Chapter 20: Darker than Black Part 1 (Patreon)

Wandering the Castle incognito as a black cat was about as much fun as a Hogwarts Student could’ve had without going to Hogsmeade.

Or breaking into Azkaban, but that was the current project I needed a break from.

These thoughts and others filled my mind as I padded down the stone hallway, only to be unceremoniously scooped up and held upside down, paws splayed in dismayed air, as I stared at one very amused-looking Luna Lovegood.

She cuddled me against her chest, smiling cheerfully.

“Oh, what is this?” Luna said, almost curiously, “You’re awfully far from your owner, aren’t you?”

I regarded the younger girl with as baleful a gaze as I could manage; we both knew she wasn’t fooled in the slightest, probably because she was Luna Lovegood, but I wouldn’t count the fact either that I was particularly good at acting like a cat.

Luna cooed in response and began rubbing beneath my chin with questing fingers that felt far too good, drawing a reluctant purr from my throat.

“Oh, don’t be so put out; I had something interesting I wanted to show you!”

Still carrying me in her arms, she walked down the hallway, then up a flight of stairs, slipped into the library, and then up a set of iron stairs, positioning us right by a bookshelf.

My ears flicked as I caught the conversation happening below us in a dusty, seemingly unoccupied corner of the library.

Lyra Malfoy’s voice floated into my ears, “He’s not much of a Black, but he is family and a pureblood at that. I don’t see any need to incite anything. Much less on your say-so.”

A low masculine voice responded that I didn’t recognize, “Come off it, Malfoy; he may be family, but he pretty much lives in his own better-than-the-rest-of-us world. My Mother would never let that kind of attitude rest.”

“Who asked you, Zabini?” Daphne’s voice came up, and I was a bit gratified to note the heat behind her tone.

“You too, Greengrass? Seriously, what is with you two? It’s just a bit of fun-“ Zabini said.

“I don’t care that you want to mess with Potter,” Lyra said bluntly. “But my family is off limits.”

“Spoilsport,” Zabini said. “We’re Slytherins; they’re Gryffindors; it’s just school rivalry.”

“This is just like Tracey all over again,” Daphne sighed. “And now she won’t even give you the time of day.”

Zabini chuckled. “What can I say? I guess she couldn’t handle me, but I’m sure that the Golden Girl of Gryffindor could use a little livening up. It’s not anything serious; a little love potion never hurt anyone.”

Oh right. Now it made sense. Luna wanted to introduce me to another dead man walking; a low hiss emerged from my mouth unconsciously, even as Luna stroked my back soothingly, or perhaps judging, by her somewhat uncanny smile, that was not her goal.

Malfoy sneered audibly, “And what exactly makes you think either of us would go along with this?”

Zabini laughed, but it was really more a simulacrum of the sound. “My Mother has enough gold to bury the Greengrasses, and the Malfoys still need our weight in the Wizengamot.”

“And you think that anyone would expect us to make an enemy of the Blacks for you?” Daphne sighed, her tone practically dripping with displeasure. “Didn’t you hear what happened to those Ravenclaws? Even throwing aside the fact that Black could bury your own Mother's fortune with his own gold and not notice, when Ares finds out about this, you’ll be lucky to remain alive with your limbs intact.”

So Daphne did understand somewhat the danger Zabini was in, though I had a feeling even she thought she was exaggerating.

Though I submerged myself in occlumency and rationally analyzed my mind, I instead focused on the offhand comment about Tracey for a moment: had something happened there? I had never bothered to truly investigate what had led to Tracey with the diary, but now I realized that may have been a mistake.

Zabini chuckled again, a good-natured sound. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of excitement; I’d actually love to see the Heir Black really lose it. He’s always so constrained and caged. I’m sure if given an opportunity he could be such a beautiful monster.”

“And you think you can survive that?” Daphne asked curiously, though her expression was tight, and I was tempted to test that loyalty a bit further.

But I’d had enough.

I attempted to squirm free of Luna’s grip, but her arms were like iron.

Nevertheless, she did set me down gently on the banister. I vanished from sight with a flicker of magic; I then leaped from the banister to the floor below with ease.

I returned to human form and then, with a flick of magic, revealed myself.

Zabini startled slightly, his eyes widening, but he remained standing, a grin beginning to emerge on his face.

“Skulking around Black, I heard from-“

My fist flew through the air in a perfect hook into his stomach, and my hand flashed with violet light, sending him flying backward into a conjured wall of violet light and freezing him in place.

Oh, that was how to do it.

Zabini attempted to move. Visible in the shift of his eyes, but my vorpal magic had him in its grasp. I could feel the beginnings of panic behind an occluded mind, the fear seeping easily through his thoughts.

I took a deep breath, savoring the emotion coming from him, though it did nothing to soothe the raging storm in my head.

“No, you won’t be moving,” I drawled, rubbing my forehead as the familiar pressure began to build behind my eyes.

I took another deep breath, not looking behind me as I addressed the two startled girls. “Lyra, Daphne, I would leave the library now. You weren’t here.”

Lyra smiled, and there was something almost rapturously joyous in her gaze, pale grey eyes darkening. “Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Daphne frowned, looking at Lyra, seemingly concerned for a moment before her attention returned to me. “What are you going to do, Black?”

I laughed quietly. “Something no one’s going to remember. You should leave.”

Both girls looked at each other before Lyra crossed her arms.

“I’m a Black,” she said softly. “You may forget that sometimes, but I still am one, and I understand better than anyone who isn’t one.”

Daphne raised an eyebrow. “You know what I owe you; if I leave, you won’t have cover for what happens next.”

I raised an eyebrow, caught off guard, before I turned back to Zabini, whose face was even paler, before something like a grin crossed his face. “Oh, so I’m supposed to believe the rumors are true; you really are a dark wizard? Come off it, Black, you’re nothing more than that bitch’s lap-“

His mouth froze, and now only his eyes could move as, with a casual thought, I encompassed his head fully in this strange stasis field I had conjured. Well, it was more than that; I had severed part of reality from itself.

My mind was already contemplating exactly how to use the vorpal barrier more effectively, but it was submerged beneath the dark thought slithering through me.

I rolled my shoulders, pondering the fourth man I was to kill.

“You really came across me on a bad day,” I remarked, shaking my head, bemused. “But I’m still attempting to let Colin Creevey live, and so he’s reserved most of my patience.”

I rubbed my head for a moment.

“How would you like me to make this look for your Mother?” I finally let Blaise talk.

Blaise opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “You’re no murderer, Black,” he said, but his voice was quiet, and his words were as weak as I expected.

“This isn’t murder,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “For this to be murder, I would have to consider you to be human. That is how Death Eaters operate, correct? You may kill and torture as you please as long as your opposition is of a class that does not deserve respect or life.”

“So,” I raised an eyebrow, “The truth is, unfortunately, I believe you’re a threat to Iris, and for no other reason are you going to cease to exist.”

Blaise paled a bit further; he opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “You couldn’t get away with murder, Black, not in the middle of Hogwarts and when my Mother hears about-”

I froze him again. He really had no idea what exactly he had unearthed.

I rolled my eyes, releasing a deep breath. “Your Mother will either find your body after an unfortunate suicide, or you will vanish entirely. I am being generous. I am allowing you to choose in the first place.”

Blaise sneered and opened his mouth, and I didn’t need to be looking at his thoughts to know he still wasn’t going to take me seriously.

I lit an index finger with a small violet light.

Blaise froze; he opened his mouth, and perhaps he was about to beg for his life, but by then I had raised my finger to his forehead, gently pressing it against his skin.

Blaise’s expression stilled, and his eyes became fixed. I removed my finger to examine the small perfect hole I had left inside his head.

I drew my wand and tapped him, and suddenly the boy’s body was a small black pond stone hovering in midair.

I took it, rolling it around in my hand for a moment contemplatively, before I flexed my vorpal magic and the stone vanished, along with any remnant of Blaise Zabini’s existence.

I took one last deep breath, willing the air through my lungs as cloying relief settled over me, the pressure gone from my head.

I noted a hand was stroking my back gently, and I turned to see Lyra looking at me, amusement clear in her cold grey eyes. “You’re beautiful,” she murmured, “I didn’t think you had it in you, but I had hoped-“

I rolled my eyes. “This doesn’t change anything,” I said quietly. “I still belong to Iris.”

Lyra shrugged, the same cheerful smile on her face. “My mother told me when I was younger what being a Black was: we’re all the same. I don’t need anything from you other than to see this…” Lyra purred, her eyes half-lidded.

Daphne, in contrast, was looking at me with eyes that were rather discomfited. “I didn’t think you could handle things so easily,” she said softly.

A giggle erupted, and we all looked to see Luna having come down a staircase, looking at me in a vague, half-amused way. “Did you think it was interesting?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, though there was something else there, an almost nervousness, but it was covered by an oddly excited smile.

I looked at the small blonde-haired girl, a little discomfited.

“You expected that,” I replied.

Luna nodded. “I knew it would happen,” she corrected.

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything further.

Evidently, I didn’t need to, as Luna stepped forward and reached up, patting me gently on the head. “Good boy,” she said with a bright smile.

What exactly she was referring to, I didn’t care to know. I glanced at the other two girls, pondering whether I needed to make sure they understood, but that cold, slithery part of me knew it wasn’t necessary.

And really, how was anyone going to prove I had killed Blaise Zabini? No one other than these three had seen me come here, and no one would see me leave.

I suppose they could betray me, but I was no monster. They were friends of a certain sort, actually, more frankly, they were mine, and I would see no harm come to them.

Now that I had dealt with the former Zabini, though, it gave me two new ideas. Both on how to rescue my relative from Azkaban and what to do with the Colin Creevey situation.

I dipped my head to the girls and then vanished into thin air with a thought before I became an invisible cat and prowled my way out of the library.

I made my way across the Castle in relatively short order, slipping by the Gargoyle who didn’t acknowledge me, and up the stairs to Dumbledore’s office, slipping through the cracked door to see the man himself fiddling with one of his many devices. From the look of it, an instrument that assessed the office air to keep it relatively temperate.

“Ah, Ares,” Dumbledore looked up from the device and smiled down at me, “I thought you would be dropping by.”

I became human and smiled a bit wanly at the man. “I seem to have let my temper get the better of me,” I admitted.

Dumbledore nodded in an almost agreeable manner.

“It can happen to the best of us,” he said sympathetically.

A long moment hung between us as Dumbledore glanced over at another instrument of his.

He then looked at me with a stern frown, as if I was a normally good student who had handed in an incomplete homework assignment.

“I trust that you’re aware not to make a habit of this?” Dumbledore questioned lightly.

I nodded a bit glumly, seeing Dumbledore disappointed in me hurt a bit, but he was right; I really had let my temper get away from me far too easily.

Dumbledore smiled softly, stood, and walked around his desk, patting me lightly on the shoulder. “It is alright, my young friend; we all make mistakes. Those of us who can learn from them can truly succeed. Now let us begin with your alibi-“

-

Iris wrapped her invisibility cloak tightly around her as she sleepily trudged up the boys' side of the Gryffindor tower. Following her usual path, she went through the door to the bed by the window, slipped through the curtains, and let out a soft sigh as if she had stepped into a warm bath.

Ares’s presence was just like that these days. Noticeable when he was gone, but so comforting when he was close. Dropping her cloak, she slipped under the covers, curling into Ares’s side and sleepily fiddling with his half-buttoned pajama top, her hand sliding across his chest as she stroked his skin.

For a moment, she just enjoyed the feeling of Ares's body pressing into her own as she tightened her grip around him.

Ares stirred, and his sleepy voice came out quietly, “Hmmm, Iris?” he said.

Iris didn’t say anything, continuing to stroke Ares’s soft skin, wondering what she should say, finally deciding to begin with what she had observed.

“You weren’t yourself at dinner,” she said.

Ares shifted, and an arm slowly curled around her waist, bringing her in closer, and Iris snuggled in a bit, settling herself almost atop Ares's chest as she looked up at him, letting her dark curls cover most of her vision.

Ares drummed his fingers on her waist, and Iris waited patiently.

Finally, Ares spoke, “I killed another person today,” he said blankly.

Iris raised an eyebrow, and a small knot tied itself in her gut. “Did someone attack you?” she asked quietly, worried, and she felt something tug in her.

Ares shook his head. “No, it was Blaise Zabini. He said something about a love potion and you, I, uh,” he looked away from her, and Iris could feel him tensing beneath her fingers. “I kind of lost it,” he admitted.

Iris nodded, doing her best to restrain the swooping feeling in her gut as warmth flooded her cheeks. She frowned. “Did anybody see you?” she asked.

Ares nodded. “Luna, Daphne, and Lyra.”

Iris felt a small wave of relief flow through her, and she relaxed against him. “Well, they’re not likely to say anything, are they?”

She hesitated as she realized the actual question she should ask: “Are you okay, Ares?”

Ares chuckled, a deep rumbling that went through his chest. “I didn’t think you’d accept it that fast,” he admitted.

Iris hummed softly. “I mean, I am worried you’ll get in trouble, I suppose,” she admitted, and then she opened her mouth to actually chide him because really she should, because it wasn’t as if Ares should be killing people.

Colin Creevey had been bad enough, but this…

She didn’t continue and closed her mouth, settling against him.

Ares nodded his head slowly. “I see.”

Iris rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to say you’ll be careful, silly,” she remarked.

Ares released a soft, gusting laugh as he relaxed into her. “Aren’t I always?”

Iris hummed displeased and pinched his cheek. “Wouldn’t being careful have less of a body count?” she asked.

“Being careful would make you less safe,” Ares rumbled back to her.

Iris consciously suppressed the warmth that wanted to claw its way to her cheeks. She shouldn’t like this. A normal girl would be very upset right now after their boyfriend told them they committed murder.

But this was Ares.

If Ares thought it was necessary, she couldn't ignore it easily.

Not to mention she had to contain the part of herself that had wanted to respond with a request for Colin Creevey to be next, only halted by one real fact.

She knew Ares would have agreed.

-

“It’s just absolutely terrifying,” Hermione babbled away, flipping through her textbook, her hands clenched tightly on it. “How can no one know where a student went?”

Her words were loud, but with the usual barrier Ares had erected around them in their typical section of the common room, Neville wasn’t concerned with being overheard

Neville looked at his friend, bemused, and remembered for the first time in a while that Hermione was still very much a Muggle-born witch; as quickly as she seemed to adapt to magic, the culture shock was getting to her in this instant.

It was a bit like her initial reaction when she found out what happened to Peter Pettigrew, which he'd mentioned offhand in a letter and then had to explain at length.

“Hermione,” Neville said levelly, “You and Iris were attacked by a troll,” he pointed out as delicately as he could, “And the next day most people just moved on; the magical world can just be like that. It’s not like anyone said anything about his Mum’s sixth dead husband.”

Hermione looked stricken, her face paling further. “Her what?” she whispered harshly.

Neville groaned and looked to Ares for help.

The boy in question was staring at his parchment with vaguely offended eyes, and judging by the diagram of the leaf in the textbook in front of him, Neville guessed Ares was once again matching wits with his mortal enemy, Herbology.

Iris thankfully was paying more attention, though as she spoke she didn’t look up from braiding Ares’s hair, “I think it’s a bit weird too, Hermione, but it’s not like the Aurors aren’t investigating; who knows, maybe they’ll find him trapped in a mirror or something.”

Hermione frowned but looked somewhat mollified, “I guess I sometimes forget that magic is really rather dangerous, isn’t it?”

Neville restrained the comment that Hermione should know better. Ares was the perfect example of how even a young student of magic could be astonishingly capable; the very fact that a number of Ravenclaws now gave his friend a wide berth was proof enough of that.

Neville couldn’t honestly have been prouder of his friend; he was worried, though, that was for other reasons.

While Ares could be quiet and taciturn, there was a new distance sat in his eyes recently, especially when he talked with Neville. There was still his regular warmth, but also something distinctly discomfited about his friend.

So, as any wizard’s best mate would do, Neville asked him bluntly as they found themselves alone as Iris went off to Quidditch practice and Hermione went to the library to return a book.

“Something’s bothering you, isn’t it, Ares?”

Ares looked up from his work, seemingly surprised by Neville’s comment.

“Nothing more than usual,” his friend replied calmly.

“Professor Snape gave you an A on your potion today,” he said simply.

Ares grimaced. “I was sure that I could increase the Wolfsbane potion’s effectiveness if I increased the temperature a bit, but I was wrong,” he admitted.

“Right,” Neville nodded, wondering how to say it best, “Mate, you’re not the type to make those mistakes, not without a good reason. Just talk to me.”

Ares drummed his fingers idly across his knee.

Neville decided to take a shot in the dark. “Don’t tell me you're worried about the Zabini disappearance?”

Ares raised an eyebrow and stopped writing, looking at him with his cool, cloudy grey eyes.

It was, after all, all the school could talk about: a second-year student seemingly vanished into thin air.

From what Neville had heard from his grandmother, there was ample evidence that it was the result of one of Blaise’s Mother's numerous enemies; one did not simply marry six wizards and find themselves with their fortunes in a row without developing enemies.

So while the Muggleborns were very disturbed, including one Hermione Granger, Neville was… ambivalent.

It was disturbing, yes, but it wasn’t like Blaise’s Mother hadn’t done the same to at least two of the wizards she married, well, allegedly. The two had simply gone missing and then been declared dead.

Though a couple of Aurors were now at the school, looking around in their dark red robes.

Hannah had told him that Susan had told her that there was no real expectation of finding a body, but something had to be done.

The real curiosity was who exactly had been holding the wand that did it.

All that said, it didn’t seem like something Ares would necessarily concern himself with; Neville wasn’t sure his friend had even interacted with Blaise.

Ares shrugged, “I think I’m a bit unsettled by something related to it, just not the event. They assigned an Auror called Nymphadora Tonks to the school, and I’ve been trying to avoid her.”

Neville raised an eyebrow, waiting for Ares to finish.

Ares sighed, rubbing the back of his head. “She’s my cousin,” he admitted. “Though I suppose her family is still technically disowned; Dad’s been busy…” he looked conflicted. “I believe I should do something, but I am unsure as to what and if it would be so desired.”

“You think you can avoid her forever?” Neville asked curiously.

Ares shook his head. “I just need a bit, is all. I don’t wish to disturb her while she is on the job, after all.”

Neville smiled, and relief swirled through him, and he released a laugh. “You really had me worried, Ares,” he admitted.

Ares looked at him, befuddled, and Neville grimaced, realizing he had to explain that.

“It’s just sometimes you seem so self-assured, so it’s just nice to know you can worry about simple things like family drama too.”

Ares blinked a slow, heavy blink. “I suppose so,” he drawled out.

Neville looked back at the Herbology homework. “Now focus, Ares. What are the three other properties of the plant?”

Ares groaned heavily.

“I don’t want to,” he mumbled out petulantly.

Neville laughed, crossing his arms, and waited.

Ares shook his head. “Well, aren’t you going to help me?” he said tiredly.

Neville nodded and stood up, moving to Ares’s side of the couch. “Of course, the Spindleleaf flower more commonly known as-“

-

Sirius had missed it- this certainty of purpose. He hadn’t felt it since the war, and now, as he looked over the scale model of Azkaban he had constructed with his son’s help, he felt it again.

Marlene would want this, he was sure of it.

Though as he noticed his son’s cool grey gaze locked on the cell their information said Bellatrix was in, he did wonder whether Marlene would have been so willing to accept that he was bringing his son to that hellhole.

“We have one objective: to retrieve Bellatrix,” Ares finally said calmly, looking at Sirius with a raised eyebrow. “You believe that, as animals, we won’t be recognized by the dementors.”

“We won’t,” Sirius nodded along.

“So the question is thus,” Ares drummed his hand on the table, “How exactly do we remove Bellatrix from her cell?”

Sirius looked at the model. “Dementors are blind; they don’t see people as we do. It is enough that there is somebody in her cell.”

Ares nodded slowly. “And Dumbledore told you about Petunia, I take it?”

Sirius nodded, recalling that rather strange conversation some months ago where the man had chided him for his carelessness and then told him of Petunia’s current life, if her current existence could be called that.

Really, from a certain perspective, their plan for Petunia now might even be considered a mercy, considering her current state of existence; it made even Sirius wonder if he had let Vernon off too lightly.

“And Dumbledore, you believe, will just accept this?” Sirius asked.

Ares shrugged. “I do not think it would concern him overly much,” he said before looking over the model of Azkaban. “The top cells will be annoying to get to,” he sighed, rubbing his forehead, “More so when we have to stage those prisoners' apparent escape and drowning in the sea.”

Sirius laughed cheerfully, “I don’t believe it will be as difficult as you make it out to be; those Weasley Twin friends of yours rather came through with that Peruvian instant darkness powder.”

Ares nodded again, and Sirius noted how distracted he looked, and his smile faded. “I am sorry to ask this of you, son; I know how much Neville means to you as a friend.”

Ares turned to look at him, with grey eyes clouded. “I don’t like this,” he admitted quietly. “It feels as if I’m betraying him.”

“You’re giving him vengeance,” Sirius pointed out.

Ares shook his head. “No, I’m doing this for my own selfish wants and desires. I won’t cloak it like that; the two other lives I hand to him are no more than currency for my own self-absolution.”

Sirius looked at his son for a long moment, reminded, for not the first time, that somehow a Black who wasn’t even raised by one would still be, in essence, like all the rest.

He wondered idly how Narcissa’s daughter handled that aspect of herself.

“Regardless,” Sirius decided to move on, “The most important thing to remember is that Azkaban is most effective because of the Dementors stationed there who are able to prey upon the wizards within without their wands and the inability to apparate.”

“By that reasoning then perhaps I should learn the Patronus,” Ares replied, raising an eyebrow at him.

Sirius frowned but could not disagree; unfortunately, this led to the current piece of information he had concealed. “I am unable to cast such,” he said softly.

Ares did not so much as raise an eyebrow. “Could you teach me regardless?”

Sirius chuckled, “Perhaps, I would assume Moony would be the best for that-“ he trailed off, looking away for a moment as he thought about his erstwhile friend.

“You could talk to him,” Ares said quietly.

Sirius shrugged, not sure what to say or that even if he said something there could be any real effect.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Fourteen years- is it something I can bridge?”

Ares sighed, “If it was Neville, I would attempt to do so.”

Sirius looked at his son, restraining his flinch at those words; he was quite aware of all his son was sacrificing to help him in this endeavor, but still… it was not as if the Longbottoms had not also been his friends.

Perhaps his son was beginning to realize what was fundamentally wrong with their family, what he couldn’t put into words but lurked at the back of his mind.

A Black didn’t think in right or wrong. Good or Evil.

Those were far more abstract concepts than even the magic they used.

What a Black had was a person, and it was through that person that they understood the world. Their values, morals, and beliefs were only in respect to that person.

James Potter had been his best friend; he would have died for the man.

If Marlene had asked him to kill James, he would have probably only asked a clarifying question before doing so.

He had long come to terms with that aspect of himself. That deranged beast he kept locked in his mind, waiting for its moment.

So in that same respect he held no ill will toward Remus Lupin because as much as he had loved and respected the man, ultimately it was a trifling thing. Sirius Black existed for his son now, the last remnant of Marlene McKinnon.

Still because it was his son asking…

“Remus Lupin was-“ Sirius paused and then changed the word, “-is a man I respect deeply,” Sirius admitted. “If he reached out to me, I would be receptive, I suppose, but no more beyond that; you are my priority, Ares.”

Ares regarded him with a soft smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “Father, I understand. He never reached out to us, did he?”

Sirius was angry because Remus had never tried to help his son, Marlene’s son.

Ares was angry because Remus had never tried to help Iris.

But neither of them wanted to address it out loud. As with many parts of their relationship, it was better to work together toward a common objective because there was nothing really past either of their surfaces.

It was the condition of being a Black.

Ares was the one who broke the silence, as he usually was.

“I had an idea.”

He reached across the model and plucked up one of the small grey pebbles Sirius had used to weigh down the corners of the parchment, turning it over between his fingers.

“The dementors don’t see,” he said. “They taste. Fear, joy, memory. Whatever’s in the cell that can feel.”

“More or less,” Sirius agreed.

“So a stone wouldn’t register at all.” Ares set the pebble down in the center of Bellatrix’s cell with a small, final click. “Transfigure a person into something that isn’t a person, and to them there’s nothing to miss. An empty cell for a moment, and then Petunia in it and then there is no difference, and no one the wiser.”

Sirius stared at the pebble.

“Where’d that come from?” he asked.

“Practice,” Ares said, and did not elaborate and Sirius smiled amused at his son.

“Then there’s only the Patronus in case it comes to that,” Sirius said instead.

Ares nodded slowly, his eyes still on the pebble. “I’ll practice.”

Sirius blinked. “You believe you can learn it on your own.”

Ares smiled a small half smile, “I don’t believe it will be an issue.”

And there it was again, so plainly that Sirius nearly laughed. Not quite confidence. Certainty. Every action from his son was so certain.

Marlene would have loved him.

Sirius reached out and ruffled his son’s hair, and Ares let him.

-

Pressure had built behind my eyes that I pretended was strain from too many late nights straining over my projects that seemed to multiply whenever I looked away.

Not the fact that every time I saw Colin Creevey I contemplated ending his existence.

By dinner it had settled in properly, a thumb pressing slowly and patiently against the inside of my skull reminding me of how easy it would be to deal with the problem.

Colin Creevey spent his evenings in a disused classroom on the fourth floor. He had apparently talked Professor Flitwick into letting him use it as a darkroom and charmed the windows black himself.

I slipped through the door as a cat and became a man again in the dark, and the taste of him hit me at once: something bright and fizzing, like sherbet on the tongue. It was sickening.

The room was lit a dim, bloody red. Strings ran from wall to wall, and from them hung photographs, pinned by their corners, drying. Some were normal pictures of the Castle, of some students, nothing truly objectionable.

And for a brief moment I hoped there was nothing I would have to do, not really for my own sake, but because I knew Iris would ask questions and I wouldn’t be able to lie.

But then there they were. Iris on her broom during a quidditch match, hair whipping behind her. Iris laughing at breakfast, her head tipped back. Iris in the library, chewing her quill.

Dozens of her. Some of them looked bewildered at the camera, others were candid, caught before Iris noticed. Distantly I found myself tracing my eyes over them, my heart caught in my chest in a strange vice.

A part awed by Iris like I always was.

A part of liquid anger beginning to build within me.

Colin stood at a basin in the corner, humming tunelessly as he rocked a tray back and forth, watching another one bloom slowly into existence.

Perhaps in some way it should be impressive, a thirteen year old first year capable of developing magical photography though truly I didn’t know how hard that was supposed to be.

He was so small. Thin wrists, a jumper too big for him, mouse-brown hair sticking up at the back where he’d slept on it.

I didn’t decide to freeze him. It was simply done, violet light closing around him mid-hum, the tray tilted in his hands, a single drop of developer hanging in the air beneath it.

I lifted my index finger. It lit with a small violet flame.

“He is thirteen, Ares.”

I didn’t turn around. I had tasted her the moment she spoke, smoke and warm honey, and I realized with a small, distant embarrassment that I should have tasted her far earlier but I had been so submerged in my thoughts it hadn’t occurred to me.

“How long have you been following me?” I asked.

“Since the library.” Fleur stepped up beside me, her heels quiet on the stone. “I could smell it on you at breakfast the next morning. Ash. You did not even notice.”

“Iris asked you to watch me.”

“Iris asked me to watch you,” Fleur agreed. “She did not ask me to stop you.” She paused. “I do not think she would have,” something soft, almost concerned to her voice.

“No,” I said. “She wouldn’t have.”

Fleur did not reply to that. She was looking at the photographs, her blue eyes moving from one to the next, and I watched something in her jaw go tight.

“I understand,” she said quietly. “Mon Dieu, I understand. You think I do not know what it is to be looked at like this? Since I was six years old. Men at my father’s parties. Boys on the street.” Her lips twisted. “If there is anyone in this castle who would understand, it is me.”

“Then why are you here?” I asked.

Fleur was quiet for a long moment.

“After my father,” she said finally hesitating seemingly not knowing what word to say before she continued, “it was quiet. For weeks. I slept. I ate. Gabrielle laughed again. Maman stopped flinching when a door closed. I thought, that is all it costs. Nothing.”

She lifted two fingers and touched her own temple, exactly where my own head was aching, and I went very still.

“And then a man looked at Maman wrong at a gala, and I felt it again. Here.” She lowered her hand. “It does not stop, Ares. It only learns that it can be fed. The Slytherin Boy he was not enough was he?”

The flame on my finger guttered.

Neither of us said anything for a while. Colin hung frozen in the red light, one foot slightly raised, as if he had been about to dance.

“So what do I do?” I asked finally. I had asked my Father the same question weeks ago. He had told me to make it look like an accident.

Fleur looked at me, and there was no judgment in it.

“Something that does not take you one step further,” she said.

I turned back to Colin and opened my mouth, letting the taste of him flood in properly this time. Sherbet and sugar and, beneath it, something else, a bright hooked thread of wanting that ran from somewhere behind his eyes to every one of those photographs, pulled so taut it hummed.

It was absolutely clear to my tongue.

It wasn’t love, whatever I had joked about to Iris that now I couldn’t recall in this searing heat flaring through my skull. It was hunger that didn’t know it was hunger yet.

I had severed reality from itself around another boy, this thread was nothing.

I drew my finger across his forehead. Not a hole this time and not physical. A line, thin as a hair, violet for an instant and then gone, slicing through memories like the thinnest of knife edges.

The thread parted without a sound.

Colin’s magic changed in my mouth at once. The sugar was still there, the brightness, but something in it had gone flat, like a fizzy drink left open overnight. He would never know. No one would ever know. He would grow up and take pictures of other things and be above all else no longer a threat.

Beside me, Fleur flinched. It was not what she had meant. I could see that on her face, but she did not look dismayed, there was relief along with the uncertainty.

Likely because I had not killed another student, but I supposed the night was still young.

I raised my other hand, and violet fire flickered out from my palm and ran along the strings, eating every photograph at once without so much as scorching the twine. I drew Fleur under disillusionment with a thought and a wave, stepped back into the corner, and let Colin go.

The drop of developer hit the tray. Colin blinked at the empty strings for a long moment, head tilted. Then he frowned down at his camera and turned it over in his hands, like it belonged to someone else.

The corridor outside was cool and lit only by the flickering of torches around us, the windows out to the grounds showing all the dark of the night. I leaned against the stone wall and closed my eyes thinking.

A warm hand settled against my temple, soft skin pressed against mine, heat seeping gently through my skin. I didn’t open my eyes but despite myself I leaned into the touch.

“That was difficult,” I admitted aloud.

“It will be like this,” Fleur murmured. “Every time, but you must Ares, you must.”

We stood there, her palm warm against my head, until my breathing evened out, and I opened my eyes. I found myself looking at her, truly looking at her. There was something soft and warm, almost indescribably so about her, a far cry from the girl on the beach.

For a strange fleeting moment I felt that maybe I had been captured by her allure.

“Does she know?” Fleur asked. “About Zabini?”

Went unsaid was the name of our topic but it was rare that one would need to introduce her to my thoughts.

“I told her.”

“What did she say?”

I opened my eyes. Fleur’s face was very close, very carefully blank and I could feel her soft sweet cherry scented breath against my face.

“She asked if anyone saw.”

Something moved behind Fleur’s bright blue eyes then. She closed them for a moment, and when she opened them again it was gone.

“Of course she did,” she said softly. She took her hand away. “Then I will keep watching.”

She smiled softly and then my stomach dropped out from underneath me as she leaned up and brushed her lips softly against my cheek, a warm wet impression on my skin.

“I am proud of you Ares,” she murmured quietly.

I didn’t know what to say.

-

Neville knew something was wrong the moment Ares sat down, because Ares didn’t fist-bump him, or make one of his off handed jokes. Instead he settled silently beside him like a ghost, except he didn’t sink through the couch.

The common room was nearly empty, the fire burned low, and Hermione and Iris had long since gone up to bed. His friend looked terrible. Better than he had on Tuesday, maybe, but there was a tightness around his eyes that Neville had started noticing more and more often recently.

“Remember what you said,” Ares began quietly with no overture, “when I asked you about Bellatrix Black?”

Neville frowned, trying to recall. Then he did, and his stomach dropped, still he pasted on a smile.

“That was a joke, mate.”

“I know,” Ares said. He didn’t smile.

He laid a scrap of parchment on the table between them. Two names in his slanted hand.

Rodolphus Lestrange. Rabastan Lestrange.

“In a few weeks,” Ares said, “these two men are going to escape from Azkaban. As far as the Ministry, the Prophet, and everyone else is concerned, they’ll drown in the North Sea trying to reach the mainland. There won’t be bodies.”

Neville stared at the parchment. His hands had gone very cold.

“They won’t drown,” Ares continued, calm as if he were explaining a Charms essay. “They’ll be somewhere no one will ever find them. And what happens to them after that is your decision, Nev. Whatever you decide. Even if that’s nothing.”

Neville thought of St Mungo’s. Of his mum, pressing sweet wrappers into his palm with her thin, shaking fingers like she was giving him something precious. Of his dad, who didn’t look at anything at all, couldn’t see him at all.

“You’re serious,” he whispered.

“I don’t joke about you, Nev.”

“You could go to Azkaban for this.”

“Then I’d best not get caught.” There was the barest ghost of Ares’s usual smirk, there and gone.

Neville swallowed hard. “Why?” he asked. “Why would you do this?”

Ares looked at him for a long moment, grey eyes clouded and unreadable, and Neville had the strangest sense that there was something standing just behind them. Something Ares was deciding whether to let him see.

“Because you’re my best mate,” Ares said finally. “And I promised.”

It was true. Neville could hear that it was true. It just didn’t sound like all of it, and what did Ares mean that he had promised? He couldn’t seriously mean that-

He looked at the names again, and a third one surfaced in his mind unbidden, the one that wasn’t on the parchment.

After all, while there should be four, Barty Crouch Junior was long since dead, but Bellatrix…

“And Bellatrix?” he asked, noting for some reason Ares hadn’t mentioned her name.

Ares’s face went very still.

“Dad and I will deal with her.”

“Why not-” Neville began slowly only for Ares to cut him off.

“I have to take care of her, Nev.” His voice was quiet. “As a Black.”

Neville sat back slowly.

He knew what that meant, or he thought he did when Ares said it. Gran had talked about it sometimes, the old pureblood families and their debts. How a House answered for its own. How some shames were too heavy to hand to anyone outside the blood. Bellatrix Black had been Ares’s mother’s friend, and his family’s shame, and Ares was going to carry that himself instead of making Neville carry it for him.

Gran would have called it honor. The old kind, the kind nobody bothered with anymore, but then again his friend had executed a man before the wizengamot.

Across the table, Ares held out his fist.

Neville looked at it for a long moment. He thought about saying no. He thought about it really seriously, the way Hermione would have wanted him to, the way his dad might have, once.

Then he reached out and bumped it.

Ares’s signature grin spread across his face, “Thanks Nev,” he said quietly.

Neville would think about that conversation a great deal, later.

At the time though it sounded like the most honorable thing anyone had ever said to him.