Preparations
The thickening snowstorm swirled around Black House, whipping its stone walls and slender eaves relentlessly. Snow already blanketed the grounds, frosted the trees, and obliterated the road and low garden wall. And it was barely past dinnertime; by nightfall proper the grounds would be unrecognizable. The manor, however, loomed Black as ever, contrasting starkly with the gleaming snowscape.
A small figure was visible in one of the upper windows, lit softly from behind.
Bellatrix Black kneeled stock-still on her bed, nose pressed to her diamond-paned window in intense concentration for a nine-year-old. There was little relief for the eyes in the pure-white, rapidly darkening scene, but she could still make out the wrought-iron gates and fence at the end of the main road, visible as black spikes thrusting angrily out of a snowdrift.
The lamplight gleamed in her dark hair, which, if she shifted at all, would cascade down her back and shine with dozens of little fairy lights. But she did not shift. Light poured around her still form onto the gabled roof outside the window, casting her as a dark shape in a golden rectangle. The snow sparkled in the window-light, crystalline.
She turned abruptly at a noise behind her.
“Bella?”
It was only her sister, Andromeda. She clutched a fat toy snake, whose head flopped limply over her white arm. “Bella, are they back yet?”
Bellatrix sighed with irritation at this interruption to her vigil. “No,” she replied simply, turning her face again to the cold windowpane.
The smaller girl hesitated for a fraction of a second, stroking the snake’s velvet head. “They said they’d be back by nightfall, Bella?” It was a question, asking for reassurance.
“They’ll be back.” Bellatrix had absolute faith in her parents, who had yet to renege on a promise to their girls.
Still Andromeda lingered, and Bellatrix decided to take her sister’s mind off the wait. “Look what I can do.”
She concentrated, and the lamp dimmed to the barest red glow. Andromeda gasped, delighting in her sister’s newfound power. Bellatrix sat cross-legged on the bed, the picture of smugness. This ability was a new discovery, honed over the past few weeks until she could control candle flames and, to some degree, lamplight.
The lamp brightened again, to Andromeda’s glee. Then, without warning, it snapped off.
Andromeda began to whimper. “Turn it back on, Bella, please, Bella,” she implored.
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” Bellatrix replied from the bed. It was now dark enough outside that the window offered almost no illumination, a diamond-pattered patch of grey in the blackness.
Bellatrix waited for Andromeda’s whimpers to approach a warning level, then leaned over to her bedside table and groped for the lamp, re-igniting it manually. Her sister’s sniffles subsided.
“Don’t cry,” Bellatrix warned, “or I’ll turn off the lamp in your room every night.” She doubted whether she could actually control Andromeda’s lamp from her own bedroom, but her younger sister was too in awe of her to consider this.
There was a long silence. Finally, “Can you show me my stars, Bella?” Andromeda’s voice was small as she regarded her older sister seated haughtily on the bed.
“Don’t be stupid, it’s snowing. The stars are all covered,” Bellatrix responded, though her voice was not harsh. “Come sit with me, and we’ll wait for Mother.”
The girls did not have long to wait, for Cygnus and Druella Black Apparated outside the front gate shortly thereafter. Cygnus stepped forward and muttered something, and the iron gates swung open formidably. Druella took her husband’s arm, and they made their way to the manor with difficulty, heads bent against the wind, Cygnus with his wand out to blast the snow from their path.
Shedding their cloaks, they entered the lesser sitting room and took the high-backed green chairs nearest the fireplace. The room was very fine: oak-paneled, with the Black family crest carved over the hearth. A Slytherin crest, slightly smaller, adorned the opposite wall.
A female house-elf who looked much younger than Totty tended the roaring fire. “Would Master and Mistress like a cup of tea or cocoa?” she asked, wriggling her snoutlike nose.
“Brandy, Kreaper. And take our cloaks,” ordered Cygnus. Kreaper bowed low and scurried out, dragging the sodden traveling cloaks. Druella watched her go, then leaned forward in her armchair and placed her hand on her husband’s arm.
“Cygnus, you were the heir apparent until tonight.”
“I am aware of that fact, Druella. However, I am still the eldest son of the Black family. My sister’s new brat is not, nor is Orion his father’s favorite.” Cygnus smiled indulgently at his wife. “Your concern for my position is touching if not unmotivated.”
Druella smiled stiffly. “I want our girls’ futures to be assured.”
“And your own.”
“And our own.”
Kreaper returned with a decanter of amber liquid on a tray with two low glasses. She bowed again and Cygnus made a motion as if to wave her away before reconsidering and addressing the elf. “Kreaper! Have your sniveling counterpart check on Narcissa.”
“Kreaper’s brother Kreacher is already sleeping outside his youngest mistress’ door in case she is needing anything throughout the night.” Kreaper’s nose was almost touching the floor, so low was her genuflection. “Kreaper is going now to check on the older girls, Master Cygnus,” she added squeakily.
Cygnus dismissed her with an approving nod and turned back to his wife. “House-elves.” His tone dripped disdain, but he did not elaborate.
Instead, he unstoppered the brandy and returned to their conversation as he measured himself a drink. “I do not think that Walburga and my reckless young brother-in-law will suddenly be given our house, if that is what you mean.” He frowned. “Although I would feel more secure if you had managed to produce on boy.”
Druella colored and withdrew her hand from Cygnus’. “I”“
“Gave me three daughters,” Cygnus finished smoothly. “But worry not. Orion and Walburga have long been out of favor with Arcturus, though Orion is his first son. He is redrawing his will, yes, but I doubt we will receive less than we deserve still. Not with three daughters to marry off and four old crows to support.”
“Cygnus, your parents…” Druella’s voice was strained.
“They’ll have long gone to bed,” replied Cygnus unconcernedly. “Besides, they can’t possibly hear us from their wing.”
He sipped his brandy. “Our conversation is over. The brat’s naming party will be here in two weeks’ time. I trust you to make it a properly celebratory event for all the guests.”
Druella nodded and rose. “I should check on the girls. I do not doubt that they are awake waiting up for me as we speak.” She swept from the sitting room, leaving Cygnus alone to nurse his brandy.
Two weeks passed at Black House in a flurry of snow and preparations, days marked by deliveries of presents, exotic tropical fruits, and even a huge ice representation of the Black crest. Numerous fur-clad witches stopped by to give their input on everything from the music to the appropriate length for the tapers on the dining room table (“Cut them in half, Druella, or one will not be able to see one’s dining companions across the table”).
Druella had sat up half the night on Sirius’ birth, feverishly writing out a guest list and magically manufacturing invitations for the newest Black’s naming party.
Of course, everyone involved already knew who was invited (all the respectable pure-blood families in the area, and these were not overly numerous), making invitations to such an event a mere formality. However, failure to send out the proper invitations in the proper time frame would be considered rude and (amusingly) snobbish. Druella was cutting it close as it was, with only two weeks’ notice of the event. She hadn’t dared to risk waiting even another day to send out the invites.
So she had slept very little that first night, and the very next morning had emptied the manor’s owlery to deliver invitations stamped with the Black crest all over England. Replies had poured back in within the week. Such was the status of the Black family, that all the Wizarding nobility were delighted to attend the naming, even on such awfully short notice.
The day before the naming arrived. Druella was taking a rare and well-deserved break from her event-organizing duties, sipping coffee in the breakfast room (a comparatively new addition, built to give the family a place to take meals away from the grandeur of the dining room) with two older women. She ran her finger down a sheet of parchment, a faint frown line between her arching brows.
“’Ella,” said one of the women, streaks of white in her red hair, “you need to stop worrying.”
“Irma,” Druella began exasperatedly, but the other woman cut her off.
“Please, call me ‘Mother,’” beamed the elder.
Druella’s forehead contracted further, her heavy brow shadowing her face. “I’m not worrying. I’m merely checking the menu.”
Irma smiled, elbowing the woman beside her. “Hear that, Melania? My son married a real perfectionist!” She beamed.
Melania, whose dark hair was steadily turning iron grey, looked stern. “One can only hope. This birth is a fulfillment of so many wishes. The event attached should be perfect, as in many ways it represents the future of the Black family.” Her voice left no question as to who would be responsible if the naming party were to disappoint.
Druella looked up. “I certainly hope no one is disappointed,” she murmured demurely. Her quick wand movement made Irma and Melania start, but it was only to conjure quill and ink. She scratched in a note, then crossed something out so vigorously she ripped the parchment and splattered a few drops of ink on the table.
“E-Evanesco. Evanesco!” she stuttered, acutely aware of Irma’s amusement and Melania’s disapproval.
Melania raised an eyebrow. “Nervous about something?”
Druella met the family matriarch’s gaze coolly, mustering all her willpower to maintain an even tone. “No.”
“Druella, my husband will be accompanying my son and grandson here at six-o-clock tonight. I trust you will have everything completely ready by then. I do hope you remembered to prepare their rooms? You have always had such a”a flair for coordinating linens.”
She smiled warmly and pushed out her chair. “Irma, let us take a turn around the garden. The snow is so lovely this morning.”
The two women left Druella to lean forward until her head hit the table with a thunk.
The bell rang at five of six. Druella and her three daughters sat stiffly on the drawing-room couch, waiting for one of the house-elves to get the door. Seconds passed, and then they could hear Orion’s booming voice: “Where are my nieces? Where are my princesses?”
The girls giggled and slid off the couch, scampering to greet their favorite uncle. Druella followed them into the entrance hall.
Orion, Arcturus, and Walburga stood there, Walburga cradling her newborn. Behind them, a struggling lump of cloth marked where they had all thrown their traveling cloaks on top of one of the house-elves”Druella could not tell which. The elf’s attempts to extricate itself were mildly amusing, but Druella turned to her sister-in-law instead.
“Walburga, welcome to our home! I trust the journey was not difficult?” There was the slightest trace of possessiveness on the our.
Orion answered for her, his arms full of squirming girls. “You mean the walk from the gate?” He laughed his booming, barking laugh. Druella thought she heard the chandelier tinkling above her in response to the sound.
Walburga nodded curtly. “We arrived safely, as you can see. Now, will you show us into the drawing room, or are we to take our refreshment in the hallway?”
Orion laughed again. Druella gritted her teeth and led the way into the drawing room.
An hour later, Irma and Melania flanked Walburga on the couch, cooing and cackling over their new grandson, who stared up at them with solemn grey eyes. Arcturus occupied the highest seat near the fireplace, with Pollux adjusting his ear trumpet to his cousin’s right.
Orion was busily fitting a silver tiara to Narcissa’s sleek blond head, while Bellatrix and Andromeda played with the toy kittens their uncle had brought them. The kittens mewed and blinked up at Druella, who blinked back. “Sorry, what was that, Walburga?” she asked, still mesmerized by the kittens.
“I said,” Walburga repeated, her mouth very thin, “that Sirius wants feeding. I will be back shortly.”
The infant was stirring and hiccupping in her arms. Druella watched it disinterestedly. “All right.”
Narcissa waved at Walburga’s retreating back. “Bye bye, baby cousin Sirius!”
Orion shifted the five-year old on his knee and addressed Druella. “My sister wrote me about you, Druella. Seems she wanted to come tonight as well, but wasn’t sure she’d be welcome early.” His grey eyes flashed.
Druella smiled. Orion was so easy to read sometimes, a welcome break from the dissembling snake pit that was the rest of her family-by-marriage. She spread her arms theatrically. “Why, Orion, this is Black House! All Blacks are welcome here, at any time. I have never shown Lucretia Black anything but hospitality.” Her tone was passably sincere.
Lucretia Prewett, on the other hand…
Bellatrix looked up, interrupting Druella’s venomous thoughts. “When is dinner, Mother?”
“A question I myself have been pondering for some time now,” said Arcturus gravely from his armchair. Pollux leaned his chair back on two legs until it almost touched the mantelpiece.
“Dinner is at seven, just as soon as Cygnus returns from work.” Everyone turned to the mantelpiece clock just as Pollux’s chair knocked it from its perch. There was a collective gasp; the clock was a goblin-wrought masterpiece of craftsmanship, designed to represent ivy climbing up the side of Black House. The tiny windows were made of real glass, and the clock face sat where the front door would be.
It fell over and over, its intricately worked silver leaves and shingles throwing firelight about the room as it inexorably headed for the stone hearth”
”until Orion snatched it from the air at the last second. He eyed it ruefully.
“That’s all right,” Druella assured the room. “It was a very old clock.”
“My apologies,” said Pollux vaguely, too late.
“It’s not even broken,” Bellatrix pointed out from the floor.
In Orion’s hand, silver Black House chimed seven-o-clock. At the last chime, the silent occupants of the drawing room could clearly hear Cygnus’ voice from the hall, and a house-elf’s squeaking replies.
“Dinner!” announced Druella brightly and too loudly, jumping up from the couch. She practically ran from the room, leaving more silence in her wake. Bellatrix was first to follow her, throwing her new toy under the divan, where it yowled in protest, and sweeping out in her best imitation of her mother’s most regal manner.
The long dining hall table, set for eleven, filled slowly. There was a silent battle of wills as to who would occupy the high seat, but Arcturus prevailed, motioning for Cygnus to sit on his left and Orion his right. The two men glowered across the table at one another, while their wives avoided each other’s eyes.
Silence stretched for one, two, ten, fifteen minutes, broken only by the chinking of china and Sirius’ fretfulness. Kreaper and Kreacher, identical in every way down to their androgynous sheet togas (though Kreacher had a bit more hair protruding from his batlike ears), appeared intermittently, pouring more wine and replacing empty platters.
After an eternity, Arcturus puffed out his chest and spoke loudly.
“My cousin Araminta’s new bill was defeated yesterday by that fool of a Weasley. Shame, shame. Muggle-hunting is the best idea to come through the Ministry in fifty years.”
“Damn shame, Father,” agreed Orion from the patriarch’s right.
“Perhaps if you had managed to secure more, ah, clout within the Wizengamot, things would be otherwise, cousin,” suggested Cygnus delicately.
“What’s that you’re saying, Cygnus?” Orion replied in a passable imitation of lightness.
“Nothing, nothing. I am merely suggesting that perhaps excessive volume and displays of strength are not the most effective ways of getting the courts on one’s side,” said Cygnus smoothly.
Both Druella and Walburga were looking fearfully from their husbands to Arcturus. The three girls stared fixedly at their plates, spearing asparagus as delicately as possible. Irma and Melania, at the end of the table setting, leaned in hungrily.
Orion’s fist tightened on the stem of his wine glass, but his voice remained level. “Better to be an honest bully than to be thought a snake, cousin.”
Cygnus raised his eyebrows. “Is the emblem of Salazar Slytherin to be the extent of your name-calling? I’ll gladly take the subtle serpent, Orion the hunter.”
Orion swelled and opened his mouth, his grey eyes flashing dangerously.
“ENOUGH.”
Arcturus’ voice rang throughout the dining hall. “I will not have the lords of Black House squabbling like children.”
Cygnus looked as if he were barely reining in several more acerbities, but Druella, unseen beneath the table, placed a brief restraining hand on his thigh. Her action was mirrored by Walburga, who looked at Arcturus with concern.
“My husband”“ she began softly, pleadingly. Arcturus’ face softened as he looked at her.
“Orion, escort your wife to your rooms. She is in no shape to have to hear this sort of bickering.”
And with that, the dinner was over. Arcturus glared at Cygnus and Druella as he took Melania by the arm and stalked out, followed by Pollux and Irma.
Cygnus and his brood remained rooted to their chairs until little Narcissa’s soft cries, begun at Arcturus’ bellow, could no longer be ignored. Bellatrix and Andromeda glanced at each other meaningfully before murmuring that they would like to be excused and helping their sister out of the room.
The Blacks continued to stare into space. Kreaper reappeared with pudding, casting about confusedly for the rest of the family. “Will the remaining Master and Mistress like the pudding on the table?”
Druella thought of the party tomorrow and the looming spectre of Arcturus’ will, of the threat posed by Sirius and her daughters’ uncertain future; and decided that she would very much like the pudding at her place, so she could cast herself forward and drown in it.