Sirius took a deep breath and fretted with his cuffs yet again. He stood outside the castle, framed by the towering arch of the gatehouse, preparing to welcome his grandparents to Blacktide. Because this was an official introduction of his family, strict protocol and impeccable decorum were required. So, they are dressed more formally than they are used to. Yet Sirius continues to fret.
Esme placed her hand gently against his back. "You look fine, Sirius."
Sirius did not feel fine. He had spoken to his grandfather before. He had shouted back at the man on at least three occasions he could recall clearly. And they were not good shouting. Why, then, did this meeting leave his stomach in knots?
The honest answer was that it was one thing to face Arcturus Black as a grown man with opinions and a history of disagreement. It was another thing entirely to stand at the gate of his own home with his wife beside him and his children behind him and present all of it for an assessment. This was not an argument. This was something that mattered to their family, which was considerably more difficult.
The practical reason Sirius had moved the meeting forward was Abraxas Malfoy. Otherwise, the introduction would take longer but Esme had told him about the visit — the question unanswered, the diagnosis delivered instead — and Sirius had sat on it for a day before deciding.
He did not like the Malfoys. That was not new. But disliking a man and being indifferent to him dying badly were two different things. And Dragonpox was a very bad way to go. The children had a grandfather on a clock. It would be a kind thing to do to let Abraxas meets his grandchildren before the disease could get worse.
But before he could do that, he must invite his grandparents to meet the children first. If the Malfoys meet the children first, he knows he will never hear the end of it from his grandparents and will affect his potential headship, so might as well accelerate the timeline.
He turned to his children.
Alphard was pouting with his whole body, tugging at his collar. He did not like his suit. His curls were a vivid, unambiguous green. Sirius and Esme had long since stopped trying to predict or manage the transformations. Alphard is only two years old, control is not in a toddler's capability, and they let him be free to be whatever shade or feature he wants.
Right now, his hair has turned green. Sirius and Esme learned that some of his transformation is often connected to his emotions and moods. They guess being upset is green hair – for now. Andromeda did warn them that it can be unpredictable in the early stages.
Rigel had picked up the tension in the air, which he always did, and was standing with his fingers twitching slightly at his sides and the expression of someone bracing for something.
Then there was Corvus, leaning on his cane today — a more difficult morning, which Sirius had noted without commenting on —
"Is that a bat?" Sirius stared at his son's hair.
Corvus looked up at him and offered the soft, unhurried smile he produced when he knew he had done something that required that smile. The bat — small, brown, entirely unbothered — was nestled in the sunny curls of his hair with the settled completely content on staying there.
"Dis-moi, Corvus," Esme said, with the tone she used when she was exasperated and choosing to be calm about it. "Pourquoi is a nocturnal creature out and about in the daylight? And do be careful it does not bite you, chéri. They can carry diseases."
Corvus looked at the bat and think it is fine. The bat did not move. It appeared to have no intention of biting anyone. Animals always behave unusual around their little boy, and the two parents still don't know why.
Lyra, looking very small in her formal dress, rubbed her eyes.
"You alright, my little spitfire?" Sirius asked.
Lyra nodded, her eyes still mostly closed.
Over her head, Sirius and Esme exchanged a brief look. It was the same look they had been trading for weeks now. It was the one that meant she didn't sleep again, and I know, and we will deal with it, all of it communicated without a single word being said.
Lyra had struggled to sleep ever since that night. They had taken turns at her bedside, trying everything to ease her restlessness, sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Last night was not the night that worked. They were still waiting on word from Isaac regarding the Laveaus, so in the meantime, they simply managed what they could.
"Just a few greetings, spitfire," Sirius murmured, smoothing a strand of hair from her forehead. "Then Papa carries you straight up to bed."
Lyra's eyes opened slightly at that, then closed again.
Then the Floo in the gatehouse fired.
Sirius straightened. Beside him, Esme's hand settled briefly at the small of his back — not a reassurance this time, just presence — and then she stepped into place beside him with the composure she produced for occasions that required it.
*****
Arcturus regarded the address in his grandson's handwriting. Blacktide Castle. For a man who had spent the better part of his younger years putting distance between himself and everything the Black name represented, Sirius had nonetheless planted the name on his own home and called it a castle. He said nothing about this.
Beside him, Melania was doing very little to conceal her anticipation, which was unlike her. She tried her best to be composed but failed. This is the first time they are meeting their great grandchildren. Of course she is excited.
Arcturus came through first and looked around. Small. He thought then realizing this seem to be a gate house. Melania came through as well and look around excitedly. She frowned at first but realized this didn't seem to be a family house.
"Right", Arcturus said. This is probably just a floo point. He opened the gatehouse door and stopped.
The wind hit them first, sharp and thick with the salt of the coast. Stepping past the gatehouse, the ground abruptly dropped into open sky, guiding the eye up to where a massive castle rose against the horizon.
It was not what he had expected. He was not, as a rule, a man who failed to anticipate things, and he found the sensation briefly disorienting. He had expected something adequate. A wizarding property of reasonable standing perhaps recently acquired or restored, suitable for a young noble family. He had not expected this.
The stone the color of the cliff it stood on, towers seem to have stood for centuries, the whole structure rising against the gray sky. It was obviously not been built to impress anyone but regardless, still impressive. The sea was visible beyond the cliff edge. Grayish-green and enormous, moving with the slow indifference of something that had been there before the castle and intended to remain after it.
Melania made a sound beside him. Very soft. Not a word.
Arcturus looked at the castle for a moment longer than he intended to.
Then he looked at the grounds. The cliff, the grass moving in the wind, the sheer scale of it against the horizon. He really couldn't believe his grandson lived in an actual castle! Which noble in Magical Britain today lived in a castle?
Sirius was standing at the entrance, fidgeting with his cuffs. He was dressed appropriately for once, Arcturus noted, in a way that reflected his station without tipping into ceremony. Beside him stood a woman who could only be Esme. The woman's hair, eyes, and skin were what you would expect for a Malfoy, but she carried a bearing that was entirely her own. But what struck him, more than her composure or her lineage, was that she was a remarkably beautiful woman standing beside a remarkably handsome man. They looked, with the ease of two people who had found their equal, entirely matched.
Behind them, four tiny figures arranged with varying degrees of willingness.
Arcturus put the thought of the castle away for later and walked toward Sirius and his family with Melania's hand holding unto his arm.
"Grandfather." Sirius greeted. "Welcome to Blacktide Castle."
Arcturus mouth twitched. "It is a castle indeed."
Sirius had watched his grandfather's face make its rapid and almost entirely concealed journey from surprise, assessment, something that settled quietly into approval, before returning to its usual composure.
The old man had not expected an actual castle. That much was clear. Blackwood was called a castle by tradition, by courtesy, by the general understanding that the word carried weight regardless of its architectural accuracy. Blacktide made no such concession. It simply was one. And Arcturus Black had just been surprised by his own grandson's home and was doing an admirable job of pretending otherwise.
Sirius decided, generously, not to mention it.
"Grandmother." He greeted her more warmly, pressing her hand briefly.
"Sirius, you —" Melania was still looking at the castle. "You have rather outdone yourself."
"I am glad you approve." He smiled. "I would like you to meet my wife. Esmeralda Clarisse Black, née Malfoy. She prefers to be called Esme."
Esme stepped forward and dipped into a precise curtsy, the kind that came from genuine training rather than performance. "Madame." She inclined her head toward Melania, then turned to Arcturus. "My Lord."
Arcturus gave a single, measured nod. Approval, for those who knew what to look for.
"Esme," she said. The nickname sat slightly stiffly on her tongue, bearing the self-conscious weight of a woman making a deliberate concession to informality. "At last. We have waited a long time for this meeting."
She paused, a fond, entirely unguarded emotion softening her features. "Thank you for choosing our stupid grandson."
"Hey!"
Melania ignored the protest entirely. "Frankly, my dear, I had begun to suspect that without your intervention, we would be waiting considerably longer. Sirius has never been what one might call— efficient in these matters."
"Grandmother!" Sirius said, in the tone of a man who had walked directly into something and was reviewing his decision to do so.
Esme's expression remained perfectly composed for precisely one second. Then the corner of her mouth curved, warm and unhurried, and she said, "I prefer to think of it as impeccable timing, Madame. On both our parts."
Melania looked at her with undisguised delight.
Arcturus, behind them, said nothing. But he did not look displeased.
Sirius coughed. "Well. These are the children." He gestured them forward.
"This is Rigel Sirius Black. Our eldest."
The boy stepped forward and looked up at his great-grandparents with the quiet, assessing curiosity of someone who had decided to take the measure of a thing before committing to an opinion about it. Arcturus regarded him in return. The resemblance was immediate and almost startling. The same dark hair, the same set of the jaw, the same quality of stillness that Sirius had never quite managed to hold onto past the age of eight. The eyes were different. Bluer than gray, though the green underneath kept them from being wholly one thing or the other. Considering the combined inheritance of both his parents, Arcturus thought, the boy was going to be thoroughly insufferable to look at in about ten years. He kept this observation to himself.
"Hello, sir." The boy said.
"And this is Corvus Arcturus Black. Rigel's twin."
A smaller boy stepped forward, fair where his brother was dark, curls catching the light, one hand resting on a cane with the practiced ease of someone who had long since made his peace with it. His face was softer than Rigel's with the same eyes looking out from an entirely different expression. Melania's hand found Arcturus's arm briefly, which she would not have done if she hadn't been told in advance about the child's condition, and he was glad he had told her.
Corvus Arcturus Black.
Arcturus looked at the name before. Whatever distance had existed between him and Sirius, whatever had been broken or left to quietly calcify over the years, a man did not name his child after someone he had written off entirely.
It was then that he noticed the bat.
It was small, brown, and entirely settled in the boy's blonde curls. It was also, unambiguously, asleep.
Melania made a sound that was not quite a word.
Arcturus looked at the bat. Then at Corvus, who was looking back at him with the mild, unhurried expression of someone who did not consider the current situation unusual. Then at Sirius.
Sirius's mouth had done something that was not quite a smile. "We don't," he said, with the tone of a man choosing his words with great care, "entirely know why animals do this. We have stopped asking."
Esme, beside him, gave a small, serene nod that suggested she had arrived at the same conclusion through a great deal more effort than the nod implied.
"And this is our daughter, Lyra Portia Black."
She was small even for four, and she was losing her battle with sleep by visible degrees. The grey eyes were at half capacity, her formal dress slightly askew, her weight listing imperceptibly toward Sirius.
Melania's expression shifted immediately. The warmth did not leave it, but something careful moved in underneath. "Oh, the poor little —".
Arcturus placed a brief hand on her arm. Not restraint, exactly. A reminder.
He looked at Sirius instead, and Sirius met the look with the even expression of a man who understood what was being asked and was choosing how much to answer in present company. Enough passed between them in those two seconds to constitute a full conversation. The child was not simply tired because she been kept up past their bedtime. The circle under her eyes means a different thing.
Arcturus said nothing. It might be a side effect with the girl's gift as a medium.
She was Malfoy in her coloring — straight blonde hair, fine-boned, the fairness of that line — but the eyes were unmistakably Black. Metallic grey, clear even at half-mast, the signature of the family worn on her face like a declaration. The combination was striking in the way that certain things were striking before you had the words for why.
Lyra's eyes had closed entirely by this point. Sirius, without interrupting the introductions or drawing attention to it, simply reached down and gathered her up against his shoulder. She went without resistance, her head settling immediately, one hand loosely curled against his collar. He adjusted her weight with the ease of long practice and continued as though nothing had happened.
Arcturus watched this without comment.
He noted the middle name.
Portia. Not a Black name. Not a Malfoy name. There was only one explanation. Peverell. The godmother Sirius had mentioned. A deliberate choice, that name. There is magic in a name. It connects you to past magic. This is why the Black family has always named their children after stars and constellations or how the Malfoys and Flints name their sons after Roman names or the Weasleys towards the Arthurian legacies.
If the girl will carry the Peverell inheritance — and the name suggested Sirius and Esme believed she would — then the middle name was less sentiment than preparation. A quiet staking of claim before the claim became necessary to stake.
Arcturus looked at Lyra once more.
"And this." It was Esme who stepped forward this time, drawing the youngest gently in front of her. "Is our youngest. Alphard Regulus Black II."
The boy looked up at his great-grandparents with the expression of someone who had been wronged and had not yet decided whether the people before him were responsible for it. He was clinging to Esme's dress with one fist, not from shyness exactly, but with the focused grip of someone keeping one hand on something reliable while he assessed the situation. His lower lip was still locked in a pout. His curls were a vivid, unambiguous green.
Arcturus regarded him.
The boy regarded Arcturus back with the gravity of a two-year-old who had committed to an emotion and was not prepared to abandon it simply because company had arrived.
If the hair were black in its natural state, the child would be the most purely Black looking of the four. The curls, the grey eyes, the set of the face. All of it. As it was, the green hair made him look like something between a family portrait and a very small, very disgruntled garden feature.
Melania made a sound.
It was a sound she would have been mortified to be caught making in any formal context, — a soft, helpless, entirely undignified sound of someone confronted with something too small and too — forgive the word, unbearably cute.
"Oh," she said, which was not a word so much as a surrender as he watched the toddler tugged at his collar unhappily. "Oh, he is terribly serious about that collar, isn't he."
The boy blinked at her. The pout remained.
"He is," Esme said, with the serenity of someone three months past finding it funny and comfortably into finding it simply true. "He has strong opinions."
"Clearly a Black," Arcturus muttered.
It was, for him, a statement of fact. It was also, for anyone paying attention, the closest thing to well done that the morning was likely to produce.
"Well, hello children." Melania smiled warmly. "I am your great-grandmother, Melania. And this —" she gestured to Arcturus with the particular fondness of a woman long accustomed to introducing him to people he was about to intimidate, "— is your great-grandfather Arcturus."
The boys looked at Arcturus.
Arcturus looked back at them with the expression he had worn for eighty years in rooms full of people who were uncertain what to do with him.
Then
"Grandpa Artie," Lyra mumbled against Sirius's shoulder, with the complete authority of someone already asleep.
Arcturus looked at Lyra.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
It was not a smile. It was the suppressed precursor to one, controlled immediately, leaving behind only the faint evidence that it had nearly happened. Sirius, who had known this man his entire life and had seen that expression approximately twice.
Melania made a sound that was not a laugh and turned it into clearing her throat.
"Grandpa Artie it is, then," Sirius said, with the carefully neutral tone of a man exercising significant self-control.
Arcturus looked at him.
"Not a word," Arcturus said.
"I haven't said anything," Sirius said.
"You were thinking several things."
"I was thinking," Sirius said, "that we should go inside. Since the castle is available. Being large and present as it is."
Arcturus looked at the castle again. Then at Sirius. The expression on his face had returned fully to its normal configuration. "We will discuss the state of the grounds," he said, "at a later point."
"Absolutely," Sirius agreed, and gestured toward the entrance.
*****
The inside of the castle was sparse.
Arcturus noted this, taking in the wide stone corridors and the high ceilings and the quality of emptiness that came not from neglect but from simple absence of furniture, of accumulated objects, of the slow sediment of habitation that turned a house into a home over decades. The castle had the bones of something that had been significant once and would be significant again given time and effort.
Melania did not notice any of it. She was entirely occupied with Corvus, who had consented to walk beside her and was explaining something to her in the unhurried, thorough way he apparently explained things, the bat still resident in his hair. She had stopped remarking on the bat.
Six people, he thought, looking down a corridor that could have comfortably accommodated thirty. Two adults and four children. One castle. He had not fully appreciated the scale of the undertaking until he was standing inside it. And there was not, as far as he could observe, a single house elf anywhere on the premises that would helped build the furniture and other necessities to make this castle livable.
The family wing was different.
It announced itself gradually. The corridors narrowing slightly from the grand to the merely large. The stone giving way to plastered walls, the quality of the air changing from the cool formality of unused space to something warmer and inhabited.
Here the castle had been lived in, and it showed. Rugs on the floors, heavy and good, though their age was evident to anyone who knew what to look for. Tapestries on the walls, some of them older than anyone currently living in the castle by several centuries. The furniture solid and well-made and belonging, most of it, to an era that had not been fashionable since his own grandparents were young.
It was all clean. Repaired, where repair had been needed. He could see the signs of it if he looked. The slight evenness of color where a Reparo had been applied to old wood, the tapestry border that lay a fraction too flat where it had been re-fixed to the wall. Someone had been thorough. Someone had been doing this without help, which meant someone had been doing considerably more work than they had likely intended to discuss.
Still. Even the family wing —the inhabited part, the lived in part, the section of this castle that six people had made their own — was larger than Blackwood's main floor.
He did not say this to Sirius.
He thought it, and he thought several things adjacent to it, and he kept all of them precisely where they were.
*****
Lyra weighed almost nothing.
That was the thought that kept returning to Sirius as he carried her up the corridor toward her room. Her head heavy and warm against his shoulder, her breath the slow even breath of someone deeply and completely asleep.
She was too light. He had noticed it before, but it settled differently today, with his grandfather walking beside him in silence. She should be heavier. She was four years old and she was not eating enough, she was not sleeping enough, and the circles under her eyes had become a permanent feature that Esme tracked without commenting on because commenting on it didn't help and Esme did not do things that didn't help.
He carried her carefully and did not say any of this.
Arcturus walked beside him without speaking. He had, Sirius noted, said very little since the sitting room where Melania had been ambushed by three small boys who had apparently inherited something of Sirius's capacity for making older women feel simultaneously charmed and slightly outmaneuvered.
Alphard had deployed the cat ears within twenty minutes of arrival. Melania had made a sound Sirius was certain she would deny making. Rigel had sat close and been quietly attentive in the way that worked on people who appreciated being attended to, and Corvus had asked her a question about something she clearly knew a great deal about and then listened to the answer with his whole self, which was the most effective social tool they had ever encountered in a five-year-old.
"Like father, like sons," Arcturus had said, quietly, while they were still in the entrance hall.
Sirius nudged open Lyra's door with his shoulder.
The room was sparse. The bare walls, the good rug he had found for her because the stone floor was cold, the compass on the bedside table, the functional furniture that was functional and nothing else. He had not gotten to Lyra's room yet in the furnishing project. He had not gotten to most of the castle yet. The family wing was livable, and the main rooms were presentable and everything else was varying degrees of not yet.
He settled Lyra against the pillow with the care of someone who had learned exactly how to do this without waking her, tucked the blanket around her, and stood for a moment looking at her face. The circles under her eyes. The slight tension that remained even in sleep, which had not been there a few weeks ago.
Soon, he thought at her, which was not a promise exactly but was the closest thing he had.
And Sirius and Arcturus left the room.
"I didn't expect you to be a good father," Arcturus commented.
"What?" Sirius felt insulted. "Did you expect me to not be?"
"Considering your penchant for those Merlin-awful clothes," Arcturus said, gesturing vaguely to the leather jacket that practically defined Sirius's muggle-rebel image in the past, "I am surprised you were even able to build a family."
"Those 'god-awful clothes,' Grandfather, happen to possess a certain rugged charm," Sirius replied, adjusting his cuffs with entirely unearned confidence. "Besides, women love a man who can handle a motorbike. Clearly, it worked."
Arcturus raised his eyebrows. "Did it? I can't imagine Esme being particularly attracted to such a thing."
"Well—no," Sirius admitted, a sudden note of caution clipping his bravado. "And I think she'd probably kill me if I ever put the children on the motorbike."
Arcturus offered a dry, single nod, turning his attention back to the room with a subtle adjustment of his posture that made it entirely clear the conversation was over.
"The castle has more space than furnishings," he said.
"We're working on it," Sirius said. Same words, different direction. "The existing furniture is mostly outdated or nonfunctional. I've been developing spell crafts for replacements, but it takes time."
Arcturus looked at him. "You've been developing spellcrafts?"
"Is that surprising?"
A pause. "Somewhat. You could have bought your own, but you probably do not like the selection" Arcturus looked at the room again — the bare walls, the functional pieces, the compass catching the lamplight on the bedside table. "You need house elves."
"I'm aware."
"The family elves are maintaining Blackwood. Kreacher is at Grimmauld and listens to no one but Regulus." Arcturus moved back into the corridor, and Sirius followed, pulling the door mostly closed behind him. "There are options. The Ministry places unbound elves — those who have lost their families. The process is straightforward, but the elves are often unsettled and require patience." He paused. "The more reliable arrangement is through a family whose elf has produced young. Once weaned and trained, the young elf can be purchased and fully bonded to the new family — all prior claims discharged properly. It requires a formal arrangement, but the result is a loyal elf with no conflicting obligations."
"I'm not taking a Malfoy elf," Sirius said.
"I wasn't suggesting one." Arcturus said it without emphasis, which meant he had already considered and discarded the same option for the same reason. "You would need more than one for a castle this size."
"I know." Sirius ran a hand through his hair. "Esme has two from her mother's side but they're based in France and their loyalty runs to that line first. They come when she calls but they're not — they're not household elves for Blacktide."
"Then we will find appropriate ones." Arcturus said it in the tone of someone adding an item to a list. "It will take time to do it properly. In the meantime—" He paused at the door to Sirius's study and looked at it. "Is this where you work?"
Sirius opened the door.
*****
The study was the most finished room in the castle.
Not because Sirius had decorated it—he hadn't, not beyond what was strictly functional—but because it was where the work happened, and work had a way of accumulating its own kind of order. The books on the shelves he had chosen himself. A wild mix of magical theory, history, and several volumes on spell craft that had no business being shelved together, though they made perfect sense to him.
Arcturus raised an eyebrow at the stack of Muggle magazines sitting next to the desk, his gaze lingering on the pictures of clean-lined, modern furniture. Sirius merely offered his grandfather a sheepish, unrepentant look.
The desk itself was a good one—solid, dark wood with the comfortable gleam of something that had been used for years. On it lay papers in organized stacks that would have looked chaotic to anyone but him.
Arcturus surveyed the surface briefly, then set down a thick stack of folders.
Sirius looked at the stack.
It was not a small stack.
"Your preparation begins," Arcturus said, with the terrifying equanimity of a man delivering something he considered entirely reasonable. "The Wizengamot procedures, the family's outstanding political obligations, the current alliance structure and where the House of Black sits within it, the financial architecture of the estate, and—" he tapped a particularly thick folder near the bottom, "—the history of the house's Wizengamot activity going back three generations. You will need to understand all of it before you can competently exercise, or decline, any of the powers available to you."
Sirius looked at the stack.
Then he looked at Arcturus.
"Three years," he said. "You said three years."
"Which is why I am starting now," Arcturus said reasonably. "Sit down."
Sirius sat down. He did not do it gracefully.
Arcturus took the chair on the other side of the desk with the ease of a man who sat in chairs and expected them to be adequate. He looked at Sirius for a moment with the particular attention he brought to things he was assessing rather than judging.
"Andromeda," Sirius said. "I need to discuss Andromeda and Nymphadora before we go through any of this."
"I am aware of the situation," Arcturus said.
Sirius looked at him. "How?"
"I am aware of most situations that involve members of this family." Arcturus's tone did not invite elaboration on the method. He was quiet for a moment. "Andromeda made her choice."
"She did," Sirius said. "And Nymphadora didn't make any choice at all. She was born into it."
Arcturus's expression did not change. "The girl carries the Tonks name."
"The girl carries the Black eyes, the Black blood, and a Metamorphmagus gift that manifested at five." Sirius kept his voice even. "Tell me the last time a Metamorphmagus appeared in the Black line? And do not say my son."
Silence.
"She also," Sirius continued, "happens to be named Nymphadora. Which is not a Tonks family name by any stretch of the imagination. Whether that was deliberate on Andromeda's part or not, the girl has been carrying a Black family name her entire life without any of the protection that ought to come with it."
Arcturus looked at him steadily. "You are suggesting I formally acknowledge a child whose mother betrayed the family?"
"Betrayed the family? By marrying a muggle-born?"
"More like she abandoned a formal betrothal arrangement, created a scandal this house did not need at the time, and left without a backwards glance." Arcturus's tone was clipped. "The damage to the family's political standing was not insignificant."
Sirius scoffed. "This house is littered with scandals. It's a miracle most people don't know the half of it."
Arcturus did not deny this.
"The point," Sirius said, "is not Andromeda. The point is an eleven-year-old girl who did not elope with anyone, did not abandon any betrothal, and did not create any scandal. The point is that she is walking around with a gift that will not stay quiet much longer and a name that offers her nothing when it inevitably doesn't."
"The Tonks name—"
"Offers her precisely nothing in that matter." Sirius leaned forward slightly. "A Metamorphmagus, grandfather. The Ministry will not care whose daughter she is when they find out what she can do. They will want to register her, monitor her, and find uses for her that have nothing to do with her own wishes." He paused. "Unless she stands behind a name they cannot easily move against."
The silence this time was the silence of a man performing calculations he did not particularly enjoy the result of.
"A hyphenation," Arcturus said finally, with the tone of someone conceding a point while making clear the concession had a price, "would be required. Black-Tonks. I will not erase the Tonks name entirely, that would invite its own complications, but the Black name must appear and appear first."
"She may not like it."
"She is eleven. She will adapt." Arcturus's eyes were sharp. "And if this is to be done properly, it cannot be a name on paper only. The girl will be expected to attend family events. Not all of them. But the significant ones. If she is to carry the protection of this house, then she carries the obligations that come with it as well. That is not negotiable."
Sirius considered this for a moment. It was not a small thing to ask of an eleven-year-old girl who had grown up entirely outside the world she was now being asked to step into. But it was better than the alternative, and Andromeda was sharp enough to know it.
"I'll speak to Andromeda," he said.
"You will," Arcturus agreed. "And Sirius." He paused, just briefly. "The girl's gift is not to be discussed outside this room until the formal acknowledgment is in place. Not with anyone."
"I am pretty sure some people knows at this point, but I understand."
Arcturus nodded once, and the matter was closed.
"I also have to talk to you about Narcissa."
Arcturus raised his eyebrows. "What happened with Narcissa?"
"She is pregnant. Esme said is high risk and she needs a place to rest." Sirius said. "She can't rest well at the Malfoys at the moment."
"Why?"
"I can't exactly tell you yet." Sirius said. His face shows that there is in fact, something happened in the Malfoys, but he couldn't tell his grandfather just yet.
A brief pause. Something moved across Arcturus's face. He is curious. He is very curious but decided not to dwell on it.
"Narcissa Black," he said. Not Narcissa Malfoy. The distinction deliberate. "The Malfoys' consistent failure to adequately prioritize the welfare of the women who marry into or out of that family is—" He stopped. Chose the word carefully. "Noted."
"Not like we were that great either." Sirius mumbled.
Arcturus didn't reply to that.
"Now on with the Wizengamot."
Sirius looked at the stack of folders.
"I'm going to need more tea," he said.
"Undoubtedly," Arcturus agreed, and opened the first folder.