidic, and he wanted to wretch. His mind burnt bright hot like fiendfyre, devouring his reason and excuses.

He had done it. He broke his beloved mother.

He would suffer.

Harry took his blankets and wrapped them around his mother. He kept the front open and nodded to his two brothers. "Sirius. Regulus. I want you to sit next to mother. I want you to hold her and not let go until I'm back. Hold her! Do you understand?"

His brothers nodded in silence and made their way towards their mother quickly, hearing the command in their sister's voice. But their eyes were wide as saucers at the new nuance in it. They had never heard the rage burning within her, making her voice deeper, raspy and hoarse. They wrapped their mother in their arms while Harry closed the blankets around them.

"Stay. Hold her." Harry commanded one last time. "Whatever you hear, stay. I'll be back."

"What are you gonna…" Sirius began to ask until Harry held a finger to his mouth.

He took a breath. It shook when he took it in, and it shook when he let it out. "I'll free us." he said and Sirius understood. His brother's face became dead serious, and his arms held onto his mother with brave determination.

His hands moved automatic, his mind in a tunnel, he didn't even see the handle of the cupboard, nor did he really feel his great-grandaunt's wand as he wrapped his fingers around it. His legs moved as if animated by a badly cast spell. They fell heavy on the floor. His shoulder clumsily bumped against the doorframe when he left his bedroom for the lounge.

Two stories worth of stairs felt like he climbed a mountain. His hand grasped his wand again and again. His mind played around with spells and combinations; with how he would get his father unaware.

While playing through tactics, he felt a disconnect to something essential. He felt something go away as he took step for step towards committing cold blooded murder. He knew the enormous weight he was about to load onto himself. He knew about the damage he would do to his soul and maybe even his mind and body, but it didn't negate the hate in him, the burning, raging desire to see his father at his feet, begging him for mercy that would never come.

His feet landed on the third floor of Grimmauld Place, where to the right there was the dining hall, and to the left the lounge, in which rich men smoked expensive tobacco and drank luxurious liquors. In there he heard the monster under the roof pour himself a glass of whiskey with unsteady hands. Glass chinked against glass, and a decanter was set down onto wooden surfaces too hard.

Harry opened the door. It creaked, as did every door in Grimmauld Place at this late hour. As intended it alerted the one inside.

His father had blood smeared over his grey robes. Walburga's blood. His mother's blood.

"Girl!" Orion shouted at him. "Get out!"

Harry didn't move. He just found more stable foothold inside the doorframe. His weight on the balls of his feet he was ready to jump, sidestep or duck at any moment.

"ARE YOU NOT LISTENING?! GET OUT!" he screamed at her.

Harry shook. His entire body trembled with the pent up anger of seven years. His eyes were large, unblinking and never wavering from Orion's.

"I remember… seven years ago. In my nursery." Harry began. His voice whispered, yet it carried through the room like his grandfather's voice did. "I never forgot."

"What are you…? Get! OUT!"

Orion raised his wand and was about to shoot a curse at Harry when in the blink of an eye, Harry's wand stabbed in Orion's direction and he shouted "Expelliarmus!"

Orion's wand flew towards Harry who caught it with a seeker's reflex. His father stood paralysed in the room, not believing what he was seeing.

"Girl." His voice was dangerously low, threatening in it's controlled, quiet sound. "You will give me my wand. Right. Now."

"I swore something back then. I vowed it." Harry answered instead of even thinking of handing the wand over. His voice became stronger doing so. "I vowed to free my mother from you, when I could."

"Antara, I swear to Morgana if you don't give me my wand - RIGHT NOW - your punishment will not be done with a simple Crucio."

"I broke this vow." Harry continued unperturbed. "I could've gotten rid of you years ago, but I wanted brothers. I was selfish. But today you did it, father."

Orion still stood paralysed at the spot where he lost his wand. One hand still held the glass of firewhiskey he had poured, but it was forgotten in favor of the seven year old pointing a wand at him and knowing how to use it. "Did what?" he asked.

Harry's rage cooked over. "YOU BROKE HER!"

It was this rage, this black, roaring rage everywhere in his body that shattered something in him. Harry had known, from the day he had regained consciousness, what true hate was. It was all centered in the figure of his father, standing there in his pathetic self-importance and daring to ask "what" after he had raped his wife again.

Harry had always known that there was something dark in him. It had been there in his old life, but he had only embraced it over the last seven years. He found himself on a crossroads when he raised the wand to Orion's head. What side would win? Who would he be? There were so many options, yet Harry felt himself go away, making space for something different to overtake this identity he carefully constructed, forming it into something new and decidedly not him.

"CRUCIO!" Antara roared.

Orion broke down onto the floor. The whiskey glass shattered, spilling the firewhiskey over the floor. Antara held her wand tight and felt how limitless power over the writhing body flowed through her veins, enraptured her mind and encircled her being. She felt something come loose in her - a shift so subtle and yet so significant that for just a short moment she lost concentration and the spell ended.

"WHAT BY THE…" Orion began to shout. He tried to stand up and jump behind a chair, but Antara's concentration came back just in time. Sectumsempra she thought and the sickle like spell slashed out against her father's legs, leaving only stumps behind.

Orion finally began to scream and it was like music in her ears. Her heart raced in exhilaration at such sweet justice. "Crucio." she hissed. It was stronger this time. It was so clear in it's intent to make this monster of man feel what she had felt, suffer what he had made others suffer through.

His body spasmed in cramps, his eye bulged with the sheer agony he experienced at the hand of his daughter.

She let it go. His body slumped onto the carpet. His breath was frantic, his voice hoarse from screaming. "H-h-how…?"

"You should listen more to grandfather when he talks." Antara's voice almost bit out pieces from him. It was as venomous as a rattlesnake, with the same promise of death coming from it. "His little granddaughter, so talented. Nobody knows, father. Nobody bothered to look at widdle, ickle Anti when she went through the library. So cute, wasn't I, when I pretended to read like an adult? Nobody will believe it was me when they'll find your corpse."

"No… no, p-please." He stuttered. "Please. Antara!"

"No. You had your chance to repent." She raised her wand like a dirigent his staff. "Now... suffer. Crucio!"

The purity of the spell surprised even her. The deep rooted hate for him finally unleashed its full potential, making every muscle of him cramp, his heart beat in arrhythmic manners, his mind overload with the signals of endless pain coming from everywhere in his body. Orion shattered in mind and body in front of her. She enjoyed every second of it.

She would be free. Her brothers would be free.

Mother would be free.

She released the spell again. This time he didn't even try to right himself. From Orion's mouth there came only gurgling sounds. His fight was gone.

In came a pop and Kreacher stood next to his master, no doubt summoned by the panic he felt from Orion. The elve gave an unreadable look to Antara. Then he looked down at his Master, who begged the elve by looks alone to take him anywhere else. Orion tried to speak and order, but only spit out blood.

Antara saw it. Kreacher knew very well what his master wanted. The elve wasn't slow at all. Yet there he stood and spoke in a slightly mocking manner. "Kreacher is sorry, Master. He cannot understand the order. Kreacher will punish himself for not hearing better."

With one last look to Antara and a small, cruel smile, the elve apparated away, leaving his master at the mercy of his daughter.

With a simple Wingardium Leviosa she flipped her father around so that he would be able to look at her. She stood above him, just out of his arm's reach. Her azure blue eyes met his steel grey ones.

"You are nothing like your father." She hissed at him. "The Black family will endure without you."

Orion knew, then, that this was his end. He saw in the eyes of his daughter that he would die at her hands. Her eyes were devoid of anything human in this one moment. Her face was bereft of even the last hint of mercy or compassion. It was just hate staring back at him, pure and unwavering. He was fulfilled with an odd sense of pride when his demise was brought down upon him.

"Avada Kedavra."

Antara was surprised at how easy it came to her. He father lied there in front of her, but she felt nothing. Nothing at all. Once the hate subsided, seeing as it's target was no more, her body began to shake violently. She lost control over her fingers. Her wand fell onto the floor. She didn't hear it land. Everything around her blacked out, with the exception of her father's corpse before her.

In a daze she stumbled backwards, out of the room. She fell over the threshold to the hall. Her head slammed against the floor, but there was no impact felt. She felt nothing. Not the cold wooden floor, nor the draft of cold air blowing over her.

She heard a pop. Kreacher stood in front of her. Her eyes couldn't focus on him. The blur that was the elve came closer to her. He tried to hush her, but anything he said was drowned out by the beating of her heart like wardrums in her head.

She felt a vial be brought to her lips and a liquid poured into her. All of a sudden her breathing slowed, her heart rate lowered and her eyes focused.

With her hands holding onto the banisters of the downward stairs she stood up. Her knees were weak, still feeling like jelly. Standing upright, Antara oriented herself. Her eyes fell onto the door to the lounge. There, peeking through the doorframe, were the lifeless eyes of her father.

She emptied her stomach violently. Only when she began dry heaving did she dare look back at what she had done and the magnitude of what she had done came crashing down on her. Tears ran down her face. She had killed. She was a murderer.

Worst of all, she had enjoyed it. The feeling of power over her father had been a rush like nothing she had ever felt before, in her new and her old life. She was torn between the feeling of having gained something and having lost something, both things equally significant.

Harry seemed like a distant memory now. That was it. Harry would have never spoken the Cruciatus curse with such relish and he would have never, ever used the Killing Curse. It was testament to the difference she had made in the last seven years, how life here had changed her. She was Antara Elladora Black, daughter of Walburga Black, sister to both Sirius and Regulus Black. Her old life was but a ressource now from which to garner information. She was transformed and had brought it to completion by the sacrifice of her innocence.

"Kreacher will clean, Mistress." the elve said. Antara looked down to him, not fully comprehending his words. "Kreacher will dispose of the mess…. all of it."

"What…"

"Mistress should not worry. She is exhausted and needs sleep, like her mother and the young Masters."

"W-w-" Antara coughed again, wretched with her stomach cramping, but there was nothing but the taste and burning of acid coming out. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Where do you… what will you do with… him?"

"Kreacher knows. Mistress should not worry, but Mistress should not know either. The less she knows, the better."

"I… see." Antara agreed with a nod and watched Kreacher as he first vanished the puke on the floor and then made towards the lounge where he grabbed Orion's body and disapparated with it.

She knew she could trust the elve. Kreacher was their families elve and absolutely devoted to her and her mother. Whatever he would do, it would not get them into trouble. At least not in more trouble than they were already in.

Like drops from a cave's ceiling it slowly sunk in what she had done. Reason for reason it came back as to why she had endured her father. Her knuckles went white at the thoughts. Her grandfather would have to take over the entire political game again. Unwritten agreements, promises and personal favors made to Orion were now gone.

They were royally fucked.

Like a lifeline she held onto the banister while her feet did their best to not crumble under the weight of her dread. One by one she descended the stairs to her bedroom. She fell from the banisters onto the wall and ground against it towards the still open door.

Antara heard sniffles coming from within, sometimes accompanied by sobs.

She had a tight grip on the doorframe as she carried herself in. There she stood and looked into four innocent eyes full of fear, and one pair of eyes shining through the night. Her mother looked at her as if she was the full moon itself, glowing with soft and soothing light. She raised her arms, inviting Antara to fall into her hug.

She fell forward, her legs failing as she crashed into her mother. The moment she felt her mother's arms around her Antara began to cry; harder than she had ever cried before. She screamed her confusion, her dread, her guilt and relief into her mother's shoulders. Sobs wrecked her body. She sucked in air with frantic, hysterics breaths. All that kept her from falling apart completely were the hands of her mother, softly stroking her back while she cooed sweet nothings in her ear. She felt her brothers' embrace, so tight she couldn't move, but neither could she fall.

"My little star…" Walburga whispered to her.

"I killed him." Antara whispered back. "I stood over him and… and…"

"I know, little star. I know." Walburga buried her own face in the crook of Antara's neck. "I'm sorry I wasn't stronger for you. I'm so sorry, Antara. I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to do this. I'm sorry."

Their foreheads came together and Antara saw her mother's eyes just two noses away from hers. They were just as red from crying as her own and full of concern. Yet they gave her the strength to take a deep, shaking breath. She calmed herself. One deep breath more and she felt the knot in her stomach loosen somewhat. Enough for her to speak again.

"You're free now." she whispered to her mother. "It's over. He's gone. No more. No more."

Walburga lifted her up. Antara felt exhaustion take hold over her body as she was laid down onto her bed. The bodies of her mother and her brothers pressed against her, cradling her to sleep.

The consequences of her action played no role as her family held each other tight to shoo away the nightmares. Antara dreaded the fallout, the backlash of this powerplayer leaving the political stage of magical Britain. She felt guilt for destroying much of what her grandfather had built.

But she fell asleep knowing that the days of her mother screaming in pain, of her being raped and beaten, humiliated and belittled, were over. They would have peace now. Finally.

Chapter 4: Shuffling The Deck Anew

It took three weeks until Orion's body was found.

Kreacher had done his best to prevent the fallout. His Master has been found in a ritualistic stone circle in Scotland, owned by the Fudges. Nothing could be proven, of course, yet the Daily Prophet kept suggesting the murderous dealmakings of the Free Mage Conglomerate and it's leader Cornelius Fudge. Arcturus could work with that, despite the antipathy towards him in the Wizengamot and in his own Alliance. It blunted the edge of the loss.

On the other side, it was still a win for the Phoenix and for the Naturalists. It looked like it would become another Commitment in their favor. Antara bristled at their comments given to the Prophet. They were bemoaning the death of Orion Black in public, but in between the lines you could read their celebratory mood. She couldn't pretend to be surprised by it. She knew what it would cost the Black family and Alliance. It was just a pity that to uphold the families peace, none of the reasons may ever come to light. She knew it, her mother knew it and even her brothers knew so instinctively. Orion Black would be buried and remembered as a rolemodel to british wizarding culture.

One week after they had found the corpse, the Black family held the burial rites. Arcturus had ordered a burial fire for the ages to honor his son. It burned for seven days and seven nights, as high as a five story building, burning tons of wood during the inferno. During this time it seemed like the entirety of Britain came to the fire at one point to pay their respects, or just to watch the magical fire dance.

The family attended a vigil on the first, the third, the fifth and the seventh day, exactly at midnight. Antara watched her mother during these vigils. On the first night she looked her usual, exhausted self. Her head sometimes jerked at the softest sound.

On the third night of the fire she let her shoulders slump. Most of the night she had her arms tight around either herself or Antara. She would have hugged Sirius and Regulus as well, but both were deemed too young to attend a night vigil.

On the fifth night Walburga began to speak with the other attendees and on the seventh night she threw a rose into the fire, saying goodbye to her "beloved husband" for the press and the entire family to see. Her smile was as if plastered to her face and only when her eyes met Antara, they got depth and radiated gratitude. She played the game well, on this night, fully knowing that she would never have to suffer that man's existence again. She had endured. She was still alive. She had won.

Despite her mother's rapidly improving health, both mental and physical, and the lighter mood in the first two floors of Grimmauld Place, Antara could not set foot onto the third floor any longer.

They left Grimmauld Place soon after.

Walburga cited that there were too many memories reminding her of Orion in the halls of the London estate. Nobody needed to know those memories nature. Everybody assumed it was grief, and Walburga let them in the belief. Arcturus agreed that the images of his son were too much in the old ancestral home of the Black family.

They emptied out Number 12, from the library to the artefacts, to even the last piece of cutlery, and moved to a property within a neighbourhood with prominent members of magical Britain in it. Arcturus had not spared any expense in order to accommodate his remaining heirs and to position himself in a prime spot to reset and play anew in the big arena of show and shine. The property alone cost more than many a wizard would accumulate in his vault throughout his life. The manor built on it was worthy being called the new hub of the Black family.

Black Port Manor was a grand construct of magical architecture. It stood proudly, facing south, on the hill above the Singing Bay, which was also the name of the more extravagant part of Hogsmeade, far away from the streets and paths the populus uses. In usual Black manner, it outshone every other house, hall or manor in the area. Four stories high, as long as a Quidditch field, shaped in U form, with a tower on each outwards facing corner, it was just by mass alone the biggest and most luxurious house around. One would not be proven wrong if they called it a palace. But the timber-framed walls made of magical wood and white-glistering stone, the italian white marble surrounding the windows and the shingles made of enchanted black porcelain truly made the manors around them look like shacks in which the Black family kept their gardening tools and houselves.

Given their neighbourhood that was quite an achievement. After running over a good half mile of garden on each side, the look over the hedges was impressive as well. To their west, also facing the Singing Bay, stood Bones Manor, solidifying Antara's suspicions as to what her grandfather was planning to do to keep the Black family relevant. To their north, away from the bay, was the Ollivander Grove, with their great farm-house in the middle, surrounded by wand-wood trees of a thousand varieties. To their east stood, to Antaras shock, the home of her former grandparents. The Griffin's Manor in all it's redwood and chalk-stone glory, or as it was also called: Potter Hall.

It had been odd, that the part of her she had believed dead after the night her father lost his life; that Harry would suddenly surge up so violently again at seeing Euphemia and Dorea Potter sitting on two white, wooden chairs, enjoying tea together at the Black Lake.

She had known they lived in Hogsmeade, had their symbolic, ancestral cottage in Godric's Hollow and an ingredients farm in Ottery . Yet it still shook her to see them just sitting there. It also made her curious.

She couldn't help herself. She followed the newly grown boxwood tree hedge down to the lakeside where it kept a little gateway to the other families piers. The Blacks did not yet have boats roped to theirs, but the Potters had a longboat with plenty of fishing equipment in it strapped tight to the wooden jetty.

She stopped in the little notch between the hedges and just watched the two ladies of the Potter family enjoy their tea, no doubt gossiping over this and that and especially that obnoxiously big new manor next doors.

It was Euphemia who saw her first over her cup. Her blue eyes twinkled as she spotted Antara shyly peeking at them. She took out her wand and with a swish conjured another cup. She filled it with tea from the kettle and pointed at it to Antara.

Taking the invitation for what it was, she took a small breath to steady herself and that overly excited part within her, before taking fast strides towards the table at the pier.

"Now, who do we have here? Dorea, I believe your niece has deemed us worthy of her presence." Euphemia quipped.

"It seems she has. An honor, for sure." Dorea responded deadpan.

Antara had to smile at the two older women giggling like schoolgirls. She wondered if the tea may be more interesting than just simple leafs, but guessed it was just them being silly old ladies.

"Good morning, Aunt Dorea." Antara greeted formally. Then she offered Euphemia her hand. "We didn't have the pleasure yet, I believe. I'm Antara Black."

Euphemia shook her hands equally formal, but always with an indulgent smile on her face. "So well spoken. You weren't kidding Dorea."

"You've seen nothing." her aunt answered. She gestured Euphemia to look at Antara. "Go on, ask her about what we just discussed."

"Maybe she can add some interesting perspective to our discussion, hmm Dorea?" Euphemia pointed at the seat next to her, inviting Antara to sit down. Once she was seated and had accepted the cup of tea, Euphemia leaned back and let her eyes roam over the little Black for a moment. "Do you know of the Hartwick bill?" she asked Antara.

Antara nodded. It was big talk in political circles, with little to no information for the public. The Hartwick bill introduced a rigid set of laws concerning the spread and freedom of Nymphs on british soil. It was introduced by the Free Mage Conglomerate, backed by the Black Alliance and, oddly enough given their usual disagreements, the Mages of the United Kingdom. It was opposed by the Phoenix and the Naturalists and set the Students of Loki into a fit of rage. "I've heard of it, yes." Antara answered.

"What do you think of it?" Euphemia asked, now engrossed by the little seven year old girl.

Antara knew she opposed the Alliance in this - heavily so. It was her old self, firmly standing with his belief that every being was equal of worth and equally worth protecting, but her new self barely disagreed. However, given what she suspected her grandfather to do in the near future, she was confident in speaking her mind freely. "I believe it should be stopped. The Nymphs have already agreed on several borders and protocols concerning their natural behavior towards wizards and the occasional witch. At this point we are blaming them for a shortcoming of our own male populace and I perceive this as unfair to them." She took a small sip from the tea - Darjeeling, evidently - and gave Euphemia a lopsided grin. "Or in other words: No Nymph can be expected to not jump at the chance, if the wizard is jumping at her."

Euphemia burst out in laughter, pounding her knee in unhindered bursts of giggles. Even Dorea, the more composed of the two, almost choked on her tea as she began to loudly laugh.

"Well said. Very well said, indeed." Euphemia declared through her giggles.

Dorea agreed. "I believe I'll tell Charlus that line."

"You know, Dorea." Euphemia held out her cup to her. "I will never understand why Arcturus is so against a female heir. Just look at your little niece here and tell me she isn't just Elladora reborn."

"I'm not entirely sure even aunt Elladora was that interested in politics at that age." Dorea shrugged at Euphemia. "I don't understand him either. He had even taken Antara with him to the Wizengamot a few times, did you know?"

"Oh, really? At that age?" Euphemia just got a flat look from Dorea. "Right, my mistake… I keep comparing to James."

"Where is the little troublemaker, anyway?" Dorea looked around the gardens, and the longer she watched just empty pastures, the more worried her gaze became.

"Huh," was all Euphemia answered as she followed Dorea's eyes over the gardens.

"You…" Dorea sighed dramatically. "Your aggressive lack of worry for your son always astounds me."

"He's not dead, nor is he dying, how bad can it be?"

"With him?" Dorea looked aghast at her. "Is that a trick question?"

"Well,..." Euphemia began answering, but she was interrupted by something crashing open at the far side of the garden, someone whooping in joy and another screaming in terror.

"My point exactly." Dorea grit out.

All three of them shot up from the table and ran towards the commotion, which was hidden behind a gate to an enclosure. Just as Dorea wanted to get through the gateway, they were blown off their feet by a burst of air from above them.

"JAMES!" Dorea screamed at the griffin gaining flight above them.

"Oh, James…" Euphemia groaned in exasperation.

Curious about the five year old version of her old self's father she looked up to the griffin. However, what she saw made her freeze in terror. That little boy screaming was not James. James was having the time of his life on the griffins back. The screams came from someone else.

"SIRIUS!" she and Dorea shouted at the same time.

But their screams did nothing to stop the two boys, not even mentioning the severely annoyed griffin. With more mighty swings of its wings the griffin began its flight towards the lake. It climbed higher in the air and began to accelerate fast. In no time it was giving a Nimbus a run for its money in speed and agility. She saw her little brother desperately holding on while James Potter could be heard laughing over the entirety of the Black lake.

The women ran down towards the lakeside and watched as the griffin did more and more outrageous maneuvers with the two little wizards on its back.

As if the collective panic wasn't enough, Walburga was sprinting over the grass, screaming for Sirius to get down there, completely ignoring that he was most likely not up there voluntarily.

She hopped over the boxbush fence and made through the Potter's garden, only stopping when her aunt Dorea caught her. Dorea did her best to calm her niece down, but it only did so much good to her, when her son was flying on a gigantic, brown griffin so high in the air they could barely make out his head.

Behind her little Regulus came sprinting, and laughing from the top of his lungs at his brother's misfortune. He held the hands of Bellatrix and Andromeda, both trying and utterly failing to keep their chuckles to themselves. Narcissa followed on the arms of Arcturus, also giggling at the display before her.

"What is the meaning of this?" He whirled around to his cousin. "Dorea!"

"Stop right there Arci, I didn't even know they knew each other." she shouted at him.

"Ah, don't worry. Galvan is one of the more docile griffins we have." Euphemia calmly informed, already another cup of tea in her hands.

Dorea did not agree. "Could you please, for once in your life, be worried for your son."

"Would that help?" she replied, nonplussed by what was happening around her. "Galvan will soon be done flying and then he'll come back to the pen. We just pick them off his back."

Now, Galvan had other plans. Instead of landing on the shore, or in the pen, he dove for the water, dragging both Sirius and James down into the depths with him. The griffin came back up with a big fish in his beak, but the two boys were no longer on his back.

While the griffin strut back to his place in the pen, the crowd present ran towards the pier to look for the boys. When after a few moments they still didn't surface, even Euphemia finally had panic in her eyes.

Arcturus was the opposite. The moment true mortal danger was befalling his heir and the young Potter, he grew remarkably calm. Surprisingly agile, Arcturus set down Narcissa and dove down into the water with a practiced header from the pier.

For too long all they saw was bubbles coming from the spot Arcturus dove in. Everybody present held their breath. No one dared speak as every pair of eyes stared down into the lake.

Arcturus broke the surface snapping for air, with two little boys grabbing tight onto his shoulders. He swam to shore, carrying the two boys on his back, but once they could stand in the water he threw them off, built up to his full height and pierced them with the full force of his famous glare.

James and Sirius pointed at each other, then looked at the pointed finger of their respective partner in crime and gave an indignant "Hey!" in unison.

"Enough." Arcturus spoke, using his infamous quiet, but penetrating voice. "James Potter, I cannot give you any punishments as you are not my charge, but be assured that I have never seen anything as asinine as what you two just did and I find myself wondering if shared between the two of you we would be able to find enough brain for a flobberworm."

"Oh, no. You just go ahead, Black. I find myself agreeing with you for once." came another voice behind all of them.

"Potter." Arcturus said in the way of greeting to Fleamont who stood behind the crowd, frowning at the two boys in the water. "Are you sure?"

"Be creative," Fleamont answered.

And hence, doom unfolded over the two five year old boys in the form of Arcturus Black speaking judgement. "Very well. You two flobberworms will do something productive with all your pent up energy. I'm sure the pens of those griffins will need regular cleaning. Every Monday, Wednesday and Tuesday, for the next six months, you will clean them according to the instruction of a houseelve."

Chapter n: Political Relationships

"You're no fun." Bella whined her in the ear. "You really going to give this parchment more attention than me?"

"Bella, I need to get these viewed before tomorrow." Antara tried, but she knew her cousin wouldn't be deterred that easily.

The deep violet eyes twinkled as she let her hands glide over Antara's body. "Now, such a conundrum. How can little Bella solve this puzzle?"

"By going to bed?" Antara gave back, and chided herself for the rather unconvincing tone she took. She also thought that she should've known better than to wear nothing but her silken sleeping gowns for late night work.

"You say that, but I'm getting entirely different signals here." Bella quipped and flicked her hardening nipples. "See here, that tells me that your attention is not on…" she looked down at the parchment. "... the Korlovetz clause."

Antara sighed. "Its hard concentrating when you got a little nuisance in the ear, fondling you like a horny teenager."

"Horny young adult, dear." Bellatrix had enough of Antara's coy playing. With a graceful pirouette around the armchair the young heir had chosen for work, she landed on her lap, straddling her with her strong legs. Slender arms moved around Antara's head, encircled it and then pressed it in between Bella's naked breasts.

"Bellaaa," Antara murmured as a last, formal line of defense, but she knew she was beaten and made to surrender when those Merlin-be-damned violet eyes looked at her like she was a piece of candy, just waiting to be unwrapped.

"Not so interesting any more, those laws, are they?" she said in that husky voice that Bella knew melted her in her fingers.

"It's a clause…" Antara whispered just before her mouth found the lips of Bellatrix. They tasted like tobacco and whiskey, and the steak she had for dinner. Their softness was deliciously contrasted by the needy and forceful manner in which they took control over the kiss. Bella's teeth bit into her lips, her tongue dictated their movement and Antara was content to let herself fall apart in her embrace.

Bellatrix' lips left her and she heard herself whimpering for the loss. They travelled down her neck, followed her chest down to her belly and ended up at her legs that opened at the silent command of Bella's kisses.

Her tongue roamed her clit, with chaotic precision, always on the edge, never reaching quiet where Antara needed it to be. She groaned in frustration eliciting a giggle from the woman between her legs.

Bellatrix wasn't that cruel, though. Giving into the unspoken demand her long tongue caressed her up and down her slit, stroking every bit of it with the utmost care. Just before the movement became frantic, the licks faster and rougher. Bellatrix pressed into her, driving as deep with her tongue as she could.

Antara felt her lower body shiver in excitement. She felt the pressure of her release nearing while her finger dug into the luxurious black curls of Bellatrix, finding purchase to stable her while the rest of her body came apart in rising ecstasy.

Her legs closed around Bellatrix's body as she reached apex. Out of control like the limbs of a puppet with its strings cut, she had to muster all that was left of her consciousness to keep from screaming out.

Bella stood and nestled herself onto the armchair, lifting Antara and seating her back down onto her lap where she entangled her with her legs and arms.

Clarity returned slowly to her while she was leaning into Bellatrix, enjoying her sweet perfume and the residue smell of cinnamon in her hair. Bellatrix wasn't one for stroking or caressing. She grabbed Antara's arse, and one of her breasts with the arm that slung around her body.

"You could have this… Every. Single. Day." Bellatrix murmured to her. "For the rest of your life."

Antara gulped, and fought back the fog of bliss that still hung in her mind. Bellatrix had become entirely too serious, entirely too fast. However, what else was new with Bellatrix?

"You just need to take it, as you took everything else. The only one denying you this is yourself and you know it." she said further, emphasizing her words with a slap on Antara's arse that made her whimper in anewed lust for the violet eyed beauty that held her so possessive. She felt Bella's fingers wrap around her bottom, come through her legs and begin to massage her clit, forcing a moan from her mouth that was cut off by a passionate kiss.

There was not an inch between their bodies when Antara dared look into her cousin's eyes. She had never been able to deny the vibrant, lilac depths in them. Especially not when they made puppy eyes, or were shining as bright as they did now with passion and lust and love.

"Bellatrix," Antara breathed. "I have to apologize."

"For what?"

"For being hesitant." Antara righted herself up. She made sure to look Bella deep in the eyes when she continued. "I want you. I know what people will say but I do not care - no longer. I want - I need you."

Bellatrix' eyes grew wide like saucers. When Antara didn't budge, instead came closer and softly pressed a tender kiss on her lips she had tears in her eyes.

Antara stroked her cheek, followed it to her hair and let her fingers wrap softly around the back of Bella's head before she put their foreheads together. "Grandfather said he would come by tonight. I will tell him… tonight… that you belong to me, and I… I belong to you."

"W-when...?" Bellatrix managed to get out.

"He's probably already waiting." Antara admitted with a smile very evident in her voice. "Go to bed."

"But…"

"I didn't mean your bed, Bella. You know where my room is. I won't be too long."

"Oh,"

"Yes, oh. And don't you fall asleep on me."

They slowly stood up from the armchair. Bellatrix seemed in a daze, but with a soft smile plastered on her face. While Antara looked for a fitting, simple black robe to receive her grandfather with, Bella just used a silken blanket to wrap her naked body in.

Just in that moment they heard a knock on the door.

"My cue, then." Bellatrix murmured and pressed a lingering kiss onto Antara. Standing their height difference made Bella almost a head taller than Antara so that she had too look up. Her petite figure was easily wrapped tight by Bellatrix' well trained body and luxurious curves. Here Antara felt she could breathe freely like nowhere else, despite being so enclosed.

There was another knock on the door and Bellatrix went to open it.

"Good evening, uncle Arcturus." she grinned up at the old man in a cheeky manner and slid past him into the halls of Black Port Manor, the silken blankets doing only the bare minimum to cover her up as it billowed behind her.

He pierced Antara with a stare. "You two had a good evening I presume."

"Something I wanted to talk to you about." Antara replied. She pointed towards the other side of her office, at the couches around the little table where she had her whiskey service. She gave the armchair a last look before following her grandfather to sit on the exact opposite side of the room from her little adventure with Bellatrix.

He let himself fall hard on the pillows. His sigh of relief spoke of a hard day of politicking, despite him just having been on a fishing trip with Fleamont, Edgar and Henry. It was never not politics with those four. However, his eyes also told Antara that he was well aware the discussion weren't at an end for the day; that quite the contrary was the case, indeed.

She poured them both some of the mead the Slughorns have gifted her. It was exquisite, and it would be just the right stuff to follow along with what she had to talk about.

"I'm an old man, Antara. I don't wish to be bored with emotional hiccups." He grabbed the glass of mead and drank a good gulp of it down before facing her.

"No hiccups, I assure you."

"I'm not talking about what you think." he replied. "Have you gotten any mail from Sirius, or Andromeda?"

"Not in a long while."

"Me neither. Hence why I had some friends inform me of the current status of my niece and grandson." He took another gulp. He was visibly torn between sides by whatever he had been informed of. Antara was intrigued.

"Sirius and James have not talked to each other in a month."

"What?! Why?"

"You have three guesses. What is it that always comes between men?"

She rolled her eyes. "A girl?"

"Winner." he confirmed in that same, somewhat bored, somewhat exasperated tone. "Her name is Lily… something. Ethans? E… E… E… something with E."

"Evans?" Antara offered, already preparing her "many fish in the sea" speech for Sirius.

"That was it. Muggleborn, you see. Of course Sirius couldn't fall in love with a pureblooded girl, that would have been too easy."

"And James got her, so now Sirius is sulking?" Antara took a wild guess.

Arcturus just raised a questioning brow. "You think too little of your brother. Whatever miscreant he is, he is a charmer. No, no… its James that is sulking."

"Wha…" Antara's brain seemed to grind to a halt. "Sirius is… with Lily?"

"Aye… and I haven't even brought you the best part."

"Oh, what now?" Antara held her face in horror. Somewhere along the line she had altered things in a way that her old life's father did not get together with her old life's mother. Was this the goodbye to a future Harry Potter? She took a big swig of mead.

It was during her drinking that Arcturus let the Erumpent Horn fall. "She's pregnant."

Antara spat out the mead over the entire table and almost suffocated from coughing out the mead that had jumped into her airways at the news.

"She is WHAT?!" Antara shouted through the room. "For fucks sake… SIRIUS!"

"She's also keeping it." Arcturus continued unperturbed, or rather just exhausted and tired, as Antara believed now. "A half-blood Black bastard. Toujours Pur… right."

But Antara wasn't as caught up in the half-blood part, as she was in the "bastard child" part. They were firmly within the ranks of the moderate parties, right between the Malfoy Alliance and the Naturalists in belief and creed. Her thoughts went from one member to the next. All in all, she thought that Arcturus was not thinking about this the right way. "They have to marry."

"Excuse me?"

"Marry. Sirius and Lily Evans. He fucked this up, no doubt, and she did her part in it as well, but we can salvage this. I know Lily Evans. Gryffindor. Brilliant witch. Charms and Potion prodigy and is so enraptured by wizarding culture, she stopped wearing anything but robes in third year. She is the epitome of what the Slytherinian ideal means."

Arcturus sat up, rubbing his chin, now keenly listening to his granddaughter and heir as she spun another string in her web.

"But our allies within and without the party, not counting the Malfoys, are going to be put off by the bastard child being born and the Phoenix may as well start printing their campaign now, with how their religious crowd is going to devour that tidbit." She took another gulp of the mead, and refilled her glass to give herself a few seconds of thinking time. "It's not important how they marry. It's important that they do at all. If the Phoenix uses Lily as example that we pressured her into the Celtic or Norse circles, we can slap that back at them as patronization of muggleborn - not allowing them to choose on their own, as if they were children."

Arcturus nodded and then inclined his head. "I didn't think about it like this."

"Old habits," Antara shrugged. "We're no longer the HoBA. We're the Forum, and we gotta embrace it, especially in situations like this."

"And what about the family?" Arcturus gave her a sympathetic smile. "Let me just express my doubt that they will... embrace this."

"Err…" Antara frowned. Their family was an entirely different can of worms. She believed that she would be able to get her mother on board, if - and only if - Lily was the perfect pureblood witch in manners and grace, even if not in blood. In some corner of Walburga's mind she had probably already given up on Sirius ever becoming her perfect pureblood prince. What was a bit of muggleborn daughter in law after all the trouble Sirius caused? Hell, their mother might even be thankful that he was finally being tamed.

The rest of the bunch would have to deal with it, unless they wanted to risk Antara's wrath. "I'll set them right." she finally declared. "On this one at least. You said something about Andromeda."

"Oh yes, Bella is going to love this." Arcturus spat out sarcastically. "Similar story really, just that with Cygnus' daughters we have the issue of several pureblood heirs having their eyes on them. Rejection is not something they especially excel at."

"Would have fooled me with those incetious pricks."

Arctururs scoffed. "Someone's throwing Reductos in the greenhouse."

"Ehm…" Antara's cheeks started to glow a bright red. "R-Right. So Andromeda is also in love with a muggleborn?"

"Don't think we're not talking about this."

"I know, I know…" Antara waved off. "What's the name of that muggleborn?" she asked, even though her old memories already gave her the answer.

"I never said anything about a muggleborn. I said similar." Arctururs shook his head in exasperation and emptied his second glass of mead. "It's the merlin be damned French."

Wait what? Antara caught herself again taking her former life for granted in so many ways. Ted Tonks had been decidedly not french. He had been one of the most un-french people Harry had known.

"So… that isn't too bad?" Antara forced her to say.

"Wouldn't be, if the French wouldn't let Veela into their school and therefore…"

"... in the Black Forum Exchange Program. Oh boy." Antara dropped back into the lean of the couch and fortified herself with the last mead in her own glass. "Well, at least it's a Veela. It's not like we'll have to explain the illicit affair of Andromeda Black with a centaur or something depraved like that."

"Counting our blessings there."

"Oh well… Great result of our exchange program, bla bla bla, international cooperation through fratenization, bla bla bla, or some cockswallow like this... " Antara let her head roll over the lean to look at her grandfather. "I'm just going out of a limb here and assume I haven't just missed a male Veela suddenly being a thing?"

"No… that girl…" Arcturus pressed out an impressed pant. "She is definitely a woman."

"This generation is going back to the roots something fierce, eh?" Antara joked. "Marriage to avoid bastards, affairs with magical creatures, so gay we'd make Coven witches blush,…"

"A tiny bit incestious." Arcturus joined in.

Antara gulped. "Look… grandfather…"

"My word. I have given up my hope for responsible grandchildren a long time ago." He gave a heartfelt belly laugh. "I'm just glad they're led by the most intelligent and depraved of them all."

"Uhm… thanks?"

He righted himself up. Without asking he poured both of them another glass and chinked them both together. "To your health."

"To your health," she repeated and took the formal small sip one usual took after a toast.

"So tell me… what is this about Bellatrix leaving your office with nothing but white silken blankets saving her from nudity?"

"I guess…" Antara hesitated. She felt her mouth go dry with guilt at loading just another grievance onto her grandfather's shoulders and took a sip to both buy her time and wet her tongue. However, she was no coward and her grandfather deserved the truth. Everybody involved deserved the truth to be known. "I love her."

Arcturus remained silent, only studying is granddaughter as he knew she would tell her story in her own time.

"It started in… fourth year? Yes. We kinda… explored this together, I think. We also decided that boys were stupid." she said with a snort at the memory of them being put out at even the idea of a man putting his you-know-what into their you-know-where. "We had sex in seventh year for the first time."

"And you enjoyed it." Arcturus didn't ask, but just stated a fact.

Antara laughed, and shook her head. "No, I loved it. I had small… things… with other girls."

"I know."

"Yeah, I know you do." She waved her hands around looking for words to describe what she felt. "With Bellatrix… it was just so much more."

"And now? Is it still more, or just some playing around?" Arcturus pressed on. He had never been interested in the emotional part of relationships, his wife Melania excluded. It was always about the change of the status quo that came with relationships and how it would affect the great project of the Black family. He continued. "You are aware that I have, with no exaggeration, dozens of inquiries concerning you and Bellatrix' availability? Those are just the ones I seriously considered. Now, as my heir and the future Matriarch of the Black family, you must understand how important it is that the answers you give me clarify this poussage you cultivated with your cousin."

"Its not just an affair." Antara gave back rather louder than she intended. "I do not say lightly that I love someone. But I love Bellatrix."

"Dorea has offered to arrange a meeting with her son, Aurelius for Bellatrix. These offers aren't wiped away lightly."

"They are inconsequential."

"Inconse… ?! Are you mad?"

"I am not mad. They are irrelevant because Bellatrix is not available - because I am not available." Antara stood up. She began pacing fast back and forth in the room to work out the pressure that has settled in her mind. "I love Bellatrix - my cousin. I love my cousin. She isn't available. She is mine. She belongs to me and me alone."

"Antara…"

"And I belong to her. I will never, ever share a bed with anyone else ever again. That's my final word." She set her glass down with a loud crashing sound, and with only mad luck didn't the glass break in her hand.

Arcturus rose his hands to calm his granddaughter down. He knew as well as anyone who was familiar with Antara that when she got angry, she felt deeply about something. "Please, sit."

"I…" she frowned, but still plopped down onto the couch again. "I love her."

Arcturus sighed and hid his face in his hands for a few moments. The full glass of mead was then sloshed down in one gulp, then another and just then did his glass hit the table and his gaze that of Antara. "You know, I am glad I have chosen you, five years ago. You always had a feeling for politics, people… sniffed out intrigues left and right even as a child. In all that you never forgot your ideals and convictions. You never had the taint of being a fairweather allie, or an opportunist. In all of Britain, maybe even in Europe, you're known as someone of ideals. Being an idealist is not always something good, but you make it work. You always did. And… I think what I'm trying to say is… I don't like this. At all. I think you should find respectable men, have children with them and just play your cousin's games when the public isn't looking. But…" he threw his arms up, unable to put in words what he was thinking.

"I will marry her. Publicly. It will be a huge fest - several days, starting on Beltane." Antara whispered to him. "We'll use coven-potions to have children. Lots of them." she added with a small smile on her face.

To her relief he smiled back, with that same smile he always had when she did something he disapproved of, but he was still sure she would do well. "You remind me so much of aunt Elladora, yet even she would have never… never had the courage."

"Is that why she never had children?"

He scoffed. "No. She never had children because she was a stone cold bitch, with no Bellatrix to melt her down from time to time." he said with a laugh.

"You always had a way of complimenting me." she replied deadpan.

Arcturus gave her a mocking look. "Antara, I have seen Wizengamot veterans almost wet themselves when you glared at them. Stone cold bitch is an apt description of your public presence."

She snorted and held her glass out for her grandfather to toast. He let his own chink against it and they both drank the last bit of the exquisite mead in silence. They contemplated what was said, next to each other, while leaving the other be to his thoughts.

It was only when both had emptied their glasses that Arcturus made to leave. He was stopped by Antara speaking.

"I want the family together for Beltane in two weeks. It should be a simple dinner and fire. Its gonna be about Sirius and Andromeda… and about Bella and me. We'll announce and introduce all in one go." she gave it another thought. "I'll write to them. I will also invite Lily and that Veela."

"That…" Arcturus inclined his head and his smile got an amused, but doubtful look to it. "Those are going to be interesting festivities."

"I count on it." she said and watched as a laughing Arcturus walked out of her office and into the dark corridors of Black Port Manor.

Antara only gifted her tables full of paper and parchment one last, disdainful look and decided to call it a day. She would wing the special council meeting tomorrow. Swiftly she made her way to her bedroom, opened the door and knew once more that she had made the right decision.

Bellatrix was lying on her side, naked and only with a strip of silk through her legs, in a way that made Antara spot her immediately just with the sparse light of the moon softly playing along her curves. Had she not been fast asleep, Antara would have lost her robes faster than one could say a vanishing spell.

But she was fast asleep and so Antara was as quiet as she could be while undressing. She tip-toed towards the bed, laid herself next to Bella and covered them together under the thick woolen blankets. She cuddled herself into the crook of Bella's neck, and pressed herself as tight against her as she reasonably could without waking her, finding sleep faster than she had for years, and dreams sweeter than ever.

The following days, Antara decided to deliver the letters of invitation to her brother, her cousin and their lovers herself. Sirius and Andromeda had still not written. Antara looked forward to glaring at them like naughty little children.

It wasn't just her desire to play the big, bad Black matriarch that led her to Hogwarts, it was also a massive, and incredibly frustrating case of procrastination. She had yet to ask Bellatrix to marry her. They slept together, they worked next to each other in the manor, and they spent as much meals in shared solitude as possible. Merlin, they as much as agreed to it already, several times over. Yet, not once had the words come out. At the last moment, always when she had the courage together, she deflated like a popped balloon and kept silent.

So she walked through Hogsmeade and up the cobblestone way to Hogwarts to spend time in the sun, away from the pier where Bellatrix lay in the skimpiest bathing suit she could have possibly found and read through a stack of books for her Mastery dissertation. It was, of course, only by sheer chance that the spot Bellatrix chose was exactly where she could be seen from the window of Antara's office.

It was too soon to suffer defeat at the hands of Bellatrix' sex appeal, hence her way towards the gates of Hogwarts, so that other people's raging libido would be the matter of discussion and hers safely forgotten in that small wooden box on her desk, in the form of a golden ring.

Professor McGonagall awaited her at the gate to the Entry Hall. The strict woman looked as regal and imposing as ever.

"Miss Black, to what do we owe the honor?"

"I could lie and make up some pretend inspection, but truly it is just family business, I'm afraid. Could you do me a favor and get a hold of Andromeda, Sirius, Lily Evans and uhm…" Antara looked down at the four letters in her hands, looking for the last name. "Lylou Belrose?"

"Lily Evans? I don't see why it would be family…" McGonagall started, but abruptly let her mouth fall shut at the bored look she received from Antara.

"When we haven't heard from Sirius for weeks, grandfather asked around. We know."

"Of course you do." McGonagall sniffed in obvious disapproval, but nevertheless began leading Antara towards her office. "What do you want with Miss Belrose, though?"

"I always wondered if the Heads of House know as much about students from other Houses as they do of theirs. Evidently, they don't." Antara showed McGonagall the two letters addressed to Andromeda and Lylou. "It seems Andromeda has become rather intimate with Miss Belrose. These are invitations to a small Beltane dinner."

"For all four of them?"

"For all four."

"That comes… unexpected." The old Professor sounded surprised. "We had assumed that you would be against this relationship. After all, Miss Evans is a…"

"We?" Antara interrupted the, no doubt, accusation that would have followed. One that she had grown tired of years ago.

"The faculty." McGonagall answered a bit too fast for Antara's liking. Then again, the message was clear. Dumbledore had seen a chance to bring a Black into the fold of the Phoenix and has taken it.

She couldn't even be mad at the old man. As far as politics in magical Britain went, that was a tame and civilized attempt. She would have done the same. Yet, at the very least, just out of spite, she would not let this one pass unanswered. However, she saved her planning for a more calm moment. They were entering McGonagall's office and Antara prepared to have some choice words with her little brother.

"An elve has brought the message to all four that they are to come to my office. Horace is informed as well. While we wait: Tea?"

"I could go for a spot."

McGonagall served them well brewed Earl Grey, made stronger as usual, but she figured you'd need that as a Professor at Hogwarts. Despite the niceties, Antara felt the antipathy against voice of the Professor was rather cold when she made for conversation. "How is life treating you, Miss Black?"

"I cannot complain. Politics is a harsh business, but rewarding."

"The Prophet is singing your praises every day. Horace can barely contain his gushing most of the time. Although I wonder... " McGonagall trailed off.

Antara barely kept herself from rolling her eyes at the Professor. She could deal with false civility and masking politeness. What she could barely tolerate was unwarranted superiority.

"Please continue, Professor. What troubles you?"

"You know me, Miss Black, I am not one for those games of words played in the political arena. I like to be frank."

"Then be so."

"It is your plans of the… "modernization" of Hogwarts. It is my understanding that the Ministry has no business in the dealings of Hogwarts, and even the Council has only limited authority."

Antara nodded. "Indeed, in Hogwarts the headmaster has the last word."

"Then why this law? If it has no binding effect whatsoever?"

Antara just smiled at her old Professor, and made sure that it looked sufficiently patronizing. "There are more schools of magic than Hogwarts. The new law will apply to them, first and foremost."

"Does that include your… what was it? Black Academy of Higher Magics?"

"Even better," Antara let her cup down onto the little plate without much noise. "It will spearhead the new changes. Masteries will finally have a barebone curriculum, with none of the arbitrary nature of apprenticeships. Qualifications won't be a matter of random chance anymore."

McGonagall scoffed, but decided to not comment on the Academy. "While interesting, for sure, I'm more concerned about the clauses for muggleborns. Especially the mandatory Magical Culture Studies."

"Why so?"

"It is indoctrination."

"Introduction, more like."

"Call it what you want, it still is…"

Antara had heard the Phoenix' argument a hundred times by now. She was done listening to it and just interrupted McGonagall in what would have definitely become a rant. "Did you know that over eighty percent of muggleborn are incapable of opening a vault at Gringotts after Hogwarts without being ripped off by Goblins? Seventy percent have no clue about our political systems, or their rights and duties within it. They regularly get entrapped in details of the Statute of Secrecy by simple ignorance. They don't know how to file for permits, how to order an international portkey - or when doing so would be needed, or that there are even different magical nations within Britain itself. If I would start about smaller things like their ignorance of fashion and etiquette, I could monologue into the late evening." she paused to read McGonagall's expression. She had a frown on her face, but Antara could see that her points had found some foothold within her former Professor. She continued. "Magical Culture Studies should rectify much of these shortcomings. We are not interested in forcing them out of their birthplace in the muggle world, only in providing them the tools to succeed in the new one they have entered."

"Still," she answered. "Professor Dumbledore remains sceptic of the law, given your… track record."

"I have never personally spearheaded an anti-muggle or muggleborn bill."

"But you have supported a good number of them."

"None of them were directly against the muggleborn minority," Antara then waved any counter McGonagall was about to say away. "And isn't that the reason the Alliance has split? We are no longer bound to keeping the peace with Malfoy's ilk."

The professor gave Antara a rare, approving look. "True. You have played a great role in that, if I understood correctly."

"It was by and large my idea." Antara shrugged and leaned back into the wooden chair. "I find our new position very comfortable, even if it requires far more bargaining."

McGonagall smiled. "Horace predicted your success, you know?. I personally believed it to be the end of the Black headlock in the Wizengamot, but you have proven me wrong. Your family - you still hold onto all strings."

"Almost all. Albus is notoriously hard to… convince of things."

"Maybe it would be prudent to let yourself be convinced from time to time? He is, after all, Albus Dumbledore."

"Now you're just joking with me." Antara playfully replied.

"Not at all." McGonagall leaned forward and her voice became a whisper, even in the locked room. "He still awaits your reply to his letter. We cannot let this matter fester uncontrolled."

"To believe I would even consider…" Antara felt herself getting louder. She breathed in and she breathed out, slowly and controlled. "I'm not in the business of answering offers as mental as that. He wants our forces combined? Very well. But not solely under him."

"He is the defeater of Grindelwald. Who better than him?"

"He could be Merlin himself, I would not rally wands for his command." She hissed. "It is insulting how naive he thinks I am. Make no mistake, Albus Dumbledore is a politician and I'm not making a habit out of giving the opposition the tools to dismantle my organisations."

McGonagall opened her mouth, but Antara cut her off. "If Albus believes he is the only one fighting this "Dark Lord", he is either delusional, or his intelligence operatives aren't worth whatever they're getting paid. At least mine procure information. Enough that I know that Albus needs me, I do not need him."

"He is the reason this madman hasn't shown himself openly." the professor countered.

"And will he cease to be just that when I don't offer my allegiance to him? Because nothing less is what he asks. He has not asked for partnership, or alliance - no union of the willing. He asked for the families of my Forum to recognize him as leader in a war he seemingly hasn't even started to understand. Which is why I am content in having him here, sit in his headmaster's throne and be the containment."

"Then share this information. How can you expect him to understand something you allegedly know, without letting him know?"

"Because you leak." Antara took a sip from her tea while McGonagall's mind caught up with the implication.

She gasped in indignation. "Spies? How… How dare you!?"

"No, no, no…" Antara shrugged. "Just blabbermouths - unwary exchanges of information. I doubt you have many, if any active spies within your ranks. However, what you do have are a lot of are amateurs. I cannot entrust information to an organisation that speaks about operations in the Hogshead over a pint."

McGonagall's eyes were widening just slightly, letting Antara know that her agents had once more done their work diligently. She wasn't sure if she could do more with being secretive about the information, but she did know that if she kept it to herself, there may be deaths on the Order's side. Her eyes studied McGonagall for a moment, until her past lives sympathy for the woman won out. "On the third or fourth of Mai, you plan to infiltrate the Nimbus offices to find evidence against Jakobus Nott. You send at least a three man team, one of them an… Auror? Gringotts field operative? Someone highly skilled with combat training, in any case, who will be responsible for the cursebreaking required. One of the members of this coup will be a young adult witch from Cornwall, brown hair, pureblood, rich… Marissa Abbott?"

"L-Lisa…" McGonagall whispered, gobsmacked by what she was hearing.

"Lisa Abbott? She never struck me as particularly interested in cloak and dagger activities. But she definitely fits the description of rookie."

"How do you know all this?"

"As I said, you employ amateurs." Antara took one of the biscuits that came with the tea and nibbled on it. "Take this warning as a gesture of good will. The operation is blown before it even started. If I know it, so does the Dark Lord. One of my employees heard your boys speak about how "Highman" would try to get into the girl's - Lisa's, I presume - knickers, by being especially impressive during the mission in front of the rookie. Well… if he wants to show off how well he does fighting Death Eaters, his friends have done him a favor and directed them right at him."

"I need to inform Albus…" McGonagall said more to herself than Antara.

"You see now, why I am so hesitant to even inform you of the basics?"

"Yes," the professor seemed to visibly deflate. All her fight left her as she admitted. "We'll have to improve. Fast."

"Yes, you do." Antara began, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. She gave McGonagall a small smile. "Now to more pleasant business."

"Enter," McGonagall righted herself in her chair, straightened out her robe and seemed for all about to come in like she hadn't just been told of the dysfunction of the paramilitary she partly commanded.

Antara stood and placed herself in a more shadowy corner of the room. She knew it was petty, but she wanted to scare the everlasting shite out of her brother. Having gotten no letters was a testament to how little he trusted her, and it stung. Some retribution was in order. She waved her wand and cast a fast and light disillusionment charm on herself. It was more camouflage, than invisibility, but it would be enough. McGonagall only credited it with a roll of her eyes.

The wooden door opened to reveal Sirius and Lily, both carrying their bookbags with one hand and holding each other with the other hand. "You wanted to see us, Professor?"

"Please, come in." McGonagall pointed them towards two chairs galloping to the desk and stopping there. "We have something of a more personal nature to discuss."

Obediently, they sat down onto the chairs, their hands still intertwined like a lifeline. It was cute, Antara thought, but she still couldn't shake the odd feeling of seeing Sirius holding that hand instead of James. It wasn't the only change from her previous life by far, but it was one of the weirdest for her.

"Professor, if it is about the…" Sirius stopped mid sentence. He couldn't say whatever it was that he wanted to speak.

"The child." Lily helped out. She sat more upright in her chair. Prouder. Her schoolbag forgotten, she let her hand move over her belly in a somewhat protective manner. "We have decided to keep it. And Sirius…" The smile she gave Antara's little brother was something to frame and hang in a gallery. It was as bright as the summer sun, and lightened the mood of the room just as much. "He's taking a stand." she said and held up her right hand where a small, golden ring with a tiny diamond glistered on her fingers.

Antara decided to let that be her cue. "That will make things decidedly easier."

She really had to keep her facial expression down and her entire body from giving into the urge to laugh. Sirius and Lily almost jumped to the roof when they heard her voice and saw her walk from the shadows to stand behind them. She let her hands grab a shoulder of each of them. A sigh, dramatic pause, a tsk for her brother; disappointed look at him, encouraging look at Lily aaand action. "Brother mine, I haven't heard from you in time no see, what's new with you?" she said in a voice that left no doubt that she knew exactly what was "new".

Once again it was Lily that took over the role of the courageous one while Sirius was frozen in shock like an icicle. Lily's voice was channeling the shock into fury, however, and her voice was icy cold as she spoke. "There is nothing you can do. We're both seventeen - legal adults! Sirius is not your property."

Antara threw her arms up, not knowing what to say to that. Instead she faced Sirius. "Merlin dammit, what the hell have you told her about me?"

"Uhm…" Sirius replied eloquently.

"You know. It hurt when I had to be informed about your relationship and my future niece or nephew by grandfather, who has been briefed on it by rumours and gossip." It had, and Antara was incapable of leaving said hurt out of her tone. "When did I ever give you the feeling like you couldn't come to me with anything, Sirius? Tell me. I don't know."

"It…" he mumbled. "I… You see... "

"Sirius,"

"I know, I know. Full sentences." He threw up his arms in the same way Antara had done and rang for words. When none came, but instead his eyes became wet from tears Antara just dropped her spiel and became his big sister. She cuddled him in a tight hug, his head in the crook of her neck and her own hands rubbing circles on his back. "Its ok. We're ok, Sirius. I don't know what the hell happened for you to be this… secretive."

"Lily is a muggleborn." he quietly mumbled into her ear.

"Aye…" she nodded. "And have you ever seen me show any antipathy against muggleborn?"

"Not you…" Sirius grabbed her tighter. "Mother, grandfather, our uncles and aunts…"

"And who's the Matriarch of the Black family."

"You."

"Damn right I am."

Sirius laughed into her neck and Antara chuckled with him. She took his face in her hand and saw, again, how big her brother has become. He easily towered over her when standing, but as he sat there he was little Siri again, who came to her bed to hide from monsters, real and imaginary. She wiped away his tears.

"Now, lets try this again, Miss Evans." Antara said and whirled around to face Lily. She held out her hand, back side up. "I am Antara Elladora Black, Elder of the Wizengamot and Matriarch of the Black family."

She was impressed by the casual knowledge Lily demonstrated by bringing her own back of the hand beneath hers, before twisting it and shaking Antara's hand in greeting. Perfectly executed. Antara had hopes for the dinner, if Lily would curb her glistering glare.

"Lily Evans." she replied.

"Its good to finally meet you… may I call you Lily?"

Her query was just answered with a simple nod.

"Thank you, Lily. So I've heard you two were a teeny tiny bit irresponsible." She gave Lily's belly a pointed look.

"Sirius stands to the baby." Lily grabbed her belly again, shielding it from Antara. "He proposed to me a few days ago."

"As I said, that makes things easier." Antara turned around to Sirius again. "I would have pressured you to do so, now that you'll become a father."

"It was the right thing to do. And its not like… like I don't love her. I do. Things could've… you know."

Antara grinned at her brother. "Been slower?"

"Yeah…"

"I'm proud of you, Sirius." she said and wrapped her little brother in another hug. "And I'm happy for you. Here…" she stood up and produced the two envelopes for him and Lily. She held them out to them and both took the parchment slowly and carefully.

"Whats that?" Lily asked.

"An invitation. We will have a small Beltane feast at the first of May, where I want the family to attend. Given your new status as fiancee of my brother, that also includes you."